A while ago, a friend gave me a scanned copy of this Nora Ephron NYT Op-Ed piece. As she handed it to me, she said someone said, “This is  you.”   Or she said, “This is me.”  Or she was a he.  You see, I’ve forgotten who gave it to me. 

I Know You

 I know you. I know you well. It’s true I always have a little trouble with your name, but I do know your name. I just don’t know it at this moment. We’re at a big party. We’ve kissed hello. We’ve had a delightful conversation about how we are the two last people on the face of the earth who don’t kiss on both cheeks. Now we’re having a conversation about how phony all the people are who do kiss on both cheeks. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. You’re so charming. If only I could remember your name. It’s inexcusable that I don’t. You’ve been to my house for dinner. I tried to read your last book. I know your girlfriend’s name, or I almost know it. It’s something like Chanelle. Only it’s not. Chantelle? That’s not it either. Fortunately she isn’t here, so I haven’t forgotten both of your names. I’m becoming desperate. It’s something like Larry. Is it Larry? No, it’s not. Jerry? No, it’s not. But it ends in a Y. Your last name: three syllables. Starts with a C. Starts with a G? I’m losing my mind. But a miracle occurs: the host is about to toast the guest of honor. Thank God. I can escape to the bar. I will spend the rest of the night scrolling through the alphabet in an attempt to come up with your name. If I fail, there’s always Google. If only I could remember what that last book was about.

Have We Met?

Have we met? I think we’ve met. But I can’t be sure. We were introduced, but I didn’t catch your name because it’s so noisy at this party. I’m going to assume we know each other, and I’m not going to say, “Nice to meet you.” If I say, “Nice to meet you,” I know what will happen. You’ll say, “We’ve met.” You’ll say “We’ve met” in a sort of aggressive, irritable tone. And you won’t even tell me your name so I can recover in some way. So I’m not going to say, “Nice to meet you.” I’m going to say, “Nice to see you.” I’ll have a big smile on my face. I won’t look desperate. But what I’ll be thinking is, please throw me your name. Please, please, please. Give me a hint. My husband is likely to walk up, and I’ll have to introduce you, and I won’t be able to, and you’ll know that I have no idea who you are even though we probably spent an entire weekend together on a boat in 1984. And even though I have a secret signal with my husband that involves my pinching him very hard on the upper arm, a signal that means, “Throw your name at this person because I have no idea whom I’m talking to,” my husband always forgets the secret signal and can’t be counted on to respond to my pinching, even when it produces a bruise. I would like to chew my husband out about his forgetfulness on this point, but I’m not exactly in a position to do so since I myself have forgotten (if I ever knew it) the name of the person I’m talking to.

Old Friends

Old friends? We must be. You’re delighted to see me. I’m delighted to see you. But who are you? Oh, my God, you’re Jane. I can’t believe it. Jane. “Jane! How are you? It’s been — how long has it been?” I’d like to suggest that the reason I didn’t recognize you right off the bat is that you’ve done something to your hair, but you’ve done nothing to your hair, nothing that would excuse my not recognizing you. What you’ve actually done is gotten older. I don’t believe it. You used to be my age, and now you’re much, much, much older than I am. You could be my mother. Unless of course I look as old as you and I don’t know it. Which is not possible. Or is it? I’m looking around the room and I notice that everyone in it looks like someone — and when I try to figure out exactly who that someone is, it turns out to be a former version of herself, a thinner version or a healthier version or a pre-plastic-surgery version or a taller version. If this is true of everyone, it must be true of me. Mustn’t it? But never mind: you are speaking. “Maggie,” you say, “it’s been so long.” “I’m not Maggie,” I say. “Oh, my God,” you say, “It’s you. I didn’t recognize you. You’ve done something to your hair.”

Diane’s repeated Matt’s iPhone story to most of our friends, and I’ll never be able to tell it as well, so I won’t strive for her level of detail. The short form : Matt’s in is Comparative LIterature class, first day, and his professor asks all the students to tell him who their favorite author is and which book they liked most by that author. As the trail winds around the room Matt slips his iPhone out of his pocket, Googles the professor, finds his latest book, and, well, you know what happened next.

Adam and I both thought of Matt after reading this morning’s Doonesbury.

Gateau
Aux 3 Chocolats
Dark and white chocolate mousse on a chocolate biscuit base, topped with milk chocolate icing and macaroons.

Charlie, I was going to save this cake for Thanksgiving but it took so long to set up the shot that the cake thawed and I had to eat it all myself. Sorry.

Al is the last of Georgia’s generation left at Concord Lumber. Armand, Terry, Joe, and Georgia, they’re the guys I met when I showed up twenty-five years ago. A generation ahead of me, they knew everything, smiled easily and often and brought the past to the present. Georgia farmed the land Dan’s house sits on.

I’d filled the bed of my truck with tomorrow’s supplies when I noticed Al without his dark wraparound sunglasses. I walked up to him and I didn’t say hi, I didn’t even catch his eye first.

“Did you go to the funeral?”

Al looked at me and said,

“It was private.”

“Where?”

“Up to St Bernard’s. My plot is there too. About from here to the box away from Georgia’s.”

“The box” is the slider width room with a space heater where Georgia stood and waited for each truck to stop. He’d walk out of his box and match your lumber to your invoice. “The box” was twenty feet away.

“I heard he died about two weeks ago.”

“A week ago Wednesday. It was private but I went anyway. I went and ate my lunch.”

Eighty-four year old Al talks like I do. He’s way too sparse on the details. Like painting by numbers with half of them missing.

“What do you mean you ate your lunch? Did you go to the grave after the family left?”

“I sat in my truck next to my plot. I watched from there and ate my sandwich. There were only about ten people at the service. When they left I drove away.”

“Only ten? He had like two families. His own and he raised his wife’s sister’s kids after she died. And everyone knew him. You couldn’t drive by without stopping to talk for ten minutes. What about his sister from Tennessee or was it Washington?”

“And he had brothers, but there were only about ten. No one would have known he even died except it was in the paper.”

“And it was you who told me he was sick back in June. I went to see him at Emerson after his surgery, but he was out of it. He didn’t know me. Did you see him at home?”

“No, I did see him at Rehab. He said he felt so good he didn’t know why he was there. But you know what? He died just like they told him he would. They said eight months and that’s how long he lived.”

***************

Georgia always greeted me like his long lost best friend. I split my time between LIttleton and Concord Lumber and he’d chide me for being away so long, and he’d tease me when I worked in far off places like Newton or Wellesley. Said he’d been to Boston once and would never go again.

**************
Past stories about Georgia.

Here and Here.

Here‘s our first potato launch before loading our canoes and paddling round the bend to our campsite.

Mark Queijo brought his spud gun on our camping trip, and we used it multiple times during the day, and once at night. For those who don’t know, and since this video has mostly audio, a spud gun is a bazooka-shaped thing made of plumbing pipe and one flint igniter. You cram your potato down the barrel, just as you would shot into a musket, and then you spray a combustible propellant like AquaNet into the back end. As quickly as you can, you screw the plastic back on and flick the flint. If all goes well, the spark ignites the hair spray, the hair spray goes kaboom, and the potato goes into low earth orbit.

Here’s our only night time test. If you listen closely you’ll hear quite a few laugh out loud lines (at least I did), and you might even get the gist of what happened when the back end blows off .

Here’s Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish singing Sloop John B. We first caught their act on the Vineyard at the end of the summer and now I see they’re coming to The Acton Jazz Cafe, Saturday, November 17th. Anyone want to join us? Anyone besides Mr. and Mrs. BirdBrain whose attendance is mandatory.

These people no longer have to guess why their water bill is so high, and if you want to donate some rice and improve your vocabulary, try this site. Both sent to me by Matt who tells me he just woke up from a twenty-four hour nap. For whatever it’s worth, my average score is 41.

From the Providence Place website: “Providence Place is the ideal venue for tour de force shopping excursions, family outings and intimate rendezvous. With more than 170 stores, eight restaurants, and entertainment venues, you’ll find something for every age, taste and style.

This shopping, dining and entertainment destination is the centerpiece of a downtown Providence renaissance. The impressive line-up of retailers includes Nordstrom, Coach, The Apple Store, The Cheesecake Factory, Sephora, J. Jill, Sony Style, Ross-Simons, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Dave & Buster’s and Feinstein IMAX Theatre. With its stunning architecture, a downtown location, a lively streetscape and carpeted floors, Providence Place provides a one-of-a-kind shopping experience.”

We’re not here shopping or shilling for the mall, but it’s gratifying to see such a vibrant downtown. I wonder why it took us thirty-five years to find this city, only an hour from our house.

 

Here you will find a selection from my camera (some by Bill).

BirdBrain sent me this and said she thought of Matt. I thought of Matt, too, but when I saw photo # 11 I thought of Adam.

   

The guy with the rose tattoo has been doing some more serious climbing. I wonder how his mom sleeps at night.