The (good and not so good) old days

 It's funny how conversations have turned, recently. Last week, we had a meeting of the yarn group and we were talking about our parents' deaths. Not a cheerful subject, but one person's father had just died, only 11 weeks after her mother had died. She did not have to rush back because the memorial service was not going to be until May. It was a different story in January. And it was even different just the week before because her father was failing fast and she was faced with the question of dropping everything and rushing off to the airport. Distance makes all this hard on us. 

I remember a friend whose father was dying and she jumped on a plane but he died before she got there. She was broken up about that but was present for her mother. Another friend went back and stayed and stayed and stayed until her mother died. I was present almost at the end. I almost stayed. My father insisted that I go home where my new job was waiting for me. I went home. I got the number at the Atlanta airport (not the 800 number) so that my uncle could contact the airline and me in case I should not get on the flight to Paris. The call did not come; I got on the flight. When I got home, I got a call that he had just died. I did jump back on a plane the next morning. More for my mother. But I get that my friend last week did not rush back. This was her second parent to go and there was no parent to console if she went back. 

When my grandmother died, no one thought to call me and I didn't learn of her death until I received the letter from my brother (probably 10 days after he sent it) telling me he had just gotten back from her funeral. When my other grandmother died, though, 10 years later, I did get a call. There was still no question that I would jump on a plane to go to the funeral. 

Later, with another friend and a similar subject, we were talking about how slow communication was when we first arrived in France 50 some years ago. We didn't receive phone calls because we didn't have phones. Landlines! There was a waiting list for phones. We rarely made calls to the U.S. They were expensive. I made collect calls. Making any kind of call meant going to the post office and requesting the call, then, waiting an hour or two for the call to go through. Even calling from someone's home required waiting for the call to go through. (My brother-in-law had the kind of job that required a home phone for emergency contact.) Our main means of communication was via aerograms. 

Aerograms were one sheet of extra-long, lightweight blue paper that was pre-stamped at a lower rate than an air-mail stamp. You could get a long letter written using both sides of the paper, carefully avoiding the address section. It would take about 10 days for this to arrive in the U.S. and another 10 days for the reply. 

By the '90s, there was a system whereby we could call a local number that would call back and we'd dial the U.S. number. This was much cheaper than the PTT rate for calling. Much cheaper does not mean cheap, though, so we didn't call often. We were simply not in the habit of calling. By the time internet came to our family via Compuserve, we used that system to collect email in one call and then reconnect to send email. Email replaced the aerogram. In France, we had Minitel back in the early '80s, but we did not have domestic internet service, yet. Shortly after, though, AOL set itself up in France (or was Club-internet first?) Our family was early an early adapter. With AOL came the Buddy List for chats. 

Then came cell phones. Triple-play internet service (internet, landline, TV) and with that, free international phone calls from the landline. And WhatsApp replaced Skype for free calls from the mobile. 

My friend whose father just died got a phone call. She was at a party. It got me thinking that maybe slower communication was not such a bad thing. 

Fall frenzy

I don't know if it's the coming end of the World Series, and of course I'm for the Phillies, or if it's the upcoming election but my eyes are focused on the US these days.

The World Series is exciting. It's amazing that the fairies are even in the running. It's amazing that they have won two games of the series. Maybe they will even it out tonight, maybe not. It's been quite a run. 

The election, on the other hand, is depressing. I hope the Democrats do not lose the House and I hope they do not lose the Senate but the chances that they will not lose both are very very slim, according to all the reports one sees.

Black Indians from New Orleans -- exhibit at the Quai Branly, Jacques Chirac Museum

Most Parisians still call it the Quai Branly Museum (and the URL of the museum is still m.quaibranly.fr). Then it was known also as the Musée des Arts Premiers (Primal (as in "first", not "Primitive" after a short period of "Arts Primatifs") and it was finally named in honor of Jacques Chirac, who was the instigator of its creation and a great collector. It has great permanent collections from Asia, Oceania, the Americas, and Africa. Many items should probably be returned to their countries of origin, leaving many that were purchased and can stay. 

This exhibit is extraordinary. It's far more vast than just New Orleans and it's far more vast than just the Black Indians and the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs (SPAC) in New Orleans, today. To start, there are maps of the Native American villages along the Mississippi valley before the Europeans arrived. There are maps showing the expeditions of the French explorers as they traveled across the Atlantic and then down the Mississippi, finally establishing the settlement in New Orleans. There is a room devoted to the slave trade, the boats, the conditions suffered during the Middle Passage and the accounting of how many people per ship and how many were lost. The French kept good accounts! 

The exhibits show art and artifacts from the Native American tribes, from Africa, and even the glass beads from Venice that were the currency of the slave trade. 

Then there are the rules under which slaves were held - le Code Noir, associated with Colbert, then Secretary of the Navy. Writing it was actually finished by his son. There were different versions for the French territories. All the slaves were to be Catholic, for example, and had Sundays off. In contrast to the British colonies, there was no rule against comingiling among the slaves and with the Native Americans, many of whom were also slaves in the first years of colonization. On Sundays, they would meet in what became Congo Place. They could speak their languages, play their music, especially the drums, and dance. Their cultures survived. 

Some images are just too graphic to stomach. In paintings and, later, photographs show the conditions under which the slaves were held and punished.

The Seven Years War, known to Americans as the French-Indian War, brought about monumental changes. Louisiana became Spanish, Canada became English. This was in 1765 and in 1800, Spain returned most of Louisiana (minus the Texas part) to France. France, under Napoleon, sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803. 

Under U.S. rule, New Orleans became the slave trade capital of the country. Living conditions for the slaves became even harsher. There is a room devoted to emancipation and to the Jim Crow laws, the rise of the KKK.

Throughout these rooms that go through the history of the Black population in the French territory and pinpointing New Orleans, there are magnificent contemporary costumes of the chiefs that they wear during the Second Line parades. If you click on the images to enlarge them, I hope you can read the information cards. Also, look carefully and the images embroidered on the costumes' fronts; they tell a story. The final room, where many costumes are assembled, is about the SPACs and there is a short film about them. (In fact, there are short films about all different aspects of the exhibit, throughout, but this one was on a big screen and had better seating.)

This exhibit, created by the Musée Jacques Chirac, merits traveling around the world and especially around the United States. 

A bit of catching-up

Last time I wrote was in April, after my fall. It's time to catch up on me and on the house. This is running a bit long, so the house will be covered in the next post.

Recovery is going fine. I go to the kiné (PT) a couple or three times a week for half-hour or hour-long sessions and I walk, more or less, without a limp. I may be a bit slower than before, but that might also be due to the heat. I can stand on one leg and kee okp my balance for about a minute. The right leg, the more recent hip replacement, is even better at that than my left leg. I'm able to do the other exercises, as well. I think PT will be ending, soon. 

I didn't describe the hospital stay in the previous post. When I fell, a little after 6 p.m., I hurt my leg and my elbow. It took a long time for the fire company EMTs to arrive, so I didn't get to the nearest hospital until at least an hour after I fell. The EMT stayed with me until the ER person came to get me and transfer me to one of their gurneys. I don't remember how long that took, but there were quite a few of us in the passageway waiting. In the meantime, Louis had come to the hospital, but could not come to where I was, due to COVID restrictions. Those same restrictions were enforced in the ER, so I convinced him he should go home. 

Once in the ER, a nurse took my vitals, swabbed my nose for a COVID test, and told me I'd have x-rays. It was about 10 when I was taken down to the x-ray, but there was a long, cold wait, there, too. It was hard getting into the position on the table, but they x-rayed my leg and my elbow. I was eventually taken up to a darkened room to sleep. I don't know how many beds there were; we were well separated by curtains. There was one person (doctor?) in front of a computer and one nurse for us all. At some point, I was finally given some pain medication and I dozed. At 2 in the morning, the person who had been at the computer came over to me and told me that I had a hip collar fracture. She did not mention the elbow. I dozed off, again, and at 3, an orthopedic resident (intern, in French) came over and told me I was going to be operated on some time in the morning but since there were no beds available in the ortho ward, I'd stay in ER until the operation. 

Before they took me to the OR, I managed to alert the club that I wouldn't be able to do the scorekeeping on Saturday. I also wrote to postpone another procedure that was scheduled and sent an email to the surgeons who had done my shoulder and hip (left) replacements. I was afraid I might have harmed the shoulder. Paul also asked me to take care of a few things, which I did, all from my phone. 

Then, it was time to relinquish my things, about 10 a.m. Valuables -- cash, credit card, Sécurité Sociale card -- were put into a bag and taken away to be locked up. My clothes, which had spent the time thrown into a plastic bag at the foot of my bed, were taken somewhere else. My handbag was left with me until we reached the elevator to go to the OR. One of the aides said she'd take it up to the 3rd floor, where I was going after surgery. And that was the last I saw of my possessions.

After surgery, I was taken up to the 3rd floor. Louis was there. I asked if he could find my things. No luck. The rest of the day, I dozed. On Saturday, I had visits: Paul, Louis, and Anne. Even one of the grandchildren snuck in with Louis. 

Ah, the weekend -- wherever my things were, they were not going to be found until Monday. I saw the post-op doctor, who assured me nothing was wrong with my elbow. It was the bruising. Still, I couldn't move my arm much. I couldn't turn my palm upwards, which was what the nurse needed to draw blood. I couldn't get food all the way to my mouth; I had to push my head forward to meet the fork. I couldn't extend my arm. Paul had brought my crutches (from the left hip replacement) and I got up to sit in the chair. 

Monday, I managed a few steps across the hall but almost fainted on the return. Turns out I was anemic.

Finally, Anne spent the better part of her visit on Monday trying to find my things. They weren't at the ER; they weren't at the desk in Ortho. They weren't anywhere anyone could think of. They were declared missing, except for the little bag with my cash and cards, recovered from the ER. No clothes, no handbag with my wallet, my glasses, my phone, etc. She persisted. And miraculously, they all turned up at the hospital pharmacy!

Tuesday morning, I was looking forward to being released in a day or two. My release had been delayed because of the anemia. My roommate was leaving for rehab. Before her release, they did another COVID test on her in the morning. After lunch, they took her to a private room; she had tested positive. They didn't test me until later in day, but they did not place anyone else in the room with me, either. The next day, I was told my test was negative, but that I was going to a private room and would not be released because I needed to do a full quarantine "as if" before going to rehab. 

It took a few days, but I was managing on crutches pretty well, so we managed to convince them to release me to home instead of to a rehab center on Saturday. That whole week, no one really listened to me when I asked what was wrong with my elbow.

The care at the hospital -- the nurses, the nurses' aides, the cleaning staff -- was always good. Staff was short, though, so waits were long. I was not happy with the doctor who came every other day and was only interested in my hip. This was a major Parisian hospital. COVID has created staff shortages, as it has all over the world. I made appointments to see my surgeons about 6 weeks after the fall. The hip guy gave me a thorough exam and said the hip is fine. The shoulder guy, who is also an elbow guy, had me have another x-ray. He saw something and prescribed an MRI. That was done in mid-June and there is a little unconsolidated fracture, which explains the ongoing discomfort. Mobility is getting better and he expects the discomfort to go away by September, when he wants me to check in with him, again.

At home, we had our favorite nurses coming by every evening for a few weeks to give me my anti-coagulant shot, change the dressing, take the blood for tests -- to do whatever was needed that day. Paul dropped me off at the kiné on Tuesday for my first session of massage therapy. But the following week, I was making my way on crutches: 550 m. each way! And between PT sessions, I was walking around the block.

Cost: All of the hospitalization expenses were fully covered by Sécurité Socialé (surgery, medicine) and the mutuelle (the €24/day food charge, the private room charge for the last few days); the home nursing was fully covered. The only out-of-pocket expense has been a few euros for each Kiné session because he charges above the Sécu-approved rate, my private consultations with my own ortho surgeons, and some of the x-ray, MRI, and CTscan cost. And that €500 will be covered by our accident insurance.

A bit of an accident

 Wow, it's been a long time. Everything has been fine. We had a disconnected Christmas, the family distributed all over the place, so we celebrated quietly, at home. Anne came over. Same for New Year's Eve. Very quiet and I think we appreciate quiet sometimes.

At the Winter school break, Chl came to spend the week with us because she was enrolled in the pony club week-long half-days of activity. It was great fun. So much so, she is doing it again, during Spring break, next week. 

A little over two weeks ago, I fell. I missed the curb and tripped onto the street, landing on my right side. I knew something was wrong when people tried to help me up and ended up dragging me to the sidewalk. One guy, who actually saw me fall came running from his work and stayed with me until the pompiers (Fire brigade EMTs) arrived to take me to a hospital, told me that I was the 10th person he'd seen fall exactly as I had at that spot and that the city was aware of the dangerous extra-high curb. As soon as I'm really up and about, I'll go back and thank him, again. He called the security people from the Gare de Lyon; some police showed up; other passers-by stopped to see if they could help. I felt very well surrounded.

So, today I voted. I had hoped to be able to walk (with crutches) all the way to the polling station. It's normally a 5-minute walk. I just don't have the stamina I hoped for. Paul drove me over and picked me up. That's done.

I'm making headway with our taxes. I am in the process of calculating the French tax on something in order to claim a foreign tax credit on the U.S. taxes. Then, I can finish both the U.S. and French declarations. I just can't sit for long. It's stop and go. 

And that's it. 

Fall is Beautiful!

 I've become lazy. I don't feel like writing. More precisely, I don't feel like opening the computer, and typing or swooshing on the phone just doesn't work for me. There's not really anything new, just routine.

Since my last post was over 3 months ago, though, there is some catching up to do. We returned to Ginals early in July with the two Parisian grandchildren. They stayed with E & G; we stayed at our base - Hôtel Belle Rive in Najac. They had a great time helping around the property. We all did a little tourism. I'm very proud to announce that I managed to go up to the center of Cordes-Sur-Ciel and back down. The new hip is doing its job. It was a pleasure to be able to walk and go up and down steep hills. In this part of France, most picturesque medieval villages are perched high up overlooking a valley. We went to the market at St.-Antonin-Nobel-Val and had lunch at the Auberge des Sens. It was almost like old times -- not quite as crowded as in the past, but still bustling.

Delapre Abbey

The U.K. family canceled their trip to France because of the ever-changing Covid rules. Would they have to do multiple expensive tests upon return to the U.K.? Would they have to quarantine? At home? In a hotel? It was looking like a logistical and economic nightmare so they canceled. We went to them, instead. By the time we decided, it was pretty clear that if we had to quarantine it would be at their home. And if we needed tests, there are only two of us versus five of them, so much less expensive. In the end, we did not have to quarantine and we only had to do the "Day 2" test. We got to spend some much-needed cuddle time with them. 

Delapre Abbey

We went to a history event at the Delapre Abbey. There were stands all around the "parade" ground with embroidery, fabric dyeing, music, cooking, and other demonstrations of the 17th century revolutionary times. Inside the Abbey, there was a "dentist/doctor" demonstrating the various medical devices of the time. Everyone manning the stands seemed to be quite an expert in his or her field. I think we all learned a lot. The kids seemed captivated.

Another day, we went to Sulgrave, touted as the ancestral home of George Washington. In a way, yes. But his family had left the home many generations before George Washington was born. His great-great-great-great-grandfather built it in the 16th century but it was no longer in the family by the mid-17th. By 1911, it was a rundown farm. My take on it is that owners wanted to sell at the same time a group of investors was looking for a symbol of 100 years (give or take) of Anglo-American friendship. It was purchased in 1914 but restoration had to wait for the end of World War I. It is U.S. property. You are on U.S. soil when you are there. They have a beautiful garden and an extensive apple orchard. 

We were lucky to be there for A's birthday at the end of August, but by the time C's birthday came around, we were already home. Right now, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the girls on their first school break. In England, as in France, there's a two-week break after about 6 weeks in school. 
In September, P & G came up from Six-Fours for a week. They stayed in Paris and we got together with them for lunch and the Botticelli exhibit at the Jacquemart-André Museum. I'm not a real fan of Botticelli. Interesting, but not riveting, for me. 

Fall is also the period of doing the medical rounds. I'm seeing doctors, getting all the check-ups, and so on. In France, our flu shots will be available from October 26. I've got my 3rd Covid shot scheduled for the 29th. Then, in November, my mammogram and an unrelated minor surgery. By mid-November, I should be clear of all the routine stuff. It's as if the beginning of the school year is still the beginning of my year. 

Ready to go!

First of all, Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend is already published. BookBaby has been distributing the pre-orders, not waiting for the July 4 publication date. Susan, our chief editor, who laid out all the publishing cost, has recovered her expenses and from that point on, all the money goes to the alumnae association for a scholorship for a Girls' High girl for college. On BookBaby, you can order an e-version and or the print version, but the Kindle version will not be out until it's available on Amazon, which, I suppose will be next week. If you are thinking of ordering it, via BookBaby will allow us more funds for the alumnae association than Amazon will.

For anyone wondering about the cover, the school has pink marble halls (and the real cover is more pink than the purple in this image) and there is a replica of the Winged Victory in the main hall. 

We went to Najac for a few days earlier this month, visiting Emma and Gabriel in Ginals, and we came back with Emma, who spent a few days going to museums and trying to see friends. She managed to see her best friend since Ecole Maternelle (pre-K) but was not so successful with the other visits and her appointment with the dentist was cancelled at that last minute because of water damage in the office or the building. Not a complete failure, but not a complete success, either. 

While we were there, I took picures of the vegetable garden. We picked lots and lots of cherries and we came home with some fresh artichokes, which I just finished up cooking, yesterday. Here, I managed to pick some raspberries this past week. It's not the kind of crop we've had in the past. There are fewer plants and they are not producing as much. I did manage to make a small jar of jam, though. And I suppose we'll get some more to eat this week.

Yesterday, Anne invited me to the Magritte / Renoir exhibit at the Orangerie. We had lunch together beforehand. Our reservation was for 2:00 p.m. It's not a big exhibit and doesn't take much time to walk through. I liked seeing the Renoir and Magritte paintings associated like that. I would not have imagined such a powerful influence on Magritte. I was also impressed by Magritte's efforts to lighten up the Surrealist movement during and especially after the war -- to focus on the positive. There are arrows on the floor to make sure you follow the flow and, of course, there aren't many people allowed in each time slot. It makes it really pleasant. You can step back to see the whole picture; you can get up close if you need to. Since it didn't take us much more than half an hour, we walked through some of the permanent exhibit - Matisse, Picasso - and sat for a while among Monet's Waterlilies, where I really appreciated not having a crowd block the view between the seat in the center of the room and the paintings. This is one nice effect of the Covid restrictions. 

From there, we went up the Champs-Elysées by métro because I was not feeling up to the walk from Concorde almost all the way up to the Arc de Triomphe. That gave us time for a smoothie at a café (2 smoothies cost us more than lunch for the two of us!) before going to the movies (again, thanks to Anne) to see "Minari". It's the Korean Film Festival week. A foreign movie, on a weekday afternoon -- I think there were not more than 10 of us in the theater. That's too bad. It's a good movie. 

It was a full day out and about in the city. I can't remember the last time I had such a day. I hope to start up my Navigo transportation pass again in September and go into Paris more frequently as I used to. 

Spring has sprung

After a pleasantly warm last end of winter, we had a chilly and rainy beginning of spring.

Sunday, May 30, was the day Americans in France were invited to celebrate Memorial Day, since it is not a French holiday and Monday is not a day off. It was a glorious morning -- blue sky, blazing sun. Paul and I drove to Marnes-la-Coquette to attend the ceremony at the Mémorial de l'Escadrille Lafayette once again. Since I was representing AARO, even though we had not sent a wreath, we were in the widely spaced seats just in front of the monument. There were only 30 seats this year because of Covid-19 restrictions still in effect, here. Masks are still de rigueur, even outdoors, too. As usual it was a lovely ceremony, shorter than usual. It started at 10:30 with a flyover of four jets (2 Rafales from the Escadrille Lafayette based in the south of France and 2 U.S. planes from Utah). The mayor of Marnes-la-Coquette gave her two distinct speeches, one in French, the other in English. The Chargée d'Affaires, Brian Aggeler, spoke on behalf of the Embassy, but the French and American generals did not speak this year. There was a tiny honor guard, no live music for the national anthems and taps. The speeches were followed by the presentation of the wreaths -- not as many as usual. The event was over by 11. Still, I wouldn't have missed it. It's an honor and a pleasure to attend.

The books ("Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend"), arrived! The release date was supposed to be July 4, but they sent out advance copies. There are a few glitches in these advance copies and the publisher is replacing them with the final edition, or so I've been told. When I've got confirmation that the glitches are history, I'll repost the link to order. The ones I've ordered are for my kids.

Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend is ready for pre-orders

I have already told you that my high school classmates have been meeting on Zoom since May 2020. We've been getting closer and closer since the 40th reunion back in 2008, first with an email list, then in a private Facebook group, and spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic, on Zoom.

I've already told you that some of us, 43 to be exact, have written an anthology of our memoirs: Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend.

Quoting from a friend's publication notification:

"A Woodstock Icon, a Judge, a Columbine survivor, an Archaeologist, a Midwife/Pot Farmer/CEO, a Sex Therapist, Accountants, a Linguist, Dancer, a Molecular Biophysicist, Artists, a Film Production masochist, a Ballistic/Engineer Scientist, a Topless Dancer who became a Nurse, numerous Teachers, Writers and Doctorates & many Wives and Mothers - all well imagined and fully realized women, these are our Authors.

"Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend will be released July 4^th 2021 and is now available to pre-order in either print or e-book. Please visit our page at: BookBaby.com 

"All the profits from the sale of this book will go toward scholarships at our alumnae association at The Philadelphia High School for Girls. It is our gift to Girls’ High for what it took many of us fifty-plus-years to realize - that there were influences bestowed upon us by just being Girls’ High girls - even as some of us, including me, were kicking and screaming at the time. The stories are from the straight-A-students to the summer school attendees… varied and as unique as they all are – the forty-three seventy-year-old-women who were once teenagers together in an all girls’ school 1964-68 and who continue to share their tears & laughter…

"We have also started a blog and we’d love to see you there: Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend

I may be posting more on the Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend blog -- at least for serious thoughts.
.  

Another blog to read

I've mentioned that during this pandemic year a group of high school friends have been meeting and sharing stories in almost bimonthly Zoom meetings. In fact, some of us went so far as to write and the book, Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend, will be published, soon. As soon as I have the link, I'll let you know.

In the meantime, we have a blog but it's not ready yet. I have just deleted the link. It's not my blog; it's ours and I will repost the link very soon.

Why "girlfriend"? It's Girls High. The official name of the school is the Philadelphia High School for Girls. We are the 212, the 212th graduating class, the class of 1968.

Vaccinated

My second shot of Pfizer vaccine was yesterday, April 30. Done. No serious side effects -- just a sore arm and it's no longer sore this evening. Of course, for the full effect, I have to wait two weeks. That is not a big burden. 

I think I mentioned that some of my Girls High classmates have written a book. It all started in our mini reunions on Zoom a year ago as we started dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. We talked: what we were doing or no longer able to do; politics, as we got ready for the 2020 elections; George Floyd and Black Lives Matter; our families; and anecdotes. As the lockdowns loosened after the first wave, we then hunkered down again in the fall with new lockdowns. We kept talking and, from memories of who we were 50 some years ago, what we felt then, who we are today, and what this pandemic with Zoom meetings has meant to us, forty-three of us contributed to this book "Unmute Yourself, Girlfriend". It's not yet ready for the pre-publishing hoopla-la. I'll give the link when it's ready.

I'm in France and these periods of restrictions are called confinements, here. We are now entering the de-confinement, which is in stages from Monday, May 3, to mid-June. It's gone much faster in the U.K. and in U.S. We looked at the calendar and determined we might get on the road after May 19. Since we'll stay at a hotel, we need to have the possibility to have dinner at the hotel. We have some appointments and will have to wait a few days past the 19th. Before the end of the month, though, we should be off! It's exciting!

Getting ready to go somewhere, anywhere!

 Am I getting ready, really? No. Until we know what the schedule for deconfinement is, it is hard to get ready. Mentally, I am ready. We think that the weekend in mid-May will be free, but that is going to be a '-day weekend anyway from Ascension Thursday. We fear there just may be too many people on the road. I don't really care. We could leave a day or two before that and or come back a day or two after. I would simply like to go down to see E and G. The car needs to go on a trip!

Over the past few months, a bunch of my classmates wrote some essays that we have compiled into a book. That book will be coming out, soon. Our editing team is expecting the second version from the publisher. We hope there will be no more changes, that they get the cover right this time. If so, publication will follow! This is what comes from our now regular Zoom reunions!

Paul and I have been having even more frequent Zoom reunions with our Pierwige friends. We are a group of 5 couples. We've travelled together to Malta (and some more), to Portugal , to Valencia, Spain, the Camargue, France, and Andalusia, Spain. We're talking about a possible trip to Germany towards the end of summer. 

Meanwhile, here, in the Paris region, the weather is fine. I bet they'll start talking about a drought before too long. We had a cold snap a couple of weeks ago and that has guaranteed us higher fruit prices, again, this year. Every year, there is something that means production will be low and prices high. That's not always true. This is asparagus season and the news reports a couple of weeks ago were about the glut in the asparagus market. At our market, though, a bunch of 11 spears cost €13! That's outrageously expensive. You'd think that if there is a glut, the prices would be lower.

This confinement period meant that the kids, who had been in school with regular vacation breaks since the start of the school year in September, had a short week (Easter Monday is a holiday, here) of online school, then their 2-week Spring vacation. We had them for a few days, so their parents could work calmly from home, then the parents took a few days off and delivered them to their other grandparents. Normally, the Paris region's Spring break would have been a few weeks later, but the confinement, in all logic, had all the zones on the same schedule. This week, the primary school kids all went back to class. They've got saliva tests and at the first sign of Covid-19, the class goes back to online sessions. Middle school kids go back to class next week and high school kids, in mid-May in split in person and online classes. Our grandkids are still in primary. 

Baseball practice has continued. With the nice weather, I can walk over to watch. In fact, L had practice last Sunday and his family sat by the bleachers for a picnic. A hopped on a bus to the Bois and joined them and I walked over after our lunch at home. Next Sunday, the N°1 and N°2 teams will warm up together and play a practice game. I hope the weather holds up. I also hope that I do not have a severe reaction to the second Pfizer shot. I had my first dose on April 2 and the second one is this coming Friday. My arm was a little sore after the first shot, but no worse than after any other vaccination.

I need to go into Paris to return some books to the library. Maybe I'll pick up a lunch at Breakfast in America and walk home from there. It's a long walk but I need motivation to get out and walk. A destination, a purpose. A and I went to the arboretum a few weeks ago. We should go back now that all the trees have leaves out. I walked there. We also have a walk planned in the Bois de Vincennes to discover parts we are less familiar with. Maybe next Monday afternoon. 

Another month has gone by

There are many reasons for winter to be a slow time. for retired people: cold, clouds, rain, snow. Really, though, none of that has been the case for the last month. We had a stretch of fine weather. It's been above freezing, mostly clear skies, but I simply haven't felt like going out for walks. 

I haven't been knitting. I was trying to make a yoke for a yoke-neck sweater but I kept making mistakes due to lack of concentration. I'd restart, remember what went wrong, and make a different mistake. That has been frustrating, to say the least. 

The pandemic just won't stop. After the second wave hit and peaked in November, numbers of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths went down, but then hit a plateau that was still on the high level. For this past month, they slowly swelled up, but I guess they are now forming into a wave. The UK variant has become the dominant strain and its highly contagious. In Europe, and in France, particularly, vaccinations are still slowly coming. In France, communication from the government has been terrible. First, only those over 75 or with underlying conditions could be vaccinated and the only vaccines were the Pfizer and Moderna ones. When the Astra-Zeneca vaccine was finally approved, we were told that it would not be given to people over 65 because it hadn't been fully tested on that group. That left people between 65 and 75 in the lurch as the first priority group was not done, yet. After protest, that policy was reversed to allow people over 65 to get the Astra-Zeneca vaccine. Then, two weeks ago, throughout Europe, there were fears that some side effects of  the Astra-Zeneca were so dangerous as to require suspending its use. On Thursday, this week, the European agency said it was ok, so yesterday, France reinstated Astra-Zeneca and the Prime Minister got his shot. However, the official French recommendation is that people under 55 not get that one. It's so confusing that many people who had appointments for the Astra-Zeneca vaccine in pharmacies and doctors' office, even if they are in the "qualified" age group, are not showing up. I have stayed out of the fray. Back in February, my appointment for March 2 was postponed to April 2 at the Nogent vaccination center and I have not attempted to change it or get a vaccination elsewhere. I'll take whatever vaccination they have. 

In any case, if you follow the charts and maps on www.covidtracker.fr, you can see how Covid has been spreading. In France, we've had a curfew since November, first from 8p.m. to 6a.m., then tightened from 6 to 6. Restaurants have been shut for any service other than take-out or delivery. Movie and all theaters and museums are shut. It hasn't been enough. Starting this weekend, the Paris region, the northern departments all the way west into Normandy, and the Côte d'Azur are on a moderate lockdown. Essential businesses are open -- and this time, hair salons are essential. The curfew has been enlarged to 7p.m. to 6a.m. We can go out for sports and other physical activity without the 1-hour limit we had last Spring and we have a 10-km radius rather than the 1-km of a year ago. 

I can go to the ballpark! And yes, there is baseball because, for Parisians, the ballpark in the Bois de Vincennes is within the 10k limit and sport is allowed. For me, the field is close enough to walk to. They've been holding practice for several weeks, now. It's still up in the air whether they'll have actual games. L's been coaching the little kids for a few years and finally decided he wanted to play again, after an 8 or 9-year break. I don't think sitting in the bleachers to watch will be allowed, but it's a nice walk over there and back home -- 5k round trip -- and I like having a reason for a walk. I think that not having any purpose other than just "going for a walk" is why I've been so lazy. 

What a week!

Last week was the awful. We woke up on Friday morning to no heat and no hot water. Paul called the company that sold us the furnace and with which we still have a maintenance contract at a little after 6. He expected to get the answering machine but woke up the wife. He was told to call at 9, which he did, giving the error message showing on the furnace (a sensor on the air intake) and was told a technician would call him back. So we waited. At lunch time, Paul called, again, and the guy hung up after saying he was eating. Half an hour later, Paul called, again and was told the technician would call…. This went on all afternoon. At a little past 7 p.m. he called once more and got a young guy who is new and not a technician but who took our plight to heart and came over. Via WhatsApp, he consulted with the technician, but was unable to solve the problem. There is no service over the weekend, so we froze until Monday. The house, on Sunday, was down to 7ºC. 

Friends lent us a couple of space heaters to supplement the one we already had in the bedroom. The bathroom became quite toasty, but without hot water, we didn't spend much time, there. On Saturday, we went to our friend's for lunch. Of course, it was nice to have a warm meal in a warm dining room. But even nicer was spending almost 4 hours with friends. They invited us to spend the night, but we went home.

Monday morning, the phoning started again and the technician finally showed up by the end of the afternoon and turned out to be unfamiliar with our furnace. He told us the other technician would come by, but that didn't happen. On Tuesday, Paul called, again, first thing, and told the boss to give the technician the part. He was told that we had to call the manufacturer to order the part; he didn't have it and he didn't order them. That was a surprise, so Paul called the manufacturer, whose staff was just as surprised to hear the that. He gave us the name of a couple of approved repairers not far from us (and our supplier was not among them). Tuesday afternoon, the furnace was repaired, with the new part.

This adventure of ours was nothing compared to the catastrophic cold and snow that caused the power outages in Texas and the mid-West.

This week, it's Springlike! Today is Sunday and it was sunny and warm so we went for a long walk. There's an app called VisioRando. It's based on IGN maps. That's the Institut géographique national and they are the best maps for hiking. The app keeps reminding you to subscribe, but I'm not ready to do that, yet. We didn't follow the hike exactly, today, because we were starting from home and bypassed the RER station. I then retraced our steps in Map My Walk to figure out our actual distance. There is a slight problem with Map My Walk, though, because it did not allow me to trace our walk through the parks. In the 40+ years we've lived on the border between Nogent and Fontenay, I'd never gone for a casual walk in Fontenay. The red dot on that map is home. On that map, the Fontenay RER station is northwest of us. The road to the center of Fontenay is north. Today, though, instead of following the straight Rue de Joinville, we meandered and then cut westward through the park behind the city hall. We'd never stopped to go through this park before. This brought us to the back of the church and to more familiar paths. We went up the Rue du Cheval Rû, but instead of following the curve, we continued on the Rue des Belles Vues, which took us through a park. There's work going on and it was fenced off on the right so there was no view. All of a sudden we found ourselves at the back of one of our doctor's buildings. We then continued through the old quarry, which is a beautiful ecopark that we never knew existed. There, the views are splendid. It was slightly overcast so we couldn't see all the way to the other side of Paris, but it was still an impressive view. From there, it was all downhill, along the lower border of the quarry and back into the center of Fontenay, to our familiar route home. 

Catching up these past few months -- Happy New Year!

 

A Journal, sort of

January 9, 2021

A friend reminded me that I hadn't written a blog post in a long, long while. I didn't feel like writing, frankly. I made a sweater for Co. on the renovated machine. In September, after consulting again with the surgeon, we decided to proceed with a hip replacement in mid-November. Then, in France, we went on partial reconfinement -- for us, it was the same as the first one. One-hour out-of-home activity, curfew, etc. There were a few high school classmate reunions on Zoom and the following journal is a result of those meetings. I have configured it so that the reader bores down to the past. That way, once it was started, the reader doesn't have to scroll down all the way to the latest installment; it's at the top. I've edited slightly for the blog, taking out full names. (My friends and family can figure out who's who; other readers don't really need to know.) This, then, is a long post, with a lot of catching up.

January 7, 2021

I can't believe what I saw last night when I turned on the TV. But let's get the good news out of the way.

Yesterday, before 7a.m., I left on a 5-hour drive to Mulhouse in our 14-year-old Prius. It was a very smooth trip. I got to the dealership before they were closing for their two-hour lunch break. I left after 1p.m. to return home in our new-to-us one-year-old Prius. 

I can't describe the pleasure I have on long, solitary drives. I can listen to the radio. I can drive as I like to drive. I got home just before 7p.m., before our 8p.m. curfew. A long 12-hour day.

After a bite eat, I turned on CNN. The thugs were still "just" on the Capitol steps; they hadn't yet broken in. The scene brought me to tears. I've been to the Capitol. I've been to the office of Nancy Pelosi -- when she was the Minority Leader. I've been to the office buildings, especially Cannon, where my Representative from PA-3, Dwight Evans, is. Seeing an attempted coup in Washington is just too much. 

This morning, I woke up to the Pennsylvania electoral college vote being objected to. As I write this, they are getting back to the full session to continue the tally. It's. 3:23a.m. in DC, 9:23 in France. I'm confident the procedure will now continue smoothly. 

I'm not confident that the inauguration on the 20th will go smoothly. I'm afraid that even after the inauguration, President Biden and Vice President Harris will be in danger. I'm sad and angry to see how low our country has fallen.

January 5, 2021

Good news first. Yesterday, I wanted to go for a walk and P agreed to go, too. Then I suggested that maybe R and M could join us. They've been our dear friends since our daughters, now 45, started école maternelle when they were going on 3. R and I have been out walking together a few times since December. It was time to get our husbands out. We went into the Bois de Vincennes and went around the lac des Minimes. For us, from home and back, that's precisely 5km. As we chatted away, it was a smooth walk. I think I can declare my recovery complete.

It's the doctor who will really decide if I'm fully recovered. My appointment with him is this afternoon. 

Not such good news. Cl is still coughing and exhausted. G is still so exhausted he couldn't take Ch to the halfway stop for N to meet them and take her home. N came all the way to Northampton to pick her up. A, the 11 year old, has become the family chef. She loves to cook. As Cl says, the meals are not balanced, but at least they're eating and she's having fun. She's also been a bit anxious with both parents sick. C, 7, is very quiet. As of today, the U.K. is back on full lockdown. Cl says it'll give her more time to get back her strength as she didn't feel she'd have been able to walk Co to school starting today.

We discussed the catastrophic vaccine distribution strategies in the U.K. and in France. In two weeks, France is still counting vaccination in the hundreds, not yet reaching 1000! In the U.K. they've decided to delay the second dose.

Trump should be arrested for trying to tamper with an election, with extortion of a public official. The Senate runoff in Georgia is today. Will there ever be good news coming from the U.S. again. Biden has such an uphill struggle to get some sort of bipartisan peace again.

January 2, 2021

Here’s wishing us all a Happier 2021 than 2020 was. Covid is still rampant in Europe, where we seem to have better governance than the U.S. does, and in the U.S. where better governance should be coming after January 20. France is taking a tiptoe approach. First only those in care facilities are being vaccinated and in a week, they’d only managed 332, whereas Germany had vaccinated in the many thousands. After much protest, the French have added medical workers over 50. They do not anticipate reaching people with high risk and over 75 until late February and we younger folk will have to wait until March or April. Maybe, by then, they’ll get rid of the “informed consent” document. My thought is that if you are reticent and do not consent, then you don’t get the shot. To have to see the doctor beforehand, get informed, and then make another appointment to get the shot and a third appointment for the second dose is overkill. Still, it’s better than what the British have just done -- put off the second dose to a later date so they can give more people a first dose. Pfizer has not done any study as to whether that approach will work.

Update on the UK family -- so far, so good. The kids are fine and keeping occupied. Ch is doing a great job on that front. To prepare for her upcoming exams, she’s been playing school with the others, teaching them what she needs to be studying. If they (7 and 11 years old) get what she’s saying, then she’s got it down pat. She’s also been doing watercolor workshops with them. Cl is still coughing a lot during the day, but sleeping fine and her husband is stuck with a stuffy nose and a headache. But the symptoms have not gotten worse.

Update on the car -- I’m going to pick it up on the 6th. I will probably have to spend the night on the way back. It’s a lot of driving for a single day and there’s a curfew in effect, so I’ll play it safe.

Today, an Italian woman currently in Paris is coming over to check out my knitting machines. She may decide to take one of them off my hands. I think I only really want to keep one standard and the mid-gauge so getting rid of two of the standards would be nice but I’m still too attached to them to create an ad and put them up for sale.

December 26, 2020

Christmas gift? Cl and G spent Christmas morning getting tested for Covid. They got the results, today -- both positive.

After Christmas Eve dinner they went to bed feeling a bit under the weather and woke up on Christmas Day coughing and feverish. G was supposed to drive Ch halfway so she could transfer home to her mum, but of course, that did not happen. That is a good thing because she's about to turn 16 and with both Cl and G ill, she will be the adult in the house. I'm sure A, 11, and Co, 7, will be as helpful as they can possibly be but I'm reassured that Ch is with them.

My own inclination would normally be to get on a plane or train and go to them, but it's just not feasible. Thank goodness they have wonderful friends who are already volunteering to drop off shopping and food for them. I feel so damn helpless.

December 23, 2020

I woke up this morning with one of my high school friends on my mind and how sorry I was that she would be missing her usual holiday travel for Christmas with her family and the missing people in her family who had died from Covid earlier this year. This has been a terrifying year.

Another reason she, in particular, came to mind is something she had said about never leaving the country to live abroad and eventually abandoning U.S. citizenship. Certainly not at the age we are, now. I did not leave with such an intention. I came to France as a student, just turned 19, and fell in love. Just like Kathleen Damerol, whose story is much like mine, with the added distress that she has because she had a business and a tax-advantaged account in France that was specifically for retirement but is not recognized as such by the IRS.

https://youtu.be/UaTILxfPs0M

What's extraordinary is that Keith Richmond, a mutual friend (also participating in the video), sent Kathleen and me an introduction email just last month. It was when I had my surgery and I sent her my phone number but we never talked. Yesterday, I wrote to her again and we agreed to a call this morning. Then, I saw that video, so now I feel I already know her. I'm looking forward to our call even more.

The distress of considering renunciation is very real. I go through thinking of it every year, sometimes several times a year. I haven't done it. I always manage to reason with myself that I can manage the status quo. But I don't have my own business. I don't have a job that would require signatory authority on company accounts. My friend D-L vomited when she left the embassy after renouncing.

PS: I just got off the phone with Kathleen.

December 21, 2020

Okay, it looks like this is going to be a once-a-week deal. First thing, very early this morning, I looked at my emails and found a flurry from some GHS friends about an upcoming class-wide announcement/invitation to the GHS Stories. It was a pleasant thought and I went back to sleep. However, that reminded me that I needed to do some cleaning tasks in the group’s folder that S had requested last Friday. That led me to catching up on some stories that had been modified or added since the last time I looked. Reading P’s piece reminded me that I should probably update this journal.

One thing leads to another and the days go by. It’s raining so I don’t think I’ll go out for a walk unless it clears up. I took a long (for me, at least) walk, yesterday, to the Picard frozen food shop in Fontenay. According to “Map My Walk”, that’s 1.23km. Let’s just say it was 2.5km round trip, with the return trip a bit slow because I had a backpack full of frozen food on my back. P estimated about 15kg. I don’t think it was that much but it was heavy and my leg was a bit wobbly by the time I got home. I think I was more sprite a week ago and have been overdoing it since then. I walked a bit over 2km with R on Friday. When I see the pictures on Facebook of wonderful hikes in the snowy woods, I wonder if I’ll get anywhere near the stamina to do those kinds of walks again. 

We are going to buy a car. Our Prius will be 14 in May and I think P is just tired of it. We got it as a recent used car in 2008. Once shops were reopened, we scheduled a meeting (can’t just walk in any more because of the limits on the number of people allowed inside at one time) and got the info for a new Prius, leased or bought, cash or credit. Then we were told that one would be available in April. On a used car website, we found just what we were looking for, a 2020 model, only 4000 km, in Mulhouse. That is not the town next door. Now that restrictions on going from one region to another have been lifted, we thought I could drive there on Saturday, trade in the old for the new one, and drive back, either the same day, or the next. Oh, no. The vendor is treating this as an online sale with a retraction period of 14 days. Plus he’s now on vacation for the holidays. Then, he has to handle the transfer of registration paperwork (which is really online work) and does not anticipate our coming to get the car until January 9. I hope that France is not back to shopping and or travel restrictions, again, by then. 

I am not hopeful about the progression of Covid. I’m pretty sure that this fast-spreading variant that has forced a strict lockdown in the London area is not limited to London, nor to the U.K. The numbers have gone back up in France over the past week instead of staying at their plateau or going down, as hoped. I’m sure this is going to mean stricter measures are in store. The hospitals are okay, so far. The percentage of Covid patients in ICU is holding steady at less than 55%. The famous effective R number is creeping back up -- now at 0.9. Vaccinations start in France this week. We may be in the “elder” category but we are not the top priority, nor should we be. First the health care workers and the occupants of care facilities. Those of us in our own homes, with no health problems, can wait a bit.  

14 Dec. 2020

During the Zoom meeting on Dec. 13, it was suggested that we might add a story 6 months on. I had already left the meeting at that point, so I don’t know exactly what was discussed. Susan told me about it today.

That brings me to bringing this whole Covid business up to now before I carry on with the future.

In France, it really started hitting us hard in March. There were municipal elections scheduled in the middle of the month and there were already questions about whether they could go through, as scheduled, or not. (An aside, here, for non-French readers. There are no absentee ballots, here. If you know you are not going to be able to go to the polling place on election day, you have to go to the police station and fill out a proxy to allow someone else in your town to vote for you. You trust that person to vote as you want.)  At this late stage, it was a matter of delaying the election or carrying on as scheduled. To delay would have required a special law. The President went on the air to announce that France would be going into lockdown (called “confinement”) after the election. The many parties involved in the election had met with the President and had decided to go ahead with the election. 

My husband and I went early to the polling station, which is our usual habit. We are usually the first, or at least in the first 10 people present. We voted and walked home with our friend and neighbor who was just behind us at the polling place. We were already keeping apart, scarves over our faces, no kissing cheeks, shaking hands. 

The second round of the election, two weeks later, was postponed. We were in lockdown. Our neighbors were wonderful, checking on us to see if we needed anything. Spring was coming. Days were getting longer. We could open our windows and hold conversations across the street. There was a festive air about it. Every evening, after the Italian and Spanish models, we were all at our windows clapping our appreciation for the medical workers. Festivity is one thing but the grim numbers of people getting sick and dying is another. 

By May, things were looking up and by the end of the month, confinement was over. We no longer needed permission slips to be out of the home. We could finally see our son’s family in their apartment into which they had moved just the weekend before the confinement started. We could see the grandchildren. We could see our daughter who lives in Paris. The French confinement eased just in time to fit in the delayed runoff election before it would have been necessary to start all over.

Zoom had started to enter our lives. Our daughter in England, has a step-daughter whose grandmother is a talented artist and a great teacher. She gave us watercolor lessons every week over Zoom. She lives near Tours, France; I’m just outside Paris; Cl and the girls are in Northampton, England; and V, Ch’s mom, is near London. We had a great time. We also had a few family Zoom meetings with immediate and more distant family.

Then, S suggested a 212 Zoom meeting. From Europe, all across the United States, some classmates joined in the meeting. Covid was on our minds. Long-term care facilities everywhere were hard hit. Hospitals were under considerable strain. Although statistics show that Europe was really more severely hit in terms of numbers of deaths per 100,000 population, it seems that the governments tried to flatten the curve and succeeded to some extent while the states in the U.S. were not reacting in concert and the President was not taking the illness seriously, at all. Europe seemed calmer and reports in the U.S. seemed more panicked.

I missed the July Zoom because we were in the southwest of France with our Parisian grandchildren, visiting our daughter who lives down there. Cl and her family came down with their trailer and parked it at E’s. It was great that the cousins were able to spend about 10 days together. Anne even came for a few days of her vacation. With hindsight, this could have been a risky gathering. We spent all our time outdoors at E's. It was wonderful. Luckily for us, no one became ill. 

In September, people started going back to their offices; the children went back to school. The English family, too, started a more normal routine. Cafés and restaurants had set up service on sidewalks and in the parking spaces in front of them. We could eat with friends. At our age, we were still being very cautious. 

By the time of the October 212 Zoom meeting, the second Covid-19 wave was hitting Europe and in the United States, there was debate as to whether this was the second or the third wave! Schools in France did not seem affected. Our grandchildren have not missed a day of going to school. In England, one of the children had to remain at home because there had been an outbreak of Covid in her section of the building. It was becoming evident, though, that a second confinement period was coming. That came in early November.

Stay at home -- except for medical appointments, to take care of someone, to shop for necessities, to walk the dog, to go for a walk (limited to 1 hour). However, I do not consider this a hardship. I’m fine. I’m not doing much, but I’m not particularly bored. 

Between April and November, I had made each grandchild a sweater. I had picked up another old knitting machine in July and restored it. I feel no urge to knit every day. I even started some projects by hand. I’ve read several books. I’ve watched lots of YouTube. 

After my shoulder replacement in September 2019, my hip problems became more noticeable. This ended up with a hip replacement on November 18. Luckily, the confinement was decided early enough to avoid the strain on hospitals and clinics, so this kind of elective surgery has been able to continue. 

The numbers in France have not declined to the desired level, but have gone down and stabilized enough. Our confinement has been eased. We can go out for 3 hours. As of tomorrow, we’ll be able to go to other regions of France. There is a stay-at-home curfew after 7pm. This will allow for limited family gatherings at Christmas. However, we will be home. A will come over. The other Parisian family will go to the other grandparents. The U.K. family will stay in the U.K. 

That brings me to today. We went to the Toyota sales point in Vincennes. I walked to the bus stop without a crutch. That’s the longest walk I’ve done without a crutch. The second bus stopped almost in front of the sales office. We think we know what we are going to do, now. We’ve gone over the recent used versus new, and buying versus 3-year lease. This is the future. By this coming Spring, we will be ready to head out on the road. I hope we will have been vaccinated by then. 

 

 

We are fortunate

 We took two of our grandchildren on vacation with us for 10 days. Since the end of the French "confinement", we'd seen them a couple of times: a picnic in the yard the first weekend of deconfinement, a birthday party in our house and then off we went. From mid-May to mid-July, when we took them, they had been back to school and had spent a couple of weeks with their other grandparents. Their parents had been back to work sporadically and we adults had all gone food shopping and been out for appointments. We wore masks, but not when we were together.

France, on the whole, is not doing too badly with containing Covid. The numbers have been creeping up, though. The RO number announced this weekend was 1.32. Ideally, it should be under 1. Restrictions can become quite serious, again, if it goes over 2. As it is, Paris, suburbs, and other cities with crowed streets have decided masks must be worn outside, too, when in crowded areas or on crowded streets. In Nogent, that's the walk along the Marne, along the main street Grande Rue, and the outdoor areas of the market place. I have an appointment in Paris on Monday and the street, Rue d'Avron, is on the list. I couldn't find the RO number for the US, either as a whole or in parts.

Our vacation was in an area with remarkably little Covid. We stayed at a hotel, the one we always stay at when we visit E and G. L'Hôtel la Belle Rive, which gets shortened to Le Belle Rive (for grammarians, that is the result of an ellipsis between LE hôtel and LA rive). Covid prevention rules were strictly adhered to. The kids, though, under 11, did not have to wear masks indoors. In Najac, all was calm - eerily so. There are hardly any tourists. Wherever we went (and we really didn't go anywhere), we saw that people were putting their masks on before entering any place.

So, how were we, perhaps, slack? We spent our days with E&G. Not a problem. The family from the U.K. arrived with their trailer: 2 under age 11, a teenager, and 2 adults. That brought us up to a group of 11 people, from different areas. We were joined for the last few days by our other daughter coming from Paris. She had stopped to visit friends in Lyon on the way. That means that just our little family created a rather large group of 12 at its peak. In fact, when we had an end-of-vacation family dinner at the hotel, we had a children's table and an adults' table -- not so much because we wanted the peace and quiet of not sitting with the kids, but because a restaurant cannot serve tables of over 10.

We are fortunate that none has shown any symptoms of the illness. In retrospect, perhaps we should have worn masks more when around one another. But we spent the whole time outdoors and not all that close, when you think about it. 

A "New" Knitting Machine

 I had three knitting machines: 

• An LK150, purchased new a few years ago. That's a midgauge and it handles sport weight yarn. All patterning is done by manual manipulation.
• A Knitmaster Empisal Thimmonier 323. It is a standard gauge machine for finer, sock yarn. This is the machine I bought in 1974 or 1975. I know I had it well before my eldest child was born in early 1976 because I knitted many of her baby clothes on it. It is a punchcard machine, meaning patterning is done by means of a 24-hole-wide punch card that determines whether to knit, tuck, slip or insert a second color, depending on the lever's position on the dial. It has a ribber, which is a second bed of needles that connects to the front of the main needle bed and, as its name suggests, it serves to do ribbing and much more.
• A Brother 950. It is also a standard gauge machine. It was produced in the mid-1980s, but I bought it four years ago. It is an electronic machine, meaning patterning is done by means of a program and a 60-stitch-wide mylar sheet. This increases patterning capability. It also has a ribber.

At one point, I also had a Brother 260, a bulky gauge, punchcard machine with a ribber, but within a year I resold it because I determined that I really do not knit really thick yarns that much. In fact, as far as machine knitting goes, I do not really knit very much. I'm still family-oriented and knit pretty much for the family, only. 

The Knitmaster and Brother machines are old and parts are hard to come by, so when I saw an ad for a Knitmaster (no model number) at a recycling center for €80, I thought I should take a look at it and see if it might be good for spare parts. I wrote the shop and found that the recycling center was an hour's drive from E's place in Tarn-et-Garonne. It is closer to Toulouse, straight south of Gaillac (good wine). We were at E's for our vacation, so on a Thursday we drove down to Caraman to the recycling center after I confirmed that the machine was still available. Surprise! It was 50% day! At €40, I was sure I'd buy it. I mean, even recovering the needles was worth that.

We put our masks on and entered the shop, which must have been an old garage or factory. One of the volunteers at the shop went to get the machine. The case was in very good condition and when I opened it up I discovered a Knitmaster Empisal 324 -- a slightly more recent model than what I already had -- in filthy, grimy, but otherwise good condition. Then, the woman said she had to go back to the stock to get the rest! She came back with the ribber. And she went back and came back with another box of accessories. Needless to say, I bought the lot for €40.

This week I cleaned it all. 
Before starting, I ordered a sponge for the sponge bar, officially known as the needle retention bar, and the side racks, which had disintegrated. Total expense for that, including postage, was about €18.

First job was to clean out the disintegrated sponge and replace it with the new, which I did as soon as the new sponge came.
Then, I had to take out the 200 needles of the main bed and put them in a jar with white spirit for a good soaking.

Next, I went to the hardware store and got some petroleum cleaning fluid to soak the carriage. The carriage is the part that rides over the needles, selects the ones to be knitted, or not, and places the yarn in the right place for the needles to catch it. I had to take apart the carriage (See the AnswerLady's husband Jack) because the plastic parts should not soak in the petroleum. That also allowed me to see that all the springs were there and that the parts that are supposed to move moved, even though they were gummed up. I put the soaking pan outside and let the carriage soak overnight. 

In the mean time, I washed the plastic bits. This machine must have been set up behind a sunny window because the plastic is quite discolored, almost orange. I got as much lint out from under the needle bed without dismantling it and then I cleaned the surface of the bed. 

The next morning, I wiped off each needle, checking for rust and making sure the latches moved freely before putting them back; I wiped down the carriage and made sure I got all the lint and collected dirt out before I put it back together. 

I tried it out: 

And this morning, I cleaned the ribber. I just finished putting back all the needles. 
Now, I really must decide to sell one, maybe two, of the standard gauge machines.