Water

In the civilized world we have always taken water for granted.
But this is about to change. Especially in California.

IMG_6675In winter normally, mountain peaks are covered with snow and it rain significantly in lower altitudes.
This year, for reasons that nobody can clearly explain, it is different

We are in the midst of the driest winter that I can recall and we are staring at the specter of a prolonged drought.
Compounding this dire situation, due to a lack of rain, forest fires are erupting right and left.

Normally, water can be found just about everywhere, in streams, in ponds, in lakes and it is relatively cheap; but when it becomes scarce its importance and value increase exponentially.

The lack of water could easily upset the delicate fabric of society and pit neighbors against neighbors with unforeseen consequences.

In many ways, water can be compared to the bread of yore, which was considered a staple of life.
A scarcity of bread could lead to riots and many times it did.

On the morning of October 5, 1789, thousands of French women marched on Versailles demanding bread. It was the earliest and most significant event of the French Revolution.
Shortly after this, the riots turned into a revolution, leading ultimately to the beheading (January 21, 1793) on the Place de la Révolution of Louis the XVI and a few months later (October 16, 1793), his wife Marie-Antoinette.

Similarly, a severe water shortage could easily degenerate in water riots.

But without even being asked many Californians are starting to change their carefree habits.
They spend less time in the shower and are reducing lawn watering.

Californians have always been at the forefront of the ecology movement and I am pretty sure that they will do their bit to stave off the water problem.

To cover all fronts though, it would not hurt to pressure a Fainéant Congress to perform a non-partisan rain dance.
It is part of their job to provide federal help.

If worse comes to worse, since we have a significant wine surplus in California, why not use this surplus to flush our toilet tanks, and taking showers?
Every little bit helps…

Alain

The Dipsea Café

Not being an American Football devotee, on this holy 49ers game day I opted to take the little lady out for what I hoped would be a relaxed and pleasant brunch.

Unable to get a table at Le Garage in Sausalito, I picked instead the Dipsea Café in Mill Valley. I picked it mainly for the fact that it has a terrace and in the hope of dining outside.

When we arrived, the place was packed and we were told that we would have to wait another twenty minutes to dine on the terrace. Being severely allergic to loitering, I easily convinced my mate to sit inside.

Nowadays the Dipsea Cafe is huge and unlike the intimate little place of my youth, it feels more like a cafeteria than a Sunday brunch getaway.

A hostess with a distractingly large derriere led us to an isolated table.
Then a rather uncouth waitperson plopped menus on our table and ran away.

kinopoisk.ruTo me, the ideal waiter would a carbon copy of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves.  A gentleman’s gentleman who speaks the Queen’s English, who can quote Spinoza and mix the perfect dry Martini.
Everything our waiter was not. Our man alas proved as congenial as a parking enforcement officer.

As I said the Dipsea Cafe is huge, and proportionally noisy. And turbulent munchkins don’t help. Personally, as a member of the Curmudgeon Society, I am willing to pay extra for the privilege of dining in a kid-free zone, but unfortunately few establishments seem willing to oblige. A pity!

For our first course, we chose to split some Calamari Fritti. The Fritti was there all right, but the Calamari itself was missing. Instead of squid we were served some rubbery pieces of under seasoned latex.

For our main dish we both chose salads.  A Salade Niçoise for Tamara and a Cobb Salad for myself.
Suffice to say that I can make better salads in my sleep.

Fortunately, the hostess provided some unusual distraction and made the entire interlude almost bearable.

This place does not get my seal of approval.
Hope you had a better day with the 49ers!

Alain

 

Monsieur Tout le Monde

Feminists like to point out that “Behind every great man there’s a great woman.”
That might be true, but it is also very likely that “Behind The Fall of Every Great Man, there is also a Woman.”

Let me rephrase that.
“Behind the fall of many men, often stands a woman.”

francois_hollande_442338527_north_522xFew men are great, and even fewer politicians qualify for that adjective because for a politico, self-interest always comes before greatness. Greatness is just an afterthought.
And greatness is not in the cards for the present president of France François Hollande.

When running for president Mr. Hollande pledged to be “Monsieur tout le monde” (Mister Everybody) and in many, many ways he has been.
But France does not need an ordinary “petit bourgeois” to run its affairs. It needs a forceful leader in the mold of Charles de Gaulle.

A leader needs decisiveness, style, dash, and very few men can claim these attributes.
We will more easily forgive a dashing rogue than a grocery clerk, and Francois Hollande is everything but dashing.
He is as dull as dishwater.

But now, to add to his problems (besides abysmal approval ratings) Mr. Hollande has fallen prey to a scandalous love triangle.
Monsieur Hollande, who never married, sired four children with his former mate Ségolène Royal.
Then French journalist Valerie Trierweiler (nicknamed by some the Rottweiler) became his live-in girlfriend when he separated from Ségolène.
When he was elected president miss Trierweiler followed him to the Elysée Palace and became the unorthodox First Lady.

Now, it has become known that “Monsieur Tout Le Monde” has taken up with a French actress 20 years his junior, and that he is sneaking up at night to her apartment… riding on a motor scooter… just like any ordinary Frenchman.

Nobody is blaming Mr. Holland for having a mistress (it is the spoils of war for a French President) but cheating on an “official” mistress looks worse than cheating on a spouse.

The previous “first ladies” of France, were all aware of their husbands’ dalliances but like the Queens of yesteryear, they tolerated the “favorites”.

But this all seem too much for the favorite in tittle. She checked into a hospital for “exhaustion” and France is breathlessly waiting to see what’s going to happen next.
Mr. Hollande is a “waffler”, a procrastinator, preferring to defer difficult decisions and everybody is wondering how he is going to dodge that bullet.

In February Mr. Hollande is scheduled to visit North America.
The big question is: is he going to come alone or accompanied by a female companion? And pray tell, who would that be?

Stay tuned for the further adventures of Monsieur Tout le Monde…

Alain