The Petite Coquine: Life, Love (& Cheese) in France

Love, American Style

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:13:00 +0000

As I touched on in my last entry, one of of the greatest - and awe-inspiring - pleasures of living in France is hearing the gratitude that many French people have towards Americans. Most of us don't think of our nationality when we are on our own turf, but when you are living abroad you become acutely aware of where you come from, especially being a somewhat "controversial" nationality such as American. There is such a love/hate relationship that the world has with America. On one hand, it seemingly worship our culture, evidenced by its desire for our movies, music, television, clothing, mediocre hamburgers, corn-syrupy carbonated beverages and even our "image" in general. On the flip side, America is decried as the wanna-be "saviors" of the world and viewed as self-designated global police. I don't dispute the criticism but sometimes I'm like "Yeah! Kickin' ass and takin' names!". (I keep those sentiments to myself, obviously.)

Often times in France, people really seemed excited and interested when they find out I'm American, especially in my area where there are not a lot of Americans. I was at the D-Day Museum in Caen (officially: The Caen Memorial for Peace) and was speaking to an elderly French woman about a video clip we were watching. Upon hearing I was American, she shook my hand and thanked me for what America did for France. My goodness, what can you say? You're welcome? It is so humbling, it makes me goose-bumpy just typing this. All around here we have reminders and roadside memorials of American soldiers that died on those spots and you just feel the history. I have adopted one that I pass off the highway near my home. Occasionally, I stop, right the flowers if they've tipped over and am going to replace the now-weathered American flag very soon. With all of the perhaps dubious offerings my country has bestowed onto the world, thinking of all these young men giving their lives for the freedom of people they didn't even know makes me feel really proud.

Boogie Woogie (Pas Des Boogie Woogie)

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sat, 08 May 2010 13:11:00 +0000

One of the biggest (yet,hard-won) rewards of picking up and starting a completely new life from scratch is you are forced to go outside of your comfort zone on a regular basis. Dealing with banks, French administration, a salesclerk when you're trying to exchange a purchase or even asking someone what time it is can feel overwhelming. Three years on, my heart still races a little when I have to pick up the telephone to make a phone call and I still get a little sensory overload when in a group of kilometer-a-minute French speakers and I'm trying to keep up and/or jump into a situation requiring some random new vocabulary.

Recently, I found an organization in France called On Va Sortir (translation: "We are going out"). Similar to MeetUp in the U.S. it's just individuals who organize outings like the theater, cinema, going to a restaurant, hiking, etc. and you can join in on anything. Having a developed a new-found love for doing karaoke - albeit rather badly - I decided to join a karaoke event at the L'Iguane Café, just outside of Chartres. (On a side note, their website is everything that is oh-so-wrong, yet oh-so-right about French websites. Lots of pages providing very little practical information. But don't even get me started on that...).

As the registration for this event grew from 20 to 30 to 40, suddenly my nerves were getting the best of me. Showing up to a strange place to meet a bunch of people I didn't know was leaving me a little panicky. It's hard enough when it's in your own language but knowing I might spend an evening making French smalltalk in a noisy bar seemed a skooch overwhelming, so much so I almost canceled. But I said "Self, you gotta get out and do it". So I did.

When I arrived, I was really surprised to see how crowded it was in the garden area in front of the bar. There must have been 50 or more people and having never met anyone, I (mistakenly, it tuns out) assumed they were all the same group. There were brochettes on the BBQ, a table with a punch bowl, and groups of people standing around. I stood at the periphery at first, then walked to place in the center, next to a post, and was greeted by a couple of women asking if I was with OVS.

After standing awkwardly for a few more minutes, I eyed the punch bowl table with a group of people standing around. I figured I've got to just jump in and say hello, so I went over, served myself a cup of punch and stood with the group. There was kind of a murmur amongst a few of them and then one of them said hello. Of course, when I open my mouth and they realize I am not French (going down the list of suspected nationalities in the usual order: English? Irish? Australian?), we have a little to talk about. There is some mention that they are a karate club, and I nod in interest. Then it slowly dawns on me in a Homer-esque "doh! moment... you're not my group and I have just crashed your party and stolen your punch! I was mortified. Needless to say, it was not a problem and they even invited me to eat with them, which I politely declined.

I eventually meandered inside to scope out the seating and saw a nice corner booth (anyone who knows me well knows j'adore the corner booths) and there were two friendly-looking women sitting there, so I asked if I could join them. AGAIN thinking they were with my group - as they're all strangers to me - and I didn't even find out they weren't until the end of the evening. Super-nice ladies named Isabelle, who is my age and Joliya, who is 20. They could not have been more welcoming to this complete stranger who has (inadvertently) crashed their evening as well. When we went to order cocktails, Isabelle offered to buy my drink, which I thought was really sweet.

She said her father was 14 when D-Day happened and was living in the countryside outside of Normandy. It was there, hanging out with the cows in the field, that he encountered American soldiers for the first time. On top of that, he had never seen a black person before so, as she explained, here come these big, strong black and white American soldiers with chewing gum and Camel cigarettes in their helmets and it just blew her dad away. The soldiers gave him his first cigarette (and, unfortunately, probably a nice nicotine habit as a souvenir) but she said that her dad would cry tears of joy when recounting that story. She said it was her pleasure to offer me a drink because of her dad's happy experience.

The karaoke was really fun - a lot more crowded and rowdy than my usual spot in Cloyes (although the Vatican is probably a lot more crowded and rowdy that my usual spot in Cloyes). The English-language selection was pretty sparse, but after an hour, I put in my request for Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made For Walking", which I figured I remembered well enough do. (The only other choices seemed pretty risky for my limited range - My Heart Will Go On, Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Love Me Tender, New York New York - well you get the drift.)

I really enjoyed watching everyone sing but frankly, didn't know many of the songs. A lot of them were really popular "drunken French bar songs" (ok, that's my take) - like this little Claude Francois ditty above - and, man, whole room was singing and moving exactly like Claude and his Claude-ettes! I kind of wish I could share in this collective French moment, but alas, I think it will forever be just outside my grasp of the realm of French-ness. Regardless, it was a great evening.

Around midnight, I headed out for "les Sticks" and despite my GPS having me drive through a cornfield (thinking Holy Crap, I'm going to be one of those people you hear about on the news who drove off a cliff because their GPS told them to), I was home safe and sound and tucked into bed by 1:30 am. What a great evening - new friends and new experiences.

Spring has Sprung - Betwixt and Between

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 07 May 2010 12:44:00 +0000

While there's nothing too original about my title (and the French equivalent doesn't quite roll of the tongue in the same way), springtime in the French countryside is probably my most favorite season in my most favorite place. The rolling fields of colza form a gorgeous patchwork of yellow nearly everywhere you look. A simple ride to the market for baguettes on a Sunday morning is one photo-op after the next. (And while we're on the subject - Sunday shopping ??!! In France??!! Bienvenue to the 20th century, mon amour!) Oh the sweet pleasures we take for granted in the U.S.

I've just started my third year in France and my third year of marriage. has passed at the speed of light and I can't believe three years have come and gone. As I am getting closer to my whopping nine-week summer (working) vacation in Portland, it's really struck me how many roots I have put down here. My first year I would have been jonesing for the first flight out of Charles de Gaulle but now the thought of leaving my French friends and routines - not to mention my husband - leaves me a little sniffly.

So what have I learned in these last three years?

I really don't need 24-hour copy shops, fitness clubs, grocery stores or Taco Bells (although a taco would be nice, now that I think of it)
French lessons might have been a good idea
Spending $90 in postage to ship over Red Vines, Cap'n Crunch, cheese popcorn and Baby Ruth bars is worth every bloody penny
French women do get fat
Suddenly $5 a gallon gas seems like a bargain (when I spend $90 to fill up a 13-gallon tank here)
I may actually prefer Petit Pré double-cream cheese to sex
Yogurt is a dessert
You are truly French when you complain that your husband only gets five weeks of paid vacation
You can't fight tractor season
Facebook is a blessing and a curse
Desperate Housewives in French is just wrong (but any Steven Segal movie dubbed into French might actually be doing the viewing public a service)
2:30pm really is the start of the afternoon
The only good viper is a dead viper
If I am going to need emergency medical services, it would be a good idea to notify them 30 minutes in advance
#1 French Meal Law: No Baguette - No Meal
You don't tell your husband to baise the television
Cold lunches don't count
The French way of life really is the way of life

I'm looking forward to many more lessons in life.

Resolutions... resolutions...

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:03:00 +0000

I've been out of the blogosphere for the last six months... no surprise here... it's been a very busy last few months. In January, I purchased another small cleaning business in Portland and merged it with my company in Portland www.domesticaclean.com . Needless to say, it's been a challenge. New employees, an inherited second manager and lot more details to coordinate. My "manager/agent" who is always encouraging me to write has suggested I start writing about running a business from another country and well as my beginning stages of starting a small business here in France. I am thinking of starting my own business teaching English and Sarkozy has made it almost "America-easy" to start a one-man show over here.

Details to follow...

Dog Days of Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:18:00 +0000

As the final days of summer are upon us and the final tomatoes have come off the vine, I wanted to find some creative uses for all the green tomatoes we had left over and I came across this recipe. My skeptical husband LOVED it! It tasted a bit like an apple cobbler with a bite. You can also try it with a "crisp" topping (brown sugar, flour, butter & oatmeal).

GREEN TOMATO COBBLER

Preheat oven to 375 F (gas mark 5)

4 cups (about 750 grams) chopped green tomatoes
1 cup (200 grams) white sugar
1/4 cup (35 grams) flour ((type 65 for you in France)
1 teaspoon (10 grams) cinnamon
1 1/2 (20 ml) tablespoons vinegar

Combine tomatoes, sugar, flour, cinnamon & vinegar in a bowl and put in 8" (20 cm) pie plate or 8"x8" baking dish.

For the crumble topping: Mix together the following ingredients with a pastry cutter or fingers until crumbly:

1/2 cup (65 grams) flour
1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar
1/2 cup (110 grams) butter, room temperature

Sprinkle crumble topping over fruit mixture and bake for about 35 or 40 minutes (or until lightly brown).

Portland, je t'aime

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:14:00 +0000

As I sit here back in la France, jet-lagged and wide awake at the ungodly hour of 3:30 a.m., I can't help but wish that I could have opened the Sky Mall catalog on the plane and ordered a Star Trek teleportation machine from Hammacher Schlemmer to easily whisk myself back and forth between the two places where my heart lies. Were a teleportation machine, of course, to be offered alongside The Always Accurate Solar Watch or Steering Wheel Bluetooth Speakerphone.

As many of have probably experienced, vacations can sometimes turn into a hectic mess of busy schedules and short tempers, but this was probably the most wonderful and relaxing vacation I have had in a LONG time. Two weeks of back-to-back morning coffees, lunches, afternoon coffees, cocktails and dinners with every person I could possibly want to see! I stayed with my bestest friend Rob and his funny-as-hell boyfriend Brent and enjoyed almost spa-like hospitality. Fresh towels and hotel-sized Aveda shampoos, great home-cooked meals when I wasn't eating out, and even the power over the remote control!

My first stop after getting off the plane at 5pm was straight to get my cut & color from the awesome Mimi at Villa Villa Kula - half the price of what I pay in Paris and double the goodness! Even though it's only been 18 months since I have driven in the U.S. - I was like Mrs. Brady, Old Lady behind the wheel of my sh*tty, sh*tty rental car (when I was choosing it from the lot, I mis-read it as "Hybrid Accord", not "Huyndai Accent"), so, yeah, big difference. In France we don't have "right on red" and people generally don't make sudden moves, so having cars seemingly flying out at me from all directions was disconcerting and leaving Mimi at about 8pm to go to Rob & Brent's was truly headache-inspiring.

My biggest surprise about being back in the Rose City was how sophisticated it has seemed to become in the two years since I was last there. I (heart) Portland, always have thought it was cool & hip and hated the slagging off it seems to get for no good reason. "Portland sucks". "Big city wannabe". "Lumberjack-attired losers", whatever, talk to the hand. However, I was really expecting to be "shocked" by chubby people walking around in sweatpants and flip flops, Super Big Gulp in hand - my typical U.S. memory - but, dang! - people looked great! And while I am sure businesses have come and gone because of the recession, there were so many new businesses and restaurants.

The next few days were filled with all the American things I missed. Even landing in the U.S. at my Salt Lake City connection had me nearly skipping down the concourse like Dorothy. What's that smell...? Cinnabon! What are Jon & Kate up to this week? Let's find out in the National
Enquirer! Why yes, I WOULD like whip cream on my Frappuccino! In Portland, it was the joys of shopping past 7pm, seeing movies in English ("Not you, fat Jesus") and browsing bookstores with English books, all set to the tune of the American diet of bacon cheeseburgers and pizza that gave me a nice, five-pound souvenier (on my ass) to take home. My motto was "eat like no one (i.e. Patrice) was watching", although I have to say I am regretting that "Supersize Me" tour-de-force just a teeny bit.

The most fabulous part of this trip was catching up with old and even older friends. Having been on Facebook the last couple of years, I have caught up with people I have not seen in 10, 20 or even 30 years - Adina, Dulcinea, Chloe, Heidi, my awesome 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Robinson (or "Liz" as I am strangely now calling her) & Kathy, as well as my regular PDX buddies - Renee, Laurie, Karen, John & Sally, Eloise & Ryan, Rick & Evelyn, my main Rick (stalker sold separately), Jil and my always-in-the periphery boneyard of former flings and flames. The latter included a nice, long conversation in French to show off my new found supériorité linguistique. Ok, I may be embellishing just a bit, but I was flattered at the compliments on my français nonetheless. I even had coffee with bio-half-sister-on my-birthdad's-side's former sister-in-law. (Does that make any sense? Too complicated to map out here.)

It was wonderful as well to see good old Domestica in action! Of the six employees I have, I have only met four of them so it was great to be back and get to know people. We had a nice golf and lunch day at McMenamins Edgefield and left the day with a promise of a Enchanted Forest 2010 road trip.

Of course, though, all good things must come to an end and before I could say "all you can eat shrimp at Red Lobster", the two weeks had passed and I was on my way home. My suitcase packed to the brim American goodies including cheap contact lens solution (thanks Brent!), green Tabasco sauce, chipotle chiles, Bitch magazine and a wireless computer keyboard presented to my husband with description of "I got this for $20!! At 10pm!! On a Sunday!!" (Three shopping concepts the French just don't have the joy to experience.) I couldn't have asked for a better trip, such great friends and family and also a great reminder of how much I love and miss my life in France.

It's funny how being away can really make you appreciate what you have - and sometimes be a little blindly nostalgic for the things you thought you missed. Taxiing down the runway after arriving in Portland, I couldn't wait to get off that plane to see my friends and coming home, I couldn't wait to get off that train in Vendôme to give my hubby a kiss and a cuddle. THAT is a perfect vacation!

Les Vacances

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:12:00 +0000

Boy, what a difference a few months make. My summertime blues have been replaced with "Yea, summer!" and things have just been fun and busy. I am officially on my seven weeks of (unfortunately, unpaid) vacation, but boy, how can you complain about seven weeks of vacation??!!

I am off to the U.S. on the 11th for a two-week visit, partially for work and mostly to see my friends and family. I am just so excited - I can't wait to see everyone. One of the good things about having Facebook (despite my mopey previous post) is that I have reconnected with several school friends, and one teach from grade school, so I have visit planned with lots of people I haven't seen in ages. Like, literally, ages. Twenty, 25 years or more.

I think getting summer underway really kickstarts the energy. Not working such a long week, I am free to ride my bike (doing about 100 miles per week), take care of the house (and my husband!). Tonight we are meeting some friends in next to us for dinner and karaoke, although I think I am the only one who will sing (and I use the term 'sing' pretty loosely...). On Monday, I am driving to Angers to spend the day with a friend to do some shopping and girl stuff (and speak English - she is a French woman who teaches English in a nearby school), so I am looking forward to that.

In July, I had a real treat because a client of mine from Portland came to visit Paris and Patrice and I went to stay there and give her and her colleague a tour around. It was great to see them and show them "my Paris". The funny thing is, I had thought that a great business to start here (along with the million other people doing it) would be a travel company but just one day of trying to keep TWO people on track and get everything done in time was pretty exhausting. Still, that's something I may keep in mind for the future.

Summertime Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Summer is now approaching and it's bringing with it a restlessness to be out and about and doing things. However, this is emphasizing, in a way, the isolation I sometimes feel being separated from my friends and family in the U.S. Despite having lived abroad before - Germany, England & Canada for a total of about two years - I really have been unprepared for the homesickness and feeling torn between two worlds that never seems to end. Not to mention the daily challenges of learning and speaking a new language.

I don't know if modern technology like free internet phone, Facebook, Twitter, etc. helps or hurts. On one hand, it's great to have updates and information for my friends back in the States, but on the other hand, I see every day all that I am missing in my life here. A niece I have never met, a good friend that has suddenly died, concerts and groups and life and activities that I won't ever be a part of if I choose to stay in France. Living 90 miles from Paris makes life very "so close, yet so far". It's close enough to spend the day there seeing a movie or eating a yummy Indian meal that I can't get out in the sticks, but just far enough to be hassle to get in ($50 just for the train).

The little things I took for granted living in a big city in the U.S. are just harder here and the longer I am here - as the newness wears off and real life settles in - the bigger the hole I feel is left by my "old life". Simply going out to see a movie in English or browse around an English-language bookstore (Powells, I miss you!) is an event that you have to plan - 90 minutes (and a chunk of change) on the train to Paris or, if I just want to see the movie - an hour by car to the nearest "big" cities (Orleans, Blois or Chartres). While I have made new friends here they, too, are scattered an hour in each direction, making get-togethers less than spontaneous. I just miss going out shopping, for lunch or to a movie with my friends.

I love my husband and I love France but, dang, I just did not expect this 'new life' to be so hard to get used to...

Our Local Hero

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:20:00 +0000

Patrice and I attended a very touching ceremony last Sunday to honor 98-year-old Raymonde Piedallu, a local woman who hid two Jewish children during World War II. The two "girls" (now in their late 60's and 70's) were there along with some of their family from Israel and Canada and our little salle des fêtes was packed to capacity. She was given a medal of honor by the president of the National Assembly from Paris and there had mayors and representatives present from other cities in the region.

When I was growing up, hearing about WWII (or "the last war", as it's still sometimes referred to here) everything seemed (and was) so far away. It's "over there" and "somewhere else", but living here in France, seeing roadside memorials to fallen American and British soldiers or ordinary French citizens killed on that spot for their resistance is an unreal feeling. The Nazi headquarters in our village was just a few minutes walk from our house.

The picture above is Patrice with Raymonde - she was the lunch lady at his school and he remembers her giving him spiced cake with cinnamon, which he still doesn't like to this day! It was really a beautiful afternoon and I feel really lucky to have witnessed this little piece of history.

You can click on this link below for the story of the reunion last year between Raymonde and the women she saved.

http://www.jewishtribune.ca/TribuneV2/index.php/200810231013/Jewish-sisters-reunite-with-French-woman-who-was-like-a-mother-to-us-during-World-War-II.html

Knockin' on Heaven's Door

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:19:00 +0000

Good lord, who knew that having a birthday party in France could be fraught with so many etiquette rules that Emily Post herself might have a head-spin moment.

With the Big 4-0 approaching in a matter of weeks, I have decided to follow the French tradition of throwing my own birthday bash. Just coming off this big wedding, of course, has taken the excitement of organizing even a trip to the grocery store. But 40 only comes once - so why not celebrate, non?

Now, for any of you familiar with the great "serving beer in the wrong glass" debacle at Patrice's 2007 b-day fête that I threw for him, or the near-riotous absence of food other than cake, you can imagine I was going to be hell-bent on doing it "French Style" this time. (For those not in the know, two months after moving to France, I threw a party for Patrice and due too many guests and not enough glasses, I (gasp!) served beer in whatever glass was available - whisky, cocktail, etc. This, coupled with not having appetizers available because the time of day the party was held, resulted in me not... hearing... the... g*d...-d*mned...end...of....it... from Patrice.)

So, who better than a French husband to ask for French etiquette questions, right?

Me: How does 7:00 on Saturday the 15th sound?
Patrice: Not everyone might be able to make it then.
Me: Ok, well if they can't make it, they can't make it.
Patrice: You might want to call everyone and find out who can come.
Me: Well, no time is going to be perfect for everyone. Do you think a Sunday afternoon would be better? How does 3pm on Sunday sound?
Patrice: That's too late for an aperitif.
Me: Well, I am having cake and champagne, not an aperitif. Would I need additional food?
Patrice: If before lunch or before dinner, you would need food.
Me: So is 3pm considered "before dinner"?
Patrice: (Silence)
Me: So what time WOULD be good for the merde Francais so I don't have to hear the complaining? (clearly things are spiraling out of control at this point...)
Patrice: The same time that would be good for the merde Américaine...

And... SCENE!

Sigh.... so stay tuned.... we shall see....

Ah.... Tears Running Down my Cheeks

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:44:00 +0000

Oh, India, sweet India, how I love thee.. always a favorite when eating out in Portland (good lord, how many times was I given the bum's rush at India House for taking to long to eat lunch....), Indian food has been a much-missed part of my "old life" now that I am in France. Having a French husband who thinks salt and pepper is wildly spicy, nothing of this ilk is usually on our "eat out" itinerary...

However, on a recent visit to Paris to get my hair done, me and my peeps (Michelle Americaine and Michelle Rosbif, as Patrice has so un-PC-ingly christened them) had the best lunch there - all for about 8 euros and all while watching the Pope's visit safely from the big-screen TV. This was definitely not your "westernized" Indian food. We were the only non-Indians in the restaurant and the fact that my eyes were watering, I knew the 'hotness" was perfect.

I was lucky to make another visit last week with my friend Becky, who was here for the wedding. We had the best meal and watched a great Bollywood film while doing so, afterward buying some spiced coffee - coffee with ginger and coriander - at the massive food market next door.

For those passing this way, Ganesha is located in the Little India of Paris, metro La Chapelle. turn left out of the station, walk down Rue Louis Blanc and take the first turn to the right.

French Wedding - Finally!

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:27:00 +0000

After a year-long absence, I am back writing. I feel so disappointed that I have left this last year pass by with nary a word - especially considering it was one of the most challenging ever! However, maybe that was why. Simply too focused on keeping my head day-to-day to be interested in the minutiae that I would love to remember.

Two weeks ago, Patrice and I finally had our French wedding. First slated for October 2007, then moved to April 2008 and finally occurring October 3, 2008. As anyone who knows me well can attest to, I can easily find something to complain about in any situation, but I have to say that our wedding was absolutely perfect! It was exactly what we had imagined!

Two days before the wedding, Patrice and I drove to Paris Charles de Gaulle to pick up my mom, my sister-in-law's mother and my old friend, Becky, who lives in Houston and whom I had not seen in 10 years. Living a pretty quiet day-to-day life with my husband (and I say husband, since we were legally married in the U.S. in 2007), I was not prepared for the barrage of talking and questions! It was like being the mother to five-year-old triplets! "What's this? What's that? Can I pay in dollars? What's that crop growing over there? Do the French irrigate their fields? What side dish do we get with lunch? Where is the bathroom? Do French women curl their hair? What is the history of that? What is the history of this?" and so on and so on for the duration of the trip. Wonderful to have people here, but utterly exhausting! It also brought home two big facts for me: How much I actually am able to figure out on my own after almost 20 years of international living and travel and how little I actually know about French history.

One of the highlights of those first couple of days, though, was having the owners of the rental house my friends were renting give us a tour of their chateau which was also on the grounds. It dates originally from the 1100's having been burned and rebuilt but still having some parts of the original construction. It was a real challenge trying to translate that historical commentary from French to English for my visitors, but it worked out. Afterwards, we had champagne and h'or dourves in thier sitting from with a large fire. It was really wonderful (despite two people dropping theirs on the beautiful oriental rug).

The two days before the wedding were a blur of the usual-type appointments - hair, flowers, makeup, picking up wedding dress, etc. Itwas a little more challenging having visitors in tow, but the morning of the ceremony, I woke up refreshed and ready to go. It was really nice having an evening wedding because we had all day to prepare - not having to rush to get things done before noon. My friends Rob & Brent arrived the day before and were invaluable in preparation because they did all the table decoration for us because the caterers were a little late in getting the tables set up.

We were completely blessed with beautiful weather for our ceremony. For weeks before the wedding, I started obsessing over weather reports. Even though our ceremony was indoors, and in the evening, we were hoping for some time before the ceremony to have some outdoor photos taken, to take advantage of the beautiful location. How five different weather reports can give you five different forecasts, I will NEVER know! For God's sake, in this day and age, isn't there one computer or something that can just tell the whole world what it is going to be? I had one saying sun, sun, sun for the 10 days my friends were here, one rain and thundershowers the entire time.

It was a nail-biter up until the actual hour. In the afternoon when I was getting my hair done, it was pouring down rain and even hailing. Then, just an hour before, the sun came out and it was simply beautiful! I haven't seen the final photographs, but I am sure there are some lovely ones of the chateau and the grounds. He even took us down to the lake at the base of the chateau to get some with it in the distance. As much as Patrice questioned the value of this "jet-set" photographer I had travel to us for this occasion, hands-down I think everyone who was there thought he did a great job. Perfect in the sense that you never saw him - he was totally unobtrusive.

The ceremony itself was a bit of a short-but-sweet blur. It was in a room in the chateau, so there was not a long aisle - just the length of a very large room - so even a "short" 1 minute, 40 second wedding march song seemed LOOOOONG.... Having Rob walk me down the aisle was so wonderful. He even knew to pause when the door opened and we walked in. Everyone stood up and started clapping and taking pictures and I felt like a real princess... it makes me sniffle little just typing this. However, despite trying to slow down, we still had a quick walk up and had to stand there for a good 45 seconds (sounds short, but feels long) to finish out the wedding march. Patrice's first words to me were "You came up too quick!".... ah.... this man always knows the right words.

The ceremony was entirely in French, and it was the French legal wording, like "Article 9.1 - You must love and obey".... funny! We each read poems to each other in French, and to me that was the most romantic part. I chose "I carry your heart (in my heart)" by e.e. cummings and he chose "L'autre Jour (The Other Day)" by Pierre de Ronsard, which was unintentionally fitting, as it was written in the 1500's, the same time period of the chateau. After the ceremony, we had photos out front, then the cocktail hour next to the reception hall. Again, for me, just a blur of people taking photos - I don't even remember having a drink, but wonderful nonetheless.

The only glitch in the whole day was our DJ! Apparently, it was in his contract (that I didn't read....) that we were to provide him with food. Initially when we sat down to dinner, there was not even any music. He and his sidekick were M.I.A., but showed up and all seemed to go well. However, as the food was into service, the assistant came up and said we needed to feed them. I apologized and had the kitchen put something together. But apparently it was not enough! We kept finding the DJ seemingly taking a snooze on the sofa in the other room while music was playing but at some, well the beef course was served, there was a real problem that he wasn't getting meat as well! He put on a "Satanta's Greatest Hits Live" CD or something like that (NOT relaxing dinner music) and then loud reggae music and stormed into the other room, taking a whole bottle of our wine with him! The caterers came to tell us that he said unless he was served beef (like us) he would not work any longer! Patrice was furious and threatened to kick him out right then (about midnight) and not pay the bill. Of course, the caterers put together something to appease him, but it made for a really unpleasant time. (See photo above for Patrice and his best man's defiant "DJ Incident" stance.) I told Patrice that kicking the guy out now would just ruin things and that we would just have to kiss ass to get the evening to go the way we wanted.

The dinner itself was fabulous! Five courses including fois gras, rabbit pate, scallops, salmon, steak cheese, salad and cake - most of us couldn't even eat it all, but we tried our dangdest! Even though I started obsessing about 'left food' - I still feel it's better to have too much than too little. The only additional odd point was the choice of music during our cake cutting, which was announced by the DJ sidekick lady (who bore a striking resemblance to Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite). They chose the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey" ! What?? Anyhoo...

Long story short, it all worked out and we had a WONDERFUL evening of food and dancing until three o'clock in the morning! the whole evening was a joy - seeing my "old life" and my "new life" come together to celebrate my marriage with Patrice, dancing with my friends to music we love and just having a wonderful, wonderful time. (I need another adjective!). You see and read so many Bridezilla horror stories of things that unintentionally go wrong or days ruined by overplanning brides and their mothers, I just couldn't have had a more beautiful day!

Having this wedding celebration 1 1/2 years after our legal marriage really was affirming to both of us because it really was a renewal of the love and commitment we have worked so hard have. When we married in 2007, it was so whirlwhind that our love and our life was just different, in those beginning phases because we didn't know each other as well. But now, after almost two years of "love and laughter and trial and tribulation" - it just feels amazing!

It's the Little Things that Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:13:00 +0000

It's funny how the little things in life can bring a huge, huge smile to your face and carry you for days. Every night before he goes to bed, Patrice stacks all the couch cushions on a chair and places a blanket on the couch to avoid excess cat hair getting all over it. We have this red velveteen couch that is like a MAGNET for cat hair and every day when I do housework, I re-arrange the cushions, vacuum them, etc. as part of my normal routine . (Note to self: Never, never, never buy a dark velvet couch!)

I told Patrice the night before that in the morning that my friend Denise was coming over for a coffee. When I woke up after he had left for work, I saw that he had taken off all the blankets and arranged the cushions for me. As small of a gesture as that sounds - it was just so touchingly thoughtful. That even in getting ready for work, he thought of me and of something that would make my day a little nicer. Two days later, I still smile when I think about it!

Bonjour, y'all!

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:22:00 +0000

Who would have thought a move to France would bring out my inner redneck, but I have found that many French seem to love all things country and/or western and I am beginning to discover this whole new aspect to life here. Last weekend Patrice and I attended an American Country Western Festival in Chartres (about 45 minutes from here and famous for its cathedral). I happened to stumble across this when I was looking for line dancing lessons in our area because - don't ask me why - I have had this huge desire to line dance since I've arrived here and we thought it would be a fun couples activity.

We arrived for the first day of the American festival a couple of hours after the scheduled opening (note the keyword here is "scheduled") only to find not much going on and the vendors and expositions were still setting up. As someone who is usually 10 minutes late for everything I have ever done since I was probably 12, I do love the fact that schedules here seem to rarely exist and/or be adhered to, but there are times when you wish things would generally start moving along within, oh, one to two hours of their scheduled start. (On the flip side, we had some friends over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and not only were they and hour EARLY, they brought their dog and two extra people we weren't expecting, so I guess it can go both ways!)

One of the biggest things I was looking forward to about this weekend was speaking with other Americans. When I have attended French or German events in Portland, for example, I seemed to recall actual French or Germans attending or participating. Speaking French 24/7 gets a little tiresome and I was really looking forward to parlez-vous-ing a little anglais, but in this case, I really think I was the only American there, which was disappointing. However, once things got going, we had a great time! It was really cool to see French people taking this aspect of American culture so seriously and really enjoying themselves. There was country and rockabilly music, all sung in nearly accent-free English and there were times I looked around at the crowds and thought I was back home (well, not Portland or course but at least at the Canby country fair).

There certainly was a "we're French and not American" aspect to some of the getups - e.g. Gucci sunglasses, men with baguettes under their arms and jauntily-tied scarves around their neck as well as some of the most frightening ensembles of cowhide print couture I'd ever seen. I was obsessed with this trio of women I saw both days - one of whom I dubbed 'RoboCowboy' because she had a silver cowboy hat and wraparound sunglasses and her 'mutton dressed as lamb' friend had an indescribable combination of looks going on; I was simply hypnotized. My stealth-without-being-a-stalker photo skills were definitely put to the test. The music was great (the BBQ, on the other hand, not so much), we enjoyed the dancing and the people were fun to talk to. I really liked seeing the American cars as well (including the ubiquitous Dodge Ram pickup). We did get information for country dance lessons near our home and we have our first lesson this Thursday! I am super excited but Patrice is nervous because he thinks it's going to be too hard and he'll be impatient, which it will be and he will be, but he'll get it. Most men don't have 20 years of aerobics classes under their belts to prepare them for the wonderful world of group choreography.

I had the really good luck of meeting a Dutch woman here on the "other" side of St. Jean - which I didn't know existed - who runs a B&B for mainly Dutch people and offers English and French lessons. My friend Denise and I saw her flyer offering English lessons to children, so we though we had another 'rosbif' living in the village, but despite not being English, her English was very good and now I have another opportunity to NOT speak French. She hired me for one week to give English lessons to a 17-year-old boy who was visiting with his family and it really great because I enjoy doing it and it showed me how much I miss working in a 'normal' capacity, e.g. actually leaving your house and talking with other human beings.

I am really looking forward to getting my carte de sejour so I can look for a job. As I alluded to in the title of my last email, life here is VERY, VERY expensive. Not like the "go to California and spend ten cents more for a gallon of gas" expensive, but literally $8 a gallon for gas, $70 for a gallon of paint and the aforementioned $15 volleyball-sized watermelon at our local market. I went to buy a carton of cigarettes for my neighbor to the tune of $81. Suck on that for a moment - 81 bucks! (Yes, I am vehemently opposed to smoking but I figure if you're 80 years old and are still putting down a carton of unfiltered Gitanes each week, God bless you, you deserve each and every one.) On the plus side, bottled water is cheap, cheap, cheap (fortunately since, due to our hard water, I wash my hair in it) and the bastion of my teenage leisuredom - the glossy tabloid - is only about $1.50.

I still keep finding my little tastes of home that make life even nicer for me. One of the things I have missed the most is ordering a gigantic mocha at my local coffee shop and poring over the Sunday paper all morning. Despite having lots of little cafes, it is definitely not the same coffee culture as in the U.S. Paris is different - there are 25 Starbucks there - but to recreate my Sunday ritual, it would cost me close to $60: $40 for the train and métro ticket , $11 for a large frappuccino at Starbucks and $7 for the Sunday London Times. Sadly, that not being in the budget very often, I have had my local news agent order me the London Times and I go out for a thimble-sized café au lait in Vendôme or Orléans - a city conquered by Julius Caesar in the year 52 (!!) and place where Joan of Arc overthrew the English in 1429. I still continue to be in complete awe of the history that I am living smack dab in the middle of.

Orléans is also the place where I did my final rounds of appointments for my carte de sejour last week. I had health tests (TB: negative. Blood sugar: normal. Blood pressure: 120/80. Weight: down 17 pounds since my arrival, which was a pleasant surprise) as well as a stealth French proficiency exam (written and oral) which I didn't even know I was being given. All of our conversations with the staff were in French and I was asked to write personal information when filling out forms. Hilariously (and inexplicably) the information given to the group about lessons available to those who *don't* speak French was in French, so I am wondering how that worked out for everyone. At the end of the morning, I was told that these conversations were my exam as I passed, which I was not expecting. When I signed my name to the form, I saw that others in the room were having 300-500 hours of instruction recommended to them, so I felt really proud of myself that in just under a year after speaking my first word of French with Patrice and only five or six formal lessons, I was able to pass this test. However, I am going to take advantage of the free lessons that the government offers, well "free" in the sense that I paid a whopping $400 for my residency permit! I can take three or four lessons a week in nearby Blois starting in October.

Herding Cats

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:41:00 +0000

Well, the joy of having indoor/outdoor cats in the bucolic French countryside has come to an unfortunate end. Humphrey returned home one afternoon, after a leisurely stroll around the quartier with a note attached to his collar which translated loosely to : Your cat is very sweet but he is disturbing our dogs so could you please keep him inside". Needless to say, we were enjoying the ability to let the cats come and go as they please - probably akin to Scandinavian parents discovering it's perfectly legal to leave their baby in the stroller outside a restaurant while they enjoy their meal. We could leave the doors open for fresh air, there were no kung-fu cat-blocking leg motions required every time we left the house and they both were enjoying the outdoors - getting to be real "hunter" cats. (See photos of Humphrey with his first bird and one of Franklin's two million mice brought inside with varying degrees of life still in them)

We also had a more unsettling discovery regarding Franklin. He had been displaying some bizarre behavior in the litter box. He was appearing to have problems urinating - sitting in the box but doing nothing and/or going outside of the box in strange places - like the blanket on our couch - which is really unusual for cats. They are so persnickety about hygiene that any variation is a cause for concern. When he seemed unable to sit down, and was crying, we took him to a vet in Châteaudun and discovered he had blood in his urine and bladder stones. The vet indicated that the blood was indicative of poison and we have heard from our neighbor that they lost four cats in the last year due to poisoning - either a disgruntled feline-hating neighbors (cats are somewhat person non grata here, or perhaps eating a mouse that had been poisoned. Either way, with the combination of Humphrey's mystery note and Frankie's health problems (including, gulp, $45 a bag food!) we knew they had to stay inside.

We really had only a couple of options: keeping them completely inside or letting them go outside with something to keep them in the yard. We went to a pet store and inquired about an 'invisible fence' - I had read about these in the U.S. and was happy to see a version here. You run an underground wire around the perimeter of your yard and your pets wear collars that give them an increasing level of beeps and shocks as they get closer to the perimeter. The cost is close to $500 for the system, about $200 more than in the U.S.

The other (and much more affordable) option is using a harness, leashes and a long rope to keep them tethered to the house. For the moment, this seemed like the best option because we simply didn't have an extra $500 laying around. I had the clerk help me pick out harnesses, trying to explain the ginormous dimensions of my nearest and dearest, Humphrey. To the first harness I picked out, his response was, "Oh no, that is for a dog!", to which I replied, "Trust me, Monsieur, you haven't seen this cat!" Eighty dollars in cat harnesses later, we were out the door thinking our cat worries would be over - the cats could roam but not too far and we'd saved ourselves about 400 bucks.

Needless to say, the "training" did not go as expected. (Does anything, really?) Getting them (calmly) into the harness was not easy - it took practice on our part to not freak them out so they wouldn't associate being manhandled with this new form of restraint. We had the ingenious (not) idea as well to attach them to opposite ends of the same rope so that they would be push to the other's pull and when the reached the end, they would just stop. Mind you, this is a rope that can easily reach from the back of the house to the front. Seemed foolproof enough. What I wasn't expecting was that I was dealing with two little Houdinis. Ten semi-supervised minutes into the first outing, we two discovered expensive harnesses devoid of two wily cats. They had disappeared with nary a trace or signs of struggle (or even photo of them holding up an edition of today's newspaper). Our "set it and forget it" method of cat training had not worked.

As time has gone on, we have been able to get Humphrey to hang out resistance-free on the harness, but Frankie has been a lost cause. We have slowly allowed him to reclaim his role of the petit chasseur - the little hunter - (to wit: he has brought in three mice - two dead and one squeakingly alive - in the course of writing this entry) but we keep on eye on him and go look for him after he has been out awhile. Patrice is also completely pleased with himself and his (legend in his own mind) cat training because, ala Dr. Doolittle, he tells Frankie to be back in 20 minutes and sure enough, 20 minutes later there is Franklin. "Dressage, mon coeur, dressage," he tells me, "Je suis un professionnel". "Training, my darling, training. I am a professional." Hopefully as time goes on we can find that nice inside/outside mix of safe, but happy, cats.

I'll Take the $15 Watermelon on the Right, Please

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:18:00 +0000

I hope everyone is doing well. It’s hard to believe that the last two months have just flown by with nary a peep, but it has definitely been a full, full couple of months – for better or worse. Planning this marriage and move overseas with my heart and not my head, I neglected several important steps in preparation. I just “assumed” (stupidly) that these things could be taken care of once I was here – after all, I’m married to a Frenchman and coming from a first-world country, I don’t need to work here, how difficult could it be? (Famous last words if I ever heard them…) A couple of forms here and there, no problem. At the beginning of May, I discovered that I did not have the correct long-stay visa that allowed me to stay in France after my initial three-month tourist visa expired.

This magical piece of paper was only, apparently, available in once place in the world: The French Consulate in San Francisco, which handles all visas for the NW region of the US. However, the biggest piece of the puzzle that I was missing was that Patrice and I did not properly register our marriage with the French government. We thought since we were married in the U.S. we would only need to be aware of U.S. procedures, but the reality was that we needed to follow the same steps in France as we would have were we married here including the publishing of the “banns” (a public declaration of your intent to marry), a French transcription of our marriage, new certified copies of our birth certificates, an Apostile copy of our marriage certificate from the State of Oregon (“Um, a requirement of the 1961 Hague Convention, obviously” – a near-actual quote of an embassy worker. Naturally! How *silly* of me not to have remembered the 1961 Hague Convention and all of its bylaws…) . With this proper registering of the marriage, we would then receive our “livret de familie” – our family book – which starts with an entry of our marriage, has room for the subsequent birth of our up to 11 children (um, ouch) and finally our deaths. And with the livret de famlie, I would receive my long-stay visa, which would allow me to remain in France while awaiting my residency permit.

The problem was, it could take six to nine months to put together this “livret de familie” and my visa was expiring in a month. The consulate official that we initially dealt with was *very* unsympathetic of our ineptitude in understanding of international marriage laws and *especially* very unsympathetic of Patrice. “He’s French, he should know these things!” However, we truly, utterly and completely were blessed with some of the nicest and most helpful government officials I have ever dealt with (unfortunately not my friend, Rick’s, experiences with the State of Oregon officials…). The aforementioned consulate worker, Stephane, bent over backward to get this done for us – very, very unusual and we are very grateful. I arrived at her office in San Francisco on a Friday and left with my visa and family book the next Monday. Our bump in the process was an (unexpected) immigration interview outlining our relationship and marriage. Because we had a rather whirlwind courtship and wedding, the felt they needed more proof of our established life in France. We are very, very lucky to know the assistant mayor of St. Jean and she was able to personally vouch for us – to know that we were part of the community and that our marriage was valid and not for a green card (me being Andie MacDowell, Patrice being Gérard Depardieu, naturally). After receiving that information, everything was good. I have to say, being handed that book at the consulate’s office was a very emotional experience.

I have to say it was really hard to be back in Portland and San Francisco visiting my friends. I want to thank Rick, Mike and Rob for being such amazing friends and helping me with this unexpected visit – Rick for “loaning” me the money for the plane ticket, even though he knew it would be a long time before I could pay him back and all three for picking me up, shuttling me around and making it possible that I didn’t have to spend a penny. This whole relocation has been a huge financial kick in the pants to say the least, and I just simply couldn’t have taken care of this trip without the help of my three wonderful friends!!  It was very bittersweet to say goodbye. I missed Patrice, of course, but being back in Portland especially felt like I’d been gone forever and at the same time, gone for not even a day. I think it was almost too soon to be back because I was still in the adjustment mode in France.

As time goes on, I am still finding my little routines (like "Hetty Wainthrop Investigates" on BBC at 2:30 pm, which has been been thwarted for the time being by having Patrice and the kids here on three week's vacation). Even with a city like Paris so close, it is very easy to feel like I am in the middle of nowhere which, in the fact, I am. One thing about the smaller cities and villages that is such a strange adjustment is how DARK they are night! Not a streetlight or porch light anywhere. It is very Bram Stoker’s Dracula at times… (thankfully without the torch-wielding villagers). Most every house has these large shutters that they close at night so there literally is not a ray of light. Bad for people like me who like to take walks at night and do a little ‘surveiling’… The shutters are awesome, though, for sleeping until noon on your day off and thinking it is only 6 a.m. when you wake up. Sometimes, though, it feels almost too quiet. We were in Paris for Bastille Day and we lay down on our blanket along the Seine near the Eiffel Tower and the traffic noise just lulled me to sleep – something I miss out in out little town.

One thing I love about the country, though, is the fresh everything. Fresh flowers, fresh eggs from my neighbor’s farm, fresh plums, green beans, lettuce and other seasonal things from Patrice’s parents’ garden, fresh flour from the mill down the road. It is just so easy to eat a more pure diet – we never eat processed foods - even though we certainly don’t eat low-fat - and I make most everything from scratch, so we are not eating artificial preservatives (on a side note: “preservatif” is French for prophylactic , not for the agent that preserves our food. It took me a little while to catch onto the blank stares when I said I preferred my food “without condoms”…). The beauty is with the cooking is that Patrice has gained about 8 pounds (he was 6’ and 137) and I have lost weight – so go figure. I really have loved cooking and trying out new things, but I am also understanding the need for books like “501 Chicken Recipes”. It is *hard* to come up with new meals while not buying a million different ingredients. We laugh now that the choice tends to be “poulet et pomme de terre or pomme de terre et poulet”…. And I have upped his tolerance to spicy foods although I still feel mortally wounded when he whips out the salt at the table.

Bastille Day (or Quatorze Julliet – the 14th of July – as it’s known here) in Paris was amazing! It is something I probably wouldn’t have the desire to do every year, but it was a great experience. We arrived on the Champs-Élysées at 6:30 in the morning to stake out our place – managing after a little bull-headedness between the two of us – to get a great spot in the front row for the 10:00 a.m. parade. We had to clear our spot momentarily before the parade so they could put a security point in place for each section. Then we were scanned and everyone went back to their original spot. When I turned around to look for Johnathan, the police were pulling weapons out of him left and right like and episode of Captain Caveman! He had brought fireworks, numchuks, toy guns, good lord – it was hilarious! And he lost all of them, which was unfortunate, but geez! The program for the parade said it would start at 10:00 and was listing certain events as starting at 10:17, 10:32, etc. I thought “My, that’s pretty ambitious” and true to French form, it certainly did NOT start on time. It was, however, a wonderful parade. We were right near where the people sang for Sarkozy and got a great view and listen. Not even being French, it was great to see the troops so proud of what they were doing – and to see the other 26 countries of the European Union represented – check out the Spanish soldiers in my photos: Skin-tight, v-neck uniforms with chest hair a’ flyin’, tilted hats and sexy little sideburns.

After the parade, we wandered up the Champs-Élysées, looked in shops, marveled at the $11 price tag for a 4-ounce glass of Coke, had lunch and headed towards the Eiffel Tower. We napped for a bit along the river, and then found a great spot at the foot of the tower to relax and people-watch until the fireworks started. The fireworks were absolutely amazing – wonderful music as well – the best display I have ever seen! The crush AFTER the fireworks, though, was a nightmare. We were right at the base of the tower and there were probably close to a million people there (600,000 people stayed for the concert afterwards which featured Michel Polnareff - Google it and try not to laugh - , Nelly Furtado and Tokio Hotel) and all those million people seemed to be wanting to go different directions at exactly the same time. It was a little frightening, especially with Johnathan. I was pushed into some guy in the crush of people and he just flipped OUT on me, so much so that he and Patrice got into a ‘don’t touch my wife’ chest-butting incident. That was one time when it was nice to have a macho, headstrong husband…. ha ha. We made our way through the crowds, past the closed metro stops and finally to the jam-packed stop that would take us home. It was a LONG, but wonderful day. Beautiful weather and great people.

It’s funny, the French have such a reputation for being rude, stuck-up a**h*les (how’s that for a bunch of asterisk?), but I have found it to be absolutely 100% the opposite. (Of course, all countries have their stereotype, the loud, pushy American, the cold, uptight German, etc). But whether I am in Paris or out in the sticks, I seriously have found the nicest people who have bent over backwards to help me or answer a question when I needed it. When I returned back from the States on this last trip, I had two really heavy bags and didn’t want to take the Metro because it meant lugged 120 pounds of luggage up and down tons of stairs. So I stood outside near the taxis and shuttles to see what I could find to Austerliz (my station in Paris). This shuttle driver of a reserved shuttle called his boss to see if he knew (he didn’t) and asked several other bus drivers. He ended up giving me a ride to downtown Paris for free (normally 30 Euros), getting me a taxi and lugging my luggage to the taxi. I had a nice conversation with the taxi driver (who LOVES America) and when I got the train station, after asking an employee if there was place I could plug in my cel phone to get a charge, he not only took me to his office to let me use the outlet, but gave me a bottled water for the rest of my journey. I found this kind of niceness everywhere, consistently. I don’t think I have run into a rude person since I have been here – although I am sure speaking French helps.

Finally, I had a wonderful opportunity the other weekend to have dinner with a friend of mine from Portland who was visiting Paris - Lisa, my friend and former boss when I was a work-study student 15 years ago at PSU. Patrice and I met her around 6pm at the Pantheon in the Latin Quarter and had dinner at a beautiful French restaurant about a 10 minute cab ride away; a restaurant once visited by the likes of François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac and even Madonna, I later discovered. Lisa speaks fluent French, which was great for Patrice, and we had simply the most lovely dinner I have had in Paris. It was a great evening and it was fun to see someone out of the usual context. She and her traveling companions were headed to Turkey the following week and I have to say, it was really hard to say goodbye to her that night! I'm a little sniffly right now... sometimes those little glimpses of your former life are hard to let go.

Anyway, that is “all” for now – I feel like I could write a million more pages especially since I have not written anyone for months – time simply slips by before you know it. I would love to hear from you all and what you are up to! I miss Portland a lot and it is great to get any update, etc.

And Then There's Maude...

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 02 May 2007 20:22:00 +0000

Life here is moving along quickly (quite the opposite of the French bureaucracy I am dealing with at the moment, unfortunately). I cannot believe I have been here seven weeks. In some ways it seems like I have been here forever, in other ways it feels like I just left Portland. I am enjoying life here very much, though - it seems to get better each day as I get more adjusted to all the little nuances of a new marriage, a new house, a new set of friends, a new lifestyle.

The biggest joy of late is that I have met an English woman up the road, Denise, who has been in France with her English husband and children for the last two years. Even though I have met a few times with the ex-pat group for activities, it is really nice to have someone close by to just have a relaxed, fluid conversation with in English. Sometimes I just get literally burned out with French that I simply cannot bear to hear another word - I have hit this wall of "picking it up as I go along" to needing proper lessons to advance. Right now my French is decent ( e.g. understandable) but grammatically and structurally terrible. I would say French babies have more to offer than my strings of random nouns, pronouns and unconjugated verbs. Every now and then, though, usually while I am watching a show in English with French subtitles, I catch some new and exciting word that I will then use in every conversation for the next several days.

On Tuesday nights we have been going to this informal "exercise" class that is held at the local activity center. I kid you not, it is the most surprising combination of useless and dangerous calisthentics have ever encountered since third grade "indoors because it's raining" gym class. Windmills, bicycles, cherry picking, full sit ups, deep knee bends, you name it. Jack La Lane would be proud. And if you don't do it just right - e.g. accidentally counting out eight beats rather than nine- you are pointed out and corrected. I had to leave early at the last "class" - mind you, by class I mean five minutes of flailing about interspersed with 10 minutes of neighborhood gossip - and as I was leaving they were on their stomachs, backs bent upward, holding their ankles like they were being hog-tied. I said to Denise, "It looks like Guantanamo Bay in here. All they need is me posing next to one of them with a cigarette hanging out my mouth making a 'thumbs up'". It's just hilarious but it's a good way to get to know the women (and day-to-day goings on) in the neighborhood. When I missed a class a couple of weeks ago, the topic of discussion was me and Patrice, our 'spottings' around town and how (apparently) the women think he is the town hottie.

Almost two months into my daily domestic routine (of course coupled with my business life in Portland), I have an honest and newfound respect for how hard my mother worked to keep our house and lives in order. It is REALLY a lot of work, cooking from scratch every day, cleaning, laundry, shopping, etc for a household of two to four, depending on the week. Since we have a clothes dryer (something Patrice bought just before I was here in December and something that is not a usual part of a French household), I have been treated to weekly performances of "The Dryer is Shrinking My Clothes - A Pantomime in Two Acts", brought to you by the producers of, "The Camera is Stealing My Soul". Patrice is absolutely convinced that the dryer is shrinking everything, even though on two instances the clothes had been line-dried and he was trying on the socks of his 10-year-old son. The look on his face following *that* information was priceless and these summer stock productions have now thankfully ceased.

I have still not, however, mastered the art of shopping for the proper amounts of bread and cheese and once or twice a week we run out of one or the other. Unlike the typical American diet (at least in my experience) where if you run out of an item, you can just wait and get it the next time you shop, not having these items available at meal time is about one step more serious than if I were to shave the children's heads and send them to school in tutus. It is just "unacceptable" and unfortunately, there are still emergency cheese runs to Patrice's parent's house, which leave me feeling like a quasi-failure as a French wife.

My family is still very open to my American way of cooking which includes a little bit of everything (and I now have Patrice hooked on a Turkish restaurant down the raod), and that is great for now. I am, however, trying to start assimilating some more French dishes into our diet, although so many things seem unappetizing to me. Today the children are on vacation, so Kevin, the oldest, made lunch with some meat his grandmother bought today at the chartucerie. Just a simple steak with some mashed potatoes on top. I took a couple of bites, thinking it a little chewy, veiny and loose in texture and thought it just might not be a good cut of meat. Then, mid-way, Kevin says, Oh, I forgot to tell you, this is horse. Yeah. Needless to say, I did not take one more bite and the meat is now rinsed of it's mashed potatoes and sitting in a baggie in the fridge for Patrice. But, you know, baby steps, Bob, baby steps.

So, finally, the biggest event going on right now (in a not so good way), is that I did not follow the proper visa procedures before I left the States, thinking I could take care of my residency permit once I arrived in France but misunderstanding that I was required to have a long-stay visa BEFORE I can apply for residency and that is something that I can only do at the San Francisco French consulate (the office in Portland handles everything BUT visas). My 90-day visa expires in just over five weeks so I was planning a trip back to Portland to take care of it but now and getting conflicting information as to how quickly our marriage can be validated by the French government (the proof of marriage is required for the green card). That is something that will also be done at the office in San Francisco, but we are hearing anything from a couple of weeks (which would be fine, before my visit) to two to three months! Which means I may be forced to leave France for an extended amount of time while awaiting the preparation of the livret de familie, which is a booklet that all French people have containing the records of births, marriages, divorces and (eventually) the death. As you can imagine, not only is this a large, unexpected cost, it is an amazingly stressful situation because we cannot seem to get a straight, consistent answer out of anyone and there is nothing that can be done here in Paris (or even at the French consulate in London).

We are now watching the Ségolène Royal/Nicolas Sarkozy debates on t.v. - the final election is on Sunday. Things are very Romanian trial-and-execution style here... no lollygagging around. The results of the primary where the two candidates are selected are instantaneous the night of the election and the final election is only two weeks after the primary. Oh, and NO annoying television campaign ads to deal with. Just the occasional Hitler mustache drawn on the face of an equal-wallspace-to-all-candidat

es campaign poster. I have my final day of work for this campaign on Saturday.

Here is a link to some recent photos - I still can't believe I live in the center of this fairy-tale part of France - these châteaux are literally minutes from our home. It is still amazing to me to drive around a corner and - boom - there is a 500-year-old castle right in front of me.

Well, Finaly!

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:14:00 +0000

No, I have not dropped the face of the earth to those who have asked, I have just been very slow to get around to things - e.g. communication with the outside world. It has now been just over two weeks since my arrival in France. This has definitely been a very changeling time in my life - wedding and a move to another country in the same week, with all of the peripheral things that surround that like leaving friends and family, my business, starting the assimilation into new culture and language, etc.

After the most poorly-planned move in U.S history (thank you to my angels, Angelique, June, Tim, Rick & Rob for all your help), I arrived in Paris with two suitcases of books, four suitcases of random items (including an economy-sized Nag Champra, a baby blanket and a pair of Old Navy flip flops), two livid cats and three cranky Frenchies. The flight itself was nice because Patrice and I had some great bulkhead seats on the Portland --> Frankfurt leg, due in part to a couple of well-placed tears at check-in noting that we were on our honeymoon but were not able to get seats together due to how we had to buy our tickets. So not only was it nice to sit together with lots of legroom, we got lots of free champagne, including two small bottles to go which I had to throw in the trash at security in Frankfurt due to 200 ml size. That situation alone reminded me of why I despise the Germans and always keep a choice WWII reference at hand for such incidents (e.g. 'Easy man, this ain't 1939 Berlin..."). Don't even get me started on the run-in with a roving airport veterinarian, Helga von Fuhrerstein.

The only major rough spot that day, which unfortunately carried over into the rest of the flight/drive home, was about 30 minutes into a 9 hour flight, I look at one of of my two in-cabin carriers and see Humphrey going all David Banner inside of his carrier, with his head and paw both breaking out the side of the case! He had managed to eat through the mesh siding and was escaping. We had larger cardboard Lufthansa carriers so I put him inside of that and he ate through that! He had been tranquilized that morning with a successful test run the day before, but apparently they were not working. Patrice was telling me to give him more pills, but I got a very nice French male stewardess (thanks for that outdated, sexist description, grandpa) to explain to Patrice that too much tranquilization can result in hyperactivity so we couldn't just keep giving Mr Humpy medicine.

NEEDLESS to say, coming from a country where cats are not the #1 most popular pet, Patrice was none too amused at all of this expense and trouble for these cats. (Franklin pulled the same stunt later on, but we managed to get him to stay in the cardboard carrier). Humphrey ended up having to be thrown,unsecured, in a stowage are for the rest of the flight. When we arrived in Frankfurt we had a buy a hard-shell carried that could not go in-cabin and Humphrey was checked in and rode cargo to Paris. The most awesome thing about having him go cargo is that there was a gate change for our flight that we did not know about (apparently only us and one other person!) and we discovered the change as the plane was about to close its doors. They held the flight for us - although our luggage had been pulled off the flight because we were missing.

Normally they would have just taken off with out our luggage and we would have to retrieve it later but (after making an announcement to the whole plane about the plight of the missing passengers and the live cat) they had to re-load our stuff because they could not leave a live animal behind. YEA - sh*itty, useless cat carriers from some chi-chi Pearl boutique saved the day!! But despite 900 hours of bumper-to-bumper Sunday traffic (that's Paris ), we arrived home and ready to just relax.

We live in an area of Vendome, 45 minutes southwest of Paris. The first few days were a real adjustment. Both of us were exhausted but fortunately, Patrice had a couple of extra days off of work so we could decompress - but we found ourselves being testy with each other over nothing. One gem of an argument started at dinner one night when Patrice accused me a loving Humphrey more than Franklin, duly noting that I hold and pet Humphrey more, and why is this? After I (naturally) laughed my head off about what the hell was he talking about, he was like, "Noooo, Shannon...I am serious!!" and ended up flouncing of to the couch. I mean, what??? Anyway, I made sure to give Franklin just as much love (especially after he got lost and three nights later we found him up at the top of a neighbor's tree)! But we work every day to work at getting this very stressful acclimation period - which it tough for both of us. We are newly married, there is a language barrier, there are cultural differences (I, for one, had to put the kibosh on toute suite to his mother just walking into our home unannounced when I was there alone and not dressed!) and just differences that all couples have.

I have definitely jumped into the domestic life here. I shop, I cook man-pleasin' meals (thanks, Carolyn Smithrud), bake bread and we have cute little candle-light dinners together every night his kids aren't here (oh my , I am a step-mother!!). He is definitely a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, which I am not, and he eats a pretty standard French diet (potatoes, steak, chicken, snails, cheese, bread, as well as assortment of barf-o-licious runny egg desserts and creamy ground-up meat things - urp). When we hit the canned and potted sections (yes, plural) I definitely try to make like a banana and split. I have made some vegetarian African dishes for him, for example, that he has really liked, which is great because he is open to new things and I can try different stuff. We are also both really picky about cleaning, he so more than me, I think - and we both like working together cleaning and taking care of the house. He sets and clears the table, I wash the dishes the next morning - those kind of routines we are getting into, which is nice.

The other day I was walking through the town center with my groceries in one hand, a baguette in the other, feeling very at home and comfortable and was trying to think of why living in some countries have work well for me and why other ones I never clicked with. It dawned on me that when I lived in London and now in France, I was immediately immersed in the activities of daily living with natives. In London, I met someone three days after I arrived, moved in with him the same day (oops) and had a home and a job an all of that routine. Same here in France. In Toronto and Germany, I never had that level of comfort, like I was "meant" to be there and I think it was because I was a student in Germany (albeit for 1.5 years) and in Toronto I was with an English boyfriend and we were like tourists, despite having jobs. But France, despite this very difficult entry period, it is a great place for me to be.

On the flip side of this "Starring Barbara Billingsly as June Cleaver" thing I have going on, I have also jumped into cultural side of things. I have been working for the political campaign of Ségolène Royal, who is with the socialist party and who is the first female to run for the president of France. It is very exciting, not only as an important and historical event for France, but for me is is exciting to see this process up close and to meet with other like-minded people. I am going to see her speak in person tomorrow and am very excited about that, despite only catching about 25% of what is said. My very traditional husband, needless to say, is not amused, so I throw in a "hello comrade" here and there just to keep things "phresh". Yes, it is that evil that keeps things lively between the two of us.

I am also starting to make plans with some American ex-pat groups in the area and I am REALLY looking forward to speaking a little English and just talking to other who are in similar situations (Americans married to French men, etc). I am anxious to start formal French lessons, too, because not being able to communicate deeply and fully can be very isolating and stressful. I am car-hunting, too, which is a little sad because I miss my cute Scion very much! I have found one called Citroen Berlingo that I like very much and am anxious to get that ball rolling. I also looking foward to getting adapter for my laptop so I do not have to use the French freakin' version of Windows anymore! I just want my own American keyboard with my own American things, etc.

Things are pretty much all-things-French here - except for my American books and BBC Primetime/World News on TV occasionally - but one one best things I did before I came back was order seasons one and two of "Lost" from Amazon in France. I have never seen any of the series and Patrice and I are just hooked on it!! It is so good but it makes me miss my Last Season of Six Feet Under and Desperate Housewives marathons with Hillary!!! The greatest things about most DVDs is that you can watch almost any language and with almost any language in subtitles so we can both enjoy it, I can learn a little more French through the subtitles and Patrice can (oops) finally learn the meaning of this strange phrase 'shut up' I say all the time.... :)