A Luminous Halo

"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end." --Virginia Woolf

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Location: Springfield, Massachusetts, United States

Smith ’69, Purdue ’75. Anarchist; agnostic. Writer. Steward of the Pascal Emory house, an 1871 Second-Empire Victorian; of Sylvie, a 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL; and of Taz, a purebred Cockador who sets the standard for her breed. Happy enough for the present in Massachusetts, but always looking East.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Scary Flowers

Last night Priya and I spent the night on the town: Manchester Village. Shopping, of course: that's what the place is famous for. All the upscale outlet stores are here, but in quaint little old New Englandy houses. Anichini and Dana Buchman and Coach and so on and on.

Dinner was a place Priya likes, a Mexican restaurant called Candelero's. Although she herself doesn't drink, she talked me into a margarita, and I must say it was a good one. Straight up (as a cocktail should be), proper glass, no trace of the dreaded sour mix, and a generously salted rim. I make better chilis rellenos and guacamole and flan, but they weren't bad, and the margarita made up for everything.

As exceptional as the margarita was the landscaping around the restaurant. Huge exotic flowers, many of them black. These giant caladiums were one of the few varieties I could identify. It occured to me that a similar planting might be effective for the Emory House. My house is a dead ringer for the Bates Motel, and these flowers were really scary. Add a rickety iron fence, and I bet I'd never get a single trick-or-treater.

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