Walking Tour - French Concession (Again)

On November 8, several of us went on another walking tour. This one was again in the French Concession area. The focus was the "leafy streets" and focused on the residential living of the lilongs. These were apartments and villas that were built between 1915 and the 1930's. Many were originally home to expatriates, but most now house 5 to 10 times as many families as the homes were originally designed to hold. This tour included, besides myself. Kathy Miller, Kathy Kane, Sherie Chen, and Karen Goh. We started from the Old China Hand Reading Room, on Shaoxing Lu. Several of us had been there before, some to hear Tess Johnson speak, a very knowledgeable American who has lived here for 15 years. Actually she co-authored the book we have been using to guide us on these tours. The descriptions I am including here come from the text of that book.

The French Concession was established in the 1840's in a small area between Yan'an (originally a creek, but now an elevated road!) and the Bund and the old Chinese walled city (Nanshi). But by 1914 it had expanded to its current size of around 600 acres. The architecture we saw on this walk reflected the need for rich mansions for the fortunate and high-density lilongs for the Chinese. Many Chinese revolutionaries, Communists, and intellectuals made this concession area their home. In 1949, all foreign-owned real estate became state property. While the lilongs are still in use as residential properties, the large mansions, estates, and villas have become restaurants, hotels, or museums. Many of the larger villas, which used to house one family, now may house 8 families!

The first lilong was the Cite' Bourgogne. This is an example of shikumen lilong, built in the 1930's. It has one of the grandest gates in Shanghai. There are 78 homes in this area, and right now, they are replacing all of the drains and water to the individual buildings. It is odd to see renovations on building that frankly look like they should be torn down! It was quite the bustle inside though. Many women were out with the daily food they had probably purchased that morning, cleaning fish and vegetables out front of their homes. There was a small wet market within the gates, so you didn't have to go far for you fresh food. The picture on the right is of a cute Chinese couple wondering why 5 westerners were wandering through their apartment area. Many smiles and "Ni Hao"'s were exchanged. That is what I love about China!

The picture here on the left, from the Joffre Terrace, shows an alley inside the lilong. This lilong is known as a garden lilong, built in the 1920's. There are 200 houses in this with a complex hierarchy of lanes. You can see the small window, known as a Ting zi jian, in the stairwell that is extending out from the main building. In hard times, this "apartment" was rented to writers and artists as they could not afford the rent of a larger space. The broad lanes of this lilong are very wide and almost spacious. Not at all like the other lilongs. And it is neat that while the insides of these apartments are dark and seemingly uninhabitable, they The small place on the right here is the local "Senior Center". All of you AARP members out there ought to feel good about the resources available to you. Here they look like they use the room for storing bags of rice! Not a lot of other activity going on here today!

Traffic is still an issue no matter where you are in Shanghai. The picture here on the right is of the bike and scooter traffic at a main intersection in the area we were walking. There are just so many people living and commuting from place to place. Oh, and the picture on the right was just for fun. The sign on one of the buildings reads "Urban Vegetable Garden". Marketing is not an art form here in China!

After looking at the lilong's, we moved on to private villa's that have been converted into apartments. Some of the homes are really beautiful and the gardens are still very attractive. We also stopped briefly at the former home of Dr. Sun Yat Sen. We didn't pay the 20 RMB to get in this time, we will have to wait until another day to tour inside. There was a small textile museum with some interesting textiles. But no one bought anything.

Our final stop was at the site of what is now the Ruijin hotel. This was originally the home of the British Moriss family, owners of the "North China Daily News". There are many building making up this compound, many which now contain the hotel itself, restaurants, and stores. It is a beautiful oasis in a very busy area. We wandered around the gardens and I had a good opportunity for the only good "Chinglish" signage. In a small lane between buildings, we saw the sign to the left which was a "Boiler Important Area". It was just a door which I will assume housed a large boiler. We at lunch at Face, which has two restaurants and a bar contained within in it. The picture on the right is a view from our table at the Thai restaurant. Very quiet and luxurious. A great way to finish a nice walk!

BOO! Halloween Time

We enjoyed our first Halloween in China last night. Vizcaya, our compound, had trick-or-treating for the kids. Then we headed to the Miller's for a Halloween party. So it was a full night of candy and fun. Believe it or not, it was actually pretty easy to get some basic Halloween decorations and a costume for me. Carrefour does have it's value. So you can see from the picture that

Lauren and Jamie Miller came to Vizcaya around 4:30 (they are the beautiful vampires in the picture). We headed to the clubhouse around 4:45. The Miller's arrived dressed as vampires, and I was a vampire as well. So, we were a scary vampire family with a cute princess daughter! Tom stayed and took the job of handing out the candy, tough life! By the way, for those of you who are familiar with Natalie's trick or treating experiences in the past, you are probably wondering how excited she really was. Well, having some friends go with her that were older helped a bunch. But I still caught a bit of hesitation on her face a few times. Overall though she did great! When the trick or treating started at 5pm, there were about 150-200 kids streaming from the clubhouse down to the first street of villas. Needless to say, that first house got quite a hit of kids all at once. In fact, the whole street was a steady stream of kids. After about 15 minutes though, things spread out a bit.

So you are probably wondering what kinds of candy we had here. The girls all raked in quite a bit, an interesting mix of Chinese crackers to a single Reese's cup. Some families had brought a lot of candy back from the states for just this reason. Makes you a bit homesick to see real Tootsie rolls and Twizzlers! But you know, kids are kids, and I think they were all pretty pleased with the "take". The gummy Eyeballs were the favorite treat of the night. I would show you a picture, but they ate them all! But, I think the picture of Jamie to the left shows what happens after about 5 of them! After hitting about half of the houses here in an hour, we headed up to the clubhouse for haunted houses and pumpkins. One funny thing that happened was that the bartenders were making drinks with sprite and dry ice. The kids thought they were great. Natalie finished her Sprite and then said "This ice is REALLY cold!". Geesh, I told them then not to swallow it. How dangerous!! I wonder how many kids drank some of that ice last night? Anyway, turned out that we did not have pumpkins to carve, so we went ahead and walked back to the house.




And headed to the real party. The Miller's celebrate big at Halloween as they were married close the holiday. It was a great evening with good friends, good food, and fun games. Lots of good things to eat, good friends, and many laughs.


In the picture to the left, you can see Cave woman (Kathy), Ms. Cell Phone (Ceyda), and Ms. Pirate (Angie) checking out the good food. Ceyda's kept coming up and telling us "hit 555-8888", it's hits all my favorite areas!". Ceyda! You can't take her anywhere... Everyone had really good costumes (except for Tom, see below). And that is quite the accomplishment in China!



We got a good picture of the men: Caveman (Brian), Viking (Heinrick), Tom (oh, he went as himself), Matador (Haken), and the "Best Dressed Man Here" (Michael). Wasn't Tom clever? Who knew his sense of humor went so deep?


The kids really had a good time. Lots of fun games and everyone won something (good job Kathy!). Grace the bunny looks like she is having a good time. Natalie and Jamie won the "Make a Mummy" contest (sorry, I probably helped her too much!). They also had a fun game with string, counting peanuts and candy corn, and a fun word game. Natalie was beat by the time the evening wore down. We had brought her pj's and so she ended up staying the night for her first sleep over with Jamie and Lauren. She did really great too! She said she got to have pancakes in the morning for breakfast. We are so proud of her for not being afraid. Now she is asking for sleepovers every night!

The Miller's had a copy of Rocky Horror Picture Show and so we stuck it in the DVD player, but the put sound down. Of course all the kids were drawn like flies to honey! The picture here is of the scene where Brad is floating in the glass fish tank. What we let our children do when we are entertaining ourselves!



At the end of the evening, I was gathering up our belongings, and I found Brian (see picture) in the entryway. I swear that there was no staging involved with this photo. Now, there might have been quite a few drinks before this particular shot, though I doubt that Brian would EVER drink more than 2 or 3 in an evening!
There are three choices for the real action behind this picture:

1. His caveman costume was not actually a costume, but his normal day-to-day GM uniform
2. His love of the Chinese toilet goes way beyond normal admiration
3. He is showing us how REAL Chinese wait on the corners with their bread

Oktoberfest In Shanghai

[DISCLAIMER: I NEED TO EXTEND A WARNING AND APOLOGIES TO ANY OF TOM BRAMER'S FAMILY AND CO-WORKERS WHO WILL BE SHOCKED BY THIS ENTRY'S PICTURES AND VIDEOS. IT ONLY HAPPENS ABOUT ONCE A YEAR. NO NEED FOR AN INTERVENTION!]

Ah, you know that fall has arrived in Shanghai when the Lederhosen and Schnitzel arrive! Wait, is this Munich? No, of course it is Shanghai. The Holiday Inn Pudong was host to a wonderful event, lasting 10 days this year. Tom had attended the event last year as it occurred during on of his trips here to Shanghai and he stayed at the hotel. He had such a good time, he wanted to go back again. We attended with a few of our favorite beer-drinking friends this past Friday evening. Who needs to spend the holiday with real Germans? Well, there were a few real German's in the house, but mostly it was local Chinese. And an authentic die Blaskapelle (band). Oh, and a few good-looking Russian women, but wait, I get ahead of myself...

Our attendees at our table that evening were Dan, Marty, Tom, Craig, Shelly, Brad, Jamie, Dave, Kathy, and Brian. All you can eat and drink. Das Bier was good and though none of us ever finished one glass to the bottom, we seemed to drink a lot of pitchers of it. Tom started the evening by trying to steal one of the band member's hat. Though he does look pretty good with that little thing perched on his melon. Marty, Craig, Brad are the three blokes performing one of the many cheers that night. I am afraid I do not have a good picture of the table, though I seemed to have plenty pictures of Tom.

Many Chinese attended, they were probably 60-70% of the attendance, and they were true to character. When the buffet lines were opened, 60-70% of the room got up and jostled for food! It was all you can you eat! Not many buffets here in China for a good reason. They go crazy! And they ate in a typical Chinese fashion: individual plates piled high with a single item for sharing at the table. So the women at the table, or the lowest ranked man I guess would slog into the line and grab a plate of Sausages, etc. I don't know why, but this really cracked me up this time. I guess I should not be so surprised that the Chinese do exactly what anyone else does: adapt the situation to your own known culture. It was still good for a laugh or two. The table behind us apparently had no faith in edible food being served as they brought 7-9 bananas and some apples and oranges. Or maybe they took them from the displays??? Brian Miller, bless his heart, took pity on us westerners and went and filled quite a few plates of food and brought them to our table. We felt so Chinese, but it was good to have some food, which was actually pretty tasty. So, we ate. OK, enough about the other stuff we saw, let me tell you about us...

We watched the band, which was really good at getting the crowd involved. They played your typical German polkas (the darn Chicken Dance is still playing in my head) and a few other songs that tended to be heavy on the horns, but good crowd pleasers. It was difficult to talk and to see, and we found quickly that the best way to watch the whole show was standing on the benches at the table. The band did a really funny song, I am sure there is an appropriate German tradition for this, that consisted of one of the male band members to dress like a German woman and then periodically "gong" two men naked except for a cloak and metal pan. The "gong" song was hilarious. Check it out.

I could tell Tom was having a good time as I had to suggest he "slow down" half an hour after we got there, but there was no slowing the man down. He had a huge grin on his face all night. He also found a slightly smaller version of a bald man that he attached himself to for part of the evening. In the picture to the left you can see mini-Tom, Brad, Marty, Brian, and Tom enjoying the evening. I am not really sure what Tom is yelling here, but you can be sure he was screaming as he had no voice for 36 hours afterwards!

About 3/4 of the way through the night, it was time for that wonderful German tradition, Russian girls dancing on tables. And no, I am not kidding. The picture to the left is not of one these girls, that's Tom doing part of a "Y" in "Y.M.C.A.". Dan and Tom, who had attended this event last year, were giddy with excitement all evening, but I am not sure they rest of understood why. But yes, 8-10 Russian girls were escorted in, surrounded by "handlers" and assisted to the the table tops. I think the boys were disappointed that our table was not one of the selected "table dance" areas. Irregardless, we didn't see Tom for quite a while! Well, that is not exactly true, as the other video uploaded to You Tube shows. Now, many of you might think a wife would frown on this sort of chauvinistic, demeaning, insulting behaviour. I learned a long time ago with Tom that his "bad boy" image never goes too deep especially at the point of intoxication that he had reached at this point. I guess you gotta luv him...

So, The man in the chef hat at the left is Tom. As you can see, he still has a smile on his face. Though I have no idea where he stole the hat from! Now that would change for the worse in about 2 hours, but he was a happy camper at the end of the party! A fun time was had by all that evening I believe. Tom gave Craig his goodnight kiss (see why I wasn't worried about the Russian dancers!) and got our coats. We grabbed a taxi along with the Millers and headed home. Unfortunately, Tom lost a day of his life the next day, and he swears he will never drink again... Well, at least until next Oktober...

FIFA Women's World Cup Finals

The Women's World Cup finals were played here in the Shanghai area last week. We were fortunate enough to get tickets to the final night of action, Sunday, September 30. Actually, Kathy Miller got our families the tickets (Thanks Kathy!). The picture here shows the whole crew, from the left is Tom, Natalie, Jamie, Brian, Lauren, and Kathy. We loaded the kids up Sunday afternoon and headed to Subway for some sandwiches. That turned out to be a good idea as the local food inside the stadium was pretty limited. Our driver had originally indicated that he would not be able to drop us at the Hong Kou Football Stadium and would have to drop us at another subway stop. But, that turned out to be a false alarm and he was able to drop us just half a block away. The stadium itself was really nice! It is very new and is located in the northeast portion of the city. Neither Tom nor I had ever been to a soccer game before, so we didn't really know what to expect. It was actually really fun to watch. Jamie and Lauren, Kathy and Brian Miller's kids really enjoyed it. Natalie had a good time too, but mostly because she got to spend the evening with Jamie and Lauren. The short walk into the stadium was actually pretty quick. We had assumed that it might be more like shopping at Carrefour, lots of jostling and a bit inefficient, but it was not at all. The only slight wrinkle was not being able to take our water bottles into the stadium. It was also amazing to see all the food that people brought into the stadium. KFC did a good business that night, that's for sure! The girls made signs and held them up during the games, the Miller girls even had German flags on their faces for the final game!




The first game was 3rd place, between the US and Norway. The US team looked pretty good, though I didn't know any of the players! Well, I guess we knew one, Lilly. The US won, 4-1. Not a whole lot of US fans there, maybe 4-5 pockets of them scattered throughout the entire stadium. The stadium was not quite filled when this game was over, but it filled up before the final. The second game was between Brazil and Germany. Hard to say of there were more Brazilians or Germans there! The majority of attendees were Chinese and they seemed to basically cheer for offense. We left at halftime, the game was zip-zip. But Germany ended up winning, 2:0.

Oops, I thought I would just go blind from doing that...

So, this is a real picture. I swear it. It showed up in the Shanghai Daily one day. I sent it out to my humorous friends and asked them for some other ideas for funny captions. Some of them couldn't be posted! Other good Captions:

- So, NOW do you believe your Mom when she said not to do that nasty thing in your bedroom?

- Who knew self-interest would have THIS side effect!

- The "L" shape on her forehead was the death blow...

- The palm reader exploded.

- My Grandma told this would happen if I pointed at people.

- Anyone want to play war?

Visiting the Red Tent

The title is only going to be funny to those of us that 1) read the book The Red Tent or 2) were at Ceyda Yuce's home last night. Last night was the first get together of my Shanghai friends and our husbands. We decided that after 6 months, all of the hubbies of the group of great gals I run around with should meet. So Ceyda hosted a happy hour at her house. We had all some what held our breath before hand as we all felt it would be quite the bummer if the guys didn't hit it off and we were relegated to 'girls-only' events. Fortunately, that was not the case, and at least from Tom I heard good news that it was a good group of guys. Whew.

So, the red tent... Let me begin by sharing that that everyone brought a bottle of wine, and I am not sure if there were any bottles left unopened when we left. The women all filled our plates and sat in the dining room which had french doors on it that could be pulled (or pushed, ha ha) closed. The men chose the chairs and tables outside of the room. After we all started chatting, the men decided to close our doors as clearly they felt our noise was inhibiting their own conversations. So even though at times we opened them to let in some cool air, generally it was agreed that the conversations topics we were discussing, such as the different styles of bikini-waxes one can select from, mandated that the doors remain closed. Hence, the name the Red Tent. We had such a great time last night! I am very lucky to have hooked up with such a great bunch of ladies. I was laughing so hard that my sides ached. That is a sign of a good time.

Some evening highlights:

• Why do they use the term apex to describe those female body parts?
• What is a "landing strip"? What are it's benefits?
• Frommer's translates to Farmers in Swedish (sorry Susanne, this one had me in tears!)
• Susanne probably ought not take her wedding ring off if she has an affair
• Sushi is meant to be eaten whole so as to provide long gaps of quiet time to a table
• Salt can remove red wine stains from white linens
• We need to go out to clubs to feel young (so says Rebecca!)
• Can you really make a profit selling Chinese wine in Sweden?
• Kathy has to make cheesecake for all future gatherings!

Oh, and a special thanks to Haken Yuce and Brian Miller for the giant size glass of liqueur. Kahlua, Vodka, Bailey's, and milk. Wow. Brian thought he had called out a recipe to Haken to for B52's, but I looked it up online and B52's have Grand Marnier in them instead of vodka. It is actually called a mudslide. Now I know why my mom drinks these...

Natalie's Birthday

Natalie turned 5 on August 14. Her Gammaw was here to help her celebrate. When I asked Natalie what she wanted to do to celebrate, she told me she wanted to go the Pearl Tower. So, that is what we did. We invited some of our friends and went to visit the Pearl Tower. We had lots of girls go with us. Natalie also had a dress made just for her birthday! Mom and I found sound really cute material with "barbie" on it that Natalie just loved, so we had the shop that has made some of my best copied clothes at the Fabric Market make it for her. She has it on in all of the pictures. Only in China!

Luckily it was a decent day for looking out of the tower. Some days it is very smoggy and hard to see. You can see from the picture that the sun was bright that day. From left to right in the outside picture are Grace Fansett, Jamie Miller, Natalie Bramer, Jessie Kovie (in the front), Lauren Miller, and Hannah Fansett. Up top, the kids had loads of fun goofing for the camera. The best part of that trip was the museum underneath the tower. It was very interesting and the kids loved it! The last time we went, we didn't even know it was there so we totally missed it.

After the Pearl Tower, we went to Buddy Bear Restaurant in the Times Square Pudong Mall. A themed restaurant geared at kids. The food was so-so, but the kids loved playing in the big play area inside, so it was perfect. I bought an ice-cream cake that cost me $50 (yes in American!) from Haagen-Daz and sent all the kids home with a big sugar buzz!

Even though Natalie is here in China, it turned out that all of her family sent her gifts! Since my mother had come over, she was able to bring most of the gifts

from her grandparents and aunts & uncles. So, she had quite a pile of gifts to open. She received mostly books, though as usual her Aunt Angel sent some good fun stuff (lots of stickers and little toys which she loves). She also got two new Webkinz from Angel and Tony, a frog and a chihuahua. She of course loved that. Her Aunt Jennifer got her a bunch of Magic school Bus books, which are science oriented. We have read two or three of those already. Excuse me, she has read them. She now tells me that she doesn't need me to read to her. Her Grandma and Grandpa Bramer got her a really cute outfit for fall (though she insists on wearing the jeans already as they have red hearts on the legs and she thinks she looks grown-up!) and two books from Beverly Cleary: Ramona the Pest (Ramona Quimby), and Beezus and Ramona. I talked Natalie into letting me read Ramona and it is pretty applicable since it is about Ramona starting kindergarten. But she is reading the other about Beezus on her own. She still has some struggle with some of the vocabulary, but she is getting about 70% of what she reads. Gammaw also gave Natalie a gift of a manicure. On the Saturday before her birthday, her and Gammaw went to the spa here and had lunch and their nails done together. Natalie had little, teeny, tiny, flowers painted on her fingers. Again, only in China AND only when Gammaw is visiting. The Ayi got Natalie some Chinese / English books and has been studying with her. That will come in handy this year for sure. Tom and I bought her some more books and her own Mp4 player. She has been getting car sick and can't read, color, or play her L-Max in the car and she was using Tom or I's player, so really you could say the gift was for us. But I have to say that one of her favorite gifts came from our driver, Zhong Biao. He bought her a Barbie with 4-5 extra outfits. She loved it! And since it was really the only toy she got, thank goodness. Pappaw gave her $10 which I converted to RMB and she went to Toys-R-Us and bought a little Barbie, Kelly. She told us that in Barbie Land, Barbie could have babies without a husband! Out of the mouth's of babes... So overall even though we tried to keep it low key, she got quite a bit. It was a big day and we tried to get her to bed early as the next day was the first day of school. At 8:05 when her head hit the pillow, she was out within 5 minutes. I guess she had a happy birthday!

We're Back... Diane's Arrival (one mth late!)

My mother comes to visit us here in China and my blog goes to hell! Well, maybe it not just her fault. But I am back now and determined to catch you all back up on what has been going on. My mom visited, Natalie turned 5, Natalie started school, I am looking for a part-time job, Natalie rode her first two-wheel bike, and Tom is in the U.S. So there, you are caught up!

OK, I will start with the highlights of Mom's visit. She was here from August 3-28. She had a great flight and Natalie was thrilled to see her at the airport. I was thrilled too! Our first visitor. We got her luggage and headed back to the house. Natalie had decorated a big sign that said "Welcome to Shanghai Gammaw" and I had hung it from the ceiling. Plus we had put fresh roses in her room along with some pictures I had made of Bob, Angel, and Jennifer so she wouldn't forget the rest of the family. Natalie basically hung out all afternoon and evening with Gammaw, playing on her bed with everything she had brought. The neatest gift that my mother brought was a scrap book she had made for Natalie. It is so beautiful! Any of you who know my mother know that she is a bit OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) so of course it was perfect! Mom says she made the book so that Natalie would not forget her and pappaw. Right, like that would happen. As you can see from the final picture, Natalie basically wore herself out!

I will get some more information out here on her visit. I promise it won't take so long!

33:18:00

I hit 33 minutes and 18 seconds today for my 5k time! My best time in a loooonnngggg time. My goal is to run under 30 minutes. Should be no problem in a week or two. Running is not my favorite thing to do, but today I felt I broke some mental block and really was able to finish the last 1.5k easily. All of this after a terrible weekend of eating a HUGE hamburger at Malone's and cooking a whole leg of lamb for gyros on Sunday. I have lost 15 lbs since I got here, which I realize is now where near Tom's loss, but I feel good about it anyway. the sad part is that with that weight loss I am probably just now to what I should be and what I was a couple of years ago. Oh well. Good thing there are no Krispy Kremes or Skyline here!!! And no Erich, no pictures!

An Online THANKS to My Artistic Friend DIANA TULLIO

A year ago I found out that one of my best friends had an artist inside of her hiding! Julie, Kim, and I found the artist peeking out during a tattooing session in our hotel room during our trip to Monterrey last year. I was fooling around and asked for a tattoo of a bull on the back of my neck. Don't ask how much wine we had before I asked this. Read the whole description of the trip here, but check out the drawing I got on the back of my neck! It took several days to wash away. Then the artist hid again and we didn't hear from her again until the night before I was leaving Dayton. I received a wonderful pencil drawing that Diana had drawn. Well, I got see it electronically as the weather was too bad for Diana to make it in to Julie's that night. It was so good! In case you don't see it well, it is a picture of the Bramers (Tom, Shelly, and Natalie) with the Shanghai skyline in the back. And she had a card as well. The card reads:
Good-Bye... Sigh
Tom and Shelly and Natalie
have decided to leave the country.
They have packed their bags, and checked the nooks and crags
while racing about town frantically.

We have been planning our good-byes
amongst regrets and heartfelt sighs.
Except for some weirdo parent,
the Bramer's will leave with no apparent
need for anything but smiles and dry eyes.

Shelly gave notice at the old salt mine.
Then we drank all of Bill and Jeanne's wine.
A zillion lunches have come and gone, and
We have taken all occasions to "tie one on"!
Who will ever replace Shelly's penchant to dine?!

They will return some day.
We hope to visit them while they are away.
to go to China to live
is an opportunity not many would give,
so we will talk virtually and say...

Have a wonderful time in Shanghai!
We will miss you.
All our love,
5 Sisters

It definitely made me teary-eyed! (we had promised no tears). I finally received my drawings and card in one of the "care packages" that my wonderful friends sent me. Along with the Shanghai picture, Diana also crafted a "Shelma" picture for me based on the Velma character in the Scooby Doo series. Don't ask for an explanation that! I was so touched. I wanted to have them framed so that I could hang them up. I decided to go with over-the-top frames, but frankly I think they turned out beautifully! I am going to hang up the Bears somewhere in the living room. The Shelma will probably need to go in our bedroom. Tom thinks it is a little, well, weird, to have this picture hanging where we can see it in bed, but I think it is fitting! Oh, and besides the beautiful artwork, I also received a book of Haiku that Diana wrote with pictures from our California trip. Very impressive! One of my favorites is:

Big Sur - Part 2
Walk-a-bout rising
Surf and cliffs integrated
Heat, breeze, misty trail


I want to Diana to know how special her gifts are to me. On the occasion that I am having a Shang"low" day, I can look at the pictures and remember the great times I have had with my friends and how many we will have in the future. I have had a lot of opportunity to think about my life as it was up to this point and I more

clearly understand and appreciate

the role I have played with my friends and family up to this point. More importantly, I value the support that you get from a good set of friends, even if the miles

between them are great.

So, enough of my melancholy. A final shout out to Julie, Kim, Diane, and Diana. I love you and I miss you tons, but we are BFF and that is special!