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Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on September 17, 2014 at 8:26am

Hello Val,

There is a shop near my apartment that has German fountain pens with good looking nibs for $40. I may save money from my day job and buy one for myself before the end of this year. The Chinese ones I found online, two I bought for $5 and $10 are both very poor quality. The fake Mont Blanc is good and was $20, so I have learned to not go too cheap.

Calcium helps with bone fractures. Have Yannick's family get all the calcium they can into him. :) Dark leafy greens , dairy, etc.

I ate l'escargot one time and decided it proved I would eat anything with lots of butter and garlic. The only other reason to eat l'escargot is revenge for damage to your garden. I imagine the recipe was invented by an angry French gardener seeking revenge on snails! I could never bring myself to try frog legs since they look too much like FROG. :0 I think of amphibians as slimy and not food.  Animals with tentacles and amphibians are safe from my dinner plate! Also, frogs are scrawny little beasts. Why eat them when there are fish, cattle, chickens and pigs? Who was so desperate to think "I think I'll try this for dinner." X0

Too bad garlic makes you sick. It would help if there were an antidote. My friend Noelle has a lot of health problems and has had advanced medical testing on food allergies and intolerances. She has to quit gluten and most kinds of cheese, and cut back on 75% of the eggs she eats. Meat, rice and vegetables are fine. The gluten allergy made her really sad since she loves breads a lot. Her husband bakes great bread. They are learning about gluten free breads now.  :/

 I wish I could see the ocean. I saw the Atlantic in Florida for one day when I was 8 years old. Technically I saw it again in NYC in my 30s but it is all flat, gray and kind of dirty looking harbours around NYC. It does not look like the natural ocean in any place I saw it on a 2 week visit to NYC.

Lake Michigan is very flat and has very small waves. Many miles of the lake are hemmed in by giant stone blocks and cement. So since waves are usualy small unless there is a dangerous storm, people have started this newer hobby called paddle boarding. It's like a completely boring use of a surf board.

I guess it is a reason to sun bathe and get some kind of exercise. It just seems like the most useless water sport. Since there are no waves, regular surfing is usually not possible here. On the upside, we can use the motto "no salt, no sharks, no problem!" 

  

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on September 17, 2014 at 4:47am

Bonjour again!

Yes 'real' pens are good. When I was a kid there were only fountain pens, as, although they had been invented (in France, I believe, by Mr Bic) they were not widely available. One of the tasks of  the Class Monitor at school was to fill up the ink-wells that were on every desk. My Augora pen is like a Mont Blanc, but, so I am told, even more exclusive as, so I am told again, it is Italian. Whatever, to me it's just an excellent pen. I also have some high-grade writing paper, and when I find it at fairs, etc, I buy hand-made paper.

Young Yannick, now known as the One Arm Bandit, doesn't have to have an operation, but must rest for 8 weeks or so and keep his arm in a sling. Once I managed to break both my shoulder blades at the same time, and had to wear a complicated double sling harness. It was impossible to do anything like get dressed, eat, go to the loo etc. Luckily, one shoulder healed quicker than the other, so I could use one arm a little bit after just a couple of weeks of driving everyone around me mad. I didn't have to go to school though!

'Glogg' is, now you mention it, also known as 'grogg' in some countries. Both are nice words as the drink gloggs/grogs down your throat. ('Onomateapedic' is, I think, the word I'm looking for, but I'm certain it's not spelled like that.)

Tinned oysters in recycled shells sounds horrible. Something similiar happens here with snails -- you buy snail shells that van be re-used, and get tinned snails that even come with a sauce that you make up, and add to the snails that you've added to the shells. i don't eat snails, because they always come with garlic, and my stomach doesn't like garlic -- at all.

Frogs legs, which I quite like, also come laden with garlic, so they get rarely eaten. I do wish the French would not 'dose' such dishes with heavy lacings of garlic. It is hard to eat out in restaurants here (only a rare occasion for me) without getting garlic-laced food. And I do hate it when friends serve up food and say 'Well it's only got a little bit of garlic in it -- you won't really be able to taste it'. To which I have a couple of replies: one, if you can't taste it, then why put it in the first place? and two, I might not be able to taste it, but i will be running to the loo for the next 24-48 hours. So no thanks, and no garlic.

We live about 5 miles from the coast, and there are lots of fishing boats -- big and small -- around; so it's very easy to get fresh fish, really fresh fish -- sometimes its still alive when you buy it from a boat that has just arrived in port. My favourite fish dish is large Meditteranean sardines, grilled or even better BBQ-ed with lemon juice, pepper and paprika.

It's too windy this morning to mountain bike, so I'll have to have a rest day. An excuse to give my bike another good wash. Rain is forecast for later in the week, and as the lanes get all mudded up, I might not be able to cycle then either. Or I could cycle on the road, but that's not so much fun, and here are few roads around here.

That's all.

Bye...

PS Did you see this Blog? It might interest you:

IS SIZE IMPORTANT IN CONTEMPORARY ART?

• Posted by Valentine Mark Herman on September 4, 2014 at 3:53pm in Mail-Art Projects

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on September 17, 2014 at 1:36am

Hello Val,

I have one decent fountain pen, a Chinese sort of forgery of a Mont Blanc, it was $20. I love them a lot. They are so nice to write with. I also love that they can be filled over and over again. I wash out the pens and use different kinds of ink. 

I hope that Yannick will be well. Boys do what the other boys are doing. Even if they were all told to or encouraged to play touch rugby, you know how younger boys want to copy older boys. :/

viii) I know gluwein better by it's Swedish name "glogg" here in Chicago! ☺ Oysters cost a fortune since Illinois is in the Midwest, they are all flown in by plane. I love oysters when I can have them. Cooked are good and also just raw with lemon with shrimp cocktail sauce.

OH! This brings back an unfortunate memory. I used to get the oysters at an upper class restaurant as a treat once or twice a year, until I dated a waiter there and learned the oysters all came out of a metal can. The restaurant ran the oyster shells through a dishwashing machine and used the shells over and over again, putting the canned oysters into the shells to serve. 8P Horrible. Now that I live in Chicago I see why there are "oyster bars" where a chef like a sushi chef prepares things in front of guests!

Someone in NYC did a study of sushi bars by doing DNA tests on the fish. That's not tuna! 

http://www.wired.com/2009/11/tunadna/

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on September 15, 2014 at 5:31am

Bonjour!

I use fountain pens a lot. I have two fine nib Lamy pens -- a black one for black ink, and a red one for red ink -- and a super posh Aurora pen (thatI was given on my enforced retirement) with a broad, solid gold nib, plus a series of caligraphy pens that I use for writing my exhibition labels.

My friend's son Yannick, who is 9 years old, broke his soulder playing rugby this weekend, and is due to see a consultant today. Yannick is either brave and fearless, or daft. There is an argument going round that young kids (under the age of 14 or so) shouldn't play contact rugby, but only 'touch' rugby. I broke my shoulder badly playing rugby (and 4 more times, too) when I was 17 before it was operated on, pinned together (the pin is still there) and my rugby, and lots of other sporting careers, was over. this is from my earlier series:

vii) The NEA is, I think, right in its assessment of on-line courses. The problem as I see it is that you have to learn how to study before you can study, and, for various reasons, this is not often taught properly in schools. So there is no point in giving a student a lot of on-line course material, some assignments and exams, and saying 'get on with it'. They probably won't know how to cope, and, in the absence of a campus situation, have few places to turn to for guidance -- hence the 80% drop out rate. There are 2 questions I always ask to students who have gone (or tried to go) this on-line route: i) how does an on-line degree compare (in terms of content, tuition and acceptance) with a regular degree?, and ii) what are you going to do with your on-line degree (now that you've spent all that money and time to get a couple of initials after your name) that you couldn't do without it? I think the UK Open University experience is a good one: on-line course material + regular face-to-face tuition groups + Summer Schools.

v) anarchy indeed. And the US judicial system has a reputation (here, at least) for being fair, open, etc. That seems to explain why there are so many lawyers, so many courts, etc. But this seems to be one of those examples (like real estate, like stocks) where the rich get richer, and the poor get screwed.

viii) vin chaud/gluwein/mulled wine is a great winter drink. Red wine + any or all of ginger, cinnamon & nutmeg + a slice of lemon + a brown sugar cube: great! Add a slug of brandy or vodka if necessary. My cure-all for colds and flu is black tea + whisky+ lemon.....used to wash down a couple of paracetamols/aspirins. A while back I went with my daughter and son-out-law to a cafe in Rotterdam and we had a bottle of white wine from my part of France and half-a-dozen oysters each. The wine cost something like $15, instead of the $3 here, and the oysters were$1 each -- I can buy a tray of about 30 for $4-5 at the local market. Yes, do become an international smuggler. Wine is so cheap here that I cook with it a lot (and, to use an old joke, I sometimes add food to it): coq au vin, lapin au vin, boeuf bourgignon, etc -- all washed down with even more wine. You can buy squid here (I don't like it), it's called' calamar', and I suppose that you could cook it with white wine.

Now it's dawn, and I'm going out on my bike for an hour or so. Byeeee!

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on September 15, 2014 at 2:41am

I received this postcard from you ☺

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on September 15, 2014 at 2:09am

Hello Val,

You no eat giant squid. Giant squid eat you!! :D

The girl that asked to borrow my pen wanted to fill out a job application for a café before she left. I only had fountain pens and German mechanical drawing pens. She just wanted a normal pen and I had no ordinary pens. She never used a fountain pen before but that was probably the best one I could have lent to her. I did not mention the unpaid modeling job that went with the pen rental. :0 As far as she knew, I was drawing dragons or something.

It's no no-contact, it's no hit, no check. There is still pushing and shoving. Also, people do stupid things. I got knocked down from behind by a classmate that shoved his stick under my skates. I've been complaining about that too much, so I need to take it in stride. We're all beginners on a sheet of ice. Most of our skills are being used to try and make a play without falling down or slamming into a wall. I do well on not crashing but I am slow. I find men will routinely skate faster than they can stop or turn and women usually do not skate faster than they can control.

?) USA NEA had an inquiry and decided that online degrees and distance learning were just for profit and students learned almost nothing. Most people, usually around 80% of enrolled USA students drop out or do not complete the online course. The NEA study found that the online classes were helpful for people already educated in a subject to study and refresh their memory but catastrophic for students without a prior base of knowledge in the subject. Online college and university classes are promoted as access to education for poor people or people in remote areas, so attacking it as an inferior type of education makes critics look anti-technology. NEA studied who is getting access to what and for what cost and has come out 100% against massive online courses and "robot teaching". I think colleges and universities are trying to use recorded lessons over and over again without having to pay an instructor. I have asked some people what they learned and no one has ever answered me with facts. I guess I was talking to the people in the 80% drop out population.

v) There is no USA pro bono system, it is just anarchy. Some charities exist for compassionate reasons, but they are usually overwhelmed with people in need of help. What pro bono really here is calling and writing letters begging organisations and attorneys to help you and hope one has available resources or the other will pity you. I'm actually owed $58,000. The $10,000 was a direct judgment (court order demand for payment of a debt which is the most derogatory form of bad credit in the USA) and the rest was spousal support from the divorce which is a lot harder to collect. The spousal support part is not a judgment because it is assumed it will be paid. If I had an attorney I could try to go back into court, demonstrate that spousal support was never paid and ask the judge for a judgment showing an additional debt owed of $48,000. Again, I would have to find my ex, bring the case back into court, serve him papers, pay for court costs and an attorney and wonder if he would just flee to another town or state making all that effort useless.

viii) I go for red wine, hot brandy and cognac on cold days! Beer is fine all year long. Oh, there is a mass market French wine I have, it is named Beaujolais-Villages "Elevé et mis en bouteilles par Louis Jadot" which sells for $12 a bottle. I told Sal about your co-op wine that sells for less than $1 a bottle and asked if he would be angry if I became an international smuggler. Don't think of it as avoiding laws and taxes, I would be liberating French wine to a wider audience. :D 

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on September 12, 2014 at 5:12am

Bonjour again!

That's serious ice-skating. The non-contact elemnt of it sounds good; i suspect that you have to be more skilled, or at least have different skills, to play non-contact rather than contact ice hockey; that is certainly the case for non-tackle/no scrums rugby.

?) on-line learning, Distance Learning', or whatever it's called, is very popular. And, of course, you can get degrees on-line. But, I wonder what is the fun of that if you don't go to University, meet other students and staff, participate in classes, go to the library and look at those out-dated things called 'books', and, well, have the whole university experience? Not much, I suspect. In the 70's I taught at the UK 'Open University', or 'University of the Air' as it was informally known. There was no internet then, of course; Students learned by reading course material and from lectures (at anti-social hours) on radio and TV, classes with their tutors, and a once-a-year/or degree Summer School. I met with a group of local students for a class/seminar once a month, and it was enjoyable. The thing I found most interesting was that these were '2nd chance' students who, for one reason or another, had not gone to University after leaving (or even completing) High School, but returned to studying in middle-  and old-age; Many of them were incredibly bright.

v) The UK Legal Aid system has many advantages over the US pro bono system, it seems, let alone having to pay for a debt collection attorney. i hope that you get your $10k one day.

viii) Pastis is a nice drink, but it only has appeal on hot days. Somehow, it is not a winter drink. Tapas come in all shapes and sizes, and I've whiled away many an hour (or three) in a Spanish bar eating tapas and drinking red wine. Try some if you get the chance.

Over and out

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on September 12, 2014 at 4:59am

Dear Shellie-in-one-Place,

Thank you for the big squid, 'Squid Attack 3'. It's too big to go in my Squid Frying Pan, so I will keep it as a work of art.

Thank you for the ATC's -- I do like the Owl, and the Beetle convertable is one of my favourite old cars ('though not as good as a 2CV, of course).

Thank you for 'The Apathy' -- an interesting take on Munsch. I saw the non-head-phoned original in a Gallery in Olso once. It is really a very good painting.

Thank you for the 3 little volumes of 'people in Chicago': you are really a very good drawer -- my favourites from Vol 1 are ''..two chiuahahas' and 'She borrowed my pen'; from Vol 2, 'Good book..' and 'Tired couple'; and from Vol 3, 'Young girl..' and the Mum and baby on the back cover.

THANK YOU for all of them!

I'll send you something back soon....but don'tget your hopes too high!

Val-all-over-the-plaice (and chips)

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on September 12, 2014 at 2:43am

Hello Val,

I started ice hockey a year ago. I'm on the ice 1 - 3 times a week to skate, for classes or play rat hockey (no referee, just friends). Adult novice ice hockey is no hit, no check, no fighting allowed. Also, I was looking into the early history and women were equal creators of the sport and used to have a major, international professional league:

Photo Essay by Shellie Lewis

?) Oh, I'm glad you said no because universities are looking for free and cheap content to build online classes. There is this trend for "robot teaching" with online videos. The USA National Education Association has looked at the situation and concluded that a majority of people learn very little of substance from online video classes.

v) Yes, that is the situation. 6_6 Thank you for understanding. In the USA, I have to hire a private investigator to find him, hire and pay an attorney to bring the case back into court and pay to serve papers notifying my ex of legal action, then maybe hope the courts orders money from his salary. Then he just quits his job and I would have to do all of that all over again. I know, I used to work for a debt collection attorney. He runs to another state, quits his job or hide his money in someone's else's name; it is very easy for him to avoid the court orders. One part of $10,000 is specific and is on his credit report until a judge is shown proof it is paid in full, so he cannot buy a home with a mortgage or a car with a loan, but that is all. Again, he can just put everything in some woman's name and tell her I'm the evil harpy that wrecked his life. Although if it was child support money, that becomes criminal and police will hunt down an ex for that. Men get put in prison for not paying child support but maybe not as much as they should. Often they lose their driver's license until they pay up the amount owed. Pro bono attorneys write off the amount they worked for free on their taxes but no one pays them at all and many do not work pro bono at all. Maybe very new, young attorneys do so to gain experience.

viii) I never tried pastis. I never had tapas but there are places in Chicago. There are a few French bakeries around that are close to where I live. 

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on September 11, 2014 at 9:19pm

Yes, I am seeing the different ones you are posting in the "My Life" series. ☺ I was just keeping the conversation in one place. 

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