Fireworks at Wal-Mart

"You're not writing enough & there's too many bad pictures of me" says Jumby as he lays next to me on this rainy Monday morning, reading his New Yorker article on Sheldon Adelson. The rain befits the day as today is our last and we are sad to leave. J is going back to LA and Minks and I are going to visit Jack in Sag Harbor for a couple of days, before going to the island to see Miss Haphazard. It is true that there has not been a moment to write and even now I have the sheets and the towels beckoning me towards the washer/drier. Yesterday was possibly the best of all possible days because we did nothing. Just like summer Sundays from my childhood, we had a big old picnic lunch and then wandered about the garden, visiting the pond and the swimming hole, saying hello to the water boatmen and the little brown frogs. B & G came up from the City with Scout, their adorable Jack Russell. We feasted on tomatoes from the garden (still warm, and sweet), cold chicken, cold corn salad, fresh bread & cheese, butter lettuce with lemon and olive oil. We played scrabble and made bracelets from colored string and laughed and drank pink wine.

Fishkill is the nearest town, closer perhaps than Cold Spring and somewhat less charming due to its mall-like nature, with its own share of Holiday Inn (2), Ramada, Hilton & Ruby Tuesday. The village itself, which is on the 52 off the 9, is charming and sweet although you have to drive through Suburban Hell to get there. We've now had two not terribly good dinners in Fishkill. Saturday's steak was ok although it took three hours to get it. Yesterday we learned our lesson and went for spaghetti and meatballs at the local Italian, accompanied by a red wine that was so warm and fruity that you could forgive yourself for thinking you were taking communion. It's hard not to look at these things through a Gordon Ramsay lens. As J points out, it's unforgiveable not to cook pasta fresh each time - it takes 10 minutes, tops. But yes, we're missing the point. Outside, after dinner, it was almost dark, and people everywhere had pulled up lawn chairs and were sitting in parking lots, or on the side of the road, literally filling every piece of grass we could see. The grounds of the ice cream shop were packed - old people, children, little babies, mostly white folks. Just as we made our way home on the 9 South the fireworks started, from a little field behind Starbucks, whizzing through the air, whistling and popping. J pulled the car into the Wal-Mart parking lot and there we sat with hundreds of others, on the hood of the car, mouths open, watching the show.