Do you Know where you Were?

Today for the first time I heard about this incredible tale in a documentary film on the Klimt paintings,looted by the Nazis.

Maria Altmann whose aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, was painted twice by Klimt, tells the story of her brother Poldie Bentley; as a Jew, he was desperate to find a way out of Austria after the Kristallnacht and quite by chance bumped into a man who asked:

- Do you remember where you were on New Year's eve 4 years ago?
- Yes, I do, said Bentley.
- Do you remember what happened on that day?
- Yes, a person was in danger in the mountain and I was able to rescue him.
- I am he, said the man. Do you know what my name is?
- No, sir.
- My name is Hitler. I am Adolf Hitler's nephew. Now flee Vienna. You have three days. I will make sure nobody interferes in anyway and you will be safe.

Later, at the beginning of the 3rd millenium, the paintings that belonged to the Bloch-Bauer in Vienna were restituted to the family and Adele's painting sold for a reported $135 million.

Bentley, who was the nephew of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, an industrialist who commissioned Klimt to paint his young wife, was one of the heirs.


Nathalie

Missed the Mark

Today for the first time I realized that I had skipped altogether the date of my last taxes' payment (the advanced payment once every two months). Where had I been and what was I thinking, one may wonder. This has never happened to me before ...

So today, when I pulled myself together and procedeed to fill the booklet and write the check, I realized I was missing a moderately large payment from a client. This too came as a surprise because I had already written a reminder and was sure the money had come in.

I guess this is a picture of myself frowning upon petty worries and pretending to be back on tracks. Nice try ...


Nathalie

Screen Power

Today for the first time I leaned back, really leaned back, determined to do "nothing" while supposedly recuperating from surgery. I cannot remember myself being so relaxed and comfy, since the 70's (do not get confused, I was never a flower child and I skipped the drug culture altogether).

Not being comfortable seating in bed, I moved to the living-room and spent the entire day on the Facebook platform, on Google, Gmail and Blogspot. I also watched plenty of French programs on the French channel 2, watched the second episode of "The Prime Minister's Children" on Hot V.O.D as well as the movie "Once I was ...", which was offered for free also on Hot V.O.D. Add to this half of Woody Allen "Vicky Christina Barcelona", a third of "Argameddon", and an episode of "The Closer" on the French channel dubbed in French, and you get a feeling of my day, well spent in front of screens.

By the way, I have already seen all 43 episodes of "In Treatment" first season on Hot HBO, looking forward to the second season some time in June.

My husband cooked for me and my friends and family called throughout the day. I do consider myself a blessed woman, being surrounded by so many loving people.

The Upside of Anger

Today for the first time I saw the movie "The Upside of Anger" directed by Mike Binder.

This movie surprises me so much, that I find myself completely out of words and I am copying below one of the reviews posted on IMDb:

"Classic melodrama" was the old-fashioned term used to characterize family dramas where women struggled with their situation or gave voice to once- repressed desires. More often than not, these films focused on the bourgeoisie, where stifling urges and desires for fulfillment is endemic. Galvanized by a great and witty script, and powered by truly remarkable performances by Joan Allen and Kevin Costner, Upside of Anger is a welcome and inspired revision of the classic genre. Writer/director Mike Binder deserves all the kudos he will likely receive for this superbly rendered comedic drama, which is at once traditional and iconoclastic and as absorbing and entertaining as it is appealingly human.

The story is set in motion when the alcoholic matriarch of the well-to-do midwestern Wolfmeyer family discovers her husband has disappeared and left her to raise four headstrong daughters (all in various stages of young adulthood) on her own, without any clear means of support. Her drunken rants fuel her already combative parenting style, and the situation really erupts when a middle-aged neighbor makes a play for her attention. The stellar cast, including Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell, and Alicia Witt, makes this portrayal of a family's emotional transformation one of the most pleasurable and surprisingly unpredictable romantic dramas you'll see this year."


Nathalie

прывітанне!

Today for the first time I started to study Belarusian.
Belarusian is linguistically placed between Russian and Ukrainian. It belongs to the group of the East Slavonic languages , and shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group.


David

Kafka Meets Ionesco

Today for the first time I walked into a tall building in Jerusalem, heading for the third floor. The elevator was going down and a woman told me "I don't think the elevator goes up". Now, that sounded a bit strange...

I nevertheless waited for the next elevator. When I got in I pushed the button 3 and waited. The elevator started to make its way down and not up. I figured someone had called it downstairs.

Downstairs, nobody was waiting for the elevator. I pushed the button 3. The doors closed. Nothing happened for a few seconds and then the doors reopened. I tried the same three times. Three times the doors closed, stayed closed for a few seconds, then reopened. That's when I decided to use the stairs.

Situated two floors below the entrance of the building I started to climb the stairs towards my target: the third floor. Imagine my astonishment when one floor up I read this sign: 4. I was on the fourth floor. Let me repeat this just in case you lost your concentration: I had started walking up the stairs two floors below the entrance and after climbing only one floor I was on the fourth floor.

So I went down one floor hoping to read the sign 3 when I would get there. And I did. I also found the office I was looking for. The conclusion of all this is of course that, for reasons to be examined some other time, the ground floor is on the fifth floor.

And I ask, would it be too much of an inconvenience to place at least one sign next to the elevator signaling that the ground floor , which innocently appears to be the ground floor is in fact the fifth floor ?????????????



Nathalie

Key Note

Today for the first time I had to retrieve a key that didn't belong to me from some strangers' mailbox. In other words I had to buzz the intercom and tell people I had never met or heard of before that a key was sitting in their mailbox and it was mine, well not exactly mine but I needed it.

While all this was happening, my 3 year old grandson took the opportunity to play with all the mailboxes at reach, not precisely understanding the words " Don't touch, it's not ours". Is it the product of my imagination or he answered " But Savta you just did, you just looked at the content of a mailbox that wasn't yours".

Someone came down and gracefully gave me the key while I offered sincere apologies. Who knows maybe in the US what I did is considered a felony.


Nathalie

Beet Boredom in the Kitchen

Today for the first time I was introduced to roasted beets. This way of preparing beets gave me the opportunity to recycle the hapless aluminium foil chewing metaphore I had used on my previous blog entry. Try it and enjoy!


Nathalie

No Big Deal Mom, I Have Cancer

Today for the first time I decided to return to this blog, whose original purpose was to record events that happen in our life for the first time ever. This blog was interrupted at the end of January for the only reason that February delivered news that sure could have qualified for a "Today for the first time" entry but none of us had the heart nor the motivation to share.

So let's try this again. About three months ago, for the very first time, I was told I had breast cancer. Not much needs to be said. It was caught very early on and I am confident I will be OK. What bothers me the most is not that I have cancer. What really bothers me is that my sister died from breast cancer just a few years ago and it seems it was just a few weeks ago.

I thought it was possible to put a sister's death somewhere in a parallel universe where it would not interfere with my life. I thought I would mourn my sister like I mourned both my parents. I was wrong. Losing a sibling is not like losing a parent. You simply don't come to terms with it.

So who was I talking about? It took me a while to come to terms with my predicament mainly because when you learn you have cancer at the same time you learn your grandchild is in very acute danger, the word "cancer" registers as "nosebleed". So when I felt he was not in immediate danger any longer, a few weeks later, I remembered I had breast "nosebleed" and that my sister died from it. It felt like chewing on aluminum foil.

So here I am on my way to surgery and radiation in a world that still stutters to spell "cancer" out, that expects the patient to be brave (but falling apart when you have a heart attack or kidney failure is OK), and where some cancer patients still keep their disease a secret in order not to cause discomfort or scare others.

On French TV I saw this advertisement for cancer research: a mother talks to her adult son on the phone.

- I won't be able to make it on Sunday mom, I am sick.
- Oh what happened darling?
- Oh no big deal mom, I have cancer.
- All right, sweetie, I understand. Feel better. See you next week OK?

A voice says: this is the way it will be in the future. Thanks to cancer research, having cancer will be just the same as having a cold .....


I hope G-d watches French TV programs once every so often.



Nathalie