Anna & Kate

 Hello, sweets,

I'll be waiting for a letter from you in finely scripted calligraphy with a wax seal, please.  I'd like descriptions of life in the colonies and your newest hat;  perhaps a paragraph or two about the lady novel you've just read?  The one with the tubercular heroine and the raffish soldier?

Which makes me think, what are you reading, my dear?  Anything good?  I've been noodling around in piles of old newspapers and interior design magazines after finishing Wolf Hall, because where do I go from there?  Mom just sent a big box of books, which always makes me happy, but then sad, because she's far away now and not driving down for the weekend with all her recent reads in a grocery bag in the back seat of the car.  This batch of books had to come through snow and sleet via the United States Postal Service and while her handwriting on the front of the package is some consolation and the X's and O's on the back are lovely, I wish she was a magical Sallie-in-the-box, curled up inside and ready to jump out once I've cut the packing tape.  She's too far away.  How do you manage being so far from your own mama?

Anyway, those books -- there's Let the Great World Spin and a Jayne Anne Phillips that she liked and oh!  a newish Arnalder Indridason as well!  I think I'll start there; I'm in the mood for a grim Icelandic tale.

You?

xoxo