Just Stuff About Me

Things are not so bad as I had thought. Mrs Vache Folle might stick around after all, and I might not get canned. In that case, I get to keep my house and garden. Of course, this is all still up in the air, and there isn’t much I can do to influence events.

Mrs VF and I went into New York on Saturday night and took in a show at Caroline’s on Broadway, a comedy club. The headliner was insult comedian Jeffrey Ross. He was insulting alright, but he didn’t limit himself to the insult schtick. He was pretty good, as were the warm up acts, whose names escape me. We had an overpriced and mediocre dinner in the Supper Lounge of the club, but having dinner on site meant we didn’t have to worry about timing and that we got very good seats for the show. Caroline’s is very comfortable, and the service is first rate.

We want to try to get out more, and I aim to get us tickets for Bill Maher at the Beacon for November 10. I am also going to be on the lookout for events in the Hudson Valley closer to where we live. Nest week my grand uncle is coming into the city from Malibu, and we are meeting him and his wife and my cousin for dinner in Manhattan. It is hard to pry me away from my garden, but once I get out, I find that I enjoy myself after all.

Our church is celebrating its 250th anniversary, and I am participating in a pageant by playing a town crier and the church clerk who leads the psalm singing. I met with a nice Dutch lady who taped my lines and helped me with pronunciation. There are no other Dutch folks in the church, so I could be speaking Klingon as far as they know. I had ancestors in the Lower Hudson Valley back in the 17th and 18th centuries, and I am interested in learning more about how they lived. My ancestor Jan Franse Van Hussum, settled in Claverack just north of where I now live in the 1600s. A cadet branch of the family, from whom I descend, moved south in the 1700s.

Mrs VF got hooked on Harry Potter, and she has got me reading the series. I am one book behind her, on the Prisoner of Azkaban, and danged if I am not enjoying them. If these had been around when I was a kid, I’m sure I’d have been a fan. I was into A Wrinkle in Time and the Lloyd Alexander books at that age.

The voles have been leaving their calling cards all over the house, and Mrs VF ordered some electronic varmint repelling apparatus. I hope it works. Maybe that cat that has been hanging around could do us a favor and nab them for us. Jasper doesn’t seem much interested in going after the voles. He seems to have a size limit to what arouses him except in the case of frogs, and anything smaller than a squirrel is not worth his while.