I have awesome friends.

I was expecting a copy of Lu Yu's The Classic of Tea to arrive from The Great Hero of China. It arrived today and as I'm nearly finished with the Yoshikawa Musashi that Staffan gave me, I'll start reading it this week. It's a 1974 translation with charming illustrations. 

What I was not expecting was the box from Thailand sitting next to it on the landing.

"As we return home from our Grand Adventure, we have one last thing for you from The Land of Smiles. These monkeys looked like they needed a Cheerful House to hang around in and they will happily serve you by holding onto anything you wish to give them - and they will even give it back!" Ii-dono and Abe-hime sent me a brass plate with four handy hooks formed by the tails of four lovely monkeys.

They will be back in the States very soon. I hope to catch up with them when I go east to see my family in September as they're in the DC metro area.

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In unrelated news, I'm about halfway through the Elizabeth R DVDs. The production values were what they were for 1971 or so, but the performances and writing hold up beautifully. It was great to see character actor Robert Hardy as something more dashing than the Minister of Magic and Glenda Jackson was, of course, brilliant. And I thought "What ever happened to Glenda Jackson?" She'd won all sorts of acting awards and was quite the hot ticket in the 70s.

She's been a Member of Parliament for Hampstead and Kilburn (near London) since 1992 as a member of the Labour Party, and a good one, judging by the information on her website.