Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. Obviously, there's something wrong
with me if I've never jilted or been jilted in a life that's
now going on eighty years. You will agree with me that I'm
too old to begin now. Maybe in my next incarnation, if there
should be one.

What remains of the present life seems to be absorbed in
practical matters. The rupture of the water supply pipe from
the well to the house has drastically increased. As soon as
the submersible pump begins to run, a puddle appears in the
center of the driveway. The well-drillers who installed the
water supply about forty years ago used inexpensive,
non-standard material for which replacement fittings are
no longer available, and it seems prudent for me to try to
correct that mistake while I can, by putting into the ground
a new pipe of standard specifications. A neighbor with a back-hoe
has offered to dig the trench. Placing the pipe an making the
attachments at both ends shouldn't take very long. The lawn,
admittedly, will be badly damaged and will take a year or two
to recover.

My experience in placing the well and the supply pipe on Nantucket
makes me confident that I will be able to manage, - though if
I run into problems that I can't solve, we will be without
water, and might, just conceivably, have to find another place
to stay until the repair is made. I will report to you. Meanwhile
I haven't even begun putting in order the second floor, where
my sisters belongings which we brought from Detroit are scattered
in various rooms and in the hallway, waiting to be sorted and put
away in closets. Further in the future are plumbing repairs to
toilets and sinks which though usable don't function as they should,
and numerous broken venetian blinds that want to be replaced.
I don't know when I will have time for the writing I had planned.

I'll tell you in two or three days about the water-supply
repairs which are next on the agenda. I hope that the summer is
beginning to give you some pleasure, - and that both you and
Ned are well.

Jochen