A Walk in the Park

But not just any park. Lincoln Park, our favorite park in Seattle. Neko loves to walk but her enthusiasm flags a bit when it gets hot. I can't blame her; she basically wears a fur coat at all times. Even with her recent cut she suffers when the sun is too bright.

What I love about Neko, though, is that she just stops for a few seconds when she gets tired and pants with her tongue out. She picks a shady, grassy spot and plops down to expose her belly to the cool grass. I always bring a small bowl and cold water, which she laps up from her belly flop position. Then she gets to her feet and moves on.




Back to Lincoln Park. It features a nearly deserted crescent-shaped beach that leads to the Fauntleroy ferry dock. Coleman Pool, an outdoor pool, is filled with salt water and looks out on Puget Sound. Both face west and then southwest as the path arks around, so the wide gravel path leading around the pool is generally in shade. Once past the pool, you can take one of the concrete uphill trails leading into the park. These lead to a wide dirt trail that takes you along a cliff and back to your starting point. It is always in shade, flanked by huge towering cedars, hemlocks and fir trees.

In 1970, when I was 14, I signed up to go on a 10-day hike (through the CYO - Catholic Youth Organization) in the Olympic Mountains that involved climbing Mount Olympus. My twin sister Cathy, our friend Sherry Baynard, and I decided to get in shape for this hike and climb - our first real one - by filling our rented backpacks with hardcover books and walking to Lincoln Park from Shorewood Elementary school and back home again. We packed some food and bought candy at the little store (a Rexall, I think) next to what is now Endolyne Joe's, a restaurant. We wore hiking boots we had rented from REI (to this day, REI employees gasp when they see my membership card, because I am practically a founder) and of course did not think about protecting our tender feet from blisters.

It was a rude awakening! I think we made it to and from Lincoln Park, though I can't be sure we didn't give up and call for a ride. I will guess that it is about an 8-mile round trip.

As unprepared as we were, it was a great 10-day hike and climb, except for the fact that one of the members of our party was killed and another seriously injured. Here's what happened: After climbing a mountain, it is customary to slide back down. This is called "glissading". It is really fun. However, you have to beware of crevasses, some of which are not easy to see until you are up close. Father Dalton, who was the priest on our hike (believe it or not, there were enough to go around back then for assignments like this), saw a huge and gaping crevasse and stationed himself in front of it to alert others to the danger. Jim O'Neil, who was a 21-year old seminarian, decided to come down the mountain on a tarp, for extra speed and thrills. There is nothing wrong with this, by the way. But he was unable to stop and ploughed into Father Dalton, who was trying desperately to keep him from falling into the abyss. And they both disappeared into the dark and icy crevasse. Miraculously, there is or was a UW glacier study center on Mount Olympus, so a helicopter and rescue crew were brought in. Unfortunately, Jim had broken his neck and did not survive. But Father Dalton did, with broken ribs and fractures of all kinds. He nearly froze to death as well. He was airlifted to the nearest hospital.

The other day, my brother Charlie gave me a letter he had found while cleaning out my mother's house. It is from Jim O'Neil's father, also called Jim, to Father Dalton. Father Dalton was unable to attend the funeral, but all of us Nanamakee girls did go. And we sang. We sang the title song from the Sound of Music. It probably sounds corny and maudlin, but it wasn't. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about the funeral, Jim's parents, our voices blending to say goodbye to that young man.

Here's what his dad wrote, just hours before going to meet Father Dalton for the first time. Jim's dad wrote the letter because he wanted to be sure and say everything he wished to say when the moment of meeting came:

The funeral was a completely overwhelming experience for us, and I'm sure for all others who were fortunate enough to be there... The frosting on the cake, so to speak, was having all the young CYO group there who sang so beautifully. It was just overwhelming.

The death of Jim O'Neil became a pivotal experience in my life, and I am sure that this is true for many of my fellow hikers. I often think of Pauline Cline, who was the director of the CYO Nanamakee program for girls and a PE teacher at Blanchett. She was probably in her late 20's when this happened. She and the other counselors, aged 19 to 25, were responsible in loco parentis for a bunch of 14-year old girls. When this accident occurred, we were in the middle of the Olympic Mountains. We had to hike out, in part through the rain forest. I'll never understand how she and the other "adults" managed to remain so composed and adult, dealing with their personal grief (Jim was a fellow counselor and their friend) and shock, and with our 14-year old ways of coping. They remain for me models of how to keep your head together when you have every good reason to fall apart.

I remember Jim O'Neil's father as a soft-spoken and extremely courageous man. A few days after losing his oldest son in a tragic accident, he wrote this, just hours before meeting Father Dalton, the man who almost lost his life trying to save a life:

Jim was thrilled beyond words at the opportunity of going on this climb. He was most excited and could not have been doing anything he liked better... So you see, Father Dalton, he was happy in doing what he was doing, he reached his objective in life as well as the top of the mountain because he was so happy being with the young people that he loved, and doing the things he liked most... Please believe us when we say we have no regrets at all.

Every time I go to Lincoln Park, and look out across the water to the Olympic Peninsula, I have a thought for Jim O'Neil and for Father Dalton, wherever he is. I am always brought to the same thought, though I didn't remember until recently that Jim's father had written about it in the letter. We have no regrets at all, he wrote. Life is such an improbable and glorious gift, and harboring regrets is a way of letting it slip through your hands unappreciated.

Une icône de la pop est morte... depuis des lustres

Avec le décès de Michael Jackson, les événements qui se déroulent en Iran sont passés au deuxième plan. Mais pour moi, le Michael Jackson qui a fait Thriller, un album mythique et géant, est mort il y a longtemps. Ses déboires, son recours sans cesse au bistouri (qui l’a rendu méconnaissable et effrayant à regarder, une sorte d’épouvantail vivant), sans parler de ses problèmes avec les jeunes gens… toutes ses histoires ont fini par enterrer Michael Jackson. Puis, les rumeurs insistantes qui courent ses dernières années sur sa situation financière, fragilisée par les procès pour abus sexuels sur mineurs. On dit qu’il laisse derrière lui une montagne de dettes, de quelques 400 millions de dollars.

Le prix de la célébrité est lourd, très lourd.

Twice in a Lifetime

I thought I was in Heaven when I saw David Byrne at Benaroya in February of this year (see blog entry). Who knew that four months later we would get the chance to see him at the Paramount - for free? (Thanks Prdeep and Frontier Bank!) Was it the Same As it Ever Was? Not quite. Some of the same songs, but not all. And then this special surprise at the end. I had never seen a marching band that looked to have strippers, cross-dressers and possibly trannies among its membership. They did a gig later on at the Comet Tavern and when we left the Paramount they were doing an impromptu performance in the lobby.

The only scary moment came when people were dancing to Burning Down the House. We were on the mezzanine and it was shaking, literally shaking. I had thoughts of disaster.

Neko, chienne increvable

Une fête des pères bien boisée mais pas trop arrosée

Pour la fête des pères, Neko a proposé une promenade en forêt à son maître, qui a accepté aussitôt. Comme nous étions convoqués plus tard à un BBQ pour fêter la même occasion, nous avons décidé de trouver une balade près de chez nous. Direction Cougar Mountain, qui est en réalité une colline habitée mais peu importe. Il y a pleine de belles balades à faire et la forêt est dense et verte. Il y a plusieurs variétés de fougères, de fleurs sauvages et de bêtes. La flore et la faune quoi. Qui pourrait demander plus ?

Neko a aimé et, malgré les dix kilomètres de marche, elle ne s’est ni arrêtée ni ralentie son pas une seule fois. Je me disais que dans une vie antérieure elle était certainement une chienne de traineaux, qui portait son maître « musher » sur les neiges éternelles de l’Alaska sans jamais se plaindre. Elle était husky, samoyède, malamute, groenlandais ou alaskan…

Could frumpy be the new fabulous?

The unexamined life, as Socrates maintained, may not be worth living. But it sure is fun to watch!

Wow. I can't believe I watched the season finale of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Nor can I believe that Walt and I actually had a serious conversation that involved him defending Danielle as having shown class relative to the other four housewives in the drunken catfight that erupted when Danielle threw a copy of the book in which her past (as a cocaine whore and stripper whose real name is Beverly) is revealed. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry. This is a good sign. My argument was twofold: one, that class, relative or otherwise, is not a word that applies to this tacky group; and two, that Danielle got the upper hand, which is not the same as having class and not hard to understand. She did this by employing a four-pronged strategy: she surprised the others by throwing the book at them, so to speak; the others were drunk by the time this happened, which slowed and slurred their reactions; Danielle slyly set the two sisters against their sister-in-law, thereby creating a catfight within a catfight; and the party hostess, what's her name, is so frigging ditzy that a four-year old could get the better of her in an argument about how to tie shoes. Unable to speak a coherent sentence, she did what any real housewife of NJ would do under similar circumstances: she upended the table and started shrieking.

We first discovered this show on our Jet Blue flight from NY to Seattle. I had finished my book and did not want to get up and retrieve another from my bag in the overhead storage bin. So I started looking for something to watch. And there it was. Tacky. Mindless. Unscripted humor. Short sound bites. Unbridled vanity. Trout lips. Botox. Fake "bubbies" (that's boobies with a Joisey accent). Home fitness centers. Cougar sex. Pouty, spoiled children. Expensive designer handbags and shoes. Vague dissatisfaction against a backdrop of ungodly wealth. Endless trips to the hairdresser. French nails, the better to scratch you with, bitch. Big old SUVs, even for the teens. Huge McMansions.

You know, the American Dream and all that.

Is it because they are just like us or people we know that we find them so fascinating? I doubt it. I think it is because they embody the American cliché with such obvious gusto and lack of irony. We the viewers get to enjoy all the smug irony. The real housewives get to enjoy the notoriety that goes with letting it all hang out on national television, not to mention the perks they probably get from the show's sponsors. Before, they just ran New Jersey. Now America knows that they run New Jersey. Therein lies an important nuance, though I can't quite figure out what it is. The importance of not just doing but being seen to be doing it. Viewers embrace their inner voyeur; the viewed embrace their inner exhibitionist. Everyone wins. The lives of the viewed are enhanced by fame of sorts. Not for accomplisments or uncommon courage; just for putting it out there. The lives of the viewers are enhanced by the knowledge that they get the joke, they are in on the irony and hthey ave escaped living a cliché. Or so they desperately hope.

One comment I read on a blog entry about the show nailed it: "I watched a preview of this series a few weeks ago and was so horrified I immediately decided to watch it."

Now that we have seen the wives of just about every affluent American community on display, I'm thinking the backlash will be television programming that features Susan Boyle type frumps. Now that would be radical. Maybe the first in what will inevitably be variations on a theme could be about the real housewives of Seattle. Casting call for all Seattle housewives who are frumpy and proud.

Sally and her posse

Sally on her big day, surrounded by her four daughters


Presenting Sally and Ron Santucci

They did it!

My mom is getting hitched today!

Today is a big day for my mom, Sally Malone Ganong, and Ron Santucci. They're getting married at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Magnolia, in the presence of their twelve children (six each) and the significant others of their twelve children, the children of their twelve children and one child of one of the children of their twelve children (my brother Charlie's daughter, Kristi, and her husband Tim have a son, William, now 21 months old. After the wedding mass, we will be treated to a spaghetti dinner made and served by a few of Ron's friends. My twin sister Cathy is the maid of honor; Ron's son Bob is best man. Apparently, these two roles needed to be filled by people who had attended Mass in the last six months. I'm sure Cathy is lying -- anything to be maid of honor!:)

I don't know how many grandchildren there are. My mom has nine, plus the four kids of Terry, Carolyn's husband. That makes thirteen. The six Santucci's probably have at least as many between them. I've met a couple of Bob and Helen's kids (their son Bobby played baseball for Walt), and two small children who belong to one of Ron's daughters (like Sally, Ron has four daughters and two sons). William Mc Quillan, the son of Charlie's daughter Kristi and her husband Tim, is the only great-grandchild.

Remembering Tiananmen Square

I have been meaning to write something about the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989. In China, it is referred to simply as "the June 4th incident". Listening to and reading the numerous eye witness accounts, as well as interviews with today's 20 year-olds in China, who of course were not born or just born when it happened, has dredged up a lot of memories. By 1989 I had left China for France, but I doubt that China had changed enormously in the three years since my departure. Actually, it had probably changed significantly on one level - let's call it eye level because I love this double palindrome - and not at all on the other, deeper level. On the deeper level, all is chaos and anarchy. On the eye level, all is order, discipline and repression.

During the eighteen-month period I spent in China, I had the good fortune to teach adults: young students at the Chinese Foreign Language Institute (which was renamed a few years ago) in Shanghai, but also students at Fudan University and a group of professional journalists. I would not be surprised to learn that they took part in the 1989 movement. My students were curious, courageous and adventurous. Some of the journalists had suffered during the Cultural Revolution, as had Deng Xiaoping, who was China's leader when I lived there. He is widely credited with starting the reform movement in 1978, after having survived tremendous political challenges. One of my favorite Chinese jokes perfectly captures who Deng Xiaoping was at the time: three inmates are languishing in a Chinese prison. Prisoner one says to prisoner two: why are you here? I am here because I opposed Deng Xiaoping. Prisoner two asks prisoner one: why are you here? I am here because I supported Deng Xiaoping, he replies. They turn to prisoner three and ask, in unison, why are you here? Prisoner three replies: I am Deng Xiaoping. His first name (Xiaoping) also means little (xiao) bottle (ping). People told me he was aptly named because, like a bottle thrown in the sea, he always managed to stay afloat.

I felt China moving towards greater freedom when I was there. This was in the early to mid eighties, before China really opened its doors wide to tourists from the West. This was a good thing: without many infrastructures of control/tourism in place, Westerners who had permission to be there had great freedom of movement. We were paid in local currency and had the right to use it and pay Chinese prices (China has since done away with its dual currency system). We could travel peasant class on the trains if we wanted. We could stay in Chinese hotels and go to Chinese restaurants - as opposed to the hotels, restaurants, shops and train cars reserved specifically for tourists. We were foreign experts. Most of us were teachers, teaching the very people who would go on to demand that democratic reform accompany the economic miracle whose foundations were being laid.

Three years later, standing in the living room of a beautiful Parisian apartment located across the street from the Collège de France, one of the world's foremost seats of reason and erudition, I watched from a great distance in horror as events unfolded in Beijing. I could not help but feel that these were people I knew, being gunned down by soldiers of the People's Army. The People's Army, turning on the people. I think that many of those gunned down made the same mistake I did: believing that the People's Army would never turn on the People.

Black Dynamite

The guy who runs the Warrent Report blog said it was THE film to see if you only wanted to see one SIFF film this year. We went. We saw. We enjoyed. This film will do well at the box office. It is a total spoof and everyone in it apparently had a great time pimping and hamming it up. My only complaint is that sometimes it felt as if they were having more fun than the audience. Speaking of the audience, the director Scott Sanders and the male lead Michael Kai White were among us. They stayed for a Q&A session after the film, but we did not. It was late (SIFF movies never start on time and this one was no exception) and I loathe Q&A sessions with the audience. Most of the time, it is a series of bores who try and disguise their monologues by tacking a question on the end.

The best thing about the movie is its length: spoofs have to be relatively short to work because a one-joke movie always goes cold quickly. The second best thing was the names of the various bit players, most of whom portray pimps or dealers: Cream Corn, Nipsy (a nod to Nipsy Russell), Tasty Freeze (played by Arsenio Hall), Kotex and Chocolate Giddy-up are the most memorable ones.

La folie douce de Séraphine de Senlis

Séraphine, une production franco-belge de Martin Provost qui a gagné le César du meilleur film français en 2009, a été projeté hier à Seattle dans le cadre de la 35ème édition de son festival de cinéma international. Le temps étant à la canicule depuis quelques jours, j’étais contente d’être dans une salle obscure bien climatisée. Le film a eu un grand succès populaire en France, malgré un consensus critique plus mitigé. Je me range plutôt du côté du public, même si je comprends parfaitement la réticence des juges professionnels du cinéma.

Le film est lent, mais pas ennuyeux. L’histoire est mince et, à mon avis, c’est parce qu’on ne connait pas grand-chose de la vie de Séraphine de Senlis : elle est issue d’un milieu modeste, elle perd ses deux parents à un jeune âge, elle travaille comme bergère avant de devenir femme de ménage. Elle aime Le Seigneur et les anges, et puise son inspiration artistique dans la vie spirituelle. Séraphine aime la nature et communique avec elle. Ses voisins et ses employeurs pensent qu’elle est excentrique et peut être folle, mais ils ont besoin de linge propre et sa folie ne l’empêche pas de s’en occuper. Elle fabrique ses propres couleurs et peigne non pas en cachette mais à ses heures perdues. Elle ne se cache pas, mais elle ne se montre pas non plus. A vrai dire, elle semble complètement indifférente à l’égard des gens qui l’entourent. Elle est marginale, certes, mais pas malheureuse.

L’arrivée d’un collectionneur célèbre à Senlis – il détient la plus grande collection de Picasso et découvre le douanier Rousseau – va faire basculer sa vie de femme de ménage le jour, peintre chantant la nuit. Ce monsieur aime ses toiles et pense qu’elle a du talent. En toile de fond, l’armée Allemande qui avance, qui avance, première guerre mondiale oblige. Wilhelm Uhde et sa sœur doivent partir vite, laissant derrière eux Séraphine et ses toiles. La guerre se termine, ils se retrouvent, et une carrière d’artiste peintre couvée par un collectionneur puissant se profile. Puis, le krach boursier fait trembler la planète et surtout les riches, qui n’achètent plus d’art. La folie douce de Séraphine ne se traduit plus dans ses toiles et s’extériorise. Elle est internée en asile psychiatrique et finira ses jours la-dedans : pauvre, folle et oubliée. Elle est enterrée dans une fosse commune.

Voilà pour l’histoire. Yolande Moreau, l’actrice belge qui joue le rôle de Séraphine est parfaite. On dit que la peinture de Séraphine, l’autodidacte, la range dans la catégorie d’art naïf. Uhde n’est pas d’accord et moi non plus. En revanche, Séraphine – telle qu’interprétée par Moreau, est une femme naïve. Quand elle gaspille l’argent qu’elle commence à gagner grâce à son art et aux soins de son « agent », ce n’est pas par extravagance ni par cupidité. C’est tout simplement parce que l’argent est juste une chose de plus à découvrir. C’est une chose qui permet d’acquérir d’autres choses, jolies celles-ci. C’est sans importance pour Séraphine. Tellement sans importance qu’elle dépense sans compter, jusqu’à s’acheter une maison modelée sur un château célèbre, avec l’argent de son agent. Il reçoit la facture du notaire, mais ne peut pas payer.



J’adore Yolande Moreau. Elle n’est pas belle, mais elle est radieuse. Ses yeux bleus semblent par moment enterrés derrière son front et ses paumettes, et pourtant ils brillent. Elle n'est pas grande mais elle est potelée et se déplace comme un ours. Pourtant, elle est pleine de grâce et de vie. Son rôle dans La fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain est mineur et pourtant, quand je pense à ce film, je pense d'abord et surtout à elle, qui incarne Madeleine Wallace à la perfection. Pas étonnant que le César de la meilleure actrice a été discerné à Yolande Moreau en 2009 pour son interprétation de Séraphine. Elle avait déjà été primée en 2005.

Derrière les chiffres il y a des hommes

I've been thinking a lot about Air France flight 447. For one thing, it has gotten extensive media coverage, which is only natural given that air accidents of this magnitude are - thankfully - rare. A debate rages in the blogosphere about whether or not air travel really is the safest mode of transport. Something like 2.6 billion people were transported by plane last year, with a surprisingly small number of deaths. The thing is, as everyone says, when a jumbo jet goes down, there are many, many deaths at the same instant.

I have flown a lot in my lifetime -- not as many hours as a pilot or a flight attendant, of course -- so I feel exposed when I hear about a crash. And I have developed strategies for keeping anxiety at bay when I fly. How many people truly enjoy flying, though? I really don't, especially now that flying has become totally banal as an activity. Except on international flights -- and sometimes even on them -- conditions are barely acceptable. No food, not much refreshment, not much leg room, too much stuff crammed in overhead compartments, seats too small and too close together. On the last flight I took, returning from NY to Seattle, the rather large woman in the seat next to mine had her arm resting on the controls for my music and visuals the entire time. Had she not been asleep, I might have asked her to move so that I could find some suitable music or watch some crappy movie to pass the time.

One of my false beliefs is that disaster only happens on take-off or landing. If the plane can get off the ground without something going really wrong, then there will be nothing to fear until it is time to land. And landings have gotten much, much smoother in the last ten years or so. I bet everyone would agree with this. It is obvious. Air France flight 447 disappeared after more than four hours in the air. In other words, it violated one of my sacred wrong beliefs. My sacred wrong beliefs are the ones that keep me from having an anxiety or panic attack and, on occasion, I have felt that these beliefs actually help to keep the plane in the air and on course. I know this is utterly ludicrous. I knew a Canadian woman in China who was pathalogically afraid to fly. She was a career expat in Shanghai, which meant that the occasional trip back home to Vancouver, BC, had to be taken by sea. She told me that she actually did force herself to fly once, and knitted the entire way. She was afraid that if she stopped knitting the plane would go down. She did stop for just a second and the plane immediately entered a pocket of turbulence, thus proving the basic psychological truth of her wrong sacred belief. She had no choice but to stick to the knitting.

I heard a Norwegian woman being interviewed on the radio today, who had lost her daughter and one of her grandchildren in this tragedy. Her son-in-law and second grandchild had taken a different flight because they had some frequent flyer miles to use up. Their flight landed at Roissy at 4 pm, which is when the son-in-law and his child learned that flight 447, due in earlier the same day (at 11 am), was lost and that its passengers had perished. Another woman who was interviewed had to change her plans at the last minute, or she would have been on Flight 447.

Finally, Le Monde has written the article that captures the human element. 228 names and lives lost; many more destinies shattered. It delineates the process by which a raw piece of news slowly becomes a story of individual sorrow. Here's a quick translation:

For a few hours, they were just numbers. Classified according to the general criteria used by airlines and their insurers. Two hundred and twenty eight missing. That's 12 crew members and 216 passengers. Among the latter, there were 126 men, 82 women, 7 children and a baby.

A little later, they became a list of names. And finally, a small society of individuals, couples, families struck by fate. Alexander Bjoroy, 11 years old, was returning from Rio via Paris to his boarding school in Bristol. He had just spent a few days on vacation with his mother, Jane, and his father, Robin, an engineer for the Brazilian oil industry.

Ten French employees from the same company, CGED, each one accompanied by a spouse or a friend, were also among those aboard flight AF447 Rio-Paris. They had won a company-wide contest that, each year, rewards the top ten salespeople in the French Southwest. In Bordeaux, in Artigues, in Pau...in nearly every one of CGED's small regional agencies, at least one employee was lost. Like Stéphane Artiguenave and his wife, Sandrine, "much more worried", explains a colleague of Stéphane, "about the reputation Brazil has of being a dangerous place and of losing their two children (aged 9 and 4) than of an airplane accident".

At the regional headquarters of CGED in Bordeaux, people are also counting the terrible twists of fate. Like this young saleswoman for CGED, 23-year old Laetitia Alazard, who got to go to Brazil because one of her colleagues was unable to. Since her boyfriend could not get away, she asked her best friend, Aurélia, to go with her. "Viva Brazil!", she had written with enthusiasm on her Facebook page.

CGED is not the only company in mourning. While there were more than 150 tourists aboard flight AF 447, there were also many business travelers, attesting to Brazil's recent economic development.

Michelin also lost three top executives. Luiz Roberto Anastacio, 50 years old and with Michelin for twenty-seven years, had just been appointed chairman of Michelin Latin America on May 4. He was en route to Clermont-Ferrand, where he had a meeting at the tire manufacturer's global headquarters. He was traveling with Antonio Gueiros, head of IT at the Rio office, and a French engineer, Christine Pieraerts, who was returning to France after a vacation. "In addition to losing two men and one woman who were loved, we are losing highly valued managers", says a spokesperson for the company, who adds that the company lost its own chairman and CEO, Edouard Michelin, in a boating accident.

The city of Ermenonville has lost three elected officials. Three friends, Nathalie Marroig, 41, and Marie-Josée Treillou, 70, who were on vacation in Brazil, and Anne Grimout, 49, who was the head of the cabine crew on AF 447. A seasoned professional, she frequently worked the Rio-Paris flight.

In fact, the entire crew was made up of veterans. The captain, aged 58, had 11 000 flight hours under his belt, of which 1 700 on planes of the same type as the Airbus A330-200. His two co-pilots, aged 37 and 32, had logged in 9 000 flight hours between them.

But these flights, which link one end of the planet to the other, are also little worlds unto themselves. The passengers represented 32 different nations: France (73), Brazil (58), Germany (26), China (9), Italy (9), Switzerland (6), the UK (5), Lebanon (5), Hungary (44), Slovakia (3), Norway (3), Ireland (3), the US (2), Poland (2), Morocco (2), Spain (2) and Iceland (1). (According to the NY Times: "The airline said victims included 2 Americans, an Argentine, an Austrian, a Belgian, 58 Brazilians, 5 Britons, a Canadian, 9 Chinese, a Croatian, a Dane, a Dutch citizen, an Estonian, a Filipino, 61 French citizens, a Gambian, 26 Germans, 4 Hungarians, 3 Irish, an Icelander, 10 Italians, 5 Lebanese, 2 Moroccans, 3 Norwegians, 2 Poles, a Romanian, a Russian, 3 Slovakians, 2 Spaniards, a Swede, 6 Swiss and a Turk.")


After France, Brazil paid the highest price in lives lost. Taken the night before the flight, one photo has appeared in all the Brazilian papers. It shows Eduardo Macario, a young lawyer, and Bianca Cotta, 25, the woman he had just married. The young couple had planned to honeymoon in Europe, after celebrating their union the night before with 500 guests at a club in Niteroi, the city across from Rio on the other side of Guanabara Bay. Monday, after the accident was announced, the young woman's father spent the day glued to his computer looking at maps of the Atlantic, and trying desperately to find an island where the plane could have effected an emergency landing.

Pierre-Louis d'Orléans-Bragance, 26, one of the heirs to the Brazilian imperial throne, was also on the Rio-Paris flight. Born in 1983 in Rio, with a degree in economics, the young man was fourth in line to the throne. He was returning to Luxembourg, where he lived, after visiting his parents, who live in Petropolis, the city where the former imperial palace is located. "Dom Pierre-Louis" was the great-great-grandson of Isabelle de Bragance, the princess who, in 1888, abolished slavery, just a year before the Empire was wiped out.

In the UK, in Italy, in Germany, a thousand similar dramas played out. For example, that involving a 61-year old British engineer named Arthur Coakley, who had gone to Rio on business for his oil company. Coakley was supposed to be on the earlier flight, which was overbooked. So he was transferred to this Air France flight.

The story of Brazilian choreographer Gustavo Ciriaco is a miracle. For 200 euros, he traded his ticket on this flight with a young woman who had a seat on the earlier flight.

Italy lost a mayor from the Trentino region, Luigi Zortea, who had gone to Brazil to establish a sister city relationship with the village of Zortea, which bears his name, in the state of Santa Caterina. Germany lost one of the executive directors of ThyssenKrupp, Erich Heine, who was returning from a visit to the Brazilian subsidiary. His compatriot, the architect Moritz Kock, was returning from a meeting with his famous Brazilian colleague, the centennial architect Oscar Niemeyer. And three young Irish doctors, an American geologist, and so many others.

They will be remembered in their country of origin. An ecumenical ceremony was held this afternoon at Notre-Dame, in Paris. Next Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet with the families of the French victims.

Written by Raphaëlle Bacqué with Jean-Pierre Langellier in Rio, Marie de Vergès in Berlin, Philippe Ridet in Rome and Virginie Malingre in London.

Translated by Peggy Ganong

Neko visits Sculpture Park

Neko finally got to Olympic Sculpture Park on Saturday night. This is the best shot of her. Too bad the photographer cut off the top of my head.


The Eagle has Landed

This is Eagle, the work that in many ways defines Olympic Sculpture Park.
This painted steel sculpture by Alexander Calder was finished in 1971. It weighs about 6 tons.


Sailboat


Remains of the Day

These photos indicate what inspired the word "Olympic" in the park's name. In both, the Olympic Peninsula looms on the horizon.


Mount Rainier catching the last rays of a beautiful sunny day

Hard Times

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.






Is it just me or do most people tend to get stuck in the lower regions of Manhattan when they visit New York? I always think I'll get up North and usually am lucky if I get to the north end of Central Park! There is so much to see on every street corner, in every nook and cranny. But this time, we went not once but twice north of the magical line of thinking. On Saturday we went to see the Yankees beat the Phillies in the bottom of the ninth at the New Yankee Stadium, although we did not technically see the victory. We left at the top of the ninth, thinking it would rain any second and confident that the Phillies would hang on to win 4-2. In fact, they lost 5-4. What a finish!
But we preferred to leave early and walk a bit. It never did rain on Saturday, so we got off the subway just south of Central Park and walked south for about 40 blocks, through Chelsea.
On Tuesday, our friend Peter actually picked us up at our apartment in Greenwich Village and drove us up north to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. You can't miss it: it's next to the famous Bronx Zoo and across the road from Fordham University. It seems that many people do miss it, however, and that's too bad. It is 250 acres of heaven for lovers of fauna and flora. We saw birds, including several catbirds, and a wild rabbit, which dove into a hedge as we approached the conservatory. Peter knew the curator of the conifers, and stopped to chat with him at one point during our tour. He seems to know everyone.
We left the Bronx, NY City and indeed the great state of New York, venturing into Connecticut, Greenwich and Stamford. I did not see any for sale signs, but these towns have been "hard hit" by the rupture created in the economy as FIRE (financial, insurance and real estate) gives way to ICE (information, communications, entertainment). Come to think of it, however, these communities probably have their share of ICE million- and billion-aires too.
In fact, one of Greenwich's most prominent denizens is Walter Noel, who ran the Fairfield Greenwich Group. When Bernie Madoff was first arrested and his Ponzi scheme exposed, Noel and his family were portrayed as innocent victims who had been wiped out by this unscrupulous man they had trusted. Noel has five daughters, all of them married to financiers from around the world who are associated with Fairfield. I guess that's the downside of having everyone in the fam dependent on the same source of income. Noel's group fed more than 7 billion dollars collected from various investors into the Madoff fund, and must have reaped huge benefits from it for many years. It is hard now to believe that these financiers were not savvy enough to question the plausibility of the consistently and excessively high returns regardless of how the rest of the market was performing. I mean, wouldn't you wonder just a little bit?
This initial portrayal of the Noel family as innocent victims has evolved, however. A civil complaint was recently filed against Fairfield by the Massachusetts Secretary of State, and I found this on a society gossip blog:

While most of Walter Noel’s clients are left penniless trying to find ways to put food on their table, some members of the Noel family are still living like its still 2006. Marisa Noel Brown, daughter of disgraced hedge funder Walter Noel, was enjoying a lavish evening of entertainment at her Greenwich, Connecticut home.
According to sources who were at the party Saturday night, about 50 close friends of the Brown’s sipped on what some called the most expensive champagne in the world, Perrier-Jouet, which was sold to about 100 people around the world last year for close to $7,000 a bottle. Another source at the party said that Walter and his wife Monica were also at the party laughing and having a good old time.
“How can these people celebrate when most of the old man’s clients lost everything,” you ask. I do not know, maybe they are using it all up before they lose it all like most of us.

Daily Intel duly notes that the Noel family is having to scale back a bit to cope with these hard times. In years past they have summered at their "7,000-square-foot house in Lake Agawam, an exclusive enclave in Southampton". But this unfortunate Madoff business has meant that their assets are frozen as they face the fraud charges mentioned above. That will put a chill on the best of summer plans. According to Daily Intel, the Southampton property will have to be let to the highest bidder. For just 350,000 dollars you can have the place -- which features ten bedrooms, nine-and-a-half baths, six fireplaces, and a heated pool -- for the whole month of July. If you prefer to vacation in August, be ready to fork over an additional 25,000 bucks.
It may be a short and pleasant journey from the Bronx to Greenwich, CN, but believe me they are worlds apart.





Meet the Noels: Walter, Monica, and their five fabulous daughters

Delmore Schwartz died in the Chelsea Hotel

Delmore Schwartz, whose name is somehow synonymous with failure to live up to early promise, died here























Delmore Schwartz: in dreams begin responsibilities

Could there be a more intriguing title for a short story than this: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. It is the title of the first short story that Brooklyn-born Delmore Schwartz ever published, to critical claim. I once read a very good biography of Schwartz and will update this post with a reference to it if possible. It has always haunted me that he died, alone and alcoholic, in the famous Chelsea Hotel on 23rd between 7th and 8th. He taught briefly at Syracuse University, where one of his students was Lou Reed.

Below, one of my favorite Schwartz poems. For me, the subject is the anxiety of influence and also what makes New York City so great. We walked by a branch of the New York Public Library on Saturday, where I took these unremarkable photos. Unremarkable, except that they reminded me for some reason of Delmore Schwartz, which reminded me of the Chelsea Hotel, which we found on our long walk home from South Central Park to Greenwich Village via Chelsea. And which brings me to this poem.




The Greatest Thing In North America by Delmore Schwartz
This is the greatest thing in North America:
Europe is the greatest thing in North America!
High in the sky, dark in the heart, and always there
Among the natural powers of sunlight and of air,
Changing, second by second, shifting and changing the
light,
Bring fresh rain to the stone of the library steps.

Under the famous names upon the pediment:
Thales, Aristotle,
Cicero, Augustine, Scotus, Galileo,
Joseph, Odysseus, Hamlet, Columbus and Spinoza,
Anna Karenina, Alyosha Karamazov, Sherlock Holmes.

And the last three also live upon the silver screen
Three blocks away, in moonlight's artificial day,
A double bill in the darkened palace whirled,
And the veritable glittering light of the turning world's
Burning mind and blazing imagination, showing, day by
day
And week after week the desires of the heart and mind
Of all the living souls yearning everywhere
From Canada to Panama, from Brooklyn to Paraguay,
From Cuba to Vancouver, every afternoon and every night.

What to do in NYC

New Yankee Stadium from the outside



Impromptu Memorial Day jam in Washington Square Park



John Lennon once said that he profoundly regretted not having been born in Greenwich Village. This fabulous tribute to Lennon and the city that embraced him is in Soho.

Living Well is the Best Revenge

Happy 103rd birthday GG...G!

I asked GG (now GGG) what her secret to longevity was, and she whispered this in my ear: "I don't judge others and I got no time for self pity". Words to live by.

Lucky in New York City

Saturday in NYC
Wake up late, grab a coffee, hit the road. Since we’re staying in Greenwich Village and had to get to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, we had to think about the SW to NE crossing. Luckily, it is a straight shot on the D line. The D line goes uptown on the west side of Central Park before cutting to the East at Harlem. This meant just a short walk from our apartment (we are staying in a truly fabulous apartment whose owner is away), with a stop at Bar 6, a charming Moroccan restaurant recommended by Laurent, a French musician we met in the elevator. As we were waiting for the elevator and considering our options for lunch, we heard a man and a woman speaking French and saying their goodbyes. I asked if we should hold the elevator and the answer was a surprised yes. So Laurent and I had a nice chat about the respective and considerable merits of Paris and NY and the dangers in both places of eating fruits de mer (shellfish) that is not 100% fresh. Laurent had been sick the night before on baked clams. Laurent is a musician – a guitarist – who was born in Paris (20th arrondissement) and then moved to the banlieu of Sarcelles (generally considered one of the poorer ones – my ex spent time there with his parents, peasants from Corrèze who came to Paris in search of work after the war). So he and I had a kind of natural affinity. As he said, you don’t meet many people outside France, even in the global city of New York, who know Sarcelles. Laurent recommended the Moroccan restaurant and then walked there with us. He told us about his four Sunday gigs, playing guitar for church services, and about his current gig doing the music for some Broadway musical (he told me which one, but I have already forgotten it), and then bid us farewell. He said we should be sure and stop by Elliette’s place and say salut. The Diaspora francophone generally loves the opportunity to speak la langue maternelle and share their nostalgia for l’Hexagone. One carries a little mal de pays around forever after spending any significant amount of time in France.

Of course, the restaurant recommended by Laurent was perfect. A wonderfully luminous space with a skylight and mirrors on a light-colored wall with light brown wood moldings. The signature dishes and wines were painted high up on the mirrors: chicken tagine, vegetable couscous, etc. I had the vegetable couscous, which is one of my favorite dishes and one I love to make. But I never quite get the couscous right. I think you have to be born in North Africa to understand how couscous works. That’s why they sell it in easy-cook packets for non-magrebines. But it ain’t the same. I heard a show on French radio once about how it is cooked and realized it was much more complex than it seems. Walt tried a croque monsieur, which is kind of like a grilled ham and cheese sandwich but way better. It was served with shavings of what looked like celeri rabe and carrots, alongside some cornichons and pickled white onions. My vegetable couscous was simple and delicious. Stewed carrots, celery, green beans, yellow squash, russet potatoes and tomatoes in a tomato-y sauce, served with a fluffy yet firm mound of couscous delicately topped with a raisin or two and an almond sliver. A small ramekin of harissa came with it. Delicious. A couple sitting in the corner was eating something that required ketchup. The woman poured a huge amount of salt on whatever she was eating. When they got up to leave, I noticed she was a few months pregnant. Geez, I thought, all that salt can’t be good. But Walt noticed they she had left her sunglasses on the table. He rushed out the front door and by some miracle managed to spot them on the crowded street. They were grateful out-of-towners. So grateful that a few minutes later our waitress presented two mimosas, a gift of gratitude from the out-of-towners.

After lunch, we made our way down to the D line, stopping to look at puppies in a pet shop window and to buy some clairefontaine writing notebooks, which I have not been able to find in Seattle, and a Cross pencil, at a fully-stocked, even overflowing, stationary shop.

That’s a lot of serendipity before 2 pm. But that’s New York.

Les Pictes et le mariage

If you aren't interested in the Middle Ages, etymology or traditions related to finding a suitable spouse for an unmarried woman AND if you don't read French, you will probably want to skip this post.


Les Pis (1)
Voici quelques faits intéressants sur les « Pis » (les Pictes) :
En effet, il s’agit du peuple qui vivait autrefois dans les Terres Basses (les « Lowlands ») de l’Ecosse actuelle. Le nom, qui vient de l’épithète latine « Picti », signifie « hommes peints ». Certains pensent que ce nom, attribué par les Britto-romains puis par les Anglo-Saxons aux habitants des Basses Terres entre le troisième et le neuvième siècle, fait référence à la peinture de guerre et donc qu’il désigne un peuple guerrier.
L’absence de sources historiques fiables rend difficile tout commentaire précis sur l’origine des Pictes. Cependant, on sait qu’au milieu du neuvième siècle ils sont « absorbés » par les Scots lors de la formation de l’Ecosse médiévale par Kenneth Mac Alpin,(2) qui réuni les deux peuples en un royaume qui durera jusqu’en 1707.
Selon une des seules sources disponibles, cette disparation a été déclenchée par le massacre des nobles pictes par les Scots lors d’un entretien organisé. La source en question est l’historien Bède le Vénérable (l’auteur de l’Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum), qui explique l’arrivée des Pictes en Bretagne ainsi :
« Les Pictes comme je l’ai dit, arrivèrent sur cette île par la mer, ils désiraient obtenir un endroit où s’installer ; les Scots répondirent «que l’île ne pouvait accueillir à la fois ces deux peuples ».Ces derniers continuèrent «nous pouvons néanmoins vous donner un bon conseil leur dirent ils. Nous savons qu’il existe une autre île, guère éloignée de la nôtre, en direction de l’est, que nous apercevons souvent au loin, par temps clair. Si vous y débarquez vous obtiendrez des colonies ; et si l’on s’oppose à vous, vous pourrez compter sur notre appui.
Les Pictes en conséquence, cinglèrent vers la Bretagne dont ils occupèrent les parties septentrionales, car les bretons possédaient le sud. Mais les Pictes n’avaient pas de femme aussi demandèrent ils aux Scots d’épouser leurs filles. Les Scots acceptèrent à condition qu’ils choisiraient en cas de litige un roi né de la race royale féminine plutôt que masculine, coutume que les Pictes observèrent jusqu’à nos jours… ».
Bien qu’ils soient absorbés par les Scots, les Pictes ont laissé quelques traces de leur passé qui subsistent de nos jours. Par exemple, on doit aux Pictes de nombreuses pierres dressées, ornées de figures géométriques et à caractère sacré, y compris la croix chrétienne après leur conversion religieuse. Aujourd’hui, peu de ses pierres restent dans le lieu original de leur implantation, mais beaucoup sont conservées dans des musées situés en Ecosse.

Plus intéressant encore - mais selon la légende seulement - le drapeau écossais, parmi les plus anciens drapeaux nationaux au monde encore utilisés (il date du IXème siècle), est associé aux Pictes. Selon cette légende, le roi Oengus II des Pictes (ou King Angus) mena les Pictes et les Gaëls en bataille contre les Angles sous le roi Aethelstan d'Est-Anglie. Quand Angus et ses hommes furent encerclés, le roi se mit à prier pour leur délivrance. Durant la nuit, Saint André (qui avait été martyrisé sur une croix diagonale) (3) apparut à Angus et l'assura de la victoire. Le lendemain, un sautoir blanc sur un fond bleu fut visible par les deux côtés. Cette apparition encouragea les Pictes et les Gaëls mais pas les Angles, qui furent battus. La croix de Saint André devint ainsi le drapeau écossais.


Le jour de la saint André : un lien avec la mal mariée ?

Selon la tradition, toutes les jeunes filles non-mariées priaient à la Saint André le 29 novembre vers minuit (la veille de l’actuel Jour de la Saint André) pour un mari. Elles adressaient leur demande à Saint André, puis cherchaient un signe que leur vœu a été exaucé.

Une fille voulant trouver un époux pouvait (au choix) :

• Jeter une chaussure contre une porte. Si la pointe de la chaussure tombée par terre s’orientait vers la sortie, ceci voulait dire que la fille se marierait et quitterait le foyer de ses parents dans l’année à venir.

• Retirer la peau d’une pomme d’un seul geste (sans la casser), puis la jeter en arrière par-dessus de son épaule. Si la peau tombée par terre formait une lettre de l’alphabet, cette lettre pourrait désignée le nom de son futur mari.


Le jour de la Sainte Catherine

Le 25 Novembre est le jour des « Catherinettes », à savoir toutes les jeunes femmes de 25 ans qui ne sont pas encore mariées. Ce jour là, les Catherinettes portent des chapeaux extravagants de couleur jaune et vert (les couleurs symboliques de la foi et de la connaissance, respectivement) qu’elles ont souvent confectionnés elles-mêmes.

La tradition de Sainte Catherine remonte au Moyen Age. A l'époque, les jeunes femmes de 25 ans qui n’étaient pas encore demandées en mariage mettaient leurs chapeaux et se rendaient devant une statue de Sainte Catherine à Paris qu’elles « coiffées » avec des fleurs, des rubans et des chapeaux, dans l'espoir de trouver un mari.

Aujourd’hui, la tradition persiste dans quelques villes et villages et à Paris, ou les stylistes de mode confectionnent des chapeaux farfelus pour l’occasion. Parfois, les collègues de bureau fêtent la Sainte Catherine autour d’un pot,(5) surtout si une Catherinette fait partie de leur équipe. Mais c’est de plus en plus rare. Féminisme oblige ? C’est peut-être simplement parce que les mariages se font de plus en plus tardivement, en France comme dans tous les pays développés. Dans un tel contexte, une femme de 25 ans qui n’est pas encore mariée n’est plus remarquable. Au contraire, c’est parfaitement banal.

Qui fut Sainte Catherine ?

Tout comme Sainte Marie l’Egyptienne, Catherine est née au sein d'une famille noble. La ville de sa naissance est Alexandrie, en Egypte, la ville d’accueil pour Marie la pécheresse. Catherine se converti au christianisme à la suite d’une vision. La légende dit que Jésus, ému par sa ferveur, contracte un mariage mystique avec elle, après quoi la très intelligente Catherine, qui suit les cours des plus grands maîtres chrétiens, réussit à démontrer à 50 grands philosophes d'Alexandrie la vanité des idoles et la fausseté de leur foi. Elle finit par les convertir tous.
L'empereur Maxence, impressionné par ses capacités intellectuelles, lui propose un mariage royal. Mais, fidèle à son mari mystique, Catherine refuse. Humilié, l'empereur lui fera subir le supplice de la dislocation des membres sans succès, puis le supplice de la roue duquel elle sort indemne. Elle finira décapitée le 25 Novembre 307 et deviendra la seule Sainte du paradis à posséder trois auréoles : la blanche des vierges, la verte des docteurs et la rouge des martyrs.

(1) Mes sources sont diverses et variées, du Wikipédie jusqu'au site normannia.info, en passant par les collections des musées écossais.

(2) Il s'agit de Kenneth I, le roi des Pictes et, selon la légende nationale, le premier roi des écossais. Il est le fondateur de la dynastie qui régnait en Ecosse pendant la quasi-totalité de la période médiévale.

(3) La bataille qui opposa les Pictes et les Gaëls contre les Angles date de l'an 832 après la mort de Jésus.

(4)Le patron saint de l'Ecosse est l'apôtre André, dont le frère est l'apôtre Simon Pierre. Le Jour de la Saint André (Saint Andrews Day), le 30 novembre, est une fête nationale en Ecosse.

(5) Ici, le terme "pot" désigne une réunion informelle autour d'une boisson, notamment dans un contexte professionnel. Au bureau, on fête les embauches, les départs, les naissances, les anniversaires, le Nouvel An, la fin de l'année....

Le café

Diane and me last summer near Chambonnet, her summer home ("La Belle Ruine") in France.

Today we went for a bike ride with our neighbor, from Mount Vernon to La Conner and back. It is an easy, flat ride through the farm-studded Skagit Valley. The tulip season is over. Nothing that magnificent can last. We had a quick lunch at the brew pub in La Conner. It was supposed to be quick. The service was slow so we had to rush out and get back on our bikes so that Walt could get to the ball field by 4 pm.

I thought about the hundreds of lunches I had with Diane in Paris over the years. I lived near where she worked and getting away from my home office was a pleasure and a necessity. We would meet at the aptly named Ailleurs (Elsewhere) most of the time. As we got to know the waitresses (relatively rare in France; most restaurant servers are career waiters) over time -- Marlène, from Cuba, and Lulu (short for Ludmilla) from Madagascar -- we became friends and were always well taken care of. Every once in awhile, they would make a great ceremony of presenting us with a bill for "zero francs" (later, "zero euros"). A free lunch. Just because. I was thinking about how in France every lunch, whether with ma copine Diane or a client, ends with coffee. With an expresso usually. And the petite tasse de café almost always comes with a wrapped chocolate. Sometimes the chocolate is covering an almond. It is such a lovely way to end a meal. I miss this ending.

All the way home, I was thinking about how nice un petit café et un petit chocolat would taste. I love the moment when coffee meets chocolate: the coffee gives up a tiny bit of heat, the chocolate a tiny bit of hardness.

Diane, if you stop by and read, I want you to know how much I miss our lunches. They were often the highlight of my day. I miss you, my friend. I feel a trip to Paris is needed. Coffee and chocolate.

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.