From business school to batik

One of the miracles of the Internet is being able to keep up with all of those people I surely would have lost touch with in the pre-digital days.

As someone who loves life stories -- or life's stories -- I was tickled that electronic communication brought me back in touch with Julie, one of my former business school students, and also one of my daughters' past babysitters.

I always thought Julie's personality might take her down a different life path from the typical business route, and I was right: she is now living in Senegal and recently married batik clothing designer Omer Silé Dao Diatta. She is helping out with his business and also occasionally modeling his creations, as you can see above!

Check out Omer's website and his beautiful work here.

Blog status

After promises of "blogging from And So Forth" over the summer, I am finding myself with strangely little to say. But I do want to signal my return to the blogosphere after varying degrees of absence from my three blogs.

I suppose I can start with the summer status of each publication:

La France Profonde: After thinking about taking a summer break from this one, I have reconsidered and will be writing some postlets from time to time.

Cuisine Quotidienne: Officially on vacation until September, with a possible redesign in the works.

This blog: Timidly tiptoeing into uncharted territory...

Signing off until summer

I have sorely neglected And So Forth lately, for various reasons. If you're reading this, you likely know I keep up two other personal blogs: La France Profonde and Cuisine Quotidienne. That keeps me pretty busy in the blogging department, and to top it off, my professional blogging load has just doubled.

So... I think I'm going to put And So Forth to sleep for a while. However, I plan to make it my summer place when I'm in Olympia for July and August, so I'll see you there and then.

In the meantime, feel free to add suggestions to my holiday reading list!

CD Pile-ups

Have you stopped buying CDs? I suppose if I were 20 years old and broke, I would have by now. But both my husband and I are still attracted by the object itself, and our eclectic tastes combined with online one-stop-shopping for used CDs means our collection is burgeoning.

Today I decided to reorganize them all: the horror, the horror. Our CD storage space is overflowing and piles of CDs are strewn about different rooms of the house. The worst part of the process is discovering empty cases or homeless discs.

Then there is the classification system itself. Pop, rock and jazz CDs don't cause that much trouble: artist by alphabetical order, then title by alphabetical order. But the classical department (we have our CDs in those two basic categories: classical and the rest) proves to be more of a challenge.

The titles are in German, French or English. So for example, within Mozart, I end up having to alphabetize "Concerto pour piano," "Piano concerto," and "Klavierkonzerte." I decide it should all go under "Concerto, piano," which will precede "Concerto, violin." But somehow nothing looks right.

And what to do about opera? I decided to give it a section of its own. But do I file "Mozart Portraits" by Cecila Bartoli under Mozart or Bartoli? It's pure Mozart, but I bought it because it was by Bartoli. And now for that matter, it's only two-thirds opera -- so does it really belong in the opera section? And what about all of those classical CDs that feature works by several different composers?

All this thought and I know it will only stay in place a few months at best...

Love emails, anyone? Everyone?

Is anybody surprised to learn that the art of writing love letters is on the wane?

I wonder -- all right, I'm downright curious -- just how long-distance romances are managed in the age of Web 2.0. I'm sure some of you out there could tell me a thing or two.

Of course lovers can now stay in real-time touch with their distant soulmate. They can use Skype to chat free -- no more sinking realizations that their long-distance love conversation just cost about $20.00.

But what has really replaced the old-fashioned love letter: the letter written solely for the purpose of expressing romantic feelings, the letter lovers used to carry around in their purse or pockets, the letter that can still spark a wave of passion when found in a box tucked away in the attic?

Do emails really cut it for this purpose?

(Inspired by Valentine's Day, this post was written last Sunday and modified to submit to Sunday Scribblings, which announced the prompt of "Passion" Sunday February 24th. Click here to read more passionate posts.)

All About Consultants -- HHOK!

I don't have anything against consultants, I really don't.

To prove as much, I will point out that my husband is one. But these two lists of "consultant humor" tickled my fancy. If they were about French consultants, I would add the habit of using English words where perfectly good French ones would do the trick...

Expat Women, Unite!

I am happy to announce the launch of a new website, Expat Women.

Its purpose is to help expatriate women all over the globe link up and share advice.

Although I have plenty on my plate, I was pleased to be invited to participate in this new venture as a mentor. I know first-hand how great it would have been to have access to this type of service when I arrived in France in 1990! Life felt pretty lonely sometimes, and it would have been most helpful to be able to contact fellow English-speaking women who were making their lives in France.

Check out the newly-launched site and spread the word!