Birdies

Just a couple gratuitous shots of birds around our house. I know that Ken just did a bird post on his blog, but this is a big part of our winter excitement around here. Enjoy!

Above, birds on a wire. Almost like notes on a musical scale. Below, a blue tit and a great tit attack the suet ball out back.

Speaking of big excitement, we've been invited out for dinner this week! Our British friends, Janet and David, have asked us 'round for a curry. I'll be making nan to take with. Should be a fun evening.

A December Rose

The weather this fall has been very warm, as Ken and I have noted in previous posts on both blogs. Here's evidence:

One of our rose bushes bloomed this past week! A December rose. I think I need to get out there and prune the bushes back now.

Le Brouillard

The vineyard out behind our house, still waiting to be pruned, under the fog.

Fall and winter bring an interesting weather phenomenon to a large part of France: le brouillard, or fog. High pressure develops over this part of Europe and sits here, keeping out storms, but also resulting in temperature inversions that trap fog down on the ground making for grey, wet, and gloomy days. We had a foggy inversion day this week.

The buds on the forsythia have set for next spring. Above, a drop of condensation hangs precariously. Below, water condenses on spider webs.

An inversion can occur when warmer air moves in over colder air. Fog forms in the humid cold layer, but the normal convection that takes place in the air can't happen, thus trapping the cold wet air on the ground.

Fog condenses on the fence.

There is usually no wind (I think if there were wind, the inversion wouldn't form), and the result is an eerily quiet misty effect, with water condensing on everything and dripping out of the trees. It's quite pretty once you start to look around.

Our fuzzy lambs' ears trap the condensation.

All of these pictures were taken from or in our back yard. Sometimes these inversions can last for days at a time. Other times, like this week, the fog hangs around for only a day. The day after these photos were taken was cold, but sunny and clear.

One of the pine trees in the yard (a former xmas tree of the previous owners) also drips with condensed fog.

La Sécu

I think it's pretty widely known that France has a very good national health care system: La Sécurité Sociale, or la Sécu, as they call it here. French adults enter the system when they begin working; their employers pay a hefty tax into the system to help support it. All residents of France pay another tax to help support the system. I've heard many criticisms of the French system that go kind of like this: it costs way too much for a country to give practically free health care to its citizens and the French system runs huge deficits, so it can't be good.

Well, the USA certainly doesn't provide inexpensive health care to its citizens, but the nation is running the highest deficits in its history. If you're going to have the high deficits anyway, why not get some health care out of it? I guess it's just a question of priorities. Some Americans talk a lot about family values, but basic health care doesn't seem to be one of them.

AS for France, my impression is that French doctors are not, generally, wealthy people as they can be in the USA. Although with managed health care providers (corporations) employing many doctors these days and with the cost of malpractice insurance, I'm not sure becoming a doctor in the USA is as lucrative as it once was. French doctors make a decent living and provide a decent, inexpensive service to their communities.

A few years ago, the French passed a law that opened coverage to all legal residents of the country regardless of whether they're employed. Ken and I just found this out by doing some internet research on that tax that we have to pay to help support the system. We thought we were exempt from the tax since we're not part of the system. But no, everyone pays the tax. That makes sense because everyone can be covered by the Sécu!

Wow, we thought, why didn't we figure this out before? We've heard of people who "bought into" the Sécu, but we couldn't figure out how they did it. We've been paying American companies large premiums for coverage that will only handle major medical emergencies like accidents or catastrophic illness. We have no wellness or prevention coverage at all, and we shudder to think what the process would be if we actually had to submit a claim while dealing with an accident or illness. Would we have to fight with an overseas company about reimbursement? Would we be successful?

We have been paying full price for doctor/dentist visits, prescription drugs, and routine lab tests since we've lived in France. It's true that these costs are not very high to begin with. Fortunately, we haven't needed anything more complicated so far, knock on wood. As part of the French system, we'd get 70% of those costs back, and be covered for many other things whether preventative or not. The premiums are based on income. People who are self-employed and those with limited income pay a percentage of whatever income they have. From my view, it's not burdensome. And that's certainly, in our case, much more reasonable than what one could pay for private insurance that only covers catastrophic events.

So, since we are legal residents, we downloaded the forms (again, what would we do without the internet?) and sent in our applications to join the system. We got them back a few days ago with some minor requests for additional information, which we've supplied. In theory, our coverage began on the day the Sécu received our applications. It may take a few weeks for them to fully process us.

Health care (or the lack of it) is a huge source of stress for many people. I must admit, I've never been really comfortable that the insurance we have would be all that it purports to be. And, as we get older, doctor and lab visits seem to come more frequently. It would give me great peace of mind to become part of the national system here. It would also save us some money, and with the value of the US dollar constantly shrinking, every savings counts!

Here's to your good health.

Not Closed [5]

This is the fifth installment in the "Open" series. If you don't remember, I took a number of photos of signs in front of boutiques and galleries in Hudson, NY, back in October. I don't know why I started; I suppose it was the variety that caught my eye. Once started I couldn't stop!

A hand-written OPEN sign from Hudson, NY (USA).

Word Of The Week

sangsue

Television is a source of many new words for me. In fact, I've learned a lot of my French vocabulary from watching TV shows (talk, cooking, game shows, etc.) and movies in French over the years.

While perusing the TV guide last week, I noticed this fine film in the schedule: L'Attaque des sangsues géantes. Now, it's obvious that something giant is attacking, but what are sangsues?

I won't leave you in suspense... they're leeches. Yuck. Attack of the Giant Leeches. This movie, made in 1959 by B. Kowalski, was one of many in the "nuclear technology will result in horrible mutations and that can't be good for mankind" genre. Remember Them! - giant mutant ants; same stuff.

I didn't watch the movie.

Kitchen Collection

Ken and I take a lot of pleasure from food and wine. We both enjoy cooking, although we each enjoy different aspects of the process. Planning and anticipating are almost as important to the enjoyment of a meal as is the eating. Food shopping is a feast in itself. I even enjoy putting away the groceries when we get them home from the market, reviewing the take like I imagine a museum curator does with new acquisitions, carefully ensuring that each item goes in the right place, safe from harm and readied for the show.

We've spent more than twenty years assembling our cooking tools, trying out certain styles and settling on those that work well for what we like to do. One characteristic of cooking tools that I think is important is that their appearance shouldn't distract from the food. I like glass, wood, stainless steel, plain white earthenware (although some color has crept into our collection).

Not everything matches, not much is new, and it's all pretty basic, but it all works together.

All this is to announce a new series here at wcs: The Kitchen Collection. Here's the first installment:

Nested Pyrex bowls. Theses babies are nearly sixty years old. Ken's mom received them as a wedding present back in the late '40s and has since passed them on to us. At least one of them gets used every day in our house; each is just the right size for something or other.

These bowls are heavy and hardy. They are great in the microwave. They're also the most colorful of our kitchen tools.