Greetings from Miami

Dear All at Millman Times,

This is a greeting from Miami. I am preparing for Thanksgiving with my family. The menu is turkey, apple pie, sweet potato and pumpkin pies and lots more food. The children then go to the park to run and get hungry and the adults subside in front of the TV and go to sleep. This is the plan.

Unfortunately, life is somewhat somber as we contemplate the economy. However, no one seems ready to conserve. Cars are still gas-guzzling, and the super-markets are full of food and customers. The conversation begins with the mantra - let us prepare for hard times.

In the meantime, all is well and we look forward to new and exciting times with a new president in the New Year.

See you soon.

Walter in Miami

P.S. Thanks to Veronica for her splendid teaching and communication skills, I am able to use the internet to say "Hello". It feels quite magical to type something and send it half way across the world immediately.

Happiness

Conversation overheard on bus.
Young man: "Belly full - me happy"
Old man: "Belly full and indigestion, me unhappy"

Homily

I am remembering the homilies of my youth, when the world was less complicated and advice was delivered from a worthy aunt, uncle or schoolmaster. I remember this example from a school master as spoken "My boy! The Lord gave you two ends to use, one to think with one to sit with. Success depends on which you choose: Heads you win, tails you lose." I have never looked back.

A writing on the wall

"It seemed to him that all the shops that served the native population - pharmacies, shoe-makers, groceries - were slowly and inexorably disappearing, replaced by slick boutiques and souvenir shops that catered to the tourists, filled with luminescent plastic gondolas from Taiwan and papier-mache masks from Hong Kong. It was the desires of the transient, not the needs of the residents that the city's merchants answered."

Quoted from "Death at La Fenice" by Donna Leon P.97 (1992)

The above paragraph is a snapshot of Venice... Does it strike a familiar note?