Darling love, Lois on the Autobahn here - no, not really, I'm reformed, though I did do a lot of zipping around the county yesterday, pressing the limits - though not exceeding them - especially what with all the assorted law enforcement types out in force this weekend, in far newer spiffier vehicles than mine, paid for by taxpayers in this local communist state. It pays to work in government in the county - then one has a salary & benefits - or to be a weekender from the city. Is that it for the local economy? Not really, but between the two, that must cover a hefty percentage.

Anyway - I'm completely rambling. Lois on the Autobahn - that's the title of a song, by Bruce Cockburn, on today's KZE playlist. Do you see why sometimes I take those song titles personally? Such as, by Pink Martini, Donda Estas, Yolanda?, though they didn't play that today - not yet anyway.

Darling, how are you? I'm putting my arms around you and giving your wonderful self a great big hug and kiss, just like six months ago and a day. (You felt really good.) Ah, only five months and 30/31sts for another go, but who's counting.

I've been having a nice weekend, feeling organized and on top of things at the moment, as I sit up in the aerie at this soft hour, light mellow, birds tweeting outside. It was a weekend of chores, and of treats, such as yesterday, vacuuming the downstairs followed by a jaunt to the sheep farm for camembert. My psyche seems to require a dangled carrot in order to get me to do heavy chores. I've been procrastinating on cleaning the bathrooms, past really what I can stand, but I hate that chore so much, though of course enjoy the results. Today I had the car for most of the day, so I dropped D off at a job in town, went for a walk at the conservation area, and toyed with the idea of taking myself out to lunch at that stylish restaurant I like followed by a movie at the multiplex. The plans solidified when D realized, as we drove in, that he'd forgotten his cellphone so could I drop it off for him later. In the crunch 45 minutes between the walk and going back into town with the phone, I sprint-cleaned the two baths, even laundered the shower curtain liner. Ah, so nice to have that chore behind me. And what was the carrot for me? The prospect of an elegant little repast, along with a glass of chilled white wine. I was one, at a table for two, and I imagined you sitting there across from me. My imagination is getting quite vivid - maybe it's those 10,000 hours of practice Gladwell talks about - I mean, without at all hallucinating. I enjoyed sitting in my beautiful outfit (elegant formfitting blouse & skirt), glancing around the room - some bored Hollywood moguls evidently, three guys, two of the three at any given moment either talking on their cells or texting, I guess that's very usual these days. And the glass of wine was delicious, cool & dry, and I ordered odd things from the brunch/lunch menu - I'd had scrambled eggs for breakfast, so an omelet was out, as was anything too heavy such as a pulled pork or skirt steak panini. Plus we're having fish for dinner - homemade tuna burgers - so that ruled out the salmon cake. So I ordered two appetizers (to my mind, though they weren't listed as such), bacon-wrapped dates, a half-dozen toothpicked morsels, smoky & sweet at the same time - candy for grownups, I said to the young woman serving me. I've had something like it before - dried figs stuffed with a dab of blue cheese, wrapped in cooked bacon, and baked. That, darling, is incredibly divine, those seemingly incongruous flavors & ingredients coming together into a very very Big gourmet O. And darling, I really do find food porn - because there's so much of it - quite tiresome, but that particular combination - is, as are thoughts of you when it's working right, monstrous.

The second mini-plate was a pork "rillade" (I think was the word), a very mild pâté, which I suppose was delicious - darling it was, except that it was so delicate that between the sips of mineral wine & the coarse dijon it was served with - I mostly tasted the mustard, and savored the crunch of the potato-chip-thin crisp, toasted baguette slices upon which I luxuriously smeared a smidgen of the pâté, then dabbed with a mustard seed or two, sip of wine, bracing chaser of thin sliced pickled cabbage. Oooh! So many individual sensations!

So that chamber concert of mouthfeels came to $28, but I had a half-price certificate, and left a tip - so in all I paid $17.50. Worth every penny at that price. At $28 - plus tip? No. And so I don't go there unless I have the coupon. D said to me, management must regret when you come, since you don't pay full price. And I said, management should be happy, because without the coupon I wouldn't come at all. And I leave a good (20 percent) tip for the waitstaff, so they shouldn't care...

So darling, you sitting across from me in that clean lightfilled space - as it happened I was staring at the bar, with all the bottles on shelves decoratively arranged, and I suppose you would have been staring at me, and at the wall behind me - I was against a wall.

I settled the bill, and then drove, with all kinds of four-ounces of exquisite wine-induced amorous thoughts of you lasciviously mouthed as I drove 20 m.p.h. by the school even though it's Sunday - to the multiplex where I caught the new Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris, which isn't one of his greatest, but was cute, and I enjoyed it. And if one is going to yearningly search for the golden age of artistic time travel - in the Woody Allen movie, it was, for a charming pair of characters, a toss up between Paris in the 1920s, and Paris in the Belle Epoque 1890s. An idea in the film is that one isn't always satisfied with the present - one thinks of some previous epoch as the - apex? apotheosis? epitome? - which word do I mean? (darling, I'm fading, along with the light, and should head downstairs to feed cats, etc.) - an era that should one have been graced with being alive in it, would have been the era to be in. I wonder what it might be for me. God knows I feel uncomfortable in this one, especially after seeing Michele B. on Face the Nation this morning with her Snow White's Evil Stepmother looks, her machinelike self invoking the name of God every two seconds and looking as if she would relish simply chopping off the head of whoever - namely, the President - is in her merciless path - but I digress.

And I wouldn't wish to be E.D. in Amherst, c. 1830-1886, her dates. At the conservation area I suppose I was dressed a bit like her, 2011 updated style, it occurred to me when I ran into an acquaintance. My hair was pulled back off my face, clipped in a bun, I was wearing a midnight-blue top with a black skirt, sporting weights & sneakers. I have fifty pounds or more easy, I imagine, on E.D. And yet...

What era? I don't know, I'd have to think about it, my dear love. So, shall we get the check and quit this hamburger stand? Allow me, I have a certificate - I don't even have to print it out. And a very beautiful private bedchamber that we can retire to for a couple of hours, for a nap and a siesta.

(coach whispering talking points in Michele B's ear...)
Oh, those are two different things?

***
darling, oh ugh, I hate to leave on the punchline of her
so very very many completely unironic ridiculously passionate kisses for you

love you
XOXO