Longtime readers will remember that my older son was called by the Mormon Church to be a missionary in Haiti. He was already fluent in French, so picking up Haitian Creole came easily; it was a simplified and altered slaves’ French.

The country went up in chaos while he was in the language training center before shipping out, and all Americans were asked to evacuate. The Church sent him to southern Florida instead.

When all those hurricanes swept through there, one right after another that really bad year, the Church told the missionaries, the Red Cross needs you more than we do right now–go volunteer at the shelters.

Which is how, when he and his missionary companion walked in and asked what they could do to help, he was pulled aside and asked to go talk to that Haitian woman sitting quietly alone over there.  Standard procedure was to ask each person their situation and needs as they came in, but she didn’t speak English; she looked okay to them. But please just go make sure for us.

When she found someone who spoke her language!  I have a mechanical heart valve, I don’t have my meds, I’ve missed my doctor’s appointment, I have a son brain-damaged by sickle cell anemia and I can’t control him in this strange environment…!

He was writing things down in English as she spoke while quickly letting it be known she needed help, stat.  He described it to me as, she had, by the time he found her there, simply given up. “She was in a world of hurt, Mom.”

He got taken aside later and was told he’d saved her life.  He emailed home, saying, Mom, if I never do anything else here, I now know why I needed to have this calling and learn this language and come here at this time.

…I talked to him yesterday.

People whom he knows and cares deeply about have not been able to make any contact yet with people they love back home.  It is very hard.

A word about Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres:  I made a donation a few years ago. (#2 there shows where to donate directly; I’m giving this first link for any knitters who want to be included in the Knitters Without Borders totals, just to show what knitters are made of.  Thank you Stephanie!, who raised over $600,000 for them even before this week’s earthquake in Haiti.)

But I didn’t like MSF’s spending the least money asking for more.  I found a way around that: I set up an automatic monthly payment. They know I have decided to give. They know how much.  It is not restricted to any one purpose, but rather, they are free to put it to use wherever the need is greatest.  As the wife of a Red Cross emergency services volunteer, I know how much that frees them to simply go do their work.

With that, they send the occasional email to let me know what they’re doing in the world and how important it is.

Like I could forget.

We can’t all be there in Haiti in person to help, but we can send the message that we would never let them be alone in their hurt if we can possibly help it.  It is a small world, and they and we are in it together.

I added to that amount yesterday.  Won’t you all join me.

She totally made my day.  I would not even have expected her to at all remember me.

We were sitting in Sunday School today in a room where the rows of seats were curved a bit, giving the ends a clear view of each other. We were to one side; her parents came in and sat down at the other end, a young mom and dad with a fussy fifteen-month-old in their arms, a good-natured kid, but, naptime is naptime.

They got her quieted down but not especially happy; a cracker and a little milk from her sippy cup helped somewhat. The mom looked tired.

And then–that little girl saw me.  She got the biggest grin on her face, spread her whole hand as wide open as she could, leaned her whole body towards me from far across the room while making the grandest wave hi a wannabe grandma could ever hope to see, in a burst of new energy. Me! It’s me, lady! Remember that fingerpuppet you gave me a month or two ago? Remember smiling at me? You’re my FRIEND!

There was no resisting waving back in kind. I think if her mom hadn’t had a firm grip on her she might have gone flying across the room to leap into my arms.

The back row was soon looking both ways, quietly chuckling, catching the wave too; baby smiles are so marvelously contagious.

Hey, almost out in there…  I replenished my supply in my purse when we got home.  And now you see why I give out those Peruvian fingerpuppets to fussy little ones: it’s for me.  I tell you, it is totally, selfishly, for me.

No, Dad, I didn’t.  But with memories of that restaurant in Florida you took us to when I was 9 on one trip and again at 16, making sure I ordered that stew on the second go-round, even if it’s chicken in it nowadays, telling me a little of the history of that dish…

Take my Dad to a restaurant he really likes once, and he will find it should he get any chance to return, no matter where it was or how long ago.  Let me tell you.  I was three and a half when he discovered a seafood restaurant by the water in an older part of Seattle.  We were in town for the World’s Fair.

My own vivid memory was not about the food, but at being petrified at the idea of stepping off a perfectly solid, stationary platform to get on a shaky, shuddering little flying car hanging from a wire way above the ground with nothing below.  Sitting in the middle of the air.  It was a crazy thing to do, and each time we took the monorail at the Fair, I let my parents know it.  Loudly.

On the very last day, I finally, *by myself,* (I was so proud!) holding Mom’s hand, chose to take that mindboggling step and I crossed that gap in the floor.   Our monorail car jerked right in that moment, scaring the bejabors out of me.  But I still did it. I did it!

I was in my early 40’s when we were in Seattle again, this time for my niece’s wedding; with an afternoon that Mom, Dad, my older brother and I had to ourselves, Dad was sure he could find that seafood restaurant again from way back when.

And he did.  And it was still fabulous.  I bet you he could name the place for you, too.  All I could tell you is, there was a drawbridge nearby on the water and antique Native canoes hanging from the walls and ceiling, with a floor that kind of meandered randomly up and down all over the place in curves to match the canoes. But oh, the chowder.

So.  Recipe: take one large empty round clear Costco container, formerly containing four pounds of in-shell pistachios (and a bajillion biscotti before that).  Eat many, many pistachios till everybody’s ready to give them a rest for a little while, set container in cabinet, let it get pushed progressively further back and forgotten about till the pistachios are good and, um, ripe.   Last year’s crop.

Toss the occasional nuts to the squirrels. It’s that or throw them out, and given a choice between squirrel antics or raccoons trashing the place at night?  Right.

Get bright-eyed idea.  Squirrels should earn their food, the little freeloaders.  Remove lid, set round container on its side with the last few pistachios in there–throw in a walnut to sweeten the deal–set it at the crack on the patio for a little initial stability and go back inside to watch.

It was hysterical. I had two, a gray and a black, show up so fast I didn’t even see them coming as I walked back inside.  Two who have been hormonal and territorial of late, who would never have allowed the other on the patio at the same time if they could help it, now circling the mouth of that canister together, the tail of the one wrapped almost ’round the face of the other and vice versa.  Step forward. Jump back.  The other hides behind him.  Reverse, repeat.   Fur-vently wanting in, fur-ventingly knowing no way no how.  Nuh uh.  The gap between solid ground and the who knows…  The wide world outside vs the interior of that piece of plastic claustrophobia…  YOU go first!  But, but, wait, not till I do, but, but…

Quick, Henry, the Flip! (Triple word score points to anyone who gets that reference.)

The videorecorder was nowhere in sight.  Darn.

Best restaurant in their little town.  They might even go in next time.  If only the cover charge weren’t so steep.

I brought it back inside so they wouldn’t stew over it for the night. Besides, they’re such hams, I want to capture them on camera.

I can’t tell you any stories from today’s 4.1, because I had a bad night last night, got up, gave up, went back to bed, and zonked out hard through the whole thing this morning.  So here’s an old story to make up for it.

Our kids were a lot littler and we were at Back-to-School night.  I got our third grader’s classroom, Richard took the first grader’s; the rooms were packed with parents sitting on tiny chairs.

The first grade teacher was explaining how the children had been taught right from the get-go what the earthquake safety rules were: duck and cover, ie, get under their desk and hold onto the legs so that the top of the desk would protect them from any flying debris.

In the God-has-a-sense-of-humor department, a 4-point-something hit *as she was saying that.*  My sweetie dutifully raises his hand, and–

–okay, wait, picture this here. The man is 6’8″. He is big boned. He is big everything.

–and asks so very innocently, “Are we supposed to get under these desks now?”

Woke up this morning to find my Christmas-present Roomba (it SO needs a kitten tackling it as an accessory) under my footrest, pulling on the edge of the fringe from Robert’s medicine blanket as if it were a child sucking its fingers, a missed Christmas tag wrapped around its wheel.  It couldn’t have what it wanted, so it had shut down and was hiding under there with its security blanket.  My lazy kate, which had been several feet away, was tucked right by it under there. Spinning, weaving, yarn–it’s got good taste.

Hey! Who let that go out of the living room? I had it turned off, too. I thought.

Don’t look at me, I’m not a trained Roomba-tologist.

Amazing how much bigger the laundry room is with a new dryer in there, set back against the wall where it rightly goes.  As of today.  (Thank you Rachel!) It doesn’t need to be pulled two feet forward to work–and it doesn’t burn the clothes. (Yes, we cleaned the old one’s hose out and cut it down by half; it still did that.)

Amazing how nice it is to be able to know one can now do the mercifully ordinary task of loading clothes or sheets into the dryer and they won’t come back out with little permanent burn marks.

I told Richard a year ago that if he put the exercise bike away in an unused kid’s room, I would never use it–so he assembled it right there in the dining area of the kitchen.  Not exactly lovely, but effective product placement, definitely. I got in the habit. I do use it.

Amazing how much bigger that room is now with it out of there. As of today.

Amazing how much bigger Richard-the-younger‘s room is with it moved in there but lots of other stuff cleaned out.  As of today.

Amazing how good those cookies Michelle baked for Nina came out, dairy-free and all. Yup, she made them today. Two types, filled, one, her first try at piping, and she did a superb job of it.

Amazing that they found the fake tree in the garage and actually got it set up.  As of today.  (No, it isn’t the same. On the other hand, the allergies found themselves not on the list of invitees and stayed away.)

Amazing how much we got done today–and two Christmas parties on top of that.

But before we left for those, my kids saw me starting to push the bike out of the kitchen area and were appalled: Mom! You can’t do that, let US do that!  But…but…  Together, with much effort, they carried the thing down the hall and maneuvered it into their big brother’s old room.

Their dad came around the corner just then and told them, You DO know that thing’s on wheels, don’t you?

Now.  Pardon me while I go fall over. In my nice, embiggened, cleaner house.  The kids? They’re at more Christmas parties, visiting with their friends while they’re in town, too.

Amazing that they grew up already and we didn’t even need to drive them there!

(Ed. to add: I wrote this for every young mom who gets told–and it happens to all of us–that just watch out, her kids will be horrible when they’re teenagers. I’m here to say that even though mine have all left the teenager stage, that teenagers actually are wonderful and interesting people to have around and they only get better with each year that passes.  And that message, I like to think, is what this mom was seeing: looking at John and his interactions with them and then me and seeing the future progression of her own son and daughter.)

At the airport, there was a young mom also waiting for her luggage to appear who was holding a very tired-looking 15-or so-month-old.  I opened my purse and, with a few words, handed her a bright pink handknit flamingo fingerpuppet, her three-year-old clinging to her leg and her hands full, with me hoping one more thing wouldn’t be too much to hold; the little one didn’t look at all in a mood to reach out towards a stranger for it.

The mom’s face totally lit up.

Turns out John had been sitting by them on the plane. The kids had been tired and crying off and on, but he could sympathize with their wanting to be home and in bed and not understanding why they couldn’t be. They were absolutely adorable little ones. End of story. So he told her they were and made a friend for life on the spot.

I did not know at the time why she smiled at me and then at my son as she looked at that flamingo in her hand, affirming–I had utterly no idea yet what.

But her kids were absolutely adorable.

Grow older with me, the best is yet to be.

It’s true. We’re an April-December romance.

Last night, turning off the light and tucking in, our hands reached out to each other–and we totally snagged the velcro on our hand splints and I burst out laughing.

Fifty-one years, twenty-nine married. It’s a good start.

(Ed. to add: Michelle had cocoa in the fridge with Green and Black’s Maya Gold melted into it ready for me to warm up in the morning. That child knows how to celebrate a birthday!)

Wait–do you mean to say Christmas is THIS month!?

And then there are the days that make up for the other ones.

When I was designing and knitting a shawl for my friend Lisa originally, I realized it wasn’t quite her color–and that became part of the story in my book. My friend Gigi loved that pattern best of all and, as a thank you to her for helping with the test knitting and simply for being a friend, I gave it to her and made Lisa something else. Besides, the original was a bit dark for the photography.

So I reknit that pattern in a slightly redder, lighter shade, still a bit dark but that still matched the story, and that was the shawl I sent off to my publisher.

I met Gigi and her daughter Jasmin when they took spinning lessons with my daughter Sam and me the summer our girls were 12.  Fast forward to… This past summer, Gigi and I were both facing surgery.  Hers wasn’t scheduled yet; mine had to be.

And so I was in the hospital during Sock Summit.

She just got out of the hospital last week after five weeks in: heart surgery with  complications that just seemed to drag on and on and had us all on the edge of our seats.  But she’s finally home now and recovering.

She called Thursday, to my surprise, to ask, was I going to Purlescence that night?

You’re coming?!  Oh honey you bet I am! Nothing on earth could keep me away now!

It was SO good to see her! She was exhausted but had needed to get out–boy, tell me about it, I so get that.

I sat down on the floor next to her so I could be close enough to hear over the room without her having to exert herself.  She took a deep breath and decided to tell me something she hadn’t been going to.  But she had settled it out rationally in her mind and was proud of herself, and rightly so, for her attitude over it.

She had taken that burgundy baby alpaca shawl to Sock Summit.

And someone, apparently on the housekeeping staff, had stolen it.

Many inquiries were made, a great deal was made over it, but it was not returned. And here her friend who had made it for her was in the hospital.

She was devastated, as you can imagine. She told me how her boss had liked to tease her when she flung the end over her shoulder; that one has a nice wide neckline to it and she liked to wear it as a long curving wrap. But it was gone.

She had had, I’m sure, much time to think it over during her own hospital stay.  It had helped solidify for her how she wanted to feel about it: that someone somewhere out there must have really needed that shawl. Someone out there must have needed that feeling of warmth and love, too.

I heard her, but it was still true, I told her, that nobody could have that good feeling for having taken it. But, we agreed together, maybe they could give good feelings with it to someone who didn’t know it was stolen. We can hope.

I was quietly dancing inside. I knew, I knew…

I got home. I checked. Of course it was in there. The one that had been at the publisher’s. In baby alpaca. In that pattern she’d liked so much.  And, just to remove any doubt in my mind, although she had had no idea that’s what she was doing, she had worn a pair of handknit fingerless gloves to the shop that night that were redder and pinker than her shawl had been. The shade change would work. Now I just had to get there.

Richard and I went on a date this evening, and the first thing we did was to drive down to San Jose.  Jasmin’s husband Andrew opened the door and smiled in recognition when he saw me standing there.  I immediately started caroling, to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” for his mother-in-law’s sake, “We wish you a happy Ramadan, we wish you a happy Ramadan, we wish you a happy Ramadan, when it comes ’round next year.”

He cracked up.

And I handed him the bag and asked him to give all of them my best and told him what it was. And I knew, seeing the warmth in his face, that he meant that thank you with all his heart.

And to all a good night, as I climbed back in our car and thanked my husband for driving me down there. He’s a good one too.

Greaaaat… Nope.  Can’t. At least not yet.  Broken? Let’s see, try again. Nope. “MICHELLE!” hoping she can hear from inside.  Waiting, all dignified-like, (splat, more like) dressed for the occasion in a (thankfully long) black skirt.  Car drives by–yo? No?  Well, this is embarrassing.

“MICHELLE!”

She’d been just on the other side of the wall in the living room and heard me. She came out and down the walk at about the same time the neighbor across the street came out and, seeing me being rescued, ducked gracefully away.

No, can’t get up that way, hon, that hip, that arm, nuh uh.  Let’s try that. Slowly.  Gently. Thanks.

“Mom, I know you don’t use the cane around the house, but maybe you should start now.”

I seem not to have broken anything after all. Maybe 50 is just the new 50.

Meantime, *brushing myself off, icepacks in place*, I do need to report on those squirrels. Those pistachios?  They were all gone the next morning.  Curious. So I put some more out to see; they’re a bit stale but not so much so as to feel guilty over feeding them to the wildlife.

It has been very entertaining and I’ll be sorry when they’re all gone.  A little black squirrel went YEEhaw! and came leaping the moment I pulled that sliding glass door shut behind me.  So much for the picky eating of the day before.  It was, though, watching it go at it, clearly a tough nut to crack; the little thing finally grabbed it in its teeth and ran for the grass and started digging furiously. Toasted Pistachio trees, here we come!  Grow your own!

Today they’d all gotten the hang of opening them and there were strewn shells for the first time.  What quite surprised me was the bluejay swooping down and grabbing one, its jaws pried wide open around that thing as it flew off. It hadn’t deigned to give those shells the slightest glance the first day but now it was all about the panache of the pistache.

It takes the squirrels awhile to get at their Crackerjack prize inside the box. Today, they mostly didn’t want to work at it out in the open on the porch. I wanted to watch them at it, and it became a game: I sat in front of the window reading, and they would wait till the moment I was engrossed in the page and then they would sneak up, grab one, and run for the trees.  I would look up and count one shell gone and even my peripheral vision had missed it, but they’d be up there, gnawing away.  I was only entirely sure that that was what was going on when I caught one at it.

Maybe I should only go out to get the mail or paper with a bag of pistachios in hand, so the bluejays can levitate me as they try to thieve the things out of here. UP!

Borrowing another photo from last year to brighten things up a bit while impatiently waiting for my amaryllises to start budding for the season.

Someone spoke at church today about her family’s reunion held in Thailand a few years back; they’d originally booked four days on the beach, but after they’d been there a day or two, decided, you know, we’d really like to go to church; where’s the nearest?…

And so they’d left that hotel in Phuket. After they got safely further north, they felt a bump that was the earthquake that triggered the tsunami.

The hotel they’d just been in was gone.

I told the speaker afterwards of my encounter with my neighbor who had just spent a month driving relief trucks for the Red Cross after what was, for her, too, supposed to be a family vacation in an exotic spot.  How my neighbor, in the aftermath, was going from being intensely needed and involved and actively participating in the helping and in the grieving, to being home, where–nobody knew.

And somehow just in that moment as she stepped out of that car from the airport, I went outside to check my mailbox and saw her and went over to welcome her, having no idea where she’d been on her trip or why she’d been gone so long.  She threw her arms around me and sobbed the whole story.

It was easier to bear now: someone here knew.

And now that woman at church knows my neighbor knows what it was like to be there in Thailand on that day, someone in this city knew that beach too, someone right here loved those people and wonders and cares about them still.

Someone else knows.

And that is an inherently comforting thing.

I got an email the other day: the cardiologist had been wanting to keep tabs on me, post-op and all that, would I come in?

Well, okay, not that I needed to.

It was a tad chilly in his office, so I was just as glad this afternoon that that stole I was working on was long enough now to heap up in my lap and go all the way down to my foot as I worked on it.  I’d rinsed it the other night, still on the needles, to see how the pattern was coming out in real life: it was the first time I’d ever seen the stitches settled into shape in that new pattern, and I was really, really pleased.  That also gave me a much better idea of  what the length was by now.  (Nope–keep going.)

All the better to show the thing off as I work.

I knitted. It’s a given that there are other patients in a bigger hurry in that specialty than I, thank goodness, am in.  I imagined fewer cardiac episodes among calm patients making beautiful things out of soft cashmere and alpaca for their loved ones–how about we set up a knitting class in that waiting room. Yarn samples to fondle, let’s start with that.

And I knitted.

The doctor exclaimed over it as he came in and said, with a grin, “Did you start that after you got here?”

Hey, I didn’t wait THAT long!

I almost added, Go take care of someone else for another hour or so so I can finally get this finished, willya?

It was a wonderfully ordinary afternoon, and I thought, as I ran to the post office, then the pharmacy, how different it was to be able to run do such things than, say, how things were ten months ago.  I loved every minute of the freedom of it.

And I needed to pick up some milk and some soy milk on the way home for our hot cocoas.  Not a problem, the grocery store was a straight shot down that road and then left  and then home.

Nah, I think I’ll go to the one on Middlefield.

But the other one won’t involve any backtracking…

I went to Middlefield.

It was late afternoon by then and the Safeway was crowded, as groceries always are near dinner time. I was at the end of my checkout line when I saw a man standing behind me, scanning the rows, trying to figure out which would get him out the door the fastest.  Tall, a young face but hair gone already gray that reminded me that mine had gone prematurely so too–but I really can’t call mine that now at 50.

He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

I offered him to take the spot in front of me and smiled, “I’m not in any hurry. Go ahead.” He hesitated, then accepted.

After a moment, I admired his flowers. He looked away, then back, and  answered, “They’re for my girlfriend.” Then, hesitatingly,”I hope she forgives me…”

He told me he had heard someone pounding on his apartment door the night before and had had no idea who nor why and had had no intention of opening it to some…(he shook his head) out there.

Turned out it was her. Her car had been broken into, her computer was gone, she was very upset, and…

…and he hadn’t known and he hadn’t opened that door. He felt absolutely terrible.  He was hoping she would accept his gesture of peacemaking.

This time I was assuring him when I affirmed that those flowers were beautiful.  To make him feel better, I told him my brother had once stood his girlfriend up for a date–because his apartment complex was on fire.  His girlfriend, waiting and waiting, had finally driven over to his place to see what was up, feeling like something must be wrong–and when she didn’t see him in the crowd, she’d ducked past the firemen’s tape and had run in to try to save him.

(He was on the phone in the manager’s office by then, out of her sight, trying to call her to explain that he’d been trying to save his guitars when he’d suddenly realized, oh no!…  But I didn’t go into that level of detail in the telling.)

I continued, “Our mom said to Bryan, You have to propose to her. Nobody else can live up to that story.”

Huh.

It immediately hit me that I didn’t know why I’d phrased it that way.  What Mom had said, was, “You have to marry her. Nobody else can live up to that story.”

But it strongly felt like, the way I’d said it was the way this man needed to hear it, and it had just popped out the way God had intended in spite of how I of myself would have phrased it.  It felt like, stand back, Alison, I’ll take over here.

Wow.  And huh.

He asked, “And did he?”

There was much joy in my face as I smiled and nodded yes, thinking how much I adore my sister-in-law.

We talked a little about his girlfriend’s dog; how to win it over.  He remarked on its having white fur now around its muzzle, and I grinned, “Don’t we all.”  That stopped him a moment, as if he hadn’t noticed my gray hair before just then, nor, almost it seemed like, his own.

He was lost in thought and I left him to himself as his things were checked out, while the clerk, who’d been quietly listening in on the whole thing, smiled a deep smile, first at the man, then at me.

And then the clerk was suddenly calling after the man’s back–he’d completely forgotten to take his groceries with him. The salmon steak for two.  Those flowers.

It wasn’t till I was driving home that it hit me that I could just picture that man in that line telling his girlfriend that evening that nobody else should have to live down a story like that.  I could just picture him proposing over a salmon dinner and flowers.

I of course don’t know if he did: I do know that somehow, before that thought had even jelled, I came out of there feeling absolutely elated on his and her behalf for their future, so much so that I wanted to dance.

And to knit her a wedding shawl.

For two years now, I wanted a picture of looking UP at the trees from the 12th floor at UCSF’s Moffitt Hospital; this is via my phone after my camera conked out.

I love San Francisco. And as someone with terrible balance, I’m glad this time we didn’t park outside in the lot where the earth is many stories’ worth straight down from the nose of the car.

I’m in a longterm study of lupus patient outcomes, and it’s been two years (note on that link: I got sent the most beautiful picture of that newborn baby and his mom later.)  Time for me to come back for the in-person part of the study. Actually, they wanted me in July… When I told them what my surgery was going to be, Sandi, my interviewer this time, pushed the appointment way back to November over my protests that surely I’d be up to coming in sooner than that!

Wise woman.

Michelle drove.  A wise woman, too.

And by the way, Haight-Ashbury just down the hill still looks exactly like you’d expect it to, psychedelically colorful storefronts and all. Peace, man.

So I have now been pushed, prodded, bled, challenged, tested, and assured that there are no points taken off for the artwork in not drawing my lines straight in their tests.  (“Oh, I LOVED doing this in first grade!”) I now know I can spot and connect ABC’s in order faster than 123’s. Is anyone surprised?

Get strapped into a machine and swing your leg in resistance as hard as you can: set the timer, GO!

Take the words blue, green, and red, printed in varying colors, and say the colors the words are printed in, not the words themselves, line after line: set the timer, GO!

Repeat as many of this string of unrelated words as you can think of: set the timer, GO! (Note to self–if you repeat each word after she does as she presents the list, you remember fewer, not more of them: there is much to be said, in this and in all things, for simply quietly listening.)

Note that I had a mental image of a termite with its shorts hanging low, pliers stuck in one pocket, chomping on a tangerine, a nice warm summer watermelon on the picnic table in front of it and its drill at the ready to slice the thing up, trying to remember that list that just blew off in the breeze.

Then I had to explain why I was cracking up.

Actually, we did a lot of cracking up.  Sandi is a delight.

Overall bone mass, good, but 10% loss in that hip since two years ago. Yowsers! Bring on the extra hot cocoa in milk, it’s a bit chilly near the Golden Gate.

But the people are as warm as they come.