"River Waltz"

28 July 2025: Felt the need to listen to this track, which I have just loved since my friend Wilkie introduced me to it over twenty (!) years ago. Just a perfect song.

Catching up with a good friend...

8 July 2014: Liz W. ("Wilkie"), one of my dearest grad school friends, now lives all the way in Minnesota, so we don't get to see each other very often. Especially frustrating are those times when she's back on the East Coast, visiting her family in Northern Virginia and we still can't work out a get-together. Such is the case with her most recent visit. She's flies back to Minnesota tomorrow and we didn't get a chance to hang out. But we did manage to have a great phone conversation just a little while ago. Talking with her always makes me smile. And laugh my butt off. Example? I told her about my dental issues (sigh...) and, at the end of our conversation, she said, "Good luck with all things oral." I am still laughing at that sign-off.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve with Liz and Liz (Vogel and Wilkie) was a lot of fun, but sadly, we didn't take many pictures at all. Here are the only two, from early in the night, at my favorite restaurant in Shepherdstown.


Vogel.


Wilkie and Heidi.

Vogel's Defense

On June 27, a wonderful event took place in Greensboro. Vogel successfully defended her dissertation. To help celebrate the occasion, I drove down to GSO to surprise her and help celebrate. First stop, a lunch at Liberty Oak, this great restaurant downtown. Later, it was drinks at Cafe Europa--and then, well...it was a long night/morning and a great weekend overall.

A couple of pictures worth sharing...


Vogel and David at lunch.


Wilkie at lunch. She's also also recently defended (thus the happy look!).


Vogel and I at Cafe Europa.


On Saturday evening, Vogel and I stopped by David's new apartment to watch him unpack. Check out the label on one of his boxes.


Finally, a funny sign from a restaurant downtown. I wonder what a Vietnames sandwich tastes like.

Happy Birthday, Jonesy!

Sundays tend to make me a bit homesick--for my Roanoke friends, my Greensboro friends, and, of course, my family back in New York. Spending yet another weekend grading papers only exacerbates this feeling. And yet, I have to wonder how people survived before relatively cheap long-distance phone calls and, of course, emails. After all, today we really aren't ever all that far from the people we care about. I can even talk to my friend Jane (all the way in Azerbaijan) for about $0.34 a minute (given the right phone card company).

Anyway, this is all a long set-up to the main purpose of this message--to use this (relatively) new means of communication to wish a happy birthday to one of my best friends, Dr. Rita Jones-Hyde, all the way in Massachusetts. I miss ya, Jonesy, and I hope you have a great day!

Here's a photo of Jonesy and I in our "nerd glasses" (as if we needed them) courtesy of Liz W., who bought them for me to celebrate my first tenure-track job and for Jonesy to celebrate her successful defense.