The reason we call her Munchy

Qué Sarah Sarah?

I wanted an image of Sarah Palin that captures my apprehension about her candidacy and her fitness for high public office at the national level, and this has to be it. Thanks to my friend Cathleen Vella for sending it. Notice that she is larger than life and has a pleasantly vacant expression. Notice too that she is wielding both an axe and a harpoon. Also, notice that she is the center of attention, to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. Finally, is it just me or is the moose looking up her skirt?
I think if she were to topple over, among the contents that would spill out would be that weasel husband of hers, Todd. Does anyone besides me have the sinking feeling that Todd is perhaps more involved in his wife's governance duties than he should be, and that this is a modus operandi they worked out long ago? She is his Trojan Horse, and they now have their sights set on Washington. Look out. Hockey Mom and Little League Dad are headed your way!
Not that this was their original plan. A couple of weeks ago, they were sitting around their living room looking at Russia on the horizon and wondering what they were going to do about that naughty Bristol. Was there something in "abstinence only" that she didn't understand? Maybe she could best her mom, and manage to hide that bun in the oven for a full nine-month term. She could be whisked off to boarding school, like people used to do when faced with this kind of mishap, or be sent off for a year of home-schooling in eastern Washington State somewhere. Then THIS happened. Sarah Palin got the call from the McCain people and, as she tells it, she did not blink. Okay, so she didn't blink. But would it have been too much to ask her to think? And what about McCain? What was he thinking? And I don't mean what were his political motivations. They seem patently obvious.
Apparently, he was thinking that he would do anything -- anything -- to be elected President. Show that fucking Republican Party a thing or two. Damn right! Country first, my ass. Me first. And in Sarah Palin, he found his soulmate, not to mention the political world's idea of a playmate. She too has mastered the country first rhetoric while putting self and self glory above every other consideration. She also knows how to use Old Glory, as a recent photo in a Newsweek cover story demonstrated. For the record, I only saw this because my dentist kept me waiting. It made me feel so numb I did not need novocaine.
But boy can she talk politics:
"Bush Doctrine? Never heard of it, why?"
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? It is time to take these two motherfuckers off the back of the US taxpayers. What? The government is giving each of them 100 billion dollars? Really? Well, never mind then."
"Do I think it was okay for the US to bomb Pakistan without consulting its leaders first? Well, sure, why not? Where is Pakistan, by the way?"

For just a moment, let's set aside the issue of experience, but not before noting that the Republican team vying for office has to its collective credit 26 years of national-level legislative experience (him) and less than two years of experience in state-level politics, plus a stint as mayor of a small town in Alaska. Everybody knows that. If you look at the Democratic team, you can make a similar collective tally that would add up to something at least slightly better. But I don't think experience is the problem. Or rather, I think it is everyone's problem in this race or no one's problem. It is a sterile debate. Un partout, bal au centre, if you know what I mean.

Personally, what I look for in a leader is wisdom. And that is what is totally lacking on the McCain-Palin ticket. Even if you grant McCain a few points for being a POW and a state Senator (who has supported the current Idiot in the White House 90% of the time, including throughout his disastrous first term of office), I question the wisdom (not to mention the compassion) of a man who cannot control his anger, who has called his wife an overly made-up c*nt in front of others (no wonder she allegedly has drug problems) -- presumably because his anger got the better of him -- and who showed reckless disregard for the welfare of this country by naming a running mate who has no wisdom whatsoever. I am sure she is a great hockey mom. However, I don't want to be governed by a hockey mom.

Trust me on this: I sat through her excruciating series of interviews on ABC, where she occasionally had to break with the vapid script and talk. It was heavily edited and, given the remarkably low caliber of the discussion, I had to wonder what was lying on the cutting room floor. What was left, with or without the script, was robotic nonsense. Pure gibberish. It was scary. It was like seeing George Bush in drag. She even had the same blank expression of angry bewilderment he often wears. I just made up a great joke, which I have posted on a PI blog about how Sarah's favorability ratings are falling:

Question: What is the difference between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush?

Answer: Lipstick.

I don't know about you, but I find that more scary than amusing. We have already tried this kind of executive leadership team, only in reverse --twice in a row in fact. And as a result, our country is more divided than ever; it is more hated than ever by other nations; our economy is a mess thanks to our dependence on foreign oil (and the price per barrel for crude), crazy credit and a war that is costing us 20 billion dollars a month. As those of you who have been paying attention will remember, Donald Rumsfeld told the nation in March 2003 that this war would be over in a couple of weeks at most. I guess toppling over that statue of Saddam Hussein was not enough. Oops!

The biggest joke of all is that we now have two ambitious clowns trying desperately to get into the White House by distancing themselves from their own party and painting themselves as mavericks. Give me a break! They're going to save us from the Republican Party? S.A. Maverick, the Texas engineer who inspired the term, is surely having a good laugh. Lucky for him that his death in 1870 spares him from having to see what gets passed off as maverick these days.

Day hike

Okay, this is not where we took a day hike yesterday. This is Yellowstone National Park, and I took this photo last year on our trip to Montana via Yellowstone. Yesterday, however, we took a day hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. But I forgot my camera, which is too bad because the light was incredible yesterday. We are having one of those rare Indian summers. May it stretch into October, please.

Neko came with us on her maiden trail experience. I gave her an A. What a trooper. She forged streams (well, trickles), walked over rocks and looked tough when faced with chipmunks. She would have gotten an A+ except for her attempts to eat horse poop. The trail was strewn with it; some was very fresh and covered with flies. The horror! Neko eats cat poop with great enthusiam and cunning. I have heard it does have nutritional value. She likes hers lightly dusted with cat litter. It looks but does not taste like Almond Roca. Not that I would know. She looks like the cat who ate the canary when she gets caught with that telltale dusting of cat litter on her snout. But she cannot help it.

With the horse poop, she would grab a hunk without breaking her stride -- in an attempt to fool us. But then some would fall out. Busted! But she was fantastic otherwise. She did not stop; she did not refuse to move forward; she did not wander off the trail; she did not whine. She kept up a man-pace the whole way. We hiked for more than two hours. We didn't make it to Kendall Catwalk, but we did make it far enough to escape the roar of I-90 and enjoy a couple of spectacular vistas. Next time, I will bring my camera.

I got about 5 mosquito bites as soon as we stopped for a water break. I guess it is better than dying from the inhalation of and skin contact with bug spray. Why do mosquitos love me? I don't love them at all.

Animal House update

Here, by popular request, are recent photos of a little known group called The Animals. Some of you may recall that Munchkin (the runt) weighed 8 ounces when we took her in and started feeding her with a dropper. That was on the 4th of July. Earlier this week, Munchy and Pushy went to see the Neighborhood Animal Tormenter. He stuck a thermometer up their little behinds and told us they had no fever. He listened to their terrified hearts beat; he examined their ears for mites. Most important, he weighed them. Pushkin: 3 pounds, 5 ounces, with her socks on. Munchkin: surprisingly close at 3 pounds, 3 ounces. Since I last weighed in, Munchkin has made enormous progress for a special needs kitty. She has litter-box trained herself, with a little help from Pushkin, I think. This is an extraordinary accomplishment for a kitten with limited motor skills. I was frankly wondering how I could keep my day job and follow her around all day with a paper towel. She even knows how to cover her tracks. And the sweetest thing is that Pushkin watches her and then, once she has climbed out of the litter box, goes in and puts the finishing touches on. Sisters are doing it for themselves!

Here they are, post-litter box, playing in their favorite basket. I put the thesaurus in the basket in an attempt to offer a scale of comparison for their size. A July post shows Munchkin leaning on the thesaurus. In it, she is barely taller than the book lying on its side.

And Neko is Neko. Maddening and lovable. Wednesday night, I put on my friend Dahli's cashmere sweater (which I wore on the flight home from Paris) because it was close to hand and I was cold. I thought she was coming by to pick it up. When I donned it, Neko took this to mean we were going out. When that did not happen immediately, she started tugging at the bottom of the sweater (which comes down to my knees). Damned if she didn't tear a hole in it! In fact, her stupid owner is forced to admit, she tore two holes in it because her stupid owner did not take the sweater off immediately. Neko, not understanding the words "No!" and "You little bitch troll from hell!" came back for another game of tug-o-war. So that 200 dollar cashmere sweater from Barney's is now good for taking the trash out. But I find it impossible to stay angry at the little study in beige, brown and grey above. Speaking of Neko, her namesake is coming to Seattle. A long trek from Tacoma, I know. Neko Case will be at Bumbershoot tomorrow. I want to be there, for sure. I want my Neko to meet her match, at last.

Madonna leaves me speechless

When I saw this photo, my gut instinct was to avert my eyes. I looked around to make sure no small children or other impressionable beings were in the room. What's with the five o'clock shadow around the crotch region? You would think that someone with Madonna's unlimited resources and vanity would have found a way to fix that! And is that a microphone stuffed down her panties or is she just glad to see us (looking at her)? [Thanks, Walt, for your input.]

I can't decide if Madonna looks like a scuba diver here or a human frog, but isn't frogman a slang term for scuba diver anyway? What is with the knees-out, bent leg pose? Does she want us to dissect her? In her case, this hardly seems necessary since she has shown us so much of herself over the years. She has shown us that there really is such a thing as a human chameleon. She has tried on and discarded almost every look imaginable. My personal favorite (not!) was her Brunhilda look. Some may think this look went no further than the Gaulthier breast cones she sported for awhile, but I know better. I happened to see her on a weekly program called Sept sur Sept, hosted by Anne Sinclair. For many years, Anne was routinely named as the woman Frenchmen would most like to spend the night with. Some mistakenly believed this had to do with her looks or keen intelligence. Mais non! She had (and probably still has, given the wonders of modern science plus money) a very nice face but a short and squat body, like so many talking heads on television.

I believe people wanted to spend the evening with her to fulfill their fantasy of being on television and being interviewed. What is more flattering than being interviewed, after all? It means you are somebody, and that what you think matters. But I digress. Anne Sinclair usually interviewed politicians, although she sometimes strayed into the realm of pop culture or extreme sport. In fact, she had to end her program (dashing the fantasy fulfillment wish of so many Frenchmen) when she married Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a career politician and Socialist who was named Minister of the Economy (I think) under Jospin. He later had to resign, but that's another story. In light of this possible conflict of interest, Anne had to stop her political show.

But not before interviewing La Madonna. Madonna was in Europe promoting that big book of hers called Sex--or something like that. The one filled with photos of Madonna simulating a taste for sex. Mad Donna arrived for the interview wearing what looked like a dress that Heidi (of Austria) had discarded, with her hair in braided pigtails. She looked utterly ridiculous to me, and that was before I noticed her pure gold front tooth. It has long since disappeared. I guess even she realized how bad that looked, or maybe she just moved on and it no longer fit with her new look.

I seem to recall an earlier incarnation of her true self where she had the chiseled muscle-bound thing going on. But I think her hair was short back then. This current hair-do is just horrible. It looks as if it was designed to showcase the new post-surgical face in all its lack of substance. I wonder if cheek implants move around, like contact lenses. Actually, I'm not sure what she has had done, but it amounts to a great deal of work. And about the gloves: my guess is that she is either channeling Michael Jackson or has wisely decided to hide them until such time as "hand lifts" become readily available as a surgical option. There is nothing worse than an implanted, botoxed, fill-in and lifted face on the same body as an age-appropriate pair of hands. Unless it is a non-rejuvenated vagina.

Gobama!

It isn't that I am apolitical, but I have not followed American politics as closely as I should have in recent years. In my defense, I would put forth the fact that for most of the last 25 years I have not lived in the United States. I have watched US politics from afar, and got quickly absorbed in French politics. It was easy to be drawn in, living in Paris. I actually saw many of the big name career politicians going about their daily business. Maybe people who live in Washington DC feel the same way about their "local" politicians.

For instance, I once saw Sarkozy (photo from when he was the young mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine) jogging around Parc Monceau. It was my neighborhood park and the place where I took my daily walks. At the time, he was the rising star in Chirac's government (actually, Dominique de Villepin's government, presided over by Chirac), much to Chirac's dismay. He was Minister of the Interior, and lived at Place Beauveau, which is just next door to the Elysée Palace, the White House of French Presidents. Incidentally, the US and British Embassies are the nearest neighbors. How cozy. Anyway, Sarko and several of his bodyguards were jogging around the path that encircles Parc Monceau (about 1 kilometer around). It was a brilliantly sunny Sunday morning; naturally, the entire 8th arrondissement was out and about. Nobody bothered him, but everyone was aware of his presence. He would have been mobbed in the US or anyplace else. But the French, and more specifically the denizens of the 8th, left him alone but cut him a wide swath. They had to, given the size of his entourage. What fascinated me was how short he was (a fact apparently discovered by the rest of France only after he was elected) and what a big butt he had. A womanly butt and hips. I thought to myself, it's a good thing he has political power because otherwise he would have trouble getting laid. And now look at him. Cécilia leaves and is replaced a couple of months later by La Belle Carla Bruni. She is several inches taller than he is, even in flats, and had a long career as a top model back in the days when that meant something! She said it was love at first sight (un coup de foudre). It must have been those womanly hips. As David Byrne once sang, the world moves on a woman's hips. I guess so!

On a more prosaic note, I saw the Corsican elephant Charles Pasqua going into what I took to be his Paris office one day. But he deserves a whole blog entry devoted to his person. Suffice to say at this time that he and his actions apparently inspired the film The French Connection. And not in a good way.

There have been others over the years. Lionel Jospin, in the final days of his stint as Minister of Education. Jack Lang (Langue de Blois), near La Place des Vosges.

But I digress. I really wanted to write about the Democratic Convention, which uncharacteristically had me glued to the telly last night. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg was a huge disappointment as a speaker -- bad delivery, no substance. Her Uncle Teddy was simply amazing: the man has brain cancer, after all. He was forceful, eloquent, on fire even. It could just be the medication but, if so, then everyone in this country really does deserve decent health care! Then came Michelle Obama. It was the first time I had heard her speak. She was absolutely phenomenal, and I am not saying this as a groupie or a Democratic partisan (even though I would rather vote for a Democratic psychopath than any Republican, because they're all sociopaths). From a public speaking point of view, she was perfect. Tone, substance, delivery, eye contact, sincerity, timing, you name it, she had it going on. Maybe the bit with the kids at the end was a little cheesy, but who cares? I was eating out of her hand by then. Not a dry eye in the house. I realized watching her that the real reason the fat cats--the ones who vote Republican, send their kids to private schools and don't want to share any of their wealth with people like her--want to maintain the status quo is that people like her, who start out without the advantages, just make people like them look like pampered woosies who could not make it out of the starting gate if the playing field were really level. The fat cats need that built-in advantage because they are mediocre. And the success of someone like Michelle Obama is so much more satisfying and meaningful.
People with money wonder why their kids are spoiled and unmotivated. I think there is no real mystery: Why reach for the stars when everything that glitters is handed to you on a silver platter? Why take risks when you know that you won't be allowed to fail because it would look bad? Food for thought, fat cats. Think about it. And in the meantime, take a chance on change. Vote for Obama.

Eli's coming; hide your heart, girl....

Eli's coming, hide your heart girl. But this is not Eli, who was born on August 6, 2008, making Walt a grandfather. No, this is Hanna Marie Eyres and her parents.

She was born at least three weeks before Eli, but when I saw her on my last night in Paris, she weighed in at 3.6 kilos (about 7.92 pounds). Eli, on the other hand, weighed 8.8 or 8.9 pounds at birth, and when I met him last Friday (ten days later) he had already gained a pound. Hanna seems to eat as much and as often as young Eli, but she spits a lot of it up. She apparently cried non-stop for some time, which worried her parents silly, but when I saw her she just slept, well, like a baby, and only got in a foul mood towards the end. We were waiting for Lara to come back from the doctor's office and feed the poor thing. None of us was equipped to do so. So we had cocktails.

I have to admit that, while I am as intrigued as the next person by the miracle of life and all that, I don't find newborns particularly.... interesting. They don't do much, for one thing. While they are awake, their actions can be summed up in the three e's: emote (cry), eat, emit (poop, farts, burps). And the rest of the time they sleep. I realize that their parents find them fascinating, and can tell you (and do tell you) much more about the minute details contained in what I have dismissed in three little words. But that is as nature wishes it to be, for otherwise newborns would be ejected and then forgotten. For some deep and biologically apt reason, parents are programmed to find the little creatures fascinating. And they do; they aren't just pretending.

I can't fathom this mystery, not having become a parent myself. The closest I have come is owning a dog. I hope you parents out there are not shocked to read that I am likening dog care with child care, but too bad if you are. I am doing just that. Of course, Neko is like a baby who will never acquire speech or learn to walk on two legs (although she can stand on her hind legs for several seconds). This means she'll never sass me. Nor will she ever go to school or move out of the house. She'll never make me buy her the latest fashions. Thanks to Walt, she'll never even wear clothes. He thinks it is silly to dress a dog up in clothes and I agree with him. Have you ever noticed how much dogs hate to be dressed in clothing? They loathe you for it. They also feel shame because they know how silly they look and don't understand why their master would do this to them.

But anyway, children. No, I never had any. And never will now. I am too old, even though I suppose it is anatomically still possible. I am not menopausal (to anyone who feels this is TMI, I apologize), after all. But if I had a child, I would be 62 when he or she turned 10. From a moral or ethical point of view, I don't see any problem with older people becoming parents. Other older people, that is. There is just no way that I, as a 62-year old woman, would want to be going to parent-teacher meetings and driving junior all over town to play soccer, baseball and water polo; learn to dance and play several musical instruments; study French, Chinese and Arab; etc.

Do I feel regret that I never had children? My friend Christelle, who just turned 39, asked me that one night when we were having dinner together in Paris. She is wondering if she will ever marry or have a family, and whether or not that is something she wants. It is a choice. That's what I told her. I have no regrets about the choices I have made. Had I opted to become a parent, I would certainly not regret that choice. Would my life have been different? Of course. But in what way? One cannot ever know. Would I have lived in China and France? Possibly, but probably not. Have I lived selfishly? Some parents fervently believe that not having children is selfish; some non-parents are equally convinced that the selfish ones are those who people the planet and expect the world to care for their offspring. It is a sterile debate. Parenthood brings its unique joys and largely unspoken frustrations and disappointments. Non parenthood also offers unique experiences, good and bad.

When I was 16, I told my mother I did not want to have children. She was shocked and hurt. She had produced six, after all. What I was telling her was that I did not want to follow her path, or so she thought. My mother told me once that everything in her life had been a disappointment, except having children. So that's where she was coming from.

When I was 26, I told another woman--the wife of one of my graduate school professors--that I was not planning to have children. She too was shocked, and also somewhat angry. She told me that I would be missing life's greatest moment, and that I would be missing out on all the things that only parenthood provides. Like what, I asked her. She had a hard time answering me, but then said her daughter was hosting an exchange student from Japan for the summer and without the daughter this experience would not have come about. I told her that the experience of going to Japan would be different from, but no less exciting than, hosting an exchange student. Shortly after that evening, I left for China and ended up in Paris. I learned to speak Chinese and then French. Do I regret this? No. Would this have happened if I had stayed at home and had children? Probably not. But many other things, both expected and unexpected, would have happened. In my case, with or without children, I would have been one of those people who doesn't have a life plan that requires passage through a defined set of milestones or events. This doesn't mean I have been rudderless or purposeless or utterly lost. It means that my life course has been traveled on a sailboat rather than a motorboat. I have changed tack and responded to the elements. I have tried to remain open to possibility. I have tried to stay focused on what is important and forget about the rest. And it isn't over.

Homecoming

Look at the color of these geraniums, how it explodes against the cold stone and white shutters. This is the house where the little old man who makes the wooden animals lives.



And here's little Neko, coming around the corner in search of her big friend Sammy: I missed Neko the whole time I was in France. I found myself taking photos of dogs, and making conversation with their owners. I talked briefly with a Belgian couple who had brought their miniature chihuahua with them to Paris because they could not bear to be away from it. So here's this tiny dog -- I know chihuahuas are all tiny, and I bet the word means teeny tiny in Chinese -- with a rather portly Belgian couple (they were Flamand and not Wallon, so more Flemish than French), against the backdrop of Les Invalides, which is such a WIDE monument. Just one of many encounters with dogs and their owners. All suckers, sucked in by the easy adoration.
Then there's little Munchkin, the brown blob blending in with her favorite decorative item. She loves to sit on this rug. I missed Munchkin, too, and spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about her, even though I knew she was in capable and loving hands. I was worried she would not get past the twelve-week mark, but she did. She still lurches around, but she has more weight to hurl in the general direction of where she wants to be. She trained herself to use the catbox while I was away. You have to see how she gets around to appreciate what a feat this is!
And then there's the big guy, pictured here with my niece Mary Clare. I missed him most of all.
But someone had to take care of the animals, and was waiting for the much-anticipated birth of his first grandchild. So now we can call him the Big Old Guy. It was so strange to be in Paris, which feels like home to me, and not have my family close at hand. I was riding in a taxi on the last night, after visiting friends who had just had a baby (Hanna Marie, possibly a future love interest for Elijah Francis?), and it seemed so odd that the taxi wasn't taking me home--to Walt, Neko, Munchkin and BB. The feeling may have been exacerbated by the fact that I stayed with a friend who lives a couple of blocks from my last apartment in Paris, which I lived in for seven years. I really felt like I was at home. We went to my old gym, shopped in my old grocery stores, went to my old movie theaters, even went to see my old hairdresser. When we went to the gym for the first time, the receptionist greeted me with "Hey! I know you." This may not seem odd, but I have not been to my old club since May 2005. She even let me have the first visit as a temporary guest for free. We took a class that mixed pilates, yoga and stretching with Annie, who was an instructor there when I was a member. She remembered me, too. How odd and comforting.

Back home

This is a steer carved out of tilleuil. (I don't know the word for that in English. It's a shady tree that produces leaves used to make tea. The wood is lightweight and yet very solid.) This figurine was made by an old man who lives in a village near Saugues, a slightly larger village in the Haute Loire. There was something about the simplicity of his little creations that made them very compelling to me. I got one for my friend Monique as well; hers is a donkey because she's working on a new and exciting professional project that will require all of her tenacity and ability to see things through. I'm sure she'll succeed. More about that later. This steer is for Walt; he's solid, dependable, patient and strong.


This bad ass is the kitten formerly known as BB, for Big Brother, before we discovered that he is a she. Actually, we knew BB was a female but our neighbor Luda, who grew up on a farm in the Ukraine and killed kittens for fun (just kidding, Luda!), insisted BB was a he. She saw what looked like tiny balls. Look at her, though. She does have balls, and would kick my ass if she heard me refer to them as tiny. We may not have to change her name, though. How about BB for Brigitte Bardot, who incidentally LOVES animals and once had her neighbor's donkey castrated because she felt it was coming on to her horse? I'm not sure I want my cat named after a once beautiful starlette who has gone on to champion right-wing politics (except for the animal rights thing), however. So we're working on other names: Pushkin, to go with Munchkin; and Dora the Explorer, which was bestowed on her during my absence, because she apparently leaves no knick-knack unturned in her endless quest for the Holy Grail or the Hidden Nail or the half-filled Pail. We'll see. For now, she's Bad Ass Kitten with Attitude.

A little bit closer to my old home

Azerty or Qwerty

Another item on my list of things to buy in France: an AZERTY keyboard.

For those who do not know, your standard English language keyboard is a QWERTY. The names come from the first six letters on the first row of letters going from left to right. Admit it. You have never paid attention to this before. So listen up. And look. Your keyboard, if you are a native speaker of English, features these letters in the place I just indicated: QWERTY. Imagine trying to type if instead of those letters you had these ones: AZERTY

And that's not all. But I don't want to complicate things too much.

This is from Wikipedia:
Main article: AZERTY
The AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium (French-speaking parts) and some neighbouring countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout thus:
A and Q are swapped,
Z and W are swapped,
M is moved from the right of N to the right of L (where colon/semicolon is on a US keyboard),
The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used for accented characters.
The French AZERTY keyboard also has special characters used in the French language, such as ç, à, é and è, and other characters such as &, ", ' and §, all located under the numbers.
Some French people use the Canadian Multilingual standard keyboard[citation needed]. The Portuguese (Portugal) keyboard layout may also be preferred, as it provides all French accents (aigu, grave, tréma, tilde, circumflex, cedilla, and also quotation marks «») and its dead-letter option for all the accent keys allow for easy input of all the possibilities in French and most other languages (áàäãâéèëêíìïîóòöõôúùüû). Ç is, however, a separate key, as can be seen above.

Neglected blog

Time seems to be speeding away from me like a TGV bound for La Rochelle. In one week, I'll be on that Air France flight headed for Paris. A direct flight from Seattle is a vast improvement on having to fly through Houston, NY or Atlanta. Between now and then, I have so much work to do.
This blog entry will be a work in progress, a place where I jot down what I plan to do, who I need to see, what I want to buy and bring back from Paris.
Don't hate me because I'm paid in euros and have places to stay for free the entire time.
Here's my excellent plan:
The suitcase I check in Seattle will be practically empty. No toiletries at all. I'll head directly to Monoprix when I get to Paris - I'll go to my favorite Monoprix near St-Augustin - and buy all necessary items at their wonderful little parapharmacie. I'll also pick up my gift for Kelsey's baby. Monoprix has the best line of kid and baby clothes called "bout'chou" (literally, cabbage end, but a term for a little person, and it makes me think of cabbage patch kids for some reason). Then I'll head up to the Gap store on the Champs de l'Elysée. The best Gap store on the planet, especially the lingerie section. A whole floor devoted to undies, bras, indoor wear, etc. I'll check out the t-shirts on the way out.
I also need a new pair of glasses, and will go to the Grand Optical, either on the Champs or on Boulevard Haussmann. My glasses will be ready within an hour or so. Yippee!

In sum:
Toiletries
Undies and pyjamas
T-shirts
New pair of glasses

That will be accomplished during my first two hours in Paris.

Not complaining, but nobody gave me flowers for my birthday

About Anthuriums:

This is from a website about the flower industry in Hawaii

Get off a Hilo or Kona flight, and chances are you'll see people carrying armloads of ruby-red anthuriums, arguably the signature flower of the Big Island.No wonder. No other place in the United States grows more of the heart-shaped flower that reminds people of Valentine's Day year round.

This is from a UK online flower business website

You have to know what kind of person you're sending flowers to. There are 4 types of people, at least when it comes to flowers:

ARTISTIC – If you listen to loud music, enjoy art galleries and Broadway shows, you are probably an artistic person. Artistic personalities are attracted to out of the box creativity, especially when it comes to flowers. Exotic flower arrangements, loud colors and creative displays are best for this personality.

ULTRAMODERN – Ultramodern people are driven and hard working, but they know how to let loose and have a good time. Spontaneous and energetic, they love striking designs with simple yet bold flowers. Ultramodern personalities appreciate minimal but eye-catching arrangements. Exotic baskets and vases are a definite plus for this personality type. NATURAL – Natural personality types like walks in the forest, arts and crafts, and other relaxed, laid back activities. And, you guessed it, they like their flower designs to be simple and natural. Natural types prefer baskets with an abundance of plants and wild flowers like sunflowers and carnations. These people will enjoy flowers that can be preserved and dried for decorating and crafts.

TRADITIONAL - If you like simple, elegant and timeless designs, you would be best suited for a traditional flower arrangement. Traditional personalities enjoy an array of flowers and appreciate a tastefully designed arrangement with a diverse range of blossoms.

ROMANTIC – If you love chick flicks or have ever made a grand, dramatic gesture for the one you love, you are most likely a romantic personality. Romantics love elaborate arrangements with pastel colors and classic flower types. Bold statements are what romantic types enjoy in their floral design. This personality will most appreciate large, timeless arrangements like a dozen, or more, pastel roses.

Our house

This is how our house looks from the outside in mid-summer. The foliage is so thick and green this year because of all the rain. We have a banana tree in our partly enclosed garden, which is off the deck.

You can't tell from here, but the house gets a lot of natural light. The sliding door opening to the deck is gigantic, and there is a window on top of it that extends to the ceiling. So all the southern and eastern exposures have a lot of windows. The front side faces west, but is opposite a thick forest of tall trees and so does not get much direct sunlight. The only northern exposed window is upstairs in the master bathroom. You can see downtown Seattle from there in the winter, when all the trees are bare. It looks and feels like a tree house. I always wanted to live in a tree house.

Kitty Ranch

Well, she may not weigh much (1 pound) but she finally has a name: Munchkin. Everyone who has met her agrees that this is a good name for the little runt. Here she is last Friday, boning up on her Chinese and learning to use big words like "gustatory" and "voracious." She is also dangerously close to one of Neko's toys, the famous blob we were given as part of her welcome package at the Deluxe Hotel in Portland, and the plastic bone, also included in the package.

This tiny little critter may not live past twelve weeks. In fact, there are moments when I am sure she will not live to see another day. She has a healthy appetite (voracious even) and can muster a lusty cry, but to be honest she can't really walk. She lurches and rolls and drags herself around somehow. She does get places, though. Last night, we left Munchkin and her bigger brother BB (for Big Brother, although this name is subject to change) home alone. Unable to find a restaurant open, we did a quick store run and came home thirty minutes later. The kittens were gone! We looked everywhere. I was convinced they had found the hole at the back of the wardrobe and had bolted, but in fact they had crawled into the smallest and most suffocating space they could find--right behind the dishwasher. How Munchkin managed to drag herself that far is beyond comprehension.

They seem to have returned to sleep there as well. Their bean bag chair was empty when we got up this morning. Munchkin is making up for that wild night behind the dishwasher today, with sleep interrupted only to lap up some milk and wolf down a bit of solid food. I have mixed some baby food (organic squash) into her milk, hoping that this will solidify her little stools a bit. This is why I wonder if she'll make it: diarrhea can be fatal when you weigh one pound. There is a condition called Fading Kitty Syndrome to describe kittens that gradually fade away and die before they survive their twelfth week. She is beginning week eight. I may be wrong, but I'm hoping that if she can make it to twelve weeks she will live to be at least twelve years old.

Everyone says that even if she doesn't, she will have ended her brief life in a happy place. She looks happy, and has been elated since BB showed up. But she also looks so tiny and so frail. I just don't know. If we took her to the vet now, he would tell us to put her down. Gotta run. I just heard a lusty, insistent cry.

July 8, 2008 update: Munchkin has gained two ounces and now weighs 1 pound and 2 ounces. She is also much stronger and can sit up without assistance. She loves to chew on and do battle with towels and other objects, and has just discovered her tail. Like Neko, she loves to try and capture it. She also loves to watch me work. If only she knew a little French; I can always use extra help.

Killing me softly with surcharge

Has anyone noticed that as hotel rooms have gotten smaller in the US, hidden hotel surcharges have gotten bigger? When you go to Paris, you expect your hotel room to be the size of a French postage stamp. That's part of the experience, or so my friends who visited me there would tell me. I think I lived there for so long in part because I did not want to have to experience Paris in a room the size of that stamp, which is smaller than a typical US postage stamp.

On the other hand, when the average visitor comes to Paris, it is not to hang out in his or her hotel room. It is to hang out in restaurants, visit museums, shop, soak up culture and walk all over town, stopping in one of the many parks that make Paris such a welcoming place.

Portland, Oregon has its charms, but Paris it is not. And yet our hotel room was so small. There was no room to swing that proverbial cat, which was a good thing because we were traveling with a dog. And our dog was treated like the queen she is. The doormen opened the doors for her; everyone gushed over her, asking for her name and race (can you imagine if we did this for people? asked for a racial rundown?) and giving her affectionate pats on the tummy. She encourages and accommodates this gesture by immediately lying on her back and looking up adorably. Soon after we got to our broom closet -- I mean our room -- Neko's welcome pack was delivered: a big cushion (so she wouldn't sleep on the bed, nice try), a package of doggie pepperoni, a white plastic bone, a stuffed toy that looked like a misshapen pancake or a catcher's glove but was neither, some plastic bowls and some plastic poop scoop bags. One reason Neko slept on the bed (aside from the number one reason, which is that she always sleeps on the bed) was that it filled the entire room. One of us had to be sitting on it at all times; otherwise, nobody could get to the bathroom, the closet or even the door.

And what is it with mini-bars? Not that I would ever pay 6.50 for a small bottle of water, or 8.00 for a hunk of chocolate...But since when are mini-bars so well-stocked that you can't close them or fit a can of dog food inside? Oh, wait, I get it. This discourages people from buying a small bottle of water or an apple for 50 cents from the corner grocery store and sticking these items in the mini-bar instead of consuming its contents. How clever!

We brought our laptops from Seattle so we could check our email or look up local addresses. Next time, they will stay at home. The daily wifi connection fee is 10 dollars. And to think I was shocked when the Starbuck's in Paris charged me 4 bucks a day! I should have thanked them. I suppose the business center offered free access, but still, and then again maybe not. Because the guiding principle is: if you can charge for something, by all means do so. You have a captive audience that has already paid for the room.

This applies to the bedside telephone as well. TREAT IT AS A DECORATIVE OBJECT. I didn't test the waters this time, but have learned from recent experience that every time you touch that dial, or even look at the receiver, it will cost you more than 5 dollars.

I understand why many people prefer to rent furnished studios or apartments when they travel. You may not get that 20 dollar continental breakfast, but you get a kitchen with an empty refrigerator that is bigger than a mini-bar. You may not get maid service, but you get to move freely about your space without tripping over your suitcase or bumping into a door that has to be left open at all times to create the illusion of roomy comfort.

One August I visited Sweden. It was the perfect time to be there, because Swedes generally take the month off, which means that business travelers from the world over stay away from Stockholm. As a result, the fabulous hotels that are usually out of the price range of mere mortals slash their rates. And Sweden is not Europe's number one vacation destination, so it is easy to find such accommodation. I paid less than what we did for the broom closet last weekend to stay at the Diplomat hotel, generally considered one of the best in Stockholm.

It was splendid: the room had two double beds, a sitting area, and a small terrasse overlooking the harbor. The bathroom and toilet were separate, and the bathroom featured a shower and a bathtub. The room had a CD player, with a wide selection of CDs available at no extra charge from the lobby. The floor was hardwood. The fitness room was like the WAC. And yes, there were chocolates on the pillows every night.

But the best place I have ever stayed is Karen and Joe's guest cabin on their property in Northern California. They're coffee roasters (try their Gold Coast coffee; it is the best), and they live on the well-named Lost Coast. They are only 35 miles from Eureka, but it takes an hour-and-a-half to get to their place from there. The desolate road leading to their pristine paradise is deserted but dangerous. Around every dark bend, the Pacific Ocean comes into view. The beaches stretch for miles and miles.

Karen and Joe lived in their guest cabin (first photo after the French postage stamp) while they were building their own house. The shower is in the kitchen, just below the sleeping loft (it has a mirror on the outside, last photo above), which can only be reached via a ladder. It is probably a little bigger than a postage stamp, but not much. And yet...you are in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by green silence, broken only by the soft rush of the nearby ocean, which you can see. You don't need to open the bathroom door to create the illusion of space. Anyway, this would be impossible because the bathroom is an outhouse. Karen told us to look before sitting down to make sure no wild animal had built a nest in there. This had a radical impact on my elimination strategy. We had no television and could not get the CD player to work. But we had music and visual distraction all around us. See for yourself in the third image above.

Bad photos and a pina colada my friend

I wanted to send some photos of me to a friend we're meeting this weekend, which is always rather traumatic.

Photos of myself, I mean. I hate them. I am not photogenic. My friend Diane and I have spent far too much time analyzing why neither of us looks good in photos. We think it has to do with the fact that we both have soft features, as opposed to hard or sharp ones. People with sharp features often look better in photos than in life. In life, their features are too sharp. In pictures, these features are softened and attractively accentuated (or distorted) by something magical in a camera. Let's call it the P factor. P for prettification.

For people with soft features, who can be easier on the eyes of the beholder in real life, face-to-face encounters, this same factor makes them look out of focus and too soft on camera. There is not enough there there. You can usually spot these people because they are either looking away from the camera (or running away, if they're fast) or, if they are looking at it, their eyes are closed or they are squinting in a most unflattering way.

Shamefully, this hatred of my own photographic image has caused me to do some horrible things over the years, like hunt down and rip up photos of myself that I hate. And that's a lot of photos. This is my personal, secret search and destroy mission, and I carry it out every time I visit my mother. I line my pockets with bad photos and then cut them up in private. Sometimes I burn them if I feel there is a chance someone will come along and "recoller les morceaux." This is bad.

One problem I think is that I lack instruction in how to photograph well. How to look relaxed in front of a camera (as opposed to panicked or suspicious, neither of which photographs well as far as a "look" goes), how to look into that lens and seduce it. I have read articles on the subject over the years, and none have helped at all. I've tried everything, and the result is that in photos I look like I'm trying everything and it's just not working for me.

There is one photo of me that I actually like. I like it because it looks like me. Or rather, it looks the way I hope I look to the world. It was taken by my ex-daughter-in-law. I am holding her baby. I am lost in thought, probably not listening to whatever is being said. It is an unbearably hot day. My hair is not clean, and is pulled back in one of those clip thingies. I am not wearing any makeup at all. My arms are bare and white--after all, it is late summer.

I cling to this photo and try to understand what it has captured that I recognize and accept as me. I'm not smiling or frowning. I'm not scowling; I'm not talking or eating or gesticulating. I am just sitting there, pretending to listen. And it works.

Moving on to all the other photos I haven't destroyed, they don't work because I am between a frown and a smile, with nowhere to go. When I smile, it seems that invisible fingers point to this one tooth I have that is totally non-aligned. It is crowded behind one of my front teeth. I used to hope nobody noticed it. But one day I was having lunch with the Belgian boyfriend of my Cuban friend Juan. I was talking, and he was staring at my mouth. Finally he said, in response to my brilliant comment about French politics or culture or some other lofty subject, "You know, it would be easy enough to fix that tooth of yours." I don't think I ever forgave him for that. And if I did, let me formally retract the pardon.

The first photo above is the acceptable one. The second is a stand-in for all the bad photos of me. We took it at my friend Caroline's one night, using her mac. It has a feature that allows you to take distorted photos. I actually prefer this deliberately distorted photo to all the inadvertantly distorted photos of me taken by well-meaning people over my lifetime. Seriously, people. You know who you are. It isn't your fault that you take such bad photos of me; blame it on the P factor. Conveniently, the P factor could be the "Peggy" factor.

Gramma Nazi

I sent this message to one of my friends who runs a publicly trampled blog. Sometimes posters get all bent out of shape about grammar:

I’ve been stewing over your latest harasser, the so-called writing expert, who faulted you for ending a sentence with the word “to”.

I’ve also been stewing over your reply to my post on the famous quip by Churchill, i.e., that you had been accused of “splitting an infinitive”.

I don’t want to split hairs, but I think both you and your silly detractor are wrong. In fact, the rule was never that a sentence must never end with the word “to”. The rule, which appears to have originated in the 18th century and which was born mostly of a desire to make the English language more rule-bound and rigid, was that a sentence must not end with a preposition—whether it be “to” (which also happens to be the first word of the infinitive form of verbs), “of”, “with”, etc.

Splitting an infinitive, on the other hand, is the crime of taking this infinitive form and placing an adverb between “to” and the main verb. The most famous modern example is the Star Trek line: to boldly go.

In fact, most grammarians and linguists think that neither of these faux pas are wrong most of the time. Indeed, following either rule can lead to wooden prose at best and confusion at worst. Today, most people realize that the rule about never ending a sentence with a preposition is an affectation. I think one reason we have let go of this rule over time is that the English language has so many phrasal verbs (get up, get over, get off, get on and on and on…), which cause students of our language much pain.

Let me ask you: Is there anything wrong any of the sentences below?

Whenever my dog jumps up on my new leather sofa, I tell her to get down.

I always feel bad when I discover I have been lied to.

I find his behavior increasingly difficult to put up with.

Ten minutes before the concert, the hall began to fill up.

This is a minor grammatical issue that many people still fight over.

The late, great Kingsley Amis called the rule about prepositions "one of those fancied prohibitions dear to ignorant slobs." Maybe he overstated the case. But the point is, excellent writers not only dare to boldly split infinitives on occasion, they also sometimes start sentences with conjunctions and end them with prepositions when they want to.