The cure for anything

   “The cure for anything is salt water -- tears, sweat or the sea.”  

          Isak Dinesen

Private party

Back in New York for a conference, I head out of my disappointing hotel for dinner, which I plan to have at A Dish of Salt –- the Chinese restaurant where I had dinner the night after I took my first deposition ever, in Rockefeller Center, on a snowy night in December, just days after I was admitted to the bar.

I set off down 5^th Avenue, past the places that I know.  FAO Schwartz, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick’s.  Along the way I angle around a bit, looking for stores or buildings or anything that catches my eye and triggers some memory of a place I walked to just once before, years ago, in the same way that I can walk up a stream for just the second time, years after the first, and remember riffles between the rocks where I found trout. 

Sure enough, by following the little things that catch my eye, I come right onto A Dish of Salt.  “Closed this evening for a private party,” the little sign says.  Ah well.

I set off down the street again, looking now for inspiration.  Along the way I remember reading something in a magazine about the Oyster Bar at Grand Central, so off I tack in that direction. 

And so, at my little table among the other crowded little tables, I have a Brooklyn Pilsner, some Duck Point oysters, and then a plate of grilled smelts, which I sprinkle with sea salt, and coleslaw.  All of which seems fabulous.

You can have your private party this evening.  And I will have mine.

China Mist Jade Dragon Garden Palace

   If I owned a Chinese restaurant I would name it the China Mist Jade Dragon Garden Palace.  And if it did well, and I opened another one, of course I would name it the China Mist Jade Dragon Garden Palace, Too.  And if these did well, and I opened a restaurant downtown, just for dim sum, I would call it Some Yum Yum Dim Sum.  

   I need to get some matchboxes made.

So much chemistry

   One morning, walking to the train, awash in high spirits, good humor and good will.  That evening, overrun by agitation, which one seeks to dissipate with booze –- or better, hard exercise.  

   So much chemistry, accidental and otherwise. 

Liking this

     I am working away on a brief when a small box appears on my computer screen with this notification from Facebook:

Fred Mikkelsen To all the doubters and nay-Sayers -- Red Sox won! Julie Lefebvre and 5 others like this.

      How much I like that Julie likes Fred's post is hard for me to say.  These are people I went to school with from kindergarten all the way through high school, the way you do in a small town.

   Julie was Julie Houghton, a cute girl with nice clothes whom all of the boys fell in love with at one point or another, including Fred, a perpetually awkward kid who never stood a chance with girls like her.

   After high school Julie went off to the Bauder School of Fashion, or something like that, in Atlanta, where she quickly fell in with a sorority and acquired both a southern accent and an engineer from Georgia Tech, who soon married her and just as soon began hitting her, until Julie's dad went down to Atlanta to bring her home

   And then before too long she was Julie Lamb, having married a Brit -- the unfortunately named Graham Lamb -- and spent some time in England where she quickly acquired a British accent.  Julie and Graham had two children, now gone.  Graham, too.

   And now she is Julie Lefebvre, married to an older-looking, heavy-set, goateed coach for the San Francisco Giants baseball team.  Her Facebook page has photos of her in a Giants jersey, drinking beer, not so thin as she always used to be.

   I met the first two husbands, but not this Joe Lefebvre.  I wonder what he's like.  And what he thinks the odds are that this love of theirs will last.  Who knows, maybe the third time is a charm.  Or maybe Joe is husband three of four, or five, or six.

   The husbands may come and go.  But Julie and Fred, who met when they were five or six years old, in 1967 or '68, are friends on Facebook.

     Daryl likes this.  

After ours

   The last high school basketball game that I played ended the way that most of them did for me.  Spent, and losing.  I got fouled with two minutes left.  As I went to the line for my free throws, Coach Collins pulled someone off the bench to sub in for me when I was done.  Perhaps he was giving me a chance to be applauded by the home crowd in my last game.  Perhaps he was just knew that I had emptied the tank and was ready, finally, to sit down.  Either way, I knew these two foul shots would be my last.  I made them both.  This happened over thirty years ago.  But I remember how it felt to sit down at the end of the bench -- tired, sore, sweating freely, my face buried in a white towel.  

   I always said that I would not care, and then, when the time came, that in fact I did not care, if my kids were athletes, as long as they did something -- music, dance, art, whatever.  And that was true.  But I have also said that I was happy my girls were athletes.  And that is also true.  

   Rachel's last high school volleyball game was this past week.  She doesn't plan on playing club volleyball this season, so this was the end of the road -- the last real game, in a real league, with uniforms and coaches and officials, the score of which will end up in a newspaper.  Her team was up two games in a best-of-five match with Weston.  Her turn to serve arrived when the score was 16-15.  You play to 25 and up by two.  I wasn't taking pictures this day, just enjoying her last match.  But this was the last time she ever would serve -- the signature part of her game.  So I took a couple shots of her in the ready position -- focused, calm, looking like she is ready to shoot an arrow through the heart of something.  She makes three serves in a row, with an ace.  The other coach calls time-out to stop the momentum.  Rachel comes back with more, and another ace.  Another time-out.  And now we're thinking, could she really serve this thing out?  It means not just making nine serves in a row, but of course having your team win all those points to keep serving.  Why yes, she can, and they can, and so this is how her volleyball career ends -- running the table.  

   These are, I know, small moments on small stages.  But ours.

I only have eyes for you

You are here and so am I.   

Maybe millions of people go by,
   

But they all disappear from view.

And I only have eyes for you.