Paris

I know it sounds smug and it is, but I don't know how many times I have been to Paris. 50? 60? More?

Enough that I am familiar with landmarks, streets.

When I visited clients in he 90s, I'd arrange appointments Friday and Monday and with a friend explored the museums, landmarks and streets during the weekend.

I've hopped on a train in Geneva to meet friends in the Latin Quarter for lunch and slept in my Swiss bed at night.

I've a friend who lives in Puteaux, which touches La Defense. I've spent time with her just staying in her flat and writing ala Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I began to know some of the merchants and had a taxi cab driver I rode with so often, he wanted his sister to make couscous for me. Time with this friend is always precious. Once upon a time we lived happily across the hall from each other in Geneva. Now we both have husbands but the pleasure is enhanced.

I've even gone to a Jim Haines night. These are famous enough to end up in novels about Paris.

My husband proposed  in front of the Eiffel Tower -- I hate heights or he would have done it at the top.

Never have I taken Paris for granted. Despite greves (strikes--I once joined an artist strike during a lunch break from a workshop) it is still a city where every street has something to see and I've done as much as possible over the years.This last trip this month included two missions.

One was to speak with a group of Expats about FATCA and my novel. We met at Joe Allen's. I'd been to the New York one in the 70s after a Salvation Army commissioning.

About twenty people were there to ask questions and exchange experiences. One of the waiters was from Argelès-sur-mer. I hope we see him next summer.

The second was a panel discussion with two other mystery writers at the American  Library. I was in paradise among all those books and periodicals. The event was extremely well organized, the audience interested and it was a pleasure to share the table with others.

For a girl raised in Reading, MA with a mother who believed if you went more than two towns away you would fall of the edge of the earth, I still need to pinch myself that this is the life I am living now.

I didn't fall off the edge of the earth. I fell into happiness.

thank you

Because my daughter did not want to leave me alone, when she did her 13th year of high school in Germany, I had an exchange student.

The girl, who was wonderful, asked why I said please when I asked her to do something like empty the dishwasher. And it would be followed by a thank you when she did.

I could have answered that my grandmother would rise from the grave if I weren't polite. I once was rude to a waitress in a restaurant. I could not have been more than nine. My grandmother yanked me out of my seat and put me in the car. She could see me out the window while she finished her meal. "Never be rude to someone who is not able to answer back," she said.

There's another reason: please and thank you show respect.

I will say thank you to a waiter when he brings my food. I will thank someone for responding to me in English when I speak French, although I sometimes ask if they think I have an English accent. I love the incredulous looks I get. "Un petit peu" is usually the response.

Although Rick brings me tea in bed most mornings, I wouldn't dream of not thanking him. Yes, it is a routine, but such a lovely one and he expended effort for which he should be thanked.

We both thank each other for meals the other prepares or snacks. The same with anything that shows consideration.

Sometimes when dealing with internationals I will say merci, danke, gracias or shukren or all if I'm not sure of their nationality. This usually brings smiles. Once, it led to the most incredible discussion on a flight from Prague to Geneva, a true moment of sharing between two women from very different places but identical values.

My grandmother had another theory about words like please, thank you and excuse me besides showing respect for another human. She believed politeness greased the wheels for social relationships no matter if it was a superior, a stranger, a service person and/or most importantly a family member.

My grandmother when she was young. 

Throughout her life, she was a stickler for manners.

David and Sharon

My Outlook box is full of adverts I don't want.

I get offers addressed to Dear Sharon or Dear David including information, there is an inheritance waiting for me from a long lost uncle.

Much of what I get is so poorly written it would be hard to even imagine that it might be serious.

I did not believe my friend Mary had her wallet stolen in Wales and needed me to send her money. When I read the email she was sitting in front of me.

I suppose I should be grateful that the spammers are incompetent, but still there are people who fall for it.

In the meantime, Sharon on David, if you're reading this, there's an inheritance waiting for you. If you contact them ask them to stop sending me stuff.

Kai

For the past few weeks I've been following posts about Kai, a beautiful three-year-old boy in Australia who was dying of Myeloid leukemia.

His mother, Kara Nell did regular Facebook postings about the good days, the bad days with such love and hope that I felt I was just down the corridor from them.

No parent should have to see their child suffer and die.

My grandmother throughout her life never totally rid herself of the pain of losing her first daughter Lois. The baby failed to thrive. I have no idea of the problem, but my grandfather insisted they get away for a day to Lanesville to see people. Halfway there, my grandmother insisted he go back. She walked into the house, picked up the baby who died in her arms a few minutes later.

My grandmother still had a full life. She was one of the most loving women I have ever known, but a small corner of her always had a feeling of love and loss.

There was no Facebook in 1916 for my grandmother to share her feelings.

Kara's beautiful writing bought responses from all over the world.

He died in her arms this week, a little short of his fourth birthday.

As a writer, I know writing about pain is a healer. I hope Kara by putting her words out to the world will help her heal.

This blog is to encourage my blog readers to make a donation to cancer research in whatever country they may be.

There should be no more beautiful three-year-olds or any age child to have to go thru this.

OCD

I thought because I liked things neat I was OCD. I want my cosmetics lined up neatly in descending order. When we go to bed at night, I want the kitchen clean (but that has more to do with not wanting to start the day with a mess).

We had a postman that was OCD. He might make someone write and rewrite an address until it met his standard.

At the supermarket, I met a person with real OCD. She had a shopping cart full to the brim. I thought maybe as I stood there with two items, she might let me go ahead, but that was wishful thinking.

She unloaded her cart as if each can, bottle, package was a treasure. She would put the cans down on the belt with others like it all the labels in the same direction. The items would be twisted and turned until they were exactly identical.

She would start with the next category. Half way thru, she decided the second category should go before the first which meant more alignments to the cans. Then came two flat packages which had to be aligned with the sides of the conveyor belt a certain space apart.

The cans position still were not quite right. They went back into the shopping cart until everything else was right then they came at the end of the order in military precision. I was tempted to stay to see how she loaded them in her basket (in France we pack our own groceries) but I decided I had other things to do before bedtime.

I guess I am not OCD.

'78 Blizzard

I dreamed last night about the Blizzard of '78 that shut down Boston for a week. It's anniversary will be Feb. 5-8.

Boston had already been hit with at least a foot of snow. We were still digging out when this new storm rushed up the coast. A Canadian front stopped it and kept it off shore picking up more and more water to turn into more and more snow.

During 33 hours a good 27 inches were dumped on the region.

Snow alone would have been bad, but there were hurricane winds leaving drifts up to the second story of some buildings.

Polaroid Credit Union, where I was Public Relations Director, closed early. The T couldn't go beyond Northeastern because the tracks were above ground. I walked by the Museum, Longwood and Brigham Circle stops before making it home. At the time I had a Scottish suede coat with a thick wool lining, weighing 34 pounds. It kept me warm.

I shared a house with Bill, Susan, my daughter Llara and our German Shepherd Nikki. They were already home. Bill worked at Harvard Medical across the street and Susan worked at Simmons, only a couple of blocks away. My daughter had had no school because of the previous storm.

We had just bought a house on Wigglesworth St. named for a Harvard specialist in syphyllis during the 1800s. A handyman's nightmare would be an understatement as we tried to turn the three flats into one house and undo the damage that had been done.

We were lucky.

People were stuck in their cars on 128, some dying.  A little boy froze to death a few feet from his house. These were tragedies that were sobering against our comfort.

We had electricity. Because we were located near several major hospitals, the electrics were underground.

We had food, heat, light.

Our normal lives were rushed: we worked full time in demanding jobs, two of us were taking evening courses, I was a single mother but Susan and Bill shared with parenting responsibilities.

Weekends were  spent in stripping paint, knocking down walls. The four of us and Nikki lived in the middle flat of two rooms while we worked on the third floor. The first floor was storage.

Suddenly, we no longer controlled by the clock as we stuffed too much into each day.

We couldn't leave the house.

Even Nikki couldn't go out back to go to the toilet. The doors were solid snow. She looked at us strangely when we put down papers but need overcame training.

We worked on the house, we caught up on school work, we read, we played countless games of gin rummy. Despite the howling winds (some clocked at 100 mph+), we were having a wonderful time.

Governor Dukasis closed down the area for the week so locals and the National Guard could dig out the roads.

We had pizza and wine with neighbors.

When one of the local grocery stores opened, the men checked on the older neighbors on what they needed. They walked on the carless streets.

Susan did have to go into work. There had been a flu outbreak at her school, and the nurses couldn't get into work. She was one of the few staff close enough to get there on foot.

Without cars, without trams with the deep, deep snow, there was a silence, a peace never heard before.

Slowly the city came back to life, but Llara's school was cancelled for another week. Susan, Bill and I were all going back to work. We walked to North Station and put my daughter on a train that was running to Reading, where she would stay with her father. It was her first trip alone. What a relief when I heard they connected safely.

The sea attacked the coastline. Motif No. 1 in Rockport which had been painted by hundreds of artists was washed away.

Houses were destroyed.

My father's boat the Grand Slam, a 38-foot cabin cruiser he had lovingly built, was swept out to the sea, even though it had been dry docked for the winter inland.

Slowly, life returned to normal. Motif No. 1 has been rebuilt. My dad decided not to rebuild his boat. The snow melted. Businesses reopened.

We went back to work and school.

Mother nature had won only temporarily but she had left us with a lesson, she will always win if she wants to.

Buying food

Food shopping can be boring UNLESS you do it at a French marché.

Joel, our olive dealer, after giving him the New Years kisses, put fruit in a bag. "It's free if you can catch it." He pretended to dribble, then tossed it to me. I caught it.

Then there was our chat with Catherine, the brownie lady. Her pastries are great and sometimes she brings me a bag of baked dough, which I love because they carry childhood of my grandmother doing the same thing.

Rick grabbed me and we danced on the street.

Marché shopping, much more interesting than a supermarket can offer, and more personal.

Friendship

The doorbell rang.

Rick answered. I heard, "Our priest is here."

RB2, walked in. He is not a real priest, but he performed the role at our commitment ceremony Aug. 10, 2013.

What a treat. We do not see each other often enough because we are often not in the same country at the same time.

Our friendship goes back to 1990 when we both went to work for a Swiss company. It was a freak thing that he bought a copier in Holland where he lived and tested it with a want ad. He answered it and got the job.

I'd desperately been looking for work from Boston, saw the same ad, answered it and was working there a couple of months later.

We shared the company apartment and developed a friendship over backgammon, food shopping trips, spur-of-the moment explorations in France, trips to my cousins in Germany where he was working on his degree nearby, endless conversations, concerts, etc.

He would come home some late Fridays and ask, "Do you want to go to Argelès?" I would stumble out of bed, wake my two Japanese chins and sleep the seven-hour drive. We would spend Saturday there then explore our way home on Sunday.

He bought a house in ASM, fell in love with the girl next door and married her. I was his witness.

When he was working in Geneva but living in Nice, he spent the work week with me. It led to fondues and meringues at the Café de Soleil, more music and endless conversations.

Thus, when it was my turn to commit to the love of my life and until we sorted out the problems of an international marriage, it was only natural that RB2 help us make our vows before 40+ friends from seven countries.

We caught up on the news over tea. He is heading back to Switzerland. We'll be there as well but in a different part.

Someone once said he was my wantabe brother. That works. I would say he has enriched my life with his honesty, sharing and friendship.

And every knock on the door from him is a gift.

Judgemental

Years ago, my first professional boss gave me a box with what looked like a phallus, a ugly phallus at that. It was a plant.

I had great respect for the man, who wrote a syndicated gardening column as a sideline. He was a mentor in every sense of the word.Thirty years into my career, his lessons were still helping me professionally.

I couldn't say to him, "that is the ugliest thing I've seen in a long time," even if politeness had not been drummed into me as a child. Had I done that, my grandmother would have risen from the grave and schlonked me on the head not unlike Little Bunny Foo Foo and the field mice.

I took the plant home.

My housemates also deemed it one of the ugliest plants they'd seen, but we followed his instructions and within days it had blossomed into a beautiful red flowering plant.

It was a good lesson in not prejudging.

Many years at Christmas I will get an amaryllis, never when it is had bloomed, but when it is still ugly for the pleasure or watching the metamorphosis.

This year I bought them for our neighborhood mamies (the old women of the village who share their wisdom with me) and one for myself. Theirs were red: mine was the white. I'd never had a white one.

I started posting its development on Facebook, or should I say lack of development, Day 1 morphed into Day 15 and nothing.

Finally, it started to show its true beauty.

There was one day when its progress was marked by hours when each time I walked by the table, it had exposed a bit more of its petals.

There's more to come even after Day 24 below. In this world of instant gratification, the slowness adds to the pleasure of the progress discovery.

POV

Years ago at a writers conference, a workshop leader said that women can't write from a man's point of view and vice versa. A white person can't write from a black person's.

If one carried that to an extreme, we would only write about ourselves.

In Family Value, I describe a man's point of view as he is having a vasectomy, something I couldn't experience even if I wanted to. I'd interviewed several men who had them and then gave them my manuscript to make sure it was accurate. They made slight adjustments.

As I was reading Picoult's new novel, I wondered about her Point of Views of a white supremacist, a black woman who was a daughter of a cleaning woman. The character had climbed into the middle class, and a white woman lawyer who only knew white privilege.

It rang true, but then again, I only have a white privilege point of view for living experiences. At the end of the book, she explains how she researched the different points of view.

As writers, just writing about ourselves would be terribly boring. The secret is research, probably tied in with either empathy or understanding of motivations. I would love to sit down with a white supremacist and a black woman and get their opinions on whether Picoult nailed it or not.

In any case, Picoult has produced another good read in the category of misery lit.

4.5

It's been 4.5 years since Rick and I reconnected, I think as I put down my Kindle and move into his arms for a quick cuddle before showering and starting our day.

We've had our tea and biscuit and exchanged various items we've read.

Once I'm in the shower, I think for the xxxxxxxxth time how lucky we are as a couple.

I've only half joked that we couldn't break up, because for too many people we are the fairy-tale marriage. They couldn't take our separation. I wouldn't want to break up either, because for me it is true that he made the great life (apologies to Trump) I had before him, even greater.

It's not that we're rich (money), far from it. But we have enough. By being frugal in most things we can afford those few luxuries such as travel or a meal in a good restaurant.

We are rich in each other. We are kind and considerate. We do small things for one another such as make sure our mate's towel and robe are preheated on the towel rack.

It holds true for big and small stuff.

We can be alone together, each pounding away at our writing (or in my case sometimes playing a computer game) within feet of each other with no idea the other is near by. When we finish we can share what we've done.

If getting up to see the sunrise on the beach only happens a few times, there are those more regular mini moments of pleasure: village walks at sunset, greeting friends on the street, a photo safari, watching the ducks a Lake Léman is joy--far too many to list.

There are silly things such as the stuffed animals wedding, laughing at a DVD with burned popcorn or a water pistol fight.

We can handle the bad stuff that comes up in life, but see no need to seek it out.

Our smiles in the photo are not just for our camera. They are for our lives.

The philanthropic snake

Both my former housemate Julia and husband Rick have asked me at different times why I had put a book in the freezer.

It was simple. There was a snake in the story, snakes give me nightmares and so I wouldn't have nightmares, I froze it.

People know I don't like snakes.

My grandmother was terrified of them. One could hear her discovery of one several houses down the street.

My fear is not like that. When I was student teaching I turned around and was looking at the flickering tongue of a snake, held by one of my students. I took it from him, asked questions about it and told him to put it away.

Bravery?

No!

Desire not to be subject to future attacks by creepy crawlies.

The boy was tottering between a D- and F. I gave him the F. Without the snake, it would have been a D- more of a gift really than he deserved.

When I was little at bath time my mother and I would do double stories, each one of us taking part. Neither of us knew where it would lead. Sometimes the characters were original. Both my mother and I ended up as writers and we had vivid imaginations.

One of the recurring characters was Mrs. Snake who was me. I was a philanthropist snake. My mother's role was to find people or animals that would be helped with my money. At five and six I wasn't sure where money came from and why a snake should have any didn't matter.

Because my mother would offer other alternatives for stories, I suspect she wasn't crazy about Mrs. Snake, but she always gave in after I rejected one or two ideas.

You will notice that there are no photos of snakes in this blog. If I put them on, I would have to put my laptop in the freezer so I won't have nightmares tonight.

Quelle année 3

The last part of the year was best -- a complete contrast to the first part. It was wonderful to feel good again. Of course, this was in contrast to the most depressing US election in my lifetime, drone attacks and other world horrors. Sometimes, I think I should feel guilty to have such personal happiness against what is happening outside my cocoon.

September 2016

As the last of the summer people were leaving, there was a farewell dinner in the vineyards overlooking the sea. No matter how chilly it was it was fun.

Lydia and I made Eva's relish, a treasured recipe from the past. A couple of jars were for gifts, but we will horde the rest.

October 2016

We became nomads. Our first stop was Boston to scoop my daughter. A memory I will treasure always was my friend Bruce and me reading the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere at the site of the Battle of Lexington. Time with friends is always too short, but no less precious.

We spent time seeing the historic sights including Salem with all its kitschy witch stuff.

Rick and I spent a sunny fall afternoon wandering around Walden Pond, spying chipmunks and admiring the autumn colors.

We headed for Montreal with Llara where Rick saw his client, and we met up with a friend from Geneva.

She told us about a lantern display. There were hundreds of life size lanterns, each more spectacular than the one before. Serendipity.

On to see my mother-in-law and Rick's brothers and sister-in-law. His mom helped me find material for the reparations of the quilt my grandmother made me a half century ago. But best of all was just having time together.

Our last stop was Long Island with a friend that proves you don't have to agree to still be good friends. There we saw Teddy Roosevelt's house and I fell in love with rainbow bagels.

One of the reasons I adore my husband he makes sure I have time with my women friends. What fun to explore Long Island and its neat little tea rooms with Ro.

S'mores at your table was just one of the delights we discovered.

She and I took a long walk at a special reserve where we could  renew all the closeness we've shared in the past and hope to do in the future.

November 2016

First Berlin for a business conference. I really enjoyed my toe-dipping into the professional world again. No desire to do it up to the ankle. He and I do have a few professional projects together.

Then off to Prague just because we could. What a beautiful city. My only regret, I'd lost contact info for my Czech friends, but they contacted me later in the year.

Back in Geneva, Tummy, our landlady's cat quickly reestablished his right to our bed.

We didn't have the car with us, and the extra exercise of walking up the hill was not only good exercise it was a victory because a few months before even getting to the bottom of the hill was impossible.

Thanksgiving at Marro with guests visiting Julia and Scott eliminated any trace of homesickness, the only day of the year I feel it. Boston Latin won its football game, Reading High lost theirs. Checking the results is part of the tradition.

Rick finished my Journaling thru Cris video and I began to get the word out. It is designed to give people a coping tool no matter what kind of bad times they are going thru.

Julia and FINALLY did one of our adventures. This was to Christmas market in Freiburg and an antiques fair in Bern. She is a joy to travel with.

December 2016

Both of us were busy with writing but there was time for fun such as the Carpe Diem dinner theatre Quebec troop using the death of Marilyn Monroe as the subject. The Escalade celebrated throwing the French out of Geneva in 1602.

I read from Murder in Schwyz mid month before returning to Argelès, which this year transformed itself into a magic Christmas land. And Père Noël did his annual descent down the church tower.

Christmas itself was quiet with a dinner at home with one friend.

Tonight is New Year's Eve. I am about to prepare foie gras toasts to take to the house party where we will meet up with friends.

We make a big thing about a new year. In reality, it is just tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I am grateful for each one.

I wish for everyone a healthy, peaceful, safe year.

Quelle année 2

In a year marked by drones, strikes, crazy elections, terrorism and more catastrophes, we were still able to build a fort around ourselves for our good feelings. We care about world events, but the good allows us to fight the bad when we can.

May 2016

Rick and I celebrated our first "official" wedding anniversary at the Café du Soleil, where we re-met after 24 years. Each year they put out a calendar. I always send a copy to my daughter.

For us, it is the commitment ceremony that counted in August 2013. I periodically reread the vows we made that day to remind me of how lucky I am.

I started on the ms. for the the video of Journaling thru Crisis with goal of giving caretakers, people with serious illnesses and people going thru major changes a coping mechanism. It would not be completed until November but the delay would allow refinements.

I continued to fight FATCA whether thru the lawsuit, writing to journalists, congress etc. My energy was renewed by the fact my insurance company needed proof I was no longer American to continue my policy.

June 2016

We headed back to Argelès for the summer via Normandy where we lined up with two college friends giving a tour as they do regularly. We'd lost contact for many years and reestablishing the exchange of ideas and experiences was refreshing.

What a thrill to stand in front of the tomb of William the Conqueror or what is allegedly the rest of his bones. It is as if I had a personal introduction to the people throughout history that I've read so much about.

Seeing the Bayeux tapestry depicting the 1066 invasion of England was moving with its bodies of men fallen in battle so long ago. I'd seen a copy in reading, UK years before. We'd been to the different Normandy museums with the photos of all the young men about to die and the cemetery with too many white crosses of two many young men who never had a chance to live their normal life.

Rick commented in a 1,000 years humans hadn't learned much. People were still dying for causes that in x number of centuries weren't important.

This was probably the best message of the trip drawn on a wall where the English had miraculously constructed landing docks to supply the troops.

A trip to Paris to see friends was delayed due to strikes and fuel uncertainty, but my wonderful husband suggested we stop in La Rochelle.

We discovered the parish where my ancestor Michel Boudrot (Boudreau in later spellings) had been baptized and married. He later became a general in Nova Scotia and fathered more than a baker's dozen of children after sailing in a ship probably much like the one in the harbor.

I was happy I once again had hair and strength to do normal things.

While Rick attended an airshow in the UK, we stayed with good friends where ever nook of their home was a cozy corner. It was a wonderful days where we saw Cambridge, quaint pubs including some with parts of the building going back to the time of Elizabeth 1 and the West End production of Carole King's Beautiful. The best part was having so much time with our hosts and their friends.

Back in ASM, there were weekly street dances, dinners and lunches with friends.



Aug. 2016


We spent part of the month in Geneva. There was the visit of our Syrian friends and Julia's annual national day open house. This year it was neither too hot or too cold.

The lake as always was beautiful as were the mountains. Although it was hot, it was still a bit cooler than ASM. Thank goodness.

Back in ASM, Rick fixed the handles of my much-loved basket. I've carried so much food, laundry, gifts just about anything imaginable that I hated to throw it away. He found colored tape and voilà, it has a new life.

L'Hostalet was a gathering spot for friends either for coffee in the morning or an apèro in the afternoon. The owners made a great tapenade. A good place to start or end a writing day.

Our picnic basket had a final workout at the lake with our Swiss friends and neighbors here. We'd collected everything from vide greniers at a price of almost nothing. Our friend Karrie, however came up with the best basket ever (not shown here). We use this basket for the blanket.

In the brocante shop, after our basket was complete, we found one that had everything but it would lack the memory of the hunt at the vide greniers and the delight of finding Karrie at our front door with that perfect basket.

In my mind September is the start of the new year. Summer is over, school is starting (even when I was neither a student of preparing my daughter for school.

The days are shorter, there is the anticipation of cooler nights and the start of new projects. Tomorrow, I'll finish Quelle année.

Quelle année 1

2016 was a year filled with catastrophes, natural and man-made, political upsets, vitriol, deaths of icons and hatred.

In contrast to that I've lived in a cocoon of happiness, bolstered by a loving husband and friends. It is not just that I give to my friends and they give to me, but they give to each other.

It doesn't mean the year was problem free for me or some of my friends, but it does make it possible to get thru negative.

I will be doing a month by month summary today, tomorrow and Saturday.

January 2016

My last chemo. People think I am crazy when I said much of it was fun. The staff at HUG made each session almost like a tea party with discussions of kids, pets, recipes and more. I was never sick, just terribly, terribly weak.

And my Helicopter Husband was there when the after chemo-weakness struck. Before we married, he had been warned against limiting my independence, but I learned that there are times when it is okay to be dependent, I am so grateful to Rick for all that he did. I am lucky he is in my life.

February 2016

Julia and I went for sushi. I could eat it again now that I wasn't worried about bacteria and low blood accounts. Between her broken arm and my continued weakness we needed to tea up to have the strength to open a bottle of Coke. The normalcy of lunch with a good friend was a real, real treat.

I was able to get back to Argelès for a few days before starting radiation. Learning it wouldn't be five weeks of five treatments daily, but one treatment a week in Bern for five weeks was great. A piece of cake.

March 2016

I had the strength to attend the Geneva Writers Conference, intellectually stimulating. A chance to get reacquainted with two special writers and friends, Mohamed and Sylvia, who no longer live in the area, and several others whose work I respect.

The weekly trips to Bern allowed us to explore that city a bit. The train was the better alternative. The one day we drove, it took us longer to get thru Geneva traffic than it did to go from Bern to Geneva.

I'd worried about speaking German--mine is of the shopping variety, not medical, and as for my Swiss German? Forget it.

My doctor spoke seven languages fluently. While he heated my skin (part of the treatment) we chatted about history, medicine, books and so many topics that the 45 minutes seem like seconds. What a delight he was.

April 2016 

Back in ASM, I was strong enough for Rick to go a business trip, although many friends were on standby if I needed help, which I didn't.

Doing normal things like baking bread and cookies became gifts.

We started going to Sunday vide greniers to search for a picnic basket and all its contents such as dishes, glasses, knives, etc. Our first find, however, was a magazine rack for the bathroom. Sometimes that room can be called the New Yorker or Reading Room.

The one downside, or maybe not because it was a bit of an adventure, was being helicoptered to the hospital in Perpignan after an esophagus attack. They match the pain of a heart attack but after having them for decades, the results of follow up tests are always I'm fine. The tests are precautions. I was sorry Rick couldn't go with me because I had a lovely view of Canigou, the mountain he loves. He did meet me at the hospital.