Normal in the time of Covoid-19

How normal we were tonight. 

Normal!

Just like before lockdown.

Le Pâton, pizza place was open. Open. Open!

It was the first time any eating establishment had been open since the lockdown.

We are a couple who eat out a lot, claiming it supports local restaurants. It also supports our own lazy desires not to take the time to cook or clean up, although we both enjoy cooking. It's a good thing we find pleasure in cooking, because we've had no alternative since the beginning of March.

Rick hotfooted it down to Le Pâton and stood outside (no one is allowed in) until they handed him our two boxes. We do his and her pizzas.

For the first time since the fall, we ate on the patio in front of a lit fire. Soft music was piped in from the living room.  This is also a back to normal moment.

As always we had plenty to talk about. Despite being almost exclusively limited to each other's company we never lack for conversation be it business, writing, books, Sherlock, the lockdown, friends, Facebook, movies, politics etc., etc., etc.

Saturday morning wasn't normal. No Marché.

I woke up and decided I would do homage to Cristin Lavin's "Eating Cold Pizza for Breakfast."* Lyrics below.

Some people eat grapefruit for breakfast
some people eat oatmeal
there are those who are sure
granola is a very good deal
but not me I don't go for that stuff
when it comes to nourishment I get more than enough
nuthin' satisfies my taste like sitting down to a great big plate
of cold pizza for breakfast
warm coke to wash it down
AAAH!
maybe a couple of pepperoni
make this meal well rounded
gimme cold pizza for breakfast
in a pinch cold spaghetti'll do
but there's nuthin' in the world that I like better
than eat cold pizza with you
My man takes me out in the evenin'
he treats me so nice
we go to the movies
we go dancin'
we go for more than a slice
yes we order a pie eat what we can
take the rest home that's part of the plan
but in the mornin' when the sun rise
he sees that crazy look eyes
I want cold pizza for breakfast
warm coke to wash it down
AAAH!
maybe a couple of onion rings
make this world go round
gimme cold pizza for breakfast
in a pinch cold spaghetti'll do
but there's nuthin' in the world that I like better
than eating cold pizza with you
I know . . . that Oprah . . .  would never . . . approve
but Oprah Winfrey has a private cook!
(she doesn't cook)
she doesn't buy groceries because she's so busy
starring in her fabulous TV show and reading fancy books
(and memoirs)
Oprah got skinny
well, thank God not too 'skinny'
but Oprah now only eats sensible food
(no junk in the trunk)
but wouldn't you love it if she called her local pizza parlor said,
"Boys, this is Oprah . . . guess what I'm in the mood for?"
Cold pizza for breakfast
warm coke to wash it down
AAAH!
maybe a coupla carrot curls
keep this girl well rounded
cold pizza for breakfast
in a pinch cold spaghetti'll do
nuthin' in the world that I like better
than eatin cold pizza with you
nuthin' in the world that I like better than eatin cold pizza
oh oh oh
nuthin' in the world that I like better than eatin'
cold pizza with you . . .
AAH . . . 

*If you listen, her other songs are amusing too including the one about passwords.

Too many words

I suffer from insomnia many nights.

Oh I can fall asleep alright, but sometime between two and four I will wake. Whatever I've been writing starts pummeling my brain.

Last night, I woke realizing that in the DayCare, the novel I thought I was on my final-final-final-final draft had a continuity problem.

That is a guaranteed bed tosser and turner.

In between trying to work out if it should be Sally, Brenda, Maura or Ashley where I should make the adjustment, two blogs interrupted my thoughts.

I could have gotten up and started work, but even if sleep was avoiding me, my bed was warm. My husband and dog were sleeping blissfully quiet beside me, making me both appreciate and curse them because they were too comfortable and I was jealous.

The next morning, I was at the computer, corralling the words into the chapters where they belong.

Patriot's Day

It was a crisp, not a cold day, the kind of day one thinks of apple cider, hot donuts, corn stalks and pumpkins about to be harvested for jack o'lanterns.

My husband Rick and my treasured friend Bruce were walking the Lexington and Concord battlefield, the site of the "shot heard around the world" the start of the American Revolution. For Rick it was a first, for Bruce and I, natives of the area, known soil.

I made sure to pause a moment at the grave of the British soldier as I always did. I'd often wondered about him, how he happened to have died so far from his homeland. I wondered about who may have mourned him in England, if they even knew where he was buried.

We headed to the tourist building. The National Park Service does an amazing job sharing information. As always I headed for the book racks.

Bruce and I picked up a copy of Longfellow's Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. It was one of those poems, I had to memorize in grade school.

Without a word of agreement we started reading the poem aloud alternating at logical breaks despite my not having my glasses and squinting. Bruce has a clear reading voice.

I had always loved that poem. It brought forth my heritage, my ancestor who fought in the Revolution that started a country which would for better or worse eventually affect the lives of everyone and the planet itself.

I didn't ask Bruce, although I should have, if he thought of his late father, also a good, good friend, who participated in the reenactments of the battle. I know I did, another memory cascading through my brain.

That day was serendipity combining friendship, love of New England, history and so many aspects of my life...a simple opening of a book.  

The website for the reenactment of the battle https://home.nps.gov/mima/patriots-day.htm doesn't say that the 245th anniversary events have been cancelled on April 20th, but I suspect they will be. The other Patriot's Day event the Boston Marathon has been postponed until September because of the pandemic.

Paul Revere’s Ride

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 1807-1882

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When be came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.*

*Paul Revere didn't finish the ride. William Dawes  (April 6, 1745 – February 25, 1799) did. 

Strange year

2020 has been a strange year.

We returned from Christmas in Boston and settled into our cozy studio in Collonge-Bellerive. We greeted out landlords and friends.

Rick started his three months intensive French course. That in itself was a bit different. It meant he started the day early before the sun was up.

Suddenly we had weekends again.

Then IT happened.

The internet went down.

The television went down.

Our landlady told me Swisscom said it was the entire neighborhood.

The next week, neither the TV nor the internet worked but the story changed several times. Our landlady was great in giving us the latest Swisscom excuse.

Being without the internet means Rick and I can't work. My lovely ex-roommate opened her home to us, including Sherlock, much to the disgust of her cats.

It took two weeks. The problem was a cable in our landlord's garden. Swisscom dug a huge hole only to discover the plans were wrong. The hole grew bigger.

Finally we had the internet and television.

At the end of March, we decided to go south for Easter. Several of our summer friends were planning to be there.

The day we arrived, they shut the borders. They locked down the residents.

We were allowed out for certain reasons, only after filling out a form saying why and when.  Our friends who were coming, weren't.

Only food stores and medical stuff was open. Most often there was a line and only one person was allowed in.

For Rick and I being home is not a hardship. We have everything we need.

What is strange is not deciding to go to a restaurant for lunch or just have a good café sit and people watching session.

We watch what is happening in other places, aware that we are extremely lucky.

As journalists we find ourselves researching different aspects of the virus.

Someday we will be out of lockdown, grateful it wasn't worse and wishing the best to those that are suffering.

Smaller world

It's long been a saying that it is a small world even before the Corona virus.

It was proven this morning once again that with social media it has grown even smaller despite the lockdown.

I met Sandy on Facebook via a friend in Paris. He and I were fellow FATCA fighters. He thought Sandy, whom he knew in Paris, and I would like each other. He was right.

This morning I got this message from Sandy.

"Hope you guys are doing well. One of my friends from the U.S. sent me a link to a blog she thought I would enjoy. I started reading it today and discovered that the blogger is also a writer, originally from California, and lives in Argèles sur Mer. Was wondering if you had come across Salley J. Robins in your Argèles life?"

During the lockdown, Robin and I communicate mainly through Facebook rather than with coffee in cafés. I told her about Sandy and Sandy about her. 

This morning, Paris, Southern France, California and the American South all touched one another from our keyboards. We shared moments.

Our worlds just got a little smaller.

Robin writes some great blogs https://salleyjrobins.blogspot.com/

Another day, another shutdown

I've lost count of the number of shutdown days.

It's okay.

One of the first things I brought up on my computer was the poster below put up by a former housemate. It is how I felt, feel and hope to feel.

I am happy with my days at home, albeit they are very different.

When we venture out on our allowed excursions we still can get good food. The butcher, the green grocer and the baker are all within a few minutes walk. Lines form with people keeping distance. Today the Muslim couple who are butchers, had roasted chickens. Lovely aroma.

We see people we know for brief and distant exchanges. They become more meaningful.

Back at home we made peanut butter cookies together. I burned one batch. My oven seems to have a mine of its own. I had not changed the temperature setting. Good thing I like burned cookies. The other batches were fine.

Worked on the final edit of DayCare. It is going well. The artist doing the drawings for the book showed me some of the early work. I love them.

I so enjoy puttering around my home.

Reaching out on the internet, there's a poetry group and I sent a poem. Hope to get one.

My Geneva landlady is using our stuffed animal, Sanders, the Bern Bear, for some of her photos.

What people are creating during the shutdown is so enjoyable to see.

We are allowed out on walks with Sherlock. When I rounded the corner, I saw one of the Brit summer people. She had become trapped here on March 12, but as she said, it is a good place to be. I hadn't known she was locked in too. Her grown daughter, Georgia, whom I've seen periodically from the time she was seven, was with her.

We chatted at a distance. I mentioned we loaned Sherlock for people who wanted to check the dog walking box on the permission forms.

Georgia's eyes lit up.
 
She'd been looking for a dog to walk. I handed her the leash.

When I got home, I told Rick that I'd given the dog away. Once he realized, it was temporary he relaxed.

They did bring Sherlock back, well spent from his run in the woods with promises to come back again. This is a win-win.

We passed the Mamie  (one of the old women who have lived here forever) on the street, and she had a leaf bouquet tied with Catalan colors for good luck for me. We passed it without touching. So different from the cheek kissing and hugging of a few weeks ago, but it is okay.

We play on line with a friend who wants us to guess what out of ten jobs listed, she never did. So far we haven't. There are many of these lists on FB and we are getting to know some friends we thought we knew even better.

Rick has been concerned about face masks or lack thereof. Even if we are in no close contact with people and spend 99% of our day in the house he is worried.

For the first time in his life, Rick has sewed something. First he learned to cook, now he's learned to sew. The masks are really quite pretty, and I will wear them. It makes him happy. Mine has a butterfly on a blue background matching my jacket. He knows what buttons to push to get me to agree with him. Shelock isn't sure.

Despite some levity, I do take the lockdown seriously. I do know it could go on indefinitely. I know our lives can forever be changed. The heartbreak of people who have lost loved ones can only be imagined. We too lost one friend.

But still, I am safe at home like the poster says and I refuse to do anything but make this time, no matter how long it lasts, meaningful.

Alternatives

A Corona Virus Post

When I was 18, it bothered me I could no longer be a policewoman in Colorado because of age. I didn't want to be a policewoman in Colorado:  I wanted the choice.

There were lots of career opportunities shut off to me. Physicist for one, because I was math challenged. The list is too long even for thousands and thousands of blogs.

The lockdown is another example of my resenting not having alternatives

I love staying at home. I love puttering around my flat, reading, writing, watching stuff on various media. Sometimes when our travel schedule went crazy, even if I wanted to go to the destination, part of me wanted to chain myself to an immovable object within my flat.

Still there was a choice. I could stay home or leave. And I wanted to go to whatever destination we'd planned. I was happy to have alternatives.

Now the leave part of my life is limited to an hour, dog walking, exercise, medical stuff within one kilometer.

• I can't go to my other home in Switzerland.
• I can't walk around the corner to the movies
• I can't sit at La Noisette, Mille et Une, L'Hostalet, drink tea, people watch, chat with friends
• I can't decide to eat at a restaurant
• Although I hate to shop, I need a nozzle for the kitchen sink. No stores are open. I can't shop.

And again, the list goes on and on.

The child in me wants to lay on the floor, kick my heels and cry because I don't have the alternatives.

The adult in me says:

• I have all the food I need and more time to cook some favorites
• I have more time to write
• The flat is warm and cozy
• When it rains, the water makes music on the skylight
• My husband and dog are here for cuddling and conversation (Sherlock does have a limited vocabulary of barks)
• Only once person I know has died so far
• I am not in a refugee camp
• I am not on a boat escaping war with not much future ahead even if I survive
• I have all my limbs
• No bombs have fallen on me

I laugh at my silliness of lack of appreciation. But still, a tiny, tiny part of me wonders if Colorado would like a 77 year old policewoman. I'd be great at undercover in old age homes.

Hoarding/Billionaires

Definition of hoarding Merriman Webster

1a : the practice of collecting or accumulating something (such as money or food) The hoarding and misuse of resources was uncommon even in times of natural disaster …— Tanvi Nagpal

1b : something that is hoarded —usually plural Inside the net with us was a large brown paper bag, spewing forth the Halloween hoardings of the child in the gorilla suit …— John Irving

2: psychology : the compulsion to continually accumulate a variety of items that are often considered useless or worthless by others accompanied by an inability to discard the items without great distress  
Hoarding is marked by an overwhelming desire to collect items and an inability to discard things that may seem useless, to such a point that the collections cause stress and start impacting a person's health, career or relationships.— Erin Allday  

People justify hoarding as curating and recycling, deeming odd objects beautiful and useful.— Peter D. Kramer

Television has programs where people go into houses and clean out everything the hoarders have accumulating, filling every spare space. The hoarder is considered to have some kind of mental problem. We are not talking about people who have collections say of stamps, Hummels, keys, pens etc., but people who have more stuff than they could ever use in a lifetime.

Why then don't we consider billionaires and some millionaires hoarders with a problem too? 

I am not talking about people who make enough money for a comfortable life. There is nothing abnormal about wanting a nice home or maybe even a second home? 

But what is wrong with Jeff Bezos that not only does he have several homes (and there could be some justification of having more than one, with his different centers of business) but one with 25 toilets?

Does the man have prostrate problems? Or is he merely a hoarder with better taste?

I don't deride anyone building a successful business. I do deride those that do it on the backs of others and continues to build their hoard as others are missing basic necessities despite working as hard or harder than the hoarder.

And many of these billionaires have a way of showing the only way they think is a screaming of "mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine,
mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine,mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine..." as they suck up resources they can't possible use, often destroying lives of others in their process.

Yet because they are  they are the "successful" that people look up to them. 

It depends on the definition of success.

If it is being a hoarder of resources that others need and could use and are willing to work for them too but can't because of the hoarder, no, they are not a success. They are a parasite on the planet despite their claims of providing jobs. If success is measured in terms of contributions to humanity, than some (not all) are failures. 

I think we should start looking at these people, irresponsible billionaires as having a psychological problem. Maybe they could even be a television program on helping to get back to normal.  

Meanwhile let's feel sorry for them but not to the problem of a gofundme listing.

My husband has a dueling blog at http://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.com/2020/04/hoarders.html

Transition

TRANSITION

JASON slouches down the sidewalk, his skateboard slung over his shoulder. The school bus passes him. His chums hang out the window, waving and yelling. He should be on the bus but walking home takes longer.

When he reaches the field halfway between the school and his neighborhood, he mounts the fence, sitting astride the top rail.

The horses are back: a black stallion and a dappled mare. In opposite corners they sample the grass grown long in their absence.

Jason digs into the pocket of his denim jacket for the sugar cubes he always carries in the hope the animals are there. The paper wrappings are lint covered and worn from his weeks of fingering.

He whistles. The mare raises her head. She ambles over, her hoofs beating a steady clump, clump, clump against the damp earth.

Holding one hand flat, he puts an unwrapped cube on his palm. She nuzzles it, wetting his skin.

The stallion looks up. He comes over to check his chances for a handout. He pushes Jason with his head. The boy gives the stallion a cube. Although he reaches to stroke the big horse, the stallion walks away without looking back.

The mare stays, letting Jason pat her silken hair against hard skull. She whinnies softly. He puts his cheek against her long nose, breathing in the smell of horse flesh still damp from an earlier shower.

Jason's street has bungalows so close together neighbors could almost shake hands out their windows. He ducks between the front of Mrs. Frederick's brown house and her lilac bushes. Their perfume makes his eyes water. From his purple cage he surveys his own home across the street.

A blue Ford pick-up is in his driveway next to the postage-stamp lawn. Its cab is angled toward the street. The open back is positioned almost at the front door. His Uncle Tony and his father come out with cartons, stacked three high, one on top of the other. A Dole pineapple logo is printed on them in blue and yellow ink. Some boxes are sealed; others are open. The two men wear jeans and white T-shirts.

"This is the last," Uncle Tony says. "Let's roll."

His father sets the box in the truck and looks at his watch. "Where’s that damned kid. He shoulda been home by now."

"I can't wait," Tony says. "I promised I'd have this baby back by 4:00." He pats the fender of the truck.Jason's father disappears into the house. A couple of minutes later he reappears. After shutting the door behind him, he pulls a key off a ring then shoves it through the mail slot. Before hopping into the passenger side, he scans the street.

Jason scratches his forehead on a lilac branch as he ducks out of sight. He rubs the blood off. Long after the truck is gone, he slips out of his hiding place and into his house. It's quiet. Even quieter than it is usually is after school when he is the only one home.

 

The black metal CD-stack next to the ash-filled fireplace is half empty, but not the upper or lower halves. Instead, the slots are filled spasmodically as in full, full, empty, full, empty, empty, empty, full. He checks which ones are gone: Dire Straights, Guns and Roses, U2 – most of the rock is missing: his father’s favorites. Left are his mother's John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Dave Brubeck, Betty Carter.

The red Barcalounger where his father watched TV is gone. The rug where the chair rested is a matted square. It's cleaner than the rest of the carpet.

The desk in the corner has open drawers. When Jason peers in, he sees only dust. The computer on the desk is in its normal place. Taped to the screen is a note in his father's handwriting.

Jason,
783-1130

Call me,
Love, Dad

Jason crumples the note. It bounces off the wall and lands in the wastepaper basket. No one is there to say, "perfect shot".

Going into the kitchen, he looks around. Nothing has changed. He opens the refrigerator, once was filled with good things to eat. There’s only a head of lettuce, brown around the edges and a carton of milk advertising lost children.

Taking the carton, he sniffs and gags. He pours it down the drain, watching the little clots in the white stream of liquid disappear.

For a long time, he stands at the kitchen sink, looking out the window into the kitchen next door. No one is home there either. Then he goes back into the living room and picks the note out of the trash and puts it in his pocket, still crumpled.

He walks upstairs to his tiny room, where he lays on his single bed and looks at the ceiling to wait for his mother to come home.