10 December: More About Samantha and Susan
Samantha and Susan slept here Saturday night, then drove to East Brunswick, NJ yesterday to introduce Sam to Susan's parents and brother. Sam turned up here a little after noon today and napped until she had to leave for the airport for her 6:00 p.m. flight to San Diego.
I'm not sure how the mechanics of all this worked since Susan lives in San Francisco and flew in and out of a north Jersey airport. Samantha, on the other hand, flew into Philadelphia International on Friday. Susan then rented a car in East Brunswick, drove down to Philadelphia Saturday morning, and she and Samantha drove up to East Brunswick Sunday morning. I guess Susan drove her back here this morning, then returned to East Brunswick from whence she may or may not be leaving today.
Susan and Samantha in Palm Springs at Thanksgiving.
Of course, I wanted to know all about how her stay at Susan's home went and, this being Samantha, got only this tidbit. They all went out to lunch on Sunday at a Chinese restaurant, a restaurant where the menu they ordered from was all in Chinese. (Samantha said they ordered far more than they could consume and, packed up the left-overs which were enough so that they ate Chinese for dinner and again at breakfast this morning. Sam and I went out for Chinese Friday night with her father and Olga because Susan never wants to have Chinese which Sam loves and misses.) At any rate, in the restaurant, when Samantha picked up her chopsticks and dug in, needing no instructions, Susan's mother wanted to know how she learned to use chopsticks so well. Samantha told her, "My grandfather grew up in Shanghai."
My husband, Walter, made the mistake of being born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany, in 1931. Error, error. My father-in-law was a German patriot who fought for Germany in World War I. He stayed far too long...well into 1938...and then had difficulty leaving. The U.S. turned him down because he had too many dependents: his wife, Walter, and both sets of grandparents. Argentina told him to send all his assets, and they'd send him visas. Vadi was a canny lawyer. He said, "Um...no," and looked around. What he found was Shanghai, China, an open city. That meant Vadi didn't need visas to enter Shanghai, he only needed exit papers from Germany. Canny lawyer that he was, he was able to arrange that, perhaps helped by the fact that he had represented the mayor of Berlin in a successful court case. Consequently, Walter lived in Shanghai from the age of eight until almost 19. He grew up there. Believe me, his children learned to use chopsticks at an early age and use them like Chinese. And she learned to appreciate the food she eats with the chopsticks. FanSee
I'm not sure how the mechanics of all this worked since Susan lives in San Francisco and flew in and out of a north Jersey airport. Samantha, on the other hand, flew into Philadelphia International on Friday. Susan then rented a car in East Brunswick, drove down to Philadelphia Saturday morning, and she and Samantha drove up to East Brunswick Sunday morning. I guess Susan drove her back here this morning, then returned to East Brunswick from whence she may or may not be leaving today.
Susan and Samantha in Palm Springs at Thanksgiving.
Of course, I wanted to know all about how her stay at Susan's home went and, this being Samantha, got only this tidbit. They all went out to lunch on Sunday at a Chinese restaurant, a restaurant where the menu they ordered from was all in Chinese. (Samantha said they ordered far more than they could consume and, packed up the left-overs which were enough so that they ate Chinese for dinner and again at breakfast this morning. Sam and I went out for Chinese Friday night with her father and Olga because Susan never wants to have Chinese which Sam loves and misses.) At any rate, in the restaurant, when Samantha picked up her chopsticks and dug in, needing no instructions, Susan's mother wanted to know how she learned to use chopsticks so well. Samantha told her, "My grandfather grew up in Shanghai."
My husband, Walter, made the mistake of being born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany, in 1931. Error, error. My father-in-law was a German patriot who fought for Germany in World War I. He stayed far too long...well into 1938...and then had difficulty leaving. The U.S. turned him down because he had too many dependents: his wife, Walter, and both sets of grandparents. Argentina told him to send all his assets, and they'd send him visas. Vadi was a canny lawyer. He said, "Um...no," and looked around. What he found was Shanghai, China, an open city. That meant Vadi didn't need visas to enter Shanghai, he only needed exit papers from Germany. Canny lawyer that he was, he was able to arrange that, perhaps helped by the fact that he had represented the mayor of Berlin in a successful court case. Consequently, Walter lived in Shanghai from the age of eight until almost 19. He grew up there. Believe me, his children learned to use chopsticks at an early age and use them like Chinese. And she learned to appreciate the food she eats with the chopsticks. FanSee