On disinfectant
There have been many things to adapt to for me since moving from France to Australia, and this is the beginning of an attempt to explain.
Some things are strange when you live in a different country than your own. Like what people use to disinfect wounds. Or what they don’t use. And how they look at you when you ask for what they don’t use (but what is traditionally used in France).
Take the first time I asked for 70% alcohol in a pharmacy: I was looked at with a mixture of bewilderment and suspicion. It turns out 70% (or 90%) alcohol cannot be gotten here.
I felt like saying ‘What lady, do you think I’m going to drink it?’, but I thought she might take this as an admission of guilt so I decided to keep my mouth shut*.
Except now, I have a contact: a French chemist who relates because she’s been given the same response (and look). We didn’t just bond over our nationality, but also our love for disinfecting wounds with virtually pure alcohol. And since she’s connected and she can get the stuff, she gave me a small bottle of it. Yay!!
I am almost looking forward to having a wound to disinfect… Take that Dettol.
*I really don’t drink it. I use it as a disinfectant.
Memories from childhood: shaking that coconut
Having grown up in different countries, Christian and I sometimes have no common childhood references (boo sad!). For example: Sesame Street means nothing to me*. It was on telly in France for a couple of years (translated to ’1, rue Sésame’) but no more by the time I was born. So when Christian says ‘I want-a to suck-a your blood!’ when he sees someone wearing a polo shirt with their collar up, I giggle (because I’m highly excitable and he uses a funny voice) but I also go ‘Whaaa?’.
And he is not familiar with the French institution that is ‘Cocoshaker’. Cocoshaker was on channel 2 at 8:30, and was part of my bedtime ritual when I was about 3 or 4. It is basically a tropical version of ‘spy vs. spy’: two creatures (a blue one and a pink one) vie for supremacy, which is achieved by climbing a palm tree and sitting atop holding position for as long as possible. The one still on the ground does everything in its power to unsit the one in the tree. And they don’t speak in intelligible words, but in a high pitched jibberish that makes me laugh so hard I’m in danger of snorting (if that sounds funny, you have seen nothing until you have heard my sister do an impression of it).
So while I try to show youtube videos of Cocoshaker to Christian, I am brushing up on my Sesame Street characters. And let me say, it is very surreal to have your husband explain to you who’s who in the cast of a colourful puppet show…
*But we had Fraggle Rock and the Muppets! Go figure…
I make more sense than you
There have been many things to adapt to for me since moving from France to Australia, and this is the beginning of an attempt to explain.
Sometimes, I win. And by I, I mean French and by winning, I mean scoring points (in my head) over the English language (which is supposed to be soooo much more to the point and say everything with soooo much less flourish – have you detected the sarcasm yet?).
But today, look what I’ve got: en français, we say ‘poisson rouge’ while you, English language, choose to say ‘goldfish’. Well they ain’t gold! They have a goldish sheen, yes, but they’re clearly coloured red (or off-red, like a reddish orange). So who’s being poetic and all flourish now, describing something in not such a straight to the point manner, huh?
So I win. Cue my little victory dance (in my head).
Lamb chops
When I’ve had little sleep and an inverse amount of coffee, it does something to my head. Something delightful: it makes me remember hilarious things.
So today, I attempted to negotiate fits of laughter while trying to drive my car, and if I could help it still look dignified. The culprit is a memory taking me back 18 years ago (crikey!).
My family and I lived in Australia for about a year when I was 12. Being in a smallish Queensland town, we were the only French people there and the French teacher at our local high school thought she would take advantage of that. How? By asking my mother, brother and I to read out French words from children’s memory games into a tape recorder (to have good accurate pronunciation for various words on file, she explained).
One afternoon, we sat down and for a couple of hours we read words out in turn. Except, my mother wasn’t happy with the quality of the audio, or the quality of our performance. ’Louder children, we can’t hear anything you say when we play it back!’. So my brother and I tried to oblige, but Maman was still not happy. ’Here’ she said, ‘do it like this: LAAAAAMMMMBBBBBB CHHHOOOOPPPSSSSSS!!!!!’*. Lamb chops: forever in my mind associated with my mother, screaming the words ridiculously loud. And 18 years later, it still makes me laugh.
*If you are curious about what ‘lamb chops’ is in French, it is ‘côtelettes’.
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