I speak Djembe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjkWaMJjVOM

When my housemate asked if I wanted to do something crazy, I first said yes then asked what. It turned out not to be all that crazy, but a concert that combined classical, jazz, pop with African drums...and each member of the audience had his or her own drum. The master of ceremonies taught us how to play with the perfectionism of a French mime. The video is from an earlier show.

My hands are still tingling.

If you only have love

As I was making the apple pie today, I had Jaques Brel playing on the CD-player. He sang If you only have love, or the French version and I started to laugh.

I had to tell my housemate the story behind the song.

I was about to marry a second time, and I asked my housemate to learn the song to sing at the wedding. "It's the last song on the album," I said. She had a great voice.

A couple of days later she asked, "Are you sure you want me to sing that song?" When I said yes,
she shrugged. She asked again a few days later adding, "But your mother will be there?" I knew my mother was prudish, but there was nothing sexual in the English translation of the song.

The third time she asked I understood. There were two disks in the album and she had mistakenly taken the second one. The song had lyrics like: "The hotel where we played games,"
You bayed the moon just like a hound," and "You see, I've forgotten your name."

The lyrics turned out to be prophetic for the short lived marriage. I gave up getting married, she did not give up singing.

Relish making

My first day at a grown up job after graduation from university, one of my co-workers brought in home-made relish. I loved it. Years passed, she became my baby-sitter, I eventually shared a house with her daughter (and others) and our relish supply was always unlimited.

Then one day, the woman had a heart attack and as we waited in the room for relatives with loved ones in intensive care we realised that the recipe existed only in her head. Of course, we couldn't go in and ask.

Fortunately she recovered and relish-making became a fall femine tradition. First the daughter, the mother and myself. When my daughter was older she joined us, a right of passage. The routine was the same, always followed by a special home made tomato soup.

I have an English friend. Twice now we've carried on the tradition of making THE RELISH, albeit nine years apart. Cheerfully we peeled the cucumbers, cut the onions on the balcony where the smell was less, blended the flour, vinegar and tumeric, placed it all in sterilized glasses and violà we have relish for ourselves and a few beloved friends.

No tomato soup. I can't get one of the essential ingredients, but I can live with that.

You can take the lazy, hazy days of summer

It is autumn that I love with its red leaves. This year the leaves are ALMOST as beautiful as New England's.

And it is making applie pie with apples from a friend's tree.

And after years of living in an apartment building, even raking the leaves are a pleasure, especially if there is wood burning stove scenting the air in the neighbourhood.

And it is seeing the cat on my housemate's legs. Munchkin always finds the coziest spot in the house. But then, I understand. I love after getting up in the middle of the night to find the spot under the duvet still warm (unless of course Munchkin got there first)

Rainbow scramble

Normally August is rainbow season, but driving home after seeing This is It, the sky burst forth with a rainbow. Between traffic and trying to dig out the camera, we almost missed capturing this beauty. As it was we didn't get the best angle, but nevertheless this an accident-free rainbow and the accident-free part is almost as miraculous as the rainbow itself.

To my friend Rose

Y A H O O !

Visual lullaby

I didn't lower the rolladen last night and through the sheer curtain I could see the tree with the street light swaying in the wind. There are still many leaves to dance. The colours were muted Soothing.

Today is SUSHI. YAHOO. I've been sushi deprived since going to Argelès in mid September. Followed by the Michael Jackson movie and going to an exhibition from my housemate's Norway photo trip (not just her photos, and although I haven't seen them, I think her photos would be worthy of an exhibition. The lady is good...

Rain is pelting down as more leaves fall from the trees leaving pretty colours on the ground. I'll be less enthusastic as I'm raking them on a better weather day..

Something about a rainy November Monday with a morning to work on the newsletter, cozy in my room/office that causes rolls of contentment to sweep through me.

The internet is working well. We've discovered the secret. If I log on in my room the connection is weak. If I carry the laptop downstairs to the basement office, I log on, there's a strong wifi signal that does not fade when I walk two flights upstairs to my desk with the laptop on. As I run around with my laptop I remember when I had to take my first Mac to the repairman. I carried it gingerly, much more so than I ever did my daughter (sorry Llara), After taking baby steps into the store, hugging the precious computer to my bosom, he took it in one hand and took it up stairs two steps at a time. Arghhhhhhhhh.

The only thing that is missing at this moment is a cup of tea, and that I will remedy immediately.

Middle of the Night Musings

My housemate was in the mountains for the night. Her number 1 son was in his own flat in Geneva and number 2 son and I had shared some cheese and conversation before he left with good byes and remarks there was a good chance that he wouldn’t be back before he went to Venice for a week and he was leaving on Tuesday.

In the middle of the night after going to the bathroom, I heard noises in the house. It is a big house with its share of creaks, but these were moving around noises. Sometimes I can hear people nextdoor but that is when they are hammering or drilling, something they never do in the middle of the night.

Maybe the robbers, seeing there was no car in the garage, had come back. They weren’t very good robbers, taking my five franc pieces but not the bills next to it. They rejected my ring watch which had been in the middle of the dish with the five franc pieces.

My writers’ imagination pictured headlines like “Writer slain in foiled robbery”. I saw chalk marks around where I had been slain and yellow police tape. I realized I could lock myself in the bathroom and scream and scream out the window. Meanwhile Munchkin, the cat purred away on the foot of my bed. She is definitely not a watch cat.

Then I smelled toast.

Toast?

I called out number 2 son’s name.

“Sorry to wake you,” he called upstairs.

I am chuffed

That's my kid crossing the finish line of the Dublin Marathon. From the day she was born, my daughter was always stubborn. When she set a goal she did everthing she could to meet it without being ruthless. Thus she has faced hardships and come out the other side. The marathon is a metaphor for her character and I am so mega proud of her not just for finishing the marathon but for being the woman she is.

On retourning to Geneve

1. How wonderful to have my housemate greet me then serve champagne, shrimp and other goodies as we caught up on the news.

2. The leaves are almost as beautiful as in New England this year, many more reds. Even though it was foggy.

3. Got through the pile of paperwork in the morning, although there are two more projects that need to be done that will take a little more time. sighhhhhhhhhhh... Since housemate has headed for the hills until tomorrow afternoon, there are no real distractions.

4. I can't find my 501 French Verbs and exercise book. I can't imagine the robbers would take them. They weren't very good robbers. They got my 5 CHF pieces but left some bigger bills that were next to the change. And they rejected my ring watch.

5. I know people think I am a bit nuts on colour co-ordination, BUT and I swear it was an accident, the vitamins and calcium pills I bought in the US I just opened and one matches the roses in my duvet cover, the other the leaves. Still makes me want to leave a bunch out as a decorating touch.

Kittens in a tree

My neighbour in Argeles cracked for two orphan kittens and brought them home until she could find a home for them. She named them Chip and Chap (which is the Danish version of Disney's Chip and Dale).

The kittens are two black and white puff balls that tumble over each other, will sit in the kitchen and make comments that dinner is not forthcoming, at a speed they approve and fall asleep on her red velvet chair with nary a complaint from her. Watching them play is better than any television show that I can think of.

It would be worth starting a pool to see if she decides to keep them herself or goes along with the original plan to find a home for them, EXCEPT all the odds are on her keeping them and no one will bet on her giving them away.

my Heart is in Ireland today

What is it doing there?

Running in the Dublin marathon.

There are so9 many times I'm proud of my kid.

This is one of them.