[an entry in purple, in honour of monsignor quixote's purple socks.]

so heath arrived in cambridge on thursday evening and we went to evoo on von's recommendation ("we'll go and see him afterwards, so if it is bad we can lay it at his door"). after dinner he gallantly submitted to being taken all the way to inman square and then back to dunster, trusting to my well-intentioned but misguided sense of direction, and did not once shake his formidable-but-not-duck-headed umbrella at me in fury, or accuse me of leading him into dark alleys to rob him clean of purse and kidneys. somerville was full of dodgy run-down buildings and hardened grad students and therefore a perfectly believable setting had anyone tried to issue demands for life or money. when we both saw the sign that said "city limits" i rather quailed at what he must think, but to my relief and gratitude he only offered his umbrella in the service of warding off miscreants a la marion chesney character.

[me: *musing* the umbrella reminds me of the avengers.
heath: *bursts out laughing* did you say the evangelists?*]

in fact, not one word of reproach passed his lips until we were somewhere on putnam street and the red light i had been pointing out to him encouragingly as the dunster clock tower turned out to be quite something else altogether and most probably the tip of a skyscraper over in boston. then he remarked that i had no excuse, not being befuddled by drink, and that had i really led him across the river he would have been very angry with me. (i admitted that had that indeed been the case i would have legged it quickly so as to elude his wrath and leave him stranded; he asked if i had heard of cabs.) thankfully this threat was made idle as we arrived at von's lair at that point. (also, i plead lots of lamp-posts and postboxes on the way in mitigation.) made tea for us all, using von's tea set which is now minus one cup through, i am smug to say, no fault of mine.**

von: *explaining* it was an accident.
heath: ah, if anyone else had broken it it would have been out of spite.

and then i curled up on von's couch and ate pomelo and let the men get on with intelligent conversation to make up for my customary inept silence*** in the earlier part of the evening. and soon after it was late and cold and i stole another sweater from von and we all retired to home and hotel.

* i now remember that there does in fact exist a connection between umbrellas, evangelists and heath, and that is through mr houseman.

**ever since he bought his glass tea set, von has been threatening me with various forms of painful death should i drop a cup. when a cup was finally broken, it was von himself who let it slip, and i wasn't even in the room. aha.

*** although any lack of enthusiasm about snow and winter sports is solely due to my tropical upbringing.