The Fabric Of My Niece

This is a picture of my gorgeous and talented niece, who just graduated from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia. She studied textile design and these are the designs she created for her final project.

I'm trying to lure her over here to Paris so she can see and touch all of the amazing fabrics over in the Saint Pierre district, just over the hill from me, as well as the African wax cloth over in Chateau Rouge. I think it will blow her mind and she may never want to go back to Philly.

Isn't she amazing?

The Sad Blue Bird Love Story

I've been holding off on giving you an update on The Bird, because I wanted to wait until the situation resolved itself. But, it has only evolved, without a final resolution. But that's OK, because this is my new life, where things don't have to be perfectly resolved, n'est-ce pas?

It's a lovely story, and a sad story. A magical story. Let me begin...

Last month, I was sitting on my bed, in my usual blogging position, minding my own business, with all the floor-to-ceiling doors flung wide open in our sixth-floor apartment. That's when a bird flew through one of the doors and perched itself on top of a large mirror we have. I saw it, out of the corner of my eye, as it flew in, and I noticed that it was blue. I was pretty amazed when I got closer to it and realized it was a blue parakeet. I wrote about it, and posted pictures of our blue bird visitor here.

We really did all we could think of to try and find this bird's owner, some of which was pretty funny. Like the fact that we made three different sets of signs, as we tried to find the correct French word for parakeet (we still don't know what it is). We told our guardien, and put a sign in the lobby of our building. Nobody called us. I also emailed our friend P, who is letting us use his apartment, to see if he knew of anyone who may have lost a parakeet. P is well known, and well loved, in the neighborhood, so I figured he'd know who owned birds. I told him we were concerned that our cat wanted to eat the bird, and we would prefer to find the bird's owner as soon as possible. Here's his interesting reply:

LISA & BARTOS
I'M PRETTY MUCH IN A SPEED PERIOD BUT WILL GET TO YOU SOON .KEEP THE
BIRD MEANWHILE AND WE WILL EAT THE CAT FOR DINNER .
ALL MY LOVE TO BOTH .
PM

Oh-kaaaay then!

We had no cage, so we locked the bird in the bathroom and I found some seed sticks for him at Monoprix and set out a bowl of water. My mother told me I was meant to have that bird, because it looked just like Barry, the bird we had and loved so much as kids.

One morning, I walked out of my apartment into the hallway and pressed the elevator button. At the same time, the mysterious inhabitant of the apartment next door also came into the hallway. And she was this tall, lovely girl. I smiled. She smiled. I said in bad French, "Madame, my French is not very good, but, do you know of anyone who might have lost a blue bird?" She looked a little confused and stepped back a bit. I continued in bad French, "It flew into my window but I have a cat, and the cat wants to eat the bird." "Oh!" she said. By this time, we were squeezed into the elevator together. It's a French elevator, the kind that fits one fat man or two skinny women. I'm not so skinny.

At the lobby, as we stepped out, she was speaking English with me, but we were interrupted by the Local Lecherous Larry who sidled up to my neighbor and said in good French, "She looks like Brigitte Bardot!" My neighbor laughed a little laugh and scooted out of his way. That was the end of our conversation.

The next day, That Guy was walking up the stairs and this same lovely neighbor asked him if she could come in and see the bird. He said, "Mais, bien sur!" She came into our bathroom and smiled and watched the bird and smiled some more. She didn't want to leave.

Days went by. Nobody called about the bird. That Guy and I liked the bird, but in our current situation, we don't need one more thing (for me) to worry about. We have our ritual. We take the bird's cage into the bathroom and cover it with a towel at night. And then when I get up in the morning, I change the bird's water and food, repeat "Pretty Bird!" 92 times in hopes his bird brain can memorize and repeat it, and then hang him in the sun outside, so he can talk to the huge African gray parrot on the balcony across the street.

A week or so later, P called me, out of the blue, so to speak. He told me he couldn't believe the miracle about the bird flying into my window. Then he told me why he thought it was a miracle.

He and our lovely lady next door had been very close friends. She had always wanted a parakeet. So, they went to all the pet shops along the Seine to see if they could find her one. They were all way too expensive. So, she researched it a bit, and found a place just outside of Paris where they breed parakeets. So, they took a motorcycle ride out there and she selected her bird. A blue bird. A blue parakeet. She brought her bird home, nurtured and loved her bird. She was in heaven.

Then one day, she had to go to Milan for work (she's an actress), and asked P to watch the bird. He said, "Masi, bien sur!" And off she went. P hung the bird's cage in the bathroom, just like we do now, and went to bed. Somehow, the bird escaped his cage during the night, and snuggled up in bed with P.

And P rolled over on it and killed it.

Now, you can understand why, when I asked my next door neighbor if she knew anyone who had "lost a blue bird" that she stepped back from me. She knew someone who had lost a bird, and it was herself. And you can understand why her very close friendship with P was not so close anymore.

For the next week or so, That Guy and I knocked on our neighbor's door many times. But there was no answer. We wanted to tell her that she could have the bird. That we wanted her to have it, as a gift.

One day, That Guy went out the door and pushed the elevator button. Our neighbor came out at the same time. That Guy said we wanted to give her the bird. She said she had been thinking of asking us if she could have the bird. He said we would love for her to have it, because we would know that it was well loved, and we could come and visit it. She said, "Mais, bien sur!" and they agreed that when she returned from her trip to Milan on Monday (this was last Monday), she would come and get the bird.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday went by. No neighbor. Finally, this past weekend, That Guy ran into her again. This time, she said, "I would prefer not to have the bird."

Ah. I'm sad. Sad for her, sad for our friend P, and sad for the bird. Maybe it was too much of a risk to take, after all she had lost before.

Now, we still have an unnamed bird. We have our ritual. The bird has not yet started to repeat Pretty Bird. But it squawks to be let out of its cage, while our cat Mao sits, worshiping at the foot of the cage, eyes squinting, mouth slightly open and drooling, nose sniffing, sometimes squeaking with desire, hoping upon hope, that we let the bird out of its cage.

This time, it would not be me, or That Guy, who would roll on it.

Video From Inside China

I watch many movies online. I doubt they are legal versions (come on over and handcuff me now), and many of them are hosted on a Chinese website called Tudou. This evening, I was trying to see if I could find a Japanese movie recommended by Mathew Yglesias called Hana-bi in Japanese, or Fireworks in English. When I got to Tudou, the search box seemed to be disabled, and all the videos on the front page were about the earthquake. You HAVE to go look. It's an inside view that I doubt any outside news agencies can get: http://www.tudou.com

Nothing (or Everything) Is Sacred

Since I was a little girl, I've wrangled with religion. When I was too young to be closed and cynical, I was open, bright-eyed, unquestioning. I remember when it was time to pick my confirmation name, I did some research, and I picked Saint Bernadette. There was something about her discovery, at the Virgin Mary's behest, of an underground spring, that appealed to me. And so, I became, Lisa Camille Bernadette Wines.

All my brothers and sisters were older than me. When the three eldest were licensed to drive, my parents let one of them drive, and we kids went to mass alone. What were our parents thinking? We ditched mass. I can't remember what we did instead. I just remember voicing my concerns, way back in the back seat of the car, about missing mass, and one of my brothers laughing at me, saying, "Wallow in your sinfulness!" That statement became a funny inside joke for all of us.

Later, when we moved to Arizona, we started going to a Tridentine Mass, that interesting version of Catholicism (think Mel Gibson) made up of people who thought that The Second Vatican Council was infested with multiple devil possessions and therefore they refused to accept the changes that resulted from that particular Council (turn the altar around to face the people, perform the Mass in the local language instead of Latin, etc.). Thus, everyone who resisted change, well, continued to resist change. Last time I checked, they still do.

I was 15, and admittedly rebellious. But I looked around at the congregation and saw what looked like those Mormon people that they recently rounded up so as to protect their minor children from sexual assault. One family in particular, with the tall militaristic Dad and his buzz-cut hair, his tired wife with dark circles under her eyes, and a line-up of 38, maybe 41, children. I think they were all girls. The mother and the girls all wore the same dresses, made by the mother. Everybody dressed weird. Everybody WAS weird. They still are.

I was no longer bright-eyed and open. I just sat there and thought about sex, and probably scowled. I was 15.

But does the fact that I lost my wistfulness and replaced it with disdain mean I had to toss out my confirmation name? Discard Bernadette like she was some cheap trick I picked up and forgot about after she, and her magical underground spring water, no longer interested me? I walked away from religious fanaticism, religious stuck-ness, religious judgment, religious shame. But I think that maybe Bernadette is still inside me, freshly washed, and sacred.

My images of the Virgin Mary have also sustained. Belief isn't a part of the issue. It's not important to me whether Mary existed at all, or if she really did have an immaculate conception and bore the child of God without having had the pleasure of a big sweaty hump n' bump in the hay with ol' Joseph. It's all so unimportant. It's what Mary stood for, in my mind, that mattered: gentleness, creativity, softness in a sometimes harsh world. When feeling helpless about the recent victims of the cyclone in Burma, the earthquakes in China, the overwhelming sadness of America's destruction of Iraq and its people, I can only close my eyes and conjure up my only vision of grace, Mary with her soft robe, encircling those millions of suffering men, women and children.

Unfortunately, the whole God concept just keeps pissing me off. Unfortunately for God, he's been defined as a guy. A mean guy. A truculent guy. A guy you have to plead with for mercy. A guy you have to prove your worth to. A guy who can flick you off the face of the earth without a backward glance. A guy you have to obey, or else. This is all just a really bad marketing strategy as far as I'm concerned. God should fire his publicist, and start a re-do of his image. Hell, if a stylist can make Howard Stern sexy, God would be a piece of cake. Wild horses couldn't drag me into a belief system that has some guy like that as it's titular (pardon me) head.

Jesus seems less nasty, being that he deigned to walk on earth amongst the hoi polloi and hung out with prossies. (I like that Mary Magdalen part of the story). His message was about love, evidently, but most fanatical Christians these days have forgotten all about that. Hate and self righteousness has much more power.

Despite all of this, have I ever experienced the sacred? Yes. There have been swoonful moments in my life. I have had no visions of the Virgin Mary, but would welcome one. I have lots of things to chat with her about. I once saw Jesus' framed picture in a guru lineup on the back wall of the Self Realization Fellowship church in Phoenix, Arizona. I smiled and thought, "Yeah. There you are, in the company of your peers. You go, boy." Then I failed miserably helping the church womens at the Sunday ice cream social. I committed the sin of taping the paper table cloths onto the picnic tables, while allowing bits of tape to show. This got me thrown out of the kitchen, and relegated to assisting a nice man and his son as they were blowing up balloons, tying them into happy, bouncy clusters. They welcomed me as an assistant (I've always fared better with men), and asked me if I would take on the job of tying the balloon clusters to the tent poles and anywhere else I deemed appropriate. It was when I was tying a bright orange cluster to the easel on which was lovingly placed Paramahansa Yogananda's painted portrait, that I made my biggest mistake. "ORANGE! You can't put orange balloons near the portrait of the master!" Or whatever they called their revered guru. Two women were horrified at my, I guess, mortal sin. Ol' PY was laughing from his floating lotus in the sky, I gar-uhn-tee.

I don't know about you, but as soon as people start worshipping a scroll or papyrus or book that was written by a bunch of guys, or worshipping a freakin' picture of somebody, it's time for me to go. So, I exited the companionship of that church and all others. It was my lesson that every time you organize a religion, the organized get stuck.

Now, spiritually lonely, I look about me and try to rise above my self-centeredness to see the sacred. I'm sure it exists. I'm sure of it in that wide-eyed, open way, even though miracles are on the decline (not counting eBay virgin cheese sandwiches). I sometimes look at That Guy across the room and know he is a child of the sacred. I look at all my students that way too. Before they even walk into my classroom for the first time. And since I'm in Europe, where classrooms are full of students of all colors, languages and origins, even them thar axees of eevuhl, I am more acutely aware of the sacredness of humanity.

And every once in a rare while, when I can set my anger aside, the acrid, fermenting stuff that covers up my deep, dark, spiritual sadness, my disappointment in those spiritual "betters" whom I've met along the road, when I can see beyond my own personal shame to the light of redemption, I can sometimes feel sacred myself.

I need to take a dip in Bernadette's sacred spring more often, and as I climb out of the cool, refreshing pool of purity and grace, there will be a delicate hand offering me her rose-scented robe, blue with sparkling stars, with which I can dry myself, and feel safe in the warmth of her loving embrace.

This post was inspired by an article by David Brooks in The International Herald Tribune, entitled Neural Buddhists. It may seem unrelated, but somehow, I think it's not.

Truth & Beauty Put Your Hands On Me

My blog pal Erik over at the Truth & Beauty blog just got nominated for the Best Massage Therapist in Austin!

Go on over to his blog and say congratulations and if you're in Austin...make an appointment and then write a review about him here. Then we can all be jealous.

Awards For The Unclean

If you were a little birdie, perched on a mirror in my apartment right now, or a little mousie peeking out of a crack in my wall, if the CIA were bugging my apartment right now, all of you would understand why this particular Predator Press Temporary Lifetime Achievement Award is at the same time hilarious and horrifying:


I am SO not the Good Housekeeper. But...I'm grateful, nonetheless. For the award. Not for being a Bad Housekeeper. I want to be like the Good Housekeeper lady that owns the parrot across the street. Every day, her balcony changes. Some days it's stacked neatly with crates of oranges and onions. They don't last long. I imagine she uses them all to make a huge couscous for her many Middle Eastern hip-hop sons. The next day her balcony is draped with sheets, jeans and horrible cheap blankets with huge tigers on them and rainbows and shit. The next day: oranges and onions.

I've seen this woman. She wears a little scarf on her head as she cleans and cleans and cleans. I've been tempted to call out to her, but never have.

YOOHOO! Say there! Voulez-vous do that over here some time?

Constant Comment

When I was a little girl, I spent a lot of time with my mother. I was the youngest of six kids, and my brothers and sisters were at least four years older than me, so they were all at school. I also enjoyed a lot of time alone, on my back in the grass in the back yard, staring up through the trees at the Pennsylvania sky. I'd watch the birds flutter around the edges and dive into my mother's stone bird bath. Below the bird bath sat a small stone sculpture of a little girl. I was with my mother at an antique store when she bought it. There's a story about it. I think either I found it and loved it, or the store owner said it looked like me and gave it to my mother.

Whatever the case, it had a broken nose, just like my mother, just like me.

There were many childhood days, during the thick, green summer, when I'd crawl under pyracantha bushes way in the back left of the yard. I'd feel like I had my own secret fort. I can still remember the smells of nature under those bushes, as they changed through the seasons: from just sprouting daffodils, to sweltering red roses, to crisp disintegrating fallen leaves. Just on the entrance of my secret hiding place was the pussy willow tree. I would stand below it and stroke the satiny buds. I loved how their creamy whiteness juxtaposed against the deep brown of their branches. I loved that I could bring a bunch of branches inside and keep them in a vase in my bedroom. They would last for a long, long time.

The other day, I had a nice afternoon lunch with my new friend, whom I'll call Lorna, at her lovely apartment in Paris. Her apartment was like a Zen garden to me: spacious, gleaming wood floors, nothing superfluous, nothing out of place. Lorna insisted that she was much messier, and the apartment only looked this perfect because her new love was coming into town in a few days. I suspect this isn't quite true, as I saw her closet, with everything neatly folded and arranged by color. I think Lorna is neat and orderly all the time. But she said, "Sometimes, I leave dishes in the sink for days!" I believe Lorna was being kind to me.

Sometimes, I just close my eyes so I don't see the dirt and clutter that surrounds me. The bird seed, the kitty litter, the crumbled chocolate cookies. I used to just take my glasses off, but after laser surgery, everything is glaringly, inescapably clear. Perhaps a mask would be best. I could dress up like Zorro. On second thought, the mask would be cool, but the black cape would be covered in cat fur in under 30 seconds. Perhaps I just need a weekly bulldozer, or a fire hose. Perhaps a Japanese Geisha army who, upon their tittering downcast-eye arrival, leave their black lacquered sandals outside my door and spend a few hours sliding around the apartment in their gleaming white, two-toed socks. They would have to slide up the walls, skate along the edges of the bathtub and sink, but maybe then, after all that, my apartment would be clean. And Zen-like.

Lorna had prepared a quiche, full of potatoes and leeks and mushrooms and cheese. She was also excited to use her tea pot for the first time. The one she'd purchased in Germany over a year ago, to match the tea cups she had bought the year before that. But her best friend in Germany had trouble getting away from work long enough to come and visit Lorna in Paris and deliver the tea pot. Thus, the tea pot waited patiently in Germany, until it could come just last week and settle, Zen-like, into Lorna's Paris kitchen. It was fat, and green, and smelled like earth, as all tea pots should.

I had my tea with milk, and sugar, like I never, ever do.

From my place at the table, I saw what looked like a terrarium behind Lorna on the side table. It was a shallow glass bowl, about twelve inches in diameter, covered with plastic wrap. "What is that?" I asked, as my teeth crushed the outside of a baguette, revived with Lorna's secret method: throw leftover fresh French bread in the freezer, take out and crisp it in the oven for three (exactly three) minutes. Fresh, as if she had just bought it from the downstairs bakery minutes before my arrival.

"That is moss from Vermont. I missed it, so I smuggled it here the last time I was home. As a matter of fact, most of the plants in this apartment came from plants I had at home."

And then she proceeded to tell me the story of her grandmother's plant. The kind that has long tendrils with little octopus-style babies. Just pull the baby off, plant it, and it becomes a new plant. Lorna loved her grandmother. So she took a piece of her grandmother's plant many many years ago. Since then, all members of the family have babies from grandma's plant. There were several grown-up babies here in Lorna's Paris apartment. She promised that I too could have a baby from this antique family heirloom. I would be honored.

As I listened to Lorna talk about her family and her plants, I was transported back to Pennsylvania. To my own form of moss, the deep green of our back yard grass. I could smell it in my mind's eye, while I worried, even to this day, that I should be careful not to go barefoot and step on any bees hovering around the clumps of clover.

As I sipped tea with Lorna in Paris, I remembered sitting outside as a child on our back patio, at an antique ice cream parlor table, with its two matching heart-backed chairs. Neatly arranged, with the help of my mother, were two tea cups, some cookies on a plate, and my very own teapot: a Constant Comment tea tin. It was my mother's favorite tea - that enchanting combination of tea and orange peal and delicate, never overpowering, spices. My mother would fill my tin with cold water, and put the top on to give it "time to steep." I would sit, with my hands in my lap, and wait the appropriate amount of time for the tea to be ready. Then, I would ask my doll if she would like some tea, and with her shy assent, I took the top off the tin, and poured us both some tea. There was enough tea in the bottom of that tin to slightly scent the water, and refresh both me, and my doll.

On my way out of Lorna's apartment, after one of the best days I'd had in quite a while, I stopped to stroke the satiny bulbs on a bunch of pussy willow branches that Lorna had arranged, artfully, and calmly, in a tall glass vase on her mantle. In Lorna's care, they would last a long, long time.

Burma/Myanmar Help

By way of coffeesister (blog, twitter) I found this Pistachio Consulting blog post that gives detailed links of bloggers inside Burma, so that you can get first-hand information. There are also links for non-traditional and traditional aid. There are some individuals who are traveling into Burma, to whom you can send money or you can buy their art. I've been feeling helpless about this situation, with even UN aid being blocked, impounded or delayed by the junta government. However, this post gives many, many resources for aid and information. Please check it out.

On The Right Side Of The Tracks

That Guy is the original energizer bunny, who likes to be out and about, continuously uncovering the musty secrets (since the newer, cleaner ones aren't as interesting) of his adopted city. He ventures out alone, but he much prefers that I go with him. What fun is a discovery, if you have nobody to go Wow! with?

Recently, after he came home from one of his forays, he grabbed my hand and lured me down to a new discovery, the neighborhood garden of the 18th arrondissement. It lies just down the street from us, just inside the Périphérique (beltway) that runs in a class-defining circle around the outside edges of Paris.

The garden has taken up residence on the platform alongside some train/Metro tracks that seem to be unused, based on the amount of tall green grass that grows between the rails.

As you stand on the platform on the North side of the tracks, and look through the fence, you can see graffiti-filled walls on the South side. As the plants in the garden begin to bloom, their colors juxtapose nicely with the graffiti.


Just over a week ago, when That Guy first took me there and I looked down upon the garden from the street above, I was in awe, as it was still trying to be spring and we were still cold. The beginnings of flowers gave me hope that spring would finally arrive. I also tried to read the signs on the gate, one of which was a big "no dogs" sign, but That Guy grew impatient. As I started to say, "Are we allowed to do this?" That Guy, who doesn't believe in permission, opened the gate and we walked down the garden steps.

We wandered along the pathways, where weathered wooden tables and French cafe chairs were nestled in between garden plots. There were some people there, as well as a film crew that was just cleaning up after their shoot. An older lady (well, like my age) beckoned to us to come up the steps to her garden level, and with my bad French I found out that the garden was run by a neighborhood gardening association. Anyone can join for 10 Euros. The garden is locked, unless one or more of the gardeners are in there working. If it's locked and you are a member, you can pick up the key from the bar on the corner. For some reason, I especially love that little detail.

I took some pictures, and did my penance, which was to say over and over again, "Yes, That Guy, you were right, this is the coolest thing ever, and there was no reason for me to be afraid to come here." Of course, this is not enough, because now he wants to get some plants and tools and go back and start digging in his own plot. Give them an inch, and they take a mile, n'est-ce pas? I, of course, need to know more about the rules.

A few days ago, in the early evening when the weather was so fine and warm, That Guy suggested that we grab some books, musical instruments and a bottle of 98 centime Champagne, push Mao into her container, and go have a little pre-dinner picnic at the neighborhood garden. I was still a little nervous, but went along anyway. We picked one of the tables and set our things down. Suddenly, a shirtless oldster with crooked glasses, loose-fitting shorts and deck shoes, literally hopped in front of us and cheerfully, but with an audible question mark, said, "Bonjour!?" as he stuck out his hand for a shake. We smiled. That Guy shook. I introduced us as Les Simpsons (inside joke, which he didn't get). Our French was bad enough that he continued to smile and then he said, "Bon. Au revoir!" and literally hopped away from us.

Phew! We didn't get thrown out! (I am SUCH a pussy.)

We let Mao out of her carrier and she ran directly into a garden plot and sat on the cool earth, under big bushes of fragrant sage, and peered out at me. I sat down to sip my cheap Champagne out of a yogurt glass, and read my book. That Guy said, "Oh! There's my cat!" and walked off to greet a big black bruiser kitty he had seen the last time he had visited the garden. He dragged the dusty old cat, and a woman, back down the trail to meet me. Mao stayed silent in her little hiding place.

It turns out that the woman spoke great English, lived in a building just above the garden, and was a singer/songwriter. She told us that there were two resident garden cats, the big boy we had already met, and his sister. All the gardeners fed the cats, but the boy cat had figured out where she lived and would come to her front door and wail if he was hungry. He rolled in the dirt, paws up in the air, delighted to know we were talking about him. The gardeners had built little boxes for the cats here and there, and that's where they lived and ate. Our hopping gardener was in the process of building an even better house for them. His hammering and sawing drifted down the pathway towards us.

The woman left, saying that she hoped she would see us again. We introduced Mao to the big bruiser kitty. Mao rolled about submissively. Bruiser cat feigned disinterest and then made some threatening lunges, but was curtailed by That Guy. No big thang. The sun started to fade, so it was getting on to about 7 or 8pm. Time to push Mao back into her carrier and head on home for dinner.

I wonder if they sell the gardening memberships at the bar where they keep the key?

My First Published Essay

Well, that is, if we forget about my incredibly important writing debut in the March 1985 (?) edition of Printed Circuit Board Design magazine, with my salacious article entitled The Relationship Between Design Rules And Routability.

You're forgiven if you missed that one. If you're interested in reprints however, please flood the magazine with multiple special request emails and demand that this amazing literary piece be loosened from their greedy, holdin'-me-back grip.

Meanwhile, I am proud to have a published essay in the May issue of The Cad magazine, in their Siren section. The essay is entitled: Channeling Marilyn Monroe in a Kate Moss World, by Lisa Wines. This isn't a permanent link, so next month's siren piece will replace this one. So get on over there and read my essay.

You can also download the entire May issue here. (pdf)