Happy Hanukkah

Posted on December 1, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

Dreidel for Hanukkah

My ‘Dear Best Jewish Friend’,

The only mother I know to have colour coordinated her family member’s activies  on a white board. Offspring stick to your colours or you will find yourselves impaled on a menorah.

Happy Hanukkah, or the first day thereof.   I am so glad to overhear that you like the glint of a Christmas tree. We will, ourselves be frying up some latkes come the weekend.  It is now mandatory procedure ever since you introduced them (boiling hot fat and lacerated potatoes) in kindergarten class four years ago.

As for Christmas trees, why enjoy them only at other people’s homes? I realise the tumbling needles might whip up your blow dried hair but apart from that, what is there of Christmas in a Christmas tree? Now if you were anti-Victorian (good grounds given the fish knives and other complications) or anti-druid or just anti-sprites and wood nymphs you would be well advised to steer clear but otherwise quite honestly indulge yourself. Get ornaments that colour coordinate with your family and let the decoration begin.

Groetjes…

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Our Hearts and Hosts in Cleveland

Posted on November 29, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

It turns out that our host in Ohio is probably alien, but not alien like me, genuinely alien. Not only does his blood clot like no other normal living being but a variety of CT scans have revealed that his brain waves lack harmony. Given that his wife is a lovely musicologist who chairs a department of music, this is a little ironic. Apparently a specialist simply concluded that this has never been witnessed before and therefore he is not human.

I can quite believe this. Our host’s knowledge on every subject is encyclopedic. It is like being driven over by one of those great rollers that flatten tarmac.

I cannot recall in what language our welcoming Martini glasses were proffered, Hindi, Italian, French, Native American? All I can say is that it resonated well after the final miles of animated count down. Equally welcome, was the sight of a huge baking pan swimming with onions, squash and ginger – heralding things to come.

Making the Gatton

Standing with the debris of the journey at our feet and glasses in our hands, I notice with satisfaction that the kitchen has already taken on its Thanksgiving role as stage set. The hob pulses at its heart. Kitchen trolleys have been wheeled out and sit in a state of readiness for pie preparations and to grind the meat for the Gatton Tartierre or The Black Hole of Pastry. Characters begin to enter, faces flushed from the cold, like actors congregating for a play.

First comes our gracious hostess, burdened by brown paper bags from Whole Foods and fantastic tales from the world of academia and the microcosm of her music department. Hot off the press is the news that her assistant has confessed to being held up at gun point by her boyfriend. A police search of the assistant’s apartment has revealed guns of all shapes and sizes, including a couple of sawn off shot guns. Last year she had appeared in much the same way, with a set of Whole Food bags but exhausted from a stint of filling out Consensual Relationship Management papers for her randy band master and a couple of nubile students who had taken his fancy. Her tone on the matter had been less than musical.

Next enters a guest complete with daughter and a large take-away pizza. I foolishly enquire what she is up to in Cleveland which I feel is just askew of asking what she does. She is the director of the Contemporary Art Museum and has just commissioned a new building. She later takes me to see the model, a mixture of origami and stone of Mecca that puts MOMA’s recent wing in the shadow. Along comes another visitor bearing several cases of Belgian beer, I have wised up and discuss the American diners in Rockville and Bethesda and steer clear of his profession.

The place is wallowing in people with too much talent and too much knowledge. It is very bad for the ego. Whilst our house is littered in spelling tests and sticky tape, this house is littered with fascinating reading matter, chiefly about Paris at the turn of the century: art, artists, music, composers, dance and fashion. Our musicologist has just finished a book on the influence of the Ballet Russes on haute couture, which is now on sale in London at the V&S’s exhibition on the subject. The shelves in the children’s bedroom read Goddess – the classical mode, Poiret le magnifique, Coco and Dior, Isadora, La Belle époque, giving Julia Farr all the allure of Desperate Housewives. It is tempting and tantalizing and utterly beyond my now shredded attention span.

Enter Sprouts

Knives and Nighties

Despite this dense academic mire,  the Thanksgiving ritual plays out in all humanity with the inclusion of a dose of exotic and predominantly friendly guests. The only exception to the script was our failure to make it out to the “farm” to slay the Brussels sprouts. Jet lag was our undoing but Alexander made up for it by finding a Bavarian ceremonial sword and a Philips screwdriver with which we severed the sprouts from their moorings in the back garden.

On the night before Thanksgiving the girls took up their habitual positions, perched on chairs in white cotton nightdresses, chopping potatoes and turnips with large knives from Dehillerin in Paris.

On the day itself the tried and trusted recipes held fast, and minutely follow the precepts of our host’s Native American grandmother. A copy of Bon Appetit languished on a radiator for the cat to sit on but fortunately no new fangled ideas had been unleashed.

And now it is time for A Brief Ode to Cleveland.

There are some, if few, that mock our annual pilgrimage North to Ohio. I can only say that this is a mistake. Cleveland is vibrant and happening and it lacks complacency.

Frank Gehry - Cleveland Brain Clinic

The modern architecture beats anything in Washington: see the Frank Gehry buildings, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the beautiful and well endowed new wing of the Musuem of Art where the black and white marble stripes recall Orvieto or San Miniato in cubic form. The new Museum of Contemporary Art , only two years away from construction and completion by Foreign Office Architects of London, will be next. It will be moving from its current location, incorporated in the immense Cleveland Play House – incidentally designed by Philip Johnson, to form part of the nexus of museums, faculty buildings and botanical gardens of uptown Cleveland.

Historic Shaker Heights

On a domestic level the architecture of historic Shaker Heights beats anything in Potomac. If you happen to suffer from an urge to construct a McMansion visit Cleveland for some decent inspiration. Even the quiet strip of shops in the local Victorian-style high street holds far more charm than anything we have outside of Georgetown. But it is not only charm; there is something more fundamental than that. The replica architecture has an authenticity and gravity typically lacking in most copies of anything. It embodies the grit, enterprise and heart-felt endeavour of a community bent on setting up a cultural centre on the northern frontier. There is no goof, it holds intrinsic merit and can be beheld, absorbed and appreciated seriously. I love it.

We leave spiritually humbled but abundantly fed.

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Gobble Gobble – its upon us

Posted on November 24, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

Turkey Fever

The car speeds through Pennsylvania. Voices incant from the back of the car:

“Are we going to sleep?

“Yes.” we respond in emphatic unison.

“Why are we going to sleep?”

We ignore that one and have just succeeded in passing/overtaking an exceptional load of yellow diggers born by a truck with resplendent chrome piping, when Alexander quips:

“I waked up” and so he does for the rest of the six hour journey.

We are headed for Thanksgiving, that massive seasonal holiday that strikes on the last Thursday of every November in an apotheosis of turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie. Now my dear Euros, you may not feel you are missing out when it comes to our Winter Social Deluxe – with its offering of M&Ms (we may now be serving the latest coconut filled variety) and sticky beer underfoot but when it comes to Thanksgiving you certainly are.

This is big stuff. The other holidays that scatter themselves about the year, such as Columbus Day, Martin Luther King, Presidents’ Day are really not holidays at all – the shops are still going full tilt and you wouldn’t have a clue it was a public holiday. According to our very reliable neighbour, Chip, these holidays are actually specifically designated days for going out and buying a mattress. They are days when, with patriotic spirit, you boost the country’s bottom line by buying more stuff than you will ever need and then return to work and make a call to arrange for remote storage.

39c per Pound Turkey

However, Thanksgiving is different, the supermarkets are abandoned, the refrigerators gape emptily, their cargo of turkey gone. Having been deceived by all earlier public holidays of the year I did not know what had hit me on our first Thanksgiving. We ended up eating a miniscule rack of lamb as that was all that was left and Rosalind’s teacher got wind of this and actually pulled me aside to verify our abnormality. As for our second thanksgiving, I have no recollection of it at all.

Fortunately the days of Hit and Misgivings are over. We have been scooped up and adopted by the more than wonderful duo, Richard and Mary and their two cats Max and Duncan. It has been agreed that the relationship between the cats is very much don’t ask don’t tell which is easy as they typically disappear the moment we arrive and only resurface as we head out of the drive. I look forward to the annual trip to Ohio for more of the year than it would be seemly to admit but just to give a sense: we are greeted with martini glasses, shown to rooms with bathrooms replete with full length baths, enormous old fashioned radiators and decked with scented essences (plus not one, but two hair dryers). The full sum of our travail is to go out to the “farm’ and scythe down brussels sprouts. The farm is a piece of land graciously loaned to our hosts by an affluent figure of Cleveland. Last year in a fit of further bounty he installed an irrigation system to make Mr del Monte’s eyes water. To one side sits a house designed by a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright where we sat eating shortbread and staring out at the crisp cold and surrounding parkland through immense glass windows.

All I can say is that I have truly caught the Thanksgiving bug although I suspect I am not really doing Thanksgiving at all. A member of the Winter Social committee took to her bed to garner sufficient strength for an onslaught of 23 visitors.

At my Pilates class we have been kicking off the last two sessions with dynamic breathing exercises, deep inhalations designed to alleviate the stress of family, kitchen and grocery store traffic. Based on the hilarity about me I am certainly missing something.

I am just an uninitiated observer and so it is that I have watched the Halloween cobweb come down and enjoyed the build up of seasonal trappings that serve as hand maidens to this great family feast. Thanksgiving serves as the opening letter of the festive season. The T at the beginning of a well worn and familiar nursery sentence: “The cat sat on the mat.” A sentence that will come to a close with a full stop/period on New Year Eve’s and everything else will have fallen in between in one way or another.

Children start to sing a very deceptive song encouraging a turkey to come out and play with the promise not to eat it on Thanksgiving Day.  The twinkling lights appear and my offspring ask me whether it is okay so early? The Salvation Army sets up camp outside the local grocery store and tinkles away feverishly. Trader Joes staff start wearing ridiculous turkey hats, the pendulous fowl legs getting in the way of their transactions. A woman is jokingly asked for ID when she buys 8 bags of pumpkin seeds. The aisles throng and the car parks/parking lots seethe with drivers attempting to manoeuvre their cars into non-existent spaces. The Chevrolet Suburban gives up and drives off and hopefully will give thanks that not everyone else drives a Suburban.

Everyone is on the band wagon, 39c per pound turkeys abound. My dermatologist (in the US dermatologists thinly disguise themselves as areas of retreat for more aesthetic makeovers) has pinned a poster to the wall of the post-waiting, waiting room. “Gobble, gobble! Not just for turkeys – Save $750 on a mini neck lift for the holidays!”

I receive invitations to Gobble Gobble up the merchandise of somebody called Julia Farr who is offering 12 fashionable women an evening of consultation and cocktails at the blessed auction. The blessed auction will actually fall just outside the “Cat sat on the mat…” it will be the third dot along for those who have a propensity for dots. I like dots, my husband doesn’t. We will be truly exhausted by that point but there is something innocent in us that makes us look forward to this season each and every year.

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Royal Wedding Angst

Posted on November 22, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

So our young prince “who has been practicing long enough”, is due to wed Kate. I missed this entirely but thankfully someone stepped in to update me before I heard it on Wait Wait Dont Tell Me which is where I get most of my news in a somewhat skewed form – through an hour glass backwards. Where else are you going to hear that one of the Secret Service’s first priorities was to remove all the coconuts from the palm trees along President Obama’s route in India?

This week  Peter Segal, who I love almost as much as Ian Hislop, commented somewhat snarkily that Prince Charles was not the one to talk about practicing given the amount of the time he has spent practicing to be head honcho of the British throne.

But the ripples of the announcement trickled down to 5105 Worthington Drive. I found my youngest daughter in tears at bedtime. Some enthusiastic neighbour had described “Prince William” as “her prince”. She thought, therefore, somewhat logically that she was “his princess” and that they would be getting married. After an exhaustive interview with the tousled head on the top bunk, I gleaned that her tears stemmed from a fear of getting married and having to kiss someone on the lips.

This is all born from far too much Mamma Mia and ultimately from the far too lax rules about movie viewing in this house. As though to prove it, I returned home yesterday to find my eight year old introducing our sweet 14 year old babysitter to her first session of James Bond. There had been an unseemly scuffle, Rosalind had wanted Goldfinger and Puffy The Man with the Golden Gun.

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A post of perfect drivel

Posted on November 20, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

Sunset over DC playground

This post is not even going to be in the category of parental drivel, just general drivel. I have been single parenting for 16 days. There are three more to go and I am at a loss for coherent words or thoughts. I know I have something to say to those who rant about the sanctity of the moment, Carpe Diem may happen later but what I am living is Fish Stick Diem and I dont want to sieze it all.

All I want to do is give up on blobbing and watch Donald Draper. I am just hoping it is one of his ‘good looking’ episodes as it is disturbing how he can disintegrate from one to another. The other disturbing thing is when he lobs his beer can into the perfect meadow at the end of a perfect 50s picnic. Lovely Betsy then tips the picnic rug all over the perfect grass and is told to mop the kiddies paws before they climb inside their iconic car and head home for marital disaster. I can actually deal far better with the rampant sexism (which is a relief in todays climes – see French Kissing in the DIY store), the smoke and drink than with the littering which curiously grates against my every nerve.

I am not sure I should go on with this blobbing lark. I find myself spinning every miniscule episode of my life into a potentially entertaining blog-bit and then never quite getting it down because I am too disintegrated or just trying to find Alexander’s shoes.

Alexander losing his shoes actually led me to a one of my most buoyant moments of the week. They had disappeared for several hours and despite an exhaustive search of our completely leaf covered back yard I could not find them. We had to go to the H Mart (which is an amazing Korean supermarket in the armpit of beyond, on Georgia Avenue). He was wearing fireman boots too large for him and spooning up large blue crabs from a vat with pincers. Almost everything is in Korean so it is a little tricky to know what you are buying, unless it is a live blue crab. As I gazed at an entire aisle of soya sauce I commented to a moustached older bloke next to me that it was a hard choice. He disagreed entirely and would not relinquish me, Puffy or his falling boots. We proceeded round the supermarket in company. I learned that he had  $60,000 dollar kitchen. That he had cooked fried oysters the night before and that, consequently, his wife was worried about their finances. He told me never to buy anything other than sushi quality salmon. We scrutinised and admired its striations of white omega 3 fat. Clutching Puffy’s boots we headed for the exit with several pounds of pork belly to make a Rillettes, my only serious contribution to our more than wonderful Thanksgiving hosts. The shoes had to be found. I had bought a ton of food I never meant to buy and it was all the fault of mr 60K kitchen and Puffy’s boots. 

Back at the ranch –  ‘They are hiding” Puffy told me seriously. “Where?” I demanded. After much coaxing he pointed enigmatically and all encompassingly at the trees and our garage roof. Given that I can hear him coming down the stairs (damn),  given that I know he can make up non-existent hampsters – I was not falling for that. For both shoes and two socks to be on the garage roof was just plain rot. Cooingly I knelt down and in my best PEP (parent encouragement program) voice said “Your shoes are hungry. They want Cheerios. Where are they?” He led me straight to them. In the neighbour’s garden, in the flower bed, amongst some old grasses. I am a genius.

I only wish I truly felt that way. I had to sit at the park for two hours watching little Nelson (4) crashing every piece of Little Tikes plastic he could find, into every fence or railing whilst Wang (3) stood rooted to the spot counting how many seconds it took for the green traffic light to stay green. Then there was a Courtney (well when isn’t there a Courtney?) who did not like wet leaves and threw a fit if they got stuck on her shoes and then Sydney who was coating her pink fleeced body in them.

This was a foreign playground. Can a playground be foreign? Well apparently it can. It was full of coaxing, crowing parents but they were not ‘my’ parents. Playground Politics are exhausting. You spend your time admonishing your own child and admiring others whilst you are really thinking the antithesis. We keep this covert behind stretched smiles and perfect teeth. This is why you have to have good teeth in America – in England we can just stare glummly at each other and no one knows if our canines are crowded.

All I can say to you guys is that a blog is apparently meant to be an interactive forum (I checked wiki). I could really do with some interaction as it is fairly lonely like this. I don’t have to publish your comments unless you give me approval but… otherwise I think I will give up. That was certainly the decision I took in the foreign DC playground. I need to get prototyping and into China to make something of my life not live in a twilight zone where people steal about in the night snitching carrots from some poor bastard in Farmersville or living a second life because their first one comes complete with never disappearing shoes and a retinue of nannies. Over to you as I am all but burnt out. Donald Draper, Thai Green Curry…. finally.

PS. Alexander has been replaced in his bed. He calls the sticky tape  “his tape measure’  and has been putting it to use as such. I want to remember this… posterity and all that.. I literally buy 5 rolls of sticky tape a week to quench both Puffy’s and Eleanors sticky fixations.

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Parenting Seminars and Reasons to Avoid Them

Posted on November 17, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

Threatened with a Non-Existent Hampster

How I detest parenting seminars. I am sure that if I attend one I will find myself saying “Don’t hit mummy with that stick darling, it hurts mummy’s feelings’ in a pseudo-effort to educate my offspring whilst not damaging his creative skills.

I am too selfish. I see no earthly reason why I should suffer bruised shins plus who is speaking out for the stick?

Yesterday there was a parenting seminar at our elementary school, Westbrook. I think it is part of a series entitled “Parent Encouragement Program” or PEP for those in the know. I recycled the soothing pale-yellow flyer advertising the event and did even consider going. I am still recovering from yet another terrible Sunday (no Bloody Mary this time) and it would have been a form of escape, however, I did not. Today e-mails are charging through my inbox between people who did not manage to attend, asking those who did for tidbits from the great man’s table.

I admit I am like a fly on the wall. I am a little curious and just possibly there is something worth knowing. Something I might bat about for a day or two before abandoning like speaking Italian at home or getting up earlier. On the other hand, what I know to be certain is that at the end of the session the speaker will be financially richer and the audience poorer. The speaker will have succeeded in conjuring up an evanescent moment of we-can-do and buoyed up by it, one or more of us, will have forked out for another book or DVD to add to our donation pile. Given that this is the only certain outcome I refuse to collaborate in subtracting any further from my life and giving Mr Has-it-All anything.

Next, I know that I am not in control and that I am almost certainly not a good parent but I see no reason to advertise this in public in front of some smug guru.

Today Alexander told me that if I would not let him play with my iPhone (which he is quick to remind me ‘Is not a toy”) then he would not let me to play with Eleanor’s hamster. Eleanor does not even have a hamster. Yesterday he plunged my iPod into a mug of water so absolutely no iPhones on offer, ever … or realistically, at least not for the next few days whilst the memory of my fury lasts in his small brain.

Anyway, why is it that some of the most famous parenting gurus have never had children? One blessing of living in the US is that no one has ever heard of The Contented Little Baby by the dreaded Gina Ford. I gather that she has even written a new book called The New Contented Little Baby which is bad luck for those babies who were born a year or two too early. This woman is unbelievably successful and has never had a child or probably changed a diaper/nappy.

Anyway I refuse to give her any money either. The very title makes me want to vomit whilst also evoking frightening images of the Deltas or is it Epsilons in a Brave New World who are kept so content and flaccid that they never strive for anything and are happy to languish as society’s mopper-uppers.

I am, on the other hand, all for the alternative title – The Contented Mother which is begging for an author. I recently offered the following advice to a friend who finds herself with child and expecting in February: a glass of wine at Kid’s supper/Children’s tea time makes you a much better, funnier mother. A glass of wine from a party bottle/magnum is even better as one can firm up one’s breast muscles with the vacuum pump. 750ml bottles do not allow for a sufficient work out.  Note: remember to switch arms or you will end up lopsided.

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Clockwork toys to Congress

Posted on November 12, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

I started to draft this post last Sunday which was not a good day.

Mouse for Representative

I finished it in the doctor’s waiting room, the second of the waiting rooms in which you wait in the US. This is something that Jerry Seinfeld comments upon. The sheer amount of waiting rooms and opportunities to wait that are offered by the US health system. First of all you wait in the communal waiting room. Then after some considerable time you are ushered by a typically-taciturn nurse, donning the latest colour in scrubs (currently lilac) into another waiting room where they measure your height to check that you have not grown since your last visit. Despite my mildly ironic comments, the nurses continue to take this occupation seriously. This time I had even more time to wait because when the doctor did appear, he then disappeared again and my lilac scrubbed attendant had to go and retrieve him. He then had the audacity to look mildly irritated that I was so busily engaged, tapping away on top of the consultation table.

————————————————————–

12.56 on Sunday and I am having a Bloody Mary, all by myself. This is somewhat atypical but things are falling apart. Alexander is screaming his head off because his black and gold wings are, or are not, at the correct angle but it is near impossible to determine at what angle he wants them. I have reversed them, put them upside down, put them on his front and of course his back, but he remains inconsolable. Quite honestly a liquid lunch is preferable to having to sit down with my offspring. So all I can say is thank god little Ben in Eleanor’s class decided to have a shyness attack and I am no longer active in the carpool to this afternoon’s party at Little Stars Gymnastics.

So the wings have just hit the gravel outside the kitchen door and I hope to secrete them in the trash before he remembers them. Maybe time for a second Bloody Mary? On top of this, I have to admit that this blog is driving me nuts, or “into nuts” as Eleanor puts it. It is like a fourth child. There is always more to do and invariably you are probably doing it all wrong.  Plus I admit to a little hair of the dog.

It was Saturday evening and I had just finished reading a missive from an old friend in London. She related her encountered with my parents at a toddler birthday party, otherwise populated by single Hungarian mothers and affluent but morally suspect Italian City bankers. Apparently their advice for my life was generally that I should be drinking more wine. I was digesting this fact and wondering what to do about it when I heard a soft tap on the door.

An unwinged goddess stood there bearing a bottle of Spanish wine. I say ‘goddess’ not merely because she bore gifts of deliverance, but because I once found this same individual sitting cross legged in my basement clearly pronouncing the following words into her handset “55 billion just isn’t enough”.

Now if you are familiar with the typical American basement and most certainly our basement, the incongruity of this statement and the surroundings would be enough. As it happens the comment was set against the mayhem of Alexander’s first birthday. Rosalind had convinced me to invite her friends and they were rampaging through the house. The birthday boy was miserable and howled. A few residual parents clung to the far end of the sitting room hoping for sustenance. I was unable to placate all needs and all in all it was an unalleviated nightmare.

When the crashes from the basement reached such a volume that it became impossible to ignore them, I descended into the inferno to see our young guests hurling themselves off the bookshelves that line the walls. On the floor, amidst the chaos, sat this figure in clogs, a beautiful South American shawl draped about her person and a two year old boy curled up upon her knee. The memory will remain engraved in my mind forever.

A fragment of the health care reform bill was being brokered from my basement. I live vicariously on the very edge of Washington politics and this was thrilling.  Furthermore universal health care is something I just cannot imagine any non-barbarous society having an objection to.

On this I am clearly wrong. The day after last week’s elections my trusty shower radio crackled into action and informed me that California had voted against reducing carbon emissions and that Arizona had voted in favour of ignoring the shreds of health care reform that eventual reached them. The litany of extraordinary decisions tumbled from the radio.

Now if there is one thing that drives me into nuts about living in America, it is the fact that there can even be a debate about allowing everyone access to healthcare and I am fairly sunk amongst the pistachios when it come to those whose arguments to preserve foetal life seem to completely overlook what happens to the child that is born. I have thought of printing bumper stickers along the lines of:

Not Foetal? .. Fatally challenged!  Stay in the womb!  Hang on in there. Half the US is gunning for you, you’ve never had it so good!  Once you are out nobody cares, you’re a gonner, you’re on your own!   Being delivered into the US healthcare system is quite simply a “Foetal Mistake.”

I realize this might need to be more of a T-shirt and maybe two sided but perhaps if any of my readers show sufficient interest in the idea – see poll below -I could condense it a little.

Later that day I found myself in a lovely independent toy shop (not politically independent although they are almost certainly all tofu loving monkey huggers) playing with a colourful variety of wind up toys. I realized there is nothing more cheering than a wind up toy: crabs sidling along with a waving claw, red ladybugs (US English) /Ladybirds (UK English) with ambling black legs and antennae, and a particularly positive blue mouse with a hunk of purple cheese doing backward flips.  I left one on the doorstep of Ms 55 billion advocating a new career in clockwork toys where cogs turn and bilateral has to work or nothing moves forwards or flips or waves a claw.

I can imagine nothing more heartening.

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“I want to emigrate” – Star appearance from London

Posted on November 10, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

House for Rent on Worthington Drive

My dearest sister-in-law EMS sent me the following missive today:

“I LOVE Americans – they are so gloriously and effortlessly effusive, there’s no shame in being enthusiastic. I would emigrate tomorrow.”

EMS I post here the house that is for rent in our street – my lovely enthusiastic neighbours would, I know, embrace you with as much warmth as your Harvard Business School protégées have after a week in your company.

The reason for this burst of effusiveness in one who suffered dance lessons at the hands of Mr Flatfoot and was raised in the dankly lit Scottish Borders? Simply three heart-warming thank you emails she received from the Americans in her care.

Email 1: Ladies, your talents are only exceeded by your graciousness!

Email 2: Greetings. As I expressed to Laura previously, I would be remiss if I did not reiterate Barbara’s beautiful and thorough missive regarding not only The Haven but also its relentless, dynamic founder and its consummately professional team.

Email 3: Thank you so VERY much for a week full of indelible memories. I only wish that Silvia could have attended with me to meet the wonderful people and see the fantastic sites that we all enjoyed together.

These emails contrasted starkly with the only one sent by a Brit which ran as follows. “Sorry not to have paid up yet. Have you by any chance found my overcoat?”

What did EMS do to deserve such a shower of warmth and praise, she accompanied the lucky group on one of the most exciting tours of London imaginable. I can only leave it to her to describe. In fact I am dragging her into my blob. She is one of the most amusing correspondents I know. You will hear more from her I hope.

I spent last week looking after 17 Harvard Business School graduates who have done this course called OPM – Owners and Presidents with business turnovers so large it makes your eyes water. What an incredible week. They had all paid £6k each to Breast Cancer Haven to be treated to the most amazing London experience imaginable: lunch with Prince Charles at Clarence House, private tour of the Crown Jewels, boat trips, private tour of St James Palace (seeing handwritten letters in a ledger pertaining to the formation of the Church of England / original 1611 Bibles – mind blowing) – seeing where the queen puts on her Crown before sitting on the throne etc…and then a tour around House of Commons and Lords – led by the most gloriously bumbling life Peer you could imagine – the absolute epitome of the character you might expect to be snoozing on the red leather….he got us wildly lost (“this place is a perfect nuisance”) and we all got completely hysterical. At one stage Times Rich List Newcomer / Asian Businessman of Year and I were clutching our sides in a corridor, crying with laughter and completely unable to contain ourselves – he claims he hadn’t laughed so hard for about twenty years. It was just wonderful to be immersed in a world of people who have ‘made it’ rather than endlessly talking about what a struggle life is – which it is really isn’t it? The conversations were incredible – lots of political debate (US health care reform got me quite hot under the collar…) and some intriguing world views. Plus, to be frank, really nice to be fed good food, drink champagne endlessly, be picked up and dropped off everywhere by a chauffeur and not have to think for one second about whether or not I have hung up the white wash or given nursery a new supply of nappies. VERY hard to re-adjust this week.

I shall leave today’s reappearance of Ms Haunted Alley (see Flamingos and Skeletons) and her son Theo to a later post, along with her offer of a selection of Renaissance swords and a stuffed raccoon, plus her self-confessed obsession with ‘Bling’ followed by the gruff statement: “I used to be into arts and crafts – I don’t wanna to talk about it”.

EMS you will want to emigrate all the more. We’ll luv ya.

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Introducing the Winter Social to Euros

Posted on November 9, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

Bowling Shoes

So what is the winter social? You poor Euros don’t know what you’re missing. You hang together at some naval bowling alley and eat M&Ms and cheap chicken wings and try to forget all about it by downing warm lager/beer. All this whilst forking out money for items that you never knew you needed and are still not sure you want but in the effort to keep the great charitable wheel turning and supporting the objectives of the PTA (parent teacher association). So no, this would not work in Europe because we are all too mean spirited. Furthermore being forced to socialize (a word that has us drawing a deep intake of breath) with a group of people, with whom our only connection is an institution, has us fleeing for the wet and boggy marshes.

There is a reason why I have never joined the British Tot to Toddler Group of DC. Just because we have toddlers is no reason to think we are going to like each other. We will eye each other with suspicion and the suspicion will only be strengthened by the fact that we have signed up in the first place. Our introductions will be varnished with superficial smiles and the minds will be ticking. It is all just too excruciating.

Now I know this is not the case in the US but I cannot get over my residual distrust. Yes I should be at the Kindergarten Social, the Third Grade Social and then be looking forward to the Winter social but I lack the genetic make-up.

So how did I get onto the committee? Actually I am not sure I am even officially on it. I don’t know. I had placed myself 6000 miles away and 1800 metres/6000 feet up a mountain. I had plaster in my ears and was consumed with my search for a white oven.

I ignored the various emails that started to smell whiffy on the subject. The very word Winter Social does it for me. Socials are what are held at the sort of retirement home you do not want to end up in. Senior residents are collected and gathered together in the calmly toned rec. room to enjoy a night of bingo. Occasionally things are mildly enlivened when an old biddy with her new purple hair rinse gets into a tussle with Ms. pink hair rinse over Don, who they both have set their failing but amorous sights on. In fact as far as I am concerned there is quite possibly a lot more fun to be had on such an occasion than swilling warm beer and being told to stop one’s conversation as once again… your turn to bowl is up. Lastly the shoes, these are possibly one of the most distressing aspects, that smell of shared, seriously cheap, fake leather.

Unfortunately my attempts at remaining aloof and apart in my French Restoration Comedy were to no avail. The missive finally arrived “ZXY and I want your confirmation that you’ll help with the winter social.” Now I spent a year being taught textual analysis and this is what I can only define as a “NOT opt-in invitation.” For fear of offending, I of course said yes, with reservations. “Why?” says my ever liberally disposed husband. Because I aim to please and that is another bane of my life along with black gilt wings, Alexander’s obsession with hand soap and yes, this my dear blob.

The thing is, of course we should support our school. I feel this even more deeply given that we are non resident legal aliens and effective parasites of the system. We supported the playground and in the first year had no idea what the PTA was and so gave them lashings of money on Back to School Night (Euros will need to wait for another entry on that – it is the parents who go back to school not the children.) The recipient of my cheque/check looked a little stunned.

The only thing is that right now I would like to continue writing cheques…. at least until I have a husband who lives with his legal alien and we are bored enough of each other to welcome an m&m fest, and till my blossoming little US citizens have matured enough to not keep me awake at night with fears of My Fair Lady.

Now to all this I need to append the following juggernaut of a disclaimer. The women on this committee are all very nice. I tend to prefer them without the bit in their mouth and I also tend to prefer my cap less feathered but, regardless, I look forward to convening, feasting and ranting (but not socializing) well into the future. Some even urged me to blob, and blob I have, but the innards are starting to spill.

No, but sure… I’m game.

Posted in Quill & Ink: Scrolls | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

French Restoration Comedy

Posted on November 9, 2010 by InkQuillibrium

Avoriaz 1800

This June I spent 1 month and 3 days 1800metres/6000 feet up renovating 3 bathrooms, one kitchen, covering over a hole in a  floor, buying entirely new furniture and furnishings and generally pretending I was in one of those awful reality TV shows.

The result is at www.avoriazmagic.com

Below is some correspondence with supportive mammas back in the ‘Hood’ who I kept fed with the peculiarities of my days.

Sent: Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 5:04 PM

Subject: re European update?

Oh lord… there are tons, such as my attempt to find a loo in a bathroom shop on my second day here. I used the US expression “I would like to use your bathroom”. The poor sales man got horribly confused and assumed a concerned expression he said he had many bathrooms. With my legs crossed I continued in desperation “user…utiliser”… and he looked even more upset and said that they did not sell used bathrooms. Finally I resorted to the desperate squeak of one who has had three babies and finds themself in dire straights and winced “Je voudrais faire la pipi”  I have been to the shop repeatedly to buy tiling and poor Xavier and I manage to avoid eye contact as much as possible.

As of the age of four I knew how to say “ou est la toilette” so I am wondering where and when I short circuited.  I also went queasy at the knees being sold an 800 Euro lavatory by a sexy and utterly bad type of guy. I had to go and take deep breath by the lac Leman and bought the same lavatory for a heck of a lot less from an older lady with badly dyed red hair… who described the intricate mechanism inside the loo as “making soup”. I am still not sure it was worth the discount.

XF

Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 2:57 PM

Subject: Lovely to skype

Dear xyz,

lovely to skype… got my parents afterwards who had been to a hunters’ feast on the edge of a wood. They made a little less sense having been fed and wined for many several hrs by a band of local wild boar hunters. Why? because they had given the hunters wood from some old trees, ostensibly with which to cook food for their hunting dogs? Can you imagine anything less Bethesda? Their dogs don’t look like they get cooked meals.

France is unbelievably Green. I am currently scouring Ikea.fr and they give you all the environmental details regarding disposing of your item right alongside the dimensions and sales price. I cannot imagine marketing an item by advertising how disposable it is but I am assuming it must be working. Yesterday, I passed a car wash that was advertising itself as eco-friendly as they recycle the water. I suppose if you are lucky you can get your Ford washed in old Maserati water.

Just wanted to say it really is NOT a chalet in Switzerland – would that it were. It is a tiny apartment in the French Alps, with a fine view… when there is no cloud and when they have cut down the trees that we have been complaining about for 15yrs. Still it’s a tiny apartment apparently in some demand – at least it had better be or that 500 Euro loo is going to be the ruin of me.

XF

Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 4:05 PM

Subject: French kissing

Forward by all means, cannot imagine to presume that it is sufficiently interesting but you are too kind or too bored. This morning was glorious – the upper pastures coming alive after tons of rain and fleshing out with wild flowers and grasses. I was up very early and driving down the mountain to change the smashed loo (not the 500 Euro one) and saw some cows sleeping in a meadow, creamy white with their heads turned back and resting elegantly on their bodies. Next to them lay a pile of calves, far more haphazard, just spread eagled.  Having watched a horrible documentary about the US meat industry Food Inc I have not eaten beef for many months and I could not help thinking “now as a steak you would be just delicious”.

When I got to Gedimat, the equivalent of the Home Depot, it was just opening and was full of French employees all kissing each other abundantly and affectionately and handing round coffee. At first I thought I was observing an amorous tryst until the tryst became so wildly universal as to be either some hardware orgy or simply a regular start to the day.

They are doing a special on Radio Haute Savoie which is all about the French, love and sex. It is interspersed with people such as Marie-Therese calling in with her recipe for wild blueberry sorbet or Jean Michel who has developed a way of grilling camembert. Beatrice then called in with details of her snail farm – but sex, snails, camembert, are all given equal weight in the daily scheme of things and the only thing that is treated at all seriously is the plight of the French speaking Belgians.

XF

Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 at 12:51 PM

Subject: Modesty and plumbing parts

Dearest All,

Am sitting with my plate propped up on a tube of soldering primer, something to do with an artichoke and no bloody space to put anything. Life would be truly and utterly miserable were it not for several glasses of French wine, my ipod and the chance to bore you all senseless. I cannot even begin to describe the living conditions up here. A view of cotton wool has shrouded the place for more than a week, some miserable cows that were moved up to higher pastures earlier today stare forlornly and realise that it was much nicer in the barn down in the valley. The South of France is flooded and old ladies are being air-lifted by helicopters. The only advantage of being at 1800 metres is that we are unlikely to be affected.

I feel I must give you the low down on the IKEA.fr experience. Wine Mammas could actually happily convene there for a session.  They sell wine by the glass, bottle and of course pitcher. Amazing plates of carpaccio adorn their counters along with cheeses that are scrutinized for true quality by beady eyed old ladies – and selected with satisfaction. All children’s menus are organic and there is an organic meal on offer for all and sundry – their loos run on rain water and the hot water is all solar generated, their parking lot is fit to park a Boeing in, or rather several. But this is still IKEA – which means they don’t happen to have enough kitchen handles so I still have to go back to Ikea next week, a 500km drive all in all.

It turns out that kissing at the DIY outift is not reserved for early morning. At at 11am the nice lady behind the counter with a middle aged and matronly presence became quite coquettish, proffering her cheek to some man who I thought was a co-worker but he could have been a visiting builder. She held her cheek out for a peck for so long that I became embarrassed and began staring at my wiring, finally the guy covered in paint realised and responded appropriately. She then settled the bill for several packs of screws, I jest not.

I swear it is the plumbing though that does it, not the screws. I have spent more on female and male connections of copper piping than I have ever spent on a hand bag. I refuse to resort to the female/male terms which makes my attempts at being understood even more complicated but there is just no way that I am going to start discussing such things at 8.30 am in the morning with the ‘still seriously bad guy’. The result is that to preserve my modesty I am buying all the wrong parts and I am afraid you guys will see me in my copper jacket for yet another five years to make up for the difference. Copper of one sort or another seems to be the pivotal point here.

My personal penchant is for Emeric who works at the very local DIY (only half an hour down the mountain as opposed to 1 hour) – I leave him notes before the start of business requesting bits of wood to be cut up of different sizes. He then leaves them for me on a window ledge and it is all very companionable, particularly when I discover that I have made a mistake for the second time and have to order them all over again. I have told Emile he cannot ruin my street cred by ever visiting this shop where I am regarded as female and helpless and clearly a total joke.  Dear Emeric, he is tanned and weathered with an affable expression and what makes him all the more reassuring is that he is clearly one of those amazing guys who brings you down the mountain when you have broken your leg. No show, just utter competence. I may be entirely wrong, he may run a late night strip bar in the winter but I hope not.

So now I am absolutely sure I have bored the hell out of all of you so I will decamp and hope to get some kip before visiting Emeric at 7.30am for some more bits of wood.  I plan to quiz him about the French work week which is meant to be 35 hrs but he and his pals work something like 50. He looked upset and abashed when I said that the lack of choice on keyhole covers was too socialist by half so this is likely to be an interesting one.

That said re work weeks – they start early but all stop at 12.00 sharp and go and buy a baguette and head home to lunch. After lunch you see fathers pushing their infants along by the side of the lake. Everyone leaves school and is back by 2pm accompanied by the lollipop ladies in fluorescent vests and perfect makeup.  It is infuriating but beautiful.

XF

Sent: Saturday, Jun 19, 2010 at 1:02 PM

Subject: Builders announce they are “Bears”

Dear xyz,

It is “sleeting” at the moment – which could make me miserable as I stare at the back of the dishwasher in all its glorious polystyrene but as it happens I have spent the day cutting wood at 45 degree angles with an amazing saw and so feel incredibly productive and proud of myself. I took some doors off their hinges and applied mirrors after meticulous calculations and serious whiffs of mirror glue.

The bears

At around eleven o’clock the builders announced “Francesca we are like bears today”. I hesitated, fearing the worst, Had they lost all patience with the project and were on the verge of attacking the garbage can or were they about to tear me apart with great claws but it turns out that in Polish this means that they are sleepy and ready for hibernation and this was an oblique way of asking for coffee.

The cows are still miserable and there are some new ones with black with black circles over their eyes.

Dear Emeric was on fine form and cut me some more pieces of wood whilst imparting his own travails doing up a 200yr old chalet in the endless mist.

His boss, a venerable older man was delighted to know I lived in DC – clearly one notch up on being just British. He had been to New York, climbed the twin towers and otherwise his major remark was about US electrical cables and transformer boxes hanging over the street which he simply could not get enough of. I assured him that were he to visit DC not only would he receive a warm welcome but there were plenty more pendulous transformer boxes. He was thrilled.

XF

Sent: Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 4:17 PM

Subject: A new plumbing part ‘the mamelle’

Dearest xyz – back in saner climes,

It is with relief that I can confirm that the radio is back to normal. Not only did we have a host of cheese aficionados calling in with their recipes but a whole half hour discussion on how to catch rats. All this is punctuated by adverts where a person feigns the s/he would like to give up smoking and is advised that they should call the help line and speak to a dedicated / designated “tobaccologist”.

The guys here do everything with a fag hanging out of one corner of their mouth and an evil grin out of the other – especially when it comes to plumbing parts. Today I saw a new and uncharted plumbing part called a Mamelle – and I don’t think I dare go there. Clearly for their more mother-obsessed moments. Fortunately, despite the fact the flat now has copper intestines fit to sink a ship, I don’t think we will need a mamelle.

Bisoux – or kisses – yes loads of em… whatever the time of day and whether you be a builder or not.

Francesca

Sent: Sunday, Jun 27, 2010 at 5.51 PM

Subject: Kissing in church and the local brass band

Last week was a serious nightmare and by the end of tomorrow (all things according to plan) I will have driven 1500 km to get the oven of my choosing. This is so seriously ridiculous and un-“ecologique” that I vow never to use the darned thing. I sat this pm watching the setting sun with a glass of wine, some local cheese and the most amazing chutney I have ever tasted.

Again I made my weekly descent down to the valley, hair washed and gleaming, nails scrubbed, J Crew necklace threatening to throttle me, in the expectation of the social event of church and of course my squished eclaire boulangerie “Celine”. I seriously know how it must have felt to have been a goat herd at the turn of the century. The babbling stream, the people, the cafes and bells ringing… little did I expect the town’s regular 5 yr celebration of the parish. A well known local mountaineer had mounted a slide projector on the altar and was making comparisons between earthly and heavenly ascents ending with a very unconvincing picture of a star atop the Matterhorn. The irony is that it must have been a real one. The church was packed – I think everyone was keen to see the mountaineer. We had reached a key and poignant moment about a fellow mountaineer ascending to the light when an enormous fanfare broke out somewhere outside. An older parish dignitary, who paradoxically seemed to have a thick white pony tail, dashed out to stop the local band (Edelweiss – founded in 1950) from playing the Marseillaise – the pretty vocal French national anthem. The whole thing was too much for the band though, they were raring to go so at almost 5 minute intervals it would get going again and someone would go and hush them.

My neighbour in the pew was an older gentleman, with an extraordinarily elegant nose which I could not help observing. He confounded me at the sign of peace by saying that he would not take my hand “je vais vous donnez un bisoux” I was kissed in church by an unknown man who made me feel as though my offer of a hand shake had been positively unseemly. I was immensely relieved when he left early to check out the brass band outside.

Descending to the valley

They were simply great. There were at least 20 big brass instruments, they wore britches with huge mountain socks that contained some certifiable ski legs. They had clearly been working on their routine and had it all choreographed. The mountain river babbled behind. The local Sheriff was there in full regalia looking every bit the part along with the mayor and some older guys with all their WWII pins. A small girl in a muslin pinafore held her rabbit and swayed to the music and in the end was invited to bang each player on the head and they blew their trumpet, trombone, clarinet as though she were playing the piano. They went on to play the Macarena and some other outrageous pop songs about Rasputin and the Russian Queen and then to round things off a rather tall and jester-like character started hopping about flapping his arms and looking at the band with ever increasingly grumpy looks. His band comrades feigned total ignorance as to his meaning.. but at last… I knew this had to come.. I don’t think one can have a French occasion without it – they played the Duck dance. Half the band, with trumpets in full throttle dashed through the crowd waddling like ducks. The crowd, a full compliment of grandmothers holding grandchildren and surreptitious couples, parted gaily. They were then followed in hot pursuit by the other members of the band who gave a very convincing impression of attempting to catch a duck. Now how do I know that it was a good impression? I wondered this as I drove back up the mountain past the grazing cows with bells and the occasional chalet suddenly alive with wood smoke from a Sunday grillade. I think it must be stuck somewhere in my Jungian collective unconscious. I think that is what is called from when I still used the grey matter aloft or maybe the Jungian collective unconscious is stuck in my subconscious and the duck within that. This is beginning to sound like a terrine. Maybe enough for tonight. I listened to Wait Wait dont Tell Me to remind me of home. Intrigued as to recent article in Rock and Roll Mag… not on sale up here.

Cows and bells, solitude and cheese and not a little loneliness,

XF

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