Hidden In France

Christmas dread

Fa la la la Blahhhr.. so here we are, post-Thanksgiving, and there are only two things left for me to do: lose the poundage accumulated in the last two months and begin whimpering about the holiday season. 

 

 Am I the only blogger out there who loathes Christmas?  Not your Christmas:  I love your Christmas, the gorgeous decor, the dreams of santa, the starry nights, the winter wonderlands  (sampled here, just click on the picture and it will take you there, that's the new and lazy thing to do.) No, I only loathe my Christmas.  I've always had huge childlike childish expectations around Christmas, and it's usually fallen very short, mostly due to my bad attitude. 

 
 

For example, it is usually around Christmas that I remember I'm supposed to be Jewish, and begin resenting both religions. 

 I hate store-bought spirit forced down my throat every time I step out of the house.  

I hate the 80 degree weather L.A. Christmas weather and roses in bloom when it supposed to be snowing.  

 

I hate the thought of destroying a wee little tree just as much as I detest plastic ones. Unless of course they are in your houses where they become a source of lust and envy, 

 

I dread the consumption, the accumulation, the gift-giving of cluttering junk while my husband becomes possessed with the frantic desire to give give and give some more (we all cope however we can.) 

The poundage issue invariably becomes a larger one, as food becomes my drug of choice.

I'm not going to link to my previous lamentations about Christmas, but if you're curious, just check the archives, pick any December.

I wonder, how is that time of the year for you?

Not in season pretty

You will not find images of turkeys here, alive or dead.  Not leaves arrangements, no pumpkin inspired centerpieces.  Sorry, I don't like brown.  

 

via flikr's green roses

 I prefer to surround myself with candy colors.  Maybe I should move someplace where it's spring all the time (though i'm afraid I already have and that place is called the internet.)  After all, I did not like wearing shoes, so I left my old life behind and moved to California.  Okay not for that reason but it's a nice upside.

 

Not that I don't like Thanksgiving.  I love Thanksgiving.  I can't wait to get cooking for a crowd.  I enjoy my quiet day at the stove, making my house pretty, family coming from all over. 

I just won't like brown.

This from all the luck in the world.

 

Here are not brown images I dragged into a folder named 'pretty'  Shame on me for not being able to give these images the proper credit.  Please email me if you know and I will fix this.

Elle Decor, duh!

This could very well me my dream kitchen of the moment, but where did i steal it? decor8, prolly.

A tray beau tray.. but from where?

All the luck in the world, again. I'm so in love with these little vases.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving girls, (and the one boy, c'est ce pas Fred?) Most of us have a shitload to feel thankful for. 

charming porcelain milk cartons via cafe cartolina

Here is my Thanksgiving wish for you: feel good, be good, enjoy life the best you can, and don't torture yourself too much over things you have no control over. (hmm... that was a reminder for me)

the totem pole woman

When it comes to professional massages, I can't seem to justify the dollar to enjoyment ratio. But a terrible crick in my neck, again, had my head, neck and torso feel as though they had been carved from a solid block of wood, totem-pole style. (I say again because the last time this happened was also around Thanksgiving. Nothing quite like a stiff neck when you need to lift a 20lbs turkey in and out of an oven.)

Yesterday, the spasm had traveled merrily up my spine and turned into the mother of all tension headaches. My face too looked wooden now;my mouth deformed into a rictus of pain and anguish.  Out of sheer desperation, I went to see a masseuse.  Usually the hubby gives me massages, he who can trigger tension headaches with as much effortless ease as he can lift them away. But he is out of town so what's a totem-pole woman to do?

A friend had told me about this great masseuse.  I traveled, not very far, and ended up at what she called her shop, a word better suited to car repairs or Santa's toy building operation. A spa this was not, God, no. The building was seedy, isolated, scary and I was tempted to turn back, but I trust my friend, so I knocked.  The door opened and i was promptly scolded for not ringing the bell hard enough by the masseuse, a squat, barefoot, unsmiling, woman.  She was a bit brusque, her hair uncombed. She somehow made me think of a female, blonde, version of Hagrid .  Now I really wanted to turn back, but a part of me, probably the part carved out of timber, told me to stay.

Once in her room, which was warm and dark as a a nest, I was told to take everything off.  What the.. what?..Everything?   Everything she said with authority.  I'm a prude, but apparently less of a prude than I am a coward, since I did as I was told.  Maybe this was normal.  And if it was not, since I had told no one where i was, I might soon be found floating down the Los Angeles river, in separate pieces, wrapped in plastic. Even as i stepped onto the table I was tempted to gather my clothes and run back naked to my car screaming FIRE IN THE HOLE!

But no. From her very first touch I knew I would be safe.  I knew she was going to take exceptional care of my poor aching body. I transmogrified from totem pole to oiled silly putty as a fast as you can say 'expelliarmus'.  She was strong and gentle, insistent and knowledgeable.  The woman may be right out of Hogwarts, but she was not from the dark side.  

If you're in the Los Angeles area and need a really gifted masseuse, sent me an email and I'll give your her number.  Just don't tell her i called her squat.  I meant it in the best possible way, from a squat person to another.

cute birdies

My brain hurts from too much writing, my body aches from too much sitting and my mood swings from Kilimanjaro to well below the Earth's  crust from too much PMS.  

But this should be no reason to deprive you of those irresistible birds and bird houses made by artist and blogger Gretchen Ciccotti of robin's egg blue.

 

here they are, all dressed-up, but part of me loves them in the nude.

and now the little homes:

Cuuuuuute...!

Gretchen's goodies are for sale on Etsy here.

Rejected!

After all my whining I'm actually a little miffed to have been rejected from the Jury.   

In the end, once we were down to 18 and they only needed 12, the lawyers of the defendant and of the plaintiff took turn rejecting the few jurors who appeared to be either intelligent, or annoying. I hope they kicked me out for the former, though I might have exhibited signs of the latter.

Here is what I retained from my experience: whatever you do, don't do anything illegal! Or if you must do something illegal, don't get caught.  Because if my experience is any indication of a trend and you end up on trial, your jury will most likely  NOT be composed of the intelligent people capable of original thinking.  I'm just sayin'.*

Here are some yummy images that are not rejected.  I can't have enough of Flikr lately.  

Rather than providing separate link, you can click on each image to be taken  to the corresponding flikr page.

 

created by all the luck in the world

The two above created by wool and wood stool

Created by artist and Etsy seller Liz Scott.  I was too late to buy the original but I purchased a print today.

Can't get tired of fake birdies either.  I almost like them more than the real ones.

* a few hours after publishing this post I realize how arrogant and superior I sound here.  Again.  It goes without saying that my comment on Jury's intelligence does not apply to any of you readers who have served as Jury.

Jury duty here we come

Hi fellow Americans.  Have you ever been on Jury duty? Have you ever been part of a jury?  Because I am.  Apparently, having a self-imposed quota of 1800 words a day to write for nanowrimo was not enough of an excuse to bail me out of my civil duty.

Yesterday, and today are jury selection. The things people said to get out of Jury Duty!  Preposterous excuses, sob stories; people lie something awful. After one too many of those, I told myself I was not going to do that; be like them. Also, I realized that it's not exactly like I'm saving puppies in my daily life.  I don't have something more important to do.

It's a civil case, that's all I'm allowed to say. A good thing too because I could never on a criminal case.  I could not see myself be the one sending someone to jail.  

Once on the jury, you get to sit and listen and maybe answer questions.  That's it. So much for bringing ten books and getting a lot of work done.  Once you're selected and the court is in session there is no ipod, no reading, no doodling, and no dozing off as a sweet, anachronistic  judge repeats the same questions (and jokes) over an over to a a bunch of terribly daft people.  

There are 18 of us in the box.  They need only 12. I hope they reject me.  Hey, I've never wanted to be rejected in my life, this will be a first.

I could tell you more about the case, but then I would have to kill you.

I'd rather be in: Deauville and Trouville

I have been called for Jury Duty on Monday.  I'm not sure who gave anyone the idea that I could be ever fit the definition of impartial.  Ha! What a BiG joke.

They say that you need to bring material to occupy yourself while you wait.  Well, I'm bringing ten books-- no, literally, ten books-- and a laptop and I'm still set on writing my 1800 words a day, even it is cooped up within the four walls of a municipal court building with 100 other captives reading over my shoulder.

So I'm leaving you with pictures I took this summer on a day we escaped Paris and took a train to Deauville and the adjacent city Trouville.  

You can rent those candy-looking tents on the beach.

De jolie maisons partout.

We arrived smack dab in the middle of the sunday market

Fruits de mer.  ahhh....sigh... and the size?! You could feed a family of four on a single shrimp.  

And ahhh the smell of chicken roasting.  I'm drooling just looking at the picture.  

 Des montagnes de saucissons. Still drooling.  returning home, American farmers market felt a bit insipid in comparison.

I wanted to buy all those cans.  I didn't care about what was in them or about the taste.  I wanted to wear them.

And then for desert: pains aux raisins

 

See ya'll after jury duty (i call it jury doo-doo)

Passage Paradis

She's been there, she's done that but she's not blasée about it.

From the South of France:

 

... to deep into India

to England's countryside:

or city side:

to the California desert

This is my new favorite blog.  Check out Passage Paradis. The soulful writing draws you in, and the pictures make you feel like a globe trotter.

Shitty First Draft

I was all set to compete against myself in NaNoWrimo this year.  But I eventually decided against it for two reasons.  One is that I have been called Jury Duty (one of the booby prizes of obtaining an American citizenship, another is to have to pledge allegiance when I help at my kid's school, a completely archaic, artificial and --since you asked-- reactionary way to instill patriotism on young minds. ) The other reason not to participate in Nanowrimo was that my husband, when I asked him if he thought this was a good idea, said "i'm against it, you're under enough pressure as it" which I heard as  "do you really think this family should be left without clean undies and with only frozen pizzas to eat for the next 30 days?"

But i digress.  

nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month and a most excellent way to self-kick your butt when you need to write a first draft in a hurry.  The idea is simple: 30 days, 50,000 words.  If you reach 50,000 words at the end of 30 days you win!  What you win is really nothing other than self-respect and what my beloved Ann lamott calls a shitty first draft , the necessary and embarrassing first step I have learned to like. I find that putting a little fire under my fingers by adding a deadline--especially an impossible deadline that can only produce a terrible product-- is the best way to beat delaying tactics.  

The book I'm working on (okay, so i had started it already, which made me ineligible for nanowrimo anyway) has required way too much research because it's a period piece and I don't mean the kind that requires tampons.  I never feel fully prepared, I keep having to stop writing to look up dates (thank you wikipedia) and clothing details (thank you google) and eye witness accounts (thank you public library).  All this research freezes the writing flow, and you know how you can get lost on the internet, because one minute you're googling for first hand accounts of the Armenian genocide and the next one you're watching this:

 

I apologize if this distracted you from your otherwise productive day.

So I won't do NaNoWirMo, but I attempting NaNo&DeWriMo.  That means I'm giving myself November and December to complete my shitty first draft.  I need to average 1500 words a day.  I wrote over 1800 words of pure shit today and I'm happy.