Santa’s Dark History

by Madeleine Kando

Like most children, I believed in Santa while I was growing up. It wasn’t easy believing in someone who changed his name and his appearance every time my family moved from country to country.

I was born in Hungary, where Santa goes by the name of Mikulas or Szent Miklós. He is really a Bishop, not a jolly old dude who lives on the North Pole. He shows up on December 6th, giving children barely enough time to mend their ways and be worthy of presents.
Thankfully we moved to France before I was introduced to Mikulás’ assistant ‘Krampusz’, a horned, hairy creature with fangs and a tongue a mile long. Krampus’ job is to scare the bejesus out of children. If you are lucky, you just get a raw potato in your sock, but the really bad children get stuffed in Krampus’ backpack and taken to his ‘lair’, somewhere deep in the forest, to be eaten alive.

In France, Santa is called 'Père Noël'. He had swapped his Bishop’s miter for a floppy looking hat with a pompon. Père Noël wasn't very generous in those post-war days, especially when he came down a poor refugee family's chimney. I started to connect the dots between the lack of heat in our apartment and Père Noel’s reluctance to leave us presents. Should I have a heart to heart with him, as he was climbing down our chimney? I decided that my French wasn’t good enough. It wouldn’t have added weight to my argument and he might not have left me any present at all!


When my family moved to Holland, I was introduced to the Dutch version of Santa. Over there, Santa plays second fiddle to a far less benevolent character named Sinterklaas. He must be a relative of the Mikulas of my native Hungary; same figure with a big pointy miter and a staff, riding a big white horse.

Every 5th of December, he arrives from Spain on a steam boat, accompanied by his 'helpers'. These helpers called ‘Zwarte Piet’ (black Peter), are a more benevolent version of  the Hungarian Krampus. Theirs befalls the thankless task of selecting good and bad children. Good children get candy of course, bad children get coal or a branch in their socks. But if you have been particularly bad, you get stuffed in a canvas bag and shipped back to Spain. No wonder the Dutch are so stoic. Early on they are taught to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Needless to say I was especially good around December 5th. I couldn't care less about the presents, I just wanted to avoid the fate of those very bad children at all cost.

Had we decided to move to Iceland instead of Holland, a fate far worse than death might have awaited us, the Kando children. Iceland is the home of Gryla, a giantess. She leaves her cave, hunts for bad children, and carries them home in her giant sack and devours them. If you are lucky enough to escape her, a huge and vicious cat known as Jólakötturinn, comes down the snowy mountain slopes at Christmas time and finishes the job.

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Fee-fi-fo-fum. A Smelly Adventure

by Madeleine Kando

We are at our friends, the Millers’ for Thanksgiving. They live the super rural life in Northern New Hampshire, in what is called the Great North Woods. There is snow up here already. Just a dusting, but soon our friends will be buried under a thick pack of the white stuff which will remain until the spring.

 

There is a magic feeling about ‘the North Country’, even though it was declared poor enough to qualify for Federal Assistance. People live in trailers, old cars and rusting tractors strewn about on their properties. As we drive towards Canada, big posters with Trump’s grimacing face are visible from the road. This is Trump country through and through. Are they not aware that we have a new President?

This time, our friends had no room for us, so we booked a room online at a local B&B, which looked quite charming, with a panoramic view of the hills and valley. As we are shown our ‘suite’, the pungent odor of some kind of air freshener dampens my enthusiasm.

 

‘Do you mind if we crack a window?’ I ask the hostess. ‘Unfortunately the windows are winterized’ she says. ‘You could keep the door ajar, but make sure you lock it when you leave’.

We unpack and drive to our friends’ house to spend the rest of the evening. It is hidden amongst tall pine trees, at the end of a mile-long driveway. They slowly built a little kingdom on their 200-acre property, which they bought for a pittance many decades ago. There is the barn for their horses, a new building to house an indoor lap pool and a sauna and a structure to house a giant wood furnace. Nathan, the Lord of the Manor, missed his calling by becoming a psychiatrist rather than an architect. He just loves building things.

Late at night, as we drive back to the B&B, we see a large buck stand still in the middle of the road. It doesn’t move, so we slow down to a crawl. Our headlights show every detail of this magnificent creature, and I feel sorry for him. There is a good chance he will be shot the next day or the day after.

 

I can’t sleep because of the pungent odor in the apartment. My husband always says that I should work in the perfume industry because of my excessive sensitivity to smells. I leave my snoring husband’s side and start to comb the apartment. The small fake plug-in Christmas tree on the table looks suspicious, sitting in its metal bucket. A prolonged sniffing does not result in a guilty verdict, but I unplug it anyway and put it outside. I crawl back in bed, but the smell is still there. I get up again and wave my arms like a scarecrow to activate the automatic night light.

  

In the corner of the room, shamelessly emanating fumes, is an electric air freshener. I unplug it, put it in the bathroom and close the door, convinced that I found the source of my misery. I crawl back in bed, but the smell is still there.

 

Now, the gloves are coming off. They must have put a scent tablet in the small, humble looking vacuum cleaner. Out it goes, next to Christmas tree. Back in bed, but the smell persists. I get up for the third time.

 

I notice two empty trash cans next to the sink. Out they go into the dark, cold night, but the smell is still there. I am frantic by now, but have enough common sense to stop myself, before I dismantle the entire suite.

 

As the day breaks, I finally fall asleep, the nauseating smell filling my nostrils. I lost the battle, but not the war. Tomorrow is another day.

   

I dream that I am stuck in quicksand. My back is slowly sinking down, like in a hammock and soon my body will jackknife, my toes touching my nose. As I slowly bend into a giant letter I, I hear little gnomes in the ceiling tap dance and bang on pots and pans. They stand on a blindingly lit stage, their big faces grinning at me. The sound wakes me up and I find that my mattress, which has the firmness of a marshmallow is preventing me from turning on my side. My back is stuck in the dip in the middle. The clanging in the heating system gets louder and faster, until it suddenly stops. The blindingly lit stage in my dream must have been the two porch lights outside the bedroom window, which won’t go off until daylight.

 

It is Thanksgiving morning. I get up, groggy after a sleepless night, and as I drink my morning coffee, I glance out the window. The banned Christmas tree and vacuum cleaner stare back at me, but they don’t look worse for wear. The porch lights are finally asleep. I envy them.

 

We drive the short distance to the Millers’, ready for Joan’s fabulous Thanksgiving meal, which I will selectively participate in, since I have become a vegetarian. ‘How did you sleep?’ asks Joan. The bags under my eyes speak for themselves, but I don’t want to share my nocturnal adventure, for fear of everyone finding out how neurotic I am. ‘Not too bad’ I lie.

 

After dinner, we go for a walk down to one of the ponds. Since it is hunting season, we all wear orange or red, just to be on the safe side. Nathan tells us that it is not uncommon for hunters to drive their truck while they shoot at anything that moves. There is no comfort in knowing that it’s against the law, since hiring a lawyer after you are shot, is not very practical.

 

Nathan is hard of hearing, but he often pretends he doesn’t hear you, when he embarks on one of his long monologues and doesn’t want to get interrupted. He is a born story teller, but his rhythm is slow, with a lot of ‘uhs’ and ‘ums’. By the time he finishes a sentence, it’s hard to remember the beginning. I wonder how he manages to keep his patients awake, as a practicing psychiatrist. Still, his stories are fascinating and full of humor. He is a transplanted New Yorker who didn’t have to learn to be funny. He would have been a great stand-up comedian.

 

Joan, his wife, functions as his mirror. She is not flamboyant, a bit self-effacing, but when push comes to shove, you can tell she wears the pants at their house. She enjoys cooking, smoking dope and yoga. She swims daily in her indoor pool, goes in the hot tub and writes in her journal. She used to make wonderful paintings, but somehow, the creative juices stopped flowing.

 

Their horses, Patrick and Max, are part of the family. Patrick, the pony, is the undisputed boss. Max, a sweet appaloosa, does what he is told. They both look furry this time of year, their winter coats nice and thick. They require a lot of care and are included in Nathan’s will. He gave detailed instructions on by whom, how and where they will be taken care of when he no longer can do so.

It's time to go back to the dreaded B&B. My husband promised he would blow up our air mattress, so I wouldn’t have to spend another night in marshmallow land. He resigned himself long ago to living with a neurotic wife and I see his sleepy eyes follow my progress as I transfer the bedding from the marshmallow bed to the air mattress. I move it around in the living room, like pulling a row boat in the water, to find the best spot. Finally comfortably settled, I am confident that this time, the sandman will not pass me by.

  

I fall asleep and dream that I am sitting in a bar. A group of hunters in camouflage gear are smoking cigars, while they exchange stories about killing. I wake up coughing from all the cigar smoke, my nose filled with the smell of stale tobacco emanating from the couch.

 

I lug the blankets, the sheets and the pillow back to the bed. I am so tired by now, that no amount of marshmallow can keep me awake. Ok. So I lost the war, not just the battle. How was I to know that everything in the apartment was sprayed to mask the smell of tobacco? Even Napoleon would have lost this one, his infantry outnumbered by thousands of enemy soldiers suddenly sprouting out of the battle field.

 

Back home in Boston, I crawl into my king-sized bed, covered by a rock-hard futon. No hint of marshmallows here. No trace of any fragrance in the air. A blissful olfactory void.

 

My husband, who is really good at calling out my obsessive behavior, sets me straight. He likes to rub my nose in it, so to speak, sniff out the truth of the matter: ‘You never appreciate what you have’ he says. ‘What about all the times you prevented the house from exploding because of a gas leak that no one else smelled? What about the spoiled milk that everybody else happily drank? What about the dead rat in the shed? Stop being such a cry baby. Don’t stir up a stink where there is none.’

 

I read a story of a woman who suffers from Hyperosmia, a heightened sense of smell so severe that she can no longer live a normal life. Who am I to complain of a measly air-freshener in the Great North Woods? I should wake up and smell the coffee.

 

Still, it would be nice to give my nose a vacation. Send it to a nose retreat with meditation classes to learn to be accepting of odors. In the meantime, I have to remind myself to pack a clothes pin the next time I travel. leave comment here

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Worrying

by Madeleine Kando

It’s really hard to be me. I slept for four hours and woke up wondering what came over me when I bought a $100 bathing suit. I am on Maui, and I see all these fancy bathing suits prance about on the beach, so I figured I need one too, instead of looking like a blue sausage in my racing suit.

I saw one on a mannequin at the mall across our condo and I was sure it would make me look like a film star, but when I came home and put it on, I looked more like a flower pot with arms and legs.

So, I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. There is no stopping it, once I get the worrying bug. It’s like a virus, infecting every nook and cranny of my already neurotic mind. I worry about my daughter back home, about spending too much money, about the bags under my eyes from not sleeping because I worry about not sleeping.

 
Why some people don’t worry is a mystery to me. There must be something seriously wrong with them. People like that let the worriers do all the worrying for them. They get a free ride in this valley of tears, going about their business happy as clams, while us worriers do all the heavy lifting, leading us to an early grave.

They will say stupid things, like: ‘worrying does not do anything. It’s a useless, self-destructive habit.’ But they don’t really know, do they? Since they never worry. It’s like saying: ‘I know what it’s like to be poor. My grandfather was poor. He told me all about it’.

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My Vaccine Adventure

by Madeleine Kando

I got my first Covid19 vaccine yesterday at Gilette Stadium in Foxboro, home of the New England Patriots. It is an enormous structure visible from the highway, long before the turn-off. Impressive as it is, Gilette is one of the smaller stadiums in the country. There are 30 of them, all ideal candidates to be converted into mass vaccination sites.

The huge parking lot was half empty that day, since it was after one of those Nor’easters that dump vast amounts of snow on New England. A gigantic electronic board showed which appointments were being admitted. Masked and with my appointment confirmation in hand, I was led to a booth where they checked my ID, gave me a fresh mask and asked me to answer a bunch of questions. I was told to follow a blue line to an escalator, at the top of which a nice uniformed and masked gentleman made sure I didn’t deviate from the footprints on the carpet. After a mere 5 minutes at a large ‘wait here’ sign, a vaccinator waved me over. Another brief ID verification, a short chit chat while I got unobtrusively jabbed in the shoulder and boom, done. 20 minutes total.

Outside, in the cold air, it struck me how much organizational skill is required to pull off such a mass vaccination effort. And this is just one location in one state in just one country. Who put the footmarks on the floor? Who placed the guard rails up? Who made the signs? Why this entrance and not another one? Is there a vaccination God somewhere that said ‘let there be vaccination sites: and there were vaccination sites’?

It’s easy for you to be impressed, I hear you say. You get first dibs. What about the rest of us? What about the slow roll-out, the lack of staff to get the vaccine into people’s arms? What about all the vaccine batches sitting on shelves going bad?

True, the US, the giant that it is, is slow to wake up, but once it had its first cup of coffee, it rapidly gains speed. As of this writing, 11% of Americans have been vaccinated. The EU is at 3.9%. Still, at this speed it will take a hell of a long time to get to herd immunity. So why not use every available large structure as a mass vaccination site? Why not use military barracks, large box stores, churches, airplane hangars and warehouse storage facilities? Gilette stadium could rev up its vaccination capacity 10 fold within weeks. Read more...

How to Win over an Anti-Masker

by Madeleine Kando

Why are some people so resistant to wearing face masks, even though there is ample scientific evidence that they prevent the Covid19 virus from spreading? It’s easy to say: ‘Well, they are misinformed. They are just plain stupid. They are selfish and not thinking of others.’ But covering your face to protect yourself from an enemy that you cannot see, smell, hear or feel is like trying to punch someone in the dark. Some of us have no problem following the recommendations of the medical experts, but to others, it seems pointless and not worth the inconvenience it creates.

The only ‘proof’ that this faceless, odorless, silent enemy exists at all, is the reported number of infected individuals and the many deaths, but even this horrible truth is not enough for some Americans.

These same Americans gladly don a gas mask when they see toxic fumes emanate from a chemical site. They don’t shout: “If God had wanted me to wear a gas mask, I would have been born with a gas mask.” They have no problem wearing a diving mask when they go deep sea diving in Belize (unless they are suicidal, of course). The welders among them do not invoke their ‘individual rights to choose’, when they are sent on a job, where highly concentrated ultraviolet and infrared rays would cost them their eyesight.

These same anti-maskers wear ski masks to prevent frost bite. Were they to visit Saudi Arabia, (which they never will, since it is Satan’s country) they would wear a Bedouin scarf to protect them from swallowing sand and coming back home the color of a cooked lobster. Their right to choose in those situations is as relevant as asking a starving person if they would rather eat now, or wait till next week.
To anti-maskers, the face mask has become the whipping boy of the Coronavirus, like the princes of yore, who had a whipping boy receive corporal punishment in their stead. They cannot tell the virus to take a hike so they refuse to wear a mask instead. Read more...

Science Fiction Becomes Rality

by Tom Kando

It finally happened. Armageddon has arrived. For over a century, we have been treated to various forms of science fiction. A large portion of this genre’s books and movies has always been apocalyptic - presenting one scenario or another about the end of the world, or at least the end of humanity.

I grew up devouring the works of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip Dick, Robert Heinlein, H.G. Wells and many others.

Wells’ The War of the Worlds came out as a radio adaptation in 1938 and as a classic film in 1953. Other classics that mesmerized me as a child include The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

Television added a flood of Science Fiction, including Star Trek (the original series, 1965-1969, still my favorite, followed by multiple subsequent “generations”).

Meanwhile, by the end of the 20th century, Hollywood was inundating the market with mega productions of questionable quality - such films as Independence Day (1996), Mars Attacks (1996), Armageddon (1998), Deep Impact (1998) and many others.

Even I tried my hand at the genre: (See my Humanity’s Future: The Next 25,000 Years). At least, my book is not apocalyptic. It goes more along the optimistic prognoses found in many episodes of Star Trek - predicting humanity’s progress rather than downfall.
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The Decline of Instrumental Music

by Tom Kando

I was working out on a treadmill at my health spa.

The sound blaring out from the sound system was the usual “Muzak.” i.e. the typical nondescript elevator music, all vocal, all consisting of songs, almost invariably dealing with the vicissitudes of “love.”

I was thinking: How out of touch I have become, in old age: Today, all popular music sounds the same to me.

I have been an avid amateur of music all my life. As a listener, a concert attendant, a records collector, an amateur flute player. I grew up with classical music and modern jazz in Europe. Then, after I moved to America in the nineteen sixties, I became a fervent fan of popular music (as well): The Beatles and the Rolling Stones of course, and all the other fantastic groups of that era - Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Doors, Elton John, the Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Simon and Garfunkel and innumerable others.

Then, adult life being what it is - career, children, etc. - popular music went by the wayside. For a while, I tried to stay in touch via my children. I tried to listen to some of the music they liked. But eventually I lost track. Today, I have no idea what’s going on in the world of popular music.

But here is an impression I have: Nowadays, practically ALL popular music is vocal, not instrumental. Think of the currently most prominent idols: Adele, Beyoncé, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and dozens of others (far more women than men, by the way, which is fine with me). Read more...

A Scentimental Journey

by Madeleine Kando

I drove to Paris yesterday. It took me only 25 minutes because it was Saturday and traffic wasn’t so bad. The radio announced that a snow storm would start at around 5 pm. It was getting dark and the snow gusts were starting to twirl across the surface of the highway, but my urge to get to Paris overrode my fear of getting stuck.

I didn’t really drive to Paris. How could I? I live in the suburbs of Boston. And I didn’t key in Paris in my GPS, just the name of a boutique in the next town over, that supposedly sells fancy perfumes.

As the road slowly turned white, I had to drive through a section of Watertown where the majority of signs pointed to auto body shops, liquor stores and car washes. ‘Not exactly the exotic French landscape’, I thought.

'You have reached your destination', my GPS told me. I parked in front of a small, brightly colored store with a sign that said ‘Colonial Drug Store’. Ok, I get it. It’s one of those CVS type stores where they sell cheap perfumes for a dime a dozen. I was about to drive back home, but the snow and the cold told me to go in and at least warm my poor frozen feet, buy a candy bar and then drive back home with my tail between my legs.

There were two odd looking, life sized statues guarding the door. They were clad in bright red tailcoats, knee breeches and tricorn hats, colonial era style. A homey sounding bell rang when I opened the door and once inside, the smell of freshly polished wood greeted me. Read more...

European Traffic

by Tom Kando

I am looking forward to our next European trip, this spring. Due to illness, we didn’t get to travel much in 2019. As we get older, international travel becomes more challenging. However, my wife and I haven’t thrown in the towel yet. Unlike many of our friends, we still tough it out driving, taking trains, sleeping at small hotels and walking around foreign cities as much as we are able to, rather than going on cruises.

This year, though, we will not rent a car. We’ll spend a week each in Amsterdam, Paris and Rome, and only a suicidal imbecile would rent a car to circulate in those cities, where public transportation is cheap and efficient, and vehicular traffic is nerve-racking.

Many American drivers find driving in Europe challenging, and many American pedestrians find crossing streets in foreign cities scary.

Actually the single greatest traffic problem overseas is not that Europeans and other foreigners are wild and dangerous drivers. No. By far the greatest risk to your life exists in those countries that still drive on the wrong side of the road, namely on the left. These countries include Australia, Britain, most of the Caribbeans, India and South Africa, courtesy of the former British Empire. They also include Ireland and Japan, and a few other countries that refuse to come to their senses. Read more...

Midsommar and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

by Tom Kando

The Sixties were formative for me, as they were for anyone of college age at that time. I was heavily involved in the Peace and Civil Rights movements, I dug the music and the sex, not so much the drugs, and I examined some of the cult-like groups, as my doctoral major was social psychology.

The Counterculture was both for better and for worse. It was the last time that society had a true “prise de conscience” (Awareness experience). The contrast with today is vivid. The “normalcy” to which we have returned consists essentially of materialism and survival mode. We basically don’t want to be bothered (by stuff like the Muller Report or global issues).

The problem with the Sixties was that chaos is not a sustainable long-term state. It had to stop. On the other hand today’s “normal,” unsatisfying and cacophonous as it is, is likely to go on for a very long time.

Two movies which raise issues and remind us of that time period, are Midsommar and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The former is a horror film directed by Ari Aster. It takes place in Sweden. This movie surprised me. I had no prior idea of what it was about. I had read something vague about a “summer festival,” so I thought it might be about some Swedish version of “Burning Man,” or something like that.

 According to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie critics give it an 83% approval rating. One reviewer calls the movie “upsetting” (but worthy) (Minneapolis Star/Tribune), another one says that Aster is the next Kubrick, another one writes that the film is “superlative, disturbing horror,” another critic says that it’s “unsettling and truly terrifying,’ etc. So I am in good company. Read more...

My Monarch Caterpillar Adventure (Continued)

by Madeleine Kando

I resigned myself to the agony of waiting for 14 days before Julie and Max would emerge from their chrysalis.

A week passed, but on the morning of the 7th day, Julie disappeared, chrysalis and all. I suspected foul play, since the adult butterfly does not eat the empty chrysalis, and there was nothing hanging from the underside of the milkweed leaf.

You have no idea how long I spent scrutinizing every inch of the large plant. I was devastated. Max was still there, with golden droplets encircling the upper end of the cocoon, like a golden necklace. The breeze shook him gently back and forth, but he was strongly anchored by his two pro legs.

How naive had I been, thinking that by the time a caterpillar turns into a cocoon, predators wouldn’t be interested. A chrysalis looks so much like a hanging green leaf.

‘Ok. That’s it’, I thought. ‘This is too much for my blood pressure.’ I decided to take matters in my own hands and quickly set up a terrarium in my sunny living room. I know, its not kosher to interfere with nature, but by now Julie and Max had not only taken up a special spot in my garden, they had morphed into semi-pets. Wouldn’t you do anything to protect your cat from marauding predators?

Max, whether he liked it or not, was gently transported on the leaf and branch that he was attached to. I stuck the branch in a vase, filled it with water and covered the whole thing with mosquito netting. Just because he was now indoors, didn’t mean that some house spider wouldn’t try to turn him into lunch.



Another agonizing week went by. I read somewhere that moving is more stressful than divorce. Max wasn't married, so I wouldn't have blamed him if he had not survived. It was hard to tell what he was up to, being wrapped up like that. I was nervously looking for signs of discoloration, which would mean that some parasite got hold of the chrysalis. Read more...

My Monarch Caterpillar Adventure

by Madeleine Kando

When I did the usual rounds of my vegetable garden this morning, I saw one of the stems of my milkweed plant covered with tiny yellow spots. They were moving. I know nothing about yellow moving spots, so I googled it and found out that they were aphids, known to damage milkweed plants. I cut off the stem and put the whole thing in a bowl of water. Aphids do not qualify for equal rights protection, in my book.

My milkweed plants are sacred territory. I planted them for the sole purpose of attracting monarch butterflies, which are fast disappearing. If you don't know this, monarchs can only live off of milkweed. The plant provides all the nourishment the monarch needs to transform the caterpillar into the adult butterfly.

Lo and an behold, I saw a magnificent yellow and black striped caterpillar on one of the leaves. And a few feet away, hidden under a leaf was another one. I named them Julie and Max. Maybe Julie is a boy and Max is a girl, but that’s ok. Now, every day, I check on them.

Yesterday Max disappeared. I checked the underside of leaves, the stems, the tops. No Max. Maybe a bird had taken him? Maybe he didn’t like his residence and had moved on, although I doubt he could have traveled far, even with all his legs.

Today, as I was watering my pepper plants, I saw Max lying curled up in a spiral on one of the leaves. He wasn’t moving, so I thought he must be dead. Just to be sure, I snipped the leaf and gently slid Max back on one of the milkweed leaves. Almost immediately his antennae wiggled, his head popped up and he began to crawl up and down, making constant U-turns. What was he doing? Did the fall cause brain-damage? Did he loose his sense of direction?

He then found a milk-weed pod and started to scrape off the skin until some milk came out which he started to drink. ‘Good old Max, you sure gave me a fright’, I thought.

Julie is no trouble at all. Since I discovered her, she hasn’t moved much from her original spot. She eats, sleeps and poops a lot. When one leaf is half eaten, she moves on to the next, then takes a nap. Maybe I am imagining it, but it looks like she is gaining weight. I read that a caterpillar’s skin doesn’t grow or stretch, so it has to go through 5 moultings before it turns into a chrysalis. Cannot wait for that to happen. Read more...

The Brussels South Station Incident

by Tom Kando

Our European trip this time took us to three countries: We first visited Holland for a week, then we spent a week with our friends in rural Belgium, and then we moved on to Paris, France. 

For our weeks in Holland and in Belgium, we rented a car from Avis. But we didn’t want a car in Paris. Who needs a car in Paris?! No way!

So we drove our Avis car from Holland to Belgium, and we used it there for a week. Then, we planned to return the car in Belgium at the end of our visit to that country, and take the train there to Paris.

The train to Paris is the TGV, the Thalys bullet train. We had to catch it at the Brussels Midi Station - the South Station. So that’s where we also had to return the rented car.

On the morning of our departure from our friends’ house (about an hour outside of Brussels), we punched into the car’s GPS the address of the Avis rental car return at Brussels’ South Station: Rue de France 2. Read more...

Violence; John Wick 3

by Tom Kando

 My wife and I just saw the movie John Wick 3 - Parabellum. Or actually, we just saw about half of it. Then we walked out.

It takes a lot to make me walk out of a movie. I’m a miser. I don’t like wasting my money. I generally consume everything I pay for.

I find this new movie’s enormous popularity and the rave reviews it gets from both the public and the critics a scandal. During its first week, the film ranked Number One at the box office.

The audience rating at IMDb is 8.2 out of 10 - the same as classics such as Metropolis, The Third Man, and Indiana Jones. Absurd! The audience of Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 93% approval rating, and the critics at Rotten Tomatoes nearly as much - 89%. The general public’s taste can be expected to be flawed, but the critics? What’s the matter with these folks?

Of the 216 reviews published by Rotten Tomatoes, only 24 are negative. The remaining 192 are superlative. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times writes that this film is “superb wall-to-wall action entertainment, filled with dark humor...” he gives it three-and-a-half stars out of a maximum four. I usually like Roeper’s reviews. I really enjoyed his show with Roger Ebert, and I miss it. But this? Shame Read more...

The Absence of Racism

by Tom Kando

 As children, my sisters and I spent several years (1950-52) in a French boarding school. The place was called Valmondois, near the town of Auvers, about 80 kilometers north of Paris. This was the dark and grizzly place made famous by Van Gogh and his paintings of the potato people.

The boarding school was actually not unattractive. The setting was rural, located in a lush wooded region. The supervision and teaching were adequate.

The Institution housed about seventy kids. It was a relatively middle-class boarding school, not a penal institution or a place for wayward juveniles, but neither a fancy Swiss-like place for millionaires’ kids. It was an institution where hard-working Parisians parked their children for a few years, visiting them on weekends, as did our mother.

The children ranged in age from seven to fourteen. When my mother dropped us off, my sisters were nearly eight and I was nearly ten. Not that toughness wasn’t expected. Any group of young children has its pecking order, its bullies, its sadists, its victims, its conflicts. Cliques always exist, groups gang up on their weakest members under the demagoguery of brutal and cunning leaders. Lord of the Flies is a familiar scenario. Read more...

Obsessive Comparison Disorder

by Madeleine Kando


The eye doctor looked at my chart, then looked at me. My right eye was bloodshot, red as red can be. Like a vampire’s eyes. She placed the chart on the desk and said: ‘Your chart says that you are 75, is that true?’

‘Of course not’ I was tempted to reply. ‘I only wrote that so I would get preferential treatment. People give up their seat in the waiting room, open doors for you and don’t strike up annoying conversations, thinking that you are gaga anyway.’ Instead, I said: ‘Yes I am 75’.

‘You look great for your age’ the doctor said, as she told me to put my chin on the chinrest and peered into my bloodshot eye through the retinal camera. As I was trying to avoid eye contact with someone whose face is a few inches away, I wondered if she looked good for her age. I had no access to her chart, but if she was 50, she looked terrific; if she was 40, she wasn’t too bad looking, but if she was 35, she looked downright awful.

I wondered on what facts she based her statement about my looks. How is one supposed to look at my age? She was a pediatric doctor to whom I had been assigned on an emergency basis, so her judgment could not be based on comparing me with her other patients, who ranged between 2 and 7 year olds. Read more...

Rome is Fun

by Tom Kando

It’s been a while since we returned from our last trip to Europe. I have already posted a couple of pieces about this trip, primarily dealing with stressful events, but I promised that I would also describe positive experiences. So here I go, better late than never:

When we go to Europe, besides Holland, where I come from, we almost always hit Italy and France as well. Our most frequent destinations are Rome and Paris. However, we also “diversify,” visiting the provinces, for example Tuscany, the Italian Lake District, the Amalfi Coast, the French Riviera, the Dordogne, Normandy, etc.

We usually combine revisiting favorite spots and new places. In recent years we spent a marvelous week in Berlin and another one in Ireland, both of which were new to us. Sometimes we’ll tour some new parts of Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Scandinavia, Scotland and elsewhere.

This past year, we decided to return to Rome, as we have done almost every year for quite some time, then spend a week in Paris, and finally check out the Southwest of France and Spain’s adjacent Basque country. Today, I’ll just write about Rome. Read more...

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

by Madeleine Kando

“You have to be relatively intelligent in order

to realize how stupid you are” - John Cleese.

Once upon a time a little girl was born. Her mommy and daddy were so proud and happy, that they gave her not just one name but three. That way, if she got bored being called Samantha, she still had two other names in reserve.

She was very well taken care of. There were no brothers or sisters, so everything was hers: her room was hers, her potty and bath toys were hers, her room was hers and especially her mommy! She was ALL hers.

Samantha was very curious to learn about the enormous world she was born in. So many things she had to figure out! Why doesn’t the sun fall out of the sky? Who makes the day turn into night? Where do kittens come from?

Sometimes she asked as many as 300 questions a day and they all needed to be answered because that’s what questions do; they wait for an answer before they go away and make room for the next question.

Samantha was really lucky, however. She didn’t have to go far to get answers to the millions of questions that popped up in her head. Her daddy was right there, on the other side of the room because he worked from home. Read more...

Dionne Warwick

by Tom Kando

On our recent flight to Europe, we met the legendary songstress Dionne Warwick. I am not telling you about this as a silly boast (there is nothing to boast about accidentally bumping into a celebrity, which I am sure has happened to many of you, and which in and of itself means nothing). No, I am telling you this because of the very fun and funny way in which it happened, and mostly because it was an excellent learning lesson for me:

We were on our way to Brussels, Belgium. We had just spent the night crossing the Atlantic, and we landed in Dublin, Ireland, for our connection to Belgium.

We had a couple of hours to spare, so we went shopping a little bit in the duty-free area. I was standing in line to pay the cashier for some minor purchases. Next to me stood a thirty-something man, also buying some trinkets. He courteously said to me “Go ahead, sir.” I thanked him, and we started chatting a bit. He asked me where I was going, and I told him - Brussels, Belgium. I asked him where he was heading. He replied that he and his family were going to some seaside town in England...he couldn’t quite remember the name of the place...

Figures, I thought to myself. Geography isn’t Americans’ forte. Could he mean London, maybe? The guy was probably not an experienced traveler; maybe his first time in Europe? I also thought, how nice, that “common folks” can travel overseas for leisure... Read more...

Why Cannot I be a Turkey?

by Madeleine Kando

Turkeys have invaded our backyard. Two mothers, one with eight babies, the other one with a lonely slightly bigger baby. The eight dwindled down to six, then to four as the spring went by, but finally mother nature settled on a number and the 5 of them have been steadily coming, always accompanied by the second mother and her lonely juvenile.

They used to be these adorable little fluff balls, but now I cannot tell who is who. Is it a mother or a baby? Is it a juvenile? I have to count them to make sure I am looking at the same group that we have been feeding throughout the spring and summer, against the advice of the ‘professionals’.

There is nothing ‘cute’ about them any more. They fight, chase each other, spread their large wings to scare each other off, and once in a while you see one fly into a tree, when they have had enough of the sibling rivalry. Yes, turkeys can fly. Not well, but enough to give the others the finger: ‘Fuck you, I am outa here’.

Now I am wondering: are they really the same turkeys as these cute little balls of feathers that first appeared in our yard? If they are like humans, new cells have replaced every single cell in their body multiple times. Just like new ‘Madeleine’ cells have replaced my cells at least 10 times, depending on which type of cells we are talking about. Except my brain cells; they have never been replaced. If you wonder about the poor quality of my writing, it is because I am writing with the same old brain cells that I was born with 75 years ago. Read more...