Coming out from under the ice..............

Would not be so bad (I think) to have the snow (do not share this phrase with a Bostonian) but we started with a sheet of ice. Some places 3 inches thick. It did not melt but invited snow flakes to the adventure.
I was stuck inside as my biggest worry at this point is to fall again.

With this confinement I learned that I became somewhat of an on line shopper. 2 items I already had to return. Bad decisions when you are in a slump. I ate too much chocolate. Would have gotten drunk if I had more wine in the house. I do not do well in the patience mode. I wanted to walk the dogs but clean up in
Hville is something for Northerners to do, we are the South, damn it, we do not get 9 inches of snow..well rarely...remember March 15 1993? Bobby was guarding a huge complex, all alone that night when a
roof caved in behind him and even the Fire dept could not get to him to get him out of the place.
Days before someone could get to my house to feed the cat. We were lucky we were in Belgium, Bob and I.

So I sat in my reclining chair, did not dress, and had a knitted hat on because I was afraid to get a draft and more pain with the neuralgia. I was a picture to behold, I am sure. Lucky that Bob did not put me on Facebook.

I read and read one book after the other from my KIndle on the bigger screen of my Galaxy gadget.
Last year I had an obssession about the Louis's in French history. Read tons about them.
This year I moved to the British Royals.
My mother would say with a pouty face:"What is wrong with them in England is that most of them are Germans to begin with".
I started with Victoria and rekindled my history learning from school.First of all that lady must have been pregnant most of her first decade into marriage to the handsome love of her life Albert. I mean 9 children!
Leopold was number 8 and unfortunately like others in these circles he had hemophilia.
Victoria watched him like a hawk and hired people to be with him wherever he went.
One fall could be fatal within hours of horrible pain. Any slight bruise and he was under medical care
immediately.
As adult he wanted to live like others and managed that in part as the Queen found for him the perfect wife:
Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont .
They had 2 children a son ,Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Edward who found himself in Germany and in the army during WW1 was truly in a pickle as he loved England and loved Germany too. 
The book I currently reading is about Princess Alice.
She lived to be in her nineties.
Grand daughter of Queen Victoria she spent a lot of time in the palace with the old monarch and found it strange when she was included in the procession of Queen Victoria 60th jubilee parade. She could not believe that all these people came to see her grandmother.
Her father died in France visiting in Cannes, a slight injury ended his life at age 31,
Her mother Helena was indeed the right wife as these children were always first and foremost on her mind.

Gosh I am rattling.
More connections with Belgium later on...this is a very long story for Gracious Alice.
 

Hand in hand we walk............

We come out of the building, it is bitter cold and the wind is closing at 50 miles an hour, trees are shaking and garbage cans are rolling in the street, they had just been serviced.
I hold on to my hat, I have a bad hairday and besides that I can't get cold on the head or the darn pain will come back in a flash. Forget what they call it, think it is neuralgia....trying to remember.

I feel a hand taking my hand and helping me slowly across the street to his parked car.
He motions where the step is up and it is high. He does not want me to fall again, to be sure.
I see every pebble in the way and every branch which came down while we were in the building.
Reaching the car he helps me in and tucks my long skirt inside then takes the seat belt and locks me
in tight. I hurt my back last week and I am not able to turn just yet, he remembers and does the
buckling for me.
I am becoming emotional, he gets in the car, looks at me and asks if I am OK.
I shake my head letting the hat go for it is safe now.

I am going back in my memory bank and remember how 40 years ago I had to hold his hand
all the time. He was a moving target and wanted to see what was ahead. He was always curious about plants, bugs, moving objects. He had no fear , his mother did and held on for dear life.

Now I am sitting in his car and he had major concerns over my safety.
I love that son of mine.

The joy of walking....

Let me start out to say that I am not a walker, I walked so much in my childhood that I figured enough is enough. Not so. Especially now when 82 nearing 83 one should walk.
Best advice I can give you is to get a small dog with a small bladder, he/she may need at least 3 or 4 walks a day.
My Maltese Bijou starts early in the morning when he wakes me with wet kisses on my nose.
I get it. I know the drill. Get up and walk. I am thinking that now I am retired I should at least sleep till  10 am and not till 8.00 am. Bijou has other plans.
At noon same story , so there I am with my bowl of soup and there comes the scratching on my leg:"Mommy time to go...lets say now!".
at 5 o clock the same and then a short walk before we go to bed.
Well it adds up and makes me feel very important.
Bijou does not daddle he has a steady run and wants me to run too. I have to hold him in because I get out of wind before he does. Our streets here are not flat, I go up and down, up and down such as the valley had designed itself and builders followed the natural flow.
So my walks with my best friend last at least 20 minutes x 3 = 1 hour a day.
Not bad.
I only see one old lady on my street doing the same with her mutt. The other walkers are all young with gigantic dogs, they look like ponies. Just like steps and 3 floored housing not for the elderly.

Now and then I walk my son's dog. A lovely lady, lazy, moving very slowly , investigating every leaf and
puddle along the walk. Takes at least 20 minutes to finish what she should have done when we left the house, she hardly moves, so it is not something I can consider as a "walk". It's a very slow romantic dance step depending on the nose of the lovely Corgy! So the Queen of England has them in bunches but she also has servants in multiples.

I adore my Maltese, he his my second one but the love I get from this animal can't be measured.
He is by my side all the time. If you see me you will see Bijou, every room in this house is his domain as is mine and he looks up at me to make sure I did not fall. When I did falll he sat next to me and did not budge.
He also loves his Uncle Bob. This is such a jewel I named him right,

"Why I write Making No become Yes" Elie Wiesel

 Elie Wiesel, “Why I Write:
 Making No Become Yes”

  

 Why
 do I write?

 Perhaps
 in order not to go mad.  Or, on the
 contrary, to touch the bottom of madness. 
 Like Samuel Beckett, the survivor expresses himself “en
 désepoir de
 cause”—out of desperation.

 Speaking
 of the solitude of the survivor, the great Yiddish and
 Hebrew poet and thinker
 Aaron Zeitlin addresses those—his father, his brother, his
 friends—who have
 died and left him: “You have abandoned me,” he says to
 them.  “You are together, without me.  I am here. 
 Alone.  And I make words.”

 So
 do I, just like him.  I also say words,
 write words, reluctantly.

 There
 are easier occupations, far more pleasant ones. 
 But for the survivor, writing is not a profession, but an
 occupation, a
 duty.  Camus calls it “an honor.”  As he puts it: “I
 entered literature through
 worship.”  Other writers have said they
 did so through anger, through love. 
 Speaking for myself, I would say—through
 silence.

 It
 was by seeking, by probing silence that I began to discover
 the perils and
 power of the word.  I never intended to
 be a philosopher, or a theologian.  The
 only role I sought was that of witness. 
 I believed that, having survived by chance, I was duty-bound
 to give
 meaning to my survival, to justify each moment of my life. 
 I knew the story had to be told.  Not to transmit an
 experience is to betray
 it.  This is what Jewish tradition
 teaches us.  But how to do this?  “When Israel is in
 exile, so is the
 word,” says the Zohar.  The word has
 deserted the meaning it was intended to convey—impossible
 to make them
 coincide.  The displacement, the shift,
 is irrevocable.

 This
 was never more true than right after the upheaval.  We all
 knew that we could never, never say
 what had to be said, that we could never express in words,
 coherent, intelligible
 words, our experience of madness on an absolute scale.  The
 walk through flaming night, the silence
 before and after the selection, the monotonous praying of
 the condemned, the
 Kaddish of the dying, the fear and hunger of the sick, the
 shame and suffering,
 the haunted eyes, the demented stares.  I
 thought that I would never be able to speak of them.  All
 words seemed inadequate, worn, foolish,
 lifeless, whereas I wanted them to be searing.

 Where
 was I to discover a fresh vocabulary, a primeval language? 
 The language of night was not human, it was
 primitive, almost animal—hoarse shouting, screams, muffled
 moaning, savage
 howling, the sound of beating.  A brute
 strikes out wildly, a body falls.  An
 officer raises his arm and a whole community walks toward a
 common grave.  A solider shrugs his shoulders, and a
 thousand families are torn apart, to be reunited only by
 death.  This was the concentration camp
 language.  It negated all other language
 and took its place.  Rather than a link,
 it became a wall.  Could it be
 surmounted?  Could the reader be brought
 to the other side?  I knew the answer was
 negative, and yet I knew that “no” had to become
 “yes.”  It was the last wish of the dead.

 The
 fear of forgetting remains the main obsession of all those
 who have passed
 through the universe of the damned.  The
 enemy counted on people’s incredulity and forgetfulness. 
 How could one foil this plot?   And if memory grew hollow,
 empty of
 substance, what would happen to all we had accumulated along
 the way?  Remember, said the father to his son, and the
 son to his friend.  Gather the names, the
 faces, the tears.  We had all taken an
 oath: “If, by some miracle, I emerge alive, I will devote
 my life to testifying
 on behalf of those whose shadow will fall on mine forever
 and ever.”

 That
 is why I write certain things rather than others—to remain
 faithful.

 Of
 course, there are times of doubt for the survivor, times
 when one gives in to
 weakness, or longs for comfort.  I hear a
 voice within me telling me to stop mourning the past.  I
 too want to sing of love and of its
 magic.  I too want to celebrate the sun,
 and the dawn that heralds the sun.  I
 would like to shout, and shout loudly: “Listen, listen
 well!  I too am capable of victory, do you
 hear?  I too am open to laughter and
 joy!  I want to stride, head high, my
 face unguarded, without having to point to the ashes over
 there on the horizon,
 without having to tampers with facts to hide their tragic
 ugliness.  For a man born blind, God himself is blind,
 but look, I see, I am not blind.”  One
 feels like shouting this, but the shout changes to a
 murmur.  One must make a choice; one must remain
 faithful.  A big word, I know.  Nevertheless, I use it, it
 suits me.  Having written the things I have written, I
 feel I can afford no longer to play with words. 
 If I say that the writer in me wants to remain loyal, it is
 because it
 is true.  This sentiment moves all
 survivors; they owe nothing to anyone; but everything to the
 dead.

 I
 owe them my roots and my memory.  I am
 duty-bound to serve as their emissary, transmitting the
 history of their
 disappearance, even if it disturbs, even if it brings
 pain.  Not to do so would be to betray them, and
 thus myself.  And since I am incapable of
 communicating their cry by shouting, I simply look at
 them.  I see them and I write.

 While
 writing, I question them as I question myself. 
 I believe I have said it before, elsewhere.  I write to
 understand as much as to be
 understood.  Will I succeed one day?  Wherever one starts,
 one reaches darkness.  God?  He
 remains the God of darkness.  Man?  The source of
 darkness.  The killers’ derision, their victims’ tears,
 the onlookers’’ indifference, their complicity and
 complacency—the divine role
 in all that I do not understand.  A
 million children massacred—I shall never
 understand.

 Jewish
 children—they haunt my writings.  I see
 them again and again.  I shall always see
 them.  Hounded, humiliated, bent like the
 old men who surround them as though to protect them, unable
 to do so.  They are thirsty, the children, and there is
 no one to give them water.  They are
 hungry, but there is no one to give them a crust of bread. 
 They are afraid, and there is no one to
 reassure them. 

 They
 walk in the middle of the roads, the vagabonds. 
 They are on the way to the station, and they will never
 return.  In sealed cards, without air or food, they
 travel toward another world.  They guess where
 they are going, they know it, and they keep silent.  Tense,
 thoughtful, they listen to the wind,
 the call of death in the distance.

 All
 these children, these old people, I see them. 
 I never stop seeing them.  I
 belong to them.

 But
 they, to whom do they belong?

 People
 tend to think that a murderer weakens when facing a child. 
 The child reawakens the killer’s lost
 humanity.  The killer can no longer kill
 the child before him, the child inside him.

 But
 with us it happened differently.  Our
 Jewish children had no effect upon the killers. 
 Nor upon the world.  Nor upon God.

 I
 think of them, I think of their childhood. 
 Their childhood is a small Jewish town, and this town is no
 more.  They frighten me; they reflect an image of
 myself, one that I pursue and run from at the same
 time—the image of a Jewish
 adolescent who knew no fear, except the fear of God, whose
 faith was whole, comforting,
 and not marked by anxiety.

 No,
 I do not understand.  And if I write, it
 is to warn the readers that he will not understand either. 
 “You will not understand, you will not
 understand,” were the words heard everywhere during the
 reign of night.  I can only echo them.  You, who never
 lived under a sky of blood,
 will never know what it was like.  Even
 if you read all the books ever written, even if you listen
 to all the
 testimonies ever given, you will remain on this side of the
 wall, you will view
 the agony and death of a people from afar, through the
 screen of a memory that
 is not your own.

 An
 admission of impotence and guilt?  I do
 not know.  All I know is that Treblinka
 and Auschwitz cannot be told.  And yet I have tried.  God
 knows I have tried.

 Have
 I attempted to much or not enough? Among some twenty-five
 volumes, only three
 or four penetrate the phantasmagoric realm of the dead.  In
 my other books, through my other books, I
 have tried to follow other roads.  For it
 is dangerous to linger among the dead, they hold on to you
 and you run the risk
 of speaking only to them.  And so I have
 forced myself to turn away form them and study other
 periods, explore other
 destinies and teach other tales—the Bible and the Talmud,
 Hasidism and its
 fervor, the shtetl and its songs, Jerusalem and its echoes,
 the Russian Jews
 and their anguish, their awakening, their courage.  At
 times, it has seemed to me that I was
 speaking of other things with the sole purpose of keeping
 the essential—the
 personal experience—unspoken.  At times I
 have wondered: And what if I was wrong? 
 Perhaps I should not have heeded my own advice and stayed in
 my world
 with the dead.

 But
 then, I have not forgotten the dead. 
 They have their rightful place even in the works about the
 Hasidic
 capitals Ruzhany and Korets, and Jerusalem.  Even in my
 biblical and Midrashic tales, I
 pursue their presence, mute and motionless. 
 The presence of the dead then beckons in such tangible ways
 that it
 affects even the most removed characters. 
 Thus they appear on Mount
  Moriah, where Abraham is
 about to sacrifice his son, a burnt offering to their common
 God.  They appear on Mount Nebo,
 where Moses enters solitude and death. 
 They appear in Hasidic and Talmudic legends in which victims
 forever
 need defending against forces that would crush them. 
 Technically, so to speak, they are of course
 elsewhere, in time and space, but on a deeper, truer plane,
 the dead are part
 of every story, of every scene.

 “But
 what is the connection?” you will ask. 
 Believe me, there is one.  After
 Auschwitz everything brings us back to Auschwitz.  When I
 speak of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
 when I invoke Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and Rabbi Akiba, it
 is the better to
 understand them in the light of Auschwitz.  As for the
 Maggid of Mezeritch and his
 disciples, it is in order to encounter the followers of
 their followers that I
 reconstruct their spellbound, spellbinding universe.  I
 like to imagine them alive, exuberant,
 celebrating life and hope.  Their
 happiness is as necessary to me as it was once to
 themselves.

 And
 yet—how did they mange to keep their faith intact?  How
 did they manage to sing as they went to
 meet the Angel of Death?  I know Hasidim
 who never vacillated—I respect their strength. 
 I know others who chose rebellion, protest, rage—I respect
 their
 courage.  For there comes a time when
 only those who do not believe in God will not cry out to him
 in wrath and
 anguish.

 Do
 not judge either group.  Even the heroes
 perished as martyrs, even the martyrs died as heroes.  Who
 would dare oppose knives to prayers?  The faith of some
 matters as much as the
 strength of others.  It is not ours to
 judge, it is only ours to tell the tale.

 But
 where is one to begin?  Whom is one to
 include?  One meets a Hasid in all my
 novels.  And a child.  And an old man.  And a beggar.  
 And a madman.  They are all part of my inner landscape. 
 The reason why?  Pursued and persecuted by the killers, I
 offer them shelter.  The enemy wanted to
 create a society purged of their presence, and I have
 brought some of them back.  The world denied them,
 repudiated them, so I
 let them live at least within the feverish dreams of my
 characters.

 It
 is for them that I write, and yet the survivor may
 experience remorse.  He has tried to bear witness; it was
 all in
 vain.

 After
 the liberation, we had illusions.  We
 were convinced that a new world would be built upon the
 ruins of Europe.  A new civilization
 would see the light.  No more wars, no
 more hate, no more intolerance, no fanaticism. 
 And all this because the witnesses would speak.  And speak
 they did, to no avail.

 The
 will continue, for they cannot do otherwise. 
 When man, in his grief, falls silent, Goethe says, then God
 gives him
 the strength to sing his sorrows.  From
 that moment on, he may no longer choose not to sing, whether
 his song is heard
 or not.  What matters is to struggle
 against silence with words, or through another form of
 silence.  What matters is to gather a smile here and
 there, a tear here and there, a word here and there, and
 thus justify the faith
 placed in you, a long time ago, by so many victims. 


 Why
 do I write?  To wrench those victims from
 oblivion.  To help the dead vanquish
 death.

 Translated from the French by
 Rosette C. Lamont.

Belgium? Where is that?

People ask me all the time (because I have an accent) "Where are you from?"
they can't figure it out that I can't say "th" and a "tree" is the same as a "three".

It follows with my answer "I am from Belgium, the Flanders where the poppies grow!"

Many Americans then look at me with a blank face.
They have no idea where Belgium is.
One man said (I promise this is a truth) "Oh in China!"
I guess I now also look Chinese.
Guess Bejing sounds like Belgium?
Guess the man needs a bit more geography.

A lot of Americans never hear news from Belgium either.
They will hear and know about the Netherlands and then jump over that small country and make France
the new neighbor to the Dutch.

Unfortunately today they will read and hear all over TV that indeed there is a Belgium, not a long ride to Paris from the Belgium boarder and that the Belgian Police is now also under attack by terrorist.
Terror found Belgium. Did the police also design obnoxious cartoons?
Are the Jews in Belgium again in danger? Antwerp ,the diamond center of the world, better be on tripple alert.

It makes my head spin , I liked it better when no one heard about Belgium and just bought Godiva chocolate thinking it was made in Middle America.

Nightmares

My children will love this entry.
For years they have been telling me not to watch the news.
I am a news junky, especially ABC in the evening.
I am addicted like I am going to miss something important.....I know..I know....it is my mental chocolate.....

So for several nights now I have nightmares ,people chasing me, guns every where, mean faces,
I wake up in sweating..oh well I also have numerous blankets on me.....the feet and hands stay cold forever...

Then I was thinking that my son and daughter Sabrina just watch horrendous movies.
Blood , knives, guns, poisons.....Bob even said that Doogie Howser now frightens him after
seeing him in some series last night.
Usually Bob does not get scared about anything on the screen.
He keeps telling me:"Mom it is all acting, no blood, ketchup..."
He is trying to get me to join him in his viewing and I am just good for chick flicks.

So I wondered when I got up with this black cloud over my head until I had my coffee....wondered
why I had these nightmares and wake up frightened.....I know, I know......I am watching the
news.....between complete villages being burned down and thousands of people dead in a far land, there I
saw all of Paris like THE liberation day, proclaiming the Freedom of speech after a horrible
massacre. I saw the policeman on the sidewalk he was hit and could not walk as best as possible you see him pleading with the man in black, holding up his arms , he must have said :"spare me I am wounded"
the man in black answered with a load of bullets ending a life right there in front of us.
No fake blood, no ketchup .....this is reality..........

My kids are right, what I watch is worse than their movies. .....

"Beauty" what does it mean to you?

Today I saw something on the internet which baffled me. "The stars who do not age well" 30 photos
So Brigitte Bardot did not go the knife , the peels, the botox.
So who cares? Do we gloat because now she looks old? Or do we say "Good for you girl to let nature take its course!".


Why does it matter to any of us.?
We applaud the ones who look good and curl up our noses to the rest of the "old ladies".

Whisper behind their backs :"did you see her? she looks so old now!"

My husband taught me a long time ago that he would rather do portraits of old ladies full of
wrinkles than a young girl.

 Even Anita Ekberg before she passed told a reporter:"I am not a pile of
synthetic stuff, these babies are real".

So much in this country counts on beauty, heaven forbid you get older and you look your age.

The echos come with the judgment ,"Oh! she smoked look at her wrinkles!"
"She drank like a Fish, that is what gave her bags under the eyes"

Check out the ladies in our history books, the ones who made a difference in teaching, nursing,science, law makers, the list goes one. How do we view them today?

the old women in my tribe said:

My mother in law at age 86 and that was around 1983 said to me:
Jeannot, I am so happy to be this age as I really do not want to know where this world is heading....

My mother said :

All people who are fanatics about their religion are dangerous to the rest of us.
That was in the 1960's

In the 1960's Belgium imported a ton of laborers for work the Belgians did not like to do
anymore..like coal mining and such. My mother shook her head:
She said: you wait and see the Turks will come here with 4 wives , they will get
all the benefits of a single household here x4.
I called her racist and she shook her head, she added:
if we are too lazy to work we need outside help but no one in government has considered
what the consequences will be.

My mother was a very smart lady. When she turned 73 she decided she wanted to write to
the countries who were then tabboo. She became fluent in Esperanto and found friends to write to all over China and at that time also Poland and the Ukraine. She just hated that we are not always thought the truth in the media. Esperanto was used a lot by tons of people during that time.

Esperanto was invented with the ideal outcome to be if we all spoke the same language there would be more peace.

Mother said : During WW2 as : She first used a curse word which she very seldom did and added:"I wish that the guy who invented ammunition would have been chocked to death by his mother."
I replied with logic:"Someone else would be born and try it later then".

"people are fickle, Jeannot, now after the liberation we are all for America and England...wait and see when they will turn against them one day and adore another place.
Two months after 9/11 I was in Belgium and some people around me said:
"It is time that America gets to be attacked ".
In a shop the shopkeeper hid me as people came in. Later she told me these guys have been singing in the street about 9/11 and so happy about that.You are speaking Flemish with a slight American accent now and I did not want these guys to follow you.

Peace no more

As I am writing there is a battle going on in Paris and around it for young men who have already killed a dozen or more people. In the name of their religious beliefs they kill. At this moment some are holding hostages in a Jewish Deli and another in a printing plant. It looks right now like a woman is also involved.
This is also about freedom of speech.

Makes the hair stand up on my back.

Going back to when I was about 9 or 10, middle WW2. My mother was fluent in English. We are in the Flanders, Belgium.
She was hoping for the help of England to come and save us from this invasion.
She taught me English songs, so I was just beaming when I sang "It's a long way to Tiperary ..."
I felt all grown up as I sang in English.
One day a man came to visit ,I did not know him and do not remember the reason for his visit but I
stuck out my chest and said: "I can sing in English!" Upon which I started..."It's a long way ...mother
kicked me under the table with all her force. I stopped, offended, curious and rubbing my leg.

When the visitor left Mother explained as best as she could.
I knew they always talked about the "whites" and the "blacks"
Over heard my parents often saying: "Joseph A. in the village is a black"
so and so is with us they are white.

Mother explained that we did not know for sure who was white and who was "black".
It was not about race color. It was about their beliefs.
The whites were patriotic, the blacks were pro-german.

The blacks OFTEN reported the patriotic people for things they had said or done,
for listening to radios, just for instance, or breaking curfew or having pro-British pamplets.
Anything could set a commander off to start a hunt or take him or her to a camp.

Weeks before our liberation , a friend of my father was a turn coat, he became pro German and
he reported us to the SS. Father had already left for France and joined the American invasion
but someone came to warn my mother. We got out in time first to the convent and then further in land.
They did not find us.

But this brings me back to the feelings that I had, trying to understand at my young innocent age
why I was not allowed to sing an English song.
It made me sad, and angry. I remember both feelings. Very confused I would like to sing out loud outside so anyone could hear , or I became full of fear at the sight of a grey uniform.

Freedom of speech to me is necessary or do I have to go back to fear of the new rules in this mixed up world.

RERUN OF PUBLISHED ARTICLE, MY BEST CHRISTMAS EVER

Monday, December 13, 2010

Repeat: My Best Christmas EVER, has been published several times

Christmas Eve 1944
Gent, Belgium

I am 12, mother is 34. She is recovering from a major surgery and a husband who has left her for another woman just a few months ago.

We are finally liberated , we in the north welcomed the allies in September.
In the Southern part, in the gorgeous mountains, hills and forest another battle is in full swing. It becomes to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Our gorgeous Ardennes are being mutilated. Worse hundreds of lives if not thousands on all sides of this horrific war are falling in the fresh wet snow.

Mom and I are not aware of this battle, we hear very little of what is going on outside our newly freed Provinces.
We are alone in our very cold house, windows broken covered with lumber,
water rats moved in what used to be our bedrooms.
The roof is shattered in many places from the bombing and air raids.
The wood/coal stove only produces so much heat as we huddle around it
covered in blankets.

Mother is lonely; she is sad, alone for this Christmas for the first time since
her marriages of 16 years. She is still feeling ill. War had not made her
skinny, she is a full fleshed Flemish woman like you see in Rubens renditions.
She lived on potatoes and onion gravy; we are yet to see some meat coming
in our tables but for the grace of the few Americans who are helping us.

So this brave lady who was together with her little family in grave danger all
through the war is now struggling with a new reality. She had been the radio
communicator with the Brits in her bedroom. She was fluent in the language,
thanks to a good education and was my father’s right hand in the underground fight
of what we called “the white brigade”.
She had welcomed the soldiers who parachuted in the night and gave them
clothing and food for the next stop. She had sent her only child to school when
she was wondering if a new air raid would come today, eliminating the factory
and the village. She never knew what the day would bring.

That first Christmas eve when all around us was changed and yet nothing
had changed at all. We were still seeing planes come and go over our heads and
we still saw the air battles, we did not know for sure how far the Germans were and would
they return? In our hearts however we felt that all was going to be fine.
We had hope for the first time in what seemed eternity.
With this in mind Mother decided we should spent Christmas Eve at her sister’s house in town. That was 9 km away (almost 6 miles).
The excitement got a hold of both of us and with enormous energy and good cheer we left the old stove to warm up the rats and started our journey along the
cold waters of the Canal of Terneuzen.

We had walked this foot path for years, I think we knew where there would be a dip in the dirt and mud under the fresh snow, we knew where a large stone would stick out and how to avoid falling in that narrow strip next to the canal.
Next to it was the bicycle path but that worse in need of filling the larger holes.
Even in the dark night we knew our way.
I can still see the cold fog over the water, piercing cold in our bones.
My shoes too tight. I was always growing too fast and my feet were the
first to show the signs.

We started to sing , she could sing , I could barely keep a tune.
But we sang with our vocal chords in full orchestra mode and in the silence
we go from “the Yankees are coming” to “Belle nuit de Noel” and “Petit Papa Noel “.

Along the canal there was only industry, we lived in a lonely little house about 100 yards from an electrical plant. Most plants at this point where not working, almost all had been bombed. The silence along the water was eerie, as the little bit of snow would fall intermittently. Now and then an army truck would drive by on the road and soldiers would yell “Merry Christmas”, some had other messages too.
First time we both heard F word, mother honestly had never heard that one at the
convent where she had studied. She was very puzzled, what did it all mean?
Very few Belgians had cars at that point, perhaps a few doctors.
Only army was on the road, day in and day out.
We were used to that but these camouflaged tanks were a much loved sight.

By the time we reached the blown up bridge of Meulestede we crossed the canal on a makeshift bridge and started to walk between the streets lined with houses.
Here and there one could see lights and the cozy interior of people celebrating.
Mother stopped and told me to look and listen with my heart at the sights and sounds.
“You know Jeannot , she whispered, this is what is called “freedom”.
You see we are finally allowed on the street at night, we are finally allowed to have lights coming out from the houses, that means this is our first Christmas
in many years of total freedom. “
“Freedom means we can now just walk to Tante while watching the stars and
singing, we can peak in the windows and see people with bright lights shining on their faces. Jeannot, never forget this moment”.

I did n’t, I can still see it, I can still smell it, I can feel it in my heart.


Mother was disappointed that we could not get to a midnight mass on our way
but all the churches were still closed. Perhaps no one had wanted to come out
or perhaps the new army had told them to cool it for awhile, I do not know but we passed several churches and no service.

I started to slow down and she found a way of making me go a little faster.
Where she saw light in the houses she rang the doorbell and started to run away.
I had no choice but to run after her and hide around the next corner.
That way we got to my Tante in a jiffy.



I can see the gate at my Tantes house and lights turning on for the
night visitors. No phone to tell them we were coming but the welcome
was heartwarming.

My cousins came out of bed to hug us and I could crawl in bed next to them
tell them about my adventure of the night. No rats here, no damage to their house, they were blessed. I was in heaven close to giggling bodies and it is Christmas.

I do not remember one present given that Christmas, I doubt that we had any
at all but I am still feeling the joy of that night.
The songs come back to me. Belle Nuit.....Petit enfant Jesus.....
Au clair de la lune mon ami Pierot. ................................

Merry Christmas Mom, Tante, wherever you are.
Goeden nacht, zalige nacht.

Christmas eve 2014

All is quiet in our house and that is the way we like it this year.
Young Bob and I had some emotional days behind us.
I am in some sort of daze.
I know everything will be fine once I can get my head cleared up.
Living in the past is so much baloney.
I have to think about what tomorrows I have left and what I can do with them.

Had bad news from Belgium today my cousin has been diagnosed with liver cancer.
Nothing can be done to help her but medicating for the pain.
I did not want to hear this today but then is there a "good" day to hear such bad news?

Today is after all just a day for me.
I am thinking about you girl.
Love you.

A VERY FINE HUMAN BEING

He went to pre Kinder garten in a small NC town. I will love that teacher forever, she had a preschool built with pint size grocery store, post office, dr o0ffice and stuff like that, she taught those little people the alphabet, and they knew it and recognized words before they graduated. No underwater painting class but everything they did was to be used later in life . I was amazed at the discipline in that mini school. They knew were to put their boots and coats , everything was in perfect order even the terrific healthy lunches she put together for these kids. This was an army of one. One great lady.
So at graduation she tells me that this kid of mine was her best student and then with tears in her eyes she added:"Public school will destroy his intelligence". I was shocked and  hurt and petrified.

The kid went to Public school , I talked to the Principal and said that he knew his alphabet and could write some words and spell them , like cat and bee....the Principal just laughed in my face , said he:"This is Kindergarten Ma'm not college, we don't do that here in that class".
I was stunned. The man actually belittled what my son knew. I was not the fighter then which I am today.
I crawled into my shell and left. My son wanted more so he did upset the class with questions and attention needed for what he did not understand. They made him the "Star" in all the plays. He was Santa twice and then told them he did not do that role ever again.

In the first grade he was not very happy and by Christmas when they made him Santa he really balked and he managed to get a fever within 10 minutes of his school departure. I mean this kid was truly sick just before school time. By noon he was healed. I ran out of patience. I did listen to him and he said he just plain hated school. We had homeschooled the girls when we lived in Spain but I was not ready for that.
A friend opened a private school with 2 fantastic teachers. I have no idea how I got the money together each month, I know I was late quite often. A few students started, a dozen at most, all came from affluent famillies. They could pay on time and I was sometimes not happy with the type of clothing we could afford as the others came straight out of Macy's top shelves. We checked the thrift stores not that many back then as now.

School went well , he did a play in French with his French teacher and he seemed never bored.
The kids had to make up a short poem to read before the parents at a meeting. Waiting with great anticipation I sat waiting to hear what my genius had put together. He started with great aplomb
stood up straight and read:"Title Bills, Bills Bills Bills that is all we have is Bills. Thank you"
You can imagine how red my face was and I think my husband (being an artist) thought this was pretty clever. The room laughed out loud. Some of the rich ladies said that he was right , that is all we have they echoed. Their kids had made flowery poems with things like "Mother is so sweet she fixes me icecream!"

By the 7th grade we could no longer continue the education at this level of tuition fee. The school had grown and still was the best in town but we were up a tree. He also lacked some social skills. He did not make friends with the kids on our street. He did well in 7th and 8th grade. Mixed fairly well and did fit in.
He became a skateboarder and just loved that activity with the other kids being chased from Main street and church parking lots. No place back then to have a pipe somewhere to play in. Later they started this when he was in High School.

High school was a nightmare from day one. He only liked two classes English and psychology. Both teachers raved about him. Math teacher was also a football coach so he had little interest in this skinny guy who did not like football. My husband walked into the school halls as much as the kids, he knew the right route to the Principal office. He managed to make a lot of noise and none of it helped, I think it even hurt son.
One day the Principal was sitting in the hall selling football buttons and my husband saw him and said you should be in your office to check records on how your students are doing and why ......
Principal not amused kept offering my husband buttons for a price. I am surprised that the man did not kick over the card table with the silly buttons.

He graduated, I think they did so because they wanted us out of the way.
He went on to different classes in a tech school unfortunately he got married way to young and had to start supporting a household and then later also a son.

So much for school.
After awhile he was diagnosed with border line genius and a learning disability.
However while in the last 10 years he struggled a very hard battle with agoraphobia he managed to get
top grades at Phoenix and a diploma (highest honors) Associates (I think they call it)

So where is he now? He is my favorite son (I only have one) he lives with me and watches the old lady 24/7. If I cough more than once he comes running to see if I am chocking. If I cry too often he gives me short to the point psychological pointers. When my ankle was broken he pushed me around in the chair and arranged everything so I could do a normal life style. When I fall he cleans my wounds as he did not too long ago.
He walks my dog when I can't. He fixes a great pizza when the cook has given up that day.
There is no way that I could pay for this kind of service and this one is done with great love not because he is paid for it but because he loves me.

He continues to study all the time and often gives me lectures on astronomy. One of his faves.

hubba hubba

OK, I have been a mess the past few days with work being done for me around the house.
That makes me a bit itchy to help which I am not able to.
So I am forgetting to cook, or do anything else, just watch ......
So I know I have a list for the grocery store, do not remember where I put it.
Walk into the store and everything around me looks like something I do not need.
I leave with grapes. I figure that is really what I need

Come home and THEN it hits me, I am out of dog food and toilet paper......
How can you forget that?
Don't answer me.

I just do not like for people (read "kids") to do work for me which I could do
without as much as breaking a sweat.

The golden age is sometimes not 18 K but a "gold wash".
If you like jewelry you know how long a wash lasts!
Good night!

A NEW DAY

It is a wonder that I had been so upset about the artist cave upstairs and could do little about it myself, a broken back does not allow you many fantasies or realities.
For instance I will never be able to do pole dancing, nor skateboard, I have problems just putting my feet high enough on the sidewalk or I fall and have a shiner for weeks.
The last fall was day before Halloween and I am still nursing a wound on the head.
The dumpster is full and goes out ASAP.
I am not known for pouting or being in a bad mood for long but this cleanup just got me in tears
for every note, every photo and the floods never stopped for long.
My Mom said if I cried a lot I would pee less.
That is not my object of this crying jag, after all I need to keep my solo kidney working all the time.

I used to worry that dozens upon dozens of magazines would just crush the ceiling and end up on top
of my head but this house is so solid, nothing happened to the boxes, not even moths in one of my wool rugs.
The only critters we ever had inside the house was a baby owl who fell in the chimney.
An angry looking possum in the washroom , did not know who was more scared but he/she scampered
quickly out the cat door which we do not use anymore.

The work upstairs was so quiet I did not even hear them move about.
Many moons ago we had an Australian friend living up there for a month or so, when she did tours she did one around the world. She had friends all over the world. I often forgot she was up there.
She told me that her dead husband was visiting every night. I just did not want to stop that romance.
She loved my cooking, I think she said that every where she went. We met her in Spain when she came
there for a month. On old TV personality she was a hoot until she had shingles and the only Spanish Doctor in the village kept giving her pain pills. We often wondered when she was going to overdose.
She said those pills were the best in the world.

So now that I don't worry about weight upstairs what new worry can I make up?
I was born with an extra worry gene.
It's a bitch.

Artist cave

The sign on the door tells us what time slot we are.....it is a sign for the election "Clinton-Gore"96!"
He does not know it yet but this is the year the decline started.
He is an artist.
He knows nothing else but to translate his time here in this Universe  by putting  images he admires on plain papers, canvas, masonite, a wall, a piece of fabric.

He was one of four brothers, the young one. In his early childhood he would pick wild flowers and bring them home to mother. He would draw them after she had put them in a jar.
As he grew older this habit never left him and he continued to search and listen to teacher who could explain the fine lines and tricks of drawing. He was a sponge and took it all in.

When Disney came out with Snow white he ventured alone to the big city of San Francisco on the Greyhound bus. He only wanted to see the film as often as possible. He took note of every artist involved in
the film's making. He filled his very soul with the animation of that film.

The war picked him up right out his last days in high school. The young man left right after his June 8th birthday and
was quickly going on board to a land called Phillipines. He became a man with a uniform, a gun and all the trimmings for war.
They put him in the drafting dept. , he said he heard the shooting but he continued to do his work, he was under Mc Arthur, the General with the Pipe and a temper.

Returning from war he felt very fortunate as there was a GI Bill. This Bill gave him the possibility to go on with his studies and have some funds to work with. He studied under Amyx in Hartnell College and became a watercolorist. After 2 years he continued at Chouinard Institute which was then the very best art school on the West Coast. Edith Head and many of Disney people were teachers there. He had the best of the best. Later Chouinard was purchased by Disney.

He discovered in LA that Disney did not pay much to do the animation so he ventured on to San Francisco near his home town Santa Cruz. He took odd jobs, shipping in Macy's, made mattresses, then airplane tires, enough to keep him in Ice cream, brushes, paint and a small place to live.

Soon he had one man shows and started to make a name for himself. By 1968 the hippies took over the City by the Bay and he just could not handle all the changes. Returned home to mother and sister in Santa Cruz
he started all over again. In 1969 enters a new way of life, a wife and 2 children.
By 1970 he and the gang moved to Nerja, Spain. for almost 5 years. He was in heaven to be able to paint
around the small villages and continue his work on trompe l'oeil. By 1973 he won prestigious medals in Brussels together with medals from the City and a title :"Commandeur".
A new addition came into the family another Kensinger, a boy!

Upon returning to the USA we had the help of a special friend in WNC.Starting all over again, shows indoors and outdoors from Virginia to Florida, cut into his painting time so he hired an agent who did the
shows for him.

By the late 1990's he was diagnosed with Alzheimer. He never accepted that fact and as he grew older and sicker he did not understand it either. He still painted but it became quite hard, soon he would ask his wife how he should mix the background. His last painting about a gorgeous lily from the yard he made almost stick like figures for stems. Then he stopped.

He had made the upstairs of the house, a mansarde type of under the roof a set of rooms, his own, he had been shipping there when we did eBay with the stock from the antique shop we owned.
Now all he did was get boxes, behind stores he would look in dumpsters he would find treasured boxes.
The upstairs became :MINE! Do not enter! He became very suspicious of anybody coming into the house. Even to the point when he did not want his own son around. Followed by the wife who was kicked out of the bed.

Boxes upstairs collected treasures such as empty coke cans, pebbles from the driveway, bibelots objects from a shelf here and there. Things just left an empty mark on the shelf and life became hard for
every one. One can't imagine this very gentle soul , this old fashion gentleman, becoming this
type of grouchy, hurtful, violent person.

He passed on in 2010,
Enter the wife, the widow!
I went upstairs and had a hard time breathing. Boxes everywhere piled and piled into miniature towers.
No room to walk even, I could see the end of the rooms and they all seemed full.
I sat on the steps and cried my eyes out.
How could I, how could I ever see the rooms again.
I started slowly to pack the magazines in view, dozens of magazines from the Christian Science reading room which they put outside for FREE and he managed to always bring some home, under his arm and
go upstairs. I must have thrown out dozens and dozens. The job went slowly and the pain was harder and harder.
An abrupt stop came when I had a kidney removed followed by breaking my back just a week later.
Not recuperating very well from the fall I no longer went upstairs and tried to forget it.
Every spring my kids would say they would go and empty the second floor.
Kids have their own life and I was not demanding anything that I could not do.

So quite suddenly son and daughter jumped in "before winter" and started to empty the boxes and put them out to be cut and folded, grandson filled his truck, on his first ride to the dump he had 420 lbs on
cardboard all folded neatly in packages!!!!!Pebbles returned in the drive way. Photos being kept for later perusal, paintings discovered, treasures found again, notes on everything . He would write MINE on everything he could, that must have been years before his passing as he no longer could read not write on the last years. He must have felt his persona leaving him so he wanted to stake a claim on whatever:MINE was his new mantra.

Now and then the kids let me come upstairs during the clean up , it hurts, it hurts so much.
2 rooms done and one last one to be finished this week end.
Daughter hired a dumpster.
Real Estate people are becoming noisy! Many people want this house it is historic and in all original shape. I hope I can leave it feet first. I love this place been here since 1978or was it 77?

Thanksgiving day 2014

I am wondering today if the Indians on the reservations today are celebrating.
Did the pilgrims truly get along with the people who's land they came to inhabit?
It is a day to say "thanks for..."
Should we not do that every day? You need a card for that? A reminder?
I lived 20 years in a country who does not know about Thanksgiving day.
I survived that very well because I had a very polite mother and she taught me
that I should be thankful for everything I had and not look over my shoulder
to what others had.
Even when we were left with turn ups from our garden that hard winter
during the war, she reminded me that we were lucky to have a garden.
My mother was not particularly very religious but she knew how to thank people
not to be just polite but because she truly believed that it was what you
needed to do in life.

Do we need a Mother's day and a Father's day, today even grandparents day?
Do we need the card companies to remind us how to behave that one day?
I get grumpy when I think what  we do out of habit in a very commercial world.
So never mind me today. 

It's a joke..or is it?

I could not help myself but had to post this which was send tome by my friend in the UK

In light of the latest problems facing the European currency, e.g. Ireland and Portugal having had a bailout; Greece facing collapse and needing another bailout, a Belgian bank collapsing and now Italy
teetering on the brink, possibly tipping Austria over the edge, should the UK adopt the Euro?

A cross-section survey of 10,000 people in a typical British City, made up of a representative sample of local citizens consisting of Afghans, Albanians, Pakistanis, Indians, Poles, Iraqis, Somalis, Bosnians, Turks, Moldovans, Latvians, Lithuanians, Bangladeshis, Ethiopians, Russians, Congolese and  Zimbabweans (phew!) were asked if they thought Britain should change its currency and adopt the Euro

99.9% said no, they were happy with the Giro.

Well October did not end well at all on the 30th I took Bijou out for his last outing. I was very tired and just wanted it over with. Still gloomy mood.I did not measure the step up to the side walk very well, kicked it instead and fell flat face first on the concrete.

Immediately blood was flooding from somewhere on my head and in no time it ran down my cheek into my neck. I first checked me legs, hell was going to be paid if I hurt my legs again but I noticed just scraped my knee , I rang my little emergency button. I thought Bob would hear the alarm inside. It does take them a few minutes to respond. I turned around and sa on the sidewalk legs stretched out hoping someone would come by. Street deserted. The long and the short of it Bob got a hold of me and called an ambulance. 

I had 3 kids I know about head wounds, they bleed forever. My mother used to call that a spring cleaning of the blood, wondered if it helped in fall.
Bob started to clean my face and 4 EMS walked in, 3 like football players, giants, one tiny gentle female nurse named Renee like in french.
I started to laugh and told the guys to get out of here, I just had a cut.
I did not look bad when I checked later , I should not have checked the next day, Halloween
day I had the best mask on. The eye looked like a big white egg and closed and everything
around it was purple and swollen.
Bob gave out the candy that night BUT no one came.....side street always gets fergotten.

More or less in some sort of daze I sat the next 3 days in my recliner and was being served by my handsome son. Bored the first hour and wanting to clean he put me back in the chair.
Then I remembered my Kindle.
I was reading a series by Vernon Coleman , about a young doctor in Bilbury , a small country village.
There are 7 books. 
Vernon has a knack of telling people and animal stories.
It is light reading and amusing. Just what I needed.
I wondered how he ever managed to keep all the people apart in his many chapters.
He would tell you that Mrs. Darbinshire had a knitted jacket with holes on the elbow and faded green and under that a nylon blouse.....(nylon? I wondered how Vernon knew nylon).
Her knitted socks were no longer holding up and curled around her legs.....
That sort of thing he wrote for every person.
I Imagined that he had a large board in his studio and had cut out dolls or ads with all sorts of people in full clothing and he had given them a name. Or a filing cabinet with cards:"E for Edith she is the one with......" 
Otherwise I can't see how he could remember his whole cast of characters in 7 books.
They were all characters in different mind sets.
Much was going on in the pub and I wondered how they could all drink that much.
Who carved W S into tables? Yes, that William Shakespeare! Do the cows really like Elvis?
What do you see when you look at an oak tree? It has a whole story of its own.
I was delighted when I read that sheep will know their offspring when they meet again in a herd of 200.....how cute is that?

I am on book 6 and I shall miss it when I am done with 7. But I read that Vernon has written a lot of books so perhaps I will get something else that will calm me.

This was better than Valium, only trouble was that the dr.'s wife kept baking, every other chapter she was making vegetable soup or sconces and rock biscuits (Rock?) so I often sat here salivating.

By the e4nd of book 3  I was asking Bob for a torch and wondered if he had enough petrol in his car. I was getting too British for my own good. Not enough that I translate Flemish jokes in American and they do not get it (my kids) now I will throw in a new wrench.

Today I feel a wee bit better but my face is ugly , the scraped side is still scraped.
Eye still swollen. I am beginning to drink tea. Nothing fancy but with honey! I snarled at the box with Spekulaas from Belgium. Must get to the British stuff. 

I doubt there is such a gorgeous untouched village like Bilbury. A lot have tatched roofs and still outdoor toilets....well I grew up in something like that but it was the 30's and 40's. We had an outdoor house and I hated to go in town and having to use the loo in a store, I was afraid of all that water when I pulled the chain. If I could I would hold it all in till I was home and the familiar outhouse.
We did not have a phone, only had a radio when my father was fixing one for someone else.
Our village had probably tops 200 people in it but was also part of the city of Ghent,
We knew every one, my mother hated gossip but she did not mind listening now and then to know who had blue powder at their door this morning.
Blue powder would show up in the dark of the night, it was someone telling the inhabitants that someone was cheating in that house hold. When one tried to wash it from the cobblestone sidewalk it would turn into a blue like paint, it would not go away that quickly and would run down to the next and the next door till you wondered where it had started .....
Lucky they did not do it to our door , they could have, my father was busy, but he was also a police man so maybe they did not want to do that to him.
We had one "bar" known as a "pub" over the pond. She did not serve food to my recollection.
Every bar to my mother was a house of prostitution. Even if it would have been a bar for kids only. She rarely would walk into one. My grandfather loved the bars and always found a collectio of people listening to his stories. He was a raconteur!(read story teller).
A rag man would come with his pushcart hoping someone had rags for him to buy by the kilo. We wore everything till they became rags. Gypsies came with entourages we feared but they could mend aluminum pots like no other and also sharpen our knives and scissors. Mothers came out for them and hid the kids inside. One would always tell your fortune for money but my mother was afraid to know her future and we did not have money for that.

Drifters would mark something on a tree or the hedge or your house. It was a "sign" language that would tell the next one that this house was friendly and you would get a meal.
My mother did not like them, she was afraid of them, if she had bread she would always share with them and then tell them who her husband was and please run now. They did.
Which just reminds me that we had an ex-cop living across the street for a few years(now jumping to 2014)  and one day
someone had painted a penis on the road, it did not wash away with the rain either. We had no idea what it was till some gossiper told us that this was a sign that a policeman lived there. 

My mother took on one job seriously in the village and that was as a nurse. Her sister was the RN but my mother had the heart of one. She just cleaned people up when sick and often was asked to sit by the dying. She may not have known much about them but they knew where to find Madame D. 

No one even at her work in the office for decades, no one ever called my mother by the first name. Only her intimate friends. She was always Madame. I doubt there was another Madame in the small village except for one who owned several houses. She was also a blue blood which means you have a small V on the "van" or a small "de" before the rest of your name that one richlady was Madame de La....

Stephanie down on the island had her beauty parlor in her kitchen.
Next door was the butcher, he would tell all his clients that his wife could not work with him when she had her period. I bet she was one female you was glad to get cramps.

The butcher had a habit of throwing your meat on the scale with the same gusto as a pizza maker, he had a reason, as he threw it up there it would show 500 grams and he quickly like a Houdini grabbed it before it went down to 300. Mother would have none of it, she'd say leave it on the scale Jean, I do not want to pay for more then what I owe. The answer would be :"Ja, Madame D."

My mother had to have her bra's and corsets made to order, she had a woman who made wonders to harness all this flesh, to top it off my mother lived decades with a hernia on both sides and refused surgery. Her corsets had suede covered circles to push in the hernia and make her more comfortable. I do not think that my mother ever went into a store for these items.

I knew a small village but ours had large flaws it was in the middle of a canal  and nothing but industry beyond my house. You could hang out the wash which was an enormous labor for my mother over a boiled kettle on the coal stove and then the electric factory would open up the garbage and the white sheets had black specks all over them , a Dalmatian would not have been able to compete. So she would start all over again. 
I hated the industry, hated the smoke, I had bad lungs already as I had pleurisy which almost killed me. I could not wait to get out of there.

So most of my life, well the last 40 years have been in North Carolina and guess what is but about 12 miles from here....a large electric factory with 2 large chimneys very busy throwing out something. I have problems looking at them.
I live in a small town, do not know the names of most people around me. We wave as we pass each other and I walk the dogs or just say "Hi"!
I could not care at all if they had blue paint at their door or the IRS man. Everyone lives their own life. Most of the time when I meet someone they are holding a cel phone anyway.
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

October 28th

58 years ago today I gave birth to two boys weighing 6 lbs plus ,they were full term twins but stil born.
I never forget that day , over all these years I suddenly notice we are the 28th and the memories come floating by.

just anothr day ...........

October was not my best month but I think the worst is over, small little stuff which will not kill me but make me a bitch to be around.
Yesterday I did not even want to see Brie but my fridge was empty. Then I see her and she lights me up and wears me out. We walked all of Main street and saw many new shops all with nice new style clothing.
I like the mixes they do again with different fabrics and colors, Bohemian like. My style.
Brie looked great has lost a lot of weight but it was her skin which made me wonder what cream she was on this time, she told me cream had not touched her face in ages.
She stopped the sugar and milk and the gluten thing en vogue now in America.
If that is what did it, I do not know but she looked younger and smooth skin.

I am selling my stock of beads on eBay, I make up a tray of about 30 + worth and sell it for 5.00
that nets me about 3.,50 after eBay and Pay Pal is paid. and so much in the red. I am doing it so I can help some others who are in the midst of making jewelry for the holidays. Somebody needs a help somewhere.
I get rave reviews....and then.......I am starting to get some people with a lot of nerve.
They email me : "Can you look for some more glass beads"- "I need some labarodorite can you put some of them up in your lots ?" The one who hardly has experience on eBay...writes me tonight that I should put her beads in a smaller box.....I had already mailed her beads this afternoon at 4 PM. If I had put them in a smaller box they no doubt would have crushed some and then I would have that complaint....
I am so fed up I am ready to pack it all and give it to charity. Bob always tells me:" No good deed goes unpunished or something like that.."

Looking forward to November? No, not that much.
We are having frost nights now. It is not going to get better,
The turtle did not come out today at all. Good thing because Bob tells me it is getting harder and harder to get worms for the little fellow. He or she, is so smart as soon as we are in the room he stretches his head way out to see if he is going to be fed.

Got to take my Bijou for his night walk and it is so windy that his little ears flop up and down in the wind, so cute then he looks at me and wonders why we cant just run back inside. I agree. Pee and we go back!