Adam missed the great potluck, pre-camping trip dinner, which might be the real reason there have now been concerned parental offers of satellite phones, St. Bernards and Navy submersion suits. His large, responsible and calming presence would have, I am quite sure, reassured the group. Unless, of course, they were privy to this image

and his mea culpa:

“As I ordered up the French Martini in The Flamingo Lounge just before dancing our brains out for a couple of hours, I wasn’t thinking about the morrow, nor the coming evening. A sense of invincibility had descended, following down two pomegranate Margaritas and a glass of Veuve Clicquot during socializing and appetizers, and 2 or 3 glasses of very good Pinot Noir with dinner………

That frothy, light purple specialite du maison — made of Chambord, vodka, Grand Marnier and pineapple juice, amongst perhaps other things — was probably the single most direct mistake of the evening, but the whole trajectory was as well — a trajectory that followed the purple kiss of death by culminating in two shots of Don Julio tequila (my favorite alcohol thus bookending the evening) just before climbing into the hottub for an hour starting at 1:15 a.m.

So not only did I suffer the physical consequences, which were quite prolongedly miserable, but I’ve let down my best friend, thwarted his generous return of my reincarnated edged implements, and deprived myself of an equally anticipated second round of socializing. Bad call.

Not to wallow in regret, but I do apologize…………….”

Photos of the party, a birthday celebration for a close friend, to which Adam refers.

In unfairness to Adam, when he posted the above photos on our common website, I asked if he were writing a story to accompany them.

“Say whuuuuuuuuuuht……………???

I just spent 2 hours creating the flyer for the next DLF event in Pagemaker and Photoshop. I’m beat. Make something up. Tell terrible torrid tales of trials and temptation. Speak of unspeakable musical abandon, gourmand weaknesses of the flesh, and commingling in a frothing hottub in the night beneath the uplit topiaries of David’s obsessive horticultural madness. Detail the tastes of culinary labors of love you’ve neither whiffed nor masticated, and leave no leer unriddled, no stumble unremarked, no sartorial overreach unpinned. But say it gloriously and generously, elevating the fools who play their familiar parts to masters of plot and vision, whose Bacchannalian ritual is not to be judged by those to whom “calorie” and “hangover” have meaning.

And then sign my name and let fly.”

I replied that I wasn’t writing no story for him but would post the pics with his emails, and I did, and there you have it, his words, unedited.

That makes three. I wrote a story, Ed gave me the okay to post his emails, and we now have Adam’s Bacchannalian tale…I sense something is missing.

Well, here’s something……. The subject’s post-facto postscript (yes, ’tis I, little drummer boy…..). First — yes, it’s all true, alas. But second — lest it mislead, the above image is from three years ago, no direct relation to this more injurious episode, and that’s mere exhaustion you see, not a drunken stupor. It was 3:45 a.m., if I recall………

Spring at Torroemore

Good news for the propective canoeing campers. If you want to take another panoramic photograph of Torroemore you have to swim or take a boat to that same spot on the lake. The latitude of Lake Sylvia is about 45.2, while Millinocket, the nearest town to Lobster Lake is 46.5. Okay, maybe there is no correlation, but it offers hope.
In a related development, the day after our potluck dinner with the parents and the boys, Robby’s dad called to say he was going to borrow a satellite phone to give to his son. I wonder, was it something I said, or the photograph I showed him of the guys crossing Lobster Lake in near white-out conditions?
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Hereís the deal. Jan takes one week off a year and flies to Aruba with a friend. But, she wonít leave the house unless Mark agrees to stay home and provide loving care for all the animals. Works for Jan, sort of works for Mark, but it really worked for me. That week I had two deck support beams to replace at Applewood, the condominium complex up the street, and Mark offered to help.

These 6 x 8 fir timbers were long and impossibly heavy. The shorter of the two – at fourteen feet – was intended to replace its rotted brethren atop two 6 x 6 posts, under the second floor deck. The previous day, using my trusty six ton Sears jack, Iíd raised the second floor deck about an inch, and hammered a dozen temporary supports underneath. Why so many?

Two winters ago Iíd come perilously close to dropping an entire porch roof on my head, and I wanted to be sure that this time I wouldnít take a generous friend with me. The permanent deck posts were ten feet apart, and, corresponding to our respective heights, I placed a short ladder on Markís end and taller one on mine. With great effort we hoisted the beam onto our shoulders, then staggered back to our ladders. I climbed mine, and watched the legs of Markís ladder sink into the muddy earth as he climbed his. I knew we didnít have much shoulder time and because I had the ladder height advantage, I waited, rather impatiently, for Mark to push his end up onto his post.

ìAre you ready?î Mark grunted.

ìIím ready, are you ready?î

ìIím ready. Iím going to lift my end.î

ìGo ahead, lift.î My shoulder was already hurting.

ìReady?î

ìHurry up.î

ìHere goes..uummphî

Mark was facing away from me and I watched as nothing moved. Not his back, nor his arms, and especially not the beam. It was as if the plank, Passion fashion, were nailed to his shoulder. I laughed and I couldnít stop. Mark is tall and strong – Iíve seen him portage canoes alone – and this felt like a cartoon in The New Yorker.

ìNothing happened, Mark, try it again.î

ìOkay, Iím going to lift right….NOW!

Again, nothing. Less movement than before, certainly less upward movement. Now I was laughing too hard to hold my end up.

ìThatís it, Iíve got to put this thing down,î I hollered, tears running down my cheeks.

We backed off our ladders, teetered into the yard and with relief, dropped the beam onto the ground. I found a taller ladder under a neighboring condo ownerís deck, and swapped it for Markís short one. We picked up the beam, wobbled back to our ladders, and with a slightly sub hernia effort, positioned it perfectly on the two posts. I thought that I should nail it, but figured the eventual weight of the deck would clamp it into place.

The next step was to knock out the temporary supports. The front of the deck was held up by cross shaped timbers Iíd nailed together. They were robust; they had to be to hold up the deck. I stood under the deck and with my sledge hammer, I began to knock the base of the timber away from the deck. With each bang, Iíd look at Mark and say, ì Are you sure this is okay? Weíre not overlooking anything are we? The deck will settle down on top the new beam, right?î

I was happy to have Mark checking my work. Whatever I overlooked, surely heíd catch, except heíd been providing the dayís entertainment with stories about work and Janís trip. He had been from the start, fully engaged physically, but not mentally.

ìIím sure,î Mark replied, but continued to drone on about how Kevin was fixing Janís computer and in the process had… . He was paying enough attention to walk out from under the deck and into the yard. I hit the 4 x 4 again, knocked it another inch, stopped, looked around and asked the same question.

What I had learned from that almost roof calamity, was to double check even what I deemed fail safe. The end of the temporary support pops out, the deck drops that inch and weíre done. Except. Yes, of course, there is always an except. With my last hammer swing the base kicked into the yard, and the top of the cross fell towards me. Suddenly the tape, My Life, was in the VCR and somebody had hit replay. I was watching my second grade confirmation and wondering what had become of those bright white teeth when the cross hit the horizontal beam we had so laboriously added. Stop. Salvation. I wasnít going to die. Except it hit with such force that it knocked our beam halfway off the supports. Start. Mark couldnít see the beam from where he stood, which is why he continued talking about Janís computer.

Work on the second deck, not as high off the ground, resulted in the same comedy of errors. That beam, though longer, didnít require ladders. Mark pressed his end into place, but when I lifted my end on, it levered his off. His end hit the ground, mine caught the edge of the deck, and like a teeter totter with the skinny kid in the air, raised the entire structure up off its temporary supports. From where Mark stood, he couldnít see those supports dangling in air, which is probably why, when his cell phone rang, he answered it.

|Every year Diane (in her quest for continuing education credits) and I attend a symposium hosted by the MFA, and presented by The Boston Institute for Psychotherapy. This year’s focus: What is Your Passion, The essential role of Creativity in Psychotherapy and ordinary life. Pictured above: Ellen Langer, Michael Mack, and Elyssa Ely.

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Tonight weíre having a potluck dinner at our house with the all the camping boys and their parents. And if time permits in their busy schedule, Tricia and Adam will join us. It looks like those Maine lakes are still frozen , but we have fifteen days before departure.

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Camping

Matt is not fond of cold weather or rain, and Robby (pictured above bagging groceries at Idylwilde) smiled broadly when I told him our first night in Millinocket ME would be spent in a motel. Visions of turquoise bottomed swimming pools danced in his head. Not small rooms with ceilings the color of cigarette smoke, beds that push back as hard as will the ground under our tents, and an in house restaurant that serves a grand buffet of runny yellow scrambled eggs, burnt bacon, and soggy toast. As for the cold weather and rain…pray for snow.

Stalking

We seem to be following Matt and his BMW, but here it is, parked in a numbered space at his high school. One wonders how he rates his own personal space.
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Listening
Last Friday we didnít make it the concert at Willow Books, instead we had dinner with Bob and Mary at Walden Grill and then walked across the street to The Performing Arts Center. There, we listened to the Concord Orchestra and pianist Sangjoung Kim perform Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor Op. 15. Two hours gone in a blink, not unlike listening to our ìfriendsî at Willow. Right, Diane?

Playing
Today I play Katie at 5 pm. Dominic just asked me to play him
tonight at 8 pm. Now Patrick is asking me to play on Friday at 5 pm.

If I survive, there may be a story. If you don’t hear from me after
Fri, ask Patrick to write the story.

rakkity

An offering to the Google gods.

Let’s say you arrive at your local bowling alley with these boys and all the balls are in use … .

Condi Rice and Zorg from the Fifth Element

This Much I Do Remember

It was after dinner.
You were talking to me across the table
about something or other,
a greyhound you had seen that day
or a song you liked,

and I was looking past you
over your bare shoulder
at the three oranges lying
on the kitchen counter
next to the small electric bean grinder,
which was also orange,
and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.

All of which converged
into a random still life,
so fastened together by the hasp of color,
and so fixed behind the animated
foreground of your
talking and smiling,
gesturing and pouring wine,
and the camber of your shoulders

that I could feel it being painted within me,
brushed on the wall of my skull,
while the tone of your voice
lifted and fell in its flight,
and the three oranges
remained fixed on the counter
the ways stars are said
to be fixed in the universe.

Then all the moments of the past
began to line up behind that moment
and all the moments to come
assembled in front of it in a long row,
giving me reason to believe
that this was a moment I had rescued
from the millions that rush out of sight
into a darkness behind the eyes.

Even after I have forgotten what year it is,
my middle name,
and the meaning of money,
I will still carry in my pocket
the small coin of that moment,
minted in the kingdom
that we pace through every day.

–Billy Collins

I don’t know about rakkity, here pictured with the future Mrs. rakkity in 1977, but I sure wish he still had that shirt.
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The Wedding- Tree Growers Meadow – 1978


Diane, Molly, the happy husband and his blushing bride (this will teach rakkity to send me photos without annotation).
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Mike, Ed, Beth, Kathy, Beth’s sister, and the Justice of the Peace
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My first wedding, my first and only best man role and my first toast. I don’t know about the happy couple, but I was one proud guy.
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Willow last night with the jazz saxophonist, whom I believe is married to the guitarist. I offered to break our Friday night routine, but Diane claimed she had been dreaming of sushi with a bowl of white rice.

I’ve been searching for prints of rakkity, and this all I can find so far. Back when he lived with us on Beacon St. in Somerville. Beth to his left, Bill Connet to his right, and Keiko, Peter’s girlfriend across the table.
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Mrs. rakkity.
Sorry Mrs., I know this isn’t the most flattering photo but it’s better than the one of you on our infamous whale hunt, bundled in a blanket, a pale shade of green, doing your best not to become an over-the-sider.
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