Sunday, August 31, 2014
The return to classes, known as la rentrée scolaire, starts tomorrow in much of France. In Caunes, classes at the ecole élementaire, to which children six to ten go, starts Tuesday. For several weeks the supermarkets have been featuring bookbags, notebooks, pens and other school items in special displays designed to make parents spend part of their government allowance on them.
There is also a rentrée au travail - the return to work after the month-long August vacation; and there is the rentrée literaire, the release of new titles by the publishing houses; and then there is the rentrée politique.
In the Socialist Party ("PS"), the rentrée is preceded by the annual end-of-summer conference at La Rochelle, on France's Atlantic coast. This year the conference has begun tumultuously, the recent firings of three rebel ministers opposed to reforms spearheaded by the prime minister, Manuel Valls, having fanned the flames of revolt through the party's ranks. Valls was booed by activists from the party's more leftist wing from the moment he stepped off the train, although he tried to minimize the significance of the outbursts, calling them "healthy debate". There is talk among political pundits of two possibilities for Hollande's beleaguered government, should it receive a no-confidence vote from the French equivalent of the House of Representatives, the Assemblée Nationale, in a few weeks: one is that the PS would dump Valls and reach across the aisle to bring in a prime minister from Sarkozy's party, the UMP. However, the UMP need not accept the offer of cohabitation, in which case the government would have to call elections, three years before Hollande's term ends officially.
The state of the French economy justly gives cause for concern: there has been -0- growth for the first two quarters of 2014, and public spending consumes 57% of France's gross national product. The size of the country's debt is almost at the level of the gross national product, and the unemployment rate is holding at 10.1%.
Meanwhile, the new minister of economic development, Emmanuel Macron, indicated in an interview he gave Le Point, a free-market leaning newsweekly, the day before he was officially named, that France needed to revisit the thirty-five hour work week. The thirty-six year old Macron, a Socialist and a former banker with Rothschild, will be the target of all his less market-friendly colleagues' ire, with his predecessor, Arnaud de Montbourg, leading the charge.
Valls signaled a few weeks ago that the rentrée would be difficult: perhaps even more difficult than anyone might imagine.
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Madame Froment
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
This morning at 11:00 a.m., Beau and I met Madame Froment, the woman Dr. Mougin recommended as a dog boarder. She lives on a tiny street, rue de Rosiers, in La Redorte, about twenty minutes away from Caunes, towards Narbonne.
Over the phone, Madame Froment sounded like an elderly French grandmother. She is actually a 57-year old woman, dressed like everybody else, but with an unusual devotion to animals. She is the mother of 22-year old twins and lives alone in a large house she moved to from Montauban, in the Midi-Pyrenées region. She worked as a bank teller for many years, but after being diagnosed with une longue maladie-- the French euphemism for cancer-- she left her job, and cushioned by disability payments, was able to move to La Redorte.
She began caring for dogs six years ago, expanding on an interest she always had in them. Dr. Mougins told me that she would ask me everything about Beau and indeed, she took notes on everything I told her. There were two other dogs present today, because an elderly couple whose two dogs she regularly cares for had a medical emergency that delayed their return. It was, however, an opportunity for her to see how Beau interacted with other dogs --and for Beau, an opportunity to play with one of them, a feisty and domineering Cairn terrier. I booked her for all of August next year, and two weeks in September, a request which phased her not at all, as the elderly couple --who showed up during our "interview"-- booked her for Christmas and next June.
Madame Froment's rates are average for l'Aude --10 Euros for each 24 hour period-- but she is so in demand because she takes her job of caring for canines as seriously as a handler at Westminster. She is a keen photographer, so she showed me photos of dogs she's boarded strolling on all the paths on which she takes the dogs, including one alongside a vineyard near her house.
I take them on two long walks twice a day, aside from the quick trip outside first thing in the morning and short walks during the day. Does he like water? I also take them near a stream where they can cool their feet when its hot. When they come in, of course I hose them down.
Why does Madame Froment do so much for so little, you might be asking yourself.
This life, with the dogs, it's good for me. I'm always calm --not like what my life was like in Montauban. At night, I watch television programs about animals, as well as other educational programs. They're always on late at night, so I don't usually go to bed until about 1:00 a.m. So I take the dogs for a walk around midnight. When my neighbors realized what I was doing, they thought me very strange -- here everyone closes their shutters at 8:00 p.m.-- but now they're used to it. And then I go to sleep and wake up around 8:00 a.m., and start the day with the dogs.
When she spoke of the interesting television programs she watched in the evening, I asked her about which channels she was referring to, as I found the twenty-five channels I am limited to as a seasonal user quite limited. I added that, next year, I would bring over a universal DVD player, as this year I had nothing to fall back on when there was nothing worth watching. Which prompted her to tell me,
--But I have two DVD players. Now that I'm hooked up with Freebox, I don't need the old player. Take it and use it until you leave.
I refused Madame Froment's offer twice, then asked her whether she was sure she wanted to lend her player to me. Whereupon she unplugged the player and showed me how to plug it into a television, then pulled out a DVD to play, just to show me how to work the controls. Persuaded she really wanted me to be able to use her DVD player, I left with it.
Madame Froment clearly has a vocation to care for dogs. She was also very kind to this homo sapiens, and I am thrilled that Beau will be staying with her.
This morning at 11:00 a.m., Beau and I met Madame Froment, the woman Dr. Mougin recommended as a dog boarder. She lives on a tiny street, rue de Rosiers, in La Redorte, about twenty minutes away from Caunes, towards Narbonne.
Over the phone, Madame Froment sounded like an elderly French grandmother. She is actually a 57-year old woman, dressed like everybody else, but with an unusual devotion to animals. She is the mother of 22-year old twins and lives alone in a large house she moved to from Montauban, in the Midi-Pyrenées region. She worked as a bank teller for many years, but after being diagnosed with une longue maladie-- the French euphemism for cancer-- she left her job, and cushioned by disability payments, was able to move to La Redorte.
She began caring for dogs six years ago, expanding on an interest she always had in them. Dr. Mougins told me that she would ask me everything about Beau and indeed, she took notes on everything I told her. There were two other dogs present today, because an elderly couple whose two dogs she regularly cares for had a medical emergency that delayed their return. It was, however, an opportunity for her to see how Beau interacted with other dogs --and for Beau, an opportunity to play with one of them, a feisty and domineering Cairn terrier. I booked her for all of August next year, and two weeks in September, a request which phased her not at all, as the elderly couple --who showed up during our "interview"-- booked her for Christmas and next June.
Madame Froment's rates are average for l'Aude --10 Euros for each 24 hour period-- but she is so in demand because she takes her job of caring for canines as seriously as a handler at Westminster. She is a keen photographer, so she showed me photos of dogs she's boarded strolling on all the paths on which she takes the dogs, including one alongside a vineyard near her house.
I take them on two long walks twice a day, aside from the quick trip outside first thing in the morning and short walks during the day. Does he like water? I also take them near a stream where they can cool their feet when its hot. When they come in, of course I hose them down.
Why does Madame Froment do so much for so little, you might be asking yourself.
This life, with the dogs, it's good for me. I'm always calm --not like what my life was like in Montauban. At night, I watch television programs about animals, as well as other educational programs. They're always on late at night, so I don't usually go to bed until about 1:00 a.m. So I take the dogs for a walk around midnight. When my neighbors realized what I was doing, they thought me very strange -- here everyone closes their shutters at 8:00 p.m.-- but now they're used to it. And then I go to sleep and wake up around 8:00 a.m., and start the day with the dogs.
When she spoke of the interesting television programs she watched in the evening, I asked her about which channels she was referring to, as I found the twenty-five channels I am limited to as a seasonal user quite limited. I added that, next year, I would bring over a universal DVD player, as this year I had nothing to fall back on when there was nothing worth watching. Which prompted her to tell me,
--But I have two DVD players. Now that I'm hooked up with Freebox, I don't need the old player. Take it and use it until you leave.
I refused Madame Froment's offer twice, then asked her whether she was sure she wanted to lend her player to me. Whereupon she unplugged the player and showed me how to plug it into a television, then pulled out a DVD to play, just to show me how to work the controls. Persuaded she really wanted me to be able to use her DVD player, I left with it.
Madame Froment clearly has a vocation to care for dogs. She was also very kind to this homo sapiens, and I am thrilled that Beau will be staying with her.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Fifty Years Later: Cerbère and Portbou and Walter Benjamin
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Embarking on a life behind the wheel, I have set myself progressively longer and longer drives to build up my capacity to travel by car through Europe. The longest drive I made before today was to Collioure, about three and a half hours total. Today I drove for five.
When I was in the vicinity of Collioure last time, I saw signs for Cerbère, the last village on the French-Spanish border by the Mediterranean, 20 kilometers away. Also for Portbou, the first village on the Spanish side, 7 kilometers further away. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the signs because fifty years ago, my parents, my sister Jazmin and I were stranded in Portbou's train station overnight, when what was supposed to have been a day's jaunt from Barcelona to the border went awry.
The trip to the border was supposed to be four hours, but the train broke down mid-route and we arrived in Cerbère nine hours later, with no possibility of returning the same day. I remember that my father urged me to use my French to ask a barman for a beer. Unfortunately, the French I was learning in elementary school did not include the word for "beer". Fortunately, the Frenchman knew the Spanish word, "cerveza" --although at that moment, my father might have wondered what he was paying for French lessons for.
We had no French francs to pay for accommodations in Cerbère, it was before the age of international credit cards, and we thought we would do best to return to Spain, so we took the train back to Portbou. There was a hotel at the railroad station, but it was full up, and there was no other hotel with a free room --not that Portbou, a tiny village clustered around a little bay surrounded by mountains, had much to offer. This was 1964, eleven years before Franco's death.
Spain under Franco was such a far cry from the country Almodovar's films have made famous that, at the border, any long-haired young men trying to enter the country from France were peremptorily sent back, the Guardia Civil in their patent leather hats and the border guards in drab, shouting over the young men's protests, "Pa' Francia! Pa' Francia --Back to France! Back to France!" We all witnessed this, that day.
My parents, my sister and I spent the night in the railway station in Portbou, Jazmin and I sleeping on a large wooden table, my parents, seated on a bench opposite, doing their best to rest. The mountains surrounded the train station: in the early morning, just before we left, I remember a sturdy-looking shepherdess, dressed all in black, standing on the mountainside opposite, her flock around her. The difficulties of the trip notwithstanding, I never forgot how beautiful the bay of Portbou was.
Aside from my experience in 1964, Portbou was also known to me because it is where the influential literary theorist, Walter Benjamin, committed suicide on September 25, 1940. Benjamin was working in Paris during the Battle for France, which began in May, 1940. The German authorities were ordered to arrest Benjamin at his flat when Paris fell, undefended, on June 14, 1940. However, Benjamin and his sister had fled the city for Lourdes the day before, hoping to make it to the United States with the travel visas in their possession. The plan was for the Benjamins to cross neutral Spain to neutral Portugal and take a ship to the United States there. However, the Franco government had canceled all transit visas, ordering the Spanish police to return their holders to France.
Benjamin and his sister were traveling with a Jewish refugee group and stopped in the Hotel de Francia in Portbou. There Benjamin, fearing he would be turned over to the Nazis, took an overdose of morphine tablets. Having already, as a Jew --a stateless person under the Nuremberg laws-- been incarcerated in a French prison camp near Nevers for three months; at the end of his financial resources (the Benjamins had been successful bankers in pre-Nazi Germany); Benjamin ended his life. The official date of Walter Benjamin's death is September 26, 1940. He rests in the Catholic cemetery in Portbou, his death having never been publicly announced a suicide. Poignantly, the refugee group he and his sister joined was permitted to travel through Spain to Portugal, arriving safely on September 30, 1940.
And Portbou, fifty years later? Just as beautiful, although the sight of the massive Guardia Civil headquarters, still standing in the middle of town, gave me a chill.
Cerbère, on the other hand has been built up, salmon pink apartments and houses spread along its much longer coast, which is dominated by le Cap Cerbère. The distance from Collioure to Cerbère may be only 20 kilometers, but they are 20 kilometers of sinuous, winding roads, to Portbou another seven of them.
This border saw Spanish refugees spill into France during the Spanish Civil War. A few years later, it saw Jews and other refugees crossing in the other direction. Driving past, I saw the ruin of the customs and immigration checkpoint, high in the mountains between Spain and France; and the nearby memorial to the many refugees who crossed, fleeing Franco or Hitler. Today, there are just two navy blue signs at each end of the borders of each country, each sign encircled with stars representing the 27 member states of the European Union --"France" printed on one, "España" on the other. There's no one there to stop you from going freely from one country to the other. May we call that progress?
Embarking on a life behind the wheel, I have set myself progressively longer and longer drives to build up my capacity to travel by car through Europe. The longest drive I made before today was to Collioure, about three and a half hours total. Today I drove for five.
When I was in the vicinity of Collioure last time, I saw signs for Cerbère, the last village on the French-Spanish border by the Mediterranean, 20 kilometers away. Also for Portbou, the first village on the Spanish side, 7 kilometers further away. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the signs because fifty years ago, my parents, my sister Jazmin and I were stranded in Portbou's train station overnight, when what was supposed to have been a day's jaunt from Barcelona to the border went awry.
The trip to the border was supposed to be four hours, but the train broke down mid-route and we arrived in Cerbère nine hours later, with no possibility of returning the same day. I remember that my father urged me to use my French to ask a barman for a beer. Unfortunately, the French I was learning in elementary school did not include the word for "beer". Fortunately, the Frenchman knew the Spanish word, "cerveza" --although at that moment, my father might have wondered what he was paying for French lessons for.
We had no French francs to pay for accommodations in Cerbère, it was before the age of international credit cards, and we thought we would do best to return to Spain, so we took the train back to Portbou. There was a hotel at the railroad station, but it was full up, and there was no other hotel with a free room --not that Portbou, a tiny village clustered around a little bay surrounded by mountains, had much to offer. This was 1964, eleven years before Franco's death.
Spain under Franco was such a far cry from the country Almodovar's films have made famous that, at the border, any long-haired young men trying to enter the country from France were peremptorily sent back, the Guardia Civil in their patent leather hats and the border guards in drab, shouting over the young men's protests, "Pa' Francia! Pa' Francia --Back to France! Back to France!" We all witnessed this, that day.
My parents, my sister and I spent the night in the railway station in Portbou, Jazmin and I sleeping on a large wooden table, my parents, seated on a bench opposite, doing their best to rest. The mountains surrounded the train station: in the early morning, just before we left, I remember a sturdy-looking shepherdess, dressed all in black, standing on the mountainside opposite, her flock around her. The difficulties of the trip notwithstanding, I never forgot how beautiful the bay of Portbou was.
Aside from my experience in 1964, Portbou was also known to me because it is where the influential literary theorist, Walter Benjamin, committed suicide on September 25, 1940. Benjamin was working in Paris during the Battle for France, which began in May, 1940. The German authorities were ordered to arrest Benjamin at his flat when Paris fell, undefended, on June 14, 1940. However, Benjamin and his sister had fled the city for Lourdes the day before, hoping to make it to the United States with the travel visas in their possession. The plan was for the Benjamins to cross neutral Spain to neutral Portugal and take a ship to the United States there. However, the Franco government had canceled all transit visas, ordering the Spanish police to return their holders to France.
Benjamin and his sister were traveling with a Jewish refugee group and stopped in the Hotel de Francia in Portbou. There Benjamin, fearing he would be turned over to the Nazis, took an overdose of morphine tablets. Having already, as a Jew --a stateless person under the Nuremberg laws-- been incarcerated in a French prison camp near Nevers for three months; at the end of his financial resources (the Benjamins had been successful bankers in pre-Nazi Germany); Benjamin ended his life. The official date of Walter Benjamin's death is September 26, 1940. He rests in the Catholic cemetery in Portbou, his death having never been publicly announced a suicide. Poignantly, the refugee group he and his sister joined was permitted to travel through Spain to Portugal, arriving safely on September 30, 1940.
And Portbou, fifty years later? Just as beautiful, although the sight of the massive Guardia Civil headquarters, still standing in the middle of town, gave me a chill.
Cerbère, on the other hand has been built up, salmon pink apartments and houses spread along its much longer coast, which is dominated by le Cap Cerbère. The distance from Collioure to Cerbère may be only 20 kilometers, but they are 20 kilometers of sinuous, winding roads, to Portbou another seven of them.
This border saw Spanish refugees spill into France during the Spanish Civil War. A few years later, it saw Jews and other refugees crossing in the other direction. Driving past, I saw the ruin of the customs and immigration checkpoint, high in the mountains between Spain and France; and the nearby memorial to the many refugees who crossed, fleeing Franco or Hitler. Today, there are just two navy blue signs at each end of the borders of each country, each sign encircled with stars representing the 27 member states of the European Union --"France" printed on one, "España" on the other. There's no one there to stop you from going freely from one country to the other. May we call that progress?
Sunday, August 24, 2014
National Coursing Championships for Sight Hounds, A Doggy Day
Sunday, August 2, 2014
It was just a little sign, scotch-taped to a window in Brico Marché, but it caught my eye:
Championnat de France
de Poursuite à Vue sur Leurre, Coursing Lévriers Toutes Races
The image under the type was of a man in gaiters and hacking jacket holding three greyhounds, straining at their leashes as they watched two more greyhounds and a rider on a horse closing in on a hare. The championships were to be held at the Hippodrome de la Fajeolle, the Carcassonne racetrack.
I made note of the dates and asked around to try to determine exactly what the event would be. One source said it would be greyhound racing. with dogs chasing a mechanical rabbit, and spectators betting, as the do at dog tracks around the world. That did not sound attractive, but I wasn't sure my source had it quite right. So I consulted Robert, the owner of La Marbrerie, and a hunter of rabbits and wildfowl:
"Of, that will be worth seeing, those dogs going after the lure."
I tried to find out something via the Internet, but found no information. Friday, I drove into Carcassonne to try to find out more at the Tourist Office. The young woman there was aware of the event, but had no other information, although she thought there were things going on at Fajeolles in anticipation of the championship's start Saturday.
I drove out to Fajeolles, missing the exit and ending up in Montredon, then having to backtrack around La Cité, but eventually I found the exit and reached the track. No one seemed to be there, although I saw the little poster I had seen at Brico Marché. I was about to take it down when a voice behind me said
Madame, it looks like you are taking the poster down--
Caught! I quickly apologized and said I was just trying to get information about the event, that I had driven to the Tourist Office and no one knew a thing, that I was a dog owner, and wanted to know whether I could bring my dog. The man, Jean Commets, a member of the Club de Courses de Lévriers en Pays Cathare, the host organization, filled me in: I could bring the dog as long as I kept him on a leash. And, I could drive the car to the track, where I could receive additional information, right now.
Jean was interested in knowing a bit about Beauregard, never having heard of the Boykin Spaniel. He told me he had an 18 month old Saluki, just old enough to start coursing, but not competing in the event this weekend.
If you are here tomorrow, I'll show him to you, he said, all memory of my attempted vandalism seemingly forgotten.
***
Indeed, Jean Commets was there Saturday --and Sunday, working security at the gate to the coursing field. And so were the dogs:
On Saturday,
Afghans
Azawakhs
Deerhounds
Galgos
Greyhounds
Irish Wofhounds
Magyar Agars
Salukis
Sloughis
On Sunday,
Borzois
Basenjis
Italian Greyhounds
Whippets.
Of the breeds I was unfamiliar with, the Azawakhs are native to Mali, the Galgos to Spain, the Magyar Agars to Hungary, and the Sloughis to Morocco.
Watching the dogs course after a lure made of strips of plastic bags was beautiful to see: the lure, pulled by a wire, zig-zagged, forcing the dogs to react by pivoting and setting out in a new direction. Dogs coursed in pairs, males with males, females with females. The capacity to run great distances of the large hounds was on display in the best possible setting, as the race track at Fajeolles is much easier to take in than a field. I was most impressed by the Azawakhs, particularly that of a Dutch young woman named "Marloo", whose Azawakh took the prize, caroming across the course with an ease and grace that were stunning.
Both days were sunny and bright and hanging off the rail at the racetrack with Beau at my side, I met several people during the two days, including quite a few owners, as well as chatting again with Jean Commets. These dogs were a far cry from those I have seen in Caunes. Then again, sight hound owners whose dogs course are a breed apart.
The sights of the championship were fabulous: It was not unusual to see someone walking six blonde Afghans or five whippets. Leaving the grounds, I saw a young man walking a dozen Salukis. A dozen! At Westminster, many dogs are brought out to be shown, but the sight does not compare to seeing a passle of sight hounds on parade in a green park.
***
This morning I was up early to give Beau his walk to the soccer field and a run there. However, having almost reached the field, I heard such a baying of hounds coming from where the headquarters of the Sapeurs Pompiers (the French equivalent of EMS) that I decided Beau and I ought to investigate. I had a hunch who the dogs were, but I wanted to be sure.
Sure enough, the dogs were hounds and they were about to go boar hunting with their owners. The group was dressed in camouflage gear with orange fluorescent vests and bands on the pants. There was one woman among them, holding a puppy. The adult dogs were all in their cages in the SUVs, and baying. The cages were large enough to hold three or four hounds in one.
The boar hunters were friendly enough, but they looked a bit rough. I quickly took my leave of them and took Beau to the soccer field.
***
What I learned from all this contact with different dog owners is that I don't think I want to train Beau to hunt, as it involves guns. I would, however, like to meet French dog owners who show and train their dogs. At the championnat I learned that in Chardonnay --a ways away from Caunes-- there will be an international championship for sight hounds on September 13 and 14. And in Martigues --said to be the "Venice of Provence"-- there is going to be a dog show Saturday and Sunday, September 27 and 28.
What I also learned this weekend is that there are French dog owners who are responsible --along the public paths at the championnat the there were free "poop" bags and signs reminding everyone to pick up after their dogs. Also, that there are dog owners who have a genuine interest in their breeds and who are affluent enough to go to the expense of exhibiting them, whether coursing, or in shows like those U.S. dog owners interested in competing with a view to Westminster enter their dogs in.
And Beau had a ball!
It was just a little sign, scotch-taped to a window in Brico Marché, but it caught my eye:
Championnat de France
de Poursuite à Vue sur Leurre, Coursing Lévriers Toutes Races
The image under the type was of a man in gaiters and hacking jacket holding three greyhounds, straining at their leashes as they watched two more greyhounds and a rider on a horse closing in on a hare. The championships were to be held at the Hippodrome de la Fajeolle, the Carcassonne racetrack.
I made note of the dates and asked around to try to determine exactly what the event would be. One source said it would be greyhound racing. with dogs chasing a mechanical rabbit, and spectators betting, as the do at dog tracks around the world. That did not sound attractive, but I wasn't sure my source had it quite right. So I consulted Robert, the owner of La Marbrerie, and a hunter of rabbits and wildfowl:
"Of, that will be worth seeing, those dogs going after the lure."
I tried to find out something via the Internet, but found no information. Friday, I drove into Carcassonne to try to find out more at the Tourist Office. The young woman there was aware of the event, but had no other information, although she thought there were things going on at Fajeolles in anticipation of the championship's start Saturday.
I drove out to Fajeolles, missing the exit and ending up in Montredon, then having to backtrack around La Cité, but eventually I found the exit and reached the track. No one seemed to be there, although I saw the little poster I had seen at Brico Marché. I was about to take it down when a voice behind me said
Madame, it looks like you are taking the poster down--
Caught! I quickly apologized and said I was just trying to get information about the event, that I had driven to the Tourist Office and no one knew a thing, that I was a dog owner, and wanted to know whether I could bring my dog. The man, Jean Commets, a member of the Club de Courses de Lévriers en Pays Cathare, the host organization, filled me in: I could bring the dog as long as I kept him on a leash. And, I could drive the car to the track, where I could receive additional information, right now.
Jean was interested in knowing a bit about Beauregard, never having heard of the Boykin Spaniel. He told me he had an 18 month old Saluki, just old enough to start coursing, but not competing in the event this weekend.
If you are here tomorrow, I'll show him to you, he said, all memory of my attempted vandalism seemingly forgotten.
***
Indeed, Jean Commets was there Saturday --and Sunday, working security at the gate to the coursing field. And so were the dogs:
On Saturday,
Afghans
Azawakhs
Deerhounds
Galgos
Greyhounds
Irish Wofhounds
Magyar Agars
Salukis
Sloughis
On Sunday,
Borzois
Basenjis
Italian Greyhounds
Whippets.
Of the breeds I was unfamiliar with, the Azawakhs are native to Mali, the Galgos to Spain, the Magyar Agars to Hungary, and the Sloughis to Morocco.
Watching the dogs course after a lure made of strips of plastic bags was beautiful to see: the lure, pulled by a wire, zig-zagged, forcing the dogs to react by pivoting and setting out in a new direction. Dogs coursed in pairs, males with males, females with females. The capacity to run great distances of the large hounds was on display in the best possible setting, as the race track at Fajeolles is much easier to take in than a field. I was most impressed by the Azawakhs, particularly that of a Dutch young woman named "Marloo", whose Azawakh took the prize, caroming across the course with an ease and grace that were stunning.
Both days were sunny and bright and hanging off the rail at the racetrack with Beau at my side, I met several people during the two days, including quite a few owners, as well as chatting again with Jean Commets. These dogs were a far cry from those I have seen in Caunes. Then again, sight hound owners whose dogs course are a breed apart.
The sights of the championship were fabulous: It was not unusual to see someone walking six blonde Afghans or five whippets. Leaving the grounds, I saw a young man walking a dozen Salukis. A dozen! At Westminster, many dogs are brought out to be shown, but the sight does not compare to seeing a passle of sight hounds on parade in a green park.
***
This morning I was up early to give Beau his walk to the soccer field and a run there. However, having almost reached the field, I heard such a baying of hounds coming from where the headquarters of the Sapeurs Pompiers (the French equivalent of EMS) that I decided Beau and I ought to investigate. I had a hunch who the dogs were, but I wanted to be sure.
Sure enough, the dogs were hounds and they were about to go boar hunting with their owners. The group was dressed in camouflage gear with orange fluorescent vests and bands on the pants. There was one woman among them, holding a puppy. The adult dogs were all in their cages in the SUVs, and baying. The cages were large enough to hold three or four hounds in one.
The boar hunters were friendly enough, but they looked a bit rough. I quickly took my leave of them and took Beau to the soccer field.
***
What I learned from all this contact with different dog owners is that I don't think I want to train Beau to hunt, as it involves guns. I would, however, like to meet French dog owners who show and train their dogs. At the championnat I learned that in Chardonnay --a ways away from Caunes-- there will be an international championship for sight hounds on September 13 and 14. And in Martigues --said to be the "Venice of Provence"-- there is going to be a dog show Saturday and Sunday, September 27 and 28.
What I also learned this weekend is that there are French dog owners who are responsible --along the public paths at the championnat the there were free "poop" bags and signs reminding everyone to pick up after their dogs. Also, that there are dog owners who have a genuine interest in their breeds and who are affluent enough to go to the expense of exhibiting them, whether coursing, or in shows like those U.S. dog owners interested in competing with a view to Westminster enter their dogs in.
And Beau had a ball!
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Object Relations
Saturday, August 23, 2014
I still have not entirely emptied two little containers containing personal objects I brought from New York here. They include photos of my grandparents. They are distant figures I never knew: my grandmother died in La Coruña in 1939, probably of intestinal cancer, towards the end of the Spanish Civil War. She was never able to escape with her husband, my mother and my mother's brother, because when she lived in the United States, she never bothered to become a naturalized American citizen, unlike her husband. My mother and my uncle, having been born in Manhattan, were U.S. citizens and had no problem leaving with their father.
The photo of her is a reconstituted black and white photo probably taken at the turn of the century, because she is wearing a floor-length skirt with a high-necked blouse, her hair in a pompadour. It is a studio portrait, and she is shown standing, poised against a rickety-looking chair with three slats and a flimsy seat.
The black and white photo of my grandfather is of him in New York, with his two daughters and my aunt Maruja's daughter, Carmen. The photo was taken a few years after they all arrived in the United States in 1938, and before my mother married my father in 1950. My mother was still taking care of her father and working thirty-five hours a week in a clothing factory, making "fine" ladies' coats. All are seated on the grass and smiling broadly, although I would have to say my mother's smile outshines everyone else's in the photograph.
I only met my grandfather twice: once in 1957, when my parents made their first visit to Spain after the end of the Civil War; and again, in 1965, when my grandfather was already bedridden and suffering from the uremia and other ailments that killed him three years later. Not a nice man, he went back to Spain after my mother and father decided that he was impossible to live with. A decision which was made under the pressure of circumstances: after two years of putting up with constant abuse from my grandfather, my father left for California without telling my mother where he was going. My mother, not wishing to end the marriage, went to my father's friends and learned he had found a job in Oakland, California. My mother gave her father his walking papers and followed my father to Oakland, where I was born, a year later. My parents returned to New York five weeks after my birth, but by then my grandfather had decamped for La Coruña. There he met Concha, a barmaid twenty-five years younger, whom he married, and who took care of him until he died, to the grudging relief of his children.
Another photo is a tiny reproduction of a Degas painting exhibited in the Houston exhibit I attended about ten years ago. The painting, "A Cotton Office In New Orleans", was painted by Degas in 1873, on a trip to visit his relatives, the Mussons. The painting depicts the day the firm went bankrupt: the firm was swamped by the growth of its rival, the Cotton Exchange. Degas' Musson cousin is seen examining raw cotton for its quality , while Degas' brother Réné reads "The Daily Picayune, which carried the bankruptcy announcement. Another brother, Achille, rests against a window wall at left while others, including Musson's partners, go about their business.
The painting was bought by the Musée des Beaux Arts in Pau, in France's Pyrenées, where it has remained. The painting was the first of Degas' paintings to bought by a museum, and marked a major turning point in Degas' career, marking the transition from struggling artist to successful painter.
The reproduction, which is glossy, sits on a stand on a shelf in the toilet, surrounded by books in French and English. When I look at it, I remember that I purchased it on a side trip to the Fine Arts Museum in Houston when I was attending a conference of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was a sister-agency to the one I managed, the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
All the objects I treasure have mnemonic properties. It's not so much the object itself that has value --although I never buy anything I don't think has some beauty-- it's the memories the object triggers. I look at the photos of my grandparents and the family history comes back to mind, but when I look at "A Cotton Office In New Orleans" I remember my own, and feel good inside.
Which is why it hasn't been enough to merely furnish this house with seating and beds and appliances. It has to have my "thumbprint", in the form of the objects associated with me. Once again, I'm struck my the awareness that, much as I love this house and living in the Minervois, my heart is American, and specifically that of a New Yorker's.
--Which is why the toilet seat I bought in Carcassonne for the downstairs bathroom bears the image of the Central Savings Bank Building on Broadway and 72nd Street, not far from where I grew up on 65th Street between Central Park West and Columbus. What a find!
I still have not entirely emptied two little containers containing personal objects I brought from New York here. They include photos of my grandparents. They are distant figures I never knew: my grandmother died in La Coruña in 1939, probably of intestinal cancer, towards the end of the Spanish Civil War. She was never able to escape with her husband, my mother and my mother's brother, because when she lived in the United States, she never bothered to become a naturalized American citizen, unlike her husband. My mother and my uncle, having been born in Manhattan, were U.S. citizens and had no problem leaving with their father.
The photo of her is a reconstituted black and white photo probably taken at the turn of the century, because she is wearing a floor-length skirt with a high-necked blouse, her hair in a pompadour. It is a studio portrait, and she is shown standing, poised against a rickety-looking chair with three slats and a flimsy seat.
The black and white photo of my grandfather is of him in New York, with his two daughters and my aunt Maruja's daughter, Carmen. The photo was taken a few years after they all arrived in the United States in 1938, and before my mother married my father in 1950. My mother was still taking care of her father and working thirty-five hours a week in a clothing factory, making "fine" ladies' coats. All are seated on the grass and smiling broadly, although I would have to say my mother's smile outshines everyone else's in the photograph.
I only met my grandfather twice: once in 1957, when my parents made their first visit to Spain after the end of the Civil War; and again, in 1965, when my grandfather was already bedridden and suffering from the uremia and other ailments that killed him three years later. Not a nice man, he went back to Spain after my mother and father decided that he was impossible to live with. A decision which was made under the pressure of circumstances: after two years of putting up with constant abuse from my grandfather, my father left for California without telling my mother where he was going. My mother, not wishing to end the marriage, went to my father's friends and learned he had found a job in Oakland, California. My mother gave her father his walking papers and followed my father to Oakland, where I was born, a year later. My parents returned to New York five weeks after my birth, but by then my grandfather had decamped for La Coruña. There he met Concha, a barmaid twenty-five years younger, whom he married, and who took care of him until he died, to the grudging relief of his children.
Another photo is a tiny reproduction of a Degas painting exhibited in the Houston exhibit I attended about ten years ago. The painting, "A Cotton Office In New Orleans", was painted by Degas in 1873, on a trip to visit his relatives, the Mussons. The painting depicts the day the firm went bankrupt: the firm was swamped by the growth of its rival, the Cotton Exchange. Degas' Musson cousin is seen examining raw cotton for its quality , while Degas' brother Réné reads "The Daily Picayune, which carried the bankruptcy announcement. Another brother, Achille, rests against a window wall at left while others, including Musson's partners, go about their business.
The painting was bought by the Musée des Beaux Arts in Pau, in France's Pyrenées, where it has remained. The painting was the first of Degas' paintings to bought by a museum, and marked a major turning point in Degas' career, marking the transition from struggling artist to successful painter.
The reproduction, which is glossy, sits on a stand on a shelf in the toilet, surrounded by books in French and English. When I look at it, I remember that I purchased it on a side trip to the Fine Arts Museum in Houston when I was attending a conference of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was a sister-agency to the one I managed, the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
All the objects I treasure have mnemonic properties. It's not so much the object itself that has value --although I never buy anything I don't think has some beauty-- it's the memories the object triggers. I look at the photos of my grandparents and the family history comes back to mind, but when I look at "A Cotton Office In New Orleans" I remember my own, and feel good inside.
Which is why it hasn't been enough to merely furnish this house with seating and beds and appliances. It has to have my "thumbprint", in the form of the objects associated with me. Once again, I'm struck my the awareness that, much as I love this house and living in the Minervois, my heart is American, and specifically that of a New Yorker's.
--Which is why the toilet seat I bought in Carcassonne for the downstairs bathroom bears the image of the Central Savings Bank Building on Broadway and 72nd Street, not far from where I grew up on 65th Street between Central Park West and Columbus. What a find!
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
A Different Sense of Time: Marion and Farid; My airbnb vacation; No plastic bags!
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
I'm not sure what I'm doing today, but I needn't have bothered thinking about it: Marion, the young woman who cleans for me, shows up at 11:00 a.m. and tells me that her partner, Farid, the carpenter, will be here after 2:00 p.m. to put up the bookshelves he made for me and do the odd jobs he promised to do as part of the whole package of work.
One thing about the Midi: no one keeps to specific appointment times. If someone needs to see you, he doesn't call to set a time to meet in advance, he rings the doorbell when he is in the neighborhood. It can be a bit disconcerting when you're not ready to see visitors, although everyone is so cheery it's hard to be disconcerted for long.
Trying to have neighbors over for a drink can become involved, too. I would like to invite my neighbors down the road, Benoit and Marie-Helène, for an apéro this weekend. My original invitation was extended last Thursday for last Sunday, but as Benoit didn't get back to me by Saturday afternoon, I made other plans. I ran into Benoit late Saturday afternoon, at which time he told me "We'll be there Sunday", and I had to backtrack.
I offered to leave open any night of this weekend --Friday, Saturday or Sunday, as Benoît and Marie-Helène have to go to Sète --two hours away, one of those days. This afternoon, Wednesday, I ran into Benoit and asked whether they had decided on an evening to come by.
"No, because we haven't heard from Sète as to what day we'll be going there. So the only thing to do is to wait," he tells me genially.
Another example: I ran into Josette Lacroix earlier this week. She is involved in organizing the kermesse Sunday, so I ask her what date everyone will meet to organize the brocante. Thursday morning, she says. In response to my question, "Would my help be welcome?" Josette says "yes" enthusiastically and says we ought to go together.
"What time?" I ask.
"Oh, early--"
"9:30 a.m.?"
"Yes, that's good. How about we make it 10:00 a.m.?"
"All right--"
"In fact, let's make it between 10:15 a.m. and 10:30 a.m."
"Great --that will give me time to give Beau a good walk."
That night I get a phone message from Josette saying that Thursday morning only the men are going up to the church to set up the stands and that I ought to call Kathy, with whom I worked last year. I have Kathy's number and intend to call her today, but run into her on avenue du Minervois.
"Everything's pretty much taken care of", she tells me. "But come Sunday morning before the Mass: you can help lay out the tablecloths."
I'll be there.
***
Marion and Farid have been a couple for nine years. As they both look about twenty-five at most, they must have started dating in their teens. They lived together in Nantes before returning home to Caunes, where Farid works as part of a team of carpenters, and Marion as a waitress and housecleaner at La Marbrerie. Both are quite thin and tall, with skins the color of an almond shell. Marion could be a model, with her high cheekbones, large, wide-set eyes and mouth.
Marion, whose last name is "Brasseur" (which means "brewer", in French), lives in the house she grew up in. She has never mentioned her father, although she has mentioned that her mother (whom I think is Algerian), is now with an Englishman. She has three brothers, at least two of whom --Romain and Theo-- are big, fair, blonde and blue-eyed. Her mother lives down the way from me, and I would like to meet her. I have even given Marion books in French to give to her mother --biographies of Yves Montand and George Simenon, books by Simone Signoret I think she would like-- but Marion has never introduced me. I have a hunch she is the serious-faced older woman I occasionally see walking briskly towards the avenue de la carrière du roy, where she sits and talks with friends in the afternoon.
There are quite a few families from Algeria and Morocco in Caunes. The nearby rue de Notre Dame, a narrow, nondescript street not part of the Parcours Historique of Caunes, is where many of them gather, if not live. There is a stone bench opposite the house of one woman, named Christiane, where her children and their friends gather. All of them are adults with children of their own. Walking down rue des Martyrs in the early evening earlier this summer, I came across a young man and a woman in amorous embrace. I was about to describe the area as a "little casbah" inside Caunes, but of course, public, amorous embraces in a real casbah would be out of the question. Teenaged girls of North African descent growing up in France are often shocked when they visit the land of their ancestors, as they enjoy a freedom in France, that would be quickly taken away were they to remain in the Maghreb (as North Africa is called) permanently.
I'm not sure what I'm doing today, but I needn't have bothered thinking about it: Marion, the young woman who cleans for me, shows up at 11:00 a.m. and tells me that her partner, Farid, the carpenter, will be here after 2:00 p.m. to put up the bookshelves he made for me and do the odd jobs he promised to do as part of the whole package of work.
One thing about the Midi: no one keeps to specific appointment times. If someone needs to see you, he doesn't call to set a time to meet in advance, he rings the doorbell when he is in the neighborhood. It can be a bit disconcerting when you're not ready to see visitors, although everyone is so cheery it's hard to be disconcerted for long.
Trying to have neighbors over for a drink can become involved, too. I would like to invite my neighbors down the road, Benoit and Marie-Helène, for an apéro this weekend. My original invitation was extended last Thursday for last Sunday, but as Benoit didn't get back to me by Saturday afternoon, I made other plans. I ran into Benoit late Saturday afternoon, at which time he told me "We'll be there Sunday", and I had to backtrack.
I offered to leave open any night of this weekend --Friday, Saturday or Sunday, as Benoît and Marie-Helène have to go to Sète --two hours away, one of those days. This afternoon, Wednesday, I ran into Benoit and asked whether they had decided on an evening to come by.
"No, because we haven't heard from Sète as to what day we'll be going there. So the only thing to do is to wait," he tells me genially.
Another example: I ran into Josette Lacroix earlier this week. She is involved in organizing the kermesse Sunday, so I ask her what date everyone will meet to organize the brocante. Thursday morning, she says. In response to my question, "Would my help be welcome?" Josette says "yes" enthusiastically and says we ought to go together.
"What time?" I ask.
"Oh, early--"
"9:30 a.m.?"
"Yes, that's good. How about we make it 10:00 a.m.?"
"All right--"
"In fact, let's make it between 10:15 a.m. and 10:30 a.m."
"Great --that will give me time to give Beau a good walk."
That night I get a phone message from Josette saying that Thursday morning only the men are going up to the church to set up the stands and that I ought to call Kathy, with whom I worked last year. I have Kathy's number and intend to call her today, but run into her on avenue du Minervois.
"Everything's pretty much taken care of", she tells me. "But come Sunday morning before the Mass: you can help lay out the tablecloths."
I'll be there.
***
Marion and Farid have been a couple for nine years. As they both look about twenty-five at most, they must have started dating in their teens. They lived together in Nantes before returning home to Caunes, where Farid works as part of a team of carpenters, and Marion as a waitress and housecleaner at La Marbrerie. Both are quite thin and tall, with skins the color of an almond shell. Marion could be a model, with her high cheekbones, large, wide-set eyes and mouth.
Marion, whose last name is "Brasseur" (which means "brewer", in French), lives in the house she grew up in. She has never mentioned her father, although she has mentioned that her mother (whom I think is Algerian), is now with an Englishman. She has three brothers, at least two of whom --Romain and Theo-- are big, fair, blonde and blue-eyed. Her mother lives down the way from me, and I would like to meet her. I have even given Marion books in French to give to her mother --biographies of Yves Montand and George Simenon, books by Simone Signoret I think she would like-- but Marion has never introduced me. I have a hunch she is the serious-faced older woman I occasionally see walking briskly towards the avenue de la carrière du roy, where she sits and talks with friends in the afternoon.
There are quite a few families from Algeria and Morocco in Caunes. The nearby rue de Notre Dame, a narrow, nondescript street not part of the Parcours Historique of Caunes, is where many of them gather, if not live. There is a stone bench opposite the house of one woman, named Christiane, where her children and their friends gather. All of them are adults with children of their own. Walking down rue des Martyrs in the early evening earlier this summer, I came across a young man and a woman in amorous embrace. I was about to describe the area as a "little casbah" inside Caunes, but of course, public, amorous embraces in a real casbah would be out of the question. Teenaged girls of North African descent growing up in France are often shocked when they visit the land of their ancestors, as they enjoy a freedom in France, that would be quickly taken away were they to remain in the Maghreb (as North Africa is called) permanently.
My airbnb vacation; No plastic bags!; The return of Alain Juppé
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Once I found Madame Froment was willing to board Beau for two weeks, I began thinking about where I might go that would be delightful and take my mind off the house. Originally, I thought of going to Venice to see the Palladian villas on the Brenta, but it's a long trip by car and I didn't want to go alone.
So I decided to book a French and Italian Riviera holiday via airbnb.
I decided to stay only with women --I thought it would be safer, and that an older woman would probably understand another older woman better. I didn't want to go anywhere on the Côte d'Azur I'd been before, but somewhere that had some mystique. So I decided to go to Grasse, where the essences for many famous perfumes were once extracted from plants that grew in the area; to San Remo, the 19th century resort not far from Bordighera, where Monet painted; and to Hyères, the first resort on the Riviera, which began receiving English visitors in the late 18th century, and where Edith Wharton had a house.
The trip will be by car, so I can practice my driving. The stay in Hyères will be on a sailboat, docked in the Hyères harbor.
I am hoping that I will rub shoulders with that world that never changes: the world of wealthy people on the Riviera. Somerset Maugham observed --and he knew the Riviera well, being resident at his own villa on the Riviera, the "Villa Mauresque", for many years-- that the Riviera was "a sunny place for shady people". It would be fun to pretend that France isn't in the state its in for a few days.
***
All the shop owners are preparing their clients: no plastic bags starting January 1, 2015. No one ever bags your groceries in any supermarket in France, so now customers have to have the forethought to bring bags to carry away their purchases, be they from a bookstore, a grocery store or clothing store.
A television program on France 2 last week showcases a beach in Africa where the detritus of flip-flops washes up. A group of artists organized by an American woman recycle them and make works of art out of them.
Seeing that program makes me think that perhaps it is necessary to do away with plastic bags.
"The government requires it", Marlene, the owner of the grocery store opposite the mairie tells me after I ask for a bag to carry the cheese I bought. When I go to the bakery, I ask the boulangère whether the rule applies to paper bags.
"There will be no more plastic bags given out after January 1, 2015. And the paper bags, I am not required to give them out --I don't always have them."
I just want to know what the law is, but the boulangère is always testy when asked about anything having to do with the government (see the post about "poop bags" for Beau).
***
French politics has been shaken up by today's announcement by Alain Juppé, the center-right mayor of Bordeaux (and former prime minister) that he will seek the French presidency in 2017.
Alain Juppé was a much-hated French prime minister who has enjoyed a political comeback of sorts. A brilliant man, he would be 72 in 2017, three years older than Ronald Reagan was when first elected.
What Juppe's announcement has done is to steal the spotlight from Nicolas Sarkozy, whose return to politics in September was supposed to have been the centerpiece of the entrée politique in September. With both Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-François Copé, former French president and former leader of his party, the UMP, tarnished by criminal allegations --and even François Fillon --Gordon Brown to Sarkozy's Tony Blair-- touched by charges he used government helicopters for personal purposes-- Juppé benefits from having his conviction for political corruption be of an earlier vintage, and therefore, practically forgotten.
Juppé made his announcement on his blog, which he writes himself. He is not to be counted out, having made a great success of the restoration of Bordeaux's waterfront and concomitant raising of the city's profile. Juppé, firmly center-right, never supported Sarkozy's move towards positions closer to those of the Front National. He once said that in French politics, "only physical death counts, otherwise, there is always the possibility of resurrection". How well he knows.
Once I found Madame Froment was willing to board Beau for two weeks, I began thinking about where I might go that would be delightful and take my mind off the house. Originally, I thought of going to Venice to see the Palladian villas on the Brenta, but it's a long trip by car and I didn't want to go alone.
So I decided to book a French and Italian Riviera holiday via airbnb.
I decided to stay only with women --I thought it would be safer, and that an older woman would probably understand another older woman better. I didn't want to go anywhere on the Côte d'Azur I'd been before, but somewhere that had some mystique. So I decided to go to Grasse, where the essences for many famous perfumes were once extracted from plants that grew in the area; to San Remo, the 19th century resort not far from Bordighera, where Monet painted; and to Hyères, the first resort on the Riviera, which began receiving English visitors in the late 18th century, and where Edith Wharton had a house.
The trip will be by car, so I can practice my driving. The stay in Hyères will be on a sailboat, docked in the Hyères harbor.
I am hoping that I will rub shoulders with that world that never changes: the world of wealthy people on the Riviera. Somerset Maugham observed --and he knew the Riviera well, being resident at his own villa on the Riviera, the "Villa Mauresque", for many years-- that the Riviera was "a sunny place for shady people". It would be fun to pretend that France isn't in the state its in for a few days.
***
All the shop owners are preparing their clients: no plastic bags starting January 1, 2015. No one ever bags your groceries in any supermarket in France, so now customers have to have the forethought to bring bags to carry away their purchases, be they from a bookstore, a grocery store or clothing store.
A television program on France 2 last week showcases a beach in Africa where the detritus of flip-flops washes up. A group of artists organized by an American woman recycle them and make works of art out of them.
Seeing that program makes me think that perhaps it is necessary to do away with plastic bags.
"The government requires it", Marlene, the owner of the grocery store opposite the mairie tells me after I ask for a bag to carry the cheese I bought. When I go to the bakery, I ask the boulangère whether the rule applies to paper bags.
"There will be no more plastic bags given out after January 1, 2015. And the paper bags, I am not required to give them out --I don't always have them."
I just want to know what the law is, but the boulangère is always testy when asked about anything having to do with the government (see the post about "poop bags" for Beau).
***
French politics has been shaken up by today's announcement by Alain Juppé, the center-right mayor of Bordeaux (and former prime minister) that he will seek the French presidency in 2017.
Alain Juppé was a much-hated French prime minister who has enjoyed a political comeback of sorts. A brilliant man, he would be 72 in 2017, three years older than Ronald Reagan was when first elected.
What Juppe's announcement has done is to steal the spotlight from Nicolas Sarkozy, whose return to politics in September was supposed to have been the centerpiece of the entrée politique in September. With both Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-François Copé, former French president and former leader of his party, the UMP, tarnished by criminal allegations --and even François Fillon --Gordon Brown to Sarkozy's Tony Blair-- touched by charges he used government helicopters for personal purposes-- Juppé benefits from having his conviction for political corruption be of an earlier vintage, and therefore, practically forgotten.
Juppé made his announcement on his blog, which he writes himself. He is not to be counted out, having made a great success of the restoration of Bordeaux's waterfront and concomitant raising of the city's profile. Juppé, firmly center-right, never supported Sarkozy's move towards positions closer to those of the Front National. He once said that in French politics, "only physical death counts, otherwise, there is always the possibility of resurrection". How well he knows.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Marvelous Michel, Marvelous Jacques Chabbert
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Theo, my dog walker, shows up a few minutes late. When he arrives, he once again, has a question for me, which has a financial aspect.
"A question: 'Would the dog chew electric wires?'"
"Yes, Beau is always putting things in his mouth. You have to watch him so he doesn't."
"Well, I have some things that would be expensive to replace."
"You have to watch him."
Theo returns with Beau a few minutes late, although I have told him that I have to leave promptly for an appointment in Carcassonne.
I explain to him that I wonder why each of the last two times he has come by, he suggests something that involves money.
"Oh, no --it's just that I have borrowed some things from a friend and if he chewed them, it would be expensive to replace them."
"Well, you have to watch him. Beau will chew the corners of chairs right in front of me. It's the way he is. By the way, did you take him to the soccer field today?"
"No, I just walked him around the village."
"Do you still want to work on Thursday?"
"Oh, yes. For sure."
As Theo did not give Beau a chance to run in the stadium, when he comes home, he relieves himself on one of the rugs. Theo is fourteen and a half and six feet tall and very much a kid. If it were not that I know I need to get out and cycle with the club for my own well-being, I wouldn't continue to use him. Also, I know he is counting on the extra money he can make before school starts the first week in September.
***
My experiences with two other service-providers --Michel at FunSport, the cycling mega-store; and Jacques Chabbert, the appliance distributor, are quite different.
A colleague made an appointment with Michel for me two weeks ago and I wasn't sure what to expect. I have a thirty-year old TREK touring cycle I want to keep using: I have a sentimental attachment to it, as it is the bicycle I rode while studying for the New York bar. I have also started to have aches and pains --which could be related to a lack of proper fit of the bicycle to my body. That is just the thing that Michel can diagnose and treat. I was told that Michel would tell me honestly whether it was worth trying to renovate the bicycle, or whether I would honestly do better to invest in a new bicycle.
I tell Michel the story of my bicycle and my hope I can keep using it rather than spend what is to me a lot of money on a new bicycle. He puts the bicycle on a platform and asks me to mount it and start pedaling. It turns out that my seat height is fine, my pedaling style, too. However, wrap around handlebars on a bicycle that is slightly too big for me are causing me to have to stretch my lower back, hands and arms in ways that may be bringing on some of my aches. Listening closely, I am mid-way through Michel's diagnosis when I begin wondering when he will try to sell me a new bicycle, when he surprises me:
"What is needed is that the wrap-aroundhandlebars and the brakes be replaced with a 'hybrid' bicycle's handlebars and brakes. You will ride upright and the strain will be eased."
The cost of replacing the handlebars and brakes? Less than one hundred euros. I need to replace a few other small parts, but again, Michel only recommends replacing what needs replacing, not an entire set of brake pads, for instance.
I am astonished that in this world, where everything is rapidly disposable, I have come across someone who fully appreciates my desire to keep my bicycle working for as long as possible and wants to help me in that pursuit.
***
The tiny refrigerator I was lent needs to be returned and replaced. Rather than buy from one of the big appliance distributors, I go to a nearby village, Trausse, to see Jacques Chabbert.
Chabbert et Fils is a four-generation family of electricians and appliance distributors. They are the "go-to" guys for repairs and any kind of appliance --from televisions to digital alarm clocks. The Chabbert style of selling is to be completely honest about the merits of the items they carry, and to honor the guarantees on the products absolutely. Word-of-mouth has made them as successful as they are, so successful that the joke in Caunes is'We have to keep Chabbert in business1'
I explain to Jacques Chabbert that I need a new refrigerator, not to wide and not too fancy. He points out a model with a German name.
This one is a Chinese brand made in China that uses a German sort of name to market to those for whom that's appealing. But honestly, I have European brands that are actually made in China, and among them, at 300 Euros, this one is a good refrigerator with respect to value-for-money. It's a two-door, so you won't have the problem of having to defrost it, except when you close the house. And it has a two year guarantee.
I want to know whether they can deliver it this afternoon. Jacques makes a phone call, and confirms he and another employee will be at my home within a half an hour. Indeed, they arrive within the specified time. They move my old refrigerator in to the basement and set up my new refrigerator, being careful to remove all the packaging and setting up all the shelves properly before handing me the instruction booklet and guarantee.
If only the rest of France worked as well as Michel of Funsport and Jacques Chabbert!
Theo, my dog walker, shows up a few minutes late. When he arrives, he once again, has a question for me, which has a financial aspect.
"A question: 'Would the dog chew electric wires?'"
"Yes, Beau is always putting things in his mouth. You have to watch him so he doesn't."
"Well, I have some things that would be expensive to replace."
"You have to watch him."
Theo returns with Beau a few minutes late, although I have told him that I have to leave promptly for an appointment in Carcassonne.
I explain to him that I wonder why each of the last two times he has come by, he suggests something that involves money.
"Oh, no --it's just that I have borrowed some things from a friend and if he chewed them, it would be expensive to replace them."
"Well, you have to watch him. Beau will chew the corners of chairs right in front of me. It's the way he is. By the way, did you take him to the soccer field today?"
"No, I just walked him around the village."
"Do you still want to work on Thursday?"
"Oh, yes. For sure."
As Theo did not give Beau a chance to run in the stadium, when he comes home, he relieves himself on one of the rugs. Theo is fourteen and a half and six feet tall and very much a kid. If it were not that I know I need to get out and cycle with the club for my own well-being, I wouldn't continue to use him. Also, I know he is counting on the extra money he can make before school starts the first week in September.
***
My experiences with two other service-providers --Michel at FunSport, the cycling mega-store; and Jacques Chabbert, the appliance distributor, are quite different.
A colleague made an appointment with Michel for me two weeks ago and I wasn't sure what to expect. I have a thirty-year old TREK touring cycle I want to keep using: I have a sentimental attachment to it, as it is the bicycle I rode while studying for the New York bar. I have also started to have aches and pains --which could be related to a lack of proper fit of the bicycle to my body. That is just the thing that Michel can diagnose and treat. I was told that Michel would tell me honestly whether it was worth trying to renovate the bicycle, or whether I would honestly do better to invest in a new bicycle.
I tell Michel the story of my bicycle and my hope I can keep using it rather than spend what is to me a lot of money on a new bicycle. He puts the bicycle on a platform and asks me to mount it and start pedaling. It turns out that my seat height is fine, my pedaling style, too. However, wrap around handlebars on a bicycle that is slightly too big for me are causing me to have to stretch my lower back, hands and arms in ways that may be bringing on some of my aches. Listening closely, I am mid-way through Michel's diagnosis when I begin wondering when he will try to sell me a new bicycle, when he surprises me:
"What is needed is that the wrap-aroundhandlebars and the brakes be replaced with a 'hybrid' bicycle's handlebars and brakes. You will ride upright and the strain will be eased."
The cost of replacing the handlebars and brakes? Less than one hundred euros. I need to replace a few other small parts, but again, Michel only recommends replacing what needs replacing, not an entire set of brake pads, for instance.
I am astonished that in this world, where everything is rapidly disposable, I have come across someone who fully appreciates my desire to keep my bicycle working for as long as possible and wants to help me in that pursuit.
***
The tiny refrigerator I was lent needs to be returned and replaced. Rather than buy from one of the big appliance distributors, I go to a nearby village, Trausse, to see Jacques Chabbert.
Chabbert et Fils is a four-generation family of electricians and appliance distributors. They are the "go-to" guys for repairs and any kind of appliance --from televisions to digital alarm clocks. The Chabbert style of selling is to be completely honest about the merits of the items they carry, and to honor the guarantees on the products absolutely. Word-of-mouth has made them as successful as they are, so successful that the joke in Caunes is'We have to keep Chabbert in business1'
I explain to Jacques Chabbert that I need a new refrigerator, not to wide and not too fancy. He points out a model with a German name.
This one is a Chinese brand made in China that uses a German sort of name to market to those for whom that's appealing. But honestly, I have European brands that are actually made in China, and among them, at 300 Euros, this one is a good refrigerator with respect to value-for-money. It's a two-door, so you won't have the problem of having to defrost it, except when you close the house. And it has a two year guarantee.
I want to know whether they can deliver it this afternoon. Jacques makes a phone call, and confirms he and another employee will be at my home within a half an hour. Indeed, they arrive within the specified time. They move my old refrigerator in to the basement and set up my new refrigerator, being careful to remove all the packaging and setting up all the shelves properly before handing me the instruction booklet and guarantee.
If only the rest of France worked as well as Michel of Funsport and Jacques Chabbert!
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Labor Relations; Cycling Club de Caunes-Minervois Lunch at Doctor Francisco's
Sunday, August 17, 2014
I am trying to get in as much cycling as possible in what is left of my time here. Theo, Marion's brother is scheduled to come at 7:15 a.m. this morning to take Beau per our agreement. However, when he arrives, he comes with a direct request, sheathed in a smile.
"Are you sure you didn't say 10 Euros an hour?" is his opening gambit.
"No, Theo, I offered you 10 Euros to watch Beau while I went cycling for about three hours."
"Well, I need money for school--"
"Theo, I offered you an amount within my budget. 10 Euros an hour is not within my budget. In fact, I pay a woman 10 Euros to watch Beau each day when I am away. So today will be the last time you take Beau if what I am offering is a problem for you."
"No, it's fine" Theo says, having exhausted his strategies for getting more money out of me.
I'm surprised that Theo would have asked for more money without having someone put the idea in his head. I also take his effort as a window on the mind of the French worker. In my view, asking for more money after one day on the job is a recipe for dismissal --at least in the American working world. If you don't like the job, you resign and find a better one.
Discussing what happened with a friend who knows both worlds, she points out that she knows adults who don't get 10 Euros an hour. She also tells me to make sure to get several estimates from workers for any major renovations --French artisans will try to overcharge unsaavy foreigners.
***
The Cycling Club de Caunes-Minervois meets, as usual at 7:30 a.m. and I am there to join them. Today there is a full contingent out: Alain, the electrician employed by the hospital in Carcassonne, Richard, the oenologist, Dave, a retiree from Northamptonshire, U.K., Claude, the president of the club, Jean Lacroix, George, the Occitan-speaking retiree from Trausse, Jeannot Albinet and me.
The majority want to cycle in the direction of Minerve, a major climb. Jeannot, at 81, doesn't feel capable of such a trek and says he will only go as far as Felines, then turn onto another route. I will follow Jeannot, as on my folding bicycle, I'm unlikely to be able to keep up with the group.
I am trying to get in as much cycling as possible in what is left of my time here. Theo, Marion's brother is scheduled to come at 7:15 a.m. this morning to take Beau per our agreement. However, when he arrives, he comes with a direct request, sheathed in a smile.
"Are you sure you didn't say 10 Euros an hour?" is his opening gambit.
"No, Theo, I offered you 10 Euros to watch Beau while I went cycling for about three hours."
"Well, I need money for school--"
"Theo, I offered you an amount within my budget. 10 Euros an hour is not within my budget. In fact, I pay a woman 10 Euros to watch Beau each day when I am away. So today will be the last time you take Beau if what I am offering is a problem for you."
"No, it's fine" Theo says, having exhausted his strategies for getting more money out of me.
I'm surprised that Theo would have asked for more money without having someone put the idea in his head. I also take his effort as a window on the mind of the French worker. In my view, asking for more money after one day on the job is a recipe for dismissal --at least in the American working world. If you don't like the job, you resign and find a better one.
Discussing what happened with a friend who knows both worlds, she points out that she knows adults who don't get 10 Euros an hour. She also tells me to make sure to get several estimates from workers for any major renovations --French artisans will try to overcharge unsaavy foreigners.
***
The Cycling Club de Caunes-Minervois meets, as usual at 7:30 a.m. and I am there to join them. Today there is a full contingent out: Alain, the electrician employed by the hospital in Carcassonne, Richard, the oenologist, Dave, a retiree from Northamptonshire, U.K., Claude, the president of the club, Jean Lacroix, George, the Occitan-speaking retiree from Trausse, Jeannot Albinet and me.
The majority want to cycle in the direction of Minerve, a major climb. Jeannot, at 81, doesn't feel capable of such a trek and says he will only go as far as Felines, then turn onto another route. I will follow Jeannot, as on my folding bicycle, I'm unlikely to be able to keep up with the group.
Jeannot and I turn off at Calaniac, then cycle towards La Livinière, Siran, Laurian, Fauzan, Cesseras and back to Caunes. While I thought that Jeannot would take a shorter route back, he has instead decided to bicycle as many kilometers as the other club members will --just on largely flat roads. In the end I cycle 47 kilometers --almost 30 miles. By the end, my right hamstring muscle is dangerously sore, as are my knees --and even my hands. Jeannot is unphased by it all and just keeps pedaling.
"He's a tractor", says Claude, by way of describing Jeannot's deliberate and unstoppable energy.
"He's a tractor", says Claude, by way of describing Jeannot's deliberate and unstoppable energy.
Dr. Francisco --one of the local doctors-- and his wife, Therese, are giving a barbecue for the CCCM members and their wives today. They live at 3 rue du Maquis du Trevanel, in a house on a hillside on the other side of the village in the direction of La Montagne Noir. Dr. Francisco used to ride with the group, but doesn't for some reason now. Nevertheless, he likes to see the club members and the lunch is a way of keeping in touch.
Dr. Francisco is of Spanish descent, tall, long-faced and thin, like an El Greco. He seems very serious and only talks to people he already knows. Therèse, on the other hand, is vivacious and still shapely at about seventy. She is running the barbecue, which is a bit of a slapstick: Therese has bought several very large loaves of country bread, which she hacks into pieces and throws into the breadbasket --or the hands of whoever wants more, when the basket is empty.
She slaps the minute steaks, merguez and pork sausages, along with the baked potatoes, onto the plastic plates like a waitress in a Munich beer hall during Oktoberfest. The wine is poured from plastic bags (wine in a plastic bag is all the rage here) into plastic cups. Everyone digs in and enjoys themselves.
Carole, come here from Edinburgh with her husband Jamie, is seated next to me. Carole is a master gilder, who repaired the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters' cupola, and who does private commissions along with her own work. She has just had a painting accepted for the Salon d'Hiver in Paris and comments on how different her life is here from Australia, her previous home, and Paris.
"It's been interesting, living somewhere where no one is the least bit impressed by art. Actually, it's been liberating, because it frees me to work without any of the distractions proximity to the art world in Sydney or Paris create. It has been the right thing for me, allowing me to explore other possibilities I could never have sought out in the international art world's temples of influence. The lack of pretense of people is a relief."
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Unencumbered by "les encombrants" and settled; Patrick Sebastien
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Marion, my young cleaning lady; and her partner, Farid, a carpenter; came by yesterday to set up the bookshelves Farid is making for me. I have asked that the two toilets (in French houses, the toilets are separate rooms from the bath) have bookshelves; also, that in the room on the third floor, a large book case be installed above my desk next to the window. Farid is a meticulous worker and I can see I am going to be happy with his work. For making the book case, two rows of shelves in each of the toilets, plus doing odds and ends for me, he is charging me 120 Euros, or about one-hundred-and-sixty dollars, including the cost of the materials.
As I had nine large cartons of books shipped in the container, the extra shelving is a must. I brought two pine bookcases with me, but they are full. One was in the basement where the books were gathering mold. I pulled them off the shelves and dragged the bookcase up two flights and into the room I sleep in before Farid and Marion got here, as well as putting the books back on the shelves. They were astonished.
"But Marta, you ought to have waited until we got here; Farid would have done it", Marion said, eyes open wide. Men do all the heavy lifting in France, it seems.
In the basement were also the relics left behind by the heirs of the Abbé Sibra, the priest and professor of sacred music at the seminary in Carcassonne who taught a generation of Caunois the catechism. They included two gigantic two-man saws; two canopied headboards for children's beds; a large rug and an upholstered chair in a Renaissance style. When I told Marion and Farid that they were encombrants and that they were on their way to the dechetterie, Farid quickly indicated his interest in the saws, Marion in the rug and chair. I also had a variety of pieces of wood and tile left behind by the former owners, and two lamps I couldn't use, which they were can also make use of. By the time Farid and Marion left, I had only the headboards and the boxes the books had been stored in to take to the dechetterie.
This morning Beau and I went to the dump first thing. I was met by the lovely young woman who works there part-time and whom I remembered from last year. She very kindly helped me get the unwanted items out of the car, and we were on our way home in no time.
Something about having my books set out on shelves has made being here better; I can only explain it by saying that, as the vast majority are in English, they act as a reminder that my French life is only a temporary one, which is exactly the way I want it. As beautiful as the country here is, there are aspects of French life I cannot adjust to:
1. The closing of shops from noon to 2:00 p.m.;
2. The closing of shops and restaurants on Mondays, if not Tuesdays;
3. That the titles of books are upside down from the cover page (in English-speaking countries they are apposite);
4. That the post office services are terrible;
5. That the phone company services are terrible;
6. That French television programs (excepting Fais Pas Ci, Fais Pas Ça) are terrible;
7. Patrick Sebastien.
Who, you might ask, is Patrick Sebastien? According to Wikipedia, Patrick Sebastien is "a French television host, producer and classy personality (mainly on TF1 and France 2, radio host, singer, writer, producer, director, impressionist entertainer, comedian, TV and film actor, and former president of the French rugby team CA Brive.
He has a #1 hit album this year, and in 2008 he had a #1 hit single, Ah…si tu pouvais fermer ta guele ("Ah…if you could only shut your trap). His Friday night variety show on France 2, Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde has him dressed in a sky-blue jacket with white frogs in imitation of the jackets the Beatles wore on their album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
--Although Patrick Sebastien is a very large man, and aged 60. The show consists of him sitting at a round table, surrounded by celebrities (Robert Alagna, the reigning French tenor, was a recent guest), some of whom get up and sing, others who just chit-chat and look appreciative. The studio audience sings along with the stars --most of whom have had one too many trips to the plastic surgeon-- swaying and clapping, smiling happily as they and their idols of the past relive past glories.
This! --From the country that brought you Montaigne, Voltaire and Blaise Pascal.
Marion, my young cleaning lady; and her partner, Farid, a carpenter; came by yesterday to set up the bookshelves Farid is making for me. I have asked that the two toilets (in French houses, the toilets are separate rooms from the bath) have bookshelves; also, that in the room on the third floor, a large book case be installed above my desk next to the window. Farid is a meticulous worker and I can see I am going to be happy with his work. For making the book case, two rows of shelves in each of the toilets, plus doing odds and ends for me, he is charging me 120 Euros, or about one-hundred-and-sixty dollars, including the cost of the materials.
As I had nine large cartons of books shipped in the container, the extra shelving is a must. I brought two pine bookcases with me, but they are full. One was in the basement where the books were gathering mold. I pulled them off the shelves and dragged the bookcase up two flights and into the room I sleep in before Farid and Marion got here, as well as putting the books back on the shelves. They were astonished.
"But Marta, you ought to have waited until we got here; Farid would have done it", Marion said, eyes open wide. Men do all the heavy lifting in France, it seems.
In the basement were also the relics left behind by the heirs of the Abbé Sibra, the priest and professor of sacred music at the seminary in Carcassonne who taught a generation of Caunois the catechism. They included two gigantic two-man saws; two canopied headboards for children's beds; a large rug and an upholstered chair in a Renaissance style. When I told Marion and Farid that they were encombrants and that they were on their way to the dechetterie, Farid quickly indicated his interest in the saws, Marion in the rug and chair. I also had a variety of pieces of wood and tile left behind by the former owners, and two lamps I couldn't use, which they were can also make use of. By the time Farid and Marion left, I had only the headboards and the boxes the books had been stored in to take to the dechetterie.
This morning Beau and I went to the dump first thing. I was met by the lovely young woman who works there part-time and whom I remembered from last year. She very kindly helped me get the unwanted items out of the car, and we were on our way home in no time.
Something about having my books set out on shelves has made being here better; I can only explain it by saying that, as the vast majority are in English, they act as a reminder that my French life is only a temporary one, which is exactly the way I want it. As beautiful as the country here is, there are aspects of French life I cannot adjust to:
1. The closing of shops from noon to 2:00 p.m.;
2. The closing of shops and restaurants on Mondays, if not Tuesdays;
3. That the titles of books are upside down from the cover page (in English-speaking countries they are apposite);
4. That the post office services are terrible;
5. That the phone company services are terrible;
6. That French television programs (excepting Fais Pas Ci, Fais Pas Ça) are terrible;
7. Patrick Sebastien.
Who, you might ask, is Patrick Sebastien? According to Wikipedia, Patrick Sebastien is "a French television host, producer and classy personality (mainly on TF1 and France 2, radio host, singer, writer, producer, director, impressionist entertainer, comedian, TV and film actor, and former president of the French rugby team CA Brive.
He has a #1 hit album this year, and in 2008 he had a #1 hit single, Ah…si tu pouvais fermer ta guele ("Ah…if you could only shut your trap). His Friday night variety show on France 2, Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde has him dressed in a sky-blue jacket with white frogs in imitation of the jackets the Beatles wore on their album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
--Although Patrick Sebastien is a very large man, and aged 60. The show consists of him sitting at a round table, surrounded by celebrities (Robert Alagna, the reigning French tenor, was a recent guest), some of whom get up and sing, others who just chit-chat and look appreciative. The studio audience sings along with the stars --most of whom have had one too many trips to the plastic surgeon-- swaying and clapping, smiling happily as they and their idols of the past relive past glories.
This! --From the country that brought you Montaigne, Voltaire and Blaise Pascal.
Friday, August 15, 2014
The Feast Of The Assumption: Pyramus and Thisbe
Friday, August 15, 2014
Today was the Feast of the Assumption, a holy day of obligation for practicing Roman Catholics. Most of us go to Mass not knowing why an earlier holiday, which marks Christ's return to heaven after the Resurrection is called --Ascenscion Day, while today --which marks his mother Mary's reception into heaven-- is called "Assumption". At Notre Dame du Cros it was explained that Mary entered heaven body and soul --something the rest of us will only do --if we are good- at the Last Judgment.
At Notre Dame du Cros, the church was standing room only, with many young people in attendance. There are whole families that go, second and third generations. Today, Father Philippe Piet, who serves Mass six days a week without help, was joined by a more senior cleric, an older man. There were also two cantors unknown to me, and two readers with whom I was also unfamiliar.
On the Feast of the Assumption the church is full because it is the feast day of Notre Dame du Cros, Caunes' particular protector. The date also falls about two weeks from the end of the summer vacation for school children, and marks the beginning of the period when parents have to take the allowance they are given from the French state for school-aged children and buy books and notebooks and pens and school bags for them. At this time of year the supermarkets all set aside a section to sell these articles. The return to school is called "La rentrée", but the term also refers to the end of the August holiday most French take and the return to the 9-to-5.
So there's a sense that the season is nearing its end. The summer has been dismal in most of France: the news reported that on average, 90% more rain fell since July 1 than the previous summer. In some parts of France it was even more rainy: Strasbourg received 225% more rain than last year! And quite a few of the Atlantic and Channel beaches have been plagued by green algae, the proliferation of which has been abetted by the heavy rains. As a result, swimming has been prohibited at those beaches.
Notwithstanding, tourism has not been affected: France remains the most visited country in the world, and there was no let-up in the number of foreigners who visited this summer. That --as the newscaster pointed out-- is the one bit of good economic news in an otherwise dismal economic picture. The latest statistics released show that, just as in the first three months of the year, in the second quarter, the French economy failed to get off the ground. It will be a difficult entrée.
***
Beau, of course, is unperturbed. He has another girlfriend: "Pippa" --a nine-month Australian shepherd who lives in a house on the way home from the soccer field. Every morning Beau and Pippa meet and exchange kisses across chain link fence: Pippa lives enclosed within the borders of the property. The two remind me of Pyramus and Thisbe: separated from each other by an artificial barrier, they commune amorously in the interstices.
Today was the Feast of the Assumption, a holy day of obligation for practicing Roman Catholics. Most of us go to Mass not knowing why an earlier holiday, which marks Christ's return to heaven after the Resurrection is called --Ascenscion Day, while today --which marks his mother Mary's reception into heaven-- is called "Assumption". At Notre Dame du Cros it was explained that Mary entered heaven body and soul --something the rest of us will only do --if we are good- at the Last Judgment.
At Notre Dame du Cros, the church was standing room only, with many young people in attendance. There are whole families that go, second and third generations. Today, Father Philippe Piet, who serves Mass six days a week without help, was joined by a more senior cleric, an older man. There were also two cantors unknown to me, and two readers with whom I was also unfamiliar.
On the Feast of the Assumption the church is full because it is the feast day of Notre Dame du Cros, Caunes' particular protector. The date also falls about two weeks from the end of the summer vacation for school children, and marks the beginning of the period when parents have to take the allowance they are given from the French state for school-aged children and buy books and notebooks and pens and school bags for them. At this time of year the supermarkets all set aside a section to sell these articles. The return to school is called "La rentrée", but the term also refers to the end of the August holiday most French take and the return to the 9-to-5.
So there's a sense that the season is nearing its end. The summer has been dismal in most of France: the news reported that on average, 90% more rain fell since July 1 than the previous summer. In some parts of France it was even more rainy: Strasbourg received 225% more rain than last year! And quite a few of the Atlantic and Channel beaches have been plagued by green algae, the proliferation of which has been abetted by the heavy rains. As a result, swimming has been prohibited at those beaches.
Notwithstanding, tourism has not been affected: France remains the most visited country in the world, and there was no let-up in the number of foreigners who visited this summer. That --as the newscaster pointed out-- is the one bit of good economic news in an otherwise dismal economic picture. The latest statistics released show that, just as in the first three months of the year, in the second quarter, the French economy failed to get off the ground. It will be a difficult entrée.
***
Beau, of course, is unperturbed. He has another girlfriend: "Pippa" --a nine-month Australian shepherd who lives in a house on the way home from the soccer field. Every morning Beau and Pippa meet and exchange kisses across chain link fence: Pippa lives enclosed within the borders of the property. The two remind me of Pyramus and Thisbe: separated from each other by an artificial barrier, they commune amorously in the interstices.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Orange Success!
Thursday, August 17, 2014
At long last, my Orange accounts are set up. Somehow, I am down in their records for electronic payment, despite what I was told about needing to fill out and sign a form to be sent to me. And I am also entered into the lists of those who are billed electronically.
It is a great relief to have reached this point, after four months of work. As I have been saying, I could have had a two-week vacation for the number of hours I have spent on the phone with the French national telephone company.
My bill was reviewed and found to have been incorrectly assembled and all the billing erroneous. So I will receive another bill, probably just before I depart. It will be available online, which eliminates concern about the mails. I have also been told that I can now cancel both the internet service and the telephone online. Which would save drafting and mailing a letter to cancel the Internet service, as I was told I would had to do.
Nothing I have done to set up the house in Caunes has been more difficult than dealing with Orange. Next year I can give instructions to turn the internet and phone on from my computer when I am the United States, so that the service will be available by the time I arrive. I will have to apply for a new telephone number, but it will hopefully not create further complications.
The taxes are now the only remaining detail to be addressed. The first of the taxes will be paid in the beginning of October, at which time I can set up auto-pay to cover it automatically; the second I can take care of from New York.
This is all a great relief. A letter from Orange arrived today, still bearing an incorrect address, but I can call on Monday and take care of that detail. I tried a few minutes ago (just before 6:00 p.m.) and was told I would have to call at the beginning of the week: tomorrow is the Feast of the Assumption and a French national holiday.
Please do not point out that the Feast of the Assumption is a Roman Catholic holiday and that France is a strictly secular country. It's a holiday and the French will take it, whatever their religious affiliation, or lack thereof. No one works, certainly not the employees of the French phone company.
At long last, my Orange accounts are set up. Somehow, I am down in their records for electronic payment, despite what I was told about needing to fill out and sign a form to be sent to me. And I am also entered into the lists of those who are billed electronically.
It is a great relief to have reached this point, after four months of work. As I have been saying, I could have had a two-week vacation for the number of hours I have spent on the phone with the French national telephone company.
My bill was reviewed and found to have been incorrectly assembled and all the billing erroneous. So I will receive another bill, probably just before I depart. It will be available online, which eliminates concern about the mails. I have also been told that I can now cancel both the internet service and the telephone online. Which would save drafting and mailing a letter to cancel the Internet service, as I was told I would had to do.
Nothing I have done to set up the house in Caunes has been more difficult than dealing with Orange. Next year I can give instructions to turn the internet and phone on from my computer when I am the United States, so that the service will be available by the time I arrive. I will have to apply for a new telephone number, but it will hopefully not create further complications.
The taxes are now the only remaining detail to be addressed. The first of the taxes will be paid in the beginning of October, at which time I can set up auto-pay to cover it automatically; the second I can take care of from New York.
This is all a great relief. A letter from Orange arrived today, still bearing an incorrect address, but I can call on Monday and take care of that detail. I tried a few minutes ago (just before 6:00 p.m.) and was told I would have to call at the beginning of the week: tomorrow is the Feast of the Assumption and a French national holiday.
Please do not point out that the Feast of the Assumption is a Roman Catholic holiday and that France is a strictly secular country. It's a holiday and the French will take it, whatever their religious affiliation, or lack thereof. No one works, certainly not the employees of the French phone company.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Canine Blackmail; Houses; Drive, She Said
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
As happy as I was when cycling last Sunday, when I got home I received an unpleasant surprise: the neighbors let me know that Beau had done nothing but bark and cry from a few minutes after I left to my return three hours later. I was mortified, particularly as my neighbor, Élodie, is on her summer vacation. Being awakened at 7:45 a.m. by a crying dog is not what she hoped her Sunday morning would be about.
I have consulted with my veterinarian, Dr. Mougin, who referred me to Sabine Faget, a veterinarian specializing in behavioral issues who practices in the Narbonne area, an hour from here. She is on vacation until the last week in August, so I will have to wait until Thursday, August 28 before I can see her. However, Dr. Mougin made me feel much better when he told me that in the first year he and his wife lived with Harry, their Jack Russell, they boarded him once a week, so they could get a break from his antics. Coming from a veterinarian, it was good to hear that even they have problems with their dogs.
And Dr. Mougin endorsed my two-week vacation from Beau. "Yes", I am going away: to San Remo for a week in the middle of the fourteen nights Beau will spend with Madame Froment, an elderly woman who boards two dogs at a time in her home in La Redorte, a few kilometers from here.
The only thing about Madame Froment, is that when you visit her for the introductory visit, she will sit you down for an hour and ask you anything and everything about your dog. --But since you like to talk and she does, too, you will get along fine! Dr. Mougin said, with a smile. --No wonder he is one of my favorite people!
The truth is, while Beau is marvelous outdoors, at home he's a tyrant, making it difficult for me to eat my meals, to work on the computer or speak on the telephone. Seeing a specialist in canine behavior now, just before his first birthday, will hopefully save me more grief in the future. --And anyway, I'm tired of being blackmailed by a Boykin.
***
As Jeannot and his wife, Gisèle, had hoped I would. I did go to see the rugs I wrote of in my last post. Their house is a twenty-year old Mediterranean style house with pool and garden, immaculately kept. For much of his career in the salt business, Jeannot and Gisèle lived in Tunis, where they raised their two daughters. One is an attorney for the Institut Pasteur in Paris, the other still lives in Tunis. Clearly, it was a place they all loved living in.
The rugs were beautiful, but very large, and not at all suitable for me. Packed away, I only saw photos, but that was compensated for by the pleasure of spending time with Jeannot and Gisèle and taking in their decorating scheme.
The style was a mix of modern and antique, with a giant gilded blackamoor standing guard by the fireplace, an enormous dining table and several chairs, an inlaid drop-leaf desk and a bureau bookcase, all made of exquisite woods and beautifully lacquered. It is very much the house of hautes bourgeoises. Having invested in these heirlooms, they now find themselves in the disappointing position of being unable to hand them down to their daughters, neither of whom live in spaces large enough for them. As a result, the rugs and the furniture will find their way to Troc, the consignment store in Carcassonne.
--Which is where Carol Williams, whom I met for the first time Monday, bought the lead crystal chandeliers and the furnishings for her house on rue Montgaillard. I have seen Carol before, jogging around the football field while I exercise Beau, but today we crossed paths and struck up an acquaintance.
Carol is an Australian of English descent, a lawyer and the mother of two girls. Her house, the dining room of which can be seen from the street, looks well-appointed from the outside, but it is only when inside that it is possible to appreciate its size: eight bedrooms, seven baths, a dining room, a TV room, and an enormous kitchen off which is a huge terrace that looks over the abbey. The house is positively grand. Carol facetiously calls it "Kangaroo Towers". She is setting it up as a guest house for Australians under the name "Lilybelle" --the name of her granddaughter. Every room is beautifully decorated and light pours in from all angles, surprisingly for a house in the heart of the village.
And I thought my house was large!
***
I must admit that, not having anticipated how little would be going on in the Minervois in August, I have found myself unhappily at loose ends. With Beau's separation anxiety perhaps putting a stop to any cycling with the club for at least this week, I decided I had to get out of the house and the Minervois.
So I drove to Collioure, the once-unknown fishing village made famous by Matisee, Derain, Picasso and other twentieth century artists. Beau in tow (he has his own seat belt), we set off and made it in two hours, as the GPS promised.
When the Pyrenées come into view, it becomes clear that Caunes' slopes are just high hills. The Pyrenées loom, stark and steep. Wine is grown on the mountainsides, but the plantings look meager and dry. Collioure was easy enough to get to, a hilly beach town, jammed with cars snaking along the main road. There was no place to park, so I turned around, and headed back to Caunes, making a quick side trip to Perpignan.
The Pyrenées around Perpignan are made of a whitish clay, which makes them look even more barren than those by the Mediterranean. Perpignan itself is a startlingly modern city with low-rise buildings that would be perfectly at home in Florida's new towns. The buildings are predominantly white and look to be less than fifty years old. Greater metropolitan Perpignan has about 300,000 people, and people on the streets move like city folk. They don't dawdle, the way the Carcassonnais and the Narbonnais do.
Perpignan is still part of the Midi, but the Pyrenées give an entirely different feeling to the terrain. The landscape is not lush, the way the Minervois is. There are no cereal grains grown, as in the nearby Tarn department. The barrenness of the mountains is all around, but the roads and the buildings are all modern and well-kept. In the winter, the French Pyrenées are a mecca for skiers, and indeed, Perpignan reminds me more of Denver, Colorado than medieval France.
As happy as I was when cycling last Sunday, when I got home I received an unpleasant surprise: the neighbors let me know that Beau had done nothing but bark and cry from a few minutes after I left to my return three hours later. I was mortified, particularly as my neighbor, Élodie, is on her summer vacation. Being awakened at 7:45 a.m. by a crying dog is not what she hoped her Sunday morning would be about.
I have consulted with my veterinarian, Dr. Mougin, who referred me to Sabine Faget, a veterinarian specializing in behavioral issues who practices in the Narbonne area, an hour from here. She is on vacation until the last week in August, so I will have to wait until Thursday, August 28 before I can see her. However, Dr. Mougin made me feel much better when he told me that in the first year he and his wife lived with Harry, their Jack Russell, they boarded him once a week, so they could get a break from his antics. Coming from a veterinarian, it was good to hear that even they have problems with their dogs.
And Dr. Mougin endorsed my two-week vacation from Beau. "Yes", I am going away: to San Remo for a week in the middle of the fourteen nights Beau will spend with Madame Froment, an elderly woman who boards two dogs at a time in her home in La Redorte, a few kilometers from here.
The only thing about Madame Froment, is that when you visit her for the introductory visit, she will sit you down for an hour and ask you anything and everything about your dog. --But since you like to talk and she does, too, you will get along fine! Dr. Mougin said, with a smile. --No wonder he is one of my favorite people!
The truth is, while Beau is marvelous outdoors, at home he's a tyrant, making it difficult for me to eat my meals, to work on the computer or speak on the telephone. Seeing a specialist in canine behavior now, just before his first birthday, will hopefully save me more grief in the future. --And anyway, I'm tired of being blackmailed by a Boykin.
***
As Jeannot and his wife, Gisèle, had hoped I would. I did go to see the rugs I wrote of in my last post. Their house is a twenty-year old Mediterranean style house with pool and garden, immaculately kept. For much of his career in the salt business, Jeannot and Gisèle lived in Tunis, where they raised their two daughters. One is an attorney for the Institut Pasteur in Paris, the other still lives in Tunis. Clearly, it was a place they all loved living in.
The rugs were beautiful, but very large, and not at all suitable for me. Packed away, I only saw photos, but that was compensated for by the pleasure of spending time with Jeannot and Gisèle and taking in their decorating scheme.
The style was a mix of modern and antique, with a giant gilded blackamoor standing guard by the fireplace, an enormous dining table and several chairs, an inlaid drop-leaf desk and a bureau bookcase, all made of exquisite woods and beautifully lacquered. It is very much the house of hautes bourgeoises. Having invested in these heirlooms, they now find themselves in the disappointing position of being unable to hand them down to their daughters, neither of whom live in spaces large enough for them. As a result, the rugs and the furniture will find their way to Troc, the consignment store in Carcassonne.
--Which is where Carol Williams, whom I met for the first time Monday, bought the lead crystal chandeliers and the furnishings for her house on rue Montgaillard. I have seen Carol before, jogging around the football field while I exercise Beau, but today we crossed paths and struck up an acquaintance.
Carol is an Australian of English descent, a lawyer and the mother of two girls. Her house, the dining room of which can be seen from the street, looks well-appointed from the outside, but it is only when inside that it is possible to appreciate its size: eight bedrooms, seven baths, a dining room, a TV room, and an enormous kitchen off which is a huge terrace that looks over the abbey. The house is positively grand. Carol facetiously calls it "Kangaroo Towers". She is setting it up as a guest house for Australians under the name "Lilybelle" --the name of her granddaughter. Every room is beautifully decorated and light pours in from all angles, surprisingly for a house in the heart of the village.
And I thought my house was large!
***
I must admit that, not having anticipated how little would be going on in the Minervois in August, I have found myself unhappily at loose ends. With Beau's separation anxiety perhaps putting a stop to any cycling with the club for at least this week, I decided I had to get out of the house and the Minervois.
So I drove to Collioure, the once-unknown fishing village made famous by Matisee, Derain, Picasso and other twentieth century artists. Beau in tow (he has his own seat belt), we set off and made it in two hours, as the GPS promised.
When the Pyrenées come into view, it becomes clear that Caunes' slopes are just high hills. The Pyrenées loom, stark and steep. Wine is grown on the mountainsides, but the plantings look meager and dry. Collioure was easy enough to get to, a hilly beach town, jammed with cars snaking along the main road. There was no place to park, so I turned around, and headed back to Caunes, making a quick side trip to Perpignan.
The Pyrenées around Perpignan are made of a whitish clay, which makes them look even more barren than those by the Mediterranean. Perpignan itself is a startlingly modern city with low-rise buildings that would be perfectly at home in Florida's new towns. The buildings are predominantly white and look to be less than fifty years old. Greater metropolitan Perpignan has about 300,000 people, and people on the streets move like city folk. They don't dawdle, the way the Carcassonnais and the Narbonnais do.
Perpignan is still part of the Midi, but the Pyrenées give an entirely different feeling to the terrain. The landscape is not lush, the way the Minervois is. There are no cereal grains grown, as in the nearby Tarn department. The barrenness of the mountains is all around, but the roads and the buildings are all modern and well-kept. In the winter, the French Pyrenées are a mecca for skiers, and indeed, Perpignan reminds me more of Denver, Colorado than medieval France.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Rustine, Beau's new girlfriend; Les Chants des Oyseaux; Cycling: The Cure For What Ails You
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Just when I was at the limit of my patience on Friday, a ray of sunlight emerged in the form of Claire de Decker and her little Jack Russell bitch, Rustine.
Claire is Belgian, from Brussells. She is about 6' tall. With her husband, she has owned a large house in Caunes for the last six years. They also own a Harley-Davidson, on which they like to take long rides, although I wouldn't call Claire a "motorcycle Mama" --she's too bourgeois for that. What I like about her is that she is unfailingly up-beat, and that Rustine is, unlike most Jack Russells, unaggressive, but playful. She was coming down rue des Remparts when I saw them.
For a few days we had been exchanging phone calls to try to arrange a "playdate" for the two dogs, without success. However, today Claire was amenable to my suggestion that we go to the soccer stadium, where the two dogs had the time of their lives. They behave as if they were in love, gamboling and wrestling together gently. Which is lovely to see.
I invited Claire over to the house after, where there was more canine merriment. Better, Claire and I got to talk about the difficulties of dealing with the French bureaucracy, and the generally negative attitude of personnel in stores and offices.
Claire completely shared my view on both counts. Which is curious in a way, because bi-cultural Belgium, divided between the French-speaking Walloons, and the Dutch-speaking Flamands, has been unable to form a government of any meaningful duration for the last few years. Perhaps the explanation is that Belgium's political problems do not filter down to the level of the utility companies and the tax authorities. At any rate, I'm glad for the moral support after a day of battling.
***
Saturday I wash clothes and hang them on the clothesline, then go for a bicycle ride to Felines, taking my IPad with me, so I can take photos to send to friends. I return in time to feed Beau and get ready for a free concert to be given at the abbey at 4:30 p.m. This is the first musical event I've attended all season.
It is a concert presented by a group of retirees who have paid for a summer choral workshop and are displaying the fruits of what they have learned in the form of a Renaissance choral work, Tenebrae by Vitoria. The singers are clustered in the gallery of the abbey courtyard, and the audience seated in the courtyard. The concert, which is a cappella, lasts about one hour. And it is marvelous, although the voices are those of people in their fifties and older.
Each year, Franck Pellé-Rolland, the founder of Le Chant des Oyseaux (the umbrella-organization under which the choral workshops are organized), travels France, giving workshops, which are open to anyone interested and willing to pay the 25 Euro membership fee, plus up to 310 Euros for the workshops, which last a week. What a wonderful opportunity for anyone with a serious interest in early music.
***
Today, Sunday, I'm up at 6:00 a.m. to feed Beau and walk him a distance before setting off to cycle with the Club du Cyclisme de Caunes-Minervois. Only Jean Lacroix and Jeannot Albinet are cycling today, but I know them well, like them and am happy for their company. Jean and Jeannot decide we will go as far as La Redorte and back, a three hour ride.
Out early in the morning on the backroads, it is heaven to be on a bicycle. The day is overcast and cool, with breezes blowing against us at the outset, then at our back on the return. I get a chance --since it's just the three of us-- to talk with Jean Lacroix about his days in the gendarmerie.
"In the beginning, here in the Aude, where I began my career, I went everywhere by bicycle --because the gendarmerie had only one car! I liked my work, there was satisfaction in bringing in violators of the law, but there was also a social aspect to the work. You spent time talking to people, because that was how you learned things. And people would tell you everything: they would tell you about their problems with their husband, about the problems of their children. And sometimes you could offer some helpful advice.
"Then I was posted to Martinique. There, the island being part of France, the law was applied as it would be here. I was always out and about, just as I had been for the whole of my career: I never held a desk job. And then I spent three years in Cameroon, training cadets. However, because Cameroon was independent, the gendarmerie française had no legal authority there. The country was an independent state, so it was up to the Cameroon police to enforce the law. Their way of doing so, though, was unique to them. And there were so many social problems --poverty and disease, principally-- that could not be addressed by law enforcement."
With Jeannot Albinet my conversation takes a different turn.
"My wife wants you to see these rugs she wants to get rid of, and that our children don't want. Perhaps you have friends who might want rugs? You should come see them. Come for an apèro at 7:30 p.m. and she'll show them to you."
This is the second time Jeannot has invited me to have a look at the rugs, so they must be much on his wife's mind. Madame Albinet (whom I met last September at my house-warming) is, like Jeannot, elderly (Jeannot is 81). Even on short acquaintance, it was obvious she is a sweet-tempered wife of the old school, who takes her uxorious responsibilities very seriously.
I don't think I have friends that would be interested in the Albinet's rugs, but it would be impolite not to accept the invitation. Jeannot worked all over the French-speaking world representing an industrial producer of salt, so perhaps some of the rugs were purchased on his travels, and might be interesting to see. Plus it's not every day you get an invitation to someone's house in France --the French usually limit invitations to the house to family and close friends. So I accept the invitation, knowing I may end up taking some rugs off their hands.
The pleasure of the club members' company has lifted my spirits. "On s'occupe de vous! Jeannot tells me smilingly at the beginning of the outing, when I comment that I think that I am physically weaker than last year. We'll take care of you!
What could be better?
When I purchased the house last year, it was with the hope that I would cycle frequently. The summer's duties have prevented me from doing so until now; but, back in the saddle with my club friends, cycling truly is the cure for what has been ailing me.
Just when I was at the limit of my patience on Friday, a ray of sunlight emerged in the form of Claire de Decker and her little Jack Russell bitch, Rustine.
Claire is Belgian, from Brussells. She is about 6' tall. With her husband, she has owned a large house in Caunes for the last six years. They also own a Harley-Davidson, on which they like to take long rides, although I wouldn't call Claire a "motorcycle Mama" --she's too bourgeois for that. What I like about her is that she is unfailingly up-beat, and that Rustine is, unlike most Jack Russells, unaggressive, but playful. She was coming down rue des Remparts when I saw them.
For a few days we had been exchanging phone calls to try to arrange a "playdate" for the two dogs, without success. However, today Claire was amenable to my suggestion that we go to the soccer stadium, where the two dogs had the time of their lives. They behave as if they were in love, gamboling and wrestling together gently. Which is lovely to see.
I invited Claire over to the house after, where there was more canine merriment. Better, Claire and I got to talk about the difficulties of dealing with the French bureaucracy, and the generally negative attitude of personnel in stores and offices.
Claire completely shared my view on both counts. Which is curious in a way, because bi-cultural Belgium, divided between the French-speaking Walloons, and the Dutch-speaking Flamands, has been unable to form a government of any meaningful duration for the last few years. Perhaps the explanation is that Belgium's political problems do not filter down to the level of the utility companies and the tax authorities. At any rate, I'm glad for the moral support after a day of battling.
***
Saturday I wash clothes and hang them on the clothesline, then go for a bicycle ride to Felines, taking my IPad with me, so I can take photos to send to friends. I return in time to feed Beau and get ready for a free concert to be given at the abbey at 4:30 p.m. This is the first musical event I've attended all season.
It is a concert presented by a group of retirees who have paid for a summer choral workshop and are displaying the fruits of what they have learned in the form of a Renaissance choral work, Tenebrae by Vitoria. The singers are clustered in the gallery of the abbey courtyard, and the audience seated in the courtyard. The concert, which is a cappella, lasts about one hour. And it is marvelous, although the voices are those of people in their fifties and older.
Each year, Franck Pellé-Rolland, the founder of Le Chant des Oyseaux (the umbrella-organization under which the choral workshops are organized), travels France, giving workshops, which are open to anyone interested and willing to pay the 25 Euro membership fee, plus up to 310 Euros for the workshops, which last a week. What a wonderful opportunity for anyone with a serious interest in early music.
***
Today, Sunday, I'm up at 6:00 a.m. to feed Beau and walk him a distance before setting off to cycle with the Club du Cyclisme de Caunes-Minervois. Only Jean Lacroix and Jeannot Albinet are cycling today, but I know them well, like them and am happy for their company. Jean and Jeannot decide we will go as far as La Redorte and back, a three hour ride.
Out early in the morning on the backroads, it is heaven to be on a bicycle. The day is overcast and cool, with breezes blowing against us at the outset, then at our back on the return. I get a chance --since it's just the three of us-- to talk with Jean Lacroix about his days in the gendarmerie.
"In the beginning, here in the Aude, where I began my career, I went everywhere by bicycle --because the gendarmerie had only one car! I liked my work, there was satisfaction in bringing in violators of the law, but there was also a social aspect to the work. You spent time talking to people, because that was how you learned things. And people would tell you everything: they would tell you about their problems with their husband, about the problems of their children. And sometimes you could offer some helpful advice.
"Then I was posted to Martinique. There, the island being part of France, the law was applied as it would be here. I was always out and about, just as I had been for the whole of my career: I never held a desk job. And then I spent three years in Cameroon, training cadets. However, because Cameroon was independent, the gendarmerie française had no legal authority there. The country was an independent state, so it was up to the Cameroon police to enforce the law. Their way of doing so, though, was unique to them. And there were so many social problems --poverty and disease, principally-- that could not be addressed by law enforcement."
With Jeannot Albinet my conversation takes a different turn.
"My wife wants you to see these rugs she wants to get rid of, and that our children don't want. Perhaps you have friends who might want rugs? You should come see them. Come for an apèro at 7:30 p.m. and she'll show them to you."
This is the second time Jeannot has invited me to have a look at the rugs, so they must be much on his wife's mind. Madame Albinet (whom I met last September at my house-warming) is, like Jeannot, elderly (Jeannot is 81). Even on short acquaintance, it was obvious she is a sweet-tempered wife of the old school, who takes her uxorious responsibilities very seriously.
I don't think I have friends that would be interested in the Albinet's rugs, but it would be impolite not to accept the invitation. Jeannot worked all over the French-speaking world representing an industrial producer of salt, so perhaps some of the rugs were purchased on his travels, and might be interesting to see. Plus it's not every day you get an invitation to someone's house in France --the French usually limit invitations to the house to family and close friends. So I accept the invitation, knowing I may end up taking some rugs off their hands.
The pleasure of the club members' company has lifted my spirits. "On s'occupe de vous! Jeannot tells me smilingly at the beginning of the outing, when I comment that I think that I am physically weaker than last year. We'll take care of you!
What could be better?
When I purchased the house last year, it was with the hope that I would cycle frequently. The summer's duties have prevented me from doing so until now; but, back in the saddle with my club friends, cycling truly is the cure for what has been ailing me.
Friday, August 8, 2014
The Country That Can't Shoot Straight
August 8, 2014
The list of things here that are getting on my nerves is getting longer and longer: I just learned that "Orange" (French Telecom) has incorrectly billed me for three service calls when I properly cancelled two before the date; and received no service on the third --I had to pay an electrician to set up the phone connection.
I have a contract for unlimited calls to the United States and within the European Union, yet I received a phone message yesterday that I have exceeded the amount allowed under my contract.
To pay my bills, I try to establish auto-pay on-line. It turns out I will be sent a form that I have to sign and send back with the same information I provided online. I want to be billed electronically, but each time I complete the online form and click the key to continue, I get an error message. Billing and payment are two entirely separate activities as organized on the Orange website. The Internet line and the phone line are also two entirely separate activities: you can turn the phone line on/off online, but you have to write a letter to turn off the Internet service. The letter has to be sent a month before the shut-off date; the phone can be programmed to be turned off a day before.
Trying to access my account on line to see my bill, I am thwarted by messages that tell me that my password is incorrect, although I just changed it and had the change verified automatically.
I call Orange originally to address this problem, when incidentally, the woman I speak with tells me that my first bill is for 262 Euros. Which leads me to be referred to the "Claims" department, to a man who tells me he will cancel the charges for the first two visits, but not the third, because the technician showed up, even though he could not establish the connection. The next thing he says is "I will see what I can do for you", and he tells me he will call me an hour. Fat chance.
This morning I stopped by the Trésor Publique to gather more information about how to establish automatic payment of the taxe foncière, levied in early September; and the taxe d'habitation, payable by December 15. I cannot establish auto-pay for both at the same time. Rather, I have to pay each in its season. Which is problematic, because I will be gone by November when the bills are sent out, and only one address can be given for both tax bills.
Which means I have to go to the Trésor Publique in October and pay the taxe foncière, then set up my address in New York as my address for all bills. Having established auto-pay for the foncière, even if the bill arrives in New York, rather than Caunes, the payment will have been made anyway.
By the beginning of December, when I am in New York, if I have not received the bill for the taxe d'habitation, I have to send an e-mail or letter explaining that I have not received the bill and making arrangements for payment, as well as establishing auto-pay.
In brief, nothing works as it should here. Other examples:
I just received a letter containing the receipt for the emergency medical services I received last Sunday. It came to me via a neighbor who rang the bell: the envelope was stamped and addressed to me at "Route de Trausse" and delivered to him instead, notwithstanding that I gave the physician my correct address.
Post cards do not arrive in the United States until long after they are sent, if at all. A replacement credit card for the one I use regularly has not arrived, although it was sent in mid-June.
And the local art cinema is on vacation for six weeks. In Paris, the bad weather there has been keeping the movie houses full. Here the bad weather and the opportunity to turn a profit is no impediment to a closure of a month and a half.
Jimmy Breslin, the famous reporter, wrote a book humorous book about the Mafia called "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight". His argument was that so much of the organization was incompetent the threat it posed was laughable.
I am beginning to feel the same way about France.
On the other hand, I had my eyes examined at the Polyclinique Montreal and could not have been happier with the personnel and the facility. My appointment was for 9:00 a.m., and I was through by 9:30 a.m. I paid 50 Euros for a thorough follow-up examination to surgery for a retinal tear I had in New York and took away with me the insurance form to submit to my insurance, filled out by a computer, stamped and signed.
And my veterinarian, Dr. Mougin, is a wonder, with wise advice on every problem I have brought to him and a great sense of humor.
How can the same country produce two such different outcomes?
And raises the rhetorical question, "Is it enough to be a beautiful place, if most things don't work well?
The list of things here that are getting on my nerves is getting longer and longer: I just learned that "Orange" (French Telecom) has incorrectly billed me for three service calls when I properly cancelled two before the date; and received no service on the third --I had to pay an electrician to set up the phone connection.
I have a contract for unlimited calls to the United States and within the European Union, yet I received a phone message yesterday that I have exceeded the amount allowed under my contract.
To pay my bills, I try to establish auto-pay on-line. It turns out I will be sent a form that I have to sign and send back with the same information I provided online. I want to be billed electronically, but each time I complete the online form and click the key to continue, I get an error message. Billing and payment are two entirely separate activities as organized on the Orange website. The Internet line and the phone line are also two entirely separate activities: you can turn the phone line on/off online, but you have to write a letter to turn off the Internet service. The letter has to be sent a month before the shut-off date; the phone can be programmed to be turned off a day before.
Trying to access my account on line to see my bill, I am thwarted by messages that tell me that my password is incorrect, although I just changed it and had the change verified automatically.
I call Orange originally to address this problem, when incidentally, the woman I speak with tells me that my first bill is for 262 Euros. Which leads me to be referred to the "Claims" department, to a man who tells me he will cancel the charges for the first two visits, but not the third, because the technician showed up, even though he could not establish the connection. The next thing he says is "I will see what I can do for you", and he tells me he will call me an hour. Fat chance.
This morning I stopped by the Trésor Publique to gather more information about how to establish automatic payment of the taxe foncière, levied in early September; and the taxe d'habitation, payable by December 15. I cannot establish auto-pay for both at the same time. Rather, I have to pay each in its season. Which is problematic, because I will be gone by November when the bills are sent out, and only one address can be given for both tax bills.
Which means I have to go to the Trésor Publique in October and pay the taxe foncière, then set up my address in New York as my address for all bills. Having established auto-pay for the foncière, even if the bill arrives in New York, rather than Caunes, the payment will have been made anyway.
By the beginning of December, when I am in New York, if I have not received the bill for the taxe d'habitation, I have to send an e-mail or letter explaining that I have not received the bill and making arrangements for payment, as well as establishing auto-pay.
In brief, nothing works as it should here. Other examples:
I just received a letter containing the receipt for the emergency medical services I received last Sunday. It came to me via a neighbor who rang the bell: the envelope was stamped and addressed to me at "Route de Trausse" and delivered to him instead, notwithstanding that I gave the physician my correct address.
Post cards do not arrive in the United States until long after they are sent, if at all. A replacement credit card for the one I use regularly has not arrived, although it was sent in mid-June.
And the local art cinema is on vacation for six weeks. In Paris, the bad weather there has been keeping the movie houses full. Here the bad weather and the opportunity to turn a profit is no impediment to a closure of a month and a half.
Jimmy Breslin, the famous reporter, wrote a book humorous book about the Mafia called "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight". His argument was that so much of the organization was incompetent the threat it posed was laughable.
I am beginning to feel the same way about France.
On the other hand, I had my eyes examined at the Polyclinique Montreal and could not have been happier with the personnel and the facility. My appointment was for 9:00 a.m., and I was through by 9:30 a.m. I paid 50 Euros for a thorough follow-up examination to surgery for a retinal tear I had in New York and took away with me the insurance form to submit to my insurance, filled out by a computer, stamped and signed.
And my veterinarian, Dr. Mougin, is a wonder, with wise advice on every problem I have brought to him and a great sense of humor.
How can the same country produce two such different outcomes?
And raises the rhetorical question, "Is it enough to be a beautiful place, if most things don't work well?
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Narbonne
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
My friend, Patrice Cartier, author of books about the Minervois, and a son of Carcassonne, finds his home town decidedly unexciting. “It’s turned in on itself, a closed town. --Unlike Narbonne, where you feel an openness and a connection to the world beyond. Tired of keeping myself off the roads and denying myself new experiences, I decided yesterday that I would drive to Narbonne, an hour away, taking Beau with me.
Dr. Mougin gave me a medication for car-sickness to give Beau for long trips, so it seemed a ripe opportunity to travel. The weather was going to be hot and sunny all day and I had no appointments to keep in town, so nothing was holding me back.
Accordingly, Beau and I went to Narbonne. And found it charming. I had been there last year, although all I remember about it was being inside the Cathedral, and sitting in a café in front of the medieval town hall surrounded by visitors and thinking about global tourism. I had heard the story about how, during the MIddle Ages, the dispute between the bishop and the townspeople led to its not being completed, even in the present day. I had seen the large mural on the wall near the Tourist Office, of Narbonne’s favorite son, Charles Trenet, singer and songwriter (Bobby Darin made a hit of his song “La Mer”, under the title “Beyond The Sea”). And I had driven through last week, on the way to the beach at “Narbonne Plage”, the city’s suburban port. And nothing about Narbonne called to me.
Within the last week, though, I have developed itchy feet, and my American consciousness has begun to reassert itself, not to mention my New Yorker’s way of seeing the world. It is August, the weather is gorgeous for the first time since I arrived, and I am in a “New York State Of Mind”. Narbonne, with its crowds taking advantage of the weekly August “braderies” --inventory clearance sales-- suited me to a tee.
I was so glad to be sick of seeing so many people. I shopped and bought two articles of clothing for 10 Euros each; I bought postcards; I trawled the bookstores and returned with a new book, “An Erotic Thought A Day”:
‘When a man is in bed with his mistress and her legs are entwined in his, they are creeping vines.’
André Breton
Narbonne is a lovely city, and its Roman origins lurk near the surfaces of everyday life. There’s an Italianate liveliness, a curiosity absent in the back-country. The building fronts are ivory-colored, be they old stone slabs or cement or Second Empire. Beau and I arrive near noon, parking at the “de Bourg” parking area near Quai Dillon, off rue Voltaire, on the other side of the city center. It is easy to walk from Quai Dillon across one of the flower-draped “passarelles” over the “Canal de la Robine” (which cuts across the city) to the other side, where the crowds are.
Before travelling there, I want to note that the “Dillon” name is Irish, and borne by a distinguished American family which emigrated from Ireland to France to the United States and which owns Château Haut-Brion, one of Bordeaux’ great “crus”. They were known as “the wild geese” for fleeing from Ireland to France after the Irish defeat by the English in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, fleeing again when their closeness to the French crown proved problematic. The most famous American member of the family, C. Douglas Dillon, was President Eisenhower’s Secretary of the Treasury and his signature can still be found on paper bills printed during that era. It was thanks to the Dillon family that Harvard endowed a chair in French civilization occupied for many years by Lawrence Wylie, whose sociological studies of French village life in the 1950s and 60s are classics, windows on the era. The family’s link to Narbonne is Arthur Richard Dillon, made Roman Catholic bishop of Narbonne in 1763.
The Dillon connection comes into play again when I reach the “Hotel de Ville”. A confraternity of wine lovers, founded in the Middle Ages, is inaugurating two new members there at noon. The members of the confraternity are dressed in robes appropriate to a university commencement, although instead of black mortarboards, everyone is wearing red hats. A man with a microphone is moderating the ceremony from a small redoubt in a corner of the square, reading off the details of the event, along with other Narbonne news. The atmosphere is gay and chatty.
On the side streets off the square, the shops are busy, as the inventory clearance sales have brought in traffic. In Narbonne, a sizable number of men and women dress to be noticed, their hair styled, the garb elegant. Its a dramatic change from the Minervois, where the “life of the soil” dictates the most durable, practical clothing possible.
The giant mural of Charles Trenet is paired with another that gives the complete lyrics of one of his many songs (he wrote over a thousand), “L’Àme des Poètes”. Its carefree tone reflects the singer’s hometown, to which he always returned. (The translation of each line follows the French):
Longtemps, longtemps, longtemps
(Long after, long after, long after)
Après que les poètes ont disparu
(After the poets have died)
Leurs chansons courent encore dans les rues
(Their songs still haunt the streets)
La foule les chante un peu distraite
(The crowd sings them distractedly)
En ignorant le nom de l'auteur
(Paying no attention to the name of the composer)
Sans savoir pour qui battait leur cœur
(Without knowing him for whom their hearts beat)
Parfois on change un mot, une phrase
(Sometimes they change a word, a phrase)
Et quand on est à court d'idées
(And when they’re short of a thought (of where it goes)
On fait la la la la la la
(They say ‘la la la la la la’)
La la la la la la
(La la la la la la)
Longtemps, longtemps, longtemps
(Long after, long after, long after)
Après que les poètes ont disparu
(After the poets have died)
Leurs chansons courent encore dans les rues
(Their songs still haunt the streets)
Un jour, peut-être, bien après moi
(One day, perhaps, long after me)
Un jour on chantera
(One day someone will sing)
Cet air pour bercer un chagrin
(This air to lull a sadness away)
Ou quelqu'heureux destin
(Or the dream of a happy destiny)
Fera-t-il vivre un vieux mendiant
(Will enliven an old beggar)
Ou dormir un enfant
(Or make slumber a baby)
Tournera-t-il au bord de l'eau
(Turning himself by the sea shore)
Au printemps sur un phono
(In the spring, near a phonograph)
Longtemps, longtemps, longtemps
(Long after, long after, long after)
Après que les poètes ont disparu
(The poets have died)
Leur âme légère et leurs chansons
(Their lightness of soul and their songs)
Qui rendent gais, qui rendent tristes
(Which make happy and sad)
Filles et garçons
(Boys and girls)
Bourgeois, artistes
(Bourgeois, artists)
Ou vagabonds.
(And vagabonds.)
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