Faraway Friends

By Charlie

It is just before 10 AM on Monday morning. Rachel and I are sipping coffee, watching the BBC, sitting around in our pajamas and reading the torrent of wonderful e-mails that we received overnight from so many friends back home. These e-mails were all responses to the mass e-mail we sent recently announcing the return of our blog.

Today is the first day of Tsaagan Sar, the Mongolian New Year celebration. We have been invited to celebrate in a few hours with a Mongolian family, an experience that will no doubt produce a very interesting blog entry and perhaps a hangover.

But for now, we are swimming in the delight of so many messages from home. There is nothing like a mass e-mail to unleash the warmth of our friends and remind us about life in America.

Two friends visited the zoo in New York City, but they arrived too late to feed the pot belly pig. A pilot friend sought my input on upgrading a GPS unit. An NPR mentor is dealing with at least a dozen pressing responsibilities, but still took time to read the blog and write to us. DC friends have returned from a paradise vacation in Mexico where they visited with whales and a woman who carries banana pie around on her head. My mother has become a culture vulture. A neighbor had a random and wonderful meeting with a teenager on the street in Takoma Park. One NPR friend got a puppy and another is opening up a radio station in Berlin.

And, of course, there is yet another pilot friend who set an airplane engine on fire!

Many people commented on the pictures in our mass e-mail:

“CM, I had no idea you were working on the new Star Wars movie. The sets and costumes look AWESOME!  I can’t tell what is digital and what is real. Please give my regards to Mr. Lucas.”

“It looks like some fantastical planet landscape in a wild outer space!!!!”

Annoying Music Man Jim Nayder took this opportunity to diminish – again – our earnest efforts with this blog:

“Your photos look totally fake.  I don’t believe you’re even in Mongolia.”

We’ve read all these e-mails before breakfast on the first day of the New Year in Mongolia. Were I to consult a lama, I would probably learn that so many good wishes from home received on this auspicious day signal a good year ahead.