Dear Cyndy,

Thanks for your letter. Margret Streinrück is a retired Berlin 
pediatrician married to a retired high school teacher, who became
fast friends with my sister. Margret's unmarried daughter - I forget her
name, - spent a year as my sister's guest in Detroit - my sister took
the Steinrücks on a US cross-country automobile trip, - they got lost
in Death Valley - and Margret in turn showed my sister - whose name was
Margrit - Berlin, Prag, and the rebuilt Dresden ... Now Margret is befriending
Nathaniel, who seems to feel - as you can tell from the pictures - very much
at home, and tells Klemens, he - Nathaniel - is applying for a trumpeting
job at one of the many parochial Berlin orchestras with the (optimistic) hope 
of graduating to the Berliner Staatsoper - and beyond. He is scheduled to return
on February 8. Klemens is not sure whether or not that scheduled return will
take place.

As for myself, my moods are on a roller-coaster, - a propitious environment
for writing poetry - 72 sonnets so far and two odes - . My narcicism is
culminating in new apogees. I read my poetry onto CDs and listen to myself
admiringly over and over again on the way to the grocery store and back.
Yesterday I mailed off my passport renewal application. To go where? Not to
Hell, - because I don't think it's real. I'm worried about heaven on 
account of the crowds, an ecclesiastic disneyland.

And now the breakfast oatmeal. Today is ophthalmology day. Three patients!!!
Stay well and happy. Give my best to Ned.

Jochen