lairdandjonelle

We went to our friend Galina’s church today for Easter.  We didn’t understand anything, but it brought back lots of memories of going to church, southern Baptist, when I was a kid, with a new outfit on for easter, finally bright colors and the change of shoes from black to white — unless memorial day was too far away, in which case white shoes only for Sunday.  But some new starched, bright springy dress, new white shoes, white socks with ruffles.  My mother had the three of us wear the same hairdo — length just below the ears, top hair parted on side and pulled over into a ponytail like thing on the side of our head, with the rest of our hair hanging down.  Then a bow tied around the rubber band.  You can all imagine how cute we were!  Carol and Sandy got out of that style much earlier than me — it always seemed to pay to be the older rather than the baby.  After church, there would be easter egg hunts on the church grounds.  Galina, with her magic purse, pulled out easter presents for us,along with a colored egg.  After church today, we went downstairs and had a small meal in their kitchen, with ham that Galina had brought, special easter cake, a birthday cake for Laird, and from her magic purse, two more easter eggs to go with the ham, because one must have eggs for easter.  And then, the magic purse held yet another present for another American who was visiting also.  At the university, Galina’s purse holds tea bags, snacks and other assorted necessary items for gracious living.  That purse is amazing!

The party last night was as I suspected, pretty lame.  As I said, most people were busy, but we did get to see Laird’s old friend Boris (pronounced more like Borees) Shulgin,a very famous Russian scientist in physics; our friends Sergei and Lilia; and Laird’s old student Elena (pronounced Yeelana).  Lilia is an engineer and teaches French and is the head of the French something institute somewhere; Sergei is also an engineer and has several jobs as faculty, department head or vice rector of a couple of schools and also consults with a private firm.  Elena is a medical doctor who is a medical translator instead of practicing.  Her husband is a former surgeon who now practices as a radiological oncologist, and is the only doctor in Yekaterinburg to do some specialized treatment regimen that means the patient only spends three days in the hospital instead of a month and a half.  We didn’t understand perfectly what it is he does.  But as you can see, we are surrounded by a very select group of folks.  Laird got some great gifts, too:  a beautiful pen and pencil set and a yassma stone card case; some haclama — of course, none of these words are really how you spell them, just phonetic — a beautiful bowl and spoon and a covered jar.  Boris brought two stone candlesticks, a box of candy, a bottle of cognac, chocolate bars to eat with the cognac, chanel perfume for me, and a couple of books.  Sergei and Lilia also brought me a stone figurine of flowers in a vase, sunstone they call it.  Our guacamole and salsa worked out well and we had salads and cheeses, also.  And a cake.  I mostly just sat back and listened — though I have to say, towards the end, I was ready to just lie back on my bed and go to sleep; I was already sitting on it.  Next Sunday we agreed to go talk to one of  Elana’s groups and then have dinner at her house.  I will try to remember to get him to take his camera, Daniel, so you will have pictures of another Russian dinner.  Yes, you haven’t seen pictures of the others, but I think Laird has them; he just has to give them to me and I’ll post them.  Also need to take pictures of our apartment to post.

For some reason, Laird is not carrying his camera and/or not taking pictures.  Weird.  I think carrying his camera on his belt hurts his hip; I don’t know why, like in Istanbul when he did carry it he didn’t use it.  Our smart phones don’t work here, but I wonder if we can still take pictures?  I could do it then.  We need to show you Urals Federal university and our students.

OK, naptime before going out to dinner with Leonid and Natasha, Igor and Yekaterina.

p.s., Sergei and I drank vodka and tonic, Lilia and Elena had wine and Boris drank the cognac he brought.  Nobody had Big Doctor, but Sergei said it was popular a few years ago, mixed with vodka.  Maybe I will try it before we leave.    Arisenly yours, jm

Well what a bummer!  A bottle of Hendrick’s gin costs about $90!  Bombay Sapphire a little less.  Even Gordon’s is too expensive to justify.  Needless to say, we are not serving gin at Laird’s party — and I will be going without the comfort of a (or more) gin and tonic.  So, I’m so not in a party mood now! 

But they had one whole aisle, loooong aisle of vodkas, just the Russian ones.  We got a bottle that Laird swears is good vodka.  Beats me.  I’ll try to find some OK whiskey tomorrow, but my party bar is looking pretty damn thin about now.

We did find avocados and chiles, actually chilis, so we’ll make guacamole and salsa — but I just realized we forgot the chips.  Our local grocery store doesn’t have chips, I don’t think.  What a weird party this is going to be — half the people aren’t coming; four of our really great friends are busy and we won’t see them until Sunday.  I tried to talk Laird into canceling, but no luck.  Strangers sitting on beds in a bare apartment with only one bottle of vodka and guacamole without chips.  I might spend the evening in the bathtub with the door locked.

Soberly yours, jm

Wow, the end of our second week and it feels like our time is almost up.  We have busy week next week, a conference and student oral exams then in no time we will be flinging ourselves (with help, thank god) across time and space to South Africa.  But this afternoon, soon, our new friend Sasha — or maybe Igor — will take us shopping for Laird’s birthday open house tomorrow.  Thanks Daniel and Dona for the hors d’oeurve ideas.

I got my voice back, mostly, for yesterday and I did a credible job.  Several of them said they had never seen a storyteller before and they seemed to love the Dame Ragnell story.  What’s not to love when you learn what women want most in the world?  Woman or man, that’s pretty valuable info, que no?  I was also gratefully surprised at how much they liked the poetry — so it seems it was a successful event.  YEA!  Interestingly, one student is doing her thesis or end of year paper (don’t know which) on translating folktales.  The whole time, though, I was glistening, bathed in a whole layer of glistening (you know, southern women don’t sweat) — it was so effing hot in the room.  The radiators in this city work waaaay too well — and no way to turn them off it seems.

But this morning I woke up feeling like shit.  Must have been because I didn’t wrap my neck in my scarf again — right, Claudia?  But I did take some of the myriad remedies I have last night.  So Laird went off to talk to our neighbor Igor’s class and I stayed behind and moaned.  At one point I felt like I was going to throw up with all these remedies roiling around in my system.  I don’t even know what this stuff is and by now, given my memory, I don’t remember which box of pills is for which symptom!

Now we’re waiting for Sasha to call to say he’ll take us to the store.  Ah, he just called.  Goingly yours, jm

Oh, man!  I sound like a bullfrog in heat and I’m trying everything I or the pharmacy can think to get whatever this is over and done with before tomorrow.  I decided I needed a neti pot, so I got the next best thing, which is a pressurized bottle of saline water.  I have cough syrup, I have alka-seltzer-like things, I have lozenges, I have pills and sprays and all manner of things — we have made our neighborhood ANTEKA rich for the week!  It’s not really anteka, because some of the letters only sort of look like that — and most letters don’t match their known sounds anyway.  I just call it that because that’s what it looks like.  I have GOT to have a voice by 2:00 tomorrow!  I remembered Claudia’s old wives remedy today, which is to wrap your throat in your bathrobe belt or a scarf or something.  No bathrobe, so I have a scarf wrapped tightly, and hotly I might add, around my neck.  It will be my luck that this remedy only works if you do it as soon as your throat starts to hurt.  Great.

I fear I will lose my audience tomorrow if I continue to sound like this — who wants to listen to someone who sounds like a fiddle dying???  Laird is prepared to read my Baba Yaga story, but I want to tell Dame Ragnell, I want to read poetry!  So I’m off to spray more saline up my nose.  Wish me luck!  Hoarsely yours, jm 

We finally made it to the store yesterday after our one class.  We were teaching vocabulary to 2nd year students.  It’s interesting what they know and don’t know.  We had two students who are very good and also talkative, quite a lovely change from most students who look at you puzzled and scared when you ask them something.  Another one relaxed a bit toward the end and talked more, but one absolutely refuses to talk and the other two only with much pulling and coaxing.  We tried to talk them into keeping a word journal, but we’ll see on Thursday if we had any luck.  Last week we asked them to write about 200 words, on any subject, so we could kind of judge their English.  Again, varying skill, but they all turned in their homework and they were all interesting.  One wrote about when she was a child and her parents decided to shave her head, but she didn’t say why they did it; I’m dying to know!  I’m also interested in how the students dress. The boys all wear jeans and t-shirts it seems.  There are some girls — well women, I guess, but they are sooooo much younger than me and I’ve gotten to the point that girl is not an insult — who dress to the nines, maybe the 11s.  Tight skirts, very high, very lethal stiletto heels.  Or jeans that are tighter than skin, I swear, and heeled boots.  Hard to be around so many beautiful, skinny, young-bodied women — makes me feel every wrinkle, every glob of fat.  There are some girls who wear regular stuff and look like regular people, not the beautiful, fashion-conscious Girls.  There is always candy or some other sweets around everywhere and people trying to get you to eat it.  I’m trying not to do it, but have no idea if I’m being successful enough to lose weight.  Luckily much of it is chocolate and I can resist that better than other things.  Give me salad with mayo or meat and mashed potatoes and then I cannot resist.  Or something new to taste, love that.  We also walk up and down a whole hell of a lot of stairs every day!  the department’s office is on the 5th floor, classes are on the 4th and 3rd floors, the ladies room is on the 4th or 1st — kind of 1st and 1/2, actually.  There is NEVER any paper in the restrooms, of course, so I carry wads of TP in my pockets for both noseblowing and its usual function.  So maybe I’m skinnier than I look?  My hips look like chipmunk cheeks!

I have either a cold or allergies, I go back and forth on the diagnosis, but I have severe runny nose, very gruff voice, some coughing and sneezing.  My presentation is tomorrow and if my voice doesn’t get better I’m not going to be able to tell stories and poems.  I’m taking a bunch of stuff we got at the pharmacy, trying to describe symptoms in English to someone who doesn’t speak it — who knows what it all is supposed to cure???!  Just hope I have a voice tomorrow!  I gargled with salt water, maybe that will help.   And who knew I’d need my neti pot?  I have now convinced myself that is the answer, a neti pot.  I’d try using a tea pot, but we don’t have one like I need.  I need something with a spout.  anyone know how to make a neti pot out of a plastic bottle and maybe some typing paper?  I can just see myself hanging over the bathtub, with Laird trying to pour warm salt water into one nostril so that it comes out the other.  Hmmmm.  Maybe I need another solution.

We have two classes this afternoon and two tomorrow, besides my 90 minutes of performance.  We’re also working this Friday, though don’t know times.  Sometime between now and Saturday though, we need to go to a store that sells paper products and more food stuff than we can get at our local marketita.

Time to go get ready — gruffly yours, jm

Well, this has been hard to live without internet — OMG, what am I turning into?  Next thing you know I’ll be obsessively checking facebook, sign up for twitter and instagram.  Nah.  Though I am an email junkie.  By now, Tuesday, I have to think what has been going on since last we wrote.  We went a bought something that sticks onto our computers — whatever it is — wonder why we didn’t think of this earlier?  Our friend Sergei told us about it when we went to his house on Sunday — another great spread, great dinner.  Saturday we went to our friend, Galina’s.  I know you aren’t going to like this Daniel, but for the rest of you, believe me it was delicious and you should try it:  grated beets and raisins.  Yummy.  Galina rehydrated the raisins before putting them with the beets.  Also an excellent Oliviet salad, the best I’ve ever had!  Made best, I think, because it was without mayonnaise — Galina didn’t want to put it in in case we didn’t like mayo, but it tasted so good without it, just veggies in that small dice that Russians can do and I can’t.  Other things that by now I have forgotten — but Laird took pictures so I’ll try to publish soon.  Dinner was meat, kind of boiled, but very tasty, and potatoes.  Two bottles of wine between five of us, actually four since Laird doesn’t drink very much; cognac for toasts.  Sunday feast included tomatoes and cukes Sergei and his wife had grown and pickled, very good.  A cheese and mayo salad and other things.  Dinner was cutlet, looks like our hamburger, but much, much better tasting, and mashed potatoes.  I love mashed potatoes!  Several shots of vodka and French wine.

My world has devolved a little too much:  we have finally resorted to washing all our clothes by hand in the bathtub because we haven’t figured out how to get it done elsewhere.  What a pain in the ass that is — literally!  We’ll have to get it figured out or we’re going to look like college students coming home from college when we get to Marita’s!

I am proud to announce that I found a store in Yekaterinburg that has my size!  Mark & Spencer, a British store, was at the mall — and what a mall it is.  Waaaay more impressive than Villa Linda or Coronado.  Of course, I need black pants because I decided to stick to that one color set when I started packing (brown clothes = brown shoes = too much stuff) and I only found navy blue that fit and didn’t have to be hemmed, but maybe Sasha will take us again another time.  It looked really good, but I was trying to hurry since I had three men standing around outside waiting for me — I just grabbed and didn’t notice until I got in the dressing room that they were blue.  Oh, and they’re really kinda summer pants since they are some percentage linen.  They might look lovely in South Africa.  Also pilgrimage to IKEA — why can’t we have an IKEA in ABQ?!? — to get a couple of things.  My list is still not done, but I can get a wine bottle open (which perhaps can make me forget the other stuff, huh?) and can drain pelmeni at least.

We are having a birthday party for Laird on Saturday and have invited our few friends.  We’re going to try to make sausage biscuits — don’t know how well that will do or whether we can actually find non-cased sausage.  Then mostly I think we’re going to buy finger foods.  There are lots of meat and veggie pies, kind of like empanadas though more bready, so we can get lots of them, and lots of cheese and crackers, which I have never seen at someone’s house here.  Not sure how many, how much or what to get, but I know I can’t make most of their stuff because I can’t cut as small as they can.  I really just try to make stuff somewhat smaller without cutting my fingertips off.  If we get lots of vodka and wine, it will be good, right?   Daniel or Dona or anyone else, do you have any ideas of things to make????????  What about you, Alex or Louise, y’all are good cooks.  I sure hope they have paper plates and plastic glasses at our little supermarket.  Well, it’s  not really super, you understand, just market.  Otherwise, nothing to hold the food or the drink.  We do now have 6 wine glasses.  That’s a start.  Another call to Sasha might be in order to take us someplace to get everything we need.

We have a class at 2:15 so best start getting ready.  So glad to be back in touch with everyone.  Please write comments so I feel like I’m talking to someone!  Earnestly yours, jm & lg

It’s Friday, no classes, I’m supposed to be working on my presentation, but thought I’d talk to y’all instead.  I’m just so happy to have internet connection that I can’t help myself.  Last night we went to our neighbor’s, Igor (which means I totally missed our friend’s name — not Eggar, but Igor.  Duh!)  apartment for tea, had lovely tomato & cuke salad and some apple blinis, I had scotch, which I don’t drink as a rule, but I have decided that if something is put in a small enough glass it tastes just fine.  I don’t know the practicality of this lesson, but I had several little shots of scotch without grimacing even once.  We didn’t have tea until it was time to go.  We were there from a bit after 8:00 until after 10:30 — we tried a couple of times to leave, but he said oh, there’s more and we haven’t had tea.  He has a totally connected TV/video/music system, like all those real people in US who are not complete technopeasants like us.  He now only watches American movies made between 1947 and 1982 and he wanted one as background to talking.  I don’t understand this universal mindset.  Then he decided we should listen to a BeeGees concert, maybe their last one?, I don’t know.  But with that, I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to dance and sing along.  He doesn’t dance or sing along.  What’s the point, then?  His English is quite good and he has made numerous trips to the US.  He teaches at the university, also.  We are going to talk to his classes next Friday.  I am making a long list of things to get at the store I’m hoping “our driver” will take us to this evening — something not right about being excited to get a collander and knives — but I also need a wine opener, and wine, that a little more exciting.

Everyone looks blankly at us when we tell them about the concert we went to on Thursday of the girls’ jazz choir.  No one knows about it, seemingly, or at least has never been.  Apparently we did not convince them sufficiently to motivate  any interest in future concerts.  We asked our students what kind of music they liked and mostly they said they didn’t know.  One girl said she hated rock, it was too chaotic.  Laird is sure she only hates hard rock, but I’m not so sure.  I asked, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Beatles?, but she didn’t know the names, except Beatles and she didn’t seem to like them.  They don’t seem to listen to classical music, so we’re still wondering what they do listen to.  Lots of e-readers in Yekaterinburg, that’s good.  We’ve been devouring ours since that’s all we’ve had to do while not having internet.  Speaking of which, I best get back to my presentation.  I wish I could be more motivated.  I feel very UNmotivated — think I need vitamins or something.  Maybe vodka?  GOTTA LEARN THAT STORY!  Laird, of course, has enough material for five lectures and is working on the sixth.  Gotta catch up!  Unpreparedly yours, jm

Hello all, we are having a terrible time getting internet at the university or apartment.  So, finally I am in and get to give you the low-down on what’s been happening.  Let’s see, we’ve been here almost a week, we have had several classes and no real adventures, unless you count trying to get internet. We were really tired apparently and slept most of the weekend.  We were finally able to get to the grocery store on Friday afternoon, so we were set for a few days.  We did go for pelmeni with our friend Sergey, also maybe on Friday, I can’t remember by now, and to our friends’ Leonid and Natasha for dinner on Sunday, and with their son, Eggar, who speaks great English.  Natasha understands English but won’t speak it, Leonid said he had not used English in 10 years, but it came back swiftly, I thought.  OMG, Daniel, you would have squealed like a girl at all the food and the deliciousness of it all.  6 or 7 salads, pickles, herring and some other stuff for starters, then a delicious meat and mushroom pie and rice for dinner.  We had blackberry wine, which isn’t really wine because it doesn’t have alcohol, but good nonetheless; vodka for toasts; Armenian brandy, also for toast; wine; and scotch if we had wanted.  we laughed all night long — what a great good time we had!

Monday we came to the university and started the bureaucratic process to get our passes, our permits and whatever else.  We realized, alas, too late, that Del Norte credit union couldn’t take international transfers.  Chris, so sorry, but you might have to go set up an account for us at Bank of America or Wells Fargo.  I liked your response to Laird’s query about whether we could use your account to transfer our pay — 1.  is this a scam?  good to be cautious!  Nope, just dumb parents.

Most nights, we’ve gone home at end of the day, made dinner and gone to bed to read.  Our apartment is basic to say the least.  We have one large room, foyer, bathroom, closet and kitchen. Did I tell you the only furniture is three twin beds (at least with small bedside tables) scattered around the room, one desk, three dinette chairs and another desk serving as table in the kitchen.  We need lots of things to make ourselves comfortable.  I fantasize about a club chair, but know that’s going too far; but maybe some pillows to lean against when sitting on bed.  We have four shallow bowls, four small plates, a cheese grader, an old-fashioned can opener (good thing we’re as old as we are, otherwise we would not have recognized it!), one large pot with lid and one large frying pan.  Two ladles, three forks, two soup spoons, four tea spoons (the kind used for hot tea, not long handled ones) and only one serrated knife.  Oh, and a cutting board.  No gourmet cooking in THIS apartment!  Either the next guests will be happy to follow us, or someone who deals with the apartment will be happy, as we must buy so much.  Sometime Friday when I was napping, Laird went out to buy a phone (Verizon will not allow foreign sim cards so we brought our phones for nothing) and two bedside lamps.  On Sunday, on the way home from dinner, Eggar took us to a store to buy bath towels and hangers, couple of other things.  I think tomorrow we will have someone else to drive us somewhere to get other stuff on our list. We are exchanging English lessons for rides.   Also, we have met a neighbor who works at the university who gave us his private router info so maybe, maybe we can get on internet, and who we will have tea with tonight.

Teaching has been fun, but I think we must get more serious about it next week.  Do actual lessons for them rather than just talking or asking them to talk.  We have second year students, fourth year, post-graduate students (I have not understood what that means) and last class tonight we will be working with translators-referents (also don’t know what that means) and get paid for teaching them — in addition to our regular pay.  Laird has his public presentation on Monday, mine is on Thursday.  But I don’t get it, they’ve invited all these students and teachers, but we’re in a room that only holds 30 people.  I’m telling a story, so I’ll need room to move around — this could turn out badly.  Not least of which is because I’ve never told this story before and heard it only once a loooooong time ago.  It’s a story about Baba Yaga, a folktale that the audience will know, so they can focus on the English.  Then poetry, including that of Renee and John, Judyth Hill, Joan Logge and Mary McGinnis.  And mine.  Turns out they are really selling me as a poet — I guess because they could not sell me as a post-graduate degreed person.  One of the teachers is a poet and keeps asking to see mine.  Yikes.  Turns out, too much of my work only works for select audiences.  Not sure a proper Russian lady who likes British poets like Kilmer will be very impressed by mine.  There will have to be a certain measure of censorship when I select poems to give her.   The department has decided that asking us to do two public lectures was too much, so we only have the one.  And I was getting all prepared for two.  Damn.

We went to the girls’ jazz choir last night — the group Laird worked with when he was here on his Fulbright year — and they were AMAZING!  I didn’t really recognize the first part as jazz — often just sounds, like that of sea or jungle — but astounding how good they were.  The last part of the program was American jazz, so at least I knew that.  There was also choreography, which was spot on, with about 56 girls moving in sync.  They are between maybe 12 and 17 years old — young, beautiful, skinny.  Sigh.  So much fun to look at the audience, too.  It is very clear that we stand out — people stared at us, too. Of course, no one smiles, particularly on the streets.  I look like some demento as I automatically smile when I make eye contact with someone. Oh well.

We are off tomorrow — unless we have no internet in the apartment, in which case we might come to the department office to hook up — get our banking issues straightened out, maybe.  We meet our driver/English student tomorrow about 4:30, so I’m hoping for some store with stuff we need.  There is IKEA here, so maybe we can go there!  Dona, I thought of you, outfitting David’s apartment from IKEA — I want  to do the same on a much smaller scale.

OK, probably I’m just babbling at this point — I’m just so excited to be talking to you!  Teachingly yours, jm & lg

Finally, we can talk to y’all!  We had an easy flight, not very long, maybe 3 hours, got to our apartment.  Very basic, it is, so we have many things to get to make it comfortable for the month.  First was bedside lights and bath towels.  We are now at the university, waiting for a class to begin, so I won’t write — just to say we got here Saturday, have seen our friends and are trying to get our teaching schedule determined.  Oh, and it is snowing here and it’s cold outside and hot inside.  Temperately yours, , jm & lg

I felt so bad for Laird all day long yesterday — he had to take that hideous, brutal trip to the end of Turkey to see Troy, and he FORGOT HIS CAMERA.  He rode 450 miles for a one-hour tour!  Soooo glad I didn’t go!  I went wandering down little streets — luckily it’s fairly hard to get lost in Sultanahmet because you just walk toward the minarets of Blue Mosque or Ayasophia.  Went back to our favorite restaurant for couple of glasses of wine and appetizer plate, came back to hotel, went to hamam.  Went to a pharmacy, asked for pain medicine that was not anti-inflammatory, he gave me two boxes, I paid and took them — no idea what they are.  Laird forgot his meloxicam and he was able to get it at pharmacy, no prescription.  Hope my stuff is drugs.

So we have to check out soon, best help Laird pack.  Maybe last Turkish breakfast.  See you in Russia!  Travelingly yours, jm & lg

Yesterday was a visit to Dolmabache palace.  It is everything you would expect a European palace to be — gilded up the whazoo, with humongous chandeliers and very French Louie some number furniture.  Pretty amazing.  Loved the crystal floor candelabras that were taller than me.  We don’t have any sense of the place, of course, because for some reason no tour of this kind shows you things directly.  And you never get to see the kitchen and the servants’ quarters!  This had more rooms than not closed off.  It is an astounding place poorly presented, as Laird so aptly described.  We’re giving it low marks on Trip Advisor because the tour guides were incomprehensible and the tour of the harem had over 100 people in it — exactly how where we supposed to learn anything with that many people even if the guy could speak understandable English???  Six sultans, one halifi and Attaturk lived here.  Supposedly it’s where Attaturk died, but I swear the boat guide said he lived in died at the palace we saw the other day, the sultans’ hunting palace.  Hmmmmm.  Bad English or false claims?  Anyway, we were showed the amazing grand hall where Attaturk laid for three days after he died and was mummified so the people of Istanbul could come pay their respects.  Then he was taken to Ankara and a monument was built around his tomb.  It’s quite something, I recommend you go see for yourselves.

We went on the tram there and back, stopped off to walk on the Galeta bridge and eat fried anchovies (me — yum) and shrimp (Laird), with salad and Efes beer, which I like a lot even though not a beer drinker.  We took the tram out to the end of town for what we thought was an overlook of Topkapi palace, but all we saw were remnants of the old city walls.  So back on tram, back to Sultanamet and walk home.  By the time we got back everything on me hurt from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.  My body is way over it — just laughed at the pain pill and muscle relaxer I fed it, said, “Ha! Are you kidding me?!? Gonna take more than that shit to make me feel better!” And it’s true.  Except I don’t have any more than that.  So Laird went off to Troy by himself this morning.  I figured if I went it would be disappointing and not worth more pain; if I didn’t go it would be fantastic.  See, I’m giving Laird a great day!  I know I’ll be jealous tonight when he tells me all about it; I’ll just have to figure out how to turn un-green.  Now I have to stop, get out of the room so maid can clean.  Hurtingly yours, jm