Day to day observations in my country

 
Amadeus, Mika and Albert would have loved this new puppy park across from the apartment complex where we once lived before they went to the great dog biscuit factory in the sky, Japanese chin department. There were two other puppy parks but then, but not as large. I might have worried about Mika slipping out through the wire, though.

Finding this photo makes me want to rush out and get a new chin. Think walks at 22:30 in the rain. Think dog on train with suitcase and computer. Think unhappy Munchkin.
Think, think, think.
Don't do it!
Don't do it!

I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
I'd rather see a purple cow
than be one

An old boyfriend gave me a photo of a purple cow and a variation of the poem. Who would have thought I'd end up living in cowland. This animated Milka cow is in the chocolate department (yes there are major chocolate departments in department stores in Switzerland along with toys, clothes, household appliances--all necessities) seems to now be a mother.

Marro, the restaurant at the next village where we eat several times a week is under new ownership. The chef stayed the same but the grumpy owner has been replaced by an absentee owner and a charming, young Italian manager. Besides repainting and other cosmetic changes, they have introduced this table full of colouring books and coloured pencils for their junior clients. I wonder if they would let us adults colour while we waited for our meal. Yesterday the menu du jour was a wonderful lamb. Today it is a pasta with tuna and capres.

love these ads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpCQuzF4dU8&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpCQuzF4dU8&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPr6j22dPLs&feature=related

And I also love the tree for this amazing documentary. www. http://ahomefaraway.com/en from the Nyon Visions du reél documentary film festival.

Goodbye 666?????

Okay okay okay

I'm trying to let m hair go natural and I'm almost breaking down over roots.

A cm of root used to both me making me feel messy, a slut, ugly. I do have this thing about not looking my very best at all time within the framework of my natural body. I put make up on first thing. My underwear matches and if possible is colour-coordinated to my outside clothes.  After all I never know when Clooney will be walking the streets of Geneva again. Or his car might break down outside.

You can imagine what an inch is doing to my poor little psyche. Me, who worried about world affairs is now focused on my hair.

Will check in with Jean-Pierre tomorrow to see if he can come up with a solution other than a shaved head. If all else fails I will die many years in the future as an Oreal 666 redhead. Yup that's the real number of the hair dye I've used for years.

Imaging and being happily wrong

An imagination with a writer can be dangerous. I hadn't thought much of my mammogram scheduled for today until last night when I pictured my breasts laden with tumours and falling off as soon as the machine pressed down. That it was a week and a day since the nasty little growth was removed form my right breast, didn't help my imaginings. After all, I've friends who believe in the evil eye if someone thinks that they are too happy about something, the evil eye will zap them -- and overall I found my cancer such an easy thing to go through compared to others, I was sure I'd be punished for being too smug.

The waiting room had this beautiful tree. The mammo and ecto both showed beautiful healthy breasts. Life is beautiful.

I found myself singing "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands" under my breath as I walked from La Maternité HUG where the tests were taken. And to second my happy mood I found a post it on the transportation ticket seller, saying, "Fall in Love with Life" in French.

I have, I have!!!

Changing Lives--AGAIN

People ask which I like better--my time in Argeles or in Geneva. I can't answer. Here's why.

Friends
Argeles: Good women and men friends lots of stuff to do. Very supportive atmosphere.
Geneva: Good women and men friends lots of stuff to do. Very supportive atmosphere.

View in morning:
Argeles: The red roof tiles against blue sky
Geneva: The Jura and lake in all its moods

Walk to water:
Argeles: 20 mins. to sea
Geneva: 5 mins. to lake

Bed:
Argeles: clic-clac as single or double very comfortable
Geneva: single with electric under sheet very comfortable

Kitchen:
Argeles: Tiny with wonderful tiles showing an antique kitchen, sleeping cat making dish washing a pleasure
Geneva: Modern kitchen, dishwasher, microwave, eat in.

Dining table:
Argeles: Looks like it belongs in a Swiss chalet
Geneva: Modern black glass with bright placemats

Television:
Argeles: more stations than possible to watch and small TV screen
Geneva: more stations than possible to watch with large TV screen

Nighttime activities
Argeles: dinner with friends, movie around the corner, DVDs borrowed from R who has a collection to rival a video rental store, concerts, settling in a place I love
Geneva: Owned DVDs with J and snacks from popcorn to champagne depending on mood, dinner with friends, movies, plays, concerts, settling in a place I love

Reading:
Argeles: French library and Barbara's bookstore for English
Geneva: French books stores and American library with English books

Language: In order spoken
Argeles: French, English, Franglais
Geneva: English, Franglais French

Writing:
Argeles: A few writers
Geneva: more writers

Movies:
Argeles: Around the corner or more VO in Perpignan
Geneva: Drive to movie, more expensive more VO

Afternoon tea break:
Argeles: La Noisette and chats with owners Sophie and Laurent and anyone who stops by, whatever pastries are there (hard to choose between them)
Geneva: At home hopefully with a cook piece of something chocolate

Company:

Argeles: I live alone and love it
Geneva: I live with a wonderful housemate and love it.

Shopping:
Argeles: All in walking distance.
Geneva: Greater choice but great bus or housemate transportation needed

Food habits:
Argeles: Fresh from farm, restaurants friends, more eating at home
Geneva: Good stores, but marchés are too costly, more eating in restaurants

Restaurants:
Argeles: Bartevelle, Cayrou, Flowers and some others in walking distance
Geneva: Marro, Mikado, Little India, Manora, and many, many others but need bus, car

Transportation:
Argeles: Little needed for everything is in walking distance. Bus service, friend's shared car, train when not in grève.
Geneva: Bus, train, housemate, friends

Laundry:
Argeles: Temperamental machine, that I've a love-hate relationship with but hate to part with...so many memories of load after load
Geneva: Big machine and housemate that shares doing it 

Degree of happiness at being there:
Argeles: 9.5 on scale of10
Geneva: 9.5 on scale of 10

I don't understand our economic system

This morning the BBC was saying how awful it was China only grew 8%, a figure that the rest of the world would kill for. But it wasn't as much as the 9 or 10 in the past. Sorta like how horrible the athlete only won the silver Olympic medal, what a failure.

I've a problem with growth on a planet with too many people and limited resources. As I often say, selfish dinosaurs are refusing to die these days to increase our fossil fuels.

The economic news is reported as the stock market. Yet three times the number of people who own stock are part of a co-operative but co-operative news isn't reported. The stock market may be great but shouldn't part of the financial news be how many people went hungry in the same country?

Why is it a tree is only counted in the GNP when it is destroyed not when it is giving shade, beauty and oxygen.

If we're healthy we don't contribute as much to the GDP as we do when we are in the hospital or die.  So all my healthy friends, why aren't you getting sick to help out the GDP in your countries.

Why should a citizen pay for a bad bank deal they never agreed to. Iceland refused and put the politician responsible on trial. It's like A loans money to B and B doesn't repay so A insists C-Z pay B's loan. And to do that C-Z sacrifice all they've ever worked for.

I will admit to being socialist. I do think a society works better when the stronger help the weaker, but I don't think the weaker should pay for the stupidities and crookedness of others.

There's the old saw that under socialism A has to give B one of his three pigs. They never go beyond that when B mates the pig and has lots of pigs, which he turn shares with others. B and the others are no longer hungry and A still has his pigs who hopefully by then has produced her own litters. Of course, somewhere in that story we need a male pig. It doesn't do A any good to have so many pigs he is up to his elbows in their s--t while B is starving down the street. The neighbourhood is better off when both A and B are doing well.

I wonder why I've never been asked to teach economics...

The detrius of brunch

So often we see nicely set holiday tables. This is the aftermath of my

Easter Brunch for my Swiss neighbours, my French teacher and an American friend

Sliced ham

Sliced salmon Shrimp

Scrambled eggs with oregano

Diced bacon

Sun dried tomatoes in spiced olive oil

Oriental mushrooms

Homemade cinnamon raisin bagels Cream cheese

Pineapple in its juice with finely chopped basil

Almond biscuits

Tea or coffee

Then we went to a beach which is still savage and walked among the dunes, the roar of the Tramantane drowning out the waves crashing to the beach.

All in all, a great day.

My big rocks

When I was little much more of these rocks were exposed. When I was three feet and stood between them, they were least three times taller than I was. These rocks were places to go read, have picnics. The acted as the badlands when I was cowgirl, they were Greek and Roman temples. Sometimes they were castles. Whatever melting glacier dropped them, gave me an unlimited amount of joy.

Tadpoles on the wall

I last saw my cousin when I was eight. Thus, when she said she and her husband would be in France I not only jumped at the chance, I jumped on the train to meet up with them on their canal boat in Montauban.

In one way I felt like identical twins must feeling being reunited after years of separation to discover that they are so similar. We have enough similar quirks, single daughters born days apart (and explaining why neither of us were at a cousin's wedding), similar tastes. Fortunately there was enough differences and her husband was able to tell us apart without difficulty. The discovery of another person is always wonderful. That alone would have been enough.

But then to be on this wonderful boat and going through nine locks and noticing tad poles clinging to wall where the water had deserted them, having the helpful locks keeper (or whatever he is called) drive ahead, and chat) helping a bit by roping the boat the way it should be, docking, have a great meal (while still talking, talking, talking) and going to sleep in a comfortable bed just made things better and better and better.

At breakfast I missed the muskrat, but the female duck that had been playing hard to get with two mallard males, seemed to have settled down. The beautiful weather of the day before, had disappeared but that did not slow us down from wandering through Montauban with its little shops and boutiques, oohing and ahhing over the patterned stone sidewalks, and find a restaurant that was dry and warm for lunch.

Having grown up without much contact with my father's side of the family and remedying it somewhat, my cousin also filled me on things, I had no idea about. A good time...? Even as a writer I can't express the total feeling of joy I had.

Olive oil

Joel is my olive dealer. His stand during the marché is the source of all kinds of olives: black, green, garlic, fennel, provincial, green and black olive tapanade, boiled garlic. He has a line of perfume made with flowers picked in Argelès and Collioure and named after the town. He's a terrible flirt. He wears a T shirt saying "Olive King." His last girlfriend, who helped him on the stand, wore one saying "Slave of the Olive King."

Now he is selling his own line of olive made from his own olives and packaged in a lovely bottle. Is it any wonder, that the idea of shopping in a supermarket is so unappealing when you can have such a personal relationship with your food, its producers and its sellers.

Years ago when the Bug was first in the US, it did not have a gas gauge. When one ran out of gas, there was a lever on the floor and the driver moved it and there was one more gallon. It was told that when a man bought the VW bug and kept bragging about mileage. Part of the reason, was that the prankster neighbour would fill up the bug with gas every night. This went on for several weeks. Then one night the neighbour drained the tank much to the surprise of the owner.

Why this story? One of the few things I haven't Europized myself with is my toothpaste. I love Crest's original formula: the taste, the colour, the memories. It doesn't help that it is hard to get. I sometimes ask people coming from the States to bring it as a thank you gift. At the moment I have extra tubes in both Geneva and Argelès. However, in the beginning of January, I thought my old tube was almost empty. I kept pressing and pressing. It is like the VW Bug, it still isn't empty. However, I doubt any neighbour is sneaking in and putting more toothpaste in my tube.

Just a wonderful morning

The sun was shining and the sky was an unreal blue.

The merchants had set up their tables up and down the village streets and were unloading them with veggies, cheese, meats, jewelry, clothes, olives, fruits, shoes and anything else that it is sold in a French marché.

I found a small gift for a friend, then stopped at my favourite spice/herb table for rosemary and thyme. He made me roll my "r" and I told him as a Bostonian I never used an "r".

White asparagus was for sale, enough for three meals for just 2 Euros. I gave in.

I stopped at the Algerian artist's. He had mended my obligatory French intellectual black leather coat. He offered me a coffee and we sat amid his paintings and chatted about the creative process.

My next stop was ma copine's shop. Another copine was there and we chatted about her heart attack and our lives in general.

I agreed to watch the shop while they went to buy bread, and gave in to Joel's olives, black this time. He has so many varieties.

My last stop was for bananas and cherry tomato's at Jean-Pierre's and Babette's. She's using a cane since her foot was operated on. J-P was busy picking out veggies for a man outside the shop in a wheelchair, and then J-P packed them into his sack.

Just one of those days that make life a gift.

few dinner parties

I do few dinner parties but if I could invite famous people living and dead here's some on my list. Not sure what combinations I would put together. Can you imagine Jean Calvin, John Know with Lady Gaga?

Invited for hormonal reasons:
Garou

Invited for hormonal reasons and I really like his politics
George Clooney

Invited for literary reasons
Emily Dickinson
Ann Beattie
Shakespeare
Alexander McCall Smith
Amy Lowell
Robert B. Parker
Salinger
S. Scott Fitzgerald but with out Zelda who has the same birthdate in July as I do, but I'd
be afraid she would ruin the party
Maeve Binchey
Zora Neale Hurston
Alice Walker

TV people
Rachel Maddow
Peter Lavelle
Max Keiser
Sir David Frost
Wolf Blitzer (only so I could call him on the stupid things he says and hope he leaves the
party)
Tim Sebastian
Stephen Sakur
Claire Chazel
Catherine Ceylac
Fareed Zakaria
Charlie Rose
Oprah

Historical figures
Teddy Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots at the same meal...It might be good for them to meet
Sir Robert Dudley
Julius Cesear
Frederick the Great
Martin Luther King


Feminist
The Pankhursts
Susan B. Anthony
Robin Morgan
Gloria Steinem
Bill Baird

There are more, but one can overdo entertaining.

Rethinking Starbucks

I've never been a fan of Starbucks in Geneva. I prefer the local tea rooms not some corporate behemoth. Of course, I don't consider their espresso brownies, chat lattes and blueberry muffins in the off limits purchases, but I can't get those elsewhere.

However, I was impressed with the fact they are using fair trade coffee.

I was even more impressed with their CEO on Piers Morgan who is opening factories in the US instead of outside. He talked of moral capitalism and supporting the communities where they do business.

I wish that once again...

I could call her on Skype or VOIP cheap or regular phone or or or...

I could hear her laugh tinkling through the phone line.

I could tell her how much I loved her.

We could laugh about how our friendship started because the same boy dated us. He became history our friendship did not.

I could thank her for what she did for my daughter, who now has a nose big enough to breath through.

I could tell her how much it meant that she shared her parents with me both when I needed them and when I didn't.

We could eat potato sticks and play gin rummy.

I could see her wonderful apartments created out of things found on the street and revamped.

We could speak in code...connect A and B it's nothing like that, I didn't know they made rubbers that tiny...we'd need an operation... Let's not meet and eat at (fill in the blank) Thursday at 7...don't you dare put lipstick on . . .

Eat wild raspberries and walk in the woods sharing secrets, hopes, dreams, fears.

She were there to share every bad thing making them less bad.

We could celebrate the good which in later years far outnumbered the bad.

I wish I could stop crying.

My daughter just wished me Happy Mother's Day

She was reminded when she went to Starbucks in Edinburgh.

However, it is not Mother's Day in France.

As an international family, I keep trying to convince her I should get a present for all the different mother's days in the countries where we are.

She's not buying it.

However, everyday is mother's day for me, because I have a great Kid. Too bad they don't have a Kid's Day. But would I give her a gift for every Kid's Day in the different countries?

Hmmmmmm

Done

Done

I've finished my spring cleaning and taken out three almost giant sized trash bags. If you consider I have a studio and am a minimalist on top of that, those who know me will wonder how.

Even minimalists have a latent rat pack gene, which may explain why I had two empty jars, six extra paper clips, clothes I would never wear, a huge rawhide dog bone (in case a certain German Shepherd, visited) five candles of the wrong shape and colour, a ball point pen I would never use, a pencil I would never use etc., etc. etc.

They and like stuff are gone, gone, gone, thank goodness.

Then I was able to move out the washer, the frigo and couch and wash the flour behind them, etc. arrange my closet in rainbow order and make sure I know where my five remaining paper clips are. Those are the ones that are shaped like animals that I love to use the one or two times a year I need a paper clip.

Now how long will my closet remain in rainbow order, my drawers remain free. I know when I did it in Geneva, I could guarantee six weeks.

Why?

I will be in Argelès.

And here in Argelès.

As they say on American TV when they give a news brief..."stay tuned, film at 11."

A visit to Pont du Diable Céret

The Pont du Diable (Devil's bridge)is a medieval stone arch bridge at over the river Tech Céret, France, built between 1321 and 1341.

The local legend is that the residents wanted a bridge to cross the river Tech and hired the devil as builder. His condition was that he would claim the first soul across. To outsmart him, the locals sent a dog across first. Some say it was a cat. But then for many years everyone was afraid to cross. My housemate and I crossed, but to date the devil has not come for our souls.

Guess what this

On the drive down to Argelès from Geneva, my housemate and I stopped at one of the rest areas.

I found a packet of these.

With the light they were beautiful.

spihc ptatop teloiv (read backwards)

Ladies who lunch

Two friends and I have started making lunch for the three of us. The only caveat is we try a new recipe.

I used the French Master Chef cook book which had magret de canard marinated in lime and mint and served with a nap of a strawberry/cardamon sauce, and asparagus and strawberries. As in all recipes next time I will change it and use more orange and less lime.



I also dressed up a can of tomato soup bought at the American store with cream and finely chopped basil.



Desert was fresh blueberries in a chocolate lined waffle like tart with a light coating of cream.

Champagne to celebrate my emancipation certificate.

Now I look forward to the next ladies lunch where I eat and don't cook.

Our village cow

Someone took pity on our village cow in the cold and gave her a scarf.

Our OCD Postman strikes again

Switzerland has priority and non priority stamps.

I had a letter to go to the Mairie. Since the office was closed, I decided to mail it, deciding to buy the cheaper non priority stamp.

I had thought of dropping it into the Mairie's postal box C which is only a couple of rows from my postal box 16, but I knew it would upset our OCD postmaster.

He put the stamp on the letter. "It will be delivered Wednesday," he said.

Box 3 was no more than 40 steps from the window where we were both standing. "But their box is across the room," I said.

"He pointed to two boxes. One is A, one is for B," he said. "I will send out the B tomorrow, which means I'll put it in the their box Wednesday morning."

I knew it was useless to say anything more. It wasn't important.

Skeletons

Not in the closet, but under the 14th century church in Corsier. Maybe one of the photos of the dig and/or skeletons will work for the cover of Murder in Paris.

Emancipation Certificate

Paid my $450 for my Emancipation Certificate (my name) today. It finally came back from the State Department. As soon as they get the money, they'll send it to me, then I can go to the banks and bank normally. I was at the bank today and the clerk who was behind the counter said how sorry she was about the necessity to do what I did do to lead a normal financial life abroad.

I alternate emotions: great sadness, relief, a huge lifting of the burden of shame that I've carried so long.

The price of caring

The painting of a woman walking in the old part of Damascus was a gift from my former Syrian neighbour, and my good, good, good friend, who is as close to family as someone can be without sharing DNA. The painting rests on the corner of my desk so I could look at it and feel warm about all my wonderful memories of trips to that city.

Oh yes, the monuments, mosques, museums were wonderful reflecting the country's rich history.

There was nothing to develop a sense of continuity with the past, like standing in the seed shop, surrounded by bags and bags of different seeds/nuts and realizing I was on Straight Street, the same Straight Street written on the pages in the Bible.

But my best memories are of the welcome of my friend's family and friends: memories of sitting around drinking cardamon-flavoured matte through silver straws and nibbling seeds and sharing lives; memories making cookies in a courtyard as the family turtle crawled by; memories of seeing their children larger with each visit.

It is those people, I see in the painting when I glance up from my writing, but now I am swamped with helplessness and worry and a bit of guilt that I am not in an environment where tanks and shooting can be a part of daily life.

It is the price of caring about those in another culture brought home by the daily news. National events have personal consequences and currently the price is much too high for those that are living there, not in a painting, but in a country where the future is violent.

May they all be safe.

living in fireplaces

When something goes wrong with equipment, I usually deal with it by trying to fix it, failing and crying. Then I call for help.

My housemate, however, has a different method. She works at it and until it is fine. Thus when the damper in the chimney fell down, there she was in plastic covering putting it back. It took a little time, but she did it.

I'm impressed.

Tollund Man

I thought I knew the man on the bus. He wore a cap, had a beaked nose, a stubbly beard and high cheek bones. At the same time his dress and manner were not indicative of someone I would run into socially.

Then it hit me. In the 1950s National Geographic wrote about the Tollund Man, a male so well preserved that at first when his body was discovered, police thought they had a recent murder. He had been hung. Tollund Man has been carbon dated between 200-300 BC. The man on the bus, could have been the Tollund Man's identical twin.

As a child for weeks after reading the article, I had nightmares about the peatman coming to get me, but as a child, I was also convinced that King Kong was hovering outside my window ready to carry me to New York. It didn't take much for me to be scared in the dark.

Maybe I'll leave the night light on tonight just in case, Tollund Man comes back around 3 a.m.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollund_Man

Brunch

One of the Geneva hotels has a wonderful brunch. I treated my housemate as a thank you for all she does for me. This is what I can remember was available and I'm sure I've forgotten half.

Champagne
three kinds of salmon
three kinds of white fish
two kinds of shrimp
asparagus
green beans
carrot salad
cabbage salad
misc. greens
corn
babghanoosh
guacamole
misc. pates (meat and veggie)
potato salad
red caviar
black caviar
olives (different kinds)
chacuterie (ham, beef, etc.)
eggs scrambled
bacon
roast beef
steak tartar
salmon tartar
roasted potatoes
blinis

Deserts
All kinds of little cakes
A fountain with melted chocolate and mangoes, grapefruit, pineapple and melon for dipping. The waiter caught us playing making it flow in different ways when we held our fruit in it too long.

It was breakfast, lunch and dinner. Maybe even for tomorrow.

brrrrrrrr

Between the below freezing temperatures and the bise throwing the water out of the lake the ice in places is nearly a foot thick. I love winter...

A new meaning for throne

In our family we used to refer to the toilet as the throne. My ex considered the toilet the reading room and would often respond "one more chapter" if I knocked on the door as he used the throne.

Thus at a friend's (who will remain anonymous) I found this most throne-like throne. The friend explained when they bought the house, they found a gold toilet, sink and bathtub, that was so over the top, so kitsch, that they couldn't replace it.


l

Even the fixtures on the sink were OTT.



If I bought a house with a golden throne, I too would keep them. Only, I would try and find some kind of crown to give to guests when they used the facilities. It makes answering nature's call an experience rather than a function.

Vienna trip

Cold, cold, cold, but wonderful. My writing mate and my housemate braved it all to visit museums, coffee houses and just talk.

We attended a concert put on by the Chinese embassy.

Our overnight train ride was complete with complimentary wine, kiwi, multi-course breakfast.



One of the Hundertwasser houses.



Hot chocolate with amaretto and chocolate truffe torte



A sign at the Hundertwasser café http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasser




Sandwich buffet. Each one cost a euro with a tiny, tiny stein of beer



The little house where we stayed.

upgrade is a four letter word

Okay, I've almost recovered from the microsoft upgrade in wp and spreadsheets...almost...after a year it is still a pain.

On Tuesday the television repair man comes AGAIN to correct the problems caused by the television upgrade.

France Telephone upgraded my service. As a result I was getting Joëlle's calls. She seems to have lovely friends and family.

The telephone repair man just left. He was young and tried to speak English, complimented me on my coffee (?)He seemed to fix the problem.

I'll miss Joëlle's friends.

sub fantasy

I woke with sub fantasies this morning. No, not submarines.

I wanted an Italian sub, one like I used to buy when I took my first job in the old Waltham Watch factory which had been converted into offices. This sub had Italian cold cuts, tomatoes, provolone cheese and pickles drizzled with olive oil on a big, fat section of Italian bread.

My mind drifted to the same place's meatball sub. How they flavoured those meatballs I will never guess. The tomato sauce that kept the meatballs warm soaked into the bread.

Then there's the wonderful lobster subs in a shop that no longer exists in Boston across from Harvard Medical Store. It was run by a large family both in number and size. They could move a line through the shop faster than any place I ever saw before and after.

That shop was responsible for the purchase of our Wigglesworth House.

My housemate and I, in need of that lobster sub, found a parking space on a dream street. Two rows of brownstones were fronted by tiny yards and bay windows. The only gray one had a for sale sign, we called the number and made a deposit. It had a tiny, tiny price, mainly because it wasn't a handyman's dream, it was a handyman's nightmare.

More than once on a Saturday when we were propping up load-bearing walls, tearing down others, stripping paint, plastering and painting we went back to the lobster sub place for lunch before it became a print shop.

I'd love to have any of those subs...but without buying another house dream or nightmare. Instead I'm settling for oatmeal cinnamon pancakes, which maybe some other time will also be a fantasy.

Mini Mammie

The mammies in Argelès are older women, most of who have lived in the village all their lives. They have grandchildren, wear aprons, and meet on benches and in front of their houses and talk to each other.

My favourite mimi mammie is Jeanette, who stands at the most 4 foot 10, is skinny, always beautifully dressed (no apron there) white hair always in place and a big smile.

I see her walking all around the village and one day, she bought me a beer but first had to go to the ATM for cash.

We have wonderful conversations.

What makes this so exceptional. She's pushing 100.

Today on the way to the shops, I found her sitting on a bench, with the sun on her face. I sat down next to her.

"C'est magnificent, le soleil," she said.

She is as magnificent as the sun she was admiring.

Message to Robin

HI there...

I emailed you at the old address and it bounced back. Nothing major, just was checking in to see how you were doing.
Much love,
DL

seeing through

One of the problems of being a writer is when you read, you see why the author wrote something. You are shore that the writer pondered how to get the information across, the same way you are when you try three or four different methods.
I was reading a novel this morning where the main character is doing a bio of his great grandfather. He has copies of the letters the man received, but how does he know what his grandfather wrote?
Simple the author, explains the grandfather wrote a copy of the letter he sent.

A walk around Argelés

YUM

La Noisette, the tea room, that I consider merely an extension of my studio.



Sophie and Laurent, owners of La Noisette, have added all these teas. I intend to sample each one.



I'm so glad I saw Chef Thibault at La Noisette this morning to ask him about his menu du jour. He and his wife Stephanie will be on a well-earned and then some holiday for the next two weeks. Once he told me, there was no way not to have lunch there. The meal?

Amuse bouche: demitasse of pumpkin soup with a cream design on the top

Entre: A plate of chacuterie (serono ham, home made pate, chirizo) and salad.

Main course: Grilled salmon in a red wine/butter sauce, risotto with tiny pieces of leek and carrot, lamb's foot mushrooms.

Desert: pear poached in banyuls with vanilla ice cream, hot chocolate sauce with whipped cream with a hint of rose.

Wine: rosé

Total cost: 18 Euros. What a lovely young couple own this place, a few steps from my front door. Almost all the products are local: Honey from the local beeman, fish from the local poisonerie, veggies and fruits from our green grocers, usually from local farms, mushroom from the nearby mountains.

Their daughter Margo, is in love with the green grocer who takes her out of her carriage and holding her hands walks her up and down the street. Both faces light up when they see each other.

My best present

My best present is curled up in the next room reading a book. Having my daughter with me both Christmas Eve and Christmas day, is a treat. Even when she was little, her holiday was divided between me and her father, which we thought was fair. Only a couple of years ago, did I realise she wanted to stay home. As she said, "I didn't think I had a choice." (note to parents--look for what your children don't tell you.)

And then there are the years that neither of us can travel to the country where the other is living. Phone calls, emails and now Skypes are not the same as having her in hugging distance.

I sometimes envy parents whose grown children live in the same city or same area. On the other hand, I am lucky to have been blessed with knowing this kind and wonderful woman and sharing so much even after she left my roof (or rather I moved the roof and she began her own life).

Thus my walking-talking Christmas gift keeps on giving me great waves of happiness not just for two days, but for my lifetime.

The longest night

The longest night is coming, and for me that is more important than Christmas. It is the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. It is very important to me have something evergreen in the house as a symbol of the end of one year and the start of a new year. Every year, no matter where I am, I make sure I bring in at least a tiny evergreen branch.

For many years, although I've had wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Christmases, I've not had a real tree with the ornaments Llara and I made when she was three. This year I do.

The tree is tiny, but it's real. I've put cotton on it to reflect snow. I don't use lights or real candles as so many people who live in parts of Europe do.

It might surprise people when I say last year was a good year. One might disagree pointing out I had four eye surgical procedures, breast cancer, 27 nukings, and I lost my oldest and dearest friend. She's crazy, people might say.

On the other hand, I now see better, I've had wonderful medical care in the Swiss health system. I've made new and cemented old friendships, had a good writing year and seen another book published with a contract for the next, found a wonderful partner for my business, enjoyed trips to Saskatchewan, Scotland and Germany. I've laughed a lot. I watched a good friend turn 75 surrounded by people who love her. My daughter is in grad school in Edinburgh.

Soon the sun will bring longer days. In the spring new plants will once again push up through the dirt. To get to the new year, I celebrate the longest night.

The first snow

I usually love the first snow of the season. It hides the world and is an excuse for lots more hot tea, fuzzy socks sweat shirts. I get lots and lots of good writing done. I can play Christmas carols and I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas seems like more than a dream.

Today I don't love it. My daughter is due to fly in from Edinburgh. We were going to go the Café Soleil, a first meal tradition.

We've talked twice this morning, and I've emailed her ways to get here by bus. If the new bus routes in the city are confusing to those who use the system daily, she may end up in a strange place not realizing what bus goes where. That is if Cointrin stays open...please, please, please let it be open.

At least the The car will stay in the garage -- despite years of driving in New England snow, it is not my car and my housemate is too nice a person to have to be told that now is the time to buy the car she was vaguely considering buying because hers is a heap on the side of the snowy road. Geneva has too many drivers from tropical places and they don't know how to drive on a snow-covered road.

As much as I love living here with the view of the lake, this would be a time that it would be great to be in my old flat within walking distance of the airport.

Still, the most important thing is that my daughter gets here safely, no matter what time.

Meanwhile I'll drink tea, write and listen to carols but NOT I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas."

I took this photo

I took this photo just because it made my eyes happy.

The Great Mattress Maneuver

My housemate led me to the attic to show me the spare mattresses. "S will probably be borrowing one." S is a neighbour and she has more guests than mattresses and beds. My housemate has more mattresses and beds than guests. In fact, since I'm alone I could sleep in a different bed each night for a week without being charged with sluttishness. And even when my daughter and good friend show up for Christmas they too can sleep around (the house).

There is a group of friends who do what they can to help one another out. S was one of the lovely people who drove me to be nuked and when she left on holiday, she found a friend who would do the same.

Sure enough S showed up with her son and took a mattress. I showed her the extra slatted frame.

"My husband and son will be back for it," she said.

They came, they conquered, they discovered the mattress too big for the slatted frame.

"Would it be too much to ask you to measure the other ones?" she asked in an email.

I wrote back, I would go on a measuring tape safari the next morning, which I did and found smaller ones. "Better have your husband double check me, though, I'm a number numbskull."

Within a few minutes Hubby and Son were back with measuring tape for the mattress swap.

As I pushed the button to close the gate after the car with the departing mattress drove away I hoped every will sleep well tonight.

Patience NOW

My new book won't be shipped from Amazon, wrote a friend who buys all my books. I don't ask her to, but I'm glad she does. She wrote about the delay "as you know, patience is not my strong point. I pray every night,'God please give me patience and I want it NOW!!!'"

One of the saddest days

Part of me will always love the man I thought my ex-husband was. After trying everything, I divorced the real man.

Part of me will always love the country I thought I grew up in. Like trying to save my marriage, I tried everything. I’ve made hundreds of overseas calls to Congress and sent thousands of emails. I’ve followed legislation from committee to signing. Most was about Bill of Rights issues such as the loss of habeas corpus. If the president does not veto the new amendment just passed by the Senate, than the military will have the power to arrest anyone, anywhere with no charges, no trial indefinitely. I have made no calls and sent no emails on this one. I am disengaging.

Today I divorced my country. The decision was not easily reached with too many facets to recount here just like I won’t recount the whys of my divorce to my ex-husband.
The U.S. Consulate is in Bern. The rain on my umbrella drowned out normal street sounds.
I was told I could tap on the door. A guard came out and growled I couldn’t bring in my pocketbook.

“What should I do?”

“Leave it in your car?”

“I haven’t a car.”

“The bakery down the street to the right will keep it for you. Three Swiss Francs.”

The woman at the bakery was friendly and told me I also had to leave my phone, my camera and my medicine. I could take my wallet and my passport.

Back at the consulate there was an airport-type examination, and then I went down stairs for a second examination. This man was friendly and we chatted as I waited my turn.

A woman called my name and asked for verification on the information I already provided.
Then the Counsel came out, a thin man with glasses.

He told me that my decision was irrevocable—I could never live or work in the U.S. again. I could never get my citizenship back--not tomorrow not in 30 years. I signed that I understood.

He asked me to raise my right hand and swear that I was renouncing. My eyes blurred. “Are you certain you want to go through with it.”

Then I had to take a second oath. “What if I change my mind here?” I asked. I didn’t want to change my mind, I was just curious.

“Then I would take this back and we could probably . . .”

I shook my head. “It hurts, but I’m sure.” I took the second vow.

Within two weeks to two months I will get my cancelled passport and my certificate of renunciation. I will then pay $450. I can take that around to the banks so I can resume normal banking relations because I will not be subject to U.S. FATCA legislation that has caused so many problems for Americans and will continue to cause problems and other financial institutions. If Switzerland and the US do not come to agreement about the US have access to Swiss police records, it is possible I would need a visa to enter the U.S. It is also possible I wouldn't get one. I knew when I started this that I might never be able to enter the U.S. again.

Leaving the consulate to retrieve my bag at the bakers, I vomited.

Like the day I was divorced, this was one of the saddest of my life. I don't regret the choice.

Sunrise in Insel Poel

The sunrise our last morning in Insel Poel, I had to do a sunrise alert to my housemate who quickly got her camera.

Gulp

I will admit I swallowed hard when the passport control invalidated my Swiss passport albeit for a good reason. I was about to do the necessary things for the biometric passport. There was a glitch. For some reason after my first Swiss passport was stolen in Barcelona a few years ago, it was still listed as valid.

This will be solved.

Rather then get my new biometric post in the mail, I will pick it up at passport control and sign a declaration of the theft in Spain.

After Monday I will have no passport until the biometric is in my hands. Fortunately I can still travel between European countries with my Swiss identity card, but I can't go to the US, Canada, Australia and many other places until all is sorted.

Day 4

The trip is going wonderfully. Yesterday we toured the island and got a feel of where the bodies washed up on the beach. When we saw the triangular stones over the graves, we didn’t understand, but at the museum this morning they explained that the prisoners, even the Jews, didn’t wear the Star of David, but the triangle with the colour explaining what type of prisoner they were.

The women at the museum greeted us warmly. This is where we came last year to pick up my housemate's painting done by a local artist and loaned for a special exhibition.

One of last year’s employees, who just retired came back to help us. At coffee break time, she’d brought ribbon and we worked on making Christmas decorations.

My German is so rusty but I caught about 1/3 of what was being said. My housemate was invaluable in the other 2/3rds.

The man Julia had worked with last year over the transport of her painting came with his wife to take us to a fish restaurant for lunch. His father had taught the artist who had done my housemate's painting and he showed us the house where the artist had grown up.

His wife had been raised on a huge farm, which was confiscated by the communist government, but the current government has made retribution by giving all five sisters a piece of a forest.

Interestingly, I always thought of the shape of the island as a lobster claw, but if you look at it another way it looks like a Gorilla with its hands on the ground.

The island didn’t get electricity until the 1950s and most was provided by wind power.

What seems out of place is the number of thatched roofs some with solar panels.

And as my housemate said, travel is broadening. When she said it we were eating a German breakfast with the fish, wursts, käse und brotchen

Day 3 was for the birds

We were learning the island, driving from one small town to an even smaller town. We’d visited the site where the bodies had washed up on the beach after the British bombed the Cap Arcona were buried.
As we turned into a country lane I thought the bush had strange flowers or puffs. They turned out to be a flock of birds.
“Stop,” I said.
My housemate slammed on her brakes.
“Look.”
As soon as she saw what was there, she reached for her camera. None of the birds seemed upset when we rolled down the window to take photos.
Routinely, 50 or so would take off, circle and then come back to settle in the bush or stop for a drink in the puddle below. Suddenly their normal tweeting took on a higher pitch and the birds buried themselves among the branches. A hawk swooped over them then flew away. The birds remerged, their numbers intact.

Day 2 Insel Poel

We arrived to the same place we stayed last year and where the next novel was set. But instead of a studio we had a two story house at the same price we paid for the Best Western hotel in Göttingen. The luxury seemed almost obscene after the camp.