Dreaming of France -- Birthday Dreams

So, my birthday happens to coincide with my Dreaming of France meme, so I thought I'd just post a photo of me in France.
I was 20 the first time I traveled to France, with my boyfriend on a group tour. We saw Europe from a bus in a fun student tour that covered way too many countries.

Here we are on Cannes Beach during the tour. 

A few years later, at 23, I returned as an au pair to two American girls visiting their grandparents. In this photo, I'm with the daughters of my friend Danuta as well. We still see Danuta and her husband Michel almost every visit to France.

Then Earl and I went for our one-year anniversary trip.

Fast forward through other trips with the kids, without the kids, Earl and I visited Paris for our 20th anniversary trip five years ago.

And next month, we'll be visiting Aix en Provence and Paris as part of our 25th anniversary jubilee. I'm hoping we get back much more often as our children are growing up and our responsibilities are waning.
Hope your dreams of France come true.
Please visit each other's posts and leave comments so we can all share our love for this amazing culture.

Saturday Snapshot -- Book Trailer

Join West Metro Mommy for this weekly meme of photos people have taken and share on their blogs
I wanted to share many of my snapshots that were used in a book trailer for my novel Trail Mix. Most of the pictures were taken by me and my friends on our hikes of the Appalachian Trail, or my friend Noreen and her husband took them while they were hiking the Appalachian Trail.
My daughter put together the pictures and the music to create a book trailer for Trail Mix, which is a women's fiction, adventure story about women's friendships, marriage and raising kids.
Hope you'll take a look at the trailer and give it a thumbs-up on youtube if you get a chance.

My novel has been selling well, and I could always use more reviews if the book sounds interesting to you. Here's the link to my novel on Amazon.

Birthday Prep

I learned quite a few years ago that the best way to make sure I have a good birthday is to make my own plans.
So, everything is in place for a spectacular day.
Today, I went to Trader Joe's and I splurged on a bottle of dessert wine. A tiny bottle of wine that costs $19.99, but it will go well with the chocolate cake with chocolate icing that my husband plans to bake for me.
The icing for this cake is tricky. It's boiled icing that is supposed to harden, kind of like homemade fudge, the kind not made with marshmallow cream.
As I was checking out at Trader Joe's, I mentioned that the wine was for my birthday celebration. A few minutes later, another check out clerk showed up at the line with a bouquet of flowers for me, compliments of Trader Joe's.
So now I have my flowers to enjoy all weekend and the anticipation of my birthday on Monday.

I have to teach from 8-2 on Monday, but my last class has already made plans for a class party. They're the ones who thought I was in my 30s, so, of course, I'm going to celebrate with them.
As soon as class is over, I'll scoot up to the salon for a facial (a gift from my husband) and a manicure (a gift from my daughter).
I've already purchased marinated lamb tips for dinner, so we'll have dinner at home followed by cake and my scrumptious dessert wine.
How bout you? Do you plan your own birthday celebrations?

Tuesday Intros -- Hello From the Gillespies

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I don't buy very many actual books anymore. Mostly, I buy books on my Kindle or borrow actual books from the library. But just before Christmas, I was browsing for books to buy my kids and this cover and story caught my eye. Luckily, my husband bought it for me for Christmas. Hello From the

Gillespies by Monica McInerney is about an Australian family that sends out a cheery end-of-the-year newsletter until the year that they decide to tell the truth.
Here's the intro:

It was December first. Angela Gillespie did as she'd done on that date for the past thirty-three years. She sat down at her desk before dinner and prepared to write her annual Christmas letter.
After doing so many, she had the process down to a fine art. It was a matter of leafing through her diary to recall the year's main events, writing an update about each member of the family -- herself, her husband, and their four children -- attaching a photo or two, then sending it off.

The book cover alone would have sucked me in, of course. But the book is set in Australia instead of France.
I haven't begun reading this book yet. I'm saving it to have a hard copy book to take on the plane to France next month.
Hope everyone else is reading a book you love.

Dreaming of France -- L'Amour Actually

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

I seem to be awash in books set in France. I just finished reading Honeymoon in Paris (twice). Once by Jojo Moyes and once by Juliette Sobanet. And I read That's Paris, an anthology of short stories set in Paris. Now comes L'Amour Actually: Falling in Love in the Heart of France by Melanie Jones. It is one of those British chick-lit books with an accident-prone main character who finds herself in a pickle after leaving London to live in Southwestern France.

She's flighty enough to make Bridget Jones seem sensible, but I'm still enjoying the experience.
Reading books set in France is almost as much fun as visiting.
Here's a snippet that shows part of the culture shock of moving to rural France:

"Well boys," I announced, standing up to leave, "I'd better be getting off. I need to do a bit of shopping then get back for the arrival of the furniture."
"No one will come during lunchtime, this is France," said Julien. "Your delivery men will be in a cafe somewhere having a big lunch and a carafe of wine. And the shop doesn't open until three o'clock either."
"Three o'clock! What am I supposed to do until then? What happens if people can only shop in their lunch break?"

 As I was looking at the Amazon link for this book, I had to chuckle at a bad review that says, "Too much elicit sex in it." Ha! Maybe the reviewer meant explicit, but that's her spelling issue. She made me laugh and didn't put me off downloading the book. I haven't come across any sex yet, elicit or otherwise. Here's the Amazon link.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France today and for leaving a comment. Also remember to check out each other's posts so you can share everyone's musings about France.

Saturday Snapshot -- Love

Join West Metro Mommy for this weekly meme of photos people have taken and share on their blogs.
Of course, everyone is celebrating Valentine's Day, but when you're two, love is a much simpler concept.
This week, I babysat for my  nieces and I took them suckers -- Tootsie Pops, to be precise.
Little Regan was thrilled with her orange Tootsie Pop.
"I love my sucker!" she said as she hugged it to her.

Ah, if only love were as simple as it is with a two-year-old.

Heating Up

On Tuesday, I was feeling pretty good about my youthfulness as I approach another birthday this month.
I'd been to the eye doctor and he said that I had "young eyes." He said I might not ever need reading glasses.
That cockiness waned that evening.
I was teaching a glass from six to nine p.m. As I stood in front of the class, wearing a blue and gray wool sweater over a camisole, I felt a heater ignite inside of me.
Suddenly, sweat was dripping down my forehead, plastering my bangs against my skin. I surreptitiously reached up and wiped at the sweat.
I pushed up my sleeves to bare my forearms.
But I wanted to rip my sweater off and stand before the class in only my camisole.
Why was I suddenly so hot?
This entire winter, my thermostat has been running high. In bed at night, I sleep in a t-shirt and shorts while my husband is bundled in flannel sleep pants and a long sleeved shirt. Often I kick the covers off, or simply stick my feet out from under the covers, but I hadn't had an actual hot flash before.
I suspected I might be having them the week before, but I was sick, so I couldn't tell if I had a fever or hot flashes.
On Tuesday night, I had no doubt as I suffered through three hot flashes while standing in front of the class.
I had to teach the next morning, and remember the hot flashes from the night before, I wore a sleeveless blue dress, tights and a cardigan. I wore a scarf too, which was easy to unwrap and throw over my chair. But I didn't think it through. Because when I got too hot, I felt too self conscious to take off my cardigan. I just thought the students would judge me for wearing a sleeveless dress when the temperature was in the 20s outside.
By the last class that day, I simply said, "I'm too hot," and I pulled off my cardigan. No one commented on my bare arms.
Nor did they say anything about the way my bangs started to wave as they got wet from my sweaty forehead.

Here' a picture of me and 2-year-old Regan.
No more babies for me now that menopause
 has hit. Well, I wasn't going to have more anyway. 

I'm still not sure whether I should acknowledge the hot flashes when I'm teaching or if I should continue to ignore them. I don't know why I'm afraid to. It's not like they don't already think I'm really old, compared to them.
Although, in one class, when they were talking about age, they asked how old I was, and I told them, 51.
Their mouths dropped open, and one girl exclaimed, "I would have guessed 39 at the most."
Well, she's getting an A, but I still might not confide in them.

Dreaming of France -- That's Paris: An Anthology of Life, Love and Sarcasm in the City of Light

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

When I found out that Vicki Lesage and Adria J. Cimino were putting together an anthology of stories in Paris, I got excited. What's better than hearing stories about Paris?

Some of these short stories are blips of experience in Paris. Others are more complicated and slowly unwound with the scenery of Paris as the setting.
Cimino wrote a story, "Love Unlocked," about an activist trying to convince people to stop attaching locks to Pont des Arts, a bridge over the Seine. She chains herself to the bridge and meets a man searching through the locks.

"I'm unlocking it." He pulled a small key out of the pocket of his jeans, released the lock and tossed it into the trashcan a few feet away.
"Why did you do that?"
"Our story is over. We broke up today."
"You only wanted to get rid of your lock because the relationship is over? Typical. You're not doing this because you care about the bridge or our environment."

Some of the stories aren't about Paris. They are simply human stories that are set in Paris. Like "La Vie en Rose" by Marie Vareille about a young widow whose friends force her to go out with them after two years of widowhood. In a French bar, she meets a man who doesn't treat her as if she's fragile, and she begins to feel whole again.
In "Le Chemin du Dragon," an intriguing story by Didier Quemener, takes place in Pere-Lachaise cemetery at the mausoleum of Chopin. The young musician is about to make a discovery in the dark of the graveyard.
Along with enjoyable stories, I learned some things about moving to Paris, like the fact I should get an international driver's license before I move so I don't go through the pains that Jennie Goutet wrote about in "Driving Me Crazy." She spent three years and thousands of dollars for driving school, so that she could get her French license.
These stories are lovely little appetizers for those of us hungry for Paris.
The book is available on Kindle at Amazon for 4.99.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs to see more examples of people Dreaming of France.
 

The Perfect Size

Buying clothes for myself has always been a bit of a chore. From the time I hit puberty, my hips and thighs grew curvy, while my waist stayed small so that I needed a size that not many clothes manufacturers accommodated. I'd buy clothes that were too loose around the waist or too tight in the thighs.
One time, while home from college when my weight had really crept up, I remember shopping with my mom at an Elder Beerman store and we went into the women's section. I got a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. The thought of them still makes me shiver in disgust.
My own experiences make me appreciate having a daughter who looks good in basically everything.
For her birthday last month, I went clothes shopping for her. I planned to buy her a new work outfit (she has to wear black) and a shirt she can wear for new headshots. She's an actress so she needs headshots to take on auditions.
I ended up with about four outfits because I found so many things I thought she'd look good in.
Surprise! I was right.
Before her birthday, she was going out to celebrate with a bunch of friends. I asked her what she planned to wear that night.
"Maybe this," she said, gesturing toward a tan and black dress she was wearing to work. It was cute enough, but it wasn't sexy for dancing in the clubs.
As I was shopping, I had found a sexy, v-back sweater dress. I left it on her bed so she would find it when she got home from work.
She sent me some selfies as she prepared to go out that night.

The back of the sweater dress has a nice V and cut out to add to the sexiness. She had a marvelous, tipsy time with her friends.

On her birthday, I made her try on a few outfits. She's always into sparkle, and I knew she'd love this 20s-style dress even if it might be too fancy for work.

I caught her coming home from work in this striped, knit skirt.
"Horizontal stripes," my husband said, when he saw it.
"It'll be fine on Grace," I assured him. And it was.

At least I can live vicariously through her and her clothing choices.  

Squirrelfriend Saga

One day last week, while I was teaching, I received phone calls from two of my children and my husband, along with numerous texts. Generally, they don't interrupt me while I'm teaching, so when I got a break between classes, I called.
Grace was hysterical as she drove to work because as she walked out the back door to the garage,

Squirrelfriend was being attacked by a hawk.
Squirrelfriend is a squirrel that we've been feeding peanuts this winter. He hangs out under the bird feeder or sits on the back porch and makes complaining noises if we need to throw out more peanuts. I named him one morning as we were leaving for work, and I cracked up Earl by calling him squirrelfriend, like  you'd say, "Hey, Girlfriend!"
"I scared the hawk away," Grace exclaimed, "but squirrelfriend just laid there and he was breathing so fast."
The hawk moved to the fence and had a stare down with Grace before he flew up to a tree.
I told Grace I would tell Tucker to guard squirrelfriend from the hawk. He was the only one left at home.
Earl got involved, suggesting that Tucker get a towel and capture squirrelfriend, putting him some place safe. Or, if we was dying, to put him out of his misery.
I don't think any of us could have done that.

This is a hawk, probably, like the one
that attacked Squirrelfriend

Tucker tried to catch squirrelfriend, but he was able to run away and find some place to hide while he recovered.
We weren't sure if his hawk-induced injured would cause his death, but the next day, I saw him. He had some raw patches on his shoulder and his tail was a bit string and unkempt, but he was still alive.
I wondered whether we had increased Squirrelfriend's chance of hawk attack because we fed him peanuts, but Earl said he would have been perching under the bird feeder either way.
I think we would be equally sad if we saw something attacking a hawk. We just have a hard time watching anything die, even though we know that some animals survive by eating other animals.
If Grace had her way, predators would only eat snakes. That might solve two problems in one.

Dreaming of France -- Rue Mouffetarde

This time while we are in Paris, Earl and I are trying a new hotel, one on Rue Mouffetarde, which is a street with a famous market. We generally stay in the same hotel in Paris, but this time we booked a hotel with our airfare, which made it much less expensive.
The side streets along Rue Mouffetarde have some inspiring restaurants.

The host at this restaurant was lurking in the doorway trying to lure people to have a seat. Apparently, the more people who sit down, the more people who will join them. We were happy to sit down, and we received a cocktail on the house in return. It must have been lunch time as you can see from the sun shining on Earl's face. 

Here's another picture at the same restaurant where you can see Earl's face.

And here's a shot down the lane of the row of restaurants. I think we returned to the same one a few times. We aren't nearly as picky as our French friends who stop and examine the menu and debate whether the menu is for the right season. 

Still, it's always fun to let A French person choose the restaurant, and we can sit back to enjoy the ambiance. 

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please visit each other's blogs and leave comments. I look forward to seeing what you are posting so I can dream about France with you.

Running and Weather

I woke up this morning at 5:30 when the cat settled onto my shoulder, his black, fuzzy face just inches from mine.
I reached for my phone and pressed the weather app. 27 degrees (-3Celcius)! That's practically a heat wave considering that I ran on Tuesday morning and it was 7 degrees (-14Celcius).
The app warned that snow or freezing rain were forecast for 7 a.m.
By the time I got out of bed, dressed and was dancing in the kitchen to Pitbull's "Time of Our Lives" before I headed out the door, it was 6:30.
As I headed down the walk, I felt a few thick drops hit my face and my lashes. Snow or rain was starting, but the roads were clear, so I joyfully ran about a mile and a half before the snowy mix increased. Soon, my hair was dripping and my fleece jacket hung heavy on my shoulders, but still, I was sweating from the run.
I stopped inside a bus shelter and pulled my fleece off, tying it around my waist.
I headed back toward home, feeling the icy material sticking to my thighs.
The black asphalt was shiny in places and I wondered whether I might slip. But each step felt fairly secure.
Then about half a mile from home, I felt a foot slide before the other one found a secure anchor. I stopped running and slid my feet along the street. Yep, solid ice.
I headed for the sidewalk, figuring I'd walk the rest of the way home. But the sidewalks were even more slippery, and as soon as I started walking, I felt the wetness of my clothes on my skin, the temperature still hovering around 27. Without the body heat from running, I felt sure I would soon succumb to hypothermia.
This was one of the first times that I felt like I had truly put myself in danger: soaking wet, 27-degree temperatures with icy roads.
There was nothing to it but to continue running in the hopes of keeping my body temperature up and getting home sooner.
So I headed back to the road. I changed my running stride. Rather than a lope, I was nearly running in place, bouncing up on each step then landing just inches in front of where I'd left. I was afraid to stretch out, picturing me ending up in a split if my front foot slid.
As cars passed close by, I tried to remind myself that if I fell I should roll toward my shoulder, rather than landing on my nose, like I did in September 2013. I figured, if I hit my head, I could just try to roll to the side of the road then the school kids would be on their way soon and they'd find me before I froze to death. (Yes, strange thoughts go through my head when I'm running alone in the dark freezing rain.)
Finally, I made it home. As I had run, I had come up with a plan. I knew that I couldn't hop into a hot shower with my skin so cold. I've experienced that burning and itching before. But I couldn't stay in my wet clothes. Luckily, I don't work until the evening today, so when I got home, I stripped off all my clothes, hung them on the clothes hamper and climbed into bed under the covers.
I stayed there for at least half an hour, until the skin on my stomach and thighs didn't feel cold to the touch any more.
By the time I finished a hot shower and got dressed, I was nearly human again. Earl texted me from his walk to the bus, "It's dangerous."
I tried to tell him.
I love running, but I know I need to be more aware of my surroundings and the weather before I take off in the mornings to enjoy an unfettered run.

Tuesday Intros -- Honeymoon in Paris

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Just yesterday I downloaded a book from the library, Honeymoon in Paris by JoJo Moyes. That's the first time I've borrowed a download,  and it was so simple. Then I went to the gym and hopped on the stationary bike, and before I knew it, I was almost finished with this short novel,
Here's the intro:
2002

Liv Halston holds tight to the guardrail of the Eiffel Tower, looks down through the diamond-strung wire at the whole of Paris laid out below, and wonders if anyone ever, has had a honeymoon as disastrous as this one.
Around her families of tourists squeal and duck back from the view, or lean against the mesh theatrically for their friends to take pictures, while an impassive secrity guard looks on. A glowering clump of storm clouds is moving toward them across the sky from the west. A brisk wind has turned her ears pink. 

It's a lovely escape to Paris with two honeymooning couples, one during 2002 and the other during 1912. The 1912 couple is the painter Edouard LeFevre and his shop-girl wife, Sophie, who was also his model.
I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Dreaming of France -- France on Pinterest

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

One of the great things about being a Francophile is that there are so many other people who love France too. It's fun to make connections with them, to live vicariously through them, and to have them share my experiences too.
Mostly, I do that through my blog, and my novels, but today I made a discovery on Pinterest. There's a whole section called France full of people who are hankering for some Francetime, just like me.
My friend Sheila convinced me that I should join Pinterest to promote my books. She's on Pinterest because she's very crafty and also does interesting things with foods. I'm sure there are ways to promote my books on Pinterest, but I immediately got sucked into the France world.
I've created one "board" that's called "Places to Visit in 2015."
I put a map as the background and pinned 4 different places on it. I attached pictures to each place. Two of the places, I've never visited, so I could choose pictures from Pinterest. Two of the places, I've been before, so I uploaded my own pictures.
I'm not sure what to do with it now, but I guess we'll see what happens.
But the most fun will be looking at the things other people have posted. When I typed in "France," the screen that came up was full of exciting options about France. Many regions of France were represented too.

Okay, sorry, I'm back. After I posted that picture and the link, I went back to Pinterest and kind of got caught up reading the articles. And one of the new French words I learned was "hop," which is pronounced "up" and basically is used where we might mutter "okay" to ourselves. See how handy Pinterest is going to be, if I don't spend all my time reading the articles.

Hope everyone else has something lovely to share about France. Thanks for visiting and for leaving a comment. Please stop by the blogs of the others who share on Dreaming of France. 

Still Laughing

It's nice to know that, after nearly 25 years of marriage, I can still make my husband laugh.
But the joke began a few days ago. From within the house, I heard a repetitive whining  noise.
"What is that?" I asked Earl.
He walked to the back door and saw a squirrel perched on the edge of the porch calling out.
"Maybe he's mad that there's no bird food on the ground," I suggested.
"Too bad we don't have any thing to feed him," Earl said.
We pondered the squirrel food question for a few minutes before I remembered the peanuts in the cabinet.

Not my picture. But adorable. http://ellecasey.com/squirrel/

Earl opened the door and threw some peanuts underneath the bird feeder. The squirrel, of course, ran away, but eventually made his way back to the grass where he gathered salted peanuts.
After that, the squirrel was a regular feature under the bird feeder. I'd see him every time I went out the back door to the garage or on a walk.
Tuesday morning I was headed toward the garage with Earl on our way to work and the little squirrel looked up expectantly.
"Hey Squirrelfriend," I said, in that voice you would say "Hey, girlfriend!"
And it cracked up Earl. Every time I saw him for the rest of the day, he would shake his head and say, "Squirrelfriend."

Dreaming of France -- No, Really, Dreaming of France

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
This morning as I listened to Marketplace Money on my local NPR station, I heard a story about how anticipating a vacation is almost better than the vacation itself.
A study in the Netherlands found that people were happier right before a vacation than right after. The promise of the reprieve might be better than the actual trip! Nothing can go wrong as you are dreaming about it, but in actual travel, many things can go wrong, explained the author of the study who was attacked by a shark in Hawaii.
I don't fear shark attacks on our next trip to France, and I am enjoying the joy that comes with contemplating walking off the plan in Paris and traveling by train down to Aix en Provence.
I  Skyped last week with a blog friend in Aix en Provence, Delana (who hasn't been blogging much but who runs Travel Solo Bootcamp, was full of fun ideas for me and Earl.
One of the things she told us was that the Calanques, between Marseille and Cassis are open to cars during March. That means that we can drive our rental car on the calanques, a kind of Mediterranean fjord. Most of the time, people visit them by boat or they have to park and hike in to see them.

This photo comes from the Alaric English Speakers website. 

Delana explained that the roads are twisty through the steep landscape. Other articles explain that creeks cut into the stone leaving these dramatic shapes. Then the creeks pour into the Mediterranean, leaving the water pure and fresh. I wonder if we'll get any photos as dramatic as this.
I'm really dreaming of France and looking forward to our adventures.
What are you dreaming about this week?
Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs to see what others are posting about.

Window Cat

On my run this morning, through the dark, wet streets of my small town, a shop window caught my eye.
The shop is a florist that is also filled with furniture and other household items for sale.
It wasn't simply the white wicker furniture with the red and black flannel cushions, or the white bureau that held folded blankets, making the window look so inviting.
It was the peaceful black cat, curled into the cushion, as if he'd been chosen to match the soft flannel.

The cat regarded me without alarm or interest, but he didn't tilt his head toward the light so I could get a better shot of him.
I love the idea of pets in local shops. But I hope he wasn't lonely over night. I know that my cats like to cuddle up in the fold of my knees at night, stealing my warmth and adding to it too.

Why My Marriage is Pending -- On Facebook

Sometimes, social media gets me into awkward situations.
I blog, I'm on Facebook, I have a Twitter account and people keep following me even though I don't know why because I rarely tweet. You'd think that I am fairly savvy about technology.
But I can't tell you the number of times I've called my daughter Grace to say, "Fix  it!" I've usually posted something I didn't mean to or been tagged in a photo that I don't like or made some sort of awful editing error that will not look good for a writer.
One day, as Grace and I were looking at something on Facebook, she clicked on my profile and said, "Why is this pending?"
It was a request from Earl to confirm that we are married.
I mean, of course, we are. We've been married nearly 25 years.

I hadn't seen his request and had no idea when he sent it.
Originally, when I was using my Facebook page as an author page, I didn't include anyone in my family settings. As you know if you read my blog, I talk about my kids and their exploits. I didn't want to reveal to the world their last names, preserving them a tiny bit of anonymity.
But, now I have a separate author page, and I try to limit my personal Facebook page to friends and family, so I could safely acknowledge my husband on my Facebook page.
The only problem was, the day that Grace pointed out that I hadn't acknowledge the marriage request, well, Earl and I were in the middle of a fight.
It was only a few weeks ago, but I can't remember what the fight was about (of course). I told Grace I couldn't possible accept his request now because that would be a conciliatory act in the middle of an argument. The fight faded, but I didn't remember to go on Facebook and add Earl as my husband.
The other night when Earl was on his Facebook page, he clicked on his profile.
"Why is this pending?" he asked.
"Oh," I laughed and told him the story about seeing it when we were in a fight. He immediately pretended to be affronted and protested that I didn't need to acknowledge him if I didn't want to.
"I can't do it from my phone," I explained. My computer was all the way across the room.
But I updated my profile, typing in Earl's name as my husband, since I couldn't accept his request on my phone.
Now, our marriage is no longer pending. Facebook does believe that we were married in 2011 rather than in 1990. And if you were to click on the marriage statement, you'd see some pretty strange photos of me and Earl, like one of us standing on the top of an Indian head statue, Tecumseh, and accompanied by a French friend. Plus Earl's comment, "Beautiful day, beautiful bride." People must think, "Is this where they got married?" But his comments go with another picture and another post.

Like I said, it's all very complicated.
Very bizarre, but you can't always fix social media.
Here's an actual photo as we were driving away from Mom and Dad's farm to the reception.

Dreaming of France -- That's Paris

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
I have another book set in Paris that I'm preparing to start reading. I'm looking forward to it because author Vicki Lesage, whose hilarious memoirs I've enjoyed, helped create this book with short stories set in Paris. The book is called That's Paris life love and sarcasm in the city of light.
The book is scheduled to be published on Feb. 2, but it's never too early to start anticipating it.
I'm skipping forward to a story by Vicki to share with you because  I know I'll enjoy it. Here's an excerpt from "Signs, Sign,s Everywhere Signs:"

I didn't mean to complain. I was grateful for the heaps of wedding presents I received before The Big Day even arrived. I'd be marrying Monsieur Perfect in one month's time, and my American friends and family would descend on Paris en masse for the occasion. I wanted to wrap up as many odds and ends as possible before they overtook the city - and my normally tres organized life - for one week.
Number one on my list: writing eleventy thank you notes. Never mind my chicken-scrawl penmanship or the fact I hadn't handwritten anything other than our exorbitant rent check recently. The primary pain in my derriere was getting my out-of-practice hands on some damn thank you cards.
It was August, and except for the occasional tumbleweed and busload of tourists, the residential streets of Paris were deserted as Parisians took their annual month-long vacation. The neighborhood papeteries had closed their ancient doors, leaving me no choice but to trek to Auchan, the French megastore that's just like Target, except it's full of la merde and you usually leave empty-handed and broken-hearted. So, actually, nothing like Target. 

I can't wait to go on this Parisian adventure with Vicki, along with the other authors included in this anthology.
I look forward to seeing what you are sharing about France this week. Thanks for playing along and please visit each other's blogs too.

France Book Tours -- From The Fifteenth District

Click on the banner to see the entire tour for From the Fifteenth District

Today I'm reviewing From the Fifteenth District by Mavis Gallant. This is a series of short stories, some in France or Italy or Germany, all those western European countries that we Americans love to visit, soaking up the culture. But Gallant goes far beyond the surface of these countries and people who we so admire.

The short stories are set around World War II, some of them occurring before, some after or during. The stories aren't about the war though, but often the characters are affect by the war.
Each story is like peeking into someone's window and seeing the real them, the one they might hide from the rest of the world.
The black and white cover is foreshadowing of the stories to come as they definitely have a melancholy feel throughout. The richness of Gallant's words only deepen the effect.
Here's an excerpt from "The Four Seasons" where a young Italian

girl travels to a seaside village to serve as a  nanny to an English family of outsiders:

"Mussolini is trying to get away from those oversized families," said Mrs. Unwin with confidence.. She sat on a high stool, arranging flowers in a copper bowl. She quashed her cigarette suddenly and drank out of a teacup. She seemed to Carmela unnaturally tall. Her hands were stained, freckled, old, but she was the mother of Tessa and Clare, who were under three and still called "the babies." The white roses she was stabbing onto something cruel and spiked had been brought to the kitchen door by the chauffeur from Castel Vittorio. This time he had given Carmela a diffident nod.

Gallant delves into each character, revealing things that we might prefer  not to know, wanting to engage only with the surface beauty but realizing the complexity of each person, no matter their nationality or position during the war.  We meet a German prison of war home long after the war had ended because no one thought to send him home from France He finds his mother remarried and very changed. We meet a Jewish man who blessedly escaped Europe before the war and returns in search of an heir for the business he has built in Argentina, but it has to be the right kind of heir. The boy, now a man, is repelled by the uncle who escaped the atrocities.
This is a book filled with stories of deep emotion that dig beneath the surface Europe we love.
Be sure to enter the giveaway.

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The rest of the information here is copied and pasted from FranceBookTours:
 SYNOPSIS
Even as we grow and change, the consequences of what we have left behind often linger
Mavis Gallant has a unique talent for distilling the sense of otherness one feels abroad into something tangible and utterly understandable. In this collection, she relates the stories of those stranded in relationships, places, and even times in which they don’t belong.
In “The Moslem Wife” a woman is entrusted to look after a hotel in France when her husband is trapped in America after the breakout of World War II. As the situation progresses, the two grow in surprising and profound ways. In another tale, a German prisoner of war is released from France and returns home to a mother whose personality has been as irrevocably changed by the war as his has. In one of the most poignant entries, Gallant follows the life of a Holocaust survivor, illustrating how his experiences tint his outlook on life forty years later.
With its wide breadth of subject matter and the author’s characteristic way with nuance, From the Fifteenth District is classic Mavis Gallant. [provided by the publisher]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In 1952 Mavis Gallant (1922–2014) left a successful career as a journalist in Montreal
to live independently as a writer of fiction in Europe.
She had gained international recognition in 1951
when she was published in the New Yorker,
which in subsequent years released over one hundred of her short stories,
most of which are set in European cities or Montreal.
Random House published twelve volumes of her work.
Gallant was awarded the 1981 Governor General’s Award for Home Truths,
the 2002 Rea Award for the Short Story,
and the 2004 PEN/Nabokov Award for lifetime achievement.
She was a companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest honor.
After traveling widely in Europe, in 1960 Gallant settled in Paris, where she died in 2014.
The Journals of Mavis Gallant: 1952–1969 is tentatively scheduled for publication by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015.

See more books by Mavis Gallant.
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