It was a rest day!

5.V.07 - MoM

Suzy, you had suggested I do a FL weekend sort of take it easy. Yesterday, I thought no way as I was on a roll. However, I changed my mind this morning. Before I got up I felt a little strange. My blood pressure was high for me and I took a nitro for a flutter. I felt fine by the time I got up, but decided to make this an almost nothing day.

Bill e-mailed mid-morning that the problem was solved and he would explain later. It's funny, last night I had e-mailed him to same suggestion you sent me later. I knew he didn't have my old one, as our families were in touch occasionally by letter then.

I hope your pain continues to abate and that you will soon be back to normal, Suzy. I'm glad you didn't crack any ribs. Remember when I fell getting out of Grandpa's trailer and cracked some?

Some time ago, you asked me about "Gasoline Alley." In Iowa I don't think we took a paper. However, as you remember "Harley" took at least a Sunday paper (Des Moines Register) with comics. I don't remember reading them when we lived in Iowa, but only when we came back in summers and still only the Sunday's. I don't remember reading them in the Berkeley Gazette. I'm not even sure there was a Sunday edition. Of course, DoD kept up with them forever. In Los Altos, I finally read the Chronicle comics regularly when I started working at Rancho, and was a steady forever after. We continued the Washington Post by mail when we moved to Shannondale.

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Today's letter is from Saalfelden written on 30.I.86.

Dear Sandy and Bob,

Thanks so much for sending on our Visa cards. The Peoples continue to arrive in time to keep me in bathroom reading material. In January, after I had not received September, October and November Bon Appetit but did receive the December issue, I sent them a note about it along with my subscription renewal. On the renewal bill for the first time I noticed the address had our name followed on the next line by 5760 Saalfelden" and the next line was the Purstinger" bit, then the last line was "Vienna, Austria." Can you believe that the next day the September issue arrived. I have not written to tell them as there has still been no sign of the other 2 missing issues.

At last there is news from the "additional apartment front." The Frau came by yesterday to discuss it. It seems 2 of her daughters and families were interested in having more room for their Christmas and Easter visits and thought it might be nice to take over the downstairs and then we could add the little apartment upstairs that one of them uses. As you remember, it is a cute little apartment but being under the eaves it is not very light and the rooms are very small. I had been looking forward to being able to go outside from the back of the house right onto the terrace and garden. However, they had begun to think more about it and tying up so much space for so little use, so when we continued to express more interest in downstairs than upstairs, she finally committed herself yesterday to letting us have it. We expect to sign the lease next Monday. There will be one change -- "your" bedroom will now become part of their upstairs apartment and we will mover our things from there to the downstairs. That room is hard to heat in winter and is sort of a stepchild anyhow. Since the family is only here for short, infrequent periods, it will not bother us. [That room was not connected with our unit -- you had to go out our front doot onto the hall stair landing. You slept there, too, Suzy. You would have like it better when we also had the downstairs as DoD would not be in there looking for stuff at his desk and waking you.] So the next time you visit you can have your own bedroom and bathroom, without having to be in DoD's office. It will probably be a couple of months before it will be ready to move into as she wants to modernize the toilet room and the tub bathroom (somewhat the same set up as ours upstairs. And the cement floor in the kitchen has to be removed and redone as well as painting, etc. It is going to cost us a goodly amount to have both apartments, but will be worth it especially as she thought she might rent it to a young family or make it into a doctor's offices. It is still hard for me to believe we are really going to have it. Will be happier when the lease is signed, sealed, registered and delivered. As you know, we have been waiting for a decision since the middle of last April.