Hello darling. Just a quick post tonight, I'm pretty exhausted. Beautiful late afternoon light - it's 5:47 p.m. - and I just finished vacuuming and dusting (mostly) at long last the downstairs. The light up in the aerie where I am could not be lovelier at the moment, all still and platinum and timeless. KZE is on in the background - yes, a program that comes on for two hours every Saturday afternoon at 5 called Radio A.... A meaning you know what. Big doings in the region today, don't know if you've heard - let's just say today was not the day to drive into Rhinebeck and catch a matinee of The Kids Are Alright (with Julianne Moore and Annette Bening).

Went dishwasher shopping in earnest today. D & I had gone a week ago and noted some 10 percent off sign - which was no longer valid. So I got instantly discouraged, because I spend so much time trying to score half-off organic lettuce - I didn't want to pay more this week for a dishwasher I'd come to a conclusion about, doing the math, a week ago. So I walked right out. I was a bit of a jerk, D of course was being valiant and the big-box store clerk honest-to-god looked like a young Mark Ruffalo - let's say if I sensed my mood going south it was better I get out of there.

So I went back to the car just to chill. Okay, here's my montage "Of the Historie and Origin of Dishwashers of Note" in my life. I grew up without one, as I know so did you (although having typed that now I'm a bit less sure). Here's a little story: back when D & I were in the process of selling our amazingly lovely & perfect one-bedroom in Carroll Gardens - we had an open house, and instantly a bidding war ensued, and by the end of the weekend we had actually gotten an offer for (I don't quite recall) maybe $25K over the asking, and the whole deal went to RE (real estate) attorneys very quickly and a contract was drawn up and signed....

To make a long story short, the couple who had so fell in love with our apartment balked when they (or so they claimed) realized that there wasn't a dishwasher. There was a lot of stressful and tedious back and forth, carried on by our realtor, and our closing attorney who come to think of it weekends up in these parts someplace (whatever). Our realtor was such a kicker, just a larger-than-life absolutely gorgeous, expensive, sophisticated, voluptuous Latina (sorry - don't know her country of origin) who said to all of this - heck, I'll buy them a dishwasher. Her name is (as I know I've written to you in some other letter before) positively Updikean - let's say - oh, sorry I'm too tired, I can't even paraphrase or code one - need I remind you that I don't have a writing staff?

Oh anyway. So, dishwashers. Well what about them? Oh right, so I'd marched out of the big box store because some 10 percent deal was off and I wandered back to the vast parking lot and D chased me down saying that there was a model of some very highend brand on clearance. Which trumped whatever 10 percent deal off whatever was from last week.

Bottom line, we have quite a chi-chi dishwasher coming to us Monday afternoon. Not that I needed or expected this from a dishwasher, but it's so fine that when I open the door and look to the mirrored back I can see myself. Interesting.