Monday the three of us went to lunch at the former Anne's Bistro and current Sherlock's 221. Sherlock is reportedly the new owner's surname, but since it is on Hall's Road and Old Lyme doesn't have a Baker Street, using Sherlock Holmes's house number doesn't make a lot of sense. Is the owner trying to tie in to the relative proximity of Gillette Castle, unrealistically hoping that most people know the detective was William Gillette's most famous and lucrative role?
I had a jolt of Age when our server came to the table. I honestly could not have guessed if she was 16 or 20 or 22. CLH guessed from her first visit that she was inexperienced, and I guess she was, because she didn't know how to pronounce some of the words. Describing the special, she said "proscriutto" at least twice and maybe thrice, and at every mispronunciation CLH would kick me under the table. When she was well away we laughed, and had to explain the humor to our mother. I wanted to ask if proscriutto came from the proscrotum of the animal, but I didn't. BJWL said that we have larger vocabularies than most people, which if true is pathetic, and that this was unkind. I said I expected people to know the jargon of their own field, such as servers knowing how to pronounce prosciutto and--here CLH kicked me again.
I continued, though more carefully. At the compound before the reunion, my mother had told me, when we spotted him approaching, that her and BDL's friend whom I had been partnered with at the Happy Couple's nuptials had had prostrate cancer and would appreciate my greeting him. As if he would remember me, as if I would ignore a friend of theirs wandering by to pass the time of day, and after we had been reintroduced I restrained from asking him if his illness had just flattened him for its duration. She said "prostrate" more than once and "prostate" not once. So now at lunch, I asked, "Remember that you told me that Groomsman had had cancer?" and she said again, "Yes, he had prostrate cancer." (I might be imagining her pleasure in emphasizing a detail I had seemingly neglected.) So CLH and I defined those two words.
When my father had knee replacement surgery and later physical therapy to strengthen his legs again, he referred to the muscles of his thighs as quadripeds. That's funny!
One might ask why I corrected my mother but not my father. Correcting might be unkind, but so might letting someone persist with a malapropism. Especially in her field: I didn't say anything about "biannual" plants or nor did CLH about "shy-take" mushrooms.
After lunch we popped into the Chocolate Shell, whose fudge supply is rendered unavailable on Sundays. Monday's excuse was that their supplier had had a kitchen fire. But one block remained, and CLH had that. We each had one of their peppermint patties, which are tremendous, and then we went to the lake, where CLH and I swam and BJWL hung out. Our mother wanted to be home when her husband got home from work. Apparently she times her every day for this occasion. It feels a lot more saccharine or surrendered than it does lovey. Whatever.
CLH and I met one of the German Shepherds and her husband and motored to Middletown for dinner. It's funny that it always seemed so far away, but it's 20 miles or less. I had more ceviche.
The family reunion was one thing because in such a gathering, it's expected that everyone talk to everyone else and that not everyone know everyone else. Dinner with the Shepherd and Angel was different: it was only the four of us, and a lot of subjects seemed prickly. I know the Shepherds had resented that CLH and I went to college and had expected us to be intellectual, so books were out. I own instead of rent, so nothing about my house. They're trying to get pregnant, so I wouldn't mention my favorite littluns unless they, by broaching the subject on their own, indicated it wouldn't pain them to hear of others' offspring. Politics and our parents are Right Out. Without my sister, I wouldn't've known what kind of small talk or big talk to make.