Gospel on a Hot Night

 

The temperature was a sweltering 36°C /96.8°F with high humidity as people filed into the 14th century church in a small French village. Almost every seat was filled making it even hotter.

A few years ago a priest forbid the same gospel choir to sing at a wedding. He thought the music sinful. More than one bride, who wanted the choir to sing at her wedding, went to nearby Collioure or Port Vendres for their religious vows. 

Note: Church weddings have no civil standing in France. Only weddings performed at city halls by local officials are considered real in a court of law.

Two local gospel choirs, under Director Alain Martin, were combined last night for almost two hours of gospel from the old negro spirituals to the more modern Kirk Franklin (born Fort Worth TX 1970) pieces. Martin is one of those artistic people who turned his love for his art into his livelihood. His voice is also a joy to listen to. His ability to whip amateur singers into a powerful musical force, is one reason we love attending any concert he creates.

99.9% of the singers are French with one exception. Mary Westley is from Scotland and her rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah brought every one to their feet for a long-lasting standing ovation. We know Mary from her Bobbie Burns nights in January.

We saw our Catalan and French neighbors, our Swiss, Irish and Egyptian friends.

I've attended many of the choir's concerts. Barbara Hagaman, a friend and neighbor of 40 years in Boston and Argelés, had been a member. Although she's been gone many years, I can imagine her in the back row singing her heart out. The first concert I went to after her death was dedicated to her. I will miss her telling me of the goings on behind the scenes. 

Somehow the heat didn't matter as the voices soared. People stood, swayed, clapped to the music.

Although the concert was free, donations were encouraged, which was more than fine with us. To forget the heat, to forget the different world catastrophes for a short time was indeed a pleasure. 

 Music is a great way to mix very different cultures.

Note: If you want to hear Alain's tribute to my friend Barbara. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbinVnDFBd0&list=RDbbinVnDFBd0&start_radio=1 

Visit https://dlnelsonwrtiter.com 

Kids Plot to Kill

 

Kids Plot to Kill--A Book to Write -- Maybe

As usual Rick and I were still in bed at 8 a.m. this morning. Rick had bought me my tea. He was  looking at his news feeds as I read  Doppelganger. It was a typical lazy Saturday morning. "Fifth graders, all girls, plotted to murder a schoolmate in the bathroom and make it look like suicide," he said. 

I wanted to know more. The event happened last 24 October. What a book that would make. I took a sip of my tea. Writing it would probably take a year at least. It would be my 19th after my anthology of short stories and poems The Corporate Virgin which will be published later this year. 

The first thing I did was to look at duckduckgo.com ( I never use google if I can help it, and I usually can). Legacy Traditional School, where it happened, is a tuition-free, public charter school, grades 1-8, tuition free in Surprise, AZ. The courses looked fantastic offering in-depth learning and seemed to be relatively free of religious pressures that hamper learning about the world as it is.

It was one of 16 schools in Arizona and Nevada, but I couldn't find anything about a headquarters of this non-profit organization nor any board of director information. 

The plans of the four girls were sophisticated worthy of a television production. I could see it as a BBC program(me) or a Netflix special.

The reason?

The intended victim, a boy, cheated on one of the girls.

Weren't they bit young for this sort of drama? 

The plan?

Lure him into the outdoor bathroom and stab him.

Each girls had an assignment:

• Bring the knife. 
• Do the deed. 
• Write a suicide note. 
• Wear gloves so no fingerprints.

Although most suicides, teens or older, are not by self-stabbing, they may not have done that research. Slit wrists are far more common.  There's lots of data but much of it is for people 15 and older. 

The police said one of the girls when questioned was smiling and laughing. When I read that I thought of The Bad Seed, the 1956 movie staring Patty McCormack based on a book by William March. It has been a stage play and movies on the same theme have been done in an English movie in 2018 and another in 2022. All told of a child psychopath.

If I were to write it should it be fiction or non-fiction? Fiction would allow for more leeway in characters and/or location. Non-fiction would require much in-depth research.   

If I were to do a book of non-fiction. It could be Truman Capoteish. 

I'd be limited, but what if I wrote it as fiction? I could move the school maybe to the Boston area where I know the geography. Maybe to Cambridge, Lexington, Waltham?

I like the idea of four different families with different dynamics. Maybe one could be a single mom, but not the mother of the girl who hatched the plan. Single moms get enough bad press.

The one who was smiling and laughing could be the plotter.

What about the other families. Relatively normal. Maybe one family could be on the brink of divorce.

The four girls could have been friends from first grade although they might live in different neighborhoods.

Because the school is tuition-free there is no need for any of the families to be wealthy. 

Would the families do things together like dinners. or BBQs? Would the fathers play golf or the mothers play tennis together?

How about a psychiatrist as the narrator? He could be in a prologue. Rick and I joke about all the prologues in the novels of today.

How many points of view? Each girl? Each set of parents? Too many gets complicated.

Then there's the child (boy or girl) who overhears the plot and goes to the principal who calls the police.  

And what about the boy they wanted to kill?

Yes, it would make a great novel. With all the other things I'm writing and living can I fit it in? 

It is now 7 p.m. 19:00 as they say in France. The day has been sweltering but our home has AC as they say. We've had a snack of lemon cake made by our favorite baker with crushed local strawberries with whipped cream. A Swiss friend has stopped by to arrange tickets for a light show in a church in Perpignan on Thursday night.

I need to think -- do I want to dive into this project? If I can deep dive into a new novel, it will take my mind off all the horrible things happening in the U.S. and world.

 Visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com

 

Why the Fear of Socialism?

 

A friend lectured her five-year old daughter about sharing after seeing the child act selfishly with a friend.

"I'm going to my room to think about sharing," the beautiful little blond said. About ten minutes later she same back. "I've thought about sharing. I don't wanta," she announced.

Socialism is a form of sharing and it's a word that seems to scare Americans. Just the word falling from someone's lips can change a vote at all levels of governments. Fluoride to be added to the water to reduce dental decay was vetoed in my hometown as "creeping" socialism" is just one example.

Mention a socialistic government and Venezuela dictators are mentioned, never the Scandinavian countries where socialism works to make better lives for all its citizens.

Higher taxes will also be thrown into the horror pile of socialism consequences for those that don't know or understand. Little comparison is done between the amount of taxes paid and the amount an individual would have to spend if they had to pay out of pocket for the same services. 

Okay! Any government system is dependent on the honesty and competence of those elected. 

Socialism isn't communism.

I consider my taxes, which I pay in two countries and it used to be three, my dues to live in a civilized society. What I want my taxes to pay for (not a complete list): 

• Education: I don't care if I don't have kids in the system. Educated people will be my future doctors, dentists, plumbers, teachers, electricians etc. Hopefully they will have been taught enough propaganda-free history to know the truth when it comes to voting and won't be fooled by lying politicians.
• Good roads: Imagine if I had to pay for every road I drove on. I just rode from Toulouse to the French coast on back roads and not a pothole to break my suspension. I never could have afforded that myself.
• Medical: I don't want me, my family, my neighbor or fellow citizens to go without needed medical care. Part of it is selfish. If they have a contagious illness, they can share it with me or my love ones. I don't want to ignore my own medical needs so I can continue to live a productive life.
• Research: I can't afford to do all the research to invent medical and scientific discoveries which I benefit from. I couldn't invent and then manufacturer most of the things I use.
• Food Safety: No way can I go to all the factories to make sure whatever I eat is safe or run checks on things like meat, milk, etc.
• Air and water safety: As an individual I can't run tests on the air and water quality to make sure it won't hurt me.
• Storm damage: Hurricane? Tornado? Flood? Fire? Can I do the clean up myself? Nope. Nor if I can solve my own damage I don't want to live in a ravaged area where others couldn't.
• Fire and Police protection: Security forces for my home as it is to have a private fire service on call impractical.
• Public transportation: Good train and bus services to get from point A to point B easily. 

This is just a start of what I want my taxes to pay for.  They are what makes a society civilized.  

Profit is not a bad word. But hoarding resources and money is bad. We've been propagandized thinking our function as citizens is to consume (George W.Bush told Americans to go shopping). How much of the "stuff" do we have do we really need or want? And yes -- there is nothing wrong with wanting a home, nice car, good clothes but how much are we wasting. Is my closet stuffed while someone else goes without a coat on a snowy day? 

I would never claim socialistic societies are perfect. They are not. But when everyone has the basics it leaves people free from fear. They have the time and energy to fulfill their own private dreams. It means we don't lose talented people because they can't afford the education so they will never be able to diagnose your illness or maybe save your life.

Visit www.dlnelsonwriter.com 

 

 

War Lies through the Ages

The U.S. has been at war or at least engaged in military conflicts almost every year since it's founding.

"Nah," you say. 

Check out this site. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_wars_involving_the_United_States There are bitty wars when the government attacked different Indian tribes, but there are biggies which involved the rest of the world.

Officially the U.S. declared war only five times.   

I was born during WWII, probably the last necessary war. Estimated deaths have been calculated between 70-85 million. Something about a 15 million person discrepancy is upsetting.

Korea caused about three million people deaths, mostly Korean civilians. The breakdown of military deaths can be found here. Spoiler: Some 54,246  U.S. Military deaths happened according to the Department of Defense. What did it solve? Is America safer for their deaths. Didn't they die for more lies?

We can't forget Vietnam, where men were drafted and went off for reasons that were based on a lie: if the U.S. fell to Communism, it would create a domino effect and by sacrificing their lives it was better to fight them there than in the U.S. 

Vietnam fell, but the U.S. has not been overrun by the Vietnamese communists or not. The two countries share business relationships now.

Men volunteered to fight for their country (lie, lie, lie they were fighting for vested interests) while others who weren't at university or had young families were drafted. Unfair even if there was a draft lottery.

If I had a son and he had been drafted, I would have driven him to Canada and if he still wanted to join up, I'd have locked him up where he couldn't join the military. Any other life choice, my mythical son was free to make, but joining the military was like standing on a precipice ready to throw himself off. I refused to give birth to cannon fodder. 

I did not want to see the name of any son of mine on a long black wall like on the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. along with boys I knew. 50,000 plus died for a lie, albeit in honorable way.

I think folk singer Phil Ochs said it best as White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land.

Clinton and Trump (the later whom I have nothing much good to say about) have been criticized for getting out of doing their military service. I would like to think they were not willing to die for a lie, but more likely the idea of walking through mud and rice paddies just to kill yellow people when they could be home doing more pleasant things, may have had a bigger part. And maybe they knew that the country would not be appreciative of their services once they came home. The treatment of veterans has been cruel and irresponsible on too many levels.

This century has been one Middle East crisis after another. We have Netanyahu claiming that Israel has a right to protect itself, and by doing that they are denying other countries and people the right to defend themselves. Nothing like a little genocide to bring peace to a region NOT.

There's always a made-up reason to attack a school, a hospital, a camp killing, killing, killing. And if there's a chance that peace just might break out, Israel sends another bomb guaranteeing the combat will go on and on and on... And if bombs won't work, maybe starvation will.

Africa is not free from U.S. Military although the African command is headquartered at Kelley Barracks near Stuttgart where my ex and I were stationed in the 1960s. Why? There haven't been so many lies as lack of explanation on why they are there in the first place. And wouldn't diplomacy and development aid be a better way to go? 

That brings us to Trump and his current band of morons. There are reasonable questions that the intelligence about Iran wasn't valid. Two senators, Murphy and Johnson, hearing the same report came to different conclusions, one of which is a Trump toady. As for believing Trump on anything, the fact The Washington Post caught him in over 30,000 lies erodes any confidence that this time he just might be telling the truth. 

Look at military spending by nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures  

The U.S. is highest at $997 billion. Number 2 is China at $334 billion. Meanwhile U.S. kids go hungry, schools are underfunded and the U.S. health system is a disgrace compared to every other industrialized country. Some of the money would go a long way to solving the problems. If you don't have enough to eat or medical care when you need it are you safe. NO!

Probably your chances of being hurt by a foreign attack or dying by a bad social contract is greater.

I believe that most of the military believe they are defending their country having been fed the propaganda from childhood. Trump has called much of the military "losers" which is an incorrect term for people doing what they think is right. But what if they would discover that they are doing the opposite, making the world less safe. 

What if every soldier refused to fight? 

It's naive to hope that every soldier would put down their arms (which would destroy the weapons manufacturers who gain from military aid to places like Israel).

One of the things about getting old, I can say I heard it all before and the same old, same old lies about why a war or military action is necessary grows less believable with every event.

When I'm depressed by the absolute horrendous of those that pretend to be leaders, I will play Imagine by John Lennon.  Does it help? Not much, but it keeps me sane.

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

 

 

 

 

Free Write - The Church Door

The prompt for this week's Free Write was the inside of a 14th century French village.

Rick's Free Write 

As the small choir practiced chants in the front few pews, the new priest sat mute in his study, staring at the accounting books for the church. It was his first parish assignment, and he was headed for a scandal. They had not taught the young priests how to deal with bankruptcy. And possibly theft. By his late predecessor.

He might be able to ignore the theft, not impugn a dead priest. But how would he restore the church to solvency when membership and attendance continued to decline?

He wandered out into the sanctuary with its vaulted ceiling, crystal chandeliers, and statues of saints, major and minor. He needed a miracle. Or a rich benefactor. And there weren’t any of those in this poor village.

Then he had an idea. He remembered a summer he spent in the States with relatives.

Bingo! And gaming. The Catholic church there had been known as Father Toomey’s Little Vegas, and the summer festivals seemed to flow with money, carnival games and laughter.

Young Father Elon would try a little ‘legalized’ fundraising when summer tourists started to come around.

Maybe he wouldn’t face a scandal. Or maybe he’d face two.

 D-L's Free Write

Ellen didn't have a religious bone in her body, despite her mother sending her to Christian Doctrine classes 5th-12th grades.

In fifth grade she had walked out of class when Sister Agnes hit her hand with a ruler for passing a note to her friend Julie.

She'd walked two blocks to the public school and asked to see the principal. "I want to enroll," she'd said.

They'd called her parents. Ellen went on strike not budging from her home until her parents agreed.

"You'll be the death of me," her mother often said. Her mother did die, four years ago not from Ellen's actions but from cancer.

Ellen had been walking by the 14th century church in the little French village where she now lived. It was beautiful in a religious way. Her mother would have loved it.

The incense smell was heavy when she entered. To her left was a table of long, white candles. Ellen plucked one from a box and lit it.

"Hail Mary," she said, remembering the rosary of her youth.

Her mother would have approved of the remembrance.

D-L,  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504

Julia's  Free Write 

It had been an interesting and educational trip.

She hadn’t really wanted to go, but at loose ends after the divorce, when her best friend kept insisting that it would do her a lot of good to be distracted, she gave in. The fact that her ex, to his credit - feeling slightly guilty had dumped her 64-year-old model for a 40-year-old one – had been generous financially helped.

The kids had long since flown the nest and she hadn’t wanted to tag along on their holidays: they had been generous already in their invitations.

So here she was, with her more culturally inclined friend, going a bit outside her comfort zone and touring some of Eastern Europe’s most renowned sites, museums and quaint churches.

And thus, she found herself in this particular cathedral – to the sounds of an organ being practiced.

As she awoke, to find her husband of 40 years still asleep at her side, and with all the daily tasks before her, she wondered: was this a premonition?

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

 

 

The Rebel Cuckoo Clock

I love the cuckoo clock, I bought for Rick several years ago, and not just because it reflects our national heritage.

The carving is lovely, the animals are adorable. The people on the balcony well dressed. Maybe the farmer sawing wood gets tired. Songs played on the hour are melodious.

However, the clock is a rebel.

At night it stops cuckooing which is lovely, but in the morning it wakes up at different times, mostly at 8 a.m. There days it gets up early and goes off at 7 a.m. which is five minutes before the church bells ring 35x from the church tower down the street. The latest it has started (probably wanted to sleep in) is 9. At night it may shut off anywhere from 8 p.m.to 10. 

I'm still arguing about the number of cuckoos. Rick says the double cuckoos are echos but each cuckoo has echo so for three o'clock we get cuckoo echo, cuckoo echo, cuckoo echo, cuckoo echo, cuckoo echo,  instead of cuckoo echo, cuckoo echo, cuckoo echo before the melody starts.

The Swiss tend not to be a rule-following people, something that can be very refreshing. For example when Rick and I applied to be married in our 70s, we had to tell the registry what we would name our future children. We did have many choices, though: my name, his name, a combination of our names with either Adams or Nelson going first.

It wasn't totally wasted though. Our dog reflected our name decision He's Sherlock Adams-Nelson on his papers. Unlike the clock he doesn't have any song after he barks.

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the top stories about the airline industry. He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

 

Note: The first cuckoo clock was most likely created in the 1600s in Dresdenm Gernaby.

Visit: https://dlnelsonwriter.com  

 

 

Guest blog on Vivatech, an AI Conference

  

 

AI or IA, French Style

French President Emmanuel Macron was there. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang was there. And so were Robbert – a veteran IT programmer - and I. With 180,000 other tech geeks from all around the world.

Vivatech 2025 at the Porte de Versailles on the edge of Paris was a speed-dating festival for Artificial Intelligence (intelligence artificielle) startups and investors. 13,500 startups, 3,200 investors such as Bearing Point, BNP Paribas and Coinhouse crypto, and 3,500 exhibitors.

We estimate that 97.4% of exhibitors claimed AI/ IA in their company name or product name.

There were AI robots – humanoid types, robodogs… AI for health, including toilets that analyze your urine and devices that detect skin cancers… multiple variants on electric bicycles with passenger and cargo capability (which I passed on to our favorite village hoteliers for transporting guests and luggage from the train station)… solar energy (which Robbert’s son is pursuing) and other climate solutions… and even AI for marketing, which piqued my interest. Precious little aviation, except for a model of an Embraer/ Eve eVTOL in the Brazilian pavilion.

My overall sense after walking the three exhibit halls for several hours is that we are rapidly moving to a world in which sensors are everywhere – indeed, we may already be there: trackers for movement, cameras for facial recognition, biosensors for health/ disease detection, digital footprints for banking and social media, government surveillance… and that there is nowhere a connected person can hide.

But there’s also an underlying nag that AI is being touted as the magic solution for everything – when we know it can be wrong and even hallucinates fabricated information.

A few days later, after being bombarded by thousands of exhibit placards proclaiming ‘AI Inside’, I honestly cannot recall any of the startup company names or product names (many of which used common words with ‘creative’ spellings, ie substituting a phonetic letter). Nor do I recall any of the placards describing a customer benefit – most focused on their supposed technical wizardry. One Meta (Facebook) speaker even suggested randomly trying different AI products; if you don’t like the results for the first, try a second, a third… How is that ‘intelligent’?

Enroute, Robbert and I took my first ‘night train,’ an 11-hour saunter through the French countryside. The tossing and turning in the sleeper bunk was all the train’s doing, not mine, but it did save the cost of a hotel room. And thankfully, the high-speed TGV return trip was air conditioned.

Rick Adams is the author of The Robot in the Simulator: Artificial Intelligence in Aviation Training, available through the AviationVoices.com website - https://aviationvoices.com/shop/

 Rick Adams is a journalist, but also my husband. We collaborate on many subjects. 

Tea in the morning, etc.

 

Half my genes are of British origin going back to the 1640s. My mother's family were New England Yankees, fought in the American Revolution, although I don't think any relative was part of the Boston Tea Party. Maybe they might have participated if they didn't hate the idea of destroying tea. I'll never know for sure.

 I was brought up in a tea-drinking family. 

Living with a couple in my 30s and 40s. When we arrived home from work, a pot of tea was a regular way to unwind and discuss dinner plans. Sometimes it was made with just tea bags, but there were many times when the full ritual of hotting the pot and using tea leaves happened. We used a small strainer or a metal one to filter out the tea as we poured the tea into cups or mugs. We even had an ugly cup collection for when we needed a bit of humor.

Somehow we never managed to resist buying just one more tea pot either part of a fine china set, an antique pot or one that made us laugh, which was especially useful after a bad day. We would sit in our library, surrounded by books. In winter, a gas fire kept us cozy as we sipped and chatted.

Sometimes we had tea across the street with Hiram Manning, the man who introduced decoupage to the U.S. In the beginning, like us, he was renovating his townhouse. Tea brewed in a pot was the rule. He introduced us to combinations with gunpowder tea. 

We might sit in whatever room was not a disaster, but as time went on and work on his house progressed, it was more like drinking tea at Versailles surrounded by his beautiful decoupage creations. Many times he made little sandwiches, some simple with butter and fresh ground pepper, other times so elaborate that they merited a culinary award. We listened to his stories of living in Europe and the ups and downs of his life. 

When I worked in Switzerland, I would often make the afternoon tea for my team. More than once it led into discussions on whether it should steep, brew, draw, etc. depending on what Anglophone country they came from. No matter how it was steeped, brewed or drawn, all of it was consumed.

In Syria I was introduced to maté. It served the same purpose as tea. Women friends gathered almost daily. The maté leaves filled glasses or wooden cups, a little sugar and maybe cardamon would be sprinkled on the maté and we would sip through silver straws as we talked. Because I couldn't speak Arabic, the lovely women spoke in French and English.

After I retired from my corporate job, I still had three weeks of teaching creative writing at Webster University. The new tenant needed to take up residence in my old flat. My Indian neighbors offered me refuge. Every morning when my host made tea for his wife, he made a cuppa for me too for the women to drink before starting their day. What a luxury.

A British friend told me how her husband brought her tea in bed each morning.. That was before Rick2 was in my life. I was jealous in a positive way.

Rick2 now brings me tea every morning, sometimes before I wake, sometimes by my first stretch. He varies the type from Yorkshire to other flavors. How wonderful to wake to the smell of caramel, vanilla or cinnamon tea. I still have Constant Comment, a favorite left, but when that is gone, we won't replace it. We buy nothing from the U.S. if we can help it.

Many mornings, Sherlock, our dog, will crawl under the duvet having decided it's much too early to go out. Rick2 will return to our bed either with his phone to check email, headlines or to read a book. We share things we're reading that we find interesting.

I wait for my tea to cool and drink maybe half my bowl saving the rest of breakfast. I fell in love with morning tea in a bowl when I first lived in France with a French family. When I tried to use the bowl of tea in one of my novels, I had to argue with my editor to not change it to mug or cup. I wonder if Louise Penny had the same problem when she used bowls for tea in some of her Three Pines novels.

I seldom read a British novel or see a British drama where someone doesn't say, "I'll put the kettle on?"

Thus... Would you like a cuppa? I'll put a the kettle on?

P.S. I find by writing about the good things in life, I can survive the horror of what is happening in my birth country, the Middle East, Ukraine and Somalia. Visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com to see D-L's many novels and her new non-fiction book, 300 Unsung Women. 

 

 

 

Bidets and Life Today

 

 

I saw my first bidet in Italy in 1963. My ex-husband, a member of a U.S. Army band stationed in Germany, and another Army/musician couple Rosi and Gary and me were on a two week holiday.

We went to a family hotel on Lake Como. The hotel was in a multi-century old family home. Our friends had stayed there the year before and were welcomed with open arms.

We were tired having driven from Stuttgart in two cars,  a Triumph Spitfire and a TR4. 

Having been raised in New England, I'd never seen mountains like the Alps. In fact, I'd never really seen mountains. The twists and turns and the drops to the valleys below were a bit frightening.

The smell of home cooking greeted us. The owners had several children. We ate as a big family. My ex and I didn't speak Italian, they didn't speak German or English, but it didn't matter. It was the only time they fed us. The rest of the stay we ate at different restaurants or made sandwiches.

They showed us to where we would spend the next two weeks.  I didn't know what a funny toilet was doing in the bathroom and why the toilet was in a separate room. Rosi, who was German, explained. It was a bidet for washing your privates.  It seemed like a good idea.

Over the years, I've lived many years in places where bidets are normal and I loved them.

At the moment neither of our flats in France or Switzerland have a bidet and although it would be nice, I think of all be people in Gaza who have no water, no food, no roofs over their heads and have lost so many people they love as well as almost everything they own. 

A wave of guilt that all I do have sweeps over me. Equally I feel anger that alleged leaders who could stop it by saying no to Israel's government, no more weapons. If Netanyahu even puts a little finger outside the border of Israel I'd like him captured, sent to the Hague and imprisoned in solitary confinement for the rest of his life and fed on the same rations or lack there of that he subjected the people of Gaza to. 

Vindictiveness is not my usual mode. But the cruelty is something a bidet cannot wash away. 

 

 

 

Free Write -- The Unmade Bed

Do you make your bed every morning? An unmade bed, made a great prompt for this week's free write.

D-L's Free Write 

Peter stared at the unmade bed.

3 p.m. The bed was always made at 3 p.m. Greta was a little OCD. 

At 3 a.m.the bedroom had  been filled with two  ambulance men, the oxygen tank, the stretcher.

He was exhausted from sitting waiting, waiting.

They had bought the duvet cover at Ikea and eaten in their restaurant. He'd eaten Swedish meatballs: Greta had salmon.

Their two sons, one at university and one in the arm, had been conceived in that bed.

How many times had he and Greta made love there? How many talks? How many times had they fallen asleep, back to back, afraid to continue the fight?

The bed had been Greta's parents, an antique. She had loved antiques.

He could barely keep his eyes open. He wasn't used to being awake over 24 hours. 

He looked at the unmade bed. Closing the door, he went to his older son's former bedroom, now a guest room, laid down and closed his eyes. 

Alone. 

D-L,  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504

Julia's Free Write

After the cocktail party and his 100^th jibe, she started seriously considering bashing his head in on the rock wall behind their bed. Then it was thoughts of how blood would not even be apparent on the sheets.

Just in time, she remembered the red heart cushion that he had offered her on Valentine’s Day.

Will she ever tell him of her thoughts?

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

Rick's Free Write

After rocking, rolling, sliding and shaking for several hours on the night train from Paris, he was glad to be back in his own bed. In fact, arriving in the early morning hours, he dived directly under the duvet. The dog, though somewhat confused, snuggled up next to him.

He finally awoke when the church bells chimed at 10:30, the ‘get your butts in the pews’ signal. He lolled in the soft bed for another half hour, reading, before the 11:00 ‘last chance’ church bells.

By then the dog was becoming agitated with all this laziness, harassing him to get up and get him something to eat.

Where was his wife? He called out. No answer. Probably out in the village, having tea and people-watching at the corner café.

Another five minutes? The dog wasn’t having it. He was barking orders now. So he tossed off the duvet, gingerly got up, testing his back for pain, and staggered toward the kitchen.

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the top stories about the airline industry. He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

 

Where was his wife? He called out. No answer. Probably out in the village, having tea and people-watching at the corner café.

 

 

Choices

 

CHOICES

 

“SEE YOU NEXT weekend, love ya,” Marcy’s daughter disconnected. She checked in every few days, short calls, catch-ups on their lives calls. Once a month they meet for lunch on a Saturday.

The November wind blew leaves against the window. The sweater she was wearing wouldn't be warm enough. She went to her closet and pulled out her warmest, an Irish knit.

She thought of the November 51 years before. Her ex had left her for another woman.

Her girlfriend had parked outside the Roxbury triple decker, waiting for her. Inside Marcy climbed onto the newspaper-covered table.

“Ready?” the man with the beer breath asked. “It will hurt.”

It did.

Her best friend waited outside in case Marcy would hemorrhage.

She didn't.

More than once, she wished she'd asked if it were a boy or girl.

More than once, she wondered how she could have handled two babies under two alone.

Not well.

More than once, she regretted having to choose career over her daughter.

More than once, she regretted having to choose her daughter over her career.

Still, she never regretted the nights when she was exhausted from work and having to read her daughter one more story or build one more tower from blocks.

She never regretted their cuddles and games.

She never regretted having to say no, although the yeses outnumbered the nos by far.

She never regretted their one-week summer holidays in a borrowed Maine cabin.

She felt nothing but pride in her daughter’s degree, her decision to be a stay-at-home mom for her two children, her granddaughter and grandson.

She was proud when her daughter introduced her as her mom and friend, always adding, they were friends now that she was grown.

Would she do it again?

Yes. All of it.

The mixed feelings were okay.

She searched for her keys. Put on her puff coat, hat and gloves and picked up her sign and headed for the demonstration.

 

Note: For a complete list of D-L's books https://dlnelsonwriter.com 

Fish Sticks, Christmas and other Revelations

My beloved daughter is 56. I say we've had 53 wonderful years. Five, 13 and 35 are best forgotten. Thirty-five was my fault when I overstepped my role as mother to an adult. After I apologized my daughter said, "I'd hope you would grow out of that phase."

My daughter and I talked during most of her life. As a kid, I'd find her at the end of my bed as I was about to drop off to sleep. I'd fight to stay awake as I listened.

Other times we would sink to the floor outside our bedrooms. Her cat or my dogs would crawl into my lap as we talked. 

Even separated by an ocean we chat regularly on Facebook. Now there are three precious weeks with her joining me in France. We chatter away and even better we are in hugging distance.

What amazes me is that for all our talking, how much wasn't said. Only recently did I discover, she thought she had no choice on Christmas arrangements. Her father and I agreed when we divorced, she would never be used as a weapon between us. He'd seen what I went through as a teenager and I will always be grateful to him for upholding that.

He and I decided that she'd spend Christmas Eve with me, Christmas Day with him and his new family. Recently, I was shocked to discover she didn't like the split holiday. 

"Why didn't you say something?" I asked. My ex and I would have worked it out had we known.

"I didn't think I had a choice." 

 Reenacting Christmases is impossible. Should I have been more aware?

Sometimes, I think that I raised another child and my daughter had another mother. She remembers things I have no recollection about while she doesn't remember things that I considered important. 

For the first eight years of her life I read to her before bedtime almost every night. She doesn't deny that I did, but she doesn't remember it. She only half believes my threat to get all the Little Golden Books, etc. and reread them to her now. I probably recite Dr. Seuss by memory.

A new revelation came this week. As we ate in a restaurant, the subject of fish came up. Both my second husband and my daughter dislike fish. The French word for fish is poisson pronounced poison, something they declare is appropriate. 

"All the kids at day care were so excited when we had fish sticks for lunch," she said. 

"Which one?"

"Living and Learning." 

My daughter had been there when she was three and four. 

"What did you do?"

"I only ate the vegetables." 

"Did you know that my best friend Mardy's father sold the food to that school? Whenever he was there, he'd check on you?"

She didn't. 

It's amazing that after all this time I'm still learning about her and vice versa.  

Not just when I'm talking mother to child, I am trying harder to listen to what isn't spoken in all my conversations. 

Visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com to see D-L's 18 published books. 

 

Then and Now -- Two Histories

 

When I was doing the historical research for my book Lexington:Anatomy of a Novel, it was easy in comparison to what Bede, The Father of English History living in the eighth century, had to do. 

I could research by email, internet or old-fashioned telephone. An incredible Lexington National Park Ranger, who if he didn't have the answer to my many questions, sent me to someone who did. He told me about books that I could download or order. I watched videos and special programs at his suggestion. Getting an answer or a fact could take minutes and seldom longer than a few days.

Bede could not have imagined such speed. Because he wrote before books were printed he had to wait long amounts of time for answers from other monks or from the few libraries that existed. He might get dribs and drabs of things that happened long before in Egypt, Rome or elsewhere. No way could he double check against other sources.

Bede, when he did talk to people face-to-face, is said to have jotted notes on parchment. Unlike today, he didn't have transcription services that could change the notes into verbal words or his verbal words into text. 

Our travels were limited for different reasons. I couldn't hop on a plane from Geneva to Boston to visit the real site of the battle starting the American Revolution whenever I had a question. Fortunately, I once lived close, and had been at the battlefield several times. Photos from the internet, videos and books filled in where my memory faltered. Bede spent most of his time on monastery grounds with some trips to other monasteries in England.

Then there is the difference in ease of getting notes into a readable form. All I have to do is turn on my laptop hoping it will behave. 

I could always pick up a pen from my collection of beautiful pens which use either ink or cartridges,  but I use them infrequently.

Poor Bede used feather quills, and the thickness of the point depended on the thickness of the tip. What he selected depended on how he wanted the manuscript to look, which I suppose is no different from my choosing a font and type size. 

As frustrated as I get if my printer or pen runs out of ink, it's a matter of going to the store to buy new. I do not have to make it.

One medieval recipe for ink included bark from dried hawthorn branches pounded into pieces and soaked for eight days. Wine was added to the process. The liquid was put into bags and hung in the sun.When dry, the mixture was mixed with more wine. Iron salts were added over an open fire. 

Parchment and ink do not come with autocorrect and/or delete keys. There is no historical record of Bede, dropping something on a parchment that he almost finished and trying to remove the stain, but I can't imagine with all that he produced, it must have happened at least once. Did he ever read his day's work and think, "I wish I'd said it differently?"

He helped determine the calendar the way Easter is calculated today. His work, although once put him in danger of being charged with heresy.

To read more: 

 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bede-and-the-theory-of-everything-michelle-p-brown/1143199884?ean=9781789147889

  

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ecclesiastical-history-of-the-english-people-bede/1116800555?ean=9780140445657

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 https://www.harvard.com/book/9781733269667  

Free Write - Lamp Shades

 

The café across from the French 13th century church was in the sun, but a breeze kept it from being too hot. Today's prompt came from Julia, who sent the photo from Geneva where she did her Free Write. D-L turned the prompt upside down just because.

Julia's Free Write

It was a holiday weekend, the sun was shining and when good friends called, lunch was suggested. 

Meeting in a local restaurant they had the back-behind-the-bar space to themselves.

Conversation and water flowed, the laughter light and frequent.

Topics of discussion were varied with emphasis on the depth of knowledge one of the group possessed.

The noise – not of fellow diners but of the barista and the coffee machine behind them almost became too much – the waitress on the other hand attentive and smiling.

As they all stood after four hours of pure enjoyment, the men in the party decided to “look up skirts”.  Another good laugh when we realized that indeed all the lamps on the ceiling had been turned into a pair of white legs with a red skirt!

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

Rick's Free Write 

I had never been in a brothel before.

That I know of.

There was a time when my older brother dragged me into a house that had a ‘reputation.’ But I never saw any woman in a state of undress.

But this place is what I would expect a brothel to look like. Lots of red decoration, the colour of passion. Soft lighting. Moody music. People talking in hushed tones. The occasional giggle or laughter. Heavy on perfume aromas.

And yet, there was no one around. No one I could see. No hostess. No bouncer.

I decided not to call out, but rather to explore. I wandered from what seemed to be the lounge into a small kitchen. No one.

Took the stairs up to the next floor. Several rooms, the doors all shut.

What was that smell?

I tried the handle of one room. Locked.

Tried another. Also locked.

The third handle turned. I slowly opened the door. It was a bedroom. The smell was stronger now.

There were clothes on the floor. The duvet was crumpled on the end of the bed.

And a body sprawled across the width of the mattress.

The blood mattress.

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the top stories about the airline industry. He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

D-L's Free Write

Who would have thought that lamps like that were practical. Fran knew the restaurant owner, who had in her opinion, screwy ideas on not just decor but food.

Granted some of the vegetarian meals were good with ingredients -- well who would have thought when the owner went into the woods to collect what appeared on the menu, would work?

Okay. Wild asparagus or bear garlic were not that strange but what the hell was that leaf? She hoped it wasn't poison ivy. 

The only reason she'd agreed to eat at Try Me -- a funny name for a restaurant -- was Sybil, her best friend and the owner's girl friend.

The leaf tasted good. She reached out to touch the upside down red lamp shade, taking up too much space on the table.

"I think you should have Ted cater your anniversary party," Sybil said.

Shit, she thought. What can I do to wiggle out of this tactfully.

D-L,  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504