A few wee years ago…

Our eldest was born on a Saturday evening after having spent Friday night asleep (there are some lucky moms in this world – I was twice – as both my sons were born on Saturday nights after daytime labor and I proceeded to sleep after their births as well).

He had all the pertinent parts, thrived and now is, in turn, a father himself.

Feet seem to be a thing in our family so instead of the usual newborn baby picture here is the one that most impressed family and friends alike and led to my insisting that his son also have his footprints taken.

All the best my son.

My multiple lives

So somehow these past few weeks have been overly full – or I have been overly lazy as

Blogging has fallen by the wayside.

One of the reasons, of course, is that I have had my older son home for 10 days, the younger has been here a few weeks longer and my housemate and husband are also in residence. The more humans I have to interact with, the less I am on my computer – living life instead of writing about it – although at other moments I was capable of doing both. Age? Interests?

This past week is a good example of my multiple lives:

Took son #1 to the airport Tuesday (having pre-celebrated my birthday with both boys the night before), waited a few hours then picked up my housemate and her husband. Wednesday went so fast that I only visited a friend. Thursday we had agreed, the housemate and I, that we would celebrate our birthdays finally, throwing in the opening of the Christmas (past or present?) gifts that her daughter had sent in June (that way the husband had a gift as well).  In our usual manner, champagne, nibbles and lots of laughter.

I got the Kindle that I had requested – thank you to both sons and housemate – somewhere I may have written a blog about how much trouble I had actually getting the mail carrier to deliver it as I wasn’t at home the first time they came! I am looking forward to peacefully getting some things on it next week when I have a wee bit more time.

Yesterday, Friday, was our National Swiss holiday and multiple lives may not even cover it!

We started the morning attending the brunch up at in the village, hosted in the grounds of the “castle” where the German Ambassador to the U.N. lives (fittingly this property was originally a brewery). He is a true ambassador in that he has made an effort to become part of the community in which he lives (something that I don’t recall any other of the ambassadors living in our village doing!). Here our volunteer firemen are the ones who arrange and serve at such events and I was glad to see that some of those young men who attended school with my sons are now following in their father’s footsteps. It is also traditional for the food itself to be served by our city administrators – a great way for the community to learn more about them as well as interact with them on a casual basis. This makes for good cohesion.

That done it was home to prepare for my traditional August 1^st party. What started approx.. 30 years ago as a way of entertaining other foreigners at loose ends in the middle of the summer has become a way of touching base informally with my friends. A way of honouring the country in which I live as well as all the diverse nationalities living in this canton.

Last nights group was no exception: Swiss from one of the German-speaking parts of the country (who feel just as “foreign” as many foreigners), a half a dozen British who grew up elsewhere (and not always in Britain), a couple of Welsh, my housemate who although born in the USA is now only Swiss, her husband, an American; a couple of Germans who came over 40 years ago; an Armenian who fled her country as a child; an Egyptian whose father was one of the nicest people I have known; another American who came to France in 1971 – and never left; another Swiss who grew up in Holland then spent many of his early working years in Kenya; his wife who is of Italian origin but also grew up in Kenya; their daughter who married a French-man and is now living in Dubai and that’s not an exhaustive list! We could have held an UN meeting (and maybe have solved the world’s problems in minutes with very little conflict).

D-Ls photo: I forgot to put the memory card in my camera so no photos of my own!

Then just after everyone had gone home and it was dark from my balcony those of us remaining in the house enjoyed fireworks from one of the neighbours (who this year made them even better and more visible by doing them off rafts in the lake) accompanied by those of a village across the lake and then as a low carpet others from various points in the distance: an explosive and colourful ending to my multiple day.

Miss Betty does it again…

Has a birthday!

July 2 was a landmark in the life of Miss Betty: Paris with two of her children, celebrating her 91^st birthday. It was also a “down day” in the program of planned events and city sightseeing, not that anyone was down, simply we had more flexibility and although many places and stops to see and acomplish, no particular order nor time frame in which they had to be made.

From the beginning – breakfast at the hotel, but we found a wee sweet to stand in for a birthday cake (the bakery where I had seen chocolate cupcakes the day before hadn’t made them that day so we had to settle for a “cake financier”, which is perhaps fitting as literally translated it means financial cake: does this mean that a windfall is in store for her?

Skipping the 90, just put the 1- cake for breakfast is allowed!

Miss Betty and her admirers - in the hotel lobby before leaving for the day.

In any case the first stop at the Maison du Chocolat saw a windfall of something: chocolate!

Maison du Chocolat and an accommodating salesperson

 

On to Galeries Lafayette and a woman’s favourite pastime: shopping.  A few perfume bottles later and we headed for Notre Dame and the free English guided tour. As said tour turned out to have as guide a very soft-spoken, heavily accented French women whom, if one was not directly in front of her, was basically not understandable. We decided that lunch was more important.

Galeries Lafayettes

Quasimodo’s with fresh lemonade (Miss Betty kept saying that it was a bit tart so 5 sugars later…), and lemon sugar crepes = happy tourists with enough energy to buy a few trinkets as souvenirs before heading back to the hotel for a slight pause.

The big event of the day: a dinner-cruise on the Seine river to celebrate Miss Betty’s 91^st.

Delicious starters (asparagus soup, Caesar salad, a terrine and several other choices), followed by a selection again of mains as well as of desserts - all accompanied by a bottle of white and a bottle of red wine (I do wonder what happens to the leftovers as we only drank enough to toast her health and I a normal glass, leaving more than enough for yet another meal).

Dessert and a surprise for Miss Betty - her own personalized birthday sherbet slice - again we stuck to the one candles in order to not melt the sherbert faster than it was already melting in the heat of celebration.

Suprised!

 

The perfect end to a perfect day.

13’140 Days of love

Sounds so much more important than just its equivalent in years.

Any mother will know exactly what I am talking about – that wonderful day when you first discovered the child that you had carried for nine months; the baby that developed close to your heart; that wonderful bundle of joy that became part of your family.

From babyhood, through toddler hood, on to teenager “hood” (and believe me sometimes there was really that element of “the hood”), then young adulthood and finally full-blown adulthood.

Not sure how it all happened, but the results of 13’140 days (or 315'359 and 14 hours at this precise point in time) of love in the case of this first son are truly marvelous: a human being who cares for those around him as well as for the entire world (o.k. so sometimes I play down the soap opera of this environmental fan, but if he doesn’t worry about the state of the environment, who will?). A young man who is loyal to his friends, involved in his business of spreading the word about maintaining and cleaning up the world’s environment, and supportive with his whole heart of his family.

May there be many more days of love!

Life's little milestones

Ah, what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day.

Woke up thinking “it’s my birthday and I’ll party if I want to, party if I want to” to the tune of “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to…”  Hmmm, wonder which is more appropriate?

65 – what a milestone, yet I remember turning 6 as clearly as if it were yesterday. Ah the memories, so after a brief (very) pause to think: gee, I guess I am getting older, I then thought – still lots of living to do and began my day.

Coffee with M in the village under sunny skies with a breath of air; a spot of retail therapy (found a new everyday purse – and I’ve been looking for some 5 years – I can tell it’s going to be my lucky day!) – very successful retail therapy I must add.

Then I was off to pick up a twin (shares my birthday if not the year) to have lunch with a third friend at the foot of the Jura mountain chain – more sun and a lovely breeze. Back into town (ever so grateful for a car with air conditioning as another record-breaking temperature day), dropping E then heading home for cocktails in the garden with my boys followed by dinner at the restaurant on the lake just down the road.

Cards, e-mails, texts and even presents including a fun treasure hunt for a series of cartoon books from one of my favorite authors (figuratively and in reality); Auer chocolates – simply the best of any in the world, and believe me, I have tried chocolates; lotions, potions galore from both sons who seemed to have had the same great thought; and my bed linens washed and bed re-made by L– that truly made it a special day).

In fact it was such a great day that I didn’t get around to seeing e-mails, cards and texts until this morning so taking a clue from the Christmas Cake that my sister posted on FB to wish me a Happy Birthday, I’m going to party until then!

The sun may have set, but the light hasn't gone out.

Sunset as seen from our table.

Language and other discoveries

Driving into town these past few days, one is hit by the ad from one of the local cell phone suppliers, which is plastered on the side of the summer open-air cinema: “ENJOY”

This morning as we yet again remarked upon the stupidity of having an English-language ad in a French-speaking city, we got to playing how-would-the-locals-pronounce-this?

I spontaneously said “en joie” and (light-bulb moment) realized that our English word thus probably came from the French “to be in joy”.

Searching confirmation, the online etymology dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/ states:

“late 14c., "rejoice, be glad" (intransitive), from Old French enjoir "to give joy, rejoice, take delight in," from en- "make" (see en- (1)) + joir "enjoy," from Latin gaudere "rejoice" (see joy). Not often that I figure such things out spontaneously, so it made my day.

I love languages, their origins and all those wonderful plays on words in the three languages that I kind of operate in.

Other discoveries: today is a day that is also blessed by the birthdays of two separate friends: my housemate and the oldest daughter of one of my best friends.

So to the both of them I raise my glass in gratitude for friends both far and near: Enjoy!

Celebrations

A friend's birthday; 6 years since I became Swiss; dinner with my immediate family – catching up on 5 weeks in all our lives.