Bring Back the Seasons. . .

I went through Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam) on Nov. 12. The place had a distinctive Christmas feel. Garlands, trees and ornaments decorated the ceilings and walls. Back in the States, grocery stores had replaced bags of candy corn with red and green M&Ms . . . .


Thanksgiving has never had the commercial appeal of Halloween and certainly cannot compete with Christmas. Increasingly, Thanksgiving has been rebranded by media and merchants as the eve of Black Friday!

“Black Friday Madness Sweeps Across the Country” – NPR

“Black Friday Shoppers Fan Out in the Night” – New York Times

“Earlier Black Friday Openings Draw Crowds” – Wall Street Journal

With these headlines and images of people waiting in long lines, the rest of us undergo a guilt trip. Everyone is out shopping. Maybe we should be too.

Thanksgiving has been holiday of intense travel so people could spend time with families. But merchants are trying to ensure 100 percent participation. That even the Occupy groups give up their protest for 24 hours.

The new opening hours (some at 9 p.m. Thanksgiving evening) enable people can get up from the family dinner, wave bye to all the aunts and uncles they haven’t seen for the past year and now travel to the shopping center to join the lines forming for that flat-screen TV or Blu-Ray Player.

This year, Black Friday started on what has been traditionally known as Thanksgiving Thursday. For those who missed out on this event, Cyber Monday is starting early too. . . .

Fewer Places to Light Up

The 36th Annual Great American Smokeout (Nov. 17, 2011) targeted more than 45-million smokers in the United States and encouraged them to quit.

I must have been about 9 or 10 when I found an unattended cigarette in an ashtray at one of our family dinners. I took it outside, pretended to be glamorous when I smoked that cigarette. After all, advertising gave smoking a certain allure. But I had a sore throat for days afterwards, and I couldn’t tell anyone why.

I soon experienced the dangers first hand when I lost my grandfather to lung cancer and a few months later my grandmother to emphysema.

Today, anti-smoking campaigns continue to intensify--smoking is prohibited in enclosed spaces and now many public areas and on some university campuses.

The European Commission has called for a smoke-free Europe by 2012. And by the fall of 2012, the US will join other nations in mandating that cigarette packages carry graphic warnings about the dangers. If smokers get past the sore throat, will these images serve to deter?

Detours and Open-toe shoes

I traveled from Florida with my shoes—all open toed—which is fine for most days in the Sunshine State but not practical for rain and chilly weather in Juan-les-Pins. I planned to buy new shoes in Cannes, but the G-20 followed by rains and flooding delayed shopping.

Bijou Plage - Nov. 5, 2011 - Brewing storm

Anyway, weather conditions meant our thoughts shifted from shopping to the more pragmatic tasks of emptying buckets under leaking roofs.

Just when we assumed the rains had passed, the waves began to lash at the coast, carrying off much of the sand on narrow beaches (the last big waves were in May 2010).


The beaches look like this in summer months.

July 2011 - Plage de la Salis (Antibes)

After the violent waves, they looked like this.

After the storm - Plage la Salis (Nov. 12, 2011)


Flooding closed down the seaside roads and the N-7, which runs parallel. Detour signs took us back inland, where cars and trucks had run off the road due to flooding. Traffic problems meant the usual 20-minute commute turned into one of three hours.

Detour signs appeared on coastal and inland roads.

Sun and people return to the boardwalk (Nov. 9, 2011)

With the return of beautiful weather, everyone returned to the boardwalks to assess the damage, commenting, “La mer a bouffée la plage” (the sea gobbled up the beach). Trees and logs washed up on Antibes beaches, and seaweed covered those at Juan-les-Pins. Rocks, gravel and dirt littered inland roads.

Once the storms subsided and the detour signs disappeared, I went to Cannes for more practical, closed-toe shoes. . . .

For vivid photos of the storm (I was either mopping up or keeping shutters closed), please visit the Nice Matin, http://www.nicematin.com/diaporama/coup-de-mer-sur-la-cote-dazur-les-images?idx=1#top-diapo.

The G-20 and the rest of us

JUAN-LES-PINS--For the past week, everyone has been preoccupied with the G-20. Not because of our knowledge of the world monetary crisis but because of an additional 12,000 armed security forces on street corners, intersections and just about anywhere between Cannes, Nice and Grasse. More than 5,000 dignitaries and 3,500 journalists arrived for the two-day meeting. The hotel industry, in off-season, had the equivalent of 35,000 nights. The price tag—20-million euros--apparently falls upon taxpayers.

For most people, Cannes became an “occupied” city. Residents and workers had to have a badge to enter. Many shops and companies closed because employees and clients could not get in. Fishermen received compensation not to go out. And there were two submarines nearby. . . .

No one wanted to attract attention! We were on the “qui vive”—carrying our identity papers and following the code de la route (it’s very detailed in France) to the letter. We avoided locations where security forces had gathered . . . . But then we needed gas.

We pulled into a service station where gendarmes chatted beside the only island of working gas pumps. My debit card did not work. We backed and maneuvered to another pump. The hose did not reach the far side the of car. Could we ask the gendarmes to move over?

“What’s the matter—your bank card is not cooperating?” they commented, laughing.

I guess they understood we were pretty nervous. During the G-20, no one checked our papers, but we did encounter traffic jams due to road closures.

Things should return to normal this week. And we will debate impact of the G-20 on daily lives and the economic effect of closing down and securing a major city rather than holding the event on a military base . . .