last night

Last night's little celebration in honor of The Pacific Northwest Reader...

Delice de Bourgogne, aged Gouda, Comte, French fries, wakame salad (just a couple bites and save for tonight since by then we were sated* on cheese) (and Stephen, fish to go with the chips), Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, Veuve Clicquot.

The film was Beyond the Forest, Bette Davis at her most evil, or one of her most evil. Of course, you want a character to be multidimensional and real, and pure evil can get pretty tiresome, but once we got to the point in the performance where desperate got mixed into the evil, I was cool with it. Desperate, now that's an emotion I can get behind. Brings pleasure to my Tennessee Williams soul. Yes, this film is over the top, but it's the kind of over the top that morphs into camp, so it works for me.

Since the DVD had no special features, we started the evening with some home movies (thanks, Kat!). Late sixties print clothes, old cars, hair and more hair. My mom stunning and looking about twelve, Dad looking so much like Frank it's amazing even though I know to expect it. Kathy pregnant with Heather, then Heather tiny, shriveled baby, then Kathy pregnant with Heather, then Heather older and looking like equal parts Kallan and Coligny, then Kathy pregnant with Heather.

Old movies of Christmas trees--those big bulbs, that's enough to put that old Christmas feeling into you. Coco in some odd white shirt with French cuffs and a red tie like a Kentucky colonel. Kind of. Can anyone tell me about that shirt and tie? And Noni seemed to be in a Bavarian costume. Noni always so amazingly chic. I think we catch a glimpse of her preparing to sing as Coco sits at the piano.

Nana and Pappoo, Mammaw and Pappaw, Gina, Lanaux, Fred (Freddy, with the big, black glasses), Kerry, Michael and his hair, glimpses, glimpses of everyone. A surprise moment of Aunt Helen, that particular beauty of old as the hills. Me at twoish, with blanket, piled into a backpack on Dad's back. So lucky that we all get to be that. That completely different being, that child. There are so many reasons to hope you get to live a long time, and one is that you have the chance to be all the kinds of people there are. The baby, the child, the adolescent, the early adult, the older adult, the old adult. I would love the chance to experience being an ancient old lady.


*Coco: "I've had a sufficiency; any more would be a superfluity."