Dear Justin,
Guess what??????!!!!!!!!!!
My dad’s moved back from Paris.
You probably already knew that, because my mom tells your mom everything.
I’m glad our moms are still best friends and phone each other all the time and write each other.
Thanks for sending the picture of you at Halloween. (I know that your mom was the one who sent the picture, but I love the way that you wrote on it….. “I am Dracula … and I want to bite your neck … but I’d probably get rabies.”)
My dad and I went to New York for Thanksgiving.
It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fun.
We stayed at a hotel. (They had mail chutes on each floor. It was soooooo cool to watch as the mail went down ….. the chutes were glass. One morning I saw a pancake going down. I don’t want to think what the mail looked like when that splattered on it.)
On Thanksgiving Eve, we went over to the American Museum of Natural History….. Oh, Justin, it was sooooooooooooooo fun. I wish that you had been there. It’s called “Inflation Night,” and on either side of the museum, people were blowing up the balloons that are in the parade. I heard someone say, “Just think of Barney as half full instead of half empty.”
You should have seen that stupid purple dinosaur. Parts of it looked gigantic, and parts of it looked like it had liposuction … you know, when doctors get fat out of a person’s body … well, this looked like a definite case of dinosuction.
While we were walking around, we met some people that my dad used to work with before he moved to Paris. They are the Fagerstroms. They live in Texas and were just visiting for the holiday. The mom and dad are Terry and Marie … and they have three kids, Ian, EmmaLee, and Eli.
We all went to dinner at the Museum Cafe. The kids all teased me and said that I “talk funny.” I think that I, Amber Brown, talk absolutely New Jersey Normal … and they are the ones that talk funny. I kept calling Eli, who is three, “cowpoke” and kept poking him. He poked back. Once he accidentally poked me in the nose …. and Dad said I was “poker faced.” And then all of the grown-ups laughed. I just hate it when they make jokes I don’t understand.
It was really late when we finished dinner, and Dad and I went back to the hotel.
In the morning, we went to the parade. It was so fun …. the balloons …. the floats …. the little nerdlets crying because some grown-ups cut in front of them. I kept looking at the television cameras and waving. I kept hoping that you and your family were watching.
Afterward we went out to a great restaurant, Little Jezebel’s, for Thanksgiving lunch. Then I called Mom … and Max. It was only breakfast time in Walla Walla, and they were having pancakes with syrup for breakfast. But no mail!
It sounded like they were having an OK time … but that they missed me. And that made me feel sad.
Mom told me not to feel blue. Just to have a good time and we’d all be together at Christmas.
Before I had a chance to think about what she’d said, she told me, “We all … that means you and I and Max. After Christmas you’ll be seeing your dad again.”
Anyway, I hope that you had fun over Thanksgiving. Your mom told mine that you like your Dracula costume so much that you were thinking of wearing it at Thanksgiving … a Pilgrim vampire. You know that if you had come over on the Mayflower, you probably wouldn’t have been a Pilgrim. They said that they were “Saints.” You definitely would have been a “Stranger.”
If you are still a vampire, don’t forget to leave deposits at the blood bank.
Your friend,
P.S. Justin …. guess what now? I’m your friend …. but since you’re Dracula …. I guess you’re my fiend…. What a difference an “r” makes.
P.P.S. Speaking of “r’s” and letters, are you going to WRITE BACK SOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????!!!!!!
P.P.P.S. I’ve made you a little scrapbook of what my Thanksgiving was like. Maybe next year you and your family can go to the parade with me and whichever parent I’m with. Justin …. you are sooooooooo lucky that your parents are still together and that they still love each other.
I wish that mine did.
But then if they did, I wouldn’t know Max …. I wouldn’t have two places that I’m going to live …. I wouldn’t be Amber Brown the way I am now.
It’s OK…. Sometimes I feel blue, sometimes I see red, sometimes I’m green with envy….
I’m Amber Brown …. and I guess I’m just always going to have a colorful life.
