Bird Soap Opera

In my attempts to free myself from distractions *coughcoughFACEBOOKcough*, I occasionally drag my laptop and reading materials over to MontEnchantedFairyLandsouris to enjoy the fresh air and to shelter in the shade of my tree.  (And yes, it is my tree.  I've marked it, just not in the way a cat would).  However, focus is still often out of reach as I frequently find myself distracted by the various winged denizens of the park.  So much time do I spend watching their antics that I've actually cast them all in an elaborate soap opera (All My Children did just go off the air- vacancy filler!).  I may not have a plot yet, but here are the characters:

The ducks will probably be our protagonists, as they always seem to be caught up in the most drama.  Seriously, spring in the pond was like a one long, aquatic, avian episode of Mad Men, with Rogers  chasing down and pinching Joans everywhere you looked.

The mysterious, beautiful creatures that everyone idealizes and envies in equal measure.  But they are burdened with a deep, dark, shameful secret.  Secret baby?  Literal skeletons in the closet?

The brown-nosing upstart, desperately wanting to be liked, but mostly the other birds mock them behind their backs.  They will triumph in some unexpected way, or turn totally evil as a result of their rejection.

The mean girls, but in more of a Joan Collins-in-a-turban kind of way rather than a Lohan-in-spray-tan way.  Deliciously villainous, and always out to steal your man.

The well-meaning best friend.  Loyal, but dim-witted and passive aggressive.  They unknowingly get involved in a money laundering scandal, and its up to the ducks to bail them out.

And who do the ducks go to get the geese out of trouble?  The ravens, that's who.  As wise as they are wise-cracking, these birds can get the job- any job- done.  But at what price, ducks?  At what price?

And the seagulls are the characters that get added late in the second season to revive view interest, but mostly just end up being douchewads that nobody cares about.

Title suggestions?  Bird puns welcome and encouraged.

The Expat Life

Alas, my life as an expatriate in Paris doesn't involve much drinking in cafes with dissolute writers of arguable genius (obviously, I was never much enchanted with Hemingway- there, I said it).  But it has come with a few distinct advantages.

Chief among these is the expat community itself.  To know what being a part of an expat community is like, I want you to think back on your first week of college.  Remember that time when you could strike up a conversation with anybody because you knew that, like you, they were in uncharted territory and in desperate need of friends?  Remember all the small-talk you exchanged over regional differences, like who says "pop" and who says "soda"?  The number of times you told people your prospective majors, and the number of times you pretended to stay interested after they told you that they were majoring in business?  Keep the "interesting regional difference" conversation, replace "prospective majors" with "irritating quirks about life abroad (double points for complaints about the French bureaucracy)," and you've got the talk soup of your average expat gathering.  

And unlike your first week of college, that openness to meeting new people lasts indefinitely because there are always new expats arriving and old ones leaving.  And while sometimes this can be a major bummer (I sometimes feel like every time I make a friend, they turn around and go back to the States), I choose to see this as something great:  the Ferris-wheel rotation of Americans in Paris seems to bring in someone new and interesting for every wonderful person that it takes away.

One of my chief worries (and one of the questions I most often fielded) when I found out I was moving to Paris was, "but how will you meet people?  What will you do without your friends?".  Let me be clear:  being far away from the people that I've known and loved since I was knee-high to a pig's eye is no picnic. But I would be in a similar quandary no matter where I moved.  And at least in Paris, there's this fantastic club of people waiting to embrace you.  It doesn't matter if you can throw a football, or speak intelligently about the work of Pablo Neruda, or if you can quilt.  The only club rule is that you speak English.  If you speak English, you're in like flint with an interesting, multi-national, eclectic group of people who can't wait to be your friend.  I doubt I would've had that waiting for me in Cleveland. 

So That Time I Tried to Call the Phone Company...

...Ah, I get it now: they were all hyped up on catnip and just wanted to go for some Fancy Feast.

http://laughingsquid.com/french-kittens-at-work-home-play/

Only in France...

I've (hopefully) sufficiently regaled you with the splendors of Paris: Sacre Coeur, the Seine, the masterpieces of the Louvre, crusty bread.  So for my next trick, I'd like to show you some of the wonders of everyday life in France.  Here are some of the things that you won't see in the tourist brochures, but you probably won't see in the States either...

Geese that have no fear.  I took this laying in the grass, and I was not using zoom.  If I did not have a raging fear of bird flu, I could have reached out and touched its head.

Hundreds upon hundreds of roller-bladers taking over the streets. AH and I could only watch in awe and confusion as this vast, wheeling hoard whizzed by us, blocking us from crossing the street to our metro station.  I think the last time I had on a pair of roller-blades I also owned a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper.  But here, this is, apparently, A Thing.  A Thing so big, in fact, that AH and I were stranded for close to ten minutes waiting for the last of the roller-bladers to pass by.  

White chocolate covered Oreos?  Interesting.  But where the hell are the regular Oreos?!  Really, France? Really?

Fine, France you win, give me back the white chocolate covered Oreos, SAVE ME FROM SLIMY THINGS WITH SCALES IN JARS.  This was on the shelf near the hummus.  I don't...I can't....why?

Boobies.  In public places.  I come from a place where we cover up COSMO at the grocery stores.  But the real kicker?

I saw this the same day.  It was like this ad said to the other ad, "Boobies? Fine.  I'll see your boobies and raise you CLOSE PROXIMITY OF BOOBIES TO THE POPE." 

And what might make this even better?  By recording these images for posterity, I got to look like a perv twice today.  My mommy would be so proud.

Plan B

And just when I thought I would go mad reading about marytrs, a deus ex machina arrived in the form of my friend Stephanie, in Paris for a few days before she headed out to Tours to spend a year of her masters program (and going mad reading about something other than martyrs, presumably), and in need of a place to stay.  So I forced myself to put away my books for a few days (although we did spend one afternoon in MontEnchantedFairyLandsouris, me reading about the Diocletian persecutions and her napping away some of her jet-lag) and we made it out and about into the city.

Stephanie had the good fortune to spend some of her younger years living in Paris with her family, and so for her, being in Paris was like coming home.  I couldn't help but watch her giddiness at seeing the booksellers along the Seine again and wondering if we'll feel the same way when we return someday.  And although she didn't have too demanding of a schedule (it's a short train ride from Tours to Paris, after all, so return trips for her are practically guaranteed), she did want to see Sacre Coeur, or, as I call it, the most beautiful sight in Paris.

Now in addition to the breath-taking view of the exterior (especially on a sunny day, which we were lucky enough to have), the beautiful mosaic work inside, and the lively crowd that is usually gathered outside (often including some pretty entertaining street performers), Sacre Coeur is dear to me because it's home to my dream job.  Allow me to explain:

My first trip to Sacre Coeur was by myself on a Friday in early March.  Just before entering, I took a moment to read the usual sign: "No photography, silence" Ok, Ok... "...and appropriate dress." Jigga Wha...?  Luckily, it was still cold enough that I was thoroughly swaddled and thus rather unobjectionable, so there was no issue.

I took AH back that Saturday, and this time, instead of just a sign, there was a man standing outside the entrance enforcing these mandates.  Mostly, he was telling people to put their cameras away, or he was shushing with great French enthusiasm.

*Side Note: where were the shush-happy French, I ask you, on my tour bus to Western Ireland where I missed half of what the tour guide said because of the noisy Italian teenagers behind me? Alas, I had to rely on the cranky Canadian in front of me.  Effective, but somehow less witheringly judgmental.

So speaking of witheringly judgmental: this gentleman was enforcing the first rules with gusto, but was sadly neglecting the last.  I saw a girl with pink and purple argyle leggings, for goodness sake!  And that's when it hit me:  that might just be my dream job, standing outside of Sacre Coeur, deciding what is and is not appropriate attire for entering a house of worship.  I could lead a revolution, a revolution, I tell you!  I would cover the bra straps of the women, pull up the pants of the menfolk and provide appropriate footwear to all!

And so there you have it.  If reading about martyrs becomes too much and I decide that I'm not cut out to stand in the pulpit, you'll find me just outside the church.  And I might be handing you a cardigan.