I made a lot of lists last week, and I ran a lot of errands. I chopped a lot of vegetables. I chopped so many vegetables that I became seriously fatigued, and, as I watched my hands chopping vegetables, some of my fingers holding the vegetables down and then four other fingers on the handle of knife, which wasn’t as sharp as it should have been, I thought, I am so tired but I must focus, so that I don’t cut off my own fingers. Focus. And I did focus, and I cut all the vegetables into very thin batons and teeny tiny little mince and I did not chop off even one of my fingers, not even one.

Lately I am estranged from my own hands, I look at them on the steering wheel, or taking off their rings to wash the dishes and am interested by them in a friendly but, given that they’re my hands, kind of distant way. Of course this is because they look like my mother’s hands, as they were when I was young, and they are doing what her hands used to do. And they are glamorous as my mother’s hands used to be for me, bony and veiny and useful.

I know you’re all excited, wondering, What is going to happen at the tennis luncheon today? Will Carey’s salade niçoise be the success that it should be? How much sangria will everyone drink? I want to know the answers to these questions, myself. And I will, soon.

Meanwhile, I thought I would tell you the menu for the luncheon as if it were one word:

CruditewithhummusBacon-wrappedfigsVegetablespringrolls-SpicytunarollsSpanikopitaandtiropitesSpinachpistachio-andstrawberrysaladSaladeNicoiseFruitsaladPoachedsalmon-MarinatedsteakChickenandvegetableshiskabobsGrilled-shrimpwithpineapplesalsaRoastedcornsouffleBuffalomozza-rellaandtomatoeswithfreshbasilCouscousLemonLulucakeCoff-eeblondebrowniesChocolatemousseAssortedrugelachorminitarts

I wonder if there is a tune I can set this to. I always want to set everything to “If I Were a Rich Man.” Although this morning a mother at Johnny’s school told me she was working at “Safety Town” this week and I immediately thought, “Let me take you to [beat beat] Safety Town!” It’s a place where children learn not to kill themselves with electricity or drown or be run over or abducted. It’s run by the Junior League.

Where was I? Borges. I’m reading a collection of short stories by Borges called Doctor Brodie’s Report. If Borges stories were jokes they would all have the same punch line: Then he was killed by a knife. That’s life as an Argentine gaucho for you. So what’s the punch line around here supposed to be? Then she protected herself and her children from accidents for the rest of their lives and they were killed in old age by disease.