Check Mate*

It's a typical Sunday: delicate dresses festooning the bathroom where they drip dried yesterday, after I did my laundry. I always procrastinate when it comes to putting them away and doing things like ironing. Ugh. It's like unpacking the dishwasher. Curiously unsatisfying. I am wearing glasses, not contacts, but at least it's the new Alain Mikli's. The table is littered with the weekend's doings: Netflix, Edible Brooklyn magazine, camera, recipe book, Johnny Cash cd.

*I am newly-filled by my Friday purchase of a relacement-stovetop espresso maker. I killed the last one and finally it just said, No More, and refused to squeeze out any more coffee. I managed to melt off its handle (it seems I am drawn to fire); then its lid came loose. But I used it for at least another three months, wrapping it in a napkin to pour. Finally, realizing that I would be coffeeless Saturday if I didn't stop at the overly-cute and frostily Connecticuttian kitchen supply store on Atlantic (where do they get their staff? They just are not from around here), I bought the one that this morning quietly made coffee, with none of the romantic thundering-of-horses-around- the-bend noise to signal that it's ready. It also has an extremely annoying picture of a little Italian, mustachioed man on it, but I turn it around so I don't see him. Why did they mess with a perfect design?

So now I am ready to put together a PPT presentation of my work to show a friend of Eric and Mimi's who went to school with them (so it's Harvard I have to impress), who has been advised by Eric that I am the person who should design a 1.6 acre garden for an 18th century stone house he is renovating for clients in Nyack, NJ. Oh dear. I think I actually am the person to do it but the Ivy League does not fail to fluster me. He told me rather pointedly that Eric's word is all he needs. Like, Pressure!

Outside from a white sky there is dry thunder. The cat is under the stone table on his bright kikois, bedouinlike.

If I do it well (the presentation I mean, today) I will reward myself by transcribing two pages of TE Lawrence's description of a lamb banquet onto this blog. And if I fail, I will punish myself by transcribing two pages of TE Lawrence's description of a lamb banquet onto this blog.

Ah, the first drops are falling and the cat is beating the door to come in. Good weather for working.

7.18pm ^0^ Thank god for frickin' loopholes: I did not FINISH my presentation (which is looking not bad), so I don't have to transcribe a lamb banquet at all! Tomorrow...