Crocheting, Eating by the Sea and Food Shopping in Italy

Years ago I made scarves.  I made many scarves actually.  For myself and my family. I just started crocheting and made tons of scarves.  There is a drawer full of them in my basement room at my parent's house (the room I affectionately call "the hobbit hole")

Then the crocheting stopped, just as quickly and mysteriously as it had begun.  Like an intense rainstorm in springtime. And the years passed.  I painted and wrote....and arranged flowers.

Then several months ago....I felt the call of yarn..and I began to make crazy round animals. Pigs and owls and more pigs and then pigs wearing berets. Out   Of   Control.

Then for three weeks I have been working on my first baby blanket. Pastel yarn and patchwork patterns.  Pulling stitches out and hands going numb. But, finally it is done. Sigh

A total of 4 hours passed since the blanket completion until I picked up my hook again. Now...I'm making a scarf.  I can't seem to stop.

I'm not sure why. Dennis had to be bullied into "wanting" this scarf. I needled him, quite literally, into agreeing that he MUST have a handmade scarf.  What is wrong with me?  (Please, that was strictly rhetorical)

We went for a drive today and whilst going along by the sea in Menton on our way to Italy for groceries, we decided..rather spontaneously..to stop for lunch. With Denise in her chair, all bundled up against the possible wind and sun-glassed against the possible strong afternoon rays, we sat along the sea. Between the road and the beach. Next to me was a lovely couple and their pug who was sitting along beside them, as if involved in the meal and the conversation. He was rather well behaved, although somewhat particular about getting lobster on his collar.  It was a lovely afternoon of muscles and fries, and bolognaise. There was a black helicopter coming and going, landing on the beach and then taking off again. No one seemed the slightest bit interested in this event, except for me...who kept snapping pictures of it for no good reason.  Our real destination today was Italy to buy groceries for some company we may have later. Being that it was Sunday, no stores were available in France so we finished our lunch and drove off into another country.

The store was small and incredibly stuffed with things to buy and people buying them. I think I may have knocked several people in the head (by accident of course) with my purse ("bang" "oh I am so sorry" I mean "Pardon" no that's wrong too, I'm in Italy) and was goosed several times (on purpose, one would assume)

We found everything we didn't need, including a basil plant that I am super excited about. I placed Mister Basil right next to Lady Olive Tree when I came home tonight.  They were chatting along quite well when I closed the balcony doors this evening. Our company never came to eat what we bought. So we will have to eat it instead.

Sunday night always makes me sad. The fun is over already. Monday is rearing his nasty head.

Anna

Things are settling into a routine here...pretty much. Anna seems to be adjusting well to her new life in a foreign country.  As far as I can tell, she doesn't seemed fazed. Although she misses my family, I can tell.  She gets these far off looks and I know she is thinking about my mother and laying in the middle of the floor while Jane tried to walk, clean and cook around her. Funny thing is that I like to lay in the middle of the floor too.  I guess Anna gets that from me.

Once I get out of bed in the morning (and this is not at an early hour, keep in mind) Dennis and Denise are already at breakfast and Anna is all "I wanna go out! I gotta go now!!!"..following me closely, bumping into the backs of my knees with her nose...herding me toward the door.  So I dress and drag my feet out the door and down the street.  We pass the local grocery store with the homeless man sitting out front, who always speaks to us but I have no idea if he is saying "have a lovely morning beautiful lady" or more like "can't you spare a euro? I'm starving to death, you fat American pig"...so I smile at him and keep walking. Past the butcher shop, across the street to a grass patch for Anna to do her deed in.  When she is through with that first step we continue on toward the olive tree garden. The street is quiet and we usually pass a few other dogs. One morning a tall and elegantly dressed woman, in dark sunglasses and 5 inch heels was walking what looked like two rats on long long leashes appeared from a driveway.  There was a flurry of French and barking from the rats and the woman....Anna stared and I kept going. Anna kept turning around to stare.  She turned around so much that she walked into a tree, a car, a garbage can and finally she walked right into me, causing us both to trip and end up in a tangle. Anna likes to turn around and stare while still walking.  Not good for me before I've actually woken up.

Sometimes we pass dogs unleashed, which is always an adventure...barking..jumping and lots of disgusted French comments. I can't understand the words but I know what the people are saying. I've said it all myself.

Now as we approach the area where dogs are allowed, just around the edges of the fenced in garden of 500 year old olive trees...I need to pause and add this side bit.  Anna and grass.  If you know Anna, you know that she cannot be responsible for her actions when she is around grass.  The girl is ridiculous. Rolling like a fool in any spot of the green.  She is like a grass addict.  Well, grass is not too easy to come by here in the South of France.  Most places Anna can be have been visited by tons of other dogs and the grass is long gone.  But Anna has turned to more exotic flora and fauna. Still in the grass family, don't get me wrong. She has discovered Ornamental Grass.  The six foot high kind with those fuzzy brown seed things on top.  And she manages to roll into it.. vertically.  Like a big tumbleweed.  So there I am, on any given morning....speaking in hushed angry tones to my dog as she rolls vertically with abandon into this huge bush of ornamental grass.  The grass has been slowly browning and falling over on the ends because its winter here, so after a few moments, Anna is completely invisible and all you could see if you were to walk by is a crazy American woman, talking in angry tones at a quivering bush of six foot tall grass, that she appears to have tied a red leash to.  Thanks Anna, for disappearing and leaving me here to look like a fool, a fool shouting at ornamental grass.

Cooking with Bernard

Recently Cousin Bernard came over to cook lunch on a Saturday. This is no ordinary lunch but since we are family and  it is the weekend, it takes on a life of its own. Bernard wanted to make mussels and fries (A French thing) for us because the fresh mussels were on sale for 1 euro a kilo but since I am not a mussel fan Bernard brought a piece of fish for me. Dennis and I went to Nice for our meeting and when we returned the house smelled of apple tart and white wine cooking. I did try the mussels and no I am still not a fan but the pot of onions and wine, garlic and mystery herbs smelled wonderful. We crunched on fresh bread and four different cheeses, two different wines and yes, apple tart for dessert.  But it didn't end there.  Bernard took our car home and returned Sunday morning at 10:30 to cook lunch again but this time, I was commissioned to assist him.

The menu? A starter of salad made from "lamb lettuce", which is some kind of baby green, chopped beets, chopped scallions, including the bulb, dressed in a creamy mustard like dressing.




The main course was a pork roast and together Bernard and I pealed apples and potatoes, chopped up garlic and onions and filled the area around the roast with everything. Bernard added pepper, salt, spices of Provence and "oil of olive"..water and of course, butter.  Cooking with Bernard is very peaceful. Since I speak almost no French and he speaks only a little English, we mime what we need to, laugh a lot, gesture wildly and the rest of the time we enjoy companionable silence. I stood between the sink area and the table in the tiny kitchen while Bernard sat at the table, we chopped and pealed while Anna sat just outside the kitchen watching our every move.

The roast was ready and so was the salad. While we waited the hour and a half for Porky Pig to be done, Dennis and I went out for apéritif liquors. The destination was the border store in Italy, just about a ten minute drive from us, if there isn't any traffic.  There we bought whiskey and vodka, Cinzano and Calvados. Well stocked with a box full of booze, we came home to eat and drink and laugh.

Bernard had set the table while we were out and the roast has done, just resting before he attacked it with this crazy electric knife that I am terrified of.  And he wielded it with grace, even after a few whiskey and cokes.

Anna was very well behaved and her reward was bits of discarded cheese and some pork roast with her dinner. Having Bernard with us is always a good time, especially when he brings dessert. The surprise was 2 different eclairs, chocolate and coffee.  Bernard cut the eclairs in half to have enough for each of us but as full as I was, I could have managed to stuff them all in. DELICIOUS!

After dinner, cheese and bread, salad and dessert, white wine and red had all been consumed, we tried some Calvados which is a liquor made from apples and we dipped sugar cubes into it. Wow.

 In total Bernard was with us until Dennis brought him home after 7PM.  Almost an entire day spent in eating and drinking. Ah, France.

Anna's Big Adventure

Let it be known first off that bringing Anna to France sounded like an impossible undertaking. And that was before I even looked into how to do it. Once I did that, I realized just how crazy it could get.

First there are the requirements of the US government...Anna had to have a Health Certificate done by a sponsoring vet (and there is no list of said sponsoring vets). France requires the Health Certificate to be bilingual and Anna needed a micro-chip placed and afterwards a rabies shot. And those things needed to be done 21 days before she entered the country. And then Delta airlines required the Health Certificate to be no more than 10 days old when she flew with them. And she needed to be in a crate that had metal bolts and nuts (which is not available ANYWHERE to purchase so you have to but the crate and then outfit it yourself with the bolts). And Delta charges $200 one way for dogs to travel. And we were flying from Boston, to NY and then to Nice.  So to save money and Anna's sanity, we rented a van...and drove to JFK airport and then put Anna on the plane. She was in airline hands for upwards of 13 hours before we saw her again.

Tired yet?

Needless to say...for the entire flight I was consumed with worry for Anna.  The worse part is knowing that there is absolutely nothing I could do. They had her and I had to wait. And once we cleared passport control in Nice, we waited anxiously at the luggage belt...wondering if she would come through with our bags.  One bag, then another..then another....and no Anna.

I happened to glance over at the far end of the huge room full of people and bags and conveyor belts to see Anna's huge crate sitting in the middle of everything.  Running over, weaving through the people I made my way to her.  As I approached the crate began to shift from side to side..Anna was just fine, wagging her tail and almost tipping the huge crate over.

And customs? There wasn't one single person there to even glance at our paperwork. We just walked right through. I wanted to ring a bell at the counter and say "Excuse me! Could you please look at my paperwork and scan my dog's micro-chip? I worked hard for it and I want to be inspected!"  I know...I'm a crazy American.  So without a hitch and with unimaginable simplicity, Anna is now with us in France.

How is she doing? Just fine. She enjoys being treated like a royal grandchild by my mother-in-law. She walks along the olive tree garden...she is pet by strange French people who coo to her in French and she just stares at them from the corner of her eye. Spending most of her time basking in the sun on the balcony and watching the traffic headed to Italy by our house. She chases the pigeons and naps in a tiny ball on her cushion by the TV while Denise watches the evening news.

Anna does seem sad at moments when I know she is thinking about my mother and father...Jen and Kathryn too.  I know she wonders where they are, why they aren't here with us. It feels good to be together with Anna and Dennis again but I know (as Anna knows too) that we are missing some very important people and there is a hole in our lives and our hearts. That hole will only be filled when we are all together again.

Crochet Crazy

It all began with the idea of a hobby.  You know, a hobby...that thing you do just for the joy of doing something. Its a time waster, lets face it.  In all honesty, hobbies are mostly valueless and everybody you know can't understand why you do it.

Be that as it may, I went to Michael's craft store to discover a new time waster for myself. I was headed toward counted cross stitch because it was familiar, comfortable...I had waster time with that before.  My sister Kathryn mocked me heavily when she saw the pattern for some useless counted cross stitch item in my hands.  And due completely to her mockery and pressure I purchased instead a book entitled:

CROCHET CUTE ANIMALS

Adam

Yes...I suddenly was filled with the need, the fire of desire, the raw hunger to crochet cute animals. With yarn in hand I began my first project.  Now I will say that my first owl was hard for me. The wording was confusing, seemingly written in sand script or maybe Latin. I was fumbling and cursing when my mother patiently explained the basics of the pattern.  Soon Mister Owl was complete, although slightly cross eyed and leaning on one foot and being affectionately called "chocolate jellybean" by Kathryn.  I gave him to my sister Jen and began searching for my next project. Online there is a treasure trove of free patterns for just about every animal you can imagine. 

Marmaduke

And even some fungi, which was my next creation. My mushroom is a    thing of beauty and I gave that to Kathryn, complete with a green grass lawn, flower and an acorn!

Maybe Shrooms aren't your thing? Well, soon after this I began to dabble in farm animals, specifically pigs. I found the pattern I wanted and with it, Charlotte was born. After Charlotte, there have been some variations in both size and color and even the addition of wings for those of you who appreciate the idea of pigs flying. I also created a penguin upon request. Marmaduke came out perfect and sits on a windowsill in the south of Florida, watching over the comings and goings of a dear friend of mine. I hear from Charlotte still and the adventures she gets embroiled in. My animals remain close to me, never losing contact no matter the distance from me and their adoptive families. 

Charlotte The Party Pig

Living at my parent's house for almost a month, separated from Dennis and lots and lots of yarn began to have it's effect on me. 

Horatio

Horatio the Wiener dog.....A couple of Love Pigs for my sister and her husband's 20th wedding anniversary, complete with matching heart tattoos on their bums.

Anniversary Love Pigs

 An Elephant commissioned by my mother for a close friend of hers (all I will say about this one is that the trunk gave me trouble and I had to go beyond what the pattern asked for in order to keep things in the proper perspective)

Ray

The Manta Ray was so popular that first I made Wilbur (as seen here) for my step-daughter Denise and then I had to make another Ray for my father because the picture looked too cute to pass up. I created a panda bear that had such a round belly and butt that he could not sit on his own two ball feet properly but no one faulted him for that. 

There came to be quite a animal family grouped on my mother's table...growing each day and decreasing each day, depending on my production and how many visitors we had. Time without Dennis flew a little easier with my hobby. And as it turns out, there were many laughs and snorts and gifts created from this time waster I took up.  Some of my fondest memories are in the early stages when it was never really clear, not even to me, what I was creating. This would turn into a guessing game from my family which never resulted in an accurate guess. I also found that throwing the animal at my mocker resulted in a nice thud, an unexpected bonus.  I'm still crocheting, working on pigs still in several sizes and a tree frog is next on my list. Thank you to my faithful fans and family who support my wildest projects. Maybe this will be a success story beyond my merest hobbiest dreams and my crocheted animals will take me to fame and fortune.  Or a full cabinet in my mother's house of crocheted animals with the echo of  the laughter they brought. 

When pigs fly

Where Have I Been?

Who knew I would be missed?  It's been some time since I've sat down to write. This is mostly due to my being back in RI with my family.  I guess I haven't had much time to write. Also, there is so much that simply cannot be put in to words (I'm sure you know what I mean)

The month here visiting is coming to a close, Thursday I leave for two weeks in FL.  Dennis has been in France this past month, taking care of his mother without me. It has been a very difficult separation for both of us, the kind that cannot possible be properly expressed with words. Needless to say, we have sworn to each other that it will be the last goodbye. Let's hope we can keep that promise.

So what have I been doing?  Believe it or not, exercising has been a daily event for me since coming home. If you know me at all, you know how funny it is for me to even write that. Working out is not something I do without a fight.  And actually watching what I eat. France, in 7 short weeks, tempted me into more weight gain then I care to discuss here and I am slowly making an effort to eradicate that problem. Hopefully my "cheese roll", "fig roll", and "bread roll" will soon be a thing of the past.  Eating here is so very different...I have slipped somewhat back into eating for survival.  Sad really..but necessary when you consider how porky one can get and how quickly it can happen. As a friend of mine once said, "Sarah, you need to do something".

Besides NOT eating and working out...I have spent lovely hours crocheting all manner of tiny animals. Yes, crocheting. I have heard the jokes...the calls of "old Lady" and "Grannie"  but I can't help myself, I love to make them. Pigs and Penguins...and Pandas too.  So there is a table in my parents' living room that has become Noah's Ark of crocheted animals, if you can imagine such a thing.

Being with Anna again is perfect too.  I worry that she and I will be missing something by always being apart...but she seems just the same, as far as I can tell.  I have been readying her for her French adventure. Tomorrow she goes to the vet for her microchip...stay tuned.  We walk together every day. When I sit by the window to read, Anna will come sit beside me with her head just within reach to be pet. She is a constant comforting presence.

Its amazing how slow and how quick a month can pass, isn't it? It drags at night...one sleepless minute crawling past after another. But once the sun rises, I can't hold on to the hours and whole chunks are gone before I can stop for a breath.  I am ready to go and I am dreading goodbye.

The weather has turned cool...not that I am complaining by any means! The leaves aren't brilliant this year but the change in seasons is still enjoyable for me. The crunch of oak leaves under my feet, the frosty grass in the early morning, the need to wear a sweatshirt even indoors.  The sky is heart-stoppingly blue this time of year. Its my favorite thing about Autumn in New England. It feels like it could crush you or carry you off, all at the same time.

So I am hanging around at 36 State Street, with my parents and my sister Kate. Just enjoying the familiarity of the people whom I call home, enjoying my mom cooking for me and chatting with her every day, enjoying the sound of Kathryn's music streaming out from under her door and the smell of candles in the air, enjoying my father searching for music online every night and tapping out the beat with his feet while he is lost inside his noise-deafening headphones. I am back. It isn't foreign to me, it is where my people are. This is my tribe.

Just last night, Dennis, Denise and I were invited down the street to our friend's house for dinner.  Mary-Beth and Gordon are a loving and giving couple who lavish their kindness on us in many ways.  Eating dinner at their house is a special treat.  Another couple from Biot, Louise and Roy, were also there.  As usual the food was spectacular as was the cheddar cheese :) and for me a treat of vodka that Gordon purchased for me to try.  It had a lovely hint of summer grass with sweet clover.  Amazing.

But more than the food and drink.  The time spent with people who really care and open their hearts and homes to you, sharing all they have with you, is what I still feel wrapped around me this morning.  It lingers around my heart like the bouquet of a favorite perfume that clings to the clothing long after it has been applied.  A sweet hint wafting around me.  To know and enjoy the company of true companions, people who will laugh with you and cry, visit your mother in the hospital and stay with her so that she is not alone or scared.  People who give and give without ever asking for a return, who shake off thanks and refuse compliment.  I feel humbled by the love we have been shown here.  When we need help or we have questions, someone unfailingly comes to our rescue, expending themselves for our sakes.  On our first visit to France, a family we had never met invited us to dinner but when we explained that we didn't have a car to drive to their home, they gave us theirs to use for the entire month. And then again invited us to dinner.  What a brotherhood, what a family of loved ones we have here protecting us and sharing what they have with us.  Thank you to each of them for the lovely meals and sleepovers we have enjoyed, thank you for the love they have shown Denise, a stranger to them in many ways, and thank you for trying so hard to speak to me in English so that I am not too lost and confused.  Your kindess and compassion should be marked and remembered.  It will be, forever, by me.

We are headed home to RI and FL at the end of this week, to be pampered and cared for by long known friends and loving family.  Dennis and I feel blessed beyond words by the friends and family we have, here and in the States, that have worked so hard to support us and help us so that we can help Denise.  Thank you from the very bottom of our full hearts. No matter where we are, we never feel alone.  And we are always home.