Hello my dearest. Did you find the snapshot I described the other day? That's my interpretation when I see that someone has landed on that very post by googling, "I like you better without a moustache." I take that also as - that you agree.

Ah, madness of the 21st century variety...

Up in the aerie like my grandmother's granddaughter - she too at the end of a day would retire to her delightful attic chamber, sit at her desk by the pair of charming latticed windows, and write. I would see her there on occasion, climb the narrow carpeted staircase to visit her, but I don't now recall her mode of writing. I imagine it was longhand - I don't remember a typewriter. And I'm sure she didn't sip from an icefilled glass of pink wine - though who knows? I certainly never went into her drawers. That's a nice memory I have of her, sitting at that desk, weary from a long day on her feet mostly, in the kitchen. She was always very very kind to me. She could be irascible with others, I know - my mother and her were oil & water, completely, as were my mother & my aunt, though my mother did like my uncle, and my grandfather too. But anyway, it's fair to say that I liked, loved everyone in that family - well, I was a child, with a loving heart, and that family seemed serenely untroubled, in that era anyway, and without a doubt, even if I may not be sufficiently knowledgeable or sympathetic to others' experience in this instance, but by all appearances it seemed very smooth and happy and orderly, and certainly so in comparison to the troubled hornets' nest I grew up in.

A thunderstorm rolled through here earlier this afternoon, much to my delight because I wasn't feeling very energetic or inspired, and so the sudden torrents spared me from having to water the garden. I love a good thunderstorm, and this afternoon it reminded me of a piece of music - the timpani of - orchestral timpani - and I thought - what piece of music am I thinking of? And then I realized (didn't take long) that it was a movement from Elgar's Enigma Variations, a work that I adore, have long adored, ever since first hearing the Nimrod, as I now recollect, up in 1.0's attic where we initially quite chastely hung out together, and he'd put on an LP of the soundtrack from Young Winston, on which the Nimrod is passionately contained, while he explained, with great enthusiasm and exuberance, the elaborate historically accurate layouts he had set up on a table, re-enactments of one epic military battle or another, miniature armies set up on maplike painted-landscape cloths. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I'd listen raptly, noting his features (aquiline nose, sweep of his hair, etc., etc.) and nod, and lose myself in the mounting musical swells, and it wasn't til quite a while later, weeks and weeks, my education progressing by minute degrees, that we got into ---

Where was I?

Ah, so anyway, back to the Enigma Variations - one of my very favorite pieces of music. There have been times, such as when my heart began to run amok three years ago, that I played it loudly, and often, in my aerie lair, but the sound carried downstairs, where D hangs out.

D hates the Enigma Variations, or my playing it, anyway. It signifies something to him, and I suppose he's not wrong.

So after the storms I went out and snipped flowers for vases, truly one of the joys of summer. The garden is a mess, but it gives beautiful bouquets.

And that's it, darling, other than making progress in the E.D. biography, making cole slaw, going for a walk at the conservation area, and doing a workout to Steve Carell on Charlie Rose. I liked Carell's observation that any person, any character within a narrative doesn't know if they're in a comedy or drama, so don't try to be funny, or dramatic, just play it...

And too, he said - above all, listen. He probably didn't mean to the heartrending Nimrod, but in case that warhorse has eluded you - here it is - crank it if you can.  The sound quality isn't the best in this video, but I'm mesmerized by Barenboim's beautifully gesturing arms and hands.  I have a wonderful utterly over-the-top recording by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult that would make Emily Brontë weep and fling her draft of W.H. aside as insufficiently passionate...

Good night you. Big hugs. XOXO