I spent the greater part of yesterday looking for things.
I have lived/worked in my office for more than 40 years and
though it looked like a hoarder's domain, I knew where everything was.
Even now, with the office completely empty I find myself starting to go in
there to get something or to put something things away because I know
exactly where it is supposed to go.
But nothing is there. It is everywhere else. Ned did a
great job of making sure that everything I needed was accessible, but I'm
old...they are not in the right place. Envelopes, for example,
go in a box on the floor to the left of my desk, where I can reach them
easily. I spent about 15 minutes yesterday looking for the envelopes
when, in fact, he had put them on the cabinet right behind my computer
monitor, which is in plain sight and easily accessible...only since the
monitor was hiding them, it took me that long to see them. (They are
now back on the floor to the left of my desk where I can reach them easily.)
You don't think of which things you're going to need close
at hand until you go looking for some oddball thing that you often look for
and it's not there. I spent a long time looking for the binder which
holds the pocket letters I've received and the one(s) I'm currently working
on. I searched everywhere. I even wrote to Ned to see if he
remembered where he put it. About a half an hour, and much frustrated
tearing of my hair, I finally found it. He had put it in the place I
was least likely to look for it...right where I'd left it. It had been
on the kitchen table and to make space on the table for Walt and me to eat,
he had moved it from one side of the table to the other and it was slightly
covered by something else. I felt pretty stupid.
He is coming by today to start getting the walls ready
to be
painted, but then he'll be gone for a week, so it will be awhile before
it's
time to think about moving all of this back. By that time I will have
this temporary office all set up efficiently and it will be
"mine" again. But in the meantime I continue to hunt for stuff.
My desk has now also become a food preparing station.
I found myself shelling peas on the desktop with the keyboard moved out of
the way, and when time came for dinner. I ate at the desk because there
really is only place for one of us to eat at the table. It's going to
be great when it's all done and it was so long in the coming.
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We had a gourmet dinner last night.
May 18 is the day I always cook Kraft dinner, which
was one of David's favorite foods. In fact, at his memorial
service, which was a pot luck, we made a huge bowl of Kraft dinner.
think only family ate any of it.
(I chose not to make another of his favorites:
peanut butter and tuna sandwiches!)
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of David's death.
It just doesn't seem possible that he has been gone almost as long
as he lived. It was 20 years ago...and it was only yesterday.
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Last night we went to see Motown, the Musical, which
is the story of Berry Gordy and the creation and rise of Motown records and
a whole genre of music.
When talking to me about the upcoming show, my editor wrote,
"I can't wait to read it [my review]. I've been wanting to see this one. I
love Motown music -- always have. A lot of it was largely before my time,
but for some reason it's always got my toes tapping. Maybe it has something
to do with the fact that The Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go" was the
number one song in the nation the day I was born."
I was less enthusiastic. I checked the show, which
contains parts of 68 Motown recordings, to see how many would be familiar to
me: 5. 5 out of 68. I was not a fan of Motown (or most
rock genres of the time).
So this was a difficult show for me and it will be a hard
review to write because I don't really know what I'm talking about, though I
will definitely not paint myself as any sort of an expert in Motown music.
For me, the overwhelming things about the show were that (a)
it was extraordinarily long ... two hours and 45 minutes, which is longer than
just about every other musical I've seen and (b) it was so loud I actually
had to plug my ears with my fingers. I haven't decided how I want to
handle that because this is the era of loud rock concerts and admitting that
I longed for ear plugs brands me instantly as an old fuddy duddy...which I
am.
But the audience was enthusiastic, the costumes were
gorgeous, the dancing energetic and very good so it will be a good review.
As each of the various groups came on stage, the Temptations, the Vandellas,
the Commodores, etc, the crowd would break into delighted applause. In
fact, I couldn't identify any group except the Jackson 5, which was easy
because Michael was a small child. I'm going to have to pull out all
of my critic tricks to get this review written because I want to give the
show the good review it deserves.
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