We're Back!

Wow...we are back. Of course we aren't in our house as it is rented so we are in one
large room at a Residence Inn. Living in such close quarters is definitely an experience everyone should try. We own a home with 4,000 sq. ft. and we are and have been living in
about 400? sq. ft. (of course Telluride is only abouta 1,200 sq. ft.) There is nowhere to go to get away from each other which hasn't been a problem yet but we still have a month or so to go. Let's put it this way...4,000 sq. ft. it ain't!


I look like a bag (really box) lady. I had no summer clothes with me in Tell. or in Paris. They were all boxed up in our storage unit so we dragged a box to the motel. At least they fit, that's a blessing.

Now that we are home what am I grateful for -- ICE. Glorious ICE. No more tepid drinks. I could hop in a bathtub full of ice and just love it. An entire month of no ice and a not so cold refrigerator makes me appreciate all the terrible energy wasting equipment we have here. That is disgusting I know but let me enjoy my fridge and ice for a few more days. Sitting at Starbucks with a friend....(super duper grateful) yes, Abe is my friend but we've done a lot of sitting together. I haven't had anyone else to talk to really and so talking with Silvia and hearing her life tidbits was wonderful. Knowing you HAVE friends is such a wonderful feeling after a month friend deprived. Knowing my way around the area and NEVER having to consult a map, no twisty windy streets to figure out (so romantic when you arrive, such a damn pain in the ass after a month) .....ah, give me a grid any day. Heat....yes, grateful for heat in small doses. Shopping at the grocery store and recognising products and knowing which yogourt to buy, which cheese, which bread.....those are small blessings to be sure but appreciated at the moment. ICE TEA....black and or green...bring it on. I don't even like going to Canada in the summer when they foist sugared ice tea on you...ugh! Being back just means you get it, you know the rules, the social conventions and life is easier for this.



What won't I miss.....beggars on the street with their children knocked unconscious with some kind of drug. Those children don't move. It is broad day light and they are lieing on their mother's laps as if dead...maybe they are dead? ...but the little asthma inhaler next to the mother suggests otherwise. Abe has seen this in India and he was convinced the babies really were dead. I don't hold out a lot of hope that these children live long; I don't believe that their mothers take them home somewhere warm and cosy at night, wake them up and let them run around and shake their sillies out. No, I think these children live in some kind of druggged haze day and night, which probably helps them not be hungry. I also won't miss the dogs with the beggars. I read in one of Obama's books....Americans are more concerned about elephants dieing than the lives of millions of black Africans. That line really struck me because in Paris I did think about all the poor animals starving more than I was concerned with their owners. I'm missing a human sympathy gene perhaps and overdosed on the animal sympathy gene? The poor pups are flea infested, worm laden.....diarrheaing their way along city streets. Sometimes I saw the owners giving the dog some food but in general those beggars aren't looking for food, they are looking for drink. My thought was that a dog is necessary in the night to guard their posessions. By the way, where are OUR beggars? You can't walk down a major street in Vancouver without seeing a junkie dreaming away on a porch or beside a fire hydrant.
In Toronto we have rubbies or alkies begging on the corner for money to get their next drink. Why aren't they down in the theatre district in Houston panhandling. My friend is a psychiatric nurse to the poor and disenfranchised in Houston so I know they exist. Doesn't this seem strange to anyone that they are so invisible. Does it make us feel better?

Anyway, back to Paris. What will I miss....shoes, the glorious shoes at affordable prices. These women are stylin! The teensy tiny stores with the well dressed mannequins. The miles and miles and hours and hours of walking you can do every single day and never have to retrace your steps. I'll miss walking down a street and looking into the alleyway to see a cathedral peeking out. It took two weeks to notice that you've missed it every single time you walked down that road to get your falafel. Picking up a pastry that is so melt in your mouth as to be sinful. Mysore, Linda and Gerald will be missed....this trip gave me new found courage to go to a Mysore class and realise how truly liberating it is to be centred on your own yogic practice within the confines of a living breathing entity...the class. There is an energy that flows through the room that is so uplifting and inspiring; everyone is working and struggling to overcome their own personal obstacles and you get carried along with the current. I will miss walking to the gymn and seeing and hearing yet another protest going on in Place de la Republique. The Leonida chocolate shop will be missed even if I only went in twice and only indulged in four white chocolate cafe creme Manon's in an entire month when I could have gone every day! I'll miss seeing all the children playing in the well used parks, the hawkers selling their wares in the markets, the smell yes just the SMELL of delicious fresh fruit....glorious.

The French are very good at protesting. It seems to be a required skill to claim residency in the country. When Benj, Daniel, Kayla and Lauren came to town we took them out on May 1st, May Day....big socialist holiday. As we walked down the street towards La Bastille, Benj quietly took me aside to let me know that the programme they are all attending, CIE, had specifically told them to NEVER hang around if any political protesting was occurring. This makes sense as large groups of people can suddenly go berserk and things can quickly get out of hand. We were passing bus after bus after bus (say 20 or more) of cops called in to keep an eye on the May Day protests, "manifestation." These cops were carrying what appeared to be a very serious but lightweight gun...looked like a small machine gun to me. Since I felt vaguely responsible for these children and didn't want a conversation with a parent that could go something like this....."well, yes, we could see there were thousands of people gathered protesting various causes...well yes, we knew that it could become dangerous....well, yes, we saw that there were hundreds of police around with big weapons for crowd control and well, yes, we just marched your daughter right into the fray and well, sorry....things didn't turn out so well........because of this potential conversation I stopped to ask a policeman if he felt it was safe for us to go into the Traffic Circle where everything was taking place. Oh yeah, he said, no problem. Well every protest you can imagine was taking place....La Reve Commun (which means Common Dream...but I think was also a play on Greve Commun (United Strike)....by the workers, university students agitating about research being cut in medical fields, the Iranians taking to the street for their current plight, the Tamils loudly and vocifeously yelling out about their cause, environmentalists.....you name it, if you can protest about it they were there. It was a bit unnerving to have so many people in one place but nothing occurred. We saw even more police at the tail end of the thousands of people marching but they seemed calm. Everyone was screaming and yelling but jubilant at the same time; they were being heard. And then the street cleaners came to dust up, wash off, scrub down the streets and it was over.

It is always nice to come home. It was great to go to see Sam tonight and get a hug and a great class...although those sandbags Sam, yikes. Iwas wonderful to meet Rosena in a store today and have a chat. It is nice knowing I have friends out and about to be visited and not feel so socially isolated. Who are we without our social networks?

Anyway, we are home in the land of Texas for a few weeks. Israel looms, desert sands and warm water beckons. Camels wait impatiently for us to arrive and ride/walk to The Great Rift.
How many stars will we see as we camp out overnight in the desert? What will pita taste like cooked on hot rocks....pretty damn good I'm expecting. The Dead Sea is waiting to scoop us almost above the surface so we can float with the greatest of ease. Eilat...a coral reef adventure waiting to happen. It will be wonderful to see Ashleigh reach out and into a new culture in a place she never expected to see. May we create a memory for her that endures for all time.

Of course I have a lead on a Mysore class only two kilometres from our condo. How hard can it be?

In case you are wondering, Abe has a new little computer.

Last Paris Post

Well we are packing up and getting ready to head out tomorrow to a different hotel at the airport. It is easy packing up since you don't have to decide what to take, you just take what you have.

Abe and I have walked and walked and walked and walked. I don't think we can walk anymore.
We've seen quartiers we've never seen before and marvelled at how packed with people theyare -- just not tourists. The French use their cafes. They sit out and have coffee and wine and beer
every night..maybe just one but then they can sit at the table for hours. The waiter never comes by to ask you to leave. When your feet are tired it is a perfect antidote to walking.

The weather has been great, the food has been wonderful and we've had a good time. Now we are ready to go back to Texas for a couple weeks.

Israel looms ahead of us. All kinds of wrinkles in the system re getting my niece to Colorado with me. Hopefully we can iron those out once we get to Tel Aviv. All too complicated to get into here. However, she wants to come and her passport is almost ready. We just have to get her dad to get the ticket.

Ashleigh is getting ready to come to Israel with us. I'm currently in the "stuck my foot in my mouth position." and no that is not one of the Ashtanga asanas. If it was...I'd be a pro. However, life happens, mistakes happen, and life goes on. The camels are waiting for us I think and it should be an experience.

We have friends lined up to see when we get back to Texas and I'm looking forward to that.
In otherwords....a bientot we'll see you all soon.

Disaster for Abe!

As per usual, Abe is not in France. He's in Scotland -- I think. It seems to me that he then

ends up in Holland some time today before making his way to Madrid tomorrow. The nice thing for me is that it apparently makes more sense for him to come back to Paris for the night before

zooming off to Spain. There is a piece of me, however, that has some suspicion that he is returning to Paris to TAKE MY COMPUTER AWAY! You see yesterday he forgot his computer (it is one of those new really tiny computers bigger than a book but not by much!) in the seat pocket of the seat in front of him. He's probably used to the fact that the computer now weighs next to nothing and therefore his lightweight computer bag didn't jog his memory. Everything on his computer has a code to activate it but there is always the worry of identity theft if the computer is sold to some hacker. Who knows.... we may not even need to sell out house when we return to Texas, some stranger may actually do it for us. Anyway, all joking aside losing a computer is huge for Abe. It is literally his third arm. In Telluride he works with two networking together to get through his day's work. Luckily he is not one of those people who never backs anything up. Everything will be fine if and when he comes up with a new computer to use --and I know mine has all his contacts installed in it so that is why I am fearful. Love the guy but.....gee.....do without my computer, can't be done. I'm afraid. Well, it might have to be done but it won't be easy. Withdrawal is painful so I've heard.

After my best yoga day last week I had one of my crappiest today. Gerald turned into Gary. Gary has this habit of wandering around the class and quietly groaning ..unh unh...to himself. You just KNOW he's looking at you and that he is absolutely unimpressed with whatever it is you think you are trying to do. Today, I heard tsk tsk tsk...Kathryn!.....everything felt fine to me...next I heard...look at your foot, look at the way it is not straight...and your knee....pull your knee back to be more in line with your ankle, you are going to hurt yourself. For some reason every time he spoke to me I felt he was talking REALLY FREAKING LOUDLY but I could never hear what he was saying when he corrected someone else. In fact, I'm not sure he ever did correct anyone else. However, you are in the class so what are you going to do? Leave? I know he's there tohelp and he's so darn nice...but ....gee Gerald, talk a little more quietly, please.

I sent a little email to my friend Pat yesterday and she got a kick out of my Hebrew lessons so I thought I should share a bit with you. We leave in less than a month and Abe decided we needed Rosetta Stone. I prefer learning with a real person rather than a computer (not addicted to Rosetta yet) but I couldn't find anyone in the Jewish community of Telluride who spoke Hebrew so had to resort to the computer. All was going well...I know man, woman, boy, girl, boys, girls, water, dog, cat, run, read and swim and horse. I figure those should come in really handy. I can go to the beach and say "boy swim water", see a horse and say "horse run"...but Rosetta forgets that last time I never saw a horse in Israel. I saw a camel....I need "horse with bumps runs" but they aren't teaching me that. What is really frustrating about Hebrew is they have a phlegmy sound to lots of words -- I can do that in Dutch so it isn't too bad. However, Rosetta won't let you move on to the next picture unless you get your phlegm down properly and you can talk with phlegm for half an hour but Rosetta will not beep happily and flash a green light at you unless it is convinced you are phlegming properly. This can get very frustrating. I'm only in Lesson One part 4 (after several weeks....I'm a bit lazy)....and suddenly they started showing me a picture and asking me to match it up to the correct WORD!. Now let's let a grip Rosetta, I have absolutely zero interest in reading or writing Hebrew. However, when you skip over something suddenly you don't do so well in the next section. It is always giving you your score -- 78 WRONG, 22 correct. I can see Lesson 2 involves getting directions....this could actually be useful. Oh well, at least I can get an apple if I want one -- oh right....apples don't grow in Israel either. Abe said he was going to work on this too...hmmph. Haven't seen or heard one word, except to point things out that he already knew or corret me. I KNEW IT.....he's been lieing all these years, he DOES KNOW FREAKING HEBREW!

I stopped by a lovely wine store today to buy a wine thata our friends from Strassburg recommended. The name came to me in the night. It sounds wonderful -- it is a rose with a slight bubble to it and great with Italian food. It is called Lombrusco. I explained to the gentleman behind the counter what I wanted and asked if I could get some. He gave me a really

pitiful look as if he felt sorry for me. Madame, he said.....that is Italian not French. Yeah, sure. Ok. But I want to get some. But Madame...he said, shaking his head mournfully I am not Italian I am French. You must find an Italian wine seller. Right......now how the hell am I going to do that?

To anyone who is French, I apologise. Do the French never smile? You can chuckle at their baby, smile at their sweet little dog and they look at your like you are insane. We North Americans are smilers. Smiling gets you in trouble in Costa Rica....smile at a strange man and suddenly he is following you all over the store and out on the street because surely you meant something, heh heh heh with your sonrisa!.....in France....smile, and they look at you like you are a total bitch. Smiling is for friends you idiot, not for strangers. I don't even know why they have a word for it here, they never use it. I feel a smile startinag to cross my lips and suddenly I develop rigor mortis and try to stop it so I don't look like a fool. Also....if you see a Frenchman coming down the sidewalk or you HEAR him coming behind you get the hell out of the way. He/she is not moving...YOU ARE. The other day I swear I bearly got out of the way of a man barreling along behind me with a baby stroller (luckily I heard the wheels). I am convinced he would have steamrolled right over top of me and not looked back. Abe laughed because he had been thinking the same thing.

Dog poop -- poop and scoop does not exist. It is better here than it used to be but scooping -- absolutely no way. I laughed my head off at a street cleaner the other day AFTER he went by me. He had his broom, his uniform identifying him as a street cleaner and both of us saw a huge pile of dog poop right in the middle of the sidewalk. I looked at it, he looked at it, and then he walked straight on. There are big pictures of dogs and arrows pointing to the curb drawn on some of the sidewalks, meaning curb your dog....well the dog poop ain't going to any curb as far as I can see. It's staying right there. It's a form of dodge ball. However, I remember it being much much worse say 15 years ago so something is happening I'm just not sure what? less dogs?

If you come to France you must go to a butcher shop and buy a freshly roasting chicken and the potatoes that are cooking in the drippings. Oh my God, good. It is probably not good for you to eat the potatoes that have cooked in the drippings of hundreds of chickens but the flavour is to die for. Plus their chickens have flavour and meat on them. Delicious. Buying a chicken and some potatoes and eating in a park or in your hotel room is so worth it...skip a restaurant and just dig in, rip that baby apart and just go for it. A pastry is a nice accompaniement.

Anyway, got to run. Off to find someone who can cover up my skunk streak of grey. It is a little frightening going to get your hair coloured in a strange city. they have different ideas of what looks good, or is chic, or appropriate. I don't want blonde. I don't want large chunks of high lights. I don't want to pay a fortune! Hopefully I can find someone who can do it for me tomorrow before Benj arrives so I don't look like his OLD mother...I look likehis old mother with coloured roots!

If you don't hear from me for a while you will know it is because Abe came back on the pretext of seeing me ONLY TO STEAL MY COMPUTER.

Some tasty photos!

Here's a view of Monet's lily pond....although my camera is wonderful the colours are a little muted which is sad....it was a grey day! However, imagine brilliant colours and you will envision what we saw today.

Not only do these darn pastries look absolutely delicious...they are phenomenal. There is so
much less sugar used and the creams are so light and sparingly used that you can actually taste

and enjoy the fruit, the pastry and the cream as separate entities while eating the entire product. Why can't North American get this right?

The Last Few Days

So, where have we been the last few days. Oh, out and about as they like to say in Canada.
Abe returned on Thursday and worked his tail off. I had a down day on Thursday and wondered why I was here....maybe a month is too long, blah blah blah. However, had my best day ever on Friday at yoga and all was well again.

We have relatively new friends in Strassburg that we acquired through my sister. She hosted Margaux Lleu in her home over a year ago as a young French exchange student. Abe and I were in Canada at the time and took a real liking to Margaux. When we were in France last fall we drove down to Strassburg, stopping at medieval towns along the way, and ended up at Margaux's home where we spent several fab days with her and also with her mum. When we came back to France this time we notified them we were in town and they bought TGV tickets and at tres grande vitesse took the train up to see us and spend the weekend. We met them at La Grande Arche for dinner and had a fab spaghetti dinner. The next day we met them again for supper and just had a super time. Margaux takes audio visaul as an elective at her school and as a reward the class is going to Cannes for the film festival -- and they get to walk the red carpet. Margaux was in town with her dress looking for the perfect shoes -- quite exciting and fun to be part of for sure.

On Saturday, Abe and I decided we needed to tour a medieval museum in honour of Jonathan's Ph.D. work at the University of Toronto. We went to Musee de Cluny and it was perfect. I'm not a good museum goer -- I get bored quickly mainly because I have no mental retention of any historical facts. This museum was the perfect size for someone like me and in an hour and a half we were done and on our way.I had absorbed a few things. Say for instance you were looking at a tapestry that depicted a woman with a unicorn constantly and by the end she was holidng on to his horn....you might have a slight sexual interpretation of what was going on. I did! However, most of the descriptions we read talked about the tableaux showing taste, hearing, sight, smell and touch or some such thing -- until I read an article in the gift store talking about the tapestries being seen as sacred or very profane -- I'm sticking to my interpretation. I think those guys hid lots of stuff in their tapestries and paintings and with my brilliant tapestry reading skills -- I got it!

Today we had great fun. We took a train to Vernon, about 5 or 6 miles from Giverney where Claude Monet painted his water lillies. When you leave the train in Vernon you can instantly catch a shuttle to take you to the museum. My good friend, Peg, in Phoenix (who lived in France for many years) told us to skip the bus and rent bicycles from the local coffee shop. As soon as we left the station -- voila! bikes for rent. We stopped and had a coffee etc. chatted up the owner and left in about 20 minutes on our bikes to ride through town. Best decision of the day.
Although it was supposed to rain, it did not. It got warm. There was a fabulous bike trail that we picked up about 2 km. into the bike ride and it took us straight ot Giverny. How French do you feel stopping at the local patisserie and picking up your breakfast -- croissants aux amandes....should be against the law. Next as we biked along all the local familes were out riding with their children and everyone was "bonjour" "bonjour" "bonjour". Delightful! We could stop whenever we wanted to take photos of homes done in the medieval style, the painted shutters, the gardens....it was fantastic.

The gardens themselves at Giverney -- not to be missed. I don't garden. I don't like dirt. I hate bugs crawling up at me. I don't even notice flowers much unless someone has a nice bunch in a vase -- and even then I can miss them! These gardens were spectacular or "ravissante" as the French would say. He must have been super rich to have grounds like this and we have to look up how he got to be a painter. This was no guy starving in a garret in Paris. His house was beautiful and completely renovated to look like it did when he lived there. It had been badly destroyed during the war. Since it is spring there were tulips everywhere. We took a ton of photos and if I can figure out how to get them on this blog I will. I'm posting them on Facebook too but our facebook connection is struggling here in France.

As we entered the gardens there was a small chicken coop with chickens and a large turkey or something wandering around. A nice sign was posted -- please do not disturb the fowl. We cracked up and had to take a picture which actually seemed to f#$% up the fowl....which made us laugh even harder. We felt so original taking our photo but I don't think one single English person walked by without taking a photo of the sign. Abe loved another sign near the entrance to the musem.....it was to warn you of electrical danger but it said ....Claude Monet, Danger Mort
which means Claude Monet, Danger -- DEAD!. Like we didn't know he was dead!

Women who stand behind their husbands telling them where to aim their camera, what to high light, move a little to the left, get the pink bush in front of the white tulips....really irritate the shit out of Abe. Unfortunately the woman who was doing this was in our path for a good half of the walk around the water lily pond and I think he was thinking of shoving her in to the water. The woman's husband never made a peep. ha ha.

One of the best things to happen this week was a reconnection with a friend I have missed for over two years. My friend, Michael, disappeared on me and I could not find him no matter how hard I tried. Our connection involved Michael trusting me to care for one of his dogs Casey -- now the love of my life! I wrote to his fire department where he volunteered, called his girlfriend, and on and on -- he was just gone. By Christmas of this year I just gave up..he was gone like a puff of smoke and that was that. I just had to accept it. Yesterday like magic a message appeared on Facebook and we found each other again. I pretty much like everybody but Michael just has a aura of "goodness" about him that makes me feel good. Life hasn't always been the easiest for him but he gets on with it and I so respect him for that. It appears he's raising some young girls with his girlfriend now and he will impart great values to them. They are lucky girls.

Benj comes in this week from Czech Republic or some such place. I'm not sure these study abroad programmes actually involve anything close to study, however I'm sure he'd disagree.
David has been really sick in China but with some good doctoring, antibiotics, and allergy pills he sounded a ton better when Abe talked to him the other day. Jon -- still searching for work but hopefully all is well.

Swine flu on the horizon everyone. You don't know whether to panic or scoff......the news can so set us on edge, can it not? My friend, Keiko, in Mexico City -- I am thinking of you and praying you are safe. Take care, friend. We shall see how this all plays out. SARS was terrible and many people died but eventually it was brought under control. Luckily Mexico seems to have reported this to WHO almost instantaneously which bodes well I hope.

Two more weeks in France and then home to Texas we go for two weeks. I guess I can fit in ten more Mysore classes......maybe my shoulders can hit the floor by then in one of the forward bends. That would be nice but I'm not expecting it...the head is there though! Yahoo!

Onwards and upwards....only so many more opportunities to eat some fabulous pastries, drink some wonderful wine, and walk our feet off.

Un Tres Grand Merci!

I know I said I wouldn't talk about yoga any more but I have to say thanks to the three people who have been helping me learn the basics, proper alignment, and the asanas for Ashtanga. So far so good. I met a guy today after class, Roy from San Francisco and my age. He told me that after his first class with Gerald last week (he is also here for a month) that Gerald took him aside and told him he needs to learn the fundamentals or he will seriously injure himself. This wouldn't be so bad except he has taken Ashtanga for five years. Gary, Erin and Sam.....thank you for helping me along this path and ensuring that I am doing things as correctly as I possibly can given my age, inflexible hips and all the other things that go along with getting older. Gerald is pretty well known in yoga circles and does a lot of workshops around the world so when he doesn't take me aside to point out how poorly I am in position (not that he isn't constantly making corrections but that is his job)...I say you guys have done a great job. Thanks.

I'm finally feeling better. Holy cow five days of feeling yucky in a hotel room isn't fun. I'm sure it wasn't fun for Abe either as I whine a lot. Maybe he didn't have business in Holland at all...maybe it was all a way to get out of Paris and away from me.

The sun is out, the streets are full so I think I'm going to walk to the Louvre and do my duty.
That place is so damn big that it is daunting deciding what to go look at. It could take an hour just to find the section I'm interested in. It is an hour to walk there anyway so I will certainly get my exercise. I have my subway pass but since the legs still work I see no reason to do it the easy way, plus the walk along Rue de Rivoli is great with tons of shops, cafes and restaurants.

Have I mentioned that we have been to every single type of market possible....flowers, birds, oldest one in the city, organic, plus every local market nearby. Abe is fascinated with the mouldy cheeses growing fur....which we don't eat. Seeing all the fish and seafood in the markets makes me realise I am a very limited cook. I have no idea what to do with an oyster, or what the different types of clams and mussels taste like and why you would care to have a different variety. I blame it on growing up landlocked in Haileybury......pickerel was the fish of the day and that was it...maybe a rainbow trout if dad fished somewhere different. Of course there was the "ling" but I won't go into that here. It involved almost throwing up and riding my bike about ten miles away from home swearing I would never return....one of my dad's favourite stories.

A little boy yelled at me today. He was very cross that I crossed the street on a red light. He yelled and then started telling his mom what I had done. I felt like a terrible example but there were no cars coming.

My son, David, has been really sick in China since he arrived. When I talked to him the other day it made me cry. He has felt at about 80% of normal since arriving in Shanghai in Februrary and we both think it is due to the filthy air quality -- not pollution like we have that we can'tsee but a dirty brown cloud that hovers over and in the city day and night, a visible cloud. Not only has he developed a deep hacking cough that is constant but his mouth has become so sore that he can't swallow or eat. He's lost about 15 pounds which is not good as he is a very thin man to begin with. However, he has gone to the doctor and been assured his teeth won't fall out (which had frightened him terribly as he has never even had a cavity and he's 26)....and that he has
severe allergies due to the pollution as well has bronchitis. His whole body is stressed due to adapting to the new country, pollution, food he doesn't recognise, etc. I'm a mum and even though he's 26....I wish I were there to take care of him. Why does he always have to choose the hardest road to follow his dreams.....can't he teach English to foreigners in a nice warm climate, near the beach, and eat coconuts and pineapple all day long. Luckily he likes his job, likes his apartment, his students love him (and want to have him to dinner all the time and I think he needs to go!) and his roommate is nice and they get along well. I guess I can't have everything bu I just want him well. If you are the praying kind, please say a little prayer on his behalf that he will get well and begin to feel like himself and enjoy his new life in China.

Benj should be back from Morocco now. I think that will have been a very interesting time for him. He was well prepared as they had had several weeks where Moroccans of all faiths came to tell them about the country, what to expect, etc. Benj was just happy to say he has put his foot on the continent of Africa. I have not done that and I don 't think Abe has either. Benj is one up on us all now.

My good friend lost her dog this week and she is in my thoughts. Silvia and her little Teddy have been together for 14 years I think. This was a huge loss and it will leave a large hole in her heart. to any of you who know her....hugs are in order and a kind word.

Off I go to the Louvre.....if you never hear from me again it is because I have not found my way out of the building. It is gargantuan. Take care.

Come to France but Don't Do This!

Don't get sick. What a way to ruin everyone's holiday. I spend all my time in the shower
trying to steam myself healthy. I have no idea how Abe can sleep through my night long
groaning, getting up, lieing down, coughing, sneezing, coughing some more, getting up.
He's either on some pretty strong drugs or he's faking it!

I've been miserable since Thursday and I'm just about at the end of my rope. I had to go
out Thursday with a colleague of Abe's and his wife who came in on the TGV from Germany.
They wanted to quickly check out Montmartre and then eat. We did all this but it was cold
and drizzly and I was not the best company.

Since then our time here has consisted of pretty much doing nothing. Luckily for Abe he had
work to do during the week. Today we found a movie theatre and that is as exciting as it
has been. I think our yoga meditation is out for Sunday....they would not want me there sneezing and coughing all over everyone.

Next week can only be better.