Elsie Ray

It's hot, but it's supposed to break tonight, and be cool for a couple of days anyway.  We love air conditioning.

And so do a lot of people, including Grandma.  Whom I saw a couple of times last week, on trips up and back from Pittsfield.  She complained of lack of energy, and I couldn't even persuade her to go to Dairy Queen.  Didn't stop me though, as I enjoyed a Blizzard, Reese's Pieces variety.  Life is pretty good.  What's your favorite blizzard?  I saw it's the 25th anniversary of that delight, and I only found out about it in the last couple of years.  Got some catching up to do.

First, though, I have to work out before I earn one of those calorie boosters.  Last week it was finishing up the work on the master bedroom walls including insulating and the dirty work of tearing down the ceilings.  Fell on top of me.  John came over and helped move radiators and an outdoor faucet, and Marilyn gave her interior design sense to the situating of closets.  There are lots of mysteries in tearing down walls.  This week's had to do with seeing if the wall we want to remove between two small bedrooms is a load-bearing wall.  Underneath the ceilings are some very old, large wooden beams.

On the trip north, Peter came over for lunch with Grandma, having had his court appearance for the day cancelled.  He said he and Janet had gone to reunions and danced the night away!

Mary finishes school this week, and after a short visit with Peter and Janet for their annual ( we hope) crab break, we are off to points north and west for the summer.

Joe was in San Francisco last week for a short vacation.  He's still waiting to hear from his future employers (USAID) and has some imminent decisions to make, but that all depends on hearing from USAID.  He is a little frustrated .

Margaret's big news had to do with her car.  She was able to convince a judge to drop the fines for tickets she got for not registering her car, but had yet another setback in the actual registration process.  She needed my signature.  So on Saturday, we met at the DMV in DC and finally got the license plates.  Quite an ordeal, lasting over a year.

Annie is planning her hiking trip and is looking to take an on-line English teaching course to get ready for her move to China.

But the really big news belongs to Maura Boyle Smith, Dan's daughter, who had a baby this week, and is now home with her daughter, Elsie Ray.  Congratulations!

Love from down here.

Tour of Rural China-a post long overdue

Here are some pictures of my trip to Greg's hideaway-a small town in rural China named Pengtun. The first picture is of another town in the area (a rocky 3 hour ride up mountains sans guardrails). The next one is of a two-day trek Greg took me on called Tiger Leaping Gorge. And that's me, on the top of that frightful cliff. As you can imagine, my fear of heights did not make the already difficult hike go any faster. The last picture is of a pagoda a mere 4 minute bike ride from the school where Greg teaches in Pengtun. You cannot see it, but there was a group of domestic tourists who borrowed me for a 30 minute photo shoot. Apparently curly hair is not a big thing in China.

Also, check out the Travel section of this weekend's Wall Street Journal, specifically "Castle in the Air"-Greg wrote it!

Love!

Annie

Summertime

First week of retirement is under my belt.  And it was active and busy.  Hope I can upload the video which in 25 seconds gives a flavor of the week.  Jim Dickmeyer, a friend who joined the Foreign Service with me, decided to end it with me as well.  He is going to continue working though.

Anyway, Jim and I spent a week of work and play in Pittsfield.  We tore down walls in what will be the new master bedroom, and we put in a small garden, complete with fence after we saw woodchucks and rabbits.  We also canoed across the lake to go to Mr. Donut for coffee; drove up to Mt Greylock, the highest point in Mass; went to a Pittsfield Colonials baseball game; took in some live music at the Guthrie Center (formerly Alice's Restaurant - really) and the Dreamaway Lodge; and did a culinary tour which included the last two establishments and Theo's hot dogs and Jimmy's restaurant.  Lots of errands and spent a little money.  And that's not all.  John and Marilyn invited Jim to play golf so they went out to the links for two rounds.  My own personal history of golf in Saratoga and Stratford remains seared in my psyche so I did not join.

A mystery. The car smelled terrible; Jim said it was his leather golf bag. When we got home, Mary also thought it smelled of a dead animal. After the car was all cleaned out, I looked in one of the wells in the back and found a dead mouse. How did it get there?

And Mary stayed behind and had to work.  She has just two more weeks of work before her summer break.  She was not idle at home as she cleaned up our office area, to make room for her new rug-braiding materials.  

We stopped in to see Grandma going and coming.  She reported on long conversations with Dundee and it sounded like the Illinois crowd had a great week at Green Lake.  Also talked with David who had tracked me down on the road, on my first full day of retirement.  Grandma said they are heading out to the Vineyard soon. 

Margaret spent the week in Kansas City at an international student advising conference, which usually draws about 20,000 people.  She was with the group of Iraqis who are setting up international student advising centers, and had some reverse cultural insights with people experiencing the U.S., most for the first time.

We also spoke with Annie who is winding down her job and planning on coming to Bethesda for a weekend in a couple of weeks.  Then, she will get her visa to move to China.  Yikes!

And we got a text message from Joe who was in Denver (?) and an e-mail saying he made it to the next level of the Foreign Service test.  He is in his final weeks of work.  

So, some busy weeks ahead, of driving anyway and trying to do a little work on the house.  And then I really need to start planning our trip out west.  

Hope you are all well and enjoying the start to the wonderful season.  Love