Another week whizzed by; Mr. Astor drafted the pattern for and cut out my costume on his two days off (what a doll). There was a martini party at The Tides which gave us all a chance to see the renovation and new decor. The Tides has a lot of money behind it, A LOT, but as we all know it can't buy you love or happiness, and to those two I will add taste.

Oh, I will be the first to admit that every piece of furniture in their lobby was extremely expensive, and I know that mixing different pieces from different time periods is the height of chic, but the lobby of The Tides looks like a yard sale of some European member of the lower nobility. And then there are those busts of the blackamoors on the patio; I cringe every time I walk by. To top off the evening, there wasn't any air conditioning yet, so we slipped back to The Palace next door again where a boisterous and loud crowd of the usual drunks were having a ball. No wonder The Tides hates us.
On another night (they get blurred) this week Angel (in black) brought a big group of well-wishers to celebrate his tenth anniversary with his partner. Ten years is incredible here; ten months is even stretching it. That is Leopoldo on the left (with the cleavage, always) and on the other side of Angel L's co-worker, Lloyd and friend Sheldon. The weather is slowly changing now into cooler, yet balmy nights with superb breezes off The Atlantic. It's payback time.

It's so good having Jeremy back where he belongs, but he's having trouble adjusting to his work routine here. With three weeks off upon returning from Columbia, he seems to think his routine is to leave home, have breakfast, drink at The Palace all afternoon, break for lunch at Twist, and cap off the evening with--what else, drinks at The Palace. He did take two days and go to Key West, a town notorious for--what else? I won't even say.

I truly don't know what he's doing here, but I can tell you what I'm doing: Worrying. Instead of oiling up the machine gun nests on the roof and probing for tunnels being dug under The Palace, Jeremy seemed more interested is doing fancy dance steps. I now firmly believe The Countess Bedelia hypnotized Jeremy on his state visit to her castle in Transylchusetts last Thanksgiving and what we see are secret, coded messages sent to make him act this way. (She is well known for her tribal dancing in public.) I saw Manchurian Candidate; we all know their tricks. I'm going to have to de-program him before Bedelia and her court of winged monkeys arrive next week. It will take a lot of alcohol, I'm sure.