33 and a Third

Luisa sent me [Reid] some email from an internet cafe in Argentina and said I could post it. So .. here it is!

Reid

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Date: Thu Sep 25, 2003 19:46:33 Canada/Eastern
To: rae@tnir.org
Subject: hey - tnir’s down!

hi there

well, don´t know whether val called you the other night to say we got here ok, but you can tell from this email that we did! plane trip went fine. and my cousin’s son-in-law has an internet cafe. how cool is that. but tnir is down so i can’t sign on. (this bloody keyboard is driving me crazy - all the special characters are in different spots)

weather is cool, you{d like it (not gonna fix the characters any more) but i{m a little cold. my family was very surprised to see tony and i as they were expecting my dad. most of the family came by last night for dinner. and it was fantastic to see them. my aunt and cousin stella were so happy to meet us, we got tons of hugs! the city is way cool — very base feeling, if i could explain it. everything is kind of like the danforth. wish you could see it.

miss you though. wish you were here. (tony{s reading over my shoulder and complains that it is not at all too cool, that he{s quite comfortable. but i find it comfortable outside, and strangely enuf i{m very cold inside the house. i think because it{s all made of ceramic)

please tell the boys i miss them much, and give them each a big hug and kiss. i don{t think i can can get to a computer too often. anyway, haven{t really told you much, but there{s no time. altho, honestly, we haven{t had much time to do much.

so — post this if you like — you can tell debbie i{ve bought here a post card, and for some reason, i keep thinking {presents, presents, david, presents}. hmmm. wonder why…

love you!!!
xoxoxoxoxo!!

Well — off to Argentina on Tuesday!

I’m VERY excited. My mother, brother and I are going together and we’ll be staying with my mother’s sister. She and my uncle have been to Canada twice, so I’ve met them. But I’ve never met my cousins or their families. My cousins, Stella and Maria, are about 10-15 years older than I am, and have children in their twenties. Stella is a grandmother! Maria’s son is getting married on Saturday. I suppose we invited ourselves to the wedding.

In spring, my mother had received a call from my aunt, and she let her know about the wedding. My mother decided she really wanted to go, but my father wanted to stay home. So she asked me if I would want to go. Duh. Of course! We told my brother, and now it’s the three of us! It’ll be nice to have my brother there. The two of us can do some sightseeing — I suspect the only sightseeing my mother will want to do is of her family. I’m sure she’ll just want to spend time all her time with her sister and nieces.

My mother didn’t tell them about my brother and I going. She let them assume my dad was going. She wants to surprise them. I’m a little concerned about that, in case they’re tight for space and hadn’t planned for 3 people being there instead of 2. But my mother insists it’ll be fine.

There’s a stopover in Sao Paulo (Brasil) for 8 hours (ouch!). We tried to stay for a day or two to visit with my father’s cousins, but it would have cost us way too much. I think my mother called them though, and they’re coming out to the airport to try to spend some time with us. I think they won’t let us out of the restricted area of the airport. Hopefully, they’ll let them in. (Otherwise, we’ll just wave at each other through a window. If there is a window.)

Buenos Noches!

This is probably making the e-mail rounds. I found it fascinating

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t
mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is
taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses
and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed
ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.
Ceehiro

I seem to get myself into scrapes like this all the time…

There’s a portion of my cedar hedges which divide our property and the neighbour’s. They seem to get covered in some sort of ivy/weed and I’ve been waging war on them for the last couple of years. I love my cedar hedges, and one year I left them and they got swallowed with this weed. I thought it might kill the hedges, so now I try to get rid of them.

Occasionally, I’ll burrow through the cedar hedges and pull out the long skinny stems. I get a little more aggressive when I see it’s about to go to seed and I end up being scratched a bit by the hedge. Since our neighbour’s moved out of their house and it lies empty, I’ve been going over to the other side to try to get at the weeds. There’s one spot that’s particularly bad on my side, and on the neighbour’s side there’s a huge bush of raspberries that prevents me from getting at the weeds. I’ve been over there a couple of times during the summer, but the raspberries are covered in thorns and I can’t get through them.

Well, today I was at it again — I could see the thousands of seeds ready to drop and I couldn’t stand it. I tried to reach way out and grab at them, but I fell right over into the raspberries. Bleh. Well, now I’m covered in scratches. (What the heck, since I was already in there, I went right through and got those damn weeds.) Should have worn long pants and sleeves, but that would take forethought.