My typical day

Jade, wating for the bibliotheque to open

Noe, Agathe and Jade
So on a normal day I have it really easy. The kids get up at about 7:30 and bustle around until they leave at about 8:10. I just listen to them whether I've gotten up or not. There is always a lot of running and rushed french and squeaky floors. At this time my shutters are closed but I've already been awakened by the 12x magnified noise of trash cans being drug across uneven concrete. It's magnified because it's right outside my window and down a floor in the courtyard. Like everything else, our building is seven stories high. We live on 'le premiere etage' which means...not the first floor. The first floor is the 'rez de chausee' which means ground level. It's one of those things that if you look at it from our perspective it makes no sense but if you think about it it kind of does make sense in an odd way. To them an 'etage' or story is something that occurs above the ground. But anyway, someone pulls those trashcans, or dustbins as they say over here, across the ground and it becomes like the pigeon - so loud you can't ignore it. This pigeon, in case I haven't mentioned it, lives in the courtyard and coos. Pigeon cooing is no big deal but this thing sounds like a great horned owl, or a pteridactyl or something massive. Anyway, I thought that pigeons had to be either nocturnal or daytimey(whatever the word is for that) but turns out they don't sleep at all, they coo day and night in a relentless clamor that I treat kind of like I treat french, just zone it out. I don't really just zone out but I'm not going to try to break my brain to comprehend everything, you just can't do it. If it's your own language you can semi listen and semi think about other things because you know the words so well that you can anticipate them or even sort of store them without digging in the recesses of your mind trying to find the meaning or catalog a new one.

But anyway, once I get up for real, which is anytime between six and nine, I usually shower, check my email and generally bum around before tidying up the visible portion of my space. One thing the kids do do is make their beds. Therefore my bed must never be unmade. But my stuff is sort of messily spread about. I don't have much stuff but I also don't have much space. After breakfast I do whatever I want until 3:55 pm at which time I take a brisk walk down to the kids school, fight my way through the nannies and au pairs and moms and baguettes(seriously, they pick them up before they get their kids, they are dangerous weapons baguettes) and strollers and finally locate my kids. Then I half lead half follow them home listening to their constant french chatter. We have snack, do homework and then play until shower time. I kind of yell and bustle around makng sure they are ACTUALLY taking their showers at the same time as making a dinner. After dinner we clean up and I'm off(8:00). Then I go to my room and watch Doctor Who at painfully low quality and eat peanut butter out of the jar and drink Earl Grey with milk and honey.

When stressed or unhappy or out of routine or experiencing lack of mexican food or tired or just eating less, I lose weight. Once, worried that I had skipped lunch (which I most definitley hadn't, skipping meals isn't really possible for me), Anne said "I don't want to send you home to your parents and they find you skinnier than before." I kind of laughed but then the next day I put on my dress. This dress was really, really tight last time I wore it and I was swimming in it the other day. So I feel like I did when I got back from Thailand, skinny but kind of out of a wardrobe. The only difference is that when I got back from Thailand I was home so I had all my clothes at hand. Here my wardrobe is limited. So again today I put on a skirt, too big. Well, that sewing machine will come in handy I suppose.

But I did make some salsa! And it was really good. And tomorrow we have fajitas...or something along those lines.

So anyway, in that vast portion of the day where I can do whatever I want I had great plans today. I planned first to go the France-Langue and take my french assessment and then go up to Sacre Cour in Montmartre (a famous landmark from the movie Amelie, which, incidentally, Anne worked on the marketing of), buy some wool or suiting at Marche Saint-Pierre and then go down and walk along the Seine near Notre Dame. Well, my first problem that I noticed while passing Place de Bagatelle was that I didn't have my navi-go pass. Fortunately I had some tickets but I was really annoyed with myself. Then I realized I didn't have my trusty red cardigan that was kind of like insurance; I wanted it just in case I needed it but if I didn't need it it would turn into an annoying burden. Fortunately I didn't need it. Then almost to the metro I realized I was missing all the necessary peices of identification and money and references and regstration papers and pretty much just my whole stack of important stuff so I couldn't go to the school to take my test. Finally after boarding the metro at lunch hour, stuffed between suits and heels and fighting to grasp the pole, I decided to just go the Seine and enjoy the day.

I love the Seine, I love the boats and the water and the bridges and the quiet walk ways beneath the road, the dogs and the lunchers. I just love it all. The buildings aren't so bad themselves.

I had a belated birthday cake with candles this evening. The kids are hilarious sometimes...and definitely sometimes not too.