Reading: The same. Don't expect anything new for the next few days.

Viewing: The moon over Long Island Sound behind TJZ's house. All the photographs I'd forgotten from freshling year hanging on TJZ's wall.

Moving:Nada.

14 November 1999: Cheshire to Orange to Milford

And then there was a huge breakfast. Sitting at EJB's counter looking at the room's generous proportions, I wondered where in my mother's cramped kitchen BDL planned to put a center island. Perhaps it would fit better in the gazebo they plan to erect in the yard, now that they've slaughtered all the trees that got in the way and provided all that unwelcome shade.

Breakfast. Coffee. More coffee. Tracy brought out our Into Thin Air, which they've had for almost a year; I've missed it but not so much I didn't promptly lend it to SWBW because it's so good. We were shown the pond and their plans for their yard. I was looking forward to his aunt and uncle's at this point because I could sit down to drive to it and once there I could shut my brain down. Like C3PO. Physical exhaustion and emotional overload each drained me.

In the early afternoon we set off for his aunt and uncle's house. I was amused to see in the phone book that night, as I consulted its map to plot my way to TJZ's house, that their house is indeed off the map. It is the most convoluted tangle of streets to find their house. And I remembered why I can't shut my brain down while there: not that their conversation is so intellectually taxing, but because they actually do wish to converse with me (unlike RDC's Florida family, who seem to prefer that I simply listen), I have to pay attention. And (like RDC's Florida family) they talk REALLY LOUDLY. As does my mother, so I can't complain. Out loud, anyway.

His aunt found some family photographs in Grampa G's old house and when his uncle and RDC brought him from his new home, we all looked at them. His aunt wanted Grampa G to identify some people, but I saw, without surprise, that she speaks to him as my mother does to my grandmother. Even more loudly, shrilly, without modulation, and ready to interrupt. Grampa G said at some point that two of his siblings were born on the boat. Long boat ride, that, from Sicily through Suez across the Indian and Pacific Oceans and through the Panama Canal and up the Atlantic to Ellis Island. In steerage. Oof. His daughter, RDC's aunt, was telling him how impossible that was and so on but I asked him plainly who was older, Susanna or Victor, and then if one had been born in Sicily. Those were simple questions and he thought about them and answered them and who knows if he remembered aright, since he's 87 years old, but at least I shut up long enough for him to think and respond. His aunt says he's good with me when he's not with her. He (wa)is extremely fond of me, but if I can get him to speak to me it's because I can close my mouth. Also it's because I don't have to deal with him on a daily basis, which is a huge reason.

There is one photograph of RDC's great-grandfather, Grampa G's father, that looks like a Pulitzer Prize winner to me. A creased working man's face, needing a shave, with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, in a coarsely woven woolen jacket and a trilby, and the oversized hands of a laborer who grew to adulthood as a laborer, whose body was shaped by his work.

(I, by the way, am the sole one to call him Grampa G. I can't call him Grampa and I can't call him G and I don't want to call him "Mr. C," as his son-in-law does--he does say C, not Caccavale, but that's still too impersonal for me. I don't know what his other grandchildren's mates call him. I do know that RDC doesn't call Granny anything. He's had to write BJWL a thank you note and wrote "Dear B-----," but to her face he says nothing. RRP calls Granny Mrs. W-----. I think our cousin calls Granny "grandma," the sound of which I've always disliked. I call RDC's maternal grandmother by her first name, which she, not I, abbreviates to Kay. I guess Grampa G has always seemed old and Kay does not. But I don't know what RDC should call my grandmother. "Grandma Dot?")

We went to an early supper at Gusto on the Boston Post Road in Milford. What happened to my childhood vow that I would never live in a town that didn't have a Boston Post Road, in other words a town on the New England coast? RDC was much happier with its canoli than he was with the one from Denver's Carmine's the Tuesday before we left.

Saturday in Old Lyme, casting about for a topic of conversation, RDC imprudently asked whether the Happy Couple had seen, during their trip to Oregon this summer, any of the logged areas. All the clear-cutting deeply affected us, not that we've since stopped using toilet paper to reduce our individual demand. The Happy Couple are so very certain of man's [sic] dominion over the planet that they both immediately launched into how "what's that owl? White?" is ruining the livelihoods of so many, and how you can plant a tree and in 30 years it's ready to cut again. Now me, my best idea on how to resolve this (as well as almost any other problem you'd care to name) is to reduce the human population by at least 2/3, and I don't know much that's useful in the middle ground. But I do recognize that we're all sharing the planet here, owls and trees and humans, and though you can plant a tree, you can't plant a forest. The Happy Couple, in contrast, recognize that their god gave mankind [sic] dominion over ever'thing and do not understand that a bunch of trees does not equal a forest.

In contrast, somehow religion came up with RDC's aunt and uncle at the restaurant (Grampa G was pretty much out of it). Now believe me, I didn't bring it up. I have more tact than that (and OMFB, please don't laugh). I think RDC mentioned what a drunk senile fool the priest was. (He can do that. It's his family.) Anyway, his uncle believes that since all the disciples were male, therefore all priests should be male, and since Mary has made occasional special appearances a couple of times over the past two millennia but never said hey what about me, then it's not clearly not her priority either. I suggested that she is kind of the First Lady of the Catholic Church and as such intercedes in humanitarian issues like child care and health care instead of politics and chains of command. Luckily, they thought that was pretty funny. And RDC's aunt firmly disagrees with her husband, so it must have been okay that RDC and I did also, if we agreed there should be priests at all (which we don't). RDC and I both noticed at the time that here we were, an agnostic and a pagan civilly disagreeing with two devout Catholics, and we both saw the contrast between them and the two fundies thinking that lots of trees=forest and that humans=right. His family might be strange as well, but you can talk to them.

Later in the meal, the uncle turned to RDC and asked, "So tell me, Richard, why can't I catch any trout lately?"

I interjected, "Because you don't believe women should be priests and God is punishing you." Thank the Climbing Tree they all, even the uncle, laughed, but I did apologize. I'm not his wife nor even his nephew and I can't tease him blasphemously like that.

We brought Grampa G home. He is now living in an assisted living place that I would like to see my grandmother in. It would be friendlier if she could live at home, but friendlier would require a daughter who doesn't resent her, no stairs, some exercise, and lots of society. This place was bright, almost but not quite hospital bright, with homey furniture. The couches are covered in something waterproof, but it's not plastic anyway. He shares a room with three other men, and one man was in bed so I scarpered out of there right quick and sat in the living room being cosseted by a brace of old women. Old, slightly out of it people love me. I'm nice to them--because I am never in company with them for long enough for the fake smile to lose its vitality--and I listen to them and apparently I possess some sort of wholesome chocolatey goodness that they respond to. In short, I wasn't surprised when the first words out of Alice's mouth were "You're just so lovely!" I was pleased, and is it vain of me to be pleased that my post-freckledy face gave her pleasure? The other one went on and on and on and on about what a ham G is and how if they argue they always get along or something. I got the impression there's been some sort of Incident with lots of Diplomacy, but I had not the least idea what she meant. Nodding and smiling, smiling and nodding.

Back at the avuncular abode, I realized I wouldn't have to get onto I-95 for TJZ's directions, but. She gave me the following directions to her house: I-95 South to exit 35. Left off the exit, straight to Wendy's. Right onto Boston Post, then with with K-Mart on the left and Bally's on the right, turn right onto Lansdale Road. There's more, but I'm not going to lead you straight to her house, okay? So I know where the Bally's in Milford is. That's kind of bizarre, isn't it?

So anyway I asked his aunt and uncle where on Boston Post (which they call "the Post Road," because they're Wrong) exit 35 would lead, because RDC could get me thither and we'd follow TJZ's directions thence. They didn't know. It's the neighboring town! I wanted to shake them. You've been there a gazillion times! Are you fools? I certainly was one, for asking them to begin with. That phone book map, though. I loved that. The more because his aunt said there was no such road in Milford as the one TJZ said she lived on. This woman couldn't pinpoint where on Boston Post I-95 exits, which is a basic kind of thing to know in a coastal Connecticut town, but she knew that some such minor road didn't exist? I'll assume my friend knows her own street address, and well, there it is on the map. And because they thought we would be led astray, and despite his uncle not knowing the way anyway, he wanted us to follow him to my friend's house.

We escaped without that "help" and were on our way. Ooof. Now, it's true that we had some difficulty find TJZ's house at the very end, mostly because house numbers don't follow any systematic theme and I maybe had neglected to note her last direction. Nor is there USWest cell phone coverage anywhere in Connecticut, let alone on the beach in Milford. So I made a quick roaming call: "Where the hell are you? I'm the corner of this and that street. The moon's here, and Sikorski [the helicopter builder] is across the river." "Walk to the moon. I'll be outside." Last summer we met at the Danbury mall to drive to HEBD's house in New York because it was the only spot directly off the highway that both of us knew. We decided to meet outside by the Filene's entrance, and if there were two entrances the left entrance, and if there wasn't a Filene's the first alphabetical anchor department store. And we met without a problem, so "walk toward the moon" made perfect sense to us. RDC raised his eyebrows at this method of direction, but there she was, right under the moon like Harold's bed room, so there. Thlptbh.

I picked her up and spun her around, as I am wont to do with female friends shorter than I am. She said that was the most interesting parking she'd ever seen--I'm not much a K-parker and I didn't want RDC saying "We can walk to the curb from here" so I did a little more backing and forthing than anyone who can park would. We dashed into the house and there was HEBD. And ZBD. And I didn't cry.

ZBD continues to be the Most Beautiful Child Ever.™ Charming and sweet and so much more articulate now at 34 months than when I last saw her at 17. She had a hard time remembering RDC's name and when she distributed clementines, she gave "one to you, and one to you, and one to you, and one for...that guy." Then they got married and she remembered until the next morning, when she had to be prompted again but then remembered "Richard." HEBD observed, and I'm glad she did, that here we all were together and it didn't matter how long it had been since the last time. No, it really doesn't.

ZBD and I read Now We Are Six together and it turned out TJZ and HEBD didn't know about the renumbering of Narnia either and are equally appalled. We had a lovely evening with each other and I could barely keep my eyes off ZBD. She is just such a magical child. She recently told HEBD she's been dreaming of dragons because those are the true dreams of kings and emperors. She'll be three in January.

During the evening, discovering that HEBD had exposures left on her camera, I asked RDC how he'd like to take some pictures he had no hope of being in. We made a sign for DEDBG, so she'd know we love her. Of course I, being me, held it upside down. Better than holding ZBD upside down, I guess.

When we went to bed, TJZ took her couch and gave RDC and me her room and the D's her study. I am glad, because if I'd had to sleep under all that Russian paraphernalia I'd've'd nightmares.