Introducing

My traveling companion, P.T. (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), otherwise known as Petey. It's a baby picture of course--all the other photos have been packed and sealed. He will not be a silent companion as he has almost an operatic voice (watch your crystal!) and he has no hesitation whatsoever about using it to express whatever it is he feels necessary to express at any given moment. In fact, he should help clear a way through traffic, as other drivers will think a fire truck or police car is closing fast on their license plates--and that's with the sun roof closed. He's smart too. He can tell time. At exactly 6:30am he stands on my chest and screams in my face. It's time to be fed, I believe. He exercises his voice daily, almost hourly, by sitting on the railing of the loft and belting out arias which reverberate over and around the living room below. He's more of a Mick Jagger than a Pavarotti unfortunately. I'm certain to be deaf when I arrive at my destination riding with that voice inside my car.

The moving date has been pushed back. Something about end-of-the-month crunch and the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. Too bad the Republicans won't spend that holy day reading the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Anyway, Delay will be off playing golf at St. Andrews in Scotland probably. Don't get me started. Even though the prorated rent is ridiculous, it's given me a few more days to pack. I. am. so. tired. of. packing.

As I suspected, I fell down the rabbit-hole and proceeded to get lost in Wonderland, the photos, and it took me a full day to pack the box. I've got more pictures of my son than Dubya has lies, so you can perhaps understand how very many pictures I had to go through. I found my Oxford/Cambridge/London and Paris pictures as well, so I had to go back in time to visit those magical days. And of course the Philadelphia pictures ranging from the park behind the Art Museum to the wedding-cake of City Hall and on to the Delaware and all spots in between. Good times, those.

Speaking of Philadelphia and photos, I digress, I was out on the pier at Penn's Landing one morning, and an Asian family was out there as well. They were taking turns photographing each other in front of Philadelphia's skyline. Finally I asked if they wanted me to take a picture of all of them together? They were thrilled and lined up shoulder to shoulder. I took their camera, and then aimed it over their heads and beside them and in a couple of clicks gave them an excellent panorama shot of Philadelphia without them in the picture at all. I mean how many pictures could they take of each other? They knew who they were and what they looked like, and I'm sure they had a number of good pictures of each of them obscuring the Liberty Bell. It just seemed to me that they should have a picture of Philadelphia proper without the view blocked. I'm sure that when they arrived home, they were delighted with my favor when their pictures were developed. I'm always doing thoughtful things like that. I did the same good deed for a lovely family in front of the Louvre in Paris. But I had to stand on the lip of a fountain to go over their heads to get a good, complete shot. No wonder my karma is so healthy.

Speaking of Paris, I digress, I've been watching a lot of French films lately. I know it's unpatriotic to speak highly of the French nowadays, but the intellectual nihilism of their films appeals to me. When I was there, it was wonderful to go to dinner and watch them eat, smoke, drink wine and argue with raised voices and a lot of emphatic gesticulation. The French in their lives and their films never tie up anything neatly in a bow. They tend to leave you with more questions instead of giving you a Cinderella living happily ever after ending and that's the way life is, tra-la. How many Americans do you know who throw Racine, Foucalt, and Voltaire all together into a dinner conversation? Americans don't even know the names of American philosophers, much less French or British or German philosophers. My guess is that a Happy Meal is not conducive for discussing the meaning of life. And, by the way, Parisians are not rude or dismissive to Americans who are polite. Most of them speak English fairly well. But they do tend to get cranky at those Americans who think that by screaming at them in English they'll make the dunderheaded French understand them better. Sacré Bleu!

Back to my first digression, I have four photos of Oscar Wilde's tomb at Père Lachaise--only one of them with Christopher and me in it. And I wouldn't have had that one if a gay German couple, who spoke both English and French hadn't insisted on taking one of us. Oscar Wilde, that rascal, said that When good Americans die they go to Paris. This good American has more packing to do. And I won't be going to Paris, more's the pity.