April 5, 1960
Yesterday I made a big potato salad and bought four barbecued chickens for today's dinner. There wasn't enough room for the chickens in the refrigerator, so I put them on a tray, covered them with foil, and placed them on top of the freezer in the garage. This morning I asked Ed if he thought there was enough chicken for all of us, and he said evasively: "Well, I don't think you have as much as you thought you did."
"What do you mean? Oh no! Don't tell me that cat‑‑"
"He just nibbled a little on one of the legs," Ed said.
"I'll nibble on one of his legs!"
I went out to the garage to investigate The Case of the Half‑Chewed Chickens.
"One leg my eye," I said. "I hope that cat is as sick as a dog!"
Ed peered at the remains. "My, he does like the dark meat, doesn't he?"
Luckily one chicken had been left intact and, I hoped, untouched. I salvaged the underside of two ore, but the fourth was beyond reclaim.
When Ted came down to breakfast I greeted him by denouncing Dizzy as a blasted Barbecued Chicken Thief.
"Oh, did he get into the chicken again?"
"What do you mean, again?"
"Dad found one of the chickens on the floor last night."
"On the floor? Well, then what did he do with it?"
"Brushed it off and put it back," Ted said. "There was still plenty of meat on it."
"Why didn't he put the tray somewhere else?"
"Guess he thought Dizzy had had all he wanted."
At this point I had had all I wanted of Dizzy and my husband, but I knew scolding was useless. Neither one would hear a word.
May 5, 1960
As we drove home after our vacation in Fort Lauderdale, I wondered what would be wrong this time. Everything was in perfect order except the plumbing in the second floor bathroom. Ed was irritated to discover the plunger was missing from its usual corner, and the children were dispatched on a plunger hunt. They came back empty-handed.
“This is ridiculous, it must be somewhere,” said Ed. “Did you look up in Kathryn’s quarters the way I told you to, Vonnie?”
“Yes,” said Vonnie. “I couldn’t find the light, but I felt around and I don’t think it’s there.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Ed growled, stamping off to look for it himself. He returned, plungerless.
Ed stomped up the stairs a few minutes later, plunger in hand.
“I don’t know what Isha and Vaughan have been putting down that sink!” he snapped. “It was full of black gunk.”
He was furious because he knew what I was going to say, and I didn’t fail him. “Maybe it’s from the time you drained the black gunk from your aquarium into the sink.”
“I cleaned that trap out thoroughly, so it has nothing to do with me!” he said, plunging the bejesus out of the john.
He was so small-boy about it that I began to giggle. He kept his mad face on and came over to the washbasin where I was preparing to brush my teeth. He washed his hands, and having elbowed me out of the way, so he thought, he prepared to brush his teeth. Still giggling, I stood up for my rights and the two of us jockeyed for position in front of the mirror.
“What;s so funny?” he glowered, scrubbing his teeth.
“You are,” I said, with my mouth full of toothpaste, watching for an opportunity. The corners of Ed’s mouth began to twitch and then we had a spitting-on-each other’s-hands contest.
After we went to bed Ed said, “Well, I have to admit you’re good-natured. You’ve been good-natured for so long, it has me worried. I keep thinking there must be something wrong with you. When I'm disagreeable, where are the lava and ashes? How come you don’t put me in my place and hammer me into the ground like a tent peg? I mean, a fellow doesn’t know where he stands any more!”
I couldn’t answer, being too hysterical.
On Monday the plumber had to crawl under the house to fix the sink. The trap was clean all right, but in the pipe beyond it, the sand was packed like cement. He said we should be very careful not to let sand and pebbles and such go down the drain. We got off easy this time, but another time the plumping might require a large and expensive operation.
I reported all this to Ed because I was sure he wouldn’t want to go on unjustly blaming my mother and Vaughan. He grunted and changed the subject.
Sunday, May 9, 1960
This marks the earliest in the season we have ever had the boat in the water and sort of ready to go. To save money, Ed proposed that we scrub off the winter’s accumulation of grime ourselves, so yesterday we drove to the Yacht Club in the pouring rain, attired in slickers and bearing buckets and sponges. Ed brought the boat into the dock and found he couldn’t fill the water tanks because some plug or other was missing. He filled my bucket with the yacht club hose so I could get to work immediately. Then he spent the next half hour looking for the plug.
Personally I would have been happy to swap jobs because a plug-seeker could take time out to chat with visitors who wanted to know what he was doing. (Stalling, in my opinion.) Or he could stand with his hands on his hips and observe every five minutes, “God, this boat is filthy, it’s absolutely hopeless!”
Oh yes, to give him his due, he did fill the bucket with fresh water for me from time to time; and he was awfully sweet about handing me the Dutch Cleanser so I wouldn’t have to get up off my knees. I kept scrubbing away and by the time the captain gave up his search, the forward cabin was neater and cleaner than it had been in years.
I started in on the main stateroom, and Ed announced he was going topside to swab the decks, which seemed a little eccentric as it was still raining. Ray Remick dropped by and came below to give me his opinion of captains who swab decks in the rain. Crouched in the lower bunk, washing the woodwork, I said, “Never mind the small talk, come in here and get to work, there’s room for both of us.”
“Best offer I’ve had today,” said Ray, but it couldn’t have been because that was the last I saw of hm.
Accomplished today: the forward cabin is clean as a whistle, the main stateroom ditto.
The galley is done except for the stove and the cabinet beneath. Next week “we” (I use the word unadvisedly) will tackle the stove, and the head. Ed tidied up the deckhouse and when the rugs and slipcovers are cleaned, things won’t look too bad.
Ed worked his way down to the deckhouse and I worked my way forward to the galley. We met at the gangway where we shared a can of Dutch cleanser. We put in a total of four solid hours. At least mine were solid—Ed’s were honeycombed with intermissions.
Sunday, May 15, 1960
Spring cleaning almost finished. It was actually fun in a way. Left me feeling maternal about the boat, useful to the Captain, and dirty from head to toe. Ed said he had no idea I could work so hard and I said, you see, I can keep a secret.
One thing about cleaning your own boat instead of paying George to do it--you get to know the boat and you make discoveries that old unimaginative George would never find in a million summers. Or if he came across them, he wouldn’t recognize them for the treasures they were. For instance, the bread- board. That breadboard has been missing for two seasons, and I was darned if I’d buy another one when I knew it was on the boat somewhere. It was in the cupboard under the stove, hidden behind the coffee pot we never use. And the dishtowel rack, missing ever since we bought the boat, was under the shelf that hangs over the stove and can be folded against the wall when not in use, I discovered.
One of my less valuable finds was a two-year-old piece of toast in the toaster.
Sunday, May 22, 1960
The bunks are made up, the carpets down, new toothbrushes and old pajamas aboard. We’re ready to go wherever the weather permits. So far we have had beautiful cruising weather on weekdays only but figure we should be able to make Scituate even in a blizzard.
Cohasset
June 2, 1960
Ed’s memory of the Memorial Day cocktail party was extremely hazy. I took advantage of this fact to play a naughty practical joke. We were on our way to the Watsons, who had invited the gang over for a drink after the parade, and I said suddenly:
“I’ll bet I know why my stomach felt upset this morning. It must have been that shrimp cocktail I had at the Lighthouse. Remember I told you it tasted a little off?”
There followed what is known as a pregnant pause, while Ed registered what I had said. Reading his mind (“I can’t remember going out to dinner last night. Ye gods, I really am slipping. Should I admit I can’t remember or should I try to bluff if out?”), I almost gave the whole thing away by exploding into giggles.
Ed decided honesty was the best policy. He turned to me, stupefied, and said, “Do you mean to say we went to the Lighthouse last night?”
“Sure we did,” I laughed. “You and Bill Rogers and I. Don’t you remember how Sal offered to fix frankfurters and beans and you said not for you, you were going to have a steak?”
“This is terrible!” Ed exclaimed. “This is the worst blackout I’ve ever had. I have no recollection whatsoever of being inside the Lighthouse.”
“What’s so terrible? You’re always telling me you can’t remember things that happened the night before.”
“Oh, but never like this. When someone reminds me, I can usually remember, dimly. But this is awful. I’ll have to give up drinking! How did I pay for the dinner?”
“You charged it,” I said. “You signed your name to the check and told them to send you a bill.”
“I don’t believe it,” Ed said. “I’m going to ask Bill Rogers. You must be kidding me.”
When we got to the Watsons, I preceded Ed to the terrace and spotting Bill, said, “Ed doesn’t believe the three of us went to the Lighthouse last night.” Then I gave him a big wink.
“He doesn’t?” Bill exclaimed. “Ed, how could you put away a steak as big as that and not remember it!”
Ed tottered to a chair and sat down.
“Who paid for the dinner?” he asked, obviously hoping to uncover an inconsistency in our stories.
“Who paid for the dinner? Why Ed, old boy, you insisted, you wouldn’t take no for an answer. Why, you were hauling out charge cards by the dozens and signing your name all over the place.”
“I don’t believe it,” Ed said numbly.
“Wait till you get the tab,” Bill chuckled. “Then you’ll believe it all right. Say Ed, do you remember how you asked John Carzis if you could join his lobster fleet? And he said you could, and he said he’d have match folders made up with `Happy Days’ on the cover? Remember that?”
“No,” said Ed.
The other guests were quietly hysterical. I was afraid I’d gone too far, though, in reporting to Ed that he’d played bridge with Helen Watson. She was in the kitchen when we first arrived, and as soon as she came out on the terrace, Ed said, “Helen, they tell me you and I played bridge last night.”
“Why, I never—” Helen began, and I thought, oh-oh, the jig’s up, “—played better in my life. You said I was the best partner you’d ever had.”
“If you’ve made this whole thing up,” Ed said, glaring at me, “there’s going to be a divorce in the family.”
“And if I haven’t,” I said spiritedly, “maybe there’ll be a divorce anyway!”
Finally someone took pity on Ed and came to his rescue. It was his buddy and friend in need, Blake Thaxter, who quietly took him aside and told him he was being snowed.
Yesterday I made a big potato salad and bought four barbecued chickens for today's dinner. There wasn't enough room for the chickens in the refrigerator, so I put them on a tray, covered them with foil, and placed them on top of the freezer in the garage. This morning I asked Ed if he thought there was enough chicken for all of us, and he said evasively: "Well, I don't think you have as much as you thought you did."
"What do you mean? Oh no! Don't tell me that cat‑‑"
"He just nibbled a little on one of the legs," Ed said.
"I'll nibble on one of his legs!"
I went out to the garage to investigate The Case of the Half‑Chewed Chickens.
"One leg my eye," I said. "I hope that cat is as sick as a dog!"
Ed peered at the remains. "My, he does like the dark meat, doesn't he?"
Luckily one chicken had been left intact and, I hoped, untouched. I salvaged the underside of two ore, but the fourth was beyond reclaim.
When Ted came down to breakfast I greeted him by denouncing Dizzy as a blasted Barbecued Chicken Thief.
"Oh, did he get into the chicken again?"
"What do you mean, again?"
"Dad found one of the chickens on the floor last night."
"On the floor? Well, then what did he do with it?"
"Brushed it off and put it back," Ted said. "There was still plenty of meat on it."
"Why didn't he put the tray somewhere else?"
"Guess he thought Dizzy had had all he wanted."
At this point I had had all I wanted of Dizzy and my husband, but I knew scolding was useless. Neither one would hear a word.
May 5, 1960
As we drove home after our vacation in Fort Lauderdale, I wondered what would be wrong this time. Everything was in perfect order except the plumbing in the second floor bathroom. Ed was irritated to discover the plunger was missing from its usual corner, and the children were dispatched on a plunger hunt. They came back empty-handed.
“This is ridiculous, it must be somewhere,” said Ed. “Did you look up in Kathryn’s quarters the way I told you to, Vonnie?”
“Yes,” said Vonnie. “I couldn’t find the light, but I felt around and I don’t think it’s there.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Ed growled, stamping off to look for it himself. He returned, plungerless.
“What the hell are we supposed to do, traipse up to thete supposed
to do, traipse up to the third floor every time we need to use the john?” can't fix this at the moment
“Did you look in the playroom?” I asked.Ed stomped up the stairs a few minutes later, plunger in hand.
“I don’t know what Isha and Vaughan have been putting down that sink!” he snapped. “It was full of black gunk.”
He was furious because he knew what I was going to say, and I didn’t fail him. “Maybe it’s from the time you drained the black gunk from your aquarium into the sink.”
“I cleaned that trap out thoroughly, so it has nothing to do with me!” he said, plunging the bejesus out of the john.
He was so small-boy about it that I began to giggle. He kept his mad face on and came over to the washbasin where I was preparing to brush my teeth. He washed his hands, and having elbowed me out of the way, so he thought, he prepared to brush his teeth. Still giggling, I stood up for my rights and the two of us jockeyed for position in front of the mirror.
“What;s so funny?” he glowered, scrubbing his teeth.
“You are,” I said, with my mouth full of toothpaste, watching for an opportunity. The corners of Ed’s mouth began to twitch and then we had a spitting-on-each other’s-hands contest.
After we went to bed Ed said, “Well, I have to admit you’re good-natured. You’ve been good-natured for so long, it has me worried. I keep thinking there must be something wrong with you. When I'm disagreeable, where are the lava and ashes? How come you don’t put me in my place and hammer me into the ground like a tent peg? I mean, a fellow doesn’t know where he stands any more!”
I couldn’t answer, being too hysterical.
On Monday the plumber had to crawl under the house to fix the sink. The trap was clean all right, but in the pipe beyond it, the sand was packed like cement. He said we should be very careful not to let sand and pebbles and such go down the drain. We got off easy this time, but another time the plumping might require a large and expensive operation.
I reported all this to Ed because I was sure he wouldn’t want to go on unjustly blaming my mother and Vaughan. He grunted and changed the subject.
Sunday, May 9, 1960
This marks the earliest in the season we have ever had the boat in the water and sort of ready to go. To save money, Ed proposed that we scrub off the winter’s accumulation of grime ourselves, so yesterday we drove to the Yacht Club in the pouring rain, attired in slickers and bearing buckets and sponges. Ed brought the boat into the dock and found he couldn’t fill the water tanks because some plug or other was missing. He filled my bucket with the yacht club hose so I could get to work immediately. Then he spent the next half hour looking for the plug.
Personally I would have been happy to swap jobs because a plug-seeker could take time out to chat with visitors who wanted to know what he was doing. (Stalling, in my opinion.) Or he could stand with his hands on his hips and observe every five minutes, “God, this boat is filthy, it’s absolutely hopeless!”
Oh yes, to give him his due, he did fill the bucket with fresh water for me from time to time; and he was awfully sweet about handing me the Dutch Cleanser so I wouldn’t have to get up off my knees. I kept scrubbing away and by the time the captain gave up his search, the forward cabin was neater and cleaner than it had been in years.
I started in on the main stateroom, and Ed announced he was going topside to swab the decks, which seemed a little eccentric as it was still raining. Ray Remick dropped by and came below to give me his opinion of captains who swab decks in the rain. Crouched in the lower bunk, washing the woodwork, I said, “Never mind the small talk, come in here and get to work, there’s room for both of us.”
“Best offer I’ve had today,” said Ray, but it couldn’t have been because that was the last I saw of hm.
Accomplished today: the forward cabin is clean as a whistle, the main stateroom ditto.
The galley is done except for the stove and the cabinet beneath. Next week “we” (I use the word unadvisedly) will tackle the stove, and the head. Ed tidied up the deckhouse and when the rugs and slipcovers are cleaned, things won’t look too bad.
Ed worked his way down to the deckhouse and I worked my way forward to the galley. We met at the gangway where we shared a can of Dutch cleanser. We put in a total of four solid hours. At least mine were solid—Ed’s were honeycombed with intermissions.
Sunday, May 15, 1960
Spring cleaning almost finished. It was actually fun in a way. Left me feeling maternal about the boat, useful to the Captain, and dirty from head to toe. Ed said he had no idea I could work so hard and I said, you see, I can keep a secret.
One thing about cleaning your own boat instead of paying George to do it--you get to know the boat and you make discoveries that old unimaginative George would never find in a million summers. Or if he came across them, he wouldn’t recognize them for the treasures they were. For instance, the bread- board. That breadboard has been missing for two seasons, and I was darned if I’d buy another one when I knew it was on the boat somewhere. It was in the cupboard under the stove, hidden behind the coffee pot we never use. And the dishtowel rack, missing ever since we bought the boat, was under the shelf that hangs over the stove and can be folded against the wall when not in use, I discovered.
One of my less valuable finds was a two-year-old piece of toast in the toaster.
Sunday, May 22, 1960
The bunks are made up, the carpets down, new toothbrushes and old pajamas aboard. We’re ready to go wherever the weather permits. So far we have had beautiful cruising weather on weekdays only but figure we should be able to make Scituate even in a blizzard.
Cohasset
June 2, 1960
Ed’s memory of the Memorial Day cocktail party was extremely hazy. I took advantage of this fact to play a naughty practical joke. We were on our way to the Watsons, who had invited the gang over for a drink after the parade, and I said suddenly:
“I’ll bet I know why my stomach felt upset this morning. It must have been that shrimp cocktail I had at the Lighthouse. Remember I told you it tasted a little off?”
There followed what is known as a pregnant pause, while Ed registered what I had said. Reading his mind (“I can’t remember going out to dinner last night. Ye gods, I really am slipping. Should I admit I can’t remember or should I try to bluff if out?”), I almost gave the whole thing away by exploding into giggles.
Ed decided honesty was the best policy. He turned to me, stupefied, and said, “Do you mean to say we went to the Lighthouse last night?”
“Sure we did,” I laughed. “You and Bill Rogers and I. Don’t you remember how Sal offered to fix frankfurters and beans and you said not for you, you were going to have a steak?”
“This is terrible!” Ed exclaimed. “This is the worst blackout I’ve ever had. I have no recollection whatsoever of being inside the Lighthouse.”
“What’s so terrible? You’re always telling me you can’t remember things that happened the night before.”
“Oh, but never like this. When someone reminds me, I can usually remember, dimly. But this is awful. I’ll have to give up drinking! How did I pay for the dinner?”
“You charged it,” I said. “You signed your name to the check and told them to send you a bill.”
“I don’t believe it,” Ed said. “I’m going to ask Bill Rogers. You must be kidding me.”
When we got to the Watsons, I preceded Ed to the terrace and spotting Bill, said, “Ed doesn’t believe the three of us went to the Lighthouse last night.” Then I gave him a big wink.
“He doesn’t?” Bill exclaimed. “Ed, how could you put away a steak as big as that and not remember it!”
Ed tottered to a chair and sat down.
“Who paid for the dinner?” he asked, obviously hoping to uncover an inconsistency in our stories.
“Who paid for the dinner? Why Ed, old boy, you insisted, you wouldn’t take no for an answer. Why, you were hauling out charge cards by the dozens and signing your name all over the place.”
“I don’t believe it,” Ed said numbly.
“Wait till you get the tab,” Bill chuckled. “Then you’ll believe it all right. Say Ed, do you remember how you asked John Carzis if you could join his lobster fleet? And he said you could, and he said he’d have match folders made up with `Happy Days’ on the cover? Remember that?”
“No,” said Ed.
The other guests were quietly hysterical. I was afraid I’d gone too far, though, in reporting to Ed that he’d played bridge with Helen Watson. She was in the kitchen when we first arrived, and as soon as she came out on the terrace, Ed said, “Helen, they tell me you and I played bridge last night.”
“Why, I never—” Helen began, and I thought, oh-oh, the jig’s up, “—played better in my life. You said I was the best partner you’d ever had.”
“If you’ve made this whole thing up,” Ed said, glaring at me, “there’s going to be a divorce in the family.”
“And if I haven’t,” I said spiritedly, “maybe there’ll be a divorce anyway!”
Finally someone took pity on Ed and came to his rescue. It was his buddy and friend in need, Blake Thaxter, who quietly took him aside and told him he was being snowed.
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