Sorry to have been away from the blog these few days, but after a visit to the villages over the weekend and some suspicious park food Sunday night, I was laid low by some food poisoning early Monday morning. (I know the difference between simple traveler's diarrhea and food poisoning, folks, and this was not your garden variety TD.) The fact that I was to get on the plane to return to St. Cloud the following morning -- have I told you about public toilets in Armenia? No? You should be grateful -- meant this was a first-order crisis. Easy access to antibiotics and some medicinal tea saw me to the plane, and with little fanfare I got home last night. "My God you lost weight!" my wife exclaimed when she saw me. I think she thought I was kidding about the illness when I sent her a note Monday night telling her I couldn't write much.

I'll have some other things up later today, but jet lag, which is always worse for me east-west than west-east (why?), will eventually catch up with me and I'll catch up with you and so on.