Aren't Saturday mornings supposed to be when you get to sleep in and wake up feeling refreshed? I was so exhausted when I woke up, that after a few hours of being upright, I actually went back to bed, as I so desperately needed a nap! Apparently staying out until 3 AM every night will catch up with you eventually... (And yes, I realise that people with kids will yell at me for being exhausted from partying too much, saying that at least I had a fun reason for being tired!)
After so many days of having to do my hair up in such complicated hairstyles, I was a bit tired of it, but I still needed to put it up in a somewhat formal style to go out to my club (again!) for dinner. So I just put it in twists while still wet, and pinned it all in place with bobby pins. Funny how jamming pins into your head will help you feel a bit more alert, or at least keep your head up!
I then caught the Tube from Kensington Olympia, where the "Erotica '09" conference was just ending at the Olympia Exhibition Centre. The train was packed with people carrying bags from the exhibition, and I ended up sitting near two couples sitting across from each other, debating the merits of various types of nipple clamps. I swear, I will never look at overweight middle-aged couples in the same way ever again.
I got to my club and grabbed a paper, and just spent some time sitting and reading. A young man sat down with a friend of his, and I was surprised when the friend took his jacket off and put it over a nearby chair. You could tell that I was not the only member of the club who was a bit startled by this, but unfortunately the chap didn't seem to pick up on my telepathic messages of "Put your jacket back on, you idiot, before they catch you!" Indeed, in short order a member of staff came over and quietly but firmly ordered him to put his jacket back on, which must have had him quaking with fear as he absolutely jumped to comply!
After this minor drama, I was only reading for a short while longer before my friend Jim and his son Ben arrived to join me.
Jim is a member of my old polo club from Boston, the Myopia Polo Club. Jim and I used to play together quite a bit, and have remained in touch due to Jim's frequent trips to the UK, where his 17-year old son, Ben, is a student at Eton. (Yes, the same ridiculously posh school where Princes William and Harry went). Jim is a fascinating person to me, because he is a doctor, a lawyer, AND is hugely active in politics (as he was a White House Fellow under George H. W. Bush). Although I would never normally think to be friends with a Republican, Jim is one of the smartest men I know, proving that there is such a thing as an intelligent conservative. Although we don't always agree, I always find our conversations fascinating, hence why Jim is a great friend to hang onto. And I think as a Yale-and-Harvard educated man himself, he enjoys mentoring a little Dartmouth-via-Cambridge-and-Oxford protegee to track throughout her career. I always find Jim's advice to be valuable and spot-on, so I do well to listen to him!
We had a drink in the bar and caught up for a bit, and then moved on into the Coffee Room for dinner. After the previous night's mayhem, everyone, including the staff, was obviously still in recovery mode. I have to say, perhaps it's simply a feature of it being the weekend, but the food definitely seemed to rely a bit more on cold salads and uncomplicated dishes that did not require the presence of the star chef!
Still, the desserts were absolutely amazing, so I felt relieved actually that my dear club had proved itself once again for my guests. The raspberry chocolate mousse cake and the white chocolate angel cake both got reactions of a simple "Wow!"
After dinner, I took them on a tour of the club, with Jim pausing in the library to pen a note to his 11-year old son, Spencer. They seemed to enjoy the walk around, and I had fun talking to Ben a bit about his upcoming interview at Trinity, Cambridge, and his thoughts on going to Cambridge or Yale.
Finally we returned to the bar, where we caught up on some polo gossip and just shared our thoughts on horses and ponies in general. The most interesting tidbit of news was about two people we used to play with, a 29-year old woman and a 56-year old man, who are now married. Apparently they went through a huge crisis and break-up after she realised that he was too old to do kids for a second time around, but apparently after she married him anyway, they've come around and are going to have kids anyway. Jim seemed to be using the story to make the point that he got married at 30, and thinks it's high time I jumped on the bandwagon too.
We also continued a discussion I was having with friends the previous night, about the importance of secondary school in one's subsequent life, as you don't seem to hear people being referenced by the fact so much that they went to Exeter or Andover in the US as you do hear about people having gone to Eton or Harrow in the UK. In the end, we concluded that whilst individuals retain a strong bond with the school (Exeter recently tried to raise $320 million, and ended up getting $390 million out of its alumni), it's just not as much in the public consciousness outside of the schools as it is here in the UK.
Then we continued a discussion I'd been having with the 25-year old, about the role of proximity in Henry VIII's court, and Jim was telling me about how that same sort of thing existed in the White House, where it was VERY important to know where your office was, and how close you were to the president. He then told me the story of how he'd actually been fired by his boss in the White House (and his secretary knew before he did, because his phone hadn't rung for three hours), but how Bush himself intervened and found him a non-Senate confirmed job in the EPA, where he stayed for the next 15 months. Amazing to realise what a political insider I know...
Finally though, the clock struck midnight, and I needed to get home, so I bid my farewells, and dashed out into the night before my carriage turned into a pumpkin, or more importantly, before the Tube stopped running!
No comments:
Post a Comment