Who's Bob?

When you are French and your name is Bernard you will be used to hearing Bearrrnaarr' as the pronunciation; When you marry an English woman and cross the Channel to meet your in laws you will be called Ber-nerd; Upon arrival in the U.S. your identity changes again, to B'r- naard; all of which you can get used to. The difficulty arises when said Frenchman wants to pronounce his own name in a way that whichever foreigner he may be dealing with (and yes, to the French, all others will always be foreigners) can understand.
Waiting for a table at a restaurant he goes to put his name down with the Host or Hostess.
- My name is Bearrrnaarr'- "What?"
Attempt number two - I am Ber-nerd- "Sorry?"
Last try - I can't even attempt to write how a Frenchman tries to pronounce the American version of his name. He just can't do it. Much rrr-rolling and digestive noises, but nothing recognizable!
But he is wily and tenacious and, above all, wants his lunch.
"My name is Bob", he says, triumphant to have overcome the obstacle.
So we linger, we wait, we sit or stand patiently. We have no idea how hard our gentleman has worked in order to get us on the list. The Host or Hostess occasionally call other diners, but we don't hear ourselves invited to take our place.
A few times someone is heard calling "Bob, Bob, Bob?", in vain. We know no Bob. We wish we did, he seems well liked here, they keep calling his name.

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Who doesn't intuit the answer to my rhetorical question? Hubby hasn't been too dastardly for a while, although I did have to make a quick detour to meet with a kind stranger yesterday, who had picked up the wallet he had managed to drop in the parking lot of the art supply store. Thank you Rick. I'm glad my card was in the wallet and you saw that the idiot on the driver's licence had the same last name. I did have a heart-stopping moment of worry when you called and asked if I had a husband or brother by the name of "?". I wonder if that is how the CHP couch the terms of inquiring into the identity of a crash victim. It was the first thing I thought of.
Back to my original tale. My foster dogs get a few miles under their paws before I leave every morning. "A tired dog is a good dog", as we say. (Same applies for children). However, on days when I can't run them at lunch, despite the side yard they have access to, they have a lot of pent up energy spilling over when I get home in the evening.
The other day I noticed that they were more mellow than usual. I didn't find out why until the next day. I'm glad I didn't. "Oh, the dogs got out yesterday" said Hubby, with that naughty boy, not quite contrite enough to be believable, look on his face. The penny dropped. Before he explained I connected the garage door opener that I had seen, out of place, on the cabinet in the entry, and the culprit standing before me.
In the fifteen months that we have lived in this house, Hubby has mainly come and gone through the garage. On occasions, when he did decide to use the front door, I was home and the door unlocked. The problem arose last week when Hubby got home early and had difficulty getting in. (The key turns backwards). Not to be deterred, or intimidated by thoughts of what consequences there might be, he picked up and hit the button on his remote door opener and up went the garage door.
What did he think would happen? Of course the dogs rushed out. Of course they went to the neighbors' house where their little girl was catching butterflies on the front lawn. This same little girl who, every time I pass by says "You know I'm afraid of dogs. You know I'm afraid of dogs. You know I'm afraid of dogs." repetitively, until I and my demure and sedate canine companion have moved out of ear shot.
I'm told there was some impressive screaming. Head back, mouth wide open, one note shrieking with a large collie putting a paw on each shoulder so he could get better look at where the noise was coming from. My husband said how strange he found it that the girl's father did not come out to see what was going on. I think that's pretty strange myself.
I was horrified by Hubby's tale and fully expected to see the police on my doorstep. A couple of days later I was outside at the same time as my neighbor and I apologized profusely. "Oh", he said "These things happen. I assumed they were nice dogs if they were living with you". He's crazy, but it works for me. I haven't stopped grovelling. He and his wife are invited to our party Saturday. I imagine his daughter will spend some time repeating her doggy mantra. She's entitled.

Silk Trees

Silk Tree or Silky Acacia/Mimosa (Albizia Julibrissin.

We are lucky to have a couple of silk trees shading the front of our house. They are currently in full leaf and flower, attracting bees and humming birds and cloaking us with a cool green protection from the afternoon sun. The horizontal, parasol-like spread of the canopy and the puff-ball delicate flowers are a luxurious surprise every year, from a starkly naked tree that fills in it's greenness much later than other neighborhood trees. One day the first green fingers of the leaves appear and shortly thereafter you can't see our house at all.

The trees are messy, dropping ghostly, colorless spirit- versions of the pristine and delicate flowers. They clump together and accumulate like an old-man's-beard, shorn and accumulating in wind-drifts by the steps and trapped in lumpy contrast on the bright, geometric spikiness of the dahlia heads below. They blow over the house to the back garden, which would surely become a forest of silk trees if I let it.

Soon we will have long seed-pods dangling down, much like those on a wisteria vine. As they ripen, then dry they will twist as they pop, the empty husks will rattle in the wind, then they too will fall, crunchy underfoot. A few weeks from now anywhere that receives water from my sprinklers will have sprung volunteer life in the form of small, want-to-be-trees, that grow visibly taller every day. Luckily they are easily extracted but will account for a weekend or two of my time to eliminate the invasion.
I don't mind the messiness, it represents an abundance of beauty and weighs lightly on the scale of pros and cons.
It's time to head home. Once I am done fighting freeway traffic I will enter my house and appreciate the aquatic-green light filtering in the windows, as cool as a trout gazing up from the river's depths. The muted luminosity is full of shadows and movement as the long-fingered leaf fronds lift and wave and mime in conversation with the wind.

Picture added 7/23/09
This is what I know as a Mimosa Tree. In early spring they are all over Provence and we have them in California too.

What a weekend?... What weekend?... Where did it go?

I knew going in to this weekend that it was going to be a tough one; "but in a good way" as we like to say.

I signed up as a volunteer to help a friend who was organizing a benefit concert for the non-profit she works for. Music for Minors trains and places music docents in classrooms to bring some music education to the school-children, who would otherwise have none because of budget limitations. (Sorry, I'm on the marketing commitee and totally incorrigable about plugging away).

Co-incidentally the generous couple who agreed to host 300 people at their sumptuous home were previous clients of mine so I knew my way around. I was designated volunteer co-ordinator; making sure there were warm bodies to do whatever needed to be done. It involved trying to appease the rather stressed out event production staff, not reacting to "Bitch on Wheels" auction item display know-it-all, who really deserved a smack, and making sure the media were hooked up with our volunteer spokesperson/liason who is not only the best and most charming professional media consultant, but we have known each other since high-school in England so when someone asked what is different about her after twenty five years stateside the best I could come up with is that she no longer uses her pony's moniker as her middle name. She laughed and revealed that she uses it as her password, then I laughed because I too have a horse from my past as my secret code word.

The headliner for the show was Sara Bareilles. Karmina opened and cute Irish Eoin (pronounced Owen and pictured above) Harrington, not only sang and played but sold himself for something during the auction bidding. I missed the details as I was roving security around the house. He was very charismatic and a lot of fun. I might have bid on him myself. Oh well.

After the concert, once the general admissions crowd had departed, the VIP's moved to a reception that was set up in the "Kasbah"; a two story pool-house, bar, exercise area and full theatre with moroccan tiles, dark rich fabrics and trickling fountains and hidden courtyards. The musicians continued to play and entertain and food and wine flowed freely. I left at 11 pm, having been on my feet for ten hours. Everything ran pretty smoothly, although we had managed to chill and serve one of the auction items; they shouldn't have left it in the garage!

Sunday was all planned out too. We picked up a French friend and drove to Yountville, in Napa Valley, for the Bastille Day celebrations there. Hmm? Just dressing your employees in "French" costumes does not a Bastille Day make, and whilst there were a few Napoleonic-looking servers and some lovely can-can get-ups, I'm not sure they had French Maids, in frilly aprons, back then.

We sat outdoors and had a champagne tasting medley to open our appetites and then went to Bistro Jeanty for lunch. Rilletes de canard, salade de lettues, ham and leek quiche, petite friture, which is called smelt and I think is the same as whitebait, but I could be wrong. Skinny, crispy French fries in a paper cornet and crepe suzette and a calvados with coffee to close. I love that place.

We were regaled by our guest and friend, who is the most colorful and dynamic 89 year old you can imagine. She has bright orange hair and wears strikingly colorful silk pant suits. Yesterday was cobalt blue and matched her ring and necklace. One of her past careers was as jewelry designer for Pierre Cardin, she later helped Salvador Dali with his jewelry display in New York and also modelled for his Medusa painting.

Yesterday's tale was about her youth in war-time Paris. Her father was a Resistance fighter who was killed when Georgette was sixteen. Her mother was a socialite and journalist. Georgette met and wed an American GI when she was translating military papers into English towards the end of the war.

We went back to Domaine Chandon to see if the promised festivities had materialized. There were a lot more people milling about but nothing worth staying for, so we hit the road home.

For those of you who follow my stories and are asking yourselves "What about the dogs?" All scheduled events this weekend were preceded and followed by my dog-walking duties. The hardest thing is when they all know I'm home and I have to choose whether to take my swirling tornado collies out for a "my-feet-don't-touch-the-ground" pounce and bounce or Ms. Slow, Stop and Sniff out first. There are complaints from whomever gets left behind.

She Flies Without Wings - How Horses Touch a Woman's Soul by Mary D. Midkiff

Excerpts: -A horse's acceptance remains one of my earliest memories of belonging. While I struggled to find who I was and would be as a person, horses gave me my first intimation of what acceptance and belonging could feel like.

- When I was a girl of six, I thought I was the only girl-horse in the land. Now I know horses touch the souls of many women.

- Horses are giant yet generous with their strength, their power, and their gentle affection. By their very nature, they embody and resolve the contradictions we all struggle with: They are strong and soft, calm and driven, wild and manageable, needy and independent. In the presence of horses, our impulses of nurturing and our urgent needs of support, strength and confidence come together, live together and express themselves together without the noise of intellectualism. We see that the horse lives its own life, speaks in its own way, moves where it needs to go. Its directness and simplicity offer a thousand-pound counterpoint to our own complicated and often less honest human interactions. The horse shows us how to be complete.

-When a woman first meets the horse, she feels fear and awe, respect and caution, excitement and reserve. She reaches out to stroke the horse's side and remembers the first touch of a lover's hand. The soothing warmth of connecting with another spirit with its own power and its own passion washes over her. She runs her fingers through the horse's mane and looks into his eyes, finding there a companion who says "Let's go places together. Everything is better with me." As she strokes the velvet muzzle, he licks her fingers and softens his gaze, lowering his head and extending himself to her in a way that makes her heart swell and race at the same time.

Later she questions the encounter. She puzzles over the tangle of fear and inspiration-even euphoria-the moment brought her and wonders if she could have only imagined a connection with this great and elusive animal. From unfamiliar recesses of her being, new longings push into her consciousness. She imagines being lifted to the horse's back and carried to far-off places. She is tempted. She must see the horse again.

And she does. The next time she approaches with her hand held out in a tentative gesture of greeting, and he reciprocates by pointing his ears toward her and nosing at her fingers. He has smelled this hand before but he checks once again, just to be sure. She responds by stepping closer, running her hand up his nose and gently scratching between his eyes.

He lowers his head, blinks. He is saying "All right. I'll let you into my world". She steps around to his side and moves his mane out of the way to stroke his neck. As it did the first time, the warmth of connection washes over her. She feels the definition of the muscular yet swan-like neck. He's enjoying this too; she knows because he doesn't turn away.

She begins to think of the horse more personally. She notices the variety of colors in his coat hairs and how they sparkle in the sunlight, the texture of his mane and how the threads taper down his neck perfectly to shield him from the weather when he is still but lift and float to add symmetry to his shape when he begins to run. She sees fluff inside his ears and is surprised to discover that each ear swivels independently of the other but that both follow her body and her noises, as do those great liquid eyes, which track her every step. Even his breathing matches hers, speeding up and slowing down with her own.

In the horse, she glimpses a model for escaping everyday stress and releasing everyday pressures. She feels a sense of wellness she can take back into her hectic life. Her emotions stir, her instincts are fed, she draws nearer to her own sensual self. A horse's home environment gives the woman sanctuary where she can experience each moment of life in its singular perfection or imperfection. She believes the horse will lead her to a peaceful place within herself.

This is enough for now. It is enough for her to know the first encounter was not a dream. On her way home, she decides she could never live life without revisiting and reinvestigating these insights. It is as if her life started when she met the horse. Before that it was all just practice.

My Sister Bought a Pasture Ornament

My sister lives in England. Horses have always been a part of our lives. Horses may be the only thing we have never argued about, as we are very different. We can talk "Horse" for hours and feel completely in tune.

Fiona's last horse broke his leg in a stable accident and had to be destroyed. During the four years since that devastating event she has continued to ride, sharing exercise and schooling commitments with several horse owners.

Megan is a pretty mare who belonged to a teenager at the barn. Her young owner liked to gallop and jump and Fiona would work on flat-work, which was a good partnership. Fiona describes Megan as "beautiful from ears to knees". I haven't seen her and there is no chance of a photo, until I go there next. My sister still has an un-developed Kodak throw-away camera containing baby pictures of her, now, eleven year old son.

Last November Megan came up lame with a tendon problem and was put on box-rest with walking out exercise, being led not ridden. Fiona has walked many miles with this little horse, through all kinds of wonderful English weather. Megan is still lame.

I spoke to my sister on the phone, a few days ago and she said, "Oh, by the way, I bought Megan". The horse was to be sold so that her owner could move on and get a horse that was able to compete and even just be ridden every day. Megan's future prospects were dim. Now they are shiny bright again.

Fiona paid a very low price for the horse; she has spent more with the vet this week than the purchase price of the animal. The plan is to turn her out for three months to let the cortisone shots have a chance to work. If they don't, she will remain a happy, well-loved pasture ornament. Breeding from a horse with wonky legs is out of the question, so she'll just have to be a maiden aunt to the other horse's foals.

They Lived to Quack Another Day

Let me begin by stating that I do not live in the country. I spend at least an hour a day on the tarmac/black-top roads part way between San Francisco and San Jose, in the erstwhile techie-nirvana, otherwise known as Silicon Valley.

Today was a good day. This morning a real baby bunny hopped across our paths, to add to the excitement of the long list of imaginary prey that my frisky collies alertly seek out every time we go for a walk.

I was in a good mood for no particular reason. As we drove to lunch together, hubby and I were in the right lane of four lanes of traffic, plus a right and left turn only lane on each side. Mr. and Mrs. Mallard Duck decided that they would use the cross-walk, whilst the light was red, and do what their cousins, the chickens, do and cross the road.

"And they walk with a waddle and a waddle and a quack", as the song goes, and we saw them because we were near the curb, but they were below bumper height for all the other drivers (much the same problem as my husband has with small human pedestrians but so much worse). There was much honking of horns as drivers behind tried to alert those in front. Thank goodness the light stayed red as no one understood what was going on.

They turned around and began waddling back our way and I saw the opportunity so I jumped out wondering "How the Hell do you herd Ducks?" . Brain-wave: they can fly. Duh! I ran at them, waving my arms and they took off and saved themselves from certain death. Back in the car, we went to The Lobster Shack and met up with others who were glad the ducks had escaped. I ate my yummy crab-meat roll and basked in the glory of recognition. "Were you the Duck-Lady just now? Made my day.