With all the space I have on my terrace, and empty pots after growing tomatoes last summer, I decided to try growing some plants that sprout in winter and bloom in early spring — daffodils and irises, namely. Irises are my favorite flower, especially the finer ones; the bulbs I planted are Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’. The daffodils are sprouting in the two front pots, with three iris plants peeking out in the black pot. Cyclamen plants are between and behind. It’s been a dark winter this year, since we’ve had storm after storm go through, and so my cyclamen haven’t yet bloomed. Hopefully the sun will come out enough to help them along.

For those who have been following the saga of my kitten-threatening, mentally ill neighbor, I have some good news, and an enlightening background on her. The good news is that she goes before the judge tomorrow, and one of her neighbors (the same lady who gave me Kanoko) goes before the judge on Wednesday. To make things easier to follow, I’ll use false names for the two women from now on: “Gertrude” is the mentally ill neighbor (she’s German), and “Francine” is the kind neighbor, who lives above Gertrude (she’s French). Francine came by last evening to pick up photos I’ve taken of various dirty tissue papers and animal excrement left by Gertrude, who’s threatened to kill Kanoko. I also gave Francine photos of my terrace that show just how closed-up it is, since it’s important to prove that indeed, my kitten cannot bother anyone except for me.

While chatting with Francine, I asked a few questions about Gertrude. It turns out that I was mistaken on an important point: I thought that Gertrude had attacked her niece without any witnesses. It turns out that she had actually attacked her in broad daylight, in public on the street, with several eyewitnesses, who testified to police. Naturally I asked why on earth Gertrude was still free, since she also physically abuses her children and husband, facts which are also known to the legal system. (Her husband is divorcing, the children are being followed by French social services, and they have their own psychiatrist. However, Gertrude has forbidden the psychiatrist from getting anywhere near her.) Francine told me that Gertrude had been warned that if there was ever any further complaint about her, swift punitive action would be taken.

This is why the French justice system has moved so quickly following the official complaint lodged by Francine’s (and Gertrude’s) building management in December. Everyone in their building (they’ve all had problems with Gertrude) was served notice to appear before a judge this month and in February. In part thanks to insight from a visitor to this blog who mentioned the possibility of psychiatric internment, Francine is going to insist on psychiatric monitoring for Gertrude rather than requesting any financial compensation. We know that financial compensation, while nice for the recipient, doesn’t get at the root of the problem when you’re dealing with an irrational person who holds to grudges like a pit bull in fury. It would in fact probably make things worse. We all want Gertrude to get treatment, for her own sake, for her children’s sake, for everyone’s sake.

I told Francine that indeed, I’d wondered what Gertrude must have gone through in her childhood to become someone so twisted, fearful and angry. “How did she and her husband meet, anyway?” Well, Francine explained, Francine and Gertrude’s husband, “Robert” (not his real name), had grown up together, so Francine knew him well. Robert had been an avid traveler in his youth. As soon as he got his license, he bought a motorcycle and with nothing but a backpack, rode to as many countries as he could, often for months at a time. Robert never had a girlfriend; he loved travelling too much. He went to Germany in 1989, when it was still divided between East and West. Gertrude and Robert met and married in East Germany — she didn’t speak a word of French. They came to France just before the wall fell in November of that year.

Gertrude learned French very quickly, said Francine. Robert bought them not one, but two apartments — the entire ground floor — wanting to give her a beautiful home. Gertrude wasn’t supposed to be able to have children, but made the most of France’s health care system and sought out the best doctors, getting pregnant soon after. It was then that Gertrude’s neighbors started hearing loud fights, and noticing her husband going out with bruises and scratches. Since they had children, he didn’t want to leave her. But she abused the children too, and lied about it to him and everyone else, until finally her lies became obvious a few years ago. It was only last year, however, that Robert finally left and demanded a divorce — she’s refusing it.

Francine promised to tell me how her visit to the judge goes on Wednesday. She’s dealt with Gertrude’s lies about her to others (Gertrude has done the same with me, as I learned from a few neighbors she spoke to) and Gertrude’s death threats for nearly twenty years now, managing to stay calm and never giving up, nor giving in to Gertrude’s violent tirades. I’m confident she’ll present her case well, and am happy to know that psychiatric treatment for Gertrude will be stressed.

Above is a photo I took of a Vallauris ceramic bowl I found in a secondhand shop today (2 euros!). I didn’t have a bowl I could use for fruit; this one is perfect. On that same ceramics note, a friend in Nice recently commented that tomettes are from Salernes, a village in the Var. There’s a site about ceramics there that showcases some very tempting wares from several ceramists. Apparently tomettes are in fact still made there.

Thanks to this post on MetaFilter, I learned that Japan is celebrating 1,000 years of “The Tale of Genji“. The New York Times has an article with a beautiful slide show.

In a change of pace from floor photographs, here’s the ceiling in my entry. The previous owners — them again! — had put up a false ceiling with three spotlights. Considering their track record of wiring an extension cord for kitchen outlets and putting in a walk-in shower with no waterproofing, I wanted to check this and redo it if needed.

I took this photograph after removing the dozen screws that held the false ceiling to the walls, looking “behind” it and standing in the shock of disbelief for a few seconds. Behind the large pipe (the one that’s dripping dark fluid), there’s an outlet wired to the ceiling. Plugged into that outlet is a transformer (the black box), which is sitting directly on the false ceiling, which is made of wood. All the white debris is plaster; there were some large chunks on it and who knows why or how they got there. The false ceiling, I kid you not, was simply leftover parquet that the previous owners had painted white. In addition to the transformer sitting on it, the ceiling was touching the three central heating pipes that carry heat to the radiators throughout the building. (As a side note, my apartment is very toasty since, in addition to my two radiators, all the heating pipes that supply the building go through it.) That pipe that’s dripping? Is dripping because a layer of its paint is melting. I guess they didn’t waterproof the shower so that when there was a fire caused by their home “improvement”, the walls would be too damp to burn?!

In the entry, I cleaned up everything, removed the outlet from the ceiling wires, and put in a new light fixture. I chose a simple one that echoes the industrial feel that the pipes give the entry, and it now looks rather nice. While I did prefer the cleaner look of the false ceiling, I’ll take a few visible pipes over death by incineration any day. In other news, I’m still removing tile as part of my tomette restoration project, and have finished about a quarter of the living room. So far I’ve only encountered two damaged tomettes, both of which will be covered (and were probably originally damaged) by furniture.