Happy International Chocolate Week ...

...not at all why we are writing, of course.
Got a surprise call from Jessie in Santa Cruz last night -- just a few minutes and then the phone went dead. Jessie reports that she is well, working in the mornings at a vet's clinic and in the afternoons at a shelter for abused kids, many of them very young. Not much in the way of detail before the call was cut short; Jessie likes her work, she says, confesses to talking way too much English still -- all delivered with the breathless, words-spilling-out enthusiasm that we've all grown to love (or at least accept). And that was it.
Fall has arrived -- high of six degrees and rain today.