Written November 19, 2015

Hi Mom,


I usually wake up, get my coffee, and get back into bed with my laptop and coffee, pillows propped up against my back just right.
 
Ziggy jumps excitedly up as soon as Dale Sr. gets up. With great enthusiasm he wolfs  his measured 2 cups of food, gets let outside for a bit, then wants back in and comes back and jumps up on the bed with me again.

Dale Sr. comes in to say goodbye to Ziggy, saying, "Keep my side of the bed warm for me."

 I told him, "Stay right there! That makes such a cute photo that I want to send it to my mom!" and ran to get the camera.
 

My legs are quite sore, because I walked around seven and a half miles yesterday. I walked west to  Power road so that I could take the bus into Tempe. I still don't get my car back until Friday, and I just really did not want to miss another Arabic lesson, nor put off depositing that HFOG check one more day.

(There is a smaller CHASE bank which is closer to me, but I never like to go in there with a gigantic deposit, because there are too many people who go there who know me, and one of their three tellers, a bossy lady who is still there, was once  loud and indiscreet, letting the entire bank know what I should do with that kind of deposit.)

Besides, I've been saying that I wanted to be able to take part in the European Peace Walk next year, which is 6-10 miles a day, so I wanted to see if I could do it. I was pretty worn out by the time I got to the nearest bus station, and my feet and legs were sore by the last couple of miles, especially one of the muscles in my left foot.  I don't think I could do seven miles for two days consecutively.

We will not be doing the European Peace Walk anyway, as the 2016 route through parts of Eastern Europe, and there are all of the refugees trying to get through there. 

My friend Ann has decided to do yet another of the Spanish pilgrimage routes, she has found those walks really satisfying.  . She had always said that she did the pilgrimages for spiritual, but not religious reasons, but that she did feel something very satisfying when she would stop in churches along the way and sit. Now she does seem to be getting somewhat more religious; she has joined some sort of renegade "non-Roman" Catholic church, a small moving congregation which meets in rooms which are attached to different Catholic churches.
 
Here is a drawing I did of Ann, on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. I found a photo in a book about that pilgrim trail, of a person who looked rather like Ann from the back, but that photo showed the person walking in front of a stone wall. I used a combination of two other photos from the book to get the look I wanted for the drawing. Ann says she thinks she remembers just where that place was!

I had the drawing framed and gave it to her.

Tuesday was quite chilly. I kept the fire going in the Ben Franklin most of the day yesterday, though I was sitting right in front of it part of that time. It was that cold, though bright and sunny. (It's supposed to be back up to around 80 by tomorrow.) 

For three days now I have kept to my new resolve to be a cleaner, leaner person, You may remember that I worked so hard Sunday morning to get the front rooms cleaned up because I had guests that afternoon. I have not let the front rooms of the house get cluttered up, nor let the dishes pile up.  I have not eaten between meals nor eat large meals. Now I just have to keep it up!

All I did Tuesday during the day was to I start going through my large backlog of mail. I brought my planner up to date, checking off the things I had got done, and transferring the others to future dates.

I read Helen's letter and enjoyed it. She seems to live a busy, active life in that place, still doing lots of writing, and going for swimming exercise twice a week. She said that most weekends, Nancy or Margaret stops by there to take her on errands, as she decided to give up driving when she was 90.

I still haven't answered her letter, but intend to do so soon.The increased correspondence between her and me, which started when I sent her a copy of my yearly Christmas letter several years ago, has been a nice addition to my life.

I called Arizona Desert Star Automotive mid-afternoon, and they said the Taurus should be ready Friday. The new (rebuilt) transmission has been installed but one of the lines leading to it needs replacing also, and the part hasn't arrived yet.

The newer car I purchased from Lyssa's long-time friend Sarah C. is actually physically parked here now. However, I still don't have the title to it. As soon as I get my old car fixed, I'm going to go up to the DMV and ask what Sarah C. and/or I have to do to get that straightened out.

In the evening I had a party to go to, a "gals' night" at our friend Marilyn's out in Gold Canyon. I added a pretty scarf and earrings to my outfit. I walked to Starbuck's, about a mile, so that I could send you the blog I wrote yesterday, check my e-mail and check in with my weight-loss group.

At Starbucks, a group of  employees was having a lesson on the qualities of a new coffee variety. One of the regular employees had gone to a class to learn how to tout the new coffee. They all seemed to be having a great deal of fun. I asked them if I could take their photo, and later the guy who gave the lesson came over and asked if I could e-mail him the photo.

Dale Sr. picked me up outside oft Starbuck's at 6:00 PM, as arranged, and took me by the post office and out to Marilyn's house.

The party was a great deal of fun, very lively, I really like her group of friends. These are the people whom we spent Halloween weekend with in Jerome. We talked a lot about how much fun that weekend had been. It's nice that my comparatively new friendship with Marilyn has led to me knowing this group.

Marilyn was quite upset that one of the ladies who was someone whom she had not invited. Apparently this person stops by her house several evenings a week, uninvited!  I told her, "Well Marilyn, there's a word which starts with this letter," and made an "N" using unused silverware on the table. The woman on the other side of Marilyn took a juice glass and set it beside the "N" to make the letter "O".  

You can see from the photo of Marilyn and me that her hair is growing back nicely after the chemotherapy.

The only thing I regretted was that one of the couples had to go out of their way to give me a ride home. But I had asked, and I'd been assured that someone would be going my way. 

Yesterday, I walked seven and a half miles to the nearest bus stop. I was surprised that I did get to my 2:00 PM lesson on time, considering that I had to take three forms of public transportation  to get there. 

Here are a few photos from my long walk: the body of water is the canal which brings water here from the Colorado river, and the building is the building which once held Lil's Ranchway Restaurant.

A bus ride only took me to Price Road. Then I had to take the new "Light Rail" train to Rural and University, and another bus south to the Tempe library.

Still very tired, I was glad that there was enough time before the lesson to have a refreshing iced latte in the Tempe Library café.

After my lesson I took the bus back out to Power Road. I got two take-out dinners at the Thai House restaurant, and Dale Sr. came to pick me up.

Love, Lennie

P.S. I've been thinking a great deal about my tutor Hakima's situation, but as it may bore you, I have put what I write about her in the  "addendum" below

My tutor Hakima may have to move back to Jordan, where she has more family members and where she owns an apartment. She has reached retirement age, but the Arabic lessons she gives do not give her enough income to buy the medical policies she needs in addition to medicare. After an attack which put her in the hospital recently, she has a huge hospital bill she cannot pay. The lessons she gives pay her rent and groceries for herself and her aged mother, but no extra.

The family owned a large home in Jerusalem, in fact her former family home is now an Israeli court of justice. (An aunt went back to visit it and that is what she found.)

They moved to Kuwait on the founding of Israel, and she had a long career as a teacher and school administrator there. Then, during the Gulf War, Kuwait made any Palestinians leave their country because Arafat did not join with Kuwait in that war. Which is why she ended up here and other family members went to Jordan.
 
 Many older sisters in educated Arab families refrain from marriage, so that all of their income can go to putting their younger brothers through college. I think that this was what Hakima did. Of course, this leaves the older sister without children to take care of her in her old age, and dependent on other family members.
 
When  Hakima came here, she was already in her 40's. She stayed in the comfort zone of the Arab immigrant community when she and her mother came here. She started giving lessons in reading and writing Arabic to their children. These immigrant parents feel that for their children to truly understand their religion, it is necessary for their children to be able to read their holy book, the Qur'an, in the language it was originally written in. Giving these lessons gave her a subsistence income and things went well for many years, until she and her mother started having health problems.

I suspect, though I do not know, that Hakima felt that she would be rewarded for enabling so many children to understand their religion, that God would take care of her.

Dr. Shbeer, my Arabic 101 professor, on the other hand, ten years younger when she arrived, straight from Gaza and already married, earned both a teaching degree and a Phd in the US. She teaches high school geometry and also night classes in Arabic at MCC, and put five kids through college and will have retirement income. (And plenty of kids to take care of her in her old age.)

Hakima's situation seems rather sad to me. I feel bad for the part that my country played in both of the situations which caused her to leave one country and move to another (Truman's role in the beginning of Israel, and the Gulf War having something to do with her having to leave Kuwait----though it's possible that Kuwait would have made the Palestinians leave whether or not the US had taken part in that war).