The Sophie Choice

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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)