Random Sunday Thoughts

What's on my mind?  Well you may ask.  You might be surprised to know that it's not (primarily) the gentleman on the right...

Herewith, a few things I'm thinking about (once you can tear your eyes from the gentleman on the right.  I don't usually approve of tattoos, but for him I'd make just as much an exception as his companion, who's clearly giving a practiced eye at a crucial part of the view):

- Remember my hair?  Thanks to time, our thankful deliverance from the evil desalinated water of the Sandlands, and the DC summer climate, I can now nearly carry off a creditable Deneuve, as seen above (if the screen legend had sported a slightly raised hairline and had decided to go for salt-and-pepper with a bias toward the silver in place of her trademark flaxen).

- Living in a hotel apartment always makes me think of Dorothy Parker, although I suppose a suburban Marriott Residence Inn is something of a far cry from the kind of genteel/depressing Upper East Side establishments she haunted.

- The dogs, thank goodness (and somewhat to my surprise) have taken to apartment living like ducks to water.  They are admirably silent much of the time and seem to be enjoying their new surroundings.  We are, of course, walking them frequently (and just as frequently thinking nostalgically both of our little garden at the Villa Muscato and of dear Mrs. Galapatti-da Silva, who did yeoman walking duty once upon a time).

- Fortunately, it's not the sort of hotel that offers room service, or I can't imagine what kind of bills Koko might run up.  Given the chance, I'm quite sure he'd give Eloise a run for her money as a hotel hellraiser, with Boudi easily corruptible and perfectly willing to follow in his wake.

- Our emerging dilemma: live in a purchased place that's not where we want it and likely too small by a third, or bankrupt ourselves with a perfectly acceptable and exquisitely placed rental flat that might indeed be to Miss Parker's satisfaction (albeit not, technically, in a mid-century ladies' residential hotel).

- There is an inexpressible comfort in doing the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle on what is actually a real (i.e. non-working day) Sunday morning.  We are occasionally startled by our suddenly realigned week (one in which Mr. Muscato has never lived and I haven't for just under a decade), but on the whole it's something of a relief to be, as it were, back in synch.

And how's by you on what is, at least here, a lowering and gray Sunday morning?