Oh Downton, My Downton

We’ll gather in the drawing room at eight o’clock.

         -Robert Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey, to Carson, the butler

Gather in the drawing room???

Unlike the fantastical food fests and decorum orgies that take place on PBS peek-a-boos into lavish English country houses, no one seems to gather anymore. It’s sad. The truth is there’s also a dearth of drawing rooms in the twenty-first century.

Not so in PBS world! Let the recession continue to limp along unsteadily toward an unsure future, let worlds continue to collide, let the deteriorating infrastructure of our city continue to jolt my car out of alignment on any given day and play havoc with the motor mount at regular, dispiriting intervals- it’s just one big Jewish wedding at Downton, especially when there are weekend guests! No one arrives simply for an evening’s dinner and some chat at these massive, merry conglomerations of aristocratic glitterati- it’s a several days long though appropriately restrained bacchanal of gorgeous attire, sparkly tiaras and mysterious, scrumptious looking desserts. The suites where the weekend guests are housed and duly pampered even have exotic names, like “the Egypt room” among others. Forget about chopped liver and melon balls. All that’s missing is a steady stream of punch joyfully spouting from a gilt-edged fountain in the shape of a lion or unicorn, but why even give a thought to such trivialities of catering when your cellar is replete with the most exquisite of rarified wine selections from the year one of winemaking. . . .

I want to anticipate gathering and be dressed to the nines and have a “lady’s maid” arrange my coiffure and select a marvelous piece (or two or three) from the priceless mulch of gemstones overflowing my jewelry box and then gather in the drawing room with other similarly attired and festooned spirits. But Wait! What exactly is a drawing room? I sort of get the general idea, but not entirely. . . I’ve gathered it’s not for drawing, as in sketching or doodling, but rather for drawing people in, as in the act of gathering around gaming tables for civilized amusements like whist and bridge amid the delicate tinkle of cordial glasses and ever so thin crystal stems of champagne while bubbly undertones of laughter and snippets of clever, intriguing small talk decide the fates of marriages and nations.

Oh, the battle of waterloo was indeed won on the playing fields of Eton!!!  And here I am, stuck in an outer borough, waiting for next Sunday night.