Good news today. We were able to book all our tickets from Tete to Maputo to Johannesburg to Heathrow to Dallas/Fort Worth to Portland. Phew! We leave Tete on Saturday and arrive in Portland on Monday evening.

Despite the sadness of this time, we are finding joy in little things. The thought of seeing family. Imagining the things we’ll get to do in the US. And I was delighted to discover some lingapotamus art in my inbox. Iyov, the fabled doodler dashed off a few designs using www.dumpr.net. I’ve published one so far: inspiring.

Also, I thought I had better grab some pictures of the lingahippo from some different angles so I stuck her on a lazy susan and gave her a spin. I don’t have the cleaned up images to show you (I’m hoping Nathan can help me with that!) but I did a short video with the hip hippo spinning to Eric Marienthal’s cover of New York State of Mind. Check it out here.

Thank you for the many many messages of condolences. It has meant a lot to me.