7 January 1957
It has been a long time since I’ve picked up this notebook – the holidays are over. The family is off to their respective everyday activities: Kurt to work, the children to school.
Me? Well – I have my investments – but not enough money in them to absorb all my time. The Blanche exporting deal seems to be out definitely. I just couldn’t work for her. First of all, she would want me to work for nothing. What’s a dollar an hour minimum for a couple hours a week? She just can’t help herself – but let’s face it – she is a God damn skinflint – incapable of parting with a penny. Not only that but she wants to domineering people on top of it. She wants exclusive affection and admiration from me. She wants to be the center of my attention – my children should be secondary to her. Kurt should also. She should be considered the wisest and most generous of women – yet never do business with her because she delights in a shrewd deal for herself! Friendship has nothing to do with it.
Actually, what she wants is the kind of fawning attitude her mother gave her. But – no one is going to give her what she expects – maybe her mother felt Blanche could never be anything but right and wise and generous. But – to me she looks entirely different. I get no particular pleasure in catering to her – in fact I can’t and will not treat her as anything but a tightfisted old woman, with some business acumen, who is incapable of a truly generous act – in fact incapable of even paying her own way, but instead wants to give you a penny’s worth for every pound – especially if she can give you the pennies worth out of somebody else’s pocket.
From here on in – Blanche can come or go. My only interest in her is what I can learn about investments or opportunities that one of the brokers tell her about.
She just isn’t a Mildred Cooke.
