Brexit

Is it to late to save the U.S.?

 Sunday morning...

Sunday mornings can be wonderful and today's was no different. Before getting up, I watched the dog play on the bed as I read Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure. What a contrast between the happiness of the dog playing and the content of the novel. There were Nazis, the Gestapo to be specific, breaking into Jewish homes and pulling families out to either go to the Drancy Interment Camp before being shipped to one of the concentration camps.

Then it was time to start the day. As usual I checked my computer only to see the video of the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil by ICE.

Terrifying: The tactics were not that different from the past to today. ICE refused to properly identify themselves or comply with the laws for the treatment of citizens or those with a legal green card. Nothing would have persuaded them to stop.

Khalil was not Jewish, but he had spoken up against the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. He has a green card. He is married to a U.S. citizen. He was taken to 26 Federal Plaza in New York before being flown to Louisiana where he is allowed only limited access to an attorney. The U.S. Government wants to deport him.

He committed no crime, but in the U.S. speaking for Palestinians although not illegal, is an unwritten taboo.

A British citizen with a tourist VISA was held 10 days in a Tacoma detention center. Her dad said: "She is sharing a cell, surviving on a diet of cold rice, potatoes, and beans (she is vegan), and has limited access to phone calls. Visitors are restricted to speaking through a glass screen via telephone. All her possessions have been confiscated, and she feels isolated and desperate to come home." (Newsweek)

According to Newsweek: "Reports have emerged that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained an 18-year-old girl, a military veteran and a man who has worked in the U.S. for 30 years." 

Doesn't anyone see the similarity between what the Nazis did in the 1930s and 1940s? I asked my husband that question. His response, was that they were never taught history.

The arrests and treatment of human beings illegal and/or legal is terrifying.  

Trump, the professional victim, said at a speech at the Justice Department he wants to imprison his enemies. 

What does this mean?

No one is protected by the law. That includes you.

What can be done to save the U.S. from an administration that uses Nazi-like tactics for arrests? Or is it too late?

 

 

Why Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel

 

When I was in fourth grade, my class visited the Minute Man National Park, where the first battle of the American Revolution took place. My over-protective mother wouldn't let me go. The park for several years had an almost mythic draw more than even Paris, London, the Taj Mahal.

When I finally walked on that hallowed grass, I was struck at the peace of the land, the quiet of the river running under the historic bridge in comparison to the events of 19 April 1775.

Outside the park is a gravestone to two unknown British soldiers. On that trip and many since then, I wondered who they were, did their families know what happened to them and so many more questions. 

One of the rangers told me how every year someone from the British Consulate lays a wreath there. He also told me that law prevents exhuming the bones to try for a DNA match as they did for a British King Richard III found under a parking lot. Also finding DNA to match would be a problem. My curiosity increased after my prof in English history gave me the British point of view on the American Revolution.

Years later, I decided to create a fictional - but possible -  biography of one of the unknown Redcoats.

Park Ranger Jim Hollister was incredible on answering questions. When he didn't know the answer, he directed me to the historian that could. 

I found a website that published information about 1775 almost daily.

Youtubes of Chris the Redcoat www.youtube.com/@ChristheRedcoat told me about shaving back then, why the tricorner hat was worn at an angle and so many other tiny details that would add verisimilitude to the book. I learned about fire arms and uniforms and the way soldiers would take turns firing as well as the expense of bullets limiting shooting practices.

Because there were so many YouTubes from the period, I made my soldier an unhappy baker, recently widowed. His recruitment matched methods used. The only thing I never found was the name of the ship that brought the soldier's regiment to Boston, but I was able to describe other ships that served the purpose.

Because I was from Boston, geography was easy. 

I kept a notebook on how I made literary decisions and then decided to add that to the novel. This was partially because as a reader, I often want to know why a writer wrote something this way or that. And I thought it might appeal to other writers as well as readers.

To bring the book up to date, I added a third plot about the wife of the British consulate and a historian and her marital problems as she and the wife of the French Counsel join together to create a comic book about the battle.

Some writers plot out everything in advance. I'm not one of those writers, even more so with this book. There were be gaps while I waited for information or changes when I discovered information different from what I'd written. I learned about an event in Salem that I didn't know about despite many visits to the Witch City. 

Of all my novels, this one was the most fun to write. See http://dlnelsonwriter.com for my other books. 

Lexington can be bought in ebook and paperback at the usual on-line book stores.

Losing People - Part 4

 

Mau Mau- Cheating across Europe

Mau Mau is a card game popular in some European countries. Played with two decks, the goal is to rid yourself of cards. Those caught with cards add up the value to see who is the bigger loser. It is possible to keep score over many hands.

My ex-husband, a trumpet player, was with the 82 Army Band in Stuttgart and I played it with Rosi and Gary. He was a trumpet player from the mid West. His wife was a drop-dead beautiful German girl. On holiday in rented rooms from an Italian family on Lake Como we played Mau Mau every evening, men against the women. 

The women quickly pulled ahead. The men took to hiding cards, although most were discovered in pockets, under pillows and books which we ladies added to the tally. They were positive we were cheating too, but could never figure out how.

Rosi and I developed a great friendship. One night when we had a girls night out we got home very late. We made up the story about flying to Frankfurt and back. Two days later guilt made us confess that we'd really gone to the restaurant in the TV tower. 

 

"Let's make it true," we decided. When we flew to Frankfurt, fog grounded return flights.We took a train back. The teasing was creative not from just our husbands but the rest of the band. 

 

Rosi and I had an adventure by driving her to the U.S. embassy in Munich from Stuttgart so she could get her VISA for the U.S. as the wife of an American. At the time, men waited on the outskirts to lead people through the city...a human GPS. Rosi scrunched up in the not-quite backseat of my Triumph Spitfire to allow the long-legged German room to direct us. Even after the army we stayed in touch visiting them in D.C. and Florida.

After my divorce, Gary invited my baby daughter and I to live with them. He'd take care of us, he said. It was appreciated but not necessary. 

Later when I was trying to get a business going they invited me to go camping with them in Colorado where they then lived. I had no money. Ten minutes after hanging up, Gary called to tell me my ticket was waiting for me at Logan Airport. He'd meet me Friday morning at the Colorado Springs Airport. The camping, even seeing the bear much too close, was wonderful.

I continued to see them from time to time once in Kentucky and in Colorado regularly when I had business there. No more Mau Mau but still lots of sharing and laughter.

Then we lost touch. They had moved and moved again and I had done the same.

I missed them. I looked and called places through information where I thought they might be and talked to several Gary Smiths, but not my Gary Smith.

Then in 2013, there was a Facebook message. "Gary Smith wants to be your friend."$

We met up in Nice. They were on a four-month world cruise. My second husband could finally meet the people I'd told him so much about. They could meet Rick2.

We had no time for Mau Mau, but sitting with them while their ship was in port was not that much different than the last time we had met. Maybe we were older, but not very wrinkled. Rosi was still drop-dead beautiful.

They picked up from my blog about my cancer and were emotionally supportive. 

It was through the blog, that Gary finally discovered how Rosi and I had cheated at Mau Mau. The men had suspected but there was nothing they could discover. Rick1 never knew.

We had used verbal clues. When a certain card was played the person who played the card could select the suit. Best to name a suit one's partner needed. She and I signaled with a sentence, the letter of the first word matched the suit needed such as D in Don't do anything rash diamonds or C was careful please. We varied the words. Before we played Rosi and I would decide if we would use German or English card names for the first letter. Every sentence would be different so the men could determine no pattern. 

In her 80s Rosi chose medical and legal suicide. Gary wrote me about the preparation. He followed her not long after but not before mailing me all her beautiful sweaters and scarves. She wanted me to have them. Gary included a broach, the first thing he had ever bought her at the PX one floor under where the band slept and rehearsed. I passed it onto their daughter.

What I keep and treasure are the many memories from eating Vier-Frucht-Tarte at a café after Rosi and I visited the art museum, Gary showing me how to shoot with a bow and arrow, sitting on the couch laughing about the differences in our feet, our two daughters being potty-trained together and hundreds of other flashbacks.

Will I ever get used to people I care about disappearing from my life? Will I continue to want to call via phone or computer or send an email? 

No, no and no. 

What it does do is to remind me to treasure the events that in weeks, months or maybe years will be new memories and never to take friendship casually but something to treat as special as it is.

 

 

Trump and Canada

 

Part I

10 Reasons that Canada should become the 51st State.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 

Part II The US should become become part of Canada

Mark Carney should contact Trump and tell him Canada will absorb the U.S.

Divide the U.S. into provinces

1. Northeast

2. Middle Atlantic States

3. Southern States

4. Midwest including the Dakotas

5. The West

6. The Pacific Coast

7. Disband the American government and lead the new country by parliament.

Part III Undo Trump actions

1. Rename the Gulf of America as the Gulf of Mexico

2. Rehire all people fired by the Trump administration and have them work with their counterparts to in Canada taking the best from both countries.

3. Combine the military under Canadian leadership

Part IV Truth verification, etc.

 This is for the transition

1. Require all news media to ring a bell whenever Trump lies starting now.

2. Drum roll whenever Trump claims victimhood for himself and/or the U.S. starting now.

3. Trumpet whenever use the words horrible, terrible, DEI, waste, fraud, Musk.

4. Repair White House lawn from the day it was turned into a car lot. 

5. Forbid anyone who was part of the Trump administration from serving in the new North American Government.

A Day with Dali

 

Statue of Dali near the Perpignan train station. We often sing "Hello Dali," or "Goodbye Dali" to the tune of "Hello Dolly" when we pass it.

My first exposure to art was my freshman year at college when my professor of art history started with Dali's melting clocks. The course opened my eyes to not just modern art but art through the centuries. I learned about perspective, positioning, geometry, color and a whole lot more.

I never dreamed that I would someday be able to stand in front of great works of art displayed around the world.

The Dali museum is only about an hour from our French home and we went with Swiss friends. It didn't matter that the day was rainy and raw.

That was my second visit, the last being over a decade ago with friends from Boston. Rick had never been and our friends had been twice. 

I had long ago learned that it is impossible to see a museum in a single visit. When I lived in Boston, I was four T stops from the Museum of Art and on my way home from work, I could hop off the tram and go into the museum showing my membership card and look, really look, at one or two paintings, and still get home for tea before dinner.

What this trip reinforced was how truly productive Dali was.

We needed lunch and a nearby tapas restaurant solved that problem.

There is another part of the museum showing his jewelry designs, like no other I've ever seen. He was responsible from picking up his pen, to making sure each jewel was perfect and exactly the right place. For him it was more than the finished piece. ""In jewels, and in all my artistic activity, I create what I love most. In some of them one can discern an architectural meaning, as it also happens in some of my paintings. Once again, the logarithmic law is  highlighted, as well as the interrelation between spirit and matter, between space and time." 

I was transfixed at the intrinsic design and placement. In these chaotic times, beauty has the ability to refresh my spirit. Unexpected beauty was even more healing. 

Like in the days in Boston, we were able to be home in time for tea and a dog cuddle.

Trump a perpetual victim

 

Trump keeps saying how he's a victim of political enemies. WebMd say people who think like this have a victim mentality. It is never their fault, but the fault of others.

Then Victim Trump transfers victimhood from himself to the entire U.S.  This time the villains are other countries and groups like the EU. For years he has said that allies have treated the U.S. "very badly."

The U.S. was said to have one of the strongest economies in the industrialized world. Fact Check said, "Compared to other G7 economies (the seven largest "advanced" economies in the world), the U.S. has recovered the furthest, with the gross domestic product (GDP) now 5.4 percent above levels at the end of 2019." Doesn't match with Victim Trump saying he inherited a terrible economy. Could that be a lie?

According to the International Monetary Fund 

These Are the 10 Largest Economies in the World

2022, by Country	GDP, Current Prices in USD		2023, by Country	GDP, Current Prices in USD
United States	$25.5 trillion		United States	$26.9 trillion
China	$17.9 trillion		China	$17.7 trillion
Japan	$4.2 trillion		Germany	$4.4 trillion
Germany	$4.1 trillion		Japan	$4.2 trillion
India	$3.4 trillion		India	$3.7 trillion
United Kingdom	$3.1 trillion		United Kingdom	$3.3 trillion
France	$2.8 trillion		France	$3 trillion
Russia	$2.2 trillion		Italy	$2.2 trillion
Canada	$2.1 trillion		Brazil	$2.13 trillion
Italy	$2 trillion		Canada	$2.12 trillion

I suspect when Victim Trump gets through fiddling with the U.S. economy the report will be different as more and more countries who allegedly treated the U.S. "horribly" as Chief Victim Trump says, retaliate, and make the accusation a reality.

I just read how the EU wants to target tariffs to red states, the home of MAGA. Maybe it was because the Chief Victim tried to be a bully rather than building bridges. Those who voted for him will become victims of their own stupidity in believing Victim Trump. Sadly they will take innocent people with them.

Meanwhile, the world economy will suffer because of the mental instability of one man who for whatever psychological reason feels he is a victim and not responsible for his own action. Nor does he seem to know enough what the true economic situation of the world was, is and will be.

 

 

 

 

Free Write -- Broken Wrist

 

Rick's Free Write

My wrist and forearm hurt. Hurt like hell. But not as bad as Jake was hurting. He was dead.

We’d been in the West Texas desert, rock climbing, on a much-needed break from our probationary year as hedge-fund interns. Met in university, got jobs at rival firms in Boston. High-pressure stuff.

The vacation had been uneventful until I stepped on some loose stone at the top of a bluff, and my leg went through the surface – all the way to my knee.

After extricating myself, no help from Jake, nothing broken, we realized the hole led to a cavern. So we went exploring for an entrance.

What we found was a series of connected chambers, probably an ancient riverbed, and what looked like veins of silver. We chopped some off and stuffed it in our backpacks, so we could have it analyzed. We might be rich!

As we exited the cavern entrance on the side of the bluff, and started to descend down the sheer rock face, I felt the rope start to slip. I looked up to see Jake kicking the anchor that held my rope, and I yelled, ”No!”

It was too late; I was falling. But then I realized, so was Jake. He hurtled past me and crashed into the desert floor. Seconds later, I did too. Except I landed on top of him. And broke my wrist and arm.

There was no silver.

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

Julia's Free Write 

Help – oh that hurts!

“Please don’t move, says the technician:” like I would when the pain is overwhelming. Stoic I’m not, but who knew that something so minor as hitting the wall inadvertently could hurt so much! After all it was only to save myself from a fall.

It had all started out so well, a very normal Tuesday in fact: coffee and a roll in my favorite local bakery, lunch with a friend at one of our favorite spots. The sun was shining – no clouds or rain to foretell disaster. Not even a premonition as I gathered up magazines and a book that I had finished the night before.

However, as I neared the last step to the living room I must have tripped. Of course, one puts out one’s hand – only to find myself on the floor doubled in pain: the arm with which I had hit the wall, then the floor obviously hadn’t withstood the shock.

The memory of that long ago day still has me wincing. But then I can take out the x-rays and there’s the proof.

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

D-L's Free write

Panic, panic, panic. How her wrist hurt. How could she have been so stupid not to see the cobblestone sticking up from the others on the sidewalk.

It wasn't so much the embarrassment of falling in front of so many passerbys. Thank God no one had recognized her, but she'd been running in her old track suit not the gowns she wore during her performances.

God, her wrist hurt. Where was the doctor? As she thought it, a man, a boy really, walked in. He wore a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck. Did he have his kindergarten diploma yet? 

"Mrs. Crammer? I'm Dr. Ganley."

She nodded. He indicted she should follow him to a small room. X-rays of an arm and wrist shone from a light box.

"I'm afraid your wrist is badly broken. You'll need surgery as soon as possible."

Her panic swelled to a crescendo.

"What will my mobility be?"

"You'll be able to beat cake batter."

She thought of the joke where a man with a broken wrist asked if he would be able to play the piano? The doctor had said yes. The man than said, "Good, I couldn't play the piano before the accident.

Only with her, she had played the piano all over the world in sold-out concerts.

She asked, "Will I be able to play the piano?"

Her panic drowned out his reply.

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

Losing People Part 3

 

On a hot August evening my housemate and I were stoop sitting on the stairs of our Wigglesworth Street Boston town house. The houses built in the early 1900s were originally owned by Irish families, some of whom still owned them. The other occupants were students.

It was still too early for the street to be filled with yellow U-Haul trucks as students moved in. They would study at the many surrounding universities in walking distance: Harvard Medical, Harvard Dental, Wentworth, Mass College of Art, Simmons and Northeastern. One U-Haul did pull up. A man in his sixties and a woman in her forties pulled up and began unloading wooden box after wooden box of books.

My housemate and I said in unison, "We have to get to know them."

Dan and Barbara were both anthropology professors at local universities. It began a friendship of shared interests including our in-depth research into the French Cathars. In fact we did separate trips to explore.

We decided we would love to live in France and bought a house together in Argelès-sur-mer, France. Then Barbara went to Burkina Faso to continue her research into the Lobi tribe. The couple's marriage didn't survive, not for lack of love but, the places they occupied in life were too different. Dan was ready to retire:Barbara was just getting started.

I adore them both for their NOT making me decide who was right and wrong. 

There was a point where Barbara and I had a condo in a Mission Hill triple decker. During that period and at different times, Barbara's friends, my daughter, the abused mother of one of my daughter's friends and my former Yugoslavian exchange student were living with us. It was wonderful.

My mother was dying of cancer. She had been great when I was growing up, but as an adult she became an enemy trying to annul my then marriage and take custody of my daughter. I found out about the cancer when I was living in France and moved back to Boston to see her through the end of her live. I lived in my condo of the triple decker over Barbara's. The two places were really like one apartment.

Barbara went with me for moral support the first time I would encounter my mother. Just as I was about to knock on her door, Barbara grabbed my hand. "What's her real name. I only know her as UB." (Ugly Bitch our code for my mother) "I can't say, 'you be Donna-Lane's mother.'"

"Dorothy."

Over the months when my mother was dying we'd role play conversations with my mother. Unfortunately, my mother never had the same script, but it allowed me to say things that I should not have kept inside. 

A few months after my mother died and I was complaining about my mother yet again, Barbara said, "Look, your mother didn't ruin your life. You are stronger because or in spite of her." That sentence allowed me to start healing.

When I moved to Switzerland for work, Barbara set up a business in Argelès including a shop that sold clothes she made, African Art, used books. She began a toothpaste company. 

Although I no longer owned a house with her in Argelès (ASM), I'd bought my Nest, a studio in an attic two blocks away. I divided my time between Geneva and Argelès. Barbara and I shared meals, political discussions, local history, movies, books, conversations, explorations of the region, and life. I would cover for her in the store.  

She joined the local Gospel group and attending their concerts were fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHoFdwvrpEY

When Rick came back into my life, Barbara had her doubts, but they became friends. She made my wedding dress.

Barbara died the way she had lived, on her own terms. During a routine doctor's appointment, she told a joke and dropped dead. The village mourned the Grande Americaine but not as much as I did and do even a decade later. So many times I want to talk with her. Walking by her house, I feel I should be going in to share whatever leftovers we had.

Rick put together a video celebrating her life. The rich voice of Alain Martin, the director of the Argelès Gospel Singers, sang It's a Wonderful World in the background.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbinVnDFBd0

My friendship with Barbara made the world more wonderful. Grief fights with celebration for all that we did after I watched that U-Haul truck pull up on that hot August night.

 

Losing People - Part 2

 

"I'll sleep for you and you can walk for me." Those were the last words my friend Mardy spoke to me from North Dakota. I was in Geneva, Switzerland. She was facing surgery after an accident and I was exhausted after chemo and radiation. 

I survived. 

She didn't.

We became friends in high school some 53 years before when an adorable boy tried dating both of us. We decided we liked each other better than him. Neither the width of a continent nor the Atlantic ocean dimmed our bond over the decades.

Our friendship took us through life's pains and joys and everything in between. It extended to her family. 

When I had problems at home, I would camp out with her family. Her father would never let a father and daughter event go by without taking me. I was estranged from my own at the time.

When I was getting a divorce, her mother would visit at least once a week to make sure I was okay. She often brought beautiful baby clothes for Llara from the Unitarian charity shop where she volunteered. 

Her parents gave Llara her first wagon. When I moved overseas and went back to Reading for a visit, Mardy's father would shake his head in wonder and pride about me and how, "A Little Girl From Reading" went on to travel the world and write.

In our busy adult lives and lived in the Boston area we couldn't always get together as much as we wanted. Her work included research with the mentally retarded. We celebrated that her enlightened boss gave her credit for any paper they worked on together and was published. She cheered me on as my jobs got better and better and more along the lines I wanted.

After too many postponed meals in Harvard Square, we decided to not temp fate by saying when and where we would meet. "Let's not eat at The Blue Pirate, Friday at seven." That seemed to work. My housemate would ask as I dressed to meet Mardy, "And where aren't you meeting her?"

We moaned over problems with men and husbands, work, divorce and women's problems with credit only because we were women. One time when we hadn't managed to contact each other for far too long and things in our lives had been running smoothly, I answered the phone. "I want you to know, I'm not just a foul weather friend," she said.

Walking in the woods behind her parents' Maine cabin we picked and ate blackberries. "This is like an ad with two women talking about tampons," she said. So...we talked about tampons pretending we were being filmed. 

I loved visiting her Boston apartment which she furnished with second hand or found and refinished everything. It would have made a fantastic spread in any decorating magazine. 

Once in Geneva I received a can of potato sticks. I didn't need a card. I knew she was the sender, a reminder of all the times we ate potato sticks and played gin rummy when Llara was a baby and I was sad about my upcoming divorce. By the time she left after one of these sessions, I was never sad.

A passionate needlepointer, she passed the passion onto my daughter, giving her a lifelong hobby. I look at my daughter's walls covered with Llara's work and my own needlepoint gifts from my daughter and love flows for both women like a tsunami.

No blog, no article, no book can recount all the ways that this woman was woven into my own life. Writing this, I tear up thinking how she left $10,000 to my daughter for grad school. 

They say, it is possible to put a cover over the grief hole left by losing someone precious. Sometimes it is necessary to remove that cover as a reminder, not of the grief, but of all the shared memories that brought such richness into a life.

 

Losing People: Part 1

 

                              Bill Venter December 19, 1937 ~ September 10, 2019 (age 81)

 One of the things about aging that really sucks is losing people. Deep down we know that we will lose elderly relatives. We'll become orphans at some point...better in later life than earlier.

What we don't think about is losing people we played with, went to school with, worked with--people we saw day in and day out sometimes over the years.

Lately I've been thinking about one of those people whom I've lost Bill Venter. 

When I went to work at Polaroid Credit Union as a PR Director, I decided to try all the vendors my predecessor Muffy Wheeler had used. I knew my vendors at the National Fire Protection Association were being taken care of by my successor. Why should any of these people lose work they had performed well just because of a management change.

Little did I know, I not only gained a talented artist, a creative support but a friendship that would last decades. What a joy to work on projects together. I'd introduce a concept, think of it is as a hum. He would add a melody. I'd tweak it. By the time we finished we had an opera that produced results.

Bill's studio was a few blocks from Polaroid's office and I would walk down past the Necco factory with the caramel smells whetting my appetite. Bill and I would go to lunch together in Central Square, Cambridge. 

Part of the lunch hour was already taken with the search for Bill's keys. I ended up buying him a key ring that would beep when we clapped. It also beeped when it heard a laugh.

The other part was sharing everything from Larry Bird's performance the night before, to Bill's experiences coaching Pop Warner football. We talked about politics, our fears, our joys, our children. 

When I changed jobs to help start a credit union for Digital Equipment Corporation, my office was an hour's drive into the country. It made sense that Bill stop at my home in Boston on his way home saving him a good two hours of drive time.

In the beginning I was living with two roommates and my daughter on Wigglesworth Street in Boston. One night when Bill stopped with finished artwork was the same night as they showed the last episode of M.A.S.H. We had converted the library into a M.A.S.H. set. We were eating a meal out of army-type dishes.

 Bill created this artwork  for me, a poster of the M.A.S.H. crew as a gift. My daughter, who now has it, took the photo for me.

Another time we invited him to dinner for Shepherd's Pie. About five minutes into the meal, we realized, we'd forgotten the meat.

I moved to a condo on The Riverway, still on his way home. I have so many memories of Pumpkin, Llara's one-woman cat, shifting her passion to Bill. She thought he brought his lap just for her. If his lap wasn't available the cat would stretch out on anything he touched, papers, a jacket, a hat.

One night, I watched Bill and my daughter put together the stand for my new microwave. If videoed, it would have made a great sitcom episode, but we were able to use the microwave on its stand to share a hot chocolate to celebrate their victory.

My coat closet door was next to my front door. They were identical. There was the night that we were talking as he was leaving and he enter the coat closet closing the door after him. I wish I had a recording of the conversation before he came out.

After I moved to Europe, I never went back to Boston that we didn't get together. He was one of those friends that if you don't see for months, when you do see one another, it was like he just stepped out for a cup of coffee.

When I married and my husband and I were in Boston I wanted them to meet. Bill said he had to vet Rick. Fortunately the two men liked each other.

We communicated on Facebook.

His death was a shock. A smell of caramel and I will picture the walk to Central Square past the NECCO factory. A cup of hot chocolate or my microwave pinging, and I will think of the night he and Llara put the stand together. There are so many triggers when he pops into my mind. 

What the loss reminds me of is that at this minute and every time when I sit down with people I care about, I have them now. I will not always be so lucky thus I should savor that moment. I also remind myself how lucky I have had the Bill Venters of the world in my life.

 

 

Speak English but don't limit yourself

 

"Speak English, you're in America," my brother growled at me. I'd been chatting with our French waiter in French.

Now the Orange Wonder has declared English the official language of America. Although I can't guarantee his motives, I suspect it is another attempt to boost the white male and put down foreigners. 

The attitude of many Americans who look down on anyone not fluent in English is at best sad and at worst ignorant.

I do think, however, a person living a long time in another country, should try to be as least functional in the main language. At the same time, I believe being bi or multi-lingual is something wonderful. 

When I lived in Germany, I brought my German up to a functional level until I was able to do a directed study in Faustus by Schiller comparing it to Marlowe's my senior year of university. My German has now slipped to shopping level because I need to use it only occasionally.

In my first Swiss job, my clients included Digital Equipment and HP. They worked in English. My boss maintained at 48 I was too old to learn French, but still paid for lessons. He later admitted he was wrong.

To become a naturalized Swiss citizen I needed French (or any of the official languages).  

Switzerland has about nine million people and four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romanash spoken by only 13,000 people and even among those there are various dialects. Many citizens also are fluent in English.

Geneva which is 43% foreign is an ocean of languages. My company there had over 50 nationalities among 90 employees with English/French/Russian the official languages. Meetings were either in French or English. Product labels are in three of the four languages. I guess there wasn't room for Romanash.

For 14 years I dated a Swiss businessman and we communicated in French. When my daughter was with us, they spoke German as she and I spoke English. His son and daughter-in-law would often speak Spanish although they were fluent in English as well as French.

On extended visits to Syria, although my host family-of-choice was fluent in English. Outside the home, except for a few polite words in Arabic, my French worked well if English didn't. Once when both failed, I was able to get a new battery for my watch using my German. At least I think I did because the watch worked again.

I had to go to Bern for my radiation treatment after surgery and chemo, which I did in French. I was nervous about communicating in Swiss German. No need. He started out in French and switched to English one sentence into my French. I've a sucky accent. He spoke seven languages fluently, four others functionally and understood about three more limitedly. 

My daughter took German when I wanted her to take French, a more than acceptable teenage rebellion. Boston Latin required five years of a modern language along with Latin. It worked well. She did a gap year attending a Gymnasium (high school) in Munich. She did most of her university in Mannheim at the cost of about $43 a semester. That alone is a good reason to be bilingual compared to U.S. university . costs. Think how much could be saved on a kid's education by sending them abroad. Plus they would not be burdened with debt upon graduation.

So why does the English Official Language decree annoy me? Or comments made by people like my brother?

Because limitations of language are limitations to entrance to the world. It's impossible to know all 7,100 living languages estimated to exist on our planet. But knowing the main ones in times when world peace is threatened, means one can cross check a politician with information from a less-biased press. It is one thing to have a U.S. news source say that Macron said this or that, only to hear the original to see it was wrong. If you can't speak Russian, fact-checking Putin by listening to what the Germans, French and Spaniards are saying about what he said could be important, especially if the U.S. press did cover the story accurately. 

It is harder to hate a foreigner if you can share a conversation maybe about a good meal, a sport, or directions when you're lost. 

English as an official language. Dumb idea if it reduces the already too low use of other languages by the U.S. population.

There's also a cultural benefit to knowing another language in terms of reading material, arts, history, etc.

If the U.S. wants foreigners to integrate limiting information to English is the best way to discourage such integration. If they want foreigners to obey the law, the law written in their own language makes following it easier which could affect the safety of everyone.

Under the edict will information that is important now be printed only in English? I hope not. The multi-language postings is also a good exposure to other languages for English-only speakers. 

 

 

 

 

Terror and Trump

 

I was cozy in bed when the radio alarm went off. I thought that the words "Robert Kennedy has been shot" were part of a dream.

I shut off the radio, headed into the bathroom for my morning vomit. The early part of my pregnancy was not going well. Then I headed to the kitchen for Saltines to quiet my stomach and the anti-nausea pills that were still prescribed back then.

Back in my bedroom to dress for work, I learned what I heard wasn't a dream. The horror of Kennedy's shooting was on top of Martin Luther King's shooting the month before.

For the next few days, I debated getting an abortion. Many of my friends had had them either risking the backroom horrors or flying to Montreal under the auspices of the Clergy Consultation service which sent women to places where abortion would be safe. 

Never had I been fascinated with babies, but I wanted this child. Maybe it was my biological clock ringing, but my pregnancy had not been an accident. This was a much-wanted baby. I decided to not have an abortion.

I was born during WWII and the Korean War. I'd grown up with McCarthy and Watergate. My child could live with the bad things in the world as people had always done.

Bad things kept coming: Vietnam, Kent State, 9/11 where 3000 people from 86 countries were killed, uprisings in Latin America some of which the U.S. contributed to, people starving on and on, Watergate ...

Flash forward. My daughter, whom I adored through her life, I never regretted not having the abortion, arrived in Switzerland after finishing her degree. Her life had been filled with love and opportunities and the normal teenage angst and problems but not earth-shattering events.

The wars from 2000 on were at best horrible, but what war isn't?  

While she was on the plane, there was an announcement that the U.S. had attacked Iraq. "We're going to an anti-war demonstration in Bern," I told her. Most everyone I knew did not believe in the weapons of mass destruction story. 

I told her if she didn't want to go, I'd cancel her inheritance. It was a family joke, because in Switzerland, a parent can't disinherited their children, which she reminds me of regularly. She also knows I would never disinherit her.

Throughout my life, I've despaired at many things national, international. My feelings after Nixon resigned was the Constitution was a remarkable document, it held during a crisis.

I was always an active citizen, not just by voting, but calling legislators over various bills, demonstrating and doing what I could to influence society to make it fairer and better for all.

We've been heartsick since 20 January when worry about what Trump would do morphed into terror that grows and grows. 

Last night my husband set the alarm for 3 a.m. We transferred from the comfy bed to the couch, wrapped ourselves in a blanket. Sherlock, the dog snuggled down between us.

What we heard did nothing to calm us. Trump bragged on what he had done or was trying to do -- destroy the fabric of society. America is already well behind the industrialized world on protecting its citizens.

And his threats of taking over other countries only increase the terror -- worry is too mild a word.

Equally upsetting, women in pink and one or two Democrats walking out and some holding up signs responding to the lies.  They blew a chance to show how unacceptable what he wants to do to the country is. That he lied, was verified by the news stations citing 13 lies.

"America is back" he started the speech. 

Back to the days of the Robber Barons. 

Back to the days when, unless you were a white male, preferably from a well off family, no matter how hard you worked your chances of a good life were minimal. 

Back to a time in another countries where fascists rule. 

We have to fight him to not go back but forward.

 

 

Free Write -- Laundry

Today's free write is prompted by a photo taken from the church plaza in a French village going back to the time of Charlemagne. Laundry is displayed from a majority of homes. No Home Owner Association's to say "no-no-no-no" in a Maggie Thatcher tone. The three free writers are still in two countries but managed to do this exactly at the same time just as they will do when they are in the same location. We take turns finding prompts. Rick is next.

 D-L's Free Write

The idea for the book had been a hard sell to her publisher. Rita was now installed in the little French Village, population 3,875. Two days ago it was 3,874. Baby Alain was the new resident and his diapers were hanging out the window to dry. He would be the first chapter,

Mamies, the old women of the village, still did their laundry in the washing shed by the river, a creek really. Then they hung the clothes on the drying lines provided by the mayor.

Women with washers hung their laundry out their first (second story American) story windows.

The type of laundry would tell a story about the owner.

Rita would use true stories when she could for the anthology.

For example: Marie-Claude, age 40, a widow, had sexy  underwear. Rita would write that she would use it for publicity, probably correct considering the husbands Rita saw sneaking in and out.

Andre's shirts, pants and underwear needed mending or better replacements. Rita could write about the arguments he had with his wife about her sloven ways.

Thomas lived alone, but his laundry was always hung in order: socks, shirts, etc. He worked from home in IT something, the type of work that was rare in the village.

There were lots of jeans hanging out to dry.  Those might be made-up stories.

Before going around to photograph the day's laundry, Rita needed an espresso at the local café.

Ah...the suffering of a writer.

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

Rick's Free Write

Once a week, on a Saturday afternoon, Cecilia did the laundry. Bed sheets and pillowcases, her towel and Jean-Jacques’, the dress she wasn’t wearing, his dungarees, their underwear and socks.

She washed by hand in the deep, cast-iron sink in the kitchen. (Houses in small villages in the south of France were not yet equipped with conveniences such as wash machines and tumble-dryers.)

She would wring out each item by hand, place it in a frayed wicker basket and carry it out to the balcony overlooking the graveyard next to the 14th-century church.

Taking her time, every item had its place on the three lines of rope strung across the balcony space.

When she was done, Cecilia would return to the kitchen, then back to the balcony, where she would sit in one of the two chairs next to a small round café table, watching the village families who would visit the graves – to cry and to leave flowers.

She drank her noisette coffee and smoked her one cigarette of the week. Then a last glance toward the hills to the north, where the Maquis resistance fighters were hiding from the Nazis and the Vichy, wondering if Jean-Jacques would ever come home – to her or to the graveyard.

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

 Julia's Free Write

So why did she look up? What caught her attention?

 She went about her daily task, having tea in her favorite spot, buying a few pieces of fresh vegetables and fruit from her friend on the corner. She even, an exception for her, had lunch with a friend who was travelling through.

Still, she was drawn back to that particular place and sight.

From the looks of it, he had obviously found her replacement as his underwear, tea-towels and t-shirts were impeccably pinned out to dry.

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