Moms

Sally, my mom, on March 17 at Le Pichet. We were celebrating the birthdays of two of her daughters (and two of my sisters), Janie (50) and Carolyn (40), born ten years apart on St. Patrick's Day.




Jo, Walt's mom, at the December 26, 2008 Christmas celebration with Walt's family. She's holding Eli, her great grandson.

Mother's Day is such a bullshit holiday, a manufactured Hallmark moment that I love to opt out of. This does not mean I don't appreciate my mother or motherhood in general. Nor do I wish to belittle motherhood as an activity. But the idea of one special day to honor mothers (or fathers or grandmothers or grandfathers) has always struck me as silly.

We did the obligatory thing last Sunday, showing up at my mom's house for what turned out to be a very late brunch, and then going almost directly to Anthony's Home Port in Des Moines for a mother's day dinner with Walt's mom, his brother Bruce and Bruce's wife Patty. So Sunday really was Mother's Day, in the sense that we spent the whole day driving to, driving from and taking part in these events. The only diversion was the search for Pushkin, who mysteriously disappeared just before we had to leave for event number one. Speaking of motherhood, she is in heat and has not been spayed, so we worried she might have gotten outside for some brief sexual encounter with a stranger. We left for my mom's at 1 pm and came back to look for her at 5 pm, before dashing out to be at the restaurant by 6 pm. We looked and looked, called and called. Pushy! Where are you? Walt was outside when I decided for no reason to open the bottom drawer of our dresser, where I keep my sweaters. Pushkin reared her head up like a coiled snake. She had just spent four hours in a drawer, unable to sit up. Being Pushkin, and being very blasé about everything, she didn't leap out of the drawer. She looked around, stretched a bit and then delicately stepped out, like a lady descending from a horse-drawn carriage.

My mom's brunch was low-key and centered around getting us to take all the stuff that she has been accumulating for the last 75 years or so. She has everything her six kids left behind, everything that my dad left behind, everything that her parents left behind, everything that my uncle left behind... everything. She has kept every thing any of us has ever written or drawn, plus every candy wrapper and comic book we ever neglected to throw or put away. She had prepared a basket for me, containing the few letters I wrote from China and France, plus postcards from every place I ever went for a vacation. Not to mention photos of me and of people I used to love or whom I have befriended in faraway places over the years. My mother has the most amazing jumble of photos imaginable. She is pretty disorganized and a little ditzy, so she has triplicates and quadruplicates of many photos. She has albums she has started on a theme and not finished. She has albums that started on one theme but ended up in a very different place. If you look closely, you can see where and sometimes why she went off on that tangent. The photos and all the rest are up for grabs now because she's getting married in June and wants to erase us from her life. I'm kidding! I think it is great that she is abandoning us to marry some guy who has six grown children of his own. I am truly joking. About feeling abandoned. My mother has finally found the man of her dreams and he lives in a large but very neat condo in Magnolia. It is time for her to finally get rid of all the junk she has been stockpiling for years. Record albums, books, bibelots, candles (I have never seen so many never used candles in my life, stuck in every nook and cranny). I found a ball gown that belonged to my mom's Aunt Viva, who would be about 120 if she were alive. I took the gown. You never know. They might do a remake of the Shirley Temple movies and ask me to be an extra. I took a cool dress that my grandmother bought at "Best's", the precursor to Nordstrom's. It was a foregone conclusion that all my dad's books were mine if I wanted them. I had already stolen a dozen over the years -- and always denied it -- so it was time to give me the whole collection.

All in all, my mom got what she wanted for Mother's Day: a whole crew whose main mission was to help her sell her house and move on. Go Mom!

To be continued for Jo Cougan, who deserves her very own post.

Stop and stare at the flowers

Leisure
William Henry Davies
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

The Middle Ages

Marie de France, at her writing desk


The main difference between being a graduate student when you're in your twenties (as I was) and being one when you're in your fifties (which I am) is that when you decide to skip class, it isn't because you stayed up too late partying. It's because you stayed up too late meeting a work-related deadline and must meet another one by tomorrow.
Another difference is that when you're in your twenties and you skip a class, you might feel guilty but you don't feel disappointed. In your fifties, you feel disappointed but not guilty. I would rather be discussing Marie de France and her fabulous lais (ballads, stories) with a bunch of twenty-year olds than putting the finishing touches on an annual report.
When I decided to begin my graduate work in French studies with a course in Ancient French instead of taking the Nouvelle Vague cinema class that sounded way better, I felt virtuous. I was opting for the good and utile over the easy and fun. Indeed, Ancient French is an entirely different language from modern French (quoique..) and it is very difficult. The fact that it often appears in verse form doesn't help. However, I had no idea that it would be so fascinating. I think part of the fascination lies in the difficulty. I am beginning to understand that most of the things worth doing, and most of the things that procure satisfaction, are difficult to do.
Not that I think everything should be hard. Far from it. For example, some people (people who watch Oprah too much?) seem to think that a relationship is something hard to maintain and that it requires work. Nonsense! If it requires too much work then it is not fun and probably not worth pursuing. I think that it should be easy, natural and enjoyable at least 75% of the time or it won't work over the long run.
What does this have to do with Marie de France? Nothing, really, except maybe that relationships have not changed all that much since the early Middle Ages. In the Laostic (laostic is a slang term among the ancient Bretons for rossignol, which is French for nightingale), the female protagonist is mal mariée and in love with her neighbor -- one of two barons in the town of St Malo and a bachelor. Her husband is the other baron. She and her lover work out a system for communicating with one another, but they eventually get busted by her suspicious husband. All that work for naught.

The Amazing Grace of Leonard Cohen

I wanted to find a way to remember every song Leonard Cohen and his talented troupe of musicians/back-up singers delivered to us last night. Turns out it was easy. His first and second set and encore songs were posted on the Internet somewhere:

First Set

Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Ain't No Cure For Love
Bird On The Wire
Everybody Knows
In My Secret Life
Who By Fire
Chelsea Hotel
Waiting For The Miracle
Anthem

Second Set

Tower Of Song
Suzanne
Gypsy Wife
The Partisan
Boogie Street
Hallelujah
I'm Your Man
A Thousand Kisses Deep (recitation)
Take This Waltz

Encores

So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan
Famous Blue Raincoat
Sisters of Mercy
If It Be Your Will
Democracy
I Tried to Leave You
Whither Thou Goest





I was eleven years old when I first heard of Leonard Cohen. "Suzanne takes you down to a place by the river.... Goodbye Marianne..."

As a ninth grader, we studied the poetry of rock music, and I discovered the words "like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free".

That's when I realized what poetry was and also when I realized I would never be a poet. I tried, but the results were frankly embarrassing. In my defense, let me say that I set an impossibly high standard for myself. I would either stand tall in the company of Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan or forget about it. The world is not the worse for the fact that I chose to forget about it.

But the world is immensely richer thanks to Leonard Cohen, the master of "self investigation without self indulgence", which is how he himself put it in a recent CBC interview. That's what makes his lyrics so much more than pop or folk songs. They are ballads; they tell a story; the story is very personal and yet it resonates in everyone who has been burned and thrilled by love. In the interview, he talks about love, about men and women and how difficult it is to make the connection work. And yet how vital the connection is, how exhilerating it feels when it works, how depressing it can be when it breaks and you know it is irretrievably broken.

The best moment in the interview is when he breaks into song ("Non, je ne regrette rien") in reply to the question of whether he regretted having had multiple loves and hence multiple failures in love as opposed to one true love story. I loved his reply. "For I've seen your flag upon the arch and love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah...." Leonard Cohen has clearly had failures and victories. And he isn't finished yet. This is the third act. I hope it never ends.

At the beginning of the interview, which I didn't see until I had given my post a title and an introduction, he talks about performing and about achieving a state of grace with the audience. He implies that this has as much to do with the audience as it does with the performer. He and we achieved that state of grace last night.

Gotta a whole lotta work

It's a seasonal thing. Just as the weather improves enough in Seattle to make being outdoors pleasant, my most difficult season begins. Annual reports - can't live with 'em and can't live without them.

The challenge this year is particularly difficult because of the global financial crisis. You have heard of the global financial crisis, haven't you? From an accounting perspective, emergency rules were passed in France. These have to be deciphered and explained. And performances were generally disappointing for my non-public sector clients. These too have to be explained, but using the language of hope.

I may be a "fake" writer and an eejit to boot, but I am still expected to produce actual content under very tight deadlines.

One day I'll be a member of the Prix France Inter jury

Today was the big day. The 24 jury members selected to determine this year's Prix du Livre were announced. I missed it, of course, because it happened on France Inter between 7 and 10 am this morning (that would be between 11 pm and 2 am here in Seattle), but I watched the video on the website.
Unfortunately, my dream of one day being a member of the jury - selected from among the reading public who listen to France Inter, which is kind of like NPR, - was once again left unfulfilled. The thing is, you have to write a lettre de motivation in order to be considered, and I only think about doing this on the day the lucky winners are announced. I noticed one of the heureux élus is from Belgium, which suggests that all francophones, wherever they happen to live, may apply.
I love listening to the names as they are announced - 12 men and 12 women - along with the person's age, profession and domicile.

Among the women, the age range is 52 to 23. The oldest female member is a nurse and the youngest is a student. There is a police officer, two teachers, a college professor, a bank manager, an illustrator, a sales assistant, a researcher in microbiology, a director of an organization for the disabled and - my favorite - a truck driver. Only one is from Paris - the police officer - and only one lives outside France (the student, who is in Brussels); the others are from all over the place, from the town of Landudel in the Finistère (western tip of Brittany) to the city of Grenoble in the Isère (southeast, close to Italy).

As for the men, the age range is 62 to 27. Two men are 62, and both are retired. The 27 year old is in the science field. There's a games designer, a police officer, a teacher, a train station master, a civil servant (in maritime affairs), a couple of business owners (a communications and publishing company and an art film house), a history professor and an IT engineer. They too come from all over France.

And these are the books they will read and consider for the big door prize.

- Nous autres / Stéphane Audeguy (Gallimard)

- D’autres vies que la mienne / Emmanuel Carrère (P.O.L)

- Traques / Frédérique Clémençon (L’Olivier)

- Equatoria / Patrick Deville (Seuil)

- Zone / Mathias Enard (Actes Sud)

- Lacrimosa / Regis Jauffret (Gallimard)

- Trois Hommes seuls / Christian Oster (Minuit)

- Un Chien mort après lui / Jean Rolin (P.O.L)

- Un Chasseur de lions / Olivier Rolin (Seuil)

- Paris-Brest / Tanguy Viel (Minuit)

I have heard of a couple of these authors and read none of the books. What I like about this literary prize is that it is bestowed by a group of readers, selected on the basis of a letter they write about their relationship to books and reading. They are not authors or critics or professors of literature. They just love la chose littéraire; le mot imprimé.

Okay, next year I am going to submit my own letter. Better get started now. I'll pay my own way to Paris for the meeting.

Les nouvelles ne sont pas bonnes

Pour la dixième semaine consécutive, le nombre de demandeurs d’indemnités de chômage a augmenté, nouveau signe que le marché de l’emploi reste faible malgré d’autres indicateurs plus positifs que la récession pourrait avoir atteint son point bas.
Le nombre de nouveaux demandeurs d’emploi est en hausse (+652.000) par rapport au chiffre provisionnel annoncé la semaine précédente (+644.000), a indiqué le Département du Travail ce jeudi. Au total, les chômeurs seraient au nombre de 5,56 millions, ce qui est pire que les prévisions des économistes de 5,48 millions, un chiffre record pour la neuvième fois et le niveau le plus élevé depuis 1967.
Cette triste nouvelle est un indicateur parmi d’autres du marasme dans lequel l’économie américaine sombre depuis le début de cette année. Le Département du Commerce a indiqué jeudi que le PIB a reculé de 6,3 pour cent (rythme annualisé) au quatrième trimestre 2008, la pire performance de la plus grande économie mondiale depuis un quart de siècle, et un peu plus rapidement que la contraction de 6,2 pour cent estimée il y a un mois seulement.
Certains économistes estiment que le recul de l’économie continue au premier trimestre 2009, au rythme de 5 à 6 pour cent. Tout en restant faible par rapport au passé, cette performance est légèrement mieux que la fin de 2008.
D’autres attendent une baisse plus importante au premier trimestre 2009.
Après l’annonce la bourse américaine ne s’est pas affolée pour autant. Le Dow Jones est actuellement en hausse d’environ 65 points, et d’autres indices plus large sont en hausse également.
Face au chômage montant, aux prix immobiliers en chute libre et à la dépréciation de leur portefeuille de valeurs mobilières le consommateur américain dépense moins. Ces éléments ont poussé les employeurs à revoir leur production et leurs effectifs à la baisse. Toutes ses forces négatives se sont réunies dans un cercle vicieux qui ne fait qu’aggraver une récession qui entame sa deuxième année.
Le nombre de travailleurs recevant des indemnités de chômage pour plus d’une semaine a augmenté de plus de 100.000 quatre semaines sur les cinq dernières. Ceci est un signe que les travailleurs à la recherché d’un nouvel emploie après leur licenciement restent sans travail plus longtemps.

Dans ce contexte franchement morose, Le Président Obama est là pour répondre aux questions des internautes sur Le White House Townhall Website.
Quelques 92 932 personnes ont soumit 104 096 questions et on compte 3 606 272 votes sur ces même questions.

Les catégories montrent bien que les préoccupations des Américains sont celles de tout le monde, dans tous les pays: l'education, les valeurs immobilières, la réforme de notre système de santé et de soins, l'emploi, le budget, la stabilité financière, l'industrie de l'automobile, le sort des petites et moyennes entreprises, la retraite... et qui va payer tout ça?

Les gens autour de moi ont peur. Même s'ils ont toujours un job, le sentiment de précarité est grand et grandissant. On ressent aussi une rancoeur et une indignation à l'égard de ceux qui ont bénéficié de la largesse du gouvernement et donc de ses contribuables et qui n'ont pas su renoncer à leurs primes, pourtant censée être basée sur la performance - à savoir les résultats obtenus - de leur société et de leurs équipes. Les gens sont révoltés devant ces faits. Et c'est une bonne chose. C'est tout à fait anecdotique, certes, mais j'ai l'impression qu'il y a moins de frime autour de moi, moins de fierté à avoir et à apparaitre.

On sait bien que celà ne va pas durer. La récession aura une fin, la prospérité reviendra, les gens resortiront leur fric et leur appétit pour la frime. Les excès et l'égoisme referont surface. Mais leur absence a un côté salutaire. Ca fait du bien d'entendre - aux USA - le mot capitalisme dans le contexte de remise en question. Du jamais vu. Ce qui fait moins bien, beaucoup moins bien - et c'est aussi anecdotique - est le nombre de SDF autour de moi. Je les vois quand je promène Neko. Ils trient dans les poubelles, ont des chausseures sales et usées, sont mal rasés, ont le regard fuyant. Hier soir, au restaurant, un homme s'était assis au bar, pour attendre le bus. Il a demandé un verre d'eau, n'avait pas d'argent. Il a demandé aussi un job. Il avait un grand sac, un chapeau de capitaine sur la tête, ses ongles n'étaient pas propres. Le bus est passé pendant qu'il buvait son verre d'eau. Il courait après mais en vain. Je voulais faire quelque chose pour lui, mais quoi? Je fréquente ce restaurant, je ne voulais pas causer des ennuis aux filles qui y travaillent. Finalement, il est parti. Sans avoir mangé, sans avoir bu. Mais il n'a pas raté le deuxième bus.

What kind of idiot would feed corn cobs to a dog?

Neko had to see the vet this week. She has scratched her ear raw, which means she has mites and needs to have an industrial hose job followed by ear drops. The last time I had to adhere to this treatment I gave up because she would not let me near her. That the drops had to be refrigerated didn't help. Who likes ice cold drops in their ears?

So I told the vet no ice cold drops and she agreed, but only if I would give Neko a pill with steroids in it. Whatever. Neko has always shown a talent for fetching round objects and I see no reason why she should not have a career in professional baseball.

We have a new vet, a nice young woman who bought the practice from the old vet, who retired. He was pretty old. She asked me about Neko's diet, explaining that sometimes these repeated ear infections are skin rashes due to food or airborne allergies. So I had to explain that we feed Neko boiled meat (lamb and stew meat) or chicken because she refuses to eat canned dog food. What about just dry food, she asked. Clearly, she doesn't have a dog. I know the Nazi School of Tough Love requires owners to treat their pets like merciless killing machines that live to be a hundred, but I just can't do it. Neko loves her boiled vittles and she shall have them.

An article online caught my eye today. It was about animal myths. Like, you should never give a dog people food. Luckily, this is not true. Neither is it encouraged. Helpfully, the article listed the foods owners should never give their dogs - because they are toxic. Many are no brainers; who would ever give a dog alcohol? I can't imagine offering Neko a sip of wine. And everyone knows, or ought to, that chocolate is verboten.

Here's the list.


Chocolate
Onions
Grapes
Raisins.
Yeast dough
Alcohol
Tobacco
Marijuana
Moldy or spoiled food
Wild mushrooms
Large amounts of raw fish
Potato, rhubarb or tomato leaves
Large amounts of raw liver
Large numbers of macadamia nuts
Fruit pits
Corn cobs

Am I to understand that there are people who would feed fruit pits or corn cobs to a dog? What about "moldy or spoiled food"? Do some people think their dogs are living, breathing garbage cans?

One more I don't have time to read

Le Grand Pari(s)

I have a folder of favorite blogs in French and English. Unfortunately, there are so many that most go unread for days and even weeks at a time. Today, I happened to see one in the long list that I didn't even remember: franco american. In fact, it is a blog written by a French journalist named Clementine Gallot who lives in New York. She writes in French and English and has some great photos taken in New Orleans by a photo journalist she was working with.

And I noticed that back in January she mentioned that a French version of slate.com was in the process of going online. So I checked it out. Jean-Marie Colombani, who used to be the head of the Le Monde group, has started this venture with a dozen journalists.

In fact, many of the articles are translated into French from the English-language version of slate. This content doesn't interest me too much. The section on France, naturally, contains many articles in VF. For example, I just found out about a grand project to modernize Paris, which includes incorporating a few banlieues limitrophes, like Aubervilliers, Seine-Saint-Denis... 91, 92, 93, 94, if you see what I mean. I don't know if this is because Paris is encroaching on these burbs or because they are encroaching on Paris. But it seems like a strange project. Ten teams of architects are working with Le Président to imagine this enlargement of the French capital. What will this change for the people who live in 91, 92, 93 and 94? I can't get my mind around what this means. There is such a strong demarcation between the city of Paris and its grande banlieu, and it isn't just physical.

More later. I am trying to find more details and they are lacking. I want to know who the architects are: Nouvel? Portzamparc? Non-Frenchies? Rem Koolhaus? I.M. Pei, who did les Pyramides du Louvre? A friend of mine was sent over from New York to work on that project. She told me that Pei's employees called him "I no pay". The privilege of working for the man from Shanghai was supposed to be enough to compensate for the humiliation of having to live with your parents.

Happy anniversary

At the White Center wedding chapel, after the ceremony.








Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. Two years ago, the weather was equally bad when we showed up at the little purple chapel in White Center (Myers Way) and had ourselves a little wedding ceremony. High school best friends were our witnesses. It was simple. It was fun. And it was funny.

(To be continued)

Why don't I go to spas more often?

I almost titled this "Why I don't go to spas more often," since the reasons are numerous and obvious:

1. It's too expensive. A hundred and twenty bucks for a massage.
2. I don't have time. Including transportation, getting lost and looking for parking, my trip to the spa for a one hour massage took 3 hours.
3. It is habit-forming. And habits can be costly (see 1 and 2) if you accept the premise that time is money.

When I lived in France, I often went to spas for extended treatments. I like the formula there: although day spas exist, especially in Paris, the norm is to take a week or two off from work and bunk down at a spa. Four treatments a day (more if you want to pay more), alternating morning and afternoon. You basically live in a bathrobe and flip flops, and spend lots of time drinking bottled water and peeing.

The treatments make you feel exhausted for some reason, but in a good way. There are two basic kinds of spas: those that offer treatments based on sea water (thalassothérapie) and those that offer treatments in a mountain or resort setting away from the sea. This is hydrothérapie, since such spas are located near natural underground springs whose water is reputed to have therapeutic qualities. Examples are Caudalie, in Bordeaux; Avène, in the Hérault; and La Roche Posay, in Vendée. I have visited them all and loved them all. But having been introduced to the concept by the saltwater variety, I always feel that these spas lack something huge, like the ocean.

My favorite place for thalassothérapie is in St Malo, France. The treatment center is attached to a marvelous old hotel called Le Grand Hôtel des Thermes, which is located on the beach. It was built around the turn of the century. It has a quiet room that is glassed in and faces the sea. The quiet room is filled with "transats," which is the French term for what we call a "chaise lounge" in English. Did someone make this up because it sounds vaguely French? Anyway, in French it would be chaise (chair) longue (long).

People go into this quiet room between treatments to rest. As I said, these treatments, which consist of you doing nothing while someone massages you, wraps you in seaweed, or sprays you with a hose, are exhausting. You need to lie down and stare at the sea through the glass wall. I used to try and read, but it was impossible. Your brain shuts down and forces you to do nothing but stare at the horizon and imagine centuries of sailors, lost at sea. Or the amazing creatures that lie beyond the mind's eye, under the sea. Or an octopus's garden. Or Jacques Cousteau's expeditions. Or a perfect storm. Aquatic thoughts.

Another fun thing to do between treatments is lounge in the indoor pool (glassed in as well, so you see the sky as you float), which is filled with heated salt water. There is nothing better than that. Because of the salt content, you are more buoyant than in a regular old pool. You try and swim, do laps or flutter with a kickboard, but soon give up. It is way more satisfying to tread water, float on your back, watch the clouds go by, and dream of your next fabulous meal in the restaurant gastronomique.

Finally, you can visit the parcours aquatique, which is a labarythine water course filled with levels and fountains and underwater spray jets. Everyone lumbers around like friendly, mellow water buffalo or hippos after a hard day in the trenches. There is something soothing about the constant sound of water trickling.

This is just a brief introduction to thalassopthérapie. Writing about it has relaxed me to the point that trying to work seems like a pitiful exercise in futility.

Entre les murs : un très bon film sur la mondialisation et ses mécontents

Ce film français, réalisé par Laurent Cantet, le metteur en scène d’un film très remarqué sorti en 2003, Ressources Humaines, a été primé aux Oscars cette année. Après avoir décroché la Palme d’or au Festival de Cannes en 2008.

C’est le genre de film que seuls les français savent faire. Un film intime, presqu’en huit clos, sans musique de fond, sans beaucoup de scènes d’action. Que des paroles, ou presque.

Tiré d’un livre autobiographique écrit par François Bégaudeau, qui tient le rôle principal, Entre les murs nous montre – sans trop d’intermédiation – la vie professionnelle d’un prof de collège. Le collège se situe dans Paris, et non pas en banlieue, mais dans le 20ème, un quartier difficile qui en termes d’ambiance, pourrait être dans une cité de banlieue. D’ailleurs, les élèves de François appellent leur quartier ainsi.

En regardant ce film, j’ai vécu deux heures de stresse en boucle. On a l’impression que, à tout moment, les choses peuvent déborder dans cette classe pour finir dans la violence et la haine.

D’abord la haine raciale. Ces jeunes sont d’origines très diverses. Quelques français de souche, comme on dit, et beaucoup d’immigrés. Maliens, Marocains, Guadeloupéens, Chinois… Esméralda, Souleymane, Wey, Rachid. On est loin de mon dernier quartier de Paris, le huitième, avec ses enfants bien sapés et polis, qui s’appellent Sixtine (mais oui, je vous assure), Gaspard, Garance, Hortensia.

Comment apprendre le français à ces enfants ? A quoi ça sert à ces enfants ? Ce que j’aime dans ce film est sa façon de montrer le vrai « melting pot » qui est la France d’aujourd’hui, avec sa clash de cultures, de langues et d’attitudes. On voit un prof (un autre) piquer une crise à cause d’une classe ingérable, et à force de passer du temps avec François devant ses élèves, on comprend bien comment ceci peut se produire. Et on s’étonne que ce ne soit pas plus fréquent.

A la fin du film, François demande à ses élèves ce qu’ils ont appris en quatrième. Ca m’a fait penser à la mission impossible de l’école : de transmettre le savoir, d’éduquer les jeunes, de les préparer pour la vie adulte. Mais comment faire dans une classe, avec les individus si différents et par moment si indifférents… Les élèves charrient le prof un jour car touts ses exemples de phrase ont pour sujet un dénommé « Bill ». Pourquoi toujours un nom de blanc, demande une fille, l’insolente Esméralda. Pourquoi pas un nom africain ou chinois? Bonne question quand tes élèves s’appellent Khoumba, Souleymane, Wey… Cette même fille, qui est représentante de classe et qui en tant que telle fout la merde un jour, donne la réponse la plus étonnante à la question : qu’avez-vous appris cette année. Il se trouve qu’elle n’a rien appris à l école. A bon ? Tu n’as pas lu un seul livre intéressant ? Si, dit elle, mais pas à l’école. J’ai lu La République. De Platon ? répond François, visiblement surpris. Oui, elle répond. Mais comment ça ? C’est un livre de ma grande sœur. Ah, elle étudie la philo ? Non. Mais quoi, alors. Le droit, dit elle, fière. En entendant sa réponse, j’ai ressenti une petite bouffée d’espoir. Est-ce notre système éducatif va mal ? Oui, sans doute. Mais…. Ce n’est pas si grave que ça. Je plains tous ces blancs dans mon pays – oui, il faut le dire comme ça – et tous ces gens qui, de par leur ascension sociale peuvent se permettre de caser leurs enfants dans les écoles privées….car en réalité, elles sont privées de cette richesse née de la mondialisation, de la diversité, de l’immigration.

Here's one for Neko, from Neko

A great song, by a great artist from Tacoma, Washington, with a magical voice and a tenor guitar.
My beloved doggie, also from Tacoma, is named after her.

Cast of characters

If I Only Had A Brain

I could wile away the hours
Conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain

I'd unravel any riddle
For any individ'le
In trouble or in pain

With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain

Oh, I would tell you why
The ocean's near the shore
I could think of things I never thunk before
And then I'd sit and think some more

I would not be just a nuffin'
My head all full of stuffin'
My heart all full of pain
I would dance and be merry
Life would be a ding-a-derry
If I only had a brain

Byrning Down The House

David Byrne then


David Byrne now

Once in a Lifetime
Who among us has never heard of or seen what is arguably one of the best rock documentaries ever made? And no, I'm not talking about Rob Reiner's This is Spinal Tap. That was the best mock rock documentary ever made, and no one will ever top it.
The immensely talented Jonathan Demme made the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. He was wise and modest enough to sit back and let the camera take the viewer to the concert. It was like sitting in the front row. I went to see it at a tiny theater in the Pike Place Market, on a Sunday night. Every seat was taken. The concert - I mean the film - began and within minutes I forgot I was watching celluloid. Apparently, so did everyone else. When my eyes left the screen for a second, I realized that many of my fellow theater patrons were in the aisle dancing. They too were transported; they too were at the concert.
I was a huge Talking Heads fan at the time, so it was not surprising that I loved the movie. The album that came out of it is one of my all-time favorites. I used to listen to one track, Psycho Killer, over and over, and loved to do so while driving, singing at the top of my lungs.
Until last night, I half believed that the magic of that experience came from Jonathan Demme's camera and not from reality. That's not quite true, but still I would never have known how close Demme gets to reality had we not gone to see David Byrne last night at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.
It was standing room only and, within minutes, people were dancing with joyous abandon in the aisles. Byrne has traded in his big white suit for white trousers, shirt and suspenders, plus some groovy little white shoes. His hair, too, is now white -- but what an electrical shock of white hair it is. He looks a little like Andy Warhol or Steve Martin. In fact, he is to music what Warhol is to visual pop art and Steve Martin is to stand-up comedy. The Man.
I'll be back in a flash to talk more about the concert and give y'all a link to his website. For my friends in New York, Byrne and crew have just added a couple of dates in late February at Radio City Music Hall. Get on it! For my friends in Europe, he's headed your way this spring. Don't miss it. Don't be caught letting the days go by or you'll miss this once in a lifetime experience. And let me tell you: the world still moves on a woman's hips!

Flipping the bird

You know who you are.

An early valentine to my husband
I just read on a blog, the same one where my "cone bra" and cats are apparently subjects of interest to the wider world, that my husband has anger management problems.
The comment about me walking my cats was just inane. Picking on an animal is bad, but picking on one with a disability is just pathetic. As everyone knows, Munchkin has cerebellum hypoplasia, which affects her motor skills. She can barely take three steps without falling over. But she gets back up every time. She hits her head a lot too, and I worry that she will crack it open one day. She has tumbled down the steps to the basement at least once, when I took the guard rail away for just a second. She has a tiny brain, but apparently far more intelligence than some humans. And she is happy. She has mastered that art.

But back to my husband. I know some things about anger, out of control anger that leads to physical abuse. I have nothing to say about it in public. My husband Walt is not an angry man. He is a fundamentally happy man and a very caring one too. He has a terrific sense of humor, even though some of his jokes are so corny they make me cringe.

In his spare time, he coaches a select baseball team and a YMCA basketball team. Working with adolescent and, in the case of the YMCA, pre-adolescent boys is enough to try anyone's patience. Not to mention the challenge of dealing with parents and scheduling conflicts and so on. He handles it all with incredible grace and humor. But he's no pushover. He speaks his mind, but always with tact. I honestly don't think I would have the patience for that. The parents, even the ones who initially want to out-coach the coach, come to trust and admire him, and the kids respect him.

He is also a very attentive son. This may not be indicative of anything - I bet Norman Bates was nice to his mother - but in this department, Walt has really stepped up to the plate. Jo (his mom) has battled cancer twice and won both times. Walt has spent hours of his time - both free time and work time - sitting in hospital waiting rooms, eating hospital food, chatting with her during chemotherapy, etc. It may just be what adult children do for their parents and loved ones, but Walt does it unstintingly and with a smile on his face. And he makes sure his mom has one on hers as well. For her birthday, he bought her a puppy, a half shi-tzu half miniature schnauzer named Nelly. He often takes time out of his work day just to stop by and say hi to his mom. The fact that she usually has just baked some chocolate chip cookies has nothing to do with his devotion to his mom. He tries to get to her house every weekend to do yard chores. Sometimes I complain and say "what about our yard?" But deep down I am pleased that he takes such good care of his mom.

He takes good care of me, too. If he had anger issues, he certainly could use his physical stature to work them out on just about anyone. But he doesn't. For a word about his courage, see my post about the night he broke up a fight between two testosterone-driven punks. A week later, we read about another fight at another restaurant in our West Seattle neighborhood. This time, the punks were armed, and someone got killed.

Last weekend, I had to work pretty much non-stop. It was grueling and uninteresting. I had no time to do anything, even go outside for a walk. He kept the house clean, the dishes washed, the refrigerator stocked and food on the table. He lit candles, because he knows I like that, and rubbed my head and shoulders. Such long hours at the computer are physically painful.

So here's a thumbnail sketch of Walt: smart, funny, hard-working, caring, strong, good-looking, sweet. A devoted father and now a grandfather. A respectful son and a loving husband. He's got his secret rooms and his faults - we all do - but I don't dwell on them and neither does he.

Here's a song for Walt. In Spite of Ourselves, by John Prine (as sung by John Prine and Iris Dement):


She don't like her eggs all runny
She thinks crossin' her legs is funny
She looks down her nose at money
She gets it on like the Easter Bunny
She's my baby I'm her honey
I'm never gonna let her go

He ain't got laid in a month of Sundays
I caught him once and he was sniffin' my undies
He ain't too sharp but he gets things done
Drinks his beer like it's oxygen
He's my baby
And I'm his honey
Never gonna let him go

In spite of ourselves
We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we're the big door prize
We're gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won't be nothin' but big old hearts
Dancin' in our eyes.

She thinks all my jokes are corny
Convict movies make her horny
She likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs
Swears like a sailor when shaves her legs
She takes a lickin'
And keeps on tickin'
I'm never gonna let her go.

He's got more balls than a big brass monkey
He's a wacked out werido and a lovebug junkie
Sly as a fox and crazy as a loon
Payday comes and he's howlin' at the moon
He's my baby I don't mean maybe
Never gonna let him go

In spite of ourselves
We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we're the big door prize
We're gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won't be nothin' but big old hearts
Dancin' in our eyes.
There won't be nothin' but big old hearts
Dancin' in our eyes.

Welcome frenemies!

A few of my favorite things







I had a weird experience this week that ended up as an epiphany. It was a fairly typical day. I worked all morning and then took Neko for a long walk. I discovered upon my return that someone had blown up a photo of me and posted a URL to it on the Seattle PI blog. Not only that, but the poster posted as SkepticalBystander, thus stealing my name as well. Not that anyone thought it was me. That wasn't the point. The point was to inflict pain and send me a message: hey! We have been to your blog! We know who you are! We know where you live! We have invaded your space! We are space invaders!
Naturally, I called the PI and had the posts removed, but they sat online for at least an hour before I saw them. I don't know how many people happened to see them, saw my photo, visited my blog. Some other kind soul had the wonderful idea of copying the URL and posting it on another blog, much later in the day. A friend called and told me. I was on my way out, so I set my blog to private in order to think peacefully about what to do. I set it to private four minutes after it was posted.
I must admit it was jolting to see a giant photo of me come into view on the screen. When I called the PI, I was upset. When my friend called to tell me about the second one - surrounded by some silly posts about me and my husband following teenagers into a restroom, which in fact is not true, but never mind - I envisioned an exhausting battle for my privacy. And then I thought, "fuck it"! My life is an open book. If strangers and frenemies want to visit this blog, take photos from it, quote from it, ridicule what they find here, whatver - if that gives them satisfaction and fills their lonely hours, then so be it. I'm not going to live my life "as if." And neither should anyone else.
In fact, from now on, I'm going to use this space in part to write about the murder case I have been following since November 2007, which is when British exchange student Meredith Kercher was brutally tortured and then murdered. Three suspects were eventually apprehended, and one of them, Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast national with dual citizenship, who has lived in Italy since the age of five, opted for a fast-track trial and has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. The other two suspects were indicted by the judge who found Rudy guilty and are currently standing trial. One of them is an American exchange student from Seattle, who was Meredith's flatmate. Her name is Amanda Knox. For reasons that may become clearer as I write, I became interested in this case and in the media frenzy surrounding it. I started reading and then posting on a couple of blogs.
For many reasons, which may also become clearer, this case has inflamed passions in the blogosphere. The discussion got very personal very quickly. Knox supporters in Seattle - some of them friends and family, including an ex-boyfriend, others working for the PR firm hired almost immediately after Knox was arrested - joined the fray. Being new to all of this I didn't know, but apparently Friends and Family of suspects often do get involved in these online battles. But most observers agree that this particular group is more vicious and aggressive than most.
My position from the start has been that of a skeptical bystander - hence my moniker. I did not and do know know if Knox was involved, but for a long time I have believed that there are enough clues and enough troubling elements that the Italians had every reason to indict her and Raffaele Sollecito, who is now her ex-lover. They had only just begun seeing one another when Meredith was murdered, but Knox has allegedly described their relationship as the most intense of her life. Remember, she was all of 20 when this happened.
For reasons that will emerge, I am one of the targets of much of the wrath of the hysterical pro-Knox contigent, but also of the hysterical anti-Knox contingent. The lunatic fringes, so to speak.
I don't know if this first interactive experience in the blogosphere will be my last. But I do know that I'll see this case through to the end. I never knew Meredith, and obviously never will, but I have grown to like her so much. My heart jumps whenever I see a photo of her smiling face. Such a lovely smile, both shy and inviting. Nobody can know what Meredith suffered, and nobody can pretend to understand or share the pain - the unbearable pain - of her surviving family. All I know is this: Meredith did nothing wrong, nothing to deserve this. What happened to her could have happened to anyone. It isn't because you've been raped or lost a loved one that you can relate. It is because you're a human being, and you're alive. But you could have been that other human being. You could have been the one who was home alone that night. And because you are lucky enough not to have been that human being on that particular night, you should care about her and what happened to her. No one is fussy; we are all potential targets. No one is lucky all the time, and anyone can get unlucky. On any given night. And when you read the report of the sentencing judge, and you begin to get a feel for what Meredith must have endured, you feel that justice must be done for her. Those accused of killing her deserve a fair trial and they shall have that. It might be a bummer for them to spend time in jail, but they are alive. They should be grateful for that.
So some little prankster decided to publish my photo on a blog. My privacy was invaded. Big deal. Then someone with a burning grudge decided to pile on a bit. Ouch! But you know what? I'm alive, and I'm so grateful to be living my life. What harm can a minor annoyance like that cause in an otherwise happy life? You know what they say? Living well is the best revenge!

Oh Happy Day, Oh Happy New Year

L’année 2009 a enfin commencé le 20 janvier ! (2009 finally began on January 20)

For some reason, I just did not feel as if 2009 had begun. On January 20th, as I watched George W. Bush board that plane bound for Texas, one-way ticket in hand (at least as I imagined it), I suddenly realized that I was waiting for this moment to usher in the new year. I suspect I am not the only one. I found the photo above on Le Monde's website and decided that this was the image I was waiting for to create my electronic New Year's card. I had nearly decided not to send cards this year. I just wasn't into it. But now that 2009 has finally arrived, it seems appropriate and even necessary to mark the occasion. At least once in my lifetime, I will have taken part in the making of history. And that feels wonderful!

As is often the case, Maureen Dowd, who was there, wrote wonderfully about the moment the Boy King, as she called him, whirled out of our line of sight (see her op piece for this week in the NY Times):

It was the Instant the Earth Stood Still.

Not since Klaatu landed in a flying saucer on the Ellipse has Washington been so mesmerized by an object whirring through the sky.

But this one was departing, not arriving.

As W. ceased to be president, he flew off over the Capitol and across the Mall en route to Andrews Air Force Base, and then back to Texas.

I’ve seen many presidents come and go, but I’ve never watched a tableau like the one Tuesday, when four million eyes turned heavenward, following the helicopter’s path out of town. Everyone, it seemed, was waving goodbye, with one or two hands, a wave that moved westward down the Mall toward the Lincoln Memorial, and keeping their eyes fixed unwaveringly on that green bird.

They wanted to make absolutely, positively certain that W. was gone. It was like a physical burden being lifted, like a sigh went up of “Thank God. Has Cheney’s wheelchair left the building, too?”

No victim no crime

In addition to sheltering people actually waiting for the bus, the covered stop at California and Admiral, in front of Circa restaurant, has long been a youth hangout. A frequent diner at Circa, I have seen countless mini-dramas staged at that bus shelter. Some kids sit there for hours on end. Young love comes together and flies apart; young boys scuffle and talk loud; young girls chomp on gum, whisper and giggle. Sometimes people sit there and cry.

Often, things get out of control. Shoving, littering, spitting, passing beers back and forth. Sharing smokes. One thing leads to another. Last night, my husband and I were sitting at the window table just in front of the bus stop. Our car was parked on the street, and our dog was sleeping inside. We wanted to keep an eye on her. The bus stop was particularly agitated last night. Kids were drinking beer, throwing litter on the ground (instead of using the garbage can provided, less than a foot away), leaving in packs and then coming back.

Suddenly, a fight broke out. I had my back to the scene, but my husband and everyone sitting at the bar heard the commotion, saw the abrupt movement of bodies and immediately understood what was going on. It was a really violent and viscious fight. My husband and two other men ran outside to separate the boys while someone from Circa called the cops. I ran outside to check on my dog and instead found myself looking at a smallish blond kid and his two female friends. Blood was coming out of his mouth. He looked scared and not in the mood to pursue the fight.

The men tried to subdue his sparring partner with words, but suddenly the young man jumped on the smaller bleeding boy again, ferociously. He was pulled away by my husband, who put him face down on the ground to restrain him when it became clear he was anything but ready to stop fighting. He resisted and my husband put his knee in the kid’s back and got his hands and arms immobilized. We told the kid the cops were on the way and he went ballistic. No cops, he said, I'm on probation; no cops, I'll lose my job. He continued to wiggle around on the ground, but my husband held him down until the police came.

There were four officers in two patrol cars. My husband came back into the restaurant after giving them the basic information. After about ten minutes, the police cars started to pull away. We were astonished to see the kid – who was presumably the aggressor in the fight we had just broken up – standing in front of the resaurant looking in at us. Everyone was astonished. One of the cop cars was turning around, so we went out to find out why the violent kid my husband had just wrestled to the ground was now standing on the sidewalk glaring in at us. He said there could be no arrest because there was no victim. And it was true. While the aggressor was being wrestled to the ground, the blond kid spitting blood and his two female friends had slipped away into the night. They were probably afraid of getting in trouble for underage consumption of alcohol.

It is a pity that this bus stop is not frequently patrolled, so that diners at Circa can enjoy a meal without having to watch people litter, spit, shove and get into fights. A more visible presence – even just a police car cruising the area – would work wonders, I think.

If you ever find yourself in this situation, remember to nab the presumed perpetrator and the presumed victim. That’s just common sense, in retrospect. We didn’t really know who started it and should not have focused solely on the agitated and apparently aggressive kid. We shouldn’t have let the others slip away, including two witnesses. At the same time, the bus driver who had pulled up saw it all and could have filled the cops in.

If I fault the police for anything in this incident, it is that they would have just driven away without filling us in and without making sure the kid was at least headed home had we not forced them to stop and tell us why no arrest was made.

No victim, no crime, the cop said.

This makes perfect sense. But my husband and a couple of other guys risked their lives (we didn’t know if anyone was armed) to break up a serious fight. Had the fight broken out elsewhere, in a back alley for example, someone could have ended up dead or seriously injured. It was that kind of fight. A few brave citizens performed their civic duty and put themselves at risk doing so. They should have been thanked or at least offered an explanation of what went down, to be filed away for future use.

I have a great deal of respect for law enforcement officers. But I think these officers did not show respect for us in return. It would have taken two minutes of their time. They could have thanked my husband – everyone in the bar certainly did. And they could have made sure that the kid left the premises. Who knows? He could have been waiting to see what car we were driving. I just hope I don’t read about him beating the shit out of the other guy, whose escape may have been a temporary reprieve.

I loathe violence.

Mais c'est un scandale !

A wedge of roquefort, back when it was affordable in America

I have just read something in Le Monde that makes me angry and terribly sad. Showing that it has an impeccable sense of priorities, the US government has announced plans to triple the customs duty on roquefort cheese imports starting on March 23. Even more outrageous is that this huge increase applies only to roquefort, a cheese made from ewe's milk that is produced exclusively in a very precisely defined geographic region in France (see below). Why? To retaliate against the very sensible European ban on hormone-injected beef from the US.



Ostenibly, the tarif is being raised to force Europe to accept our hormone-laden beef. In 1998, the WTO ruled that the European ban on this horrible shit was not backed by science and, when Europe did not immediately open its borders to hormone beef, the US promptly drew up a list of products that would be subject to higher import duties. So after a decade-long impasse, the US has decided to get things moving by targeting roquefort.

The decision was made by Bush appointee Susan Schwab, just days before her mandate comes to an end. Thanks, Susan. You bitch!

The European Commission has indicated it will file a complaint against the US with the WTO.

So all you roqufort lovers out there, enjoy it while you still can. And remember, although they are not really the same at all to real cheese lovers, you can console yourself with different varieties of bleu cheese: bleu des causses, bleu d'Auvergne, forme d'ambert, etc. But save your money. Don't buy roquefort in the US. Soon enough, you'll have enough money to visit France. You'll find roquefort for sale all over France, but if you have time, visit the real Roquefort.

Some information about roquefort and Roquefort:

The region in which the milk used to make this cheese is collected covers a 100-km radius around the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, which is in the French department called the Aveyron. The collection area in fact includes many different French départements (it's more complicated, but think of them as counties): La Lozère, L'Aveyron, Le Tarn, L'Aude, L'Hérault and the Gard. But the cheese is only aged in a specific part of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, within the natural caves of Mont Combalou, where the temperature, soil and natural ventilation combine to give roquefort its inimitable taste, which is also attributed to the particular breeds of sheep whose milk is used (Lacaune,Manech and Basco-Béarnaise), their diet and their ability to withstand harsh weather conditions and extreme variations in temperature.

Here's a cheese map of France, which I will try to enlarge. Remember, De Gaulle once remarked that a country with 400 and some odd cheeses was ungovernable. Maybe, but what a great place to run amok.

Fucking snow!

(UPDATED)
Sorry. One of my resolutions is to try and be all zen and accepting in 2009, but this weather is really trying my resolve. It is one thing to say "it is what it is," and quite another thing to feel the words as a peaceful utterance.

I don't know about other Seattle denizens, but I have had enough of this snow and had convinced myself that winter was over for all intents and purposes. I was ready to start enacting my resolutions! I almost went so far as to make plans - firm plans - this week. What folly! The evil white stuff started coming down at around 5 pm tonight. We had planned to go to the gym. What fools! Ha ha, the gym. What in the world were we thinking?

I don't know, but here's what we think. We now totally understand why Americans tend to stereotype Midwesterners as fat, potato-eating pigs. Walt said I could use the expression "Minnesota Fats" if I wanted to. I'll reserve that for another use. But the truth is, once you get past the utter impossibility of organizing a sledding party in your neighborhood - for reasons that are logistical, sociological and physio-psychological (i.e., you have to overcome emotional and physical inertia) - you just have to face the fact that you really can't do much of anything when it is cold, snowy, slushy, icy and just plain hostile outside. And the main reason is yourself. You don't want to go out there if you can help it. So you spend your days mostly sitting, standing at the window occasionally to look at the white stuff and walking to and from the kitchen.

Actually, I should count my blessings. At least I work at home, so I don't have to think about how to get to the office on Monday morning. I don't have to deal with the smell of wet and sweaty everywhere, or the indignity of slipping and falling on my ass on the way to the bus stop or the car. On the other hand, with nowhere to go I have, well, nowhere to go. I think it's called cabin fever. And poor Neko. I can't explain to her why our walky-walks have been suspended until further notice.

One thing is certain. I understand the urge to hibernate. And if this snow continues much longer, that's what I'm going to do.

(UPDATE)
Luckily or unluckily, I don't have/get to hibernate. Last night was a fluke. Today it is at least 40° outside and nearly all the wretched snow has melted. Neko and I took a glorious walk to the water taxi and back. We could not believe our luck! Life is good again; 2009 is back on track. Now I can formulate achievable resolutions and maybe even stick with them. But probably not.

Gravity

I just read that Claudie Haigneré tried to commit suicide. She is a French scientist who is best known as France’s First Lady of Space Travel. Later, and many mauvaises langues would say she was trading on her fame, she was appointed to a ministerial position in the Raffarin government (he was a Prime Minister under Chirac). Apparently, she took a bunch of pills Tuesday night in her Paris apartment, but was found conscious and taken to the Paris hospital where all the government people are taken for care, the wonderfully named Val-de-Grâce. It is being reported that her life is not in danger.

Claudie Haigneré (née Claudie André-Deshays) is an exceptionally well-educated 51-year old woman. The joke in France is that she has a "bac + 13." In other words, 13 years of higher education after high school. She has studied biology, sports medicine, aeronautics and rheumatology and probably I'm just skimming the surface. So she’s like a PhD and an MD all rolled into one “sur-diplomée” they say in France. Over-educated, we would say in America. She's a super nana, quoi.

She fell in love with an astronaut, Jean-Pierre Haigneré, who was sent on a space mission with the Russians three years before she was. They got married in 2001, and she continued her life in space for awhile. Then she got the call from then PM Raffarin–and made her political début as minister of Research and New Technologies. This was perhaps the first time she had ever encountered anything but success and applause; she was quietly transferred to another government post—European Affairs—where she stayed until May 2005, when the third government of Raffarin resigned. In France, when PM’s get into trouble, they tend to do cabinet shuffles, moving the same old people around, getting rid of a couple, adding a couple.

For now, nobody knows why Claudie Haigneré tried to commit suicide. I am tempted to make what would come off as an untimely joke. I hope it wasn’t because she had invested all her savings in a feeder fund that in turn invested in Bernard Madoff.
Because we learned yesterday that another Frenchman, Thierry de la Villehuchet, an aristocrat (un particule) who had invested other people’s money in Madoff, tried to commit suicide and succeeded. He was 65 years old. I read that he had spent the last week frantically trying to get some money back for his investors. I doubt he was part of the Ponzi scheme. He was fleeced. He was an avid sailor, had no children, and had invested more than one billion euros on behalf of a number of his friends.

Claudie Haigneré is someone I have always admired, in a way. She never came off as a show-off or a smarty-pants. She always seemed kind of reserved, but not exactly shy, under the gaze of the media. But I always thought she looked a little sad, a little depressed, a little affectless. As an astronaut, she was liked and admired. As a politician, she was suddenly under fire. It wasn't as if she was unused to stressful situations and having to think on her feet -- she trained for and carried out missions in space, after all -- but I don't think she was prepared for the nastiness of politics. She looked like a deer caught in headlights much of the time. I don't know what she has been doing for the last three years. The government she was part of was dissolved about eight months before I left France. Maybe the key to her gesture is to be found in her life since May 2005. On some level, and I think many French people would agree with me, ça la regarde. In other words, it's her business but not ours. Her husband has just stated that, although she had many "soucis," and wanted to sleep, she did not intend to commit suicide. The blogosphere is dubitative.

Since when am I friends with Hot Moon?

Does anyone ever read the ads on the right-hand side of Facebook? I usually don't, but one caught my eye this morning. This may be because it was tagged "for a woman over 40." Underneath this teaser is a photo of a large (excessively large) handback slung over the shoulder of a headless woman (over 40, I presume). I don't mean she has been beheaded, only that her head has been cropped out of the photo. I guess that's so all of us women over 40 can relate.

I cannot say I wasn't forewarned. I was told that the link would take me to a site called Hot Moon, described as "the name of a new friend. A friend with a philosophy of style and life who understands your needs and who you've become." Right. So I have just visited the site and have seen some terrible things. Sophisticated comfort, ombre wraps, all very expensive. We're talking 500-dollar sweaters that you order online.

The actual philosophy page comes as a bit of surprise given the prices and emphasis on the material world. Maybe my standards are too high. I should never have gotten that master's degree in philosophy. My sister was so right. It did not prepare me for life; it did not provide me with a philosophy of style. It has made me cynical and skeptical and horribly agnostic.

On the philosopy page, you can buy (yes, it is all about buying stuff online) something called The Soothing Soak. It is a bathtub reader; a completely waterproof book of "sensuous and spiritually uplifting" stories, poems and so on. And that's not all. You can buy all sorts of waterproof books about yoga, simple food, travel, stuff, swimming pools... et j'en passe. Eat, Pray, Love and Gag Me With a Spoon.

Well, if you haven't guessed by now, Hot Moon is "a friend you can expect to be there with that ideal something to make your day a little better." For example, let's say you need a framed photo of Francesco Scavullo. You can get one for only 950dollars and, what's more, if you aren't sure who Scavullo is, there is a brief description of why Scavullo is an icon of American design. That's all you really need to know. How about a Zebra wrap in cashmere or a Chinese porcelain vase? The latter costs 2,000 dollars. If your budget is a little stretched this season, why not go for the Métier tea pot, marked down to 55 dollars. It is a one-person tea pot, by the way.

Is there a market out there for this kind of thing? Is Oprah Winfrey fat and rich?

Why does this irritate me? I don't like the use of the word philosophy to describe personal style, for one thing. I don't mind the notion of a philosophy of life, but this website's use of the terms has nothing to do with philosophical issues and what it means to be human. This is all about creature comforts and middle-class fantasies of luxury, bound up in vague suggestions of simplicity and sustainability. The implicit claim, never stated outright, is that not only will these products make you -- you being the 50-something American woman -- feel better, they will also serve as your contribution to making this world a better place. And the idea that there is something spiritual about purchasing this shit and buying into the lifestyle it promotes just kills me.

Liberating the Nazi Librarian within

Yesterday, Mr. Wonderful, Neko and I went to pick up my snowed-in, stir-crazy mom and take her to her boyfriend's place before she went berzerk and killed a neighbor or the postman. Remember how I said we used to love to sled on Fentonwood hill? It seems that is still the tradition, although my inner child took one look at the ice and said no fucking way do I want to do that again. My inner child seems to have matured along with me, and now prefers indoor activities and sipping hot chocolate when the weather outside is frightful. Give me a warm indoor fire any day. And a project or two, the kind you never seem to get around to.


Every adult I have spoken to is organizing closets and deep cleaning kitchens. I got this sudden rage to organize our bookshelves. Actually, this was not so sudden. We built them last year, after my books and many of my belongings finally arrived from France. This was a 25-year accumulation of stuff, people. Mostly books, music and knick-knacks. We needed someplace to put the books, fast. I tried to find a suitable system at IKEA and other places, but nothing seemed quite right.

So we talked to Sean, our friend and the architect who designed our house, and he came up with the perfect solution for a space we really did not know what to do with anyway. It is not really an entryway, but not suitable for anything else. Except the three bookcases we installed. Walt had his shop guys weld the frames and we bought the wood at Home Depot. We used rusted rebar that was lying on the ground in the scrap yard at Machinists Inc to support the wooden shelves. The great thing is that the shelves can be adjusted to any height, since they rest on the rebar, which itself rests on the welded metal.

But we built them one-by-one and started putting the books on them as we built. Well, okay, I did that. I couldn't wait and I couldn't stand tripping over all of our books. We have a lot of books, many in duplicate or triplicate. As a result of this piecemeal arrangement, once all the shelves were in we had to move stuff around and the organizing system I had put in place fell apart. We repeated this same mistake for our CDs. The result in both cases is that for the past year, we have been unable to find any of the books or CDs we might wish to get our hands on. Plus, we had no light in the area, so after dark we could not find them even if they were organized. We finally (And just so you know, whenever I say "we" it usually means Walt executes what I mandate. I mandate and mandate until it gets done.) got some little clip-on lights at IKEA, and that's when I realized just how jumbled all the books and CDs were. A few days ago, I tackled the CDs. I already had these cool wire baskets from Staples; now all of our CDs are neatly arranged. Listening to the music we own has been an indescribable pleasure.



Now for the books. I just dove into the project this morning and kept at it until it was done. Now Kingsley Amis and Martin Amis are reunited, as they should be, although Amis junior's biography of his father is not, as it is shelved among the biographies. Not to be confused with the autobiographies. I started with fiction in English and, now that it is done, I have conflicting feelings. On the one hand, it doesn't look like there are too many books. Even though we have two of an embarrassing number of works. On the other hand, I saw many books that have been shelved unread. Somehow, between the urge to buy and the trip home, fell the shadow. But there is an upside, as usual. Now I know where the many bought but unread books actually are. If anyone wants to read Bernhard Schlink's The Reader before the film version comes out, just ask. I have it, filed between Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) and Riotous Assembly (Tom Sharpe). Alphabetizing books leads to some incongruous pairings, though. I had a hard time allowing Nabokov's masterpiece Lolita to stand beside The Good People of New York by Thisbe Nissen (who? you are asking yourself, I know you are). Vladimir, forgive me.

Snow story

Any Seattleite will tell you: it doesn't snow very often here. And when it does, any transplant from the Northeast or the Midwest will tell you: people in Seattle do not know how to drive in or otherwise cope with snow conditions. But I digress. This is not my problem because I work from home. And when it snows, I have a perfectly good reason not to go outside at all. Not that I need a reason any day. Still, it feels good to look at Neko and say "Sorry, Poops, but no walky-walk today" and know that she will understand why.
They said to expect an inch or so, but it has been snowing small but steady flakes for at least 4 hours now. In other words, at least two inches and mounting.
When I was a kid, growing up in Seattle, it did not snow often enough. And when it did, we did not get enough full-day school closures. I used to listen to the radio obsessively, waiting for the announcement that the Highline School District was closed. There were far too many one-hour late starting times. Bummer.
The hill we lived on, Fentonwood, would immediately become treacherously slick and impossible for vehicles to navigate. For this reason, it was one of the best places to go sledding. And because of its exposure, or lack thereof, Fentonwood remained an icy death trap long after the snow had become but a distant memory.
I live today on a treacherous hill not unlike Fentonwood. I'm staying inside today.

Here's a poem by my niece, Josie.
It's called I Am Josie. It was sent to me by her proud dad, my brother Carl.

I am Josie
I am caring and generous
I wonder what I will look like when I grow up
I hear piano notes rushing through my head
I see myself having babies
I want my cat to grow up with me
I am caring and generous

I pretend to be a mom
I feel protected around my parents
I touch music
I worry I will hurt myself badly
I cry about my future death
I am caring and generous

I understand you don’t have to be perfect
I say I love my family
I dream of being a teacher
I try to make things fair
I hope to have many kids
I am caring and generous
I am Josie



This poem by Josie was written from the heart. I didn't meet Josie until she was about six. The was three years ago, when I moved back to Seattle. I took this picture of her. She had written all these names on a big piece of paper and when I asked her what it was, she said she was listing the names of all the children she was planning to have. There must have been 30 names on the list. And she had 32 dolls, which she lined up on the staircase the next day.

California

What's so special about Northern California? Pretty much everything.