BUT

I love my dog Sherlock...

BUT  

Last night he tested that love. Within seconds he chewed the quilt my grandmother had made lovingly, removing part of the center.

My grandmother died in 1969. The quilt has traveled the world with me.

The quilt had a rainbow pattern made of nine piece squares alternating light and dark patterns within solid colors. The center was a black dog made from a dress I had before I was in Kindergarten. Much
of it was done when she could no longer see.

I'd just had the quilt repaired having picked out fabric carefully with the help of my mother-in-law.

It was in the second bedroom, which we call the snore room.

I am not into possessions. I want to own as little as possible, but this was more than a possession. It was a reflection of the most important woman in my life.

My husband, said and did all the right things. He did the masculine thing and wanted to fix it and called his mother to see what fabric she might have. He reassured me it would be better. And he hugged me. He told me we could make it even better.

I know we will find the red and orange fabric. I still have a little of the patterned fabric left over from the earlier repair and I am sure if my mother-in-law doesn't have what we need, we can find it in France or Switzerland.

I will sketch out how it should be done and take it the fabulous retouch guy that has done so many repairs and projects for us.

Sherlock was yelled at as he has never been yelled at before. Today, he has resorted to his normal good behavior and we are correcting his slight transgressions in the normal way.

I tell myself it is only a quilt. I tell myself, once again my husband has proved what a loving friend he is (although I wish it wasn't necessary). With all the terrible things in this world, I am safe even if my quilt wasn't.

I still love my dog.

The lighthouse

I am reading on the couch. My husband is a few feet away at his desk. It is hot outside, almost 30° with a breeze, but the house is comfortable.

“Fascinating,” he says, and tells me about his impromptu research into my family history. We'd already checked out La Rochelle from where Michel Bodrot sailed to Canada somewhere  around 1740 and proceeded to popular the area with Boudrots (late Boudreaus).

Originally, we were going to Arichat, Nova Scotia in October, but not only are we travelled out, we need to spend time at home in Geneva. The trip was postponed until next summer.

My husband has found the lighthouse where my grandfather Edouard Boudreau worked from 1912 to 1923 at http://greenislandlighthouse.com/ My father must have been born there in 1913 or in nearby Arichat.

I would love to know what life was like on the island. Family history has it that my Aunt Alma was sent to relatives in nearby Arichat when my grandmother found her half way up the outside of the light house. She was four at the time more than my grandmother could handle with her other children.

I wish I’d asked my aunts and uncles more about life then. They were always talking about their early days after they immigrated to Massachusetts: my Aunt Lil’s job and the beautiful blouses she made, my Aunt Bert’s falsies that never stayed in place. I heard about dances and arguments over dresses.

Instead I will have to do some research. And we will be going there.

Kindle goes rogue

My husband's Kindle went rogue this morning.

A woman's voice occupied it telling him to cancel or ok and then there was a word that he thought was fun and I thought was buddy.

He shut it off and put it and she was back.

She also talked about Alexa, something we do not own or want.

After fiddling around he finally made her disappear, but for all we know, she's on a coffee break and will be back.

I kept my Kindle far away so she couldn't move.

Too many men

In preparing letters to send out Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles to pro-life groups, I study their websites. What I discovered is about 80% of the pro-lifers as executive officers and board members are men, men who will never have an abortion.

I think abortion is a terrible thing for a woman to have to go through. I also know from my research that making it illegal will not stop abortion any more than prohibition stopped people drinking.

• Groups like the Clergy Counseling Service (nationwide) and Jane (Chicago-based) will be started to find safe places for women to go. They helped some 500,000 women in the four years before Roe v. Wade find safe abortions.
• Women who can afford it, will go where it is safe.
• Women who can't will stick anything that might work up their vaginas or find back-alley people.
• Major hospitals once again will be forced to have 20-30+ beds for dying women after their abortions.
• Back alley abortionists will use women's plight as a cash cow.

 Below is a quote from Motherless, by one Philadelphia doctor

According to Dr. Louis Gerstley, Chief at Philadelphia General Hospital 1956-1976, “The legalization of abortion had almost no effect on the level of abortions. The way you can determine it is to go to any World Almanac in your library and graph the number of deliveries in the U.S. between the 50s and 80s and you will find a fairly steady line. In the early 70s after Roe v. Wade, we were doing between one and 1.24 million abortions a year. It (Roe v. Wade) didn’t affect the number of deliveries. No woman goes out to get pregnant for kicks of having an abortion which is far too expensive physically, financially and emotionally. There was a marked drop in maternal mortality (after abortion was legal).”

When he talked in the film Motherless, his speech was measured, calm for the horrors he described. He could not save hundreds of women who died from illegal abortions.

The hospital kept 32 beds on the fourth floor for patients who had botched abortions. Knitting needles, bicycle spokes anything metal might have been used, he said.

Ages of the patients varied from teenagers to women in their forties.

Woman tried potassium permanganate tablets, he said. “It was a strong oxidizing agent and it burns the tissue. We would see these women with a black hole in the front and the back of the vagina... If the woman was lucky, it didn’t burn thru into the rectum or bladder.”

Tissue would be so damaged it couldn’t be sutured. “It was like trying to suture butter. Awful,” he added.

Dr. Gerstley played only a small part in the 27-minute-34-second film Motherless.  www.attiegoldwater.com/motherless.php

I encourage everyone reading this to watch the film.

We can't go back.

Hot Sunday Afternoon

Rick and I are on the bed, the fan creates a gentle draft keeping us cool.

He's reading Mortal Code. I have just finished an article in The New Yorker on the Mexican election and am starting one on a book about Leonard Bernstein by his daughter Jamie. When we discover writing we like, we read it to each other.

Sherlock decides to join us bringing Thé Noir, a toy he's had from his first day with us. For the first time, yesterday, I had to do surgery on the tail to prevent stuffing loss.

So far it has been a wonderful day.

Sherlock and I took a 40 minute walk before the sun became too hot.

Rick outdid himself with the breakfast he made for Llara and I: melon, potato cakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, brioche and cranberry juice.

We talk about our childhood Christmases.

She goes back to The Nest with plans to do needlework and watch three Barnabys in German. I plan to polish the couch, read and write. Rick needs to write. Having my daughter pop in and out or meeting for coffee or an apèro, is a gift. Yes, we message regularly when she's stateside, but now she's in hugging distance. That my husband and daughter like each other, find each other's company easy, is another gift.

On the bed, Rick and Sherlock wrestle with Thé Noir until Sherlock decides enough is enough.

I get up to debone the leftover chicken. Rick has asked for biscuits, chicken and gravy for Sunday dinner, which will be late because of our late breakfast. I've found a recipe for baking powder biscuits. Llara has decided to stay ensconced in The Nest. Maybe later we'll watch another episode of The Americans (or not). We might check out the Sunday shows (or not). Most likely there will be more reading, writing and playing with the dog.

Such a simple day. Such a lovely day.

Last words

"You walk for me, I'll sleep for you."

Those were almost the last words from my friend. I was exhausted from radiation, and she was recovering from a fall.

Behind those words were almost 50 years of friendship, going back to high school when the same boy was trying to date both us. We were always grateful to him for being the catalyst of our friendship that saw us through the high and low points of our lives.

Her parents became substitute parents. Her father never let a father-daughter event go by without making sure he took both of us. He cheered me on in my adventures "I never thought a little girl from Reading, like you would travel the world." We were penpals. Her mother delighted in my daughter.

There was nothing I couldn't tell her and I believe vice versa.

No matter how dire our situation, somehow we were able to find the strength to laugh and in the laughter found the strength to go on.

At one point when things had been bad for both of us and a few weeks went by without talking she called and said, "I'm not just a FOUL weather friend, you know."

She was right. Our friendship was much more than helping each other in bad times.

It was dinners in Harvard Square, an impossible calculable number of hours on the telephone, time with her family in Maine walking and eating blackberries in a scene that would have qualified for an ad for any woman's product.

It was her teaching my daughter needlework, starting a life-long hobby.

It was a visit to Geneva.

It was getting potato sticks in the mail.

It was celebrating the good things making us foul and fair weather friends, an all-weather friendship.

We joked we were twins born from separate wombs.

When her partner called to tell me she hadn't survived surgery some light in me died too. The problem with losing a close friend with whom you can share everything, you can't share the loss of that friend with them.


I don't know why, for some reason, despite the years that have gone by, I miss her more today.

There is comfort in knowing the last years of her life brought her so much happiness as it has mine.

I can still imagine her making my feeling of loss a joke. Before the day is out, I must laugh in her memory. She'd like that.

Blockblusters

Blockblusters is not a typo. It is an expression of my feeling for this summer's offerings and granted most of them are box office hits. In fact most of the top grossing films so far this summer are the franchise films which also tend to be blockbusters.

When they count receipts, my money will not be among them.

A French movie director once said film making in France is an art form. In the US it is a business, which doesn't mean that every French movie is wonderful.

I only saw a bit of one of Daniel Craig's James Bond. It was so ridiculous that I shut it off. And I guess I feel that way about most special effects. There is so little new, although they must be fun for the makers to create. One, where I walked out of the theatre, had a car falling and falling and falling and falling. Well over three minutes after I checked my watch.

What do I want in a movie?

• Story
• Character
• Story
• Clever filming 
• Story
• Meaning

I remember watching the bonus on Road to Perdition. Hanks and Newman are playing a duet. The camera shifts perspective and we can see the bottom half of Newman's son, who is jealous of the relationship his father and Hanks have.

There is another scene in a car where a father and son are having an argument. The bar of the window is between them UNTIL, they reach an agreement. The point of view shifts so nothing separates them.

In fiction writing we are taught show don't tell. Don't say someone was angry. Have them slam their hand on a table. Don't say they are worried about money. Have them trying to decide which bills they can pay, and which they have to postpone till the next pay check. Show the two piles.

Some movies can be funny without any great message. A good laugh is therapeutic. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was funny, but it also said a lot about cultural identity and family.

My housemate talks about "nincompoopy" movies, often chick flicks where you feel good after watching it. But most of these have character and story even if we know that everyone lives happily ever after.

With the mess in the world, sometimes that is a welcome relief.

Doubles

I was sitting at La Noisette with my friend and writing cohort in the last bit of shade. We were about to do our writing exercises, the first in a long time because of our schedules.

I glanced up at the church and for a second I thought my husband was coming out of the church. Not possible since just a few minutes before I'd left him at home with Sherlock, our dog.

"Good grief," that looks like Rick.

My friend turned around and agreed. The hair, body type, glasses and way of walking were identical. All the man lacked was a beard.

I'm beginning to think Argelès is the village of doubles.

My dad's double lives here. The man has the same cleft in his chin, the mouth, the nose, the eyes, the baldness and remaining hair color. There is one difference--my father 37 died years ago.

My dad in the photo above was opening a present at a surprise party I had given to announce my pregnancy to him. He had teased all his brothers and sisters about being so old they had grandchildren, they all asked me to let them know when I was expecting so they could tease back. 

When I first told his look-alike in French he looked a lot like my father, he acted stand-offish. My actions were un-French. Later when I showed him a photo of my dad, his eyes opened and he agreed. Since then when we pass each other, he smiles and we greet each other. I doubt, however, if we will ever get to the two-cheek-kiss stage, which is okay.

Somehow I find comfort in seeing my dad's double. As for my husband's? I'm happy he's still alive.

Sharky

Meet Sharky, the Dolphin.

Our neighbor bought him for Sherlock and he has become the dog's favorite toy, so much so, that the stuffing began to appear on the floor.

Sharky underwent surgery and is recovering nicely.

Abortion methods

As part of my research for this book, I looked at abortion methods used by desperate women throughout history. 

Some were ineffective. 

Some killed the women.

If abortion is made illegal, hospitals will go back to having 20 to 30 beds to treat women from bad abortions and many will die.

Nothing will ever stop abortion.

Physical Abortion Methods Mentioned in Historical Documents/Art

The methods of premodern abortion are varied with various degrees of efficiency and results:

·       Blood letting

·       Climbing

·       Coconut heated and then laid on the stomach

·       Diving

·       Fasting

·       Girdle tightening

·       Hot water poured on the abdomen

·       Jumping up and down, touching the buttocks with the heels at each leap

·       Miscarriage-encouraging drugs

·       Pressure on the abdomen

·       Sitting over a pot of steam

·       Sitting over a pot of stewed onions

·       Candles shoved in the cervix (no reference on whether they were lit or not)

·       Any pointed device shoved into the vaginal canal

·       Water flushed into the uterus

·       Liquids of many types some that burned the vaginal cavity beyond recognition

·       Foreign objects that would create an infection if left in the vaginal canal

Surgical attempts were less frequently found but they did exist.

Oral Abortifacients

What women will put in their mouths or up their vaginas to end a pregnancy is horrifying, especially when many of the treatments are poisonous. To them, the risk was better than bearing a child at that moment.

Over the centuries plants and metals have been used to bring on abortions alone or in combinations with varying effectiveness including:

·       Birthwort

·       Cyprus

·       Diachylon, a mixture of lead and plant juices

·       Dill

·       Ergot*

·       Galen

·       Gin

·       Hellebore, white and black

·       Iron chloride

·       Iron sulfate

·       Italian catnip

·       Lavender

·       Opium

·       Pennyroyal

·       Potassium permanganate tablets

·       Rue

·       Sage

·       Savin (juniper)

·       Savory

·       Scammony

·       Soapwart

·       Slippery elm

·       Spanish fly

·       Squirting cucumber

·       Tansy

·       Tea marjoram

·       Thyme

·       Turpentine

·       Watercress seed

·       Worm fern or prostitute root

·       Spanish fly

*Ergot, a fungus found on rye was most often used by doctors, nurses, midwives and others for abortion. In the late stage of labor, it reduces hemorrhaging, blood loss and postpartum. The negative effect is that it causes unremitting contractions. If the fetus did not move as expected, the drug could cause the uterus to mold itself around the child, rupturing the uterus and killing the child and/or the mother.

Extreme Oral Abortifacients

Other remedies for unwanted pregnancies flash thru historical references. The list may show the desperation to have an abortion. They include:

·       Black-tailed deer dissolved in fat

·       Camel Saliva

·       Crushed ants

Living a sensual life

I consider myself a sensual person. Merriman-Webster's definition of the word is "relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses."

I see it more as an awareness of color, smell, taste, touch, sound to enrich my life.

It is being thrilled when I bite into a juicy plum. I shared some this week with my landlords and they returned my bowl with fresh cherries. Not only do the cherries taste great, their color makes my eyes happy. My tongue circles their round hardness. I roll them around in my mouth until I free the seed. It feels harder still. When I spit it out, I admire the various tones.

When I see the cherries I am reminded of the drive to Ceret in the spring where the cherries come from. We passed orchards pinkish with the blossoms. I imagine the smell, sweet, but we've never stopped. I am reminded of the apple blossom smell from the apple trees on the land I grew up on.

My patio has not only a jasmine plant, tickling my nose, a friend has given me lavender which I place on my brown wooden table that feels hot from the sun when I touch it. I inhale deeply as the two strong smells meld together creating their own perfume.

I iron my pjs. Yes, you read that right. There is a warm smell when the iron slides over the fabric and the material caresses my body more softly when I wear them. Unironed clothes have a different feel, a roughness that brings different sensations but I prefer the smooth as I snuggle in bed. On cold nights we have an electric under sheet that prewarms the bed. My muscles almost smile as the heat carasses my back and legs.

I search for color everywhere: not just flowers, but on all things that that cross my vision: cars, houses, walls, stones, animals, the different tones in my puppy's fur. This isn't deliberate. It just happens.

I enjoy the sounds of the village: The church bells, the garbage men slamming the empty bins down, the mumble of neighbors walking by, the sea gulls cry, the wheels of a suitcase as people come and go.

My husband right now is organizing and I hear the shuffle of devices and a zipper being closed. There is a distant whir of the dishwasher running.

Some may think that a bombardment of senses is distracting, but it isn't. It tells me I'm alive and life is wonderful.