OK, forget the frog

Terrific. Someone call PETA.

Well, it looks like I've been quite topical again, without ever intending to be. In fact, I thought I was forsaking being topical when I let myself get carried away with my tiny baby frogs.

Now there is another reason this man will never set foot in my garden.

This is almost as bad, no -- what am I saying? This is far worse than finding one of the little creatures, scarcely having lost its tail, dangling from Baccarat's great gueule. I smacked her. It fell, and I placed it on the reeds, expecting it to perish. It recollected itself and leapt into the water.

Mike, you have been trying to protect me from learning about this, haven't you? Such a kind man.

"OK, forget the frog."

Yeah, just forget him. What does he matter anyway. He's just a frog.

Or she.
....

We gonna' pahty like it's yo' birthday

Um, this is from the baby frogs with the help of a certain close relative of Sisyphe (yes, she has relatives, and she is a she), who has apparently heard from them, asking for help wishing me a happy birthday.
....

Almost completely a baby frog

Look what I got to see! (Probably just because it's my birthday today.) A tiny baby frog with a bit of tail still!

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y T O M E !

Life's little wonders and Facebook, plus a little laundry and sanding, are all I need to have such a lovely day.

Which is a good thing because it didn't start off so well.

I took Sam to the lab for blood tests -- Nothing serious, just teenage school-induced misery resulting in lots of tummy flus, although he's sure he has mono. I had it, and I can tell you that he doesn't. But, the doctor tested for it anyway -- and then to pick up his scooter, which he had left locked in a nicer neighborhood of the city near Moosesucks where he goes to school, when I picked him up from school yesterday. I took his feverish self directly to the doctor, merely stopping to pick up Sikkens stain for the windows at a wood retailer and then Leroy Merlin for some more Decapex.

"Mom, I really am feeling very sick, you know."

"Just one more stop, Sam. I need to be efficient, you know!"

"I'll tell you that when you're sick."

When we arrived, Sam let out a sigh.

"Part of the scooter is gone. Part of the front of the scooter." I looked closer. He was right, the entire part with the headlight that covers the wires was missing, its insides visible. "They tried to hotwire it." The U-lock was still there, locked through the rear wheel. It wasn't like they were getting anywhere very fast, but his friend's dirt bike was stolen out of his garage, forced entry, and they cut right through the U-lock.

This on top of the theft attempt one night a year ago, which resulted in having to replace the front fork; they threw it to the ground after they tried to force the locked direction and couldn't.

Houston, we have a crime problem, in case you hadn't heard.

Immigration and integration have been wonderful success stories. That's the other side of France, the one that makes me so angry.

But guess what? We can declare theft with the police on-line now!

Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday, dear Sisyphe!
Happy birthday to me!

And many more.

And from Bev. You know who you are!



Wait! Why doesn't this video work? Someone stole it, too?
....

If you didn't see it, you probably weren't

Baby frog recently helped back into the "pond"
clinging to a plant

You know the end to this one, "looking". How many times did your mother tell you that after you came running to her to say your sweater wasn't right on top of your bed, or the orange juice wasn't in the door of the refrigerator like she said it was? And it was. How many times have you told your own children, the man sharing your home (you know what I'm talkin' about, unh-huh), -- or, if you are that man, have you heard-- that very same thing?

The problem is in the question How can I know, though? In other words, maybe I saw them because they appeared between the last time I looked and this time. Or, maybe they really were there the last time, but my eyes didn't see them because I wasn't expecting them. Them being the tiny baby frogs and what appeared to be the absence of tadpoles, but which wasn't true because there are tadpoles. Several of them.

I knew rationally that there had to be tadpoles still because when the first ones I had seen back on June 24 were getting bigger, there was a new batch of tiny little black ones that had hatched.

I thought I couldn't see when they sprout tiny little forelegs, but this isn't true, either, because now that I have seen the tiny baby frogs, I am also seeing the tadpoles with tiny little forelegs and tails. They are even right next to each other.

No one is even hiding. They are right there in front of me, it's just that their behavior has changed, so they are in different places, doing different things.

For example, now that they are little tiny frogs, they like to be on the plants sometimes. Or, they cling to the inside edge of the basin wall, just above the water line. Except that, now that I think about this, that's not really entirely new at all. It's what they did when they were tiny little tadpoles -- with the exception that now they can do it just above the water, rather than having to be in the water --, when they weren't swimming around. I found it surprising that they can do this, and then I remembered what I noticed when I hold one on a finger or my palm: they are sticky.

This has not yet led me to deduce that they can, in fact, climb back up the immensely tall (for them), 40 cm wall and into the "pond".

What they do do less of is swim around, but they are there, just under the edges of the floating aquatic plants. And, if I spend enough time looking, I can see them swim still from here to there. There are merely fewer of them doing it, so they seem to have disappeared.

Lessons in looking. In observing.

They fascinate me, these small creatures. The fish, too. They are alternately cute and beautiful, darting and then gliding about in the water, gathering near me to be sure there isn't food in the offing, and then dispersing again to play among themselves when they have determined that my purpose in being there lies elsewhere.

If I place the tip of my finger on the surface of the water, some will come and nibble it. Just in case it isn't food. It doesn't take them long to figure that it is not.

Fish kisses, as I prefer to think of them.

....

No workers again today. Georges told me Friday that we would have the windows Monday.

"Je ne suis pas contente, Madame Sisyphe," he said, appearing for all the world to be scornful of the window guy. "Il m'a dit aujourd'hui, et les fenêtres ne sont pas prêtes." He shook his head to prove to me that he was dépassé by the attitude of the window guy. "Je lui ai dit, 'Imagine un peu, ils n'ont pas de fenêtres et il commence à faire frais'." Yeah, imagine that. It's Tuesday and we still don't have any workers here installing the windows that were supposedly ready for installation yesterday.

The work is definitely being held hostage again. I find that dishonest. Tactical. Cowardly. I am, in a word, disgusted, dépassée by Georges and his cohort. Joaquim. (I feel friendly toward them when they are here, Georges and José, but when they do this, Georges and Joaquim, I wonder how I can feel as friendly as I do. Taken in again).

Sigh. I'm off to strip the frame of the window in the petit salon. There's so much to do that I feel impossibly small before the task.

Can someone put their eyes on me in a way that makes me bigger? Please?


....

My life as a frog elevator

Transformation complete, the tadpoles are frogs

I am so, so far behind. How to catch up, and where to begin? There is so much I haven't told in the ongoing saga with our building company, like the day I finally ranted against Georges as he followed me around the garden, and then sat, waiting patiently like Godot for me to finally come and join him.

"Madame Sisyphe, venez vous asseoir avec moi pour qu'on puisse discuter calmement."

"Non, Georges," I replied, calmement, "je ne vais pas venir m'asseoir à côté de vous car j'ai fini de marchander avec vous. Vous n'aurez pas d'autre réponse cet après-midi." After my statement that I wasn't going to come and sit with him to do any more dealing, I found him in front of me, kneeling. Had I not been so exasperated, I might have laughed so much he looked the perfect image of a gitan in the Paris métro (except they are women). As it was, it was infuriating. He sat back on his heels and finally down on the grass.

He hadn't given up.

Yesterday, he came to install the grill and the gate at the street, and Audouin said, "Il nous a demandé un avancé." An advance? That wasn't what the lawyer ordered.

"Ah bon? Combien?" How much? Georges smiled his usual grin -- somewhere between sheepish and guilty --, but it was my husband who replied.

"Il va nous le montrer juste avant de se casser, je pense." Meaning, my husband had figured it out; he wasn't saying. He'd present it to us just before getting the hell out of here, knowing the merde was going to hit the rotating blades as soon as I laid eyes on it. I went up to bed in the middle of the afternoon on a perfectly nice Saturday in September.

What else is there to do when you're going to have a nervous depression?

I wasn't asleep when I heard him giving the bill to my husband. I wasn't asleep when I heard my husband call me so Georges could say good-bye. I did us all a favor and played possum in my bed, the recently reinstalled shutters closed where the window still wasn't installed, shutting out the daylight and all activity outdoors. Almost. I could still hear them.

But why he was so secretive and coy about an advance as beyond me, unless he really felt badly asking for it when we had been very clear: no payment until all work completed. Because, it wasn't an advance at all, it was a bill for extras, an avenant. Georges had had a failure of mastery of the French language. An avenant refers to the terms by which a contract is changed, notably in the favor of the person to whom payment is due.

The paper was sitting on the dining table when I came down, Audouin out working on his balcony guardrail.

"Oh non! Non, non, non, non, non," I said.

"Je pensais que tu dirais ça," he said. That helped. I could accept that much humor and appreciated the inkling of solidarity it implied.

They were asking a few hundred euros here for the removal of the earth for the slab for the entry court paving, an evident part of paving an entry court.

They were asking a few hundred euros there to remove a tree that had always been slated for removal, as soon as my husband got over it and let them do it.

They were asking a few hundred euros to bury the pipes and electrical cables they knew ran under the dirt and would have to go under the slab.

They wanted many several hundred euros for the brick I told them to cancel for a wall when they told us how much they wanted to install it, telling me only the other day that he hadn't canceled it because it was already ordered at the time. But, not delivered. Key point. When I learned that on Thursday, I said, "You know my husband said no when he heard the price, 2,000 euros."

"Non, non, Madame Sisyphe," said Georges, indicating by the angle of inclination of his head and a movement of the shoulders that they were going to charge us pretty much the cost of the brick.

"Mon mari va péter un cable," I told him. Péter un cable means "lose it" in French. Georges found that amusing somehow.

Then, there was the many several hundred euros for the "complicated" brick work for the pillars.

Tonight, we have to decide what we are going to agree to pay, and what we are refusing. Basically 50%: everything having to do with the brick. Everything else is refused in my court.

Meanwhile, while I am sitting at the table working out the paving patterns, people are driving by and commenting on the house. On Friday, Georges told me that a car registered in the neighboring and wealthy département, l'Eure, pulled up alongside them. The man slid down his window and said that our house was beautiful, "exactement ce que je veux pour chez moi." He asked for their card, which Georges produced.

I realized in that second that I should have a sign on the house, naming myself as the architect and giving my contact information, as well as their company information.

"Georges, et s'il vous appelle, vous lui direz, certainement, qui est l'architecte?"

"Bien sur, Madame Sisyphe." Bien sur mon eye. As though he'd go out of his way to give credit where credit is certainement due. If they get business from this house, why is that? Hm? They have gone along kicking and screaming, trying to cut every corner and ruin the project with mass market crap windows and brick pillars and trying to wiggle out of everything they can, while I hold them to it and pay.

Like Friday, "Georges, vous allez faire l'ochre, oui?" They darkened the half-timber motifs and put the patina away without touching the ocre yellow walls that are too light.

"Oui, oui. On ne va pas se sauver sans les faires, mais, voulez ça ici," he pointed to the east façade next to which we were standing, "jusqu'en haut?" Was he crazy? He was asking if I wanted them to darken the ocre all the way to the top of the wall.

No, just do half of it, Georges.

I nodded, "Bien sur jusqu'en haut, et les trois façades de la partie plus récente aussi," comme vous le savez.

"Jusqu'en haut aussi?" How stupid is he, or how stupid does he think I am?

Don't answer. I prefer not to know, and I haven't even touched upon the disagreement between my life's partner and I about the extent of the brick paving on the garden side of the house. Reason number two why I have taken to my bed in a nervous depression.



But, the real news of the day is that the tadpoles have succeeded in their development to frog.

The past few days, I have seen nothing of them. Where did they go? To the bottom of the basin, down in the muck? Is this what they do when they get to the front leg stage and lose their tails? Why can't I see it like I got to see the rear legs sprout?

That's nature. You don't get to. Sorry.

This morning Audouin finally asked if I had seen the tadpoles recently. I hadn't. I shared my idea that maybe they do to the bottom of the pond (or whatever) to sprout their front legs and lose their tails. He nodded and wandered back to his balcony rail.

This afternoon, late in the day, something made me kneel down on the side of the basin by the reeds and peer into the Santa Barbara daisies. Something moved. It jumped. It definitely jumped. It was -- a tiny, baby, fully developed frog.

"Audouin, ca il y est! Les tétards sont devenus des grenouilles, et -- oh! Il y a encore des autres!" He came hurrying over to see what I had found. One, two, three -- five, six... baby frogs. We started trying to catch them to help them back into the basin before they became hors d'oeuvres for the animals, although I think they are poisonous for the cats and the dogs, and that the cats and the dogs know this.

Once my eyes got used to seeing them in the aquatic plants in the basin, I could see them everywhere. Seven, eight, nine, twelve! Thirteen -- I stopped counting and just took baby pictures for their album.

Three months from when we first saw the tiny, newly hatched tadpoles on June 24, they had done what they were supposed to do in that time and had become frogs.

I felt a surge of pride that the basin, which we had completely emptied to repair in April, had been capable of not only sustaining life but of allowing new life for both the fish and the frogs in a single season.

My life has new meaning, as I now have to worry about finding them in the plants around the basin and helping them get back in to survive.

I saw one that didn't make it. It's not nice what the sun does to them.

You can click on the album to go to Picasa and see it as a full screen slideshow. The little frogs are actually visible there.


....

We don't need no stinkin' czars: Interviews with 9/12 Tea Party demonstrators

Because Jesus is our King.
-- Demonstrator, 9/12 Washington Tea Party



What struck me more than the ignorance and assumption of fact and the irrelevance of supporting evidence the people interviewed showed -- we all know all about that by now, unfortunately -- was the fact that when the young independent (I am supposing) interviewer from NewLeftMedia countered their assumptions with facts without being condescending or aggressive, some actually listened and admitted not knowing about what he had said.

That is a very tiny possible indication that even tinier baby steps in education on a really, really small scale, one-to-one or small group interaction with people of widely opposing points of view, is just possibly maybe just possible.

Can you imagine worse than being isolated amongst people who are so ignorant of reality, insulating one another and giving comfort in each other's point of view, and what it must feel like to look out at the world from that rabbit hole?

By the way, did I hear a chant of "Shame France! Shame France! Shame France!"?

I got to get back to my drafting (paving plans) before the workers beat me to it and start twiddling their thumbs, which is never, ever a good thing. My husband is already on my case to get the windows sealed and finish the balcony before the weather turns permanently foul.

I'm on it. Right after I check out the NYT's OpEd page to see what they have to say after Baucus's delivery of exactly the garbage he promised to take care of his constituents.

PS: I checked. This is what we get, Ron Wyden of Oregon's Free Choice amendment, designed to simplify everyone's life. Good grief.

PPS: Fortunately, I checked out Gail Collins afterwards, writing mostly about congress's work on the student loan system, she gets this in. I just love her to death:

It is a tad depressing to imagine all those committees of yore, sitting there and saying: “Gee, it sure would be nice to improve Pell grants and community colleges. But everybody says we need that money to give to the banks.”

The House Republicans have a different proposal. Which, as Representative John Kline of Minnesota explained, is to leave everything the way it is and “convene a nonpartisan commission.”

Perhaps there will come a time when the words “convene a nonpartisan commission” do not cause people to topple over in depression and despair. But it may take a while.

Just hours before, Senator Max (Futility is My Middle Name) Baucus had unveiled the long-awaited product of his blue-ribbon, bipartisan committee on health care reform. You will remember that the whole legislative world came to a screeching halt so Baucus’s group could do its work. All summer long, the members floated above tawdry political concerns and labored on a meeting of the minds. Now the final product has landed, its wishy-washiness exceeded only by its total lack of bipartisan backers.

“No Republican has offered his or her support at this moment,” said Baucus, ever cheerful, ever hopeful.

Thanks, Gail.

Yours,
Sisyphe, ever cheerful, ever hopeful
....

Baseline nincompoopery: James Howard Kunstler tells it like it is

James Kunstler and Duncan Crary, doing a podcast

(check it out, it's here on The Sisyphus Journals --->
or here, www.kunstlercast.com
start with #79 Packin for France)

To some extent that's how I feel about this clusterfuck that we're all witnessing, and that some of us are, you know, actively commenting. I feel like in a way I'm sort of like the Bob Costas of the clusterfuck, you know, giving, you know, blow-by-blow commentary about what's going on, and so for me, you know, it's kind of amusing, although I must say, you know, I'm a little bit daunted by the potential for trouble and danger. Now I'm not very paranoid but, you know, I start seeing these nuts coming out at the health care town meetings and the Sarah Palinites and the Mike Huckabees and the sort of, what what I refer to as the "corn pone Nazis", and I'm not kidding about that; it is a joke, in a way, but it's a serious joke.

You know, I think there's tremendous potential in this country for political despotism and total looniness. It really makes me quake in my boots to imagine those people getting their hands on the levers of power, and it's not that wild to imagine that it could happen if the people in this country get, go through enough hardship and distress, which they seem to be heading into. And it does seem to me that the economy is still unraveling as much as it was in early 2009, that the recovery that's supposedly going on is a mirage, and that we're going to see a lot more mischief in banking and finance, and the economy in general and job loss and foreclosure and all the things that we're now familiar with, these are trends that seem to be in place that you really can't see the horizon on.

So, if I were a 25-year-old who spoke French and had some gold overseas and had some ambitions to, maybe, you know, buy some land and do some farming in Europe, that might not be such a bad idea.

-- James Howard Kunstler,
Podcast #79 Packin for France

This one is also for those who doubt what I say about Life in America, who are charmed by it and the idea that the party will never be over for the talented and those naturally born to take on leadership's august mantle.

Pour les français qui s'intéressent à cette question, je pourrais tenter une traduction mais pas tout de suite. Le sauvetage de notre maison demande mon attention.

Reality Receding

By James Howard Kunstler
on September 14, 2009 6:33 AM

Now that everybody in the USA, from the janitors in their man-caves to the president addressing congress, has declared the "recession" over, is exactly the moment when what's left of the so-called economy is most likely to implode. If there were still shoeshine boys on Wall street, they'd be starting their own hedge funds now, and CNBC's Larry Kudlow would be toasting them in the Grill Room of The Four Seasons. What we've seen in the vaunted rally for the last six months is the triumph of wishing over facts, combined with the most arrant market manipulation by floundering banks backstopped by a panicked government -- all pounding sand down a rat-hole of hopeless non-performing debt, while pretending that the machinery of capital finance still grinds on.

Despite what a few elderly Mr. Naturals may say about abolishing "capitalism", we're not going to have an advanced economy without a coherent banking system, and by advanced economy I mean one in which the lights stay on. By coherent I mean a system that is able to deploy accumulated wealth for productive purposes, in the service of continuing civilization. (And, yes, I know that the followers of Daniel Quinn are not so sure that civilization is worth the trouble, but unless you support the killing-off of about six billion humans right away, things on Earth are not favorably disposed just now for a return to hunting-and-gathering.)

I would hasten to cut through the fog of despair to reassert -- for the thousandth time -- that a true American perestroika is possible, if the public could overcome the plague of cognitive dissonance sweeping the land and form a consensus for action that comports with reality's agenda. But that is looking less and less likely. Instead, what we see is a rush into delusion, seasoned with grievance and gall. Spectacles like last weekend's march on Washington don't happen for no reason, of course. From where I sit, the uproar can be attributed to comprehensively bad American leadership, a crisis in authority and legitimacy that has left a functional vacuum in every executive office throughout the land -- from the White House to the state houses, to the lairs of the CEOs, to the towers of the deans and department chairs, to the glitzy sets of the nightly news deliverers, to the makeshift quarters of the NGO chiefs. In former times, clueless and impotent leaders stuck their heads in the sand. Nowadays, with pandemic narcissism abroad in the land, the heads are more usually inserted into the aperture that leads into the large bowel....

But I indulge in diverting objurgation when I should perhaps explain this American perestroika more clearly. The Russian word roughly translates to "restructuring." They flubbed it in 1989 because their system was too ossified and too far gone -- though history and circumstance eventually did it for them. A similar outcome is possible here, too, in which things just have to completely fall apart before emergent reorganization occurs. But you can be sure that if we allow this to happen, an awful lot of things will get smashed along the way, including lives, careers, families, property, and cherished institutions.

This monster we call the economy is not just an endless series of charts and graphs -- it's how we live, and that has to change, whether we like it or not. Now, it is obviously a huge problem that a majority of Americans don't like the idea. If they were true patriots, instead of overfed cowards and sado-masochists, they'd be inspired by the prospect. But something terrible has happened to our national character since the triumphal glow of World War Two wore off. I just hope that the Palinites and the myrmidons of Glen Beck don't destroy what's left of this country in a WWF-style "revolution." In the best societies, such idiots are marginalized by a kinder and sturdier consensus about justice. In America today, the center is not holding because there is no center.

American perestroika really boils down to this: we have to rescale the activities of daily life to a level consistent with the mandates of the future, especially the ones having to do with available energy and capital. We have to dismantle things that have no future and rebuild things that will
allow daily life to function. We have to say goodbye to big box shopping and rebuild Main Street. More people will be needed to work in farming and fewer in tourism, public relations, gambling, and party planning. We have to make some basic useful products in this country again. We have to systematically decommission suburbia and reactivate our small towns and small cities. We have to prepare for the contraction of our large cities. We have to let the sun set on Happy Motoring and rebuild our trains, transit systems, harbors, and inland waterways. We have to reorganize schooling at a much more modest level. We have to close down most of the overseas
military bases we're operating and conclude our wars in Asia. Mostly, we have to recover a national sense of common purpose and common decency. There is obviously a lot of work to do in the list above, which could translate into paychecks and careers -- but not if we direct all our resources into propping up the failing structures of yesterday.

The most dangerous illusion, of course, is a belief that we can return to a hyped up turbo debt "consumer" economy -- and perhaps the most disappointing thing about Barack Obama, is his incessant cheerleading for a "recovery" to what is already lost and unrecoverable. The man who ran for office on "change" doesn't really have the stomach for it. But, of course, events are in the driver's seat now, not personalities, even charming ones. I'd venture to say that if Mr. Obama thinks he's seen a crisis, and gotten through it, then he ain't seen nothin' yet. We are for sure not returning to the kind of credit orgy that made the last twenty years such a nauseating spectacle -- of which, by the way, the misfeasances and wretched excesses of Wall Street were just one manifestation.

Some theorists out there say that economy follows mood, not vice-versa, and that the anger and sourness on display around the USA, in events like the weekend Washington march, is a clear sign that tectonic shifts in the structures of everyday life are sure to follow. There are too many truly good and intelligent people in this country, to leave our fate to the Palins and the Glen Becks. But the good people had better man up and start telling the truth with some conviction that the truth matters.
....

The darker aspect of the United States: it really is out there

Pour tout ceux qui pensent que je dois exagérer un peu dans mes propos concernant cet élément moins bien connu des Etats-Unis -- du peuple américain -- qu'en dites-vous maintenant?
....

Who lied? No, it's the stupidpity

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

....

Things only a Republican could believe (or say)

I received this prior to leaving for a far, far too brief and, finally, nearly idyllic weekend for a sumptuous wedding in le Périgord, where I discussed the US and health care reform with a French naval officer and a businessman -- both felt very strongly that they live in a healthy capitalist system with an even healthier sense of the importance of taking care of their nation's citizens (socialism); we raised our glasses of the endlessly flowing champagne to that in a tent filled with men and women in evening attire and twinkling candlelight, titles of long-ago nobility gracing the place cards of the high tax-paying gathered friends and family.

Noblesse oblige justice to the People when all is as it should be in the world.

Vive la France. Vive le capitalisme. Vive la Sécu.

Enjoy.


Things Only a Republican Could Believe:

Parents who don't want their children to pray in school are Anti-American zealots -- parents who don't want their children to listen to a speech by the President of the United States telling them to work hard and get good grades are noble patriots.

Peacefully demonstrating against the country starting an international war is treason -- showing up with automatic weapons to protest healthcare reform is democracy at its finest.

Any government official with a desk job should have every action scrutinized -- any government official with a badge and a gun should never be questioned or disrespected. At all. Ever.

Questioning the legitimacy of an election because the "winner" was selected by the Supreme Court is sour grapes -- questioning the legitimacy of an election because the winner (by the largest number of votes in American history) is really a Kenyan born Muslim despite all evidence to the contrary is being a vigilant American.

Lying about a blowjob is an impeachable offense -- lying about a war is no big deal, really.

Investigating a shady land deal involving the First Lady is a matter of National Identity -- investigating the use of torture at the direction of the Executive Branch is a partisan witch hunt.

Executing Japanese officers for waterboarding prisoners during WWII shows that we have the moral high-ground on human rights -- waterboarding prisoners of our shows that we have the moral high-ground on human rights.

Sitting two rows in front of Jane Fonda in a 1970 anti-war rally is an OUTRAGE! Shaking Saddam's hand in 1983...meh, not so much.

Anyone who questions the president during a time of war is giving aide and comfort to the enemy and should be deported...unless the president in question has a (D) next to their name in which case you should undermine them at every turn even if you have to routinely make stuff up to do it.
Socialism, Marxism, Communism and Fascism are all interchangeable words that mean pretty much the same thing.

Anyone who abuses drugs should be locked up indefinitely...unless they are a popular Republican radio host in which case they need your prayers as they recover from the illness of addiction.

Health Insurance companies have your best interests in mind and anyone who thinks otherwise is trying to turn America into the Godless heathen nation of Sweden where EVERYONE in the country dies (eventually).

Obama is an atheist communist Muslim who attended a radical Christian church.

Believing that human activity could impact the global environment is crazy talk -- believing that an invisible man in the sky personally told George Bush to invade Iraq to fulfill Biblical prophecy is logically sound.

The verdict is still out on evolution -- but Jesus Christ returning in our lifetimes is a pretty much a given.

The media are unquestionably biased against Republicans -- Talk Radio, The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Right wing Blogs, Newsmax, Fox News and NewsCorp are not part of the media.

The government should have no part in regulating multi-national corporations as they make decisions that impact the lives of millions of people -- government should regulate individuals by determining who they can marry, what kind of intercourse they can have, what they can smoke, how to manage their pregnancy and how to proceed with end of life decisions.

Communicating with hostile nations is a stab in the back to our great nation -- Reagan communicating with the USSR during the Cold War was Political Genius.

Iran is a mortal threat to our nation and anyone who attempts to talk to them is traitorous scum -- selling weapons to Iran and then funneling the money to start wars in South America is clearly in our National interest.

George Bush kept the nation safe after 9-11 (NOTE: the Anthrax attacks, the DC Sniper and Hurricane Katrina don't count. Also, the fact that 9-11 happened on his watch despite receiving a security briefing specifically warning of the attack doesn't count either.)

Social Security, Medicare, public schooling, public libraries, fire departments, police departments and the US Military are as American as Apple Pie -- universal healthcare is ZOMGDEATHPANELSOCIALISM!!

George W Bush is a regular 'ole Texas rancher just like you and me despite the fact that he was born in Connecticut, attended two Ivy League schools, bought the Crawford ranch just before running for president, sold it immediate after leaving office and is terrified of horses.

The two guys at the center of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals are trustworthy voices in discussions of current national policy and should be taken at face-value.


Nick Anderson by Nick Anderson

"When the world finally comes to an end, all that will be left will be cockroaches, coyotes and Republicans......"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

....

We're Number 37, We're the USA!

I could have entitled my post, "Yeah, but we're number 1, we're France!", but sometimes I have to decide for which nationality I am writing, or which one I am representing. Kind of both at once, with a fair amount of frustration most usually.

Actually, it sounds better in French: "Ouai, mais on est le premier, on est la France!"

On est la France!

La France! La France! La France!

My husband went off this morning to his job as a doctor in a public hospital here. Mon mari! Mon mari! Mon mari!

We're number 1! We're number1! La France! La France!

Who was it who wrote something I read this morning, something I suspected deep in my Franco-American bones when I started telling people, "We're number 37, we're the USA. France is number 1, who wouldn't want to live in France for the health care and the food?": Americans don't like international organizations. Americans are suspicious of international organizations. Which Americans? Those tea-bagging birthers.

"Liberal-leaning and open-minded. That's what I say."

"Wrecking the capitalist empire party, if you ask me."

"Cooked up by those "We Are The World" people to try to make us feel like we might have responsibilities if we want to be number 1, that's what they're trying to shove down our throat."

Number 1 rules, man! Number 1 rocks!

Except when it's, um, number 37, and you're still really poor and, um, igno... duped.
....

PS: read Richard Cohen today.

Counting to 10

They're too tall

that's my fault

But it isn't all my doing. I can hardly even talk about it. Not that the pillars being a little too tall is even the issue really. It isn't. It just doesn't help.

No, it's the inability to read or to follow a plan, nay, to even consider using one until it's clear there is no choice. Then, I have to write instructions like you would for your son for how to make spaghetti balls. No, forget that, too complicated. Scrambled eggs. No. Boiled eggs. Not even poached.

Mom, how come they don't have shells on when you pack them for me?

See? It's like that.

It's why you still do their laundry and pick up their dirty clothes from around the hamper, when it's half-empty.

It's why you pick up the damp towel and hang it up before it becomes one with the floor covering and stiff, when there are towel racks in the bathroom right next door.

It's the "Why think when there's someone there to do that for me?".

This is what becomes of the plans, if they aren't left in the car while they start the work. On the ground, through the night, damp from the dew and the sweat of the previous day's work.

Georges appeared at the kitchen window, next to where I was trying to summon the courage to work on the drawings for the structure under the entry court paving and the new kitchen entry; the one they won't be doing because I have seen their carpentry skills, and it's true: my husband and I do have better ones. Instead, I was just feeling tense and defeated.

"Madame Sisyphe, vous pouvez venir deux minutes?" At least he doesn't ask me to come "just for a second". Two minutes is code for "come sit with us while we work and explain everything".

Georges bent back down besides Jose, where they had been trying to figure out how to make the uncut brick form the motifs. I listened.

"Vous êtes surs que vous ne voulez pas que je fasse des dessins avec les cotes exactes? Vous n'aurez à faire comme je vous l'indique." Georges considered my tenth proposition to make drawings of each and every brick and exactly how to cut it and finally accepted.

"Oui, Madame Sisyphe. Ca serait mieux."

From behind me, where I sat at the kitchen table, I heard loud thumps, like the fall of an ax over and over. I tried to imagine what sort of work on the brick would involve an ax and make a dull thud. And then I heard a car start up. I went out to look. A rope wrapped around the tree stump and led out to the truck straining at an odd angle in the narrow street. Jose stood and watched the stump moved toward him, millimeter by millimeter. It wasn't going anywhere. I leaned down with one of their tools and started to scrape away at the remaining dirt. I hit another big, uncut root. Jose saw me and came back over to look. I showed him a root as big around as my arm.

"Il y en a probablement d'autres comme ça. Il ne va pas bouger jusqu'à ce que vous les aurez trouvé et coupé." He nodded and took the ax, attacking the root. Georges came back in and looked. Jose told him in Portuguese that there was another root. Maybe more. Georges removed the rope from the stump, and I headed back inside.

I came back out with my sketches of each brick, measured from a new drawing on the computer, measurements to match the ones Georges gave me, and gave it to Jose. Georges came over to look. And then it came to me: this, too, was pointless. I felt very, very tired.

They looked at it without really understanding what they were seeing. I began to explain, wishing I could go get my hair cut. Anything.

Just.Not.Be.There.

It didn't seem possible. I pointed to the motif, each brick of the same cut numbered alike, and then to the series of numbered diagrams, showing precisely how to cut each one so that it would work. I might as well have done it with the orangutans or the chimpanzees at the zoo. Georges picked up a brick and showed me the wide face.

"Alors, je marque ici et je coupe --"

"Non, Georges," I said, turning the brick in his hand to show him the narrow face. "Ca c'est la face qu'on voit. Il faut marquer là et là et couper." I pointed to where to measure and cut. He still looked doubtful. Jose took the brick and showed me the wide face.

"On marque ici et là --" I shook my head no and turned the brick to the narrow face. This is where you mark and cut it, here and there. They both looked confused. I took the brick, the tape measure and the pen, marked it out and handed it back. Georges cut it, returned and moved it around, looking for it's place. I picked up the drawing, took back the bit of cut brick and oriented it according to the drawing. Then, I set it in its place and took another brick. I did the same. Georges cut it and started to look for where to put it.

I'll spare us all the details. Finally, after a few more, "Ah! Oui! Je comprends, je comprends." Except he didn't. I suggested that they work it out in a frame on the ground and returned to my drawings, and, after a time, the rhythmic thud of the ax started again.

I went back out only to find Jose alone in the courtyard, sitting by the pillar, looking hot and bothered. Georges was down at the café.

"Madame Sisphye," said Jose, sounding the most put out I had ever heard. "Ca ne marche pas." I saw what he had done in the frame on the sidewalk between the pillars.

No, Jose, of course it doesn't work because it is cut wrong. It can't possibly work like that. If you would either just listen or follow the plan, it would work.

Georges returned. He looked hot and bothered, too. I was that close to letting them have it, except what good does that ever do.

"Georges, je vais vérifier quelque chose. Peut-être CAD a foiré sur les dimensions alignées. Si non, ça marche." He listened and nodded to my suggestion.

"Oui, Madame Sisyphe, parce que quand je perds mon temps comme ça, ça me frustre." Subtext: you have asked us to do something complicated, we don't get it and we don't feel like losing any more money because we can't understand.

Yeah, Georges, when we lose our time, it frustrates all of us, I thought; I said, "Laissez-moi aller voir vite."

"Oui, laisse la aller voir," said Jose, showing solidarity with me.

The dimension was perfect. I rotated the thing the 67° so it would be parallel to the worksheet and pulled a linear dimension. Same thing. Their mistake. I returned and began setting up the bricks they had cut. It came very close to working, except the one they had cut wrong, trying (I'm sure) to find a solution, certain I was wrong, when the drawing shows very well that it works.

I took up the measuring tape and began measuring the cut bricks, off by up to 1.5 cm.

"Elles sont parfois un petit peu pas le même mesure."

"Elles sont parfois plus que 1 cm trop court ou trop long."

"Ca fait la différence?"

"Ca fait toute la différence." I had just gotten off the phone, ranting to my husband between patients. He had called me back after I told him in the middle of an appointment that I was about to throw myself from the roof.

"Reste avec eux et marque les coupes toi-même."

"C'est ce que je faisais! J'ai d'autres choses à faire, tu sais, et même si je reste avec eux, ben, ça leur fâche au bout d'un moment, je suis sure. Et moi? Pourquoi je dois le faire quand on paie des professionnels?" Translation of my tantrum: That's what I was doing, staying with them to mark all the pieces and oversee it, but I have other things to do, you know, and even if I stay with them, well, that must irritate them after awhile, I'm sure. And I? Why do I have to do is when we are paying professionals?

I looked at Georges, who was about to start protesting, the same smile on his face that means that I can't get mad because he's smiling. The hell I can't, but I won't. "Georges, je vais les marquer toutes moi-même. Vous n'avez qu'à les couper plus exactement." He started to protest. I headed him off at the starting block, insisting on my own point rather than hear him complain that the work is complicated (read expensive) for them.

"Non, ça va. Je vais les marquer toutes. Comme ça, vous n'aurez pas en vous soucier." What more could he say? I was going to take care of everything. He'd have nothing to worry about, except cutting them with a wee bit more precision.

This brought us to the level of the courtyard. The ax falls. They had been digging up the surface getting ready to prepare for the concrete slab. Jose had looked like he was going to pass out earlier, when I found him leaning on the long ax handle. Feeling sorry for your workers is a very dangerous thing. You either give in to their endless hinting and pay them more, or you do the work for them. So far, we were shooting two for two.

"Combien on doit creuser, Madame Sisyphe?" asked Georges.

"La chappe va faire combien encore?" How thick would the slab be?

"6 cm, avec de la feraille, 6 cm ça va." I usually see 10 cm. Whatever.

"36 cm en dessous du sol fini de la maison." His eyebrows flew up. He'd have to dig. I was learning to interpret quickly.

"Et la pente de la rue?" How much slope would there be from the step down from the street?

"Il faut mésurer."

A little rough calculation involving a stack of bits of brick, a few slender lengths of wood, and other for a spike, a bit of lumber and a level showed that they definitely didn't want two small steps at the addition.

There was also the question of the change in form of the courtyard and how much of it would come under the new contract I'd need for the walk and patios in front of the "petite maison". I knew he'd want to stop the courtyard along the line of the house like it was before the idea for the entry. Now, that many square feet had to be shifted elsewhere and still counted in the old contract and the levels had to be prepared so the later work would coordinate. Georges looked dubious.

"Aie aie! il va falloir qu'on casse ça aussi," said Jose, pointing to the low wall under the hébé. I nodded.

"Je vous l'ai dit avant. Ecoutez, puisqu'on fait l'entrée, il faut changer la forme de la cour et enlever cette plante pour pouvoir passer." Jose nodded his head. He was only trying to understand things from a physical point of view. Georges had his head full of what I might be trying to get away with in terms of cash money. "Il y a une partie de la cour qui se deplace d'ici," I pointed to where the new entry will go, "là-bas." I pointed to where the low wall and the hébé were. "Et puis, il ya une nouvelle partie qui compte dans le contract que vous disiez que vous ne pourrez pas faire avant novembre. Il faut la préparer quand-même, si non, on risque d'avoir des problèmes." The clouds dispersed from Georges's brow. I had made it clear that I understood that some of what lay around where we stood counted as new work that was part of a future contract, not all, but some, and that we had to do a minimum of it now to make sure the future work matched.

We returned to the question of how many steps. My turn to give in again. What did it matter? It was stupid to have only 10 1/2 cm high steps anyway, so what did one or two matter. I sat on my haunches in the chopped up dirt trying to stay out of the sun and considered the question. The argument of the wall against which I was leaning being fragile for that kind of excavation was fairly convincing.

"D'accord. Partez comme pour une marche." I got up and went back inside.

I'd had enough for one day.
....

Finies les vacances

The top of the front,

coming together

Le menuisier est triste de reprendre son autre métier aujourd'hui, mais l'hôpital ne peut pas attendre, les vacances finies.

Les progrès vont ralentir maintenant.
....

The brick pillars reach the top

My mock-up

The top part, the capitol, as it were, isn't cemented yet. We neared the top, and the wish I had to use a detail one often sees in brick pillars in Normandy gnawed at me a little more. I hesitated to ask; they have already been fairly clear that what they are producing for me far exceeds what they thought they were in for, as nice as (they admit) it is. It's just that nice costs time, which equals money. Eroded profits.

It's just that I thought we were on the same page from the beginning. But, that's mostly in the past now.

I asked. Jose looked a little doubtful about what I was proposing. They work more in stone than in brick. I climbed up onto the ingenious system of scaffolding they had concocted out of found materials.

"Madame, attention à vous -- vous allez peut-être tomber -- vous avez besoin d'un escabo?" I hoisted myself up with my arms, pushing off with my feet from the guardrail along the street.

"Non, merci. Ca va très bien." I set to work showing them how to lay the brick, Georges cutting bricks in half and then cutting them down a little more. Jose started in on the second side, gingerly, the bricks in the wrong angle. Just as gingerly, I said "Non, pas comme ça, mais," and I turned the brick to 90°, "comme ça." He nodded and picked up another brick, began to mark it into a wedge shape, like a camembert. I watched. It wasn't going to work, but he wasn't going to understand that until he saw it. This time, Georges had gotten it first.

All the way around, we placed whole bricks at the corners, at 45° to the center axis, and trimmed half-bricks at 90°, two each side. I picked up whole bricks to weigh them down at the center and began placing the next course all the way around.

"Je vois!" said Georges, breaking into a big smile, "Elle sait ce qu'elle fait," She knows what she doing, he told Jose. I had scored some points.

I finished and set down the bricks he was handing me into the last course, set somewhat back inside again. "Je vois. J'ai vu ça avant, près de Vernon." He had seen the detail, too, he realized now that I had it in place. It's really very typical in the region just to the north of us, only some 15 minutes away, where the architecture begins to employ more brick and less stone. It's a detail that speaks of a slightly more important home in a village, which ours, as small as it is, set apart from the others, is. He stepped back and looked up at the column and the house behind it.

"Les motifs sont vraiment bien comme ça maintenant, hein?" I nodded and answered, the dark bands of the fake timber in natural stucco did look even better with the brick pillars in place. They'll look better still once they have been darkened with the pigmented, natural stucco based stain.

"Si je peux vous le demander, vous avez quel age, Madame Sisyphe?" I laughed. You may ask, Georges. I am not particular about that. In fact, I am rather proud to give my age, able as I still am to scramble up onto a scaffolding and lay a few bricks, my lipstick fresh and my new t-shirt dusted with brick dust.

"J'ai 47 ans, 48 dans 2 semaines." Feeling good, too, especially now that I can finally go to the gym again with my toe healed at last from the second melanoma surgery.

The samples for the brick for the entry court, the walk and patio near the petite maison arrives tomorrow or the next day. Moving along, but I can't be absent a day.
....

Why, thank you, Georges!

Hanging around with Georges is a little like having two husbands, and it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Mais non, je plaisante.

All day long, starting yesterday, I have been hearing the little jabs about how expensive this particular brick is, as in, "Why did you have to select this very expensive brick that just gouged us when anyone else would choose what everyone else chooses that's a lot cheaper."

And, like you do with your husband, I smile disarmingly and say, "Oui, c'est beau, n'est-ce pas?" It wears on you after awhile. I try not to let it show, while praying for this to be over.

Then, the pillar started to go up. In the beginning, it wasn't much to look at, and that lower extra soldier course alongside the step down into the courtyard from the street definitely leaves something to be considered, hanging out there all by itself, unattached to any context that helps it make sense. Then, it started to... be.

"Cest beau, n'est-pas?" Jose grinned and nodded. No one discusses cost with him, or if they do, he doesn't care. He's not getting a cut on profits and he'll get paid anyway. Georges walked over.

"C'est vrai que c'est beau. C'est une belle brique. Vous avez bon goût, Madame Sisyphe," which amounts to "It's true that it's really nice. It's a beautful brick. You have nice taste, Madame Sisyphe." Sisyphe is not my real name, of course. It's my muse and my "nom de plume", de travail dur, de survie et d'espoir.

Why, thank you, Georges; that's why I'm the architect.

I thought that, I didn't say it. I said, "Voyez, vous-pouvez mettre ça dans vos matériels publicitaires pour impressionner vos clients futurs, 'Ah! Mais que c'est beau. Vous faites d'excellent travail!' ils diront. Ils viendront par des centaines pour des projets magnifiques!" I winked. Or, I would have if I were any good at it.

Instead, I just smiled disarmingly again.
....

Or, do like the workers and don't look at the plans at all

Brick pillars

getting it wrong

I took this picture and then came back inside and sat down feeling perfectly deflated. The lower courses should stand out by at least a centimeter, not barely perceptibly. How many time do I have to say it, shift them into place, only to return and find them pushed neatly back against the concrete core?

The longer I sat, the worse I felt. It didn't help that my stepdaughter had a huge fit last night and made us all miserable. Worse, she wasn't even at our house. This morning, I woke up with a fever blister, feeling like I'd slept in the subway, going repetitively through Astor Place, where it squeals horribly on the curved tracks.

Would I go out and see what was going on or suck it up?

I went out.

That was when I realized what I had seen in the picture above: they had begun the first course wrong. It was supposed to be three bricks, not two. Jose had made it up to the 5th or 6th, carefully laying the cement and placing the lengths of square wood to hold the courses for the mortar. He had to undo it. I had to tell him. How could he not have understood? I had made the drawings, reviewed them with them and even laid out the first several courses yesterday at the end of the day, and we had left them in place to get them going today.

I took a deep breath and said it.

"Ca ne doit pas commencer comme ça, mais comme le deuxième rang." They looked at me. I said it again. It doesn't start like that. The second course is the way the first should be. If not, nothing will work. I made the drawing precisely as it should be. All you have to do is follow it. Georges looked a little sheepish.

"Je vais chercher les plans de la voiture." Rough translation: "I'll go get the plans from the car."

God help us.

Meanwhile, Audouin has begin cutting out the mortises on the little balcony pieces. Pain-stak-ing.

I better finish the lunch dishes and get back out to them before something else goes wrong.
....

La rentrée, dwarfism, the pillars, the sob stories

The brick,
Weinerberger's hand-molded "brun marron"

"Tu as vu la brique?" asked Audouin, rushing into the house to ask if I had seen the brick they delivered and sounding quite undone.

"Oui." That stopped him in his tracks.

"Je veux dire de près." Had I seen it up close? "Je ne pense pas que ça va te plaire. C'est tout," and here he made a gesture with his hands to say that it was not right, damaged in some way, and picked up the other hand-molded sample brick we had chosen for the walk, "Ce n'est pas de tout le même que l'échantillon, ou -- oui, mais --"

"Ce n'est pas la même brique que l'échantillon. Ca c'est la brique pour les poteaux, la cheminée et les murs. A monis qu'ils ne soient pas trompés et ce n'est pas la brique que j'ai commandé." The last sentence I spoke to myself and the animals; he was halfway across the terrace, hurrying to get a brick to show me so I could reassure him about this other brick I had ordered, or thought was the brick I had selected for the chimney, the pillars and the walls.

He returned and held it out to me to show me the marks on the two large faces. That didn't, I explained, matter because we were using it the other way around. The color was much better up close than I had thought, deep claret red running through a brick that tended to a brick orange and browns. It would go with the colors of the house. I had chosen this brick for the colors, because it was available in the thin brick for the chimney right away (or so they told me at the warehouse and headquarters; the supplier is telling Georges otherwise), and because of the fabrication technique that molds the brick by hand, making for an authentic old brick feel that's perfect for an authentic old house made by hand.

It was something else that made him head over to talk to me this morning, a piece of the small balcony in his hands.

"3,200 euros c'est trop pour le mur là-bas en brique." Come again? Could I have a preface, the background, a little orientation. I had jumped out of bed and driven across Mantes to pick up the papers we had never gotten from the school, the ones Sam needed filled out to give to his head teacher at 10:30 AM, stopping on the way back to make a photocopy of the bac results that still cause us agony, only to have Sam harangue me that he would be late if I so much as finished signing my name to the last paper.

It was a little overwhelming, walking up to the big doors of the lycée. There were lycéens everywhere, and all the girls were about a head taller than I am. At the department store yesterday, buying some back-to-school clothes for Sam (his jeans are tissue paper-thin and shredded, with the exception of two), I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I avoid these. They are unkind. It was not pretty. I realized that my father's genes were worse still than I thought. The legs I saw belonged to his side of the family. I gasped. Sam looked over from the dress shirts we were considering for Audouin.

"What?"

"My legs. They aren't normal."

"Yes they are."

"No, they are really, really short and stubby. I look like a dwarf."

"No, Mom. They aren't. They are normal for someone your size." Right, like I said. There are subtle cases of dwarfism, and they said I had a little lordosis in grade school. I remember Dr. Wilkinson showing my mother. Something to do with the dimples at the base of my spine and a curve. My arms are also a little short for my trunk. I know this since I trained to teach yoga and the teacher noticed my difficulty with certain positions that required the arms.

"Your arms are a little short for your body length," she had said. "Try doing it this way." That was another bad day.

We passed another mirror in another store, and I made myself look.

"Sam, I look kind of more normal in that mirror."

"Mom, you are normal." I wasn't completely reassured. I feel even more self-conscious now. I would never survive high school here.

"Attends, 3,200 euros de plus à cause de la rajouture de la brique sur l'autre mur qu'on avait prévu en chaux?" He nodded yes. They wanted 3,200 euros more to do the bit of wall alongside the entry court in brick instead of natural stucco. "Ca me parait beaucoup. Le brique n'est pas si cher que ça," I said, Starting to head back inside. Of course, in as much as I don't know the actual price of the brick because I can't get anyone to tell me, it's a little hard to know. I'll have to go to the local Point P and ask the father of the kid from Sam's old soccer team, Alain. He'll tell me. The others don't want me to know so that I can't figure out their pricing. It's a little tough to work that way.

"Oui," added my husband, "mais c'est trop pour ce mur là. Tu penses que c'est vraiment la peine?"

"Non," I didn't think it was really worth it for that bit of wall. Georges had another point of view.

"3,200 euros additionnels pour ce mur là?" I asked Georges. There it was, that Georges grin, like a kid who's just gotten caught doing something stupid. He made a gesture with his hands, as though to say "Wait, wait. No." I was really confused. Did it have to do with not wanting to talk money in front of Jose because he has no idea what they charge compared to what he makes? I let it drop. We finished reviewing the instructions for the brick laying for the pillars; plans are tough for them, it seems. When we had finished, Georges followed me back inside.

"La brique, Madame [Sisyphe, shall we say], pour les murs --"

"Oui, Georges, mon mari préfère qu'on la laisse tomber. C'est trop."

"Mais, ce n'est pas 3,200, mais 2,300. Monsieur Audouin à du se confondre." Maybe he had misunderstood, but if I knew my husband, he wasn't going to be relieved by this bit of news.

"Je comprends, mais je pense qu'il va trouver ça toujours trop cher pour ce bout de mur."

"Mais, je vous assure, ce n'est pas de vol. Vraiment. Il faut faire l'enduit en dessous tout droit, et puis la colle à 36 euros le mètre carré, et le brique, 7 mètres carrés de brique qu'il faudra poser brique par brique." All that to say that the price of an additional 2,300 euros to cover that wall in brick was justified by the labor involved. I nodded. I reassured him that we didn't consider it an overcharge, especially not my husband. It's just that if I want, for example, the new windows up on the west elevation, I am going to have to give in somewhere else.

"La brique, elle est déjà commandée."

"Vous l'avez payé?"

"Non."

"Bon, ça ne devrait pas poser de problème. Ils ne sont pas en train de la fabriquer exprès pour nous," I added. It's not like they were making the brick just for us. It wasn't paid for yet. The order could be canceled.

"Mais, c'est mieux en brique, non?" Yes, it might be better in brick, but that wasn't what was going to make the difference to my husband. We'd do the chimney as anticipated, but I'd settle for the same color natural stucco on the side wall as along the base of the house and the low wall adjacent to the brick pillars. Tant pis.

He started again on the prices.

"Il y a des gars, s'il y a deux sur le chantier, ils facturent 1,000 par gar pour le main d'oeuvre, mais nous, on n'est pas comme ça. Vous savez, il a un portugais, un monsieur dans un Nissan quatre-quatre noir qui déjeune à midi au restaurant," the bar and restaurant just up the street from us, "et il est passé un jour pour voir les travaux. Il dit que lui, pour tout ça, il aurait pris 100,000 euros. 100,000 euros." His eyes shone. They say they don't like to have to talk about this, but. I think they love it. It's a game. I'm getting used to this. It's meant to wear you down. The old story I've suspected and told all along. Sob stories. Write the estimate and the contract low, then wear your client down for more. Adds here and there, saying, "But, we never understood that," and describe something the client could never have intended as what they understood. Better yet, do it as two people, as Georges and Joaquim do.

Every time he starts, I say, "Joaquim knew perfectly well," and I describe in detail what Joaquim and I said and when.

Take the windows as a case in point. This morning, I reminded him that the windows of the house are in oak, and the new windows were also to have been in oak, at the very least in pine, like some of the windows on the second floor, not in some exotic wood.

"Chêne ou pin, pas de problème, comme vous voulez, Madame [Sisyphe]." Très bien. Then make it oak.

Later, when I was back from my race to and from the school and we had finished discussing the 2,300 extra for the brick, he let me know that he was very sorry, but it would be 30% more for oak. I nodded.

"Oui, Georges, mais il fut compris dans le devis et dans le contrat que les fenêtres devaient être remplacées par des nouvelles exactement pareilles. Je les ai vu une par une avec Joaquim. Savez, d'origine, vous avez été sensé de réstaurer des éléments dommagés de chaque fenêtre et les peindre dans le prix. Nous avons vu chaque fenêtre en détail ensemble un jour, avec Eric, et nous avons décidé quelles fenêtres à garder et lesquelles à réparer. Il n'y avait jamais question d'un bois exotique. Il est seulement quand j'ai poncé les fenêtres déjà faites, qui ne devaient pas avoir reçues une sous-couche d'ailleurs, que j'ai vu qu'elles ont été faites en bois exotiques." Silence.

Summary: it was understood in the original estimate and contract that certain windows were to be restored and others replaced as replicas of the originals, which were in oak or in pine. Joaquim and gone over them one by one in minute detail with me. Never was it said anywhere that exotic wood was alright, and it was only when I sanded them, which I shouldn't have had to do because they were never to have received a primer, that I noticed they were not in oak or pine like those of the house. This was greeted by silence. He knows. He knows I know. But, it never ends there. We have to find a way forward where they get a little something more without getting as much as they'd have liked.

The two new ones for the upper story of the west end of the house, two little windows?

"Elles ne seront pas loin de 2,000 euros pour les deux," he said, eyes trying to convey perfect sincerity and sympathy.

"Georges, elles sont plus petite que l'autre là haut, qui n'a pas coûté 1,000."

"Pas loin." Not far from it, he said.

"Georges, j'ai des amis qui ont fait faire toutes leurs fenêtres plus grandes que ça et en chêne pour 1,000 chacune."

"Oui, mais il y a ceux qui sont plus ou moins chers." Yes, he acknowledged, maybe our friends had paid 1,000 for each of their many new windows, exquisitely fabricated in oak, but not everyone charges the same price.

"Surement, mais je sais qu'ils ont payé assez fort pour tout ce qu'ils ont fait. Ils l'ont dit. Ils éstimaient que ça le vallait." Certainly, I agreed. There are those who charge more and less, but our friends didn't low-ball the prices. They said so. "Ce que je veux c'est un devis pour ces deux fenêtres qui ne sont pas dans le contrat avec option en chêne et en pin, ou sapin s'il préfère -- c'est la même chose. Je veux aussi un échantillon de son chêne et de son pin, et je ne voudrais pas trop de noeuds dans le produit final si nous choissisons le pin."

Summary: Here's what I want. I want an estimate for those two small windows with an option for oak and for pine. I also want a sample of his oak and pine, and if we chose the pine, I want a finish product that uses the clearest pine possible, without knots.

We'll see what I get.

"Et ça," he pointed to the detail in the brickwork for the pillars and the wall, looking a little like a cross between hesitant and disbelieving. "C'est beaucoup de travail. Quand je l'ai montré à Joaquim, il a dit que c'est beaucoup de travail, et à Point P, bon, ils disaient qu'ils n'ont jamais vu quelque chose comme ça." I was waiting for that. The detail in the brickwork for the pillars was a lot of work. They'd never seen anything like it at Point P. They told Georges that it's a lot of work.

"Et oui, Georges, regardez autour de vous à ce que devient la France, le Portugal. Partout c'est laid, le bâtiment bon marché. On ne fait que ce qui ne coûte pas cher. Plus personne ne sait travailler." Look around you, Georges, at what you see everywhere in France, and in Portugal. It's ugly. It's cheap construction, and it's ruining the architectural landscape and no one knows how to do good work in which they can take pride anymore.

"Oh! Mais on sait le faire. On sait travailler, c'est juste que nous avons compris que --"

"Oui, je sais, vous l'avez dit la dernière fois mais ce n'est pas de tout ce que j'aurais imaginé, des pilliers faits par section, toute faite. N'importe qui peut aller chez Leroy Merlin est acheter cette merde. Demandez Joaquim. Si nous avons choisi de travailler avec vous c'est parce que Joaquim semblé lui aussi apprécier le bon travail artisanal et savoir le faire." He looked corrected. He was.

If we had hired their company, it was because when Joaquim came here to see the project with Eric more than a year ago he convinced my by his way of looking at things and discussing how to do the work that he valued good work by artisans who know their trade as much as I do. That is why the window from Lapeyre shocked me. That is why the missing details from the balcony shocked me. That is why claiming that it had never been in the contract to do the newer part of the house, only to treat the colors superfically, shocked us. That is why saying that they had never understood that they were to build the pillars brick by brick, but by prefabricated sections, shocked us.

"Georges, pour mieux comprendre, il faudra que vous rencontriez mon beau-père. Savez, on ne balance pas le moindre bout de bois car ça peut toujours servir un jour. Ils ont élevé 8 enfants sur le salaire d'un officier de la marine française. Il n'a jamais eu des vêtements neufs à lui. Il ne claque pas l'argent 'comme ça'," I snapped my fingers. "On a des amis qui dépensent facilement, mais il n'est pas comme ça. Je l'accepte. C'est comme ça. Vous le voyez là-bas, en train de faire son propre balcon pendant ses vacances?" He considered for a moment, and he grew quiet.

Even my own son, on the way home on the highway after an entire afternoon spent in the shopping mall.

"You know, I was sort of imagining coming home with a couple pairs of more classic jeans, a couple of somewhat dressier checked shirts, suede shoes."

"Mom, did you think about what that would have cost while you were imagining? It would be much more expensive." My son, who had just bought his first clothes at the less expensive department store, suggested that we check out the factory outlets over on the other side of Paris in Marne la Vallée for the Diesel jeans, who has learned to shop the second-hand stores, the friperies, of the Marais. No, I guess we don't "claque" money easily, any of us around here.

Meanwhile, Audouin is cutting the wood for the small balcony now with a handsaw (see photo) mounted on his little table in the absence of the ribbon saw he really needs. This is not going to be a perfect finish result.



"Il travail bien pour un médecin," said Georges, full of admiration.

God help us.
....

Fear and apprehension in Moosesucks

Spy photography,
trying not to be seen up on the balcony

The alarm clock went off. I turned it off, and waited for the second alarm 7 minutes later. If I am serious about going back to sleep, I change it to a minute before the time and, well, go back to sleep. Today, there was no chance. I was tense.

Tense and nervous. Can't relax. No psycho killers. Just the day before the return to school (and it isn't even my return to school; that would be much easier to bear) and September 1, the day we could expect the workers back.

Audouin rolled over and moved a few centimeters closer, "Tu boudes encore?"

I thought about it. No, fear and apprehension had moved into the place of a nearly week-long pout. Or, perhaps it was fear and apprehension all along. Add to the return to school and of the workers the fact that I have to go shopping for something to wear to a wedding on September 12, and my cup runneth over.

He lay there awhile longer, perhaps waiting for signs of intent to communicate on my part -- it wasn't intentional; I think I qualified as catatonic -- and then he said, "Je vais me lever."

The rain was falling steadily outside the closed metal shutters. Last evening's wind was not for nothing. It came up while I was applying a third coat of the black vegetable-tar stain to the balcony on a perfectly cloudless early evening, following an exquisite day, and then the neighbor came by, then we decided to have a little appératif, and then he went for his wife and the little ones, whereupon we sat out in the garden and drank too much authentic Porto, direct from his family's vineyards in Portugal, while their somewhere around 5 year-old-son played in the fish basin. It isn't due to Baccarat, our black Labrador retriever, this time that the newest water lily bud will never open.

I drifted back into a sleep troubled by strange dreams of people I hardly knew, but who my husband, who was also there, knew perfectly well. I was especially aggravated when I came into the kitchen -- my grandmother's kitchen, for heaven's sake -- and found the table covered with all kinds of things he had brought home after a dinner. Not food. Plastic tumblers, empty bottles and things he said would be "useful". That's all well and good, I thought, he isn't the one who has to find a place to put them away until I have use for enormous clear plastic tumblers. Not in France.

The church bells chimed the hour. 10 am. I don't stay in bed that late. This was serious.

And then I heard it. Voices. A truck. I jumped out of bed and opened the metal shutters. I saw my husband's head bobbing along just along the edge of the balcony planks as he crossed the terrace, went out the gate and got into the Voyager, parked in from of the telecom building next door. Maybe it's just someone for a repair, I hoped. That's when the truck went past the gate, "ENOV" was all I had time to see painted on the side before it slid past the house. That was enough: BATRENOV.

They were here. Back right on time for work to start again in September as promised. Right along with the rain.

Sam called a moment ago. I was expecting the call. He has to ride his scooter nearly an hour from across our department. He left on a beautiful Sunday afternoon for what turned into a 36-hour gathering of friends before school starts, and he didn't have a thing to protect him from the wet and the rain.

"It figures," his turn to pout, "all it does is rain here, from September until May."

That is just a little pessimistic. There are some sunny days.

I guess I have to get busy and get ready to oversee the work. It really wasn't reassuring the day that Georges looked doubtfully at the brick pillar and wall design, then back up at me and said, with an air of newfound hope, "You'll be here to help us, won't you?"

I see the brick on the truck bed, and it looks browner than I recall from the manufacturer's supply facility. It's true that it's called "brown brown" ("brun marron" translated), but it was based on dark reds, and that's what the catalog says, too.

Inshallah.
....