Time is master always.

As an entire year has passed and I have grown to love every single person I ridiculed in my former posts. Mary Beth is, in fact, one of the kindest most open hearted people I have in my entire life met. Barbara the older lady across the street who knows more about my past than I do as I have selective memory is my good friend who's paper I bring in when the weather is bad and whom I run into at the Botanic Gardens in the nice weather days, of which there are precious few here.

Ok sentiment has to end, boy child wants to play in the mud. Writing ceases.

I hope to catch up with time, but is always catching me.

Welcome because that is what we do.

The Next week:

The rain has come and washed away the icey snow. I think may have flipped off Mary Beth Kate Frances in a minor traffic altercation, to be fair to me she honked a mean long "what the hell are you doing you hippy" honk, only then realizing it was me, her new neighbor for whom she had made vegetarian chicken, and quickly tried to cover up with a wave out the window as if she was just saying "hi". But it was to late, my finger was already up.

We met Barbara O'Shanahey, our eighty year old neighbor across the street who hasn't been out of her house in weeks due to a cough, she reminded us that St. pattys was just around the corner, gave us Irish bread and cheese, and said "I hear you did some theatre". SAY WHAT? "How did you hear THAT?" "Oh you'll learn in this nighborhood everyone knows"

"This is a really conservative area." says the neigbbor across street next to Barbrar O shanahey, which would explain the pained expresssion on the faces of the obligitory visitors... que the parade ....

Day Two.

Day Two.

Day two. Mary Beth Kate Jo Francis sent dinner over, along with her husband who is quite, and I think, Serbian. He works at home. But he may be a Pol, in any case Mary Jane Louise outdid herself. She recovered from the fact that I was a vegetarian apparently allergice to wheat (Oh all things!) and prepared a chicken dish. Ok, let's be fair she made a very nice broccli salad with cashews and carnberries, and steamed perfectly asparagis , and obscenely large straberries. Lovely. I made elbow noodles and broccli. Gerrit Jr. ate my dinner. Gerrit Sr. ate hers. 'nough said.We unpacked boxes all day and yet seem to have more stuff than when we started. Kourac was right. If you own a rug you own too much. We own way too much. Including, but not exclusively: vitamins and dried fruit outdated by YEARS, not months; handles broken off of the old house's bathroom cabinets, and dirty laundry. I am adjusting to the neighborhood, I keep my head down when the volvos pass and hope for the best when the Lexus SUV's drive by.

Day One, Wilmette, Il.

Hello

Well. We have met our immediate neighbors. Katie dropped by during her "Paddle Tennis Club" to introduce herself and give us her phone number, her stats, and our other immediate neighbors name, phone number, and stats. Then she sent her husband over. He warned us that he will be found most afternoons through a baseball with his son (one of three) and drinking a beer. He is a trader. He trades. Something. Mary Kate, on the other side came over wearing a cross around her neck; one can only assume, just in case, and promising dinner tomorrow night, unless Katie had already planned it. They advised not to attend the local grocer, and directed us to the something or other down the road which, they are proud to announce, carries "Safeway" brand products.

There are piles of old snow everywhere, the crunchy icy kind of snow that has been sitting there for a while. Gerrit Jr. loved it, especially when my foot would fall through to my knee and I would scream with fright. He seems ok now that we have his trains set up. Every night he wakes up at about three am and asks us where we are.

I want to write you a bit thank you and I love you note, but I don't have it in me. Just not that good of a person. As witnessed by my visit to the local ish trader joes where the man checking us out was SOOOO slow, and SOO friendly, I am reasonably sure he was slightly retarded. In the medical sense. In addition I had to watch some woman's cello while she dashed back for some broccoli florrests that she saw in my basket and just had to have.

The house is very large and was clearly customized by a republican with great care, in the eighties.

I need a bath but don't know where my towels are.

I am sure my attitude will brighten soon. Or I may, just may have to say something really subversive to the perfectly nice Mark Kate, or Mary something, just because, just to see how she responds. Gerrit Sr. let it slip that I was allergic to wheat. It was a shock for Mary Kate, but I think she will recover. She has Jesus.

Love to you all.

Aimée

(in Wilmette, IL)