Sisters or…

I wouldn’t exactly call them “dumb” animals.

If one is lucky – and I am more than blessed – one has a sister with whom to share life, all those memories going back to well-I-can’t-remember or do-you-remember times.

I was even luckier as I got two blood sisters and several more that although we may not be directly linked by blood, surely we were at some point in the past – how else to explain our connection?

Humans are simply animals (I know, I know, we would prefer to think that we are some higher level of animal, but as far as I can see we are perhaps being egotistical to think so) and I would swear that most animals of the supposedly lower order have memories, have emotions and are even capable of planning.

How else can I explain the fact that although most of the time my two cats live separate lives – each with her preference for sleeping place, staring-out-the-window space and it’s my side of the bowl – occasionally they communicate: mainly by cleaning each other, but around 19:00 every evening they both go crazy dashing after imaginary insects, their own tails, each other and anything else that moves. What is the reason? Where is the link? I haven’t a clue.

That’s interesting enough, but imagine my surprise the other day when I came into the office where I have two identical baskets, one for each, to find them entwined in one. Was one or the other sad? Lonely?  If only I could read their minds I would dearly love to know why they felt that they needed to be together.

I only know that sisters often do.

keeping one eye on the world - don't bother my sister!

togetherness

I'll watch - you sleep.

The marathon or...

Christmas baking.

It has started, the annual baking marathon.  Every year at some point I feel the need to make Christmas Cookies: this year it was today.

I grew up in a family where baking was something that happened every week at least once, my mother although a dietitian, hadn’t learned that sugar was evil and even if we didn’t have a dessert with every meal, we always had cinnamon rolls on the weekend – usually Saturdays – and waffles or pancakes slathered in brown sugar and syrup on Sundays. For our birthdays we got to actually chose our cake from her repertoire (I still have the little booklet) and we not only had our mother, but also our Aunt, her younger sister.

She was single, a surgical nurse and lived most of our young lives not more than a mile away.  Come Christmas she started the cookie baking early and on Christmas Eve we had no limits – my mother, astonishingly enough as she was rather strict otherwise – never made any comment: it was understood that we were allowed as many as we wanted and if that led to some of us getting upset stomachs, we still loved it and never would have said stop.

I have obviously carried this particular trait over into my own life – much prefer baking to cooking and Christmas is mine: even if as a family we were often either in the USA or in Germany, I still baked cookies. One famous year when the older son was 2 we lived in an apartment in between selling the first house and moving into the second and I could only make a very limited amount due to lack of freezer space.

Imagine my astonishment when I went to make up the Christmas Eve platter to find only 20 left!

Husband and son had known that there weren’t too many hiding places – I actually pulled rank that year and

had what I wanted before allowing them more.

In 8 hours I managed to produce two types of cookies and the Christmas cakes. Now for the clean up: a much less attractive task. 

It won’t be the end of the cookie baking, but I have made a dent in my yearly marathon.

Winter compensations

Those of us who live in countries and latitudes where the weather gets cold and the sun almost disappears learn to appreciate the alleviating climate changes, which allow us to appreciate the beauty of winter even before the world is turned into a fairyland of ice and snow.

These past few days have had more than their share of lovely as the following photos will attest.

setting moon Dec.8, 2014

The saying may well go: "red at night, sailor's delight; red in the morning, sailor's warning", I say red in the morning is a photographer's dream - three mornings in a row there have been varying shade of orange, pink and red.

Dec.10

Dec. 10

Dec.12

Dec.13

Dec.13

 

 

 

Then it isn't only the NSA that is spying - someone has managed to put eyes in the sky!

Dec.12

Dec.12

Pure Indulgence is…

the fortuitous combination of lunch with good friends followed by a full-body scrub in the afternoon.

Wednesday I meet with the old and the new treasurer of the association for whom I have done the data basing and book keeping for over 20 years to hand off this years things up-to-date: I am now officially retired.

That meeting meant changing a long-planned luncheon date and I was extremely lucky that my three friends were able to do so. We returned to the Bristol Hotel’s restaurant as over the years have found that it really can’t be beat, as much for the space between the tables, allowing for non-shouting conversations, as for the delicious concoctions of the chef and the attentive service.

They have recently changed a few things (new interesting swirly carpet for one) and one addition is intriguing and a very good idea: a small round token that one places either on the green “classic service” side or on the “red” more discreet service side.  What a wonderful idea for that serious business conversation or tête-à-tête. We left ours on the green, but I am tempted to return and use the red side to see the difference.

From the delectable turnip with nuts “mise en bouche” (an appetite whetter served before the first course), through the salmon with avocado sauce starter to the main, fish with its “foam” and mashed potatoes over artichokes and vegetables, all was delightful.  Going back out into the cold and gray from the warm and cozy with good conversation was a shock to the system.

Later I went to the Clarins care center to use the coupon that I had received for my birthday: a full-body scrub with the application of lotion thereafter had me oozing back into my car – just barely capable of driving home, where, in order to not break the mood, I indulged in squash soup and a taped game show before floating up to my bed and sweet dreams. Putty would have had more energy than I at that point.

Not many days can beat that one.

Sometimes you’re the problem…

Not the other person.

With the best of intentions and the most flexible of wills, sometimes it isn’t the person that we think has a problem, but rather ourselves.

This was brought home to me yet again yesterday: after talking an hour or so to my last remaining blood aunt I finally had the time to skype my sister-in-law. Now we skype each other fairly regularly, sometimes every other day, sometime a week goes by what with my schedule, her schedule and the seven-hour time difference: but regularly.

Ever since my brother installed a new modem we have had very few problems, but yesterday her sound just wasn’t coming through. I checked my microphone, she checked hers – she could hear me, I couldn’t hear her (and no it had nothing to do with my poor hearing as I could hear myself). I could understand quite a deal by reading her lips (good to test that out), but after a quarter of an hour of holding a monologue and trying everything in the book (including her shutting down her computer and re-booting it) it was getting a bit boring just listening to myself (no smart remarks now those of you who know me!).

Tried again a couple of times and were on the point of giving up, which was ever so frustrating as we both had nothing on during that time frame and needed a good “natter” when I thought to check my computer’s sound volume: oops… then I remember that I had muted it whilst talking to my aunt so that no inadvertent ads would come on and disturb our conversation.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, the fault all along was with me, not her.

Having it all…

Both cats and birds…

Several weeks ago now, my younger son and I went to the local animal shelter and after two hours of petting

them all (the people there said that most of them wouldn’t let us – we were the exception that proved the rule as they all followed us around making the decision very difficult), of weighing the pros and cons, we finally chose two sisters (wonder if we were influenced by the fact that originally we had had two sisters?).

It is lovely to have cats back in the house (remind me of that when I complain about changing kitty litter twice, if not more, times a day!). At first I had to keep them in the basement with their food and water and kitty litter and they were very skittish.  Now they have settled in and have access to all the house except the two attic rooms as both sons are allergic and need a place without cat hairs.

They each have their own personality: Cléa is the bossy one, the one most likely to come running at any noise (hey it might be food you know – never mind that the dry cat-food bowl is always full. She also thinks that basically she is a human baby, crawling into my lap and turning over to be cradled. Babette is shyer and puts up with Cléa’s cleaning her, pushing her off my lap, grabbing the biggest bowl of food and the like. But when Babette can have my lap she likes to curl up head tucked into my elbow or sprawl out over my lap with her head draped over my arm (typing can be a challenge).

Cléa

Babette

One of Babette's favorite positions

In the two years where we had no cats I had put up a bird feeder and this summer in preparation for cats had no longer filled it.  However, as it turns out, these cats were raised in an apartment so I re-positioned the bird feeder in front of my office window and am enjoying the rare privilege of having both (Cléa kind of wonders when she sees them flittering out the window, but Babette takes it in her stride).

Full house

Sometimes the birds are joined by the resident squirrel as well: work is never boring.

King of the bird feeder

Shelling and dropping - the pigeons appreciate the crumbs

 The photos of birds and squirrels were taken through the window so the quality is not of the best, but one gets the idea.

What are the chances?

I have known my housemate for some 20 years now so it was not unusual when ten years ago she was

Looking for a place to stay on her visits back to Geneva that I offer her a room here in my home. I then

started visiting her in her other home in Southern France and many of her friends there became also my friends.  It has been about 3 weeks since I last blogged – the death of Barbara somehow stopped me for awhile.

But this past week saw unusual events both here at home and in her village.

Argelès was hit hard by the wet weather and flooding – probably the first time in decades that it made the national and perhaps even international news.  At the same time here in my village we had a gas leak where they are currently working on the underground pipes – one which when it burned took out all the other surrounding pipes. For four days there was no telephone nor internet as far away as a couple of kilometers as everything melted in the 1200°C heat.

Both villages are somewhat back to normal, although I have to still go way out of my way to reach the center of the village by car and one of our friends in her village lost her car – shoved over a wall by the water – whilst several others had their ground floors flooded.

What are the chances that in two separate places there would be two separate natural catastrophes within days of each other?

Hopefully we are both good for another few decades.

La Massane in Argelès-sur-Mer

La Massane in Argelès-sur-Mer, usually no water at all!

Pit and burn

Everything burned

a week later with new pipes