Tag, I'm it.

I've been tagged by someone much more creative than me. Leah, whose link I MUST put in my side bar, tagged me days ago and it's taken me this long to cough something up.

"List one fact, word or tidbit that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your first or middle name. You can theme it to your blog or make it general. Then tag 1 person for each letter of your name. "

M - Married and motherhood. It's kind of miraculous that I got married. I honestly never thought I would. I suppose the motherhood thing just naturally followed but there was a long period in my life when neither was a given.

A - Adaptation. My life has been one adaptation after another. Which I suppose is true for all of us to a certain extent, but I've willfully and repeatedly put myself in situations which require a lot of adapting on my part. Funny, considering that I'm stubborn as a mule.

R - Regrets. I have a lot of them. I say that I don't, but I really do.

I - Illicit drugs. I have never smoked pot or taken any drugs. Isn't that funny? I'm the ONLY pot virgin I know.

E - Etrangère. 99% of the time, I love being a foreigner. It's the best joker card EVER.

Sarah, Sam, Amy, Mouse, and Reb- you're it.

Oh the places I've been

I had lunch with a friend last week. She's a foreigner too. But not from the US. Anyway, she spent most of the lunch complaining about France and the French. Which brought bad memories flooding back.

When you choose to live in a foreign country, you go through several phases. Don't ask me how many phases there are - I have no idea. I've only been living here 10 years. Ask me in another 10. Maybe.

The first year can go either way, depending on why you came. My first year in France was as an English TA at the University of Nantes. I was 25 and very happy to be here. The differences were enchanting. I came back for in when I was 27. I spent the year teaching English at two different places and planning my wedding. It was a rough year. An American friend and I spent most of the year complaining. Oh the strikes, oh the anti-Americanism, oh the anti-social women, oh the bad television, oh the confusing sexual politics. Husband and my friend's Husband (who were both fiancés at the time) staged an intervention. Told us to stop bitchin' or stop spending time together because we were making everyone miserable. They were right.

When I got back from lunch, I was so happy. So happy to not be in that place anymore, where everything rubs the wrong way, where every incomprehension is a slight and every difference is a cultual misunderstanding.

Nice rep

Boy1 had some friends over for his 7th birthday last week.

While eating cake, he and his friends started talking about nightmares and scary things. Someone mentioned witches. Boy1 proudly stated, "My mama's a witch!" Seeing the incredulous looks, he continued, "No, really, I mean, she gives me soul medicine and we tap on meridians and she touches my chakras and she always knows what I'm thinking of doing, especially when it's something I'm not supposed to do."

One girl suggested that I was a fairy since witches are bad. But then they decided, led by Boy1, that witches could be good too. Whew.

Sarah asked

About answering questions about the bilingual thing.

Well, I like talking about it. Two of the useless diplomas I have are in Linguistics so it's a domaine I enjoy discussing. But when it comes to my kids, I have very little souplesse. Making sure that English is a big part of their world is my mission. And I'm pretty uptight about it. The amount of exposure they get to English per day is a constant concern. It's one of the main reasons I don't like it that they have to eat at the cafeteria twice a week. That's 8 uninterrupted hours of French. So when people make comments about my strict attitude (which is never overtly expressed but more an implicit understanding between the boys and me) about our language use, I tend to become aggressive with statistics and book titles and linguistic jargon. Which, I realize, is not the most practical path to understanding but sometimes I can't help it. It's visceral. Language is viseral. But, in general, people here are interested in how blingualism works and admirative of the boys and the discussions are almost always positive.

There's such a fine line for bicultural kids. You want them to feel at home where they live, but you want them to feel linked to the other country too. And for me, language is that bridge.

Which is not to say that I will be more successful than those parents who are cooler about the whole bilingual thing. It's a crap shoot. We'll see in 10 years.

Jertta's right

They do have a lot of very funny classifications here.

Bobos - is actually short for bourgeois-bohème, which is kind of like being a rich bohemian. People from well-off families deciding to live a little bit like hippies. But well-dressed hippies.

Plouc - is, gosh, I don't even know how to translate that. Low class? But that sounds so unimaginative, and plouc, as a label, is the opposite.

Vieille France - Well, for women, it would mean a lot of wool, headbands, plaid skirts, sensible low-heeled skirts, and a cross necklace. For the men, cords, an adult modification of the bowl haircut, oxford cloth button down shirts - even on the weekends.

Gauche caviar - Left-wing politically oriented people but with lots of cash. So they talk a lot about the whole solidarity thing with their hired help.

Fin de - no, I'd better stop here. I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea about France or me.

Obviously, these are generalisations and we don't judge people and we love them all and they're all beautiful and blah blah blah blah....

Please, no hate comments from any members of any groups who might be described by the politically very incorrect labels listed above. You're all wonderful people.

Ah, baba-cool

Eric asked a good question. Sarah commented on it as well. Baba-cool is one of those great French classifications. I can see where it could get translated as hippy, but it's not really that. Baba-cools tend to be politically engaged, whereas hippies tend to be apolitical, or am I wrong about that? Please, no hate comments from hippies, you're all great. My neice wears tie-dye and all that.

I had a boyfirend who thought I was a hippy. Seriously. Any of you who know me understand how absurd that is. I think it was the vegetarian thing. He just figured one went with the other. In the early stages he actually bought me PEACE SIGN EARRINGS and a LEATHER PATCHWORK HANDBAG. Again, absurd. I did use the earrings once for Halloween. And he finally gave the bag to his mother, who was no more of a hippy than I was, but she needed a bag.

Obviously, now that I eat meat, I'm no longer mistaken for a hippy. Despite my dreads. How odd.

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.

Ok, so they're amazing

But still.

In Friday's post I wrote that it was Boy2 who was doing the reading. He's smart, brillant even, no doubt, and will hopefully cure cancer and all that is wrong with the world. His name is Raphaël, after all.

But, he just turned 4 a couple of weeks ago and isn't quite reading novels yet. When he goes to bed, he snuggles up with his penquin and his bear and sings songs until he falls asleep.

It was Boy1 who was doing the reading. Boy1 is also, of course, brillant, what other kind of child would we breed? He's very artistic and will probably bring about world peace through his art. His recent projects include a deck of cards which he designed and made and a dragon file with names and habitat information and diagrams of all the dragons he's dreamed up. He's got a message. His name is Gabriel, after all.

And it wasn't even under the covers with a flashlight

So bedtime for the boys is 8. Well, we go up at 8 and by the time they brush and wash and we read a book and sing a song and kiss a cheek, it's almost 8:30.

Imagine my surprise last night when, at 10:00, I went upstairs and saw that Boy2's light was still on. I walked in and found him reading. Technically, he's allowed to read for 5 minutes before going to sleep. 8:30-10:00 is so not 5 minutes.

So what do you do? Get mad at your kid for staying up late or get happy because your kid stayed up late READING?

I tried to do a measured amount of both.

Ah, le fou rire

The crazy laugh. You know that laugh. That laugh that you can't stop. And the harder you try, the worse it gets.

My brother and I used to get the crazy laugh in church. In our defense, it was a really lame church. Bad music, long service, droning preacher man, endless fake smiles. Luckily, we were usually late, so we often sat in the balcony and only embarassed my mother instead of mortifying her (which would have been the case had we been seated downstairs with the big crowds). I cannot imagine why that church was always so full. Because it was a seriously lame church.

Anyway.

My question of the day: when was the last time you had a crazy laugh?

Misc

I'm not a slacker. Really. That's not why I haven't been posting. I haven't been posting because my time is now spent on 15 hours of teaching spread out all over the place, the dining room floor which is half-way scraped, finishing up some phone lessons for my old job, and shuttling the kids to and from school and karate and whatever else. Cooking and cleaning are in there somewhere. And I actually managed to make a delicious apple tart with honey and fresh thyme this weekend. There's one piece left and Boy1 made me promise tonight when I kissed him goodnight that I would not eat it.

I'm not complaining, just saying. When my time starts to get limited, my computer usage is restricted to watching last week's episodes of Heroes and Grey's Anatomy.

Don't take it personally.

Ah, the pretentiousness of youth

At some point during my early 20's, or maybe not even that old, I wrote a poem. Actually, I may have written more than one but they were not good enough to remember or even discuss. But all day long I've had the line and silence is my only sound in my head and I couldn't figure out where in the heck it came from.

And then I remembered. It was the last line of some poem I gave to some person. Honestly, I have no idea who I gave it to or why.

What on earth was I talking about?

A guy I dated went through a major poetry phase during our break-up. I did break up with him while I was in France and he was cheating on me waiting for me in Seattle so I guess he thought that was valid poem material. Throw the Frenchman into the mix (Husband) and he had material for months. He wrote them on postcards and sent them to me. And to friends. And to my mother.

Silence should have been his only sound.

This post is for you

If you are the Computer Geek Person who lives in the Seattle area. My emails to you keep coming back. Fix it please.

Go Cubs!

In case you were wondering...

I've learned a lot of different things from my friends.

From Beth in Spain, to correctly position a street map.

From Maria, the difference between dishing and dissing.

From Julie, to have a boundary. Or at least try.

From Beth in California, that you can count on some people forever.

From Adrienne, to never go out looking like crap.

From Lorraine, to plan a weekly menu.

If you're not on this list, don't be offended, I've learned things from you too. And I could continue, but those are just the ones that popped into my head.

Anyway, Lorraine (Here's the Thing) also has a food blog, Here's the Dish. But she's been super busy lately. Turning 50, starting a new business, receiving important out of town visitors. And while she usually posts her weekly dinner menu on her food blog, she hasn't in a couple of weeks. So I'm posting mine. Because she's the one who taught me how and two of the recipes on this week's menu are hers.

Thursday - Black bean and beef burritos

Friday - Apricot chicken with almonds

Saturday - White bean and sausage soup

Sunday - Boeuf carottes, which is basically like a daube

Monday - Tandoori chicken

Tuesday - Sage and garlic pork tenderloin

Wednesday - Beef Stroganoff

There is no vegetarian night at our house, Husband would seriously say, "Where's the beef?"

You think I'm kidding, but when we were dating he'd show up at my apartment for dinner (which I was cooking and which was always vegetarian because I was one at the time) with a couple of slices of ham.

And we don't eat a lot of fish because I'm just not sure about the whole mercury thing.

It would seem that I rock

This photo is not to show you how well I can decorate cakes or how nice an eggless birthday cake can look. I would've taken a better photo. It is only to show you how little it takes to impress a nearly 4-year old boy.

It's Boy2's birthday this weekend and today is his birthday party with school friends. (I'm sane, I only allowed him to invite 3 friends.)

For the past year he's been telling me he wanted a spiderman birthday cake. I found a bakery that would make one, I even found a purely chemical one at the grocery store. But then the egg allergy thing came up. So nothing was possible at the bakeries. They looked at me like I was crazy to put the words 'cake' and 'eggless' in the same sentence. And the chemical one had just too many petrol derivatives to be fed to small children.

So, I was left to my own devices. I told Boy2 I wouldn't be able to make a real spiderman cake but that I would do my best. When I showed it to him he said, 'Spiderman's web? You rock Mama.'

In case you've been wondering

What glamourous things I've been doing the past week.

Well, let me tell you.

It's mostly been about scraping that ************ floor and nursing my family and self back to health. We all came down with something that seems, at first, like a simple cold, but, in fact, is much worse.

So basically, no glamour at all. Except for:

1. There is a currently a very confused wasp in our bedroom. It's 9:00 p.m., it's very dark out, it's about 50° outside, and she flew in while I was closing the shutters. Why would she do that?

2. Boy1 peed three times before going to bed tonight.

3. I went on a school field trip today with Boy1's class. I spent the morning in the swimming pool being splashed by 27 2nd graders, most of whom had green snot running down their noses into the pool.

This should be a picture of ice cream

I'm not an impulsive person. Well, perhaps about ice cream flavors, but that's it. And that's for obvious reasons.

Anyway, I tend to take a while to make decisions and, of course, obsess over them afterwards. It's called peaceful living and I highly recommend it. It may be one of the possible causes of my headache but whatever.

Anyway, again.

Above is an example of why I'm never impulsive.

See, it was during one of the headache weeks. And the carpet in the dining room has always bugged me. It's the only room in the house with carpet. It's ugly and yucky and useless but it's just a rental and who cares and so it has been a low-grade bug.

Until that fated day during one of the headache weeks. I tripped on the little edge of the carpet that had worked its way out from under the metal carpet holder down thingy. About 4 times. In one day. And that was it. I just grabbed that little piece and started ripping.

The good news is that I'm no longer tripping. Well, actually, I am, but only from the fumes of the carpet backing remover chemical thingy I'm now having to apply all over the floor to loosen up all the gluey foam residue so I can scrape with the scraper pictured above.

Again, impulsiveness should be limited to ice cream flavors.

It's the annual living in a second language update

Well, let's see.

I've been living here for 10 years. As of last week. I'm still very much the foreigner, when it suits me. But I don't get picked out on the street as one, unless I'm speaking English to the kids. I get my hair cut and buy my clothes here so I guess that explains it.

As for my French, well, I don't know. I think I've sort of hit a plateau. I don't think it'll get much better than this unless I start reading more in French, which I doubt I'll ever do. I read a lot and the fun is watered down when I read in French. Too slow, too much passé simple (an nearly obsolete verb tense that is almost exclusively reserved to written French), too artistic. I understand everything in newspapers and on television but still run into words I've never met before.

My pronunciation is stable also. No real improvement in sight. Some people hear the accent immediately and others take quite a bit longer. I don't know if it's them or if I have on and off accent days.

Husband swears I don't have an accent but that's just because he doesn't listen to me most of the time is used to it.

It's the annual bilingual child update

Actually, it's the first ever, so we'll see if it ends up being annual or trimestrial or whateveral.

Honestly, I shouldn't really complain.

Their French, of course, if fine. Boy2's French is not as far along as his English, which I like.

Their English is also fine. Really. Boy1 is very articulate in his pronunciation but he still has some problems with [th]. (I won't bore you with phonetic symbols, even though I'd like to.) He's sometimes lazy with vocabulary, using a French word now and then instead of asking me for the English equivalent. Boy2 uses complex sentence structures and irregular past participles with ease and his English vocabulary is much richer than his French. School will take care of that.

And, bonus, they're still speaking English to each other, even when I'm not around.

So here's the drill at our house. Husband and I speak French together. Because he's too lazy to speak to me in English. No, seriously. When we were in the States he told me he had no problems understanding the television. Now that we're back, he gets all huffy if the subtitles aren't working.

Husband speaks French to the boys (mostly, although he does read some books in English to Boy2 - which makes Boy2 laugh) and they speak French back to him. And the boys and I speak English together. And I don't ever make an exception. No matter where we are or who is around.

A few things

1. I made chocolate fondue for dessert monday evening. I served it with peach and apple slices, miniture butter cookies, and little spelt pretzels. I filled an espresso cup for each of us and served it on a plate with the dipping choices. The boys' preferred the peaches, Husband the apples, and me the pretzels. After a few bites, Boy2 looked down at the cup, looked at me and said, "Let's just drink it."

2. Last night after dinner both boys wanted to know where the 'Tuesday night fondue' was. Seriously, since when does doing something once create a habit. I haven't heard that since high school health ed class when they were talking about sex drugs.

3. I've had a headache for 5 days. Seriously. Didn't this happen to me last year too? I went to my new gynocologist (just for a check-up) yesterday and when I told him he said, 'Hormones.' Yeah, I kinda figured that out.

4. Speaking of my new gynocologist, my search is over. He's nice and professional and polite and doesn't say things that make me cry. Everything you want in a doctor who does pelvic exams.

5. Speaking of pelvic exams. Just kidding.