Meanwhile I returned to the kitchen counter, opened the cabinet door where my vitamins are stashed, arranged and opened them on the counter top and spilled them into my cupped right hand. Opening another cabinet door I surveyed the available equipment and fished out a blue fired earthenware mug, filling it with about an inch of water from the kitchen faucet. Tossing the vitamins in my mouth with a quick motion I washed them down with a swallow of water.
By this time the coffeemaker had deposited about two cups of brewed coffee into the carafe, and since it was quarter to five, and I wanted to get my eyes focused in a hurry, I poured a cup of the "high test" liquid -- dark enough to be espresso -- and pivoted toward the refrigerator for the milk. On occasion I microwave the swirled dark brew if it doesn't feel warm enough to keep for a few minutes. But it seemed passably hot, so, mug in hand, I clicked off the stove hood light and headed through the dining room and into the living room in the dark. Carefully setting the mug down on a sandstone coaster on a wing table near my favorite couch, I switched on a brass table lamp, settled upright on the couch, reached for The Paris Wife with my left hand and the blue mug with my right, and prepared to read.
Thus began my last day of May, 2013; a routine that is very infrequently deviated from, day to day, week to week, month to month.
***
Well past the first third of the book, Paula McLain's narrative continues at a fast clip. This morning's dramatic turn of events occurred as Hadley packed up her husband's (Ernest Hemingway's) creative work at their Paris domicile, intending to take them to Lausanne, Switzerland, where Ernest is on a reportorial assignment. Disaster strikes -- the valise in which Ernest's writings (every scrap and draft) are stored is stolen off the train. Hadley knew what an unimaginable loss this was for a virtually unpublished writer, and it's no wonder that McLain has her sobbing uncontrolably when she meets Ernest at the Swiss station.
Engrossed in reading for a little over an hour, the grandfather clock struck six before I withdrew from my comfortable place on the couch, placing a bookmark in The Paris Wife to orient my next session. Then I slipped onto the carpet, began my preliminary stretches for the exercise routine that took me to eight-thirty. The additional situps and doubled activity on the elliptical are the chief culprits for keeping me more physically engaged than ever.
Finishing up I weighed in, again at 169.5, dutifully noted in the black notebook next to the scale, and headed for breakfast.
***
Rain was again forecast for the day, so as I dressed I also set aside a canvas bag with an umbrella and a windbreaker. My noontime destination was lunch with friend John at restaurant Vivo, a little over a mile from home. I left the house purposely early to go the long way around on the River Walk so I could spend a few minutes to watch the Muskegon River cascading southward out of town.
Got to the restaurant a few minutes early -- good thing, it was filling up quickly -- and surveyed the menu ahead of John. Among many topics of conversation was my reading of The Paris Wife and my complaint about a couple apparent anachronisms of terminology that had distracted me. I repeated my experience of being jarred from the 1920's dialogue into the modern era, much as Christopher Reeve had been thrust back to modern day in the movie Somewhere in Time when he found a modern day penny in his pocket. To which friend John responded, it's one of his favorite movies, and that he and his brother had been extras when the film was shot in Mackinac Island. John's scene was cut in the final version, but his brother is still to be seen. How small the world is!
The movie happens to be one of my favorites as well (after all, Christopher plays a guy named Richard), but only have it in a VHS version.
I've never been so carried away by a photograph as Christopher Reeve/Richard Collier was of Jane Seymour, but I've often thought I'd like to have met my great grandfather's only sister, Margaret Jane Cochran. This photo of her was taken about the same time as the love object of the film:
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| Margaret Jane (Cochran) Robinson (1875-1964) |
After lunch I retraced my path, back along the River Walk, and there encountered a former colleague from Ferris State and enjoyed a brief conversation. A few blocks from home I similarly encountered another, and caught up on the news of the day.
***
Poked around the basement and garage in the afternoon and attended to some small projects, ending an agreeable day and month.
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