1995-03-19 Woozle writes to Grandma

March 19, 1995

Dear Grandma,

I would have written sooner (much sooner), but when Anna is awake, she makes a point of insisting that at least one of us (Livia or myself) give her our undivided attention: no reading, no watching telly, no eating, often no sitting down. As a result of this, our already-thin time is divided more or less in two. So that's my excuse.

Despite this, Anna is perfect. For one thing, according to the various baby-raising books we've consulted she is one or two months ahead of the crowd in most divisions, and struggling to accelerate. She has been standing (with help) for about two months now; she laughs and giggles when in the mood, she clutches her toys, and she desperately wants to crawl. Under the right circumstances (e.g. a car baby-seat), she can sit with no assistance and play to her heart's content with whatever happens to be within reach.

Last weekend Livia brought her over to the studio (more about which below) so she could meet Willie, the 10-month-old of Lee and Brian, some friends of ours who are also working on the studio. Willie was enchanted with her, and cried when they had to be separated. Lee and Livia had a good chat while Brian and I crawled around under the house in a futile attempt to straighten the floor using twist-jacks and inadequately-sized spanners.

Ultimately, we were partly successful in that the floor is no longer quite as bouncy; this will suffice for now, but more work will need to be done later. (I have purchased a larger spanner.)

I don't know if Dad has filled you in on all this, so I had probably better backtrack and explain that I am attempting to open a recording studio. The building in which it is to be housed (which belongs to Livia's grandmother Mubbie, whom I hope you will be able to meet at Easter) was about due for some work. When that is done, we already have all the vital equipment (mixer, tape decks, etc. as well as a grand piano, which I'm very pleased to have) in place.

Unfortunately, since my time is spread so thinly, and also since I'm trying to first finish up a number of computer projects for the University of Georgia in that limited time, I only have a few hours a week to spend on the studio. This past week, too, the computer has been having temper tantrums as a result of my attempts to fix some of its annoying habits, so much of this week's ration has been spent getting back to the starting gate. I expect to be there again any day now.

All of this has put a complete halt to any music-recording I might have been doing, but I hope the opposite will be true shortly. In the meantime, at least I have a satisfactory instrument upon which to perform. "Pardon me, I'm orff to play the grahnd piahno..."

We have many new pictures of Anna, but only today were they sent off to be developed. I'm sure we'll have them back in time for you to see them at Easter.

I'm very sorry about Granddad. I'm especially sorry that neither Anna nor Mubbie will ever meet him, as I'm sure they would have gotten along famously, all of them: Mubbie being the practical sort she is (they could have talked quite a bit about carpentry and workers!), and Anna enjoying any sort of attention at all, especially the sort of good-humored attention I remember receiving from Granddad. I imagine much of how I interact with her will be shaped by the memory of those times.

I hope you are doing well in spite of adversity, and all of us look forward to seeing you in April.

All our best,