Life is one big choking hazard

All right, people, we gotta talk. You guys are strange. Every once in a while, I check a report of the keywords people entered into search engines that brought them to my blog.

Maybe I'm not writing the blog I thought I was writing? Here are some keywords that have led to me:

1. sleazy mom
2. sexy mom and plumber
3. sexodrome sexy strippers
4. mom wearing condom
5. mom dog balls

I've been a dirty, dirty American mom in Paris.

Granted, the people who entered those search terms, according to the report, spent an average of 0.00 seconds actually reading the blog. I guess if you're searching for mom dog balls and you get a giant picture of the Loosh and some blather about Eurodisney instead, you're not going to stick around for long.

To those who searched for the following, however, I hope you're still reading because I like you:

1. can money buy friends
2. paris is boring
3. how much do fake bums make on the streets of Los Angeles
4. who is the patron saint of laundry
5. why is my mom a big bastard

To the person who asked number five -- you've come to the right place.

At the Loosh's preschool, birthdays are celebrated the last Tuesday of each month. This month it was Lucien and two other kids -- for the life of me, I can't understand what the hell their names are; one sounds like "Owlren" and the other sounds like something dirty I can't type or else some REALLY sick puppies will be directed to my blog.

When I say bonjour to the mystery-named kids, I just kinda mumble their names. I would prefer to be known as "that American who mumbles all the time" instead of "that American who just said a dirty word in the middle of a preschool classroom."

For the birthday celebrations, the cake is taken care of by the teacher's assistant but the birthday kids have to bring in something else to share. It can be juice, candy, little party favors, whatever. Because I am brilliant, I decided to bring in Kinder Surprises. Kinder Surprises are chocolate eggs with little toys inside. Chocolate + plastic figurine from Ice Age 3 = kid heaven.

Fast forward to five minutes after the eggs have been purchased. I was exchanging some emails with my Al, who was in Cannes for a few days for work, and told him my brilliant plan to win the hearts of thirty small preschool children with Kinder Surprises. There was a five second pause before Al emailed me back and said, "Happy to hear you're passing out choking hazards for Lucien's birthday."

Oh. I guess that's another way to look at the Kinder Surprise. Crap. Let the debilitating self-doubt and second-guessing begin! But I was stuck. With Al out of town and two kids in bed, I couldn't go back to the store to buy something else. I sat around the apartment feeling nervous. What kind of reaction was I going to get in the morning when I handed over the bag of tiny kid killers?

The next morning, I handed over the bag of tiny kid killers with a bright smile and announced to Saint Teacher, "These were Lucien's idea!" (Yes, I am ashamed.)

Parents aren't allowed in school for the parties so I sat around and worried about those damn eggs all day. I went to pick up the Loosh with a tail-between-the-legs kind of feeling. (Great. I just said "between the legs" on the blog. Let the porn seekers once again descend upon my G-rated blog. G-rated, of course, except for all the swearing.)

Anywho, it turns out I way underestimated Saint Teacher. She hadn't distributed the Kinder Surprises during the birthday party. Instead, she passed them out at the door as the children left with a cheerful reminder to keep the tiny toys away from their baby brothers and sisters.

The kids were thrilled. The parents were smiling, too, and asked Saint Teacher who to thank for the eggs. The teacher said they were Lucien's idea (tiny jerk taking all the credit for my idea), so all the children came over to say thank you to the Loosh. Some even gave him the two-cheek kisses.

Winning the children over with Kinder Surprises. Just like I planned.

The whole incident put some things in perspective. I would much rather be known as "that American who just said a dirty word in the middle of a preschool classroom" than "that American who just sent five kids to the emergency room." So tomorrow at school I will yell confidently, "Bonjour, _____!" to that little dirty-named girl and see if anyone smacks me in the face. It's not the worst thing that could happen at school.

In other choking hazard news, January is the month of la galette du roi. Translation: King Cakes! You can find les galettes in every patisserie for the entire month but the official celebration is on Epiphany, the first Sunday of January.

On that day you buy a galette to share with your loved ones. As it's being cut, you cross your fingers, hoping against hope you get the piece with the feve, or small trinket, inside. If you get the feve, you win! You're the king! Your prize is to wear the paper crown that comes with the cake. (It may sound dumb but this is serious business, people.)

The galette is pure French deliciousness -- layers of buttery, flaky pastry filled with an almond paste called frangipane. Every time I get close to one this happens:

I was delicious

I don't give a rip if I'm the king or the queen or whatever. I just want to eat the cake all by myself in the corner, kicking anyone in the stomach who dares to approach and ask for a taste.

Kid, licking that galette isn't going to keep me away from it

One must be careful when eating the galette, however, as les feves are made of ceramic and will crack your tooth faster than you can say, "What the EFF is that in my cake?" For this reason, plus the choking concern (this is one dangerous cake), every time Lucien puts a bite in his mouth, Alex and I yell "BE CAREFUL!!!" Scares the crap out of him every time.

The king with his feve

He tried to share his crown with Coco but she was all like, "this crown makes me sad."

I had Virginia mom and her two girls over today for one last galette before the season is over. I served up the pieces to the kids and watched in amazement as Virginia daughter peeled back the top layer of her galette. "Wha?" I asked. Virginia mom explained that's how they do it -- then you know right away who has the feve and everyone can eat their piece without worrying about cracking teeth or choking to death.

Oh. Yeah, I guess that's another way to do it. Instead of all the yelling. Umm.. yeah.

What is it with me being stupid about choking hazards lately? Sheesh.

GO AWAY ALL YOU PEOPLE SEARCHING FOR CHOKING SLEAZY MOM WITH DOG BALLS BETWEEN THE LEGS.

Chew carefully, mes choux,
MJ

Happy Birthday to the Looshman

The little guy is four. I'm sure some of my smartass friends are going to remind me of what happened last year so let's just acknowledge the birthday elephant in the room, eh?

Last year we had our heads up our bums with fatigue and culture shock and celebrated our beloved son's birthday on the wrong day. And we didn't even do it very well.

This year we decided to go to Disneyland in cold and rainy January. I am still sick and, to Al's great amusement, now have laryngitis. If I can get any sound out at all, it sounds like I've smoked five packs a day since the day I was born.

But what's a sick mama to do? The kid is turning four and the kid wants Mickey and Donald. (He can do without Goofy, though. For some reason, the Loosh really, really despises Goofy.)

She ain't kidding. I f'g hate this guy.

Al and I took turns doin' donuts with Coco's stroller while the other went on rides with the Loosh. When it was my turn to ride, dumb mama asked cheerfully, "Hey, you wanna try the haunted mansion, Phantom Manor?" (In my defense, it IS marked "all ages" so I reasoned it probably wasn't all that scary. Remind me to write an angry letter later.)

While waiting in line for Phantom Manor, the Russian woman behind me either thought I was cute or she had a different understanding of personal space. As she chatted with her family, she stood so close to me I could feel her boobs pressing into my back. If I took a step forward, she took a step forward. I think she wanted to snuggle but I resisted.

Once inside the mansion, we were herded into a small circular windowless room with a large group of people. Lucien, perhaps having an overcrowded metro flashback, panicked. "I want out of this place. I want out of this place. I want out of this place," he whispered to me, near tears, looking around the room frantically. I could see he meant it so I picked him up fast and whirled around, trying to find the door. But mama was too late. The lights went out and Lucien screamed.

It occurred to me at that very moment that Phantom Manor may have been a really f'g stupid idea.

The floor started to move downward and Lucien freaked. He tried to kick his way out of my arms, pleading with me to please get him out of there. I held on tight and explained in my (NOT HELPFUL) creepy, raspy half-voice that, I, as a mother, was worthless because I could not get him out of there at that very second. As we slowly descended down, down, straight into the depths of hell, the poor betrayed boy sobbed into my shoulder and yelled, "Nooooo! Please, Mommy, I don't want to!"

Happy Birthday, little buddy!

Once we were free of the devil room and seated in the ride, Lucien sat strangely silent, held my hand in a vice grip, and hiccuped. When Al saw Lucien's face after the ride he looked at me incredulously and asked, "What the hell did you DO to him?"

I gave Lucien claustrophobia for his birthday.

The kid rebounded quickly, however, and we made the most of our cold, wet day at Eurodisney. We even had quite a few laughs in between the traumatic events.



We cut the day short when we could no longer feel our extremities and took an early train back to Paris. After dragging our ridiculously heavy baby stroller up the millions of stairs, we were more than ready to exit the metro station and go eat cake.

Al tried to push the stroller through the automatic doors at the exit and BAM! it didn't fit. He backed up and, walking a little faster this time, BAM! got stuck again. He tried it a third time because he may be insane.

"We're going to have to fold it," I said tersely, wondering how many times he was going to take a flying leap at the doors. I mean, really, he looked ridiculous and there were a bunch of people waiting to exit watching us with a mix of annoyance and curiosity.

He's a stubborn fellow, my Al, and he wasn't ready to surrender to the huge pain-in-the-ass it is to fold Coco's stroller. He tried several maneuvers, including shimmying it through sideways, while I stood back and pretended I didn't know him.

A French man coming into the station from the other side very generously offered to "catch" the stroller if Al wanted to pass it over the entrance turnstile doors.

Now, as I've mentioned before, French men are not the bulkiest. They're skinny little things. And Coco's stroller weighs five hundred pounds. It didn't seem like a fair fight.

As Al hoisted the stroller up over his head, it looked like he was about to toss a load of bricks onto a toothpick. Thank God the stroller didn't fit through and we didn't have to see that nice man crumpled on the ground.

We folded the damn thing and shoved it through the doors.

(I should probably mention Coco was not in the stroller for any of these maneuvers. She was snug in the wrap. She was not shimmied sideways through the gate nor lifted up over Al's head though I hope someone out there was picturing it that way.)

YEEEE-HAW! Crowd surfing in my stroller! Badass!

But here's the true point of the story -- I want to acknowledge the half dozen French people who stopped to help. They made suggestions and held doors and tugged on the large rubber wheels. And while I was too flustered to thank them properly at the time (not that they could have heard me with my scratchy crypt keeper voice), I wanted to send it out into the universe that really nice people stopped to help us when we were stuck, literally, in the exit gate of the metro. Thank you, nice people. May all your baguettes be perfectly crunchy forevermore.

Finally back in our warm apartment, we shared a chocolate cake from our favorite patisserie. I tried, oh how I tried, to sing "Happy Birthday" to my dear son. I thought I was doing all right, too, until Alex stopped singing and started laughing. Then he leaned over and said to the Loosh, "Try to ignore Marge Simpson over there."

But at least it all happened on the right day.

Happy Birthday, mon chou,
MJ

Eight Pharmacies

I've never pondered the question but I'm happy to know the answer -- this is how you get sheetrock into your Parisian fixer apartment.

Well, we don't know how he did it, but that waiter snuck into our apartment and poisoned me, too. In the past few days my illness went from bad to worse to worser than bad or worse.

It's been suggested to us that perhaps Al wasn't poisoned by the waiter; he just brought home a stomach flu virus. But no, we know it was the waiter...

The Loosh doesn't have school on Wednesdays. So yesterday, the day I was at my sickest, he was stuck here with me. I'd like to say he was an adorable little Florence Nightingale and tended to me with great care and concern. Yes, I'd like to say that. Very much, very much... (staring vacantly into the middle distance with sad eyes)

The truth is that kid saw an opportunity. I laid half comatose on the couch asking feebly, "Lucien? Lucien? What are you doing?" but all I heard in response were hushed giggles or, even worse, complete silence.

He climbed up on the counter and ate all the cookies. He ejected the movie I put on for him, "Up," and replaced it with "The Hangover." He opened the door for the UPS guy buck naked as I shuffled behind him trying to get there first and croaking, "no no no no no." He colored his palm with a red marker and put little pink handprints all over the couch. He drew on Coco's forehead.

Florence Nightingale? No, not so much. More like.... gosh, I can't think of a famous nurse who was always up to something.

I've got an idea for a movie. It will be called Eight Pharmacies and will star, oh what the hell, me. (Alternate title: The Vaccine Shuffle) The movie will be me walking the streets for two hours trying to get vaccines for my daughter's check-up that afternoon. I will eventually visit eight pharmacies and speak to eight pharmacists. I should probably have a baby hanging off the front of me to make it more real. She will be crying (Dear Lord, I hope the waiter didn't get to her, too).

All pharmacists will shrug at me and tell me they don't have the vaccine. That is all they will say. Then, finally, at the eighth pharmacy, the eighth pharmacist will take pity on my sweaty marching-all-over-the-damn-place self and tell me there is a production problem with the vaccine and NO ONE has the vaccine right now.

Total shocker of an ending, eh?

Before the credits begin to roll, "This is based on actual events" will flash across the screen. The audience will gasp, not believing such a waste of a morning could be inflicted upon such a super awesome mama.

As the credits roll, there would be some footage in the background of me strangling the first seven pharmacists so everyone could go home feeling happy.

(For those who have just tuned in and are confused, in France, one must procure one's own vaccines at a pharmacy prior to a vaccine-friendly appointment. Doctors don't stock them but Lord how I wish they would.)

We still went to our appointment with Dr. Michel, our quintessentially French pediatrician. At the end of the appointment, he asked how Lucien was doing. I thought back to yesterday and all his shenanigans but finally answered, "He's great." Dr. Michel chuckled and pulled out a handful of candy from his desk, passing it to me and saying, "Here. Give these to him. He's funny."

I had three immediate thoughts:
1.) No. The last thing that kid needs is sugar. I will instead eat these on the metro home.
2.) No. He will never know you think he's funny. That only encourages him.
3.) Only in France would a doctor give a kid a handful of candy after an appointment. And even more -- to a kid who isn't even AT the appointment.

I received a letter from World Vision today and I admit, when I saw the letter in the mailbox, my heart jumped up into my throat. World Vision has told us if we hear nothing from them, Haitian Lucien is OK. If we receive a letter, however, the news may not be so good.

I tore it open and in a feat of horrible timing, it was just his annual report, mailed long before the earthquake hit. Inside was his latest drawing -- a palm tree this time. I'm not even going to joke about our money going to palm tree drawing lessons; I'm just happy to see it. But I know that since he drew it, his life and country have changed dramatically.

I may complain, but I'm always grateful.
MJ

Run! It's a finger gun! AAAAHHHH!

Here's my thinking when I enter a store during Les Soldes: "I have no use for that whatsoever. Wait -- it's 70% off, you say? Booyah, I'll take two!" I'm buying Camille dresses she won't fit into until she's ten years old. When I pull them out of dusty bags in ten years, I think she will be very impressed with the amount of euros saved.

I usually forget we don't have any storage here until I walk in the door holding the bags. Then I have to wad all the pretty dresses up and stuff them into whatever nooks and crannies I can find in the apartment. I'd sell Al's soul for a closet.

It was only a matter of time before the Frenchies tried to kill us but we didn't think both of us would be targeted in the same weekend. On my way to pick up the Loosh Friday, I saw a strange man in the middle of the street. He was yelling some loud angry stuff. One glance told me his mental health was not the mental healthiest.

For some reason (could it be the red coat amongst all the black outerwear?) the man chose me. He walked up and pointed his fingers at me like a gun. My first impulse was to laugh with delight because an invitation to play Frenchie cops and robbers is rare indeed! But then the strange man started pulling the air trigger and yelling, "BAM." This caused a woman across the street to scream.

The woman who had screamed stared at us, hand over her mouth in horror. For a split second I thought, "Oh crap, did I just get shot with a finger gun? Was I wounded by an air bullet? I put my hand up to my head to see if it was bleeding. And -- duh -- it wasn't, so then I felt self-conscious and pretended like I was just fixing my hair. Stupid.

The strange man then chose a new target and went after a fashionable male talking on his cell phone. As he "BAM! BAM! BAM!d" his way down the street, the fashionable male waved his arms around, shooing him away like he was an annoying fly with a finger gun.

As I turned the corner towards Lucien's school, I saw the strange man had stopped a car in the street and was "BAM! BAM! BAM!"g the driver. The driver looked a little nervous.

I guess to the French, finger guns are pretty scary. But I'm like, "Yaaawn. I'm from the U.S. of A. I get a real one pointed at me ten times before breakfast. Bor-ring."

So with that strange incident behind us (I'm expected to recover fully from my non-existent injuries), imagine our shock when a waiter poisoned my Al just 24 hours later.

Uncle Alex is visiting again. He's in Paris for work but spent the weekend with us. He and Al, because they're work-obsessed corporate monkeys*, took their laptops to a cafe Saturday afternoon to work side-by-side. That's kinda like holding hands for dude friends.

Americans are often accused of taking up too much space by the Parisians and they've got a good point. You can spot an American in a cafe a mile away by the way they recline, stretch their legs out into the walkway, throw their arm over the chair next to them, toss their coats and bags onto a neighboring empty table. We do, indeed, take up a lot of space and it drives them crazy.

So the waiter's head probably very nearly exploded when Alex and Alex sat down at TWO SEPARATE TABLES next to each other, pulled out their laptops and threw their coats on the chairs next to them. We're talkin' pure red hot waiter rage. The cafe was virtually empty, mind you, so Al and Al didn't think it would be a problem but Frenchie waiter unleashed some serious attitude. Alex and Alex, ignorant space-hogging whores* they are, stayed where they were, ordered politely and tried to get some of their work done.

Fast forward to a handful of hours later and my Al, suffering the violent throes of food poisoning, had a theory that the Frenchie waiter put saline drops in his beer. I won't get into the reasoning behind the theory because there really isn't any, but Uncle Alex and I agree he could be right.

I think Alex and Alex are just lucky the waiter wasn't packin' a finger gun.

(*I just turned to Al and asked "Will it offend you if I call you a work-obsessed corporate monkey?" He looked hurt and said it was perhaps, "a little harsh." In the interest of full disclosure and respect for my life partner I then asked, "OK, what about ignorant space-hogging whore?" Then I started laughing real hard so I dunno what he said. Ahh well, he probably said it was fine.)**

(**I just asked Uncle Alex what he thought about being called those things and he wanted to know what he'd done to make me so hateful towards him. HA! That Uncle Alex is such a jokester.)***

(***I just asked work-obsessed corporate monkeys and ignorant space-hogging whores how they felt about being lumped in with Alex and Alex. They spit out their beers and lunged for me so I skedaddled.)****

(****You should probably know I'm incredibly sick right now and not thinking too clearly.)

Hey, Camille is free from her hip brace! Huzzah, little girl! She's feeling superfly about the whole thing.



Mama gets a little weird when she feels like crap, mes choux,
MJ

The other Lucien

xsnzzzzz nasnb 1r2qt1fzs

That's the Loosh's input. He decided to do a guest post while I got my coffee. He's an amazing writer. I would never have thought to put those letters and numbers together and yet -- magic.

So who's the boy to the left? That's our other Lucien. When I was pregnant with the Loosh, Al and I decided to sponsor a child through World Vision (I may begin to sound like Sally Struthers here, with her big blonde head and watery-voiced pleas to SAVE THE CHILDREN. But I can only dream of being like Sally Struthers. That woman is a goddess.)

We wanted to sponsor a boy -- a boy to match the boy we were expecting. A boy born in a poor country, not fortunate enough to have been born in the land of plenty, as ours would be.

We flipped through the pictures and saw the boy above. He was thirteen, older than we were looking for, but his name was Lucien, the name we'd chosen for our baby. "It's a sign!" we cried, and promptly yelled at World Vision, "WE WANT HIM." World Vision politely informed us that wasn't proper procedure, all the yelling and whatnot, and we needed only to enter our credit card number and for the love of God, pipe down.

Perhaps you already know where I'm going with this, but our second (first?) Lucien lives in Haiti. Over the years, we've received many notes about Haitian Lucien containing details of his life. We know he helps his family by carrying water from the well. We know his favorite subject in school is French. We know he loves soccer.

A large percentage of his community is afflicted with HIV/AIDS. His childhood has not been carefree or happy as a child's life should be. His eyes are sad in every photo we've received of him. He's tiny for his age.

Haitian Lucien has never written us a note but has instead sent us pictures he's drawn, usually of flowers. Alex and I have joked many times our money is going towards flower drawing classes instead of reading and writing classes but that's just the snarkiness that lives within us. We always liked the flower drawings and hung them on our refrigerator next to his photo.

Obviously, since the earthquake, we're thinking a lot about Haitian Lucien. World Vision is unable to give us an update on him until the dust literally settles, but we think he lives far enough away from the epicenter to be out of harm's way.

But all the same, every time I sit down at the computer or turn on the television, I'm confronted with all those who weren't so lucky. It's painful to witness. Haiti has already suffered enough.

I was going to blog about other things today. I wanted to finish up a last few humiliating details of our road trip. I wanted to talk about Les Soldes, the month-long sale extravaganza happening as I type. (Paris goes on sale for a full month, the deals are incredible, and so far I'm pissing myself off by only buying things for the kids. Yep, that was the gist of it.)

I was going to complain that Camille, who was previously sleeping well, has entered some sort of developmental stage that makes her want to stay up all night and kick her feet. When she can't get them to move the way she wants, she yells. Every two hours or so. Loudly.

I was going to share that the Loosh..... well, he remains the Loosh and you all know him well enough by now.

I was going to mention that, over a year into the adventure, we are extremely close to getting our cards from Assurance Maladie -- with the PROPER NAMES ON THEM, PEOPLE!

But as tragedies tend to do, I've been given a different perspective on all that and it's a whopping SHUDDUP ME. Shopping? Yeah... kinda dumb. Miss Coco? Kick those feet, girl; your mama can handle a few sleepless nights. Lucien? Keep doing la betise all over the damn place; you're funny and fabulous and we'll get through it. Paris? I love you and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

So this post was not funny. If you came here looking for a diversion from the depressing news of the world, I totally failed you today. But to ignore what happened would have been callous and to force myself to write about other things would have been lame. As hard as I tried, I couldn't avoid Haiti today.

I'll try harder next time because goodness knows we could all benefit from a moment of levity.

Hugs, hugs, everyone hug now. And again. And again.
MJ

...and please, SAVE THE CHILDREN. Go to World Vision (or any other sponsorship organization. I'm not picky.) and sponsor a Lucien of your own.

Because some stories must be told immediately

I was at New York mom's apartment yesterday, eating macarons and catching up on holiday stories with a few of the ladies. London mom, who has a four-year old son, Harry, told the following story about their Christmas in Paris. I'm going to call London mom "Hillary," short for "hilarious" because that's exactly what she is.

*Start British accent here*

Hillary and her husband bought Harry a very large pirate ship bed for Christmas. On Christmas Eve after Harry was asleep, Hillary, her husband, and Hillary's family visiting from England started building the bed.

Large pirate ship beds being what they are, assembly took hours. Around 2:00am the bed was assembled and an argument had broken out between Hillary and her husband. Hillary's husband wanted to push the bed into Harry's room so he saw it first thing when he woke up. Hillary wanted to leave it in the dining room, where it had been assembled, because she wanted to see his face when he saw it. She was also afraid the moving of the bed would wake Harry, thus destroying his belief in Santa Claus at the too-young age of four.

(For clarity's sake, Harry's bedroom is next to the dining room, accessible through a set of large, classically Parisian double doors)

Hillary's husband threw open the double doors and started pushing the bed into Harry's room. Resigned, Hillary and her family threw themselves into the task as well. They heaved and grunted and the large bed slowly slid across the floor.

And as most anyone could have predicted, Harry woke up. And standing before him was the silhouette of a man (Dad), perfectly framed by the window.

"Mummy!" screamed Harry at the top of his lungs. "It's Father Christmas! Father Christmas is in my room, mummy! It's him! He's here! Mummy, IT'S FATHER CHRISTMAS!!!"

Hillary's family panicked and crawled out of the room. Hillary's husband panicked and ran around like a frantic caged rat trying to escape. Hillary ran into the hall and yelled, "Uhh... Daddy's coming, honey!"

Daddy, meanwhile, ran over to Harry and did what any freaking out father would do; he put a pillow over Harry's face. He then motioned frantically for Hillary's family to drag the bed back out of the room. Harry, stunned, started hollering, "Mummy, why is Daddy holding a pillow over my face?" He put a pillow on my face, mummy! He has a pillow on my face but I want to see Father Christmas!"

Hillary's family dragged the bed out of the bedroom and back into the dining room. Harry's dad removed the pillow from Harry's face and tried convincing him he hadn't seen a thing.

Harry wasn't buying it and was now wide awake. His dad scooped him up and took him down the hall, quickly past the darkened dining room where relatives were cowering silently with a large pirate ship bed, and put him in their bed with them. They kept him pinned there 'til morning as he hollered, "I hear him! I hear him! Let me go! He's in the next room!"

Harry may remember this Christmas. He may also think his parents are total bastards.

Badass Road Trip Part Deux

Before I return to our festive post-Christmas road tripping tale --

A U.S. geography lesson courtesy of a Frenchie kid magazine. Something doesn't seem quite right but I can't put my finger on it...

So there we were, me with wet pant legs, breathing non-polluted Frenchie air and driving through beautiful Normandy.

Normandy roads are kinda bastards because they take all your money. Driving the main highway requires you to stop every fifteen feet or so to pay the highest tolls I've ever seen. (For those toll prices, you'd think they could afford to install some real toilets at the rest stops.)

Even the Loosh was annoyed. Every time the Peugeot slowed and mama started counting euros, he would yell from the back seat, "AGAIN???" The first time he said it, Al and I laughed. This encouraged Lucien to yell "AGAIN???" from the back seat every five seconds all the way to Brittany. Deeeelightful.


When we caught our first glimpse of St. Malo, we felt happy; the walled city by the water is quite a sight. "This is the greatest thing we've ever done!" we cried triumphantly. We drove through the gate, entering the walled portion of the city. Suddenly all our self congratulation turned into, "This is, by far, the dumbest f'g thing we've ever done!"

St. Malo is old. Old streets were not made for cars. The streets were about as wide as our tiny Peugeot. Turning from one narrow street onto another narrow street involved lots of shimmying, lots of reversing, then some forwarding and more shimmying. When you add to that the ten bazillion tourists clogging the streets, we were kinda stuck.

It felt like we were the only non-zombies trying to escape zombie town and the zombies were closing in around the car fast. What was different, though, was the zombies were thin, attractive and well-dressed.

Things got really tense when a Santa-hat-wearing marching band cut in front of us, completely closing off the street Mapquest ordered us to take. Without our turn-by-turn Mapquest directions, we were lost in a maze of tiny one-way streets with a buncha hot zombies. Damn you, Santa hat marching band.

Alex's sanity slipped slightly as he tried to get through the moseying hordes. I knew he'd reached his limit when he revved the engine and said he was going to "take some people down."

"Get outta the way" I hollered at the little grandma in a wheelchair. "He's lost his dang mind!"

"AGAIN?" said Lucien.

"AAAAGH OMG STOP SAYING THAT OMG AAAAAAGH" said us.

We decided to park the car and find the hotel on foot. That turned out to be a good decision. We found it, took a deep breath and resumed our back-patting. We recover quickly.

Even after our less than graceful entry, going to St. Malo was a good idea. It's beautiful. And once you're out of the car and away from the zombie herd, those tiny streets are really quite charming.

St. Malo is surrounded by forts on little islands. When the tide is out, you can walk out to them. When the tide comes in.... well.... you can no longer walk out to them! Obvious!

We enjoy living dangerously so we walked out as the tide was coming in. We enjoyed the scenery until we noticed small waves starting to break on the walkway. We hustled and made it back to the mainland with minimal dampness.

Since humans are rubber-necking humans, all the people who made it back in plenty of time stood around on the beach to see if anyone got stuck. With each person who crossed, as the water got deeper and waves started crashing around their legs, we dry smug people chuckled and felt superior to the boneheads who hadn't crossed ten minutes sooner.



We walked the walls surrounding the city and marveled at French "security" measures. Take, for instance, this rusty old railing with the gaping hole beneath it and sheer dropoff on the other side. Some people might be freaked out by it but not us because our middle names are "danger."



(Here's where I drop the bravado and admit I had Lucien tied to me with several pieces of rope and my middle name is really "scared shitless.")

An old lady got mad at Alex and threatened to spank him. I'd tell you why but the story is nowhere near as interesting as the punchline so let's leave it at that. Alex responded to the threat, of course, with a seductive "Well, hello there, beautiful....."

Spent. I'm going to have to make the road trip post a trilogy; thinking up the words is exhausting. Thankfully I can dwell on the road trip because there is not much else going on in our daily lives -- just some power outages, some troubles with bureaucracy (NO WAY!) and Lucien is seconds away from being kicked out of his preschool (I hope I'm exaggerating but he and Raphael are doing la betise all over the teacher's last nerve.)

Breathe in.....breathe out.......breathe in.......breathe out.....
MJ

Dinosaurs and Turkish toilets

On Christmas Eve, we, along with every little boy in Paris, took the metro to Bercy Arena. When we stepped off the train, we were swept up in a little boy flash mob as they poured onto the platform and up the stairs to the exits.

La Marche des Dinosaures had come to Paris. And the Loosh was excited -- though whether the excitement stemmed from dinosaurs or having mom and dad all to himself, I can't say. (Coco stayed home with a babysitter because she wanted to work on her drooling and stuffing her fist in her mouth. She's busy and has no time for dinosaur nonsense.)

For some reason Bercy Arena is covered in grass. While Alex and I speculated on mowing methods, many, many French boys cut in front of us in line. They teach 'em young here.


It wasn't ALL boys at the dinosaur show. There were certainly some girls but this is the first time in my life I've encountered a women's restroom with no line while the men's line snaked out the door and down the hall. I resisted the urge to point at them and laugh because that wouldn't be ladylike.

I bought tickets in the fourth row because I think we're made of money. It was worth it. The show was so impressive, I actually gave a shit about dinosaurs for the first time ever.

It's a thinga-saurus!

Lucien's only complaint is the dinosaurs scared the hell out of him. My only complaint is perhaps the dinosaurs were too realistic because Lucien now thinks dinosaurs still exist. Alex's only complaint is the overly-dramatic narrator whom he wanted to punch in the face. We agreed it would be pretty awesome if one of the dinosaurs ate the narrator at the end of the show but maybe the hilarity would be lost on the kiddies.

Christmas arrived with a lot of stuff. We missed our families. The Christmas Day Skype sessions were chaotic as Lucien ran around naked and yelling and Alex accidentally mooned my entire family. But(t) at least we got to see all those beloved faces.

We had the terrific idea, after bestowing many wondrous gifts upon the Loosh Christmas Day, of prying them out of his hands and strapping him into a car for five hours. Our destination was St. Malo, an old (duh) walled city on the coast of Brittany. We were happy to get out of here but not happy about having to brave our creepy storage space to get Lucien's car seat.

When I say creepy storage, I mean it. This is our storage space under our building, built in 1670. There are no lights down there so we need flashlights even in the middle of the day. The photo below looks nice and bright but is illuminated only by the flash of the camera. If these walls could talk, we would crap ourselves and then have heart attacks.


When we got the car seat upstairs after braving the pitch black labyrinth of hell, we discovered not only had Lucien outgrown it by a lot, it was also covered in a thick layer of yellowish mold. Alex wanted to throw it in the shower, hose it down and use it anyway. And THAT is why God gave babies mommies.

In the U.S. when we've rented a car seat at a car rental place, they've come cleaned and wrapped in plastic. Here, Alex was directed to a back room where he had to crawl around in a pile of car seats circa 1940, finally pulling out a booster seat that both fit the Loosh and looked like it was manufactured in the last decade.

It took him two hours at the rental place but Al finally parked a tiny, shiny Peugeot outside our front door. As we headed out of the city and began to see green things and open fields and huge, empty stretches of road, we felt incredibly relaxed and happy. Paris is my woman, don't get me wrong, but sometimes you've got to get away from the old bird. She is sooooo demanding.


Road tripping in France looks exactly like road tripping at home. Well, I guess the centuries-old farmhouses you pass are a little different but there are still lots of cows. There are also rest stops that look exactly like rest stops at home. See?

Gawd, I love it when Alex does "the flamingo." Sexay.

Rest stops look like those in the States, that is, until you walk into the bathroom and are confronted by a Turkish toilet. A Turkish toilet, for those who have yet to encounter one, is a porcelain-rimmed hole in the ground. For us lucky ladies, they're also a highly effective thigh workout.

Some Turkish toilets at rest stops are also self-cleaning. One should not stop to ponder the Turkish toilet and instead get the hell out before the system tries to clean you. I, of course, stopped to ponder and thus had my shoes and lower portion of my jeans drenched by water jets that shot out of the walls. "What the hell just happened?" wondered me.

I emerged from the ladies restroom damper than when I went in but Alex asked no questions. It's normal for us to be confronted with strange things so most don't even register anymore.

...to be continued... because that's all I can do for now. The holidays have sapped me of all desire to do anything at all, including moving my fingers on a keyboard. I am now going to roll away from my computer and fall asleep on the rug.

2010 kinda coming in with a whimper, mes choux,
MJ

We left Seattle on New Year's Eve. We arrived in Paris on New Year's Day. Aren't we so damn poetic?

A whole damn year. Happy one year anniversary of Frenchie living, my little family. Happy one year anniversary of having us, France. And happy one year anniversary, my beloved little blog; I didn't live before I met you.

It's been a year since I drove a car. Well over a year since I mowed a lawn (that chore is all mine because Alex is "allergic" to grass. I feel suspicious.) A year since we didn't cringe when Lucien ran across the floor. A year without Costco.

A year since we've seen our friends. Even crazier -- a year since we've seen our friends' kids who, according to pictures, are now old enough to have families of their own.

It's been exactly a year since the incredibly bad plane ride and the tiny temporary apartment. Exactly a year since a seriously jet-lagged Lucien made sleeping impossible. A year since I said "trois" for no reason at the grocery store. A year since the washing machine from hell. A year since I locked myself in a pitch dark bathroom. A year since I spied on the rich people and ate a stranger's nutella.

This was one crazy f'g year.

I wasn't sure what to do for our one year anniversary. Something huge, I thought. Maybe streaking across the Champs du Mars or entering a duck gizzard eating contest. Maybe running through the streets with my big American smile, hugging every Frenchie I passed. Maybe eating mass quantities of bread until my stomach exploded.

But in light of the holidays being over and the road trip we just completed (more on all that when wits are about me again), we're tired as hell so we're taking a more laid back approach to the historic date; we're going to defrost the freezer and play Mario Kart on the Wii Frenchie Santa brought us.

So Happy New Year everybody and holy crap -- one year.