This evening’s entry could easily be even more long-winded than last night’s — but I’m not up to it. At least, here at the outset, I don’t think that I am. Let’s see.

It was a day of errands. I was out of the house for over four hours — although, when I got home, I could not remember leaving, it seemed so long ago. This was largely a matter of sore feet. Because my errands would take me to the east side of the Upper East Side, I decided to break in an unworn pair of loafers. When I took them off (first thing), I felt that I’d had a crash-course in foot-binding. My stride was certainly no longer than that of a little old dowager empress or whatnot.

Points of interest: HousingWorks (old linens that Kathleen and I decided that we’d never use and so ought to donate);, Perry Process (“I was wondering about those,” said Kathleen when I remarked that I’d finally be taking her specialty dry-cleaning items in — including a blouse that has been waiting for two months); Demarchelier (the best croque monsieur in these parts, and, today, an amazingly tasty creamy vinaigrette on the accompanying greens; as if to compensate, the crème caramel  had no flavor at all); the Museum (membership renewal); Metro-Mini (a kit of Bummis); and Gracious Home (don’t start). Along the way, I forgot to go to the bank.

I hadn’t set foot in the Museum since late 2009, and I was definitely out of practice. Slow to believe in spring, I was wearing too many layers of clothes, and wasn’t at all in the mood for the Bronzino drawings now that I was finally looking at them. The photocollage show was more amusing — a lot more amusing. But I’d had no idea until I was actually in the building that the Belles Heures of Jean de Berry had been given the Catherine of Cleves treatment — the leaves of the Cloisters treasure, unsewn and mounted in dozens of frames, filled the basement of the Lehman Wing.

Great minds think alike? Maybe a press release went missing. Everyone knows about the Morgan show, but I alotgether missed mention of the Belles Heures project. The fact that the two most glorious illuminated codices currently domiciled in New York City have been deconstructed and put on view at the same time beggars my powers of equipage. What’s immediately astonishing is the complementary nature of the two books. The Belles Heures, about forty years older than Catherine of Cleves’s Hours, frames brilliant paintings (which I have treasured since my teens) in more or less identical borders, traceries of jewel-box ivy vines. The later book’s illustrations, although very fine, are not nearly so intensely designed as the Limbourg brothers’ work for Jean de Berry, but the borders are nothing short of trippy.

At Metro-Mini, I was shown how to change a diaper. I took this is in good humor, largely because I needed the lesson. It turns out that Bummi diapers are held together by the same sort of tension clips that are used to fasten Ace bandages, only the clips are wider, if that makes any sense. I had joked with Megan about asking for diapers suitable for a fifteen pound turkey. Will isn’t quite thirteen pounds yet — but you’ve seen those legs.

At Gracious Home, I bought a few useful things for Ryan and Megan’s flat. Their demesne has just expanded by a power of ten, and I thought that a few temporary stopgaps would be helpful — nothing that can’t be folded up and banished to storage when the time comes. The thing was, the items in question were all in different parts of the Gracious Empire. So there will be three separate deliveries! Alphabet City may be going the way of Park Slope, but three Gracious Home panel trucks in one day are certain to trigger Loisaida alarms.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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