2025 sucks so far

 On a personal note 2025 sucks.

January 1 A kitchen plug short circuited. We won't be able to get anyone to look at it until Monday. Most places in Switzerland are closed over the two holiday weeks, which normally I love.

January 2 Problems with Netflix. Too long a story.

January 3 A call from the vet that we had an appointment for Sherlock. Rushed out to find that despite the tarp, the windows had to be scraped. At least the dog survived his tooth cleaning.

January 4 Dog is coughing. Day is just beginning still have hopes.

On a world view

Genocide is continuing in the Gaza.

The people being appointed to the new U.S. Cabinet seem at best to be incompetent. At the worse they are oligarchs. 

There have been mass murders in New Orleans, Montenegro and elsewhere.

South Korea is a mess.

Musk is siding with the German far right. 

Conclusion

My husband and I tried to do News Detox after the election. Little by little we "peeked."

If only we could change the catastrophes happening.

Role Reversal

 

I find there's a role reversal with many of my Brit friends. They'll drink coffee while I drink tea.

It's easy to identify a British or an American mystery novel without any other reference to location by the number of cups of coffee or tea characters drinks. And the phrase, "I'll put the kettle on," has appeared at least a zillion times in English books, TV shows and movies.

When I arrived at a British friend's after learning a friend had been murdered, she took one look at my face and said, "I'll put the kettle on." The tea was accompanied by tissues and hugs as she listened and poured cup after cup.

Tea and Coca-Cola are my beverages of choice. Coke would be for another blog. Tea memories are laced through my lifetime.

My family's English connections had not been activated since 1636 when they arrived in Massachusetts, but tea was what was drunk, although my grandmother sometimes snuck a cup of Nescafe instant first thing in the morning.

The years I lived on Wigglesworth Street in Boston with friends, tea was drunk after work. We had a series of teapots, and we could almost tell the maker's mood by the pot chosen.

Although I now use mainly teabags, there's nothing like hotting the pot, spooning in the right amount of leaves and letting it steep. I still feel badly that I broke the violet-decorated teapot I inherited from my stepmom's dad. We shared the same birth date along with Amelia Earhart and Bella Abzug.

The use of my word steep became a major conversation when I made a pot of tea for my multi-national co-workers in Switzerland. Should it be steep? Draw? Brew? No matter the word, they all drank it.

At another workplace a Swiss co-worker would bring a cup of tea to my office every day around 10, about the same time the bakery made their deliveries of pain au chocolate, croissants, and other goodies. 

After covid, while heading for Edinburgh by car, we went to Greywalls Hotel for afternoon tea at the recommendation of a friend who shared my last name. It was served by the fire in a room that would have been perfect for Hercule Poirot to reveal the murderer. In another lifetime I would love to be a scout for movie sets and the mansion would be perfect for so many films.

My lovable husband brings me a cup of tea in bed morning. I wake to the aroma of whatever tea he has selected. And as I write this he's brewing a cup to place next to me.

Free Write --Phonies

The three free writers are in two places over the holidays. Julia is in the mountains with her grand kids. Rick and I are in gray Geneva. We went to a different tearoom for our pastry and beverage. 

The prompt, which we emailed to Julia, was from Minette Walters, Disordered Minds. "The classy accent began to slip a little."

D-L's Free Write

Gail made it a point to never criticize her daughter Madison's choice of men, but with Thomas or Tommie as he preferred to be called, she almost made an exception.

He sounded like Detective Lynley from the British mystery series, maybe younger. He dressed as any well-to-do Brit would, albeit out of place in Cambridge, MA.

Her first suspicion wasn't what he said, but how he said it. His classy accent kept slipping.

Her second suspicion was the way he mispronounced French.

Gail had lived in London and Paris when her father, a U.S. Marine, was assigned to the U.S. embassies in the two capitals. 

Tommie had picked up Gail and Madison to take them to dinner at the Top of the Hub, a restaurant on the 52nd floor of the Prudential Tower. He encouraged them to order lobster.

Gail listened to his stories, although he said he couldn't talk about his work as an investment counselor, "confidentiality you know."

Dinner was wonderful.

Tommie drove Gail and Madison home.

"I'm staying with Mom tonight," Madison said.

Tommie looked annoyed. "I'll call you tomorrow."

Inside Gail's cozy apartment, Madison kicked off her shoes. "He's history."

"Why?" Gail wanted to say hurrah.

"He's a phony. His accent sucks. And his Tesla had different license plates than they had when he picked me up two days ago.

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

Julia's Free Write

Here it was the last day of the year and she had been invited to a swank party in Gstaad.
She, of course, didn’t know many people, being as it was, a newcomer to this world of wealth. And that only by dint of having married into the Rothschild family: the younger son who’s 4th wife she had become. If only he had been there to support her, but he couldn’t be bothered and felt that she needed to learn to face her fears, rather a sink or swim situation. With the outcome being the determining factor as to whether she wouldn’t become the 4th divorcee.
And so she stoically started and continued to make the rounds, but her classy accent started to slip just a little bit, enough for those who truly belonged to realize that she was out of her element.  
The New Year would be better. And next year she would fit in…. 

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 

When Linda got excited, the Texas twang came back in force.

When we first met her and Carl, we assumed they were probably from the upper Midwest. Michigan or Illinois. Somewhere where most everyone, at least the natives, sounded like the neutral-accent television anchors. They had traveled all over the world for Carl’s job at Texas Instruments – Calgary, London, France, New Zealand. Carl had gotten seriously sick in Auckland, so they had to give up the overseas adventures and return to the TI Dallas headquarters.

When it was time for Carl to retire, Linda was in a panic. She was the ruler of the house. But she knew if Carl was home most of the day, he would make ‘suggestions’ about the décor, the gardening, the cooking…

She had to get him something to do.

They were friends with a couple other couples, so Linda made the suggestion that the three men do things together, like go to the movies. That only lasted until Glenn chose Cowboys and Aliens with Daniel Craig. After that, Carl and Jim would go without Glenn. But to Linda, at least Carl was out of the house.

The couples group eventually broke up altogether when Linda didn’t invite Sally on the annual trip to the Fur and Feathers craft fair in Oklahoma. The slight was too much for the woman from upstate New York, whose non-accent was genuine.

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

The Oxford Comma and Me

 

                   A comma rests on the grass at Oxford University.

My husband and I don't disagree on much. The biggest dispute in our marriage is the Oxford comma, which he believes in with the same strength as a three-year old believes it was Santa who filled the stockings, left the gifts under the tree, ate the snack left on the mantle and finally took the carrots for his reindeer up the chimney.

I think back over the decades to my English teacher, Mr. D'Orlando, a handsome man who could have been a Spanish hero in any movie. The girls in the class could barely control their drooling. He even had the toughest football players reading poetry and discussing the meanings with care.

He never mentioned the Oxford comma as such, but told us the comma was a substitute for the word and. It was no news. Last year, our English teacher Mr. Bond, a devotee of theater and good books when discussing the way punctuation can add or detract from writing, said the same thing. 

Thus, my viewpoint was cast in enough marble to build a monument. I see if someone writes, a dog, cat, a turtle, and a horse were in the garden what they are saying is a dog, a cat, a turtle and and a horse were in the garden. 

Since both men created a life-long passion for reading in depth in a way I hadn't read before, their words hold weight.

I suspect that most readers don't notice whether an Oxford comma is there or not but gloss over the sentence and happily go on to the next. 

The Oxford comma is not a deal-breaker in our marriage.