>>>And it IS cute, kiwi-tinged and more ;-)
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>LOL. And despite being actually qualified to comment in the particular, I rarely do. ;-) People focus on musculoskeletal causes- but there are plenty of origins for leg pain like Bruns-Garland syndrome or as unexpected complications of medication. I'm assuming that Marcia's awesome health insurance has allowed her to get it all checked out. Which is a slightly brusque way to start the New Year except that M must know by now that online I'm a cheerful Contrarian. ;-)
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>I am back in Kiwi-Land after enjoying some brisk North American weather. Yesterday was blazing hot across at Piha Beach on the West Coast. Literally blazing hot- the iron sand gets so warm you can't walk on it in bare feet. You can always tell the Newbies- they stride confidently asserting that their manly nature allows them to walk on this girlie sand- until they suddenly throw down the surf board and dance a jig on it, or wriggle awkwardly on their clothed behinds with bare feet in the air.

John, I am throwing around New Year's wishes left and right and must say the week we spent in New Orleans was the best week I had last year. I know the city turned you off. You said it was like being in a third world nation. There is some truth to that but it has a lot to do with Hurricane Katrina. It did damage that is not eradicated 5 years later. As we saw, the east side of New Orleans, the poor black side, has still not been rebuilt. Something like a third of the homes there have not received electricity since the hurricane. You would have to go back almost a hundred years to San Francisco after the earthquake to find such devastation on an American city.

I volunteered to go to New Orleans on a relief effort after Katrina. The city had been evacuated after the tornado and we were all diverted to Houston, where most of the refugees had been sent. We were all instructed not to call them refugees. We did some good but it was horrible. Families blown apart and not even knowing if their relatives were still alive. If I did one good thing other than process and distribute food it was befriend a 10 year old black kid who who was staying at the same black Baptist church I was. He didn't know where his family was.

The next time something like that happens again I will be there. And I hope to see some of you there.

If you want to know what Katrina was like, watch Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke." He has made lots of good movies but I think that will be his legacy.