LA Dispatch

Newton and I were very excited to get to Los Angeles and see Elise and Jake, as well as Elise’s new home there. Having lived 29 years in New York, we found plenty of contrasts in LA, the most striking of which was the big, sunny, airy sky and the big, sunny, airy apartment! Because I had barely seen a glimpse of LA since riding on an upside-down bucket between my parents in the front seat of our old Pontiac in ’53, I felt every bit the tourist. As luck would have it, Elise was missing a roommate until our last night (her friend in NY who holds the lease was frantically trying to solve this), so our family stayed in Elise’s apartment together and felt like LA residents, as well.

Jake had already arrived from Las Vegas, so we filled Elise’s parking allotment:

First things first: Trader Joes. ‘Nuff said. EXCEPT, it turns out I DO have to say more…because…I can: have you ever had their chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds?...or their dark chocolate peanut butter cups? Goat cheese with pesto and red pepper spread? There’s so much more to say, but I’ll move on.

We headed for Hollywood Boulevard and, at last, I saw Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the sidewalks filled with inlaid stars of famous stars. Looking down constantly does not lend itself well to maneuvering on crowded sidewalks, but I did thrill to the film and television memories passing before my eyes. Even though you can’t tell it, we are in front of the Hollywood sign here.

 

 

 

 

 

Next on our priority list was to get started on the Mexican food! There are many choices near Elise, so sometimes we simply chose the restaurant with the $1 taco special that day. Once we discovered the Tex Mex place with barbeque rib tacos, we never cared what day it was again. Here’s the four-straw margarita special:

A hike in Runyon Canyon (named for the writer, Damon Runyon), entered just off Mulholland Drive (of David Lynch fame), was the ideal way to experience that big blue sky, views of nature, beautiful homes and the LA skyline, and to begin to appreciate the extent to which perfect-looking people show up around LA. In this case, they had perfect-looking dogs with them. Elise and I especially liked watching Jake and Newton run backwards up part of the return trail, oblivious to the stares from Central Casting. A skywriter was making the most of that huge blue palette:

A day at Venice Beach confirmed that New York is utterly sane compared to LA. They were selling bikini tops made of coconuts, sea shells, and athletic cups! Here is where we handily got both Botox and marijuana:

An incredible athlete wowed the crowd with this feat:

Venice Beach

Elise has been back several times since that day; it is her funky kind of place!

I was pretty cold, especially at night, having believed that the 91° weather Elise mentioned the month prior upon arriving there would still be in effect. I took almost nothing warm, so was delighted to notice a large Goodwill store right around the corner from the apartment. Not only did they have beautiful long-sleeve shirts, sweaters and blazers at Goodwill prices, but everything was in perfect condition and the store was very well-run. I returned for shoes, dresses, belts, and a great ‘50’s table for Elise. Now the rest of my LA shopping experience consisted of an entire afternoon going through the endless, stuffed racks of the Men’s Department at Macy’s to replenish Newton’s wardrobe after some years…and a couple of hours with Jake – the one with the money – at Nordstrom’s at the chic Grove for two pairs of jeans and some shirts for many times the dollars. Just sayin’.

The four of us had time together at Elise’s for Bananagrams, Chinese Checkers, Hearts, shenanigans, even all-night conversation. We had seen the wonderful animated film, “Rio,” at Grauman’s, then just had to watch “Toy Story 3” on Elise’s flat screen, noting that some of the current animated films are far better than the usual fare. We also had a lovely Italian Father’s Day dinner in Santa Monica, temporarily breaking the Mexican streak.

A constant parade of terrific-looking, friendly young women came through the apartment to consider renting the second bedroom. “Awesome” seems to be the most oft-used word at the moment! Most of them would have been decent roommates, but the final decision was Maritza, a lovely UCLA film graduate who works at the Armand Hammer Museum.

And speaking of friendly, I enjoyed joking with the kids that Southern California was partly settled by Okies who arrived during the Dust Bowl. This also explained the way people went out of their way to cross streets only at the crosswalks and only with the ‘walk’ signal (regardless of no traffic), and the early dining, with restaurants closing at 9:00pm.

 

 

 

 

We had the surreal experience of meeting up with our part-time Cotovelo Beach/Pium neighbors, Cleveland, of San Diego (left), and Larry, of LA (right), in Santa Monica. Larry has already come back to Brazil; Cleveland, who generously treated all of us to cocktails and dinner, is expected back in October. Both hope to find a way to stay as permanent residents.

My niece, April, had us over for grilled salmon at her home in Woodland Hills, though the real treat at her place is her whole unbelievably adorable family. Ryan is 7, a natural athlete, sweet, smart; did I say handsome?                                                                                              Here is Marty creating his grill magic:

Addie is 5-1/2, personable in a completely disarming way, and quite fond of Jake! We took them a favorite book from Elise and Jake’s childhood, Hailstones and Halibut Bones, a fabulous book about colors, which Addie ended up reading expertly to us!

After our 11 days together in LA, Jake returned to Las Vegas (with the queen-size blow-up mattress) and Newton headed to a trade show in San Diego. Elise and I joined him the next evening, blowing in from LA with the top down. Downtown San Diego is really well-planned, and despite some parking challenges, we loved walking around there. Both evenings had fancy trade show parties, one on the top floor terrace of a skyscraper, overlooking Petco Park while a Padres game was in session.

The next day Elise and I visited the famous San Diego zoo. It is really something special, even with many of the animals out of sight in their little caves or bushes. Watching the panda chewing on his bamboo was a highlight.

Our last night was back in LA, Newton now on the sofa and me in Elise’s room while Maritza got settled in the second bedroom. Elise was busy with all sorts of jobs she had dug up, many utilizing her professional graphic design and videography skills. She has recently been a regular at the Jonas Group offices, both shooting and editing video footage of the artists they manage, and this makes her very happy!

Time to get back to the rainy season in Natal.

Love,

Sandy

BRAZIL DISPATCH 33

Our ‘autumn’ in Natal ushered in the rainy season, which does not mean incessant rain for months, but unpredictable rain at any time. The world gets truly green, as well as our clothes and shoes in the closets. One challenge of the season is to keep in mind exactly what has been set out to receive bright, intermittent sun so one can race to retrieve it when the sudden showers arrive. I find myself often half-awakened in the night by an onslaught, foggily wondering if Newton’s loafers are still on the ledge outside…or not? Laundry presents its own set of problems with no dryer…let’s just say we went to bed with clean, damp sheets. The occasional days with completely bright sun and blue skies are typified by everyone being quite happy – the way New Yorkers get on the early, odd spring day.

The event of the season was a four-celebrant birthday party – one of them being Newton – with our ex-pat friends. The host, John, a Brit from Madeira, went all out with tents (just in case), a two-man bar, an espitinho man (little kabobs), a man on grilled steak duty and a DJ. We contributed a keg of draft beer and more food. It was a night to remember!

Here is our friend Ali (Turkey), whom I met in my Portuguese class, and his wife, Priscilla (from the south of Brazil). He is a researcher and she a professor, both in ecology at the federal university here…they are FUN!:

Our friend Lauren (Brooklyn, NY), is in Natal on a Fulbright grant and is also in my Portuguese class:

                                                

Here are birthday girl Bella (British), friends Michelle (Montreal), Luciana (Natal) and Darius (Persian British):

Luciana had recently been in London at the same time as Darius. They went to a wild night spot complete with a snake handler. Luciana held the snake while someone snapped the camera, but as she looked away, the python BIT her in the eye and cheek with its fangs. She had to have two surgeries and almost lost the eye. Here she is nearly completely recovered with barely any evidence – hats off to the British surgeon!

                                                                        

Unfortunately, a week ahead of the party I had slipped in the shower and hit the right back of my ribs on the low barrier enclosing the shower. While I bruised the ribs (at least), the worst pain came from muscle spasms that shot down the right side of my back. By the time of Newton’s party, I could dance, and loved cutting the rug – especially old rock-n-rollin’ – with Newton. I believe my spasm-shortened right side is what caused us to NOT connect hands on a particularly risky swing to “Wake Up, Little Susie” (after all those years of NOT landing in the middle of the band on these moves). Alas, I fell backwards, trying to catch myself with my already challenged, congenitally weak wrists. It was a short fall, me being close to the ground height-wise, but my wrists hurt afterwards. Though I applied ice from the bar till we went home at 4:00am, I awoke to a very swollen and blue left wrist on Sunday morning. Off we went to get X-rays, planning to check out the back ribs while we were at it. After five hours at our so-called ‘better’ private insurance hospital, it turns out I didn’t break anything! Our friend Ali felt compelled to theorize, being a scientist, and concluded that rock-n-roll is more dangerous than osteoporosis! I sadly had to adapt two of my five Tibetan yoga poses that were already challenging to the wrists, but have steadily regained most of the practical use one needs moment to moment. I just HATE injuries.

I presented Newton with one of those amazing Nespresso machines for his birthday, which some friends brought back from London for me, along with 50 capsules of various types of espresso. I would say this is the closest to a science that something as arbitrary as making a great cup of espresso can get, and Newton is a huge espresso devoté. The machine from London and the capsules cost exactly one third of the price in São Paulo, where Brazilian import duties are prohibitive. We are loving the espresso.

Newton and I went to a new place that opened up just across the street from our beloved Buraco da Catita, called Consulado Bar. This very interesting old building was literally the Italian consulate during World War II, when there was an American/Allied base right here in Natal. The owner of the building has an extensive collection of WWII memorabilia, including fantastic old posters hanging in the restaurant from the US (‘Loose lips sink ships’), Britain, and Russia. There is an old photo of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Natal, as well as aerial photos of the base. The big surprise comes with the floor tiles in a foyer:

Those damn Fascists.

Here are some of my friends who gathered one evening at our neighborhood Zen Bar to send Mary, an American from the next beach town, off to her second extended stay in India. From left to right are Glades, of Nigerian fishermen fame – she’s the one who helped them for months – and she has since moved to Florianopolis in the south of Brazil, being from the south herself; Neuma, a native Potiguar who owns Zen Bar along with her Sardinian husband; me; Mary; Julie, a Brit who teaches English here; and Jennifer, an American who is in graduate school in linguistics here. It is highly unusual to have three Americans in one space in Natal!

                              

My Portuguese for Foreigners class, free at the federal university on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, has been quite difficult this semester. While it is common for Brazilians to use the proper words without knowing why…without learning the rules exactly, Newton has been particularly surprised to see all the rather formal items that we have been taught. I’d like to speak better and understand better, pure and simple, but it helps to know the names of things in order to learn them, so the route, particularly to grammar, is a circuitous one. The verbs, which are famous for being difficult, are nearly impossible for one whose short-term memory fails her regularly! I have to re-learn the irregular verbs over and over, pining for the good memory of my youth.

Here are the conjugations of VER (to see) and VIR (to come), for example:

I see/you, he, she sees                                     I saw/you, he, she saw                                        Note: three words:

we see/you, they see                                        we saw/you, they saw                                          see, sees, saw

vejo/vê                                                            vi/viu

vemos/vêem                                                     vimos/viram                                                       Note: eight words

Now for VIR:

venho/vem                                                        vim/veio

vimos/vêm                                                        viemos/vieram                                                  Note: seven more words

I came and I saw, but I did not conquer. Note how ‘we saw’ (past) and ‘we come’ (present) are the same? This is just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t even think about the imperfect, past perfect, the subjunctive present and past, the future, future conditional, past participle, etc. One needs to memorize and remember.

The course sometimes adds an additional afternoon with a Brazilian movie with Portuguese subtitles to help us. I find the spoken and written words often going by in a blur. I need more conversations, more immersion…which means it would be helpful if our caretaker and his wife – the people I speak to every day - spoke proper Portuguese, which they don’t (I finally learned that when she says “bichinho” – ‘little animal,’ she means ‘thing”); or if Newton spoke Portuguese with me, which he never has (not that his is exactly correct after 29 years abroad); or if I watched more Brazilian TV, which I dislike; or if I were more ambitious, which I’m not; or if I had not forsworn the entire notion of ‘should’ when I moved here, which I did, after a lifetime of ‘should.’ In the meantime, my Portuguese is improving, and I wouldn’t trade my English-speaking friends for the world, one of whom is Marcelo, the director of the program at the university, who also loves to speak English!

Newton walked around the block by the beach here and picked these colorful flowers for my Mother’s Day bouquet, arranged them like an expert, then made breakfast with the - are you ready?... American style bacon we had just discovered at a store here. It was a beautiful breakfast, and I am extremely lucky.

         

Elise spent the spring in New York preparing for her move to Los Angeles by cleaning out, selling, donating, packing, shipping, good-bye partying and catching a plane. She already had an apartment waiting because a friend of hers in NYC holds the lease. She pulled all of it off with some help from her friends, bought a used Bug convertible, and was awaiting our upcoming visit.

                                        

Jake was on a trip to Europe when the US Justice Department decided to close down the three biggest online gambling sites. Even though he was in Madrid at the time, his accounts were now frozen American accounts, so were inoperable there, as well as subsequently in Prague, Berlin and Amsterdam. The Justice Department was ostensibly going after the off-shore companies for finding ways to get money into and out of the sites in the USA, which had previously been prohibited, but it seems the real reasons behind this infringement of freedoms has to do with the formidable domestic gambling interests who wish to overtake on-line gaming. Until it is reinstated by way of the powers that be, it helps that Jake has a European Union passport (Italian via Newton’s great-grandfather), which now allows him to play Texas Hold-em poker from foreign shores.

As the rains increased in Natal, Newton and I took off for the USA, west coast only this time.

Love,

Sandy

Brazil Dispatch 32: Summer & Carnaval

The advantage in/advantage out of the condominium development project across the road continued to define our days after we returned from the USA. Quite elaborate weekends were set up for people inquiring about the future condos, including live music all day in an outdoor bar with hors d‘oeuvres, cold draught beer and caipifrutas, as well as massages, a children’s entertainment center, and a live concert in the evening on the lovely bamboo stage they built by the water. To our horror, they needed a second generator to sustain these activities and placed it precisely in the path of the wind off the ocean that blows into our windows and transoms. We woke up around 9:00 that Saturday morning to the perfect sound system delivering the live guitar and bossa nova singer from the bar. By 9:12 we had headaches and nausea from the generator fumes pouring through our windows.

We had an invitation from a realtor, so after returning from the beach, we went over to see the two elaborately furnished models and spend the afternoon and evening being served and entertained. It was really lovely. They spared no expense for the best musicians, elegant setting, food, drinks and service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following weekend we went to beaches and points south, knowing we’d be sick if we ate at home with that generator spewing away. We watched dolphins playing in the ocean from a little spot atop the falesias – cliffs of sand – while eating shrimp. Realizing that we could not stay away from our house the entire weekend to avoid the generator, we walked over to the development, asked for our nice realtor and explained to him that we had to hang out there to avoid being ill. That was another evening of entertainment and service. To our tremendous relief, the low turnout never justified such expenditures, so by the third weekend, the 2^nd generator did not materialize. We had an invitation to watch a soccer match televised at the bar, so returned for the afternoon with our friend Cleveland from San Diego, who lives part of the year in Pium. The caipifrutas (like caipirinhas, but usually made with vodka rather than cachaça and with fruits other than lime) were just beautiful. Here is one made with kiwi:

 

 

 

 

After this, only live bossa nova and draught beer were offered on the weekend. We woke up for the fourth Saturday in a row to yet another duo on guitar and vocals, realizing that all duos had the exact same repertoire of the most popular songs we had always loved…and were now beginning to find torturous. These people sang for HOURS both Saturdays and Sundays; we were contemplating violence. Latest report: this weekend there was silence. The turn-out just wasn’t happening, so they dispensed with all measures. Silence.

Here is what the coconut field used to look like (that’s our house on the left, second-from-the-beach); and here is a rendering of the condominium plan from the ocean side, which clobbers the field from side-to-side, as you can see:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interspersed with the daily drama of the development, summer also brought neighbors and their parties to the beach houses on the other three sides of us. Loud, bad music is usually the norm, with a blinding spotlight some nights through our bedroom window that precludes TV or reading in bed. The bass speaker from one neighbor was so out-of-balance that we were quaking to the thump in our office, despite having shut every window that direction. The music and voices usually persisted till the wee hours during January; February continues the festivities only on weekends, though there were occasional silences that we duly praised!

Our beach is always very animated through the summer, an up-side to the neighborhood coming alive. We particularly enjoy watching dogs and children negotiate the surf with even doses of exhilaration and hesitancy. Newton took some intermittent kite surfing lessons; we broke in a new maid – Marcos’ new tiny 26-year-old wife, who is perky and energetic, if not able to retain any information! We like her and her cooking and cleaning, so the two days a week of illogical foibles are not making me crazy. We hung out at favorite restaurants and music venues with our local American friends, Cleveland and Larry from Los Angeles, also a serial resident of Pium. Our friend Maurizio from Sardinia who owns the lovely local Zen Bar had a wonderful birthday celebration with lots of jamming musicians. Here are Maurizio and Cleveland, and Larry and I cutting the rug à la American Bandstand:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carnaval festivities started the weekend prior to Carnaval at many bars that would be closed during actual Carnaval. I found the hot night, the airless interior and the pulsing, dancing crowd inside one of our favorite places, Buraca da Catita, just too much for me. By the third time a stranger had came up and draped a sweat-soaked body over me and tried to pull me into the dense crowd to dance, I just lost it and started screaming. This last one said she understood completely and covered my hands in slobbery kisses. Newton stayed on inside, loving the great live “frevo” and marchés do Carnaval , and I survived my Americana curse by stepping outside and maintaining a couple of feet of air around me, while also loving the music from the great 9-piece band. I’ll chalk my coping challenge up to claustrophobia that is particularly sensitive to a lack of air and obviously, a plethora of body fluids.

Directly ahead of actual Carnaval, we went to a new Blues club and to a dinner party the following night, so this would add up to seven nights out in a row…I’m just saying. I made Newton the “Carnaval Chairman,” as he is the one who knows what feels like real Carnaval to him. Besides hanging out at the beach everyday and cooking very little, our Carnaval evenings looked like this:

-Friday: We went downtown in Natal to a beautiful wrought-iron-fenced courtyard surrounded by three colonial buildings that are dedicated to the arts. One of our favorite singers, Crystal, was performing Carnaval music onstage with a band, and the crowd, while enthusiastic about celebrating, was just the right size to allow for dancing space and air. A strolling brass band followed with Marchés do Carnanval, and a teenage girl with a tiny umbrella (a classic Carnaval prop) was added to my list of favorite dancers. She moved like a feather and was a vision of rhythm, loop-de-loops and frevo footwork.

- Saturday: We started with feijoada, the national dish of Brazil, accompanied by a samba band at our Singaporean friend Hian’s new botequim near Ponta Negra beach. Both Cleveland and Larry came along. Here we are with our friend Ana Paula, Hian’s Brazilian wife:

We ventured on to Gringo’s bar where many of our friends had gathered to watch the live music & giant puppet parade in that neighborhood. This was also a homecoming for our friend Tom who had been pirate-hunting in the Indian Ocean.

-Sunday: There was a chance that we would have stayed in this night if it weren’t for a power black-out in our neighborhood. We headed to the bowels of the city for the transvestite competition. Though the crowd was the poorer inner-city population - which means we stood out rather conspicuously - the Potiguars are gentle folk and we never felt that anyone was targeting our pockets. The ridiculously funny competition ended early and we returned home to lights and power.

 

- Monday: This was Men-in-Drag Day in Pirangi, the next beach town south. I was the only female in a wig; I had just bought it at the beach.

This was definitely the best people-watching imaginable, with 90% of the males in drag…some of them outrageous, some of them extremely pretty, some just funny. All the guys enjoyed being in make-up and bikini tops and dresses, flirting shamelessly with any man who did not come dressed for the occasion (Newton), some dancing up a storm in high heels…hilarious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The music was on top of large trucks doing their best to pass through the crowds in the street. While this was already beyond loud, parked cars with gigantic speakers in their open trunks were often situated near each other playing competing ear-splitting music. Little crowds danced around the car of choice. The deafening din became overwhelming. Don’t miss the spectator wearing the wedding veil in the background of the photo to the right:

We escaped after some hours to a serene Italian restaurant, wig removed, for wine & pizza on a quiet balcony. We were surrounded by very tall palm trees and NO MUSIC!

 

 

- Tuesday: Our last night of Carnaval was spent in Ribeira (downtown by the port) on a closed-off street with a huge stage at each end. Real Carnaval music was playing on one end with our friend Gilberto on trombone and lots of dancing, beer venders, and the university crowd we often see in that neighborhood. This gave way to horrid heavy metal rock at the opposite end (NOT very Carnaval-like), during which we took a walk on deserted streets; next was a rockabilly group from Rio – very fun.

On the way home we stopped at Pastel Paulista (meaning from São Paulo) – Newton’s favorite place for his favorite Brazilian snack – meat or cheese, etc. inside a fried thin pastry. This ‘establishment’ is a van that pulls up in front of the Bridgestone Tire store every evening, converts into a kitchen, puts out plastic tables & chairs in the small parking area in front of the store, and stays open till 3:00am, nourishing late revelers every week, not just during Carnaval.

We went home to bed, though the music from the town plaza in Pirangi thumped across the beach and into our bedroom till 4:00am.

The following week would have shifted into the start of my Portuguese for Foreigners classes at the university, but shifted instead into my first illness since moving to Brazil more than four years ago. It was basically just a cold, but I thought a truck had hit me. I just rested and let my immune system have its workout.

I’ll interject here a catch-up on some of my favorite recent reading:

·The Eerie Silence by Paul Davies of the SETI Institute (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is a remarkably satisfying, thin volume of surmises, imaginings, observations, projections, theories and hard facts from a real scientist who dreams of SETI finding success, but cannot attest to any success yet. There is a real elegance to this scientific search and to this man’s explanation of it.

·Angle of Repose by William Stegner was on a list of the 100 best novels of the 20^th century. Even though it was written in 1970, it is timeless – an historical account of the 19^th century settling of the West, based on the diaries of an actual New York illustrator who married a mine engineer and roughed it out West for the rest of her life. I was actually in Colorado for part of this read, so had the appropriate backdrop.

·Just Kids by Patti Smith. I don’t know how to adequately describe this elegy to Patti Smith’s soul mate, Robert Mapplethorpe, and to their era. This book is so poetic, so moving, so riveting in its depiction of artists’ sensibilities, such a portrait of ‘70’s bohemian life at the Chelsea Hotel in NYC with the likes of Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Bob Dylan, etc., that when I finished it and stopped weeping, I couldn’t open a new book for a week…so enveloped was I in the little spell it cast.

·Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann was recommended by my Nyack friend, Lucia, in time to buy it live before returning from the USA. It is an astounding, haunting modern novel inspired by two World Trade Center events.

·Blow-up and Other Stories by the Argentine, Julio Cortázar, in excellent translation, gets me back to the short story form, a favorite of mine. This was recommended by my friend Marie Arana, the Peruvian/American author, whose novel, Lima Nights, I also loved. Cortázar was a genius and a master of the magical realism for which Latin American writing is known. He spent his adult life in Paris, so many stories take place there. The ‘70’s film ‘Blow-up” was inspired by the short story. I’m partial to the story where the apartment guest continues to vomit a bunny between two floors on the elevator up. He is writing a letter to the absent apartment owner, describing his attempts to hide the bunnies from the housekeeper and documenting the increasing signs of damage from the now twelve bunnies…as funny as absurd gets! Better still are simply Cortázar’s words…his amazing use of language.

By the end of the week I was feeling well. The week had been an unusual one without much wind, so while Newton had no chance of taking up his kite-surfing lessons again, the sky was clear and the colors extremely vibrant. The waves came in at an odd diagonal, and I noticed the hummingbird and the yellow butterfly were happy to chase each other around the hibiscus blossoms – a new one. The exaggerated beauty culminated in the ‘Super Moon’ party organized by our friends on the small beach beyond the falesias at the end of our beach. We hiked down from the highway under a strange blue vortex defined by the lighting and the clouds. The moon rose around 5:30pm. We were perched on a rise near some rocks, but as the evening pulled the high tide back out, we could not resist running down to the flat expanse of sand and dancing and spinning in the other-worldly moonlight. It was a heavenly event, with all present sharing a sort of giddy happiness and sense of well-being, induced as much by the children’s sense of freedom to run around and write their names in giant letters in the sand as by the dramatically lit, black and white seascape in front of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love,

Sandy