This afternoon, I took a nap. I never take naps. I took a nap in bed. By the time Kathleen left for the office, I’d been up to make her tea and toast — and then climbed back into bed. I sat up for a little while, but then got back into bed, and this was when I napped. I was that tired.

As how could I not be, the day after spending more than eight hours in sole charge of my three year-old grandson? Of course, I shouldn’t have been able to do it at all a year ago. But Will is not a toddler anymore; he doesn’t always have to be watched or worried about. I cannot always understand what he says, but conversation does happen. There is a lot of giggling and laughing. (There is also the excitement and occasional confusion of putting diapers behind.) I think that we watched five hours of Kipper. In an episode that I hadn’t seen before, Pig is entranced by some fun-house mirrors. This inspired me to dig out the tape of A Damsel in Distress, and Will watched the entire fun-house scene without distraction, often beating out the rhythm. (I see that the movie — not to be confused with Whit Stillman’s strange Damsels in Distress, has come out on DVD.)

I picked Will up in the late morning, and we went straight to the barbershop, where we didn’t have to wait long for Tito to be free. Will spontaneously followed Tito to the chair, while I stayed behind in the back, re-reading Maurice Keen’s Chivalry. From time to time, I would peek towad the front, and invariably Will would be sitting patiently and still, while Tito snipped at his mop. 

Then we walked to the Museum, where we walked a lot more. The place was packed. I wanted Will to look at two things, Homer’s Gulf Stream, which Will has seen before, and which this time elicited stern warnings from my grandson: sharks should not eat boats. They should not eat people! And the angels of the fifteenth-century Netherlands, of which the Museum has a nice collection, in old-master galleries that proved difficult to reach for one reason and another. (Is the newly-acquired portrait of Talleyrand being installed?) The other day, Will stood on a stool and watched (briefly) as I beat egg whites for an angel-food cake. That’s what set to thinking about angels, and enabling Will to make the acquaintance of some kitsch-free examples.

When we came out of the Museum, it was beginning to rain, so we had to come back to the apartment for the rest of the day. Somewhere between seven and eight, Megan appeared, and then Kathleen, and we ordered in Chinese. Will, all energy spent, fell asleep in his mother’s arms as we talked at the table.

***

I’ve been meaning to say an extra word about John Kenney’s Truth In Advertising, which was advertised in today’s Times as being on sale at select (named) independent bookshops, dont Crawford Doyle. Good! I’m glad that I don’t have to persuade Dot McClearey to stock it. The ad featured a snip from a Times review that I’d missed, if it did appear in the paper proper, by Susannah Meadows, that mentions “a surprisingly sweet romance.” This romance is the most appealing thing about Truth In Advertising, but it’s difficult to write about because it’s bashfully understated — which is no small part of the charm — and difficult to capture without quoting reams of dialogue that, out of context, might very well leave the reader — the reader of a review — feeling that you had to be there. The romance develops almost entirely on the telephone, although when Finbar Dolan, the hero, is in the same room as Phoebe Knowles, you can feel the weakness in his knees. What makes Kenney’s novel so special is the way in which true love is attained as if by ju-jitsu: Fin has only to let his bad family history drop away for Phoebe to fall into his arms. Even this is tricky to say,  because there is nothing therapeutic about Kenney’s tale, even if Phoebe is the best thing that ever happened to his hero. You have to read it.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 at 7:37 pm.