After a relatively painless four hour lay-over in Dallas (compared to other travelers we saw and heard about), we arrived in Philadelphia on a freezing rain soaked night. We managed to find ou friends, Shaun & Nanci's beautiful new house about an hour east of Philly. Unfortunately, we arrived just in time for the brutal 24 hour stomach bug that was sweeping through the Folkerts gang. Madelyn and Nanci had already suffered through it and Shaun was feeling cocky that evening, but succumbed and yakked his friggin brains out the following morning (sorry, Shaun).

Anyway, the house is beautiful and the hospitality was as generous as it could possibly be under the circumstances, but we did leave a little earlier than planned and so far we seem to have avoided the bug (fingers crossed).

From there we stopped off at Paul & Sherryann's for a few hours and were treated to some goodies and some tea and some good conversation.

So, here we are at Nan & Pop's at the Villa at Morlatton. It's a lovely facility with plenty of amenities and we're comfortable and well fed here. To walk off the 

copious breakfast, lunch and diner buffets we've have over the last day +, Sue and I explored the area, braving the 

railroad tracks next door and reading the gravestones on the neighboring colonial area church grounds, featuring some graves dating from the early 1700's.

One more visit in the area tomorrow and we're NY bound.

Hey all, don't have time to write much since we have a flight to Philadelphia tomorrow morning and we must be getting our sleeps, BUT I I have a treat in the form of the much anticipated blog entry by the Good Doctor herself. Enjoy! 

Here are the traveling couple during their lovely four hour stay-over in Dallas:

Greetings, family and friends! This is our promised holiday blog. “Blog” rhymes with “nog”… so pull up a chair and grab a cup of nog, and we will tell you our (brief because we have a flight tomorrow morning and have just gotten to this now) holiday stories. 

The holiday season officially opened when I finished my semester. My students are always excited when they finish their final papers and exams because they are “free.” But that’s when more work starts for me. Happily, Newman’s fall semester ends early (a full week before Christmas week) because it starts in August. 

But just when I was ready to start some serious reading for next semester’s classes, I went to the dentist. I had made an appointment for Sun & I for a routine maintenance check-up and cleaning, but apparently I hit the dental jackpot after all these years – 28 to be exact-- of the same thing every 6 months. I sat down in the chair and, after the hygienist took a look, the dentist came in. She handed me a mirror and said to take a look. What to my wondering eyes should appear? Not one, not two, but three tiny reindeer… disguised as cavities. The dentist’s two theories about why were the non-fluoridated water in Wichita or a change in dietary habits. Or both. Either way, I was astonished. About an hour and a half later, at lunch time, all drilled and filled, I stumbled out into the snow.  Really hungry by this point and informed by the dental authorities that we didn’t have to wait to eat, Sun & I stopped for some sandwiches at a local sandwich
place called “City Bites.” I had to smile at the title—having been bitten by the city of Wichita (or at least by its water supply). The sandwich looked good—roasted vegetables with some kind of mayonnaise sauce on a toasted but not too crispy roll—but it tasted a bit like toothpaste and whatever other dental substances had been applied so vigorously to my teeth. Not to mention that half my jaw was still numb from the novacaine. I slowly managed to eat the sandwich, and then, theorizing that the novacaine had also had some radiating effect on my entire head since I suddenly had a mild headache and felt very tired, went home and took a nap. Happily, Sun managed to escape undrilled, though (ominously?) his cleaning was postponed so there could be a “deep cleaning” scheduled for January. Maybe they’ll send some tiny spelunkers in to attack the plaque. I just hope he avoids my recent dental fate!

On a happier note, we are both very happy to be heading back east tomorrow morning to see as many of you as we can. I did promise to tell you a story, though, so I picked out one from the past few weeks that I thought would be amusing. It’s much more amusing to me now that I can look back on it a few days later (maybe dental work is usually that way--?), and I have to say the fillings were done very professionally—the kind that are color-matched to the teeth.  So, raising my own cup of nog here, I am ready for more holiday treats, though I probably will make sure to brush afterward!

Now maybe Sun will tell you one of his stories… 

See? This is what happens when you give kitty people food. Give'er an inch and she takes a mile. Give her a greasy sliver of chicken and she wants the whole Eight Piece. But she's cute so how can you resist? Even Benny Goodman is smiling. 

We hope that you all had yourselves a wonderfully glutenous, late afternoon nap inducing Turkey Day. For Sue and I it was an adjustment having our first Thanksgiving away from friends and family. BUT we are making new friends and we did have a fun evening with Sonja (who runs the Spanish dept at Newman) and Michael (Sonja's husband). We met up with them at a park nearby and played with their adorable white poodle and they came over our place later for a traditional Thanksgiving feast of chili and rice and assorted other cobbled together whatever was laying around the place goodies. We played games, we ate, we laughed, we base jumped off the roof, we mowed the grass of the vacant lot next door, just for kicks. You wish you were there, don't you? 

We didn't have a traditional Gobble Day, but we did participate in a local tradition this Sunday night when we attended the Christmas children's opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, 

held every year at the WSU campus. It's the local version of what Christmas Carol at Radio City is for New Yorkers. 

For those who participated in the Guess What This Sign Means

contest (um, all one of you) I can report that the sign was 

corrected, sort of, the following day to say: 

"Kids meet Puddles as the clown". 

This cleared things up greatly. Of course...I still didn't understand why Puddles was AS the clown. Did Puddles have a day job, like "Hi, I'm Puddles the Paralegal. In the evenings I play a clown, and I call myself...The Clown.". And how terrifying would it be to meet a clown named Puddles anyway? I don't ever want to meet a clown named Puddles, I don't care how may chicken fingers you let me stuff

my face with. But the revisions didn't stop there! The day after that the sign read:  

"Kids meet Puddleas the Clown". 

So the mystery is finally, unquestionably solved! Ryans is the only place I'm aware of where kids can meet some sort of ancient Greek clown. Now that's a different story. As for our lucky contestant, your Meat Paddle is in the mail. 

So if you couldn't figure it out from the above paragraphs, I have too much time on my hands. The economy has resulted in a hiring freeze for many of the local companies, especially for temp assignments, and so even though I've signed up with five different temp agencies, I haven't gotten a bite yet. I did take a civil service exam last week for the Post Office for some temp work they're offering and I should find out how I did in a week or so. 

Lack of job opportunities has been a little discouraging but I press ahead with my

ultimate goal, which is to return to school! I have enrolled and signed up for two classes in the Spring, an Ancient Art History class and a one credit prep class for the Guatemala trip we're taking next summer with the Spanish dept. In the fall I'll be a full time student. Scary but

exciting. Newman has accepted more than a full year's worth of credits from my stints at SVA and

NCC, which was a nice surprise. I was also extremely excited to find out that Friends University, which is across the way from Newman and has a partnership

 with us, is offering a class in Mandarin! I was studying on my own and at Shaolin Temple

  in New York for a few years and was not expecting to find a class here. 我开玩笑就你去吃晚饭。Take that! I just told you that your mother smells like socks. It's actually a polite greeting in Chinese. It doesn't sound as good in English. Anyway. 

Speaking of free time, I've gone a little bonkers with the videos. You know, I was putting together these makeshift videos for some of my songs so I could post them on YouTube. Well, I have a bunch of them now. You can check some of them out on my YouTube channel or my MySpace page. 

Soon I will have an album available on the interwebsnet and then I will take over

the world! Mmmwahahaha! But first, a nap. 

Love you guys, 

Sonny & Sue.