A la recherche du temps perdu . . .

The Robidoux Home by Henriette Robidoux-Deojay - Our Caron-Rose home is in the background. I've always loved this pen and ink by my Cousine Henriette. Her daughter Kate gave this to me. She had made the sketch into note cards. I'm so glad that I saved one. It was my intention to have more made up but I never did. There was a well worn path between the homes from time immemorial - I am overcome with love.

I've been looking for the tin types, daguerreotypes and other old photos from the Moosup house which we inherited  by dint of buying the Moosup property back in 1969. Ma Tante Rose came with the house and our children were fortunate that they never had a baby sitter as Ma Tante cared for them whenever P&D's Pop and I were out. We ended up with many items of sentimental value which came with the Caron family when they moved to Moosup around 1910. I've given much of it away to cousins as I didn't know what to do with all of the photos and religious items. Since there were 11 living children when my grandparents emigrated from Canada to Salmon Falls, New Hampshire where Pa was born and therefore there were 12 who finally moved to Moosup, Connecticut we had lots of stuff  'on the other side' upstairs in our old home. Even though I had given much away we still brought some things that I couldn't bare to not have with me. I think that somehow old things and I just gravitate to each other. Part of the reason we're comfortable in our vintage 1996 home here in Louisiana is because we brought a lot of the 1803 Moosup home with us. But now it's time to see if I can give some of the older items to a museum in Baton Rouge.

That is why I have posted the photo of my cousin Henrietta's sketch on my page today. I had put it for safe keeping in the old trunk 'on the other side'  that came from Canada with my grandparents. The memories are strong. When I get teary eyed about Moosup it's not because we're not there anymore it's because I miss what we were when we lived in that old house. Most of the people are now within Heaven's Gate and those that are on Earth have their unique lives to live but the old times are alive and well in my heart and soul. We are fortunate to have been born and brought up in an age where people took the time to talk with us little kids and we learned how hard they worked and how hard they played.They enjoyed sharing all they had with each and every member of the family no matter how far removed.  Yes, I still love the old memories; hopefully we've become a part of someone else's comfortable 'temps perdu.'

Quote: 

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.

— Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Et tout d’un coup le souvenir m’est apparu. Ce goût, c’était celui du petit morceau de madeleine que le dimanche matin à Combray (parce que ce jour-là je ne sortais pas avant l’heure de la messe), quand j’allais lui dire bonjour dans sa chambre, ma tante Léonie m’offrait après l’avoir trempée dans son infusion de thé ou de tilleul.
La vue de la petite madeleine ne m’avait rien rappelé avant que je n’y eusse goûté ; peut-être parce que, en ayant souvent aperçu depuis, sans en manger, sur les tablettes de pâtissiers, leur image avait quitté ces jours de Combray pour se lier à d’autres plus récents ; peut-être parce que, de ces souvenirs abandonnés depuis si longtemps hors de ma mémoire, rien ne survivait, tout s’était désagrégé ; les formes- et celle aussi du petit coquillage de pâtisserie, si grassement sensuel sous son plissage sévère et dévot- s’étaient abolies ou, ensommeillées, avaient perdu la force d’expansion qui leur eut permis de rejoindre la conscience …
Et dès que j’eus reconnu le goût du morceau de madeleine trempé dans le tilleul que me donnait ma tante (quoique je ne susse pas encore et dusse remettre à bien plus tard de découvrir pourquoi ce souvenir me rendait si heureux) aussitôt la vieille maison grise sur la rue où était ma chambre vint comme un décor de théâtre s’appliquer au petit pavillon donnant sur le jardin qu’on avait construit pour mes parents sur ses derrières (ce pan tronqué que seul j’avais revu jusque là) ; et avec la maison, la ville, depuis le matin jusqu’au soir et par tous les temps, la place où l’on m’envoyait avant déjeuner, les rues où j’allais faire les courses, les chemins qu’on prenait si le temps était beau.
Et comme dans ce jeu où les japonais s’amusent à tremper dans un bol de porcelaine rempli d’eau de petits morceaux de papier jusqu’alors indistincts qui, à peine y sont-ils plongés, s’étirent, se contournent, se différencient, deviennent des fleurs, des maisons, des personnages consistants et reconnaissables, de même maintenant toutes les fleurs de notre jardin et celles du parc de M. Swan, et les nymphéas de la Vivonne, et les bonnes gens du village et leur petits logis, et l’église, et tout Combray et ses environs, tout cela qui prend forme et solidité est sorti, ville et jardins, de ma tasse de thé. »

It's too damned hot . . .

What the heck?

 I guess when you move to Louisiana you should expect hot but today really took the cake and I don't think the heat wave is even close to ending! It is 98 degrees. I refuse to look at the thermometer until this evening when I hope we'll at least get back into the 80's.

We had a great time yesterday when we brought Puppy back home and Big Kiddo and his wife fried the catfish they had caught when they were camping in Arkansas. It was the best. They really know how to make it so good that I, who doesn't usually like fish, love it. They also fry up some mean french fries and make homemade tartar sauce.  What more could you ask for? I made sure I was famished before we left our home so I put away a lot of fish!

I can't believe that P&D's Pop was out mowing at a little after 6am this morning; I went for my walk at 6:30 and it was already over 80. When I finished my walk I fed the birds and used out new little electric blower to clean off the porch and driveway.  Wow, we both headed for the showers! Anyway the yard looks great and I'll water my flowers this evening when it'll still be over 90 I'm sure! I've planted some cantaloupe and peas in my grow pots and they seem to be doing okay.  I don't expect them to produce until fall so it'll be interesting to see if we have a decent crop! I'm not at all accustomed to the growing season down here. It's pretty mixed up!

 We went to Barnes & Noble to get P&D's Pop some more Tolkien.  He just finished the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and liked them. It's so hot that he is spending part of the day inside reading! We also ended up having breakfast for lunch at La Madelaine a really nice place right next door to the book store.  I like to go there when I venture into Baton Rouge on my own for doctors' appointments but it's even better when I have his company.  I was able to replenish my supply of nice greeting cards too. That's a plus. I don't have to spend the money ordering them on line. CVS carries some good cards but not the fancier ones that I prefer.

I expect to hear from a gentleman who works for the Burden Museum and Gardens  in Baton Rouge. I'm hoping he may be interested in the old books, photos and cloth that I brought from our Caron Homestead in Moosup, CT. It would be nice if they could use some of it at the Museum. I really hope the museum follows through on the contact. I've found that a lot of people say they'll do something and then nothing happens.  That seems to happen in Louisiana a lot.  Just read the papers and see how lax we are about everything down here!! I don't think that that's a bum rap either!

Quote:  He who would fight the devil with his own weapons, must not wonder if he finds him an overmatch.   ____South

Best homily in years . . .

Birdbath

I enjoy the peace and quiet calm of Sunday Mass along with the music; it’s always a blessing to sit, relax, take some deep breaths and slowly let whatever stress I allow into my life to disappear. Today a young seminarian, John Vu, who is assigned to our parish for the summer spoke about the parable of the Good Shepherd and he made it his own. He explained how he had thrown out his original homily and worked on today’s version last night. I’m glad he did as he told us how hard a shepherd must work to keep his flock from sneaking away; it's very difficult to get them back to the fold. That shepherd works very hard and is not always successful but he never gives up. Father John (he will be Father John next year) spoke from his heart but more importantly from his surpassing intelligence - there is no guile, no self serving just an honest, sincere young man. I expect he will be able to continue in his honest service to the people because he is a strong individual who seems to think for himself and not be taken in by some of the platitudes we usually hear from the pulpit or in any discussions  with modern day Catholics. I like him! I wish I were better versed in the Bible and knew him well so I could better explain his homily but I felt that he was saying that the sheep aren’t too bright and I must concur! I think that the Good Shepherd has an impossible job! But it makes me smile to know that He never gives up.

It is already 90 degrees out and looking through the kitchen window I can see the breeze working through the branches of the Live Oak and my rainbow spinner is enjoying a ride but if I go out the door the humidity will strike me down! I shall walk in the house today and only water the plants this evening. We'll be leaving shortly to bring puppy pup back home; we are fortunate that son  and his wife are going to have a fish fry! I’ll make certain that I’m starving before we go.

Quote:  Parents who wish to train up their children in the way they should go, must go in the way in which they would have their children go. ____Bacon

I suppose . . .

Puppy Sitting

I went to my follow up appointment after wearing a heart monitor for the month of May. It took almost two hours of waiting before the doctor came in; he did chastise me a bit for leaving the examination room to ask if they had forgotten me! He said that he had many patients on this day in particular who needed a lot of education and I was one of them and so he would be late for his next appointment too. I told him it was okay as long as he hadn’t been drinking coffee and snacking. He said no, he’d been with the dancing girls. I cracked up.  Then he did explain what CIS (Cardiovascular Institute of the South) was trying to do in my case. The insurance would not pay for the five year loop recorder he wanted to install on me unless they had already done the one month monitor. So now that the one month monitor did not prove that I have atrial fibrillation he wants the five year monitor because he doesn’t want me on Coumadin, a blood thinner,  as they’re not sure if it’s worth the risk because of the bad side effects. The neurologist had put me on a whole baby aspirin to try to ward off possible heart infarctions; Dr. Thompson said the aspirin might help some but not enough and my stomach doesn’t like the whole aspirin so I’m taking one half daily. Since they know I’ve had a TIA at some point, they don’t want anymore of them, but they also don’t want to risk the strong blood thinning medicines therefore the five year loop recorder will keep track of what my heart is doing and let Dr. Thompson know by sending messages to his inbox if my heart is misbehaving and they need to intervene in some way to prevent a stroke. I’m not certain I’ve explained this correctly. But I am certainly willing to do as he suggests because I’ve seen what strokes can do to people and I sure as heck don’t want one. So as long as my new insurance okays the loop recorder it will be injected into the left side of my chest and I’ll have a small monitor to put near my bed that will send out the heart information. I don’t have to do anything but show up at the Cath Lab in Zachary and I don’t even need someone to drive me! Pretty cool. I needed to write this down so I can remember what the Doctor said and to prove to myself that my brain is still working okay!

Quote:  Doctor, no medicine. ___We are machines made to live___organized expressly for that purpose.__Such is our nature.__Do not counteract the living principle.__Leave it at liberty to defend itself, and it will do better than your drugs.___Napoleon (Not bad, Napoleon!)

Time for a small adventure . . .

On The Wild Side

The heat can get you down so we started the day with a trip to Birdland in Saint Francisville for breakfast. I didn’t order my usual sweet potato waffle because the same cook was cooking today and the last time he made my favorite waffle he kinda messed up; I didn’t want to take a chance. I ordered a three eggs scrambled sandwich on ciabatta bread with pepper jack cheese and ham; I was surprised at how good it was. I watched him as he cooked and it seems he is very young but real ‘chef.’ I didn’t tell him about my misgivings when I saw he was the cook! I’ll have to try the waffle again and see if turns out perfectly! We left the restaurant and ventured down to the old ferry landing. Again I had a surprise; Saint Francisville has taken down the fence that kept people and cars from being able to get closer to the Mississippi. We walked along the path on the west bank and were pleasantly surprised to see some fishermen! We walked even further along and found many spots where you can bring your car and park right next to a fishing spot. I don’t think too many people know about it yet because it didn’t seem to have been used very much. Of course when it rains or floods there would be no way to get to those spots! Still P&D’s Pop and I renewed our fishing and hunting licenses today when we went for target practice at Bass Pro. It’s been quite a while since I had some practice. We’ll have to remedy that because I still need beaucoup practice. It doesn’t help that the ammunition I’m using is old and doesn’t like to shoot well in my Browning 22. Hopefully I get some good ammo after I finish off the last 150 rounds! I think I’ll do that next week. I hate the gun jamming on me all the time. I have enough trouble getting to hit the bull’s eye without have a jam every time I put in a magazine!

I’m still on the grouchy side after the snafu with AT&T. Someone at AT&T unsubscribed us from their phone service and it took me about 3 hours on the phone and online chats to even get someone out here to fix the problem and when he came the poor guy really shouldn’t have been sent out because it wasn’t a tech problem it was an office problem! So we were without the home phone for three days because of the company’s incompetence. It will be interesting to see if we get an email apology for their incompetence and seeming lack of caring for their disruption of our lives. My blood pressure goes up when ever I have to deal with unadulterated negligence and the unsurpassing lack of basic intelligence in the human beings who get paid to talk in circles while explaining the problems their company is having handling all of their complaint calls.

Okay. Time to quit bitching and play with my photos!

Quote:  Every great man is unique. __The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part which he could not borrow.  _________Emerson

Didn’t mind going to Women’s for a change . . .

Sweltering Morning in South Park

I had my annual checkup at Women’s today but for a change I was looking forward to it because I have decided that any doctor’s appointment completed is worthy of treating myself to a special meal, snack, sweet, drink or whatever else pops into my head. I think P&D’s Pop has figured that out so he offered to accompany me which is unusual! After passing my physical with flying colors we went to Frank’s in Prairieville for a noontime breakfast. For a whopping $5 I had chicken fried steak with plain white gravy and a biscuit. Wow, it was just the right amount of everything and I was surprised at the price. We ate for under $20 for the two of us. The price is irrelevant but interesting just the same. The coffee was excellent and P&D’s Pop’s hash, eggs, grits and toast were also just right. I’m now looking forward to my Friday checkup at CIS in Zachary! I usually end up at Waffle House but I may just have to see if I can find another breakfast place - I think Smoothie King serves some type of breakfast. I wonder if it’s worth checking out?

Went to South Park at 6:30 this morning to try to get in a walk and some bird shots before the sun and humidity became unbearable. Well, it was unbearable from the start and the only bird who sat still for me was so high up in a rotten old tree that I didn’t get any great photos. I did manage to get a self portrait as I was trying to capture the heavy dew on the wild grasses in the drainage ditches! Trying to coax P&D’s Pop into a movie this week but I don’t think he’s buying into the idea! Drat. There don’t seem to be any movies worth seeing at this time  of year. May have to look at Amazon Prime!

Quote:  Philosophy is the art of living. _____Plutarch

Sunday travel in Baton Rouge . . .

Keeping cooling photos on my mind

I’ve decided that since traffic isn’t too bad in the city on Sundays it is a great time to find my way around without dealing with I10. That highway scares the heck out of me; I’m always afraid I’m going to get stuck in a traffic jam from Hell and never make it back home; I’d be like Charlie caught on the MTA ; he never returned! So today I told P&D’s Pop that I was planning a trip to Talbot’s and Whole Foods on Corporate Boulevard just to see if I could get there without going on I10. He offered to drive Miss Irène! Yikes, that’s a lot of stress as Miss Irène is moi and I hadn’t planned to use Waze or any type of GPS; I was just going to wing it! Well, we did okay. Took I12 to Airline North and then a left on to Old Hammond which miraculously turns into Corporate. We were there before Talbot’s opened! Old Hammond has a lot of very fancy, gated communities. I was pretty surprised at how beautiful Baton Rouge can be if you know your way around. I had already ordered what I wanted from Talbot’s on line because the store didn’t  have the t-shirts I wanted so I cajoled my driver into a walk around Whole Foods with me. That was a hoot! Wow! We just looked and were surprised at the people with families eating out while shopping! It’s a big store and very different from Big Y, Rouses or my Neighborhood Walmart but I’m sure it’s not the right shopping experience for us! I may try it once more on my own just for shits and giggles but I think I’ll stick to what I know for the foreseeable future. We left without buying a thing although I must admit that they had the best selection of cards by Papyrus I’ve ever seen in a brick and mortar store. I then coaxed my at this point reluctant driver to find the Barnes &Noble at City Place about a mile away. I was surprised that area has gotten a bit shabby. It looks like older buildings are being torn down and new ones are already shooting up. I don’t think City Place is very old either. We made our way home the same way we got there. I was impressed with how easy it was to find our way but my driver was not impressed. He seems to prefer going on I10. I’m glad that my experiment worked. Now I’ll have to try it out during the week. I also found an easy way to get to the Botanical Gardens so when the weather cools down I have another excursion on tap.

Quote:  There is no impossibility to him who stands prepared to conquer every hazard.  --The fearful are the failing.   __________ Sarah J. Hale