September 13^th my assistant Melenie is marrying Jay and then the next week [after a wedding they are organizing for 100 people!] they are flying off to Paris for a two week honeymoon. I lived there with my first husband and have been back at least six times since. I have been collecting my maps and guidebooks for them. In addition I have been making notes, my personal advice on how to prepare, what to see and not bother with, 6 single spaced pages so far. Woody doesn’t think they will pay any attention, but I’m not so sure. Anyhow, putting all that advice and information together was a supplemental wedding present. The workingclass neighborhood I lived in is much gentrified these days but I’ve been back often enough to have watched it change. Some things are the same; some are very different. They can pick and choose from my opinions. Melenie and I finished off the black currant vinegar this week and split it between us. Mostly I am no longer a writer. I am a tomato farmer and tomato cook-processor and canner and dehydrator. We have never seen so many tomatoes. We have given away several bushel baskets worth of tomatoes to our friends. Since ours are justly famous heirlooms, people beg for them. This year we have more than enough bounty to share. So far 105 pints of various sauces or regular paste tomatoes. I have filled two pint and a half glass jars with dried tomatoes – I have to rush them into storage right after they are dry enough to unstick from the plastic nets they dry on, because Woody will eat them. they are like tomato candy. The ornamental gardens are overrun with weeds and the more delicate perennials have died. Mostly it’s that I can’t work on the beds at all. Woody has been knocking himself out doing all the work outside on the vegetable gardens. I mostly deal with the harvest when it comes in. But the ornamentals have always been my area – not that I don’t normally help with the veggies. Even this spring while I was essentially crippled before my operation, I did a lot of planting as well as starting seeds, thinning, feeding the seedlings in the greenhouse. But it depresses me to see the beds so lost. Of the annuals I put in, only the marigolds I began from seed and planted close to the house have survived. One dahlia. Many perennials didn’t make it. The peonies are tough and so are hostas. And of course the daylilies. They still continue their ongoing quest to take over the world. Melenie and Jay are choosing the poems they want me to perform at their wedding. The festivities go on for five days. I think they will get to Paris and crawl into bed and collapse. We are doing little off the land this weekend besides going over to friends to pay poker Sunday night. We had friends over this week whom we seldom see more than twice a year. Same last week. It’s that time of year when everybody comes to Wellfleet. But it’s dangerous to go on the highway so we’d prefer to stay on our side, the bay side, of route 6. I have been reading Dara Dorn’s novels, first THE WORLD TO COME and then FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS. I will read everything of hers. Her work fascinates me and moves me, the incorporation of so much Jewish folklore in the former and history in the latter. During my slow and painful recovery from the right knee replacement [far more painful and slower healing than the left] I have been reading many novels. Normally I read some fiction but far more poetry and nonfiction. It was strange to read versions of myths, tales and superstitions my bobbeh told me when I was little. Some I had half forgotten. I’ve begun a prelimary potting of some herbs, rosemary and tarragon. For many years, I tried futilely to bring basil in the for winter, but it never flourished and died more or less quickly. The herbs I potted so far can sit on the porch through September, giving them time to get used to their new habitats before they get brought into the house for the winter. I’ll do some more as September goes on.