Seaside

The benefits of living by the Mediterranean: Friday afternoons on the beach in balmy weather.

Addictions

Some people are alcoholics, or can't kick the smoking habit. I've developed a new crutch: Bugnes.
Here is a photo of bugnes:
They may look innocent, but they're not. Today is Thursday and since Saturday I have entered 4 different bakeries on 4 different days to buy myself 100 grams of bugnes, and then I eat the whole bag, all by myself. It is sheer bliss. These donut-like delights are covered either in granulated sugar or confectionary sugar. Each bakery makes them differently. I'm slowly making my way thru the "quartier" trying them all. All my life I have been a SUCKER for donuts. I love donuts, and cruellers from a bakery in VT especially. These bugnes bear an alarming resemblance to a Koffee Kup Kruller. I think they are a lenten-time specialty. Thomas thinks they are around all year but I don't think so. I suppose for the sake of my health I should hope I'm right and not Thomas, who is shocked at my sudden inability to stop myself. But, what with breastfeeding's apparent effect on my ever-dropping scale display, I am cutting myself some slack for the first time in a long while and frankly am borderline fanatic. If you have one, you eat the whole bag. That's the way it goes.
Here are photos of Estelle after nursing and you can see the effect of the bugnes on my milk production - look at the glee!

Updates

The update on Estelle is no teeth, lots of drool, lots of trying to yank herself around on the arches of her play gym (see photo), lots of compliments on her OshKosh outfit, courtesy of my friend Jane.
The update on the Thong is: a few days ago I opened my mailbox and there were 7 clothespins, of 2 different styles and 4 different colors, all mine, apparently left for me by French Grammie as they too have apparently fallen onto her terrace. None of the other people in my apartment "column" seem to have the same clothespins as me, as must have been observed by French Grammie, via what I can only imagine must be her personal binoculars, or she is bionic French Grammie.
The unidentified thongs have been washed and are in a bag until I get the courage to deliver them to the teenager girl ("Les Ados") 2 floors below me. My own's whereabouts remains a mystery.

Carnival!

Estelle, getting ready to go to Carnival in her Ben & Jerry's shirt.
At Carnival, in the sun, with Estelle's buddy Maxence and her mom Melanie.

Raining Cats and Thongs: Part Deux

Lord, why me?

So, devoted readers may recall a post in late October regarding a series of silly events, involving the elderly (I assume) woman above me's underwear landing on my clothesline, and then my own favorite black thong falling into the abyss never to be seen again due to my not being courageous enough to be able to go reclaim it from the people whose terrace it fell on.

And now, readers, the Sequel: Yesterday, on my way to the market, I ran into a woman whom I know to live in our bldg. She is one of many "old ladies" who live in the bldg, most of whom are widows, and have been here a long long time. Bear in mind the bldg was built in 1868 and was originally a seminary. I have never known her name nor what floor she lives on. Thomas and I know very few of their names nor exactly which apt/floor they live on. It's a big bldg. Just between he and I we have nicknames for them so we know who we are talking about. There is, for instance, the "95-Year-Old", no hidden agenda why we call her that. She told me once she is 95. There's "French Grammie", because one of them has spooky resemblances to my grandmother who passed away 18 years ago. Then the one we hate, "Barracuda". Her name is Berretta but she is so evil we changed it. Barracuda's Sister - one of them is her sister, we don't really know which one. "Underwear", who lives above me but I don't really know which one it is, so she has a name but no face to go with it. The list goes on and on.

So yesterday there is French Grammie on the street smiling at me with her crinkly hazel eye and her hairnet, and she stops and admires Estelle, like all the building's old ladies do (except Barracuda, who chastises me for clanging about in the elevator with the stroller - she pretends Estelle doesn't exist). French Grammie is so nice, she remembers Estelle's name and always reminds me that it means "star". We chat about the weather and then out of the blue she says "By the way, I want to ask you, are you missing a black thong?"

Allow me to say I was unprepared for this. It was an alarmingly uncomfortable situation on many levels, not the least of which was the fact it was like my grandmother was asking me (in front of my daughter) if I had misplaced my thong. I'm quite sure my grandmother was in heaven before thongs were invented. But French Grammie was just as relaxed and casual as can be, as if she had found my glasses case. Needless to say I know now which apt French Grammie lives in - it's the one 3 floors down that has a backside terrace which my thong landed on.

I flounder, I pretend to not understand - just stalling until I decide how to respond. She is just as friendly and patient as can be, repeating several times where she lives in relation to me (how does she know where I live?). Finally I say "yes, it is possible i suppose." I don't say "in fact yes, it is Post number 78 on my blog, dated October 26". She says "You've got the English last name on the mailboxes, right? I'll just leave them in there for you." Them? Did she say it or them? The difference in French is quite slight, and when you are standing on the street in shock, having just been sort of arrested by your French grandmother, your foreign language listening skills are none too sharp.

We part ways. I turn the corner with the stroller and cringe and wince over and over behind my sunglasses. I bite my lower lip. Estelle looks up at me with a suspicious air.

It was a busy day, and I had a lesson at lunchtime. I forgot all about the mail. Thomas comes home and walks in with the mail and TWO black thongs, just loose, not in a bag or anything. He holds them up "uh, mon amour, il y a quelquechose que tu veux me dire, là? eh?". This, for a husband, is a hilarious situation. Oh for the love of pete, the thong thing! I had totally blocked it out.

Now wait for it, readers, because NEITHER OF THESE THONGS is my black thong. NOW I truly do not know what to do. Where is my thong? Whose thongs are these? The mystery gets deeper. To be continued, (once I figure out what to do).

"Get Out of My Bathtub!"

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in Vermont in the 70's, the above line was what one shouted on a swingset if anybody on another swing randomly began to swing in tandem with you. The ultimate social rebuff from one 7 year old to another.
Somehow this leads to the feeling of a 17 year-old-girl who walks into Prom Night, theme "Against All Odds", only to see some other random girl, or perhaps your bitter rival, wearing the same dress as you which you bought thinking it was so original and brought out the blue in your eyes.
Or, when you are 7 months old, and you go to your monthly Moms-Who-Were-Pregnant-Together-During-the-Nice-Heat-Wave-and-Still-Lived-to-tell-the-Tale group, there, already encroached in a prime spot on the blanket dance floor, is some other 7 month old wearing YOUR dress.
The outrage. Your neurotic American mother frets quietly to herself, but how can it be, she thinks? Her very trendy gay friends who live near Cannes bought this outfit for you when you were born, how can it be that this other baby Pauline, who clearly you could take down if you had to, is wearing YOUR dress?
All the other mothers think it is cute, but, you know that eyebrow twitch on your own borderline-OCD-Mom's face - she regrets the choice. So many outfits in your closet, and she picks THIS one.
You are relieved to see your frenzied Mom release a smug smile when the Italian boy's mom notes that YOUR tights have "Petite Amour" written on your butt, and Pauline's butt is just, well, whatever.
Get out of my bathtub, Pauline.

Che bella goirnata!

Despite Estelle's having pink eye AGAIN, we carry on. Last night I started on my new year's resolution - to learn Italian. So far, so good. A background in Latin makes things surprisingly easier in Italian.
But let's get to the real story of the day: This guy:
Faithful readers may remember a post from way back, June I believe, when our "chaudiere" a.k.a. The Beast, went on the fritz. Well, here we are, a year after we officially took possession of this apt and thus time for the annual inspection of The beast. The appt was for 8:30 this morning. At 8:02 the buzzer rang. It was Mr. Beast-Inspector. Times like that are when I'm grateful we are 5 floors up, thus enabling me 2 minutes to get out of my pajamas and put on clothes before he gets to the door.
In he walks, kind of like Gene Kelley, broad shouldered, thin waisted, jeans pressed. He immediately begins to sing softly as he starts to dismantle The Beast. I smile. He sings a little bit louder and smiles and looks directly at me and Estelle occasionally whilst doing his work. This man, let me tell you, could sing. It was like Mario Lanza/Nat King Cole/Louis Prima was in my apartment. He sang so beautifully, all these old French love songs, some in Italian. He was so pleased to have an audience. Estelle, thru her pink-eye haze of the early morning, was enraptured. All his songs were either about walking around in Paris in love, or in Venice in love, or they all focused on the name of some girl. I just hugged my tea mug and enjoyed every second, watching him deftly whip The Beast into shape, hopping back and forth to his tool kit, occasionnally pausing to wave a wrench softly in the air as he hit a high note.
I said i hope their were people in his life who appreciated his talent - he said he was "alone on the Riviera" as his family was in Paris, but yes of course he had his "fans". When I said "why are you here if your family is all in Paris?" He answered with a song about the sun, the beach, and the blue of the sea. When it was all finished, I asked him the name of one of the songs he had sung, a long one, which I had loved. I said "you know, the one where you kept saying 'signore"?" He could not figure out which song I meant. He knows so many songs, has such a repetoire, that he couldn't even remember what he had just sung. He left and we shook hands. I shut the door behind him. I turned to Estelle and began my own warbled version of some song i made up. 5 seconds later my doorbell rang. It was him, Roné. "Was it this one?" he asked, and thus on my doorstep burst out into a song which was lovely, but not the one i wanted to know about. I smiled "nope". He shook his head "That's gonna bug me all morning." and off he went.
The old widow who lives across the elevator from us popped her head out the door "My goodness, who was that singing, was that your husband? My goodness. That makes me think of....." and I kid you not, her voice just trailed off and she stood in her houserobe, her hand on her heart. I said "no, it was the man who came to check our heater-thing." She sighed and closed her door.
It reminded me that he had said "When I retire, I am going to become a singer in nursing homes. I think I can bring joy into people's lives. Music can change your whole day."
Damn straight.

Joyeuse Anniversaire Papie

Doesn't look 61, does he? He even got a pancake with "61" on it. I almost made him 16 before I figured out what sense to make the dang numbers before flipping it over. Happy Birthday!

Yaourt!!!!!

The pediatrician, after giving E her 7-month inspection, proclaimed her ready for what all the French live for: Yogurt.
Here she is, after greedily ingesting "Ma Premier Danone" (this is literally the name of the Baby Dannon yogurts in France, all the rage for what your baby should have as their introduction to the blessed French "dessert"). I tasted it and it tastes like fake apricot chemicals. So much for that. I'll be brewing up something on my own I can see. Papa Thomas will be thrilled to eat the other 11 pots of Ma Premier Danone sitting in the fridge.

Amour, Amour

Happy Valentine's Day, from Estelle, and a few of her friends, including those retro throwbacks, Dressy Bessy, Dapper Dan, and the sad little doll for the Island of Misfit Toys.

Ah, Nice

2 unrelated photos, pretty much sum up my existence at the moment--The port of Nice, where we live:
..and Estelle

Sleeper Sofa

Check out the new L-shape thing that got hauled up 5 flights of stairs by two swarthy Niçois men. Complete with a pull-out bed, for all you hankering to come visit. And for other faithful readers, please note it is Estelle, and not I, wearing legwarmers nowadays!

Mommie Dearest

Who needs a pacifier when your own mother cuts your thumb open while clipping your nails at 8:45 a.m. and then spends the rest of the day trying to keep you from bleeding all over everything you touch, thereby swaddling your thumb in endless Bandaids, thus creating the optimal built-in pacifier? Only one of the two people involved in this story was crying throughout, and it wasn't the one bleeding. Oh the Guilt!!!!!

Back to Reality

So, I started back at the gym this week. Saturday and tonight. My usual class, "Body Attack".
The photos pretty much sum things up.

Rubber Duckie, UR the One!

This shower gift from last winter in Vermont, which has sat on the shelf in the bathroom, is having its moment in the spotlight over the past few weeks. This duck has become the love of my daughter's life, she becomes almost uncontrollable in the bathtub when it is presented to her. It's all about the chew factor.
For 2 weeks I've been singing the first verse to the song as it was all I could remember. I finally went on line and got all the lyrics. What a great tune! Estelle seemed almost relieved tonight to hear the rest of the song.

"Come Again?"

This expression is what I was internally screaming to myself last Wednesday sitting in a notary's office on the Port of Nice.

Allow me to explain.

I needed a letter notarized for one of my many "business endeavors" in the States. Funnily enough, I went to a notary. And here's where things get a little "Slumber Party".

I walk in. A receptionist greets me. I tell her I have a letter I need notarized (I said "notarizé", since the French word for notary is "notaire", I figured I was ok). I got the blank stare and the up-ended eyebrows. I tried again.
"um, you know, like stamped? you know, the notary stamps it, to make it legal? Certified?" I start throwing out any and all verbs I can come up with. More tense eyebrows. Then she looks at Estelle, like the baby's gonna know the word.
She says "let me go and ask someone."

Boding unwell for me, I think. She disappears. I stand in the reception area, Estelle strapped to my chest in the carrying scarf, staring at an enormous wall mural painted behind the reception desk, all of the Port of Nice, very colorful and detailed and interesting. She comes back. "Please, you can wait in the waiting room over there." I say "Actually I'm really enjoying looking at your mural." She leaves, but then turns and walks back thru to another doorway. She ducks into a hallway. She comes back and hands me a greeting card with the wall mural printed on it. I am impressed. Boding well for me, I think. She smiles. She leaves again.

2 minutes later she returns with another woman. "Please follow me." I step into another office. She's a 30-some-odd woman. "Now, what exactly do you need?" I repeat exactly what it is I need, letter by letter. "Humm......" I say, finding myself funny "Um, this IS a notary office, right? You like, you know, NOTARIZE things here?" The girl is almost upended by this question and says "okay, so all you need the notary to do is stamp you letter and look at your passport to certify it is you?" Now we are getting somewhere, I think. So I have to make an appointment to see the notary. For the next day. I ask "What will the charge be?" She says "um, I don't know, but not much. Maybe he will do it for free." "Great" I say.

Back I come the next day, armed with all my documentation, and Estelle in my scarf. I am shown the waiting room. Two different women come in and seperately ask me EXACTLY what it is that I want. I tell them I have a letter which is going to America and I need it certified that I wrote it, and that I am me. Puzzled, they leave. They come back. They start photocopying everything I have. Twice. They scrutinize dates. They ask to read the letter. I hand it over. They leave. They stop midstride. They come back. "But this letter is in English." "Yes." We all have a moment in the waiting room, broken only by the sound of Estelle slurping on her fingers. Slurp. Slurp. Estelle looks at the women, then at me. Slurp.

They leave. 2 minutes later, a man walks by. Everyone is scared of him, I can tell. He is very authoritative, and he walks like an American - no time to waste. One woman say "Master, she's right in the waiting room." The other woman nervously trails him, tripping on her too tall boots. "Master, here are the copies of her documents." To what do my wondering ears should appear, but a man with women calling him master? It's 9:45 am, and I'm having one of those surreal moments in France, with no one to share it with.

He says "Madam, if you'll come this way." And off we go, into his office which resembles a vault, covered with massive canvases of modern art, huge high ceilings, leather chairs litterred about. I'm thinking about the woman at my old office in DC who used to pull her notary stamp out of her bottom draw where she kept her coffee filters. Something is awry.

I am asked to explain, once again, what it is that I need, and why. I do. He looks over the passport, then presses a stamp across my letter, and then rolls a massive blotter right out of some Masterpiece Theater episode over the ink. I thank him. I have been in the office 2 minutes. He curls him fingers from each hand in an interlock over his desk. "You've been told of our fee structure?" I say "Well, yes, as a matter of fact I asked yesterday and your clerk told me she thought maybe it was free." A shadow crossed his face, and without a flinch he said "Madam, that is not the case. This is a legal service, thus you are to be charged the minimum fee for any basic legal service, which is 60 euros."

This is where my bi-lingual brain has to count outloud in my head, like I'm in some acid-trip version of The Electric Company. I can see the figures floating around in the air in front of my face. Estelle gurgles. Did he just say 60 Euros? Like, Come Again? "Oh." I say. What can I do? The deed is done, I need the document.

60 euros is like, well, about 75 dollars. Which explains why he has so much modern art, and women running about calling his Master. Apparently, life is good if you are a French notary. No coffee filters in your drawer, no sir. At least I got a free greeting card out of it. Dang.

Daddy's Girl

Thomas wants a disclaimer on this photo that his hockey teeth aren't as bad as this photo makes them look.

Here's One!

There's been a lot of talk about how I don't post any bad photos of Estelle. I found one where she looks unhappy, it's the best I can do.

6 MONTHS

This is her asleep.This is after she woke up. Here she is, on her half birthday, in all her glory.To acknowledge both us of surviving the adventure for this long, we will celebrate by serving her meat tomorrow, per Doctor's orders. Sorry to the veggies reading this.

Soup's On

Okay, every once in a while I feel compelled to post about what I originally started this blog for - ranting about the French. Or rather, presenting and analyzing the mysteries of cultural differences. So here goes with 2 totally unrelated things.
First, We have started having a minor roach issue, despite my Romanian cleaning girl and my obsession with sanitation due to the bébé. A man came to spray. He was so in love with his job as a roach-sprayer, I could barely get him to shut up and not holler at me over his shoulder about all kinds of intimate details about roaches that, frankly, no one needs to know. I said "I'm sorry, but my baby is asleep, do you think we could discuss this a bit more quietly?" He said "sure. And don't worry about they neighbors hearing you and finding out you have roaches - they do to! They called us to spray a few weeks ago. That's why you've got them now!" He chuckled away and was quite jolly while telling me this and clearly thought it quite funny.
And story Number Two, certainly of a less frivolous nature: Tonight on the port of Nice in front of a massive church which you see and hear from my apt, there is a big protest going on. Now stick with me here while I explain. Every Weds night, a charity group sets up shop in front of this old church and hands out soup to the homeless - a soup wagon, so to speak. It is pork soup. Now a national judge has banned this group from handing out the soup, because it is pork-based and thus discriminatory against Jews and Muslims, who cannot eat pork. So naturally there are those on one side screaming "For god's sake, repeal the ban and let the charity give the hungry people the damn soup!" And then there is the charity group itself, mournfully regretting that they cannot give out their soup (or so they act). Then there are the charity-organization haters, screaming at the charity things like "You bunch of lousy racists! You are all going to hell, you and your damn pork soup!". And finally the homeless people, who, seemingly, just want the soup to accompany their several bottles. What the average passerby wouldn't know is that the judge who made the ruling did so because this "charity" organisation is in fact a nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen-type right-winged group called "The Solidarity of the French", and they purposefully serve pork soup so as not to feed the "non-French". They try to get away with not outwardly admitting it but that's the deal. On their website, it even says that they will not give dessert and other accompagnying food products to anyone who doesn't eat the soup--sort of like saying clean your plate or you don't get the cupcake. This is to prevent anyone who wants the rest of the handout but can't eat the soup (i.e. the Jews and Muslims) from getting anything at all. Then they are the people screaming "Where are the damn non-pork soup-wagons? Why is it always the Christians who have to feed everybody? Why are the Muslims running their own 'hallal" soup wagons and the Jews a kosher one?"

I re-state that these are unrelated stories - there are no roaches in the soup, one would hope.

Posing

Some friends who know me well accuse me of posing for a camera. I'm slightly alarmed to say that, while not yet 6 months old, Estelle seems to have a bit of a chip off the old block.
Today when I took out the camera she immediately stretched her arms and started smiling. Maybe she thinks my Nikon is another family member?

"I think, hmm, Charles Hamilton may get it!"

If you get that reference, you know where I'm going with these photos.....
Estelle, surrounded by little boys, vying for her affection - or at least her hand to kiss/fingers to chew on....


This was yesterday's "Galette de Roi" party - eating pastry cakes filled with Frangipan - a paste made with almonds. It's the "king cake" of the New Orleans mardi gras for those who know it. Cut it open, and whoever gets the bean, or little statuette, gets to wear the crown. The period of "galette de roi" lasts from Epiphany to Mardi Gras - in other words, lots of calories. But these babies (there were 8) were none the wiser whilst checking each other out. Estelle was much more interested in someone else's rattle.

Sho-Lo's & Tennesse Top Hat

These are Estelle's new favorite things - the magnets on my fridge of men with mullets. In this photo, she's talking to her friend, Squirrel Pelt.

Under the gums!

If you look closely, I'm sure you can see the teeth that simply must be lurking under the surface. Hence the constant drooling and off and on fussiness!

Dig In

Back in sunny Nice after 9 days without a speck of sunshine in the north. I spent my first Holidays with Thomas' family in the Loire and my first not in Vermont. There are too many differences to mention between how home and my adoptive country celebrate Christmas, but why bother with details, let's just cut to the chase -- look at the desserts.
Temptation Number One: The Buche de Noel
Had I been allowed to ram the whole thing down my throat, I probably would have, sinfully divine!

Temptation Number Two: No idea what it's called, but there was a LOT goin' on in there, and it was all good stuff.

The difference is that everything is in moderation, with reasonable helpings, and sprinkled with champagne, foie gras, etc. Hence no fear to get on the scale, unlike the previous 35 Christmases of my life......