Something every marché

We don't need to buy anything at the marché to enjoy it. This dog staring lovingly at the butcher's wagon gave us a few of our Wednesday's smiles.

Come down

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

NO!!!!*

*Rick (as do I) tries to find different ways to make the bed mornings and different ways to arrange the red throw and the animals. He outdid himself on this one.

Santons

I love the Santon dolls and have inherited two from Barbara.

These are the small hand-painted terracotta figures from Provence that represent some 55 different local characters with features so detailed that one feels they are real. Santon means little saint.

The first figurines were made in Marseilles by a man named Lagnel during the French Revolution and were used for nativity scenes.

The ones I love the most represent the villagers and their professions of butcher, baker, etc.

About 100 workshops still create these figures for local and not-so-local Christmas fairs.

At first I was displaying them on a book shelf. Yesterday I moved the man, I think of him as Pierre, with the fish to a plant and imagine he is coming from the river, through a cork-tree forest to give his mother, standing below a fish for lunch. She in turn has her scale where she weighs the vegetables from her garden that she sells at her stand. I've named her Marie. 

www.france.fr/en/celebrations-and-festivals/santons-provencehtml.html has more info

Rick's Day to Cook.

Rick and I alternate who cooks on one day him and me on the next.

Although he is learning to cook and does quite well, but his solution, which is more than fine by me, is La Noisette, Gametta, Bartavelle or one of the Port restaurants.

Today around 11:30 with no lunch preparations in sight, I said, "I hope you are planning to cook Chinese today."

He looked confused with a, "I don't know how to cook Chinese" expression. Then he laughed as he caught my subtle suggestion.

We went to Shanghai Express and ate their buffet (Julia you'll have to try it when you're down here next, but when we are up there next, a trip across the border would be an idea, too).

The joke among our friends is "What restaurant are you cooking at today, Rick?"

Stages, a metaphor

Instead of rising and writing before the sun appears, it was a tea-and-book-in-bed kind of morning. From the warmth of the covers, I could see the flowers under our painting of Catalan dancers and musicians through the patio windows. The bouquet was a combination of a gift and tulips we had bought on Saturday.

Then I thought about the stages of our flowers had experienced, maybe a metaphor for all our lives.

We bought the tulips as buds more green than the yellow bud above, perhaps the teenage phase of growing into adult hood. It was a pleasure of watching them open over the course of several days in the same way as I enjoyed my daughter's learning new skills, taking on her adult face and body.

Despite the right amount of water, the tulips were reaching out as if to escape, seek a different environment. Was that any different from my daughter leaving for Germany? Than university? Setting up her own life?

Looking close up at the tulips it was hard to believe the type of flower that it is. Can flowers have identity crises??? Is it the same surprise parents have when children take different roads than expected...the accountants children who become musicians or the musicians child that becomes a banker? We have no more control over our children's decisions than I do over the change in this flower. However, I continued to enjoy its new delicateness in its maturity.

Flowers are not people and with regret I will dispose of the tulips, something I would never do with my beloved child who also added beauty to my life but for decades not days.

Stop playing with the blue stones

NO!!!!!!

You've made your bed

Now lie in it. We've all heard that saying. Well each day when we make the bed we try and find a new way to do it.

Rick really came up with the most elaborate yesterday. I'm proud of him.

It doesn't look right

They are redoing Barbara's store and apartment. Gigi said, "Come up and see the kitchen." It was hard looking at the changes where I'd eaten so many meals, drunk so many cups of tea, shared so many stories.

It is hard not to see Big Fat Ptah II sitting in the window, watching people and purring.

It's hard not sharing books.

As people, who knew and love her but use Argelès as a second home, come by for the first time, they too express their pain. I hear, "I can barely look at the store." There are tears.

It will be worse over Easter when some of her regular customers, whose emails we didn't know to tell them, come in and see the store empty or someone else in it. We will need to go through the story again and again and watch their new sorrow while there is still our old sorrow.

I've had a couple of months to get used to it, although I haven't succeeded. I can still pretend that she is really visiting her daughters in the States.The sign Heritage du Monde is gone. 

Making believe is getting harder and harder.

Two ships passing

Rick and I were like two ships passing not in the night, but in the early morning.

He wrote all night on an assignment where he was trying to condense thousands and thousands of words he'd gathered in his research into a 1500 word article due this morning.

I, on the other hand, woke at six bright-eyed with the solution to the chapter I'd been unhappy with in Murder in Edinburgh, my fingers itching to rewrite.

His work area is outside the bedroom door.

As I left, we exchanged a brief kiss as he headed for the bed still warm from where I'd been. I headed for my computer.

Maybe later this afternoon we'll both be up and coherent at the same time.

Leave the bunnies alone

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Objects with history

I grew up with antiques. Our house was furnished with pieces often handed down from This Aunt or That Uncle. Many had marble tops. 

My childhood dresser of drawers was more like a throne. It had belonged to my great grandmother. 

I used to pretend I was royalty, sitting on the drawers topped with marble in the middle section between the two raised drawers also with marble tops, my back against the black-spotted mirror located in the center, as I dispensed by royal decrees to whatever imaginary subjects were around. Of course they refused to obey my wishes.

One of my wishes, that my non-imaginary mother and grandmother didn't grant me, was to replace the "old stuff" with new. It wasn't just for economical reasons, although the New England Yankee mentality was to use it until it was no longer useable no matter what "it" was. They liked what they for the memories of how Aunt This, who had bequeathed the desk, would sit for hours writing letters to newspapers she never sent, etc. as just one example.

During most of my adulthood (except after college and early marriage poverty) I treasured the modern furnishings. They didn't have to be expensive. The clean lines of an Ikea apartment pleased me.

Yet...yet...yet there's a crystal dish which my grandmother used to fill homemade candy that I treasure. Now I understand the attachment to history in objects. Although they aren't from family my copper pans come with memories of many cooked meals for over a century (as well as new memories of being sent to Syria to be retinned when Syria was peaceful).

And my newest old acquisition? This marble top nightstand which did my late friend Barbara well for years which would have been right at home in my childhood home.

Come down now

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please no backlash

TF1, FR2, FR3, ARTE all carry a small black box at the top of the screen "Je suis Charlie"

We flip through the different national stations to see how the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the two hostage situations are carried. At least with CNN it gives a change to AirAsia. But many of the Asian stations barely mention it, while the western ones, RT and Al Jazeera treat it as constantly breaking news.

In France, Marine Le Pen used the story for her own politics. In the US a conservative turned it against Obama. In the UK Cameron plans to attend an event in Paris on Sunday.

The tragedy is not about politics although politics and war may well be the roots that drive this tragedy and others like it.

What scared me is that the murders will be turned against all Muslims. Many of those that will blame all Muslims, may not even know one.

Yes there are violent Muslims. Yes Isis is incredible inhumane and I won't go into the failed policies of the west that led to its rise.

But the Muslims I know are like most Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc. I know. They just want to live in peace and live their lives.

In the same way I wouldn't say all Christians are cruel because of the Westboro Baptist church.

Christians, too, have been as violent over the decades...the Crusades and other religious wars. The Pilgrims tortured John Billington, one of those on the Mayflower, for blasphemy. Hitler was Christian. Timothy McVee was a Christian. Those who order drones to attack villages in the Middle East are Christians as probably are those soldiers following orders that result in horrifying civilian deaths of innocents. That does not mean all Christians kill or want to kill.

All killing is wrong. Religion is not an excuse to take away a life.

After 9/11 Muslims were attacked. In some cases those who were thought to be Muslim but weren't were attacked. They had nothing to do with 9/11.

There are extremists in all religions, but they do not represent the main body of those religions and those innocents should not be blamed for the extreme actions of those that kill in the name of whatever religion.

Better time be spent looking at what divides us a species and what unites us and search for peace. It would be the best way to honor the 17 dead in France.

A Chaucer seed

"There's a new American couple in town you have to meet," Louise said. We were sitting in the sun drinking coffee at La Noisette with some Brit friends. The sky behind the church was brilliant blue.

I was instantly leery.

There are some 318 million Americans. Their nationality does guarantee bonding any more than I assume that the lovely Swedish couple on our street will fall in love with our new Swedish friends, an economist and an artist. They may or may not for reasons that have nothing to do with their passports.

To be friends there does need to be some commonality. Nationality is just one...others include some overlapping interests.

This does not mean I want all my friends to be mirror images of me...I have enough time with me...and if I limited myself to writers who grew up in Reading, MA and became Swiss, I would be terribly, terribly alone . . . and BORED!

Mostly what I like in friends is COW.*

• Curiosity
• Openness
• Warmth

Passion for anything is plus whether or not I share it. Sometimes it is better when I don't because I learn to appreciate something new.

However, curiosity stoked, Rick and I knocked at their door at lunch time saying, "We aren't planning to stay but Louise said we should meet."

Dropping in on anyone, known or unknown, is un-Swiss to the highest power. It is not in Rick's social bag of tricks either.

It became a small world moment.

They are from Upper State New York
He is from Upper State New York

They are journalists
We are/have been journalists

They graduated from the same university (a big one) the same year he did.

She did medieval studies. I studied medieval literature.

On the street as we talked, now quiet because in France lunchtime is still sacred and nearby stores are closed, the COW principle was at work.

She and I struggled to remember the first lines of Canterbury Tales in Middle English.

I remembered them as we walked back to the house to our own lunch, convinced that we might have the seeds of a new friendship here.

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

*In this case it does NOT stand for COW Cranky Old Woman which I sometimes am.

A powerful weapon

Argelès almost by night

It's 18:30 and I go out to do some last minute errands before the shops close at 19:00. The sky behind the church is a brilliant rose.

The lights are on still at the jewelers. All the tables at La Noisette were filled at noon, but now people are more interested in getting home. Inside Sophie sweeps the floor.

There is the smell of smoke from fireplaces in the air.

The doors of the 13th century church are opened and a woman with a cane walks in to do a last minute prayer.

At the pharmacy I pick up my prescription, dash into Chez Elisabeth for veggies for tomorrow's lunch as the displays of fruits and vegetables on the sidewalk are being wheeled in.

I stop at a friend's new home to admire her good fortune.

It's almost night in Argelès and I head home to my own cozy flat.

Rock, scissors paper

Rick often does too much for me.

What are you complaining about, some women will say, but I don't want to take advantage of him.

Thus I suggested when we were deciding who would do what we would do rock, scissors, paper.

He'd never heard of it, but as a child it had settled more than one childhood argument with my brother.

The premise is simple. With a fist you go one-two-three than either put out

• A fist that will break a rock and wins
• Two fingers that will cut paper and wins
• A flat hand which covers the rock and wins

What I didn't realise that his childhood game has had a whole society WRPS, with the slogan "serving the needs of decision makers since 1918.

They even have a world championship.

Maybe some politicians would be better off using this method than all the backroom deals.

Putin and Obama could do it over the Crimea, Cameron and Milliband could play over austerity.

As for the US Congress, maybe elections should be determined that way. It would cost a lot less.

Just a walk with wonderful light

He did more than ride a horse

Listen my children and you shall hear

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere

Boston area school children of my generation were made to memorize Longfellow's poem. We didn't learn that Revere didn't finish the ride leaving it to William Dawes, but then probably Dawes wouldn't have scanned well with "to every Middlesex village and farm" except those that Dawes went to.

Revere made the news again this week when an 18th century time capsule he and others had buried in 1795 was  opened gingerly with dental tools and a porcupine quill.

The 5.5 x 7.5 x 1.5 inch box had been opened in 1855, the objects cleaned and some other things added before being reburied.

Some of what was found

• Newspapers still readable
• Copper coins
• A copper medal of George Washington
• Silver plate maybe designed by the silversmith himself when he wasn't sounding the alarm about approaching British

Time moved more slowly then... what would go into such a box today?

The great laundry caper

We don't have a dryer. When it comes to washing bed sheets, this isn't a problem in the summer.

Put the bedding on the patio and Mediterranean sun sucks up the moisture so fast we almost don't have time for a cup of tea.

In the winter it is another story, thus for the first time in decades, I went to a laundry mat.

We were confused by the machine.

There was no place to put the money.

Then to one side we discovered the instructions. It worked much like parking meters with entering the number of the machine...in our case it was number 15, the number of the street on several places where I've lived.

Somehow we didn't get the number of minutes we paid for, but the laundry was dry and we did get a credit, some of which came back in change.

At home I ironed the sheets and pillow cases and our bed was tested with the animals is ready for us tonight.

Judging a book by its title

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but I judged The Boston Girl by its title.

I admit that city is part of my soul. And I love seeing in print the streets and buildings I know. Even when I lived there if I were reading a Spenser novel and Parker mentioned the Indian in front of the Museum of Fine Arts, I'd get a shiver even if I had walked by the statue just an hour before.

Thus when I saw the book reviewed on Facebook and mentioned it to Rick, he downloaded it on my Kindle. I started it yesterday and finished it this morning, reading in bed while he slept beside me.

Reading a Kindle in bed is not unlike a kid reading with a flashlight under the covers.

Of course it was wonderful reading about the North End, the State House, Tremont Street, Roxbury even Rockport on the North Shore, but if the book had been set in another city, one where I'd never been, I'd have enjoyed it.

An 85-year old woman talks to her granddaughter about her life capturing not only the social history of the time but all the machinations of family life regardless of ethnicity. The author, Anita Diamant also reveals a major truth that is as much a part of my DNA as Boston--women's friendships give you the color, music and beauty to your life as much as any painting, symphony or sunlit countryside.

It's twelth night

It's Three Kings Days, Epiphany, and the boulangeries are filled with special cakes. Those lucky enough to find a miniature ceramic figurine in their piece gets to wear a paper crown given with the cakes by the baker.

The first time I celebrated was in Toulouse in the 1980s. Raphaël, as the youngest, sat under the table and as each piece was cut he designated the receiver. Even the children were allowed a small sip of champagne to drink along with the cake.

In later years with adults, the youngest who might be in their 50s, were not required to sit under the table, but could merely close their eyes before calling out a name. Of course, telling one's age could be a bit hazardous to social relations, but the traditional cakes were just as delicious.

Ordinary day

Chores: Buy bread, walnut oil, romaine lettuce, shampoo.

Stops: Boulangerie, grocery, green grocers

Trajectory time: 5 mins. from house to furthest store

Time to buy everything: 15 mins. max.

Time door to door: 15 mins

Reason: Meeting people as follows

• Stephanie: talk about holidays, vacations, joy of work, their daughter.
• Maria: Discuss left over responsibilities from Barbara's death, daughter's problems in Spain, their trip to New Zealand, Australia and AirBNB.
• R&E: quick catch up then shared a coffee at La Noisette and discussion on history of Vikings and ancestory
• Louise: Discussion on American journalists renting one of their places. She thinks we'd like them.
• Pedro: exchange of holiday wishes
• Gigi: Arrange for him to change lights in warren
• Sylvie and Muffin (Westie) exchange of holiday wishes, comments about weather, dog patting
• Favorite mamie: cheek kisses and greetings and comments about beautiful weather

This is typical of life in our small village.

Later in the day, Rick and I took a walk and on the way back saw six friends at La Noisette. Sat for another coffee and chat.

It is rare that La Noisette, located on the corner of our street, is empty. Usually we know anywhere from 1 to 10 people sitting there.

Rick wasn't even surprised that I was gone so long to buy four things, five minutes away from our home.

Time makes the difference

Yesterday it was at least 20° and we ate atone of the year-round restaurants at the port then walked along the promenade. The Mediterranean was so calm that waves were rare.

Unlike in summer the beach was littered with driftwood. In summer it is cleaned for the tanning bodies spread out on towels.

On this peaceful day with the tower that once was used as a look out between different warring factions it was hard to remember during a freezing 1939 January some 100,000 refuges fleeing Franco's Spain were huddled up and down these shores.

Bombs and bride

My friend made a beautiful bride and I am so grateful to her brother for posting this photo so I could see it.

Earlier she had written about bombs and rockets going off, not in celebration but because the wedding was in Damascus. I wish I had been there, but I was too cowardly for the land trip necessary through the war zone from Lebanon to Damascus and because the Damascus airport is not useable.

Each day I check Facebook with a sense of relief when I see her brother, sister, friends posting ordinary things in extraordinary times. They are alive.

These are people I have met over the years in Damascus, Geneva and Paris. These are people who welcomed me into their homes, family and culture. We've shared meals and maté, stories and sightseeing, laughter and living. These are people who should not be the pawns of politicians of nations.

But for a short moment yesterday, this wonderful woman, who carries my love and deepest respect possible, became a bride like all brides through time.

Stove Stories--eating through my life

Growing up, food and politics were main dinner table discussion with food winning out most nights. My mother, father and grandmother were all excellent cooks. 

My mother, Dorothy Sargent Boudreau, was also a reporter and besides covering hard news, also had a column in the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune called Stove Stories that didn't just give the recipes but the history of the recipe. She believed that the memory of meals added to the flavor. Before her death in 1990 she began the creation of a cookbook based on those columns. 

I kept the unfinished manuscript and the idea came to me, to publish it as a series of blog. Despite some glitches in scanning where I couldn't get the type face as I wanted it, here are the recipes. If anyone has any comments or would like to add their own stories to the book, send them to me at dlnelson7@hotmail.com and tell me which section you'd like them in.)

http://stovestories.blogspot.com

popcorn

I have a writer friend who is so much of a popcorn freak that she has popcorn on her business card.

My housemate and I need little persuasion to pop corn. Any excuse...there's a bottle of champagne that needs company, we're watching a DVD, it has been a bad day, a good day, a middling day, it's Monday or Tuesday or . . .

For years I went popcornless except at the movies when I was in the US. Many small European theatres don't sell it and to my tastebuds' shock, when they did it was often sweet. Not bad, but unexpected.

I didn't commit to Rick for his love of popcorn but it did add a plus to his plus column (so far his negative column is empty).  His love of it makes me wonder if given a choice between it or me if like Jack Benny, known for being a cheapskate, when asked by a robber his money or his life would he reply, "I'm thinking it over?"

Some birthdays, anniversaries and Christmases Rick's main present is 100% obvious. This year it wasn't and the need to have it bought before leaving for Ireland was paramount. At the time I hadn't realised the problem with Llara and I would have been unable to shop had I waited, so my OCDness of getting Christmas gifts out of the way well before the holiday (preferably by august, but it can go to November) came in more than handy.

One night as we watched Homeland, munching microwave popcorn it hit me. He needs a popcorn popper.

Joy of joys...It took only one store to find it.

Last night he made his first popcorn...and best of all he shared it...with me!

Adjusting to more time

IT has been two weeks since I retired from the newsletter. Now I can look at my Annie Clock and realise that I no longer HAVE to hit the computer to produce story after story as soon as I'm out of bed.

Rick was worried I'd be bored.

I don't see that happening.

I still have the novel I'm working on and other writing such as producing my mother's unpublished cookbook, reshaping my short stories, etc.

What is missing is the feeling of pressure in trying to do all the other things I want to do. I can read that extra chapter, play an extra computer game guilt free.

Then there's the organization I've promised to finally get done which in turn will in turn save time spent searching, searching, searching...

I may even give up wearing a watch again...despite my Swiss nationality. Don't tell anyone.

Life is good, so very good.

My housemate gave me the Rose Bowl Parade

There are certain holiday traditions that are missed when in another country.

Rick talked about football games on New Year's Day, and I remembered the oohs and ahhs watching the Rose Bowl Parade.

Even when new traditions take their place, the wonderful concert of the Vienna Philharmonic broadcast live on France 2 and a lovely lunch with neighbours, I had a moment that I wished I could watch the parade.

Then I read my housemate's blog with her memories and photos of the Rose Bowl Parade...so I had new and old traditions together.

http://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.ch/

Thank you J.

Winding down

The holidays are almost over.

New Years Eve with friends from five countries for a Canadian Supper. There were 16 of us. My ice bowl made it without accident although the one below isn't mine. I didn't have a fancy bowl to make the design, but the idea is the same. This was ice bowl 2 the first having been dropped, making Rick even more cautious with each step.

Most of them went onto the Collioure fireworks. This is the last year they will do it because of cost.

Instead we opted for the comfort of a warm bed over the crowds, cold and car parking problems. The alliteration excuse or maybe we're getting old.

Also our plan to watch the brave Argelesians do a dip in the sea was scuttled after a lazy morning reading in bed and drinking tea. Rick had done it last year but he thought one certificate was enough. Has we made it, we might have been caught on film for the France3 news segment.

Our lovely upstairs neighbour invited us and a Danish couple to watch the annual Vienna Philharmonic concert on France2 along with champagne, canapés, fish coup, salmon roll and other goodies.

A walk afterwards. Despite our mittens and hats, we loved seeing a grapefruit tree covered in fruit.

More reading into late afternoon and finally our lovely Swiss neighbours stopped to say good bye. They will be back at Easter.

Now a DVD of Newsroom maybe more reading.

During the weekend we'll transition into normal life again.