Hello dearest. Very hot and sunny today, humid, but all quite bearable. Keeping cool up in the aerie, Jerrice's Women of Note on the radio, my Sunday late afternoon ritual. Overnight were the most spectacular thunder and lightning storms. I was asleep and fitfully woke up to the numerous flashes and nearby explosions. Maybe that's why at some point Gwynnie came to join me in bed. She's taken this long (months) to figure out where I sleep? I wish I could have been more awake for the storms, I love the drama. I might have been frightened and I think the thought to be crossed my mind, but I always feel reassured to think that this old wood ship of a house, built 1885, hasn't been felled by a storm yet.

I wonder how you're doing and hope that your work is progressing smoothly and all that's to be done is getting done and that you're having fun besides and everyone's happy. I look forward to a write-up on that blog that featured the camp manager. Details please!

Not much to report in the detail department here. Made an omelet of sauteed onion, tomato, and goat cheese for breakfast, with awesome thinly sliced brioche from Balthazar which makes perfect toast. Lunch was leftover chicken and cole slaw, which I'll make again soon - refreshing & delicious. Dinner will be grilled steak and salad. Besides the storm last night, KZE played song after favorite song of mine, to my endless delight, I love listening in my halfsleep. You are never far from my thoughts. I finished the Browning memoir and returned it to the library this afternoon. There I looked at a flickr set of photos from the friends at whose apartment I stayed last week (seems like so long ago now). He's an amazing photographer, beautiful images of Acadia and iconic ancient New England barns and architectural details - what an eye. I idly wonder what kind of camera he uses. I had a great camera once. I bought it at some used camera shop in Denver in the mid-eighties. I was on a business trip, about to take Amtrak to California to attend my brother's wedding, so I bought a camera so that I could be sure to record the trip. It took beautiful, beautiful pictures. I think I have a pretty good eye, but that camera had some transcendant quality to it. I would enjoy having a really good camera like that again, only digital. I used to spend a small fortune in film and film developing. Nice to get away from that.

I'm in a quiet langorous mood. Jerrice is playing lovely, sweet, lilting songs. You've come in twice this afternoon, once from Jersey City, just now from New York - I know it's you. Hey you. I just checked the weather in your parts, haven't actually done so in the last week. 43 and overcast and no flights coming in at the moment, not to Shishmaref anyway. Is the weather where you are similar? Perhaps it's very different. I think I read someplace (probably that blog) that conditions are very buggy. Maybe the gradations are very fine as I seem to recall they are on, say Cape Cod, tides and weather markedly different on the bay versus ocean sides.

I am just rattling on here, musing and thinking of you and sipping wine and listening to music and just connecting with you. The thought makes me smile - literally - pleasing hydraulics of emotion.

Now Jerrice is playing a song by Bettye LaVette. Until Jerrice I've never heard of Ms. LaVette. Jerrice runs a KZE spot to promote her show and says something to the effect of "and I'll play contemporary favorites such as..." - I forget who she names, but they're all familiar names, and she caps off with -- "and Bettye LaVette." And I standing at the sink or stove or in the car, say out loud, Bettye LaVette? Who's Bettye LaVette? (It's become a bit of a worn shtick around here I'm afraid, because D doesn't seem to have been aware of her either.) The other day I was at the stove cooking, that chard pasta dish I think, and I turned on Tavis Smiley. (It's pretty rare that I turn on the TV at all, so I rarely catch his show.) Guess who he had on at that precise moment? Bettye LaVette!

(How do I know how the great soul singer-songwriter's name is spelled? I just fact & spell-checked.)

Went downstairs for ice and stepped out the back door onto the porch in my long cotton robe. Beautiful light just now, flickering light and shadows, a darkening day, cats prowling to and fro, flowers highlighted. I love you darling and hope the camp manager's foray into eggs benedict for 32 went okay. It is not easy to poach eggs for so many people and to keep the delicate hollandaise from curdling. I give him, and you, a lot of credit. As Tavis Smiley says, keep the faith.

XOXOXOXO