My dearest Prince Albert - boxers - briefs - or pantaloons with nothing underneath? You know, I really don't know that about you. Though I'm reminded of a tiny memory I have, Xmas shopping with your wife at a mall, many many years ago. She selected a pair of pajamas for you, the very type that her father would wear, mine too, surely too "old" for you, all of us then in - what - our early thirties? I don't recall the design offhand - two-piece flannel plaid perhaps, in a package - but vividly remember thinking, much too old. I wonder if I said anything, if I did it must have been, at most, offhand & gingerly. The pajamas got bought, I'm sure of it.

My dear love, sitting up here in the aerie feeling half-collapsed with exhaustion that's just now swept over me. I did have a busy day, between a workout and a walk, standing on my feet slicing and dicing, and before settling down up here, giving the entire house a once-over with the vacuum cleaner, including the stairs, which usually I leave for D because the vacuum's a little too heavy and awkward for me, but I had a burst of energy, though then flagged, and only dropped the machine - accidentally down the stairs - once. The handle snapped off, but it seems like the machine's failsafe, like airbags in a car, because I was able to readily pop each side back on. I'm glad I didn't break the thing. But the stair runner absolutely needs to be replaced, I love the fabric, but it's all coming out of its tacks, pulling away from the risers. An eyesore, trip hazard, and embarrassment. I have never viewed myself as living "this way."

Gorgeous today, the world becomes greener by the day, maybe by the hour even. Maples are leafing out, it seems a trifle early but maybe not, and I'm certainly not complaining. Saplings we (D) planted the first couple of years here are bigger this year, finally almost, just almost taking off - still spindly, but very tall, like gangly teenage boys at that stage where their voices are breaking. I'm just glad that they're increasing in height, that they're taller than me, and one day I hope they'll be in good scalar proportion to the house - that is, that the trees will be much taller than the house, which will then feel nestled in a landscape of green pleasant shade.

On my walks around here I pass a house that is so beautifully situated on its property that I marvel. It is set back far from the road, surrounded by mature, sweepingly high trees, including pines and a willow. The trees are so graceful and tall, that the house so far back reminds me of a doll house - it is the loveliest effect, the entire composition together. I like that relation of tree:house, the former much taller than the latter. Which is the goal here, at this house, but it will be a while... but cedar deodoras planted in 1990 in Brooklyn are now taller than the brownstones - amazing!

Looking forward to dinner. The slicing & dicing was of vegetables. As part of my re-entry back to my life here, I perused the vegetable bins in the fridge and saw that there was a miscellany to get to - what to make? I decided - caponata, a kind of Sicilian ratatouille of onion, eggplant, plum tomato, red wine vinegar with a bit of sugar dissolved in it, capers and olives (blanched to remove aggressive saltiness), plus diced zucchini since I had it. The vegetables mostly are cooked separately, then folded together and tossed with the red-wine vinegar dressing & salty condiments - I really like it spooned on plainly sauteed white fish, on a bed of rice. So that's what we'll have. I logged off earlier and "dialed up" D on his cell on his job somewhere north of here and asked him to stop by the supermarket on his way home and pick up a piece of fish, to which he readily agreed, delighted to learn that I'd made caponata, so he knew just the sort of fish he should get.

My darling, whatever your style, pantaloons, pj's, nothing underneath, or nothing period (god knows I'm forever tearing off my panties when I climb into bed), whether in darkness or siesta, thinking of you always, at my lush thighs & bottom and all that -

yours, devotedly, Princess B.

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