Free writing: the next blogs explained

One of the free writing exercises* by Nathalie Goldberg is to start with an emotion: I hate, I love, I feel… My blogs are often my free writes, the warm up that gets the words flowing each day, the same way my grandfather used to keep a rusty can next to the garden pump. He would pour rain water from the can into the pump and depress the handle with its terrible creak that attacked the eardrums, but wonderful, clean, cool water would come pouring forth to taste and to splash on hot faces and hands while we dug asparagus or picked strawberries. The next few blogs are these exercises.

*Free writing or timed exercises means you start writing either with a pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and keep going. You don’t edit yourself. You just let yourself say whatever comes to mind, without thinking, if I write this, it will hurt Auntie Maud’s feelings. You can write it, you just don’t let Auntie Maud see it.

I feel nostalgic

Nostalgia hit today. (Okay, so this blog doesn’t start with I feel nostalgic today as I said in the blog above). A young woman carried a Japanese puppy, only seven months old through the marché. She said she bought it in Touraine, fortunately far enough away to keep me from doing anything foolish. My friend Barbara helped with this by repeating “resist, resist,” so much she sounded like a Jane Fonda exercise tape. Had a puppy been on sale…I am not sure the resist warning would have worked.

I feel happy and sad

I feel happy and sad when I look at a bouquet of flowers. As much as I like the beauty, when petals start to fall, I feel sad their life is ending.

I have always been guilty of anthropomorphising things. As a little girl I used to apologise to the paper butter was wrapped in when it had to be binned. It had done its job and then it was discarded. Or I would feel sorry for old socks that had holes, because they must hurt when my grandmother (Dar) mended them.

Thus I never bin an entire bouquet, but as each flower dies, throw it out. I rearrange the remaining flowers as best I can making them last as long as possible.

I love my dustpan

I love my dustpan. I know that’s silly, but because sweeping is one of those ho hum chores, I decided I wanted a pretty dustpan, something almost impossible to find. Then when I visited my mom in Florida, I read about a woman who painted household items with a technique called double brushing. I contacted her and commissioned a dustpan that she mailed to me a couple of weeks later. No way, do I look forward to floor sweeping. My tiles are so light, that each crumb is visible, so it is a frequent activity, but I smile each time I pick up the dustpan. And of course I always wash the dustpan afterwards (I always have) but who wants to treat a signed work of folksy art with disrespect.

I hate my toilet

I hate my toilet…How can anyone hate a toilet? Let me count the ways.

1. It is twenty years old.

2. The first year the only way to flush it was to remove the cover.

3. I have had a minimum of five innard replacements in the last five years.

4. Last year, Gigi (aka Gerard) who is the rarest of French workmen (read reliable, read shows up on time, read doesn’t overcharge, read has a wife that makes a great couscous) found innards that were suppose to last a lifetime.

5. Wednesday night the innards broke.

6. With the new innards, the toilet makes a sound that sounds a bit like a train coming through my studio.

Gigi has keys to my flat so he can come and do whatever needs to be done when I am not there. I came back from the marché to a repaired, albeit it railroad-noisy, toilet. When I called for the cost, I told him. I WANT TO REPLACE THE WHOLE DAMNED THING. He said we would talk about it.

Flags of fear

Watching the people constantly wave tiny American flags behind John McCain as he talked to Larry King last night and commented on the president’s speech, I felt both sadness and fear. Sadness at their blind patriotism and the fear I feel whenever I see an American flag.

I wonder

• What will be the next sovereign nation we will attack?
• How many more people will America kill?
• How many more will we tortured?
• How many armaments will we sell so others can kill and maim?
• How many more treaties will we not sign that might make the world more peaceful?
• How many more of our own citizens be denied the benefits other countries take for granted?
• How many more directives will go up on the White House web site like the one on May 17^th that all but promised martial law in case of another attack or natural disasters or those in July threatening to confiscate property and wealth of anyone helping certain groups with the muddy definition of helping.

When I was a teenager in Rainbow, I asked for the speaking part of Patriotism, purple in the bow. I loved the speech, the pride I felt in not only my country, but talking about it.

Now I only feel fear for those there that they will lose the little they have along with the loss of habeas corpus, freedom of speech, health insurance, decent jobs.

I predicted the dot.com and mortgage bubbles bursting. I predicted the disaster Iraq would be become. I only hope I am wrong now that the country will continue down its path of war criminality against other countries and its own citizens.

So I looked at those tiny waving flags, seeing only more spin, and again fear and sadness swept over me.

Another Trompe d'Oeil

This one is at the end of my street and done by English Artist and London Theatre set designer Chris Floyd. Chris is unable to leave any plain surface alone, so his house is always covered with painted flowers, window boxes as the bird forever checks out the street. The only real things are the green vines to the left, the door and the shadow.

Fixing a window more or less

Poor Dani, the fishmonger. Kids, who had too much to drink fought outside her shop, and one pushed another through the glass pane. The kid survived, but is in trouble with his parents and police as he should be. He had run away (break and run?) but a good neighbour had heard the glass break, saw what happened and identified the kid.

Meanwhile Dani hired the men in the photo to replace the glass providing as much entertainment as a Laurel and Hardy film fest. Although they allegedly knew what they were doing, they couldn’t figure out how to remove the glass. When they did finally go into the store and hammer the pane onto the street, they didn’t put anything down on the pavement to reduce sweeping up the glass, which became a greater problem. They had nothing to pick up the glass with, no broom, no dustpan, no shovel. This was okay too because they had nothing to put the glass in. Dani had to give them a Styrofoam container that previously had held her smoked cod.None of these steps in glass replacement were accomplished without much consultation that led to more consultation and head scratching.

One can't help but appreciate the entertainment factor in the process while supplying sympathy to Dani for going through the extra work. Never once, however, did she not smile at a customer, share a recipe or a piece of gossip.

Talking about Maddy at the tea room

“She did it out of love,” Franck’s face is animated but serious.

His wife Louise, rolled her eyes. “He is asking what everyone thinks, today.”

I was at La Noisette, my home away from home. I spend lots of time sitting at tables like this, enjoying the sky, the church, the ambience eating everything from a full English breakfast to drinking a cup of tea. Although I often take my book, I seldom read, because I meet so many people and we get embroiled in conversation. All roads lead to La Noisette, one Englishman said, but it is true not just for the English, but the whole international community and the local community too.

Franck was talking about the Maddy case, the little girl who went missing in Portugal and her parents are now considered suspects. He mentioned the mother was a doctor, that she could have given her too much sleeping medicine before they went out to dinner, then shaken her too to wake her but killed her. He uses his hand to show shaking motions. According to Franck when she realised what she had done, they could have begun a cover-up to protect their remaining children, the reason it was done out of love.

He is sure she could have found a place to hide the body because police were looking elsewhere.

At this point Louise points out that the “nounou” the child’s stuffed animal was left. As a mother she knows anyone would take the nounou to keep the child quiet if she were alive. She also found it strange that the mother washed everything belonging to nounou.

I don’t know if the mother is guilty. I do know that Franck is a proud father, carrying two-year old Toby-toes around the village on his shoulders or playing with him after he comes to the tea room from the creche. If Louise accidentally (this is hard to write) killed their son, I can’t imagine there very strong couple surviving it, with or without media attention.

Another customer came in, and the facts of the case are reviewed again. Louise makes the suggestion that Franck might want to wait on the lunch crowd arriving, which he does.

I go back to the contemplation of the street feeling overwhelming sadness for the people who I never met or will never meet.

A light bulb is not a light bulb not a light bulb

For those who think I think everything in Europe is perfect, you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Frustrations with small details can vary and from country to country and one that supplies regular aggravation to me here is light bulbs.

Yes light bulbs.

Having worked for two standardization organizations, I hate, yes hate, the fact that light bulbs have different bases.

In my tiny studio there are five possibilities. Only three are shown in the photo. I didn’t bother to pull out the neon bathroom light nor unscrew the bulb in my halogen lamp I use for needlework.

And those are not all the choices. The little track light bulb with its cute little stool attachments could have two needle size points or three. Not all stores carry all types, so it is often necessary to go on light bulb safaris to find the correct one to enable me to see after dark.

I suppose I should be grateful I have at least learned the word for light bulb, ampule… When I lived in Toulouse before my French was much beyond bonjour and avez vous…I needed to replace a bulb. I found a clerk and tried…Avez-vous…avez-vous…avez-vous but I didn’t know what came next so I started to act out reading a book, not being able to see, going to a wall to switch on a light switch and nothing happening.

The clerk looked at me, laughed and said in perfect English, “You want a light bulb?” and led me to a large bank. I grabbed the nearest got home and it was then that I discovered that God did not make all light bulbs the same. It has been downhill since then and I am in still in dark to figure out why it has to be so complicated. Maybe somebody can shed some light on the matter.

Who needs alarms?

The sun didn’t wake me this morning, nor did the trashmen nor the street cleaners. It wasn’t the children’s voices as they took a few minutes to play before trudging off to school with their backpacks filled with books.

Coffee woke me, its aroma crossing the street from where Ingoldt and Keega were sitting in their kitchen. Like some cartoon, the smell of the freshly brewed coffee wafted from their second floor window into my third floor window, made its way across the floor and entered my nostrils.
I don’t drink coffee, except for an occasional renversée, the Genevoise answer to café au lait. When I do savour the aroma and taste of anything but heavily milk-diluted coffee, ants enter the top of my head and tap dance. It isn’t the caffeine, for I can consume large quantities of tea and my beloved Coca-Cola without problems.

Sometimes I give in to the renversée like the time I met my writing mate at the Ferney marché and the only thing to do was to sit in the sun at a café and drink a coffee. Nothing else would have been the same. And the amount of frothed milk kept the ants at bay.
Sadly the same day, I had bought flowers for the Madame S., the octogenarian lady who lived on the ninth floor of my apartment building. She was so pleased she had to make me espresso despite my protests and then my best attempts to sip as little possible. She kept filling the delicate gold rimmed demitasse almost after each of my tiny swallows. I returned to my own flat with an colony of ants imitating the entire cast of Riverdance and Lord of the Rings in my skull.
Still not being able to drink coffee does not diminish the pleasure of smelling it brewing this morning. Thank-you Ingoldt and Keega.

Hearings make me sick

Watching the Betrayus and Crooker hearings I think of how many hearings I have watched starting in my childhood with my mother who was so thankful that McCarthy was saving us from the Red Menace in and out of our borders. (I will admit that I found the hearings annoying more because they conflicted with Howdy Doody and Beany. I won’t claim to have been political in grade school, but even then something didn’t make sense to me.)And we all know what an inspirational person McCarthy was.

From then on there was Watergate, Col. North, good old Monica and quite a few in between. The one that thrilled me was the one on C-Span where several Congressmen challenged the results of the 2004 election.

In so many of them, I feel as if I am watching a good fiction program. I often wish what people were saying was true. If I could have faith in the latest it was dashed, when Crooker made one more reference to Saddam’s torture of his own people. Despite the US Mantra we do not torture, saying it doesn’t make it so. Congress rejected closing of the School of Americas, www.soaw.org/article.php?id=205 or http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm where Janis Karpinski talks about Abu Grahib or the illegal flights where we sent people to be tortured. It is a variation of Bush’s statement about the terrorists killing innocent women and children. Tell that to those that were under US bombs when they landed and have been killed by US Soldiers. And as for 9/11 a few hours of terror against years and years that the Iraqis have suffered.
So thus I watch another hearing where lies fall from lips, for a war that is killing too many people. Sadly I have read too much to believe.

As I write this Crooker talks about training the Iraqis in preventive maintenance of their infrastructure. Maybe then the Iraqis can train us how to rebuild bridges starting in Minneapolis.

I also wonder what right the US has to demand what the Iraqi government must do after we attacked and destroyed it.

So far no one has mentioned the almost double the number of US Soldiers that we have hired as paid mercenaries.

No one has questioned why we can interfere in Iraq and only our allies can interfere. Doesn’t it make sense that Syria and Iran have more interest in their neighbour than perhaps Australia does?

And part of me thinks the fact that they couldn’t get the microphones to work properly at the beginning of the hearing is a great metaphor for the war. We couldn’t get that right either, but then attacking a sovereign nation can’t be gotten right.

Nor did I hear about the meeting in Finland where Iraqi ministers met with Irish ministers tried to talk about how the Irish solution might be used by the Iraqis. The US wasn’t present.
Likewise the Iraqis invited Iran engineers into the country to help fix the electricity that the US has failed so miserably do.

Why aren’t the questioners asking about the source of the stats and why haven’t they done their own based on news reports?

Overall the war leaves me feeling sick and ashamed and so angry. The hearings only make it stronger.

Vases and Flowers

Ever since I broke the $5 vase purchased some 25+ years ago from George’s Folly ferreted out from the Souk-like atmosphere between incense, bulky jewellery, strange statures and Indian cloth, I have had only had the egg-shaped vase. That I bought for my mother when I was nine. She had liked it when she saw it at Weston’s Greenhouse, a place smelling of flowers and damp earth. I had paid for it from my milk money, no great sacrifice since I hated the milk served in fourth grade. It was delivered in small bottles with paper stoppers early in the morning, left in the hall between the first and second grade rooms with enough ice to puddle but not enough to keep cool.

After my mother died I recaptured the vase and shipped it to Europe when I moved. However, it is not the type of vase to plunk flowers into. It is the type of vase wgere a flower arranger needs to anchor each stem in either that green florist spongy stuff or glass marbles.

The red vase isn’t a vase at all, but a metal Coca-Cola bottle purchased for the special occasion of the 11th birthday of Barbara’s grandson who was visiting at the time. The bottle was more festive in his eyes, I suspect, than champagne would be in the eyes (or taste) of an adult. I scooped the bottle and when I find a rose of just the right colour to match the pattern or the red, out it comes.

Perhaps next year in vide grenier sale on the 1st of May I will find another vase with enough memory potential to make it worth my while to carry it home.

Lost and Found

It is part of Nelson family lore how my daughter and friends spent time in my newly purchased studio. They travelled from Munich, via Toulouse, to pick up my newly-purchased dish set, the Villeroy and Boch Acapulco pattern, visible in other photos on this blog.

One dish was lost. It never bothered me that a dish was lost EXCEPT I never understood how anything could be lost in a one-room studio with absolutely nothing in it, not even a stove or frigo at the time.

Now that the studio is furnished, I find it easier to misplace things, even with my minimalist lifestyle.

The latest was my good Swiss watch, a gift from Florian. It had spent time in the States with my daughter, who took all my good Swiss watches, when I gave up wearing a watch for several years. It had more to do with so many demands on my time, my IEC job, writing for CUT, teaching at Webster, and trying to do my own fiction. The watch on my wrist served more to mock me than remind me of how time was flying much too fast even though savings were mounting for early retirement.

Once I devoted myself solely to writing and not being a 9 to 5 wage slave, I asked for one watch back and I have worn it regularly for the past three years. Two weeks ago, I couldn’t find it. I searched in the obvious places. I searched in the unobvious ones. Finally I decided to do the thing that guarantees the lost will be found—I replaced. Obviously the 5 euro marché watch was too inexpensive to qualify and the watch stayed hidden.

Today, my friend Barbara and I shared a roast chicken lunch, the bird bought from the stand down the street. I explained how frustrated I was.

‘Did you look…’ she named places that it might be. To each I replied yes, and she rechecked.

‘Did you look in your silverware basket?’

I nodded.

She rummaged around and pulled it out.

‘The gold part caught my eye among the silver,’ she said to make me feel a little less dumb.

So now I have a beautiful, classy watch, and a campy wooden one. I will keep the second. It won’t take up too much room. And to RM, no, this doesn't mean I am falling off the minimalist wagon.

Knitting for no reason

I have no idea why I started knitting baby sweaters since I know of no one with babies. My own biological time clock died out about 38 years ago.

Granted I felt like knitting and they worked up fast. I also kept having my own ideas for hearts on pink, putting penguin buttons on snow, etc. Well this is my production for the last year. Maybe I will give them to Barbara to sell or put them on Ebay...

Dinner

I love it when friends come. Even if they are here for reasons other than to visit with me, it means more conversations, sharing an experience or two in a relaxed atmosphere. I also love having people I know from other places to pop in and out. Popping is good.

This happened recently and they generously invited Barbara and I to share a meal at the hotel where they were staying.The photo shows my starter with a mouth-watering sauce on a crêpe with morel mushrooms and greens. Manners, Swiss, French or American, kept me from licking the plate but just...

Rock art

Some people find the image of the Virgin Mary on peanut butter sandwiches or Christ’s picture on a wood panel. While walking along the beach Sunday, I found a rock and despite the poor quality of the photo, in reality it looks a bit like a painting with waves, a rock and even a cloud. However, without religious significance, I doubt if putting it on E-bay would bring me any profit. In fact right now there is a wood panel image of the Virgin Mary but with no bids. Besides, I prefer to keep the rock as a memory of a nice day, walking along the edge of the waves with Mosquite, the pup, who decided he, too, wanted to put his feet in the water. The only problem was that waves for him were nose high. As for the picture of the rock, I don’t think he was impressed at all.

Social Butterfly

This weekend gives new meaning to the term social butterfly.

It started Friday night with my annual dinner with my pal Barbara where I prepare New England style apple pie and corn chowder.

The pie crust is made with Crisco bought and brought from the American store in Geneva and costing slightly less than a semester at Harvard. Traditionally I decorate it with a bird cut from the pastry with a cookie cutter that my grandmother and great grandmother used and set the piece on a tree branch cut into the crust.

Saturday lunch was at La Noisette with Gertrude and Barbara as we caught up on news. She told us of her award ceremony for her efforts in producing HIV awareness films, her dog, etc. and we planned other events for the month they will be here. Gertrude and Froed are in the house Barbara and I used to own. Of course during lunch, different people came by warranting catch-up conversations including a native who now lives in Pontalier (a place I fell in love with not far from where I used to live when I was first in Switzerland) and has so much history of the region in his head, that talking and walking with him is like being in a documentary.

Then at night, a different group of us, locals and Brits, went to the butterfly farm where Marielle, a native Argelèsian, who we meet for coffee at La Noisette, is cooking.

Before dinner we wandered through the enclosure alive with plants and flowers between ponds. Butterflies flew around us. They were every size and colour imaginable including several that were bigger than both my hands. The most beautiful were a perfect match for my blue folders, but were impossible to catch on camera. As soon as they lit they closed their wings. Their underside is a dark chocolate. I did find a photo on the web http://flickr.com/photos/jkleber/357822825/ done by a photographer with more luck or maybe patience than I have.

Dinner was in the garden, un menu unique de seche, giant calamar, done Catalan style. The sinking feeling of preparing to chew and chew and chew on flavourless rubber disappeared with the first bite which was tender and delicious. I should have had more faith in Marielle

And today I am off to the beach with Nadine, owner of La Petite Pause. Since it is the end of the season she is beginning her autumn hours.

Friends are due down from Geneva although not staying with me, Dinners are planned, more Danes are arriving at the end of the week, no longer content with just their summer stay.

My daughter laughs when I tell her that once I was worried that I would be isolated down here. Instead, I have found a variety of acquaintances in the Catalan, French and international communities.

And although there are days I lock myself to my computer to write either my fiction or my news articles, I know just outside my door are interesting people to talk to, eat with and share new experiences that leaves me all a flutter.

The gratitude rock

“I keep it my pocket,” she said referring to what she called her gratitude rock, something my Scottish friend touches often because she feels she has such a good life that she doesn’t want to take it for granted. It reminds her of all that she has.

We were sitting on Cristina’s rooftop terrace (see photo below) sipping local red and nibbling on olives and pistachios. On the table next to us stood three sparkly glass tumblers and a pink peony blossom that had fallen. I debated going home to get my camera to take not just that photo but the one of the chimney shadow etched in sharp lines on the yellow wall.

I didn’t leave, for the conversation was too enjoyable to break. We were all talking about the choices we had made in our lives and the prices we paid, mostly dealing with being away from those we loved. We weren’t sure what was the mythical and what was real, for when you talk about what you didn’t do, you never think of the downsides.

What we did know were the memories of things done, places seen, adventures—both good, bad and often scarey—but most important relationships built. When you aren’t on home ground, communities do not just happen by your birth and staying in one place, they are constructed carefully over conversations, dinners, and the slowly opening up beyond the superficial.

Thus I sat on the rooftop terrace, in the late summer sunlight beginning to fade, enjoying my created community. I didn’t have a gratitude rock—my rock next to my computer—had touched Collette’s grave stone in the hope that something will be transmitted to me when I write, but what I have is gratitude for my life that carried me through the good, the bad and the scarey.

La reentrée

The streets are quiet during the day. The children have disappeared to the reentrée, their new book bags stuffed with cahier (notebooks). Soon they will be filled with neat homework, reports, exercises and messages from the teacher to be signed by the parent and returned, pencils, pens, erasers zipped in equally new pencil cases selected from the various stores catering to the back-to-school classes. When I walk to the shops, to the cafés, I miss seeing the children playing with their dolls, their balls and bikes spread on the street.

I think of my first few years at school. We were supplied with a new box of crayons, one for each colour of the rainbow plus brown and black, thick crayons, that only later did I learn was to help small muscle co-ordination. I loved their pristeenness, but not as much as I loved the much more graceful Crayolas at home which could give me results with their many shades. But even more I loved the names. Burnt sienna had a magic that a brown would never have. Carnation pink brought thoughts of spring when I was home from a school day cancelled because of a snow storm. Thistle and maize felt good rolling around my tongue. The thin crayons felt better in my hand, looked as if there were unlimited possibilities spread out on the table that the school crayons, stubby and boring just couldn’t provide.

I don’t know if the children, now sitting in desks in the school next to the Shoppi plaza or over beyond the Marie have crayons. Years from now they may remember the backpack bookbags, the agendas with the covers of current heros or floral designs to write down homework assignments, the Mariefountain notebooks with their large coloured square covers and quadrangle insides (lined paper is rare not the like the yellow we used for first draft and white for final corrected copies to be handed in) and the pencil cases.

Living backwards

After my morning read, I flipped on the TV to see if the world has ended during the night and flip through the news stations, BBC, F2, France24, CNN and Aljazerra. This morning I did a double take. CNN was backwards as were the streaming headlines and the anchors were on the opposite sides of which they normally sit. Then the weather came on and instead of being on the left of the map, London was on the right. The same with the US map. California was right, Florida left (and this has nothing to do with politics). Thinking CNN had it wrong, I ran through the channels. They were all flipped. I unplugged and replugged the set. Backwards still.

Then I decided it must be with my satellite provider. Maybe it would be good to spend the day backwards, eating dinner first, breakfast last, taking a shower than getting undressed…etc. Although I haven’t gone there, there’s a restaurant in Switzerland where you start with coffee and end up with your starter.

Then I thought maybe we could run Iraq backwards and the millions the US has killed directly and indirectly would be alive again, the bombed buildings would rise from the rubble, US soldiers that lay under flags would be reunited with their families. Backwards could be good.

Perspectives

View from the terrace

It’s an annual trek to this lake for a picnic with friends on holiday from the UK (they own a summer home in Le Boulou, a few minutes from Argelès). The lake is almost always deserted, but this year a duck convention was being held right in front of the no swimming sign as if they could read and agreed to follow the rule.

Not all the lake is off limits to swimmers. Three teenage girls had their horses out for a day of fun and they were galloping up and down the path behind the grassy knoll. They took the horses for a long swim. The brown mare especially was in no rush to leave the water, but the dapple gray climbed out and rolled on her back in the grass much like a dog. The laughter from the girls floated over to where we were encamped with our salads, local cheeses, and fresh baked bread, olives and sausages. The horses seemed as happy as the girls and I wondered if they were making comparisons to their ordinary days in a field, versus the chance to swim and run.

Another part of the tradition with this couple is to go back to their place where they serve coq au vin (or in this case poulet au vin) on their roof top terrace and listen to the river that runs by their house.

As we were having the apero, a Siamese cat, probably only a few months old, made her way across the brick red tile roof and made it plainly known that sharing a bit of sausage and a few olives, would not go amiss.

Our hostess, led the cat, which she had named Speckles, downstairs for a bit of tuna.
The cat ate, came back on the terrace, and disappeared over the roof tiles. Some inner sense must have told Speckles what was there, because she raced back to the terrace and was set up with chicken, rice, gravy and even a carrot. Her pitiful meowing for more made us wonder if she was thinking we were stupid not to recognize her demands for more.

We watched the full moon peek over the mountain. It seemed to race into the sky. I mentioned that it was moving up into the sky fast, and my friend said, really the earth was moving downwards away from the moon...Perspective…the ducks probably didn’t care about the no swimming sign, the horses just revelled in running and swimming and the cat thought getting fed was her due. Meanwhile each of us on the terrace had our own perspectives on good food, good friends, good conversations

Websites

My writing mate and I used to meet several times a week, but now that she is based in Vienna it more like quick Sykpe conversations. These days she is in Australia with her mom, who just recently lost her sight.
So many of my friends are dealing with moms in various states of disintegration made more difficult by not sharing a continent.
My writing mate’s mom is one special lady, and one of the hardest things about her sight loss was the loss of her many projects. My mate had the brilliant idea of blogging her handicraft wisdom, giving the mom a project. Please check out her waste not want not site, and if you can look at my mate’s mercs world…
http://mercsworld.blogspot.com/
http://wastenotwantnot-thestory.blogspot.com/

On a political note, this is a great video against the government manipulation of the American population on fear. www.eidelsonconsulting.com/videos.php

Lastly http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2157197,00.html George Monbiot who writes on how How the neoliberals stitched up the wealth of nations for themselves

Nature is a metaphor

In Geneva I’m surrounded by nature, but in Argelès there are no fields and I have to walk to water instead of having it on my doorstep. Still looking out the window this morning, I was struck by the shadow of the vines crawling up Froed’s house across the way. One branch was dead, but its shadow lived on bravely in the sunshine, a memoriam of sorts.As I sipped my tea out of my cow bowl, I realised that in a way it is a metaphor for life, so many shades during a day. Sunshine causes shadows, grey days obliterate them

Mornings are wonderful times of day

One of the true luxuries about not working at IEC; Interskill, Digital or anyplace that has variations of the nine to five routine is to wake up with the sun and read in bed. The sun is no longer peeking through the skylight around five, but appearing closer to seven. Even when the days are warm, it feels good to snuggle under the duvet in the early morning air pouring through the open windows.

Then there is the advantage of the leisurely breakfast, making sure the tea pot is hot before adding the leaves, choosing the fruit and again reading as I eat.

Even when I have a full day of writing planned, the ability to juggle my hours is a gift.
For those that believe (know) I’m over the top on colour co-ordination, I DID NOT CHOOSE a blue book to match the décor when I took the photos. I am really, really reading it. And although I don't often do it, I can even go back to bed and read and read and read...

At the marché

I set out early with my shopping list: eggs fresh from the farm, saucions smoked by the stand owner, a veggie or two. I saw a wonderful array of figs and blackberries brought in by one of the farmers. Blackberries are usually too expensive, but these weren’t. They reminded me of a walk in the Maine woods with my best friend from high school years ago when we picked berries as we shared stories of our lives. I paid my three euros of the berries but he “offered” me the figs for nothing. “Vous êtes trés gentil,” I told him. When he smiled, his wantabe goatee quivered.

And walking up and down the marché, I ran into friends of different nationalities as well as Catalan neighbours, who all smiled and welcomed me back.

Although I didn’t need olives, I ran up to the area next to the church where Joel has his stand.

He is always professing his undying love, but then he does it with most women. Besides his olives, he sells olive trees and produces perfume labelled for the nearby towns, Argelès, Collioure, and Banyuls, and made from flowers from his own fields.

I didn’t need cheese from Leo either, but like Joel he gave me a big wave and smile as I walked by, reminding how much I like personal shopping. The only problem with the marché that it is too easy to over buy and the freshness dissipates in the Frigo. Instead better to pop into the green grocers on the days between the marchés. When I am here I am spoiled in the what do you mean eat bread that isn’t still warm from the oven or mayonnaise where I have to wait for them to finish beating it up.

No room at the inn until...

The couple, no more than in their early twenties, stopped at La Petit Pause where I was having dinner with Nadine, the owner/chef. They wanted to know about hotels. Although they had reservations at one of the many campings, their train had been late and the reception area was closed. Nadine let them leave their gear while they did a foot tour of the hotels in town. Their faces told the story when they returned.

“I’ve an idea,” I said. I led them to my street and received the expected oohs and ahhs. Even after dark the hanging flowers and the full planters look beautiful in the lamp light.
I knocked on my neighbour, Cristina’s door. She rents out apartments. Apologising for bothering her, she asked if they spoke English. When she ascertained they didn’t, we spoke in English.

No, I didn’t know them, but I explained their plight adding the only thing I knew was that they were from Grenoble.

Cristina invited us in, and called the hotels. For the last Friday of high tourist season it wasn’t surprising that no one had a vacancy. The couple stood up and apologised for “deranging” us.

“You can sleep here,” Cristina said, leaving them stunned.

I left hoping they weren’t murderers or thieves, but I saw Cristina on the street. She said that she liked having them in the house, gave them breakfast on her terrace, and they had left only to return with a bouquet of flowers to thank her.

Ducks with a smile

Ducks along the lake wander among the pedestrians. Like Divers in Acapulco they hurl themselves off the rocks into the water. They are quick to find any crumbs as people picnic on the benches and gratefully accept the dry bread children carry down to the shore line.
I couldn’t resist playing with the photo special effects of this darling in the bottom right hand corner. You need to click on the photo to get the full effect.

The lake at the end of the day

After sitting at the computer much too long during the day, taking a walk at dusk along the lake is not only good for my muscles, but for my soul. Dusk is earlier, no longer almost 22:00 but closer to 20:00. It is not something I do daily, but enough. Knowing the lake is so close and is an option at any moment, is a sense of security.

The lake, like the ocean, has many moods, and the night this picture was snapped it was rocking the ducks trying to settle in for the night making them raise their heads often from under their wings. I often wonder if ducks can get seasick, and that, in itself, would make a great children’s story, The Seasick Duck. The sound of the waves was a regular slap, slap, slap as water hit the large stones. The boats bobbed. Other nights the water has been so still that it resembled a carpet ready to walk on, something I knew better than to try. It reminds me of one of my mother's favourite joke with Jesus walking on the water. He looks back at his disciples floundering behing and calls to them, "On the rocks, stupid."

The colder weather is a hint of the fall to come and I’m already thinking of Auer’s hot chocolate, roasted chestnuts, fuzzy socks and sweats.

But then a late summer day will put these desires into limbo, rather willingly for sandals, days in outdoor cafés, and walking with the sunshine warming my face.

This has been the summer that wasn't, with too many cool days, but least it comes as a complaint, give me cool to cold weather over heat any day. And give me a lake or ocean within walking distance.

The Psycho Syndrome

I beat the Psycho Syndrome...that is the one that a women is in the shower and she remembers the scene where Tony Perkins slices up Janet Leigh.
Not a woman alive, I bet, who has seen the movie doesn't think of that one time or another.
This morning as I was about to take a shower, my housemate called saying the back door was open to air out the house.
I got into the shower anyway.
Well, okay, I thought about the scene, but I didn't go downstairs to lock the door, nor did I lock the bathroom door.
Now my only two remaining fears are the possibility of King Kong carrying me to the Empire State Building (although in Europe it is more likely to be the Eiffel Tower or those Kachina dolls that come running out of closet, but then they may still be after Karen Black.

I love Trompe d’Œil. A new (to me not to the area) favourite restaurant, became a favourite not just for this wall Trompe d’Œil or the cosiness of the room with the wooden beams, but for their good food.

A friend and I ate lunch there on Sunday, not inside by the painting but outside on the terrace surrounded by grapevines.

The carpaccio of beef with pesto and parmesan cheese sliced to translucence thinness was a wonderful starter followed by a roast chicken in a sauce with morelles (? Spelling), a smoky-tasting mushroom.

Despite the beautiful weather and the pleasure of being on the terrace unlike the other times I ate there when it was cold and we were glad to be in this cosy back room, I couldn’t resist slipping inside to snap this photo. Little did I know that the cat watching the dog scene would be re-enacted later (see next blog).

This old house..

The old building was so sad looking among the pristine ones that make Evian such a charming little village that has nothing to do with bottled water, although there is a museum there about Evian water.

My friend and I were saying that it was probably beyond repair, but what a shame as we speculated about its history. I thought of the old song "This house was once made of laughter..."

Memories get etched into buildings. The arches, the carved slats on the balcony all could be beautiful with some love added.

We’d been meandering around the village, looking at shop windows, remarking on the architecture, the beauty of the lake, what a perfect day weather wise, the joy of just being.

Thirsty, we decided to stop at a crêperie for a coffee or something cold. It was a little after 17h, neither dinner nor lunch time. The two owners, one middle aged, one young and blond, were outside at one of the tables, all of which were empty. The blond greeted my friend’s Irish wolfhound, whose head is bigger than any of my Japanese Chins. She was welcomed with a water dish and a caress, although the cat in the window, was far less pleased. In fact he looked on in horror. The dog never noticed the cat at all, content with her water and affection.

My friend decided she would order a sweet crêpe with coconut. I passed still full from lunch.
However, when it was brought out, there were two plates, two forks and will power fell away like snow in 90° temperature.

The young blond chef was from Brittany and proudly declared himself a Master Crêpe Maker, something we wouldn’t have argued with. He also explained that Grand Marnier and White Rum were included in the batter which is what gave such an exquisite flavour.

He brought out the menu explaining how everything was made from scratch, nothing frozen, only the best ingredients. Although they didn’t make their own ice cream, they bought it from a person who did, again using only fresh ingredients.

Somehow the conversation worked its way around to the sad building across the street. The young man told us it was a centuries old military prison, but it would be restored, because it was part of the French patrimony.

But when it came to his patrimony, he made it clear he was a Breton and when he said good bye, he taught us how to say it in his Breton.

We will go back to see the Master Crêpe Maker, the progress on the renovation, but I have already forgotten how to say good bye in Breton. Maybe not knowing good bye is better because then I don’t have to say it to old buildings or new places to eat.

A lunch invite spurned...

Mrs Sarkozy and her children were not feeling well leaving her husband to go to President Bush’s picnic alone. Was it a political statement or gastronomic?

On rain and floods

The waters are receding after the floods. I only read about one death. Our house, despite being near the lake, wasn’t that near and the banks were high enough, but both my housemate and I say we never remember the rivers and the lake being so full. The equivalent rainfall for a month landed in three days. Much of the flooding was from streams and backed up drains, water filling basements, etc.

Temperatures plummeted.

I did suggest to my daughter who was sweltering in D.C. that if she could send me 25° we would both be living at a comfortable 75°. Meanwhile I gave in and pulled out my warm winter slippers, wrote away as the drumbeat of the water hitting the roof pounded away.

I have only been in one flood at Fort Knox Kentucky when I was visiting friends who were living in a caravan as they sold merchandise on base. We woke up in the morning to find water about a foot into the van. One was enough.

What's in a name?????

In Swiss Romand the names Léa and Samuel have replaced Emma and Noah or Nathan as the most popular names for new borns. In Swiss Alémanique it is Luca and Anna. And Swiss Italienne it is Luca and Alessandro for boys while Sofia replaced Sara for girls.

One of the great things about being a writer is you get to name so many people. You are not limited to one or two offspring and an occasional dog or cat.

Of course in naming characters you have to be careful to be time and place appropriate. An eighty-year old French woman would never be named Tiffany. Romance writers tend to give unreal names. I have always loved Sandra Brown's Cash Boudreau. The only thing I remember about the book is his name and he was from New Orleans, so she was at least geographically correct. I have been known to wander the graveyard in Argelès for names to add to a scene set there.

Many of the internationals I know who name their children need to find something that works in many cultures, his home, her home, and their next posting and the one after that.

Part of me is still sorry my ex rejected the name Cloud (okay it was the 60s) for our daughter. However, I am sure she isn’t, but Britt, which was never designated to any of our children for we produced no more daughters between us or with others, might not have been too bad.

And although my daughter rejected David for one of chins in favour of Amadeus (see photo of a Chin below) Ama fit his character better. And I did get to name two characters in two different novels David. Both were not nice people, but the real Davids I have known have been lovely.

Meanwhile I must start another novel soon to be able to name more people.

Johnny Halliday Shouldn't Sing English

With my accent I shouldn't criticise, BUT I don't go on national television with it. Check out http://youtube.com/watch?v=WQNXz7DV7rQ Johnny Halliday Celine Dion Blueberry Hill. Music and beat is great, but I never found a trill on Blueberry HIll. And someone should tie down Celine's leg.

Speaking of You Tube...it is possible to watch Little Mosque on the Prairie on You Tube.

Eating in the Garden

The only reason I woke at 4 p.m. was Munchkin, who led me to her empty food dish. Once filled, she ignored it and demanded to go out.

I had slept 13 hours, recovering from the world’s coldest flight from Calgary to Frankfurt.

My housemate had departed for the mountains leaving me a frigo full of goodies from her August 1 National Holiday Party, a loaf of fresh bread from the local bakery and Bill Bryson’s I Am a Stranger Here Myself.

Thus I spent a glorious time sitting in the late afternoon sunshine, nibbling on carrot and celery sticks plus a sandwich, and reading often breaking into laughter. Few days have such perfect weather, neither too cool or too warm. Everything was luminous. The flowers, which had been just a few short weeks ago, seeds huddled in a packet were now debating if they were capable of, with one more little push, to become blossoming trees. The mountains were in the background.

In my last flat I practically lived on my balcony during the summer months, but it has been years and years and years since I have a garden to sit in and relish being there and relish I did.

Meeting Mounties

If I could have met these guys when I was eight, I would have thought I died and had gone to heaven and I told them so. Like most kids of my generation, I chewed Doublemint gum because Gene Autry did, Sang Happy Trails to You with Dale and Roy and wore my Hopalong Cowgirl outfit complete with boots long after they were too small. Two giant rocks dropped by a departing glacier were behind my house were the badlands and I galloped on imaginary horses.

These two Mounted Royal Canadian Police didn’t show up at the conference where I was on horseback, but regular cars. I suppose horses would never have made it up the escalator anyway. They smiled at me, probably had heard it all before, as I took their photo.

The Good Guys Wear White Hats

The good guys wear white hats. The short, squat woman from the Calgary tourist office gave them to the youth group at the conference I was attending. I know, I know, I am not in that category, but I was covering this session for my news service. Despite my years, I was given the hat, taught how to put it on and bonk the top to set it in place just like the others. I took the Calgary pledge.

This is the sixth time I have covered this micro-finance organization’s conference, in places like Ireland, Poland, Italy, France and now Canada. It provides my greatest source of hope for the world when I hear about their work in the developing world to bring hope and independence to the have-less as the previous CEO of the group described. A live feed from Afghanistan where they are running a successful project even if they need bullet proof vests while working reminded me of how lucky I am to be living the life I am living.

Covering credit unions is my way of spreading the word that there is a better way than uncontrolled capitalism and putting money in the hands of the poor does more than a dictator squirreling it away in a Swiss bank.

Listening to other stories about how to protect the unprotected, giving them the means to care for themselves in all countries, always revs me up as balance Over the years I have seen the staff turn over, and this year it was almost a totally new staff in the press department. Each of them expressed how lucky they felt to be able to work for an organization that was making the world better. I met a lot of people this week that make the world better. They wear white hats even when their heads are bare

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

and he sleeps with me but not in the jungle, the restless jungle.

It was cheapness that made me go to a B&B rather than stay at a conference hotel and bless the net, I found one, Lions Park Inn, within a short train ride or slightly long walk to the conference centre. However, cheapness aside, the biggest advantage was the feeling of being in a home. Each morning sitting down to breakfast chatting with the other guests, a personal touch that even in the best hotel is impossible to find. And the lions? Not to fear. They were all of the stuffed variety and inhabited different rooms. These two were in mine.

Relativity more or less

You know the old optical illusion of two lines with arrows at the end going in opposite directions on each line and the question asked is which line is longer? And although it looks like there is a difference, there isn't. I thought about it during my flight from Frankfort to Calgary. The 9.5 hours of air time is approximately the time it takes to go from Argelès to Geneva give or take a few minutes EXCEPT the flight seemed hours longer.

Now granted, there’s waiting time on both trajectories. On the train I change once or twice.
But on the train I can arrive just as the train is ready to leave the station, while for the plane there’s the dreaded check in line. (The one in Geneva was for all airlines and took well over 45 minutes from start to finish because only four windows were open – but that wasn’t included in the 9.5 hours).

On a train you can walk a lot further going from car to car, but on a plane there’s less room to wander even on the jumbo jets, although the new Airbus might make for better hiking trails. Maybe movability is part of it.

Because the plane had three movies (two could have been nominated for the worst picture of the year and the third I had seen) the time should have gone faster. If I wanted to I could watch at least one film on my laptop before the battery wore out on the train, and I often do use the time to write.

Even on a direct train I know I can get off at periodic stops. Taking a walk outside when the plane is at 38,000 ft. altitude is not a good idea. The scenery is prettier from a train, so watching the countryside change could make a ride seem shorter, although looking at the clouds, does produce day dreams.

I came to no conclusion on why the Frankfort-Calgary leg of my trip lasted so much longer in my senses than the Argelès-Geneva trips despite the clock ticking off almost the same number of minutes. It will stay up there with other mysteries like who really shot JFK or where is Hoffa buried.

Sushi and Mika Memories

Usually the first thing I do when I return to Geneva from Argelès is to eat sushi, but this time knowing I was going to another restaurant the evening of my arrival, I decided to wait. I figured the next day, but the next day turned into the next day and the next and then it was next week and then...

Some of Geneva’s Japanese restaurants cost about the same as raising a first born child at least to university entrance, but there is one that sells to other restaurants, is a small Japanese grocery store and therefore about half price of the other place. It has about eight small square tables and is self servcie.

The name is the same as my poor little Japanese Chin who had so many birth defects that his life was shortened, although in between problems he had a happy life, visiting with my Czech neighbors who hand-fed him salami in little bites and lifting his leg against grass blades (whereas the larger Amadeus, also a chin, could do bushes and trees), being loved and pampered.

Both the dog and the restaurant are Mikado, with the French pronunciation of Meek-ah-due not the English of Me-karh-do.

I still miss my chins, who are all in the great dog biscuit factory in the sky, but I travel too much, and I also will remain dogless unless by some miracle I have a garden which does not necessitate walks at weird hours in weird weather conditions.

Today was the day for the sushi, and it was a good thing, because they are closing for their summer holiday and won’t be open again until after the 13th.

An idea for a new business

My nickname of Bitty Bladder is well earned both from actual measurements in a very embarrassing session with a very handsome French doctor and my frequent trips to the loo.

The nickname dates back to my Digital days where the one man in our five-person management team reminded us that women would never make top managers until they learned to control their bladders. We reminded him, unlike men, when we were in the ladies room where he couldn’t follow, we didn’t make decisions as male managers did in their bonding golf games and poker nights.

The reduction of Coca-cola intake did reduce drastically the often desperate search for the toilet, but not enough that I am not always aware of the closest facility.

Walking up to the bus from home yesterday, I saw the most wonderful thing. A porta-potty coming to me. Well not really. The driver of the truck was in the cab trying to find out where to deliver the thing.

This made me think of the many times I have been a place that it would be nice to be able to Dial-A-Potty, give my address and within minutes much like an ordered taxi. one would appear on the back of a small truck. The alternative would be to have hundreds circling (in hybrids of course) to be hailed over to the curb for bodily needs.

I did not explain my idea to the driver. He did enough eye-rolls when I asked to take a picture.

Stupid Questions

I have had enough of people asking is Hillary feminine enough or Barak black enough. It is nothing new that women candidates get scrutinized in a way that men do not. We would never see and article that says something like,

Senator Chris Dodd appeared in a crisp white shirt,
with a polka dot tie that didn’t quite match his blue
pin-stripped suit… or

John McCain, his hair in need to a trim unless he
has decided on a new style, spoke…

More important questions might be…

1. How are you going to treat your campaign contributors if you are elected?^
2. Will you published any decisions you make that would affect your contributors along with the amount of their donations?
3. Do you really believe the US needs to spend 50% of all the world’s defense spending
4. When are we going to sign the land mine treaty?
5. When are we going to sign the anti-child soldier treat?
6. When are we going to restore Habeas Corpus?
7. What are you planning to do with the 800 prisons that Halliburton is building?
8. Britain’s foreign minister is saying it is time to start building and stop destroying. What do you think of that and where would you start building?
9. Will you annul the executive order just posted on the White House site about freezing property of anyone threatening Iraq's stability...which as lose as it is written could include Cindy Sheehan or anyone carrying a peace sign?

But then maybe those answers aren’t as important as Hillary’s femininity (but she did wear a pink suit) or Barak’s blackness. After all, it is only the future of the US.

A View Compensates for A Hassle

Despite the hassle with the train, the view from Lavigny (sadly the lake and mountains are lost in the mist) and the chance to meet five writers from five countries, was worth a mini adventure.

I was meeting friends at the Tuilleries train stop before we went to Château Lavigny to hear the writers-in-residence read. It is a route I never take. The conductor came up and asked for my ticket which I gave him.

“And your abonnement?”

I realised that I had forgotten it expired. The 350 CHF price is well worth it, but I wanted to wait until I was taking the train somewhere to extend the three years it covers making all trips half price. Unfortunately I had pushed the half-price ticket button when I purchased my ticket out of habit and without thinking.

The conductor pointed to the sign saying there was a 45 CHF fine for not having the right ticket as we pulled into my station. He and his fellow conductor politely offered to get off with me to write up the certificate so the people waiting for me wouldn’t wait in vain. My friends were on the platform a light wind ruffling their hair in the late afternoon sun and bemused expressions.

I tried to explain what happened to the conductors, both men in their late thirties as one whipped out his info box, that looks like an etch-a-sketch but is used to enter data. He also had trouble with my accent so I touched his stylo to the letters on the screen spelling out my name and address. I apologised for my accent as I took out my identity card.

“You’re Swiss?” he asked. If incredulity could drip from words, they would have.

“I know, it’s difficult to believe,” I said then launched into an explanation about expiration and simply pushing the wrong button.

They asked to see my old train abonnement.

I pulled out my bus abonnement folder which also contained my expired train abonnement tucked into a side pocket.

The conductor who hadn’t bagged me looked at the bus abonnement. That costs 45 CHF and is good for a month and is good for all buses in Geneva.

“Why didn’t you show us this? It’s good.”

“Because I was on a train, and its for the bus.” I said.

Meanwhile the two people meeting me were watching. I suspect they were surprised because I don’t look like the type of person who would ride black.

The second conductor went to the board with a plan of the train route. Taking the stylo he counted off the number of stops that the abonnement covered for next time.

They deleted the info on the document and I put my 45CHF that I had pulled out to pay for the fine back in my pocket.

The Referendum Tables

For years I passed the tables with petitions. These petitions are placed in strategic places to get referendums on the ballot for the next votation. This one has to do with the unemployed and not reducing the social contract. Happily, I picked up a pen and signed.

Of course it will get the required signatures. They always do. Then I will spend an afternoon, curled up with my voting book, trying to work my way through the legalese, the different parties view points and look at the chart at the where the yes-nos are merely checked to help me make my decision.

Hopefully it won’t be like the last votation with the UDC (far right) agreed with the Socialists (far left). But, considering the issue, the chances are minimal.

Cappuccino and Cordelia

For years when trapped in a nine-to-five job, I dreamed of being able to write full time. In my fantasies, I would break from my computer (the writing always went smoothly in my fantasy) to lunch or have coffee with other writers in some café and we would talk about our work.
Now my fantasies have become reality with perhaps the exception of the writing always going well. Over the past two days, I have met two writers in cafés and we’ve talked about our work.
However, in my fantasy, Cordelia, the large dog of my writer friend didn’t exist. Still she is a loving addition to our conversations.

Not all our conversation on Friday involved writing. Much had to do with coffee quality and the great waitress. Besides offering a welcoming atmosphere, this village café has cups whose creative shapes add to creative conversations. In Manora’s dish department I saw the same New Wave pattern, but not white. Instead it had famous writers on it. Of course, I didn’t buy it, owning it forever in my memory, like the conversations on a day where the sun and clouds alternated, and the dog was sweet.

Taking photos at Migros

The orange post-it was left on the bar of the shopping cart I pulled out to do my groceries at Migros.
Peches
Abricots
Pommes
Lait
Aubergines

Whoever the list belonged to enjoyed the same things I do with the exception of the milk. And I appreciated she took an orange post-it to Migros. Considering I am a colour co-ordination freak, matching this to that and that to this at the drop of a colour chart, my appreciation went up. I couldn't resist taking out my camera.

As long as my camera was out, I decided to take a photo of the display of patriotic items on sale for 1 August, the national holiday. This will be the 716 anniversary making it one of the world’s oldest existing democracies.

The manager of the store bustled up to me and asked me what I was doing. He wasn’t nasty. Perhaps he thought I was a spy for Co-op.

“I’m a new citizen, and I want to show my family the August 1 celebration,” I said.

At that he smiled. “Congratulations.”

Of course he hadn't seen me take a picture of a very unpatriotic shopping list.

The Power of Water

There is something healing about living near water. Not just healing but water can stoke my emotions and my senses.

In New England, Boston Harbor might not have the same emotional tie as waves breaking over a sandy beach strewn with sea grass, but there was always the feeling I could get to the sea quickly.

Decades ago when I lived in a winter rental a few steps from the Hampton NH beach, I could hear the waves at night. After one storm, the waves threw rocks against the 20-foot seawall above strumming every primitive urge in my body.

In Argelès, the Mediterranean is about 20 minutes away on foot. The moods of the water are sometimes calmer than the Atlantic, but the colours and the waves still vary, like an unfaithful lover who wants to play games with my emotions.

When I lived in Môtiers, behind the village was a waterfall and a stream where on hot summer afternoons the dogs, Amadeus and Albert and I would take a picnic settling on the bank. Ama loved being in the water. Albert loved watching him. The cows in the field behind our spot watched us. As the summer went on the stream would dry up. When the rains replenished the stream the trickle would become a torrent.

With all my time in Geneva, it is only the last three years I have lived in walking distance of the lake, although on forays downtown, or even visiting friends who lived up the mountain, the lake and the jet d’eau were visible enough that I could appreciate the blues and greens, the stillness or roughness, depending on the bise. I have seen the ducks and swans being tossed like a ship in the North Atlantic during a Nor’easter, or so calm that I could imagine walking across the surface.

Now I live seconds from the lake, minutes if I amble. Coming back after my Argelès holiday and walking down the hill, I love the view of the petite stone wall path that leads to the lake peeking through the trees.

Because I tug a suitcase and shlep a laptop I do not go directly to the lake to report that I am back but turn to the left in this photo (if you click on the photo the white square shows up and that is the entrance to the house) at the bend in the tow.

The water will be there for the time I want to take a writing break, to feel the sun reflected on my face, to smell its freshness. Sometimes in winter the angry lake has thrown itself onto benches and trees freezing creating crystal palaces. So many moods to feed my moods, but always, always, to make them better.

Meet Munchkin

A.K.A. Critter or Mouse Breath.

She wants to star in a Richard Attenborough nature documentary, taking the role of a lioness bringing down game, an act we often witness as we sit in the office as she auditions through the window. Stupid Cat. Attemnorough is no where around.

Yet she has been known to invite a mouse home to eat, not for her to eat, but has watched as he devoured her food in her dish.

Although this pose doesn’t capture her sweetness, she can be. Here she is practicing to take over the 90% of my bed after I am sleep. She resembles my daughter’s cat, Morgana, but Munchkin DOES NOT sit on my chest and slap me awake with her paw.

There have been nights when I wake feeling it’s hard to breathe, but it isn’t a heart attack but the cat asleep on my chest.

Of all the things she does that is the weirdest is walk on her hind legs along side of us.

She’s not my cat, but my housemate’s although I often take over cat sitting duties. Not a problem at all.

At the Marrionier Restaurant

The restaurant is in the next village. It has a terrace and antique cars are parked outside.

My housemate and I often go there, alone, together, or with other friends. No matter that we know the menu by heart. Still it is difficult to choose.

Filet des perches…oh yes.

Salmon tartare (shown in the photo) yup yup yup
One of their many pastas…possibility

Pizza also good.

It doesn’t take much coaxing—just a “how would you like…" and we’re out the door

The Anarchist Cookbook Memory

Skyping with my old writing mate, who now lives in Vienna, brought up not just discussions of her soon to be published short story collection or my next novel, but memories. When we finished with her great review, her progress on her Ph.D., her reaffirmation that Running from the Puppet Master was her favourite novel of those I wrote, my contract negotiations and newsletters we delved back into the days when we worked in organizations across the street. Lunches were for discussions about plot, character, description, where this could be stronger and when to switch the order of events.

However, tonight she brought up the best memory of sitting in the lunchroom at the very full convention center near our respective offices with The Anarchist Cookbook in front of us. As I said ‘I don’t want to kill him that way?’ or she said, ‘Try killing him that way…’ we realised that people were giving us wide berth.

It is not a discussion I would have today in public and I am not sure I would even dare carry the book around. It is a reminder of how far we have come in our writing careers.