Hi sweetheart, collapsed here yet again, in my altogether. It's sunny and hot, though quite tolerable as it isn't humid. But I'm beat because I ended up not cleaning the baths today, but instead doing battle, some, with the overgrown lawn. D's been doing some minimal mowing the last week or so -- a little too minimal for my taste, and plus areas he did a week or 10 days ago - needed to be clipped again. I would like to see the beautiful trees we planted stand out as distinct features in the landscape. I attacked one perimeter of our property, where the grass was waist-high, and inadvertently almost plowed over a baby pine tree we'd planted as a seedling -- it was completely inundated by all the tall grass around it --- and then I remembered we'd planted a small row of them, three or four, and sure enough, there they were, absolutely buried in the tall grass. So now they've been liberated, and between D and me, we mowed enough that if our Brooklyn house-swapping friends wish to take a leisurely stroll about our garden, drinks in hand, there is now a mown circuit, in which they can pleasantly revel at how peaceful it all looks --- oh, they have no idea! But of course - that's as it should be, for guests. I would like for them to feel that things are serene, effortless... I mean, that I made an effort for them -- for example, fresh flowers - roses - in vases all over the house -- but not that it was any kind of Major Project. Which it was -- and believe me, though it was a hardwon and exhausting battle, some incremental real progress was made on the house, such as a brand new really lovely Indian crewel-embroidered sheer curtain now hanging at the laundry room window, and so that that room looks a bit more intact from the so-called dining room (since there is no closed door between them), D even put on a coat of white primer on the bare drywall -- so suddenly, at least visually, that room is quite pleasantly tolerable, at least at a glance. Don't look too closely. Oh, at this point I don't care a whit about infrastructure... yes, I want things to look nice. Even if it's just an illusion... oh so what? It's all theatre anyway, a lot of it - isn't it?

I made nice gestures in the hospitality department ... baked cookies (oatmeal raisin chocolate chip, all combined), a plum coffee cake (that is, with last season's thawed plums - no armagnac, or vodka), and even a number of individual little pizzas, all from scratch, including the dough -- that's been rising explosively in a bowl on overnights -- I've found it in the morning puffed up like the top of a chef's hat, plastic wrap clinging to the top of it, the rubber band that was to hold things fast - clear across the room. And it's delicious... we'll all break bread together -- in absentia. I will probably lunch on mine tomorrow, on the train... D might microwave his in whatever vacant apartment he's camping out in... and our Brooklyn friends might enjoy theirs -- well, perhaps after that stroll around the mown garden. So peaceful here, unlike crazy Brooklyn!, I can almost imagine the wife of the couple dreamily sighing.

Crazy Brooklyn! I am looking forward to some serious R&R there, in their beautifully appointed fourth-floor walkup, peaceful treetop aerie -- mercifully, no work at all!

Many kisses, thinking of you, very much....

love, Belle