Today at the Porte de Vincennes

First of all, I'm home. OK.
Whatever is happening at the Porte de Vincennes is not over as I am writing.
I just want to reassure friends and family that I am okay. So is Paul, who had no reason to be near there.
Earlier today, I was in Saint Mandé, just a block from the Porte de Vincennes. That's where my art classes are and I had a drawing class this morning. The class is over at 12:30, so normally I would have been on my way home when the shooting and hostage taking started. Today, however, we were staying late to share a bite of lunch and a galette des rois. (This is the tradition in France -- a pastry with a little token inside. The person who has the piece with the token is "king" or "queen" for the day. This is for Epiphany but it goes on all month, really.)
While we were eating, we heard a helicopter above. Then, one person, who had gone out to get some vegetable nibbles, came back saying there was something going on, and we started collecting information from phone calls. Our first reaction was to stay put. That's the safest thing to do. When in doubt, stay inside, stay put. After a while, another woman who had an appointment in Vincennes and I set out on foot. I had spoken to Paul and he suggested doing that. The hostage situation could go on all day and into nightfall and if I were going to have to walk the whole way, walking in daylight is better. We were walking away from the action and the police, who were otherwise keeping people off the sidewalk, let us through saying that our direction was okay.
Once at the Chateau de Vincennes, I caught the bus to go home.
That's all. I'm not a reporter, not a witness.

Charlie!

What happened yesterday at Charlie Hebdo is horrible. You've all been reading about it. And many have sent questions of concern -- How are you? Where are you?
I'm going to address that. I'm fine. I'm sad, but we are in no danger, here. We don't live in the neighborhood where this took place. It happened on Bd. Richard Lenoir, not far from the intersection with Bd. Voltaire, between Bastille and Place de la République, in Paris. Yesterday, We had no occasion to go into Paris, so we were far from the event and far from the getaway. And we were not among the targets.
This was an act of terror. A terrorist attack. However, it was not like other attacks we have seen -- back in the 90s on the RER B or in 2007 on the London Tube or in Spain on the train. Or even the twin towers in 2001. Or the Boston Marathon. In those attacks, the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The terrorists were after numbers of victims, not specific targets of hate.
In the attacks many years ago on the Rue des Rosiers or in front of the synagogue on rue Copernic or, more recently, at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, the victims were definitely targets of hate, but not specific. Any Jew would do.
The attack yesterday was different. It was definitely not a suicide mission. The attackers were not amateurs. One of the police victims, wounded and lying on the sidewalk, was executed as the attackers left.
The attack was the assassination of a specific target: Charlie Hebdo. That's a magazine, or newspaper. A magazine on newsprint, if you like. I haven't read it in a long time, but I used to read it from time to time. It's claim to fame was its cutting satire and excellent cartoons. Excellent cartoonists. People who could express so well so much in a simple little drawing. It's no surprise that they were the main editors, including the editor-in-chief. The attack was done during the weekly editorial meeting, when they were all there, with the writers, too. The attackers were well informed; they decapitated Charlie. What they don't understand is that Charlie will survive. It will grow a new head, somehow. Until it does, other journalists will take up their fight, their style.
Charlie will survive, but the journalists and police officers who died yesterday are human beings and they did not survive. They leave behind families and friends. Because most were journalists, they leave behind a whole country of readers and followers, who feel as though they knew the victims. We knew their faces, their voices. We all feel the loss of these individuals.
Yesterday afternoon, we were watching our regular news commentary program, "C'est dans l'Air" (watch the 07/01/14 edition). It's always interesting. We know all the commentators. They appear regularly on the show. For each subject there is a panel of regular commentaors. If it had been an economics subject, Bernard Maris would have been one of them, but he was killed in the attack.
When I came to France and met Paul, he was an avid reader of Pilote -- Cabu, Wolinski, and others were part of that experience. There was Pilote, then Hari-Kari. I could manage Pilote pretty well -- Asterix, Lucky Luke, The Masked Cucumber, etc. -- but Hari-Kari was hard. You had to have a good idea of what was going on in the world, in France, and get all the satire -- in French. That and the Canard Enchainé. I tried for a while to read them. Then, we'd see the cortoonists in the Nouvel Obs, and Liberation, so we never lost touch absolutely. I was able to identify at a glance a drawing by one or another of them. They are now people I feel are lost. They didn't die the natural deaths that could have come (Wolinski, in his 80s, and Cabu, 75); they were killed.
I'm rambling, so I'll stop.

Tis the season

The weather people were gloating that 2014 was so warm that the temperature hadn't gone below zero all year in Paris. Well, too soon. It is below freezing at least once. I'm writing late in the morning and the frost is still on the ground and cars. It's beautiful out; the sun is shining. We haven't had snow in the Paris area, but the mountains finally did get some, which created massive traffic jams on the way to the ski resorts. Even the Auvergne resorts finally got snow.

We had a wonderful week in Duston celebrating with the entire Lebelle-Husaunndee families. It was a houseful of exited children, exhausted parents, and happy grandparents. We came home with colds; mine is just starting today with the scratchy throat. I'm going to stay warm in bed and sort out the photos.

While in England, Claire treated us to an evening of theater in London! It was a combination birthday/Christmas gift of "The Play that Goes Wrong" -- a good laugh! A friend from the American Library in Paris had recommended it to me months ago and I had sent on the recommendation to Claire. In fact, I thought it had already closed. Thank goodness it hadn't. It's not the kind of play that makes you think hard; it's just for fun, so it was perfect for a girls night out. (A review) We got to London early enough to have something to eat before the play, which was the right thing to do because we then managed to get the train back to Northampton that got us home before by midnight!

Monday, the contingent from Paris arrived. Wednesday, we celebrated Paul's birthday at the pub in Harlestone -- an excellent Christmas Eve luncheon -- before the Woking set arrived, while some of us attended the Christingle service at the St. Crispen's church near the house. We had a finger food buffet for dinner. Once the children were all in bed, we went off to the nearby pub/hotel while others went off to the midnight service at St. Luke's. 

The children were very patient the next morning playing with whatever was in the stockings and waiting for the go-ahead to open the presents under the tree. Once that got underway, though, it was a frenzy of unwrapping. They all seemed very happy with their gifts. The highlight was an especially big gift for all but the babies -- a big bike, an electric scooter, pedal cars, a digger/backhoe! The babies got stuffed toys, dolls, and more cuddly things. 

We had Cuban-style roast pork for lunch, using that wonderful recipe from the New York Times, that Louette saved many, many years ago. Even though I have found the link, I think I still have the original clipped article somewhere. Since there were 12 adults and 5 children (not counting the 2 babies), the roast was enormous and there was some question as to when we should start cooking and for how long. It had been marinating since Tuesday, noon! We ended up starting the night before in a very hot oven for about 20 minutes and then let it cook in a very slow oven. When Geoff got up in the morning, he checked the meat temperature and it was done, so he wrapped it in foil and kept it warm. He reheated it a bit before serving for lunch. It was perfect.

After lunch, Nigel presented the adults with their treat, a Christmas themed jigsaw puzzle! The difficulty was in figuring out what it should look like since the puzzle was the view of the room from the perspective of one of the people in the picture on the box -- not the picture itself. I worked at it at the beginning, but couldn't concentrate. Those who stuck to it managed to finish it just in time to watch the Downton Abbey Christmas program. After that, we went back to the hotel for a good night's sleep, except our door key was demagnitized and I set off the alarm when I went into the reception area. I ended up calling the emergency number on the card, waking up the manager, and waiting for her to come to reset the key. After that, we got a our well-merited sleep.

The Lebelles left after a light lunch of soup and sandwiches on Boxing Day, while the Husaunndees stayed on for a couple of days more. Claire drove the Parisians to the airport while we drove back. We got an earlier shuttle than we had reserved, so we got home quite a bit earlier. 

The next day, we all reunited in Paris to distribute the gifts Santa had left here! 

I believe we are going to have a very quiet New Year's Eve.

Freezing

The temperature was 0°C. when we got up this morning. Last winter, if I remember correctly, December was cold, too, which is really normal. Then it warmed up and the winter was actually quite warm. I think most people are rooting for a normal winter this year. We miss the occasional snow. Freezing temperatures are good for the garden but reducing the number of insects. So, I'm bundling up.

Just before Thanksgiving I went to Pittsburgh to celebrate Jon's birthday. This was something I'd been looking forward to since last April, when Tobi first mentioned it. It was wonderful spending time with them, seeing their kids, both of them, for the first time in a long, Tony and Barbara, Amy and Chris and their daughter, who was a little girl the last time we saw them all at Eric's Bar Mitzvah. It was a very short trip, but completely enjoyable.
One thing I managed to do while there was to open a checking account without having to supply a US address! Yea!
I came home before the holiday and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal last week at Louis'. It was excellent. I made the bread stuffing and we arrived early enough to stuff the turkey and spend the next four hours while it cooked in good conversation with the kids and Gwen's parents and then playing with the babies. Anne brought a delicious pumpkin pie.
This past week has been taken up uneventful. A lapsit at the library, a visit to the AARO office to interview someone. We also had a Skype interview with another applicant. So sometime soon I hope we find a communications manager.
Now, there are still a few Christmas gifts to get and we have to figure out how to get all those gifts into the car!