Joyeux Jour de Dinde!

If it were not for facebook, I would not have remembered that today is Thanksgiving Day.  So for all of you who posted pictures of the delicious pies and carb-laden side dishes that you've made for today's festivities, thank you for the reminder.  And the food porn.

Tonight, AH and I have made plans with two friends of ours to drink beer and eat sausages at the delightful Belgian Beer Academy.  Saturday we will have a "proper" thanksgiving meal with 150 of our closest friends at the American Church.  Believe it or not, this is exactly as it should be for me.  Before AH and I started courting (and thus making the rounds on holidays), I don't remember ever having a big-deal meal on Thanksgiving itself.  My mother and father always hosted the "hordes" (all five of my father's siblings, their spouses and children, and now grandchildren) on Saturday, so Thursday was usually purposefully low-key.  In fact, one of my favorite Thanksgiving meals was the year my mom, dad, and myself (my sister was off gallivanting around England, I believe) sat down to a meal of 3-ways (of the Skyline variety, you sicko) and Coronas.  Bliss.  

So what I'm saying is, it's comforting to know that some traditions transcend time and place: beer and carbs on Thursday, turkey and utter insanity on Saturday.  If only we could get a rousing game of "Oh Bitch" going on Saturday at church, and if they save me all of the crispy, delicious turkey skin, I will be one happy camper.

And now, to further procrastinate from writing a paper on the gospel of Luke, the requisite list of what I am thankful for:

1. The technology that allows me to keep in touch with people back home, and to go to a school in Oklahoma.

2. The Wills & Kate royal wedding mug, brought back from London by a friend of a friend, that, when filled up with Earl Grey tea, acts as a magical motivational talisman.

3.  Parks

4.  Boulangeries

5.  Friends over here

6.  Friends over there

7.  Free museums

8.  My tree

9. Crepes.

10.  Two fantastic kids to look after, and a boss that treats me like a human being.

11.  Beautiful churches

12.  Churches full of beauty

13.  A roof over my head, a place to sleep, and a stove top to boil pasta on.

And seriously.  I live here:

I may kvetch on occasion about snotty bureaucrats and tiny grocery store aisles, but please never believe for a second that I'm not thankful for this amazing opportunity.  Because I truly, truly am.

And you know what I'm else I'm thankful for?

Being on this incredible journey with my Adoring (and Adorable) Husband.  I couldn't have asked for a better partner in crime.  We'll have been married for three years next Tuesday, and I still thank God every day that I have him in my life.  

Now please, quit rolling your eyes, rinse the vomit out of your mouth, and go enjoy some cheap beer and greasy turkey skin.    

La Ville des Morts

Welcome to What the France:  Happy Way Belated Halloween Edition!

This past Saturday, determined to not let physics calculations and ancient papal bulls (guess which of us was working on which) prevent us from enjoying the sunshine and crisp fall weather, AH and I ventured forth to Pere LaChaise, the beloved ville des morts (city of the dead) of Paris.

Now, if anyone else were telling this story, this right here might be the part where they insist that "really, Pere LaChaise is beautiful!  It's not creepy like other cemeteries!".  But this is me telling this story, and so this is the part where I admit that I've actually always loved cemeteries- they're peaceful, and usually quite beautifully landscaped, and I get a kick out of the unexpected stuff people choose to put on their headstones.  And I've always nursed a slightly macabre streak.  You can't drag me to an actual horror film (unless you want to be on the receiving end of 3 AM phone calls in which you are responsible for reminding me that killing people with chainsaws is actually really impractical and thus unlikely), but I love me a good ol' fashion Tim Burton claymation creepfest.

Now THAT being said, as someone who really digs cemeteries, Pere LaChaise was especially beautiful.  I would even go so far as to say romantic.  And now, for the visuals:

I must say, I was quite disappointed that our attempt to go to Pere LaChaise on All Saint's Day was foiled by nasty weather because the Halloween factor was off the hook.  Exhibit 1: ravens were EVERYWHERE.  It's like Pere LaChaise is like their secret club, and part of the draw is that the pigeons aren't cool enough to know about it yet (ravens: hipsters of Paris' bird population.  You know, when they aren't busy wreaking havoc on my Bird Soap Opera).

Exhibit #2: a black cat crossed my path.  In a graveyard.  If this had happened on Halloween, I think it might have been too much.

While there were plenty of (relatively) simple gravestones, there were also many, many mausoleums that were about as restrained and understated as Saint Chapelle.  

And here are gravestones just lying about willy nilly.  This right here is a big part of the reason I need to be cremated:  if this were my gravestone, I would come back and haunt the crap out of my great-great-great-great-grand-whatever, being all, "Really?  You can't even keep my gravestone UPRIGHT?!  It was bad enough when you stopped bringing flowers, but this is just INSULTING!!" And then I would unalphabetize all the books on their bookshelf, just to be a jerk.

No, I'm not actually on the zombie-vampire-werewolf bandwagon (I like my fantasy full of wizards, beefy sword-wielding men, and ladies in corsets, thankyouverymuch), but this little row of mausoleums just got me thinking how great it would be if the inhabitants came out at night after all the living have left and gossip about that weird lady down in 82 F and the guy from 37 B.  And then they complain about how loud the tourists are during the day when they're just trying to get some sleep: "This used to be a quiet neighborhood, but with all the riff raff, property values are going to plummet!"

One of the reasons that Pere LaChaise is such a tourist draw is that Jim Morrison (of The Doors, in case you've lived under a rock until now) is buried here.  His grave is not that interesting, but I love this tree next to it that fans have come and paid tribute to the Lizard King on.  This one in particular gets me, since I've been wondering the same damn thing since I moved here.

While I'm as much of a Doors fan as any other kid who grew up being force-fed classic rock on road trips with dad (a happy alternative to sports radio), the celebrity grave I was most excited about was this one: 

Playwright, novelist, lecturer, and my first Big Gay Literary Crush, Oscar Wilde.  Yes, I'm kissing his tomb.  No, I did not get rabies.  

That photo was taken back in the spring when I went with my friend Heidi.  So this time, eager to show Jon, I dragged him hither and thither until we arrived...

...only to find they're doing reconstruction (only in month of November, of course).  Some people remained determined to leave their mark, though...

They had to put that sign up because apparently people had been kissing the tarp.  Now THAT'S commitment.

So I've been asked why Oscar Wilde (who was Irish) and Jim Morrison (who was American) were able to be buried in a famous Parisian cemetery.  It turns out, one did not have to be born in Paris, or even France, to be buried in Pere LaChaise, one only had to die in Paris.  I thought that was actually kind of beautiful, and fitting. Here, in the beautiful city of the dead, people from all over the world are united only by the fact that their lives came to an end here, and here is where they wished to pass their eternal rest.

So Happy Belated Halloween!  Hopefully I'll get to writing about French Thanksgiving before January is over.

Don't Worry: In Purgatory, There Is Espresso

So now that I've already been living in France for nine months (my baguette baby is due any day now!), the French government has decided that now would be the appropriate time to teach me about life in France.  Oddly enough, telling them about this bloggy blog did not convince them that I had been seamlessly integrated.  So last Saturday, at 8:30 AM (I work in the afternoons and study at home, so my sleeping habits are still much as they were in college, so yes, that is painfully early for me) I had the JOY and PLEASURE to trek all the way up to the 18th (which is an hour from where I live) to attend a Formation Civique.  


After trekking to the address listed on my convocation letter, I arrived at the smelly little hole in the wall that was the government office I was to spend the next nine hours of my life in.  And, as all official things in France do, my day began with waiting in a line, at the end of which I was shuffled into a tiny classroom to await the start of class with my fellow recent (or semi-recent) immigrants.

Now, this being a product of French bureaucracy, I had no idea what I was getting myself into ahead of time.  Therefore, in between ranting to AH about how much I did not want to give up an entire Saturday to this enterprise, we spent time musing about what, exactly, would be taught at this class.  Would I learn the appropriate way to carry a baguette?  Would there be scarf-tying lessons?  And, most importantly, would I be given lessons in the patented French Disapproving Glare?

Alas, not this time (I still have a "Vie en France" class in December, so maybe that's when they cover disapproving facial expressions).  The morning portion of the class was taken up with a presentation on the history of the French Republic.  During this time, I realized that it's a shame that nobody ever kicked my butt for raising my hand every freakin' time I know the correct answer. I think it's a carry over from my childhood in school when I may not have been the first picked for kickball teams, but gosh darn, at least the teacher would be impressed that I could not only tell her the characters of Romeo and Juliet, but give a full, acted out synopsis, complete with sword fighting on the table!  So yes, every time the instructor asked a question, I raised my hand and parroted a response straight from my travel guides, museum outings, or History of Christianity textbook.  My nerdiness was in such full, obnoxious force that I had to bite my tongue when the instructor conflated the Hundred Years War of the 14th and 15th centuries with the French Wars of Religion of the 16th century.  But bite I did, because, believe it or not, not even I would be so obnoxious and foolish as to argue about French history with the French government employee.

Empire, Republic, blah blah blah, systems of government, blah blah blah, they lost me again until laicity, or secularism, one of the principles of the Republic.  Just for fun, the instructor asked us all what we thought of the niqab ban.  You could tell we were in a room of non-French natives, because nobody took the bait (the French love to debate- civilly- matters of politics that Americans wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole in polite conversation.  Just don't ask what they do for a living- that would be getting personal).  Only the woman next to me, my Formation Friend (because when you sit through nine hours of a mandated government class, and also have over two cumulative hours of break, you make friends) ventured forth a tentative opinion.

Ah, France and secularism.  Opinions: I haz them.  This might be a whole other post for a more thoughtful day, so I think I'll wrap this up...

All in all, not worth my preemptive kvetching, especially when you factor in the two 30 minute espresso/cigarette breaks, and a full hour and a half for lunch at an off-site brasserie where there was bread (of course), and a lovely vegetable tangine that didn't look like it had been sitting in a plastic box 10 minutes before being on my plate.  So please, if you want to know what I took away from this class, don't ask me about the court systems (I remember nothing), or French history before the Revolution (unless you really like hearing about popes).  But ask me what I learned about France, and I will tell you what you may already know: coffee breaks and crusty bread make this world go round.