What is with men and sex

They say a male snake will mate with any female snake dead or alive. With each new sex scandal it seems if big-shot men can be the same as that male snake.

When Eliot Spritzer paid $5000 to a call girl, I wondered what could be worth that amount of money. It had to be the Royal Oak, Rollex watches of sex. The Ferrari of fu--ing.

Despite my age, I still think sex is wonderful. Making love is even better.

I understand wanting an orgasm. I understand enjoying one or many.

I never saw marriage as being the only place to have sex, which is good considering I was single most of my adult life. My mother said a man wouldn't buy a cow if he could get the milk for free. I was watched much more closely when I replied, "They test drive cars." Virginity isn't as important now as it was then. This is good. Sex is a natural act that humans have cloaked in all sorts of rules and regulations that have little to do with nature.

I understand looking at someone who isn't your partner and thinking hmmm. Maybe once the hmmm would be returned but I doubt if any hunk on the beach, would hmmm me today.

What I don't understand is the feeling that because one is in a powerful position they can use that power to subjugate others.

The Epsteins, Weinsteins and their ilk are just one gag-producing of the male-snake phenomena. That a powerful, talented man has sex with women should not be criteria for their professional lives. If they are abusing women or children with their power, it should be.

Happiness

Before the sun was up my husband bought me a cup of tea and a heart-shaped, chocolate-frosted biscuit. He kissed me and left for the golf course.

I finished the book Change of Heart, only a few pages, when Sherlock decided to be ultra affectionate. Because it was still cool I took him for a walk, or I let him wander wherever he wanted to go, having him sniff to his heart's greatest wish.

The birds were singing. Petals from different flowering plants had colored the sidewalk pink, white and purple depending on the flower. I don't know the names. I just know looking at them makes my eyes happy.

Back home, a shower was followed by indecision on what to make for breakfast.

The solution?

Wander down to La Noisette at the corner of my street for tea, apple juice and a croissant, a chat with Amadine, the owner. I took my latest copy of The New Yorker and read about Macron and the problems of ballet companies that lose their choreographers.

The sky was overcast making it cooler. From time to time I watched people walk by, and then I realized the church across the street was preparing for a funeral. Some of the funeral traditions are different which may be another blog. The ringing of the bells always reminds me of the song Trois Cloches by Edith Piaf. There was also a pleasant memory of watching a movie about her life with my friend from Long Island running through my mind.

I bought a Christmas present for my daughter, picked up a watch that I had left at the jewelers for a new battery, grateful that everything I want and need are within a small block.

At home, my husband had returned. We chatted about his game.

A friend stopped by.

It was my day to cook. Since I had a dream about Chinese noodles, I suggested I "cook" at the Chinese buffet.

The car was pleasant with its air conditioning.

The restaurant was closed.

We decided to try the Chinese buffet in Perpignan. It too was closed, but, but, but Casablanca was open and the couscous was great.

Back home it was time to do some writing. 

How I revel in my life.

50 years ago

As a little girl, I read the Ladies Home Journal's section on events 50 years before. The world of my grandmother, the world of ancient history.

Now when I see 50 years ago, it almost seems like yesterday. In 1969 my daughter was born, Woodstock happened, Richard Nixon was inaugurated, man walked on the moon. The cost of living was different (see the end of the blog).

Then came the 70s, 80, 90s. If I think I back, they still seem daily real to me, definitely not ancient history.

It seems as if I could still walk into the condo on The Riverway in Boston,  and it would be just the same. I sold it in 1989.

On Facebook there are photos of things with the caption,"do you know what this is?" I do and am surprised they are no longer common items.

Equally surprising is when a friend had a bump, that bump is now out of college and may have a bump of their own.

I could ask where does the time go?

The answer is in living day by day. Most of those days were good days. A tragedy or two did make me appreciate the happy days. 50 years ago I had many lessons ahead of me. Now I am reaping the rewards of those lessons.

Cost of Living 1969

How Much things cost in 1969

Yearly Inflation Rate USA 5.46 %

Yearly Inflation Rate UK 5.6%

Year End Close Dow Jones Industrial Average 800

Average Cost of new house $15,550.00

Average Income per year $8,550.00

Average Monthly Rent $135.00

Average Cost New Car $3,270.00

Toyota Corona $1,950.00

Gas per Gallon 35 cents

Alarm Clock from Westclox $9.98

Mad Magazine

What me worry?

The demise of Mad was a bit of a shock, although it shouldn't be. Almost everything I grew up with is gone. Some of that is good, other things, not so much. And print publications are beginning to look more and more like the dodo.

Mad was part of my teenage years. My ex and I would laugh at the issues together even as adults.

After I moved to Europe in 1990 I never saw it and didn't miss it. And I barely thought about it, unless some comment jarred my memory.

However, when an American came back into my life and mentioned it to my daughter, her reaction was -- AHA, something I can  him. She regularly sends him copies. I suspect she reads them first. The issues end up in our bathroom reading rack along with The New Yorker.

A high school friend wrote on Facebook to buy up all the copies possible. In a few years they can be sold with the profit large enough to put grand kids through university. 

Merriman Webster defines satire.

1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn

2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly

 

Mad was the epitome of satire. In today's scary world, a bit of humor is needed to give one the strength to face what we need to worry about. There is a sadness in its demise.

 

Gaff or ignorance

Nary an airplane in sight

I was walking down the congressional building in D.C. with Solomon Yue of the Republican Oversees Committee. I was one of the few Democrats there to talk to various Republican congressmen on the damage FATCA was doing to American expats. It was shortly after my filmed testimony was presented to the committee looking into the issue.

We were talking about Trump and Yue was pleased Trump was keeping his promises. (The promises could be the subject for another blog, but I won't write it) I asked him if he had read the transcript of a speech Trump gave. He had not. I pointed out it bordered on incoherent. My opinion, unqualified but from observation, was the man was either demented or suffering from Alzheimer's. Yue changed the subject.

On July 4, 2019, another example taken from Rolling Stone, even more frightening  happened. (I also listened to the video to verify what appeared).

“In June of 1775 the Continental Congress created a unified Army out of the Revolutionary Forces encamped around Boston and New York, and named after the great George Washington, commander-in-chief. The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown.” Trump said.

“Our Army manned the air, it rammed (?) the ramparts, it took over airports, it did everything it had to do. And at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, had nothing but victory. When dawn came, the star-spangled banner waved defiant.”

Even if an ignorant speech writer wrote that, the president of the United States, any president of the United States, should know that airplanes were non-existent. Fort McHenry was several decades later during the war of 1812.

This is the person who has the power to destroy the world in many different ways.

I tell my friends, when I see the American Flag these days, I feel fear...fear of what the US is going to do next and to whom.

Now I am no longer afraid.

I am terrified.

Ideas, research and writing.

Ideas for novels come from strange places.

Murder on Insel Poel was born on a trip from Geneva to the Baltic island to retrieve a painting for my then housemate. The ride had been full of sightseeing and adventures such as being the only two non-police at a hotel where a police training seminar was being held and seeing former Communist watch towers. We also reduced our checklist of German foods we wanted to eat on route.

The staff at the museum that was showing the painting welcomed us. In one of those serendipity moments, we found ourselves making paper Christmas decorations with them and drinking coffee.

As I wandered around the museum, I saw a model of a ship--the Cap Arcona. I asked about it and was told at the end of WWII, the Germans had loaded the former luxury ship with prisoners from concentration camps. Their intent was to sink it in the Baltic. The British, thinking it was full of German officers on vacation sank it first. Some of the camp survivors were able to make it to the Insel Poel shore.

Suddenly, I had the historical part of my next novel, but I needed a modern part.

The idea of sex trafficking and child abuse came from CNN specials.

The third plot for the book would be about the air force pilot that bombed the ship and his romance with a vicar's daughter.

Research on some of the topics was readily available, but I needed more for authenticity.

My housemate, always up for an adventure, was more than willing to return to Insel Poel to get more information. This time we stopped at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp. I spent a painful few hours listening to oral histories from former prisoners.

Back in Insel Poel, we checked more off our German favorite's checklist and explored the island, which reminded me of a lobster claw. 

I found a boat which triggered the idea for a scene where Annie, my heroine, would be held prisoner.

The cemetery and phone book provided names for local characters.

My housemate’s German was the biggest help. She wandered off and came back with a slew of information that I could never have gleaned on my own.

.

As for the English part, at my late friend’s bookstore in Argelès, I met an English air force veteran, not quite from the war, but enough to fill me with technical information the reinforced or added to what I found on the Internet.

It was time to write using my research. During the entire research period, plot ideas were popping up in my head. There are writers that map out everything they are planning. I am not one of those writers. Often, I will sit down with one idea and I veer of in a direction that is a total surprise to me. In Murder in Caleb's Landing, I reached the end and realized the person I'd taped as the killer, couldn't possibly have done it. When I went back to do the necessary foreshadowing, it was already written.

I wish I could say how I built each character. I can't.

Admittedly, I do know some general things such age, profession and general As I write, they develop their inner characters until they are as real to me as friends I see regularly. They dictate to me what they would do. My fingers seem to know when I type a thought or action, that they would never do. In the past characters have almost gone on strike.

How does that happen?

As I write the scene, I feel an uncontrollable urge to go clean the bathroom, iron, rearrange anything even pay bills. It is as if they are telling me I am on the wrong track.

When I write a book, I live a double life…one that everyone sees and one in my head, where I am in whatever world I am writing about.

In the novel I am currently writing Day Care, in the middle of night when I can't sleep, Anne-Marie has long talks with me as to whether she should return to her husband; Maureen worries that they won't discover why her daughter has uncontrollable bouts of vomiting; Ashley is happy that her adopted daughter’s birth mother is doing well in medical school, and Sally knows she will never reunite with her parents. As for Brenda, she wasn’t even supposed to be in the novel, but she shoved her way in as a journalist writing a book and is constantly giving me insights into the other women.
That happened in Caleb's Landing as well when a walk-on role by a neighbor turned into a major plot twist with a dynamic woman that I wished was real.

They say reading lets you live other lives, but then, so does writing fiction.