Want to do something small and nice? Thank a UN Peacekeeper!

Until September 21, the International Day of Peace, messages of thanks are being collected to pay tribute to the men and women who serve in the UN peacekeeping operations around the world.

The UN has been peacekeeping for 60 years now.  Currently, there are about 100,000 men and women from 118 countries serving as UN peacekeepers in 17 of the most difficult regions in the world.  As George Clooney aptly put it, "peacekeepers go to places the rest of us can't or won't go, to do what the rest of us can't or won't do."

The rest of us may however encourage and acknowledge peacekeepers' deeds.  To leave your message click on  http://www.globalproblems-globalsolutions.org/site/PageServer?pagename=BWC_Peacekeeping_Thankyou_2009


To learn more about UN peacekeepers click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjj4ZWkhjr0

Peace be with you,

Calypso
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In case anybody's been wondering - I have survived (and at certain moments actually enjoyed !) the holiday season .  The excessive blinking lights, the blaring mall music , the jingly adverts jamming my cranky car radio all urging me to buy and consume as early as November almost managed to kill my holiday spirit.  They made me want to scurry into some remote burrow and hibernate there till the whole hubuldabaloo is past.  I was tempted to shrug the whole holiday season off as one complete superficial show.  But then i thought: wait a minute, i can't let anything wipe out the meaning of any period in my life or year.  And so i decided that Christmas was going to be the time when i give the gift of my time and self to family and friends.  I didn't get the time to cook any Christmas cake or log, but we did hold a bingo session with great auntie Rose and Great Auntie Mary, we watched Andrea Bocelli in (Christmas) concert with nannas and nannu, and we attended an angelic choral concert.  I had fun decorating the garden trees with Jeremy, and depositing a daily surprise in the kids' Christmas calendar (admittedly, the sweet surprises went down better than the spiritual ones). 

We didn't manage to do all we'd have liked to do - we didn't get to visit all our elderly relatives and we didn't send holiday greetings to our overseas friends.  I confess, we're still working on our 2010 family calendar!  (Tomorrow i will take it for printing!)  But we did give the best of ourselves and our time.  And in the process i found the warm spirit of the holiday season.

Having found it I then had to let myself enjoy it.  I have the habit of not letting myself be happy with good things if not "everything" in life is perfect.  How could i enjoy my son's Christmas concert if my father was spending Christmas alone with his dog?  How could i enjoy Christmas if my isle is suffering severe drought, if world climate is being damaged?    Besides white hairs age has at least brought some understanding.  So with age I have come to understand that being happy is actually cherishing the good that exists amidst the bad.  That being happy about the good things in life does not mean you don't care about the bad things happening to yourself or others.  And so this holiday season i have allowed myself to savour the warmth and light born from the loving gestures of family and friends inspite of imperfections in my life and in the life of some dearly loved ones.  

In this new year that dawns upon us, blinking lights, glaring music, viruses, droughts, and other calamities will continue aspiring to rob us of our physical and spiritual well-being.  And we will still deserve to be happy, particularly when we receive or give the gift of self. 

This year, may we focus on and celebrate the good in ourselves, in our life and world.  In doing so may we find the strength to survive and why not, at times even enjoy, life's challenges.

(The photo shows how one church in Ogygia depicted the birth of Christ - the fisherman of men.  The depiction also evokes Ogygia's fishing tradition)

Mid-term snapshots

On All Saints Day and All Souls Day the children and I went to visit my father and his dog.  Although November, the weather was balmy so we drove to Sandy Bay.  This time of the year is called St Martin's summer.  We sat and ate our way through a fish pie while Jeremy raced the waves and wind. 

As the sun started to wane, we visited our departed ancestors on the cliff-top cemetry.  Driving back home my vintage voiture started wheezing up hill so we had to get towed to the mechanic's.  All in all, a memorable mid-term holiday!

What colours does your rainbow have?

Your rainbow is shaded blue and white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, so today i've found out that each person has a different rainbow depending on personality and taste.  If you want to find out your very own rainbow go to http://spacefem.com/quizzes/rainbow

Jeremy is home,  still wheezy and still off school.  Ulysess is back from Stockholm, still congested but still turned up at office today.  I'm still were i was last week - home in Ogygia.  Today i went to work but the cold virus  is still plundering away in my body - today in my stomach and back.

So i will play mental escapades and float to Lago di Garda, in the north of Italy.  We visited this enchanting lake district last September.  It was cloudy but otherwise lovely, except when Julian walked off on his own and couldn't be found for an hour.  We met many friendly dogs strolling on the promenade of Aronia.  The photos show a view from the promenade and a sailor i befriended there.

Buon riposo e dolci sogni a tutt' il mondo. XX

House makeover over

The homemakeover isn't complete but it's over. Jeremy's allergy to fine dust has put flaking, smudgy walls into a wider, and possibly more realistic, perspective.

Today, Vince, the homemakeover guru, and Superman, my father-in-law, plastered, sanded and painted as much as their arms would allow until four in the afternoon. Then Mum's friend Mary arrived to help me fight the blanket of dust covering everything and everywhere.

The stairs are still a sour white and the hall a smudgy peach but they'll have to stay that way for good long while. The flaking powder blue paint of the dining room and kitchen is hardly visible anymore.

The war on dust took over five hours.

Tomorrow my son will return home.

A long week

They say a week is a long time in politics. I'm not a politician but i've found this week already too long, and it's still Thursday.

Come to think of it October has been too long. That's mostly because on most days there's been plastering, painting, and lots of dusting, sweeping, and washing paint off the things. Jane the helper, is not helping because her index finger is partly gnarled off and she's got a seven stitch rip on her hand. Her persian cat attacked her after she fed some stray cats outside her house. So i've been having to clean up on my own, unless i want to get worked up prodding the children to help. In any case, they are not home for most of the day during the week.

Last week rain soaked me to the bone on the only day i wasn't carrying my umbrella. This Monday the chill started maturing into a bad bad cold. Which turned into a bronchitis. On Wednesday, a sneezy Ulysses went to Stockholm for a work related conference. Wednesday night i took our youngest son to Emergency as he developed an allergy to the fine dust in the house. Thank God it was mild and controlled with the medication given. Thursday night I phoned up and asked Ulysses about his day. I didn't recognise his voice when he answered. Ulysses was too poorly to attend the conference so he stayed in his hotel bed today. Tomorrow he will fly back to Ogygia. My youngest son is tonigt sleeping at my in-laws and will not come home until i have exterminated the dust created by house repairs. Tonight i told Vince, the plasterer, that tomorrow house make over ends.

i'm all set for a better weekend. Hope your week was long enough for all the things you wanted to accomplish but not long enough to fit in any undesirables. How is your weeking going anyway? Do write and let me know. :)

Calypso