August:
Getting Vacant
9 August 2011

To bed shortly past ten, up before seven — a good start; it were better were today not the eleventh of our allotted month. So much for numbers. The days pass quickly, because nothing happens. Megan took Will for a swim in the bay yesterday afternoon, and I thought to ask her to check on the milk supply before she left, but never got round to mentioning it. Will has been drinking a lot of milk — half a gallon a day, it almost seems — and, sure enough, we were almost out. So when Megan got back from the beach, I set out for the market, and I got there quickly, it seemed, even though I wasn’t hurrying. I was back at the house in forty minutes. (More numbers and more.)

I promised Megan that I would join her and Will for the bayside swim this afternoon. She acquired a canopied float for Will that clearly requires the cooperation of two adults. To get an idea of what it looked like, she blew half of it up yesterday. When she realized that this had given Will more than an idea of what it looked like, she said, “Well, that was a really bad idea.” Blowing it up, that is. Will wanted to get into it right now, but of course it didn’t function very well on dry land, or even in the little wading pool on the back porch.

Other than that, we don’t have any plans. I’d like to clean out the refrigerator — a task that lingers in postponement — just to see what’s in there. The other night, I made the composed salad that I was talking about, and that cleared out quite a bit of wrappery and baggery. Our cuisine has been very simple. The market sells chicken parts, boneless rib steaks, hot and sweet sausages, and other meat items that don’t tempt me. There is always plenty of good, fresh corn, and plump beefsteak tomatoes. For lunch, I’m happy with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Breakfast is a slice of whichever Entenman’s coffee cake is on hand. I am thinking of making a tomato sauce for this evening’s dinner.

Every free moment will go to reading The Power Broker. It just doesn’t let up! Caro follows a suite of chapters about the darkening of Robert Moses’ character circa 1930 — “What a shitty guy!” you cry out on every other page — with “New York City Before Robert Moses,” a portrait of municipal dysfunction so sharply etched that you can’t believe that the place is still inhabited. And you know that only Robert Moses, deploying his high-handed, virulently anti-democratic, and astonishingly effective tactics will cleanse the Augean stable (and with just about as much water, too). So you find yourself rooting for the bad guy. I’m almost looking forward to reading about the later years of Moses’s career, when his works were as odious as he was. Then there will be no rooting, not for him.

Last night, it was so cool that I had to pull over a sheet. Every day of beautiful weather makes this quiet retreat a perfect gift unto itself.