Carlos, Roman Taxi/Tour Guide

 <

Carlos could have been out of central casting for an Italian male. His almost black hair curled over his collar. A cross nestled in his chest hair visible thru the three open top buttons of the crisp white shirt worn out over skinny jeans. 

He was to take me to the airport after I had covered a four-day conference for my paper. 

"What have you seen in Rome?" he asked. He must have practiced sexy tones.

All but one afternoon, I'd been in the conference, attending meetings, doing interviews, writing and filing stories.

I'd panicked when my camera had broken. Miracle of miracle, the hotel concierge had found a photographer who was willing to work in July.

No matter that he didn't speak English. He quickly understood I was looking for candids of people doing conferencey things not staring mannequin-like with artificial grins at the camera. We spoke hand waving.

The one afternoon I was off I met with the university professor who had translated 17,000 cuneiform tablets from Ebla, Syria written in 3000 B.C. It was for another project I was on. His hospitality and home were a thrill but not in any guide book.

"Almost nothing?"

"What time is your plane?"

"In four hours."

"Good, we have time." He turned off the meter and then gave me his tour of Rome all with the story behind the story. 

I arrived at the airport in plenty of time. I reached for my wallet and he shook his head. He gave me his card for the next time I was in Rome.

 

Bullying

 

In flipping TV stations, I caught the end of a French-language news broadcast where they were reporting that there is consideration of prison terms for those who bully others. 

I'm not sure how that would work for say a third grade bully, but strong responses for bullying are needed.

I think back to my childhood in the sixties. My much younger brother and his friends had as a target a girl, slightly overweight (obesity was rare then) called Cray and she became Crayfish. 

My mother went to the teacher and asked how and what could be done to stop it. The teacher said that the girl was thrilled to have the attention of every boy in class.

I never talked to Cray or her parents about her feelings. Maybe that was how she coped and maybe she loved it, but I doubt it.

In high school there was a boy much slower to develop. He still looked like a fifth grader. He also was a top student. He was a target of my more macho classmates, the athletes, etc. 

I did nothing to stop it. I was nice to the victim. In a seventh grade dance he asked me to dance and I did even though I was a head taller, which isn't saying I was tall. I grazed five foot one if I stood very straight. I was worried what my classmates would think, but I didn't let that stop me. I was relieved when the dance ended.

The bullying was so bad that his parents put him in a private school for his junior and senior years.

From time to time I thought of him. 

When we had our 40th reunion, I was amazed he came. He had grown and filled out and had a successful career at NASA working on its major projects. Maybe he believed living well is the best revenge.

We talked without mentioning the bullying. I didn't ask him his motivation in coming. I know he talked with those who bullied him, but there was no way I could listen.

I think of misfits from my school days. 

One joined us in fourth grade. He had lunch money tied in a handkerchief but there was no school cafeteria. I know the teacher handled it, but I don't know how. 

This kid was creepy and often smelled of unwashed clothes. I hated it when we had to partner for something. I tried to treat him as I would anyone else, but he made me cringe. He wasn't so much bullied as ignored, and that must have caused some hurt. 

I don't know what happened to him, but he showed up on an In Memoriam list put out by the person in my class who tracks us.

Another boy was in my homeroom, and he just didn't fit in. He wasn't so much a target of bullying, but was erased by being ignored. Years later we worked at the same multi international as a janitor. I never ran into him.

An ABC News report said that nearly 30 percent of students are bullies or bully. Worse, it said that some 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying.

Bullying doesn't stop with the diploma. Adult bullies exist in workplaces, families and social groups, although it can be more subtle. The following is an excellent article www.verywellmind.com/how-to-deal-with-adult-bullying-5187158 on how to deal with it. As adults I hope we have more tools to deal with the bully. 

Although I wish I could go back to earlier times and speak up more, I can only make sure I speak up now if the situation arises.

 

Concentration

 

I wish my husband could give me a concentration transfusion.Why...

When he's writing or doing anything detailed, the world could end and he wouldn't know for at least 24 hours.

Yes, I'm jealous.

As a writer, I will work for so long, then I'm tempted to take a break, check Facebook, look at email, the news, play a game.

Each day I say to myself --"Self, today you won't let yourself be distracted." Each day my Self responds, "ha, ha, ha, ha, ha . . ."

I still get everything done. This blog is being written as I half finished writing about an artist that had incredible hardships. The first draft is done, but I need to cut about 30 words. Normally, I love editing my work down. Tomorrow.

However, I'm writing this blog, and there's a cookie on the kitchen table which I think would taste good, and  . . .

Free Write Book Banning.

 

Every time I read about book banning -- or worse book burning -- I shudder.

The U.S. is promoting ignorance under all kinds of excuses such as:

1. It will upset children. When they find out they were prohibited from knowing the truth, they will be upset. Even in the era of non banning this happens. When I started digging in history and discovered what wasn't covered, I felt angry. 

2. They will be indoctrinated. Not letting them having the full story is just another type of indoctrination.

Kids are smarter than we give them credited for. In high school we weren't allowed to read Othello because of mixed racial marriage. Needless to say I got a copy of it as fast as I could and read it and was convinced the school administration was at best weird.

Although my daughter is grown, when she was in school I would have been furious if wonderful books which are now on the banned list were not available at school either in the library or taught in the classroom because of narrow-minded people. Equally, I went out of my way to see she was exposed to history, good, bad and indifferent.

I worry about a country that is deliberately encouraging ignorance in the young.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/220.Best_of_Banned_and_Challenged_Books

Free Write Village House

 

 

We settled onto our favorite cafe terrace for our Tuesday Free Write. The dog positioned himself near the cafè's cat door in hope Melissa would emerge. She didn't.

It was autumn cool and we were early. Two couples were eating their breakfast from the hotel. 

Rick ordered hot chocolate: I went for Yorkshire tea. The two tiny muffins were perched on the saucer.-- but not for long.

Because no "victim" to our pen walked through the plaza, Rick suggested a house we long admired. Here's what we came up with after 10 minutes of non stop writing. Either piece could be incorporated into a longer piece.

D-L's Free Write

It was the only house on the Place de Republique that had plants, lots of plants.

The shutters and doors were the blue so typical of a French Mediterranean village.

Most of the houses on the Place had been painted, an improvement from the grays of the past.

The woman, who had bought the place, had a cat, a fluff ball of white with a little ginger, reminding her of the creamsickles of her youth.

In the early morning, the Place was quiet, the few hotel guests across from the house ate their petit dej. 

Later in the day, there would be foot traffic. Tourists might comment on her garden.

Sometimes the Place was full of people dancing or listening to a concert. Music from the music school could be heard if she left the windows open.

Only last week, she'd read the plaque on the music school paying tribute to the women who demonstrated there against the Nazis in WWII,,

Twice a week, her house was hidden by veggie stands the merchants set up for the marché.

She was happy she had bought the house so different from her Paris flat, despite the disapproval of parents, friends and her ex.

They were wrong.

The house was right for her, especially the blue shutters.

Rick's Free Write

There are 19 plants in baskets, three of them hanging in the blue-shuttered, four-story house facing what used to be the Mairie Place of the village. And one white fluffy ccat with wispy orange highlights.

It's the perfect location. South-facing for the morning sun. Close enough to the church to hear the bells. Far enough to not be overwhelmed by the fireworks from the tower.

Right across the street from were the two cafés where people gathered morning and evening, one for French locals, one for the Anglo-speaking tourist. And best of all, within earshot of the windows of the music school, the former mairie, where the teaches demonstrated beautiful melodies and young student struggled to emulate.

On Saturday nights in summer and on occasions  of religious festivals, which are numerous, Evangelique can sit near the open shutters on her deuxième étage balcony and listen to the music, watch the dancesr, remember her younger days. Now she had only enough energy to water her plants and stroke the cat.

 

Life in a French Village

 

"The geants are lined up at the church," my husband said. He'd just been out to get brioche fresh from the oven for guests invited for breakfast.

We live in the center of the village. Most of the houses are new in comparison to the founding of the village in Charlemagne's time. 

Our flat is in a 400-year old building, modernized of course but with a stone-wall kitchen and some of the original beams. The cattle and chickens that once occupied the ground floor are long gone.

Yesterday was another fête where the geants were paraded through the streets. A number of bands played on various street corners.

Sardane dancers were in the Place de Republique. Locals joined the dancers in costume for the simple steps which look easy but aren't. For a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HdKZx4_JeM

My favorite fête is the correfoc. People dressed in fireproof clothing dance to drums and throw fireworks of their bodies as they dance.

 

Tables were set out for a meal later in the day. The plaza next to the church was the cemetery a couple of centuries ago. Today, there's a fountain and places to sit under shady trees.

The table clothes were in an alternate yellow and red covering to match the Catalan Flag because this is Catalan country. I would never dare tell any of the locals anything different, but unlike the Catalans just over the border n Spain, there is no talk of separation from France.

As a writer, I am often in the different places I write about if not in reality in my imagination, but living  here part time and in Geneva part time I can feel, smell and sometimes taste a different life from the one I lived as a child.

Free Write Getting Out of Bed

 

Mornings, I gentle myself awake. I love my bed, my linens, my husband and dog sharing my space. 

I usually wake long before having to get up, usually between eight and nine in the morning.

I read. Rick may read or browse the internet sharing well written sentences and news clips I need to know.

The day ahead should be good. A writer is coming to share a cup of tea, I have my writing planned out. 

And I do need to hang up the laundry now that I've heard the machine's beep.

It is cool and I imagine a possible walk with the dog.

It's my turn to make lunch and I'll do a New England type meal of baked beans and franks. 

It is not impossible that I will wander around the corner to check on what new local fruit and veggies are available.

This is the hardest moment of any day -- when I have to separate myself from the  bed. It's warm. Cozy. I love the colors of the bed linens. I like looking through the heart decorated sheer curtains onto the patio.

Part of me could snuggle under the covers for a couple of more chapters and perhaps a quickie nap. Instead, I throw back the covers but lie there for one precious moment more before gathering my clothes and head for the shower.

Free write--unattended graves.

It was a spring ritual when I was a child. My mother, grandmother, brother and I would pile into the car.

Our first stop was Weston's greenhouse where we would buy flowers, usually red geraniums.

Then we would go to the cemetery in Malden, where my grandmother would plant the flowers as my brother and I would run among the gravestones. Now I realize that geraniums last, which is probably why chose them for her father, son Gordon and baby daughter Lois. She also planted some at the grave of her sister-in-law's family.

The last thing we would do before we left was get water from the faucet to make sure the plants had a good start.

My grandmother has been buried with her loved ones for 53 years. My mother could not bring herself to add her mother's name, and I had to do it. 

I've never been back there even when I lived in Boston not even when I am in Malden visiting my daughter who now lives there.

My mother's ashes are scattered in a wood per her request.

My father's and stepmom's ashes lie in a Florida cemetery. The day we interned my father I said to my cousin, "It's so small,"

"He wasn't very big," she said, and I said, "He wasn't that small."

I haven't visited. I haven't planted geraniums of any color.

In many places in Europe burial plots are rented and when the contract is over the remains are removed. I have no idea to where.

I have visited the graves of Collette, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, Richard the Lionhearted, Guillaume le Bâtard. I have left flowers on the grave of the unknown soldier buried where he fell in the first battle of the American Revolution in Lexington, but never have I gone to visit my relatives.

I don't know why. Perhaps because they are still living in my memories, perhaps I do not want to imagine what time has done to their remains. Maybe because I can still remember chasing my brother above the gravestones on a spring day.

Free write The flushing toilet

 

When my sweet Auntie Maud died peacefully while taking a nap, my grandmother, mother and I piled into the car to travel from Reading, MA to Glen Ridge, NJ for the funeral. My younger brother had been farmed out to friends.

The service and burial were private. My Uncle Archer was bereft. She had been his life-long companion. Never did she sit in a wooden chair that he had not dusted. The least breeze and he would bring her a sweater, needed or not.

After the burial we were all at my uncle's home, a three bed-room, bought and paid for decades before, wooden house with a postage stamp lawn, the neighbors could almost be touched from their mutual kitchen windows.

 Despite his rising in the executive ranks of the telephone company he saw no reason to upgrade. They had the home they loved, everything they needed and more. True frugal New England Yankee thinking.

We sat in the comfortable living room. Joining my grandmother, who was also greatly saddened by the lost of her beloved sister-in-law, were Uncle Archer's son, daughter-in-law, and two grown granddaughters.

No one else was in the house.

Then the upstairs toilet flushed. 

We looked at each other, counting the people sitting there. No one was missing except for Auntie Maud. 

My cousin Joanie ran upstairs. A few minutes later she returned. "No one was there," she said.

The toilet had never self flushed before. To my knowledge, it never did again.

On the way back to Massachusetts, my mother and grandmother talked about the mysterious flush. Both had ordinary imaginations, but were never given to wild speculations.

"Could it have been Maudie, sending us a message?" my grandmother asked.

My mother and I had no answer.

My Thursday free write, designed to get the juices flowing for the rest of the day's writing. The story is a memory. The only change is catching typos and I hope I got them all.

Free write - Philathropic Reptiles

When my grandmother saw a snake, the entire neighborhood would know from her screams.

As an adult I wasn't so afraid of snakes that I would have nightmares. One snake appeared in back-to-back nightmares saying, "I bet you thought you got rid of me in your last dream."

If I read about a snake in a book or magazine, I'd put said book or magazine in the freezer so it wouldn't slither out  into my dreams. 

It worked. No nightmares.

As a child I  wasn't afraid.

With bath time, my mother and I would tell double stories, each of us having a part to play.

One of my favorite roles, I would be a philanthropic snake (PS) and she would find needy causes. We were always sure my grandmother wasn't listening.

Where the idea came from to be a PS, has been lost somewhere in the crevices of my memory.

You will notice, this is not an illustrated blog. No way was I searching for a photo of a S philanthropic or not.

Free Write The Man in the Window

 

Today's free write was triggered by a man in our village who sells used books on marché days from his living room window. We sat in our favorite café. Sherlock, our dog, kept his nose inches from the cat door leading into the café. Rick had hot chocolate and I sipped Yorkshire tea as we wrote for ten minutes.

Rick's Free Write

The people streaming by on marché day were his entertainment, twice weekly, his open window facing the alley, his big-screen TV and his meager income.

MS had long ago restricted his movement and thus his income, so he lived on a paltry pension from the French government, barely enough for a 10x8 studio. 

But at least it was ground floor so he could get to the street with his wheeled walker -- to the grocery, the boulangerie, the dechet bins in the square.

On marché days on the ledge of his alley-side window he could painstakingly line up second-hand books, mostly français but a few in English that tourists had donated when their beach read was over. Plus a small collection of DVDs.

He'd charge two or three Euros. Some buyers would give him a little more. Regardless, he was always smiling gratefully, perhaps thinking the sale meant tomorrow's croissant.

At the end of the marché he would bring in the unsold, and perhaps a couple of donated books and DVDs, close the window and wait for the next. 

D-L's Free Write

It wasn't fair, Pierre thought. 

Yes, he had a full head of hair when most of his friends's heads were billiard ball like. He would change his hair to be able to walk without his dammed walker.

Each step still hurt as he made his way across the tiled plaza.

He hadn't died in the accident, but it took years to reach this stage.

He hadn't just lost the ability to walk by himself, even with crutches. He needed the walker.

His wife had left him. Maybe because his mistress had been driving his Porsche in the accident. His kids sided with her.

Disability insurance left him with small monthly payment enough to rent this ground level flat.

He supplemented his income selling books out his living room window, French, mostly to tourists, the same tourists who gave him books to sell because they didn't want to carry them home.

The Plaza's tiles were uneven pushed up by roots from surrounding trees. It slowed his progress.

No, this was not the life he had pictured when he was a young successful banker. At least it was life but he would trade his hair to walk unaided.

Toe Tipping Friends

 

What is a toe tripping friend?

It is a person who for many reasons you don't see regularly but when you get together, it is like you saw them the day before. One only needs to fill in the details.

In our village we have many toe tipping friends from several countries, people with second homes who come when they can.

Yesterday we said goodbye to a couple of our toe tippers. Over the decades we've shared so much: dinners, cafe sits, events. We've shared the joys and worries about our kids. We watched as we wound up jobs and moved into retirement activities. There have been emergency rooms and falls. Small memories like his getting rid of my Christmas tree one year, considerations that are like the MasterCard advert says -- priceless.

In retirement, she has become a painter. Four of her paintings hang on our walls, not because she's our friend but because we love her work. There is a special clock she made for me. Its face is that of the heroine of my mystery novel and the first thing I see when I wake each morning...or the second, if the dog hasn't decided to kiss me awake.

They shared their cathedral English town which gave me the basis for one of my novels. 

This is our second home too, but we can spend more time here than they do and want to make sure if we can, we are here when they are.

There is something pleasurable about going for our daily veggies to pass him carrying a baguette like a native. A brief or longer exchange is always good.

Sadly we've lost some of our mutual friends to disease, dementia and death. It was reminder as I cafe sat with them last night, our dogs ignoring each other, how special the here and now is. 

Each time is like a colorful brush stroke, a laugh of red, I tear of blue, a hope of green. Together they make a painting that when we think about it we smile, glad for the gift of friendship that instead of hanging on our wall, stays in our heads and hearts.

Free Write -- The Cane

For this week's free write we were back at L'Hostalet. I had French breakfast tea and Rick decided on chocolate chaud. Of course there were the bite-size muffins. The prompt was an elderly woman walking by the music school using a cane and pulling a wheeled shopping cart.

THE CANE

Rick's Free Write

She resembled a female Johnny Cash. The man in black: black dress, black grocery trolley, black cane. She trundled through the square where the night before there had been music, dancing, drinking, levity. Couples having fun on their holiday by the sea.

But Evangeline wasn't on holiday, and she hated the sea, though she had lived in the village 57 years. It was her late husband's idea. Gilbert loved to sail in his little dingy, bobbing on the water close to shore as she sat in what little shade the palm trees offered.

They'd had no children to play in the water. He wanted them. She didn't. And since the burden of carrying and the pain of childbirth would be hers, she repeatedly declined until Gilbert finally gave up.

He'd started a small sailing school for youngsters, at first borrowing boats from friends, but eventually building a fleet of six boats, which he kept in a shed at Racou Beach.

Evangeline saw less and less of him over the years until one day a neighbor appeared at the apartment door to tell her Gilbert had drowned.

One of his students had drifted too far from shore, and Gilbert had raced to save him. But after directing the boy's boat toward shore, Gilbert got a severe cramp in his aging leg.

As the boy watched in horror, he disappeared under the waves and never came back up.

 D-L's Free Write

Marie-Joseph's cane clip-clopped on the stone plaza. She pulled her shopping cart.

She was on the way to the fish monger's and hoped he had a good selection of crevettes, her daughter's favorite. Even better if they were already cooked. She could buy some aoili, some salad and present a good workless lunch.

She didn't want Anna to think she was slipping. She'd seen the assisted-living brochure Anna had left on her last visit.

Marie-Joseph didn't want to leave her home, her parents's home and her grandparents's home. The family history was written in the walls, the fire place used to cook before a stove had been bought in the early 20th century.

She had watched the news on France2 so she would have something modern to say.

She was careful which stones to put her cane down where she wouldn't slip -- the blue and pink flowered cane proving she still cared about her appearance.

No! No assisted living for her or her cane.

 

 

Monday Morning Joys

 

It is cool enough to enjoy breakfast (petit dej) on my patio once again.

Many mornings, I watch the news. Sometimes it is Télémartin on France2 where I can watch the backdrop of the scene and Parisian traffic and catch up on music, movies, books, French culture and prepare myself for the mix of languages for the day.

Other times it is Anglo news from several countries, but today I can't face the raving lunatic number 45 or other politicians who push violence, racism and ignorance. Instead of war and earthquakes, I have Beethoven's 9th in the background.

My breakfast is a peach, apple juice, a bowl of cinnamon-flavored tea and brioche rolls.

From time to time I look up from my book, set in Boston  so it is like a visit to my roots, at the mural Marco painted capturing the essence of the village: the mountains, sea, church, marché, street dances... 

Marco's signature is in the corner, along with the sketch of our dog, memorializing how the artist and dog shared a croissant each morning before Marco started painting.

The sky is as blue as the sky in Marco's painting. There are rumors of thunderstorms later.

Rick is playing golf. Wonderful. I hope his back allows him to enjoy every swing of the sport he's so passionate about.

It will be a writing day for me.

I've two major projects. 

One is an analogy of my short stories and poems. I'm checking Rick's edits and making a few more of my own.

The other is 1000 Remarkable Women who have been ignored or forgotten despite their extraordinary accomplishments. After more than a year of research, I'm writing up each one. I've about 300 with 700 to go.

It is difficult to reduce 1000-5000 words, give or take into 150 words without losing the essence of these incredible people. I alternate being angry at how many were treated and inspired at their abilities.

Monday isn't sad for me. It is the chance to embrace another week of life and love.

It will be a busy week. Writing, normal household stuff, errands, enjoying the many friends in the village over tea or sangria.

(I'm writing this a half hour later than when I finished breakfast. The thunder came and the rain beat a melody on my skylight.)

  

Disappearing Mammies

 

Most streets in Argelès in the 1980s, when I was first there, had its Mammies. 

They were women in their 60s,70, 80s and more. Usually mornings, they would take their kitchen chairs and put them on the narrow streets. Sometimes they shelled peas or snapped beans. Some knitted or repaired clothes. Often, they watched their grandchildren as the chattered away in Catalan and French.

Since I spoke neither language, I could only guess what they were saying. As years went by, and I learned French, I talked with them, I learned they'd been friends since leaving the womb, had gone to school together, married, had children, shared their frustration with their husbands, who were fishermen, cork gathers, farmers, even plumbers and electricians.

Some feuds between groups happened, but the boundaries varied although everyone agreed that Antoinette, who visited her husband's grave daily, should have been nicer  to him when he was alive.

Over the years, one by one, they disappeared until only two are still living. 

Madame F., now a widow, had suffered the suicide of her son by gunshot in her living room. The local ambulance picks her up twice a week for her dialysis. 

Madame C., who was always on some type of crusade to make the village better, after eye surgery and had a heart attack was taken by her daughter along with her cat to the mountains to live with her. We've exchanged postcards. 

I walk the same streets. Now I am older than most of the Mammies were when I first came to Argelès. I don't wear house dresses like they wore but jeans and T-shirts. 

The Mammies homes have been bought as second or retirement homes by outsiders from all over France and Europe. Their gray exteriors have been painted bright colors. Those of just stone have been repaired.

The streets have a different feel, but when I pass the houses, where I listened to the Mammies, I still see them with their knitting and veggies. 

I miss them.

F word hysteria and censorship

According to Merriman Webster the F word can be defined to copulate or in the vulgar sense to mess with. It first appeared in the 14th century and has kinship to Dutch and Swedish words.

A Westport, Massachusetts teacher was put on administrative leave recently because she read a Margaret Atwood story with the F-word in it. A mother complained. Her daughter, as a high school sophomore, heard the word.

Did the child faint?

Throw up?

Develop anorexia?

Demand that the boys in the class sleep with her?

Stop sleeping.

Buy an AR-15 and shoot up the classroom.

I doubt it.

My mother, if she heard the word would nearly develop Victorian vapors at the horror of those four little letters making one syllable a nano second in the length. In writing her seeing the word in print,  a minuscule of ink would also produce an equal intense reaction.

I suppose it is to much to hope for the mother would show the kid how the word can be used

Lots of things in life are vulgar and that woman's little darling may already know some of them and if not, she will. Wrapping the young adult in a literary blanket will not stop the world that she will have to live in. 

This entire censorship trend hurts kids far more than the things censored. It prevents them from acquiring the skills necessary to exist in a world full of horrors far greater than a little four letter word, whose meaning describes what ever living creature on the planet does to guarantee survival of the species.

Kids need to know the truth of bad things. Kids need to know what humanity is capable of. Kids need to read more than fairy tales where the prince awakens the Sleeping Beauty. Somewhere in the prince and SB's future they may use the activity which the F word describes for their relationship.

Protecting kids from these things is promoting their ignorance and the last thing any country needs is more ignorant people.

 

Free Write Under the Mulberry Tree

 

For today's free write, Rick and I sat under the mulberry tree at our favorite café. My Yorkshire tea and Rick's hot chocolate accompanied by a bite-size chocolate muffin, the gentle breeze just added to the pleasure. Our prompt? A couple walking by holding hands, through the courtyard of our French village.

Rick's Free Write

They never had taken a real holiday. There was never time when you ran your own business. Claude had always needed to stay close to the garage, the only one in their small village in the central western hills of France.

And there's was never enough spare Euros to consider hotels and fancy meals in Michelin-rated restos.

Finally retired, the French pension system made it possible to consider a trip to the seaside in the south.

Brigette's advancing cancer made it a necessity.

There hadn't been much leftover money for doctors, either, and the rapid advance to Stage3  pancreatic cancer had come as a shock still reverberating as they walked through the square, mostly deserted by the hordes of tourists who had gone home.

Claude and Brigette never had any children. Never had a dog or a cat. Claude said they might get hurt in the garage. They only had each other all these years.

And soon they wouldn't.

But even so, today was a good day, and they would enjoy their first holiday. 

D-L's Free Write

Eva held Paul's hand as they walked across the tree-lined square.  

September holidays were the best. Parents were back at work after seeing their little darlings off to the new school year.

What if it was only a weekend away. 

This was the first time in months she and Paul had any time together. They had been too busy with work. She'd normally come home by seven or eight. Often she went to bed alone and woke up alone, his side of the bed rumpled. 

Even weekends he locked himself in his man cave. 

This holiday she hoped for beach time, good food in a French restaurant, cuddling, even making love.

Two cafés were on the south side of the square across from the old marie and now a music school.

"Let's have an espresso," she said. 

"What a smiley waitress," she said taking her first sip.

"I've taken apartment in town." He didn't look at her.

 

Carpe Diem and Googly Eyes

 

This painting was a gift from a very special friend who out-carpe-diems me not that there is a contest. Thinking of her reminds me of all those special moments in a day when I see a flower, a special tree shape, a kiss by my husband when he passes by my chair -- the moments are limitless if I take the time to feel them. Most of the time I do, thanks to her.

This special friend confirms that I am not the only one who doesn't care a diddly damn about brand names, want an expensive anything, be content with what I have which is more than enough and savor most minutes of the day that has been presented to me as a gift.

If you look at the lower left hand corner of the painting there are two goggly eyes. My special friend has been putting googly eyes on things for years. She gave me a package to do the same.

The fish sculpture in my 400 year old stone kitchen wall has one. From time to time I place them on something than giggle making a carpe diem moment.

Afraid I was running low on goggly eyes, my friend brought me a new packet. Like the old packet I keep it in my pocketbook (New England for purse) ready to be put to use anytime anywhere followed by a giggle.

I do post my carpe diems several times a week on Facebook. Friends have said they like them. I hope so, I loved living them.

 

Sherlock goes Rogue

 

Sherlock our almost six-year old mixture 7 kilos (15.43 pounds) is usually non aggressive. He prefers dogs his size or smaller to bigger dogs.

One of his hobbies is to look out our front door to the narrow street in our tiny French village. He will bark at dogs, cats and people in a half-hearted manner until we discourage it.

There is one exception -- a pitbull at least five times his size. That dog comes up to the glass and Sherlock's barks could deafen half the street and the pitbull's barks would deafen the other half.

Rick and I thought if we opened the door, Sherlock would seek high ground fast and not say another woof.

WRONG!!!

Yesterday, Rick opened the door to go for a walk with Sherlock, not being aware the pitbull was just down the street. Sherlock went after that dog with the force of an AR-15 bent on wiping the dog out.

Rick had all he could do to reel Sherlock in. Holding him was equally difficult. The dog was quivering and barking with a let-me-at-him ferocity we have not seen in the dog's entire six years of life.

The pitbull owner restrained her dog.

The only one hurt was Rick from Sherlock's nails as they dug into his arm in his desire to launch himself at his enemy.

Sherlock was still shaking when we were back inside the house safely. We haven't seen the pitbull on the street since then, but I'm sure that is a coincidence.

Chocolate, Police, Bank

 

We chose the sidewalk café in Marseille, away from the tourist area because they had fondant au chocolate and tiramisu. The fact it was named for the writer Colette, was a fringe benefit. 

The café was at an intersection. Suddenly a police motorcycle, its siren at full volume pulled up across the street. He was followed by three more police motorcycles, also at full volume.

Within second a number of police cruisers had blocked the intersection and police with armed rifles (AR15s?) filled the intersection.

Two black armored trucks, three times the size of an ordinary Brinks armored car appeared, with more cruiser escorts.

They stopped in front of the Banque de France building. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes until the doors opened. The armored trucks went inside. 

The doors closed. 

All the police melted away.

It was like watching a trailer for a movie.

We went back to our desserts. We chatted with a man at a nearby table about Sherlock. Three women, probably in their early 20s, continued their card game. They had ignored the whole drama. It was strange to see young women at a café playing cards. Usually it would be old men with old fashioned cards and the young with phones.

Don McLean's American Pie was playing in the café and the soft tones escaped.

Rick thought it might be a swat team arriving. I thought it might be a cash delivery. 

We will never know.