Nearing the end of Project Deck...

Yes, now I'm designing and building as I go, ahem...the surround of the A/C - Heater device that lives at ground level. It's a big square box...6' by 3' and on it's own concrete pad. To build the deck addition meant enclosing it on 3 of it's 4 sides and pretending that the top 6 inches doesn't show. A joke but there IS a plan about that will partially negate it's appearance. A piece of deck furniture will fit on top and allow it's full operation but pretty much hide the infernal (but well loved) beast. The deck addition has been a two person task with Kelly providing painting activities to protect the el cheapo nature of the douglas fir decking by applying a coat of grey primer then a coat of grey epoxy paint on the topside. It's not the most glorious deck ever built but it will serve the purpose of allowing us the use of the southside of the house and beautify it at the same time. I started the project about the same time that Kelly's Prius bellied up last month so we've been at it for about 6 weeks. Of course I'm not complete yet. Left to do is the painting bu Kelly of the existing decking from the old deck and touch up of the new one from walking on it prematuredly with dirty shoes. Then there is the part around the AC/Heater unit. Projects like these are pretty rewarding, it looks immeasureably better that before and will lead into the painting of the east and North sides of the house before winter really arrives...hopefully.
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I'm preparing Carnitas (Braised pork, pulled pork Mexican style) for dinner tonight. I use roasted dried chilies, chopped tomatoes, a piece of cinnamon, a teaspoon of mace, another of Cumin, 4 cups of chicken stock, 2 tablespoons of Apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, 2 rouchly chopped white onions onions to make the braising liquid. Then brown a 3 - 4 lb whole pork butt rubbed with dried chipotle or chipotle en adobo, salt and pepper. Chop up the roasted peppers and add all the rest to a large pot. Boil, then simmer for 20 minutes before adding the thoroughly browned pork butt to the pot, it should be about 1/2 way submerged in the braising liquid. Cook coverred for 1.5 hrs turning over every 1/2 hour. Remove the lid and continue braising for another 1/2 hour. (Total of 2 hours in the liquid.) This is all done on the stovetop, you can use the oven if you wish.
Remove the butt from the liquid and place in a baking dish. Tear off chunks and ribbons of the pork and spread them over the dish in one layer or use a second dish if it will not fit. Place this in a preheated 400 degree on the bottom shelf set the oven to roasting (top element ON). Brown the pork by cooking for 10 - 15 minutes. In the meantime, saute some fresh corn tortillas, put aside to cool and drain fat. Heat black beans and serve as tacos with tomatoe, strips of red and green bell pepper, and red onion.
Delicious! Vibrant and earthy!

Ten Years On...A Dead Battery

So off to scenic Berkeley for dinner with Ted and Diane at an Indian Restaurant. Into the trusty but feeble Penny The Prius and off we go about 2:15 last Wednesday. Thru the canyon and down the hill into Vallejo Kelly drove in the fairly light traffic. We crossed the Crockett/Vallejo Bridge (Carquinez)and as we gained the other side and found ourselves on the uphill climb out of the bridge Penny gave a lurch and went into high speed engine mode with the Brake lite on and the check engine light still on from a few days before. Teh all manner of Dead Prius indicator lights came on and she ran slower and slower as Kelly pulled over to the right to get out of the flying traffic. We sat there a minute, she turned Penny off and then back on and away we went like nothing happened...but it HAD and shortly it performed the same set of tricks again, Kelly pulled over once again and turned her off and on and we headed south once more. Third times a charm isn't it? Yes, same thing about a mile further on. More Master Warning indicator, check engine and the racing engine and slow speed business along with it. Shit! So we decided to abandon dinner with our friends and return home and I would take Penny to the Toyota Dealer in Fairfield tomorrow. We turned around and she made it back to the bridge and I told Kelly we could still go to dinner...we'd just get Penny to the Toyota Dealer in Vallejo instead which was about 10 minutes away. I called the dealers number on our cell phone and asked about a rental car and told them of our Prius problem. They said they had one and we arrived a few minutes later with only ONE failure coming back. They took mu description and promised service the next day. We drove the 2010 Prii across the bridge and had a wonderful time and meal at the Indian Restaurant previously chosen by Ted and Diane. The next morning the dealer called and said they didn't have the car key! In the excitement of the moment I had taken it to remove some things from the back of Penny and place them into the rental's trunk...and put the key's into my pocket where I found them. Kelly was going to Vallejo shopping anyway so she dropped them off at the dealer along the way. About 11am the dealers rep called saying they had fixed the air flow sensor by cleaning it, had done to analysis of the codes and after checking the HV battery found cell #9 was not at the normal voltage. Than meant replacing the HV battery, a $3700 proposition plus the other repairs! She's our car, the only car we have outside of my trusty Ford truck...what to do?! Say yes and deal with it. I called back and told them to go ahead. They called later that afternoon saying the work was done and Penny was good to go once again. We picked her up the next morning and came home $3940 dollars lighter. Penny IS 10 years old, the California Emissions Warranty says 10 years or 150,000 miles whichever comes first. It IS September 2010...it's LIKELY she is 10 years old when the battery bellied up...but is this fair or should there be some pro-rated rate for the few possible months? I don't know...but when you Prius owners have battery failure...hold on tight! It's an EXPENSIVE repair!

The Golden State, slightly tarnished....

Home to go to bed and sleep til odd hours and wake wondering where the hell I am. God, Jet lag is a bitch! Overall it was 22 hrs from getting up at 7am last Wednesday morning at the ETAP in the 19th Arr. in Paris, calling a cab with the inherent wait that drew on to 45 minutes because of awful traffic. Nice cabbie, a Morrocan young man, nice chat about the Arab Spring. Mostly the focus was on the difference between the rich and the poor ansd the powerful and the power-less that led to the revolutions. CDG was it's normal self, they were more than ijnterested in the cat and her papers and shots, more so than we usually face. Eventually it was all approved and American accepted us to climb abourd a bus to drive out on the tarmac to reach our American Airlines 767-300, one long puppy of an airplane. Seated in row 31 just behind the wing made for a rather smooth ride. 9 hours to Chicago, 2 hrs on the ground and then another 5 to San Francisco. God I was tired, then my dear daughter Audrey had parked the car in the garage in front of the International Terminal...we were gated at the Domestic terminal 150 yards south of her car and across the bloody streets that circle the Arrival and Departure doors. Kelly stayed behind with the luggage while Audrey and I made our way back to the car and spewnt the better part of an hour trying to find a way to get to the appropriate garage. Bunches of false starts before we finally got it located and drove to retrieve my Duck and Furry. Then off to Suisun some 50 miles as the crow flies from the airport through heavy SF traffic. Landed at 6:30, arrived in Suisun at 9:15. Where am I?! Oh shit I was now pooped! Off to bed shortly and up at 1 and 5 and 7...ohhhh. After a few days it got down to one wake up a night.

Heat: Warm, Warmer, Hot, Very Hot, Canicule!

Thery have been saying the word "Canicule" for about a week now...and while warm, then warmer, then hot...the days simply didn't apply the record breaking temperatures of the 2003 EVENT they called "a canicule" then. Well yesterday it certainly TRIED to be one with whatever temperature it was outside, 34 or 35 C, was equalled by the bloody humidity which stopped one in their tracks. We worked on the room in the morning, Kelly painting the windows their 2nd coat of Blinding White oil paint and I wallpappered away dripping in sweat til I couldn't either drip anymore or accomplish anything.
Then all work stopped. Today's work hardly begun when it ended, not just HOT, it is now Very Hot...and the sun is fiercely beaming down on us with narry a cloud in sight. Teperature? Currentl at 2:28pm...35C...or for you F folks...95 degrees with matching humidity. Peak summer afternoon temps don't generally level off until the sun angle drops to below 50 degrees to the horizon and that is about 5:15 pm in the afternoon. Today will be a Canicule day by that time. Then tonight, guess what? The fun of night lit skies and torrential downpours with winds to match as Thunderheads build about sundown and here we go again! Batten the hatches...I went up to the attic today and put down a 15' X 10' blue poly tarp to slow the leakage of the roof thru the attic. Moved furniture to more distinct piles and repositioned some pails and buckets and a small horse trough into places I THINK they will do the most good in. Nonetheless tonight promisses to be a doozy. All that heat means towering clouds with frozen tops, hail, grail and rain galore! Whoopee! So much for the drought. Tomorrow is supposed to be a rainy day with much lower temperatures, so be it. And good luck!

What The Hell Was THAT!

Woke a bit before 4am...noises, lots of noises and it isn't the morons on
their motorbikes either or with their drunken friends on the street as is
the usual case. Continuous lightning blasting thru the windows and wind
whipping them open in succession through the North side of Maison Blanc!
Papers flying out of the computer room adjacent to my sleeping chamber,
another window popping open and rain, horizontal rain pouring in to drench
the curtains, walls and whatever else (oh my god the electronics...nooooo!)
So I reach down and pull the cord to the extension cord that brings power to the Comp. Rm these days since the great electrical disaster 2 months ago.
In an instant another lightning flash took out Lignieres electricity in
total! In a minute it's back on, then off again as yet another flash
streamed out of the black sky above to blast another local power line. This time it's out for the count. Grab a flashlight and get Kelly up to help with the flapping curtains and open dikes of the windows. Water on the floor everywhere, rugs sopping wet are thrown over the dining room table to drip dry. Examination of other windows show great leaks being blown inside by the force of the gale outside. The wind just whistles away into the night. I can hear the buckets that make up the floor of our attic drumming with leaky roof discharge. After a half hour the worst is over, it quiets and I crawl into Kelly's bed to sleep as mine has been drenched with a pour from the ceiling through an open attic windows. Joy of joys. And tomorrow? More of the same? I suppose. I'll wire the windows all shut and closed as best I can with their latches. As I check the window in Kelly's room I spy a little sparrow chick sitting lonely beside the ledge, it's sister or brother lying 20 feet below dead. That'll probably be it's fate soon if the parents don't return to rebuild the destroyed mud and feather nest. Sad.

The Saga of The Sewing Room

Heavens! So up this morning, breakfast of toast and over-easy eggs for me and smoked salmon over cream cheese for Kelly and we were set to DO the Sewing Room. We had started this project two and a half years ago and quit in order to allow Kelly to sew the wall clothing for the downstairs rooms. That (almost) done and today after the Guest Potty and Her Kitchen came the Sewing room wallpaper job. Simple vertical stripes in yellow and cream, beautiful and no pattern matching to do. A very sunny feeling to the room makes her very, very happy indeed! She's in there right now as I write this blog entry cutting the extra lengths off the top and bottom of the last BIG piece. There IS a small strip that will need to be put in place over the window frame but that will be trivial. Sure. It does look great though!

We had a lazy do-little Sunday, not ever a Sunday drive to distract us from our laziness. I twiddled with the SFR account having learned there was a Hotspot in Lignieres I could use to go fast...10mb/sec instead of this measly 265mb/sec that is our connection through a lousy 2G SFR account. Yes, we pay for 3G. Don't ask! So I found the Belkin USB Modem...and got a driver from Belkin's site and installed it. Yes, it worked and indeed there it is! Not a great signal but it was there and would connect. The end came though when I went to sign into the damned SFR account. It wanted a password of course and I haven't used a password on the SFR account at all before, I have a key number and that's all. Anyway after trying every combination I could think of and sending copious messages to bad email addresses to see if one would work...I gave up. They even sent an SMS message to my dongles supposed phone number! Dumb, dumb, dumb. The help site was not up to the task either with some damned computer robot girl answering basic questions. Oh well. We will cancel this turkey before we leave and get something new when we return next year.
If we get a dongle again I'll either get a HotSpot type one or a Cradlepoint Router that allows one to distribute the 3G data to other machines nearby.

Working Ourselves To The Bone...

Today we went AT the former "Blue Room", no longer Blue, it is a wonderful,
bright and mind boggling mix of light green and a dark red. It is
absolutely beautiful, fun to look at and USE as the Public Potty downstairs
in Maison Blanche. Truly spectacular to anyone familiar with the dreary old "Blue Room" that served as the guest potty when we did dinners. Tomorrow night our guests the BROWNS, will likely be blown away by how wonderful the space has become.

We have to go North to Issodun to the L'Clerc Supermarket for the veal and
beef that I need to make the Cannelloni that I'm making for the dinner
tomorrow night. I grind my own filling for Cannelloni and need good veal and beef to accomplish the filling (along with Ricotta Cheese and Nutmeg).
It'll be quite a dinner after last nights Indian Extravaganza the Browns and their daughter-chef Sarah presented to us. It was absolutely fabulous!
Many delicious courses and each stood on it's own, very impressive. A memorable dinner indeed!

We got the devise for the roof repair on Maison Blanc, a mere 4500 Euros.
Gasp! I expected a great deal less, perhaps 1200 or so but labor here is
expensive and there is no way I can do any of the patching and replacing.
The roof is 3 stories up, steep and without sheeting, a dangerous task best
left to those who know what they are doing. Expensive and necessary and a
hell of a lot cheaper than replacing the entire thing would be!

First Week of Aout...

The Aoutat biters are baaack! Kelly gets a few and I get many...they are the itchiest little pests that you have evr come across. Harvest Mites they are, Chiggers to some but we all know what damnable critters they are. They crawl on you from their hiding places on the undersides of lefy things and at 1/100th of an inch they aren't to be seen easily. They wander about until a tsty tender spot is found which the then attack until they have eaten a small circle in your flesh and proceed to digest YOU cell by cell till they are full, burp and after a while give it all up and drop off to become adults when they can now go to bars and drink and smoke and carouse with like minded of their kind. Meanwhile I scratch and itch. Kelly paints me with clear fingernail polish which seals the little holes and decreases the itch to something tolerable. The there are the mosquitos hatching in the copious water buckets and troughs in our attic to catch the rainwater before it enters the ceilings of the floors below. Then, of coiurse the BATS fly through every night hunting the mosquitos down, I like the bats a lot. Then theirs the wolverine...but that's another story. So I pour small amounts of light oil in each bucket and hope for the best. I have afixed a mosquito net above my bed which confuses the flying devils enough that the number actually getting to imbibe on my type O blood are few, but some do make it through the bats and netting...scratch, scratch, itch, itch.

It rained through the night last night, I was up twice, once at 2 and again at 5:30 and it was still coming down...not buckets but a good wash anyway. Today the sun came out long enough we could paint the upper area of the "Blue Room" potty off the laundry annex. I gave it three coats during the afternoon, it looks ok so tomorrow a bit of touch up and onto hanging paper again. Then to afix the water glass holder, toilet paper holder and towel rack to the stone walls. Where's my impact drill and bits?

Tonights dinner is Scallop Risotto with bacon but not until the rain subsides enough so that the flood that engorges my kitchen during these downpours subsides somewhat. I hope the roof repair guy gets the devise to us soon, I know he can't start until late September but it would help my frame of mind just knowing it was going to get fixed and soon.

9 Days later...

So today, Saturday July 30th is come. Cool...today we accomplished a LOT in Kelly's Kitchen AFTER venturing to Issodun in the morning to do a bit of grocery shopping in foreign surroundings. Not that Issodun is so very far, it's just that we don't go there very often. It's north of us into the land of huge grain fields, some gone fallow as the weather has dictated lately.
Some sunflowers and colza (rapeseed) has been harvested and the stalks are showing white in great abundance. We were astonished at how it looked as we drove past the dry fields. The town itself has new additions, apartments have been built along the beltway that circles the downtown. New stores have been built in the two plus years of our absence. We went first to Lidl, the store that supplies us with our fine German Pilsner in 50cl cans for a measly 39 cents a can! Yes...very cheap beer that is very good indeed. A pilsner with some body and a brisk aftertaste, quite delicious even in this cool summer weather. We usually buy 3 ea. 24 can cases which lasts us somewhat over a week imbibing as has been our habits. We are thirsty folks and we like a lighter style beer, thus this Pilsner fits the bill. This inevitably entered the real grocery shopping experience, with cheeses and meats (lots of chicken) being the point. A few canned good unavailable as fresh...like corn for instance. Then thru the line and out to go to the L'Eclerc HUGE and modern grocery/department store across town.
Great looking meats and oh the moules...mussels to you, beautiful and the size of your thumb! Tonight's dinner for 2.50 USD a pound...we bought 2 Kilos for 6 Euros. A good buy as the quality is exceptional, maybe the best we have ever bought! We LOVE mussels! Sauté in a skillet large enough to toss them in olive oil and a vinegar of your choosing, I use Sherry and Apple Cider types, salt, pepper and copious quantities of garlic.
Oh what a treat with fresh garlic bread and butter. We drank a cheap champagne as a match. What a wonderful dinner with Kelly's soft lettuce salad with tomatoes and cucumbers. Wow!

A Thursday...and a wallpapering...

We are deep into wallpapering Kelly's Kitchen. It's a red and white pattern of drawings done centuries ago as news for the masses. Trois du Joyes or some-such. The overall tone is that of a very light pink. The resuly is that the kitchen is now very bright and alive compared to the orange and dirty walls that were extant before. I like it and so does Kelly. She chose a red and beige tile as the replacement for the elcheapo white tile on the walls before. The floor is complete, a dark red, slightly glossy and quite a match for the wallpaper actually. We have done about 2/3 rds of the wall area and need yet to do the tile areas and hand the new (olde) overhead cabinet. The end result will be quite a nice upgrade I think especially after the new counter is put into place.

Phil came by a few days ago and felt that our electical might just have a fuse pane somewhere we haven't looked. Kelly thought she saw a beige box-like item above the EDF equipment in the main hallway but no such luck. I climbed a ladder and pulled back the curtains and no...nothing but wiring, no fuse box, no circuit breakers either. Phil wants to come to discuss our long lost electrical circuit so we've invited him to lunch but there hasn't been a reply yet. We'll fatten him up in exchange for his ideas on how we solve this mystery outage.

It's been raining...the place needs it alright...hope it continues.

Dinner tonight was Pasta Norma; eggplant, tomatoes, onions, capers, celery, white wine, sugar, stock...veal tonight, vinegar...all the veges cut coarsely and sauted individually then combined. It was delicious but Kelly wasn't very enthusiastic. Oh well.

Later!

Almost a Lazy Saturday...

Didn't sleep worth a damn last night, typical complaint of old age pensioners isn't it? Then about 5am Furry decided it was high time that I rise to her food need and the proper mounding of the diminished supply currently available. We were going to buy some yesterday (kibble) but did not...so this morning was the shock (for HUR Magesty) of a less and volumous bowl, a middling hillock instead of the mountain of her desires and it was MY turn to do this deed apparently. As you know I usually DO the DO-DO end business, but lately Kelly has taken that on as well, why I do not know but I'm not going to ask. So Furry has deemed me available for mounding of kibble at 5am in trade of duties.

So up and coffeed this morning we got busy finishing the kitchen floor project. Once the asbestos tile was removed, the wallpaper steamer worked wonders to loosen the quite cured adhesive that held it. Foot by foot, apply steam, scratch with a wire brush, mop up the loosened glue move steamer and repeat. Thank God that it was a small room...only about 75 sq. feet Still it took us since last week to get it done. It's all a rose colored cement now with a slight gloss that goes well with the wallpaper we will be applying next.

Le Tour Du France fills my afternoons these days and we have 10 days left. Now in the mountains of the south of France each day saps the riders more than the last, exhaustion is showing more and more with each stage. It's nice not having a dominate rider this year, many teams have had their turn winning stages so each is a surprise and very exciting to watch as they charge the finish line. Quite a spectacle!

Tomorrow is the annual Brocante at the Champ du Foire across the street from us, it'll be a human zoo with more baby clothes and rusted tools than any 3 other brocantes in the area. We will go early and host our friends as they visit and spend their hard earned monies buying things we no longer want or need. We have ENOUGH! It's purely and upgrade buying task for us these days. We are half way through our stay now and planning a 5 day 4 night stay in Paris to revisit sites we want to see again, it'll be a ball. Paris is FUN!

What's To Say?

About what? Well the damned Casey Anthony Almost Trial that wrapped up yesterday. The public thinks she's guilty of course, the prosecutors are sure of it, the jurors thought not and sent her home to "Party ON" as best she can. Oh, the lies you say...so what? Time served will handle those quite nicely. The Tape, the body location, the smell from the trunk, her stupid explanation of where her little girl was that month, the Nanny took her...sure, all of that and a hundred bits more but the prosecutors blew it...Time of Death? Manner of Death? Tape...? I dunno, guess it wasn't enough. Did she drown? Chloroform? In the car? On the body?! (after 6 months lying in a ditch?) Aw it stinks. A BAD DAY for the justice system and a bad day for all of us that thought she was Guilty As Charged. We were wrong...or wronged.

Then there's Obama's War...you say "Which one?" I dunno...try one of these, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and how many more unnamed places are being "warred" by our fine government, police-to-the-world military? He promised to shut them down, to get our troops out etc. etc. ad nauseum. Not yet. Libya? A new place to play in the sand. I'm not happy. Obama's not left enough for me. And the gutless American public won't go into the streets to force him to take notice. Oh well.

The dolts of the Republikan Parti...who to choose, Trump, Bachmann, Palin (cough) and 1/2 a hundred more wanabees? What a joke they have become that Party of No. No Sense, No Glory, No Hope, No Reliable Candidate, No Votes.
And they OWN the House now. Good God! There's always the Tea Parti! I joke of course. I'll vote for Obama just to watch them die.

Exxon Valdez in Yellowstone River system. Just a few pints, only a few paltry fish, no big deal. Just a fine (maybe) and little slap on the hand of the Corporate Giant that can't get it Right anywhere and anytime.

The Maid's Big Mouth. IMF guy can't even get a square piece of ass these days without some blabbermouth letting on about it...the Maid of course.
Wow, the French aren't happy with our treatment of him and now they have their own case...can't keep it zipped up I guess. Shouldn't have told her his name, the fool...should have said "John".

Enough for today's examination of stupidity on these fronts, I'm sure there's more to come.

Saturday, First stage of Le Tour De France 2011

Here, results of the first day of the 2011 Tour De France. Contador did not win the first stage. He's my rider this year, the one I hope for, a real follow-on to Lance and very capable of winning the whole thing. I watched today on France 3 TV, the start and the last 40+ kilometers hoping to see Mr. Contador blow them all way but it was not to be. That is the way of the Tour.

I started to repair the ice damage to my kitchen water supply today. The broken "bit" (a British word for any particular part of anything else) was at the joint coming into the faucet hardware itself. The joint had failed under the icy pressure and that was that. Not a leak...a flood! So be it. So drain down the lines and used a length of foam sponge, very flat, to stick into the various orifices to get the water out so soldering could take place. Nice idea and I actually allowed a whole 24 hours of draining and sponging to do the deed...but my reward was a blow up of the cold water line joint buried behind the tile of the kitchen sink table. Shit! So I had already decide that if this be the case I'd redo the water lines to just behind the sink and thus accessible if they leaked or broke. So I proceeded to redo the COLD water line as there was little point in establishing the hot water one as the damned electrical problem has eliminated that as a possibility in my kitchen, I will have cold water and no hot. So be it. So I did my usual prep work, gathered tools and cut copper pipe and put it all together in hopes of no-leaks and running COLD water by cooking time. After the soldering I turned on the water and shortly thereafter a very fine jet of nearly vaporous water appeared coming out of the joint at the corner of the kitchen sink. Tomorrow I will drain down the lines and reheat and solder the joint hoping that I'm successful this time. What a bitch this is!

Home in Our Lignieres

Arrived back at Maison Blanche yesterday about 6pm, tired and happy to be back. We had spent the morning at a Grotto, read: cave, and NOT the wine kind) deep in the hills east of Cahors in Central France.
I quote"
The Pech Merle cave is situated close to the village of de Cabrerets, Lot county, France (How to find Cabrerets-Pech Merle).

Why is it called "Pech Merle" ?
In the lower third of France is a southern Latin culture called langue d'oc or occitan.
Pech is the French writing of the occitan word puèg which means : a hill. We pronounce as in "fresh". It appears in the name of many localities, written pech, puech, pioch, pey, and you can read it on the signs of the regionals roads. In old French, the good word is puy. For Merle, we know nothing. It could be an ancient Gaelic word or from an older language, which could mean : hill, high area.

Within ten kilometres around Pech Merle can be found a dozen other caves with wall paintings. They are not open to the public.






The upper network of the cave of Pech Merle has no signs of prehistoric use and has been known since the turn of the century. The prehistoric galleries, in the lower network, were discovered in 1922 by André David and Henri Dutertre, when they were 16 and 15 years old respectively. The examination of the paintings and engravings was immediately begun by Father Amédée Lemozi, the priest of Cabrerets.



The cave has been open to the public since 1926. It is classed as a 'historic monument' and is the property of the commune of Cabrerets which is responsible for its management.

The Pech Merle cave is a very large one. It is more than two kilometres long. The visitors can see about the third part of the galleries, seven large halls open the way to discover the exuberant and fabulous riches of subterranean sceneries.

"An art gallery in a palace of nature."

In order to verify that the organisation of the tours and the number of visitors are adequate as far as the safety of rock art is concerned the CNRS subterranean laboratory at Moulis in the Ariège region associated with the Géologie-Environnement-Conseil private office studies the underground environment of the Pech Merle cave."

link: http://www.quercy.net/pechmerle/english/introduction.html

This Week

This week, the week of the Paris Air Show! For all the airplane nuts (real WING-NUTS) this is the week that was for them. I went to it with Ted and Kelly back in 2003 just as the canicule was beginning to rear it's ugly head. We were hot, damned hot and stayed that way through many grueling hours on trains, buses and taxis getting TO Le Bourget in NE Paris and it was even hotter coming back! We did it in ONE day, not recommended folks...too much to see and too much travel involved in each days attendance to make that make sense...but we did it nonetheless. Was it fun? Did we see a shitload of aircraft on the ground and in the air doing their thing? YES we did but not without gallons of sweat and enough basic discomfort to make the whole day a real bust. This year would be fine as the weather is mild and slightly overcast pretty much everywhere including Paris suburbs. Go if you can, worth it! Really worth it!

Off to Bordeaux this weekend for a few days exploring that little known region (to us), with it's beaches and vineyards and castles it will be a great break from the work here at Maison Blanche. Kelly has been sanding the gate we bought back in 2009 and painting it a lovely shade of gloss black. There are literally 100's of feet of surface in all these curly-q's and spiky things. She has the patience and determination to get it done.
I'm still perplexed and dismayed at my lack of progress in repairing the @#$$@#! electrical failure. We now are functioning on a string of heavy duty extension cords and need to pay attention to everything we do electrically as we could blow fuses or worse. Frankly, that shock I got back in the summer of 2009 in my kitchen did me for another fine electrocution scenario. These circuits are divided by PHASE, not just one coming in and getting divided as in the US...but 3 phase power at the box with no real color code or written wiring diagram to go by for any part of the house. Not good! One very well could find HIMSELF across 2 phases at once if HE weren't extremely careful. That's ME I'm talking about!

Too, I've tried and tried to put up my Donkey Fair movies on YouTube and no can do...all fail either to have sound that is correct or they fail in the upload stage. Hmmmm this USED to work just fine. Such is progress.

Liz finally got the fine SFR 2G slow-speed sometimes connection to work from her dinner table. A bloody miracle I tell you! And she is not prepared for the trials and tribulations of the internet either I fear.
Many, too many pitfalls for all of us, especially with this lousy slow SFR connection! 2G sucks! No video for us! What a lie they told. So you say...well why didn't you just get the fine DSL connection from France Telecom poozie? It's fast and it works. Sure it does then you get the bills for the line you are actually USING and another for one you never had as well as one you cancelled months before when you sold your other house....and THEN POOZIE...you TRY to straighten out the mess why still being billed each month for services you don't have and haven't ever had OR used...and this goes on for months and months! Then they say they have an English telephone help service. Really? Is that what you call being passed on from one side of the @####@!@ FT house to the other enumerable times? That's all that resulted from that little interaction poozie, that's all. Is that enough reason to abandon good ol' France Telecom? You bet it is....at least this works and they bill correctly even if it runs in slo-mo 2G mode 80% of the time and not at all the other 20%! A better deal. AS better deal. Damn France Telecom anyway and SFR too while you're at it! A POX on their telephone circuits!
Ohhhhh NOT that poozie, not that! It's a bitch I tell you, a B-I-T-C-H!

Rant over for now....it certainly doesn't take me long to get going on that subject, does it? So we ventured to the Descheterie this morning to dispose of some massive amounts of clippings I had stuffed and stomped into a Poo-Bell (garbage can). They don't pick up GREEN matter here with the garbage. No they don't. So one has to either bag it (ce normale) or, like I did, cram it into a rather large plastic garbage can and place it ever so gently in the trunk of the car with the lid fastened down by 6 bungie cords and take the mess to the Descheterie (spelling issue here) (read as DUMP) outside of Lignieres about 2 miles along the road to Chateauef Sur Cher. So we did that, came back, picked up my pill bottles for my low supply levothroid pills and went off to the Pharmacy and got it filled...30 day supply for...Ta Da...Euro 2.50! Would have been $20 at Kaiser! Grrrrr.
Filled in and out in 5 minutes flat we went on to the Tire company by the Carefour store in St. Amand Montrond about 20 miles from here. We had our car thru the bi-annual inspection, yes it's mandatory! It failed on one point...the rear tires were square in spots. Not just a little bit either.
A LOT! So a pair of fine Michelin tires and a wheel alignment as well, plus, I'll do this one myself, a change of oil and the Glace'....Anti-Freeze. Oh, the tires weren't available today...tomorrow at 2:30pm they will be there...so we went for only an appointment. That...when deisel costs about 6 USD a gallon! Nice. I love France, I really do. The people are wonderful, the systems in place are complex and, at times, un-understandable. But I dearly love the place. It's beautiful too!

Tuesday Morning...

The damned cat INSISTS on staying up and about all @#$#@#! night! And...at 3 or 3:30 begins to call my name outside the door...Hhhooowaarth...Oh gawd, I don't want any! Then she finds she can wedge the shower room door open, then comes the claws in the arm and further insistence that I provide her with either food...properly mounded, of course, OR just play with her at 3 or 3:30 in the bloody morning! I understand that cat haunch is delicious when prepared like coq au vin. Finally she leaves my bed for Kelly's down the hall...I snore remember? Then Kelly gets up and my wakefulness grows. Finally asleep, to dream some peaceful dream and then comes the claws! It's 5:30 now and she is baaack! The onto the bed, then my pillow then in my face breathing and purring deeply. No peace. Now awake I have to pee. The I read while she licks and licks on Hurr side of the bed. Good grief! Is there no end of this?! Up at 7:30. Prep for a day on the road visiting Gueret and places south of here just for fun as we have been captive by circumstance (Donkey Faire included) for the last 4 days. So into the trusty Avensis and off we go into the beautiful late spring. No picnic this time, I was lazy. Thru La Chatre and onto Gueret we go. Once there we went to our favorite, til now, antique store, alas it wasn't open as is the case for us the last 4 times we've tried. I call it "missed sales". We've bought our dinner service and many other things there but, alas they have abbreviated hours now and our times just don't coincide. So off to yet another beautiful village to examine another wonderful church and then the drive home without a single yawn between the two of us, Furry be damned.

Donkey Day 2011!

Yes, today was the famous Donkey Faire in Lignieres. Many, many beautiful animals, just as many people...more people. It began in earnest last night with the arrival of the first of several hundred fine Donkey's, the subject of today's extravaganza. They hee-haw'd all night long, their songs woke me about 3am and again about 5:30. I listened for a while and finally fell asleep to awake with the sounds of yelling and traffic under our shaddow. There they were, trucks, vans, trailers all loaded up with donkey's of many description. Off to the Champ du Foire they were to set up shop. About 7:30 I took a short movie of the proceedings but I cannot upload the thing to Youtube to save my soul! I have tried everything to no avail. Aparently I'm not the only person to suffer this insult as the forums all have many entrries about this kind of problem. Nonetheless, nothing I found therein has helped the situation. I have wonderful stuff and lots of coverage of the Liz spinning wool and donkeys braying but...they are not on youtube as of this moment. I will be doing more research.

Mud Nest...er ah...Swallow Cam

Yes, it's the Swallow Cam in action right now outside the closet windows at Maison Blanche in Lignieres, Cher, FR. Beginning today the swallow cam will be a regular feature of my humble blog. Every windows in the front (12 total, upper and lower) has a swallow's nest built in it's left hand upper corner. Every one. These then are the famous Left-Hand Swallows of Lignieres come home to roost, mud and shit up my windows! How nice! On the program is also flying in to inspect the nest for omni-present open mouths for feeding and abundant chirping for food. Then on the view towards Champ Du Foire (these will alternate throughout the day as I have but one Vista compatable cam, a Logitech C-600.

The Donkey Faire will be starting setup in the Champ du Foire...so there will be DONKEYS and Donkey Trailers, and People watching donkeys and all of that sort of stuff on cam! Cool or what? Refresh your browser on the blog itself to see what is currently happening as it refreshes the image every 30 seconds day and night. If the image is too big for you let me know in the comments section and I'll make the necessary adjustments. Thank Yew!

Bye for now, I'm still working on the wiring problem here in the house...what a mystery it's turning out to be.

Cheap #@@#$$#@ Imports!

I don't know which fine company where made it but the bastards did a fine job...burned up the plug of my plugged in Refrigerator and blew out the electricity in 1/2 this bloody house! Now since this house was wired in the dark ages sometime not all of it's little wiring secrets have been revealed to me...er...US. What goes where and how it gets there is anyone's guess. I pulled the curtain back to reveal the electrical workings of 1926 or so and with my rudimentary knowledge of said circuitry clicked off the main circuit breaker, this at 5:30 this morning. Then I went back to bed. Up at 7:30 I got to work trying to sort this thing out with diarrhea chasing me into the water closet every 5 minutes! The shits I tell you, the shits! I pulled each of the three phase fuses and examined them for breakage...nope! The other line fuses in the wiring nearby were likewise whole and wonderful. So I pried apart the refirs plug to find carbonization and destruction as though an acetylene torch had been used on it! Kelly and I visually traced every wire we could find in the house looking for more of those obscene in-line fuses to no avail. They may be there but they are hidden somehow from easy view. Armed with a ladder, common screw driver and Kelly with a flashlight we went about or newest fun activity and came up dry time and time again. Then, a thought, maybe an electrician would understand this layout in copper spaghetti having seen it a thousand times, so off to the yellow pages of Lignieres to find one each electrician. 2, there are 2 in Lignieres. Could they do any better than I could at finding the fault and repairing it? Hmmmm. So off to the barn for a long extension cord (one with a better standard of construction I hope!) and up to the attic to obtain an wall plug from a short extension cord donor. That done I trailed the extension into the larder and set to cut off the fried plug and install the new one. I also plugged in the freezer which also fell victim to this outage. That done, plugged in the reefer and heard the compressor kick into action and the door light works too! Yippee!
Then I ran a second 50 footer to the computer room up the curly-queue stairs and rearranged the plugs so that that was now a running operation once more and here I am! Best electrician at 35 Rue Marechal Joffre...currently.

Points South

So this day we decided to seek out a bBQ for our trip south to Bordeaux in coming weeks. We dropped the RV rental idea as just too damned expensive, roughly 1500 USD a week! Gads, lotta money to drive a vehicle around that will get probably 10mpg at 6 dollars a gallon, wow. Cost per mile is a bitch!
So we will feature a BBQ each evening and sandwiches during the day with local products all the way!
So we went off to Montlucon about an hour southeast of here and a big city.
Our target there was the Troc d'Lille, a used furniture antique sort-of store with many outlets about the region. We've bought lots of things over the years to decorate and furnish our French homes. This time I saw not a thing of real interest but Kelly got caught by a un-set of restaurant quality bowls and plates in red and white with a Chateau depicted on the plate edges. Checki9ng with the iNet after we got home she found out that indeed it was a real chateau and that it was a Mental Hospital! Wonderful! Per4fect!
Andy's parcel, the last one expected, arrived today with a new video card for this machine as well as a REAL router (NETGEAR) which I will install tomorrow with any luck. The TrendNet one I had worked flawlessly for years until 2 weeks ago when i went south for some reason. No email, slow as hell access when it did work at all...who knows what went wrong but perhaps a local lightning strike did the damned thing in, anyway it has been replaced with a swith instead, no wireless, and is working now.

Watching France vs Poland with my damned neighbors interference broadcast on top of the signal. Alas...

Dongles, Bangles, Bright Shiny Beads

So today was to be the day when we were going to see Liz get her Internet up and running. We planned it since last week to go to the SFR store in St. Amand, purchase a SFR/Vodaphone Dongle and sign her up for a 2 year stint with 3G iNet service (aka 2G internet slow service) and that would be that.
Not so easy there poopsie, first they wanted her passport...? huh? Why a passport, who knows but it was a no go without one so we took a round trip BACK to Lignieres to get it. Once signed up, the dongle was inserted by the wonderful SFR stewardess to no effect! That's right, it inserted the software alright but it did not wish to connect! What? Right, SFR itself couldn't make the dongle dangle , jangle and ring bells. Nonetheless, we accepted the proposition that it WOULD work once we got to Liz's and fired it up. So off we went to the Le Massilia just down the street when we discovered that La Pizz was closed. Lunch was nice, service was surley but effective and the bill was relatively low and Liz paid which was dear thanks for the help getting me online. Sure. Maybe. We drove back to her house outside of Lignieres where last week the little machine with my very own SFR dongle had found and connected to a 2G SFR network signal. We sat down with the fine Dell laptop with Windows XP installed and inserted the dongle and double clicked on the SFR icon. Up pops the SFR Banner quickly followed by a connection window. Down near the bottom in tiny print it says Periferique 3g Non Connected...and that's the way it remained when I moved outdoors in the dripping drizzle to check the signal. Blink, blink but no solid connection lite was forth coming. I fiddled and frustrated myself for another half hour to no good effect. Sooo, we wrapped it all up and the last we saw her at 4pm she was off to the nice SFR person to fix the problem with her dangling Dongle. Further she was to return to our abode to report on the results of the return visit. It is now 5:50 since we left her.

Courtyards, Weeds and Prickly Things

Yes I have those here. All of them and one of the preceeding. The weeds run the gamut from dandilions 4 feet tall to things I'd think we'd eat as salad if we could just get by the unknowns. Lots of berry vines too, where the hell did they come from anyway?! Horrible plants that don't mind taking over an entire garden if allowed to grow and grow through 20 months of absent owners like us! Shit! The roses are so very overgrown with new growth 10 feet long on some plants....yes 10 feet! Maybe more! They are hardy things those roses, old vine stock three inches in circumfrance on some. I cleared out a small section of ground near Kelly's kirchen door for Basil, Parsley and another often used spice/herb that I can't thi8nk of the name right now. I got done yesterday about 3, grabbed a beer and sat down under the unbrella in the courtyard to look at what wonder I had wrought. At 4 the first drops fell, big, fat, wet rain-like they were. They wetted the umbrella fully in a few minutes and by 4:10 I gave it up and ran inside as it was a torrent by then! Then it started to lightning and thunder, a mico-burst or two with winds near 50 mph took down the umbrella and tipped over the iron table it was anchored to. I watched from inside my cozy, rustic kitchen as the leaks of the century began spouting rain onto my cabinets and cooking utinsels! Oh my what a disaster! I kept up with it through using many copper pots to fill and empty as the water just ran and ran. This continued for almost three solid hours! Now France at large and even here drought conditions exist and this rain certainly won't end the drought but it sure helped out the plants I planted and the general condition of all others hereabouts. Nice timing too.

I WAS going to continue my yardwork today but the weather put me off again, not by raining but by the ground being soaked and under cloudy skies too boot. I hate mud. Bye for now...Thai Chicken and Eggplant Curry tonight. Whoopee!

4G in the States, 2G Here, can you say WTF?

Yes folks I'm writing and have been writing for OVER TWO YEARS on this miserable slow coonection through a 2G Dongle from SFR/Vodaphone. Oh gee.
Now don't get me wrong, I miss it when it's down (as it is often that way) and the reward of not having to constantly deal with France Telecom/Orange is pleasure enough perhaps BUT I've paid full price for this miserable connection for OVER TWO YEARS without a word of apology from SFR/Vodaphone for the screwing we are getting every download. Yes, I pay the same 34.00E per month as someone within the range of a 3G signal, that's over 47 USD for the previledge of being an SFR dupe. Lovely.

The good news is that my email now works thanks to me openning the windows and pushing open the shutter that the storm closed about 12 days ago now (I liked the shade you know) and l'viola! Outgoing email is alive again. The signal here is THAT weak?! A damned wooden shutter dropped it down so low it couldn't get through? My oh my...moderne technologie! I couldn't believe it but yes, the shutter is enough of an attenuator to keep the basically line of SIGHT signal from rising to my dongles needs, close it...no email, poor inet, open it, email with inet. Huh.

Got a new Logitech C-600 web cam, one of the less than HD but 2 MB sensor jobs. Nice picture, full of crisp detail and the software works pretty well to if a bit of a clunky interface. It doen't know how to send pics and videos to a server via timed FTPs but...it's ok 'cause YAW-CAM does. Now you can see out the window of our home in Lignieres towards the Champ du Foire where the annual Donkey Faire will be in another week...Heee Hawwwww!

Gotta work in the courtyard today amidst the brambles and aoutat biting things that you can't see...the drought has brought them out and oh boy do they like me. Chomp, tasty California Import! Nice. Tried to find some clear nail polish yesterday at one of the many stores we visited but no luck and now...I'm an itchy thing let me tell you, an itchy thing! I hate AOUTAT! Bought 5 Basil plants so we can start having pesto and capressa salads with dinner. They do very well here in the humidity but the sun and dry are killers for sure. Place them in the sun in the morning and the moon...no shade in the afternoon for best results.

Off to get coffee folks, have a wonderful day wherever you are, I'll be here scratching.

Wednesday, Blue Shies, Bourges

Whatever I did worked...are you vaguely familiar with computers and their networks? I had a problem with my email outgoing messages, incoming came in ok but nothing I wrote went out, just sat there in the Outgoing Messages box and aged past due date if you know what I mean. So this morning I decided to try something (trying something is the hypothesis of an idea rememeber that).
So I powerred down the router/switch/wireless device that sits between the two machines (I use Internet Connection Sharing from my wife's laptop that is connected to the iNet by a SFR 2G lousy slow connection) and powerred it back on. THEN I HIT THE RESET SWITCH. Then I could get into the routers setup page thru my browser, not before! (That's a hint). So I went thru the Wizard found therein and saw that no settings it had specified an ICS, it was either DSL, Cable Modem, Dialup or some strange Australian connection-type. So eventually I gave up, backed out of the wizard, hit rest again just in case I had changed something basic and then tried the connection.
Now the inet was D-O-W-N. I went to the laptop HOST and checked it's connections...it was complaining that there was an IP address conflict...a ha! So back to investigate on my machine...now IT wouldn't let me examine the router at all...pointed me to the HOST instead as the manager of the box. So over to the laptop once more and enter the famous 192.168.0.1 and go to the same useless script to setup the box/router again. Soooo, out of the wizard and back and reset again. Now what? So I went into the router and changed its IP address manually to 192.168.0.2 , brilliant huh? And here I am after resetting everything, doing the complete power down routine and all that. Huh? I STILL cannot get outgoing email to work at sonic.net...here's the error message, no Sonic has been contacted and are working with me to solve the riddle but to no avail so far...it's been over a week!
Qouth the Raven:

An unknown error has occurred.

Server: 'mail.sonic.net'
Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x80070057
Protocol: SMTP
Port: 465
Secure(SSL): Yes

So my big idea of resetting the router (Trendnet) has gone out the window as a reason for the outgoing mail problem. Shit!

It's now 8:12am and we will be going to Bourges it appears as the skies are blue and cloudless after last nights stormy look but no rain situation. Kelly wants some cloth and I want to wander the computer aisle at FNAC and DARTY to look at routers available.

Gotta bake bread today for us and clean up the kitchen after the rains which leak thru the roof seams where it meets the house next door. The @#$###@! drainline from the roof has come loose once again...thus the increased water, think deluge, and the dirty kitchen because of the rains.
Shit.

A while goes by, now I am at my favorite Bourges wattering hole Le Cujas. Inside at a table for 2, by myself as Kelly is off in another area of downtown. I order a large pression draft beer and promptly it is delivered for 5.50 Euros. Do the math American swine...1.43 X 5.50 = 7.50 or so USD. Wow, nice beer! We got up this am, rushed about the house then heqded out tothe Mondial Tissue store in the La Charite secion of Bourges. Kelly bought somematerial for a sewing project and I went off to Babou a bit up the road to buy a coupleof ceramic knives. One for Nick and one for me. Then back to pick op Kelly complaining of the price of yardage now, tres cher!

Bye for now, any ideas about the outgoing mail problem? Enter as a comment for me and I'll try it. Oh and Outgoing Mail worked before last week and no I did nothing to change it before it went south.

Monday, Blue Monday

Well yesterday I turned my kitchen over to Kelly to develop a new recipe for us. We'll call it Kelly Lute's Mexican Minestrone. Nice catchy name for one very delicious and nutricious soup. Let me say that all of the ingredients except ONE were left over from Sunday evenings Braised Chicken Taco feed with Sue and Dave. Here goes, give it a try and let me know what changes you made and how it came out.

2 whole 1/2 chicken breasts or 6 thighs
1 Qt chicken stock
6 Dried California/New Mexico Chilis, roast and cut up remove stems.
1 lg. canned plum tomatoes chopped coarsely
2 medium fresh tomatioes coarsly chopped
4 cloves fresh garlic crushed
1 can (2 cups dry) black beans
2 corn tortillas, julienned wide
2 large white onions coarsely chopped
2 Teaspoons smoked paprika
1 Teaspoon lemon juice
8 small radishes, thinly sliced
1/4 head red/black cabbage coarsely chopped
OPTIONAL: 1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
4 Tablespoons chopped fresh corriander (cilantro)
4 Tablespoons grated monterey jack or cheddar cheese.

Soak beans overnight or cook til just done (3 hours)
Chop the chicken into 1 1/2" pieces, fold into smoked paparika and saute in olive oil til just done.
Combine all the rest of the ingredients except the CILANTRO in a large pot. Simmer 1 1/2 - 2 hrs.
Serve in large bowls and cover with tablespoon of cilantro and a tablespoon of the grated cheese.

Easy filling meal for 4 - 6. Serve with slices of fresh bread and butter for dipping.

Did you know in the middle ages the word "SOUP" was the piece of bread to be dipped in the porridge of the day.

Have fun! Be healthy!

Lazy Day Indeed!

Warm sunshine beamed through my window at 7am sharp, the beginning of another wonderful French day. Up, dressed, brush teeth while looking out at the courtyard jungle. Last nights Mexican feast was a dream, we LOVE Mexican food and chicken tacos were the entree of choice. Our guests Dave and Sue are always easy to be with, warm and friendly conversationalists. We ate and chatted away finishing the night about 11 pm with a Glenfiddich scotch, fine and old, smooth as glass with a wee dram of H2o in it, "branch water" from the branch of the copper water lines that run through the adjacent wall.
No hangover, I minded myself, I have brakes, some Lutes don't.

So this morning cleaned up from last night, Kelly got the dishwasher running right away, we had our coffee and decided to forego todays brocantes in favor of cleaning up and doing stuff around 35. Kelly made this wonderful soup that now fills the house with lovely earthy smells from the leftover tomatoes, black beans, chicken, radish and black cabbage and onions of last nights meal...adding but my super chicken stock and seasoning. Tonight's dinner no doubt...and delicious!

I miss my family at Chris's Club, Monday nights there are precious, just precious. I sent many of the group a batch of photos of the area around Lignieres yesterday. I can't wait to get back to the scene but it will be a while, in September we'll rejoin our raucous krew.

I puttered around, cleaning my cooktop and trying to fix the reticent right front burner, it is stuck in OFF and refuses to budge, pliers did no good at all. It's supposed to go up and down and turn counterclockwise but does neither. What a pain, I USE this cooktop and one down is a real problem.

The outside to pull weeds reposition the garbage recycling cans into the bush where they hide quite nicely. Watered the plants that deserve it in the French sunshine, sat a drank a beer. Now to make a loaf of bread for dinner that is better than yesterday's debacle. Flat and deflated I must have opened the oven door at the critical time. Not good for the bread. Gotta leave it alone for the first 20 minutes or else...trouble can ensue.
Gotta go check...bye for now!

Wednesday! Smoked Trout!

SITTING DRINKING OUR MORNING COFFEE AND WHAT DO i SEE BUT lIZ WALK BY OUR FRONT WINDOW HEADED TOWARD THE pROXY market next door. Then Kelly detected that something had been placed in our mailbox...yes...smoked trout! To a Sicilian bred soul such as myself this is a |message| and NOT a good one. To the logical Californian they are fish to be consumed with great joy. A conundrum no doubt but one easily solved. So out the door I go to see if that was indeed Liz and yes, there she is with her gas bottle to be exchanged with the Proxy man coming along with a trolley to make the task a bit easier. We made a date to be at Liz's this afternoon for a chat.

With that interaction over I was ready for more! |let's go downtown and see everyone| I said to Kelly when I returned from the gas bottle exchange business. And so it was that we left shortly to walk the 1/4 mile to the heart of Lignieres to see what we could see. First to the bank to get a money amount transferred to the seller of the video card I bought and may never see for $56.50 Euros...17E of it shipping charges! Ahem! That took a bit of explaining to the bank employees, two cuter people do not exist hereabouts (both very female). Soon it was only up to printing the receipts and much paper try swapping and printer door slapping ensued and finally...the receipts appeared and we were happily off. Then to stop at the Pharmacy to visit with the owner and say how overjoyed we are to be back in town. Then to the Tourist Board to chat with Mum Marie C who has a new baby boy! Joy of joys! What a cutie he is too...Christoff I think was the name she said. Beautiful indeed! Finally back through town and to the Bain Douche to see how the renovations are going, wow! what a fine theatre it's going to be! Then into the Marie (City Hall) to enquire about getting a card to use the garbage dump which was done in short order, then home to sit here and write this missive and get ready to go out to Lis's place and sit for a while and chat like old friends do. We NEED to see Sue and Dave too...and will.

Tuesday like Monday only Tuesday

Up in the am about 7:30, seems respectable. Let my duck sleep another hour before I yelled for someone to play with. These days her neck pain has been such a constant presence that it affects everything we do. She found a local person, sounds like a kind of Chiropractor and I think..."what the hell, do it!". We'll see.
Dave and Sue are due back in the afternoon. We did well by the garden it looks like. It's still there and growing by the hour in the bright French sun. No sun today, cloudy and cool. I baked a failed loaf of bread today, I fear the yeast has reached it's age and isn't

working well. I baked a second loaf and it responded with a beautiful loaf indeed. Live and learn, I'll buy fresh yeast tomorrow.
Weeded parts of the courtyard, looks a bit better with lots more to go. Dave lent me his string trimmer which presented itself with some minor problem, I could use it about 1 minute between re-fittings of the cover of the spool. I went with Kelly to Leroy Merlin the huge hardware/garden/home improvement store in Chateauroux and couldn't find a replacement spool at all. They has the homelite brand of trimmers but no replacement spools! What a bitch. So I now use a pair of clippers and my hands to do in 20 minutes what that string trimmer does in one. Awful.
Last night I experienced yet another hallucination...this time a well eaten pillow case and sheet where the little mouse (in full 3D, was eating the cloth between the inked in images on the toile de jouy. I stared at it as it ate and ate, I reached out to tough it and it was gone...zip, flash...gone! I put my head down once again on the pillow and went to sleep.
Jesus it is soooo spooky! I fear that I won't come out of these things and am trapped in some other world experience. Not nice I'll tell you. Yes, I take my meds everyday, some 11 of them. Shit!

Today, tomorrow? Huh?

We drove off this morning to get fuel...gazoil at the local super-market/gas station at 1.34 a liter. Filled the Toyota with 12 gallons for about 60 USD. About the same as in our corner of the US...about 5.00 USD per gallon. Then we were off to Chateauroux for a days shopping for everything possible. Chateauroux is about 20 miles from Lignieres, due west.
We first went to the junk stores on the SE side of the city, We wandered the aisles looking over all the stuff, some imported these days. We found a embroidery of a parlor scene that was quite charming and cheap at 8 Euros. Then an oil painting of a scene of farming in the 19th century. Both fir some part of our idea of how our Maison du Bourg should be decorated. We bought them both. I looked over the computer monitors and systems the had but they just didn't fit our particular need these days.
Then to find Eurodif closed, so then to Babou where I fond the ceramic knives we bought last week. They are as sharp as Exacto blades I tell you, very, very sharp and dangerous to the uninitiated.

Another spring in Ligni__er Paradise

Arrived in Lignieres in the afternoon of 12 May, flight was ok...American Airlines from SFO to Chicago where because of a certain lack of cash and no ATM at the airport left us food-less...with all those beautiful Chicago Pizzas just waiting for us. Ah, use a CC...no, their CC verification system was down for the duration. No pizza. No drinks, we shared a rather ordinary 9.95 cent Ham and Cheese sandwich from fancy, swancy ___________
, boring, ordinary and gummy to boot. Oh well. On the plane from Chicago to CDG in Paris we were subjected to the most surly, rude and obstructive air crew members I've had in many a year. No water, lousy food served in an totally off-hand manner with the entree portion literally thrown onto the tray in front of us! Wow, what service! NOT!

From CDG we taxi'd it to Austerlitz and Kelly bought us 2nd class tickets on the choo-choo to Issodun where we were met by Sue and Dave. I was so rummy, jet lagged beyond sleep into the woozy world of the near unconscious time to time. The house upon arrival looked little worse for wear in the absence of 20 some odd months. The next 3 to 4 days were spent sleeping here and there, me on the couch, then in a chair, Kelly in bed then in a different couch...up at 3am and back to sleep at 9am...all so very awful. Came to about 5 days after arrival. Furry was fine through it all, no accidents, no problems whatsoever. The first weekend we stayed home on Saturday then went with Sue and Dave to a series of brocantes south of Chateauroux. We bought damned little, they did better and bought more. They told us they were leaving for UK on Tuesday and asked if we would water their garden in their absence so we have been doing our duty since. They will return Tuesday afternoon. WE WENT TO TWO brocantes today (Sunday) and bought not one damned thing as is the rule with us these days, we have everything so it has to be either a replacement item or something really wonderful to tempt us into a purchase.
Came home and made a pair of chicken sandwiches for my Duck and I and agreed that they were dinner for the day...late lunch it was after the early afternoon lazies hit us and we both napped shamelessly. 3:30 lunch it was. Afterwards I tore into the courtyard full of weeds with Dave's borrowed motorized weed whipper. It was the correct tool but the spool needs replaced so we'll buy a replacement on our trip to Chateauroux tomorrow. 'Til then kiddies, another spoiled American in paradise.

The Real Deal

From California

This gentleman is the real deal, a blues man, a searching soul singing his heart out at Chris's Club in Vallejo, California on one fine Monday night in April of 2011. Oakland Sam is a harmonica player 1st class with a smooth vocal delivery to boot.

We finally have our airline tickets in hand for our long awaited trip back across the pond. Frankly I didn't know if it was ever going to happen, maybe not even this year. Our finances are just this side of pathetic...just like the bloody US Government. Those August bastards get to put the US asleep financially tonight at midnight. Bumbling fools and idiots one and all, who allowed these assholes to run out government? We did?! Huh?! Yea gads folks we HAVE to do a better job of finding candidates for those jobs that go there with our best interests in mind, not their own and the Korporations that jerk their strings. Awful.

I chucked the old PC for another whacky assemblage of parts as Win 7 took a big dive one day and was apparently unfixable and somehow wiped out a 500GB Seagate HD as well. I haven't been able to format it though it thinks all is well and it has a partition. Who knows but I'm now using this one until it too gives up the ghost. What a pain these damned machines are.

The grandkids will all be here this evening, I'll make them Spaghetti and Meatballs with a big green salad. We've never had such attention as has been given to us by Michael and the kids since he came back into our lioves after his divorce. It's been real fun for all involved.

Bye for now. Maybe I can keep this up now that the fog of our future has lifted somewhat.

Whitewalls...and other lyrics

Lyrics | William DeVaughn - Be Thankful for What You Got lyrics

Yes, I've lost my mind. This song drove Audrey, Mike and I crazy sorting out the title, the singer and the damned lyrics. Here it is...enjoy!

It's been a while...

Well we are still making it through this wet and cool wintertime. Sunny day today, I'm baking some bread for my ill neighbor across the street, she really appreciates it and I can experiment on the loaves with various textures, seeds and grains. I know she's home when the Oxygen resupply truck comes in and the whistling noise it makes when it refills the bottles of the life-giving gas. She seems happy enough these days and has a daughter now living with her which must make things somewhat easier for her. Oat bread for her today.

Mike is still painting and cleaning the Swamphouse, getting in ready for either himself (his own reward)or some future renter. He has done wonderful work and even the pool is starting to sparkle. I sure hope he can wiggle his way out of his own house calamity (he IS going through a divorce after all!) and rent the bloody place.

The Chris's Club scene is getting better and better, lots of musicians are showing up and signing in on Monday nights, very cool. We love the place.

I told one of my old friends yesterday that I was an Atheist as he was deep into proselytizing and I had finally just had it. I'm comfortable with my Atheism, it fits like a good suit. His version of Christianity fits him I think not very well as it has some role in the absence of all of his children from his life. He said he pitied me my choice but actually I pity him and wouldn't say it as it would only serve to upset him more. I love him, he's a brother to me, but his religiousity was just too much. He's angry with me now and will probably remain silent (no emails) for some time. Maybe the ice will break.

Another beautiful June day! ... in February!

Blustery winds and 70 degree warmth makes this a typical late spring day but it is so very early. Nice to be out in though I am not. I spent some time putting away more boxed items from the Swamphouse and taking a load of excess crap to Goodwill Industries...mostly unused but undesirable lighting fixtures and bulbs and a pile of decorator pillows that we already have too many of. Good riddance!

Went to Chris's Club in Vallejo last night and it was a mighty fine couple of sets I'll tell you. The Bay Area Blues Society never fails to please! We have come to know and adore them, each and every one. Ron on the Strat, David "Stix" on drums, Wylie on vocals, Ron the bassist, Rob on the keyboards. They are wonderful, full of musical talent and the deep joy of the blues! The food is good too, our usual are 4 Deluxe burgers with fries...$4.50! Yes, you read correctly! Such a bargain these days when hamburgers are going for 10 -14 dollars in a fine restaurant. And they are exceptional! The chef has won a prize for his version of Cajun dishes. I love the bloody place, a dive it is, but oh what a dive! 6 pm on Mondays and Thursdays, 656 Benecia Road, Vallejo. Worth it, really worth it!

Mike is off to his doctors today to see how that arm and hand are doing. He is in pain when using it and I have high hopes that it'll heal completely though it may take some time and lots of physical therapy. He's really good with it too, being as careful as he can so as to not re-injure it. He wants to get back to work so bad I see it and hear it in his words and looks. He loves his work and to work! He HAS a Work Ethic! Rare these days in the US of A.

Summer in ...February?! and Dedicated to Liz.

Well first California tried to freeze us outa here for three weeks in December and January and now I slept on top of the bed (NOT in it!) last night. So it goes this winter, unusual weather here in CA and the rest of the country in a big deep freeze.

We drove last Sunday down south to Indian Wells, a distance of about 515 miles by Prius. Into the pouring rain (naturally)and fog. We took Highway 5, about the most boring road in the world...miles of rolling hills amidst the rain and fog and morons driving at 85 mph. We had "Bonnie" our ol' faithful Tom-Tom commanding our every move as while I PLANNED to skip "The Grapevine" climb over the Tehachapi Mountains and go southeast via Mohave (Mo-hhawv-ie)to the sunshine promised us. Bonnie decided otherwise midway through the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley and took us right on up The Grapevine towards downtown Los Angeles. Shit! Once on The Grapevine you are ON it with no chance to turn around until you reach the summit at 4400 feet or so. Once there the view above the fog and rain behind us made us rethink our possible retreat and onward we went into the LA traffic. Rain ensued, as did fog and the speeding morons. The traffic was thick, pasty actually with far too many cars in all 8 lanes of the monster Highway 10 as it passed downtown LA and wound through Pasadena. Stop and go on a rain slickened freeway is a difficult drive to say the least, many skidding BMW's and Mercedes and Lexuses and two complete write-offs, one upside down, in one mile long stretch that had standing water 6" deep to skid on at luge speeds. Fun. Once past the largess of the city, 20 miles of it at least, the traffic lightened up a bit and flowed at a rather stately 35mph.



Once through the awfulness the area near our destination provided us with huge windmills whirling in the constant wind of the storm as it blew itself towards Nevada in the distance. Hundreds of them, some in rows, some on top of mountain peaks. Quite a sight. Then through the late afternoon confusion of the Palm Springs group of "villages", Palm Springs, Indian Wells, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, Cathedral City (Where's the Cathedral?...and the Bishop?), La Quinta, Indio etc. etc. All pretty "toney" these days with the exception of Indio and Palm Springs which have or have not (Indio) seen better days. Our stay (3 nights, 4 days) at the Renaissance Esmerada was hidden in the groves of palm trees along side highway 111 that scoots along the base of the local mountain chain quite dramatically (the mountains anyway). The hotel was huge and modern-ish with strange pyramidal fountains and square columns in the entry cul-de-sac. It couldn't figure out what its design was, Spanish? Mayan? Desert Southwest USA? Even a baroque table in the Elevator kiosk, huh? And our room had been furnished in campaign and mid-century modern style. All very nice but a bit confusing. The convention would begin for me Monday morning. Long winded meetings filled with men dressed in scholarly blue jeans and plaid shirts with pocket protectors. Mosquitos don't have a chance with these geeks on the job! Every day til Wednesday my days were meetings while Kelly found every possible thrift and junk shop in the "villages" and there were plenty! A few great finds from the miles of racks she perused in those three days.

We found great eats and a dud while we were there, a packed Don Diego was the worst Mexican "Cuisine" I had ever had and that included the fine Mexican mamacita on the beach in Puerto Vallarta who poisoned me with her chicken tamales some years ago. My over-breaded, over fried fish stuck into oily corn tortillas with a mushy tasteless salsa had no Mexican spirit or verve whatsoever. Kelly's Lobster Enchlladas were coated in a thick dark Mole and the "Lobster" crowed early in the morning the day it died. No meal worth eating in this lowly place but the local centenarians thought it was just dandy. Not me brother, give me the real stuff or nothing at all! Where's Rick Bayless when you NEED him?! The winner in the food department was Vicky's only a short drive from the hotel. 1/2 priced food and drink amid a people show, friendly bartenders and clean modern surroundings. The food was exquistite! Fresh fish tacos for 6 bucks, a 9.25 dollar NY steak, great crab cakes for 6 dollars as well. Fabulous food! 1/2 priced as well! Got them in the door I'll tell you...

Our return drive was uneventful though I was way too Prius-lagged to drive all the way or even 1/2 the way...so Kelly took over and soldiered her way through the desert, Boron, Mohave, Bakersfield and up the old 99 through Fresno and Stockton to
good ol' highway 12 and our little Suisun. She was a trooper! My hero!

Mike is ensconced at The Swamphouse. His arm is still a mess though he can do quite a bit with it, he's in pain.

A remembered day...

After the funeral of my Mother Ann in April of 1962 I didn't immediately return to Keesler, instead I rode back to Selma with Harold and Mamacita (Hazel) to stay a few days and perhaps bring my great green Mercury back with me. I had only been in the Air Force since November and was about to graduate and be shipped out to somewhere in the US I thought. Having the car would make the adventure just that much bigger and more in my control instead of the USAF's. Little had changed since I had left in November, I had no active girlfriend when I left so that was a dead end road to interesting times there. I scouted out a few of my Reedley College buddies and visited Jay Bulls as he was the one who took me to the recruiter's office in Fresno that day. I found talking with him was just not as it used to be, somehow these last months had changed my mind and my direction in life and now we seemed not so sympatico. That first evening I drove alone to Fresno to visit DiCicco's Pizzeria on Blackstone Avenue and wound up like many other times there boxing pizzas and bullshiting with the guys and Maria who had been a dear friend as I grew through high school. The next day I walked around Selma reviewing the town after having been made familiar with Biloxi just outside Keesler AFB. Biloxi was truly "southern" in all that that meant, racial divides were common and the public fountain downtown had "Colored Only" signs on the public restroom nearby, it sure wasn't tired old Selma. I walked past the now closed theatre where I used to spend my Saturday afternoons at the movies paying 25 cents for the privilege. Popcorn was 10 cents and a coke was 15 so with 50 cents I could have a complete movie going experience. I walked to Selma Drug Store where I had worked for a while under Pat Patterson the owner. I walked inside and took a look but there was no one I knew so I left a few minutes later. I went across the street to the Toy store and visited with the owner Ros Bagdesarian the brother of the man who made The Chipmunks voices and tunes. He drove a huge Rolls Royce Sedan that always fascinated me. He asked me many questions and I gave him polite answers and soon I left to visit Kenneth Chow who was a long time friend and whose family owned the grocery store downtown. We chatted a while and took a short ride to the Foster's Freeze for an ice cream and I told him the story of my going into the AF out of sheer boredom.