Hey, let me see if I can do a picture. Here's one I just found today on the Schenectady City Schools site. I have been doing a two week residency there for the past 3 1/2 weeks (snow cancellations...) This one shows Dad Holder and the little story the k'dg kids wrote with him in the background. If I can make it through the snow, I will travel out there yet one more time tomorrow for our finale perf. of all of the grade levels story/poem/songs.

star-struck

Hi!

Wow, it is so great to hear all about what you're all up to, and I love seeing the pictures. More, more!!

I had a fun New York City night tonight - I went to see Anne Lamott read from her newest book, Grace (Eventually), at Barnes and Noble. She was wonderful, of course. She read a political piece from the book, about staging a peaceful revolution, where everyone is only allowed to object to each other or foreign policy or things with which they don't agree using phrases like, "That just doesn't seem right, does it?". After reading, she spent about 40 minutes answering questions from the audience. She was asked a lot about Sam, her son, who is 18 and a half now (!!), and reported that he is in his first real long-term relationship with a girlfriend. Talking about how much he's learning, she said, "I mean, relationships, man. It's like pouring Miracle Grow on your character defects."

She was also asked how Sam feels about how much she writes about him (a question she undoubtedly fields at every event), and she recounted a story about when an interviewer for some magazine came to her house and asked the very same question. She said she decided to call the then 14-year-old Sam in the room to answer it for himself. He said that he spent his entire childhood on the carpeted floor of bookstores and libraries playing with his legos and eating cereal out of sandwich bags and befriending clerks, as they were always on tour or doing readings or whatever, and didn't mind a bit that she wrote or read about him. He shrugged and said, "I just thought that's how we were."

Afterwards, she graciously signed ALL the books people brought and bought (I brought one, bought one), and spoke to every person who waited in line to see her. When I got up there, I told her that what Sam said about just thinking "that's how we were" totally resonated with me, having a singer-songwriter father and storyteller mother. She laughed and said she felt that way too, as the daughter of a writer. She said, "Yeah, you know. Everyone gets drunk, mom cries at the end of the night. Same old, same old." It was so fun to be in her presence.

And THEN, on the subway platform home, who gets off the train right in front of us but Anthony Rapp, the original star of Rent on Broadway and in the movie!!! I saw him through the train windows as it pulled up and was totally playin' it cool, playin' it cool, and then he gets off and Elisabeth says, very loudly, and in a matter-of-fact, "whatever" tone of voice, "Hey, he REALLY looks like Anthony Rapp." And, of course, he HEARD and turned, as did most people around us, and I had to hiss in her ear, "he IS Anthony Rapp, you eediot!!" Then she got all belatedly star-struck and wispy and Kate and I had to turn away in shame and embarrassment. haHA!!!

all in a night's work.

Love,
M

Old photo- the Bloomquist family

Hi-- I am mostly doing this to see if I can upload a photo--hey, I did! Uncle John has been working on some of Grandpa's slides. Sam took a bunch to him when they were both in Columbus for Tommy's funeral. Tom would have turned 60 on Saturday, by the way. hard.

I'll try to identify all your relatives here. Front row:Tom, Jane (his sister) who is holding little John'e shoulders, me--looking ridiculous as always, Grandma, and Linda, Tom's oldest sister. Back row: Uncle Tony Dorn (my Grandmother Bloomquist's brother, who lived with them and was a doughboy in WWI!) Uncle Merle (Tom's dad), Aunt Susan, Win, my grandfather Bloomquist, Hazel, my grandmother and Aunt Marge, Tom's mom.

My library is closed because of the snow today! FREE DAY! YAY!

I wonder why my name is bhkeuka?

Morning with Praneeth

Oh, yes, yes, this is wonderful - thanks Mol for setting it up. Mom will have to send pics from her computer as we never were able to get the software to work on my old one... but I can certainly text:

OK, my day.

• Arise semi-rested to the sounds of galloping cats racing across and through the three floors, ending with a crash at our closed bedroom door, in a subtle attempt to tell us it is way past time to get up.
• Make normal American drip coffee in the overlarge coffeemaker and, once ready, drink it from the cool Brooklyn mug acquired from MBH at Xmas.
• drop into the office to check the morning weather, news and emails.
• AAARRRRGHH! Eighteen different windows screaming about crashes, failures, fatal errors, post mortem errors, download new security measures now, your computer's life is in dire jeopardy, etc. etc.
• "BEC! my helpmate and tech wizard - come in hear and fix this!"
  
• Two hours, $100 and many, many long online conversations with Praneeth, Mom's tech assistant in Bogata, later, I think we are back to normal. Praneeth purged and cleaned my machine from the other side of the world - it was fun to watch him work in rapid fire fashion on the screen without us touching it. Sort of like gazing at unfingered keys on a player piano.

more later - Praneeth calls, Dad

hey from mom

Wow, I have never done this before! How great to read what you are all doing--now could you just carry web cams around with you wherever you go, so I can remind you to look both ways before crossing the street and take no unnecessary risks and even warn you about tacky decorating ideas. (Granny never bought those fake flowers, by the way, Molly. She scoffed at them on the way to the "real artist" supplies. It sounds like you did a good job, though, and I especially love bittersweet in any of its forms.)

Happy birthday to Daniel. I am so happy to hear from you all.

It is snowing like crazy here--no doubt because Fate heard both Dad and I making plans to go to Schenectady tomorrow. This is predicted to be the biggest storm of the season. We'll see.

Send more photos. I'll try to take some pics of these teen cats on the railing and send them off--the pictures, not the cats.

love, mom

Hey brother and sister of mine! (and m&d, wizards both)!

Molly, this is pretty genius. I love that picture of our old house, it almost made me cry when the webpage first loaded. It looks like its time for me to mow the lawn.

So it's morning in Europe, now. I'm sitting at my desk in my office pretending to do some work (typing furiously). My day here in Lisbon goes like this:

• Wake up, make coffee in the little stovetop espresso maker. Drink together with bread (the incredible "Mafra" bread, baked in wood-fired ovens every day by some woman 50 miles outside of Lisbon) and jam and honey.
• Walk down the hill to the metro stop, past Praça Alegria (little park with a fountain).
• Take metro 4 miles north to Cidade Universitária, the University of Lisbon stop and walk over to my building (Complexo Interdisciplinar).
• Work in my little office (alongside 2 or 3 of my fellow postdocs from France, Spain and Portugal).
• Eat lunch in the cafeteria here in the building (my Portuguese is so far limited to alfaçe = lettuce and pepino=cucumber, but I'm working on it).
• Have a café.
• Go back to work and then head home.
• Go to the grocery store (Pingo Doce... the sweet drop) with Saša to buy fish/meat/potatoes and more Mafra bread.
• Talk to Hardil at the base of the Elevador da Gloria, where he stands from 6 to 11pm passing out business cards for his uncle's Indian restaurant hidden just off the main street.
• Cook dinner, watch some CNN international, study some portuguese, eat and go to sleep.

Last weekend Saša and I happened to be at the grand re-opening of the Rossio train station (see above) where they were passing out free tickets to Sintra (woohoo!). We took a ride there last Sunday and wandered around in the pouring rain for 4 hours. Apparently there are some beautiful palaces and the ruins of a Moorish castle (see pics of cat and me, below) but we couldn't really see anything through the rain and fog.







Moor later! Love,
Ben