from Sandy Needham

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Tulsa '07 Dispatch

December 8, 2007

You can see that I am determined to get through all my trip dispatches before our Christmas holiday begins with Jake's arrival in Natal in a few days. I am also itching to write about Brazil again, now that we've been home for a month. Here's the last dispatch from our five-week travel marathon:

This trip to Tulsa was primarily spent driving to Little Rock, Arkansas and back. My Mother's best friend since high school, Jean Richter, also 93, lives in a retirement community there. All the summers I was growing up my family participated in the annual "four couple reunion." This consisted of my Mother (Laurene), her twin brother Lawrence, Jean and her brother, Kenneth, and their spouses, all of whom went to Oklahoma State University together. They graduated in 1937. As you may know already, I was named after Jean: Sandra Jean. My fondest memories of these reunions were watching Jean draw pastel portraits of some of the attendees, including me! I was even inspired to try my hand at pastel portraiture as a teenager, but never pursued it further. My Mother still has two large oil paintings by Jean in her apartment at the Methodist Manor which hung at our house on 22nd Street: one of a zinnia still life, and one of a Colorado Rockies breakfast in a clearing of pines with the small but recognizable figure of my father in a baseball cap among these "four couples." We also have a pastel portrait by Jean of Elise at age three in a kimono from her Japanese preschool pageant. Needles to say, Jean was always one of my idols for art, but also for more: she was a professional journalist in Norman, Oklahoma and Garden City, Kansas, among other places. She is also, like my Mother, quite beautiful, as you can see in this photo, taken February 14th, 2006 on the 69th anniversary of Jean and her sweet husband, Cebert, who passed away last August.

The drive from Tulsa became increasingly hilly as we headed toward the Ozarks. I noted a marked change in people's accents, as well, as we stopped along the way for provisions. It was so much fun to visit Jean's cottage, in which she lives independently. Besides walls full of her paintings, she has a large collection of carnival glass and books describing the many unusual pieces she owns. We went to dinner at her daughter Holly's house 20 minutes away. En route, Jean pointed out some Little Rock sites, including the new Clinton library. (It is not so attractive architecturally, but Jean said it is very nice inside.) Holly and husband, Doug, live in a beautiful house they built themselves. I was in awe of all the unusual sinks they had found on the internet. I loved using the clear glass one where you can see your feet as the water goes down the pipes! They served an amazing spaghetti dinner with pecan pie, despite the fact they each have jobs and hobbies that take up more than seven days in a week. Back at Jean's house later, I settled in on the sofa bed while Mother and Jean had their slumber party in Jean's room. I had to wonder, considering that they both wear hearing aids they take out at night, if they could actually hear each other? Regardless of this question, I could hear the conversation down the hall going for a while and picking up the next morning, reminding me of overnights with my best friend in high school! I just adored sitting at the dining room table with them all morning in our pajamas, listening to their stories.

Back in Tulsa, even though my energy was flagging, I enjoyed running errands that took me through the old part of town, full of trees and mansions and about as pretty as a city gets. Mother and I took it easy with the Manor routine. She was experimenting with pain medications to alleviate an arthritic neck and a torn rotator cuff in her shoulder, so was experiencing the trade-offs of heavier doses. The annual talent show was coming up, so Mother was preparing jokes for her stand-up comedy routine, for which she is famous there. I always feel a little guilty that she gives up all of her bridge games when I visit, as this is her true gig! She is well cared for at the Manor, thank heavens, and totally adored by the staff, who appreciate her friendship. Mother has not taken up the computer, but is able to receive printed out e-mails via her phone on a Printing Mailbox from HP. We got a kick out of receiving more of Newton's 'Scenes from Asia' while I was there, though we were sorry that his cough was no better:

Korea: Looking at Koreans (John is one of them) trying to figure out what to do with 4 forks, 3 knives and 2 spoons at a formal Western dinner.

Korea: Back at the formal dinner – an image kept creeping up on me that I would start coughing with my mouth full of food and it would go everywhere. I guess I had nothing better to think about.

Japan: Having lunch today I saw this lonely Japanese guy order two beer bottles and two glasses of white wine all at once. He consumed it all during lunch, plus had tea to finish it off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Japanese eat so much. They kept bringing one dish after another.

China: Riding the Maglev (train on magnetic tracks) at 431 Km/h (270 MPH) – what sensation!

To meet Newton, I flew from Tulsa by way of Houston and Newark to Madrid for one day and night there before returning to Brazil. Newton had connected from Tokyo through Paris. Just two flights to go now! Luckily our taxi drove through the gorgeous Plaza de Cibeles coming in and returning to the airport, because we were not in any condition for sightseeing! After waiting in a cafe for our room to be available, we crashed and slept the whole day. It was fun to wander through the crowded center that night and pick out a place for dinner, but we can't really say we know much about Madrid. I was sorry the Prado wasn't open in the middle of the night when I was awake! The upgrade to business class that Iberia Airlines bequeathed to us on the oversold 11-hour flight to São Paulo was just about the best gift we could imagine. The food, champagne, pampering service, and miraculously designed reclining seats were like a dream! The 7 hours at the São Paulo airport waiting till 3:00am for our delayed last leg to Natal sort of burst the bubble, but we did, indeed, get home - missing only one suitcase.

Love,
Sandy

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Manhattan Dispatch 2

December 5, 2007

This dispatch is dedicated to our friend Dick Taylor, who died on October 17th.

I had long since scheduled a lunch with Dick and Nancy Taylor in Manhattan. Dick had defied the doctor's predictions regarding his numbered days with lung cancer, and had decided to go out more while he could. He packed off on October 17th, oxygen tank and back-up in hand, to spend the evening doing what he loved: discussing life, politics, enjoying music with friends at a watering-hole-turned-salon by Dick. He simply returned home later, stepped inside the foyer and died with his wife and dog attending. He could not have written a better exit for himself, and we, his friends, feel proud that he went in such a fitting way. The lunch date was now with my grieving friend, Nancy.


Our time was short due to my extreme subway confusion after the bus from Nyack, but probably the right length of time in the end, once Nancy knew to go ahead and eat. We even got to ride the bus across town together for our next appointments. Nancy is one of the smartest, most intrepid, well-read, self-aware, sophisticated individuals I know (as in actually having seen many parts of the world beyond most people's imagination and learning all about them in depth). It was a privilege to have the time with her and witness the very conscious way in which she is experiencing the great loss of her true partner in an adventurous life. Since we would miss the celebration of Dick's life in November, I was glad to be back in those rooms at 96th and Park where we had gathered so many times for exotic meals inspired, for example, by a stay with an African tribe, or a trek across the desert to an oasis, 11 people in the car - including one between the driver and the door - and engine repairs involving chewing gum! Nancy always miraculously finds the necessary ingredients in Manhattan to replicate the dishes from faraway lands. Dick's celebration later featured wonderful readings and songs he, himself, had selected, including these two homages to his wife:

Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me!
Traveling with me, you find what never tires....
Be not discouraged—keep on—there are divine things, well envelop’d;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
Allons! we must not stop here!

However sweet these laid-up stores—however convenient this dwelling, we cannot remain here....
Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements!
Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;
Allons! from all formulas!...

- from “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman (1900)


Sonnet 29 ~ William Shakespeare (1609)
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


Later I met my inimitable nephew Todd and his family at their apartment at 82nd and Columbus. Todd is from the Durango, Colorado Tarpley contingent of the family. He has been in Manhattan for years, working in cable television and interactive media. His darling wife, Jenny, is the Director of Admissions at the Studio School, where their two sons, Sam, 9, and Ethan, 6, attend. We took advantage of the mild October weather by having dinner outdoors at a delicioso Spanish restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue. Todd loves to write comedy scripts and funny children's books as a 'hobby,' and is best known in our extended family for his annual 'staged' family Christmas photos and his annual original comedy script for the Thanksgiving video at Donna's in New Jersey, starring everyone who shows up there! The boys are sharp and sweet and handsome.

I schlepped my suitcase on three more subways to get to my friend Carolyn's at 40th and Lexington - my hostess extraordinaire for that night and the next. I have known Carolyn since my first New York job in textiles in 1977. She retired many years ago and lives with her cat, Lucy. Carolyn is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge and my personal source of movie critiques - as she rarely misses any worth seeing. She just got a new lease on life with a new hip socket and fairly leaps around her apartment with great agility! Gabbing with Carolyn is part of the lifeblood of my adulthood. She can somehow turn our incredulity over the outrageousness of the current US government into high comedy with her well-aimed wit! Carolyn and I had an oishi Japanese dinner at our old haunt across the street from her apartment.

My friend from college days, Linda Calder (better known as 'Doyley'), actually took a day off work from her law firm and rode the train into Manhattan from Westhampton, Long Island to have lunch with me. The irony is that we never managed to do this in the decades after we both moved to suburban climes of the city - only faithful Christmas cards as our children were growing up. Since I just missed a reunion of college girlfriends last year right after moving to Brazil and the e-mails have been flying ever since, and because our mutual friend, Monica, visited me in Natal this September, we just had to see each other! We picked up where we left off, however long ago! We walked down to a little French restaurant, had a delicieu two-hour lunch, then walked across town all the way to Penn Station - catching up on our lives past and present all the while. Doyley just sent her only child off to college this fall, so has an empty nest as well.

In the meantime, Newton was e-mailing more 'Scenes from Asia:
Korea: Buying a bagel – comes with a small container of cream cheese and a spoon! If the bagel was at least cut the spoon wouldn’t be so bad.

Korea: Decided to have an espresso tonight in the fancy hotel across from mine – I almost fell out of the chair when I got the check: $12 for a single.

Korea: Check-in at the airport – “We X-ray checked luggage, so hang around for a while to be sure it is okay.” After 10 minutes I left the area hoping it was enough time!

Hong Kong: Riding the elevator 20 floors with 5 grown men chewing gum with their mouths open. Each time we stopped at some floor on the way down to the lobby I cringed.

I was off the next morning to catch a plane to Tulsa from Newark. Luckily, the airport shuttle bus was picking up by Grand Central again after discontinuing that location because of the steam pipe explosion nearby last July. This meant my calloused hands and creaking wrists would have a respite from dragging the suitcase on more subways. My flight to connect through Memphis was delayed, so they put me on the non-stop...quite all right!

Love,
Sandy

Monday, December 3, 2007

Nyack Dispatch

December 3, 2007

Sometimes I remind you that I am aware these dispatches may be entirely TMI. I persist in writing them because I enjoy it, and because they serve as my own record. I trust that any of you who prefer not to hear more will click on 'delete,' or speak sternly to the recipients who continue to encourage me!

My sister and brother-in-law drove me north to the home of my dear friend, Lucia, in our charming Hudson River village of Nyack. Lucia is the kindergarten teacher at the Blue Rock School and a longtime loyal friend and neighbor. We sat at her kitchen table gabbing and catching up all evening.

Lucia is a photographer, a consummate artist - particularly an exquisite quilter - and the sort of magical gardener who seems to just walk by and the flowers spring up! This is not to diminish her hard work at all of the above...she just makes it all seem easy! I have included a rare photograph of her (since she is usually the one with the signature camera around her neck) from last summer when she visited an orphanage in Tibet. I am accustomed to seeing her surrounded by children, as her classroom is next to the Blue Rock School office, which I managed and from where I directed admissions for six years before moving to Brazil.

On Monday morning we were off to Blue Rock! I got to spend the day among my friends, grown-up and young, at the school I have always considered a little piece of heaven. After lamenting and celebrating the inevitable changes of face and stature that mark the miraculous growth of children, I hung out in the school office with my beloved former assistant, Claudia. She is pictured here in the role of witch storyteller in the kindergarten - one of a thousand roles she fills! I got to spend a rare spell with my friend Caty, the busy school director and theatrical genius responsible for so much magic there; and I got to read the lunch story to the fifth graders - most of whom I've known since they were four years old! I assisted with quiet reading in the first grade, famous for its rambunctious boys, and remained for their sewing art project to witness in awe how every student was focussed on every stitch. The other photos show a mixed age group, and 6th/7th/8th graders trying out a contraption made in woodworking. You may not guess from these photos, but the students do well for the rest of their educational careers. The demands are great, just not the particular demand of spewing back on tests factual information with which one has been stuffed!





Claudia, Lucia and I went to dinner in Nyack. Next morning I lugged my suitcase around my former town before catching the bus to Manhattan. Our landlord, a doctor who has his office downstairs in the enormous house we rented from him - practically in the middle of town - had a 'for rent' sign up on the sidewalk. How sad that no one is living in that roomy, charming home that we just adored. I passed so many familiar places I used to frequent: the river gleaming in the sun; Hopper House gallery, where Edward Hopper grew up; the book store with ladders on a track; the Starbucks for a decaf espresso; my favorite clothing store - Maria Luisa, where I had a happy reunion with the store's namesake. I observed what was unchanged, plus what changes one year had brought to Main Street and Broadway, Nyack, NY.

This bus route to Manhattan affords a bird's-eye view of the river mansions in Piermont that slope down to the water. Good-bye, Nyack, until next time!

Love,
Sandy



Saturday, December 1, 2007

Maryland Dispatch

December 1, 2007

My trip to Penn Station in Manhattan with my rolling suitcase and ever-heavier carry-on bag became a harbinger of hardships to come. The ride was easy enough, my problem was with the number of times I was required to go up stairs, only to very soon go down again, as if it were all just a sick joke. I eventually faced three stories of up, but noticed that an escalator next to this staircase only required one flight down to access it, so down again it was. When at last I opened the door to the proper track for "Princeton Junction," the track was up one last flight of stairs. I had bruises on my thigh, hip and shin from various hoisting strategies.

My sister Donna is an exceptional human being who is indefatigable, fun-loving, generous of spirit, and forgiving. We are very different because of that law of the universe regarding siblings, but it is impossible not to feel good when one is around her! She met me at Princeton Junction, not to drive me to her home in Lawrenceville, NJ, but to drive me to her daughter's (and granddaughter's) house in Maryland. My wonderful brother-in-law, Larry, had to catch up on work, so Donna and I were off to see my niece Amy, her husband Sean, and the first grandchild in this family, Allison - 17 months.

Donna's calm and accomplished daughter, Amy, works for the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.- three days in the office and two days from home, and Sean is a Washington lawyer. They live in a commuter's community in Gaithersburg, Maryland that has lovely house after lovely house, white picket fences, playgrounds, and a local shopping area that includes Whole Foods and a movie theater. Their daughter, Allison, the apple of my sister's eye, is at that age where she just loves to roam the spacious house, play her tunes and sing along, parrot everyone's talk and spend her days figuring out what is what. Donna is the grandma who composes songs about Allison and revives old Needham favs to Allison's delight and to the complete apoplexy of her son-in-law. It is a testament to their mutual devotion that she persists in singing and he persists in begging her to stop!

I hit the jet-lag wall that morning - a drained feeling that never fully left me the remainder of the trip - so drove the three hours with Donna and spent the weekend under a lethargic veil. Amy and Sean were the perfect hosts in their beautifully decorated house, and Allison persisted in entertaining us all with her developmental miracles, but I was a sort of lump! I still had a ways to go on this five-week marathon, and did, luckily, regain some wherewithal, but must admit to acquiescing all requirements of charm and entertainment that weekend to my grand-niece! As you can see, the redhead Allison is beyond words.

Donna and I drove back to Lawrenceville in time for Larry to jump into the driver's seat and drive us to my next destination 2 hours away (make that 2-1/2 with Sunday evening traffic): Nyack, New York. I always enjoy time with my brother-in-law, also a generous and fun fellow-traveler. Nyack is where I lived for 6 years before moving to Brazil, and is a town that holds a big piece of my heart.

Newton had begun writing his own observations from Asia:

Japan: Taking a crowded subway with lots of small children all dressed up alike. A woman protects them (at least 10 kids) with her arms around them from the people going in & out of the subway car. Maybe she’s afraid the kids will be pushed out of the train.

China: On an airplane I ask for beer – I get a warm Bud!

China: On an airplane - dinner is bread and warm beer; had to ask for a glass with ice!

Korea: Breakfast at the hotel is eggs with a hair & a hot dog; coffee finally comes halfway through breakfast; bad coffee too.

Korea: John (the Korean distributor) trying to be polite? Wants me to go to lunch first, I decline and tell him to go. A friend of his comes by later asking for John since they are supposed to have lunch together! I have a big lunch and finish at 2:00. At 5:00 John announces that he is taking me to dinner right then!! Had to force food down to be polite. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone with John.

More New York days to come.

Love,
Sandy

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Manhattan Dispatch 1

November 29, 2007

For some reason the bus from Boston could not follow the normal route to Port Authority terminal in Manhattan from the Bronx, so gave me a wonderful scenic tour past so many lovely memories in the city! I met my beautiful daughter Elise over at FIT just after her Thursday classes finished. We caught the formidable 'A' train up to Harlem and were walking in her door at 126th street - 100 blocks north - in about 15 minutes! Here is her '07 Halloween costume:






Elise's apartment, like every room she's ever called her own, is a true signature piece of her unstoppable creativity. I even had to record her solution to the landlord's silly peeling porcelain paint in her kitchen sink!



















Our evening out together was a testament to the dynamic range of colors and ages that is the current, vibrant Harlem. After dinner in a rollicking little restaurant, we walked over to Broadway to the huge Dinosaur Barbeque where our friend Rob works at the bar. Two aging bikers in their Harley gear, probably the two sweetest guys on earth, bought us a drink! The crowd was a beaming, booming mix of everything, only more so, which spilled onto the dance floor once the brassy, 'Blood, Sweat & Tears' - type band kicked in. In my single days in midtown Manhattan everybody was too cool to be that happy.

During Elise's Friday classes I had lunch with one of my oldest and dearest buddies, David Barrow. He has one of the last remaining jobs in the decimated New York home furnishings textile print industry, being the exquisite English textile designer that he is. He and his now-interior designer-former-textile designer wife, Helen, and their 6-year-old, Amelia - both also among my favorite friends - are anticipating possibilities down south for when there are, in fact, no more textile jobs at all. We had just received the news that our dear friend, Dick Taylor, had just died after a truly valiant battle with lung cancer. I will talk more about this later. Walking back from the restaurant to 261 Fifth Avenue with David - after scurrying into a Korean deli to buy umbrellas for the sudden shower - was truly a disorienting stroll down memory lane. That was my first textile building in Manhattan in 1977, and where David joined our studio, followed over the next 23 years by several other buildings in the neighborhood that we both occupied in various industry jobs. The gold leaf deco lobby had just been restored to a new breathtaking luster.

As I wondered along 28th Street across town to meet Elise at FIT again, I shopped at a couple of the Indian wholesale stores that indicated special sales inside for passers-by, just like old times. Elise had a bite to eat and I had dessert while we decided our Friday afternoon plans. The clear winner was the free Friday evening at MOMA - the Museum of Modern Art. When we arrived around 4pm there was a line out the door, down the block and snaking through eight files in a parking lot. We entered in no time, as the line flowed steadily inside, and were witness to the wonders of modern art amidst a throng who brought the museum thoroughly to life. For Elise and me this was a joyfully shared revisiting of the many museum trips we had as she was growing up. The newest inventions and the old favorite paintings kept us oohhing and ahhhing for hours. Her gift from me was two books for her personal graphic design library, for which we spent additional mesmerized hours scouring the shelves in the museum store. I also bought a Mark Rothko poster for my living room wall which was a yard wide rolled up and stood out of my carry-on bag above my head for the rest of the trip.

We wandered west on 53rd Street, rather dazed, and decided to have martinis. A big, gorgeous Greek restaurant called Molyvos appeared with an amber glow and a distinguished looking bar. The thoroughly dashing bartender served up martinis with REAL Greek olives - a raison d'être as far as we were concerned, especially after being on our feet for centuries. We ended up staying there for a dinner of Greek cheeses, ouzo-cured smoked salmon, bread and more divine olives. After we got to her apartment we put on our favorite old Disney video, Alice in Wonderland. We eventually stopped rhapsodizing over favorite parts - so sophisticated compared to most children's fare - and gabbed away alongside Alice's shrinkages and expansions. I have associated Elise with Alice in Wonderland ever since she improvised her way as Alice through every scene in her sixth grade production at Blue Rock School.

In the meantime, poor Newton's ears would recover from being stopped up briefly, then stop up again on the subsequent flights to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul. His cough was worsening.

Saturday morning was good-bye to my darling girl till Christmas in São Paulo, which will crown a demanding senior semester. Elise carried my suitcase down her four flights before heading back to sleep. I caught the subway to Penn Station to catch a train to my sister's in New Jersey.

Love,
Sandy

Monday, November 26, 2007

Boston Dispatch

November 26, 2007

My flight from Paris connected through Newark to Boston. Newton had put a SIM card for the US in my cell phone, but once I had arrived at the end of the green "T" train line in Boston near our son Jake's house, I discovered the phone didn't work. I remembered I had a Google map of Jake's neighborhood in my suitcase, so had to open it on the street and dig the map out. I set out to find his house, pulling my suitcase uphill for several blocks. By the time I was approaching his steeply inclined address, I huffed and puffed out "Jaakke!" from the sidewalk and he answered back from inside, "I tried to call you!" Luckily he materialized and lugged the suitcase up the front stoop and the steep staircase to their door inside.

Jake moved to Boston last summer from San Diego to be a professional Texas Hold'em player. He lives with three other guys - Jeremy from Nyack, whom he's known for many years and who just left Northeastern University to also be a professional poker player, and two other Northeastern students. They have a very nice, roomy four-bedroom apartment in a large house just beyond the charming part of Boston.

Jake negotiated a deal for the largest, lightest room. He did a great job furnishing it at Ikea and had just the right space left for his 21st birthday present - a Yamaha keyboard. We went out for his belated birthday sushi dinner, then I crashed rather suddenly (having flown all night) on the truly comfortable air mattress a high school friend of Jake's had forgotten on a recent visit, thank God!

I had an interesting stab at trying not to touch any surface during my turn in the bathroom.

Jake and I met Chris and Larisa Kottke, the two children of my lifelong best friend, Lenna, for lunch at a nice restaurant in the charming part of Boston. Larisa just graduated from BU and is waitressing while she decides on her next move, and Chris is in graduate school at MIT. Jake and I found my beloved Trader Joe's grocery nearby and schlepped four bags of goodies - many to bring back to Brazil - home on the "T." Sadly (for me), we had to pass up the Boston Museum of Fine Art stop on the way home as there were frozen items in the bags. I never managed to get back there - darn.

It was lots of fun watching 'Jeopardy' with all the roomies, they shouting out answers for the contemporary stuff, I shouting out for the old stuff! Jake has become an accomplished pasta-dish-creator, and stood at the stove like Art Carney, throwing in a fabulous combination of ingredients with a flourish for our dinner. The four-guy frig was its own trip:

Next morning, I used the rubber gloves I had bought and an entire roll of paper towels to clean the bathroom within an inch of its life. It was a sort of self-serving gift to the boys! Then it was fall hike day. I had brought maps and trail information from the internet for the nearby town of Wellesley. I visited Wellesley in the 80's with my parents, who actually lived there for my father's naval officer's training at the women's college in WWII. My father always loved joking that he graduated from Wellesley! It was a perfect day for a hike, other than a little early for the height of fall color. I had a pair of socks on with my flip-flops - that Japanese geta look - but I don't recommend flip-flops for hiking on bumpy terrain! We hiked around a beautiful pond and back around again, as it was only 1.8 miles circumference, then we settled at a picnic table right in front of the pond. We had brought a picnic and a bottle of wine and, by luck, two tall plastic opaque glasses, as the sign said no alcoholic beverages were allowed. At least we were not a gang of teenagers in the middle of the night. I finally got to eat my favorite Trader Joe's concoction: goat cheese with a layer of pesto sauce and a layer of red pepper sauce on top, plus we had smoked salmon and other cheeses. As if all of that were not perfect enough, there was a flock of mallards swimming around, iridescent heads catching the afternoon light. After a dog barked at two geese that had wandered onto the shore, they did a quick landing in the water and immediately squawked orders for the entire group of mallards to head for the side of the pond. What followed was the miraculous kabuki of a Japanese screen in motion as the shifting formations with V-shaped wakes behind each duck maintained a perfect visual composition second-to second. The moment offered a stunning balance to the day that began with cleaning that bathroom!

After 'Jeopardy' on TV again and the '90's Trivial Pursuit' game with the roommates, we ordered-in Chinese. I repeated another jet-lag crash on the air mattress. Next morning I was off to catch the bus to Manhattan to see our daughter. I had to bid farewell to my adorable son till mid-December, when he arrives in Natal for the Christmas holidays. The bus driver had that deadpan, dry humor and laid down the rules as we pulled out of the bus station: "You'll need to turn your cell phones off or to 'vibrate.' We won't be having any of those little tunes, those little jingles they play or any loud conversations or popping of gum." It was a bit disconcerting to look out the bus window eye-to-eye with drivers of the longest trucks I've ever seen - all gabbing on cell phones. Watch out! The best fall colors of the trip were along the highway en route to New York.

Meanwhile Newton was suffering in Japan with stopped up ears and a terrible cough. He had to present a seminar, luckily with a translator so he didn't have to project his voice. The two CAST distributors in Japan are in Yokohama, near Tokyo, and Osaka, near Kyoto, but they do not operate regionally; therefore, Newton had to travel by bullet train to Kyoto while he was in Yokohama and to Tokyo while he was in Osaka, just to make life easy when sick! He still had China and Korea to go.

Love,
Sandy

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Montpellier '07 Dispatch

November 18, 2007

We found more lovely weather in the south of France in mid-October. The Saturday evening of our arrival was the day of the semi-final rugby match between England and France. The gigantic Place de La Comedie was wall-to-wall spectators for the mega-screen erected there to air the match. We all made our way through the crowd, then onto side streets equally packed with spectators at outdoor bars and restaurants with TV screens. Led by members of the French partner company, we wound our way to a small, elegant French restaurant.

After our party of eight was seated, Hal studied the wine list. The single tiny waiter who can only be described as Roberto Benigni in a serious, officious role, informed us that we must order our food before we could order the wine, as monsieur le chef would need to start preparing it. After studying the menu and having Meredith, who lived in Paris for 7 years, explain some of the dishes, we continued to deliberate while Hal tried again, unsuccessfully, to order some wine. The little man briskly took our orders. Now we wanted to order the wine. He did not return for some time, but eventually took our wine order. Now he reappeared many times, to serve food and wine to other tables, to collect our place-setting plates, to store clean glasses in a cabinet...I was sure he would return with a feather duster soon and clean the room to further postpone serving us. But he would not bring us our wine! Finally he ran out of busy work and brought the wine. After pouring, he put the white wine in a bucket across the room. Now Hal, who is about 6'4" and 250 pounds, was ready for more wine, but the waiter was not around, so Hal got up and went across the room to pick up the bottle. The waiter appeared and began to admonish him in no uncertain terms from mid-torso height that ze waiter does ze pouring. Of course, now that we had our wine, we found it all hilarious. The truly gourmet food made up for most everything, but the waiter had the last word by not replenishing ice in the bucket and letting our second bottle of white get warm.

While the business partners met, I returned to the Sunday morning street market I had discovered here last fall and bought a pancake of chopped greens and bacon for breakfast . The rest of the day I wandered through the vast open public plazas, past a fountain with a copy of the 'Zeus or Poseidon' statue from Greece, stopped for an outdoor curry lunch since Newton doesn't like Indian food and there is none in Natal, read my book on a bench along the esplanade.

As I was reading, I recognized a familiar distant rhythm, and followed my ears. There in the large Place de La Comedie in this small world was a circle of people watching capoeira - the marshal art/dance created by African slaves in Brazil, who were not allowed to fight. My Afro-Brazilian dance teacher of 8 years in Manhattan, Loremil, was a capoeirista from Bahia - the state where slaves disembarked from Africa. He taught us a little capoeira in class, but mostly samba and dances from the African candomblé religion. I loved to go see him perform capoeira at my favorite Brazilian night club or in Central Park on a Sunday afternoon in those NY days. I stayed with his very poor family in Salvador, Bahia when I visited in '83 and sent his mother some money after he died of AIDS some years later. It is common to find these circles of capoeira in Brazil. Recently we were watching a group on the Ponta Negra Beach sidewalk. One of the performers had only one foot, we discovered, when during his formidable acrobatic feats the sneaker on one leg was turned all the way around backwards. He was amazing. This group in France consisted of locals studying capoeira and some Brazilian instructors and musicians. The music is a combination of chanting, the strumming of a berimbau - a gourd with a thudding, long string, percussion, and clapping of the rhythm. It was a funny sensation to watch this against a backdrop of 18th century French architecture!

Newton and I flew to Paris for a very short night before embarking on our separate trips to Asia and the US. I had to emerge from the hotel pre-dawn, alone, pulling my suitcase under the street lamps to the Metro station to ride to the airport. I missed Newton already! Nine flights to go for Newton and eight for me, now off to Boston. Newton had time to visit the Musée de l'Orangerie with Monet's 360º painting of water lilies, but was coming down with a horrible cold and felt lousy when he flew to Tokyo.

Love,
Sandy

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Nea Makri Dispatch

November 14, 2007

We arrived in Athens in the middle of the night. We were staying in a hotel outside of Athens this year, is all we knew. It was all dark at 4:00am when we closed the curtains and conked out. Next morning when I awoke, Newton had already gone to the meeting with CAST's Greek partner company. I opened the curtains and gasped. Out our third floor balcony was the pool AND the Aegean Sea! There was a hiking trail along the low rise above the shore. It was 85 degrees and sunny (unlike the cloudy photos above I took later). I needed a bathing suit.

Too bad I assumed a fall trip to Europe meant no swimming, but then trying to buy a suit in October gave a certain definition to the next two days. I hoped to find a well-engineered one like the one I found on the Riviera last April - as in civil engineering with gravity-defying lift. The nearest village of Nea Makri was five kilometers away. I started out with lunch at a nearby taverna with a view of the water...a TRUE Greek salad! I thought I'd just walk to the village (in flip-flops!), but then when I asked directions, this blond, sophisticated woman who had come into the restaurant and sat down with the owner told me she was going that direction and would give me a lift. We jumped into her car and had a great ten-minutes of getting acquainted. 'Poli' is recently married to the handsome restaurant owner and was on her way to teach Chinese! Her mother is Egyptian and her father Greek; she speaks perfect English, as well as Greek, Arabic, Turkish and three dialects of Chinese. Her first trip to China will be to interpret at the Olympics. I told her my weird story, and by then we had arrived at the gorgeous town on the seashore.

A paved boardwalk allowed me to hike a couple of miles along the water, passing loads of restaurants, bars and cafes. I had a decaf espresso and chocolate ice cream before heading towards the center of town to shop. Unfortunately, 85 degrees or not, bathing suits were almost non-existent. The closest possibility did not fit and cost $150, thanks to the weak dollar.

I got picked up in the town square by Newton and company, including the great Meredith and the adorable guys of the Greek firm. We went to dinner at one of the restaurants I had passed by the water. This was to be a fish dinner with the local accompaniment: ouzo and water with ice. Most of our troupe don't like the anise taste of ouzo, so declined, but I found it does go beautifully with seafood. We had a feast of whitebait, grilled fish, yogurt cheese with garlic, feta, olives like you can't believe, etc.

The next morning I left with the whole group in order to get a ride to the 'suburban' train into Athens. It was a little freaky, as I had to descend into the iron skeletal innards under a highway cloverleaf, alone. Amidst the roar of the traffic, I tried to buy a ticket on the machine. Now, I'm still pretty stupid when it comes to screens. This one was in Greek! I had no idea what station to touch, but started trying out the Greek alphabet I had learned by way of math and my sorority (...I know, but we were all anti-war). I was feeling disoriented there trying out 'th's' and 'ph's' when I suddenly eyed a tiny British flag on the corner of the screen. English! At that moment a young woman arrived and told me that Larissa station (same name as my son's girlfriend) would be the one to connect to the city. Whew.


My day in Athens was immersed in the chic Kolonaki neighborhood of shops and cafes and the National Archeological Museum. No go on a bathing suit, other than another possibility that did not fit and cost $150. The Archeological Museum is a treasure, better suited to the archaic and early severe classical style of Greek sculpture than the pure classical, as most of the classical sculptures are later Roman copies. The pre-Greek and Hellenistic collections are also good. I was thrilled to see the famous early classical bronze of "Zeus or Poseidon posed to throw a lightning bolt or a trident," from 460 B.C., though nothing in the museum could compare with the original classical torso from a Parthenon frieze I saw last year at the Parthenon museum, whose perfection touched my soul as well as my art history head.

The next day was my favorite. I was determined to hike along the Aegean shore and figure out a way to swim in my black underwear. I just didn't know how to anticipate what it would do when wet, so needed cover. This was provided by my tank dress, a huge towel from the front desk, and a little stone cove that was invisible to the balconies of the hotel above it. Off I hiked to the end of the trail, about two miles, hot and ready for a swim in my carefully selected spot. The trail passes by a hotel where apparently a film was being shot by the pool behind a clear lucite wall. Cameras and microphones were hovering upon a crowd of smartly dressed, cavorting bathers while the main characters rather overacted comedic roles in a way reminiscent of comedies on Brazilian TV. Several other people were watching beside me. Once I had slipped into the water around the little corner and saw that my underwear did not suddenly sag to my knees, I took off swimming. It felt great. I could safely round the bend and watch more filming while basking in the salty, buoyant water. I felt that I was in a European film at that moment! Later that afternoon I was flipping TV channels and suddenly recognized the character in a maid's outfit from the set. They were filming a TV comedy series.

The young president of the partner company had us all to dinner at his home, which is in Nea Makri. His mother, mother-in-law, and wife (an air traffic controller with two shifts that day!) all contributed scrumptious dishes of mousaka, lamb, stuffed grape leaves, etc. to the feast. Fudgey flourless chocolate cake finished us off!

Montpellier with a connection through Paris was next - 10 flights to go.

Love,
Sandy

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Krakow '07 Dispatch

November 13, 2007

We flew into the beautiful city of Krakow late on a Friday night, hungry. We wandered around the gigantic Market Square in the cold in time to see all the restaurants closing up. The weather reports had been mild, so there I was in my flip-flops from the plane (blistered toes), freezing in my light jacket. We missed our chance to buy some sauerkraut and pork, steaming from an open tent in the square with a pungently mouth-watering aroma, believing we would find a warmer place to sit and eat. Then we stepped inside an elaborate restaurant filled with fancy people, our sneakers and flip-flops screaming, "Don't look down here," but the kitchen was closed. 'Zone' bars for dinner.

We had come to Poland for the fall meeting with the partner company of CAST (Newton's company). A special feature this year was the Polish wedding of the owner's daughter! We were being picked up at noon by a driver to take us, along with two of Newton's partners, Hal and Bill, to the town of Bielsko-Biala two hours away for the 4:00 wedding When the driver had not arrived by 1:00, we decided to call a cab for the trip. After appearing quickly, the cab driver lost 20 minutes of our precious time trying several times to give Hal's credit card number to the dispatcher over the crackling speaker. Once we were on our way, we discovered that we had one of the world's few slow taxi drivers. He was sure to change into the more crowded lane at every stop light and drive way behind any car in front of us, allowing everyone in. He did not speak a word of English. Once we realized how tight the timing would be, I pointed to my wrist like a watch and started humming "Here Comes the Bride!" He laughed and continued to mosey down the road. We eventually got the hotel desk clerk on Newt's phone to give the driver directions to the hotel, and arrived in our room to get dressed at 3:25pm. Another taxi was coming to take us to the church at 3:45. Wrinkled dress it was for me, and Newton without a shave.


We arrived at the church at 4:02 and found the wedding party seated in two rows of chairs in front of the alter, the priest already speaking. I cannot, therefore report on how the processional is done in Poland, only that it is more than prompt. There were no bridesmaids, just bride, groom, bride's brother and best man. The service was pretty short, then a small group of young people rushed out. The wedding party followed out of the church into a shower of rice. The bride and groom stood in front while the wedding guests filed out of the church to present them with flowers, some wrapped gifts, and the envelope from CAST that Hal had expected a chance to prepare before the reception, but scurried for a pen to do so then. We were all off to a very traditional Polish restaurant for the reception. The crowd had gathered around the assigned tables and was instructed to wait for the entrance of the bride and groom, who eventually arrived in "over the threshold" style. Toasts ensued with champagne, wine and various types of vodka on the tables. Huge platters of food were served along with the traditional sauerkraut soup, while the recorded music began. The impression of extremely spry old people jumping up to waltz all over the room in circling swirls will never leave me! I got to join in with Wojtek, the father of the bride, fulfilling a lifelong dream of mine to really waltz around a room (with a partner). Newton's waltz is much tamer than his jitterbug. Here's a brief clip:




The bride made the rounds of tables for vodka toasts. Apparently, sipping rather than draining is tolerated for all foreigners except Russians! She also endured wild swing dancing in her antebellum skirt with the super agile old men, the farthest-flingling of which was her grandfather! More platters of food arrived (pork, potatoes, salmon, etc.,etc.) and the dancing continued. After the cutting of the wedding cake, I had another lifelong dream fulfilled: doing a wild polka around a room (with a partner). Wojtek obliged again - look out, Yul Bryner! We left at 2:00am, as food continued to be served. We were told that the last guests left at 5:00am. Wojtek explained that a wedding used to last a whole weekend, and the older tradition was a whole week!

The original driver (who had been stuck in traffic Saturday) picked us up on Sunday and returned us to Krakow, shaving more than an hour off the trip! Another CAST member, Meredith, arrived from the US, and we all had lunch and wandered around the famous square. Here is the interesting St. Mary's Basilica with its unmatched towers:


I ruled that everyone HAD to see the famous salt mine I had visited last year in nearby Wieliczka. Even though we had a sort of Bela Lugosi tour guide, 25% of whose English was unintelligible, I was able to share more info that my very sharp guide had imparted last year. I"ll repeat what I reported in '06: "The crux of the matter is that miners have hand-dug (and later dynamited) these chambers and sculpted the salt into chapels (for praying that they wouldn't die each day from methane explosions or mine collapse) and even a huge cathedral with architecture, statuary, bas reliefs, and chandeliers (out of crystal salt)...As you move down through the mine, the history of Poland travels with you. Copernicus was here; Goethe was here. There is even a chamber with a stocky, muscular Soviet sculpture. Underground lakes with the salt concentration of the Dead Sea render the air very pure and healing, hence the existence of the allergy/asthma clinic for two-week underground cures."






We then had a couple of days of business meetings in the town of Gliwice, where the partner company has its offices. I was free to wander - painfully in closed shoes - shop, have good lunches, and find hints about how small the world is. The white wine was my favorite Argentine chardonnay we buy in Natal (aren't Germany and Italy a little closer to Poland?). The featured cocktail in this rather small town: countless versions of the caipirinha, the national, originally rustic drink of Brazil ('caipira' is a country bumpkin). Little do happy hour celebrants in the northern hemisphere suspect at those cocktail prices that cachaça (white sugar cane rum) costs only $2 a bottle in Brazil!

Twelve flights to go! Greece next.

Love,
Sandy



Saturday, November 10, 2007

Sulmona Dispatch

November 10, 2007

Newton and I rode the train from Rome due east for three hours. Our destination was the town of Sulmona in Abruzzo, nestled in the mountains 73 kilometers from the Adriatic shore. This was Newton's third attempt since 2004 to get Italian citizenship, possible by way of his great-grandfather from Sardinia. The same Brazilian-Italian, Gelson, who orchestrated the other two attempts, was meeting us there. Citizenship had eluded Newton thus far due to Gelson's own disorganization, time simply running out previously up north in the Veneto, and then Gelson's trouble with the law (he was arrested for falsifying Brazilian soccer players' Italian heritages for EU citizenship, and the police had held all of our legitimate documents for a year. No trial yet).

The passing vista of mountains and valleys with beautiful little towns tucked here and there was gorgeous as darkness fell. Some towns featured huge old fortresses and churches. We just threw up our hands and said, "Is there any region of Italy that is not beautiful?"


We went out to a late dinner with Gelson and Tomasso, the local official who performs the newly streamlined citizenship process. Afterwards we stopped at a tiny bar/cafe for espesso. Here I conversed with a young man who loves to play Brazilian bossa nova guitar and some middle aged guy with a wild look in his eye. When Gelson, Tomasso and Newton were walking out the door and I was saying good-bye, the wild-eyed one actually picked me up off the floor by grabbing my butt with both hands. I was yelling 'Newtonnn" and fighting to get down, but Newt didn't hear. Finally I got my feet on the ground, slapped the guy across the face, and ran out. It was shocking. I don't know if I'm supposed to feel flattered at my age, but I would have selected the younger guy, at least!

Sulmona is the Roman birthplace of the famous 1st century poet, Ovid, and the capital of "confetti" since the 15th century. We assumed this meant confetti, but it refers to sugared almonds fashioned into little nosegays of flowers that look as if they are made of smooth, bright-colored plastic. The town is great for exploring, with charming piazzas and parks and beautiful walks towards the surrounding mountains. I kept buying a pistachio gelato to take along that I will never forget! I was doomed to wear 'closed' shoes here for the first time since January, so I hobbled around like a Beverly Hillbilly, developing blisters on most of my toes.

After simple preliminaries at the post office, Newton and Gelson endured a late night with Tomasso that turned out to be the magic trick for citizenship. They waited an hour for a tipsy Tomasso to leave a party, then went to the closed prefecture hoping for a fax to arrive from Brazil confirming the formality that Newton had never before renounced Italian citizenship. It didn't arrive, but Tomasso trusted it would and put all in place for the following morning. He then drove them around to further carouse until the wee hours. Bright and early at the open prefecture, Newton actually received his Italian I.D., although the fax did not arrive till evening. The card looks like something from the '50's typed on an old crooked typewriter, but it is authentic and served for travel all over the European Union! Newton will get an Italian passport through the consulate in Brazil - some day.

Poland next!

Love,
Sandy

Thursday, November 8, 2007

São Paulo '07 Dispatch

November 9, 2007

Our first stop on the 5-week marathon fall trip was São Paulo for Newton's Mother's 70th surprise birthday party.

Jannice (Jan-EE-see), Newton's Mother, was not expecting us. We were able to spirit ourselves into Newton's grandmother's apartment in the same building where his parents live at 6:00am, without fear that Jannice would spot us from their 16th floor window. We had to disguise our heads and slink a bit to leave the building later for lunch with Newton's sister, Lilian, and her husband, David, just in case Jannice might be looking out!


After lunch Lilian and David took us for capuccino at Kopenhagen, a Brazilian chocolate company that puts big chunks of chocolate in the capuccino, which then melts into the coffee. A spoon is needed, as well as a well-ventilated room to keep one from fainting from the fabulousness!

Alfredo, Newton's father, had everything in place for the surprise fest, including a fake call earlier in the day from the custodians about a mess a tenant left in the party room that Alfredo, as a member of the building board, needed to address. Once the 80 guests were all assembled in the party room and Jannice thought she was going out to a theater on a typical Saturday night, Alfredo mentioned to her that he wanted to check if the tenant had taken care of the problem in the party room, so they stopped there on the way to the garage. SURPRISE!! It helped that this was a week before her birthday.

These very smart guys have a crepe catering business, complete with five portable flat griddles and all the fixings for both dinner and dessert crepes. Offerings included four-cheese, chicken, salmon, etc. plus apple cinnamon, chocolate, etc. with ice cream to precede the birthday cake. Divine! I say 'etc.' often because my memory is SO BAD.





Besides recorded music, live contributions were made by relatives on cavaquinho (sort of a ukulele) and tambourine. Here is an action clip with dancing participants:






I got to see all of my very fun and darling Brazilian nieces and nephews with girlfriends and boyfriends, plus many relatives and old friends from the beach resort we've visited for years. Newton's second cousin Tatiana is married to a Californian who teaches in the American school in São Paulo; Newton's sister teaches English, plus the son of old friends travels to the US on business now, so I could gab and joke in English as well as fracture the Portuguese language throughout the evening.




On Sunday afternoon we took off for Madrid/Rome. Since I had nabbed the last reservation on Iberia airlines to Rome, Newton had to catch a different airline for the connection. Alas, the new terminal in Madrid is as oversized as it is lovely, and there was not enough time for Newt to get to his flight. I had a nice caprese and chocolate gelato lunch in the Rome airport waiting for Newt to arrive on a later flight. Then we caught the train...more to come.

A connection through Rio to São Paulo from Natal, and the two flights to Madrid and Rome crossed four flights off our lists, with 13 flights remaining!

Love,
Sandy


Friday, September 14, 2007

Brazil Dispatch 14

September 14, 2007

Greetings from the windy season!

Good news: the 3:14 am crowing rooster next door seems to have been removed. Bad news: a neighboring, vacant vacation house's security alarm goes off night and day. Our caretaker, Marcos, has solved most of the destruction-by-ants to our plants. That did not prevent a particularly huge breed of black ants from making away with every last leaf on our new fruit tree over one night. Note how they left our one pathetic little fruit intact!

Another of our local music discoveries is the jazz-rock band "Mad Dogs," who play their very original Beatles' covers (among other pieces) on Tuesday nights at Sgt. Peppers restaurant. We were lucky to catch them on the night before they flew off to Liverpool to perform for the fourth year at the annual Beatles fest there. Made us proud! Our favorites are 'Michelle' as a tango and a lovely swinging jazz version of 'Things We Said Today.' Our friend Leo jams with them sometimes. Here's the link for a nice treat:


I saw an entire rainbow while walking the high road along the beach one afternoon! One end was in the sand next to the restaurant at the south end of our beach and the other end was in the water about halfway across the expanse. I could even see waves and the horizon through the end! It was so thrilling that I had to say something to somebody, so I spotted a caretaker looking out over a gate and we exclaimed together! This was one rainbow without a pot of gold at the end, but my memories of dancing in an off-off-Broadway production of "Finian's Rainbow" years ago in Manhattan came bubbling up. Who appeared backstage one night but E.Y. ('Yip') Harburg, lyricist of the show ('Look, Look, Look to the Rainbow') and, better yet, of "The Wizard of Oz" ('Somewhere Over the Rainbow'), as well. We were all in awe...sweet little man, who died not long after. And I couldn't escape the memory of one of Elise's and Jake's favorite bedtime songs back when - Kermit the Frog's 'Rainbow Connection.' Guess I did find a pot of gold!

We are still waiting for the house to go into Fidel's name so that he can sell it to us! A judge ruled that he did not need to clear the original owner's name (an impossibility), but as each bureaucratic leap is completed, another requirement is added. Funny how they cannot tell you at the beginning what all is necessary so that actions could proceed simultaneously. Architectural drawings of the house came next, then an inspection. Fidel has reported a couple more obstacles, so in the midst of temporary 'rental' arrangements with him, the process crawls on.

The pace here even makes me apprehensive about grocery shopping:

>I pick a reasonably short line; the guy in front of me is about to finish and THEN...a problem with his card. Off he goes to the front desk where they CALL HIS BANK. I watch the woman laughing on the phone, SO casually. After an eternity, the guy comes back and selects which items he has to forfeit with his limited bank balance. The relaxed cashier carefully runs each rejected item through two different steps on the scanner. Then I am next.

>I pick a reasonably short line, though I am behind a man with a cart piled as high as I've ever seen. He's just about to get his turn when a woman appears and says something to me. I smilingly respond to please repeat slowly. She explains that that man in front of me is her husband and moves her equally piled-high cart in front of me to join him. I am ashamed to tell you what I said to her at that moment in English (assuming she can't understand), but I have a feeling it's sort of an international term at this point.

>I pick a reasonably short line, and the last item from the guy in front of me has been bagged. BUT instead of paying, the customer goes away. I ask the cashier, who's happy and calm as all of them are, always, where the guy's going? Oh, just to the front about his card. I spot the guy in a line behind 6 people emerging from a door. I put all my groceries back into my cart to move to another line. The new line doesn't move, but then we all find out that no debit or credit cards are working right now in any line. These lines will remain in place for an indefinite amount of time. I park my cart with my groceries to the side and huffingly exit the store.

I am counting on a Zen-like response some day, but I'm not there yet.

We had a big event on our corner when the rainy season let up and the sandy dirt road became too soft to drive through. The neighbors had 5 sand trucks arriving to dump sand for fill on their lot. The first truck just sank in there. While the other trucks lined up, another truck barreled past in reverse in our grass, just missing our tree, and lined up with a rope to pull the stranded truck out. Fifth try! Then the drivers grabbed palm leaves and shovels and got the remaining sand trucks through. The corner was impassable for civilian use for weeks. I actually got stuck at two other corners trying to get to our garage by way of other streets, but was saved eventually by 'reverse,' which pitched me out of the sinking sand. Newt called the 'prefeitura' five times to please come smooth out the corner and the huge fault that the rains had formed on the road in front of our house. They finally dumped a pyramid of sand on the corner and left it. Our tiny Marcos took a lone shovel to it. Better. We're still waiting for the fault to be filled in front.





My dear friend from college, Monica Postell, had a job in Rio, then flew up to Natal to visit us. I had not seen her since 1991! My dear friend Maria Candida showed her Rio in grand style over the weekend, and they became friends, too! Monica and I had much to catch up on, plus hammock time, office time with our three computers humming, local explorations, beach hike, dinners out, and a day in a rented dune buggy with our trusty driver, 'Darton,' (named after D'Artagnan). He took us through the dunes north of the city, careful not to make the ride too 'emotional' as they say here. Not easily done. At one point we were heading down a dune in a complete vertical. He took it in slow motion, to his credit, but I was weak for an hour! Monica followed Newt on the 'ski-bunda,' heading down a cable into a lake, less amused than she expected. I watched. We crossed a river on a raft as pictured in the photo, but our buggy was the traditional open kind. We were fascinated by this guy's sculptural exertions.


















Cornélia, our maid, invited all of us to her 25th birthday party, which she put on single-handedly. She had tables filled with relatives in the road in front of her very small house (she has 16 siblings) and ran in and out waiting tables alone (we felt strange about this). Two junk VW's were tirelessly parked nearby, filled with air-tight storage (good plan). She had prepared shrimp, soup, barbecue on a little make-shift grill, a triple cake with red frosting and hundreds of little individual pink and red balls of sweets. She had blown up 150 red balloons and strung them in the house and made countless artificial rose arrangements in little glass cubes with white sand and a gold glitter flourish to give out as party favors. She had her nails painted and was dolled up in a darling dress and 4" sandals - a very different look from her work dress here! We enjoyed seeing the other side of her life, her sweet husband, and the impressive fruits of her industriousness. She gave both Monica and me the artificial flower favors when we left. So now we had a problem. The arrangement is just not what I would ever, ever use, but I didn't want Cornélia to feel hurt, especially after she spent way too much money on everything. So Monica and I thought and thought and finally plopped it down around the corner in the kitchen where Cornélia cooks. My eye sees only that now instead of the Matisse poster and red pots and pans I adore, but at least it is not in the living room. Monica had hers prominently emerging from her carry-on bag as she left, planning to deep-six it at the airport. I mentioned, as Monica and I waited in line for her to check-in at the airport, that I hoped none of Cornélia's neighbors work there, retrieve the arrangement from the trash receptacle and report on its near-fate. Hence you can imagine the flutter I got the very next morning when I came down to my computer and discovered Monica's arrangement installed on my little desk. Yikes! Cornélia had made too many and had simply brought us a third one. (Whew...but OH NO!) It ended up rather high on the office shelves out of eye shot.

On September 28th we leave for another marathon trip, beginning with Newton's Mother's 70th birthday celebration in São Paulo. From there we fly to Rome via Madrid for yet another stab at Newt's Italian citizenship (made possible by a great-grandfather from Sardinia). Then we fly to the business partner company near Krakow for the Polish wedding of the owner's daughter (can't wait!) and the fall business meeting with them. Athens is next, then Montpellier on the Mediterranean. Newton will fly to Japan, then to Korea and Shanghai, and I will fly to Boston (Jake's new home). Then NY. My trip will include Tulsa, where I plan to drive my Mother to Arkansas to see her best friend since college, Jean (as in Sandra Jean!). They are both almost 93. Newt and I will rendezvous in Madrid for one day and night before our return to Natal via São Paulo on November 3rd. We each have 18 flights with all the connections. I know I will look forward to sewing tiny stitches on my quilt on the front porch again.
I imagine September has brought its change of rhythm to many of you. Hope you all have a glorious fall. I am counting on fall colors before my return!

Love,
Sandy

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Brazil Dispatch 13

August 5, 2007

Before I begin to catch you up on life on Cotovelo Beach, I must issue a general invitation to all of you represented in Dispatch 12 on behalf of my dear friend, Ack - Tom Ackley. He was quoted in that dispatch about his move to Costa Rica. He knows he would love to sit and yack with any of you after reading Dispatch 12, and I guarantee that all of you would love to sit and yack with Ack! Well, you're invited to visit him in Costa Rica!! His e-mail is: mailto:mtom@vistavalverde.com .

I am more in love than ever with our tranquil house, our unspoilt beach, and my very graceful husband! I continue to resist driving off to run errands (no choice - need groceries) in favor of yoga, reading, writing, painting the new mail box, sewing the new curtain to hide the defunct shower in the downstairs bathroom, etc. We watch downloads of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" to bring laughter to the outrage (the funniest show ever is the July 30th), and are catching the last season of "The Sopranos" on our slightly behind satellite HBO (don't tell me what happens!!).

Well, we've managed a few good discoveries recently:

We called to confirm that the symphony was performing on the last Tuesday of the month as Fidel (the man selling us the house) had mentioned. They responded that this month it was the ballet company performing. A ballet company in Natal? Who knew, and if they knew, how did they know? Off we went. It was superb!! Choreography, very sophisticated; orchestra, completely professional; and the dancers, female and male, fantastic! Who knew? It was one of those oddities here: something exceptionally refined in the midst of what one might expect - an unruly audience. Once the conductor raised his baton (at the appointed hour, I must add), there was no change in the level of chatter throughout the theater! It did subside when the dancing began, except for outside the rear lobby door, which remained open. Still, the ballet gave me a whole new impression of our city.

Then we found the Blues, complete with mad harmonica. One night while Newt and I were gabbing away in English at our neighborhood bar, Jumanji, hopefully not saying anything rude since no one in tiny Pium speaks a word of English, this guy at the next table says, "It's good to hear that American English." After we picked our jaws up, we met Leo, a Brazilian from Minas Gerais who lived in New England for five years. Leo is a musician (along with his wife). We went to one gig where he played bass and she sang lovely bossa nova, then this week he had a gig playing bass with an amazing Brazilian blues band who can sing mo' and chile just right. Except for the nearly unbearable smoke and the 11:15 starting time for the 10:00 show, we were willingly immersed in the blues till past 2:00 on a school night.

And that set the mood for meeting my first Americans (besides the missionaries). So I arrived at the fields where the man cuts lettuce, arrugula, parsley, watercress, spinach and basil out of the ground (all of the above for $2), and another car was there with a group of Brazilian guys buying greens. I spoke to them a bit, and one asked if I was American. I told him I didn't know any Americans here and he said his neighbor in the next beach town, Pirangi, was Carlos from Florida. Then Carl called: yes he's from Tampa, but was born in...Tulsa!! Couldn't believe it! He got us invited to a party at Sinara's, a woman who was a Brazilian vice consul in Washinton D.C. and LA. It was a beautiful, relaxed dinner party by her gorpeous pool. We met other American men and an Aussie, mostly retired with Brazilian wives, plus there are two more American women for me to meet in Pirangi who couldn't come. Carl and his wife, who is from Manaus in Amazonas and is visiting there now, spend about half the year here and half in Tampa. He has a couple of patents, a business in Florida, fishes three hours a day, speaks Japanese and Portuguese, stands straight as an arrow and seems much younger than he is. I was very taken by his unassuming and kind Okie ways and crystal intelligence.

We also discovered the next city down the coast, João Pessoa, in the state of Paraíba. This city has the official easternmost point in the Americas. It is a little smaller than Natal and has less mix of elegance-next-to-slum (i.e. elegance-next-to-elegance). We drove for two hours from here and found a hotel on the impressive Tambaú beach - impressive because of its vast expanse so fittingly planned for a rich community life. The Friday and Saturday night life along the string of barracas (beach restaurants) and more formal restaurants
was vitalized by crowds of middleclass locals of all ages. We are not sure if the city has less poor people or if the poor frequent other beaches, but beggars were at a minimum and clientele at a maximum. There was an underlying calm to the whole scene, as the music was live in one place or another - not too loud - and the deafening push-cart CD vendors were absent! Our Saturday at the beach was highlighted by two 'hot dog' kite-surfers doing multiple 360's twenty feet in the air. A delicious dinner at a fancy outdoor restaurant featured a large screen with the Pan-
American Games' men's volleyball final between Brazil and the USA (sorry, USA), followed by a live band on a stage playing jazz, samba, and pop favorites with a vocalist reminiscent of Phoebe Snow. It was divine. Sunday we explored and landed on Tabatinga Beach, hanging out all day at the rustic barraca in the photo. We like João Pessoa very much and will return, but it doesn't have our house, and I strangely like the poverty/wealth mix that one finds in most places in Brazil.









The rainy season has just rather suddenly relented to the windy season of August and September. The sea is getting more aqua again, the sky bluer, and the lettuce blows off our plates at lunch! We had a series of visiting birds passing through the last couple of months, adding their new voices to the sound of surf and balmy palms (and obnoxious rooster). One day there were black magpies in our tree. Unfortunately the stray feral cats do not move on and are partial to the reliability of our garbage in the absence of year-round neighbors. Our yelling and clapping only scatter them temporarily. Excuse me, an iguana just ran into our kitchen! Can you find it in this picture?













Newt and I finally figured out how to get the new yellow umbrella to stay put on the beach in the wind, so on the weekends we love to traipse the two-minutes to Cotovelo with the beer cooler, books, umbrella and chairs. Even though this beach is never crowded, there is plenty of entertainment: the occasional heavy gust with smarting sand and beer-protecting postures; a fabulous kite-surfer blowing by; the intriguing velocity of a plastic coke bottle rolling mesmerizingly down the beach as far as we could see; the industriousness of a small white crab, arriving in a rapid lateral maneuver, black eyes divulging its presence as it digs out its tunnel; the local poor kids trying to fly their plastic bag kites on old unwound cassette tape.

I am between books. A couple of books from the current fare didn't hold up well after Ulysses, but then I tackled the incredible Underworld by Don DeLillo. He made me believe I was really in the middle of so many scenes from the second half of the twentieth century. The themes are so haunting - I cannot move on to another book without simply mentally savoring this one a little while. Every time I head for the hammock with a book after lunch, I hear my Mother's after-lunch voice from my childhood summers saying, "You don't have to go to sleep, you just have to lie down with a book.

Special feel better wishes to Steve, Dick and Neil.

Love,
Sandy
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