YEAR2010

Jan 1. Annual visit to our next door neighbor, Ray and Sandy, and their young son Andrew. Andrew showed us some of his art work and toys.
Jan 3. Traditional new year's visit to the Solomon's, who hosted their annual wine and cheese extravaganza.
Jan 5. Yearly visit to our sawbones in NY. Only odd result was that my blood pressure lying down was 20 points higher than standing up. The doc says that this is quite common in the elderly and is one reason why older people feel dizzy when they arise quickly. Sometimes they faint.
Jan 8. New Whirlpool Quiet Partner II dishwasher for the Princeton kitchen. Installers from Best Buy wouldn't install, because the countertop was not properly supported by the plastic dishwasher. Tim provided a wall-mounted board support. Finally installed a week later. The new washer is slow and tedius (2-3 hours for a complete cycle). Note added a week later: Washer works OK on the Light cycle, taking only about an hour to wash the dishes satisfactorily. Interesting sidelight--the washer cost only $ 339, whereas the old washer (28 years old Kitchenaid) cost $ 640.
Feb 1. We head for Naples, Florida on the 17th. Bought a Moon Guide, Florida Gulf Coast, to find out what to do during our week near the beach. Aside from swimming (provided the temperature is warm), there is hiking in a variety of parks, a play put on by the Naples players, an art museum, and a philharmonic hall.
Feb 4. Marian lectures on underground Soviet art to the Reading Group of Princeton. Great interest in the talk; John McPhee also talked about his book The Ransom of Russian Art. The discussions centered on Norton Dodge, an eccentric collector of unofficial Soviet Art in the sixties and seventies. Described by Marian as a great cuddly bear, by his wife as a man who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag, and by Galina Popova as a walrus who would keep his socks in the freezer, Dodge made the rounds of the Soviet Union, armed only with his flashlight to find the street names and apartment numbers for the obscure artists he dealt with.
Feb 10. Practically a blizzard today. About 8" of snow in the morning hours, then a pause of 2-3 hours, followed by steady snow in the afternoon. Ray and I shoveled out the driveway and the pathways in the pause, then looked forlornly out while our efforts were obliterated by the renewed snow. Great driving in the afternoon; practically no one on the Princeton streets.
Feb 25. Returned from a week's trip to Naples, Florida, on the Gulf Coast. What a bunch of idiots we were; why didn't we stay there for another week? Then we would have avoided the latest snow fall. The invitation came from our friend Vivian, who had invited us along with two other couples. Weather coolish for the first two days, then heated up so that Marian could swim in the heated pool at the club. Our most interesting visits: (1) the Naples Museum of Art, featuring exhibitions by Gaston Lachaise, Chihuly, and an interesting permanent exhibit of American modernist paintings of the twenties and thirties and (2) the Bach Ensemble at the Moorings Presbyterian Church in Naples. Back and forth from Naples via JetBlue. We recommend it; lots of knee room and pleasant stewards. Plenty of good restaurants and a visit to the Everglades, with a ride on an airboat.
Mar 3. Second visit to the Princeton senior memoir writing group, led by Judy Wendell. I wrote a 4 page introduction about my trip to South Africa in the seventies, and some of the interesting people I met there. About 15 or 16 people attended this meeting--pushing the limit.
May 17. Jetblue flight from JFK to the Grotto Bay Beach Resort in the Bahamas. Four days of sightseeing and bathing in the hotel pool. Bathing in the ocean was too chilly. Only the Russians would plunge in. Bermuda is a fish hook shaped top of a volcano popping up in the Atlantic. It is still under British protection, but has its own governing body. Enjoyed wandering about the museums, especially the Maritime Museum on the end of the hook. Good samples of the defensive firepower of the Bermuda defenses. Flight and hotel at half price, but eating out expensive, as in NYC.
Aug 12. Read my poem "Thoughts while sitting under a 30 foot Spider" at the US1 reception for the writers in the summer fiction issue. Held in the Labyrinth Book Shop on Nassau Street. Overflowing crowd.
Aug 22. Birthday celebration--brunch at the Inn at Lambertville Station. Torrents of rain, but it cleared up in a few hours. Phone 397-4400.
Aug 28. Attended the funeral of my cousin and old friend, Jim Motley at the Church of the Immaculate Heart in Scotch Plains. Beautiful wooden church with stained glass in a constructivist mode. Later I met with his family, Jim III and his wife Louise and many relatives of Louise.
Nov 22. Vargas Llosa, recent winner of the Nobel prize, and Paul Muldoon discuss his recent novel based on the life of Roger Casement. Surprised to discover that Casement had spent time in the Amazon and in Peru, and had condemned the rubber plantations for their rough treatment of the Indians. (Llosa is currently teaching a course in literature at Princeton.)
Dec 25. A turkey for Christmas in NY! Severe problems producing it--cleaning the filthy oven, sponging up the water coming out of the dishwasher from a clogged drain, getting the handyman to unclog the drain, etc. Marian practically collapsed after the work and anxiety.
Dec 30. Annual get together with Ray and Sandy, her sister, and their charming boy Andrew. His violin recital was cancelled because the violin was out of tune.
Dec 31. New Year's eve with the Brailovsky's and their friends Lev and Tatiana.
Jan 1. Brunch at the Young's in their wilderness cottage in the foothills of the Sauerland Mountains. Met their son Alister and their daughter-in-law.