http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/helen-thomas-dropped-by-her-speakers-agency/?ref=us#preview

Brian Stelter's is the first article I am reading on the subject of Helen Thomas' resignation/firing, not that I have not looked for more, and not that I have not heard about it on the r… Read full post »

Going against both sides of the mothering spectrum, Reina Weiner’s new book, Strong from the Start: Raising Confident and Resilient Kids, brings the rediscovered voice of reason and wisdom and a great sense of humor to the topic of raising children. Far from trying to antagonize one tribe (the work/…

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What else to do when snow hits as hard as it did since December 19, but read even more? Cuddled under my many blankets and even with a flashlight when I lost power, I turned many pages during this long and never-ending winter. As I write this review, snow still muffles… Read full post »

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/europe/05france.html?ref=global-home

The one who must be laughing in his grave is none other than Josef Stalin. He destroyed churches by either erasing them totally, transforming them into swimming-pools, youth centers, museums, hay lofts, pigsties, etc. In Eur… Read full post »

Thanks for the rare sunny Sunday walks this Fall 2009...
A first Sunny Sunday Walk in October, at The Madeira School, close to Great Falls, VA, provided me with pictures of leaves floating, of ponds that Manet would not have denied, and of a camouflaged frog.

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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 »