September 2017 – Out My Window

Going to Poitiers and my first Destination Wedding

When I mentioned to French friends that I was going to my first Destination Wedding, most of them looked blankly at me. I had to explain that it was the latest trend among young Americans to pick a beautiful or exotic place to be married, invite all your friends and family and pray they liked you enough to spend the money and plan a vacation around it.

Blakely, younger sister of my Goddaughter, Elizabeth, chose a chateau outside of Poitiers: St Julien de l’Ars. By the end of the weekend, I learned it was actually her father who did the choosing. But never mind, how we all got there, 65-70 people showed up to wish Blakely and her fiancé, Josh, a champagne drenched Bon Voyage on their new adventure of marriage. I was impressed by the amount of people that flew from Boston, Florida, Tennessee, New York and New Jersey as well as California where I’m from.

I was the only invited guest who lived in France. It’s a quick trip on the TGV (France’s speed train) to Gare de Poitiers. I had booked an AirBnB and had the opportunity to walk around the Centre Ville before meeting the shuttle that would take many of the guests out to the Chateau. Poitiers seems to be a sleepy town. In the three days I was there, I never saw many people out and about. Even when I found the Saturday morning marché at Place Charles de Gaulle, people were scarce.

The wedding party and immediate family stayed at the Chateau St. Julien de l’Ars. The rest of the invited guests stayed in hotels and AirBnBs in Poitiers. We were shuttled out to St. Julien de l’Ars in one of the comfortable buses that tourists often use for traveling in Europe. We were greeted by a Chateau, hundreds of years old, not in great shape, but I imagine would be high on every little girl’s dream of where to have a story book wedding.

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A french friend told me there are a couple of thousand of these old Chateaux in France. They are expensive to keep up and a large percentage are for sale. The immediate history of St. Julien is that the owners are an American couple. He was in a theatre group years ago and they used to come to the Chateau for practice and entertainment. When it went up for sale, he and his wife bought it. It was full of antiques which disappeared the same year the Americans purchased the property. The antiques are probably in hiding or have been sold. The Chateau is rented for large events like destinations weddings.

There is an enormous amount of work that now needs to be done and the couple cannot afford it. So after owning the chateau for eighteen years, they have put it up for sale again. Anyone have a couple million euros?

It was old home week for many of the guests. And also for me. I had not seen Blakely’s mother, Darcy, in a long time. Once she moved away from the Bay Area it was harder to keep up constant contact. She and Blakely’s dad were divorced and I hadn’t seen that side of the family since I’d been to Maine for a big birthday party for Blakely’s uncle. Time really does smooth away a lot of wrinkles. Things that seemed so important once upon a time seem completely irrelevant now. I was very grateful that I’d made the effort to get to Poitiers.

Even though the weather report called for rain, nature smiled on Blakely and Josh. Chairs were set up in a grove covered by towering trees that seemed an endless archway. A duo of string musicians played music while the wedding party walked from the chateau to the grove. Blakely, ever resourceful and a strong proponent of recycling, wore her grandmother’s wedding dress that she, herself, worked on so that it fit her perfectly. The service was lovely, short and sweet. The champagne toast that followed was highlighted by a “Cheese Cake” which Blakely promised had no sugar and no flour.

I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that these weddings of close ‘family’ that one has known their entire life are bitter sweet. I kept looking at this beautiful, enchanting and friendly woman with such composure and saw the little girl that I had known. In 1991, when she was 5 years old, my home in Oakland burned down in the Big Oakland Firestorm. Blakely made me promise that I wouldn’t rebuild a house in wood. I didn’t.

Blakely and Josh with the western sky in St. Julien

I felt so happy for her and so proud of her. Yet this feeling of ‘where has the time gone?’ surrounded me. It didn’t last but I had to work at it.

Blakely at the end of the evening. Photo by Darcy Hartmann

Amazingly enough, everyone who made the trip to come to France to celebrate Blakely and Josh’s wedding thought it was well worth it. It showed me how loyal their friends are.

A bientôt,

Sara

The Scarred Woman

It’s about time for another book review of a favorite author. So while I prepare my blog on my very first ‘Destination Wedding”, get out your reading glasses and prepare yourself with one of the earlier books while waiting for the release of the The Scarred Woman.

The Scarred Woman

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Pub Date 19 Sep 2017

After I discovered and read, along with the rest of the world, the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy by Steig Larsson, I scarfed down every Scandinavian mystery/crime thriller I could find. I didn’t care if I’d never heard of the author, experience was teaching me that the books were sometimes good and often great. I don’t remember reading a poor one.

I was excited to discover two books by an author I’d not heard of, Jussi Adler-Olsen, a Dane, at a neighborhood book sale. They were both in practically perfect condition. Either the owner prior to me took extraordinarily good care of paperbacks or s/he was put off by the length of these mysteries. Her loss.

The two books I picked up happened to be the first two books in the series about Department Q. One certainly doesn’t have to read them in order–there are seven in all including The Scarred Woman–but I have loved being witness to the evolution of the main characters and Department Q itself. The first book details the beginning of Department Q, a demotion for Carl Morck who, although an excellent detective, is surly and on the outs with many of his colleagues. Department Q is created, in the bowels of the basement, for him to work on cold cases. He is given an assistant, Assad, a Muslim Dane, with a mysterious and dubious history. The two attempt to solve unsolvable cases.

As the series moves on, Carl and Assad get another member of the team, Rose. Rose is as off beat as the other two and the interactions between the three of them provide a levity much needed to balance the gruesome Nordic mystery and murders.

By the seventh book, years have passed, Carl and his team have become famous for solving hideous past crimes. They have saved each others’ lives and there is a strong if unspoken affection between all the team members that keeps the reader involved in these lengthy books. A fourth member has joined the team. Gordon has a serious crush on Rose and, as The Scarred Woman moves along, is traumatized by the fact that something is seriously emotionally wrong with Rose. The Chief of Police has retired and he, too, is falling apart after the death of his wife. However, a recent death looks to him like a murder as it is so similar to one seventeen years ago that he worked on. He is intrigued and asked Carl to look into it.

Meanwhile, another story of three beautiful but lazy, entitled girls, determined to marry rich men while living off their lies to their Social Worker, seems completely unrelated. Nothing happens without a reason and nothing happens quickly. For me, this is part of the charm of this series. We think along with Carl and Assad and sometimes the murderer. There are many many threads going at the same time much as life and the juggling of priorities and time are not unfamiliar to most of us. We are amused by the repartee between Carl and Assad especially and astounded by the many sides of Rose. The books are long, 500 to 600 or more pages but Adler-Olsen is such a good writer and so adapt at bringing the reader along far a wonderful ride that one feels we’re reading about distant friends. I never wanted any of the books to end.

I’ve always wondered how authors like Ruth Rendall, Adler-Olsen and a number of the Scandinavian writers come up with people and crimes that are pure evil. Some authors spend time making sure the reader understands that the murderer is a victim also, hostage to his or her past. I wouldn’t call Adler-Olsen’ books psychological thrillers as a number have now been labeled. He entertains us, he scares us and, often, he provides background to explain some of the horror but doesn’t dwell on it. As someone who worked in a psychological profession, I can say that he has definitely done his research. But then to create these masterful jigsaw puzzles from his research and extraordinary mind is true literary genius to me. One of the books says he is the No 1 bestselling author in Denmark. I didn’t know that as I’d never heard of him before this summer but I don’t doubt it.

If you are a true mystery/thriller fan and also like good writing, read this book and oh by the way, read the other five books also so that you became part of Department Q!.

Biography

Carl Valdemar Jussi Henry Adler-Olsen (born August 2, 1950) is a Danish author, publisher, editor and entrepreneur. Jussi Adler-Olsen’s career is characterised by his great involvement in a wide range of media related activities. In 1984, he made his debut as a non-fiction writer. 1997 saw his debut as a fiction writer. His latest novel is The Boundless (Den Grænseløse) (2014) is the 6th volume in the Department Q series.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Lesekreis (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

A bientôt,

Sara

The further adventures of Bijou, the cat

While I was in the United States, January through May, Bijou was living the life of Riley. She stayed with a friend who has quite a large apartment, consisting of three large bedrooms, a living room plus and a dining room plus. Bijou had the run of the place. And she literally could run in a circle going through almost every room. She loved hiding under my friend’s bed, she would go to sleep on the kids’ book bags, she would sit on the back of a sofa for hours making those funny kitty noises every time she saw a bird and she made herself at home wherever she could. She knew she was only a guest and never jumped up on a table or workspace as she did at my apartment.

Once Spring came, things started to get a bit dicey. The apartment is on the 6th floor. Each room has a minimum of two ceiling almost to the floor windows. And every window had a little balcony where healthy plants were waiting for the sun. The windows would be thrown open and Bijou, with tons of cat curiosity, would go exploring. Just sitting on the little balcony was not enough. She would jump up on the railing and when any of the family walked by, she would just look innocent. While the family member had a small heart attack terrified Bijou would fall to the pavement and use up all her nine lives at once.

One very hot in July night, my friend decided to leave all the windows open. She could see that Bijou was near the balcony but opted for taking care of herself first. The next morning, when she called Bijou, Bijou was nowhere to be found. She went looking everywhere and, after an hour, she was formulating a conversation with me to tell me that Bijou had disappeared. Just as she picked up her phone, she saw Bijou looking pathetic outside her son’s window. That window was not open the night before. Neither of us even wanted to think how Bijou managed to get to that balcony from the opposite side.

When I finally moved into my own apartment in early August, I came and got Bijou and, for the first time in eight months, we were living together. I have a large terrace with a railing. The top of the railing is 4″/10cm thick. I’m on the 7th floor. Each room has glass doors that open up on the south side of my building and it is necessary in warm weather to have them open. Bijou loves the terrace and spends a lot of her time there. At first, she would jump up on the railing and I was the one having a heart attack. If I screamed or did something panicky, I was afraid I would scare her and she’d fall. I would clap my hands very loud which has always been my signal to her that said “No”. She would jump down. As soon as I went inside, she’d jump up again and nonchalantly go walking over to the next door neighbor’s apartment.

Bijou always comes when I call her. She is basically a very good cat. She is learning not to jump up on the railing and does it rarely now. I’m still too nervous to leave the doors to the balcony open in the night when I’m sleeping or when I leave the apartment. I don’t know why. I truly don’t think anything would happen to her. Cats have such an innate sense of balance and perspective of distance. But……I don’t ever want to be in the position of saying “If only…..If only I’d done the right thing” So doors stay closed at night, open during the day. Sara, the police, periodically wanders the apartment looking for any cat trouble Bijou may have gotten in.

Bijou, who was bought off the streets of Paris 2 1/2 years ago, has grown into a sweet cat. I’m completely aware that the catcapades she gets into are completely in line with her job description. She also likes to be in the same room as people. She likes to sleep at the foot of the bed. When she was very little she discovered a teddy bear of mine and to this day treats the bear like the mother she never had. She will walk up slowly, sniff it then realizing it is mama bear, she will start kneeding the bear and collapse in pleasure while her front paws go in and out of the bears tummy. I’m always so grateful it’s not my tummy. My friend, Fatiha, adores Bijou and makes her toys out of whatever she finds lying around. She gets Bijou to jump 4 feet high then teases her by pretending to throw a ball. Bijou doesn’t care. She adores Fatiha back and if Fatiha wants to play, that’s what Bijou will do.

And now you are caught up with the adventures of the fur ball living with me!!!

A bientôt,

Sara

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It’s about time for another book review of a favorite author. So while I prepare my blog on my very first ‘Destination Wedding”, get out your reading glasses and prepare yourself with one of the earlier books while waiting for the release of the The Scarred Woman.

The Scarred Woman

Biography

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