Me and My RC

Sss-sss-sss-Summer, 2011.

2011-08-25T20:59:00.014+02:00

I'm not exaggerating: I haven't been on this blog in so long that I forgot how to log-in. I had to go to another chat forum, view my signature, to see the link to my blog.

But enough with the mea culpas about not posting in forever. You're either a blogger or you're not. I'm not. But let's get to it anyway. I write to you tonight from Normandie, chez Brice (mes in-laws). We're back from a 3 week trip to the States. Hubbie is working in Paris, kids are seaside with grandparents. Meanwhile, I house sit, cat sit (awww... Jitske), and pick tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries when nobody is looking (because guess what? nobody is around to look). I also have a substantial amount of work to catch up on and the down time has been incredible. I've resurrected my running "career" by committing to tracking my time/distance/calories via RunKeeper (a game changer for me, I welcome Big Brother on this.) I've relished the time alone, and have watched movies, internet surfed like it ain't nobody's business, and drank back-to-back Leffe bears. I mean beers.

I do miss my RC, though. I've been trolling (is that a word? yes, but not the one I meant). Try this: trawling through old photos and videos of my little ones, falling in love all over again with the babies that they once were, remembering how much I forgot. Grateful for the video footage and regretful that I hadn't taken more. Seeing who they are now, in who they were back then. I've been away from them for 1.5 weeks now. As Patsy Cline once belted out, I need to get back in baby's arms (wait a minute, reverse that). R celebrated his 3rd birthday in July, and C celebrated her 5th two days later. My heart sags a little when I think about. (yearn).

R gives a good blow.

C in birthday princess ensemble.

We had a fantastic visit to the States this summer. We limited our trip to upstate NY, mostly a family visit, avoiding the hot, stinky weather of NYC. Managed to see: Ali, Gwen, Amy, Jodi & Chris (and the triplets!) and Lauren (yeah! for making the trip from NOLA to join us in the Adirondacks). (I retell a story here- it's really Lauren's story to tell but she'll forgive me- when she told a co-worker in New Orleans that she was going to the Adirondacks for a few days, her colleague asked her, un-ironically, "Does that have anything to do with Adirondack chairs?" As if!

We lived large in the Adirondacks, and by that I mean we ate ice cream every night. We attended my XXth high school reunion, visited the Hancock Shaker Village, and best of all: spent hours poolside and jumping on a trampoline with Aunt Jen and Uncle Larry, and our cousins "Rouge" and Nate-Nate. See for yourself:

3 Hamilton women; 2 of them 1/2 nude.

cousin Nate-Nate is King of the World (or at least of Lake Luzerne)

Lau and Jill on a boat, as we do.

cousins: reunited and it feels so good

the curious incident of the fish in the day-time

Aunt Jen before an old Shaker barn.

They were out of vanilla so strawberry had to do.

morning mirror image.

Adirondack chairs doing what they do best.

Be Merry (Go Round)!

2011-02-10T10:41:00.023+01:00

My favorite George Dubya quote is, "the problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." Riiiiiiiiiiight.

In fact, the French have a whole lot of good words, including entrepreneur, that double as English words: café, fiancée, lingerie, croissant, caramel.

To that list I would add carousel. The French make a distinction between a carousel and a manège, which I haven't quite figured out. (Readers enlighten me if you know!) If I had to wager a bet I'd say the former is bigger, perhaps containing 2 tiers, and either does (or does not) contain only horses. I've also heard that carousels turn counter-clockwise, while manège turn clockwise; I've never noticed which direction they go, 'cept around.

It's all academic, really, for I don't discriminate from one carousel or manège to the next. If pressed, I'll fess up to preferring the ones with antique looking horses, but eh, as long as RC are in tow, I'll take the ones with flashing bulbs and bad airbrushing. Skank is as skank does.

In fact, I have a hard time passing by a manège without losing some coin. I've taken to carrying a ziploc baggie filled with tickets from carousels from all over Paris- and they are everywhere! (even carousel ticket vendors know the incentivizing power of offering a bulk discount- such entrepreneurs!)

The most beautiful, I think, is the one outside the Hôtel de Ville, but our neighborhood manège filled with an assortment of outcasts (a pig, an old bicycle, a donkey, random horses), has brought us (by now) hours of fun. Franck remarked the other day while taking pix of the kids on the latest twirl ride, that "all we have are photos of them on manèges." This will be a little demonstration of that:

a riff on the manège, with baton in hand

despite appearances, he loves it

Camille is always game

high tide at Jardin d'acclimatation

parallel pathing at Champ-de-Mars

even in the odd shopping mall, we find what we're looking for

as Cinderella's coachgirl

helicopter ride along the seashore

You spin me round

2011-02-05T11:05:00.011+01:00

Auntie Gwennie came for a visit between Christmas and New Years Day. She arrived 24 hours AFTER she was meant to, due to the storm that hit the Northeast and put NYC and its environs in a veritable lock down. No matter. We got onto the business of having fun in Paris shortly after her arrival. I'm lucky enough to have some pretty rockin' in-laws so RC stayed in Normandie for a few days, sucking up the good eats, while we checked out what was happening at Colette and Musée du Jeu de Paume and lunched at one of my favorite spots in the Marais called Le Loir dans la Théière (their apple crumble? shwing.)

But soon I missed RC, and Gwen wanted to see them, too. So Franck fetched the kids from Normandie and we celebrated by (finally) hitting the big Ferris Wheel (aka La Grande Roue) at the heart of Paris, just opposite the Concorde. The line was short, and the weather c-c-c-old, but we braved it for a wonderful, if slightly overcast, panoramic view of hers truly: Paris. Hot chocolate followed for les petites, and we treated ourselves to some Leffe on tap. As you do.

Anticipating the big wheel.

looking over the Concord and up the Champs-Élysées

Les Invalides in the distance, Camille & mama front and center

Eiffel tower above Romie

Post wheel, but pre post-wheel drinks

It's all about the 11th.

2011-01-05T14:48:00.000+01:00

I work hard to see that the kids learn English. I've talked before about how I must martyr myself (and really, what mother doesn't) by sacrificing my learning French for their learning English. Any TV, while limited to downloads of US programs from iTunes (small confession: we have every episode of Dora the Explorer ever made), is in English and our bookshelves are stacked with English childrens' books including an old favorite of mine that I couldn't help but pick up while in NYC over the summer, Blueberries for Sal. Nothing against French (nor the French), but it's essential to me that RC be able to speak English well (and with an American accent :).) For the moment, Camille is enrolled in a French maternelle (think: pre-pre K, they start 'em early here at age 3), so I'm looking for alternate ways for her to learn English, beyond making the transatlantic flight to the states once a year.

And so it goes that last July (yes, I drafted this post THAT long ago), I signed her up for an English-speaking puppet workshop with Little Tykes Theatre, a children's theater offering workshops in English, in Paris (see photo above from the performance!) It was meant to be a mother-daughter sort of day. Camille and I had a little screw-up getting there: I thought it was in the center of Paris, but in fact it was in the 11th arrondissement. I was annoyed at the mishap, and felt put upon for having to suddenly drag myself to the 11th; I'd never been there before and even the metro stop was foreign to me. No matter: it was, in a word, serendipitous, because even though Camille was a 1/2 hour late for the workshop, I got to kill some time in the neighborhood.

And how! It's the kind of neighborhood that lets me squint my eyes, look up and down and up again, surveying the land, doing a little drum roll over my lips, as if to say, "hmmmm, I could live here." It reminded me a little of the Lower East Side in NYC, a bit more spacious, but similarly dotted with wonderful artist-owned boutiques, local restaurants, and green community spaces. The architecture, while not faaaabulous in that typical Haussmann Grand Boulevard-y way, was interesting, like the old Boutet factory shown below. There was a Vespa repair shop, old-school beauty salon, specialty cookbook bookstores, a community garden, and more.

We topped off the afternoon with a puppet performance and a celebratory lunch in the neighborhood. Seems appropriate I post this now as I long for days of summer dresses and high-top Converse.

Need a repair? Visit Ye Old Vespa Shoppe.

Must be a little easier to show up for work when you're passing through these doors.

Signage from the volunteer gardeners at this community garden.

Camille with new Anglo friends, sans marionettes, but with Converse.

Stopped here for a café creme and quick read of the new book I bought en route.

Working the Woodwork.

I love the signage here of a shop for clogs. See them hanging?

Noël Noël

2011-01-03T14:55:00.000+01:00

Seems like the kid's schedule goes a bit like this: 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off. 6 weeks of hurried mornings, getting to bedtime stresses, and frantically trying to pack in school, gymnastics, music, play-dates, and then (poof!) just like that, it's a 2 week school vacation. If only the working world were like that: 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off. Wax-on, wax-off.

Over the Christmas holiday, we stuffed ourselves royally for days on end at my in-laws in Normandie. I slipped in and out of a food coma over the week: plenty of pink champagne (see photo above), foie gras, oysters, cheese, bûche de noël. I brought holiday-themed cupcakes from friend Cat of Sugar Daze (a huge hit with the discerning Frenchies). Franck successfully cooked a turkey (yup, still had the head on, la pauvre), by employing a technique he learned from food science expert Harold McGee (put ice packs on the breast for a 1/2 hour before cooking).

No need for a guillotine in these parts.

Kids were super cute on Christmas day. Cousin Margaux (one month younger than Roman) woke the household up at 6am. That hurt. Naturally, there were too many presents despite our efforts to play it modestly. Roman was consumed with his first present and left the remaining under the tree for hours. Camille had put out milk and cookies (speculoos, in fact) for Santa (a USA custom), while we also laid out everyone's slippers in front of the tree so Père Noël would know where to put the prezzies (a French custom.) Camille also broke my heart a little bit when she earnestly left Santa a note on the chalkboard: "Dear Santa, I've been a good girl, Camille." (She tells me what she wants to say, then I help her spell it out and she prints it all by herself.) So (sniff) sweet (sniff).

Camille putting in a last good word with Santa.

Roman and mama, Christmas Eve 2010.

This American Cupcake: Sugar Daze's contribution to a French Christmas.

Cousin Margaux less interested in dessert than she should be ;)

Random is as Random Does

2010-11-08T21:55:00.000+01:00

Wow. Talk about biting it out on the Blogosphere... Let's see, since I last posted months ago, summer came and went (including a month long stay in the USA), and the cold and dreary temps have settled into Paris with a vengeance. What else? We all turned a year older (and it shows), Camillette is in her second year of pre-school, Roman is in a jardin de decouvertes aka a "discovery garden" two days a week, Halloween was very, very scary (and cute, see above), two work-work projects landed in my lap, I re-rented out our apartment in NYC after weeks of frantically and virtually trying to make that happen, the USA voted to put back in office the same people they voted out 2 years ago, and Franck and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary (a quick google search just told me that the "6th" is celebrated with Iron or... Candy. Umm. ok, "Happy anniversary dear, here's a fire poker. And a KitKat.")

I've also been spending a lot of time considering how best to rejuvenate the brand of a non-profit I am a part of, and realized, shamefully, that its not even the shoemakers kids who've gone shoeless this time, but the shoemaker herself. Blogging, I find, is time consuming, at least if I want to (do it) write. So, until more time avails itself to me, here are few pics to carry me, or you, through to my next post.

RC with cousin Nate sweating it out on the Whipple Iron Truss Bridge across the original Erie Canal, July 2010

Crick-crossing at Saratoga State Park with cousins Nate and "Rouge", July 2010

C gets an overpriced kid's cut in W. Village, August 2010

C with Lauren, gives us a wave in between bites, NYC August 2010

Ice cream in the E. Village with Marano boys, August 2010
It's a wet world, after all: getting rained out at Disney Paris, September 2010

Crazy Heat, Tasty Cupcakes.

2010-07-01T21:17:00.000+02:00

Summer has finally arrived in Paris and it's hot as hellfire but I'm not complaining, lest I need to eat a whole lotta' crow. I'm routinely griping about how Paris weather blows (literally), and that I want summer to feel like summer and that I shouldn't feel the need to take a cardigan wherever I go. The thing is, Paris is ill equipped for it to be THAT hot, many places (including very public ones) don't have air conditioning or even fans. The heat has brought out some pretty random behavior. A local friend Jennifer just posted a funny foto on Facebook taken outside a post office that read, effectively, "the Post is closed today due to extreme heat and no air-conditioning (but we hope you understand)." Meanwhile, a second note from a passerby was taped up along side it asking if this was going to be a summer-long thing and reminding them about a little thing called fans.

Ah, passive-aggressiveness abounds and the heat has brought about untold levels of rude encounters. I call it a malaise: I saw a man get out of his car, and take the woman driving in her SmartCar behind him to task (while his car remained parked in the middle of the street with a buddy in the passenger seat). She had a baby in a car seat sitting next to her, and no amount of manic horn honking from others could deter him from chewing her out. I looked for signs of damage to the car(s), but I think the damage was only to the dude's ego. He wears black on the outside because black is how he feels on the inside, I suppose. In another instance of the heat driving people a little whack-o: while getting Roman out of his car seat, a woman rams the front end of my car while parallel parking and when I questioned her about it she gave me the Paris Shrug, and said, "excusez-moi, Madame. C'etait la voiture!" (excuse me, mam, it was the car!). huh?

Meanwhile, all of France is on sale for the next month. Can't say as I understand it fully, but essentially there are nationwide rules (ahem, laws) governing the sales or "les soldes", and merchants can only have sales during approved times of year, typically in January and again in July. I hear that given the economic crunchy-crunch the government has loosened up a bit on enforcing them. It feels absurd to buy anything any other time of year. I try to project sizes for the next year for my little ones. I bought 5 dresses for me, including 2 from Bonpoint, which I hadn't known makes clothes for adults.

I wore one of those dresses to Cupcake Camp. Dearest Hubbie and I made 60 mini Rose and Poppyseed Cupcakes, and participated in a fantastic charity event for Rebuilding Haiti Now. Friend Cat of Little Miss Cupcake was a co-organizer and was completely consumed with activity when we arrived that we could only manage a quick bisous and a "where can I put these cupcakes?" Congratulations Cat! They raised over 1200 euros, with over 1600 cupcakes. It was a huge and delicious success- way to put sugar and spice together to help those in need. To boot, it was held on July 4th my favorite holiday, and at Bistrot Vivienne, located in my favorite passage couvert. Camille was dressed in a romper from Gwen, and we took photos of each other, although I think Camille needs to work on her focus:

Camille romping it up in a romper.

I feel a little out of focus.

Franck and Roman working it.

Lazing on a Sunday afternoon.

2010-06-11T13:19:00.001+02:00

Remember the museum scene in Ferris Beuller's Day Off when Ferris' BFF Cameron locks eyes with and is transfixed by a little girl in a painting at The Art Institute of Chicago? According to our good friends at Wikipedia, "...the scene portrays Cameron observing the little girl up close whereupon he realizes that, though from a distance all seems in order, there is no shape or form to her face."

That painting, of course, is Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grand Jatte). It's one of painter Georges Seurat's most famous works, and likely the quintessential example of Pointillism, a technique he developed and for which he was ridiculed. During a trip to Chicago for my friend Gail's wedding last October, I took a quick detour to pay homage to Sunday Afternoon; it was like visiting an old friend:

It also happens that the painting's setting is in my 'hood, and I just came from a quick jog (all my jogs these days are quick) on the island. I got those familiar tender goosebumps I get when I know I'm treading on historic territory. In fact "la Jatte" wasn't Seurat's haunt alone: Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley (likely others) also get props for putting in some painterly time here. It's a beautiful spot, and easy to imagine how impressionists would've liked it for the play of light bouncing atop the Seine's waters.

Ile de la Jatte, Alfred Sisley, 1873, photo courtesy of Artchive Web Gallery

Today, of course, it's still a retreat for many, and there are restaurants, townhouses, tennis courts, office buildings, and a bus line that cuts across it. I also enjoy it for the colorful man-made ruches, or beehives, sponsored by the town of Levallois, as well as for a crisp glass of white. Some of Roman's early steps were also captured on the island. Awww.

Me and My RC in front of les ruches

photo of me by Camille

baby steps by Roman, June 2009

above: Georges Seurat: Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte, 1886, Art Institute of Chicago source: http://cgfa.sunsite.dk

In France, it's easy being cheesy.

2010-04-23T22:32:00.000+02:00

Everyone knows that France is famous for its cheese. It stands right behind Wisconsin for making the best cheese the world over ;). A guy named Rick I used to know once (only half-jokingly) put on his resume: I like cheese. Well, I do too, Rick, and the cheese I like I like a lot, mostly the hard salty types, like Cantal, Comté, and Gruyere. Yet, by Frenchie standards, I like a relative few, which is deceiving considering that in France there are upwards of 500 of them (the figures vary.) Back in 1962, at a low point in his political career, Charles de Gaulle famously quipped, "How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheeses?"

Indeed, the best part about living here is the food culture and part of the fun is getting pretty tuned into different regions based upon their gastronomique offerings, most notably the fromages. I appreciate how history and geography are truly manifest in a region's specialties: Normandie with its rolling hills and dairy cows gives you creamy Camembert, for example. Mmmmm... Camembert... But oh, I digress.

My in-laws are originally from Auvergne, a beautiful, if under-appreciated region in the center of France. It can be a little hard to get to, and has a hard time competing with the Atlantic or the Mediterranean as a go-to holiday destination. At its core is the industrial town Clermont Ferrand (not unlike my own hometown: big ups for Schenectady, NY!) Still, it is green and mountainous, and comprised of extinct volcanoes that produce some of the world's most minerally-of-mineral water (think: Volvic brand water- you know that little Volcano on the Volvic bottle? It's called the Puy de Dome, and my hubbie's grandparents live there.)

Maybe it's the minerals that have something to do with it, for when it comes to cheese, there are several celebrated types from the region, including Cantal and Salers. But for the locals, its all about the St. Nectaire, an uncooked, pressed cheese, made from cow's milk. It's dense and silky smooth. Delicate and aromatic. I'm no food critic, but in a word, it's scrum-delicious, with hints of hazelnut and mushrooms. As it happens, hubbie's colleague is from the very same small town in Auvergne that my MIL is from, and so he picked us up a little local love on a recent trip home. Colleague must have been trying to score some serious points, as he returned with some of the best St. Nectaire I've ever had- and so much of it that I thought for certain we couldn't work our way through it. But we made a couple meals out of it. And how:

s'wonderful.

Roman secures his grip.

Camille has a taste for only the finest

Red Fish

2010-04-06T09:10:00.000+02:00

Last week, around midnight, I lay in bed as I often do at that hour, listening to one of my favorite podcasts, RadioLab (ok, ok, yes, it's in English; and I should be listening to a French podcast, so guillotine me.) By way of introduction to their subject, a singer/musician named Juana Molina, the host mentioned that she had a gig coming up at Le Poisson Rouge in the East Village. Despite my near slumber, my eyes flicked open.

Of course! Poisson Rouge.

But the Poisson Rouge I'm most acquainted with these days isn't a venue for hot bands. Instead, it's a free French/English bilingual website, filled with cheeky games for pre-school children, and replete with enough wink-winks to adults to keep 'em coming back for more. The imagery is charming, the content educational, the videos infective, and the music is catchy. They channel anime, have folksy or rocky riffs on popular English and French children's songs that can be downloaded as MP3s (I highly recommend their cover of Une Souris Verte). They leverage pop art from Mondrian to Warhol and in fact their content is not merely bilingual: an alphabet section contains vocabulary in French, Spanish, Greek, and both UK and US English, and Poisson Rouge will give your kid a head-start in Chinese, too. There are no instructions, just click and discover, and its regularly updated to keep it fresh and relevant.

On April 1st, Camille said to me, "I want to do some Poisson Rouge." (I like her choice of verb: "do some.") As she was in the middle of a nasty bout of chicken pox, I quickly indulged her, only to click on the site and find a black screen with red lettering, the same palette used by all those best selling true-crime paperbacks, saying effectively, "Sorry folks, parks closed," and "Our apologies, Poisson Rouge can no longer be maintained."

Camille getting a little stretch in before bedtime in her Poisson Rouge t-shirt

Remember Gene Wilder in Stir Crazy? "Whaaa, whaa, whaa?!" I was shocked! How do I explain "website maintenance" to a 3.5 year old, and how do I tell my pock-marked petite that Poisson Rouge is no more? I stammered. I stuttered. I contemplated a quick toggle over to SesameStreet.org, the whole while that their mea culpa was up on the screen.

About 30 seconds into it, I hear giggling. And it was coming from the computer! The black screen went away and Poisson Rouge was back as usual, indeed it had never gone away. A-ha! April Fool's! Some things really do translate.

I get the impression that the peeps behind Poisson Rouge are a bunch of creative, bilingual types who sincerely get a kick out of playing goofy jokes. But for many they caused a near panic, and even before I knew it was a joke (in those mere 30 seconds before the giggling started), I assuaged my guilt knowing I had already donated to the site. Yet still I asked myself, accusingly, "What more could I have done?"

Days later, they 'fessed up to their little joke, and sent a big merci by sharing many of the comments they received from Anglo and Franco friends alike. They promised that they were here to stay. Hope so.

YSL.

2010-03-25T19:28:00.001+01:00

I taught a speech class to undergrads when I was a graduate student. One of my students was an adorable 16-year old Swiss kid named Yves. How he managed to land himself in the middle of Midwestern cornfields for university study alludes me. Still, despite his precociousness, the other students looked out for Yves. I had a lot of group work in the class and I was touched when I saw a student, a sporty baseball player who let's face it, probably didn't get into the school based upon his academic merit, beckon Yves into his group, saying, "Yo, Eaves, come on. Join us."

I was reminded of how that baseball player pronounced his name whenever I contemplated choosing the name Yves for my boy. So I went with "Roman" instead, but still maintained a quiet soft spot for the name, owing to fashion designer and legend Yves Saint Laurent. Aka YSL.

Most recently, I had the good fortune of seeing the YSL Retrospective at the Petit Palais. Friend Gwen came to celebrate her birthday, and my prezzie to her was a pair of tickets to the show. We gloated when we skipped ahead of the 150+ person line with our advanced-sale tickets. In sum, the show was an incredible tour de force, containing over 300 pieces, plus a great collection of jewelry, photography, and video. It was capped with a magnificent display of one his most celebrated creations: the black tuxedo for women, aka Le Smoking. The show included his first from 1966, as well as a three levels of successive rifts on the original. (I should think that HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton) owes a debt of gratitude to YSL for the woman's power pantsuit.) The blog If It's Hip, It's Here provides a great overview of the show. Here's Gwen in front of the show's banner:

I'm not saying I adore all of his work, some of his least appealing pieces (to me) are his most popular. But you've got to admire the person, the designer, the talent. He was a creative genius who lead the House of Dior when he was only 21, empowered women through his designs, and was the first designer to use black models. He had a loyal following and many celebrated relationships, most notably with another of my girl-crushes, Catherine Deneuve, who first show-cased his work in one of my favorite Frenchie films Belle de Jour. (I once went wrongly overdressed to a pimps and hos party in Brooklyn and when asked what kind of hooker I "was supposed to be," I jokingly and presumptuously answered, "Belle de Jour." He laughed.)

Not for nothing that I encouraged Franck to buy YSL "inspired" glasses when he was due for an upgrade:

Yves Saint Laurent died in 2008 leaving a mega-load of work (and art) behind. His ashes are spread in Marrakesh, a city I just visited for the first time, where he had a second home and would take to for quinze jours for inspiration. I was laid up in my room at the rhiad with a stomach bug, but travel buddies Gwen and Leigh visited the Jardin de Yves Saint Laurent and his memorial for me and snapped these great photos below.

Photo of Yves Saint Laurent courtesy of Fondation Pierre Bergé

The Sophie Choice

2010-03-12T14:10:00.000+01:00

My friend Ruchi sent me an email today asking about Sophie. Ruchi is several months pregnant, lives in India, and is prepping for the birth of her baby. She says that Sophie is the hot item on Amazon and elsewhere, and was asking me if it was "worth it." The answer is a resounding... oui!

Sophie is a giraffe, Sophie la Girafe, a squeaky, rubbery teether for babies and tots produced by French toy manufacturer Vulli. Indeed, many people are now familiar with Sophie on both sides of the Atlantic, but she has been a staple of the French baby's diet for over 40 years. My sister-in-law Claire gave Sophie to Camille when she was born. I thought it was a sweet gift, but I didn't appreciate it fully until I got the voice-over from Claire explaining how essential Sophie is to any French newborn; de rigueur, you might say.

It's true! The more I looked à gauche et à droit, the more I saw French infants gnawing on Sophie's leg, chomping on her neck as if auditioning for a cover of National Geographic, or nibbling her ears between drooly jaws. Babies can go to town on Sophie with no risk to their bloodstream because its "all natural rubber" (don't ask) and "handmade in the French Alps." Sophie was designed on May 25, 1961, the day celebrating Saint Sophie (hence the name, talk about auspicious beginnings!) By 2007, over 20 million copies of Sophie have been produced.

Ruchi was right, though. Sophie la Girafe is a hot item. More than once I've seen it featured on hipster parenting blogs, and there is even a webpage devoted exclusively to it. The difference is that outside of France, it typically retails for over $20.00, presumably cashing in on the ooh-la-la French factor. Here you can find it as cheaply as 5,00€ (less than $7.00 at time of this post).

So, if like Ruchi, you're a friend of mine and you're expecting, you should also be expecting a Sophie la Girafe at your doorstep along with a nifty set of Petit Bateau pajamas (but that's another post).

"Rien comes between me and my Sophie"

Sophie la Girafe photo courtesy of www.netvibes.com

It's ok if it rains on this parade.

2010-03-04T21:11:00.000+01:00

This week I had a delightful visit with friends Virginie and Rajiv, who passed through town with their adorable newborn bébé, Rohan. Virginie, as her name implies, is French (and, um, I suppose it also implies she is a virgin, but I digress). She comes from the North and back in February 2007, she invited us to her hometown Dunkerque to celebrate carnival.

"Dunkirk" is probably most familiar to Anglos for the Battle of Dunkirk and the mass exodus of over 300,000 Allied troops in the successful Dunkirk Evacuation in 1940 during World War II.

More locally, Dunkerque is also known for its carnival, a 6-week party (elapsed time) consisting of over-the-top parade processions and a series of big balls. The carnival, in one shape or another, goes back hundreds of years, and over time has come to celebrate a beloved big guy, or geant, named Reuze Papa. He is feted by thousands of costumed carnavaleux, revelers like us who carry colored umbrellas, cross-dress, OD on make-up, wear bad hats, boas, wigs, beads, and sing carnival songs. The upshot is the worse the costume the better, and the locals are all over it. Everyone is game.

A highlight of the parade is when parade leaders intentionally stop moving, only to have everyone behind them (and by that I mean thousands) effectively result in a giant pile up, and as David Lee Roth might say, you mine as well jump. And so you do, until the parade gets moving again. This is not for the faint of heart, nor for people who require a lot of body space (which as I've established, the French do not.) The atmosphere is entirely festive and agreeable. Rain or shine.

We loved having an insider's take on this hilarious festival. And Franck's lips sure looked purty in all that rouge à lèvres.

Franck primps with the best of 'em.

Rajiv and Virginie (try to) pose in front of the church where they were married, but not without a little interference.

Gearing up before the parade with a laugh and hike of the skirt.

...et voila les belles couleurs

Watch your step.

2010-02-18T22:49:00.000+01:00

As any casual observer will have noted: there is a ton of dog crap on the streets of Paris. To borrow a device from one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk: dégôutant isn't quite the right word, but it's the only one that comes to mind (oh but wait! revolting and disgusting are close seconds). Our street is particularly prone to poop; it's less busy car-wise, so makes for a nice street to take your pooch. Take your pooch-to-poop, that is.

Ever since reading Stephen Clarke's amusing A Year in the Merde, I've been pretty smug about never having stepped in any. I've even taught Camille to avoid it, generally by instilling the same hysteria and throwing a near conniption, shouting, "WATCH OUT FOR THE CA-CAAAAA!!" whenever she is within a 5 feet radius of it (which as I've stated, is often). I'm trying to train Roman, too, but at 19 months old, he is less hyper vigilante.

But my day of reckoning came about a week ago while walking to a friend's place in Neuilly when spppplattt!... I stepped in the merde. It's days like that when I miss the upstanding, dog-owning, pay-it-forward citizens of NYC who dutifully clean up after their dog's... um... duty. Pooper-scooper type fines exist for offenders here in Paris, but are seldom enforced.

While I concede that there are a herd of green-suited street cleaners in Paris, they are severely out-numbered by the piles of pooh. Generally, the grand boulevards shimmer, while the smaller, quainter streets- the ones you most like to meander through- are riddle with it. I implore you: never, ever walk between two parked cars. Just don't do it.

I'm told that a mayoral candidate ran on the campaign of cleaning up the streets of Paris. Not a bad idea, especially as some blame Paris losing the 2012 Olympics to London because of it's soiled streets. They might want to resurrect that campaign, I've got the perfect video for them.

Epilogue: I told myself I wouldn't do this, it's too gross... too scatological, but as if to underscore my point, this is what I saw on my walk home the day after I wrote the original post:

Vevelty Undergrowth

2010-02-11T14:19:00.000+01:00

My French can use a lot of work. Its a painful topic for me, as I'm not nearly at the level of fluency I would've hoped or expected to be by now. I shamelessly blame my children: "Alas, I must sacrifice my learning French for their learning English..." (This is kinda true.)

Still, I persist. Friend Dana from high school, who has lived here for 15+ years and had a supporting role in Michael Moore's Sicko (she was one of the Americans in the focus group), once reminded me of a time when our French high school teacher asked us on an exam, completely out of the blue: "Comment dit-on (how does one say): Rome wasn't built in a day?" He wasn't predicting a Morcheeba smash hit, but it turns out he simply wanted the French equivalent of this expression, not the literal translation.

So while we were all struggling over how to conjugate the verb for "to build", the correct answer was simply and un-obviously: "petit-à-petit, l'oiseau fait son nid." (To me, that sounds more like: "little by little, the bird makes his nest," but I quibble. I guess the French don't think too much about Romans, having an ancient related civilization of their own called the Gauls.)

That was an early lesson, and I while my French slowly improves I continue to learn that translations mustn't always be literal. You wouldn't want to say, for example, upon meeting your future in-laws for the first time and after eating a wonderful meal together, "Je suis pleine" (I am full).

Unless, of course, you really were pregnant and felt like that would be an opportune time to mention it.

So I'm always a little surprised, given how many English speakers you can find around here, that folks who wish to translate a pretty fine menu from French into English, wouldn't ask one of their English-speaking buddies to do a quick QA.

This menu is from a lovely-looking place in Montmartre (my all time favorite 'hood) called Le Moulin de la Galette. Check out their site for a great overiew of the history of the restaurant and the area (for example, I learned that Renoir painted Bal du Moulin de la Galette here.) The site is in French and English (sort of).

The menu in French sounds delicious. In English, it sounds adorable.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bal du Moulin de la Galette, 1876

Some metro stops are better than others.

2010-02-09T15:05:00.000+01:00

Chatêlet is a messy metro exchange, always under construction and furiously footed with people trying to make a connection. But on a recent metro trip home with Camille from a play-date near Porte de Vincennes (the exact opposite side of Paris for us), we ran across this great performance which stopped us in our tracks.

Pun intended.

Try tying a yellow ribbon around this one.

2010-02-01T18:01:00.000+01:00

This stunning old oak is called Le Chêne-Chapelle (the Oak Chapel), and can be found in a small, sleepy farming town in Normandie called Allouville-Bellefosse.

The tree was already 500 years old (give or take a score), when in 1669 the Abbot du Détroit and his dad decided to spend some father/son quality time together and re-purpose it as a chapel. A bolt of lightning had already gutted it. The priest built a small, and by small I mean itty-bitty, altar to the Virgin Mary. Years later, a second chapel and a staircase were added. Its one of the oldest trees (and the only chapel-in-a-tree) in France.

I dragged Franck and Camille there about two weeks before Roman was born. I suppose I was nesting. (heh, heh, nesting, get it?) I managed to fit into the chapel with my Buddha-belly, but barely. I've since taken my mom there with Roman after he was born. It's really fascinating. I bet even Tony Orlando would enjoy it.

It's a veritable witness to history, and barely survived the French Revolution. Today, parts of the tree have died and it's supported by wooden beams. Shingles serve as patches for missing bark.

Sadly, for this Old Grey Oak, she ain't what she used to be.

A view looking into the chapel, and a view looking out.

Before: exiting chapel with Camille (Roman in belly) After: Roman in stroller, age 2 months, in front of Le Chêne. He slept through the whole thing.

The Mighty Loing

2010-01-25T11:54:00.000+01:00

I've been working like mad in the evenings after the kids have "fais dodo" to rebuild my iPhoto library. One not-too-smooth drag and drop months ago sent the entire photo library into a tail spin. It's tedious work and all the while I'm thinking how precarious the record of our memories is - they seem just a hard-drive crash away (one of the reasons I remain a fan of Polaroid instant film).

Yet this exercise has given me a chance to revisit many fond memories, and as it happens, especially of my early days in France when I was still reeling from the culture shock of living in a new country and being a new mother. I knew when I took this photo of the town where we first lived - the town where my daughter spent her first 5 months- that I'd look back in disbelief that I lived in such a beautiful place. The town is called Moret-sur-Loing, and is about an hour train ride outside Paris. It's has fewer then 5,000 people and sits on the "mighty Loing" as I called it, a river that feels little more than a creek. Still, it was buh-yooo-tiful, and I spent many happy days pushing my baby girl around its cobblestone streets while conjugating verbs in my head.

Impressionist and Englishman Alfred Sisley lived and worked in Moret and documented the town and its surroundings well. His home was just down the hill from our place. See Franck below searching for a bit of inspiration while standing in front of Sisley's studio.

Moret-sur-Loing, Alfred Sisley, 1888

"If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank" (Woody Allen)

LVM (le vieux moulin, no relation to LVMH): The Old Mill (INSEAD students lived there and held a weekly party on Thursdays)

Don't stand so close to me (s'il vous plait)

2010-01-17T20:03:00.000+01:00

So. Americans have a reputation for being loud and obnoxious, and easily spotted as the ones wearing sneakers. To quote fellow ex-pat David Sedaris from a line in Me Talk Pretty One Day, "comfort has its place but its rude to show up in a country looking like you're ready to mow its lawn."

Despite our inability to use "indoor voices," we have Great Expectations when it comes to our non-verbal communications, namely: our body space. As Americans, we demand a lot more of it than the French do.

I simply can not get used to how closely the French stand to me. It's a cultural thing, I know. Perhaps one of my mom's oft-quoted clichés sums it up well, "You give them an inch, and they'll take a yard." And so while the French were the first to adopt the metric system around 1790 (indeed some argue they invented it, no wonder you can't find a foot-long sub here), there is little point in nudging forward to give the Frenchie behind you a little more room, because they'll take that near meter (i.e., 1 yard = 0.9144 meter) and more. No exaggeration. I'm forever getting bumped in the bum, and seldom is it accompanied with an "excusez-moi." Harrumph.

Hence, the American "in your face" culture, in fact, isn't so in-your-face after all. Seinfeld captured the discomfort of standing-too-close brilliantly in his "close talker" episode (the close talker character played by Judge Reinhold must have picked up his technique on the visit to France he references).

photo courtesy: ShockMD

Mmmmm...frangipane

2010-01-10T23:02:00.000+01:00

Frangipane is a yummy almond filling, not unlike marzipan, and you find it a lot in these parts this time of year as part of a celebration of La Fête des Rois, or the Epiphany (when, among other things, the three wise men made their way to Bethlehem to meet baby Jesus bearing gifts.) In purely secular fashion, one celebrates by eating la Galette des Rois (or King Cake), a flat, flaky, buttery, round cake filled with frangipane.

The official holiday is on January 6th, but you can find galettes featured in French bakeries immediately after Christmas and throughout January. Inside the cake is hidden a porcelain or plastic figurine, or la fève, that can do some serious dental damage to unsuspecting choppers. Whoever gets the fève is king, or queen, for the day, crown included. Originally the fève was a bean, but today it can be anything from the very random to the very topical (e.g., we got an Avatar action figure in our first galette of the season).

We shared our 3rd galette with French neighbors today.

Not only am I big fan of the cake, but I have a little soft spot for the holiday: my husband and I met at a champagne and galette party he held nearly 10 years ago in NYC, so it's touching to see our daughter Camille's "coronation" years later.

This is not your grandmother's strip mall.

2009-12-14T22:41:00.000+01:00

I was in a weekly conversation group with a bunch of classy middle-aged French and Anglo ladies-who-lunch. I was easily one of the youngest there (and I'm not so young), but no matter, the conversation was always topical. We'd spend the first hour speaking French, the second English. Often, we'd have a field trip planned, the first of which was a tour of the passages couverts of Paris. I was enchanted.

The passages couverts, or covered walkways, were early day shopping malls, developed in the early 19th century, just as Haussman was seriously overhauling the design of the city and before the development of the department store. This was also at the time when strolling and people watching (the French word flâneur, as Baudelaire defined it: "a person who walks the city in order to experience it") became a national pastime, and importantly, before the sewer system was put underground. These are the origins of the downtown arcades you'd likely find in your old hometown. We had one in Schenectady, NY.

So these walkways were a glorious respite for walk-about Parisians. In the day, there were over 150 of them, today there remain under 20. I've visited a handful of them, and rejoice when I accidentally stumble upon one of them. The walkways are typically marble-paneled corridors with glorious glass ceilings, allowing for natural light from above, and dotted with high end boutiques. But not always. Some are seeing a real resurgence like Galerie Vivienne, abetted by Jean Paul Gautier establishing his flagship store nearby, while others remain in disrepair.

A New York Times travel section article provides a good primer on these civic jewels. Above is a photo of friend Miki preparing to do some damage outside Galerie Vivienne.

Friend Fiona outside Christian Louboutin in Galerie Véro-Dodat

In the day.

2009-12-09T16:31:00.000+01:00

Several years ago I rented a weekend summer house in the Hamptons with friends. We'd stay up late playing games wearing summer sweaters and drinking any-season beer. The first game was called "Hump or Die." The premise was that you'd either have to sleep with someone completely revolting or, you know, die. Most of us value our life too much to forfeit it completely versus sleep with someone repulsive, so we quickly exhausted that game and graduated to a celebrity face-off. It was similarly fashioned, in that you'd have to choose the celebrity based on the assumption that you'd imagine yourself having sex with that person. Generally speaking, we'd pit similarly branded celebs against one another, low-brow or high-brow, loathsome or lovable. So, for example, Oprah or Rosie? Redford or Newman? Stewart or Colbert?

For a select number of celebrants, the ones whom never really aged very well or their career was seriously in the toilet, you'd be allowed to qualify your choice by saying "in the day..." So, think: Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, or hell, even a Shelly Winters. (Granted, no matter of qualification can save some, and you're just as happy reverting back to "Hump or Die." So, think: Limbaugh or Beck.)

Years later, it's this "in the day" that defines my all-time celebrity crush. His name is Alain Delon, and although he is one of the most renowned of French actors and alive and kickin', I discovered him rather late in life via my Netflix queue. I feel silly mentioning him here as he's so damn ubiquitous in France, but he never made it big in Hollywood (not for want of trying), so I'm forgiven if this Yankee arrived late to the party.

I say "in the day," not so much because he hasn't aged well, but he's gotten rather cheesy. Early on he knew the value of brand and so started a company selling everything from perfume to watches to sunglasses ('famously' worn by Chow Yun Fat in one three of his movies). His smoking shows, and he's made bad role choices. But in the day he was simply ga-ga gorgeous, dark and brooding, rebellious and unapologetic. This working class boy made it big time. Moreover, Monsieur Delon has a lot of one degree associations of stuff I like:

he was the face of The Smiths' album "The Queen is Dead"
he starred in the original film version of Patricia Highsmiths' The Talented Mr. Ripley (called Plein Soleil)
he's alleged to have a love child with tragic singer/Warholian Nico (he's consistently denied paternity, although his parents raised the kid)

And as if luxury brand Dior had the same "in the day" qualifier in mind, they recently launched a campaign for Eau Savage, using a photo taken of Delon in 1966, the year the perfume was first launched. "In the day"- oh for sure.

photo courtesy images de parfums

Who did JR shoot?

2009-11-06T14:59:00.000+01:00

A family day out found us doing one of the most touristy of touristy things: a Bateaux Mouche ride down the River Seine. As if the tour allowing you a duck's eye view of the fabulous buildings and bridges gracing the river weren't enough, we enjoyed some black and white photography of the most startling kind.

The exhibition along the Seine was called "Women are Heroes" and featured enormous black and white photos of women's eyes. The show's photographer simply goes by "JR," and his objective was to pay tribute to women from around the world (from 10 countries, across 4 continents).

The photos were on billboard/poster paper, and as the exhibition ran for a month in the open air, the gradual erosion of the posters was intentional and only added to the ethereal quality of the images.

Here is a link for greater information on the Women are Heroes exhibition, including more examples of the photographs, as well as behind-the-scenes prep work required to create the collages.

See Franck and kids riveted by imagery at right.

@JR: you'd make Larry Hagman proud.

Sisters doing it for themselves.

2009-11-03T23:08:00.000+01:00

I took a trip recently to Chicago, a place that features the best architecture in any American city. I lived there in the 1990s, but it wasn't until this last trip through O'Hare that I learned that Chicago has been Paris' sister city since 1996.

Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what being a sister city does for you. Good will, sure, and some "cultural exchanges" no doubt. But I found a really fun and tangible connection just south of the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue. They erected a "Metra" station in the pattern of Hector Guimard's celebrated and fanciful entry ways to the Metropolitain, aka the métro (the existence of which was first introduced to me via a song by 80s new wave band Berlin.)

Guimard's work is quintessential Art Nouveau and in my estimation rates only second behind the Eiffel tower as the defining Parisian public art. Not all métro stops have his designs- 86 of the 300 - and I marvel each time I see them; a quotidian reminder of why I'm here. His first designs were unveiled concurrent with the métro itself at the Exposition Universelle in 1900.

Chicago's Metra is a rail system serving the suburbs. From cityofchicago.org, I learned that indeed the entrance was a gift of the Parisian Transit Authority (RATP), and they have been casting replacement parts and additional station entries from the original molds.

Sounds like cities of sisterly love, to me.

A Picard for a New Generation

2009-10-20T22:49:00.000+02:00

It's time I talked about Picard. Not Shakespearean-trained Patrick Stewart's Captain Picard, but the greatest frozen sensation since, well, the freezer.

Picard is a retail operation throughout all of France that exclusively sells (gulp) frozen food. Yet, this stuff is so yummy, so you-can't-even-tell-it-was-frozen, that they have a word for it: surgelés, which comes from the verb for to deep freeze, but now can be defined as: “a really tasty alternative to a home cooked meal and way better than take-out.”

The concept: source high quality and diverse food and deep-freeze it to lock in the flavor, pack it up nicely, and sell it via highly accessible (through location and friendly hours) shops. To boot, Picard has a helpful and ready staff, they’ll even bag your purchases (something you're hard pressed to find in any grocery here).

It looks and feels a little retro-futuro, like what they thought the future would look like in the 1950s. You don't see any food upon entry, for they use horizontal freezers that are more energy-efficient. The freezers are typically aligned as a single path with sale items in front, then starters and mains, and as if you're in a veritable Candy Land, the desserts are at the end. True, it can get tricky if you realize you forgot that side of gratin dauphinois you wanted and are forced to retrace your steps, but you manage. A cashier is at the end with a ready smile and a "bonjour" and some plastic bags (while freezer-friendly bags are also available for a chanson).

Everything I've ever had from them is delicious - from ingredients like raspberry coulis and frozen chopped garlic, to full on chicken tikka and croquant chocolat. That have a lot of Bio (organic) options, too. Among my circle, its everyone’s dirty little secret how much Picard one consumes over homemade meals.

I’ve often thought about exporting the concept to the States, but I think there is too great a stigma against frozen foods, and it’s hard to compete with a 24 hour food cycle. But here you can see a steady stream of Parisians, including many well-heeled ones, popping into Picard to fetch that evening's meal. As a colleague of Franck's once quipped, "Parisians have a €50,000 kitchen in order to heat up Picard in the microwave."

The Whirlwind

2009-10-15T10:14:00.000+02:00

When I moved to France back in 2006, I spent my first weekend visiting my in-laws in Normandie. I walked into my husband's childhood bedroom (his closet still filled with bad jeans and sweatshirts from his high school days), and on the bed lay a CD of Jeanne Moreau; it was a sweet welcome gesture from my mère-in-law.

Despite my francophile ways, I hadn't heard of her before, although she remains one of the most celebrated and ubiquitous of French celebs. I've since become enamored with her and can barely pass a day in Paris without coming across her visage gracing the cover of a magazine or seeing her on one of the many French talk shows. (NB: Her name came up more recently after Natasha Richardson's tragic accident- Natasha's dad left her mom, Vanessa Redgrave, for Jeanne).

Perhaps Moreau's most famous film is Francois Truffault's Jules et Jim, a story of a very complex love triangle. Here is a scene from it where Moreau, as Catherine, is singing "Le Tourbillon," or The Whirlwind, which I find utterly charming. It includes English subtitles. I practice my French trying to sing it.

She's lost her voice now, thanks to the many french fags she smokes, but still sings and remains one very cool cat. meow.

photo by Dusty Groove America

"The French invented the tongue"

2009-10-08T09:45:00.001+02:00

I'm a big Bill Maher fan. He's a little obnoxious, sure, but he's spot on I believe re: politics (although he does seem very conservative re: the use of Rx products). I listen to podcasts of his HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher, the best part is his "new rules" (a favorite of mine: "New Rule: Yoko Ono must stop saying 'this is what John would've wanted.' I'll tell you what he would've wanted: a divorce and Lucy Liu."). French friend Laurence recently posted this video on Facebook re: his take on France. I heard it when it was originally aired around the French election, but it cracks me up just the same now, and sadly, still remains relevant in the context of the healthcare debate back home.

I love how guest Sean Penn is trying to keep it together, but can't help cracking up. Even Bill M. himself cracks at the end. This one had me at "France."

Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville, Robert Doisneau (1950)

The Other Roman

2009-09-20T22:07:00.000+02:00

News came down earlier this week that after 30+ years living like a lawless legend, Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland and extradited to the USA related to charges of having sex with a 13 year old.

While having sex with a minor is clearly despicable, and in another life might I call him an a-hole for otherwise narcissistic and misogynistic behavior, I have a real soft spot for Roman Polanski both for his creative genius (Rosemary's Baby remains one of the most haunting and gorgeously shot films- the best way to see The Dakota if you don't have the fortune of a guest pass) and for the serious hard knocks he's endured (as a young child he fled the Nazis in Poland where his mother was killed in Auschwitz, and 25+ years later, his 2-weeks-from-delivering pregnant wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered).

While my own little guy Roman wasn't expressly named after Polanski, I did like the association, and frequently reference it for clarification to distinguish "Roman" from the more French "Romain." Any of Polanski's crimes and misdeeds didn't deter me from embracing the name in the way that the associations of a loaded "Napoleon" or even a "Claus" (van Bulow) would. Besides, I couldn't name my son after a type of lettuce.

Indeed, before (my) Roman was born, we had a binder to file all his important things like ultrasound images and insurance papers. Camille has a similar binder, as do my husband and I. Our photos grace their bindings for easy recognition of whose is who. In lieu of any photos of Romie (the above reference ultrasound image being one notable exception), we had one of a young, always short, Polanski, and only upon my son's birth did we change it. But I didn't part with the image entirely, it persists in the inside of the binder.

I'll be curious to see what happens with Polanski, its hard to rally behind a guy who doped and raped a 13 year old, but for my part, if he were to be sent back to Paris, he'd make a helluva celebrity sighting.

Socialist Shmocialist

2009-09-08T21:59:00.000+02:00

All of this asinine talk about Obama being a socialist (no wait! he's a Nazi! a Fascist! an Extremist on the left or right but we don't even know our political ideology!) has really got me down. Strangely, its put him in a situation where he needs to defend himself against something he is not, and in so doing gives credence to the notion that, in this case, being a Socialist is necessarily a bad thing. (In the same way he had to 'defend' himself as not being Muslim).

The truth is, since moving to France, I found that I'm much less left than I thought I was, especially as it relates to free enterprise. That's because the political spectrum in the states has narrowed so much, that to be on the left means you are centrist, and to be on the right now means you are a deeply socially conservative yahoo. And while I abhor extremism of most any kind, its refreshing to live in a place where radically different ideas for governing can have some foothold. During elections here, one can readily find candidates from the left and the right, and party names include (as translated) the Revolutionary Communist party, Green Party, Workers Party, Socialist Party, Democratic Movement Party, and UMP (Union for the People's Movement). Francois Mitterand, most famous in the States for having both his widow and his mistress attend his state funeral, was a Socialist who was in power for 14 years- that's two terms- and has had some major lasting effects, some good, some not so much. With some serious exception (say the National Front Party), many of these party's ideas have (at least) some merit.

In the last French election, while chatting with a friend about Nicolas Sarkozy vs. Ségolène Royal and expressing my preference (of the two) for Sarko, my friend (who himself is 1/2 French) had an immediate and almost prophetic response, "...but I think that citizens should be entitled to healthcare" (the implication being that only a Socialist candidate would support a national healthcare system). "Yes," I said, "but nobody is even talking about that." "True," he says. End of conversation. The French health system is by all accounts the best in the world, and what's more, it's socialist and is barely disputed.

While kicking around the 1st arrondissement the other day, I stumbled across a Socialist Party office. It looks a little like a hippie hangout, with its logo and color flags. Two thoughts came to mind: One, no way-no how could I imagine a place like that existing in any meaningful way in the USA. Two, despite the mid-afternoon hour, it was closed. ;)

You've got to keep 'em separated.

2009-09-04T08:51:00.000+02:00

Granted. Going back to school in the States is a big deal; everyone gets a new pair of shoes for the year (in my day, from Thom McCann), and a bunch of Mead notebooks. Still, it is no comparison to the veritable national holiday they have for it here. It's called, simply, la rentrée, or The Return. Camille made her "return" yesterday.

We learned in advance from la maitresse (who was, by the way, rather sexily clad in a light white cotton dress with some questionable decollete and high black heels) that the kids are allowed to bring one doudou: a doll or stuffed animal. Camille isn't particularly attached to any single one, but rather has a chorus of favorites that she swaps in and out depending on her fancy. When I invited her to pick one for school, it was also at the moment I was clearing out some rogue stuffed animals, and had in my hand a "new" pink rabbit that a friend of my fathers kindly sent to us (a woman whom I've never even met). The bunny is as soft and fluffy and cute as the next, but its distinguishing feature is the embroidered "Jesus Loves Me" emblazoned on its belly. Moreover, if you press its left paw, it will tune to the "Jesus Loves Me" song.

Oh the irony. We are not religious and she doesn't even know who Jesus is.

More significantly, however, is the major (I'm gonna say it) faux pax I risked by sending her to school with it. You see, stuff like this is interdit, prohibited thanks to something called laïcité. Its the French concept of a secular society, which can be roughly translated into a very serious separation of church and state. Ostensibly, we have this in the States, too, as outlined in our constitution, but we still have time-consuming and rigorous debates over school prayer and if we should display words like "In God We Trust" on public buildings and greenbacks. The French take this concept verrrrry seriously, and literally. On balance, I think its a good thing, but the very thing that is intended to promote tolerance can feel restrictive and discriminatory. The French government got a lot of heat for it back in 2004 when a muslim girl was prohibited from wearing a head scarf to school.

In sum, it means that things like necklaces with crosses or Stars of David are strictly verboten. And so, I'd imagine, is a pink fluffy rabbit with Jesus Loves Me burning a hole through its belly, even if its an unsuspecting and unschooled 3-year old who is carrying it.

photo courtesy of Laïcité of Seine Saint Denis

Swingtown

2009-07-20T22:35:00.000+02:00

A very happy birthday celebration for Camille and Roman in Normandie this weekend. Old friend Meryl from NYC joined us hot off a true insider's tour of Veuve Cliquot in Reims (the most difficult of all French words to pronounce, best to avoid it if you can, and opt for the more encompassing "Champagne"). She left behind a biography of Widow (Veuve) Cliquot for me. INSEAD friends Laurence and Jean-Francois joined us from Paris with their two little ones.

Franck and his dad spent the better part of Friday putting together their birthday present: a swing set (portique). They sure don't make swing sets like they use to. And that's a good thing. No more rust to poison you or stain your shorts. No metal chains to trap your fingers. No more shiny metal slides that reflect the sun and need a cool down before you can even attempt to try it. No more metals poles poorly planted in the ground threatening to uproot and upend you mid-air.

Best of all, of course, was the cake. All pink and sugary and otherwise over the top. I "Normandized" it by putting on some fresh strawberries.

A Brownie for Romie

2009-07-15T22:17:00.000+02:00

Roman turned one today, but he doesn't know it. Age is an abstraction for him. But he certainly knows how to WALK, and he did, all over. He was, however, guest of honor at the little party we had for him at the park just around the corner on rue Danton (indeed, there are many 'rue Dantons' in France, named after Georges Danton, one of several early French revolutionary leaders, who was in turn guillotined under the Reign of Terror). Guests included two other newly one year old boys, both named Sebastian. "Sebastian" was a contender as a name for Roman. Phew.

Franck helped me make brownies (read: Franck made them), and I frosted them and put authentic Gummi bears on for decoration, much to Franck's horror. Big sister Camille blew out his candle, but he'll get her next year... or maybe even in two days when she turns three.

Celebrating La prise de la Bastille

2009-07-14T21:42:00.001+02:00

Last year at this time I was in the hospital. Bastille Day in Paris and I was one of the lone few checked into Franco-Britannique Hospital awaiting the arrival of my son. Indeed, his due date was July 14th, a fitting, if ironic due date for my 1/2 French baby. But he didn't come that day, and it was only through an induction the next day that he finally made an appearance. Delivery was fast and intense, or as I describe it, chronic and acute. Our little Roman John joined us at 12:33pm, just in time for lunch.

So today, the eve of Roman's first birthday and the anniversary of the beginning of the French Revolution, we decided to do something special, and went (walked!) to Le Jardin d'Acclimatation. The last time I was there was, appropriately enough, July 4, 2008. There's something about independence day(s) and this park...

In fact the park is dreamy. Set in Bois de Bologne, its a joyous, historic, and adorable place filled with amusement rides, swings, animals, a botanical garden, a train, boats, sprinklers, horse stables, trampolines, carousels, crepes, a Théâtre de Guignol and more.

It was originally opened in 1860 by Napoleon III Empress Eugenie as a zoo. Morbidly, during the Siege of Paris in 1870-1871 (when the Prussians invaded Paris and Parisians were effectively starved into surrender) many of the animals in the menagerie were cooked and served in a fine Paris restaurant.

Given this bit of history and despite some finer dining options, I think one's best bet is to pack a lunch.

Let Them Eat Birthday Cake

2009-07-10T14:36:00.000+02:00

Camille's 3rd birthday is coming up on July 17th. It's also Roman's first birthday on July 15th. (Nearly 2 years to the date, only surpassed by my friend Emily from whom I just received word that her son was born on the exact same date, as her daughter 2 years earlier. Bam!)

No matter. I need to make them a birthday cake. I asked Camille what kind of cake she wanted. She tells me, unsurprisingly, "chocolat" (yes, en Francais). Then I ask her what color frosting she wants, knowing that she doesn't even really know what frosting is, but to not expose her ignorance, she safely answers, "how about...pink?"

The thing is, they don't really do birthday cakes in France. Not as we know them- double layered, colored with butter cream frosting, icing that says "Happy Birthday", lots of candles. Naturally, you can find a whole variety of delicious cakes here (I'd say heaven looks a little like a French patisserie), but the most traditional kid-birthday thing they do is akin to a yellow cake rolled up with confiture: génoise à la confiture. That's fine, I suppose, but I'm keen for my peeps to have something they can really stick there hands into. Yet baking American recipes in France, while not impossible, can be a drag. First is the issue of translating measurements, next comes finding the right size cake pans, third is finding an oven if you are like us and are using a microwave/convection. Finally is finding the oh-so-right ingredients. Baking powder gets tricky, as does confectioners sugar. They exist, I know, but can be hard to find, or may necessitate a trip to an "American products" store. A Canadian friend of mine, who lives in French Switzerland assures me otherwise, but for now I need a sure thing. That is to say, I need a box cake mix. The horror.

So I take the 3 line metro from Louise Michel to Arts et Metiers, one of my favorite metro stops. I transfer to the 11 line and take it to Hotel de Ville and make the splendid walk down rue Rivoli to rue St. Paul where there is an American goods shopped called, aptly, Thanksgiving: www.thanksgivingparis.com/

Its a lovely-looking shop, filled with over-priced but comforting American products like Cheerios, Philadelphia cream cheese, Borden's evaporated milk, and Ben & Jerry's (which, if I'm honest, you can readily find all over Paris now). 22+ euros later, I have me a box-cake mix, some food coloring, muffin tin liners (just in case I opt for cupcakes) and two 8" foil pans. I better not screw this thing up. I can't even afford a beta test.

origins: Me & My RC

2009-07-09T11:02:00.000+02:00

I work in branding these days, and have always been a huge fan of advertising and commercials. Jingles. Logos. Slogans. Love it. Indeed, my dad used to tell me that as a kid I'd always perk up more for the commercials than for the programming. Part of the appeal of Bewitched (beyond Elizabeth Montgomery's clever nose-twinkle, impossible to replicate (no offense, some offense Nicole Kidman)), was that Darrin worked in an ad agency. No surprise that today I like the show Mad Men (ok, ok, who doesn't?).

In the 70s, along with Tab and Fresca in the soda aisle, you'd also find Royal Crown (RC) Cola. It still exists, but seems to have had its heyday back then. They ran an ad campaign with the jingle "Me and my RC." A quick google search later, I learn that the most famous version of it was sung by Louise Mandrell (of country music fame, The Mandrell Sisters, and Babs' younger sister.) Apparently Sharon Stone also made an appearance in one of their early ads delivering pizza on a skateboard (I'm going to assume she was wearing panties). I can't seem to find that ad, but here's another. You get the idea. Check out the length of the commercial (a minute!) and the full story line: Old RC Cola ad

Now, years later I've got an RC of my own: Roman (R) and big sis Camille (C).

"Me and my RC! Me and my RC!..What's good enough for anyone else, ain't good enough for me."

Introduce yourself, check check right on.

2009-07-09T10:31:00.000+02:00

I should've done this three years ago when I first moved to France from NYC, 5 months preggers with my daughter Camille. But I thought I was coming here for only 9 months, and never got around to it (although I did do a lot of journaling during that time, and maybe some of those entries will make an appearance here). Now, my second child (a boy, Roman a.k.a. "Romie") will turn one in less than a week, so it seems a good milestone to mark the occasion. Or, I could also plant a tree. Maybe I'll do that, too.

My goal: to share a little something-something about life in France (two children, one French husband, one on-again/off-again career). My good friend Kristen, who herself lived in Europe for ten years, told me once that I'll always feel a pull to both places, a feeling that I'll have one foot on one continent, the other on another (which makes for an awfully long stretch).