Working Shanks' Pony

I gave Shanks' Pony a bit of a work out this weekend. My feet and I went off for a walk in the State Park nearby. There is a steep path which I am trying to climb without stopping part way up. My theory is that my lungs will expand and heal my bronchitis more quickly, as well as getting some basic aerobic exercise which is good for body and mind.
I decided to spit out my mentholated cough suppressant candy as I was huffing and puffing up the hill. The park is quiet and the chances of finding another hiker to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre if I inhaled my bon bon instead of the oxygen I needed did not seem like a good gamble.
I survived my vertical challenge, getting further up on Sunday than I did on Saturday. Small achievable goals, patting self on back and tottering on into the flat meadowland for a cool-down circuit and a glimpse of the grazing deer before heading back down the hill.
On Saturday I was pooped out to the point of taking a two hour nap. On Sunday I napped for twenty minutes and headed out to weed the front garden. Seeing that it was only mid afternoon I drove to the Baylands and hiked some more. I like the Baylands, (the area is flat for starters), mainly for the varied light by the water and the ever-interesting variety of water fowl.
The shock of my weekend came in the form of a long cardboard box. When I ordered my rowing machine I was comforted that free shipping would take 7-9 days. Procrastinator that I am about this, I felt that the actual moment when I would have to try to make myself exercise routinely was somewhere in the hazy future. Not so! Twenty-four hours is all they gave me. I opened the front door on Saturday and there it was.
Now why, you may ask, is this post about hiking when there is a rowing machine story to be told? The answer, of course, is that there is an unopened cardboard box in the garage.
to be contd...

Lovliest of Trees- Who am I Kidding?

Lovliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

by A. E. Housman

I have long taken to heart the message in this poem. It is a message to live by. Not only should we appreciate the beauty around us, but we should do it today. Make the most of every moment, because time is relentless. Since my fiftieth spring has come and gone, the math of the second verse is reversed for me. There is some sense of urgency here!

My little self-pitying bout with bronchitis, following immediately upon my fiftieth birthday and all kinds of ruminations about change and new beginnings has had me sitting numbly in an armchair in front of my television just waiting for it to be late enough to put myself to bed. I went to the doctor yesterday, although I can tell I am somewhat on the path to recovery. I would have been so thrilled if he told me I needed to be admitted and make no effort or decisions for a few days. Dehydrated was the verdict. Serendipitously, yesterday was water delivery day at my house. I drank, I felt better.

My newly hydrated brain has still been worrying away at life's dissatisfactions, until I realized that I am in the grips of a self-defeating rythmn of whining and making excuses. I am rather good at kicking other malingerers in the behind and motivating all and sundry to "just do it". I should have looked in my own mirror way before now.

Retail Therapy

When all else fails, there's always shoe-shopping to boost morale.

Cruddy week of hubby having a "Man-Cold" and then me getting sick with "Mere Mortal" cold.

We still have not had a conversation about what our future might hold, both drugged up on antihistamines and cough syrups, probably not the best time.

Tomorrow is Saturday. Full of potential. Famous last words.

At least I know what my feet will be wearing this summer, if not in which country they will be.

Something's Got to Change, contd.

Trying to examine my options can only be accomplished once I pin down what I want to achieve. This is my "thinking out loud and trying to answer my own questions" phase and blogging really helps.
One thing I am now sure of is that my husband must soon retire from our physically arduous stone-carving business. Unless we find someone else to invest in or buy our business; which was our original retirement plan, but is unrealistic in today's market; we will have to call it quits without reaping any substantial return on all those years we put in. We have lived well, no complaints, and I /we have a network of contacts, clients and friends that are a treasure.
I know a lot of people who could help me find my niche in the job world. I am not sure that I can single-handedly pull in enough money to stay in our large, rented home. I am not sure that I want to!
We live in an expensive area and hubby likes his space. Our house is ideal with a bedroom used as an office, a large bonus room for the main Art Studio and the formal dining room as a Water-Color studio.
It is just a house and not even ours. I could leave tomorrow and not miss a piece of furniture or a dish or a painting. I would take my passport and my file containing "people and places of interest", as well as the "quotes and poems" file. I'd need some clothes and my riding boots, my address book, of course. My daughter would become the keeper of photo albums.
I am no more tied to this area than to the house we live in. Once that conclusion is reached then there are almost too many options to consider.
Southern California is appealing. Work is not the only thing in life, having friends and spending time with them creates a good balance. Life is cheaper and sunnier there. Work is a question mark but not impossible.
Daughter is top of my list of important factors, although she and her husband are self-sufficient and we could handle being apart. Being in the same Country is easier.
I miss England, and the English. If I had a life with real vacation time I would spend it there. I have a Sister and Aunts and Cousins and many places to visit and enjoy.
I pragmatically didn't even stay for my Mother's funeral a few years ago. I had sat with her for two weeks as she died, in a sunny nursing-home room with a view of the sparkling summer-sea and peacocks strutting in the garden. I sat and played tapes of Frank Sinatra and my mother's own piano playing and drank more tea than one would think possible, crying as I composed her Eulogy.
I felt that my responsibility was to my living family and, of course, the business.
That is one of the decisions I most regret in my life and someone should have told me to stay and take my time. I am way too convincingly independent. Blame is mine alone.
England would be my first choice for my new beginnings, although the climate would take some getting used to after so many years away. Another draw-back is that Hubby would not live in England, unless he was doing the "Independently Wealthy, Jet-Set Artist Lifestyle", and there we go again with believing his own P.R.
France is a possibility. The French generally annoy me, but I married one so I am used to that. We would be far from our daughter, but she would visit and hubby has other family there. From France it would be easier to visit England, without an eleven hour plane ride.
There are jobs I could do in France. I lived there for five years so I know what I'm getting into. My spoken French is fluent but my written French is unacceptable and never going to improve. I can translate French to English and verbally do the opposite. I wing-it on verb endings. They all sound right as long as I don't have to put it in writing.
The choice that doesn't seem palatable is to keep doing what we are doing and wait for our lives to implode.

Wow! I've come a long way in my self-analysis. I have a notion of some steps to take to move myself forward.

Action List (I have a client who calls it that, instead of a To-Do list)
Put together some kind of resume
Look at house prices and rentals in France and jobs in San Diego.
Don't completely exclude England.
Get input from friends.
See what thoughts tomorrow will bring.

Something's Got to Change

Partly due to the event of my recent birthday, partly the economy, but mostly just waking up and asking myself what the heck the future holds and, if it's more of the same, do I want that?
My husband is averse to planning ahead. One thing he cannot "spontaneously un-plan" is his seventy-fourth birthday, which looms in May.
He is an Artist, a Creative Soul, and we have lived and worked together for more than twenty-five years. That's the good and the bad news.
I have created a monster! He believes in his own P.R. but I wrote it. There are clever pull-quotes in some articles that, when people ask, "Did he really say that?" I reply, "He would have, if he'd thought of it"
I put a positive spin on most everything and often we succeed just by creating our own momentum. But we don't have a plan. Other than perpetually getting up and doing the whole thing over again tomorrow, there is no plan.
It may come from a deeply female, nurturing instinct from the past but I want to know which cave I will be coming home to, in the event the dinosaurs overtake my cave-man.

to be continued...

AIG - Are They Hiring?

Does anyone know if AIG is hiring? They have my dream job; screw up all day long and then collect your bonus!
I am struggling along with a really small business. We seem to struggle even when no-one else is, so we are maybe better equiped to get through all this gloom and doom. No great changes, just more of the same.
My one employee has a weekly bonus of $1 per hour worked, which is tied to him showing up on time and NOT screwing up in any truly unacceptable way. Once or twice a year he needs reminding that his bonus is vulnerable. This has worked with him and others over a number of years.
I am obviously out of synch with the methods of corporate America. Same planet, different Worlds!

If you go down to the woods today.....

Friends are the best birthday gift!

Crazy and generous, loopy and familiar, odd and forgiving, daft enough to drive in from near and far to picnic in the damp cold woods in March, for my birthday.

Only, it wasn't cold, how could it be with all that warmth and love?

Time is A-Ticking

art by Salvador Dali

The count-down has commenced. As my final day of being 49 begins to wane I look straight ahead into my 50's.

Some good friends and family members are getting together with me for a barbeque luncheon tomorrow, by the stream, under the new-green Chestnut trees, in our nearby State Park.

Park Rangers, Poison Oak and Allergies notwithstanding, I plan to have a wonderful time.

"Passport Misplaced?"

My husband is an adult. He was an adult before I was born. Then, (I am told), as now, he could not be relied upon to pay attention to important details like where he puts his passports. The plural is deliberate. We are currently re-ordering French and U.S. passports for him!

This is not the first time. A year or two ago, before we attained our citizenship, we had precious documents called green-cards. Not green, these drivers-licence sized laminated "resident alien" cards permitted us to travel to Europe and back. They must be shown to airlines at check-in to prove that we would be granted entry upon arrival in the U.S. No green-cardee, no takee offee!

Mr. Jet-Set arrived at Charles de Gaule airport and entered the line to check in at Air France for the long flight home to San Francisco. An employee verified his ticket, passport and green-card and he took his place with the other shuffling economy travelers, inching towards their destination.

75ft of zig-zagging between the barriers and it was his turn to heave his suitcase onto the scale and plop down his travel documents one more time. "Et votre carte verte, Monsieur?" "And your Green Card, Sir?" "I just gave it to you", he replies. "But I don't see it, Monsieur".

There was much searching. The poor check-in agent truly began to believe it must be her fault. (She doesn't know what I know). Men with tools were called to dismantle the scale and moving belt that takes luggage away. A long lost Mont-Blanc pen was retrieved but no green-card. The agent tried not to be too happy about her good luck in the face of this inconvenienced traveler.

Mr. Jet-Set is faced with a return into the center of Paris to the U.S. Embassy on a Friday before a three day weekend. He retrieves his rental car, so recently returned, and sets off towards the City. He is the only person I know who chooses to drive to get around Paris.

He gets there before noon and takes a number and a seat to await his turn to be helped. Time ticks by and he makes the only decision possible: time for lunch! He exits the Embassy and goes off to find a restaurant. Returning replete and with a small espresso jolt to keep him awake he again sits down to wait.

There are help-windows for mere mortals and there are windows for consular officials. By 4pm he has his eye on a graciously attractive young Mademoiselle at the consular level. He pleads his case, dredging up a charming persona I have not encountered in decades. She takes pity and hurries through the forms for an emergency entry document. At 4:45 she is done. All that remains is to pay a small ransom and he will have a happy ending. But wait...the sole cashier has left early.

Thank goodness for cell phones and the fact that they really wanted to get rid of my husband that day, without the possibility that he would return the next week. The cashier was already on the ring-road headed off for R & R. It takes a while for him to reroute and return. Everyone has left and all is quiet. There remains my Jet-Setting Liability, the Consular-Section charmer and a Marine guard at the door.

Finally all is in order and as my husband leaves the Marine practically genuflects. After all, this man must be someone truly important to have created such drama.

Hubby made it home to me the next day. A day late and several dollars short. 

Forward in time to the present. Today we had to visit our local Police Station to file a missing passport report, without which the French Consulate will not provide a replacement. Neither the U.S. nor French passports have surfaced since hubby's latest overseas foray. He had them when he came through customs, then "poof!" For the last few months we have been somewhat comforted by the fact that both passports must be together somewhere. I am sure they are, but where? Home and office, car and suitcases have been thoroughly searched. We now know to check inside the shoes at the bottom of his closet. A cell phone once hid there until long after we acquired a replacement.

At the Police Department this afternoon there was a Crime Reported: Passport Misplaced.

Time Change

The good thing about today's time change is that the clock in my car will be reflecting real-time for the next several months! It is amazing how upset passengers have been that I do not care enough to re-programme  the thing. I generally have a pretty good idea of whether it is 9 or 10 am. even without checking my watch. So as people all over the U.S. are late for Church today, because the "Special Hour" we were borrowing has gone to play with the lost socks, possibly circling Saturn right now, we shall get used to the shake-up of our TV schedule; for the next 3 weeks watching French news an hour later than usual. I would add that I must find out when England changes time as it is never quite the same as the rest of Europe, but my sister rarely picks up the phone, nor calls me back so who cares? I still believe in Greenwich Mean Time. My anchor, my compass. The rest is like Monopoly-Money Time to me.

Camargue, part II - Gypsies & Music

It is interesting and enriching to travel with others. Everyone has their own needs and desires, interests and passions. I was the instigator of our trip to the Camargue but there are aspects that I discovered and enjoyed through the eyes of my husband and our friends.

The old church of Ste Marie de la Mer is the resting place for much revered relics attributed to Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome and Mary Jacob, dating back to the time after the ascension of Jesus when close members of His entourage sailed away, crossing the Mediterranean and coming ashore here.  The well in the church is noted for its water's healing powers and part of the yearly ritual of the Parade of Statues takes them back down into the ocean from whence they came.

There are several stories connected to the dark faced Saint Sarah, (Sara-la-Kali), Patron Saint of Gypsies. I choose to believe the legend that holds Saint Sarah to be the local Christianized manifestation of the Indian Goddess "Kali". I learned that Gypsies or Roma are descended from musicians who were sent from India as a gift from one Royal Court to another. They have always been nomadic and colorful. Today the Romany language is still very much alive and serves to communicate when Gypsies gather from many diverse countries. I like the parallel with the older Catholics who have Latin as a common tongue.

Guitar music, singing and dancing are spontaneous and everywhere. Crowds surge and merge and the servers in the cafes find time to clap the flamenco rhythms between customers. There is not a free corner anywhere. 

On the evening after the Parade of Saints we managed to get a terrace table in the "Felibre" restaurant, across the square from the Church of Ste Marie. The clientele was a mixture of locals, tourists and Gypsies. There were many guitars and a song would begin and be answered back and forth with solo moments of prideful finger work hailed by appreciative applause and many "Ole! Ole!" encouragements.

There was a large group at one table inside the restaurant. In the center was a very old man in a snappy white suit. His shoulder-length hair was as white as his clothes and startling against his hazel-nut skin. The guitar players were taking turns to kneel at his feet and play. I fully expected the guitars to begin smoking any minute from the friction of their fingers.

Again I learned something new. This man was Manitas de Plata, (Little Hands of Silver), now in his nineties, a French Gypsy born in a rolling caravan, who has played Carnegie Hall and achieved International acclaim. For him the respect of his fellow people was as important as his many successful albums and he was there with them to share in tradition. 

 

 

Camargue - Living a Dream- part I. Nature

Visiting the Camargue Region of Southern France was a dream of mine for a long time. I had heard and read about the wetlands on the edge of the Mediterranean where white horses, black bulls and pink flamingos lived freely in natural surroundings. The marshy delta, created by the great Rhone river spreading out and dividing in the flatlands before spilling into the sea, had been saved and protected from development. 85,000 hectares of National Park.

As if that were not enough, I learned that there was also a historic link to Gypsy Culture with a yearly festival in honor of Sara, Patron Saint of Gypsies and Sainte Marie, the namesake of the town Ste Marie de la Mer.

In May of 2007, with my French husband and a couple of American friends, I made it to Camargue, timing our trip to coincide with the Pilgrimage of Gypsies from all over Europe.

The hotel I had chosen, outside of town, was made up of thatched-roofed, white-walled round huts, built in the tradition of the herdsmen, or Guardians of Camargue, scattered around a flat property, interspersed with waterways and clumps of reeds. I had asked for the accommodations furthest from the rest, on the edge of a briny, inland lagoon, where there were perpetual movements of feeding flocks of Flamingos and other water fowl. There is something mythical about the presence of a wedge of hundreds of white swans in the early dawn light; first the noise and then the sight of them flying in to land, en masse, preening, feeding, conversing; a whiteness of swans. The contrasting fat black moor-hens, or coots, adding their toc, toc, toc percussion to the sound-track of the rising day, as they called to their punctuation-point chicks to hurry up.

The horses of the Camargue are sturdy descendants of Spanish Barbary Stock. They are taller than I had expected. Born black they turn white as they mature into adulthood. In May there were many white mares with black foals at heel.

I did participate in the cliche of riding a white horse through the ponds and lagoons, which foamed around our horses knees as we gently eased through large groupings of flamingos. I don't regret a minute of it.

My blissful moment was experienced at a greater rate of speed than would normally be desired as our guide had told me that my steed enjoyed lying down and rolling in the water any chance he got, so forward motion was very much on my mind. Giddy-up Silver!

Happy, Hopping Penises - Stocking Stuffers Cause International Incident!

When I met my husband (to be) he had been divorced for 5 years. He and his ex had four, very attractive off-spring; two boys and two girls; youngest seventeen-oldest twenty-two. I was also twenty-two, although eldest daughter was and always will be four days older than me. We will both be fifty this month and she is visiting with her sister's teenage son in tow. Some long buried stories have arisen afresh.
Hubby and I moved to California in late 1985 with our 7 month old daughter (number 5 for him). By then we had all known one another for half a decade.
I enjoy(ed?) Christmas and giving gifts. My English family always put goofy, fun gifts in stockings under the tree, in addition to "real" presents.
Our first Christmas away, I wanted to be sure hubby's French progeny did not feel forgotten. I carefully selected angora sweaters for the girls and tooled leather belts for the boys. I shipped them Fedex as it was a bit last minute. Those gifts never arrived. It took months to find out that the Fedex plane had crashed and burned. Who else has these problems?
By then the French contingent were all in an uproar at me anyhow, and never likely to be included on any Christmas list of mine ever again, no way, no how!
On a Saturday outing to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco hubby and I had wandered into a joke shop, house of humor. We had spent a light-hearted half hour chuckling at the merchandise and I had found some gifts for his sons and daughters that I thought were irresistible.
Who doesn't think that chewing gum that turns your mouth black is funny? Who can keep a straight face when a couple of three inch tall clockwork penises, with feet, are wound up and released to hop happily across the table?
Apparently these gifts were opened at a Christmas Eve dinner party at the Ex's house. They were the only thing that had arrived and were taken to be symbolic of disdain for two (gorgeous) young women who had both worked as Dental Assistants, and who were over twenty-five, unmarried, and so might be considered Old Maids. I wish I were that devious!
There was an outraged international phone call with much shrieking and wailing, not to mention blame and condemnation. Some were less offended than others. I was sent a photo of my two step-daughters totally engrossed, watching their two new wind-up toys bounce across the table top. I still think it was funny.
Last night the story received an addendum, Chantal still has her happy, hopping penis some twenty years later. She sometimes uses it to break the ice at her parties.

Someone's in my Kitchen...

I have nothing against my house guests, but the small amount of personal time and space that I allocate to myself after Husband, Dog and Business commitments is my fragile link to sanity. After a week, with 3 more days to go, I feel invaded, cornered. 

My achievement this morning was to pack them off with husband to visit the coast. Lovely daughter showed up and stayed for hours to run laundry. She's great but I needed to be alone.

I had a simple meal plan tonight; a home made vegetable soup with sausage rolls that I spent hours making yesterday. Son-in-law had a Birthday yesterday and had requested sausage rolls. These are the extra batch I made.

Husband and co. returned with live crab. My heart sank. Cooking and cleaning crab, followed by the mess everyone makes cracking claws. Damn!

I took the dog out in the rain. I was just about getting my smile back when the neighbor's cross-eyed Ridgeback came hurtling down the road after us, barking threateningly. I have only ever met him as he lunged at the fence when we pass by and still suspect that if my dog had reacted in any way we would have had a full blown attack. She's not only very well socialized but stone deaf. He was pretty surprised that she didn't even turn around until he got into her line of sight and then she exuded a friendly curiosity that has disarmed many ill-intentioned canines. 

Back home, deciding to get on with the crab so it would cool down before I cleaned it, my guest is peeling vegetables and boiling water. I suggested that I would start the crab with some saffron and herbs. Guestie-Poo only wants salt and pepper. I retreat to the computer. Discussion ensues  in the kitchen as G-P elicits hubbies opinion on how to heat the upper oven. I refrain from yelling "Try the knob that says Heat Upper Oven!" and "How can you not know that after living in this house for a year?"

Dear Blog-World, Thank you for being there for me tonight. I needed to vent indirectly. I am going to take my book and go park my car under a street light for a couple of hours of solitude.