HOME AGAIN

Left Berkshire Place at 10am, Peg installed in the front seat at the Kia Fart or whatever it's called Hertz rental. First stop: Tina the hairdresser's. No mean feat getting Peg over the ice in Tina's parking lot and up the 4 rickety wooden steps. Had to lift Peg's left leg onto each step (doesn't bode well for Becket, trying not to think about it). Tina washed and blow-dried Peg's hair. It looks lovely. Peg hates it. Onwards to Becket. 

The drive is now mostly clear and the 6 foot icicles hanging off the roof have melted, leaving only the foot thick ice block running around the roofline like fringe, to crumble and drop down at will onto the heads of unsuspecting visitors, homeowners, or personnel. The way to do this is you get out of your car, then pause at the top of the stone steps leading down to the lake in front of the front door, look up, say "Jesus H", splash towards the door as fast as you can, key ready in outstretched hand,  flatten yourself against the stones while you haul open the screen/storm door, then slide into the safety zone within the doorframe and, with a sigh of relief, stick your key in the lock, then wonder why it doesn't fit, then see you're trying to use the car key so have to do the whole thing in reverse, retrieve the house key from the well in the Kia Fart, and go through it all again. Getting a 98 year old and her walker into the house in one piece complicates things but, am pleased to report, can be done.

I gave Peg curried leek and potato soup and crab cakes for lunch.  She is now snoozing on her bed, sideways. We had a small difference of opinion over lunch at the butcher block regarding RAI ITALIA, the Italian Satellite TV channel Tina the hairdresser says she loves and Peg then insisted on getting, for $12 a month.

Bonnie, at Peg's request, tunes into it. 

"It's all in Italian!"
"It's the Italian Channel, Mama. You wanted it."
"Why I did no such thing. Tina had it on the radio, NOT the television, she listens to Italian music and opera!"
"Yes, but you get the Channel through DISH satellite, on the TV."
"Where's the weather Channel?"

Bonnie tunes in the Weather Channel.

"It's in English!"
"It's the Weather Channel, Mama. It's always in English."
"Are all the other channels in Italian?"
"No, just the Italian Channel."
"Lets see what's on it."

We return to the Italian Channel. A cooking show.

"But it's in Italian, how can I understand it?"

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It is not surprising, given my state of mind, that I did an entire Price Chopper shop yesterday afternoon without noticing I didn't have my purse with me. I got to the check out, stuff already bagged, went to pay: no bag. Panicked. Had I left it on the cart when I went racing down aisles to get stuff? I often leave the cart at the end of an aisle and run up and down for stuff because I can't be bothered to push it. Christ! And Price Chopper's full of workmen, the whole place is being remodeled---it's been stolen, I was positive. 

But of course, it wasn't. It was on the front seat of the car where I'd left it, carrying only my shopping list and car key into the store.

Peg has requested a disgusting recipe for Chicken Chow Mein she got out of the Life Magazine Cookbook about a hundred years ago. A can of this, a can of that...But she'll love it. And I will eat last night's delicious leftover eggplant provencale from Elizabeth's restaurant on East Street in Pittsfield.