Commas to Breathe

20 November 2025

This morning, I came upon this passage from my translation review of Chapter 56, from THE DAWN into L’AUBE, presented here in the English:

Artur wondered if Camille truly was a widow, and if her widowhood was that small, tidy box which offered security to Camille but which also imposed restraint upon the brilliance of her illumination.  The small, tidy box compelled confinement, one which she initially might have embraced while sensing that circumscription, as a form of support and sustenance, was embracing and nurturing her.  She must have realized that a part of her being, if not her entire self, was being gently held in captivity.  She now was valiantly pushing against the box, pressing against its stiff walls, and yearning to be free.

I immediately said, “This thing needs commas to breathe.”

We all do!

The past five years have been a breathless whirlwind of corruption-destruction, “suddenly” coming to light — after having been in place for those decades since Slick Willy and his lovely wife Bruno came riding into the D.C. Swamp, on their not-so-white-horses — to tell the Rest of Us how morally superior they are.

I still don’t know who believed that crock, but Shocking Revelations Redux of the 1990s Holiday From History presently comprise Click-Bait Porn on any “news” aggregator website.

I’ve better things to do, like put commas into literature for breathing room.  It’s merely symbolic of my current state in northern northern California.

Yesterday, I decided that, this year, for Christmas, I am clearing out the exhaust fumes of the past 6 years of Red-Blood Patriots Living in the USA.  That epoch was the lawless Biden Regime, which began in January 2020 with Operation Destroy-Donald-Anyway-You-Can.

This year, I’m putting out my Vide Poche from Provence, filled with little speculoos cookies, direct from the Netherlands.

Earlier this week, Dear Husband brought home a tin-house container of the Dutch cookies, purchased at Costco.  I found the row-house design so charming that he is presently en route to the wholesaler to buy 2 more of them.  Christmas Decorating is just around the corner, and I hope, by then, to have the gas-fireplace in The Warming Room functional again — so that dining/living space is warm again.

I asked Dear Husband to write down the timeline of the repair calls & visits for this heat-thrower cause, for me, time since late September has been rather fluid!

Rain for a week, followed by a few days of foggy mists, followed by blazing, though intermittent sunlight for half a day, then clouding up for the return to the moors of Scotland:   rain rain rain, but, surprisingly, no wind.

There have been several completely unexpected episodes of extremely loud thunder though, a sound that sends Jolene straight into the couch cushions to bury her head.  She’s a smart dog, a real thinker!  She, too, misses the Showcase Flame Pattern in the pretend-fireplace.  Sitting at the dining table just hasn’t been the same for her in months!

The Repair Guy, Roberto (and I always think of Clemente each I hear this masculine name) is now almost a member of the family.  Amazingly enough, he comes to the house on the cloudy, dank, dark-day in-between the rain storms!

The first repair call was 29 September.

The first repair visit was 8 October.

The second repair visit was 14 November.

The third repair visit is scheduled for 22 November, Sunday evening.

I recall making a hot-dog casserole during the mid-afternoon visit by Roberto on 8 October, the day of the Trouble-Shooting Trouble.

After running a series of diagnostics with his devices, he discussed the likely problems with Dear Husband.  He’d diagnosed the likely problems fairly well.  The ceiling lights were a-blazing, and I was curious as to why he seemed hesitant about pointing the finger at one certain part to be replaced.

“They’re not all made in the USA.”

“Well, we can’t have that happening.  It’s fascist!” I tossed out that opinion while tossing the sautéed chopped onion, ginger, brown sugar, and powdered molasses into the bean-and-sliced-wiener mix.

Roberto laughed.  We then got down to the business of doing business in the USA, or, rather, in California.  If you think the customer/citizen is having a hard time in the Golden State gone tarnished, try being a non-globalist-retailer or, GAH, independent contractor — independent anything!

He asked Dear Husband if the Beamer had made any unusual sounds when activated.  That’s when I inserted my superior experiential knowledge into this Superior Male-Bonding Experience of Fix-it-Tools, Meters and Oscilloscoping.

I explained there’d been a definite pattern the first few times that the Gas Fireplace didn’t work, and then the thing just cut out, and didn’t make any sound.  Roberto asked me if the rhythmic pattern was dat-dat- ddddddd-dat.

 Yes, I replied.  That’s exactly what it was.

You see, I’m a Fireplace-Whisperer.

After having to say adieu to the Real Fireplace in the Peach House in Newcastle, and progress toward embracing the utterly efficient technology of electronically-generated warmth (or not) at my fingertips, I’ve had a hard time letting go of what had become my seasonal rituals:

— gathering up pine cones and pine needles during the summer, stuffing the fire-fuel into a dozen or so grocery bags, and then storing the aromatics in my barn of a garage;

— using those “kindling” materials, along with tissues, empty tissue boxes, paper towels, the cardboard rolls at the interiors of the used paper-towel-and toilet-paper rolls; and, then, during Christmas baking season, tossing the paper from the stick of butter into the firebox of crackling logs — Instant Result!

I told Roberto that there are times when I still go to toss one of those greasy wrappers into The Gas Fireplace, but the glass cover bids me HALT!

Don’t get me wrong:  I do not miss having to lug the wet, soggy logs from the pile, outside the sunroom, into the house.  I did not relish having to dry them on the hearth before each log can get tossed into the dwindling fire in the firebox.  I did, however, have an entire system set up, starting with timing the log-retrieval from outdoors, and ending with plunking the dried chunk of wood into the fireplace, so I could then return to My Work.

In my present state of damp, cold living space, I’ve been setting up a patchy system to create the Art of the Meal that doesn’t get cold on the table.  Using the round pine table, located on the other side of the house, requires not just more effort, but a different kind of effort.

Dear Husband has noticed that while I can carry full cups of tea, of anything, from the kitchen to the table, without spilling a drop (the Waitress in me never stops!), whenever I’m carrying half-cups, or 1/4-cups, the sloshing of tea onto the bare-wood floor is unbelievable.

It’s that rhythmic, flowing walk of mine!

Dear Husband was asked by Roberto if we use this fireplace much to heat the large area that contains the dining table, couch, overstuffed chair, antique dresser with linens, and music corner.

“Just in the morning,” he replied.

He refused to say that room is The Morning Room!

The Morning Room is now what used to be The Evening Room, at the back of the house — in the Sunroom, which hasn’t seen sun in months.

We do have the Big Heater (ceiling HVAC ventilation) that’s now fully functional.  That modern convenience failed to function in September.  It was repaired, in one afternoon, during early October, just before the entry of Roberto into Larkhaven.  And it has been quite a lark!

I am trying very hard to move emotionally past the Winter of 2020.  That historic date was, for me, Our Winter of Camping Indoors, with Chance, in my newly-constructed Dream House Without Electricity — because PG&E hadn’t yet provided power to this location.  We waited only 6 months for that end-of-the-year miracle!

The Liberal Californians are getting what’s coming to them for having allowed this State to go, literally, to pot, by not demanding the competence of a real Governor — for decades. Me, I’m surviving this unholy mess.  I’m more than surviving it:  I’m prevailing over it, with style!

Pete Wilson was the last real Governor of CA, and I daresay that the majority of “citizens” here never even heard of the guy.  The brittle, bitter Gruesome Getty oil brat refuses NOT to be heard from, except for whenever there’s another humongous disaster that’s of his un-doing. It doesn’t matter if it’s fire, flood, earthquake, mudslide, raging crime, raging fires, raging fraud, raging nepotism, raging payola, raging deviancy, the raging creep called Gavin is NOT in California.

And neither are the parts to fix my gas fireplace!

The Controller was the initially, and correctly diagnosed malfunction; but there was also The Burner, which corroded just before the Warranty ran out.  So we got lucky on that one.  That part, however, took forever to arrive in California by early November.  We now await the Valve, on its way from either Michigan or Reno, Nevada.

I’m willing to gamble that December will be here, and the Gas Fireplace in the Warming Room still won’t be warming that room!

That reality inspires me to re-create the row-houses in Ouistreham, Normandy, France, or the Casino of THE LONGEST DAY, on my entryway sideboard!

To return to the revised paragraph, with enough added commas and revision for the abundant breathing room — and liberty — that Camille so urgently needs:

Artur wondered if Camille truly was a widow.  He wondered if her widowhood was that small, tidy box which offered security to Camille, but which also imposed restraint upon the brilliance of her illumination.  The small, tidy box compelled confinement.  She might have initially embraced that circumscription, as a form of support and sustenance.  She might have believed that limitation was embracing and nurturing her.  She must have realized, at some point, that a part of her being, if not her entire self, was being gently held in captivity.  She now was valiantly pushing against the box, pressing against its stiff walls, and yearning to be free.