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We saw an excellent production of The Light in the Piazza in Boston last week, then rushed to watch the de Havilland movie, and to read the original Spencer story in the New Yorker from 1960 Those were the days. That issue was 144 pages. The Spencer story took up sixty seven. Twenty seven of those pages were full-page advertisements. Twenty eight were two thirds advertisements. That leaves a little over thirty pages of text, but then there were the cartoons.

Whew! That knock on the door just now really was the plumber wanting to fix the toilet? Oh well, another night of using buckets of water. (May I recommend that those of you watching, as the title of this thread suggests you are, think long and hard before you install electrical bidet-toilets -- yes, the multiply orientable jets of hot water are close to orgasm-inducing (going by my wife's oohs and aahs) -- but when it all fails it does so emphatically. The manual says "have a bucket of water on hand" and it wasn't kidding.)

Hey, that's all I allow myself. It's made me the charmer that I am. Had you embraced your inner passion for public tv, you'd have been equally winsome. Instead, you went all edgy, with results we can all see.

I know next to nothing about TV, but I knew of him and watched episodes of Cheers here and there. I'm sorry, too, to see him go. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/arts/television/george-wendt-dead.html

As you know, I fear you. But I disagree.

Et tu, Wilfrid? What happened to plain old crisp?

Is cooking pizza at a 45-degree angle all the rage now?

Interesting. Pistachios for the pine nuts, or in addition to? Does that not alter the taste-profile significantly? On my mind's tongue, though, I can see it working well. How did you handle the basil and garlic?

We are successful enough in life to have a 2004 RAV4 in our driveway. It has a little over 50,000 miles on it, many of which were put on during a 6-month stint in Santa Barbara in 2007 when we had to drive even if we wanted to go to the bathroom.

Why? As far as I can tell, you only eat out.

Yes.

And as far as you go @MitchW if you're who I now think you are, the person behind you was a young woman reading an Arabic book, and was brushing no behinds.

1) Although I found it "impenetrable" on attempted rereading (as said above) I was able to penetrate it as a young man (ghastly pun aside). 2) All love/lust was unsuitable in the India of the 1970s -- the crushes I had on teachers, on our cleaning lady, on the girl on the 123 Bus (we gazed at each other eagerly, morning and afternoon, for two years) -- no love was suitable. That angst might have been the appeal to me then. 3) The "exotic". To me that was England -- all cricket and moors and dogs. 4) Every boy's fantasy.

I'm curious how news like this gets out. The people on line for Foxface seemed slightly different from the people who dine at Foxface -- younger, for example, and less food-centric. The three men ahead of me talked for a while about how much alcohol in an evening was enough alcohol -- how did they hear about this pop-up, and why did it interest them so? The sign outside was nicely cryptic "Duck on Rye". Several passers by paused briefly and looked puzzledly at it. Whether it induced them to join the throng I can't say. A woman with a rolling carrier asked the man behind me what we were in line for. He looked up briefly from his cellphone and said "sandwiches". That excited her. "Free sandwiches" she exclaimed, and her eyes moved hungrily to the back of the line. "Not free", he said, "duck". That squelched her enthusiasm. I've many problems with lines, and this man behind me epitomized one: No respect for boundaries. Yes, we're postish Covid, and don't need 6' any more, but how about 6''? (The Stonehenge scene from Spinal Tap, anyone?) Must you breathe down my neck, and constantly brush my behind?

I'd had a sandwich put aside. That was why I was able to concur with you. I'd also pre-ordered bread and cookies. They ran out of sandwiches just when the group-of-three ahead of me stepped to the counter. They'd been on line 30+ minutes but took it well. If you, "Mitch", hadn't pre-ordered, then you got the last of the walk-in ones -- and that group has you to blame. (Sivan then went out and broke the bad news to the 30ish people on line.) Like you, I'm averse to lines at this stage of my life. Done a lot of line-standing in my yout'. I'd been tipped off by a usually reliable source that getting there before noon would help me avoid lines. When I saw that there were a dozen+ people already waiting at 11:30 I nearly turned around and left. But it was a nice day, and I felt I owed it to Foxface to wait. You really should wear a nametag. I could have at least passed the time profitably ribbing you. The bread is, as you say, superb. When they had Wednesday morning pickups, I was able to reserve, skip the pickup in the morning but eat at the bar at 5 pm (at heart I'm a Florida retiree, I guess) and grab my bread then. I'm not usually in this town on weekends, but yesterday was an exception. Circling back to the duck: the sandwich was excellent, but the duck, by itself, glorious. I deconstructed the second half of my sandwich, and had the duck, with a light residual smear of mustard, by itself, with a tiny, occasional cube of rye bread for balance. What can I say? I'm a savage.