Off the path

We do a lot of car travel usually on autoroutes but on the way to Geneva from Argelès-sur-mer there was so much traffic we took a side road and found a medieval town full of little passageways.

Then the next day from Geneva to Colmar, France we found a New England type farm selling pumpkins and gourds.

And we stumbled across a Roman village.

And rather than eat the normal autoroute food in a Swiss village we found the Cafe Knaus, which served us a a great Spätzle.

Makes the clichés of off the beaten path and roads less travel ring true.

Apple 10 Slave makers

$1000 are they kidding? For a telephone?

What if you already have a working one? Why would you throw $1000 on a new phone that doesn't do the dishes, make the beds and wash the floor?

If I had an extra $1000 I would use for any of these things or divide it between them:

• Pay off a credit card
• Reduce my mortgage
• Pay down my student loan
• Reduce my debt on my car
• Donate to a worthwhile charity

However, I don't have on those loans. At the risk of sounding smug, because I don't fall for the need to have the latest stuff shoved at me by a corporation who wants to fool me into thinking I'm cool to have it, I don't have any of those debts. I buy cars and property with cash. My credit cards are paid off every month so interest charges don't make bargains very expensive.

I have savings to allow me to live free.

By not having debts I was not a slave to a bad employer or even a good one.

I had options.

I never sang, I owe, I owe so off to work I go.

I don't need to be cool.

The diary

When Rick was preparing The Nest (the studio where I lived until I married) for guests, he found my old diaries from high school.

Nothing in them would foretell of later writing success. Trying to read my writing is like working with a medieval manuscript. The diary is a five year one, but I turned it into two.

At random I opened to July 15 1954. It read "Dad hit mum at the club. She is going to file for separation and custody. In the afternoon we went to the club."

I have no memory of my father being violent. I do remember constant fighting and being forced to choose sides.

On July 16 I wrote, "Mummy went to see a lawyer. Dad came home. Afternoon we rode on a toy train and after played mini golf."

 After that there is little mention of the divorce or my father. I remember being one of three children in seventh grade whose parents were divorced. The other two were twins. Although I wrote nothing about it, I played on the sympathy of the teachers. It worked for a while.

Life took on a new normal, a better normal.

Only as an adult was I able to develop a relationship, a good one, with my father and began to understand what I had ignored as a child.

Hunters save 2

FOREST, DE--Hunters saved two people, a grand mother and an eight-year old child from certain death, this morning.

John Malden and Aidan Staples were out hunting when they heard screams coming from a cabin in the woods near Ely Pond.

The rushed over to the cabin which was in total chaos. A wolf in a nightcap was chasing Amber Red around a bed. The wolf, they said was wearing a nightcap. The nightcap had belonged to Amber's grandmother who was tied up in a closet.

The hunters subdued the wolf.

"He wanted to eat me," Amber told reporters.

"The grandmother was too old and tough to eat," the wolf said as he was led away by forest rangers.

"I met him on the way to Grandma's house," Amber said. "I was bringing her this basket of goodies." She pointed to a basket that had been overturned. Brownies, apples, a bottle of juice were on the floor.

"Mummy told me not to talk to strangers, but he seemed so nice and asked me where I was going." She wiped tears from her eyes.

The Grandmother, who had been recovering from the flu and was taken to the hospital to make sure she wasn't in any danger from her trauma, told reporters later in the day, "The wolf knocked. When I opened the door, he overpowered me and tied me up." She still had marks on her face from the tape where the wolf had gagged her.

"The worse part was I could hear everything. Amber said things like 'What big ears you have, Grandma and big teeth. Really, the kid can't tell the difference between me and a wolf. I told her mother she needed glasses." Mrs. Hood will be released from the hospital today.

The Wolf will be arraigned in court on Monday.

FATCA fight continues

Contact: Solomon Yue (USA)                          +1-503-370-7499 solomon@fatcalegalaction.com

Kym Kettler-Paddock (Overseas) +852-5620-1839 republicans.overseas.action@gmail.com www.republicansoverseas.com

Plaintiffs in FATCA Challenge Seek En Banc Rehearing

Plaintiffs in Crawford, et al. vs. US Department of Treasury, et al. have filed a filed a Petition for En Banc Rehearing in their fight against the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) and related provisions after the Sixth Circuit affirmed the lower district court’s ruling that none of the plaintiffs had standing, i.e., sufficient harm to bring a challenge.

Plaintiffs believes consideration by the full court is necessary because the Sixth Circuit decision conflicts with two United States Supreme Court decisions—Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus (“SBA”) and Roe v. Wade.

First, the Sixth Circuit has employed a very restrictive view of standing—requiring a certain threat of prosecution to establish standing. But SBA recognized standing where there is “an intention to engage in a course of conduct arguably affected with a constitutional interest and . . . there exists a credible threat of prosecution thereunder.” Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 134 S. Ct. 2334 (2014). Here, Plaintiffs have a “credible threat of prosecution,” which, under SBA, exists where a statute proscribes an activity one has done or intends to do and there is no evidence the statute is no longer enforced. Thus, Plaintiffs have standing to challenge the law.                    

Next, the Sixth Circuit attempts to evade Roe, which stands for the legal doctrine that coercion against a third party gives a person affected by that coercion standing to challenge the law causing the coercion even if the burdens and/or penalties of the law don’t directly apply to the person asserting standing. So just as coercion against physicians who performed abortions gives standing to women denied an abortion by those physicians because of the coercion, also coercion against foreign financial institutions gives standing to persons denied financial services by those foreign financial institutions because of the coercion. So, Plaintiffs have standing under Roe and the Sixth Circuit should reverse its decision.    

James Bopp, Jr., lead counsel for the plaintiffs challenging FATCA and related provisions comments as follows: “Numerous Americans overseas are suffering serious difficulties in getting basic banking services where they live as a result of FATCA, as documented by a Democrats Abroad study, yet a panel of the Sixth Circuit says they have no harm. It does so by using erroneous standards that conflict with key U.S. Supreme Court cases. So we are asking the whole Sixth Circuit to examine the case and correct the panel’s errors. We hope that the whole Sixth Circuit will follow controlling Supreme Court precedents.

tradition

Sunday breakfasts are a tradition in our couple.

We may stay in bed reading or checking the internet until hunger strikes.

Rick prepares it usually while I watch BBC's Dateline.

This Sunday's was especially good and will never be duplicated.

Why?

The combination of leftovers combined with his airlight scrambled eggs.

A small piece of ham from lunch was cut up in the delicately chopped and seasoned home fries.

There was pizza cheese melted on the bread bought so fresh from the bakery yesterday that it was still hot. He's brushed it with olive oil and browned it under the broiler.

A few teaspoons of Boston Baked Beans bought at the American store in Geneva last month and only served this week. No matter that they had been canned and not baked in my great grandmother's bean pot.

And we could eat on the patio. Until now it has been too hot, but a few fall breezes have lowered the temperature.

Yesterday we refinished the furniture.

A perfect lazy Sunday morning.

Drugstore

It is a different way of doing things.

Rick needed an MRI or Er E M as they call it in France. He's fine.

Before he was to get the Er E M he needed a shot, but the shot had to be bought from the pharmacy and then taken to the radiology center. The pharmacy needed to call the radiology center to get the information..

Because he didn't have an "ordance" or prescription, rather than have him pay for it (had we been on the French health system it would have been almost free), the pharmacist said get the ordance when we had the Er E M.

We did.

Today we walked in handed over the ordance and paid.

The pharmacist printed out the brown and white form that is used everywhere in France for all medical things, stapled it to the ordance and handed it to us for our Swiss insurance. He still hasn't reached his deductible but just in case he does in the last four months of the year, it will be a very,very, very small percentage of what it would cost in the U.S. As he said, in the U.S. he wouldn't have done it.

Identity

Argelès-sur-mer is near the Spanish border and if one makes the mistake of asking the older residents if they are French, the reaction will be a sneer. They are Catalan. Across the border, there is a movement among the Catalans to separate from Spain.

The region has gone back and forth between Spain and France and certain warring counts for centuries. The people however have always been Catalan, they say.

The area was not happy when Paris decided to combine three departments into one and even with voting the new name Occitania did not make the locals happy. Occitania had its own language and its own culture unlike Catalonia with its Catalan language.

Yesterday we noticed new street sign going up under the old ones in the village with the old names of the streets along with the Catalan flag. The legend is that the four red stripes represent the blood of an interloper who tried to take over from some count of other. After the count's son killed him, he dipped his fingers in the blood of the dead man and wiped them on his yellow flag.

True or not, it makes a good story and reinforces the local's cultural identity as much as the Sardane dance is, which is performed at the drop of a bagpipe note.

Maybe this may not be that different than the southerns who revel in their historic past. The blood of ancestors flow in their descendants.

To a certain degree, despite giving up my American nationality and becoming a proud Swiss, part of my identity comes from my New England Yankee roots, celebrated in baked beans and a sense of strength and honor instilled by my grandmother.

Outside our flat on rue de la Liberté we fly a Catalan flag and a Geneva Canton flag. Even if my husband is American, it would be hard to add that at the moment with any sense of pride for reasons that go beyond Trump. But proud or not, where we come from will be part of us, no matter how many other cultural layers we build.

I can eat baked beans, fondue, escalivada, listen to alpine horns and stumble thru the Sardane dance and it has all become part of my identity. It doesn't matter if I speak French or English with the R missing in many words.

Maybe our flags in front of the house are the same as the new street signs. A proclamation of who we are. Just lets not go to war over it.

Smart phone

"Let me get this straight," the man behind the counter said. He had to be in his late twenties at most. "You want a telephone for your wife's coffin."

"Yes that way I can still talk to her." The customer was middle-aged and rather good looking.

"First time anyone has asked." The salesman went on line and tapped into the computer. "Hmm, we do have after death plans."

"How much?" The customer asked.

The salesman scrolled down his screen before answering. "That depends. There are three plans for heaven, hell and purgatory."

"A Catholic plan?" the man asked.

"No it covers all religions." He stared at the screen. "And non religious too. No explanations."

"Probably a way to market the plans," the customer said and the salesman nodded.

"Heaven is unlimited calling at 15 Euros each month. That covers all continents. Purgatory is 30 Euros a month and you have 20 hours each month. You can choose three continents and there are time of day limitations."

The man frowned. "What if my wife is in hell. I don't think she is, overall she wasn't that bad, but just in case."

The salesman looked a bit embarrassed. He didn't like to get into personal situations. "One call a month and to only a destination of your choosing."

"Price?"

The salesman consulted his screen. "1,000 Euros each month."

"She better not be in hell," the customer said.

The salesman took out several models. "She won't need a case in heaven, but we recommend one for purgatory and hell. You know how it is."

"And a charger?" the customer asked.

The salesman explained it was a complete package.

"How do I get it to her?"

"Just put it in the coffin."

"We buried her a month ago."

"I suppose you could dig her up." The salesman looked thoughtful. "Or dig a hole next to the grave. I suppose the phone would have to touch the coffin."

The man nodded. "I really miss her. She never wanted a phone, any phone. Used computers all day long, but phones? Went into a fury if anyone called her. Said she'd have one over her dead body. I want to follow her last wish."

Otis ate Normandy

Not only do our summer friends arrive from many countries, they bring their dogs with them to Argelès-sur-mer.

One of our favorite couples have traveled with Roscoe, a cute bundle of fluff with an easy-going disposition. 

He is great friends with Rossi, another summer dog who lives with another favorite couple.

This year however, Roscoe has a step-brother, a cocker spaniel puppy, named Otis. He is beautiful copper color, although his adult coat has yet to come in.

Otis is a bit on the rambunctious side. He is the first of the three to nose my pocketbook for the doggie treats I usually carry.

After he dismembered one of Rossi's toys, he gained the nickname Otis Shredding.

As usual during the summer there are get togethers at various homes. One included children and there was a wooden puzzle with big colored pieces of the departments of France for them to play with.

The party was great, everyone enjoyed the food and sangria, but it was reported the next day that sometime during the night, Otis ate Normandy.

We suspect next summer Otis will be calmer as he matures. If not there are many other departments to tickle his taste buds.

Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles

Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles is a work in progress about abortion in the US prior to Roe v. Wade. It is an attempt to show people who want to make abortion illegal that it will not stop abortions, but will force women back to the butchers.

I am also documenting the writing of the book including the reasons I never accomplish as much as I want as I balance life against work.

July 31-August 20

We go to Geneva for the Swiss National Day then meet up with a high school friend who is in Zurich for only a few days.

Then we head for Austria where we stay in a bubble, a plastic igloo type construction

on a roof top in the Alps. The bubble holds two beds with violet duvets. There is a space-ship type airlock that has to be unzipped, then zipped before we can enter the bubble. We pretend we are on the Enterprise.

The owners invite us for dinner and we sit outside and talk late into the night when we climb into the bubble and fall asleep looking at the stars.

The next day we head for Liechtenstein and a four-star hotel. It is part three of our four-part honeymoon. The goal is to visit the four principalities. We've already gone to Andorra and Monaco. Rick has told the hotel it is our honeymoon and we find rose petals on the bed in the shape of a heart.

From the terrace we can see the castle occupied by the Prince and Princess of Liechtenstein.

Needless to say my writing is nonexistent.

We head back to Argelès. Our summer friends are here from Ireland, England, Switzerland, Denmark and Canada. We meet up with them at night behind the hotel l’Hostalet where our friends and owner Mattieu and Jonathan offer a variety of wines, beers, juices and teas on the terrace under the trees. Mattieu makes tapenade, some of the best I’ve ever tasted. Different people wander in and out and the conversation covers every imaginable topic.

During the day we are caught up in chores and it seems I can’t get to the laptop as early as I want. When I do I am bogged down. I want a timeline for everything I can find on abortion thru the centuries. I go thru my sources and create it, taking notes on what I want to follow up on. Tedious work.

Every time I think I’ve finished, I find more things to add. However, all the listings prove that abortion on demand has always existed and always will. The question is how safe not if.
At the moment the timeline covers 13 pages with 4,061 words.

As a reward to myself for slogging through the dates, I decide to write a chapter on Madame Restell, who was a leading abortionist in the late 1800s. She franchised her operation and was in and out of jail. I have over 31 pages of notes from many sources.

It takes me four days to produce the five-page first draft. Tomorrow I will do the second.

Rick and I have both decided on a social moratorium to get our writing done. 

I read about writers who sit down in the morning and just write for X number of hours and pages. 
How do they do it?

West Wing

Living overseas there are American television series I've missed seeing such as Northern Exposure which never made it over. Although many of the detective shows are shown on French TV and are dubbed or in vo (version original). West Wing was not one of the series to cross the Atlantic.

Over a decade ago, when I was visiting in Boston, my host and I made it a point to watch West Wing which was run nightly on a cable station. I loved it.

A few years back I found season 5 at the American Library Book Sale in Geneva but never got around to watching it until this year.

Rick and I often opt for DVDs or Netflix at night. We watched them back-to-back and then ordered the complete series and started from the beginning. We are now within two episodes of the end.

We both came to the same conclusion.

The issues haven't changed at all since the series were made: health care, tax reform, etc.

If anything politics are more horrible now with the politicians thinking of party over people much more of the time..

What I would give for Jeb to be my president and CJ the press secretary.

Following the campaign with Vinick (Alan Alda) and Santos (Jimmy Smits) I would like either to be my president because they did several things that were right when it would have been easier to lie.

How sad that the most decent American politicians seem to be are the ones Hollywood creates. 

Dunkirk

We just went to Perpignan to see Dunkirk.

If you like watching planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling withplanes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed, planes shot down, ships filling with water, after being bombed you will love this movie.

If you like a movie with characters who are real and not just faces and sometimes faces with masks, don't bother.

Dunkirk with its rich history could have been a fantastic story. But planes being shot down and ships filling with water after being bombed wiped out any hope of a story.

(I did tell my husband I enjoy even movies I don't like because it is always interesting to determine what went wrong or right.)

Who was IM

It is not often one can find what a complete stranger was doing on a certain place, date and time 13 years, five months and one day ago.

I received a wonderful book about Eleanor of Aquitaine for my birthday, one of the most entertaining ones, I've ever read. At page 132 I discovered the ACCESS slip for a Continental Airlines (merged with United since 2012).

I was intrigued.  As a person who loves history and not just the big events but the social and cultural mores of other times, this was a tiny bit of history.

What I know is that an Iain Murray should have and probably did board a plane on 14 March 2004 around 7 p.m. for a 7:35. Murray would have walked thru gate 14 (no photos available on Google images)  of Gate 14 of Washington-Reagan Airport.

The plane landed at Houston-Bush airport at or around 9:50 p.m. after covering 1,208 miles. I could find nothing about that flight being delayed, crashed etc.

It is a safe assumption that Murray had the book with him either to read on the plane or to give to someone. The book is not typical flight reading that is more the best seller or business advice genres. Either he or the potential recipient of the book had to have been history buffs.

I wondered if I could locate Murray. It is a common name.

Wikipedia has three

• Iain Murray (author) (born 1931), British pastor and author
• Iain Murray, 10th Duke of Atholl (1931–1996), Scottish peer and landowner
• Iain Murray (sailor) (born 1958), Australian sailor

None seemed possible.

Yandex (I don't use Goggle, only search engines that do not report to the NSA. duckduckgo is another)

An Iain Murray, a Scot and at a University, would have been much too young to be on a flight in 2004.

There were pastors, businessmen, scientists and ordinary people who popped up on Yandex and Facebook but none close enough for me to follow up. Twitter produced a Labour MP who seems to like history, but nothing to indicate that he might have been in the US in March 2004. Certainly not enough to ask him.

I guess I will never find my Iain Murray, although he isn't really mine. He might not even be alive.
If he is I would like to thank him for a morning of pleasure doing research (and offering an excuse not to make the bed, unload the dishwasher, review some French and work on my book.)

Anti Tourist

I understand the anti-tourism reactions in some of European larger cities such as Barcelona. I don't care how beautiful it is a city I will never go to under any circumstances because of its high pickpocket rate so it can't be anti-me.

Still living in a small village along the Med, Argelès-sur-mer grows 10X, 20x or more during the summer. The sand at the beach is hidden by blankets, restaurants are full and even walking down the street, especially during the Wednesday and Saturday marchés can feel like swimming in an overly fertile school of fish.

On the other hand, these people are the life blood or money blood of the area. Events of all kinds flourish from huge dragon parades to lessons to learn the local Sardane dance. Then there are the Tuesday night village street dances with different types of music each week.

We look forward to the regular summer people who come from many countries and have become friends.

So for two months, the crowds are worth it.

We are lucky as a tourist because we don't have children. We can travel off season, a summer place when it is chilly winter for example.

Off Grid

No news from CNN, BBC, I24 France 24, Al Jazeera, RT

No Facebook

No email

No phone (mobile). We answered our landline.

My husband and I decided to have Off Grid Saturdays.

Why?

When we stayed in the Bubble in Austria, there was no working wifi. We survived.

What did we do?

Had a good café sit with friends at the marché.

Read.

Wrote.

I went thru all my old photos, throwing many out and dividing them between the ones I'd keep, the family ones going to my daughter when I see her in Scotland next month, and a few to scan.

We had a lovely dinner with friends on a balcony and waiting for the promised shooting stars.

Quiet

Peaceful

This morning we learned of the hatred in Virginia. North Korea is still a problem. Sides hurl epithets of liberal and conservative as if they were subhuman. Brexit is causing headaches. Nothing we can do anything about.

I can hardly wait until next Saturday when we are off grid again.

Titi

One things I love about Facebook is reading about ongoing stories by friends -- one has been the story of  Titi, a little bird who came into the life of a friend.

He was someone I met almost thirty years ago. He visited me with one our mutual friends when I lived in the tiny village of Môtiers, Switzerland. We had no other connection until we became FB friends.

He lives in Paris and found poor Titi, a baby. Taking it home, he nursed her into adulthood.

She flourished. He posted her progress. Then came the day he was due to release her.

Titi was happy in her greater space, but the idea of living outside full time? Not when she had comfortable accommodations with my friend.

Will she continue to return home? Maybe when she meets the love of her life, she may decide to build a conventional nest. Meanwhile my friend seems happy to have her around.

Anniversary

Four years ago today we were rushing around preparing for our Commitment Ceremony. Forty people from seven countries were invited. It had been a week of festivities with friends flying in from different continents leading to special dinners and precious time together.

My dress was ready, made by my late friend Barbara  and my friend Marina rushed to the florist to pick up my  floral headdress.

Llara, Julia, Marina and I walked the couple of blocks to decorate the hall. Patricia was busy preparing the food.

Rick and I had written our vows.

Then it was there.

We exchanged our vows, led by Father Robbert, and aided by my daughter, ate very well, danced to "Love is better the second time around" chatted with our friends.

Like all newly formed couples we weren't sure what would happen next.

What did has amazed me. I am happier than I have ever been in my life and I've been happy most of my life.

Our problems were external such as living permission, a birth certificate issued with a wrong date, filling out tons of paperwork.

We were tested with my cancer which only made our couple stronger.

We learned to humor each other, talk things out, negotiate. Mostly we have had fun in little and big things. Watching a DVD at the end of the day or a romantic evening in Liechtenstein, trips to exotic places or walking to the tearoom around the corner.

Once we were able to clear away certain legal idiosyncrasies of three countries' legal systems, we had a legal ceremony (In many European countries only the ceremony at city hall is legally valid) on May 17, 2015. This time there were two guests, our witnesses, as much family as is possible without blood connection. A lunch at restaurant nearby included champagne.

What a surprise my friend had for us that night. Friends and neighbors came into celebrate with us.

The legal ceremony may keep the authorities happy, a good thing.

What really counts for me was four years ago when I shared my heart and soul with a wonderful man.

Today I reread our vows. They have been lived up to.

Donna-Lane's Vows
Rick …
I cannot give you my heart today for you already have it. You came back into my life when it was full and you made it even fuller.
I know you’ve made tremendous changes so we can blend out lives and every day in every way I promise that I will make you glad you did.
I want to encourage you in your great strengths: your kindness, your lovingness, your creativity, your warmth.
I will be there for you when dark clouds cross our horizons and together we will find the sun even on the blackest days.
I loved you, I love you, I will love you.

Rick's Vows
Donna-Lane ...

You are my soul mate, my life partner. I believe I have loved you from the day I met you. We have been given a unique second chance to be together.
And I intend to devote the rest of my life to making you happy.
You did not need me in your life. You have an abundance of people who love you, and whom you love.
You have welcomed me into that very special circle and I will do everything I can to be worthy of your turst.
I want to bring you joy and laughter.
I want brush away tears, to comfort you in sorrow. I promise to support you in your aspirations, challenge you to be the person you want to be, and to honor and respect your individuality with my whole heart and soul.
Je t’aime ma chérie, je t’aime.