Today we celebrate our 10th year of being here.
A lot has happened over the decade.
But because everything around us and in our lives is now normal I find I'm pretty much talked out. No words of wisdom. No more jokes. No humorous highlights.
Nope. Nuttin. It's sure been fun, though.
I'll leave this blog on-line for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for reading.
I think this will be the second to the last blog entry I will make here before putting my rambling blabbering living in Europe comments on ice. But as I go, I'd like to share a couple things.
The subject of this post is nose *boops*.
My wife had friends over for tea, so I headed out to see the Salon International de l'Agriculture. It is held just down the street from where we live and I wanted to be away for a few hours to give Jude time to enjoy the company of her female friends.
The Salon is a farm show like only the French can put on. The animals are beautiful. The farmers seem passionate about what they do.
I started in the Pavillon dedicated to bovines. It was good to see that the animals had gotten used to the vast throngs of folk wandering around and petting the beasts that were within reach. I didn't want to add to the reaching and touching, so I let them be and just took photos and admired the living beings as they were.
One calf took a long look at me and came over to nose *boop* my hand. It'd been a long time since I'd been *booped* by such a cute animal. The last time was when we were in Nice and we went to see a very special guard dog who's domain happens to be a classic car shop. Our guard dog is a tiny little teckel a poil dur. He melted our hearts on first sight three years ago and try to visit him, to the delight of his owner, each time we're in town.
Returning to the Salon, not long after being *booped* by the calf I saw that a parade of Charolais cattle were being returned to their pens after putting on a show in a ring nearby.
I knelt down and took photos of the passing animals when one big guy, he must've been easily 1500kilos, came ambling along. What a magnificent animal he was, too.
He pulled up just in front of me, took a look my direction, and just stood there as if to say "Hi. I'm here for my photo, thank you." After a few moments and dozens of photos I stood up. He seemed to realize the photo was "in the can" and he could move along.
The young lady who was guiding him back to the stall said he knew how to "ham it up" for the camera and she, too, thanked me for taking his photo. I felt as if I'd been nose *booped* from a distance by a princely beast.
Spread across several Pavillons the show can be a little difficult on tender feet. There was so much I wanted to see, but knew I couldn't take it all in. One Pavillon I wanted to see the most was where the horses were kept. I headed over to have a final look at things.
The show ring didn't seem to have much of interest going on, so I wandered the aisles and had a look at how everyone was doing.
Just as in the bovine Pavillon I happened to be on an aisle when a show let out and handlers were bringing their animals back to their resting places. The horses were parading by when one headed my direction, and *boop* went his nose against the shoulder. The young lady who was guiding him said her horse liked me.
It would be interesting to do a study of nose *boops*, their frequencies, the reasons behind them, and what might be their effects on humans. But I will leave that for another more interested generation to sort out.
Snow.
Yes. You read it right.
No fool'n. Big. White. Fluffy. Flakes. Of. Snow.
No.
This is not snow.
But if you step outside and look up,
it kind of looks like this right now.
Living where we do, we absolutely know much how fortunate we are to live in peace. There is mental space and physical safety to do the things we want, like write these little amount to nothing important blog entries.
Not everyone has this option these days. We receive daily reminders of this fact and it's downright heartbreaking. People are being killed for a man's out-sized sense of power, control, and entitlement. We wish peace for everyone.
And the best of luck to Peter Turnley. He is in the Ukraine right now. What he says about the refugees and the photographs he is making of them fleeing the war zone gives serious pause.
-------------------------
The pandemic hit hard two years ago.
We were in Nice when in early March 2020 before a nation-wide confinement had been declared when we contracted the dreaded CV19 virus.
We were laid low for two weeks. Thoughts were strange. Food took on a new and "interesting" taste. We were weak and ached all over. We had a dry cough. We dearly hoped the virus would stay out of our lungs and knew if it didn't that we were to call the doctor as soon as we could.
It was truly a scary time. Not much was known about the virus and we'd gotten caught up in the first wave of it.
The train back from Menton was filled with coughing sick people from Italy where the first wave of Covid 19 had entered Europe. A few days later, sick and coughing Italians were at a table next to us in a small cafe one morning. Sick and coughing locals were all around us during a concert at Notre Dame du Port. We didn't stand a chance.
After recovering we learned that 80 percent of the people who contracted the new virus had effects similar to ours. It was the other 20 percent who got into trouble. A neighbor back in Paris contracted the virus and was in the hospital and rehabilitation for over four months. He survives, but he's not nearly what he used to be.
Feeling fortunate, we wonder if dragging ourselves out to the balcony to bask under the Mediterranean sun an hour and a half a day during our illness had a positive effect on our outcome. Though, in truth, our odds were 4 to 1 that things would be OK.
Due to the nation-wide lockdown we extended our stay another month. After having spent a total of 4 months on the cote d'Azur if felt strange flying back into Paris. People who did not live here were turned away. Large tour groups and many individuals were all sent back to flight re-booking desks and were blocked from passing immigration.
If there was anything that summed up the uncertainty of the time it was that our taxi driver was by his own admission Chinese. He refused to wear a mask, and he understood how the world was judging him.
Come January 2021 and things around France had opened enough that we could make the TGV trip back to Nice to spend the winter there for the third year in a row. It looked like the virus was being brought under control.
Except it wasn't under control at all and due to another set of restrictions we needed to extend our stay another month. We also received our first rounds of vaccine, there.
Toward the end of our 2021 winter stay my family blew up and I scrambled to get things re-aligned so my father could return to living a healthy, happy, stress-free life. To put balm to our wounds from family troubles we decided it was worth returning to Nice for a fourth time to just "chill."
This meant that during the 2 year Covid Crisis (which at this point seems nearly over, what with the virus becoming endemic, finally) we spent 11 months out of 24 down south. We were practically locals around Port Lympia and la place Garibaldi.
I realize it's not a bad way to spend a pandemic. Nice and the surrounding region is beautiful. No complaints there. Absolutely none at all. Fortune smiled.
OK. We might grouse in an increasingly French way over the details and some of the unevenness of restrictions as they were applied, and the idiocy we saw first hand (ie: protests against vaccinations and mask), but we are still alive.
Two people in our immediate and extended families died from Covid 19. Fortune frowned.
I recently groused to a friend in England that we were suffering so much from a "bunker mentality" that we didn't know how to behave now that things were opening up. He kindly offered to talk on a regular basis.
Before we could take he and his wife up on their offer it was as if the doors were flung wide open and our Dance Card was suddenly full.
Lunches out with friends. Salons down at la porte de Versailles. Photography exhibitions. Art exhibitions. More lunches with friends. Long walks through our city. Invitations to events and visits to more places that we could've ever imagined.
The need to show our passes sanitaire ends in 5 days. Mask restrictions are loosening up as well.
It's as if someone told us over the intercom that "you are now free to move about the cabin."
I'm sure we'll remember how to live openly and freely. I just wonder who long it'll take for us to get over the constant looking back over the shoulder to make sure we're not being stalked by viral death.
Living where I do, I _know_ very much how fortunate I am to live in peace. There is mental space and physical safety to do the things I want. Like write these little blog entries. Not everyone has this option these days.
I wish peace for everyone.
"Aujourd'hui la culture de l'immediatete a tout prix me fait chier."
- Didier Bourdon, Gueuleton #5
I had to stop and think about it, but I feel M.Bourdon is correct.
As we enter the third year of this pandemic I've had a lot of time to sit and look and consider and ponder. These LCD computer and cell-phone displays filled with all manner of gunk and stuff and crap add nothing to life, do they?
This trend of disconnecting from the things that me fait chier started when I realized that Facebook was not some passive platform where I could meet old and make new friends. Rather, Facebook allowed lies to be published unchallenged as the basis of creating conflict that keeps users engaged through the social media platform.
I opt'd out over four years ago and the silence took some getting used to.
Then I shut down my Instagram and Tumbler accounts.
The lack of online "engagement" created space and time in my life.
I figured that if things went "sideways" and there were suddenly tanks in the streets that I'd know what to do. Until then why not go out and live and enjoy and "engage" life unfiltered, unmanaged, un-commented on, and as life really is.
It feels so much better to go out and sit on the balcony that is lit under a winter Niçois sun and experience the Mediterranean sea... all the while looking forward to our return home and the promises and continued experiences of our simple, small lives.
I very much enjoy Terry Pratchett's way of thinking and expressing things -
“It's amazing how good governments are, given their track records
in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters.
One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too embarrassed to
talk about it.
It's not known why most of the space-going races
of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a
prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races
have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners
of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be
abductees. Some have been in fact abducted while waiting to carry out
an abduction on a couple of aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were,
as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into
circles and mutilate crops.
The planet Earth is now banned to
all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if
any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that
there is only one - who is big, hairy, and has very large feet.
The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.”
―
Hogfather
We were getting all gussied up to go visit something owned by the Prince of Monaco. While not exactly trying to look our Sunday Best, we were trying to appear somewhat acceptable.
Checking to make sure everything was in order we headed downstairs and out the front door to get into the car.
Except... there was something interesting that had taken place... very interesting, in fact...
The Bird God had blessed us. Mightily.
The Starlings that Murmur over Nice Port in late Fall, early Winter had done something very special for us. Or to us, depending on ones perspective.
Our car had been carpet bombed nearly to oblivion in Starling Poop.
Every side of the car except the bottom was covered in Bird Doo. And I mean every side. It had been a massive explosion.The cars in front and behind us were covered, too. The ground was neatly covered in a circle of Starling Carpet Bombing Loveliness. It was a Ripe Mess, and our car had been the epicenter of that Mess.
We'd never seen anything like it. One had to admire the accuracy and precision that is normally left to the Dreams of Military Generals. It was insane how completely the area had been saturated.
There was nothing for it but to go visit the Place of the Prince as we were. Covered in Bird Sh*t.
There wasn't time to stop for a wash. That would happen the next morning at a gas station up around the corner from us where they had an automated car wash named Christ.
You can't make this stuff up.
Until then the Monegasque Peoples would need to suffer the site of us for the day.
L'autoroute A6 passes right through the exact center of paradise. I'm talking about Beaune. OK? Just saying.
Non, je faisais l'accent bizarre et dur. Je parle le français comme un basque espagnol, moi.
The French are more than a little grumpy these days.
Australia was happily and willingly strong-armed by the Brits and Americans into buying their submarines instead of seeing out a multi-billion dollar contract for French made sou-marins. Ambassadors have been recalled. Shouting has ensued. Reactions have been registered. Realizations have been realized. The contract was blown up and France finds itself deep in la merde. Europe is now unofficially on it's own.
Since we've moved into our current apartment over nine years ago, the room where our shower is has smelled from time to time like, well, there's no other way to put it, shit.
We thought that its just how things are in Paris. Submarine contracts not withstanding.
None of the pipes were over flowing nor backing up. All the plumbing in the cabinet where le tuyau descende and le chauffe-eau lives have always been dry and seemingly in good condition.
It smelled like shit. That's all. Not always, but often enough we could complain about "that special Paris perfume."
A year or so ago our old neighbors upstairs moved out and a young man who works in informatique bought the place and moved in. He loves to talk. His French is clipped and fast. One has to be well on their Foreign Language Translation Toes to keep up with him. And forget about getting a mal-formed poorly-accented mot in edge-wise.
Across the hall from M.Iformatique lives a very kindly gentleman. Our neighbor also happens to be one of three coproprietaire representatives to the syndic in our building. So it can be useful to wave to him and share a few words from time to time. He worked in aerospace and has a beautifully honed wonderfully refined sense of French humor.
One day someone frappait la porte and we found M.Iformatique at our doorstep. Long story short, it took us 30 minutes to get to the point, his place smelled like shit.
What happened next was a series of meetings to talk about the problem. This was followed by a series of inspections of the cabinets where le tuyau descende and le chauffe-eau live in the two apartments in question. Which was followed by a series of SMS that indicated time and date of smelling des odeurs. Then followed by an unannounced pre-09h00 visit from a plombier and M.Iformatique.
An inspection was made and a judgement rendered. There was nothing to do but to suffer les odeurs nauseabande. Or so we were told. Merde happens, right?
None of us were very happy with the pronouncement.
We decided that it would be helpful to have someone confirm or deny the initial prognosis. It was a bit like visiting a medecine and wanting to get a second opinion. So, in a very Gallic Manner, that is to say with careful planning, forethought, and precise execution a second plombier was summoned.
Just this morning we received a second unannounced pre-09h00 visit from a plombier and M.Iformatique. I was in the shower and la madame de la maison told them to come back in a few minutes. By the time they returned I was dry and dressed. This time M.Representive accompanied the two who originally knocked on the door.
A re-inspection was made. A lot of conversation was shared. M.Informatique had more than a few things to say. I did my best to keep up and stopped the flow of Gallic words to ask M.Plombier for une petite precision concerning the exact nature of his thoughts on the matter. The Gallic flow of words soon restarted and we circled and swirled around the subject to the point I was nearly drained.
M.Representive and I started a side-conversation where we considered the Sou-Marin Affaire. We agreed the French had been treated badly by the Anglo-countries. How could everything have fallen apart so? It was clear to us the real winners in all this would be the Chinese, and, indirectly, the Russians.
Coming back to the central sh*tty point of this missive, the Syndic will generate the necessary documents. Devis will be prepared by M.Plombier. Proprietaires will be contacted. Work will be considered. More Gallic words will be expressed and shared. We will see what happens.
After everyone left, it occurred to me that I should send M.Representative a short SMS explaining (attended by the proper humor emojis, of course) that if he was interested I had a spare submarine to sell.
His reply - Je m'en doutais!!! Just as I expected.
In the meantime, there is nothing to do but to suffer les odeurs nauseabande.
Merde happens.
I found this an interesting read. The Romans, it appears, laughed at many of the things we still find funny today.
I love this stuff. It's so silly and well thought out.
Someday I may return to more lengthy topics. But until then, enjoy the last of summer.
Many people in America believe that being near the top of the heap in a meritocracy equates to being wealthy. It's how we justify the 80-20 Rule, where 80 percent of the people have only 20 percent of the wealth, and vice versa.
We tend to tell ourselves and firmly believe the bottom 80 percent aren't as talented as the top 20 percent.
Is this really the case? Or is this just another thing we like to tell ourselves that helps us explain why we're at the various levels of wealth where we find ourselves?
"... When the team rank individuals by wealth, the distribution is exactly like that seen in real-world societies. “The ‘80-20’ rule is respected, since 80 percent of the population owns only 20 percent of the total capital, while the remaining 20 percent owns 80 percent of the same capital,” report Pluchino and co.
That may not be surprising or unfair if the wealthiest 20 percent turn out to be the most talented. But that isn’t what happens. The wealthiest individuals are typically not the most talented or anywhere near it. “The maximum success never coincides with the maximum talent, and vice-versa,” say the researchers..."
This is from an article on wealth and luck. I added the bold to the sentences I found most interesting.
It gives a radically different perspective, doesn't it?
How do we know what is true and what is not?
I ask this in the relation to the lies and half truths that too many people believe and tell each other.
Carl Sagan had a few thoughts on the matter and I think they can be helpful. Hence his Baloney Detection Kit.
I particularly like the following quote of his.
"...In addition to teaching us what to do when evaluating a claim to knowledge, any good baloney detection kit must also teach us what not to do. It helps us recognize the most common and perilous fallacies of logic and rhetoric. Many good examples can be found in religion and politics, because their practitioners are so often obliged to justify two contradictory propositions..."
