TOO HOT AND MUCH COOKING

Elise has been my friend since the mid 70s when we met in the Feminist Writers Guild.  She’s an artist and made a living as a fundraiser for nonprofits.  Now she has pancreatic cancer and can’t work much.  She arrived Wednesday.  She is a great guest.  First of all, we always have a lot to talk about.  Second, she doesn’t complain about where she must sleep, which is hardly luxurious, in my assistant’s office off the kitchen.  third, she will go off on her own and go to the beach or to galleries or store hopping without dragging me along.  She doesn’t require being amused.  Fourth, she is a great mixer.  Woody took her to a barbeque at a fancy house overlooking the ocean and she had a great time with strangers. It was wonderful to have her here. It has been torrid here with high temperatures combined with high humidity.  We are not used to that and don’t like it.  Also that path the weather is occupying, right up the East Coast means hurricanes are coming, perhaps the first tropical storm this week. And the ocean has warmed faster than usual, also encouraging to hurricanes. Woody got the outdoors ready for our annual summer party on Saturday.  I began cooking the day before.  We roasted some  turkey and bottom round roast beef and I soaked a couple of cups of bulghur, then drained it overnight for my own particular tabouli – full of veggies from the garden as well as parsley. mint, lovage and chives. Then the next morning while Elise was asleep, I began.  When she got up I was in the middle of making a strawberry-rhubarb pie.  We cooked together until 2:30 when I suggested she take some time to herself, so she went into Wellfleet for a couple of hours.  At four she was back, we all including Woody took baths or showers, dressed, began setting up outside. Three friends came early to help. It was not as enjoyable as usual because even in the early evening, it was hot, hot hot, mosquitoes in abundance because of all the wet weather we had in June.  I am not at my best in hot humid weather. If I were doomed to live in Florida or any of the Southern states, I probably would not be a writer.  My brain turns to butter and utterly melts in big heat.  Anyhow, most everybody else seemed to have a great time. the food was demolished.  People brought various dishes and Myron Taylor [the Taylor family farms shellfish in their beds] kept opening wonderful Wellfleet oysters. 43 guests this year. Around 8:30 when most people had departed, I went into the house and invited those remaining into the livingroom where the air conditioner was running,  Unfortunately as I found out the next afternoon, somebody didn’t shut the screen door correctly, an escape route Puck found about 11:30 a.m. the next day.  Out he went.  He’s the only cat who tries to escape and occasionally does so.  This is scary because I lost a cat to the coywolves so the cats are no longer allowed outside.  we called and called and caught an occasional glimpse of him but he was too fast for us.  that’s why I’m writing this blog late. But out there in the wild beyond, nobody opens cans of taste catfood or gives him occasional bits of chicken. So as it was getting dark, we opened a can of smelly fishy catfood, carried it out on the sunporch and put it on the wide ledge by the screens.  it didn’t take long for him to stand outside wailing.  Woody got him in through the bedroom window. He was very hungry.  Stuck to me like a burr the rest of the evening. Sunday morning Elise returned to Trenton and Woody began the cleanup outside and I began washing dishes from the party and washing sheets, towels, all the tablecloths we put  over out rough wooden tables.  Now life we hope will return to normal and we both go back to work.