Hello my darling.  The new dishwasher has been delivered and awaits D's hooking it up this evening.  To propitiate the gods and to show proper gratitude, which I certainly feel, I scrubbed the upstairs bath, and vacuumed and dusted the bedrooms and aerie.  Phew.  Then I watered hanging baskets outside, set up chicken to roast for dinner, washed baking potatoes, and read an article in the NYRB - "The Most Happy Couple" about an art exhibition in London centered on Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, which led me to google Princess Beatrice (Sarah Ferguson's daughter) who is said to resemble the young Queen Victoria, much more so than the thin actress Emily Blunt who played her in a very enjoyable biopic I saw in Rhinebeck one inclement afternoon last winter.  Princess Beatrice is surprisingly voluptuous by today's standards.   Many would, and I'm sure do, call her fat - but I don't know - that's quite an hourglass physique (images of her in a bikini), full-breasted, nipped at the waist, flattish tummy (she's young yet), blooming out again at the hips and lush - very lush - thighs.  She has her father's features (Prince Andrew).  Interesting images.  If Queen Victoria looked like that - and she had a very passionate heart - then there must have been quite a lot of fun - the couple produced nine children, of whom the author of the article, Martin Filler, tartly surmises,

but she was much less thrilled about the consequences than the means by which they were created.  Victoria hated being pregnant, which she was for nearly a third of her twenty-one-year marriage; yet she and her scientifically minded spouse seemed remarkably ill-informed about birth control.  But the lady couldn't help it.  As... Piers Brendon, writes in Our Own Dear Queen:

Victoria had fallen passionately in love with the Prince.  She filled her journals with glowing tributes to his beauty, commenting artlessly on his elegant white pantaloons with "nothing under them," and gushed incessantly of her adoration for him:  "My dearest Albert put on my stockings for me.  I went in and saw him shave; a great delight for me."

Now that I have a mental image of the beach tents I have a little fantasy of being in one with you, falling asleep - eventually - in your arms.  I noticed in the forecast for your parts that you're finally going to have night at night - that is, for the foreseeable future an end to 24:00:00 hours of daylight.  Tonight there is to be a civil twilight, as it should be, with the length of visible light at 22 hours 38 minutes; the moon - 53% illuminated, rising after 11 p.m., setting within moments of sunrise, and "waning gibbous" - incredulous perhaps that it will soon again assume a nocturnal starring role.  

I've been wondering about your tome and surmise that perhaps it's been delayed by a couple of weeks at least, til you can be on the scene to pass cigars all around in honor of its appearance.  That's as it should be too, so I hope that's the case (or similarly happy theory).  I'm all in suspense as to the cover.  

A wonderful song is on at just this moment, Don't Mind Me, by the group Red Horse, comprising John Gorka, Eliza Gilkyson and Lucy Kaplansky (I caught an interview with them on NPR yesterday morning).  I love this song, so charming.  "Don't blame me... just want to get you on the ground... play a little lost & found... and if you turn away I'll just turn you back around...  oh baby please play your song for me..." In your little tent I'll play you my favorite songs - not all at once, one each evening, and you can read to me aloud, with impersonations, from the newest Making of the President, or from one of your books. I won't watch you shave - since you've grown a beard, and you won't put my stockings on for me - since I don't wear them.  Oh really darling, lost for so long, my love - now found.

I know you're smart - I think I'm done.  Very many kisses.