Hi,

What a fun poem for St. Patrick's Day. My husband and I only have common ancestry via Ireland,, but sadly the Heintzs did not keep in touch with Jenny Hughes line, and she was gorgeous. She is my husband's paternal grandmother, and her family felt she had married beneath her heritage in County Cork, Ireland. She died before insulin and just after birth, but we have exquisite photographs. I was unable to listen to your other work, for I would awaken my husband.

I hope that you had a most joyful day and that things are going very well for you. I did want to ask if you do your own art work on your catalog items, or are these through the manufacturer. I am betting you personalize everything, for I am just seeing an artist in there.

I have not been in touch for a while, and I do not know if I told you that I had another pulmonary embolism during the hospitalization, so I wrote them a letter that would burn a cross on their uppity administration desk, for I understand medical issues like PEs, and those idiots easily could have killed me. I have asked for some validation that the appropriate staff has been disciplined, and if that means firing; Any one who would let a post surgical patient die from a blood clot when she is not antiicoagulated, and that person is telling you, screaming -- More like iit, that I was having a clot, and they talked me out of care when I needed to be taken to ICU, then I have no mercy. I gave them three lawyers with whom I am greatly attached as well as Jones/Day here in San Francisco in case they chose to ignore my letter. I only want the satisfaction of this staff knowing that you do not ignore a patient with O2 sat of 83, then have her breath deeply to get a better reading when she is crying with pain and a known clotter.  That is why it has taken me nine months to recover.

I am doing one more book show before I leave here on March 23, then in Cincinnati I have the interview on a well known radio show, and I just got my first customer for a book in China, the P.R. of China.  I still have not done an official launch, and I want to lower my Amazon price, for it is too much for a paperback.  No one is going to buy the hard covers but me.  I still appreciate so much all of the effort which you have gone through, and I do not know what life has in store for you and for your family; But I will speak prayerfully that it is something wonderful.  Your youth is definitely in your favor.

You can do anything!  Believe that, for life places road blocks, and each time I have been ready to give up, then some how I find that Mercy offers me more than I have asked.  Losing my beautiful daughter, Catherine to the lesbian world is more than my heart was able to bear, but I have my other daughter.  Had Catherine been born with testosterone like one of my cousins, I would have found a way to have understood, but to, "Become," lesbian, because you met only usurious and immature guys is a moral dilemma.  This child, now woman is beautiful, but she has chosen at age 25 to believe that all men are zeros and this decade old lady has bought a house with her.  Of course my daughter is the major funder of the house, but her dad asked her not to buy it with anyone, for we have seen nothing but breakups, and lesbians can be almost vicious to one another.  When she does not listen to Dad though, she is on her way to hitting ground zero. 

I only now feel well enough to pack my boxes for Cincinnati, and I rarely feel quite so at loose ends as to the direction which I am taking, but when the clot was confirmed sitting in my right lung, then I knew I should have had so much support and care at home.  My lungs needed to rest.

I can guess that Wisconsin is still snow covered, for Ohio got a lot of snow this March.  I am so blessed that my home will be prepared for me to come back to, and I will be so very glad to have my own quiet rooms, for Frank has decided to do the perimeter of the store diet, and I endeavor to join him, but he eats all of the time, and my husband is honestly like a bad kid with crunchy apples and things.  He likes to eat them as such the crunch is maximized, and I feel like screaming.  When you mentioned Pringles, I used to like those, and simply hate them now.  If I ate the chips and things which I love, I would gain more weight than I want to lose now, and it comes to a point where we can eat so little, but a turn around comes with aging, but I am in no hurry.  I would like to get this twenty thousand dollar healthcare deductible off our backs, so 65 next year will be alright with me.  We have been paying this amount for five years just for me; Do the math, but it was the best that I could get,  On the other hand, had we not had it we would be selling this house which I would like to sale anyway, but it is my husband's decision for now.  I have made it known though that we can hold on to this one, but when, or if we can purchase the adjacent condo, then we are going to make an honest effort, for the grandchildren will want to stay over in years to come.

All of our lives change, and I believe that some better days may lie ahead.  The book I gave away to the Chinese young man has been most rewarding, if he ever gets it, but he has perfect English, and Chinese people are learning English, because it is the international language for business.  I want to feel hopeful, for I have not felt hopeful in a long time, and there has been a dark cloud draining me.  I do not like becoming older; Who would, but I have survived, and anyone who has ever known me knows that if there is a mountain to move, if I am healthy and I believe in what I am doing, then, "Get out of my way."

For the first time, I am going to be breaking my book out on my home turf, and I am thinking of another book to begin.  Perry, you were so generous to endeavor to help me.  As Pinkhoneysuckle states, "I have known angels along the way."  That I know you is no accident, and I remember kindness all of my days.  It is the way of the Appalachian born, that we love far more than we hate.  That is why the dispora was so calculated as to how to get farmers to cities to do the back breaking work to bring on the super infrastructure.  My father believed that the government was fair, and he did not understand, the pay to not plant meant the end of life as he knew it.  God bless those men, and someday; perhaps the children of Appalachian farmers will know justice or understand how they wound up being, "The Poor White Trash."

God Bless, and May All Be Well,

Barb