Gratuities

[Susan Kline]

At 09:14 PM 3/4/99 -0500, you wrote:
>..fresh grapefruit from the tree.
>
>Yum!,
>
>Rook
>

In California, a big grocery bag of good walnuts.

In California, a couple from Jordan were chattering in Arabic
as I was packing up, and I heard only one word I understood:
baksheesh. (I felt like saying, "Don't be silly! I don't need
baksheesh!" but didn't.) They handed me the check with a big
bottle of cheap perfume underneath it.

In Oregon, one place, starts of native bleeding heart, a wild 
currant bush, and a special walnut tree bred by a retired botany 
prof, now 90+ years old. (the prof, not the tree!) It was 
languishing near a stand of white pines, obviously MISERABLE, 
and I told him I had room for it if he ever got tired of watching 
it just sit there. As I was enjoying his wife's botanical tour 
of the yard, he came up smiling with the tree in a bucket!
If it ever starts making nuts, I'm supposed to say that it's an
O.C. Compton walnut. They are supposed to be very large, only
it's too young to make any.

All the plants have flourished. 

On the Oregon coast:
I was famished, the piano was old and neat, the lady was very nice
and interesting. She gave me $5 more than I asked for, and some 
homemade pepperoni made from elk. It tasted fantastic!