Roses are red

Best thing of the day:

Little Shamina's dramatic rendering of our favorite Valentine's Day poem.

"Wrose er wred" she declared while swinging her right arm out towards the class.
She couldn't get to the next line because of all the smiles and giggles.

They really like all the little Valentine cards, stickers and Sweethearts candies. I make them guess what the message printed on the heart means before they can eat it. By now, they must think Americans are nearly as romantic as them!

Welcome to the North

A movie just came out here poking fun at the north of France. It resembles the sympathetic yet stereotypical portrayal of the southern US in Sweet Home Alabama. It's called Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and goes like this: A post office manager gets transfered from Provence (famous, beautiful region in sunny Southern France) to the Nord Pas-de-Calais where I live. He's horrified. His wife is stricken. His son thinks his dad may loose some toes to the cold, artic weather. The film reveals all the stereotypes graying the name of Northern France.

As he crosses the county line, sheets of rain attack his car. He arrives and can't understand anyone because of the dialect (an awful sounding thing). An old woman makes him eat stinky maroilles cheese on toast dunked in chicory coffee for breakfast. Then its fries, fries, fries for lunch. Eventually, he grows to appreciate and enjoy the town... but he tells his wife (still living in Provence) the opposite because that's what she wants to hear. So when she comes to visit, the whole town acts terrible and tries to scare her with exagerrations of the worst stereotypes. It's so funny.

So, imagine watching this movie in the theater filled with actual inhabitants of this region. The theater was packed solid. And has been for a week. There were rollicking laughs echoing from all corners of the theater. Anyway, the movie just made me want to go visit other parts of France and see if it's really different here... I've never really spent much time anywhere else.

A haiku

I'd be a blue whale

Freely traversing the seas

Unworried because

There's an easy return--just

Seek the Gulf Stream, then, reverse.

Back, feeling like a pilgrim

Yesterday at 11:15am Continental Flight 10 touched down in Paris... So I'm back among the snails. The trip this way was much easier! How I love nonstop flights...

Anyway, Texas was wonderfully refreshing. An absolute treat. I celebrated Val-christma-newyears-giving. Three months of holidays! My mom left the tree up, my grandparents, Uncle, Aunt and EP came to visit. We ate Christmas cookies. We exchanged gifts. The vast majority of mine consisted of transportable American food items... The contents of my leaving-Texas suitcases: 75% food, 15% short sleeved shirts and 10% books and papers. There is almost enough American contraband to open a small, imported dry goods store. Cheese Whiz is one thing I wanted to bring but decided against. Processed American cheese mousse in a canister would probably terrify the people here more than it would amuse them.

Home Sweet Texas

After traveling through four countries and six major cities in two days, I'm home! And it's so, so amazing being home on the range with the armadillo. No wonder there are so many songs about this state.

Great things about Texas:
- People are generally happy. They smile.
- Country roads. Country music. And dancing.
- Sunshine. Sunglasses make sense.
- Freebirds World Burritos with Monteray Jack Cheese.
- Trucks. Especially ones fulfilling their potential and hauling a bunch of stuff in the back.
- Family. We are having late Christmas this weekend!
- Friends. Quality time. Slumber parties.
- Beautiful chromatic sunrises (a great side effect of jet lag-- being awake this morning in time to enjoy one!)
- Livestock. Cow birds. Deer. Watching two unpinned roosters run around someone's front yard.
- Driving around seeing home and feeling it's happy I'm back.

Paradoxes

My Dad emailed last week and suggested writing about some paradoxes that exists in France.

Here are a few off-hand:

• If you see someone driving a snazzy automobile, they are probably homeless and living in a squatter RV parking lot village.
• Food here--very fat. People here--quite shrimpy.
• Strict ideas about privacy. No concept of personal space.
• All English-language movies and tv shows get dubbed over. This doesn't exactly coincide with encouraging their citizens to learn English.
• They are imagined to be fashion-forward. Actually they are caught in a time warp morphing 1960 and 1990. Possible explanation--the tv shows running now are mostly from those time periods. (Happy Days, The Nanny, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air)
• France is known for social help. Yet there's a surprising lack of signs in braille and tv doesn't have closed captioning for the hearing impaired. Also, no wheelchair ramps or bathrooms.

Pocket change?

Another idea for spare change--

The pancakes went over well last night. And by went over well, I mean went over the cabinets. Apparently there is an old French tradition that entails putting a coin into the first crepe and flipping it up on top of the cupboards. They do this for luck. But losing a yummy crepe to dusty furniture seems decidedly unlucky.

The tradition of putting a coin (or small token) in the Galette du Roi-- the King's Cake for Epiphany makes much more sense. Whoever gets that piece gets to wear a crown. (I found a tiny Luke Skywalker in one Robbie Burns Night!)

One week!

This time 24 x 7 hours from now, I will be in Texas! This fact is both comforting and agitating (because I can't want to wait patiently).

This evening's diversion-- pancakes! Happy Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday and Pancake Day. We're cooking Buttermilk Oatmeal (my family's recipe) and traditional English ones (for Caroline). Apparently one eats British pancakes with sugar and freshly-squeezed lemon.

Le Mur Infernal

(en anglais--The Awful Wall)
Without a doubt, we've found the best show on French television...
We saw it for the first time in Italy under the title Distraction.

Imagine this a little:
A wall (with a person-shape cut into it) comes sweeping towards the contestant. If they can conform to the shape... they stay dry. If not, they get pushed into a pool of water. There are two teams of three. The best ones are when all three together try not to get sunk. Biggest challenge so far: to spell out M U R. The commentator is a large, blonde woman wearing brightly-colored baubles and swirls. The competitors wear helmets, silver martian suits and elbow pads.

Today, the kids asked me whether or not people in Texas had televisions and cell phones. Because we talked about Australia last week, they get confused a little.

We wrote letters to an American class of kids... I wouldn't have guessed that writing "Happy Valentine's Day" on the bottom would cause an uproar. Apparently in France, Saint Valentine is reserved for couples. Couples only. There was quite a bit of blushing and discussion. No one believed that everyone exchanged Valentines until the teacher brought up Christmas cards (we talked about the Anglo-Saxon penchant for exchanging cards at every occasion).

The Superbowl is coming on tonight at 12:40am. Don't tell me who won!

France has a new First Lady

While we wandered around Paris yesterday, French President Sarkozy and his girlfriend (of two months) Carla Bruni got married. We were literally right outside the Elysees palace, and didn't even know it had happened. They kept it a secret. I'm not usually around when famous things happen, so this is very exciting.

What a new twist on the lovely day. There was a 30% chance of snow... didn't happen. Instead sky was blue and clear. We walked around alot-- from a famous flea market up through the Latin Quarter, across the Seine to the Marais. It was too pretty to ride the Metro. We also went through a flower market where leaves of all different sorts papered the walls.

Going through Montparnasse, we decided to take a peak at the famous cemetary. The graves are mostly all family crypts. Voltaire and Jean Paul Sartre are among the famous bodies buried there. The existentialist's graves made me really sad.

Spring is slowly arriving. The Jardin du Luxembourg (near the President's palace) was chirping and had yellow daffodil buds peeking out of the earth. Nothing whatsoever was living and green when we walked through last December.

We tried to get afternoon tea at the Mariage Freres-- a famous tea house-- but it was too expensive and too crowded. Instead, we had some of their tea in the Lizard Lounge two doors down and watched Paris stroll past us through the window.

Everytime I've been to Paris, my opinion of the city has improved. Two summers ago, it left me with claustrophobia and heat stroke. It's better to see it slowly--a more French speed.

Seedless Grapes

Live from Valenciennes, France. This just in-- Confirmed sighting of white, seedless grapes today at Supermarche Match. Seedless grapes are a rare phenomena in Europe. I've never spotted them before (and more reliably--neither has Mrs. L'Alliers who has lived here for years). How can a country so enamored with wine be so deprived of great grapes?

[It's funny where produce comes from here. Grapes--South Africa. Grapefruit--Israel. Oranges--Spain. Apples--Always France. Money can't buy non-national apples and pears.]

I was always baffled about the raisins here. There are no irritating tooth-sticking specks in them. Does that mean manufacturers remove the seeds first, or that the fruit is seedless to begin with? Because the former option (more likely to me) suggests that stores have willfully deprived customers if indeed such grapes are available (as we have now proved).

This seems like a silly post, but it really made my day to find (and eat) them.

Other things going on:

• Grocery Store workers in Paris (you guessed it!) have taken to the streets.
• We are going on a girls trip to Paris tomorrow. Not to the grocery stores.
• It hasn't snowed today or yesterday. Perhaps tomorrow.