Miss America

Today while Estelle was at piano, Léna and I finally got into a electronics store for me to handle some cameras that I am eyeing on the internet. I didn't buy one, because the prices in France are so ridiculous compared to those in America for the same product that I can't bring myself to buy one here. Yet.
So here's a film from 10 days ago or so. I'm just sitting here breathing thru my machine so thought I'd put this up.

And for anyone who cares, my lung update: have been not well for a week, finally got in with an Ear/Nose/Throat specialist who stuck a camera up my nose (so freakish) and declared inflammations etc but no infection.
Then I met my new favorite guy, Dr. Bensa - my new pulmonologist who is easier to access than the nice lady lung doctor at the hospital. He spent almost 45 minutes with me and even put me in this super cool glass box I keep seeing at all the pulmonologists that I've been wanting to get into since November.
You get in and they seal you in, with this exciting and mildly terrifying sucking sound when the door shuts. Anyways, they did a bunch of tests while I was in the box, while talking to me thru a microphone that was piped into the box. It was surreal. So Brave New World meets 1984 and the Miss America contest & the soundproof booth for the final question. I kept joking with the Doctor, when he told me to "breathe like a dog" (first of all, what?) I responded with "Well, Doctor, my idea of how to bring about world peace would be to start with the children. Right after I finish my baton lessons" This needed explanation and interpretation, but once he got my joke he thought it was great and called in the other doctor for a repeat. It was like my own kind of Vaudeville, behind glass. The Freak show at the Champlain Valley Fair.
This is my kind of audience, I thought. I made the same joke to Dr. Lung-who-tried-to-kill-me-with-too-strong-Horse-shots back in November when the pleurisy was crippling me and it was like Rodney Dangerfield: "hello, is this thing ON?"
Anyhoo, verdict: Post-Infectious Persistent Asthma - PIPA. That's me, Pipa Middleton.
Now I have a machine, again, with tubes and masks and medicine and a portable inhalor too. They think it'll take a good month to calm things down. I'm not teaching for the rest of the week.
Meanwhile, "are you a citizen of state, country, or world"? (this was the final question for last year's Miss America)....