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.
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