Holy Mole a Texan in France

Life Spins out of Control

2011-10-23T11:49:00.002-05:00

Haven't posted in some time. Had surgery August 30 and all went well. It's been a tough six weeks made even more difficult because my Cousin Susu has been diagnosed with lung cancer and my best friend, Pagnol, has died last Tuesday.

We know Susu has cancer in one lung but the biopsy in the other lung came back negative. I spent almost a week in Houston with her as we went to various appointments and tests at M.D. Anderson. The lung doctor told us he thinks the negative lung is actually positive and we got a false negative. There will be another biopsy tomorrow. I will go to Beaumont next week.

Tuesday, was a horrible day. My little dog, Pagnol, had gotten quite old (he would have been 16 in February) and a couple of weeks ago he was diagnosed with an enlarged heart. The Vet said to "be prepared". She put him on two kinds of diuretics to get the fluid off his heart but he just went into such a fast decline. I guess I thought I could patch him up and keep him forever but the body wears out. He was almost completely blind from an auto-immune eye condition. He had a few other problems and then the heart disease put him over the edge.

Tuesday, I tried to walk him. It was so difficult to get him down the stairs and when I tried to walk him he just stood there and looked at me as if to say, "what am I supposed to do". I got him back up the stairs and dissolved in tears.

I knew what I had to do but the reality of it made me so sad I would have rather gone to the Vet and be put so sleep myself. This, however, would not have helped Pagnol one iota.

I gave him chicken breast for breakfast. Then I gave him two of his favorite treats that look like T-bone steaks. I called the Vet and made an appointment for 2PM. I thought I could summon the courage to go with him and be there but in the end my son told me he would take him and I should stay home. I am a coward.

Now, I can understand that perhaps I should have made this decision earlier but how can you know what to do unless you are faced with the inevitable.

Lost my best friend and constant companion. Lost another important factor in the fabric of the family life Michel and I established together. Michel actually chose Pagnol at the Humane Society. I was less than enthused but we took him out into a little garden and sat with him. I was in a lawn chair and Pagnol went behind my chair, leaned up against my back, and let out this huge sigh of relief, as if to say, "with you I feel safe at last". I could not resist him.

We had a lot of fun the three of us. We went to the beach almost every day. I adored walking Pagnol and he really enjoyed his walks.

Michel knew I spoiled both him and Pagnol. I would cook for Pagnol. He liked best the chicken breast (not too spicy) and fettuccine Alfredo. He relished creamy sauces and he loved cheeses.

So what do I do now the two of the important males of the three important males in my life have done? Not sure tune in later............

Light My Fire but Don't Burn Down the House

2011-06-20T14:38:00.002-05:00

My husband was a brilliant fellow who spoke several languages, had multiple college degrees, wrote several books and was totally devoid of common sense. It's not really his fault that he was lacking in common knowledge, because he came from the sort of French aristocratic bourgeois family that had a maid, nanny and a cook; whose supervision took so much time out of the parental day; it left preciious little time for his parents to give common sense lessons to their children. In France, aristocratic families have no need of common sense anyway: that's what the "help" is paid to do.

This means that my poor husband did not have the benefit of learning how to camp, make fires, use knives, fish, water safety or any of the other things we girl and boy scouts take for granted. He was once horrified at the presentation of S'mores on a stick until he tasted one and then he was the gran French afficiando de camp fire cuisine which made him kind of crazy when there was a fire around.

In the beginning I often caught myslef chiding him that we could not burn the milk carton in the fireplace because it would melt and smoke up the house. Several charred milk cartons later I was saying we cannot burn magazines in the fireplace because they make a dark dense smoke......get my drift? The year we owned our first home together; we went through ten smoke alarms from December to March. Every day was another exciting experiment in pyrotechnology at our house and another ruined relentlessly screaming smoke alarm ripped from its perch on the ceiling in true Gallic furor as the squealing offender whined of impending danger. Needless to say all this smoke left our freshly painted yellow walls looking like the inside of a Cro-Magnon cave sans cleverly spray painted figures of bison and uber women.

Quickly, my husband began to resent my motherly suggestions on how to handle fire with safety and caution. I became the scourge of fire making and we finally had to block off the chimney and put an end to fires inside the home or else divorce..... or worse.

Putting an end to fires inside the home did not seem to detach dear hubby from turning over a new leaf in the back yard: and burning all the new leaves he turned over as he also discovered burning the trash was a good thing; even though he was duly informed by me there was a city ordinance against outdoor burning.

Our new deck was the unfortunate recipient of the burn award of the month when my husband threw a lit cigar into a plastic trash can full of papers and when it caught fire, he sat it out on the deck as he went to take a shower. Several minutes later a clean hubby emerged from the shower to see dark black smoke streaming through the windows of the TV room that faced the deck. I was working next door at the Insurance Agency and my boss came in the door with his cell phone saying he was calling 911 because there was a fire in the neighborhood (I barely stopped him in time; I knew it had to be Michel). Dear reader, if you have correctly assumed that the cigar set fire to the papers in the trash can and the plastic trash can set fire to the deck you have got an A plus in deductions. I arrived on the scene just in time to see my dear boy, with hose in hand, had put out the flames but the black smoke still clung in the air for hours after. For many months we had to place a large potted tree over the spot where the circular trash can had branded a dark charred hole right through the deck.

The nadir of my husband's pyrotechnic endeavors came shortly after we purchased a wonderful cedarwood beach house on Bolivar Peninsula. After the great hurricane flood of 1900, the beach houses in this area were all built on wooden pylons at least one story in the air. We had a large wooden staircase in the front of our home but no other entrance or exit existed for the house, the living area was on the second storey and the master suite was on the third storey. We truly felt we owned a piece of paradise with waving palms trees, flowering shrubs and lots of Gulf views with the water smack in front of our house.

To my husband's great chagrin even the wilds of Bolivar also had an outdoor burning ordinance (according to me) but he decided to ignore my warning and set his own bonfire whist I was in the shower one day.

When I emerged from the shower in the third floor bath, I went to the font sliding glass doors to look at the Gulf, but all I saw was smoke billowing all around the house. Quickly I threw on a dress and ran down the stairs to the living room, grabbed the dog and fled out the door. As I walked out the door I noticed the smoke was all coming up around the front stairs, it was thick grey and choked me and the dog. We thought we were taking our lives in our hands as we ran down those stairs only to find my husband smugly underneath the bottom of the stairs with a roaring bonfire he built under the (wooden) house and our next door neighbor standing out between the two houses, cell phone in hand, transfixed by panic unable to move or speak. Quickly I grabbed the hose and began to turn on the water when Michel began to holler at me not to put his fire out. I lost it this time and we had a huge arguement while I am still trying to water the fire and he is still defended his right at a Free Frenchman to build fires if he wished. Finally, I think he saw the folly of his actions and let me douse the fire with water and we both revived the neighbor. We never spoke about this incident and I supposed we never would because he still thought I was wrong for putting out his lovely fire.

Anyway, sure enough, later on another fine day Michel lit the space heater on the bathroom wall and took a shower. After he got out he hung the towel on the rack....heater still going and M. was shaving,
brushing teeth and so forth....while towel caught fire
and started smoking. I was at the computer and thought
I smelt smoke but not sure (nose stopped up as usual)
then a naked Michel is dancing through the room into
the kitchen (trying to hide the burnt towel so he can
stuff it in the trash without me knowing?) as the
smoke alarms were announcing his folly. I say, "what's going on, what's
burning?". Like a naughty kid who is caught he hisses,
"oh nothing, it is nothing" while the smoke alarm
screams away. So, I say well it's hardly nothing if
the smoke alarm is engaged and squealing. About that
time M. says " oh neighbor is at the gate and I am
naked - you go see what he wants" I storm out, I knew
what he wanted: not to be burnt down when our house
burns up.

Sure enough there is poor John at the gate, cell phone
in hand about to call the fire department and Anne his
mother-in-law hanging over the railing of their
house....wondering if we are going to burn their place
down too (the houses are close together). I thank them nicely
and mutter something about Michel catching a towel on fire
but trying not to be too specific as insurance
companies frown on gas space heaters and seem to want
them disconnected...... so that was another day in Michel's arson infamy . The neighbors barely spoke to us after this fiasco and sold their house within a few months.

There, is still burning scorch smell in bathroom, one
dead towel, Michel might have possibly learned a
lesson but I doubt that fact very much.

The sad thing is that Michel's parents never taught
him anything common or sensible and he knows nothing
about fire or gas or chemicals or anything. They were
French society and the kids had nannies. He actually
had his own nanny to dress him and take care of him
until he was well into upper childhood and then was
sent away to school. So, he knew 6 or so languages
and everything about books but nothing about daily
commmon life. He was not a boy scout or anything of the sort, never went camping or fishing or did any of the fun
outdoor things, and those experiences really help in later life.

As for me, my Adirondack training and the fact I was a
Camp Fire Girl and had a Dad who loved to hike and
liked flora and fuana, gave me a great basis which I
tend to take for granted; not so my dear Husband.

M. was a real pyromaniac too (LOL). He loved fire. He conjured up ways and reasons to make fires. He drove me nuts when we had the house on Crystal Beach because he was
always setting fires with leaves and grass (he raked
up) in the high winds and usually it was too dry to do so. Ditto M. was the reason Sean's house had big burned spots on the side yard (M.'s bonfires).

The sad posting to these little vignettes is that Michel chose to go into the fire at his death. I sat in the funeral mortuary wondering if he enjoyed his fire as we watched his coffin slide hydraulically toward the flames. In France cremation is partially witnessed by the funeral attendees. I wish, more than anything, I had not kept that mental image souvenir but I supposed Michel was looking down giddily clapping his hands as he watched his final fire.

Dating for the Mourning Widow

2011-06-11T20:32:00.022-05:00

I had never given any thought at all about my doing anything other than spending the rest of my life treading water and waiting to die. I keep busy. I am occupied trying to do things for others and it has kept my mind off myself.

About 8 months ago my next door neighbor came over to watch TV and proceeded to tell me he thought I should try to date again. My mouth flew open, I started to choke, and I could not believe my ears. I had never ever even had a brief thought about my dating anyone - ever. I was in some way rather insulted that it should be thought I was not properly mourning my husband.

God knows; my husband deserved to be mourned if there ever was a person who is missed on this Earth it is my Michel. He was so brilliant, so caring, a gentleman at all times, a wonderful husband, very indulgent of me (I am very high maintenance), gave me his purse and did not care what I spent, always complied with my silly whims, called me his "Queen" and he was my rock. No one could ever be all that to me ever again.

I did give my neighbor's advice some thought but I dismissed it and then got on with my grieving. Later some female friends of mine told me they were on a senior dating site and encouraged me to join because it was free. After a lot of arguing with my soul; I put a profile and a photo on the site and then promptly forgot to look at it thereafter.

Not long after my profile was on the site I had an email through the system from a 45 year old man. I wrote to him and told him I thought he had not read my profile and he should pay attention to my age. He wrote back that he had read my profile and he wished I would read his because he really preferred older women. I read his profile. I thought he was looking for a sugar momma. I tried to discourage him but he persevered. Eventually, after months of corresponding; we got to be friends and we have been friends for all these months. I am certain he has a flaming Internet sex addiction but I don't mind and it's fun watching him operate. Sometimes he's so smooth and other times he's like a child. I am sure he is not who he says he is and at first I was worried he was a minor but finally I was assured he really is 45 and then our interchanges became OK with me. We email or use messenger to communicate. He is fun and nice and I like him very much. Would I meet him? Not sure. Would he meet me? Not sure of that either but it's fun to chat with him and he never puts any sort of pressure on me about anything; he's just fun. He's slick, he is smooth, and he thinks he's playing cat and mouse but I know we are really playing cat and cat.

I tried to navigate through the mire of online dating disasters: men who lie about their age, men who lie about that and everything else, married men who list themselves as single, single men who are actually living with another women, men who say they have no children and actually have kids, men who say they are looking for a long term relationship who are really just look for a strange piece of stuff and to get laid, and men who are all working for some covert intelligence secret military operation they cannot talk about other than to tell you they are working on it (such lies). Really! I cannot tell you the number of men who have contacted me that claim they are with the CIA, some sort of intelligence agency, have been to Iraq/Afghanistan, have money, have big cars and motorcycles and have an overabundance of facial hair (yuck). They show photos of themselves beside and astride luxury cars, boats, and motorcycles but then you find out the object in the photo, "belongs to a friend"..... then there are the men in Houston temporarily for business who claim they live here......... Do they really think I will not Google them? I do every one. If you have the true first and last names of the subject: No one can successfully lie in the electronic world. If you cannot look the person up: chances are the names are fake too.

The bottom line on this story is I have been on a couple of online dating sites for some months and I had yet to meet any of the people I was corresponding with until today. Boy, was I a basket of nerves. We chose a neutral place for lunch at 1 PM. We met. He's very nice and a gentleman and retired twice now from two different professions. He was a police chief in his last professional incarnation (I felt comfortable when he told me he's always packing and patted his pocket). He's some sort of a pillar of our little community and has been recently elected to the International Lions Club Hall of Fame. His deceased wife was a well known attorney here in town and had escaped East Germany as a teen. I enjoyed his company but can it be more than friendship for me: Do not think so.

On the other hand, he reckoned he won the lottery and could not take his eyes off me. He was not creepy but it was obvious he was impressed with me ( the blonde hair and massive chest do it every time).

I am the Ice Queen and I knew it would be difficult to find someone I wanted to know and so my reaction to this does not surprise me. I have always been more or less not really impressed with men, especially the ones who like to brag or try to bring sex up in conversations before you have said little more than "hello". I know lots of women use sex as a tool for getting what they want from men but to me that's the height of
"whoredom". Lots of perfectly "respectable" women can turn tricks for the sake of encouraging "relationships" but mostly it is whenever they want something from the man. I have never been able to do this. If I am not feeling it; I'm not doing it.

I am just not in a hurry to settle for any man and I am not in any way desperate. I don't need a man. My husband has provided for me in his death as he did in life and I am grateful I don't have to go out looking for a man to support me; I just want to meet someone who wants to have a little fun and be friends. You would think men would be thrilled to find a woman who just wants to have fun: Not so, all they can think about is sex and trying to entice a woman into joining their domestic scene for their convenience.

It seems men over 50 have this burning desire to find a suitable mate for sex (although most of them cannot accomplish the act) and they will do anything to pursue a woman they think will cook their meals and wash their socks. These are the same men who in their 20's and 30's and 40's spent their time running away from relationships. The worm turns for men after 50. You cannot ask an older guy any sort of question or have any kind of polite conversation with a man over 50 without him finding some way to inject sexual innuendos into the discussion. At the grocery store you may remark without thinking, " Oh, these are nice melons". Scores of skulking old guys look up from their sexually provoked stupors and remark about your chest under their breaths. Bend over the vegetable bins and you have provided old guy masturbation fodder for the next two weeks.

Women on the other hand are usually in a good place when they reach my age. They have money, they have possessions, they have peace of mind: they don't need a man. Ladies my age secretly know that men over 50 are pretty much duds in the sack. Men know this too but they are so delusional about their bodies and their sexual abilities; they lie to themselves and to their buddies about the big "S" and try to proliferate the asinine myth of male sexiness over 50. They waste a lot of time trying to get laid when they could use that time helping out with some charity or doing volunteer work.

In the past few months, I have had four proposals from men I have known in the distant past. I was really surprised and nonplussed by this but I think men just become frantic for a spouse when they get older and they wait around until some nice woman they have known becomes a widow and try to pounce on her. I was a good wife and everyone knows this fact.

Cousin Susu has said, "men our age don't want a wife; they want a nurse". I think there is some truth to her statement. I have been a "nurse" for a long time. I am the best facilitator in the world, as well. I was happy to tend to my husband and I don't regret spending one minute of my time with him. I do not, however, want to go through what he and I went through again.

Older men fear loneliness: Older women fear lonely older men.

Weight Loss Surgery

2011-06-10T15:55:00.003-05:00

It took a long time for me to decide I had no other options than to have weight loss surgery. To that end, for the past six months I have been going to doctors, psychiatrists, nutritionists, physical therapist, etc. in order to get through the process required by insurance companies for the surgery. I will admit my first reason for going through the procedures was to lose weight in a vanity sense. In January I filed the paperwork with UTMB for the surgery. The first of February I got a new insurance I knew would pay for the surgery so I started on the regime required to jump through a lot of hoops for approval.

You read about the stroke I had six years ago and you probably are aware I was told I am diabetic whilst in the hospital recovering from the stroke. I sincerely hope none of my readers will ever have to face diabetes or a stroke. You can manage diabetes but it's inconvenient to say the least. Type I diabetes can be treated but it never gets better. Type II diabetes is later onset diabetes and it is possible to control Type II by controlling your weight (not always but most of the time). Problem with this is people who are on medications for Diabetes have all sorts of side effects and one big one is weight gain: It is Catch 22 for Diabetics in the strictest sense of the phrase. I did eventually learn my symptoms responded quite well to exercise and diet. Then, I injured myself at the gym and I had to stop working out to go through physical therapy. Weight gain and bad hip and knee made more weight gain. I gained back 30 pounds of the weight I had lost.

For the past six months I have been to appointment after appointment in order to satisfy all the criteria to get the operation approved but at a point last month I changed my mind and tried to renege on the surgery. It was at this point they made appointments for me with the nutritionist and the surgeon. During the interview with the nutritionist I experienced my epiphany when I told her I do not want to die on the operating table again and she said, "Well you are dying every day and with Diabetes you will die much faster". I went to speak to the surgeon after I got through with the nutritionist interview and I agreed to the surgery.

August 30, 2011, I will have gastric bypass surgery at UTMB. Please wish me well. Thanks to you all

I Have Done Too Much.......

2011-06-08T19:45:00.000-05:00

Just got off the phone with a relatively new acquaintance. During the conversation we were discussing The Four Seasons Hotel chain. I said I remembered being in the Four Seasons in Dallas and Houston but I have been in so many hotels around the world that one pretty much looks like another to me and I get them all confused. There was a pregnant pause at the other end of the line. I realized the person to whom I was speaking, who is male, had thought I committed some sort of Freudian slip. I had to quickly explain I traveled for many years for business all over the world; more or less intimating I was not a world class hooker but a legitimate business executive.

After the conversation I started thinking about the reason he was surprised and somewhat disbelieving that a woman would travel all over the globe in the business world.

It is really true that I have traveled so much and for so many years I do tend to forget where I have been. Even when I was traveling I would sometimes wake up and shake out the cobwebs to remember what city I was in at the time.

Once my former husband and I were both in Toronto on the same dates. He was in a hotel across town and I was in a hotel downtown. He sent me flowers and wanted me to have dinner with him and his colleagues but I had a big bash I had to attend for my own business counterparts and he could not accompany me to my function. In short we were in the same city for three days and could not get together. We did manage to carve out some time over the weekend to spend with each other at home.

Places I have lived: Born in Texas; raised in Washington, D.C. area (Falls Church and Alexandria, Virginia); Maryland; Houston; Beaumont; Atlanta, Great Sacandaga Lake in Upstate New York; East and West Caroga Lakes also in Upstate New York; Kinderhook, NY; Wallkill, NY; Atlanta; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Bologna, Italy; Paris; Marseille; Sydney, NSW Australia; Moss Vale, NSW, Australia. I know there are more cities but I cannot recall them at the moment.

By now you get that I was really a rolling stone and those are just the places I lived; not part of my business travel itinerary.

For several years I was in the convention and decorating business and I sold convention services but I would also go in with the crews and stay while they set up the conventions and then my staff and I would do the billing for the convention on the show floor while the show was taking place. I was in a lot of hotel convention sites as well as some very large convention halls and spent a lot of time in the belly of the huge beastly Georgia World Congress Center.

Domaine la Begude my Husband's old home in Provence

2011-06-02T11:20:00.011-05:00

http://www.maisondesvins-bandol.com/domaine.php?id=2
http://www.domainedelabegude.fr/index.php?langue=fr

This was Domaine la Begude in the early 1940's

If you click on the links above you will be transported to the site of Domaine la Begude in Provence. This Domaine belonged to my husband's family until 1996. My husband was born at la Begude in 1944 shortly after the Nazis (who took it over during their occupation) left France. The German's ruined the domaine whilst occupying the place and it took my husband's cousin and his uncles over 40 years to bring it back as it was in the 1940's.

When the family had the Domaine they grew grapes, made wine, and also grew almond and olive trees.

They grow and make a very good Bandol at la Begude. The word la Begude means "water spot" in the ancient Provencial language which pre-dates the Roman occupation of Gaul and is sometimes still spoken but has nothing to do with the French language as we know it to be today. (this is according to my husband, who was a great historian).

I have been to la Begude shortly after our marriage. It is a hauntingly lovely place with breathtaking views of the Mediterranean and it's built from an old cloister church type edifice that was present for at least a thousand years and may go back to the 7th century. (not sure).

My husband's family lost so much of their holdings in France and in Morocco and Algeria. Now we have nothing to show but memories and the spoken word history of the family. There is a written history of the family, a book, but the book was written in 1880 and does not encompass the trials and tribulations of the modern members of the family.

It seems unfair to let you have a crumb of our family history and not tell you more about la Begude even if this is a really lousy translation:

"At the foot of the Sainte Baume (1150 m), overlooking the bay of La Ciotat, between Pointe Grenier and the Bec de l'Aigle, the vast forest estate has a vineyard 1a Bégude old and famous, but also the testimony of human history.

Located on the highest culmination of the road from Toulon to Marseille, the aging cellars are in fact the former chapel of the Merovingian seventh century of the manor of Cosnil, but now extinct village mentioned in the year 966 of the cartulary of St. Victor.

Wine, olive oil products to the field from 1543-1545 is not mentioned. Only the testimony, recently updated, vats of wine from the XIVth inclines us to think that perhaps the wine was already "good" because the people who consumed the Turks massacred more than was usual , to the point of justice to move ... then it must be said that the place was a popular destination for pilgrims during the Middle Ages. People came to venerate the relics of St. Anthony of Padua sent by Cardinal Guy de Monfort Rome in appreciation of care provided by residents' Cosnil "and Cuges, as he lay ill in Relay Bégude. Since then and until the 18th century, Our Lady of Mercy live more pilgrims and lovers of wine than the Turks.

In the late 18th century the family BENET, owner of La Ciotat shipyard, has sufficient financial resources to develop the vineyard, olive grove and winery. In early 2OemesiècIe, the field is taken up by the Racine family that maintains a very solid reputation in the wine Bégude.

William and Louis Tari last generation of a family winemaking tradition, (Chateau Margaux to GISCOURS) in search of a land with a strong personality, discover the Bégude. They then attach themselves to make the vineyard and olive grove size of yesteryear, by the systematic re-cultivation of the terraces (the highest in the Bandol appellation) in which nature had reasserted itself. Meanwhile, programs to restore ancient buildings and construction of the winery are in progress. This renaissance is inconceivable without making the most of hunting and forestry in this area of 500 hectares wildlife reserve and aromatic essences of Mediterranean flora.

With the vaulted ceilings of the chapel and the furnaces of the 16th century 12emeet, existing buildings jealously guard the testimony of the past. But the field of LA BEGUDE remained alive today. In this spirit, the two brothers Tari focus in respect of traditions, to create for modern times, a wine capable of expressing all the aging characteristics of the great terroir of Bandol. "

Area
500 hectares including 13.5 hectares of vineyard.

Location

Geology
Marl and clay soils on limestone subsoil.

Features
Vines planted: 65% Mourvedre, Grenache 20% Cinsault 10%, 5% Carignan.
Ugni Blanc 40% Clairette 40%, 20% Rolle.
Spacing: 4500/5000 feet per acre.
Average age of vines: 20 years.
Tillage including the four traditional ways. No use of herbicide, pesticide, fertilizer or chemical products or chemical synthesis. Mixed organic fertilizer (plant and animals).
Stainless steel tanks thermoregulation.
Bottling the domain.
Production of about 20 000 bottles of pink and red 15 000.
1600 olive trees are planted on terraces of the domain (Aglandau varieties, Bouteillan brown pardiguiet and Picholine).

Performance
30 hectoliters per hectare.

In pictures ...

Baking Bread by the Kitchen Witch

2011-06-01T19:58:00.008-05:00

It has been said bread is the staff of life but my baking bread keeps me sane. There is no greater therapy then the sensation you get whilst diving up to your elbows in a fluffy pillow of bread dough. A good yeast driven bread sponge has been proofed with yeast and honey then left to recline in a stoneware bowl, on a summer morning, in order to rise as the sun climbs over the back porch. You need heat and humidity for good dough.

There is a certain thrill as you go about measuring all the ingredients for the bread and then the tension and excitement build as you finally begin pommeling the dough into submission. For me the aggressive kneading and pounding of the dough is as much the reason to make bread as the eating.

I make many kinds of bread from spicy Jalapeno breads to sweet sour dough bread, and sprouted breads or breads with whole grains and nuts. Whole grain breads are the ones I do most because they are more healthful and also the most beautiful to serve.

This is one of my recent loaves of Grandma Sadie's Egg Bread (Challah): A recipe I copped off an Internet blog many years ago. It is resplendent with eggs, honey, butter and good will. I changed the recipe around to use half bread flour and half whole wheat flour, then glazed it heavily with egg yolk and seeded it with flecks of kosher salt, poppy, white sesame, caraway, and dark sesame seeds. One hot bite of this bread with a soft grade AA butter and you are transported to straight to Heaven.

Baking is an art but my theory for bread baking success is postulated on the secret built in requisite for certain genetic accoutrements born into the skin of the hands of its baker. I presume to think good bread making requires a certain sort of inherited skin type to be able to have the yeast respond to good handling. Yeast is a living organism and it prefers a certain human touch on its surfaces in order to yield up its glorious rise. I secretly scoff at and eschew dough mixing paraphernalia such as dough hooks and the use of food processors for dough making because I firmly believe the dough has to respond to caressing finger tips to be good. Make love to your dough and it will yield its bounty up to you! Talk to it the dough; stroke it, tell it you will adore its cake like texture and it will be well appreciated at dinner. A flirty dough is a sucker for praise.

I inherited my "yeast" growing dermis from my Father's Mother, Granny; a woman so famous for her rolls there was a never ending line of folks at her table. My Father often told me of the wonderful meals she produced for her six children and all the other neighborhood kids she fed, as well, during the Depression. Her children learned to stand at the oven and pop the hot rolls out from the pan the instant they were browned. This stealthy activity kept them from losing their place at mealtimes and lowered the risk of them finding an empty bread bowl when they were finally sat at table. Granny's rolls and breads are the stuff of legends.

There is also a mental attitude to baking. If you have no joy in you don't try to bake or you will yield up a cruel mass of half risen flat pones.

My dear husband loved to have me in the kitchen baking. He enjoyed the smells and sounds of baking and he had all his favorites he preferred for me to bake. He preferred lemon meringue pie, cream cheese pound cake, cheesecakes of all varieties, whole wheat French style baguettes, egg bread, rye bread and the black sweet sour pumpernickel he'd had from his German first wife's mother. This lady had risked everything to escape from East Germany with her lover, her teen daughter ,and the clothes on their backs. Unfortunately, the had to leave behind her older son and the half brother of our first wife behind. (note: "our" first wife was a brilliant if neurotic translator, working for the European Union, whose untimely death in the late 70's was at her own hand, shortly after she and my husband divorced).

I did not take offense as my husband steadfastly referred to his first wife, throughout our marriage, as "my wife" and called me the "Chou Chou" (sweetie). I realize first loves are something you don't tamper with in life or death. It is impossible to be jealous of a dead woman who left behind the finest man I have ever known and who was snatched up by me some 25 years later.

It is a great pleasure to take the pains to make a good bread and then offer it up to appreciative mouths as a sort of prayer for redemption. It is well worth the sacrifices: the broken nails; burnt fingers and all the scars that plague a good baker ( I seem to have a propensity for burning the inside of my forearm as I pull the loaves out of the oven).

It must be remembered that bread is the main course a Christian priest offers up as the Host with wine for communion. Ditto, the Hebrew Shabbat table always features a shiny chubby brown braided loaf of Chalot (Challah) well hidden under the traditional embroidered Challah cover cloth until it can be blessed and served. The Challah bread is traditionally served to evoke the memories of the Manna God rained down on the Hebrew tribes to nourish them as they rambled about in the desert aimlessly looking for the Promised Land for forty years.

To eat bread is to be human. Certainly, we find no evidence of any other species baking or brewing. I mention brewing because the earliest forms of beer were assemblages of fermenting bread and water. Ancient Egyptians brewed a thick sweet beer concoction with honey and barley Emmer wheat bread. Honey is the only comestible that may still be eaten from Egyptian tombs as it evidently stays edible for several millennia.

The citizens of France rioted and overthrew their monarchs for want of bread. Let it be known to one and all Marie Antoinette is often misquoted and she did not say, "let them eat cake" but she did say, "let them eat brioche". (there is another post to sing the praises of brioche)

Jean Valjean of Les Miserables fame (a Victor Hugo classic) was pursued and harassed for decades because he dared to steal a loaf of bread to feed his sister's children.

Crimes have been committed for bread, sins have been forgiven by bread, religions have their rites and traditions centered around bread. Even the Christian Jesus broke bread into many pieces and fed a large crowd of people. After scores of millennia bread is still the stuff of life and I would not have it any other way.

Grandma's Sadie's Challah Bread Recipe

2011-06-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

This makes two big loaves. The original recipe acted like it was one loaf but it's huge (note: I make on big loaf). I think you get better results with honey. and I baked at 325 because at 350 it burns. I coated the tops with egg yolk wash, caraway, poppy seeds, sesame seeds and kosher salt.

Be sure to proof the yeast in a bowl of warm water with a little honey and a teaspoon of spoon of sugar to be sure it is active before you make this recipe. If it gets all bubbly then you can use the yeast.

You will need:

* 7 cups bread flour I found you have to use at least 8 to 9 cups of flour (I use half whole wheat and half unbleached white)
* 1 T uniodized salt
* 1/2 cup sugar (or honey)
* 2 pkg yeast (5 teaspoons) + 1/3 cup warm water
* 1/2 cup oil
* 4 eggs
* 1 cup boiling water
* 1/2 cup cold water

Sprinkle yeast into a measuring cup with 1/3 cup warm water. Wait a few minutes, then stir.
Beat eggs in a small bowl.

In a large bowl mix oil, sugar and salt.

Add boiling water to large bowl and stir until all is dissolved.

Add cold water to mixture in large bowl. (The stuff in the bowl should now be the right temperature to add yeast. If too hot, wait a few minutes; if too cold, put the bowl in the microwave to heat it a little until it feels the temperature of your skin anything warmer will kill the yeast.)

Add yeast to large bowl.

Add eggs to large bowl, reserving about 1 tablespoon.

Add flour 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Turn out dough onto floured board and knead for 5 minutes, adding more flour as needed (but not too much). Dough is ready if it springs back after being poked with a finger.

Put back into bowl, cover with dishtowel, and put in warm oven with pilot light (or heated to 170-200, and then turned off beforehand) until doubled - about 1 hour.

Turn out onto floured board and knead for 1-2 minutes.

Divide dough into thirds.

Take one of the thirds, and knead for another minute. Form into 8-12 small "snakes" for bulkies, or 3 large snakes for braid. Make bulkies by knotting each small snake and pinching the ends together. Place bulkies close together pinched-end down in greased pan (I use Pam). For braids, pinch ends of 3 large snakes together and begin braiding. Pinch ends together when done. Place in greased round pan or loaf pan.

Put formed loaves/bulkies into oven (pre-heated and then turned off, as before) for about 45 minutes.

Remove from oven. Turn oven to 350 then down to 325 for cooking be sure your oven is calibrated by using an oven thermometer.

Brush tops gently with a beaten egg yolk. Sprinkle with seeds and Kosher salt, if desired.

Bake for about 25 minutes (loaves) or 20 minutes (bulkies). Times will vary. Watch for moderate browning on top, but be careful not to allow scorching on bottom.

Remove from pans, and put on dish towels to cool.

An Anniversary .....of sorts.....my stroke...and death

2011-05-30T13:27:00.013-05:00

Recently a neurotic friend of mine, who is a very good artist, more or less intimated to me that he wished to depart this Earth by his own means. It made me think back to my personal brushes with death and also the death of my dear husband; a man who would have given anything to continue his life.

Have to qualify this post by saying I have never been a religious person. I was raised in a Christian family but my parents simply sent me to services and Sunday School and never much attended any religious institution on their own. For a time I considered myself an agnostic but I would occasionally pray for others in need; never for myself because I am strong and I feel I can deal and have dealt with many things that would break a lot of people. Now, due to personal experiences, I feel I know exactly what life and death are about. I never speak of these experiences but I think they are worthy of setting down in words and you can take them for what they are as they are offered to you.

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the second time I have died. I died once whilst bleeding to death on the operating table in 1976 and was brought back to the horridly painful realization that life, without painkillers due to no blood pressure is hell, thus I screamed in pain for three days before I was stabilized and could have a shot of Demerol. No one should ever have to experience that sort of pain. The surgeon told me I lost 9 units of blood (note: an adult body holds about 12 units of blood) and gave me the medical records to read for myself because he knew with my medical training; I would understand them. I literally bled out and because I have a rather unusual type blood they did not have any blood on hand to transfuse me. They had to call a blood bank 25 miles away for the blood but by the time the blood arrived I had begun to stabilize and they took the decision to play with my life and not transfuse me (in the old days sometimes there was more to fear from the transfused blood than from the odds of life and death). Knowing what I do about medical practices it seems this was a very unwise decision and most anyone would die under those circumstance without being transfused but somehow I lived. I might add this same hospital had, that very week, lost a woman in childbirth because they allowed her to hemorrhage to death. The death of this woman and my demise eventually led my family doctor to have a nervous breakdown and he was institutionalized. My doctor admired me greatly and he felt acute blame for these mistakes but I think he could not deal with the fact he almost killed me and his decision did kill the young mother.

I died the second time on this date six years ago in the midst of a stroke.

I woke that morning six years ago in fine condition ( I usually wake in a good mood) feeling like I wanted to make Jalapeno jelly. For the uninitiated, Jalapeno jelly is a great condiment to serve with wild game (much like mint jelly for lamb) and goes well with other meats. Plus if you dump a brick of cream cheese on a plate and cover it with Jalapeno jelly and serve some crackers alongside; you have a simple and delicious hors d'oeuvre . I had bought all the accouterments for the recipe the day before. I set about boiling the glass jars and peeling the jalapenos. My husband always liked to sleep late and it was my intention to get all the difficult parts of the recipe in hand before he awakened and wanted his breakfast. Having got the sterilizing started and the various ingredients chopped I set about starting lunch and soon Michel was awake and wanted his morning fare.

Things were swimming along and I was about the take the jars out of the boiling water when I thought of something I wanted to tell Michel and walked into the study to speak to him. He was playing bridge online with some friends all over the globe but the party included one friend in particular who had actually paid us a visit a few years prior when she came to Houston to visit relatives. I walked into the study and spoke. I knew what I wanted to say in my mind but the resulting stream of words out of my mouth were totally random and without any structure or sense whatsoever.

Michel looked up at me and said, "I hope you are joking". All I could do was shake my head for "no" because when I tried to speak again a bunch of random words ran out of my mouth.

As luck would have it; our friend in Tennessee was also a dispatcher for an Emergency Medical Team. Quickly Michel typed in my symptoms and she told him to call 911 that I was having a stroke. He called 911 immediately but I was furious and nonsensical and I had a big fit because I did not want to go to the hospital as I had not had a shower that morning. Obviously, my thinking was not up to par.

The hospital and the EMT vehicles are not even two miles down the road from our home and the ambulance got to us in only a few minutes. By the time they arrived I was experiencing numbness in my hands and arms and I was losing control of them. It's interesting to note that going through all this I knew what was happening but I was not afraid. Somehow I just trusted I would be OK and I did not refuse treatment or make a big stink as I might have done if I had all my faculties. Normally, I try to would seize control of the situation and try tell the EMTs and doctors how to treat me and what I wanted done but, this time, I was literally struck dumb and had to take things as they dealt them .

They put me on oxygen immediately, looked in my eyes, and told Michel I was, indeed, having a stroke. The reason for this is the pupils of the eye are often different sizes during a stroke whereas normal pupils tend to stay the same size. I knew this but I did not have the presence of mind to look into the mirror at my own eyes. About this time two big fellows came in with the transport stretcher and my little dog, sensing they were going to take me, tried to attack all of them at once. This dog is as gentle as they come but he was not going to sit still for anyone to harm me as he reckoned they were going to do. Michel ended up having to put the irate dog in a bedroom whilst the EMTs worked on me. At this time I was fading out of consciousness. I vaguely recall being transported down the front staircase on the stretcher and being placed inside the ambulance.

Once in the ambulance things got even more hazy and bizarre for me. I looked out what I thought was a window in the ambulance (later I learned there were no windows in the ambulance). It was a lovely bright sunny day and quite warm. I felt the sensation of floating in the air in the sunlight like some cosmic particle at the whim of heat, and light, and thermal winds. Then I felt I could rather command the floating and my mind shot through the thought, "well if this is dying I am OK with it". I was still mesmerized with floating about in my cosmic particle state when I thought about what Michel and Sean would do without me. Then another thought shot through my mind. The thought I perceived was this, "you are free to float in the light for a time but in the end all will be darkness and you will fade from the light to sleep in the blackness of oblivion". I made the decision (unconsciously but it seemed consciously at the time) that I did not want to fade into oblivion forever even though floating around in the light had a big attraction for me (I have always fancied flying and have had many dreams that I could fly). Then the lights went out and I lost consciousness and thought.

Much later, Michel, told me they had worked on me in the ambulance for over 45 minutes because they could not stabilize me. He said he was terrified and he fully expected me to die.

In the hospital I became conscious for a small time when a very nice doctor was asking me to do different things with my arms. To my amazement I could do them as he instructed. I noted Michel was there but I could not speak to him or the doctor and soon after the calisthenics I went back into my coma. The doctor told Michel it was a hopeful sign but not to get too optimistic about my chances for survival and told him to call relatives and friends if they wanted to see me before..........

I was not put on life support because I had often told everyone around me I did not want this and also I have a living will.

I woke up the next morning about 5 AM, in the dark, and I thought I had died. Then I noticed a huge black phlebotomist taking blood from my arm and I spoke to him. This spooked him because he knew I had been in a coma. Then he laughed and said, "well, you sure ain't ready to go, are you". I just smiled smugly with the knowledge I had beaten death once again and went back to sleep happy with the thought I was able to speak again.

During the next week they did every conceivable test on me: MRIs, cat scans, ultra sounds of my heart and arteries, I had to wear a heart monitor for three days and scads of blood tests.

UTMB is a teaching college as well as the largest hospital in Texas. I got a slew of young interns in my room various times during the day examining me and asking me questions.

In the end they found no reason for me to have had the stroke. It remains a mystery. Also, a mystery is my full recovery from paralysis and my recovery from a mute state.

The experience was summed up by my kind Hispanic Neurologist, "it is some kind of miracle". I said nothing because I truly believe to this day it was simply my will and my intention not to die.

my husband Michel 2009

Whatever the reasons I suppose it is important to convey to you all that if I had died I would not have been available to take care of my husband in the years and months and days of his illness. I find it a cruel twist of fate that I am alive and he saved my life and I could not return the favor for him.

Happiness is............

2011-05-27T18:04:00.011-05:00

So, you get older and you start to think in simplicities at least I thought so until I sat down to list my favorite things as a recipe for happiness.

Years ago I began to collect the vintage perfumes worn by the iconic women of my early life: There is Mother's Toujours Moi, Gransmother's Ma Griffe, Tante Regines's Shalimar, Ma Belle Mere, Sabine's, Ylang et Vanille, my own Antilope by Weil, Chergui by Serge Leutens, Tabarome by Creed (when it was the original one) and several others,cannot forget Amazone by Hermes. Scores of bottles of old perfume; all the Balmains, Guerlains, Diors, Chanels, certain fragrances by Hermes, etc. on and on. Perfume evokes the joys of childhood for me more so than candies or toys. As well, I adore to feel velvet next to my skin and fine silk Peau d'Ange, and particularly delight in stroking watered taffeta moire (when it was all silk) with my long nails, ditto Skinner Satin on the skin.

Fine fur puts me into ecstasy even though I know it's a cruel trick on the poor progenitor of the pelts. I have had many furs but my favorites would include, a huge blue fox stole, a thick chocolate mouton lamb coat and a Blackglama full length mink coat I received one Christmas from an ex when I turned down his offer of a gold and diamond Rolex.

When I was a small child I loved to put my little face into my Mother and Grandmother's furs to brush the pelts against my cheeks and to inhale the lingering scent of their perfumes clinging to the furs.

We are led around by our olfactory keeness in that we can smell and taste thanks be to this most wonderful of senses. As a child I recall gnawing on sugar cane in a field, sipping wild honey from the waxy comb, licking the bowls of my Mother and Grandmothers cakes and icings, the pollen scented breast of the red bird my Father brought to me (in a little cage he had made) and then, to my chagrin, when Daddy made me turn the little wild bird loose (my first lesson in freedom and to love something is to set it free), licking the creamy center from my first Hostess cupcake, Granny's buttermilk pralines, our cook's chocolate and lemon pies; hard fried crunchy corn pone, lobster with drawn butter, lump crab in white butter sauce, picking up pecans from our trees, blackberries straight off the bush in my garden, and Pompano en papillote.

Sensory overload is me.

Jewels, furs, pearls on the skin, pima cotton sheets, caviar on blini, Calissons de Aix on the tongue, Mariage Freres tea (Pleine Lune in particular), handmade high rag content artisanal writing paper with frayed edges (French are the kings of designer paper products and writing instruments), Mont Blanc or vintage Waterman fountain pens with fat glass pots of peacock blue ink, French wafered nougats, French crystalized fruits, marzipan and almond paste, foi gras with Sauterne (I know it's cruel and mea culpa), omelets with black truffles, fine olive oil from France or Italy, birds nest soup, fine tea from India, China and Japan, tiny Umiboshi the salted preserved Japanese plums, the list can go on but it's enough and I give too much away on my character.

Take a moment and think about the times you were happiest in your life. Mine are the simplest times: the Candy cigarettes and wax lips of Halloween; smelling a crackling wood fire on a moonlit night in fall in an apple orchard sitting smack on a haystack; picking the produce from our garden; in the midst of a steaming kitchen cooking some delicious things like steamed treckle toffee puddings; burying my nose in the chest of a wonderful man who has on a good cologne.....just a hint of cologne after a steamy rendezvous so the fragrance is mixed with the fine perspiration he exuded during our heady acts of love (or hate as it may be).

Lindemans Kreik Lambic swilled with a bottle of bitter or a pint of Old Peculier in a pub or on a boozy day at home!

Amaretto licked from the fingers of your lover or kissed from his lips in a frenzy.

People will say it's the birth of their children, the day they married, when they graduated from college, etc. Those things are fairly common on the Happiness meter. Perhaps give thought to the kinkier pleasures of life; laying in a bed with sunlight filtering through some heavy velvet drapes pulled to fend off the afternoon sun because you and your paramour should not be in bed at that hour. Raindrops slapping on a tin roof while you snuggle deep into the down of the goose feather Duvet your British/Dutch Sea Captain lover has imported for you from his Netherlands home along with a few frozen bottles of Genever; a drink so potent a few thimblefuls have made you so giddily dizzy and drunk with passion you've burnt the roast in the oven. He always pronounces a toast his Dutch Grandfather quoted whilst imbibing Genever, "voor de wormen", and you can't help but think about the big "wormen" awaiting you in the boudoir......(this is the one man I most regret when I think of relationships I have bashed).

Have you had a 1982 Margeaux? Try it on a heady night when you have the best possible steak to grill and pommes Duchess in the pot add a bit of handmade thick lemony Hollandaise on a bland vegetable and you have a meal of epic culinary delight.

Now I leave you gentle reader to ponder one of the best pleasures ever concocted:

MOUSSE AU CHOCOLAT

**Note: the photo is me taken by T. Butler, in 1978, to emulate the screen goddesses of the 1930's and 40's.

Dining with Rapture in mind

2011-05-22T18:11:00.012-05:00

This ain't Heaven so I guess I survived the "Rapture". All week "Rapture" jokes and "Rapture" parties. "Rapture" = non-event. May 21 came and went and no Jesus on a cloud took anyone anywhere.

Met an old dear friend of mine for dinner last Thursday night. He has to come from Beaumont, got snarled up on the Ferry from Bolivar and had a very rough crossing. I sat patiently at the restaurant, 901 Postoffice, trying to decide what to have. First time at this restaurant and even most locals do not know the place is here. Menu has some unusual offerings not exactly gourmet but good sort of new wave comfort food. Decor is stark cottage with wood floors, subtle lighting, pale walls and white woodwork, white table cloths and napkins.

Wine list is ho-hum and relatively mundane. I chose a Pinot Grigio that was a run-of-the-mill vino which could only be described as a good table wine. So, I sat there sipping my wine and savoring the crispy seeded flat bread served "en table"......for about 45 minutes while Friend was tossed to and fro on the Ferry.

Finally, companion joined me and we chose our appetizers and entrees and sat swilling Pinot Grigio until the appetizer plates came. The plates were long white ironstone servers that had such length to them they had to be presented on the table at an angle. Mine had an assemblage of three offerings: spicy grilled shrimp, fried mac 'n cheese, Texas caviar (spiced pickled black eyed peas). His choice: three wee crab cakes nestled in beds of finely shredded red cabbage. Fried Mac 'n Cheese is not my favorite because the subtle mac and cheese flavor is lost in the heavy fried breaded coating but it was a unique little amuse-bouche. Grilled spicy shrimp were a bell ringer on the pleasure-o-meter with joyous grilled flavor enhanced by flame tamed spices. Texas Caviar was just the right amount of heat and delightfully napped with vinegared spices; I ate every little pea on the plate. Appetizer servings are generous and I could make a meal out of two appetizers and might do next trip to 901 Postoffice.

The salads were pretty simple little red and green affairs, very fresh and cold, with a heart of romaine, sweetish olive oil and balsamic dressing and strewn with apple strips and chopped red sweet pepper. Perfectly portioned and perfectly scrumptious.

Main course on mine was strip steak plunked down on a bed of lobster mashed potatoes. My steak was so tender you did not need cutlery to enjoy its portions. My friend also ordered steak and commented that its taste was luxurious and it was just as tender as my steaky bit of Heaven......but I was too busy enjoying my dinner to give any thought to his. Dinner was a scrumptious spread and just enough to have a full belly without being over stuffed and we certainly did not leave hungry (as I have done in some more avant garde nouvelle cuisine eateries).

Dessert was something served in a square white bowl called "Key Lime Fool". Fools are a traditional old English dessert and this one was a cross between a pudding and a whipped desert. I suppose they call is "Fool" because you definitely are one if you leave one morsel of the stuff in your bowl. The 901 "Fool" was a thick unctuous affair so rich you could stand a spoon upright in its mass yet it was soft, creamy, and pleasantly refreshing to the tongue. The "Fool" was topped with fresh raspberries (we fought over these). We were reduced to childhood as we pressed our fingers into the squared edges of the bowl to lick the last bit of "Fool" out of the crevices.

Companion and I were the only people inside the restaurant dining areas we did receive very fast and attentive service. There was a party outside in the courtyard. I think they were only being served drinks and cocktail tidbits. It was, however, annoying to have the inebriated outside guests trooping through the dining room to use the one little bathroom in the hall of the house. The outside guests included several small children who looked adorable in their little dress frocks but were much too noisy to be in a fine eating establishment. Perhaps 901 needs a "Johnny-on-the-spot" for their courtyard.

After we went to the Galvez Hotel for drinks. Highly recommend the Pomegranate Martini and I got Trish, the bartendress, to make me something she calls a Bellini Mango Martini Frappe' - Rapture could occur any time after drinking any one of these you won't care.

Resolve is mine: not much Pain as Art

2011-05-16T12:35:00.004-05:00

So...it was a good first effort to start keeping this blog again, however, once more life got in the way.

More troubles with Cousin Susu after 4 surgeries and more or less three weeks in ICU and another 10 days in a hospital room; she is still in hospital. Too many complications to mention but there is infection and clotting and last week another surgery. Too much to think about I keep getting headaches. I did manage to hook the doctors, the patient advocate, and the home health nurse together so they can all be on the same page when they finally release Susu. I am not going to be able to be with her this week or next.

For myself, I have whole passel of medical appointments and they decided to give me physical therapy two times a week for six weeks. This verdict was put in place even though I was told Friday that physical therapy is not going to help me. Doctors say one thing/ Physical therapists say another. There is a dialog over whether I actually do have bursitis in the right hip or (according to the PTs) I have arthritis so bad it has compromised the joint to such and extent that my hip is operating in a bone on bone without cartilage system.

As you can well imagine this creates a lot of pain. I was taught to work through pain as a small child when I was training with the Russian Ballet instructors. Russians are the masters of pain and no vocation is more about pain than ballet dancing. Feet bleeding; no problem; straighten out that leg en pointe and make "pretty face". It seems my ability to work through pain has not served me will in regard to my hip and knee because I am still getting around when I should not be able to do so.

Hip replacement. I don't think so.

Sean and Jackie came walking in the house right after I returned from the Physical Therapy torture. As Sean strode into the living room he was taking his Ruger out of his pocket to put in the cabinet. He stopped mid pace, with the Ruger in the palm of his hand, to listen to me whine that I probably need a hip replacement. Without skipping a beat he held out his palm with the pistol and said, "Well, Mother, I have the final solution in hand". It was so funny we all dissolved in laughter and I had to stop the pity party.

What is next?

2011-05-02T09:23:00.003-05:00

Last night I was on the phone when the Presidential message popped up on the TV screen. I recorded it all because I was on a particularly long telephone conversation with a man who knows long phone talks annoy the H*ll out of me yet insists on talking my ear numb every time he calls. When I played the recorded Obama announcement program back; I was surprised to hear US forces had killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. It didn't surprise me about him being in Pakistan as I have always thought him to be there but it did surprise me they killed him.

Then there were various celebrations televised with thousands, perhaps millions of Americans out slapping each other on their backs because; ding dong the al-Qaeda monster is dead. People interviewed on television were joyously happy the man had died. It seemed barbaric to me. We, as Americans, probably should take the higher ground and not stoop to the same gloating mercenary ways our enemies did after the various attacks they pulled on the US and other world citizenry.

Granted bin Laden was a monster of sorts but he thought his God was on his side. I began to wonder if he actually ended up with those 27 virgins. I was texted by a friend of mine in Dallas (the prime example of a well-to-do cowboy attorney and very nice man) who was notifying his friends about the death of US Enemy number 1 and that he reckoned bin Laden whould rot in Hell. I texted back and asked if he thought Osama was enjoying the 27 virgins his religion stipulates will be his reward for killing us infidels. He texted to me that he was sure Osama is in Hell. I texted back that maybe acquiring 27 virgins is Hell. He sent back some LOLs. This is a very sweet and kind individual and I was taken aback by his vigilante attitude... but this is, after all, Texas and we are known for our wild and woolly ways.

Decades back, when the Viet Nam war loomed prominently in all the young people's minds, Bob Dylan wrote a song called "With God on our Side". Most of you may not have heard the song but it asks the question regarding whose side is God actually on? I am sure you can find this song Youtube and you might give it a listen because it's all fuel for thought in regard to terrorism and nationalism and smearing religion on all of it as an excuse to wipe out legions of people and take lands that are not technically your possessions. The song became a rallying point for my generation to take a stand against the old guard and eventually put an end to the senseless war in Viet Nam that cost so many lives on both sides.

What can we do? This has nothing to do with the Anglo-Judeo-Christian God that teaches people to turn the other cheek and not to smite their brothers. We forsook that God a long time ago. He changed his clothes and his banners and he saw us through several wars, skirmishes, and battles. Is God on really on our side? Whose God is it? Should he be involved in matters of State? Where was God and whose side was he on the day bin Laden's boys slammed their hijacked planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. All knowing - all seeing God must have been out having tea on a cloud......or had he changed sides for a day? Ooops.

I don't believe the fairy tale. I don't believe anyone's God(s) take(s) sides. Most of all I don't believe we should celebrate the death of any person regardless of their stain on humanity. We have to hold our heads high and accept that we are not really God's messengers but we function as a vengeful war machine just as the other side has done. This time we are victorious but in the past they have also had many victories: Please take time to consider whose God is right, where God was, and who he favored at the time.....?

The Christian Jesus wanted everyone to forsake their daily lives give up their goods and follow him: We all know where that got him.

New Post

2011-05-01T13:16:00.010-05:00

Think I will try posting on this blog again. Someone recently told me to just sit down and write because it does not matter what I write....but I want whatever I write to have some sort of substance. Not that this blog has any real substance or rudimentary value. Still I would prefer to write things that make sense. These verbal meanderings are just kind of some exercises to get me over the writer's block I have been cursed with for several years.

Today is Sunday. My next door neighbor, Bailey, has just gone off for a cruise to Spain. I am so envious I think I will have to eat a half gallon of ice cream and an entire birthday cake to make up for my lack of travel. Bailey has left us all a lot of things to do in his wake. Sean and Jackie are to finish the bathroom they are remodeling at Bailey's apartment house. My contractor has to re-do Bailey's #1 apartment in lieu of paying rent for three months while he does the addition on my third floor. I have to keep them all fed and on track and well managed. I have the keys and the Home Depot credit card (Bailey's) and I am going to be a hard taskmistress until they are finished. You can hear the sound of the whip cracking if you listen closely.

Cousin Susu is still in ICU in St. Elizabeth's Hospital. She has had so many health problems and now she has come down with some sort of psychological phenomenon that happens to a few people who are in ICU for prolonged periods of time, i.e. She is crazy as a bedbug. In the past few days I have spoken to her she has been looking for her dress so she can go; dancing, to Tyler, Texas; to the rodeo; and so forth. The staff put a big white board behind her bed so they can note all the crazy stuff she tells them because Friday night she removed her IV in order to find her "dress" to go out dancing. The Doctor warned all the nursing staff that this was the reason she is so out of her head and that this condition does happen sometimes: Welcome to ICU Psychosis. They had thought she might come out of it if she was placed in a room and, actually, I thought they were keeping her drugged in order to keep her in bed. Today, the nurse told me she has not had any pain medication because her blood pressure keeps bottoming out but the nurse did say the crazy stuff is nothing to get alarmed over but they are watching her very carefully. I am probably going to have to go back next week (if they let her out) and take care of her some days until I am sure she is OK. All Susu's antics have been laugh fodder for today's zany telephone conversations with Cousin Rebecca, friends and other relatives. When I called this morning the nurse and I were laughing and comparing notes on all the stuff Susu is saying and the nurse told me Susu was busy trying to find a hat for the royal wedding over the weekend.

I made tacos today. The kids were very happy. Jackie has already wolfed down three of them and they are big-assed tacos.

Pagnol is sleeping. Sean and I watched the second installment of the new Dr. Who in America. I am not fully convinced I like the new Dr. Who but I do like the new companion.

After having two orthopedic residents give me a "mobility" test on Friday (one of them had to be named de Sade): Took a pain pill Friday night and more or less slept for two days in and out of the dream time state. No more pain pills for me. I have opted for physical therapy to try to sort out my bursitis of the right hip. At least I can breathe freely knowing I do not have to have a hip replacement.

The good news of the week: My contractor, Bill, and I discovered the two big upstairs bedrooms have old wood floors underneath their carpeting. I was all happy about this and telling everyone. As usual Bailey had to burst my bubble, "Ann do you seriously want people clunking about all over those wood floors on top of your head?" Pop pfffft!

Joyeux anniversaire à mon frère belle, Alain Cahier, depuis de nombreuses années de plus à vous frère.

2010-11-06T13:23:00.000-05:00

Bisous, Ann

Another Year Older

2010-02-08T16:51:00.000-06:00

My birthday coincided with the Super Bowl. I was so happy to watch New Orleans win it almost slid by me that I am another year older.

Life goes on for me. Pagnol is still having trouble with his eyes. The Vet thought he finally had a diagnosis and some medication that could help but it seems it is not helping.

Walking a dog that is almost blind is a new education. A blind dog wants to keep his nose to the ground whereas a seeing dog is always looking around and sniffing in the air.

It's not Over but it's over.........

2010-01-25T08:15:00.000-06:00

It took just one breath and one heartbeat for the world to lose the most brilliant kindhearted man, and end of my world, as I knew it to be. Most of you know that Michel passed away on December 16, 2009, in the afternoon. The paramedics said they thought he aspirated some of the breakfast biscuits he ate, that morning, while he was sleeping. I do not think this is correct but in the end whatever happened to Michel had the same bad result. We knew Michel had a blood clot in his leg and the doctors had been treating him with injections of blood thinners. When I tried to wake him from his nap his eyes were fixed, his pupils were dilated, and he was obviously in a coma but breathing. I panicked. I think he had a stroke. His heart stopped about half an hour into the efforts of the paramedics trying to resuscitate him.

This was all such a shock and so unexpected. Michel was very ill but none of us expected him to die. For the funeral and the interment it was as if I was walking through a dream; a nightmare.

I am so thankful to Michel's Mother, Brother, our family and some very special Cousins and Friends.

Michel's Cousin, Emmanuel, made it possible for me to come home on December 24.

We gave back the apartment but I still have to pay for it for three months. That is not so bad because they could have held me to the entire year's lease. I only wish we had been able to live there and enjoy the place. As it was, Michel died on Wednesday and we were to have moved into the flat on Saturday. We were able to cancel the delivery of the bed we ordered but all the work we had done in the flat and the appliances we bought are still in the flat. I think Michel's brother is trying to sell the appliances to the owner of the flat.

So, I am back home for now. I will have to go back to France but probably in the late Spring or Summer. Michel's brother and Cousins are working on the legal bits and trying to get Michel's pensions sorted out so I receive the portions I am supposed to have. Right now I have no income but I am sure that will get sorted out in good time.

Thank you all for reading my blog. I think you should all know that the blog could have been a lot more intense and painful but Michel was reading it every day and I did not want the tone of the blog to be morose, sad or disturbing to him.

This is the important message for you all: please get yourselves checked by doctors with routine exams. Since Michel's diagnosis two of our friends have been to their doctors and found they also have cancer. One friend has prostate cancer and has had surgery. The other friend has bladder cancer and is being treated with chemotherapy. The sooner you find things like this the more likely you can be treated and saved.

Pagnol the dog is with me. He has been going blind but I think we finally found some medication that might help his eyes, however, he is 14 years old now and I cannot hope for too much.

Dolf the Rottweiler (Sean's long time companion) passed away on December 27. Sean has had a very tough time coming to terms with Michel's death and then Dolf's.

This is where faith comes in. If you have some sort of belief system you are so much better off than if you do not. I choose to believe in myself.

Not the end of the blog but a new chapter will start.

Love to you all.

2009-12-18T12:30:00.000-06:00

Michel Jacques Francois Marie de Cahier October 20, 1944 to December 16, 2009

2009-12-16T15:01:00.001-06:00

Michel passed away on Tuesday around 3:15 PM. He went to sleep and did not ever wake up again. The medical emergency people worked on Michel but his heart stopped and they were unable to get it beating again.

He had been through much the past 7 months. Chemotherapy and radiation are very tough to tolerate but I think by the time they started the treatments the cancer had grown so fast it was going to take over in spite of all the best medical treatments in the world.

His funeral is on Saturday and we place his ashes in the family crypt on Monday.

Thanks to all of you who have written to support me and the family.

I asked Sean to stay in Texas to take care of the dogs and also whatever business has to be done there.

My best friend is gone. I am not sure how to live on but I will because he wanted it that way.

My Pirate......I have a big Heart;........no really.....

2009-12-12T04:38:00.000-06:00

One of the things we learned during the immigration physical is that my heart is about 40 per cent larger than the norm. We have the chest x-ray and I will be speaking with Michel's Cousin, Nicolas, who is a cardiologist, on Monday.

This is a perplexing development because my blood pressure is really good, 130/70 most days(the nurses take it daily in the morning and evening), Nicolas ran an electrocardiogram on me last August and it was fine, I feel good, and have lots of exercise from walking all over the place; plus my cholesterol levels are excellent. Go figure.

Yesterday, we spent all day at the hospital getting scans and speaking with the Oncologist. He was looking for something that would substantiate the pains Michel is having in his head and his migraine headaches. In the end he decided Michel has some problems that are directly effects of the chemotherapy but also the Doctor thinks some of the medications Michel takes are conflicting. He is changing some of the pain medications and we decided to stop with the doubled dose of Effexor and go back to the smaller dose he was taking.

We did not get home until around 2130 (9:30PM) and we were so exhausted we ate a little something and rolled into bed.

Today, Michel has an eye patch looks like a Pirate. The chemo has messed up his eyes, especially the right eye and he has double vision so we got an eye patch from the pharmacy because the left eye adjusts to light and he sees very well with one eye rather than the double vision he was having with two eyes.

Losing his eye has a bad effect on Michel. In the evening we both weep and try to console each other. Will spare you the heart breaking details. I can honestly swear that if, in some alternate Faustian String Theorem dimension, I could make a deal with the devil and change places with Michel; I would. We are not given this choice. I cannot imagine my life without him. I am a dead woman.

Medical Exam and Visa, Sean's Doctor adds another health problem to the list

2009-12-10T23:02:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Marie Claude and I went to the immigration medical facility and I had the physical for the Carte Sejour. It was a complete physical with them testing my eyes, blood sugar, chest x-ray, medical history, immunizations,and actual prodding around on my abdomen, blood pressure, etc. Then they told me I will be at 100 per cent on the social security medical heath plan Michel has because I have diabetes. Unlike the US procedure for green cards, this exam and tests were free. All I have to do is pay 300 euros in tax for my visa sejour. It cost us over ten times that amount to get Michel's green card.

They also gave me a two page list of free or low cost hospitals in Marseille and there are totally free clinics for women and children. In France there is so much preventive medicine it is really good, makes a lot of sense, and costs far less to maintain people than the current system in the USA. There also free clinics for dental.

It went fast there were no lines and I go a thorough physical BUT and this is a big but, they found I have an enlarged heart, maybe 35 to 40 percent larger than a normal heart. This is a new development so I am going to call Cousin Nicolas, the cardiologist, next week.

Why is it we do not appreciate good health until we are older and have medical problems?

Sean, bless him, went to the VA clinic to discuss the kidney and fistula stuff and get the blood and urine tests results from earlier in the week and they told him he also has a cyst on his liver they had known about since the CT scan last summer but had not mentioned to him because they decided just to watch it for a few months. Thankfully, he has no jaundice but they are going to do an ultrasound on the liver to try to determine what sort of cyst it is.

I can go pick up my Visa Sejour any time now, so Marie Claude said she will go with me on Monday.

Met a nice young man from Chicago in the immigration medical place. He and his wife and two children have moved to France because he wants to start a non-denominational church in Paris. Not sure what that is about and when someone starts to mention religion I back off the subject. Anyway this guy and his wife are taking the fast immersion classes in French at Aix and have their two little kids in public school in Aix. Frankly, I think they must have a lot of money because without French relatives you have to show a lot of income/assets for the French to even think about your living in France. Aix is not a cheap place to live albeit there are several colleges there.

Michel has added eye problems due to the chemo, and ear infection, and the ear doctor found a polyp on Michel's uvula (that he is going to remove in January) to his repertoire of medical problems. For some reason nausea is back with a vengeance. We go to the hospital this afternoon for another scan. This week every day there was some sort of medical appointment.

Michel is probably the bravest person I have even known. He keeps on going in spite of all the illness and medical stuff but his greatest pleasure was to read and now that has been taken from him with his eyes going bad.

I am investigating getting him spoken word books but right now he is sleeping about 85 percent of the time so I do not know if he would use talking books.

Michel Visits the Eye and Ear Doctors; My Visa Medical Exam is Tomorrow

2009-12-08T22:14:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, we saw the Ophthalmologist and today we saw the ear doctor.

Michel's eyes are bad right now and the doctor confirmed it is solely from the chemotherapy, prescribed two kinds of drops, and said it will just take time to get over the side effects of the chemo treatments.

The ear doctor found an infection in Michel's left ear, which we got to see on the big screen TV in his office thanks to the miracle of fiber optics. Then he found a benign growth on Michel's uvula so he is going to remove that in January.

I have to go to the immigration medical building tomorrow at 1030 with Marie Claude as my interpreter. Hope this all works out as it is all I need to get the long term visa. If it does work out then we should be able to pick up the visa, possibly tomorrow, not sure. If it does not work out then we have more red tape to saw through.

I did not have an immunizations book so had to get vaccinated, again, for polio, tetanus, and diphtheria and some other stuff, which I did on Monday with Dr. Reynaud.

Children in France have to get lots more immunizations than kids in the USA and it is the law and the government pays for it so kids have their shots. But I do notice there are not the autistic children here that there are in the USA and am wondering what is going on with that observance.

All children in France get free medical treatment. This is how it should be in the USA too but the drug and medical lobbyists have had our lawmakers in their grip for too long and generations of our children have suffered.

Our New Apartment in France

2009-12-08T21:48:00.000-06:00

Renting a place in France is not at all like renting an apartment in the US. In the US you pay the deposit and first month's rent and move in but here iN France you pay the deposit, the agent's fees, the first month's rent, and then you have to fix a lot of things plus put the appliances in the apartment. The vast outlay of cash could have bought a place in the USA. You need a lot of money to get set-up in France and for this reason people do not move once they are settled. The last tenants of our flat were in the place for 20 years.

We bought new appliances for the kitchen and had them installed. The appliance company delivered them but did not install them. When we rented the flat end of November the plumbing and electrical connections for the washer, hook ups for the stove and stove top, and dish washer plumbing/hook ups were not there.

Plus we had to order some furniture and it is taking 3 weeks to get the order. And the telephone Internet TV cable cannot be installed until the weekend of the 14 December but the box to run all this stuff cannot be ours until 21 December. Meantime we had to pay another month's rent at the hotel flat because we cannot live in the flat until all that stuff gets done.

Yesterday, I took some clothes and a blender I had bought last summer to the flat. Mr. Colombero, our repairman, was there finishing up on the repairs we asked him to make. He is so nice, he even fixed a leak under the bathroom sink and stocked the bathroom and water closet with soap and toilet paper. I found a couple of things that still needed to be done and he had put shelves and clothing rods in a couple of the closets for us too. Yep, the closets did not have clothing rods; go figure.

They did renovate the apartment before we rented it but they left a lot of stuff to be done, and, also, the building syndicate (this is the place that manages the building because most of the flats are individually owned) has to do some things in the flat today that is their part of the deal.

I think we will get in the place just before Christmas. Michel's Brother and his sons are going to move some furniture, other relatives are giving us, into the flat this weekend. I think it is a dining room table from Michel's Cousin and some nice arm chairs from one of his other cousins. There is some other stuff to collect but we may have to do that after we move into the flat. Martine is loaning us a nice oriental carpet and her sister is loaning us some stuff too.

We have to buy chairs for the dining table, a couch (called a canapé in French)and some other odds and ends. Then we also have to buy linens for the beds. Tante Odile said she is giving us a lot of kitchen stuff. I hope we have places to put this because Daniele gave us so many dishes the shelves are almost full.

It will be really nice to have a good kitchen and room to cook. It has been six months of impersonal hotel apartment stuff and we are ready to have something of our own AND our own big bed that was specially ordered for us.

Last night we all decided the immediate family is having Christmas Eve dinner at Michel's Brother's house. Christmas night we go to the annual party of François and Marie Helene, our former brother-in-law (it's complicated he is the widower of Michel's sister but he has been remarried to a really nice woman for years).

Wish you all some Christmas Cheer!

Sean is very ill

2009-12-07T02:13:00.000-06:00

My son, Sean, has been having trouble with a nasty piece of business called an anal abscess fistula. Basically, an anal abscess fistula is a crazy impacted anal gland that for some reason becomes infected and swells its way out in a canal it makes until the canal breaks out on the surface of the skin near the rectum and eventually it bursts somewhat like a cyst but there is a lot more drainage than a cyst. A fistula abscess is painful, dangerous due to the possibility of sepsis, and, until it is repaired, it drains constantly. This is doubly troubling because several people in our family have had colon cancer.

Sean has had surgery three times in the past for anal abscess fistulas and he is going to have to have surgery again in 6 to 8 weeks. Surprisingly, the surgery is a simple day surgery that heals quickly once it is done. Every time we hope the things will not come back but they always do return about every 3 years.

Because we always try to see the humor in things I have been, in the past, fond of flippantly saying, "Only Sean can grow two butt holes" but the reality it this thing is not funny.

In addition to the nasty fistula stuff, Sean has been having trouble with kidney stones and some sort of infection and kidney pain since last April. The doctors thought he passed the stone but now they are worried because the pain continues to come back on and off and there appears to be some sort of infection that is causing a fever even though Sean has been taking some very powerful antibiotics.

Then the other day it occurred to me that my Mother had some sort of severe kidney problem when she was a young girl. That was 80 years ago and the diagnosis at the time was "nephritis". "Nephritis" a word that is a panacea used to describe kidney illness but the term is non-specific. So, we do not actually know what my Mom had but it ultimately led to the necrosis of her left kidney. After her illness she was fine and, because you live with one healthy kidney, she led a normal life and did not have any other kidney problems.

Now, I have the gnawing feeling Sean's kidney problems may be genetic. The doctors are checking it all because the problem has been going on for far too long.

Get well soon Mr. Sean.

Son of - My Visa part ten

2009-12-06T23:03:00.000-06:00

We got the "convocation" telling me to report to the immigration medical facility for a physical on Wednesday, this week, at 1030 (remember we use military time here in France but clocks have the standard Greenwich times, from 12 around to 12, on them like we use in the US). Michel's, and now my, friend, Marie-Claude is going with me as support and to translate. There seems to be some confusion over the immunizations and chest x-ray, so I am worried about the physical because the letter telling me what I needed, that came from the immigration office, conflicts greatly with the information clarifications we got by email and telephone from the medical facility of the immigration office.

Hope I do end up with the medical clearance and this is not just a case of baloney by email.

DIVINITY GETS THE BEST OF ME

2009-12-05T01:34:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, I had an email from my friend Alison. Seems I have been taunting her with my tales of French Nougat. She admitted she is "scared" of candy thermometers. I sort of read between the lines and supposed she was telling me she wanted to make Christmas candies but was worried about using the thermometer in the candy cooking.

To me there is only ONE true Christmas candy and that is Divinity and using a candy thermometer is the only way I ever successfully made Divinity (I actually did make it right once, after this report was written).

Some years back I tried to make Divinity for Michel. Here is the account I wrote at the time.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Confession:

It has happened again. It happens every year without fail, or should I say, with failure. Once more I have thrown caution to the winds and tried to make Divinity.

My Christmas memories are greatly centered on the foods my Mother and Grandmother would prepare. Grandmother would always make the most wonderful Divinity candy at holiday time. I was very fond of Divinity but I must admit I never connected the reason we only had it at Christmas with the reason you don’t make it all year round, which is that the stuff is very difficult to make. Grandma was the proud producer of white sea foam Divinity at our house, hers was heavily scented with vanilla, resplendent with chopped pecans, sometimes cherries and walnuts, sometimes tinted pink or green, but always crunchy, creamy when eaten and looking like snow drifts. One of my best Christmas memories is Grandma’s Divinity.

In those days it seemed to me the Grandma went into the kitchen clicked her ruby slippers three times, waved her magic spoon and presto change-o: we had Divinity. Divinity is a Grandma thing.

For many years I tried to replicate Grandmother's Divinity but the secret of its success eluded me. In the end after years of failure and endless blobs of rubbery paste; I retired my candy thermometer to the back of a drawer and forgot it was there. Secretly, I wondered if I was perhaps not reaching Grandma status due to the fact I could not successfully produce a decent divinity.

It all began again at the doctor's office when I picked up a Good Housekeeping and flipped to a Divinity recipe; The magazine guaranteed the recipe was: "fool proof" "so easy" "can't fail" "even a 10 year old child can make this"....must I go on? it was pure torture....

Every year I swear off and say I will not try to make Divinity, yet, every year whilst grocery shopping, I find myself mystically transported to the baking aisle where I somehow miraculously end up with bags of sugar, corn syrup, pecans, vanilla and cream of tartar and eggs that are involuntarily levitated into my cart. Magically, I suddenly arrive at the checkout with the makings for Divinity, and yet I dare not whisper the name.

"Oh", says the checkout woman, "Some one's going to make Christmas candy".

My face blazes a warm red color. "Well, no", is my reply, " I am just going to make Seven minute Icing for cupcakes"; I sputter the lie through my teeth.

"Oh, yeah" the saleswoman continues, "seven minute icing doesn't use pecans - looks like some makins' for Divinity you got there", she persists.

"No, no, sorry, not me, I don't make that stuff; too sweet and gooey - ruins the teeth - I am on Atkins this year." I continue to lie.

"Okay, well ya know it has to be a sunny day, no humidity and you need a candy thermometer", she advises.

"Yes, well I can never seem to get it right anyway so I gave up trying years ago", my extensive capacity for lying surprises me.

"Yeah, well some people can never make it, but it's all in the timing, watch out for the humidity too", she says, "I make it every year so just be careful with the thermometer and pick a sunny day to make it and you should get it right".

"Thanks", I hiss, as I carry the bags out of the store and run home to check the barometer.

I have surreptitiously been watching the barometer for days waiting for a big drop in humidity and today is an all time low; so all covert operations are GO!

My spirits soar with hope as I gather together the ingredients; simple stuff nothing arcane; sugar, cream of tartar, water, corn syrup, dash of salt; whipped egg whites and vanilla. What could be easier? Get out the trusty candy thermometer just to be sure. Oops it’s rusty, so I wash the rust off and dry the official measuring instrument. I continue trying to be quiet rifling through the gadget drawer so as not to arouse hubby's interest....

My husband is playing bridge on the computer. He does not notice all the preparations going on in the kitchen.....He is French and they don't make Divinity in France but they have instead the, no holds barred, Great Granddaddy of Divinity - a concoction so delectable, so scrumptious and so hard to make it was once only reserved for Royalty but is now only reserved for those who can afford its price. To be a maker of this Certified French confection you have to specialize in it at Candy Making Culinary College, get your certificate, have your own shop and be regulated by the French Government in order to produce: Nougat. I am transported by daydreams of Nougat: the first and only time I had any real French Nougat was when my honey brought some back for me after a business trip to France; it cost (two years ago) $29 for 4 ounces of nougats. Nougat of the Gods is a rich formula of finely ground almonds, whipped egg whites, cooked and flavored with a wispy hint of lavender, rose, orange flower and/or bergamot waters, strewn intermittently with plump Persian pistachios and/or almonds or cherries (rather like a Turkish Taffy but not gelatinous and much more like the whipped air of heaven mortals can only taste on Earth) then set squarely on the merest hint of a wafer on one side (in some cases the nougat is completely wrapped in the wafer)- a frail gauze like wafer made in exactly same as the wafer of the Holy Host communion - so thin is this wafer you can see through it and it is barely detectable when you are munching the nougat.*

I am daydreaming as I crack the eggs and sort the whites from the yellows. Deftly I combine the sugar, syrup, salt, and water to begin building the syrup, swirling with the wooden spoon in the copper pot on the stove....

After all, I reason, Divinity is just some sort of bastard Nougat. They are both made of egg whites whipped up with sugar and nuts and cooked.

Mmmmmm, I am thinking, perhaps I could start a new trend in Franco American cuisine and introduce Divinity to the French people- for those who cannot afford Nougat..... My daydreams persist as I see my husband and I (in the customary black dress uniform of the chic French woman) with rosy cheeks and French flag cockades on our chests; happily cutting the ribbon to open a chain of Divinity shops throughout France and then Europe

N-O-U-G-A-T, what am I thinking? I must be insane to try to make Divinity again.

Too soon I am involved whipping the egg whites and watching the syrup boil. My husband hearing the commotion in the kitchen comes in to inquire if I am making cookies. So, I decide to make him an accomplice and he is conscripted into whipping the egg whites whilst I give my attention to the syrup.

Oh no, the thermometer is too short for the pan so my fingers get steamed raw every time I try to measure the heat but I have entered the point of no return as the syrup boils furiously on the stove. Finally we have achieved "soft ball" stage, accurately and recorded on the steamy thermometer, and I pour half a cup of hot syrup into the whipped egg whites. My husband is enjoying the whipping so he is happy to stand with the mixer at attention until I reach "hard ball" stage.

This is the part that is tricky. I can never seem to achieve "hard ball" accurately (with candy, anyway). So this time I have the thermometer (which is too painful to use with the pot and the steam) and I have my trusty teacup of cold water for testing the "hard ball" stage. All the experts say you can drop some cooked syrup into a cup of cold water and a hard ball will form in the bottom of the cup...I have never achieved this fete; my hard balls are always squisy; yet I persist.

Ah HAH! the time has come I scoop up a bit of syrup on the end of the spoon and drop it into the teacup. Mmmm, not a hard ball but close, so I cook a bit longer, pretend to use the thermometer again, get a steam burn and decide to pour the syrup on to the egg whites.

Voila! My partner and I change places as I now whip the steaming mass of white fluff. I add vanilla and keep beating. There is a high glossy sheen to the candy. That gloss looks promising, I am thinking,as my gleeful spouse runs to get the camera to record the occasion for the French relatives and friends.

Happily I add the pecans and start the slow cooling process of beating the white froth with a wooden spoon. It says to test one spoonful. I do and it almost sets but I am in too much of a hurry to note the fact it does not actually get set because I am worried the foam will set in the pot (reality is sort of a short coming of mine must admit I often anticipate things before they actually happen; it's my control issues). Finally, the seething frothing mass seems to have cooled enough and I start to drop by spoonfuls on to buttered wax paper. Full of hope I try unsuccessfully the twirl the spoon so I get that topknot on the white swirls, the magazine recipe mentioned, on each blob.... horrors; my topknot melts into the blob...Okay, I think I will press a whole half pecan in each patty and pretend I intended for this to happen. I consider for about 10 seconds also pressing some chocolate chips into the shiny gummy blobs but decide not to tempt fate more than I have done.

The blobs spread out like pancakes. I turn the ceiling fan on to "dry things out". Hubby is hopping around the kitchen getting photos of the glistening white puddles, which do look quite attractive (if you do not know they are disasters). I take courage in the comforting thought that neither he nor his relatives will know what Divinity is really supposed to look like and the photos will probably make the blobs look like manna from heaven.

My husband zaps me back into reality as he prods a melting patty, "when can we eat them"? he asks. "Oh, you have to wait until they dry", I say. "How long is that", he says beginning to smell a rat. "Oh, I am not sure", I say busying myself cleaning up the kitchen. "I will return", he says and goes off to upload the photos and call his relatives in France to tell them about Divinity.

Three hours later and the puddles have not dried or set and are still soft marshmallow looking blobs without the powdered sugar coating. Hubby is trying to prod one with a spoon so he can get a taste. I scrape one from the wax paper, “it tastes really good”, I say reluctantly.

“But Chou Chou, what is wrong with thisssssss stuff?”, my love coos to me.

“Never mind”, I say truthfully,

(There is that point in all writing and drama where the express object of the subject of the written words is made: it is called the Dénouement (da-new-mon). This is when the author has decided more or less to “sock it to” his reader and reveals the reason he or she wrote the tome in the first place and this is it for you, dear reader:

“I think it’s failed, so, let’s just put it in the freezer and hope for the best”, I say tearfully as I realize another Christmas Season will come and go and Divinity will not be on the menu once more this year. Oh, well, I rationalize: Some things are just better left to our imagination.

*Alison once reminded me it is only Holy Host Communion wafer if it is blessed. I guess they don't have time to bless the nougat wafer; they are too busy munching on the stuff.

Nougat

2009-12-04T14:17:00.000-06:00

For you pleasure these are soft nougats, from right to left: Black Nougat(the process caramelizes the sugar), Pistachio Nougat (it is pale green but does not show well its color in the photo), and CHERRY Nougat (note the whole dried cherries interspersed with the almonds.

Closest thing to Heaven on Earth!

Next up the candy counter at Monoprix with all the Marzipan fruits.

Pleine Lune and Phlebitis

2009-12-01T14:58:00.000-06:00

Tonight as we headed for rue Paradis we got a glimpse of the full moon set in a lapis sky. Three of us were moving things into the new flat.

I am thinking will things ever be normal again?

Standing at the entrance of the building; I counted another little dog that lives near us. One Chihauhua, one Maltese and who knows what else resides under the eaves of our new nest. I miss our dog.

I want to hug every dog I see, instead I end up double side kissing the faces of a bunch of French people I usually do not know. Not to be offensive, but I would rather hug dogs. Dogs are warm soft balls of energy that somehow impart a sense of peace and well being to their human adorers. Like most dyslexics I often catch myself wondering if there is a Dog late at night when I cannot sleep.

The elevator is stalled on the fifth floor and I am standing in the main hall of the entrance with a table and two lamp shades. An old fellow, with a big golf club slung across his shoulder, comes out of an apartment next to the elevator and garbles away at me in French . He smiles, points, and mutters something semi-obscene about the elevator and I say to him, in perfect French, that I speak English. He nods his head and starts walking up the stairs. (I am thinking was that golf club a wood? I am not too clever about golf but it was the kind of club with the really big bottom)

I tend focus on minutia. Focusing is good.

I have spent the past two days trying to organize the things I need to take with me to the medical exam for my long term visa. The exam date is December 10. I need an immunization book, a chest x-ray, some sort of tariff stamps and 300 Euros. The immunization book is the tough part because all my medical records got destroyed in Hurricane Ike - they were at UTMB Hospital and Clinic and also at the office of Dr. Bruce on Crystal Beach. Everything got washed into the Gulf of Mexico or flooded out of existence on Galveston and Crystal Beach during Hurricane Ike. I sort of doubt this can be conveyed to a French bureaucratic doctor who is used to living on the shores of the calm Mediterranean Sea, so I am having the immunizations again tomorrow and Dr. Reynaud is signing the book for me.

Other people come in the building and look at the elevator, I shake my head and say, "non", they sigh and walk up the stairs.

I am in a daze. Just after lunch Michel asked me to rub lotion on his feet and, in the act of doing so, I discovered his right lower leg is swollen discolored and hot to the touch. I say to him it is a sign of phlebitis and that we should call the doctor.

The doctor says she will come to the house at seven thirty in the evening but that is in six hours. We are doubly worried about phlebitis because of the horrible time we went through when I had a stroke 4 years ago. We want action and fast. Michel calls his cousin the Cardiologist, who arranges for him to have a quick ultrasound at the hospital of another doctor friend. Cousin Anne-Marie comes to go with Michel because I am useless at the hospital and Anne-Marie is a lab technician who just retired from the hospital across the street. She knows all about hospitals.

I have been obligated to go with Daniele because Daniele is giving us a lot of things to furnish the flat. On the way to the flat we pick up Alain, Michel's brother, who is going to help us move the things into the flat. We get half the things up to the flat before the elevator stalls. After we walk up three flights of stairs with the table and lamp shades; the elevator starts working again.

Back at home, Michel is tired. We are both grateful we found the blood clot before it had a chance to do more damage. Michel has to have two injections of blood thinner per day for ten days.

Thanksgiving came late this year but it did manage to catch up with us.

The Amazing Barney Arm

2009-12-01T07:24:00.000-06:00

It is about 3 or 4 times its normal size and it looks horrible but it does not hurt much.

RIDDLE and the Continuing Saga of My Visa

2009-11-28T09:34:00.000-06:00

What is red and blue all over. Answer: My arm.

I had surgery on Thursday. It went well and I have a small deep incision but my entire upper left arm is red, blue and purple also very swollen.

No turkey for me. My Thanksgiving dinner was hospital food; some sort of egg herb soufflé, sauté of green cabbage, a kiwi fruit, mini baguette and the every present French slice of camembert. This sounds very elegant but it was horrible! Happily, I had stowed a big fat Pink Lady Apple in my bag along with a package of 4 sables cookies.

Breakfast was worse.

I am fine. As far as I know? it was just a big fat blob that managed to lodge itself in my bicep muscle. Now it takes two weeks to heal. It's kind of numb and swollen and not fun but also not a big deal. I cannot lift my arm any higher than my chest.

The hospital I was in was nice. I had a room with a balcony and big sliding glass doors. My bed was very comfortable. The staff were wonderful and everyone went out of their way to say something in English to me even though I was trying to speak French to them. Try speaking a foreign language when you are all doped up after surgery.

I got called by the Prefecture to go for the medical exam for my visa on December 10. I have to get my immunizations together but I do not have the immunization book because we do not do that in the USA.

Two Friends Have Surgery in the US today

2009-11-24T23:11:00.000-06:00

Our friends A. and P. both have surgery for cancer today. A. and P are in their 50's early 60's.

P. decided to go to a doctor when he was hearing all that Michel has gone through and they found he does have Prostate cancer but they think it is in the very early stage.

A. felt something was wrong and went to her GP who said he got nothing out of her urinalysis but he would give her some antibiotics and a medication to stop the bladder urgency she was frequently feeling. She decided this was not enough so she got herself to an OBGYN/URO who did a urine culture and found "weird cells", well actually bad cells. So, then they wanted her to go to a Urologist after the holidays but she said, "thank you but I want to go NOW". So they got her in last week and now, today, she is having surgery for bladder cancer. Like my ear; A. got to see inside her bladder due to the miracle of fiber optics and she said one half looked smooth and nice but the other half looked like a wavy bumpy seabed full of tentacled angry red sea creatures.

So many warm good wishes and much love for healing we are sending out to our friends today.

Visa,Visa, who has the Visa and Nougat Cake

2009-11-24T01:12:00.000-06:00

After I wrote yesterday's post we got an email from the woman at the Prefecture telling me to come there and pick up my Visa Sejour. I do not know why but I did not believe it and asked Michel to be sure she meant what she had written. She verified in a subsequent email that she did.

I called Daniele and asked her to go to the Prefecture with me. Once we got there we found, of course, it is not what it seemed. The Prefecture had just received my Visa Sejour that day and the woman who sent us the email was not aware that I never received the letter telling me to go to the Social Security de Immigration to get a physical. But the guy who spoke to us at the Prefecture was kind enough to renew my visa until February 22, 2010, giving me three more months to get the physical done.

Daniele wanted to get the physical done yesterday so we took off and found the building where you get the physicals just as it was closing for the day. Not sure but Daniele may be back today to try to run me through the physical process. However, the Prefecture is supposed to send me a letter with instructions on how to go about getting the physical.

AND.......I have to pay 300 Euros for the visa, which I will gladly do.

The big rush for the visa on our part is because I need to be protected by Michel's health insurance and this cannot happen until I have the Visa Sejour.

Nougat Cake: I got this Heavenly almond nougat cake at the Picard it is light as a feather with a bit of crunchy meringue on top and cream souffle of almonds inside with a thin layer of cake on the bottom. Best cake ever!

Continuation of the Long Stay Visa Story and My Surgery this Week

2009-11-22T23:16:00.000-06:00

Well, my Visa Sejour has not come and Michel sent an email to the Prefecture to find out what we should do. They wrote back that the entity that makes the visas, in Northern France somewhere, is completely backlogged and they want me to come in so they can give me another 3 month temporary visa until my visa sejour can be done. Daniele is going with me and we actually have an appointment with a man on December 2, so it is not like the last time when Marie Claude and I had to wait in line with a bunch of other people for two and a half hours outside the Prefecture building.

The problem is that without my visa sejour I cannot go on Michel's social medicare type insurance and now it has been several months so we need to do something about insuring me until we can get all the visa stuff in our hands but then also it can take time at the social insurance.

This coming Thursday I will have the surgery on my arm. We decided to go ahead and just pay for it because it needs to be done. The Anesthesiologist looked at my medical stuff and saw asthma, stroke, diabetes, and free bleeder and she decided she wanted to keep me in the hospital for two days after the surgery. Mind you in the USA I would be in the hospital for about 4 hours and they would kick my out but not in France. In France they want to keep an eye on you so I finally got them to agree to I spend one night in hospital and then get to go home. However, in France a hospital stay costs a small fraction of what a hospital stay would be in the USA. Socialized medicine is not the big demon people in the US are trying to make out it is. We have nothing but glowing reports for our medical treatment here in France and the system here is something the US would do well to emulate.

Michel's brother is coming here to be with Michel and also Daniele is going to come see about him too and Sabine.

I am going to try to stock the little fridge with stuff they can eat before I go in the hospital.

Our New House

2009-11-21T21:49:00.000-06:00

We finally found a really nice flat only a block from Sabine's flat and right across the street from the homes of two old families friends, sisters, Martine and Fabienne. Fabienne owns a lot of parking spaces in the garage under her building and she said we could use a couple of them for ourselves and the nurses. Parking is such a problem in Marseille.

Our new place is on the third floor but there is an elevator. The building is old but has been renovated. Our apartment is being totally renovated as the last renters lived there for twenty years. It is really charming with large rooms by French standards and lovely wooden parquet floors. There are long balconies all along the outside of the apartment, front and back. The kitchen is very big but we have to buy all the appliances. There are massive wood and glass French doors throughout the place. We have two bedrooms and a new salle de bain which is a room with big tub and closets and built in armoire for linens, etc. Plus it has two new sinks side by side and lovely dark blue slate floors in the salle de bain and then in the water closet which houses the toilet. There is a big entry room and I think we will put a table with the computer in there.

Michel's Mom and his Cousin Frederique went to a big department store yesterday and also Ikea and they said the prices at the big department store are very good and the merchandise is of good quality.

Various friends and relatives are going to loan us some lamps and carpets, etc. We do have to buy some new beds and couch, etc. It will all come together after I get done with the surgery on my arm. We have to sign the papers for the flat on December 1 and can start moving in that day. The lady that cleans for Sabine has a husband who can move our things for us and he can also so repair work and help setting up the new things we will purchase.

BAD BAD DAY

2009-11-18T02:08:00.000-06:00

We went to the Oncologist yesterday and the news is bad. Michel's PSA went up to 89 and the chemotherapy has not worked; his PSA was 68 when we started chemo in June.

Next week lots of scans to see where the cancer has spread.

I think back to the Urologist that wanted him to wait 6 months and have another PSA (this was back in May) and I am really thankful Michel had the intuition to get himself to an Oncologist because at that point the bone metastases were all through his spine. If he had waited he would probably be dead now.

The moral is use you noggin and get second opinions if a doctor tells you to wait and you know you have a potentially dangerous situation going on in your body.

I wish I had better news.

Today, I go look at a 2 bedroom apartment very near Michel's Mom's house. The other possible places were way too small and had ridiculously tiny kitchens.

Also, I have to go to the Doctor because I have a tiny place on my big toe that has become infected. This is a life threatening problem for a diabetic and can lead to amputation; so I see Dr. R. today. I got the bung on my toe because our kitchen is so little when I opened the fridge door it banged into my toe. It looked harmless for a few days but now it is an angry red.

More later but now I would like to ask for your continued prayers - that is the only way we can get through this thing.

Tuesday "D" Day for Oncologist Appointment

2009-11-16T23:11:00.000-06:00

Today we go to see Michel's Oncologist at 3 in the afternoon. That would be 1500 according to French time standards because they keep the 24 hour military type time here, which is kind of nice. But now I am thinking in metric measures, military time, and saying normal English words like a French person would accent them (just so I will be understood here by English speaking French people). The thought has crossed my mind that I will be considered a weird duck, even by my own family, and possibly affected when I touch down on US soil again. I think it is going to take more than a Big Mack to make the adjustment back into US society.

Anyway, today we get the news on what is what with Michel's condition. It is possible they will want to do some more chemo treatments or possibly some more radiation, not sure. This is the big UNKNOWN we have been navigating towards since we got all the bad news about the cancer back last May. I am not sure why they set 6 chemo treatments as our goal because I read on the Internet that the norm is 10 treatments but maybe they made Michel's stronger, not sure. I do know they completely fried him with the 10 radiation treatments they gave him just prior to starting the chemotherapy and those radiation treatments were nothing like the mild radiation they had given him the year before for 34 sessions.

We do know Michel will probably have to be on the once a month Zometa treatments for years, possibly for ever. Also, he will have to receive the anti-androgen injections every 3 months. For these two reasons I do not see us being able to live back in the US because in the US the Zometa treatments alone are so expensive we could not afford them even with Medicare and Medicare may not approve them for him. Zometa has done wonders for Michel and strengthening his bones so I do not see how he could do without it while the Medicare people are fighting over if he should get it at all. I have read horror stories on the Internet in Zometa chat boards and I wonder if all the people in the US who are opposing the health care system reform really have any idea what it is to face a deadly illness without being able to afford the prescribed treatment for your survival.

I also wonder if the proposed new US health plan is going to be any better (if they can get it passed) because the current system is a gross failure.

Sunday November 15 - Strange Weather

2009-11-15T02:05:00.000-06:00

Today is Sunday. Nurse Beatrice disconnected Michel from "the Cow" last night so I thought she would take a day off today but she said she wanted to come take our blood pressures and be sure Michel' blood sugar was OK and also she wants to give him his weekly Eprex (synthetic red blood cells) injection and change his pain patch. Dr. H. gave an ordonnance for 4 weeks of Eprex shots because Michel is anemic. We are on the second week of the second round of the shots. Anemia often happens with chemotherapy patients, in fact, Michel had a first round of Eprex earlier in his treatments.

We have started to look around for our own flat to rent. Staying at this residence apart/hotel is very expensive. It is tough trying to find something here. First, there are not many rentals in the area we want to live. Second, everything is small here and expensive. Third, our Brother-in-law the widower of Michel's deceased sister (trust me -it's complicated but he and his second wife and his family treat us all like family still, although Michel's sister has been dead for over 2o years) anyway, Françoise and his wife, Marie-Helene, have loaned us a car they do not use and so we need a parking space too. Parking spaces are ridiculously hard to find even if you are willing to pay for them. Before I got here last June, my Mother-in-law paid 25 thousand Euros for a parking space in her building and felt extremely luck to have gotten the thing.

Ever ready for a challenge, Cousin Anne-Marie, set about looking for a spot for us. Sabine actually found a flat in her building but the people will not move until March, however it is still a possibility. Anne-Marie found two places on the Prado Circle, we look at them next week. Then Anne-Marie was walking around the neighborhood and found a sign draped over a balcony at a building on the same street as Sabine's building, very convenient and it comes with one parking spot (this is an unheard of advantage for a rental flat) and it is in a cul-de-sac and it has a back garden. I went 'round there yesterday to look at the building and it is quite nice, very nice in fact, I do have reservations about the kitchen but we hope to see the inside next week.

We had a small family party at Sabine's house last Thursday to celebrate Michel's Brother's birthday. Alain turned 63 on 12 November. It was just the two of us, Sabine, Anne-Marie, Alain and Martine and our two nephews, Flavien and Maxence (24 and 25).

The menu was a table full of raw seafood: oysters, sea urchins, mussels, and clams all reclining on a vast ice glacier. Whenever we have family celebrations Michel and his Brother clamor for "Coquillage" (translate raw seafood on beds of cracked ice). When I was new to the family I tried to fit in with this raw feast. I have always like raw oysters and clams - raw mussels and urchins not so much. Anyway, every time we came to France I got really sick with bacterial infections and raging diarrhea for weeks after. Finally, I pinned it down to the raw seafood platters and raw meat (in France you ask for a steak well done and it will still moo at you from the plate). And so; I QUIT them. Have been fine ever since.

So, when Michel and his Brother started talking up "Coquillage" I tried to get them on to another subject but I knew it was futile. Finally, I said, OK for you all but I get to eat something cooked like pizza and mentioned I thought it was not a good idea for Michel to eat that stuff.

Nonsense! They were shocked! Nothing is healthier than a raw oyster they claimed. Humphf!

So, we had the party, I smugly munched my pizza and sure enough halfway through the second big platter of raw stuff Michel got sick as a dog and spent a good part of the rest of the evening on the toilet.......then the next day as well - until around 11PM I got tired of all the trips to the toilet, Michel was really dehydrated and I gave him and Imodium (this was against nurse advice but it worked). Next day (Saturday) Michel was exhausted and having back and tummy pains but no more diarrhea.

I made a stand and told everyone Michel is not going to eat raw sh*t at Christmas, over my dead body, and then I made Michel promise me he would not even think about eating Coquillage until next year. He grudgingly agreed but I know he is going to conveniently forget his promise when the next raw seafood platter comes near him.

And now for something completely different; Praises for Imodium. When I travel I take boxes and boxes of the stuff with me. Imodium made if possible for me to travel the world and keep my pants on, well keep my pants from being soiled anyway. I am a walking advertisement for Imodium.

On TV here they are always talking about diarrhea dehydration as the killer of many people in Africa and other humid nations. Last week they were saying these world aid organizations have sanition packages for people with soap, etc. to try to clean up the germs that cause diarrhea but I was thinking along with that why don't they give these people Imodium.

Cold Cold Cold November 11 Armistice Day, I am to have Surgery

2009-11-11T04:26:00.000-06:00

Today, is November 11 and everything is closed here in observance of the Armistice Holiday.

It got down to 36F last night. That is a very cold temperature for this time of year on the Mediterranean Seacoast. I became worried about our two cyclamen plants out in the cold, so Michel called his Mom and she said to leave them on the balcony they like cold weather but not to let them freeze.

Being without Winter clothes, due to having lived on the Gulf of Mexico for many years, I set about constructing a wardrobe of layers that might embrace both climates, when we are able to return to our home base. Unfortunately, I ordered a cardigan from a German company on Ebay almost four weeks ago and it has not arrived. I do have two cardigans I ordered from the UK but they are for dress and not around the house apparel. When you are constantly cleaning and cooking and nursing you tend to get messy, so I am not keen on using good sweaters on a regular work day. Also, I do not have a coat. I wisely bought a long trench before I came here and it has a good liner but I think it is not warm enough for 36 degree weather even with a sweater, etc. underneath.

Due to cold and Holiday; we decided to take a day off. We are here snuggled in our little lair reading and talking and trying to get our bearings for the rest of our lives.

We have begun to search for our own flat in this same area. The flat we are in is too small and the kitchen is lamentable but there are some nice features here too, however, it is way too expensive to stay here much longer. Michel asked Cousin Anne-Marie to help me look for a place. We are supposed to go to a real estate agent tomorrow to have a look at a newly refurbished building not too far from here. Also, there is going to be a flat available in Sabine's building but not until March or April. Sabine's building is very nice and really convenient with the doctor's office just across the street, the pharmacy right down on the Prado, and the big grocery store just around the corner. Plus Julian has a great produce stand around the other corner from Sabine's building. It is very rare to find a place in her area because all the flats are individually owned and are rarely let out for rental.

Forgot to tell you, I am to have a surgery 26 of November. All doctors are saying time to remove this tumor in my upper arm near my shoulder. I am concerned about anesthesia and, I guess, so is the anesthesiologist. She said, however, her main concern is my ability to bleed freely like a stuck pig, and for that she may keep me in hospital a day or two.

In France they love to keep you in hospital! I think French people figure they are not really loved unless their doctors give them lots of medicines and want to keep them hospitalized so they can feel they are being treated for something. The majority of French people are raging hypochondriacs which is probably the reason they evolved such a superior health care system.

In the US doctors want to refuse to give you medicine, will not take your calls and tell everyone to go to an emergency room; in France a doctor that did this would probably have his/her license suspended. Doctors make house calls in France! Our doctor came to call on us last week to check over both of us.

If you come to France and have the occasion to get ill please do not ask the doctor why you are being given so much medicine. The Doc will think you are crazy and prescribe a Psychologist too. My first visit to a doctor in France led to a list of about 9 prescriptions. I had a cold.

Food Writing or Pardon Me, My Blancmange is Showing Rant

2009-11-09T02:52:00.000-06:00

Sniffle, sniffle, cough,snort, sneeze! I have some sort of cold. Not H1N1 because I do not have a fever, thank you very much. We are calling the doctor later but not before I get in a few words on one of my favorite subjects: Food Writing. My heart has a special place for food writers and I am of that frustrated sort of company.

It's that time of year when we all start to think about Holiday tables and menus and I usually return to my thoughts about dressing, divinity, and how to make the perfect turkey.

I prefer to cook my turkey swaddled in layers of cheesecloth immersed frequently in real butter (not margarine) and laid in a manger (the largest baking pan I can find) basted often in a low heat oven for hours. In our extended American family, we have run the gamut for turkey cooking having feasted on turkeys smoked, deep fried in peanut oil, smoked a la beer can, brined and smoked, brined and baked, done in paper bag, cooked in brown 'n bag, coated in a salt mantle and baked, injected, smeared with herbs and subjected to the age old battle over to sage or not to sage (my Mom and Grandmother did not like sage; I do).

P.S. We all do agree on garlic; a turkey needs garlic to stay lively on the tongue. I usually stuff my tukeys with whole onions and garlic pods. Turkey has to remain juicy and tender and should almost fall off the bone. Likewise the giblet gravy is a long cooking work of art with real giblets and skimmed turkey drippings enhanced with hard boiled eggs and worked into a thick brown sauce that delights on potatoes, rice or dressing. I will not mention my famous secret molé sauce that is not ever served on Thanksgiving but on the left overs after the big event.

In past years we gave the turkey carcass to our domestic engineer and she got her family to make turkey tamales for us. A turkey tamale is a bit of Heaven on Earth especially if you throw a soupçon of molé sauce on the shredded turkey before you pack it in the masa harina and fold it into neat packages of soaked corn husks. Steam the lot and eat whilst warm with a bevy of sauces or just plain old Red or Verde Hot Tabasco. A tamale or two topped with queso and nuked in the morning is a great breakfast for me. Not Michel, he does not fancy TexMex, although he will eat his weight in homemade tacos without stopping to fuss. At some point? I want to gather around me a circle of tamale volunteers and make busloads of tamales for the Holiday season. Usually, this is done by Mexican families, actually the women of the family make a whole day of it and it is a fun time usually done around Christmas.

When we get back home would you like to join my Tamale Circle? We can let the guys in on it too, if they wish.

Not this year. A whole turkey would probably cost 200€ (that is about 300 USD) and besides it is really hard to get one, it would not be very big and we do not have an oven. Sabine does not want to use her oven because it might get dirty!?????

Note:French turkeys do not have the inflated bosoms of their American sisters who are bred for more breast meat whereas their French counterparts are raised with dark meat as the preferred viande.

The point is moot anyway because they do not have Thanksgiving in France. No turkey, no cranberries, no dressing, no no nothing! That noise is me wailing; you can probably hear it all the way to Long Island Sound.......

Also, this year is rather a sad year because that old bastion of foody-ism is going away: Gourmet Magazine will be no more after the November 2009 issue. Some of the best food writers were introduced to us through the pages of Gourmet during her 68 years. Gourmet Magazine is like an old friend who got rather shabby and then disappeared. I have not been keen on Gourmet since 1999 when that editor, Ruth Reichl, ran the rag right down and like a 68 year old lady who has fallen; she could not get up. Never trusted Ruth Reichl; she is far too skinny.

A food writer/editor must display some sort of portly respect for their craft and nothing says Foody better than a protruding belly or round haunches. James Beard, Laurie Colwin and Craig Claiborne literally martyred themselves on the food writing altar, can we expect less of an editor of Gourmet! They did not shun butter or eschew cream but Ruth obviously lets nothing more than skim pass her lips. You cannot pretend to have tasted all the victuals in your magazine and still wear size 0 unless you are a hurler. Fowl (sic) I cry as I fling down the kitchen towel and ask for a penalty! If you are a real food editor, writer, critic; you must eat. You cannot eat all that food and stay slim. It is a "think therefore I am" situation you cannot escape with exercise or even small portions and purging is totally unfair. So Goodbye Gourmet we think of you fondly and wish you were still here. Maybe Ruth Reichl will now show up as a judge on the Project Runway show where her diminutive size will stand her in good stead but all of us Foodies feel like we lost a great Food Icon and friend.

Blancmange Alien from the famous Monty Python skit

So, you are wondering when the stuff about the Blancmange might appear in this post. Well, it won't, not this post, perhaps later. I just really fancy the Monty Python Blancmange skit where the alien Blancmanges invade the Earth and start turning humankind into Scotsman because the alien Blancmanges want to win Wimbledon and, as everyone knows, Scotsmen cannot play tennis (sort of like everyone knows white people do not have rhythm). Eventually, the Blancmanges plan backfires because Scotsmen may not be able to play tennis but they love to eat Blancmange. And so the poor Blancmange is finally at Wimbledon playing against a Scotsmen and he is overtaken by two of the spectators who pull out spoons and start eating the Blancmange right on the tennis court.

The Garbage Men's Strike

2009-11-08T09:39:00.000-06:00

Last week we had such a hullabaloo about Michel in the hospital I cleanly forgot to mention the trash men were on strike.

Le Garbage Homme Couture a Paris

First, I must tell you that the job of trash collecting for Paris or Marseille is considered a highly desirable position to hold. People are fighting for these jobs and there are many enormously over qualified people waiting in line for a garbage job due to the good pay, very posh benefits, low working hours (they work only half a day and get full time hours and benefits), and good working conditions (yes I said that). Plus they get to wear the very chic green or orange jump suit with yellow safety vest ensemble in Paris or Marseille respectively. Le Garbage Homme attire is considered tres chic and tres camp! Garbage is a fun vocation and they can have anything they can pick. I do not have to tell you some of the treasures people toss in French cities and that alone would make the job a first rate score. Garbage jobs are avidly sought by artists, poets, college professors, musicians, etc. It is a way to make ends meet and still be creative.

Strikes in France are a way of life; a sort of comeuppance for taking normally functioning things for granted. You know, like trash removal, dairy farming, taxi service, air plane personnel, etc. You can bet on any given month there will be some sort of strikes in France. Happily, these strikes do not last long and there is usually some sort of compromise. Everybody is happy and things go along again. Until the next strike.

It was Hell in Paris when the street cleaners went on strike one year and left us deluged with dog poop. All the cleaners wanted was a more modern sort of broom but we had to wade through mountains of dog merde for a month before they got their new sweeping equipment.

Last week was garbage collectors of Marseille striking because the newly hired garbage collectors were being paid 300€ less per month than their more experienced brethren. Not fair says the union. OK, we strike say the workers. They know the dirty little secret; we cannot afford to have garbage on the streets for long.

The stench was not as bad as, say, the trash strike of 2003, but that one was in full heat of Summer 100+ degree weather and this is Fall and uncommonly cool.

But it came to pass, that the bins on every street filled and overflowed as the garbage went forth and multiplied into the walks and streets befouling pedestrians and vehicles alike. Then the assortment of waste began to take up an alarming number of parking spaces - MERDE! ALORS!- and then the people started going crazy. You do not mess with a parking space in Marseille! So, our garbage strike here in Marseille only lasted about a week but I heard the dairy farmer strike, in Northern France last week, only lasted two days. C'est la Vie!

Books I am Reading

2009-11-08T00:12:00.000-06:00

Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author, by Edward John Trelawny, reissued 2000 edited by Anne Barton. This volume of biographical material has gone through several titles, transitions and augmentations.

Edward John Trelawny, a handsome swashbuckling ne're-do-well naval officer, was able to provide a first person account of Shelley and Byron due to his having insinuated himself into the nest of that gaggle of romantic poets,writers, and hangers-on who more or less lived in Italy due to their various states of self exile. He made the accidental acquaintance of Wordsworth (by way of intentionally seeking out Byron) and after encountering a mutual acquaintance in Geneva who provided him with an introduction to Byron and told him where to find his hero; set about finding Byron in Italy. Once in Italy he discovered Shelley, who then introduced him to Byron.

I supposed in today's vernacular terms, Trelawny would be considered a groupie of sorts; part of the "posse" that ran with Byron and Shelley. In those days there were classes of people who did nothing but travel around and visit each other and live off their parents or inheritances or their hosts. Trelawny did this after resigning from the British Navy, or rather retiring at half pay plus he had a bit of an inheritance as a second son of a titled person. He had nothing better to do than seek out his heroes and so he did just that after his young wife abandoned him for a much older more stable man.

I just started reading this book. It took me some time to find it (because I had supposed it would be impossible to find but it is on Amazon and I just never looked there) and I have a good copy of it, from the UK, in large size paperback, new, revised in 2000. It must be noted the book went through several metamorphoses, including titles, because Trelawny kept re-writing and re-editing it all his life. The first half of his life was his claim to fame and supported him into old age. He lived to be 92 so the text has has a long edit and expounding bunch of revisions that may or may not be verified depending upon reading the contemporaries that were with the band of people that traveled around with the poets.

There is no doubt Trelawny was some sort of hero in respect to the families of the poets, and the men who died along with them, in caring for the burial and crypt maintenance of both Byron and Shelley. My original interest in Trelawny was sparked (sic) by reading he actually thrust his hand into Shelley's funeral pyre to retrieve the heart of the poet, which he gave to Shelley's wife, Mary. He is purported to have paid to move one poet's grave site because he found a better place for him in the same cemetery.

Byron was skeptical of Trelawny and kept him at arms length but Shelley wholeheartedly embraced Trelawny and kept him amongst his closest confidants. Trelawny quickly transferred his adoration of Byron to Shelley. So, what started out to be a portrait of Byron quickly becomes a hymn in praise of Shelley.

It gets one to thinking just how much influence Shelley had on Byron's writing, as they were always interacting and evaluating each other's work. I admit this only after some consideration because I am the most avid fan of Byron's work.

TRELAWNY PORTRAIT

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I started Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? but it creeps me out because the author is so obviously insane- brilliant but out of his mind. Also, it is troubling to think a Father would take his eleven year old mentally ill son on a long motorcycle vacation. So much bothers me about this book I will probably not finish it but you may enjoy the philosophizing along with the motorcycle maintenance references. Not my cup of tea.

SCARY; I am to have surgery end of November

2009-11-07T04:46:00.000-06:00

There has been a tumor at the top of my left arm near the shoulder for many months. I asked doctors in the US what it could be and they all said they had no idea that I needed an ultrasound. Trouble was, in the USA the ultrasound I needed cost 2,558 US dollars and we did not have insurance in the US.

When we came over here Michel's Cousin, Nicholas, (who is a cardiologist) did an ultra sound for me and looked at the lump. He said he thinks it is a fat tumor embedded in the muscle but he wanted me to go to a radiologist and have another ultrasound done, so I got the order for it from our GP and it was done in the hospital across the street for (get this) 58 euros (about 85 US dollars). You have to ask yourself why is it so much more in the US???

Anyway the radiologist said the same thing Nicholas said. He has no idea what the thing is but he thinks it should come out because it is in the muscle and he is fairly sure it is 99.9 percent benign.

OK, so Cousin Anne-Marie, who worked at the hospital lab until last year when she retired, fixed my up with an appointment with a well respected surgeon at the hospital. We went to him. Same thing; he has no idea what the thing is but he thinks it is a fatty tumor and he thinks it should come out and he wants to do it end of this month.

Fine! I am to go to an anesthesiologist next week and see her prior to the surgery.

I am kind of scared but only because I had a stroke four years ago and I am diabetic. The surgery requires me not to eat for something like 18 hours and I cannot take my diabetes medication because I am sure I would go too low with the blood sugar. We will see when we talk to the anesthesiologist.

My dear Brother-in-law, Alain, has proposed to take a day off from his office and come take care of both of us. By that time Michel should be doing a lot better (I hope) but I will need help getting home from the hospital after the surgery, even if it is only across the street.

I am certain I will be fine but I have this troubling thing in the back of my mind that I worry about not being able to take care of Michel if something bad should happen during surgery.

Have to think positively and pray a lot!

Michel has Final Chemo

2009-11-07T03:24:00.000-06:00

Thursday last, Michel had his final Chemotherapy treatment. We hope this is the final one. We will find out later this month if it has worked well or if he has to have other treatments. Keep fingers crossed and please keep praying!

If this really is the final zap then it is going to be strange not having to sort out all these pills and give them several times a day. Right now and for the next month, he is taking Lyrica for diabetic neuropathy due to the chemo, blood sugar pills more than usual because chemo makes the blood sugar shoot up and so do the steroids, a pill for the fungus he gets in his throat due to the chemo, gargle for same, pills for anxiety due to chemo/steroids, Effexor for mood swings due to the steroids they are pumping into him, pill for sleep, pills for nausea (4 different kinds), pills for diarrhea/constipation (not all the time) because he alternates with diarrhea and constipation), cortisone pills, several kinds of pain pills and patches (we do not always use these but we have them available), nutritional drinks, and all the stuff they put in his IV profusion. Plus he gets vitamins, and injections: Eprex for red blood cells, anti-androgen injections, flu injections, Zometa profusions to strengthen the bones once a month too.

Whew! It takes me almost full time to keep up with the medications; the blood sugar tests; charting everything for the nurses/doctors; keeping things clean; cooking special foods and soups and shopping for all of the stuff he needs. I do not know how someone could do this on their own; you have to have someone or some people helping you. I could not do all this without the doctors or the nurses and the fantastic staff people at the pharmacy and IV profusion company.

Thanks goes to everyone who is keeping up my morale through email!

Cousin Judy's 70th Birthday Bash

2009-11-06T21:55:00.000-06:00

left to right, Cousins Bill, Judy the birthday girl, Norma and Norma's husband, John

You Don't Have to be French to Read These

2009-11-03T07:31:00.000-06:00

Michel came home around noon. He was nauseous and had a bad stomach due to not having the IV "cow" every day since he has been in hospital. Tonight, nurse Florence will come hook him up so he can get back on schedule and get rid of the nausea.

It is so good to have Michel home.

Weather here is cold but sunny no wind. Monday it was windy because Sunday night we had a big rain with wind. Sabine says the rain is always followed by the Mistral.

I have been on the French Ebay ordering Christmas presents for the family and the medical staff and doctor. The staff and doctor are all women so I got everyone a Pashmina embroidered shawl. All different colors and scarves come in very handy here with all the cold winds.

Ha! I don't even read French very well but I know how to shop in just about every language.

Michel is Fine but he has another night in Hospital

2009-11-02T14:33:00.000-06:00

Michel now thinks he had some sort of panic attack because all the tests show nothing.

Our, nephew the cardiologist, went to the hospital this afternoon and talked to Michel's doctors and Michel is fine in the heart, etc. He still has cancer but the rest of him is in good shape.

So, when I went into the intensive care room to see Michel he had a doctor with him, an old friend of his from school he had not seen in decades a very nice fellow who is also married to an American woman. His name is Bernard and he did an ultrasound on Michel's neck this afternoon just to be sure Michel has no congestion in his veins or arteries. Everything is fine.

Michel was disappointed by his breakfast but said lunch had a good portion of fish, however he is not happy in general with the food. I tried to take him some snacks but they were not allowed.

Interesting note: The weekly menu for the hospital is the biggest thing posted in the lobby.

Tomorrow afternoon after lunch they will let Michel out of the hospital and he can come home.

Wednesday, Dr. R comes to see us at home and Florence, the nurse, will come in the morning to see us and start the IV profusion again for one day.

Thursday it the sixth chemo treatment and we hope the last.

Michel Goes to Hospital

2009-11-01T14:19:00.000-06:00

Early this morning Michel got up and acted fine. He was on line reading things and sending email and then he ate an enormous breakfast. The nurse came at 8:15 to hook him up to the profusion IV machine. Everything was fine.

For about an hour after the nurse left we stayed in bed reading and discussing possible trips we might take. We are both pleased that Tony Blair ended his bid to run for EU President. He is tremendously unpopular all over the UK and Europe since he sided with Bush and sent troops to Iraq. There is more to his unpopularity than that but that was a big bad problem for him and the UK too.

Anyway, suddenly Michel said he was short of breath and having some slight pains on the right side of his chest. I asked him how long he had the pain and the shortness of breath and he said since the middle of the night. OK, so the next logical question was why he did not tell me or the nurse. "I forgot about it" was the unsatisfactory answer but he looked very uncomfortable. I proposed he call the nurse and talk to her about his pain.

He did call nurse, Florence, and she said to call 15 (which is the equivalent of 911 here). I asked him again if he felt it was that serious and he said it was. He called 15 and since we are right across the street from the Fire Station; 3 firemen came with an ambulance immediately.

Florence, the nurse, came back and unhooked Michel from the IV and the firemen took both of us by ambulance to an emergency hospital on the outskirts of Marseille.

We were at the emergency hospital about 2 hours while they ran tests. They did not find anything but a blood gas test indicated there may be some cardiac thing going on and they decided to transfer him to a cardiac hospital near the hospital where he gets the chemotherapy treatments. Hospitals in France are specialized. There are some for cancer, some for emergency that process people through to other hospitals and some for heart, and so forth. I have to add all I had to do was give the admissions people his green credit card and he was automatically signed in to both hospitals; no waiting; no paperwork; and no troubles. No one breathing down our necks for money or asking about insurance or wanting our firstborn child or trying to take our bank account.

Another ambulance came to take us to the cardiac hospital and after a short ride we were there. Michel was immediately whisked into intensive care. They ran a bunch of tests on him again and could find nothing but they wanted to keep him at least overnight to keep testing him.

So, I am back home. The intensive care rooms are like the US you can only visit for 3 hours per day. You can go in from 1PM to 3PM and then from 6PM to 7PM. You have to put on a sterile gown and booties to go in the intensive care rooms and only one person can go in at a time. We were with Michel's Mom, his Cousin Anne-Marie, his Brother and our sister-in-law. Everyone got a few minutes to see him. We took him his watch and some magazines. I was able to get them to give him some lunch then we had to go.

I hope when we go tomorrow at 1PM we can bring him home and nothing will be found wrong.

It is scary. I am here alone and wish Michel could be here. I guess it is much more scary for him. Chemotherapy is very hard on all the internal organs as well as the mind and spirit. Help me pray Michel can come home in good form tomorrow, please.

Thank you for all the prayers, good wishes, and concern.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUDITH ANN 70 and holding

2009-10-31T06:21:00.000-05:00

This post is for my Cousin, Judith Ann, who turned 70 back on October 4. Her family wanted to give her a fete so they (as in her oldest daugther, Cheryl) booked a lodge for the event today. They reckoned Halloween would be a great time to celebrate and give enough time for distant relatives to come for a reunion too.

We are sorry we cannot be there but you understand the circumstances and we are certainly with you in spirit.

Have the happiest birthday ever. LOVE

One More Day!

2009-10-30T04:34:00.001-05:00

Did You Know?????

2009-10-30T03:14:00.001-05:00

Saucisse (Sausage), a quasi wiener dog, ran for mayor of Marseille in 2001 also President of France.

Saucisse managed to dig up over 4.5 percent of the vote and placed 6th in the municipal elections in Marseille but was defeated by a claw. Then Saucisse sunk his teeth into the race for the presidency of France but failed to obtain the required signatures of 500 grand electeurs due to his inabiity to write. This is a pool of some 46,000 deputies, senators, mayors, regional councilors and representatives of the overseas territories that is designed to keep a leash on crackpot candidates.

1998-2000 : Saucisse, a stray dog

At an early age Saucisse, as yet unnamed, was found in a garbage bin by the SPA. He was in bad condition and needed several surgeries but was finally saved. He waited eight months in his cage at the SPA before being adopted by the team of L'Écailler du Sud, a Marseille publishing house. Suacisse became the special companion of the writer Serge Scotto, who made him his mascot and named him, Saucisse.

Saucisse quickly became the hero of many of novels and his reputation began to spread over the Marseille region. On 14 September 2000, a square in the city of Marseille was inaugurated and named after him, becoming the Place du Chien Saucisse.

Today, Saucisse is a celebrity and has even appeared on the French equivalent of Big Brother called Secret Story. Saucisse' secret was he ran for mayor of Marseille. Saucisse' secret was not guessed by his fellow participants and after 13 days of spending a couple of hours per day in the Secret Story house; he won a lot of money for his charity, Société Protectrice des Animaux.

credits to Wikipedia

Another Wonderful Day

2009-10-29T03:33:00.000-05:00

Michel felt good today too. He ate his morning cocoa and cookies, had a normal to low blood sugar reading and two hours later wanted a coddled egg with toast. Then he took a nap.

The concierge called and wanted to send Fedex up to the flat they had something I had to sign and also there was VAT (value added tax) due on the package that had come from the USA. The Fedex man came to the front door and told me the amount to write for the check. I almost fainted but recovered. The box was huge and it came from Gump's in San Francisco. I figured it must be something very grand and so I got out the checkbook.

I know my friend Helen wrote to me last week and said she was in San Francisco doing some CEU courses for her license. She said she wanted to send something for Michel's birthday and I wrote back and asked her not to do it because it is too expensive to ship things. Try telling a woman not do to anything.

What a surprise the box contained a huge fur throw lined in velvet. The fur looked like chinchilla. It was so soft and wonderful I knew it must be real fur but then I was certain my friend knows not to send us fur. Michel said he felt it was a very convincing faux fur and so we looked for the tag on the throw and it is a completely realistic fake. Thank goodness! It is gorgeous! THANK YOU HELEN AND FAIMILY. I guess it was you because there was no card.

Later Michel felt like walking down to the Prado again. He wanted some newspapers but when we got to the news shop the lady said there is a strike. Welcome to France there is always some sort of strike going on somewhere in France.

We decided to walk a little further to the Tabac Shop's sidewalk cafe. I had a cappuccino and Michel had tea with lemon. The skies were blue, the temperature was about 70F and the sun was shining. We sat for a long time and talked.

We walked back to the flat and then I went to the little Casino grocery shop around the other corner near the hospital. The store had these wonderful individual pots of fondue. You just heat in a microwave and provide your own baguette and eat.

Michel has a Really Good Day

2009-10-28T02:25:00.000-05:00

PICARD FROZEN FOOD SHOP INTERIOR

Yesterday, Michel decided to stay off the IV for some days. He developed an allergy to the tape they were using to tape up the porta cath. His shoulder turned red, swelled up, and caused him a lot of pain on Monday and Monday night. Also, he got some very high blood sugar readings for several days and he felt he needed time out.

There was an incident last Saturday when I went shopping and came back to find him in some sort of diabetic shock with a blood sugar reading of 455. The nurse was scheduled to come at that moment, so she had me give him an extra blood sugar pill and we decided to keep him off the "cow" until he could stabilize

He felt great in the morning his blood sugar was 89 and he ate two breakfasts. At 0730 he had his usual breakfast of cocoa with cookies and then at 0930 he had a coddled egg and toast. I was kept busy cooking yesterday but it was the good sort of cooking. He was eating everything in sight and then had ham with crackers for mid-morning snack and proposed we take a walk to Picard (the frozen food speciality shop) after lunch. His blood sugar was very good all day long and into the night. "The Cow" juice has steroids and they make his blood sugar go way up also make him nervous but the benefits are much more than the minuses.

Michel was able to walk all the way to the corner and down the Prado to Picard. He was unsteady but by the end of the walk he was walking better. No one cooks in France nowadays; everyone is buying food at Picard and it is so good you cannot tell it is frozen. When you are invited to a dinner at someone's home in France, you can just assume unless your hosts have a cook; you are eating courtesy of Picard. Also, if you come to France and have access to a hot plate and/or microwave, there is no need for you to go about to fancy restaurants you can just find your local Picard shop and have very good meals. They are not cheap but they are much more reasonable than restaurant fees. You just heat and eat but a lot of the foods require you to heat in an oven so I am out of luck on that one and have to read the instructions to be sure I can microwave the food. I found I can heat the Coquilles St. Jacques in the micro, it is not quite the same but they are good and also the mussels with escargots butter but the escargots require an oven.

We got a lemon tart with meringue you just thaw and eat, very good but not like my lemon meringue pie, coguilles st. Jacques, sorbets raspberry, mango, lemon, corn on the cob (corn is hard to find here), and some other stuff. We are very limited by the minute size of our freezer.

Next week, hopefully, on November 5, Michel will have his sixth and we hope final chemotherapy treatment.

Nurse Beatrice came this morning just to check on us because she wanted to check Michel's pressure and his blood sugar and check me too after the episode of the low blood pressure and the pill that made me sick.

Today, Michel feels invigorated and promised to walk more. I have been looking at flats in the Immobilier windows and want him to look at two I found. He thinks he would rather live in Arles but we have to go there and look around.

I promise to do a whole blog on Picard shops in the near future. Also, I have a friend who had a house in Cassis she lets out to visitors and she has a pied de terre in the Marais in Paris she rents out to tourists as well. If you are interested let me know.

WORLD CLOCK in case you get messed up with reverting to standard time

2009-10-25T03:10:00.000-05:00

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

This is the Link for the World Clock in case you are like me and confused about the time change.

Love you all to bits.

Daylight Saving Time Changed Here Last Night H1N1 in the USA

2009-10-25T01:26:00.000-05:00

All the rain we had this week was really nice for rinsing the streets and walks of dog pooh but rest assured the dogs were right back on their job decorating the walks again the next day. People with dogs are supposed to pick up their dog's poop but this is never enforced so we have a lot of poop on the streets.

Soooooo, for about another week or so I will only be 6 hours ahead of friends in Central Time USA and 5 hours ahead of those of you on the Eastern Standard Time sector. If you are in California I am 8 hours ahead so, California, please do not call me just send an email. Love you all!

On November 1, the USA changes time too and I will go back to being 7 hours ahead of the folks in the Central Time sector of the USA and 6 hours ahead of friends in the Eastern Standard time zone.

We see President Obama has declared an emergency on Swine Flu. Here they just call it H1N1 but we have not got in a panic in France. On TV they tell people to call the emergency number 15 if they think they have symptoms of the H1N1. We have all had our regular flu shots here but right now we do not have the H1N1 vaccine or if they do they are just giving it to high risk people.

Probably they are going to keep it well contained here because they do not send everyone to the emergency rooms of hospitals here and people can get treatment here right away if they feel ill. They prefer to do as much as they can at individual homes and it keeps the spreading of diseases way down.

Also, there is a lot of preventive medicine here in France and that keeps those wicked contagious diseases more at bay.

WASH YOUR HANDS AND CARRY GERMICIDE IN YOUR PURSE OR POCKET! WEAR A MASK.

Sarko Son Scandale

2009-10-24T06:50:00.000-05:00

The political cartoon above is a commentary on the latest scandale in the Sarkozy administration and it is sort of untranslatable. Laurence Ferrari is a pretty blonde female news commentator on the France 1 TV station. Sarko's son looks a lot like Laurence Ferrari. In fact Sarko has two gorgeous blonde sons,Pierre and Jean, both look alike and they both look like Laurence Ferrari. So, in the cartoon Sarko is saying something like "don't' be bothered, it's not Laurence Ferrari, it's just my son". Whereas, the man on the far right is Patrick Devedjian, a close adviser of Sarko's but who was upset and skeptical of Sarko railroading his son into the position on the l'EPAD. Underneath it says "Afer the l'EAPD affair, Devejian mistrusts blondes".

Tempest in a teapot this week. Sarkozy's twenty three year old gorgeous tall blond son, Jean, was going to be elected to a prestigious post in the best district of France the governing body is called l'EPAD. Too powerful a position for a kid who has not yet finished law school and actually is repeating his second year of law school because he could not pass it the first time. The l'EAPD job is an elected position but Daddy had filled the electorate with buddies.

BEFORE

Naturally, the public decided to demonstrate. French people live to demonstrate and talk politics. The circus air prevailed and people wore period dress from the old monarchy and danced around in the streets shouting about nepotism and such. It was a real embarrassment for the poor boy but it should not have ever been put about to maneuver him into that sort of powerful position.

Poor Jean. He resigned on national TV last night but not without a drastic change of style. He had cut off his long blond wavy locks got a very severe short haircut dyed darker and found a pair of old man's spectacles to try to further convince the public of his maturity. He still looks too young to be serious. It was too funny but he was gracious, refined, a touch defiant and nice with his resignation speech. Everyone breathed a sign of relief and went on about their Friday night dinners.

AFTER

We had a sort of protest here in Marseille too. As I was going on my daily pharmacy visit I saw a small group of young people with signs and big black witch's hats with stick brooms marching down the Prado. I thought the Marseillaises decided to have some sort of early misguided Halloween fete and was going to suggest they trick or treat at night or else they could go bobbing for apples, but it was some college kids protesting the Sarko (as he is called) l'EAPD Scandal.

By the way, in case you are wondering; Laurence is a female name here in France. It is pronounced "Loh - rhassss". If you want the man's name it is Laurent and pronounced "Luh-rah"

My English is fried forever because even if someone speaks a little English here in France, I have to pronounce the English words as a French person would say them or else they do not understand. If I talked like this in the US I would be tarred and feathered.

Three Days of Rain and Floods in Galveston

2009-10-23T06:13:00.000-05:00

Starting on Tuesday we had three days of nasty rainy weather with the worst being on Wednesday with water standing in big pools in our courtyard. Yesterday Sabine came over and said,"next is Mistral". She was right the Mistral hit today. We have sunny blue skies and it is windy like a mountaintop. An Alpine mountaintop.

Michel was feeling weak and sleepy on his birthday so we cancelled his party here at the flat. He had three days of feeling bad and then he started to eat more night before last and he ate yesterday. This morning he had a coddled egg with toast and tea. I felt it was some sort of Victory.

Dr. R. was here bright and early. She got wind of me stopping my blood pressure pill because it made me sick and so Dr. R had three conniption fits yesterday; first with Michel, on the phone, who knew nothing about it, then she told me off by email, and then with the nurses. So we got it all smoothed over today and I am not to do anything without calling her even on the weekends. Yes, friends, the doctor actually WANTS me to call her on weekends. I told her it is a cultural problem because in the US you can never call your doctor, in the fist place, and they particularly do not want you to call them on the weekend but their standard remedy for everything is you go to the emergency room. She looked at me like I was crazy and said,"but this is ridiculous!" and she was right but I do not make the medical world spin 'round in the USA. I thought I was doing her a favor by sending her an email in lieu of ruining her Saturday but she told me "it is not French way - you must call".

I feel like a whipped puppy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHEL 65 TODAY

2009-10-20T01:15:00.000-05:00

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HAPPY 65th BIRTHDAY to MICHEL CHOU CHOU

His given names are Michel Jacques François Marie.

He was born in 1944 during the Nazi occupation of France. Went to Jesuit School in Marseille, Law School at Aix en-Provençe then economics and journalism schools in Paris. He spent some years working as a journalist in Paris, Marseille, Brussels and several years in London.

He has traveled all over the world several times during his career. Worked as a presenter and newscaster on radio and TV. Wrote four books.; two were published.

He speaks 4 or 6 languages (three fluently) and has working knowledge of Greek and Latin.

While trekking in the desert he encountered his cousin, who is a monk, at at a monastery outside Egypt.

He and Philippe Charriol once drove his ancient deux cheveaux to Poland in the Winter rain using their hands as wind screen wipers.

He likes fast cars and motorcycles. For this reason he had a lot of auto accidents as a young man. His indulgent Father continued to buy him fast cars.

He flew on the Concord. Somehow he managed to get in several jumps as a paratrooper when he was doing his mandatory two years in the French Army as an accountant. He has done scuba diving all over the world.

He is an excellent photographer and artist.

He hates golf. Loves to dance. Does not like to hunt except with a camera. Will not watch sports on TV with the exception of the World Cup final. Refuses to gamble himself but will sit and watch me lose at the tables. Only occasionally drinks a little wine at dinner and finally abstains from smoking his beloved Cuban cigars.

Perfect MAN!

Probably his most embarrassing moment came as a young man, when he and his friend, Olivier, tried to travel to Biafra to become "freedom fighters". They got as far as Spain where a very wise immigration official told them they did not need to go to Biafra and denied their visas. End of story.

He is tall and strong and gentle. You would not want to pick a fight with him as he used to excel in foot fighting. He loves to swim and walk the dog.

Guzzling raw oysters is he passion. Working in the garden and painting is his vocation.

He cooks a mean smoked brisket and makes scrumptious salads. Mussels in white wine is his speciality.

He can be temperamental but almost immediately regrets outbursts of anger.

He is loved by all who know him and is privately known as Chou Chou.

Happy birthday, baby, hope you have another 65 or more!

love, your Chuchu

Television in France

2009-10-19T09:11:00.000-05:00

This may be a short post because I am not the best person to critique French TV, however, I am willing to give it a go because it is fun and you will understand how much I miss my 250 stations on Dish Network.

We get cable as part of our rental package so we do not get to choose the stations we receive and because this is a sort of international residence place we get several different foreign language stations. Right now we have 20 stations on our television. The bulk of the stations are French but we get two in Portuguese, a couple in Spanish, one in German, two Italian shows, one is Arabic and the two news stations - BBC and CNN are from the UK. No real television in English.

The two news stations are the only stations broadcast in English and they are just alike: BORING. We get very little US news on these stations instead they are all over the place on Africa, Asia, any where but the Western Hemisphere.

The German station is the best and does a lot of English language shows but all their shows are about business and science.

French TV has a lot of exceedingly corny game shows, copies of US reality shows, and French political talks shows. The French love to talk. Plus there is one home shopping show that comes on a regular television station. I did sort of notice an infomercial show the other day.

Some of the French commercials are very funny but might not be shown in the US. French commercials feature lots of animals and babies. It is no sin to show skin on French TV and boobies are all over the place. Nothing is taboo in France. There is a commercial for Omo laundry detergent featuring a Momma and son at the breakfast table. She trying to get the adult son interested in women because she wants grandchildren. She shows him a cereal box and points to the photo of a baby on the box. Her son then picks up the Omo laundry detergent box smiles and points to the big letters O-M-O. She turns red and sits down and puts her faces in her hands. The message is he's gay and it is funny but not sure how it sells laundry detergent.

Oh, and the French are totally ga-ga over "Docteur House". Recently there was a talent show on French network TV that featured the usual Elvis impersonators and Madonnas, etc. and one guy whose only claim to fame was he looked at lot like "Docteur House". So he stood there slumping down doing his best to look crazy stoned with a protruding lower lip and defiant stare while the other contestants knocked themselves out jumping around with air guitar, silly costumes and lip sinc - and the Docteur House guy won!

One thing that may or may not say a lot for French television is the personalities on French TV are more realistic and more human. They are not bothered about showing their age or their physical flaws and they do not use a lot of makeup. French female TV personalities do not have the inflated rubber lips, stone smooth botox faces or the surgically lifted surprised visages of their American sisters. Their breasts will not keep them afloat if their yacht sinks and their butts have not been sucked into submission. French women do not go in for cosmetic surgery, even if they are rich and/or famous. One notable exception to this rule is the wife of Bernard-Henri Lévy, actress Arielle Dombasle, who was evidently left on her own devises too long in Hollywood and ended up looking like a re hydrated mummy with long blonde hair hair extensions and a lip retread. Teeth of French personalities are au naturel too but may be whitened, however, orthodonture does not rate high on the list of fun things to do en Francaise. There is a very popular TV host who has a enormous Port Wine stain birthmark over the bridge of his nose from his lower cheek up to his forehead. This man is very popular here but in the US he would never stand a chance due to his birth defect. In fact the French television production company he works for appears to do very little to put makeup on his birthmark. He is jovial and kind to contestants and a remarkable success.

France channel 2 has this hokey show called Josephine Guardian Angel. This presents a aging female dwarf in a bobbed platinum wig running around trying to save people from themselves - eating all the while. She seems to favor fromage but she will eat through any thing put in front of her face. Strange, not funny and too bizarre to be minutely interesting and not particularly endearing either unless your heartstrings go zing for cheese eating dwarfs.

Cooking shows abound. The French, Italian and Spanish TV is all about food. French cooking shows are generally men cooking. Italian shows are some sexy scantily dressed big breasted young woman standing there making comments and posturing while some grandma gets down to business and actually does the cooking. The Arab TV station has a lot of cooking too but it is all women who cook. They seem to get their burquas in a bunch and often get caught up in the pots, stoves, and the food, so to save kitchen accidents they have all the stuff cut up and just simulate the cooking parts. It doesn't make much difference anyway because every dish they make looks the same and it is all piled up on one big platter for the men to eat with their right hands. OK, that is all well and good but my question is do real Arab women have to cook in the nude so as to avoid setting themselves on fire or serving their burquas up with the food?

There is MTV in French but Pimp My Ride loses a lot in translation.

About the weirdest shows I have seen are the soap operas on the Arabic channel. One day I was looking at this channel and it showed a woman getting stoned to death by a mob of men on the TV while the woman at home watching the TV show weeps. Then a man comes in and tells the weeping woman she is silly to cry about a TV drama and the only reason the woman is being stoned is because she did not mind her husband. TA-DA! They also have a lot of Biblical costumed type soaps that look like the Christian networks turned inside out with everybody running around in a bed sheet.

The nomination for most bizarre programming of the century goes to a show that has everything for everybody; a beautiful epic Korean costumed 16th century soap. It features some incredibly lovely Korean woman in gorgeous period dress diaphanous silk gowns with huge elaborately braided chignon hairdos who are forced, by armed guards, to cook fabulously intricate Korean meals in an old fashioned kitchen and then put back in a dungeon after every meal. You see these porcelain dolls chopping and dicing in their kitchen without breaking a sweat, getting a stain on their gowns or letting loose a strand of hair to the steam. Of course it makes perfect sense for this show to be on the Arabic channel and dubbed in Egyptian. You cannot make this up.

Sunday Morning Stewed Fruit and Drugs

2009-10-18T00:37:00.000-05:00

I woke up at 5:00 this morning. Slept well - just time to wake up and my nose and throat were dry as the Sahara. Had to get a big mug of tea and rehydrate.

Cold cold outside and the Mistral is back blowing but the sun is out and blue skies in abundance. Not going out today or if I do it will be late afternoon. Have the heat on and decided to make stewed fruit this morning.

Stewed fruit is a great winter treat and it makes the house smell wonderful plus the simmering process puts a good amount of humidity in the air to combat that dry winter feeling.

This morning I used dried apricots, prunes and blond raisins. Added 2 peeled chopped Granny Smith apples, half cup of white wine, splenda or brown sugar or white sugar or raw sugar, about 2 cups water, half cup cranberry juice, slight shake of Cinnamon and some zest from a lemon and an orange (amount of zest and spices depend on your taste). Simmer slowly uncovered. You may have to add more liquid as the juice evaporates. Do not add citrus juices until the end if you are going to add them. You can use any number of dried fruits or fresh fruits but start the dried fruits first and add the fresh fruits later. I prefer to use fresh cranberries but they are not available here so I used some of their juice. You do not have to use spices, wine, or the zest but I like it all. The wine, zest and cranberry give tang to the end result. You can add also nutmeg, cloves, allspice, etc., and some folks add curry powder for curried fruit (I think curried fruit is in the old Fanny Farmer cook book). Curried fruit is great with meat dishes. You can also use a portion of your fruit melange to make chutney by adding more spices and other stuff depending on your taste. Depending on how you intend to use this you can also use rosé wine or red wine or no wine at all. Muscat wine or a desert wine makes it really special but, really, why waste a good dessert wine.

Yesterday, the ladies at the pharmacy fixed me right up with saline nasal spray, cortisone nasal spray and eye drops. My eyes are much better today and the sinus swelling is going down too. In France you can get a Pharmacist to diagnose you for minor complaints and you can also get lots of drugs over the counter and cheap. Whereas these same drugs would be prescriptions in the US and not cheap. Flu shots, for instance, cost 6,50€ come all prepped for you to shoot yourself and you do not need a prescription. Retin-A is about 12€ a tube and you need no prescription. In the US Retin-A is about 100 dollars per tube and you need a prescription. Go figure. France makes medical care much more available for all its citizens and folks who are not citizens. The feeling here is no one should do without treatment if they need help. Which is exactly how it should be all over the world but in the US GREED has replaced humanity.

That said, however, the medications I brought from the US do not necessarily have their equivalents in France. I can get Byetta and Metformin. I was taking Armour Thyroid which is a natural dessicated thyroid made from pig's thyroids. I know it sounds gross but believe me 30+ years of trial and error with thyroid meds has taught me this one is best for me but I cannot get it here in France. They have no natural dessicated thyroid available so I had to go to something that is like Cytomel in the US then my 'roids went high and we had to reduce the dose and now I feel it is too low. Thyroid problems are, at best, a balancing act and mostly I am teetering and always being tested every 3 months or more often if necessary. Eventually, I will probably have to go to an Endocrinologist,here, but right now I do not have time and also we are going to spend a lot of money on my surgery so I am going to wait for that until I get my health card. The surgery on my arm is scheduled for late November.

Dr. R also had to put me on a new blood pressure pill. I just take the diuretic one but there is nothing here that compares to the one I was taking so she put me on the closest thing she could find. I thought I was feeling fine and just tired because of this sinus stuff but yesterday I asked nurse Beatrice to take my blood pressure and she said it is much too low, so we have to come down on the blood pressure medication dosage. Have to say here I actually probably do not need blood pressure meds but I asked for them due to a bad salt habit (really - my one vice besides a perfume and clothing habit) and I am worried because I had a stroke and the doctors at the time could not find the reason I had the stroke, so it remains unknown. I would rather take all the unknowns out of the equation and take BP meds than be in doubt if I get blood pressure spikes which are also unknown and never have shown in tests.

There you have it. Word of advice; if you are a hypochondriac you may or may not be advised to steer clear of France unless you are on a medicinal sampling vacation. You could spend your entire vacation going from one pharmacy to another as there are usually several on each block with their lighted green flashing crosses. In France you are never more than 50 yards from some sort of pharmacy. Gasoline is harder to find. The entire country of France is a teeming cauldron of advanced hypochondria so doctors and pharmacists here have learned to give the baby away with the bath water when it comes to medication. Go to the doctor here and you will come away with long lists of prescriptions and you better not ask if you need so much medicine or they will eye you with great suspicion......and probably want to put you on Prosac with a Xanax chaser thrown in for good luck.

I was standing in the pharmacy the other day as a rather plumpy woman was discussing her new baby and how it kept her up at night; then her drugs came and she had been given several boxes of Xanax (I hoped she was not nursing the baby but then I am certain a sympathetic French doctor might think second hand Xanax may be very good for the baby's nerves too - just joking - but she really got a lot of Xanax and I fail to see how the baby could possibly rouse her at night with all that in her system).

My Visa Sejour is Approved

2009-10-17T05:16:00.000-05:00

We got an email from the Prefecture last evening telling us my long stay visa is approved and we will be notified to come to the Prefecture in 3 weeks to pick it up. Yay! This will allow me to stay in France for one year and then renew for the next four years and after that I can get a total residence permit. Now I can also be covered on Michel's health card.

This takes a huge burden off our shoulders. It would not have been possible without the intervention of the French Consulate in Houston and a lot of influential friends here. Most of all the determination and perseverance of our friends, Daniele and Marie-Claude.

I have come down with some sort of sinus infection or something that is causing my eyes to swell up like a frog's eyes. It makes it hard to read and I am struggling through Mansfield Park but I love Fanny Price so I will continue to struggle.

Michel's birthday is next Tuesday. He will be 65. His cousin, Dominique, sent him six volumes of Alexandre Dumas, pere, and he is happily reading them all. I got him another book by Carlos Ruiz Zàfon because he liked the first book so much. I got this one in English so I can read it after he does.

I want to get him a warm cardigan sweater but the sizes in France are all very small and not only that they are all marked XL, XXl, XXXL, XXXXXL, etc. and they are still small. I guess the average French condom is marked "Gigantic" "Gargatuan" "elephantine" or "Jumbo" and that might be about small to normal in most other countries. Most people in France are short but then you have some, as in Michel's family, that are very tall.

By the way France has a very strict policy of don't ask/dont' tell in regard to Viagra. In France they would not think of advertising drugs for male enhancement or erectile dysfunction: "no one has to do this in France"..........at least no one will admit to it in France but I understand from some very good sources that French pharmacies have a tough time keeping erectile drugs in stock.

Cold Here, Chemo 5 Completed

2009-10-16T01:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, it got down in the 40's here. I had to break out my new sweater and my scarf and ordered a pair of lined leather gloves off Ebay.

Michel was to go to chemotherapy treatment number 5. The taxi was very late picking us up but then traffic was not bad so we arrived in plenty of time.

We saw a new doctor. He is really great. He took a long time to go over everything with us and then he put Michel on a table and went all over his body flexing his legs and arms and then going all up and down his spine.

His opinion is that Michel is actually doing great considering the metastases - not sure if he will or will not need more chemo or radiation. After the sixth chemo they will do scans to test and re-evaluate Michel's condition. Then we will know the next step in his treatment. Michel's pain is not so much comparatively and his weight is coming back up but the doctor says Michel needs to eat more. This is the dilemma with all the nausea.

We went in to the chemo room and the nurses hooked Michel up and served us some snacks. A snack in France is a piece of cheese, a container of paté, a mini baguette, a tub of vanilla flan and juice or coke. Michel was not initially hungry but then suddenly became ravenous and I was able to supply him with cookies from the communal snack table in the back of the unit.

He slept for a time and then I encountered Marie-Claire (a friend we have made in the chemo unit) at the snack table and she came down to speak with us. Her husband, Bruno, has prostate cancer but his prostate has not been removed for some reason, not sure the reason. They live in the Var region of Provençe. Marie-Claire says she is a "black foot" and came from Algeria back to France with her family as a small child. She told us she love living in the Var but it does get cold in Winter. Bruno is having all the symptoms and difficulties Michel also has had. It was very good to be able to give each other tips. Bruno is on his third treatment.

It is really strange but I totally understand Marie-Claire and she was speaking only French to me/us. She did seem to understand some English but she spoke in French and her accent is so good I understood her. Maybe there is hope for my French language experience.

I have often thought the Var might be a good place for us to live, not sure. Depends on the route Michel's treatments have to take and also where we might agree to live if we do have to live here for a long time.

Mistral, Mon Tumeur, Michel Better

2009-10-13T02:18:00.000-05:00

Michel is lots better. I found he may have an ear infection and dosed him with my ear drops last night. He actually had an appointment with Dr. Davin the ear doctor but we had to cancel it last week when he got ill, so we have another appointment next week. Ear problems can cause nausea and the headaches into the jaw, etc. Also, we had a big conference with the nurses and emailed the doctors over the weekend and we all decided to put the steroids by in the "cow" juice and it is working.

Big Mistral yesterday. Stuff blowing all over the place and it go much cooler but still bright sun and clear blue skies.

Yesterday, my entourage (Anne-Marie and Sabine) conveyed me and my ultrasound photos to Dr. C. the surgeon in the hospital across the street to see about the tumor in my upper arm. He hardly looked at the ultrasounds and felt around my arm a bit and said "Lipome", which is Lipoma or fat tumor. He said he is not totally sure that it is kind of buried in the muscle and he will not be certain until he gets in and takes a look. His fee for doing the surgery: 82€ around 120 US dollars. I was dumbfounded and thought the fee was only for the visit but, no, he said to me it would be his fee for the surgery, "yes, in the US it would be a lot more", he added and laughed. He did say the ancillary charges would be the hospital for one day and the anesthesiologist, etc. Also he told me it is going to scar perhaps badly because it is in a place that easily keloids. I told him I do not mind the scar I just want it out and to have peace of mind as to what the thing is.

Anne-Marie stuck around the hospital and priced out the cost of the entire operation and it is around 1,000 euros or 1,500 US dollars.

We discussed it and I sort of wanted to put the surgery off a couple of months because we heard yesterday, through our friend Daniele, the Prefecture is actually working out my visa and I will be able to get the health card when I have the visa. Michel said no waiting he wants it done so we decided just to go ahead with the cutting and pay the price.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OCTOBER BABIES, Uncle Paul Departs, Please Get Your Flu Shot

2009-10-11T02:10:00.000-05:00

Forgot to say Happiest of Birthdays to all the October birthday friends. Michel has his 65th birthday on October 20 and his cousin, Dominique, had her birthday last week. My Cousins, Norma and Judy have their birthdays this month too. I have so many friends who have October birthdays it is hard to make a list for fear of leaving some friends off the list. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU ALL.

Hope you will all get your flu shots too. Florence, our nurse, gave me my flu shot yesterday. We do not have the H1N1 vaccine at this time in France but they say it will be available soon. I have been told to take the injection not the thing up your nose. The up the nose stuff is live virus but the injection is not. Michel and I also have to take something called Pneumo 23, it is some pneumonia vaccine or something of the sort. We decided against giving Michel the flu shot this week but we will do next week. I have the injection in the fridge so we just have to prime it and shoot him.

Washing hands is important. We are all washing our hands raw. Plus we are carrying germicide in our purses and using it frequently. I have masks for people who come to visit but I stuck one on Michel's brother and he sneezed and broke the paper open at the nose. We have to get a different type of mask.

Also, have seen people in masks at the supermarket and some on the street. Wish every person would wear one.

Uncle Paul left Marseille and went back to Paris on Friday. He took the TGV (super fast train) so it did not take him long to get back home. I wish we had this sort of train in the US. You can get from Paris to Marseille in about an hour and a half and it takes about five and a half hours to drive here if traffic is good.

Before he left Uncle Paul came to call and brought me a wonderful gift bag all done up in black and orange. Inside was a fine bottle of Eau de Guerlain by Guerlain. A smashing gift! His visit two weeks ago brought me a lovely large white cyclamen to go with the petite pink one Tante Regine brought me. They are both doing fine on the balcony.

Uncle Paul promises to come back in one month. I do hope he will return soon because he is such a pleasure to be around and he speaks good English but he and Michel argue over the world wars all the time. Uncle Paul idolizes Marshal Pétain and is often seen carrying around a 1933 Time magazine with Pétain on the cover. Michel is too nice to get in a big argument with Uncle Paul about Marshal Pétain but Michel thinks Pétain gave France away to the Nazis when he surrendered France to them too soon.

I sort of think maybe Pétain saved a lot of people by doing that, remember France lost so many men during WWl they could little afford to do battle on the home front again. Lots of people do not recall France lost millions of men during WWl. Maybe Pétain was counting on the French resistance and the Allies to get France out of a very deep pickle as they were situated between Germany, Italy and Spain; all full out mean spirited dictatorships; all trying to get a piece of France. Rather than tear France into three parts, or more, he gave it to the Nazis because he know the Western Allies would not tolerate the act of Hitler taking Paris or France. Michel says I am a dreamer and Pétain was an old goat who made a power play and failed France in so many ways it is unconscionable and ended up imprisoned for life in lieu of a firing squad by de Gaulle.

Uncle Paul made a career ( he was severely wounded during a battle in WWll and spent a couple of years recuperating in a hospital in Paris) with Marshal Pétain. He was with the Marshal Pétain entourage for many years. Uncle Paul still volunteers for the Marshal Pétain society in Paris. I think he is the only original staff person left from Pétain's entourage.

Uncle Paul has also worked for the designer Balmain. At Balmain, Paul worked on fragrances; Jolie Madame and Vent Vert are two I recall. You can get remastered Jolie Madame now but I think you might also get Vent Vert (green wind). If you like green fragrances I think Vent Vert is the queen of the greens but the new version is not nearly as wonderful as the old one. Oh, I did find it on line so I guess they remastered Vent Vert in 1991 too but nothing is like the old original because all the stuff we buy now is synthetic and the old perfumes were organic.

Bad Week

2009-10-10T15:10:00.000-05:00

This is one of those awful weeks when it all comes back. Michel was doing so good and then suddenly last Monday he started having pain again. Nothing would subdue the pain. I threw the pain patch on him and then there was nausea but the pain slowly subsided. It takes the pain patch 12 hours to work and then you keep it on for something like 72 hours and You have to change to a new patch. After two days with the pain gone, Michel wanted to get rid of the nausea and we took the pain off. The nausea did not stop immediately but sort of got better yesterday but the pain came back in full vengeance.

Today, even greater pain circulating from his hip to the top of his head and numbness on his right jaw. The pain pills did not work well. I wanted to put the pain patch back on but Michel and nurse Florence said "no". Now the pain is not so bad but the nausea is horrible.

We keep thinking only two chemo treatments to go. Surely, we have come this far and we can get through another month.

Deep breath - head high - tread water - on with the swim.

"S" is for Squash

2009-10-10T00:06:00.000-05:00

The stores are full of Fall produce at this time. I opted to go to the grocery last evening in lieu of my Saturday afternoon shopping. Two reasons for the change: I needed to pick up our Grippe injection vaccine at the pharmacy and Michel wanted some strawberries from the supermarché. Experience has shown me if I do not get to the Monoprix market on Friday or early Saturday the produce is gone from the displays and what is left is very inferior. Off I went just before Sabine arrived at 6 PM.

Earlier I had made a very nice soup of some sort of orange fleshed green striped mottled skinned big Winter squash thing I had bought at Monoprix a couple of days prior. Happily, they slice the big gourds up so you can buy a section of the beast rather than the whole bumpkin and you do not get stuck buying the entire pumpkiny goodness and end up swimming in leftovers. I think this particular squash was an old fashioned cushaw type but the flesh was more orange and firmer than a cushaw.

Here is how I prepared Mister Gourd; I sauteed half a large onion in butter and olive oil then added broth and the peeled squash slices to simmer in the broth. When the squash is tender you mash it up and add honey or maple syrup, butter and cream along with salt and pepper and I put a tiny bit of curry powder in the pot but wished more for a good pinch of Gebhardt's Chili Powder from home. If you want to make a more substantial soup you can do with the addition of a thick bechamel sauce.

Usually with squash dishes I will use maple syrup. I got spoiled for maple syrup when I lived in Upstate New York and lots of the neighbors tapped their owns trees and sold off the excess in the late Fall. Winter squash dishes have a great affinity for maple flavor and also the smokiness of bacon. Summer squash needs to be cooked very little with diced onions and put into a baking dish topped with bread crumbs and grated cheese. Just melt the cheese and brown the crumbs and serve.

I have fallen under the spell of North African Merguez sausages and wished I could put some in the soup but with Michel's palate resting uneasily toward the queasy, I refrained from my preference.

Pumpkin pie. I always make my own pumpkin by baking the big critter in the oven then processing the cooked flesh. My pumpkin pie recipe is pretty much a secret but I do use maple syrup in it, cream cheese, cream, spices and a touch of rum or brandy or both if I am happy. I also top it with streusel crumbs some times. Whip your own cream with powdered sugar and another few drops of brandy.

I am flogging myself for not bringing a bottle or two of Gebhardt's chili powder because I use it all the time. I did bring a big shaker of Zatarain's creole spices but have not used it much due to Michel having nausea all the time. Ditto I have a jar of brown Molé but am keeping it for some grand occasion when I will cook turkey a la Mexique. Not sure what I will do for peanut butter when I do make molé sauce, I am told they do have it here but I have yet to find it on the shelves.

Although, I think squash are not indigenous to France or Europe they have been embraced and loved since they showed up from the New World some time in the 17th century.

Revolving Door; Karl Lagerfeld's Mattress Pad

2009-10-09T07:28:00.000-05:00

Ofttimes we feel we have a revolving front door: There is some one at the door almost hourly during the daytime hours.

Michel, is a late riser and likes to sleep until 11 or noon on any given day but now he stays in bed most of time unless he is using the computer or taking a rare walk. Usually, he is a late night person, who will often stay up until midnight or one in the morning, sometimes even later if he is working on something or playing bridge on line. I am the opposite - a full day person and I wake and rise early but I found I must match Michel's hours if I am to see him and if we are to have meals and be together. It is not uncommon for us to have dinner at 10PM.

Our days in France start with one of our nurses, either Beatrice or Florence, coming to the flat in the morning. This week Florence is on rotation and she has for some reason decreed she will arrive at 6:30AM. I cannot rightly relay what Michel thinks of this early arrival but you can bet it is not nice! Anyway, we get a nurse in the morning and one in the evening whatever the IV schedule.

This week we tried a different strategy with the IV feedings. We have tried hooking the IV up in the morning and taking it off around 5 or 7 PM. This way Michel can sleep without the trouble of the IV making sounds, faint lights, and towing it back and forth if he has to use the bathroom or wants a late night snack. The day time schedule has been a success but Michel in some way picked up a cold or slight stomach flu and now he is nauseous again.

After the nurse departs on any given day we have deliveries from the pharmacy or IV company, Sabine always comes around 6PM and stays often until about 8. There are visitors in and out and phone calls all during the day and packages delivered. The residence maid comes to clean once a week. Then the physical therapist comes several times a week, as well. The doctor comes too if Michel is very ill. All this going on in the house makes for no boredom.

Friends and relatives are really nice about calling and visiting, so it is with great sadness we think we are going to have to stop some of the visits as the flu season takes hold of the world. Michel has no resistance to bacteria or disease and we must be respectful of his condition in regard to his immune system.

Yesterday, there was a fire drill and unfortunately for us the fire siren is right by our door. What a great squawking that went on for at least 5 minutes. Try taking a nap with that thing going off.

Today, Julien, our maintenance man, and his helper are changing out the water heater in the flat across the hall from us and there is a lot of talking, hammering and laughing.

This morning I was caught up in a dream instead of the usual nightmare and wanted to continue to sleep. Why is it we are always younger and prettier in our dreams? It seems Robert Pattinson met me at a party, thought me terribly attractive and confessed he would rather romance a more mature woman because all the jiggly little girls after him have no character and, besides, he confessed he is a closeted "full figure" enthusiast. In the dream I was about 40 and had a very nice but full figure. Do not know where this dream came from because I am not an admirer of Rob Pattinson but it was a fun dream because he kissed me and then sneaked into my room, while I slept, to steal my blouse and bra so he could bribe me into meeting him the next day to retrieve my clothes. Still in the dream I awakened the next day in full fury my clothes were taken and was then advised by Adrien Brody that Rob P. had taken them. I was ready to unleash my anger on Rob P. when I was able to collect my clobber. In the interim I had to wear some shapeless white quilted garment that looked like someone made a dress out of a mattress pad with a wide ruffle at the bottom; it was supposed to be an unstructured garment by Karl Lagerfeld with frayed and open raw edges of gray thread (take note John Galliano I think mattress pads will be very chic next Winter). This was after Adrien Brody asked me to cook him a potato and sausage breakfast burrito that I never cooked because I could not find the kitchen but instead ended up in the bathroom only to find the bidet had been wrenched from its place in the floor leaving only a watery hole. How can I get a stove in here was my thought. I woke up for good before I could meet Rob to get my blouse back and give him a very large piece of my mind.

When I told Michel my dream he laughed and said he felt I had been unfaithful. But I told him in my dream I was unmarried. So there.

This dream is probably courtesy of my reading that National Lampoon is coming out with a spoof of Twilight called "Nightlight". I do not think Lampoon was clever enough to think of mattress pad couture.

Reading Lists

I am reading Persuasion but Jane Austen. This is from the complete Jane Austen reader I got last week. I have read Emma, Northanger Abbey and one other one but I forget which one. I adore Jane Austen but the language in the book gets to be too much after a time.

I want the new Charlaine Harris book but it is not out until end of October. Her books are not higher reading but they are fun and fast. My friend, Helen, sent me the books and I was very pleased to have them. She also sent my the complete Twilight set for my birthday this year. I was sort of worried about reading them but them got addicted (don't tell any one). I have read all of Harris' True Blood series except the new one.

My Antonia, Willa Cather: I started reading this and Michel picked it up and read it and he enjoyed the book. Don't know the reason but this was one of the few books in our school library I did not read. The part of the book I read is far superior to any I have read recently.

Michel read the Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest but in French it has a completely different title. This is the third and final book by Steig Larsson (he died in 2004 at 50). Michel says this book is by far the best of the bunch.

CONGRATULATIONS PRES. OBAMA and the USA

2009-10-09T06:12:00.000-05:00

Many good wishes to President Obama! Winning the Nobel Peace Prize is quite a big honor for a President in office so short a time.

We were sleeping, it was still early, and people started calling to congratulate us and give us the good wishes of the world.

This is a wonderful sign the USA is finally getting back in the good graces of the world.

Renal Colic; Michel Takes a Bad Turn

2009-10-08T01:07:00.000-05:00

Michel got very ill Monday morning and was in a lot of pain in his right lower side and the nausea had returned. He usually gets this in the process of the chemo cycle and then I give him oral pain medications and he gets better in less than half a day. This time it was different the pain was more intense and did not respond to any of the pain medications I gave him. Finally, in desperation I opened the morphine patch and slapped it on him; I did not even ask or get myself into his old arguments of all the reasons he did not want it. Unfortunately, the patch takes a full 12 hours to take effect and it did not seem to adhere very well but it is a tiny thing clear tape and hard to get on. Eventually I also gave him my one remaining Vicodin and it did not have any effect.

We called the doctor around 10 AM and she told me to go to the pharmacy and get Spasfon (for kidney problems) and I did so. But Michel was still in a high level of discomfort and nauseous, as well. We called the doctor later in the evening and she came to see Michel around 8PM. She diagnosed something that sounds like renal colic to me but Michel said it is different and it is inflammation of the ureter or something like that.

Michel's Mom and Brother came over to visit. Then the doctor came and the whole family was in on the action.

While the doctor was with us I complained the morphine patch would not adhere well. She took at look at it, started to giggle then pulled it off , pulled the clear backing off the patch and stuck it back on Michel's chest. I had taken the outer covering off but I did not take the back clear - hard to see - cover off and essentially it would not work without taking the back off......my bad.

Doctor R gave us an ordonnance with three medications and I had to go first thing the next morning to get it filled. Yesterday, Michel was finally pain free but very nauseous.

We are doing the IV's during the day now because Michel says he cannot sleep with the IV going at night; too much getting up to pee and so forth. Doing the IV's in the day time is much better for M.

The Euro: the Cheaters

2009-10-06T07:39:00.000-05:00

Today the Euro is worth about 147 American cents. That means their Euro is worth almost 50 percent more than our dollar. The currency exchange goes up and down all the time but the Euro seems to be running in tandem with oil and gold. Oil goes down; the dollar goes up and the Euro goes down a bit. It is the same with gold. When gold goes up the Euro goes up too and the dollar goes down.

They adopted the concept of the Euro back in 1995. In 1999 when I was in Europe they were trying to prepare a very apprehensive public to learn to use the Euro; this was about 3 years before the Euro went into actual general public use in 2002. Please excuse me because I cannot find the Euro sign on this infuriating Azerty keyboard but you know it kind of looks like a capital "C" but with two lines in the middle. Like this € had to cut and paste it to get it for you.

I believe when the Euro debuted it was worth about 85 US cents. So if you would have bought Euros back in the beginning you would have a really handsome profit today but if you had sold your Euros back when oil was so high, July 14, 2008 to be precise; you would have almost doubled your money because the Euro on that date was something like 159 US cents.

There are Euro bills in denominations pretty much like in the US: 5,10,20,50,100,200, 500; but I have not seen a Euro dollar bill, instead there are coins in one and two Euro dollar units and then coins for one, two, five, ten, fifty, twenty, and so forth cents. There is not a quarter type coin but there is a twenty euro cent coin. Euros and Euro coins may look different according to the country you are in but they are all the same amount and spend the same in all the 16 Euro countries.

Iceland my be the next country to embrace the Euro but then their economy is in the pits so the Euro would really benefit them.

The UK is still in love with its pound and will not relinquish the sterling, so you will have to change money in the UK countries.

It is easy to spot the 2 euro and one euro coins they are silver with golden rims but it is hard to read the denominations on them if you are in a hurry; ditto the other coins which are brass colored or copper. Problem: You can amass a big pile of coins in a very short while and it is a nuisance to try to count it all out when people are waiting in line for you to get your business done. Bonus problem: the little one, two and five cent coins are really tiny and a pain to spend. You end up having to buy a change purse to contain all the cents you have not got time to count in the shops and it gets really heavy very quickly.

So, when you go shopping in one of the 16 or so European Union countries: Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia (or whatever they call it now) that use the Euro you will think, as I did initially, "hey that is cheap", until you figure again and the object of your desire is actually about 50 percent more than the marked price, that is if you are like me and still thinking in dollars.

Stuff is expensive here. Food is very expensive but wines are cheap and so is beer. I have not noticed the prices on liquor because, as most of you know, I do not drink.

Lots of older French people (my husband included) still think in francs. It is not uncommon for you to receive a shop receipt that has euros printed out and underneath the equivalent amount in francs. Of course there are no more francs but I guess it gives some older people comfort to know the franc amount they lose in a transaction.

Do not expect to come here and get French products cheaper in France than the same French product would be in the US; oh no! Truth is you have to pay Value Added Tax or VAT - on everything in France. Supposedly people from other countries get their VAT refunded but I have to say, although I have filled out countless forms for refund over the past 12 or so years; I have yet to get one dime Euro or otherwise. So, buy all your makeup and perfume before you come here, unless, of course, you are some sort of collector of French perfumes and you want the stuff that is not available in the US - but expect to pay through the nose for whatever luxury items you purchase here.

Word of advice: Take some time to know about the money before you come over here and start spending or they will cheat you, especially if it is obvious you have more money than sense. It is not they are all cheaters but some are. I have had people waiting in line with me painstakingly take their time to help me and explain how their money works (I did not let on that I knew these sorts of transactions, to be kind in return) and be sure I got the right change; ditto some people behind the counters are really professionals and very kind.

I was blatantly cheated at the bakery up the street and I knew I was cheated and complained but the beastly girl behind the counter hung on to my money and refused to give it back. The next week I found out the reason; the bakery closed and over the next months it was completely remodeled and re-named. The cheating girl has lost her job and knew she would do so,so she did not care who she cheated at the end. I guess the new proprietor has trouble because the former owner was a cheater and now there is a big handwritten sign on the door, "New owner under new management". I have yet to revisit this shop as I am still stinging from the bad service I got from the "previous owner".

This Week in Review

2009-10-04T08:18:00.000-05:00

It is Sunday and the weather is lovely.

Today I made cream of potato soup from scratch and apple compote with Granny Smith apples, honey, cinnamon, blond raisins, walnuts and orange zest. I wanted to put a bit of sweet wine or brandy in it but all I have is Pastis and it has too much of an anise flavor that would have overwhelmed the apples.

I long to have a decent stove and dive right into the Fall produce the shops are featuring at this time. Perhaps my joy in cooking is really just filling the house with the aroma of cooking and the warmth from my hearth or heart.

Yesterday, I spent a good two hours walking around getting lost. I went to the Picard frozen food shop about 2.5 blocks away and it was closed. I decided to take a different way back to the flat thinking I would run into the little store on the next corner from the hotel and I could explore more of the neighborhood along the way. At a certain point I saw a sign that said Blvd Louvain but it had gotten twisted and was pointing the wrong way; only I did not know that fact, so I continued another half mile before figuring out I was going in the wrong direction. I backtracked and ended up on the Prado, again. I rested on a park bench and decided to go to the big supermarché a couple of blocks down because I still did not have any groceries. Shopping took me over three hours and exhausted me completely.

Back at home Michel had had no lunch so I quickly made him some soup and then we both took a nap.

Also yesterday, Sabine was giving a luncheon at her house in honor of Uncle Paul's birthday last week. He is 94. Paul was happily holding court with about 6 ladies. Last week was a whirlwind of activity with Paul being feted in many ways by several ladies (some of whom are my age; scandalous!). I guess Paul is the only surviving man in their age group besides Uncle Pierre (who turned 100 on July 4 last summer) but Uncle Pierre no longer travels to Marseille. As for Paul's much younger women; they probably appreciate his courtly old manners. For myself; I adore him and he speaks good English too with a proper UK accent.

Uncle Paul wanted to drive me and Sabine to his lady friend's beach house on the Med.; I declined. I do not really fancy having a 94 year old drive me around and I am only marginally OK with Sabine driving us but I am not about to try to drive in Marseille and parking is incredibly difficult and a job of bumper cars at best.

What I read this week:

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; it is a great chick book and I liked it but part of it made me want to ram my head into a wall. The author is just so neurotic you want to shake her but some interesting and amazing things happen on her journey.

The Dead Heart by Douglas Kennedy; Michel liked this book and so did his brother but I just think it is a nightmare I would rather not have read. Man book.

My Life in France by Julia Child; this is a good read if you are a foodie and it is historical too. I was a young girl when all this was going on and I recall a lot of the political and economical problems she encountered after WW2. Plus I recall her early TV shows which were funny and inspiring.

The Complete Jane Austen Reader; it has it all. I am currently reading Emma. Have read all this before but never get tired of her writing or her heroines.

The Alchemist by Paul Coelho; I am late reading this book it is clever and simple and it's OK but kind of silly. Sometimes people read their own sort of nonsense in between the lines of a book and say it is profound. I think this is what happened to this little oeuvre when it caught fire in the '90's. I understand Michel's cousin, one of the Lafont publishers in Paris, made a fat wad of cash with the French translation of this book. Actually, the part I liked best is the forward with the little fable about Narcissus that goes just a little bit farther than the original version.

I am a tough critic.

Miss you all and hope you are all healthy and happy.

Michel' Hitler site: We Can Never Forget the Horror

2009-10-04T07:24:00.000-05:00

http://schikelgruber.net

The link aboVE is a site Michel did about Hitler, WW2, and the Nazis. Michel is fascinated with all things about the World War Two but he is an expert on the life of Hitler and the Nazi party. Michel spent years researching this site and he has put everything on the site from Hilter's drawings to photos of Eva Braun's underwear and also some unusual information on the site. There are lots of rare photos, as well. Even if you are not much interested in Hitler or the Nazi party it is interesting to read the information. Of course, Michel gets all sorts of crazed reactions from Skinheads and self-styled "Nazis"; these people are disturbing and scary and sometimes threatening. Michel says we have to record what went wrong so we can stay on the right path in the future.

I am fond of teasing him about being some sort of reincarnated Nazi officer who died toward the end of the war in France, regretted his life and came back to document the horror of the Nazi regime. One day we decided to look up the officers that were killed around the time of Michel's birth and we found one that fit the picture. Not saying I really believe in this but it is fun to conjecture.

Michel's family, on both sides, all spent WW2 fighting the Nazis and their allies. They also had a rough time hiding Aunt Edwine and her six children for six years because she was an American Jewish lady albeit married to Uncle Pierre, a Frenchman. If the Nazis had found her they would have taken her and the children into prison camps. This is when Uncle Pierre was off in the African desert fighting Rommel and Uncle Paul was getting torn up on the battlefield in France and another uncle was in a POW camp in Germany. "It was the worst of times", as Dickens said.

The Nazis took a lot of the family's land and destroyed the family Domain (winery) that is still named Labegude. This domain has been making Bandol for centuries but the Nazis took it over and ruined the place with some sort of scorched Earth policy. After the war, one of Sabine's brothers, Uncle André, took over the task of trying to start over at Labegude planting vines and trees. It took forty years to get it back together and producing wine, almonds and olive oil. Michel's cousin ended up tending the place and making the wine but in 1997 the brothers were all so old they decided to sell Labegude and divvy up the money before it got caught in the swirling drain of French inheritance laws: the family was just too big and the place would have been fractioned into nothing. In France you cannot write a will and leave something to someone if you have heirs still living who can inherit. It is virtually impossible to cut your next of kin out of your will.

So, Michel had done this site on Hitler and the Nazis in French and was always lamenting that it had no one reading his work. I kept saying to him he needed to bite the bullet and do it in English but he was reluctant to do so as writing in English is not native to him, although he is a well known writer in France. We had this argument for years.

One day he announced he decided to translate the site into English; I feared we would get a divorce fighting over the translation. I tried to help but it was difficult for him and for me and I finally decided it is better to help him and not get too critical and he will be happy with his work. It took months but finally it was done and he was happy.

I hope you will take a look at Michel's site.

The Hemorrhoid Pantomime and Other Grievous French Language Offenses I May Have Committed

2009-09-27T07:09:00.000-05:00

Several of you have written to ask me if I am fluent in French and how I am getting along with the language and accomplishing everyday tasks. I have seriously avoided answering this question because I am embarrassed I have somehow lived with a Frenchman for twelve years and managed to hardly learn a word of spoken French. I do better with written French preferably on a menu. The reason for this is the French language is very involved with vowels and consonants you should NOT pronounce. This is difficult for me as I am endowed with my Protestant Anglo American work ethic for pronouncing every stinking letter in a word of our long flat language. One of the other huge problems with learning spoken French is how not to say the words so they end up sounding like some other embarrassing French word, and, OH, I have had some terrible moments with horrible French pronunciations.

For example: I thought I was telling Sabine (my Mother-in-law) that her hairstyle was pretty but I ended up saying she had a beautiful style of goat. Hair in French can be said as cheveux, chevelure or cheveu and if you are me you are so damned caught up in not pronouncing the end of the words they can actually come out sounding like chevre (goat - pronounced Chev) but I always forget. Happily, she did not hold this against me like she did the other day when I naively asked her in French where she gets her clothes for big women. Insinuating pulchritude on a French woman is considered just cause for guillotining.

Ditto our conversation about a peach. I wanted a peach in the fruit bowl at Sabine's house. The word for peach is pêcher or peche but my sloppy pronunciation got me in trouble. "Je veux une pecher", I announced. This produced a very troubled look on Sabine's face and she ran into the living room to ask Michel why I wanted a fish. The words look the same but there is a mild difference in the pronunciation and in a shop I would have been slimed.

Some years ago I decided to learn one sentence in French to impress my Mother-in-law, who speaks almost no English. Our telephone conversations were reduced to bad Spanish with a smattering of French and English words. I had for years thought it was probably better not to be able to converse with ones Mother-in-law, but now I am in France it cannot be avoided and we are forced to communicate. Unfortunately, Michel's wicked sense of humor ran away with him, so instead of my telling her our toilet was stopped up, Michel taught me to say to her, "Le merde de Michel bouché les toilettes" which translates to, "the poop of Michel stopped up the toilet". She was speechless at first. Nevertheless, it gave the family some much needed humor and I felt some slight warmth of vindication. However, when I came back to France this time I decide to translate important things on Google translator and write them down to avoid mispronunciations, misunderstandings, unwanted gaffs and getting deported.

Sometimes I would get caught without my little written French mantra but I soon discovered I am very very good a pantomime. I said pantomime not mime.

One day I lost my expensive prescription sunglasses in the small supermarket around the corner. No one in the market spoke a drop of English but when I took my thumbs and forefingers and encircled each eye with imaginary glasses and said, "pour soleil" they got it. The next time I came back to the market my sunglasses and I were happily reunited. Now I know the French words for sunglasses is Lunettes de soleil but the gift of pantomime sure helps out in a lot of situations.

So today, when Michel asked me to go to the pharmacy tomorrow and get him some Preparation H, I paused, gave it thought, and then asked him to write it down because I told him I am not going to do a hemorrhoid pantomime in the pharmacy. I suppose this would consist of me patting my large derriere and feigning pain in the buttocks producing some sort of strange comedy that would nonplus patrons and pharmacists alike.

I can just conjure up the picture of me doing that but, oh, hell no! Then the mental picture of me doing the Hemorrhoid dance shot through both our minds at the same time and we laughed until we cried.

Also, I should caution you not to come to France and say "merci beaucoup" (mercy bow coo) to everyone you meet. Just say, "merci", this is because if you mispronounce these words you are not saying "thank you" but instead you have told them they have a lovely behind (cul is butt or ass in French and it is pronounced "coo").

The long and the short of it is that you are better to write stuff down and be sure you get your point across rather than relying on bad French to cause another Franco American tiff. Too many French words sound the same to undiscriminating American ears when pronounced but can get you in a lot of trouble, whereas, if you write them down there is far less confusion.

Now I have to tell you something about the French idioms. French have idioms for everything and, unfortunately, sometimes they are not nice and some are even bordering on socially unacceptable language but in France they get away with this stuff because it is part of the ancient culture of their idiomatic crazy language and no one here is racist or anti-Semitic here: brotherhood and equlity for all in France, babes.

Here is an example: You hit yourself in the arm and get the sensation called the "funny bone" as we say in English....but in France you hit yourself in the arm and you get "un petit Juif" - "a little Jew". I don't make this up and I deeply apologize to anyone who might be offended but that is the actual saying and they all say it, as well, and it is not considered bad or inappropriate but just a sort of ancient silliness that still hangs around. Also, there is nothing wrong with being small or being Jewish and some of my best friends are both but when you take the idiom in it just seems not right to me.

I will caution you all not to come to France and start spewing idioms because you will not make yourself seem more acquainted with French and it could well get you in some deep merde. Just be nice and polite to people and try to say things but do not try to say idioms or curse words; this is not going to integrate you into French society.

After saying all this I do absolutely wish you would come to France and try to speak French but I just want to caution you on a few things and tell you not to be insulted if you get strange looks and no one understands what you are trying to say; they will be patient with you if you are polite and as long as you are trying. French are always polite saying hello, good day, good evening, good night, etc. You better say good whatever to everyone you see because it is a social gaff not to do it. Do not get angry or shout or curse people in France; they may do that to each other but we, as tourists do not have that license.

Next week: The art of social kissing for greetings and goodbyes.

Next week more inappropriate French sayings I must own and injecting English words into the French vocabulary; they have actually assimilated a lot of English words into daily French. This is probably because the entire populace of the United Kingdom have come live here and have bought up most of the real estate and are now selling it back to the French and unsuspecting foreigners with more money than sense.

Note: Please enjoy my blog but please do not copy, cut and paste or reproduce it in any way or fashion as all my work has a copy write/copyright, which I reserve for myself and my heirs. Thank you.

Happy Sunday - Making Soupe au Pistou

2009-09-27T03:36:00.000-05:00

Hello to all you fine friends! Hope you all had a good week and are getting some much needed relaxation today.

Beautiful sunny weather here today. I am smugly eating my breakfast brioche I got at the bakery last night. Here, want some! YUMMMM.

Last night Sabine brought over some Soupe au Pistou for Michel. She had made this soup and not passed it through the food mill soup churning grinder thing they use here to make soup more kind of pureed but not quite smooth enough to be puree. French are very fond of pureed food. Anyway, Soupe au Pistou is kind of the gumbo of Provinçe. Of course it does not taste like Gumbo and you do not make a roux but everyone here makes their own sort of Soupe au Pistou and there are tons of variations on the recipe and there are versions that are served hot, lukewarm or cold. It is a vegetable soup without meat so it's great for vegetarian friends who come to dinner.

The Pistou is an ancient Roman recipe that was noted by some Roman historians as being brought to Provençe (then part of Gaul) during the Roman occupation of "Gaul". Basically, you make the soup then you make the oily paste topping (the Pistou) by grinding up some herbs - you have to include fresh basil that is a must and the best olive oil and fresh garlic (a lot of people add cheese as well but not the kind that strings when it mealts) then you top the soup with the "pistou" or else bring the pistou to the table in its own little pot and let your diners put their own pistou into their soup while it is still hot or cold but you do NOT cook the Pistou in the soup because you lose all the flavors of the herbs. So, Pistou is a kind of take on Italian Pesto and you can see the similarity in the two words. In the old days Pistou and Pesto were ground down in a mortar and pestle (hence the pesto/pistou name) but nowadays we use the blender or food processor and if you are a glutton for punishment you can just hand grind your Pistou to your hearts content. The Italians might add pine nuts to their pesto or almonds or even walnuts, but in Provençe we do not add nuts.

Recipe for warm Soupe au Pistou

Ingredients:

* 1 tablespoon butter
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 3/4 cup chopped white onion and/or some shallots
* 1/2 cup chopped celery
* 1 clove garlic, finely chopped or crushed
* 1/4 cup chopped leeks (be sure you split the leeks an clean them well)
* 3/4 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme (1/4 teaspoon dried thyme)
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 4 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
* 1 cup chopped carrots
* 1/2 cup chopped fresh tomatoes (I use POMMI in the carton or canned)
* 1/2 cup cooked white beans
* 1/2 cup cooked red beans (kidney or red)
* 3/4 cup cut green beans
* 1 1/2 cups cooked, small pasta (shells, bow ties, elbows, etc.)

Pistou:
4 ounces fresh basil
6 small cloves garlic, each cut into quarters
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2/3 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
I also throw in half a can of chick peas usually

Note: You can use canned rinsed beans but you have to use fresh or frozen green beans.

If you are going to pass this through a food mill then do so before you add the pasta.

In a large saucepan over medium heat, sauté the onion, celery, and garlic in the butter and oil for 5 minutes, until the vegetables start to soften. Add the leeks, thyme, salt, and pepper to the pan and sauté for an additional 2 minutes.

Pour the chicken stock into the saucepan with the sautéed vegetables and add the carrots, tomatoes, and all the beans. Bring the soup to a simmer and cook it, uncovered, for 25 minutes. Stir the cooked pasta into the soup and remove it from the heat.

To make the pistou:

Blend the basil, garlic, cheese, olive oil, salt, and pepper in a food processor until it forms a smooth paste. Alternately, pound the ingredients using a mortar and pestle. I use my little mini blender for this.

Ladle the hot soup into serving bowls and drizzle a small amount of pistou on each serving.

This soupe au pistou recipe makes 8 to 10 servings.

This is a great winter soup first course or a meal with crusty garlic bread and some good cheeses for dessert with an apple pie or just baked apples.

So, have fun with your soup recipes and I will leave you with this thought.......coming soon to this blog......real genuine French Fondue and raclette recipes.

Chemo Vl

2009-09-26T08:01:00.000-05:00

We showed up at Clairval Hospital on Thursday for Chemotherapy session four. If things go as predicted by the oncologists then we have only two chemotherapy sessions left in the near future. We arrived around 11:30 AM and we had forgotten to do Michel's blood tests so the secretary of the Chemo unit sent us to the lab to get his blood drawn.

We went back up to the Chemo unit and were taken to the only empty chair. Michel was immediately served a snack with extra apple juice for me. While he was eating they began the drips. Michel finished eating, went to sleep, and dreamed his way through Chemo, as usual. I sat by him and read my book, noshed on cookies with tea and generally tried to pass the time. Thankfully, the chemo session was uneventful. Gerard taxi drove us home and Michel continued his snoozing.

We thought our nurse, Florence, was coming to start the nightly IV drips again that night but she did not. She did come last night and Michel slept with his drip all night until 7 AM this morning.

It is very alarming to us that the ignorant actress, Suzanne Sommers, had been broadcasting about that chemotherapy killed Patrick Swayze. She obviously knows nothing because chemotherapy is not only designed to retard cancer growth but it is also a potent pain killer. If anything, chemotherapy kept Swazye alive many months past his expiration date.

Chemo takes a bad wrap. I also believed chemo was not a good alternative for cancer treatments - once upon a time - but I used the think a cancer diagnosis was a death sentence. Over the years I have had the experience of seeing some friends go through chemo - living - and still living years later; I am a believer.

You can bet your bottom dollar we are going to try everything we can do within sensibility and our means to keep Michel comfortable, pain free, and with the hope of recovery.......but we are not going to take him to a medicine man or for herbal "cures" or any sort of sham faith healing crapola. Do I believe that faith heals? Hell yes! Do I think people take advantage of the hopelessness of others when they are sick? Absolutely! If you or your loved ones are ever in our position I think you may feel the same but individuals make their own decisions about their medical illnesses (except in the case of the young boy whose parents were ordered to give him chemotherapy by a much wiser judge).

A couple of weeks ago my friend, Neil, had to fly out to California to see a long time friend of his before she died. She had decided to try to cure her breast cancer with herbal therapy and she lost her life. In the end she was living in s hospice laying there waiting for death. I think hospices are wonderful places for people who are so ill they cannot get the sort of care they need at home but this woman might be alive today if she had taken the risk and gone for the chemo.

So, we had to try this route. If it does not work we will try something else. Whatever we do we are going to have to stay in France a long time in order to take the other treatments Michel has to have each month: Zometa and androgen therapies. In the US Zometa is not frequently given due to the expense of the treatments; here in France a nurse comes to your house and gives it to you and it costs a tiny fraction of the cost in the US. I have read Zometa discussion boards where people were freaking out in the US because they were denied the treatment by their insurance companies but also others were terrified of going over their limit because in the US the cost of Zometa treatments is something like 250,000 dollars per year. In France the cost is something like 9,000 a year or less.

Today is Saturday and I have a lot of shopping to do so I better get at it and wish you all a great weekend!

Shopping

2009-09-25T01:22:00.000-05:00

Wednesday was a lovely day with the temperature in the early 80's and bright sunshine. Michel decided he wanted to walk to the little news stand at the end of our street. On the way, as the sun beat down on his head, he decided we should go down a few blocks to the "Camping" store to get him a cap.

The outdoors store is huge but it is not Academy. There were an assortment of caps in various muted colors very chic not like the US caps with logos and bright colors but very understated and.......French. And all made in France. No cheap stuff from China or Taiwan in France. You buy French made goods or you buy nothing.

Michel settled on a parchment colored cap with a slightly smaller bill than the other caps. The price of this little cap of nothing was 12 Euros or about 18 US dollars. It is well made....... Michel also needed a belt so we found a dark brown leather belt with silver buckle very well made - French made, of course - nothing special about the belt but the price was 20 euros or about 30 US dollars. This is just a belt to temporarily hold up his skinny pants - we are not talking Hérmes here. I think this belt would have a tough time commanding a price of 12 dollars in the US but also it would then be made in China or Indonesia and it would fall apart in about two weeks. I know the total for the belt and cap was only about 40 euros and I have never been one to be accused of being "cheap" but that seemed like a lot to me for a cap and a belt; albeit a French cap and belt.

You all know we have been living more or less at the beach for the past ten years. When you live at the beach you do not worry too much about your clothes, in fact, the less clothing you can wear the better in a beach environment. Plus, I have to have dog proof clothing because the dog likes to sit in my lap. I like to cuddle him too but he sheds a lot. In Galveston it only gets kind of cool during the end of December, January and parts of February. The azaleas are normally out for my birthday on February 7. Some years it never gets cool and we have almost no Winter. Winter to us is below 55F. Whereas Michel and I used to both independently be clothes horses, we are now both officially beach slobs. I have actually avoided several highfalutin occasions simply because I did not want to get dressed and for sure I did not want to get out of my Crocs flip flops.

Phillippe Charriol once called us to invite us to stay with him at his Aspen home during the season. He and Michel are old friends and Michel had written a book about him after he became rich and famous. While we were grateful for the invitation; I became apoplectic just at the thought of having to wear clothes, plus I am totally not one to want to rub elbows with the "beautiful people". They are probably nice people but I really detest overt displays of wealth and skinniness and I have not had a facelift......just saying........ Back in the day, Phillipe's former wife actually tried to fix Michel up with Ivana Trump! Poor Michel had to settle with me.

Anyway we came back home and Sabine stopped by about a half hour later. During the course of the conversation she asked Michel (in French) if I have any Winter clothes. I understood and told her I do not. Then I explained I have no Winter clothes at all and it is going to be tough for extra tall extra large me to find anything to wear in France so I think I have to order on line from the UK where my Anglo Saxon sisters are heftier but not much taller. She nodded but then she said there are shops in Marseille for big ladies and also there are catalogues too. I asked her what are the names of the catalogues, thinking I could look them up on line, and she got this strange insulted kind of look on her face and explained in French to Michel that she did not know because she never had reason to try to obtain big ladies clothes. This as so funny to me because it is obvious Sabine never had to order from a big woman's catalogue because she is not 5 feet tall and weighs perhaps 85 pounds (approximately the size of one of my thighs). Saine and I both broke up laughing and I got such a funny bone tickle tears rolled down my face.

I guess I will have to shop on Ebay but I cannot buy shoes on there so I did find the equivalent of Zappos in France. If you have not tried Zappos in the US, then you should give yourself a treat: free shipping and free returns. It is an on line shoe store. You order and your shoes are at your door the next day. If they do not fit or if you do not like them you ship them back UPS (all shipments come with labels you can print out on line) for free and Zappos credits back you credit card - no restocking charges - nothing and you have the added incentive of reading the reviews people post about specific shoes - do they run big/small, do they have arch support, are they comfortable, are they wide enough, do the squeak, do they rub blisters or cut into your instep or smell, etc. Plus the price of shoes on Zappos site is often less than at the store and you do not pay tax! at least I do not recall ever paying tax on a Zappos order. I buy a lot of stuff on line because we live on an island and there is limited shopping on the island plus I dislike going to the mainland to shop.

New Porta Cath, Melons I have Known and Loved and this week's reading list

2009-09-23T04:29:00.000-05:00

We had Gerard the taxi driver waiting for us at 2:30 PM yesterday. We sailed right through to Clairval Hospital and they managed to take us early. Everything was done expeditiously and Michel was back in his little mini-room in recovery by about 4:30PM. He was brought a snack, his blood pressure taken and then the floor nurse and I went on a quest to the chemotherapy department to get another prescription for Emend for Michel's chemo treatment on Thursday. She is a wizard, that nurse, and I am indebted to her because the secretary was being surly and did not want to print out the ordonnace because she was running a bunch of other stuff off her printer. I suppose it was menus for tomorrow's meals; just joking. Finally, the nurse got the prescription odonnance but I am not sure how she did it because at a certain stage she told me to go back to Michel and maybe she printed it herself or wagged a pain au chocolat under the secretary's nose but however she got it I am happy we do have it now.

Michel was not pleased with his snack but it was the end of the day and I think they had run out of duck l'orange with pom de terre truffles (LOL). It was a small baguette, a slice of cheese, a yogurt natural with some packets of sugar, some sugar free apple fruit puree, and some cookies. He did eat most of it but his neck was sore and he was woozy.

We met Gerard Taxi at slightly after 5 PM and despite traffic we were back at the flat by around 5:30 PM. Sabine came to sit with Michel and I went off shopping.

I decided to go to the little shop around the corner. It is run by a sweet Jewish family who are what is known as "pied-noir" (black feet) in France because they are French citizens who were living in Algeria when France gave up their colonization of that country in 1962. There are various stories on how the "pied noir" term came into use but in 1962 there was a mass migration of the French nationals who had been living in Algeria (some for generations) back to France to try to avoid all the chaos and bloodshed that was in Algeria at the time. ------Anyway, the people who own the shop are lovely to me and go out of their way to try to speak a little bit of English for me and I also try to muddle along in French for them. They have just come off vacance (a month of vacation) during this time their new grandson, Joshua, was born.

It is interesting to note that the French colonization of Algeria began in 1827 when the Dey of Algiers intentionally hit the French Consul with a fly swatter and things escalated from that insulting incident to the French taking over the entire country. Think before you swat.

The little shop had a bountiful batch of melons and they always have the more exotic fruits, nuts and dates from North Africa which appeals to me. I got a melon blanc. It looks like a dark green faintly orange speckled football in size and shape but one end is more rounded than the other. I had never seen one but Sabine said they are delicious and I cut it open as soon as I got home because it would not fit in the refrigerator whole. This meant I had to eat a piece too. It tastes somewhat similar to watermelon but not as watery, the flesh is white and much more dense and more crisp. The center of the melon has seeds like a cantaloupe and it has an orange tinge in the center around the seeds, but the flavor is nothing like a cantaloupe or musk melon nor like a honey dew melon or Persian melon. I like melon blanc!

This reminds me of another melon story that pertains to the French Mediterranean. My friend, judi, (she spells it that way) and her second husband were on their honeymoon (I think it was their honeymoon). I am not sure if they were on the French part of the Med. but I suspect they were because she wrote to me that they stopped at this little restaurant and they ordered "pasta" and "agua", thinking they would get dishes of pasta and glasses of water. Instead the waiter brought them slices of watermelon and bottles of mineral water. She had no idea why he brought melon. That stayed with me all these years until, on my second trip to France, I found out that watermelon in French is pastèque (pronounced pass teck) which means pasta agua or water pasta, so then it was quite logical that the waiter brought them watermelon instead of spaghetti.

My favorite watermelon story of all time actually happened to me when I was about seven months pregnant with Sean. I was huge almost from the beginning of the pregnancy and when I was seven months I looked like I was about to deliver twins. Anyway, I craved a lot of different foods during the pregnancy but the one thing I wanted most was watermelon. I dreamt of watermelons, painted pictures of them and coveted them in grocery stores. Unfortunately, for me, from about my fourth month the doctor told me not to eat watermelon because I was retaining too much water. It was a hot July and my husband's Father had come up from the Canal Zone in Panama to visit us. I suppose he got tired of listening to me admire the watermelons in the produce department every time we went grocery shopping. One day, as his visit was about to end, he told me he didn't care what the doctor told me; he would buy me my own big watermelon that day and I could eat it all if I pleased. I was elated and immediately organized a melon shopping trip with my husband in tow.

At the grocery store there were huge bins of watermelons. I was trying to choose the largest and most ripe melon I could find which meant I did a lot of thumping as my husband hoisted the melons for me. At last I had made my selection and my husband lifted the fat melon on his shoulder as we went to stand in the check-out line. As we stood in the line I noticed a woman with two little girls in front of us. The girls were about five and seven and they appeared to be looking at my belly and then at the melon. There eyes went back and forth from belly to melon then from melon to belly. My husband had noticed their back and forth glances and figured he knew what they were thinking. Suddenly he looked at me and said in a really loud voice, "now please do not swallow this one whole like you did that last one". The little girls eyes almost fell out of their heads and I reckoned that mother was going to have a tough time explaining things when they got home.

By the way, Sean will not eat watermelon!

This has ended up being the melon story blog but I have to add one final melon story. When I first moved to Atlanta I had a boy friend named Chuck. Chuck was very good at finding interesting things to do and Atlanta has a lot of festivals and fun things to experience. One Sunday morning Chuck read about a watermelon festival at Stone Mountain Park. It was put on by the watermelon growers and it was all the watermelon you could eat for free. He knew I was a big fan of watermelon - free or not. In the early afternoon we went to the festival. There were truck loads of ripe watermelons with raised platforms for the cutters who where slicing the melons. The melon cutters were all young men; a racially mixed bunch of guys in tee shirts and jeans and big white towels to wipe juice off themselves. Nice young men........in the beginning.

Things started out in a normal mode: with the young men cleaving the melons open and slicing up sections for consumption. After about an hour the atmosphere started to get BIZARRE. The cutters started to take on the personalities of pirates scuttling a fleet of ships. They removed their tee shirts and wrapped them around their heads like turbans, hung the big towels from their waists and resorted to pirate-like banter with the crowd. The knives seemed to become scimitars and suddenly we were witnessing a wholesale watermelon slaughter. Juicy melon blood and guts were flowing and spattering on everyone. The pirate butchers chopped, skewered, sliced, diced, guillotined and flayed as they drew and quartered the unfortunate melon population. They became quite inventive with their murderous melon mutilation and began a treacherous melon toss....soon the tables were overflowing and the ground was strewn with half eaten melon corpses. The crowd was getting into it too egging the pirates on and yelling off with their heads and so forth. We took photos. We laughed. We wondered about human nature and we ate some of the victims. Gradually, we became aware that the pirates were just a little too free with swinging their blades and I got worried some one might be hurt. Eventually we were full of melon meat and also covered in melon blood so we went home to ponder the very strange day and the battle of the melons. That night I had melonmares but it did not put me off melons.

What I read this week: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larsson, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, Talk to the Snail by Stephen Clarke and I am now reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

The Girl Who Played With Fire: Second book of the Millennium series and this one is not as good. I read the first book a couple of weeks ago and it is a passably good book. The third book comes out around the first part of October and I do not think I will read the new book.

Pillars of the Earth: my general feeling is don't bother with this supposedly "epic" book and don't' bother with its successor book, A World Without End, because it is even worse than the first book.

Talk to the Snail: Stephen Clarke is an Englishman who has lived in Paris for twelve years. This books is about how to get around in France and has some phrases that may come in useful to make your French visit easier also this book explains the French mentality and how to deal with French people. I think it is a good primer if you are coming to France for the first time or if you have cluelessly visited France and still do not know much about the French mind set or language.

Septicemia and Mon Tumor

2009-09-22T02:42:00.000-05:00

Have to apologize to you all for not writing. Friday was pure havoc.

Friday morning I had an appointment at the hospital across the street from our flat for an ultrasound of a lump I have on my upper arm near my shoulder. I have had this for some time and the doctor in Galveston said he did not know what it could be but he ordered an ultrasound that was to cost $2,500. I decided to wait and on Friday, I got the same thing done in France for 56 euros or about $73 US. Even the radiologist who did the ultrasound has no idea what the lump is but he says it is in the muscle and he thinks it should come out. The radiologist did say it is probably 95 percent benign. Michel's Cousin, Anne-Marie went with me because she worked in the hospital for years and now she has retired she volunteers there, as well. She told me she knows a good surgeon but I would have to go back to Dr. Reynaud and get an Ordonnance to go to the surgeon - no problem Michel got me an appointment wit Dr.R for Monday.

In the meantime Michel stayed home because the hospital had told him to call the Chemo secretaries Friday morning to get the results of all the blood tests they took when he had all the troubles in the Chemo section on Thursday. When he called they told him he had a bad infection to come to the hospital immediately and not to pass "go". Sabine drove him to the hospital and they prepped him and surgically removed the infected porta cath.

When he called me on the cell phone to tell me all this he made it sound like a non-event and wanted, instead, to tell me about the menu for the delicious lunch he had been served at the hospital!!!!!!!!!

So,yesterday, Monday, I walked over to see Dr. Raynaud and she gave me about a hundred prescriptions(ordonnances) for me and Michel and then told me she wanted to do some blood tests on me. I told her I did not have time to go to the lab for blood tests this week and she said, "you don't understand in France the lab techs come to your house and take blood and you don't have to go too long without petit déjeuner" (breakfast). How French. I said fine so she gave me the order, Michel called the lab and this morning at 8:06 AM a lab tech was here and took six vials of blood. NICE!

FIVE STAR FRENCH HOSPITAL FOOD

2009-09-19T07:22:00.000-05:00

The doctor and the nurses all said they wanted to keep Michel for a time to be sure he was fine and one of the nurses told him they were going to serve lunch and he could eat ten desserts if he wished. I thought I heard this wrong but in a few minutes the food service staff started bringing in carts with all manner of amuse-bouche/amuse-gueule finger foods and minuscule desserts which they spread on about a 20 foot white cloth draped table against the wall of the Chemo room.

I tried to get some shots of the beautiful food on my cell phone but cannot figure out how to transfer it to the computer.

Anyway there were all sorts of decorated finger sandwiches, spoons filled with gourmet bites such as goat cheese in olive oil and herbs with walnuts and a clear spoon of skewered wee kabobs of curried chicken cubes, bits of spicy merguez sausage, with a cube of roasted pumpkin and a pineapple wedge, and tiny shot glass size parfaits along with mini tarts, filled cookies, small flans; teeny napoleons and all manner of miniature pastries; remarkable and a wonderful repast served up on marbelized porcelain plates to boot.

SCARY: Two Steps Up and One Step Back

2009-09-18T07:18:00.000-05:00

Wednesday night Michel had what looked like a cross between and seizure and going into shock. He started screaming at me that he was cold and he was shaking and shivering all over. He became unresponsive and I was afraid he would go into a coma. No amount of blankets would get him warm or stop the shivering and quaking. It was a scary event and he looked like a frozen blue man. We called Beatrice one of our nurses and we cut the IV machine off. She removed the IV but the porta cath (line of success aka central line) was still in and Michel was scheduled for chemotherapy on Thursday morning.

We went to the chemo session and we also spoke to one of the oncology doctors who seemed to dismiss our descriptions of grand mal fits and said maybe it is a little infection and go and take the chemo we are going to clean out the porta cath first. Fine.

The cleaning of the porta cath is running some sort of liquid through the tube and then after an hour they start the chemo. Voila! Another grand grand mal series of fits and Michel turned purple while his tongue turned blue. It was a very scary ordeal the nurses wrapped him in blankets. As soon as the fit started we told them to turn the machine off and they did but it was still thirty minutes of terror.

As horrible as this experience was; I was glad it happened at the hospital because the doctors and nurses were able to see it.

They needed blood for testing so they took some from the porta cath in Michel's neck. Then nurses were trying to find a vein in Michel's arms but Michel was shaking so much they were afraid to stick him because and his veins were rolling. After Michel stopped the shaking and trembling. The staff called the expert blood letter in the hospital and he immediately got Michel's punch to flow into these little glass bottles that look like the wine bottles you are served whilst on an airplane. Trust the French to combine phlebotomy with oenology.

THE NEWS ON MICHEL'S CONDITION IS GOOD

2009-09-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

We visited with the oncologist, Dr. Paoli, today. He said Michel's condition is stabilizing and he is encouraged by the PSA going down 11 points. We are going to take the next 3 chemo sessions,continue with Zometa, Eprex and all the rest and continue "the Cow" (my name for the IV profusion) and see where we are when we visit Dr. Paoli on November 17 at 1500.

Docetaxel and Zometa work! and so does all the great home care we have from our nurses Florence and Beatrice.

We are encouraged to keep fighting!

Uncle Paul Visits and so Does Tante Regine

2009-09-15T04:04:00.000-05:00

There was a lot of discussion and consternation concerning the proposed visit of Uncle Paul to Marseille. The biggest brouhaha was whether or not Sabine should accommodate him in her guest quarters because she is so tired and stressed about Michel's illness...but no one asked Sabine how she felt about this...and she was quite happy to have her brother come to see her.... The next discussion was whether or not 94 year old Uncle Paul was fit enough to travel by TGV (fast train) to Marseille alone. No one asked Uncle Paul about this either. He hopped right on a train and came anyway. Not before there were various strong conversations among the cousins who all tried more or less to get Uncle Paul to say home. It did not work.

I would be remiss if I did not add that Uncle Paul still drives a car but did not want to drive all the way to Marseille on his own. God save us!

Before anyone could dissuade him Uncle Paul arrived in Marseille,fully ensconced himself in Sabine's guest room, and was pouting because we did not want him to visit Michel; this was Michel's decision.

Soon enough I had to go over to Sabine's for something and I met Uncle Paul for the first time. I expected a mummy but I got a lovely smooth talking English speaking gentleman who looked perhaps 80. I was duly charmed into calling Michel and saying Uncle Paul would visit that very afternoon and Uncle Paul immediately set out walking to the hotel to visit Michel. They had a great visit and Uncle Paul had brought magazines in English so we could all read them.

NOTE: If you are planning a trip to the hinterlands of Paris or the other areas of France you would be well advised to watch out for driving centenarians. They are all still allowed to drive if they can get behind the wheel of a car. It might encroach on their personal freedom to take away their driving privileges according to the government view on the subject. However I have to also say I think the centenarians probably drive much better than your average 30 or 40 year old Frenchy who has an Ipod or a cell phone plugged into their ear (you hope they aren't driving and dialing but most of them are and blabbering away on hand held cells).

Tante Regine swirled into the flat yesterday in a navy blue cloud of Shalimar offering a lovely pink Cyclamen as the consolation prize for my not being able to keep anything else alive. She allowed she had to cut down on the jewels she wears on the street because three months ago her gold chains were ripped from her neck by some Romanian street snatchers (bands of people who go about grabbing people' jewelry etc on the street). She had instead worn an opera length necklace of 20mm pearls that were worth much more than a few gold chains with bits of diamonds. I found myself coveting her navy Hermes bag that had a big "H" hand punched into the side.

She did commit a great gaff when she asked us how our dog, "Pastis", was doing.
We both laughed so much we cried and found we did not hve the breath to correct her and say the dog's name is Pagnol. She had the P right and she got down that the name is ridiculous to a French person but she reckoned it was that Provençal drink like Pernod which is called Pastis. We were giggling about this into the night.

Sables Recipe for beginners

2009-09-14T02:58:00.000-05:00

Sable means sand in French. These are kind of like a shortbread but not quite; their consistency is more like the pecan sandies we have in the US but firmer. They are simple and delicious and have their beginnings in Breton. Some people make them thin and others make them thicker. Make them as you wish but the thickness does cut down or expand the baking time.

Enjoy with a cup of Mariage Freres or Kusmi Tea. I am a tea fanatic more on that later.

Sables:

Ingredients

1. 2 1/2 sticks (10 ounces) salted butter, softened
2. 1 1/3 cups granulated white sugar (
if you use powdered you might get a sandier cookie but have not tried it)
3. 2 large egg whites
4. 2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5. 1 teaspoon vanilla
(this is optional if you omit it also omit a tablespoon of flour)

If you use a very good butter then I would probably leave the vanilla out.

Directions

1. In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat until combined. Beat in the egg whites, 1 at a time, then beat in the flour. Refrigerate the dough until firm, if necessary. Divide the dough in half and transfer to 2 large sheets of plastic wrap. Shape the dough into 2-inch-thick logs, and wrap in the plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 2 hours.
2. Preheat the oven to 350°. Using a sharp, thin knife, slice 1 log of dough 1/4 inch thick. Arrange the cookies 2 inches apart on 2 large cookie sheets. Bake the cookies on the middle and lower racks of the oven for about 17 minutes, or until golden at the edges, shifting the pans from top to bottom and back to front halfway through. Let the cookies cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely. Wipe the cookie sheets clean and let cool completely, then repeat with the second log of dough.

Make Ahead

The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 2 months.

First Day for the Rest of our Lives

2009-09-14T02:32:00.000-05:00

Today they come to take the definitive blood test that pretty much holds our lives in a vial in some one's hands. We should get the results this evening and we are hoping the PSA has gone down appreciably but if it has not then we have to wait for the oncologist to interpret for us tomorrow.

The weather is much cooler. I was a bad wife and did not hustle to the grocery on Saturday so on Sunday we ate the reserves and today we had very little for petit dejeuner aka breakfast. Michel was starving due to all the steroids in the IV fluids; so I gave him the sables I had and then smoothed butter and jam on some toast biscuits for him. He was dreaming of brioche but he has to wait until I can go out and get some things......after the blood letting.

Sables are crumbly butter cookies that melt like sand on your tongue. Sable=sand in French. They are deliciously addictive but then most French baked goods are, as well.

If you can get your hands on any one of the Stephen Clarke books concerning Merde then you have a fun afternoon or plane ride. They are light hearted and offer a good insight into French life, language, culture, food, etc. I think he is a little too obsessed with women but he is a youngish man. A Year in the Merde is the first book that sets the pace. You can buy a cheap used book on Amazon OR Ebay.

Happy Birthday to all You Vertigos

2009-09-11T04:17:00.000-05:00

Thank you for all your emails of encouragement and thoughtful letters.

I am remiss in wishing Happiest of Birthdays to our friends who were born in September: Bailey, Sam, Pappy aka Bill and my own dear Sean.

The title comes from an old incident when I had a lovely but terrible dizzy older woman working for me. One day I was lamenting the trials and tribulations of living with my (then) husband and Sean. I happened to mention to the lady that they were both born in September and on the same day. She nodded and wagged her finger at me knowingly and said, " AH-hah! You see I knew it; they are both Vertigos!" Of course she meant "Virgos" and the entire office dissolved into laughter - while she proceeded to be unfazed and launched into a diatribe about all the "Vertigos" she had known.

My Heart 's in the Right Place.........and still beating

2009-09-09T06:08:00.001-05:00

Sabine was here last night and we all got the giggles about the time I meant to ask her for a peach but ended up asking for a fish!

We are now deep into the second week of nightly IV feedings for Michel. He is looking much better and also feeling good but he is still weak. He has almost no nausea now and he was hungry at lunch. He managed a fillet of fish in Parisienne sauce for dinner last night with rice. I am concerned that he is still so weak.

Next Monday Michel has more blood tests and a PSA will be done. We have an appointment with the oncologist on Tuesday afternoon. He should be able to tell us if the treatments are working or if they have to do something different.

Last Monday, I went back to the ear doctor. Inside my ear still looks somewhat like a guano cave to me but the doctor assured me it is healing. He put the fiber optic thing up my nose and it is fine too. He tested my hearing and it is very good!

After I left the ear doctor I had to go to the bank and get the new checkbook we ordered and I had to pass by Beautyrama.........I ended up buying a Guerlain lipstick number 20 and a bottle of Chergui plus I ordered my favorit Lancome premordial creme.

Once out of Beautyrama I had to go to Sabine's as she was taking me to Michel's cousin, Nicolas, for a heart exam (he is a cardiologist and he does this for the family) and he also was going to do an ultrasound on the growth on my arm.

It was an adventure with the traffic because it is at a hospital on the outskirts of Marseille. Nicholas is a handsome young fellow, very dark, very kind, and very proficient. He told me my heart is fine but he said he has no idea what the growth is on my arm. He wrote me an "ordinance" to get an ultrasound done by a radiologist in the hospital across from our hotel. I told him how much they wanted to charge me in Galveston to do this ($2,300) and he laughed and said in France it costs something like 40 euros. Amazing why does it cost so much more in the USA?

Marie Claude called yesterday to say she is coming to visit this afternoon. The hotel is coming to clean in about 40 minutes so I am going to scat to the Monoprix and get tiny lamb chops to see if Michel can eat them tonight.

France 3/ Ann 0; Lyrica 1/ Michel 0

2009-09-05T08:20:00.000-05:00

Michel deputized his friend, Marie Claude, to be in charge of me at the Prefecture because Daniele had to go to Paris to take care of some things with her children. Marie Claude speaks good English and she has just retired from her dental practice that she inherited from her Father. Her husband is still practicing dentistry at his own practice.

Marie Claude and I went back to the Prefecture on Thursday and they told us another bunch of things they had not previously told me when Daniele and I went there. So, I spent the evening getting letters and more copies and the next morning at 7:15 AM Marie Claude picked me up and we went to wait in line for an hour to get into the Prefecture. Once we got inside the building we were given a number and we got lucky as we were the first ones for the visa section. Our official was a nice young blond woman who read all the documents- they were all there and perfect - and then said NO to me. She told me I have to go back to Houston and get the Visa SEJOUR at the French Consulate in Houston. Bummer!

Marie Claude prevailed upon the young lady and she went to her superiors and they said I can have another 3 months and then and additional 3 months after that and then I have to go back to Houston. I got my 3 month permit but Michel is devastated.

Michel got on the phone with his cousins and there are two who are high up in the Sarkozy cabinets and they are trying to do something special for us.

Also, Daniele is back from Paris and she has "friends" she is calling and Marie Claude is calling her "friends", as well. I feel maybe we can get around this legal stuff but as much as I do not want to leave Michel; I could almost taste the hamburgers and tacos.

So, we all dodged a bullet with hurricane ERICA but, as A friend told me today, "we still have 4 weeks to go".

Michel is doing much better after almost 5 days of IV feedings but he is still wobbly on his feet and his blood sugar is high due to the effects of chemo and now the IV fluids. We had to double his diabetes medication and he is taking Lyrica for neuropathy pains in his feet and legs. Lyrica seems to make him very emotional and somewhat depressed. We have to call the doctor today and see if he should stay on this drug.

P.S. Possible Hurricane in Atlantic/Caribbean: Stock up on Stuff

2009-09-01T01:29:00.000-05:00

I have been watching this Tropical Storm sitting off the East Coast of South American kind of straddling the Atlantic and the Caribbean and I am concerned.

Friends in Texas: Please stock up and make some evacuation plans. We have all learned in the past 4 years to "be prepared".

Hope this is a false alarm.

I am reading Ken Follett's A World Without End, just started this behemoth of a book and I am wondering why they did not just make it two books. Ho-hum! I am wondering what all the fuss is about his books.

Tuesday Michel on IV Feedings Last Night

2009-09-01T01:02:00.000-05:00

Michel spent a good deal of Sunday night coughing with a lot of congestion. Beatrice came at 8 am to give Michel his first Eprex/Procrit injection. We called the doctor around 10 on Monday and she came here around noon. She said Michel did not yet have congestion in his lungs but prescribed a round of antibiotics. However, the doctor was concerned that Michel is so gaunt and thin looking.

We weighed Michel and were alarmed to learn he has lost 5 kilos in less than a week. This is about 11 pounds. The doctor decided to start intravenous feedings every night, here in our flat, and she also arranged for a physical therapist to come to our flat and give Michel some therapy every day for the next month. She then set the French medical system on warp speed and by 4PM our nurse, Beatrice, was back here with a technician and a bevy of boxes to set up the IV station. It is a brand new IV wheeled stand with computer monitor and red and green lights; hence I have christened it the "Christmas Tree".

Beatrice came back at 8PM to start the system. Michel and I slept only a few hours last night as we were apprehensive about all the tubes and lights but it worked out fine and at 7 this morning Beatrice reappeared to unhook Michel and set him free.

So, here I am trying to eat some breakfast while Michel sleeps like a free bird.

Also, yesterday we had to set up another home visitation by a lab tech for blood letting on the 14th of September. We have the much anticipated/dreaded consultation with Michel's oncologist to see where we are and where he thinks we are headed. This will be the first PSA test since end of June, so please say some prayers. If things go well we are looking for a PSA much lower than 68. This would be an indication that the chemo treaments are working because all the radiation treatments and the year of androgen therapy have not worked.

Think I am going back to bed.............

Condolences to Our Friends over at : A Languedoc Journal Blog

2009-09-01T00:55:00.000-05:00

We wish to express our heartfelt sympathies to our friends, Alex and Jan, over at A Languedoc Journal blog, who mourning the loss of a much anticipated grandchild.

Synopisis of this week

2009-08-30T07:39:00.000-05:00

Gentle reader, this week I have fallen in the bath tub, got locked out of the hotel when the lift stalled at 2130 on Saturday night and I was putting out the trash, had a hell of a time at the Prefecture trying to get my visa, was eaten and drunk (he did get that way) out of house and home by one of Michel's cousins, dealt with a non-functioning air conditioner in 90+ degree F weather and got my panties in a twist over ALL the crap in this hotel that breaks on a daily basis. I must add this is not a cheap hotel. Not to mention dealing with an incompetent lab tech who came to take Michel's blood and Michel being in bad condition due to another Chemo treatment.

How was your week?

BUREACRACY THY NAME IS FRANCE

2009-08-30T06:36:00.000-05:00

We discovered one of the main pieces of paper we need for my residence visa is Michel's French Identity card; he does not have one because he has always just used his passport as identification. This does not make the French government happy. He may have a French passport, a French driving license, a French health card and has been at the same Marseille address for 55 years but the French officials still want to know who he is.

Daniele and I tried to get the National Identity card for him but they would not do it because you have to go YOURSELF and also have photos taken.

On his way back from the blood letting at the lab, Michel decided to stop and try to get his Identity card. This was a very bad idea because he was in a really horrid mood and it only got worse at the Prefecture. One of the ladies at the desk gave him a bit of an argument and told him it would take 2 months to get the Identity card and he stormed out of the place after having an enormous hissy fit. Then he came home and plotted another way he could sucker Daniele and me into going to the downtown Prefecture (where she has some clout) on Friday and trying to get the identity card for him there.

Daniele is nice and she would jump through hoops for Michel and so would I. We agreed to try to do this for him. In the midst of reading all the papers Daniele decided we might as well make an attempt to get my visa and just skip the whole ID thing. So Danile came on Friday afternoon and gave me a thrilling chilling roller coaster ride to the government building where we needed to apply. After speed racing and out maneuvering a brown BMW for half the journey, she parked the car illegally and then parked me in the wrong line while she went outside to use her cell phone "clout" to chat up some people she knew in the building. It did not work because it was Friday and also August and no one was around for her to clout.

She did retrieve me, where I was standing behind a nice German Shepherd dog who was also in line with his owner. You can take dogs anywhere in France, I suppose.

Next I was parked in a longer line around the corner in a more aromatic environment (at least the dog was friendly and clean) of rather adversarial people who appeared to be Africans, Arabs and Gypsies and some Turks thrown in for good measure; all pushing along in line. I was feeling conspicuously over dressed and over scented. No one in line spoke English but eventually we all did have fun laughing at me because I had no good knowledge of their heavily accented French. My line mate was about a five foot tall Iranian guy of about 20 years who was nice and tried to interpret for me without knowing any English. Daniele was outside trying to get a stamp because I forgot to tell her we needed a stamped self addressed envelope to give to them to send the visa back to me.

It was all very jolly if odoriferous but finally, it was my turn and Daniele has just appeared back in the building. There was a lot of bantering back and forth between Daniele and the lady behind the window and Daniele showed her a lot of my documents but eventually the women explained the process was impossible because Michel should be there in person. She stated if Michel could not come in person then we needed a letter from a doctor stating the reason he could not. OK, finally we are getting somewhere. We run out of the building back to the car and call Dr. Reynaud and she agrees to write a quick letter for us and we will come pick it up from her in about 15 minutes. I should probably add that we only got to the right car after Daniele tried unsuccessfully to unlock a couple of black Mercedes SUVs just like hers and one of them had the perplexed owner still inside.

We picked up the letter from doctor Reynaud and went back to the hotel only to find Michel in utter distress. He had not eaten as he assured me he would do whilst we were gone and his blood sugar had gone to 67. I went to find a nutritional drink for him and Daniele consoled him while I got the drink.