It seems, with a catheter, a permanent fixture type catheter at least, that once a year you have to have a doctor, a urologist, examine you and give you HIS okay that IT is okay, inside you, and you can keep having a catheter for another year. Then every month you get up early and take a shower before going into the Berkshire Urology place where a lovely nurse named Sue removes the catheter and replaces it with a brand spanking new one. Twice a week you have someone who doesn't need glasses, like Bonnie, replace the bag part of it. And then three or four times a day or whenever you remember or get a clue, like your trouser leg is damp, you empty the bag yourself into the loo or into a urinal set over a plastic garbage can next to the bed. These last two manouevres are relatively simple, the latter working like an on/off tap. Where we have problems, where Peg has problems, is the Once A Year Having The Doctor Examine You issue.
Bottom line, no pun intended, she has an almost puritanical sense of modesty--which maybe has something to do with the way she was brought up or maybe all 97 year olds feel this way, don't know, never asked--but she won't let a male doctor intent on peering between her spread legs anywhere near her, however kind and nice and gentle and experienced he may be. Plus she is still recovering from her initial consultation of a year or so ago when the Head of Urology, Dr. Noakes or Noyes or something, told her her bend over the table and pull down her pants and next thing you know he had he on a table in a room full of medical students with her legs spread. And she went demented. And chewed him out, and wrote a letter to her GP, and to the hospital.
Long story short, unless they come up with a female urologist for her, Peg refuses to keep the Yearly Appointment, without which they will not continue to catheterize her, and if she doesn't have the cateheter her bladder will only partially empty and become infected again and we will go through what we did two years ago and she might die from the infection. And there are no female urologists at the urology center. Maybe there are at the hospital, but that is two different things. Apparently.
So. That's where we are. I have discussed it at length with Lovely Sue the Catheter Changer who has been on the phone arranging for a REALLY NICE DOCTOR to change his vacation dates to accomodate Peg but as he is not willing to undergo a sex change between now and Thursday, I imagine Peg will cancel this appointment, as she has done all the others. Bonnie meanwhile has been on the phone to every Urology Clinic between here and Timbuktu and also the VNA, Visiting Nurses, to see if anyone there is an MD or could be qualified enough to take on The Peg Challenge possibly by wearing a different hat and slinging a stethescope round her neck.
Peg rang me today when she was midway through making a pot roast for six dinner guests tonight, she wouldn't say for whom--and was again in tears about The Looming Catheter Appointment and finally hung up on me when she decided I was "not on her side". This has all been going on since May.
My big hope is to see if Tina the Hairdresser feels like taking a quick medical course between permanents.
Celebrating by doing a (routine) bowel cancer screening test, upstairs, and, over on another continent, having the notorious BECKET BOUNDARY AGREEMENT finally signed, both events consistently hard to top in the memorable anniversary stakes. DK has hopefully put a bottle of Adnam's best bubbly on ice, after which we will go out to dinner, providing I leave enough time to get out of these paint clothes and get the Farrow & Ball Castle Grey out from under my nails. Cupboards in Piano Room finally getting my attention, having had the primer put on a year and a half ago and then, like most everything else to do with my life in England, it all went on hold while I tore full speed ahead into Overseas Parent Duty. But I love painting. And am painting these cupboards to look old and worn and vaguely Norwegian, sort of like me.
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Peg rings this morning, all in a dither.
"Well, this is the first morning I haven't woken up crying. Something just wonderful happened yesterday. I still can't get over it. Want to hear?"
"Of course! What? What?" I'm thinking somebody on the Emmy committee saw her website and now wants to present her with an Honorary one at the very least or she's been invited to perform Ethel and Albert at The White House with Obama playing Albert, this is how excited she is.
"Well, Laurie [in Cincinnati] was going though old boxes of her grandparents' things and you'll never guess what she found."
"What?"
"Guess!"
"Mother, I have no idea."
"A letter from her grandmother to her mother saying how she ran into us that time in Delphi! In Greece! 'And standing there, you'll won't believe this, was Peg Lynch!' she says right there in her letter!"
There's a pause here I'm sensing I'm supposed to fill.
"Ah," I say. Instead of "Yeah? Big deal. So what?"
"Well don't you see what this means???" Peg's breathless with this development.
"No."
"It means," Peg says, "that I was telling the truth! That I hadn't made the story up! When you and I were in the amphitheatre and I looked up and said, 'Well for gosh sakes, isn't that Helen Hughes? What's she doing here, of all places!' And I went over and said 'Why, Helen!' And we laughed and said what a small world it is! Now everyone will believe me! It's been verified!"
Oh boy. Maybe this is all it takes to get you excited at 97. This is a non story, to boot. We were in Greece when I was 12 and we ran into someone's mother from Connecticut who Peg hardly knew and I didn't know from Adam and we exchanged gosh what fun pleasantries for five minutes. That's it. No story. But now she has it "verified" and can sleep nights and wake up happy because no one's going to say "Oh yeah? Well I have it on good authority that Helen Hughes was never IN Delphi and in fact on that very date was in fact getting her hair done at Emile's on East 57th St in New York City, and I have witnesses!"
"That's great, Mama."
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For everything. For when you have about nine projects on the go and you can't move forward until someone gets back to you with an OK or an IXNAY or a piece of info. For people who don't get back to you when they say they will. From painters to producers to an actress friend who's in a show on tour in Norwich for this week and I said great, it's only 45 minutes from me, I'll come up, we'll do lunch and I'll take you around and call me when you get settled on Monday and she said great what fun--and then sweet fuck all, all week. Did she forget? Did she die? How can you forget? (ME of all people) So then this morning I get an email saying oh gosh, where does the time go, been so busy doing interviews and local TV and now a matinee today and back to London tomorrow, maybe a quick coffee between shows..? Of course what pisses me off me is that I spent all last week re-arranging my life for this week thinking, fuck, I'll have to figure on a whole day for Norwich, she'll be hurt if I don't, living so close, just hope to Christ I don't get lumbered with having to sit through that bloody play again, wasn't crazy for it the first time. So. Really. You see. I win here, technically, by not having to go. Still. Annoyed. And the painter's no doubt off on his hols touring the Scottish Highlands in a caravan with maybe the electrician along for the ride accompanied by Amna the Saksbehandler at NAV Pensjon, Oslo, clinging onto the roof rack along with Darren the auctioneer from Albany who's had heart surgery but tough because he's disappeared with nine items from the Becket house, plus everybody who has an email address at Berkshire Magazine and possibly Bruce the producer of DK's memoirs, although he may have indeed dropped off the face of this earth when they rounded a crag too quickly.
Bollocks.
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BECKET UPDATE:
- Peg did not after all have her lunch date with Dominick. She postponed it. We believe she is playing hard to get.
- A rather nice though not particularly in-depth piece on her will appear in tomorrow's (Sunday) edition of The Berkshire Eagle (not to be confused with Berkshire Magazine, above). I hope she likes it.
- There is no evidence whatsoever of any Brand New iPad FaceTime use emanating from The House in the Pines. There's $600 well spent.
- The new clothes rack bought off eBay has arrived. Far more exciting to her.
- I got an email from a small indy film company asking my permission to film old actors performing her comedy scripts at the Motion Picture Retirement Home or whatever it's called, in LA. I am going to suggest they fly out The Legend herself to perform them. Have Catheter Bag Will Travel.
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CAR UPDATE:
- You may or not recall, doesn't matter, but on my last visit I had some issues regarding the air conditioning and heating system in the Borrowed Subaru, specifically, the car had a worrying tendency to smell like it was overheating although the temperature gauge remained normal--and the AC smelled like someone had set an old salmon on the engine so you had to drive with your head sticking out the window. I hesitated to complain since this was after all a FREE CAR, but eventually mentioned it, as Tory the Owner will soon be driving it to Mexico and I decided I would feel bad imagining her staring under the open hood of a smoking stinking car in the middle of nowhere surrounded by banditos. Last week I get an email from her saying: "You'll be pleased to know I took the car in to the garage and there WAS something wrong with the AC and heating system: mice."
- On a local note, spent two hours in Lowestoft yesterday where it cost us £150 ($244) to get a replacement key for the Toyota RAV after both old ones fell apart. Seems they--keys--have mini computers in them so you can't just go into a key place anymore and get another one cut while you peruse shoelaces and jokey keychains and other good things by the till--each key is unto itself and has to be "cloned". But the really bad news, according to the Toyota girl at the desk, is that all NEW Toyotas, from now on--and in fact not just Toyotas but ALL new cars will have these mini computers built into the ignition socket, not the key--and getting a replacement key will cost about £2000 ($3, 200). With three people using our two cars and the keys never where you expect to find them, such as in the Dedicated Key Dish, I can pretty much see how this is all going to end already.
"I've got a date!" she says just now on the phone.
"A date."
"Yes! My first in a long time. With guess who?"
I said I had no idea. "The guy who had a crush on you in first grade and told you 'Margaret' meant 'Pearl' and called you last year but won't give you his address or number because he works or worked for the CIA or Secret Service or something?"
"No!" she said. "Dominick!" Dominick, who works for her, whose name she normally can't remember and calls Montague. "He's taking me to lunch! Insists. On him! At Salmon Run, in Lee! Isn't that nice?"
Yes, it is. Extremely nice. Not to mention kind of a relief.
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Other big news is that she could "actually taste" the codfish soup yesterday they bought at Berkshire Organics, after Tina the Hairdresser's, after Price Chopper, after Home Depot for autmun mums to replace the unsuccessful begonias in the front window boxes. And that she has had Outside Bob buy her a portable metal clothes rack off eBay (to go with the three she already has and the four falling-apart ones I sent to the dump).
"Another one?"
"Don't tell me what I can and can't have. I NEED it! I need a place to put all the clothes I don't want anymore!"
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BOUNDARY NEWS:
This close to an agreement. Boy is this guy sick of me. Am hoping he's thinking I am one sharp business woman shewdly playing The Waiting Game rather than someone who can't figure out shit and dithering only because I'm too scared of making the wrong decision. His latest "and final offer" is that he has now offered to have not just our common boundaries surveyed but Peg and Odd's entire property done, all 28 acres, at his expense. Plus he gives me the 300' triangle. Plus I get fourteen more feet frontage than the existing deeds currently specify, making a grand frontage total of 84'. Except…now only trying to sort out why 84' on paper measures out to 94' on the actual frontage, which Jenkins kindly measured for me yesterday, three times. The guy's "looking into it". Anyhow I am now happy with my decision, it feels right. And in ten years time when five hotels and a casino have gone up surrounded by 12 high rises and a gas station, well, I will be sitting here contentedly in Suffolk changing catheter bags or looking up cheap airfares to Digitas.
Not sure about bringing Peg and Bonnie over here for a visit, Xmas I don't think will work out, don't know where to put them, a busy time in the village, then been looking at flights from Boston, also making me crazy, Virgin now having combined with Delta, which I don't care for, and difficult finding any Premium Economy seats available now even in October, which I thought was a quite time. Am not springing for Upper and I can't have Peg squished in Economy. Coupled with her making noises now about not wanting to fly at night, and I don't know how to fix this, short of making her wait until next summer when the days are longer. Day flights also meaning you have to be at the airport at the crack of dawn, and how do you do this from Becket, 3 hrs form the airport, or Suffolk, ditto.
Maybe I scotch the idea. Still. Can't bear being defeated by mere technicalities.
Meanwhile trying to find painters and builders and wood stove installers and what kind of heating to buy and what kind of Living Roof to install on new Hutte, yet to be built, and wont be ready until Spring, fingers crossed, but want to start planning while I have time.
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NEWS FROM BECKET:
- Peg went to an Ear Nose & Throat guy yesterday to "see about the polyps" in her nose that she's convinced have been causing her to be hoarse and to have no sense of taste--to find out she has no polyps, anywhere, so how she got this idea I don't know, but has been yakking on about them for years and I'd assumed some doctor had told her she had them. Anyhow she doesn't. And was told her complaints are solely due to age, her vocal chords are shrinking and creating spaces, which explains the hoarseness. The doctor advised her to: a) talk less (my favourite) and; b) have Speech Therapy. (This, to an actress).
- Genworth Long Term Care sent a $700 rebate check on Odd's premium paid last January which I immediately deposited into the newly-formed "Estate of OKR" Berkshire Bank ("America's Most Exciting Bank") account two days before I left. A check which Bonnie says has now been returned by America's Slightly Less Exciting Bank, along with a $15 charge due, because the check has been stopped. For reasons unknown. So, having spoken to "Connie" at the Really Becoming Quite Incredibly Boring Bank yesterday, I now have to get on the phone to Genworth tomorrow, not open on weekends.
- Peg can't remember Dominick's name and refers to him now as "Whats-his-name Maximilian" or "Montague".
- Mr. Sanders of the Boundary Issue getting more and more fed up with my dithering and I don't blame him so am ready to resolve it, providing my friend Jenkins takes some measurements (again) for me. Despite seeing it all on paper AND the actual surveyor's ribbons AND having had it explained ad infinitum by Sanders--I cannot get something through my head. The long and short is that, as deeded, our western boundary runs along the road for 70' starting at the stonewall between us and the lower neighbour, a man called Courage, who lives in Maryland apparently and never comes up and would probably be surprised to know how often his name has been mentioned over the last six months but anyway, there is clearly a pink ribbon on a tree marking this 70'. I have seen it. Sanders, approaching from the north, is proposing a new boundary giving me 84', in other words more footage (plus a 300' triangular parcel on the eastern boundary which is very clear and not an issue) and this new proposed boundary he has marked with a green ribbon. However. IN MY MIND, and from what I recall, this green ribbon indicating 84 feet hangs between the pink one and the Courage stonewall. Meaning, how could 84 feet be a shorter distance than 70? Am I stupid? I don't know. Jenkins is kindly going to go pace it out today and even take pictures for me. I dream at night of pink and green ribbons dangling from everything. I basically would like to shoot this guy. Sanders not Jenkins.
News of her website is traveling. Spent yesterday morning on Twitter doing some PR, somehow connecting with the TV critic for the LA Times, a big fan (who knew?) and who promptly favourited and retweeted. He appears to have thousands of followers so, excellent news here. I predict a slow build.
Peg gave a phone interview last week and three more requests have come in, one from Canada. The Berkshire Eagle (local paper) came today at 9:30 AM prior to her ear, nose and throat appointment, to do a piece for both their online and Sunday edition. I've set it up so that the reporter, Jennifer someone, who Peg says is about 12 and didn't seem to know the first thing about anything (how do these people get hired?), will SKYPE me this weekend and then when her copy's done, send it to me to check facts, spellings, and that she can string three words together. Peg doesn't need any more "Peg Lunch and Alan Dunce"stuff in her life.
The way it works now, any fan mail coming in to her site is directed to me at my e-address until we sort out the CONTACT heading better. I then forward to Peg's email, in order to file it, and also to Bonnie, so she can print it for Peg to read. Since she is not yet overly au fait with the new iPad, no surprises there. Bonnie has in fact purchased Peg a stylus for the New iPad. Prediction: this will work very well until, approximately every twenty minutes, it will disappear under a pile, or roll into the garbage, which Outside Bob will then take to the bins at the end of the drive. And Bonnie will be sent to buy a new one.
I took Mabel out today, by myself, since am not currently speaking to my son, who is currently behaving like an asshole and pissing off not only me but DK as well and his lovely girlfriend (son's girlfriend, not DK's), the son who refused to come walk the dog with me, the son who has had four days off from work to "get his act together re his future" and who has spent them either in London socializing or glued to TV series on his laptop. I can't recall the last book he's read. The Very Hungry Caterpillar?
So I trotted out down Lodge Road then headed left on the track into the forest at Hoist Wood and ambled along, part woodland walk, part freshly-mown meadow, then out to the windmill and along the slatted boardwalk through the salt marshes along the Dunwich Sluice then finally up the big hill to The Bench, which looks out over the reedbeds to the sea and to Dunwich far off to the right. It is where I go to think. Sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the sun. Today was sun, and Mabel on my lap. It is the bench where I have yelled and screamed, on occasion, and wept, and where I take in great gulps of air while I sort out the next step, whatever it may be, regarding son, husband or parent issues. They have all led me a merry dance at one point or another--wait for the book (s). But The Bench helps. "In memory of Bun and Mac" it says on it. Don't know them, but like them. I wish my name were Bun.
What's been praying on my mind a lot since I came home was last week's dash into Hinsdale Post Office where the Postmistress, who had about four teeth, smiled and said how much she liked my hair.
"My hair?"
"Yes! It's so cute, the bob. You look just like the Little Dutch Boy!"
I should be mourning my Dad but it's all I can think of. In fact it's ruined my whole trip thinking I look like the logo on a can of paint. Having it all cut off next week. Fuck the postmistress. I wonder how "Bun" wore her hair.
HIGHLIGHTS OF JOURNEY:
None, not counting arriving home in one piece as opposed to Davy Jones' locker, always a plus in these exhausting days of terrorist threats and having to take your stupid shoes off and getting your Lily of the Valley hand cream confiscated. It is an absolute miracle, no exaggeration, that I've made as many transatlanic crossings as I have in the past two years without being arrested for calling some jobsworth an asshole. But Jesus H, it's all such a waste of everyone's time. My friend Alain, having breezed through security, once flew across the country unwittingly carrying a matt knife/box cutter in his briefcase but there's me with my "I LOVE NY" snowflake Christmas tree ornament that I'd just bought two minutes before at Hudson News, twenty feet away, and getting the third degree and twelve supervisors over to examine it and wipe it with pieces of explosive-sensing cloth and finally not being allowed to take it on the plane. Assholes. As I said.
In fact the only possible highlight to this enervating and thoroughly unenjoyable experience in 2014 called Air Travel, was paying $70 each to access JFK's Virgin Upper Class lounge on Premium Economy tickets, and eventually being apprised that since the credit card company never rang them back, at the front desk, our lounge access was gratis, compliments of Virgin. Thank you, Richard Branson, who I in fact kissed one day at Arnold House School Sports Day (our sons attended the same school): a) to tell him what a great airline he had and how crap TWA and BA and American and United were in comparison, but also; b) to rescue him from another parent, John Edstrom, who bored for England, to the extent that if any of us school pick-up mother's saw him waiting in front of the gate we didn't get out of our cars.
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THINGS FOUND AT HOME IN THE UK:
Flowers, that Alex's girlfriend bought; a freshly hoovered and Windolened VW Golf; fresh sheets on the bed, not counting one pillowcase which looks like Mabel might have christened with a muddy paw; an un-watered garden and hence, some major surgical repair required with secateurs and Miracle Gro (and a few tears) ; 4 vegetable and fruit refrigerator bins filled with wet, decayed matter; every bath towel in the laundry basket or on a chair, damp. And that's about it. Which is not bad, considering a brother-in-law and a son were in charge, neither of whom have ever managed to grasp the finer points of Good Housekeeping despite lengthy instruction over the years. Mike has now had almost 80 years to figure it all out, and never will, and once used my good paella pan as a wok and ruined it but don't get me started. Alex is, however, better and better each time. Denis does not get completely off the hook here either, despite being with me, since I recognized some of the decaying vegetable matter in the fridge drawers as items I had bought in July, when they'd looked a lot better, and which could have been thrown out prior to his departure. I'm just saying.
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BECKET NEWS:
None. I bought Peg an iPad two days before we left, loaded it with pics, set up her Facebook Page and website address, and Denis', loaded her Facetime favourites (me me me), and gave her two lessons, each time deciding after about ten minutes that I wanted to kill her because she couldn't master a simple movement such as putting one's finger on a fucking screen, she kept using the tip of her nail, like she's tapping out Morse Code. Finally I got a manicure scissors and cut the bloody thing off (nail, not finger). She still had trouble. Told her to pretend she's being fingerprinted. She said her hand didn't bend that way. I grabbed her finger and physically pressed it on the iPad, achieving partial success, except she kept sticking her elbows out like she was imitating a chicken. The object of the whole iPad business, which I had thought a complete brainwave, was to give her an easy not to mention FREE way of calling me, plus be able to look at pics and read (and enlarge the print on) her website. And see what her fans write on Facebook. I left Terri, who is an iPad pro, with instructions to persevere. I think it's safe to assume not a huge amount of progress has been made since I have been home three days now and so far not been Facetimed.
I did, of course, purchase an iPad with 3GB of space instead of the basic 16 on the off chance, however slim, that Peg looks at it one more time before relegating it to the disaster area on her desk and that's that, it never surfaces again. Until I organize the next excavation of the area, uncover it---and whip it for myself.
Back to Blighty tomorrow. Peg already depressed. I hate thinking of her alone here, in fact I can't bear it, we were gone for 4 hours today picking up the Hertz rental and returning the borrowed Subaru and getting me a manicure and pedicure at Lucky Nails in Lee and other essential stops--and I knew Peg was napping the whole time but still. This is such a big place, and creepy, and dark, surrounded by all these god-awful endless trees, the minute you turn in the drive you want to turn right around and go out again in search of LIGHT! Anywhere! How they could have stood it here for forty plus years yet alone LIKE it, I have no idea. I have an image of her decaying here in the forest like some old mushroom. I have asked THE STAFF to work out a schedule so she's not alone at night.
Funny. I hate it here but it kills me to leave. If it wouldn't disappoint DK so much, I'd stay another 3 weeks. We've accomplished a HUGE amount but--it just never ends.
So. Anyhow. This is good. Have come up with a plan, of sorts. I asked Peg if she'd like to come to England for Christmas. Blinked. And she's already packed and at the door. Can't bloody wait. Bonnie it seems very happy to forego the hols with her family here (didn't ask) and accompany Peg. They'd come for 2-3 weeks, is the idea, and am hoping that maybe I can get them a couple of the chalets at the Anchor, as they're on the ground floor, which Peg needs. I have not only no guest rooms on the ground floor but no guest rooms, period.
Early days yet, but it gives Mama something to look forward to, and she always told me everyone needs something to look forward to. Need to sort out health insurance too. And flights. Do I come and escort them? Does Alex? Can Bonnie handle an airport alone, Bonnie who's never been out of the States? I'd arrange assistance, but is Bonnie assertive enough to raise cain if a wheelchair fails to materialize when requested? Which I in fact am rather good at. Don't know. Would Peg be cold? What if her dentures break? Can the nurses at the surgery change catheter bags?
All sorts of ifs, yet. But, an idea. Because I ask you, how could I possibly, in a million years, leave her alone here, for Christmas. Not that she whooped it up particularly, last year, when she and Odd had to be awakened for the lovely not to mention thoughtful little Norsk Julen I prepared for us three in front of the cozily burning Yule logs (Peg thought the house was on fire, and after eating half a meatball they both choked on the imported liquer chocolates I'd brought and upchucked all over the dinner table).
Walberswick would surely appeal.
And if she likes it, I'll get going and build that little house at the bottom of the garden and install her, along with the central heating.
As I said, she's packed and at the door. No worries there.
Denis has one eyebrow permanently raised.
Especially when Peg asked if there were any eligible older men in our village.
"Christ, Mother! Daddy's only been gone a couple of months. Can't you wait--I don't know--a year? For propriety's sake?"
"I may be dead in a year!"
Walberswick, watch out.
Today's Post musical accompaniment brought to you by The Weather Channel and the kitchen smoke alarm, which any second now I will have to arise and go tend to since neither Peg nor Denis appear to know how to yank the battery out, despite my shouted instructions.
Forty people arrived yesterday at 11:00 AM to salute my father in the form of a Norwegian Coffee Morning. He would have loved the do. Piano, singing, akvavit, sunshine, good food, speeches. I'd told so many people to park on the road and walk in that there ended up being only two cars in the drive. A major panic at 10:45 when dear little John, who I'd arranged to pick up 93 year old Jeanette Roosevelt from in front of St. Andrews in Pittsfield (because God forbid she misses church), rang to say no sign of her, and I chewed him out for a) being in front of The Popcorn Wagon on the green saying there's no sign of her when he had been clearly instructed to meet her at the church entrain on Allen Street and b) being so dense as to be unable to find a large white haired lady with a walker standing on a church step. I finally ring Jeanette at home in Lenox just to see if by chance she had forgotten, even though I'd reminded her the night before, and sure enough, she answered, but it turns out she's ill--and sounded it--very--so then I felt badly and had to take my tone down (a bit).
Menu: open-faced sandwiches (3 kinds), shrimp with curried dill sauce (and US traditional red horseradish kind, for Peg), apple cake, vanilla sauce (curdled but no one mentioned it or maybe noticed), and about 12,000 little heart shaped cardamom waffles that you put raspberry jam on and sweetened creme fraiche. And next time will only make 11,000 of. Norwegian coffee courtesy of Wendy Roth, our coffee expert imported from Vermont, who worked tirelessly filling cups and thermos jugs and buttering rolls and so on. And brought the waffle iron. Flowers, forks, shrimp, sandwich-putting-together expertise, clearing, re-filling platters and dishwashing courtesy of Annie Keefe of Connecticut. Extra dishwashing and drying provided by Tory Street. Bonnie indispensable as usual. Piano music by whatshisname King. Running order: food and coffee and general chat till noon, followed by Mr. King's address to Odd, then words sent by Odd's nephew in Norway, then words sent by Alex King to his Bestefar (grandfather). Then we poured shot glasses of akvavit and passed them around (or whatever glasses I could find, having dumped most of them at Goodwill by now). I made a speech. We chugged the akvavit. Denis played a round of some of Odd's favorite tunes while I set off alone to scatter Daddy's ashes around his beloved garden, a slight delay while I found a scissors to cut the cable tie on the plastic bag.
I set off down the stone steps, ashes container in both hands, immediately regretting my choice of footwear and had visions of one wrong step and going ass over teakettle with my father's ashes cascading over me like something from the Mt. Helens eruption. I inched gingerly around the property, all hills and slippery ground cover and--shook the bag here and there. It took forever. And it didn't meld nicely into the plantings, just sort of lay on top in a crusty grey coating, which displeased me but so be it. I didn't want to gaze out the window for the next week seeing "Daddy" coating the rhododendrons. Anyhow we had major showers in the evening so now he's all invisible. I saved about a quarter of the ashes, as per Peg's instructions.
I sat down next to her just as we were all piling of to bed.
"You okay, Mama? I thought it went well, today, yes?"
"I didn't know you were going to scatter Daddy's ashes!"
YES SHE DID. WE DISCUSSED IT A HUNDRED TIMES.
You just KNOW don't you that from now she'll be telling everyone the story of when I "got rid of Daddy's ashes without telling her", "like she did with all my Blue Books!" she'll add, forgetting I DID HER A HUGE FAVOUR BY MAILING A DOZEN OF THEM OUT TO FANS not to mention carefully coordination the excess photos and captions ALL READY FOR HER TO DO MORE OF.
Never mind. About ten minutes before guests were due yesterday her teeth fell into the toilet when she leaned over to flush it.
