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14 rue de général Ducrot
Strasbourg, France
December 9, 1960

Dear, Mother
This morning I did the weekly shopping: Jack meets me at the Supermarché at noon as I finish up & carrier our big carton out. Today, I had an unusual quantity of things in addition: bought 3 sheets & a blanket so that we will have enough when you come. The sheets are of linen and for the ages; I'll give you the softer old (& nearly worn out) cotton ones. Jack refers to them as the "burlap sheets," but doesn't seem averse to them. I had bought two sheets before, equally heavy but of cotton; today I couldn't find any of those at any reasonable price. The laundry takes a week to do the sheets and last night couldn't find mine among the packaged sheets; one of the laundry ladies has injured her arm and production was slowed down. We had to have sheets to sleep-in, however, so we took the laundry room apart & finally found them.
After all the laundry I've been doing by hand here, I shall rush to buy a washing machine when we return. It takes many hours a week to do the laundry.
We had the first big frost last night but the weather is still not winter-coat weather. I bought