Part 3 (we meet the dinner guests and find out what consomme madrilene is)

Good to hear from you. Sorry to hear about the insanity of your twitching thumb and the pins & needles. I'm flattered by the idea that my emails can be a stand in for my voice, and for what you remember of me (although hopefully less grumpy and happier).

I must admit, I'm at a loss as to what genre I'm reading too - I'm inclined to believe it will end up being some sort of mildly tawdry, semi-erotic work of fiction. Thanks for informing me that Rowan is the protagonist's name. I have no clue who this Rowan Martin is, who she's supposed to be named after; the only Rowan I know is the British comedian Rowan Atkinson, probably

best known in the US as Mr. Bean.

But! back to the story. We are introduced to her physical appearance - she's 5 ft 7, has long hair and has chosen a tasteful black paisley shift dress for dinner. And the dinner introduced us to a host of new characters: Matthew Cater who is blessed with a 'slightly crooked face' which he attributed to his mixed heritage of being Chinese (or a chinaman as he prefers to call himself) and Irish (and something about a drunken bar brawl, resulting cracked skull); a Colonel Braithwaite with his blue-haired wife Suze; a Russian diplomat named Semenov; and 'old Chao' a Buddhist wearing saffron robes.

I must admit, I was somewhat intrigued by what they had for dinner which included something called 'consomme madrilene', which thanks to Google, I was able to determine is:

http://www.whiskblog.com/2008/08/whisk-wednesdaysconsomm-madrilne.html
The dinner conversation honestly seemed rather boring to me. I think i took a lunch break somewhere in between page 16 and 17. It was however interesting to be reminded of the fact that Staten island used to be much more isolated (the guests were bemoaning the construction of that 'awful bridge', see: http://www.mta.info/bandt/html/veraz.htm). The guests continued their slightly meaningless chit-chat, and through it, we find out Mr. Chao is a philosopher whom the aunt met at the Tibetan Museum on Staten Island, and that Rowan has finished college and is about to embark on her studies for her Master's in the fall. We also find out that Matt Cater (whom Rowan has taken a slight liking to) is leaving the next day for Toronto, after failing to convince the aunt that she should open her spare wing for research again. My section ends with the guests leaving for brandy and other post dinner activities, including a koto recital (whatever that is) by mr. chao.

My guess is that Matt Cater ends up stealing our dear Rowan's heart... and I'm still placing bets on there being some ridiculous sexualised encounter in the greenhouse.

Someone else though has entered the editing game - the writer uses a blue ballpoint pen and corrects occasioanally using capitals (perhaps i'm looking at Ms. Lamb's handwriting?). Let me know this continues through your section. I've become attached to the handwritten remarks.

PS. berlin was awesome - i'm posting photos on facebook now as we speak....