Elsie II

Penelope is turning seven. It is Saturday, and her mother is throwing her a birthday party in their small backyard. Elsie spent considerable time on the invitations, commissioning one of the local artists who eats out of the palm of her hand to paint a surreal picture in celebration of Penelope’s birth. The picture was color copied onto the invitations which frightened its’ young recipients and justifiably caused their parents to seriously consider declining the RSVP. However, Elsie saw nothing wrong with an alien looking fetus curled up inside a birthday cake womb, and briefly considered having the painting shown at her gallery. There is irony in that there was no actual birthday cake present at Penelope’s party because in all the fuss about the invitations, Elise neglected to actually plan the party. The parties at the Chelsea hotel of course were never planned after all. Back then people just brought their own tamborines, liquor, and newly acquired sketchy friends with no social security numbers to let the evening play itself out.
The morning of, Elsie looked outside the window, declared it was a good day for a picnic, and promptly took her down comforter out of it’s brocade duvet which she theatrically laid on the grass outside. Penelope swung idlely on the swing set, watching her mother nervously.
By the time the kids arrived, Elsie had whipped up a mountain of pancakes, which she stacked in the center of the duvet. The pancakes range in diameter from 10 inches to 14. It was a giant-pancake-picnic-buffet! Nearby, an ancient boom box blasted the soundtrack from 2001 A Space Odyssey. All twelve kids were weirded out, but when Penelope introduced them to the litter of rats that lived inside the velvet green couch, they warmed up to all the eccentricities. Take off your shoes and sit lotus-style kids! Elsie passed out the mismatched plates.
Eww, said a girl with freckles, is this an ashtray? She held a pewter ashtray filled with strawberry jam. I dare you to stick your tongue in it Max.
Give it. He snatched it from the girl and stuck his face in it. He emerged with a slick, pink toothy smile. The kids giggled.
MAXWELL! Elsie called out.
My name is just Max, he retorted, picking strawberry seeds from his chin and flicking them at the nearby girls.
Do you know what that is? She plucked the ashtray indignantly from his hands. This is the ashtray Gala gave Salvador Dali. Do you know who that is?
A Mexican wrestler? The kids snickered at this.
No, Maximilian, Elsie replied sadly. She took the precious ashtray inside and emerged five minutes later holding a teacup of cognac.

Elsie I

Elsie Merger regularly asserts that children need to be raised in a creative environment. Elsie Merger also regularly practices questionable parenting skills. She will often serve Penelope, her daughter, English muffins with caviar for breakfast. Whenever Penelope protests, Elsie tells her that the porcelain dish with gilded imperial bees she is serving the said caviar from came from Josephine Bonaparte’s, yes, that Josephine’s trousseau, and if she doesn’t appreciate it, she could just serve it to the cats outside and go hungry until lunch, which will probably consist of another Black Sea beluga so she might as well shut up and develop a taste for it.
Elsie doesn’t need to work since her maternal grandfather, Henry Borden, made a fortune from inventing condensed milk and the Lazy Susan Table. 9 to 5 was never an option for our heroin, but she does co-own an art gallery that runs in 3 installments along a narrow alley off of Fremont’s main drag. She has carried on several numerous and sanguine affairs with various artists whose work she exhibited. Elsie wears false eyelashes and little else make up. She claims that Edie Sedgwick and her were close friends, and that someday she will write a memoir about all the crazy nights they had spent at the Chelsea hotel.