Capricorn 8° (December 30)

Up at five o’clock and in an Uber by six to get to Euston station to catch the train to Edinburgh. That was fine although one had the sense that the “first class” service wasn’t exactly up to its usual speed; still, each time I travel anywhere in Europe or in the U.K. I am reminded of just how disfunctional American life, and its so-called private and social services, truly is. Euston Station compared with the horrific Penn Station; Heathrow vs. JFK. Please. Did a bunch of writing and scheming and such and by the time we got to Edinburgh we were ready to get off the train. Only to have to get on another one in just over an hour’s time. It was rainy outside so just as well that we stayed inside Waverly; but the train from there up to Pitlochry was seriously unfun. I see where Jo might have got her idea for the mean trolley lady. We were starving and tried to get to the café car, or rather S. did; only the trolley lady was already heading our way and wouldn’t let her of any othe passengers get by, which made no sense because there were plenty of spaces/opportunities to let a person pass. S. and the other passengers gave up thinking that they would get to the café car once trolley crunt had passed. But troll-y, who wasn’t Scottish but some kind of eastern European with snail blood was determined to block anybody. Finally, finally, when the journey was nearly over she went passed and S. got to the café car, but by then it had run out of food. This was a bad sitcom episode. We bought some crisps and other sundries and grumbled it down. We got off at Pitlochry where the taxi awaited us and drove us about twenty minutes to Aberfeldy. The reception was one and same with the restaurant bar; we checked in and asked if the LLBs had yet to arrive. They just had. We got to our room and I saw a text beckoning us to come to them for a drink. We wore our coats thinking we would stop by and then go for the walk we planned to take. Well that didn’t happen. They poured me a gin tonic and I went down to get S. a wine. Our room seemed fine but the LLB’s had something more of a suite, so we inquired about moving but the hotel was fully committed. We drank and then decided not to wait for our seven forty five reservation, but to instead go down and have an early bird special which our advancing age now affords us.

The food was surprisingly good. Laurence orded an Argentinian Malbec much to my consternation. Not so fast. I explored oher options on he menu and decided to concede which turned out to be a wise thing because we ended up drinking several bottles of the stuff and (spoiler alert) walk up feeling fine the next day. I had a beef madras and S. had the bang bang chicken. We had some kind of starter which excapes me now writing this days on. After dinner the shenanigans really began. We sent back to the LLB suite and spent another four hours talking, laughing, recalling and bringing up showtunes to which we could sing along in turn. I had no idea that the LLB’s were wont to go there, so it was so fun and expressive and such a laugh. I went down for another bottle. We have video of singing numbers Evita, Ricky Horror, Cabaret, Hair and there were surely more that we didn’t catch on “film.” I am struck by how easy it is to be with these two. They have always been exactly this, which means to say that, at twenty, they were comparatively grand delusional (because we didn’t know what they knew: that they were going to fulfill the destiny of being household names, for starters). I truly love them. And I suppose it might be considered ironic, in the end, that they are in fact the most authentic, genuine people I know. They have a grandson now who is three and whom they love so much. They live on a sort of family compound out in the country and it sounds so wonderful. As the non-breeders in the troop, there are times when tales of family dynamics and so forth really do impart a kind of sadness—not too, too often thus far in life, still more and more as time goes on. But any pangs of jealousy aside (because it’s not really that, never that) it just sounds so grand and scruffy all at that same time to be living with two daughters and their partners and a grandchild (with more to come) and cats and dogs and chickens and whatever other kind of livestock they might have floating around them. And in the end, I think Laurence has emerged as the most menschlike of us all, despite his fame and flights of fancy. I do truly love these people I must say. Even more so now I know that we can fall into home karaoke at the drop of a jazz hand.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
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