Apparently, Paris has never had as many sunny days in the year 2020 since1959. We go out every day, mostly just to walk, but some days to grocery shop. This morning I got up on a big ladder and cleaned a mat of pine needles out of the gutters facing the Cedar - so I guess technically they are Cedar needles. Here is a photo of the Cedar and of the sunshine. Today begins a new phase of the shutdown. The non-essential stores that were forced to shut down November 1 can open today - with restrictions as to how many people can be in a store at once, depending on square footage. Churches and other houses of worship can also open today, but with not more than 30 people inside, no matter how large t

Back in the late 60”s, when we still lived with my in-laws in a small town outside of Toulouse, my dad had the brillant idea of offer me a subscription to the International Herald Tribune, as it was known at the time. It came by mail and was usually two day behind the publication date, but there were many days when receiving that newspaper paper was the highlight of my day. Of all the articles throughout the several years I received the paper, the ones that stand out are Art Buchwald’s yearly attempt to explain Thanksgiving to the French. It was the same year afteryear, but it always made me laugh, even when I felt homesick. After much searching, I found the original that I believe dates ba

As many of you know, I wrote and illustrated a children’s book called “Yellow Bird”, dedicated to a wild parakeet that lived in our yard in Gaithersburg from April to mid-December, 2018. For some reason I fell in love with this bird. He would sit on the fence and look at me, turning his head from side to side, allowing me to get just so close - and then he would soar up into a tree like a streak of yellow sunlight or join a group of sparrows stretched out along one of our roof gutters. I was so fascinated with him that I gave him a name, Yellow Bird, bought him parakeet food that the squirrels ate, and added a bird bath to our front yard that we filled twice a day with cool, fresh water all

It’s been quite a few days now since I have posted a new blog entry. I’ve been working on my novel, revising and moving things around to align events in better chronological order. Disaster struck yesterday after about 7 hours of work, when my iPad froze - just seized up like it had been exposed to fire. I had to restart it, which wasn’t easy, but I managed. It turns out that all the changes I had made during the entire afternoon were unfindable. I now have a recently scaled-down version of Word on my iPad, even though I just had to renew my subscription to Office at the same price as last year that offered a much broader Word platform. I spent hours late into the night and this morning tryi

When one is confined to one’s home, except for grocery shopping and a walk, finding something interesting to blog about gets tricky at times. Tuesday was a complete stay-home day. We had to wait for a delivery of cat supplies as well as a visit from a heating expert, as we have been unable to program the individual thermostats in each room. The heat runs under the flooring and the thermostats are hand-held divises that have to be in sync with WiFi in order to work. The man who came reprogrammed each one, and now we are able to regulate the temperature. It’s a very good system once you know how to use it. But we still haven’t figured out how to set the timers for daytime and nighttime - and

Until Sunday, we were filling out paper Attestations respecting the limits placed on the various official reasons for leaving home. Then André remembered an app that was recommended on TV, Tousanticovid. It means All against Covid, and it is a hub of information about Covid in one’s area. It enables contact-tracing and theoretically would contact you if you happen to be in close proximity to someone who tests positive soon after or is hospitalized for Covid. It also has a space to create a permanent Attestation where all you have to do is change the reason for going out and the time. The date and time of day when you open the app are displayed automatically. All you have to do is scroll to t

We are getting the outer bands of a storm crossing over Northern Europe from East to West. I made it to the bakery and back just in time. I’m convinced that the French would go out to buy fresh bread in a category 4 hurricane if necessary. I realize I didn’t mention in yesterday’s blog that one other thing we don’t have, that I used to feel was absolutely essential, is a full-length mirror. Vanity dies hard, even at the advanced age of 75! The only mirrors in this apartment are in the two bathrooms and the half-bath, that were installed for taller people than I am. I can only see my face, neck, and shoulders. When I feel that I must know what the rest of me looks like - clothed - I call up t

I’m having a lot of trouble being able to know without checking what day of the week and date it is. Almost everyday, André goes to the bakery for fresh bread, but he also brings home a pair of pain aux raisins. It’s swirl of puff paste and raisins buried inside that tast like they were soaked in rhum. Typically, a pastry is reserved for Sunday. That’s the way it was most of the 18 years I lived in France. I’m always grateful and I usually eat it right away for breakfast, but it confuses me. Although there are many days that I am convinced I am definitely losing it, I’m pretty sure I’m not alone feeling somewhat disoriented. Today is gray and gloomy. Although Accuweather predicted off-and-on

Thursday was sunny and quite warm for the season. I cleaned the apartment, did some wash, then went to the post office and from there, I walked a fair distance through the park pictured above in order to get to the grocery store. I felt really good being able to get in the walk as well as doing errands, having selected only ”Errands” on my Attestation paper that we have to take with us each time we go outside. Normally, you can do one or the other, but not both in a single trip. Otherwise, it all felt like a rather normal day. In the evening we tuned into a long press conference hosted by the Prime Minister, as well as other Cabinet members, followed by a Q & A session with many of the repor

Actually, I’m writing this on Thursday morning here, as the sun is coming up. However, I want to write about the fact that November 11 marked the 102 anniversary of the end of WWI - the war to end all wars, one of the bloodiest in history, that solved absolutely nothing. It was such a tragedy, and it stands out even today as an obvious warning that baked into human nature is the fact that being agressive to the point of thinking up crueler and more horrific ways to kill other humans is somehow a good thing. Tribalism lives on today as a primal and defining factor that permeates our politics and society in general. Maybe we don’t shoot at each other as much, but loving kindness is not thrivin

Tuesday, November 10, 2020 The rain has returned, making any outside activity today feel less necessary - even doing a quick run to the bakery to buy our daily baguette. Instead, I write, I knit, I snack. I vacuum, I do the wash, I blog, I snack some more. I’ve been rewriting a novel I started in 2017 when I was in LA, taking care of Fabienne who was bedridden for almost 7 months at the time. Now, as then, I certainly have the time. It’s more about taking myself seriously. I’m 75, and I self-published a children’s book in September. So anything is possible. But ... getting an agent and a publisher to do the work I really can’t do on my own is a real long shot. For the first time since last M

On Sunday, the 8th, we finally did walk down the mountain from Bellevue (our neighborhood in Meudon) to the Seine River, across the bridge that links Île Seguin to both banks, and into Boulogne-Billancourt. That part was easy. It was warm and sunny, so there were hordes of people - bikers, runners, with kids, walking dogs - to the point that in some areas it was hard to maintain the requisite 2-meter distance. We went to Truffaut’s, an urban nursery that sells way more than just plants, including pet supplies. André stayed outside, but I went in to buy dry cat food and a planter that we are using to help hold up some bamboo fencing on one of our balconies so the cats can go out but are now u

View of Bellevue church from our eastern balcony.