This is a letter I wrote for Maretta's family newsletter

This is my third attempt at starting this letter and after realizing that if I updated everyone about what has going on since the last time I wrote I would be here all night. Instead I will just focus on the past week. Last Sunday we had our third visitors since we have lived in Philly. Maretta’s uncle Sid and cousin Remington spent the night at our house so that Sid could visit a specialist at the U of Penn hospital about his recent loss of smell. We very much enjoyed their company and were glad to put them up for the night as they put us up for the night a couple of months ago in New Jersey. It is great to have family so close by. Maretta prepared a wonderful meal and we all sat around talking for hours afterwards about a million different topics. It was interesting to hear Sid talk about his job working for the oil companies and his reasons why gas prices are so high and that big oil companies are not as evil as people would have you believe (except Citgo). Remington was excited about his mission call to Sacramento and still adjusting to wearing garments. We hope to have more visitors soon.

Monday and Tuesday was the day of my first test of the school year. Supposedly this block is the most difficult of the year and I can see why. They gave us an enormous amount to cover in the six weeks and it’s hard to prepare for the first test because you never know what they’re going to focus on. To celebrate, Maretta and I went out to Olive Garden for dinner and feasted on the never-ending pasta.

Wednesday was back to business as usual with a new case to study. They don’t mess around in med school I’ve realized. Our tests are always on a Monday because heaven forbid they gave us a weekend of nothing to study. Anyway, as a reward for finishing the exam I decided I would regrip my golf clubs. They still had the same grips on them as when I got them for graduating high school. I went to Dick’s sporting goods and purchased some grips, tape and solvent. I watched a few demonstrations of how to do it on youtube and felt like it should be an easy task. In fact, some of you reading this may have even done it before and can attest to the simplicity of it. I removed the old grips and cleaned off the shaft. I wrapped the double-sided tape around the shaft and removed the backing from the tape. Now the tricky part is to soak the tape and the inside of the new grip with a solvent. Mineral spirits work, but the guy at Dick’s convinced me to get the store brand. I sprayed it on and attempted to slide the grip over. I got the grip on about a half an inch and tried to slide it on like the dude on youtube so effortlessly demonstrated. I couldn’t budge it though. I pushed and pushed, but the grip was too flimsy and would collapse and the tape was too sticky. Even after I cut the tip to give it a bigger caliber it still wouldn’t glide. I had to give up before I drove myself crazy from frustration. I don’t claim to be a handy man, but I knew I should have been able to put these grips on and I could tell Maretta lost a lot of respect for me.

Friday, I took my clubs back to Dick’s and the guy that helped me felt bad that he had convinced me to get the tape and solvent from their store. He remembered that someone had complained to him before about the solvent or tape and regripped my clubs for free. He let me go to the back and watch him do it. Five minutes later my clubs were ready to go and I now had a good excuse for Maretta to gain back her respect.

Earlier on Friday we had another group meeting to discuss our case about a patient with liver disease. In honor of completing our first test and maybe since we were studying the effects of alcohol on the liver, our group decided to have a little group party. I made pretzels from a recipe that a lady in Jann’s neighborhood gave to Maretta and others brought hummus, beer, and donuts. Everyone enjoyed a bottle of beer (rootbeer for me) and we finished our discussions on the liver. The pretzels were a big hit and in fact Maretta is thinking about making them every Saturday and selling them in our neighborhood for some extra cash. She needs some money to pay off her latest purchase, a keyboard. She’s been diligently practicing ever since she got it yesterday. She can already play ode to joy and Fur Elise. Speaking of Maretta, today she was told she was being “promoted” from young women’s advisor to first counselor in the young women’s presidency. She’s excited to whip our young women in to shape and increase the attendance from 2 active girls. Maretta is also enjoying her job as a preschool teacher and we just found out that one of her student’s dad is a classmate of mine. So now we’re becoming better friends so that Maretta will give his daughter an A. Ok. I have to end this letter. We love and miss you all.

Danny and Maretta