I have been doing much work in the house and office, because I'm re-arranging my life again. I'm relegating the last 35 years as one of my past lives. I have quite a list of past lives, and the good thing is, I haven't had to die, even once, between one and another of them.

Of course, my future life will include elements from all the previous ones - why would I want to waste them - but it will be different.

So, today I decided to open the kitchen cabinet above the refrigerator (now known as KC1) to see what was in there. Also, I'm composing a pictorial inventory of all my possessions so future generations can gaze in wonderment and awe at what we had and how we lived back in the late 20th Century (1).

You see, I have no heirs or assigns, and no interested person (interested in me, that is). So, I intend to set up a trust fund sufficient to keep clovegarden.com alive indefinitely, so long as html is used - and perhaps even beyond if it earns enough to pay a programmer.

For that, I'm starting to write my obituary (well in advance), because I know for sure nobody will have any interest in writing one for me. I can't get them to write obits for people who have been very important in their lives, never mind me.

So, I opened this cabinet, and faced one of my past lives. Such beautiful glassware! Such lovely serving things! This was from 40 years ago, during my romantic period - but women cured me of romantic, and they did it brutally.

All these things were so that I, and the woman who came to be with me, could do elegant entertaining for a few of our friends and other couples.

But women proved totally uninterested in me. The only women who ever came to live with me were ones who were desperate to get away from some other situation - and they left as soon as they could. They weren't here to be with me. And romantic?. I learned the hard way that women learn romantic from Hallmark and Chick Flicks, and expect men to conform. They wouldn't know real romantic if it bit them on the ass.

Now it's way too late for romantic, but it's a past life I don't intend to destroy or disregard.

So, I carefully washed the contents and the cabinet, photographed each piece, and carefully placed it all back in order.

One thing I found there was a tin lined copper fondeaux pot - back to the elegant entertaining. The stand doesn't match it well, but perhaps I will find one that does, or perhaps I have one. I've started cleaning out my attic storage - filled with all manner of wonderful treasures!

The pot reminded me of my former assistant, L. I wasted a whole lot of my life on L.I loved her very much, and gave here a great amount of freedom working here (basically, she was of no use for business). At first she was encouraging, but steadily withdrew, and treated me more and more like dirt. If I placed flowers at her work station, she called it "sexual harassment". I will spare you all the tawdry details, but fortunately it finally blew up and she stormed out in a major huff (and in a Toyota).

The pot reminded me of her, because in more cordial times, she noticed a bright clean piece of copperware. She asked me, "How do you get copper so bright?" I answered, "Didn't your mother teach you that?"

So I told her I would show her how. I took down a tarnished copper item, wet a sponge added household cleanser, and rubbed the item. No change. She looked a little disgusted. Then I took vinegar and poured it into the sponge. I rubbed the item again - again no change, and she looked more disgusted.

Then I poured more vinegar into the sponge and sprinkled a good dose of salt onto it. She said, "Now I know you're shitting me!". Of course, her next words were "Oh, my God!" as I rubbed the sponge on the copper.

Of course, up on the top shelf of this cabinet is where I keep the Single Malt Scotch - you have to clear all the pots and pans off the top if the refrigerator to get this cabinet open.

So, as my reward for this indulgence in cleaning and nostalgia, I pried open the paper cylinder and pulled out a nearly full bottle of Laphroaig, from the sacred isle of Islay, and poured myself a half ounce.

Peter - you lie! You don't have paint stripper anything like this in England!

All of this was accompanied by a new 12 CD set I just bought, of music by a kid named Willie, who had been thrown out the English school system for failing a "form", whatever the hell that is - I have no idea. Great music for nostalgia.

Willie still wanted to compose music, so he was studying privately at his own expense. At that time there was a guy named Lionel Tertis who single handedly resurrected the viola as a solo instrument, and all the top composers were writing stuff for him to play. Willie asked his teacher, "what should I compose next". His teacher said, "Hell, why don't you write a viola concerto and send it to Tertis, maybe he'll play it.

So Willie composed it and sent it off to Tertis in 1929. It was returned unopened, with a note scribbled on it, "I don't have time to review student work".

Then it was Great Depression time. The English wanted to do the "stiff upper lip" thing and put on a big music festival - but there wasn't much money - so, they found Willie would work cheap and commissioned a new piece. He decided to do a cantata, because cantatas and oratorios were really big in England. Then he found out his piece would follow one by Poulenc, known to be quite noisy - so Willy asked the conductor, "Should I add an extra brass band to my piece?" The conductor (2) responded, "Sure, do whatever you want - nobody's ever going to hear this stuff again".

But it all turned out OK. Willie's oratorio, "Belshazzar's Feast" (by coincidence playing in the background at this moment) entered the standard repertoire on first hearing, and is performed many times per year to this day.

The viola concerto was premiered by virtuoso violist Paul Hindemith, not a shabby deal at all. At his retirement dinner, Tertis was asked if he had any regrets from his career. He responded, "Only one. I held in my hand the greatest viola concerto ever written, and failed to premier it". Willie died in 1983 as Sir William Walton.

So, for me, it's back to the cleaning and re-organizing - it's going to take the rest of the year, there is so much to do.


(1) Speaking of "how we lived", I have a precious book I bought years ago for a dollar or so on eBay. It is in bad shape and needs to be rebound, so I have it in shrinkwrap. It is a book written for Japanese servants of American officers and officials in Japan during the occupation. It covers every tiny detail of how an upper middle class American household was run in 1947 - and I mean every tiny detail. This book should be republished as a textbook of historical anthropology.

(2) The conductor was another odd kid. His daddy took him into town to hear an orchestra perform. Tommy told his dad "I want to become a conductor". So, unlike most parents of kids who want to pursue a musical career, his dad said "OK", and bought him the orchestra. The musicians did not like this one bit, but times were tough, so most of them stayed on. Tommy put on a free concert for the town, and it was a disaster - so he put on another one, rather unsuccessful, and one after that, and just kept on going. He died in 1961, as Sir Thomas Beecham, one of the greatest conductors of all time (and heir to the Beecham's Pink Pills fortune).

". . surely your fellow music aficionados would miss your sumptuous feasts."

Yes, they would miss those - but that would be the extent of it.

During my 30 years exile from the group, it grew, and then dwindled. By time Jon Lackey died and I could be invited back, it was severely depleted from deaths, severe health issues, moves and poverty.

Jon Stringer, who had run the music program during my exile, had a stroke from which he never recovered, and died just after Jon Lackey died. Fortunately his wife got tired of selling off his music collection, and I have acquired what remains, about 2800 CDs. Add my 400 or so and it's a substantial collection.

Now, if only more of the Music Group regulars were actually interested in music . . .

Of the regulars remaining, several are "intellectuals" - a polite synonym for "looser". One is a crazy cat lady, a couple are total flakes, most are distracted by severe financial and health issues - and so it goes with this motley crew.

In conclusion, I fully expect to outlive the lot of them.