Post Point

 

Ann and I were going to spend the night on the road.  She had found a dog friendly place in Ithaca that some friends recommended.  It was a sort of upscale bed and breakfast according to Ann.  The mention of “bed and breakfast” sent a chill up my spine—in my opinion these establishments were designed for the express purpose of psychologically neutering men.  Some readers might recall an earlier trip that Ann and I had made to a bed and breakfast in the Finger Lakes region.  The proprietor, Mitch, still appears in my nightmares occasionally.  Ann assured me this would be different.

 

Sure enough, when we got to Ithaca and knocked on the door, the man who answered could be Mitch’s cousin.  He met us at what appeared to be the front door but then sent us to another door that apparently was reserved for guests.  The other door entered into the same room as the door we had knocked on initially.  He made us wait there for several minutes before inviting us in.  I did not like him.

 

He was at that normal innkeeper age—too old to do anything productive but not old enough to have absorbed any wisdom.  His dress was post-hippie casual—baggy jeans, an untucked shirt and wooly socks stuffed into slipper-like shoes of some sort.  He had the air of a man who was stuck in his ways, yet worthless.

 

We would be staying in a separate carriage house down the street so thankfully there would be no bonding with other guests at breakfast.  We took his directions, drove to our carriage house and unpacked.  The place was perfectly nice but had been tricked up with too many cool design features—edgy art, a bathroom that was part of the upstairs room, open sight lines from the upstairs to the lower floor.  This latter feature meant that if Daisy took a wrong step in the dark she would end up falling to the floor below (and in Ann’s mind, to her death).  This did not sit well with Ann.  She improvised barriers to keep Daisy alive.

 

We walked a few blocks into central Ithaca to get dinner.  It was late so we went to a restaurant/bar that we had been to the prior year and ordered clams and a couple of salads.  It was not the Point, but eased reentry a bit.  After dinner we went back to the killer carriage house and did a face-plant.

 

 

Monday

 

We woke up fairly early and I started rooting around in the small kitchen for coffee and anything else I could find.  I made a pot of coffee and discovered a basket of scones and muffins which were the breakfast part of the bed and breakfast.  These were said to be homemade by the proprietor’s wife.  If so, she may be the worst baker in upstate New York.  It is hard to screw up a muffin and even harder to screw up a scone.  She managed to do both with flying colors.  We made up for it by driving up the road to a local coffee shop we knew of from our previous vacation.  We got a double latte for me and a tea for Ann.

 Wierd Dog Lady

We drove home on the Southern Tier highway through southern New York State, a beautiful drive with very little traffic.  We got home in time for Ann to go to yoga and for me to stop by the office.  We reconvened for dinner at our local Pub in Gates Mills and toasted to a great weekend.

 

Can’t wait to see what David and Paul do for their 61^st!!

 

Sunday

 

My phone alarm went off at 8:00.  Ann mumbled something incomprehensible (and likely profane) as I got up.  I took a quick shower, got my golf clothes on and headed up to the lodge to root around for some breakfast.  I didn’t expect to see anybody else up yet, but there were Jeff and Katie, bathed, dressed and alert, having breakfast.  Then it dawned on me—they hadn’t been at the pub the night before.  A feeling of self-righteous indignation hit me.  OK, it wasn’t really self-righteous indignation—I didn’t have enough energy for that—but I felt it was unfair that they were sitting there after a good night’s sleep, feeling fine and looking bright eyed and bushy tailed.

 

Jeff was not scheduled to play golf so I asked them why they were up so early.  Jeff went into a tale of woe—they had to (a) get down to Saratoga Springs where they kept a summer house to close up for the season, (b) collect a child and a nanny, (c) deal with potty training issues they were having with the child (note to Jeff and Katie: update nanny job description), (d) go down to their Sutton Place apartment in New York and grab some gear, and then (e) get on a corporate aircraft and go down to their place in Palm Beach.  I was actually still feeling sorry for him until he got to the corporate jet.

 

Now granted, I was sleep deprived and hung over, so perhaps I was not as compassionate as I should have been, but I concluded that brother Jeff’s problems were virtually all self-inflicted.  When you have a two year old at age 58 and way too much real estate it can generally be traced back to an adult version of the “your eyes were bigger than your stomach” phenomenon that we all experienced (less expensively) as kids at Thanksgiving dinner.  However, it must be said that Jeff was dealing with his problems responsibly and definitely felt a lot better than I did on Sunday morning.

 

I said goodbye to Jeff and Katie as they left for Saratoga and then learned that our golf game had been pushed back to 10:30.  I was already fully caffeinated, so there was no chance of going back to bed for an hour.  I would gut it out.

 

Breakfast for me was fruit.  I had eaten so much rich food that I just didn’t think my system could take a baked egg and sausage, as appealing as that sounded.  I had a nice conversation with Missie, who appeared in her bathrobe since she was staying in a room right down the hall.  As I ate my breakfast the other golfers dribbled in—Paul, David and Mac.  Paul looked fresh as a daisy, Mac looked like he had been run over by a truck and David looked like he had been part of the same accident but the truck had backed over him a few more times for good measure.  Breakfast included aspirin, Advil, and Alka-Seltzer served on a silver platter.

 

We took one of the resort’s Suburbans up to the local golf club—I believe it was the Saranac Inn course.  It was a very nice country course—good layout, well maintained with good greens.  Paul and Mac were quick to team up against David and me on the ride over.  I think they perceived that I was hung over and sleep deprived and that this would probably David’s inaugural golf round of 2012, perhaps of this decade.  I negotiated for David to get 2 strokes a hole except on the par 3s.  Whatever small shred of decency they had prevailed and they agreed.  They had very self-satisfied looks on their faces as we walked to the first tee.

 

I believe David and I lost the first two holes and, as expected, I was playing terribly and David wasn’t much better.  However, we steadied ourselves with some implausible saves and stayed in the match.  Just when it seemed a win was beyond reach in the last couple of holes, David dug deep, made some shots and hit two incredible clutch putts to win.  There was grumbling and whining but they paid up and David and I returned to the Point triumphant.

 

When we got back some of the party had left.  Bo and Missy had left early to catch a flight out of Burlington, Vermont and the Lomases had gotten on the road for the marathon drive back to Cleveland.  We packed then wandered up to the lodge for lunch at around 2pm.  They served lunch on the terrace—a delicious turbot (which I believe is a relative of a flounder) over homemade pasta with shrimp, squash and homemade bread.  Sam inhaled his lunch then challenged the chef to whip up more homemade pasta, only this time he suggested red sauce with meat.  The other rug rats—Hope and Jane—seconded the motion and before long large bowls of fresh pasta emerged to fill the bottomless pits.

 

We realized as we were getting ready to leave how difficult reentry was going to be.  David warned Ann that she would find me lying in bed Tuesday morning waiting for Cameron to come and turn me so that I did not develop bed sores.  We all feared that we had lost the capacity to care for ourselves and that we would be reduced to lying around like helpless baby seals calling for the staff to bring us pasta and warm cookies. 

 

We agreed that Sam would likely have the most difficult reentry.  Having intensively abused the chef, bartenders and staff for three days (albeit with an irrepressible charm that made them all willing victims) he was going to have to return to Colorado as a junior geologist at a company that doesn’t care if he wants another bowl of homemade pasta for lunch and where he will experience a two digit difference in the cost per bottle of his wine (and, to add insult to injury, have to pay for it himself).

 

After lunch we emerged to a fully packed car—the staff had taken care of loading it while we were eating.  We said sad goodbyes to Paul, Betsy, David, Robin, Mac, Jill, Michael, Julia and the kids.  We generally agreed that it was the best weekend in the entire history of the world (with the possible exception of the short period in the Garden of Eden just before God threw them out) and that we all love each other forever.  We slowly drove through the gates, entering the sordid world of That Which is Not the Point (feeling like modern day Adams and Eves, though somewhat more guilty).  That Which is Not the Point has little to recommend it and we steeled ourselves for the squalid chaos of the real world.

 

 

 

Saturday Part 2

 

The staff had set things up beautifully at the point—as usual we had cocktails, outstanding wine and delicious hors d’oeuvres.  Among other things, they served awesome little cheeseburger sliders.  There was a cozy blaze in the fire pit and there were Hudson Bay blankets for people to wrap up in. 

 Note English Dandy Pants

Betsy, who as always looked like a million bucks, pointed out that Paul was wearing skinny red pants that made him look like an English dandy.  She also pointed out that his red socks did not match.  This caused Mac to revert to 8^th grade classmate abuse which Paul took with apparent good humor.  I was careful not to get on Paul’s bad side at least until after the good wine was gone.

 The Lean-To

After cocktails, the ladies scrambled to get into their outfits and we repaired to the main lodge for dinner.  We were seated with our spouses which made Ann happy.  I made a toast as people sat down.  I had done some deep research on the Shiverick family and disclosed some little-known facts on the Shivericks’ background to the assembled guests.  I debunked the family myth that their ancestors were well appointed British-descended clipper ship owners and disclosed that their most prominent ancestor was in fact one of the most notorious pirates in the early part of our nation’s history, Blackbeard Shiveriq, a disreputable Huguenot.  I finished with a summary of the twins’ notable careers and the financial results thereof.  Young Hope Shiverick, David’s daughter, was in tears at the end of the toast—undoubtedly touched by the heartfelt comments.

 

The dinner was exceptional.  Langustine bisque, soft shelled crab, frisee salad with foie gras, roast suckling pig—each course paired with a different vintage wine.  After dinner we had more toasts.  The kids (Jane, Hope and Sam) did a fun guessing game “Which Twin?”  We learned, among other things, that David detests caviar and that both twins have used wheelchairs to expedite passage through airport security.  Duke did a beautiful recitation of Yeats’ “When You are Old”. 

 

When You are Old   

By W. B. Yeats 

 

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

Of course Ann started crying.  David said something like “who is he calling old?” 

 

Reg and Lynn did “Shiverick Charades”, inducing a variety of inebriated guests to act out things that only the Shivericks would know:

 

1)    Kapitachuane – Paul’s canoe camp

2)    Twin oaks – NH house

3)    Allegheny – David’s college

4)    Charlie Poutasse – Hawken teacher

5)    Tom Lackner – gardener at Shelter Hill

6)    Bombay High – where Paul worked on an offshore oil rig

7)    Sherry Lehman – David’s 2^nd job in NYC – wine retailer

8)    Desperado – family song

9)    Anthony Armstrong Jones – family dog

 

Interestingly, neither Paul nor David seemed to be able to remember key parts of their lives—Paul didn’t get the name of the offshore oil rig where he had spent a summer and David seemed flummoxed by Sherry Lehman, where he had started his career.  By contrast, Mac was a charades Idiot Savant.  At one point, based perhaps on the besotted condition of the actor, he blurted out Twin Oaks, a disreputable bar at his alma mater, Hobart.  That was actually the answer, but the question had nothing to do with Mac’s bar—it was the name of the Shiverick’s summer house in New Hampshire.  Similarly, based on someone holding up three fingers, Mac inexplicably blurted out John Paul Jones.  The actual answer was Anthony Armstrong Jones, the Shiverick family dog, but close enough.

 

After dinner they served us birthday cake which we ate with gusto. 

 

I am often the first to leave a party.  I like to think of this demonstrates my good sense.  Others think it demonstrates the fact that I am a wuss-ass.  After dinner (and a dozen glasses of wine) every instinct in me said sneak back to Trapper and go to bed.  However, Ann told me that I was damned well going to suck it up and take part in the pub festivities after dinner.  Two reasons for this: (1) the need to be good sports and take advantage of the short time we had with our good friends and (2) since Trapper was right next door to the pub, we were going to be part of the party whether or not we wanted to be.

 

The pub had a juke box filled mostly with music that would appeal to 50 plus partiers—Motown, Rolling Stones, Creedence, Kool  the Gang, Bee Gees, Van Morrison, etc.  We played pool, danced and some hardy souls opened more wine bottles.  We brought Daisy into the pub but she made it clear that she did not approve of the loud music so we took her home.  Robin and I partnered in an 8-ball pool game against Reg and Lynn.  Robin, who showed very little aptitude for the game (very little) waited until only the 8 ball was left and made a clutch shot to put the ball into the corner pocket to win the game.  She started doing the moon walk, trash talking and did a little “in your face” touchdown dance for Reg and Lynn.

 

Julia, who is the buttoned-down, highly perfumed president of Premiere Networks by day, is a ton of fun at night.  In her cute southern drawl, she demanded Dixie Chicks on the jukebox and danced the night away. 

 

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Paul and Betsy making a quiet move for the door.  It was 2:00 am.  We had a 9:00 am tee time at the local golf club in the morning.  I made my move, grabbed Ann and slipped out the side door.  I felt pretty good about our escape until I finished brushing my teeth and getting in my jammies.  I realized at that point that the music had not stopped.  If anything, the volume was turned up a notch and the gang had gone into full-on dance mode—Donna Summers, Commodores, Bee Gees.  The kids finally ran out of gas at about 2:45 am and I passed into blissful unconsciousness.

Saturday Part 1

 

Got up, took a shower and went up to the main lodge in search of breakfast.  I left Ann and Daisy snoozing.  The breakfast choices were extraordinary—eggs benedict, baked eggs in cream, pancakes with exotic ingredients, corned beef hash, homemade granola, fresh fruit, fresh squeezed orange juice, whole cream for the coffee.  I had corned beef hash and poached eggs and snitched a sausage from someone else’s plate.  The Point was living proof that spa cuisine is overrated.

 

A front had come through the previous night that brought rain and falling temperatures.  It was probably 20 degrees cooler when I got up than it had been the prior day.  The weather report called for the day to be overcast with a chance of rain.  As the group assembled around the breakfast tables, people discussed activities for the day without even a thought to the printed schedule (there was a late morning scavenger hunt planned).  We blew off the scavenger hunt of course and Ann, Mac and I went on a bike ride.

 

As we walked down to the gate house to get our bikes, we noticed that Michael, who had just returned from a ride of his own, was taking an extraordinary interest in botany.  He was closely examining a native blueberry bush in the landscaping as we approached the building.  He was mumbling something incoherent about “that last Maker’s”, whatever that meant.

 

The recommended bike loop went around a state park RV campground surrounding a nearby lake.  Paul and Betsy had done this ride the day before and at some point Paul had crashed after flying over a frost heave on the bike path.  He was scraped up a bit and narrowly missed a head injury when he flew into the trees.

 

As we were riding around the park we came to the question of what were the economics of recreational vehicle camping.  We estimated that the average RV cost $80,000 new (I just did some web research and think this number is light).  Trailers are less ($30-$40,000) but require a big gas guzzling truck to tow them.  In any event, if you assume the average RV lasts for 8-10 years, you probably are spending $10,000 per year or so for the privilege.  Assuming you are willing to spend 10 days a year parked in a depressing campground with your family, you will be spending approximately $1,000 per day.  For a little bit more you could probably ditch your kids with the grandparents for a week and stay at The Point.  We determined that RV’ers were stupid.  (We also hoped they wouldn’t figure this out since we didn’t think the trailer park crowd would fit in very well at The Point).

 You could be at the Point

We stopped at the local convenience store so that Mac could make a purchase of some sort.  We had noticed as the weekend progressed that Mac and Duke often felt the need to have private conversations outdoors.  It was heartwarming to see these old classmates bonding so well after living on separate coasts for many years.  Apparently the convenience store sold something that they shared in these moments of togetherness—Cheetos?  Ding dongs?  Ho-Hos?  Hard to tell.

 

As we returned up the drive to The Point, we saw a multigenerational gaggle of Shivericks making their way down the hill on a variety of bicycles. Apparently the bike inventory at The Point was getting low because when we saw Sam he looked as though he was riding a tricycle.  We traded with them and rode their little mountain bikes back to the Point.

 

It was a little chilly and overcast, but Mac and I decided to go water skiing nonetheless.  Matt was waiting dutifully in the boathouse for us and got another staff member (also named Matt) to take us skiing.  Ann and Daisy came in the boat to watch the fun.  Neither Mac nor I had water skied in about 10 years but we figured it’s like riding a bike.  I tried to get up on one ski a couple of times but ended up having to use two skis then drop one.  Mac and I both did fine—neither of us was cutting very aggressively but it was enough to impress Ann.  Success in sports at our age is mostly about not getting hurt.

 

We got cleaned up for lunch.  The chef had made us an over-the-top barbeque lunch of ribs, chicken, trout, baked beans, corn on the cob, plum cobbler and ice cream, among other things.  More delicious wine.  Lunch was on the porch so Daisy got to join us.  She spent the lunch hour alternating between hunting chipmunks and getting handouts of pork and chicken.  I almost never drink wine at lunch and the combination of the delicious food and wine put me into a near coma. 

 

At lunch we shared with the others our morning activities.  Some of the girls had gone on a little 1.5 mile hike on the property with Jake, one of the staff members (the fact that the staff felt the need to act as guides on a 1.5 mile marked trail suggested an almost unfathomable level of outdoor incompetence for the normal guest at the Point).  There was a warming hut at about the halfway point on the trail.  The staff had lit a fire for the hikers and had some freshly baked cookies delivered to the hut.  Because after you’ve walked .75 of a mile, you need to rest, sit by the fire and consume 600 calories of sweets.  There was almost certainly a full bar as well.  Apparently the only thing the staff didn’t do was put the hikers in a fireman’s carry and schlep them through the woods themselves.

 

Jill is one of my favorite people, notwithstanding the fact that I only see her once a decade or so.  She is a great mom, puts up with Mac and loves animals (including Daisy).  At lunch, however, she suddenly reminded me of one of her funniest characteristics.  Jill is fascinated by really creepy, gross stuff.  Ebola, disease carrying insects—that sort of thing.  Her lunch topic was flesh eating bacteria.  According to Jill, pedicure shops are hotbeds of this disease since they re-use some fluid that becomes infected by horrible fecal matter from rodents or something.  Anyway, the point is that you will probably die a slow, horrible death if you get a pedicure.  I edged away from Ann, whose toenails looked pretty good.

 

That afternoon we had planned a group hike up Panther Mountain.  This was a short climb with a nice vista.  The staff had offered to guide us up the mountain but we decided we could handle it without guides, cookies, a bar, etc.  The staff was amazed at our bravery—leaving the grounds without a service staff, meals, cocktails and air support.  Apparently this was unheard of at The Point.  Sam, for one, decided to be prudent and bring along some alcohol in case of emergency.  He packed up a couple of beers.

 

When we got back to The Point there was a note saying that yesterday’s croquet match and pre-cocktail cocktails had been rescheduled for 5:00 pm.  Paul put his foot down.  He took the position that events involving drinking and eating could take up no more than 50% of the day and felt we needed a break before the real cocktail hour which was to be at the actual point at The Point—a small elevated peninsula with a fire pit, a lean-to and, of course, a full bar.  This created a lot of consternation among the women.  The Point requires multiple costume changes under the best of circumstances and the girls didn’t think they should wear their dinner outfits up to the lean-to—there was a little drizzle, bad things could happen to hair and the footing might be tricky in heels.  However, there would be very little time for the dinner costume change so they would have to do some pre-prep then do a quick change after cocktails.  A lot of thought went into this. 

 

 

Friday Part 2

 

When we got up from our nap we decided to walk the property with Daisy.  Trapper was a room on a bluff that overlooked the water.  The actual extreme point of The Point required a walk down a hill, past the boathouse, to a campfire and lean-to area surrounded with a bunch of Adirondack chairs. 

 

As we walked down to the point it became evident that there were an unnatural number of stocked bars on the property.  Our own room was adequately stocked with alcohol, albeit not with great variation.  As we walked down the hill, we noticed the impressive bar in the boathouse and then as we walked up to the point itself, a fully stocked bar near the fire pit attached to a lean-to.  Like a safety-conscious business that has first aid kits and defibrillators at every corner, The Point protected us from sobriety by making sure you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a fully stocked bar.  (Michael Katz assured me that The Point knew what it was doing when it came to alcohol—there was nothing to drink on the property that was even remotely low shelf.)

 "Can't swing a cat..."

We decided to go on a little boat ride around the cove.  The small electric wooden boats were cute and appealed to Ann because it seemed unlikely that they would cause death or dismemberment.   Matt, the main guy in the boathouse, had already pulled all the cushions out of the boats to store them for the night.  It was cold and he didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to show up late in the afternoon.  We did and he at least pretended to be delighted to see us.

 

I think he was delighted actually.  I think all people naturally want to feel productive and useful.  Matt spends a good part of his day waiting for jackasses like us to show up and decide on a whim that we want to take a boat out.  He has to be polite when he instructs us on how not to destroy the boat or kill ourselves.  It would be natural for him to turn against us in a passive-aggressive way and let us do our worst with The Point's boats.  However, he was helpful and enthusiastic as were all the staff members on the property.

 

I remember my first real "big boy" job as a deck hand on an ore boat on the Great Lakes in the summer of 1973.  I had gotten the job in large part through the intervention of a friend's dad who worked for the mining company that owned the fleet.  I wanted to do a good job.  My parents had always told me that it didn't matter whether you were a ditch digger or a factory worker--what mattered was whether you worked hard and took pride in your job.  I was going to do a good job.

 

Deckhands on ore boats generally spend the summer painting the ship.  I had some experience painting from prior summer work so I felt comfortable with the task.  At some point during my first full day on the job the bosun (think foreman) came up to me and wanted to have a word with me.   He said, "Mueller, you're working too hard".  Nobody had ever said those words to me.  I probed to make sure I had heard right. "What do you mean I'm working too hard?  Did I hear you correctly?"  He said, "A lot of these guys will be here in November and you'll be long gone to college or wherever the hell you're going, so dial it back a bit.  You’re making them look bad."  Welcome to the United Steelworkers.

 

The staff at The Point had a different, and perhaps more difficult, problem.  There was no bosun to lower everybody's expectations, but also long periods of being unproductive when, if one of the guests showed up, you were expected to shift from idleness to friendly and attentive service on a moment's notice.  We were very impressed with how enthusiastic, unaffected and friendly the staff were in circumstances where that could not be taken for granted.

 

In any event, we imposed upon Matt to set us up in one of the electric powered wooden boats.  He put the cushions back in and showed us how to operate the boat.   The boat had a tiller and a forward/backward lever.  Those were the only controls so it was hard to see how you could screw this up.  However, in an odd twist, the tiller worked in the opposite way from the sailboats and outboard motor boats I was familiar with.  The tiller was geared so that when you pushed it right, the boat went right.  This may have been intuitively easier for someone who had never been in a boat, but I found it very confusing and very counterintuitive based on what I knew about piloting small boats.  I hid my periodic confusion from Ann and Daisy and avoided any significant mishaps, so all was well. 

 

We took a circuit around the pretty little cove and got very close to a loon for a long period of time.   The electric engine was almost silent and the loon felt very comfortable with us puttering alongside him (or her).

 

When we returned to Trapper the staff had been there to plump up pillows and deliver a swag bag from David and Robin.  The theme was 1953—the year Paul and David were born.  1953 hats, movies, a couple of beautiful crystal brandy snifters and some good wine.  It was like opposite day—the guests got presents and the birthday boys gave them.

 

Speaking of Robin, I have to admit that we were secretly star-struck by both Robin and Duke, at least when we were sober.  Robin produces big time movies in Hollywood and Duke is one of the most successful Broadway producers in New York and has also produced scads of movies.  The problem is that I know very little about Hollywood movies or Broadway plays and every time I tried to talk shop with them I think they knew that I was clueless.  It was like an admirer asking Tiger Woods how many goals he had scored--I was star-struck but probably the worst fan ever.

 Duke on the Red Carpet

We cleaned up and got dressed for cocktails.  The cocktail venue was the upper story of the boathouse where Paul and Betsy were staying.  It consisted of a big, airy room that opened up to a deck overlooking the cove.  The staff had set up a bar, brought down hors d’oeuvres and opened another double magnum of champagne. 

 

Paul had made a habit of purchasing double magnums of fine wine at charity auctions over the years.  Since he and Betsy couldn’t reasonably consume three liters of wine at a sitting, these had been in inventory in his cellar waiting for an appropriate time to drink them.  What better time than a multi-day birthday party with 20 friends, all of whom exhibited mild signs of alcohol dependence?

 

The cocktail party was a big success—it was a beautiful spot and gave everybody an opportunity to catch up.

 The Boathouse Interior

At the appointed hour we made our way up the hill to the main lodge for dinner.  Dinner consisted of six courses, each paired with an extraordinary wine.  David gave us a detailed description of each wine pairing (except when his 59 year old eyes couldn’t read what he had written).  At one point we were poured two old reds and asked to compare them.  I came to the conclusion that one of them was very powerful, round old wine while the other was rather thin gruel.  Interestingly, Michael Katz came to the exact opposite conclusion and talked at length about the “nose” and “finish” of the wine which totally put me in my place.  I decided to hold my tongue and just drink both of them.

 

Dinner devolved into a round of toasts.  Betsy read a wonderful poem she had written to the twins. Bo made a heartfelt toast to his brothers and got the guests to play “Name that Twin.”  Reg distributed hats with the number 120 (combined ages of the twins) on the crown.  Hope distributed lyrics to an adaptation of the Hesitation Blues (an old Shiverick favorite for their bluegrass/blues jam sessions).  Bo (guitar), the twins (fiddle and banjo) and Michael Katz (harmonica) played while the rest of the guests stumbled through Hope’s very funny version of the old standard.

 No Hesitation Here

Late in the meal we were served a filet mignon course.  Some of the ladies did not finish theirs and I asked one of the waitresses to wrap up some scraps for me to take back to Daisy after dinner.  She never reappeared with the doggy bag so I caught her at the end of the meal and asked if she had remembered my request.  She looked surprised and told me that of course she had remembered my request.  She had the kitchen staff slice up some of the leftovers then took them down to Trapper and fed them to Daisy personally.  Sure enough, when we got back to the room Daisy looked happy and sated as she lay curled up in a ball on the bearskin.  It should be noted that during the course of our stay, Daisy quickly learned to boycott traditional dog food. She, too, had grown accustomed to life with Cameron.

 

There was a decanted bottle of vintage port in our room when we returned after dinner.  I am old enough to know that at precisely those moments when port seems like a good idea it is in fact a very bad idea.  I had a small taste out of weakness but left the rest of it untouched. 

 Don't do it

We crawled into bed but it soon became evident that the rest of the gang planned to have a bluegrass hoe-down in the pub room right next door to our room.  The walls were pretty well insulated but the music periodically hit a volume that roused me from my stupor.  The old Levon Helm/The Band song “Take a load off Annie” was particularly memorable.  The clock had a wee number on it as I recall.