Lunch n' Lust With Bio Wine Makers

I knew I would do this. In promised you a list of future posts and then wondered if I'd ever get around to writing them all. But I'm attempting to do so, even though 43 hundred million quadrillion other blogworthy events have occurred since then. But let's go back to last Sunday, when we arrived back at L's house after a short visit to the beach, hungry for lunch and in need of more wine...

L called her friends over at Le Garage à vins to see if they were still serving their usual wine-tasting fare of sausage, bread and oysters. They were closed to the general public, but invited us to join their little party with the wine makers they had been hosting for the weekend.

When we arrived, we saw about ten people sitting at a long table on the patio to the left of the wine store. We walked into the gate, L leading the way, followed by G in her striped Target leggings and big floppy yellow and white hat and me trailing behind in my new mini muumuu and Target fedora. Discount-store fashionistas on the prowl.

It was like walking into any party where you don't know anybody and they don't know you. They were polite and curious, but not necessarily overcome with the joy of our arrival. I didn't find this out until later, but one of the women looked at G as she entered and asked, "Did you wear your pajamas?" And G, unflappable, said, "Well yes, actually, I did." Because it was true. She did wear those striped pants to bed the night before. But I can attest to the fact that she didn't wear her big floppy yellow and white hat to bed. Otherwise, I might not have agreed to sleep in the room next to her.

Later on, as we were leaving, and once the general fear-of-the-other had worn off (drinking wine with strangers can do that), I saw the women complimenting G on her hat. "Where did you get that? It's lovely!" I think they might have been a tad bit guilty for their first question about her pajamas. That's the only explanation I can think of for the fact that they said nothing about my classy fedora, which I know is much, much cooler than G's sun hat, but don't tell her I said that. (As G reads this and stabs my birds, one at a time, while she feeds the little peckers for me because I chose to stay here at the beach and made her drive all the way back to Paris all alone, her trunk full of all the wine I bought.)

(We interrupt this post for another truly amazing lunch out in L's garden with an appetizer of fresh fish eggs, sauteed in olive oil with parsley and onions and then served with crème fraiche. Then pasta with steamed clams, a salad from fresh-picked rocquette (arugula), fennel, apple, orange and onion and finished off with a round of natural goat cheese, sprinkled with olive oil, pepper and local salt and spread upon thick toasted wheat bread brought in from Grenoble once a week. Not to mention two bottles of delicious cold wine from Le Garage à vins. I'm too drunk to write right now, mais, c'est la vie.)

I didn't take any pictures of the group of winemakers and their wives and children at the table. I felt a little stupid doing that. Instead, after everyone had gotten up and the tables had been cleared, I took a sneaky picture to at least show you the little patio and tables where we had been. Notice the Champagne riddling racks in the foreground.


So, as the small group reluctantly accepted our presence, we three girls just settled at the end of the table and tasted fabulous wine as we ate fresh oysters and the rest of the guests finished their lunch. L went next door and brought back two decadent cakes, which we ate with the sweeter and fizzier wines. The wine we tasted came from each of the winemakers at the table, but the ones I remember best were the wines by Olivier Cousin.

Why do I remember these particular wines? Because I lusted after him, I'm inflamed ashamed to say. Me, who has eschewed men and sex for more than a year. But he was the burly man at the table, with sun-wrinkled eyes. His arms were tree trunks. His hair was in a ponytail. (Why, oh why is this exciting? A throwback from my hippie past? I have no idea.) I looked around and started doing what women for centuries have done...I started counting. There were five men. There were also five women. Shit. So, he had a wife. And...once I knew which one she was - she was really lovely - there ended my lustful thoughts (well, mostly).

Besides, at this point, if I could get a hold of somebody, I don't know what I'd do with him. It's a pleasure to have fantasies. It's terrifying and dangerous to act upon them. But, just for fun, take a look at this guy, tending his natural wines, with his favorite horse, Joker, in the snow. Sigh.

I'll tell you about the "rhythm of the horse" but I would have to make this post x-rated. You'll just have to use your imagination, as I continue to do.

All sex aside (or on the side), I can attest to the fact that bio wine, or wine made naturally, with no chemicals or additives (including sulphites), is hangover-free. I love red wine, but can't drink it because after two glasses, I know I will spend the entire next day in bed, in pain. But not with this wine.

I guess this means there must be an end to my 2-buck-chuck wine drinking. I've enjoyed the crap I can buy in the grocery store in Paris. But now, because of Olivier, I must become (or remain?) pure, unfortunately in more ways than one.

Le Cousin wines are distributed in the United States by Jenny & François. As I researched them today for the first time, I found this 2006 article about how they got started. Two of the pictures of Jenny in this article were taken in my old neighborhood, in the restaurants and cafes that I still love, particularly in the Cave Cafe, one of my favorite haunts. I found a place where you can buy Le Cousin wines online here. Or, you can email Jenny directly.

Please note: This isn't a paid post or advertisement. I truly enjoyed tasting Le Cousin wines and those other wines from those other winemakers, whoever the hell they were. And if I can share some of this experience with you, by letting you know where you can buy the wine, then that's just dandy.

Mental Health Break: Psycho Children

I love reading Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog on The Atlantic website because he's a Republican-turned-Democrat, an erudite Brit, covered the Iran uprising thoroughly and tirelessly, continues to provide insight into the Vatican child abuse debacle and won't stop trying to chase down the truth about Sarah Palin's son Trig (where the traditional press fears to tread) and is currently educating me on the nuances of the UK general election.

In between all the serious stuff though, he posts "Mental Health Breaks" (like this little gem) and "View From Your Window" (this one will make you say ahhh). I keep wanting to submit a gorgeous window view from France, but the view from my window onto my courtyard isn't very picturesque.

So, in tribute to his mental health break posts, I thought I'd post this advertisement I found on my friend's company website. Even though this magazine's title, when translated from French, actually means Child Psychology, it looks more like Psycho Children to moi.

Reliving My Childhood With The Playmobile Dashboard

Continuing with my stories of last Monday in Batz sur Mer...

After a brief stint on the beach in the morning, we were hungry, so our hostess L called a friend of hers who owns a local wine store (Le Garage à vins in the nearby town of Le Pouliguen) to see if we could come by and taste some wine and oysters. He was closed, but was having a private lunch with the wine makers of some of his featured biological wines from the D'Anjou region, and invited us to come by. I'll tell you more about the wine makers and the food and wine we tasted in a later post.

As the store owner and his wife were busy cleaning up and the wine makers and their wives were carrying boxes of wine to their vans and packing up for their trips back to their vineyards (they had stayed the weekend), I wandered in the cool, dark store, looking at all the wine labels and the vintage motorized bikes (click to see pictures of examples of a Mobilette and Solex) and other memorabilia.

At some point my eyes wandered to the top of a wine refrigerator and I saw a vintage toy that drew me in. There was something about it that was vaguely familiar. I was having trouble pushing aside the cobwebs of my childhood until my body acted of its own accord. Nobody was looking as I slowly reached up and gently put my hand on its steering wheel, turning it left, then right. I pushed the on-column gear shift up, then back down. "Whoah," I breathed. "Look at this, G," I said. "I think I had this toy when I was little." She came over and was more brave than me. She got up on a stool and looked at it. She told the owner of the store that I thought I had the toy when I was young and his eyes lit up. It had been his toy when he was a boy. He's 52 and I'm 53 years old.

I still don't know if it was my toy, or more likely, belonged to one of my brothers and I was allowed (or more likely, not allowed) to play with it. I'll send a link to this post to my brothers and see what they can remember. It just seems like it would be a boy toy, versus my girly Easy-Bake Oven which my Dad and family friend Mr. Saccas assembled in our basement one Chivas-scented Christmas eve, while we children slept soundly in our beds, dreaming of Tinker Taw (my name for Santa Claus). My Dad and Mr. Saccas later admitted to taking one of the cake mixes and instead of adding water they added Scotch and slid the tiny little liquor-soaked cake under the Easy-Bake's powerful light bulb "to make sure the oven was working."

As G teetered on her stool, she peered at the emblems and logos while I took more pictures. There was a "deluxe" emblem on it and G said another emblem said Deluxe Corp., Reading, PA. I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and Reading was not far from me. How this toy was sold in France, I'm not sure. I came back to our lovely vacation home and did some research on the internets. I found out that it was called the Playmobile Dashboard. One recently sold on eBay for about $450 and another, a store display model, for almost $3000.

It's so interesting to me that I had a body memory of the toy before I had a visual memory. My body remembered that the windshield wipers actually worked and so did the radio buttons.

Later, the store owner took the toy down and we took some pictures of the two of us old fogies "driving" it.

Nightlife's A Ball In La Baule

I almost don't know how to write about Sunday. It went from drunks and bare breasts at the beach in the morning, to sublime, magical and lustful at lunchtime, then calm, chatty and delicious at dinner (well, maybe the calm part isn't as true since I stood up after dinner and acted out the entire Toilet Guy story), then bizarre and surreal in the wee hours of Monday. As we drove back to our hostess's house at 2:30 in the morning, we tried to come up with words to describe what we'd seen and it was tough. But I'm going to try.

As for the rest of the day's doings, too much happened to put it in one post. I'm going to have to break it up into parts. Here's a list of events and as I write each post, I'll add links:

Bare-Breasted White Girls And The Avoidance of Drunks
Lunch n' Lust With Bio Wine Makers
Reliving My Childhood With The Playmobile Dashboard
Dinner With The Asteroid Family
Nightlife's A Ball In La Baule

Let's begin where we ended...in La Baule. G had already told me about this town. It isn't my kind of town. Or hers. It's resorty, versus authentic. It has a fabulous coastline, but they've ruined it with high-rise hotels all along the water's edge. But behind the hotels, the old town and its lovely buildings are still worth seeing. To get there, we crossed a short bridge; leaving sleepy Le Pouliguen behind and entering into a completely separate reality. Unfortunately, we left our 3-D glasses at home.

It was after we had dinner with The Asteroid Family. They had begun to politely yawn after my Toilet Guy performance. So, we took the cue and said our French kiss-kiss goodbyes. We were happy and full but not ready to go back home. So, G said, "Let's show La Baule to Lisa." The fact that Lisa was a) still awake and b) still awake, was a miracle.

Our hostess drove through the tiny streets and we kept looking for a cool bar that was open. There weren't many. We finally found a bar where there were several people standing outside drinking and smoking, along with a guy in a wheelchair. Some drunk guy waved leeringly at us as we drove slowly by. We reluctantly parked, knowing this was going to be strange.

The place was called B'ollywood. I expected Indian decor, pictures of multi-armed Goddesses and Indian movie stars. Maybe even some dhoti dancing on a wide-screen TV. Nah. Instead, it was full of pictures of Steve McQueen and other obscure H-H-Hollywood movie stars. Not a single B-B-Bollywood item could be found.

In addition, it had a sleazy meat market kind of vibe. Some young, blond drunk guy fell into G and spilled her drink all over her and the floor. He just looked at her stupidly and never offered to help clean it up or buy her a replacement drink. I saw him outside afterwards, trying to chat up some preppy-looking blond chick who wouldn't give him the time of day. When she looked at him, he put on his best drunken suave look and when she looked away, he went slack-jawed and just stared at her, blinky-eyed.

There was a muscular bartender and his faithful giant dog companion. The dog was attached to the bar on a really, really short leash and could only stand up and turn around and lay back down again. He had zero interest in being petted. He wasn't mean and he wasn't cute. He was just... all tied up.

Sitting at the bar was a Nubian princess with a nine-inch forehead, wearing an elegant cocktail dress and casting a sideways judgmental eye, full of doubt and disdain, upon a tweed-jacketed, curly-gray-headed hopeful. He lasted longer than most of the guys who had the nerve to settle next to her. I was staring at her and wondering, "Is that a guy?" when G leans in and says to me, "Is that a guy?"

At the end of the bar, there was a short, tough guy in a black leather motorcycle jacket, standing under the John-Wayne-with-Lariat-n-Chaps photo and with his back to the Steve McQueen poster. He was chatting up a leggy blond. His hands were as big as his head. Seriously. And his fingers? Fat as Snausages. I said to L, our hostess, "There's an old wives' tale about men who have fat fingers." G says, "Oh yeah. And it's true, too." She's such a Ho. That's why I love her. If you don't know what we're talking about, well, look it up.

Since then, our vacation theme has become men's hands and their fat fingers. G and L went to have a picnic at a wheat farm Monday afternoon and I stayed home to get some work done. G sent me photos to my iPhone of the wheat farmers and she made them pose with their hands in full view. They were confused. But their fingers were not... confused... at all.

After one drink in B-B-B'ollywood, the three of us looked at each other and knew we had to get out of that bar. It was such a weird place. As I said, there are no words. If you want to see a video ad for the place, you can click here. When we left, G said, "The coolest guy in that bar was the one in the wheelchair."

On our way back home to Batz sur Mer and before we crossed the bridge back into real life, G told L to at least stop at one of the casinos in La Baule so I could see what a French casino was like. The DING DING DING! KaCHING! WRRR! sounds of Vegas casinos drifted through my brain. When we walked into Casino Barrière de La Baule, there wasn't a sound. You could hear dust settling.

There were three security guards standing menacingly in front of grocery-store turnstyles off to the right of the "lobby." They demanded identification. I gave them my shiny new pink French work permit while G gave them one of her 86 passports. They actually took them from us and spent lots o' time on the computer with them. Maybe they wanted to check and see if we were on the cheezy casino crime watch list.

But this gave me a chance to look around. The place was dead empty. There were about 5 octogenarians sitting at slot machines, but that was it. The floor was covered in dirty red carpet squares. Seriously. It was the cheeziest place I'd ever seen. And I've seen some casinos. Hell, I've been to a casino in Pahrump, Nevada. I even went by boat from Parker, Arizona (a garden spot, let me tell ya) on the Colorado river, to see casinos in Laughlin, Nevada. Ho, yeah. But this place reminded me more of the local dive bars in Henderson, just outside of the Las Vegas strip, where the alchies and gambling addicts play video poker right at their seats at the bar, from morning until, well, morning. At least those places are respectfully dark enough for people to hide their crevassed faces and DT-shaking hands. This French casino was lit up as bright as a day on the beach.

Somehow, after getting past the security guys and their super-secret iPhone headsets, we lost our hostess, L. I still don't know where she went. And G took off like a lightening bolt around the back of the slot machines. "Where are you going?" I said, puffing and trotting after her, hoping that she was going to take me to the "nice" part of the casino. "To the smoking room."

HAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm sorry. I'm still dying laughing. There was a sign above the hallway to the smoking room that said, "We welcome you to smoke in our lounge." It was so... elegant-sounding. G pushed the door open. It was a box, the size of an elevator in a real casino. There were two chairs and one plastic table. One chair was dwarfed by a rather large female. G and I started taking pictures, our laughter echoing against the hard tile floor and bouncing off the blindingly white art-free walls. Our fellow smoker shifted a bit. I thought she might want to escape, but she settled back in to watch the Lisa and G show. L called to find out where we were. Then she came into the smoking room too. Her smile said, "I hate this room. Can we go right now? Right now?"

So, we decided to go back out to the lobby so we could descend to the 80's and 90's disco!!

It was called L'Indiana. I already told you about the terrible restaurant chain in Paris called the Indiana Cafe. Why do French people have this obsession with Indiana? Have they ever been there? Have you? I can't even name one city in Indiana. OK, fine. Indianapolis. But what the fuck is there to see in Indianapolis? Christ, they could just as well be obsessed with Cincinnati. Then they could name their restaurants and discos L'Ohio.

The disco was pumpin', let me tell you. There were more than five people there! And less than seven. The music was terrible. But the red and purple couches had the coolest sparkly fabric on them. I wanted one. The bar was illuminated and the color changed. That was cool too. The three of us danced on a tiny dance floor, off to the side, not wanting to threaten the 5 people sitting on a stage in front of the main dance floor. Then I thought, oh what the hell and ran to that stage and started doing The Bump. Or, something like that. I took a short video so you can soak in the atmosphere. That skinny girl dancing at the beginning of the video is G.




Nobody ever asked us if we wanted a drink. The bartender was as ephemeral as the lighting. The super-macho security guys ran in and out a couple of times, but I'm not sure why. So, after disco-fevering on the main dance floor, my girlfriends decided to do Yoga on the bar stools. I captured the event in pictures and made this calming little video for your viewing pleasure. Oh, and I'll leave you with this little realization that dawned on us, TWO days after our foray into La Baule...the bar is called B'ollywood because...drum roll...it's Hollywood in la Baule. Get it? We didn't either.

He's Obsessed With My Socket

It all started with my friend G's socket. It hung there... naked... exposing itself to the elements, for way too long. Somebody had to do something, because exposing her socket could get G into big-time trouble. Why, the government could step in and fine her, or possibly even condemn her! But if she continued to flaunt her naked socket, unashamedly exposing it randomly to anyone who happened to walk by on their way to emptying their trash (just think of The Children!), everything, yes, everything, we know and love, cherish and hold dear, could go up in flames.

Or, at least, that's what Toilet Guy was thinking.

You've already met the other characters in G's and my building...The Hot Girl Upstairs, The Slapper, The Hot Blond Son of The Angry German, The Muslim Girls and of course, My Future Husband. But I haven't written about The Toilet Guy yet, because I'd never seen him. I knew he existed, but he never showed his face.

But G has seen him, sort of. His bathroom window looks out on the same courtyard as her apartment and she has spent more than a few cigarette breaks outside on her patio, pondering his silhouette through the glazed (Thank God) bathroom window. She can see him standing in front of his toilet, just his head, bowed down, contemplating...something...for what seems like hours. But, what? The hopelessness of life flushed daily? The endless, swirling circle of...? If he's like some men I (used to) know, perhaps he is aiming at his discarded cigarette butt, holding his Han Solo special BlasTech DL-44, making ptew! ptew! noises and tallying up the points each time he can hit it and make it go under water.

At least Toilet Guy pees in the toilet. Fiachna once told me a story his French real estate agent told him about an old guy who was selling his apartment and when the realtor entered with a prospective buyer, there were hundreds of jars all over the floor, filled with the apartment owner's sacred pee. What did he plan to do with them when he moved? This question has kept me awake at night.

The other morning, Toilet Guy knocked on G's door and told her that he was worried, with all the rain we'd been having, that some unknown cataclysmic things could happen if she didn't cover up her exposed socket. She answered, "Quoi?" He pointed to the light socket to the right of her door, which she has been meaning to buy a lamp for, but between filling out endless forms for the French government, arguing with her cell phone company about who really owns her phone contract and changing diapers ("What do we have today, honey? Pâté or meatballs?"), she just hasn't found the time.

But G is an old hand at leaving her own thing, and other people's things, exposed. After all, she didn't have a door on her own bathroom for so long that her friends just got used to relieving themselves en plein air. Now, when her friends come to visit, they don't bother closing her new, expensive (that's a story in itself) pocket door. They just do their thing while she flips the foie gras on the stove directly opposite them. Cooking and peeing... family-style!

So, it turns out, that Toilet Guy is actually an electrician. And in between the 6th time he was explaining the dangers of socket exposure to G, she managed to Skype me upstairs (yes, we are geeks) and tell me that Toilet Guy offered to fix her socket for free. Now, what girl in her right mind would pass up an offer like that? (All of them.) And, in addition, also too, he probably would be happy to add an electrical outlet on the wall next to my telephone jack, because I need one. It's SUCH a long story about why I need one. It's SO tempting to tell it now. But, I won't.

So, because I'm not in my right mind, I agreed that G and Toilet Man could come up and survey my lack o' outletness. What in the hell was I thinking? I know. I was thinking... I don't have to find an electrician, call an electrician, speak French to an electrician, pay an electrician. There's one in the building! So what if he stares down into the murky darkness of his toilet for hours on end? We all have our, er, proclivities.

Well, somebody smelled really bad when G and Toilet Man arrived at my front door. And since I'm now familiar, like an old wife, with G's body odor, I figured this new scent was coming from Toilet Man. Ah, but we're in France, n'est-ce pas? C'est la guerre.

After much debate in French between G and Toilet Man (while I nodded off from boredom), it was decided that he would take one of my cheap multi-plug outlet strips, slice off the plug and hard-wire it into my electrical box. Then we'd dangle the cheap thing down the wall and I could plug in my internet, TV and telephone boxes, right next to the phone outlet. I don't know the elegant French word for this, but in America, I think we would call this a clusterfuck.

It's the cheap part of this whole arrangement that became an issue with Le Mec du Toilette.

G left me alone with this guy and went back downstairs to paperwork and meatballs. He fiddled and fussed and asked me for one tool at a time. In between, he'd explain lots of things to me that sounded like this: "fermez toi poisson bourgogne fois chaque pres fils mes quelque chose oui oui?" Uh. I'd smile as I handed him a screw driver. Then a hammer. Then a box cutter. Then a drill. Then glue. Then a paper towel. Then pliers. Then I told him it was fine if he turned the electricity off. Then I told him it was fine if he turned off the electricity. Then I told him it was fine if he turned off the electricity.

Have I mentioned yet that this guy repeats himself incessantly? This guy repeats himself incessantly.

Finally, it was finished. But now, it had to be tested. He asked for my blow dryer. I gave it to him. He plugged it into the clusterfuck. He turned it on full blast. He turned it off. He turned it on. He flipped off the switch on the outlet strip. He flipped it back on again. All the while, he kept touching the wire to see if it got hot. Fine. I get it. The cheap outlet strips aren't very reliable. We need to put a load on it to see if it gets hot enough to burn the place down. Fine. But, I was a nervous wreck. This guy was so creepy, that I could not wait until he left so that I could take an hour-long shower in holy water.

After putting the blow dryer back in the bathroom, and reassuring him that I would clean up the mess he made, I stood, with my hands clasped in front of me, smiling woodenly, as he cleaned up the mess he made. Then, he told me 5 MILLION times, that the outlet was cheap and unreliable, that I should not put anything powerful on it, nor should I put many plugs into it, because it was cheap and unreliable. And if I left the apartment, I needed to not only flip the switch on the outlet strip, but also unplug everything. In case of storms. In case of storms. In case of storms. You know, lightening? Storms. You know storms? Oui, storms. Storms.

Did I tell you he's also cross-eyed?

I was praying now. I also had a tic. That's why I had to hold my hands in a death grip in front of me. Otherwise, I'd be flailing my arms about me, tongue lolling, sobbing. Oops! He forgot to glue the outlet strip to the wall! "Je peux faire cela !" (I can do that!) I said, in desperation. He asks for a screw driver again. He scrapes it across the plastic back of the outlet strip. He scrapes the wall behind the outlet strip. He picks up the glue package. He demonstrates how I should apply the glue. Put some here, on the back. Then put some here, on the wall. Then push the outlet strip into the wall here. Not here, because it's close to the other wires. But here, closer to the door frame. It's safer there. Because it's cheap, and unreliable. And it can get hot. And it can start a fire. And there's the storms, too. Don't forget about the storms.

It wasn't until I held up the glue package and told him 62 times that I would glue the fucking thing the VERY moment he left - right after you leave, oui! I'll do it. I promise! The storms! Oui! I will watch for the storms! - that I finally got him out of my apartment.

I did not glue that motherfucker to the wall.

The next morning, my doorbell rang. I was in my pajamas. I had dinosaur breath. But I figured it was G coming to pick up some French government forms she'd printed. So, I opened the door. Big mistake. Toilet Man was standing there. "Can I come in?" he said, as he walked past me into the room.

"I need to look at your toilet."
"My what?"

He went into my bathroom. I swore, if he started standing in front of my toilet and looking down, I'd... He looked to the left, to the right. He stood there. I'm freaking out.

"This plug?" He points to a wall socket 5 feet away from my shower and sink.
"Yes?"
"It's very dangerous. If you take a shower and get it wet, well..."
"I won't get it wet, then."

My face was scowly. He exited my bathroom and then said, "Je moulin rouge tour eiffel prendre vous allez miens soif dangereuse?" I'm exasperated. "I don't understand!"

So, he says that if I give him a few Euros he'll go buy a light bulb for my entry light (which had gone out about two months ago and I'd never changed it). What do I say? OK. I said, OK. I am insane. Yes, I am.

He returns and gets up on a chair and takes the glass bowl off the light fixture. Then he inspects the socket. The fucking socket. He takes it off. He gets down. He shows it to me. It's cheap and unreliable, he says. It's old. It's not good. It's bad. OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP AND JUST CHANGE THE FUCKING LIGHT BULB OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD! That was what I was thinking; not what I said. I said, yes, it's old. Yes, it's unreliable. Yes, it's cheap. Yes, I need a new one. Yes, here's 6 Euros. Go to fucking town with it. Don't come back.

He came back. It took him a fucking hour to change the socket and put a new bulb in. Then he explained to me that he bought himself a miniature tool set for 2 Euros. He hoped I didn't mind. He pointed to the 2 Euro orange sticky price tag. 15 times. It's just 2 Euros. I bought it for myself. I hope you don't mind. He pointed to the receipt, too. See? Two Euros. For myself. I hope you don't mind.

He had also purchased a fresh baguette. He offered me a piece of the bread. I said no. He pointed to my birds. He said something about them. I said something stupid back. I was holding my hands in front of me again. My toes were turned inward. I was starting to fold in half. Finally, I said, "Merci bien! Au revoir!" He started to leave. He noticed I hadn't glued the outlet strip to the wall. He asked for the screw driver. he scraped the back of the outlet again. He scraped the wall. He told me how to apply the glue. He told me where to put the outlet to avoid a fire. He told me how to turn it off when I leave. He warned me about the storms. He finally left. I curled up in a ball on my couch and shuddered. The shit we women do to get something for free. THERE IS NOTHING FREE. NOTHING! NOTHING! Except, maybe, THE STORMS!

The next day, G and I were finishing our packing and were within minutes of leaving for the beach. My doorbell rang. I thought it was G. No. It was Toilet Guy. And he was holding, I shit you not, a giant wall-mounted heater.

"I don't need that!" I exclaimed.
"Can I come in?" he said, as he started to push past me.
"No." I blocked the door.
"Are you going somewhere soon?"
"Yes, I am."
"Piscine pleurer des voitures et maintenant il y a sucre dans le jardin." Or, that's what it sounded like. I have no idea what he said... as he pushed his way back into my apartment.
"Le blow dryer?"

He had a giant green bugger in his right nostril. (I am not making this up.)

He leaned the heater against my wall near the new outlet strip. He plugged it in. He plugged in the blow dryer. He took off the wooden board that covered the wiring at the base of the electrical box. He made me hold the blow dryer. We turned everything on. Then off. Then on. Then off at the outlet switch. Then on at the outlet switch. He monitored the gauges. He touched all the wires. No fire! (Except, of course, for the smoke coming out of my ears and the fire in my eyes.) He explained how the outlet strip was cheap and unreliable. How I shouldn't put anything powerful on it. There could be a fire. There could be a storm. The building could burn down. And it would be all his fault. He put everything back. All the while, telling me how to glue correctly and how to unplug everything every time I leave.

I had to rest my eyes somewhere other than upon his bugger. I cast them downward and noticed, ironically, that the wire for his heater had been spliced in the middle and was all raggedy and exposed.

If the building burns down, it will be from his heater, NOT from my cheap and unreliable outlet strip or G's exposed socket.

So, I must end this tale, as it's too long. (So unusual for me!) But, I have a funny feeling it's not over yet. The lovely Muslim Girls are watching my birds and G's cat while we're away. I warned them about Toilet Guy. I had a little time with them while waiting for G, so I acted out the entire story to the girls. They were vacillating between laughter and then horror (as I have spent much of my life). I told them that if they wanted to hang out and stay in my apartment, that they had to have a secret code knock, because otherwise, they wouldn't know if it was one of them or Toilet Guy.

The Muslim Girls' mother, after listening to and watching my antics, and getting a few things translated into Italian and Arabic, began to get the picture. She said to me, while nodding sagely, "Ah, well. You know, he's Tunisian." I didn't know what to say. It's like somebody in New York saying, "Well, you know, he's Puerto Rican." And everyone in the room going, "Ohhhhhh. That explains it." But I don't know any Tunisians and I don't know any Puerto Ricans. So, I wouldn't be able to nod in sudden understanding, in either case.

I just know one thing for sure. I don't care how old or cheap or unreliable my socket is, I just don't want him to fix it. Even if he pays ME to do so. And the next time he knocks on my door, I'll tell him what the lovely Muslim Girls and G told me to say, "My Puerto Rican boyfriend is in bed, sleeping. Please do not disturb him."

Blue Cholula And The White Girls

Imagine being deeply asleep, all snuggled up in your cozy bed, face pushed into a feather pillow, perhaps dreaming of Lady Hor's giant penis.

Then suddenly, all three of your birds start FLYING around inside their cage. This isn't pretty, wistful, chirpy freebird kind of flight. This is three sets of wings furiously pummeling the air, beating against the cage bars, soft feathery bodies crashing into each other as they desperately search for a perch in the dark.

It doesn't end. It takes me a few seconds to wake up, turn back the covers, rub the last vestiges of lust out of my eyes, struggle across the room in my invisible underwear (Have you tried these? No fat lines!!), turn on the light. The light stops them in their scraggly three-toed tracks. They're clinging to the sides of the cage, wide-eyed. I can see their little chests heaving, their hearts beating wildly.

WTF?

Did one of them fall off her perch and scare the living shit out of the other two? I guess I'll never know, because they ain't talking.

Cholula and her all-white-girl backup singers are starting to get along a little better. At least they're not trying to peck each other's eyeballs out or locking beaks as often. One of the white girls has become obsessed with the mirror and hangs upside down and sideways trying to impress her reflection. The other white girl found the bell that Cholula has ignored for the last year and has figured out how she can stand on top of it and yank at it to make it ring. Every morning, now that the weather is a bit warmer, I open the window so they can call and respond to the birds outside. It's all a big scam. If they ever met those wild birds, they'd try and kill them too.

I'm beginning to realize that these girls are never going to work together, either alone or with tiny mice, to sew me a dress for the ball. Hopefully, Prince Charming will be blind.

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Isobel Smith, R.I.P.

My friend Isobel died last week. I call her a friend, even though I spent only one lovely weekend in Paris with her and then saw her again at another friend's wedding in Ireland. But she left her mark on my heart and I'd like to celebrate that fact in the wake of her passing.

Isobel was a longtime friend of my friend Fiachna, who called us one day to ask if Isobel's 18-year-old son Karl could stay with us in our Paris apartment while Karl searched for a music school to attend. We said yes.

Isobel arrived with Karl and stayed the weekend to make sure he was settled. She and I set out early one morning to shop for Karl's bedding and like me, she enjoyed a bargain, so I took her to Tati, a vast network of discount stores in Chateau Rouge, or what is sometimes referred to as La Goutte d'Or (the drop of gold) and as Little Africa. There she found a beautiful bedding set in blue and white, not very manly but definitely in line with her designer tastes. Karl and Isobel were very close, so he would have been delighted with whatever she chose.

We talked about our lives during our day of shopping and while resting our tired feet and drinking a beer at a rip-off cafe at the base of Sacré-Cœur. She'd been a wild one, just like me. She'd seen it all, done it all, and chose to be enriched by her experiences, rather than ruined. She'd carved out a career in fine arts and created a comfortable life for herself and her son. It was a major transition in her life, to let go of her son and be alone for the first time in many years, but she was up for the change and supported his creative efforts.

Unfortunately, Karl's stay with us didn't work out. It was a difficult time for me and my boyfriend, with financial and other worries. And whether Karl knew it or not, it was a difficult time for him. I watched him struggle with an age-old decision - does he follow the creative career path of music, or study something that will get him a "real job" with more dependable income? I don't know many people who made the "right" decision at such an early age. I know I didn't. I decided to get a "real job" and dismissed my artistic talents as childish pursuits. It wasn't until recently, in my 50s, that I have begun to reconnect with that lost creative person inside of me. On the other hand, Fiachna studied to be a lawyer, as he busked on the streets of Dublin with what would become one of Ireland's most beloved bands, The Hothouse Flowers. He eventually chose music over law, but I'm sure, in the ups and downs of a musician's life, even for one as successful as he, that there were some low points when Fiachna wished he'd taken the lawyer's path.

But one thing I have learned, no matter the decisions we make early in our lives, Karl's path, like my own and like Fiachna's, will take him where he is supposed to go. And if he listens and learns, he will gain insights and experiences along the way, which will mold him into the man he is destined to become.

Before Karl left our apartment, I had many long and philosophical phone calls with Isobel. We felt like we were the voices of reason between Karl, a young man trying to assert himself in the world, and my boyfriend, a grown man trying to impose his will, or what he thought was the right path, onto Karl. Both men meant well, yet stuck to their guns. She and I were partners in peace, trying to find the right path between the conflicts of men. It seems that this is a role that women have played throughout history, and it formed a timeless bond between us.

At the end of that weekend visit, where I first had the pleasure of meeting Isobel, she packed all her bags and we walked a block or two from our apartment to one of our favorite African restaurants, specializing in food from the Côte d'Ivoire. We'd forgotten that it always takes hours to get your food in this restaurant. It's one of those details about a restaurant that you tend to forget because while you're waiting, the people who go in and out, the bustle of a colorful African caftan and matching chignon that you can see now and then from behind the swinging kitchen door, the bottles of Chivas Regal plonked onto the tables to ease the waiting - all this is so fascinating that you forget about the time. Not to mention that the food is well worth the wait.

But this time, Isobel had a plane to catch, so we watched the time tick by and got more and more nervous. At one point, my boyfriend decided to walk back to the apartment and get Isobel's bags so that she'd have time to eat and then go to the corner to catch a cab. When he returned, the food still wasn't on the table. Finally, it came and she had just enough time to take just a small taste of everything that was on the table. Then she and my boyfriend went out to the street to get a cab. They were gone forever. He ended up taking her way down the street to a busier intersection to finally get a cab, and after he returned and we were nibbling on our roasted quail legs and fried plantain, we wondered if she'd even make her plane.

We were still eating when my phone rang. It was Isobel. She was at the airport, standing at customs, and realized she'd left her passport at our apartment. She wanted us to take a cab to the airport and bring it to her. We looked at the time and knew we'd never make it. We tried to convince her to come back and stay another day, which we would have loved, but she had a really important meeting at work the next day and just couldn't do it. She told us she would try and see if she could get on a later flight and call us back.

The next phone call from her was classic. Classic Isobel. She was calling us as she was boarding her plane. "I convinced them to let me go without my passport. Can you just give it to Fiachna and have him bring it to me the next time he's in Dublin?"

Isobel Smith was a class act. She was obviously resourceful. But she was also creative, hip, worldly, elegant, cultured, intelligent, wise, strong and most of all, kind. I'll miss her humor, her scratchy Irish voice and the chance to get to know her better. But one thing is for certain...if she accidentally left her passport to heaven at somebody's apartment during her wild and crazy past, St. Peter finally met his match last week as Isobel waltzed right past him through the pearly gates. She's sitting at the right hand of The Father right now, discussing how she'd like to redecorate a few things (those pearly gates are so gauche, so rococo!) and without a doubt, she and the Virgin Mary are the best of friends, working together on world peace.

And since Isobel has taken up residence, I hear that the craic in heaven is mighty.

(I took the image of the heart at Jerpoint Abbey, a Cistercian abbey, founded in the second half of the 12th century, near Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland.)

Perturbation

There should be a law. People who speak over public address systems should be trained. You know what I mean. You'll be on a plane or in an airport or in Walmart, and you'll try to listen to an announcement and the announcer is too loud or too quiet or they speak too quickly or mush all their words together. You think you might be missing something important, like, "There's a sale on gizzards in the meat department." or "Cleanup crew to aisle eleven." or "Attention Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now."

I don't know about you, but I hate to miss the day-old gizzard sale and want to avoid slipping in spilled ketchup on aisle eleven. But I especially want to make sure that All Black People are doing what they're told. If I had been in Walmart that day and saw The Black People standing with confused looks on their faces, I would have considered it my Walmart Shopper Duty to point out the nearest door.

But, let's get back to loudspeaker laxity. (How DO I get so distracted?)

In the French Métro, it's just as hard to understand what the announcer is saying, not just because my French is limited, but also because of all the different accents. When you learn to say Mais Oui! (may wee!) in high school French and then hear Parisians say Bah Way!, you're kind of up shit's creek without a poodle. So, if I don't understand the announcement, I just watch everybody else and if they suddenly exit the train, I figure that I better do the same. Or if they leave the platform and go back up to the street level, I figure that there won't be a train coming anytime soon so I better walk to my destination or see if I can get on a bus.

Once, as my train was accelerating out of a station, I was watching the people on the opposite platform. As if on cue, all of them turned their heads towards the front of my train and the tunnel... and screamed. The train squealed to a halt. There was no announcement and I couldn't see what was going on. But I figured somebody fell, or got pushed or jumped onto the tracks. After about three minutes, our train slowly started to move and as we passed the end of the platform, I saw nothing. No police. No medics. Nobody lying on the ground.

It reminded me of the millions of times traffic came to a standstill on the 405 freeway north of San Diego. Everyone would sit in their cars, waiting. Then, traffic would inexplicably resume and all of us probably kept a lookout for the reason for the delay: a stranded car or accident or a silhouetted mommy-daddy-pigtailed-child holding hands and standing in the median, winded from their illegal run across six lanes of traffic. Even though I saw all those yellow warning signs about these silhouette people, I never saw any of them in the flesh. I started to wonder if they really existed. Later, I came to understand that these were The Brown People from the distant land of Meh-hee-co. In retrospect, I can only assume they were desperately searching for the nearest Walmart exit.

If you're a black (or brown) person in Paris, you'll be happy to know that you don't have to worry about missing an announcement, because there's usually a menacing, jack-booted, armed guard with a scary, black-leather-muzzled shepherd or rottweiler ready to give you all the answers you need. Handily, these guards are only on the platforms and in the trains in the immigrant neighborhoods, which seems very helpful of them. I never see them in the tourist or wealthy neighborhood Métros, probably because The Black and Brown People don't hang out there very much and so, don't require guidance and assistance.

As the years have ticked by I've begun to pick words out of the French Métro announcer's gibberish, such as "merci de votre patience." Thanks for your patience. This is a good thing to hear because it means that your train is only stopped in the middle of the deep, dark, graffiti-scrawled tunnel, dug out centuries ago beneath fathoms of crumbling French history, for some totally normal reason that is rarely given to you, even if you can speak the language. You can rest assured however, that in just a few short seconds (or many anxious beaded-sweat-upon-the-brow claustrophobic moments), the train will lurch ahead once again, just in time to avoid being rear-ended by the next train barreling along unwittingly from behind.

I always look at it this way: I need more time to stand crushed into the moth-balled wool coat of the man in front of me, to listen to the indignant French model tell off her loser boyfriend at the top of her lungs on her bedazzled cell phone or I can calm myself by breathing deeply to soak in the aroma of the fetid breath or pee-stained trousers of my fellow travelers. Patience really isn't a choice in these situations, but a moral, or perhaps a patriotic, obligation. After all, if I ask anyone why we're stopped, nobody can hear me through the steamy winter clothes or sweaty summer armpits of humanity. Nonetheless, I mutter in answer to the driver (because of course, I'm building character and one must be grateful for that), "You're welcome."

But even in my early Paris days, the one word that I could always pick out of an announcement was perturbation. Sometimes they even say perturbée. Even with the accent, I figured it meant that somebody was perturbed. Was the train driver telling us he was going on strike at the next stop? (Or more likely, he was taking his lunch break and we have to get off his train and catch the next one.) Was there a fight between some indignant Frenchmen somewhere in the next station? The French have developed a fine art of perturbation. I've seen that perturbée look on French waiters' faces when I ask for butter to go with my bread or a doggie bag (Sacré bleu!) for my food or when I say, "Can I please have TWO glasses, one for my water and one for my wine?" Yes, I know what a perturbée Frenchman looks like. And it's not a pretty sight.

As with all things that confuse me about France, sooner or later I find out what it all means. This time, it was through an iPhone app called Métro Paris. I've downloaded quite a few of these apps, but this one is the best so far. It can locate me wherever I am and then tell me the nearest Métro stop. It can map out a route from one place to another, with choices for the fastest route or the route with the fewest line changes. It even has "augmented reality," which I haven't tried yet, but if it's a new kind of non-surgical, drug-free way for me to be 25, slim, perky-breasted and jowl-free, then I'm all for it. As for how it taught me the meaning of perturbation, I'll get to that in a moment.

Meanwhile, safely home in my cozy little atelier, I watch my two new pure-white parakeets try to intimidate Cholula, the blue bird I saved a few years ago when she flew into my apartment window with her pigtails flying, winded from her illegal bout with freedom in the wilds of Paris. True to her Mexican hot sauce name, Cholula's not taking any shit from those white girls. Because she's been out there and even though those white birds can hang upside down above her, cheeping nah-nah! and pecking at her from behind like the little chicken shits that they are, or shamelessly scavenging for seeds on the floor of the cage where her refined tastes have refused to go, Cholula's the wizened traveler and they're just interlopers who had better stay away from her seed cup or there will be hell to pay. If those white girls dare to perch on the treat stick, Cholula stops filing her nails and throws her head back and says, "Oh no you dih-int!" As I doze off, I wonder if, at some point in the quiet night, I'll awaken to a tiny, bitchy, bird-voice announcement, "Attention bitchezz! All white birds, leave the cage NOW."

Instead, at 5:30 AM, just after a 2 AM worry session and a 4 AM pee, I'm awakened abruptly by the loud buzzing of my iPhone. Half asleep, I flail around for my phone and pushing the crust from my eyes, I see a message on the screen from my Métro Paris app with a big red exclamation point: "Attention! Métro 13 Trafic perturbée." (Traffic on line 13 is disturbed.) Finally, my integration into France has begun. My head tilts back, my eyes look down condescendingly, past my Gallic nose and upon my upstart iPhone (which has the colossal nerve not to wither in shame), and my lips purse in disdain. It's the butter look. The doggie bag look. The I'm-not-going-to-wash-two-fucking-glasses-just-for-you look. I am French. And I am perturbée.