My father’s mother, Mamie as I used to call her, never was very affectionate with me. It was said that her favorite granddaughter was the youngest of her son’s numerous children through multiple marriages, because that last one had been named after her.

I still see her standing like the S… Read full post »

Cat purring right by my face at night;
the MGM lion roaring;
the rain on a hot summer night, windows open;
Russian Easter Bells -once you've heard them, all other bells are but "noisy gongs";
wind chimes;
the wind in the trees, shaking their summits when it is really…

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Un monologue prétendant être un dialogue entre la narratrice, Anne, et une vieille dame excentrique, Clémence Barrot (est-ce un clin d’oeil même involontaire à Clément Marrot?), voilà ce qu’est Le canapé rouge, de Michèle Lesbre… 138 pages d’introspection entre Moscou et Irkoutsk, en…

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Originally a movie based on real events that took place in South Africa (District 6 in Cape Town was declared a White-Only area in 1966 and forced removals and evictions started in 1968. By 1982, more than 60,000 persons had been relocated 25 km from District 6 and all standing buildings…

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Option means optional, for those out there who do NOT understand English...  Or maybe they are ready to pay for my son's monthly $1,100.00 medical bill???
Sometimes I wonder about the Machiavellic genius of right-wingers who manipulate crowds, in order to scare the #%! out of them, and make them… Read full post »

There is nothing I find more relaxing than summer strolls, hunting for the unexpected flower or insect picture.

The first ever Independence Day Parade I attended was the one organized in my previous neighborhood, 13 years ago, by a woman called Martha, who was -and probably still is- a fierce militant activist against anything and for everything. At the time, I did not understand while some neighbors were teas… Read full post »

 This is a post I published on my other blog :

 http://sarahdiligenti-thequillandthebrush.blogspot.com/

 I have just updated it and always wondered why the Import button never worked when I tried to import it on OS....

Parmi les livres que j’ai lus récemment, il en est qua… Read full post »

The thing with Mother’s Day is that it is only for Mothers. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I too am a mother, although probably not a very good one, not one of the “hovering-helicopter-mother” team, not a baking-cookie type of Mom, not a girly-girl one either. When I… Read full post »

I am not my mother.

My mother was the youngest of her family, and the only girl. Her birth was celebrated as a family miracle, although if a miracle there was, it was that she survived and that my grandmother survived. My mother was born alive and whole, which had not… Read full post »

   Dame Sei Shonagon is a Japanese author and woman of letters whose writings wrote around the year 1000 are  considered to be a major component of Japanese literature. The Pillow Book is a mishmash text, a collection of lists, poems, complaints and observations written while Shon… Read full post »

Dame Sei Shonagon est une femme de lettres japonaise qui a écrit vers l'an 1000 ce qui est considéré comme une des oeuvres majeures de la littérature japonaise. Notes de chevet, texte inclassable annonçant ce qui est connu en littérature moderne comme le "fragment". Notes de chevet est une coll… Read full post »

Sentences and blurbs thereof I'd love never to hear again:

1. Stone the crows!

2. I don't know about you but I....

3. Like, like, like...... (Like a Virgin, by Madonna, is the exception.)

4. It's not you, it's me.

5. Duh!

6. Listen... (Nothing good comes after that slow-almost-spelled… Read full post »

If it goes on, I will leave OS and will miss my dear friends: Kalpana, Moana, Caveat Canem Croceum, Harry Homeless, Critical Mess, Dangosteen, that I read as soon as they post, and others whom I have not made "friends" with, but that I read nonetheless for their style, and their… Read full post »

  March is back and I feel assaulted every time I go grocery-shopping. Right outside the main entrance of my local Giant’s, weekend after weekend, high-pitched Girl Scouts try their hardest to convince me and the other weekend shoppers to buy their cookies…or else… Read full post »

I did not know I was an addict until I went on a family Caribbean vacation the week before Christmas 2000.
Preparing for the weeklong deserved break from frantic holiday shopping and cooking, I decided to bring three good books to read along. I had visions of lazy days on sandy beaches, … Read full post »

The question is a challenge: geez, how will I be able to scan my brain and sort through reminiscences of all the movies I have seen in my life (hundreds!) and choose, elect, or crown one as My Favorite Movie Of All Time? At this point in my personal brain-storming, the question… Read full post »

Deux ans de vie dans l’ex-URSS et je pensais avoir développé l’art de la patience et même de l’avoir poussé jusqu’au raffinement, pouvant endurer avec le sourire et sans grincer des dents, non seulement les queues interminables dans les magasins –là-bas ou ici quand on annonce une temp…

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Is it me only or is this comic strip somehow "racist"? The simple fact that the White jock (and the White explorers) wonder about who on Earth could not care about the Super Bowl, to then show an "exotic" tribe with their home-made satellite connection... looks like 1930s comics, with… Read full post »

Some amongst you, I'm sure, will end up thinking I am on a personal crusade, or vendetta, against Pope Benedict XVI, or the Roman Catholic Church at large. To be honest, sometimes I wonder myself... However, it did not used to be so. I am all in favor of Coexistence of… Read full post »

Ségolène Royal, c'est la grenouille qui voulait être aussi grosse que le bœuf!

Non seulement, l'équipe d'Obama ne s'est pas inspirée d'elle, mais en Française ayant la mémoire courte, c'est elle qui oublie qu'elle s'est inspirée d'un mouveme… Read full post »