The Ascension

I climbed the mountain St. Victoire yesterday. Yessireebob, I’ve finally done it! I am woman! Hear me roar! I am strong, I am invincible…I am 51 ½ years old and today my feet hurt, my knees ache, my body is stiff and if I had enough energy to stretch, I would. But I don’t.

One of the young men in my new class at the University, decided to organize an “activity” for the weekend. I’m all for that. I learned in my last class that it serves all the students well to become a sort of team. It helps us lose our inhibitions so we’re able to speak, explain, and question in French without worrying about how stupid we sound.  So I was game to the idea. Well, that and the fact that I was staring down the throat of a completely empty, single-person weekend. And besides, I’ve lived here in Aix en Provence for nearly 2 years and have never climbed the mountain. This had to be remedied tout suite!

In the final moment, it turned out to be just me, and 3 young Chinese boys, one of whom bailed at the last minute. He took one look at the two young men and me and came up with an excuse not to go. I have absolutely no doubt that he lost interest because none of the cute young girls in the class had chosen to join us.

There are dozens of entrances to the walking paths and dozens more paths that criss-cross the terrain. Our goal was to reach the summit, not to take one of those meandering-around-the-forest-for-the-fun-of-it sort of hikes. We had a destination! However, we didn’t want to kill ourselves either.

The paths are marked on a map as to their difficulty but not on the actual trail and by the time we were ¼ of the way up, I was wondering if I had gotten my French words mixed up. I’m sure facile means easy…I’m just sure of it! And I was told that this was the facile trail. I was feeling like an out-of-shape old bat until the young men began to ask if we could stop and rest.

“Oh of course…if you NEED to, I can take a few moments.”

Actually, I didn’t say that. It was more fun to commiserate together. So we plugged along trying to chat as we went. I can’t decide which is harder, climbing a mountain or trying to understand bad French in a Chinese accent!  But every time we caught a glimpse of the cross, Le Croix du Provence, which is perched on the summit and surveys all the valleys below, there were exclamations of disbelief from all of us. And those translated perfectly well! That damned cross (will I be struck by lightening if I use the word damn as an adjective to describe the word cross?)  never seemed to get any closer and always looked completely out of reach.

So, in between deep breaths and trying to ignore the red-hot bands of steel that seemed to be steadily tightening around my knees and thighs I just kept repeating…”on peux faire ça, on peux faire ça”. We can do this. It kind of became a rhythm to move me forward and upward.

Just before reaching the summit, we passed the Prieuré de Sainte Victoire, a 17^th century priory built around a 5^th century chapel. It had the feeling of an oasis, a soft garden holding it’s own against the cold white rock of the mountain. And just past that, we spit out on the summit next to the cross.

Standing on top of the world…at least my immediate world... was worth every muscle-searing minute of the preceding hours. Perhaps a dozen people were lounging on the peak, resting, eating, chatting…one guy was even sleeping. The view was extraordinaire…the sky its stunning Provençal blue with just wisps of clouds to make it interesting. The air was clear and clean with a light breeze and and not the devastating and often dangerous wind that is often the case up there. And as we were resting our weary bodies, smiling into the sun, some guy popped up over the other face of the mountain…out of nowhere!  He just popped up like a jack-in-the-box! I went over to the edge, where he had made his startling appearance and peered…almost straight down a rocky mountain face. Okay, now I understand why our path had been called “facile”.

So before all this I was kind of thinking that I’m all that…young for my age, in good shape, ya da, ya da. Until I attempted to get out of bed this morning. Well, that and the fact that the two young men (whose ages together don’t even add up to mine) addressed me as “Madam” all day yesterday! If I can move tomorrow and actually walk the several miles to class, I’m going to immediately put an end to that Madam business.

 Because, in fact, I checked the map today (yes…the day AFTER the expedition) and the trail we had climbed was not labeled the welcoming colors of green for “très facile”, or blue for “facile”. It was not even the warning color of red for “moyen”. That trail we had taken was actually at the top of the list…. in dark, dangerous, how-can-you-be-so-stupid-to-not-read-the-map-first purple…for “difficile”. So I am sort of all that…. and that’s Madam All That to you!

For more about St. Victoire click here                                         

 Le Croix du Provence photo courtesy 

of Benh LIEU SONG

Liver Crisis

I wrote this article yesterday for my newspaper column and I was late getting it in. My editor waited for it all morning and what had I been doing? Sleeping!  But I have a great excuse. A very French excuse. I’m in the throes of a Liver Crisis!

The first time I heard that term…it’s Crise de Foie in French…I was really confused. I mean, what is a liver crisis? Hepatitis? Cirrhosis? WHAT?? And if it is one of these horrible conditions, why do so many French people seem to suffer from it?

And it’s always explained to me that it’s when your liver has just had too much…too much rich food, too much alcohol, too much coffee…and too little of all the things it needs to stay out of a crisis. The French are very close to their livers. They talk about them all the time. I’ve never met an American who had such a personal relationship with his or her liver.

I spent this past weekend in the Camargue with my girlfriends and we had a wonderful girl-weekend. An article about this special area called the Camargue is upcoming but, as I said, I’ve been thwarted by my liver. In any case, we spent the weekend eating (in large quantities…at least in my case) mussels in oil and garlic, salmon tartare, tellines in cream and butter (another local shellfish), bouillabaisse (a local fish soup), strawberry gateau, American chocolate chip cookies, pizza…I’m sure there’s more. Of course, this is France and we added champagne with ginger, red wine, white wine and rosé, Suze (a type of local liquor) some other type of local liqueur whose name escapes me, and lots of coffee because we spent too much time laughing and talking and not enough time sleeping. You get the drift. All wonderful and not to be missed but certainly not our habitual lifestyle (really…it isn’t!). And the only exercise we got was shopping. Which is certainly not all that strenuous except on the wallet. Soooo….

My friend Claire, who is French, kept remarking that she was sure that this was going to turn into a Crise de Foie. She also tried to explain what it was but I eventually looked up a French web site on the subject and translated it.

“Bloating, nausea, vomiting, heaviness, headache, heartburn, burping or flatulence…. these manifestations of liver crisis often occur after the holiday meal”

So in fact, this is just plain old indigestion with possibly a hangover added for good measure and has nothing whatsoever to do with the liver. But don’t tell the French that! Believe me, that’s been tried and nobody is buying it. As a matter of fact, with a full-fledged liver crisis you can go to your friendly, local pharmacist, who is everybody’s best friend, explain your symptoms and even though he or she knows it’s really not a liver problem, it will still be described that way and you can load up on all sorts of powders and potions. There are a number of websites that give advice on how to deal with this disaster after the fact, as well as how to prepare for the event that is sure to cause the crisis in the first place.

All I know is that my crise hit me in the car about halfway home on Sunday night. And I’m still feeling the effects.  I’ve perused all the websites and I know that I’m supposed to eat only vegetables and soup, avoid coffee, alcohol and cigarettes, drink lots of tea, possible take a syrup called Hepatoum and get lots of sleep. Which is what I’m doing....mostly. Because I’m in France…and by golly, I’m in crisis!  I do have to say however…it was well worth it!

                                                    

Je suis desolée…c’est le fromage!

 Or…I’m sorry,  it’s the cheese!

This is a public apology. And apology to all my visitors who have made the trip already, as well as to those who plan to come and visit me here in France in the days to come.  There’s nothing I can do about this grave problem, I can’t change the fact that it exists…nor do I really want to, but I need to express my contrition.

The problem…. is… the cheese. First of all, while I’m begging forgiveness, I must apologize to all the milk producers and cheese makers in my home states of Wisconsin and Minnesota before I say this…but…the cheese in France is the bomb! It is said that there are enough varieties of French cheese to try a new one each day of the year, but in fact, that’s false. According the French milk producers web site, there are more than 1000 varieties of cheese in this country. Cheese is made with cow’s milk, goat’s milk and sheep’s milk and it is often covered with mold or filled with mold, which adds to it’s flavor.  Much of the cheese is non-pasteurized which is why Americans cannot buy many varieties of “real” French cheese. It is against the law to sell it in the United States.

Cheese is revered here. Not only are there 8 separate “families” of cheese, there are actually “protected” cheeses and cheeses with special appellations…. like wine…which is also revered. We have fresh cheese, pressed cheese, soft cheese, unpasteurized aged cheese, northern cheeses, southern cheese, cheese wrapped in leaves or covered in ashes, artisanal cheeses...and yes, even cheese squares wrapped in plastic (quelle horreur!)

We eat soft, fresh cheeses as spreads or in a bowl with a little sugar or fruit as you would eat yogurt for dessert. We use cheese in cooking, to make a lovely sauce or to make a gratin of potatoes or vegetables. But most importantly, we follow every dinner with the cheese course. This comes before dessert and though I thought it was strange and a little bit of overkill when I first got here, I now always save room for it and am disappointed when it’s not served for some reason.

And like good wine, it can be the subject of conversation around the dinner table. I was at a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, and the subject of conversation at the table was the fabulous and most horrible smelling cheese that we were going to be served after dinner. The host had found it in Corsica, and was so excited for us to try it…. and smell it. It was exquisite, by the way.

Which leads me the subject at hand. My visitors have been subjected to the odor of French cheese, over and over. I always insist on taking some bread and cheese in the car when we travel. The ensuing smell isn’t too much for me and though I notice it, it is more of an appetite stimulant than anything. But my sister threatened to upchuck the first time she opened the car door after we had left the cheese inside. She insisted that she wouldn’t be able to eat something that smelled like…. well, let’s just say...excrement, although she didn’t use that word!

“Oh it does not, Jennie! Get over it!”

My youngest son, although he loved the taste of the cheese, was just as repulsed. He was a little kinder but a similar sentence slipped from his mouth.

“I’m sorry to tell you this mom, but your refrigerator smells like…excrement” (not his exact word either)!

I kept insisting it wasn’t that bad and that he needed to just get used to it. I poo- pooed him (no pun intended).

My oldest son was not even nice about it.

“ GEEZ MOM, what’s that horrible smell? It smells like …excrement!  (We’ve established that this was not the  word used). I can’t stand it!”

I had an especially ripe Munster in the fridge at the time. When I told him it was cheese, he couldn’t believe it.

 “You really eat something that smells like that? No WAY! Shut the fridge! Throw it away!”

I told him yes, I eat it and you will too. It’s not so bad. It tastes completely different than it smells.

In spite of all my chastising and insistence that he try it…he just couldn’t get it past his nose.l (he’s always had a sensitive sniffer). And I made fun of him and his obviously over-sensitive snout.

So last night, I smelled cheese. I was surprised because when my son was here he had insisted that I cover all the cheese or put it in a plastic bag (I told him this is not good for the cheese…it needs to breath…but I accommodated him). The smell of cheese got stronger and I couldn’t figure out why. I checked the refrigerator for uncovered cheese.  I tested the zip-locks on the bags and the seal on the Glad Press-n-Seal. All were in perfect working order. Nope, no holes in the bags either. I thought I must have dropped some and searched all over the kitchen for a runaway hunk of fromage. No luck.  I finally decided maybe a neighbor had purchased some particularly intense cheese and it's odor had just permeated my apartment. I let it go at that.

Until I was on the floor trying to find a pen I had dropped. I was searching for it around the cat box. The smell of cheese became especially strong. I looked in the cat box and saw that the cat had deposited a fresh crotte. And with my nose in the cat box, I realized….at that moment… that in fact, no matter how much I love it,  no matter how much I reprimand and ridicule my visitors for their obvious lack of taste and refinement, no matter how much I hate to admit it...French cheese really does smell like shit!

 

                                                         

Time

I actually wrote this article last Monday for my weekly newspaper column and couldn't decide if I wanted to post it. I just decided.

The kids are gone, the French boyfriend (that's such a dumb word for people over 50!) is history, and in spite of a week of semi-mourning, I’m feeling pretty darned good.  The apartment is cleaned, my lavender has blossomed, and the guy in the neighboring building is singing reggae…incessantly. Summer has finally decided it’s here to stay and I can say that I’m welcoming my perpetual sweat.

My oldest son was supposed to visit me last year. I gave him the promise of a ticket the Christmas before I left for what was supposed to be my one year in France. He didn’t come. His life got in the way and I sensed he wasn’t all that interested in a visit to France. This year, he finally made the trip but it seemed pretty clear to me that it was more out of guilt than anything else. I didn’t care what his reasons were, when he expressed an interest, I immediately bought the ticket and committed him.

Ryan is almost 25 years old and he is my silent child. The one who is difficult to reach… private with his emotions, distant in many ways. You know…the one you worry about because he would never let on if there were something really wrong.

So I worried about his visit. Would he enjoy himself? Would he be happy? Would he regret his choice to come here this year when he has so many other things going on in his life?

And once again, I was given a gift. This gift was time… time with my son that we haven’t had in years. REAL time.

When children hit adolescence, their world moves outside the family circle and you really only have them for brief moments between activities and friends and all the other really important things that make up their lives. And you know it has to be like that. It’s part of the circle…. the cycle… the beginning of the end of your lives together…and the debut of their lives as adults. It is our job as parents to see that this progression happens smoothly (okay, anyone who has raised teenagers knows it never happens smoothly) and we let it happen…however reluctantly.

So it has been at least 10 years since I’ve spent truly quality time with my son. As the days progressed and we got used to each other again, we remembered the things we like about each other and the things that really tick us off!  But as we settled into a 24/7 world as a family, I fell in love with him all over again.

As much as we often wish our babies wouldn’t have to grow up and as much as we also often wished they’d just get out of our hair for a little while, there are wonderful advantages to being “stuck” with one’s grown up child. With the help of his lovely girlfriend Katie who made the trip with him and who is the conversation initiator, Ryan learned more about my life…my real life…not just the “mother life”…and I learned more about his life…not the “my child life” but the life of an adult man trying to make his way in the world.

We spent our days wandering, talking, eating, being silent on the terrace, discussing the past and the future, sharing memories and telling secrets that couldn’t be told before now. We visited the Loumarin Valley and he was happy to just drive around, observe and take photos. We went to the beach in Cassis and spent the day on the rocks like old turtles in the sun. I cut his hair…the first time it’s been cut since I left. We wandered the streets of Marseille and visited my favorite Savonerie (soap factory). We went to the Camargue and went horseback riding, taking photos of the famous white Camargue horses and the pink flamingos.  He witnessed a somewhat ugly and bizarre break-up. We talked about the history of the Roman civilization in this part of the world and how amazing and old everything is. He attempted to teach me the finer points of photography. We discussed his observations about France and the differences in the two cultures. We just lived…together…in the world that is now mine…and I reconnected with my son.

The most wonderful thing about him being here and spending that amount of time with me is that now, we share a common memory of this place. The place and the culture in which I have chosen to live but which was before, completely foreign and unreachable to him. It’s amazing how that seems to bridge the gap of time and space that has separated us for so long. He now has a reference point of where his runaway mom lives and how she lives. And I now have a reference point ….a place to jump off…in the life of my first-born, who is now…a man.

Just before he left, he gave me a beautiful (and far too expensive) necklace that I had admired in a shop window. Through my tears and my protests, he put his arm around me and said, “mom, it’s okay. You deserve it. And it feels really good to finally be able to give you something special”. 

With or without the necklace…. he most certainly gave his mother something very, very special. 

'Tis the Season

Visitor season begins today with my first arrival. In fact, I have to get myself to the airport in about an hour to retrieve my debut guest. And, of course, like usual, I’m not ready.  I went and did something really brilliant Sunday…I adopted a cat!  Don’t get me wrong, I love this cat…and he loves me. And now my apartment feels like a home. But I probably could have planned this better (back to that planning issue) because rather than grocery shopping, cleaning and doing the laundry and ironing, and getting all my maps in order, I spent Sunday cuddling my new kitty, Arthur (pronounced Archoor), and waiting for him to figure out that the litter box was not a place to roll around and act silly. Finally at 1 a.m., just at the point that I was sure he would just explode, he calmly marched into his litter box and used it…properly. And as you can see, he is now well settled.

BUT....that left Monday to do all that needed to be done. And of course, Monday was the ONLY nice day we’ve had in weeks. I tried to ignore it and in the end the heat and the sunshine dried the 3 loads of laundry quickly and finally gave me an opportunity to clean the terrace. And now, time has run out and I’m as close to ready as I’m going to get.

Multi-Media

 We’ve had rain for 3 days and though it has stopped for a few hours, we’re now being treated to a mean mistral wind and I can hear things being blown off of terraces and clattering down the streets.

Weather like this makes me long to take the couch for a little television and a warm blanket. I’ve had a TV now for almost 4 months and I always forget to watch it. It’s really a good learning tool and I keep vowing to remember to watch it. Last night I really meant it…this was it! And I had even purchased a TV guidebook for the occasion.  I got all settled in nicely under my soft polar fleece blanket, remote control(s) in hand and turned it on…but it wouldn’t stay on. No matter how much I messed with each button (and television remotes and the sheer number of them one needs to actually watch TV have always been a mystery to me), I just couldn’t manage to keep the screen on more than 30 seconds.  One of my very few plans and I couldn’t even carry it through.

Make My Day

There are just some things that make me so damned happy....and usually it’s the little things.

This morning I got up early to write this column but ran to the boulangerie to get some bread first. I was starving and needed fortification.  I was handed a fresh, crisp baguette, still so hot that it almost burned my fingers. As I walked home with this hot-piece-of-heaven in my hands, imagining how the Bretone butter would melt so easily over it and how my homemade fig jam would taste slathered over all that goodness, I realized that this just-moments-fresh baguette had just made my day. A silly, little, warm baguette!

The Secret's Out

Normally on Mondays, I post an article from this same time last year. Last year at this time, however, I was galavanting across France and Switzerland with my sister and eventually my Mom and took some time off from writing. So...so....so there! Today we shall live in the present.

I can’t believe I’m going to say this…. I really don’t want to say this…. it pains me to type this sentence on my keyboard…you’ve heard it here first…. and you’ll never hear it again.

I miss my ex-husband.

OUCH!

Now let me qualify that statement. You really must let me explain!

That guy knew how to make a steak. Oh yeah! I have never eaten a steak… anywhere… that was as delicious as the steaks he would occasionally make on the grill. Garlicky and buttery and full of flavor, tender and thick and moist…and PERFECT!

If you say a word to him I’ll have to kill you. Because really, other than that, I don’t miss a thing.

Last night, I fired up my little green BBQ grill and took a stab at preparing this precious slab of animal protein. I knew it wasn’t going to be perfect because I really haven’t been able to find a great piece of meat around here (as in steak!). The French seem to think their meat is good, but I haven’t found it. In fact, a few moments ago the caretaker of my building promised to take me to a good boucherie where he says I can find better meat than I've seen at the grocery stores. But after my battle with le bifteck last night, I’m reluctant to waste the money.

When I was young, I spent a couple of years as a trail cook in Northern British Columbia, where I actually learned to cook. In fact, I got the job because I told them I knew how to cook! In reality, I didn’t have a clue and there was nothing they could do about it once they had shipped me high up into the mountains, except bear with me as I learned to bake bread in a tin stove, bannock over a fire, cut hunks of meat off very large carcasses hanging from trees, and prepare all manner of entrails to perfection. In my cooking repertoire, I now have mountain sheep brains and eggs, elk testicles, deer tongue flavored with cloves and sliced thin for sandwiches, stuffed moose heart, and liver countless animals, fried tender with onion.  To be sure, these cowboys were always so hungry, I’m sure it wouldn’t have mattered if I prepared all these delicacies in bleach…they were always willing to eat it (except for my first attempt at bread which they used as a doorstop for the cabin!) I wasn’t. That’s when I became a peanut butter addict. And I never had a well-cut, big-old beefsteak to lovingly nurse to perfection.

When I was a student I didn’t have the chance to practice either. No money. My staple diet then was potatoes and if I had enough tip money that week, I would buy something delicious like cheese or sour cream to transform my spuds into a special treat. Another favorite was canned spinach (4 cans for a dollar), garnished with a hard-boiled egg. I still love that!  But a steak? Never!

When I was a wife, I avoided cooking beef. It’s not that I didn’t want to cook it. It’s just that the ex-pectorant did it so much better. And he was willing. He would spend hours at it and I was able to do other things much more interesting.

Last night it was my turn. All I can say is, that was the worst piece of shoe leather I have ever eaten…or tried to eat. What am I doing wrong? It didn’t help that the meat was all of ½ inch thick but I can’t blame the steak. I know it was the technician. I tried to remember watching the ex-pec as he went through his preparations but apparently my memory is hazy…more likely I just never paid attention.

I will give myself one last shot. I mean really, I’ve got a grill, which is the best thing ever. And Americans are simply expected to know how to cook a steak. I’m letting my country down! I’m a bad ambassador!

I truly hope that my ex-pec taught his sons to make a proper steak. It would be a shame for such a fine art form to be lost forever. And a real shame for me because one day, when I’m visiting the boys and doing something interesting like playing with their babies in the sandbox, afterwards I want to be served a glorious, grilled, buttery, garlic- infused hunk of meat. And then I will never, ever have to say “I miss my ex-husband” again.

Cuckoo’s Nest

I'm nesting again...my roost is considerably smaller than it used to be but I’m nesting nevertheless. Spring is doing it’s best to arrive. And each year, when it appears, so does some inherent, primitive genetic memory that drives me to these sorts of activities. And what are the two things one must do in the spring? The answer is obvious. On rainy days, the basement and the linen closets get cleaned. On nice days, the garden is prepared for the glories of summer. 

Last weekend it rained so I tackled the basement. This was an epic task at my home in Wisconsin. Mostly because I am a walking, living, breathing antonym to the word “neat”. And also because my basement was like many Midwestern basements...big. Cleaning my “basement” now, in my little 400-year-old apartment in France, involves lifting up the bamboo rug in my kitchen, removing the piece of plywood that is the “basement ceiling”, climbing into the 3x3x3 foot hole in the floor that constitutes my cellar and emptying it of several years worth of somebody elses's dried up paint, a few terra cotta pots and several moth eaten rugs. That’s it! C’est tout! All I really needed to do was find was a little space to stash a suitcase or two since I have no closets (thus there is no need to clean them). Mission accomplished in less than 1 hour. Whew, that was exhausting…this calls for a glass of wine and a little relaxation! 

As much as I love living in the heart of the city, it does have it's drawbacks, the most dire is the lack of green space. I'm accustomed to a yard. You know what I’m talking about! Big enough to handle a neighborhood touch football match or a game of fetch with the dog. And though I don't miss mowing or raking, I miss getting my hands dirty in the soil, the smell of worms after a rain, watching tiny shoots grow into a lush community of green, firing up the barbeque and the smell of the roasting meat, and lounging with a cup of coffee or glass of wine (this wine thing seems to be a pattern) and surveying my kingdom. 

My "kingdom" these days is a 9x9 terrace overlooking a terracotta-tinted canopy of rooftops, with chimney and TV antenna emergents scattered about. Not my former empire, but I've decided to establish rule nonetheless. So Saturday, with all my extra time after cleaning the basement, I went to the store and bought a few more pots, soil, plants and a big umbrella to protect me from the unrelenting summer sun. As has always been my habit when it comes to gardening, I went overboard. But really, how bad can that be aside from an unplanned dent in my wallet!

I spent the next day removing all the old wires and lines that crisscrossed my terrace, planting, rearranging, trying to follow the parasol assembly directions in French and generally having a wonderful time. And it took one, itty bitty portion of an afternoon. I can now sit on my terrace, wine in hand (oops….this may be a problem!)  and when the sun actually shines (it’s been a rotten spring), it releases the heady scent of jasmine, rosemary, thyme, lavender, basil and mint. In a few short months my tomatoes will be begging me to eat them.

The pièce de résistance is my little green barbeque grill. It’s kind of a useless thing actually. It doesn’t even have any ventilation (I have to provide that with my lungs) but I have managed to cook some kebabs and a couple of hamburgers. And it was cheap. But it’s the jewel in my “garden” and makes it feel like home. Last night, I lit some candles, put my feet up, and purred.

Now that everything’s ready, it’s time to have a party to celebrate all that is spring. It’s to be an American party complete with beer, Johnsonville Brats (yes, I actually found some), hamburgers, ketchup, potato salad and chips, with a little dip made with Velveeta cheese thrown in for true authenticity (my friend just received some in a package from the states). The guests will be both American and French but we all generally speak in French.  One American friend responded to the invitation by saying, “It’s an American BBQ…let’s make a rule that EVERYONE has to speak English, and let’s drink beers and enjoy watching them squirm with the language challenges for a change”!

That made me laugh but I know it won’t go that way. We will speak French and I’ll be the one squirming as usual. And if it rains, we won’t have the option of playing pool in the basement. But everyone can gather under the umbrella in shifts and watch me, the human bellows, try to keep the fire going! All in all, it sounds like a delightful evening and a worthy inauguration of spring, don’t you think? And I deserve it after all this strenuous work!

Bon Printemps!

Lost in Translation

Last night, while reading my book (yes, wearing all my warm finery), I came to a paragraph where Julia Childs describes her sister getting rear-ended by a Parisian driver. In total indignation she whips the car into park, sticks her head up through the sunroof and angrily screams at him, “ Ce merde-monsieur a justement craché dans ma derrière!”.  I get what she was trying to say but what she actually said was “ this shit-man just spat out into my butt!”

And so it goes. Trying to learn a language and being only partway there causes all sorts of these continual language mishaps.  At first you’re mortified by your mistakes, but eventually you learn to take them in stride and laugh them off. You have to. They happen every day.

Yesterday I was telling a friend a little story, in French, about John Travolta flying a jet to Haiti to deliver food and medical supplies…. and a few quack doctors. I never got to the quack doctors part because we got stuck on the first few sentences.

My story was interrupted as my friend cocked his head quizzically, and said “Vraiement? (Truly?)

Yes, really!

Mais, je ne comprend pas pourquoi! (I don’t understand why.)

Because he was trying to help, I suppose.

Non! C’est vrai?

Yes it’s true…why would I lie to you? He’s a pilot. He flew his jet. Nice, yes, but not that unbelievable.

This ping-pong game continued for several minutes until I finally realized what I had said and why all the skepticism. I had actually told my friend that John Travolta had stolen a jetliner in Florida and flew it to Haiti. And my friend was a little stunned by this news, particularly since he had heard nothing about it.

Last week I was happily bouncing around because I had gone all-out and purchased a new, heavy-duty frying pan. I excitedly told a friend, again in French, that I had bought myself a present…a new, big, strong…. chicken.

Cold...Inside and Out

GEY84MF792BM (just ignore this..dumb blog stuff)

I'm just so cold. How can a woman born in Minnesota, who lived in Wisconsin for 30 plus years, be cold in the south of France? Geez!

When I returned to Minnesota for my Christmas holiday it was -14 F (-25 C) degrees and I don't even want to know what the wind chill was! Here in Aix, it's between 38 and 45 degrees.  Yet, I feel like a mountain climber in a storm who feels no other option than to bury herself in a snow cave and wait to die. Okay, I'm being just a little dramatic but my bones are cold...really. If some freakishly weird scientist were to plunge a thermometer into my metatarsal right now, I'm sure he or she would exclaim "mon Dieu! C'est n'est pas possible! Cette femme est vraiment morte! (or something like that...my French is horrible). Which basically means...this woman is too cold to be alive.

I know my readers in the north have no sympathy for my situation and I completely understand. But there is something different here.

It could be the fact that I don't turn my heat on. Heating systems here are unlike anything I’m used to, particularly in an old apartment like mine. The heat is simply a box on the wall that you turn on, pay for and receive no benefits...unless you are sitting directly (as in touching) in front of it. I really don't see the point. It could be because the floors are all stone and wall to wall carpeting does not exist...at least in my experience. It could be because my building is 400-plus years old. It could be the mistral wind that blows down from the Alps and gives us the most beautiful blue skies but makes us suffer for the beauty.