Dear Anonymous,

Last Friday my post dealt with my novel, Father’s Day, my daughter’s visit and my birthday.  Kindly, I received several comments, the last of which was from Anonymous.  You picked up on the birthday remark and left me a happy birthday message.  In Indonesian.  

I was dumbstruck.  I scrambled to find my Indonesian dictionary.  The message was written in very simple words, more on the slang level of the language in which I used to be fluent.  You know me well enough to keep it simple after all these years.  Oddly, there was no hidden meaning or reference to anything in the past.  

My next thought was, “How do I smoke this person out?”  It’s been 35 years since I left my life in Jakarta and I have only kept in touch with Gunilla Rittenhouse.  ‘Nilla, as I have always affectionately called her, and I worked together at my stock photo agency.  We were both married to Americans in the oilfield and didn’t fit comfortably into the role of corporate wife.  We stayed in touch over the years.  When I remarried, we both had two daughters at roughly the same time. Though we have always lived on opposite coasts, we managed to stay up on each other’s lives, visiting occasionally and always sending Christmas cards.  And, ‘Nilla being Swedish, we only used English to communicate.

I dredged my memory bank and still couldn’t solve the riddle of who you are. Since I lived in Jakarta, my last name has changed from Kidder to Schaefer. To find my blog would require you to know this important fact.  My ex-husband stayed in Indonesia, married an Indonesian and had children, this might look like a logical path.  While he may know my last name, we have had no communication in many years.  And we never spoke Indonesian to each other.

I may be blowing this mystery all out of proportion.  There must be a simple answer that I’m missing. 

But, I give up.  Please, Anonymous, give me a hint!

Puncak Pass in West Java