A little cool for real spring yet

25.IV.07 - MoM

Suzy, your food "creations" continue to amaze me! It's great that Bill is also so open minded and adventurous. More power to both of you.

After several days of occasional work at cleaning the AgroGarden, it is "planted" and started. It isn't really that hard to do. A strange coincidence, this is the 3rd planting, and all of them were started on the 25th (the first one on Christmas day). It could be that the tomatoes and the "greens" will be ready to eat at the same time. I can see a start of blooms on the tomatoes. Their stocks are really sturdy.

I also spent a lot of time still trying to get rid of the white crusty stuff on the three "pans" of the fountain. So far, the top looks pretty good and this is on the under side. It would mostly show if one was sitting by it.

Tom finally made it by today to put more water in the fish tank and install a new feeding system. Next time, he says, he will redo the "plants" for spring. He has said he was going to for about a month, so I hope he does it this time. He hasn't been able to find anyone to help him and he keeps getting new hospitals, restaurants, etc. He also has birds, and shows and judges dogs and horses. He's a real nut.

The local weather said that it just could be possible to have 80° this weekend. Today was overcast and from the 40° this morning it only got up to 59° and was mostly overcast. As soon as it is a little nicer, I'll try to get some pictures. So far mostly bulbs, but I see that the first spray of Bleeding Heart is beginning to show color. I can see it from a north window in the former bar room, now part of the living room. What a wonderful improvement that was. Too bad DoD wasn't here for it. However, he liked small, cozy rooms while I love space.

This afternoon, after my more or less usual V8, Boost, etc., I began to feel a little hungry, so I decided to eat "dinner" (chicken pie and ice cream) at about 4, and have my drinks at 5 p.m. That seems to have worked out well for today. I really am going to go to bed early tonight. I am already yawning and it's only 6:30. I wonder if you inherited that 3 a.m., sleep time from me. In my night school days, before marriage, that was my pattern, but I could sleep till almost noon. And, again at the Drug Store, I kept crazy hours but only slept till 10:00 a.m. I like daylight now too much to want to sleep late. Now to see if I can stay awake to copy a letter.

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Today, I found some of my letters from early Saalfelden. This one was dated 17.XI.84.

Dear Sandy and Bob,

I am trying out margins with the Christmas letter in mind, so will see how it works in a letter to you. As I write this you are still in Paris and there is just a chance that we will hear from you before you leave. I do hope so as there is much mail for you here, We have not tried sending a packet of mail, but I am sure that it will get complicated before we get thru with the language bit,

What a neat picture of you that Bob Bailey sent us and so beautifully matted along with a very nice note and the good picture of Bob and the group from the paper. A very nice thing for him to do. Also, had the pictures from Deb and fun to have. The ones I took when she was here were not good and the man said we did not have to take or pay for any we did not want. Did keep a few dark ones from when Marty was here as they show the table. Did get a really good one good one of the 3 of you under the lamp in DoD's room planning the trip and a good one of him at the computer with his schedule books spread out. He wants to do a photo and letter spread on what goes into planning a trip including a schedule plan and the actual way it ended up to send to some of our friends. We have a picture we can use for a card and they do print nice cards as they do in the states so will order on Monday if they can fit in the whole picture onto the card. Looks as if they may have to reduce it a bit to get it all on.

Was a fortunate thing that we did not try to continue the trip. Of course, as night follows day, DoD follows me into my sicks, He was a little rocky when he woke up in Paris Thursday, but insisted on going on with our trip to Frankfurt. Never did toss, but we took a taxi from downtown station to Sheraton at the Flughofen then we checked our big bag, did a bit of shopping for scarce items at the airport, then he got into bed and skipped dinner. He insisted that I was going to eat Chinese from one of the restaurants, as that was one of the reasons we had chosen that hotel. [It is connected to the airport by a walkway across the street from the hotel.] I got the food as take out but was not an unqualified success as it lacked the things to season it into hot stuff, but it was good food and I was pleased to be able to eat again. [I wonder why I can't enjoy hot stuff any more when I used to love the "hotter the better?"] He had very strange dreams as I had had -- almost like a fever delirium. With a light breakfast and lunch, we made it home okay. He managed to throw it off quicker than I did as he was starving when we got here so he insisted we eat at Hindenburg, where he put away liver noodle soup, a creamed veal dish, and hot apple strudel. But the whole thing still leaves you weak. Today is the first day that I have felt normal, and he is still not up to par. We do hope that you missed it!