The sweater fits, so we can get on with more projects

The sweater fits, or will fit even better by winter, when she'll wear it. You may wonder why there's no head. That's because I don't publish recognizable photos of the grandchildren publicly. The family has received the link to the photos of the birthday party last week. She appreciates, particularly, the big pocket.
The party was a success. Cousins from the Paris area and all the grandparents were present. Among the cousins were the ones who moved back to France from Pittsburgh, where they had enjoyed the extended family connection. They miss Pittsburgh. I got the impression that the neighbors where they are, now, are not quite as welcoming.
On Tuesday, I went into Paris, spent some time with a friend who is trying to sort out her mother's succession and is having considerable trouble with her sister and the notaire her sister chose. She's now got our notaire's office on the case on her behalf, but it's still a slow moving process.

From there, I caught a bus to the American Library, where I was scheduled to man the voter registration table before the Pamela Drukerman talk. She's a pretty well-known NYT contributor and author of Bringing up Bébé. Her new book is about becoming a grown-up in her forties. She's a good speaker.
I got a new camera. A bridge, this time. I find the compacts are just too hard to get my hands around. The old Sony got some sand in it when we were in Spain, which is why I was looking for a new one. It's a Panasonic Lumix FZ200. Not the most recent model in the line -- I would have liked WiFi and a universal USB connection, but I settled for lower price. I'm pretty happy with the zoom and the enlargement created by cropping the image.

OAW, Over and Out

Today was the last day of OAW. We only had one meeting left and it was one of the very best. We went to Alexandria, to a sort of annex of the Pentagon, to the FVAP, the Federal Voting Assistance Program.
Remember a few things:

1. If you are an overseas voter, living overseas, use the procedures set up for overseas voters. That means do not phone your old board of elections and ask for a absentee ballot. There's the government site, FVAP, and there are private organizations, like OVF (Overseas Vote Foundation) that will help you vote as overseas voters. 
2. You have to send in your ballot/registration request EVERY year. The recommendation is to do it at the beginning of the year and get it out of the way and to do it even if there is no federal election scheduled. You never know when there might be a special election for an official who resigns or dies.
3. If you do not receive the ballot in time, use the Federal Absentee Write-in Ballot (FWAB) that you can find on the site. You must have registered before sending in the ballot. If you send in the ballot, thinking that it will serve as both registration and voting, it won't; it'll just be used as registration. And please, don't keep waiting for the official ballot until it's too late. If you have sent in the FWAB and your official ballot finally arrives, send that one in, too, and the board of elections has procedures to handle it.
4. If you've never voted, if you never lived in the US, they will guide you through the process of finding the right address to use, so don't use that as an excuse for not voting.
5. If your preferred party sets up an "overseas primary" election and you register for that, that is NOT a registration to vote in the election! 

You can set up alerts, so that you will be informed of upcoming deadlines for registration or voting in your state: http://www.fvap.gov/vao/alerts. First, you create your account with your email address and a password. Then, you set up your subscriptions. If you want to get the updates for your state, scroll down the list to "Absentee Voter Resources by State" and check off your state. Don't forget to click "Submit".
I'm not going to review yesterday's meetings, now. I'll leave that for another post. This is an election year, so it's important to have this one message only.

A Visit to the Philadelphia Election Board

You may remember that I had some issues, as they say, with voting back in the fall (http://ellenlebelle.blogspot.com/2012/11/lots-and-lots-of-little-things.html). Since I was privileged to be going to Overseas Americans Week for AARO, I managed to start my trip in Philadelphia and had an appointment with the supervisor and legal counsel of the Philadelphia Board of Elections on Friday, Feb. 8.
The legal counsel remembered me; he's the one who had given all the answers in the former supervisor's replies to my emails.
I did not want this to be a meeting of a litany of complaints on my part; I wanted to hear what the election board had to say that might improve things all around. They were not able to tell me what percentage of registered voters were overseas voters, but they said it was a very low number, probably not even 1%. On the Overseas Vote Foundation's site, and I believe on the other online sites, when you fill out the form for your registration/ballot request, you are asked if it is for all the elections in the year or just one. I always check the box for all the elections. Also, I follow the recommendation of making my request every year, even if no federal election is scheduled, because you never know when there might be a special election (Massachusetts voters will be electing a new senator in June this year). You are supposed to be able to do it this way -- every year, for every federal election according to the UMOVA rules (And Pennsylvania has enacted UMOVA). Well, the election board doesn't like that. They prefer to receive the registration/ballot requests before each election (primary and again for the general election) no earlier than 7 to 8 weeks before the election. Anyway, that might explain why I got the primary ballot in time but had to phone in the fall to get the general election ballot.
The next problem we addressed was the addressing of the ballot I finally got. Here, I have to take OVF to task, and I bet the other sites are similar. When you are asked for your home (foreign address), it prints up on the form in US format, with the postal code after the city name. Perhaps their programmers could reprogram it so that you put in your country name first and the form would then conform to the format for entering information would correspond correctly and would print correctly. This is what many commercial business sites now do. A quick solution we came up with at the meeting was to attach self-addressed labels (with its adhesive backing intact, of course) for the board to use on its envelope when sending out the ballots. They assured me that stapling these to the form would not invalidate the form. This would put the burden of getting the address correct on the voter, who should know how to write his address.
We also talked about the fact that the Pennsylvania website for tacking your registration and/or ballot status reported incorrectly that I was not registered. It also reproted that Anne was not registered , and she didn't bother to send in the Federal Absentee Ballot based on that misinformation. It turns out that we overseas voters are not the only ones unhappy with that site. Every county in Pennsyvania has complaints about it and it doesn't matter if it's a Republican or Democrat-run county. Not only that, but it seems that many states have faulty tracking. Since tracking is mandatory for the states, they should work on improving it!
These issues also came up in discussions on the Hill during OAW, so I'm very glad I had this input. I want to thank the people I met with in Philadelphia for the meeting.

Thanksgiving done

First I just want to say how much I admire people who manage to post something every day. You know who you are. I just manage these summaries every few weeks!

Sacha and his other grandmother!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch yesterday at Anne's. Her oven, not to mention her kitchen, is too tiny for a turkey, so I stuffed and cooked the bird and kept it as warm as possible for delivery to her apartment. This was a perfect venue because Emma was leaving from the Gare de Lyons, just a couple of minutes from Anne's, right after lunch. And it's convenient enough for Louis and Gwen to bring Sacha via public transport rather than have to drive. Gwen prepared the vegetables, a tsimis (looks like I've got them hooked on that), much better than my own last attempt on that. Anne made cornbread and pumpkin pie. I thought I had cranberries in the freezer and was going to make a sauce, but they were no where to be found, so I was going to substitute with my neighbor's chutney made with gooseberries from our yard. But I forgot to put it in the bag with the turkey. Luckily, Anne had a jar of mango chutney, which was excellent with the turkey. Sacha ate before us: tsimis purée and chicken -- almost the same meal as ours! And he slept soundly while we ate. He's absolutely adorable. And last week, we had a family lunch with Gwen's parents (the photo is one of Anne's) after which we went for a digestive walk to the Jardin Tropical in the Bois de Vincennes. No one ever goes there; the entrance is along the Nogent border, so not really where people can find it easily if they are in the Bois. Such a shame; it's not taken care of and is in the process of disintegrating!

Last time I wrote it was just after the election in the States. I wrote about how frustrated I was, not so much with the process, but with the incorrect information. After reading the post, one of my kids wrote me that she hadn't sent in her write-in ballot because of the mis-information on the PA website. She was not happy about missing an election. 

It turns out the AARO had scheduled a meeting with Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, the president and CEO of Overseas Vote Foundation so I was even more determined to attend. I had filled out the post-election survey on the process and I had entered a report on the PA mis-informative website. It turns out that the report was bumped up and it was Susan, herself, who had replied to me. We didn't have the turn-out we had hoped for. Maybe because we were using a locale our attendees are not accustomed to, maybe because the meeting was a little later than usual, maybe because of election fatigue. I don't know. Because there were fewer people, the presentation served more as a backdrop for a large conversation with Susan and all the attendees. It was very interesting to note how Overseas Vote Foundation has grown and improved and is serving ever more voters, even if the exact number could not yet be announced. (The research team at the foundation has not released its numbers, yet, and OVF is not the only site overseas voters use to get their information or process their requests.) What was confirmed is that it's more than in the last presidential election cycle. There are a lot of young voters abroad and they are not neglecting to vote; that's wonderful. The overseas absentee registration and ballot request process is so much more efficient than what is going on in the country, it might become the model for voter reform. Still, not enough overseas voters vote. Many still do not know they can vote; many do not understand that the absentee ballot request is not the same as for local absentees, and there are quite a lot who just prefer to remain off the records, all records. Susan is remarkable; this is an exhausting job and she has a family and other work. I really enjoyed going to dinner with her after the meeting.

And that brings me to taxes. There's another meeting this week about end-of-year things to do regarding our US taxes. It looks like that meeting is drawing more people; it's at the Mona Bismarck American Center and a little earlier in the evening.

As I said, we did not celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday. It's a regular work day here. I went to painting. We're supposed to be working on the inspiration of one of two poems. We're not supposed to be using any photos as support. Well, I am not following instructions. A few weeks ago, Jon forwarded to me the link to some photos taken in Boston during a rowing competition Tobi was in. So, I'm using one of those photos as my inspiration. (I think it's one of those, but it could be from somewhere else, as I haven't really classed these photos.) There's a bridge spanning the river. There's the crew in their boat. And I'm adding a couple of airplane trails in the sky. I'm really trying to deal with the bridge structure and perspective.

And that brings me to the Hopper exhibit. I went back to see it on Wednesday with Rita. I love the geometry of the structures and shadows. There are also some pretty fabulous paintings and sketches by artists who influenced Hopper or who were influenced by him. I love the Degas, A Cotton Office in New Orleans:

Lots and Lots of Little Things

There's no order to my thoughts today. First thing that comes to my mind is that I'm sick of the US election. I can't imagine what it must be like in the States, with all the political ads. Here, it's just in the news and special reports. But then, it's also on facebook, in the comments and shared tidbits from friends. I haven't expressed myself very much publicly. A little, but not much. I have expressed myself concerning overseas voting by encouraging everyone to request their ballots and then to send them in. All that, and when I figured my ballot was a bit late in coming I called the Philadelphia Board of Elections to inquire and then to ask they send me another one. It arrived, but the address was nearly illegible and not to international standards, so I'm surprised it did arrive. I've been corresponding by email with the assistant commissioner with my Congressman's office and the founders of a group of overseas voters that worked hard to get people registered and get their ballot requests and then their ballots in. So, I just got more frustrated when I checked the PA voters services site to check the status of my ballot (had it been received?) and was notified that I am not registered! I am so! The board of elections people had no trouble identifying me, my address, or other information and never once suggested that I wasn't actually registered! So, imagine a voter who checked the site and was informed he or she was not registered. Why send in the ballot, then? Another person on the "Pennsylvanians Abroad" group on facebook has just reported being in the same confusion and frustration as me. I'm a militant voter, so I have made the phone calls, have corresponded with the board of elections, have alerted my Congressman, but many voters might just take the website's word for it and give up.

This week, you can't have ignored Superstorm Sandy! Wow! That's getting wide coverage here, too. There's been a mention here and there about Haiti being hit hard and it's a shame that so much time is being spent on the US damage. I don't know if there's been much mention in the States of the damage elsewhere. For us, this puts a real damper on our vacation plans. I had reserved a house belonging to the mother-in-law of a friend (http://ellenlebelle.blogspot.fr/2010/10/what-wonderful-weekend-thank-you-anita.html) for two weeks in August. The kids were trying to arrange their vacations to come; B&T were coming up for a weekend; J&T were planning to come.... Well, Anita has written that we should come up with a plan B. The news she has been able to glean is that the house, miraculously, is okay. However, the island's infrastructure is so damaged that they are estimating it will take many months to restore services. In the mean time her mother-in-law may just give up and sell.

Paul and I took a week-long break. We've already been home a week! We went to Avignon to see T, a friend of Paul's from the Pierwige before my time, probably 1969. She's been living in Avignon for a long, long time and has just retired. She's a physical therapist, but her real specialty is the Feldenkrais method and she has developed techniques for dancers and musicians. We'd been to see her a couple of years ago. This time we had dinner with her twice. The second one was at her parents'. They live in the same converted mansion, downstairs. They are delightful and dinner was pleasant. They miss living in Los Angeles, though. 

T was busy on Thursday, so Paul and I went for a drive. I took a look at a map and saw that one of my facebook friends (really the friend of a friend) was nearby, so we set that as our destination. Then Paul saw the sign for Ménerbes and wanted to go there because when he was a teenager, in the mid-60s, he had spent three summers with his aunt and uncle's helping to clear the land and rebuild the hillside terrace walls just outside the village. We found the house. The hillside is covered with trees. The village is well restored and much cleaner and richer than Paul remembered it of course. There used to be just one café tabac and now there are several restaurants. We had lunch -- excellent. But everything shuts down by mid-November. There's no doctor; the pharmacy is closed, no butcher or baker. 

Goult, the village near my facebook friend's, is just across the main road from Ménerbes, on the facing hill. It's a bigger village. The streets are wider, so there is more light. There is a very nice little tour of the town you can do on your own; there are little posts with tourist information along the way. They've restored the old flour mill and there's a panel explaining the restoration and the functioning of the mill. My friend had been out when I announced the possibility of our passage and our timing was off, so next time we'll plan better.

Paul wanted to go to Apt. Based on his memory, this was where we could get some good fruits confits (candied fruit). It was the big town where his aunt used to go to market. It is still a big town. There is a candied fruit processing plant just outside the town, but the main street only had a couple of shops with the specialty. It was time to return to Avignon and dinner with T and her parents.

The next morning we went to Montpellier for an afternoon and evening with the Bs, our former neighbors in Nogent. The twin girls are big girls now, going on 5, and the boy is a big boy for 7. Their house is finished and is very big and pleasant. M and R are, as ever, wonderful. R has taken up music seriously and has performed in a local club! They both have heavy teaching schedules this semester and are very, very busy. We spent the night at the Holiday Inn in the town center and it is a beautifully restored old hotel.

Saturday, we were off to Six-Fours, to the Lebelles, there. Pierre and Paul spent quite a lot of time looking at their old family films that have been transferred to a DVD. We brought back a big box of slides that Paul is now in the process of scanning into his computer. The big job is trying to sort them out -- where, when, who...

Here are some shots from our trip: