Technically, we’re both right
At least, that’s how I tried to paint the little exchange we had in the car the other night…
Me: Oh, look at the little buggers playing football in the cold!*
Christian: Soccer.
Me: Smart ass.
Christian: says nothing – grins.
Before taking sides, I urge you to consider how much more logical it is to call the game ‘football’: to paraphrase Eddie Izzard (I love Eddie Izzard), the ball does connect with your foot. One could even say it is the point of the game. Think about it.
*It was after dark, they were wearing shorts and t-shirts, and we’re in winter here.
(Image from here).
What technology is for: a picture of my nephew’s bum
My 4 year old nephew can work a remote, a video game console, and the built-in camera on my sister’s laptop. Which he put to good use by taking a picture of his high-up-in-the-air bottom (and another of himself pulling an amazing face) – and requested immediately to have both emailed to me. So I am reading through an email from my sister, unsuspecting, until – bam! – an explanation that he wanted to send me these, and well, there’s a picture of his bum and one of him sticking his tongue out at me.
I nearly spat my apple juice out, I was laughing so hard.
But then I thought: not so fast.
So I turned on my built-in camera on my laptop (which I know how to work too), and took a little picture.
And I emailed it to my sister with the warning ‘if he keeps sending faces, the next one is of me with my finger up my nose.’
I think that scared him straight (much to my disappointment).
PS: as my sister was typing the fateful email with picture of bum included nephew was jumping up and down with excitement. If that’s not adorable I don’t know what is.
PPS: my sister hasn’t told him his bum is now on the internet, because she declared he would not be able to contain himself.
It must be love
This photo makes me melt: she is my little furry sidekick. We’re together all the time, and when we’re not, she runs to the door and does little pirouettes (which I call ‘tourniquets‘) when I come home. We nap together and she always finds the best place to curl up into (the small of my back, between my feet, along my arm with little head on my shoulder).
She brings me toys and leaves them in a heap at my feet when she wants to play. She will sit opposite me for half an hour straight when she wants food (I’ve never seen such insistence in an animal!).
In other words, I am completely and un-objectively smitten with my dog. And she knows that.
PS: Did I mention her little black nose?
The cat meteorologist: a well accepted French fact
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.
I feel misunderstood and isolated sometimes – and it’s not because I’ve used the wrong word. It’s actually more vexing than that: I say something grammatically correct and intelligible, and I’m laughed at (rude!). Without any of my countrymen to back me up and confirm what I’m saying, it can sting.
Case in point: we were at the vet a few years back with our cat Astin and I joked about the weather – ‘It’s raining’ I said ‘because I caught him washing behind his ears yesterday.’ Both the vet and Christian looked at me with clear doubt about my sanity.
Trying to rehabilitate myself and explain further, I tried again: ‘Haven’t you ever heard this before? If you see a cat licking his paw and then going behind his ear, it means it’ll rain the day after.’ Same blank stares. Then the vet said ‘No, never heard this before. Sounds crazy!’. So I kept going (you have to hand it to me for not letting it go): ‘It’s a well accepted thing in my country! It’s even used as a plot device in a beloved children’s book*!’. Vet: ‘So back to Astin?’.
All right you close-minded veterinarian, have it your way. Your loss to miss out on the suspense of watching a grooming cat get closer and closer to his ear, pleading in your head he doesn’t go all the way behind, and having the opportunity to scream ‘Noooooo’ if he does.
No one better call me crazy in the comments.
*The book is ‘Les Contes du Chat Perché‘ by Marcel Aymé.
(Image is from here, the cat is called Spencer).
PS: nothing to do with feline forecasting, but an amusing fact nonetheless: when cats wash their business and stick their paw straight up in the air, in French it’s called ‘Playing the cello’ (‘Jouer du violoncelle‘). Cracks me up every time I think about it.
The end of the May cluster
My brother turned 34 on Saturday and with that comes the end of the second of my family’s birthdays and celebrations cluster, at the end of May*.
So we have my grandfather’s official (24th) and fake (26th) birthdays, my sister’s name day (25th), and my brother’s birthday (29th) all in the space of 5 little days. Phew.
If you are wondering about the deception behind my grandfather’s birth – it’s simple: he was born on the 24th, but his birth was only registered officially at the town hall on the 28th – since by law in France you have 2 days only, his birthday was conveniently reshuffled to the 26th. And his names were reshuffled too: his godfather on the way to register his birth decided to switch his middle name with his first name because he liked it better like that (that’s grounds for murder! How mad would you be?)
My sister, well, has the best possible name suited to her personality (it’s Sophie – and she is also amazing).
And finally my brother. Who was called Nicolas for the first 3 days of his life before my parents decided on Bruno instead. Who has a sweet tooth like crazy. Who has an obsession with little fingers and loves (LOVES) to pinch them. It’s a wonder mine are not flat given the years of pinching they had to endure. My brother is also a triathlete – and I get puffed after 1 flight of stairs (are we really from the same gene pool?). I love my brother (and he still pinches my little fingers when he sees me). He may even be doing it in this picture, who knows (it’s from 1981 or 82 – my best guess).
As with the November birthday cluster, I’m miffed I missed it all. I love them all so much (even those who pinch my little fingers… You know who you are).
*You can read about the first one here.
Stuck in time: the ‘I vomit, you vomit’ car trip
I am getting all the rare side effects of a medication I’m taking at the moment – and that includes violent (and I mean violent) motion sickness at the drop of a hat. And by drop of a hat, I mean turning my head – or looking up, or looking down – or turning too quickly in bed – or driving my car.
I was trying to remember if I’d ever felt this motion-sick before, and one memory imposed itself: a fateful car trip back from summer holidays in Italy when I was 6 or 7.
I grew up a serial vomiter in the back of our Peugeot 504. The little I remember about car trips is either, well, vomiting – or being passed out from strong anti nausea tablets distributed by our Maman.
That particular trip might as well have been called the perfect storm. There was a fire just off the freeway which caused huge delays – and my father to have to stop really suddenly. I woke up, vomited (and missed the bag). Which started a chain reaction and caused my siblings to follow suit. Nasty.
I can’t find any other way to describe how I’m feeling at the moment. As bad as during that ‘Return from holidays vomit fest’ – except I don’t have the pleasure of my sister’s and brother’s company (feeling sick in concert can be strangely comforting).
It also may or may not have been during the same trip that there was a small explosion under the hood of the 504 and a poof of smoke came out of the steering wheel – along with a strange mushroom smell (as described by my sister). I don’t remember, I was passed out. But according to her the look on my father’s face was priceless.
As for me, I can’t think of that car without feeling very very queasy – on current medication or off it.
(Image is from here – I ingested spectacular amounts of this as a child, apparently to no effect during that trip)
Memories from childhood: eat your chocolate
You might call it snacking between meals. We call it ‘le goûter’ or ‘le 4 heures’ as it takes place at 4PM.
Every French child looks forward to 4PM as a treasured ritual (a daily mini Christmas if you will). That’s because typically you’re not handed an apple. Think cake, biscuits or chocolate and bread instead – ‘du pain et du chocolat’ (not to be confused with ‘pain au chocolat’ which you buy from a boulangerie – and while still a legitimate goûter, not an everyday thing).
When I was little I definitely didn’t have anything against chocolate, but I usually ate my bread first. Which meant I often didn’t have room for the chocolate after that. A lady from a day care centre I stayed at actually told my mum she’d never seen this before – or had to utter the words ‘Now eat your chocolate’. Ha!
I still have goûter everyday. And if 4PM comes around and I’m not hungry, I’m genuinely disappointed. And if by 3:30 my stomach is rumbling, I do a little victory dance in my head and start thinking about what I’ll be having.
Even if it’s not that exciting some days (yes, I do eat apples for goûter now) it still feels like a treat and it stirs some very strong memories.
In the gorgeous ‘Le goûter‘ blog (written in French), a lot of other people feel this way and share. Read about their goûters, you will see what I mean.
Le goûter, it’s not snacking between meals – it’s a way of life.
(Image from ‘Le goûter de Damien‘)
The Michelin baker: a story of family resemblance
My mother doesn’t like to cook; this means as long as she sticks to a recipe it’s fine, but the second she tries to improvise bad things happen.
As far as baking is concerned, no one can touch her trusty gâteau au yaourt, but any forays into freehand baking tend to be disastrous. So my mother earned a bit of a reputation: ‘the Michelin baker’. Not intended to reference the number of stars (or absence thereof), but the resemblance of her pastries and cakes to the texture and weight of actual rubber tyres. Or as my sister would say: ‘throw one of her cakes against a window and it will break the glass’.
I on the other hand like to cook, and while I have produced my fair share of shapeless unidentifiable meals (What? It’s polenta and lentils!) overall my success rate tends to be higher than Maman’s. Except lately… On Friday I tried to bake some bread (and substituted/skipped some ingredients I didn’t have, thinking it would be totally fine…) – and I instead produced a Michelin loaf. Dense and rubbery, squeaky when you try to chew, with unmistakable glass-breaking potential. I have been eating little bits of it since then (taking a good 10 mn to work through a single bite), probably out of guilt to have teased her all these years.
Add to this my recently developed habit of falling asleep in front of a film, waking up to see the credits rolling and immediately asking ‘What did I miss? What happened?’ (and failing to see why it might be irritating) – I have to come to the following conclusion. I am becoming more and more like my mother. Next thing I know I’ll probably start dancing doing her stretching pussycat move. Help me…
(Image from here)
PS: I love my mother to bits, Michelin cakes, pussycat moves and all.
This is what is going on in France right now
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.
People are ticked off May 1st fell on a Saturday: it’s Labour day and it’s a public holiday. So nuts when it falls on a weekend.
Florists everywhere are selling muguet left right and centre. And because every year of my childhood I went with my father to buy some, on every first of May I smell phantom muguet all day.
And today I learnt that muguet is one of the most poisonous plants you can find. Wow: and to think every May 1st I fell asleep with a little twig of it on my bedside table (and profusely stuck my face in it throughout the day). Lucky I never thought to taste one of those perfect little bells.
(Image is from here).
My sister is amazing
On this fateful day eleven years ago, our grandmother died. It had been predictable enough although I don’t think either her nor us wanted to admit it.
The day was as to be expected filled with overwhelming grief, fountains of tears, paperwork, and the uncomfortable unspeakable realisation that we would need to adapt and live without her from that day forward.
My sister and I spent most of the day within a metre of each other. I remember very clearly walking down the street to take a bus with her. Buying cigarettes. Sitting on my grandparents’ miniature art nouveau-ish balcony almost all afternoon. Doing the hard stuff together. Crying.
All these years later it still breaks my heart to think about it. But I have also started to remember this day as a hard day made that much easier, that much warmer, that much more bearable because my sister was very close by. Not just a day when we lost someone we adored, but a day when I hung on tight to her. And she hung tight right back.
I’ve even had a smile on my face today thinking about it. That’s one of the reasons she’s amazing. Lucky lucky me.
leave a comment