The French Option Ruled Out...(and the rest is history) - November 13, 2004

This is where Stephen makes it clear that he's not cutting and running. And I guess the rest is history... Below is the exchange of emails between Joni and Stephen late one evening on the Bayou, and midday for Stephen in Melbourne. And yes, there was genuine shock at Stephen's lack of knowledge of the wonder that is gumbo...

But all that got fixed during Joni's first trip to Stephen's world in August of 2005, when she cooked gumbo for Stephen and his parents. (A good story for a later time...)

"Hi,
Yep, I am. I got your earlier email and have read it. I’m still figuring out just what to write back, but I think you hit the nail on the head with what you said. So, I don’t yet have a full reply but I think I know what I’m going to say. Anyway, two thing I *AM* sure of are (a) I don’t think the ‘cut and run’ option has any great attraction – I like trading email with you too much; (b) Kind of already said, but YES, I do still want to hear from you.
BTW, what actually IS gumbo??
Stephen Tuck"


"****GASP*** What IS Gumbo!!!?!?!?!?!????!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Gumbo is, quite possibly, south Louisiana's most world-renowned food. (and that's saying something) It's a soup/stew that you serve over rice and it's traditionally been a great way to feed a crowd with a little bit of acutal meat. It's spicy and kind of smoky flavored, and not at all too watery, that's why you make it with a dark roux, so that it thickens a little and gets nice and dark. Oh, I could was rhapsodic on gumbo for quite a while yet. But I'llspare you. Let me just say that it is THE comfort food of my people when confronted with cold weather. Well, to address the emails from earlier issue, I can't tell you what a comfort it is to hear you say that I hit the nail on the head. If only you could narrow that nail hitting down to one stream of thought or theme contained in the email, I'd feel even better. And I am positively elated that you are not opting for the French method!! - joni"

"I’ll set it all out in proper detail a bit later (like, when I’m out of this damn office). What I think is that you and me should, as you said, “roll with it”, and look at meeting in Hawaii or Louisiana or Melbourne at some point. I mean, neither of us is, so far as I can tell, in a desperate hurry to settle down with someone else forever just for the sake of doing so. So I think the best thing would be to keep on as we have been doing, and keep getting to know each other and each other’s worlds and see if we really are right for each other – as there’s no huge time-pressure, I think we should take advantage of that fact. If we (or either of us) ultimately decided it wasn’t to be, well, I think we could (indeed would have to) live with that. And at the very least, we’d keep a great friendship, which on its own would be worthwhile. One can never have too many friends. I guess approaching it this way does, in a sense, create an “us” as a natural corollary, but one that lets you and I go on with our lives and lets us each be flexible if an absolutely ideal ‘significant other’ dropped out of the sky here or there. Kind of the ultimate low-pressure thing, with each one of us really living as before, only with a really nice person on our “over-the-horizon” radar. Anyway, that’s where my mind’s been going with this. I’ll probably set it out in a bit more detail later, but that’s the gist of what I think I’ll ultimately say.BTW, would you like me to cast about for a copy of the Doomsday Book for you? If I have a hunt round Melbourne I can no doubt find one.
Let me know.
Stephen Tuck"