“Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. . . To me, awake is to be alive.”   (Walden Pond, 1854)    Yes, I Like That!

Now, I don’t like Wal-Mart, and I won’t shop there.  I don’t like the way they treat employees, especially women–but people still work there and lots of women; I don’t like the way they crowd the ‘Mom and Pop’ stores–but that’s what capitalism is all about.  I could give you a page full of reasons that I don’t like Wal-Mart–in pica print–but the thing I dislike the most is what I see as an arrogant attitude as they change communities in a self-serving, self-righteous manner–this annoys me mightily.

I read the article with relish, eager to read bad stuff, smirk abit and nod my head knowingly, but I was disappointed, it sounded like old news and I doubt that I’m alone.  

Over more than a decade, we have been bombarded with Enrons,  irresponsible bankers, an unrestrained Wall Street, unscrupulous Hedge Funds, private interest groups, a paralyzed government encumbered with self-serving bureaucrats, and worst of all, a sad and sinful war.   Wal-Mart seems little by comparison.

 After all we’ve been through, it’s easy to want to say, “They all do it, WalMart just does it bigger”; but we can’t.  If we don’t address BAD then how we expect BETTER.  I’m going to remember that the next time Wal-Mart is naughty.    And for that, I thank the press, and in this case the NYTimes and David Barstow for reminding me.  That’s my 2-cents.

• The first day, we went to Musee d’ Orsay.
• The second day, we hired a car and guide to take us around the city. ( Ask for his name if you go.)
• The third day, we spent at the Louvre.
• The fourth day, our car and guide came back and we went to Versaille.
• The fifth day–that was New Year’s Day–we went to a concert of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons” in a very old church that was very moldy.  

But New Year’s Eve–that was the key to the holiday, and it had to be a memory of Paris that we could only get in Paris.  We decided to dine elegantly on epicurean masterpieces concocted in a quintessential French restaurant, and with the help of our hotel concierge–contacted before we left–we chose Le Crystal Room Bacarrat –it’s also a Bacarrat Crystal museum–where we  were served a 7-course meal from 9pm to almost 1am.

1. Delight of cucumber in the mint, caviar from Aquitaine,   sweetness of Manzana
2. Foie Gras perfumed with juniper berries, turnips in bitter sweet
3. Sliced Scallops from Erquy with combawa
4. Blue Lobster warmed to Champagne, artichokes with truffle
5. Farmer Poultry suprememe rasted way “Rossini”, conchiglionis with truffle and parmesan cheese  (Did you know that truffles are the most expensive food.  A pound of white truffles costs about $2000 a pound.)
6. Lemon Macaroon and its sorbet
7. Variation around the chocolate                  

 Bon Appetit

I went to Paris for New Year’s!  It had been over thirty years and a lot of Frequent Flyer Miles since that visit and I was eager to re-see it. 

1. Don’t go for New Year’s; it’s crowded with foreigners!   
2. Don’t go far from your hotel on New Year’s Eve if you don’t have set plans for getting back.  You won’t be able to get a cab and the Metro is unpredictable.  You are forewarned.
3. Don’t dress like a tourist!  Do the ‘when inRome thing’—dress like the French—blend instead of stand out.  I guarantee that you’ll be treated better and enjoy yourself more.
4. Do get tickets in advance to places you definitely want to visit.  I had tickets to the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay in advance. There was even a line for ticket holders at The Orsay—but shorter, and at the Louvre, we went in a back door.
5. Don’t stand in long lines long!  I know, it’s hard to leave knowing you haven’t seen the Mona Lisa, but, you’ll live.   There is so much to see in this beautiful city that you should not waste a moment on such mundane things as standing in line. Instead, go to the Rodin Museum or one of the many others—you are in the ‘city of art’; go sit by the Seine and watch the smoke from the stacks of little tug boats fold back as they go under the low bridges–Hemingway did.  AND EAT—when in Paris, you eat.

 6. Do make dinner reservations for nine pm.  This is the time to eat inParis.  I know what you’re thinking, but it will be worth it.  By that time they are fully staffed and ready for you.  If it helps, be glad you are not inSpain where it is at least ten before anyone will want you. Almost any café or bistro will do but this is also where your hotel  concierge comes in handy.  Remember, FOOD is what the French do well and they take pride in it.

7.  Do hang out in the Montmartre.  It’ll be crowded but you can still find your own space.  For example, sit on the steps of the Basilica Sacre Coeur and think about where you are, stop by Renoir’s home, and wander around the artists at work in the square and wonder if another Van Gogh, Renoir, or Degas is waiting for you to spot them.

8.  Do hang out at Le Père Lachaise.  Just about anyone who was anyone in France is buried there.  Get a map and begin your search for them. (I put an app in my I-Pad.)  Here’s a starter list:  The tragic lovers Abelard and Héloïse share a canopied tomb, Frederic Chopin is buried with a small urn of Polish soil and a red rose on top, Edith Piaf, Balzac, Bizet, Colette, Corot, Daumier, Max Ernst, Pissarro, Proust, Rossini, Seurat, Stravinsky, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, and even Jim Morrison—a treasure trove of immortals to whom you may pay your respects.   

9.  Don’t take a Dinner Cruise unless you have planned for transportation afterward.  We took one with Bateaux Parisienne.  The sights were lovely and the food was good enough but it was somewhat ruined when there was no transportation at the Quay when we disembarked and the boat people were just interested in getting home themselves.  Plan ahead.

10.  Do spend lots of time with the Eiffel Tower. It is soooo French and simply magical, especially at night when it’s lit up.  In fact, if you stand near it, close your eyes, sing a little of Cole Porter’s “I Love Paris”, and click you heels 3 times, well who knows what it might bring.  I wish I had thought of that when I was there–let me know.

Bon Voyage.

(In my next blog, I’m going to tell you my menu for New Year’s Eve.  A French eating experience.  Look for it.)

Now there are 17 women in the US Senate. I LIKE THAT!!!

The Margaret Thatcher I knew was a gutsy lady who took on one of the biggest and surely the oldest ‘old boys’ clubs, the British Parliament, to become the first female Prime Minister and then serve in that post for over eleven years.  She never backed down, to the IRA who tried to assasinate her or even on the Falkland Islands whom many thought were hardly worth the effort.  She was a good friend of Ronald Reagan and the USA during the Cold War, and earned the title, The Iron Lady, because of her fortitude and uncompromising attitude.

But that woman isn’t in this film.  In her rare flashes of lucidity, she seems to question her earlier decisions–the IRA, the Falklands–is she really doing that?  How do they know?   Makes you wonder if IRA sympathizers wrote this, thinking they can get even because now she’s old and sick and can’t fight back . . . . 

On top of all this, her dead husband is walking around reminding her that she was an MIA wife and mother, and her son won’t talk to her and her daughter is angry.  I’m angry too, we should all be angry that women are judged, even now, in the 21st century, because we didn’t stay home with the kids. 

I’m concerned too.  I’m concerned that no one has tried to set the record straight.  That the film has not caused an unprecedent amount of writing about the real Margaret Thatcher.  Perhaps we should be mindful of Thatcher’s own words . . . .

 In February 2007, when she was already ill, she was honoured with a statue in the Houses of Parliament.   In a brief speech she said, “I might have preferred iron – but bronze will do … It won’t rust.”

That’s ‘my 2 cents’.  What about yours?

• You can read monthly installments of my novel Assignment: Trophy Art, starring Maxine Cantrell, spy extraordinaire.
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Americans have always had a love affair with British Royalty, not that we ever wanted them, but we are fascinated by them–my grandmother was one of the worst.  We love their musty old castles and the pageantry, and  it was all rolled out for the Wedding of the Year as only the Brits can do it.  I wasn’t even going to watch but I got pulled right in.

While everyone looked for the Bride, I looked for the bride’s Grandmother-in-law.   She was hard not to see in her bright yellow.  No one else wore yellow, actually, no other woman even wore a bright color.  How do they do that?   And why did they pick that cheery color?  Was it to make sure the Bride did not upstage the Queen.  Well, they pulled it off, the Brits did.  They put on quite a show with the Bride glowing and  The Queen out-standing.  Did you know that the Queen and her husband share a great, great grandmother, Queen Victoria.

I have grown up to write about Sleeping Beauties–women who are busy being what they are supposed to be–and I have never seen a more perfect example, but I certainly can’t call her a Sleeping Beauty waiting to be awakened.  No, she defies the idea.  She’s a  Queen and gotten quite good at it.  Toward the end of the ceremony, when they played “God Save the Queen”, she didn’t fidget, as I might have.  No, she sat quietly, her head down,  allowing them to pay tribute to her as was her due.    When she came out on the balcony, she waved, in a somewhat bored fashion; after all, she’s done a lot of that.  After, whatever she considered an adequate time for the family to be seen by their subjects, she went in which signaled the end of that.

I must admit that I was fascinated with her.  What was she thinking?  Is she happy?  Does she worry about her family, their health and happiness or just that they don’t botch things up.  They’ve done a lot of that.  How does she feel when they aren’t being what they are supposed to be?  Does she love her subjects and her country,  or just need them because she’s a Queen?  I guess we’ll never know.

Did you know that one of her ‘Ladies in Waiting’ carries a sheep skin cover for the toilet seat when they travel?

Leave me a comment.  I would love to hear from you!

For the past five years, she has been dancing with the NETSational Senior Dance Team–hand-picked to perform a Hip Hop routine at the Nets Basketball games.  She has traveled with her dance team–all over the country– to promote a new film, Gotta Dance, which was featured at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Watch for BLOND-e with her Hip Hop Team and watch for her story on my Blog and later in The Late-Bloomer Chronicle.