How My Prince Charming Turned Out to be a Frog

Snowed In.....

2012-01-31T21:24:00.001+01:00

Well not exactly...but for the first time since we've moved in to our new home we had a snow day today! Mid-morning I was called at work and instructed to collect my son from school as the school was closing. Unbelievable. Only a few inches of snow and the South of France grinds to a halt.

Apparently it's snowing in Corsica and Algeria as well. I can laugh, but they're not used to it here. And quite frankly after so many years away from snowy and icy winters, so am I. Quite sensibly, schools were closed and people sent home before the snow really came down.

It is beautiful. We covered the orange and lemon trees in the garden and stood looking out at the garden filling slowly with snow.

My husband, born and raised just over 1.5 hours away is completely unused to snow, so his delight, fears and fascinations became mine as well. My son was running about within seconds of arriving home thrilled to be building a "bonne homme de neige" (a snow man) and be throwing snowballs. He was singing "Jingle Bells" and asking when "Papa Noel" was going to arrive. Who was I to crush their enthusiasm with criticisms of how wet the snow was? We were soaked instantly.

This photo was taken only a few minutes after the snow started. Ten hours later and we've at least 4-5 inches everywhere. Really quite something for this part of the world.
Hope we can get the cars up the hill tomorrow morning!

When in Rome....

2011-12-31T20:30:00.007+01:00

The French are Roman. Civilized and yet barbaric.

Take for example our choice for a New Year's Eve meal. Quite by chance we ended up buying a last-minute "poularde" for which I looked up recipes and discovered one for which we could finally use the morilles my husband's uncle and aunt had collected for us from the forests near their home in the Jura. Poularde aux morilles, creme et Vin Jura--an earthy white wine which has taken my taste buds some time to get used to. (While I adore peaty whiskey, peaty wine has really been a slowly acquired taste...) Yum. As my husband considers mushrooms anathema, I was astonished tonight to get literal thumbs up after this meal from my son especially as the 'no mushroom' idea is one they hold vehemently in common. "Refined" my husband declared, scraping his plate clean.

Where does the barbaric come in? Sorry. It's been a late night (my son is not yet in bed) and I am busily picking away at the carcass--sorry vegetarians!!--of this poularde for tomorrow's proposed 'bouche a la reine'....hmm... Picking at the carcass of my "last-minute purchase" is not the barbaric I mean for I like to think I've raised her level of offering to the religious: her death was not in vain and, if she could attest to this as my husband can, I've thanked her nearly 10 times for her sacrifice throughout the cooking process.

Barbaric....back to the subject: Look up poularde. The French 'do' the same thing to the female chicken as they do the male rooster which they call a 'chapon' (capon?) and ADORE....it brings to my mind chubby eunuchs guarding the doors to harems in Turkey. Turkey, Turkey. The country. Castrati tenors....you get the picture?

Anyway....the bird was fatty, fatty, fatty. Poor thing. Makes me think of adolescents and acne...I'll let you connect the dots! sorry, bad pun. Raised "plein air" for 120 days, it had had a 'good life' as far as chickens' lives go.. (Sorry, again non-meat eaters) it was delicious. The Romans were right about a lot of things, especially about what tastes nice. They were able to overlook the barbarism of calves raised in tiny spaces, force-fed geese...all for taste. I guess it comes from having had an unclouded view from on top of the food chain.

Hmm... all this said, I still sure am looking forward to puff pastry and creamy chicken tomorrow.
But it does get one thinking....

On to dessert! and, oh the most civilized and incomparable of all drinks, CHAMPAGNE!!!!

Happy New Year to all, and to all a good night!

Autumn

2011-11-02T16:35:00.002+01:00

The days are now growing shorter. Whereas in Antibes I used to note the coming sunset with the daily prayers of my Muslim neighbor in the apartment across the alleyway, the Allah-Is-Great bounding off the stone walls of the old town, I now mark the passing of each day with the steady clip, clop, clip, clop of the neighbor farmer's horse and rickety cart. The birds stop singing for a moment as the horse lets out a tired sigh. The neighbor slows him down just above our house at a crossroad and honks an old black rubber horn which is mounted on the paint-chipped wooden frame of his cart. I know then that the day is nearing an end. In the summertime, he wouldn't pass until nearly 8 or 9 o'clock and my son would let out a cheer as he honked his horn on the corner just above our summer terrace. (We only have one terrace, but it's too cold to use in the winter!)

Autumn is my favorite season in the year but like the fleetingness of the season itself, time passes all too quickly and I have to remind myself to stop and literally smell the roses. Yes, they are still in bloom here in the South of France. Incredible. I was playing pirate and wheeling my son around in his rowboat (wheelbarrow) when I thought to stop, bend the pink blossom to his nose, and mine, and remember how fast time goes. Carpe Diem.

Red Tide

2011-08-21T06:24:00.004+02:00

When I first arrived in the South of France ten (gulp!) years ago, I took a new friend's advice and spent the first summer away from the heat. I drove my shiny blue Ford KA around northern Europe and returned just in time for the "rentrée" (back to school time). Ten years ago everyone I told thought it was perfectly normal to have found myself stuck on the highway in a sea of automobiles. The travel advisory, had I understood it at the time, said that the roads were "red" if not "black" which means, stay home. I do remember the word "bouchon" repeated over and over and it wasn't hard to work out what a cork was while creeping along like a shark, slyly shifting lanes trying to move- just- one- more- car- ahead.
Today, the tradition of the Juillettistes or Aoutien I wrote about earlier is becoming a thing of the past. Families in France thankfully still have the holiday time, but not the money to travel for more than a week at a time, certainly not a month at a time. So the roads are not only clogged on certain days as they used to be, like August 15 when half of France was returning from holiday and the other half was beginning it, but every weekend.
Vive les vacances!

Speed-dating was like a day at the races...

2011-07-13T10:12:00.004+02:00

Life in a couple has its challenges. French-American. Men and women have enough troubles communicating so add a language and culture barrier and it's mighty interesting at times. Still, our relationship probably resembles many and when this morning, I stooped to pick up a pair of underpants which had made their way pretty close to the laundry hamper this time, I stopped, dropped them and thought about what it was it was like to be single. In France....

Speed-Dating: A Day at the Races

A friend of a friend and I arrived for our maiden race, our first and for me, my last, speed dating experience. The men breezed and snorted in the back corners of the bar's upper room while the women trotted off to the restroom to get saddled and ready to parade themselves before the race began. I had a long look at myself in the mirror, adjusted my black-framed glasses, which looked more like a horse's blinkers, goggles to keep me from shying away from objects and other horses, and wished for the umpteenth time that I'd bothered to order new contact lenses. Ding. A bell sounded. I felt like I was in still in school.

"What do you do?" asked my first "date".

I didn't think Frenchmen usually asked what one does for a living. That's what I read before moving here, anyway. It's meant to be rude. And there it was, out in the open. The din of the bell still ringing in our ears.

"I'm a teacher."

Uh, oh. I'd done it. How much more un-sexy could I make myself. I just can't lie.

"Tell them you are writer who is supplementing yourself teaching. You can make yourself sexy and alluring. I've seen it when you sing. That's you," my sister Skyped me from Chicago as I was getting ready to leave."

Out of thirteen men Sunday night, I marked four as being potential matches. Men who were funny and intelligent and in five minutes managed to somehow engage me.

"What were they like?" my sister asks, again on Skype the following evening, half listening to me as she cradled my little nephew in her lap.

There was a nice guy with whom I laughed and laughed and laughed. A guy who asked me over and over and over about me. And a guy who was so nervous he shook, I took pity on him and another guy who looked me steadily in my eyes as he answered my questions. Good bloodline, nice pedigree, at least 14 hands high...Well, of those four men, I had NO matches. That basically means that of four men, not one of them chose me as a potential second date.

"What the hell is my problem?"

"Well, what was wrong with the other nine men? Who didn't you write down?"

I did not put down the non-starter, the gorgeous gelding who was about as dull as a lead balloon. I left his badge number blank on my betting card. I did not tick off the springing young colt who laughed at everything I said as if I were a comedian on Saturday Night Live and threw back his mop of a mane anytime another filly caught his eye. I left off the dark horse who insisted we speak French while the whole experience was geared toward English speakers. And I did not put down Mr. Also-Eligible who when asked about his background proceeded to talk about himself and only in the last few seconds bothered to ask something about me. And in a dead-heat for last place, I managed to leave off the long shot who smacked his bubblegum like a cow chewing its cud and never once looked in my direction.

My sister is reassuring. "Some women would do really well in that five minutes but you, you're complex. There's no way you can reveal who you are in five minutes. But perhaps other women that's all they have in them: five minutes. They can appear sexy, vulnerable, vivacious and available in five minutes."

"Me, no. I just scare them."

"Please tell me you didn't smoke your pipe?" my mother pleads, her face becoming pix-elated as our Skype connection breaks up. I hang up. It's no use explaining why in my mid-thirties after living overseas for ten years I'm still single. She's convinced I'm gay.

I honestly feel I did well. Tried hard not to seem too intelligent. Too scary. I remembered to ask questions and most of the time I was the one listening and not the one talking.

But what about the men I judged in five minutes? What of the Dutchman who was amusing in his challenge to see who'd visited the most countries in the world but who when we stood up at the end of the evening managed only to come up to my chin?

Who am I to judge anyone in five minutes?

It's not the environment for me says my sister. I am not a "five minute" girl.

Well, then. I need to find myself a non-five minute man. And when I find him, I'll be betting on him to win, place and show.

Juillettiste ou Aoûtien?

2011-06-11T08:00:00.000+02:00

The French work hard. Let's be clear about this. I've lived in a few places where, I'm sorry to say, I'm not sure I could say this about most of the population, most of the time. Places too hot to move or places too macho to lend a hand...while France can be hot and France can be macho, they are most certainly not lazy.
But as I've waxed on about already in earlier blogs, they do have a lot of holiday time. And as they are "chauviniste" (which in French means nationalistic) they quite often love to travel to another part of France. Taking advantage of this trend, the government staggers holiday times by a week here and there to allow the sea and ski resorts to flourish. While students are slogging away in one department, another department's students are flinging their way down the slopes. It all works out nicely, unless you're in a place like the South of France to which most of France seems to migrate throughout the year.
The French, if they've a choice, do this in two waves--July and August. Traditionally workmen and craftsmen take off a few weeks in the month of July to spend time with their families and while white collars take the month of August as it's believed no important decisions are made in the month of August so their vital presence in the office can be missed... following suit, stores, restaurants and bakers shut down. Paris becomes a ghost town. Which suits the returning juillettiste just fine!
Doesn't the President of the Republic head for the beach in August? Yes, he comes here, to the south of France. Like everyone else! And I can tell you, and I have done so, it's madness.

For Carnivores Only

2011-04-27T18:34:00.006+02:00

Intent on ordering a rack of lamb for Easter, I ended up in line behind a burly old man at the butcher counter. The butcher was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear sounds of heavy chopping and banging from behind the glass paned door to the refrigerated store room behind, so I waited patiently. Judging from the volume at which the man in front of me was speaking, he didn't hear the butcher at work so he started complaining. Loudly. In French. "He's never here?! Where is he?" A surly woman and the delicatessen end of the counter heard him, but kept her head down, plastic wrapping celeri remoulade and beet root salads...finally the butcher emerged. The stocky man ahead of me waved his arms around asking what sort of animal was lying in huge chunks on the counter in front of him, another sign the butcher was hard at work. The butcher lifted a huge hind leg and announced it was a kid. Yes, a baby goat. The old man marveled at the mass carnage before him and announced he'd take a 'gigot'. Would he like it prepared? No, my wife will deal with that. But he didn't say this politely..."s'emmerder" was used..."merde" being the key to understanding that expression and the nature of the task he was expecting his wife to handle. The butcher, one step ahead, suggested he prepare it or his wife would be "pulling a face" all evening. Good thing someone is thinking of the wife, I muttered. Apparently the old man used to have 60 some goats 40 years ago. He started talking about how sweet and cute the kids were...drinking milk from their mothers, tottering about like toddlers, playing, bucking, scampering about the countryside. Kids. Yes, got it. OK. Enough, I thought. I thought of the sheep in Turkey I'd see each year marked with fluorescent paint, like diseased trees, indicating which was to be fattened up, felled and feasted on. Thankfully the butcher worked quickly, his hatchet swinging away, shrink wrapping huge chunks of meat into sterile plastic bags held tight with a simple staple and the former goat farmer was on his way to find his wife somewhere in the cheese. If he had kept on talking I would have had to leave the counter and buy some beet root salad instead. We've come a long way from the flight from Egypt and painting lamb's blood above lintels, thank you very much. Still, this time of year with all it's new life and new chances does make one stop and pause.

Window Treatments

2011-04-27T18:23:00.002+02:00

Asking for an estimate to replace our worn-out kitchen window, I asked if I could have a window in the style of a "guillotine" (the name I came up with after my google search) and the representative told me "guillotines are illegal in France". I hesitated before asking, "are you sure you understand I'm asking about a style of window?" Dead silence on the other end of the line. And then she started laughing. Phew...Sensitive subject at times, this head-lopping off stuff. "Guillotines" are too dangerous, apparently. I had assumed the days of windows that slam shut on little fingers, and heads, is over but I guess not. "Would he, or she," I clarified, "be able to come on Thursday?" I am so glad I didn't assume the estimate would be made by a man, she replied, "yes, it will be me." Again, phew.

Caca Boudin & Baby Cadum

2011-03-04T07:11:00.004+01:00

Why is it the first words we learn in a foreign language are the naughty ones?

Well, my son has discovered the delight of repeating, over and over and over again, BAD words.
Well, bad by pre-school standards. Apparently the word "caca boudin" (sausage-like pooh) is a really good one. It sends him into fit sparkly-eyed giggles. Funny enough it's been passed down through the generations here in France as even my sons's grandmother and grandfather remember the word. That and "baby cadum" which is a brand of baby powder and a real insult. If a 3 year old calls another 3 year old a "baby cadum" it means they are a real baby.

My son is not too sure about this one yet. Not sure he thinks it's an insult. He's still working out whether or not he wants to be a baby or a big boy, bless him. He likes cuddling mommy still and I like cuddling my little guy. While snuggling after his bath the other evening I thought about how we'll have to have a comfy chair where the current bidet is (another subject all to itself for another blog...another day). I like sitting there (on a board, don't worry) warming up and snuggling my little guy...but by the time we get to refurbishing the pink tiled and tubed bathroom, he'll be well into thinking about girls and the Bac and not into cuddling mommy any more...

The irritating days when he's a little "Caca Boudin" will only be a faint memory but I'll still feel warm and snuggly thinking of my little "Baby Cadum".

Sceptic about Septic

2011-02-07T15:21:00.007+01:00

When I first arrived in France without any French, I was intrigued and indeed horrified at the idea of "pain" being sold by the side of the road (pain=bread) and entire stores devoted to the creation of personalized "tampons" (tampons=rubber stamps). Of course, I quickly learned, thank goodness, and now drive by bakeries without a second thought. Such is experience. We can tune things out...

Pity septic tanks are not something we can tune out. Cannot even fine tune. They just need to be cleaned out. (The particularly squeamish might want to skip today's entry...) When I learned that our new house and in fact the entire hilly area were on septic systems rather than "the mains", I was skeptical. I'm suburban born and bred; while I love the country and have fond memories of visits to Norway and funny stories I could tell you about outhouses and the like those experiences remain intrinsically linked to summertime, and as fleeting...no one would choose a year-round outhouse...so, the idea of owning a house with a septic tank was an anathema to me.

When we started looking for houses, I thought the term "tout a l'egout" meant everything was decorated tastefully. My husband gave me his squinty, sideways glance when he realised my misunderstanding and set me right. Oh, plumbing! You don't even want to know about the correlation I made between "assainissement" (decontamination) and cooking...less said here the better.

Well, I love the style of the house, everything done with taste etc, but with a 40 year old septic tank on the brink...well, now we are well and truly in the merde.

Snuffles and Truffles

2011-01-15T20:26:00.009+01:00

Well, it's happened; my son has caught the "gastro" and yet another case of the sniffles, poor thing. He spent Friday propped up on one of my Turkish pillows being brainwashed by Pixar ...he talks about nothing these days except Mater, McQueen and Buzz, said with an annoying French accent...

He didn't even tell me that last week he and his entire school cafeteria were treated to truffles. No, not the chocolate kind, the 1000 euros a kilogram mushroom.

Apparently it is all part of the local push to initiate the young to its taste in order to continue demand for its cultivation. The mayor of our town is busy planting oak trees to draw the truffles back to town. The local restaurant features a truffle menu where basically the chef comes into the dining area to scrape fresh truffles all over whatever you've just ordered. It's all a mystery to me. But obviously it's something to try...Back in the 1900s more than 1000 metric tons were cultivated in comparison to 20 tons today. And something like 80% of French production comes from the southeast.

As I said, my son isn't talking about much more than Disney characters at the moment....so I have yet to work out just what he thought of all the fuss over a fungus.

Eureka!

2011-01-11T08:35:00.007+01:00

In case you hadn't heard, energy saving light bulbs will become mandatory in Europe soon...
already normal Edison incandescent light bulbs are getting harder to find and the old 'eco' light bulbs we bought a few years ago (which still run and run and run) and which are quite ugly, bright white and stick out too far, are now being replaced with nicer, smaller, normal looking, softer light emitting bulbs.

I also learned this morning that some new models now work with dimmer switches, so we can get rid of our bright overhead lights. Yeah.

I was curious to see what's happening Stateside...yes, well it looks like the old Edison models are going to be phased out in the states, too starting in 2012.

content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/11/esl-new-energy-efficient-lightbulb/1

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=LB

Golly, that was an enlightening blog now wasn't it?!

Patience is a Virtue

2010-12-27T14:55:00.005+01:00

Yes, most people would agree. Even the French. So, "veuillez patienter" (please be good enough to wait) and I'll be moving along to my point shortly.

While driving to collect bread and croissants Sunday morning at 7:30 I had someone stuck to my bumper the entire way... While inserting coins in the parking meter I had a woman standing directly behind me; even my moving over to the side in order not to display the entire contents of my handbag did nothing to distance her, she just shifted right along with me, glued to my back.

No, I wouldn't put the French on top of the list in terms of patient. But then again, as my mother noted on a recent visit here, "people have changed". People everywhere. We're constantly rushed. Constantly thinking of ourselves. Far from Christmasy in spirit. So people's lack of patience is all the more noticeable this time of year. One expects better. One hopes for better.

Knowing waiting makes them irritable, instead of "please wait" the French have a verb for it: "Veuillez Patientez" says the receptionist when she puts your on hold; "PATIENTEZ" reads the credit card machine when waiting to access your file. Please wait. A daily reminder to slow down, PLEASE WAIT and BE PATIENT!

Attention! Only Concerns the USA

2010-12-13T21:03:00.002+01:00

With my son's birthday just passed and Christmas just around the corner, we've been in more than usual contact with Playmobil pieces lately

We came across this the other day:

*Only Concerns the USA

"Never mind the French kids," my French husband roared aloud with laughter. "They can go ahead and swallow the little pieces if they choose to..." Liberté and all that...

The French have a field-day with the US and our "hot-coffee-might-spill in your lap while you're driving" warnings. Well, yes....duh!

The (A)mount of Olives

2010-11-09T08:57:00.007+01:00

This weekend I felt like one of Jesus's disciples. Although instead of being a fisher of men, I fished olives.
I felt like a real novice, with so much to learn. So in classic 2010 style, I turned to youtube to watch how people all over the world gather olives. Sitting at the computer was the easy part. The romantic part. The dreaming part.

"Research" over, the hard work began this weekend. After gathering 43 kg of olives this weekend I can truly understand the obsession of collecting every last soul possible. The fruit is so precious. And it takes so much to make one bottle of oil. I will never look at another bottle of extra virgin olive oil the same way again.

We flung nets beneath the first of our seven olive trees and stared up into the fruit-filled branches. As the tree grows over two "restanques" (terraces), the nets formed a maze of twists and turns in which my son kept getting himself joyously trapped. At the merest tap of the bright yellow rake the olives started flying everywhere. I felt sad to see some flying off beyond the net only to end up trampled under my young son's feet. Down the ladder again, re-adjust the net and "if I just reach a little bit higher"...down the olives tumbled and rolled along the folds of the synthetic orange net which kept snagging on every rock and twig in sight.

We spent all weekend trying to mend nets, cast them and catch and sort as many olives as possible to take to the olive mill a five minute drive away. The mill was filled with all types of people: people like us obviously novices, "playing" outside all weekend, faces red and happy, full of fresh air and oxygen like children on holiday with a view to turning our attention back to 'real life' on Monday and the local farmers, taking their hauls very seriously, spending an inordinate amount of time deciding whether to take their oil in 500ml bottles or 750ml. Gingerly carrying their bottles of pure gold in rough clay-caked hands out to their rusty green utility vehicles parked every which way possible in the Mill's tiny stone walled parking lot.

We've only managed to get half of the olives from one tree so far. We've six more to go. As this is the start of the harvest season, we've only just begun and we certainly have a lot to learn.

Women's Issues...

2010-10-19T08:52:00.002+02:00

The first time I visited the (hush, whisper it) gynecologist
here in France, I felt like a lamb to the slaughter.

I entered when called for and we sat across from each other at a large wooden desk, and chatted about the basics for a moment or two and then allez--ooop! "Okay, everything off and have a seat in the saddle" (In French, of course..and no, she didn't exactly call it a saddle, but what else do you call a thing with stirrups?)

"Everything?"
"Everything."
"Can I keep on my socks?"

She looked at me sideways, the another silly foreigner look (rather like the one my husband gives me when I wear a black leather handbag that apparently men in France wore in the 70s...A man-purse, he calls it. It's a perfectly nice, square, perfect for travel handbag...oh well)

To top off the new experience, I had to stand completely naked in front of a full length mirror to weigh myself--two equally humiliating experiences rolled into one. And then I had to call out my own weight in kilograms and since numbers in French require knowledge of mathematics (quatre-vingt for example, 4 and 20 as in 4 and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie= actually 80), I felt cold and stupid before the actual exam had even begun. (I'm not sure what my weight is...but when pregnant, the mathematics was a definite challenge.)

Since then I've seen other doctors that have managed to make the experience a little warmer. The ubiquitous mini-robe tied off in back offered in any American clinic I've been in is never on offer, but at least most offices have full shades on their windows and the doctor manages to keep any metal instruments above freezing temperatures....

The flip side is that when I return home to the States, I suspect I'll have completely gotten used to not wearing any socks as I've a colleague who laughs and says she had become so used to the French way that she striped off completely before she'd even been offered the robe.

I wish I could have seen the look the American doctor gave her.

VIking Maiden Names

2010-10-15T08:53:00.006+02:00

When it comes to holding onto my maiden name here in France..."the computer says no"

Be it bank, social security, doctor, lawyer, house papers, tax papers...no computer system seems to be in place to cater to women who marry late in life and just want to hold onto their name.
I was warned about this in hospital after giving birth to my son (who has his father's name).
"Start now," whispered a kindly nurse to me, "don't ever even mention you are married or you'll automatically be referred to by your husband's name."

She was right. But, newly married and quite proud and happy to be so, I cannot imagine lying about my marital status just to keep French bureaucracy at bay and computer chaos to nil.

The Vikings didn't have a problem with this (the name keeping part, not the computer issues certainly). Viking women did like the men, they were known as So-and-So's daughter, as men were So-and-So's son, even after their wedding day. Simple. And when and if they divorced, they went on being called Haraldsdatter, Lavransdatter...So-and-So's daughter. Divorcing one's identity from a parent is far harder than divorcing a partner.

No, I don't plan on divorcing my husband. But in having to defend my desire to keep my name, I feel the French assume I must not love my husband if I don't want his name.
No, I just want to keep my name. It's my father's name. And after using it for over 30 something years on this planet, why shouldn't I want to keep it? The plain and simple fact is, I like it. Plus, I don't want to have the same name as my mother-in-law, as lovely as she is (really).
I want to be my father's daughter.

Now, I haven't lived in the States for quite a few years and was never married when I lived in the States, but somehow I feel France is lagging behind on this one.

If Carla Bruno-Sarkozy-- the President's wife if you're seriously out of touch with events in the western world-- can keep her name, so can I.

I just might have to hyphenate it to make sure La Poste delivers my mail on time.

Life in the South of France

2010-08-04T12:33:00.006+02:00

We've moved. I wrote to my sister to say we'd escaped the crowds and heat of the coast and she sighed that it sounded so glamorous. Hmmm....the words "South of France" do tend to conjure up glamour in people's minds. I am quite relieved to say that after nearly 10 years of life on La Cote d'Azur, we've left the glitzy coast of Cannes, of Golf Juan, Antibes and its Cap....the sea, the sun, the yachts, the tourists and the traffic far behind. Today I can just barely glimpse the coast through the olive tree outside my bedroom window.

We can't escape the "glamor" completely, though.

Today two swarthy men from Galarie Moghadam of Monaco came to collect my carpets for their first professional cleaning in 10 years. It's about time. We can smell Antibes (the humidity!) when they're unrolled, so needless to say they've been rolled up since we moved in. The men came in their shining red utility van with their exclusive oriental carpet cleaning logo marked in ornate golden lettering on the side. My son was entranced. They unfolded each carpet right there on the driveway, and in thick Iranian-spiced French commented on the origins of each. I was entranced. I felt I'd returned to Istanbul for a moment where everyone there seems to know carpets like everyone here is born knowing cheese. I felt like offering a cup of coffee and having a seat on my Hereke right there under the Magnolia tree. Receipt handed over, a promise to return my treasures by the end of September and off they sped, with a tiny GPS in hand, to more, I imagine, exclusive clients in Cannes.

It's not all that rosey living far from shops and parks that used to be outside our front door when we lived in la vielle ville. While opting for calm and a garden, we now have to drive everywhere, something I've not had to do (except to go to work) for over 10 years. But that's the trade off. At least when I go grocery shopping I can drive straight up to my front door to unload everything.

Glamor. Is anyone truly glamorous with a preschooler and hairy dog in tow?

Off for a long hot walk near the park in Opio. We were meant to play in the park. I thought I could have both Kyla (dog) and my son (monster who isn't napping regularly at the moment so I thought I would wear him out physically)

No going.

With both out of the car and pulling on me to move, off we went for a walk along a very wide sidewalk and strip of green grass. Both dog and monster enjoyed themselves immensely. At the end of the road is a garden center, so there we "played" amidst the lavender, olive trees, rosemary, and oleander. One (the dog) pulling on her lead and the other (the monster) wheeling along a tiny mickey mouse wheelbarrow repeating "mickey mouse" "mickey mouse" and causing otherwise grumpy looking Dutch and German second home owners to break out into toothy smiles. The monster wheeled along three mosquito repelling geraniums (created apparently by a Dutch botonist) and a basil plant. Women in loose flowing linens, big sunglasses, bright lipstick and too much jewelery for a hot day filled large pallets with enormously expensive looking plants and had their husbands (or drivers?) load them into their audis. Oh so glamorous, I walked back with 4 plants, one dog straining at her lead and one monster pulling me by the hand. Sweating, covered in dirt and smiling from ear to ear like my little monster soon strapped into his car seat for our drive back for lunch in our new home in the hills.

No life is not all glamour and Galarie Moghadam of Monaco.

Why all the mosquito plants? Well, we have a hole in the ground with standing water (part of an old septic system which will need changing by 2012--I just had to get this in as it is truly a glamorous subject to write about) This "puits perdu" (grey water receptical) is breeding its very own mosquitoes.

Today I attacked it.
Armed in long trousers, long shirt, mosquito spray, plastic work gloves and green plastic garden gloves I ripped off all the stones and covered it with some mosquito netting and erected a fence around the entire area which now looks like Stonehenge, or something out of Astrix and Obelix.
So, while the mosquitoes may continue the high life for a while in their own private swimming pool, they won't be able to get out. I find the idea immensely satisfying in a slightly disturbing way. It reminds me of my cockroach killing days in Venezuela...

Ah yes, life in the South of France. Glamorous indeed.

Lazy is as Lazy Does or Doesn't

2010-08-01T14:30:00.000+02:00

Well, yes...it's been ages since I last wrote. My apologies to anyone who actually has attempted to read my blog regularly....please leave a comment or email me if you do! So, May, June, July...I can easily account for: moving house. More on this later. But while I'm on the subject of seeming quite lax....

Americans think the French are lazy. They always seem to be on holiday. Take May, for example. Between Labor Day May 1, Victory Day (1945) May 8 and Ascension (the Day Jesus was airlifted into heaven) and Whit Monday (which has nothing to do with people being Oscar Wilde-like with language on that day) not much gets done. Teachers scramble to finish their curricula when they all fall on weekdays and "bridges" are created on Fridays when they fall on Thursdays leaving entire families with 4 day weekends throughout the Merry Month of May.

The French think Americans are lazy because we apparently don't work hard enough in school. Because American kids go to school from 8-3:30 instead of 8 to 6pm as they do in France, my Frog points out that perhaps they don't work hard enough. (Primary school kids go to school from 8:30-4pm, middle 8-5pm and highschool 8-6. ) I put the shorter American school day down to good organization--the class scheduling and lunchtimes are just more efficient. And classes ending before the sun goes down allows for extra-curricular activities, essential in the American system to allow for well-rounded individuals.

So, lazy? Hmmmm....that brings me to the summer holidays. It is perfectly normal for a very normal French family to take the entire month of July OR August off. Generally the more educated upper and middle classes take the month of July off while the lower classes take the month of August and entire factories shut down. It's how things are done here.
But, still whether white or blue collar, families have an entire month together to recuperate and get ready for the new school year. I guess if that's being lazy, well I'm all for it.

Seems to me the French educational system as something to learn from the American one--at least in terms of class scheduling while the Americans have something to learn about from the French in terms of having a real holiday. Time for family. Time for the important things in life.

Whine About Pooh

2010-04-28T13:19:00.001+02:00

Some years ago I watched a film called "Pret a Porter" in which Robert Altman repeats the not so subtle motif of stepping in the poo of Paris throughout the film. I don't remember much about the movie but the stepping in poo part. Even googling the film and reading about its "cameo appearances and two minutes of nude female models walking the catwalk" doesn't ring a bell. But the dog doo does.
My son, who is just over two, knows the words for poo in both English and French and has already started identifying them in the street: quite often after nearly stepping in them. Thankfully his desire to show off his budding vocabulary stops him short, giving him enough time to point out the sometimes monstrously large droppings and time for me to whisk him up in my arms (which is getting increasingly more difficult as he's 13+kg) and keep his shoes clean.
As my sister once told me not long after I moved to France: "every place has it's dog shit"
The grass is always greener elsewhere....so we're house hunting.
House prices in the South of France are completely nuts. Just about everyone rich and famous wants a home on the Cote d'Azur which therefore drives the people who are actually trying to work and earn a living here into tiny apartments and houses not even fit for sheep to live in. See link: 185,000 euros for a one bedroom, one shower room house
So, yes I know, what does house hunting have to do with dog poo? or my two Frogs, for that matter?
Well, when we first told the shifty-eyed agent that my husband absolutely wanted a garage and I, 2 toilets, he looked at me and asked, "You must be American?"
So, similar to our need for two types of thermometers in our house...do I really need to explain? I stick out here in France in my "need" to have two toilets. One for family & one for guests...
I am so not French. My husband teases me that in a few years I could become French if I wanted to. Change nationalities. Ease the threat of double-taxation. Hmmm...Nope. "I'm American," I apparently don't even need to announce as I check underneath my shoes before walking into yet another agency to ask for a little place we can call our own. Something with two toilets.

Soles for the Soldes?

2010-04-13T08:28:00.007+02:00

My son's shoes are getting smaller and smaller...

While the neatly manicured saleswoman was measuring my son's feet we had a look in the display case I could have sworn we were looking in just a few weeks ago ...when was the last time we bought him new shoes? (No, not another blog on the virtues of French-made shoes for children! or the size of my boy's puppy-like feet...)

I turned and asked, "will you be having any sales soon?" Both she and my husband scoffed, "But madam, we've just started the new season!" What I should have asked for was a "promotion"...

So, we've missed the sales! What's the big deal? There will be another sale coming along in a few days? No. Not in France. Not in Germany either for that matter. I will always remember my sister talking about the Sommerschlussverkauf. Love that word. Well, it's the same in France. Sales at the end of the summer and end of winter. "Les Soldes". The soldes are the only time of the year that shops are legally allowed to sell merchandise at a loss. Of course a store can have promotions throughout the year as long as they don't have their sales in the 30 days leading up to the Big Sale period, but these promotions are nothing in comparison to the big stock clearing Soldes.

I saw a promotion for a couch the other day during non-Soldes season and challenged the notion of Les Soldes as it said the couch was 1/2 off. "One thing you need to know about France," my husband said, "couches are always 1/2 off."

But for shoes and clothing basically you try to buy things a season ahead (or behind). That's all well and good for an adult who just seems to go up and down a bit in size around the tummy area...but how do you guess how much a pre-schooler's feet are going to grow?!

Food and the French

2010-03-24T12:40:00.003+01:00

I am sure countless things have been written about the French and their passion for food, but I overheard a conversation between some teenagers the other day, talking about food. About where to get the cheapest and freshest tomatoes...what vegetable was currently in season...teenagers! I cannot imagine overhearing such a conversation in the USA. Not about fresh vegetables at any rate. So, not only are conversations about good food the norm around my inlaws' dinner table, hours and hours of eating, drinking and talking about eating and drinking, but apparently the French love affair with food affects its children as well.

I eat once a week at the primary school where I teach a few hours a week and was disappointed one day to learn the teachers' room was occupied, so I had no other choice but to eat my lunch in the din of the students' canteen. Hesitantly I sat down at a table and a few moments later some of my 8 year old boys came running in, all sweaty, their cheeks flushed, from the courtyard. Screeching to a halt, they lined up neatly to be served their lunches and then, balancing trays full of creamy spinach, poached egg, yogurt (with white sugar) cheese, bread and full glasses of water, came over to me, sat down and started speaking to me about everyday things like the weather, where I went on the last holiday etc. I've not told any of my colleagues this, but it was the most pleasant lunch I've had all year. Used to sitting and chatting and enjoying lunch, these little rascals became perfect little gentlemen around the lunch table.

Ah, so the French and their love affair continues.

Spinal Tap

2010-02-10T14:07:00.008+01:00

The way I look at the world has changed since I've lived in France. Literally.

I noticed it today while helping my mother arrange books on her bookshelf. I kept turning my head to the left to read the titles on the book spines only to have to shift my head to the other side to read the English titles. You see in general the French write titles on book spines from the bottom up while in anglophone countries we write them from the top down.

It's altogether too easy when living in the US to think nothing of it. But for me it's a very subtle cultural difference between France and America. And now, after so many years living abroad, I cannot tell you which feels "natural" to me.

When I lived in Venezuela and Turkey the culture differences were so obvious and in your face that I don't recall suffering much culture shock. Everything was so different on the exterior that I expected Venezuelans and Turks to see the world differently and reacted accordingly when things didn't go according to my view of the way things should go in the world. But still, after all these years in France, I find myself continually amazed at the tiny culture clashes. The little differences are perhaps the most undermining of all. With so much similar on the surface it's easy to relax and assume everyone must see the world the world the same way.

It's like between men and women; we tend to forget that we see the world differently. For example, my Frog never sees colors the way I see them, is conveniently blind to mess around the house and well, just doesn't see the world the way I do. How could we assume different cultures could?

Does the writing a title on a book spine make that much of a difference? Probably not, but politicians, policy makers, statesmen would do well to remember never to assume someone looks at the world with their head tilted to the right reading top down.

Perhaps a compromise is in order:

How Low Can You Go?

2010-01-27T08:35:00.003+01:00

While celebrating my beaux-pere's (father-in-law) 70th birthday last Sunday I noticed my French nephews playing a game created for them by my Frog, their uncle, sitting just beside them. The game consisted of rolling a magnetic ball which opened upon contact with the knives they held in front of them on the table like hockey sticks. Each time the ball opened they'd score a negative number. "We'll play to -10," said the eldest in his high-pitched 7 year-old voice. Only in France, I thought. Kids in America would think the reverse. If they lost, they would either stay at zero or the other player would GAIN a point, no? Negative numbers? in primary school? I don't question them knowing negative numbers in primary school but the ease with which they apply them to a simple, home-made, "we're bored and the adults are blah-blah-blah-blahing too much" sort of game. Is it only in France that children score negatively on 'dictation' tests? It's not unheard of to score -25 said one of my 10 year olds one day, laughing. For every 'fault' the teacher removes a point, even past zero. As far as I recall, zero was as low as one could go, no?

The Day When Anyone Can be a King

2010-01-23T07:59:00.005+01:00

Well before the French chopped off King Louis' head, they've celebrated Epiphany, the coming of the three Kings to visit the baby Jesus with gold, frankincense and myrrh. On that day a cake, a galette de rois or a gâteau de rois, would be cut into pieces and whoever found a bean (“la fève”) in their piece was made King (or Queen) for the day. Although now that day can be anywhere between two weeks before Christmas to the end of January as the bakeries in the South of France are filled with the Parisian flaky almond version and the puffy sugar-coated Provençal brioche, and the bean has been replaced with little porcelain figurines in the traditional forms of Kings and Virgin Marys as well as Tweetie-Bird and Lightning McQueen, the galette de rois tradition continues. And continues. By the end of January you can't stand the smell of the things. At my Frog's work they've decided that whoever finds the porcelain figurines has to buy the next galette and as the bakers are now putting two figurines in each cake, there's no end in sight for his poor office. But at least their children will be happy. The figurines are traded and even bought separately, auctioned on ebay.
Ah, this morning I noticed the baker hanging little red hearts in his window...thank goodness Valentine's Day is just around the corner.

My System of Metrics

2009-12-29T09:14:00.007+01:00

At no other time of the year does my struggle between cups and liters hit a crisis. My French husband stands watching thoroughly entertained as I page through French, American, British, and Norwegian cookbook indexes with one floury hand and shift between ounces and grams, deciliters and tablespoons with the other. Our tiny kitchen is crammed full of metric and UK and US cups and spoon measurements. Shot glasses in milliliters and ounces, Pyrex cups in US and UK fluid ounces, weighing scales in deciliters and grams. You name it, we can measure it. It feels sometimes more like a chemistry lab than a kitchen. And you should have seen the grades I got in that course. Watching me try convert Fahrenheit to Celsius always brings out a haughty chuckle from my Frog as he stands watching me, amused at the quaint, imprecise Anglophile way of doing things. "What exactly is a stone?" he asks with a twinkle in his eye. He offers to check weights and measurements on the Internet for me. No, I say. I've got it. It's the only time I ever use any of the mathematics I gleaned in school; best to use it. I still do sneak upstairs at times to calm any lingering doubts by checking measurements on the handy widget he placed on the Mac for me and sometimes I even search the Internet. (I've found the conversion charts at www.gourmetsleuth.com particularily helpful.) But in general I carry on with my self-imposed penance for my neglected hours in math and science class. And more importantly, I cling steadfastly to my cups and teaspoons in a tacit refusal to let go of my culture, as mixed up as it might be.

These are the only moments my husband extols the virtues of being French. The metric system. Yes, yes, I admit, had America fully adopted the system years ago, we'd have landed the Mars probe, not crashed it. Ouch, a $125 million blunder because one team of scientists was using feet and another meters... He can tease me all he likes that only three nations have not officially adopted the International System of Units as their primary or sole system of measurement. Yes, America, we're in happy company alongside such greats as Burma and Liberia. Even the UK has turned metric. Not that it doesn't keep people from talking in stones, fathoms, acres and the beloved pint. Even in Norway they use the "mile" in everyday speech and to measure gas consumption. A Scandinavian mile was once an older unit of measurement called the "rast" ("rest", "pause"), which represented a suitable distance between rests when walking but now equals 10 kilometers. So unromantic. So precise. So metric.

My husband loves the precision, but even he has to admit his fondness for his discovery while in England that the postman still delivers mail addressed to counties which just don't exist, well not officially. How quaint, how "Anglophone" he muses while I get back to measuring.

Noel, Noel, Noel....

2009-12-20T16:16:00.002+01:00

Christmas in the South of France is not Christmas without kiddie rides, fake snow, frosted fir-trees and mulled wine. Of course, the plastic Santas, taxidermied reindeer with moth eaten fur draped in clear plastic and the carrousel have all been set up in one of the main public parking lots--just to give shoppers and residents with cars living in the old town even more to grumble about! But they can ease their pain with some mulled wine, sugary churros (Spanish?! but the French adore 'em) and crepes drowning in Nutella.
Our son has already been on the mini-train three times. He and his little friend got to ride for the first time the other day. It was really the first time I've strapped him into something and watched him roll away from me. He stamped his feet and squealed for joy as the train got moving. My heart jumped. And then I noticed the parent-goggles. I could only see my son. It was as if a tunnel encased itself around my vision...all I could see was my little 2 year old hopping up and down, laughing each time he pushed the "ho, ho, ho" button on the dashboard of the shining plastic engine.
I experienced for the first time something I've always, as a teacher, known but only in theory; we parents only see our kid. It's biological. It's nature, I guess. During the many primary school plays I've produced over the years I've been fully aware that a kid only has to cross the stage, turn and smile and the parents will be happy. If it were that easy to showcase 25 kids at a time, that would be great, but I still work hard to make sure each kid as his or her moment in the limelight. Because that's all the parent sees. Watching my little guy zoom (slowly) around the track, it was as if a spotlight turned on and the rest went to blackout.
Thankfully the drifting scent of mulled wine made it to my nose and snapped me out of it!

The Imaginary Invalid

2009-11-03T12:59:00.010+01:00

When I first visited my French then boyfriend now husband while he was living in London and I, here, in France, I opened one of his kitchen cupboards hoping to find a clean bowl and some cereal...and instead, found two shelves stacked with medication. I stood frozen with my mouth gaping open until he walked into the kitchen and I quickly closed the cupboard door, thinking I'd come across some horrible, shameful secret of his.

No, no secret. He's just French.

The French--and yes, here I am generalizing again, are obsessed with medications. They love medications and visiting doctors, and French doctors love prescribing huge amounts of medications because it's expected. And with the amount of tax money the patients pay, they expect it. They feel entitled to good health-care and good health. And it's generally all reimbursed if you have a good private top-up insurance as well as the French Social Security.

After a week, I'm finally just getting over a cold. Being sick (or "ill" as I learned to say in Turkey as sick means a particular part of the male anatomy which is best left unsaid here, just now) in France is a lesson in culture difference. There's no clearer culture clash between me and my Frog. Our thermometers are a testimony to this. We have two thermometers in this household: one for the mouth and the other....well, it's the most accurate says my husband. I just make sure we don't ever confuse the two and swap them accidentally. (I just had to get potty humor into this blog...sorry, at least I didn't talk about another French favorite: the suppository!)

The first day I felt unwell my husband asked when I was planning to see the doctor. I'd hadn't made any plans to see a doctor. I'm American. I have a cold/virus, I sleep it off. But convinced by my husband to go, off I went.

The idea of going to see my doctor and paying 6 euros (!) only because I hadn't yet registered my private top-up insurance (paid 1/2 by me and 1/2 by my employer) left me again with my mouth hanging open, partly out of shock, even after so many years in France and as I couldn't yet breath through my nose. I got on to asking when and how often the list of medications he scrawled out for me were to be taken...sprays, antibiotics (as I'd waited too long apparently...) fizzy things, syrup...the works. And after two days, I am feeling as right as rain again.

And now we've even more medications in our cupboard. While in America prescriptions are carefully measured out, the French prescribe a box of 10 if that's the smallest amount even if you only need 5 pills. This is one detail the US system could export to France. The extra pills are a needless waste and lead to home medicine cabinets stock-full and capable of treating even Moliere's infamous hypochondriac.

Where is Ronald Reagan when you need him?!

2009-10-21T13:51:00.004+02:00

"Where is Ronald Reagan when you need him?!" asked the American in the line behind me as we all stood semi-patiently waiting for the EasyJet representative to work her way through the 50+ people whose flight had just been canceled due to "industrial action" at Orly airport, Paris.

Ah, autumn in France: the chanterelles, the pumpkins, the falling leaves, the rifle shots echoing through the forest announcing the beginning of the hunting season and "industrial actions" a.k.a "strikes."

The All-Saints holiday, or Toussaint, is just around the corner. Recently having shaken themselves out of the summer doldrums, airline workers and train operators around the country seem poised for the right moment to strike, to aggravate as many people as possible. When I dare ask what they are striking for, no one seems to be able to give me a clear answer.

There I was, my flight canceled. My working-weekend in Paris, complete with this one extra evening so I could actually see more than the inside of the Metro and I was doomed to a 6:15 am flight the following morning. I returned home to sick husband and baby, both happy to see them and miserable not to be walking along the Seine.

So after twisting my neck turning off the alarm at 4am the following morning, I was on my way--after a 2.5 hour delay--arriving at the meeting behind the Sorbonne just in time for lunch.

Lunch at the Cafe de Commerce was heralded by hunters greeting the start of the hunting season with heavy blasts on their hunting horns. They started up just as the waiters in long white aprons started serving the creme brulee. But, with a train to catch and a six hour journey ahead of me, I grabbed my coat and suitcase and made my way through the swinging wooden doors, the trumpeting fading as I stepped out into the slanting autumn sunlight.

Mommy...Maman

2009-10-21T13:28:00.002+02:00

My little guy is finally calling me Mommy...well, more Maman (French) but I don't care. He giggles with joy each time he says it because I wriggle up to him, so pleased to be finally "owned."

For months now he's been walking around calling Daddy, Daddy and goes dumb when he looks at me. At the very most he confuses me with food, slowly twisting yum-yum into something vaguely resembling Mummy. "That's because he takes you for granted; you're always there for him," says my husband, meaning to be kind.

Yes, well, being "taken for granted" is all apart of being "Mommy," I guess. Other mothers don't warn you of these things. Like the whole birth experience, they skimp on the agonizing details. If they did spell everything out to women thinking of completely turning their lives upside-down and inside out, we'd never have babies.

And I am quite thankful to have even been able to consider whether or not to have a baby. Women in the past--and a not so very distant at all past at that--didn't have a choice. They got pregnant, and got on with it. They accepted the lost figure, the lost nights of sleep and the loss of sanity--the "mommy brain" as everyone wistfully refers to it. Temporary insanity, more-like.

I wrestle with how egotistical and selfless I can be at the turn of a dime. There's nothing like giving oneself over to selfless giving to another human being to realize how completely absorbing and overwhelming life giving can be. And I chose it. I wouldn't have it any other way.

As I cooked up a quiche with lovely chanterelles fried in butter for our lunch today, I stole a glance at my little Frog playing quietly on the carpet across the room from me. He looked up and said, "Maman...yum, yum."

There you have it.

My Ford Ka

2009-10-07T09:27:00.001+02:00

I loved my Ford KA.

Metallic-blue and shaped like an egg, that car went everywhere: Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Holland, all over France...ah, sigh. I traded it in for one with air-conditioning ignoring everyone who kept saying, "well, you really only need "clim"(climatization aka air-conditioning) a few months out of the year." These are people who have never had a car NOT with "clim" so how could they possibly know that those few months they are talking about are really LONG without it.

When I arrived in France in 2000, I collected my rental car from the airport--a blue Renault Megane (with air-conditioning). My new boss came to collect me, but as I, bleary-eyed and jet-lagged, followed her out of the airport parking she quickly pulled over to the side of the road just before the "payage" to make sure I had money for the highway. I did and so we were off! My first driving in France in a brand new car and I found myself speeding along on the highway with other cars zipping in and out of lanes too narrow to be believed trying to keep up with my boss whom I'd known for approximately ten minutes. It was surreal. And exciting.

This same boss helped me find my new car, taking me to a few garages in Nice. I saw the former rental amongst all the French Peugeots and thought, I am American, after all. So I chose a Ford.
(Not knowing they are made in Europe anyway, I bought a Whirlpool washing machine for the very same reason. It is a brand I knew. And with so many new things to get used to, falling back on the familiar is sometimes the easiest thing to do.)

And so what?! if it didn't have air-conditioning or a cd player..."You'll be less at risk for a break in," she told me. But as I've already written both the "enjoliveurs" and the Ford insignia on the back were stolen within the first month. And after eight years of parking in the street..."he" (as I'd come to think of him having no man in my life) was in bad shape. When I brought him into the garage for his regular check-ups, the mechanics joked that the Ford Caca had arrived.

So, alas. After taking me through France, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Scotland and Ireland...my Frog and my new born baby convinced me that my Ford Ka, "she" (as the French would say for "la voiture") had to go.

We sold her to a young South American. Hope he loves her as much as I did.

Potty Training in France

2009-09-29T08:59:00.010+02:00

Well, we've done it.

Apparently we're guilty of rejecting our son's daily, smelly "gifts", the consequence being he now screams and writhes around on the floor when we try to change him. While I recall he did this quite frequently well before we rejected his offerings, it now seems he prefers to keep his little "treasures" to himself, screaming when we take them away...and worse, flush them down the toilet. Cruel parents. We've scarred him emotionally for life.

Let me go back to the beginning..."a very good place to start" (no, sorry that's the Sound of Music...oh well...a nanny none-the-less)

I've just had a talk with our nanny. In France they are called "nou-nous" but don't get any fancy Mary-Poppins-the-live-in-magical wonder ideas in your head. While she is rather Mary Poppins-like, full of energy, kind, consistent, and fun, she lives around the corner from us and we take our son to her four days a week.

With her our son has the chance to play with two other children--another boy his age and a little girl half his age. And every Tuesday they all go with the Nanny to "The Association" (said in a gruff voice it sounds like something out of Scarface or the Godfather) Well, at "The Association" he plays with lots of other little children of pre-school age--painting, drawing, bouncing around in a giant pool full of plastic balls. He's pleased with the arrangement, and so are we. The French childcare system is just amazing. (That's the most bragging you'll be getting out of me in this post, no worries) It should be, we pay enough in taxes for it!

ANYWAY...as I read articles about what to do with my nearly two-year old in English, the sources are mostly from the US and UK which clash terribly with the advice here in France the nanny/pediatrician gives us...from the amount of milk he should be drinking to potty training techniques...As my mother says, it's a wonder ANY of us grew up at all! And so reading various sites, listening to friends and my mother-in-law who had her children potty trained early as they lived in Tahiti and everyone preferred being "dry" in the heat, our son went onto the potty, or the "pot"(poh). All was well until we flushed away his little treasure. A look of absolute panic. He looked like a child who has dropped his icecream.

Well, I spare you further details, but I'm happy to say that over the last few weeks we've hopefully erased any anal-retentive leanings...he is now proudly announcing deliveries with a loud "Caca!" and he's well on his way to being "propre" (clean, as the French say) and sound of mind.

Can't wait until he's in his twenties and we can tease him a little about his "treasures"...

(image from www.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/sfmoms/2008/05/29/smellydiaper333x500.jpg)

Chateau Roquefort

2009-09-23T14:11:00.004+02:00

When I saw an advertisement for this game I thought, "This HAS to be French?!"

Game Description: A famous gourmet left a collection of cheeses in a grand old chateau. As the years passed, the cheese aged, but so did the Chateau. You play the part of mouse, searching through the castle looking for these long lost cheeses....(using their noses as they must be some seriously stinky cheeses!)

Who else but a FRENCH game designer would come up with a game about mice searching for 7 types of super stinky cheeses!!??

Well, it turns out I was wrong. The game designers are German...or perhaps Swiss?! The Game's original (mis?)titled name "Burg Appenzell"

I wonder if the USA sells a different version? There's nothing for children to read so no real translation is needed...but is there a cultural translation?! Do the American mice search for cheddar while the French mice search for Reblochon?! ;)

Shoes: Made in France

2009-09-16T09:56:00.001+02:00

The French not only take their school supplies seriously, but shoes as well: kiddie shoes.

One of my delights in being a mother in France has been the discovery of shoes. Kiddie shoes. There are at least two brands I know of still made exclusively in France. All natural materials and made in Europe mean two things: Serious quality & Serious price.

But with my new "choose things NOT made in China if and wherever possible" stance these days, it is natural, and expensive, to buy the best for my little Frog. And even my little guy is noticing the difference.

He is growing so fast. His feet faster than the rest. For this summer we bought him a cheaper pair made, you guess where. While they are trying to be clever now writing "imported" on the label instead of "Made in China", we are not easily fooled, are we?! But the synthetic fabric didn't breath and his poor little feet were all sweaty and smelly, not to mention uncomfortable. So when he kept walking over and opening the nice red box which contained his new shoes (which we just assumed would be too big for him and had planned to hold off using for a few more weeks), well it was time to change. He adores them. The first time we put them on, he spent a good 10 minutes walking around looking at his feet--which isn't hard as he's starting to be shaped like an "L," so his feet are hard not to notice sticking out from under him.

I am sure he doesn't notice the Made in France label, but he feels the difference. Vive la France!

Quincaillerie (Can-kay-er-ree)

2009-09-04T11:27:00.013+02:00

The local quincaillerie (hardware store) in the old town, just steps from my door, closed not long ago. And with it, one of the few places to buy things actually still made in France.

Today is my mother's birthday and since coming to France in the year 2000 I've been scouring the markets and shops for presents to send her which are "made in France." It's getting harder and harder. When I find something really "French," I hold my breath as I turn it over, dreading the "fabrique en Chine" on the back.

The one place I managed to find something year after year was the quincaillerie (see photos taken when I'd learned it was to close) around the corner. The owner's daughter would smile warmly as I made my way past overhanging ropes, wires, baskets and drawers filled with corks and rubber stoppers. It was the first place I really started speaking French. And since I was asking for things made in France, my query would soon have the whole store abuzz as to what I should buy my mother for her birthday. I would always walk out with something "French," AND made in France.

I love hardware stores. Always have. Seems to me a hardware store is the rare place (besides a grocery store) where you actually buy something you need. My heart breaks to this day when I visit the hardware store I grew up with in the Chicago suburbs. The wicker baskets which hung from low, dusty, wood-beamed ceilings have been replaced with plastic stuff made...yes, in China. At some point in my adolescence, the privately owned quaint little shop was bought up by a big chain and redone to pack in as much stuff as possible, in the most sterile and useful way possible. My mother stopped shopping there, preferring a tiny, run down hardware store well off the beaten path. Like my mother, I missed the dimly lit aisles, the jumbled mess of rope and wire in the back, and the little drawers filled with every imaginable size of nut and bolt. The store was, in a word, American.

Now, living in France and married to a Frog, I miss things that were once made in France. What have I managed to find to send my mother and my sisters: copper molds, fragile metal egg poachers, a julienne cutting "machine," a plastic box for Camembert (to keep the rest of the fridge from smelling like Camembert), Provençal fabric/napkins/tablecloths, a brass oil lamp...

This blog is a short homage to a hardware store I loved dearly. A store which sadly now has been replaced by yet another "prêt-a-porter" women's clothing store--synthetic clothing made, you guessed it, in China.

Completely "Off Subject"

2009-09-02T16:05:00.002+02:00

Just a quick meandering blog regarding the adds which follow each blog--what on earth have I been writing about to earn the "pubs" (as the French say) for Scientology and Altar Breads!? I may be in breech of "contract" for even pondering the question, but it's fascinating to me to see what adds pop up and when!

Pride, Prejudice and Handgrenades

2009-08-27T08:03:00.006+02:00

What is it with men--yes, even French men--and war movies?! or gangster movies? What's the fascination with Al Capone? Scarface?

The other night my Frog came home with two violent movies in hand. I could tell right away by the look of the DVD cover that they were ones he'd be watching on his own and happily picked up my book. "Do I mind?" Nope. I just don't want to watch 'em.

I am still tormented by scenes from movies I watched when I was young--movies I wasn't supposed to have seen...A Clockwork Orange, Silence of the Lambs to name only two...my mind is still awash with images I'd sooner forget. But somehow they seem visually stamped in my memory and thinking them away only makes them worse.

So, I've been reading Mr Darcy's declarations of love to Lizzy to the sound of rat-a-tat-tat-tat machine gun-fire in the background.

I can only laugh at my husband when he laments the violent image America represents to the rest of the world (the stamp made even more indelible due to Moore's "Bowling for Columbine")
What's the fascination with guns?! Gangster movies, war movies?! Men--all men, or should I say MOST men--adore them?! WHY??? I join Meg Ryan in "You Got Mail" in complete bewilderment over this one.

La Rentrée

2009-08-25T13:58:00.012+02:00

I am getting ready for La Rentrée--Back to School Time!

France goes into a spin after the long, lazy days of summer. Long, because most French take a holiday in the month of August. Yes, 3-4 weeks. Unimaginable to most Americans, but yes, the French legally get weeks and weeks of holiday time each year and they take it, too. Oh, and they still manage to rank up on top in the world in terms of output...hmm...could a well-rested worker really work better than sweat-shopped ones?!

www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-people-in-the-world-2009-8

ANYWAY....back to school. As a K-12 teacher, I am sweating away getting ready for school to start. My neighbor just showed me a list of school supplies she is meant to supply for her three children--ages 4-8. She reckons she'll be spending about 70 euros on each child! She thought she had chosen the "right kind" of everything, but worried. She should. The French take their school supplies very seriously.

I thought that my school in Turkey was formal--the kids stood up as I entered the room and only sat down when asked to do so...

I discovered to my delight that teaching in France--at least in my current school--is a complete dream. The kids all write their names and class # in the top left corner of their papers. However, it took me a few years to work out why choosing the paper can be a great concern for them; apparently some of their teachers are extremely particular about when they can use a double A3 sheet or a single A4...I could care less, as long as it's not music paper! Oh and they underline, in red, the titles of their compositions. When asked to draw a line under something, they all go reaching into their pencil cases for a red pen and ruler. I once asked them to draw a line without using a ruler...they stared at me in consternation.

And when actually getting a round to writing an essay I have to physically wrest the white-out from some kids as they spend their two hour essay time making their papers presentable. Just cross it out, for Pete's Sake!

While really nice for a teacher...all this training comes with a price. I fear the kids are far too molded and structured and have a hard time with freedom later in life. Take the way people drive as an example. There is far too much "liberty" and hardly any "equality or fraternity" on the roads in the South of France!

The kids are well trained. That's for sure. If you want to be the lecturing type of teacher, all the better. That's what the kids know and expect. When asked to talk, contribute and share opinions....they lag far behind the Anglophone students who--I am afraid-- all too often open their mouths without really thinking things through. While the Anglophones are more confident, freer and talkative, French students don't make mistakes.

Their Baccalaureate (of which I teach the international option--an additional 10 hours of class per week for the poor mites) is the toughest in Europe. Stress is high at the end of the year....well, I am getting ahead of myself. But still, it's La Rentrée, and hopes of a happy and fruitful year ahead are still high.

Better get back to work....my little Frog should be waking up any minute. A year from now he'll be off to school himself --altogether too soon--so I need to make sure I "profiter" (enjoy him!) while I can.

Canicule

2009-08-19T17:37:00.005+02:00

A canicule is a heat wave.
Like most of my French, I've learned this word the hard way.

I learned the word "enjoliveur" my first month in France when my hubcaps were stolen. Enjoliveurs are the hubcaps on my car. Or they were, anyway.

I learned the word "bouchon," stuck on the highway during a canicule somewhere between Orange and Avignon in the same un-airconditioned, un-enjoliveured Ford KA. Bouchon? But isn't that a cork? Why does the traffic radio keep saying there is going to be a bouchon, there is going to be a buchon, ATTENTION there's going to be a bouchon. When my car stopped dead with every other car on the road heading back home after the summer holidays for La Rentree (back to school time). Well, yes, I learned the word the hard--and hot-- way: traffic jam.

Well, a canicule is a heat wave. And that is precisely why today's blog is another short one....because I am sweating on the keyboard and you can be thankful you're not seeing it as it's not a pretty sight!

Off to water myself and my son in his new three ring "Cars" swimming pool. I just wish it were big enough for me to climb in. He'll give me his newest "no, no berk" (=yuck) toddler expression, but I just have to try!

Americans, as seen by the French

2009-08-15T09:45:00.004+02:00

Just a quick blog this time with a news broadcast my Frog sent me the other day. It's two years old but it really sums up what the French think of the USA: that everyone carries a loaded weapon.

Here's a town (true story) where everyone HAS to carry a gun; it's the law!!!
Kennesaw, Georgia (broadcast by TF1)

The French, as seen by the French

2009-08-12T09:41:00.013+02:00

I think most French would agree that they are râlers.

What is a râler? râler means to moan, complain, bitch, grumble....

I just don't get it. I cannot understand how a people who have such nice wine, cheese and countryside, which is the envy of anyone who watches La Tour de France, can be so miserable!?

For me, the best example I could give is the performance of Louis de Funes, an Abbot and Costello all in one.

There's a scene from a Louis de Funes film Rabbi Jacob. Remember, this is a French film.
He drives his 'ugly duckling' deux cheveux like a complete nut, is racist, moans about everything and everyone (râler)--most especially the French!

Ah, but isn't he cute?!

Dessert

2009-08-09T09:50:00.007+02:00

Try raising a little boy to not put sugar in his yogurt; it's an exercise in futility.
It's hopeless. I'll have to accept that my little boy is half-French. There's nothing to be done about it.

You see, the French begin their day with something sweet and end it with something sweet.
Breakfast croissants and pain chocolate give way to ice-cream, cakes, fruit or sweetened yogurt for dessert in the evening. And even though coffee is always served after the dessert dishes have been cleared away, there is generally a square or two of chocolate alongside. The French tend to take sugar in their coffee, ending the day as sweet as it started.

(So how do French women stay slim?! They don't. At least not down here in the South. Women are quite rotund. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And if a woman is quite thin, she probably smokes and drinks quite a lot of coffee. )

My husband, with the metabolism of a hummingbird, is addicted to sugar. From ketchup (yes, look at the ingredients) to Orangina, to mini-chocolate marshmallow bears to sweet/sour coca-cola gummy thingys, he adores sugar.

I wouldn't mind it so much if all this sugar led to sugary temperaments and Charlie of the Chocolate Factory sweet-hearted little boys. But all this sugar does not make people here sweet.

No, the French are as crass and rude and unrefined as people anywhere else, except that the world looks up to France for its culture. We Americans love the idea of the French being refined. Like sugar.

It isn't just Americans who hold romantic views of the French. I'll never forget meeting a Japanese woman in London who had recently married a Frenchman, a colleague of my husband. Standing beside her watching my husband, her husband and a group of other expatriated Frenchmen "râle" away, their arms gesturing wildly, their voices topping each other, she looked up and said, "And I thought the French were so cultured?!"

The refined sugar sweetened cultured yogurt aside...I tell you, they are not!

No, unfortunately I am afraid that the notion of "you are what you eat does not always apply," especially in France.

Next blog: a look at how the French see themselves and Americans....

Say Cheese, Please

2009-08-07T12:40:00.010+02:00

And what goes with bread?
Cheese, of course.

Now, here's REALLY where I feel foreign. And it's not just because every time we visit people I seem to be handed the cheese plate first and I can never remember how I'm supposed to cut each piece of cheese. The plate ends up looking like the Battle of Verdun when I'm through with it. You see, you're meant to retain the cheese's original shape as much as possible but logic--my logic when my nerves, desire to make a good impression and irritation with the expression on my husband's face telling me "it's really quite easy, Nora," interfere--well, logic doesn't always serve me well...

If you're interested, here's a nice site (with images) as to how to cut cheese:
http://www.fromages.com/decoupe.php I think I'll print it off and bring it along as a cheat-sheet the next time we're invited somewhere....I'll sneak off to the....darn it. There I go again, I promised my mother I'd stay away from toilet humor, and there it is again. Oops!

Well, back to cutting the cheese! As a visitor to my in-laws house for the first time, my face was still as red as the full glass of red wine I had tipped onto my mother-in-law's bright white table-cloth when the cheese plate was handed to me. On it sat 8 different cheeses all of different sizes and shapes and smells. Everyone was all smiles waiting for me to help myself and pass the plate along. I felt trapped. I had no idea what to do. I sat there with the knife in my hand and took aim at a Camembert, at least I think it was a Camembert.

Some years later I proudly brought home what I thought was a Camembert. It was a Coulomiers. A Coulomiers looks just like a Camembert but is larger in diameter. Who could guess?!

Well, if you're French you don't guess, you know.

President De Gaulle (the one with the funny round pill-box hat) said it best:
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?

I wonder.

There's nothing more exciting, sometimes overwhelmingly stinky and perplexing for a foreigner than French cheese...oh, perhaps the wine!?

Bread

2009-08-04T13:55:00.007+02:00

Just try to stick to the South Beach Diet in France.
The French are obsessed with bread. Baguettes, to be precise.

It's as ubiquitous as the potato in Norway. It reminds me of my mormor (mother's mother) who when she served us American grandchildren some pasta in the attempt to be modern and "American," she always had to have a boiled potato alongside.

My father-in-law hops on his bicycle each morning in Toulon to bike to the bakery to buy the day's supply of baguettes. And when we leave after a weekend, he'll tuck at least half a baguette into our bag to take with us. Just to be sure we have it. The idea that we wouldn't need any bread is completely absurd.

When I first arrived here 9 years ago, I didn't speak a word of French. Well, that's not entirely true. When I was thirteen or so, we'd spent a holiday on St. Maarten/St. Martin; we had stayed on the Dutch side but crossed over to the French side for breakfast each morning. One morning my sisters and mother sent me out (as I was always up extremely early, brimming with energy) to buy breakfast. As they had all had some years of French in school, they coached me in how to order a baguette and 4 croissants, "if you please." It certainly came in handy my first week in France, although being single, ordering an entire baguette and 4 buttery croissants was not something I could continue for long.

So, when I took my first drive here in the South of France, I came across the word "pain" on the side of the road. Pain?! It took a moment for me to realize it was connected to bakeries...ah, bread.

(Pain and tampons...well, that's another story. A tampon is a stamp. Golly, big boards announcing tampons for sale--custom made, to boot--that really threw me for a moment, too)

Well, gosh. This is an exciting post. My son has woken up and all thoughts of bread have disappeared for now...except the fact that I need to run to the store to get some. He'll want some this morning and as he's French, he's likely to start a revolution over it.

Le Plat

2009-07-31T09:13:00.011+02:00

French food is quite the fashion again thanks to the re-baptism of Freedom Fries, the idea that even a rat can cook Ratatouille and the re-awareness of Julia Child's Joy of Cooking through the book and film Julie & Julia with Meryl Streep.

I know, these things don't fit quite in the same category; it's like comparing the nutty mother's menu in the film Say Anything-- you know, the one who makes the French feast for their French exchange student: French Toast, French Fries and French Dressing--and my mother in law's cooking.

When we first started going out to visit my fiancée/husband's mother and father in Toulon I dreaded it. While his mother and father are lovely and the apartment a perfectly good size for 4-5 people, there's only one toilet. That's just...not what I'm used to. Okay, okay...I've drifted onto other subjects, but needless to say, I dreaded staying over.

But her cooking. Well, now. It made everything worth it. I would have stayed weeks with my late Mormor (Mother's Mother) in Norway in her tiny TOILETLESS house in Oslo if I'd had my mother-in-law's cooking served me each night...

(I realize I need to move away from the food/toilet connection...I'm working on it...)

This is not to say my family's cooking is bad. Not at all. I happen to come from a long line of very good cooks. (Ask my husband) It's just that it was truly my first introduction to how simple and delicious fresh French food can be: magret de canard salad, blanquette de veau, boeuf bourguignon, couscous (the whole meal, not just the grain), choucroute...

While my mother-in-law has passed on some recipes, we're not entirely sure they're the real thing...we both secretly wonder if she's giving us false information so that my attempts will fall flat and her son/my husband will long again for her home, her cooking! Ah, this I am begining to understand. 40 years old and he is still her baby. Ah, rivals for her son's attention...

Rivalry in the kitchen seems rife here. One summer we were invited to stay in the North East--Jura--with my husband's aunt and uncle. My inlaws were invited as well. Well, this aunt cooked up a storm. None of us were allowed to help in anyway. Full martyrdom was in order. We ate nonstop. And no sooner were we through with lunch than we'd be sitting down again for dinner. I've never experienced this before--long lunches and dinners, courses, conversations...and compliments. Oh, the endless complimenting. Cagey at times, but endless nonetheless.

As with most things to do with French food, I am afraid I put my foot in it: one day the aunt made a tarte with some sour cherries from a tree on their land. It was fine, but slightly too sour. The next day the same tarte was bursting with flavor--not too sweet, but enough sugar--or honey?--had been added to actually enable the tounge to taste the fruit. I was delighted and I'm afraid I over-complimented the tarte only to find it was my mother-in-law who had helped prepare it. Oops.

In town the next day, I bought them both aprons to thank them for being such good cooks. They both put them on immediately, beaming with pleasure.

How pleased I am for my son that he should have good cooks on both sides of his family. Should he want to become a chef someday and open his own restaurant in New York City, why not!? I hope we'll be invited to eat there someday.

l'Aperitif

2009-07-31T09:07:00.004+02:00

More commonly known as, l'apéro (pre-lunch/dinner drinks and snacks)

I have to admit, this is a custom that I've adapted to quite readily especially if champagne is involved. I just adore the stuff. I don't want to sound like I've stepped out of "Sex and the City" or something, but I LOVE champagne. Somehow the bubbles leave me feeling blissfully at ease--not the slightest feelings of foreignness at all.

But when champagne is not on order, you generally have the choice between kir (white wine and cassis), martini, whisky or here, in the South of France, pastis which is similar to what they drank in Turkey--rakı (rah-kuh)

Hold onto your hat! The martini is not the "American" one complete with Cosmo cocktail glass, olive or onion, nor the shaken one of James Bond fame, it's a brand of Italian vermouth, the sweet white wine--red or white by the company Martini. Martini Rosso or Bianco. When we drive to Italy to go shopping (much like Norwegians take the ferry to Denmark or cross the border into Sweden to go shopping) my husband always picks up a bottle for his mom. They both swear the one from Italy, 40 minutes away door to door, tastes different to the one sold in France?!

If you've managed to read this far, you're probably wondering why on earth I feel like a foreigner over a drink?! It's not the drinks of the apero that throw me, it's the snacks, or rather the game that goes along with the snacks--at least in my mother-in-laws house.

What leaves me toungue-tied and feeling foolishly foreign are the Mini Laughing Cow cheeses my mother-in-law serves for l'apéro. Each little cube, once pealed open and consumed, contains a trivia question--in French, of course. I can just about get the question out before someone answers it. Even hopelessly simple questions wing their way past me as I'm still translating and pondering the question asked just minutes before. The worst is when I'm asked a question about Anglophone Literature or culture and everyone assumes I should know the answer and I sit there with my mouth wide open like a fish washed up on the beach. The conversation slows down, someone reads their question in a deliberately debilitatingly slow manner so that "Nora will get it."

When we lived in England, my sister invited some school friends home for tea. My mother let them in and my sister, in her proper school uniform complete with round straw hat, turned and said to her friends in a posh little voice, "You must excuse my Mother, she's just learning English."

Will I ever "get it?" Or will I, like my mother, feel forever "foreign?"

I am just waiting for the day my little frog turns to me and corrects my French.

"A Table!" or in other words, "Come and Get it!"

2009-07-29T10:15:00.001+02:00

When I say "My Life in France," I am being too specific because my "story"--if you can call it this--takes place in quite a few places.

I, like my mother and father before me who left Norway for the USA, Germany, Holland and England when they were in their 20s, am a nomad. I don't feel truly at home anywhere.

I suppose now with husband and baby I am at home here in France more than any other place I've been since I left the USA at 24, but still, there are moments when I feel quite lost: leaving Chicago this summer, uncertain as to the time when I will next see my mother and stepfather, seeing the playful amusement on my son's young face as I speak French, and zoning out during long French dinners and lengthy conversations with my in-laws and their extended families.

I am sure I'll be sure to contradict myself on this, but there is no place I feel more foreign, lost and homeless than at a French dinner table.

Let me begin at the beginning: "L'apéritif" (NEXT blog...)

Yes, Another "My Life in France" Story

2009-07-28T11:27:00.008+02:00

When I was pregnant with my son, I thought about writing "Nine Months in Provence." While happily my son came into this world, that idea didn't. Scraps of ideas scribbled on napkins, notebooks and the backs of shopping lists lie undisturbed in a box somewhere. Probably under the bed fiercely protected by dust bunnies (or moutons-sheep-as the French say).

"Nine Months in Provence" bizarrely enough became "A Murder in Provence"--another one of my murder mystery games.... Somehow facing pure fiction was easier than dealing with all the hormones of post-partum life cramped up in our tiny house in the South of France.

"It's such a glamorous life you're leading, Nora..." said my mother wistfully one day over Skype.

What can I say? I can say over and over again how rude and aggressive people here can be, how tired I am of stepping out the front door into dog shit, and how the heat just kills me. The stones of our 15th century fishing house in the old town soak up the heat and the sandy foundations (as we're a stone's throw from the Mediterranean--yes, I know it SOUNDS glorious) retain mold and moisture like kitty-litter.

There's no utopia. There's no place like home. There's dog shit everywhere.

That last one was from my sister when I first moved here in 2000. Metaphorically, yes, there's dogshit everywhere and we just learn to deal with it. I've worked out that I can't just pack up and leave the minute a place isn't perfect. I did that for too long.

It took a student of mine in my Theater Arts course to teach me this. She was climbing up a ladder to hang and focus a PAR can when she asked where I'd taught: the USA, Venezuela, Turkey and France.

"Well, Miss, you can't keep moving around forever. You've got to settle at some point," she said as she turned her attention back to tightening the C-clamp.

I met my soon-to-be-husband the following year. Hooked up by two friends of ours. Well, that's another story. That's THE story. That's how this BLOG has come about.

Here's how I came to be settled here, in the South of France married to a Frog. Mother to a Frog.