Un déjeuner avec mes soeurs

A Real Nice Lunch

Last night I had a pleasant surprise when I received a text message from my sister, Jeanne. My sister, Susan, from Syracuse, was at Jeanne's house in Katonah, NY (that's in Westchester, north of New York City) and they wanted to come to see us for lunch.

How delightful for a Monday! Richard and I busied ourselves putting the apartment in order. Jeanne texted: did I want Fern to come? Fern is Jeanne's black lab. I love Fern, and she loves me. Even though Fern does not like to ride in a car, she made the trip just for me.

Fern Herself.

Fern's Bowl of Water

Jeanne and Susan brought us this beautiful hydrangea plant,

one of my favorites.

My sisters got a take-out lunch from WM. Nicholas & Co. in Katonah. I am sorry that I did not take photos of the lunch spread, but here is the menu:

Everything was very tasty. I especially loved the big blackberries. Richard and I shared the turkey wrap, and Jeanne ate half of the big, messy roast beef on brioche. Susan had half of the vegetable wrap.

Sister Sue. Sue just spent 3 months in Naples, Florida,

where she and her husband, Rick, rented a house with a pool.

Sister Jeanne. Jeanne, her husband, Chris Wedge, and son Jack 

are going to Beijing, China on Friday for the Beijing Film Festival.

Chris will be promoting his new film, Epic, due out in May.

The cover of Misadventures -- in my interpretation, the author

as a cypher, except that she is wearing a

decorated, red dress, emblematic of

her creative self.

Jeanne loaned me two books. Above, is a book called Misadventures by Sylvia Smith. Ms. Smith, who died in February in London, published this memoir in 2001. Until that time she had worked at secretarial jobs. She was able to start writing when she became ill and stopped working. Jeanne and I learned about this book when Ms. Smith's obit was published in The New York Times. The memoir is a series of short vignettes about actual experiences in her life, written in short, declarative sentences in a matter-of-fact way. Paul Vitello, in the Times obit, says:

"The book, a plainly written, deadpan chronicle of an ordinary life, seemed to push the allowable boundaries of ordinary, entering an edge-of-space world where critics quarrel over literary metaphysics."

But Ms. Smith intended only that her books be "hysterically funny." And they are as her observations are given with a dose of the absurd.

Here is an example:

"My father had a habit of smoking in the car. Whilst driving the short distance to work one morning he threw his lighted cigarette butt out the window but unbeknown to him the wind blew it back in again. Some minutes later he saw smoke coming up from underneath him and looked down to see his cushion on fire. He stopped immediately, threw the cushion onto the pavement and jumped up and down on it until he had put the flames out. In full view of a very interested group of people standing at a nearby bus stop." Misadventures, by Sylvia Smith, published by Canongate Books.

The second book
is a collection of stories about

Parisians, both well-known and of modest origin.

Can't wait to read it.

Susan returned my DVD of Season 3 of Mad Men, the

last season for which I purchased a DVD.

I just signed up for Netflix and am now

catching up with Season 4.

Susan brought Richard two giant

Hershey Bars.

Which, of course, he loved.

I did manage a photo of dessert.
Chocolate babka.

Les Trois Soeurs.
Jeanne, me and Susan.

À Bientôt!