i received an interesting email today..seems i'm still on the Savannah Wine Shop e-mailing list and they've forwarded information about a photography seminar in Provence (the propreitors are friends)..run by a SCAD photo professor, Craig Stevens, that i knew as a customer! six degrees…. on that thought, i just read that France is the number…

so here i am, in gorgeous surroundings, enjoying lucious french food and wine, renting a rather elegant lifestyle…soaking in the culture, finding artistic inspiration, and what do i have to listen to all day today? mom moaning about how the corn in her lunchtime salad isn't digesting properly…i won't go into the details, i just…

at the little pizza restaurant tonight, Bert returned from la toilette a little freaked out, bemused…it had a fancy hi-tech self-cleaning toilet..the kind with a revolving seat…it also had an automatic revolving hand towel machine and someone was trying to get in, wriggling the door handle….rotating toilet, revolving towels, turning handle…he thought he might be…

sorry to be missing in action lately, blog-wise….been very occupied painting and drawing some 12 hours a day…and loving it! i have a long way to go to be where i want to be, but i can see the path ahead….and its not that far off afterall (time does go by so much faster these…

went to a lovely cocktail party in Cannes yesterday, feeling groggy today due to father-of-the-hostess' drink making technique…when making a gin and tonic, he filled a large tumbler with gin and then just waved the bottle of tonic near it. (credit for that ingenious description must go to one Miss Liz Dickens) another note: i…

my sister Margaret has a new site (thanks to my brother Thomas) that is more blog-style and easier for her to use (she was handcoding previously!). i'll have a newly designed one shortly as well, with all the features (comments, trackbacks, etc) that my brother says i just can't live without…stay tuned. (note: address won't…

having finished a few trashy beach-reads last week, decided to stretch the brain muscles this week and am now mid-way through The Great Shame, and the Triumph of the Irish in the English-speaking World. extraordinarily well written and researched, not to mention interesting…Grandma Quinlan will be proud.

uncle Bert has some friends in town this week, including a young sister and brother (20 and 24) from Madison…cured my homesickness (see earlier brat-reminiscing) right off! a pic (sorry for the grainy quality, that's me in the middle, in silver, pre-tan…cheeky Rachel at the bottom left, solid Liz behind Simon and sweet Tina to…

i bought myself a pair of hot pink spangly flipflops today to cheer myself up…it worked a little. every girl needs a pair.

barbeques are fun, but make me homesick for WI bratwurst (is that possible?) …i've found sausages, but they are so tiny and shrivel like old men on the grill…and the idea of a bun is laughable here…spicy mustard is find-able, but sauerkraut ..i'll probably have to make some myself. Racine Kringle Co. will fedex their…