Tuesday, November 11, 2003

“When you’re old, crazy and worn-out, you’re old, crazy and worn-out.” That was one of my granny’s favorite sayings.  She used to say it a lot.  Constantly, in point of fact.  Until even I, who loved her passionately despite the pretty-hard-to-ignore racism and negativity, wanted to shake her.  Well, I guess the circle stays unbroken, because now I myself am old, crazy, and worn-out.  And you know?  I say it a lot. So we went to DC over the weekend.  There I blew off my diet and ate crab cakes and barbeque shrimp with grits, and duck confit and potatoes of various descriptions, and fresh fried donuts at our hotel, the Tabard Inn, which I loved madly.  But we were moderate.  We did things like ordering appetizers and then sharing an entrée, and napping in the afternoon, and ordering a glass of wine each instead of a bottle, and sipping port by the fireplace in the inn at the end of the night.  It was absurd, depressing on the face of it.  But I’ve gotten so old I didn’t even care; I loved it.  The less fun bit about being old crazy and worn out is the worn out bit.  I am one creaky, achey sunnofabitch these days.  Of course it didn’t help that after driving down to DC in our rental car, and getting a wee bit bent out of shape trying to negotiate its fucking frenchie streets, and having a very late dinner (the duck confit and mmmmmmm potatoes with bacon, in a French bistro that could have been Dallas.  In fact everything in DC seems like Dallas, or maybe the whole United States seems like Dallas after New York – all the huge cavernous restaurants with the kitschy themes, and the people in them smoking, and the silly kids lined up in front of silly nightclubs – one of the great things about living in New York is that even if you never go out clubbing once in your entire life, you can still feel superior snubbing every other place’s nightlife as bush-league), while we were walking back to the hotel, I managed to smash full on into a street light.  The reason I managed to do this was that I was looking back over my shoulder at something called a “Buddy-cam” in a shop window – it appeared to be video from a camera strapped to a dog, but I doubted its veracity.  This was lucky, because if I’d run into it full-on, my face would now be bisected by the jagged edge of the street sign affixed to the lamp pole.  As it is, only the back of my skull is bisected.  And I’ve got this enormous knot on my thigh, which hurts like a sonofabitch.  Of course this leaves out that one presumes if I was not walking while looking backward, I would not have run into the pole at all.  And isn’t this what husbands are for, to keep you from doing stupid shit like that? Anyway, I spent the rest of the weekend pathetically achey and creaky and old and worn out and maybe just a little bit crazy.  We went to the Smithsonian for a performance of “Bon Appetit,” an operetta based on an episode of “The French Chef.”  The mezzo playing Julia was just fabulous, and game as all hell – she sang, and beat egg whites by hand, while being rolled across the stage in an office chair because she’d broken her ankle, and coughing between arias, because she had a terrible cold.  See, to me, that’s what it’s all about.  Brava, say I.  And Rayna, the lovely woman from the Smithsonian who curated the Julia Child exhibit there, had seats reserved in the front row for Eric and me, which was a little embarrassing, but pretty damn neat too.  And after there was coffee and chocolate cake, and I was recognized for the first time (I imagine because of the reserved seats.)  The woman also known in blog comments as Reba was incredibly gracious and sweet and what she said by way of her feelings about the blog meant a lot to me, so I have to apologize, Reba, because I was not particularly sparkling or wise or even cogent.  It was my first time, so I was a little flummoxed.  Plus, of course, the old crazy and worn out thing. So a great time was had by all in DC – though we didn’t get to the International Spy Museum, which was sort of our whole reason for coming.  You wouldn’t believe the lines.  Lines, when you are old, seem just too much to deal with. So.  Nine work days remaining.  Actually 10, because I’m sure I’ll be working over the weekend, because it is absolutely fucking D-Day at the LMDC, and if I have to reschedule one more Very Important Fucking Person I will kill someone, and let me just warn any VIFPs who might be out there reading, it’s not gonna be me. In other news – stay tuned, I may have some verrrrrrry exciting news of a familial nature coming up soon.  (And no, it’s not a baby.  Jesus.)   8:09:54 AM    comment []