Hi Dana-boy,

Great to talk to you – you sound in fine fettle.  Keep up the good attitude.

I (finally) had time to read your epic email, and I thought it was simply wonderful.  Your follow-up email suggested that you worried that you had made too-sweeping generalizations about the Chinese people.  Don’t worry!  It is much, much better to put down your feelings/impressions/convictions/beliefs at the time.  That’s what writing in the present tense is all about.  If you worry about “getting it right” before you put it down, you will lose spontaneity and truth.  Go for the moment (which you are very good at anyway).

You might want to include Sue Kelman (SueAKelman@yahoo.com) on your emailings – I forwarded your epic to her, and will let you do all further mailings.

Life continues unabated in the land of Less Than 100% Chinese.  I am participating (as an employee of ValueClick) in another “HeartWalk” thing, where I track my walks every day down to the last footstep.  To this end, I have been giving Phoebe lots more walks than she is accustomed to (twice a day, at least 2 miles each), and she is getting more excited by my presence with each passing day.  But it also means: less running, and less swimming.  So I may be shooting myself in the foot, health-wise.  Never mind – Phoebe is such good company, and it is great fun to position her poops at random neighbor’s lawns as we work our way through the neighborhoods (rule #1: never more than 1 poop per lawn).

Read my way through another Elmore Leonard novel yesterday evening – boy, they are fast reads.  I still love them, but wonder if their sameness will get to me after a while.  Of course, there’s a certain sameness to Shakespeare’s sonnets, too.

Saw a really old Netflix film, The Fallen Idol (1948), last night, based on a novel by Graham Greene.  Wonderful stuff.  Momma still makes fun of my choices, but now and then I get one right.

Caren and I spent last Sunday on the catamaran of this family that she has hooked up with and persuaded to go cruising a la family Edwards.  Two kids, older daughter and younger son, 2 1/2 years apart, about your ages when we left.  They bought the boat two months ago, and hope to leave in a month (!)  It felt strange sitting in the cockpit, imagining what was in store for them.

What is your snail mail address?  Send it to me, and I’ll give it a test drive with a letter.  If that works, you may even get something better, like a book.

Love to you, Dana,

Your Dadda