That’s what my friend Elvia in Coatepec wrote back to me when I told her this story.

I was placing an order over the phone and I got somebody who was clearly from India or maybe was Bangladeshi from the accent, and in the background I heard a rooster crowing! And hens clucking! It was surprising and charming and just the kind of combination of high-tech and low-tech I find intriguing. I envisioned the village and her in front of a computer with one electrical line coming into the house, the rooster perched on the computer monitor crowing “I am the King!! I am the King!! Look at me, I’m on the Internet!”

Elvia said she was probably working for pennies which is true but she was doing her very best.

I have neglected about everything there is to neglect, working hard on re-write of book number 2 in the Lighthouse Island Trilogy, there’s a middle part where the sequence of events is messed up. This is a future world of low tech and workingman’s ingenuity to keep things wavering along, so the sound of the rooster was spot on.

We’re having an Easter cantata and I don’t know if I can make all the rehearsals, Christmas was an immense effort because of so many people down with Covid and endless rehearsals. But we’ll see.

Am going to Point Loma University California in late February and also have been invited to the Eudory Welty Festival in Jacksonville MI in April, have not doing too much traveling and speaking but these should be enjoyable.