Scene on the Street.

Boise's street market is very different than those of Hanoi. First, of course, there's only one of them instead of one on every street; And it's only held one day a week (Saturday) during the summer.

It's held in the shadow of the capitol building.

Street performers add to the festive atmosphere.

The meat stalls offer some varieties not readily available in Vietnam.

And of course everything is hermetically sealed and sanitized for
your protection, so unlike the raw red carnage of Hanoi's meat vendor's.
Sorry, no dog.

There's no bread like this in Vietnam.

But the vegetable stalls look very similar. Except for the prices.

Despite it's white-bread image, Boise has a fairly good-sized Indian community.

And there are seven or eight Vietnamese restaurants. We have yet to try one, but they are supposed to be good. I visited an Asian market and was able to find a better brand of fish sauce than anywhere I looked in the bay area, so that craving is under control.

P.

Sweet Little Wock n' Woller.

Yesterday, as Luciya and Emily were getting ready to leave the house, L. stood by the door for quite a while, despite her mom and dad urging her to get in the car. She was doing something with her fingers. Finally, she got them arranged just so:

Then she said: "Wock on, Dadda," and left the building.

Neither John or Emily have any idea where she picked that up.

P.

Our New (To Us) Lexus!

The day we arrived, John and Emily left us with the kids for an hour to run some errands. Several hours later, they returned with a brand-new minivan. They told us that their old car, a ten-year-old Lexus SUV was too small for their needs and that the were giving it to us!

We were (and still are) stunned by their generosity. Thank you so much, John and Emily!
One less thing we have to worry about.

P.

61 in Hanoi. 62 in Boise.

I turned 61 in Hanoi, now I've turned 62 in Boise. Not at all where I thought I'd be a year ago, but that's the adventure of being alive these days. We hope to be in Boise when I turn 63, but who knows?

John and Emily treated me to a birthday lunch at a sweet restaurant
on the Boise River.

For dinner, O. and I had dinner at the Stagecoach Inn, a Boise institution since 1959. It was exactly what I was looking for--a real old-time Idaho steakhouse with huge martinis, perfectly grilled steaks, baked potatoes with sour cream and chives, iceberg lettuce salad with horseradish-inflected thousand-island dressing, and some of the best onion rings ever. I had a prime rib end cut that was big enough for dinner plus three lunches. A birthday gift that kept giving.

P.

Out of the Mouths (and Noses) of Babes.

So yesterday we were driving through downtown Boise when a little voice pipes up from the back seat: "Granpa Peter, would you like my booger?"

P.

From Babylon to Boise.

Vietnam to Korea to Canada to California to Idaho in just over a month. It's been a complex journey, both physically and emotionally. But here we are:

We may be hurting financially, but look at the riches we have.

John and Emily have plenty of room for us on their one-acre lot.
John's property management business is doing very well, and he hopes
to be able to hire O. to help him in the not too distant future.

The weather is hot, but not at all humid. And the sky is huge
and filled with spectacular cloud formations.

And then there are the two main reasons we're here.

P.

Bacchanalia by the Bay.

After leaving Southern California, we spent a week in the Bay Area visiting family and friends. We spent most of the time with my sister, Catherine. She and her husband, David, cooked us some fabulous meals and we reciprocated by attempting to recreate one of our favorite Vietnamese dishes--bun cha. It turned out quite well. We went to the movies with David's sister, Drew. It was almost the year anniversary of the murder of her daughter. It was good to see her and to catch up with everybody in depth.

Next, we visited our good friends Steve and Michele.

Their garden was at the height of late summer florescence.

They cooked us a delicious pulled pork dinner. we ate and drank and talked until very late.

Next, we visited the Pereiras, who, as usual, cooked us an elaborate, exquisite meal.

We watched the sun sink into the fog as we contemplated the eternal question:
Is this a great country, or what? It was good to be back.

The next day, we went into San Francisco and had a wonderful dinner and visit with Doug and Amy and Amy's dog Roxie. The next day, we lunched in North Beach, sipped an Irish coffee at the Buena Vista, shopped the Haight, then walked all the way across town into the fog belt to visit our friends Beth and Howard. We had dinner with them and our friends Dory and Jim, and barely managed to cut the festivities short enough to catch the last BART train to the east bay.

It had been a mad whirl of eating, drinking, talking, and laughing, but it wasn't enough, so we spent the last two days of our visit with my sister doing more of the same. By the time we hit the plane to Boise, we were ready for a break, but of course more festivities awaited us on our arrival in the land of Famous Potatoes.

P.

Bye-Bye, Balls.

On our last day in Southern California, we hung out with the Balls.

We fixed a great brunch, which we consumed al fresco.

Syona went to a friend's birthday party, but the rest of us

stayed poolside, enjoying each other company.

It was a lovely finish to a wonderful visit. How we miss their beaming faces.

P.

Swami's, How I Love Ya, How I Love Ya, My Dear Old Swami's.

As part of our last few days in southern California, we decided to picnic at Swami's Beach. It's one of our favorites, a swimming and surfing beach beneath the high bluff housing the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple--an old-time S.C. landmark featuring lovely meditation gardens surrounded by whitewashed walls and gaudy, gilded minarets.

The day was warm, but overcast, and the beach was uncrowded.
The surf was relatively light, though there were occasional large sets.
We swam, body-surfed and boogie-boarded until late in the afternoon.

Even after we were done swimming, the girls wanted to frolic
in the waves. They are practically fearless swimmers,
diving like dolphins beneath even the largest crashing breakers.

I remembered the fun I had growing up at the beach, playing and swimming in the ocean nearly every day during the summer. It seemed a fitting end to our sojourn here--a way to say goodbye to a place I deeply love as we prepare to make a new life in a very different environment.

P.

Meet Joe.

Joe is the newest member of our family.

He speaks low and cool, "Yo, I'm Joe."

Joe's got attitude.

And a certain ineffable coolness that subtly influences those around him.

He seems to be a friend of Devon's, though we've never actually seen them together.

P.

A Major Birthday.

My mom just reached her 95th birthday. We had a party to celebrate.

Much of the family attended.

The birthday girl's favorite cake: chocolate almond.

Her children and their significant others: my older sister, Robin
and her husband Glenn, my younger sister, Catherine
and her husband David, my older brother, Burt with
the world's evilest dog, Oliver. Oliver later bit David's finger
in a rather unfamilial display of pique.

Grandchildren and great-grandchildren: Teresa and Devon,
in the back row, my nephew, Mark and his two children,
Molly and Glenn, Matthew, Spencer, standing behind
his mom, my niece, Teresa, and my niece, Kristin. Emma
and Syona are leaning on the birthday girl's chair.

It was a beautiful day, capped by a lovely sunset.

It was wonderful to see everyone after a year away. My mom is in exceptional shape, lucid and mostly cheerful, though her stamina isn't great. She tires easily, but she was happy to see everyone. She gave me a piece of advice that made me sad, though. "Don't live into your nineties," she said, partially in jest. "There's no point. You can't do anything." And I understand the point. She has had an interesting and active life, traveling the world well into her eighties. Now she can no longer travel, or even walk far. She can still read, which she does, prodigiously, but her world is far more circumscribed than she would like.

P.

The Joys of Family.

Our decision to move to Vietnam caused some tensions in our relationship with Teresa and John. We have always been very close, and our departure raised many issues that we couldn't resolve long distance. So our return, while joyful, was not untempered by trepidation. Over the first week at Matthew and Teresa's we had many honest conversations, and many tears were shed. At last the barriers crumbled and we came together again at an even deeper, sweeter level.

Then the fun really began.

We relaxed by the pool during the warm days. Perfect temperatures, low humidity. Paradise!

Stork girl and her constant companion kept us entertained.

In the cool, near-desert evenings, we roasted marshmallows over an open fire.

We cooked and ate and drank and laughed.

O. reveled in the company of her three oldest granddaughters.

Her sisters organized a reunion. While I visited my mother, younger
sister, and brother in Laguna, O. spent three days reconnecting
with her beloved siblings.

How we missed all this! Now we really feel that we're back.

P.

The Joys of Parenthood.

John: (Very casually, passing 7-month-old Mirabel to Emily) Look up her nose. Is that carrot?

Emily: (Equally casually) Yep, carrot. From last night.

P.

Take the Long Way Home.

To reduce our exposure to jet lag, we flew first to Seoul, where we arrived at about 5:30 AM. We spent a day and a half there, and the culture shock was intense.

It was like being suddenly back in L.A. The streets were clean,
the traffic was orderly, and the prices were high. We took
the subway everywhere, and it was great. They even had
videos instructing people not to push their way into the car
before others can exit, and people actually stood aside in orderly
lines waiting for the cars to empty before filing aboard.
Astonishing!

There are no clubs like the Sexy O Bar II in Hanoi.

In America, we're worried about the banks, but this takes it to a new level.

Krispy Kreme! McDonalds! DKNY! Givenchy!
Every famous brand name, from high to low, is there.

Thronged by troops of school girls with allowances to burn.

Even Pleasant Goat has got a hoof in the door.

From Seoul, we flew 10 hours to Vancouver, Canada. We had a better view of Russia than Sarah Palin's. The sun never completely set. It sank to the horizon, where it lurked for several hours, before rising again. At that point, we were over Alaska and enjoyed a staggering view of the fjords and glaciers before landing in beautiful British Columbia.

O. had taken a sleeping pill, but she mistimed the dose and was so groggy on arrival she couldn't walk straight. She kept walking into things and repeatedly asked me very odd questions. Somehow we found our way to the metro, took a train into downtown Vancouver, cabbed to our hotel, and stumbled into our room (after an hour's wait in the lobby for the room to be made up), where we slept for most of the day. O. remembers little of this.

In the evening, we walked around the harbor, had a lovely meal at an outdoor cafe with a stunning view of the bay and the surrounding mountains. In the morning, we flew the last couple hours to L.A.

After the long, complicated, exhausting journey, it was wonderful
to experience the simple joys of family again.

P.