The Muzeum Gastronomie

Funny thing about being grateful ~ it seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. Maybe it's Karma... Grey, rainy day today which David Orel tells me is fairly common here in Prague.into the cave. I decided to grab an umbrella and just wander. Well, incredible found me again! I took a left on what seemed to be a nondescript little alley and ~ right in front of me is The Muzeum Gastronomie. I enter and discover this is the history of food from the earliest of time, when, fire, when found was taken At first it was for heat only. Their diets consisted of fruits, berries and insects ~ no cooking necessary! As I walk thru "time" the young lady guide and I began talking and I mentioned my cousin Jenifer Lang and her knowledge and love of things "food." I mentioned her involvement with the French cookbook Larousse Gastronomique, her being the first female Chef @ 21 in NYC and out of the little office, out comes Ladislav Provaan ~ curator of this museum! Over the next 2 hours I was fortunate to be guided by a man that truly loves everything "food and its History." His love of the subject literally gushed as he discussed everything from The French Revolution and the very first Michelin guide to current trends in preparation and presentation. Simply Amazing and incredibly enjoyable. ‪#‎grateful‬.

 

Original table setting from Hotel d Paris, 1920-1943

The Nexus...

Wishing you all Bon Nuit with amazement and gratitude for what I call The Nexus (Star Trek) or the energy string that, when allowed to... will carry you to simply incredible places, unimagined emotional and physical experiences. That certain knowledge that "it couldn't possibly get better than this" and then it does, again, again and again, and gains velocity and intensity. The less I try to analyze, judge,attempt to rationalize or explain this.... the better it gets. The more grateful I am.... the better it gets... an open heart and mind will take your spirit places your mind can't even conceive.....You WILL see it when you believe it!  Some call this "The Secret," others "The Power of Attraction." It is clearly about living in the moment, after all, that really IS all we ever get.... a series of moments strung together in the timeline of our own creation.

 Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake...

I want You like this....

 

 

I want you close

Close, so when you breathe I breathe with you. So that when you release your breath and everything with it, I do too. I want to let go of all the things we don’t need within us.
I want us bare. I want you that close.
I want you naked.
Naked so you are no longer dressed in the best version of yourself. You are not abiding. You are not conforming. Naked so you are vulnerable. Naked so you are flooded with questions, full of fear and love and dread and dreams. Naked so you are open to my touch, whenever and however I want to touch you.
I want you touching.
I want you to fold yourself around me in every direction like a sweet wrapper. I want you sticky. Sticky so I can’t remove you. Sticky and smooth. Smooth so your skin glides along mine like the wind as it moves waters. Ethereal. Existing. And sticky.
I want distance.
But only distance that lets us feel the gaps of air between our skin. And let it be the place where our souls meet, as though for the first time. Every time.
I want to dance.
To glide through your touch. To be your momentum. To create a pace that centres between us. To be led by your rhythm. To challenge you with mine. I want to move to the balance, to dance to the sound—to the organic, authentic changings of our selves.
I want to discover you.
I want to find new things in you that weren’t there yesterday. To appreciate the you of last week, last month, last night. To anticipate the you that will become tomorrow.
I want to wander over your body like it’s a mountain I’ve always wanted to orient. To observe the textures, to be enlivened by the colour, to be nostalgic over the sound. I want to get lost there, to panic, to cry.
I want to sweat with search. I want to find the world within you. Let it appear to me, fluid with currents like a painting in moving rivers.
I want you whole.
I want the trees of the mountain that were cut down 60 years ago, the trees that were erected 200, 400,900 years before. I want to taste your mistakes. I want to feel your intuition on my finger-tips and hear your spirit speak. I want you to bring out sensory experiences within me, in dimensions that I never knew existed.
And I want to know you’re right there with me.
I want you with me.
Within me as I am within you. I want to be worldly and bodily with you. I want to radiate the world’s beauty as we make our energy. I want to feel its stillness and its direction as we share it with the world. I want to fly together dressed in the world’s hottest and coldest oceans.
I want to do this.
With every speckle of envy and every drop of trepidation. With its honest hesitations and wrenching doubts. With flutters of anxiety, twitches of abhor, the clench of the jaw, the spasm of the muscle, the flight of the mind.
With all those moments I want to tie the laces of my trainers tighter than I ever have before—so I can run, run far, run so far away I can’t remember the softness of your face and the calling of your voice.
I want to do this with the mess, the larking and lively mess. The darkness. The swim through the swamp when the moon isn’t shining. The drips of confusion, the terror, the ignorance. I want to take a million and one roads with you that will never make it onto the grid.
Mystify me, perplex me and love me—as I will do all to you.

( Thank you Lisa R for the art and Roxana G for the composition.)  

25 Life Lessons from Albert Einstein.

#1. Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

#2. Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

#3. Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

#4. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

#5. A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.

#6. Love is a better teacher than duty.

#7. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

#8. No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

#9. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

#10. Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

#11. It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

#12. Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

#13. Force always attracts men of low morality.

#14. Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.

#15. A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

#16. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

#17. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

#18. It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

#19. Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

#20. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

#21. Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

#22. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

#23. Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

#24. Information is not knowledge.

#25. Never lose a holy curiosity.

 

I am from The government, I am here to help you...

     After six weeks of "going back to school" Mondays and Fridays to ~ LEARN TO DRIVE ~ I want to share some of the special moments ~

     A little detail will make this little story make more sense (sort of)  When Dad and Ann moved to Monaco in 1980something, they purchased this BMW 750i ~ a 12 cylinder touring Beemer ~ most unlikely unaware that gasoline would eventually reach $10.00 per gallon.  This particular 750i was the car previously delivered to the owner of BMW, Munich.  Through contacts, Dad was able to purchase it and have it delivered to Monaco. 

     This car has been driven roughly 23 years in and around Europe without so much as a parking ticket.  Just last year, Dad and I made a 1500 mile "Road Trip" to and through Italy, Austria and France.  I have added thousands on kilometers simply exploring Europe ~ on the Auto Routes and small streets of innumerable small villages.  Dad was able to exchange his US Driver's License for a Monaco License when he moved here. I have been operating on an International DL for all this time.

     In January of 2013, a letter arrived from the Monaco  Centre d’Immatriculation.  In the letter, it was noted that a vehicle was owned and licensed in Monaco, however no Monaco Driver's License was found for an operator.  For this reason, the license plates will NOT be renewed until a resident of Monaco, named Lonergan was in possession of a Monaco DL.  Dad stopped driving in about 2006 and let his license expire.  Now, keep in mind that at 90 years of age, never having been schooled or tested the only requirement for Dad to maintain his DL was an eye sight check.  For the other Lonergan, namely me ~ not quite the same set of requirements!  If I am discovered driving in Monaco, the fine is 900 Euros ($1170.00)  the first time and 1500 Euros the second time!  There would of course, be the 300 to 500 Euros to get the car back too!


      HOWEVER,-----> I can RENT a car and drive freely with my Intl License ~ just can't drive MY CAR!  Makes sense, right?

     It was determined that since I am a resident, I must have a Monaco DL.  OK, no problem...  Well, the classes are in French,with an interpreter, that try as he may ~is French with an accent heavy enough to pour over your morning pancakes!  I can understand about 70% of his words which is not quite the same as the 85% of the questions I must answer correctly to pass the written test.

     With a little investigation, I determined that after taking 10 classes, each consisting of 40 questions ~in French I would have been exposed to each of the 40 questions that will be on the test. No problem, right?   Just understand all 400 questions I have seen and correctly answer 35 out of 40 on the written test.

     Now to the first class ~  On arrival I took my seat with the other 5 or 6 people that for whatever reason were in my shoes.  It was explained that the test will be multiple choice, each with 4 possible answers, A, B, C or D.  Got it!  Well except that ONE, TWO or Three of the choices may be correct.  The instructor beamed as he told us, "Never will ALL four answers be correct!"  Well THAT certainly clarifies things. He then explains the 400 signs and combinations that may occur.  I was able to buy a manual, in English ~  which ~ well you be the judge.

As this page informs you ~ signs may be "stacked" in which case the intent is completely changed. In one example there were 3 signs stacked AND a white fencepost with a red mark on it!  I still don't know what that combo meant! Rules in the city are different than outside "city markings."  Light and horn REQUIREMENTS (when horn must be used) and areas horns must never be used.  Regarding lights, in the evening, you may use parking lights only IF you are within a city AND it is not raining, snowing or fogging. In which case you must use headlights and foglights, but no rear foglights if it is raining and only front foglights, in town, IF you are on a narrow city street. 

     There are signs that indicate maximum speed allowed (50kph) as well as a sign that indicates this speed must be maintained.  My favorite is below, a red circle around nothing but white which means in effect ~ all bets are off or disregard any signs you were obeying up until now ~ they are all nullified.  It was explained that this sign saves money because with 1 sign, you remove all previous restrictions.  Sure, why not? 

     Each of this classes' 40 questions are projected on a wall... You have a remote control thingie that has A,B,C and D on it with a verify and a correct button.  You select your answer and then the instructor tells you how and why you were wrong. 

Classes are 15 Euro, (X 10 classes) the test is about 60 + 24  Euro every time you must take it, which is allowed two weeks AFTER your last failure. A one time 80 Euro "Administrative Fee" and a 91 Euro "Traffic Office" fee are required as well. A "physical" is required from a list of acceptable doctors @ 100 Euro.With one exception, everyone in my classes has failed the written test 1, 2 or in one case, Three Times!  The kicker?  When you fail, you MAY not see the results, only the number you got right!  So it's possible to fail again and again, missing the same questions ~ even parking sign questions. 



     So next time you go to the DMV in the US ~ be grateful, be very grateful!     

      

Your Flowers Ann

My Mom, Ann Belle Lonergan had Alzheimers. I don't say "suffered from" since that was not her way. Several years ago, we would take her to Ventimiglia and the nursery on the way to Digna and she would select flowers for her balcony. This gave her so much pure Joy ~ Well, picking flowers, gelato and profito rolls! Your flowers are Beautiful Ann, just as you always were. You are missed but never forgotten.

We called this Ann's Blue Convertible!

Your Balcony as You wished!