Saving Bea

My 99-year old friend, Bea, is being evicted from the property where she has lived for about 25 years.  I've started a new blog about her, hoping to drum up support and embarrass the Bank of America to relent and let her live out her remaining years where she is.  You can see from the picture that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but Bea loves it there.  She has her dogs and her memorabilia, and people who help her.  Check it out --

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I Didn't Visit the Musee D'Orsay

April in France is magical. April in Paris is the best! I hum “April in Paris” just thinking about it. Don’t know that tune? Find a good rendition on YouTube. Then go to Amazon and listen to Sally Stevens’ song “The Paris Song” on her album “Things I Should Have Told You.”

I am writing this and smiling. I can’t help but smile with Paris songs in my head and memories in my heart.

It’s kind of like Hawaii, another magical place where getting there can be a challenge, but once there, it’s practically perfect. I do wish these favorite places weren’t everyone’s favorite. In Hawaii, haoles own, work in, and inhabit concrete lavish buildings and hotels. (Google defines haole as white Americans.) I can’t help but wish that Hawaii belonged more to the natives than the latecomers. In Paris the problem is not so much American tourists as all the tourists from the whole world. It’s too well loved. At least enough Americans think they don’t like the French so we aren’t the only ones overrunning Paris.

 I spent last Friday and Saturday with Sally and our friend Joan from UCLA days. Joan is widely traveled via Elderhostel, while I prefer to go independently with the necessity of talking to people.

Saturday the three of us went to the Getty Museum,  the perfect place to spend some a beautiful day. Sally is a photographer, so we first visited that exhibit and were awed by [I forget his name]’s work. Part of the exhibit included videos and commercials he’d done. Sally and Joan went in there, but I didn’t. One of the commercials was for Calvin Klein (I think). Completely unexpected, the sound track played Sally’s soprano obbligato (not really unexpected since she did record it, but unexpected in the context of a trip to the Getty)! “That’s me!” she whispered to Joan as a model dived into a pool. The model didn’t look at all like Sally, even given the years between. Noticing Joan’s blank stare, Sally explained, “The music!”

 Have you noticed how little you pay attention to background music? Yet it sets the scene. Without it, you wouldn’t know how to feel about what’s happening on screen. Sally has made an excellent career of such music, having a clear, high voice and a deep understanding and knowledge of music. When I hear the young people at the high school who “sing” and think that their next step is Hollywood, I don’t burst their bubble because they wouldn’t believe me. There’s always an exception – the hick from nowhere who becomes super popular via YouTube. But to have staying power, you have to have the depth and the work ethic. Sally has worked – “hard” is too easy a word for how she’s worked – since she was 20. She’s been honored by her peers with about all the awards possible.

I got off track, but it was a good side trip. What I wanted to share was that Joan was aghast that I hadn’t visit the d’Orsay Museum or the Orangerie when Mary and I went last year. Well, we didn’t want to. But there I was at the Getty in the gallery for Impressionist painters, looking at the Cezannes, the Monets, and a Van Gogh that I’d seen hundreds of times in prints. The reality of them in person overwhelmed me. While my books seemed to lie when they said Cezanne was such a vanguard leader, or that Monet’s haystacks were revolutionary, the real live paintings testified of the truth of their greatness. 

I cried, the experience was so powerful. Right there in the gallery with all kinds of people around, I stood crying with Sally’s arm around me, worried that something awful might be wrong. When I told her, she understood. She’d felt the same about seeing Van Gogh’s “Vincent” scrawled in the corner of his irises.

Joan, however, was puzzled, but made a wise comment: “It’s a good thing you didn’t go to the d’Orsay.” 

I’m still smiling. My next trip to Paris will be in deep winter when no-one is around. I’ll go to the Musée d’Orsay and drink it all in, day after day, and then go dancing down the Quai.

Fondant Roses for Easter

Last year on Easter, Mary and I went to the Roman games at the amphitheater in Nimes. I don’t know how many, if any, Christians were killed there, but it was an ironic way to spend the holiday that was my favorite for much of my life.

As a child, I loved Easter because we went to church, then over to Aunt Beryl’s for a whopper of an Easter egg hunt hosted by Uncle Paul. Their long, narrow back yard with a view of Dodger stadium, ran downhill in several terraces, making an adventure out of the hunt. All my family were happy on Easter, maybe because sugar and candy weren’t the main attractions as they are now. Our eggs were real, and turned into delicious deviled eggs after being found, another ironic twist.

Except for an Easter basket, the holiday was a no-present day. Christmas, by contrast, was stressful because of so many presents, most of which I didn’t like, or were just off the mark. Pretending to be enthusiastic takes its toll. Thanksgiving was nice, calm, but no egg hunting or new dresses were involved.

A new dress – that was a plus, definitely, for Easter. A new summery dress to wear to Sunday School and parties was a major big deal. It’s too bad that dressing up has become passé these days.

Flipping channels this evening, Judge Judy refused to listen to a young man who showed up in court wearing torn jeans. “Go get dressed,” she scolded him, “and don’t say a word.”


The idea I really wanted to share was Easter goodies. Shop windows in France were beautifully decorated with simple Easter themes except for the candy/pastry shops which went all out with glorious creations. It may have been the memory of these that inspired me to try my hand at using fondant for roses this week.

An amazing thing happened! When I told md (middle daughter) about my plan, she said that she had already started doing it for the first time ever, the day before! She was making fondant roses on cupcakes (I think) to give away for Easter presents. We shared tips and YouTube sites and then our own pictures. I am so happy with how they are coming out. I love the delicate texture and colors and the elegance.

Anyone receiving one can eat it (after a suitable interval for admiration) and it’s gone, poof. No knick-knack hanging around forever. A lovely token of love, given and received happily.

The only problem is being around all that sugar. I resisted tasting any of it for three days, but today I lost the battle. A lump of frosting in my tummy is unhappy. But the cookies are beautiful!

Food, Gardens, and Health

Note how the title goes F, G, H? So it's right that the first word of this blog would be "I."

I met a Frenchman when we were in St. Malo who swore that English food was the best in the world! I couldn’t believe he would say that, or even think it! At the time, I was talking with Olivier and Cécile about how much we love French food. This fellow overheard us and had to put in his opinion.

I agreed on one thing, however. English breakfasts with sausage, eggs, and biscuits (the original McMuffins) are wonderful. The problem is that they are not healthy. Nowadays the health part is more important to me than it was 50 years ago.

Mandy, my daughter-in-law who studied in Aix-en-Provence for a year and teaches French in the local high school, told me about a movie called “The French Revolution,” all about the pesticides in French agriculture – wheat, peaches, apples, and everything in between. I got the film from Netflix. I didn’t want to watch it, but finally, after keeping it for five days, had to.

Scenes of tractors moving through fields and orchards spewing foggy clouds of pesticides, with the drivers dressed in leaky scuba gear, were terrifying. Even more awful were the statistics of cancer rates in rural agricultural communities where you’d think the air would be clean and clear, being far from city pollution. Not so.

The mayor of a small town in the Languedoc, the same “county” as Nimes, decided to do something about the health risks his citizens were facing by farming with pesticides. He declared that the school would provide only organic food to the children. The mayor is leading the new French revolution! The change to organic food was well-received by many of the parents, some of whom decided to go organic at home, too.

The children planted a garden and learned about the rich, full taste of home-grown vegetables. Other communities got interested so the school kitchen expanded to cook for them, too.

Then the mayor took a drastic and courageous step. He brought together traditional and organic farmers to discuss the issues of health and economics.

“If a farmer won’t eat his own produce, I don’t want to, either,” was one of the comments. And after seeing the health problems of those traditional pesticide-spraying farmers, I agree.

The discussion was civil, and I think some of the traditionalists learned that organic can be profitable, and that pests can be controlled by means other than chemicals.

It takes about three years to change a traditional field to an organic one. That’s how long the chemicals hang around, showing up in the produce.

Any search on Google will show that American produce is rife with pesticide residues, evidence that this is a worldwide problem leading to worldwide health issues, and the associated economic issues of health care even for people who think they are eating well.

I have spent the last two weeks working on my garden. Zucchini and spring pumpkins planted inside grew and were transplanted today. Lettuce is up and thriving; chard and kale were planted today. The apricot and peach trees are full of little fruit.

My hopes are high for the fruit trees, which look happy, but out here with the desert wind, the fight might be too hard for them. Nevertheless, I know that whatever survives will have a sweeter and deeper taste than anything gracing the queen’s table.

Visiting Mandy today, I saw their garden. Hundreds of seedlings are peeking out of the soil! They’ve planted tomatoes and zucchini under their pear and apricot trees. What a feast there will be, and it’s all organic for both of us!

Oh, one disappointment: the tulip bulbs from Versailles are languishing. I’m hoping they are soaking up nutrients and sunshine so that next year will be a different story.

The motto for the gardener: Never Give Up! Never Surrender! (Thanks, “Galaxy Quest”.)

Tulips and Dawg

Remember when Mary and I rescued some tulip bulbs from the dug-up gardens at Versailles? I think we each had five; I know I did. Three of Mary’s were taken by Customs (hope they planted them), but for some reason mine all came through even though I declared them. (I hope Customs people don’t read criminal blogs.)

Got them home, put them in dirt in an old yogurt container and set them on top of the fridge for safekeeping. Around September, they went inside the fridge so they could know that winter had come. About a month or six weeks ago, I planted them in the pot you see and waited. Waited. And now, look! They are coming up!

What will they look like? Worthy of Marie Antoinette? Or when they bloomed at Versailles, did they only look good because they were part of a mass of color in that classic garden?

The Little Prince (Saint-Exupery) searched for a way to protect his single rose, the one who gave meaning to his life, who complained about everything he did for her. Then he discovered a rose garden with five-thousand roses looking just like his rose. He was overcome with disappointment.

“I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees – and one of them perhaps extinct forever . . . That doesn’t make me a very great prince . . .”

As he is crying, the fox comes and teaches him that “[My rose] is more important than all the hundreds of other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen . . . Because she is my rose.”

The fox’s final lesson: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

No matter what my tulips look like, they will be unique because of where they came from and because of all I went through to get them back here. They were wrapped in paper that had formerly held lemon tarts from the patisserie, then placed in a plastic sack like you get in grocery stores but not for much longer if cities or states outlaw them. Yes, Europe is rife now with plastic bags, having followed our lead there as in many other things.

It’s our music that’s played in restaurants and cafes, sometimes soft rock, country or pop, but more frequently, Frank Sinatra.

Why did Europe follow our lead in bad lending practices, too? I always looked up to England as older and smarter, right? Or at least too stodgy to buy into bad loans. Now Britain is going through an austerity program and soon Greece, birthplace of anciently smart people, will, too. How about us? Austerity? Should we? Sure, but never in an election year. Politicians don’t want the backlash.

So my tulips arrived safely padded by paper, plastic, and PJs. I planted them and now they are growing on a stand far from nibbling Nibelungs. I don’t know what a Nibelung is, but Wagner did and he made a ring of endless operas about them or for them.

My kind of Nibelung (kinds of Nibelungs?) are deer, which devoured tender shoots every year that we lived in Boulder, CO, leaving us with oddly crooked but still colorful tulips.

Here in the desert, everything animal, rodent or bird is a Nibelung, but particularly desert rabbits, those wild long-eared high-hopping fast-running guys that outdo Dawg every time. The other day, one popped up not 5 ft from Dawg, almost bumping into him as if saying, “Catch me if you can!” and loped off. Dawg ran after, but lost the race. It’s the running and not the catching that will keep him young.

He’s one of a kind because he’s tamed me.

Giverny II

Monet’s studio is the souvenir shop, also. Massive prints of a selection of paintings are on the walls, probably close to the original size. It’s a tempting place, I warn you. There, Mary and I got separated again. It was getting to be a familiar problem. I went out the exit and waited because we now had a rule that the first one out would wait for the other. I waited a very very long time, sitting under an arbor on a shady bench watching others come and go, but not Mary.

Forty minutes later she finally came out. I greeted her happily, proud of having followed our plan. No. She had been waiting inside the exit, not outside, and was miffed. Sigh.

We walked down the road to a small outside café where tables were set up in front of a house. We were the only customers for quite awhile, and kept motioning to other tourists walking the street to come on up. Some did, and by the time we were finishing our paninis, the tables were mostly full. This was the only time in France we were ever rushed out of our seats! It’s true. After all we had done to bring in more customers, too.

We spent some time walking through the town, looking in the galleries lining Giverny’s narrow main street. Some were good; some weren’t. The houses, though, are all lovely and some are for sale!

Monet and his family are buried in the church graveyard on a hill. On one beautiful tombstone, a man wrote a love letter to his wife who died at 47. Mary asked me to translate it, which was hard to do through the tears.

I mentioned the tour buses in the parking lot. On the main street at the ice cream wagon, we heard an Englishman and his wife shouting at the bewildered vendor, desperate to get directions back to their bus. It’s a fact, isn’t it, that if someone doesn’t understand what you’re saying, all you have to do is say it louder?

We helped out by telling them, “Straight on and then left and under the pass.”

Sounds easy, but when we tried to follow our own directions, we discovered it wasn’t. It had to be left on a particular street, then right a block or so, then under the pass. I assume the English couple made it to their bus since we saw no more of them. Or maybe they are still wandering around Giverny.

It looked as if we wouldn’t even get on the train back to Paris, the line for second class was so long and pushy. Suddenly the German man holding open the 2^nd class door saw that no-one was getting on in 1^st class, so he gave up his post, pushed by us knocking us out of line, and ran off. We had no choice but to follow him to 1^st and find two spacious, comfortable seats. At each stop where someone entered the 1^st class car, I expected to be asked to leave but it never happened. I finally realized that most of the newcomers were just like us, interlopers in paradise.