Episode 9 - SVW Tapes - 25th January, 1981

Well, hi, here we are, 25th of January, 1981. And I'm just so far behind with letters, tapes, and everything, I just don't know where to start. And of course, in a couple of hours, the hostages will arrive, and wherever the heck they're arriving, West Point or something, or they're going to West Point once they arrive. And of course, that has taken precedence over everything in the last month, I guess, we all know that. And the 20th of January was not only Father's birthday but was the day of the inauguration plus the day that the hostages were released, so it became a very important day to all. I don't know, I've been flat out because we've been working, and it seems to be a real bad month as far as us getting the flu. Last year I was sick, the year before Bev was sick, this year hasn't been any different. The children have all had colds. Rachael's had a couple of days off school. I've had a cold twice now. John's had it twice. It just seems to be going around in circles. Let me see how this tape's going. Well, maybe I should start with telling you... or I can't tell you how enjoyable it was to receive your parcel, and we had it in plenty of time. It was just that for some reason my letters kept coming back to me. You know, I've never had a letter returned for shortage of postage, and twice the letters that were telling you the parcel arrived both came back. I was beginning to tear my hair out. And of course, we were all busy before Christmas and everything, and I was real disappointed to find out that you didn't find out until you got back from the beach. But of course, you left before Christmas, and that didn't help mail-wise, I suppose, because I've found... I'm still getting Christmas cards from people from New Zealand this late in January, some of which that came by sea, you know, that had been posted months beforehand. And I got one Christmas card dated 18th of December in Atlanta and got it after Christmas from Cathy, a friend of mine. So the postages were all slow, but it'll start catching up again, I guess. But it all arrived, and we were real excited, and I think I... I've got a half-completed tape from the kids with violin music and goodness knows what on it that I will try and get completed tonight and send off with this one. The kids had planned to send it to you for Christmas, but really I just... it just all got out of hand right at the last minute, and as usual, January escapes everybody again. Although it's not the summer like it is at home where you're all on holiday, it's somehow or another, it's a fast month too.

Anyway, we've had very cold weather but no rain. It's been just amazing, freezing temperatures, you know, from time to time at night, but beautiful crystal clear days. And it's been so dry that, you know, we haven't had any ice at all much. It's been very, very good, beautiful, beautiful sunny days. Anyway, the present from you for Christmas, the kids just loved the elephants. I think the photos will explain that. And when you wrote your letter dated the 12th that I got yesterday or the day before, it didn't, to me, seem to register that that was the letter I posted you after Christmas with the photographs. It seemed like that must have been a letter that went to you before Christmas because you didn't mention the photo of Rachael, but maybe it was that one that you got, I don't know. Anyway, they just loved the elephants. Everything was just great. The soap, I just loved the Shiseido soap, I always did like that, and the perfume and the earrings. And I mentioned to you the disaster with my sapphire earrings, but then that all came right again, and the earring was found. And I have since made the shortbread for the little guy next door, and so all was back in order there. But the presents were great, and the candy's been terrific, and you know, it was just great. And all the books were perfect, no books were duplicated or anything. I think you can see by the photos that the kids had a real good time, and they got lots of presents and were very happy with Christmas.

They've been flat out, of course. We're back into the, you know, general schedule again. And Maitland's now doing more outside activities as well. He's taking swimming lessons, winter swimming lessons at the 'Y' after school two days a week. Rachael has gymnastics. He does that Mondays, and Wednesday she has gymnastics Wednesdays. Thursday she has choir. We're not playing soccer at the moment; we don't play soccer in the winter. We play in the fall and the spring, there are two seasons. And Saturdays are just about wiped out with violin lessons for an hour and a half, and then theory lessons for an hour and a half Saturday morning. And while we're doing that, Maitland goes to the 'Y' to take a self-defence class, which he didn't want to do. I asked him if he'd like to, no, he didn't want to do it when he was older, he told me. And I went ahead and enrolled. And the first day I took him down there, I had to come pick him up between Rachael's music and theory class, and he came out, and he's just beaming and wanted to flip-flop me over. Tell me all the things that he'd learned. And the guy that is taking them is a Frenchman, and he's been teaching them a little bit of French as well into the bargain. So he's really doing very well at that. If he gets through this class, which is just a winter class, he'll then go into a full-fledged, I suppose, Karate or whatever they call it, Judo class. And he told me that he needs to have an outfit at that point, which is $25, a little gown thing. And he's pretty keen on the whole thing, so I think he'll continue with that, and it'll be real good for him. And this course works out very well because it's Saturdays, which he can't do when he's playing soccer, but if he gets through this, then the full course is during the week twice a week and Saturdays, which they let them miss the Saturday if they're into soccer because they can always do both, although some Saturdays, they will be able to, depending on the time of their game. Tells me that the teams go away and challenge teams out of town, so he's looking forward to really doing well at that.

Rachael is doing real well with the violin, and I don't know whether Marsha sent you a photo that Walter took at Christmas, but Christmas night we had a little, you know, solo performance with Rachael. And of course, she had wanted... all the kids at school are wearing these fake nails, and I told her she couldn't have any of those. But anyway, she got some in her Christmas stocking. Well, they're the most holy... the blacks all love to have long fingernails, you know, and they wear these fake nails, which are just hideous anyway. I'd thrown some real cheap dollar ones into her bag, and she only wore them the one day. The novelty wore off; the damn things were more falling off than they were on. But the night that Walter and Marsha and Bev and Jack and all them were here Christmas night, these goddamn nails on... she insisted on giving them a violin solo with these silly long nails on. And I got the photo from Marsha just yesterday that Walter had taken, and here's Rachael playing the violin with these hideous nails on. Anyway, but she's doing really well and enjoying it, that's the main thing. And the class she's taking during school time, that's aside from the class that we take on a Saturday, that at Northside High School, that's a fine arts class which... for the public schools, but it's, of course, run separately from their own school. She does the hour and a half of music, which is the Suzuki method, which is different to the... she's learning to play just the classic method at school. And I thought maybe it'd be a problem to her, but I spoke to her music teacher at school, and she said no, that Rachael was keen enough that it would not hinder her in any way. And there's a few things probably that overlap and do not agree upon, but we sort those out. And she enjoys it. But you know, it's like anything. The third graders start playing the violin, and Maitland... sign up, you know, there's 10 of them sign up. And of course, by the time your first term's finished, half of them have dropped out. And Rachael is about the only one left in her class that is still going to violin. Apparently, some of them, their parents think they're still going, but they take the violins to school and such each Wednesday, Friday, but don't necessarily front up at the class. And Mrs Fletcher, the teacher, has to go find them. And she's just so proud of Rach because she's always there on time, and she's keen. So she really likes it, which is just great, you know, that's half the battle. I wouldn't keep her, you know, going unless she was enjoying it. So we have two violins at the moment because we rented one, and you get one free from the School of Art, Northside School of Arts, just until May that you can't have it during the summer. So she's using the smaller one from them. I'm using the other one because I have to learn as well. But we're really enjoying it.

And the hour and a half theory is just fantastic. She has this teacher called Mr. Thompson, and he's, I guess, about 24 and real young, and he's fair, and he's good looking, and he's just got it all over those damn Catholic nuns that I had. And he makes it interesting. I wouldn't miss his theory class for anything; he's just terrific. And each second week, we have one week on theory and one week on musical history, and he's taught them so much. And last week, you know, they finally... he has done all the periods: Renaissance and Baroque and so forth with them. And he noted to the children that there was only one American amongst all the composers that he had up on the board, you know, Copland was the only one there. And they didn't understand why there was only one American anyway. But then this week, he asked them who Leonard Bernstein was, and they all say, "We don't know." And he's real cute. He says to them, you know, how kids always say, "Good afternoon, Mr. Thompson," in a whiny sort of way? Well, he's always one step ahead of them. And when he asks them a thing like that, he always says, "We ain't know!" before they do. And they all go into hysterics. And he says to them things like, "Now, I have ways of making you learn these things." And they all go, "There are?" And he says, "We chop off your arms and beat you with them." And then he says, if they don't know about something or the parents have never told them, he blames the parents, and he says, "Now, I have punishments for the parents who have not exposed their children to this kind of thing, their classical music." He says, "You bring them along next Saturday AM, we have punishments for them." And anyway, he said, "Well, you know who was Leonard Bernstein?" And nobody knew. And he said, "Have you heard of West Side Story?" And nobody had heard of West Side Story. And he starts... oh, he puts his head in his hands and, you know, pulls his hair out and all this stuff. So then he starts to sing a few things, you know, "Maria," and they all go, "Ah!" And then he does things like, "Have you heard of the Surprise Symphony?" And they all go, "No." And so he goes, "Buddy bum, buddy bumpty!" You know, they all jump out of their seat. Oh, he's really terrific, and he's just got them learning so much. Between that and choir with Meredith, because she teaches the kids quite a bit about theory and notes and stuff there, Rachael's just picked up theory very easily. She's got the whole thing together. And a lot of the kids have got pianos, which, of course, she doesn't have. She goes down and looks at Sunny's and sees where middle C is and the scales and stuff. But he gives them little tests on how many notes, you know, up to be flat and down to... the sharps and flats and stuff. And she's just got... she understands the whole thing, it's terrific. So that'll make a big difference in her understanding of the music. And we had a little solo over in the music... violin class on Saturday, and the kids are doing pretty well, and the teachers are all thrilled with everybody. But they all played, you know, and Rachael was the only one that played without a mistake. But not only was she without a mistake, her music sounded good, you know. So it's just... she seems to... which is part of whether you've got a good sound of the violin, of course, is the posture. And she seems to be... position... she seems to have been able to hold the violin really nicely, so that's great.

And well, Christmas was very nice, you know. We all had a tree, and it was all very exciting, but you know, it's such a busy time, and everything goes bananas. The shops are so damn full of people and everything. And then it was all over and back to school and so on and so...

I've been working. Patsy is just a lunatic. I mean, you just wouldn't believe how many people are after that woman. She never pays an account. Just awful. She's got lawsuits against her. I mean, I just can't begin to tell you what a mess that that woman is in. But she handles it all. And she's off to Egypt. She left for Egypt last night with a group. And she'll be wandering around the office saying, "Oh, I'm just so depressed, I'm so depressed. I just don't want to go away, and I don't need this trip," and everything. And the next thing, someone will call, and she'll be chatting away to them, and she'll tell them, "Oh, I'm off to Egypt, I'll be floating down the Nile on Saturday," you know. And... but they just... she really is a wild woman. I mean, that place is in such a mess. She never throws anything out, but she starts a new file for just about everything that ever comes in, so there's files everywhere all over the office. And if you say, "Well, I can't find it," she's like, "It's there!" And it is there, but it's just simply a matter of putting your finger on it or where, you know? It's just amazing. She's got everything in the office she could possibly imagine, from computers to typewriters that, you know, will type a letter and then type 100 of them the same, and all that stuff, much of which is not used a great deal. But she's just unreal. I mean, to me, it seems like she's bordering on being taken over at any moment. She's forever getting in trouble with the ATC, the Air Traffic Conference, for not paying her draft on time because they debit you. You have to give them authorization the week before, and they debit you automatically. And inevitably, we're running around two days after the thing was supposed to go through, looking for another $5,000 bucks or something to cover the bank because if they bounce, they cost you $100 a time. And it wouldn't be the first time Patsy's had to pay that. I mean, that business has run at a loss ever since she's had it, from what I can gather. It's just a great tax loss. And... but she sold three Mercedes last week through this other company called Four Wheels. But she never gets ahead of it, never will, and has no hope of ever doing so.

Marsha and Walter, as usual, been good to the kids. Marsha gave them the cutest little thing. She was disappointed; she said she thought maybe Maitland was too young. But they were those rocks with the... a little big rock with a whole lot of little rocks on top, and they've all got little eyes on them, little plastic eyes, you know, that move. And there was a thing up, and it's got "Rock Concert" written along the top. Really cute. And she thought Maitland might have been a bit young, but he enjoyed it. It was great, actually. Rachael's choir mistress had been given one, and it had the choir mistress up front and all the little choristers in the... you know, looking at her, and all the eyes were on her. And she thought it was a very good example... No, what a choir should be, that they're all looking at her. She was going to keep it up in front of them all the time.

Well, I guess you said David and Dorothy had a quiet Christmas. Well, we did too, really. And we didn't do a whole lot. We messed around and enjoyed a few things that were on round town and went to a few movies with the kids and stuff. And what else have you mentioned that's been big? Oh, the Thomas thing really is just unbelievable, isn't it? I don't know. It's just got completely out of hand, the amount of money involved and everything else. I just sort of can't quite see why it had to be settled up quite the way it was, but you sort of lose track of it a bit here, even though the clippings explain it. I just can't see why they had to go a complete turn... I mean, it's just absolutely unprecedented in New Zealand legal circles or whatever. It's just unreal. But I don't know, it's certainly going to cost plenty to fix that lot up. And certainly, there's a lot of ill feeling with the police and so on.

Well, of course, you know, we're now... 17th murder... 14 are definitely murders, three of which are still missing. And one was just last week happened again. And it's just getting to the point where it's ridiculous. Do you know, you've heard of Donahue? He's one of these interviewers that's on in the mornings, nine o'clock in the morning every day, and bit like Merv... Well, this aside... I was saying that Merv Griffin... Johnny Carson type guy, anyhow, he came to Atlanta last week and did one of his programs on this missing and murdered children thing. I never heard anything so ridiculous. I don't know if it's been on television yet, I don't think it has. But he came into town saying that there were all kinds of questions about this and that he felt like he should get to it and find out what's going on. And he said that he had the feeling, like many people outside of Georgia do, that there's some white guy tearing around murdering black children. But he said now that he's done the program, he realizes that he's cleared up a few false ideas that he had and that other people had, and that he doesn't really feel like it's a white guy. As far as I'm concerned, it couldn't possibly be a white guy. That many kids do not go off with a white person when we've had that much publicity about it or anything without kicking up a fuss. It's got to be a black person, I believe. And he said he came in with these false ideas; he now goes away not knowing what to think because really, it's very complicated. The cases definitely do not have a similar pattern as they did with the, you know, the Yorkshire Strangler... Ripper or whatever it was calling himself in England recently. They just have got no real... I guess they must be something alike, but honestly, you wouldn't believe it. Just the murder that... oh no, just a couple of weeks ago, they found two bodies, skeletons, that'd been there a while. And it was two kids that had gone missing last summer, and they found the bodies real near one another. I can't remember now whether the two children... that the two bodies were... disappeared around about the same time or not, which is interesting anyway. They find these two things. Well, not only are the cops there, the Atlanta cops, the FBI were with them. Damn me if the medical... you know, the pathologist can't find enough damn information in bones and stuff. Says there are things missing, I mean, you know, important things like one skull was missing. And so he heads off, high tails it down to the scene of where they found the bodies himself and scouts around and finally finds significant parts to enable him to do, you know, the research to find out who the hell these people were. And of course, he just kicks up Bob's-a-dying. He's going to sue the government and everybody else because apparently the cops must have just roared in there and bulldozed through that place and let... you know, the obvious thing is you just don't touch any evidence, and you know, rope it off so that they can get in there and go through it with a fine-tooth comb. We saw some pictures recently where they were checking the ground in England after one of the murders. Just men shoulder to shoulder on their hands and knees, you know, combing through the ground around the area. And here, the cops here just gone in with, I don't know, mighty bulldozers, I think, and ripped through it and find they've only got half the evidence that really was there anyway. So there was a great... few inquiry... there's been some people sacked or demoted in the meantime until they've been able to... from the Missing Persons Bureau, police department, or somewhere because of the bad way in which this was done. But okay, so the cops here aren't all that well trained, maybe you can accept that. But the fact that the FBI are with them just absolutely stuns me, for I can't understand that. I mean, surely they have got more know-how than to go in and do a thing like that. Anyway. So it goes on. It's unsolved. And I gather from... gospel hearsay or newspaper, whatever, I haven't been reading the papers as much as I usually do lately, but they don't seem to think that it's one person. It couldn't be one person doing so many. And this kid that went missing last weekend, he was just standing at the bus stop waiting for a bus to get to a basketball game or something, and his body was found a long way from... Most of the murders have happened within an area... of a certain area of town, but it doesn't seem to run that they're the same age anymore, that there's been 14 and 15-year-olds, and there's been, you know, young nine-year-olds. But I think the one that shocks everyone was the child that was taken from her bed, and the murderer had to climb over the bed of an older brother, who he did not disturb, to get this little girl and ran off out of the house. Whether... it just seems ridiculous. I thought there must be other circumstances with that one at first, you know, family dispute or something, but there wasn't. This kid was just taken from her bed, and they found her body. So just terrible. And how long it's going to go on, we don't know. I mean, 17... it's heading to being as bad as that one for that guy... what was his name? Gacy or whatever from Chicago, that was 32. But of course, they were kids that weren't really... and you know, suggested that they were missing even. They were usually older.

However, let's get on to brighter things. Well, David's coffee pot should be arriving shortly. I can't think when I sent that, but I sent the other parcel to you, which I've sent, which is your birthday/Christmas combined thing, which you will receive in March. I'll start wondering what year these things are for... well, I don't know. I sent that on 16th of December, so I guess at the absolute outside, you should have it by the 16th of February. That's December, January... March? Maybe three months. But the coffee pot I sent before that, so I expect to hear from you in the next month or so about that. And just whether it goes or not. Oh, and the other thing I must mention to you on that is, of course, I sent away for my stupid rebate, and they sent back and said that they didn't, you know, not enough information. I have to send the warranty. So please send me the warranty and stuff when you get it, and I'll send it in. Thought, you know, really, I just knew that would happen. They're so stupid, and I'd written a great long letter, and then they wrote back as if they hadn't even read the letter, you know, and just took the cyclostyle form. Made me so angry. So please send me the information so that I can prove that I bought it. At least I've had correspondence with them, and they know that it's gone past the date you had to apply, but they can jolly well pay out on that. Anyway. What else is new? Oh, Clara over the road hasn't been too good. She got like... Christmas night, I think it was. Well, she was at home for a while. She's got a clot on the leg or whatever you know, phlebitis or whatever the hell they call it. And anyway, they thought they'd treat her at home. Well, that went on for a while, a couple of weeks, I suppose, and then she went to hospital last week. And last Saturday, Rachael... we went shopping, and Rachael bought her a great big chrysanthemum, you know, one that's growing in a pot, our purple one. And we took it down. Rachael went with Bob. Bob came and picked her up. She wore her kidskin gloves, and off they went down to the hospital. And Clara... I told Clara in the afternoon. She was just so excited that Rachael was going to visit because, you know, the problem with her stroke was that she forgot everything and was learning again. Well, she's had to stop doing any of that, and of course, she's getting worse and gets confused and... I mean, she knows in her mind what she wants to say, it's getting it out. And because she's been sick, she hasn't been able to do any studying, and you know, she was really improving a lot last year, and then she got kind of... family came to stay, and all kinds of things hassled her. And so now she's kind of really getting, if not worse, back to where she was and can't really communicate all that well. And she just knows what she feels. She gets real excited about Rach being there. But she's home again today. She came home on Friday, and I think she's going to be all right. I was a bit concerned when I heard she'd gone into hospital because they said, you know, if the clot moves up to her heart, that's it. So she's really not well, and I hate to think what might happen because oh Bob, he's like 74 or something. Of course, he never stops thinking about money. Bob talks about money all the time, how much everybody's got and so on and so forth, and what it costs to do this and how much it cost to get the ambulance to go down the three miles to Piedmont Hospital and everything. And by the time Rachael got back from the hospital, I said that night, she knew exactly how much each nurse was costing each hour of the day at the hospital and how much the hospital bed was costing. And oh... I'm sure he's insured for it all, but you know, he just constantly dwells on the cost of things. And even Rachael was getting it, and she listened, you know, so intently. And I'm sure she brings a lot of happiness to Clara because she doesn't see her own grandchildren and stuff. But she's home, and I think she'll be okay, hopefully.

I think it was the weekend before last year, part of which is on the tape, the other tape I'm going to send with this one that the kids have made. John went down to see these little... they're not little, they weighed 20 tons or something... these manatees, which Jacques Cousteau has done a program on. They live in the river, the Manatee River down in Florida, because he went down with another dentist from Marietta, and they do underwater fishing and stuff, you know, diving and scuba diving, and they had underwater cameras and all that. He's got some great photos apparently taken underwater that he's going to get developed. But it was the one weekend that it froze in Florida. You know, they've lost nearly... I think almost half the orange crop. They've had a disaster down there; it's just been so cold. And that was the weekend they went down there, and they just came home early. They got back... they went Thursday afternoon, and I expected them back Sunday night, but they got back at 5 o'clock Sunday morning they were home. They must have driven all night they were so cold. They said it was unpleasant. They did what they had to do, you know, they went swimming and everything, but it made John's cold worse because it was bitterly cold. He said at the last minute decided to take his coat... This is way down just above... if you look on the map, above St Petersburg, there's the Manatee River around there somewhere. So it's real down... it shouldn't have been that cold. Just never gets that cold down there. But of course, Florida is not geared for cold weather. They don't have heating on a lot of the motels, you know. And they just... here they all went down to great camp... typical Americans go down to camp, have all the gear, and then stand in a motel, which is just typical. So anyway, he was back early, but they have some terrific pictures of these things. They just stay there while the weather is a little cooler, and they're like whales. They're huge big things and very friendly. You can rub them and swim around them, and but they're protected because they are so docile. They have these beady little eyes that are no bigger than ours, but these huge, huge bodies. And they're covered in scars from speedboat motors that have gone up the river and chomped the backs out of them. They're just terrible looking, John said. And they have traffic cops on the river there. And he said, "You'll see a speedboat come along, and they'll suddenly... the signs everywhere, you know, 'no speeding', and they'll turn off the engine real quick, but it's too late." You see the cops roar down the jetty and into their boat and rush out and give them a ticket. They're pretty strict apparently. But while they were there, it was good, although it was so cold for them, it was good for seeing the manatees because there's a warm spring there, it's called Crystal Springs, I think, which was interesting, reminded us of New Zealand. And they were hovering around the spring because it was a little warmer, I guess.

Anyway, I've heard a couple of things about New Zealand recently which were... let me think now. Yeah, that's right. There was a woman on... at work who was getting down to New Zealand, and she'd been from... that was quite funny because she was... Church? Of that minister that was here? And I had them here over for afternoon tea or morning tea one day with Bev and Marsha. She'd been from their church, and she was going to be going to see them. They were back now, they're in Rotorua, and she was going to go and visit them while she was down there.

As you can hear, I'm still full of a cold. It's just been terrible. And poor Patsy was sick for about a week. She got this terrible flu with the pains in the stomach and stuff. Everybody seems to be getting it. I have not had that. Rachael seemed to get that, and Sunny's had it, and all her kids have been home. And Lane too, I think. And I didn't get that. I just got this awful cold, which gets you in the nose and sort of sinus-y and all that stuff. And then no sooner had we, you kind of recovered a little from that, and it came back again. I sort of a double dose, and I had that like earlier in the week. I mean, I've still got it. And you... I guess it's because we tear out in this weather. It looks so pretty outside, it's just terrific, but it's bitterly cold.

Oh, I guess the kids are the most important thing that's happened. I guess as far as the children are concerned is that, you know, Rachael's gerbil... I tell you what, you might like to get a gerbil. They're real cute. And I've done a hell of a lot of studying about them now, but gerbils are rodents, of course, but they... they're nicer than hamsters and one of the other things... oh, guinea pigs, they all smell. Gerbils do not smell. They're very clean, they don't smell. And we had one, you know, called Jerby, that's Rachael's, which we had since Miss First bred them in the classroom. Well, Maitland decided that he would like... or Rachael decided she'd like to get a mate for Jerby, and Maitland said, "Well, it would be his." So we went shopping last Sunday, and we'd spent all day Saturday shopping, Saturday afternoon after we'd all finished our things, we went looking, and we couldn't find one. We went to a couple of places, and they didn't either have them. They seemed to be out of stock last week or whatever. Well, we finally found one at... They didn't have any at this Kmart we went to, and I didn't know that would be a good place to buy one anyway. They had a hamster, and it looked real cute. It was asleep, and it had its hair... its hair was the same cut as Maitland's hair. And he decided it might be real cute. Well then, the man... we got the man over to get this thing out that we could buy. Well, the damn thing woke up and looked around at us, and honestly, that thing probably has never seen three such funny faces. All our chins just dropped. It was a hamster, and it was the ugliest looking thing I've ever seen. It was fat and ugly, and we all just went, "Oh no, we don't want that." And the man must have thought we were... because we did want it, then... how could we possibly take that one? It was too ugly. So he put it all back again. And finally, we all went Sunday to a pet shop and hunt... and high and low. And of course, Maitland gets to the pet shop and gets completely distracted and wants to buy fish and snakes and everything but the gerbil we came to get there anyway. We finally found one. He said, "That's the one I want." We had to chase it around the cage and get it. We've got it home. Well, we had to do all this reading in case they attacked one another. But they have just fallen madly in love. They have got a "Just Married" sign, bel-ti-e? Written by Rachael, if you please, on the side of the cage. And they're just so happy together, it's unbelievable. And hopefully, she'll be on heat between four and ten days, which is like... we've had them exactly a week today. So after 10 days... then it'll be the gestation period's like 24 days, we shall have hopefully some little... Strangely enough, Patsy's vet called the other day and said that her dogs were due for some injection or whatever, and I said to the girl, "I'm sorry, could you spell that?" Whatever it was she'd asked me? I said, "Because I don't know... I don't have a dog." I said, "But we do have gerbils." And she said, "Oh, how exciting," and gave me about 15 minutes of her time on how and what we should do for the little gerbils so that they don't eat one another, etc. Apparently, the female will eat the babies if she's got a vitamin deficiency. So we had to go and buy $6 worth of goddamn vitamins to go in the water. Anyway, it's real exciting. And we... Patsy came around here to pick me up last Sunday because we wanted to go down and get this damn computer back together, which is in such a mess for the billing. And she arrived about four. We were all sitting around the dining room table with the gerbils in the middle of the table watching... just so fascinating. It says in the book that they need privacy. Or... them last Monday morning, you know, he couldn't wait to get up and see them. And he woke up, and he came running to me, and he said, "Oh," he said, "when I woke up," he said, "they were doing it." He said, "But they stopped when they saw me because that wasn't privacy." Seen it in the books anyway, but they seem as happy as anything. They're building a little...