You’re looking maybe for Ocean’s vice of the week feature? Ohhhh, just sit back and read. I have many up my sleeve.

Where Ocean again files a Monday report on vices [def: moral depravity, corruption, wickedness, moral faults or failings, or, at the very least, habitual and usually trivial defects or shortcomings] manifested by its author, on the theory that if I blurt it out here, I will earn myself a clean slate for (vices to be committed in) the week ahead:

Last night’s loft warming warmed my heart. People are way too nice and I do not deserve any of their goodness.

So why is it that I let them work for their grub? That’s a vice! At least a half a dozen literally finished off dish preparation for me and at least two actually cleaned up a pot or two so that I would not wake to the disaster that typically follows one of my cooking binges.

And another vice – sampling wine from practically every bottle that was opened (okay, only the whites!). And with twenty people, the last ones trickling out after midnight, there were plenty that got uncorked. Vicey!

But here’s the one I’ve been saving up for Ocean. It indeed is about uncorking, except, what is it that I uncorked????

So here’s the story: I got up early and began the usual clean up. I am a woman of great attention to detail. You would not know this about me, just reading my blog, but in the loft, everything is in its place. Very neat. Very orderly. And so of course I was going to correct some guest’s erroneous placement of a piece of paper in the recyclables garbage can. I reached in and was about to transfer it, when my evil curiosity got the better of me.

I unfolded the yellow sheet and read it. (Truthfully, I did worry that it was some important page that accidentally got trashed.)

It had four words on it, followed by a question mark:

Do you love me? Some female hand wrote stealthily.

Okay. There were five married couples here (random note: amazingly, only one out of the ten keeps a blog) and another that also belongs to the 'committed' category. Then there were seven without any Significant Other in sight. So it could have been innocent, right? Married woman asks her adored one, in a moment of drunkenness if there’s passion behind that cool demeanor.

But hey, wouldn’t she have waited 'til they at least got to the elevator? Rather than scribble it right there in the middle of chomping on a crostini with gingered beef and wasabi? The more likely explanation? -- a guest is reaching out to touch someone and that someone is not their spouse at all, but the spouse of another.

Too many permutations and possibilities for me to figure it out. Unless… I compare the handwriting with the cards I received.

Don’t worry. Your secret is my secret.

On to one more vice: a run of photos of, well, me (not always in the most flattering poses). Kathy, was that you working my camera? Okay, for once, I have a batch of photos depicting how absolutely insane I become at one of my own dinners. I have no shame. Here they are, interspersed with the sanity of others and, of course, food.


lofty dusk, stuffed figs, all is calm



why are three others working around me at food prep?



make that four others... (is that a tattoo??)



billed as chocolate cigarettes, but looking more like cigars



off goes the apron



urban flight



watching...



still waters? maybe. maybe not.



I did say to the guests: you need only bring oreos. trust a therapist (not mine!) to be a good listener.