April 2, 2011

Five cartons of live plants arrived un the last two days, so when I could clear all other tasks to plant them (today) I did. It may have been the day in my life of most digging and planting, and I feel exactly as though it was. I won’t remember everything, but there are new beds of gentian, mollis, Solomon’s seal, cinnamon and ostrich fern, ginger, four o’clocks, a Lincoln lilac, an expensive arisaema, Of those already in residence, the first–white–tree peony bears a great billiard ball of bud.

Party at J and P’s last night. They’ve invited me several times, but I never went (despite my affection for them) because they live miles up a difficult mountain road, and long ago I learned my pleasure in these things diminishes in direct proportion to the difficulty of access. But, I went. No one thought a Prius would make it up the slope, so I was meant to park at the bottom of the twisty road and phone to be picked up in someone’s four-wheel drive vehicle. Turns out I had no reception from there, and so I began to walk up the mountain, lugging my 12 pack of Harp. The road was very steep and I was trying sweatily to hurry, but I had no idea how far it was, so I kept trying the phone until, at a certain height, facing Asheville, I got a signal. I thought I had gone a goodly distance by the time P came for me, but the road was very long indeed. I would never have made it on foot. I thought at that point my misgivings had been justified. Delicious food and, for a while, interesting conversation. When men start quoting statistics at one another, you know the evening is gone. Big, sweet dogs. Snow was falling when I careered down from the heights in G’s jeep.

After the gardening work-out I had developed the desire for a hamburger from an old-time hamburger joint. I found the Newbridge Café, one of those places you speed past on the highway every day without looking, but which turns out to be friendly and idiosyncratic and picturesque, and to serve exactly what you craved.

Late. Took AJ to La Boheme at the Wortham. AJ was the perfect companion, entering totally new experience with a totally open and excited mind. As for the opera, it has probably been better sung in the history of the world, but it was beautifully directed and expertly acted, and left one with a feeling of compact richness. I had seen it long ago–in London–but didn’t remember it was funny. People talk about it all the time, but now I’m there agreeing that it is a masterpiece–and hardly idiotic at all, for an opera. When Mimi gets the muff I nearly burst into tears. So little to ask . . . Actually caught bits of Italian as they flew by. It was helpful in this sense, for I could hear how generally pronouns disappear when the verb reveals the meaning.