Dear Tom,
thank you very much for your reply.
I must say that your long silence was for me a reason of trouble, and as I
always have relation with people on first place, I was a little bit
worried...
Thank you for handling the situation so far. I really appreciate your help
very much. I will participate to COA this year, and I hope I can find an
agreement on that occasion with somebody: talking directly is always better
than nothing.

Maybe it is not necessary that European people give me the money: in fact
as I must pre-pay our participation to COA, maybe a good way to balance the
situation - at least partially - is that you anticipate my account, and
then we can decide what to do of the remaining part... I am waiting Doris
Underwood's OK for this kind of settlement. You know very well, in fact,
that sending checks in USD drawn on a European bank create still
difficulties in the US (it sounds stupid, but it is like this, as we have
seen also with Dottie....)

For the people you wrote me, I will prepare an invoice and I will send it
to you; our laws are changing again, and - although not compulsory - as I
have to keep updated about four different registers, with my staff we have
found that issuing inoices is still the best way to have paper work in
order, and tio have a prompt answer about the way of handling subs...

Sorry to know you have troubles with the family. When our parents get old,
we must always be ready to take their side: health is such a precious gift
we always discover it when we or our closest people are loosing it.
The situation here is difficult with our mums (my mother almost blind,
asyou know; and Kety loosing her memory...). Our kids are a blessing. The
youngest (9 years), our boy, is now the Italian vice-champion of artistic
ice-skating in his category, and during the last two months he has already
gained five cups. So we are jumping here and there, both for competitions
and for training...

Issue 297 was mailed a couple of weeks ago. The Special is still in
preparation. The Italian part was ready in November, but the translation
created a lot of problems...when it will be out you will see why!

Greetings!!!!

Maria

Maria Antonietta Fontana Angioy
Evolver srl - La Conchiglia
Rome, Italy