Gratitude Monday: Take joy!

I spent part of Saturday afternoon at the memorial service for my friend Dick Kovar, one of the best exemplars of how to live a full life I’ve ever known.

Dick died in June, at age 96. But it’s not just the number of years that’s impressive, it’s that he and his wife Carolyn celebrated his 96^th birthday on Valentine’s Day with a romantic dinner at their favorite restaurant in Vienna (Virginia), and there was a family Easter celebration six weeks before his death at L’Auberge Chez François. He grasped life with a joyful zest that radiated out to all around him.

I last wrote about Dick in 2015, so you can get the basics there. (That was the occasion of the little kerfuffle at the Dresden train station on his and Carolyn’s Mittel Europa tour, where he ended up in hospital for about a week or so.) I was the transponder of his holiday reports in the days before he got an iPad—he’d laboriously write out his daily thoughts on his iPod and send them and photos to me; I’d transmit them on to an email list of about 30 people. I loved those trips almost as much as if I’d taken them myself.

(In fact, when I decided in 2018 to go to Prague, Berlin and Paris, I stayed in hotels that had the Kovar seal of approval in each city.)

Dick’s long career in public service is outlined in this obituary—30 years at the CIA as an editor, analyst and other things. Postings around the world—which I found out about in dribs and drabs as, for example, he’d mention that the French officers club in Saigon had great champagne brunches, or that he acquired his taste for gin and tonic at parties thrown by the British embassy in Nigeria.

(Fun fact: the last few trips that Dick and Carolyn took before Covid were to Italy. Naturally, they dined on wonderful meals, but there was a problem with getting bartenders to make a proper, Kovar-quality martini; they didn’t seem to understand the concept of dry vermouth. IIRC, he ended up taking a flask of vermouth on the last trip or two so that he could enjoy his pre-prandial cocktail fully.)

On the subject of booze, back in 2014 I posted some stats on global drinking, where the US turned out to be somewhat…not on top in terms of whiskey; India—while behind Ireland and the UK—was still a contender. When Dick read it, he commented that when he visited an Indian military base one time, his observation was that the officers could definitely put it away.

There’s one more anecdote I want to share. I may have mixed up the specifics, but either way, it’s illustrative of the kind of world Dick created around him. In an email (or possibly a Facebook post), Dick mentioned a party he and his wife had thrown for the international community somewhere; in the course of it, a guest—a Sikh—managed some expansive gesture (I can’t recall). Dick’s elder daughter Elspeth corrected him: it wasn’t a Sikh, it was a Gurkha, and he’d done a back flip over a terrace railing into the garden below without spilling a drop of his drink.

Regardless of whether it was a Sikh or a Gurkha doing a dance move or a back flip—that’s what I call a party.

Dick was in the CIA across our involvement in Southeast Asia, some of the periodic blowups in the Middle East, Central American skullduggery and other sundry geopolitical hot times. I don’t know this, but I assume he would have been right in the thick of it—his job at some point entailed preparing and delivering the President’s Daily Brief (back in the days before that had to be reduced to two bullet points and a cartoon). He took early retirement in 1980, worked as an editor for Time-Life Books and returned to the agency as a contractor/consultant. He did this in one form or another until 2015, when he finally really retired, at age 86.

One story that encapsulates his career for me is his 1987 testimony at the trial when General William Westmoreland sued CBS for defamation in a documentary the network aired about US forces in Vietnam under counting enemy forces. Dick shed light on the ways governments can “reshape” reality to conform to their preconceived notions—at the price of individual integrity, citizen trust and thousands of lives. You should read WaPo’s report. (Dick at one point sent round a paper about this, but I can’t find it.)

Throughout this, the continuo of Dick’s life was music, both sacred and secular. I met him in the church choir, where he was the linchpin of the bass-baritone section. But for decades his great musical joy was performing in the annual Washington Revels at Christmas time. This WaPo story gives you a bit of the flavor of those performances.

Photo by Kate Patterson for WaPo

(There were about 20 Revelers at Dick’s memorial service; they both sang and reminisced about the joy he added to their productions. He was, it seems, a natural ham.) He loved Welsh hymns, and they permeated the service on Saturday, starting with “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”, to the tune of “Cwm Rhondda”—one of the most majestic melodies ever, with a fabulous bass echo, which Dick always relished when we sang it in church.

But Dick also had a deep, through-the-bone faith. We had a couple of convos about that over the years; the resurrection and the life were not in any respect theoretical to him, they existed as the alpha and the omega, and so he was comfortable with the notion of death. Far from being something to be dreaded or feared, it’s just the threshold to the next life, so why not step through it with the same anticipation that you experience when you go from the kitchen to the living room on Christmas Day? (My paraphrase.)

In this vein, Dick was endlessly curious about near death experiences. He would send round accounts of the experiences people who’ve been clinically dead and restored to life report. The white light, the benevolent welcome. But I don’t think he needed them as proof—he already knew.

The last time I spoke with Dick in person was in 2023. I think that was the only time I’ve ever seen him not wearing a tie—it was a very nice polo shirt, buttoned to the top, under a sport coat. Most of our relationship since choir days (which was in the last century) was via email and Facebook. I’m sorry about that, but I’m also cognizant of that fact that writing, to him, was his element, just like music was; I didn’t get to hear the voice, but I definitely got the spirit.

On the subject of writing—I ragged on Dick for years to write his memoirs. I don’t know if he did, or even if there’s just an outline or a draft or a collection of anecdotes; I hope to God there is, because—in whatever form or condition—it is pure gold.

So I’m grateful for the decades of exchanges, jokes, minor tech crises, travel reports, links to Katherine Jenkins videos and everything else Dick gave me. When I heard the news of his death, my first response was, “Oh, no. No.” My second—almost immediately—was, “What an amazing, spectacular life, and thank you for gracing mine with your friendship.”

I’ll leave you with two things. The first is a letter from Fra Giovanni Giacondo (a Dominican and then Franciscan priest, architect and archaeologist) to his friend, Contessina Allagia degli Aldobrandeschi, on Christmas Eve, 1515. (There’s historical dispute about the authorship of this, but it’s immaterial to the present discussion.) Dick read this version at his younger daughter Carrie’s wedding:

“I salute you. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much that, while I cannot give, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take joy!

“And so I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.”

And I cannot write about Dick without music. “It Is Well with my Soul” was not part of Saturday’s service, but I just feel that it’s right. So here’s the Jehovah Shalom Acapella group of Uganda singing it. They’ve got a good bass singer anchoring it.

Oh—Saturday evening, I made a little toast to Dick. Not a martini—I don't like gin and I've reached the point in my life where I have to spend my alcohol calories wisely, so I don't drink anything I don't like. So I had a little slurp of Highland Park 12. Sláinte mbaith, Dick.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: 25 years

Saturday was my friend MLD’s birthday. It was one of those auspicious birthdays—you know, the ones with a 0 or a 5 as the final digit.

As I was contemplating that, it occurred to me that we’ve been friends for…25 years. And I’ve been grateful for that every single day.

We were colleagues at a telecoms manufacturer’s European headquarters in Maidenhead, UK. She was personal assistant to the CEO and I did this and that. It was the that part that got me moved up to the third floor, where she worked, and we somehow just hit it off.

When the company terminated my contract in September 2001, I spent my last night in the country at MLD’s house. Since then we’ve exchanged daily weekday emails about life, love, cookery, work, bell ringing, travel, kids, health, pets, relocation and retirement. All the major food groups necessary for friendship. She knows all about my most whackjob and shady activities; I know one or two things that might possibly raise an eyebrow in the Holy Trinity Church parish council. But we will take this knowledge to our graves.

I’ve learned so much through our friendship—like the mechanics of church bells (MLD has been tower captain of her church’s ringers for quite a long time), ziplining, fiscal responsibility, recipes for mincemeat. (Also the politics of church organizations—man, that’s a thing!) It’s as though I can walk through a door and be across the ocean, living a life so different from mine; like an immersive TV program on PBS.

I love hearing about her “ringing weeks” in Scotland or Alderney, and Messy Church, and loft clearouts, and getting a new car (six speeds; I have such gear envy). MLD lives a whirlwind life compared to mine; I get all the benefit without any of the exhaustion.

The downside is that we haven’t been in the same time zone, much less the same room, for about 15 years. Google Meet is the best we can manage. But she has been over a couple of times, and I was able to introduce her to a genuine hamburger (which she ate with a knife and fork), and Costco (I may have broken her brain), and Mount Vernon.

We’ve encouraged, and comforted; laughed and wept; sent virtual hugs and very gentle nudges on the butt for all this time. As one does. She—having more juice in this arena than I—also puts in a word or two for me in her devotions, and I know I benefit from this.

I am deeply grateful for every grace of our friendship.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

Gratitude Monday: giving a friend a lift

Late (for me) Tuesday evening, I got a text from my friend (who is also my yoga instructor), asking if I’d be available to take her to her physical therapy appointment the next morning. (She had total knee replacement surgery two weeks ago.) I immediately texted back that I’d be there. For one thing, she’d taken me to a couple of PT appointments after one of my surgeries; for another, having gone through this twice, I know the drill.

I actually cleared the passenger seat of my Saab for her, but when I got to her house, her husband looked at my car and suggested we take her SUV. (For those who have not yet had the pleasure, one of the big difficulties about getting into/out of a car is bending your leg as you pivot. In the early post-op days, that’s nearly impossible, so a big boxy thing is easier to negotiate than something low slung.) I have enough experience driving behemoths from piloting Das Auto, so the drive was uneventful.

(I did forget to lower the rear hatch after getting the walker out when I dropped her off, but I realized my error when I found a parking spot.)

After her session she very kindly took me out to lunch, and we had a most excellent conversation, which we very seldom get to do, as our meetings are yoga focused. The drive home was smooth and I did not need to bother with dinner after having a club sandwich for lunch.

But here’s my gratitude: that I was able to do something for a friend who’s done so much for me. That I was able to rough in some expectations for her recovery (she’s doing really well). That I was able to have a general conversation that, you know, people do.

Imagine that.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: Thirty minutes

Last week I reconnected with one of my recent colleagues; we had a 30-minute video call.

AS was one of the first people in the company to welcome me by introducing me to many of the basics of threat intelligence. He gave me private tutorials and translated many of the concepts so I would be able to understand at least 17% of the conversations I heard on conference calls.

He also introduced me to the daily digest emails, an aggregation of news reports of activities by threat actors, along with brief analyst takes on what was happening. Those emails became my daily devotionals, and I learned so much from reading them.

Our half hour last week whizzed by in seconds as he gave me the gouge on what it’s like as part of the software megalith that acquired our company 15 months ago. Rounds of layoffs (mostly timed for a couple of weeks before bonuses would be paid) weigh pretty heavily, and that makes it a bit of a challenge to carry on. But he’s doing okay.

And I’m grateful to have had that 30 minutes, to see him, listen to him and laugh with him. That is such a gift.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Wing your flight

At the “Joyful Time” party she threw last summer, my friend Jacquie gave everyone an angel, to carry with us at all times. I couldn’t figure out how to attach it to my mobile phone, so I hooked it to one of the zipper pulls in my backpack. It’s next to my Aurora pen, which I bought in a pen shop down the street from Primo Levi’s house in Torino. So, in a sense, it’s looking after one of my most treasured possessions, even when it’s not on me.

We all need angels—whether or not you believe in heavenly creatures, we all need to know that someone is looking out for us, caring for us. Doesn’t have to be supernatural or even physically manifested. Just has to be.

One of my greatest and most constant gratitudes is that I have those presences in my life—Jacquie’s one of them. Someone who listens with love and makes time for me. I  

And also—I’m grateful that I can be an angel is other people’s lives. An inept one, to be sure, but I can listen with love and make time.

So today’s Advent music is “Angels from the Realms of Glory”, because angels were all over the Christmas story, from the Annunciation in a house in Nazareth to the shepherds on the slopes outside Bethlehem and beyond.

It’s a bit of a challenge to find a recording of “Angels” that doesn’t crib off of the music to “Angels We Have Heard on High”; this one should rightly be set to “Regent Square”. And I’m sad to say that the YouTube is infested with arrangements of “Regent Square” by one Dan Forrest, and they just suck. So this rendition by the First Presbyterian Church of Davenport, Iowa, in 2009 is the best I can do.

 

Gratitude Monday: An attitude of gratitude

Saturday I went to a party hosted by a friend and former colleague at a major enterprise software company. We’ve known each other for 20 years. (She’s been with the company for 36 years; I lasted 15 months.)

The community center of her development was absolutely chockers with people who’d come from all over for the celebration, which she called “Joyful Time!” There was uncertainty about what was being celebrated (she disabused anyone who thought it might be her birthday, which is in October, or perhaps her earning an MBA from the University of Maryland at a certain age), but really, everyone came because of Jacquie herself.

She explained that she was throwing the party because for so long we haven’t been able to hold get-togethers, so it was about damn time. And she expressed gratitude for everyone there; every person in the room is important to her and she’s grateful for all of us.

Well, so am I. For my first party since the Before Times. For seeing Jacquie for the first time in probably 19 years. For meeting her family and friends. For getting out of a Confederate state. For being reminded of grace and gratitude.

I’m reminded of an exchange Jacquie and I had back I the office:

Jacquie: We gonna get you some attitude.

Me: You know—I’d have thought that attitude was the one thing with which I was singularly supplied.

J: We gonna get you some sistah-attitude.

Well, alrighty then.

Here’s a shot of Jacquie and her sisters.

And here’s the crowd who came to celebrate.

  

Gratitude Monday: restarting

During my recovery from total knee replacement surgery, my sourdough starter died.

Well, okay, I killed it. Through neglect. I didn’t feed it for about four weeks because I could barely stand to look in my refrigerator (except to get some sparkling water), and I didn’t seem to have the energy to measure out starter, water and flour, much less to mix them.

So it died.

However—my friend LQ, who gave me my original starter back in 2019, saved the day. Last Friday, after she fed hers, she gave me enough of the discard to get my own going again. It seemed appropriate that I should return to the fount of my sourdough experience and begin again.

Here it is after having been fed and rested.

Pizzas and rolls coming up. And I’m so grateful to know that every time I take a bite, I’m tasting friendship.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: a little help from my friends

Last Wednesday I had my six-week check-in with the surgeon. I’m evidently in the “top 10%” of patients WRT recovery. I’ve achieved 0-degree extension, and I can bend to 132 degrees (which is apparently two degrees further than he got in the OR). He was impressed that I’m walking between 5K and 6K steps per day.

He’s very pleased with his work.

Here’s the thing, though—I’m thinking I wouldn’t be this far along without a lot of support. I have an amazing physical therapist. The exercises I’m doing now are different from the ones I did before the surgery; they’re tough and they wear me out. But I can see how they’re helping me make progress.

My yoga instructor is also instrumental in my recovery. My lessons have fallen on PT days, and there’ve been times when I was heading for 4pm and thinking my body could not do one more thing. But each time, after the lesson, I felt so much better. Last week I got to camel, and I swear I am going to someday achieve child’s pose.

My friend the Gift Fairy has been amazing—taking me to the hospital, picking me up from the hospital, lending me a camp bed so I didn’t have to climb stairs the first couple of nights, dropping off frozen dinners and individual ice cream cups, checking up on me every day or two, lending me a bunch of Agatha Christie novels, taking me to PT when my yoga instructor couldn’t…and so much more.

People lent me a cane and a walker, offered to stay with me or have me stay with them, sent good thoughts, put in a word in high places, send me beautiful flowers—I was surrounded by comfort and encouragement. How could I not thrive?

And that’s my gratitude for today. It’s a big one.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: a little help from my friends

The last two weeks were actually pretty ghastly for me…in every aspect of my life. So my gratitude today is for three friends and a proto-friend colleague, because the conversations I had with them between Thursday and Saturday kinda got me down from the ledge. I still have miles to go, but they helped inestimably.

Also, I can’t stop laughing at the colleague telling me that people are like trees: the older they get, the more rings they develop.

 

 

Word salad

My friend CA and I used to have breakfast together a couple of Sundays a month in the Before Times. The pandemic slowed that down, and it’s been a number of months now since we last met up before noon. So on Friday I texted her in an exchange that turned out rather like a French farce. When we finally got it sorted, I told her, “We have to stop texting each other like we’re the Cool Kids, because we’re not.”

Here’s what I mean:

 

For the translation:

BB: Wanna do brunch on Sunday at Café Montmartre to enjoy the weather?

CA: Yes.

Then we go off the rails.

CA: Wish we could do it tomorrow.

BB: Not tomorrow, because the Farmers Market fills up the whole plaza and you can’t get a place to park. I'm from LA; parking is a BFD.

CA: No, can’t do the Farmers Market tomorrow because Saturday chores.

BB: Well, poop—we’ll shoot for another weekend.

Which we found out at 1009, when I got a text from her saying she was at Café M, and had we miscommunicated?

Well, within ten minutes I was there and we had a lovely brunch and chat. But—as I said—we need to communicate in full sentences and not cryptic shorthand.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: After

A few weeks ago, I was settling down to an evening of online jigsaw puzzles when I got a text from a colleague. She was in town for a special project but unexpectedly had the evening work-free; did I fancy coming out for a drink?

Did I ever!

There was a bit of a kerfuffle, as I had to get out of my sweats, and then it occurred to me that I prolly didn’t want to show up at a high-end hotel in Crocs, which is all I’ve been wearing for a year, when I wasn’t actually barefoot. So I had to dig out some trainers.

But I made it and we spent a couple of hours just chatting, sat at a table and not across three router hops.

You know—like the Before Times.

I confess that it felt odd, after more than a year of always being separated—by electrons, by plastic barriers, by a lion's length. To chat, to laugh, to look directly into a friend’s face. To hug (we were masked up for that). And to be surrounded (at a distance) by besuited people talking business or other friends just having a gab.

Now that CDC is telling us fully vaccinated that we can begin to congregate carefully, without masks, I’m looking forward to my first breakfast with a friend. Maybe a trip to the nursery to browse plants without my eyeglasses steaming up from the mask in humid weather. To hugs.

And that’s my gratitude for today. It’s not the Before Times—we’ll never have that again. But it’s beginning to be the After Times, and I am so here for that.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Cheers!

One of my friends has a spectacular gift for, well, gifts. So much so that I refer to her as the Gift Fairy.

Some time before Christmas she asked if I like mimosas, which I confess I do; they make me think of summer and of brunches with friends. (I used to be quite the brunch bunny.) I also confess that I did not question why she would ask that. And, in fact, almost immediately after answering, I was OBE.

Then, right before Christmas, two packages showed up at my door, which has largely been the contact between GF and me this past year. One was in a Christmas bag, and the other was an open-topped box with a VERY FRAGILE FOR NEW YEARS notice on it.

One of the seriously mention-worthy packets in the bag was a pair of silicone strips that you snap over the ends of oven racks. In my pandemic-fueled baking, I acquired hash mark blisters from reaching into a 450-degree oven and touching my forearm on the rack. (The first one was noticeable enough for my primary care doctor to ask me about it during a telehealth visit; one of the others put that to shame, and that was the one I showed GF during brunch last Autumn.) But not any more!

Well, but today I’m here to share my gratitude for the New Year’s gift, which turned out to be champagne flutes that are so pretty that I went out to buy orange juice to make mimosas.

Then it occurred to me, that the glasses were the right size for just OJ, which I’ve been doing for breakfast ever since. Which is a good thing because I can’t recall the last time I’ve had OJ; probably at a hotel in France in 2018.

And finally, it occurred to me that they’re fine for sparkling water, which for some reason I’ve preferred to either coffee or tea lately.

Every time I take a sip from one of the glasses, I think of my friend. It’s almost as though we’re sitting together over breakfast; while that’s not yet the case, I’m grateful for the glasses that remind me of her and give me hope for more shared beverages.

 

Global commerce

Twenty years ago when I lived in the UK, there was a whole thing called “Rip-off Britain”. It was all about how Brits are charged over the odds for, well, everything, both goods and services. One of my colleagues told me that the rationale for the stupid prices was that the island is so small and real estate is consequently expensive, so that has to be factored into everything.

Well, maybe, but I was reminded of that this weekend, in a big way.

My friend MLD is a bell ringer in England; she also rings peals on handbells. Both these activities have been curtailed by COVID—there was first the absolute lockdown, and then gatherings were restricted to six people or fewer, with appropriate social distancing. So, for example, her church tower could only ring six of the ten bells, and any handbell socials had to be held outdoors. (In England’s climate, this pretty well restricts things to about seven weeks total.)

Well, now that even those opportunities have been squelched (thanks, never-maskers!), the church towers are silent again and the handbell ringers are attempting remote practices.

Well, MLD does not have a headset, and she’s a little unsure about how to get one, especially since shopping is a mare’s nest these days, so—since I totally screwed the pooch on her birthday in June—I thought this would be something I could easily take care of as I was waiting for my pizza stone to heat on Friday evening.

Naturally, I read some reviews, went on Amazon and found something suitable. Wired, since she doesn’t have Bluetooth.

(Here follows really tacky monetary revelations on my part, so MLD, feel free not to read further.)

AmazonUS told me that the headset costs $30.99 and I could get free delivery to my home by Saturday via Amazon Prime.

Uh—but when I shifted to Amazon.uk, it all changed. The price of the very same headset went from $30.99 to £33.32 ($43.82), it came from some third party and would cost me £3.74, plus VAT on both the merchandise and the shipping. Total: £44.48 ($58.50). Also—it won’t be delivered until Thursday, 12 November.

Look, I am happy to be able to help MLD out with this tech, and in the global scheme of things, the cost is a bagatelle. But to pay just about double for something just because of the UK surcharge is really annoying. If I lived there again, I’d be pissed off about it all the time.

But I’m looking forward to hearing about the handbells-via-Zoom sessions. That’s a good thing.

 

 

 

 

Learn to fly

Last Friday I gave you the Beatles’ “I’m Looking Through You” because it had been buzzing around my head all week.

A friend of mine, the Viking Maiden, said that “Blackbird” had been doing the same for her, and I’ve been singing it ever since. A totally different vibe, and a reminder of how extraordinarily talented they were individually and collectively.