It's an Art and AARO week

This is a busy, busy week for AARO-related activities and last weekend was devoted to art.

A bit of the room at the meetup

Monday, we had the now regular, monthly evening "meetup" meeting at Joe Allen at Les Halles, here in Paris (a good place for such meetings). This month, instead of just a social, no agenda, get-together for a drink, we decided to have our Overseas Americans Week recap. Last year, that was a meeting at the Mona Bismarck address, really for members and those in the know, only. This year, we decided to use the open, anyone-can-come, no-meeting-fee format. Only four of us had gone to DC as a delegation this year, so we didn't need a lot of time to recap. Tim and I, the newbies, gave our impressions of going to the Hill. Tim remembered how friendly everyone was in the different offices, how they have to sit through presentations such as ours all day and still be friendly. I gave a brief summary of what is in HR12, the Voter Empowerment Act, for us overseas Americans. In short, go to Title IX. There is now a sister bill in the Senate. In spite of its 200 pages, we hope it gets passed. Some of the points raised in my meeting with the Philadelphia Board of Elections are dealt with, such as the requirement to accept our overseas ballot requests before 45 days before the election and to accept a request for all elections in the year to be honored. This is something they adamantly didn't like in Philadelphia; they told me they really wanted us to send our requests in no sooner than 7 weeks before an election and for each election. It also deals with the states' obligations to send out the ballots 45 days before the election and to report on success or failure to do so, and to be able to use express delivery to send out ballots as the election gets closer and for voters to return ballots by express delivery -- thus taking away the postal services monopoly. Lucy spoke to the aide in Representative Lewis's office who was most involved with this legislation when we were in DC and she was very impressed by the aide. John gave a summary of the residence-based taxation proposal that we support. Lucy encouraged all of us to become delegates in our own fashion by writing and phoning our representative's offices and establishing good connections with their aides and visiting them when in Washington. It was a well-attended meeting, but not a packed house. A group of us stayed on for dinner, so I didn't get home until very late.
Tuesday was our monthly board meeting.
This evening is the second tax meeting, called tax seminar 202. This meeting is going to be packed. I printed out 70 attendee stickers! John will be heading this meeting and, from what I understand, will be covering FATCA as well as tax issues.

This is my exercise on perspective
using primary (red) + binary (green)

 Over the weekend, I attended another "color workshop" at La Charpente. It didn't seem as well organized as the first one. I was rather lost in the instructions and had to start over a few of the exercises, and I was not the only one who was so confused. But I think I do understand how to work with colors better and create harmony rather than clashes.

Aude did a more complete job, orange and blue

It's tiring to do all those strips, mixing the colors, from saturated to grayed, to adding white, or later, black. My back is still killing me.
I haven't done any work on the negatives this week, but I have shared the black and white photos from the late 60s with the interested parties. Ken (Living the Life in Saint-Aignan) came out with a delightful nostalgia piece, using the photos. And via the web, I found the son of friends from those days and phoned his office and left a message asking his parents to get in touch and they did that yesterday. I'm kind of looking forward to renewing contact with them after so many years. They were really good friends and I'm not quite sure how we just dropped from each other's radar.
Now, off to that AARO tax meeting... and painting, tomorrow.

Bum shoulder

Still snowing as I finish up this post

Here we are, mid-March, and it's snowing again. Before the snow, we had freezing rain, so it's very slippery out. I think I'll not go to the library today. I have to return the video projector to the AARO office and I think that can wait until tomorrow, too. Tomorrow, I want to spend some time with Gwen and Sacha. So, I hope the weather cooperates. 

What really astounds me is that OAW was a full month ago! Before that week started, I had a couple of very nice, even snowy, days in Swarthmore. J and E live very near the college campus in a beautiful, comfortable house with their two Basenji dogs, who entertained me thoroughly. We went to see "Silver Linings Playbook" and it was strange to recognize the local places. Well, I didn't recognize them, except that I knew it had been filmed nearby, but J & E certainly recognized the high school, the diner, etc. That was followed by a light supper with K & J. K is another discovered Girls High mate! I can't say enough how wonderful it has been, these past few years, to discover these wonderful women I never knew before. What is great about having never known them in the past, or having no memory of ever knowing them, is that I have no pre-conceived ideas of what kind of people they are -- none of that "we weren't in the same crowd" attitude. The ones I do remember are also wonderful; I'm very pleased to meet so many more.  Speaking of light supper, that was a fantastic homemade minestrone, a complete meal, hot and filling, followed by a thick, homemade pumpkin pie. Whoever complains about how badly Americans eat (French friends do that), they just don't get fed in homes! They certainly don't get fed by J!

Leaving them for Washington, in spite of the snow, I managed to catch my train to D.C. It was so cold, some fo the train's doors were frozen shut and some refused to close once they opened, so we were a few minutes late getting in. Connecting to the D.C. metro, though, is easy and I called T & B, who met me at the Hyatt, which is just at the exit of the Bethesda station. Good thing, too, because it was very, very cold and I didn't have to wait outside. We had a good lunch, there. Of course, we ended up with doggy bags because the servings were too big. On Sunday, we went to a local art show and then they dropped me off at the house my OAW mates and I had rented via airbnb. Ben, the host, was there waiting for me and showed me around. It's right across the street from a supermarket, but we didn't need to get any food. M, one of my housemates, arrived with a ton of food from Costco that she'd bought in anticipation of our kickoff get-together that evening at G's appartment. We had too much food, way too much. We left some of the leftovers with G and brought the rest home with us. Even after we had a mid-week get-together at our place, we still had leftovers, which I hope our hosts managed to finish off. J and I each had our own rooms and M had the sofabed and we did not get in each other's way getting up, using the bathrooms, etc. We had a nice dining table to do our evening prep work and just chat around. It was a short, direct walk to the metro station (Potomac Ave.) and only two stops to Capitol South. We were definitely the closest to our daily destination. I would certainly try to get this house again for the next OAW!

The jigsaw puzzle

All things come to an end and I left DC on Friday to go to Boston to see E & M. E is a true Girls High friend, one that I've never lost touch with, one I love and we can just pick up our conversation. At last I got to relax. It was relaxing at J & E's, but I was jet-lagged. It was relaxing at T & B's, but I was excited and a bit anxious about the week to come. At E & M's, the week was over; jetlag was over; I could relax. Besides, it was going to snow, so we didn't go out. We talked, and talked, and talked and started a jigsaw puzzle, and listened to "Car Talk" and "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". I have now programmed my nice internet radio to NPR podcasts, and to a several stations in the US and the UK, too. 

E & M digging out to take me to the airport!

Since just before Christmas, my shoulder has been hurting. I started out taking something for the pain and inflammation, but there was no change in the pain, so I didn't keep it up. In addition to the shoulder, the biceps hurts constantly, as if I were By the end of January, my right arm could hardly move, but our trip to England, followed by my trip to the States was coming up, so I went to see an osteopath here n Nogent and he worked more than an hour on my locked joints and got my arm to move. He sent me home with a recommendation to put ice on my shoulder and warned me it might hurt a bit more for a few days. We went off to England and my shoulder hurt more and then settled to its regular pain. In the couple of days home, before leaving for the States, I decided not to go back to the osteopath so soon, because I really couldn't bear having it hurt more again when I needed to wear a backpack and pull a suitcase. I had a very good massage at the airport in Boston on my way home; I could feel the knots undoing. And on arriving home, I went straight to the osteopath, who did his thing and remarked that it was easier to manipulate the joints. It was not more painful in the following days and I managed to lift my arm and use it. The next week was even a bit better. I still needed to make an appointment with the doctor because this is not the first time I've had this and I need to have the underlying cause of it taken care of. With the school vacation, though, I can't get through to her. This past week, I've regressed to where I was two months ago and I realize how time flies. I guess, too, that I'm trying to compensate for awkwardness and straining my back in the process. Tomorrow -- return to the osteopath.

Sorry to complain. But that's why I haven't felt like writing much.  I have managed to get back to scanning the negatives and I came across more than 200 black and white negatives of Paul's that go back to before we met. I scanned those yesterday and am trying to figure out some order to them. I'll put a few up on Picasa to share with D.L., P & J, and K. B. -- some pictures of the Pierwige from 1967-69! Only a few more days to go with the negatives and I'll be all caught up on what I have. But still can't find the ones that got me started on this -- from the trip out West in '93. I found the first part of the trip -- Jon and Tobi's new house, Claire holding the baby, Eric, Louis' birthday party at Terry and Roger's, some beautiful black and white shots of Roger's furniture...and scattered photos from the West.