More bedroom details

And still nothing slutty.

So, here's something interesting. The whole mattress and box spring world is a little different here. Different sizes, of course. My new bed, is, as mentioned earlier, 140 centimeters wide, which is the standard double bed here. Frames. I've never really seen bed frames like at home. Sometimes people just have a mattress and it's put on top of what they call a sommier à lattes, which is kind of like a frame but with horizontal slats of wood. Or some people buy a whole bed frame with a headboard and all that. I just wanted a regular box spring which I thought came with feet. Which I discovered is not the case.

Once the guys got everything into my room, I unwrapped it all and found that the box spring had no feet. But it did have four very nice holes where feet could be screwed in, if such feet could be found. I finally got dressed and dragged the boys to Leroy Merlin, which is our equivalent of Home Depot. But smaller. At least the one in Laval in smaller than any Home Depot I've ever seen. And there I found I whole little section devoted to bed feet. I found some I liked, not too short because I don't like beds that are too low, for reasons that vary. I brought them home and screwed them in (how intelligent is that? the holes are a universal bed feet hole size!) and put the bed on its feet and added the mattress. And realized that I'd gotten very tall feet and was now looking at a princess bed. Seriously, it's level with my upper thighs. Which is, it turns out, the ideal height for boys to run and jump on.

As for how the bed is, well, it's firmer than my last bed which is always good. It sleeps well although I'd say it lacks a little give. Don't we all?

How my bed got into my bedroom

So, I've got a new bed. I ordered it a few weeks ago.

Last wednesday at 8:00 a.m. my doorbell rang. I wasn't dressed yet but my sleeping attire wasn't shockingly slutty so I walked out and unlocked the gate. There was a man and his truck was behind him blocking the street. He said he was there to deliver my bed. Yeah! I shouted and then said, "Where's your partner?" He said he didn't have one, the bed wouldn't be that heavy. I must have looked doubtful or surprised because he reassured me, no problem. "Even up to the second floor (first for Europeans)?" His turn to look surprised. What did I mean upstairs? I explained that leaving it in my dining room wouldn't do much good and I certainly couldn't carry it upstairs myself.

So, I tried to be his partner. We tried to get the box spring up the staircase. And got stuck halfway there. We twisted and turned and acknowledged defeat.

Please understand, the pit is nothing like the cellar and I really wanted my new bed. In my room.

I left him holding the box spring in the entry and went in search of help - the strong masculine variety. I found a neighbor's son, 20, tall and strong looking and, most importantly, willing to help. Of course I was asking for help and gesticulating madly under his window so, really, what choice did he have?

Mover man and his new partner tried the box spring - staircase thing. Same results. At which point I'm thinking, St. Anthony, finder of lost things, you'll be required to find my sanity if I end up sleeping on a bed in the dining room.

The window was the only other option. As mover man started to move into impatience-I've-got-a-schedule-to-keep-land, I raced to the garage to get the ladder. We (mover man and I) climbed the ladder together with the box spring in hand and lifted it up just high enough for neighbor's son to grab the plastic wrapping and hold it while I climbed down the ladder and raced up the stairs, climbed onto the radiator to reach over the wrought iron scrolly things and grabbed the plastic and held it while mover man pushed higher, neighbor's son and I pulled as he pushed then we held on while mover man let go and raced up the stairs to take my place.

And then the fun began. They were both on the window sill with one foot on the radiator and had to flip the box spring to get it through the window (from the scrolly thing to the top of the window is 155 centimeters and the box spring is 140 centimeters wide). It took them about 5 minutes.

The mattress, on the other hand, made it up the stairs.

Out of a pit

of dust and despair I shall rise.

I swear.

No, really, it's totally on my list of things to do. The rising out of the pit thing.

And I'm going to post for real tomorrow. And it might even be funny.

Customer service, à la française

This is actually kind of funny. My friend Beth (the one who lives in Barcelona) is coming to visit me this weekend. It's another bridge weekend, in more ways than one. But mostly because the 8th is a holiday, lots of people are taking off the 9th and then monday the 12th is also a holiday (la Pentecôte).

Anyway. Beth is flying into Charles de Gaulle airport, taking a shuttle to downtown Paris and then taking the TGV to Laval. The SNCF, the French train company, has a website where you can purchase your tickets. Yeah, right.

Of course the SNCF knows that tourism is huge in France. It's a major market. So their website's all international looking, you can choose the language and everything. Again, yeah, right.

Because what Beth and I discovered today is that when you go through their whole deal and chose your dates (which they make you do twice for no obvious reason) and times all is well. But then they ask you where you'll be picking up the tickets. Beth is flying in on friday so she'll be picking up the tickets at the train station in Paris.

And of course, when you say you're picking the tickets up in France, you suddenly become a French speaker and are therefore sent to the French section of the site. Where you are required to go through the whole date and time giving deal again (yes, again, twice).

Forme sans fond?

Searching

Doesn't necessarily mean finding. As is evidenced by the data compiled by my site meter.

It's interesting to look at how people end up on your blog. Most of them come from places unknown but sometimes they come from searches. And often times, they only stay for a minute because they didn't find what they were looking for.

My favorite is, of course, the Mary Kleyweg search. Which comes up every once in a while.

Other favorites: wheat drawings (from an odd conversation with Boy1), baguette viennoise, some words may hide others, label things in my room in a foreign language, and La Maison Renaise.

Which, by the way is now called La Maison... and will be opening in its new location May 13th. I've been inside, it's going to be beautiful and it's even closer to my house now. And open on mondays. And open early in the morning.

No need to search for me, you know where I'll be.

Trèfle à quatre feuilles

When I was very young and even just younger, I was very lucky. I suppose I still am, just differently. Back then though, I was lucky in the good luck charm department. I found four leaf clovers all the time and once stumbled upon a ladybug nest, hundreds of them winking at me and wishing me luck for years and years to come.

Boy1 has apparently inherited the lucky gene. Yesterday was a hard day for him and he said the only thing that could help was a good luck charm. And he has somehow managed to find, in the past 24 hours, three 4 leaf clovers in our front yard. Those of you who have seen my yard can imagine how unlikely that is. My yard is smaller than your average American garage.

It hurt to have to tell him that all the four leaf clovers in the world can't change that which cannot be changed.

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.

Something like an urban legend

So, there's been talk of an IKEA opening in Rennes. As a matter of fact, they've been talking about it for years. And then they started building it, or at least that's what everyone said. And they've been saying that for a while. Yesterday, internet searches, phone calls to friends who often go to Rennes and phone books revealed that, in fact, there is still no IKEA in Rennes. Will there ever be? Is it really under construction? Will everyone just have to keep going to the one in Nantes for years to come? I cannot say.

But I can say that I've learned a new word. L'arlésienne. Which comes from a short story by Alphonse Daudet. And which has come to mean an inexistent person or an overexistent person. Like what's his name in the Usual Suspects. Like the IKEA in Rennes.

I know, I know, IKEA isn't a person, but the one in Rennes is definitely both inexistent and overexistent.

Ah, le mercredi

Wednesdays are funny in France. It's like a parenthetical notation in the sentence that is the rest of the week. Grade school children don't have school so you see them everywhere. Either with their mothers or grandparents or caregivers or in groups with adults from childcare centers being led around the city center. To the library, to the cinema, to the shops, to the bakery.

If someone mentions work schedules and says quatre/cinquième (4/5), chances are the one day off is wednesday. When a mother says she's returning to work, after a parental leave, for example, the first question everyone will ask her is: As-tu ton mercredi? Do you have your wednesday (off)? All the sports activites and music classes and pony clubs and whatever else are on wednesdays, which means most moms spend the day in the car.

I don't know quite how I feel about it. I like having a break in my work week, it's a day to catch up on papers I need to grade or lessons to plan. And it's nice for the kids to have a break too, their school days are really long, especially on the two days when they eat at the cafeteria. 8:30-4:30. That's 8 hours. It's organized well, recess happens twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon, but still. I sometimes wonder if they wouldn't do better in a system that had fewer hours everyday, including wednesday. It's been talked about occasionally here. But then everyone who has a job linked to the current schedule throws a fit. The teachers because they like the break to do the same things as me. The sports and activites people because they like to be able to do things all the same day. And then of course everyone starts tossing out the French classic: mais ça a toujours été comme ça. But it's always been that way.

Several things

Yes, this is going to be one of those posts.

1. I am fine. The boys are fine.

2. It's still not spring. They speak of it coming one day but I'm doubtful. There are, theoretically, blooming pink trees and magnolias have supposedly come and gone, but I've seen none of it. How could you? Too much rain and hail and wind and cold.

3. I did see, however, a beautiful rainbow on saturday afternoon. I didn't even bargain with any saints to get it. Others, on the other hand, are probably bargaining in my favor. Thank you, all of you.

4. I do not have a brain searing headache and I am not in a funk and neither of these states is a result of drugs, prescription or otherwise. These are things to be grateful for.

5. Can someone please pick me a theme song?

Chart this

I probably don't have permission to post this, so please, no one report me to the Economist. I visit their website regularly and would be very sad if I were no longer a welcome guest. I tried to do it the legit way and it didn't work so I'm left to my own devices.


By the way, Falling short, it's their title, not mine.

Falling short

Apr 8th 2008
From Economist.com

NORWAY is the most generous rich country, giving nearly 1% of its national income in foreign aid in 2007. Total net aid from the 22 countries of the OECD development assistance committee fell by over 8% to $103.7 billion as debt-relief payments tapered off. Each country gave an average of 0.45% of GDP, some way off the UN target of 0.7%. Only five countries achieved this. America, the biggest total donor, is miserly compared with most other countries.

AFP

This is, in part, what I was trying to get to the other day and didn't express clearly. How many of you have heard how much we give in foreign aid? Heard the government lament about how much we spend on helping other countries? Well, it's true, $21.8 billion is a lot of money, but no one who complains about how much we give ever mentions that proportionally, we actually do a lot less than many other countries. That's what I was trying to get to - we frame things, we gloss them over and we lie. Yes, yes, you're right, maybe everyone does.

On anchors and roots

Saturday was a strange day. More of the those ridiculous spring showers (of rain or hail depending on the mood of the skies) that come out of a cold nowhere and don't feel like spring at all. By 11:00 my house was oddly calm, the children had left for Nantes to stay for a week (school vacation again) and I had the whole day to do nothing or anything.

I spent most of the afternoon at La Maison... (anciennement La Maison Renaise), my favorite café/salon de thé. I lounged about and drank warm beverages and spoke with very interesting people. And one of the things we talked about was Laval. We talked about how this peculiar little city leaves its non-native residents, foreign or otherwise, feeling neither enracinés nor ancrés. Neither anchored nor rooted here. A woman I spoke with said that, after 21 years of living here, she still feels like we grow here like hot-house tomatoes, not the real ones that grow in ground. Despite friends and children and jobs and homes and cafés and all those other things that make you feel like you belong somewhere.

I haven't lived in that many places, only 8, and for lengths of time varying from 3 months to 16 years. But of those 8, this is the only one that has slipped through my fingers.

We agreed that it was not necessarily a bad thing. Like being a foreigner, being rootless and anchorless allows for a certain amount of detachment and, for me, freedom. I am a guest here, both privileged and limited.

Bonjour tristesse

Did you know that melancholy used to be one of the seven deadly sins ? Melancholy? Really? Deadly?

They traded it in for sloth sometime during the 17^th century.

So I got to thinking about melancholy. Being sad and gloomy. Is that really all that bad? And sometimes it isn’t even that. It’s more like pensive than gloomy. Like pensive with an edge. Edgy contemplation.

I did find an archaic definition that explains the sin aspect. It referred to sullenness and outbreaks of violent anger caused by black bile.

Now that sounds nasty. Black bile. Moral sludge generated by equal measures of sadness, anger, guilt and confusion. Sounds a lot like a crise de foi / foie. A liver crisis of faith. Or a faith crisis of the liver.

The solution for melancholy? Chocolate, I think. Soul salve. Not as good for the liver though. The solution for black bile? Equal measures of rainbows, unicorns, cotton candy and sand castles.

Something that makes my day

Or even my week.

Getting packages from friends and family. I honestly don't even care what's it the package. It's just like getting a sweet piece of home from someone who cares. It's so nice. We got three packages this week. One from Beth with ginger chews. Hot and sweet. Everything in life should be hot and sweet.

And then 2 (two!) packages from my brother and sister-in-law, with magazines and candy for the boys (they were thrilled - peanut butter cups are to them what ginger chews are to me), and even more ginger chews. Which Boy1 has now decided he likes. It's funny to watch him eat them. He always keeps a glass of water nearby.

So, friends and family and amazon.com, thank you all for thinking of us and sending things from time to time.

Not Miss Météo

I'm not really into the weather. I don't monitor it, other than to decide which clothes to set out for the kids to wear to school.

I've never been particularly weather sensitive, other than to the heat. Over 75 and I start to melt.

I grew up in Illinois with the snow and the wind and the cold and the odd springs and hot, humid summers. And then I lived in North Carolina where it was, for about 4 months of the year, too hot for me. But I survived and didn't bitch about it too often. Then I moved to Seattle. Everyone bitches about Seattle weather. But I didn't. Ever. I loved Seattle weather. I loved the mist and the perfect (usually) mild summers and the moderate winters. And even the rain. It never stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. I never used an umbrella in Seattle. I didn't even own one.

And then I moved here.

And now, this year especially, I find myself feeling being somethinged by this ridiculous weather.

Les giboulées de mars. March showers. Although I find showers only hints at what giboulées really means. And believe me, I have pointed out to the skies that March is over.

In fact, it's weather chaos. Chaos linked to the passage from winter to spring. That transition from the quiet knowing that is winter to the necessary doing that is spring. Sunny every once in a while, cold, harsh wind with oddly timed showers of rain or hail or huge melting snowflakes like we had yesterday. No snow, not one flake, all winter long and then, on April 6th, it snows.

Perhaps I'm the one who got it wrong. Is it supposed to be necessary knowing and quiet doing? Either way, it feels like neither.

On being firm

And I'm not talking about body parts.

I'm talking about being marked by firm determination.

About being bold and steady. About being intègre. Which I saw translated as just but that doesn't seem right. Whole seems better, as in being completely whole. Whatever that is.

About being résolu. Resolute.

In French, résolu is the past participle of the verb résoudre, to resolve. So how is resolute different from resolved? To resolve can mean to find a solution, to remove doubts, to cause to progress from dissonance to consonance, to render parts visible and distinct. How do you get from here to there? How do you separate the image parts visible and distinct? How do you make them whole? How do you give them back their integrity?

And why don't we have an adjective for intègre? Someone who is whole, true to himself. What is he?

Against the wind

I may be fooling myself. It wouldn't be the first time.

But I currently believe that there are times when the only solution to whatever ails is to be still and just let the world rearrange and reshape. To do anything else, to force anything, would just be counterproductive.

Last night at dinner, I learned a great new expression that perfectly illustrates my point.

Qui pisse contre le vent, se rince les dents.

He who pisses against the wind rinses his teeth.

Aren't people cool sometimes?

It was a normal day yesterday. A normal tuesday after a three day weekend. I worked in the morning and picked the boys up for lunch.

The house I live in is on a small street with sidewalks on both sides and parking places on both sides, parallel to the sidewalk. It's a one-way street in downtown Laval that runs north to south, one block east of the river.

I parked my car in one of the spots near the house, but next to the opposite sidewalk. Boy1 got out street side, looked both ways, and crossed. I got out on the sidewalk, undid Boy2's seatbelt and left the door open for him to get out. I went to the trunk to get out my briefcase and the bright yellow plastic crate I carry all my school stuff in. Yes, it's heavy and impractical but I haven't found a better solution. Suggestions are welcome.

I closed the trunk and Boy2 and I crossed the street together. We went inside and I fixed lunch. We ate pasta with sausage and tomato cream sauce and leftover chocolate torte with chocolate whipped cream, in case you're interested. Then the boys played and I cleaned up the kitchen and read a little and then it was time to go. We had spent about a hour and 15 minutes at home. We walked outside, I closed and locked the big iron gate and we all crossed the street. There was my car, as it had been left. Which was with the driver's side door wide open onto the sidewalk. It took up most of the sidewalk, there was barely enough room for someone to walk. I don't live on a busy street but I can be fairly certain that at least 20 people walked by my car and left it like that. No one took anything. And there's a lot to take in my car. Not of much value necessarily, but still. Three MAC lipsticks, a wooden finger rosary, three grocery store tokens, a thermos, 12 packets of kleenex, an umbrella that says merde, il pleut on it(a promotional gift from the radio station that interviews me sometimes), a winnie-the-pooh umbrella, 3 textbooks, and 3 clean cake pans, all in plain view of anyone who walked by.

Restores your faith in humanity, doesn't it?

Ah, les profiteroles

Otherwise known as dessert bliss. And I'm not exaggerating. I ate some yesterday. We had Easter lunch at a restaurant. I'm cooking an Easter meal today (Easter monday is a holiday here) and I really didn't feel like cooking two Easter-worthy meals in a row. So, we ate at a restaurant. I had beef carpaccio. Yes, the former vegetarian now eats raw meat. But it's just so good. With paper thin shavings of parmesan on top.

Anyway. For dessert I got profiteroles. Which is probably one of my favorite desserts of all time. And one that I never make. Ever. Because it seems like a pain, although that doesn't always stop me.

Want to know why it's my favorite? Because it's complicated and simple at the same time. It's hot and cold at the same time. It's chocolate and vanilla at the same time. It's crunchy and smooth at the same time. It's so many things at once and no one thing dominates or loses its integrity. You have to respect that in a dessert.

Three choux pastries -cut in half and filled with vanilla ice cream, a pond of melted dark chocolate for them to bathe in, grilled slivered almonds sprinkled over all, for fun.

What's your favorite dessert?

And while I'm at it

I didn't respond to any of yesterday's comments but only because I wanted to respond in a post.

In response to frequent criticism about the United States, I guess I am forced to ask the question, "Why?" Why do we feel so criticized and why do we feel the need to defend?

I'd say we're criticized because we do a lot of things we shouldn't. Or we try to lie about why we're doing them. We frame them in pretty pictures of 'we're helping the whole world' instead of just admitting that, like many countries, WE'RE SELF-SERVING sometimes. I'm absolutely NOT saying that everything about our foreign policy is bad, nor am I saying that we are a horrible nation. But we're uncomfortable with the political incorrectness of being self-serving so we say we're doing what no one else has the money or troops or morals to do. It may be true about the funds and the troops but I don't believe the US has the corner on the moral market. I'd even go so far as to say we're pretty two-faced about a lot of things. The US is like that bitchy girl in high school that no one really liked but had to be friends with because she was so popular. And why didn't we like her? Because she couldn't be trusted. She was false about her motives, you could never really tell what she was after or when she would turn. You had the very distinct impression she was using you. Which she was.

I'd also say that people of other nations may feel the need to criticize us because we give the impression of being pretty light on the self-criticism and examination that is necessary sometimes to grow. Do we give the example of being a nation that has learned from its mistakes? Or from history? I'm not saying we don't, I'm just asking the question. Do we?

As for seeing the points of view of other countries, gosh, where to begin with that one? The European Union, with all its issues, is a union of 27 member countries. 27 different countries who actually manage, with admittedly more or less success, to see different points of view and work together. Which is not to say that I believe the United States incapable of lifting its head out of the ethnocentrism that has dominated for so long. On the contrary, I hope we will. I believe we can.

Part of the problem is that, as a nation, I believe that we behave like an adolescent, which, historically speaking, compared to many countries, we are. What does a typical teenager do? She doesn't listen to ANYONE and thinks she knows EVERYTHING.

Here's a question for the day: when was the last time the United States listened to anyone? When was the last time the United States admitted to not knowing everything?

And lastly, I'd like to mention Ali's comment. Oh my. Again, another where to start. If you haven't read the comment, here is part of it:

The other day the local paper did a story on gas prices, and interviewed a few people at the pump. I quote:

Faith Dansby, who was putting gas in her van at a Shell station on New Circle Road, said she is coping by trying to cut down on trips, such as getting her groceries once a week rather than making multiple runs.

"As Americans, we shouldn't have to go through this," she said.

And as Ali said, "I was flabbergasted at the statement I bolded up there. WHAT? I found it very narrow-minded, and yes, chauvinistic. What about the rest of the world?"

Ali also provided a link which gave stats on gas prices in other countries. Do you realize that in France we pay over $7 a gallon for gas? And in most other European countries it's over $8?

A little relativity is always good, it gives clarity to a perspective, it provides a reference point. Perhaps that is the problem. Where is our point of reference?