Hello darling, your Weeping (almost) Woman is restored to her usual equanimical self. Glad the stress of the holiday is over. Today was good. I managed a triple concerto: lovely pastoral movement; brisk, energetic scherzo; sweet lingering meditation of mounting build (no small part of its charm) and exquisite finish.

Sweetheart, it's very peaceful up here now. I took good care of myself today. After all the ham & cheddar biscuits & buche de noel & pot roast of the last couple of days my system was craving spa food. So I went food shopping, and tonight's dinner - I've done the vegetable prep already - will be starch-free - an "Oriental" (Chinese? Indonesian?) stirfry involving bok-choy, carrot, broccoli, red peppers, mushrooms, onion, water chestnuts, ginger, garlic, and maybe even - I left them out by the stove in case D, who will execute the actual stirfrying, is so inspired - fresh pineapple & lime.

On my way home I stopped by a chain fashion store that's going out of business here. I don't much like the store, the only thing I've ever bought there, once, was underwear, and I scored on that same score today, a 'nude' bra and three pairs of lacy beige panties, all for $22.

I am amazed at how much you travel, it blows me away. You're like that George Clooney character in that movie with Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air. I asked my aunt (we were standing in the kitchen as she described in sketches the news) - how is he with all that travel? My aunt at first shrugged - well, that's what he does for a living (those weren't her exact words, but that was the gist - that that's, I don't know, what's expected of you, what you do - I hesitate to use as loaded a term as "your lot" - but maybe, that's the way it falls out), but that wasn't really what I meant. I rather tediously am always going after how people feel about their lot, or what's going on with them. I told her that, for example, I would hate to fly as much as that, I can't even imagine it. And she acknowledged that she didn't think it was easy for you...

Ah, now I feel as though I'm "telling." Which I don't mean to - sorry - this morning's post was more than enough. And I think of this snatch of conversation with my aunt - not in that way. It was actually one of the few (or perhaps the only one) semi-direct questions I dared to ask, as I lightly, gingerly (but inwardly tumultuously, passionately) inquired...

Where are you now I wonder? I imagine home, but maybe packing. I don't know. This is a holiday week after all.

Dearest, this is all I have for the moment -- I'm glad we've gone back into the clouds, or settled back to earth -- as opposed to the jarring ripcord of descending a zillion feet south to a Riverdale-like hill in T'town. I floated uncomfortably over that patch of land for a day, landed there even, and am glad to be back in the "mid-Hudson Valley," where I think I may have just heard the Amtrak train that happens to be carrying some guys we both know, who are bound for Chicago...

Bon voyage -- to all of you - as you pass through Hudson!

& to you - my dear one -
at whatever latitude - or altitude - you are