Dear love, many kisses hello this cool gray evening. Back from a full day out on the town & environs. Attended an interesting nature walk this morning, at Olana, having to do with noticing and appreciating wild edibles, there in most of our gardens - garlic mustard, nettle, dandelion, wild carrot, wild onion -- , that are just starting to crack through the earth and come to life and turn green at this very beginning of Spring. It was a lovely walk, very informative, I greatly enjoyed it. It was very peaceful and calming, and forced me (as with Kathe Izzo's 'plein air' writing workshops there) to simply slow down, stop, examine, look. And I will... I'd like to do more justice to writing more about this, but the hour's getting a bit late, I want to be there for the Grilling of the Cornish Hens outdoors...

Oh sweetheart, I am not in a writerly mood at all at the moment. I wish I could just be in your company, stoking a nice crackling wood fire maybe, cozy blaze against the chill. I did other things today too, I had fun, had the car for much of the day. Attended a showcase designer-decorated H. for Humanity townhouse, in town, that was charmingly and ingeniously done - I could have moved in right there. My eyes lit up at the small, spruce, tidy kitchen -- honestly, I just felt like cooking something right then & there. I had fun too, because this really good looking older Australian gentleman seemed to notice me, and be charmed by me (he was there with his wife - aw shucks), and as we all self-toured through the house (the vibe was of a real-estate 'open house') he'd glance at me, and I'd glance at him, and --- boy do I wish I were the sort of person who could manage a great big wink. Anyway, it was just charming fun, and I'm glad (since I've been striking out thus far on CL) that someone who I find attractive also seems to find me attractive -- so I would put that on the checklist as a -- positive! Ah, I'll never see him again. But no matter - as I said, he was there with his wife. Unlike the apparently single Adonis of the Utz Chips, who Yet Again I did not see at ShopRite this afternoon.

Afterward I strolled Warren Street, and had a delicious cup of coffee, and an utterly decadent piece of "Opera" torte, chocolatey buttercream layers. I do love cafes, that is a particularly nice one, truly like being in Paris, or in a Hollywood version of Paris, since I haven't been in Paris but once, and that was thirty years ago, and I had no money at the time at all, that one weekend with a girlfriend, who was on her junior year abroad, and we'd taken the Cross-Channel Ferry, with all of maybe thirty dollars left over, once we'd sprung for a room in a charming sunlit walkup neighborhoody hotel... Je voudrais un cafe au lait, I remember having occasion to say a couple of times in Paris that weekend, when we ventured out with our converted currency ($ to pounds to francs) -- and I felt quite elegant saying "je voudrais" rather than "je veux" which would have been the table-pounding cruder way of putting it. I would like...

I would like, je voudrais, to kiss you, dear sweetheart, to put my arms around you and to feel yours around mine. I hope you've had a wonderful day, and have a pleasant evening in store. I will be thinking of you, as always, I do as I go through my day, about the woods for example this morning at Olana - oh you would so have enjoyed that, I thought -- or at the cafe, we would have shared the pastry -- I will see you later, for sure, darling -- we'll have our conjunction, we will, as seen from 'down under.'

All my love ---