LETTERS HOME: A STAR IS BORN

10th February, 1993

Dear George and Theda,

It's me again. Well, you won't believe the latest news. John A. Lane (Mr. I-Hate-Getting-Up-In-Front-Of-People) has agreed to be in a play! Our Little Theatre group here, headed by my friend Julie, is doing a vampire spoof this spring called Out For The Count, and they called and begged John to take the part of the professor, Hertz Van Hyer. He started getting queasy about five minutes after he said yes, and I'm sure it's only going to get worse as we get closer and closer to showtime. I will be helping with costumes and make-up, and you can be sure I will record this monumental occasion!

Austin's teacher was in the play as well, which Austin thought was a hoot!

Herr Van Hyer seems to be grinning in most of the pictures. Not sure that's what Director Julie had in mind.

The Cast

The Crew

The other exciting news is that John managed to win first place out of 18 entries in this year's Super Bowl Chili Cook-Off (last year he came in second). He named his recipe "Three Fingers Chili" and went to the party with his hand wrapped up in an ace bandage, with three of his fingers hidden, just as a joke. Well, it's a week later, and people are still coming up to me wanting to know how John's poor hand is! (It was a blind taste test, so none of this had any influence on who won.) What I want to know is, if he's such a fabulous cook, why can't I get him to set foot in the kitchen the other 364 days of the year? He's decided that next year, to be fair to everyone else, he will just make something funny or unusual -- like maybe using squid sliced into little rings and calling it @$$-hole Chili. (Hey, you raised him, not me!)

We did something very brave and adventurous last week, but Carolyn is the only one who will fully appreciate it, since she is the only one who has been here and seen it for herself. We actually went with three other couples and ate dinner at a restaurant in Lhok Seumawe!!! The amazing thing is that it was a Chinese restaurant, and the food was quite good. Even more amazing? Not one of us got sick afterwards! We also discovered that Lhok Seumawe is a much nicer place after dark -- you can't see all the dirt and grime, and it looks almost festive with all the twinkle lights and lots of tables set up out on the sidewalks. We had a surprisingly good time.

This morning John left for a school in, of all places, Bali. Talk about a boondoggle! I was tempted to go with him, but it is only a two day school, and it takes two days to get home with an overnight layover in Medan. Also, only Indonesian engineers were going with him, and none of them were taking their wives. But I WILL get there some day! I can hardly complain though, after getting to go to Hong Kong with Carolyn in January. We're all getting pretty excited about going back to Penang in a few weeks when Kathy gets here. This weekend Alexis is going back to Medan, with all the older kids from her school, for an exchange weekend with the International School there. They always have a great time, mainly because they get to eat at Pizza Hut and go to a movie or go bowling, which is a really big deal for kids living on a compound in the middle of the jungle!

Well, guess that's all for now. Only 14 more weeks 'til we hit the states! But then, who's counting?