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cauliflower cheese. paid sick leave in France and the social security system.
I had a laser procedure on my left calf in order to treat a varicose vein, something I should’ve done years ago. If I could post photos, I’d show you my impressively bandaged leg…but, sadly, I can no longer post photos on this now-free website.
So I was off work for 8 work days, and received full pay. And thanks to the French Social Security system and my “mutuelle” (supplementary employer health coverage), all that I paid out I received back 100%.
Example: the 725 euros I paid to the surgeon; the 48 euros I paid to the pharmacy (support stockings, bandages, etc); the 375 euros for the local anaesthetic, the 75 euros for the Doppler (echography) exam, etc.
If I can read my payslip correctly, I pay 92 euros a month (salary deducted) for supplementary health insurance, while my employer pays 113 euros a month. This coverage allows the employee to supplement his or her reimbursement of health expenses in addition to the part reimbursed by the Social Security.
HOW DOES FRANCE’S SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM WORK?
It’s actually the envy of the world, and I must say it’s very efficient.
Created in 1945, the “Sécu” is protection against the risks of life. It accompanies us at every age and allows us to live with dignity, in particular thanks to financial aid and human support.
If this security is called “social”, it’s because it is the expression of national solidarity. Social security is based on an implicit contract that binds all citizens: everyone contributes to it according to their means, and benefits from it according to their needs.
“Social Security is the guarantee given to everyone that in all circumstances they will have the necessary means to ensure their livelihood and that of their family in decent conditions.” Alexandre Parodi, Minister of Labor (1945)
Earlier today, I lugged home a huge cauliflower with which to make cauliflower cheese, a satisfying vegetarian dish. You can add ham, bacon or any other kind of meat. The classic recipe I’m using is here. I replaced the butter with olive oil, and I added parmesan and gruyere to the cheddar as well as Dijon mustard and a pinch of nutmeg –
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cauliflower-cheese-0
movie review, The Zone of Interest
You never see the horrors of Auschwitz. But you hear them in the backdrop of this house situated on the other side of a wall from the concentration camp. A family lives in the house, a seemingly ordinary middle-class German family, and we watch as they go about their daily tasks and routines. The first jolt is when we see the wife (played by the excellent Sandra Hüller who I saw last week in the French movie, Anatomy of a Fall) go up to her bedroom, close the door and open a paper package that had been brought to her by a domestic servant. A magnificent full-length mink coat, folded up, is in the package. She takes it out and tries it on in front of the mirror. We somehow understand that this is not her coat, it has come from the concentration camp. In one of its pockets, she finds a tube of lipstick. She sits down in front of her makeup mirror and puts some on her lips before rubbing it off – vigorously – with a tissue.
In the preceding scene, another paper parcel arrives, this one filled with children’s’ clothes. She spreads them out on the dining table and instructs the house staff to take one item each.
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife, Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
The husband, wearing full SS garb, gets on his horse and rides next door to work. The children go to school and one of them raises his arm in a salute and says “Heil Hitler” before leaving the house. The house is sparkling clean and runs like clockwork, there is domestic staff and a gardener to help out; they are, in fact, inmates from the concentration camp. Hedwig loves living there … and we wonder why. Why would someone love living next door to a concentration camp, knowing full well what’s going on on the other side of the wall?
It’s when her mother arrives for a visit that we understand: this is not, in fact, a middle-class bourgeois family; they were working class before arriving at the house, common farm laborers. It was her husband’s ascension to Kommandant that allowed them to live the dream: nice house, huge garden, servants, space, nature and a good school for the children.
When Hedwig and her mother are admiring the flowers in the garden, the mother asks if the camp is on the other side of the wall. Hedwig confirms that it is before adding that they’ve planted vines near the wall in an attempt to mask it. Then the mother says – “Perhaps Esther Silberman is in there. I was her cleaning lady.”
It’s the ironic juxtaposition of the ordinary and the awful, asking the viewer to think about how many millions of Germans went along with the mounting anti-Semitic and racist policies of Nazi Germany out of self-interest and/or wilful ignorance, the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt termed it. That becomes the challenge of the movie, watching this family tend to the garden, host a birthday party, and read bedtime stories while watching the gloom of the chimneys, listening to the constant soundtrack of scattered gunshots and the screams of victims, including the wails of babies. Every scene is elevated by the dramatic irony of the context that it is happening next door to a concentration camp. (source: Nathan Zoebl review)
To sum up, an extraordinary film, almost documentary, almost theatrical. It is a true story. Director: Jonathan Glazer who lives in north London with his wife and three children.
Here’s an article in The Guardian about Glazer (with photo) and the movie –
Occupied City, a new movie by British director, Steve McQueen
Just last week, after having watched The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe on Netflix (it’s very good, I recommend it), I said to an office colleague the next morning: Y’know, there are 36 different ways to tell the same story.
And now there’s a new documentary film out – or due to come out soon depending on where you live – that does just that. It takes the well-known facts of the Holocaust and, as written in a newspaper article, “maps it, street by street”.
In his four-and-half-hour documentary, British director Steve McQueen charts the fate of Amsterdam’s Jewish population during the Nazi occupation.
“Occupied City” doesn’t use archival imagery to recreate a sense of Nazi-era Amsterdam; instead the documentary surveys a staggering 130 addresses as they exist today in the city.
McQueen explores the city’s past exclusively through images of quotidian Amsterdam life today — in and outside homes, in squares, on trams — that he shot over several years beginning in 2019. These 35-millimeter visuals are, in turn, accompanied by sounds that include voices, birdsong and so on recorded during the filming; fragments of music and the narration delivered by Melanie Hyams, a British voice actor.
This original approach intrigues me, and I will go and watch the documentary as soon as it comes out. McQueen – whose film, 12 Years a Slave, won three academy awards – lives in Amsterdam. He says – “Living in Amsterdam for me is like living with ghosts. It feels there are always two or three parallel narratives unfolding at once. The past is always present.”
I too have that feeling. I often imagine the past as I wander and explore European cities.
my last post …
Dear readers,
My annual subscription is coming to an end and I’ve decided not to renew – not because I’m unhappy with the services of WordPress – to the contrary – but because I’ll be leaving France eventually and the title of this blog: Juliet in Paris, will no longer be relevant. I’ll be moving to Spain sometime in 2025 to begin a new chapter in my life, discover a new country and culture, and learn Spanish.
It was never my intention to live in Paris for so long. But life got in the way, unexpected circumstances arose, and the rest is history. To sum up, I recall a favorite quote of mine from Alice in Wonderland:
“I could tell you my adventures,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
A different person indeed.
My life in France has been edifying, exhilarating, challenging, frustrating, intellectually stimulating, enriching, rewarding, not always easy – downright hard at times – and everything in between.
I lost the life I had in Canada and I made a new one, entirely alone, in a foreign country and a foreign language. Now a new country and language awaits.
Recently, I said something to myself that I’ve never said before, and it surprised me. I said it out loud while walking down the street.
“Je suis fière de toi,” I said. (I’m proud of you.)
Humans should say this more often … to others, and to themselves.
Goodbye.
The domain julietinparis.net will expire on Saturday, January 6, 2024. However, this blog will still be visible on the internet at julietinparis.wordpress.com and can be viewed as archives.
a few photos of Spain in December
The sunshine was sublime (and energizing). I’m aware though that it’s very hot in the summer months. Last August, temps were over 40°C for weeks; along the coast and even hotter inland.
Above, a square in Valencia. Below, I love the texture of the old stone walls.
“Un espresso doble con leche, por favor.” A double espresso with milk, please.
Hot chocolate, thick and not too sweet, that you dip deep-fried fritters, called churros, into. No wonder I gained weight while there.
This ice cream, horchata and hot chocolate emporium in Valencia is called Daniel.
tables outside …
As I was exploring the backstreets, a group of musicians suddenly appeared, Spanish troubadors, singing what sounded like religious songs for Christmas. There was a church nearby to which I believe they belonged.
Spain, like Italy and Portugal, is a Catholic country. Far more observant than French Catholics, the church plays a strong role in Spanish society. In each room of the (furnished) apartment I bought, there are pictures of religious icons hanging on the walls. “Look!”, I said to my friend in France as I video-called him on WhatsApp to show him the apartment, “I have Jesus in every room.”
“Keep them,” he said.
Above, a painting in a shop window. Below, a small square.
Olive oil soap –
I honestly don’t know why it took me so long to discover this magnificent country (right next door to France!) I guess I was too busy exploring other magnificent countries. In any case, I have found my future dwelling place and I look forward to living there.
This is my second to last post.
Incidentally, if you haven’t read my memoir entitled An Accidental Parisian, it can be found on all Amazon websites.
How Hamas weaponized sexual violence on October 7
The article that appeared in The New York Times is agonizing, appalling and sickening. It recounts how Hamas militia members savagely raped, mutilated and murdered Israeli women on October 7th. They also slaughtered men, children and babies. To say that they behaved like animals is an insult to the entire animal kingdom: animals have more dignity and worthiness than these utterly depraved monsters.
It’s a hard read, but necessary; the world needs to know. The article describes scenes of dead women found strewn on roads and in ditches, legs spread open, no underwear and genital area exposed. Signs of severe brutality to their bodies (and genitalia) are evident. There were decapitations … yes, the severing of heads, as if we were living in the 7th century.
Those who survived those attacks, and there are few, will be walking corpses for the rest of their lives.
We saw the video of 22-year old Shani Louk, unconscious, her half-naked body thrown into the back of a pick-up and paraded through the streets of Gaza while men and boys cheered, ululated and spit on her. She died, no doubt tortured to death. What was her crime? She was Jewish. And Israeli.
We saw the video of 19-year-old Naama Levy, barefoot, bruised and cut, her hands tied behind her back, her tracksuit pants stained with what looked like blood, as she was grabbed by the hair then pushed into a Jeep while Gazan bystanders chanted “God is Great!” in Arabic.
We heard the telephone conversation recorded from a Hamas terrorist to his parents on October 7 in which, in a crazed and frenzied state, no doubt from the effects of Captagon, the drug of choice for jihadists, he boasted that he had just murdered ten Jews. “God is Great!” he and his parents exulted, over and over. Other family members came on, the entire family jubilant. The phone he was using belonged to one of his murdered victims. “Look at my WhatsApp!” he hollered, again and again. To see images of the dead Jews he had slaughtered. He was seeking praise from his parents.
Who are these people?
We need to go further and understand who, exactly, we’re dealing with here.
The Hamas militia monsters of October 7 behaved exactly like the ISIS jihadists as they rampaged across Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 – burning, looting, beheading, raping and torturing (primarily Muslim) men, women and children. Their radical Islamist ideology was to establish a “caliphate”: a state ruled by a single political and religious leader according to Islamic law, or Sharia.
Here in Paris, we are not strangers to Islamist terrorist attacks. Bataclan was a bloodbath (90 dead. November 2015). Charlie Hebdo a carnage (12 dead. January 2015). The Nice truck attack (86 dead. July 2016). The Jewish school attack in Toulouse (three French schoolchildren, aged eight, six and three, a Rabbi and three French paratroopers. March 2012). The list is too long to add here.
I’ve endeavoured to see both sides of the Israeli-Gaza issue. And I still condemn the bombing of Gaza and the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians. But I wouldn’t join a pro-Palestinian protest march.
Are pro-Palestinian activists aware that support amongst the Palestinian people for Hamas has increased from 12% to 44% in the three months between September 2023 and December 2023? Have they read the Hamas charter? Do they know that their primary goal is to destroy the State of Israel through jihad (Islamic holy war)?
Do they know that Hamas’s biggest financial backer is Iran, the tyrannical Islamic republic who imprisons, tortures and kills women who refuse to wear the hijab or show a lock of hair?
Hamas is a proxy of Iran, as are Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the Shia Houthi in Yemen, and two rebel forces in Syria and Iraq. It is Iran who empowers, supports and guides these groups.
Israel lives in a tough neighborhood.
Following the September 2022 protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, for breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women, 582 people were executed in Iran last year, the highest number since 2015 and well above the 333 recorded in 2021. (source, The Guardian).
“From the river to the sea,” pro-Palestinian activists cry, “Palestine will be free!” Show me one Islamic country where freedom thrives.
“A call for equality, justice and human rights!” Yeah, well, good luck with that. We all have our pipe dreams.
The majority of pro-Palestinian activists who chant “From the river to the sea…” haven’t a clue what the name of the river is (Jordan) or the sea (the Mediterranean). If you showed them a map of the Middle East, they might have a hard time locating the Gaza Strip or Israel.
What would an independent Palestinian state look like? The notions of “self-rule” and “autonomy” don’t exist in that region of the world. Gender equality? Democracy? Free speech and expression? Forget it. Freedom of sexual orientation? The response to homosexuality in the entire Arab world is jail, torture or death.
“I don’t feel like wearing my hijab.” Not an option. Women and girls in Palestine continue to experience domestic violence, sexual harassment, early marriage and femicide. Honor killings are still in vogue.
“I want to renounce my religion.” You can’t. This is called apostasy, the abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person OR embracing an opinion that is contrary to one’s previous religious beliefs. Sharia law regards the death penalty as the most appropriate punishment for apostates.
Self-rule in that zone would be continued corruption, continued abusive conduct of security forces, continued torture and imprisonment of Palestinians for daring to dissent, continued threatening and arresting of journalists and creating a climate of fear and intimidation. In short, a deplorable state of human rights.
Is there a link between religious extremism, repressive and authoritarian regimes and terrorism?
And now, on a lighter note … Maher uses humor in the worst times. He’s funny here, but at the same time this piece is full of truths.
my life would have turned out quite differently …
My family story came to an abrupt and bitter end. Which is unfortunate, because we were a lovely, creative and unified family (when my parents were alive.) The truth is that misfortune fell on our once-happy family.
My father. Publisher, editor, entrepreneur, conceptualizer.
My mother. Writer, editor, journalist. Dinner party hostess par excellence.
Studies show that sibling estrangement is common after the death of parents. And often, not always, an in-law – someone from outside the family – is partially responsible because of territorial-controlling-manipulative behavior.
My life would have turned out quite differently … had different players been involved and circumstances been different. Don’t get me wrong. I like my current life, I love it. And I especially love Europe and living here as a full-fledged European citizen. But from time to time (especially around Christmas), I ponder what could have been.
It was the sudden death of my father (heart attack) that changed everything. From that moment onwards, things went downhill.
Human beings need protection … from other human beings.
I find this statement to be deeply disturbing. It came to me, fully formed in my mind, as I awoke one morning a few weeks ago. But it’s the truth, just look at the world around you. Full of vile, evil, repulsive humans whose sole aspiration, it seems, is to inflict distress, sorrow and misery onto their fellow men, women and children. I have vastly cut down my news intake. One can barely open a newspaper these days without bracing for more bad news.
But even more disturbing is the fact that many humans need protection … from their own family members.
My dying mother – drugged on morphine and partially paralyzed from spine cancer – tried to protect her youngest daughter (me) in her final months. But her attempts failed. Why? Because in her feeble state, she was outwitted and outmanoeuvred by her eldest daughter’s machinations.
The zealous lengths my sister went to to transgress our mother’s final wishes is jaw-dropping; her primary objective was to rob her kid sister of the legacy bequeathed to her.
The truth is that my mother died believing she had provided for me amply, when in fact the bulk of my inheritance gift was stolen from me.
The truth is that I was the stooge, the dupe, the chump of inheritance theft. My mother too was the patsy of scheming individuals who, rife with ulterior motives, had a different agenda from her own.
The truth is that my sister viewed our mother’s death as an opportunity. What would she gain by dishonoring her mother’s last wishes? Personal enrichment (to the financial detriment of her kid sister.) It happens in the best of families.
This is, in fact, a cautionary tale. There are lessons to be learned and red flags to acknowledge. Knowing all that I know today, I’d be a wills and estate lawyer if I had my career to do all over again. Because I’ve seen, up close and personal, the abuses and fall-out of inheritances gone wrong.
My advice?
- Get your affairs in order years before you reach retirement age.
- Appoint a trusted lawyer, and not a family member, to be executor of your estate.
- Consider putting a no-contest clause in your will.
- Set up a trust fund for each of your children. Do it now.
- Beware of joint tenancy agreements.
- Talk to your kids and other beneficiaries and inform them of your wishes and what you have planned to leave them, so that everything is crystal clear. Better yet, record your conversation on audio or video tape. You’d be shocked at how your loved ones will bicker over money and valued possessions once you’ve gone.
My level-headed, pragmatic mother did everything right to ensure an orderly transition of her assets after her passing. She had diligently put her affairs in order, but was caught short when, overnight, she found herself paralyzed and in a supremely disadvantaged position.
Not only had she appointed her trusted lawyer as estate executor, she nominated three alternate lawyers as safeguards in the event that the primary lawyer should be unavailable or unwilling to act. But between the drafting of the first will and her death two and a half years later, her final wishes, however carefully planned, went entirely off-script.
Somehow, and suddenly, my sister was Executor. Somehow, and suddenly, a joint tenancy agreement appeared. A joint tenancy agreement? No one had ever heard of such a thing in my family, or ever wanted one. Until my sister deployed this tool for the purpose of disinheriting me, a ruse she had assiduously plotted and planned for months.
It was my sister, not the terms of my mother’s will, who dictated who should receive what and how much.
Why am I writing this? Because this is an unresolved story. There has been no healing or closure whatsoever; no acknowledgement or accountability from the other side of the Atlantic for the damage, distress and financial loss deliberately inflicted on me. The absence of anything remotely resembling an apology only exacerbates the situation.
I can see from my WordPress country statistics that this blog is being read in Barbados. There’s only one person I know for sure who vacations in Barbados every winter: my sister (and her husband). It was my parents who discovered that sparkling little isle back in the 1960s and fell in love with it. I spent my tenth birthday there, and subsequent years. After mom and dad died, my sister took over their timeshare apartment; she and her husband fly down, ritualistically, every Christmas. Not once have they invited me.
I have a niece, a very talented musical niece who is a complete stranger to me. Not only was I robbed of a significant portion of my inheritance – an amount that would have greatly ameliorated my life as I hustled to find work as a secretary (in a foreign language) in Paris while living in a crappy one-room rental – I was also robbed of what was left of my family. The last time I saw my niece, she was five years old. We have, in fact, been mutually robbed: me of a relationship with her, she of a relationship with her aunt. An auntie who lives in Paris! That would’ve been fun. Think ‘Auntie Mame’ with Rosalind Russell, the free-spirited aunt.
To think that one single person can be the cause of so much damage just boggles the mind. And for what??
I look at other siblings I know, all friends of mine: loving and caring towards one another. Not so, in my case. When it came to sibling allocation, fate dealt me a very bad hand.
In the final analysis, here’s how I see it: she made a huge power play and ended up losing. We all did. What a tawdry legacy to leave behind.
The civilized classes and nations are swept away by the grand rush for contemptible wealth. Never was the world worldlier, never was it emptier of love and goodness.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Good-bye, Barcelona! I’ll be back.
I didn’t want to leave that abundant sunshine, but I had social engagements back in Paris. From Valencia, I took the 3-hour train ride to Barcelona and stayed two nights. What a great city! I stayed at The Park Hotel. Here’s the view from the rooftop (there’s a small pool) –
I literally walked ALL DAY Saturday. The weather was perfect: cool and sunny. At some point, I stumbled across probably one of the most beautiful bookstores I’ve ever encountered.
I spent two hours in the place. At the back, there’s a private garden with long tables where you can sit with a book and drink espresso. I was in heaven, book and coffee heaven.
I bought these two books. It took awhile to find them because the English-language books are mixed in with the Spanish ones –
Later, I stopped for a fuel break and had a horchata, a milkshake made with soaked, ground and sweetened tiger nuts. I still don’t have a clue what tiger nuts are. This beverage has an added scoop of vanilla ice cream in it.
The next day, I had another afternoon fuel break. Two gay men from Lisbon sat at the table next to me and we chatted for a long time about all sorts of things, they spoke perfect English. Barcelona is not only gay-friendly, it’s a pioneer in championing sexual and gender diversity.
The hotel bar –
I thought this graffiti was fitting and relevant to our world, past and present. Written in Catalan, not Spanish, it says – Fascism advances if it is not fought!
It’s not until you leave Paris that you realize how much stress, pollution and unsmiling people there are there. For me, Spain offers 4 “s’s” – sunshine, smiles, security, stress-free.
Valencia
I bought myself a new Pepe Moll handbag and phone pouch for my birthday at the big department store here, El Corte Inglés.
“Is it a gift?”, the saleswoman asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “A gift to myself.”
Then back to the hotel where I stayed last year and highly recommend, the Helen Berger hotel. In the restaurant, I awaited my glass of rioja but the waiter brought a bucket with chilled champagne and a glass.
“I think you’ve made a mistake,” I said, “I ordered a glass of red wine.”
“No mistake, compliments from the hotel on the occasion of your birthday.” I was surprised, baffled and embarrassed all at the same time.
Who could have predicted that the birthday girl below (my 7th birthday, notice the snow outside) would end up in France and then Spain? Ah, well, stranger things have happened.
This is my near to last post as I’ll be very soon shutting down this blog (permanently).
Juliet in Paris 