Daily Office: Thursday
¶ Matins: Did you know that Forsythia is a kind of olive? No, I didn’t, either.
¶ Tierce: Three items in the morning news, about: Googlegänger, people who have the same name as yours whom you contact or at least find out about via Internet search engine; the Tee-Pee Motel, in Wharton, Texas, restored by a Quick Pick winner (using $1.6 of his $47 million in winnings); and “the administration’s relentless antipathy for effective government,” this time manifested in a Census fiasco.
¶ Sext: Because I was running early, and the place hadn’t started to fill up for lunch, I got a table for one at JG Melon’s.
¶ Vespers: Goofing off most of the afternoon — but for a good cause. (Here’s a bit of Nanentertainment.)
Oremus…
§ Matins. My attempts to take a good picture of this year’s Forsythia have been dreadful flops, either too boring to look at or plainly out of focus. In other words, they’ve been of a keeping with one of the most difficult shrubs in the garden. Difficult because, after the bloom, the plant is nothing much to look at, and, because it grows with weedlike fervor in these parts, nobody thinks to prune it.
§ Tierce. Actually, I have a terror of men with my name. They’re likely to be gregarious sports fiends from Boston who pronounce “Mozart” with a soft zed. At least I’m as big as the run of them, if not bigger… The Texas story is really about a reporter who claims to have visited every one of the Lone Star State’s 8,438 populated places. In case you forgot, Texas is roughly the size of France… It seems that the Census Bureau’s expensive attempt ($600 million) to develop a “reliable handheld computer system for counting millions of Americans who are not counted by mail” has come to naught. But not so fast, Grey Lady! Taxpayers might feel that the pricetag was a leetle high, but my daughter met her fiancé while working on this project, so it was worth every penny, as far as I’m concerned.Â
Besides, I could have told you anyway that the relentlessly antipathetic administration wanted only to shovel hundreds of millions into private-sector coffers. God forbid that a reliable mirror-on-the-wall should issue as a byproduct!
§ Sext. I had no plans to be anywhere near Third Avenue and 74th Street (not above ground, anyway), but on the way uptown from my errand on 23rd Street, the 6 Train stalled at 68th Street. A power problem at 125th Street was announced. More than usually reluctant (if you catch my meaning) to be trapped indefinitely in a subway tunnel, I scooted off the train while the doors were still open, and made my way to the street.
I missed a few southbound cabs on Lex; then there weren’t any free taxis at all. So I walked over to Third, but there weren’t any taxis there, either. I resolved to walk home, stopping at a restaurant for lunch (&c) along the way. My idea was to give the recently relocated Hi-Life a try. I’ve never been, and I’d never been to the original, either. Surely it was time to fix that! But as I approached JG Melon, I could tell that the place was empty. It wasn’t yet noon. Although the fragrant string air would undoubtedly stimulate a frenzy for great burgers in the bar’s preppy clientele, the rush had yet to begin.
JG Melon is one of the Upper East Side’s clubs manqués. The way to join is to become a regular. Show up often enough and comport yourself in the correct manner, and you’re in. I would define “the correct manner” as behavior appropriate to a relaxed country-club grill room; most metropolitan area country-club grill rooms would look more like JG Melon if they could get away with it. Boisterous cameraderie here and there does not reach such a pitch as to put off the pairs of elderly matrons who have as much right to a green salad with blue cheese dressing as anybody else. As far as I know, no restaurant in town serves a better bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.
As someone who is a) not a regular and b) in need of a table for one, I usually just walk on by, no matter how intense my craving for Melon’s “cottage fries” — small pillows of pomme soufflé, as transporting to me as any other wafer-shaped comestible. Once or twice, I’ve overriden my sensible caution only to be given a look of condescending regret. I try to conceal the fact that Melon can do without me a lot more easily than I can do without Melon.
Today, I didn’t have to. Did I say what a beautiful day it is today?
§ Vespers. Assuming that Kathleen gets to North Carolina tomorrow, she’ll be giving her brother a silver 8G Nano that is being loaded by me as I write. It would be a wonderful way to goof off, if only I didn’t get so intense about transferring music from disc to device. But it has warmed me up to devise a rock playlist — this weekend for sure, man. I didn’t know how much I missed Arc of a Diver.