delaportediaries

[delaportediaries]

Cottage Cheese

4/18

To whom it may concern:

Finley DeLaporte reporting from the DeLaporte mansion in New Orleans, LA. Working on a deep-cover documentary about the lies, scandal, and deception of the DeLaporte family during the Fanatical Self-IsolationTM of 2020.

When we last spoke, I was able to replace my prized writing instrument. Junior lent me the necessary $2.50 from his own savings to purchase a new edition of the pen from the family supply shop. 

Now, I know that you think this means that I’ve been slacking up on Arch DeLaporte-Grundwalt, but you would be incorrect. I have, for the last ten days, kept complete tabs on his movements and now have an accurate daily schedule for his movement. It is as follows:

8am - wake up - bathroom time

8:30am - breakfast - usually eggs and cottage cheese 

10am - sliding down the banisters for “practice”

12:30pm - lunch - usually canned tuna and cottage cheese

1:30pm - scheduled magazine reading time 

5:30pm - studies

8pm - dinner - usually cod, caesar salad, and cottage cheese

11:30pm - Sleep

I know he still has my original pen. I will find where he’s been keeping it. Time is very much on my side...

More on that later,

Finley DeLaporte

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TELEGRAMMATIC MESSAGE FROM WINDHAM DELAPORTE

04/17

Dear Family! I sincerely hope you are continuing to do well! We are still anchored in the middle of the Caribbean, about 120 Nautical Miles off the shore of Guadeloupe. The vast blue that surrounds us has been an enticing playground for the restless crew, and we’ve taken to having twice weekly diving competitions. So far, I’ve not placed above 4th place, as the acrobatics of the 3 person Navigation crew has been impossible to beat! Their mastery of angles and trajectories have made them fearsome competition indeed, with stunning flips that drop the jaw and amplitude that makes your eyes water. However, as I am lacking in their more technical skills, I plan on wowing the judges (the Boilermen, who have taken to their more leisurely existence) with my bravado and daring rather than acumen! 

I will end my message here, family, as I have an event to win! Oh, and I also learned both the open parenthesis and close parenthesis in the language of Morse Code. I look forward to hearing from you! I love you!

TELEGRAMMATIC MESSAGE END

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The Day of the Great Whine!

4/14

Dearest Journal:

Here we are: another dreaded Day. Alas I should take comfort in being happy, healthy, and comfortable in these trying times, and I am trying to stay grateful. But I must confess to you dear Journal that today I am over it! I have decided that this blasted day is the one I will use this week to feel sorry for myself instead of turning myself over to the more virtuous emotions of gratitude and selflessness. So tomorrow, I will recommit myself to doing everything that I can for my dear family members in this trying time. But today, it’d be too soon if I never saw their face again! Tomorrow, I will sublimate my growing feeling of restlessness and discontent in the world of the written word. But today, I hope I never see another book again in my whole life! I crack a cover, am bored immediately, and I toss the book over my shoulder into a scarcely considered pile. Tomorrow, I will reconsider that pile. But today, I wish I could turn that pile into a bonfire at a campsite underneath the stars. 

O Journal, thank the heavens above I have your sacred pages accessible to me, for I would never express these feelings for fear of coming across as well, ungrateful and whiny! But it’s natural to whine and whinge, Journal, but not to wallow. Today will be the day of the Great Whine! Why me, why must I be confined to this comfortable chair with all of my creature comforts tended to?! Why can’t I be comfortable?! When did this pillow become so useless, all lumps and bumps?! And when, oh when, dear Journal, did I get so old!

Even you must be getting bored of all of these complaints, faithful Journal of mine, so I will grant your reprieve. I will retire to my once comfortable chair that I assume will be comfortable again tomorrow, to stretch much too loud and bemoan my unrest. If you need any space to vent yourself, dear journal, I will make sure to keep your strap unbuckled. Ha ha. Phineas DeLaporte, Family Librarian 

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Big Carrot

4/13

Diary,

Good to see you again. I’ve only really used your pages the last few weeks to keep some polling numbers, but I figured I’d drop in an actual entry for your time. Per my green pea push, I have a major update. 

Kelvin DeLaporte has been pushing an alternative agenda for an official family side dish. They’re very well known to be a carrot person, and they’ve been pushing for a crinkle-cut carrot official side dish. I will not allow this to stand. Here are my new talking points:

1. Carrots, while healthy, take FAR more work to prepare than peas.

2. Crinkle-cutting is a process used by BIG CARROT to trick consumers into a false sense of security. 

3. Peas have far more nutritional value and psychic value than carrots.

4. Kelvin DeLaporte smells like a can of sardines that have been left in the yard to rot. 

I think this will make great headway in the official DeLaporte side dish fight. I’ll keep you posted.

Bye!

Royal DeLaporte

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Egg Wreath

4/10

Dearest Lionel,

Egg day approaches! In the DeLaporte household at this time of year (approx. 45 days from Fat Tuesday), we only eat eggs for the weekend around Egg day. As the day approaches, we all train our bodies to survive the 72 hour marathon just on eggs and eggs alone. And, as in most DeLaporte traditions, the one who has the highest egg count on sundown Sunday wins the annual DeLaporte Egg wreath. 

Short entry for this week, Lionel. I have to drive a truck out to meet our egg supplier for this weekend’s supplies. We’ve already consumed about 200+ eggs in the household, and I fear that the 300 we have remaining won’t get us past tonight. 

Onward!

Your faithful friend,

Junior DeLaporte

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Tintinnabulation

4/9

Dear Diary,

The bells.  Those terrible bells. I am not sure how to explain the turmoil they have put me through, but I have done my best to ensure no other poor soul would accidentally elicit their wrath. 

On the evening of the 27th I continued my study of the bells by varying the orientation and frequency of bell hits in an effort to understand how the sound changes between them.  (According to my notes, the last I had tried was “Left bell x2, Right bell x3”).

I had decided to take a small break to peer over the various journals I had filled with my studies. When suddenly, and wholly surprisingly, I heard a ding I had not caused. I turned back towards the bells and scanned the room for the cat who must have pawed one in a jealous rage over my attention.  But there were no cats to be found, the bells stood alone and when yet another “ding!” rang out my curiosity got the better of me.  (I can almost hear it now! That frightful ringing!) The third time it rang on it’s own I took it’s cue and struck the mallet down on the center bell and was immediately accosted by a tintinnabulation beyond description. It seems as though all the bells in the world were suddenly pealing together in the space of my crowded room.  I could feel the sonic waves jostling around inside my skull, and felt myself like a clapper slamming against brass bell sides in all directions.  At some point I curled into a ball on the ground and closed my eyes against the sight of the three bells ringing themselves much harder than I would have trusted them to sustain.  But when I opened my eyes again everything was still.  The sounds had stopped.  The sun was up, and outside my closed door was a pile of uneaten meals covered in silver domes.  

Junior walked by my door and quipped that I was finally coming out of April Fools Day hiding.  I grabbed him and asked as politely as my severely frazzled brain could handle, whether it was truly April first.  “No,” he responded, “Of course it isn’t.  It’s the 9th.” 

Just at that moment the hallway clock chimed the hour, the sound of which sent me cowering back into my room.  I slammed the door and continued backing up, almost knocking the three bells from their place on the small table.  I eyed them carefully, and devised a plan. I must make sure these bells never ring again.  I delicately picked them up one by one and filled their mouths with cloth and then continued wrapping the outside of the bells with cloth until no sound could possibly escape.  I then looked around the room at the stacks of old furniture and crates of various DeLaporte memorabilia and found the crate least likely to be opened. I gently placed the bells inside, covered them with Aunt Cecelia’s nude self portraits and re-closed the lid as tightly as possible. 

It is hard to believe it has been almost a fortnight since my last entry.  To me, it has felt like only two minutes.  The world outside my window has gone from the beginning stages of spring to full summer so swiftly that I was worried that I had been two months in the void instead of two weeks.  

But things have changed.  I have reason to believe the cats have found a new benefactor, someone with a taste for the garish.  Poor Elephant’s plain blue collar has been replaced with a full ensemble which includes top hat and walking stick, and the typically tabby hair around Roudha’s face seems to have grown into a rather stylish blonde updo. If nothing else, I will need to leave the room to take her to visit cousin Coiffeuse when her roots begin to show. 

That is all for now, dear diary.  I must figure out how to proceed.

With love,

Hazel

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How to Go

4/7

To whom it may concern:

Finley DeLaporte reporting from the DeLaporte mansion in New Orleans, LA. Taking some notes for my future tell-all book about our experience during the Great Self-IsolationTM of 2020. 

Yesterday, my Uncle Phineas passed me a book through the check-out slot door of the library. The title read, “How to Go,” and I’m not sure what that means. I’ve skimmed through and it seems to be some sort of game, but at the moment I’m not sure. I’ll spend some time with it tonight. 

Today, I sit and wait. Arch DeLaporte-Grundwalt has stolen my favorite pen. I can’t convince anyone else in the household, save Junior, that he stole this pen. Junior has always said that Arch is not to be trusted, and now I see Junior may be the only one I can trust. 

Arch is currently taking a nap in the lounge. I’m waiting for another 15 or so minutes until he enters REM sleep, so that I may go check his pockets. He’s a deep sleeper once he hits REM. 

I’ll update soon.

Finley DeLaporte

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TELEGRAMMATIC MESSAGE FROM WINDHAM DELAPORTE

4/6

Dear Family! I hope you are all well. I have made progress in my learning, as you can see! I have added two new punctuation marks to my Morse Code repertoire. There is little to do on the high seas, so we have taken to playing some games around the vessel. The crew has been keen on showing off their trivia knowledge with an old copy of a nautical board game we found on-board, and I have been trying to get the crew to play I Spy with me to little avail. They seem to get a kick out of saying they see something blue. I hope to receive an update on your situation soon, my lovely Family! Stay Safe!

TELEGRAMMATIC MESSAGE END

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Vain Ramblings

4/6

Dearest Journal:

Contrary to the popular opinion held by my family, I do indeed have friends and acquaintances that exist beyond the walls of this library or outside the bound covers of the myriad books I’m surrounded by daily! And Journal, I must confess, after several weeks I fear I may have forgotten what their voice sounds like, for all I can hear in my imagination are the soft sounds of pages of paper sliding past other pages, leafs dancing in the wind of my ravenous appetite for knowledge. I can barely use my mind’s eye to conjure their countenance any longer, friends I’ve had for decades, as all I can picture are the marble busts of those historical figures of note, who cast shadows on the people who come after them and now on my mind as well. 

I’m grateful for many things, dear Journal; a place to stay, a family who brings comfort, my health, and quite a few more books I can dive into as I continue to stave off the feelings of confinement and stagnation, to name a few. I must admit a passing feeling of regret, however, that I wasn’t able to say goodbye to the former markers of everyday life before they were upended. That’s how history happens though, if I’ve learned anything from my time here in the library, events occur and life changes faster than anyone can plan for it. 

In summary, dear Journal, I think it is time to add a bit more of the library’s fiction offerings to my reading diet.  Perhaps young Finley would like to learn the game of Go today. All I know is that I need to mix it up a bit to keep things fresh. Thank you as always for entertaining my vain ramblings, dear Journal, and if you ever need to talk you know where to find me. Ha, ha.

-Phineas Delaporte, Family Librarian

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Post Duties

4/3

Dearest Lionel,

Another week passes before I’m able to return to your pages, and, again, I must ask for apologies. Things have slowed in the DeLaporte mansion as we’ve gotten everyone settled, but my dreams continued to focus on the bells. With permission from Mrs. DeLaporte, I took a short leave of absence from my DeLaporte Post Office duties for a few days to internally isolate from the family isolation. I chose to spend a few days in the attic, which has been a space of tranquility for me in the last few days. 

After some meditation on the dream, the following line came to mind: 

As it rings twice left, thrice right, and once center, it follows to Rites, Calamity, and Lunacy. 

Once I learned the order and wrote it down, the following night, the dream stopped. It’s been absent from me for the last few days. I took that as a sign to return to my daily and Post duties.

I promise to come back to you more frequently, Lionel. For now, take care. 

Your faithful friend, 

Junior 

P.S. Hazel continues to study the bells. Should I reveal to her the findings from my meditation?

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TELEGRAMMATIC MESSAGE FROM WINDHAM DELAPORTE

04/02

Dear Family!  

I am sorry I am not in the home to spend these uncertainties with you! My crew of 5 is safe and sound with many supplies far from land in the family seafaring vessel the DeLaporte Dysis! I wish to stay abreast of any developments so please include me in any telegrammatic messages! Even if it is to play a game via telegram please do not hesitate to use these frequency numbers to contact me! I am getting much better at Morse Code but so far I have only learned letters numbers and the exclamation point! I miss you all please stay safe!

-Windham DeLaporte

TELEGRAMMATIC MESSAGE END

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Precocious

4/1

Dearest Journal:

The situation outside our door hasn’t changed in the slightest, so our Dear Matriarch has made sure we all stay in according to her decree. Trust me when I say that although the family is having some trouble battling through bouts of boredom and squabbles and slights, we much prefer the safety of our home than the perilous unknown of the outside world. So, we retreat to our corners, and of course the corner I return to is this library in which I write in you now. 

I resume turning page after page, until I can scarcely remember what day it is! My latest fascination: the development and promulgation of the Gregorian calendar by that amateur horologist Pope Gregory the XIII. Unlucky number thirteen indeed! 

I thought I had problems trying to remember what day it is in these uncertain times, no pun intended, but imagine the problems you’d have if you were trying to remember what year it was supposed to be! Oh dear journal, I hope you don’t mind me having a little fun. Speaking of fun, I’ve been full of joy watching the spark of writing find kindling in the inquisitive mind of young Finley, my precocious nephew. He’s definitely got the DeLaporte instinct for investigation, and he is quickly becoming my eyes and ears around the mansion. Now I must train him to make sure not to put any sensitive information in writing! A little more fun, dear journal, again I hope you don’t mind. 

Anyhow, I plan on after the cessation of writing this small update to catch a few winks of shut-eye, eat a small breakfast of oats, and continue my journey plumbing the depths of the DeLaporte Family library’s seemingly endless ocean of knowledge. Until I write again, faithfully yours, -Phineas Delaporte, Family Librarian

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44%

4/1/2020

Diary,

It has been weeks and I haven’t been able to get the family to eat green peas specifically as the official DeLaporte side dish for each meal. My family has done it for generations since we struck out on our own from the mansion, but I just can’t get a majority vote in this home. If I could just get the family to understand the benefits of daily green pea ingestion. Here are a few:

1. Heart healthy minerals - potassium, magnesium, and calcium

2. The skin of green peas are known to strengthen tooth enamel

3. High in daily vitamins

4. Gift of second sight

I’ll keep working on them. At the current moment, I have a 44% minority for daily pea intake, and I think if I keep pushing the middle aged, that I’ll have my majority. 

I hope Junior gets the garden ready for my pea babes! 

Royal H. DeLaporte

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Relieving Dream

3/27

Dearest Lionel,

I’m sorry for my business week length absence. The last five days have been pretty much the same for ol’ Junior. I finish one task, then a family member asks for something new. I dust the library for Phineas and hook up the dehumidifier for him, then Hazel asks for some of my homemade brass polish. Finley asks me to sharpen 50 pencils for their new journal, then Mrs. DeLaporte asks if I can hang mailboxes outside of each of our rooms and establish an internal DeLaporte Post Office. Long hours, but it’s always worth it in service to my family. 

Something of note: Hazel has been fixated on a set of bells that I moved to her room from one of the guest rooms. They were in the continental room in the northeast wing. I must confess, since touching the bells during my household shuffle, that I had a small lingering headache for the past five days. Nothing too painful, more of a constant nagging companion. It subsided this morning, but, strangely enough, after I awoke from a most peculiar dream.

From what I remember, a spotlight dimly lit a platform. On that platform, the bells. From the darkness, an arm emerged and rang the bells in a certain order. The order, unfortunately, escapes me at the moment, but the dream itself lingers in my mind. Probably just dreaming by association, nothing to linger on once I close your pages, Lionel. 

Stay strong, Lionel, and thanks for your patience!

Your faithful friend,

Junior

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Boundaries of the Possible

3/26

Dearest Journal: 

Oh what ecstasy I’m in today, o Journal of mine! Today I found the most engrossing title, an eight edition volume about the design, construction, and use of Viking ships in Scandinavia over the course of the Middle Ages. Journal, my head swirls with visions of legions of people, bound together by a common purpose, beating their windswept faces in to a perilous unknown. 

The courage it took! Shoulder to shoulder, in a device of their own design, built by the hands of their loved ones, deciding to hurl their fortunes in to the inky black of the sea and fortified by only the trust in their compatriots in those trying times! Oh Journal, is there a lesson in there for us today or what! May we all be Vikings, fearlessly and against all odds persevering forth! I plan on sharing my exciting knowledge with the rest of the family so as to provide a bit of buoyancy in our current mood around the home.  

Admittedly, in my excitement for these volumes, I’ve been buried away for quite some time. I look forward to catching up with what the rest of the house has been up to, and I hope they too can find inspiration in those courageous few who trusted one another not just in brave acts, but in the shared realization that they had the power to expand the boundaries of the possible. Oh what a future they had in the past! Your Intrepid Friend, Phineas Delaporte, Family Librarian

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Three Bells

3/26

Dear Diary,

I’m afraid the artifacts that fill my room have begun to fill my mind with the same jutting corners and splintering edges that make up their physical forms.  I’ve opened most of the crates at this point. Loose threads abound, with no clear starting point for my exploration.  I’ve started to fill notebook upon notebook with scratchings of the strange symbols I’ve uncovered.  As much as I would like to share these things with you, dear diary, there is something sinister about the symbols I wouldn’t dare stain your pages with. But the items that have my mind reeling (or ringing, if you’ll excuse the pun) the most are the bells.  

Three bronze bells alike in every way except their tones, which seem to change depending on the order at which you hit them.  I’ve measured and weighed and tested each bell in every way imaginable, and they are exactly alike.  I have yet to understand their purpose, but my latest theory is they are meant to disperse cats, as my two seem to momentarily disappear from the time a bell is hit until it’s ringing has ceased, at which point they reappear confused and hungry.  But, to be honest, that is fairly typical behavior for them. 

I have meant to explore the library for records of the bells but Phineas has been spending most of his days -and nights!- there and the hours keep slipping through my fingers.  Typically I only realize the time when the moon is high and the house is sleeping.  

Tomorrow I really must leave my room, Mother wanted me here for human interaction, and lately I’ve only watched Commodore smoking his pipe in the courtyard below my window, or been watched by little Finley from the doorway to my room.  Perhaps I will learn more about the artifacts by exploring the places they came from, and by talking to the family, but something tells me that I must keep the bells to myself, at least for now. 

And now for sleep,

Hazel

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Pipes and Secrets

3/25

To whom it may concern:

Finley DeLaporte reporting from the DeLaporte mansion in New Orleans, LA. My uncle Phineas gave me this journal to jot down my thoughts. He said that I have a very active mind, and that with all the questions that I asked him, I should maybe direct that energy into creating the written word. Here are some things I learned today:

Mama Odette showed me her secret study. She said that I could use it between the hours of 2am and 4am, but I’m usually sleeping then, so I probably won’t use it. 

Uncle Commodore gave me a pipe to play with. It is in the shape of a mermaid. He said that he modified it to blow bubbles, but that I’d have to learn how to make bubble juice if I wanted to use it. 

Magnus tried to take the pipe away, but I hid it in my jewelry box. He hates shiny things and I guess he won’t go looking. 

Hazel was sitting in front of the entrance to her room examining three bells. Not sure what she was doing and I didn’t want to ask. 

That’s all for now. Good night! 

Finley DeLaporte