Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter, especially for you concern
about Margaret. She feels much better, her blood pressure,
which was dangerously low at 84/50 is back to normal.
Her blood pressure is remarkably labile, and she was over-
reacting to a dose of anti-hypertensive medication which
had previously been required to maintain control. On a
lower dosage, she feels much better and she spent the
afternoon in a lawn chair enjoying a warm, sunny Indian
Summer day. We do, in fact, have an excellent medical
facility, very close to home.

The exchange with Edith Boehme, the Nibelungenrealschulen teacher
who with her family was coming to visit us in Belmont, had its
pathetic, comical aspects. The problem has been satisfactorily
resolved. Originally Frau Boehme had e-mailed me to the effect
that she and her husband were flying to New York to visit their
daughters and would make a trip to Boston to present me with
the book her students had compiled about my family. Under the
circumstances I felt as a matter of politeness and appreciativeness
Margaret and I should return to Belmont to welcome them and offer
them a place to spend the night. Subsequently, in the course of a
telephone conversation, I learned, that they had planned a motor
trip through New England, including a visit to Boston, and would
incidentally stop in Belmont to see us.  On the 'phone I felt as
if I were talking with my maternal grandmother, a very simple and
good natured woman but averse to intellect, literature and art,
who complained to me that I inappropriately weighed her words on
jewelers' scales. (Du legst alles was ich sage auf die Goldwaage.) 
Even at age 7 or 8, I found it difficult to confide to her what
was on my mind. Frau Boehme may have reciprocated my misgivings,
because she assured me that our meeting was not essential to the
success of their trip, and encouraged us not to return from
Virginia for the purpose of meeting them. I felt much better.

So now I'm happily ensconced on this glassed-in porch which 
when the sun shines as it did today, becomes warm as if it
were summer, I endlessly writing and writing but only to myself,
reflecting what may indeed be the earliest stages of dementia,
secure that, in a world which is far more insane than I, no one
will notice.

I'm gratified for you, for Victoria and for Sammy that the private
school has ameliorated his problems. Although I consider myself
unshakably "liberal" if not radical, my confidence in public
institutions is limited, and I find a primary value of financial
resources is to enable one to circumvent or outwit them. That
goes also for the Harvard Health Service. Joanna's experiences
corroborate my own, now of 64 years' standing.

Stay well, and give my best to Ned.

Jochen