Tag: France

Now & Forever ABCs (Zoë)

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Zoë Aini Constellino née Ayishah

15 September 1972
Jehovah‘s Lawyer

Zoë grew up with wealth, as her parents had a fair income between writing and inheritance by the time she was born.  Still, she never liked high society, nor flaunting wealth — instead her love mirrored that of her parents:  travel, and experiencing the world from the level of the natives.  She loved living in little Chilean villages and eating local home cooked foods to the versions found in the fancy restaurants of the big cities of the world.

She has many friends, dear and diligently kept in touch with, literally around the world — including one person who has recently taken up residence at a science station in Antarctica.  She can speak many languages, and insists she’s uncertain just how many, and can read and write in nearly all of them, and knows anything from a few swear words to enough broken phrases to get along if stranded somewhere in easily several dozen more.

Zoë is French by birth and overall culture, as her family frequently returned to Reims, France where they maintained a large house; she was also educated, primarily, in French schools, though she spent part of high school in Germany.  Though few realise her heritage given that her English is often closer to Public School British English than anything else, and her physical appearance takes heavily from her father’s Haryanvi family, she still favours French foods, and her first and preferred languages is French — reverting to it if she’s stressed enough to forget herself.

She gained a deep fondness for horses as a little girl when her family stayed with a family of Gauchos in Argentina for a summer, but due to her parents’ wanderlust she was unable to ever have a horse of her own — though she rode those of friends every chance she got, and even gained some proficiency in some of the events of equestrianism.  Though for the first of their wedding anniversaries in Colorado, Lucas took her to a ranch whose horses she’d repeatedly remarked on the beauty and grace of so that she might choose one of her own.  She’d, in her own turn, got him one of his favourite models of Camaro — though both would admit that her method of presentation was far more creative than his.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Nonnino)

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Amadeo Marzio Isaia Constellino

4 December 1947
Roman Catholic

Amadeo grew up in Propriano, Corsica.  The family held strong ties back to Italy, despite their home being part of France and so taught their children Corsican, and Italian first, French last.  He was the son of a fisherman and spent quite a lot of time on the water helping his father as did many of his siblings.

Amadeo never spent much time in school, but he was an avid reader, able to devour whole books in, often, a matter of hours.  He love histories, especially those centred on the ancient Greeks with their great Spartan warriors and their noble philosophers, as well as the Romans and their conquest of the world.  He also became addicted to Marx brothers comedies, despite never having learnt a polite word of English — he heartily enjoyed them translated into Italian and made quite a practice of imitating the great Groucho Marx.

When he was seventeen he moved to Naples to try to make his fortune.  A brother of one of his friends owned a little coffee shop and agreed to give the young man work to keep him from starving.  Soon Amadeo proved indispensable to Raul and started to be thought of as an adopted son or baby brother — Raul’s wife, Josée, frequently inviting the cavalier young man to dinner.  Amadeo found himself with ever greater pay and responsibility at the café, and supplemented himself with music — something he had always held a great talent for.  Raul and Josée tried to talk him into becoming a professional musician, but Amadeo preferred to keep his music spontaneous and fun, something he felt could only happen if he were sitting on the city pavements or beneath the trees of a park.

Eventually a young woman attending college in the city visited the shop and caught Amadeo’s eye.  As he handed her the cappuccino and biscotti she’d ordered he asked her to a movie.  She refused, but did frequent the shop.  Amadeo would converse with her as he could, asking her to the movies from time to time and often refusing to charge her for her orders.  Raul didn’t mind this, the young woman often brought friends and Amadeo was a hard worker and a good man who more than made up for the cost of one woman’s coffee (and Raul wasn’t blind, so encouraged Amadeo’s attempts to get the lady’s attention).

Eventually he wrote a song, and brought his guitar to the shop, determined to do so every day until she next came.  He only had to wait two days.   Josée took over waiting and bussing the tables for him while he played for the young Rachele and the half dozen other patrons present, including the young man who Rachele had brought along to study with.  When he was finished, Amadeo extended, again, his invitation for a night at the cinema.  This time she accepted.

They fell in love, they married, and — as is often the course of such things — had many children.

He continued to work with Raul, becoming manager of the shop he met Rachele in when Raul decided to open a second shop in another part of the city, and then became co-owner of the two, and eventually sole owner when none of Raul’s own children took interest in the coffee business and he was ready to retire.  Amadeo eventually opened a total of four shops and did well by his little family with them and through his wife’s shrewd talent for money management and investing.  He salary at the school helped a lot as well.

Amadeo was immeasurably fond of his grandchildren and often called them his treasures; he was ever a caring and devoted father and husband but, he said, grandchildren are all the fun and none of the responsibility and so the true treasure, value, and meaning to life.

Amadeo had been left with a weakened heart in his twenties by an accidental case of lead poisoning.  On 24 August 2008 he died in his sleep of heart failure.

Sally had always been the closest of his grandchildren, an irony not missed on the pair given that she was — physically — his most distant grandchild.  The two shared a bond as she was so clearly a female clone of himself, irreverent and cheeky, but sweet and caring; fond of laughing and determined the the mysteries of life and the universe can be unravelled with music.  He had been surprised to learn that Salencia had taken an interest in the young girls of her classes, rather than the young boys, but he never said anything against it — he never said a word about it at all to anyone except a few quiet and private ones with Rachele.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Hrithik & Theresa)

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Hrithik Ayishah & Theresa Malena Ayishah née Feliciano

3 June 1953 & 19 October 1952

Ayyavazhi & Agnostic

Hrithik and Theresa are prolific and somewhat popular authors who spend much of their time travelling the world in various charitable causes.

Hrithik was born in Denmark to Indian immigrants, and Theresa in France to Puerto Rican immigrants.  They met while both of their families were on holiday in the Riviera.  The pair exchanged addresses and became penpals, and before long lovers, then married.

Initially the couple settled in Theresa’s home city of Riems, France.  By this point both had already written several short stories and novellas, she had two novels and he one.  They made a modest living, but Hrithik came into a sizeable inheritance, and the first novel the couple co-wrote became a bestseller.

Soon the couple were travelling the world.  Not extravagantly, though they had a fair sum to do it with, spending their time making and meeting friends abroad and seeing the world in a somewhat bohemian fashion, as well as living and working with people on the front lines of poverty, deforestation, and other causes.  To this day they spend much time reading to and helping feed poor children in third world countries and with them both writing multiple books a year under various pen names they often dedicate all rights and profits of entire titles and series to various charities.

They’ve had several children and, early on, agreed the children would be born in France and hold French citizenship — no one has ever been able to get them to say if they’re kidding or not that the reason is entirely because Theresa hates Danish foods, because it’s the only answer they ever give but never with a straight face.

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(No He’s not named after this Bollywood actor — I’d chosen that name before I ever heard of the man.  Apparently he’s the only famous person named this, however, so it’s what matches for related articles)

Revisiting the Fleurons thought

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The first option:

Lauren was still sorting out her thoughts and deciding to go over to say hi, and wondering what to say after that when she was saved the bother by the tall girl walking up to her and saying “Hi, I’m Salencia – you can call me Sally, if you prefer.  I’m new around here and … are you hungry?”

*****

Salencia didn’t care much for running, not really, she found it rather boring.  Still, she hated feeling out of shape even worse and it would be a few more days until her dad could help her hang her punching bag and before they could look into a place to stable Stardance; the downside of this move being nowhere big enough to keep a horse at the house.  That’d upset her, but her mother’s new job meant more money and more time with she and her father.  That made it forgivable that her horse was back in Colorado, if not great.

The alternative:

Lauren was still sorting out her thoughts and deciding to go over to say hi, and wondering what to say after that when she was saved the bother by the tall girl walking up to her and saying “Hi, I’m Salencia – you can call me Sally, if you prefer.  I’m new around here and … are you hungry?”

Fleuron

Salencia didn’t care much for running, not really, she found it rather boring.  Still, she hated feeling out of shape even worse and it would be a few more days until her dad could help her hang her punching bag and before they could look into a place to stable Stardance; the downside of this move being nowhere big enough to keep a horse at the house.  That’d upset her, but her mother’s new job meant more money and more time with she and her father.  That made it forgivable that her horse was back in Colorado, if not great.

It shouldn’t feel or seem so much like trying to decide if I should invade France or something, but that’s what it’s feeling like. That little graphic goes a long way toward adding a little visual excitement to the page, and this is one where things ought to display properly without much headache — the question becomes will it add up to a ridiculously sized document in the end? I honestly can’t say. I would hope that the image would be recognised as being the same repeated, saved once, and just referenced repeatedly — but I can’t say for sure that this is going to be the case.

I suppose I shall just have to experiment at some point and find out.