Seldom does anyone have a good thing to say about war. But get this: thanks to WWI , I’m going to Paris next month.

It’s a bit complicated, but stay with me here: The First World War pretty much decimated the population of France. Before the war, there were over 39 million people living here. Afterwards, there were 1,700, 000 fewer.
In response, the government instituted many pro-natalist policies. One of these was the « Carte Famille Nombreuse » . (The Big Family Card. Very descriptive, if not creative. ). It was a card issued by the national rail service giving families with three or more children a discount on train fares.
This was a huge deal back in 1921. It allowed working class families in an increasingly urbanized and industrial environment to get out of the cities and enjoy fresh country air.

And here’s the thing: the card is still a pretty big deal, over eighty years later. When our cher President Sarkozy started scheming recently to do away with this beloved institution, he was quickly confronted with so much opposition that he was forced to back down. While it’s true that fewer and fewer people are having big families, the French are nothing if not « solidaire » . They know that once the government gets started eliminating public benefits, it won’t stop…and meantime the bigwigs keep their huge salaries and benefits such as beautiful government-owned apartments in the heart of Paris.
So, the government was forced to keep the card, but that’s not to say they made it easy to get one…

When we arrived back in France this summer, one of the first things I did was try to apply for our cards. On the official website, I learned that you could get application forms at your village mayor’s office. So, I went down to see the secretary there. R. is a nice lady and I know her pretty well. She’s very kind and always willing to help if she can. But she had NO clue what I was talking about. Nobody in the village had ever applied for a CFN and she had no idea how to get the forms. I didn’t want to pester her, so I decided to go to Plan B: The website had also said that you could get applications at any railway station.
So, the next day I drove to one and asked for a CFN application The woman at the ticket counter looked at me like I was mad. « We don’t deal with that kind of thing » she said disdainfully, as though I’d asked her to participate in some unspeakable rite. « Check the website. You can order them online. I think. »
That wasn’t very reassuring, but I figured I’d give it a go.

You may not believe this, but I swear it is the truth: I tried many, many times over a period of several days to order the applications online. It NEVER worked. The site somehow always managed to NOT function.
Is it a government plot? I wondered.
Or maybe I’m an idiot and just doing it wrong? That's always a possibility.

So, I eventually went back to the kindly secretary at the village town hall and told her my sad story. She shook her head sympathetically and turned towards her computer. She called up the railway service website and tried to get the applications.
It didn’t work. Of course.

« Maybe you should write them a letter. » she suggested.
« I ‘m afraid they’d just throw it in the trash and claim they never got it. » I said sadly.
« I suppose you‘re right » she agreed.
« But maybe if you were to write them a request …» I said, an idea slowly taking form « and we sent it registered mail, I bet they’d HAVE to send me the applications. Wouldn’t they? »
She agreed to help me out and sent the letter the next day.

The forms came four weeks later. We quickly filled them in, gathered all the documents and photos needed and sent it all off.
Then we waited. And we waited.
Then we waited some more.
Finally, about five weeks later, our cards arrived.
Much rejoicing ensued.

Three children is considered a « large family » and each member is entitled to 30% off train fares. Any more children than that is considered a « very large family » and gets more off. With our four children, for example, we get 40% reduction. And it’s this discount that makes it realistic for me to take our four kids on the train next month and go visit Paris.

Once there, expenses will still be reasonable. Our CFN cards also get a special rate on Metro and bus fares. Even museum entrance fees are reduced for CFN holders. And as for lodging, which can be so costly, we’ll stay at the house of friends and do most of our own cooking. Most meals while we’re out and about will be picnics packed at home.

A week in Paris for five can be done on a low budget…as long as the government lets us keep our nifty cards.
So, don’t be mean, Sarko. I want my kids (and other not incredibly wealthy kids) to wander around the Louvre and go to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Is that too much to ask?

Yesterday I woke up to a blizzard.
It snowed all morning, quit for a bit and then snowed again all night. It was nasty, windy and snowy.
I thought it was supposed to be spring now! I'm SO ready for daffodils and green grass.

I was pretty cross and confused until I remembered this little saying that they have here in the Haute Savoie about the month of March:
"In like a lion, out like an enraged polar bear."

Ok, I just made that up.
But they NEED a saying like that so that people don't get crazy, unrealistic ideas about lambs...

I interrupted my blogging for a few days for the best of reasons: a visit from an old friend. I hasten to add that E. is not and does not look old- she's gorgeous. It's our friendship that is longstanding.


When I arrived at Everett Junior High on a fall day in 1977, I didn't count on finding many friends. I was very tall (a head above any boy in the class), glasses-wearing and extremely bookish. In short, I was a geek. Little did I know that I would quickly find an ally- a tall, frizzy-haired girl even smarter than me.


She's the one who figured out the secret to the answers to the multiple choice quiz in English class. Being a true pal, she caught my attention during the test and mouthed "Opera" at me, pointing down at the paper. Sure enough, my first few correct answers spelled out T O S C A. So, after answering all the questions I was sure of, I was easily able to fill in all the others. Aida and Die Fledermause, I believe, were the other keys.
When E. handed in her quiz, she couldn't resist a quiet remark to the teacher "So, you like opera, huh?" Wicked girl. His face fell, poor man. He'd thought he was so clever...
From E. I learned to revel in my geekhood.

Our many adventures are too numerous to recount in a single blog post. I could write a book, srsly.


E. moved away three years later. We wrote for a while, but then lost touch until the magic of the internet got us back together again about five years ago. She ended up coming to visit me in Burkina and we had a great time.


This time around, she arrived in Paris from her home in NYC, looking for a job. After attending to that small task, she left Paris on Friday and came to visit us here in the Haute Savoie.


On Saturday, I took E. and my girls all in to Geneva for a day in the big city. It was E's first time in Switzerland, so she was keen to go, despite the fact that her Parisian pals had warned her that Geneva is "very boring and full of Swiss people". We ended up wandering the streets of the old Town- the ancient walled heat of the city. We took in a couple of museums- which was good, as otherwise we would have frozen to death. It was a freezing cold and windy day.


I tried to take pictures, but somehow nothing went right. I had them all posed in front the the imposing St. Peter's cathedral and kept pushing the button, but my phone refused to make that "click" sound that means it actually took a photo. I stood there fussing with the thing, cursing and grumbling as the wind whipped at us mercilessly. It seemed to be stuck in "movie" mode and I couldn't figure out how to make it take photos. I'd click a few buttons, try to take a photo, fail, curse and then try again. This went on for a while.


Instead of photos, I ended up with a series of avant-garde short films. That's what I tried to tell Ellen and the kids, anyway. "I meant to film the sidewalk and the front of my coat. That shot of my button is masterful and full of meaning. Don't you agree? "


E. just shook her head pityingly as Valentine gently pried the phone out of my hands. She pressed a button and handed it back to me. It was back in camera mode, just in time to get a few pictures of. ... our visit to the Geneva branch of Starbucks. Very exciting.

On Sunday, we went for a walk in the mountains. The camera worked fine.









Today I took E. to the train station at noon. She has another job interview there before heading back to NYC on Tuesday. I am SO hoping that she gets offered a great job. It would be great to see her more often than once every five years!

JP is getting ready for another work-related trip. I’ll have to go down to the train station this afternoon to buy his tickets…and maybe I’ll buy a few others as well!

There is a big school holiday coming up in April and I’ve decided to take the children to PARIS! I’ve been promising them we’d go and now seems to be the time. We have friends there that have a lovely house in the 19th. Sadly, we won’t see much of our pals, as they’ll be taking off for their own holiday AWAY from the daily grind in the big city. But us country mice will love being in the center of things.

We plan to leave on April 10 and spend about one week. The girls are counting on at least two days at the Louvre and I am happy to accommodate. I LOVE that place.
And of course the Eiffel Tower is a must, as Alexa is the only one who’s ever been. We’ll also probably take the RER train over to Disneyland for a day. That's to keep Severin happy.

We visited EuroDisney once before, but that was seven years ago , so it hardly counts. The twins were only four and don’t remember any of it. Can you believe how adorable they were!? I actually got a bit teary as I looked back through all the pictures. I can hardly fathom the fact that the girls are already 11 years old! I guess I've been having too much fun...isn't that what makes time fly?

Despite the fact that we have a satellite dish, we don’t watch very much television. Most days, it doesn’t go on at all.
There are, in fact, only two programs we watch with any regularity:
One is the popular French singing completion Nouvelle Star. It’s so bad that it makes American Idol ( of which it is an imitation) look like a high-quality program of refined taste and exceptional educational merit. I’m not sure why I watch it. I’d be tempted to say «It’s because I love music », but that’s precisely why I SHOULDN’T watch it.
Well, perhaps some mysteries are best left unsolved.

The other program that we often watch is Un Dîner Presque Parfait . It’s a great show to watch as a family and it’s really interesting. It’s actually a cooking contest that takes place over the course of one week. Each Monday, they present a group of five contestants living in the same town. Then every night one of them must give a dinner party for the group. You are expected not only to cook really well, but also to decorate the table elegantly and provide some kind of activity or entertainment for your guests. At the end of each meal, the four guests secretly grade the host on three points: cooking, décor and ambiance. On Friday night, the last meal is served and graded and then the averages are revealed. The top scorer wins 1000 euros, which is really just symbolic. It’s an awful lot of work and expense for the chance to win a pretty small amount of cash. But this is France and people take their food VERY seriously. It’s not for the blé, its for the honor and the gloire!!

Even a small, cow-intensive village like ours is filled with hard-core gastronomes. Take Saturday night: JP and I were invited to a dinner that some friends threw together at the last minute. We saw Martine on Friday afternoon and she said « Come for dinner! Maybe tomorrow? We’ll do it at our house, or maybe Lionel’s place. I’ll call you. »
She called and so it was that on Saturday night at about 8pm, we showed up at Lionel and Andrée's beautiful old farmhouse high on the hillside that overlooks the main part of the village. (One day I am going to BEG them to let me photograph their house and post it on my blog. It’s SO amazing and they did it all themselves!)
Our friends Lionel and Michel were already busy in the kitchen, looking very fetching in that »capable guy in an apron » kind of way.
Then another couple from the village arrived and the guest list was complete.
First of all, we were served an impressive homemade aperitif that our hostess had made from red wine and hawthorn flower buds. It was really lovely.
Then we sat down to this:

I’m sorry the light is so poor. I took these with my cell phone and I didn’t dare turn on more lights. I think poor JP was embarrassed enough.
« We ‘re just tourists » he told everyone. But when I go into my « This is SO going into my blog » mode, there’s no stopping me.

The dinner was very simple, elegant and good. It was:
Batavia salad with cherry tomatoes and herbs
New potatos with herbed yogurt sauce
Fromage frais with herbs
Round zucchini stuffed with pork.
For dessert there were apple slices sautéed in olive oil, served warm with whipped cream.

Though conversation touched many topics: politics, philosophy, language, travel, etc, much of it revolved around food.
Three of the men present had just gotten back from a road trip to Perigord to track down local wines, foie gras, magret de canard and other gourmet specialties. A six hour drive just to go hunting down food. These guys are all about the cuisine.

Before the end of the night, I was sure to warn them all that I’m not a very good cook and that they shouldn’t expect much when they come for dinner at my house. I figure that if they start out with low expectations, they won’t be disappointed…

Prison Break: The Degu Edition

Pilot Episode

Written by: Burkinamom
Directed by: The Gods of Irony

COLD OPEN:

[INT. KITCHEN-EARLY MORNING]

Mallory: (Enters carrying a small square of glass.) Leon ate his cage! Look! (Holds up the cage door)

(Beth drops the dishcloth she is holding. A cat pounces on it and commences chewing on it. She doesn't notice.)

Beth: Where IS he!!!?? Is he OUT?!!!

Mallory: No. He's still in his cage. He looks kind of...surprised. I don't think he really thought he was ever going to get it open.

Beth: He's just sitting there?

Mallory: Yeah. (She puts the glass cage door down on the table) I blocked off the hole with a book, but I don't think he's that interested in escaping. Chewing on the cage was just....a hobby.

Beth: Yeah...well, I wish he'd take up knitting. It would be a lot cheaper than buying a new cage.

CUT TO:

[INT. DINING ROOM-LATER THAT MORNING]

Valentine: (Looking at Beth as she butters her toast) So, what's on your schedule today?

Beth: (Her mouth full of toast, she does a mime impression of a degu chewing through his cage, the degu escaping, the cage door falling off and then someone driving to a shop to see about getting a new cage.)

Valentine: You are going to eat corn on the cob...pretend to be a dog...open a book ...drive somewhere and...HIT someone?!?

To be fair, I was only planning to hit someone if they wouldn't give me a really good discount on a new cage. I mean, I bought the EXACT cage they recommended at the pet shop and the creature chewed completely through it in less than three months.

Luckily, the people at MaxiPet saw reason and made me a good deal on a cage completely in wire. And Leon seems to like it better. There's more room for him to scamper about.

As to why he didn't rush out of his cage the minute the door fell off, we will probably never know the truth. It happened in the night and he easily could have skittered on out of there and into a nice hidey-hole. After all that effort on his part, I thought there was, you know, a plan. It's like if the captured soldiers in The Great Escape spent all those months digging that tunnel, broke through to the outside and then said "You know, this prison camp is actually pretty darn nice, once you think about it. A guy doesn't want to be hasty. Let's sleep on it."

Maybe Leon was afraid his Chilean accent would give him away and he'd be immediately recaptured while taking the train?

Last weekend, JP and I went off on our own - not a single child in tow - just the two of us! We went cross country skiing and then ate at a restaurant. We haven't been alone in a restaurant for a very, very long time. I'm talking years, here.
We have basically subscribed to the "Why have kids if you don't want to be around them?" school of child-rearing, which I think is a good, good thing. But an occasional break is nice, especially now that the "babies" are 11 years old and eldest will be able to drive in three months...
It was a gorgeous day and the skiing was great. Not that I'm very good at it. I prefer the flat bits and even the least incline makes me edgy. (I am SO not ever going to go downhill skiing. It's a shame, but I just don't have it in me any more.)

Afterwards, we drove up the valley looking for a likely restaurant. We found this one, which was SO unbearably charming that I had to take pictures.


As the sign above indicates
1. We've had a LOT of snow this year
and
2. The restaurant specialises in Savoyard dishes. There are many permutations, but all Haute Savoie cooking boils (ha!) down to this:
a. cheese and potatoes
b. cheese and potatoes with lardons (thick chunks of bacon)
c. cheese and bread
As we had only skied for an hour and not all day, we didn't feel we required a gargantuan caloric load-up, so despite the gorgeousness of the place, as can be further attested to here:

we moved on down the valley, closer to home.

We drove past a little café by the side of the road that we had seen a thousand times. We'd always thought it was out of business, as there never seemed to be any signs of activity. But today, instead of being blocked by parked cars, the front door was actually accesible. And besides tables, chairs and parasols, there was even a life-sized plastic chef de cuisine holding up a chalkboard menu! Who could resist that?

We walked in and and were met by many promising signs that this would be a good place to eat and hang out.

1. We were immediately greeted by a very chubby and cheerful man that was, of course, the owner of the place. It immediately was clear that he and his wife run the place completely on their own.

2. There were lots of clients, all locals. Not a tourist in sight.

3. There was an old gentleman there eating his lunch, feeding his little white dog with scraps under the table. Any time you see locals in a café with their dogs, you know it's a good place to be. That's the sign that it's THE place to be- everyone's home away from home.

It wasn't fancy, by any means. In fact, it was the epitome of a small café/bar/restaurant in a tiny village. The tables were linoleum with paper place mats. The decor consisted of posters for a local accordeonist, a hefty gentleman with an impressive walrus-type mustache and a beret. You could buy his cds at the bar for 11 Euros each.

In fact, it was the French version of small-town diner in the middle of the United States about 50 years ago.

There had been two specials of the day, but the owner/cook told us that he was out of mussels and only had steak left. I was disappointed, not being a big meat fan. So, he very kindly had a look in the kitchen and decided that there were actually enough mussels left for a "small portion", which turned out to be fine for me.

There was a pâté en croute as a starter. Then the main dishes, simple and served with a big basket of tasty fries to share. And dessert was a smashing coconut raspberry torte. It was all very simple and amazingly good.

After we were served, the owner came back out of the kitchen and sat down at a table to hold court. He told stories and jokes and kept quite a good ambiance going. He even offered us free glasses of his homemade plum eau de vie (fruit brandy). It was very strong and the glasses were too full. I could only manage one sip, so JP had to drink his and then most of mine. It wouldn't have been good manners to leave any.

It reminded me a bit of that time in Peru when my professor had to eat my plate of goat entrails as well as his own plateful, because I couldn't manage it and we couldn't insult our hosts...

Today's post is just a mix of random items.
1. In response to many requests to actually have a look at JP's ill-famed Wehrmacht Cupboard, here it is:

It actually doesn't look so bad in this photo, but I assure you that it really isn't a very nice color. And despite what JP claims, stencilling a few flowers on it is NOT going to help.

2. I took this picture from just outside our back door, standing in the snow in my socks. I used my cellphone, so it's not very good at all, but I had to share it. The little black dots in the middle are the tail-end of a herd (pack?) of wild boars that walked through our yard. There were ten in all and they were quite big. It seems like the deep snow and long winter have brought them down quite low on the mountain in search of food.

3. Yesterday I made a recipe that required fresh lemons. As a result, I ended up with a big pile of lemon rinds on my countertop. It seemed like a shame to just throw them all on the compost pile, so I looked on the internet to see what I could do with the rinds of 8 lemons. It turns out that you can sprinkle salt on them and use them to polish copper. And I just so happened to be the owner of a copper kettle desperately in need of cleaning. I thought about taking a "before" picture, but I was too ashamed. It was SO embarrassingly ugly despite repeated attempts at a clean-up using a store-bought cleaner. But the lemons and salt did the job nicely.

4. This is what I made with the lemons. All you need is yogurt, condensed milk and lemons. SO easy and very, very good. Everyone in the family loved it.

Fellow blogger Oreneta just passed on one of those virtual awards to me. I know some people hate them, but not me. Perhaps I am pathetically starved for validation? Be that as it may, I’ve got the Premio Dardos Award and am darn pleased about it.

I have received it because I am, "one of the most cultural/literary people I know in the blog world.", according to the talented and kind-hearted Oreneta.

Premio Dardos means "prize darts.” This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his or her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day.

Step 1: Respond and rework — answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.
Step 2: Tag other bloggers to do the same.

Here are the questions:
What are you wearing right now? A light blue boat-necked t-shirt with ¾ length sleeves, black yoga pants, light blue fluffy socks and black slippers. Rather pulled-together, actually. Usually, I look like a homeless person. A homeless person with really bad fashion instincts, even.

What part of your house never gets cleaned? The cellar. We all fear the cellar. Giant mutant mountain spiders roam the cellar. When I go down to do the laundry, I feel like Indiana Jones.

Do you nap a lot? Usually the answer to that would be: I NEVER nap. But oddly, for the last two days I have had a nap after lunch. It’s almost spring- I’m not supposed to start hibernating now, am I?

Who is the last person you hugged? Tya

What websites do you visit when you go online? Facebook, I Can Has Cheezburger, Free Rice, and my favorite blogs, which can all be seen in the list in the right sidebar.

What was the last item you bought? I bought groceries on Sunday morning and the full list would be terribly long, but some of the items were: plain yoghurt, lemons and sweetened condensed milk. I’m going to try out a recipe that Oreneta posted for an easy Catalan Lemon Mousse.

.What’s the last book you read? A Feast for Crows by George R. Martin. It's book four in a HUGE epic fantasy cycle called A Song of Ice and Fire. Not for folks with short attention spans.

If you could go to the Oscars, who would you want to sit next to? I’d prefer to sit next to someone that had mild food poisoning or some other non-fatal, but inconvenient illness that would require them to leave at the beginning of the ceremony. Then I could use helping this person as an excuse to leave. In other words, I SO do not ever want to go to the Oscars. Ever.

Has a celebrity’s hair cut ever influenced your own hairstyle? My first response was Bozo the Clown, but that’s not an intentional influence and I suspect that the question is asking if you actually asked the hairstylist to make it look that way. If that's the case , I’d have to say the only time that happened was back in 1976. I was 11 years old and aspired to a Dorothy Hamill wedge. The perky and fashionable cut worked great for a couple of years, until a hormonal surge at age 13 made my hair go mad curly.

What is one skill you wish you had, but don’t: I really wish I could play the piano really well.

What was the last movie you watched? At an actual movie theater? Twilight, which I liked. I’m not a hater. At home on the flat screen? "La Môme" (La Vie en Rose in English), which I enjoyed, though it wasn‘t a great film. The non-linear storytelling gave me temporal whiplash.

What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you? Being born curious - a thing which led to everything else good in my life.

If you had a whole day to yourself; no work, commitments or interruptions what would you do? Read a book and write in my blog

Is there a major goal you have that you haven’t yet achieved? Yes, there is.

Where did you meet your spouse/partner/bf/cat? I met my husband in Chicago. I met my cats in Burkina Faso. Both stories are very interesting.

What is something that those in blogland might not know about you? While I was at university, I worked as a waitress at a restaurant called« The Country Kitchen » . It was just off the highway, so we got lots of truckers and travelers. I won’t say « tourists », because not many people come to Nebraska on purpose.
Just passing though…

What Countries have you visited as an adult? The USA, Canada, Burkina Faso and France. Those are the obvious ones. As for the rest: England, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, the Bahamas, Mali, Ghana, Togo, and Benin. I have been in airports in Holland, Niger, and Germany, but that’s not really a visit… So, actually, my list is shorter than people might think. I know that Rocky thought I’d have a great list, but hers is way longer than mine!

What do you do to relieve stress? Drink endless cups of decaf coffee.

What is your first clear memory from your childhood? Watching Star Trek on the TV with my mom. I was only three or four years old. And so my serious crush on Mr. Spock began…

As this is supposed to be a cultural award, what is the most recent piece of painting or sculpture that really impressed you? I adore Pre-Raphaelite art. Right now, the wallpaper on my computer desktop is The Rose Bower by Edward Burne-Jones. I just put it up yesterday and I'm really enjoying it.

What is the last piece of music that you heard and what did you think of it? Max the Cat by The Chenille Sisters. I get a kick out of the funny lyrics and great vocal harmonies. Plus, Max is a hero cat that saves the little lost girls! What’s not to love?

Who will I tag to receive the honor after me?
I'll choose Reb at Uh Oh Spaghettios, as she is a bookworm like myself. And her posts about bilingual childrearing are so interesting.
Another fine bookish blogger is found over at Pardon My French.
And who blogs better about her ethical and personal values than Leena ? She's beautiful and a truly good person.

Thanks again, Rocky.

The clever (but cancelled after two seasons. Ain't that always the way?) TV series "Dead Like Me" featured a character called Dolores Herbig. Dolores' life outside of work consisted of keeping up her internet presence on her site: Getting Things Done with Dolores. She turns on the webcam and people enjoy watching her do things like alphabetizing her spice rack, organizing her socks according to color and changing her shelf paper in the kitchen.
I think that the writers intend that most of the audience feel hip and cool and far above this unglamorous middle-aged woman that likes to keep busy around the house.
Me?
I think Dolores ROCKS!

But maybe that's because I'm a middle-aged woman that likes to keep busy around the house and then post about it on her blog? Just an idea...

Anyway, today on "Getting Things Done with Beth" we are facing the Cupboard of Doom. (Don't be scared. There's a happy ending)

This cupboard is built into one corner of our dining room. When we bought the house, it was painted iron gray and the shelves were lined with old contact paper. We painted the outside to match the new wallpaper we put up and called it good. That was back in 1994.
Last fall, when I re-plastered the room, I (coward that I am) ignored the closet. I just had no idea what to do with it.
But two days ago, I gathered all my courage and peeled off the contact paper. Underneath, I found SIX layers of wallpaper and thick, black mildew. Getting all that paper off required lots of scrubbing, scraping and grimacing. I was mildly worried about toxic spores and premature death due to same.
Here's the bottom layer:
I managed to scrub off most of the mildew with a bleach solution. Then I treated it with a special product for problem walls.
Then I put on a coat of nice white paint and added cheerful checked shelf paper. It's not put on very well, as I was quite rushed at the end. We had just realised that the furnace was no longer working and I wanted to get done quickly. But still, it's a vast improvement.

And here is the interior of the cupboard, fulfilling its role as a mildew-free pantry.

The exterior? That's not really my problem. JP took over that project a while back. He has spent hours on it, carefully sanding and painting. He even had the paint custom-mixed.

The resulting color has earned the cupboard a new name: The Wehrmacht Closet. That's what we call it. Srsly. It's a depressing brownish-green color that gives the impression that besides storing organic pasta and olive oil, it just might hold spare parts for panzers.

But at least it's mildew-free, right?

The heating fuel was delivered today at noon!! I am SO pleased, you can't imagine. It's still snowing here, so a day and a half is a loooong time to go without central heat and hot water.

It took me a while to get the heater going agin. I spent quite a long time down in the freezing cellar working on it. It was a bit ....frustrating, would be the polite word, I guess.
It went like this:
1. Turn on power
2. Push button to start burner
3. Purge the fuel line
4. Burner shuts down almost immediately
5. Curse and rail at your unjust and dismal fate
6. Wait two minutes and repeat steps 1 through 5 about 20 times.

If I had a space for titles on my posts, I'd call this one "I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried".

Back when we moved to France in July, there was no hot water in the house. The heater wasn't working, even though the fuel gauge said that we had nearly 1000 litres in the tank. But I suspected that the gauge was broken, as it and the tank are both very, very old - ancient artifacts that belong in a museum and not my cellar. So, I went ahead and ordered a fuel delivery.

But it turned out that the gage wasn't broken. Mr. Fuel Delivery Guy told me that he could barely stuff in 3000 litres, rather than the 4000 I had ordered.

Hence, gauge not broken.

In fact, the problem was simply that the burner needed to be cleaned.

Fast forward to last night: I had been crazy busy all day, tackling another one of my epic projects. I was just finishing up when JP came up to me and said that he thought the heat was off. I hadn't noticed it getting cooler in the house, as I had been so active. But he was right.

And then Alexa called down from the bathroom that her shower was COLD!

No good could come from any of this.

JP said "I think we're out of fuel."

I said "Nonsense. the guage says we have over 1000 litres left. I just checked."

"I think it's broken" he countered.

"What are you? The Psychic Friends Network? It's NOT broken. The Fuel Guy just told me in July that the thing is FINE." and I charged off to the cellar in a huff.

I checked the gauge. Yes, it read well over 1000.

Then I checked the furnace. The distress light on the burner was on. I tried to restart it. No go.

I went back upstairs, where JP said "Out of fuel, huh?"

But I wasn't having any of it.

"No we're NOT. Call the repairman."

The repairman arrived about an hour later. He fussed around a bit in the cellar and then came up to inform us that...we were out of fuel.

Yep. JP was right. My husband apparently has a psychic link with our fuel tank. Who knew?

The next step was to call for a delivery. But nobody would come out in the night, so we'd have to wait until morning. We put a space heater in the twins' room and filled hot water bottles for everyone. Sleeping under down quilts, we'd all be fine.

Just as we fell asleep, the last thing I heard JP say was "At least it's not cold.."

Of course, we woke up to a HUGE snowstorm and the house was freezing. JP got the fireplace going early in the morning. A bit later I got the woodstove fired up, as well.

Just as I got it going, the fuel delivery guys called. They couldn't come quickly because of the storm - maybe TOMORROW morning...

I kind of feel like I'm living in an episode of Frontier House. I've had to keep the fires going all day and boil gallons of water for washing. All I need are a few cows to milk...

My last post outlined the huge, monumental and gigantic challenge we faced last month: how would we turn a hideous, moldy and all-around ugly room into a nice space for two little girls?
And we wanted it done as quickly as possible. We were tired of the mess and very short on space. CtRH was sleeping in the living room and the twins were sleeping on the floor in their older sister’s room. Sardines in a can seemed to have it good in comparison.

When we discovered all the nastiness hiding under the wallpaper, our plans for the room changed. The walls would have to be cleaned and treated. Two of the walls would have to be completely re-plastered and the front wall, we decided, would need to be repaired and then insulated.
Of course, I had none of this material on hand and this meant endless trips to the DIY store.. I’d drive to the store, buy huge amounts of stuff, drive home, find out that what I got wasn’t the right thing . Or that we now needed something else. Or that I’d forgotten something. Then I’d drive back to the store and repeat the whole process. In the snow. It was ALWAYS snowing.

We ended up putting cork panels on the wall to insulate it. The glue was really hard to work with and a can of it that was supposed to cover 8 square meters barely covered four. And need I add that the stuff was really expensive and I was extremely unhappy to have to go back and buy more?

CtRH repaired and replastered the two other walls that were in bad shape. He plastered and I got the job of sanding. It was tedious and time consuming, but if I wanted the apple green paint we planned to put on to look sharp, I needed to do a good job.
So, there I was studiously sanding away on a wall on Thursday evening, wondering if there was any hope of the room being done by Saturday night., when Alexa came in, looking a tad…flustered.
« Mommy? A man from the electric company is here. He says he’s going to turn off the electricity! »
I ran downstairs, still holding the sandpaper and covered in plaster dust. I looked like the ghost of a keen do-it-yourselfer. I found a little man from the EDF standing in the doorway. Behind him, I could see that night was falling, as was tons of snow.
CtRH was there, too, gesturing at Mr. EDF with his trowel, saying heatedly « You can’t cut of the power! We’re WORKING here! »
Mr. EDF was not having any of it.
My mind was teeming with questions: Why would they cut off our power? Where is the lantern? How many flashlights do we have? and Am I cursed?
Actually, it turned out NOT to be as dire as all that. The whole thing was a mix-up caused by the people that rented our house while we were gone. They had some unresolved issues with the EDF and then dropped off the face of the map. So, Mr. EDF did NOT immediately shut us down. But we did have some paperwork to take care of, which would have to be done at the EDF offices and …well, it all ended up being more complicated than you want to know. Suffice it to say that JP, instead of helping out in the house on Friday, had to spend it driving around in a blizzard.

CtRH and I WORKED. He was putting in 10 hour days, as was I . And that’s 10 hours JUST in the room. That’s not counting the meals, laundry, cleaning, snow shoveling and everything else I had to do. Little wonder my blogging was meager and measly that week.
But, somehow, it all got done. The wallpaper went up, walls and woodwork got painted. CtRH completely removed the old, rotten window sill and but in a new one made of oak. New plugs were installed and trim around the ceiling added. In short, by Saturday night, everything we wanted to get done was finished. I think the room turned out pretty smashing.
This is Alexa's dressing area.
Here you can see mallory's bed and corkboard. We didn't want the girls to mess up the paint and paper, but they LOVE posters, so we put up big corkboards over each bed. They definitely reflect the girls' personalities. Mallory's has mostly pictures of goats, sheep, horses, etc. Alexa's features pop stars.

I'm just SO happy it's over!

A day has passed and so has the danger of my blog going « all cake, all the time ». I think.

At any rate, it’s more than time that I get around to telling you what, exactly, went wrong when we renovated the twin’s bedroom and how it all turned out . (Don’t worry- it has a happy ending.)

When Cristian the Romanian Handyman showed up last month, he immediately started in on the downstairs hallway, as seen in this blogpost. With a bit of help from me and my girls, the wallpaper went up, woodwork got painted and everything was looking nice.

But Cristian, ever the perfectionist, had decided that the telephone wires stuck to the outside edge of the doorframe were just NOT working for the décor. So, he started fussing around with them, finally encasing them in a plastic housing. He wanted it to look nice. And he was so intent on his work as he fixed the final little plastic box to the wall, that he slammed his head into the big iron radiator that hangs in the hall, so I’m told. I wasn’t there at the time. I was in the kitchen making lunch . All I heard was a dull thump, followed by a short, emphatic phrase that I now believe must have been a potent curse in Romanian.
This was followed by a tentative « Umm…Beth? »
I went into the hall to find him standing there with blood running down into his right eye from a gash in his forehead . Kind of alarming for everyone involved.
I ran for the compresses and disinfectant while he clamped a paper towel over the wound as he repeated things like: « It’s nothing » and « No problem ».
It’s true that the cut was quite small in length, but it seemed quite deep. Luckily, I’m not squeamish. Life in Africa cured me of any trace of that. I was the first aid specialist, not only for my kids, but for all the people that worked for us and the women and children at the paper project. So, I’ve seen my share of gore, despite not actually having a degree in nursing.

I was all for taking CtRH to the doctor for a stitch to close it up. And If he was one of my kids, my husband or my African staff, I would have just bundled him into the car. But he had his own ideas on the matter.
« It’s nothing. »
« You’re going to have a scar. » I warned him.
But he didn’t care. No immediate plans to enter a Romanian handyman beauty pageant, I guess. So I put a butterfly bandage on it to close it up and hoped for the best.
He had a headache for the rest of the day (duh) and things went slowly. No surprise there.


But the next day he felt fine and the wound looked good, so he got to work upstairs in the twins’ room, stripping off the old wallpaper. I left him to it and headed off to the superrmarché. JP would be back the next day and the four kids were home all day because of the school holiday. That meant three meals a day for seven people for the rest of the week. A grocery run was definitely in order.

I got home a couple of hours later, only to find CtRH and the twins scraping away at the walls with energy, but looking decidedly dejected.
« It’s not coming OFF ! » the girls lamented.
CtRH had to concur.
« This paper is very old and strange. Kind of like cardboard. And the glue… »

Just my luck to have ancient mutant wallpaper in my home.
What we needed was a wallpaper remover. - one of those machines that steams it all off with blasts of smelly vapour. And we needed it fast if we were to have any hope of getting the room done by the weekend. And I wanted it done by the weekend, wanted it bad. I was already completely fed up with living in the mess that was building up.

So, I jumped back in the car and headed to my favorite/least favorite (depends on the day) DIY store. I found out that I could rent one of these magic machines for just 10 euros a day…if they had one in stock.

Which they didn’t.

Of course.
After the woman at the counter informed me that I should have reserved it ahead of time (Thank you, Captain Obvious.) she actually did helpfully mention that there was another place to find such machines.
So, I found out exactly where that place was and drove over. At Kiloutou (strange name, but it’s funny in French and says « Who rents everything » if you say it out loud) they did indeed have a steamer for me…at twice the price. But I was in no position to be picky. I grabbed the thing and got out of there.
Once I got home, the wallpaper came off pretty quickly. But what we found there was no cause for celebration.
There was mildew:

And there were cracks with the mildew. Grand Canyon-quality cracks:




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And there was crumbing plaster falling out in chunks that made blue cheese look like an appropriate building material:

In short, this was NOT just going to be a matter of slapping on an undercoat and a bit of cheerful wallpaper.

To be continued...

If this keeps up, I might have to change the name of my blog to "Cake of the Day".

Yes, it was a two-cake weekend for me. On Saturday, I did a white tiger cake for the twins and then on Sunday morning I whipped up a basketball cake for the birthday party of a family friend in Geneva.

I have to say that I'm SO grateful that Livia is a basketball player. Basketballs are so EASY to draw. Just imagine if she were an opera singer or a cockatiel enthusiast. I was a bit tired from yesterday's big party and really wasn't up to doing a very fancy cake so soon after the white tiger challenge. But a basketball was just fine.

Now I'm on cake hiatus until JP's birthday in April...

Eleven years and six months ago, almost to the day, I nearly passed out in the office of the local ob/gyn. It wasn't just expectant mother lightheadedness- I'd just found out that I was going to have twins.
The girls were born nearly six month later on February 28, 1998.

In honor of this big event, we are having a party. Nothing like the huge bashes we used to have back in Ouagadougou, but their friend from school will come and we'll have cake and pizza


The girls and I made the candy tree on the left. It turned out very cute.
The cake, of course, is my own handiwork.
I kind of amazed myself by freehand drawing the tiger with black icing.

The guest arrive in just half an hour. I'd better get out of my frosting-covered clothes!

I’ve missed my blog this last week. But circumstances have conspired to keep me far from my keyboard. The second week of holiday was a lot less tiring than the first half, but no less busy. The house needed a thorough cleaning after all the mess of the renovation work. Plus, there was LOTS of snow to be shoveled. We even had some fun and got out for a bit of cross-country skiing.

But all that’s over. As of this morning, the kids are all back in school. And I have a free afternoon, as I am NOT teaching English today. I showed up at 1:20 with my lesson plan in hand and got sent right back home. I had been replaced by a woman teaching the kids about electricity. A bit of a planning mix-up had occurred, apparently. So, I left the kids to the joys of volts, amps and whatever, and happily headed back home, intent on getting a blog entry written.

This is not going to be about my home renovation mishaps, though. I’ll leave that until next time. Today, I feel inspired to write about and important topic: The Service Industry in France.
Don’t worry. It will not contain any complicated graphs or statistics, (unless I decide to randomly make some up). This is really more of a rant. It's kind of angry and unfair, but stay with me. It will be fun.

On Friday, I went to a shop and bought a ski rack. On Saturday morning, JP put it on the car. I’d say it took him well over an hour. That includes the time that JP spent walking back up to the house, telling me that an important piece was missing, me putting on my coat, me going back down to the car with JP, me insisting that the bolt was probably around somewhere, both of us looking around in the back of the car and on the ground and, finally, JP spotting the bolt laying in the gravel just behind the car.
I went up to the house. But JP was back just minutes later with more news. And it was bad news, as is so often the case.
« It’s broken. You have to take it back. »
« Already? What…? »
« It’s cracked. »
And then I said something like « Aaaarrrg », some sort of ‘anguished groan’ kind of thing, because I KNEW how horrible it would be to return it. It would be dreadful and dire because I would have to deal with someone in the French service industry.

As we all know, there are two basic kinds of jobs: There are the jobs that produce goods. The people make stuff, such as nice aircraft.
Then, there are the people that provide services. They drive buses, for example, or work in retail sales. The French people that have this second type of job tend to be very …unhelpful. Maybe this is because they’d rather be making planes? I don’t know. But they’re very, very unpleasant.

I walked into the shop with the offending ski rack and set it on the counter. The service industry employee there asked me what the problem was and I showed him my receipt, the guarantee and the crack in the plastic closure.
He peered at it suspiciously and glared at me.
Yes, he glared. Really.
« Well, you DROPPED it, didn’t you? He declared accusingly.
« Yes! You caught me out! It’s true. And I didn’t just drop it. I actually hurled it to the ground and then backed the car over it. Twice. Sorry to have bothered you. Goodbye, you master-mind of scam-detection. »
THAT’S what he was obviously hoping I would say, anyway.
What I did say was: « No, I did not DROP it .» and I glared back.
He muttered a bit as he examined the crack with great intensity. I don’t know what he thought he’d see. Tell-tale bits of gravel, maybe?
Finally he said in a long-suffering tone « I suppose you want another one? »
I had been pretty patient until then. I hadn’t expected good treatment. But this was beyond enduring.
« No. I do NOT want another one! This is brand obviously poor quality, as it is broken and I didn’t even drop it. »

Sadly, this kind of thing is pretty common in French shops. The service you get in the « service industry » goes beyond poor and on into the realms of aggressive and very rude.
Almost every time I go into a shop, I experience or see someone else experience bad treatment in places that are supposedly there to provide a service.

When I took Cristian to a DIYstore recently, he was shocked at how the cashiers ignored us, leisurely chatting away while we waited to pay for our stuff and get back to work.

And JP had a blood pressure raising experience at the health club on Sunday. When he was showered, dressed and on his way out the door, one of the guys that work there chased him down and told him to get himself back up to the gym, pronto, and put away his weights. This seemed kind of extreme as JP had only forgot. He’s not an evil serial weight-leaver-on-er. Also, was this really the best use of this guy’s time? He had a choice between putting back the weights himself (which would have taken all of two seconds) or running downstairs, finding JP and yelling at him. I guess that, if you are French, the right choice is b. Humiliate and offend the customer so her never wants to come back.
Good job there.

You get the distinct feeling that the customer is an unwanted intruder. In fact, most French people working retail seem to think a client is a creature that should, ideally, walk into the shop, hand over the complete contents of his billfold and then walk out again.
You certainly shouldn’t ever attempt to talk to a French « salesperson ». They are VERY busy chatting with their co-workers about, well, anything except customers. They shouldn’t be disturbed, as it makes them even more testy than they already are.

The above is, of course, not always true. But I know it’s mostly true, as I’m so very pleased and grateful when I run across service industry workers here in France who are helpful and don’t seem to regard customers as some kind of disgusting pest, similar to a cockroach, but less appealing.

Now, I know that these kinds of jobs often , well, suck. They tend to be poorly paid and the hours not so good. Right. But get this: working conditions are FAR worse in the USA . In France, it’s nearly impossible to fire anyone and there’s universal healthcare.
However, I find retail workers in the USA are, on average, very invested in their work. They tend to see the customer as someone they might want to treat well, so that the customer will come back. The idea behind this being that if the employees DRIVE AWAY all of the customers (by, for example, accusing them of dropping ski racks on the ground), soon there will be no more of them. And then the business will fail. And then the retail worker will be OUT of a JOB.

This chain of logic would seem reasonable. But I guess it’s not very French.

What is the absolute BEST thing to do after spending about a month being sick?
Taking on two new home renovation projects is, of course, NOT the right answer.
But I did it anyway.

Last weekend, JP was still in Africa, but I knew that our good pal Cristian the Romanian Handyman was available for the week. So, I picked him up at the Swiss border on Sunday morning and brought him home. After a big lunch, we went to work.

The first project we tackled was the smaller of the two. Our downstairs entrance hall has been looking distinctly shabby, as you can see below:
The wallpaper that my father in law and I put up when JP and I first bought the house was looking pretty bad. And, frankly, I was no longer happy with the whole striped wallpaper and pale peach trim look. It was just not working for me.
So, we pulled it all down. The green paint you see below is the original wall color from back at the turn of the century, when the house was built.
The "1994" was painted there by my FIL. Roger taught me everything I know about hanging wallpaper.

When we got the old paper off, we put on a base coat. Then Mallory and I painted the woodwork. I went with Provençal Green paint that I chose after much anguished deliberation in the paint section of my favorite DIY store.

Although JP and I chose the wallpaper together, we never got around to talking trim. And JP tends to have definite ideas about these things.

I loved the green, but was somewhat afraid that JP would return from Ouaga and the first words out of his mouth upon entering our home would be "Well, THAT'S sure ugly" or something equally uplifting.

But the green turned out great, with a softly old-fashioned feel to it and it looked wonderful with the retro wallpaper.

We took down the raditor and repainted it.

And Cristian put in new light switches. They're a bit too modern looking, but much safer than the old ones.

All this took about a day and a half. By Tuesday morning, we were ready to start on the twins' bedroom.

I knew it was going to be a pretty big job. The room hadn't been touched in decades. When we bought the house back in 94, we kept the same wallpaper. We didn't even repaint the hideous gray woodwork.

And the room only got worse while we were away in Africa. The walls had terrible cracks and one was even crumbing away under the window sill.

This was going to be bad. And we only had five days. CtRH had to leave by Sunday morning and I knew that without his energy and know-how, I could never finish it on my own.

So, we went to work on Tuesday morning, really motivated to get things done. Unfortunately, within five minutes we hit a major roadblock. And little did we know this would be the first of MANY!

To be continued...

I briefly considered posting a cute Valentine's Day -themed picture here. Perhaps one featuring an adorable cat saying something humorous.

But I'm too tired. MUCH too tired. This home renovation stuff is exhausting, especially when it's done in an old house, full of surprises. Bad surprises.

The down stairs hallway went fine and only took about a day and a half. But then we started in on the twins' room, and the fun began.

By "fun", I mean the opposite of fun, as in "sheer hell".

Cristian the Romanian handyman was brilliant, as always. And the kids helped so much. Valentine was especially great, taking charge of much of the painting.

I'll post more details, plus pictures, tomorrow.

But at least now, it's done.
That's right! We finished at about 6pm this evening.
I'd celebrate if I weren't so darn tired...

I mustered the energy to go to the grocery store last night, after I got done at the school. As I wandered the aisles, I reflected on the love-hate relationship with going to the grocery store in France.
No, make that hate-hate relationship. That means I really, really hate it, right?

When we first got to France, I did sort of love it, though. It was so clean and cool there. And so much choice. But it turned out to be too much choice (see this blog post) and so many other things about it drive me crazy these days.
First of all, the gocery carts are all out in the parking lot, chained together and the only way to get one is to slide a one euro piece into a slot. It's SO annoying, especially if, for example, you go for a big shopping expedition because all you have left at home to eat is a half a shrivelled eggplant and a box of corn starch and you find that the one euro coin that you ALWAYS leave in the car just for this purpose is gone, possibly taken by one of your kids to buy gum.

So, you rummage in your wallet and find that you actually have one euro worth of 1, 2 and 5 cent coins. Hoping to trade this huge handful of change in for a one euro coin, you go into the store and find your way to the "customer service" desk, where they do the huge service of telling you that they don't have access to any money, sorry. You'll have to ask one of the cashiers. Yeah. One of those harrassed looking people over there facing lines of customers 15 deep. Right.

If you can't get a cart, of course they do offer free of charge a shopping basket you can use. It is just about big enough to hold a four pack of yogurt and a baguette. It's just the ticket if you are shopping for a single person, hopefully an anorexic one, but is useless when shopping for six normal human beings.

And if that wasn't enough to hate, I heard no less than two songs by The Police and one by The Cure being played over the loudspeakers at the Super U. It was a bad moment for me. Nothing hurts like hearing something that you think is cool being played at the local supermarket."This is what passes as Shopping with Old People music now??!!" When did The Cure fall so low? Supermarket managers in rural France got the bulletin on this and not me?" I silently lamented.

And how about this: There you are, finally in the checkout lane after a long grueling shopping session and you are thirsty. If you are in France, you are flat out of luck. You'll just have to dehydrate, get kidney stones and die alone in terrible pain. You can't find water- not like in the USA where many shops have a nice drinking fountain right near the restrooms.
In France there are fountains, but they are the kind that are large, ornamental, outdoors and marked "non-potable".
And don't think of dragging your sadly desperate self into the restroom for a quick drink out of the sink there. That's marked "non-potable" as well.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if they sold cold drinks in the supermarket, but they don't. You know how US stores like to use that space near the cash register for impulse buys like candy and drinks? There's usually a grizzly bear sized cooler filled with small bottles of spring water, water with vitamins, water with extra oxygen and all sorts of other drinks, including my personal favorite: Diet Dr. Pepper, which is probably made up of 700 different kinds of cancer causing substances, but I just don't care.

Well, in France, forget that. No water, no anything.

So, there you are- all parched and annoyed and now it's time to unload your shopping cart. If you were in , say, Ouagadougou, the cashier would check out your items and they would pass down the conveyor belt and into the capable hands of two or three really nice young men who would quickly box everything up for you, carry it all to your car and load it for you. And you could give them a small tip and they would be really pleased because (can you believe this?) lots of people don't tip at all. Cheapskates. Then you drive home quickly and have a nice glass of water. (there's no water available in Ouaga supermarkets either)

In general, under the above system, everybody goes home happy.

In France, though, this is the point where the major stress is just beginning. You unload your cart as fast as you can and the groceries zoom past the cashier and are shoved down the conveyer belt. They pile up at the end, a veritable Mount Everest of groceries. This is when you are supposed to whisk out your handy, ecologically correct shopping bags Wait! Don't tell me you forget your re-usable canvas shopping bags? If so, too bad for you, because there are no free bags at the store.

Bags or no, the cashier keeps pushing stuff at you and you deal with it as fast as you can, but it's never fast enough. She calls out the total and you're not even half done packing everything, but you fumble around for your "carte fidelité" and your carte bleu so you can pay for it all.
You punch in your code and start bagging again as the line behind you grows and grows.In fact, it seems like the entire population of France is in that line, waiting for you to get your show on the road. Babies are wailing, people tap their feet impatiently and yes, that elderly priest is glaring at you.

So you throw all your stuff into bags, trying to keep from putting the bottles of orange juice on top of the tomatoes....You get the general idea by now, probably. Guess I woke up in a rant-y mood this morning.

What else is new around here?Well, it's been snowing like mad since last night, but I guess that's not really anything new. The kids are out right now, all four of them, rolling around in the piles of snow and falling flakes. I'm glad someone is enjoying it. I am just dreading having to dig the car out.
I'll probably manage to avoid going out today, but I'll have to tomorrow, as I have to go pick up Cristie the Romanian Handyman tomorrow at noon. He's coming back to help out with more work around the house. Lots of wallpapering, painting and small repairs remain to be done and Cristie's energy is needed to get us rolling again.
I'll be sure and take pictures of the work for all you HGTV fans out there

Today's English class went well.

Except for the part at the end when a little boy collapsed on the floor, weeping piteously.

Other than that, it was good.

In fact, it was perfect until that point. The kids all seemed pleased to see me again, a couple of them even coming up to me before class and trying out their English.

After a few lively choruses of "Head, Shoulers, Knees and Toes", I explained the days activity: the kids would divide into groups of three and change the words to the song. They would rehearse it, make up new gestures to accompany it and then perform their creation in front of the rest of the class.

They all got to work and really seemed motivated. Of course, it was harder for the nine year olds than it was for the 11 year olds that have already had a few years of English. But they all went at it with energy.

And no one was more energetic than Thor. Thor (Not his real name. Duh.) is the object of admiration and adoration of every eleven year old girl in the valley. Thor is smart, charming, creative and more good-looking than can possibly be good for him. He has long platinum blond hair that is almost as beautiful as Mallory's. He is also the star of the ski team. And as if all that weren't enough, he plays the drums in a local rock band. Not only that, I've heard him play and the kid is really good.

So, you will not be surprised to learn that Thor's group made up an entirely new melody, with very clever, funny gestures and it was all very brilliant. This made it what happened afterwards even worse.

Right after Thor's group sang, there was thunderous (well, as thunderous as 16 people clapping can get). Then the final group came up to the front of the classroom. The three boys started their little song were about halfway through it, when every single word of English they knew apparently flew out of their little heads. The song stopped dead. And the little brown-eyed boy on the left end slid down to the floor in a heap and started to wail.

Good grief!

I knelt down beside him and tried to convince him it was ok.

"You can start over. It's ok. Really! Nothing to cry about. This is just supposed to be fun!" I said encouragingly.

He looked up at me with pure misery in his eyes "But Thor's group was so good. Everybody was good but us. We're losers."

Poor little guy.

I somehow got him to stand up and the boys had another go. It went fine.

And that was today's English lesson.

BTW: The picture above is of Thor's group performing their song.

The blonde in the foreground is Mallory.

This rotten case of whatever I've got (plague, perhaps?) has really got me down.

I haven't even had the computer on for two days, reserving my energy for the strictly necessary things in life. That mainly means laundry and feeding the cats. And also skiing. Taking the twins skiing, I mean. We went up to Les Haberes yesterday afternoon and they had a lesson with an instructor while I huddled in a corner of the café , coughing and drinking tea with lemon. They were in good hands with Jean-Claude. He seemed very sensible and patient, about 60 years old- though it's hard to tell with ski instructors. His skin was hard, brown and wrinkled, giving him the look of a very fit, elderly turtle. A nice turtle. The girls said he was kind and very helpful.



Monday afternoon, I was back at the school giving another English lesson. As I finished up, the new teacher asked if I would come back on Friday.

"Isn't it usually on Thursdays?" I asked.

"I'd like to take them to the library on Thursday" said the teacher.

"Oh. Do you have someone to run it?" was my surprised response. As far as I knew, the other Libarary Lady (Olivier's mom) wasn't available this week and no one had asked me.

The teacher said "????" and then she added, a bit frazzled, "There's no libararian? I need to find someone to run it? How does this all work?"

And of course I said not to worry and I'd be there Thursday all afternoon for the library. And on Friday for English again.

I'm glad to help out- don't get me wrong. But I do think it's rather scandalous that the school board won't pay for an actual English teacher and a real librarian. They say they are committed to keeping the small village school open, but more and more elements of the education offered there are falling by the wayside.
.......

All has become clear now. This is not just plague. It's also stomach flu.
Right after writing about the village school above, I had to abandon my post and have an ugly experience in the bathroom. I won't get too graphic, but this is not good.

I hope it clears up by this afternoon. Otherwise the children of Saint André won't get to go to the library this week. And as there is a two week holiday coming up, that would be a bit sad. No books for the kids over the vacation...

When I met the twins' new teacher on Monday, one of the first things she said to me was "I speak English like a Spanish cow."
OK.
Good thing I'm not a complete French-language neophyte and know that "speaking like a Spanish cow" is a French expression means that you speak a foreign language really badly.
And her Spanish cow problem is an issue, as she's expected to teach English to a room full of children.

Why do the twins have a new teacher, you may ask? Well, their old one is out on a long-term sick leave now. It seems the week spent tramping around on the ski slopes with the children was not the best thing for someone six months along, so now she has to rest until her baby arrives.

And that's why I've agreed to come twice a week and take care of the English lessons at the school. On Thursday afternoon, we reviewed the parts of the body they've already learned and added a few more, accented by several choruses of the monotonous, yet very popular, childhood classic "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes".
I spent lots of time listening to their pronunciation and trying to correct it.
"Dis is my eye"
"Sis is my nose"
The "th" sound is a huge problem. Mallory and Alexa seem to be the only ones that can get their tongues between their teeth and say "this" correctly.

And wandering "h"s are a big issue. "Head" and "hand" are usually "ead" and "and", but somehow "arm" always picks up a carefully aspirated "h" and becomes "harm".

So, plenty there to keep me busy.

On Friday afternoon, I got Severin out of school early (he just missed an hour of study hall) and took him on a shopping expedition. He's easy to shop with because he just wants it to be over. if it fits, he'll take it. So, our trip was quickly over. We even found him a good ski jacket. Sadly, it doesn't have the Recco Avalanch System. But he is now under strict instructions find his sister and hold her hand if an avalanche strikes.

Saturday, I drove the kids into Geneva and we had lunch with Valentine's godmother. Then we went to the Natural History Museum. The kids hadn't been there for years and didn't remember it at all. I know the place quite well, though. Back when I was a student at the University of Geneva, I took some paleontology classes at the museum, spending many hours among the vast bone collections in the basement and often visiting the displays on the upper floors.

Today I'd planned to take the kids skiing, but it's been snowing like mad since early this morning. So, we're all in front of the fire, everyone with different things to do. Valentine is studying for the Brevet Blanc on Wednesday, Mallory is struggling through a huge Brian Jacques novel and Alexa is playing DS. Severin poring over his D&D manuals.
A nice Sunday afternoon.