Advertising blitz

 

 "Only a penny."

Richard Quest said that in his promo piece that seemed to be run a 1000 times a day, it became a joke between my husband and myself. In fact, CNN international runs the same promo pieces and adverts so often that we can recite them by heart.

In flipping stations when adverts come on, it seems like they all run their adverts at the same time. The news channels from many countries all decide to report on Africa and sports at the same time too. No escape.

I have begun to think that programs on USA and ITV especially are allowed on the air only to interrupt and give a little breather from the adverts.

Some European stations tend to group their adverts together between programs or on one break. This is good for a potty, shower, nap or meal preparation break. When done the program resumes in large enough junks that watching is a pleasure not a frustration.

I feel I want to invite the white-haired lady in the wheel chair on one advert over for a cuppa and ask her who her hairdresser is. And there's a recipe for fried oysters given by a woman in a great African costume, I might like to try--except I'm allergic to oysters. The boat that cruises European rivers never seems to get very far. It is always goes by the same place hundreds if not thousands of times a month.

It seems once a week Facebook floods my page with sponsored posts (read adverts for products I have no interest in.) I "hide" every one of them as irrelevant hoping their algorithm will decide I'm one of those rare people who don't buy stuff unless it is absolutely necessary. Today it was 26 with regular postings tucked in every now and then, probably by mistake.

As a retired professional communicator, I know adverts pay for content. And I know if a person doesn't know about a product, the company will never sell anything and go out of business. But enough is enough.

Years ago, when I bought stuff through direct mail, I'd change my initial and in that way I could track who had sold my name. I was also a buyer of direct mail lists so I was part of the problem, I admit.

 What makes it worse, most of the adverts are boring. Every now and there is a memorable one. Here's some oldies but goodies .

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz4O6y3LEXw Joey called today
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLQYKCJ9zQ8 mashmallow meatballs
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0 where's the beef?
  

But as amusing as they may be, if they are shown just as the name of murderer is about to be revealed, it is annoying at best. 

Is there a solution? Yup, shut off the TV or find another way to be entertained.

Where's my book?

Advertising and husband love

 

My husband's first words to me were about advertising. I'd just opened my eyes to see him begin his morning semi-stagger to the bathroom.

No, good morning, I love you or I'm getting you tea.

And that is why I love him. It's the wide variety of subjects we delve into. Each of us have been introduced to ideas, books, movies, sports, etc. we might not have gone into with the same depth had we not been in each other's lives. Some come out of nowhere. Others arrive from existing interests or something we've spied and want to share.

And the love appears when it is least expected.

Yesterday I was in the small grocery store/post office in Collonge-Bellerive.

The Afghani behind the counter remembered me, although I hadn't been in for a while. Conversation follows:

Me: I haven't seen you for a while, but I haven't been in.

Him: Usually it's your husband.

Me: He likes shopping better than I do.

Him: He's a very, very nice man.

Me: I know. I'm so lucky to have him.

Him: You are, but so is he to have you.

With that he gave me my change for the stamps I'd bought to mail three letters one each to the U.S. France and Switzerland.

 

Non wicked step mom

 

"Oh dear, I wish you hadn't put the iron away hot." 

Those were the only cross or almost cross words my step mom ever spoke to me in five decades. Somehow that woman never looked at the Ugly Step Mother Manual.

She brought my father and me together. Normally brave, he was afraid after five years of separation, I would reject him. She convinced him to try. I didn't reject him and it was the start of a rebuilding.

She had been adopted, but her adoptive father, Jack, shared my July 24th birth date. When I pointed it out Jack, said, "I didn't know you were as old as I am."  

My father was her second husband. They met when she and her first husband, who had a dance studio, performed at the Meadowbrook Golf Club talent show. The dress rehearsal was for children. She wore a hooped skirted, white Civil War dress decorated with violets. She let me borrow it and the entire next day I pretended I lived on a southern plantation.

She had a son and daughter like my father. We weren't "your children and mine children" but "our children."

They had a good marriage, appreciated more because of their unhappy first marriages. Thursday was date night and more than once a bartender or waiter asked if they were married because they seemed so much in love. 

Over the years we developed a friendship as well as a mother-daughter relationship. Thus when my father died, I told her she was still my mom. We continued as two women who loved and respected each other.

She would visit me in Boston and later in Geneva. I was worried to leave her alone in Geneva when I had to work, but despite her not having a word of French, she went out and about. "I made a hairdressing appointment," she told me.

"Where and did he speak English?"

"(name of place) No, but we understood one another."

She was tiny, barely 100 pounds and five feet, but she was mighty. Put a deck of cards in her hand, and she sought blood. After defeating me, she'd feed me things like her Kahlua brownies.

I had asked her to live with me in Switzerland, but she didn't want to leave her home. I understood but realized it would be harder for me to care for her long distance.

Her sinking into dementia was sad. Along with her grandson and caretakers we were able to keep her safe even though we lived thousands of miles apart. Finally we were able to get her into a veterans home. She's served in the Navy in WWII. Her character came through even then when she was named the Valentine's Queen by staff and other residents.

I will always miss her. I try and use her as a role model in many ways.

 

My dog's social life

 

Paddy (left) and Sherlock (right) at a beach party.

My dog has a more active social life than I do, even more so during the pandemic. 

From the time we brought him home as a three-month old pup, the villagers fell in love with him. "Bonjour, Sherlock," they would say before remembering to say bonjour to us. And if we were without him, "Ou est Sherlock?"  

His first summer he became part of a weekly walking group. Notice I said "he." Many of the women in the group had a dog. One did not. She borrowed Sherlock who trotted off happily with the group without a backward glance. He's okay to leave us, but does not like us to leave him.

 

Then there was the English woman caught by one the French shutdowns. She was willing to break the one kilometer limit and walk to the Château Valmy, two kilometers away, almost every day.

Sherlock messed this up for himself. One day the woman wanted to go to another place. Sherlock wanted to go to Valmy and staged a sit-down strike. She brought him home and didn't take him again. She went back to the U.K. shortly after.

My dog has also been to BBQs, beach parties, picnics and apèros with his human friends where we are not included. This isn't rejection, it is like all social life that sometimes you do something with one group, sometimes with others. Sherlock seems to participate in all groups.

Quarantine, Lockdown

 

Since March 2020 I've been lockdowned, quarantined, limited to 1 kilometer, 10 kilometers and 100 kilometers in travel from my front door. I've had to fill out an attestation when I wanted to leave the house and subjected to a a 7 p.m. curfew and an 8 p.m. curfew.

I've not been able to go to my favorite or unfavorite restaurants. 

I have had two needles stuck in my arm and five q-tips on steroids stuck up my nose. 

I've given up hugs and having friends over either planned or spur of the moment.

We didn't do planned trips to Norway, Edinburgh, Toronto, Nova Scotia, Boston, St. Moritz. 

Not all at one time of course. 

If you think this is a complaint, you're wrong.

I haven't had Covid. I haven't given Covid to anyone. That makes me happy.

During this period my husband and I have written, read, laughed, watched TV, Netflix, cooked good meals and some less good, enjoyed our patio and walks limited to the latest kilometer boundary, played with the dog.

We've gathered a collection of surgical masks, including a present from my daughter with my dog's photo on it.

I'll admit I don't have much patience with the whiners who don't want to take precautions against the disease endangering others. And yes, I know I'm lucky that we still have income, a roof over our heads, enough food and are not in a tiny apartment with three kids which would have made the last 13 months much harder. But many of the whiners have similar situations and comforts to us. They just aren't used to not having what they want usually when they want it.

I'm also happy that unlike hundreds of thousands of other people in the world:

1. My house hasn't been bombed. In fact I have a roof over my head.

2. No gangs have threatened me.

3. I am not in a boat that may capsize any minute fleeing for my life.

4. I am not hungry.

5. The water I drink is not contaminated.

6. I have medicine that have helped me through cancer and high blood pressure.

7. I have all my limbs.

8. I have my eyesight.

9. I have my hearing.

 

Would I like the virus to go away so we could go back to normal or near normal? 

 

You betcha!

 

I did fantasize eating inside a restaurant although we could eat on a restaurant terrace for the first time in 13 months last week. Like all fantasies, reality can be a little different when realized in some form.

 

Until it is over, I will continue to count my blessings.

 

 

 

Cords and batteries

 

I guess I'm old.

I remember the days when I never had to wonder where an electrical cord was. Or which one... At least once a day, I ask my husband have you seen the cord for the: phone, Kindle, speaker, tooth brush, and feel free to add to the list..)

Now almost everything we own needs to be plugged in and recharged.

It is necessary to check battery status before deciding which phone to take. 

And since we travel between our Swiss and French homes, a cord for one appliance always seems to be in the other place. I suspect when we stop on route, the cord escapes and runs away.

 

Add to that the Swiss plugs and French plugs sometimes work without an adapter depending on the plugs and the outlet. Fortunately, we no longer have to deal with American plugs during Covid or English because we aren't traveling.

And then there are different ways cords are attached to the different appliances. One is so tiny, I almost need a magnifying glass to do it.

Yes there are adapters which often leads to another question, "Honey have you seen the adapter?"

 ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

Anti Cancer drug...

 

 "Two more years," my oncologist said.

Damn. I thought the hormone that I'd been taking for five years would end now.

"Because you had breast cancer twice, we think seven years is better," she explained.

Okay, I can do two more years of hot flashes and night sweats that the tablet causes. I'm in late my 70s. I'll pretend I'm in 50s and take them as a sign of youth.

My daughter went through puberty at the same time I went through menopause. There were no major problems of an emotional adult and teenager being out of control. 

I think we both agree that there are togetherness activities that are far more fun than hormonal ups and downs..

The pills are tiny, smaller than half the nail on my baby finger and I've small hands.

They have a French and a Swiss name depending on the country I buy them in. The prescription is honored by pharmacies in both countries, but it costs 4x as much in Switzerland. My Swiss health insurance covers the French purchase. At first they didn't want to, but I wrote and mentioned how much they saved. I don't know if that had any bearing or not.

This pill was different than the one I was prescribed the first time, which left me feeling like the first months of being pregnant. When I talked to my doctor, she did a little research and said when she put in all my personal details it has a 50-50 chance of being effective. I chose the wrong 50 and five years later, another nasty tumor made its home in my right breast. That was five years ago. I decided to be an Amazon woman without a right breast. Unlike the Amazon women, I didn't shoot arrows.

Five seems to be a big number in my personal experience with cancer.

Now many years later, I am cancer free as of my last check this week. 

I can share menopausal symptoms with my daughter. Hopefully she will be able to come at Christmas. Along with Christmas stockings we can share more hot flash stories.

 

Birthday in quarantine

 

 

Today is my husband's 70th birthday, a biggie.

How will be celebrate? 

We can leave the flat to get our covid tests. If we pass, we will be released from quarantine where we've been for a week because we entered Switzerland from a virus danger zone in France.

It hasn't been a bad time. We've sat in the garden, admired the budding flowers, read, written, watched television, played with the dog and chatted.

However, I feel badly that this birthday has no real celebration. This is the man who arranged for me to visit the tomb of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lionhearted for my 75th, fulfilling a long-term dream.

I can't give him a surprise party. I did that a few years ago and the surprise was he hadn't planned to be there. He did show up when I threatened him. In any case quarantine implies no guests.

I can't give him a Pauline Cake. The baker is an eight hour drive away.

My method of giving him Christmas and birthday gifts is based on things he's mentioned in casual conversation. The cuckoo clock is one. Pieces of art, hickory golf clubs, a William Tell carving have been other gifts. This year he didn't mention anything and even if he had unless it could be shipped I can't go into stores.

Although, I can't wrap anything, I can promise to continue to adore him. To encourage his love of golf.  To appreciate all the things he does for me. To share in things he talks about be it work, writing, politics, or plans for the day. To try and point out little things he might appreciate. To let him know, that I am there for him with every eon in my body.

And oh yes, and I promise not to complaint about dishes in the sink until my birthday in July, probably the hardest of all the things I've mentioned.

Quarantine fun

Quarantine fun is NOT an oxymoron. It is a choice.

Within minutes of arriving home in Switzerland after leaving a part of France that had had high Covid numbers, we had a call on our mobiles. We were told that we had to go into 7-10 days quarantine, even though we had had tests showing negative the day before.

No surprise. We knew it would happen.

We could do it at home.

Since last March between France and Switzerland we've experienced a variety of shutdowns, curfews, closings, travel restriction, walking restrictions, mask rules, and attestations (forms stating when we left our home and why). This is not a complaint. Humanity must get this virus under control.

As writers quarantine wasn't a huge difference. We spent much of our time together although in our own writing worlds. We are readers, news junkies and chocolate nibblers, etc. so amusing ourselves is not a problem. We seldom (read never) lack for a topic to discuss or find something to amuse ourselves.

We were determined to make this period an enjoyable experience. 

We were sure to store enough food, healthy and goodies, to satisfy our appetites.

The Swiss TV has many more choices than the French thus letting us watch a documentary on Franco. And there's Netflix if we want it.

There were enough books to make sure we didn't run out of reading matter, which is good because I left my Kindle by accident in France.

Home restaurant delivery is relatively new in Switzerland and we looked through all the choices. It was a wonder our chins weren't chapped from drool looking at the photos of our choices. Today, I satisfied my Indian food urges which had been denied for far too long. Rick ordered from his favorite kebab place. We had the pleasure of anticipation, eating and no clean up.

Our pup is having the most problems. Although we can have our eyes feast on the garden outside our door where we can sit to watch the birds, the red squirrel and the many, many flowers blossom, Sherlock must be confused. He likes the garden, but he must be wondering why we are not taking him to the Reserve, the château ruin and various woodsy and country areas where he can run and run. I'm not sure he appreciates the view of the snow speckled Jura above our gate and hedges as we do.

Tomorrow we have Covid tests. If we are negative we will be free. Switzerland has just opened its restaurant terraces. I can restock books from the English speaking library. Rick can play golf with his buddies. And Sherlock can go back to his château and gallop across the fields to the château.

Why doesn't the quarantine bother me? Because I'm 1000% aware of how lucky I am compared to so many people in this world. I have everything I need physically, financially and emotionally. I am not going to complain about the limitations when by fate's accident I have so much.

Once we are sprung, we will still be prudent and wear our masks if only as role models.

 

Twice burned

 

About a year ago the Meadowbrook Golf Clubhouse in Reading, MA burned to the ground. 

This may not mean a lot to most of you reading this, but it was part of my childhood and  part of my family's with memberships going back to the 1930s. The club has existed since 1898.

My family were golfing fiends and loved me despite having to drag me to Saturday morning lessons or to the course for nine holes of family togetherness by playing.  I would disappear into the woods, pick blue berries, check out the development of tad poles in nearby waterholes and do everything but concentrate on my swing.

It was also a social center with dances, talent shows and other events. My favorite, of course, were the family night suppers where all the kids would be herded into the basement to watch cartoons after the meal and Andy Bellivue would show off his spelling talents with words like antidisestablishmentarianism and Mississippi.

While my parents played, Rosemary Sias and I would often find a quiet corner and play Canasta. No one seemed to mind two kids were on their own. Sometime we would practice our putting and go to the proshop to buy Coke and candy. My uncle, who worked there after his retirement to get him away from my aunt's sight, would run a tab for us.

My Dad met my stepmom there and that led to my parents' divorce, a relief to all.

In winter the hills were great for tobogganing or just plain sledding.

Hot days were often spent by the pool with lunch in the restaurant.

The member-owned club was being rebuilt to be opened in June. This month the almost complete club house burned down.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I had arranged to play there on a trip to the States. He's an avid golfer: I wonder if the blueberries and tadpoles are still there.  

Tradition

Rick and I agree on most things and disagree on enough to keep our married life and our conversational debates interesting. 

Prince Philip's funeral was one of those. My husband sees little use for the royals. I've been fascinated by them since I was a little kid.

I love the pageantry and the tradition. 

This goes beyond the UK. Somethings that go back hundreds or thousands of years are worth preserving. Granted there needs to be some updating on traditions or we'd all be running around in furs and fig leaves. 

In a way it is like a successful marriage where memories, both good and bad, bind people together -- common knowledge that is shared.

I will admit to being a history buff whose heart beats faster when I stand on a historic spot: the tombs of William the Conqueror, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionhearted. The battlefields in Concord and of Bull Run, where James Joyce wrote (as long as I don't have to read Ulysses). 

 I can get excited when I see people in Argelès in historic dress singing and dancing to songs from the ages. Even Morris Dancers can bring tears to my eyes. 

I also can get shivers when I'm an Argelès beach and realize that in 1939 100,000 Spanish refugees were huddled there.

Maybe it is because I don't consider myself just a 1942 edition of a human. I'm my ancestors: John Sargent who fought in the American Revolution or Michel Boudreau who left La Rochelle, France for Nova Scotia in 1640. A part of me is Medora Young my great grandmother and everyone between on both sides of my family.

Although no pomp, there are family and New England traditions such as Boston baked beans that are as part of me as the pageantry is of the Windsors, just more understated.

We had our DNA done and I turned out to be 1% Norwegian. Ever since then I picture some Viking either raping an English maid or seeing a lovely maiden and staying.

I am more than me.

Paul Revere rides again

On April 17, 1959 as a cub reporter for the Lawrence Eagle Tribune I was assigned to take a photo of the man who was scheduled to recreate the ride of Paul Revere on the eve of the first battle of the American Revolution.

 I was 17 but looked younger. Because the paper's Graflex cameras was so heavy and I weighed under 90 pounds many of my photos came out shaky. The paper bought be a Minolta Autocord to solve the problem.

I showed up on time. The good doctor was dressed in his best 1775 clothes and stood next to a beautiful brown horse. I snapped many photos both with him next to the animal and on it, ready to ride and sound the alarm to every Middlesex village and farm.

When I brought the film into the city room for processing my editor, Fred B. Cole, was on the phone to the doctor, who was furious. How dare they waste his busy time and send a 12-year old kid with a Brownie camera to take his photo instead of a real photographer.

The photo was fantastic and was on the top half of the front page.

The doctor called back and asked for the negatives and prints. He did not apologize for his rant.

After hanging up, Fred mumbled (he always mumbled) something about no one having the right to insult him or his staff.

My editor carefully prepared the negatives and prints in an envelope and mailed them -- in the waste paper basket.

Even if William Dawes and other finished the ride, Longfellow's poem covers the historic event.

Paul Revere’s Ride

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 1807-1882

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Autoroute rest areas

 

My nickname when I worked at DCU was bitty bladder. Decades later my husband hears often on our 6-8 hour drive from Southern France to Geneva a request for a pee break at one of the great rest stops. It is autoroute 99% of the way. There are two kinds of stops:

• Centers with restaurants, stores, toilets, showers, picnic areas
• Toilet stops that usually include in different combinations scenic views, picnic areas, music, wifi, and cultural knowledge. 
  

We've seen almost all of them but there was one we had missed. This was close to being a park dedicated to French singer icon, Georges Brassens.  

There were the lyrics from his songs on scattered between iron work cut outs on boards that looked like paper torn from notebooks. There were also copper colored silhouettes of people frolicking.

And for those that might not know Brassens, there was information. I was thrilled that Rick recognized him from a documentary we'd seen many years before. He is getting more into Francophone culture.

Georges Charles Brassens (October 1921 – October 1981) was a French singer-songwriter and poet. He was considered one of France's most accomplished postwar poets.

We wandered around reading some of the lyrics, commenting on the cutouts, remarking on the detail on the suitcase of the statue. We almost forgot the original reason for the stop was to use the ultra clean facilities. Sherlock, however, made use of all the plants.

The area is named Gare le Gorille (see photo at the top of the page). To listen to the song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faL2qm-F1jM

Celles là même qui, naguère,
Le couvaient d'un oeil décidé,
Fuirent, prouvant qu'elles n'avaient guère
De la suite dans les idées;
D'autant plus vaine était leur crainte,
Que LE GORILLE est un luron
Supérieur à l'homme dans l'étreinte,
Bien des femmes vous le diront!
Gare au gorille!...

Tout le monde se précipite
Hors d'atteinte du singe en rut,
Sauf une vielle décrépite
Et un jeune juge en bois brut;
Voyant que toutes se dérobent,
Le quadrumane accéléra
Son dandinement vers les robes
De la vielle et du magistrat!
Gare au gorille!...

"Bah! soupirait la centaire,
Qu'on puisse encore me désirer,
Ce serait extraordinaire,
Et, pour tout dire, inespéré!"
Le juge pensait, impassible,
"Qu'on me prenne pour une guenon,
C'est complètement impossible..."
La suite lui prouva que non!
Gare au gorille!...

Supposez que l'un de vous puisse être,
Comme le singe, obligé de
Violer un juge ou une ancêtre,
Lequel choisirait-il des deux?
Qu'une alternative pareille,
Un de ces quatres jours, m'échoie,
C'est, j'en suis convaincu, la vielle
Qui sera l'objet de mon choix!
Gare au gorille!...

Mais, par malheur, si LE GORILLE
Aux jeux de l'amour vaut son prix,
On sait qu'en revanche il ne brille
Ni par le goût, ni par l'esprit.
Lors, au lieu d'opter pour la vielle,
Comme aurait fait n'importe qui,
Il saisit le juge à l'oreille
Et l'entraîna dans un maquis!
Gare au gorille!...

La suite serait délectable,
Malheureusement, je ne peux
Pas la dire, et c'est regrettable,
Ça nous aurait fait rire un peu;
Car le juge, au moment suprême,
Criait: "Maman!", pleurait beaucoup,
Comme l'homme auquel, le jour même,
Il avait fait trancher le cou.
Gare au gorille!...

Breaking up is hard to do.

 

This blog may make people angry. And no I am not about to lead a revolution. It is an observation. 

At a ripe old age, I have lived through many U.S. transitions before leaving the country in my 40s. Yet I've continued to follow their politics as I do with many countries.

I've never seen such division. Even during Vietnam. It's not so much that people have opposing opinions it is almost as if they are not of the same species.

It seems to me, the U.S. should consider a geographic divorce for example by:

• East Coast -- Maine down to Delaware and Maryland
  
• South --Virginia through Florida to Louisiana. Maybe Northern Virginia would prefer to stay with the East Coast.
  
• Texas Ring -- Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona
  
• West Coast -- California -- Washington
• West - Colorado, Wyoming, Montana
• North Mid west- Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin
• Mid West -- Everything in between

Perhaps after the breakup people would be given a year to relocated to be able to live near other like-minded people. After that borders could close or not depending on the new governments in each place.

Some of the areas like New England and California would flourish economically. Others like Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, etc. would suffer.

Each area would establish their own constitution. Some of the Southern states might declare religious law. Some might copy the original U.S. Constitution with adjustments like term limits -- or not.

The military would not be as necessary because other nations would have less desire to take over the former U.S. Countries around the world would no longer fear U.S. interference either behind the scenes or militarily.

Another country, maybe China, would take over as a leading power. 

In each of new new countries, because they would be founded by less divisive opinions, perhaps they could would agree on major issues and get on with life.

In one way, the current U.S. has all the resources they need to be a paradise, except for the human division. 

 

Please

 "What's the magic word?"

I hated that question as a child. It meant I'd forgotten to say please.

"Please," I'd say knowing nothing would happen until I did. And whatever I asked for would be granted in most cases.

Several decades later, a German friend, in a trilingual family, asked the question of her daughter the same when the child forgot. S'il te plâit, bitte, please, depending on the language they were chatting in. She also referred to it as a mot magique, magic word and  magisches Wort. As a pre-teen, the girl has automatically added it to her requests.

I had an Yugoslavian exchange student staying with me in the late 70s. "Why do you always say 'please' when you ask me to do something?" she asked me.

"Politeness. And you can say no, although ... athough it would be better if you didn't," I admitted. Most of my requests with the please were household related. I told her she could use please when asking me for things,

A friend who was visiting Turkey with his two little girls made sure they knew Turkish for please and thank you. When they used it at a costume jewelry store, the owner was so impressed, they gave each girl a small trinket.

Such a simple word but like many simple things, it can be powerful. It softens the least desirable requests and honey coats the sweetest. It is giving the recipient of the request a bit of dignity whether equal or unequal in position.

A demand of a sales girl with please and a smile may make the transition smoother or more pleasant.

And a thank you, merci, danke, doesn't hurt human communication either.

That's a bit of magic, isn't it?

Waking up

 

After decades of getting up early to exercise, walk the dog (s) eat and get to work, one of the best things about retirement is staying in bed and reading. Rick brings me tea and a biscuit and I wake up to the delightful odor of different teas. So good to sip and bite as I delve into a book, The New Yorker and/or my laptop. Rick does the same. We read bits and pieces to each other that we want to share.

I use my Annie clock, made by a friend and featuring my concept of Annie Young, the heroine of my Third Culture Kid mysteries, to actively enjoy not rushing. We still are up between 8 or 9 depending how interesting what we are reading is.

Then my eyes roam the art work and out to the patio. I love my bedroom. I love my heart sheer curtains. I love looking out on the patio. I love my husband. I love my dog who is usually in no more of a rush to get up than we are. I love me life.

 

Madame A. Retires

 

Madame Auer, the proprietor of the Argelès dry cleaners (pressing) is retiring after 50 years of serving the village. She doesn't look old enough, with her trim figure, smooth skin and blond hair, to have spent 50 years doing the same job.

Madame Auer has the same last name as my friend and brother want-to-be RB2. It is the name of the architect of the Swiss parliament, and of one of the best chocolatiers in Geneva. At one time we brought her a box in an Auer bag.

We often saw her on the street to exchange greetings as she walked her late three-legged Yorkie and we walked Sherlock.

Her smile was catching. Her greetings to Sherlock as warm if not warmer than to us. I suspect we will continue to chat as we spy one another.

Although we will miss her service, we hope she enjoys her retirement as much as we love ours.

 

Finding my father

 

"The admin is looking for you. Your father is here.” My buddy Paul Harvey had found me in the alcove behind the musical cubicles where I loved to study and listen to the students playing between classes at Lowell U. It had been almost six years since I’d seen him. Our only contact had been through his weekly support check to my mother.

My parents’ marriage had been a nightmare not in the sense of physical abuse or addiction problems but genuine dislike and undermining of each other. Neither party was innocent.

Two separation attempts hadn’t worked when I was 5 and 8. Fortunately the one when I was 13 did.

It had been clear throughout my childhood I could not like my father and have my mother’s love too. Everything came with conditions. Yes, I could go with him to see Santa Claus arrive in the center of our town but that’s all. I had to say no to the Roy Rogers movie, and I loved Roy, which was part of the celebration without explaining to him why. The condition? I could go see Santa but that had to be the only thing we did. Even where we were to stand was dictated. My father had agreed to my suggestion of the library wall. I doubt if he knew why I was so insistent.

After the divorce, my father visited us 2-4 times a month. Sometimes, he was allowed to take us out. Other times we stayed on the porch.

My mother claims truthfully she never talked against him to me, but she did talk against him to her friends in my hearing.

For a period I hated him as required. My English teacher once asked the class if any of us truly hated someone. “I do.” He started to follow up but knew that wasn’t the time and place.

My father stood by the admissions window that day. He looked the same in his suit, overcoat, twirling his fedora. He invited me to lunch. We began to heal old wounds and went on to forge a wonderful relationship.

My stepmom (the stupid slut, according to my mother) had encouraged him to make contact even though he admitted he was terrified I would reject him. Putting his fears aside, he waited well over an hour for me at admissions. I became “our” daughter. She became a woman I grew to adore and respect.

I didn’t just find my father. I found his entire family who were not ignorant foreigners having emigrated as francophones from Nova Scotia, but a close loving bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins all who accepted me. I just arrived a little late.

My father adored me. After his heart attack, I heard from the nurses how he bragged about that as part of my job I rode in the company helicopter, how smart and clever I was, what a great mother to his equally talented and beautiful granddaughter.

I was in my 40s was when I really lost my father. A call from my uncle sent me scurrying to Florida where the family gathered to say goodbye to him. I wish he had lived to see the publication of my books, but just as happy I didn’t have to explain why I gave up my American nationality and had taken the Swiss one.

Yet I find him times hiding out in my heart and memories.

Photos: My father had teased his brothers and sisters about being grandparents. To announce my pregnancy we had a surprise baby shower for him and the family. 

My brother, who had not seen our father since age five, at 27 asked if I could introduce them. We flew to Florida and had a wonderful long weekend. Sadly, they did not continue the relationship.