picture puzzling, potatoe pancakes, catching up, Fernando the fish and other amazing tales

Im now back in Prague after a lovely week in Belgium celebrating spring
with friends and family . I realise now that the last time i wrote was more than a month ago , shame on me , what have i been doing all this time ? I think i was in a deep winter bear sleep drawing with coloured pencils, doing watercolours and making ink splodges. But not only that, i was also jumping into magic snow in Moravia, eating sushi with friends,oh yes and a lot of dancing and twirling round in circles at a traditional ball in the east of the country, and Yeti and i even won a ceramic decoration of two swans with the tombola , lovely isnt it .
I also did a puppet show where i forgot the main actor at home , Fernando the fish , the most important actor of the whole show. Luckily my flatmate brought it to us , but unfortunately she went to prague castle instead of Vysehrad where we were. But luckily we had another puppet show up our sleaves so we showed that first and by the time we had completely stretched it out as much as possible , Fernando arrived just in time for his 15 minutes of fame. Actors, really , they get on your nerves i tell you !
So all is well that ends well and we managed to have a bit of a good time afterwards looking at the amazing views of Prague on that hill.
Oh and there was a day trip to Kolin, a pleasant town about 40 minutes away from Prague by train , there were lots and lots of pigeons on the rooftops, i think more than on square San Marco in Venice.
I think that just about covers my whole month , oh and i enjoyed watching the window cleaner make nice patterns on the glass walls whilst i was waiting to fly in my hi tech newly knitted flying suit ( joke )
and today i ate a potatoe pancake with friends at a flea market and i found ....
a diamond ring inside it !
My future fiancee the potatoe pancake maker ?
No tis but a joke as well, i actually found a big black hair. MMM, jummy , too much information ?
Well i felt the need to catch up , i hope i havent bored you all out of your chairs and that you are now lying unconcious on the floor. Wake up ! Count your blessings you didnt have that potatoe pancake !

Now here is something exciting to do on a rainy spring day ; which picture puzzles together whith which description above? Send your answers on a stamped address envelope to
Fernando the Fish
Spring road
yellow butterfly
parrots nest

wishing you all a lovely spring , hurray its finally here ! Lots of Elvis dancing and joy , your little sister S3

What a difference a year or ten makes

Dear sisters,

On this side of the ocean we have been celebrating extensively the fact that my committer and I have been committed and even married for ten whole years. Now, I know traditionally ten years is nothing to celebrate yet; 12,5, that's when it starts getting interesting, but we were quite content with the ten, and to compensate for completely forgetting last year, we exchanged gifts, we went out for an 11 course meal with wine pairing and we booked a week long yoga retreat on Crete for the summer, that for the ten years and a little bit for the cancer thing. We will be wrapping ourselves in love and devotion for one whole week with four hours of yoga a day and a lot of sunshine.

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

The Talking Heads have a point.

The grey haired mother, still wearing her yoga gear in the early evening sits at the kitchen table sticking stamps on the 700 cards, that have to be sent out for the school auction. Her latte from Martha's coffee, now cold, stands by her side. There are children there, quite big ones, running around that actually look like people and, seemingly, talk with a mind of their own. She says things like: don't run with the scissors" and " No more snacking" while she continues sticking. Her major achievement of the day is having limited the amount of time her son plays the Wii Star Wars to one hour, after homework, without too much discussion. She thinks about the book she is writing and consoles herself with the fact that Virginia Woolf, someone told her, also only wrote 250 words a day. (Did Virginia Woolf also dislike her main character?) The door opens and a grown man walks in, the children run to him shouting "Paappa". She smiles as he enters the kitchen and says: How was your day, honey?"


Funny how that happens.


After a little evaluation we have signed on for another ten years.


S1

Harry Potter, she says

S1

from the darkness into the light..

Dear sisters,
On the subject of Stevie....as I listen to him on my headphones now, I realise in another way what a healer he is: yes, there's magic in the lyrics, the chords, everything. There's something more. Stevie Wonder, and India.Arie as well for that matter -listen to her song Video on headphones and you will understand what I mean- are very adept in their mixing of tracks: they put in these twinkly bits which alternate from left to right like glitter. This is totally in line with the EMDR technique of alternately stimulating the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which, as I explained earlier, has a stake in healing. I am sure many musicians have known this instinctively for years. The exciting bit is that it is irregular so your mind is surprised and then you end up in the here and now.

I tried to find something on youtube to illustrate the point, but instead I found something else...one should always be open to the unexpected, n'est-ce pas..

And now I would like to dedicate this to you both as well as to M. in New York, in particular at this time, and to all my girlfriends all over the world, in general. Voilà. Thank you for your attention.
S2

Soul in the right place

Dear Sisters,
My dear friend M. in New York alerted me to this fabulous concert celebrating the amazing music of Stevie Wonder. Enjoy.
love
S2

going where most fear to tread::encouraging spring

Dear Sisters,
As I am sure you know, a branch of the family in England is involved in this amazing initiative by Michael Mitten who is going to ski to the north pole.

Yesterday the sun came out at last, now two beautiful pigeons just landed on my fire escape; they are a mottle grey with a black ring around their neck, I think they might be lovebirds. All we need to do is believe that spring on its way. Although I am sure donating to the above cause will contribute nicely to promoting that all-round warm feeling.
S2

life in a fruitcrate + the donkey needs a carrot

Dear Sisters!
It has been way too long! I went to my friend Sylvie Macias Diaz's opening at the ISELP in Brussels recently, where she showed more of her compact new style living in fruit crates. It always makes me smile. It is so light and sincere and yet slightly cynical in a non-jaded, teasing kind of way. It is like you could fit a million confusing ideas in those crates and give them all a home and have some peace, so it is very beautiful and soothing to look at in a way. I like my friend. We always have fun when we hang out together. Like her work, she is funny.

The centre has a lovely open plan floorspace which you can see from the walkway above, and Sylvie took it over like the best property developer, and had silhouette drawings of fairytale-like figures climbing up the wall and collages and a slideshow of more silhouettes in a cabin above. Pictured here is an installation she made earlier called Villa Grande. That link will take you to a gallery website which works with a lot of great artists so it's well worth snooping around to see what they've got..

As for the carrot, well: I recently downloaded an extremely addictive game onto my portable-music-device-with-sensitive screen, which is colourful, funny, requires little concentration and is very hard to put down. So now, I have found a new way to keep fit. Exercise bikes can be tremendously boring, as there is no landscape going by, so you concentrate on how tired you are getting. But if you play a game which is this addictive when you are cycling you will find yourself going on forever! Well, almost. I stop when I get a sore behind. I listen to music at the same time and then lose myself without guilty feelings in this ultra useless, yet suddenly very useful game as my feet turn the wheels like a hamster in a cage. This is what I call turning a negative into a positive. Whatever it takes, eh.

I only wish the exercise bike had a dynamo attached to it and then I'd feel really smug about all this movement. In fact I wish there were gyms that generate electricity in this way. Surely somebody out there can create a generator which runs on our sweat. We could get reduced gym membership and cycle for credits which in turn would give us reduced costs for health insurance or come off our electricity bills or simply charge our mobile phones, and then everybody would be happy. At least the planet would. It could become like a kind of civil duty, to both keep fit and contribute something to the electricity net..

It seems the bird that stole my voice these past weeks has given it back again. Until soon dear sisters, love ya.
S2

A love song

A love song dedicated to our favorite supermarket Trader Joe's . With thanks to Meighen.

S1