Margo and Molly and Greg. Oh. My.

So, Craig, my friend who was going to stay at Idlewild while I’m away had to pull out.  Tch!  Something about Hollywood…?  a job…?  big bucks…?  I dunno; some mess like that.  Craig!  We hardly knew ye!

 

Exit Craig; enter Craigslist. 

 

Yesterday AM a car pulled into the driveway with three wayward youngsters looking for a place to escape the city for a few months during the grueling heat of the summer.  A couple and their friend.  Hmmm…  They got out, looked around and I sent them on their way to scope things out and get a feel for the place.

 

After a few minutes they came, like supplicants before the rental deity, asking if they might be allowed to… was it too much to hope for… 

 

I was merciless.  I ground them into powder.  They twisted and squirmed like putty through my fingertips (to blend several metaphors.)  By the time I was done they were begging me just to allow them to leave with even a shred of humanity left.  If only I would point them in the direction of the Thruway!!!!

 

OK, maybe it wasn’t quite like that.  In point of fact, I fell in love with the entire trio and I had to catch myself from offering to pay them to stay here.  We drank tea on the deal (as Greg observed) and that was that.  No fuss, no muss, no polishing the polish. 

 

Margo promises me she’s going to keep an Idlewild blog so I can enjoy the summer with them vicariously.  And Greg promises me he won't gut any large animals on the down side of a steep slope.  (You had to be there.)  And Molly promises to promise me something. They'll be spending a lovely "Jules et Jim" (in obverse) summer here in the country.  

(I suppose I made that last part up, but it is a sweet thought...)  

 

Which, of course, raises the point that the end of May (my departure date) is nigh approaching.  I’m doing as much work on the camper as I can and making whatever logistical arrangements need to be made for an extended leave.  (Which aren’t much, surprisingly.  My first long tour of the country--for two years with “Cabaret”—was before everything one needs to do could be done online, and it turns out one can pretty much walk out of one's house and pull one's door behind oneself and things more-or-less takes care of themselves.  Especially since one has one's very own M-G-M-more-stars-than-there-are-in-the-heavens residents in, uh, residence.)

 

I  am planting all the pots on the deck, even though I won’t be here to see them spill over with blooms.  It’s the existentialist in me, I guess.  T’maters, too.  Last summer, when I was working on the house, I’d walk out the front door to get a 2x4 or a tube of caulk or something and grab a Ripe Red on the way to the truck and eat it like a' apple.  I’m hoping I can get nasturtiums in before I head out.  They simply cascaded o’er the pots last year.  

Sigh…

 

[Note to self:  Quit it, will ya?  You’re not going to be here and you’re going to be somewhere really, really wonderful.]

 

And I will be.  All the details will be revealed once I settle into a routine on Saba, but my situation is going to be one that if you saw it in a Lifetime TV movie (I’m seeing Diane Lane in my role.  Or maybe Gabby Hayes.  Without his teeth.) you’d roll your eyes because nothing like that could ever happen.

 

Yup, if I were superstitious (I’m not) I’d be waiting for something terrible to happen (I’m not) to show me I’m really just dreaming all this (I’m not.)

 

Pictured below:  the Doyenne-In-Residence at Idlewild this summer.

Below her:  Jeanne Moreau.

Below him:  The Raimenteuse of Rivington

 

Sigh…