Marriage Countdown

High predicted for Saturday: 21. Low: 16.

Number of minutes of wedding ceremony at the mairie: 15

Percentage of French spoken at the ceremony: 100

Percentage of French-speaking participants: 50%

Number of translators that we elected to refuse: 1

Number of bus line that will bring us from the mairie to Jardin de Luxembourg: 96

Number of incredibly large, all-city music festivals happening on this pagan day in every corner, metro station and place: 1

Anticipated number of friends, visiting relatives and neighbors, and relatives participating in the pique-nique: 21

Total cheeses being served: 5

Total Pierre Herme macarons in a box: 35

Total Michelin stars for the Wedding Night Dinner For Two restaurant: 1

L'Arrondisement of Wedding Night Hotel: 4eme

Time of sunset on Saturday, June 21: 9:58 pm

Number of days after the wedding that I depart for New York: 2

Number of days until I get to see my husband again: 29

Hours per day I will be in school leadership training: 9-12

Days per week I will be in training: 6

Days we will have to 'honeymoon' in New York together: 6

Years we'll have together: Forever!

(awwwwwwww......)

"What's hard for Americans to realize in France ..."

Liam and I whisked through the Marche Bastille yesterday, looking for spring produce for Sunday dinner. We found sticks of rhubarb a meter long, our weekly eggs fresh out of the nest and white asparagus for 7.50 euro a bunch (pictured) that I insisted we get, "this is the kind of thing you can only get in France!"

Adjusting to living here has come in bits and pieces. I spent most of the winter saddened at the loss of chiles and corn and cupcakes and much of the spring yearning for our CSA box and an end to the rain.

After my recent trip to New York, I returned a bit more calm, a bit more adjusted. I don't think it's just the prospect of moving back, or the comfort even that I have now with two job offers in my pocket, but also the idea that one thing I had to realize about living here is that it's temporary, so many times to say "we can only do this in France!"

So I was saddened today to be interrupted as my writing group and I sat drinking cremes in a cafe at the tip of ile St. Louis, giggling over life changes and exploring issues of genocide and questioning whether the protagonist of a yet-to-be-published-novel would ever catch his Moby Cat.

Three American girls sitting in a corner, appreciating our walk over the Seine to this place, acknowledging the beauty of a sunny May day where we can review each other's work and give feedback and determine the best place nearby to get a French lunch, when an American man approaches us.

We'd noticed them, other Americans. In fact, the cafe was full of us this morning, appreciating the tops of Notre Dame sneaking outside of our horizon while we sipped our boissons. We had even shared that we are sometimes embarrassed as we heard a woman next to us ordering more and more loudly in order to make her herbal tea order heard.

So when this man approached us with a good morning, a small bow, "it's a beautiful day" - there was a collective pause.

"I need to share something with you ladies. The thing that we Americans don't notice is how loud we talk," he began, "in France you will notice that Parisians are very quiet, it's just something you come to learn...... " He went on for a minute while my adrenaline and anger battled each other as I tried to think of something to say.

"Are we bothering you?" Andrea asked incredulously, since we were tables and tables away from any other patron.

"Oh no," he backtracked, "but in a place like this your American voices can really carry. Anyway, thank you for taking time to listen to me. Enjoy your day." Another bow.

"It's internalized anti-Americanism!" Emily said, wanting to shout all the ways she's confronted the American stereotypes in her two years here.

"It's historical," Andrea countered, sharing the theory of space.

"He's just insecure," I added, "he's trying to let us little ladies know how to be more parisienne!"

We were determined to continue to sip our cremes and set up a date for next week, hoping someone might stop by and offer us another reprimand, now that we'd written out our responses, our angers, our ability to articulate what is really hard for Americans to realize in France.

Why I Should Stick to Buying Cheese

Setting: 5aSec, Rue Rivoli (dry cleaner's)
Time: 2:30pm
Major Players: A 'French-speaking' Fromagette and a kind cashier

[conversation translated into English for your reading pleasure]

C: Bonjour Madame!
F: Bonjour Madame!
C: Would you like to take a free card today to have a discount?
F: No thank you!
C: No, it's free, you just take a card for a discount.
F: No thank you Madame, it's good!
C: laughs
F: smiles 'knowingly' believing that she has not been scammed into some kind of 'membership card' to pay for a discount. C continues to laugh.
C: ringing up purchase. 8.60 please!
F: looking over at the cards and seeing that they're actually a free discount now that she has time to translate: March 1- 15 - Game Days! Free Discount up to 40%!. Hands cashier money.
C: I guess you had the correct change! another giggle
F: feeling stupid but not having enough French to say 'oops, can I grab one now?'. Yes!
C: They will be ready tomorrow!
F: I am in agreement! Thank you! Good bye!
C: smiling. perplexed? Good bye!

Honfleur Humor

I smiled at La Tarterie, as the husband of the chef in this tiny, butter-warmed restaurant said, oh, you speak English? You have a nice accent. I then said merci, and looked back out the sunny window over the harbor. As we awaited our homemade crepes, I saw on Liam's face that something was wrong.

L: You just told him you were British
LF: What? No, I said I speak English.
L: He said, are you British? Anglaise like British, not like anglais English
LF: Oh, whatever.
L: He said, you have a bit of an accent.
LF: Hmm. I thought he said I have a nice accent.
L: silence
LF: silence

and then the best crepes we ever had came. And so, even in Honfleur, which is like Saulsalito on a Sunday, lovely and peaceful and teeming with out-of-towners, I am unable to understand French. Even when the people are nicer.

Our weekend started with a scheduling glitch that had us in Le Havre for three hours before the bus to Honfleur. Le Havre is like the downtown of the city of my birth before renovation and if it were filled with only elderly women and young men of various backgrounds. There was a small market where an old man let his poorly rolled cigarette drop ash onto salsify and where women of all levels of crankiness lined up for scallops shucked on the spot. We admired the grime, returned to the train/bus station, and enjoyed a creme et croissant for 3.55 each and appreciated being out of the expensive city.


But when the bus arrived in cloudy Honfleur, we were happy to be greeted by a galichot ('not a pancake, not a blini'). Mine oozed with semi-salted Normandy butter and Liam's with anchovies, tomato and onion. I think this is where my French-confidence grew in Honfleur - out of a menu that translated chevre bouchette as "twig goat cheese."

The best translation though was one that took both of us to determine. After the lunch pictured above (I recommend the moules de creme), we stopped at a souvenir shop. I was cruising the boat-themed postcards while Liam focused on one that pictured a mussel on the half-shell, full on, and a french fry to the side. What it said, we discovered together (humor can stupefy even the Frenchest of Frenchmen): In Normandy, where there's a mussel. .. there's a fry. This was French that I could understand.

C'est pas grave

That's how it is with the Army too - the European army? We talk first. The American army - just - pow!

It was at this point in the conversation where I began to wonder exactly if this man was a doctor. I was at the place that you go to when you need to have your lungs x-rayed to get your carte de sejour, the place you go to when you have everything: 275 euros in small fiscal stamps that you lick and adhere to a xeroxed paper, a US passport, Version II of a paper carte de sejour, and now, soon, x-ray of my lungs the size of an artist's canvas.

As I'm floundering for words that I don't know in French: breast, breast lump, lumpectomy, self-exam, needle aspiration, benign, two things are happening simultaneously - the doctor is getting incredibly animated and I'm slowly sinking into my seat remembering too late that another friend said to just answer straight up yes/no to these questions.

This doctor, or so I hoped, then began his theories for me.

The French? They would never take out a breast lump of an 18 year old. The Americans? Ready to cut and charge money.

The French? They would go in through ... (small circular motion here, over, you know ... my American prudishness is taking over but if you, dear reader, were in front of me, this would be a very entertaining part of the re-telling). The Americans? They leave a scar!

The French? Ready to talk on a battlefield. The Americans? Pow.

His ability to create a metaphor for each country's approach to war based on my story of a breast lumpectomy was slightly amazing.

I leave this lecturer ready to pick up my laminated carte de sejour, the item that will let me know I'm legit, only to stand there, talking to a guy 10 years younger than me wearing a soccer jersey that looks like he accidentally bleached over his heart while cleaning his socks. Only to listen to this guy tell me, in four more French sentences than I can understand, c'est pas grave ... and then something about the fabrication. It's not ready. Come back in two weeks. Or three. Well, just two. C'est pas grave (=not a big deal)

So here I am, thinking, c'est TRES grave! and hoping that next week they let me in and out of the US when I fly to NY and then leave to find at the fromager this teeny tiny chevre covered in rose and I thought, c'est pas grave, I'm here. I'm eating cheese. It will be fabricated. Until it is, it's a darn good story in person. I swear.

Comfort Food: another installment

Do my friends in the US think I walk around all day bopping from Louvre to Eiffel Tower to a hidden chocolatier and thus think I don't have time to talk/read email/receive postcards? Do our new friends here think it's weird that they said 8:30pm and we rolled in at 900 in what I originally intended an attempt to be cool but soon resulted in a late arrival? Will the sun ever rise in Paris before 11am? Is it always gray in Paris 93% of the day? Did the guy at the market take me in for another beating or did he really think that the browned, mushy, mealy, squishy apples were for eating?

I listened to This American Life's "Americans in Paris" show for the first time since I've been here, and couldn't help but relate (= cry, I'll admit it) at the part where Ira Glass is amazed that David Sedaris' day is determined by going places where he feels more or less humiliated.

Saying c'est moi at H&M when you've had to leave some items with the attendant, pointing at an envelope at the stationary store and stumbling through an ummm... oui oui when really you want to say oh, I just need an envelope for the big card, thanks, not the post cards, asking vous-acceptez les cheques de restaurant? at the Pompidou Cafe and then having the guy answer in English, all of this adds up to empathy Ira, empathy - maybe you should move here for a few months?

And so, when the neuroses take up more space in your brain than the part that's curious about the books of Paris or Courbet's history or Germany: The Dark Years, and you find yourself talking back to NPR hosts, it's time for some comfort food. Lately, as I sit in my apartment worrying more than a junior high student on the first day of school, doing my part time job and scheduling an afternoon of events that doesn't have me ping-ponging between feeling shitty and shittier, I bake myself up an egg.

Fresh, French farm egg. Covered in 'bloom.' Creme underneath, egg on top, parmigiano-reggiano to top it off, baked for 12 minutes (thank you, dear Bittman). Butter up some fresh baguette and scoop it up and remember this is probably the kind of thing your friends back home are jealous of to begin with.

Merci (another market anecdote)

When we first got to Paris, I thought, at the very least, that saying bonjour and merci, au revoir! each day, on each and every human interaction, would have me saying them much more like a native than I could ever get with deux betteraves or une bouteille de l'eau. At the very least, I thought, I know how to be polite.

A few weeks without going to the market though, and things can go down hill quickly for me.

Today I walked past a stand I hadn't been to yet - the potatoes, carrots, sandy spinach, heaps of mache and wrinkled butternut squash sent the message that these people most likely were the producers, and that they were producing what was in season (unlike the Bay Area, you will find multiple tropical fruit stands here). Having had some notorious run-ins with middle men who most likely pick up their produce at the Rungis and bring it to sell, I was determined today to buy from producers.

20 minutes I waited in line, learning that the colanders were, in fact, full of mache and that petitmarron are no longer in season, just butternut and this other enormous squash whose name I don't know. There were two kind young women and a kind older man but clearly, the man was in charge and clearly, I thought, the women would be the ones to get (kindness from food purveyors is not necessarily related to gender, but I was hoping for the best here). For 20 minutes, I practiced ordering cent gram epinard and un petite courge de butternut. I practiced acting French (aloof? carnivorous? not worried about raw meat touching vegetables?) when the man in front of me ordered a duck that was pulled out of a cooler, and then a small plastic bag that barely covered the base of the basket was laid in to measure the weight, and then the knife that cuts tops off of leeks seems to also do a fine job with the head of the duck (the woman said some last words to the head before putting it in a plastic bag of garbage). Plastic bag out, duck stuffed in, plastic container ready for turnips or carrots or slices of squash.

I get the man, of course, so when I order 100 grams of spinach he is skeptical and does not allow this, after clarifying how many I am feeding, he laughs, and comes back with closer to a pound. My demi-kilo pomme de terre are next and I hear him ask blanc or rouge so I say blanc, twice, and he's asking me something else and the man next to me says in English, "how are you cooking them?" so I say, "baking" and the woman two away says cuisson, which, as French would have it, also can mean to cook which then extends the questioning to 'cooking how?" (laughing, of course, because who doesn't cook their potatoes) so I say in English, "roast" and the man next to me translates, rotir and I am left with a worried smile and the memory of my recipe for lentils with potatoes and curry where, if I'm remembering correctly, I might even boil the potatoes. Rouge! the man laughs, and goes to weigh me out the red potatoes. He returns to ask what else, I am able to say des oeufs, and he asks how many, and I reply six and he turns to the man to laugh that now I speak French.

[Side note on the eggs: I have written previously about my love for fresh eggs, and since the week where we thought we were getting fresh eggs (they were in a big ol' basket! the basket had hay!) and came home with a 1/2 dozen eggs that had a double-yolk in each one, we have felt a sense of deception from certain dairy stands at the market. That and impending cancer. Thus, I've been scoping out another stand where the eggs actually are fresh. I don't know if you can see in the picture above, but these eggs had hay, not hay for show, but real live hay that just came from the hen's nest (or at least that's what I tell myself).]

No, I didn't bring a container for the eggs - I am asserting this while my translator friend helps me out as well - so as the man fills up the six eggs into a recycled container I am practicing my final order of une petite courge de butternut, which is why I'm surprised when he doesn't understand me. (For the record, I practically have my hand on the dark woven basket full of the squash as I'm saying this). He then gets me, laughs, and says, butternut? At which point I laugh that it's a word en anglais and pull out my change to count out the .63 centimes that I owe in addition to nine euros. (incroyable! he exclaims when I hand exact change, although, there is confusion about the 20.63 that I've handed him and I try to explain I gave him a 20 and he starts handing me back a 20).

And so I walk away, my cheeks bright red from not only the 0C temp but also him asking me in English where I'm from, and I say my obligatory merci and feel confident that the 'r' sound that started out at the tip of my tongue just a few months ago has finally made its way from the sweet tip to the umami back.