Patty's First Cousin Laura
Patty responding to Laura Kalpakian – March 11, 2021
Hi Laura,
Congratulations!! I am thrilled for you! Please send me any further info about the book - title in Mandarin or who will publish it and I will do what I can with my contacts. In fact if I can get my hands on a couple of physical copes of the book (can I order them on line) maybe you can sign them and I can send copies to the two principal/superintendents who are very powerful in Xi’an. That might help with PR. The main lady is well known for her emphasis on English education and the students from that school are regularly among the highest scores in China on the college entrance exam.
I am slowly doing better. I can, at least, breathe better but still struggle with the uncontrollable blood pressure. On a day like yesterday most of the day all was well, but during a zoom discussion (so stressful-ha ha) it jumped to 180/111 and the medication I need to use at that point didn’t take effect for over 90 minutes, while usually working in 20 minutes. In theory I could take a second pill, but even without that my blood pressure dropped to 90/56 at 8 pm. So it is a bit of a rollercoaster.
Jenk has been working on your question of trying to find places in Adana without success, but I will try this weekend. I will let you know if I have any more luck than he did.
In the middle of all this a man came by and wanted to buy our 1990 RV that has been mostly parked the last couple of years. So we cleaned out 31 years of memories and things from the lives of our kids, friends and family- much of which is currently in our kitchen in crates. It was a little bittersweet but it is the right time. In the 1990’s we spent nearly every summer in the RV (we came up to see you one summer in it with a French girl) plus endless trips to Texas, cross country skiing in the winter etc. Friends lived in it after the Northridge Earthquake when their home was severely damaged etc. Jenk and I continued to travel in it until about 2013, after which we just went to the mountains. So Monday night we ordered sushi and ate a last meal together in the RV in our driveway. ❤ ️ 🎈 .
Today makes one year since I started staying home. In March 12 I took Jenk to Burbank airport for him to fly to Lubbock to help his sister as she had a heart procedure. I got my hair cut and went to the store. ((My hair - the part that didn’t fall out with my post COVID syndrome - is now as long as it was when I was in college. I hope to fix this SOIN!). The next day the schools closed and I didn’t see Jenk for one month. But all in all we have no complaints. We older folk have had it so much easier than many younger and out of work people.
Please say hi to your mom for us. Will it be ok to send flowers for her birthday? Does she have room in her facility?
Be well Laura,
Love,
Patty
From Laura to Patty—
My agent writes this morning that MEMORY INTO MEMOIR has sold Chinese rights. This is my first sale in China since COSETTE all those years ago, so I am delighted. The publisher is Beijing Guangchen.
Ironically they paid more than University of New Mexico Press paid for the book itself, but acedemic presses are notoriously ill=paying so that wasn’t hard to top.
I don’t know if it will exist as an actual book, but it will for sure be an ebook. Patty, you can tout it to all your students there in China!
Patty, are you feeling better? Is this past year the first in DECADES that you have stayed home all year?
love to all,
Laura