Diary2

July 7. Return to Princeton from the wilds of Pa. Impressions of my old home town: (1)How lush it is now that the foliage has grown up after the coal stripping of the fifties and sixties. Hard to get around. Many of the paths have grown over, so transit is a matter of bushwacking.(2) How few people I know now outside my own family. (3) How aggressive the drivers are there. Trafic density is perhaps one tenth to one twentieth what it is in the Princeton area, and so everyone drives like they are immortal.
July 10. Visit Windrows to hear the professors there talk about their specialties. Another meeting with Joanne Theimer, the mother of Kathy Napomnashi, head of the Harriman Institute of Columbia U. Friendly hello to Margie Tucker, one of the real estate agents for Windows. Windrows is a great place to live-love the wide open spaces, the cleanliness, the helpfulness. Downsides? High maintenance fees and awkward location for train and bus connections.
July 26. Visit Washington Crossing State Park. Small picnic at the Nature Center. The snakes are long gone, but the bees are still hard at work. Said hello to a friendly doe looking for a handout. Taken on a one hour tour by a ranger, who filled us in on the history of the park and the resident trees, bushes and birds.
July 28. Dan, who works in Magic Finish Auto Body in Lawrenceville near the Trenton Circle, painted the red hood of the Honda. Great price--$250, just half that estimated by Gino's. Absolutely perfect job. Highly recommended: telephone 609-393-5817.
Aug 2. Delicious shrimp and chicken bouillabaisse at Marianne's, followed by a play at Murray Dodge. What we saw was a tired old rerun of Blythe Spirit by Noel Coward. Requires massive doses of suspended disbelief.
Aug 23. Bernie left early today after a week of work on our cement entryway, repairing and repainting the building blocks in the cellar, and plastering and painting the ceiling under the bathroom, and the wall next to the stairway. Afterwards, we celebrated my birthday by driving over to Pa, going to the top of Bowman's Tower in Washington Crossing State Park (tower nonexistent during the Revolution--built in the thirties by the Parks Commission and the WPA), visiting the Thomson-Neely House, built during the early 19th century, doing lunch in the Railway Restaurant in Lambertville, and walking about Lambertville and New Hope.
Sept 6. Home from a trip to U of Oklahoma in Norman, where Marian lectured on 19th century Russian Art. Beautiful campus and new wing on Art Museum. We were guests of Prof Victor Yuritzin, an old friend of Marian in her student days at NYU. Wined and dined by the faculty, esp Dean Gene Enrico, who returned us to the airport and Ghislaine D'Humieres, a charming and intelligent Director of the Art Museum--a man with great prospects in the museum world. Stayed at the Holmberg House (a B&B), adjacent to the U of Oklahoma, run by Kelly Daviee, who took good care of us, including printing off our seat vouchers on the return plane. Highly recommended: phone 405-321-6221 or 877-621-6221.Cost of flight/person on AA from Laguardia: $280, inc add-ons and a change of planes in Dallas. Quote on direct flight from Newark: $1200. Wow!
Nov 12. ITALIAN TREASURES FROM CALABRIA at the Morgan Library. Viewing of beautifultreasures from the fifth century BC and religious artifacts from the seventeenth. (Calabria is in the toe of the Italian boot, by the way).
Nov 13. ANCIENT GREEK SHIPWRECKS in the deep Mediterranean. Described by Brendon Foley, an archaeologist at Woods Hole. He gave new information on location of wrecks in the Mediterannean using cameras in robots controlled from small ships. He also described the identification of cargo in the holds of the sunken ships, inferred by DNA analysis of the contents of the porcelain vessels.
Dec 1. Thanksgiving dinner at the Motley household, Bill Motley, prop. Smaller attendance than usual, just 12 of us determined to keep up the annual ritual.
Dec 15. Dinner at the Bulgarian Underground Cafe in Princeton with Vivian Greenburg and Linda Hersch, friends from the trip up the Rhone. I had mousaka, very bland. Linda had a very flavorable soup and Marian and Vivian had shish ka bob. Decor of the Cafe is what you might expect on a spacecraft to Venus.--bowls with tilted tops,oval glass tables with cracked glass underlay, rectangular dishes, etc.
Dec 25. Christmas dinner at the Fongs, Wen and Connie. Great evening in their complicated, extended house in Princeton, full of books on Chinese art--many written by himself--scattered over any surface available. Star of the evening: Charles, brilliant grandson of the Brylovsky's. Found a new taste treat prepared by M Grey, sweet potatoes with Grand Marnier. Wow.