We are represented abroad by a president who regularly engages in schoolyard taunts of the sort that would earn a third grader a trip to the principal’s office.

Some of my friends already know that my daughter and her family are moving this week from a winter rental in Sag Harbor to the Rattray family house here in East Hampton Village, while my husband and I pack up and head, gulp, to Greenport and the North Fork, where a spiffy cottage awaits us at Peconic Landing.

Up with the dogs at my house means stirring before sunrise. Not that I mind as I sit upstairs with my first cup of coffee, looking at the bay and listening for the birds between the dogs’ various post-breakfast snorts and grumbles.

The other day, having almost given up, none of the clothes in the stores having caught my eye, I saw something, a light blue shirt, extra small, with a collar and partly-rolled sleeves, that I thought might look very well on her, her eyes being dark blue and her hair dark brown and as long as I can persuade her to keep it.