I was soundly upbraided by Jeremy in an email from Bogota that I was not allowed to entertain any captains (i.e. Polish Captain Marc) while he is away. Even I was shocked at his adamant statements, but he is right. No one will ever take his place; that's why I'm sort of lost right now.

I have my two, military boyfriends, Carlos and Mickey by my side and always retain Ray's Latino "rear" guard. But Jeremy put order in life, and there is none now; I'm spinning out of control.

Of course, having friends like Mrs. Stuyvesant-Fish doesn't help; there should be a law against the two of us being in the same room. The other day she announced to the entire ballroom, "I'm notorious for my luncheons." I thought that a bit scandalous until I realized that we had devoured about a dozen Spanish boys in two afternoon sittings.

She is a panic, though. Mrs. Stuyvesant-Fish reminded me of a funny story (we can get very silly together, between feasts). She reminded me of one, particularly dangerous peasant revolt; while we gasped behind our fans, the monsters were actually climbing over the fence with filthy daggers in their mouths. Jeremy called in a Chinook helicopter to The Palace roof and we loaded the entire Court, the retainers, the servants, and several chests of champagne in and attempted to escape. The helicopter was too overloaded; it couldn't lift off. It looked like the servants had to go until Mamie nodded to me, and we both unclasped our pearls and threw them out the window. With that, the helicopter lifted us to safety, and we all lived for another ball. As she says, "There's a lot of money in keeping up bodies like ours." Indeed, Mamie, indeed.

Oh, by the way, Everyone is expected to attend the ball this Thursday; you all know what it is and non-attendance will bring social calamity on you.