Accident Artifact

In my study sits an old wooden work bench. It was put together with tongue and groove construction and glue. No nails. I use it as a footstool to prop my feet on while I write. Other purposes this bench has served is as an entertainment center (television on top, vcr suspended between the two supports below), a bed-side table and a rib-breaker.

Literally. I broke two of my ribs on that bench.

In the fall of 1996 I was single and alone on a Friday night with nothing to do and no desire to go anywhere. I decided to hang my bedroom curtains, a menial job I had been putting off.

Rather than walk to the other end of the apartment and grab one of my sturdy kitchen chairs, I decided to use the bench, currently serving as a beside table. Tall enough that I could reach the curtain rods, thread the curtains through and replace the rods, it seemed like a very good idea at the time.

An additional, rather important detail: The feet of this bench are placed three inches in on both sides.

While attempting to straighten a curtain, I moved too far over to the left side of the bench. The bench titled up two legs, towards my body. I fell directly into one of the not-very-rounded corners, breaking two ribs on the right side of my body.

While I remember the pain, I cannot adequately describe what it felt like to have two bones split apart. I remember spending a very long time on the floor after I fell, mainly wishing that my cats would come back and comfort me.

I was also uninsured at the time. I could not afford to call an ambulance and I was in too much pain (and far too poor) to drag myself to my car and drive to the hospital. I called my mother, a registered nurse, instead.

I spent the next six weeks popping the painkillers I was prescribed when I totaled my car earlier that summer, applying bags of corn directly to the site of the break and trying (in vain, as it turned out) to keep my two cats from walking over me while I slept. The latter lead to the worst-pain-I-ever-felt-number-2, when my 15 pound black cat decided to use my body as a conduit from the foot to the head of the bed and stepped directly on the break.

I keep the bench as a reminder to not be stupid when it comes to hanging curtains.

Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Chartres

While walking through the village of Chartres, we heard a voice call out "Excuse me, do you speak English?"

Four women from Thailand were involved in an argument with a local resident over a meter. They were trying to feed it. An elderly man, who spoke neither English nor Thai, was preventing the process by placing his hand over the slot.

J and I acknowledged our command of our native language and attempted to sort out the dispute. The man started speaking (rapidly, with much gesturing and facial expression) directly to me.

"What is he telling you?" one of the women asked.

"I don't know" I replied. "I don't speak a word of French".

At this announcement the entire group, including the man, burst into laughter.

Eventually it was sorted out. It was an off day for parking and the meter did not have to be fed. They agreed to put their money away for another day and we cheerfully exchanged "bonjour's!" with our new friend.

During our walk back up to the the cathedral grounds we exchanged our impressions of France. J and I were scheduled to return home Thursday of that week and the women had arrived in Paris that morning, rented a car and were embarking on a two-week driving tour of France, with Chartres as their first stop. Aside from a truly embarrassing moment when I confused the countries of Thailand and Taiwan (which provoked more laughter) it was the most natural conversation I ever experienced with absolute strangers.

On 24 December 2004, less than two months after our magical encounter, the coastline of Thailand was devastated when an earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a tsunami. Did those women survive? Did they lose a parent, a husband, a child? Or were the losses just things, like photographs of J and I, taken steps outside the shadows of Chartres Cathedral?

Sunday Tea

If you are ever in the neighborhood of 37 Rue de Bucherie, Paris on a sunday afternoon, stop at George Whitman's Shakespeare & Company.

If you are lucky, you will be invited to climb the stairs to the fourth floor and take tea with the owner. The table is large, the tea is served in baby food jars and the walls are papered in books. In one corner stands the world's most comfortable camp bed, piled high with thin old blankets and comfortably worn pillows. The primary color palette, from books to table, chairs to shelves, pillows to blankets is brown, splashed with yellow and faded red.

If you are lucky, Parisians and expatriates will crowd into the room, to practice their English or refresh a memory of home. One will argue that you cannot be American, because your accent sounds British (the side effect of too many Victorian novels maybe?), another will be kind enough to correct your bad French, recommended must-see's of French cinema, and share his hopes of graduate school.

If you are (un)lucky, four o'clock will come quickly and the owner himself, 91 year old George Whitman, will storm into the room, shut off all the lights and throw you out by sending you down the stairs through the black door.

If you were there, Sunday, 17 October 2004, thank you for being so kind to a muddled traveler.

Why I Don't Travel With Family (His)

Early in our marriage, my mother-in-law, M, arranged a family day trip to the Sight and Sound Millennium Theatre in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She purchased tickets for the theatre'’s production of Noah, the Musical”.

It was an plan conceived out of a desire to provide her family with a day'’s worth of fun so wholesome that all adults in the party would feel like they were eating saccharine straight from the tiny little packets.

It was a dreadful idea.

I am not a morning person. I get up early (around 5:45 most mornings) by necessity, not preference. Left to my natural rhythms, I am most productive when I am permitted to stay up until 2 or 3 am and sleep until 10 or 11.

The summer we attended this show, I was on break (I worked for a school) and had been able to slip into my natural cycle. Getting up early to go see an overtly religious play 6 hours from home was definitely NOT my idea of a good day. But we were freshly married, having financial problems and had been "“persuaded" in joining the rest of the gang under the premise that " “it will be nice for the two you to escape your problems for a few hours!"”

Incident #1: The walkie-talkies.
My father-in-law, bless his control freakish heart, purchased two sets at the flea market and passed them out in such a manner that all cars could be in contact with all other vehicles in the caravan. What ensued was 6 hours of listening to my husband's two nephews act their age. The only elaboration I can add is fart jokes. Six hours straight of fart jokes.

Incident #2: The "Train Museum".
Lancaster County hosts some nice outlet stores, including QVC. Because we left home so early, we had 2.5 hours to kill before the show. My sister-in-law and myself campaigned for a stop at the QVC outlet. We even got a majority agreement.

Instead, we had to stop and spend an hour looking at a boxcar left near a tiny tourist trap in the middle of a cornfield. We were outvoted by my husband's (then) two year old nephew and my father-in-law. Near the boxcar was set of shops selling fudge and generic tourist junk.

My father-in-law swears to this day that he thought it was a museum. Funny, the rest of us saw it for what it was - a tourist trap. You could not even climb in the car. It sat there like a siren, luring us to purchase overpriced t-shirts and bad fudge.

Incident #3: What do you get when you take a child who is afraid of the dark and afraid of animals to see Noah in a theatre?
Answer: You get a child who screams bloody murder for 30 minutes straight before the show. Directly into my ear. Without coming up for a breath. Neither of his parents saw the show, as they spent the entire performance outside the theatre.

Incident #4: What do you get when you try to interfere with a parent's attempt at discipline?
Answer: You get a very tired, very angry sister-in-law screaming at her father in the middle of a crowd of 500 people. We were standing 20 feet away and we could hear her clearly.

Incident #5: So where do you eat in Pennsylvania Dutch Country?
You eat at Hoss's. There is no more to be said about the subject.

Conclusion:

1. A massive migraine.
2. A guided trip to and from the rest stop bathroom due to the urgent removal of contacts lenses and the failure to bring my glasses.
   
3. A vow to never go on another trip of any duration with his family again.

Almost five years later I remain steadfast.

Lovers by the Seine

"Lovers by the Seine" is my favorite moment on film. J and I were walking across one of the bridges and I saw the two sleeping in each others arms on the quay. It was too cliche of a moment to not get it on film.

People who see this photo always ask why I did not zoom in more on the couple. I don't think the picture would have worked as well without the frame of stone and water. They lie so close to the edge of the quay, without any fear of falling in because they have each other.

Defining Oneself

"Belletristic": A writer of belles-lettres; written and regarded for aesthetic value rather than content.
Synonyms include: academic, bookish, literary and liberal.

"Cat": A small carnivorous mammal (Felis catus or F. domesticus) domesticated since early times as a catcher of rats and mice and as a pet and existing in several distinctive breeds and varieties. A spiteful woman.
Synonyms include: puss, tabby, kitty, mouser and admirer.

So what?

Many years ago, I went through a period when I wrote a lot. Primarily letters to friends and family. Many of these letters were typed on my computer's word processing program and I have been very fortunate, three computers later, to still retain a file of missives. Letter writing was my way of absorbing the unfolding events in my life.

Lately inspired by Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate, I have decided to resurrect my desire to tell stories by, well, telling stories.

As for the blog name, I love to read and like cats. But I am not spiteful.