Au moins il y a de soleil

The base of the house

When did I say it? Or, how many times did I say it? I know I said it here, but the actual words, the ones that say Oh, we'll get the work done, but it will be less for more, they must be in another post, of which there are 50.

We will get it done, but done will be a renegotiation of the meaning of "done", and it will be less for more, but don't worry, it isn't we who will lose. No. It's the contractors who have already lost. That's what Joaquim says.

"Je vais te monter la morale," he said. Go for it, raise my spirits. I kept right on bringing the heel of my Wellies down on the sidewalk, where Georges was sitting in the sun with his back to the wall of the neighbor's garage just a few feet away, clumps of dirt and grass falling away from the tread in the rubber soles.

I laughed with precious little mirth, looking at the bits of wet dirt and grass while Joaquim danced next to me, trying to get into my line of site. You see, he refuses that you be angry with him. He's right and he's good. The bad guy did this to us, and we're all suffering now, but no one as much as he and his workers.

"Je vais te monter la morale. Tu sais comment? Tu sais?" No, but I was going to hear it. "Parce qu'aucun artisan n'aurait pu faire ce que j'ai fait ici pour ce que vous avez payé. Si on appelle n'importe quel expert, il vous dirait que vous nous devez d'argent."

"Non!" popped out of my mouth. No one could tell us that we owed him more money. We had signed a contract, written with a verbal understanding of what those nearly worthless words meant; we owed them no more than we had paid. But, that wasn't what he meant.

"Si, ce qu'on a déjà fait vaut deux fois le prix que vous aurez payé." Figuratively, it could be argued that we "owed" him any additional amount within certain difficult to establish boundaries, having to do with margins of profit.

"Ce que vous voulez c'est plus d'argent."

"Mais non! Je ne veux pas plus d'argent. On élimine quelques postes et vous aurez l'essentiel --"

"Ou nous payons plus cher pour tout avoir. Vous ne voulez pas forcément plus d'argent, mais de prendre les sommes contractées attribuées aux autres postes et les mettre dans l'essentiel du projet: le ravalement." He nodded; I had gotten it. He didn't necessarily want more money; he wants to spend less time on the job for the total of the contract, and we can decide what we'll give up to get the most important to us. Less is more.

"J'en ai déjà parlé avec mon mari. Très bien, vous ne faites pas la petite maison, et vous faites la chaux sur la partie plus récente de la maison." That's where it all began today. I finally understood that he really did not intend to apply the chaux to the newer part of the house.

This had gone through several phases of comprehension. The first, which was that it would be stripped to the structure, just like the older part of the house. The second, which was that this was not actually possible -- I had misunderstood the intention -- because it is not plaster but cement, and that the cement would receive a hydrofuge treatment to prevent the cement from absorbing more water, and then be covered with the natural stucco (chaux). I had asked if it really were possible to simply apply the chaux directly on the cement base, and he had said that it was. I remember that conversation, proof of my understanding, perfectly.

The third was today's interpretation of what he had intended that I understand and believed that both my husband and I had fully grasped back at the time of our first "coming to terms", namely, that he would be applying only a chaux-based patina to the newer part of the house so that it would be the same color as the rest of it, but would not have the same actual appearance.

"Vous n'allez pas appliquer la chaux sur cette partie de la maison?"

"Mais non. Je vous l'ai expliqué quand on a parlé de la couleur de la maison," and he went on to tell me precisely when he had told us and how.

"Non, vous avez dit que vous allez appliquer une patine partout, tout autour de la maison pour que les différences en couleur d'un support à un autre soient minimisées, mais vous avez très clairement dit que vous allez appliquer la chaux par dessus du ciment. Je me souviens car je m'étonnais, et je vous ai posé des questions très précises. Alors, c'est un liquide la patine?"

"Oui, à la base de chaux."

"Mais c'est un liquide, comme l'eau, et pas de chaux?"

"Oui."

"Alors, cela donne la couleur mais pas l'aspect de chaux, comme partout sur la reste de la maison?"

"Oui. Ca n'aura pas le même aspect." We arrive, at long last, at mutual understanding, and I didn't like it. In fact, I nearly lost it. I did my very best to stay calm. I have already broken every rule I followed in practice in the States because nothing was respected, and there is no such thing, really, as residential architecture here. There is the tyrany of the trades.

Of course, I was right that he had said that he would not be removing the surface treatment on that part of the house because (first (bad) reason) it was cement, not stucco like the rest of the house, and so it was part of the structure of the wall, and then (second (more justifiable) reason) it was not damaged, and (real reason) the contract sum was too small to pay them adequately for the time they'd have to spend on it, so they were whittling away parts of the work assumed in the contract to stop the flood of financial damage to themselves they are claiming to suffer because he wouldn't now be basically saying that they will do it, if we drop some of the other work from the contract but maintain the contract sum, were it not a finnagle from the begining.

It's about money.

Georges and José, he says, haven't received salary for 2 months. They are living, he nodded toward Georges, on credit. You are merely not receiving some of your "toys", he said.

"Nous ne sommes pas des gâtés," I retorted, flaring back up. We are not spoiled, and these are not toys. This is a real and very important, long-anticipated and saved-for renovation of our home.

My husband works 13 hour days at the hospital, I shot back, which are not counted in his salary calculations, and he works nights on duty that are paid a song, and, sometimes -- like the Saturday afternoon that he'll do this week -- not at all. The work might have been underestimated, it might not be enough to cover their salaries, but we did not do the estimate nor write the contract, they did, or Eric did, but Joaquim allowed us to make a first and a second payment against it. If it weren't enough, and he knew it, then he should have refused the contract. He should have, in other words, called Eric out for what he was in the story, and said that we needed to start all over again, regardless of having a bank loan approved based on it.

"C'est l'histoire typique. On l'entend tout le temps. On sousestime le contrat pour démander plus d'argent plus tard." I looked up from the clumps of wet grass and dirt and straight into his eyes. It's a form of blackmail. Sign 'em up cheap, then tell them it cost more than expected and they'll have to pay more to get it done.

Here, he took umbrage. This was not the case, he argued. He had not underestimated the job to get us to sign, figuring he'd get it later. Eric had written a load of garbage on the contract, he insisted again, which he never saw until it was already signed, the loan for it approved, and I, the smiling client, was waiting for him to show and get going on the work.

"Ca c'est moi," he said. I was kicking the sole of my Wellies against the railing on the other side of the street now, listening. "Je suppose que je n'aime pas dire des choses comme ça contre les gens, j'essaye de l'éviter --"

"Et, comme ça, vous occasionnez encore plus de problèmes pour tout le monde. Personne n'aime dire les choses désagréables. Tout le monde est maintenant déçu, frustré, perdant. Ce projet aurait pu être un vrai plaisir pour nous tous, mais il laissera toujours un mauvais goût dans la bouche de chacun d'entre nous."

"Sauf vous. Vous n'aurez pas perdu. Vous aurez gagné une très belle préstation pour votre maison, mais nous aurons perdu d'argent."

"Vous auriez du dire depuis le début que vous n'avez pas fait le devis, que le coût du projet fut réellement plus élevé que la somme du contrat, et que vous ne etiez pas dans la capacité d'honorer le contrat car, quoi qu'il y en soit, nous n'aurons pas tout ce qui fut promis dans le contrat, qui est depuis un certain temps à la poubelle, figurativement, j'entends. J'ai su depuis longtemps que vous nous ameniez ici. C'était une evidence." I saw Georges smile, despite himself, because he knew. We all knew that we knew. It's a terrible business.

It won't be just the application of the chaux on the "petite maison" that will go in order to get the entire house done properly. Why, I asked him, would I ever have come to him, put up with all of this, gone through all the samples if we had only ever intended to redo some parts of the house? Why would he even have ever taken the care that he had had we not intended to do the whole thing? It was obvious. He knew it, and he knew that I did.

For ages, I had been saying that there was a reason that the work on the chaux had stopped short of the newer part. It was the arm twister. One explanation is the one Joaquim preferred that I understand: that it would never be done like the rest of the house. But, the other one is the true one: we both knew that there was no question but that it had to be for the work to be a success, and that if he were to do it, he would need more money, or not to do other pieces of the contract. That is why it was left along with the other pieces of the contract: for the final negotiation of what we drop to get it the way it must be.

Bad guy? I don't know. Maybe Eric is. Maybe you are only an accidental bad buy.

Bad method? Yeah. How much more would it take to get it all, Joaquim? Should we give it to you? Or, should we find someone else, or do it ourselves?

Better method? Be up front. Say what things cost and for how much you'll do them, and then get them done.

"Au moins il y a de soleil," said Georges, a smile forming on his lips. I think sometimes that he would do things differently, if he had a say. I hope so, anyway. I like Georges. It was a sort of peace-offering.

"Celui-là, il se contente du soleil," said Joaquim.

"Au moins il y a de soleil, Georges," I nodded back. I am determined to take it. What else can I do?

Call a lawyer.
....

Credit nightmare

I woke up after Audouin had left, thinking hours had passed, but pushing myself over to face the alarm clock, I saw that it read 8:30 am. How could he have only left half an hour before? The house was quiet. Sam started late again today, and I rolled back over to wait for his alarm clock to wake me up. What woke me up instead was a panic attack.

"Damn! My Citibank card. Damn. It's the 15th, and I didn't pay it." I was out of bed in a single tick of the heart and downstairs without seeing the stairs go by. The dogs watched me as I bounded for the computer that was already on, the one we can't turn off, or risk never being able to turn on again. I called up a browser window and typed, "Citicards.com".

Nothing. An error message. I did it again. Damn, damn, what was wrong? Every page had a little exclamation point in a yellow square. I hit the ISP window; "Se connecter" showed. I hit that and decided to go pee. Judgement had surely been passed already on my account, and I had already begged forgiveness back in February, succeeding in having my interest rate lowered and my credit line brought back up to its previously dizzying and generous heights.

I'd told the truth; I'd gotten carried away in the Obama campaign and planning an inaugural "grassroots" ball for the MyBO folks in Washington, and with several hundred emails a day, I had lost track of the reminder to pay my January bill on time, and it had cost me my interest rate and my credit line. But, having been with Citibank for 21 years -- the customer service agent was obviously impressed with my loyalty --, she promised to ask that my case be reviewed favorably.

I was pretty sure she was an Obama supporter, too.

When I got back, I tried again, ready to go get the phone to call and beg, I'd never, ever forget again; I promise. Please, please forgive me, just once more. If I am not innocent, I am not a bad credit risk, either.

"Operation not possible."

Panic again. Why? Had they cut me off? Banished me from on-line payments for my sin? I could barely see the screen in the agony of my self-recrimination. Wait, there were small red words. They read,

Account Alert: This account is closed, because your card was reported lost or stolen. If you have not added the replacement account as of yet, please do so to access your account information.

Okay. Breathe. Click on the link and add the replacement account.

It worked. Breathe. Make your payment, even if it is -- not late?

There, written as plain as day on the confirmation of my payment was the date: March 9, 2009, and looking back again, the date my payment was due: March 16, 2009.

The 12th of the month is the date I have engraved in my memory as the date my payments are most often due.

Their tactics in the present financial climate of crisis, I hate to say, work.
....

Bailed out! It's fun being a billionaire!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

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"Well -- uh --, yes, yes, I have to admit, it's fun being a billionaire."
-- Sir Allen Stanford

Hey! I saw this guy on a news program while we were away skiing. They were looking for him to arrest him, and here he is, right on national television, enjoying himself and being a billionaire!

What Battered Newsrooms Can Learn From Stewart's CNBC Takedown

By Will Bunch, The Huffington Post, March 5, 2009

The most talked-about journalism of this week wasn't produced in the New York Times, CNN, Newsweek or NPR. It was Jon Stewart's epic, eight-minute takedown on Wednesday night's Daily Show of CNBC's clueless, in-the-tank reporting of inflatable bubbles and blowhard CEOs as the U.S. and world economies slowly slid into a meltdown. You can quibble about Stewart's motives in undertaking the piece -- after he was spurned for an interview by CNBC's faux populist ranter Rick Santelli -- but you can't argue with the results.

The piece wasn't just the laugh-out-loud funniest thing on TV all week (and this was a week in which NBC rebroadcast the SNL "more cowbell" sketch, so that's saying a lot) but it was exquisitely reported, insightful, and it tapped into America's real anger about the financial crisis in a way that mainstream journalism has found so elusive all these months, in a time when we all need to be tearing down myths. As one commenter on the Romenesko blog noted, "it's simply pathetic that one has to watch a comedy show to see things like this."

But that's not all. The Stewart piece also got the kind of eyeballs that most newsrooms would kill for in this digital age -- planted atop many, many major political, media and business Web sites -- and the kind of water-cooler chatter that journalists would crave in any age. In a time when newspapers are flat-out dying if not dealing with bankruptcy or massive job losses, while other types of news orgs aren't faring much better, the journalistic success of a comedy show rant shouldn't be viewed as a stick in the eye -- but a teachable moment. Why be a curmudgeon about kids today getting all their news from a comedy show, when it's not really that hard to join Stewart in his own idol-smashing game?

Here's how:

1) Great research trumps good access to the powerful: The Stewart piece makes this controversial but critical point in two different ways. For one thing, the story shows how access to the nation's most powerful CEOs -- supposedly the big advantage of a journalistic enterprise like CNBC -- isn't worth a warm bucket of spit when it results in slo-pitch softball questions, for fear of offending the rich and powerful. And so we see Ford's CEO grilled about Kid Rock's performance at the auto show, Ponzi scammer (later revealed) Alan Stanford quizzed on whether it's fun to be a billionaire, and Maria "Money Honey" Bartiromo gushing at how corporate chiefs were still telling her that their companies were doing great, even as the massive iceberg was casting its shadow over the hull of the American economy.

Jon Stewart's act of journalism -- reported, of course, by his ace team of writers -- worked because there were no interviews at all. It all hung instead on meticulous research, dredging up lethal quips of CNBC's stock pumping hosts to hang them with their own undeniable words -- Jim Cramer's "buy buy buy" when the Dow was roughly double what it is today, his touting of Bear Stearns' and Bank of America's doomed stocks. The kind of research that's so hard for most newspapers to do anymore, with downsized staffs and ever-looming deadlines, but which can so often belies the spin from our "accessible" sources.

2) The American public is mad as hell right now, so why isn't the mainstream media? Balanced reporting is important, but a balanced, modulated tone of voice? Not now, not when millions are hurting from lost jobs and under-water mortgages, and many millions more are living in fear of the same fate. People need information but what they so desperately want an outlet that shares their passion -- and, yes, that rage -- and so Jon Stewart gave people what they weren't getting anywhere else.

3) Tear down this wall... of pretending that the media itself isn't a major player in American society, and isn't a factor in most big stories. Sure, there were greedy bankers and their pocketed politicians working in unintended tandem to take the Dow from 14,000 down to 6,600, but these popular TV pundits were there every step of the way, as The Daily Show revealed, and their contribution was consequential. Mainstream media, after all these years, has a hard time understanding that one of the major political forces in this country is mainstream media, something the audience knows all too well.

4) The First Amendment doesn't say anything about not being funny, or not being passionate. I don't know about you, if you actually watched the piece, but I feel like I learned something important -- confirming the cheerleading nature of the nation's most-watched source for business news, even in a moment of oncoming disaster -- but I also busted my gut laughing as I did. And there's nothing wrong with that, informing and entertaining at the same time -- isn't that what newspapers are charging people 75 cents for?.

You know, sometimes people do some crazy stuff when they realize their days are numbered. I don't have the answers to problems facing American journalism -- not my own newsroom, mired in Chapter 11, nor the others that face a possible death sentence. But fighting for life will mean living each day like it was your last, with passion, anger and laughter, the way The Daily Showshined a light on a crevice of the nation's battered economy on Wednesday night.

Oh, and all of us, over here? Those of us not in the United States? We're just great -- those of us whose spouses work for the public health care system, anyway --, so what's Peter Goodman talking about in today's poor, beleaguered New York Times?

A Rising Dollar Lifts the U.S. but Adds to the Crisis Abroad

Oh, right, the panic over the financial crisis that everyone and her brother is talking about. That financial crisis.

As the world is seized with anxiety in the face of a spreading financial crisis, the one place having a considerably easier time attracting money is, perversely enough, the same place that started much of the trouble: the United States.

Try Googling today's world newspapers and let me know what you come up with. They're having a lot of fun.

No, no. Let me guess. That would be much more fun.

....

The crazies at the end of the subway car

And, while we're having fun, Frank Schaeffer -- Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (from a former Republican) -- (click here for my caveat) is not kissing -- "and there's a lot to kiss" -- Rush Limbaugh's -- "Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill," -- ass:



I'm going out for a run.

Oh, and remind me to tell you about my nightmare this morning.
....

Blue like my oatmeal bowl

and campanules

Sisyphe is contemplating a hiatus. Overwhelmed with ennui, or just overwhelmed with things she has no desire to do, preoccupied with the past and sick to death of the dog hair and dirt (but not the dogs), grumpy and short of patience with all things political, she is neither insightful nor funny, if ever she were, which it appears that she might have been on a very few occasions because she was thanked for it specifically. But now, she is not in the least.

It's what happens when something bigger than everything else happens, but you can't talk about it because it has no place in a blog. It obliterates all the rest.

I picked up the Jane Austen volume on the table next to my bed again. Persuasion. Not my favorite. Jane lets it start to lag with the-head-injury-by-the-sea. One starts to prefer the modern day methods of just telling the gentleman in question that, yes, you still love him more than anything in the world and hope that he can forgive you for having been persuaded, with all the pain that occasioned you, to decline the offer of his hand. You would, in short, be the happiest woman alive if he would but offer it again.

Note, too, that he doesn't come equipped with an ex (or two) and children. Eight years have passed, and he is, incredibly, only improved by additional confidence and the glow of maturity, wealth and accomplishment.

The best of the Austen men were truly the best of men.

Sisyphe needs to duct tape herself firmly to the present and form the sort of incompletely informed but terribly sure opinions about others that would allow her to class them away as unworthy of her limited emotional resources as they seem to have found the means to do themselves. I mean, just how hurt can you be and still be worth anything?

....

So, the marmalade cat update

It now looks like short of running into the neighbors as they are packing their moving truck, we will have neither news nor thanks from them.

I took Wisp to the vet last week to have the vaccinations she couldn't have last January because she had to have a shot of cortizone for her progressive mid-line hair loss that began at the tail and crept up her spine. The vet said it wasn't because I sprayed her with the Frontline spray I use on the dogs, but I think he's wrong. He said this condition usually comes from flea saliva, but I had 3 of our 4 animals with me, and not one of them had any flea droppings in its tail-end fur. Besides, this has been the coldest winter I can remember in a very long time. Those would be hale and hardy fleas to have survived it to jump onto my cat around Christmas. I also took Rapide to have him check out the cyst in her left tear duct that they are going to remove the 19th.

Anyway. Back to the story I began.

The technician (nurse, they call them here) that day knew more. She told us that it was thought that the cat could be immobilized for 3-4 weeks to allow its pelvis to heal. They were amazed that our neighbors hadn't come to thank me for getting their cat to a vet quickly.

"Well, if they don't think that I did it, but was too cowardly to admit it, or if they don't think that I really did know that it was their cat that I hit and took to my own vet, instead of taking much more thoughtfully to their own vet, probably the one in Freneuse, closer to where we live, then they are just rude."

"Don't worry, you couldn't have taken it to the one in Freneuse, anyway. He never works on Saturdays," said my vet, who does work Saturdays, right along with his colleagues, in a very disparaging tone of voice.

There's one thing about which I feel much better. Not that I ever had reason to feel badly. That's just me. Torture myself for other people's lackings and rudenesses, sure it's my fault.

I mentioned to Audouin that a "vendue" sign had gone up in front of their house, without there ever having been an "à vendre" one. We knew they intended to move permanently to their vacation home, somewhere else, far away.

"Je me démande comment serront nos nouveau voisins."

"Probablement plus gentils."

Il y a des fortes chances.

....

Animal passports

So, do you know how much it costs now for vaccinations for your found cat? More than 100 euros. That's right. The European Union has decided that from January 1, 2009, all domestic animals that heed vaccinations will have to have a passport. It's sort of like your passport, only it contains their entire record of vaccination. They don't need it only if they intend to travel for business or pleasure, but if they are going to get their vaccinations. It costs about 60 euros, and it is good for life, or until the EU decides to replace it with something fancier and costlier still.

To have a passport, the animal must be tattooed or have an electronic identification chip inserted behind the skin of the neck under the ear (preferred nowadays). No chance of passing another pooch for the actual passport holder.

So, take the case of Will O'Wisp, who my husband found lying, dying of hunger on a walking path in the woods along the old sand quarry in the center of the boucle. At 1.5 kg, she was nearly gone. A soaking wet beg of bones that could barely lift its head, let alone stand on her four paws. Her rear legs were so atrophied that they collapsed under her very meager weight. You could feel the exact profile of each and every one of her vertebrae, the sides, too.

We fed her and let her sleep on a towel in the crook of my arm, where she still sleeps if Audouin refuses her the place between our two heads, where she likes to burrow against both of us, or if she hasn't selected Baccarat or Rapide in our place for the night. We took her to the vet to see if she carried diseases that needed to be treated for her to gain strength and survive. She did both, and last week, her third round of vaccinations since he brought her home cost us over 100 euros. That was on top of the nearly 300 we had spent in January to have both dogs vaccinated and get Wisp a shot of cortizone for her mange-like condition. She now carries a little medal announcing that she is protected by an electronic chip.

"I'll hang it with her other jewels," I quipped to the vet and his nurse, referring to the little puffy heart that came with her collar, hanging next to the nametag I had made for her, a heart with a little pink bling to match her pink collar. "This found cat announces to the world that she has humans who care." They laughed. Now we just have to hope that she's smart enough to get across the street without getting hit first. Cars can't read little medals and nametags, or see that they are heart-shaped with pink bling.

I arrive at my point, which is a question. Is the EU, in its desire to protect animals and humans, actually putting them more at risk by pricing routine care for peoples' much-loved domestic pets out of their reach? It's a huge budget, when you add it all up, and include feeding them decent food. For the two dogs, it's a 13 kg bag of veterinary food at nearly 80 euros every 5-6 weeks, plus the cats, who are managing on Purina, for now. The dogs are off the Pro Plan until they lose -- well, until Rapide loses a little more weight. She has already lost just about all she needs to. Then, they go on the maintenance food, and I might just keep them on this brand because Rapide's skin and fur improved just as much and as overnight as the vet predicted it could.

There are many people on fixed incomes, who find themselves facing their vet, announcing that they need a passport and an electronic chip for little Pierrou, people who are already feeding their beloved pet the cheapest brand of food available on the grocery store shelves. They join their pet at the food bowl for the next month, or leave and put their animal at risk.

Or, they can always eat cube steaks, like everyone else trying to eat on a tight budget these days.

You see, in the very, very rare instance that rabies is found, all animals within a certain radius who have not been vaccinated are systematically rounded up and put down. No exceptions. This actually happened near Bordeaux not very long ago. The culprit was Tikki, a dog illegally imported from Morroco to France. In the summer of 2004, Tikki died of rabies, after having been in contact with legions of humans and other animals, which started a domino chain of preventitive vaccinations for humans and the euthanasia of numbers of domestic animals whose owners could not show proper records of vaccination against rabies.

....

"She needs to lose weight"

These words from the vet, concerning Rapide, were just about the best thing that could have happened to me. Better than hearing my own doctor (or husband, one in the same) say it to me. It came just after I had dragged myself back to the gym, after nearly a year away. My excuse? The election. Who had time to work out and follow all the news? But, I was going back to the gym, since November, but without the regularity of application that I needed. Rapide was also spreading, and becoming accustomed to a level of inactivity that surpassed only my own. Baccarat was also at risk, although her sprints to the door any time I stood up from my laptop screen or reached for my coat to head to the store were preventing the same level of engraissement as her mother and I were suffering.

The vet might as well have told the three of us that it was time to lose weight.

January 2, we started our walking and hill program, and Rapide hated me for it. Maybe resented. She didn't seem to hold it against me between torture sessions, but it was another story during those walks, where she dragged along behind as far as the length of leash would allow her, the collar slipped up over the right ear (she walks on my left), sucking air like a Hoover.

"Au pied, Rapide!" She wasn't having it. Baccarat trotting along just ahead of me, ready to go faster, and Rapide dragging her full weight along behind, trotting like a sulky 14-year-old girl, who really wanted to plod, but my own pace wouldn't let her. She did all but stop short and refuse to move forward. It was all I could do not to scream. I did not look forward to our walks, as much as I love it when we arrive at the top of the rise onto the ridge road and walk along it under the stars, Mantes lit up below, off beyond the other side of the Seine to the right and the fields stretching off to our left to the Seine, la Roche-Guyon and the further ridges beyond. The Seine cuts a deep swath in an otherwise high landscape. There are very few cars up there late in the evening.

Night after night, we repeated the same scenario until Audouin read me the riot act for walking up the unlit road to the ridge in the dark with two black dogs, and once I got over my pout -- who did he think he was? My father? Not that I couldn't have used one of those... but that's the past -- I headed the other way from the gate, to the other end of the village where there's a really steep bit of street. Rapide looked at me like, "Are you being serious?" She didn't like the look I returned her.

Of course, all I had to do was get a flashlight for our walk, and put on a reflective jacket. They even make them for dogs, right along with reflective, neon yellow or orange collars for hunting.

"On y va, les fi-filles."

We walked that hill four times in a row, making U-turns at the top and the bottom, Rapide hauling her hind end up that slope at the far end of her leash and panting for all she was worth until I started to feel guilty for making their greatest pleasure -- a walk -- her greatest misery. After several evenings' application, my own hind quarters ached from the effort. Reluctantly, I let up on her. I could go to the gym for that, but she just needed to walk, not die of a heart attack.

The results of two months' effort were measured last week. When the vet came in, he sat down on the lowered examining table, at eye level with her haunches.

"Je pense qu'elle a perdu de poids," I ventured. He petted her and continued to look at her, where her waist cuts in nicely now at the pelvis.

"Oui, à l'oeil, je dirais qu'elle a perdu. C'est bien."

"Mais, je l'ai pesé, et elle est à 40 kg!"

"Vous venez de le faire ici?" he asked. I nodded.

"La balance ici rajoute 10%. Il faut l'enlever pour son vrai poids." That meant that she was at 36 kg. 35 is the goal.

I am not telling you how much I weigh still! I can't anyway, since I refuse to weigh myself.

Rapide is nearly on maintenance -- as well as trotting right along, for the most part, when she feels like it, like a champion with much greater respiratory ease --, and I am back at it. I even got my bike out and rode it the 16 or 17 km to the gym and back last week, and to the grocery store. We walk every day, at least 45 minutes -- although twice that would be good for them -- but that's hard for me if I am also going to the gym. Take the day that I rode my bike to the gym. That was 45 minutes there, 75 at the gym, 45 minutes back, followed by a 45 minute walk with the dogs.

I'd have time for nothing else.

Which might not be so bad.

And, no workers today. We expected them to be gone "2 or 3 days" last week, which I understand to mean the entire week, but today, too? The clouds have come to cover the bright blue sky, and I really, really need to attack the crap in the house and take what I absolutely can't throw away (yet) to the attic. I live in perpetual self-recrimination and guilt because we have no storage space and vast amounts of clutter, dust and dog fur. Worse, I can't work on anything I need to do when I know the house is in need of attention.

"Prends une femme de ménage," suggested Audouin. I explained that a cleaning lady will only keep the house as nice as she finds it when she first comes. We need to do the interior first, and then get a cleaning lady to help me. I cannot abide dust and clutter.

....

Fish flourishing

They come out from behind the conrete block when I talk to them again. I am forgiven the assault I committed, removing them from their home, the fish-pond-in-a-fountain?

I just went and did some basic research on goldfish. We don't have koi. I know that because they don't have the barbels on the lip that koi do (see the koi to the right), and the original fish in the basin were more likely two very ordinary goldfish Audouin thought had to be unhappy living in a bowl and released into the vaster confines of the old fountain. He was right, they probably were bored to tears and sad:

Goldfish are curious fish that will quickly become bored without items or other fish to interact with. If placed in a bare aquarium goldfish will settle to the bottom and only move when fed or frightened by sudden jolts. However, if put in a tank with sufficient gravel, aquarium accessories or plants (real or fake) they will make themselves at home. Adding a few companion fish will also help, but make sure each fish has plenty of personal space.

I knew it! I knew from hours of watching them that they are not as stupid as people say they are. If you live with them, and you watch them, you know they aren't. You also know what the Wikipedia article goes on to say, that they are mildly territorial. Ours lived in three clans, each tending to occupy the same area of the old fountain, although in the coldest winter weather, they would often all retreat beneath the old stone sink that Audouin placed in the fountain as a planter, and which is no longer visible under all the plants.

I also learned to understand reproductive behavior in them. I am nearly certain that one of them is carrying eggs right now, but I haven't seen any males potentially present chasing and prodding her to get her to release her eggs, which I am hoping to see. First, I have to see if I can figure out what the white spots on the gills of the males in mating mode actually look like. If that ever happens, I have to be on the lookout for the eggs, since I should consider removing them from the can so the others won't snack on them. Now, how do I do that? I am also, apparently, supposed to feed them "fry food". I'm sure that's easy. Just head over to Florosny and ask, "Excusez-moi, mais auriez-vous du 'fry food'?"

They're called "tubercles". I found a photo. I have seen these; I had no idea they meant that the fish were in mating condition. The only ones left are very light colored, and since my aggression of them, they are avoiding me a little, so it will be harder to see if they show any tubercles.

And, while the concrete block was one appropriate gesture, I need to give them some additional stuff, like plants, gravel and some stones, and fast, along with changing out their water now that they live -- for the moment -- in a confined fish can.



....

Yellow

Yes! I just bought our tickets to ColdPlay "Vida la Viva!" at le Parc des Princes September 7! We'll have never looked forward to la rentrée, even before the end of the current season of misery that is Sam's school year. We went to the concert at Bercy last September, on the 10th. Oh, it seems like yesterday (sung to the tune of "Yellow". It works. Go ahead, try it.)

Yeah, I went for broke and got the best places left available, which are the second to best.

Sam told me while we were away that he wanted to get them for us for my birthday in September, but it would have been nearly 200 euros, so I splurged and included Audouin for both of our birthdays, Sam's and mine. We'll have to take two motorcycles.

I cannot wait.

I cannot wait.

I cannot wait.

Cold Play under the stars, and "Lovers in Japan"... all over again.

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah, they were all yellow

Excuse me, I have to go practice my best sing-a-long voice for the stadium performance. Even Beaker seems cooler with Chris Martin's voice coming from him. Uh, sort of.

Yeah, they were all yellow...
....

When the thieves come home to crow

Evening, both lindens are done

No, it's good; I still have partial use of my hands. Both of them. I can't get my rings off, but my mother-on-law wouldn't like it if I went without them, anyway. I should take that as a compliment. I do.

My timing, if not my hands, was exquisite. My hands look like they belong to someone much, much older and coarser than I.

Ahem.

The weather was beautiful for several days, before the clouds scuttled in yesterday afternoon, and a chill wind blew, bringing rain last night and again this afternoon. I don't remember when it started, only that the sun shone. Sunday, I worked outside and cleaned out the daylily border on the right intermediate terrace. For those of you who haven't been reading me -- doggedly; I'm sorry -- since last year, I provide the link to the plan. It will help you to understand that the house sits on the top of five terraces. For the complete description, see that post, but for our purposes, it will suffice to know that the two linden trees are the big rounds on the house terrace. They look -- please excuse me -- like breasts (the guys just ran to check it out). The other circle, the one between them and a little higher, is the old fountain that Audouin turned into the pond-in-a-fountain, or basin (full account of his efforts in the same post).

You'll notice that there is a stair that cuts down the "center" of the garden, on axis with the French door into the main living space of the house, and that the garden is approximately symmetrical about that axis.

Descending the first few stairs, you arrive on the shallow second terrace. The raised planting borders on the southern side (downhill slope) contain the lavender bushes, the two weeping roses, and several very old, woody tea rose bushes. Roses are not particularly compatible with lavender, preferring a moister, heavier soil, but they manage. I cut them back exceptionally vigorously this year, and to my chagrin, I later realized that I left nothing but a single overly large woody stem from the first white one on the right. I'll have to replace it. It did quite well, too. That will teach me to cut back with such vigor before I have adequately pruned the lavender and can see what I am doing.

At one end, there is an enormous bay, and at the other end, there is a set of stairs, leading to the perpetually humid and moss-covered guest room terrace. It doesn't get sun. If I cut out the overgrown ivy and the ancient, lichen-covered unrecognizable apple tree, that should help. Beside the stairs is the dogwood I planted a couple years back, and behind that, the suffering rhododendron Victor and Tony gave me the firesale price for last summer, with a wink. They knew I'd get it to thrive. It's doing well, and Chloé lies just beyond its roots now. She'll have many beautiful spring flowers. Perhaps I'll plant her a new apple tree. A crab. We'll see.

From this point, three stairs lead to three different areas. The stair along the axis leads to the bottom of the garden, half civilized, with a pool, and half overgrown and waiting for my administrations, and a garage.

The shorter stair to the right leads to what I refer to as the right intermediate terrace, and the same stair to the left leads, most sensibly, to the left intermediate terrace, and a farther one, somewhat lower, where the garden widens at its lower levels, behind the France Telecom utility building at street level. We'll get to that one. It's just above the side of the bottom garden that has the pool, and the birch and tulip tree cluster.

The right and left intermediate terraces each terminate on the downhill side with a very tall -- 9-10' -- retaining walls. Each terrace is made of banks of St. John's Wort, which tumble from the roses and lavender to the paths at the borders, daylilies on the right and sage and oregano (not a particularly good idea) on the left side. The retaining wall is topped on the right with a series of 7 urns that punctuate the daylilies with cascades of petunias in the summer. The right side being larger, a niche is cut into the center of the sloped bank of St. John's Wort with a small retaining wall, against which is placed a bench.

The remaining terrace to the left, off the left intermediate terrace, contains an octagonal gazebo, called a "gloriette", and a barbecue. Both need rebuilding. Another project.

Very little of this was visible -- practically -- 8 years ago, when I saw it for the first time. The garden had not had a caretaker, a gardener, for many years, although some of the structures appear to date from 1991. While they knew how to build an ugly barbecue, they seemed unaware that plants require pruning, borders weeding, everything care.

The daylily border rid of the dead leaves from last year, left to protect the roots and help mulch against weeds, and the paths rid of the several tons of leaves the wisteria on the arch over the central stair is capable of dropping, I decided to undertake the biannual pruning of the linden trees, described yesterday and the day before. I have already exhausted two chains, after just these two trees. I did cut out a fair number of extraneous main branches that were growing into each other and making the canopies too dense. I hope that with them gone, more light will filter down to the ground below and give us some mottled sun, rather than deep shadow. Audouin lay in his sickbed, offering, "Tu travailles bien," and a weak smile every time I came up to see how he was faring.

In 6 1/2 years, I have never seen him not go to the hospital 2 days in a row. I avoided our room like the plague it promised, delivering glasses of water, Coca-Cola, orange-mango juice that went undrunk until yesterday, when the cortisone opened his swollen, angry throat enough to let him get some sips down. Before that, most everything came back up, the unpleasant way. I guess there is only one way it can, and it is unpleasant. I stood and watched him, waiting to see a sign that there was hope for a full recovery. It came yesterday with his first real smile.

The one that makes me wonder why I think I need to divorce him half the time, when I am really furious for one reason or another, and why suddenly seems frivolous.

I know it's time to get out of there and back to whatever I am doing, wherever there is, and whatever I am doing, when he smiles it.

He does deserve better, doesn't he?

....

We're all lovin' him

It looks like taking my advice to keep talking to the American people, which you have been so good at doing, and not to their elected representatives in Washington (for now), which no president is so good at doing (it's their job, as they see it, to resist you), is working, Mr. President.

OK, so I wasn't the one to whom he was listening, but I did say it, somewhere in here, back in January. Today's Wall Street Journal online article "Obama Gets Strong Support in Poll" shows that it's the way to go:

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama enjoys widespread backing from a frightened American public for his ambitious, front-loaded agenda, a new poll indicates.

He is more popular than ever, Americans are hopeful about his leadership, and opposition Republicans are getting drubbed in public opinion, the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests.

Which is one piece of good news as we have to swallow another less than palatible one, which is that the ex-leadership of Countrywide is profiting from the bad loans they offered that catapulted the global economy into catastrophic free-fall.

“It is sort of like the arsonist who sets fire to the house and then buys up the charred remains and resells it,” said Margot Saunders, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, which for years has sought to place limits on what it calls abusive lending practices by Countrywide and other companies.

It figures. Win on the upside, and win again as it's all coming down around everyone else.

Is it that this requires a special talent, or merely the overriding of all personal ethics, which some of us seem unable to do?

Oh, it's nice to hear that this is at least helping some be able to hold onto their homes, with 50% decreases in their mortgage interest rates making their payments affordable again.

....

Of frogs and fish

Audouin was most certainly mistaken. It must have been his own voice croaking weakly in his feverish head that he heard because there is no sign from the frogs, somewhere in all that siltish muck.

I'm waiting.

The fish, on the other hand, appear to be taking courage in their little public housing project temporary residence in trash can and concrete block. I pulled one of the Eric Tabarlys over, the ones that have been sitting in pots, waiting for the house to be finished for replanting in their newly christened planting beds below the balcony (I hope they are as patient as I have to be, and Job), and let its oddly horizontally growing stem hang down over their concrete block and water. It makes a little reflection and gives them something to look at, like a crib toy.

It's raining. I won't be burning all of this pruned wood today. I guess I'll clean our bedroom and save the walk with the dogs for later. I missed our window of opportunity.
....

La solidarité in America: the second Enlightenment revolution

Solidarity, peeps, that's the word.

Now, where did I see that just yesterday? Ah, yes, Joan Walsh in Salon.com, Class Warfare? Bring in on.

Yeah, baby, I say let's bring it on now! It's about fucking time.

Leave the US and you really start to wonder what they put in our middle and lower class water supply -- all those billions of bottles of Poland Spring, or the Hudson Watershed -- or add to our McDonald's menus and Happy Meals (McDonalds strong in every quarter of 2008, with double-digit growth in operating income and "return of $5.8 billion to shareholders through shares repurchased and dividends paid, including a 33% increase in the quarterly cash dividend to $0.50 per share for the fourth quarter – bringing our current annual dividend rate to $2.00 per share". Time to add McDonald's to my Starbucks holdings!) to keep 99% of Americans so tame.

I mean, did you really believe that it was the sheer force of the American Dream that kept all those people in line -- you in line --, thinking that if they didn't complain, they, too, might get to be fabulously rich like the people who run the companies for which they work, but never, ever see, except in the quarterly reports?

C'mon, admit it, it's true. That and the endless stream of credit card offers with 0% interest for 6 months for balance transfers. It was like getting gas at the dentist's office! The no down payment mortgage offers from on high. I mean, they wouldn't offer me a mortgage if I weren't really going to be able to pay it, right? This is America. Every family their own home, and AAA mortgage ratings. It has to be solid.

Pop!

Hey, was that the .com bubble? No. That burst a few years ago. Damn -- wait a minute! What's this bubblegum pink slip? What? Wait! I need that job! I have a wallet full of credit cards loaded with medical bills, mortgage payments, gas purchases for the car, my student loan payments, and all that stuff I bought at the mall and Circuit City -- the stuff the president told me to buy after 911, remember, you know, to keep the economy strong? -- to pay.

So, I propose we focus on the newest class: the nouveau riche. What do you think?

They didn't ever get it. See, that's why "riche" is in the name of their class. They are the reductionist class; let's take the money and forget those old values. Who needs them, anyway [Ed. note: read D.H. Lawrence's Women Inlove for the answer]. Or, if they do, that's their problem. Tant pis and let them eat cake. Ha ha ha! Peels of silvery laughter.

Marie Antoinette had her excuses. She was young and sheltered. But, let's leave everyone's head on, shall we?

Like, why in hell are we so polite with those strip-mining our salary potential and local, state and national tax base? Sh, it's a secret, but you know the property values in the newspapers of affluent communities, the ones that tell you how much that monstrosity with a water view, indoor lap pool, in-law suite, caretaker and nanny quarters, multiple garage and state of the art home gym and theater and billiard and Xbox 360 and Wii rooms went for? Don't tell anyone, but those aren't the real prices paid. Those are the declared prices. The ones negotiated for the property taxes. The market value was much higher, and paid in cash above the declared value for the mortgage.

It was common knowledge in my old home town. You should have seen how upset people got when it was announced that the taxes hadn't been reassessed in, oh, at least a generation and maybe it was time to send the tax assessor around. Vacations were extra long that year.

"My [bonus] money, down the drain for things no one needs, like public education. Like I need that when I take my kids to the most elite pre-kindergarten in town in our twin, armored, blacked-out minivans. Like their kids would actually stand a chance of getting into Groton and Harvard if we threw our money their way. Let their parents make what I do. How presumptuous of my architect to think that her child deserves what ours do -- oh! Hello! Please, make yourself comfortable in the office while I give the housekeeper her instructions, and remind me to talk to you about the dog room and automatic door. We'll need plenty of storage for her things and a sink. I'll be right back."

The pre-kindergarten that virtually ensures entry into the right private schools and colleges. The one that young mothers pretending to be in playgroups for their babies' emotional and social development are actually there to engage in espionage and sabotage to make sure the other babies won't be chosen over theirs.

It's a vicious, vicious world out there, and heaven knows the competition is just awful. Thank God we all use Huggies and Pampers with tape closures now. Much safer than diaper pins in some circles. Now, there was that push toward ecologically friendly cotton clothe diapers... an effort to bring those pins back, after all?

Meanwhile, the rents were exactly what was announced in the agencies -- forget the papers, you wouldn't want to live in those --, and were a fortune for nothing. You can rent a whole house in Moosesucks for half my rent in Greenwich on a sort of 2-bedroom railroad flat in downtown, next to one of the PJ's. If we'd only needed one bedroom, that would have made it a much nicer apartment. As it was, it was a kindness to them not to invite any of my son's friends parents over. I'm still looking for the 18th century or early 19th century English novel with the paragraph about social equality being measured in china and silver sets, and never inviting someone who did not have at least what you did, and never less. Unless it was the pastor and his wife. They shouldn't have as much, or be able to put out as good a table, anyway, unless it was a very tolerable living, indeed.

But of course you're right; who'd want to live here? I do.

Solidarity.

I wondered when, or if, the day would come when this word would make the press in the USA. To be frank, I certainly didn't think, only 6 years ago, that it would be this soon. Even middle school kids use this word with remarkable frequency and ease here in France, la soldarité, d'être solidaire.

When we were first living here and Sam was playing soccer still in Rosny sur Seine with the kids from the Val Fourré. It's hardly an upper middle class sport here, and we had been warned before our move, and by virtue of being us and American, we attracted a fair amount of interest. Sam didn't speak French yet, that first year, and he went to school in Paris (ridiculous, now that I think about it. Sort of). One afternoon that first fall, a boy whose own parents had emigrated from Northern Africa came up to me and asked if it were true that we were American. I said it was. He was impressed -- the United States of America still makes people dream here, even when Bush was in the White House --, and he asked me if we liked it here. I said that we did. So, he asked me what the biggest difference was. I knew this wasn't the sort of kid to want an answer in multiple-paragraphs, but there was so much to say.

I looked at him and thought quickly about the things he would understand most immediately, the ones that made the most difference in his life, and my own, and I said that the biggest difference is that in France basic human needs are met by the government, instead of relying on the employer to do so, when employment is very precarious in the US because employment law protects the employer, unemployment benefits are quickly run through, and jobs are not always easy for everyone to find. I gave the example of universal, government-provided health care, la Sécu. I also mentioned the lack of vacation time, making it hard for families to spend much time together. Time up. He nodded.

"Ils ne sont pas solidaires aux States," he squinted up at me against the evening sun, nodded again, then turned and ran back down to the playing field to join the others.

Now, granted, the Parti Socialiste makes it its life's work to teach this sort of vocabulary to those most in need of what society offers the average and the least among its members through the government here. It's also no coincidence that the communists hold power in the poorest immigrant communities, although these political figures are not "commie reds"; they are people who believe in the economic and political philosophy of Karl Marx, and they haven't really been very realistic about the failure of the biggest experiment in putting his ideas into practice, nor about from where money comes, but there's a reason for this. A good reason: we can't all be rich and secure, so we had best be just and secure.

Maintaining extremes does seem to have a way of maintaining a juster and larger middle. Can anyone figure a way around that, please?

Meanwhile, I am enjoying watching my fellow Americans back home come to terms with what it really means to fight an Enlightenment revolution, and not just what we were taught in elementary school.
....