The Bold Soul

I feel guilty about not feeling so guilty

I am sitting here at our kitchen table. Georges has gone to work, and the kids are at school. The nanny hasn't arrived yet with the baby from next door. Still, I am not alone.

We have a femme de ménage... a cleaning lady. She's the wife of the man who owns the épicerie (small grocery/convenience store) next door and is the mother of two very sweet young children; her oldest goes to school with the Little Guy. She's a very lovely girl, very friendly and she works hard on her two half-days a week with us. Not only does our house get cleaned regularly but she irons Georges' shirts, a task I would be sending out to the dry cleaners if it were left up to me. So her being here is a wonderful thing.

We're not made of money, don't get me wrong, but Georges doesn't see this as a luxury, he sees it as a necessity and says as long as we can afford it, we'll always have someone. He prefers to be able to put his (and now my) time into other things, like spending time together or with the kids, or doing other projects around the house that need to be done. (We're still trying to find the perfect storage solution for the piles and piles of sheet music we collectively own.)

I see his logic. And not being so domestically inclined myself on top of having just merged my life with a family of four other people, I am thrilled that I did not have to take on all the cleaning for all of us. I love that she comes to clean our house.

But it was a strange feeling at first, sitting here in the house watching some other woman do the dirty work. I don't picture myself as a lady of leisure, supervising the hired help but not wanting to chip my nail polish. Sure, I do laundry. I do dishes a LOT as our dishwasher is broken (I think it's being replaced soon, though), and as Georges does most of the cooking I think this is fair that I do most of the cleaning up afterward. I do the bulk of the food shopping now because I've got more time to do it (except for buying cuts of meat or certain kinds of fish... that's Chef Georges' domain). I've been known to change sheets and scrub a toilet when it's needed without waiting for the cleaning lady's arrival. And I am not above taking out the trash, the recycling or even (on occasion) changing the kitty litter when the stench gets too strong. I don't love housework and will often let things go for a while, but I am no prima donna either; I come from families that worked.

In the beginning I felt a tiny bit guilty, having her here and watching her do the things I would have had to do if she weren't here. And then... I didn't any more. Feel so guilty, I mean. She comes in, asks me if there is anything in particular that needs to be done, and if I can't think of anything she looks around and finds something. She just chided me for washing the dirty dishes that were in the sink, that she would have done them, and I said "But NON, these were our dinner dishes from last night!"

So just now, as I saw how much time she was spending cleaning our bedroom (I thought she was just going in there to change the bedding and I had told her to leave all the piles of crap on the side table because it's mine and Georges' problem to organize that) I felt that tiny pang of guilt again, and a bit of embarrassment that someone else knows how dirty our house gets. Then it went away, that guilty feeling, because really it's very nice not to have to do all that stuff.

And then I felt guilty about not feeling so guilty any more. It's that American "gotta work hard all the time" thinking again, the part of me that still has trouble completely relaxing and who couldn't even finish a 5-week course in meditation/relaxation yoga because I couldn't be still for 15 minutes.

Which makes me wonder how long I'll have to live in France before I can embrace the philosophy of "how sweet it is to do nothing and then rest afterwards".

Well, THAT didn't take long...

... for the "Bridal Insomnia" to kick in, I mean. Last night, I absolutely could NOT get any decent amount or quality of sleep. I went to bed around 11pm, a very respectable, healthy hour. And despite Georges being next to me, throwing off his furnace-level central loving body heat, I could not get warm and comfortable for over two hours. I know this because I kept looking at the clock as it passed 23:30... 00:00 (midnight)... 1:15.

Then, of course there are all the wedding details jostling around in my head. I'm about 90% sure this is the major reason I wasn't sleeping -- there is just a lot going on and I'm in hyper-drive. Because of the time difference, I am also having to make many necessary phone calls to the States in the evenings, and last night I talked to both the caterer and the French Consulate within an hour of trying to wind down to go to sleep. So that certainly didn't help my brain relax.

And for some strange reason, (get ready for Too Much Information) I had to get up to pee about five times last night, way more than my usual average of 1-2 times. This is not exactly conducive to a good night's rest, and hopefully I didn't wake Georges up in the process because there's no reason for both of us to be without sleep.

Last and definitely least, I had a song stuck in my head. Well, two of them, actually... both of them loud, energizing songs from Sister Act 2 which I had been watching earlier in the day. I love a good gospel choir, really I do - but NOT in my head at 3:37 am! And they're both still there this morning, alternating with each other, vying for what little bit of my mental energy is left after that LONG sleepless night.

I could have gone back to sleep after Georges left for work this morning but my brain was already revved up into high gear. However, it is now 10:19am and I am feeling the bed calling my name. I think I will need a little lunch-time sieste... before I start calling numbers on the US Embassy's list of official translators to inquire about getting certain of our papers translated into one language or the other.

I only hope it's not going to be like this for the next two months or my wedding photos are going to show me with big dark circles and bags under my eyes. Not at all the "glowing bride" look I would be going for.

This message is inspired by the sadistic bastards who are in charge of currency exchange rates

I will be the first one to admit I know absolutely nothing about how one currency is valued (or devalued) against another currency. I simply don't understand it so I don't wrack my brains trying. I just try to cope with the bad news that the dollar is sinking against pretty much every other currency out there, except for the Swiss Franc and even with that we're now just breaking even. Even the Canadian dollar is beating our asses.

But THIS? This is just plain P-A-I-N-F-U-L. Today I needed to transfer some bucks from my American bank over to my French bank, so as usual I checked the going exchange rate... and nearly had a stroke:

1 EUR = 1.58407 USD

This means that $1,000 of my money only buys me about 630€ of goods and services here in France. And doesn't that just royally suck.

God help us all, we poor (and getting poorer by the minute) ex-pat Americans. We may love living abroad and there are many good things about having this kind of life experience, but we sure are paying a high price for it right now.

So my message to whomever it is out there who is tinkering with my hard-earned money all for the sake of trying to get rich, at MY expense, by gambling (they call it "investing") on which country's currency is going to be worth more today than another, is this (and I apologize in advance for not be more elegant in my phrasing, but sometimes you just have to say it):

Dear Greedy, Inconsiderate, Selfish Creeps:
I hope some day someone comes along and tries to piss all over YOUR dream by fucking with YOUR money, you rat bastards, whoever and wherever you are. And when it happens to YOU, I will laugh maniacally and do a little happy dance around a pile of my bank statements, in your honor. And then I will burn a dollar bill, in effigy. Because at the rate these rates are going, it won't even be fit for burning before long.

But know this: no matter how you try to screw with the US dollar, you will not kill MY dream or force me to crawl back to suburban New Jersey with my tail between my legs, whining about how it's too expensive to live in Paris. I will just live my dream on a budget if I have to. And then I will write several best-sellers and be fabulously wealthy, and will be paid by my publisher in euros, in order to beat you at your own game. I will sit in a café along the Seine at sunset, watching the pink-amber afternoon sunlight work its magic over the old stone buildings, thinking how good my life is here in ways having nothing to do with money; and I will then happily drink a bottle of champagne with my amour as we toast a victory over this game you are playing with other people's lives. Because living boldly is the best revenge.
Sincerely yours,
The Bold-But-Totally-Pissed-Off Soul

And this is how it begins

Today, I passed another mile marker en route to "senioritis"... you know, that stage in life where you get stuck trying to remember a word, or can't recall where you put your car keys, or you mix up the names of your kids when you want to call one of them?

I was preparing dinner tonight -- "preparing" meaning taking a bag of something out of the freezer that will only take 8 minutes to prepare in a skillet and still taste delish (ask me about the miracle that is Picard some time) -- when I realized I couldn't read the small printed instructions on the bag. So, I went looking for one of the half-dozen pairs of reading glasses I have stashed around the house. Sadly, I've been stuck with these things for the past 2 or 3 years after one day waking up very suddenly and discovering I could no longer read a book without holding it an arm's length away, and even then it was fuzzy. Yeah, welcome to your 40s, old girl.

I found a pair of said glasses in the bedroom, and started the meal.

A few minutes later, I came upstairs to check something on my computer. On the way back downstairs I folded some sheets that had been drying... and that's when I noticed it.

I had one pair of glasses on my face... and another one on top of my head! For the life of me, I can't remember when I might have put that second pair of glasses on, because when I was in the kitchen I was positive I had NO glasses on my person whatsoever.

I am 46 going on 86, obviously. Next thing you know I'll be asking Georges to sign me up for the French equivalent of those Lifeline pendants -- how do you say "I've fallen, and I can't get up!" in French? -- as a gift for my birthday THIS COMING MAY. Because it's never too soon to start planning for that broken hip.

Public transportation would be just fine if it weren't for the public

So, I'm on the 95 bus heading cross-town from my apartment, where I have spent the afternoon packing up many of my things for the official upcoming move. Although we'll be renting a small van to schlep most of the heavier and bulkier items, I've been transporting certain things myself using a small suitcase and a shopping bag from Champion in Day-Glo Pink. Today it was various small electronics, some scarves (you can never have too many in Paris), a few more pairs of shoes (again -- no such thing as too many), and my American pillow.

I manage to score a seat that will allow me to keep my baggage just in front of me without inconveniencing my fellow passengers. I decide to stay on the 95 all the way to Georges' quartier, preferring the scenic route to being trapped in the metro today, since the weather is so mild. The 95 is a great bus line as it slices right through the heart of Paris, and en route I spot many of the city's most recognizable landmarks: the phallic Tour Eiffel and the monolithic Tour Montparnasse; the Deux Magots and the church at Saint Germain-des-Prés; crossing the Seine with the Musée d'Orsay and the Grand Palais on my left, and Notre Dame and the Pont Neuf on my right; the Louvre and the Palais Royal; the stunning beauty of the Opéra; and the grands magasins of Printemps and Galeries Lafayette. It takes a bit longer to travel from point A to point B by the bus-only route, but on a beau day like today when I'm not in a rush, the views are infinitely preferable to getting there 10 minutes sooner.

There's only one problem with the voyage today. It's the man who gets on the bus somewhere around Pasteur and decides to sit next to me. He bears a somewhat scary resemblance to the méchant and portly grocer in Amélie Poulain, and he has some kind of nervous habit or condition that makes his leg twitch about every 7.5 seconds -- the leg that is unfortunately squeezed against mine from hip to knee. When you take public transportation in a city like Paris, you have to get used to unwelcome physical contact with strangers when things get crowded; and there is a very different concept of "personal space" here in Europe, I have learned. So it's bad enough that you have to sit thigh-to-thigh with a complete stranger, but one with a jumpy leg? Oh la la... get me outta here.

To top it off, the guy smells like... something unpleasant and odd. At first I can't put my finger on it. Oh, wait a minute, there it is. He smells like soup. And not a yummy soup, the type that reminds you of visiting your favorite grandmother, where the delicious aroma greets you at the door and makes you feel like you're home again. No, this man smells like a really bad soup. (For a moment I think, "Hell, maybe he is a surly green grocer in the 18ème, and he falls asleep in the choufleur every day.")

There's nothing much I can do unless I am prepared to give up my great seat, which I am not. I decide not to suffer alone, though. I send Georges a texto to share my sad tale of woe, knowing he will surely get a laugh out of it. He responds by threatening offering to make la soupe for dinner tonight. I am now getting so irritated with my neighbor that I am on the verge of changing my travel plans by hopping off the bus and onto the metro at Saint Placide, when I am saved: Twitchy Soup Guy gets off at the stop just prior. After that, a succession of harmless senior citizens take that empty place, a desirable one on the aisle just near the doors. And I am able to enjoy the rest of my tour of Paris by city bus.

Alas, I am not one of the fortunates in Paris who can afford to hire a taxi to go everywhere they want, or to keep their own car in the city, so I am relegated to using public transportation. If only it wasn't quite so... public.

Even the healthy stuff isn't healthy any more

I just can't believe it. Now we are being told to avoid (or severely reduce our intake of) TUNA and certain other types of fish -- because they contain higher levels of mercury than previously thought. This includes canned tuna, tuna steaks and fresh tuna used in sushi. SUSHI, I love tuna sushi and maki! This totally sucks.

Good grief. Maybe this is old news to some of you, this mercury thing, and personally I don't eat a lot of canned tuna anyway, but now they're talking about taking away my sushi! It's like we're damned if we do and damned if we don't, no matter what we eat. "They" tell us to stop eating red meat and eat more fish, and we do, and THIS is what we get for it. How can you win?

Sorry, Charlie. Even the Starkist tuna isn't going to be quite good enough any more.

Worm Wars, The Sequel

So we are sitting down to a quick lunch en famille at Georges' house; me, Georges and the two boys. We are having some pasta with a little butter and some hamburgers before we head over to the Jardin des Plantes in the afternoon to check out the menagerie. Our weekend, up to this point, has been very low-key, as Georges and I have both been fighting a re-occurrence of la Gastro (fortunately it never got bad with us even though we both had zero energy and I felt queasy for two days; Smecta works well preventatively). So we were looking forward to taking the Little Guy to see the animals and getting out in the fresh air.

As I am beginning to eat my pasta, I notice that one of the noodles seems, well, DARK in the middle. I am thinking maybe it got scorched in the pot so I sort of move it to the side of my plate, and continue eating. The rest of the noodles look fine.

Then it occurs to me: what if that isn't a scorched noodle? What if... oh, dear God, NO... there is actually something IN there? Like... a mite? Or a mite worm? I don't want to think about it, but now I have to know.

I cut into the noodle, holding my breath... all the while there is conversation taking place between Georges and the boys and they are oblivious to my dilemma... and sure enough. Ugh. It is a (now boiled) moth.

I show it to Georges, somehow managing to keep my cool and keep my lunch down. I mean, it WAS cooked already and I am pretty sure I didn't have anything else in my other noodles I'd already eaten. So I am trying to be a grown-up and not over-dramatize it, especially in front of the kids. But what I REALLY want to do is run from the room and do what the Smecta had heretofore successfully prevented me from doing for two days.

Just as Georges and the boys were laughing at the horrified expression on my face (MEN!), Georges' daughter comes home and wants to eat something also. We all try to warn her off of the rest of the pasta... but this girl is a Leo like her Papa and she is not faint of heart. She lived for part of her childhood on an island in the Indian Ocean and once ate grilled wasps on purpose! (She is one Bold Soul, for sure!) So she is not at all grossed out at the thought of there possibly being more moth by-products in the pasta, and she grabs a plate and digs in.

I leave the table for a few minutes to get my camera and other things together for the outing, and when I come back, Georges says with a big grin: "Well, you can see I have no secrets from you" and proceeds to tell me that his daughter found THREE more "things" in the pasta. After proceeding to pretend-choke him in front of his kids for having served me cooked insects in my lunch, he and I and the Little Guy head out for what proved to be a very a lovely afternoon of animal watching. I especially liked seeing the monkeys, flamingos, three ostriches who seemed to like watching the cars driving by along the Seine, and the little pandas. We also got to see two exotic little frogs... well, um... playing "leap frog" quite energetically.

I was, however, eternally grateful that there were no moth exhibits at the Jardin des Plantes. It would have been more than I could take. After dinner, I threw out ALL the remaining open bags of pasta and flour after his daughter and I went through them and saw something moving in one of the bags. BLECH! We'll buy new.

And you thought my life in Paris was SOOOOOOOO glamorous, didn't you?

And a partridge in a pear tree

Voila! I have officially FINISHED all my Christmas shopping. I had just one gift left to buy - Converse All-Stars for Georges' older son (his sister is getting Converse also), and I got out early today, just when the mall was opening... so no problems parking, and I was in and out of that mall in under an hour. And that included a little shopping for me... in Macy's lingerie department. (Yes, of course Paris has amazing lingerie, but it's really not sized for MY body, so once again I am doing my clothes shopping here. And the pre-Christmas sales over here are pretty fantastic. Therefore... Cha-ching.)

I am looking around the room at all the bags and bags of STUFF I now have to wrap. I've got:

• jewelry and lace goods from Venice (Murano & Burano to be precise),
• hand-printed paper journal and picture frame, also from Venice,
• a giant beer mug from Munich,
• chocolate purchased in Paris and made by a French chef but with Belgian chocolate and Canadian maple syrup instead of white cane sugar (supposed to be healthier?),
• coffee bowls and scarves from Paris,
• Jelly Bellys, Converse, Pokemon cards and Spiderman toys and a blanket from NJ (all going BACK to Paris with me, for the kids) -- plus a little something extra for Georges, besides ME, I mean (and sorry, mon amour, I'm not telling and you'll have to wait until New Year's Eve for this one!)
• video camera accessories
• a Bratz doll
• and assorted little stocking stuffers and do-dads.

I wouldn't be shocked at all if, once I start sorting and wrapping, I discover I also have three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree in those bags. There is just that much STUFF in here. And I really need to get it all taken care of by tomorrow as my brother-in-law's dad is coming on the weekend and will be staying here for the holidays, in my room (I'll be on the sofabed in the spare room). So it will force me not to procrastinate for a change, on the gift wrapping.

I will say one thing. Having done the bulk of my Christmas shopping in Europe the past two holidays and knowing I have to schlep all the cadeaux back to America with me has forced me to "shop small". I typically select things that will pack and travel well and aren't very heavy. I've gotten over the fact that next to the giant presents that will typically be under the tree to and from all my other relatives, MY gifts might be smaller and maybe not even as expensive. But I think I'm shedding my American need for excess since living in France, where gift-giving is a bit more restrained and where things are expensive.

This is not a bad thing. It forces me to choose gifts with more care and thought. Sure, I would have loved to give my sister a great set of serving dishes I saw in one of the gourmet stores on Rue de Rennes, but to either carry it on the plane or take the chance of shipping it and having it arrive in broken pieces? No way.

Having said all that, I did pack two empty duffel bags to make sure I'd be able to bring back my gifts for Georges and the kids, plus the gifts I will receive AND the stuff I'm picking up for myself while I'm here. And maybe a few things I will take out of storage, if I can fit anything extra without paying too much for extra/overweight luggage. Again.

I wonder if there will ever be a time I can travel light going back to Paris. So far, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Still a clueless étrangère

The other day, I got a series of strange SMS messages on my French cell phone. In French, bien sûr. Which is kind of where the whole trouble started.

For one thing, the number was a +44 number -- the U.K. While I do have a couple of clients over the Channel, but they don't normally call or text me on my cell phone. The first message said:

"Message VDO perso: Tu as un msg video poste aujourd'hui a 11h55. Pour l'obtenir envoie ABC par SMS au 8nnnn."

Hmmmm... Someone wanted to send me a video message? Can my cheap, bottom-of-the-line Nokia phone even play videos? I didn't think so. Who would be sending me a video message? Just at the same time, I got a texto from Georges, who has this new iPod Touch gadget, and I thought maybe he had figured out some odd way to send me a funny little video or something. I know -- I'm sure you, the wise objective observer, can see how completely STUPID was my logic here, but at that moment I couldn't think of what else it might be. So, I did what I thought I needed to do. As instructed, I sent the code ABC to that number*. And I waited to see my video.

What I received was: "Message cannot be displayed"

OK... then a few seconds later, a new message, this time from 8nnnn:

"Votre message video a bien été envoyé. Pour la suite, envoie OUI ou NON au 8nnnn."

Now, I was already feeling rather stupid and could sense a scam, and this little voice of sanity in my head kept saying: "No! Don't do it! Don't send the OUI!!!!"

But guess what? I sent the OUI. Don't ask me why. A perverse curiosity is all I can offer by way of explanation.

No surprise... I got the same "Message cannot be displayed" thing again. I knew this piece of crap phone couldn't play video.

I went back and looked at that last "send a OUI ou NON" message and scrolled down farther -- AHAH! there was more to the message, which I had not noticed because of how they cleverly spaced the continuation so someone wouldn't (hopefully) notice it at first glance: 

"Age 18+. M365 (3e + 1SMS)"

It was then I realized I had just agreed to be charged 3 euros + the cost of an SMS message, and for what? FOR PORN I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO WATCH.

I never heard of something like this, a random SMS spam. I've had cell phones for years and never gotten phone-spammed before. Is this a common thing in Europe? Has it happened to anyone in America or Canada or elsewhere? Live and learn. 

Just call me the stupid American tourist. Oh, la.

The odd thing is, I'm not sure which pisses me off more: was it that I did something stupid and wasted 3 euros, or... was it that despite the fact that the video was bound to be something REALLY offensive, I did STILL something stupid, wasted the 3 euros AND didn't even get what I paid for?

The only redeeming part of this story is knowing that I gave Georges QUITE a nice laugh when I told him WHY there would probably be a 3 euro "porn charge" on our next cell phone bill and that of course I would pay for it. Now he knows: as smart as I am, I can sometimes do some pretty half-assed things.

The sad part (well, sad for me, anyway) is that it will certainly NOT be the last time I am able to amuse him greatly with my foreigner's naiveté. France is just one big minefield of opportunities for me to look like a complete and utter cul. And clearly, I don't even have to step outside my door to do it.

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*In the interest of NOT wanting to endorse such dreadful phone-spam, I have changed the numbers and codes. So don't try this at home.

The storm before the calm

WARNING: this post is just an excuse to bitch and moan. If you're not in the mood for that today, it's OK if you just decide to move on. I don't blame you.

This morning, the transit workers are pretty much back to work 100% although officially I don't think the strike is quite "over" and some negotiations are still in progress. I took a metro across town this morning followed by a bus, and really it was very nearly completely normal for rush hour, perhaps just a little more crowded on the metro than usual. But much better, and thank you very much to the workers who voted to return to their jobs.

Last night was a whole other story, and this is where the bitching and moaning comes in. It took me 2 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES to get from my place to Georges' house, on the same route where it took me only about 35-40 minutes this morning. What the hell! (And Yes, I realize this kind of goes against the "I'm so grateful" theme I wrote about yesterday. But sometimes annoying things happen even when you are busy being thankful, and you just have to blow off some steam.)

It started out fine. I sprinted (and getting pretty good at it, too) a block and a half to catch the 95 bus near my place, and it got me up to Saint Placide in the 6th in fairly normal time, given there was a little extra Friday evening traffic on the streets. At Saint Placide, I always change to the #4 metro there, which takes me all the way to the 18th, to within 1.5 blocks of Georges' house.

This is where the trouble started. The #4 was running trains every 7 minutes (the norm is 4 minutes but with the strike every 7 was actually very good). The problem was with what stop I was trying to get on. The stop just BEFORE Saint Placide (a small, normally low volume stop) is Gare Montparnasse. And what was obviously happening is that too many people were crammed onto the trains at Montparnasse, and NO ONE was getting off at Saint Placide.

I waited while THREE trains came and went, and just wasn't one of the lucky ones who managed to squeeze into the already WAY too overcrowded sardine-can cars when one or three people got off. (On one train, I saw that the conductor had actually allowed about 5 passengers to ride in the cabin with him!) Meanwhile more and more people were flooding into Saint Placide behind me.

Finally I decided I needed another strategy. I went back up to the street and caught another 95 bus (rather quickly) and decided to try the #4 stop at Saint Germain-des-Pres, where I expected MORE people would get off to make room for those who wanted to get on. My backup plan was, if this was not working, I could re-board another 95 bus which would take me to the 18th and then I would have a 10-minute walk to Georges' from there. Not ideal because with cross town traffic it would take at least an hour from Saint Germain by bus, but better than not getting there at all.

And not getting there at all was not an option. Not only did I want to see Georges but I had agreed to stay with his son for an hour or so while Georges attended a meeting of a parents' committee at his son's school. So I had to be there by 9pm. I had left my apartment at 6:30. It was already getting close to 8pm and I wasn't even across the Seine yet!

Sad to say, the situation at Saint Germain-des-Pres was no better. I waited for two trains and could NOT get on, so I gave up. Back up on the street I looked toward the taxi stand and there was a long line but no taxis. Back to the bus stop in front of the church.

Where, all of a sudden I saw a #39 bus, which I am not familiar with but whose final destination was Gare du Nord! This is only 4 stops from Georges' place on the #4 metro and acting on instinct I hopped on it, figuring that this might still be faster than waiting for the next 95 bus.

It proved to be the right decision. But still, with the extra heavy auto traffic caused by the strike plus it being a Friday night rush hour, there was a large part of the trip the bus could only crawl along, despite having access to bus-only lanes on the larger boulevards (some drivers cheat and go in those lanes anyway and then get stuck in traffic, same as everyone else). I got to Georges' at 8:45pm, just enough time for him to show me what he had made for dinner (he and his son had eaten of course), for him to put the boy to bed, and dash to the meeting which luckily for him was a block away.

Nearly 2.5 hours to travel what is essentially just a few miles. Paris is not that big a city. In 2.5 hours I could drive from New York City to Philadelphia, a distance of 95 miles, and this with the usual nightmarish New Jersey highway traffic!

Suffice to say, waking up today to find that the striking workers had decided to go back to work was very welcome news. Because this whole thing was really getting OLD for the rest of us. And I only had to deal with things like this intermittently -- not like Georges and others who had to commute to work every single day, not knowing when or how or even IF they would get to work, or home again, on a daily basis for the past 10 days. Enough is enough. I hope this is really the end of it.

OK, I feel much better now for having whined for a few minutes. And tonight, at least, I can go out for dinner with one of my friends, and can also enjoy my weekend plans with Georges, secure in the knowledge that for the first time in nearly two weeks we won't have to make ourselves crazy just for the chance to go out and have a normal life. Because the trains and buses are finally on track again.

No one needs to see THAT

En route to the métro at Plaisance a few hours ago, an unwelcome sight: a man, on his feet but slightly staggering and definitely "unkempt", with his hand out and mumbling at me for spare change... and his pants unzipped and half falling off his derrière.

I sometimes donate my spare coinage to people who clearly seem to need it, but I draw the line at sponsoring drunken flashers. If you want MY money, better keep it zipped, buddy.

Ah, the "romance" of living in Paris...

Chat et Souris

I have never been a big cat lover. Oh, don't get me wrong, I like cats well enough. They generally don't bother people, and they can, on occasion and depending upon temperament, be quite cuddly and adorable. When I was growing up, we even had a lovely orange tabby cat for a while. It's just that I'm generally more of a "dog person", so I am perhaps a little ambivalent about cats.

When I discovered Georges had a cat living in his house, my first thought was, "Oh, okay, fine. Pity it's not a dog, though". When she wanted to sit next to me on the couch, rubbing up against the edge of my laptop screen to scratch herself behind her own ears when I'm too busy to pet her myself, I thought it was sweet. When I discovered the cat has a habit of whining for food at all hours of the day and night, and attacking and biting my ankles if I happen to walk past her food dish without filling it, I was a little annoyed. And when she tries to climb into bed with us, I'm the first one to nudge her out again. Three's a crowd, Clacha.

But when I discovered Georges sometimes has a bit of a mouse problem (albeit, not THIS bad), the cat became my new best friend. Especially when I SAW one dart across the edge of floor about 10 minutes ago, and saw her leap for it. All my new-found good will toward rodents after seeing Ratatouille vanished in an instant. I was never so happy to have a cat around.

There's only one problem. Rarely will Clacha outright KILL these visiting mice. Georges says she prefers them as toys, although occasionally one will drop dead from fright and he will discover it the next morning. I heard her after one last night, but there was no evidence this morning. And the mouse I glimpsed just now? No where to be seen; she let it get away again.

I, of course, stayed glued to the canapé until Georges finally checked where I had seen the mouse to ensure it was really gone. I HATE MICE!

Now I can't decide which is worse: the possibility of finding a disgusting dead mouse carcass on the floor (cats love to show off their prey), or NOT finding one, after I know she's been "playing". It brings out a latent "maternal" instinct in me, one which makes me want to shout at the cat those same words uttered by frustrated mothers for generations:

"Don't play with your food. EAT IT!"

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Image: "Explaining Relativity to the Cat" by Jennifer Gresham, as read by Garrison Keillor on PRI's Writer's Almanac Feb 3, 2006. http://courses.umass.edu/phys120/

Sigh

That sound you hear is my palpable relief. It's all done.

Clearing out grandmother's apartment.

Getting her on Medicaid.

Setting her up with hospice support.

Visiting grandmother four times (yesterday, rather more confused than the previous times, but that's par for the course now... good days and bad days.

Visiting friends.

Spending time with family.

Shopping, shopping and more shopping.

Fixing mother's old computer so it's almost like new.

Putting things in storage.

Packing and repacking to avoid an overweight suitcase (not easy to do when you're toting 3 tubs of peanut butter and a large bottle of mouthwash plus a new winter jacket and 5 new pairs of boots/shoes.

Now, I am going to put on my makeup, load the luggage in the car, and go spend an hour or two at my sister's place before heading for the airport.

I can't wait to get back to Paris! I have people I love here, and the early fall weather has been fantastic (and I love seeing pumpkins and halloween decorations everywhere already), but I am so "done" with New Jersey right now. This week has reminded me why I need to live elsewhere and only come back for short visits.

See you on the other side (of the Atlantic!)

Bureaucracy

My mission today: signing my grandmother up for Medicaid. Oh, help. I am so dreading this.

For the benefit of you non-American readers, Medicaid is a federal program for low-income seniors who can't afford, for example in the case of my grandmother, the cost of a nursing home. I'm sure it covers other things as well, but I'm totally unfamiliar with the program.

I am, however, about to get intimately acquainted with Medicaid and I am hoping it is not in the biblical sense. As in getting screwed. Because they have a reputation for being a bit SS-like in their quest to leave no stone unturned in squeezing every last nickel out of a senior citizen before Medicaid coverage takes over.

Last night I scrambled to assemble a folio of documentation, including my grandmother's divorce decree (she's been divorced from my grandmother since I was very young and besides he died when I was still in high school), every type of ID imaginable (thank God I actually had her birth certificate from 1912!), and THREE YEARS worth of bank statements.

They are going to examine every withdrawal and every deposit and I would not be at all surprised if I am asked to take a lie detector test regarding why I took out this amount or that amount ("WHAT? You didn't save grocery receipts for the past five years?"), or why I moved money from this account to that one in June of 2005. And I'm only half-kidding about that lie detector part.

I understand they are looking for people who, in anticipating of going on Medicaid, try to squirrel away their loved one's money so there is an inheritance left over... because if there is property or assets exceeding more than a few thousand dollars, Medicaid will require it all be sold and the proceeds turned over to the nursing home first. So I get that they are trying to look out for fraud.

But I only just found out she was going to need Medicaid coverage 3 weeks ago; before that, I thought the facility where she lives, which has a charitable foundation that has been covering the short-fall between her income and her living expenses (per the contract she signed when she moved in there 20 years ago), was going to continue to do what they've been doing. I thought I was only having to be accountable to this foundation; now I find out they will no longer cover her expenses and Medicaid is supposed to cover it all.

I have nothing to hide, but there is something about dealing with "The Authorities" that makes you FEEL like you might have something to hide, you just don't know it yet but they will FIND OUT and THEN you'll be sorry. It's the same feeling I get when I see a cop tailing me, even when I'm not speeding. It's the government, and "Big Brother" is always watching. Especially with the current administration's lust for wire-tapping and intercepting our e-mails.

So, I am off to the Medicaid appointment now, and I am sincerely hoping they are not going to give me a hard time about anything. I need for this entire thing to go smoothly, and this is the last big hurdle I have to clear this week.

Send some good vibes my way, please, that the Bureaucracy Gods will be smiling upon me today.

The darker side of Vélibing

Perhaps I should have waited the 21 minutes for the bus after all.

Instead, I got the bright idea to take a Vélib to get home from Rue de Rennes @ the Saint-Placide métro/bus stop. I thought: it's dark, but it's only 9:20pm (that 21:20) and it's a Sunday so traffic is light. It's a lovely evening, the bikes come with front and back lights for safety, and I can follow the bus route and be home in less than 15 minutes. I can do this!

I had to walk a few blocks but found a Vélib station just off the big open intersection near Montparnasse. The first hint that I might have been better off waiting for the bus was as I was pedaling down a long straight stretch of cobblestoned street after passing the Tour Montparnasse -- a street that had PLENTY of room for me and any vehicle of any size that needed to pass me, I might add -- a small grey car drove by so close to me that I both heard and felt that it clipped my left handlebar! Fortunately it did not make enough contact to throw me off balance and I wasn't hurt, but what I really wish was that I knew the French to shout "Asshooooollllee!" like Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda because the driver didn't even tap his brakes. Either he was totally oblivious or he just didn't give a damn. Honk if you think it was the latter.

Slightly shaken but determined to NOT let that stop me from getting home or from me increasing my confidence in riding a bike in Paris, I kept going. On the next wide street (Blvd Pasteur?) with the Eiffel Tower all lit up in the distance, there was a bike lane that really WAS a bike lane (no buses and a little cement ridge to keep the cars at a safe distance). Then, a left onto Rue Dutot, a well-paved cobblestone-free street with hardly any traffic, where I was able to fly and really enjoy that part of the ride. Another left for the final two blocks, and I'm really feeling proud of myself now for biking twice in a single week (and a bit smug because I'm also burning off the gelato I ate earlier in the afternoon on the Ile Saint Louis), when...

Crap. The Vélib station was full, no free ports for my bike! I hadn't considered this as a possibility. OK, so I went to the other station that is equally close to my apartment but in the other direction... also 100% full. I consulted the map on that station and saw that there is another one just at the entrance to Parc Georges Brassens, plus I know where there is an additional one nearby that isn't even marked on this map. I am now realizing the REAL challenge in Vélibing after dark... it's less about safety and more about the inconvenience when you can't find anywhere to check your bike back in. I decided to try the one at Georges Brassens first, and was rewarded to see there were TWO open spots. WHEW!

I locked the bike in place, the light turned from red to yellow to green indicating it had been accepted, and proceeded to go to the terminal to check in officially and get my receipt proving I returned the bike. I followed the instructions, entered the number off my ticket and my PIN code, the display said the receipt was printing... only it never popped out of the little slot. I did the whole thing again (it does not tell me I'm already checked in, by the way), but again, no receipt. Either the stupid thing is jammed or it's out of the little receipt/ticket cards. I had no choice but to leave and pray the system really did accept my return, or they will try and bill 150 Euros to my carte bancaire. Which I will then have to fight.

I had heard there were kinks in this system. This is clearly one of them, not being able to get a returned-bike receipt. I also noticed a typo in the English-language screens. They misspelled "the" as "tehe". How obvious is THAT? You can't see me right now but I am shaking my head in dismay that a country which prides itself on education can't take the time to get someone to proofread the display screens.

As I walked the six extra blocks home, I realized I should probably have waited for the bus after all, even though I enjoyed the bit of extra exercise to cap off the many blocks I walked across Paris earlier today. This was definitely NOT faster than 21 minutes. And now I will be checking my bank balance for days to make sure I don't get billed for 150 Euros.

I think from now on I will stick to daytime Vélibing unless I am just really stuck for any other way to get home.

The Dark Side of Dating in the 21st Century

I just noticed that it's 9:30pm (21:30 if you're on the 24-hr clock) and it's dark outside. A month ago, it was still light out at 10:45. Guess we are headed over to the dark side of the seasons again, little by little.

The other dark side I've experienced in the past 24 hours was the realization that Monsieur Avignon is not 51 years of age after all.

He is 60.

SIXTY! As in six times 10. Six decades. And for me, that is way too big an age gap.

Not to mention that he's a 60-year-old liar.

How did I find out this tidbit of information? Not from the liar's forked tongue, that's for sure. I was in the process of responding to his second e-mail (which was also very good), and was doing so in painstaking (and probably mistake-riddled) French. Before I sent my response, I got an idea: I Googled him. He gave me his full name and his profession was listed as "writer". I thought, Hey, wonder if he's got any writing credits out there. Maybe he's a journalist... maybe he's a novelist. I was eager to find out what kind of writer he is.

Whoa, Nellie, did I get an eyeful. He's got a Myspace page. The photos on his dating profile matched those on his Myspace page. The Myspace page listed his book titles and critic reviews, and these matched some of the other Google hits that surfaced as well. Definitely the same guy. The look and tone of the Myspace page: kind of dark, ego-driven writer-ish in nature. And he seems to have a lot of Myspace groupies who are young, hot women all with artistic black-and-what photos of themselves. Odd, I thought. I start getting an inkling.

Now, all of these links, and his Myspace page, are in French, right? And as is usually the case when I am trying to translate French, I'm never quite sure I am getting it right.

But it doesn't take someone with a PhD in French to be able to read and comprehend two vital details:

(1) Age: 60

and

(2) Pornographe (a word used by critics to describe at least one of his books)

Suffice to say, this is one man I will NOT be communicating with further, other than possibly to send having now sent him an email asking why he felt the need to misrepresent his age so drastically? Whether or not what he writes is actually pornographic in nature, or the subject of one of his books was that he was writing ABOUT someone who was into pornography (he wrote about some artist who apparently had that reputation, but again my understanding of the French may be incomplete here), the fact remains -- he lied about his age, by 9 years. My upper age limit is 55 and in most cases it's more like 53, unless the guy is in exceptionally good shape and aging well.

This is a new one for me. I don't think I've ever communicated with someone online and then found out such a big whopping lie. Sure, lying about one's age isn't as big a sin as say, lying about being married or having children or having had a prison record -- or even saying you're a Yankees fan when you really root for the Red Sox -- but it's still not desirable in someone you want to be able to trust with your heart someday.

So couple the age-lie with what appears to be a somewhat strange or bizarre literary inclination, and this just makes me uncomfortable. Therefore: he's French Toast, too.

On the up-side, I'm glad I found out when I did. In the past when doing the on-line hookup thing, I never thought to use Google or Myspace to get more information, but when you think about it, it could come in pretty handy. So if you're single and "out there" trying to meet someone, give it a try. You might not find anything at all. You might find out something really great -- like he/she donated a million dollars to a children's charity last year (rich AND generous!) Or you might find out something you wish you didn't know, but you really needed to know. Like with Monsieur On-My-Merde-List Avignon.

[sigh] Back to the drawing board. The Universe has clearly NOT been paying attention, as I specifically ordered a man with honesty and integrity, please. And no pervs need apply.

Does anyone know how to call customer service for the Universe? Who's in charge of Universal mix-ups?

As a writer, I should know better: don't believe everything you read.

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LATER THAT EVENING... I did write to Monsieur Pinocchio with one last, brief message -- prior to blocking him from contacting me further, of course -- to advise him that I discovered both his Myspace page AND his real age. I looked up the French for "liar", and used it. I did not ask him "why?" as the answer is really quite obvious.

I then wrote to the system administrators at Meetic to advise them that this person has been misrepresenting himself in his profile, and I thought they should know and take whatever action is appropriate.

I love putting my writing skills to good, practical use like this. Writing well IS the best revenge.

The Waiting Game

I hate waiting.

3:00 AM Paris time: I got a call in the middle of the night last night, and that is NEVER a good thing when you have a frail grandmother living in an Assisted Living facility at the age of almost 95 (her next birthday is September 16th).

Sure enough, it was the nurse on duty at A.L. to tell me my grandmother had taken another fall (she fell getting out of bed a few weeks ago but fortunately suffered only some bruises and minor abrasions). But they thought she was OK as they helped her up and she was able to walk, and was not complaining of any pain.

6:00 AM Paris time: Another call from A.L. (I have had 3 hours sleep.) They sent my grandmother to the hospital. She woke up at midnight local time with pain and swelling in the left outer thigh. So they had to send her to get x-rayed and evaluated. This is not sounding good to me. I go back to sleep on the couch with a movie playing in the background because I cannot fall asleep again in bed. This is a common occurrence when I have something like this to worry about. I sleep fitfully off and on for several hours, knowing there is nothing I can really do except wait it out.

12:00 PM Paris time: I finally wake up all the way (wow, I really must have needed that sleep), eat something, and then call the A.L. to see if my grandmother has been brought back home, hoping that it would turn out to be nothing worse than a sprain. No such luck. They have no further information.

I call the hospital (I now have them on speed-dial from all the times she's been in there in the past few years). She has been admitted. I ask to what part of the hospital? 6th floor - the surgical floor. Now I know what I'm about to hear. They connect me with the nurse's station and my fear is confirmed: fractured hip.

I fill the hospital in on my grandmother's recent medical history and her declining mental state (dementia is progressing) so they will be prepared for her mood to decline as well while she's in there. I let them know about our family's unique situation: me, living here. Father in poor health, living in Connecticut, unable to travel. Uncle in Michigan, also unable to fly due to a cardiac condition. Nearest relative, my sister who lives an hour and a half away; while she will be able to visit, it won't be an every day thing. So my grandmother will be getting few visitors to boost her spirits, and that is part of the challenge.

Now, Paris time: I have conferred with my grandmother's primary care doctor (or rather, her on-call associated as the regular doc is on vacation) to alert her, and am waiting for the orthopedic surgeon to call to tell me what his recommendation is. This is a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation. My grandmother does not want surgery. In fact, she does not really want to live as she has very little quality of life: nearly blind, nearly deaf, physically weakening, heart condition. If we agree to surgery, there's probably a high risk she won't survive, and afterward she'll have physical therapy to endure, and that might or might not go well. Sure, there's a chance she could recover but recover for what? If we do nothing, she will probably not walk again and will be bedridden in the nursing home section of her assisted living place. What will they recommend? Which will SHE want?

Decisions, decisions. Including decisions about my upcoming trip. The reason I procrastinated about planning this trip until just this week was because I was waiting to see if my grandmother would be stable enough for me to go. I even spoke to her yesterday afternoon to tell her about my exciting travel plans and she was thrilled to hear about it. So I thought I was in the clear.

Fortunately, the type of Eurailpass I bought allows me to take the 10 days of train travel any time within a two month period starting from the first day of travel. I have to use the pass before January 31, 2008. So that definitely gives me the peace of mind of knowing if I have to cancel this right now, I will not lose anything and will just go at a later time. The few hotel reservations I made can be canceled. Even the 32 Euros I spent yesterday to book the TGV reservations, I can probably get refunded since I haven't used them yet, and if not 32 Euros is not a lot of money to be worrying about.

I am prepared for the worst. Truth be known, I've been prepared for the worst for the past five years of my grandmother's life. We've had a number of near misses but every time she seems to "live to fight another day". The family joke is that she'll probably outlive us all. But realistically we know it's only a matter of time.

There is some statistic out there - don't know where to find it - that says that older people tend to die very near their birthdays. It seems to be like a "coming full circle" sort of thing, that the soul just knows it's time to go, and it departs the body. With my grandmother's declining health and upcoming birthday, I've had a feeling for months now, as has my sister, that in all likelihood something was going to happen and our grandmother would not survive the summer, or much beyond that. Not because there is a terminal illness where you kind of KNOW when it's coming, but it's more of an intuitive 'we don't have a good feeling about this' feeling.

We know that when very elderly people fall and break a hip, there is a better than average chance that complications are going to set in such as pneumonia or infection, with or without surgery. We are emotionally prepared. My grandmother, with great foresight and practicality, planned and paid for her funeral arrangements YEARS ago. Her affairs are in order. It's just up to nature, God, the Universe, the Higher Power, or whomever that it will happen when it happens.

When it does, I will be mainly relieved, primarily for her, because she is more than ready to go now. But also, just a little bit selfishly, I will be relieved for myself. Not because I mind being her legal caretaker (there's not really that much to do on a daily basis - her situation is pretty simple and straightforward, and there's not even much money left because she's outlived it) but because this emotional roller-coaster has been going on for years. It was one part of the reason I dawdled so about deciding to move to France, until I got to the point where I realized I couldn't continue to put my own life on hold any longer. Every time the phone rings now, more and more often, I get a tiny jolt as I look at the caller id display and hope I don't see the name of her A.L. facility because it's never good news when they do call, and I know eventually, one day, I am going to get THAT phone call. It's exhausting, being in a state of suspended animation, on the one hand I am living my life and doing my thing, but in the back of my mind, it's always there.

This is the hard part about being an ex-pat: not being able to physically BE there for someone you care about when something happens. Not being able to talk to a doctor in person and being forced to wait hours for them to call you with any information. Not being able to hold someone's hand and tell them: It's OK, I'm here, everything will be fine. Knowing she might be alone when the inevitable does happen, whenever it happens. Which is precisely what she fears most, I think; it's not the dying, it's the fear of suffering or being alone in a place she doesn't recognize that scares her most. And knowing I have no control over any of that, other than to advocate for her as best I can while at a distance.

So... I wait. Still on the fence. Not sure what to expect or when to expect it but doing my best to plan contingencies in my head, if for no other reason than it gives me something productive to do while I wait and wonder. For now, I know she is getting good care and being kept comfortable and out of pain. When we find out what the doctor will recommend, my sister will make plans to go down and visit with her so she doesn't feel so alone.

And maybe that's the best we can do.

In which a new record is set, and I realize I am obsessing

After writing a post, and tweaking it about ten times until I'm reasonably happy with it (like I just tweaked this sentence), I check my blog stats, as I do every day, and sometimes two, three, four or more times a day if I am not careful to distract myself otherwise.

I get a little thrill of excitement when I notice that on Monday, my blog hit a new record: 300 visitors in ONE DAY (three hundred and ONE to be precise). Sure, that's a drop in the bucket for the likes of Petite, Dooce and the Dilbert guy, but considering that two years ago I averaged maybe 3 visitors a day and 50 in a month if I was lucky, this is a big improvement. I had just over 7,000 visitors in June, another record, and that is DOUBLE what I got in December. I'm within cruising distance of 75,000 total visitors, and at this rate, 100,000 is not far off. This feels like important stuff.

I dream of a day when I will get 1,000 visitors in a single day, or the day I crest 10,000, 25,000 or even 50,000 in a month. [Insert maniacal laugh here.] And what about the day I get my 1 MILLIONTH visitor? Champagne for everyone, right?

As I am checking my stats, looking at who's referring to me and what search keywords are being entered (mainly lots of "single over 40" and "he's just not that into me", and stuff about Paris. But will someone PUH-LEEZ tell me what IS this obsession with "breast guillotines" and how is it my site comes up THIRD out of 153,000 in Google for that? I only wrote once about a REGULAR guillotine.), it occurs to me there really ought to be a 12-Step program for this sort of thing. Not only am I now blogging about five or six times a week on my own blog, often when I ought to be doing the sort of writing that actually PAYS me something, but now I'm also over at The Paris Blog as often as I can manage it... and sometimes, even when I can't manage it in which case Laurie blogs and cross-links for me, bless her heart.

Why does it seem to matter, who's visiting and how they got here? I know it really doesn't, not in the grand scheme of things. I certainly didn't start this blog to play a numbers game with myself. But somewhere along the line it did start to feel like a fun little game, this blog stats thing. Although now I wonder, when I check my stats more than once a day, what the hell am I expecting to find, anyway?

And it's not just the stats I'm obsessed with; it's that I really LOVE writing this thing and will sometimes spend hours working on material to be posted here. It's a labor of love but it's bordering on something more. [sigh] I need a new hobby. Or better yet, a guy (I AM working on that one, incidentally; check with me after this weekend to see if I have anything juicy to report), someone to whom I can say, à la Meg Ryan's Texas twang in Top Gun, "Hey, you big stuuudddd... take me to bed or lose me ferever". Yes... THAT ought to give me the incentive I need to "STEP AWAY FROM THE BLOG, Lisa, and no one gets hurt".

Just as I start to think I am alone in my big bloggin' obsession, that no one else understands... I come across this. Thanks, Le Meg; it's good to know someone else out there has this same addiction to the almighty blog counter. And that maybe there is hope. Guess I'll be seeing you at the next Paris chapter meeting of Blogaholics Anonymous? I'll bring the danish.

The lights are on but nobody's home

I remember a scene from "Best Friends" (1982 with Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn - very funny, go rent it). They are a couple of Hollywood scriptwriters who have been happily living together for a number of years. In a role-reversal moment, he wants to seal the deal with a wedding; she's having anxiety attacks over the very idea of being married, even though she loves him. She finally agrees to a low-key civil  ceremony with no guests or friends attending, after which they travel from L.A. "back east" to visit both sets of parents and to break the happy news.

At the Buffalo home of Goldie's very old-fashioned parents, one night Goldie is soaking herself in the bathtub to unwind from the stress of the wedding, which she's still having reservations about, and being back in her very eccentric parents' home. Her mother, played by the wonderful Jessica Tandy, comes into the hot and steamy bathroom to have a little heart-to-heart talk. As they're talking, all of a sudden Jessica says to her daughter, hand outstretched in front of her as if groping for something:

"Paula? Paula?"

Then, in a very resigned, "well, what can you do" tone of voice:

"I've gone blind."

Her eyeglasses were steamed up.

The reason I remembered this movie scene was that I was sitting here just five minutes ago, convinced that I MUST be going blind or something, because the room seemed to be so dim all of a sudden, and I had just replaced a blown light-bulb in the floor-lamp about two weeks ago.

Finally the "light bulb" in my head went on. You guessed it. The OTHER bulb in the same lamp had blown and I hadn't noticed it.

Go ahead and say it. You know you want to.

"DUUUUHHHHH!"

Ugly American? NOT!

I debated for a while about responding to NotAnUglyAmerican's and Gautami's comments to the Toilet Post. It's sometimes hard to know where to draw the line with one's critics, especially when silly IS as silly DOES (as Forrest, Forrest Gump might have said). Clearly, these people have a chip on their shoulders about Americans, that much is obvious. While I really don't care that they think I'm silly schoolgirl or even an egocentric American, what finally swayed me to put a reply together was that I thought this was a good time to tackle a sometimes sticky subject for Americans living abroad -- coping with anti-American biases when you're traveling.

For starters, I think these two commentors (and there might be more to come, you never know) rather over-reacted and were really off the mark in how they perceived my reaction to the toilet. Part of traveling to new places is seeing things you've never seen before, and sometimes you're going to have an unfavorable opinion or reaction to some of those things. How is MY reaction to this toilet any different or any worse than, say, a foreign tourist coming to New York for the first time and complaining about the noise, chaos and pollution -- or kvetching because the food in America isn't like the food THEY are used to "back home"? No place on earth is perfect and sometimes when you travel there are going to be things you find very odd or uncomfortable. It doesn't make you a bad person for feeling that way.

I find it interesting (and when I say "interesting", I really mean hypocritical) that whenever an American has an unflattering opinion of another culture, it makes us "ugly Americans" -- but it's supposed to be perfectly OK for non-Americans to constantly bash Americans for the smallest thing -- like saying "Ew" about a toilet I thought was really odd in contrast to what I'm used to. Since we're on the potty subject, I also continue to think it's odd that in many French homes, the toilet is in a separate "water closet" where there is NO SINK NEARBY and where you have to go into another room, sometimes located inconveniently across the house, to wash your hands. I find THAT rather unhygienic. But I've got that setup in my own apartment and I've adjusted. The point is: I find these things ODD and may not LIKE them, but it doesn't mean I don't ACCEPT them. Everything is an adjustment when it's new to you. If I see a turkish toilet for the first time and think: "Wow, I've never seen THAT before, that's really weird!", that's just me reacting to what's new to me. Now, on the other hand, if I'm still bitching and moaning about it 3 months later and saying "Why can't the effing plumbing in France be like it is in AMERICA?", THAT is being ugly and intolerant.

Since moving here, I've been asked by people back home if I've encountered any anti-American sentiment, and up until now I've honestly been able to say "Short of no one in Paris, including the Americans I've met in Paris, liking George Bush, no, I haven't." The people I've met here, both the French and expats from more countries than I can count, have all been lovely and excited to exchange ideas and experiences about America and about their own countries, or other places we've all travelled. Like the time the local fruitseller asked where I was from and when I told him "New Jersey", his face lit up like a Christmas tree and he said: "I LOVE New Jersey... I lived in 'oboken (Hoboken) for two years and loved it. Oh, I MISS 'oboken so much!" We chatted for 10 minutes about all the things he loved about America. I've never yet told someone "Je suis Americaine" and had them wince or make a face, let alone say or do anything in the slightest bit rude to me because I'm an American. I've never been made to feel unwelcome here because of my nationality.

My favorite part of travelling is meeting people from all over the world and being able to compare what we think we know or don't know about each other's countries, which often includes admitting the flaws in your own country or having a chance to correct a misperception someone has about your country.

Like the misperception that all American tourists are automatically the "ugly Americans". Or that it makes me U.S.-egocentric and intolerant of other cultures because I spotted a TOILET [I still can't believe a toilet would generate such controversy!] that was completely different than anything I'd ever seen before and because, yes, I found it to be a little gross. It's not my fault, you know, that I was born in America where these toilets don't exist. You're born where you're born. Do I feel lucky to be born into circumstances that provided me with excellent plumbing that allows me to sit comfortably when nature calls? You bet I do! It's not "belittling" other cultures to say that I don't think I'd care to use one of those turkish toilets, but hey, in a pinch I wouldn't exactly quibble about it and I'd be grateful to have it.

But I think it's safe to say that it is certainly belittling TO America that some individuals will find any excuse to widen the gap between America and the rest of the world. These are people who seem to take real pleasure in "taking America down a peg" whenever they get an opportunity. Even if it's about a toilet.

These are people who are bigoted and biased against America and Americans; they are people who are guilty of being as egocentric, pompous, self-important and intolerant about America as they accuse Americans of being about everyone else. They really don't want the world to become a more peaceful, unified place where diversity is not only tolerated, but accepted and embraced; their agenda is create a feeling of separateness, of "us versus them", so that they can feel superior. Americans are often accused of being isolationist but it seems that others in the world WANT to isolate us... then cut us off at the knees any way possible. And not just with words, either. But those people don't know the REAL America. They've got a really twisted view of what they think America is, probably as a result of being spoon-fed propoganda and lies. And they've probably not spent a whole lot of time with a variety of different Americans, either, and therefore have never bothered to challenge their own negative assumptions about who we are, we Americans.

Yes, I know about the "ugly Americans" that one of you is clear to point out you are Not, and unfortunately they do exist. They're the ones who travel outside the US and complain non-stop about how nothing is as good as it is back home. The food is strange; people aren't bending over backwards to be nice to them; and for crying out loud, Mildred, why won't people speak ENGLISH already? I cringe whenever I overhear these whiny tourists, and I, too, wonder: "If you wanted it to be just like home, then maybe you should have stayed home and just had a barbecue". I'm not going to make excuses for THOSE Americans, because they simply don't "get it", what travel is REALLY all about, and they probably never WILL get it. Let's just write 'em off because they're not worth thinking about (and because while other countries love to complain about the ugly Americans, those same countries also love to take our U.S. dollars in tourist trade and when Americans don't travel abroad, you're all trying to get us to come back and spend money. See what I mean? Hypocrites!)

Travel is supposed to break down cultural barriers. It's about challenging yourself and your perceptions of the world. It doesn't mean we're always going to see eye-to-eye or like everything we see or experience when we travel. But travel shows us that sometimes, other countries have something really wonderful to teach us, like the way France has already started to teach me it's OK to slow down a bit, and sit in a café for an hour instead of rushing somewhere else. (Or realizing that yes, a turkish toilet probably DOES have an advantage in terms of hygiene. But I still hope I never have to use one.)

How great it is that I can sit down to a meal with a group of new friends from France, Finland, England, Italy, Australia, China and Japan and talk about international politics and cultural differences without our differing opinions or experiences creating a rift in our friendship. I'm learning from them, and they're learning from me. It's a beautiful thing.

Not one of them seems to think I'm an "ugly American" because I thought this toilet was a real hoot. They'd rather not use one, either, given a choice. And they thought it was funny, my reaction to it. So how come they're not called "ugly"?

So, that's it for my rant tonight. Frankly I don't care if narrow-minded people are accusing me of being narrow-minded; they're just projecting their own issues onto ME. It's fine if they've got an opinion and think I'm silly, or worse. But I did think these comments provided an opportunity to address this thing about how Americans are perceived and how there is a real double-standard with what some of the world thinks Americans should be, do, and say. And how they also seem to think we should be apologizing for being American and for our way of life. THAT is what I really take issue with, this view that Americans should be ashamed for being who we are as human beings and for being proud of our legacy in the world. We're not perfect, and our country isn't perfect. But it's still pretty freaking great, and a lot of other people seem to think so too or they wouldn't be sneaking over our borders in the dead of night and on water-logged rowboats. And when some other country is up against a tyrant or an attack or a natural disaster, who do they call? America.

Lest we forget.

Most Americans work like dogs to get whatever they've got, and some of them don't have a lot. They are not "rich Americans" with nothing better to do but shop all day; they are just trying to survive. They get up every morning, feed and dress their children, send them off to school, then rush to a job they quite often hate working for sub-standard wages for 8-10 hours, then rush home to take care of their kids again, fall into bed at night bone-tired, and get up the next day to do it all over again. Just like in the rest of the world, Americans are trying to create a better life for themselves and their children than their parents had, and their grandparents before them. Why do so many people in the world resent us for that? America is not what you see in the movies.

I love living in France. It, too, is imperfect, but so far I'm loving it. I hope I am able to stay here as long as I want. I also hope to visit many more places around the world because the more I travel, the more I learn about the world, and about myself. But I'm damned fine proud to be an American, and if a few snide bigots expect me to apologize for BEING American, you're wasting your time. Best move on if you don't want to read about an American's perspective -- good, bad, or indifferent -- on her travel experiences.

Or better yet, go find a turkish toilet and put your anti-American biases where they belong.

Every. Flipping. Night.

There he is again. Damn. Night after night, always around (and sometimes after) midnight, too.

There is a cat outside howling to get into whichever house or apartment building he lives in.

Because my street is a tiny private street, essentially a narrow cour that is gated on one end for resident vehicle access only, and has pedestrian access through a tall hedge