cocoon

ok, so this morning it was so hard to get out of bed.......our flannel sheets are so cozy.....like sleeping in a cottony cocoon............

freaked out

ok, so mm has just learned that denise baca, who owns freddie's uptown....has an in operable tumor on her heart and has not long to live......so sad.........such bad news on top of my own frets....i woke up two days ago with a swelling in my left rib cage.........like i am growing a third breast...........i went to see audrey darville.......who asked rick hempel for a second opinion.....now this alone was stressful, as ecw runs 3x a week with rick......but i allowed him to see my swelling anyway...............the determination made was that i had a swelling on top of my ribs, not below....if it is till swelled on monday i am to get a chest x-ray.........................i tell you this....the swelling is below my ribs.............not on top..................and i am waiting patiently for monday to find out why my ribcage is bowed out...................

too much time on my hands.....

ok, so mm has visited, yet again, the web site of dan brown, and then did a google search of the priory of sion.................and guess what........she found out that Nicholas Flamel, he who is mentioned as a noted alchemist in harry potter and the sorcerer's stone..........was a real person who belonged to the priory of sion...................the reading about the priory of sion was most confusing.......like where the masons diverged from the demolays and the templars............as a member of a sorority that began in the late 1800's, i am in awe of anybody who belongs to a secret society that dates back to the year 1200...................to be quite honest, i desire greatly that one of my offspring be inducted phi beta kappa.........................my doctor is a phi beta kappa, for heaven's sake....so why not one of my brilliant children.......................................

god bless jimmy carter

ok, so mm is so proud of jimmy carter, who has publically spoken out against the move by the department of education in his home state of georgia to ban the use of the term evolution in classroom textbooks......the following was lifted from cnn.com......................Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday he was embarrassed by the Georgia Department of Education proposal to eliminate the word "evolution" from the state's curriculum. "As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox's attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia's students," Carter said in a written statement. ......................the christian right is such a scary bunch............to alter education to fit their narrow understanding of the world...............so frightening that people like this can make it to places of power, and enjoy control over what students read to that extent.........

snow

ok, so neither boyle nor danville have school today........who knew that snow not deep enough to cover one's shoes on the short walk to get the newspaper out of the mailbox was enough to call off school in town.........

suburban schools not safe havens.......

ok, so we, who send our children to integrated, 'inner-city' schools already knew this.............

Report: Suburban schools not safe havens
From sex to drugs, similar student behaviors in cities, suburbs
Thursday, January 29, 2004 Posted: 10:46 AM EST


WASHINGTON (AP) -- People who flee urban schools in pursuit of more wholesome settings may be surprised by this report card: Suburban students engage in just as much sex, drugs and fighting as city kids do.

"The desks may be newer, the paint may be fresher and the faces may be whiter, but the students are just as likely to have sex, use controlled substances and break the law," says the report released Wednesday by The Manhattan Institute, a New York-based conservative think tank.

Authors Jay Greene and Greg Forster analyzed student survey data collected from the same group of students in three waves, from 1995 to 2002. The survey, which included an estimated 20,000 students, was sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and other federal agencies.

Among the results of the study, which focused on high school grades:

-- Two-thirds of suburban and urban 12th-graders have had sex; 43 percent of suburban 12th-graders and 39 percent of urban 12th-graders have had sex outside of a "romantic relationship."

-- 74 percent of suburban 12th-graders and 71 percent of urban 12th-graders have tried alcohol more than two or three times.

-- 22 percent of suburban 12th-graders and 16 percent of urban 12th-graders say they have driven while drunk.

-- More than 40 percent of 12th-graders in urban and suburban schools have used illegal drugs.

-- 20 percent of urban 12th-grade girls have been pregnant; 14 percent of suburban 12th-grade girls have. Such numbers are among those that are higher than many people would likely expect, regardless of the school setting, Greene said.

"People who think they've escaped these kinds of societal issues by moving to the suburbs -- we think they're mistaken," Greene said. "The suburban schools aren't safe havens."

more davinci code

ok, so mm has read that ron howard will direct the movie, that akiva goldsmith (or whomever wrote the screenplay for a beautiful mind) will write the screenplay, and that the film will star russell crowe and kate beckinsale...................i cannot wait...........

google-proofing

ok, so mm's blog is still not google-proof......at least not with regards to the c-w name.....i have just taken pains to remove the full c-w name from every blog in which it appears.....now i have to wait for the cache process to catch up with my changes,......

bummer

ok, so mm is quite bummed about eku-danville..........eku main campus may be finally filling a vacant nutrition department position......and the new person will quite likely to be traveling to danville to teach the class that i have taught these many semesters.........the eku-danville director has offered to go to bat for me with the nutrition class, and has also offered request that i teach a required health class that is currently not taught in danville........gentle readers, be aware that the eku teaching gig is my travel money........and the prospect of losing my travel money is bum deal indeed.......

another good quote

ok, so Chekhov said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out." there is much truth to this statement...........................

a new feminist heroine

ok, so mm is really keen on colette, but there is yet another feminist heroine out there worthy of respect.....emma goldman. who said the following...................."If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution," said Emma Goldman (1869-1940), feminist heroine, anarchist activist, editor, writer, teacher, jailbird and general trouble-maker. ......i pareticularly like the descriptive of troublemaker................................

matches

ok, so the c-w family is match-poor.........i wanted to light a few candles the other day.....so i could have a semi-relaxing bath.....and i could find no matches.................none in any junk drawer...none near the fireplace................nonme tucked away in odd places.....none.......seems like places that used to promote themselves by giving away imprinted matches haved stopped.....because so few places allow smoking in the first place.......and thus.....as a trickle down effect/affect???????.....we have no matches.............i have looked in the save-a-lot for matches.....none to be found....i have looked in the kmart.....none to be found............i read on line today that airports will soon outlaw matches in carryons.......why........??????i can;t find matches for home, let alone for travel.................................

colette, again

ok, so today is the birthday of colette, my favorite author.......the following is from the writer's almanac via minnesota public radio's web site..............It's the birthday of (Sidonie Gabrielle) Colette, born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, France (1873). At the age of 20, she married an older man, a writer and critic who employed a number of ghostwriters. He convinced Colette to write down stories about her childhood and embellish them with juicy details. When she did, he published them in his name as Claudine at School (1900), the first novel in the Claudine series, about an outspoken, clever young woman who discovers a love affair between a headmistress and a young female teacher. Colette's early writing was forced labor: her husband locked her in a room until she had produced enough pages for the day, and he kept the royalties. After fleeing her husband in 1906, Colette became a Parisian music-hall performer famous for baring one breast while dancing. At the Moulin Rouge, she caused even more controversy when she took a woman into a passionate embrace. The show caused a riot. The curtain had to be brought down early, and Colette became the talk of the town.

Colette began to write at least one book a year, producing more than 80 volumes, including Ch?ri (1920), My Mother's House (1922) and Sido (1930). Proust admired her, and wrote to her to say that her novella Mitsou (1930), about a music-hall artist who falls in love with an officer on leave, had moved him to tears. She kept up to two dozen cats in her house, and her novel La Chatte (The Cat, 1933) deals with a kind of love triangle between a man, a woman and a cat. In 1944, at the age of 72, she published Gigi, about a spontaneous young girl who is trained by courtesans in "the honorable habits of women without honor." It was adapted for the theater in 1951, with a young Audrey Hepburn in the title role, and later made into a movie.

When she died in 1954 Colette was denied a Catholic funeral, but thousands attended the state funeral provided by the French government?the first for a woman. A plaque on her house in Paris reads, "Here lived, here died Colette, whose work is a window wide open on life."

Colette said, 'sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."

And she said, "The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike," and "What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner."


In the short story chance aquaintances, colette recalls a vacation trip that she took to a rented mountain 'villa' along with her cat, that ended up with a stay of several weeks at a spa..........there is a touching paragraph that i will type in long-hand..............'the striped cat was called Peronella at first, then Prrou. You'll find the two names in my earlier novels; but these names fall to shreds on her like second-rate clothing. She became an unclassifiable, private-edition cat, and as is universally known- cats with strong personalities need no names. She was called "Come Here", she was called "where have you got to?".......and "lets be off...." not to mention fancy names, invented at moments of enthusiasm or tenderness, such as "light of the mountainside', or 'o striped to the utmost of stripeability' ....'birdcat'...and so on. No one made much of a fuss of her, not even me...She was never called on by reporters, and she granted no interviews. We lived together. When i had to leave her behind with my mother during a long absence, the striped cat took it into her head to die, and she died. If i mention her in this tale now and again, it is not because I want to give her any special promenance in it, but because she was a part of my life........' I have read and reread this piece numerous times, and it always brings me to the brink of tears...how Colette can describe her life and aquaintances in such a poignant manner....even down to her cat.....which she probably missed more than many/any of her husbands.......

small world

ok, so mm has just figured out that sean penn is the brother-in-law of aimee mann, who is married to his brother michael.......which explains why the sweet song 'the two fo us' was penned by mann and penn...........

yes!!!!!!!!!!

ok, so mm has finally figured out how to import comments into her blog.........i am so proud................

complements

ok, so mm recieved an actual complement today.......regarding her choice of literature at the advanced age pf 47...............'at least you read colette and not romance novels..........'there was a bit of exchange about whether colette was, in fact, a romance author..............gentle readers, madame colette was the first woman to receive a medal from the academie francaise......when she died she was afforded a state funeral..............she was lightyears beyond a romance novelist....................like the kind sold in walmart checkouts................colette was a woman of letters............a woman of ideas, of action, of passion, of substance.........to read colette is to read one's own blog.................or so i told my middle child this very day.....colette's blog would surely have sounded like mine....................or so I tell myself in my lowest moments..........

virginia woolf

ok, so today is the birthday of robert burns, somerset maugham, and virginia woolf.......i am quite unfamiliar with anything written by burns short of auld lang syne......the same with maugham......but woolf.....her piece...a room fo one's own.......is quite wonderful, especially for any woman who has a hankering to write...or blog......i am not sure that the little computer room counts as a room of one's own, as it must be shared.....but only one can sit in here at a time so there is an element of privacy...........woolf suffered greatly from bouts of depression.......a quote from virginia 'on the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points'.......i am not sure what it means but i like how it sounds.......her father published a dictionary, and encouraged his daughter to read widely......he advised her, in so many words...to read what she liked no matter if anybody else liked it, and to refrain from praising books that she did not like........there is great wisdom in those parental words.......i have read to the lighthouse numerous times, finding greater depth each and every time i pick it up.......her stream of consciousness must mesh with the way my own brain rambles......

colette

ok, so mm reaches for her colette shelf when she is tired, frustrated, and in need of familiar literature............tonight i reread gigi, a short story made famous by hollywood, maurice chevalier (thank heavens for little girls......) and audrey hepburn.........reading it as a short story reminds me of how little it takes for hollywood to make a bit of dialogue into a major motion picture..............and after seeing cold mountain, it is difficult to see the connection between this short story and a major motion picture of any depth....................even if it took place in paris...............will cold mountain be the new barometer of substance, worth, etc.?????????and this after 3 years of lotr releases???????????????too much cinematic genius in too little time......................but back to madame colette.....her short story is spare on length, but rich in substance, detail, and believability...............and it lacks gory battle scenes............ maybe i will reread my entire colette shelf...and will feel a little better about the world than i do at this very moment..............

cold mountain

ok, so my best guy and i went to the 4:00 showing of cold mountain.....we had both read the book some time ago......maybe several years ago......and were not quite clear on the particulars...but we did remember, at the end.....how the book ended.....and we were still stunned that the movie portrayed the tragic ending moreso than the book......that is really the bottom line about this movie.....it was better than the book...........visually beautiful......horrific beyond hell..........there were parts that i could not watch...and as my eyes were averted i pondered the realization that the civil war, like all wars, was certainly worse than what i saw in snatches on the screen.......and that strong women were the reason that the south survived the war, and the years after the war.............and oh, what i would not give to look and act like nicole kidman.....she will surely have the last laugh on the tom cruise divorce.....he will fade away, and she will bloom as one of cinema's brightest talents.............in this film, she is breathtaking............even in the worst moments..............and then there is jude law as inman........who falls instantly for ada (nicole) ..........and spends the bulk of the movie getting back to her................oh, my.......and then there is renee zellweger and jack white.....he of the white stripes........they add so much to this film..........it is so fitting that one hears that they are an item........gentle readers......mm is in a conumdrum (a latin term spoken in a critical part of the movie, by the way....) whilst she was blown away by this film.....she really wants lotr/rotk to not only be nominated for an oscar, but also receive said oscar for best picture based on general merit for the entire trilogy........................on the other hand....cold mountain is so true to the book, so emotionally draining, so cinematically perfect....................oh my.....................

friday

ok, so mm is so glad that it is friday, even though she will work part of saturday...............i catered a dinner at my own church this evening.......and was glad of it......for the record, my church was kicked out of the southern baptist convention for having a female minister and female deacons.....the group that met at my church tonight is of the same ilk.....all are fed up with conservative christians who seek to co-opt the church............i was glad to be a part of such a gathering..............

mm speaks her mind

ok, so mm accompanied her precious spouse to the annual chamber of commerce awards dinner......he won the first ever ethics in business award...for which i am so proud..........after the event was finally over, and the pictures were over......and ch' crowley's mother told me about how well the boy in the hat did on the psat.....then there was the after-party..........where alice f.k., was politicking with those in attendence............she who is running for congress.....well......i could not turn down the opportunity for mm to speak her mind.....and luckily i had not had anything short of water.............for i was quite cordial when i introduced myself......and certianly upbeat when i complemented her on her positive campaign.....but then i scowled, and told her that i had been quite dismayed over the weekend when her ad came on the tv, and hillary r. clinton's head popped up as some symbol of evil.........i said...'i was so disappointed that you would go that low......."......she quickly countered that it was not her ad....that it was sponsored by the republican national hoo-ha committee...........and started to turn her head and introduce herself to my ethical spouse, who would never had said these things to her.............having thought about my encounter.......for and hour or two........i wish i had introduced myself as a lifelong democrat who was almost ready to vote for her as a qualified woman, until her financial backers screwed up..........ah well.........mm spoke her mind......................

trip possibility

ok, so mm has decided that a mother/son/mother/daughter trip to florence next january would be quite nice.......especially if one of the mothers spoke italian and one of the children knew her art......the mm is having major travel withdrawal, and needs to come up with a pallative itinerary on which to ponder/plan/ and otherwise daydream upon.......i am well aware that the boy with the hat does not care if he sees rick steves on this trip, or if we even consult rick steve's florence book at all......but i must say that i missed traveling with the 'young people' this go-around..........scheduling could work out even if one of the young people involved goes to school next year in mass.........anyway.....something to ponder...........

responses

ok, so mm has had 2 responses from her graffit board entry.....one was from boulder, colorado......and her comment was eerily reminsicent of a lovely note i got second-hand from the aunt of the l.o. she must have been a lot of fun to travel with in her day.........................of course, mm's family is tired of hearing me talk about rick steves, the trip, the food, the wine, the security.........and mm is therefore starting to think ahead to next january....maybe venice before it sinks.........

interesting links

ok, so mm has enjoyed some links this weekend, mostly those suggested by the l.o. and the boy who wears the hat downtown........i particularly like somethingawful.com.......the site that parodys everything, including painter thomas kincaide.....

pictures

ok, so my friend cynthia has not only had her film from paris developed, this morning she presented me with a lovely matted frame of 5 black and white images from paris, including me with rick steves.........the b&w images were a fitting media decision for january....a dreary january.........paris looks ever so ethereal in b&w.......also, rick steves looks very tall, but that isn't the film, i suppose.................

oh, my aching back

ok, so mm has strained her back again....and this time it seems worse than the last time.....i could barely get out of bed this morning, barely get down the steps,....you get the picture.......today i have to go in to trc to start cooking for tomorrow.....this should be rich......i am not sure that i can drive......because it is my driving hip/lower back area that is in pain.......pray for me.....

day off

ok, so mm had saturday off, and planned to do as little as possible.......except that is not possible so what follows is a synopsis of what i did when i did not plan to do anything.........drove to town and took in 3 rolls of film...2 from paris and 1 that i found whilst packing for paris......who knows where or when it was taken........rented 3 dvds, then bought plastic string-closure folders so that i can reorganize all of my eku class notes, overheads, etc.......bought 15, as well as more overheads, copy paper.........went to krogers and bought stuff to make lasagna for us sunday as well as a small one to take to a neighbor who is ill.........stopped by taco bell to buy lunch for me and the children who chose not to accompany me to town.........made the lasagnas, then decided that today was the day that i would organize all of those photographs from the past 3-4 years.....could not find the empty albums that i bought 2-3 years ago.........gave up and decided to watch dvds while i organized eku stuff.........watched catch me if you can, with leo and tom hanks...the wearing the hat downtown boy commented that leo only plays people who are imposters of somebdy else..........then watched matt damon in the bourne idendity..........which was a great flick that mostly happens in paris..................watched it again with mostly everybody else after supper...............ripped apart the baby sweater that required a little more yarn......reworked the sleeves a tad smaller to allow enough yarn to make the button band.......got into an argument with my mother prior to supper about the term ms......which my mother considers an afront to all she holds dear.......i told her that i have been a proud ms for 23 years, and consider the term an honorable description of a woman is in a partnership, not owned by a spouse......talk about waving the red flag....enough of a full and satisfying day when i had planned to do absolutely nothing...............

alias

ok, so mm finally got to watch sunday's episode of alias that her children dutifully taped for her (many thanks....) this episode clears up all of the questions about what happened to syd during the 2 years she was gone.......we discover that syd had her own mind erased so that she could not tell anybody where she hid the cube containing rimbaldi's dna.......but that sloan tricked her into finding the cube in the last episode........we find out why lazarey's hand was in the box in the desert, and why syd has the scar on her abdomen.......the covenant believes that syd is the chosen one, who will give birth to rimbaldi's heir, at least her eggs will be involved.............but at the end syd tracks down sark, who has the dna, and is working with lab guys to do test tube fertilizations using syd's eggs........lazarey is there, too, as he is sark's father.....keeping up so far, gentle readers?..........sydney torches the place, but sark gets away.......sydney brings lazarey, who has been wounded in the gunfight at the makeshift lab....back to l.a.............he tries to tell her something about a 'passenger', but she tells him they will have time to talk later..........a sniper shoots lazarey as he is being wheeled into a naval hospital.........we get a good look at the sniper as the episode ends.....lauren......vaughan's wife.........now we always knew that lauren was evil.....and now we have proof........so what is her end game....does she really love vaughan, or was that a set-up for something even extra evil that will happen later in the season?.........so many routes that the show can take now.......and they all will lead somehow to sloan, who syd now knows has some connection to her 2-year disappearance.......and of course, where is syd's mother, irena........???????oh, my......2 more days until the next episode of alias.........

rick steves........grafitti board entry

ok, so here is what mm wrote on the rick steves grafitti board about the trip..... I have just returned from a whirlwind trip to Paris, a sort of theme trip with several ladies from my Sunday School class....we read the DaVinci Code over the holidays, and decided to visit the Parisian sites that were key to the story line...more on that later......I planned several lunches at restaurants on-site at major museums. The first day, we lunched in the incredible dining room at Musee D'Orsay.....This room must have been either a dining room or a ballroom when the D'Orsay was a hotel/railroad station.....the ceiling and walls are quite elegant, and diners relax in huge wicker armchairs...we each had either a hot plat du jour or a salad plate...mine was a 'salad of the forest' with mixed greens, mushrooms, roast duck and duck confit, with a broiled goat cheese toast garnish.....the price for 3, including a carafe of house white was 46.55 euros....quite a bargain for the ambience and the luscious food.....Another day we lunched in yet another outstanding dining room, this time in the Musee Jaquemart-Andre, on Blvd Haussmann..the ceiling was brought back from Italy by the art-collector couple that built the house, and the room had those 20 foot walls that make an Italian-painted ceiling seem perfect.....my salad plate was again mixed greens, this time covered in thinly sliced Italian ham, along with grape tomatoes, 3 broiled goat cheese toasts, and a little sauce dish of black olive tapenade.......just divine with a bottle of a mighty dry reisling....for 3...50.05 euros including several cafe cremes.....another deal for ladies who wanted to really 'do' lunch....if you go, get there before 11:30 am, as the room filled up quickly and they take no reservations......now for the most memorable part of the trip.....the DaVinci Code part.....which took place at St. Sulpice....we opted to take Rick Steve's advice, and go to Sunday 10:30 am mass, then stay for the organ concert and wait at the door at the left of the entrance in case the organist will allow visitors to the organ loft.......we were the very last to go up the steps, and stopped to take a few pictures of the sanctuary from the balcony before making our way down the dimly lit hall toward the organ loft.....we were ushered into a brilliant red silk-lined reception room....and as the door closed on the small gathering of tourists, we heard someone gasp....aren't you Rick Steves?.......there he was, confirming details of the organ recital section of the 2004 Paris book with organist Daniel Roth.......Rick Steves himself......We had our pictures taken with him, as well as with the organist. I got his autograph in my little moleskine travel diary.......talk about being in the right place at the right time.....Our next stop was the Louvre, to see the Mona Lisa and Madonna of the Rocks, as well as the inverted pyramid.....also key elements in the book....but not before we lunched at Cafe Marly, in the Richelieu Wing, overlooking the pyramid entrance. We had read that reservations were not required.....The staff had a bit of an attitude because of our lack of reservations but condecended to seat us within 8-10 minutes anyway.......we dined in a glowing room overlooking the Marly horses...the walls had a treatment that resembled baby blue suede, and we sat on burgundy couches or blue velvet chairs...just lovely....the prices were more than we had anticipated...but the food was purely divine.....I had a Thai shrimp soup with lemongrass and mushrooms in a broth thickened with coconut milk and a glass or two of a nice sancerre for about 20 euros.....worth the price just for the people-watching alone......this place must be where the interesting come to see and be seen.....we did toast to Rick Steves, by the way......for making our short winter Paris getaway so memorable......I should add, for the record....that we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Hotel Leveque on the Rue Cler, and the meals (2) that we had with Phillippe at La Varangue, and at L'Auberge de Champs de Mars, and the Chinese take-out place across from the hotel. By the way, there is a cyber-cafe just down from L'Auberge de Champs de Mars that is open 12 noon to 8 or 10 depending on the day of the week. Despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, we felt completely secure, and had absolutely no trouble getting along with any one as long as we smiled broadly, and spoke broken French with Kentucky accents.....A wonderful trip.

kudos

ok, so mm has to give kudos to her past traveling companions............nobody travels as proficiently as the l.o. and the guy who wears his hat downtown...........some things are just not the same.......

fly away home

ok, so mm has been up since 11:00 pm ky time trying to get home again.......one of my traveling companions decided that getting up at 6:00 am french time for a 7:15 shuttle may not be enough time, so she got up at 5:00 am instead.......which meant that the rest of us woke up at 5:00 am and tried to keep our eyes shut until 6:00 am, by which time our friend was dressed, and packed and standing by the door......she finally decided to go and sit in the lobby by herself..........and wait for us to finally come down......our shuttle meandered through the darkened streets of paris picking up 5 more passengers.....4 from philedelphia who we are convinced got off at the domestic air france terminal rather than the international one........hopefully they made it back home.........we had no line when we checked in with our delta/air france code share flight........................we were grateful for the level of scrutiny at the security checkpoint...travelers to washington dc and l.a. went through a separate line altogther..............there were bomb-sniffing dogs,too.......we met a man in the line getting onto the air france shuttle (we had to travel a great distance to our plane, which was parked in the back-forty.......) he is a philosphy professor from eku, originally from nigeria.....who also missed his first classes because he goes home for a few weeks every christmas..................the air france flight was delightful.......individual movie screens and control wands.......we could choose from 6 movies.........i watched je reste, with sophie morceau, the quiet american with brendan frazier and michael caine, and white oleander............i could have watched a 4th movie, but i fell into the on-screen solitaire...........and all of a sudden we were landing in cincinnati and i hadn't even taken a nap.............i am so ready to sleep in my own bed, with my own spouse.....when he gets up at 5:00 am to go run, i have learned to ignore him and go bacl to sleep.........there is no place like home...........

new places

ok, so mm has gone out of her way to see new places on this trip to paris.......today we went to musee jaquemart-andre......a house on blvd haussmann that was the treaaure torve of a rich couple who collected art, furniture and entertained the paris elite at the turn of the century.....we had lunch in a lovely room with a frescoed ceiling brought back from italy.....i had a salad plate with warm goat cheese, thin ham, mixed greens, tapanade, and lovely cherry tomatoes.......life is good, especially with a bottle of dry reisling.........we have settled our hotel bill, and it was less than we had been quoted on line..........we did not bring up the discrepancy...........that almost makes up for the poor exchange rate we have gotten on this trip......we did go to some of the same old places also....dehillerin for housewares and the fabric stores near sacre coeuer....i found no fabric, but that is ok..............looking forward to flying home tomorrow........speaking of goat cheese, i bought a jar of goat cheeses in oil...hopefully it will travel well......

the right place at the right time

ok, so mm spent sunday on cloud nine.........we had a leisurely breakfast of ham and cheese omelets at the corner cafe, then metroed to st. sulpice, the church featured in the davinci code.......we arrived at the end of mass, intending to hear the 30 minute organ concert that was highlighted in rick steves paris book as something not to miss. we walked around the church during the concert, looking for the rose line, to no avail.....then gathered with the group at the small door to the left of the entrance that opens after the concert is over...to allow the interested to go up and see the actual organ in the loft.......we were at the end of the line, climbing cramped circular steps.........and were quickly ushered into a lovely red-walled room with glass doors, where we were to meet the organist, a daniel roth..........and there he was....rick steves in the flesh.......asking mr. roth if the information in the 2004 book was correct so that he could include it in the 2005 book..................we got his autograph, and had our pictures made with him........we were like travel writer groupies.....mr steves insisted that the organist be included in autographs and photos..........we spent some time talking to the french guide, who said that she was hired by mr. steves to take him around.....and we talked more later with mr steves about danville, and the vice-presidential debate...of all things........he noticed that my travel book for this trip was by moleskine.......and was amused that i had copied his maps and taped them inside.........what an incredible coincidence......................later we dragged oursleves to cafe marly at the louvre pyramid for an expensive little brunch, then toured the louvre highlights until we were due in montmarte to have supper with nicole rufflet.........today we shopped at bon marche and bought cool groceries....then did scoured the bookstores for dossiers......so far we have 11 of the books requested......no laye or dubellay so far...it is like nobody has heard of them......will blog again tomorrow before coming home........

en paris

ok, so mm has arrived in paris, after a turbulent night of crying babies and bumpy patches....and grateful to be here......we had a glitch at lex/bluegrass airport, whereupon one of my travel companians did not have her paper ticket, through a travel agent error....she thought she had an e-ticket...anyway, after 45 minutes of negotiating she was resissued a ticket and we got on the plane...many thanks to eric hall, delta employee........shuttle to hotel leveque on rue cler......rue cler is charming, the hotel is charming....a market street....our window boxes (2) have blooming cyclamen in them...so festive and quaint..........we walked to musee de l'armee to see napoelan's tomb and to buy museum pass, then on to rodin museum and then to musee d'orsay...we had lunch in main dining room of museum...the old train station/hotel dining room...lovely meal of a salade forestiere with mixed greens, chevre, mushrooms, tomatoes, and duck slices.......along with a glass of dry white...lovely.......we enjoyed the paintings, then walked back to the hotel for a little nap before dinner........the weather is quite fine...a few sprinkles with temps around 55 degrees......tomorrow...st. sulpice for mass and to hear the organ concert, then cafe marly and the louvre....we will haver supper with nicole rufflet in montmartre later on........for those who i forgot to tell, sorry...my hotel is grand hotel leveque, 01 47 05 49 15.....a bientot

bon voyage

ok, so mm is just about ready to roll on this extended weekend trip to paris..........just need to throw the rest in my carryon...........the suitcase is eerily empty by comparison to other trips.....so i have either learned a few things over the years, the suitcase is too big, or i will be seriously underdressed......i have entertained myself by copying useful french lines in my little travel book just in case........just in case i do not want to get out my little phrase book........i am hoping that 25 years of trying to learn french will bloom into a 4-day bout of basic yet adequate transactions with people in museums, stores and restaurants.......one disappointment to report....i have worked feverishly to finish a baby sweater for niece nicole's new baby coner (conner?) crowley.....on the last sleeve i ran out of yarn about 5 yards too soon........this means that i will have to take apart both sleeves and make them slightly smaller....when i come back....unless some kind family member does this for me......(meaning my mother.....) ah well...........wish me luck and a safe journey.....i will blog from paris if a cybercafe presents itself.......and believe me.......i will toast my gentle readers at the first available moment if my plane lands safely

mm comes clean

ok, so mm has made a big mistake, and needs some mea culpa time from her gentle readers.................here goes......when i booked my little 4 day jaunt to paris, i neglected to compare the dates to my eku class at danville manor.........i will return about 24 hours after my first class should have met......so..............i changed the syllabus to reflect no class on the first day, mailed 45 copies to students i have not even met, and sent the syllabus into the eku main office along with my contract........i thought everything was taken care of until i had a call from the department chair this morning.....she was concerned that my class may not have enough contact hours, and requested that i find subs for the first class as well as for danville spring break........she also questioned my habit of having a class for each chapter in the nutrition book (14), which allowed for there to be a few fewer classes than the sememster would have required (15) in the first place........i called out to the eku danville director, who assured me that i was talking to a department chair who is preparing for an accreditation inspection in 2007........and who also assured me that she was not concerned that the danville students were being shortchanged.with regards to clcok hours............the danville campus people basically told me to resubmit a revised syllabus to eku main campus, and then do what i wanted at the manor.............i feel much better..............

curb my enthusiasm

ok, so mm has not shown her usual pre-trip euphoria..............which i atrribute to my general malaise these past 2 weeks.......i have drifted into an unknown territory during my illness and now my vacation.....a vacuous-state in which i do not get dressed until noon, and venture out only to pick up my children..........i do not ever recall having the time or the inclination for such laziness..........even in my worst days of sloth in college...therefore i believe that the behavior persists because i have nothing else to do until i leave on friday......putting photos in albums not withstanding.........whereupon i will leap into action on all of the travel itinerary plans made thus far..............

pete rose

ok, so mm has an opinion on pete rose.....gentle readers are requested to kindly allow mm to rant.......for starts, i am no fan of organized baseball, football, basketball, hockey, etc.....the only sporting events that i can be counted on to watch include wimbledon tennis, the osu-michigan game, march madness if ky is playing, and the world series if i have any inkling that i have a connection to the teams (like sympathy for the boston red sox....or chicago cubs) anyway, i lived in cincinnati from 1978 through 1981 or so.......during the time when pete rose either played or managed/played or was disgraced or all three.........those were sad times for baseball fans, especially reds fans.........the question remains as to whether a player's personal life should weigh heavier than a player's contribution to the game of baseball when it comes to hall of fame status...........this is one of the few times that i can recall my grandpa broughton's opinion on any subject.........he laughed and recalled seeing ty cobb playing in indians stadium in cleveland......he recalled that ty cobb was notorius for keeping a bottle of bourbon with him the dugout, and that he was therefore apt to be involved in benchclearing brawls..............grandpa commented......'now ty cobb...he was no angel, and he is in the hall of fame............'that is the bottom line........there are those who are already in the hall of fame who are no angels...with regards to drink, drugs, wife abuse/adultery, tax evation, gluttony, you name the deadly sin..........if we draw the line and say........you can be elected to the hall of fame having commited any sin except gambling on baseball, it makes the whole hall of fame outfit look stupid........election to the hall of fame should be based only on contribution to the game of baseball, without moral judgements attached.......pete rose meets that pure concept of hall of fame.............lets get on with the business of electing him with next year's ballot............

reservations

ok, so mm has procrastinated for weeks about making a reservation for monday at the seine-side bistro called les bookiniste (sp)......with the fall in the dollar, i hesitated to spend 35 euro for lunch........well, we now seem to have 2 reservations for this restaurant......one for 3 persons, and one for 4 persons, made by cynthia's friend nicole.....i have started to pack my stuff...at least started to get my stuff together and started to contemplate which suitcase i will use, how many layers of clothing will keep me warm, etc........my cough has returned.......alas.........i also need to shop for cold/sinus remedies just in case as i do not know the french words that describe those miseries......i have so few days off before i go to france and before i go back to work.....i may just delay this packing business a bit longer and go back to bed..............

too much

ok, so mm is still not herself...............but enough so to report that the rest of her relations are just crazy............let's start with the ones who wanted to make a deal....................a sister-in-law, who shall remain nameless, called twice over the weekend, to enquire about an oil painting made by ecw's mother during a class.....of a cactus in bloom........that currently hangs in our dining room with other works, mostly by our family.....pen and ink by kcw.....a nice photograph of a still-life by ecw........some needlework by kcw......and some etchings/prints purchased abroad....................anyway, this painting is nicely situated with it's genre............and this sister-in-law......who had originally asked me to take it, now wanted it back........at least 18 months after the funeral/division of property................wanted to trade it for a vacumn cleaner..............fortunately, my spouse was not in the mood to make a deal, and told her no............

shameful

ok, so mm is still a bit under the weather, and thus can claim sickness as the reason she fell asleep on her sister-in-law's couch yesterday in cincinnati............others, who are less charitable, claim that i was being anti-social........if that were the case, i would have not gone at all.........

more britney

ok, so britney's weekend gets worse..........not only did she get married to her childhood friend, she promptly arranged to get the marriage annuled...............the poor guy was reportedly flying back home to louisiana all shook up..............so sad..........

britney, britney, britney

ok, so cnn reported this morning that britney spears went and got married over the weekend..to a friend from back home......at a las vegas wedding chapel that had the audacity to make her go the courthouse and get a wedding liscense and then come back for the ceremony............she wore jeans and a baseball cap............gentle readers, there are few reason that would compel a first-time bride to skip the big ceremony, the gifts and the white dress..............the first is that she was drunk (like rachel and ross on friends.......) or that she is pregnant and needed a husband pronto.........nice of her childhood friend to come to her rescue.......................and so much for britney the role model for young girls.....................

movie mind-meld

ok, so mm was totally unprepared for how much she would enjoy the film with robin williams and edward norton.........though every time i try to explain this film it gets a new name......sometimes it's get smootchie, and sometimes it kill smootchie, and sometimes i remember that it is death to smootchie.................i suppose that black comedys can blend together at some point into one big splash of irony.................edward norton was perfect for this part....the rhino in plush pastel part...........just like robin williams, unleashed, was perfect as a darker version of himself.........somehow, jim carey would have cheapened the entire project should he have been cast............regardless, this film was a breathe of fresh air into an otherwise miserably congested day................

misery

ok, so it is friday, and mm has felt poorly for going on 9 days......the facial pressure and congestion just will not go away..........at least without otc medications which cause annoying side affects (effects?).........i have less than 7 days before a miraculous recovery is required........the good news is that i have only to work a few hours today, and most of saturday, and i will be off for 2 weeks......i have started to sort out some baskets of stuff that call themselves my personal records...so far i have filled a trashbag with stuff that i appear to live well without..........then i may clear out some books that i don't like (and give them to he who wants to sell things on ebay)........and then i may just break down and put pictures in albums...............maybe............

goodbye

ok, so mm's nephew has already departed for d.c........about 7:00 this evening, which should put him in his condo about 5:00 am...........one supposes that he likes to drive at night.............let me just say this about this branch of my family...this is where the real brains lie...the duo who should be graduates of mit or the like............but who resist college like the plague as if a diploma is not relevant in their world................i do not understand this at all, and neither does my mother, but this is the size of things....................happy new years to them both................

happy new year

ok, so mm wishes you and yours a happy new year....................a little late, perhaps, as all of mm's family was asleep by 10 or so................i went to bed about 8:30, and was not the first to make that move...............the last illness-free c-w was feeling so badly that he skipped supper alltogether and stayed in the bed.........and so today, new year's day.....i can say that i feel better.........i feel less annoyed by symptoms at least.................my nephew showed up yesterday afternoon....we have had a good visit with him so far......he is a major lotr fan....both the books and the movies.....he and i commiserated that the first movie left out tom bombadil and the barrow wights(sp), which would explain how merry was able to kill the witch king in the third movie................i read online that 2 people will share the powerball prize......and since ky was not listied as the location of ticket purchase, i am assured that i did not win, yet again................rats...................maybe next time