After a long morning phone chat with D (who seems in fine shape now) was just ready to leave for the office when the phone rang - the Swiss Miss! Given a few hours until, I had a Dim Sum breakfast at Ranch 99 before meeting up at the Library, as usual. Today we ventured far into the forest, to see the redwood trees at Big Basin State Park. On the way back we dined at a Bistro in Saratoga (my first taste of tapas), then zipped through part of the vast & classy Valley Fair mall just as it was closing, in a fruitless search for an SF sweatshirt. After some coffee in Los Altos (Starbucks, since Peet's was closed) where we took turns looking up words in the Deutsch/English dictionary I'd brought along, she once again took a long time catching up on her email; this time on my PC at home, to the musical accompaniment of Pink Floyd, at her request. Tomorrow morning she flies away to San Diego, hopefully from there to swing out on an Arizona loop before her homeward flight.

D mentioned the excellent English she encountered with a pair of Norwegians during one trans-Atlantic flight; this attribute was not shared by the Miss. <1> That was a part of her great charm to me - when she spoke in English it was often like listening to a young child, much as my German sounded to her, I'm sure. So we learned from each other as we shifted back & forth. She found great amusement in the word "ridiculous"; both its meaning and sound. I taught her to say it like Desi Arnaz or Billy Crystal.

Churchill quote of the day: "...though bitterly disappointed he, like me, had no choice but to accept the new position. In war, as in life, it is often necessary, when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might. I therefore turned my guns round too."