Umnak, 28 December 1944 -- "three months, three weeks, three days"

Darling Darling…

Except for not getting a letter from you, or an answer to my Christmas telegram in which I asked you to wire me, this was a very nice day. What do I have to do to get you to write or to wire, little one? I’d like to come down there so that you wouldn’t have to bother, but really, I can’t.

 

"Future of the Falcon (early version 1), 1947, Gordon Onslow Ford. Weinstein Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really shouldn’t complain for the mail brought many nice things. There was a package from Mom [Rosa’s mother, Jessie Northcutt]; a book called The Feather Merchants and a box of Almond Roca. There was a stack of Oregonians, two New Republics, and a Harpers. In the letter line there was a nice one from Gordon, which I enclose. [Gordon Onslow-Ford was a Surrealist and Impressionist painter, friend of Andre Bretón and Gertrude Stein. He and his wife Jacqueline lived in Patzcuaro at the same time as Murray and Rosa in 1942: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Onslow_Ford]  

But the high spot was the arrival of one of Bill’s [Bill Fett] Mexican watercolors, “The Blue Flower,” a really beautiful job. I’m still trying to figure out where to hang it. The painting reminds me a great deal of the New Year’s one he painted at the Patzcuaro Shangri-La. I so wish we could see it together, little darling, but it makes me feel close, just being kin to those we have on the houseboat walls.

Mexican watercolor, Bill Fett, c. 1944

And tonight, instead of the rather weak symphony we usually have in the middle of the week, there was Toscanini conducting Beethoven’s First and Eighth. To make matters perfect, there was some trouble in the operating room and the maintenance man who usually butts in on Brahms to tell me that there is going to be liver for lunch or Friday was off at work. I don’t remember being impressed by the First before, but today I found it wonderful, especially the third movement. 

Later there was a good comedy program on the radio, the first that I can remember in a very long time. It was a shortwave special for the services, and Danny Kaye did a one-man satire on soap opera …I laughed until I cried. No one else thought it very good, though.    …

I did not get in quite as much writing today as usual. I’m on KP this week, and since it is the midnight dish trick, I work alone. It takes a bit more time than usual. But I did finish a draft of the first three pages in “The Sea” section. I think this part will be of special interest to you. It branches off into a history of the Pribilof Group and a review of the big Bering Sea diplomatic controversy which at one time threatened to involve us in war with Britain. I find the material fascinating. (You’re fascinating, too.)

Did I tell you, in my rehash of the mess here Christmas Eve, that Art Wyle, our GI character with the sailor stride, was roaming around glassy-eyed assuring everyone he was Linda Darnell? 

The radio just announced there is fighting going on on an island in the Danube within the Budapest city limits. It makes the idea of a bull in a china shop seem socially meretricious.

After today three months, three weeks, three days,

M