Nationality? Patriotism?

 

 

"I love my country" or "I'd die for my country." People say that about their nation.

What is a nation?

The planet is artificially divided into countries. Artificial boundaries move over the centuries. 

In earlier times people were more attached to their cave, village knowing little beyond. People were attached emotionally to the land that provided them food.

Rulers headed conglomerates of these smaller parcels. They tried to take ownership of other conglomerates, usually through wars, calling on the people to risk their lives. 

Commonalities existed: language, habits, shared believes through religion, through festivals, through survival, through tragedies, through oral and written stories of the past, through dreams of the future. 

In more advanced societies there was art, literature, music, architecture to celebrate and create pride. Stories convinced people they belonged to something bigger than themselves and greater than the conglomerate next door or across the sea. Differences in how one worshiped was always handy to convince people to fight for their nation. Gods beat land and wealth as a cause.

Leaders could be called chief, king, president, minister, general, oligarch. Some were good for the people: others were destructive. They made/make rules bringing order to the society which they oversee, but those rules control the mobs and help those leaders keep power.

Ever since one group of cavemen attacked another group with clubs and rocks in hopes of taking over a better cave, people have gone to war. The number of deaths mount. Lives of the warriors are cut short. Their heroism, their patriotism is lauded by the survivors, but in the long term or even the short term, they are forgotten.

The artificial borders shift, the reasons for the war melt into history. The actions of puny people fired with a sense of nationality and patriotism fall into nothingness.

And through the centuries for millions of years, the Earth keeps turning oblivious to those artificial constructs called nations.

I'm a new Canadian

 

As of today, I 'm a Canadian citizen.

That I applied may surprise many. 

I became Swiss in 2006 where I'd lived since Sept. 1990. I planned to live there the rest of my life and wanted to be able to vote and be a fully contributing citizen where I lived.

I had planned to keep my American nationality. I had loved ones there. I stayed active politically regularly calling congress on certain legislation. I always voted. Giving up those rights hurt.

However FATCA and my reduced financial choices such as having a bank account and life insurance made that impossible. I renounced. On behalf of myself and other expats I fought for expats both with a lawsuit (along with Republicans and Rand Paul)  and going to Congress itself.

For seven years I had a credit union newsletter sent to approximately 1000 Canadian credit union executives. I attended conferences as a reporter, attendee and speaker in Canada. I made visits with my new husband to his client in Montreal.

If anyone thinks my Canadian connections are weak, they go way back.

In 1640 Michel Boudreau, my ancestor sailed from La Rochelle, France for Nova Scotia. He became a general, fathered 11 children. His descendants worked their way down to my grandfather, a lighthouse keeper. The family moved to the U.S. When my father, who was born in Canada, was 25 he also became American. Many of the Boudreau family still populate the area in Nova Scotia.

We were planning to visit Nova Scotia prior to the pandemic. I'd been by the parish church in La Rochelle where my ancestor was baptized and married. I studied the history that led to his deciding to change countries. I wanted to visit the graveyard where he was buried. I wanted to see the lighthouse my grandfather had been in charge of. I wanted to reach out to remaining relatives like some of my cousins had. The pandemic has delayed those plans. 

So as of today, I am once again a hyphenated person, Swiss-Canadian.

 

Home Ec

 

In school a lifetime ago boys took Shop. I suspect most gardens of people with sons had a bird house made in that class. Maybe many bird houses if they had many sons.

Girls took Home Ec. The first half of the year was cooking. We made cocoa, something I already knew how to do. We baked cookies. I'd done that at home for several years.

The second half of the year was sewing. I made (more or less) a blue and white sailor style blouse. My alleged friend Diane (I've forgotten or blocked her last name) suggested if I help her with hers than she would help me with mine. Didn't work out that way. I did learn a valuable lesson about trusting people to keep their word. I never wore the finished-in-a-rush blouse.

What a waste of time. 

It doesn't have to be.

My belief was boys and girls should take both. Girls need to be able to handle tools change a tire, be able to do simple plumbing, etc. Boys need to know what goes into making a home.

For Home Ec it should be more then cocoa and blouses. Nutrition should be included. A bit of analysis on how to be a wise shopper for things like appliances, etc. Financial knowledge about credit, interest, saving, budgeting. Decorating wouldn't hurt.

Homemaking as a profession is gone. My grandmother, Dar, was probably a top professional in that pre-Betty Frieden era. She had systems for everything that produced nutritious meals, ironed clothes (also sheets and pillow cases) and a clean house through weekly, monthly and annual schedules. She was a frugal Yankee. Socks were darned (when I tried to do the same with my ex-husband I seamed them which were uncomfortable in his army boots), everything was used and reused. Nothing was wasted. She was also a financial manager that consider allowing her family to have any debts as unacceptable as running naked through the town center.

I do not mourn that I lived and prospered in the after-Betty Frieden era. My domesticity is limited, yet I still want a clean, neat house. I want meals to be good AND healthy. Of course, I have juggled this as a working woman and single mom. We won't even mention the years I spent with two housemates renovating a house where there was still some order in the chaos of paint cans, ladders, plaster and piles of tiles. I have mini-systems that reflect some of Dar's values and role-modeling.

I want to live debt free and have most of my adult life, but didn't learn that in Home Ec. And I wish I'd learned to be more a DYIer. 

I don't think either Home Ec or Shop are taught in many schools. It should be, but far more in depth than we were taught. Both boys and girls could benefit from these life-easing skills.

A fly

 

A fly walked or maybe ambled across my bathroom floor this morning. I wondered if it were hurt. I care about sick or hurt animals and want to save them. I do not feel that way about flies and other flying insects.

I hadn't needed to worry. At the doorway, the fly became airborne. His (or her who knows how to tell) were in perfect working order. Less than a foot from the door, s/he did a 180 came back through the bathroom door, landed on the floor and walked back to his/her starting point.

My husband is an aviation journalist. He has observed test flights. This was light an airplane doing a test flight and returning to the airport.

I didn't kill the fly, not that I have any compunction about killing them. S/he reminded me of me when I leave the house and immediately return for my mask.

Oreos

 

Growing up I didn't eat many Oreos. My grandmother kept our cookie jar filled with brown-edged, ginger, oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate and many other kinds of home-baked cookies. Bought cookies came from bakeries seldom from a manufacturer.

In 1990 when I moved to Switzerland, a friend mentioned Oreos, which were not available. I had such a craving for them, worse than a pregnant woman's craving for anything.

Once they became available, the craving went away. From time to time my husband would buy them and bring me one along with my morning cup of tea before I got up. Yes, I am spoiled.

About a month ago, he presented me with what I thought was an Oreo. The taste of chocolate exploded in my mouth. It looked like the real thing, except the flavor was a hundred times better. As it turned out it was a local store brand. 

Normally imitations are never better than the original. Not in this case. I want the fake not the authentic.

 

 

 

                             The people in this film https://watchmotherless.wordpress.com/                                                             all grew up without a mother who died because of a backroom abortion. 

A mournful sax plays the song "Motherless Child" and introduces the short documentary.

"The last time I saw my mother..." Sharon Magee says about her mother Mary whose last words to her were, "...and you be good." Sharon learned years later from newspaper clippings that her mother died from an injection of pine oil given by a backroom abortionist.

Gwen Campbell Elliot was called to her dying mother's bedside. Her grandmother raised her and was determined the child would not go the way of her mother and had her submit to internals at an early age which terrified her. She learned much later her mother hadn't died in childbirth but of an illegal abortion.

James Friedl's mother died of an illegal abortion, but he was told it was food poisoning. He hid in pain in closets to keep the pain away. Only as an adult did he learn the truth. The method used? Ergot.

Linn Duvall Hartwell's mother Clara was a singer. She already had five children. Her father was a journalist. They shared a house with their grandmother and there was no room for another child. The documentary was made when Linn was 69. As she visits her mother's grave, the pain is still there.

Pro-Life people talk about saving babies. They don't talk about saving the mothers. They don't talk about the damage the deaths of a woman from an illegal abortion does to the children, parents, siblings, husbands of the women who die. 

Motherless was produced and directed by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater and Diane Pontius in 1992. Motherless was Attie & Goldwater Production’s first documentary.

I encourage people, pro-life, pro-choice to watch.

Awards
CINE Golden Eagle, 1993
Silver Apple, National Educational Film and Video Festival, 1993
Honors, International Health and Medical Film Festival, 1994
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights, Sarah W. Boote Founders Award, 1994

The four stories are in my book Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles. Anyone wanting a free copy PM me at Facebook Donnalanenelson

 

 

More than a restaurant

 

One of my fantasies when we were in lockdown was to eat once again at this restaurant.

Over the years, I was a regular customer, sometimes alone with my book, sometimes with friends. I would often eat there at the end of the week to reward myself for a good week of writing.

The night before Rick and my commitment ceremony, they put on a feast for 16 people who had come from different parts of the world. More than one person said it was the best meal they've ever had. Even years later, they still talk about it.

What a treat this week to once again be able to walk though those doors, to be greeted by the lovely Stephanie and to see Chef Thibault, truly an artist in food, working in the back.

Pictures do not do the food justice. I will never understand how anyone can be so imaginative.

And to hear Stephanie explain the story behind each item, is fascinating.

The restaurant is named after a partridge in Provence. There is a Marcel Pagnol childhood novels called La gloire de mon père. Stephanie told us, "We chose that name because as soon as you read a few lines from Marcel Pagnol’s books or as soon as you watch one of his movies, a smile is coming on your mouth without being aware of that… it’s so simple and so fresh that smile is invading your mind." 

It was a good choice. As soon as I walk in the restaurant, I can't help but smile that stays with me the whole day.

 

Pegasus more than a myth

 Pegasus has taken on a new meaning.

Pegasus is a mythical winged divine horse, and one of the most recognized creatures in Greek mythology. Usually depicted as pure white, Pegasus is the offspring of the Olympian god Poseidon. He was foaled by the Gorgon Medusa upon her death, when the hero Perseus decapitated her.

The color black often represents evil.

The new Pegasus spyware is evil. Created by NSO Group, an Israeli technology firm, its presence is hard to detect on mobile phones running most versions of iOS and Android. Allegedly it is looking for terrorists, but French president Macron is reported to be one of its victims. I doubt that he is heading a terrorist cell.

I'm suspicious of surveillance. No matter that it was a good cause, when we crossed the French-Swiss border, we were barely home 20 minutes when there was a message on our mobiles that we had to quarantine against the pandemic. I may sound paranoid, but I've always thought that Alexa could possibly observe my comings and goings, so much that I wouldn't have one in the house.

I'm probably one of the few people that hate their mobile phone. I know it is necessary to accomplish many modern day chores. I try and think of it as a camera, which reduces my desire to smash it every time it rings. I don't want to be in touch with the world 24/7 and when I do, I want it to be by my choice not some unknown entity. 

There is something frightening about Pegasus and its ability to totally destroy any sense of privacy secretly, although I doubt that I'm interesting enough to be targeted.

  

Sacrifice Box

 

According to the National Debt Clock the average debt per person is $85,000.

I was only in debt once in my life when my mother was dying, I couldn't work full time and I used credit cards. It took me several years to work my way out. I promised myself never again.

I'm also a minimalist. I don't want things that exceed my closet, my office shelves and book shelves. If there's more than that I don't need it.

I also mull over every purchase as to its need (and desire). 

Maybe it was years as a single mom, although I lived with a couple for many years and that reduced expenses that I decided spending should be a careful decision. 

Besides my three criteria for buying some, useful, beautiful, memory, I used to think in terms of the amount I had to work to pay for the item. Saying that, many of my jobs were enjoyable and career builders, but they were still not the way I would have spent my precious time of earth if I hadn't needed a salary.

An example. I needed boots. There are two pairs, both comfortable, attractive and of good quality. For the sake of easy math, say I made $20/hour. Salaried people can compute their hourly wages too.

One pair of boots cost $200. One costs $100. If I bought the $200 that means I would have sacrificed one day and two hours to get those boots. If I bought the $100? Only five hours of my life would be sacrificed.

Now if I charged the boots, the interest would be tagged onto the cost of the boots. If I paid late or missed a payment, the cost of the boots would go up and I'd have lost more hours of my life.

Exercise: Go through your house and write down all the things bought that aren't used or duplicated, triplicated and what was paid. How many hours of your life did you sacrifice by working to pay for them? If you paid by credit card any idea of how much interest? What would have been a better use for that money? Travel? Savings? Rental property that generates income?A hobby?

The photo is the cover of a book by Martin Stewart.

The white pigeon

 

 

He sat under a canopy of trees, his espresso in front of him. He was retired with many memories of his fighting in the 1968 student revolt and years of being an engineer in many countries around the world. Now he was settled in our French village.

The twinkle in his eyes would qualify him to play Santa Claus at any Christmas village if he weren't so thin.

"Coco," he called. "Coco, Coco."

A white pigeon was three tables away, turned and strutted over to him.

He had a very small dish of pellets on the table next to his cup.

He handed her a tiny pellet, which she took from his hand. Then another and another.

"She visits me on my balcony," he said. "I give her moistened bread."

"She thinks of you as an out-door café," I said.

His eyes twinkled even more as he handed Coco the last pellet for now.

Oral Abortifacents

People think laws will stop abortion. Throughout history women have put liquids in their mouths and up their vaginas to end an unwanted pregnancy. To them the risk was better than bearing a child they didn't want or couldn't care for. Nothing will stop abortion. Better to make it safe or even better make it easier for women to keep their babies with decent maternity leave, affordable child care. The child care credit is a start.

Here's a partial list of what women have tried orally and vaginally...

• Birthwort
• Cyprus
• Diachylon (lead plus plant juices)
• Dill
• Ergot
• Galen
• Gin
• Hellebore
• Iron Chloride
• Iron Sulfate
• Italian Catnip
• Lavender
• Opium
• Pennyroyal
• Potassium permanganate tables
• Rue
• Sage
• Savin
• Savory
• Scammony
• Slippery elm
• Spanish 
  
• Squirting cucumber
• Tansy
• Tea marjoram
• Thyme
• Turpentine
• Watercress seed
• Worm fern or prostitute root

The beach, etc.

My husband and I have been known to get up before dawn cracks to watch the sunrise over the Med. Sometimes we've taken croissants and champagne. We are alone with sand, sea and mountains.

More often we take the dog so he can do zoomies on the sand always avoiding any contact with the water. He enjoys checking out the smells where nature is protected (photo above). His appreciation for the scenery is unknown, but his happiness at his freedom is obviously unlimited.

This morning, we were too late for the sunrise, but not too late to enjoy the breeze, the view of the mountains and the intense color every where.

Sand castles have been left by yesterdays beach goers, but we found one that was extra special, using rocks as a design feature. 

 

Normally, we return to the house where Rick makes a super breakfast, but for a change we stopped at a boulangerie-café for a pain au raisin, chocolate muffin, apple juice and tea. A man in line in front of me was convinced I needed help with my French as I placed my order. I didn't, but I said merci anyway.

 Not only was the place good for people watching as early risers filtered in to eat before a day on the sand and in the water, but a man and a second family had their female dogs with them. Both were Staffordshire Bull Terriers.

 

The daughter of the second dog-owning family went over to pat the man's dog, a new mum if the distended nipples was any indication. Horror, disbelief and jealous radiated from the girl's dog's face. When the girl returned to her own table, her dog wasn't sure about forgiveness, but slowly with tender pats, her tail began to wag, first half-hardheartedly then with speed, followed by a cheek lick to show all was forgiven.

As people ambled by we imagined that they were on holiday from their routines in Paris where rushing in the morning to catch the Metro dressed in office-appropriate clothes rather than in the shorts and t-shirts they wore this morning was the norm.

We couldn't help but feel grateful that we live in this wonderful place a good part of the year. Although we both work as writers, our commute is a few steps from bed to computers.

Even when we are not in Argelès, and settled back in our base in Geneva, our commute to the computers is the same. There we have the garden outside our door and Lake Léman a five-minute walk away.

 

I sometimes wonder, if our writing is helped by our environments, the chance to revel in beauty wherever we look, the chance to manipulate our time between "work" if writing is really work, and seizing the day(s) in the best carpe diem tradition. And then I think it doesn't matter as I'm awash in gratitude for my life.

Abortion through time

 

In researching my book about abortion in Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles, I learned about how women tried to abort themselves. I was amazed at the desperation. The oldest method I found was ancient Egypt where they used crocodile dung.

Other things that were tried with various success or failure over the centuries were:

• Climbing
• Blood Letting
• Heated coconut on the stomach
• Diving
• Girdle tightening
• Fasting
• Hot water poured on the abdomen
• Jumping up and down with the buttocks with the heels at each leap
• Miscarriage inducing drugs (list to be posted tomorrow)
• Pressure on the abdomen
• Sitting over a pot of stewed onions
• Candles shoved into the cervix (lighted or not)
  
• Any pointed device shoved into the vaginal canal
• Water flushed into the uterus
• Liquids of many types that burned the vaginal cavity beyond recognition
• Foreign objects to create an infection if left in the vaginal canal
• Surgical attempts 

Nothing will stop abortion any more than prohibition stopped people drinking alcohol.

My book is free to anyone who wants it. Private message me on Facebook www.facebook.com/donnalane.nelson

 

Knitting Needles

 

From Chapter 1 Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles

My grandmother was the perfect Victorian lady. Even in the early 1960s she would never leave the house without her hat, gloves and corset.

I couldn't imagine her having sex. She bragged how her late husband had never seen her naked, but since she had three children, they must have had sex at least three times.

Anxious to preserve my purity, my grandmother cautioned me on keeping the proper distance from my dance partner. After I dated my future husband for several months as a sophomore in high school, she asked if her ever kissed me. When I nodded, she added "On the mouth?"

I did not go into French kissing or our petty sessions in his 1950 green Chrvolet.

My mind was boggled a couple of years later when we were discussing the small number of children her friends, all proper ladies like my grandmother living a middle class life in Massachusetts.  They were the embodied of the cliché "prim and proper." Most would never dream of even taking a sip of alcohol.

Had my grandparents and her friends practiced abstinence? It was something I'd never ask. I didn't have to. She volunteered the information that her friends' families were small because they used the "knitting needle trick?"

If anyone would like a free copy of my book Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles, please PM at Facebook.

Paper

 

In the pre-computer world when I was in grade school, paper had its own meaning.

Newspaper quality paper was for math. Yuck. 

When he had to write something, we did the draft on yellow-lined paper. The teacher would sometimes make suggestions, correct spelling, etc.

The final draft was always on the higher quality white-lined paper.

Eventually, for important projects like term papers we typed the final drafts on regular stationary. Leaving room for footnotes was always a pain. Today, with word processing, it's easy. Also changing words, sentences, paragraphs, catching typos no longer makes our stress levels rise.

Viva la progress.

Mixing chapters

 Despite software programs, I still use an old-fashioned file card system. It is especially important for my book Anatomy of a Novel: Lexington, which has three different plots. 

The system may not work for everyone. I've always said there's not one way to write, but each writer needs to work in his/her own way.

There is a card for each chapter which includes:

• The name of the person 
• A color code for that person (helps in arranging visually)
• Chapter number
• Time and place of the action in the chapter
• A summary of the major event 
•  Number of pages in chapter

Then I can arrange and rearrange easier than cutting and pasting on the major document (I always have two backups.)

 

 

 

The year I wrote Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles was one of the hardest writing years of my life.

It tells the story of abortion mainly in the U.S. prior to Roe v. Wade. I listened to tragedy after tragedy of women who died because abortion wasn't available except by backroom butchers. Survivors told the story of being told to lay down on dirty newspapers. One talked about the abortionist who made sexual advances. 

Children whose mothers could not handle another child, told of the loss of their mothers.

Doctors spoke of melted vaginal tissues and ruptured organs.

Almost every major hospital in the U.S. had beds for women who would come to die after an illegal abortion.

I researched a group of rabbis and ministers who wanted to do something about it. This is what Wikipedia says of the Clergy Counsultation Service.

The Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (CCS) was a group of American clergy that counseled and referred people to licensed doctors for safe abortions before the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade made abortion legal nationwide. Started in 1967 by a group of 21 Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis in New York City, the group operated out of Judson Memorial Church and grew to incorporate chapters in thirty-eight states with some 3,000 clergy as members. By the time of the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, it is estimated that the Clergy Consultation Service had nationally referred at least 450,000 people for safe abortions."

People who think abortion will be stopped are as deluded as those that thought prohibition would stop people drinking alcohol. The only thing new laws will do is have women with money go where it is safe and women with less money will find a way out of an unwanted pregnancy. 

Anyone who wants a free copy of the book contact me via PM at my Facebook page Donnalane Nelson.

Stand by your man er...products

 

Years ago I had a puff coat bought from L.L. Bean. The zipper broke after two years. I wrote the company for a new zipper. They sent me a new coat.

My Swiss boyfriend was shocked. He didn't believe companies stood by their products that way. Most don't.

Last year I bought a Nikon camera. Ten days after I bought it the lens jammed. Neither the store nor Nikon Japan would fix it. They expected me to pay for the repairs.

Instead, I will never buy a Nikon product. I will discourage anyone who asks me if they should.

What is wrong with standing by your products?

A coat and a camera do not have major safety issues. Airplanes do. Thus when a company doesn't put safety first, they should no longer be able to fly. Of course, that won't happen.

 

 

Wage slaves

 

Unless we own our company we are all wage slaves subject to the whims of our masters. Okay, some of us are well-paid slaves, but we are still hampered by the corporations we work for. We can say we sell our talents and skills to the highest bidder, and if we don't like it, we can change jobs.

Not so fast. 

We are still limited. The new employer will ask what we want for salaries. They may be thinking $100,000 but even if you have all the skills they need but you were making $80,000 most offers would be well under the $100,000. There is a good chance that the boost offered would be higher than your wage progression in your current company.

What do you do? Take the job with the higher salary, knowing if you want another salary leap, you may have to change jobs again. 

On a lower level think of the poor employees at Frito-Lay in Topeka 500+ of whom are on strike. Wages have been relative stagnant and have not kept up with cost of living changes. Although paid overtime, some employees are forced to work overtime up to seven days.  Yes they may make money, but time off is necessary for health and well being. A wage slave doesn't have a choice.

The company has paid lump sum amount in place of raises in the past.

More than once a company has been bought out or moved overseas. Top management does well, lower employees to middle management suddenly find themselves out of a job with little back up.

President Biden just signed an executive order doing away with non-compete requirements. Tens of millions of Americans cannot legally work in a similar company if let go or quit. Now they can. This is progress.

Ideally I think of business as a three-legged stool. One leg is capital, one is employees and the third is customers. The seat could be the marketplace. Without any one of the legs, the stool cannot serve the marketplace. All three legs need to be cared for and treated fairly.

 

 

Concentration Camp

 Desolate!

That would be the best description of the concentration camp memorial in Rivesaltes, France. It has been called the Sahara of the South because of the summer heat and winds.

In 1941 it was changed from a military camp to where thousands of refugees fleeing Franco were stashed. Held there were 7,000 Jews imprisoned by the Vichy: 2,400 were deported to Drancy and Auschwitz for extermination.

German prisoners of war were also kept there.

And finally 20,000 harkis, French Algerians who supported the French prior to Algerian independence took their turn behind the wires.

The conditions were at best horrible. Hunger, cold in winter, heat in summer, illnesses, were common.

The camp was closed in late 1964. It was reopened in late 2015 as a memorial to the harsh reality and cruelties. An underground bunker has movies, photos, artifacts, list of names, copies of documents,

putting faces to stories of those that lived through it.

It was nice to leave the camp thinking, it's over. It won't happen again. But it is happening in many places all over the world as people flee war, natural catastrophes, poverty, criminality. 

There was one document that struck me describing the removal of some of the prisoners from Rivesaltes to another camp. It cautioned that parents and children should be kept together, a direct contradiction to the recent U.S. policy on the Mexican border that left kids in cages not knowing where their parents were.

That humans could do this to other humans left us with a feeling of disgust of the capabilities of our species.

Day Care Moms

 

Freelance writer Brenda Ainsworth finally had enough money to go to France and write her novel, but her agent convinced her to accept an assignment to write a book about four single moms who bond together together to make life easier for themselves. All their daughters are friends at daycare.

She is surprised at how involved she gets with the four women and their daily lives.

Maureen is dealing with a serious ill child. Without her friends and parents she isn't sure she could cope.

Ashley is a widow with an adopted child, whose birth mother is still a part of their lives. One of her clients is an abused wife. Ashley is part of the law firm owned by her parents.

Anne-Marie, mother of twins has left her successful French businessman for a professor at the university where she teaches. She lives in fear of losing custody. 

Sally escaped a religious cult as a child and would like to reestablish a relationship with her parents. Even if she doesn't, she is building a good life for herself and her daughter and loves being a teacher.

Outdated?

 

I clicked on a Youtube that promised to show five ways your home was outdated.

Hmmm.

One was if you had blue wall-to-wall carpet. So 90s, they claimed.

Yuck.

The idea that it is necessary to go out and consume to look 2020s I find annoying.

My kitchen is outdated. I admit it.

The stonewalls are at least 300 years old. That's mega outdated.

The table is turn of the century...19th to 20th. I love thinking about all the people who sat around that table in the last 100+ years. I imagine all the things that were made on it.

I have no idea about the metal cabinet(s) nor tea tray. They were found by accident in shops, one of which was owned by friends. They solved a storage problem in a totally original way.

The picnic baskets were treasures found in vide greniers (flea markets). Memories of getting up Sunday mornings and exploring different places until we found what we wanted we can treasure each time we use them, although one basket was a gift from a friend who also found it at a vide grenier. That makes it a greater treasure.

The dog is relatively new 3 years 10 months. Put into my arms at a rescue center when he was three months old guaranteed we wouldn't leave without him.

 We are sure that the semi-circular red bricks were once the oven for the house. 

If we went back far enough, we suspect this floor was used for chickens, cattle, etc. before it was used as a kitchen. Our flat is the ground floor of a four-story house.

Paintings on both walls were done by a late friend.

My husband has suggested redoing this part of the kitchen. Never. I have everything I need and want. The open shelving reminds me of all the good things in my kitchen. 

Yes, my kitchen is dated by hundreds of years to the last few years for things like the dishwasher, stove tops  and ovens. I feel happy when I am in the kitchen. It is finally set up to be efficient as I need. I can think of no reason to spend money on changing it.

I also feel a certain amount of contentment that it is nothing like any other kitchen. I will never see it in a showroom or a magazine. It is 100% mine -- outdated or not.

Credit Unions, coops, banks

 

My interview was for the Public Relations Director of Polaroid Credit Union (PCU). I thought it was a labor union not a financial institution. Fortunately, I didn't blow it by revealing my ignorance. It was to become a life-long connection with the movement.

It was easy to promote. All profits were to be returned to the members in terms of better interest rates on loans and savings and/or additional services. I didn't realize that credit unions were co-operatives.

Three years later the management team of PCU was hired by Digital Equipment Corporation to start a credit union. The same philosophy applied. I still didn't realize credit unions were part of the co-operative movement.

However, we did everything we could for members from simple English documents, to investing in the technology of the time.

I wondered why I ever had a bank account when a credit union offered so much more.

When I moved to Switzerland, the only credit union was the UN's, and I wasn't eligible although I debated asking a UN employee to marry me, so I would be eligible. Credit union members form a common bond, professional, geographic, religious, etc.

I missed working for credit unions with their pro-member philosophy. I ended up as international correspondent for Credit Union Times (CUT). Credit unions in different countries had different success stories and different problems such as in the UK where loans were limited to £500, not a big deterrent to the usury rates of the doorstep lenders.

When CUT was sold, I started an e-newsletter for Canadian credit union executives 48x a year with each issue having 20-50 news stories. It was then I realized that credit unions were part of the co-operative movement. www.ica.coop. I'm a slow study.

Coops generate over $2.1 trillion worldwide and employ 280 million people. 

Credit unions can be anything from several village members pooling their resources in an African  village to the billion dollar + Navy Federal or the Canadian VanCity.

Eventually I retired. I still have my American credit union membership. My second best choice is Raiffeisen in Switzerland, and Crèdit Agricole in France both co-perative banks, the next best thing.

 

Trust

 

Trust is a funny thing. It can't be bought. Trust doesn't stand alone. It connect with all other aspects of life.

I think of how people in a Miami condo trusted that when they went to bed, their building wouldn't collapse. They trusted builders, inspectors and their own board to protect them. 

Wrong.

What saddens me, is I'm not surprised. I used to have trust in lots of things, that I no longer do.

I've seen companies lie about safety, politicians switch stories at the on switch of a reporter's mike. I've seen my birth country's capital attack described as a tourist visit. 

I bought a Nikon camera. I trusted that it would last. It didn't. Within ten days the shutter no longer shut. I trusted the store would make good. It didn't.

I trusted Nikon would make good. It didn't.

What was sad, I'm no longer surprised when things don't work.I'm no longer surprised when no one cares to make things right.

It is society, companies, governments I don't trust. As far as governments are concerned, I haven't been surprised at their lies from Vietnam on. The more I read, the less surprised and sadder I become. It's not just my birth country, but all countries at one time or another.

Maybe I'm naive. What I still can trust is people, not all. I refuse not to trust until someone breaks that trust.

I trust my husband, I trust my daughter, I trust friends whom I know to be trustworthy not by their words, but their by their actions. Long ago I learned to separate words and deeds. Trust happens when words and deeds match.

 

Dear NSA, Alexa

 

 

 from webdonuts.com

 Dear NSA and Alexa...

A few years ago, I wrote NSA regularly to keep it updated on my whereabouts when I was off grid, which was as often as possible. Then I got caught up in other writing and figured you would just have to survive without knowing my every move.

But now there's you Alexa. I refuse to have you in my house. You might see me at the physio when Jerome, my therapist plays music we've been discussing but you will never darken my door. My life with remain secret from you. You are extending your data sharing via Ring. Good thing I didn't install Ring. I'd have to uninstall it.

I have a mobile phone, but only because my husband insists. I call it a camera. I know the Swiss government can trace me on it as evidenced by the fact they called me within minutes of my crossing the French-Swiss border to tell me I needed to be in quarantine.

I could go cold turkey and go off grid completely, but I'd miss the internet even if it is a pain the way different companies inundate me with ads based on what I've done on-line. Little do they know, they will never, ever sell me anything. It probably won't hurt their bottom line, because they will get enough results from others.

My life should not be of interest to any of the businesses or governments who are spying on me. I read, I write, I talk with my husband, I play with my dog. I do not represent a security threat or an opportunity to make money.

You can also find me on Facebook, this blog, and my website www.dlnelsonwriter.com which reveals some of my inner thoughts. It would be nice if you'd buy some of my novels.

So dear NSA, Alexa and all you other spying devices, I wish you a pleasant day, preferably away from me.

DLN