May 2010, a fairly rotten month

I haven't felt like writing much this month. First, the weather turned cold, so May felt more like March. Then, Paul's mother died. People look at me strangely when I talk of my mother-in-law. I had no complaints. She was wonderful. She was fun, she loved to travel and loved our telling of our trips when she no longer was able to go anywhere. She loved movies and we kept her in supply with DVD's and Anne's telling her of all the latest films. She and Edouard were ever so generous, helping us get our start with our first apartment and more. I hope we can continue to help our own children as much. She died on May 17. She would have been 101 on June 20.
Paul and I drove down to Six-Fours for the funeral on Friday and were joined by Louis, who cut short a visit to Gwen's brother's, and Anne, on her way home from the Cannes Film Festival. It was an intimate funeral -- mostly family and some neighbors of Pierre and Gillette. Anne-Valérie came with Laure-Hélène and Alexandre came with his whole family. Charlette, Yves, and Roger were there, of course. And Danièle and Michelle. Isabelle, Marie-Claude's daughter, came, too. We know that the ones who couldn't come would have wanted to be there, but it's just not always possible. It was a very nice ceremony in the chapel in le Brusc village of Six-Fours, almost walking distance from the Lebelle's. She was buried in the crypt at the Courrens cemetery alongside Edouard.
As usual with funerals, the day ended pleasantly with the reminiscing. I took Louis and Anne back to the station so they could catch their trains and by the time I got back to the house, Laure-Hélène and Valentine were in the pool and the adults were sitting around telling Marguerite stories. The weather in Six-Fours was beautiful and stayed that way. It even worked its way up to Paris, where it stayed sunny and hot until Thursday, when a storm came through and broke the spell. Now, it's gray and chilly again.
Our summer plans are starting to come together. We've got Jon and Tobi coming to pick up Eric (from a school exchange program) at the end of June. Then, we're going to England in mid-July. The Pickars are coming at the end of July......

Overseas Americans Week (OAW) Got Some Press

It started before OAW got under way with an article in the Wall Street Journal:
Time ran an article during the week: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1983238,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
Then came an article in the Sunday New York Times that was also in Monday's International Herald Tribune: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/us/26expat.html?emc=eta1
Most of the quotes are from the ACA, which is like AARO and organized the week with AARO and the Federation of American Women's Clubs. ACA is based in Switzerland and its members are mostly there, where the problems of being American are most pressing.
And online PR at Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20100415/bs_prweb/prweb3868654_1
Joe Wilson, (R, SC) has brought the banking issue to the floor of the house and Carolyn Maloney (D, NY)
Andy Coyne has found some YouTube videos of Congressman Wilson speaking on the issue to the House and to Fox News. I watched and felt that he did not seem very enthusiastic nor articulate, but that's just my feeling.

In other news, Claire is ready to go back to work. Geoff took his exam in April and is enjoying some time to relax before cracking the books for the next one. Emma is taking a long weekend in Paris with a friend -- okay, she hasn't traveled far, but it's still vacation mode, hotel and all. I've got lots and lots of filing to do. I just spent more time than it was worth to print some new labels for the files.

Ready, Set, uh oh

I didn't go to Washington. This is very disappointing. I was all excited about it and there was a big delegation going. Unfortunately, a volcano in Iceland disrupted plans for me, several other delegates, and thousands of other passengers.
Last week started on a sad note, with Christine's funeral. I wrote afterwards to Ken, Sandy and their network of shared friends with the Touzés:

"We went to Christine's funeral today. We've been to quite a few neighbors' funerals there and have never seen it packed as full as it was today. St. Saturnin is one of the biggest churches in our department. It was quite something. But knowing Christine and how she was, it was not really surprising. We saw friends, former neighbors, current neighbors, her colleagues, probably some patients all grown up and some parents of her patients. Steve came, for Julien, and Rosette because of fond memories of Christine. And family. Christine's sisters spoke, Emmanuel prepared something but had someone else read it because he just couldn't. It was, indeed, very moving. Christine died just on the eve of his birthday. Julien and Jacques also spoke, and if they did not break down, I think we nearly did. She will be missed. You already know and feel it.

"We came home and I immediately made a batch of my cracker brownies and as soon as they were cool enough to cut, we went over to the Touzes' with them. The house was bursting at the seams with people, but since it's a beautiful spring day, the garden took the overflow and is as beautiful as always. 

"By the way, Julien and Gaetan are expecting a baby girl towards the end of May and they are moving back to France. They've found a place in Montreuil."

Tuesday was Anne's birthday, but since it was Tuesday, we didn't get together. She had dinner plans with friends. I went from the library, at 6:00, to the AARO board meeting across the river, which I left a little after 7:00 to return to the library for the movie night. In the series of cinema adaptations, she presented Schindler's List. A little background story of how the book got written, how the movie got made, comparisons between the book and movie with some reading and a few scenes from the movie. What can I say. With just a few scenes, the whole movie came back to me and I wasn't the only person in the audience with tears. 

Wednesday was a day to take care of me: hair, nails,etc. And packing! Thursday and Friday were taken up entirely with the STC France and STC Trans-Alpine chapters' Content Strategy Forum. This was the first time that I wasn't so involved with organizing the event. It was a great conference. The workshops and conference sessions were fully booked. In fact, they had to add 20 additional seats and could have probably filled more. (http://www.regonline.co.uk/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=766137) I didn't get to really attend anything as I was volunteering at the registration desk. I did get to two conference sessions as room monitor. I did get to see many friends, including David Farbey, who wrote a great review of the conference and Mike Hamilton, who manned the MadCap table. Mike came with his wife and I hope they had a good stay in Paris before heading to Amsterdam. I hope they are able to fly back home to California without any problem.

Rahel Bailie, one of the keynote speakers, was stuck in Paris. We spent some time online on Saturday to find a hotel room and then we met on Monday for some fun. We met at Denfert-Rochereau and walked north, through the Jardins de Luxembourg and St. Germain des Près to the Louvre, where we took the metro to the Grand Palais. There we went to see two exhibits: The way of Taoism and Turner and his painters. Well, I thought the jade carvings were extraordinary, but the silk paintings looked all very much alike and, of course, I couldn't read any of the texts. Since I know very little about Taoism, I was intrigued but not enough to spend a lot of time. Then, we went to the Turner exhibit. I'm not a great Turner fan, but I do see how he could be a considered a precursor to the Impressionists. In this exhibit, his paintings are side by side with painters who influenced him, such as Le Lorrain, and later, by those he influenced. I preferred the painters who influenced him in landscapes. It's not until you get to the really late paintings that you get those fantastic skies of his.

Today, I was planning to go on the Ile de France walks hike, but I ended up on the wrong train. Stupid me. So I came back to Paris and hiked home from the Bibliothèque François Mitterand, through the Bois de Vincennes.

Getting ready for Washington

I'm off to Washington in a week. The build-up is very exciting, although calling and sending e-mails to senators' schedulers to try to set up appointments is not all that thrilling. I've been fairly good at it, making sure I get the calls in and the follow-up done. I've now had to hand the leftover following up with others as I'm pretty sure I won't be able to finish up this week.
In painting, I'm still in a series of trees. I should say it's a series of a tree - a very specific chestnut tree that I took a photo of last year in Montenegro, in what looked like an abandonned chestnut orchard, near the Lake Skadar. The first in the series is very realistic and the others get less and less so as I worked more from memory and less from the photo. I also imagined different seasons, or no season, just the form on colored background.
My medical check-ups have been good. That back-ache back in December set off a search. First came a sonogram to make sure it wasn't my kidneys. It wasn't, but my spleen was enlarged. For that, I saw a hemotologist at the Salpétrière hospital who ordered more complete blood work specifically to look for the hairy-cell marker, and everything came back fine -- no marker. She also ordered a scan to see if there was anything in addition to the spleen to look into. The scan seems fine. Through it I now know that my shoulder and arm are sore because of tendonitis in my shoulder and that is being taken care of. There are some glands behind the left breast which led to a mammogram ahead of schedule, but all seems okay, there, too. So, all is good.
What else has been going on? I've been to Paris almost enough to warrent using a weekly pass! The library on Tuesdays, no hikes recently, but I did some envelope stuffing at the AAWE last Wednesday.
This coming week, I have the library on Tuesday, followed by an AARO board meeting which I will have to leave early to return to the library for movie night. Then, on Wednesday evening, there's the AARO tax seminar. Thursday and Friday, there's the STCFrance and TAC Content Strategy forum. Saturday morning I leave for Washington.
What's really hard, though, is coming tomorrow. Our friend and neighbor, Christine, died last week and her funeral is tomorrow. She wasn't well and this time she wasn't getting better. I saw her a few weeks ago as she was coming home from treatment and thought that she looked especially gaunt because she had just had the treatment, but I guess it was more than that. I feel very sad. I feel hurt for Jacques, Julien and Emmanuel. And for Ken and Sandy, who became their close friends, and on to the Rodewalds and Shappirs.