Fumiko and I just finished dinner--cod with lemon/caper sauce, sauteed tofu, braised spinach, and sauteed asparagus.  So good!

I have to finish writing the monthly column tonight.  Since we've been back from Albuquerque, I've just been catching up on email and life.  Anders (4) came over yesterday.  He strides into the kitchen holding a new Knight of the Realm sword, and says, "Two new packets of gum, I see."

At three feet tall, I'm surprised he can see anything on my kitchen counter top.

I said, "Yes, those are for your cousins when I go down to Los Angeles on Thursday."

Augie (18 mos) is valiantly speaking, "Mio. Mio," when he sees Fumiko.  "Da (dog)"  "Haaaaaa, (hot) and "phhssssssshhhhhhhh (fish)."   

 I went for a walk with Rainey this morning in between rain showers, and we stopped for a cup of tea and a hot cross bun (Easter is approaching).  She told me about a play she attended written by a local Berkeley resident who used all the regulars at the French Hotel (a small cafe in North Berkeley) as the characters.  Her friend Dale was characterized as very obsessive compulsive, but apparently Dale was flattered.  She's beautiful and went to the play all dressed up.  "I don't really wear latex gloves when I shake hands with people,"she told Rainey.  But, she does, however, use a tissue to open doors.

Rainey should have been a character in the play, but the playwright doesn't really know her.  Rainey is going to go to France in July to the birthday party of one of the women she used to rent a room to.  This woman married well, and lives abroad.  Rainey also recently had lunch with the sister of Salman Rushie, and recounted earlier days of her eccentricities.  They lived
together in the house on Keith street. 

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