Giving Thanks

.

The thing I'm thankful for this year, this awful year?

Reality, Or What Passes For It

As so often in troubled times, my dears, this last little while I've more than once had need of a Garbo Moment. Here we see her displaying a smile that, for me, rivals the one attributed to that Signora Gioconda about whom we hear so much.

Canine Update

As promised, here you go: a rare, unfiltered, utterly candid snap of the Café's bewitching blond, the one and only Koko. If you can't tell, he's waiting for treats.

Weekend Update

A quiet weekend at home, and herewith few random notes on life chez nous, at least a part of which will explain the choice of dear Mrs. Mortenson Baker Monroe DiMaggio Miller indulging herself in a little treat...

A Fond Return

Bonus points to the clever Gentle Readers who know for 

what poem this charming illo was originally intended...

So it seems I'm getting better.  I won't say it's all been roses, but from the beginning one is told over and over again that every day brings a little improvement, and on the whole that's proving true.  The mental and physical fog that follows the sort of things I've been through is lifting, and my convalescence, as of this week, is heading in new directions.

Unpack the Luggage La La La...

...Hi-ho the glamourous life!

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...

Sleeping Beauty

Now, normally Koko is a distinctly shaggy presence, but the steadily advancing return of summer this year combined with at last finding a decent groomer (a rather shaggy but not uncomely presence himself, as it turns out, but that's another story), and so here we see the dear boy shorn.  And, quite characteristically, napping.  Would that we all slept the deep, untroubled sleep of a spoiled terrier...

Koko Lives!

Several Gentle Readers have written in noting the comparative absence in these pages (in this digital data?) lately of that domestic tyrant, Koko the Wonder Dog. There were even fears of kidnapping, heaven forfend.

No, he's out and about as usual but hadn't, until I recently grabbed this casual snap, been in the mood for a portrait. He's funny that way, but then again some beauties are; for a terrier, he is rather Garbo-esque...

The Truth and Nothing but the Truth

I believe it's best if we simply have this out, frankly, in the open, so that there can be no more speculation and lies. We're all aware, I think, of the controversy that has swirled around us in recent months and the pressing question that seems to have obsessed so many:

Is Koko the Wonder Dog in fact eligible to be the Café's official spoiled canine?

I write now to denounce the parties, unknown but vicious, who have been circulating the blatant forgery shown above. I will state now and for the record that none of us have ever even been to Kenya (hell, I think I'm the only one of the three of us who's ever even seen Out of Africa). Besides, anyone who knows us knows full well that I stopped pretending to be 29 years ago. And I have never claimed to be a Windsor, never (Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen? Well maybe, but that's a different story).

No, I think we can let this matter rest. To me, the real question is: why won't that dog release his obedience school records? What does he have to hide? It's not like it's any secret that he does not roll over, and neither does he fetch...

(Get your own forgery here)

Vanity of Vanities

You know, I keep telling Koko he's way too young for these gauzy, shot-through-Vaseline portraits - that they're far too late-period Crawford, Ball, or Gabor for a canine of his age - but does he listen? Of course he doesn't listen.

What can I say? We live with a dog who wants to look like he's starring in a revival of Forty Carats at a south Jersey dinner theatre. I suppose it should come as no surprise...

To Tell The Truth

Damn Peenee! The evil creature has sentenced me via blogtag to write ten honest things about myself. Given that to me the whole point of blogging is a certain amount of obfuscation, this runs against the grain; add in the whole WASP “never begin a paragraph with ‘I’” background, and you have recipe for, if not disaster, then certainly discomfort.

Even so, when duty calls…

Herewith, my answers to the Honest Blogger Tag:

1. Just in case any of you were worrying/wondering: there really are a Mr. Muscato and a Koko the Wonder Dog, although neither is likely to respond if called by those names. They are both as wonderful as you might think from my feeble attempts at description, which sometimes leaves me gobsmacked at my good fortune. I may not be as beguiling as advertised, but they easily are, or more so.

2. I love our life here, but there are times – and they are usually trying times – when I truly, deeply, madly wish we lived somewhere more interesting. It’s a stunningly beautiful place, and the people are lovely, and we live lavishly…and there’s absolutely nothing to do on a weekend night. A slight exaggeration, but only slight. I miss old movies in rep houses, I miss live theatre of any kind, and concerts, and dancing, and smoky dark cabarets. I miss wandering around a neighborhood of clever little restaurants and trendy boutiques, and, alright, I’ll say it: I miss drinking in public – a glass of wine at a sidewalk café, say, and I miss drinking that wine while eating a pork chop and wearing shorts.

3. The weight: really must do something about it. And every passing month makes it harder to lose.

4. I might be the biggest walking stereotype you’ll ever meet. I really do love Judy Garland, and I do cry every time Beth dies in Little Women, and I can’t throw a ball to save my soul. I listen to Bette Midler albums and I quote Joan Crawford, and the way that I’ve most identified with my semi-adopted culture, Egypt, is by getting crushes on its divas and Big Movie Ladies. I’ve spent untold hours eradicating my sibilant “S” (having lived the childhood described by David Sedaris in his essay about speech therapy), and sitting in Big Serious Business Meetings I doodle random ideas for what I think Kate Middleton should wear when announcing her engagement. My wrists? Don’t ask; those hands are all over the place. My principal compromises with conformity and advancing age have been renouncing high-maintenance hair, my earring, and most cosmetics. I miss them all.

5. Egypt. I really do love the place in some way that approaches the mystical. When I was in third grade, like many kids, I went through an Egypt phase, but in my case it never went away. I was obsessive and weird, and I spent my teen years memorizing pharaonic succession tables and trying to teach myself Ancient Egyptian (note to any weird, obsessive teens reading this: you can’t). When I finally, as middle age approached, got to Cairo, it was everything I had thought it would be and more. And right there waiting for me was the love of my life, which when you think about it is almost too neatly tied up.

6. There is nothing in the world I like eating so much as well made mashed potatoes. Necessities: well-cooked potatoes, cream, butter, salt, pepper, maybe just a little garlic. Atrocities: cheese, bacon bits, chives, and the most horrendous of all possibilities, the addition of other root vegetables. My Great-Aunt Edna once tried to slip parsnips into hers, and I’m still recovering from the shock four decades later.

7. I have drifted away from far too many old friends simply by virtue of living so far away from them. It’s hard to keep up, and somehow all the new technologies don’t make it, really, any less so. The hard truth is that you are not there for either the good or the bad times, and the bank of shared memories that makes for great friendship becomes too rarely replenished to sustain the connection. I miss many of them, but in an increasingly abstract way that probably seems harsh and uncaring. I don’t think it is, but maybe I am harsh and uncaring.

8. Odd vanity: my elbows. I remember, when I was a young boy-about-town, thinking that the saddest sign of aging was ugly, wrinkly, loose-skinned elbows. It therefore makes me unreasonably, secretly proud of my taut, boyish arm joints.

9. When it comes to Barbie, I’m with Peenee, although I can go him one better: not only was she a guilty pleasure of my queer boyhood, but in the mid-80s I was, for a spell, a rabid collector (you should have expected that, I suppose, from #4). Somewhere in storage I have more than 50 Barbies, Midges, Teresas, various tragic knockoffs, a battered Julia, and even a coveted Billy Boy Barbie (that's her, albeit not actually mine, to the left - the most fab 80s outfit imaginable, although almost all now have lost their original glam updo as the rubber bands rot. Why do I still know this?). And lots and lots of clothes and tiny shoes.

10. This was surprisingly a great deal easier than I had expected. Perhaps I ought to sit down and think about myself more often. Since one of my greatest fears is succumbing to what I have always thought was potentially crippling narcissism, this idea is making me very anxious.

Time to go have that glass of wine, even if I can’t do it on the sidewalk…

Now I have to tag people: I'm going sic this one on Angry (and I bet she does it, 'cause she's a good sport) and MJ (who definitely is not and probably will not, but whose tantrum about not doing it will be as amusing as if she had).

Back on the Chain Gang

The face of a criminal

I generally find that fury isn't a good place to write from, and so to date have refrained from commentary on the latest local idiocy. If you would like all the details, Undercover Dragon has provided as usual a highly cogent rundown of the situation, as well as providing a platform for spirited discussion.

What it boils down to, however, is that the local Powers That Be have determined that animals - apparently in all forms, based on the vague wordings issued to date - are menaces to the public health that can only be tolerated between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

That's right: in a place where the midday temperature can climb above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, no dog-walking at dawn or dusk; no long strolls in the still-cool afternoons for us; no topping up of the local economy with leisurely stops at the local cafés. Not for that hideous miscreant we see here. In the works, it seems, are penalties including fines and even jail time (!).

Well, to paraphrase the fightin' words of the old adage, "When dogs are outlawed, only outlaws will have dogs." Both Koko and I are feeling edgier, more dangerous. We're ready to take on the world, Thelma and Louise style (although I do hope it ends better). Yesterday we stayed out at lunch with him until a truly rebellious 3:30.

No adverse consequences to report yet, but we'll keep you posted. If things fall suddenly quiet around here, it may because I've become a guest of His Majesty's Government.

Dog, Dunes, Afternoon...

So we continued our celebration of Mr. Muscato's birthday with a beach excursion on Friday, briefly bringing, we liked to think, a taste of Fire Island to a lovely stretch of coastline south of our fair city. A dozen or so kindred souls, a great many beach umbrellas, and enough white wine on ice to keep ourselves amused - it really was rather a magical day.

Happiest of all, predictably, was Koko, who got to run around leashless, eat barbecue, and torment herons (or egrets, or whatever the lovely leggy birds who wander the shore are. Nature has never been my strong suit). Fortunately, they're defiantly faster than he, so there were no unfortunate incidents. And he's still more or less conked out, which is just as well, 'cause so are we.

Heartbreaker

Sometimes I worry that I natter on too much about the damn dog. But then I come across one of these snaps and realize that in the face of perfection, one must surrender.

Besides, it's my blog. You want cats, go see Joe.

Black Friday Gripefest

Brave Joe has invited us to participate in his annual enumeration of all things annoying, and it just so happens that the last several days have given us here at the Café more than enough to grouse about.

So, herewith my contribution to Joe's Second Annual Turkeys of the Year. I admit its both a local and a personal concern, but it's one that has me - if I were to quote the immortal Ed Anger of The Weekly World News - madder than a pinko at a Young Republicans meeting:

Outdoor Public Establishments That Don't Take Dogs.

There. Just writing it down makes me feel better.

You see, hereabouts the weather is just about (as I may have mentioned before) perfect. And one of the few truly civilized innovations of recent times in this sleepy little capital on the Indian Ocean is a proliferation of café s and restaurants at which one can sit outdoors - from traditional Arabic coffee shops to Italianate bistros to innumerable iterations of StarCostaCupCafeBucks.

Logically enough, therefore, Mr. Muscato and I and our little band of friends like to go and sit at them. We pass the time, we smoke shisha if it's that sort of place, we dish the dirt and discreetly ogle passersby and generally make the most of this short part of the year that is not, in fact, so stinking hot you don't go outdoors.

And we like to go with Koko the Wonder Dog, who is, I have to say, an ideal guest: quiet, well-behaved, perfectly sized to fit under a table and equally happy to stay there, waiting for the occasional scrap or scratch on the ear.

And there's the rub.

Dogs, you see, are a sensitive matter in this part of the world, where local culture (and not Islam, don't let anyone tell you different - nothing in the Big Book but admonitions to be good to animals) make dogs more or less off limits. Now, I totally respect that. I would never take him to the house of someone who didn't invite him, and we only take him to places that are heavily if not mostly patronized by expats, in the middle of neighborhoods that are equally so. It's not like we're expecting Our Town to turn suddenly and overnight into Paris, where dogs are fixtures at even the gravest dining establishment (and where, to date, the world doesn't seem to have ended as a result, I might note).

Recently, though, several local establishments have made it clear that he is not a welcome guest, which means that they are places to which we will never return. Fortunately, they're also the places that are generally annoying in other ways, with slapdash service, mediocre food, and no particular attraction to their outdoor seating areas.

I'd hate to name names, but for local readers, the prime offender to date has been an eatery that rhymes with Karcy's Ditchen. A place which, I have to say, is definitely coasting on the memory of the days when it was the only casual Western spot in town, and where I'm happy to see that business has been getting thinner and thinner in general.

So that's my gripe. That and that it's still so far off until January 20. Even here, in the meantime, we feel very much stuck with those turkeys (more annoying even than officious local waitstaff), and that's not a good thing.

A Word From Our Household Tyrant

A reminder from Koko the Wonder Dog to all the Café's many patrons in the U.S. of A.:

VOTE!

We're even so in favor of the whole process that we'll forgive you if you don't vote the way we see it. But you ought to. But that's just me talking, not Koko. I have a feeling that deep in his dark little heart, he has a thing for Sarah Palin.

Just So You Know

Happy Dog...

...is Happy. Despite having survived his post-vacation Summer Clipping.

I'd like to think this portrait is rather in the style of the magnificent Baron de Meyer. I'd like to think so, but I know better...

In any case, I give you Koko the Wonder Dog, shorn.

On the Road Again, Happily

Yes, Mr. Muscato and I have finally fled Our Nation's Dreary Capital, for points north and far more festive.

We're not fifteen hours in Provincetown yet, and we've already had silly cocktails, seen the extraordinary Kate Clinton's act at the Crown & Anchor (courtesy of the crowd of Glamour Lesbians we have for various reasons fallen among), eaten enormous lobsters at the local institution above, caught the tail end of Bear Week, and even gotten a good night's sleep in our charming (read: tiny) lodgings.

All of our neighbors appear to have adorable, voluble dogs, which only remind us of our beloved, absent Koko, but, that aside, life is very, very good.

(image courtesy of the very talented e-pics)