December 9, 2005

Dear Jane,

It's a deal. The answer to your question is "yes".  You be my grandmother, and I'll do, to the extent of my ability, whatever is necessary to keep grandmother happy, including, as appropriate, keeping out of the way.

I thank you for your letter. It spent some time on the bureaucratic circuit, because the post office didn't approve of the zip code you assigned to Belmont (01002) so they punished us by sitting on the letter for over a week, before they finally relented with the zip code endorsement they consider correct. They obviously didn't understand that you had turned out to be my grandmother, and that accordingly Belmont needed a new zip code to correspond to that remarkable fact.

I spent much of the day shoveling snow. It's a pasttime that I enjoy more and more as I get older, the winter sport which is now appropriate to me.

Jochen