It was our friend Jack who recommended Aidan to us. We needed someone to paint the house interior, and he assured us that Aidan was the best.  He was also an artist, a perfectionist, and a quixotic Irish fellow who presented us with a four-page estimate in hand-written calligraphy.  Yes, he was available, and yes, he could be finished by our deadline.  And so it began.

He was meticulous and the work could not be faulted.  He wondered if he should paint the beam in the dining room, which was actually a faux beam, and proceeded to create a stunning facsimile of real wood.  The house was draped in drop cloths and we felt a bit like Murphy Brown, the sit-com character with a perennial painter in her house.  He became chatty, and told us of the time he had to move out of a hotel room in the middle of the night because he couldn’t sleep with the room’s hideous paint job. A sensitive fellow.

Not surprisingly, our deadline was fast approaching and the painting was far from complete.  We had eloped to Niagara Falls in early August and invited all our friends and relatives to a belated reception in Oakland in late September, many of whom had never visited our house.  We wanted it to look good. Sally prodded Aidan, who became defensive, and the relationship soured.

As they worked through the tension and figured out some compromise, Sally decided to invite Aidan to the reception.  At this, he visibly brightened and asked, “So, do you want me to bring me gongs?”  It turned out he was a highly accomplished gong master, and assured us that he could set the gathering on a harmonious and loving path with a gong ceremony at the start.  Well, um, okay, maybe that would be nice.  How long is such a ceremony?  The complete version could take 45 minutes, but he would cut it way down for our purposes.  Ever the optimists and not wanting to offend him, we said that would be lovely.

By the time of the big day, the house was tidied up enough to appear presentable despite unfinished tasks.  The reception venue, the Sequoia Lodge, was a rustic wooden pavilion in the oak woodlands, and was enchanting in the filtered sunlight.  it was being transformed with greenery, tables, catered food, space for a band, and people filtering in.  Family had come from Maryland, Minnesota, South Carolina, Arizona.  Good friends we had known for decades showed up.

And Aidan came with his gongs and dressed in a shirt with stars and moons.  It was more than we had expected, especially the largest gong which was two or three feet in diameter, hanging in a large wooden frame.  There were also smaller gongs and various percussion sticks, and Tibetan singing bowls. Serious gong show.

He asked us to be seated in the middle of the room as the other guests all stood around the edges in a circle, becoming quiet as the room filled with gong reverberations.  He tapped the various instruments, then got the bowls singing and walked around us several times, and again, and again.  Time seemed endless.  I muttered to Sally, “How long does this go on for?”  and she whispered, “Just go with it. “  In truth, Aidan the artist and perfectionist was as skilled with the gongs as he was with the paintbrush.

Although it seemed forever, the gonging was probably no longer than ten or fifteen minutes. As it concluded, Sally looked around at the circle of guests who seemed to be politely withholding judgment and then burst into a big smile and proclaimed, “Welcome to California!”

Maybe Aidan was right and the gong ceremony set the right tone; everyone had a good laugh and we all had an absolutely wonderful and unforgettable celebration afterwards.  And the inside of our house had the finest paint job in its own good time.

The storms began as I left her house with her kiss still on my lips, and grew in ferocity as I drove south along the Turnpike.
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Good Night (Hurricane) Irene!

We’ve been affected by hurricanes twice  – by Irene in 2011 and by Sandy a year later.    Sandy caused us the most disruption – our Manhattan apartment building is near the East River and the storm caused it to overrun the adjacent FDR Drive and our street,  East End Ave,  and flood our building’s basement.  Then the force of the surge pulled an oil tank from the basement wall that crashed on the concrete floor.  The toxic mix of raw sewage and oil made the building unsafe,  and in addition we lost power,  phone and elevator service,  as well as  cooking gas,  and we were all evacuated for several weeks.  (See Cooking with Gas).

Sandy wreaked havoc where she made landfall,  and every night we all got a meteorological education on the news.   Hurricanes,  we learned,  are usually unaccompanied by lightning.

But Hurricane Irene was an exception that proved the rule.  In the early morning of August 28,  2011 we were asleep in our Connecticut country house when a terrifyingly loud crash woke us and sent the cat scurrying under the bed.

From our bedroom window we looked down at the deck and saw that lightning had split the trunk of a large tree a few yards from the house.  It fell across the deck hitting the railing and bringing it down.

It happened our house had the dubious distinction of being the only one in our condo community to have suffered Irene’s wrath,  but we thanked our lucky stars the damage hadn’t been more than a broken deck railing.

By the way,  our old scaredy cat stayed under the bed until suppertime.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Odessa

When I was growing up my parents had a housekeeper named Odessa.   She was a tall and stately-looking Black woman,  and I adored her.

In the mornings before my mother left for work Odessa arrived,  made sure I finished my breakfast,  and walked me the few blocks to school.  And at 3:00 she’d be there to walk me home,  and I’d regale her with all that happened at school that day.

Our Bronx house had three stories – my father’s medical office was on the first floor,  and our living quarters were on the two floors above that included the finished attic where I slept.  Between appointments my dad took a midday break and came upstairs for the lunch Odessa always had waiting for him

And Odessa cleaned home and office and laundered,  and in my mind’s eye I still see her carrying a laundry basket down to the basement,  bending a bit to accommodate her height as she descended those rickety steps.  We had a washing machine down there,  but no dryer,  and Odessa would hang the wet laundry on two clotheslines my dad had strung from wall to wall.  (See My Beloved Basement)

And days when I was sick and home from school it was Odessa  who cared for me,  and I remember her bringing trays of food and bowls of oatmeal or her homemade chicken soup up to my attic bedroom.   And because I loved tomatoes she always cooked one in the soup.

Odessa was active in her Harlem church and one day she proudly told my parents that her congregation had taken the step uncommon for the time and appointed her – a woman – as deacon.  She was to be ordained that Sunday and she invited us to the ceremony.

The sights and sounds at the Baptist service were quite different from those at our synagogue’s services,  and I watched transfixed as Odessa,  in her beautiful deacon’s robe,  knelt in that sacred space for the laying on of hands.

And to my child’s sensibility I thought the beatific smile I saw on Odessa’s face was just for me.

– Dana Susan Lehrman