2362 The DaVinci Clubbers

Stacey makes some good points at her blog about all the nonsense floating around like the DaVinci Code book and movie and the lengths people will go to try to disprove the resurrection. Just be prepared to turn down her music when you arrive there. (She must be young.)

"If these men truly don't believe that Jesus is God's son and died on the cross for our salvation, then why are they spending so much time/money/energy trying to disprove it? I don't believe in Santa Claus, but you don't see me doing extensive research and wasting countless hours trying to disprove his existence.
They are just making it all so complicated when the truth is simple: you can either accept Jesus as your saviour and spend eternity in heaven with Him, or reject Him and suffer the consequences." You go girl.

My friend Peggy who is a strong, well-informed Christian who reads a lot, read the DaVinci Code, found it interesting, exciting fiction, although plodding and not particularly well-written. Well educated, devout Christians like her know it is pure fiction; it's the weak and the Chreasters (attend on Christmas and Easter) I worry about--like my kids. They won't get my money at the box office, not even when it comes to the 50 cent night at our local has-been theater. Like any product of questionable honesty, if you buy it, you have voted for it.

2361 At the coffee shop

I saw a young woman with anorexia in line. Unlike many with her disease, her clothes weren't too large. But her bony fingers and toothpick legs indicated her hunger was now eating muscle, not fat stores, regardless of how much running and exercise she did. Her bony spine was curved and her face had some discoloration. With breast implants and the right make-up, she could be a model.

She bought a huge box of pastries. I wondered if they were for a morning gathering or if she was going to gobble them down in the car and then throw them up later.

2360 Families United for Our Troops

Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission is a not-for-profit 501(c)(4) organization. They are a grassroots coalition of Gold Star families, veterans, families with loved ones in harm's way, and Americans who support our men and women in uniform. I signed on as an ordinary American. I have no family in the military.

"Collectively we will ensure that the sacrifices our courageous warriors have made are not in vain, and that the heroic soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have been charged with such a vital mission will be given the support they need to complete their mission. The members of our organization know well why these brave individuals choose to serve. We know that these humble Americans leave their homes and loved ones with the knowledge that they are making the world a safer place. And we know that these dedicated service members are committed, first and foremost, to seeing their mission through to completion."

Their blog is here. They will be celebrating Iraq Liberation Day April 9. These mothers who have lost a child don't get the publicity that Sheehan does, but they should.

2359 Ugly at any price!

Wall Street Journal real estate ads fascinate me. Today I saw one for a "villa" in Highland Beach, Florida. I think the bargain was $7.5 million and the upscale model was $9 million. 6,500 sq. ft. with beach view, which is good because you'd never want to actually see this, and if it faces the water, no one would. It's so ugly, blogger.com refused to load it the first 2 times I tried! Anyway, you can contact Greg and Cindy at Seasideagents.com if you want something at this price, uglier than your neighbor's Hummer.
If you go north a bit to St. Augustine in Florida you can get a 3 BR, 2 BA home with views of the lst fairway at Marsh Creek Country Club in a gated community with a clubhouse, pool and 18 hole golf course for "only" $580,000. I think I'd check on the hurricane patterns. Although I don't want a home in Florida, I'd say it looks like a better deal, and the photo, although a bit fuzzy, was nice too.

However, for my money, and maybe because I've been watching "Upstairs Downstairs" from this era, the 1917 home near the University of Chicago that overlooks the park (Hyde Park?) and has a doorman for $895,000 looked good. It has 6 BR, 4BA and 5,000 sq. ft and is a co-op. This is at www.century21krm.com

2358 What are you doing with your free time?

Did you know that on the average, today's worker has roughly eight to ten weeks more of leisure time per year than we did 40 years ago? That is reported in the April Kiplinger's Personal Finance in an interview with Erik Hurst, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. I've checked the on-line version, but this interview wasn't available. But here's a link to the author at his college's website discussing the same topic. Here's a link to The Economist with additional information on the study. The time saving has come primarily through changes in household chores and labor saving appliances, and these have been tracked meticulously since 1965 by economists, so the information is different than what the government statistics show about time on the job.



So why do people feel so rushed and harried? This is my opinion, not the study's:

• I believe multi-tasking is counter productive in the long run. You may be saving time, driving to work while listening to a conference report, and picking up your knitting on the exit ramp and applying your make-up while munching an egg-mcmuffin, but I think it makes you feel rushed, or that you aren't doing anything really well.
• Also, the media is constantly telling you how busy you are and should buy this one additional product or toy to "save time." You may not buy it or believe it will, but you internalize that "I'm so busy," message.
• Third, one of the activities Americans are doing less is attending church. 30 minutes less a week than in 1965. That nagging feeling you're overwhelmed? Might be guilt.
• Fourth, being wired (or unwired) like a trussed up goose for Christmas dinner really isn't good for you. It gives you no peace. Turn off the cell phone, take the ear buds out, and don't take your laptop on vacation or to the coffee shop.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things you might not know about librarians

Last week when I suggested this as a possible topic, I got an overwhelming demand (3 or 4 at least) to include it. So here goes my best shot.

1) The largest library in the world is the Library of Congress of the United States. The Librarian of Congress has never been a librarian. The current and 13th Librarian of Congress is James H. Billington, appointed in 1987.

2) Most of the people you see working in libraries are not librarians. Librarians are probably in the back room dealing with personnel issues, budget cuts, unhappy board members, preparing a speech for a consortium, or working through a license for a new database.

3) Librarians as children loved going to school--and they keep on going. A Master’s in Library Science is the entry level degree in the United States, but many librarians I know have double masters or PhDs. To my knowledge, there is no Bachelor’s degree in library science and hasn’t been for about 50 years. It may be possible to have an education degree with a minor in library science, however.

4) We are often wannabees--both staff and librarians. It’s not unusual to find a librarian or library staffer who is also a performing musician, a published novelist or poet, costume designer, archaeologist or historian. I met many former teachers, a few former lawyers, a former nurse, and one former veterinarian who became librarians. I've only met one librarian who started college with a goal to become a librarian.

5) A survey done during the 2004 election of political party preference came up 223:1, Democrat to Republican for librarians--the biggest lack of diversity of any profession. Not even Hollywood is that liberal. But we have a librarian in the White House.

6) Librarians are entrenched in their own value system. These values do change over the years. Thirty some years ago when my children were little I asked the children’s librarian to stop offering “Little Black Sambo” during story hour, and got a response something like, “It’s a classic, a delightful story and the children love it.”

7) Librarians have a strong missionary spirit--that everyone needs a good library is an article of faith (this is doubtful since many people find salvation in bookstores or worship Google). However, librarians aren’t particularly good at evangelizing (marketing to) the unbeliever--unless the poor soul accidentally get trapped inside the library and sees some really terrific bulletin boards or displays.

8) Librarians are slavish about following "standards" approved by the profession even if they don't apply to a specific situation (think NCLB on steroids). But only when it suits them.

9) Although there are exceptions, librarians are thin-skinned, tenacious, opinionated and determined with a very low tolerance for debate. And defensive. So don't let on you know this. I certainly include myself in this description, so I’m not telling tales out of school. When librarians get together for lunch, we really do talk about what we just read and push our favorites off on each other. Librarians also are gentle, caring, kind hearted, very service oriented, and most have a terrific sense of humor that leans toward irony and wit. Although there are exceptions.

10) Library school graduates (now called information specialists) of the last 10-15 years, the techno-geeks, are everything the old style librarians of my era were, but with computer street creds and coding skills. Some of them are just awesome in their skills, but might have difficulty in a for-profit, entrepreneurial environment.

11) On an introvert/extrovert scale of 1-10, you'd be hard pressed to find a librarian who is a 6 or 7 (that would be me). I’ve never seen a survey to prove this, but I think our birth rate is rather low, therefore new librarians have to be lured from non-librarian families unlike doctors and lawyers who seem to create their own successors.

12) There is a career slot for all tastes--public libraries, academic libraries, private libraries, school libraries, government libraries, and special libraries; some jobs will put you in a cubicle, others will have you facing a demanding public all day. Willingness to relocate is an essential attitude in today's market.

13) You will make a librarian’s day if you ask a question, especially if it is one not heard five times this week, or “where is the wi-fi hot spot.” So think up something challenging, but tell her she must find it in a book. If you get a blank stare, you haven't found a librarian.

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2356 Where do you knit?

I’ve been taking my knitting to church and do a few rows while chatting with the ladies in the fireside lounge between services. We (the choir) sing at the 8:30 and the 11 a.m. services, so there’s about 75 minutes to kill (we have 11 services at 3 locations). Of course, I’m just learning, so it won’t make much difference where I knit. But recently I read an article in Easy Knitting where readers wrote in with stories about where they knit:

1) transcontinental air flights
2) soccer games, baseball practice and various school activities of their children
3) beside the bathtub while the toddler played in the water
4) on a walk (ouch, that doesn’t even sound safe)
5) at meetings
6) back of the Honda motorcycle (for 5,000 miles)
7) during church--she’s making stoles with Celtic symbols
8) anywhere--using circular needles
9) while her husband fishes (she’s with him)
10) on the way to work at traffic lights
11) at the jail (waiting for defendants), at the movies, and working out on exercise machines
12) baseball stadium
13) at the nursing home visiting her husband who has had a massive stroke
14) while “jeeping” and waiting for the other vehicles to go over obstacles
15) doctor’s office
16) under the covers in the dark (when she was a child)
17) sitting under the grape arbor in the back yard
18) freeway ramp, waiting
19) between hands during bridge
20) with a friend on Sunday afternoons watching football on TV.

While visitng another TT today, Domesticated Bloggage, I learned about this site for free knitting patterns. Elle just loves freebies.

Yarn Boy has a Guide to Knitting on Mass-Transit delays.

knitters

2355 Name five things

This is a challenge, not a meme. I gave it to my son this morning and he just laughed, because I think he knows he'll flunk the test. List the five suggestions or pieces of advice (wanted or unwanted) that your parents gave you that turned out to be wrong. I'm even going to challenge myself, since my parents (now deceased) were very liberal with their advice throughout my life.

I can only come up with some "also rans." The advice wasn't wrong exactly, or terrible, and things worked out, but maybe not for the expected reasons.

The one that I think I remember most clearly is my father telling me I shouldn't major in foreign languages in college because I wouldn't be able to get a job (in the 1960s). You know what? He was right, although for the wrong reasons. I just wasn't very good at it. However, even if I'd been really fabulous and fluent, I'm not sure I would have had what it takes to go after a foreign service career or working in another country. I did go on and combine that degree with library science and had an interesting career--although only a fraction of it ever involved my first degree.

Both my parents told me I was too strict with my children and had too many rules. Again, they were right, but for the wrong reasons. My rules were fine, well thought out and logical. They just created too much work for ME. Our family life could have been more pleasant and relaxed for me if I'd not been spitting into the wind so much. I don't think it affected our children one way or the other. Children probably need security and stability more than fun and games.

There were at least two times in my adult life when I asked my parents for a loan, and they said no, and gave me advice instead. They weren't exactly wrong, and it didn't alter my life. But it wouldn't have hurt them a bit, and nothing in the experience and hard feelings that resulted particularly benefited anyone.

Usually, father (or mother) does know best. Can you think of 5 times the advice your parents gave you was wrong? Google the question in both the negative and positive, and you'll see what I mean. If parents give bad advice, no one seems to be writing about it.

2354 Lives of Quiet Turbulence

is an interview with Elizabeth Marquardt on the moral and spiritual life of the children of divorce in the March 2006 issue of Christianity Today based on her book, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce, (Crown, 288 pp., $24.95).

I thought I knew a lot about this topic, but Marquardt definitely looks at a different angle. My husband and one of his nieces are the only members of his family who are not divorced or married to a divorced person. His four siblings and their spouses or ex-spouses have had 17 marriages among them, and at least 3 long term non-married arrangements that have lasted longer than the marriages. His parents and most of his aunts and uncles were divorced before the 1940s when it was still rare. Celebrating a holiday with my in-laws brought new meaning to the idea of the "blended family."

We don't talk much about divorce any more, but reading this article brought back to me some of the conversations we had in our early years about the pain of his parents' divorce and his mixed feelings about growing up in a step family. And he really had no memory of his birth parents ever being together. What I loved about his families were their openess, acceptance of differences, sense of humor, and relaxed way of life (much of which was caused by alcohol, but I didn't know that then). What he loved about my family were commitment, stability, integrity and honesty. Over the years, I've decided there is an invisible scar from divorce even one that happened 50 or 60 years ago--or there's a small open wound that doesn't heal.

Marquardt discovered that children of divorce have a different interpretation of the Prodigal Son story. They tend to focus on the leaving, not the coming back and uniting of the family. They see themselves as the "waiting father" and their parents as the wayward child.

She says that children of a "good divorce" don't fare as well as children of a "bad marriage." Any kind of divorce is a radical restructuring of a child's life.

"Happy talk" about divorce, such as that which appears in some children's books, is callous and dishonest, in Marquart's opinion.

Children of divorce have a "job" that should belong to adults--making sense of different sets of values, beliefs and ways of living. They grow up traveling between 2 worlds (or 3) with separate memories with each parent.

Marriage is the most pro-child institution in all societies and civilizations and has been since the beginning of recorded history. The idea of staying together for someone else's benefit is radical in our modern society.

Children are generally unaware of adults' feelings in low-conflict, but loveless, marriages. A pre-schooler doesn't care whether his parents are having sex 5 times a week or never. He does care if daddy doesn't come home.

"Honor your parents" has a different meaning for children of divorce. They either don't, or they honor the one who made the sacrifices. Those who are Christians make a stronger effort to do this than those who are not.

If you're feeling defensive, insisting your parents' divorce did not harm you in any way, read this review of Marquardt's book in a different journal by Lauren Winner, a wonderful writer in her own right. Winner declares, "I have always hated the phrase "children of divorce." I am not a child of divorce. I am the child of two people who, among other things, got divorced."

divorce
children and divorce

2353 Book review: The Health Care Mess

I haven't checked the catalog yet, but I'm betting my local public library has this title.

Julius Richmond, Rashi Fein. The Health Care Mess - How We Got Into It and What It Will Take to Get Out. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. 294pp. $26.95

According to a review in the New England Journal of Medicine (March 23, 2006), this book was written by two former members of Democratic administrations (although I didn't know anyone from the Truman administration was still writing) one of whom was the founder of Head Start, a 40 year old, tax supported failure. Jimmy Carter wrote the forward, and both Daniel Schorr and Ted Kennedy are promoting it, and the four photos of Truman, Johnson, Kennedy and Clinton demonstrate the authors' bipartisanship! Richmond as received the Heinz Award (remember Mrs. Kerry?) Wow. Is this singing to the choir, or what? The reviewer, David Hyman, MD (UIUC) describes the system they want:

1. Single payer system
2. Raise taxes
3. Regulate all options and choices for the consumer and doctors
4. Marginalize all for-profit enterprises in medicine
5. Create a new bureaucracy, both regionally and nationally
6. The IRS will collect the premiums
7. Don't stop there--include changes in housing, environment, etc.

This is nothing new--trees were killed for this? But Hyman does praise the authors' sophisticated and sensible history from the trenches (the grave?) of the left, and points out that this is a view from academe, not the clinic.

2352 Speaking of photos, what's up with Cynthia McKinney?

She's asked by the police for her badge which is supposed to be worn (so they can by-pass the metal detectors), she attacks him after refusing to stop, and now she's crying racism? I may have been one of the early ones to report that she had attacked a capitol policeman, but I was writing about leaks to the press, not idiot behavior by people who think they are above the rules. I'm not up on my southern pols, so I didn't even know my example was an African American.

Sean Hackbarth gets a bit catty after seeing her hair on the video: "Call me superficial but I would have arrested Rep. Cynthia McKinney for that awful hairdo. Homeless chic isn't hip even in Washington, D.C., a beggar's paradise.

And don't get me started about her wild eyes. A mugger confronting her in a dark alley would run away screaming."


I watched the video. It is probably not one of her better performances. Or hair days.

Captain Ed brings us all back to the national security agenda of the Democrats: "I just need to make sure we have this correct. The new Democratic effort on national security, therefore, is to defy identification procedures, ignore common-sense safeguards, pretend not to hear warnings, and then assault the people protecting us. Gee, I don't know ... sounds like the old Democratic program on security to me."

Cynthia McKinney
national security
bad hair days

2351 Church photo directory time

If this subject line attracted you because you want to make a church photo directory, I apologize. This is being written by a woman in tears who can't find anything to wear to have her photo taken at 4:50 this afternoon. Our church is large--about 5,000 members, I think. I'm assisting on three different days at one of our 3 locations. That's a piece of cake. What I can't do is find anything to wear to have a simple directory photo taken. The last one was around 1998. I got it out and looked at it. My husband wore a navy suit coat, white shirt, maroon tie and I had on a maroon turtle neck sweater (I probably still have it). I change my hair style about every 18 months, but it is back to what it was in 1998.

So here it is April. Do I want to wear a winter sweater? No. Should my husband wear a suit? No. Will anyone care? No.

OK. Winter sweater, olive green to go with my husband's pale taupe/green windowpane dress shirt.

2350 A heartworming story

No, that isn't a misspelling. Stop over at Cathy Knits for a great story about Max, their foster dog. Start your day with a warm fuzzy.

Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you that my Dad played football against the Gipper?
Not really, he played against Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, who played George Gipp in the movie "Knute Rockne, All American." Win one for the Gipper became part of our language and Reagan used it also in politics. In addition to politics, President Reagan's career included lifeguard, broadcaster, movies and television, and motivational speaking, but during college he really did play football.

Reagan's boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois on the Rock River and my Dad's home in Pine Creek were just a few miles apart but in different counties. However, Dutch and Cub met through a mutual acquaintance when they were still in their teens. Dad was a poor farm boy about 16 and a senior in high school at Polo, IL. Reagan, who was two years older, was already attending Eureka College. A neighboring farmer thought Dad had potential because he'd seen how industrious he was (water boy for thrashers, selling cans of salve he'd ordered from a magazine advertisement, laboring in the fields with his farmer father). The neighbor knew the Reagan family from The Christian Church, so he arranged for Dad to meet Ron, thinking he might interest him in attending Eureka. Dad also had an offer of a small scholarship from the Polo Women's Club to attend the University of Illinois. I'm not sure what happened (a blind date with my mother, I think), but Dad ended up at Mt. Morris College with some financial help to play football.

Mt. Morris College slaughtered Eureka on November 15, 1930, 21 to zip, a story Dad enjoyed retelling when Reagan became famous (although Dad was a Republican, I sensed that he was not crazy about Reagan). To my knowledge, there are no photos of Dad and Reagan butting heads or tackling each other, but I like to think they are somewhere in the jumble of arms and legs in this photo with farm buildings in the background. Say, is that my mother over there on the sidelines, cheering on the team?



My mother was an excellent student who really wanted an education--both of her parents had also attended Mt. Morris College in the 1890s. Dad was smart, but I suspect he was there to have a good time and play football. There was a disastrous fire on Easter Sunday 1931 when most of the students were home on holiday. Although the college reopened for the 1931-32 school year, my mother's family couldn't afford the tuition so she went to work in Chicago as a domestic. Dad returned to school with a football scholarship--at least in the fall. In the 1931 final game with Eureka College, the score was 0-0. The college yearbook says Dad didn't play the last four games due to a heart problem.

President Reagan visited his alma mater often, 12 times between 1941 and 1992. Eureka College is still educating young people, but Mt. Morris College closed after almost 100 years when the class of 1932 graduated. Except for his time in the Marines during WWII, Dad lived in Mt. Morris the rest of his life.

Dad, 1930, 17 years old
---------------
Lazy Daisy,
Barbara,
Yellow Rose,
Katherine,
Libragirl,
Kdubs
Shelli
Kimmy

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Mt. Morris College
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2348 Site Meter's new feature

The freebie statistics counter I use, Site Meter, now shows "out clicks," or those referrals you offer on your blog and the readers take you up on it. As a librarian, that gives me a lot of pleasure. True, sometimes it will take a person away from your page and off into the the wild blue cyberspace, never to return. But it also means you've supplied a good lead. Also, I try to always supply a source and not pretend someone else's ideas are my own.

Somewhere I read that if you position your stat counter higher on your template, you'll get a better count. I did see an increase when I did this. I used to keep it at the bottom.

2347 Good news about American education

"Here's some good news about American education that you won't hear from the public-school establishment: There's almost no gap between the number of college-ready high-school graduates and the number of students starting college. Virtually everyone who is academically qualified to go to college actually goes to college." Story here at The Chronicle

That is sort of a trick sentence. The problem is the term "academically qualified." So it is K-12 education that needs to shape up, not access to grants, loans and scholarships.

"Money is not the barrier to college. The number of students who could otherwise attend but do not do so because of a lack of funds is not zero, but it is relatively small. The evidence indicates that the vast majority of students who don't attend college are kept out by academic barriers, not financial ones."

"Analyzing data from the Department of Education, Greene and Marcus A. Winters find that out of all students who started public high schools in the fall of 1998, only 34 percent graduated college ready with the class of 2002. The remainder either dropped out of high school (29 percent) or graduated but lacked the academic prerequisites for applying to college (37 percent).

Private-school graduates probably have higher college-readiness rates, but those students constitute too small a portion of the population to change the overall numbers substantially.

So the college-readiness rate (34 percent) matched the college-attendance rate (35 percent) almost exactly. That indicates that financial barriers are not preventing a substantial number of academically qualified students from attending college. There simply isn't a substantial number of academically qualified students who aren't attending college."

2346 Librarian finishes basic training

David Durant, the conservative librarian who joined the North Carolina National Guard, has finished basic training and will be blogging again at Heretical Librarian. Quickly. Someone tell Richard Belzer that educated people (librarians need a master's degree to "get in" the profession) do join the military, and he should stop perpetuating a myth about the poor who have no where to go and no opportunity so they join the military.

HT Conservator

2345 Condi--You go girl!

There's a story about Dr. Rice and the Department of State bookstore that I heard on the radio that I hope is true. I haven't been able to find it in Google--I've spent at least 30 seconds trying to track it down. If you've seen a reputable source, let me know. I heard it this morning on the Bob Connors show (WTVN 620 a.m. Columbus) and he was interviewing someone.

Seems that for years women employees have been complaining about Penthouse and Playboy magazines in the State Dept. bookstore/newstand (I think these are contracted out--but probably not to China or India). When Dr. Condoleeza Rice, the first woman Secretary of State with balls saw them, she decided they really weren't necessary.

I don't know if the American Library Association will raise the cry of censorship--they are always sticking blowing their noses into politics. Our public library staff and board believes it is necessary to give space to free-circ newspapers selling sex, so maybe the State Department thinks magazines selling sex is OK.

Condoleeza Rice

2344 Today's poem

is a record, even for me. 90 seconds. It is posted at my coffee blog. Sure, I know what you're thinking. Maybe she should take more time and write a better poem, but what's the fun in that?

Sometimes I suspect there are poets working in ad agencies or for electrical engineering journals just to pay the rent. They toil all day trying to make the words sound just right, with music and rhythm, and so falling short on their work quota. Sort of like Monk (TV detective who has OC disorder) seeking to straighten a sign or adjust a necktie. Just look at this advertisement for a cardiologist. Don't you see a frustrated poet between the lines? If you don't, then think about someone who knows little English reading it aloud, believing it is a poem. The Greeks thought poetry came from a Muse, but why not the pages of the New England Journal of Medicine?

State-of-the-Heart

The largest hospital in Pennsylvania
is seeking cardiologists
to join a network owned
full service, cardiology
group practice.

We will consider all
cardiac sub-specialties
and have a strong interest
in recruiting
for our heart failure
non-invasive, interventional
CT, angio, peripheral vascular,
women's cardiac,
prevention and electrophysiology
programs.

We offer a generous
salary plus bonus,
paid malpractice,
paid health insurance
for self and family,
seven weeks vacation,
and more!

Who wouldn't find that inspiring? Especially moving was the paid insurance and seven weeks vacation.

2343 How some European women helped Katrina victims

Sunday mornings between services I sit in the lounge and pull out my "knitting." The other ladies at the table at first wanted to admire, but then I told them I was just learning, and although it might look like a scarf in the making, I was only practicing. But I can dream can't I? I check in from time to time on all manner of talented women--scrapbookers, seamstresses, artists, cartoonists, knitters and embroiderers. Zoanna is one of the crafty women on the internet I admire. (I don't have a special link category, but I may have to create one.) She tells a wonderful story about Isabelle, a 24 year old French woman who mobilized other women in Europe to make Katrina kits. Here is Isabelle's tutorial from September 2005. She blogs in both French and English. If I had given up French wine, surely I'd be toasting her right now.