Sack Lunch Blues and Taxes

Yesterday was French Mother's Day.  Lucien gave me a card and a book he made at school.  The book included some drawings of me.  I only suspected it before, but after seeing his drawings I know it to be fact -- I.  AM.  GORGEOUS.

The Loosh has a field trip coming up this week.  Saint Teacher sent the kids home with a list of things they need to bring for the big day.  It was no big deal, stuff like tissues and comfortable clothes and sensible shoes.  But then I saw an item that made me feel a little panicky -- He needs a picnic lunch.  In this land of refined palates and toddlers who eat foie gras, I have no idea how to pack a sack lunch that won't earn him a heckling.


The importance of good food is stressed heavily in school.  I believe I've already mentioned the school menu they send home, with accompanying dinner suggestions?  Why, just this week they wanted me to make stuff like escalope milanaise and petits farcis niçois and ficelle picarde for dinner.  I know I've lived here for awhile now but I don't even KNOW what any of that stuff IS.

*wringing hands, pacing, pacing....*

So.. this is what it's come down to.  This is who I've become.  I'm all a flutter about how to pack Lucien a lunch.  Back in the U.S., I wouldn't think twice.  Peanut Butter and Jelly.  Raisins. Carrot sticks. (not because he'll eat them but because it makes me look like a mother who thinks vegetables are important.)  If I pack that here, I might as well wrap him in an American flag and tell him to point and yell "SOCIALISTS!" at his classmates all day. 

I gotta get my mind off  "the lunch."  Onto something else.  

So here's what France says:  Look people, we're gonna take good care of you.  We're going to give everyone good healthcare.  We're going to give everyone access to a really good, free education.  We're going to pay you some money every month if you have kids. We're going to give you super cheap daycare. We're going to give you a ton of vacation days and many long weekends, most of them revolving around Jesus even though no one here goes to church anymore.

OK, so we're going to do that and a whole lot more.  Now GIVE US ALL YOUR MONEY.

Yep.  We just found out what we owe the Frenchies for taxes for 2009.  Here's a dramatization for your enjoyment:

Me:  "Hey, Al, our taxes arrived."
Al:   "All right!  Go ahead and open 'em.  I'll be able to tell by your face whether or not to pour us a couple drinks. *chuckle chuckle*
Me: *rip* *gasp*  *stagger around kitchen clutching heart*
Al:   glug glug glug glug

Taxes aren't taken out of paychecks.  For your first year here, they're due in one big chunk the following September.  Thankfully, we were advised when we first moved to France to put a chunk of the paycheck each month into a large cave and guard it with goblins.  I would advise anyone else moving to France to do the same.  Otherwise, you will need to sell most of your vital organs come tax time.  (Good thing you'll have excellent healthcare afterward to keep your pathetic organ-less body alive.) 

Speaking of government, CAF is the agency that pays you every month for having kids. We haven't received anything from them yet because... well, who knows why.  "Because it's France" was the best explanation we could come up with.  Alex and I finally went to CAF to try and sort it out. 

The lady clickety-clacketied on her keyboard for a minute and gave us our answer.  When they called the Prefecture of Police to verify Lucien's immigration status, the prefecture person could not find his name in the system.  The prefecture person then told CAF that Lucien was an illegal alien and that's just GREAT NEWS!

The lady peered at us suspiciously and asked if we were here illegally.  Alex and I groaned, stood up, balanced our carte de sejours and visas on our noses, barked like seals and sang the amount we're paying in taxes to the tune of the alphabet song.

Unsure how to prove any more definitively we are NOT illegal, we then stared at the lady with slight hostility.  She believed us but there is still more jumping through of hoops to accomplish before we see a cent of our moolah.  Since we're paying five gazillion dollars in taxes, you better believe we're going to fight for it.

We had another good weekend.  I spent some one-on-one time with the Loosh on the trampolines in the Tuileries.  He makes me so mad some days but others he nearly explodes my heart with love.  This was an exploding-heart kind of day.

My favorite part was when the Frenchie dad, seen stylishly trampoline-side in the background of the photo below, got knocked off balance by his son's jumping and slid down into the middle of the trampoline.  He got bounced around a little as he hollered at his son to stop jumping.  But his son wouldn't.  It was awesome.

To his credit, after a second of being embarrassed, Frenchie Dad realized it was funny and bounced around laughing his ass off.  Good for you, fun Frenchie dad.

Where are your papers, mes choux...
MJ

Streetgolf Hipsters and Chou on the Champs

I was alone with the kids again this past weekend because Alex went for a long weekend in Rome with his parents.  I am waiting (with my hair and nails done. I want to be camera ready) for my wife prize for agreeing to this trip right on the heels of my recent two weeks alone, but so far, nothing.

It's OK, though. It was a really, really good weekend to be in Paris.

First up, we saw a little old lady trip and fall on her face on Boulevard Saint Germain.  I ran to her and made a frantic mess of my words, asking if she was OK, if she needed me to call the paramedics, if she was able to stand up.

I helped her up and she said simply to me, "Madame, sorry to bother you, but could you help me locate my shoe?"  I got her shoe and helped her balance while she put it on.  Then she most graciously thanked me and walked off with a slight limp, torn pantyhose and pieces of landscaping bark stuck to her blouse.

Even though she was the picture of grace and dignity, I'm now scared of little old Parisian ladies because they're made of steel and possess superhuman qualities. I'm going to start asking them to carry my groceries for me because groceries are heavy.

I attempted to join a hipster subculture over the weekend.  I took the kids to a streetgolf event which was teeing off at Place de la Concorde at 12:30 on Saturday.  If you don't know anything about streetgolf, read stuff here or here.

My problem with traditional golf has always been the peacefulness.  When you subtract the peace and add the mayhem of a large city including traffic, pedestrians, and large buildings with windows, THAT'S a sport I can get behind.


The streetgolfers didn't look like normal golfers.

 

They wore unusual golfing footwear.

 

They practiced by shooting balls at passing tourists.

 

They sat around drinking a lot of beer.

 

This may not come as a surprise, but urban streetgolfing beer drinking hipsters are not the most punctual of people.  12:30 came and went.  1:30 came and went.  I got crabby with the streetgolfers, finally asking one when they were going to start. He said he didn't know and laid down on the pavement to smoke a cigarette and drink a beer.

Our snacks long depleted and Lucien's bored and hungry whining making an unwelcome appearance, we stayed just long enough to watch the first guy tee off.  He smacked the ball down the middle of the street.  I said, "that's real cool," packed up the kids and left before the ball even rolled to a stop.

I still think I've found my sport. I would like to recruit fellow punctual streetgolf enthusiasts to start a different league.  We'll definitely win because all the hipsters will be lying on the ground.  We'll have to step over them but that will just add an extra oomph to the golf.

Let's see.  What else.  We applied for Canadian passports for the kids ages ago because half their DNA is Canadian.

We had a heckuva time getting Coco's passport photo back then but we did it with the help of some Frenchies.  Then we waited and waited for the passports to arrive but they never did.  When we looked into it, the Canadian embassy told us our file had been lost and we needed to start all over again.  Et tu, Canada?

I took the kids to re-do their passport photos this weekend.  Coco knocked it out of the park on the first try.  Lucien, however, had some trouble.

The photo lady told him to stand against the wall.  He did and fixed a giant smile on his face.  She told him to stop smiling so he stopped smiling, knitted his brow, and did his angry face.  She told him, no, that didn't work either and he needed to do absolutely nothing with his face.  Lucien got very self conscious and overly aware of his face as he opened his eyes WIDE, held his chin up in the air, mouth wide open, looking around nervously and saying, "Is this OK, Mommy?  Like this?  Like this?"

No.  The lady told him to stop talking.  She told him to stand absolutely still and he did, for about half a second until he moved and she got a great picture of his shoulder.  She told him to stand "like a statue" and he raised his arms over his head.  She looked at me.  I shrugged and told her we spend a lot of time at the Louvre, and perhaps Lucien was confused about what statues did.  At least he hadn't tried to wrestle a giant snake.

We eventually got the picture.  Canada, you better pull through this time or I'm gonna kick your hockey loving butt.

This weekend was also the big Nature Capitale event, for which the Champs Elysees was turned into a giant field of trees, flowers, vegetable gardens and assorted farm animals.

I took the kids in Coco's heavy stroller with Lucien riding on the buggy board, a.k.a. our self-contained ramming apparatus.  One must have a ramming device when trying to get through the crowds at Nature Capitale because the whole world is there to enjoy the Champs Elysees the way nature intended it to be. (minus the ten dollar coffees at the myriad of overpriced cafes and restaurants.  Nature's pissed about that.)

 We were definitely not alone.  But I barreled through the crowds with my ramming stroller and we made it without a scratch.  It was very cool to see the Champs as a... well, champs again. I don't know if Lucien understood that we were standing in the middle of a usually terrifying and busy street, but he had fun anyway.  We pretended we were hunters hunting famous landmarks in the tall grasses.

We've spotted it!  Oh, what luck!  The elusive Arc de Triomphe!

Paris beats Rome hands down, mes choux,

MJ

Yves and Billy

I'd heard this is how it happens but I never thought it would happen to me.

You spend months and months (and months) banging your head against the wall trying to learn, trying to absorb, trying so very, very hard to understand.  Then one day, one marvelous, magical day, it's like a switch gets flipped on.  French is suddenly sitting comfortably in your brain and you're like, "Where the hell did you come from?" and then French is like, "What do you mean?  I've been here all along."  Confused pause.  Then you're like, "No you haven't...I'm pretty sure..." and then French is like, "Hush. Now go get me a coffee."

It's language epiphany and it's beautiful like a rainbow. 

It's been very sudden, but French and my brain are finally getting along.  Mme Kickmyass applauded me as I out of nowhere started speaking in complex sentences that were beyond me just a month ago. I went to get a haircut (sorry, Maxime, but I wanted to go somewhere other than my kitchen this time) and chatted with the hairdresser and it didn't feel hard.  I'm having conversations with my in-laws that don't involve charades or headaches. 

I know I'll hit another plateau at some point that will have me screaming hysterically and throwing my French books in the Seine.  But for now, I'm happy.  Progress has been made.  I'd like to buy you all a drink but I'm not sure how to do that.

Onto other joyful things: Saturday night was La Nuit des Musees.  All museums were free and open until midnight or later.  In this city of a million museums, there were a million options but Virginia Mom and I had our eyes on only one. We headed for the hottest show in town -- our friend Yves at Le Petit Palais.

Lines are looong for the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective even on days you have to pay full price.  For free day, we figured we would not be alone.  We were correct.

After waiting in line for an hour, here's what was behind us:

And here's what was still in front of us.  Entrance not yet visible. 

 Sonofabitch!

We waited in line for well over two hours but thankfully, time flies when you're chatting with Virginia Mom. We were slaphappy and couldn't feel our legs by the time we got in the door. 

For some reason, Virginia Mom and I were the only two in the whole place who went for the audioguides.  Did we look stupid, just the two of us walking around in headphones, nodding our heads in silent unison as we listened to commentary man?  Perhaps.  But I bet we learned more stuff, such as the jacket created as an homage to Van Gogh's Irises took over 700 hours to create.  I'll take useless trivia over looking cool any day.  

That's just beads and sequins, people. Beads and sequins. 

There were over three hundred stunning outfits, mostly haute couture, in fifteen rooms.  You could walk right up to the mannequins, see the intricacy of the construction of the clothes, and briefly weigh the overwhelming desire to touch them against the swift, rapid beatdown you knew you would receive if you did.  I daresay it might be worth it.

I so badly wanted to put them ON.  I considered grabbing that Van Gogh jacket and pulling it around my body with a squeal of delight.  I figured I could buy myself some wearing time by ducking and weaving amongst the exhibit-goers.  I could hide behind the Mondrian dress, maybe, or dive under the raffia of the Africa-inspired collection. I would definitely have a few seconds to feel the weight of that gorgeous beaded jacket (700 hours of work! Thank you, audioguide!) before I was kicked in the head by a ninja security guard.

Again, I daresay it might have been worth it.  

The only criticism Virginia Mom and I had was one mannequin's headwear.  All the mannequins were exquisitely done up in jaunty hats and head scarves except for one, who had an honest to goodness belt strapped around her head. 

I can't wait for the next ladies night.  I'm gonna look hot.

No, seriously, guys, Yves said this was OK. 

And all you ladies, if you've ever worn pants and liked it, you can thank Mr. Saint Laurent.  He had a lot to do with making pants acceptable for womenfolk.  The next time I'm lounging around in my baggy pink sweatpants and wondering whether or not I can wear them to the grocery store, I'm going to thank Yves for even making that a viable option.  (In Paris it's really not a viable option) (At all).

So I was standing in line at the boulangerie yesterday when a really tall guy walked in and stood behind me.  I was musing to myself that you don't see too many super tall French people when I heard him ordering in French with an American accent.  That explains that, I thought.  He's not French.  I turned to check out my fellow American and I'll be damned -- it was Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame.

Did you guys know he's like a giant?  I swear he's like 6 ft. 100. 

Alex was obsessed with the Pumpkins when we first met.  He wooed me with the Pumpkins. I remember the candlelight dinners, Alex holding my hand across the table and singing softly, "It's you that I adore. You'll always be my whore..."

He had me at "whore."  Thanks, Billy. 

I didn't say anything to Billy.  I didn't think he wanted to be bothered while eagerly ogling baguettes.

I'm surprised I haven't seen more celebrities lately.  'Tis the season and I certainly live in the right neighborhood.  If I were to scan every face at every sidewalk cafe in Saint Germain, I'm sure I would spot more of them.  Unfortunately, I've discovered it's hard to scan every face in a cafe without looking like a suspicious, unstable person.  It's also hard to do that and get anything else done in your life.

I'm going to leave you with one last thing before I go.  If anyone out there was a fan of Project Runway Season One, Yves Saint Laurent IS Austin Scarlett.

This is Yves:

This is Austin:

That freaks me out.  I'm gonna go hide under my bed.

He DID disarm me with a smile, mes choux,

MJ

I just ate a millefeuille out of the garbage

See all those pages?  They are filled with my shame.

My French lesson with Madame Kickmyass is a 90 minute long conversation.  In the beginning we talked about really weird things but now that we've become -- dare I say it -- friends, we talk about our families, we gossip, we talk about what we watched on television the night before.  I know I've portrayed her as pretty scary but honestly, she's awesome and very, very funny.

Don't let your guard down just yet, though; regardless of how fun she is, she's still a badass French professor.  If I say something wrong, be it mildly wrong or ridiculously wrong, it still gets written down.  If I keep making the same mistakes repeatedly, they still get written down every single time with a furrowed brow and a frown.  The last half-hour of our lesson is still me being beaten about the head with the list of shame. 

Sometimes our conversation screeches to a halt because I'm missing a crucial word in my French vocabulary.  I have to talk around it using other Frenchie words until she understands.  Sometimes this takes a long time.

Most recently, I was trying to talk about the big tubular curvy slide Lucien loved in the Kinderhotel's playroom but I didn't know the word for such a thing.  After a ponderous moment, this is what I said:  "It's kind of like a sled but they don't have a sled and the kids fall for a long time and stop in a hundred balls." 

Mme. Kickmyass watched and waited as I stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.  I said some more strange things, such as the kids were inside a giant red snake -- and oh, oh, oh, it's kinda like a waterfall!, when she started laughing at me. As I went on and on and things got weirder, she could no longer speak and could only draw a shaky little picture, which she then slid across to me: 

Voila.  Un toboggan.

Then I was talking about the metro but messed up my prepositions. I used sur le metro instead of en metro.  I pretty much said I rode up on top of the metro (like Major Kong ridin' the bomb in Dr. Strangelove) which is infinitely more awesome than what I meant to say.  Mme. Kickmyass could not resist an opportunity to laugh at me some more so she drew a picture --

-- and started waving at it, hollering, "Helloooo?  MJ?  What are you doing up there?  Come down into the metro..."   I played dumb and said, "I don't get what's so funny.  That's exactly how I ride the metro.  How do YOU ride the metro?"  I bet she rides the metro by sitting inside of it with all the other unimaginative losers who use their prepositions correctly.

And one more reason why our lessons have gotten fun.  Now that my French is better, she's taking it up a notch.  And by that, I mean we've moved onto crass words, how to tell people off, and idioms about being pissed off and hungover.  Sometimes she'll teach me a really horrible word or phrase.  She'll write it on my sheet of shame, shielding it with her hand secretively and lowering her voice even though we're the only two people in my dining room.  She'll say something like, "Don't say this at Lucien's school;  they'll kick you out" or "Don't say this to your husband; he'll ask for a divorce."  Then I read it out loud and we both laugh really hard. 

Unfortunately, as soon as I've said the phrase, she quickly scratches it out like it never happened and we  resume our normal lesson.  I immediately forget it.  Then the next time I'm super mad at Alex, I have to shuffle through all the papers, try to make out the little words beneath the scratch marks and mutter, "Where is it?  Where is it?  Ooooh, I really wanna sock it to him...."

We went to the Louvre over the long weekend (another holiday here, something about Jesus going up to heaven)  for another speedy art appreciation session.  I love the Louvre.  It's so peaceful, so happy, so cheerful, so.....

 AAGH!

Seriously, can someone find me a happy piece of art in that place?  I'd love to show it to my son so he's not all shaky and nervous-eyed the minute we walk in.

Things went downhill fast after we got home from the museum of terrifying things.  Lucien was tired and cranky and turned into a mean little boy.  The Loosh, when he's mad, makes threats and lots of 'em.  The thing he hasn't figured out yet is, the threats he makes are almost always detrimental to him and only him.  I can't tell you how many times he's threatened to "go to his room and stay there all day" while I celebrate in my head.  

As I tried to get dinner ready quickly so we could ship him off to bed, he yelled around about the dessert we'd bought as a special treat just for him -- a delicious millefeuille.  He wanted to eat it RIGHT NOW.  I'm a good mom most of the time so I said no, it was time for dinner, sit down, let's eat, etc, etc.  Lucien didn't like that answer and pulled out the big threat guns -- "MOMMY, I'M MAD AT YOU.  I'M SO MAD I'M GOING TO THROW MY DESSERT IN THE GARBAGE."

Al and I looked at each other and shrugged.  "Go for it," said Alex.  "We don't care if you throw your dessert in the garbage."  So Lucien ran over and --BAM -- threw his beautiful millefeuille into the garbage.  Then he stomped off, satisfied that he'd shown us. 

Alex and I kept cool but were secretly stricken with horror.  And panic.  There was a beautiful millefeuille in the garbage and neither one of us could stop thinking about it.  How was it?  Was it still in one piece?  Had the patisserie paper wrapped around it kept it safe from harm?  We started stacking real garbage next to the can, too worried to throw anything else on top of it and hoping we could fish it out with minimal damage when Lucien wasn't looking.

After we'd suffered through one of the worst evenings with Lucien on record and he was in bed, Al and I beat it towards the garbage, tripping over our own feet and pushing each other out of the way to get there first.  "I think it's OK,"  said Alex, head stuffed down into the can.  "There's really nothing on it, just a few pieces of carrot."  "Get it out, get it out!" I yelled.  And that is how Alex and I came to eat a millefeuille sitting on the floor next to the garbage can.

My in-laws are here right now and they continue to be wonderful people.  They brought us approximately one hundred boxes of mac-n-cheese, which for some reason is called Kraft Dinner in Quebec.  Since mac-n-cheese is the price of admission to our hearts, they are welcome to stick around for the week.

I took a picture of the box because I like the idea of "Gotta be Canadian!"  Now that's a slogan I can get behind.  I think if everyone had to be Canadian we would have a lot less trouble in this world.

I also like that there are moose antlers sprouting from the noodles. 

I had a great weekend, including a late-night outing for La Nuit des Musees with Virginia Mom which may or may not have resulted in this:

More on that next time.

Giant red waterfall snakes with a hundred balls, mes choux,
MJ

You say Mothers Day, I say Serge Gainsbourg

Remember Lucien's parakeet costume for the Carnavale parade?  Impressive, non?  Well, this was Virginia daughter's Carnavale costume. She was an "arctic wolf."   I nearly pee myself every time I look at this picture.  I guess I should probably stop looking at this picture.

Hey, Alex is home!  I don't have to talk to myself in the evenings anymore!  We sure did miss him.  When he stumbled in the door, all he wanted was sleep.  But we pinched him when he dozed off and demanded he entertain us with MORE stories from home.

Now I can return to slow mornings with Camille, both of us in our jammies and one drinking a ton of coffee.  (I've told her she should cut back but she just waves me away with her jittery little hands)

The friend interview went well on Friday.  I like her even though I think she LIES.

She suggested we meet in the middle of the Place des Vosges and I was more than happy to do so; I haven't been there in awhile and its perfect symmetry and squareness makes me feel safe.  I could spot her a mile away, wearing the bright colors of an American amidst the sea of Frenchie black and gray.   

 Place des Vosges

San Francisco Mom has only been here a week and is enveloped in the "What the hell just happened?" haze.  Her first question to me was "How do you keep up with all your laundry?  The washing machines are so TINY."  I told her I keep up by more or less devoting my entire life to laundry, doing at least two loads a day and scheduling all other events around our need for clean socks.  It's not a glamorous life but you do what you have to do when your washing machine is the size of a breadbox. 

(Mmmmmm.....bread.....)

I liked her.  But then I asked her where she lives and that's when the LIES began.  She said, "I live here, on the Place des Vosges, like right there" and pointed at one of the perfect buildings.

"Yeah, right." I said. "And I live in the Louvre. And on top of the Arc de Triomphe.  My summer home is in the bell tower at Notre Dame. Ding dong, ding dong, all summer long..." 

She said, "No, really.  I live right there" and pointed again.  This cannot be true, thought me. No one really LIVES on the Place des Vosges, do they?   Place des Vosges is a tourist attraction, (it's a perfect square, huzzah!) not a real place. It's a place to dazzle vacationers carrying expensive cameras, not a place for grocery hauling and toilet scrubbing.

Yes, I know Victor Hugo lived there for a time but surely the city made an exception for him.  I assumed they were keeping the rest of the stately buildings unoccupied, for when kings and queens come back into fashion and need somewhere to live. 

Anyway, she still claims it's true but I am suspicious and will eye San Francisco Mom narrowly until I see her apartment for myself.

It's funny how you come to accept the way things are.  It takes about a year, but eventually the craziness just feels like everyday life.  Take the grocery store, for instance.  The grocery store and I made peace long ago, even though shopping continues to border on chaos.  I've learned to only go at certain non-peak hours of the day.  If it's approaching the mid-day or evening rush, I don't go near the place.

As I walked through the grocery store last week on stocking shelves day, I realized I'd never taken a grocery store picture.  Here's a picture of the widest aisle.  This was taken at a non-peak hour, super early in the morning.  Picture it with about a hundred more people, grumpy and pulling shopping caddies, in just this aisle alone and you'll get a sense of the hell that awaits you if you wander in stupidly at noon.  You WILL trip and fall on those stacked boxes of yogurt (at least, that's what I'll do).

All I had on me was my iPhone and I was trying to be subtle so forgive the poor composition and quality.  This next picture, however, is blurry for a much more awesome reason.  Just as I took the picture, I was PUSHED OUT OF THE WAY by an employee passing behind me with a large box.  And that is why I love this picture above all others.  It sums up my sad feelings on grocery days.

We celebrated American Mother's Day (Frenchie Mother's Day happens at the end of the month) in the traditional way.  You know, by visiting a cemetery.  I am by far at my happiest in Paris when I'm out and about seeing something I haven't yet seen.  So for Mother's Day, when Al asked me what I wanted to do, I said, "Let's go see Serge Gainsbourg's grave at the Montparnasse cemetery!" I'm not sure why the saccharine Mothers Day holiday made me think of the very un-saccharine Serge Gainsbourg.  Maybe it's the public drunkenness?

As we walked towards Montparnasse, Alex watched in awe as I aggressively pushed the stroller through the crowds on the sidewalk.  He gasped as I charged across the street on a red light.  He worked hard to keep up as I maneuvered through the neighborhood at lightning-fast speed.  Then he said, in his impressed voice, "My God, you're so PARISIAN now."  He thought I was a red hot mama in that moment but, baby, that's just my day-to-day.

We were happy to finally pay our respects to Serge; he's close to both our hearts and not just for that one song with all the moaning.  Little known fact about Serge is he was born with a different name, an incredibly awesome name according to us.  Our man Serge was born Lucien Ginsburg.  I wonder if anyone ever called him The Loosh.

His grave is covered with cigarettes and used metro tickets.  The cigarettes were obvious but the metro tickets?  What's the deal with that?  Did Serge regularly find himself a few tickets short when out and about in the city?  Did Serge have a used metro ticket fetish?  (who doesn't?)  Are the visitors to Serge's grave just a bunch of litterbugs?  Our theories were plentiful.   

(As an aside, did you know if you come home and Google "used metro tickets on Serge Gainsbourg's grave" you will actually get an answer within 2.5 seconds?!  I love you, Interwebs.)

((As an aside to the aside, the answer is it's a tribute to one of his earlier songs, Le Poinconneur des Lilas in which he sings about being a ticket puncher at a metro station.)) 

The rest of the cemetery was a hoot, as cemeteries tend to be.  We saw the graves of Sartre and Beauvoir, two people I often picture sitting at Les Deux Magots whenever I pass by.  (In my mind they are holding long cigarette holders and wearing oversized furry hats).  We saw the famous Brancusi sculpture, The Kiss, right next to a sign telling us the sculpture was under surveillance.  As soon as I knew we were under surveillance, I couldn't enjoy the sculpture anymore.  I could only scan the buildings and treetops for cameras because I don't like being looked at when I don't know where the lookin' is coming from.

 Stop watching me.  I ain't gonna touch the dang statue.

Charles Pigeon's tomb wins the prize for the creepiest but most awesome tomb ever.  We loved it.

When Al and I die, please, someone, build us a tomb just like this but put remote controls in both our hands.  And put me in a "Team Building Exercise '99" t-shirt.  Alex asks to be in his underwear and wearing a Viking helmet.

You know, I should really stop trying to buy things on Mondays.  Almost everything's closed on Monday and I just end up walking around fuming.  Everything's closed on Sunday, too, but it never stops me from wandering around trying to buy stuff on that day, too.  I think it's official -- I will never, ever learn.

She was an ARCTIC WOLF hee hee hee,
MJ

Come back to mama

If anyone sees this man, please return him to me at once.

I didn't think two weeks without Al would be a big deal but it turns out two weeks without Al is a big deal.  Even the simple added responsibility of walking Lucien to school has profoundly rocked my world.  True, it's only a five minute walk around the corner, but did you know that even for a short walk, you have to put clothes on? 

I am not used to dressing myself, not to mention washing my face and attempting makeup application, at that time of morning.  Now I stumble around here in the morning like a person who's been sprayed in the face with pepper spray; I rush around groping blindly and occasionally put my hands up to my face and scream.

Let me say something about school dropoff; it's super hard to be confronted with that many gorgeous, impeccably dressed French people that early in the morning.  I don't know how they do it.  Why don't they look like me?  Why don't any of the French women have dark circles under their eyes or two different shoes on?  How can they pull their hair back in casual ponytails yet still look so glamorous?  I used to do casual ponytails, too, but compared to the French mamas at school, I was definitely doing it wrong. 

It's no rumor -- the French are incredibly attractive and can style themselves like nobody's business. I'm glad Alex is in charge of school dropoff.  My self esteem can't take that kind of hit every morning. 

This is a picture of  Lucien at the Luxembourg playground at the exact moment he thought he'd broken a spinning chair thingy.  Little did he know, it was already broken and some kid had put the seat back on the base to mess with the other kids.  It worked.  Look at how unsure he is of his future...

We went to the Jardin du Palais Royale over the weekend only to find the entire jardin part closed.  But the controversial Burren columns were accessible:

Lots of people hate these things but I love them.  I think they scream FUN amidst the monotonous oldness of the buildings.  Or maybe I just like things with stripes.

well hellooo there...

Before New York Mom left, we all met at le Jardin Catherine-Labouré for yet another playdate involving sandboxes.  As we sat around chatting, I noticed a very attractive young woman sitting across from us, obviously a nanny to the small girl she was playing with.  Without thinking, I turned to Virginia Mom and said stupidly and loudly, "Oh yeah, she's totally sleeping with the dad, don't you think?" 

At that point, Virginia Mom's eyes widened and she started gesturing wildly at me.  "Oooh goodie, it's time for CHARADES!" I thought, clapping my hands with delight.  Virginia Mom mouthed something at me and I concentrated intently on the words.  She was saying something like "She.......speaks......English."  Whoops.  Sure enough, perfectly crisp, beautiful British English was coming from hot nanny's mouth. 

I packed up quickly, yelled "See ya later, suckas!" and hightailed it out of the park.  I may say incendiary things and trash nice young women for no reason but I don't have the stomach for fighting.

I'm going to interview a new candidate for friendship today.  There's a gaping hole in our lives since New York Mom left and while she can never be replaced, we are now going to try to replace her.  

I hope it goes OK.  I hope it at least goes better than my last interview.  The last time I met a potential friend, she immediately told me how sick she'd been, including details of various things that had come out of her body.  I know you gotta get to know each other quickly around here but that was a bit too much for me on a first date. 

Wish me luck!  Back in the saddle!

All right, Al.  Enough already.  Come back to me, mon canard.
MJ

Girl I'm gonna miss you

Me:  "Hey Al, let's go out for dinner."

Al:   "OK.  Where do you want to go?  Chez Fernand again?  Maybe we should try Le Comptoir?"

Me:  "No, no, no.  I'm absolutely DYING to try French Typical Brasserie.*

*this is a conversation that will never happen.

Do they really think tourists are that stupid?  "Ooh, look, George!  It's a typical French brasserie!  Gosh, that sounds so good and authentic." 

Pardon the snark.  It was a bad week and I'm feeling mighty low. There are several reasons why.  One, it's become clear to me that by the time we return home, the U.S. will be embroiled in a civil war.  That upsets me because I will not be able to throw a proper homecoming party in the midst of a civil war; it will seriously dampen the awesomeness.

The second is, I've been sick and Alex is still gone and there are two kids in the apartment who need tending to.  I've done the best I can but my parenting is rapidly reaching craptastic new lows.  Why just yesterday, after Lucien's 57th time out, he yelled, "I WANT TO GO LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE."  So I said, "Okey dokey," handed him a suitcase and told him to fill 'er up.  He totally called my bluff and started folding all of his clothes and placing them in the suitcase.  He even asked my opinion about which books he should take.

I couldn't back down at that point so I told him not to forget his coat.  And his shoes.  Then I told him to sit next to the front door and wait for someone to come pick him up.  The ante kept getting upped and upped and I started to panic, wondering how far this was going to go.  He sat there wearing his coat and red shoes with his hand on the suitcase, staring at the front door and I thought, "Way to go, me. There's only one place to go from here -- I'm going to have to walk him downstairs and give him to somebody." 

It's a good thing he chose that moment to sniffle a little and tell me he didn't want to live anywhere else and wanted to stay with me.  So I said, "OK son, we'll let you stay but we're keeping this suitcase by the front door just in case." (Cha-ching, says future therapist)  It's a good thing he backed down because some tourist family almost left Paris with a strange souvenir.

The third reason is Alex swung by our Seattle house to see what shape it's in.  Let's move on quickly before mama hits the bottle at 9:00am.   

Now all that aside, there's still one more darn good reason why I'm blue;  we said goodbye to an ex-pat comrade last week.  New York Mom has left Paris (and with her, New York Dad and New York Daughter; it's a package deal apparently). 

When you're an ex-pat, friendships are on fast forward.  You don't have years in which to cultivate a friendship; you have minutes to decide whether or not you like each other and if it's a "no" you yell "NEXT!" and move on to the next potential friend because THE CLOCK IS TICKING.  Then, if you don't know by the end of your first meeting their favorite color and how often they cry by themselves in their bathroom, your relationship is on the slow track.  It will never reach fruition by the time one of you leaves Paris.

We liked you from minute one, New York Mom.    

 Remember that one time when I was super excited to sit next to you at Bistro Peres et Filles?  That was awesome.

 Remember that time our kids played Duck, Duck, Goose but none of them understood how to play so they just all ran around in circles, throwing each other to the ground by grabbing fistfuls of their clothing?  I never knew Duck Duck Goose could be so chaotic and terrifying.  

(You're going DOWN because you're the mother f'g GOOSE, mother f'r!)

Remember that time Belgian Dad pushed you into the meat locker at the fancy restaurant during a complimentary tour of the kitchen?  And all those other things he did that I can't list here? (I realize I was not at that dinner but I will pretend forevermore that I was.  If there was ONE dinner to attend in Paris, that would have been it.)

And yes, I realize all those memories are from the past two weeks but as I've said before, my memory is crap and that's the best I can do.  There are some hazy memories from Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl, I think. 

I got a babysitter and joined a few of the ladies at New York mom's bare, depressing apartment Wednesday night for a final farewell. We drank too many kir royales and ate delicious pastry from La Pâtisserie des Rêves.

  

The Saint-Honore met with an unfortunate oven incident but it still tasted like rainbows in heaven. 

whoops

New York mom tried to teach herself how to dance like the girls in the rap videos while Australian mom, Virginia mom and I laughed drunkenly and tried, sometimes failed, to bring the kir royales to our lips for more delicious goodness. Australian mom showed us the following video and I will never be able to thank her enough for it. It's mesmerizing.  It gets better every time I watch it.  It's like the Swedish Chef's foray into hip hop.



I felt sad the next day.  I went looking for caramel beignets but couldn't find any and fear they're gone for good.  So I came home and watched "Precious" all by myself because I obviously have no idea how to feel happy.

Sigh.  I guess I should go unpack Lucien's suitcase now.  

We'll always have Paris

One of these is me.  One of these is wild-eyed Australian mom.  One of these is married to Belgian Dad, who enjoys Halloween and pushing people into meat lockers.  One of these is Virginia Mom.  One of these is New York Mom.  And one of these is "Hillary" from the infamous pirate ship bed caper. 

You are our FRIEND, New York Mom and even though you've left Paris, don't you ever, ever, ever leave our lives. 

MJ