Weekend Update:

After the movies, Quatorze (the regular reader formerly known as LXIV — say it just like “guitars,” only with a “k” at the start and an “oars” at the end) and I went to the Museum, so that I could renew my membership, something that I always do in person, in the interest of optimal cash flow. We had lunch, and we saw the retrospective exhibition of Philippe de Montebello’s major acquisitions — and then we went to the Frick. I had already renewed my membership there (“recreated it” is more like it), and Q hadn’t been in a while.

I was distracted, however; I was thinking about my neighbor, a lady who lives just a few floors belowstairs. We met on the elevator this morning and fell into conversation. By the time we got to the lobby, I had given her my card. For the blog, silly! In the driveway, she asked me if I could guess what she did for a living. I had to confess that I’d heard that she’s a therapist. She shrugged with a grace that matched her voice, which — I hope she won’t mind my telling you this — is Julie Christie’s to the life. If it’s a small world, how big can a 692-unit apartment house be? A normal man would be hoping that my neighbor took a fancy to me, but, being me, I hope that she takes a fancy to The Daily Blague. I certainly fancy her as a reader.

I was also distracted by the walk down Fifth Avenue, on the park side’s picturesque hexagonal stepping stones, which substitute for pavement. Ordinarily a pleasurable, interruption-free stroll, it called for hiking boots today: the havoc of a volatile winter has made for a situation that brought to mind traumatic pictures that I saw as a child, of Siberian tombs thrust up through the ground by the permafrost.  It was a trauma to which my feet could relate so well that by 75th Streeet I insisted upon crossing Fifth. I assured Quatorze that spring weather will make the rough places plain, but I’m not sure that either of us believed me.

Bon weekend à tous!