Pajama musings

 

I was ironing my pajamas this morning. Yes! I do iron pajamas, sometimes, but only two pairs of pjs need ironing. They come out of the wash with uncomfortable wrinkles.

It started when we transferred from our home in Southern France to our home in Geneva, Switzerland. I forgotten my pjs.

My daughter, who was visiting, and I were on the main shopping street in downtown Geneva. I almost never shop there. Prices are ridiculous. A brand name of jeans can go for 100 CHF up to several hundred CHF. If I buy them at the French marché the cost would be 10 to 20% of that. 

I'll admit to being frugal. Some might say cheap, but I want the best bang for my franc or euro.

Llara and I passed a store that had pjs in the window. 

I should also explain, I despise shopping. Every minute in a store is stolen from my life.

A lovely sales girl, whom I later learned was from Morocco, was not the least pushy. 

Usually, when forced to shop, if I can't find something in minutes (seconds are better), I'm out of the store.This was different. I needed to look. The pjs were beautiful in color, design, material. Within five minutes, I found three pairs: a striped blue, a beige and a green that could double as a sweatsuit.

I took them to the cashier, when I realized that I hadn't checked price. It took control not to faint when the sales clerk said 1,012 CHF. That's 1,112US$. As a writer, who works mainly from home mainly in jeans, that's my wardrobe budget for years.

My first reaction was to cancel. My second was to pretend that this type of purchase was an every day thing. My debit card was approved. My husband was amazed when I told him. My usual reaction to his "we need to buy" is "we don't really need it."

However, two pairs needed ironing, which was what I did this morning. As I ran the iron over the cloth, I admired the workmanship. Even the buttons were so tightly sewed on that I was sure that it would take a jackhammer to remove them.

I couldn't help but wonder who made them. Was it some woman in a sweatshop being paid pennies or the equivalent in whatever currency of the country where she lived? Did she have kids to feed? Did she make enough to eat herself? What kind of place did she live in? 

I wished that I could meet the woman. Since everything I'd seen on sweatshops it was women who did the work, I was sure it was a woman.

As a person in a first world country, there's little I can do to change those women's lives. Since I buy as little as possible because I need and want for almost nothing, boycotting doesn't help.

Tonight, I will put on my ironed pjs, go to bed, perhaps read a bit, perhaps chat or cuddle with my husband, perhaps try and convince our dog he really needs to give us more room. The woman, who made my pjs, will probably be on her way to work, if she is not already there. I doubt if she has time and/or energy to wonder about people who will buy what she has made. I am sure she can't imagine what the buyer of her pj's life is like.

If we meet, I could tell her, it as an accident of birth that I live in the comfort I do, that my writing, my work, gives my life meaning and each day is not a struggle to survive. It is an accident of birth that she is where she is living as she is. 

As a writer, I think of so many potential novels and short stories, but time reality, limits what I can write. Side-by-side stories of a first and third world woman will never come through my laptop pushing out my other projects. Still, somewhere on the other side of the planet, is a woman who sits at a sewing machine making pjs that women like me will wear without ever recognizing the seamstress.

The Failed Typing Test

 

 She stood at the door, dressed in a tweed skirt and a black blouse. Her hair was tied back. Although she was in her mid twenties, she had the aura of an old woman. "I'm looking for a job," she said.

This was the early 70s. I was doing a short stint as a recruitment manager for secretarial help.

During the interview, she told me her family didn't want her to work, but she had secretly been learning how to type. Never once did she meet my eyes, finding her fingers nestled in her lap, the focus of everything around her. "I disobeyed them once and went to Hawaii. It was the biggest mistake of my life."

There were so many things I wanted to ask her about why her family didn't want her to work. Why was her trip to Hawaii a mistake? What was making her secretly trying to learn to type? 

I didn't. Instead, I suggested the required typing test.

She barely scored 35 words a minute, an improvement on her third try.

There was no way I could place her. Her demeanor would have made all our clients reject her even if typing wasn't involved. 

"I suggest you continue learning how to type," I told her. "Then come back." 

I wanted to give her hope, although I knew there was little.

I wanted to tell her to escape her family, seek counseling, feed that tiny spark of rebellion, but I didn't. 

She left and never came back. Over the decades, I've wondered what happened to her when I see a young woman dressed in black or a young woman almost defeated by their life. 

I imagined how I could have "saved" her by taking her home and building her confidence no matter how impossible that would have been.

I'll never know.

 

Almost a fire

 

 

Not my smartest move.

After our lakeside Christmas walk, I decided to warm my loved Tilieul Bread bought at the Cornavin train station, one of the few places it's sold while Rick put the tarp on the car.

I put the last piece in its bag into the microwave for a minute, and went to get a plate.

What could go wrong?

A lot.

When I opened the door, smoke, foul smelling smoke, billowed out, although it was a pretty beige. A beige liquid was on the walls and floor of the microwave not unlike that when we popped popcorn. 

My husband came in at the moment and was able to open the window, which was too high for me to reach.

"You can't put paper in the microwave and aluminum."

"I know about the aluminum," I said. At that moment I didn't think how when popcorn was popped in a paper bag,  the same brownish liquid had to be washed out of the microwave without any smoke.

The bag was in crispy pieces: the bread charcoal like.

The roof of the microwave had buckled.

We will probably wait until early January to get a new microwave figuring there will be too many people taking advantage of the Christmas holiday after sales. Many businesses close for Christmas week, but the major stores reopened on the 26th. The full workforce won't be back until around January 6th.

The Christmas fire that wasn't quite a fire will be a Christmas memory.

 

Flower History

During my first grown up job, my boss, who also wrote a syndicated garden column, gave me the ugliest bulb ever for Christmas. Being polite I thanked him. Having confidence in him, I planted it. 

First, a little green tongue appeared and then a second and they shot up and up and up. 

I learned that it was an amaryllis and over the years I've sometimes bought amaryllis bulbs to recreate the pleasure of watching them blossom. I've also given them as gifts, especially to the mamies (the old women in Argelès who are confined to home.

This years I bought a bulb that was extra ugly. It's bottom was a mass, and I mean mass of gray thread-like roots. Still in memory of my old boss, whom was my professional godfather and whose advice I followed throughout my career and life, we planted and then watched each day as it became... 

   ... taller and taller and then budded.

First one bud burst into bloom and it seemed when our backs were turned another and another and another until for Christmas day we had eight huge blossoms.

I could wax poetical and describe it as the rebirth of life. We have just celebrated the solstice and this is the season throughout time cultures have celebrated (re)birth. I could compare it to the story of the ugly duckling. Instead, I think this year, I will save the bulb and try and resurrect it next year.

Free Write - Plastic Bags

 

Christmas Eve at Manora for our weekly 10-minute Free Write. No matter that the holiday was starting in a few hours. People at tables around us were drinking their coffees, espressos, hot chocolates and eating their croissants and pastries. Behind the tea room, the grocery store was buzzing with people doing last minute meal shopping. The snow from earlier in the week had melted. As we left there were lots and lots of gold-foil Lindt teddy bears. These sessions with my two writing friends have been a gift all year long.

Julia's Free Write Bags and Boxes

There they sat, not line up, no particular order – in the middle of the living room.

 How many years had flown by, toing and froing. Leaving home, coming back, leaving, returning.

Did he always want to? Probably not, but home was always there to take him in.  And more importantly allowed him to finally achieve at least one dream, that of becoming an art teacher.

Also, the house was big, he had his own quarters and even if his mother complained about the mess in the kitchen (more than once!) they got along well, and he always felt wanted and loved. Also, he lived his own hours, took care of all his own things so was in many ways a presence and comfort for his mother – not that she was often around.

But now life had changed again, he was engaged, he was an officially licensed teacher and had a job! Time to start his own life.

Thus, the living room – full of today’s way of packing for a major move, bags and boxes.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/  

D-L's Free Write

"Are you moving? Gina asked.

"What do you think?" Tina asked.

Gina looked at the plastic bags from Migros Grocery Store, the kind that almost last forever. A supermarket clerk would write the date in the corner just in case, something happened to the bag, they would replace it.

Gina looked at the contents of the bags: Spices, underwear, three pans, four bowls one of which was cracked. None of the bowls were wrapped in newspaper.

One had Christmas presents wrapped. 

"It's August."

"You know I do my Christmas shopping early."

Gina said nothing. She knew Tina could out Monk, Monk, the OCD TV detective 

When Tina was in a mega-move, there was only one thing for Gina to do. Help. She picked up two bags and headed for the door.

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. https://.dlnelsonwriter.com

Rick's Free Write

Nana had taken to calling it the “12 Bags of Christmas.” Everybody in the family brought something. My brother Bob, the butcher, brought the big ham. Sister Kate (who was a nun) brought the candles. Mom supplied the candied yams. Dad’s specialty was the nuts. And Grandpa was always the liquor specialist (some of the bottles had obviously been opened).

We’d all show up at Nana’s house on Christmas Eve, just around dusk, set the bags in the kitchen, then go caroling in the neighborhood. Everyone except Grandpa, who would settle in his Lay-Z-Boy recliner with a glass in his hand.

When we arrived back, the kids were all excited and wanted to open presents, but the rule was the family ate together first.

Just was we finished Aunt Mabel’s pumpkin pie – with whippy – the snow started to fall outside and Grandpa started falling asleep.

The smallest child, Cindy, would recite a few lines from The Grinch and then she got to open the first present.

The dog curled up by the fire, and the empty bags sat in the corner, waiting for next year.

“And to all a good night!”

 Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 

 

Adventure in the Elevator

 

We were late to meet a friend at the tea room in a store. While Rick hooked up the dog, I headed for the elevator rather than the escalator leaving him to catch up.

The multi-story building had all the floors marked next to the buttons. What they were was not clear in some cases and it wasn't just that they were in French. I pushed the one that was clear saying tea room.

When the elevator stopped at the top floor, I remembered there were two tea rooms in that store.

A young woman with a coffee cup in her hand and dressed in employee black, got on.

I knew the other tea room was on the same floor as the grocery store but nothing said grocery store in French or any other language.

She pushed another button.

"This is my first day working here. I think this my floor."

It wasn't.

I tried another floor but it wasn't the right one.

"I wish I could help you," she said.

"And me you."

We pushed all the buttons. When the elevator stopped at each, we would peek out to see if it was our floor.

I reached the grocery floor first because I recognized the corridor leading to the toilets leading to the grocery leading to the other tea room.

I got out. "Bonne chance avec votre travail,  I wished her.

"Bonne Fête," she said as the doors closed.

Sleigh Bells and all that

 

Waking to snow this morning was wonderful. Unlike most people, I love bad weather. Instead of letting my husband and dog go for a walk alone, I rushed out of bed forgetting my book and first cup of tea to go with them.

We live in a village on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland. It has about 2,500 people, farms and a château or two. We get less snow than at 500 or more meters up the mountains.

During the good weather, the field to the left was filled with corn. Mont Blanc is behind , but lost in the snow clouds today. To the left is another field populated with donkeys, ponies and a horse at different times. This morning four donkeys were mumphing hay from a cart. 

Sherlock hates rain and water. It is amazing how long he can hold his sphincter muscles when it sprinkles, never mind pours. However, he loves snow, not knowing it is frozen, white rain. He frolicked, ran, sniffed and had a jolly good time.

 

Watching the Wind

 

Waking this morning to a wind was wonderful. 

We'd left the curtain open. In our tiny flat, it was the best place for our tiny solstice bush, which we decorated yesterday but made drawing the curtain impossible.

The sky was almost white. I'm sure paint companies would come up with a name. I would choose windy white. 

A bird landed in a dancing tree but a gust caused it to fall several feet before it recovered and flew out of sight.

Each spasm of the trees was a contrast to the quiet solstice bush.

I was warm under the duvet next to Rick and Sherlock. The dog was in no rush to go out, diving under the covers.

My total contentment in the moment was even stronger than the wind.

The Solstice

 

The Solstice is one day away. Today the sun rose at 8:15 AM and will set at 4:52 PM. After tomorrow the days will start getting longer. I see it as the end of one year and the start of a new.

Man's calendar is a description only of what the planet goes through and it won't change no matter how we name or number it. 

I celebrate the natural change while borrowing things from what man has done to explain nature. Just like the early Christians borrowed from the pagans, I borrow from Christmas traditions eschewing the buying crazies. We exchange gifts, yes. I hope to find that special something for the special people in my life.

The last quarter of the earth's turning this year has been wonderful. The summer heat was replaced with cool days and the colorful countryside. Instead of long days spent with friends in café's or on our patio, I've come inside and relished the coziness of my home.

Over the years, I've borrow some of the Christmas traditions, making them my own. 

I have an Advent calendar. It was bought over a dozen years ago. In late November we go to Auer Chocolate in Geneva's downtown to pick out 24 black chocolates. Confession: Rick and I picked out more so we could sample two or three as I stuffed each date's box.

This year Rick and I cut them in half so neither of us miss out on a single taste sensation.

In my first grownup job, my boss, who also had a syndicated garden column, gave our secretary and me, an ugly bulb, with a tiny green tongue sticking out. Of course we thanked him. I took it home and was amazed over the next couple of weeks to see it grow into long stalks, then it developed pods that burst into red bell-shaped flowers. This year, I bought the bulb, which wasn't planted. The bottom had a tangle of thin gray threads. Rick filled a pot with dirt for it. Each day we monitored its growth until it blossomed fully. It is an analogy for the season.

Rick spotted our solstice bush when he went to buy dog food. Our Geneva studio is tiny, so a small tree is necessary and ever since having Sherlock, we opt for an indoor tree that fits on a tabletop. I know Sherlock would think of it as an indoor toilet at last if it were on the floor.

For the years that I could not have a real tree, I would make sure I brought at least a small branch of an evergreen into my room to remind me of the significance of the turning of the earth and the arrival of spring. The universe is so much bigger than what paltry mankind makes of it.

On the 21st we will decorate the solstice bush. There are wooden Christmas ornaments, my daughter and I painted of sleighs, soldiers, angels, balls, dogs, cats, churches, etc. over 50 years ago. We will put a sampling on the solstice bush. Hers are the work of a three-year old. I was touched when my husband made sure we brought at least one of his step-daughter's work from our French home where they are stores to our Geneva home where we are spending the holiday to make sure it was represented on the tree.

The ornaments are more than wood and paint, but have memories of so many other years. Many of the people whom I spent the holiday with are gone while remaining in my heart and memory. Songs like Little Drummer Boy or Twelve Days of Christmas conjure up images of my father and my friend's father who were part of my life. It reminds me to treasure those who are with me now.

The world will continue to turn, no matter what my species does to it. The days will get longer. Mimosa will act like sunlight in the woods near our French home. Seasonal vegetables will grow. The smell of the frozen earth melting will mix with that of lilacs. Coats will be replaced with sweaters, sweaters with blouses. We can once again sit outdoors after dinner. 

And as the earth turns spring summer will give way to summer then another autumn will arrive. The universe continues.

 

 

 

 

Why Read?

 

I am just shy of reading 35,000 pages in 2024. I've read less this year than many years. How do I know? I track my reading on a spreadsheet including:

• Date finished
• Title
• Number of pages
• Author

Why?

I read so much, I often pick up a book and by page 3, I wonder if I've read it before, especially if it's a much-published writer. With the spreadsheet, I can know for sure.

What do I read?

Almost everything but mostly fiction. Still I dig into history, biographies, politics, poetry, plays, even economics, but rarely. 

Reading lets me travel places I've been. If I want to visit Boston, I pick up a Robert B. Parker book. He'll take me by the Indian statue in front of the Museum of Fine Arts which I passed in reality zillions of times when I lived nearby or a jaunt through Harvard Square. I can revisit the old part of Damascus or once again stand at the tombs of Elizabeth 1 and Mary Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey.

I can change seasons. On a hot day, a snowstorm in Louise Penny's Three Pines series is a welcome relief. When it is freezing, I can be in the tropics by turning a page.

There are places I will only be able to go in books: India, Japan, Africa. I would need another life to visit them all.

I meet so many people in books and learn why they do what they do, where and when they do it. When I finish many books, I miss them. 

Where do I read?

Everywhere: at the table, in the car waiting for my husband who is in a shopping mall, a place I hate to spend time even in the toilet. I've been known to respond to a knock on the door, "One more chapter." In a restaurant, if I'm alone. In a chair, on the couch or in bed.

My husband and I often read in bed, sharing an interesting word, fact or phrasing we come across.

The best place can be curled up in a chair or couch, my dog next to me and maybe a cup of tea and even a piece of cake ready to nibble. When it is a rainy or snowy day, that's even better. 

Living in a Francophone world can make getting books a bit harder. Geneva has English bookstores including the new Pages&Sips, which can also satisfy my scone urge before and after I browse.

Kiosks, often old telephone booths, are filled with books that people have left. Because of the large number of Anglophones or people for whom English is a second language as functional as their first, I've found many treasures to be devoured.

The number of pages that I've read isn't totally 100% accurate of how much I've read. Type size and spacing vary. I've a John Major biography, I would like to read, but the type face is small and the spacing is jammed making it almost painful to read. I will eventually get it on Kindle where I can make the type size legible. 

Yes, I have a life outside books. I revel in my life that includes;

• Friends
• Travel
• Nature walks
• Theater
• Concerts
• Museums
• Special events 
• Anything that catches my interest
  

It's not an either/or. It's another dimension extending the richness of my days.

 

 

 

Free Write The Lookout on the Ladder

 

We sat in the village café/boulangerie with our tea, espresso and hot chocolate and wondered what we could possibly do with Rick's prompt. It wasn't easy, but I love what we each did with our ten minutes of free writing, stimulated by this photo. Two of us had no idea how they were going to end it when they started. One knew the ending but not the beginning.

Rick's Free Writ

There once was a small boy who lived near a large lake. There were no other children who lived nearby, so he played alone – skipping along the shore, tossing pebbles and watching the wave rings form and fade. Sometimes he would bring a few pieces of bread and feed the swans… if the gulls didn’t steal the morsels first.

The boy’s favorite time of day was late afternoon, just before supper, when the steamship appeared from around the bend by the old castle. Stéfan loved to watch the majestic prow of the ship with the carving of the mermaid on the front. As the ship approached the dock – about a quarter of a kilometer away (beyond where the boy was allowed to wander) – the ship’s horn would sound to alert the dock of its arrival. Stéfan would raise his arm and pull it down vigorously, as if he was the one sounding the horn. But no one was around to see him.

One day, Stéfan decided he needed a better vantage point, somewhere the captain might see him. He noticed a tall ladder leaning against the house next door and climbed to the top rung as the paddlewheeler approached. Stéfan pumped his arm, and the ship’s horn sounded, louder.

 Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 D-L's Free Write

The sunrise was late: 8:10.

Her cheeks felt if they were being sliced by knives instead of the northeast wind.

Her husband had thought she was crazy selling her late parents' beach cottage to pay an artist to sculpt the statue. "I have to," was all she told him.

She walked to the ladder sculpture with the boy reaching for the clouds every sunrise. During the summer, she woke early with the sun. In winter she could sleep in.

The weatherman said today the temperature would fall below 0°. Clutching the coat she had brought with her, she climbed the ladder's stone steps.

The stone boy's face was her son's face. She caressed his cheek before taking her scarf and wrapping it around the stone boy's neck. She placed the coat around his shoulders. The statue's arm continued to reach toward the heavens, where his double, her son, awaited.

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. https://.dlnelsonwriter.com

Julia's Free Write

 His childish mind saw it, but couldn’t really make any sense of it.

He stood there on the wall butting into the lake, having wandered faster and farther than his grandparents.

They hadn’t seen it yet.

In the background there were skyscrapers, but none close enough to touch or see into.

Had he been older he might have wondered about the feat of engineering that it had taken to produce it.

He did wonder what the point was of having it, a useful object that is necessary for seeing the top of a roof, for leaning against something higher. But this was simply straight up, not high enough to touch the sky, not leaning pm anything-

And the boy at the top: was he real? Why a boy?

His grandparents caught up, and explained it all to him: the artist, the desired effect… Boring!

That’s when Nathan woke up. Thirty years later, as a “proper” artist, he would replicate the ladder statue in time for the inauguration of the renovated park.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/  

Tea, espresso and hot chocolate finished we are ready to start writing as J. reaches for her her phone to set the ten minute time limit.

Thank you for breaking up my marriage

 

f

 A letter to my ex-husband's widow.

First my condolences on your loss. You two were married for decades, raised a family and hopefully felt fulfilled and happy.

I'll admit, I was heartbroken, when my ex told me he was in love with you.

Rejection is never easy.

Originally, I was supposed to be a stay at home mom, a role that was not tailored made for me. Fortunately my old job awaited.  

Working suited me. Of course, there were times I resented it like the day I checked in with my baby sitter who told me my daughter took her first step. I missed it.

On the other hand my sitter helped potty train my daughter. I was amazed one night eating with my babysitter's family how my daughter used a fork and spoon. At home she was still shoveling food into her mouth with her hands. hmmmm two sets of behavior.

Walking thru stores, my daughter always put her hands behind her back and never touched anything. Again, it was my babysitter's lesson. She also taught her to recite her phone number and address in case she was ever lost.

She showed me how to be a better mom.

Moving to Boston was wonderful with its museums, theatre, and general feeling. I'd always wanted to leave the town where I grew up, but my ex wanted to stay. 

With two other adults, I renovated a townhouse near the Harvard Medical School. Their support took the aloneness out of being a single mom. 

Our living arrangements were fun and filled with intellectual stimulation provided by a vibrant city, meaningful work and warmth. 

Eventually, I bought my own condo, a couple of blocks away, which I adored. My feeling of accomplishment was beyond pat-myself-on-the- back, but often surprise that I pulled it off. It would not have been possible had I stayed married.

Staying married would have meant never moving to Europe, also a childhood dream. And I'm not sure I'd have developed as a writer, thanks to the people I met in Geneva. If I had it would have been much slower and without the support of so many like-minded people whom I met.

Imagine my surprise at finding my soul-mate at 71 after years of being happily single. There were relationships, but none I wanted to make formal. My freedom was too precious.

Had I stayed in a marriage that didn't meet my dreams that I had to swallow, I would never have lived the life I was meant to live. I would never have had the adventures that I had.

As horrible as the day was when I learned that my marriage was ending, it turned out to be the best day of my life because it opened the door for everything else in my life as it did for you.

It may seem strange to some to be grateful to a couple that turned the life I planned because my ex wanted it upside down. Upside down was the best thing that happened to me. So thank you.

 

Montreux Christmas Marché

 

We met our friends at Freddie Mercury's statue in Montreux, Switzerland. People still leave flowers for him. 

The rain and snow earlier in the week had been replaced with cool, crisp, clear air. The lake and the mountains were their usual postcard beauty.

 

All up and down the lake were chalets, most decorated with boughs, ornaments and filled with everything imaginable. I'm not sure how many. I've heard 160.

Rick quickly located the chalet with Canadian poutine, something he had grown to love when he lived in Montreal, where the vendors came from. Next to impossible to find in Switzerland or Southern France.

There were all kinds of good things to eat from roasted chestnuts to Swiss specialties. Many were being prepared within the chalet.

I spied the place where a few years ago, I'd found a pretty red bowl. The potter was from the village next to ours in the South of France. This market has an international flavor.

Despite being a minimalist, I was able to add another handmade wooden pen and bookmark to my collections. 

Part of the marché is to have Pére Noël  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBWVrgbpSf0 fly his reindeer-driven sleigh across the lake. This year we left before the first flight at 17:00 but I remember it from earlier years.

My first Christmas marché was in 1962 in Stuttgart, where I was living with my ex-husband, serving his Army time in a band. I wondered into the square near Breuniger's department store to see it filled with about 15 chalets. They sold everything from würst to handcrafts. Years later I went back to Stuttgart for it's marché to find it had expanded to most of the center of the city.

It was there I found a poster of an Underwood typewriter bordered by news articles. It was during my no-buy year, but this was too personal to pass especially for 15 Euros. My father had an Underwood franchise in the later 1940s. I learned to type on an Underwood. My mother insisted I learn, saying if I could type, I would always have work. Change that to word processing today, and it was/is true. The poster hangs in my Nest a reminder of my youth, my family and the marché.

One year my cousin and her photographer husband had an assignment to photograph different Christmas markets. I joined them in Frankfort. A great family reunion with all the pleasures of Germany.

Our little village of some 2500 people also had a one-day market where local artisans displayed their wares.

Each market has its own buzz. The one we went to this week was even better because we shared it with good friends.

Free Write -- A Man

 

Today's Free Write's prompt came from the book Absolution by Alice McDermott. "His frame suggests a lifetime of manual labor but he seems to be a snappy dresser in a shirt and tie."

D-L's Free Write

I am not a stalker, but when I saw him, I became one.

His face and body structure screamed a life of manual labor. However, his clothes were snappy, expensive.

I pretended I was trying to decide between types of canned soup, so I could look into his shopping cart. If he were a laborer, he wouldn't have all those exotic fruits and veggies. His cheeses were from the gourmet cheese counter.

Enough, I thought and went to the checkout line. He was two people behind me.

I saw him in the parking lot.

No Tesla.

No Mercedes. 

He got into a mud-splattered truck with a dented door.

I decided to follow him through the streets of Cambridge onto the Mass Pike. He continued West, but I quit at the 128 Exit.

I guess I'm no good at stalking, but 17 months later, I'm still wondering about him.

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. https://.dlnelsonwriter.com

 

Julia's Free Write

 “Really, I have to put on a suit and tie?”.

Tim turned to his wife, the expression on his face reflecting his total disagreement with the idea.

“OK, but I only have the suit you bought me when we celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary.”

A lifetime of working as a logger in the woods showed in his stature, in the compactness of his body. Fortunately, he had inherited his father’s build; a build only perfected by his labors.

Twenty minutes later he turned up ready to go, nattily dressed, shaved and combed, looking just as he should.

After all, it’s not every day that you are going to meet your future in-laws, the doctor and his wife.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/  

 

 

Rick's Free Write

He stood in front of my desk, clutching a flat cap firmly in both hands, as if to steady his nerves. His hands featured dark lines, the kind one gets from dirty work. Farmhand? Grease monkey? And yet he was dressed in what appeared to be a new off-the-rack sport coat, chinos, corporate pale blue dress shirt, and paisley tie.

I offered him a chair, but he declined, preferring to stand, occasionally shifting his weight from one foot to the other as the interview proceeded.

He had no family, he said, so he could work long hours, odd hours.

I asked about the gap in his resumé and he mumbled something about being away. It was an odd answer but I did not pursue it. I was hiring a grocery stock clerk, not an accountant.

Then I noticed, peeking from under the end of his shirt sleeve, what looked like a tattoo. No, a number. What kind of number?

He tugged the shirt down when he sensed me looking. Then he turned to head for the door.

“Wait,” I called. “We hire ex-felons here. Will you take a chance on us?”

He turned back around, a tear in his eye, and extended his hand.

As we shook, he noticed the partial number peeking from under my shirt sleeve.

 Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

Morning noises

 

One of the joys of retirement is not having to rush out of bed. The alarm never goes off because we never set it, unless we have some place we need to be in the early morning, and we try and avoid scheduling early morning anything.

Staying in bed, reading, thinking, and just enjoying being is a great improvement.

Sometimes, I shut my eyes and just listen to the sounds around me. They vary if we are in France or Switzerland, but they still gentle me into the day.

Garbage men: In France they pick up the garbage daily. Sometimes Sherlock wakes up to bark at them, sometimes he just doesn't care.

People: Also in France we may hear people walking by. A dog may bark, a cat may hiss. Sometimes we hear them pulling suitcases on their way to the train station.

In both countries, the tea kettle clicks on and I can hear the water boiling. My husband will come in with a cuppa, selecting a different flavor each morning. I can identify it by its aroma.

If it is rainy, I can hear the beat of the water on the skylight signalling the start of a day that will involve snuggling inside.

If it's windy, the chimes sound on the patio, a faint melody. 

Birds trill their original melodies. Later when we walk the dog through the fields in Switzerland, we can hear woodpeckers.

Whatever combination of sounds, I feel a sense of joy that I have the time to be aware of them. 

 

Scum

 

I do not condone murder.

I do understand the cheering reaction to the health insurance's CEO's shooting death in New York.

The CEO who was shot was scum. He put profit over people. I would have preferred that he live the rest of his life along with those he loved and never, ever, ever have access to medical care.

I wonder how many of the millions of Americans without health insurance realize that every human in all other industrialized countries have access to some type of health insurance. Some systems are better than others, granted, but it is there.

He is not the only CEO to put profit before people. Customers, employees do not matter over their bonuses.

I do not have anything against profit, but I do have something against excessive profits made on the backs of others.

Top executives say that they give those people jobs. True, but without those people, there would be no one do the work that give them their money. Katie Porter's grilling of CEO Jamie Diamond is an excellent example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLuuCM6Ej0

Whether it is a corporate executive, politician, lobbyist, the amounts that they earn are staggering in comparison to the average worker. In many cases they do real damage, such as the lobbyist who convinces congress to gut safety regulations because it costs their clients too much from their profits.

Societies that share do better overall. Granted that means people like Jeff Bezos won't have as many mansions with up to 25 bathrooms, but that is preferable to a person not getting the medicines they need because some scum of a CEO encourages systems that denies their claim.

We live in a neofeudalism age. Just the names of the social groups have been changed.

 

 

Free Write -- The Two Doors

 

Julia's Free Write

Of all the things to do today, he was not prepared to be faced with this choice.

It was a lovely late fall, bordering on winter, day. The sun was shining, most of the trees were bare, which gave the advantage of seeing into properties normally hidden and protected.

The countryside walk took him down paths, which, although known to him, seemed somehow different and new.

His mind wandered down memories’ lane, of the times he had climbed those distant mountains. He could still manage hills, but balance issues made him leery of climbing rocks.

Throughout his life, he had always been a decisive person, never having a problem choosing in between this, that or the other.

Until today.

He gave it some thought and wandered a bit farther, hoping that his mind would miraculously come up with a solution.

He knew that when he returned, he would have to choose: one door or the other.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

 

D-L's Free write

Wat it the right or left door?

All Jemma could think about was the short story of the lady and the tiger.

Well no lady. No tiger. They would be frozen solid.

"Your order is behind the left door," the man said. "And lock up when you leave," and he was off. He also sai DON'T open the other door.

Ever sine Jemma was a child, she took the word don't as do.

What if she opened them at the same time?

She had to stretch to reach the handles on the two doors. Freezing air rushed into the room.

On the left were three boxes with her name written on them. To get them out she would have to get something to hold the door open. Nothing was visible, so she put her coat across the door sill and removed the boxes.

She peeked into the door on the right and screamed.

A frozen woman was at the back.

Her first reaction was to rush in and save her, but she knew she could become trapped and freeze to death too. 

Her second reaction was to call the police, who told her it was only a mannequin.

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. https://.dlnelsonwriter.com

Rick's Free Write

Door No 1. Door No 2. Where is Door No 3? No 3? Guess this is not a game show. Not a game at all. This is deadly serious. Nuclear serious.

The two doors in the sub-basement with the heavy hinges and steel casings lead to two chambers. About 5 metres by 10 metres each. Equipped with simple cot beds, a sink, a toilet and enough canned goods to last as long as the radioactive fallout lingers. Bomb shelter. A requirement for every Swiss residential building. Originally mandated because of fear of Hitler. They now serve the same purpose over fear of what Putin might do.

Most Swiss families long ago turned the chambers into wine caves, so the hingers stayed limber from frequent use.

I’ve sometimes wondered, what would it be like to share a shelter with someone you do not really like? And what if a bomb struck nearby when you were inside and blocked the door from being re-opened? Did any of the chambers have a secret escape hatch? Or do you just shrivel away slowly from lack of oxygen?

I may take my chances on the outside. At least it would be quick.

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com