Happy Birthday to Me!

What a gorgeously autumnal, delicious, hilarious and generally fantastic day - and well into the night.

A few words and pictures to illustrate the point:

A scene from the end of a long, lovely, languorous lunch at... (drum roll...) the Buerehiesel - !! - during which we thought often of Ellen and Donnie, and which was followed by a walk in the park that merited the same and other, similar adjectives.

the poster reads: A mother, a patriot, a warrior: Jenny! A president!

We were walking home from a movie (which was Made in Strasbourg, and in which the voices of our children can be distinctly heard at the very end - it's true!), knowing that Anne-Sophie and Caroline's offer to babysit while we took it in was not without diabolical plans galore. But we were still shocked when, as we neared our home, we began seeing the Jenny for President and I (heart) Jean-Philippe posters. The posse that awaited us was full of hilarity, there was more good food - this time grilled out (on the terrace), North American style - plus Gallo wines, and a putsch, to boot! Great friends, great times.

p.s. JPhi and I were too busy having fun to take more than the pictures you see here. A few Very Important Friends are conspcuously missing in this compilation, a fact for which I apologize profusely. I'm going to have to ask the official photographer for a CD of his pile and a half of images and films...

A young cowboy with a heart of gold and a spatula of stainless steel.

Marion is not amused.

BBQ-ing before, during and after.

(1) the propoganda posse, cranking out posters for (2) the putsch. Little whippersnappers!

Green Post 01

This just in - a bit of sunshine for a greener, better life!

Interlude: Dilly-Dally-ing (2/4)

above Sweet moments from the day of Dally's arrival.


above and below Sweet moments from the day after Dally's arrival, with a wink in Amber's direction and alot of fun in the sun. The second picture is of Tomikins' explanation of where he got bruised on one of his ways down that slide.* Wasn't half bad enough to keep him from going straight back up the ladder, though!



above An evening out with friends, including a "before" shot of David H's hair (see 4/4 for the "after" shot, whenever I actually manage to get that post up) and a look at the evening sky (which was much more impressive in real life, believe me).

above One of my wee artists at work, and another of his works.

* When we were home for Xmas, we went sledding at my old elementary school, on the hill behind this slide. The weather had turned funny the night before, and a good half of the tons of snow had turned to ice, making sledding quite the feat. At one point, Leo took advantage of our inattention, and bolted over to the slide and up the ladder. Once atop, he wasn't sure what to do. It was a long way back down, either way, and the ladder seemed like the least sure of the two ways, what with all of the ice that had accumulated the night before. So Jean-Philippe hunched down at the bottom of the slide and coaxed him down that way. But there was ice in the slide, as well, and when the kid-torpedo came flying towards him, there was nothing to do but back off - and watch the missile shoot another fifty feet along the icy ground, to an eventual halt. The beached baby whale that we collected in our arms had his eyes wide-wide open, and only this to say: "Ahch!"

Stone Soup and Dandelions*

Above: cute First Day of School pics
Below: yegads! Circuitous sentences galore!

I actually sent some of this to one of the people concerned, but then thought a part of it worth another oblique post - and so here it is, another post posted before I finish our Summer, the Io-Way blogging:

In the past few days, I'd been thinking so much of two people, both of whom are suffering from kidney inflictions (and the one of whom I know, in a way, through the other's family blog. Just to make things even more fraught with obliquity. They know who they are, though, and that's what matters)... Anyway, I was thinking so much of them that I managed to convince myself yesterday evening that I was developing another kidney infection, myself (like the one I'd had about ten years ago, thanks to a drunken doctor - no joke! - who gave me the wrong meds. Long, weird, painful story). Those fears didn't stop me from taking the boys out for sushi last night, though. (They asked!**) And by the time we'd gotten home, I'd reverse-convinced myself that the pain was really due to the way I'd been sitting at the drawing board all day. (Fingers crossed, knuckles rapping on wood...)

Anyway... it was kind of weird. I kept alternating between wondering how we'd do things for the next few days, and wondering how in the world all of them had been doing it over the past few days. And breathing in deeply, breathing out...

* Again: oblique. But once it had been thought up, it was staying up. My apologies.

** The boys were watching a Japanese animated series called Kié on the evening of the day before the first day of school (whew! That was a long-winded beginning to break the records the sentences above had already set, eh?), and began pleading with their daddy to be given the skewered meats and makizushi that Kié delights in for their supper. And so - and especially because I was already feeling rotten for not having prepared something special for their first-day-of-school breakfast, well... We broke down and took them around the corner last night, to the Mikado. They had a good time, though they were utterly exasperated by the the fact that they couldn't manipulate their hashi, and Leo wasn't into the fish makizushi at all. Tomi, on the other hand, ate his share, and a good half of my lovely seared tuna dish, as well. Oh, and as some of you know, the best way to keep our boys happy and busy at a restaurant is to bring along the drawing supplies. And as those some of you will probably already have guessed, the boys spent half of the time at the Mikado drawing - what? - Pokémon figures and scenes. Ô-yé!

Heigh-ho! (1/4)

At long last! A few (ermm...) photos and a few more words from our WONDERFUL almost-five-weeks in and up north of Iowa City. Thus begins the first of a four part series:

(1) saying, "See you in a week!" to dear Dally (2) interim airport antics and (3) the thundercloud that awaited us at our final destination (and presaged a beautiful summer storm, as well as the temporary extinction and fabulous rekindling of the glowworms' lanterns. So beautiful. So summer in Iowa)

(1) among other things, the arrows Tomi set down to show monsters the way away from Gramma and Grampa's house (2) a very common scene for five weeks (3) just before the melt down over Dove bars (which was obviously due to jet lag, but still... I will never hear Leo say, "Schokoladen!" with the same thrill of mama-ly pride again) and
(4) bunnies watching bunnies nibbling

(1) the children's corner of the Iowa City Farmers Market from above (2) a close-up of one of the children at the children's corner of the ICFM and (3) a couple of the fantastic performers we saw each time we sat down to rest on the edge of the market. The ambiance at this market is almost too good to be true. I've never felt anything quite like it!

(1) my friend Jean and her two fabulous beans (2) G&G and two sweety elves (3) a bit of the well-done pre-play that we were lucky enough to have caught, and (4) the eldest of the fabulous beans, showing us a mere speck of his climbing repertoir (he's an incredible climber - I've never seen anything like it)!

(1) bluegrass's best (2) snowbunnies with Gramma (3) Grampa with Leo-just-prior-to-wild-meltdown - many thanks again to jet lag, for that rare spectacle... and (4) Daves diggin' it (do people still say that, or has English-speaking life moved on, despite my absence?)

(1) this moment was too beautiful to pass up (2) three pixies take a two-second break from wild antics, and (3) peace and love

(1) the front yard and the blue-blue skies (2) a view of the lilies in one of the side gardens, and (3) a close-up of a lily in said side-garden

(1) a view from one of the side gardens (2) back garden with bean tee-pee, and (3) Gramma giving Monsanto a run for their money in her garden in the triangle

(1) a bunny and his Sunday comics (2) a bunny at Wallace Winery, reading his Pokémon cards as the adults drink in the fine Iowa wine (it's true!) and the beautiful folk music of Dave Moore, and (3) fellow bloggers and drinkers-in of the beauty

(1) a water sprite (2) another water sprite, and (3) the 2nd water sprite, sniffing the lilies

Those were but a very few of the moments (and the pictures thereof) that we so happily spent in the first week of our Iowa, &cetera summer of 2008 vacation. As usual, a lot of great moments went unrecorded on film. And though I'd love to "talk" about it all, it's taken me so long to get this little bit up that for now, I'm going to have to leave it at that and move on to Part Two - the arrival of the papa. Please stay tuned. And in the meantime, big hugs to all of you who made this summer vacation so lovely for us. You know who you are...! xoxo

"Yes, you do!"

So... I was picking out pictures for the Iowa, Etcetera post, the tardiness of which I am very ( x 583! ) sorry for (but I've hardly even read other people's blogs, much less had time for my own since our return (three weeks ago, now. Yikes). It was a harsh return to reality, I have to say. There was real life. And the anniversary of David's death. But there was also catching up with friends here. And so). So anyway, here we are, three weeks later. And before I actually post abut that wonderful ( x 835! ) time we had with Gamma-Gampa and the rest of the folks back home, I feel obliged (despite my promise NOT to blog about other things until our Iowa post was up) to mention one of the many little parents-and-their-boys conversations that has taken place in the past 21 days.
To wit:

Leo: Why (do bears like honey)?*
Mom: That's a good question, sweety. I really don't know. Remind me to look that one up, will you?
Leo: Yes, you do!
Mom: I do what?
Leo: Yes, you do know!
Mom: No, I really don't. I'm sorry, but...
Leo: Yes! You do!
Mom: No, I really don't! I'll try to find the answer for you, though.
Leo: But you know it!
Mom: No, I don't. Honestly!
Leo: YES, YOU DO! YOU KNOW IT!
Mom: (trying to surpress a laugh, but honestly flummoxed) Honey, why do you think I know the answer to this?
Leo: Because you are not little! You are a big girl! So you know things! You know all things!
Mom: Ahhh... (tries to explain, but has a lot of trouble, what with all the burgeoning laughter and all...)

*I think that that was the question. In any case, it really was the first question of theirs that I couldn't even begin to answer - a rare one for which I didn't even have a that'll-do-for-now or facetious kind of response. I was so thrilled by the astute nature of the request and the back-and-forth that followed, though, that the initial question may have gone out the window, and been replaced by this sozi. Ah, well!

p.s. The pic's from a couple days after our return. Leo had a time out, and when I came to release him from his bonds, that was what I found. These boys make me laugh and laugh - often, in spite of myself.

Hellos & G'byes

Well, we ended the first third of our summer at Fred and Caroline's, making, cutting and eating delicious tarte flambées (baked in the beautiful outdoor oven that Fred made by hand with heart) and drinking various concoctions. Another happy time with people we love...


And now! We're about to head off for (the second third of) a summer in the happiness, heat and humidity of ye aulde homestead. We are so looking forward to this...!

p.s. Advanced apologies for the correspondence that will have to be put on hold until the end of summer. I'm sure it (this correspondence problem, I mean) can only get better in the coming school year. Can't it?

Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman)

First, the trailer, to provoke instant interest:


And then an interview with Ari Folman:


My own critique can be found here in both French and English.

In any case, I have rarely been so moved - I'd go so far as to say devastated - by a film, animation or otherwise. If it comes to a theatre near you, you know where I suggest you spend your next cinematic hour and a half, eh?

I am the Radio!*

Or: My Friend Jean! (And one of my sons, rather jealous of the attention, the mask, and the drinks that MFJ was receiving - heh! heh!)

So. I've been trying for ages and by all means possible (including, of course, friendly but unrelenting harrassment) to get My Friend Jean to get herself (and her boys) over here. And then, one fine day not long ago, it all began pulling itself together! (The boys couldn't come this time, but as you may well imagine, we're already working on that for the next time...)

And it was one helluva big, long, too-short, joyful, teary, catch-up, moutarde, sleep-over, sally forth, eat up, drink down, silly willy, tongue twisting time all the way from the first to the last of the hugs and a sad sayonara. The only thing that made her leaving again bearable was knowing that we'd be saying "Hiya!" to her and her boys in just a few days, on the other side of the Big Pond.

Here are a few pics from the five-and-a-half days we all spent together, starting with some from the huge "do" that Jean-Philippe organised at Arte for the end of the "school year". It was a fantastic party, made all the more so by the artistic intervention that (he and) a group of eight artists - otherwise known as Interim - put on during the week that preceded the party, and which culminated on that night. As you can probably tell from the images below, we had a great night. And the artists' work was truly spectacular. So, for that matter, was the musical intervention of our favourite DJ-ing duo. And the food. And the drink. And the... You get the picture.

1) Jean-Philippe being interviewed 2) the hellivator 3) two women in the talking toilets

1) artist-cum-tour-guide 2) way-swank work 3) artist-cum-interventionist

1) I want that little orange television set! 2) the coolest sortie ever 3) My Friend Soapy (don't be fooled: behind all that fur is a heart of gold!)

1) Dirty DJs 2) Dirty Dancing vol. i 3) Dirty Dancing vol. ii 4) Dirty... oops! Sorry.

1) a strange little sign on the door of a strange little craft store in Barr 2) four strangers in the doorway of a dilapidated church 3) three of the four strangers looking at a strange beetle, about equidistant from the strange sign and the dilapidated doorway

1) Tomi's first attempts at self-portraits (and when he was looking through the pics with me later, he saw the belly shot and said, "Oh! Je l'ai raté, cette photo de moi (Oh! I screwed up that photo of me)!" just as I was saying, "Oh! Great shot of dolphins jumping!" He looked at me sideways and smiled, knowingly, but not without a bit of extra pride, anyway... sigh... My little bunny...) 2) a work of art co-authored by Jean and Tomi (who had seen Jean working on the side panels of a paper airplane Leo had made for her, and was so impatient for her to do the side panels on HIS plane, that he hijacked her job of writing the plane's name, before pleading with her to draw a caterpillar (to start with)

1) Phone Tag 2) Name Tag (ah! Serendipity!) 3) À la carte : Canard à la Jean's last meal in Alsace, accompanied by an array of assays and one sure thing: good aulde Alsatian Pinot Noir. Mmmm...

1) snif! 2) What we both saw when we returned home that day (me from dropping Jean off at the train station and Jean when she landed in CR/IC airport and drove through the saturated lands surrounding our home town... yikes).

Just a couple of minutes after dropping Jean off, I walked in the front door to see JPhi and the boys sitting down to breakfast in the kitchen. Tomi asked where Jean was, and I explained. A very-VERY sad look came over both boys, and Leo made a cry of pathetic indignation. Tomi told me that made him very sad, and that that was why he was so sad the night before (when I went in to kiss them good-night, after she'd read to them and they understood that she was leaving in the morning). We talked about this, and about the fact that we were going to see her in a couple of weeks, and the excitement that this idea instilled helped a bit. And then, all day, there were these funny coincidences. For instance: I showed them a few movies from when they were smaller (which even I hadn't seen since they'd been taken), and at the end of one, someone behind the camera yelled "JEA--!" just as the film was cut. The boys both screamed with delight, "JEAN! JEAN!" then looked to see where she was on the screen, and were confused at first that she wasn't there - and then kind of pissed off. We had to have the conversation about seeing Jean in a couple of weeks again... And again...

In other words, and if it weren't already patently obvious:

We all miss Jean.

* Don't you just hate inside jokes?

Bananas & Breadsticks

Mom: Keep going! Can you make it spin, like you were?

Leo: Pour quoi tu fais ça? (Why are you doing that?) Parce qu'il faut faire des *bananas*? (Because we need to do (use) the bananas?)

Tomi: No-o-on, on va pas faire des *bananas*, on va faire *breadstick(s)*. (No-o-o, we're not doing bananas, we're going to make breadsticks.)

It made me laugh to hear that when Tomi uses the word "breadsticks" in a French sentence, he doesn't pronounce the "s" at the end (though they both do with the word "bananas").

Just fyi, we had talked about the possibility of making banana bread, too, and if you knew where we keep the fruit basket, you could see Leo looking briefly over to be sure the bananas are still there.

p.s. Sorry about the quality. It's my first time reducing the size of a home movie for You Tube...

All's... well?

So, they insert a tube in your arm and a sponge in your nose, and you have exactly enough time to think, "I should be asleep in no time," before... You're waking up, all warm and snug on your operating table. They give you a nice breakfast and hand you a piece of paper with a diagram of your insides and room for commentary and say, "These are your results. The doctor wll be in shortly to discuss them with you." You look at the paper. Your face must be as blank as the paper, because the receptionist repeats, kindly, "The doctor will be in shortly..." You sit down and examine the paper, and are no closer to an end of confusion when the doctor whisks brightly around the corner and says, "Great news! There's nothing in there at all!" And although the witticism is not entirely lost on you, you are nonetheless not entirely reassured, because... Well, because the pain! Where is this pain coming from, if not your intestines?! And when your gastro-intestinal, your gynecological and your endocrinological doctors were all so certain that the answer had to be found there, to boot? (My gynecologist had murmured something while she was examining the X-rays ten days ago, and all I caught was, "...Crohn's disease...?")

So. All's well on the one hand. But on the other... Well, there is hope, in that there is a possibility that if I take "the pill" again, all will be well for real. But that's another story, and a bit complicated (and no, it doesn't, strictly speaking, have to do with PMS), so I'll just tell you if and when it works, and spare you the technical blinkety-blonk for now. Especially since it might not work, anyhow. Ve shall see...

And many, many thanks ( !! ) to all of you lovelies out there, near and far, for your words of encouragement. Kind words certainly help to put fear in its place...

I'm going in for a bit of general anesthetic and groping around my insides tomorrow morning, and it has me feeling slightly freaked out. Felt like crying this morning. Ugh. It occured to me, though, that although it was frightening to think of what I / they would lose, in the event of a calamity or even of a poor prognosis, it has also made me realise once again how very much I have, and how lucky I've been to have had it all.

Just FYI: this operation-thingey is the technical part of why I've been such a ridiculously bad blogger and correspondent over the past couple of months. So if I owe you one (or more), please be patient. But to recfify in part one of said ill-managed correspondences (the other party of which will know who they are) please forgive this rather oblique, but SO heartfelt shout of:

"CONGRATULATIONS!"

and its attendant and many-times-plural "YAY!"-s

So many things have happened over the past number of weeks, but for now, I offer you a diptych entitled They Give Me Strawberries, I Give Them Peppers. Have I ever mentioned how magic these guys are?


The pepper picture is one of Tomi's photographic œuvres. He and Leo are fantastic budding wee artists, to be sure. More about that later, though I will offer a Happy Clown / Sad Clown teaser for now...


Tomi got kind of shafted on this occasion, unfortunately, because he'd heard me scold Leo for drawing on his face (but as you can probably imagine, he'd also heard when I accidentally laughed, despite myself, and he saw when I took the picture). So he was double scolded when he followed the leader. Still, his soft, sad tears and my realising a bit too late why he'd done it, anyway, meant that he got his picture taken and a huggy apology for my mistaken part to play, and we had a good conversation about listening, to boot. Not that he gave 100% to the listening part of that conversation, but, well... As you parents out there know, sometimes it takes alot of pennies before that one finally drops.


And one last diptych before I get back to my drawing board, and then to my operation prep (ugh): a happy one of the previously sad little clown (I can't emphasise it enough: they are such hilarious, such touching little creatures), with his mom in the background, who thought she'd moved out of the picture path; and Jean-Philippe's corner of our "back garden", which has got much closer to what we always imagined this year. So lush! And so much loved by all four of us. But this corner took a long time in coming, and each day, as he looked out to see if things had progressed, Jean-Philippe reminded me (to my great glee, of course) exactly of Toad in The Garden, one of the stories from Frog and Toad Together, by Arnold Lobel.

New Neighbours

Sometime around end-February / beginning-March, we began hearing the warbling of a blackbird in our courtyard. For some weeks, he would essentially stay perched on the antenna just across from us. His warbling is so beautiful, it sometimes brings tears to my eyes. It occurred to me, after a few weeks of this beauty, that when he left it would be very hard to get used to his absence. After reading up on blackbirds, though, it seems there is every chance that, once nested in a particular spot, the blackbirds will stay on, year after year. Oh-ho, how I hope this is true! Unless, of course, we ever do move. In which case, I'm going to do everything in my power to get them to accompany us.

Tomi took the picture above a few weeks ago, just after the blackbird had begun to spread his wings a bit. Here he is on the corner rooftop to the front-right of us in the courtyard.

And then, this weekend, before hopping into bed, Leo first spent some time in my arms, watching and listening, and then it was Tomi's turn. And just as I was going to send the tot off to pillowland, what to our wondering eyes? The warbler's mate! And they kissed! I kid you not. One of the most beautiful sights I've seen in ages (besides my boys, of course)...

Family Flea Circus

A few shots of our family flea circus from the past few weeks:

These pictures were taken on one of our first days that seemed to mark the real beginning of spring. Jean-Philippe was watching from the perfect angle as the boys played at the edge of he fountain. And the blue sweater was a hand-me-down from a wonderful friend, and is one of our all-time favourites. It has sadly been slightly too small for a few months, now. But when I got it back out to consider handing it down once again, Tomi snatched it from my hands and hasn't let a day go by without putting on, since. On this day, he found a Turkish knit shirt that my mother-in-law had given me and... it's been a regular feature in our lives ever since, too.

The boys' almost-own creation: demon costumes, more or less à la Mononoke. ("Mommy! You can make some ears? Like this? You can do that? We making demon costumes!") And, an hour or so later, our current X-dresser and Black Spider-Boy on the sunny terrace.

Scenes from the night of our first lice-extraction. I was horrified when we realised what it was, but the parents all reassure me: it's the first of many. You call that reassurance?! I hear you saying. Well, yeah, when they're also saying, "What?! It's your first time?! Lemme tell yeh, we've been through it several times already, ourselves!" and so on. Still... Oh, and no, Tomi isn't fingering anybody. Later, when I was helping Leo brush his teeth, I heard a happy, somewhat surprised little voice behind me say, "Look! It's a crocodile!" and turned to see this (though the picture has been cut, because this is still a blog that's open to the general public...).

And our little dancer. We were inspired to start putting together a "dressing room" of sorts for moments when either or both of them feels like putting together a costume. This was what came out of their first foray into said "room" (which is actually a big bag in one corner of their bedroom, which holds all sorts of things, from princess slippers to bat masks. They also have a "treasure box," which holds the smaller items).

On the 18th of April in '75...

I would have thought it a happy coincidence that Ellen would be born on this day, 200 years after the events in the poem described, regardless. But the fact that all four of us spent our first seven years of school at Longfellow Elementary made it an even better coinky.

In any case...!


As I've already mentioned, I spend some special time thinking about each of my close family members every year on their brithday. On Ellen's birthday this year, Mom added to the fun. She copied all three of us girls into the email she sent the birthday gal, which included stories and three pictures. I had read through the stories and was looking at the last of the three pictures again the next day, when Tomi came up beside me:

Jenny: "You know who that is?"

Tomi: "Yeah, it's Gretchen!"

Jenny: ...that is so cool...

The picture in question is the first one, above. The second one was found while I was looking for one of the two of us together that I'd scanned last year. This one was too perfect a match (look closely at her face...), so the other photo will have to wait another year or so...

One of my favourite memories of the time surrounding Ellen's birth is that of David and me imagining how the birth was going to proceed. One of the best tales we came up with (they were, all of them, mighty bizarre) was the one which started with the very small, very wily and very fast baby-that-would-soon-be-Ellen zooming out of our mom (who was usually on the dining room table when it happened), jumping off the table, running headlong out the front door, jumping into the driver's seat of the Volkswagon van (which was conveniently waiting with her brother and sister in the drive way, keys in the ignition, engine humming, refrigerator and pantry stocked) and gunning it. From there, we went on all kinds of adventures, including but not limited to everywhere we knew in our town, our grandparents' houses and, of course, Turkey. The baby-that-would-soon-be-Ellen was a brilliant adventurer, and we were her willing adventurees.

What we got was no less brilliant: a little sparkler, a happy wee camper, a super good sport - all bundled up and topped with "blondie hair and blue eyes!"