She

Reasons why it’s great to have Julia… Salsa class partner, gardens my patio, interfaces with the housekeeper, occasional transport, wonderful cuddler...

Two Saturdays ago she asked me to teach her to dive, and Sunday in Kemang in a new bathing suit Mick brought her from Oz, she was busy showing off. Next she learned gin rummy, and now kicking my butt is just a matter of time. Then there’s her authentic Indonesian immensely painful method of wart removal (root by root, involving tweezers)… at least it doesn’t take months…

When we walk together in malls I have to block her view of the mirrors or it takes us twice as long to get anywhere (this is not an illness unique to Julia, more like a national pastime)…

and then I go to Jakarta for a week of 5-star hotels and intensive conferencing, she joins me for the end… the day we’re supposed to go back to Jogja I wake up a little crampy… by the evening, despite fun with Mick, I’m at the SOS clinic shaking uncontrollably with a 40 degree fever… and she’s right there massaging my feet and legs, adjusting the blanket and heat lamp as I sweat or chill, and watching me drift in and out for two hours while we wait for the test results. That night as I turn the bed into a salt water swimming pool she keeps pulling me onto dry land… in the moring I discover she slept on a 2 inch strip of dry bed, giving the rest of it to me. What a wonder!