No kids, no tree, no lights.
We're having a quiet Christmas: unpacking from almost two months of traveling, and trying to whip this house into shape. Eric has tiled the kitchen, I'm on caulk gun and undercoat.
No foie gras this year, just a couple of steaks and some Champagne. Chocolate treats from my favorite patisserie.
A Steve McQueen film fest, and maybe "A Mighty Wind" which we know so well we don't really watch it so much as act out all the parts.
This morning we walked in a nearby village - checking out what's for sale, what's been sold. Looking at smoke coming up out of the chimneys, and a little bit of snow on the roof tiles. It was cold but lovely, walking in the sunshine.
Our fifth Christmas in France. I wanted to take some photos this morning but decided to just look and think about the other years.
We miss everybody but feel lucky to have seen my whole family in America and Eric's mother, daughter and granddaughter in England this month, along with lots of our dear friends.
I feel happy to be here with Eric, a musical hero who can tile a kitchen. And having had the chance to go out and play a lot of shows this year. I want to say thank you to everyone who visits this blog. I know I spend a lot of time on here complaining, crying "Why?" etc. I know I'll be doing that again soon. But it's Christmas, a time for celebrating. It's been a hard year and we made it through.
I could spin a holiday story about this display of two hulking wooden figures that sit in a parking lot in Nontron, a dull, pretty town famous for knives. But I won't - I just know that it makes me laugh every time I see it.
13 comments:
Merry Christmas! Those figures... perhaps got lost...set decades adrift from their Easter Island cousins...and have mutated and adapted in accordance with natural selection...with the help of a little espresso! Enjoy the pleasures of a newly tiled kitchen!
nice post. glad you were able to visit with your families before returning to France. pleasant holidays to you and Eric and hope for the coming new year.
I wonder if the Nontronians realise how rude those statues are - he's coming up behind her with his dibber and she's kneeling in a position of imminent acceptance...
Those figures are priceless....are they part of the Nontron Arts Movement or whatever it is called or are they the work of the itinerant axe man you featured earlier in the year?
Have a great time.
Merry Christmas Amy and Eric!
Merry Quiet Freshly-Tiled Christmas to you both. Thanks for the music and the records and the blogs and the radio shows and the concerts, especially the swell one in Albany that I got to see, about which the more said the better! You will have an even more spectacular and rich and rewarding new year, I predict.
Your pal,
Scott
Thanks Scott - and by the way I had a 45 packed up to mail to you and then left it behind in the US, will try again from France.
Cynthia I just had a chance to look at your blog for the first time in a while - happy New Year to you, Leo, Owen and Ernie!
Fly, I hadn't thought about the similarity but you may be right - that could be the work of the performance wood man?
Ha ha Eric, you know all the comments we've made about the "symbolism" of the positioning - and the apparent cluelessness of whoever, er... erected the statues at the edge of the parking lot. Or maybe they knew and had a good laugh about it too?
Thank you 8th Notes.
The kitchen is really a treat Diane - we'll enjoy it as long as it takes to sell this house, at least.
Laura and I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and our deepest sympathies for fixing up an old house. We've restored three now and are currently in the process of arranging a short sell on the beloved 1913 house we used to live in, because the idiots who run the city of Dallas took away our neighborhood's historic district protection and kicked the slats out from under our property values.
I also wanted to let you know that on the advice of a promo expert who deals a lot with female jazz/cabaret artists, we put off the release of Laura's CD until this spring. But because we love "Keep It To Yourself," I went ahead and quietly made her version available on CD Baby and put up a little slideshow video of it on YouTube (Click the link on my name to see it). I paid in advance for the download royalties, so I like to think that I sent Harry Fox enough money to pay for your kitchen tiles. If you didn't get it, call ASCAP and raise hell.
Pat
hi Pat, I remember you talking about that old house - glad you were at last able to sell.
Good luck with Laura's album, it's a fun version of that song! Sad to say, somebody else controls the publishing on that song (my share of it anyway, remember I wrote it with Bill DeMain). So let's all bug ole Lawrence Welk's heirs and tell them they do absolutely nothing with my catalog so why not let me have it back...)
Best wishes, Amy. I really look forward to seeing you and Eric in Angouleme in January.
We'll see you then, Mike!
I'm sorry to hear your catalog has fallen into the clutches of Lawrence Welk's relatives. Laura's late dad, who was a highly-regarded sax/clarinet player in the big band days, once considered taking a job with Welk's TV show because it was one of the few steady gigs at the time for big band musicians. But I understand that he decided he couldn't tolerate the cornball arrangements and almost cult-like behavior rules imposed by ol' Mr. Bubble Machine. I guess there are some things worse for a musician than unemployment.
Ahh - y'know, I used to love that show when I was a kid - though I bet LW would have been a very harsh taskmaster for a musician. Anyway, songwriters take publishing deals sometimes, it keeps a person going, they gave me one when I needed it - it's just sad when you realize you've basically taken a very high interest loan because they don't do anything with the songs, don't put any value on them except what you generate yourself. Luckily I've written more songs since those days, that I published myself! Perhaps someday I can get those old ones back...
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