Christmas Compost, come and get it!

Some folks make fudge or bake cookies. Or knit a scarf. Lots of traditional things you can do for the neighbors at Christmas time. None of that for Sister Sosie. She orders a big batch of compost and invites her California neighbors to come and help themselves.
Feliz Navidad, everybody.
Hmmm. Wonder how the mailman would feel about this?

Keeping up with the neighbors

Meanwhile, in Florida, Tom and Sandy Story installed a fan in their winter condo. Tom and Sandy are our neighbors in Shakopee, so when Sandy saw the previous post of Stan installing a fan in California, she updated us. Hope Tom's Florida installation was easier than ours. Tom doesn't ordinarily like ladder work, glad to see he's overcome his avoidance of heights.

It's the little things. . .

Cursing was heard throughout the house yesterday as Stan assembled and installed this ceiling fan in the guest suite. Three teeny, tiny screws are required to fasten each fan blade into place, and must be inserted through small holes in three contiguous moving parts, all the while with arms extended over head. Stan's fumbling hands and fingers were hardly up to the task, particularly while simultaneously balancing a screwdriver, fan blade and "enhance plate." A torrent of expressions was released each time a screw fell to the floor and had to be retrieved. One screw was lost forever. Fortunately, the Harbor Breeze folks know about their box of frustrations and thoughtfully included an extra teeny, tiny screw.
Also fortunately, the house was empty except for one bemused H.V. Dang, who later remarked "You mean all that was about a little screw?"

Top photo dated February 14, 2015

Eight months later. . . 

Someone's been busy. And the remarkable thing is, the roses climbing the back wall spring from bare root stock,
five bucks apiece. All specimens are nurtured by an automatic drip watering system and the gentle hand of a skilled gardener.  A work still very much in progress, more to come.

White coats

Lots of nooks and crannies. Patience. . . and a huge drop cloth.

We started this last spring.

Today was a perfect day for painting, if there ever is such a thing. The temperature never got over 60 degrees, it was dry and bright, so we got the first coat completed on the backyard trellis at the California winter place. Final coat and touch ups tomorrow. Originally we were going to try to train a bougainvillea on the trellis, but that's not going to work for a variety of reasons, so we now have a huge pot and a Giant Crimson Mandevilla hybrid waiting in the wings. Never heard of it either, but it is supposed to work in this setting. If you're curious, go to www.sunparasol.net.

Update from France

An update from our American friend Mary Scarvalone:

Candles tonight on the Place des Martyrs in Antibes. There will be a memorial service tomorrow at 11:45 a.m.

I should add this: I was walking through town tonight on my way to Mass at the Cathedral. A few people were gathered on the Place des Martyrs de la Résistance, one of the squares in the old town of Antibes. A couple of women saw me approach and asked me if I'd like to light a candle -- they'd brought a bag of tea lights. I took one an lit it and put it at the base of the memorial stature that honors the resistance fighters of the second World War.

When I go to the memorial service tomorrow, I will remember the day, a little more than 14 years ago, when I stood on the same square, by the same monument, overwhelmed by the tremendous show of support of the French people around me, there to share in the sorrow of 9/11. On that day, as I stood there in tears, a woman came up to me and said, "This is not just an American tragedy; it is our tragedy too."

And

This just in from a friend in Paris: "I spent the day with friends, one of whom who lost someone in the massacre at Bataclan, another who lost someone in the shooting at Charonne, and still another who has three friends who were badly shot up at le Petit Cambodge restaurant but who are clinging to life. It’s just all so shocking, and quite close to home."

I can't stop crying.

Dog kept her out of Paris

Checked with old friend Mary Scarvalone in France last night. Originally from New York, schooled at Sotheby's in London, she moved to Antibes to work as an independent art consultant at the Art Arena. She's fine. Here's her response and observation:

Hi Stan…I'm still in Antibes, on the Riviera. But I go to Paris often, for work, and was supposed to be there this week…but my dog was sick so I didn't go.
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Receiving news from friends in Paris. One friend lives just around the corner from Bataclan and said that he could hear the shooting and grenades from his home. Another friend spent the night in an office building because she wasn't able to get home. The irony is that I expected to be in Paris this week, but then my plans changed.

I'm so thankful that my friends are safe, but heartsick to think of the many lives lost -- mostly young lives, too.

Maynard

We lost touch with Maynard; he was in Sosie's grade at the one-room schoolhouse south of Alexandria. He was among the first ones chosen for a schoolyard team game of pom pom pull away or the like, but not the first. Now we see that he's built a house on a lake not that many miles away, Red Rock. According to his Facebook page, he enjoys fishing and the quiet outdoors, which fits with our memories of Edward's little brother. We never thought of Maynard as a warrior, though he ably flew this chopper on numerous missions in Vietnam and has a chest of medals from that era.