The sound of silence

I want to thank my many Southern Chinese readers for the numerous inquiries I have received.
I am not dead, I am not sick, I am not away.
There are many aspects of Wisdom which I have not yet mastered but there is one I practice successfully:

When I have nothing to say, I remain silent.



Self-portrait (but my left profile is nicer)

Echoes

The evening is windy, scented and warm, the sun setting in luminous orange. With all the recent rain, nature is lush, green and vibrant and seems to be reaching for the sky itself. In a little corner of my garden, under a large rock, my sweet Bondi lies in eternal sleep, no longer stretching out before me in an inviting way.
Sadness lingers. His glaring absence echoes throughout the house.

I feel lonely, too, lonelier than I've felt in a long time. It's the sadness...and three other circumstancial factors that I fully identify but won't name here.

It's a beautiful, peaceful evening. I've so many things to be grateful for.

I played a game recently and one of the questions was: "What makes you feel  you are loved?" After thinking about it, my answer was: "When someone allows me to cry."
Just that. Without saying it's reasonable or not, enough or not, justified or not, without trying to console me, cheer me up or change the subject. When someone is capable of watching me be in pain and not try to solve it or fix it but will just take my hand and keep company to my pain and I, patiently, without judging, until I am soothed.

Some people have done that for me, and I still know each and everyone of your names.

I try to be faithful to my moods, on this blog, to give myself the right and space to feel whatever is present at the moment...
Still, enough is enough, so I'll end with a quote from...who else...the President of the United States of America. Ladies and gentlemen and the in-between:

“It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.”
GEORGE W. BUSH

You go meditate about that.
Love, Brig

Life after Bondi

Well, I managed a full day of stiff upper lip at work. Thank god for home. The only friend who knew about Bondi was kind to me. It always suprises me when people are kind to me. I think I always I expect jeers and dismissal, rather pathetic of me, and then somebody's kind and I'm floored.

Today was a day I would have needed a thousand hugs. I should have walked around with a sign that said "I'm so sad please hug me" but the stiff upper lip said no.

You're missed my sweet feline friend. I grieve now so I can soon think about you with a smile on my face.

Two great pics of him on Vince's blog

here

How to complicate your life in one easy lesson

I am once again thinking about adoption. I think I’m nuts. Anybody else tells me I’m nuts is a dead man or woman. You may think it, just don’t voice it.

I mean why not adopt? I’m a single woman with a lousy salary, one child already and an aging mother. My only sibling lives far away. I can barely make ends meet as it is, and I’m about to turn…ahem…older. Life is clearly too easy and simple! (NOT!)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m terrified. Adoption is walking in with your eyes wide open even more than getting pregnant, since in my case it wasn’t planned and I had mercifully no clue of what I was getting into. Now I have QUITE a clue and I can no longer claim ignorance. To want to duplicate this is where my insanity clearly lies.

My mother, myself, everybody is getting older, including my son who would be nine or more when he’d finally get a sibling.

What a momentous decision. I’ve been sort of looking at it for a while now, it seems to be slowly ripening. I’m playing with it like a cat with a mouse. Within a year or two, I hope to make a final call on it.

Bondi, Beloved

His name is Bondi. My only consolation, while I sob here like a five year-old, is that we are all on borrowed time. He's just gone a bit ahead of us.

Enlightment

If you’re like me, you’ve searched all your life for a religion that would make sense to you, that would feel right to you both with its values and with your intuition. I’ve read a lot about different religions and so far, I have major issues with every one of them. So my notion of God is still very personal and does not exactly correspond to any established vision.

If you are like me, I may just have found the answer to all your questions… I have finally found something…that simply makes a lot of sense. That feels right. That is logical, believable as well as spiritual. It is for you to take the step, to make the leap, to receive the light in your heart. This might just simply be what we were looking for all along…
I’ll give you the link. Go, read, think, feel and see…

Enlightment

God bless

Antibes, ville des sports, ville des fleurs

This is the city where I grew up by the Mediterranée, the bluest of seas, with the pré-Alpes lining the horizon. Monet made several paintings of this magical area. This one is called: Antibes seen from La Salis.

I returned only once since I left, but even if I never go there again, it’s all right. I don’t need to, because it is with me everywhere I go, etched within me. In fact, should I ever get a tattoo, that’s probably what it will say: ANTIBES.
(That or RAMBO FOREVER I’m not sure yet.)

And this is La Salis, the beach where I learned to swim, where we spent every summer, a thirty minutes walk from home, where I first learn to use mask and fins (except the mask was called a "hublot" literally "porthole"). AW the memories.


Photo: Vince, my childhood other half

Coming soon!

When you become a scuba diver, there are different levels you can achieve: Beginner, Advanced, Master etc. There are also many specialties you can become certified in: wreck diving, night diving, ice diving, Nitrox diving, cave diving, to name but a few.

Being the innovative leader that I am, I’ve decided to create a new specialty, aimed at Canadian divers in particular: pool diving!

This 20 hour course will certify that you can safely dive in any pool around the world!

The curriculum includes but is not limited to:

• Protecting your equipment against chlorine
• Do not run with your tank on, and other safety rules
• The buddy system in a pool
• 1001 games to play in the deep end
• Counting tiles and other specialties
• Bi-levelled pools and safety stops

And much more!


Crystal clear water and excellent visibility are two of pool diving’s many attractions.


Sharpen your diving skills and competencies. Sign up today!

A Splendid Display

It’s strange how many tragic stories I have to tell. And I still have quite a few in store.

So for a change, I’m going to tell a funny one: my most embarrassing moment. It’s er…not for children. Well, they wouldn’t get it anyway.

1995: I was taking my Emergency Medical Technician course and it just so happened that my classmates were all young firefighters from the area, for whom the class was mandatory training. I was one of only two girls in the class. I know, it’s hard but I just handled it as best I could. Read I was best pal with the firefighters within the second week of that six months course.

We were in a lab, waiting for the instructor to arrive. I was sitting backwards on a chair, surrounded by my blue-uniformed buddies. I must have complained about my neck hurting (no, I swear, it hurts chronically) because one of the guys kindly started to massage my shoulders. I was feeling a little self-conscious but bahhh…

“You have a tight spot there,” he said talking about an area that was very sore.

And I, so spontaneously (hey, English is my SECOND language!), exclaimed:

“Oh, I have so many tight spots you wouldn’t believe!”

A certain quality in the silence that followed alerted me to something. I looked up and the guys’ jaws were literally on the floor. Then it hit me. Then I thought longingly of spontaneous self combustion. Of a quick and permanent death.

You have to give it to me: it was really a great thing to say for a girl surrounded by young, healthy men…So I quickly went on babbling with the first thing that I could think of, and don’t ask me what it was because I was too much in shock to remember.

When I think of the level of embarrassment it caused me, I think that’s one of the best gaffes of my career. I think female readers will be able to relate. Hey, if you can’t laugh at yourself…

War

I believe this is a story worth telling. The main proponent is dead and I tell it with the utmost respect for him.

One day, when I was thirteen or fourteen, I asked my father if he had ever killed anybody. My father was a paratrooper in the Algerian war. He said flippantly that he would answer that when I would be a bit older. I got very indignant and assured him I was old enough and mature enough to hear anything.

Surprisingly, that seemed to convince him. I think at that moment, he decided to answer as a legacy to his daughter, because he thought she had the right to know. He sat down at the table and seemed to retreat to an inward place. He started talking slowly, with long pauses. To the best of my recollection, this is what he said:

“One day, during the war, we arrived at this little bled that was known for helping the French. The Fellagha had been there first… They had massacred everybody… The men’s genitals were stuffed in their mouth, the women were disembowelled, the kids…”

At that point he started to cry. I had seen my father cry way more often than I would have wished but never ever like this. These were the slowest, deepest, most painful tears I have ever seen a man shed. I sat entranced.

“…I saw a five year-old with an axe in his back.”

I thought my father was a hard man. I would never have imagined that thirty years later, the image of a murdered child could still haunt him the way it obviously did.

“We had never seen anything like that....Not one of us wanted to let it go… We tracked those Fellagha for days and days and eventually, we got them…When we had them, we put them in a group… and then me and another guy, we took them for a walk, two by two…the path meandered out of the village and I remember this elder Arab man, sitting on the corner of his house, who saw up pass…we would go around the bend and out of sight and…”

He was crying so hard he could barely speak.

“…We had our machine guns…one burst each in the back…and the old man kept seeing us walk away with two and come back alone…”

His anguish was so deep it was unbearable to see.

“…the last one was begging me for his life…”Pitié missieur, pitié missieur” he was saying…”

He paused for a long time.

“…I saw the impact of the bullets in his back…”

And as my father cried, bent in two, I realized for the first time that the victims of war are not only the obvious innocent women and children. They are also the soldiers. My father saw things one should never have to see. My father did things that made it hard to live with himself for the rest of his life. It’s easy to feel sorry for the women and children. But that’s also what war does: it forces men to betray their own ideals and live with the pain for the rest of their lives.

My father had buried those memories in a deep, sealed volt. I am honoured that he was willing to resurrect them for my sake. When my son is old enough, I will tell him this story, as his grandfather’s legacy: That’s what war does to people; either kill them or scar them for life. And I’m not sure the survivors are the luckiest.

Survivor: hail to the fallen hero

I’ve finally discovered the raison d’être of my blog. I can freely express MY views about the Survivor finale!

(If you don’t watch Survivor, now’s the time to surf.)

Let’s see. Terry was the man. You know how admiration is one of my favourite emotions to feel. Terry delivered. When no one would form an alliance with him, his only option was to win. And win he did, time after time. He was smart, resourceful, determined and strong. In the final reward challenge, his comeback over Aras was spectacular. He was cheated in that challenge in the sense that it was a meaningful challenge but a meagre reward: a meal and a bed? It could have meant a lot if the final immunity challenge had not been the lousiest in Survivor history ever.

Balance is something one possesses or not, to different degrees. There is no willpower or determination involved in balance. To make the final challenge about balance is like throwing a dice, is like saying whoever is lucky enough to have balance wins. It has nothing to do with inner strength; it doesn’t reward the one who wants it most. I’m still fuming at that choice of challenge. Terry got ROBBED there.

So Miss Danielle won. Another spoiled princess just not AS openly a brat as the infamous Jenna Morasca, the one who almost made me stop watching Survivor.

I’m glad Aras won over her. Aras is a good kid. It takes a man to apologize without hesitation like he did to Terry. I like that. Aras is still caught between his good and bad impulses, as he matures, hopefully, he’ll master them better.

Still, as always, the one who truly deserved it was robbed, and by an insignificant little chit. If I were Terry, I’d be deeply frustrated, and he probably was. Strange game that is, where the best doesn’t win.

In the company of men

Early one morning, I was standing on the train platform, staring at Mont St-Hilaire shrouded in clouds with the vague feeling it reminded me of something. Then I got it: it looked distinctively like my brain felt.
I lowered my eyes to my coffee cup and got caught up watching it cool. Then a rather low voice on my right said: “Hey.” *

I tore myself from my coffee and looked up to see a man standing beside me, looking at me intently. I’d never met him but he was a somewhat familiar sight, along with dozens of others, because we all took the same morning train. I wasn’t quite sure how one responds to “Hey” from a stranger. Had I known him, I would have taken no prisoners and answered: “Hey yourself”. I’m that direct.

In the end, I didn’t answer and just raised my eyebrows slightly in an expectant but polite look. He was so visibly uncomfortable that I almost felt like squirming for him. He sensed that more was expected and blurted: “I see you regularly on the train!”
That gave me a pause. Here was a man who saw me regularly on the train.

Was I supposed to congratulate him for his sharpness? Was I supposed to fall in his arms like a long lost brother? Was I supposed to shrewdly answer: “I see you too”? This was becoming more awkward by the minute. I gave him a vague smile and took a sip of coffee while my foggy brain tried to cope. I would have much rather been watching coffee particles cool.
He proffered his hand, like the least he could do after something as momentous as seeing me on the train was to introduce himself: “I’m Alain.”

Another bad strike. I have a notoriously bad record with Alains. The first one was my father, ‘nough said, the second one was a beloved boyfriend who went back to his junkie habits during our relationship, the third one committed the cardinal crime of boring me to death on our first (and last) diner.

Still, unwelcome as he was, I had to give this particular Alain credit. It must have taken up quite a bit of courage to come up and talk to me. I admire courage above everything else, even when deployed at my own expense. Just for that, he narrowly escaped the Ice Maiden.
“Brigitte,” I answered reluctantly, shaking his hand with a guarded smile.

The blessed train decided to arrive on that cue, and much relieved, we both dutifully turned to watch it, staring as if we had never seen a train arrive before. The doors opened before me and I felt it was time for decisive action.
“Have a nice day,” I said kindly but firmly in a tone that meant “Don’t even think about coming to sit by me”.
“Have a nice day,” he answered, and then walked away. He didn’t get on the train. Puzzled, I watched him trough the window. When the train left the station, I could see him walking towards the parking lot…

“What the hell was THAT about?” I inwardly asked my coffee as we sped away.
I don’t know. Not a clue. I haven't seen him since, fortunately.
There is no moral to that story. I still haven’t a clue. Who said that suburban life isn't fraught with danger and excitment?


* The whole episode actually took place in French but I conveniently translated it in English for the safety and convenience of my passengers.

The Day of the Sun

Two days of relentless rain, of the heavens playing the crying game...

I pushed "pause" and lived on the fringe of myself. My nights were filled with nightmares so I slept during the day, when my slumber is never haunted.
I lost track of time, of reality, of my own existence. I woke up on the third day as if a voice had said: "Now, it's Enough" and "Welcome Back".

My house is still standing, Sweet is holding on, and the sun is shining again.

Very painful cramping of my calfs, shins and ankles during the run, not sure why. It took all my concentration to work through the pain.


My garden is a field of dandelions. I rather like it, it reminds me of the prairies in Austria.

Happy Mother's Day on a sunny Sunday of May.

Movie Review: Munich

What a needlessly long, wandering, aimless movie. The initial idea could have been interesting. But the scenario was weak, as was the direction, Spielberg or not. « Munich » simply fails to make us care, even about something as gut wrenching as the disaster that took place at the airport where all the hostages were killed. It has not even historic dimension.

You want to learn about the birth of Israel and the 1967 war, read « O Jerusalem » by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins. You want to navigate the shady world of terrorism and counter-terrorism, read « The Little Drummer Girl » by John Le Carre. You want to see how people can be both monsters and loving beings, watch Costa-Gavras’ « Music Box ».

There is nothing memorable about « Munich ». Skip it. 5.5/10

My tea's gone cold...

I wrote to an old friend to wish him happy birthday and I apologized for being somewhat elusive in my socialization. "You don't take up very much room", he answered, "but I'd rather have you just as you are than all the tea in China".

Just like some things can catch you unprepared and feel like a baseball bat, some things can catch you unprepared and wrap your heart in velvet. What a LOVELY thing to say, made all the more lovely by the fact that I know he truly means it. It was positively heart-fluffing.
Pure, genuine, agenda-free niceness is too rare in our lives and it's something I try to put in practice regularly. Alas, it is a reflection of our society that people have a hard time receiving it without looking for a hidden meaning or agenda, even if a positive one.

Sweet is deteriorating. I try to monitor him closely to determine the moment where it will be a kindness, as a caretaker, to end his life. I've had a tough week. Should I end it by burrying my little friend, it will be the last straw. To those cold-hearted people who WILL say: "It"s just a cat", well, that has nothing to do with anything. He is my small friend, we have a strong bond and he is dying. Period.

Tonight, I will watch Survivor (finale this Sunday!), and tomorrow, a day off, a day for which rain is forecasted, I will watch the "morning rain cloud up my window" and I shall not get up. I will sleep, and sleep, and sleep. I will lose myself in sleep, and undoubtedly my cats, who are ALWAYS ready to join me in that particular activity, will sleep right along with me.

To all the people I love or like, Peace.
Namaste

A Day of Violence

Today, a good friend sucker punched me, without the least bit intending to or being aware of it.
Reeling, gasping for breath, I went to tackle a high-perched box in our storeroom, armed with an box cutter, intent on gutting the box mercilessly and ripping its insides apart.
Little did I know that the box cutter was actually a ferocious wild one that wildlife authorities had been frantically after for months. Seizing the very moment when I had one arm up to keep the box from knocking me down and one foot caught in a stupid lurking trolley, my balance went on a psychedelic trip and the box cutter stabbed my arm viciously, tearing a blouse I'm fond of and generously sprinkling the storeroom with first quality, Grade A, universal donor blood.
My arm turned a nice, bright, dripping red. Delighted at playing doctor, the guys were very helpful and only regretted that I would not remove my blouse completely to "allow them to staunch the blood better" (on my forearm). I think they got the scissors out even before the dressings.
I then had the pleasure of sitting in a waiting room for a couple of hours before a kind doctor put three or four stitches in me, remarking in an interested tone on the depth of the laceration.
Thus ended my day, bruised, stabbed, and with a good bit less blood in my body that I had begun it.
I heard they put the box cutter down.
Some days, you should just stay in bed.

Cavalia

When horses and men unite in one magical show…

You can watch Cavalia from many different levels... The romantic ex-ballerina took in the pure aesthetics of decor, music and lighting. The dressage aficionado was humbled by the skills of the riders. The animal trainer observed the methods and cues with the unharnessed horses, very different from when one is riding them, and a lot more difficult.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the audience realized the difficulty and skill involved throughout. Dressage is like tennis : it looks so easy but is so complex.

Two choreographies are etched in my mind. Both involved Frédéric Pignon, the most elegant rider I’ve ever seen in my life. Magali Delgado has enormous skill but she looks like a rider. Pignon, on horse back, looks like an elf and a king : magical, noble, ethereally graceful. The long, shimmering dresses add much to the ambiance. Men, women and horses all have long, flowering manes…. They seemed straight out of a Waterhouse painting or the Lothlorien. The dance of the luminous silver Lusitano horses and long-robed medieval riders in a misty forest is something I’ll never forget.

I’ve searched but not found a single still photograph that does justice to the magic. Still, here’s one of Frédéric Pignon and a protégé.


Copyright Lynne Glazer 2004

I wish I were a writer to evoque what I’ve seen. Since I am not, I will selfishly shut up and hold the images within me.

To Visitors, Accidental or Not

« Ici Londres. Les Français parlent aux Français… »
Just kidding. Any European who tells me what I’m refering to gets 5 points. Any North American, 25 points.

Folks, granted that a blog is a monologue and not a discussion forum, and granted it is essentially self-centered, nevetherless, I encourage you to leave comments. Think feedback, think dialogue, think communication. The readers are there, I know, because my hit counter is steadily rising. I welcome everything but insults, vulgarity and marriage proposals.

Fire away!

Miscellaneous updates

JUST when the running was going steady, I WOULD wake up with a knot between my shoulders that only allows me to move like C3PO. Damn! (Am I allowed to say damn in a blog?) Very painful!

My boss is back, putting an end to a week of unmitigated boredom. Actually, somewhat mitigated, thanks to my carefully selected network of colleagues turned true friends.

A week off is looming at the end of June. The little family will spend a week in Rockport, Massachusetts. Think quaint, scenic, wonderful small New England town, with white houses, small beaches and of course, THE OCEAN. It's a place we return to again and again. It's "our" place. I will get my fill of long, leisurely summer days, beauty everywhere you look, endless pebble beaches to scan for our collection, the song of the ocean, the cold water on my skin, salt in my hair and the wind in my face...
….And a half-naked little savage running around, covered in an interesting mixture of sunscreen and sand…
(before it sounds TOO idyllic)

...and thanks for all the fish

My many Southern Chinese readers want to hear about dolphins…Dears, it’s been years since I worked with them.

Should I tell you about the baby I saw being born? Or how its mother apparently drowned him fifteen minutes later? Should I tell you how she skilfully carried the little body close to hers for a week afterwards so that when we were finally able to get a hold of it, it was too decomposed for the autopsy to reveal much?

Or should I tell you about that time when I invited a film crew to come swim with the dolphins and a male called Stripe suddenly took a dislike to a huge grip built like a wardrobe and started beating him up? The man turned green with pain and fear and barely avoided broken ribs.

Should I tell you how New Age American women were so ga-ga over dolphins that they sometime stripped before swimming with them, to “bond” with them better? - a potentially bad idea when you know that dolphins are very sensual and very sexually active, but an idea that the trainers seldom strenuously objected to.

Should I tell you how we used to go in deep water, where I would free-dive down to sixty feet, in the pure cobalt blue, and my husband would send the dolphins down to come get me? They’d slip a dorsal fin under each hand and bring me back to the surface at such speed that my whole body literally rippled?

Or should I tell you about the magic of swimming with wild dolphins, prompt, friendly, curious, vocalizing wildly and watching you eye to eye?

Photo: Michael Laurence

I could tell you all that, but you’ll have to excuse me, I have a tie to put on and an office to go to…

However that might sound, I actually do like my current life very much. The contrast, I suppose…

 

Snail hunting

Suddenly, the prospect of one day without seeing him throws a cloak over her. Joy slips away like water in a thirsty ground. Colors fade. She joins the shadows of Plato’s cave and her heart becomes an empty ocean.

Oh please. You leave me no alternative but to tell you about… the snail hunt! It’s in French, because really, France has the best snail hunting grounds.

Lettre à un ami chasseur

Mon ami, tu es chasseur...je ne le suis pas. À une exception près : la palpitante, dangereuse, extravagante...chasse à l’escargot.

L’escargot est un animal méconnu. Peu de gens sont conscients de sa finesse, sa ruse et sa nature sanguinaire. C’est ce qui fait de la chasse à l’escargot un sport aussi excitant que risqué.

L’escargot a une vue perçante. La première étape de la chasse est donc d’adopter un camouflage adéquat afin de se rapprocher le plus possible de l’animal. Si l’escargot vous détecte avant que vous ne soyez en position de tir, il file. Si c’est le cas, tout n’est pas perdu. En effet, l’escargot est rapide mais un chasseur agile est généralement capable de le rattraper. C’est là que la situation devient délicate. En effet, lorsqu’il se sent acculé, l’escargot se retourne et  fait face à son agresseur. Il devient alors d’une férocité extrême et c’est la le moment le plus dangereux pour le chasseur. En effet, un escargot acculé saute à la gorge de son agresseur, plante ses mâchoires puissantes dans le cou et ne lâche plus, un peu à la manière des pit-bulls. Il est bien documenté qu’un escargot moyen peut sauter à une hauteur de plus de 1.50 m  lorsque nécessaire.

Par conséquent, lorsque le chasseur approche, il est impératif de protéger sa gorge d’une main. Certains chasseurs, maladroits ou ignorants, se laissent néanmoins prendre par surprise et se retrouvent soudainement avec l’étau des mâchoires de l’animal enserrant leur cou ou leur gorge. La situation est maintenant critique, mais tout n’est pas encore perdu pour le chasseur. En effet, il existe un moyen très simple de faire lâcher prise à l’animal. Il s’agit d’entortiller son antenne droite. C’est hélas ici que la chasse à l’escargot fait des milliers de victimes chaque année. En effet, sous le coup de la peur et de l’émotion, nombreux sont les chasseurs qui perdent leur sang-froid et tentent désespérément d’entortiller l’antenne gauche. Ce qui laisse l’escargot parfaitement indifférent. Par conséquent, il y a une règle de base à observer en tout temps, lorsque l’animal me fait face et m’attaque, son antenne gauche équivaut en réalité à ma main droite.

Grâce à ces quelques recommandations de base, la chasse à l’escargot peut effectivement demeurer le sport de prédilection des chasseurs avides de sensations et qui n’ont pas froid aux yeux. Aux récentes campagnes de protestation contre les escargots et aux massacres d’escargots qui ont eu lieu dû à la crainte populaire, je dis simplement : voyez les loups, voyez les tyrannosaures...connaître l’animal et ses moeurs permet de le gérer de façon sécuritaire.

Pour plus d’information sur la fascinante vie de l’escargot, lisez : « L’escargot : le connaître, le chasser, lui survivre » d’Alexandre Peujat, Éditions du Monde.

Sur ce, bonne chasse à tous !

Brigitte

In the news: New nail polish shade now available

In 1994, Washington was trying hard to avoid using the word «genocide » in Rwanda, in order to avoid being obligated to act by the Genocide Convention it had signed in 1989.

« Clinton’s brain trust then produced an inventive new reading of the genocide Convention. Instead of obliging signatory states to prevent genocide, the White House determined, the Convention merely « enables » such preventive action. »
Philip Gourevitch, « We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families », 1998, p153.

In Uganda,  the band of rebels which kidnaps children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves goes by the sanctified name of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Some sources estimate the number of children thus kidnapped at around 30 000.

In Darfur, the governement claims to have no control over the Janjaweed, a pro-government militia differing wildly from the Interahamwe in that they have machine guns instead of machetes but otherwise just as versed in the art of raping, maiming and killing.

By the way, there are intense peace talks currently being held in Darfur, that could be a pivotal point for the 3 millions displaced in the conflict that face famine. I know, it’s hard to find in the news. You have to really know where to look. Lots of clicks.

The drawing below is not from an 8 year-old who has been watching too much Rambo but an 8 year-old who had a run in with the Janjaweed. Notice the elegant trajectories of the bullets.



But enough of that. Did you know that Paris Hilton actually broke up with her latest Greek heir? Honest, she’s single again! She could be dating Nick Lachley next and here I am, worried about obscure problems in Africa! Like, hello? How ridiculous can I get?

Dust in the wind

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

[Now] Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.

-Kansas-

To my father, whom in spite or because of everything, I miss…

By family request

The papou and his main author

Papou: copyrights Brigitte
Photograph: copyrights Vince

Coffee Break

A Canadian Forces Cormorant helicopter creates an optical illusion as it takes off from a landing pad behind a local Tim Hortons in Salisbury, New Brunswick. Photo by Stephen MacGillivray.


Excerpt from SARSCENE magazine http://www.nss.gc.ca/site/ss/magazine/vol15_3/index_e.asp

Also in that issue, finally a Personal Flotation Device efficient for babies...It's called Bijoux Baby (yeah, I know...)
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Quote of the day:

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

The house of sand and fog

For the first time of my life, I am deeply attached to the walls that shelter me, to the small garden that surrounds me, to the immense sky that weighs on me at home.

It is nice to live in a place one loves, but it’s double-edged. My feet are itching. I’d be otherwise ready to go spend a few years in Ottawa and once I’m an Assistant Deputy Minister, keep on going west and join my brother in Vancouver. Or something like that. I’d happily drag the little family with me, to show my son other parts of the country, other cultures which don’t say: “Tsu vo vouère mon ostsie!”

But there’s the snag. I’ve always left friends and family behind in search of new horizons, confident that new ones would come along. But never have I been attached to brick and mortar, which by the way has a crack under the kitchen window on the outside wall, but that’s another matter altogether. Never have I been attached to a young maple tree planted by our family circle that I would dearly like to see grow into a proud, majestic, golden splendor.

I’ve loved and left cities, Antibes, Bay St-Louis… and they hold forever a piece of my heart. I’ve loved and lost pets (another big chunk of heart). I’ve loved and lost and left people. But walls? This is such a first that I don’t quite know what to make of it. If you are lucky enough to find such a shelter, do you hang on to it for as long as you can? If I leave, will I only bitterly regret it later?

Readers, especially my many Southern Chinese readers, are welcome to advise me on this matter. I’m eager for wise advice. Less than wise advice is acceptable too (I must cater to the actual capacities of my friends…)

Happiness

My friend John and my friend Liliane, both ardent cat lovers, have repeatedly asked me for more cat pictures on my blog. They seem to think there aren't enough.

Guys, this is just for you…


Credits unknown as usual.


Run time: 35 min
Feels like: Death overheated over
Colour: a nice shade of murdered lobster