The way to do it

I'm back at the chateau for a few days.

I had a project today - help my friend clean out and organize her dressing room, which was kind of a mess.

I decided the best way to handle it was to take everything out and go through it before putting back the selected items. But that's not really the important part. The most important part was having the right tools. Boxes? Bags? No. Nothing like that. It was coffee and then alcohol and then sugar. So the morning's efforts were sustained by coffees, the afternoons's by a trip to the French version of Goodwill where I found two beautiful chairs for 20€, the evening's by many glasses of champagne, and the late evening's by a big bowl of the sorbets I made for the occasion -chocolate and coconut - becaue one is just not enough.

Cleaning should always be this fun.

Memories, dreams, and reflections

Which is not my title, it's a book title. But I dabble in all three from time to time.

It is an odd time, many bridges to cross, all figurative. The month of May is like that in France. Tomorrow is a holiday, actually a double holiday. Labor Day and Acension Day. Labor Day is always May 1st but Acension Day isn't. Since it's a thursday, most people aren't working on friday and the boys don't have school. Same deal next week - May 8th is to celebrate the end of WWII and then monday is Pentecost, so a five day weekend with the bridge. Don't ask me how the economy stays afloat. I only know that paying off my student loans while the dollar is record low makes it so much more fun than before. SallieMae and US Department of Education, I'll see your criminally high interest rates and I'll raise you a kick-ass exchange rate.

As for dreams, well, Meghan, one of my shadow sisters, visited me in a dream last week. Blunt as always in my dreams, she told me I didn't belong here, where we were, in the dream. I was trying to go back, and you can't, she said as she kissed my cheek. So I woke up.

Clink

Saturday was my birthday. And, as my brother put it, "That makes you, well, that much closer to 40." He's so nice.

So my two favorite presents were an ice cream maker and a cast iron waffle iron.

My wise friend Julie said, "They should have just given you the chain they're going to use to chain you to the kitchen."

But I was very happy with both gifts. I've been wanting an ice cream maker forever. Chocolate sorbet. White mint sorbet. Salted butter caramel ice cream. Violet ice cream. See, you want some too.

And waffles. Who doesn't love waffles? I even found an eggless waffle recipe for Boy2.

Ok, so I'm obviously not seeing the right doctor

I had a chat with Boy2's teacher the other day. About my children's bilingualism. Which was fine. She's very, um, baba-cool, and couldn't understand some of the rules we have but whatever. It was fine. Except she had the worst post-coffee breath ever. And she kept moving closer to me, as some people who have different personal space criteria do, and I kept slowly moving away. It was a strange dance.

Anyway.

Later, Boy2 asked me why I kept backing up from his teacher. I told him, as nicely as I could, that she had probably had a cup of coffee recently and that sometimes leftover coffee smell on someone's breath isn't that pleasant (Which is why tic-tac's and altoids were invented) but she's a great teacher and I wasn't backing up because I didn't like her.

He smiled. "But that's not her fault, Mama. Her doctor told her she had to drink a lot of coffee. That's why she drinks coffee all day long. It's the rule."

I didn't bother telling him that keeping track of 30 4-year olds is more likely the real reason.

And the bride wore red shoes

I helped cater a wedding this weekend. It was long and hot and tedious at times. I scooped the flesh out of 200 tomatoes and julienned zucchini for hours but it all turned out well and everyone seemed happy.

I only got to a see a few minutes of the ceremony and I apparently missed the dramatic moments - late Parisien guests honking as the rode up to the chateau drive and saw that, duh, the ceremony hadn't waited for them. And someone's granny tripping over ribbons and ending up in the grass (she's fine).

But I did get to see the arrival of the bride. And she was wearing beautiful red shoes.

ohmanohmanohmanohmanohman

I am in the biggest funk ever. Not like depressed funk, just can't get anything done funk. Certainly not creative or inspired enough to blog funk.

In other news, I heard a new expression recently. Il a un hérisson dans la poche. As in 'he has a hedgehog in his pocket.' As in when he reaches in to get out some cash, he gets pricked by one of the little hedgehog prickly things and yanks his hand right back out. As in he's, well, I don't know, what do we say for that? Tight with money. Less creative but it'll work.

Just ignore me.

There has been a system error.

You know that system. The one where I take care of my kids, cook 3 nice meals a day, keep the house clean and the laundry done, bond with my husband, do my job well, help out at the kids' school, and still have time to do other things I like - drink coffee that doesn't come from a machine that serves it in plastic cups, blog, nuture friendships, read, and respond to emails that have been in my inbox for months.

There is a weak link in the system and I have a sinking feeling I'm it.

Relativity

I saw on the cover of a French magazine a reference to Nicolas Sarkozy as being France's Bush. As if. I'd be looking for a new place to live that were the case.

Anyone who knows me even vaguely well knows how much I DETEST GEORGE W. BUSH. And my feelings about him resemble in no way my feelings about France's new president.

True, he is on the right wing of the French political landscape. But what seems evident to me is that the 'right' at home corresponds to the far right here. For me, a straight ticket democrat kind of girl, Sarkozy lines up with the Democratic party at home, or maybe the UDF, the centrist party does and Sarkozy is a little more to the right than them, at least in terms of economic policies. There are those of you out there who might disagree with me but whatever. Anyway, Bush, I'd say, lines right up with LePen or de Villiers, candidates who want to limit or outlaw abortions, eliminate all immigration, take protectionism to a psycho-Bush level.

As for Royal, she lines up with a left wing that we don't really have at home. Well, I guess we do, but they're never in office, or even close to it.

I'm sick as a dog and have nothing interesting to say

Boy2 is 3 years old. He'll be 4 in September.

His only regular sources of English are me, Boy1, and animated pictures.

All of this had led to a slightly quirky variety of 3 year-old English.

For example.

This morning, while Boy1 was at sports activity, Boy2 and I went out for beverages. Surprise, surprise.

I was looking for a parking place. Boy2 said, 'I've spotted one, Mama. Over there."

"Really?"

"No, Mama, I'm actually just teasing you."

Actually.

Later, at the café, I noticed some chocolate on my arm. Given the fact that I'm not currently eating chocolate, I asked Boy2 why I had chocolate on my arm.

"Cause I eat like a little pig."

Actually, that's true.

Hurting in advance

a.k.a. borrowing trouble

I've given up coffee and chocolate. I'm done. I've had it.

I've abused both to such an extent that my heart and liver are protesting in really obvious and irritating ways.

Fine. Whatever.

But thinking about the headache I'm going to have tomorrow is worse than the headache I'll actually have tomorrow.

I know this. And yet, here I am, borrowing trouble.

So here's my question: What kind of trouble have you been borrowing lately?

The Ridiculous, Tome 2

A couple of things, actually.

Myself being at the top of the list.

Yesterday afternoon I got into a verbal altercation in our street with some guy. Who thought I shouldn't have touched his bumper while parking. Touch is the right word, I swear. Isn't that what bumpers are for? Bumping just a smidge?

Anyway, he went off. Started his first sentence with a mean word and finishing it in a similar manner. And yesterday was just not the day to mess with me. Unfortunatley for all those involved, which at one point was a lot of people since all the cars in the street couldn't get through because mean dude and I were verbally duking it out in the middle of the street. No winner could be declared and I definitely feel like a loser today.

I was, of course, thoroughly ashamed of myself afterwards. But man, I was hopping mad.

Next on the ridiculous list is something I heard on the radio in reference to what happened in Virginia. "Monday's tragedy killed more people than any other school massacre in US history."

I know I'm not the only one to think that there should be no reference point for school massacres. There should not be a scale of muderousness in schools. There should not be a separate category for school murders. Because they shouldn't exist in the first place. And after Columbine, someone somewhere should've figured that out. And done something about it.

The Ridiculous, Tome 1

Laval is getting loungesque. Two bar/lounge places have opened up in the past six months. And a third will be opening just a few blocks from our house.

None of that is particularly ridiculous. Their names, however, tend to be.

One is the Duplex. That's ok.

Another one is the, get ready for this, Living Café.

Now, I get the whole oh-it's-from-a-foreign-language-so-it's-cool thing. Just like eating at Café Campagne in Seattle or Pastis in New York. But come on, the living café. What does that mean?

It gets worse.

The one on the way to the excellent bakery is called Ze World. Cringe.

Now, I also get how hard it is for francophones to pronounce [th]. (I can't post phonetic symbols, deal.) They are sounds (interdentals) which don't exist in French and putting the tongue between the teeth to produce the sound makes them feel like they're lisping. If it's a voiced (throat vibrates) th, as in breathe, they'll use a different voiced option, like [d] or [v]or [z]. Same goes for the voiceless version, as in breath, where they'll use [t] or [f] or [s]. All of which is fine. We do the best we can.

But, if I had a choice, I'd much rather hear the [f, v] or [t, d] alternatives. SO much softer on the ears.

But I guess De World or Ve World doesn't sell martinis.