Thankful

Yesterday was a pretty horrible day for me as I woke up to the news that after a long and painful battle with cancer my mentor and someone I had looked to as a father figure passed. Federico was headmaster at the school I taught at in Japan. He was also someone who believed in me and my skills as a teacher. When Federico took me on I was very green to the field. He gave me my big break in teaching with a crash course in curriculum development. He was a great mentor and gave me the confidence that I had been lacking for so long.

A few years ago Federico called me into his office...we often chatted after school about the kids, curriculum and the events happening in the world at the time. He loved politics(a man after my own heart)…and being born into Franco’s Fascist Spain he appreciated my liberal ideals and the fact that I found so much fault with the social injustices of the Bush Administration. He also had excellent taste in music. At any given time you could walk into his office and hear playing in the background REM or Pink Floyd to Vivaldi or Chopin and you could not help but love him. On this particular day he told me about the cancer and that it was spreading rapidly. I was devastated.

We hung out all the time. He tried, on a few occasions, to teach me how to make paella. He was very patient. He let me into his kitchen and I let him into my heart. I will forever be grateful for his friendship, his cooking and his passion for teaching. The world was a little more bearable with him in it.

So this is what I am thankful for today and everyday: Good family and good friends. The fact that my son and husband are healthy and appreciate my sub par cooking. I am thankful for the family I seldom see but that I love and appreciate in more ways than I can put into words. I am thankful to my Aunt who sends my son a card for every holiday under the sun. My son’s God Mommy who has come twice half way around the world just to see him. I appreciate how my son looks forward to birthday parties and Christmas. I appreciate that he believes in Santa and I am hoping we have at least another few years of magic and wonder at Christmas. I am thankful for the friends that I’d not seen in years who hugged me at the reunion and who promised to keep in touch but life happens. I am thankful for the friends I’ve known for what seems like thousands of years but thanks to facebook I can see them in a new light with their talents on display. I appreciate the friend I met at TJMaxx in New Jersey, both of us in the linen section, with our newborn baby’s in tow, a friendship that has lasted even though we have not see each other in a very long time. I appreciate my beautiful friend Ruth whom I would trust with my life. I appreciate Summer and how a room can light up with just her presence. I appreciate the friend who thought of me as a total dweeb when she fist met me in Dr. Powell's Theory class but ended up becoming one of my dearest friends. I appreciate the freshness a newborn baby has brought to a friend and how she is learning that the love you have for your child is unlike any love you have ever known. I appreciate the friend I’ve known for a very very long time who befrinded me in the middle of our senior year of high school, the one I hurt with disparaging words early on this past summer...one of the few regrets I will carry with me. I appreciate that just because one scholars in a particular subject does not automatically translate to excellence in the craft itself. So while I have a Masters in communication, I am not fluent. I will always make mistakes. I just hope the people I appreciate can appreciate that.

Facebook Etiquette....is there such a thing?

Defriending…we don’t like to talk about it but it happens. I have looked for proper etiquette on the subject but there is really nothing out there. Defriending as I understand it, is when one deletes a friend off of their friend list on facebook, myspace, twitter, friendster, linkedin or any number of other SNS sites. It can be a bit dehumanizing if it is done without explanation.

I got defriended this week…it took me about 5 minutes to figure out who the culprit was…a friend of an ex friend. Keeping perspective I was a bit glad although, initial embarrassment did set in for a moment, however fleeting, it still stings.

Then it dawned on me…I have friends on Facebook that I invited to Facebook and for whom I am their only friend and they don‘t even use it to communicate with me, they insist on sending emails. The nerve. After doing some research into my friends list I noticed that I have one friend whom I’ve not heard from in literally a year…I checked her profile and she had not even looked into her Facebook account for quite some time. She was a colleague of mine in Japan for 6 months and then she moved back to Australia. We’ve been in touch once since then and that was when I first got on Facebook. I defriended her today, not out of spite but because her account is not active. I also defriended an ex boyfriend who got on facebook because I asked him to but never used it(I was his only friend). A bit pointless. I have both their email addresses and will be informing them of my decision. I don't want to come off like a bitch...although, right now it seems to be an exercise in futility.

I like Facebook because most of my friends are on the other side of the world…I don’t see them very often but I love them and I want to keep in touch. Friends are important and at times are an extension of your family. I have some friends on Facebook I know would not notice if I defriended them…at least it would take them a while to figure it out…out of the 767 friends they had yesterday they now have 766.

Compassion and the Moral Imperative

Wednesday morning the 5th of November was a bittersweet day for me. I took my son to school per usual but felt weighed down by my brothers and sisters in Ca who had struggled for months to block Proposition 8. On the one hand Barack Obama was on his way to the White House, what a victory for Civil Rights, what a victory for so many of a generation who witnessed Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream” speech, who witnessed the rise and fall of Jesse Jackson in 1984 and thought, someday. But I could not bring myself to be happy. Yes, I am delirious that Obama made it. As a democrat I could not be prouder of my country but as a resident of California I was so disappointed with the passage of Prop 8.

After dropping my son off at school I decided to go to the local market and buy myself some solace in a bottle of Cabernet. As I made my way to the store front I tripped on a piece of black plastic strapping. I fell to the ground too hard and fast for my nearly 40 years to fall. It took a few seconds for me to even realise what had happened. As I checked my surroundings, my shoes in disarray and off my feet from the force of the fall. I saw two people who had watched me fall get into their car. I had fallen 20 feet in front of their car….they watched. They did not come over to assist me, they did not ask if I was OK but they did watch me and as I became more aware of what had happened they drove off. Disgusting. I have always been one to lend assistance to people in need, regardless of whether or not they asked for it, so for me the actions of these strangers was an ultimate betrayal. In shock I made my way to the store, put the back strapping around a poll inside the store and purchased my bottle of wine. I went home and felt victimized. How can another human being watch someone get hurt and not feel compelled to give assistance?

As of two days later I am still recovering. Pride intact. I do feel my recovery time would have been cut in half if someone in that parking lot cared enough about another human being to take a minute out of their day to assist me getting to my feet and asking if I was ok. Compassion.

I have not been the most compassionate person when it comes to my family especially, with my mother and her chronic aches and pains. I have not been very compassionate when my husband, who travels extensively for business, gets sick. Mea culpa. Karma? Perhaps. Things happen for a reason, divine interventions way of reminding us of our past infractions and the ramifications they have had on others. Often to help us, if we did not learn from them before, to learn from them now. I will be more compassionate with both my husband and my mother. I earned this fall and the bruises and sore muscles that accompany it.

Thank You Barack

It is about time. It is about time for Americans to see themselves in a better light. For us to rise above ourselves and our cynicism. For us to, dare I say, know that dreams can come true and change for the better is achievable. It s time for us to reach out to each other to show our caring and understanding that yes, we do have differences, but we can work together for the common good that is our future.
So many of us has have felt disenfranchised over the last eight years….Barack Obama, you gave the disenfranchised a voice. There are struggles ahead for your administration and I pray for patience not only of myself but of the others who have waited for you for so long.

Disenfranchised

I lost a friend this week. Not due to death or something as dramatic as that but due to my political ideologies. I was dumped because after a 30 year(on again off again) friendship ‘we had nothing in common’ and she feels that 'citizens of the United States who live abroad should not be allowed to vote'. I guess looking back on the whole incident I dumped her. I have a real hard time with arrogance. With the United States economy leading the way to a global recession this is not a time to be ethnocentric or xenophobic. I can’t have someone like that in my life. I need positive, supportive women around me not women who 1) don’t vote 2) yell and call people names when they are taking an opposing view rather than using examples to back up their premise. Who does that???

We went to the same elementary school, we are both married and we have offspring but that is where the similarities end. I chose to attend college, she chose the military, and you get the drift. This summer the relationship took an exceptionally nasty tone with her constantly trying to compete with me on just about every topic from theology to politics to the state of the economy to who had a deeper knowledge of vocabulary to the 'stupid liberals' in the PTA. I was a captive audience to her anti liberal rantings as I was a guest in her home for a month. I did not try to compete as I have never felt insecure with my intellect and I was on her turf. For me it was never about competition. I do my research and I know my topics and when I am wrong I am the first to admit it. I am wrong a lot.

I was a whipping girl for her. Someone she could judge and speak to in a condescending manner when it suited her needs or when her husband was present and she needed validation. She reveled in my follies. With friends like that....

However upset I am by these revelations I will miss her dearly. I loved her and she will always be a part of me. I think it is true that our social bonds form who we are as people and I have learned from a lot from my friendships. 30 years is nothing to scoff at and I am walking away with a lot of good memories and I hope as time goes by she too will look back fondly at the experiences we shared and feel enriched because of them and not despite them.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to being accepted for me, not for what someone else wants me to be. I am not here for your entertainment.

Palin...really??

As a liberal I could not have asked for a more perfect VP candidate for the opposition. She is Awesome. But I wonder if McCain is not regretting his decision. I really do not understand why he did not ask Lieberman to be on the GOP ticket. McCain and Lieberman have worked closely in the past on several issues that have broad appeal to both conservatives and liberals alike.

Palin is a poster child for everything that is wrong with America. She has the intellect of the average American, she knows fuck all about United States History, Economics, Foreign Policy and those are just the tip of the iceberg. I do want someone smarter than the average American running our country... America deserves that.

Problem??? Yes, I think so.

To the Neo -Conservatives of America and the Project for the New American Century:
If your intention was to run America into the ground....go ahead and pat yourselves on the back as you have succeeded. Job Well Done. 9 trillion in debt and it keeps growing.... When you kiss your children good night don't forget to let them know that they will be saddled with paying for your arrogance. Oh yeah, don't want to leave out those who are voting for Palin/McCain....I don't even think I need to give any reasons as to why you are making another disastrous decision but I will anyway; 1).How could Mayor Sara Palin not know, in a town of 7,000 or so, that the chief of police was charging rape victims for their rape DNA kit? 2).Least we forget her stance on sex education...or rather lack there of....Abstinence....that worked out really well with her 17 year old daughter. 3).(and this is a big one) The fact that Palin is willing to follow the Bush Doctrine we can all look forward to many more wars and trillions more in deficits not to mention the loss of more innocent lives. "We must not Blink."

The Argument Against the Bush Doctrine and why CHANGE is important:

King Abodullah II of Jordan once said in an interview with CNN, 'Democracy means different things to different nations." Not everyone is going to agree with us on our definition of democracy. Does this mean that if they do not fall in line with our ideals we are going to use military force? That is a lot for our fallen economy to take on, don't you think?

Let us try to focus on the things we can CHANGE here in America...education(we have fallen behind and we need to get back on track in order to compete), health care, lowering our financial debts to other nations and to our citizens...the list goes on and on. It is time we stop using rhetoric to pacify the masses and start putting our words into actions.

Conservatives please arm yourselves with information from Congressional files...proper research and enlightenment is available. Stop looking to Rush Limbaugh.

The RNC Mantra: Country First and Prosperity

What a load of crap. Are you kidding me with this??? If anyone in the GOP in the last 8 years ever considered putting America and Americans first we would not be in the mess we are in now. Give me a break!

Cutting Off Your Nose Despite Your Face

Clinton getting a blow job in the oval office = 8 years of failed Bush Policies and a 9 trillion dollar deficit....I was told by a relative that that is what the liberals deserve for Clinton's indiscretions....nice. Boy you guys sure did show us liberals....you're so AWESOME!!!

Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela

When I was a college student in 1990 I took an African Studies course. It was that semester that I was first introduced to the work of Mandela and it was also the time in which he was released from prison. What an exciting time in history.

Some would say things have changed in South Africa. Others would disagree. In recent months news out of Johannesburg is discouraging to say the least. Instead of the violence against the blacks it is now against the foreigners who have escaped poverty and oppressive leaders in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Somali and other African nations only to come to South Africa to live in squatters, face persecution and deal with a back lash of a public frustrated by unemployment and high crime.

Rapidly escalating food and fuel prices increased the tension between poor South Africans and immigrants. However the ruling party, the African National Congress, has criticised police for reacting too slowly to the attacks.

"The delay encouraged people in similar environments to wage similar attacks against people who came from our sister countries on the continent," Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC's deputy leader told an international media industry conference in Johannesburg. "We are confronted by one of the ugliest incidents in the post-apartheid era".

Several people have been burned to death in the violence and their homes and businesses looted and set fire to. (Taken from article presented in The Guardian May 23, 2008)

More action needs to follow.

WRITER'S BLOCK

I have been feeling so uninspired lately. There are a ton of topics I've wanted to cover but I just can't seem to muster up the where with all to get my thoughts down. Here are a few that I will be conquering with in the next few months if not few weeks: Iran, the Qur’an, the recession over in the UK and the US, oil…too many to list

The NHS here in the UK just turned 60 and what a colossal failure it has become, and while I welcome some reform in the American health care system I do hope they do not use the NHS as a model.

The Turkey trip was educational and I would love to share all that I learned about this modern Islamic country…again something is preventing me from getting my thoughts out.

I have to get a job once I come back from the US this fall and the thought of looking for work terrifies me. This in itself could be the crux of my writer’s block. I have always been lucky in finding work but I am wondering if my luck has perhaps run its course…..it is possible. In the winter I made a sheepish attempt at looking for a teaching job but ran out of steam a few weeks into my search and retreated back to the comfort of being my husband and son’s chambermaid and cook….not that I mind, as they are both appreciative of all I do around the house but there is more….I know there is because I used to work outside the home.

Voting absentee again...

About 4 years ago while living in Japan I posted a picture of myself holding my absentee ballot, pointing my middle finger north and wearing a tee shirt I had made that said, "Fuck you Bush". This offended a ton of posters on the website classmates.com where I had posted my picture. Classmates sent me a notification stating that they would discontinue my account if I did not take the picture down. Fair enough. I took the picture down.

Since that time our country has remained the butt of jokes the world over, our soldiers come home from a war that never should have happened in the first place only to receive substandard medical care (the same thing happened during the last gulf war to our vets just in case anyone out there is paying attention), and our national deficit has grown leaps and bounds.

We now owe about 9 trillion(a portion of this, according to the Government Accountability Office, is due to the fraudulent contracts awarded for the rebuilding of Iraq). The BBC released a documentary regarding the profiteering from the Iraq war. Custer Battles, KBR, Halliburton and Blackwater were all mentioned in the report. Custer Battles was a newly formed company with no experience in the security industry when it landed one of the first contracts issued in Iraq in the spring of 2003 to secure the Baghdad airport. Blackwater is another example, owner Eric Prince interned for Daddy Bush and has been awarded government contracts totaling over $500 million since 2003. Chaney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995-2000. 'Conflict of interest', a logical person would surmise.

Who is going to be held accountable for the fraud in Iraq? The quick answer is the people of the United States of America. The sad thing is that we knew about all of this 5 years ago....how did we allow this to happen and why didn't the so called 'liberal media'(a joke at best) take issue?

Under the Clinton-Gore economic plan which was enacted in 1993 we had a budget surplus of $ 123 billion in 1999 the largest surplus in the history of the United States. What do we have with Bush-Cheney? 9 trillion in debt. I'm just saying...

If Obama makes it in, and I do hope he does, he is going to have one hell of a mess to clean up. As for me I voted for Gore and I voted for Kerry. I voted for a better America. What were the people voting for who voted for Bush the first time....how about the second time? I will never understand.

36 hours in Paris

My cousin Lacey was in town a while back and we took a weekend trip to the lovely city of Paris. Lacey knows an expat who lives in the area with her girlfriend so we were lucky enough to have a place to stay. From the time we got to St. Pancreas to our departure from Gare du Nord I had a blast. I am still nursing a blister from all the walking we did. A minor discomfort as a result of my good time.

Upon our arrival at St. Pancreas in London I was concerned that we would be seated facing backwards on the train a prospect that makes me want to barf just thinking about. Anyone who has had the pleasure of traveling with me via train or auto knows there is no way in hell I can tolerate facing backwards. To me it is the equivalent of traveling in the back seat of a car and reading at the same time. You might as well give me a sick bag and call it a day. The kind French woman behind the counter at the Eurostar ticket window was a doll and made sure we were both facing forward. Upon our arrival at Gare du Nord we managed to flag down a taxi driver who refused to take us to our destination because it was only a mile or so away. We ended up having to wait in a taxi queue for about 45 minutes. During that time we were accosted by a few homeless. One cheeky homeless woman in particular asked us in several different languages what language we spoke. I spoke back to her in broken Japanese. The one language she was not familiar with. Our second attempt at a taxi was great and worth the wait. Our Lebanese taxi driver who, himself, was new to France was a delight, spoke English and got us to our destination unscathed. I did not know this but I soon found out that the Moulin Rouge is very close to G d Nord. We drove by so fast that I was unable to take a picture....bummer as it was midnight and the neon was ablaze...we were in a heavy downpour, it would have been a great picture.

We arrived at our destination near the metro line of Brochant. Meeting my cousin’s friends was a pleasant experience. We were greeted with wine and French bread. Lovely. Nothing quite like French hospitality. We woke up at 7am and were out the door to commence the exploring by 8am. I’ve had the opportunity to live and or visit some of the larger cities in the world. New York, Athens, Rome, Tokyo, London… I think all have their own unique sewage smell. It is the smell of the big city. All of a sudden you’re walking minding your own business and suddenly out of nowhere a waft of shit hits you in the face and curls your nose hairs. The “Who crapped their pants?” reek of the Paris Metro is no different. The moment you step off the train and on to the platform you want to rinse your body in vat of antibacterial gel.

Upon our emergence from the filth of the metro our jaws dropped open. The avenue Champs Elysees is well worth a stroll. I regret that we did not walk all the way to the Arc de Triomphe but we did manage to stand in the middle of the avenue risking life and limb just to get some pictures. Next stop Eiffel Tower.

We opted to walk to the tower. It was a great walk as we took the less beaten path of the alley ways rather than the Seine river walk. Worth it. In my opinion to truly get a feel for any kind of city it is important to go through some of the alleyways. Along the way to the Eiffel we stopped off at a café and had our first croissant in Paris. It was a flaky deliciousness.

The Eiffel Tower to the French may just be a bunch of wrought iron but to me it is an architectural bit of wonder. Pictures do not do it justice especially when you are able to see from far away and watch it get bigger and bigger the closer you get. It is just as impressive as it is massive. We spent about 30 minutes hanging around tying to get the best angle for a picture….neither one of us are photogs….but we did our best. On our way to the next metro line we stopped off at a few kiosks to get some souvenirs. Next stop the Louvre….

No time to go inside to actually get a feel for the museum itself and being nearly 40years of age I am not so bold as to do a run through as a tip of the hat to the French film maker Jean Luc Godards. Parish the thought of getting arrested and deported back to America. So we spent most of our time walking around the grounds. It was a beautiful day about 70 degrees with a lovely blue sky and white, billowy clouds. (That would soon change) I don’t think we could have asked for better weather for a weekend in Paris. We felt like the luckiest two girls on the face of the planet. We spent about two hours just mulling around and taking in the architecture and the grounds.

On our way to Notre-Dame we decided to walk the Seine. I wasn’t so much fascinated with the Cathedral but rather a shop on our way to the cathedral…..an old bookstore called Shakespeare and Co... I saw it out of the corner of my eye and wanted to cross the street and check it out. We had no time to stop in to the shop as we were meeting friends at the Cathedral but it is interesting to note that despite being so small and innocuous it does great business. This little book store is located on the opposite corner of the Cathedral in the Latin Quarter.

If you have to make a choice between the Cathedral and the book store go to the book store. Unique book stores trump cathedrals any day. Word!

We walked down to the Seine and had a very Parisian lunch on the bank of the river consisting of cheese, wine and French bread. Wonderful.

On to the Bastille…

We walked through the Latin Quarter where we were literally caught in a downpour of epic proportions. Running through alley ways, soaking wet, trying desperately to find shelter did not ruin our good time. We still managed to have fun despite the fact that our search for the Bastille was in vain as it was demolished in 1789…a minor detail neglected. We did however manage to get a glimpse of the roundabout monument to the Bastille(not pictured).

Cautionary tale of cheese:
After a nice rest, hoping we could somehow escape the torrential downpour soaking the city, we ventured to the streets and alleyways again this time in search of some really stinky cheese that I could bring home to hubby. As a caution one should not consider buying cheese, wine, or chocolate as gifts as these all taste very different depending on the palate. Needless to say, hubby was not impressed with my selection of stinky cheese.

Darkness was falling so we decided it would be a good idea to get back to the flat at Brochant. Lacey and I attempted to go out and find food. We were disappointed to find that in a city that doesn’t sleep the prospect of finding a diner serving escargot after 11pm is abysmal. I really enjoy escargot so to me this was an offence in the highest order. We ended up settling for a pizza and walked back to the flat feeling utterly defeated, cold pizza and warm coke in tow.

The next day we spent some time on the metro in search of an open air flea market that had been recommended to us. Upon arrival at this flea market we were not feeling comfortable with the surroundings or the people and like two scared little school children lost, we opted for the comfort of the better, and less odoriferous surroundings the metro station had to offer. This was our ‘Ugly American’ moment and in hindsight we were both disappointed with ourselves. With this waste of an hour or so we had little time to go anywhere else as our train was departing at 4pm and it was 11am and we still needed to go to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

Basilica of the Sacred Heart is a must see. The architecture itself is glorious and the views of the city below are well worth the climb to the top. There’s an area in the village near the Basilica that is teaming with some impressive painters ready and willing to take your Euros for a portrait. There are also a ton of small sidewalk cafés. In a word it is charming!
Finally we were back in the familiar neighborhood of Brochant. With a few hours to spare we met Lacey’s friends at a café and had a sandwich….still no escargot to my dismay. We went for a nice walk around the neighborhood. We observed a game of Pentanque and it was then I realized that I had completely forgotten about a drink I was introduced to by a French friend I knew when I was living in Nashville several years ago…Pastise. I barely had enough Euros to get a sandwich at the train station for the trip back to London. No Pastise and no Escargot…Merde!