Free Write - Whose Prompt?

There was a bit of confusion about who was offering the prompt for our Free Write. Finally it was decided.  Rick's prompt. Even before we started writing there was a discussion on what it was. Rick's Free Write revealed all. 

Rick's Free Write Binky on the Bus

I decided to skip the final joint session of the AI for Good conference because I wanted to catch the No. 8 bus from Palexpo and didn’t want to queue up with dozens of people in the hot sun. Seems I wasn’t the only one.

I hopped aboard about 2 minutes before departure and managed an aisle elevated seat next to an older gentleman in a weathered baseball cap. We exchanged ‘bonjours,’ and he went back to his phone scrolling.

At each of the several stops enroute to Gare Cornavin, more office workers boarded. Didn’t take long to become SRO.

One woman, dressed smartly in a sleeveless navy tunic with military-style gold buttons and a silk scarf, kept having to exit the bus each stop to allow people off, then she’d get back on. Finally, after about the 3rd such drill, she worked her way deeper into the bus, away from the door.

As we approached the station, where my mission was to buy tilleul bread and cinnamon buns, I noticed something on the ledge next to my seatmate. A baby’s binky. Obviously abandoned by a previous rider. I wondered how long before the mother, or the child, noticed the pacifier was gone.

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

Julia's Free Write

It had been a very long day – to say the least.

Up at the crack of dawn, even having to wake up their two-year-old: Imagine!

The bags had been packed the day before, but there were always last-minute additions.

They had to dash to catch the bus: oh for the “good ‘ol days” when they had been able to find long-term parking on the street only a couple of blocks from the train station – or even the airport.

But it was all for a good cause – they were off to see her parents – from Spain to Sweden. All by train.

They arrived two days later and exhausted to the bone, finally unpacked.

Only to discover that somewhere along the way their ever-so-active toddler had lost her pacifier.

That first night was not peaceful!

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

D-L's Free Write

What the hell is it?

A penis on a circular skate board?

A big nose, two eyes? No mouth.

The shadow could be a skull.What's it doing on a stair?

Did some kid drop it?

Germs?

Arghhhhhhhhh.

Too many questions.

Only one answer. 

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

 Rick and Sherlock wait for Julia to arrive at Martel Café to start the Tuesday Free Write. Photo by D-L

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Perspective

 

Facebook reported that my World History teacher had died at age 91. He was only nine years older than I am, but when I was a senior in high school he was one of those adults whose ages seemed to be the same, or at least were until they got wrinkles and gray hair. Then they formed another group of old people.

I had only thought of Mr. Lahood since my 1960 graduation a few times over the decades or not at all.

I had wanted to take World History along with the required U.S. History, a course where each student was assigned a country or subject to follow and report on weekly.

World History had been a disappointment. I remember the teacher as a chubby red head who would fall victim to tears at the harassment of the class. Mr. Lahood replaced him after the first teacher broke down totally. He tried to show us slides of his trip to Greece. Although I loved the slides, the boys especially were so disparaging, that the teacher fled the class to never return.

Looking back, I have great sympathy for the man. He loved his subject, but lacked the ability to transmit it to unappreciative teenagers. He'd have been better off teaching at a university. I imagine his dread each day having to walk into that classroom. I wish I knew what happened to him, and I wish I could apologize.

Mr. Lahood took no prisoners. His classes were under control and interesting. He fulfilled my expectations and then some.

Life was very different then from today. The one semi-run-in I had with him was when he said single mothers turn out delinquent children. He didn't use those words, but that was the gist. My mother was a single mother, and I was anything but a delinquent. I had good grades and a job as a cub reporter for a daily newspaper. My biggest run in with the police was when I was caught parking with my future husband. We learned the best way to park was to go where there was some kind of event and park among the cars of the attendees.

In my class there were only two other single parents for three kids, including twins. My mother had developed her own business, selling women's fashion on a party plan. She also did fashion shows and managed to work just six months a year. She set it up to spend maximum time with my brother and me. 

I argued with him politely. I doubt if I convinced him, but I'll never know how he thought over the next several decades as society changed. 

In 1960 JFK became president despite the fears of my family's Republican friends that he would take orders from the Pope. Mack the Knife and Battle of New Orleans were on the top of the music charts and Castro was in control of Cuba, having replaced Batista. 

I wore lots of petticoats, white bucks and looked forward to going to Merrimack College in the fall. My mother swallowed her dislike for Catholics to make sure I didn't go to one of the Boston colleges and no way was I going to NOT live at home. 

The Facebook posting told of Mr. Lahood's career. He became a guidance counselor and a principal. He taught driver ed. Comments from many of his students showed he was loved and respected. 

Looking back on my high school education, I realize how good it was, how in-depth the subjects were. Now that I've lived a full life, I realize that my teachers, like Mr. Lahood, held full lives outside of school hours. They didn't just disappear when the three o'clock bell rang. I imagine most of them have died. I wish I could thank them for all that they gave me, for seeding the path I would take. 

R.I.P. Mr. Lahood. Your life had meaning. 

 

Past Present Future

PAST

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson wrote Original Sin about Joe Biden's mental and physical decline when he was in the White House. They relied on stories from people who witnessed it, many who wanted to remain anonymous. 

In reading it, I was chuffed and angry.

Chuffed because there were no surprises. I'm not a genius, but much of what they said, I already thought. The book merely filled in details, sorta like a child's coloring book. The outlines are there until the crayons fill in the colors.

Angry because so many who knew but put party before people. Some must have thought of their own careers and income. In one way I can understand that income and position are hard to self-destruct but the stakes were so high - America itself - that ordinary reaction was gambling on the future of millions of American.

Over all I've been pro Joe Biden. I credit him with being an ordinary man who has lived through some horrible things. He has been responsible for some very positive legislation over the years, some passed, some rejected. That's the story of many politicians. I thought of him as a basically decent human being, something I can't say about many politicians.

I don't blame Biden for being old. We share an age. I recognize my growing limitations and hate every one of them. I also know there are things I can no longer do. In a couple of cases it is an excuse to not do what I was never crazy about doing in the first place. I also know, I do not have the strength to spend the next four years as president, never mind the lack of qualifications. 

While I understand giving up that role had to be hard, Joe Biden's hubris tilted his accomplishment side to his failure side of the political ledger without negating what he did right in a long career. When he did finally bow to the inevitable, he did it with grace.

Tapper/Thompson have been criticized for not publishing this sooner. They started work on it after the election. Were they waiting for a book deal? Should it have been published at all? I am not accusing them of any bad motives. It takes time to convince people to talk and to put the information together in a book especially while living other lives. 

Meanwhile the current occupant of the White House probably has a form of dementia on top of rank stupidity and ignorance. He is filled with such hate and exhibits cruelty. Who is documenting that?

PRESENT 

Had Biden given up earlier, would whoever ran have defeated Trump. I certainly hope so. As an ex-American, I still care deeply for my birth country. Over the years it has done some really spectacular things both good and bad, but the founding principles remain sound. Its current path follows signposts saying "Destruction Ahead."

Like Biden's advisors and fellow Democrats who ignored signs that Biden would not have the capacity for four more years, the Republicans go along with all the bad things Trump is doing. They do not scream at the obvious incompetence of the cabinet. In fact, most of the cabinet should never have been appointed but the Republicans bleated their approvals.

The Supreme Court is complicit in the destruction. Corruption is obvious on so many levels.  

FUTURE 

I imagine at some time in the future there will be another book about number 47 showing why Trump never should have been elected. It will tell who was responsible. 

Because of the details, the Tapper/Thompson book will be studied by historians to determine what went wrong with America.

Pocketbook vs. Purse

 

The scene: A restaurant terrace in a Geneva country restaurant on a day with perfect temperature and blue skies. 

The people: I'm with a friend of 32 years. With our different schedules and locations, eating together is a real treat. My friend and I sat under an umbrella. The only other people on the terrace were four women a girl about four who rode her scooter around the terrace as the women talked.

My friend and I ate two different kinds Flammehkueche as we caught up on everything that we missed in our emails and on Facebook.

Situation: I hold up my brown bag holding my wallet, phone, breath mints, tissues, and a few dog biscuits. My husband, who grew up in Upstate New York, calls this a purse. I grew up outside Boston and call it a pocket book.

As writers my husband and I talk a lot about words. "We've had many discussions, pocketbook vs. purse," I tell her. If I had friends from my youth, they too would call it a pocket book. I've asked.

"It's a purse," my friend said. She grew up in California.

She has been in Switzerland around 50 years. I've been here more than 30. We deal in multi languages at different levels almost daily.

Based on having "adventures" and discussions too many to count over the years, the next step was natural. She reached for her phone and checked the etymology for pocket book and purse. Here's what we found. 

14th-15th century A small bag worn that might be sewn onto clothes known as a pokete, from a Old North French poque "bag" or Germanic puk. The term purse snatcher appears eferring to a pick pocket thus the word purse must have been used. The same goes for purse strings. Pursen meant put money in a bag that might be secured by pulled strings. 

1610 Oops! The meaning has changed with time and a pocket book is described as often made of leather and as a small book to carry papers and bills in one's pocket.

1722 Pocket is used to describe flexible book like a leather folder for papers, bills.  The phrase "out of pocket" appears at this time referring to money.

1816 Called a woman's purse for the first time. My husband will love this.

According to Webster Merriman there are two meanings to pocket book:  1. A pocket book is a small paperback book. Doesn't help us at all.  2. A flat typically leather folding case for money or personal papers that can be carried in a pocket or handbag. Because we'd finished our meal, we did not discuss words like handbag, clutch purse or just plain bag..

Living in different countries with different languages over my adult years, I'm aware of regional differences in words. They exist in all languages. For example: A croissant in Paris is a chocolatine in Toulouse. Both are made the same way and taste great early in the morning with a cup of tea. A renversé in Geneva just four bus stops away across the French border in Ferney-Voltaire becomes a café au lait.

Sometimes it amazes me that people can communicate at all as words change meaning over time. Also, we have personal reactions to words. In a communication course I once taught, I used mother as an example. 

There is the definition, a woman who gives birth to a child. However, one's reaction to the word may conjure up different images. A person whose mother baked cookies, played games, read stories at bedtimes and gave lots of love might feel differently from a person whose mother beat them regularly.

In the pocketbook/purse debate with my husband, I sometimes call my bag a purse and every now and then he'll ask about my pocketbook. We both may call it a bag. Maybe that's one reason our marriage is a happy one, but that is a subject for another blog.

Note 1: visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com

Note 2: I know there are strange lines in this blog which I don't see until the blog is printed. I have no idea where they came from and attempts to get rid of them have failed.  

Defending Barbara Cartland

The first book I read in French was a translation of a Barbara Cartland romance, because I could breeze through the simplicity of the language. Called the Queen of Romance novels, she is often disparaged for that reason. I disagree, even though it is not a genre that attracts me. Or lets say, there are so many other types I want to read.

Cartland wrote 723 novels and sold over 750 million copies. She was the fifth most translated writer in the world (excluding the Bible). Like her or not, the volume of both her work and her sales means she has brought a lot of pleasure to millions of women, quite an accomplishment. 

I'll admit I'm a Ph.D. dropout, but if I were still going for the title of Dr. Nelson, I think I'd like to do my thesis on the structure of Cartland's novels. My Master's thesis was on repeated symbolism in John Irving's novels and the analysis greatly helped me fine tune my own writing craft. It taught me how the same idea, character, setting, etc. could be used in more than one book.

How would I go about the Cartland doctoral thesis? 

As a start I would do a speed read on as many of the novels as I could, carefully being aware of the years of publication and do a tally on:

• Names of characters whether ordinary or exotic
• Ages, how many people are 20 21, 22, etc.
• The average age of the main characters, good, bad and in between
• Educational level of the main characters
• Talents and skills of main characters good, bad and in between
• Hair color
• Eye color
• Ethnic backgrounds
• Problems faced by the heroine broken down into categories  
• Gunning Fogg  Index in early, middle and late years  of her work to see what level of reading ability is need to comfortably read the selection. Did it change?  (I do this test on my own writing periodically).
• Type of problem that stops the heroines from succeeding
• The solutions to the problems the heroines uses to overcome the problems 
• Break the type of plots into categories and count them
• Locations  

I'm not going for a Ph.D., and I'm working on a new novel while marketing my non-fiction, 300 Unsung Women about those who overcame gender barriers to fulfill their dreams. 

That my days are filled and often end long before I've accomplished my to-do list makes Cartland's work all the more amazing. She was not limited to romances. She also wrote:

• Biographies
• Plays
• Music
• Poems
• Dramas
• Operettas
• Health books
• Cookbooks
• Articles

How she found time to cram all that into one life, even if she did live to be 98, I have no idea. 

Even if I'm not the biggest fan of Cartland's books, I do like well-written Chick Lit when the characters are interesting and deal with problems real people handle (no Shopping Novels but I read almost every other kind of book).  

Before my first book was published and the rejections were piling up, I resented writers like Cartland. I felt that my writing was as good if not a lot better.  Now, I just appreciate that each writer finds his or her own path. Cartland's output was more than a path. It was an interstate six-lane highway system. 

Visit http://dlnelsonwriter.com 

 

 

Since when is it wrong...

There is no art work with this blog because when I tried to do an AI drawing of pro-Palestinian protest signs being in a bonfire, I received this message. "Sorry! Our AI moderator thinks this prompt is probably against our community standards." I tried several other requests. None worked. It wouldn't even give me the numbers I asked for. I don't know if it were deliberate or not. I've never had the problem before.

 Here's the blog anyway.

The New Yorker had a story by Alistair Kitchen. He was denied entry to the U.S. because he wrote an article about the pro-Palestinian demonstrations earlier when he was on the Columbia University Campus. What is really frightening, he had cleaned his phone. They had to know before he was detained and were watching for him. They held him for 12 hours before sending him back to Australia.

He is not alone. There are more and more cases of actions against people, including citizens and those legally in the U.S. who speak up for Palestine. 

The last time I looked the U.S. Bill of Rights included Freedom of Speech.

I want to know what is wrong with speaking out for a people who have been forced from their homes. Their schools and hospitals have been destroyed. They are being starved and when they seek food, many are shot. 

Genocide is the word that describes what is being done. And people are being punished for being anti-genocide, which strikes me as being punished because you don't approve of killing women and babies.

Sure, I know the excuse is that some of them supported Hamas which attacked Israel, and Israel has a right to protect itself. I say BS because the Palestinians have a right to protect themselves too as does every country who is attacked by another. Not every country that is attacked commits genocide as Israel is doing.

Supposedly being anti-genocide in this case is being anti-Semitic. Hmmmm...the Palestinians are a Semitic people too. That argument doesn't wash.

Trump has defended people who chanted "The Jews will not replace us" in Charlottesville, VA in August 2017 as being good. That sounds pretty anti-Semitic to me. Perhaps, using that standard, Trump should be deported.

My mind is still boggles that Netanyahu, who was labeled a war criminal by the International Criminal Court in November 2024 for using starvation as a warfare method among other crimes, should nominate Trump for the International Peace Prize. I hope the court will throw out the nomination because of whence it came. I imagine at the meeting to decide who gets the prize the laughing at the hypocrisy combined with disbelief.

Students at various universities have been punished for speaking out against genocide. I would suspect, although I have not researched it that those universities have military contracts. One of the goals of those students have been for those universities to divest in this type of contract. Maybe the universities don't want students to have moral values, if one considers mass killings of a people immoral. Or maybe they want to raise a new generation of mass murderers? 

Whatever, the punishments for expressing an opinion in a country that says it has freedom of speech is not living up to what it claims. 

  

 

Free Write -- The Mosquito

 

Yes! Finally, we three Free Writers are all together in the same country. So nice to sit at the Martel café and Free Write together for ten minutes than read. It was D-L's prompt, but the idea came from a discussion with a friend about mosquitos. 

D-L's Free Write

The announcer straightened his tie, as the interviewer took his seat. On the table were two large mosquitos."Today Red Frederick will interview these two insects. Here's Red."

RF: Today's goal is to find out what mosquitos are for. We have a female - She does a quick fly around - and a male. How old are you?

FM: Six weeks.

MM: Eight weeks.

RF: What do you eat?

FM: I'm a vegetarian. I love the nectar especially from morning glories and . . . 

MM: You're not telling the truth. This morning I saw you suck blood from that cameraman over there.

 FM: I had no choice. My eggs needed it.

 RF: You need blood for your eggs?

 FM: If I want healthy children.

MM: I love blood. My dream was to be a vampire mosquito. - MM flies over to Red Frederick, lands on his wrist and bites. 

RF: -Frederick slaps him, then looks at the squished body. He turns to the Female Mosquito - I'm sorry, was he your husband?

FM:  Just met him. Let's continue. 

RF: What is your purpose to being on this planet? 

FM: None. All we do is annoy people. Some we make sick with stuff like malaria. And if you don't mind, I'm going to snack on that rose over there. - She flies away -

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

 Rick's Free Write

Moski B, the rapper mosquito, landed softly on the stagnant water in the discarded tire by the side of the road. He was meeting his agent, Stinger, to plan his appearance at the coming Glastonbury Music Festival.

He salivated just thinking about the thousands of sweating humans, chanting and clapping, totally oblivious to the long probe sucking their blood from their necks and arms. He’d have to try to pace himself so as not to burst.

“Yo, Moski, my boy. How’s the old proboscis?,” called Stinger as he glided on to the tire water.

“Ready to rock, Sting!”

The plan was to catch a train from Reading to save energy. Maybe have a snack of a businessman along the route.

Then, at the festival, he’d start at the outskirts among the picnickers, working his way to the musicians on the stage.

“And you thought the screams were because of the high notes? Wait’ll I stick Elton at the keyboard!”

“We’d better hurry, Moski. The 10:33 is getting ready to pull out. Quick, there’s an open window!”

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

Julia's Free Write 

*Aies, oh I hate this”!

 These words came out of her mouth more than once.

The campground overlooking the Mediterranean was absolutely gorgeous. This time they had rented one of the luxurious almost-a-cabin tents – that one simply unpacked in.  No need for those of-their-youth sleeping bags. Sleeping bags that inevitably clumped and rolled underneath one. The cots were comfortable enough, if not proper beds.

Also, no need to bring kitchen utensils: the basics were provided, including a barbecue.

Another big plus: one could actually stand up in all of the tent.

In short, luxury – what now has become known as glamping (glamour camping).

The only negative: no one had found a way to totally eliminate mosquitos. Not the coils, not the sprays, nothing!

So for the 100^th time out came the world’s best invention: the heating pen to cut the histamine reaction. RELIEF

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

 

 

 

 

A Fire and Rain Trip

 Fire and Rain with apologies to James Taylor

Yesterday we changed countries between our French and Swiss homes (no we are not rich). 

Normally it is a six to an eight hour drive depending on pee stops and if we decide to have a sit-down meal. We delight in the views of Grenoble mountains, check out all the new solar farms and solar roofs, stop to look at some of the intriguing information at rest stops. There is one wall we especially love seeing in autumn with its incredible red leaves.  

Sometimes go off road to check out one of the signs that promote what is nearby: art, music, history, nature. 

Despite all that, we do it so often, we wanted a change. Rick suggested, while we were circling around major construction in Perpignan heading for the autoroute, that we go through the center of France.

So we did.

Around the Narbonne turnoff, the blue sky and the bottom half of white puffy clouds were blackened by smoke. When we opened the windows, smoke smell entered the car. We weren't stopped by the fire but later learned it was in Fontfroide. Some 1000 firefighters and 260 vehicles were battling the 1000 hector (1 hector is 2.47 acres) blaze. The area is a tinderbox with little recent rainfall. No deaths have been reported to date.

On we went and further up the autoroute: in the distance we saw another fire but the autoroute took us away from it. 

If one only visits Paris, they would never realize how much free land there is in France. On our trip saw almost no towns, villages or cities just kilometer after kilometer of forests and fields. 

We drove over a plateau with bluffs planted here and there rising like some afterthought. Beige fields contrasted to green fields. 

We wanted to cross the Millau Via Duct which was built to ease traffic. Some stats:

• Length 2400 meters or 8,070 feet
• Masts at 87 meters or 250 feet
• Weight of the bridge 290,000 tons 

It's not the stats, but the feeling of being on this beautiful tribute to man's engineering talent with blue skies and amazing countryside all combined that so pleased us.

Then there were the mountains, the highest being 1100 meters. Small compared to the Alps, but with their own character and beauty. The road was a roller coaster of up and down, but not scary. (Trivia note: roller coasters were a Russian 17th century invention.) As for the roads themselves, like most French autoroutes they are in pristine condition. 

Trees, mainly pines, grew so close together, that it would have been impossible for anyone to walk through them without a good machete.  

At Clermont-Ferrand we took a right still on a perfect autoroute. What wasn't perfect it started to rain. Sprinkles alternate with a torrential downpour. The wipers had trouble keeping up with the water. The frequent tunnels offered a respite to Rick at least for a few kilometers. 

If only the rain could be transferred to the south to put out the fires. 

Although I normally fall asleep in a car, there wasn't a moment I wanted to close my eyes. I read signs for Rick. We noticed strange construction around the telephones placed regularly for motorists with problems, talked about writing projects, politics, and many more things. Although we are together almost 24/7, the concentration without functional homemaking type of diversions was lovely. There's no way either of us could ask if the dishwasher was clean or dirty and the hundreds of other little daily things that make up life. This is not a complaint, just the comforts of a good marriage.

A little before two on Monday, we reached our flat, unloaded the car and collapsed into bed. The trip had been 12 hours of a scenic experience combined with the idiosyncrasies of nature.  

Despite my 35 years in Europe and Rick's 13, we still revel in the experiences while doing the normal things people do in life. What I hope we never forget is how lucky we are.   

James Taylor in his song mentioned sweet dreams. Even being totally knackered, I had sweet dreams.

Visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com to see what else D-L Nelson has written.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

300 Unsung Women

Here are just four of 300 women who broke gender barriers. I've written about them and 296 other women in all areas of life and places in the world who fought gender barriers to follow their dreams. 

Their lives have been carefully researched to offer to today's women a reminder of what their sisters went through as well as how we women still have to battle to realize our full potential. 

• Augusta Ada King (1815-1852)The first person to recognize that the Charles Babbage computer had other applications beyond mathematical calculations.
• Mary Elizabeth Anderson (1866-1953) invented the windshield wiper.
• Martha Beatrice Webb (1858-1943) was the economist who coined the term "collective bargaining."
• Conception Arnel Ponte (1820-1893) First woman to attend a Spanish University IF she wore men's clothing. She became a lawyer and journalist. 

These 300 women refused to submit to limitations of being women and became:

• Inventors
• Activists
• Scientists
• Doctors, Lawyers
• Mountain climbers
• Athletes
• Historians
• Writers,
• "Bad ass" women and more. 

300 Unsung Women is available at www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 and other on-line bookstores.

Visit my website at https://dlnelsonwriter.com

 

He Didn't Say - He Couldn't Have Said

 

I heard that Donald Trump said that America is once again respected in the world. 

I don't know what world he's talking about, but none that I inhabit. I live in both Switzerland and the South of France. I have friends in both places of many nationalities .

Respect? People we know and complete strangers, when they hear our accents, are more apt to ask how we are feeling about what is happening in America. They offer us sympathy on the events in our birth country. 

Some tourists have expressed outrage about what Trump is doing to the world. It's more like people want to express condolences over the death of one of our loved ones.

I have yet to hear one good thing about Trump and the current administration from anyone I've talked to.

What I do hear is how they were planning a trip to the U.S., professional and/or personal, but are cancelling them or even never making plans to visit until the nightmare (my word) is over. 

Canadians with second homes, snowbirds to the Floridians, have put their houses on the market hoping not to take too big a loss.

I've heard people say, "I love (put in the name of an American product) but I won't buy anything made in America."

Maybe Trump really believes that America has grown in respect, or he mistook the laughter, snickers and just plain disgust as approval. Or maybe he just wanted to lie to his base. Articles have said many Americans have never traveled far from their home so they don't know the truth. Nor do they take advantage on the web of the different national news services in English to get another point of view. 

Different estimates say that less than one third of all Americans have passports. Trips abroad are often to visit famous sites, check the Eiffel Tower off the list, if it is Tuesday it must be Belgium type trips. Their contact with other nationalities on these trips involve more their waiters, hotel receptionists and ticket takers at famous sites compared to normal citizens of these countries. 

Whether stay at homers or once in a lifetime tourists, learning about the other culture and people is impossible. It makes the lies Trump spews seem real.

I will say, most of the people who talk with us, express sadness for the country we were born in. 

As for us, we do not want to enter the U.S. We fear it. We've told our children only the threat of death will make us risk going to the U.S.

 

 

Mourning the Fourth of July.

 

I cannot celebrate the 4th of July marking the Declaration of Independence. It began as a noble experiment in self-governing. There were hiccups at first as the original states bickered. Rules were unclear until a Constitution was written and signed in 1789. It wasn't perfect either, but it gave guidelines that worked more than they didn't for a majority of the people. 

It's over. What is good has been undermined by the Supreme Court and greedy men who are turning the government from a "we" government into a "me" government that excels in cruelty and greed. The actions of Congress in passing the Big Beautiful Bill have set fire to the U.S. 

Jaime Raskin said it best. 

“We the billionaires, and our King, in order to deform and sicken our union, establish injustice, ensure domestic servility, weaken our people’s defenses, undermine the general welfare and reserve for ourselves and our posterity staggering debt servitude for eternity, do hereby instruct the Republicans in Congress to strip 17 million people of their health care, increase copays, deductibles and premiums for everyone else, cut 42 million people off nutritional assistance, increase the national debt by $4 trillion, trash renewable energy systems, increase our electric bills for the carbon kings, all to weaken and destroy the Constitution of the people of these United States of America.”

 

That is nothing to celebrate but to mourn. I mourn the death of my birth country even though its name will go on and its existence will damage the lives of billions of people not just in the U.S. but around the planet.

 

Armor - the pleasure of family memories

Walking by an antique shop, I spied a suit of armor. "I would love to have it in our living room when Llara, (my daughter) arrives next week," I said to my husband. As someone who came into my life 13 years ago, he didn't know the true story, but he had an idea by our faces that armor was part of our lives when my daughter arrived and I told her about the armor. We hadn't bought it.

Back in the 70s when we lived in Boston and Llara was in high school, I bought a Mexican tin suit of armor from a Harvard Square shop. I'm a lover of medieval history and literature. If my daughter looked at it with great doubt, that was nothing compared to when I sprayed it green and named it Bertilak de Hautdesert, after the green knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a 14th-century alliterative verse romance.

Picture it in my living room at the end of the couch. 

Llara's reaction was to offer to pay whoever visited to take it away. No one took her up on it. At Christmas De Hautdesert had Christmas ornaments dangling from the eye holes in his head piece and garlands hampering any movement he would have wanted to make with his sword. The celebrations of Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween and Thanksgiving were also marked with a change of costume. The only reason she didn't turn him into a maypole was she didn't think of it.

De Hautdesert did not accompany me on my move to Europe, which I've regretted from time to time. 

Rick said he would buy the armor from the antique store, but I'm not sure we have room for it. This more authentic armor I wouldn't paint green. I might reread the poem.

It's not so much the armor, but one of those family memories such as the time I ate my brother's last cupcake, that thread through decades of family life often being retold at family togethers. We could call the stories memory glue.

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

Money vs.Lives

 

When I was a single mom 50 years ago, my daughter had a rare medical problem that took several years to diagnose. She vomited uncontrollably becoming dangerously dehydrated. Between two and six she would have these attacks between every six weeks and three months, requiring hospitalization of up to a week.

There were not many kindergartners who could tell a doctor the name of the medical shot they needed to stop the heaving. She could have given lessons in how to insert an IV to any nursing student or medical intern and would tell her nurses how to do it when they approached her with the needle and saline solution bags often adding, "Please don't hurt me."

Only after a horrendous attack when she was taken by screaming ambulance to Mass General Hospital, did myriad tests and a young pediatrician find the cause, the first case of this illness in his career. It was a form of epilepsy.

The solution was the drug Dilantin. After being on it a few weeks when my daughter vomited from a normal stomach bug and STOPPED we celebrated with a Carvel cake as soon as she recovered.

Believe it or not we were lucky. My divorce decree meant that my ex provided Blue Cross Blue Shield. My boss believed during these attacks my place was with my daughter not in the office. It made my pitifully low salary worth staying at the job. Almost every cent I earned went for necessities. I had an allowance of 25 cents a day for personal extras.

In today's world, I'm not sure my child would have survived. Medicaid is in danger. The program was introduced in 1965 and expanded in 2010.

Here's some facts:

• Medicaid provides health care in most states for people who only live up to 138% over the national poverty line.
• Some states have not accepted the government aid increases.
• As of 2022 some 85 million people are enrolled out of 340,311,000 million people We might ask why so many people are low-income in a country that claims to be one of the richest.
• 37% of the enrollees are children accounting for 15% of the spending
• Annual cost in 2023 was $870 billion 
• Besides children low income seniors and disabled are eligible and are covered. 
• Only U.S. citizens and or qualified non-citizens are eligible. 
• Long-term care and community-based health services are included, 
• There is a variation how Medicaid is administered state by state.

Now the program is under threat by the Big Beautiful Bill. It seems some of the oligarchs, Trump and the cowardly Republicans can't bear to see children, elderly and disabled people get the medical care they need. 

Here's how many people could suffer if this bill is signed into law.

According to Robert Reich, "The 35 richest Republican members of Congress have a net worth of $2.5 billion. They stand to gain from the GOP budget's tax cuts that disproportionately help the rich." None of them worry about paying for a medical test or a consultation. It's a "I have what I need, tough for the rest of you." Those that aren't wealthy are being  pressured by Trump to vote for him not their constituents' needs.

Although America already spends more per person than most countries its results are abysmal according to https://www.internationalinsurance.com/health/systems/

My daughter, now in her 50s, just spent three wonderful weeks with me. I think how lucky I am to have her, not just because of the ups and downs of normal mother-daughter relationships but because there was medical care there when she needed it. A few years later, I might have been on Medicaid.

What will happen with reduced Medicaid? 

How many pregnant women will lose their babies or not survive their pregnancy? 

How many mothers will lose children who could have been saved if only our greedy, immoral alleged leaders thought money was more important than lives?

  

 

 

Free Write

 

Rick's and D-L's writing was done at home for the first time to avoid the heat and humidity. It was Julia's prompt from Switzerland and she named the prompt Perception. "What is it????"  Rick and I wondered. Her Free Write answered our question but we didn't learn that until we'd done and entered our pieces. With luck next week we will be in the same country to do our Free Write.

Julia's Free Write

Take an inanimate object and place it in front of a group of people – what do they see?

Everyone’s perception will probably be different depending upon a multitude of factors.

Age

Older – a lovely piece of wood with a leftover what?

Middle-aged – oh the Pacman of my youth

Youth – weird

Young child – my leftovers from breakfast

Other factors: culture, nationality as well as a multitude of others.

Someone will perhaps see a half-eaten crepe or pancake: a mystery writer might develop a story of murder and half-eaten faces; a baker something made for Halloween, and so it goes.

And I, what do I see?

A crepe made with love for a grandson who seems to have a somewhat artistic bent.

We shall see – perception.

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

D-L's Free Write

Fred, the Yorkie, was barking at something in the sand.

Martha walked over to it as the dog circled his find, tail between his legs and emitting low growls.

The beach was deserted, the summer people having taken their towels back to their jobs and classes. This was when Martha loved the beach most.

She found a stick and poked at it. A raindrop hit her cheek.

There were two holes that could have been eye sockets on some strange skull. Poking the stick in one socket, she picked it up despite her fear of germs. Then she laughed. It was some type of crust. For a pastry maybe?

She held it down so Fred could sniff it. His nose twitched a little before he lost interest and walked away.

Martha took it home and put it on her wooden table to take a photo as a memory of her walk. 

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

 Rick's Free Write

It was Jack’s 1st attempt at homemade tacos, maybe his last.

The dough stuck to the pan and when he managed to rip it off with a spatula the resemblance was to a Halloween pumpkin scare face, or the Pillsbury Doughboy as Phantom of the Opera.

He’d been living alone for a few months now after the separation, and had tired of always eating out, so he started trying to cook for himself. The YouTube videos and internet recipes blurred in his mind, and he hated to bother with measuring cups, teaspoons and milliliters, so now he would just wing it.

The concoctions were usually edible, if ugly. Most could be salvaged with a splash of Schwartz French fry seasoning.

Jack had also abandoned coffee and took up tea. He hated the taste of instant coffee, and making a pot of fresh for himself was too much bother and clean up. Plus, the Starbucks was a half mile walk and expensive.

Tea was boil water, throw in the teabag.

At least he was trying, somewhat. At least he wasn’t resorting to TV dinners from the WalMart grocery.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Porches

When Rick and I were doing our pre-start-the-day reading in bed where we often share what we discover, he mentioned that Cracker Barrel had modernized its decor. There were mixed reactions, the article said, from customers and employees.

Because there were none near my New England home, I'd never been to a Cracker Barrel. The Southern phenomena had not migrated north by the time I left the country in 1990. 

He thought I should experience it. As newlyweds we were showing each other where we'd grown up. I've a newish and happy memory of that Cracker Barrel visit in my kitchen in France, a spider also known as a cast iron fry pan. I'd left my old spider in the States when I'd moved to Europe and missed it even after years. Thus we increased the weight of my luggage with the pan.

As a person who HATES shopping, I enjoyed the atmosphere, especially the porch with its chairs, bringing me back to my childhood porch in Reading MA. In summer we screened it in to annoy the mosquitos who buzzed outside trying to get at us. After the dinner dishes were done my mother my and grandmother would sit on the porch, read until dark then talk as they watched my brother and me play outside. Our play area included a pine grove with 38 trees enclosed with a Robert Frost-type stone wall. 

Half the porch had a ping pong table, but because the grownups were there we didn't disturb them, unless they wanted to play a game with us, which wasn't often.Our porch had Adirondack chairs softened by cushions.  

When Auntie Maud and Uncle Archer visited, their talk continued long after dark.

Because it was summer catching fireflies was more important than bedtimes. In fact, my brother and I often decided we'd had enough and put ourselves to bed or went inside to read. Sometimes after my brother went to bed I'd listen to the adults. It wasn't that boring as they talked about the past such as the time my mother killed a snake that was trying to swallow a toad that they were sure was the one that ate flies on the porch. The toad was saved until she slipped and squished it. I learned that my grandmother and Auntie Maud, as girls when walking by the docks in Boston, accepted an invitation by one of the sailors of a ship tour. Only later did they realize that it could have been dangerous. I now wish I'd recorded their stories.

Back to Cracker Barrel visit on our memory trip. Despite it being 11 years ago, I loved the experience in the store. This is from a person who will sit in a car to read while my husband goes into a mall. It was WONDERFUL.

Rick showed me a photo of the new decor. Boring. Like any other store. It isn't that they will lose me as a customer. We won't go back to the U.S. under the current administration.

I wonder why they changed. Having worked for corporations, non-profits, and media over the years, I know decisions at the top can be made for lots of reasons many of them stupid such as the London non profit which moved its headquarters at a huge cost in pounds and losing a majority of its staff, so the CEO could be closer to home.

Wikipedia said this, "In Q2 2023, the company reported $933.9 million in revenues; takeout, delivery, and catering made up 23% of sales. In May 2024, Cracker Barrel revealed that 16% of their customer base had not returned since 2020. 

I wonder how many focus groups management did before changing to find the reasons, such as Covid. 

Still, sitting in one of those Cracker Barrel chairs, holding my new cast iron fry pan, chatting with my husband about our next destination is right up there in nice memories along with jars of fire flies. 

Visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com to see D-L Nelson's novels and non-fiction works.