Saturday, April 26, 2008

The French Like Playboy

I saw this and had to link to it because it’s so comical. A train in the south of France was robbed and the thieves took (of all things) cushions with the Playboy logo.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Peanut vs. Almond


Like many Americans, I grew up with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and still eat them. Until recently, I was able to get very good organic peanut butter from my neighborhood Naturalia, but the last 3 to 4 times I went in, they were completely out. Each time I asked, they claimed that they would get more in the next delivery. The were either not receiving their shipments or pb is extremely popular in my neighborhood. My personal stash was getting to a dangerously low level, so I decided to give in and go with a substitute - almond butter. The taste is very different, but not objectionable. That said, it’s a temporary fix. I may need to start scouring other Naturalia’s and stock up when I find some pb, because ab&j sandwiches, just aren’t the same…

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Sarko = Embarrassment?

When I read this article about the French being embarrassed about Sarko I laughed and had two simultaneous thoughts: 1) you voted for the bling president and you got him 2) now you understand how many Americans feel about Bush. Apparently Sarkozy is not meeting the culture standard that past presidents of the republic did. Some French are even hoping that Carla will reform Sarko – yeah, good luck with that. If Sarko continues to focus on being a celebrity, socializing with celebs and showing off his new trophy wife, then this may be just the beginning of many embarrassing years for the French.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Yet Another Strike

Surprise, surprise – there's another strike in France. This time it's the Le Monde journalists. I'm starting to believe that "Comment faire la grève" is a subject taught in French schools. Following a 20m euros loss last year, the paper is planning to cut jobs, most of them journalist positions and of course the journalists are not happy. Read about it here.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

osteopath

A while back, I had a recurring pain in my right should that wouldn’t go away. I had the same thing a few years ago and my doctor diagnosed it as rotator cuff tendonitis-bursitis. She gave me a cortisone shot in the shoulder joint. This time around, following the advice of the boyfriend (a.k.a. the brit), I decided to go to an osteopath. Since I was an osteo-virgin, I asked the brit if I would have to remove any clothing and it was a good thing I did. For some reason I had pictured Dr. Osteo as a crotchety old know-it-all French doctor or an old hippy, so I was in for quite a shock. Not only was Dr. Osteo young, but he was cute. Cute in a “cute-little-French-guy-you-can-take-home-to-your-mother” way. As soon as I saw him I was glad that I wore bum-covering knickers because the only thing worse than having a male doctor see my bare backside is having a very cute male doctor see it…

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

mid-atlantic franglais


As an American, my default language is US English. That said, in the past couple of years, I’ve had problems sticking to it faithfully. I’m fluent in French and speak French with the roommate 90%-95% of the time. When I speak to her in English, she usuallyresponds in French (even though she speaks English). At work, the official working language is English, but I tend to go back and forth with my French colleagues. To confuse the situation even more, I work in the European HQ of an international company. Even though the global HQ is in the US, I write/edit marketing materials in UK English. The result is that my emails, IM messages and speech are often a mish-mash of US English, UK English and French. The boyfriend laughs when I do it and most of the time I don’t notice until he points it out. I told him that living in France has resulted in me becoming no-lingual instead of bilingual. I’m taking Spanish and so far it hasn’t crept into my daily language…fingers crossed that it stays that way.

(The photo is from a couple days ago, the morning after it snowed)

Sunday, April 6, 2008

love graffiti


Following Paris Daily Photo’s posting a few days ago, here’s my own photo of a declaration of love. This is on the floor of a metro station I sometimes pass through on the way home from work.

Friday, April 4, 2008

babysitting

This morning on the way to work, I was walking down the stairs and ran into a neighbor who lives a couple of floors below. This man has two young kids with his wife/partner. We’ve seen each other a few times but haven’t really talked much beyond bonjour. This morning he asked me if I did babysitting from time to time and I replied that I didn’t really have the time. Apparently I still look young enough to be considered for babysitting AND I trustworthy enough for someone who barely knows me to want to leave his young children with me. What a hoot. At the time I didn’t even consider that he might be desperate or crazy…

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

parisian parking