Author: place2place

Bea

Nearly sixteen years ago, we adopted Bea—our Lhasa Apso—or more accurately, Peter adopted Bea during our second overseas tour in Moscow, while I stood by with a long list of reasons of why this was a terrible idea. Peter: I’m going to get a dog for us. Me: Just don’t get one smarter than I am.

I had grown up with dogs–my mom had even bred and shown Boxers. Our last family dog was a female German Shepherd, Scarlett. She was loving and funny and all the things dogs are, but wow, let’s just say, she trained us.

We dragged her out of the burn pile after she rolled in ashes to counter the alkaline of skunk spray. (I’m telling you, she knew chemistry.) She decided when it was bedtime for the entire household. She launched herself over ever-higher fences my dad built, and she demanded a toast tax anytime my mom reached for the toaster. We gave her tomato juice baths as part of her continuing anti-skunk spa routine. Once, with wet hair, I chased her across the street into the neighbor’s yard in my pajamas. She wanted to tear apart any religious person who dared knock on the door.  Mostly, though, she convinced me that dog ownership was best left to people with enough upper-body strength to drag 60 pounds that wants to go the other direction, had lightning-fast reflexes to deflect collar-grabbing, and didn’t mind early-morning barefoot sprints.

So Peter promised he wouldn’t get German Shepherd.

He got us 13 pounds of shaggy Tibetan calm. Our friend Matt, described Bea as a Buddhist nun dog.

Though calm, Bea was no pushover—she quietly evaluated everyone’s energy like another kind of embassy security guard. She could tell if you were cool by sniffing your shoes. She considered it her job to guard whatever monastery we moved her to. When we brought out her travel crate and her one-inch-thick dossier of international doggie-travel papers, she knew: wheels up.

In Bucharest, she bonded with my mom, laying on an embassy-provided sofa and launching all four paws off the floor to bark at the trash guys.

She was with us when we arrived at the Tahoe house the first time. She could see through walls and knew when coyotes were on the forest path next to the house. In her later years, we knew she was losing her hearing because snored though a bear break-in.

When we did homeleave from Kyiv, Bea summered with her other favorite family at their dacha. She developed a life-long love of motorcycles and hotdogs because of BMW-riding Kyril and his generous wife Lena. One time we needed to get Bea home so we put her in a taxi and she rode happily sitting on the driver’s lap. Slava Ukrainia, says Bea.

In Muscat, she loved our housekeeper Kumari who prepared her dinners of sandwiches and Sri Lankan chicken. She loved seeing Beth because she knew it meant a walk along the beach. When I was unexpectedly evacuated from Oman during COVID and Peter had to go to Pakistan, our friend Susan cared for Bea for months. Susan helped her negotiate a truce with cats, and sent a photo of Bea, the previously classified cat-hater, sitting on a sofa coexisting with the former enemy. She was a true diplodog.

She sat under cafe tables in Paris, and enjoyed the view from our Airbnb in Sicily. She sailed on the Queen Mary. Twice.

In London she tolerated the arrival of an outwardly adorable, inwardly passive-aggressive King Charles Cavalier. Of all her London activities–riding the bus, going to the fancy dog groomer named Paisley, she liked sniffing her way through Battersea Park’s Winter Garden the best, and if she could always avoided the cobblestones of Kersley Mews.

By the time we moved here to Morocco, Bea was mostly blind and selectively deaf. In the new house, she could go up the marble stairs but not down, and trapped herself upstairs numerous times a day. Shadows made her flinch, so we started strolling with her in her doggie poussette, rolling past the neighborhood cats she could no longer see while they stared at the old lady in the pram. She loved the outings. Loved getting out to sniff most of all.

Sailing transatlantically on the QM2 for the second time last summer | Riley Ganz photo

When Scarlett died my mom said, “I was ripped up for a long time.” She never got another dog. I thought I understood what she meant, but I didn’t, really. Until a month ago, after a sudden illness, Bea, the best good girl, laying on the of our government-issue sofas with us one evening, died. I haven’t seen her in a month now, and I keep looking for her in her basket or maybe out on the terrace in the sun warming her bones. I miss her every day and I’m keeping her alive by telling her stories.

I still love her so.

As Peter recently said, the longer we are in Morocco–it's been ten months–the more we like it. 

Cons:
Sunny skies with occasional moody rain, it's between 65F and 80F most days.  
An entire wall of hibiscus around our garden
House big enough for guests
Fun shopping at affordable prices. Replaced the light fixtures in the house with hand-made pieces made by a lovely guy in the medina–totally changed the gas-station vibe I was struggling with. Berries are about $1 a basket, I bought a hand-loomed fluffy wool rug for about $100. 
I can walk to the grocery store 10 minutes, yes they have wine
Sea-breeze, fresh air
Our housekeeper Sally is wonderful–and she takes care of the doggies so we can travel around a bit
Ryanair, the airline everyone loves to hate. We flew to Madrid for about $50 each
Transportation is easy–I can catch a little blue taxi, and yesterday I finally downloaded the careem app, which is like Uber, and go anywhere in town for about $3. The drivers are crazy here, I'm not too excited about driving here if I don't have to.
Started physical therapy on my frozen shoulder: lovely therapist with very modern research-proven therapies–$20 an hour session
Twice-a-week French lessons at work from my darling teacher.

Cons:
It's not London?

My colleague is getting ready to move to Paris and of course I'm insanely jealous and tell her I'm moving with her. But we talk about how easy it here, and by here I mean Rabat. I wouldn't want to live in any other city in Morocco. It's clean, green, and just has a calmer vibe than Marrakech, Tangier, Casablanca or any other place the guidebooks might tell you are la vrai Moroc. The captitol city–Casa is New York, Rabat is Washington, DC– is under-instagrammed by hordes of tourists and therefore: Rabat rules. 

A blogger/writer for Vogue says for her this first week of October is all about energy shifts: clearing out the old, making space for the new. She bought some zinnias. 

This week I shifted the energy from the cozy embrace of Paddington Bear’s London—where it continues to rain, btw—to a new a squintingly sunlit country I've never been to, which is supposed to be home for years, with: a checked bag, a carry on, and two dogs.

Clearing out the old? I don’t even know where any of the OLD IS. (Presumably somewhere on a shipping lane between Southampton and here.)

And I’ve definitely made room for the new. On Saturday, I came home to a new house, and slept in new bed; on Monday, I ran the cold water in shower for a long time wondering why it wouldn't get hot, made coffee in a new kitchen on a new stove, jumped in a blue taxi I've never used, to go to work in an unfamiliar building, at a job I’ve never done before. 

I spent the last half-hour of my first day at work walking around on the circular first floor looking for the building’s exit, which is on the second floor. 

My spirit, likewise, is walking around in a circle. I often go into the wrong room in my own house.

Stefan, in diplokid fashion, use to say that life became boring once your knew your way around you own house.

But Peter found where to buy my favorite familiar rosé, I’m comfort-reading three novels, after not seeing it in a couple tours, I'm contemplating the Drexel Heritage china cabinet once again, and Scout and Bea still want breakfast at 8 and dinner at 5. The label is in Arabic, but Bonne Maman jam is readily available.

But what kind of dinners do I make for Peter and myself? What did we use eat wherever it was we lived? Who am I trying to say I am with my choice of shoes at this new job? Where do I take my OOTD photo? 

I bang open the deep kitchen cupboard doors, sticky with a fresh, dark varnish, and miss the smoothly gliding drawers we had in London. I miss my bathtub, the bus ride to work, the view of the Thames once I was there. I have the jam, but I miss the baguettes from Sainsbury. Want is the root of all suffering, says Buddha– and I want to see my little Buddha statue peeking out of the front planter on Atherton Street. 

But be-here-now: I like the pale pink hydrangeas in our garden, the pine trees–Morocco has pine trees!–where I wait for a taxi to work, our new soft bed, anticipating having a car and driving to Spain.

Is this coin enough for the taxi to work? Why does the taxi meter say 200 but I can pay with two 10 yakker coins or a 20 yakker bill? Is that a cookie store next to our house? What flower-scent is wafting into the house? How do I even open these windows? From which window in this house can I see the moon?

Lots of making space for the new around here, and I have no idea where to buy zinnias. 

One last "short timer" stretch before we move from one foreign country to another country we've never been. 

Here in London, this was our last weekend before they come and pack out all our belongings, and it rained. I was glad it was raining, because then I had an excuse to not go anywhere, to visit the Sargents again or go to Brick Lane, something I've been meaning to do for three years. It's just as well we didn't visit Bath to drag wet dogs in and out of an Airbnb apartment. I can always come back as a visitor–a tourist, sob!–to do those things. But the one thing I won't be able to do is open the door to a delivery of sour dough bread (yes, I cancelled the subscription) and lay around my own house with the marble table I bought on marketplace and the paintings I did of the Ambassador's garden, and the stars in the windows around the linen curtains, looking out at rain on the lemon tree and the jasmine and the hydrangea and the duvet I hung on the line three days ago that keeps getting rained on and then before I catch it during its dry moment, rained on again. I won't be heading to Sainsbury for bread, and ground beef to make dog food, and cream. 

This was the house where I was when my mom died, where I could walk to Green and Stone for art supplies, and Peter watching all his news guys at the kitchen island. Work meetings on zoom at the kitchen table, the bus ride on the 344 to work to the office overlooking the river and Big Ben; Helen's "emotional support bus," the 49, that takes us to Kensington, the squeak of the gate opened by a delivery person bringing me a package from Vinted or Amazon.co.uk. Enjoying so many good shows with Peter–Designated Survivor, House of Cards, the Americans. The little bird doorstop propping open the door where my sheepskin coat I bought at the charity shop hangs. Scout yanking on the leash like he's starting on a fox hunt as we leave the house, letting Bea lead the way and she takes me to the Winter Garden in Battersea park, avoiding Kersley Mews for some reason of her own. 

This is house where our hilarious friends Mary and Jerry visited–Jerry playing his accordion in the park's bandstand–and then Mary went home and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. And then a year later they came back for a month and took care of the dogs for us and then went home and then three months later Mary died. 

The sofas we had to request because the first set hurt Peter's back; where I flip on the fireplace and flopped down to recuperate from three cancer surgeries. I don't remember being sad to when we left San Francisco after living there for 13 years, but later, after living in Portland for about six months, I missed Fillmore Street and the Golden Gate Bridge and the sound of the Sutter bus on our street like a dear family member. I ached to walk to California street to buy groceries, and hear the foggy air blowing and rattling our windows, and the daffodils coming up the same day you put your your Christmas tree out on the curb. I missed the sparkle on the water and in the air of that city. I left my heart in San Francisco, and my uterus and my last good times with my friend Mary here in London.

This is the house Kathy and Lee came and visited; on day two Lee bought Kathy a diamond ring, and on day seven she lost it at the Victoria and Albert museum. And on day eight they called to tell her they had FOUND HER RING. What a town of miracles. 

In London, in this narrow, very vertical little "terraced house"–had to learn that term–Nina did her Japanese morning exercises, and Helen came home from seeing Dave Matthews at the Royal Albert Hall and then somehow fell into tickets to see Ian McLennan in a play; it's the house where the kids came for Christmas and we spent that New Years at the Latchmere where at a quarter to twelve they closed the bar for 15 minutes so the bartenders, including the one in a kilt, could drink. Where Atya was sick and then well. Right around the corner from the Albert Bridge where walking home one night we saw a fox. So many pick ups and drop offs in taxis, including the last one coming soon to take us to the train, to the ship, to New York to California for a couple months and then onto the next place I probably won't want to leave. But not as desperately as not wanting to leave the home of Mary Poppins, and James Bond, Harry Potter, Winnie the Pooh, and now me. 

Right. So then. Guess we'll be off.

In the same way that this is our last year in London and I'm savoring every wander around this toast-infused town, it is with equal parts "this again?" and "why can't this go on forever?" that we find ourselves bidding on our next post for the last time. 

Peter sent out his original application to work as a Nurse Practitioner with the State Department on 03/04/05. We arrived in Niger September, 2006. Eighteen years we've been doing this, living–as Camille at age nine named the blog–place to place. Hard to believe we've been doing both, the blog and the State Department life, for that long, but here we are.

Our first assignment was directed, meaning we were assigned without much choice, although we had some weird options and ended up going with where they suggested, Niamey, Niger. Two years later we were surprised to posted to Moscow. Moscow is a post that usually goes to people who had a higher rank and more experience than Peter had at the time. But we got lucky? After Moscow was Bucharest. Then Kiev. Muscat. London. One more mystery place to go! Weeeeeeeeee!

This time, as Peter could retire part-way through the tour, he must bid on posts designated as "Hard-to-Fill." That made a short list even shorter. We'll know by later in November. Stand by. 

Rabat, Morocco
Ankara, Turkey
Skopje, Macedonia
Beirut, Lebanon
Pretoria, South Africa
New Delhi, India

As soon as folks touch down in London they immediately start looking for a way to extend. Extensions in a zero hardship post are rare, and no, you can't send one of you to Bagdad and "shelter in place" here– to stay you have to rent your own place and pay your own way. As averse as State Department people usually are to spending their own money, London's charm is so potent and people are so desperate to stay they are willing to fork out for their own utility bills. 

Out of our three year tour, we have one year remaining in this Mary Poppins town that feels like home as soon as you walk in your adorably narrow, brick-faced house where the magic utility-bill fairy covers your costs for three–but only three!–glorious years.

For Peter and me, our first year here was a roller coaster called "Breast Cancer-palooza": two surgeries, and lots of other fun procedures involving radioactivity–yes, I have a tech-savvy boob. If we'd landed in Tblisi or anywhere else, I would have been running my medical marathon by myself, or maybe I would have gone to Sacramento or Reno for some solo "medical me-time." Having cancer makes you a VIP member of the in-group no one wants to be in, but at least my membership is to the Princess Grace Breast Clinic cancer club, and I got to be with Peter and live at home.

The second year has been my year of living as part of the Public Diplomacy crew, and wow, what a Barbie-fun-house-Netflix-Diplomat-drama of a ride. After firing off USA-Jobs resumes like confetti and interviewing for ten positions at the embassy and not getting anything, I had sort of given up. Then when I  finally did get a job, the creme-de-la-creme of positions (EPAP in PD if you speak State Department), I was actually scared to start work. Afraid I didn't know how to PD anymore–in spite of doing the job for the last almost ten years. After ending my job in Muscat, what even is diplomacy? Could I still adult? I'm so grateful for my bosses and the team here who have helped me get back into my "Sure, I can write a scheduling request" groove. 

Navigating life overseas continues to be complicated–the heartache of losing my mom, to being so far from our kids, and dealing with a major winter onslaught on our Tahoe house from thousands of miles away. What helps? Visits from friends and family who get us out of the house and into experiencing things like watching the Rolling Stones rock Hyde Park and walking tours of Dickens' corners of the city. Members of the Visitors Happiness Squad even showed us that the dogs actually like to go for a walk to TWO parks TWICE every day.

Then there is the everyday magic spell that London does so well–hoping on the red double-decker buses, a jaunt to Sainsbury, exploring the city's narrowest garden store to find plants for our little garden.

Waking up to frost-kissed rooftops, spotting a crooked-tailed fox from a black cab, and knowing that I have another year of world-class cancer care, which includes working a couple days a week from home, these moments make me appreciate that we are still here. I am savoring every container of cream from Waitrose, every load of laundry I can dry (and then get rained on, and then dry…) on the line outside, every time I look up from my desk at work to see the afternoon sun lighting up Big Ben.

We had a front-row sofa seat to see the English women's soccer team lose the FIFA final yesterday. Like the coronation of King Charles, it would have been so FUN if they'd provided another winning world spectacle while we were here! However, my British colleague says winning is fun, but losing gives everyone more to chat about. Living here forever would be awesome, but the bittersweetness of having to leave forces me savor every moment.

And if we were to stay or to come back, would it be the same? Without the purpose of five POTUS visits within a year, events at Winfield house where I get to take a photo of my shoes with a princess's shoes, and Peter getting calls from former supreme court justices? I want THIS TIME to be here now forever, and I guess the only way to do that is to, as Warren Zevon said, enjoy every sandwich. Enjoy every walk that Scout sniffs crazily about the dog park hoping to find a toy, every quirky charity shop tea pot find, every time the delivery person rings the bell with an Amazon UK prime package. 

We've lived a lot of places and it's true what Thomas Cromwell said in Wolf Hall, London thou art the flower of all cities. 

What if someone told us we could live in London a year? We would embrace it with all four of our arms and all eight of our paws. We'd be ecstatic! Well, that is this year.

 
Joanne "Joanie"Aveline Lawrence was born in her parent's home in Los Angeles, California in 1923. She graduated in 1940 from Mark Keppel High School, which she sued for forcing her to shower in the girls' locker room, stating gang showers violated her right to privacy. The case was mentioned in Life magazine and newspapers across the country; she received sacks of fan mail which included marriage proposals. She went on to marry four times, but never to anyone who wrote regarding the case.

She worked for a munitions factory during the war, bred show-winning boxers, and took tailoring classes from an assistant to Dior. As a child, she loved visiting her aunts Elizabeth and Kate in LA and on Balboa Island. She loved travel and road trips and always had a suitcase ready to go. When her uncle died, the only thing of his she wanted was his hat that said "On the road again."

Her first husband was a member of a circus high-flier wire-walking family act. She traveled with the troupe cross-crossing the U.S. When asked what act she performed as a member of the circus she always replied, “I washed tights.”

She and her husband of 54 years, Joseph Bernardin, moved from Huntington Beach to Paradise in 1973. They ran Ponderosa Pines, truly a mom and pop gas station and grocery store. Later they operated an accounting business. When Joe was 80 years old they retired and announced they would no longer be doing taxes, one client said, "But you'll still do MINE, right?"–they made all their clients feel special.

She claimed her spaghetti ("you have to use Italian sausage") cranberry jello salad ("mine doesn't have mayonaise"), and her fruitcake ("good dried fruit and no citron!") were the best.

She loved to play cards and usually won. 

She outlived three husbands, and her oldest daughter, Valerie Jean Penrod. She was the eldest of four and was heartbroken with the loss of each of them: Edie, Sonny, and Gale. Also greeting her on the other side were her parents, Paul Aveline Lawrence and Lola Belle Haight Lawrence, and her grandparents, Marie Amelia and Gladding W Haight, whom she kept alive with stories of life on a farm in Michigan and later Los Angeles. She credited them with taking care of her family during the depression, and because of them she could identify almost any kind of tree and flower.

She leaves behind her beloved grandchildren and great-grandchildren, some by blood and some by marriage: Keith and his children Kyli and Kody; Crystal; Casey and his daughter Camber; Tiffany and her daughter Ashley; Natalie Aveline and her children Tyler, Jayne Aveline, Kate, Annie, and Grace; and Alison and her children: Noelle, Elias, Tatum and Finley. Grandchildren Stefan and Camille Aveline will also forever remember their Grammie. She is survived by her sister-in-law of 70 years, Barbara, and enjoyed her visits to the very end. 

She took her first trip to Europe at age 89, enjoying the castles of Romania, the beaches of the Black Sea, and baguettes in Paris.

She drove through flames– and recorded video–as she fled the Paradise fire in 2018, she moved to two different states and back to California, married and divorced, and bought her grandson an airplane–all in her 90's. "Don't let age define you," she said.

Next time you can, have a piece of cake and a cup of coffee in her honor. Joanne died in Citrus Heights, in her 100th year of living.

"See ya in the funny papers."

Road trip from Paradise, CA to Whidbey Island, WA 2018. 

I just finished Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile, which is about Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz. I found this book that took place during a time of mass death and chaos, and yet heroic clarity, an incredible solace. I can't move on and keep rereading sections–it's a good v. evil story and, not to spoil it for you, but the good guys win. It's so satisfying.

Diaries play an important part of the way Larson tells the story. One of the many things I learned about was a social science project of the time called Mass Observation. For this project, hundreds of Londoners kept a record of regular life as "social anthropology of ourselves."

After the first and second surgeries of my life, just a month apart, I got as far away from breast cancer as I could and went to Lake Tahoe for a few weeks, and then the south of France to hike and drink rosé with Gina and Augusto, and then Lulu and Evan visited us in London and we saw the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park. So, I could basically die happy right now, but because of the surgery and radiation treatments I underwent, I have an 87% chance of living ten more years.

Radiation, or as they call it here in the UK to make it sound not-so-scary "radiotherapy," or the cutesy "RADS," is like the poison in The Princess Bride. Odorless, colorless, invisible, and deadly. The chance of recurrence with the kind of breast cancer I had is 30%; with radiation the chance of recurrence is 2-5%. Those numbers made it worthwhile for me to take a deadly poison.

In the US, radiation treatments are usually weekdays for three to six weeks. Here, studies have been done in which they waaaaay increase the dosage–you get the same amount of beams you would get in 25 sessions in the U.S.–but in fewer treatments, with the same outcome. The treatments themselves are painless, like an x-ray. But for me, with two semi-frozen shoulders, the hardest part was holding my arms in a high-fifth ballet position for the 10-20 minutes it takes to calibrate the machine, so fewer treatments were a no-brainer.

No brainers my specialty!

The initial set-up took the longest of all the treatments, they have to minutely calibrate the machine and enter a zillion precise measurements. They put wires on my chest and dotted my skin with a pen. They aligned me with laser beams on the ceiling and around the room. You must remain in exactly the same position with only a millimeter of variance. With my bad shoulders, it was excruciatingly painful; like holding your breath for that long. After the initial session I wanted to sit down on the steps of the fancy Harley Street clinic, with window boxes of flowers blooming around me, and cry. Instead, I walked to Waitrose and bought chewy candy kittens. It was that bad. 

Me planning the Rolling Stones set list of my dreams to distract myself.

I had a few rounds of "emergency" physiotherapy to try to loosen up my shoulders. If I pre-gamed with a full dose of Advil, I could tolerate the sessions, barely. Afterward, the technicians would tell me, "You can put your arms down now," but I could only slowly, slowly inch them down, using my better arm to lift the worse arm. Within half an hour of wandering Marylebone Charity shops, I felt less assaulted and was okay. I'm so glad it wasn't 25 sessions, and that it's over. 

I started with the intense skin cream treatments everyone recommends to keep your skin from not turning into a fiery red ball after radiation, but it made me break out.  Occasional lotion and a silk bandeau bra have been all I need. They make a big deal here telling you, during and after radiation treatments, to wear silk next to the skin. Being forced to wear silk is the treatment I tolerate well.

Radiation is so weird because it's invisible, but the reactions can take place for years. It's all so unknown. Nearly a month later, one side looks sunburned, and rashy, and I feel zings of nerve pain as new cells replace the ones killed, something is going on in there, but it's not so bad. My frozen shoulders are worse, I've heard that's normal. 

Five months since diagnosis, three months since the last surgery, and month into recovery from RADS, I'm DONE. I meet with my oncologist later this month to make plans for the close monitoring I will have for the rest of my life. Which will also include more Keith Richards and travel, more time with friends and family, and more wine and candy.

DONE!