Leapin’ lizards!

France, Questions
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“Leapin’ lizards! Did you see that!” “Leapin’ lizards! That can’t be for real!”

An expression of surprise, shock, amazement. Likely originated from the comic strip of ‘Little Orphan Annie’ over eighty years ago. Remember her? It was so popular, it went on to be a radio program, Broadway play, and a movie. My, oh my.

This little fella, all of three inches in length, was on my step when I was down in the high desert of Oregon visiting my family.

He scampered away just after he posed for his photo.

Isn’t it interesting how things you don’t expect scamper into your life?

A Canada goose lands on the hood of your car. Your next-door neighbor starts collecting and storing cars from the junkyard next to you. A check arrives from your sibling, who after several years, is finally re-paying you. The foxgloves that spring up and bloom all along your driveway. Your dog, who you didn’t know was pregnant, has puppies under your back porch.

Oregon lizard (c)MDessein

Then there is the “Okay, now what?”
Sometimes that question comes after a deeper thought: “What is my purpose here? In life? How do I manage this? Who am I? Do I marry this person?”

Or “Where am I supposed to live?”

I am definitely called to Langres, ancestral home of the maternal side of my family. And as you likely know, Langres is the setting for my current, about-to-be completed novel.

The view of the expansive countryside from many parts of the city as you walk along the ramparts is breathtaking.

Could I live there? Should I live there part-time? Lovely to be able to ponder this. Ah, what is my purpose? How do I keep good connections with my family?


As I have learned in the last few years, connection is so important. Old friends and new friends as well.

View from Langres ramparts (c)MDessein

I will get better at being aware, seeing options and opportunities

Leapin’ lizards! Sophia Loren is 91 years old!

Thank you for reading and sharing thoughts. All the best to you.

(c)MDessein

Steps Along the Way

Family, France
Posted on 6 Comments on Steps Along the Way

I am watching my six month old granddaughter bounce and chirp happily in her jolly jumper swing. Later, I am holding her as she wiggles and squirms in my arms, reaching and waving her hands and kicking her feet. Oh! A baby smack as she waved her darling, sweet hand next to my cheek!

She doesn’t know I am her grandmother. Yet, if I say so myself, I am a pivotal part of her journey to being here.

Ah, her two parents. Her four grandparents. Her eight great-grandparents. Her sixteen great-great-grandparents. Sheesh!

I had no idea about my maternal great-great-grandparents until I was in Langres, France in 2023. Their names were Alexander Dessein and Marie Ballant. My great-grandfather Charles Dessein’s parents. Charles and Adele Dessein were my mother’s grandparents. There is a large, marble, almost two hundred year old crypt outside Langres where Alexander and Marie are entombed. Wowza.

Got all that straight!

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Dessein family crypt (c)MDessein
(maybe mausoleum is a more accurate word)

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Our journey here, where we are, who we are. Who were our ancestors who were pivotal steps to us being here.

I will keep much of this in mind as I hold my grandchildren, play with them, and look into their bright eyes as they look back at me~~

A Forest of Flowers

Connection, Hummingbirds, Nature
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These foxgloves are amazing. Over a hundred of them. Intermixed with thousands, yes you read that right, thousands of Shasta daisies. A lot of the foxgloves are over eight feet tall: deep lavender, white, soft lavender almost white. Some evenings I sit on my deck and just look at them in wonder, listening to the myriad of birds warbling, tweeting, chirping, whistling, trilling, cawing, squawking, cooing, and the zzzt zzzt of humming birds.

A few nights ago, sitting out on my deck, I watched a couple of bald eagles swoop and float through the air in huge loops and circles, their wings outstretched in elegant lengths, seemingly effortless. Were they just enjoying the freedom and seeming weightlessness of their swoops? Not long after, I saw some seagulls seem to do the same thing: swoop and loop with no clear destination. Simply enjoying the freedom and beauty in being so present in Nature and the moment.

By golly, when the ducks fly through, they are definitely headed out on a mission: flap, flap, flap those little wings. They are gone by in a minute!

Can I be free and present in the moment? The foxgloves are so beautiful, asking for nothing, and giving so much wonder. I tease myself that I have the attention span of a hummingbird. Yet the hummingbirds sure seem to know where they are going and what they want as they zip around the feeders on my deck.

Being present with myself. Progress on my novel. Connecting with friends. Author and teacher, Bill Kenower, talks about connection is of ultimate importance. I care about what I’m writing, it interests me, I edit and feel it when it expresses what I feel. Yet also the connection I feel to it, and that my readers connect in some way to it.

Woo Hoo! A forest of foxgloves and daisies. Birds singing and chirping. Me learning from them to be present and to connect.

May 2, 1898

France, Memories
Posted on 10 Comments on May 2, 1898

Sometimes a minute is longer than you think. When I said that to one of my teen-age kids, I didn’t realize how accurate I was.

Today would be my grandmother’s 127th birthday. Marguerite Pauline Dessein. I was named after her, as were two of my cousins. She was incredibly brave and believed in the future. Born and raised in Langres, France, she fell in love with an American soldier who was stationed in Langres during WWI, Alfred Oliver Evanson. He came back to Langres after the war, they were married there in the centuries old cathedral, and came to Seattle to build a life. Twas a toughie in the early 1920’s.

My mother’s parents, Grandmere and Grandpa Alfred were the portals to my journey here.

There have been times when those long minutes led me to other realizations. There were times when I showed up ready for a fight and realized there was no one there but me. Can you relate to that?

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Grandmere was incredibly stalwart.
She learned English, gave birth to three children, had Norwegian in-laws who I recall her telling me
were not too fond of her as she was French, and then her beloved husband died of tuberculosis after only fourteen years of marriage. There was no cure for TB in 1937. Her children were 13, 9, and 4.
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Her birth family in France did their best to love and support her. Moving back there was not an option for Grandmere at that time.

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Marguerite in Seattle, 1948 (c)MDessein

Oh, to ask her some questions now! I do have cousins in France: their grandmother, Charlotte and Marguerite were sisters. How cool is that? The novel I am nearing completion on (!) has many tidbits Grandmere told me over the years as I was growing up. The novel is historical fiction, yet is fun to have her comments about the cathedral, Denis Diderot and such said by characters in my novel.

You’ll love this. I love remembering it. Grandmere is in the hospital, it is her last days, many family members are there with her: her three children, spouses, teen-age me, a couple cousins. Soon talk moves from whispers to chat about who’s doing what, when and with whom. From her dying bed, my strident Grandmere says, “You should be praying. I’m dying.” Complete silence encircles the group, awkward looks are exchanged, and the rosaries are pulled out.

When I am facing a long minute, or what I perceive as a pending fight, I have learned to pause and ask, “What would my incredibly brave, stalwart, intelligent, strident and so loving Grandmere do?

The Bubbleator~

Bubbleator, connectdion, Connection, Parents
Posted on 6 Comments on The Bubbleator~

Easter falls on April 20 this year. My mother’s 101st birthday would be this year on April 20. She was born on Easter Sunday a century and a year ago! She passed nine years ago, it is fun to remember the connection.

(c) MDessein

I wonder what her mother, whom I am named

after, thought of having her first child on
Easter Sunday!

In writing my current novel, I am now in 1961 as Seattle prepares for the Century 21 Exposition, also known as the Seattle World’s Fair, which was to open on April 21, 1962.


There were a bazillion amazing things about the World’s Fair. I remember many of them. One of them was the super-duper glass elevator designed for the Fair to amaze those far and near: the Bubbleator.
Perhaps you do, too.

I remember my mom taking me and my sister in the Bubbleator a couple times. Rosie and I were in grade school. What a thrill. That we had to wait nearly an hour for a ride up was a new experience for us kids. Yes, there were stairs and a regular elevator.
Who wanted those when we could ride in the Bubbleator!

Ah, the Bubbleator, the Space Needle, the Food Circus, the International Fountain, the Science Pavilion.
The exhibits from France, Mexico, Thailand, Germany, Italy, China, Sweden, and the Netherlands, to name a few!

So where am I now? Somewhere between 1962 and 2025, yes? And you, as well. Fascinating to think of all that has transpired. And a ton I don’t even know about!

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(c) MDessein

Mom graduated from high school in 1942.
Her teachers suggested she go on to training or a college to be a social worker. She got a job at Western Union, where she rocked them. She could type on the telegraph machines faster and more accurately than anyone in the office! Then she met my dad, and before long it was plans for a wedding and a family, not more education.
Yes, a facet of that was 1944 thinking and what women were supposed to do.

The rides in the Bubbleator, my amazing supportive mom who she and my dad both told me I could do anything.

Many of you are on this page, too, our parents showed us the way to do more than they were able to do.

T.C. Howard created the Bubbleator. Look what you have created.
Woo Hoo, I am still on that path with my novel. May you be on your path too, as you look around your world.

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