Mango madness

Arnie trekked off to Grand Central this afteroon in the high 90 heat
to catch a train for Westport, CT to retreive Kate who had spent
this July 4th weekend with her friend Melanie and according to her mother, all was going so swimmingly that she was invited back for next weekend and to Jamaica for Christmas. Apparently my lessons about how to be a good guest must have taken, this time anyway.

I got to stay home with Miss Murray and enjoy the silence of the apartment and of the city which is still empty as the weekend warriors dragging their suitcases and carrying large bunches of flowers have not made their appearance back on city streets. And so I walked around the apartrment enjoying the space and noting areas which might require some maintenance or help. I don't want to pretend that I did a Rebecca thing walking through Mandalay but it's always nice to reclaim your space. Then I made one of my favorite pilgrimages to my cookbook collection which lives --along with most of my other books -- in Kate's room . Just browsing to see what's doing, who is cooking what and how I might shift our dinners around to be more interesting to me, most of all. Kate could probably subsist very happily on mac n cheese for the next 352 days. I have some time to think about this new direction because Arnie will be going to Vail on Wednesday and Kate and I already have a pretty full dance card.

We kicked the weekend off with a terrible movie. God I hate stupid women in life and certainly in the movies and books. The character that Cameron Diaz played in Knight and Day had me talking back to the screen before the movie had been on for fully 10 minutes. Yikes. So we left. It's all over for me when I don't cre what happens to the chracters.

Brunch with friends, short walks between air conditioned oases, workout at the gym, trip to Chinatown which I love because it's crowded and smelly are feats of endurance for Kate and Arnie because it's crowded and smelly. More walks with Miss Murray and soccer, tennis and books. That's pretty much it.