As I walked to the door at 1 a.m.with our Cape Breton friend who had been the life of the New Years Eve house party we’d just left, regaling attendees with tales from his Catholic school upbringing, I was carrying the decorative plate which had held the cherry loaf his wife had made for a previous evening at our place. It was Pinky (no, not Pinky and the Brain) but the classic portrait which is the mate for Gainsborough's Blue Boy. As I placed it on the bench (neither of us wanting to anger the owner - who had already had to forgo partying to spend the evening at work - by breaking it) he said “oh yeah, the holy plate”. Now he is visually impaired and has on occasion referred to himself as illegally blind as his sight’s been stolen but I stopped and looked again at the plate saying “it’s Pinky”. He was undeterred and said “oh yeah, but it reminds me of the holy plate Mom was given when I was a kid. It was a decorative plate of one of the saints or someone and looked like Marie Antoinette on a swing. My younger sister always called it the holy plate – as in Ma, Ma Joey’s eating off the holy plate again.” It was the perfect ending to such an evening.
Today has been spent sleeping in, eating leftovers, napping, playing on the computer, drinking tea, reading, walking the dog, researching and booking a hotel for our post cruise stay in Fort Lauderdale while NOT doing any housework. A lovely start to 2012! The return to work (and reality) with a night shift is another matter.
