Not much to report. Work and more work. Back and forth with dear Juliet through letters. We are at the other side of the eye of the storm so to speak we decide. Now ready to accept and honor surely one of the greatest and rewarding friendships of our lifetimes I am sure.

Encountered a beautiful Arabic woman on the subway today. struck up a wonderful conversation about my difficulty with the French language. She is an interpreter so I was most intrigued to make her acquaintance. When I explain to her a few of my many reasons for asserting that French is the most difficult of the Latin languages at first she argues with me. I ask her to count with me in French then. as we get past the number seventy, she begins to laugh and my case was quite proved. In French they do not have a word for seventy or any other number above it. instead they say soixante-dix, the words sixty plus ten. and for the word eighty they use the term sixty plus twenty you would assume, yes? wrong, instead they say quatre-vingts, which means four times twenty. For eighty-seven they say quatre-vingt-sept, or four times twenty plus seven. And of course for the simple word of ninety they say quatre-vingt-dix, four times twenty plus ten. o.k., it can be mastered, but It is no wonder it is difficult at first for foreigners to say the least to understand the thinking. learning languages is like working out puzzles.

In any case, we reveled in this mystery for a time and then we hit my stop. And that was that. I must say I understand why people say it is difficult to meet their mate here. although obviously not too daunting a task since plenty of people do it everyday. But what do you say to a beautiful intelligent woman on a train when you arrive at your stop. “oh I think I will stay on for a while and just ride this baby into the end of the line. I have nothing better to do... I thought about this as I got off the train, never to see this girl again.

Last screening: 3 part PBS biography about Benjamin Franklin. What a man. Impressive in his accomplishments as a writer, businessman, inventor, and of course American diplomat, revolutionary and statesmen, but I had no idea he was such a schmuck as a man personally to his wife and son. I learned a lot about him. and was inspired on a great many accounts. He was our closest American equivalent to Da Vinci. A real renaissance man.

The watched pot does indeed boil by the way, lest one advise you any different. I checked it out for myself.