For What Do We Live?

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

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"But, Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it.  You are not going to be missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report.  For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"

- Mr. Bennet, Pride & Prejudice

Yes, for what do we live?  I certainly live to make sport for our neighbors.  Just ask Sir Basil.  Why last Friday evening he was getting plenty of sport in our home. It was our daughter's (RKFDIL for longtime readers) 10th birthday and he and the Countess plus even the Baron had come over to join in the festivities.

2 hours before the party had begun we hit our first sporting speed bump. RKFDIL decided the menu she had hand-selected was really one for adults and not her, a 10 year-old child. Could she just have pizza instead?  Understanding that this was one of those life moments a therapist worth their salt could make a good 60 grand off of in 20 years time, I chose to instruct gently rather ask her if she was actually trying to make me have a nervous breakdown or just doing her best impression of an attempt?  "No, you cannot have pizza instead of the menu you have selected, told me 3 times that this is what I definitely want and even helped to shop for.  It's bad form to behave like this, especially 2 hours before your party. However you may have pizza tomorrow night if you still wish." 

Mr. P and I are not parents for weak children.  Nor are we friends for weak people.  Or well-dressed ones as Sir Basil is constantly reminded. 

Our new home is a commodious yet cosy one. It easily and graciously accommodates a party with Sir Basil, our neighbors who are members of a circus family and the pit bull on its guest list. For his first drink or three, Sir Basil had been out on the deck lending Mr. P emotional assistance as Mr. P carved the line of pumpkins that had been patiently awaiting their lobotomies since their purchase a few days earlier. When the scent of pumpkin flesh became too strong for Sir Basil he beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen where I was in the middle of preparing the birthday feast.  The phone rang. I asked him to pick it up.  It was none other than the Blighted Cusack . Cusack, for those not up to date is back in his favorite state. No. Not the state of unemployment but the state of New York. Yes, Cusack has returned from his sojourn of Chablis making in South Africa. He is also, like more than 3.5 million in this country, unemployed.  If my Cabernet was not decieving me I did I hear Sir Basil gently instruct Cusack that he needn't have pitched his job at The New Criterion to learn how to make South African Chablis.  All he needed to do was purchase a liter of vodka, decant it into a ceramic mixing bowl, add 1 cup of anti-freeze, toss in 4 Krugerrands, swirl until mixed through and set on shelf of dark cupboard to steep for 3 weeks. Then remove, decant into used wine bottles affixed with new labels you've downloaded from the internet, cork up and melt some sealing wax over it to give it the authentic look and voila, you've got South African chablis.  

After Basil finished handing out his recipe, he handed the phone to me.  Cusack and I had a very long and very delightful chat.  So long in fact, it set dinner back by an hour, at least. Not that anyone cared.  Especially RKFDIL. She was thankful as she had no plans on eating that dinner. At. All. After marveling at Cusack's new found begging techniques and telling him to put them to the test again so he could purchase a plane ticket and pay us a visit, he rang off. I proceeded with the cooking.

Basil, during this time had been snuffling like a truffle pig among the boxes of books (about a dozen or so) that still line one wall of our dining room.  We've run out of shelf space in the library and are at a loss of what to do with them. So we had asked Basil for his professional advice.  He came into the kitchen bearing a armload of truffles with raised eyebrows and demanded "How can your throw these away?"  The truffle that had really raised his ire was a book by Pope Pius X.  I stopped whisking the bechamel sauce, "Huh?" I asked. Thankfully Mr. P had just come in from Lobotomy Central to refresh the contents of his tumbler.  He looked at the book Sir Basil was waving about and said, "Mrs. P put that in the wrong box.  We're not throwing it out."  Sir Basil's nerves were immediately restored and when Mr. P handed him another tissue restorer, well, he was even more restored.  The phone rang again. Sir Basil, in fine form, picked it up.

It was  my mother.  How long they chatted I cannot say but they went as far back as King Harold. They discussed Sir Basil's relations that knew my relations back in the days when one of my grandmothers was a bedwarmer to an English (Catholic) King. Yes, as they say in Merry Ole England, I hail from the wrong side of the blanket. But from what I've seen of the right side of the blanket, the wrong side is preferable as you never forget how to make an honest living. Sir Basil is from the right side of the blanket and he does not have to make a living, honest or not, which to him is preferable.  He and my mother determined than while we knew each other back then, we didn't actually know each other. I wonder if she was disappointed?  I'll have to ask. Anyway, my mother is absolutely taken with Basil and plans to call whenever he is over. Which is tomorrow evening. This morning Mr. P gave me his menu for tomorrow evening.  He isn't quite sure what it will be in its final form but I am to secure a large breast of turkey and roast it for them. Dessert will involve cranberries.  Mr. P is in a Thanksgiving mood.

After all that is happened with us in these last few months - Mr. P's unexpected job loss, a major financial loss involved with the selling of our beloved home turned fiscal albatross, and a fresh start in a new City and State that has not been destroyed by Democrat social and economic policies yet, so am I.

I must run.  I have a lunch date in the City with Mr. P. What fun!

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Comments

[Old Dominion Tory]

Now, THAT is a splendid way to start the weekend.
Thank you!

[MCNS]

"Yes, as they say in Merry Ole England, I hail from the wrong side of the blanket."

You certainly buried the lede, there, Mrs P!

[Basil Seal]

Who the hell is that short, funny looking woman who follows me around everywhere when I'm at your manse? Is that the Circus woman? Figures...

[Mrs. Peperium]

Yes. Being of small stature is what circuses look for in their people. For a starter, the smaller the people they more they can stack into their little cars.

[Crackie]

Roasted turkey? I thought you folks were having pizza tonight, per your Neville Chamberlin efforts to appease RKFDIL. (I can see you climbing down from the plane now, declaring "Pizza In Our Time.")

[The Maximum Leader]

I do believe Basil's take on homemade S.African chablis is the funniest thing I've read in a while.

[Andrew Cusack]

This aggression against the South African wine industry will not stand!

Admittedly, I've never had a South African chablis, and from what I understand the industry seems to prefer to keep the better wines in SA rather than export them. I've never seen Meerlust, for example, in any New York wine shops.