Books and Roses

The 23^rd of April is the feast day of Saint George. George was the knight who slew the dragon and saved the princess; and a red rose grew where the dragon’s blood had fallen. The legend here is that he did that in Montblanc, a small town inland from Barcelona. He is a very popular saint, patron of many places, proclaimed the patron saint of Catalonia in 1456.

I live in Catalonia where the holiday has traditionally been celebrated by a man giving a woman a red rose. But in 1931, this changed. Both Shakespeare and Cervantes died on 23 April and here in Catalonia, that day was adopted as the day of the book, coupled with the Sant Jordi tradition, it became the Day of the Book and the Rose. In 1995, UNESCO adopted 23 April as World Book Day.

 Sant Jordi is by far the nicest holiday in Catalonia. It isn’t a bank holiday, but even when it falls on a work day, like it did this year, everyone spills out to the Rambla of their town to walk up and down, buy roses and books, say hi to friends, and enjoy the atmosphere. This Wednesday there were 2 million books sold in Catalonia (that has a population of 7 million people) and 7 million roses. Men give roses to their lovers and vice versa, people give roses to their parents, siblings, friends, co-workers. I didn’t see that many people walking around carrying books, but almost everyone was carrying one or more roses.

I was there for the books, specifically my own book about Catalonia. Last year was the first time I participated in the festival as an author and bookseller. I liked being on the other side of the table, and I did it again this year, once again sharing a table with my friend Teresa in the section for local authors.

Bluebell

That's Edwin (on the right) who is from the Dominican Republic and Javier (on the left) who is Spanish and speaks English! They are the reception guys at the Citroen garage where I take my C3 for repairs. I’ve dealt with mechanics in Catalan for the past 20 years and each time I learned a new word. But there are a lot of words in car talk and oh my, how much easier it is in English.

My last mechanic, recommended by my friend Josep, didn’t like me. I don’t know why. He was a sourpuss who, when I would come in, would see me, and then without so much as a hello, ignore me for a good long while before asking what I wanted. I put up with him because when it came down to business, he seemed to know what he was doing. But about a year ago, the last time I came, he told me he wouldn’t be able to even take a look at the car for at least two months. I thought I had misheard, but no, “Dos mesos. minim” I took that to mean that he didn’t want to work on my car at all. At Citroen I found Edwin and Javier and was happy I had made the change.

I’ve been without a car now for ten days and it looked like the latest problem was going to be the car’s last – the mechanic couldn’t figure out what was causing it and I won’t drive a car that is incurable. This is Citroen. If they can’t figure out what is wrong with one of their cars, it is unlikely that anyone else can. I don’t use a car much, but there are times when I need to get out of town. I’ve missed two country walks I would have taken during these holidays and it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to go to the beach on New Year’s day, as I had planned. If the mechanic couldn’t figure out what the cause was, I would have to get rid of the car and find another one.

For the last few days I was pondering what kind of used car I was going to look for. But I didn’t want to look for a car. I wanted my car. I like my car. It’s a throwback to the Citroen 2CV – originally the French Everyman’s car, now a classic that I couldn’t afford to buy or maintain. It's the right size, shape, and color. It suits me. So I was a bit worried when I came into reception this morning. But there was no need. After having the car all these days, the mechanic found the problem and fixed it. I have my car back. Bluebell, Sweet Pea and I will be going to the beach on New Year’s after all.

Happy New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving

Today being Thanksgiving, I took myself out for a special lunch. I’ve always loved the holiday: It’s good to be reminded to be thankful, and of course there’s the food. I love the whole meal but to be honest, if there wasn’t any cranberry sauce, I’d have a hard time eating the turkey. In fact, who needs the turkey? Cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes in any form, and pumpkin pie, those are the makings of a happy Thanksgiving for me.

Having no one to celebrate with, I took myself to my favorite restaurant in my favorite place: Restaurant Pont Vell in Besalú. Thanksgiving is an American holiday so you can’t expect the same food here. And in fact, my lunch was completely different: no cranberries, no stuffing, no sweet potatoes, no pumpkin pie, and no turkey. Instead I had fish mousse for first and sausage with mashed potatoes and sauteed wild mushrooms (rovellons) for the main, followed by more mousse, this time chocolate shaped into a cake. And look at the view I had from my table.

They don’t do Thanksgiving here but they have adopted Black Friday with a vengeance. Never mind that it can start on any day of the week, any time in November, and last for days or weeks. Many people don’t know what Friday means anyway. I remember a time when there was no such thing as Black Friday. People started shopping for Christmas right after Thanksgiving, but it didn’t have a name except the Christmas Shopping Season. When did it get a name? Who named it?

Wandering around I saw a truck driver pull off what seemed to me like an impossible manuever, backing into a tiny street alongside a lovely Romanesque chapel. That man should win a prize. And then there was the river and a wee bit of fall in the air. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

An Unknown Hero

Varian Fry was a Harvard-educated non-Jew who went to France in 1940 to rescue people in special danger from the Nazis. In less than one year he rescued close to 2,000 people – labor leaders, politicians, writers, artists, Jews. Have you ever heard of him? Most people haven’t.

My interest in Varian Fry was sparked when I first heard about him in And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding. Such an important hero and yet I had never heard of him. That led me to A Hero of Our Own by Sheila Isenberg, an informative but not very well written biography of Fry. Then I read Fry's own (but abridged) Assignment: Rescue (an abbreviated version for school children of his original Surrender on Demand which is impossible to find for a reasonable price); followed by A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry, by Andy Marino, a well written biography and the most complete of the books I had read so far.

The people Fry rescued were not all Jewish but they were all hunted for various reasons by the Nazis. They included Marc Chagall, Wanda Landowska, Hannah Arendt, and Andre Breton, among many others. He wasn't trained as and never had worked as a spy or secret agent, but when he arrived in France he found that legal means for getting these people out of France were few, and so he quickly learned what he needed to do.

The best book about Fry is Villa Air Bel by Rosemary Sullivan. This is not a biography, but a history of his work, those who worked with him, and many whom he saved. It is more detailed than any of the others, it is well written, and gives the most complete picture of the rescue work that Fry set up and led. Netflix made a film based on this book, but I didn’t watch it. When I read that they had turned Fry’s character into a gay man, I suppose to add some spice. I decided I didn’t need to. Why add spice to a true story that was so interesting, engaging, and important?

Fry was called back to the U.S. because the State Department did not want him to do his work, and they prevented him from finding any work with the government once he returned. It was very strange instance of the blacklisting of an American hero.

Shortly before Fry’s death, the French government awarded him the “Croix de Chavalier de la Legion d’Honneur,” France’s highest decoration of merit. It was the only official recognition he received in his lifetime.

In 1991, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council awarded the Eisenhower Liberation Medal to Fry. Three years later, Fry became the first American to be honored by Yad Vashem as a “Righteous Among the Nations.”

Cockeyed Optimist

 

Dolors is an older woman who lives on the next block. We met years ago when we were both trying on shoes at a shop and have been casual friends ever since. We don’t really socialize, but we always stop to chat when we meet on the street. Sometimes I need something and she helps, and sometimes she needs something and I help. But as we get older, helping becomes more difficult.

A few years ago when I still had Cupcake there was a day when I couldn’t take him out. Dolors was a big fan of Cupcake so I called her and asked if she could take him for a walk. She came a few minutes later and I buzzed her in. She huffed and puffed her way up the stairs (there is no elevator in my building). I didn’t know she had a bad heart. That’s the kind of person she is.

Today I met her a few houses down. She now goes with a walker. I had just read in the NY Times that Mitzi Gaynor had died, and reading through some of her credits really got to me: There was No Business Like Show Business (which I never saw but I’ve heard Ethel Merman belt out that song countless times), Les Girls, with Gene Kelly, and my favorite, South Pacific, among others.

I asked Dolors if she knew who Mitzi Gaynor was, but she didn’t. So I told her she had been an actress/dancer/singer in the 50s and she died yesterday. I told her that all these years later, I still sing some of her songs, in fact I sing one from time to time to my dog, and I started to sing A Hundred and One Pounds of Fun... which she knew! She knew the song and now knew the actress I was talking about. Those were the days, she said, her, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, those were the days when people did beautiful, graceful, elegant dancing instead of looking like they were having sex on stage. We agreed that elegance isn’t a word you hear often any more. Sexy is what counts. We didn’t sing it, but we both also know another favorite, I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair.

R.I.P. Cockeyed Optimist

Photo from the NY Times (Getty Images)

The Spanish Judicial System vs. President Puigdemont

Not for the first time has Spain made itself ridiculous by searching the Barcelona Zoo to make sure that the former Catalan president doesn't enter the parliament building in a monkey suit or dressed as a lion. The Spanish congress has voted to give Puigdemont amnesty, but Spain's high court feels otherwise and has decided to ignore the law that it doesn't like. So much for separation of powers in Spain as well as the rule of law. Politics in the judicial system (as Americans are learning) is not a good thing. 

You can read more about it here.

Sweet Pea the Trooper

Little Sweet Pea, the sweetest, cutest, and funniest little dog, has been injured. It seems to have been an accident. I was with her when it happened, but I didn’t see anything until she started to limp.

This was yesterday when we were on our evening walk (still considered afternoon here, even though it was around seven o’clock). She was bouncing along, as she does, and we were crossing a street where road work has been going on and all of a sudden she started limping. It was her back left leg. I examined her paw but found nothing stuck between the pads so I put her down. But the limping continued and seemed to get worse every second. My vet closes at 8, so, with Sweet Pea in my arms, I high-tailed it over there.

Salomo felt around and told me she had a torn a ligament in her knee. Had she fallen? No. Then she must simply have made a misstep, maybe tripped without my noticing it. It wouldn’t take much. At her age, those joints are brittle. I understand; I know that something similar could happen to me.

This torn ligament is not going to heal. The only way to fix it is with surgery. But Sweetie is an old dog and although she’s practically a whole new old dog from the one I adopted a little over year ago, in her former life she had not been well taken care of.  The recent improvements in her environment have helped, but they haven’t erased her history (whatever that might have been). He legs are all bowed and crooked. The funny way she walks is one of her many endearing characteristics. The vet said initially that she had probably suffered one or more falls and had never been seen to. And her heart is much enlarged, which, together with her age, does not make her a good candidate for major surgery, which this knee operation would be.

Salomo gave her a shot for pain and gave me pain pills to give her for the next twenty days. Let’s see how this develops, he said while also talking about possible future medications. We both noticed that her front leg on the same side was also doing strange things – bowing out at an alarming angle. She’s compensating, he said, trying to keep her balance. Of course that could mean that she will end up injuring that leg too. I should keep her walks to a minimum; just take her out to the street and let her do her thing under the nearest tree out front. I am to carry her up and down the stairs (I live on the 2^nd floor, which in the U.S. would be the third floor). There is no elevator

At home I got on the internet and started reading about torn ligaments in the knees of dogs. It didn’t look good. Everyone says it’s very painful. It doesn’t heal, it can only be fixed with surgery. In an older dog, if it happens in one leg, it is likely to also happen to the other because they would both be in the same state of deterioration. Of course that might not happen. Compensating for the discomfort could mean inflicting injury on one of the other legs.

I was plagued with doubt. I don’t want to keep her drugged for the rest of her life, and I don’t want the rest of her life to be painful. She loves to walk and to sniff. If she won’t be able to walk except to go to a tree and pee, what pleasure is she going to have? I got very little sleep.

This morning when the vet clinic opened, I was there with Sweet Pea. I told Salomo I had more to understand. I needed to know what the best possible outcome could be. If it was going to be lifelong pain, I wasn’t sure there was any reason to continue. I don’t believe in just keeping a pet alive if the pet isn’t able to enjoy his life and there is no cure.

But he said no. The tear would never mend, but the pain would subside after three or four weeks so we would reassess her need for medication when the pills run out. He said that Sweet Pea was a real trooper. You could see how in her life she’s managed to successfully deal with all kinds of physical problems. If all goes well, the pain will subside, and she will learn to compensate for the leg that won’t function properly as she did with her legs before.

As for now, she’s eating, she has the desire to go out and once out she wants to walk, even though she can’t and has to stop. At home she gets all excited about going out, like before (although now she doesn’t jump up and down), and she gets excited at meal times. She still likes her treats and she still enjoys a belly rub. She’s still shows signs of being a happy camper. I’ll know when the time comes, he said. She won’t want to eat, she won’t want to walk, maybe she won’t be able to walk, she’ll be lethargic, or we just won’t be able to help her with ongoing pain. That was what happened with Cupcake.

You have no idea how relieved I am. Now it’s just a matter of taking care of her, letting nature take its course and Sweetie’s determination drive the next twenty days, and hope for the best.

I had wanted a senior dog, so when they told me at the shelter that she was at least ten years old that was fine. Two days later, when I took her to the vet and a long list of physical and health problems came to light, I thought, well, that’s okay. Maybe she only has a few weeks left, but she will spend them in comfort with me. I was more or less prepared for a short relationship. But Sweet Pea blossomed during this last year so that now, I am not at all prepared for her to leave. She’s my wonderful companion, she’s funny, she’s sweet, and she’s incredibly stubborn. I hope Salomo is right and my little trooper will get the better of this latest problem and keep on being her cute, sweet self for many more happy years.