Fight for the right

Some months back, we were shopping at Auchan with a friend here in France, talking about a zone in the center of the hypermarket set off to offer cheaper products – buy cookies and candies by the pound and off-brands of staples like coffee and sugar. Our friend said he wasn’t sure that it was a great sales strategy, because, as he put it, “the poor don’t like to reminded that they’re poor.” Au contraire, we answered -  where we come from, everyone likes a bargain. In the US, you’ll see fur coats raking around in the No Frills Zone.

Chez nous,  saving a buck is no shame, for those that got and those that ain’t got alike. But complication sets in when you consider also to what point  those that ain’t got still count on getting a flat screen TV. In fact, we suspect that the right to bear flat screens was on the way to becoming Amendment 28  before the news  turned gloomy enough to be noticed even by people who don’t use their flat screens to keep breast of  the news.

Well, on Thursday, Panasonic slashed its annual profit forecast by 90% - blaming a “nasty economic cocktail” that included a rising yen, write-downs and of course – a drop in flat screen sales. Add that to the events of  this year’s Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving when stores attempt to get themselves “back to black” by slashing prices and opening doors in the wee hours of the morning. This year a Walmart employee was trampled and killed when he opened up to a desperate crowd in Long Island, New York., and two people were killed in a gun battle outside a Toys R Us in Palm Desert, California. Watching the news reports of sales all over the country, you’ll see flat screen TV’s figuring prominently.

 

SECOND LIFE, AU SECOURS

Last night we met with two heads of IT departments to talk about teaching a class of young engineers about managing projects. Nothing unusual in that, we’re glad to have the work. And it is a sign of optimism, to think that if the interesting work projects ever get scarce in this life, there’s a whole alternative reality just waiting around. That’s us, by the way, between the guy in Texas and the other guy, who's in France. After the meeting adjourned we went back to change our outfit. We made a skirt out of a picture the guy in Texas sent. Then we wandered aimlessly around and got stuck in some 16^th century scooner left lying around. We think we’re still there – so when we get to work, we’re going to have to ask the IT department for a teleportation pass. How embarrassing. 

Is that who I think it is?

We had a boyfriend in New York when we were 26 years old -  that time in life when everything seems possible – or let’s take it even further: in enshrined moments nothing is IMpossible.  That’s what we were lucky enough to believe in and experience in late 1970’s New York City.

We’re still here today to reassure you that this is true. One of the glorious joys of growing older (and there are many lest you doubt) is that you get to see how the story turns out.

The boyfriend wanted only one thing in life – to be a star. To be a MAJOR star, he used to say. OK, he meant in the movies. But when he finally got his wish,  it was only television. And he went through a kind of hell first (as you do) to get there . But what makes life interesting is the detours- the one step forward, two steps, no, SIX steps back that are involved.

BTW, we’ve got our own story – A Movie of the Week if ever there was one. And soome nights, Dear Reader,  we pop the old corn, put the feet up, and just dream away in perfect contentment.  

WHOOOAH!

Things seem to be getting serious. It’s not anything we can put our finger on. We’ve still got the job and the mortgage. But we find ourselves buying lottery tickets. In fact, together with a small group of friends, we’ve resolved that we will buy some tickets every week and that if anything comes thorough, we will share out the proceeds and…we’ll be saved somehow. We’re all of a certain age (let’s say post “Sex and City”), and we’re starting to get the notion that this might be the only way left to entice that ship to finally dock where it outta.

We don’t remember thinking along these lines before. (Given this new found interest, we vow to stay away from Texas Hold ‘Em  and one-armed bandits). It’s true that we were once on a game show (the Pyramid, mid-70’s, Dick Clark and all. He told us a dirty joke.) We won 1100 dollars and set of steak knives from Airwick. And we still have the steak knives.

Tonight, at the Centre Commercial to do the weekly shopping, we got three of those sweepstakes tickets. We dutifully stood in line in front of the clanging booth with the other shoppers. Everyone seemed sheepish, trying to laugh alittle at the manical desperation of the supermarket. An upbeat bread line, a leering carnival. Men, women, children shuffling past, music swooping down, loss after loss, the voice saying, “jetez votre ticket.” My turn, I shrugged, shared a wry look with strangers. But then…whoop whoop whoop. Gagné. TWO EUROS!

I suddenly felt a cut above the rest. I’ll be back for more.

 

 

When we look outside our window

While today is Veterans Day in the US, over here it’s Armistice Day. In the US the veterans of arguably recent memory receive their due, and thoughts of tragic sacrifice stand side-by-side with a complex and, we might say confused, mix of Country First and vague dreams of  peace.

The focus in our part of Northern France is decidedly that of sacrifice – namely The War to End All Wars, the horrifying Great War of  1914-17. 1.4 million French soldiers alone  lost (not to enumerate the dozens of nationalities that took part), shot and drowned  in ditches overflowing with mud and blood and the senseless pride of the people that sent them there.

To put down roots in this region is to understand that one stands literally on the bodies of the lost, young and old –  signs on every corner,  cemeteries in every town and village. Around here, war is not an abstraction waged by evil-doers. It’s what happened right here among us. The cost is understood - and that understanding is passed down.

Across the street, the mayor our small village is laying the wreath. In Ypres tonight - and every night - they'll be blowing the last post at 8 pm.

The ears have it

It's a work in progress, as the political cartoonists turn their pens to the new president.  You've got give them that - they need some time to get it right. Tall and skinny? Check. Prominent chin? Not so sure. But the ears - should they really go for the ears? After all,  they already used the ears on Bush. This is supposed to be about change. 

But we say the ears were wasted on Bush. He didn't use them. Obama, on the other hand, deserves ears like satellite dishes. Because they're permanently tuned in -  they won him the election.

Keeping our heads

Our 2008 rentrée has been as frantic a carousel as any in recent memory, punctuated by bottomless coughing and pointless honking. However, you never know - the change towards a darker season can bring more than shorter days -it can also bring a change in a political landscape that is felt even by us ordinary working stiffs behind the wheel on the way home from work in the dark - as we swerve away from the bright lights of the shopping mall tonight  in favor of a bracing walk in the last orange glow of the woods.

It's a quiet landscape of reflection - the shrill voices of nay nay nay are momentarily silenced. Rationality and soothing good sense have been rewarded.