Thoughts provoked by an old house in need of renovation, its garden, a marriage lived within its walls, and of a retired Thoroughbred race horse named Fibs and Flannel.
One fish, two fish... dare I hope? Three fish! Four fish! Maybe I'm not such a dope?
What a thrill! Survivors of the great chill, the period of the triste kill that transpired against our will.
Neither Seuss nor Emerson am I, but Darwin proves right again! Two might be two females or two males, but four! The chances are that much greater that at least one is a male, capable of rebuilding their numbers, much, much reduced. We know that there were at least 40 killed.
It seemed indecent to take advantage of their sudden stillness in death to count them.
Now, I need to brush up on the mating habits of the goldfish to have an idea of what might be possible in this year alone. I wish I could tag them so I could always know which, very certainly, are these four survivors, the originals from the once great fish population. I feel like Marie Antoinette (Merci, David!), except her pleasure gardenhad to give pleasures greater than my tiny converted fountain and the modesty of our abodes (that "s" is a bit of an exaggeration, those who have visited here will tell you) compared to hers, a brief stroll beyond the Petit Trianon (the one at Versailles, not North Street in Greenwich), although Louis couldn't hold a chandelle to mon baron.
Go forth and prosper, dear little pinkish-goldfish. We promise to cause you the least harm possible when we empty and repair your basin, your home, your ecosystem.
Could you please let the frogs know?
PS: Joaquim says they will be here Monday. Really. It's ok. It's all Eric's fault.
Their tools sit untouched out in the weather since two days before I left for the States nearly two weeks ago.
I left Audouin a note while I was out walking the dogs Monday evening, asking him to call Joaquim. I didn't trust myself not to say what I am thinking and have him walk, which might not be the worst thing right now. So what that the house isn't finished, worse, that it is two-tone, the old part covered in the new stucco that is not yet the right color and the newer part undone?
So what, not.
I am deflated. This is as close to my worst nightmare, what I most dreaded getting into this as I can imagine. Worse still, there is absolutely no one to blame but myself. I didn't listen to the voices in my own head (and outside, Audouin would remind me), telling me that I was starting not to trust first Eric, and, later, when it was far too late already, Joaquim. In an ironic reversal of roles (we always seem to do this), Audouin would say that I am being hard, unfair even. He would say "Attends de voir," but he's just as worried as I am that we're in trouble now, and this fact obliges us to say precisely the opposite of whatever the other has just said. This is necessary to maintain equilibrium and hope.
When, I wonder, will we both be ready to concede that we are beyond that?
Oh, sure, he'll show up again, or the guys before he does, and they'll get to work again, but my confidence in them is shot. First, there was -- oh! Where shall I start? There was way they approached the windows, which left doubts about whether either of the guys had ever restored one before, and the fact that right from the start, Georges never stopped asking me why I wouldn't just change them.
"Mais, Madame de Floris, vous pourriez avoir des neuves, double vitrage. Ca serait beaucoup mieux."
And I explained every time that Joaquim had gone over each and every window with me and determined that they were essentially in good shape and could be restored, with the exception of 3 of the old ones, that this would cost about half the price or less of new windows, and because we have other things that we need to do with our money for right now, we'd restore the old ones and save a replacement for the future, if at all. But, he never let up. Not once. It started to occur to me that Joaquim was using him to get to me, to convince me that we should change the windows so that they wouldn't have to do the work they didn't really want to do once they had the contract signed.
The last time we went over this ground was the day before my flight to Philadelphia. Georges showed up alone, to talk. In what could have passed for conversation, he managed to bring up every possible complaint they could have about the money they are making on this job. I listened. I didn't allow a single point. If they were losing money anywhere, it's because they made mistakes estimating the job and have handled the organization of the work miserably, making their progress perfectly lamentable. Then, add to that the fact that they show up at the very earliest (when they come) at 9:30 am. How much can you get done between 9:30 am and 4:30 pm? You tell me.
He looked at the contract as we sat at the table, empty coffee cups in front of us, and shook his head.
"C'est terrible," he said, adding with a rueful, incredulous smile, "Qui a fait ce devis?"
"C'est plutôt à vous de me dire ça," I answered, feeling really nervous now, although I wasn't going to let him see that, or give an inch, "C'est votre societé qui l'a fait." He continued to look it over, shaking his head and sighing.
"C'est mal fait, je vous donnerai ça," I said. "Imprécis. Pas détaillé. Mais, personne ne voulait nous donner mieux que ça." He just continued shaking his head, and looking at me as though he was waiting for me to give in and ask how much more they wanted.
The answer? The difference between what they said the balcony would cost and what they say it actually cost, or 7,000 euros.
And that we agree to replace the windows with new ones altogether, for more money, so they won't have to bother with the labor.
That's what I think. And, no.
But here's the thing: if we maintain our wall of patient, smiling silence in the face of the unspoken final request and we don't give them what I suspect they want, there will be precious little investment from them in the job, for all the gentleman doth protest -- Joaquim, bien sur -- that he takes great pride in a job well done. He's past caring now, whatever he says, and it's obvious, even if I am not supposed to see that, regardless of the fact that we are not responsable for their losses. Only he has control over the quality and regularity of the work they provide.
The other thing that I suspect? That they were never up to the extent of the job and everything that had to be done.
Take the metalwork. Joaquim was furious when I said out loud what Audoiuin would only say to me, namely that the paint job on the shutters was pretty poor. Not that I hadn't noticed myself. I preferred to take pictures of the Jackson Pollock-like splatters of paint that covered the drop-cloth spread on the floor that attested to the careless work I watched José do. But, Joaquim had sat there with his eyes practically popping out of his head in another sort of incredulity, while Audouin looked like he wished I had never said what he thought. That's the thing; he would spend eternity reminding me of it if I hadn't said something, but he'd rather complain to me until death to we part than say anything to the person responsable.
"Savez-vous ce qu'un peintre ferait? Hein? Vous le savez? Bon, je vous le dirai. Les peintres sont nuls. Ils vous font payer très, très cher, et ils s'en foutent. Ils s'en foutre de leur travail. C'est une bande de cons. Vous dites que José n'est pas peintre, mais il sait tout faire mieux que ceux qui s'affichent peintre ou menuisier." He wasn't stopping to draw breath, and Audouin was nodding like he had never, ever thought José was anything less than painstaking in his work and very, exceeding professional and I was crazy to think otherwise, much less say so. "Vous savez ce qu'ils feront, les peintres? Ils ne mettraient jamais l'attention de José dans le poncement. Ils ne ponceraient même pas. Ils peigneraient n'importe comment et vous payeriez très cher pour cela."
Audouin mouthed his agreement; of course they wouldn't sand by hand, carefully. Of course they would just whip through the preparations and slap on the paint. Of course.
And it had gone on and on, from one topic to the next, until I finally had to go to the grocery store or have nothing for dinner, and found them chatting companionably when I returned, Joaquim staying for dinner, "On verra si elle sait cuisiner!" dit-il, and what did I do? Turn into Betty Crocker, or my grandmother, pulling out all the stops, flourishing the cinnamon (men love cinnamon) as proof of my mastery of the male senses. Idiot.
Me. Not him. Relieved, I was, that all was patched up; he wasn't stomping off the job. And, here we are, the house half done, they more than half paid, and the delays piling up, while our disappointments outstrip even those.
The window, first. A cheap piece of ugly crap purchased at Lapeyre. Anybody building a cement block addition to their ugly house can go to Lapeyre for an inexpensive window. I was in shock. He made me know that my rejection of the window had cost him. He couldn't return it.
"Vous aurez du me consulter avant de l'acheter. Ce n'est pas de tout ce qu'il faut pour ce projet." Yeah, he should have known better if he had really understood this project and cared, which it was starting to feel like he didn't.
Then, the brick with which Georges showed up to cover the old, crumbling chimney on the gable end. Brand new and ugly as merde.
"C'est pas bien, Madame de Floris? C'est pas ce qu'il faut?" No, it's not okay, Georges, and no, it's not what is needed here. Joaquim had shaken his head, as though Georges were the biggest of idiots himself, and nodded toward the brick on the wall across the street, an old farm building.
"Ca c'est ce qu'elle veut." So, then, why wasn't I seeing samples of old brick? How many times have we discussed the brick for the pillars, the entry court paving, and I have still never seen samples of what we can get from the places that sell old building materials? How many times have I said that I would do with them to choose?
And the tile for the new roof over the entry. Audouin couldn't get over it. I had given in. It was ugly. I knew it. I agreed with him.
"C'est tout ce qu'ils font aujourd'hui." Why hadn't I refused when Georges showed me? Because he had shown up with a load of it without showing me a sample, and I was sick and tired of things going that way? His being so nice and my refusing. Nice, or is that a time-proven way to get your way and he doesn't even stop to think any more about whether he is sincere or not?
Then, the little roof structure. A hack job compared to the balcony, which appears to be carefully crafted, the little we have seen of it. It supposedly has been ready and waiting for months now, and on the phone Monday evening, Joaquim told Audouin that they are just waiting for some of the little pieces. I swear to God that they had decided not to do the decorative middle sections in front of the windows. Georges' eyes grew big and round (more incredulity) when I had expressed my disappointment (another) that they clearly hadn't done the little balcony with the long one, and that they were counting on just repainting it, which wasn't the contract, pointing out that they did have to do the decorative motif there, too.
"Ah bon? C'est vrai?" He stared at me like this was news to him. Maybe it was. Hey, even if it wasn't and he had only forgotten, I could understand that. Months have passed since they started working, and several more still since we signed a contract. I recalled this moment when Audouin told me that they were finishing the "little pieces" of the balcony.
And guess what. The protests about our criticism of the paint job on the metal shutters? Some days before I was to fly to the States, Joaquim gave me a run-down on the sequencing of the work to come, and the shutters? They, along with all of the metal -- the gates, the fencing, the window grills -- would go to a shop to be sand-blasted and then painted. It was my turn for my eyes to pop out in disbelief.
"Mais, c'est moi qui vous ai dit de faire comme ça depuis le début! Pourquoi vous ne le faites que maintenant?"
"Tu veux que j'en souffre en peu plus?" he had grinned at me. "Vas y."
"Mais, vous avez travaillé une semaine dessus déjà, alors vous aurez perdu d'argent là-dessus!"
"Vas y, vas y," he continued to grin, "dis moi ce que je sais déjà."
"Je ne comprends rien." And all this time they have continued to sit in the smaller extra bedroom, all of the furniture crammed into the larger one, both rooms lost to us for months now.
When Joaquim told Audouin that they couldn't work last week, while I was gone, because it had rained so much, and he said "Oui, bien sur. Je comprends" 12 thousand times as Joaquim made his excuses, to my enormous aggravation -- and I was the one who wanted him to call so that I wouldn't say these things and piss Joaquim off again --, I waited, and then said, "Ils auraient pu emener les volets à l'atelier, et ils sont toujours dans la chambre d'appoint."
"Je sais," dit Audouin.
The neighbor who brought the census papers today said we should sue them; tell them to pick up their tools and get out of here. I pointed to the house, "And leave it like that? What if the next guy can't match the work? What then?"
And when you have finished setting up your profile and inviting each and every member to become your friend (copying and pasting your introduction message helps... hint), then you can head over to a couple other great sites -- http://healthcare-now.org and Heath Care for All Now's http://ninenineohnine.org.
Help us get the word out and educate about single-payer, and specifically HR-676. Americans have spent too much time doing without health coverage and care, while the entire rest of the industrialized world has health coverage as part of their social infrastructure. No one asks you to show your fire or crime insurance when you call the fire or police departments, so why should you be asked to show your private insurance card to see a doctor?
"Thanks for thinking of us back in the states and joining in. Any Websites, studies or books that you can refer us to on the French health care system, especially economic studies would be appreciated. People don't believe in the "Sicko" footage or the recent PBS documentary on "Sick Around the World" on foreign health care systems."
The Bismark Model
What in the world is wrong with people who don't want to believe when the information and the accompanying facts are laid out for them? Well, I am on a mission to tell. The more the merrier, feel free to jump in and join me. I am over here (and always thinking of everyone back in my other home), and I am an American married to a doctor in the French public hospital system (25+ years now), and I know. First hand.
You can believe Michael Moore, even if you don't particularly like him (like I do), and you can believe the Frontline documentary. They aren't secret socialists seeking to pervert or convert our good capitalists. If Jesus said render unto Cesar that which is Cesar's, I say render unto the market that which is the market's. Healthcare and healthcare coverage are not market commodities, and never should have been considered thus. They are a social necessity and universal, affordable access is the right of each and every citizen and legal resident of a nation.
It does wonders for companies' bottom lines and profitability, too. Just ask GM.
While you're at it, hit this link and sign Michael's petition to show your support for HR-676, and if you really just can't do that, then here's HR-676 co-sponsor John Conyers' site link.
HR-676 made it into February's issue of Harper's Magazine. It's the cover story by Luke Mitchell,
Sick in the head:
Why America won't get the health-care system it needs
From John Conyers' website:
This month, Rep. Conyers’ universal healthcare bill, H.R. 676, was mentioned in the Harper’s Magazine. H.R. 676 is a bill that would cover all Americans with guaranteed, high quality healthcare. For almost a year now, Rep. Conyers has been meeting with doctors from many specialties, public health experts, labor advocates, consumer advocates, and universal healthcare organizers,to discuss methods of increasing support for single-payer in the upcoming discussion on healthcare reform.
And this is what John Conyers had to say about that:
“It is very pleasing to see that single-payer healthcare was mentioned favorably in such a widely circulated publication. For years, many people have worked extremely hard to show the merits of this type of system. Now that we know that the discussion on healthcare reform is taking place in the very near future, this article furthers the case for single-payer will be taken seriously as a comprehensive method for financing healthcare. Because of its inherent cost-containing mechanisms, it is time others seriously consider bringing single-payer into the discussion on reform.”
So, join the discussion and the effort. We're only waiting for you. And then, let's roll this growing snowball straight down the mountain together. ....
The thank you notes with the url (password: obama44) for the photos of the ball/social have gone out, and the most gratifying messages are coming in from those who were there, as well as bits and pieces of so many others' experiences, watching the inauguration from The Plough and Stars in Philadelphia with other MYBO groups, or stuck in the tunnel with everyone else from the purple section group, or the serendipity of receiving a ticket to the silver section from another supporter at our very own ball.
Some of us who were in Washington ended up watching on television (again and again, due to the wonder of TiVo), wondering if we regretted our choices. You make them. You don't regret them.
Now, I return home to my son and husband to face the dog fur, the maddeningly, frustratingly disappointing contractor (who I would love to disappoint me in not -- disappointing me -- after all --) and everything that happened while I wasn't there to make sure it didn't, or wouldn't, or let it go.
I'm wearing my easy to take off and put back on shoes.
....
The Purple Ticket of DOOM
or, the reality of change
"The tunnel people sing Lean on Me to keep from going crazy. "
Purple Tunnel of Doom -- A Song
The lyrics:
Well I gotta tell ya, a little story, about a line I was in. Woke up early in the morning shoulda had me some gin. Yeah i was up so early to the subway, the morning barely began. So crowded there at the station, only Waldo would grin.
But i rode that train to the Purple Tunnel of Doom.
Line snaked straight through the highway, under 395. People clamoring for a little elbow room, just to stay alive. And me? I just stood there with my camera and i took it all in. The patriotic songs interspersed by chants of "Please let us in,"
Oh why can't we leave here? This Purple Tunnel of Doom.
We've been standing here without direction for far too long. Won't the Good Lord send us someone who knows what's going on? If any of us had any idea this is how it would be, We would have just junked their tickets, and waited for 2013.
I hope by then there's no... Purple Tunnel of Doom
So the gates were closed at 11 am. People out there, standing there everywhere, screaming "Please let us In!" And me? I just stood there with my camera. I laughed and i cried. That tunnel was just so damned gross, smelled like something had died. I guess there's no circulation... In Purple Tunnels of Doom (Purple Tunnels of Doom) The Purple Tunnel of Doom (Purple Tunnel of Doom) Purple Tunnel of Doom.
Its just like a black tunnel of doom, Except the people in it have purple tickets. It's kind of like a cricket match.
....
Saudia's experience in the tunnel
in her words
The most amazing thing in all of this is that there was not ONE arrest (even if there WERE there were no cops around to arrest anyone), no fights, no riots. Not in the tunnel or outside of the Purple Gates or anywhere in DC on Inauguration Day. Everyone kept their cool. There WERE moments of frustration & chanting & yelling & anger & it DID get tense & scary at times, but we all kept each other calm & focused. It truly is a miracle that this thing did not get out of control. It speaks to the humanity, spirit & common good of the people that were drawn to DC for Obama. And I think it speaks to Obama & the way he makes people feel.
That being said, after you look at these pix & videos I think no one would have blamed us if we let loose with a full on riot! What breaks my heart the most is thinking about all of the elderly black folk who were in line with us at the crack of dawn, some of them with canes & walkers. They were so proud & elegant & happy, dressed up in their Obama gear. They were subjected to such an indignity, standing in that tunnel for 5-7 hours only to be locked out with the rest of us. I can’t even think about it without crying. They, more than anyone, in my opinion, deserve an apology. Also, the folks with small kids - they were troopers.
I guess we were lucky in that when THE MOMENT happened we were out of the tunnel. Some folks were still in it. We were right at the gate packed in so tight that my body got turned sideways…and I couldn’t run around.
I’ll be doing a write up about my trip…once I get my mind around it all & come to terms with what happened. And I will explain what we did when history was made; how we experienced THE MOMENT is really quite moving….even if it isn’t the way we all envisioned it. It is a memory that I cling to with all my heart & soul for it WAS our moment – shared with other Purple Ticket People, a special bond we will share forever.
Or, one woman's account -- in her own words -- of how she made it through the Gate
Since you asked ... Ted and I were very lucky to get tickets to the Inauguration. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience!
Ted got a silver ticket and I got a purple ticket (both were in "standing" areas but we weren't able to stand together). We were just happy to have tickets which allowed us to get closer to the Capitol than those without tickets. To give you a quick summary, we got up at 3:15 am Tuesday morning! The Loudoun County Democrats had chartered 4 buses ... we boarded our bus at 5 am and arrived at RFK Stadium in DC around 7 am. We then waited in line for a shuttle bus to the Mall. Two other ardent Loudoun volunteers (Patti and Toni, a mother-daughter team) who also had purple tickets joined us on the shuttle bus. By the way, Patti is 69 years old with knee problems but she's an amazingly determined person and did not slow us down at all! Everything went smoothly on the shuttle until we got stuck in "bus gridlock" on Southwest Freeway. Our bus inched along for nearly 2 hours ... we were only a few blocks from the Mall but the driver wouldn't let anyone off because we were on an elevated freeway! We finally were able to disembark at 6th Street SW around 9 am. We "landed" in a huge crowd of people all heading for the Mall ... I've never seen anything like it but everyone was happy and excited and gracious ... it was fun! Most streets were closed off to pedestrians so we all moved together until we got to Independence Ave (which borders the south side of the Mall). Then the folks with tickets turned right and everyone else turned left. About 20 minutes later, we reached the silver entrance and Ted was able to get in right away (lucky guy). Because the purple entrance was on the north side of the Mall and there was absolutely no way to walk across the mall, Toni, Patti and I had no option but to take the 3rd Street tunnel under the Mall to get to the purple entrance gate. We ended up doing a lot of back-tracking to find the entrance to the tunnel ... and the tunnel turned out to be very crowded and extremely long, but we finally emerged at Massachusetts Avenue around 9:45 am. We learned later that we were very lucky to get through the tunnel (I think it was because we had inadvertently selected the southbound tunnel, not the northbound tunnel in which the bottleneck occurred. As you know, a LOT of people were stuck there and never saw the Inauguration! I was glad to hear that Senator Dianne Feinstein has called for an investigation to get to the bottom of the Purple Tunnel of Doom episode. After we emerged from the tunnel, we walked several blocks following the directions we'd been given by a couple of policemen along the route, and we ended up getting totally stuck in a jam-packed street filled with purple ticket holders ... the crowd was packed tightly between the buildings on each side of the street. We knew we had to figure a way out of this mess or we wouldn't make it to the purple gate before they closed it (we were 3 blocks away from the gate and heard they were going to lock it at 11:30 am). We were fortunate again ... all of a sudden an ambulance needed to come down our side of the street. Although it was inching its way along because of the crowd, we were able to squeeze behind it and follow it until it stopped near the end of the block. When we finally got to the corner, a policeman told us there was an accident in the next block and we needed to take a detour around that block. That also turned out to be fortunate, because about 10 minutes later we ended up behind a funnel of people outside the purple gate! Given the size of this group, we were still not sure we'd make the cutoff (turns out they didn't lock the gate until noon but, even then, a LOT of purple ticket holders were turned away ... Senator Feinstein's investigation will also look into why they closed any of the ticket gates since there was still room for more folks in every section on the Mall). Anyway, we made it through at 11:10 am and we were jubilant!!
Once in, we had a lot of fun finding a good spot to see the Swearing-In Ceremony and Obama's speech ... we couldn't get close enough to see the individuals speaking (including Obama) and a big tree blocked the jumbotron screen closest to us, but we had a wonderful time anyway. Everyone in the crowd was in a jubilant mood ... it was a wonderfully happy and diverse crowd ... by far, the largest crowd of people I have ever been in. Although it was a really cold day, everyone I saw was excited to be there and enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Throughout the day (even when we were all crushed together), people were laughing and kind to others, trying to make sure no one got hurt. In fact, we learned later that there were no serious problems at all that day ... no violence, no arrests, and no serious injuries (except for medical emergencies) ... a true success given the size of the crowd (estimated at nearly 2 million ... the largest crowd in DC's history)! I thought Barack's speech was amazing ... in fact, everyone around me also seemed to be deeply moved by his words of hope. After the ceremony, we tried to meet up with our friends at Union Station. However, when they closed Union Station around 3 pm because of the mobs of people, Ted and I walked the 2 miles back to RFK Stadium (we didn't dare take another shuttle bus), found our chartered bus, arrived back in Loudoun around 6 pm, and had a wonderful time watching the balls on TV. Sure hope you enjoyed the Inauguration as much as we did. What a truly historic day!! I truly believe that if we roll up our sleeves and work together, we will be able to solve the difficult problems our country is facing right now and America will be stronger than ever.
....
Meredith
who traveled all the way from Lautrec, France with her Obama Bridge Project for our MYBO Grassroots Inaugural Ball2009, the Social! and to represent Dems Abroad, Toulouse at the inauguration
and did not make it in
with her purple ticket and husband Robyn Ellis in front of a Homeland Insecurity vehicle, as she calls it
I'm just back to Lautrec and catching up....
I hope you got into the swearing-in!
I didn't! This was my report to our chapter:
I traveled to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration, representing, I hoped, our Toulouse Chapter of Democrats Abroad and the Obama Bridge Project -- but all didn't go as planned...
I've joined the Facebook groups, Survivers of the Purple Tunnel of Gloom, to commiserate with thousands of others of ticket holders who also traveled long distances only to be turned away from the Swearing-in Ceremony at the Capitol.
High school football games have better crowd control!
No volunteers, no stewards, no signs, no megaphones informing the crowd of problems, no interest or sympathy from police on duty.
Unbelievable incompetence. If the crowd had not been so good-willed and happy about Obama, it could have been a disaster. I got so close to the purple entry gate that I could watch the security checks through a barrier -- and see how few people they processes in sporadic batches.
Trying to un-gnash my teeth...
Democrats abroad Toulouse Excom member Angela Shaw DID get in, but Strasbourg Chaiar Susan Vaillant did not; Obama Super-gelegate from Ireland, Liv Gibbons did not; Executive Director of Democrats Abroad, Linsey Renolds did not; Obama coordinator Kim Reed did not -- along with some 5 to 10 thousand other Obama supporters who traveled from far and wide to witness history.
At least Obama is President!
How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans....
This was our second family dining experience in Delaware. It was an improvement on the first, a gray clapboard, sad-sack diner at an intersection in Milford, Delaware, returning from a trip to the Eastern Shore a few years back. Both times we were traveling with nearly teenage or outright teenage boys, and a three hour car-ride is simply too long to go without a meal.
Especially when the buffet for the next meal at Aunt Jeanne's house promised an awfully good chance of being vegan.
The strip mall offered a Wendy's, a Bertucci's, some other things I didn't -- or no longer -- recognize, and Famous Dave's BBQ. Famous Dave's. From across the immense parking lot, my sister tried to pick out the name in script over the door, "Fungus Dave's BBQ? Anyone want to go to Fungus Dave's?" Hilarity broke out. The hilarity of the improbable -- not only that it would be named Fungus Dave's, but that we would actually seriously contemplate going in and sitting down for a meal of BBQ on the way from breakfast to an all-afternoon buffet, which was allowed to be an uncertain affair. It could be plentiful, or it could be unrelentingly sparse and vegan. Not a thing you want to risk with two teenage boys. The mood from hunger can be fouler than the inside of the sports bag.
It was an experience. It shows just how far you really can travel from home and how much that can change you.
Or, just how diverse we Americans are.
The first table inside the door hosted a group of men in trucker hats, getting on in age.
Another, a family Sunday lunch.
The next, a group of women were being served cocktails in glasses the capacity of my sister-in-law's powder room sink in Viroflay. It was a shower or a birthday party. You could tell because it was exclusively female and there were little gift bags tied up with ribbon.
We were seated at our own table and just begining to take the inventory of the stuff up on the shelves that really could have come from our 3-bedroom ranch on Haverhill Drive in Dewitt -- I wanted so badly for my BFF in elementary school, Jeni Rose, to be there. She can still (I found her living in Paris!) recite the names of all the trial products that were floated in the area where we grew up. We were, she told me just a couple of years ago, amazed that I hadn't ever realized it, a trial market; those Jell-O parfaits weren't for everyone in 1970 -- when a new party walked in. A woman, a man in Eagles gear from head (scarf) to toe (sneakers), and a girl. I'd say little, but no one in that group could possibly be described as little. Unlike our waitress, they looked like they took three squares daily at Famous Dave's.
And cleaned their plates.
I tried not to stare. To be fair, the Eagles were playing in the Super Bowl play-off right after they'd get up from the table and drive on home to bowls of pretzels and chips, ranch dip, nachos and beer and soda. The game's three-hours long. They'd be finished in time for dinner and the second play-off game. Welcome to the United States of America, Fatback Fried Pork Rinds (skin on!) -- traditional or Hot BBQ style -- and Krispy Kreams or colon cleansing detoxes and Oprah's (the other "O") Acai (ah-sigh-ee) Berry Diet.
We made it all the way to Maryland House on I95 South before my intestines insisted on a stop and a "grande" tea at Starbucks. Phew.
And, of course Jeannie had a plentiful spread, complete with the "con carne" version of her crock pot of vegan chili, in addition to the three Tupperware containers of my sister's chili, frozen and waiting in the cooler in the back of the minivan, ready for the ball the next evening.
Since then, I have been living on the platter of Whole Foods humus, stuffed grape leaves and eggplant relish we brought home from the ball, my sister's enchiladas (I am sure she is tormenting me, since she has lost 23 lbs and looks like it, while I... never mind), and oatmeal (two packs of instant in the morning!).
I could use colon cleansing and a handful of acai berries right about now. Bon appetit! ....
"In daring cross-cultural leaps, no figure quite matches Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, Mr. Obama’s mother. As a university student in Honolulu, she hung out at the East-West Center, a cultural exchange organization, meeting two successive husbands there: Barack Obama, an economics student from Kenya, and later, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian. Decades later, her daughter Maya Soetoro was picking up fliers at the same East-West Center when she noticed Konrad Ng, a Chinese-Canadian student, now her husband." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/politics/21family.html?pagewanted=2&em
But if you step back and enlarge theimage, you can also includethe daughter of Virginia Dunham Goeldner, the niece of Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, first cousin of Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, Barack Obama's second cousin. Bring her into focus nearly 40 years ago and you see a young woman studying linguistics at university, who gave conversation classes to the international students, among them a young Saudi who she would marry and accompany to Jetta, where she would convert to Islam and they would raise their three daughters, American-Saudi. They wear the niqab like their mother, who is now a grandmother.
It places Ann in a family where cultural and personal transformation, curiosity for the lives and ways of others is a theme, not one woman's personal quirk. I can understand this. In college, I met an Iranian student. He was like so many of us at Columbia -- from somewhere else. The entire soccer team was that, "from somewhere else", including Peru and Ecuador, Belgium and England, Italy and Turkey, Germany and Greece (second generation), and there was Shahin Shayan was from Tehran by way of the Hun School of Princeton, New Jersey. Amazing that I still remember that after all these years. 28 years.He was the most brilliant member of that soccer team, as well as their "spiritual and physical leader", according to the Harvard Crimson back then, and he sat cross-legged on the floor and showed me the old color photoshe kept in a box in the closet of his dorm room. His mother and father, sister and cousins against a dry, mountainous landscape. Kicking a soccer ball on a dusty Tehran playing field, smiling at the camera. Joyful and carefree.
Carefree. Up until the summer of 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini, returned from Neauph-le Château to liberate his people from the dictatorial and cruel reign of the Shah, with his underground tunnels and state police, only to impose on them another form, placing his father, a pediatrician, in prison at Evin, along with everyone who might be against his version of freedom.
He laid the photos of the family travels into the mountains bordering Turkey and to the Caspian Sea out before me, and as I looked at his handsome father's face, he told me how he stood in line for hours -- four hours, six hours -- with everyone else who came when allowed to visit their loved one in that nightmarish prison once a week, and wondered as they heard the shots of the executioners' rifles if their father, son, or uncle would still be alive when it was their turn to enter that terrible place.
He pulled out the black and white magazine covers from the days of his mother's public struggle to bring back the deposed Dr. Muhammed Mosadegh, herself regarded as one of Iran's 3 most beautiful women, a daughter of the Qajar Dynasty, Persia's final dynasty, brought down in 1925 by Reza Kahn who would become Shah. A beautiful woman with dark red lipstick and wavy raven hair framing a pale, exquisite face gazed at the camera and out of the black and white photos. She was Confidence. She was Pride.
A serious young man, his father was smitten by her beauty and took to standing outside her window by the street lantern. For hours he would wait there, hoping that she would understand that he would not go away, hoping to show her thus the depth of his love, his passion, his commitment and his terrible patience. For her. He would wait, and she would understand. They married, the young doctor and the princess of the Qajar Dynasty, and they would have Shahin and Labkhand ("smile") before divorcing years later. He would become the pediatrician of the Shah's brother's children, and this would earn him passage to arrest and incarceration at Evin.
His mother sent him out in the car, that summer of 1979, to collect their valuables -- carpets, jewelry, anything that was still in their homes. He stuffed the trunk with what he could find to change to currency and get out of Khomeini's Iran to bring to her in Orange County, California, to which she had escaped with nothing. Her sister and her sister's husband had had the fortune to be able to buy a gas station in Long Beach on a dismal stretch of boulevard and a recently constructed split-level ranch in one of Irvine's newest developments. Later, when I went out to spend a summer, we made baloney sandwiches in the office of that gas station watching through the plate glass windows for cars to pull in off the sun-drenched stretch of pavement and fill up. He feared armed roadblocks and searches. In the end, he got little or nothing out of Iran, but he got his father out of Evin, and into house arrest.
I never saw that father. There was no Internet. I don't recall if he could call him. My memories of that are few, as much as I do remember him talking on the phone with his mother and sister, laughing more than at any other time, laughing, always laughing early on, and thinking "He's not the same when he speaks Farsi." I understood that we are ourselves when we speak the language of our childhood, even when we speak another later language as well. I know that now myself.
His mother and her family, though. I fell inlove with them, like I did with their brilliant son. He isn't that man anymore. He already wasn't by the end of three years. I watched him change, and I couldn't go with him where he was heading. I learned Farsi, well enough to converse and laugh, and their culture well enough to make the cake for Hussein's birthday, writing his name in green cake icing in an Irvine kitchen in careful Persian alphabet script. I loved being able to do that. Write our names, and say them. I found a culture I loved more than my own because it was one, with living rooms full of family and friends, laughter and music, Labkhand and the other young women standing to swirl their full hips and then release their body to follow in a dizzyingly sensual pirouette that was nothing like our muscular, emaciated, careful ballet, pulling me to my feet and setting me in motion along with them. The hands clapping the beat, coffee cups covering the tables. Afternoons seated on the floor, tailor-style, around a cloth, cutting the parsley for the Gormeh Sabzi with scissors, and talking and laughing, always laughing, even when life had changed so radically.
His mother had shopped in Paris and London with her children, flying from Tehran as she wished. Sent her son to The Hun School and Columbia, where he studied theoretical physics, met me and took me to see the accelerator under the campus and to hear the astrophysics lectures. Studying late into the night, I would hear, "Listen! This is so beautiful..." and, drawing near, he would read me a sentence from his quantum mechanics text books. He was so beautiful. Later still in the night, we would go to Tom's or to The College Inn for a tuna melt. It was a symbiosis of love, passion, friendship and learning, and it was warm, easy, like a nest.
But he changed, and I didn't.
Did anyone else notice? Did it hurt them, too? Did they miss him?
He started to watch my eyes, not because he found them beautiful but because he needed to know where they were looking. Was I looking at another man? Even in passing, it was intolerable for him now. Inexplicably. Suddenly. He was no longer carefree. He was burdened with cares and himself, and I had become another.
Ordering my sandwich at the deli next to him, I kept my eyes on the ham. "Why doesn't she look at me when she speaks?" they surely wondered. I felt his eyes on me at my side, but not from love.
I cried in the toilet of the Hungarian Pastry Shop, his words on the paper in my hand, "You can be perfect. You were made to be perfect. All you have to do is try a little harder." And the words unsaid, "All you have to do is listen to me, and I will show you the way to your perfection."
He had changed, but I had not. Why? Where was he going and why was he going there? I couldn't follow him.
I studied Middle Eastern Studies and imagined a life as a diplomat, but I feared the Islamic Republic of Iran would make that impossible. Only years later did I read Elaine Sciolino and realize that it would have been possible, perhaps even easier as a woman.
I left him, and I left the Middle Eastern Studies department. I paid my visit to the other world, the etherially disconnected and elegant Persian world on Riverside Drive of Dr. Yarshater, and I told him I would become an architect, and at that moment, before I had ever set foot outside of the United States, I began to search for what I yearned -- a life in a culture older and more beautiful and orderly than my own. The one I had found and lost with Shahin.
He had changed, and so had I through him. I had become more like him, and he, perhaps, became more like his own self, the one he would be from the deeper parts of that culture that had called to me, the parts that one discovers only when marriage and family begin to draw near.
"I marry the for the price of a rose."
We had agreed. He needed for us to be Mut'a al-Nisa, temporarily married until we were married, so that our physical love would be alright. For that, a price is asked. We named a rose. I could go that far. I could, I thought, go farther if asked. I did not, I thought, think that I would be asked to and learn that I could not.
Until his eyes watched mine to see where they looked, and I had to say good-bye.
Today, I live in France, and I enjoy all of the benefits of that Persian culture -- I even say merci, when served my coffee, and je vous en prie, when offering and again when thanked, just like I used to say "befarmaid" in Persian -- and I see the women in the Val Fouré in Niqab, lovely columns of draped cloth just behind their husbands, their hands pushing a stroller across the street, their small children holding the skirts covering their legs. I wonder, are they happy inside their veil and behind the screen across their eyes? I imagine these small children grown. Will they adopt the niqab like their mothers, or ask their wives to?
And after I left Ginger and Cecil, in town like I was to witness the inauguration of their great-nephew, I thought about Debbie turned Leila, and I wondered how she was able to take that step, the one that I could not. That final one that leaves some part of you behind, while taking on a new one. Is she pretending, I asked myself, still living an anthropological experience of transformation, aware of her Western self inside her niqab when she is outdoors, or has she become fully the person culture had made of Shahin, long before I ever met him?
I know this is not possible. We can none of us escape that. We all tell the stories we chose, keeping the others to ourselves. Private and cherished, I have mine still, Shahin. Do you have yours?
He lives in Tehran now, like his father, who has been free since 1986. I learned this today. We are ourselves, as much as anyone can be. ....
"The third act in the nation's history begins." -- Ken Burns.
"know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." President Barack Hussein Obama Inaugural Address
It's done. Barack Obama is President of the United States.
I have nothing more or better to say than those who stood in the cold and waited to witness the moment. We left Washington in the middle of the night, with a stop in Rockville, Maryland to pick up my nephews, on to Philadelphia. Not everyone had today off or could cancel everything to be there. Why isn't this a national holiday, once every four years? The moment when we transfer power peacefully in our democracy? Why aren't stores closed? Why do people have to work? Kids watch on little TV's between reading and social studies, when the current event is so important? And this year, of all years.
I am relieved not to be freezing, sorry never to have even seen the Capitol building on this visit to Washington. I knew it was there, watching over the Mall and the city, all of us, draped in red, white and blue bunting to honor the new president. Some said it glowed in the sky. Russell came, and he said that he started to take another Metro, but turned instead and walked back up the escalator, severely putting out the passengers heading down to catch their train.
"I had to see the Capitol dome," he said. "When I got outside, I looked at it, and I cried." He looked transported, swept away in the emotion of -- everything. Would it have been less had it not been this inauguration?
I saw the inside of Universalist National Memorial Church. Walked up and down its stairs, hallways, getting ready for 250 Obama volunteers, supporters, friends and strangers to come and meet one another, celebrate far more than the end of a terrible 8 years in our nation's executive, the inauguration of a new president. A Democrat. A man who identifies himself as a Black man, married to a Black woman, father to two Black girls. It was not merely political; it was human and societal, and it was charged with significance. We talked about it between ourselves, in terms more honest and forthright than I had ever heard or felt that I could. We talked to one another about race, about the way we had lived race relations, and about what that had meant to us in our own lives. We have a new dialog that is possible, which wasn't before.
Now we are home, eating leftovers from Tupperware and plates. Little bits of this and that, leftover from the days before, a tray of stuffed grape leaves and who knows what else, left after 300 people ate and drank, listened to music and poetry, danced and took pictures of everything -- the performers and each other. All the weeks of planning and emailing, wondering and worrying, hoping and anticipating raced up to the final preparations, 6 hours of trying to talk to as many people as not only to whom I wanted to talk, but as who wanted to talk with me -- as deserved or undeserved as that might have been --, while trying to make sure that things that needed to be done got done. Or not. Ask Marguerite about the abysmal failure of the clean-up crew to have any idea of what their task actually was. You'd have thought they were your kids, told to clean their room and announcing it was done when you find them in the living room 5 minutes after they have finally gone upstairs.
My moment was listening to Adam Falkner do his poetry up on the stage, hearing the black voices call out "Yes!" and "Unh-hunh" and "Amen!", as this young white man told their lives -- our lives --, applauding spontaneously, and the requests for his books. He should have brought more. Many more. Then, the dancing to those old songs from our parties back at Columbia. Black, white, mothers, daughters, college students dressed up, dressed down, dancing. It wasn't a night to talk, it was a night to listen and to dance.
We thank Susan Allen and her band, Deborah Burke and Adam Falkner, Frank Gioia and Joe Shade, Meredith Wheeler for her Obama Bridge Project -- Yes We Span! -- and Bill Johnson for bringing a wheel from his cart for everyone to sign. When I am not so tired, not so distracted from half listening to Chris Matthews and his guests, half-watching the parade and the images of Barack and Michelle Obama waving to the groups as they pass, I will write more about the MYBO Grassroots Inaugural Ball2009, the Social!, and when the pictures start to arrive in my email inbox, I will post some of them. I left my camera home.
It wasn't the night for me to take pictures. It was a night for me to have my picture taken, beaming with people I wanted so much to meet at last. My favorite moment was someone taking my elbow and exclaiming, "But, you're so pretty! Much better in person than in your photos!"
I let them snap them of me anyway. It was a night for generosity and selflessness.
Now, all I want is to see Kennedy get health care reform signed into law -- single-payer health care. We've got work to do, maybe not what President Obama even thinks is possible, but what we think is right.
Today's not for that, though. I'll let him off the hook for today.
Today. Oh, happy day!
Listen to Adam, Team Nuyorican, National Poetry Slam 2008...
....
The transcript of President Obama's inaugural address
"In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less."
PRESIDENT BARACK Thank you. Thank you.
CROWD: Obama! Obama! Obama! Obama!
My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.
I thank President Bush for his service to our nation...
(APPLAUSE)
... as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.
The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.
Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met.
(APPLAUSE)
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
(APPLAUSE)
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.
It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed.
Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
(APPLAUSE)
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.
The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth.
We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.
We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality...
(APPLAUSE)
... and lower its costs.
We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.
All this we can do. All this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply.
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.
Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.
And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched.
But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.
The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
(APPLAUSE)
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.
And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.
(APPLAUSE)
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.
They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy, guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort, even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We'll begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard- earned peace in Afghanistan.
With old friends and former foes, we'll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet.
We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.
And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
(APPLAUSE)
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.
And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.
To those...
(APPLAUSE)
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
(APPLAUSE)
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.
And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages.
We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service: a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.
And yet, at this moment, a moment that will define a generation, it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.
It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours.
It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old.
These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.
What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence: the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall. And why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
(APPLAUSE)
So let us mark this day in remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled.
In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by nine campfires on the shores of an icy river.
The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood.
At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it."
America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
Two grassroots volunteers took it upon themselves to take what they learned working within Obama's campaign on the ground to attempt to create a Grassroots Ball for "regular" Obama supporters.
These arrived in my inbox this morning, a series of B&W photos of Barack Obama, taken in 1980 by a young aspiring photographer. The shoot was informal and nearly forgotten, and photographer Lisa Jack, now a psychologist, kept the negatives in a safe deposit box during the election. The election over, they are circulating from inbox to inbox.
He looks so young in some, and in others, you can see where he's going as a man, the element that is sexy and alluring.
To think that within the year, Barack had joined us at Barnard-Columbia. Yo-mama, my old boyfriend called him. I was too busy in the undergrad architecture studio, struggling and succeeding only to "crucify myself" at each pin-up, as my old beloved teacher Bob Stern used to say, to take much notice.
Somehow, I made it to grad school and out again, and into practice... and out again.
For how long? Well, the French country life in my garden and on the political and election listservs and blogs suits me pretty well. We'll see.
The rain was the reason, but they went and picked up all the tiles for the new roof over the entry door that serves as a little balcony for the end bedroom, the lumber for its new rafters, and the took the kitchen window away for the carpenter to use it as a model for the new one. Since we aren't replacing all the windows right now, but renovating them, any that are too dilapidated will be remade in the old style.
I already rejected a window with which Joaquim appeared one afternoon. I was racing out when he showed it to me. It was lying flat in the back of the truck bed, and it didn't look quite right, but I was late. When I had a chance to take a good look at it, I lost a bit of confidence in him right on the spot. How could he think this window was alright and understand the project and my intentions? It was about the cheapest window you can get, from the store Lapeyre. Don't get me started.
He lost his 400 and something euros and decided he had better start showing me things before plunking down his money.
This one will cost more, but it's what we always said. The windows would be renovated or replaced in the same look, meaning old but new and healthy.
Georges and José took my leaving fairly well. It raised a small panic in Georges, who isn't entirely comfortable not having me around to say "yes" or "no" before it's too late. Someone learned a lesson. He took me out to approve the new tiles, saying they are the smallest available and the three colors closet to the old ones they removed yesterday. Audouin asked what they did with them. Had they kept them to reuse? It was my turn to have a moment of panic then. I couldn't remember what we had decided, and then I remembered that we had elected to replace them because they were quite worn, wouldn't match the ones at the new glassed-in kitchen entrance, and weren't the same size so you couldn't intersperse them.
"Did they at least save them, or is that what I see piled in the entry court in a heap."
Um. Piled in a heap? He went out to look, and returned looking disgusted.
"They broke them all. They broke them all. What a way to work. What's that? breaking things when you can take them down without destroying them." It went on. I didn't feel like fighting. I have learned that if I don't, and I can tolerate the grumbling, it stops.
"Je verrai ça avec Joaquim," I said as quietly as I possibly could.
"Je ne comprend pas cette manière de travailler, de casser les choses. Mais, qu'est-ce que c'est ça? C'est pas normal."
"En fait, oui, mais j'expliquerai ça une autre fois. C'est vrai."
He grumbled more quietly, and then stopped.
Georges and José will help take care of the dogs while I am away. That's one good thing. ....
Articles
