Dear Nikola,

Thank you for your letter. Good to hear from you. Would like very much
to see you this weekend, any time; you say when, but let's agree on a
specific time before you come, so I can be sure to be here.

It turns out, I've been worrying about the wrong thing: your violins
under my care, rather than yourself. But I infer the violins are o.k.,
and I'm relieved that you are feeling better.

Thanks also for the invitation to the Lowell House Opera. I would like
to be able to accept it; but the logistics are difficult, the transportation,
the crippled hips, the toilet constraints, - and most significant though
inapparent, the anxiety about life's ending which my very senile appearance
would provoke in the Lowell House pre-schoolers who are as yet unacquainted
with the (downward) course of life.

Something, perhaps to talk about this weekend.

Jochen