tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24166662350862908702024-03-13T11:02:47.251-07:00Sadie and CompanyTravel, books, and other obsessions of a Vermonter currently living in FranceSara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-39499611065056656622019-07-27T00:40:00.000-07:002019-07-27T00:40:28.614-07:00Time to Say Good-bye<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I began this blog seven years ago, at a turning point in my life: My mother, Idora, had recently died and I was out of a job, no
longer needed to help entertain Mom's many friends and relatives, shovel her front walk, fix her meals, or drive her to the hairdresser’s. The house felt empty without her, and Patrick proposed a change of scene. His mother, who was in a nursing home, owned a spacious apartment in Fontainebleau, a short train ride from Paris. Winter was coming. We packed a couple of suitcases, threw ourselves a big party, and left.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since then, we have
spent seven winters in France. During that time, I . . .</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moved house several times (<a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2015/09/good-bye-house.html">Good-bye
House,</a> Sept. 13, 2015);</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Published a book (<a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-scary-thing-about-writing.html">A
Scary Thing About Writing,</a> Aug 6, 2015);</span></li>
</ul>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ran for president (<a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-conversation-with-my-mother.html">A
Conversation With My Mother,</a> Sept. 2016);</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Published the work of several friends (<a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2014/08/two-actors-meet-in-alley.html">Two
Actors Meet in an Alley</a>, August 14, 2013);</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reminisced about Liquid Paper and Jack
Rowell’s Subaru (<a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2012/12/liquid-paper-carters-overalls-and-way.html">Liquid
Paper, Carter’s Overalls, and the Way We Worked</a>, Dec. 13, 2012);</span></li>
</ul>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Went on my first-ever barge cruise (<a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2018/09/how-french-barge-cruise-is-like-african.html">How
a French Barge Cruise Is Like an African Safari,</a> Sept. 7, 2018);</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost become a widow not once but twice (<a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2016/07/why-i-didnt-write-this-week.html">Why
I Didn’t Write This Week</a>, July 21, 2016; <a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2019/02/just-in-case-your-aorta-cracks-while.html">Just
in Case Your Aorta Cracks While You Are Living in France,</a> Feb. 28, 2019).</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The blog post with the most hits: </span><a href="https://sadieandcompany.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-long-is-gorillas-penis-when-fully.html" style="font-size: 12pt;">How
Long Is a Gorilla’s Penis When Fully Erect</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This morning I decided it was time to bring <i>Sadie and Company</i> to a
close. After seven years of bouncing back and forth between continents, Patrick and I are ready to settle down. Our new life will be centered on our new home in France, the one we moved to in March, after selling my mother-in-law's apartment and disposing of most of her things. The house in Vermont is still unsold, and we will keep it for now. I'll visit Randolph as often as I can. We'll continue helping writers publish their work with Korongo, the micro press that began as an art gallery in downtown Randolph. I'll write, take long walks, and finish hemming the bedroom curtains. Patrick will drive his new car to the grocery store, the pub, and the post office. We will watch the sun rise and set over Butte Montceau, and try to remember that we are here on earth for a flicker of time and that each day, each moment, is precious.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Love, Sadie/Sara/S.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Above: My mother's amaryllis, spring 2014. Below: Butte Montceau, June/July 2019.</span><br />
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<!--EndFragment--><br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-83207591403719167502019-07-18T04:16:00.002-07:002019-07-18T04:34:06.717-07:00Remembering Ellie Streeter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Whenever anyone received a card from Ellie Streeter, a flurry of sequins tumbled out. My mother kept the sequins, stashing them in a kitchen drawer. Most of Ellie's sequins were in the shape of hearts.<br />
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A few weeks ago, I was unpacking a carton in our new flat in France. The carton contained a good deal of what my mother used to call “memorabilia”—stuff too precious to throw away but of absolutely no use to anyone whatsoever. My mother-in-law, naturally, had a similar collection, which I somehow managed to inherit.<br />
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Inside the carton was an envelope addressed to "Mami"—Thomas's grandmother. When I opened it, a shower of heart-shaped sequins spilled onto the floorboards of the new flat.<br />
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The message on the card was in Tom's handwriting. It wished Mami a happy Mother's Day and explained that although Sara had paid for the gift, it was really from him.<br />
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I do not recall the gift that went with this card, which shows a picture of two tortoises staring at each other, but I know for sure that those are Ellie Streeter's heart-shaped sequins. No doubt they were recycled by me, back when Tom was a wee lad, ending up in France.<br />
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Ellie was one of many women, my mother's close friends, who all pitched in to help each other raise their kids. The Tucker and Streeter houses shared a fenceline, and we kids were in and out of the Streeter house constantly, often several times a day. We played Kick the Can on the Streeter lawn, ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches at the Streeter table, and listened to Peter, Paul and Mary on the Streeter record player while playing board games on the Streeters' living room carpet.<br />
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My mother's friends were classy women, and strong like burros. Together they weathered the blows and celebrated the victories that come with raising kids. Because of them, I grew up feeling almost ridiculously safe, convinced that the adults in my life were absolutely capable of dealing with any evil that might threaten me or my brothers, sisters, cousins, or friends. These women remained friends their entire lives. Two days before my mother died, Ellie left her house—which she rarely did anymore—and walked around the corner to our kitchen door. She was my mother's last visitor outside of family.<br />
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The little hearts were still drifting about the house—popping up on floors and countertops—when I received the news, a few weeks ago, that Ellie had died. Being in France, I was unable to attend her memorial, to my regret—I would have loved to have shared memories of Ellie with her family and friends. Some of my own memories I put into <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Irruption-Owls-homecoming-Snowbird-Chronicles/dp/194374100X" target="_blank">An Irruption of Owls,</a></i> my memoir about growing up in Randolph.<br />
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When I'm going through a really rough patch, along the lines of the past six months, it helps to remember my mother and her friends and relations—Aunt Lois, Ellen Reid, the Lunch Bunch (Dolly McKinney, Betsy Arnold, Ellie Streeter), and many more—and all the crap they endured, and how they always got through it with a minimum of self-pity and a ton of courage.<br />
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There's a passage in <i>Owls</i> where I go to visit Ellie, a few months after my mother died, and she says, "It's okay to grieve." After that, she moved to assisted living up near one of her kids, and my life changed. But I still have a few little things to remember her by, as well as Aunt Lois's tangerine scarf, and Dolly's Snoopy pen ("For writing the good things"), and the sand dollars that my mother and I collected on a trip to Georgia. I have Ellen Reid's recipe for fiddlehead quiche. And I have the example these women set, and the love they showered on us, not just when we were kids but forever after.<br />
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<i>Above: My mother's collection of sequins from Ellie. Below: A sequin that made it to France.</i><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bBp5yVLkC_8/XTBIiv5VY9I/AAAAAAAACYo/HYdUl07ASZ8ivPWA0MdUKwmr95HZ3et4QCLcBGAs/s1600/Ellie%2527s%2Bheart%2Bin%2BFrance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bBp5yVLkC_8/XTBIiv5VY9I/AAAAAAAACYo/HYdUl07ASZ8ivPWA0MdUKwmr95HZ3et4QCLcBGAs/s640/Ellie%2527s%2Bheart%2Bin%2BFrance.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-59782661365641829072019-05-29T00:38:00.001-07:002019-05-29T00:38:43.562-07:0025 Things to Do (or Not Do) Before You Die<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VGXG8gxB6Ac/XO4ziHdHRgI/AAAAAAAACX8/GIH_EHBHcVE-7Fp9J5k4kHbhgImFrHYKgCLcBGAs/s1600/Unidentified%2BAncester%2Bin%2BSara%2527s%2BFamily%2BTree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VGXG8gxB6Ac/XO4ziHdHRgI/AAAAAAAACX8/GIH_EHBHcVE-7Fp9J5k4kHbhgImFrHYKgCLcBGAs/s640/Unidentified%2BAncester%2Bin%2BSara%2527s%2BFamily%2BTree.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Today is my birthday. I'm 65. It's kind of a big deal, because I can now start drawing on my pension from Condé Nast. I only worked for Condé Nast for five years, so my pension is pretty small, especially when you compare it to my heating bill, but we seniors know how to stretch a dollar. For example, if I go for the lump sum, I could buy a tiny little house and have a tiny little electric bill to go with my tiny little pension.<br />
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Building a tiny house is one of dozens of items on my retirement to-do list. I revise this list at least once a week. I make big plans, little plans, half-assed plans, genius plans, and really stupid plans. Sometimes I write them down, but mostly I just think them, often when I'm supposed to be doing something else, like the laundry.<br />
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Besides designing and building a tiny house, the following items have also popped up, at one time or another, in my retirement plan:<br />
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1) Open a guesthouse for writers.<br />
2) Write a series of novels about a travel writer who solves crimes.<br />
3) Run for president.<br />
4) Start a commune.<br />
5) Make a giant wall hanging out of Grandma Tucker's doilies.<br />
6) Transform ancestral portraits into Pop art.<br />
7) Study Latin dance.<br />
8) Learn to play the ukelele. Write songs.<br />
9) Commission a series of ceramic doorknobs.<br />
10) Become a patron of the arts.<br />
11) Learn woodworking.<br />
12) Learn metal sculpture.<br />
13) Give up travel writing.<br />
14) Give away everything I own, one object at a time, so that other people don't have to pick up after me when I die.<br />
15) Make a burn pile out of everything I own and set a match to it.<br />
16) Grow my hair long.<br />
17) Shave my head.<br />
18) Become an exercise instructor for seniors. Wear cute gym outfits and have fun music.<br />
19) Get French drivers license.<br />
20) Make a series of quirky lampshades out of old junk.<br />
21) Read the history of France in 20 volumes (in French, of course).<br />
22) Adopt a refugee family.<br />
23) Walk across America.<br />
24) Walk across Vermont.<br />
25) Become a tour guide.<br />
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Obviously, I can never do all of these things, even if I live to be a hundred. Welding? Musical composition? Lampshades? I mean, seriously.<br />
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Today, instead of writing another chapter of <i>Kidnapped in the Kasbah </i>or composing a ukelele song about these happy golden years<i>,</i> I am going to rearrange the living room furniture (again), take a long hot shower and squeegee the sliding door in the new bathroom, and schlepp the taka-taka down to the scary room where they keep the trash bins. I will also spend a not unreasonable amount of time worrying about Patrick, who has gone into Paris all on his own, with only his cane for support. Probably he will come back with a birthday present of some sort. It will probably not be a ukelele.<br />
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<i>Above: One of dozens of unidentified portraits collected, saved, and mostly labeled (but not this one) by Mabel Lamb Tucker, my grandmother. </i><br />
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<br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-49877478210843102802019-05-25T23:17:00.002-07:002019-05-25T23:17:43.231-07:00Let Us Be Grateful for This Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-to7EMelKVXI/XOovUf4TdfI/AAAAAAAACXw/1-cHQ6npXvY0mYdEwsi04Xo6Idx0Lcz5wCLcBGAs/s1600/DeeDee%2527s%2BRoses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-to7EMelKVXI/XOovUf4TdfI/AAAAAAAACXw/1-cHQ6npXvY0mYdEwsi04Xo6Idx0Lcz5wCLcBGAs/s640/DeeDee%2527s%2BRoses.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
We are at the "almost done" phase of our renovations on the new flat, the most dangerous phase, the phase where, if you're not super-super careful, you will execute a Devon Loch failure—Devon Loch being, of course, the racehorse who was on the verge of winning the 1956 Grand National when he inexplicably jumped into the air on the final stretch and landed on his belly. By the end of this week, I was not on my belly, but close.<br />
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Rather than go into the tedious details, let's just say that there are too many boxes, too many stairs, too many shelves, too many 19th-century tchotchkes and too many bulky, heavy pieces of furniture that were meant for much larger rooms than they currently occupy. Pieces with quaint names, like the "confiturier" that takes up a large corner of our living room and was meant for storing apricot jam and canned duck and is now our bar. Not that we need a bar. We could keep our bottle of vodka and our shot glasses in the broom closet. But we have inherited a confiturier, and we don't know what else to do with it.<br />
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This week, I single-handedly dislodged another large piece of furniture from the salon and moved it to a bedroom. That piece is a very large wooden chest that, I think, was meant to contain a bridal trousseau. It now contains our winter clothing. In winter it contains our summer clothing. Plus a rug made out of a variety of animal skins (leopard, kudu) and my mother-in-law's fur-lined raincoat.<br />
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As I was pondering what to do with this overload of crap, the painter arrived and installed himself in our kitchen. Several packing crates full of kitchen stuff went behind the couch, where the giant wooden chest used to be.<br />
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Yesterday was supposed to be the day of our garden party in celebration of the end of the Winter From Hell. The party was supposed to be a thank-you gesture to the many friends who helped us get through the past four months, but two thirds of the guest list was out of town, and the forecast was for rain. I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, "This is one thing I don't have to do," and in the morning, I called my friends and told them I was too tired to have a party after all.<br />
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Instead, when Patrick came home from his afternoon at the dialysis clinic, we got in the car and drove to DeeDee and Ray's house in Saint Mammès and walked around their garden, which smelled of honeysuckle and roses. We sat in the serene and joyful comfort of their very beautiful house, which they have lived in for thirty years. You would never know that it has been flooded twice (it sits on the edge of the Seine), and that for a while they could only get to their woodshed in a canoe. Ray opened a bottle of wine and DeeDee arranged little plates of delicacies on the coffee table that Ray made out of a slab of I-forget-what-type-of-wood, and all was calm and lovely. Just as we were leaving, DeeDee raced back into the house for scissors and cut three stems of red roses to take home with us.<br />
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Also this week, my friend Mary performed another miracle and managed to take me all the way through IKEA, from start to finish, without having to call for emergency assistance (it was Mary and DeeDee who took me to Castorama to buy a kitchen and a bathroom). Together, we picked out a nice sofa, tested a foldout bed that Patrick has his eye on and found it acceptable, and hauled a Poang chair to 3 rue des Hêtres in the back of Mary's little blue car.<br />
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Mary, DeeDee, Judy, Penny, Sian, Avril, Kathleen, Riekie, Simon . . . these are some of the friends who have helped us avoid a Devon Loch moment over the past few weeks and months, coming to our rescue again and again. My sister Martha literally flew to my rescue while Patrick was in the hospital, and my brother John has been helping to look after the house in Randolph, along with friends Jeffrey and Marion Lent. And then there have been the nice Korongo clients, who have been waiting for months, with nary a peep of complaint, for us to return to work.<br />
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On Wednesday, we took the train to Paris, where we had an errand at the U.S. embassy, and sat for a long time in the Tuileries Garden, alternately watching the ducks and dozing in the sunshine. On Friday, we drove to the nearby town of Moret sur Loing and walked along the river where the Impressionists set up their easels. We ordered caramel and almond gelato at one of Moret's surfeit of ice cream shops, and sat on the bridge, watching swallows dive through the air. Later, before going to bed, my husband said, "I enjoyed this day," and I was happy.<br />
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Now, if I can just keep it together until the charity truck takes away our unloved items, and the junk collector takes away the too-big sofa with the coffee-splotched armrest . . . <br />
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<br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-32127989175754292682019-04-24T15:58:00.000-07:002019-04-24T15:58:39.143-07:00I've Got Something You're Going to Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uTW7DgNeAa4/XMDYiFUkfGI/AAAAAAAACXU/Tc-3Otp6YGkInQvfSDGgnfVpC2xji927gCLcBGAs/s1600/Askari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="960" height="544" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uTW7DgNeAa4/XMDYiFUkfGI/AAAAAAAACXU/Tc-3Otp6YGkInQvfSDGgnfVpC2xji927gCLcBGAs/s640/Askari.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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After 38 days in the hospital and 40 in rehab, Patrick came home on April 8, a Monday, to a place he had never lived in before. A couple of Polish workers were tiling the bathroom, and there was a hotplate in the kitchen where the stove should be. The stove was on order from Castorama.<br />
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We were sitting at the kitchen table when I began doodling on an envelope. One thing led to another, and pretty soon I had made a collage. The next day I made another. And another.<br />
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Ever since, I've been cutting up milk cartons and yogurt containers and turning them into collages. Every collage is made out of household debris, mostly packaging for mundane items like laundry soap and toilet paper. No glue—I just lay the pieces on a flat surface, take a picture with my iPhone, and then sweep up the bits and toss them into the recycling bin. Today I made my 13th collage in 13 days.<br />
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Patrick thinks this is a perfectly normal thing to do. I know because I checked. "Do you think I'm crazy?" I asked him. "Absolutely not," he said. Then he added, "No more than I am."<br />
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The other day, he approached me with his hands behind his back. "I have something you're gonna love," he said. Then he presented me with—ta-dah!—a warning label for a German egg beater. Today it was a circle of sticky blue paper that he had peeled off a bottle of spring water.<br />
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It has been 17 days since he came home and I still cannot believe my good fortune.</div>
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Some of you have seen the pictures of collages 1–13 on social media and asked me why. I have been asking myself the same question. Here are some of reasons I've come up with so far:<br />
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1) Because I want time to slow down.<br />
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2) Because on the tombstone of my friend Dolly McKinney are written the words "Don't forget to play."<br />
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3) Because I loved everything we did in Mrs. Tormey's art class, but I especially loved collage. (I also happen to love making patchwork quilts, which is a similar process. I would probably like building stone walls, too, if I were given the opportunity.)<br />
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4) Because scientists say art makes us smarter and more tolerant. I often wish I were both of these things.<br />
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5) Because I have become hyperaware that we throw away too much stuff. Don't ask me how turning milk cartons into works of art that have a lifespan of less than five minutes is going to fix that. Something to do with mindfulness, maybe.<br />
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6) Because everybody has a little artist inside them, right?<br />
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The little artist inside me woke up from a deep sleep as I sat with my husband on one of his first mornings home. I have a hard time just sitting, my hands like to be busy, but I wanted to stretch out that moment, which was one of complete happiness. So while my husband just sat, enjoying the feeling of being alive and being home, I picked up a pen and started doodling. And then I picked up some scissors and started cutting.<br />
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And that's how it began.<br />
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<i>Above: Collage #13, "Askari." Styrofoam, paper, cardboard, foil, and transparent molded plastic.</i><br />
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Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-81307875858514800832019-04-06T01:25:00.000-07:002019-04-06T01:25:22.433-07:00Oh Joyous Day, Oh Stuffed Tomato, Oh Car That Beeps, Oh Joy
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yEdUzxw52Ns/XKhfsRlFDtI/AAAAAAAACWs/wUJb3ZAuK8wTZ0icnK9O9Xn9oNkt0HAKgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Figure%2Bby%2BMarion%2BLent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="960" height="512" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yEdUzxw52Ns/XKhfsRlFDtI/AAAAAAAACWs/wUJb3ZAuK8wTZ0icnK9O9Xn9oNkt0HAKgCEwYBhgL/s640/Figure%2Bby%2BMarion%2BLent.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure by Marion Lent (paper clay, 18 cm) </td></tr>
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Yesterday Patrick left the rehab center for his second dose
of fun and recreation since he was taken in an ambulance to the ER on January
27. Yes! A month ago, he could barely walk with the help of a walker. Yesterday
he not only walked, with a cane, into his favorite bistro but he even
drove himself there in his new car.</div>
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This is the almost brand-new car that he bought for a very good price just before all hell broke loose. It's white and shiny, don't ask me the make, and it beeps when you are going to back into a tree.</div>
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The Smile is a five-minute walk from our old apartment. Normally,
Patrick goes there three times a week to have a beer with his friend Pascal. The people who work there are our friends. <span style="font-size: 12pt;">When we walked in, Marie’s face lit up. I, being me, started
to get all weepy. Jeremy came out of the kitchen in his white apron and tocque
and squeezed us before rushing back to make sure nothing was burning.</span></div>
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I ordered a stuffed tomato; Patrick ordered the steak and a
tiny glass of St. Omar. For dessert he had fromage blanc with caramel
and I had the crême brulée. Everything tasted divine.</div>
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We then drove to our new apartment in Butte Montceau, where
Mr. Tyminski’s guys were banging on walls and drilling holes. Patrick lay down on the living room sofa and fell asleep.</div>
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I lowered our brand-new very expensive blinds to keep the
sun from shining in his eyes.</div>
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Just before he began napping in earnest, Mr. T popped in to
check on his crew. “Patrick is here!” I said. The two Mr. T’s discussed toilet
seats.</div>
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Mr. Tyminski—Luc—had a stent put in last year; he knows
something about emergency surgery.</div>
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After the nap, we sat in the kitchen, peeling carrots. Then
we drove down the hill to the rehab center. We had dinner in Patrick’s room,
and then I walked back home.</div>
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It was an excellent day. There is so much more that I could
tell you, and I will, but not now. Now I must edit four chapters of “Myths of
the Tribe,” second edition. The World’s Most Patient Writer has been waiting
for me to finish this job since last fall.</div>
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Love, Sadie</div>
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PS The figure above is by the artist Marion Lent. You can see more of her work on her website, www.marionwlent.com. It is one of many works of art, including several by Vermont artists, that will make our new apartment a special place. I named this one "Lulu." Here he is standing on the microwave in our kitchen. He moves around a lot.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SZCodT4p018/XKhiQ4nS7eI/AAAAAAAACW4/oj-9pnn8To4oPh5d-4Abd2duGN39gLrhACLcBGAs/s1600/Lulu%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bkitchen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SZCodT4p018/XKhiQ4nS7eI/AAAAAAAACW4/oj-9pnn8To4oPh5d-4Abd2duGN39gLrhACLcBGAs/s640/Lulu%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bkitchen.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-30605915127256727872019-03-25T16:49:00.000-07:002019-03-25T17:44:13.661-07:00And Then Angels Appeared<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-D7WtVSS4vgg/XJlK-7BzQ-I/AAAAAAAACUQ/bbscHZ10aqM8EukU96hj8utUQgKm0lxmwCEwYBhgL/s1600/DeeDee%2Band%2BMary%2Bat%2BCastorama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-D7WtVSS4vgg/XJlK-7BzQ-I/AAAAAAAACUQ/bbscHZ10aqM8EukU96hj8utUQgKm0lxmwCEwYBhgL/s640/DeeDee%2Band%2BMary%2Bat%2BCastorama.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Today I woke up in fear because I had to go to Castorama to buy bathroom tile. I am not a good shopper under the best of circumstances. If I had to rate myself as a shopper, I would give myself a D-minus. I get buyer's remorse before I even buy anything. The idea that I might regret my purchase as soon as I get home is petrifying. And bathroom tile is pretty hard to return. You don't want to buy a bunch of bathroom tile and decide you made the wrong choice. I also had to buy kitchen appliances.</div>
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Factor in that I am a lifelong renter. Renters do not make home improvements. If a renter wants to improve her home, she moves.</div>
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Factor in, too, that these renovations are being financed by my husband, who is still recovering from a catastrophic illness and unable to participate in the shopping spree. So while I hope my decorating decisions will meet with his approval, I can't be sure. But since this is the first home he has ever owned, and he is really looking forward to living in it, I really really want to get it right.</div>
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The first bit of advice Patrick gave me, way back in early February, was that he didn't have a budget. I had no idea how much money he expected me to spend, or what he expected me to spend it on, besides a stove, a couple of kitchen cabinets, and some paint. I decided to wait.</div>
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While I was waiting for him to revive enough to take an interest in the new flat, I fixed it up so that it was comfortable. The kitchen didn't have an oven yet, but that was okay. We lived without an oven for two years in Arusha, and for one year in Westfield. I barely noticed that we didn't have one.</div>
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I was just getting settled when Helene popped in to hurry things along. "But Helene," I said, "there is really no hurry. If we start now, Patrick will come home to a big mess. I want his homecoming to be restful. We can do the renovations later." The next thing I knew, I was picking out bathroom tile with Mr. Timinsky, our Polish contractor, and two friends.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Mr. T kinda of shook his head when he saw us coming, three women to do the job of one. No doubt he figured we would discuss floor tiles for the rest of the afternoon. But Mary and DeeDee were brilliant. They knew all about bathroom tiles, kitchen stoves, and whatnot. They whipped up and down the aisles, explaining to me what I would or wouldn't like. I barely even had to think. Never once did I consider throwing myself onto the parquet and crying, "Enough! You decide! Anything but Hospital White or Cemetery Gray!" I actually had fun. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Sometimes miracles happen.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Oddly, my cell phone died as soon as I entered the store. I managed to send Patrick one little photo of a piece of parquet flottant before it quit.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>Above: DeeDee and Mary discuss flooring with Mr. Timinsky, our contractor.</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-42838393000668491602019-03-24T02:07:00.000-07:002019-03-24T02:07:02.797-07:00The Second Meltdown
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cUgnNKemkBs/XJdFzcDkJzI/AAAAAAAACTo/fnVH7qYyQQgCFAkc_Jt2oaaEjZ84kiEwQCLcBGAs/s1600/Patrick%2Bin%2Brehab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="478" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cUgnNKemkBs/XJdFzcDkJzI/AAAAAAAACTo/fnVH7qYyQQgCFAkc_Jt2oaaEjZ84kiEwQCLcBGAs/s640/Patrick%2Bin%2Brehab.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes I write “I’ll tell you all about it in my next
post” and then I forget. This time I remembered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patrick was in the hospital for 38 days. He spent 15 of
those days in the ICU, 9 of them on a respirator. When he got demoted to the
cardiovascular surgery unit, we were ecstatic. Little did we know the nightmare
that awaited.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was the roommate who smoked e-cigarettes and watched car
racing on the TV (the subject of my first battle with the nurses). His cell
phone ring tone sounded like the charge of the light brigade.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was the
night nurse who complained, “What? Again?” whenever she was asked to bring the bedpan.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was the doctor who ordered me out of
the room, in front of an entourage of medical interns, when I made a special
effort to arrive before visiting hours so that I could get, first-hand, an
update on my husband’s medical condition when the doctor made her rounds. (The cause of the first meltdown.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There
was the doctor who said, “We don’t do rehab in the hospital because we don’t
have a physical therapist; I know it’s bizarre.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was the absence of even
the most basic physical therapy equipment, such as one of those cheap plastic
devices for clearing your lungs after surgery. Such as a walker. Such as a
wheelchair with foot supports and arm rests.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then there was the moment that
I said I would write about, the one that precipitated the second meltdown.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was in the waiting room, only partially recovered from the
first meltdown, when my sister-in-law arrived with a lawyer in tow. The
lawyer’s job was to get Patrick and me to sign a bunch of papers giving Helene
power of attorney for an event that was looming: the closing of the sale of
their mother’s apartment, the one where Patrick and Tom and I have been living.
Helene would also have power of attorney for the buying of the new flat, the
one where we would be living after the first flat was sold to a retired
diplomat from Nice. Giving my sister-in-law POA was judged by all to be a good
move because my comprehension in French of legal matters is roughly that of a
four-year-old.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We all trooped down the corridor to Patrick’s bedside. He
was sitting in a chair beside the bed, dressed in his hospital shift. For the
occasion, he had donned a pair of navy blue undies. He had not shaved, nor had
he been shaved, in over a month. He looked like the survivor of a mining
accident.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The nurses’ station was just across the hall. The lawyer
approached it and asked if there was a table we could use. “Don’t ask them for
anything,” I said. “It’s futile.” I was thinking of the bedpan. Not to mention
the walker, the wheelchair, and the breathing device.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wheeled Patrick to the lobby, followed by the lawyer and
Helene. The lawyer began explaining what we were about to sign. After a few
minutes, Patrick needed to lie down. We went back to his room. I helped him
into bed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For days, I had suspected that he was losing the will to
live. No, I was sure. This is why I had come to see the doctor. The doctor who
refused to speak with me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lawyer talked on and on. I tried to listen and
understand, but I was exhausted and extremely worried—scared, in fact—and not
in the mood to sign legal documents in French.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lawyer turned to me. It seemed there were a lot of
details in the document that he wanted to make sure I understood. Important
details, since the document concerned the “residence conjugale.” The place I
was meant to live, presumably for the rest of my life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Suddenly, everything got very complicated. I had to make a
choice: Would our marriage contract be subject to Tanzanian law, American law,
or French law?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lawyer began to explain the substantial differences in U.S.
and French property law governing married couples. He admitted that he didn’t
know much, or indeed anything, about Tanzanian law. I made a quick assumption
that Tanzanian law wouldn’t be all that favorable to me, the wife, in my
present or future circumstances. Under Tanzanian law, I might be married off straight
away to some other family member should I suddenly become a widow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In other words, the choice I was suddenly being asked to
make concerned the death of a spouse. My spouse.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lawyer went on and on, explaining the differences
between French and American law regarding marital property rights. His explanation was half in English and half in French. The English part was, for me, barely more intelligible than the French. I really had
no idea what he was saying.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I looked from the lawyer, to the sheaf of papers he was holding, to my husband, who was lying on his back with his eyes closed. And then I burst into tears.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The poor lawyer became extremely flustered. He was young and
very clean, very correct. He offered to leave and come back another time. I
wiped my tears, straightened my spine, and said, “That will not be necessary. I
will pull myself together.” And I did.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patrick's eyes were now open, but he was too
tired to react to the hubbub. He hadn’t slept much for days, he could barely
eat (“Everything tastes like cardboard”) and he couldn’t stand on his own. One
night, when the mean night nurse was on duty, he tried to get to the toilet by himself, but
his legs wouldn’t hold him and he ended up on the floor. He had to crawl back
to bed. No wonder he thought he would be better off dead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“What should I do, darling?” I asked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Just sign it,” he said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And our business was finished.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Later that day, I asked him: “Do you know why I was crying?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Oh, yes.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“He was talking about what would happen to me if you die.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I know.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“And do you think I made my point with that awful doctor,
despite my poor French?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You made your point. You were very clear.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I slammed the door.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You spoke for both of us.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I was good, wasn’t I?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You were good.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, March 24, is Tom’s birthday. He is coming from Paris
to see us; we will gather at the rehab center down the hill from our new flat,
where Patrick is temporarily living. We have all been through hell since
January 27, and the next few weeks are going to be difficult. Tom has to open a
new restaurant on Wednesday, a restaurant that is not ready to open. I have to
supervise the renovations on our new flat, and I am nowhere near ready for that type of chaos,
mentally or physically. Patrick has to gain enough strength to climb the 16
stairs to our new front door. The day he climbs those 16 stairs, I am going to shower
him with confetti. I’m going to stand at the top of the stairs with a glass of
IPA in one hand and a plate of oysters in the other. Above our front door will
be the little sign that reads “Texier Household, est. 1999,” given to us as a
wedding present, if I can figure out which packing carton I put it in. The flat
has three bedrooms, a big living room, a small balcony, and a good-sized
kitchen with a breakfast nook. It has good natural light all day long. It is
steps away from a forest with woodland trails, one of which runs along the
Seine. It is across the street from an auto school, where I can get my French
driving permit, and a halal butcher shop and a good boulangerie, and a Turkish
joint that sells kebabs. There’s even a lab where Patrick can get his blood
tested. It is the first home that he has ever owned, and I want his homecoming
to be nice. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Above: Patrick at the rehab center, talking on the phone with Helene.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-5203667631718717262019-03-19T02:42:00.000-07:002019-03-19T02:42:21.894-07:00Things Are Looking Up<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rOr_vDxC40c/XJC4B-1_9TI/AAAAAAAACTc/1Kvr19Xo928ldtmhCrP4ClHJ9AP2hIz1ACLcBGAs/s1600/Tom%2527s%2Belephant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rOr_vDxC40c/XJC4B-1_9TI/AAAAAAAACTc/1Kvr19Xo928ldtmhCrP4ClHJ9AP2hIz1ACLcBGAs/s640/Tom%2527s%2Belephant.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Today, a miracle happened: I woke up in our new flat,
stepped into the living room, the guest bedroom, and the study, and did not see a SINGLE cardboard box. Then I walked into the kitchen and saw . . .
approximately 89 mostly flattened cartons jammed into the space between the wall and the
refrigerator. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So now you know how I spent my weekend.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But wait (I hear you thinking), how did we get from
Patrick’s near-death experience to packing cartons?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In brief: On Sunday, January 27, Patrick had emergency surgery
for an aortic dissection in Paris. He spent 38 days in the hospital, 15 of them
in intensive care, and 11 of those on a respirator. What can I say? It was
sheer hell. On March 5, he was transferred to a rehab facility near our house.
That’s where he is now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, we moved to a new flat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not to whine, but I haven’t had a lot of time to write blog
posts. Now that we are more or less settled, and P is on the mend, all that is
going to change. And when P comes home, which could be next week, I am going to
not only write blog posts, but also finish editing David Rich’s revised edition
of Myths of the Tribe, edit one or two other books, spray the corners of our
new flat with a product called Bang, redo the shower to prevent falls, resume
water aerobics, comb my hair more often, reglue several wooden chairs, and cook
nourishing meals in our new kitchen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The kitchen isn’t really a kitchen yet, but it does have a
two-burner hotplate and a microwave, which is more than our kitchen in Arusha
had.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, I have spoken with a Mr. Tyminsky about bathroom
showers and kitchen stoves, and I have even been to a kitchen and bathroom
store with my friend Mary, who knows way more about renovating a domicile than
I do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Henny Plunkett, from the Crossroads choral group, is coming to take the cardboard boxes this afternoon because she is moving back to England.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Spring is coming, the magnolias are blooming, and things are
looking up.<br />
<br />
Love, Sadie<br />
PS: Tom drew the little elephant in the photo, many years ago, and made the frame out of a piece of cardboard from a Tanzanian brewery (Ndovu) and bits of pasta. Patricia Tobaldo, the Argentinean painter mentioned in Our House in Arusha, painted the big elephant and friends.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-45791222661365802512019-03-01T23:49:00.000-08:002019-03-01T23:49:02.134-08:00How to Ignore an Annoying Hospital Patient
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--9h3a_KzHd4/XHo0zWhxYfI/AAAAAAAACTQ/EKeGvFlxMS4KIpl9dovWKr7Yh9QoZ92YwCLcBGAs/s1600/An%2Bearly%2Bhospital.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1157" data-original-width="1600" height="462" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--9h3a_KzHd4/XHo0zWhxYfI/AAAAAAAACTQ/EKeGvFlxMS4KIpl9dovWKr7Yh9QoZ92YwCLcBGAs/s640/An%2Bearly%2Bhospital.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">If you, dear reader, should ever land in a French hospital,
there is something you should know: The French health-care system, though one
of the best in the world, is stretched very thin in places. One of those places
is hospital staffing. So while you would undoubtedly be better off in a
Parisian hospital than in, say, Bangladesh, you still might not get a bedpan when
you need one. You might lie in bed, for hours, wondering if the frigging
doctors and nurses even care whether you’re dead or alive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One day I arrived at Chambre 44 to learn that my husband,
who is very observant (he was a spy during the Cold War), had made a study of the
ways in which French hospital personnel deal with this staffing shortage. The etiquette of ignoring a bedridden patient in France goes something like this:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Method No. 1: Avert your eyes. If you must pass by the open
door of a patient who wants your attention (a
patient who is not actually dying), keep your eyes focused firmly on your
notepad or, if your notepad isn’t handy, your shoes. Walk quickly and
purposefully, eyes down, until you are safely past the open door.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Method No. 2: If you can’t escape an encounter with a needy patient, explain that you have an even more urgent matter to attend to and promise to return in 10 minutes. Then go about
your business and return when you can. Remember, time is meaningless to a hospital
patient. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Method No. 3: Explain to the hospitalized person, in your
sternest voice, that he is not your only patient. There are other patients who
also have urgent needs. He must wait his turn.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Method No. 4: Be nice. Let him think that you are his
friend, the only nice person in the entire unit. Do not tell him that you are
only being nice because you have rented a vacation villa in Martinique for two
weeks, you leave tomorrow, and you are hoping he will be gone by the time you
get back.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is why, after being the wife of a hospital patient for
four weeks, I finally blew my stack.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I did not blow my stack at the nurses. I could see they were
doing their best and that, were I in their position, the patient might
not survive. I mean, it would be him or me. If I were the last nurse in the
universe, and I were in charge of that hospital unit, anyone who couldn’t fire
me would go straight to hell. That would be my approach to the situation.
Starting with my husband’s horrible roommate, who shouted into his cell phone
at 1 a.m., smoked e-cigarettes, and stuck blobs of chewing gum under the
bedside table for the nurses to remove.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No, no, I blew my stack at one of the doctors. Not the nice
one who brought Patrick a beat-up old wheelchair so he could escape his room
for a few minutes, but the mean, nasty one who insisted that I leave the room
when she came through with her tribe on their medical rounds.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“But I came to hear your report about my husband’s
condition,” I explained, in my best French, which is pretty awful but not
completely unintelligible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Madame, visiting hours begin at one.” The time was a little
past noon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“But I am here now.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You must leave.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I turned to the patient. “Darling, do you want me to leave?”
Patrick shook his head.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I turned back to the evil doctor. “He wants me to stay.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Madame Texier.” There followed more talk, in a very stern
voice, about hospital regulations regarding visiting hours.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, I just refused to back down. As the argument
continued, the five people trailing the mean doctor stared into space with
their eyes unfocused, looking rather frightened. Finally, Patrick literally
writhed, turning onto his side as if he were going to jump out of bed and try
to escape, and cried, “Darling, it’s useless! It’s useless to try to talk to
these people!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whereupon I left.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Later that day, I got an apology from the nice doctor on
behalf of her colleague, and a much-needed change in the medical plan. The next
day, the patient got his first shower in weeks. He perked up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Right now, this minute, I have to start packing up the
kitchen, and I don’t actually have time to finish this post. Let’s just say
that I had another meltdown later that day, and then things started to get
better. More to come . . .</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Love, Sadie</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
PS The photograph shows an American Red Cross Hospital in Paris, I'm guessing World War I. No time to write a proper caption or credit or even figure out what the hell it is. The one Patrick's in is more modern.</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-91978429501759566992019-02-28T03:06:00.001-08:002019-02-28T03:06:20.775-08:00Just in Case Your Aorta Cracks While You Are Living in France
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xj68hFcvHd8/XHe9cNbJ_pI/AAAAAAAACSw/KAlH4A69IysHzjN-J7sE1pjnb2aSFkvNQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xj68hFcvHd8/XHe9cNbJ_pI/AAAAAAAACSw/KAlH4A69IysHzjN-J7sE1pjnb2aSFkvNQCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_0005.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Valerie trimming her father's beard in Marseille, a couple of years ago.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Let us hope that you never hear the words “aortic
dissection” (“dissection de l’aorte”) spoken by anyone in the medical
profession, but if you do, you should know that a crack in the aorta is a life-threatening
condition; it must be addressed <i>immediately</i> if not sooner. The first thing
to do, if you’re in France, is to call SAMU (pronounced “Samoo”) the French
equivalent of 911. The French medical system will take it from there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is what Patrick did on January 25. I was in Vermont.
The nurse who answered the phone when I called the hospital the next day
reported that his condition was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“extremement
grave.” Meaning “Look, lady, I don’t know where you are but you need to get
here now.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was on a plane to France the next day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I arrived to find my husband unconscious and hooked up to an
astonishing number of machines. Beeps and blips and blinking lights and screens
and tubes everywhere, and in the middle of it all, a puffy, funny-colored
individual that I understood to be my husband.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t ask me what the surgeons did to him; it is too
complicated to explain. It involved lots of prosthetic bits and pieces, many
arteries, several vital organs, and an incision that stretches across the
patient’s entire abdomen and wraps around his side. It took seven hours.
Closing the incision required some 200 staples. As Patrick himself said, many
days later, “They almost cut me in two.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The recovery unit’s chief honcho called the surgery
miraculous. All of the doctors I spoke with seemed very impressed with themselves.
I tried to show my appreciation, but it wasn’t easy. The patient himself, when
he started to revive, did not seem the least bit appreciative. He seemed to be
in agony.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patrick was in the ICU for 19 days. He was then transferred
to the cardiovascular surgery unit, where he has been for the past two weeks.
Today he will be transferred again, to the nephrology unit. He has been lying
on his back for almost 5 weeks, and his back is killing him. He is skin and
bones. I do believe I could pick him up and carry him out of the hospital if I
wanted to, and the irrational part of me (which is a rather large part of me at
this point), would really like to do that. The irrational part of me would just
like to wrap my arms around his frail little body and bring him home. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eventually, when the hospital is finished tinkering with
him, he will go to a rehab center. I hope it is close to home. The daily
round-trip to the hospital takes three hours, minimum. I keep thinking I’ll use
the time to write, but instead I just stare out the window or fall asleep.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Two days ago a kind doctor rustled up an old wheelchair and Patrick
was able to leave his hospital room without being on his back for the first
time in 30 days. I wheeled him to the cafeteria where he ordered a
ham-and-cheese sandwich and a bottle of San Pelligrino. The next day I wheeled
him to the hospital beauty salon for a haircut and a shave.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do not try to call him. If you want to follow his progress, email
me or check back here. I am in the middle of moving us to a new flat,
surrounded by packing boxes, but I will do my best to keep you posted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Love, Sadie</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-68062218116535794462018-09-07T04:36:00.000-07:002018-09-07T04:47:11.801-07:00How a French Barge Cruise Is Like an African Safari<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LgaC50C_DDs/W5JfgwMyCEI/AAAAAAAACSI/0FMODkZeadsIOfQUCWIWjwo1zxkngTvagCLcBGAs/s1600/Savoir%2BVivre%2Bon%2Bthe%2BBurgundy%2BCanal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LgaC50C_DDs/W5JfgwMyCEI/AAAAAAAACSI/0FMODkZeadsIOfQUCWIWjwo1zxkngTvagCLcBGAs/s640/Savoir%2BVivre%2Bon%2Bthe%2BBurgundy%2BCanal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Let's just skip the part where I apologize for not blogging for the past two years, okay? Let's pretend I've been on a barge in Burgundy this whole time, far from a WiFi signal, because it's almost true.<br />
<br />
In April, I took my first all-expenses-paid "fam" trip in over 20 years. On the last one, in 1996, I went to Tanzania, met a French safari guide, and married him. This is the danger of fam trips. They are either so wonderful or so horrible that in either case, you tend to lose your mind. In my case, it was wonderful, and the Frenchman and I are living happily ever after.<br />
<br />
"Fam," as I'm sure you know from having read <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Our-House-Arusha-Sara-Tucker-ebook/dp/B0056PFQ6M" target="_blank">my book, </a>stands for "familiarization." The people being fammed are often journalists, like me. Familiarized, that is, with the travel products that the sponsors of the trip want to sell. Luxury hotels, barge cruises, stuff like that.<br />
<br />
Barges in Burgundy navigate on canals that were built 200 years ago—before WiFi, before railroads, before the telephone. The French were still using carrier pigeons to deliver the mail. I swear to God. In 1966, an Englishman got the bright idea of taking commercial barges, which nobody was using anymore, turning them into hotels, and floating them on various waterways in France. Today there are 75 hotel barges cruising European waterways.<br />
<br />
With me on the barge trip was the French safari guide, now retired but still my husband and still French—the only Frenchman, as it happens, ever to have been a guest on the Savoir Vivre in Captain Richard Megret's memory. And Richard has been captaining the Savoir Vivre for something like 20 years. So either he has a really bad memory, or he was just kidding, or Patrick is a very exceptional Frenchman. I tend to think the latter.<br />
<br />
This barge cruise lasted exactly one week, and the whole time, Patrick and I kept looking at each other and going, "This is so much like a safari."<br />
<br />
1. The captain was adorable and laid-back and funny and a little bit weird, the kind of guy who makes you fall in love with him, or want to adopt him, or want to be him.<br />
<br />
2. The French hostess and the British tour guide were beautiful and intelligent.<br />
<br />
3. The Burgundy countryside was like something out of a movie. Example: a medieval castle on a hill with sheep grazing in the foreground.<br />
<br />
You see where this is going, right? Replace the captain with Patrick, the barge with a Land Cruiser, the sheep with impalas, the beautiful and intelligent hostess/tour guide with me, and voila: an African safari! But that's not all.<br />
<br />
4. There were only eight guests on the entire boat. Something magical happens when your group is between six and eight. I can't explain it. A group of that size becomes like a family. I know that's a cliché but it's true, right down to the one family member who annoys you. Add to that the bonding experience of traveling through a foreign land, and it's no wonder that people exchange email addresses and get all teary when they say good-bye at the end.<br />
<br />
5. Things happened that I cannot explain. I don't mean to get all woo-woo, but life has been different since those seven days, six nights on the Savoir Vivre. Better, somehow. Not because the cuisine was haute and the napkins looked like they'd been folded by somebody who went to napkin-folding school and graduated summa cum laude. And not because the countryside was beautiful, although that certainly helped. It's something about being with your husband, whom you met once upon a time in the Serengeti, and he's an old man now, chatting away in the wheelhouse with the young French captain, and the two of them are giggling and you have no idea what they're giggling about, some private joke. And suddenly you are deeply grateful for this day, this moment, this reminder that life isn't only work and toil and that there are lovely people in the world, yes, indeed, and some of them are right here on this barge, folding napkins, chatting with your husband, and doing everything they can think of to make sure you get a good feeling whenever you remember this day.<br />
<br />
<i>Still to come: A Vermonter in Burgundy; Sadie Does the Cotswolds; and more . . .</i><br />
<br />
<b>Further reading:</b><br />
<a href="https://www.wendyperrin.com/barge-cruise-prefer-river-cruise/" target="_blank">What a Barge Cruise Is, and Why Some Prefer It to a River Cruise</a> (WendyPerrin.com)<br />
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/european-barge-cruises-that-are-anything-but-boring-1536248572" target="_blank">European Barge Cruises That Are Anything but Boring</a> (WSJ, September 6, 2019)<br />
All about the <a href="https://www.bargeladycruises.com/barge-cruises/savoir-vivre/" target="_blank">Savoir Vivre</a> from the Barge Lady Cruises website<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Our-House-Arusha-Sara-Tucker-ebook/dp/B0056PFQ6M" target="_blank">Our House in Arusha</a> (Kindle; $2.99)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-53313365032847003422017-12-16T00:57:00.002-08:002017-12-16T01:08:18.019-08:00Sometimes the Gates of Heaven Open<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GSVgl4lcjB4/WjTc8fynTXI/AAAAAAAACRM/WcEcsA8mgpoeyrbnlUDhV-cX2ECj7oYhgCLcBGAs/s1600/Quilt%2Bby%2BMabel%2BLamb%2BTucker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GSVgl4lcjB4/WjTc8fynTXI/AAAAAAAACRM/WcEcsA8mgpoeyrbnlUDhV-cX2ECj7oYhgCLcBGAs/s640/Quilt%2Bby%2BMabel%2BLamb%2BTucker.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This quilt was made by my grandmother, Mabel Lamb Tucker.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you have been following my posts on Facebook, you know that this past week I . . . </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1) Registered with the Editorial Freelancers Association in an effort to drum up some business now that my Year of Leisure is almost over, and . . . </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> (2) Posted about the Japanese art of sashiko stitching and a Gees Bend quilt made from polyester leisure suits.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> So perhaps you will understand when I tell you that I almost jumped out of my skin when the Editorial Freelancers Association sent me an email this morning about a quilt magazine that needs a copy editor to work remotely. I raced off a reply. The one I sent was more restrained than the one I wanted to send. Here's the letter I composed in my head before deciding to tone it down: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Quiltfolk,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes the gates of Heaven open and the universe answers our prayers. I would love, love, <i>love</i> to edit your magazine. Quilting is my new obsession—I would <i>pay</i> you to hire me if that made any sense at all. It is almost unbelievable that fate has brought us together—and yet it makes <i>perfect sense</i>! Okay, so you must be wondering who I am. First off, I come from generations of talented quilters. Amazing quilters. My grandmother, Mabel Lamb Tucker, made gorgeous quilts, which I slept under as a young girl, so quilting is in my blood. Furthermore, I am an honest-to-God copy editor. I have copyedited literally thousands of articles. Some of them were even about quilting because—ta dah!—I worked for Martha Stewart! God’s truth. Also, I see from your Web site that you are particularly interested in <i>the stories behind the quilts</i>. Me, too! In Vermont, my home state (land of many quilts!), I am known as the Story Lady. <i>So you have to hire me</i>. Please, pretty please, pretty pretty pretty please. Call so we can discuss!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love and hugs,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">xxxxxooooo</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sadie (aka Sara Tucker, author of <i>An Irruption of Owls, </i>a personal memoir in which quilts are mentioned SEVERAL TIMES!!!!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">P.S. Write back and I will send you photographs of my amazing collection of vintage French textiles.</span>Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-75500333757565542532017-02-18T01:57:00.002-08:002017-02-18T01:57:28.390-08:00Thank You, Alix Spiegel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wU80PyEwGjA/WKgaHcTbWDI/AAAAAAAACQc/wRcGi_Kfs9opBQiwC64F0gjC9PNR6O1hwCLcB/s1600/Fosamax%2BWar%2BIron%2BIs%2BLivitamin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wU80PyEwGjA/WKgaHcTbWDI/AAAAAAAACQc/wRcGi_Kfs9opBQiwC64F0gjC9PNR6O1hwCLcB/s640/Fosamax%2BWar%2BIron%2BIs%2BLivitamin.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
One of the unsung heroes in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Irruption-Owls-homecoming-Snowbird-Chronicles/dp/194374100X" target="_blank">An Irruption of Owls</a></i> is a reporter by the name of Alix Spiegel. Alix was the author of a 2009 NPR report that helped solve a medical mystery in our family. The report, which was aired as a segment of "All Things Considered," was entitled "<a href="http://www.npr.org/2009/12/21/121609815/how-a-bone-disease-grew-to-fit-the-prescription" target="_blank">How a Bone Disease Grew to Fit the Prescription</a>."<br />
My mother, Idora Tucker, was 86 and still skiing when she began taking Fosamax, on the advice of her new primary-care physician, who did not do a bone-density test. This was in 2005, several years after Fosamax, originally prescribed to people with osteoporosis, was approved for preventive care.<br />
Eighteen months later, my mother experienced crippling pain in both legs. It took eight months of hassling medical professionals for her to learn that she had stress fractures in both femurs. Nobody could explain why.<br />
By December 2009, when I heard Alix's report while driving along a Vermont highway, my mother had been trying for almost three years to understand what had gone wrong with her legs. The fractures had healed, but the episode had left her permanently impaired.<br />
<i>An Irruption of Owls, </i>which I wrote with my bare hands, was published in 2015 and I am embarrassed to say that I never thanked Alix for effectively solving the mystery that is the crux of that story.<br />
So thank you, Alix Spiegel, for using your investigative and story-telling talents to enlighten us about important matters concerning women's health. I'm sorry it took me so long.<br />
My mother's illness upended her life, and mine, and that of my very patient and obliging husband. Idora Tucker was a doctor's wife and very careful about her health. She did not accept her doctors' theories about what might have caused her bones to break, and she refused to take the narcotic painkiller that one of them prescribed. She was determined, as she said, "to get to the bottom of things." She wanted to know the truth.<br />
Today Alix Spiegel cohosts <a href="http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510307/invisibilia" target="_blank">Invisibilia</a>, an NPR program about the invisible forces that control human behavior—ideas, beliefs, assumptions, and emotions. I am her devoted fan.<br />
PS You can now download <i>An Irruption of Owls</i> for <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/560698" target="_blank">free from Smashwords</a>. The book, which contains a chapter about my grandparents' run-in with McCarthyism, is my contribution to the resistance. I've also posted an adaptation of the chapter about my mother's illness on my brand-new website, <a href="http://www.saratuckerbooks.com/single-post/2017/02/11/The-Fosamax-War-in-Our-House" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<i>Above: An artifact of my father's medical practice, given to him by a drug salesman.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-86886831069781695942017-02-06T02:19:00.000-08:002017-02-06T02:19:15.042-08:00Les Baux-de-Provence: A Memoir<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vhFHAYHrJtQ/WJhJ3jRVq1I/AAAAAAAACQM/ctd00Yrga4MXTyKrYcCqWlGesG6dA4eewCLcB/s1600/Les%2BBaux%2Bde%2BProvence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vhFHAYHrJtQ/WJhJ3jRVq1I/AAAAAAAACQM/ctd00Yrga4MXTyKrYcCqWlGesG6dA4eewCLcB/s640/Les%2BBaux%2Bde%2BProvence.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Les Baux-de-Provence, the childhood home of my mother-in-law, Mireille Davis Texier.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When my mother-in-law died in November 2016, she left behind a hand-written account of her childhood in Les Baux, the village that was her home from 1924 until the early 1940s. For the past two weeks, I have been transcribing her account, which is set down in a series of notebooks numbered 1 through 6.<br />
Les Baux occupies a rock outcrop above a plain that stretches to the sea. It is a superb setting, and the village is officially designated one of the most beautiful in France. Today, the upper village has only 22 residents—and an estimated 1.5 million visitors per year.<br />
My mother-in-law also left us a collection of diaries. On December 30, 2009, she wrote:<br />
“I have reread my memoirs, which are pretty sketchy. Valerie D. is going to help me organize them and make them easier to read. I hesitate to give them to Patrick, who won't be interested, nor Sara. They are too personal and too far removed for American readers.”<br />
I read this diary entry with a sinking feeling. I felt unbearably sad that I had let my mother-in-law down. Of course, she was incorrect in thinking her life story would be of little interest to others. Besides her children and grandchildren—not to mention myself—there are no doubt many people who would be interested in one of the few first-hand accounts of Les Baux written by someone who lived there before and during World War II.<br />
I think that when we lose a loved one, it is inevitable to feel regret, and to wish we had expressed our love more often. I wish I had transcribed Mireille's diaries while she was still alive. I wish I had been able to ask her a thousand questions about what she wrote. I wish I had transformed her notebooks into a beautiful printed book, with pictures, one that she would have been proud of. This is the task I have set for myself now.<br />
I have gotten really good at typing French accents—ç, à, î, é, and so on—on an English-language keyboard. I’ve learned some new vocabulary—the person Mireille refers to as “le Pillard” turns out to have been the village thief. I am learning more about Les Baux, which I have visited only once. It is a fascinating place, and my mother-in-law’s memories of her girlhood there are vivid and specific, a real treasure.<br />
Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-66383865397392591262016-09-26T02:16:00.001-07:002016-09-26T02:33:39.405-07:00The Mystery of the French Clay Pipes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mWOpzb8VvJU/V-jf_7CQHAI/AAAAAAAACO8/tesaKiszoXI7eZFvDEK31afEjXYfggVKACLcB/s1600/French%2Bclay%2Bpipes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mWOpzb8VvJU/V-jf_7CQHAI/AAAAAAAACO8/tesaKiszoXI7eZFvDEK31afEjXYfggVKACLcB/s640/French%2Bclay%2Bpipes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
How did six elegant clay pipes make their way from a town in northern France to my mother's house in Vermont? Anyone who has ever emptied out a parent's attic is familiar with this type of puzzle. It took me four years to go through the contents of my mother's house. The last box I opened was in the basement, and it contained an assortment of dishes, a hand mirror, and the six pipes. The newspaper that had been used as packing material dated from the summer of 1968, suggesting the contents might have belonged to Grandma Tucker, since it was around this time that my parents began clearing out her house in Randolph Center. The pipes were wrapped in tissue and stored in a white ceramic pitcher (the pitcher is in the upper right corner of the photo). They are in pristine condition. They were made by Gambier, a French company, probably in the 19th century. How did they come into my possession? I know of nobody in the family who smoked a pipe (and indeed these pipes have never been smoked). Maybe Justin Tucker, my grandfather, whom I barely remember, was a pipe smoker. These pipes are beautiful, and Grandma Tucker had an eye for beauty. She was also a great collector of domestic treasures. Grandma's collection of pitchers hung from hooks near the ceiling and encircled the dining room; it numbered in the hundreds. The littlest pitchers were barely bigger than a thimble. It was broken up, I am sad to say, when my parents sold the contents of her little cottage at auction; my siblings and I have remnants of the original collection. The pitcher that contains the pipes was made by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Laughlin_China_Company" target="_blank">Homer Laughlin China Company</a>, the manufacturer of Fiesta dinnerware. Homer Laughlin still makes its dishes in the U.S. <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maison_Gambier" target="_blank">Maison Gambier </a>opened in Givet (a town near the Belgian border) in 1780 and closed in 1928; at the height of its production, in 1860, it employed 600 workers. I will never know how these pipes found their way to 36 Highland Avenue. The best I can do is to learn more about the factory that produced them. You probably have items like this in your family, too. I have so many it's mind-boggling. I fully expect to spend the rest of my life figuring out what to do with them.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UjYXBwB8xec/V-jl1jkCMqI/AAAAAAAACPM/J8VUDT_uIOMvFkQ8o6welAqvsU21sa-RwCLcB/s1600/Creme%2BGambier%2Bpipe%2BNo.%2B1346.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UjYXBwB8xec/V-jl1jkCMqI/AAAAAAAACPM/J8VUDT_uIOMvFkQ8o6welAqvsU21sa-RwCLcB/s640/Creme%2BGambier%2Bpipe%2BNo.%2B1346.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-89780981657556954902016-09-24T02:29:00.001-07:002016-09-24T02:34:26.933-07:00A Conversation With My Mother<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-geJ5lA5Zs8A/V-ZD0orM2hI/AAAAAAAACOs/0L2Y14Rnj14ANfsJrTl7ltJrPeZiMmYsQCLcB/s1600/Bernie%2B92.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-geJ5lA5Zs8A/V-ZD0orM2hI/AAAAAAAACOs/0L2Y14Rnj14ANfsJrTl7ltJrPeZiMmYsQCLcB/s640/Bernie%2B92.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Saturday morning, 8 a.m., Fontainebleau, France. I am lying in bed, listening to the sound of traffic on Avenue Franklin Roosevelt and staring at the ceiling.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom: </b>You know,
Sara, you have always done a good job of anything you set your mind to. And you
have natural leadership qualities. That play you and Jim Reidy wrote and
produced in high school—what was it called?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me: </b>Noah’s Flood.</div>
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<b>Mom: </b>That’s the one. It was a tremendous hit, and the two of you
organized the whole thing. The writing group at the senior center is another
example. Thanks to you, it took off like gangbusters. The Hale Street Gang
exhibit went all the way to the Governor’s Mansion.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me: </b>Jack Rowell made that happen, Mom. And it was the Statehouse
Cafeteria.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom: </b>Even better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom:</b> What are you driving at, Mom?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom:</b> <a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/08/why-i-should-be-president.html" target="_blank">This run for the presidency</a>—I think you’re making a
mistake. It isn’t for you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me: </b>Why not? Grampa served in both the Legislature and the Hoff administration. Uncle Allan was a judge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom: </b>They had nothing better to do, but you—I want you to get busy and write another book.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me: </b>I was afraid you were going to say that. Grampa wrote books.
He did both.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom:</b> He wrote those books <i>after</i> he was secretary of state. What's more, he always said that job was mostly filing. Sara, I'm your mother, I know you better than anybody, and it behooves me to point out that you have a great tendency to think you can do everything. You can’t be president of the United States and
write a best-seller at the same time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me: </b>Who says I’m going to write a best-seller?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom:</b> I do. Besides, politics has gotten much nastier than it was in your grandfather's time. Fight, fight, fight, that's all they do. Look at the mean things they say about poor Obama. I feel sorry for him. I don't even bother to turn on the TV anymore.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me: </b>Do they have TV in heaven, Mom?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom:</b> They have everything in heaven, dear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me: </b>How’s the food?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom: </b>The vegetables are overcooked. Most people don't know how to cook vegetables.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me: </b>I miss you, Mom.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mom:</b> I miss you, too, dear. Now get busy and write that book. And
forget about this presidential nonsense. It’s not for you.</div>
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<i>Above: One of my mother's collections of stuff.</i><br />
<b>For further reading:</b><br />
<a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/08/why-i-should-be-president.html" target="_blank">Why I Should Be President</a><br />
<a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/08/in-my-first-100-days-as-potus.html" target="_blank">In My First 100 Days as POTUS</a><br />
<a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/08/questions-to-ask-yourself-before.html" target="_blank">Questions to Ask Yourself Before Running for Prez</a></div>
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Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-9471425646982043812016-09-23T07:45:00.005-07:002016-09-23T08:24:51.836-07:00My Hysterically Funny Grief Memoir<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o-AdVfT3UGg/V-U83QFowjI/AAAAAAAACOU/TAknwdky9b0QGJwKAHGKW9UuETHHoEVhQCLcB/s1600/The%2BPyncheon%2BFamily.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o-AdVfT3UGg/V-U83QFowjI/AAAAAAAACOU/TAknwdky9b0QGJwKAHGKW9UuETHHoEVhQCLcB/s640/The%2BPyncheon%2BFamily.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>What the hell is the
Literary Net?</i> This question came up while I was deleting some of the hundreds of newsletters I get from people who want to help me sell my books. Turns out I joined Literary
Net a year ago, soon after attending a book conference in New York, where one
of the speakers sang its virtues. The purpose of the email was to inform me
that my member profile was incomplete. After digging around for my user name
and password, I dutifully went to the website to investigate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One
of the things Literary Net wanted to know was why anyone should buy my books.
The answer to this question is what’s called an “elevator pitch,” and it is a
standard tool in an author’s kit. An elevator pitch is supposed to be very
short, so you can rip it off between floors if you should happen to run
into Morgan Entrekin or Judith Regan on your way to buy ink cartridges. Perfecting it can
take weeks, even months, but I’ve been in the book-selling biz long enough to
have it down. My elevator pitch is so polished I could recite it if the
elevator were in freefall. I could recite it on a stretcher with an oxygen mask
over my face.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At
second glance, the Literary Net website looked a bit paltry—273 writers pitching
their books to each other while waiting for somebody important to come along. Like
a sad little crafts fair next to an Interstate highway where the traffic is
speeding by. And our head shots—phew. One author was peering out from behind an
enormous cat; another was holding a copy of the Holy Bible; a third had chosen
to represent himself as a white snowflake on a blue background. A glitch in the
website caused the heads to look squished, like a reflection in a
cereal spoon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gazing
at those photos, I felt a pang in my heart. Truthfully, I wanted to bolt. I wanted to leave Literary Net and never return. You’ll
be proud to know that I didn’t. Instead, I hung around long enough to fill out
my profile. I mentioned the 93 customer reviews on Amazon, the four-star
rating, the blah-blah-blah. I fixed my squishy head. I did not write “You
should buy this book because I busted my ass over it for more years than I can
count” or “I dedicated this book to my sainted mother so how can you NOT buy it?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
did, however, do one little thing to lighten the task. Before signing off, I
added the following paragraph in a box labeled “Additional Information”:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The prepublication buzz about my ‘grief
memoir’ is through the roof. My publisher won't let me divulge the title,
because he is afraid aliens will steal it, so for now it is just ‘Sara Tucker's
Hysterically Funny Grief Memoir.’ The book is almost done except for the
recipes.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Between you and me, the hysterically funny grief memoir consists of a few lines scribbled in my spiral notebook. It is not "almost done." If it ever materializes, it will probably not have recipes. But the folks at Literary Net don't need to know that, and anyway, we are all entitled to dream. xo Sadie</div>
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* * *</div>
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<i>Above: School notebook, 1908. The scholar was Harry H. Cooley, my maternal grandfather. One of his essays, astonishingly, concerns Fontainebleau, France, where I now live. At the time he wrote it, he was a Vermont schoolboy. He never in his life went to France. I discovered the notebook last summer while I was going through my mother's things and couldn't believe my eyes. Material for another post.</i></div>
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<i><b><br /></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>PS You can subscribe to this blog by email if you can find the whoozy-whatsit sign-up thingy in the right-hand column. I think you have to scroll down.</b></div>
Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-68595911765894352302016-09-20T08:10:00.000-07:002016-09-20T08:21:53.499-07:00I Was Attacked by a Sports Bra<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BsnIgImtBQ0/V-E9Mxndi2I/AAAAAAAACOE/SGof-dyLVnohz5ar49t9DE7fiRzazE7bQCLcB/s1600/The%2Bbra%2Bthat%2Battacked%2Bme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BsnIgImtBQ0/V-E9Mxndi2I/AAAAAAAACOE/SGof-dyLVnohz5ar49t9DE7fiRzazE7bQCLcB/s400/The%2Bbra%2Bthat%2Battacked%2Bme.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
This has happened to me before, many times, but never with such violence as I experienced at approximately 10:30 yesterday morning in a quiet suburb of Paris. Patrick had gone by train to visit his mother, and I had just stepped out of the shower and was starting to get dressed.<br />
In my underwear drawer I have two bras. One is friendly, the other hostile. The friendly one has adjustable straps and a hook-and-eye closure. The hostile one is a sports bra. It has no closure, so you have to pull it on over your head and then slide it past your shoulders, where it is likely to get stuck. An alternate method is to step into it, then slide it up over your derriere, where it is even more likely to get stuck. It is tenacious, stubborn, and unyielding. It is an obstinate little fucker. This morning, it wrapped itself around my shoulders, grabbed hold of my arms, and threatened to strangle me.<br />
Instinctively, I began to struggle. The sports bra tightened its grip.<br />
We fought for the next three minutes—three minutes that felt like a lifetime. As the conflict escalated, I could see—with the part of my mind that remained aloof—three alternatives. Get the kitchen scissors, wait for Patrick to come home, or call SAMU, the French equivalent of 911. My right arm was completely encumbered, my right hand pressed against my ear, but my left hand was free enough to punch the two digits that summon SAMU's rescue team, a group of musclebound firefighters.<br />
My husband was not due back until 7 p.m. The wait would be a minimum of eight hours, plus the time it took him to stop laughing and lend a hand. The firefighters were clearly not needed—the kitchen scissors would do the job. And yet I hesitated.<br />
Now, I know what you're thinking: What kind of person has only two bras in her underwear drawer?<br />
The reason I have only two bras is because someday I want to live in a tiny house and I will not have room for a lot of clothes. I also have three pairs of pants, three pairs of shoes, and so on.<br />
At 10:35, I emerged from captivity, sports bra in hand. I did not have to fetch the kitchen scissors or call the fire department. Instead, I used patience, reason, and gentle coaxing to resolve the conflict peacefully. (And I won, which is the main thing. I showed that little fucker who's boss.)<br />
I spent the rest of the morning typing things like "attacked by sports bra" into my web browser.<br />
Twenty-four hours later, I can laugh at the experience. In fact, I'm grateful for it. It lasted barely five minutes, but it taught me some valuable life lessons. I share them here in the hope that they will help other women, especially if they have been victims of similar attacks:<br />
(1) Getting almost strangled by your sports bra is not an uncommon occurrence. It happens to a lot of people. If it happens to you, remember that <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/xxfitness/comments/4gu863/does_taking_a_sports_bra_off_get_easier_when_your/" target="_blank">you are not alone</a>.<br />
(2) It is not your fault. It is not your body's fault. Really, these particular clothing items should come with detailed instructions and a warning.<br />
(3) It helps if both parties are thoroughly dry.<br />
(4) There is something called an "attack bra" that is used to deter murderers and rapists. One cup holds a small knife, the other a small can of pepper spray. This has nothing to do with what happened to me. I just discovered it by accident as I was googling "attacked by sports bra" and found it interesting.<br />
(5) Even if you live, or are preparing to live, in a tiny house, it is worth investing in a sports bra with a hook-and-eye closure. I am told there are some very good ones out there.<br />
<br />
Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-8455574289112048622016-09-16T07:36:00.002-07:002016-09-16T07:36:43.262-07:00My Health Report<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-55XrY_Pm8Dw/V9v35LfzMpI/AAAAAAAACN0/a5bXrawXlZ0aDqunuXt-0wA_5HmyiLwQgCLcB/s1600/U.S.%2BNavy%2Bhula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-55XrY_Pm8Dw/V9v35LfzMpI/AAAAAAAACN0/a5bXrawXlZ0aDqunuXt-0wA_5HmyiLwQgCLcB/s640/U.S.%2BNavy%2Bhula.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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With only eight weeks to go until Election Day, the media is abuzz
with questions about coughing fits, fainting spells, and cholesterol counts.
For those of you who have been wondering about my own health status, here is a summary, compiled by me and vetted by my personal physician, Dr. Bernadette Tong, host of the popular podcast "Dr. Tong Explains It All for You." Dr. Tong received her degree from the University of the Republic of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati" target="_blank">Kiribati</a> in Oceania. For her full report, go to iTunes and download episode 4.</div>
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<b>I am 61 and female. </b>All of my original organs are intact—appendix, gall bladder, uterus, brain. Overall, I am in excellent physical condition. Boring, very boring.</div>
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<b>My height and weight are perfect.</b> As world leaders go, I am neither too tall nor too short. I am exactly the same height as Vladimir Putin, and slightly taller than Francois Hollande. In terms of size, I am eminently qualified
to lead our nation in these difficult times.</div>
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<b>I have an excellent memory. </b>If I want to be sure I don’t forget something, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/sep/08/what-aleppo-well-explain-it-you-and-gary-johnson/" target="_blank">like the name of a foreign capital at the epicenter of a U.S. military campaign</a>, I write it on a Post-It. (There’s a phone app for this but I don’t know how to use it. That’s what tech departments are for.)</div>
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<b>I have no hair issues whatsoever. </b>My follicles are extremely productive. Astonishingly so.</div>
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<b>My feet are ridiculously sensitive. </b>No president in U.S. history has ever had feet like mine.
Because of my hypersensitive feet, I cannot stand for four hours without a break. I require a chair, a parasol, and a Big Gulp cup with lots of ice. In extreme heat, I tend to grab the nearest fan-like object (spiral notebook, baseball cap) and wave it in front of my face like a maniac. Not very presidential, I admit.</div>
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<b>I have never had pneumonia,</b> but there is always a first time. If I do get pneumonia and my illness coincides with a can't-miss public appearance, I will do my best to power through it, with or without the Big Gulp cup, and if I fail, at least I will have tried. When people call me a weenie, or worse, for succumbing to pneumonia and heatstroke, I will refer them to Rule No. 44 of an etiquette handbook long used by American presidents: </div>
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"<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt;">When a man does all he can, though it succeed
not well, blame not him that did it."(1)</span></div>
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If you would care to know more about my health status,
please leave your inquiry in the comments section and I will come up with an
appropriate answer and get Dr. Tong to sign it.</div>
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xo Sadie</div>
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(1) <a href="http://www.foundationsmag.com/civility.html" target="_blank">George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation</a>, Foundations Magazine</div>
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Above: A hula ceremony honoring handover of the island of Kaho'olawe by the U.S. Navy to the state of Hawaii. I would need a chair and a Big Gulp cup for this.</div>
Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-90829805781668654492016-09-09T07:34:00.002-07:002016-09-09T07:42:25.026-07:00Would You Want This Job?<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ze0z0MxUI6o/V9KZHcKymWI/AAAAAAAACM0/4unEboE-4lYFrpAWxFOk8HTo51lH_-L0gCLcB/s1600/DolleyMadison_640x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ze0z0MxUI6o/V9KZHcKymWI/AAAAAAAACM0/4unEboE-4lYFrpAWxFOk8HTo51lH_-L0gCLcB/s640/DolleyMadison_640x400.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dolley Madison, the nation's first First Lady.</td></tr>
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If you were A-listed for a hostess job where you wouldn't have to (a) empty barf bags, (b) spray-starch your own apron, or (c) repeat “Welcome to Disneyland” ten thousand times a day, would you be interested? I would. And if I were in line for the nation's top hostess job, I would put my best foot forward and march.</div>
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So where are Bill and Melania? Has anybody seen them lately, handing out leaflets on the campaign trail and giving hope to the masses? No way. Melania is busy raising Little Donald, and Bill is busy being Bill. Obviously, neither one wants to be our next FLOTUS, which kinda pisses me off. I mean, it's not some paltry little pooh-pooh job, and it comes with some nice perks. Such as:</div>
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* <b>A floral designer, a social secretary, and an executive chef. </b>(See "parties," below.)<br />
<b><br /></b>
* <b><a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/08/my-position-on-white-house-bees.html" target="_blank">A beekeeper and 70,000 honeybees</a>.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
* <b>Respectability.</b><br />
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<b>* You get to write your own job description.</b> The role of FLOTUS is what you make of it, meaning you can pretty much do what you want and nobody will fire you. Obviously, a cigar aficionado who plays the sax, or a skin-care specialist who speaks Serbian, would bring new qualifications to the job.<br />
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<b>* You get to throw a lot of parties.</b> Although there's no <i>official</i> job description, the First Lady is regarded as the nation's number-one hostess. Not an easy task in Washington's toxic environment but way more entertaining than Bingo Night at the senior center. You gain points for putting political rivals at ease, and you lose points if they stab each other with their dinner forks. Dolley Madison set the standard. She left her calling card all over the city, and her parties packed the White House with so many Washingtonians that young people began calling them “squeezes.”<br />
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On the downside:<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--4IYUD0zV5g/V9KmHEhZCfI/AAAAAAAACNU/B-9AQQjqe7EB5GiOPKXeoB9DFs-GlQZlwCEw/s1600/William%2BHoward%2BTaft.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--4IYUD0zV5g/V9KmHEhZCfI/AAAAAAAACNU/B-9AQQjqe7EB5GiOPKXeoB9DFs-GlQZlwCEw/s320/William%2BHoward%2BTaft.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">President Taft. My husband <br />
has a similar mustache.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>* You get criticized a lot.</b> Abigail Adams was almost pilloried for hanging her laundry in the East Room. Caroline Harrison was castigated for modernizing the White House plumbing. Martha Washington wrote to a niece that she was “more like a state prisoner than anything else” and that she would “much rather be at home.” Eliza Johnson spent most of her time at the White House upstairs in bed.<br />
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<b>* You work your ass off 24/7 and you don't get paid.</b> That's right: No salary. The idea, which goes back to Martha Washington, is that your husband will share his.<br />
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My husband, as it happens, is very good at dinner parties. A regular Dolley Madison. He's French, but that shouldn't be a problem. Jefferson Davis was one of his ancestors, Mark Twain was another, and his mustache, which flips up at the ends, makes him look a little like President Taft. <a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/09/chef-patricks-all-finger-foods-5-course.html" target="_blank">Keep reading and you'll come to his All Finger Foods dinner menu in five courses</a>. He also makes an excellent steak tartare.<br />
xo Sadie<br />
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<b>PS:</b> Can we get over the fact that our future First Lady might be differently gendered? A lady plumber is still a plumber, not a plumbess, and a female Airman First Class is not an airwoman. If the title of First Lady was good enough for Eleanor Roosevelt, it is good enough for anybody.<br />
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Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-20724920401378138422016-09-09T04:47:00.000-07:002016-09-09T04:47:21.800-07:00Chef Patrick's "All Finger Foods" 5-Course Menu<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-elrwW9oXgV0/V9Kap1tIwwI/AAAAAAAACNA/HIDNEqPkGMstLh7YFHDQNVVt2lIeraPgQCLcB/s1600/Finger%2BFoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-elrwW9oXgV0/V9Kap1tIwwI/AAAAAAAACNA/HIDNEqPkGMstLh7YFHDQNVVt2lIeraPgQCLcB/s640/Finger%2BFoods.jpg" width="608" /></a></div>
The other night my husband and I were fantasizing, over cocktails on our little balcony above Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, about all the dinner parties we’d like to give once we're back in circulation. (His recovery from <a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/07/why-i-didnt-write-this-week.html" target="_blank">a collision with a VW minivan</a> is moving right along, and my recovery from an acute midlife crisis is progressing with cautious speed.) One of the menus we came up with is a five-course dinner of finger foods. The "mini-muffins" contain bits of sausage (a kitchen staple in our household). For an entrée, there's a choice of three: oysters on the half-shell, mussels (we have a method for eating these with your fingers), or poached shrimp with mayo. Main course: barbecued ribs with Vermont-grown ("Vermontoise") corn-on-the-cob, asparagus spears (the French consider this finger food), and steamed artichokes. There's a cheese course (of course) and, for dessert, an ice-cream cone or a candied apple mounted on a licorice stick. The recipe for the mini-muffins is one we clipped from the TV guide. If you would like a copy, send me an email. It's in French, but I'm working on a translation.</div>
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Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-12914762289320187592016-09-03T02:31:00.001-07:002016-09-03T02:31:09.435-07:00Pants on Fire! From the Department of Corrections and Clarifications<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2yHQaUw03Y4/V8qAAEBMr8I/AAAAAAAACMQ/gewtj1eZ6YIvCF4MvG70kinf2konWFRSQCLcB/s1600/Truth-O-Meter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2yHQaUw03Y4/V8qAAEBMr8I/AAAAAAAACMQ/gewtj1eZ6YIvCF4MvG70kinf2konWFRSQCLcB/s200/Truth-O-Meter.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
"<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The fact that the job [of POTUS] comes with a place to live is a plus for me, <i>since I am essentially homeless</i>, having spent the past five years living in my mother-in-law's apartment." <a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/08/questions-to-ask-yourself-before.html" target="_blank">—Questions to Ask Yourself Before Running for Prez</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Correction: I am not a homeless person. That whiny remark slipped into a post I wrote one week ago, when my housing situation was exactly the same as it is today. Soon after I hit "publish," a helpful friend pointed out that I have "a nice home" right in Randolph, the town where we both went to high school. In fact, I have two nice homes in Randolph. One is big and the other is small. The Big House is at the top of a small hill, and the Little House is at the bottom of the same hill. The Big House has a refrigerator but no bed, and the Little House has a bed but no refrigerator. I also have a set of keys to an apartment in France.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">And yet, I <i>feel</i> homeless. Why is that? Obviously, a question for a professional. (Warning: The following answer has not been vetted.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">First the Big House, the one on the hill. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">My parents bought it in 1945, and my husband and I lived there with my mother from 2007 to 2012; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011OCXSME/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" target="_blank">I have explored my relationship to it in depth</a>.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">In May a "For Sale" sign went up next to the front walk. In June, the sign began to sag slightly forward, as if depressed. In August, a big wind attacked the towering maple next to the garage and a large chunk of it landed on the roof. The roof has since been repaired, but I mourn the loss of the tree, which you could see from the kitchen sink; a family of squirrels lived there. I await with a mixture of hope and dread the day somebody buys the house.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">This brings us to the Little House. It is adorable and I love it. In May, I spent several weeks loading stuff into the back of a Subaru that used to belong to my husband and now belongs to my ex-husband (I lead a complicated life), and then driving the fully loaded Subaru from the Big House to the Little House, where I unloaded it. I did this many times. Then I took pictures of the Little House and put them on Facebook. Then I locked the door and returned to France.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The apartment in France does not belong to me. It belongs to my mother-in-law, who is in a nursing home. It is filled with her things. Her Louis the Umpteenth furniture, her Made in England teacups and Provencal platters, her designer dresses, her massive silk floral arrangements, her costume jewelry and elegant shoes, which I sometimes wear. To be honest, I am kinda tired of living with other people's things, however beautiful. I would like to live with my own things for a change. Hence, the Little House.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">I have not yet slept in the Little House, which does not yet have a bed. During the time I was moving, I stayed with a very kind friend. I have stayed with lots of very kind friends over the past few years. Did I mention that I also have a standing invitation to stay with my ex-husband at his apartment in New York City? When I'm there, I sleep on the couch. Like I said, I have a complicated life.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">When I say "I locked the door and returned to France" I am talking about the old door, which has since been replaced. That's because the Randolph Fire Department had to break into the Little House the night Polly's BBQ restaurant caught fire. Below</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> is a photo of the Little House as it looked in August, after the restaurant was demolished and the back wall of the Little House was replaced, along with the front door. The Nicest Landlord in the World sent this photo to me in an email. He said my stuff, which he moved out of the way of the demolition crew, was safe. xo Sadie</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of Phil Godenschwager.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f4800; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-19471406213436886112016-09-02T13:52:00.000-07:002016-09-03T00:18:36.592-07:00My Celebrity Quiz: Answers Revealed!<div style="text-align: left;">
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As promised, here are the answers to <a href="http://sadieandcompany.blogspot.fr/2016/08/famous-people-i-have-known-quiz_31.html" target="_blank">Wednesday's quiz</a>. If you feel you should have been included here and you don't see your name, <i>please contact me asap</i>.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.vulture.com/2015/10/margo-martindale-people-think-I-play-evil-women.html" target="_blank">1. Margo Martindale</a></b> (above, as Mags Bennett in the TV series <i>Justified</i>) read a poem at my wedding in Randolph Center, Vermont, in 1981. The groom, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Patrick-Husted/e/B00H7IH0YC" target="_blank">Patrick Husted</a>, was her ex-boyfriend, and the poem, which Margo chose herself, was “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” <span style="text-align: center;">She won her first Emmy a few years after her star turn at my wedding.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LLAh5WxMkLk/V8psqEh5hPI/AAAAAAAACME/8AI7uCM6iNk6TXlUmXTtVJTg-G9BZ7dRgCEw/s1600/star-trek-voyager-ethan-phillips-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LLAh5WxMkLk/V8psqEh5hPI/AAAAAAAACME/8AI7uCM6iNk6TXlUmXTtVJTg-G9BZ7dRgCEw/s320/star-trek-voyager-ethan-phillips-2.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ethan Phillips as Neelix.</td></tr>
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<b>2. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Phillips" target="_blank">Ethan Phillips</a></b> lent me his house in the Catskills while he went to L.A. to look for work. Mr. Phillips went on to play Neelix, a space alien and gourmet chef, on <i>Star Trek: Voyager,</i> and I had many encounters with his exterminator, whom we always referred to as "the Bug Man."<br />
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<b>3. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Glass" target="_blank">Julia Glass</a></b> was a copy editor in the Cosmo copy department when I was the copy chief, back before desktop computers. As chief, I hosted a weekly meeting where we ate croissants and discussed punctuation marks. <a href="http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_jglass.html#.V8nYZiN95O0" target="_blank">Julie went on to win a National Book Award</a> and I went on to write this blog.<br />
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<b>4. Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown</b> was my boss in 1979, before Hearst renovated the eighth floor of 224 West 57th Street and she finally got her own bathroom. Besides the paper towel that she handed me one day in the ladies room, she also gave me a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress, four Tiffany dessert plates, and a four-leaf clover that she plucked from her sister's lawn in Shawnee, Oklahoma.<br />
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<b>5. Martha Stewart </b>hired me to help expand her business empire, which was growing at such a rapid pace in the late 1990s that she eventually ran out of office space and had to move some of her staff into a warehouse in Chelsea. My job was to edit recipes for wedding cakes, and my desk was in a corridor outside the men's room.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Composer Nico Muhly; we had the same piano teacher.</td></tr>
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<b>6. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nico_Muhly" target="_blank">Nico Muhly</a></b> and I were born in the same hospital and had the same piano teacher: Florence Scholl Cushman of Randolph, Vermont. Nico’s mother, Bunny Harvey, introduced me to stuffed squash blossoms and his father, Frank Muhly, taught me how to eat shrimp. Nico wrote an opera that was performed at the Met; I quit piano lessons when my acting career began to take off, a chapter of my life that I wrote about in embarrassing detail <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011OCXSME/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<b>7. Bette Midler</b> and I started our respective careers in New York City, then moved to L.A. We moved back to New York City at almost exactly the same time, and we were both so appalled by the amount of trash that had accumulated during our absence that she started <a href="https://www.nyrp.org/" target="_blank">a beautification program</a> and I volunteered to pick up litter. (I actually met her face-to-face only once and I doubt she would remember me.)<br />
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<b>8. Bernie Sanders</b> visited the Randolph Senior Center in 2010, when I was a volunteer server. Senator Sanders told the Wednesday lunch crowd that Social Security is NOT going to bankrupt the U.S. government and anyone who says otherwise is full of crap (not his exact wording). He did not stay for the meat loaf.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lPWBFfYLcuI/V8nXvZdaGqI/AAAAAAAACLM/hACWJpYw81cxxmkQHiSAlMHdkmHPhC35gCLcB/s1600/Sara-Tucker-in-Moscow-1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lPWBFfYLcuI/V8nXvZdaGqI/AAAAAAAACLM/hACWJpYw81cxxmkQHiSAlMHdkmHPhC35gCLcB/s320/Sara-Tucker-in-Moscow-1000.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lost in Moscow for <i>Condé Nast Traveler.</i></td></tr>
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<b>9. <a href="http://www.townandcountrymag.com/author/2506/klara-glowczewska/" target="_blank">Klara Glowczewska</a> </b>was the editor in chief of <i>Condé Nast Traveler</i> in 2009 when the editors of the Stop Press news section (RIP), Kevin Doyle and Deborah Dunn, sent me to Moscow on a writing assignment-slash-scavenger hunt modeled after the reality TV show <i>The Amazing Race</i>. One of my assignments was to find an all-night pharmacy and buy aspirin.<br />
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<b>10. Jon Voight</b> was just about to start rehearsals for <i>Hamlet, </i><a href="http://hollywoodhiccups.com/2013/07/15/why-angelina-jolie-will-never-forgive-jon-voight/" target="_blank">the play that wrecked his marriage,</a><i> </i>in the summer of ’77 when he invited the play’s director to dinner at the Park Lane hotel in New York City. I was the director’s date. Marcheline Bertrand was there, too, and Angelina Jolie was asleep in a crib. I think it's fair to say that the production, which opened a few weeks later at Rutgers, was (a) not very good and (b) memorable only in that it changed the lives of everybody in that room. Jon Voight plays a minor role as the movie star <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011OCXSME/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" target="_blank">in this book</a>.Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416666235086290870.post-1196784277101615272016-08-31T09:01:00.000-07:002016-08-31T11:47:15.490-07:00I Occupied a Toilet Stall Next to This Famous Person!<!-------- Quiz Starts Here -------->
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My Celebrity Quiz</h3>
Whether you are opening a nail salon or running for public office, it helps to have famous friends. I have 10. See if you can guess who they are. (Answers will be published in this space on Friday, September 2, 2016.)<br />
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<li>Character actress who read a poem at my wedding.</li>
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<input name="ans1" type="radio" value="0" />Queen Latifah<br />
<input name="ans1" type="radio" value="0" />Maggie Smith<br />
<input name="ans1" type="radio" value="0" />Ellen Degeneres<br />
<input name="ans1" type="radio" value="1" />Margo Martindale<br /><br />
<li>Character actor who introduced me to his exterminator.</li>
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<input name="ans2" type="radio" value="0" />Danny Devito<br />
<input name="ans2" type="radio" value="0" />Steve Buscemi<br />
<input name="ans2" type="radio" value="0" />Gary Oldman<br />
<input name="ans2" type="radio" value="1" />Ethan Phillips<br /><br />
<li>Novelist with whom I shared a croissant.</li>
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<input name="ans3" type="radio" value="0" />Agatha Christie<br />
<input name="ans3" type="radio" value="0" />Philip Roth<br />
<input name="ans3" type="radio" value="0" />Brett Easton Ellis<br />
<input name="ans3" type="radio" value="1" />Julia Glass<br /><br />
<li>Magazine editor who handed me a paper towel in the ladies room.</li>
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<input name="ans4" type="radio" value="0" />Anna Wintour<br />
<input name="ans4" type="radio" value="0" />Oprah Winfrey<br />
<input name="ans4" type="radio" value="0" />Diana Vreeland<br />
<input name="ans4" type="radio" value="1" />Helen Gurley Brown<br /><br />
<li>Publishing magnate who made me sit in the hallway.</li>
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<input name="ans5" type="radio" value="0" />Rupert Murdoch<br />
<input name="ans5" type="radio" value="0" />Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.<br />
<input name="ans5" type="radio" value="1" />Martha Stewart<br />
<input name="ans5" type="radio" value="0" />Sun Myung Moon<br /><br />
<li>Classical composer who had the same piano teacher as me.</li>
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<input name="ans6" type="radio" value="0" />Stephen Sondheim<br />
<input name="ans6" type="radio" value="0" />Leonard Bernstein<br />
<input name="ans6" type="radio" value="0" />Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart<br />
<input name="ans6" type="radio" value="1" />Nico Muhly<br /><br />
<li>Singer who thanked me for picking up litter.</li>
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<input name="ans7" type="radio" value="0" />Luciano Pavarotti<br />
<input name="ans7" type="radio" value="0" />Beverly Sills<br />
<input name="ans7" type="radio" value="0" />Tina Turner<br />
<input name="ans7" type="radio" value="1" />Bette Midler<br /><br />
<li>U.S. Senator who shook my hand at the senior center.</li>
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<input name="ans8" type="radio" value="0" />Hillary Rodham Clinton<br />
<input name="ans8" type="radio" value="0" />Donald Trump<br />
<input name="ans8" type="radio" value="1" />Bernie Sanders<br />
<input name="ans8" type="radio" value="0" />Francois Hollande<br /><br />
<li>Editor who sent me to Moscow in February to buy aspirin.</li>
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<input name="ans9" type="radio" value="0" />Kurt Andersen of Spy magazine<br />
<input name="ans9" type="radio" value="0" />Graydon Carter of Vanity Fair<br />
<input name="ans9" type="radio" value="0" />William Shawn of the New Yorker<br />
<input name="ans9" type="radio" value="1" />Klara Glowczeska of Condé Nast Traveler<br /><br />
<li>Oscar winner who invited me to his room at the Park Lane hotel.</li>
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<input name="ans10" type="radio" value="0" />Al Pacino<br />
<input name="ans10" type="radio" value="0" />Robert DeNiro<br />
<input name="ans10" type="radio" value="1" />Jon Voight<br />
<input name="ans10" type="radio" value="0" />Fred Astaire<br /><br />
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Sara Tuckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209942411628040022noreply@blogger.com0