The Beauties and the White Light Battery

The beauties arrived for a two-day vacation from their vacation, which they had spent in NYC, walking, clubbing, eating at Thai restaurants, seeing an endless parade of pals, and popping into the stray museum.

We’ve had lots of fun eating in diners, visiting the garden, tromping around the grounds of the Vanderbilt mansion, and cooking a four-course dinner. Practically all the ingredients came from the garden:

The menu:

Gazpacho: I used those heirloom tomatoes that at full ripeness are striped pink and green. They gave the gazpacho a salmony color. Threw in a couple of jalapenos and about half a cup of sherry. (It’s a dish from Southern Spain, right? Sherry!) The result was extremely good, but alas! I will not be able to reduplicate it because I did not write down what I was doing.

Pesto on quinoa pasta: Mia has a good palette. She appreciated two of my little culinary “tricks.” (1) I always use shredded Parmesan not that powdered stuff because the food processer can’t quite pulverize it, so the result are these tiny, infinitesimal morsels of cheese in the pesto, which seem to explode in the mouth. Quite delicious! (2) My basil keeps flowering. Rather than throw the flowers away, I have taken to incorporating them into my dishes. Very delicate floral undertone.

Sauteed Swiss chard: Max did a masterful job!

Tomato and cucumber salad: Mia’s mother is from Sichuan Province, which is the one area in China where they go for spice and peppers, so Mia likes spicy food. She minced the veggies very fine and then devised a most excellent dressing from soy sauce, sesame oil, and vinegar. Extremely delicious.

For dessert, we had the cantaloupe. I picked it just for them, but I probably shouldn’t have: It wasn’t quite ripe:



Excellent meal but far too nutritious, so afterwards we went out for gooey, soda fountain confectionaries:

"IMG 5480" (Watch on YouTube)

We’d been planning to go to the drive-in since Mia has never been but the drive-in was playing some awful Dwayne Johnson movie, so instead I took them to watch fireflies. Max and Mia are West Coast kids: They don’t really know from fireflies.

Agenda for this morning is hearty breakfast—I’m making omelets! I acquired sausage!—, walk across the Hudson and then train departure. Can’t you hear that long, lonesome whistle blow?

I took a thousand photographs.

For whatever reason, this was my favorite:



But I also like this one:



Here is one of Mia alone. She has exquisite eyebrows and a most exquisite hairline:



I cannot bear to look at photos of myself anymore, so this is the only group selfie I could tolerate. The backdrop is the diner’s infinitely reflecting mirror:



Won’t cry when I say goodbye but I will feel melancholy. It goes very, very fast.



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Throughout the visit, I kept thinking about Robin. I’d really, really wanted Robin to be with us though I knew the reasons why he wouldn’t be, couldn’t be.

I weighed the politics of texting pix.

On the one hand, I wanted him to know we were thinking about him.

On the other hand, I didn’t want to relay the subtext: We’re having fun—without you.

In the end, I opted for an innocuous Max-and-Mia-goofing-in-the-garden shot, thinking, He’ll ignore it.

But he didn’t.

Instead he texted back immediately: Damn I think dad is losing his lucidity again.

He was sweating just sitting trying to work up energy earlier I asked I could help and he asked me for a jar of mayonnaise to stand up I was like what.. eventually grabbed it and he just stared at it confused

Plus he just said he was going to my moms room. obviously you’ve never lived here. Thought he meant Sarolta for a second but he was insistent NO I mean your mother

Doing really bad today when I woke up he was collapsed on floor. Complaining he feels very sick

Last night, Ben went back to the hospital. I talked with RTT briefly by phone.

Dunno whether they kept him or discharged him.

Robin is back doing the radio silence thing.

Maybe this is a good thing.

There is obviously very little I can do. I mean, obviously, I’m not gonna drive up to Ithaca every week.

And it’s not like Ben’s plight even moves me that much.

In a general human sense, of course, I think it’s too bad this is happening to him.

This shouldn’t happen to anyone.

But it’s not my tragedy.

Robin’s plight, on the other hand, is my tragedy.

All I can do, though, is activate the long-distance white light protection apparatus. And hope that I remembered to charge the battery.