March, 2020

A friend is gone

We lost our dear friend Ian Coristine this past month. Ian and Lyne were in France in December when they decided to return home to Canada as Ian was becoming quite ill and they felt he would need treatment from their local doctors. He underwent a series of tests and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which had traveled to his liver.

He started chemo treatments but quickly began losing ground. His family flew in from pretty much all over the world and were with him when he passed on February 15th. He was 71. Why did he have to do such a damn fool thing? Didn't he know how much we would miss him? It's been exactly a month and we are still mourning.

I am sorry if you knew him and are only finding out now. We had known of his condition for awhile but we were asked to keep it to ourselves, so we did. The upside is that if you tell us something and ask us to keep our mouth shut, you now know that we will.

We visited Isle Sur La Sorgue France together...

... as well as Gordes, France

We first meet Ian in the summer of 2007 at a book signing for his first book... of seven. He had published a photo book of pictures of the Thousand Islands that he had shot from his amphibious airplane. He went on to have his pictures published in magazines worldwide and received a plethora of awards for them. Naturally, I peppered him with questions as he was what I wanted to be. A pilot. He was polite but showed little interest in me and was distracted with the task at hand. Besides, he had met plenty of guys who professed that "I want to fly too", but never followed through. As we walked away, I told Janice "That guy doesn't know it yet, but we are going to be friends".

I got his number and called him several times before he finally agreed to allow us to drop by his island "for a few minutes" for me to ask him for advice. We showed up with a bottle of wine, and spent hours there. He made it clear from the outset that he would never help me build my plane or teach me to fly it. He kept his word and I never asked. Still, he was a goldmine of knowledge, generous to a fault and was instrumental in helping me with the purchase. You see, for 20 years he had been the factory rep for Challenger airplanes in Canada, a virtual 'Mr. Challenger'. This, after a career as a racing car driver. 

He once joined us for a week in Kennebunkport Maine on a home exchange we had. He was our tour guide as he had spent a week there every summer for years. 

At the end of the summer of 2012, after having spent 3 summers building my plane I was ready to put it away for the season because my flight instructor was out of the area and I could not begin to fly. Sensing my frustration, Ian offered to take it on its test flight. He did, landed and I got in for my first flight as a passenger in my own plane.

I flew for several summers but in 2016 had an accident when the floats delaminated on landing. Other than my wife, Ian was the one who called and said "Fix it and get back in the air". In the Thousand Islands, he promoted the area he loved relentlessly and became known as Mr. Thousand Islands. As I write this, I am realizing that it was almost exactly a year ago to the day that he and Lyne went to the Carnival in Venice, Italy with us.

Venice, 2019

The influence seemed to flow both ways. Besides coming to see us in California, he and Lyne visited us when we had our home in Brittany. When they returned to Canada, they went online and bought their own home in France, sight unseen. Finally, this is a video taken by Lyne of my landing by their island in 2018 with Ian as my passenger. 

It was my last flight with him.

We miss the bugger every day.




OK Ian, I wrote everything you told me to,
 so where's my $20 ? (Inside joke)

Ms. Maddie

Visiting a Roman aqueduct

18 year old granddaughter Maddie is currently visiting us, this being her first trip to Europe and obviously first trip to France. She could have gone to the far side of the moon as far as she is concerned and it would have been just as far. Then, at the last minute, boyfriend Ethan was included and came along.

Her trip was a graduation gift to our now 'animation student in training', something we hope to repeat with our current 11 grandchildren as they come of age. Needless to say, the visit is short by our standards so we felt a responsibility to expose her to as much and as many things we could in each 24 hour day. Sleep? She can do that on her own time at home. Let's go! We're burning daylight here!

I still vividly remember my first exposure to Europe at about her age. It opened my mind to a world I couldn't imagine existed and it changed me forever. Our goal was to do the same for her and the others who will follow. Naturally, we returned to the usual places to see like Monaco, Cannes, St Tropez and medieval villages nearby. A stopover in Italy for lunch was planned but with the country on lock down, that was no longer in the cards. The real bonus is that it creates some pretty cool memories for us all that will last the rest of our lives.

We first met Ethan when he accompanied her on her drive back from home in Oregon to school in Los Angeles after Christmas, when they stopped over and stayed with us along the way. He is a terrific young man who clearly knows how to take care of his girl, and has had more worldwide travel experience with his parents than we have had ourselves. Their trip was cut short by a day when the US government halted all travel by Europeans to the US and airlines axed most flights back.

KG Productions

By now you know that during our absence we rent our homes in California and our villa in France for short term vacation rentals. We advertise them on a couple of popular vacation rental sites and handle the booking details ourselves. Last week we got a rather typical inquiry but the client asked that we contact her directly.

The prospective client asked about renting the entire villa (both upper and lower levels) for a period of 10-12 days at the end of June. Great, we thought! When I asked how many people would be staying she said "none". She explained that she had scoured the internet web sites, looking at the pictures of the homes in the area and found a few that could work for what they had in mind.

Turns out that she was a location scout for KG Productions, a French film company who was preparing to shoot a movie in the area and was looking for a villa that would fit the bill for their project. They wanted to know if we were interested in renting ours to them for that purpose. The story line was that this was going to be the star of the movie's digs, and some of the scenes would be shot here, including in the outdoor garden with the Med in the background. We are under no illusions that opulent villas in the area would be readily available to them but for their particular story line, they thought that ours could be perfect. Maybe it's a poor people's movie.

I asked if they were set on hiring the French star (apparently well known but I never heard of him) as my agent would be happy to discuss my availability. They explained that the 36 year old female co-star might not be the best match, which is a clear case of age discrimination. The director is scheduled to look the place over himself in a week or so. We will surely let you know if any of this moves forward. Even if it does not, its pretty cool to have been considered.

The Corona virus (AKA Covid 19)

I started to write this a week ago to share my take on the situation. I opined that we needed to take the situation seriously but should just settle down and could do without the hysterics.  I still feel that we could do without the latter but I am a whole lot less cocky about the former. We are careful and take appropriate steps but we are not in panic mode as many around us seem to be. We have been asked how bad it is over here and will we ever be able to fly home? How close to Italy are we and have we started quarantining? Have we run out of hand sanitizer and toilet paper yet?

As of this writing there are over 5,000 Covid fatalities worldwide but the number of new cases are growing quickly. Most deaths are in countries with marginal medical facilities or old farts that were sick to start with and not bullet proof like me. Covid is not exactly on par with the medieval plague yet. Yes, New York state where we will head to in June and California where we just left have both declared states of emergency. In less than a week, Italy has gone from having a real problem to locking down a portion of the country to then quarantining the entire country with only grocery stores and pharmacy's allowed to open (The border is 90 minutes away from us) As you know, all air travel for Europeans to the US has been stopped. France has closed all its schools and businesses (except banks, gas stations, food stores and pharmacies) until further notice. Many countries are closing their borders right and left.

We have seen little panic buying and hoarding like we have heard reported at home, but that could change quickly. We have been asked by many if we plan on returning early. That ship has sailed as we are in the middle of the most chaotic travel period ever. Airlines either are not allowed to fly to many locations or people are too scared to fly, resulting in a spiralling decline in available flights. Besides, returning to what, Canada in March? Are you kidding me? Freezing cold nuclear winter as opposed to the balmy, sunny Mediterranean? We could always go back to California where they have many Corona cases as opposed to staying in France where there are many Corona cases. (!) Who knows, they might end up just kicking us out of the country at some point.

They say that statistics don't lie, but liar's uses statistics. With that in mind and just to keep things in perspective I offer the following chart. Yes, I know that the numbers are changing dramatically and quickly.

Currently, Americans can return home from Europe and unless all airlines are bankrupt, we expect to be fine by the time June rolls around and we go back. If not, I will get a jet ski and head across the Atlantic myself. We know that this is an evolving situation that changes rapidly from day to day so I might end up eating these words yet. If things spiral out of control, I could be dead in a month so this would be the last Epistle. So, if you have been meaning to tell me how much you love me, this would probably be a good time. If not, we can meet back here next month, as usual. 

Ironically, on a day to day situation, our live here have seen little appreciable difference so far. Still, we are keeping our distance from people and maintain aggressive hygiene practices. We are stocked up on wine, cheese and baguettes and all reasonable necessities. Meanwhile, the financial markets have gone into full meltdown but the smartest investor we know is a daughter who with her husband are buying all the stock they can. When it recovers - and it will in time - they will make a killing. The lesson of buy low and sell high was not lost on those two. Good on them. 

Taking a stroll down memory lane

This is a re-print of a ditty I wrote 10 years ago this month. 

I couldn't help myself to post it again.

Everyone has their own memory of the time they left their childhood home for good. That is, the very first night that you knew you were completely on your own and there was no going back. For some it is when they went to college or when they got married. For others it is when they joined the military. Some perhaps were runaways. God forbid that you were kicked out. I left at 18 under… well… ‘difficult’ circumstances. We did not agree about some important issues in my life and I supported my parents position that while living under their roof I should abide by their rules.

So, we had a little ‘regime change’ and being fiercely independent and determined to be self sufficient, I left with only the clothes on my back. I spent my first couple of nights at a flop house for homeless indigent alcoholics and derelict drug addicts. I would have gladly slept in my car but I didn’t have so much as a bus ticket so my tab was ‘comped’ by a local church. I looked and felt like a fish out of water, and I remember sleeping with my clothes on and with my shoes under my pillow as I feared not finding them in the morning. Thinking ahead, I had lined up a week-end job as a sales clerk in the men's clothing department of a large department store to get a little start up money.

I was within two weeks of finishing my first year at University, while in the mist of my final exams. Kicking my accommodations up a notch, I talked my way into being able to sleep on the sofa in the recreation lounge of an on campus men’s religious fraternity (I was attending Loyola). Not having a place to cook, I bought a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and ate sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When I got really sick of them, I had another peanut butter sandwich.

Being me, I thought this would only need to last a few weeks before my parents came to their senses, realized the error of their ways and repented, saw things my way and begged me to come back. 51 years later, I’m still waiting. In fact, my father did contact me. We talked but there was too much daylight between our positions and we were unable to come to an acceptable understanding. So, I figured they needed to be convinced that I meant business and I was not like a sibling who had been a serial runaway. “This might take a couple of months” I thought, so I doubled down and dug in.

I got a summer job which allowed me to rent a room off of someone’s basement garage and I frantically started saving for next fall’s tuition… just in case. In spite of the fact that I was completely destitute and self supporting, I was denied any student loan because my father's income was too high, him being the vice rector of Concordia University. I had no dishes so I would heat and eat soup right out of the can on my one ring burner. I kept thinking that I would only have to hold out a little longer and I would surely prevail. After about a year I realized that the jig was up so I had better man-up and get a grip, figure out what I wanted out of life and go get it.

I supported myself through the next 3 years of schooling by doing everything from cleaning a church to being in charge of my own division at the department of defense. (I was the dishwasher in the local National Guard kitchen) But mostly I worked my way through school for 3 years by being a sales clerk at a small bookstore for $1.80 /hr. It offered a wide variety of soft cover books but it also had a small stash of cellophane wrapped 'girly' magazines behind the counter for 'customers in the know'. Ironically, it was by far the most profitable part of the owners business.

It was not my intention here to bore you with the story of my life. Nor to whine about how tough I had it. You might well have had it much harder. It is also not my intention to disparage my parents because I know that they have always seen things differently. While they didn’t intend it, I believe that in the end they did me a huge favor. I  know that my own kids probably thought that we were born at 50, never had a life and always saw us live comfortably from the day they were born. But on March 27th, I will sit in front of our fireplace with a glass of Champagne and remember that first night 51 years ago. Some things have a big impact on a boy’s life.

Enough. We hope your month is as great as we intend to make ours.

 Let's meet here again and compare notes.

BTW, if you have been meaning to count your gold bars and see where you stack up with the Joneses, this could help
/http://www.globalrichlist.com/

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February, 2020

Bonjour and stuff

Yup, we are back. Having barely recovered from the jet lag, we are in full swing. We said goodbye to US friends for the season and hello to our French ones. We are in for some busy months ahead here this year but look forward to it. California is behind us for now and is but a distant memory. 

Say hello to Vicky and Richard

In our first week we spent our time with the usual maintenance and repairs required after any 8 month absence, but we soon set out to visit some local sights. There is an American cemetery nearby as this immediate region was the landing area for operation Dragoon and the US Army VI corps in August 1944. Of course, this opened a second front to fight the German army. There are 860 men (and one woman) buried here, this being the smallest American cemetery, among the many, we have visited here in Europe.

The town of Draguignan is also the home of a large French infantry brigade so we stopped by to visit their museum.

Finally, we had our traditional Valentine day dinner at our favorite restaurant in the little medieval town of Ramatuelle. Over the years we have tried hard to create new memories, as in 1996 Janice was diagnosed with her first cancer on Valentines day.

Patient update

So, Janice has been continuing with her ongoing cancer treatments and is aggressively researching all possible alternative treatments. No, not humming in the dark or bowing to crystals, but meeting with a world class immunologist and keeping up with other cutting edge new drugs about to be released.

Occasionally, she has another PET scan to check on the progress of her treatment. The latest one shows that her cancer is ... (drum roll please) ... diminishing! Yahoo! We were buoyed when her doctor told her that she would eventually die, but of something other than cancer. Meanwhile we had an oncologist lined up here in France, have met with him and her next treatment is in two days. All treatments in the 3 countries we live in are identical.

There was one fly in the ointment though, when she developed a blood clot in one arm a few days before we left. Her doctor called for a medication that had to be injected every 12 hours for a week. Having spent so much time in prison, he figured I would be as good as the best of them at stabbing, so I got to play doctor. With 14 subcutaneous* injections into my patient under my belt, I figure I am ready to teach the procedure. I even had to inject my patient during our flight to France, half way over the Atlantic. (*That is secret code we doctors use to describe under the skin.)

Oops! Phone's ringing, gotta go. Maybe its the Harvard medical school.

Just lollygagging around

We went out for a little fun one night before we left California when we were invited by a friend (and former employer for Janice) to a local club to watch his band perform. Great fun! It would be too easy to conclude that he is just a rocker but as we all know, you should never judge a book by its long haired cover.

He is actually our dentist here, a superb one at that, graduated a year early from dental school and at one time was the youngest dentist ever to be appointed to the dental board of examiners in California. I could just imagine the look on their faces when he walked into a dental practice to check on them.

Rock on, dude!

ADVON /RECON

I came back from my 2 week deployment to the Bahamas with Team Rubicon in October. One of the things I really respect about the organization is that they take the training of their volunteers seriously and put their money where their mouth is. Most other organizations put the call out for folks to come help when a disaster happens, and when they show up they hand them a shovel or a hammer and have them 'go at it'.

Deployments always involve grunt work but the Team Rubicon (TR) culture calls for working smarter, not harder. As a result, they spend  money on the front end to upgrade their volunteers skills and knowledge to make the time they are deployed much more efficient and GSD. (An official TR acronym for "Get shit done")

When TR shows up at a disaster site with heavy equipment (Earth movers, huge backhoes, skip loaders etc) they don't hand the keys to someone like me, a simple know it all. No, the operators are volunteers with a minimum of 10 years of professional experience with additional training from TR to work safely in a disaster environment.

Something as simple as operating a chain saw, a task many of us have done our whole lives, requires a week end of training from TR sawyer instructors on safety procedures before you can get 'trigger time'. Other courses are offered either online or in classroom training.

Our season here this year saw me attend some of these daylong classroom training sessions. One was "Stop the Bleed", a kind of advanced basic first aid class to deal with emergency trauma accidents in the field before our medics, nurses or doctors that are embedded with us arrive. Another was "Damage Assessment". This is something done out in the field when we first meet homeowners who request help, to determine what our strike teams will actually have to do. 

Will they have to tarp the roof to prevent more water damage? Will they have to remove all the drywall and insulation soaked from floodwater? Are there downed trees blocking access to their car and preventing them to go to their dialysis appointments? Is there a hole in the roof or a breached wall that will need to be closed up with plywood? Once we know what we will need to do, we can assign a strike team with the proper equipment and materials to ... eh... GSD. (Refer to paragraph 2)

Every aspect of the work has a random way of doing it or a TR way. You would think that something as basic as tarping a roof would mean tossing tarps up there and tacking them down, right? TR trains its volunteers on the proper techniques to prevent water penetration and protecting it from having the wind rip the tarps off in the next storm.

The last class I took before our departure was ADVON / RECON. A cool TR acronym for advance reconnaissance. When we see a disaster unfold on TV, TR sends an advance team to meet with local authorities (Police, fire, city administrators, etc) sometimes as the disaster is unfolding, to assess how bad things are, and to determine how much and what kind of help they will need. The team locates and secures a place to set up the FOB (officially called a Forward Operating Base) or the place we will set up the equipment and supplies when they arrive, and determine where our people will stay. (School gym, vacant warehouse, bunk house trailers, etc.) In other words, everything that will need to be done before the national call for volunteers to come is sent out. 

A TR mantra is that "My mother is a donor", a constant reminder that the donations that pay for everything that TR does, needs to be spent as though it was my money to get as much bang for the buck as possible.

OK, OK, yes we did work 

on a project or two.

No, we did not spend all our time in night clubs and bars this past month. We did manage to do a little thing or two, among them stain our new back patio. I mentioned last month that we organized the concrete pour and after letting it cure for a month, we were ready to stain the raw grey surface.

Before

During

After

I have mentioned that with our arriving later than usual this season, there was a limited time frame to tackle any big project. So, I went on a aggressive maintenance and repair mode. I built the house 35 years ago and we are real persnickety about everything working well and looking fresh and new. The reality is that some of the deeply buried infrastructure can begin to show its age. Everything from coffee makers to water softeners and furnaces eventually get tired or give up the ghost. 

In fact, I was in the bathroom when Janice walked in, pointed to the ceiling fan and said "enough!". "Its REALLY powerful" I shouted over the deafening roar of the 35 year old inexpensive jet engine sounding fan as it rattled, hoping that my BS explanation would appease her. The thing is, its always more fun to build something new and sexy than to tear out some old appliance to replace it. It had simply not occurred to me at the time of building the house that -some day- I would have to replace these things. The new one is as quiet as our fridge. That said, now when I do anything I keep in mind that I will have a do over 35 years from now. 

As always, we have everything lined up for next years great ideas that Janice has come up with, so that when we arrive we can hit the ground running, building cool new stuff and in TR vernacular, GSD.

So, would you prefer a political joke?

OK, fine. Here you go.

January, 2020

Hi there!

Free time activities

Christmas came and went. Come to think of it, so did New years. We spent it quietly with Janice's mother as none of the kids or friends love us enough to come visit. (Roll eyes here) So, we had time to have our staircase re-carpeted and replaced an electric cook top with a gas one. The house had never been plumbed for a gas appliance so it was quite an undertaking to run a line invisibly through the kitchen cabinets, a concrete foundation and dig a trench underground to the existing gas pipe. Nothing that would ever cause a moments hesitation with my bride, mind you.

Next, I was tasked to organize a concrete pour for a patio in the back of the house. Previously, we had a mix of dirt, wood and plastic Trex deck and walkway and it was time to upgrade and consolidate. We have plans for the area, of course, and we will talk about them when they are done.

Finally, the sexiest and cheapest (ha!) improvement was replacing our septic tank. Since they usually last about 30 years, I should only need to replace it once more before  I am pushing up daisies.

The Book

Well now... we are finally published authors! Yes sir indeed, who knows, a movie next? You might not want to rush off to order your copy on Amazon as they are currently out of stock, because it had a total press run of...eh... two.

You know that we rent our home out for short term vacation rentals while we are away. Well, several years ago we had guests who commented or asked about a specific piece of art we had collected that had caught their eye. So, I took some pictures and printed them, adding a little caption to explain the back story on its acquisition. The whole quick and dirty effort was put in a cheesy 3 ring binder and left laying around for folks to look at if they were interested. 

This year we got back to find the binder hinge broken from use and many, many comments written in our guest book about how much they enjoyed it. OK then, time to up our game, we decided. Janice re photographed everything with my high faluten super duper I Phone 11 + Pro (with the 3 cameras) and I set out to polish up the little stories behind each piece. Then, off to the publisher the 30 pages went for a glossy hardcover finished coffee table book. 

As far as I can tell the only down side is that there was no retainer or advance fee on our book, nor will there be any royalties or residuals. It is not an easy life we lead.

We maybe suckers for eclectic art, but not having $120,000 in my sock drawer, we will have to pass on this one...

It's that time again

Time to make like Michael Jackson and "Just beat it!" Having spent a month at daughter Cassie's place before returning home, our time here got cut short this year. We did manage to catch up with friends but with 5 weeks less it felt a little rushed. Still, it was a great season for us. We got stuff done, goofed off more than usual and moved plans forward in important ways. We even had our granddaughter Maddie do a drive by for a few nights with her fellow on her way back to school in Los Angeles. We also got major boring business stuff behind us, like having our wills and trusts updated for at least another decade. It was worse than going to the dentist. Only we did that too, as well as a boatload of doctor appointments. You would think that we are becoming old people or something.

So now we make one last round of visits with friends, then get outa town before the bills catch up with us. We will get to trade dysfunctional American politics for French ones.

Our sky

By the way, if you are not in California and can take pictures of clouds or rain, be sure to send us some. We would hate to forget what they look like :)

December, 2019

Hello :)

Guess who is all done with chemo 

and graduated with honors?

Home

This month has been a lot of things but productive is questionable. I have had a ton of necessary but boring as all-get-out paperwork to push around, a boatload of cleaning up and landscaping to pinch hit for Janice who is not up to her usual self to take care of, and endless maintenance around the house after a 9 month absence.

For instance, you would think that something as goofy simple as re-oiling the woodwork in the house would be something that could be done in short order. An hour or two tops. The thing is, when I built the house I custom built all the cabinets out of Honduran Mahogany with Peruvian Walnut inlays. Then I did the same for many of the door frames, window frames, art nooks and cranny's, the circular staircase banister and a ton of extraordinarily large window frames above the walls in the kids bedrooms. 

Its beautiful alright but two days into re-oiling it (not stain or paint but a nourishing teak oil to prevent the wood from drying out) and I cant believe how much work went into this. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it all over again. Still....

I had to remind myself that these are all things that we would have to do anyway if we we here full time, but I compress in the first few weeks upon our return before tacking new, fun and exciting projects that are in Janice's endless hopper. Its the price of doing business.

The reprieve comes when friends and family show up at our door.

Daughter Kami with her fur baby Finn

Nebraska regulars: Cousin Monte, Cinde, 

favorite mother in law ''sweetie pie''

This may not be Texas, but here we take 

our cinnamon rolls seriously

We did manage to replace our refrigerator and had all our palm trees pruned. After some serious planning and prep work, we will wrap up a few serious projects underway before we leave at the beginning of February.

Meanwhile, our yearly routine requires us to take two full days and a $1,000 to have our French visa's renewed. This means driving to Los Angeles to the French Consulate to be interviewed and 'processed'. Our passports are then sent by courier to Paris to have the visa's attached and returned to us about 2-3 week later.

REMEMBER THIS NAME

While in LA for the above, we caught up with our grand daughter Maddie who just started Woodbury university to study animation. A real ball of fire, she is on the path to give Disney a run for their money in a few years when she graduates. At 17, she single handedly bagged a scholarship worth more than most people earn in a year. Or two years. She has scheduled her Easter break to dip her toe in France with us next March.

MADDIE THOMASON.  

You will recognise the name when the credits roll.....

Monthly humor

As for you, we hope you have a great day. 

Unless you have made other plans.