More on the Pope

Christopher Hitchens blasts the Pope today:

"One by one, as I predicted, the pathetic excuses of Joseph Ratzinger's apologists evaporate before our eyes. It was said until recently that when the Rev. Peter Hullermann was found to be a vicious pederast in 1980, the man who is now pope had no personal involvement in his subsequent transfer to his own diocese or in his later unimpeded career as a rapist and a molester.

But now we find that the psychiatrist to whom the church turned for "therapy" was adamant that Hullermann never be allowed to go near children ever again. We also find that Ratzinger was one of those to whom the memo about Hullermann's transfer was actually addressed. All attempts to place the blame on a loyal subordinate, Ratzinger's vicar general, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber, have predictably failed.

According to a recent report, "the transfer of Father Hullermann from Essen would not have been a routine matter, experts said." Either that—damning enough in itself—or it perhaps would have been a routine matter, which is even worse. Certainly the pattern—of finding another parish with fresh children for the priest to assault—is the one that has become horribly "routine" ever since and became standard practice when Ratzinger became a cardinal and was placed in charge of the church's global response to clerical pederasty.

So now a new defense has had to be hastily improvised. It is argued that, during his time as archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, Ratzinger was more preoccupied with doctrinal questions than with mere disciplinary ones. Of course, of course: The future pope had his eyes fixed on ethereal and divine matters and could not be expected to concern himself with parish-level atrocities."

Pope Update

The buck may stop with the previous pope, if Pope Benedict XVI's defense is accurate. As fresh child sex abuse scandals rock the Vatican, The Washington Post reports that the current pope is going on the offensive with a media blitz in anticipation of Easter Sunday. This week, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna countered charges that Benedict did a poor job of investigating abuse allegations back when he was a mere cardinal heading up the Vatican disciplinary office, charging that in 1995 the now-pope called for a special investigation into the former archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, for allegedly molesting young monks. According to Schoenborn, aides to Pope John Paul II blocked that investigation.

Americans are so polite

A London newspaper columnist wrote over the weekend that "Americans are so polite, but in their politics rudeness reigns. Our medium-strength misanthropy is better."

She writes:

"After countless visits, I have two eternal puzzles about America:

1. Why are all their banknotes an identical size and color? -- so confusing to jet-lagged journalists?

2. Why does a national so squeamishly euphemistic about 'bathrooms' insist on an exposing metre-high gap beneath lavatory stalls?

To which I know add 3. How can such a polite nation have such foul-mouthed politics?"

She goes on to say that our politeness is merely superficial when we have such ugly partisan politics. In London, everyone is surly or mean but there's no hypocrisy with out politics.

Well, let me just say that I think her thesis is inaccurate. There is no one on Earth more horrible than a British politician. They get up in Parliament and say the rudest, most childish things to each other -- like a bunch of badly behaved schoolboys. They shout at each other, bray like horses - oh, you haven't seen anything until you have watched a session of Parliament on TV.

France's view of US healthcare reform

President Sarkozy is over this week from France and gave a speech at Columbia in NYC. I quote part of it here because it encapsulates what Europeans thought about the healthcare debate in the US -- their suprise that we could be arguing over something that is taken for granted over there.

"Welcome to the club of states who don't turn their back on the sick and the poor," Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. health care overhaul signed by President Barack Obama last week.

From the European perspective, he said, "when we look at the American debate on reforming health care, it's difficult to believe."

"The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them ... is something astonishing to us."

Then to hearty applause, he added: "If you come to France and something happens to you, you won't be asked for your credit card before you're rushed to the hospital."

Expat Girls Gone Wild

I'm part of an online American expats group. We had an American Expat Girls Gone Wild social event on Saturday in Notting Hill. We met at a Spanish deli for coffee and churros before exploring Portobello Market.

I had never met any of the women -- only knew them from the Internet. We ended up with about 10 attendees and had a lot of fun. Yet another example of virtual friends becoming real ones.

Some people say that the friends you make online or in Facebook aren't real but they become real when you meet them.

When I first moved to England, I didn't know anyone or have any way to meet anyone. The only American voice I heard was Oprah's on TV. That's how isolating the life of an expat could be before widespread Internet use.

After roaming around Portobello Road for a while (I found a stall with antique magazines -- my favorite thing. I picked up a Ladies' Home Journal from 1954 and eagerly read sexist articles from that period).

Then I felt I needed a medicinal drink for my back. We stopped off for a mint julep at 2:00 pm. Later that evening, we graduated to jugs of margaritas.

Being England the glasses were so small though -- it didn't take us long to polish off a few jugs.

One of our newest expats (just arrived last year) said she was eagerly awaiting the summer -- we experienced expats just howled with laughter. Wait 'til she experiences an English summer....

Should the Pope resign?

Interesting points from an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday:

"Should the pope resign?" No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly - ideally - qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job. He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch.

No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice - the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution - while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears.

Trying again for the Krystal Hall of Fame

I've written many times about my passion for Krystal hamburgers, a Southern institution. Since the 1930s, they've been making small perfect burgers that melt in your mouth.

I tried to get into their Hall of Fame a few years ago but I didn't make the cut. How unfair as there is no one more devoted to Krystals than I am. When I went back to Mississippi for my god-daughter's wedding, she realized that my passion needed feeding. Here she is with a sack of them:

Since I got married and moved to England, my visits to Krystal on trips home to the South have been highlights! I have been known to get off the plane from London and drive straight to a Krystal the same night.

I don't know how many times my childhood friend Brenda and I have had pictures taken holding a Krystal box, but here's the latest one:

While I was in Jackson recently, I made secret Krystal trips that I couldn't admit to people. Even before the wedding reception with all the food that would be there, I went to a drive-through for a secret Krystal. When the meat and onion and moist bun hit my mouth, I was in heaven. Those hamburgers just melt in your mouth when they are hot off the grill.

Here's a link to one of my earlier posts about Krystal. I just can't shut up about it until I finally get into the Hall of Fame....
An earlier Krystal post

Brit editors get in trouble for using American slang

I usually don't like hearing Brits use American slang like "Cool" or "Take a chill pill, man," mostly 'cause they sound stupid when they attempt to emulate us.

So I was interested in the editor of a London paper, the Times, getting into trouble because she wrote "You do the math." (British people say 'maths', not 'math' but it wouldn't have been the right expression if she wrote 'do the maths.' Cliches have to stay intact!)

She says:

"A little voice in my head said: 'No! Don't do it! Put the 's' on math or you'll set them all off again about Americanisms!'

...sure enough, in poured the howls of outrage.

Times readers want to keep that paper pure, and not have it filled with Americanisms. It's too late for the Times anyway as it's a Murdoch paper now so standards have slipped.

It looks like a painting

A friend just sent me this photo from the train to Cologne, Germany, where we went to a Christmas market last year. I thought the composition looked like an oil painting -- there's Mel and me in the middle talking, our friend Ann Ager off to the left reading, and her daughter Eve Frayling on the right fast asleep.

I'm Randy, let me in

I was finishing up a Natchez mystery last night, The Turning Angel by Greg Iles. In it, he mentions the Eola Hotel:

At seven stories, the Eola Hotel is the tallest building in Natchez. Built in 1927, the year of the great flood, the Eola has weathered booms and bust to find itself on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Eola has such a strong place in my childhood memories -- it was our grand hotel -- that when I got married, even though I was so poor, I wanted to spend a couple of nights there with my new British husband, Mel.

I was telling him how gracious and refined the South was, and the Eola was a fine representation of that tradition. It had been totally refurbished when we got married in late 1985, so Mel was suitably impressed when he stepped into the grand lobby:

We were asleep that first night when we were disturbed by a man banging on the door next to ours and shouting:

"I'm Randy. Let me in!"

As the man continued to shout and pound on the door, Mel observed that the South didn't seem so refined if you could just shout out to someone in public that you were horny and wanted sex and then try to force your way into their room. (No one is named Randy in England. It's unheard of. Maybe someone is named Randolph, but it's never shortened to Randy. Randy means you want to have sex with someone -- it's an adjective describing your current state of mind.)

I laughed when I realized that Mel didn't understand that this man's name was Randy. The shouting and beating of the door continued, and we started to worry, so we called down to the lobby to get someone to intercede.

The next morning, we opened our door to find the door of the next room had been totally smashed in.

"So much for Southern politeness and refinement," Mel observed.

I want to be in America

My daughter sang with her music society last night in a concert in London. One of the pieces was from West Side Story. It made me chuckle to hear these posh-accented British students singing American lyrics such as "I feel wit-TEE, I feel pre-TEE" in their clipped precise tones.

At her last Christmas concert, one of their group vowed to sing his solo and sound 'just like a native American.' Of course I was happy to hear his attempt. (It was OK.)

Here is my daughter singing with a little group of soloists last night -- she's the one on the far right:

Before we went to her concert, she hit us up for a meal at a Dutch pancake house. I was late because I went straight from work. When I got there I found lipstick marks on the wine I had asked to be sitting at the table by the time I got there. I asked if my wine had been 'pre-drunk' but there were vehement denials from people at the table.


I had to order another glass soon after just to make sure I got to drink at least one whole glass myself.

Scrounging meals from her parents

Katie always hits us up for free meal if we go anywhere in London. She'll read something I've written in my blog or on Facebook and gently enquire: "Will there be any eating opportunities in London?"

For example, she saw something on my FB page about an American expat social event this Saturday in London. We start out with coffee at a Spanish deli, browse the markets at Portobello Road in Notting Hill then end up at a Mexican place for dinner.

Of course I have had to contact the organizer of the event to say that another 'expat' of sorts will be joining us (my daughter). Katie does has an American passport even if she is totally British in upbringing.

Money might not buy happiness but making more than the next guy does

One key to happiness might be whether you make more than your peers, regardless of whether that income is six figures or just a mediocre take-home, a new study finds.

This concept of "doing better than the Joneses" is well established among children: A toy gets ditched as soon as a shinier toy in the hands of another child is spotted. But some researchers have often thought that when it comes to adults and money, things works differently, in that the more money one has, regardless of how it stacks up, the more resources can be acquired to generate happiness.

However, the new study suggests income and happiness are indeed like child's play.

We tend to be happy "as long as we've got more than the people around us," said study researcher Christopher Boyce in the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick in England. "You might buy a new car. But if your neighbor has just bought the very same car, that new car doesn't seem as good as it once was if you were the only one to have that car."

CryBaby Attorney Generals

Interesting article from Gawker:

"13 state attorneys general (three of whom are running for governor) filed lawsuits against a provision of health care reform that will not actually go into effect until 2014. Tort reform now!

These lawsuits are not expected to accomplish anything, which might lead some to call them "frivolous."

Here are two funny paragraphs, from the AP:

[Florida Attorney General Bill] McCollum was working with officials from several state agencies to determine how much the health care overhaul would cost the state. He said earlier this month, "I can't conceive of any good in this bill and I don't think any of these agencies can."

Under the bill, starting in six months, health insurance companies would be required to keep young adults as beneficiaries on their parents' plans until they turn 26, and companies would no longer be allowed to deny coverage to sick children.

Yes, why is Florida gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum objectively pro-sick children dying? This ambulance-chasing trial lawyer hates America."

Grief and its resolution

It is the nature of grace always to fill spaces that have been empty.
Goethe

I was thinking about grief today. I had been grieving over my mother's death, and then when I visited Natchez, my mother's best friend, Betty McGehee, basically said she'd be my mother now. It made me teary-eyed when she said that. As my husband drove down the Natchez Trace afterwards, I felt as if my grief had been resolved.

When I went back to work last week, I spoke to a woman I know but she just didn't seem to be there. Her sharpness was gone, and she didn't to be listening to me.

I questioned her more closely and discovered that her father had recently died. I felt so sorry for her, now having to go through what I'd been through. She always has a cheery persona but now she looks vulnerable and like a different person entirely.

In a way, though, I like her better when I can see her for what she really is -- a person who needs comfort and help from other people. It makes her seem so human. I know soon she will began to regain her professional demeanor, and I won't see this side of her anymore.

Snoring, fidgeting = separate bedrooms

We had the most beautiful set of rooms at the Elms in Natchez the other week. I got a suite in case anyone wanted to come to Natchez with me but no one did. I knew my
husband would snore loudly and start elbowing me in the night, so I went to the second bedroom and slept in a cozy bed there.

I know people say things like, "They sleep in separate bedrooms!" as an indicator of a bad relationship but, you know, when you get older, you just don't put up with bad sleep if you can help it.

Here's where I slept:

I have to say in fairness to my husband, though, that I am a terrible insomniac and fidgeter so it's hard to sleep in the same bed as me anyway. Mel says it's like someone is disco-ing in the bed all night.

I read this quote today from a divorce lawyer in a London paper:

"Snoring comes up almost daily as grounds for divorce, and when couples tell me they are rowing a lot, I can often trace it back to the lack of sleep that snoring causes," says divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt. "But lawyers rarely put it down on the divorce petition because it can seem to trivialize a divorce."

Times sure do change

When I was in Natchez, Mississippi, recently, I went to see the house where I grew up. It was a beautiful house with copper in the kitchen and marble in the bathrooms. It was set on three acres across a bridge from an antebellum home. The owners of the antebellum home built it for their daughter to live in. Then she sold the house to my parents.

My mother told me (six weeks before she died) that she had been her happiest in her life living there, so I had to go back and see it.

What a shock when I got there though. The current owners have let it go into disrepair and have mowed down all my mothers' azaleas, dogwoods, trees and flowers. About four or five crappy cars are in the drive, and the place looks like a wreck.

The back yard was impassable -- the weeds had turned into mini-trees of five feet high. We'd had so many fun times in the back on the swingset or just running around shouting at each other. And now you can't even go back there.

There was a beautiful gallery with a fan window, and then I saw that someone had stuck an ugly old air-conditioning unit into one of the glass panes. Sacrilege!

A neighbor saw us parked outside the cul-de-sac and walked over to see who we were. When I explained I was just getting a picture of my childhood home to send to my brothers so they could see the horrible neglect for themselves, he shook his head sadly and agreed that the current owners had let the place go.

"Times sure do change," he said. Then I thought -- they certainly do. Here it was a Monday afternoon, and this man wasn't working, and I smelled alcohol on his breath.
I thought that I too would have probably had to have a nip if I didn't have a job and afternoons can be so long and slow to pass with nothing to do.

When I was a kid and Natchez had some manufacturing plants nearby, he would have had a job. But now there's not as much left there in the way of employment -- so yes, times have changed.

Brody's Notes & Scribbles... The Ugly Americans Version 2010

Americans are waiting today to see what happens with Health Care Reform. I am trying to follow on the Internet so am grateful when I get an eyewitness report like this one from Brody Levesque. Here's what he has to say:

"I am sitting at home now, quietly reflecting on the scenes I saw unfold today on Capitol Hill as thousands of so-called Tea Party types gathered around the U. S. Capitol and the House & Senate Office buildings. What I witnessed was nothing less short of breathtaking as the scope of the true nature & character of these people was put on display for all to see and hear.

There was absolutely no sense of civility, or even pretense of basic manners and dignity. No, what I witnessed was bigotry, discriminatory ideology, and hateful speech being advocated by so-called patriotic Americans against other Americans that, from my understanding of the protesters line of thought, are apparently less 'American' than they are. To say that the behaviours I witnessed was bizarre and disgusting is a gross understatement, it was an affront to human dignity.

Two well respected members of Congress, Civil rights veteran and follower of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and fellow Congressional colleague Andre Carson (D-IN) were exiting from the Canon House Office building after the Democratic Caucus meeting with the President, when several members of the crowd gathered at the entrances, Tea party protesters, began yelling "Kill the Bill," and then hurling the ugly racist epithet, 'Nigger' at the two representatives who happen to both be African-American. I later asked the obviously shaken and upset Congressman Lewis about what had happened and he simply said,
"People have been just downright ugly and mean-spirited about this."

Mean spirited? Well, it went further, according to TPM correspondent Brian Beutler, he reports that earlier in the afternoon today:

"...standing outside a Democratic whip meeting in the Longworth House office building, I watched Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) make his way out the door, en route to the neighboring Rayburn building. As he rounded the corner toward the exit, wading through a huge crowd of tea partiers and other health care protesters, an elderly white man screamed "Barney, you faggot"--a line that caused dozens of his confederates to erupt in laughter.

After that incident, Capitol police threatened to expel the protesters from the building, but were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed. Tea party protesters equipped with high-end video cameras were summoned to film the encounter and the officers ultimately relented."

Kicking up my heels

I wore the dress I bought in Paris with my friend Jeanne to my god-daughter's wedding last weekend. I'd eaten so much delicious Southern food by then, however, that it barely zipped up and my husband had to stick his knee in my back to get the darn thing to fasten.

But I was still able to dance a little (below). That's the father of the groom's bro with me, Frazier Riddell.

Gareth Epps for Parliament!

Children are wonderful when they get you involved in things outside your usual existence. I got home from work last night to discover that a candidate for Parliament was dropping by our house -- and I had a grocery delivery scheduled for the same time. I had no idea!

I lugged some suitcases out of the front room -- we just got home from America last week, and I'd gone straight back to the office so planned this weekend to get the suitcases emptied. Then the groceries arrived. The hall by the front door was filled up with bright orange supermarket plastic bags.

The doorbell rang again and standing on my doorstep was Gareth Epps who is a prospective MP. I apologized profusely for the mess, and he was very nice about it, pretending not to notice that he had to step over bags of milk and cereal to get to our front room.

To make up for this, I offered him Girl Scout cookies that I'd just brought back from Mississippi -- these cookies are an institution in the United States. He said they were delicious (he had the fab chocolate mint ones and some peanut butter ones. My husband refuses to eat anything with peanut butter in it as it's just too American for his taste.)

We had a wonderful visit with Gareth (pictured above), and were out this morning distributing campaign leaflets on this behalf and feeling like we were part of something great.

Anybody in Reading East who reads this post, you MUST vote for Gareth! (or else)

I visit Cirlot Advertising

I stopped by to see my friend Liza Cirlot Looser in Jackson, Mississippi, last week. We met while working at an ad agency 25 years ago. Liza went on to start her own very successful agency while we were housemates.

There was a tiny room in our house with no heating. Liza spent hours, days and weeks in that unheated room getting her first big accounts. I used to try to get her out of that room to do something fun, but she just worked.

She went to the bank with just 75 dollars to put in her brand new business account. The bank teller chuckled when she did that and said, "Go get 'em, Tiger."

And she did. Here we are at her agency offices:


While we were there, Liza asked Mel to make the recording for her international office's voice mail. Here he is doing it.

Now Mel's British accent will be the first thing any of Liza's overseas clients hear when they leave a message.

How do you lose a phone in the middle of a highway?

I just had a phone call that my husband's Blackberry, with all his work files and emails on it, had been found in the middle of a highway in Luton. A taxi driver called us because she had been called by the man who found it. He picked the last number called, and it was her.

My husband was driving to Cambridge for a reunion so I guess he did something on the way there -- but how did it end up in the middle of a highway?

I called his college friends who I knew were also going to the reunion. They were all at lunch. "Have you seen Mel?" I asked, and explained the problem. They erupted into hysterical laughter at him doing something so stupid and not even knowing it yet.

Finally, I got the number of a friend who would be driving up with Mel. My husband didn't even realize he'd lost the phone. duh. He said he was checking the map on his phone in the car, and he thought he put it back in his pocket but no, it fell out in the middle of the road.

I will chalk this episode up to jetlag....

Have you ever lost your phone someplace really stupid or embarrassing?

A guy at work accidentally flushed his down the toilet one time.

Eating faggots

I went to pick up a new cat to foster in our house last night and stopped off for some milk at the supermarket. Then I noticed this delicious food item for sale for a pound:

British people will apparently eat ANYTHING!

Postscript
I put this picture up on Facebook, and my sister-in-law Anita sent me a commercial about it. It is so funny. Take a look.

The Devil made them do it

I am following the latest child-abuse saga in the Catholic Church with interest. I read a most interesting article in Salon that I thought you might like to read too:

"When you're one of the most powerful institutions in the world and you've got an escalating series of sex abuse scandals erupting in such far-flung locales as Ireland, Germany, Brazil and beyond on a near daily basis, how do you even begin to do damage control? If you're the Catholic Church, maybe you say you're going to investigate. You issue a few letters. And then just to cover all your bases, you do a little Satan blaming. In a bold and arguably wack move, the Vatican's normally press-shy exorcist Don Gabriele Amorth has been granting interviews left and right lately, and they are a treasure trove of WTF moments.

You say you hadn't been aware the Vatican even had an official exorcist? Thought that stuff was just for Linda Blair movies? That's likely because, prior to last week, the Vatican had permitted its exorcist to grant one interview in the entire last century. Now, suddenly he's doing the rounds like he's got a new rom-com with Gerard Butler opening Friday.

Speaking to La Republica last week, Amorth, who in fact does have a new book, "Memoirs of an Exorcist," to shill, said, "When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia." A few days later, he told the UK Times, "All evil is due to the intervention of the Devil, including pedophilia." He also added that contemporary culture has "given in to the Evil One. You see it in the lack of faith, the empty churches, the collapse of the family. Compare the world of today to when I was a boy in Modena: families and parish communities were strong, women did not go out to work."

I don't want to read too much into it here, but did the honorary president of the International Association of Exorcists actually just sort of suggest that if some priest in Rio is sodomizing his altar boys, it might be my fault because I have a job? Cripes, you eat one lousy piece of fruit from the tree of knowledge and you get blamed for everything."

Furs in New Orleans

I couldn't believe it when I saw a Fur department in a New Orleans department store. I mean, the furs were just out there in the open -- not under wraps or hidden away like they would be over here.

Here's Mel checking out the price tags:

This was just one of the big differences I noticed between England and the American South. Animal rights is a huge thing over here -- if you even try to wear a fur on the street, you will be hassled and someone will throw paint on it if they can.

It would be unheard of that you could actually display furs in a department store like that, and they would be untouched. In England, they would be destroyed within moments. No kidding. Animal rights are very important here.

(I counted three women wearing fur coats at my god-daughter's wedding. It's so unusual a sight to see here that I noticed them immediately and stared.)

OK, that was one big difference I noticed, and the other was that you can smoke anywhere you want in Natchez -- even in small restaurants. I thought smoking in public was dead, but no.

Airport regulations

I don't see how anyone travels by air these days what with having to take your shoes off, be body scanned, take everything out of your luggage to have it examined -- then even when your baggage goes through, the TSA people go through it and completely mess it up then leave a note in your bag that they had to go through it for your safety.

I used to be able to stuff 75 pounds worth of American food and treats in my luggage but now the weight limit has been cut to 50 pounds AND you can only take one bag for free.

My husband meticulously weighed our suitcases and redistributed items to get everything just so.

We got to the New Orleans airport (after stopping off for a huge last Southern lunch of fried catfish and shrimp and a walk along the lake) and confidently put a bag on the scales.

"It weighs 51 pounds," the woman at the Delta check-in desk announced. "That'll be 175 dollars for going overweight or you need to take something out of there."

She hassled us over ONE POUND! This is modern-day air travel, I'm afraid. We took the suitcase down, took out a bag of 8 O'Clock Coffee (our favorite brand) and successfully got the luggage down to 50 pounds.

Then the airplane was two hours late and we barely made the London flight, but that's another story....

Not your usual breakfast

When I was staying at the Elms antebellum home in Natchez last week, my morning breakfasts looked like this:

This sure wasn't like Shoney's Breakfast Bar!

I was so spoiled by the owner Esther Carpenter's cooking (she was a gourmet chef in LA) that the breakfasts I ate after I left her house were sad tasteless affairs.

The Confederate Pageant

My British husband has been exposed to most things Southern but even he was shocked by the Confederate Pageant in Natchez, Mississippi. You don't expect to see boys and men dressed in Confederate uniforms running around an auditorium carrying Confederate flags but that's still the way it is in Natchez.

The pageant is composed of tableaux -- little scenes from life before the 'War Between the States' (as the narrator refers to it). My husband looked amused as he watched the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, get married in an antebellum home. He chuckled when boys and girls danced around the Maypole -- I whispered that I had been in that one as a child. I'd point out each scene and tell him when I had done that as a child -- carrying the flowers when I was 5 or 6, then the Maypole then my family was in the picnic scene.

He laughed out loud when the Hunt scene was on -- men were dressed in their best English hunting gear, singing merrily and drinking mint juleps. That is a crowd favorite -- the men appear with dogs barking and scampering all over the stage.

When it got to scenes where little boys were dressed as Confederate soldiers, I think he really began to smile in an 'oh, those Southerners' sort of way. Then later he commented that you would never know a black person even lived in Natchez as there are none in the pageant or in the audience or touring the antebellum homes. (He wasn't critical but observing.)


I was reading a Greg Iles' mystery on the plane home and he comments on just this subject:

"The Confederate Pageant has been the center of white social life in Natchez for the past seventy years. Replete with hoop skirts, sabers, and rebel uniforms, this celebration of pre-Civil War life in the Deep South is one of the most politically incorrect spectacles in the United States.

Yet it remains an institution that most of the affluent children in town participate in -- as velvet-clad toddlers dancing around a Maypole, clean-cut high schoolers waltzing around with flattered tourists or intoxicated college kids trekking home three times a week during March to don Confederate regalia and march to the strains of 'Dixie' as members of the 'Confederate Court.' Being asked to take part in the pageant is a mark of social distinction -- and confer star status on those offered them."

Turning Angel, Greg Iles

Growing old among friends

That's the line that struck me yesterday as I sat listening to the priest at the wedding of Lizzy Jones and Tim Abston. The church was small and intimate so it seemed like we were one big family who had come to watch Lizzy and Tim get married. It gave you such a feeling of warmth and inclusiveness.

Here's me and the mother of the bride, Brenda:

We were in the hall shortly before the wedding, and in true Southern fashion, a hip flask full of whiskey was being passed around. Mel had a nip, then I realized I needed a nip before I read one of the lessons so I ran into the room filled with bridesmaids and the bride to see where that hip flask had gone to. Turns out the bride had it -- "Just let me hold that for you a second," I said.

The wedding itself was beautiful. I had a great seat on the side because I had to do a reading so we got some wonderful photos:


I had practiced my reading over and over in the hotel room so I was ready. The priest told me the day before to project so I did my best. Here I am:


Brenda said she would seat me and my husband together so when lightning struck the church when I read scripture, it would just zap the both of us and do the least damage to the structure of the building -- it would have been worse if it had to strike in two locations within the church, you see.

I have been missing the South so much and now that I'm older, I can think about where we should live when the kids are gone. I know I have to keep a small place in England for many reasons but then Mel and I think -- should we live in California? The weather is so good there, no humidity, ocean, etc. But we know very few people there.

But I've spent the week with such loving friends and companions -- it's made me feel a part of a community again -- so when the priest talked about 'growing old in the company of friends,' I thought YES! that's what I want to do.

Lizzy's wedding day

Today is a wonderful day because my god-daughter Lizzy Jones is getting married this afternoon. I took a pic of the church at rehearsal yesterday afternoon:

I know I'm not the greatest pick for godmother since I don't believe in God but I have always sent Lizzy money to spend on 'spiritual development' (I told her to buy beer with it.)

Here is Lizzy with the two main men in her life, her father Edley, and husband-to-be Tim Abston:

I also got a photo of Lizzy's mother, the famous Brenda Ware Jones:

The rehearsal was fun because I got to catch up with people I hadn't seen in years, and the speeches afterwards were poignant and funny.

I have to practice my scripture reading soon so I don't mess up tonight:

I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

(etc.)

Cute Natchez things

Here are a couple of amusing things I found in Natchez:

Jimmy the Cricket
We went to tour an antebellum home in Natchez and found this guy, dressed so charmingly. He told me about his outfit and how he dressed up and went to the house's cook and said, "Who do you think I look like?"

She thought about it for a while then replied, "Jimmy the Cricket."

He found it so hilarious that she said that instead of Jiminy Cricket that he's even had business cards printed for the pilgrimage that read Jimmy the Cricket.

(He's my Facebook friend now so I can keep up with his adventures.)



Sign at the mall

Casey Ann Hughes told us her relative calls the Natchez Mall the 'Small' because there's not much in it. I had to go there on an emergency visit because my phone went flat and I needed a charger.

An amusing sign greeted us:



"Mel!" I said to my husband. "You pull up those hanging pants of yours right now or we can't go in."

Miss Betty gives me a gift

My mother's dearest friend was Betty McGehee of Natchez. Miss Betty (we children were allowed to call her that after years of knowing her) lives on a big farm with horses, cows and chickens. We always loved going out to the McGehee's and riding their horses and getting a taste of the country life.

Here's me and Miss Betty earlier this week:



We saw Miss Betty twice during our few days in Natchez. She let me pick fragrant daffodils from her garden and put them in a can with some water, and we drove around Natchez with those flowers in the cup holder of the car for the next couple of days and I was constantly reminded of her.

When I was young and living in Natchez, Miss Betty had an idea to pick daffodils from her vast acres of them and put in decorated cans to give to shut-ins -- elderly people who couldn't get out of the house -- to cheer them. But I was so intimidated by them when I tried to take them flowers that I forgot to put water in the can so the flowers would have been dead quickly. I finally confessed this to Miss Betty, and she laughed and we re-created the daffodils in the can, only this time I put water in them.

On our second visit yesterday, we sat on the rocking swing on her front porch and talked about my mother and the guilt I had over her life (she was in a home with Multiple Sclerosis while I was living in England raising kids so I wasn't there for her except for yearly visits). Miss Betty tried to help me by telling about some of her private guilt that she was dealing with, then we both started crying, and it was cathartic.

Then she loaded us down with pecans from her trees, homemade lemonade and more daffodils in cans, and basically we agreed that she was my mother now that my own mother is dead, and the whole visit was a beautiful experience.

I have to show you this photo Mel took of me getting ready to go out at the antebellum home we were staying in. I was sooo nervous, not knowing what to expect from Natchez -- would it deny me its magic or open its arms to me? And it came through for me. Thank you Natchez.

It happened again

I was sitting on the porch this morning in Natchez, Mississippi, soaking up the atmosphere. The sun was shining, it was warm, and I could smell the fragrant flowers nearby. I took a picture of the scene from the porch:


I knew my husband was packing up the car and would soon come to tell me it was time to leave Natchez. I felt like I'd had this experience before -- and I had -- 40 years earlier. My father said we had to move from Natchez and it was like my world collapsed. I never really thought we'd actually leave such a wonderful place -- and we ended up in Halstead, Kansas, for a year.

I had sat on the porch of our house in Natchez when I was young, waiting for my father to shout that it was time to go. I dreaded the moment so much, and I never forgot what it felt like. And now I had it again today, but, of course, in miniature because I can come back when I want to now.

Born again in Natchez

Ha, not really born again but I feel so much better now about my trip back to my childhood. I was so worried about going back to Natchez because my parents were dead and it was so hard to find my old friends. I felt like a chunk of my life was missing -- I have a great life overseas but always missed Natchez -- it's a magical place.

Well, I didn't have to worry a minute once I hit Natchez and visited my mother's best friend, Betty McGehee, then had lunch with Natchez people I had caught up with through Facebook. It was like I had known them all my life and had only been away for a short time. Then because of their kindness to me, it was as if I could lay down new tracks in my memory of Natchez -- the burned-out past of bad feelings when we had to move because my father got into arguments with other doctors and I had to leave my childhood behind vanished as I spent time with my new best friends.

More on this soon. The connection at the house I'm staying in is up and down so I haven't been able to log on to the Internet (torture for me).

Here we are at lunch:

Morning in Natchez

I woke up this morning in an ante-bellum home run by Esther Carpenter in Natchez,Mississippi. What an experience. I heard music outside from some chimes she has then I went outside the room to have coffee on the porch and this is the sight that greeted me:


Already I am falling under the spell of Natchez....

A nervous nelly

My Internet connection is off and on so I will try to blog when I can but it won't be very good. I was such a nervous nelly over this trip, working myself up into a state. My bad back hasn't helped. But I realized what the prob was yesterday when we were driving up from New Orleans to Natchez, Mississippi.

It's that I feel like a stranger here. All my close relatives are dead so the towns I visit have changed for me because there's no home I can drop into and stay without much formality. Because I've lived overseas for so long, I haven't come to terms with any of this -- it's like I just dropped in from another planet to find my grandparents and mother and father dead -- so when we drive to Natchez or Vicksburg or Jackson, for example, there's no place for me to just drop my bags and hang out. I think that's what has unsettled me.

Yesterday, though, I had a great time in New Orleans seeing my aunt Susan, uncle Bill Wells and my cousins Mike and Bill.

Mel and I started the morning out having cafe au lait and beignets at the Morning Call coffee bar. They moved this whole thing from the French Quarter into a shop with lower rents.




Then we met the Wells family for lunch at Dragos. I had a sea full of food -- oysters, shrimp and catfish. It was fantastic to eat such delicious seafood.

Here are the guys at the restaurant taking a hammer to fresh oysters:

And here I am with the Wells. It was delightful to spend time with them after so many years. My aunt Susan is my mother's sister so it was especially good for me to be with her, two years on from my mother's death.

Easier than ever to recover from gunshot to the head

I know I whine about living in England -- it's dark, rainy and depressing outside as I type this -- but you would NEVER see an article like this in our local paper. And that's got to be a positive....

JACKSON, Miss. - WAPT.com

Andrea Scott and Sanaa Hill may be alive today because of fast medical attention and the pieces of bullets that are still in their heads, a local neurosurgeon said.

A stray bullet hit 8-year-old Hill in the head while she was inside the Boys & Girls club in December. She's now back in school and doing well.

And Jackson State researcher Andrea Scott is home recovering after a robber shot her twice in the head earlier this month.

Dr. Domenic Esposito, the director of Neurotrauma at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said a gunshot victim’s chance of survival is greater than ever. He didn't treat Scott or Hill, but he said that he does treat about 50 victims who were shot in the head each year. More than half survive. He said that's because he takes the less is more approach.

Why we react to injustice

I thought this was interesting. So I'm not just a meddling busy-body. I'm just following my brain's dictates when I simmer over unfairness at work.

"At some point in our lives, we've all cried "It's not fair!" In fact, it's human nature for us to dislike unequal situations, and we often try to avoid or remedy them. Now, scientists have identified the first evidence of this behavior's neurological underpinnings in the human brain.

The results show that the brain's reward center responds to unequal situations involving money in a way that indicates people prefer a level playing field, and may suggest why we care about the circumstances of others in the first place.

"Our study shows that the brain doesn’t just reflect self-interested goals, but instead, these basic reward processing regions of the brain seem to be affected by social information," said study author Elizabeth Tricomi, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "That might explain why what happens to other people seems to matter so much to us, even when it might not actually directly affect our own situation."

Existential angst

Feeling sorry for myself just because my back is hurting and every time I sit down my leg goes dead and I have so many hours on a flight tomorrow to get through.

When my mother died two years ago, I wanted to go back to Natchez, Mississippi, to visit because she loved it there so much so now I'm going and I think, what is it I think I'm going to find there? She's not there anymore. Did I think I was somehow going to find her again?

Getting ready to go to Natchez, Mississippi

But there's so much to do and my back still hurts. I pack a little, rest a little then get up and do something else. But I'm trying to keep in my mind what I'll be seeing soon -- Natchez:

I'm batch making big meals of food for the freezer so the kids can take out what they need for dinner. Mel is going to make a bunch of sandwiches ahead of time for Mikey's lunch and freeze.

Youth less religiously active

Thanks to Casey Ann for sending me this:

A new Pew Research Center survey on Millennials and religion has found that members of Gen Y are less religiously active than perhaps any generation in American history; but still retain faith in an afterlife and say they pray about the same amount as young people in previous decades.

According to Pew,

“Millennials are significantly more unaffiliated than Generation Xers were at a comparable point in their life cycle (20% in the late 1990s) and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults (13% in the late 1970s). Young adults also attend religious services less often than older Americans today. And compared with their elders today, fewer young people say that religion is very important in their lives.”

Interestingly, Pew ties some of these results to Gen Y’s wide acceptance of homosexuality.

In their social and political views, young adults are clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life and less prone to see Hollywood as threatening their moral values.

Last birthday dinner

My husband took me out to a fancy restaurant last night -- me and my back pillow came. We had a gourmand menu -- so many courses of little delights and a different wine to go with each of the courses. "Why can't the wine we have at Book Club taste like this?" I asked at one point.

"Because you all would have to agree to pay £25 for each bottle," my husband pointed out.

Highlights of the food were:

- gingerbread thin sandwich with foie gras inside
- vension wrapped in bacon with a chocolate sauce
- halibut and crab in some wonderful sauce

So delish. I'd had a great birthday even though I put my back out, except MY KIDS DIDN'T REMEMBER -- even though I'd dropped large hints that it was my birthday.

Is this passive-aggressive behavior? Are they giving me a secret message that they really hate me?

All psychoanalysis welcome.

Birthday at the Blue Elephant

My friend Karen Firbank picked me up in her Jag last night and we drove into London to celebrate my birthday and Tessa Elphick's. I had my drugs and back pillow handy because of the problems I've been having with a lumbar disc this week. That along with a few mango juice champagnes at the restaurant and my friends made for a wonderful evening - a birthday to remember.



The restaurant Karen picked -- the Blue Elephant in Fulham, London, is fantastic. The food is incredible but the restaurant is like a Thai jungle -- there's a river indoors with Koi fish swimming around -- it doesn't feel like a restaurant at all but rather a jungle with a few tables scattered around for diners. I got lost trying to get back to my table once -- I had to turn here, walk over a bridge over the river, well, you understand.

We celebrated Tessa's birthday too with the two Karens -- Firbank and Blakeley. There's Karen B and Tessa below:


We had so much fun, and I was showered with presents again:


People are so nice to me -- I don't deserve it. Now I am going to take my back meds and go back to bed. Such a wonderful birthday -- thanks everyone.

Friendship just when I need it

I've been flat on my back with a disc problem for the last 24 hours. I shouldn't be on the computer now because sitting makes one of my legs go dead but I just had to tell you...

I got up this morning and went downstairs to get coffee and there were beautiful flowers on the cabinet! Could my husband Mel have been that thoughtful, I wondered? NAH!

They were so lovely and cheered me immediately. Then I noticed some bags of presents in the hall. They must be something that Mel has to take in to work, or something, I thought. Upon closer inspection, I saw my name on some of the envelopes.

Then I realized that my darling book club had remembered my birthday, even though I wasn't giving a party this year like I usually do. I hadn't been able to make the meeting earlier this week because my back went into spasms when I tried to drive.

My Austrian friend Martina made almond crescents -- we used to get those from a German baker in Vicksburg, Mississippi, when I was young, but I had never tasted them since. And my friend Manju got me my favorite chocolates -- rose and violet creams from Fortnum & Mason's in London.

Anyway, my breakfast this morning was almond crescents and violet/rose creams ! Was there ever such a magnificent breakfast?

I will float all day today because of their kindness to me (and not just from the drugs I have to take for my back). :)

This evening, another carload of friends are stopping by my house to whisk me into London to a Thai restaurant called the Blue Elephant for my birthday. I am so lucky that my friends are so nice to me, even when I'm ill and getting SO OLD.

Mewling memoirs produced by oppressed celebrity children

I've just ordered In My Father's Shadow by the daughter of Orson Welles. In it she will detail years of neglect by her famous father who had a low boredom threshold and couldn't deal with the emotional demands of children.

I love these tell-all books by famous people's children. I especially enjoyed reading about Joan Crawford (wire hangers) and Bette Davis' (drunk and violent) parenting skills. I think when I read about kids telling all after years of having to be silent it reminds me of my own childhood where I had to keep my father's secrets until I was an adult when I could finally speak.

I'll tell you all about the juicy parts of this book when I read it.

I enjoyed what one reviewer had to say already:

"It has always been my considered belief that artistic geniuses should take a vow of celibacy because that way they will be confined to messing up only their lives. We would also be spared the sub-genre of mewling memoirs produced by their oppressed, neglected, browbeaten children.

"On my shelves I have cry-baby books by the offspring of Picasso, Chaplin. Olivier, Sellers, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. With this book, Orson Welles now joins the ranks of celebrity bad parents who 'loved you when you were in front of him, but forgot you when you were out of sight.'"

Signed off with a flat back

I went to the doctor this morning, and he signed me off from work. This is an English thing where you go to your doctor to try and get notes that say you don't have to work. I've never had one before. The note says PLEASE REFRAIN FROM WORKING FOR....then the doctor fills in the rest.

(Malingerers try to get signed off for months at a time for stress.)

Anyway, I have some problem with a nerve around a vertebrae so the doctor told me that I can't do anything, not bending over, not cooking, nothing that makes my back work. Just wait 'til Mel and the kids see my new inaction. In fact, I think I'm going back to bed right now.

Fake happiness and fool your heart

Here's some good news for those of you like me who find happiness a hard thing to hang on to:

LONDON - You've heard it before: to avoid a heart attack don't smoke, eat right and exercise. But it also may help to be happy, a new study says.

Even if you're grumpy by nature, just try to be cheerful.

Researchers at Columbia University rated the happiness levels of more than 1,700 adults in Canada with no heart problems in 1995.

After a decade, they examined the 145 people who developed a heart problem and found happier people were less likely to have had one.

The study was published online Thursday in the European Heart Journal.

Fake it

"If you aren't naturally a happy person, just try acting like one," said Dr. Karina Davidson of Columbia University Medical Center, the paper's lead author. "It could help your heart."

Davidson and colleagues used a five-point scale to measure people's happiness. They then statistically adjusted to account for things like age, gender, and smoking.

For every point on the happiness scale, people were 22 percent less likely to have a heart problem. The study was paid for by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and others.

Just waiting for doctor....

I did something to my back over the weekend and by the time it came to driving to my book club meeting last night, it was in spasms, so I had to go home and go to bed. I hate to miss my book club -- not for the book reviews, but for the goss!

Oh well....

Just waiting for a doctor's appointment now and then will try to drive to work. Commuting isn't doing my back any good but I can't miss work because I have all of next week off because I'm going to America.

I can't wait to see how my back loves long-distance flying, especially when you can't get out of your seat during the last hour of the flight in case you try to set off a bomb.

Monday musings

Rainy horrible weekend. Sun is shining today but I did something to my back so am hobbling around like an old person. Ongoing domestic difficulties -- can't tell you what it is, or I will get into trouble. Maybe if I write it down, things will improve? Sometimes it works.

Anyway, the ONLY THING that cheered me up today was hearing that a woman I can't stand had a nightmare vacation last week. The thought of her having a miserable time made me feel much better about my bad day.

Smart blogging can help career but one flub will nix it

I was reading an article on an American website during lunch about how 'smart blogging can help your career, but one flub can blow it.' This struck me as SO AMERICAN -- blogging just to advance your career, but then if a potential boss sees one thing out of place, you've just blown it.

I've worked in both countries, and I have observed how you can be yourself in British companies -- you can even get drunk at office parties and no one cares -- but do the same thing in America, and you can lose your job.

So if you are blogging privately and a would-be employer sees you take a strong stand on something, rather than dismiss it, they can rescind your offer. Here's the example:

"Blogging didn’t work out so great for Kelly Dunleavy of San Rafael, Calif.

The summer after she graduated from University of California, Berkeley, she started a blog that she described as “fun”. “As a writer,” she said, “I thought it would be helpful to show potential employers that 
I could write.”

Dunleavy, who’s now a reporter for a newspaper in Marin County, was interning at the governor’s office when she was writing the blog and was considering accepting a full-time job there.

“I mused briefly on my
blog about the odd-flavor of the office, the lack of windows, the
24-hour news cycle, and about whether this was really the bizarro atmosphere for me. I did not write anything bad about anyone else or
about the governor or about, well, anything,” she said.

Unfortunately, her blog post was enough to get her future bosses up in arms, and they promptly rescinded the offer."

Maybe you took a political stance a hiring manager didn’t agree with or simply wrote something that made you sound dumb. Bloggers beware: There are few, if any, protections for workers if an employer fires you or refuses to hire you for something you wrote on a blog outside of work.

Eliz again: This seems pretty draconian but sounds like that's the way it is in America. I guess it's no wonder the guy who writes the Mississippi Atheist blog does so under a pseudonym.