"When I'm drinking around people, I tend to get silly or pugnacious or wild, which can cause problems."
A foggy Thursday morning, in more ways than one.
In a few minutes I'll head toward Endicott to get Peg's new used car serviced. The ride may be lovely, but the errand annoys a bit. We just bought the damned thing two months ago, and a service warning light popped up a couple weeks later. Seven hundred dollars and a day's productivity lost.
Yesterday after P arrived home we endeavored to pour a cocktail and take a walk around the neighborhood. It had turned sunny and 80 degrees, the country club was hosting yet another tournament that made golf an impossibility, and I felt the need to decompress after that hearing I mentioned in yesterday's post. I was exquisitely prepared, forewarned that this judge was a great student of the law and read everything in advance. I brought my A game, made sure my space was organized and ready for Zoom, and as everyone appeared onscreen . . .
my wifi connection became "unstable". By the end of our painful twenty minutes together, the judge seemed underwhelmed with the snippets of wisdom he received from the frequently frozen face onscreen. Did it affect the outcome? Not really; he did precisely what I expected and would have suggested was the right answer, had I been given the chance. It was just embarrassing.
So armed with a Proper Twelve and big ice cube in an insulated cup, I joined Peg in the front yard where she visited with Chris for an update on the paint job that's dragged through the summer because of all the rain.
The columns had been peeling, and I worried that the 174 year old pine would rot if we didn't move briskly before another winter set in.
As we chatted a nice young lady stopped to admire the house while out walking her dog, August, who was actually born in June. Peg chatted her up about the lifelong project of restoring and maintaining Tara, and soon shifted to her love of this part of the world. It turns out our new friend is a Corning native and architect who's restoring her own craftsman cottage a couple blocks up the hill. The locals love hearing that two Southerners find so much to treasure in their hometown.
We exchange phone numbers, and P promises to have her and her husband (but alas, not poor August--we're cat people, after all) over for a glass of wine and a tour.
Peg's most proud of her new changing room. Have I shown you this?
Chris put the finishing touches on this space a few days ago. Not impressed? Well, let me show you the same space a couple weeks before we bought Tara.
Bringing this grand old lady back to herself has been an expensive labor of love, with miles to go before we arrive there, if ever. It's the project of a lifetime.
Soon it was time for our walk, but my tumbler had run dry and required a reload. Now fully provisioned, we started around the block when we noticed the sound of live music down the hill on Market Street. Let's take our walk down there and have a listen, P suggested.
Market Street was bustling with shoppers and diners. We found the gift store operated by an old friend of Peg's closed and for lease, which saddened us a bit. Rounding the corner we realized the music was coming from the rooftop patio of the Rockwell Museum. The museum was hosting a reception upstairs, with food and booze. Hey, we're members! Let's see if they'll let us in!
Peg was, as always, dressed to the nines for just such a contingency. I was dressed in walking sneakers, shorts, and an old fishing shirt. I was also a little tipsy, having not eaten in several hours. I could tell Peg was in a similar place when the Tennessee lilt came full blast as she tried to convince the nice young people guarding the ticket table for the sold out event we were members and should be admitted, given that they surely had a few cancellations. They summoned their boss, who made her way downstairs as P launched into her soliloquy about her deep and abiding love for Corning. The group was sufficiently snowed that the two overly happy Floridians were soon whisked up to the reception, where we immediately ran into Peg's boss at Guthrie and his wife, as well as a fellow CRNA who lives right behind us. Peg made us a little plate of mini-tacos and salami as they cleared the buffet, and brought me a glass of wine. Then another.
After cornering her poor boss and offering solutions to all the world's problems, I was finally summoned down the stairs by P so we could go on home. On the way I noticed a room filled with portraits of "Fighters for Freedom", and encountered an old hero of mine, William Sloane Coffin.
I reckon he and I shared the same opinion of that war. Try hanging something like that in a museum back home in PC. They'd burn the place down. Or more accurately just never come through the door.
Arriving home to the cats around sunset, we found a program on Hulu and I fell asleep on the couch. Meaning no supper. Hence my fogginess today.
But fog or no fog, it's time for that drive to Star Motors. Onward.
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