road trip!

at the risk of looking like a complete moron, I've decided to post this...

Ah, the countryside. Every cliché I’ve ever read comes to mind as I look around and see the endless sunflower fields, the slowly grazing cattle and the hunky, tanned boys on four-wheelers. I always considered my little town of Chaumes to be “country”. Hell, the nearest McDonalds is twenty minutes away and there are only 1,000 inhabitants. That qualifies as country for me. But as I drove an hour on one-lane country roads, seeing no one aside from the occasional tractor, I revised my definition of country a little.

I suppose I should tell you where I am. No, I have not been kidnapped. Although I could definitely run with a farmboy kidnapping fantasy… I’m spending a week at the kids’ grandparents’ country home. It’s about two hours south of where we live and I am officially in love. I want an 18^th century farmhouse in the french countryside a.s.a.p. s’il vous plait.

Seriously, this place is dream-like. As we drove here I kept saying to the kids “isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you just love it out here?” Apparently they’re used to passing through picturesque farms full of flowers and quaint 17^th century villages straight out of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. That figures.

The house is amazing. It dates back to the mid 1700’s and used to be a grenier, a word that makes perfect sense in French but that I have no idea how to translate. I think it is like a barn where you store hay. Anyways, the grandparents bought it when their children were pretty young and completely renovated it. Basically turned it into a real, livable house. I’ll post better pictures later but for now I’ll just lounge in my chair and use my webcam.

There are one, okay maybe two downsides. I’m not trying to get all negative here though because I think I could stay here for at least another month without needing to see civilization. First, there are mutant flies. I went for a run yesterday and felt like a cow—not because of my slow pace, thank you—because there was a cloud of fist-sized flies buzzing around me. Because I’m in the middle of agriculture country, ie cows everywhere, there are lots of friendly little fly neighbors around. The normal ones I can tolerate. They come with summer. But these big daddies? They’re vicious. And they taunt you. They just slowly buzz around you, knowing that if you try to kill them, you’ll get a big ass bite/sting/whatever they do that’s really painful.

Downside two. I woke up at around 5 a.m. with a bit of a stomachache (no doubt due to the fact that yesterday I consumed bacon, two hotdogs, ice cream and cheese. Yes mom, that alone raised my cholesterol twenty points. But I’m a guest! I can’t refuse what they serve. And plus, we used a real grill so I was sold. I MISS BARBECUES!) So I woke up and got some water and immediately felt better. As I lay in bed appreciating the silence of the countryside, I slowly started to drift back to sleep. And then I heard it. The rooster crowed. I thought to myself, “ how perfect. Just like the real country with a rooster cock-a-doodle-doing (or co-co-rico-ing as they say in french) and everything”. But then it crowed again. And again. And again. For at least an hour until I put in ear plugs and shut my window. In fact, it’s noon right now and the damn thing is still crowing.

The grandparents are great, too. They’re easy to get along with and downright hilarious. Yesterday I watched this makeover show with them and we spent the entire time making fun of people (we were in our element there) and discussing how horrible everyone was. They made a point to tell me that the host—a 100 pound flamboyant little thing in a very low cut v-neck and leggings (and a man)—was gay. Oh, thank you. I was on the fence about that one. The funniest moment came when the grandpa commented that the host’s hair was styled like a LEGO figurine.

pretty damn accurate, huh? All plastic helmet looking.

Yesterday, I also found a little piece of America right in the middle of the country. We had to go to the store to buy a few things and get this—this place was JUST LIKE WalMart. Clientele and everything. Within five minutes I had spotted a woman weighing over 500 pounds, a child (female) not wearing a shirt, a man’s buttcrack (pointed out by the grandmother), a couple fighting (no kids being beaten though), and a two year old with a “diamond” the size of a cherry in its ear. I tried explaining WalMart to them, and that in fact, while this population is bizarre in France, it is indeed quite common in the United States.

As a sidenote: a bird just shit on my computer. Ah, the country.

And that’s about as much as I have to tell for now. We have some trips planned to see a chateau that’s being reconstructed and to visit caves (LOVE CAVES!) not far from here. I’ll keep you updated.

catch up

Fete de la Musique group...Kate and Jonathan, Sara and Ben, my date the faceless seven year old and me.

My time to write is rapidly diminishing and I know I should be taking advantage of these last few weeks to really write something good. Whatever that means. I just can't seem to find any inspiration. Or maybe the word I'm searching for is motivation. It is so hot that I laid on the tile floor in front of my entire French family yesterday just to suck up a little of the frais--or coolness, of the tiles. They looked at me with that expression the French reserve strictly for Americans. You know, a mixture of disdain, pity, and mocking sympathy. Hey, you do what you gotta do when there isn't clime (air conditioning). Anyways. It's not that France is any less inspiring, it's just that I've come to the conclusion that after nearly a year here I have either a) learned how to avoid all the absurd situations I'm usually faced with or b) learned to ignore the daily insanity that generally "flavors"my life.

Normally something during my week makes me laugh/cry hard enough to sit down at my computer and vent to you (imaginary?) readers. Want to know what it was today? I woke up, made my obligatory stomach ulcer coffee, and sat down at the kitchen table. As I was sifting through everyone else's breakfast crumbs for a placemat, I saw grocery bags scattered all over the floor (cleaning is a foreign concept here) and assumed someone had gone to the supermarket yesterday. I curiously got up to inspect the new purchases in the frigo, secretly hoping to find some Kiri cheese (basically a little cube of cream cheese) to spread on my toast. Whatever, I'm a born and bred chubby kid. The first thing I noticed was a big container of moules (mussels). YUM. In France, you don't say moules without saying frites. Aka french fries. Aka one of my favorite foods EVERRRRR.

I sat back down and began to reflect on the possibility of us eating moules frites today. I didn't want to think too hard, as I could end up sorely disappointed if the moules were in fact for another day. In the midst of my reflection/praying to the universe for moules frites, I happened to turn towards the stove. And there, perched on one of the burners I saw it. The fryer. Taking out the fryer means that homemade french fries are indeed in my very near food future (sometimes I think that I purposely sleep until noon on Sunday just so that I don't have to wait so long for lunchtime). I couldn't help myself. A loud (perhaps too loud?) woohoo escaped my lips. And then I started laughing. I had just gotten visibly excited--perhaps more excited than when I found out about the excommunication of side pony (will explain later)--about the possibility of eating mussels and french fries for lunch. And then I pulled out my computer and decided to write.

And write I shall. Yesterday ma cherie Kate and I went to Fontainebleau, a city not too far from me, to play tourist. There is a huge chateau there (and basically nothing else), so we took the tour followed by a stroll in the huge gardens. I mean, our belief is that once you seen one chateau, you've seen all of them, so you can imagine our enthusiasm for the chateau of Fontainebleau. Still, it was nice to take a little trip to break up the monotony of summer.

My desire to never have children was also solidified this past week after a series of "babyshittings" for a precious little angel of six months. The thing is, I love babies. We had a blast during our few days together. Blast may be a bit strong of a word but you get my drift. And this baby was so good. He smiled constantly, cried rarely, and didn't even have toxic diaper explosions like most babies his age. We walked under the Eiffel Tower together, strolled through museums (okay, he did cry in the museum which was not cool), and explored Paris together, babysitter and baby style. It did get pretty hairy a few times--i.e. when I was running down the road with him wailing in a stroller, just trying to find the closest bench where I could give him his bottle. I got many french looks, not just the disdain and pity one, and one woman was brazen enough to say, "mam, your baby is not very happy". I KNOW BITCH. But it's a baby. It cries. I nearly launched a poo diaper at her. What I realized though was that unlike his parents, I got to give him back at the end of day. When I was exhausted and sweaty and just done playing with a baby, I got to say peace out. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a beautiful thing.

Aside: my blogging was just disrupted by Alain because he felt obliged to tell me that I didn't know how to correctly cut the salad from the garden. Does it really matter how I extract lettuce from dirt? I also apparently don't know how to peel vegetables or defrost meat. Newsflash: If you don't like how I do things, DO IT YOURSELF.

And I continue to drone on. Tuesday I became a redhead. Again. I have some really nice photos that Alain took (so what if that's vain?) but he hasn't sent them to me yet. It's so rare that I take a nice photo that I will probably post a few as proof that I don't always look so crazed.

Before I move to my closing story, I have to tell you about my continued failure to get the kids on video. They have really taken to singing lately but every single time I pull out the camera they stop. Go figure. So I have a few photos of them instead.

Now, coming back to the excommunication story.I usually keep my love life (or lack thereof) at a good distance from my blog. Primarily because there has been nothing to write about and if there has been, well I don't want any of the suspects in question to read what I blab about them. But I'll take that risk today. I only have twenty more days here, what harm could I do (famous last words)?

So as it happens, I may or may not have a slight crush on someone here. Slight. Because let me tell you, for every good quality he has, there are at least 30 bad ones to negate all of the goodness. For example, his affinity for sleeping his way through all of the girls on an internet dating site in like a month. Or his apparent love for girls who smoke cigarettes and weigh less than 100 pounds. Or his hugely self-inflated ego and the fact that he wears his sunglasses at all hours. You get the point.

Ugh, I just made it sound like I was into a total jerk. Which he isn't at all. I have been very, VERY careful to keep it in the friend zone, thus keeping things nice and light. And plus, even if all those bad things are true, I mainly just think he is cute and French. And I'm leaving in three weeks. No need to make things more serious than they are.

So the biggest hindrance in the quest for Mr. Sunglasses at Night was Side Pony. His girlfriend. Beurrrkkkkkk (or ew, as we Americans say). I tried to like her. I mean, in all honesty she was nice. And cool. Granted I could have benched pressed her with one arm, but all weight issues aside, I thought she was pretty good for him. There was only one thing that really irked me. She always wore a side ponytail. There was no possible way this thing could have been considered cute or trendy. It was a full fledged, high on the head, completely to one side, 80's side pony.

It made me gag.

And fueled the secret dislike. Of course.

So yesterday--long story short--I saw that all traces of Side Pony had been erased from Mr. S@N's fbook. Talk about getting rid of all evidence. Not to mention my creepy fbook tendencies. After much debate and discussion with Kate, we managed to discreetly (okay, not so discreetly) find out that she was in fact out of the picture. As if he hadn't made that clear enough by erasing her in one fell swoop.

Excommunicated shall we say.

That's harsh. I almost, almost felt a little pity for her. I could have given her one of those french disdain/pity/mock sympathy faces. One that read YOUR SIDE PONY SUCKS.