Marseille Away With Me to Petit Paris

Wow. It's sure been a while. I don't know where to start anymore. Actually, I don't remember where to start! So I'm going back to read the sh!t I wrote and imma get back to you, mmmkay?

So where were we?

Ah, Marseille. So, after the long camping trip to Italy and back, we were sleeping under a roof again, taking unhurried showers, having breakfast while seated on chairs, not wondering if dogs are peeing on our tent while we dream and whatnot. In the afternoon we went to H's friend's cousin's stepfather's house (read it again, it will make sense eventually) for grilled fish and a romp in the pool. H's friend, G, showed us the CCTV setup in his uncle's bedroom. It was connected to the gasoline station in the front, so even at night he had an eye on the store.

After lunch, I lazed about on the swing while H and G tossed the nephews around the pool. After realizing I talk mostly in English, one of the little critters asked him, "Pourquoi tu choisi ta femme en anglais?" or "Why did you choose your wife in English?" Yeah, rough him out a bit in the pool, please. No, obviously I'm kidding.

 Before rush hour, H and his friend got dressed and we planned to give the city a once-over before we went back to Gigouzac; but once we hit the highway, H started looking panicky. "The gear is stuck on 2nd," he said, so he tried to shift to first, and on first it stayed. We were running on 20 kph and the other cars were honking for us to hurry the hell up because you CANNOT be slow in Marseille... and let me tell you why:

Luckily, G knew Marseille like only Google Maps would, and he navigated us to the nearest Peugeot dealership that was... on the next corner! Massive automobile shitstorm aside, were we lucky or what? So, G ran out of the car, got the other cars to stop so we could turn around and crawl to the other side of the street. Motorists were honking their horns at us, flashing the finger and shouting profanities; the boys lashed back with some obscenities themselves, of course. Good times.

About fifteen minutes later (we were slow, okay?) we got to the Peugeot lot, but the mechanic didn't want to take the car in because it was a Friday and it was 5 pm and Monday was a non-working holiday. He'd be damned if he acted like he cared and processed the car in. They tried to talk to the people in charge in the office, no luck there. So H called the insurance guys and they told us to hire a car to go back to Gigouzac, get a towing company to keep the broken car until Tuesday until which time it can be taken back to Peugeot for diagnostics and H will have to come back by train to get the car when it's fixed at some future juncture (on the insurance's dime, of course).

So, with understandable apprehension and resentment over paying the gasoline and the toll fees twice (because the insurance doesn't cover that) we decided to get a car from Hertz. Problem was, by foot, Hertz was about 20 minutes away. The boys were both over 6 feet tall and speed walking, meantime, my strides were 5 inches shorter and... did I mention I threw away my rubber shoes before leaving Lake Maggiore? I trotted behind them in beach sandals, a cute little number in white with plastic straps and a rose pattern on the sole that costs a pretty penny but does nothing for your feet when you're racing after after giants. At a party two weeks after this, I pulled out the corn that had formed on my left foot.

Driving towards the lavender sunset on our way back, we felt like we had reached the nadir of road trips; but half-glass-full people that we are, we decided it was better that the car broke down while we were still in Marseille and not on the highway. So we got to his parents' place at around 1 am, and the next morning H had to explain how come his mother's car broke down in his care, and his parents had this "yeah, right" expression on their faces the time he told his story. We all know how he likes to drive.

Fast forward to a week later, Friday, H is back in Marseille and I'm in Gigouzac, he calls us to say he is calling from the car on the way back -- but oh! -- hold on! -- the gear is stuck on first again! Eventually he ends up going back to Peugeot to play the waiting game with the mechanics. Since it was late, he decided to go back to Luc and Clemence's for a big dinner.

Because I'd been putting off re-learning how to swim, my father in law had resorted to asking me every afternoon after gardening duties if "today" was the day I would take swimming lessons. Well, since  my eyes were tired and it was the warmest I'd felt all week I decided it was time to take him up on his offer. While my mother in law fretted over the state of her car, and how she was supposed to get back to work on Monday with no car, I ran over to the pool for my lessons.

I was a bit scared because my father in law has a reputation for having a short temper, and I know that when it comes to sporty things I have a very slow learning curve. Miraculously, I survived it without being shouted at once and I managed to swim for ten seconds without help before sinking to the bottom. PROGRESS! My mother in law's jaw dropped open when I told her the lessons went well and that her husband was very patient with me; my brother in law was just on his way out, but that stopped him in his tracks.

Although H said he hadn't planned on it (because he thought of staying overnight in Marseille), he took Peugeot's service car and drove all night while they figured out what the heck had happened to my mother in law's car. We were supposed to be back in Paris for some meetings by the 24th, but we wanted to stay around for the next two days for Fête de Gigouzac.

At 5 in the morning, H arrives while I'm snoring, curled around my laptop because I fell asleep waiting for the Glee Project to stream properly. H's dad brought out the heavy drinks during lunch, but in H&M time, it's breakfast, so actually I had cognac for breakfast. A year in France has turned me into an alcoholic!

That night we had a barbecue in the pool house and my in-law, A, and his friend M unpacked their newly-bought Camelbaks and filled it with rum and coke so they could go to la fête without having to pay for the drinks. This is the kind of genius family I've married into.

I have to admit I couldn't sum up the two nights of fete like I could remember the other things that happened that week. I remember coming in, being stamped, watching the shows, and observing the paradox of a stage set up next to the church given the secular type of entertainment we got that evening. California Gurls and church? Pourquoi pas (why not)? Don't get me wrong, it was a fun show, but consider just a few of the images I got to snap while the night was young:

A Claude François medley, complete with Clodettes.

Deeper into the night, the band felt like it was time for
a Dracula musical... with strippers. I kid you not.

Third act of the Dracula musical, the girls return
with faux petticoats to suck some more.

See the white wall to the left of the picture? That's where H and I had the church ceremony last year. The guitarist here is really good, I think this was his Led Zep tribute.

Le local artisan beer

I had a few beers because the mayor introduced us to the owner of Ratz (we got ginormous kegs for the wedding, support your local businesses and all that jazz) and the former mayor treated us to a few brews when he took us to meet the Irish boys because he needed a translator, then there was also the new-guy-in-town who bought us some rounds because he was just so happy to have some friends in that lonely village (I tried to talk to him in Pardon my French French but he didn't mind; he said he could detect I have good soul, which shows he really doesn't know me, mheh), I pogo danced with the town's resident eccentric, was unwittingly pushed into a Paquito line and was almost crushed under the weight of a tall rugby player - and it's only funny because I survived.


The Paquito, a dance from the south west.

A lot of other things happened that I only remember in snippets now and I blame it on my sugar high, but a lot of it I can't really mention anyway, in case the people of Gigou come by and read this, hee hee. To be very vague, the most poignant thing I remember was one girl having a mental breakdown after she realized she had f*cked up relationships with people, or maybe she had a breakthrough, that's why she decided to drown her sorrows in beer and act a fool - because that moment of lucidity was sheer torture.

With all the boys drunk by pack-up time, I was the only one strong enough to hold H up to stop him from falling on his face. My knees almost buckled the wrong way! I took him to the snack shop for some churros to push the alcohol down. The gypsy family who owned the booth were happy that H asked how they were and got them started on their woes as victims of racial stereotyping. The wife had an especially long story for me, which I suppose I was supposed to understand as a woman, but in actuality I understood only 20% of. But I nodded and said "ça c'est vrai" (that's true) and "c'est pas juste" (that's unfair) at the seemingly appropriate moments. And that, children, is how you make people think you speak French.

It's amusing to be the one of the few sober people in a crowd of four hundred people. One of the most popular pastimes in France is people watching, but it's more interesting to watch them when they are drunk. I think it's when they are most happy, judging from how carefree they look when they grin. In the morning I would be asked where certain bruises come from (stereo equipment), where people left their keys (bush), where all their money went (beer for wrong girl), and where missing people or articles of clothing might be found (also bush); it is also one of the very few times when I am the most accurate keeper of time.

The sky was beautiful when we walked back to the house, it was so clear that we distinctly saw the glowing nosedive of a falling star. The following day, a friend from Manila stayed over and witnessed the "true black" nights that the region is known for.

You already know M, she was here last December by chance after the big snow storm that grounded all the planes in Europe. This time she was on a road trip with her boyfriend, a French guy from east of the hexagon. H joked that she was a year late for the wedding.

The good weather continued and H went into the forest with one of his oldest friends from Saint Nom La Bretèche. After picking vegetables from the garden for their dinner, I was left in the house with Patricia and the kid. I had the credit card so we went out for dinner at a lakeside restaurant so she could have a break from cooking.

But my lord, on the way back we saw the biggest moonrise ever. And it was full, and it was red, and it was on fire. Patricia said they call it a Russian moon.

The next morning, H returned and I woke up to the sad news that my aunt had just died. It was a wake-up call for many things in my life, things we don't need to discuss here because I'll need an entire day for that, but most importantly, I missed her enough already and it was heartbreaking to hear I couldn't share the wedding vow renewal in the Philippines with her. She was a surviving link to my father, and I hoped at least she could tell my future children about their pikutin grandfather. In the next couple of weeks, I would also be told that my two other uncles had died. My father and all his siblings are now 6 feet under. Except for the little one who drowned in the Pasig and was never seen again.

After a month away from Paris, I was surprised about the things I missed. I missed going to the boulangerie for bread, stalking people on Facebook while working, going to the supermarket or testing my courage in the bi-weekly street marché, reading in the park, sitting still in a museum, telling the turtle to quit splashing around, talking to my plants who don't really deserve me, the people at the reception area of our building (even the guy who keeps asking if I'm pregnant already, because for a guy who's studying law he sure hasn't heard of boundaries), the metro, and cooking. It's so weird to realize that the things that were so foreign to me last year were suddenly so missed. A lot really can happen in a year, and this sabbatical I took in France had a way of hitting the message home.

I hear stories from people in the Philippines and I'm surprised at how much had changed at the home front, too. H's friends go out less because of their new babies, or are working on new relationships, or have moved away to other cities and even countries. In a few weeks, we will join their ranks.

For the last month, we had finally put into action the process of THE BIG MOVE.

H renewed his passport and international driving license, I went to my immigration meetings, we did our research, bought a travel guide, got our visas, booked our one-way ticket to India, had a farewell party in the house, started packing away our clothes and books and kitchen utensils, and, just last week, finally sold the apartment.

Paris had become too small suddenly, and we are exchanging her for a continent.

Related Posts:
A Year in France Celebration (The Aftermath)
Sizzling Beach 1, Sizzling Beach 2, Sizzling Beach 3
Bella Italia 1, Bella Italia 2, Bella Italia 3, Bella Italia 4, Bella Italia 5
Provencal Lass 1, Provencal Lass 2, Provencal Lass 3

A Year In France

Exactly a year ago today, at the crack of dawn, my brother drove me and my overweight luggage to the airport. I kissed my mom goodbye and my brother gave me a bone-cracking hug; I would meet them in Paris two weeks after, but the way they carried on it was like I wouldn't see them again.

H welcomed me at Charles de Gaulle with a bunch of flowers and a video camera trained on my face. After a day to recuperate from my long flight with a stopover in hellishly hot Doha, we were off to the southern coast of France for a week of sailing. Just a few days before I had been lazing about at the office, staring at the whitewashed ceiling, relishing thoughts of freedom. Then BOOM there I was, on a Tuesday, staring up at a cloudless night sky, counting shooting stars and being rocked to sleep by the soothing ebb of the tides.

A lot has happened year after. I left my family, my friends and my career for a gamble at love. It was a romantic dream, not fully mine (I was a big proponent of staying in Manila), but I have embraced the logic of moving to Paris just the same. Far from being the idyllic life many imagine, it has been challenging and often frustrating, humbling but humorous, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

I had a big learning curve to overcome and nothing in my life had prepared me for France. What could be more exasperating than a dinner table full of laughing people and not having a clue as to what was so funny? And by the time you figure it out and formulated what to say, the conversation has flitted to something more entertaining. There were no classes for miming at college, but after a year here, I think I've mastered the art.

It was hard to transition from my Manileña mindset to a Parisienne's. For a few months I kept forgetting that I can't go to shops on a Sunday, I can't pick up a bite at midnight, I can't go to museums on a Monday, I can cross the street without fearing for my life, not all dogs are out to get me, and breakfast is not complete without pain (bread)... little details that I still forget sometimes.

Well now, in calendar time at least, I have come full circle. Today, to mark my anniversary in France, we are taking a road trip. My mother in law has generously (without coercion of any manner --- that I know of) lent us her car for a week so we can roll along Provence on our way to see my cousin in Milan (who tried to bring me my winter clothes from Manila last year but failed miserably), a long-protracted and overdue plan in the making. I've only seen Provence in winter and I'd love to see lavender fields in bloom. Ooooh! I can't wait!

Adventure! Adventure! Adventure!

Keep the Fête

Saturday.

It was midnight and the road to the Lot was still long. I leaned back on the passenger seat and looked up at the pinpricks of white light in the inky firmament - the only thing that kept still as we dashed from one city limit to another.

As we hurtled past Azerables, H wondered what JM was doing. Probably taking his socks off and wondering where we were at the the same moment, or putting away the food his wife made, after rashly expecting we would be around for dinner. He had become so used to us stopping over on our way to the south; but it would be hours before we could rest, and dinner would later come in the form of convenience store sandwiches at a gasoline station (surprisingly) full of Filipinos, who turned out to be (not surprisingly) on their way to Lourdes.

With us was my brother in law, L, who owns the car but couldn't drive because he worked until ten in the evening. An hour's worth of doo-wop medleys kept me awake, challenging me to sing each and every song. At 3 am, H pointed to the deep blue sky outside that terminated in a dull glow of street lights watching over the rest of creation while it slept. It was so different from the orange-blue sky we'd been accustomed to in Paris, which is mainly condensed water vapor, pollution, sweat, lies, disappointment and regrets all rising up from an old and very tired city.

The next couple of hours were a blur. By luck, I was able to reach our bed and sleep for a few hours until lunchtime surreptitiously crept and we had to go say bonjour and salut to the rest of the family. After the repast, the brothers disappeared to get their father his birthday gift (I got the card to go with it, so my part was done) and I went to the clearing behind the woods next to the stream to read, and failing that, fell asleep on the grass.

It was the sound of my father in law's lawnmower that roused me back. I waved to him and went back into the house to wash the flowers from my hair and came downstairs to the clinking of champagne glasses. We sang happy birthday to him and had Swiss-style raclette from the wheel of cheese they got from Switzerland just the day before (which I realized was a far better technique than French raclette, and truer to the real sense of the word, which means "scraping"). Dinner was a blur, thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol I put away, with a wee gulp of digestif at the end to soothe my gluttonous belly.

I had yet to recover from dinner when the brothers and some kids from the village drove to the next town for its yearly fête. These little hamlets each have their own summer festival, perhaps a tradition passed down from medieval times, when troubadours hopped from town to town spreading melodious gossip and troupes of actors were the superstars of the day. In fact, I could imagine how the scene before me would have appeared in an earlier time, with simpler music and with people garbed in vintage guises. These modern trappings couldn't hide that they are essentially the same souls, concerned about life, love, money, family... we have not evolved much, you see. And the teenagers who did most of the showing off were no different from the teens who showed up at these festivals centuries ago, whose main goal for the night was to get someone in the sack.

A be-mulleted band played renditions of French and English tunes onstage while the rest of us drowned ourselves in beer, iced tea, sodas and Perrier. It was at 2 am, when the DJ got the party started, that we also drowned ourselves in soap suds care of the foam machine.

Meanwhile, in a river in Washington, the cremated remains of Kurt Cobain coagulated into a semblance of the human form just so it could turn over after sensing a rhythmic pounding in the ground reverberating from across the Atlantic where, in a small French village, his "Smells like teen spirit" was publicly being slaughtered by the nimble fingers of a local DJ named Felix.

It was almost morning when we got back home. The clear outline of the Milky way was close to disappearing. H's brothers croaked on the sofa at the pool house, and my legs were dead from my vain attempt to dance.

And then, just like that, it was Sunday.

Autumn in July

We went to Assurance Maladie this afternoon to take care of my securite sociale... after which, H declared me free to be sick again. Well, fortunately for us, I am hardly sick... Although I should I warn him that after we leave France he has no right to be a hypochondriac anymore. Anyway, I'm supposed to get my very own carte vitale in a few months, so that's one worry out of the way.

After that we picked up his new passport at the police station. I stayed on the bench outside to read "Le Petit Prince," and that was when I noticed some leaves had begun to turn brown. The cold spell must have convinced the trees that it's time to shed their leaves once again. After getting a bit of sun just in time for the last laps of the Tour de France, days of uninterrupted rain doused us back into the realization that autumn has come early. Too bad for Paris Plages.

When H came out he sheepishly showed me his passport which, try as I might, I couldn't help but snicker at. Backstory: The scanner at the passport office was broken on the day of his appointment so they didn't want to take H's 2x2 picture, they wanted to take a picture of him and use that instead. The problem was, he was supposed to go to the gym after so he didn't take a shower, he didn't even bother checking what his hair looked like; plus he hadn't shaved for days and he stayed up til 4 am finishing a new video game the night before. In other words, mukha siyang pusakal... Which is going to go great with the border agents in China.

I came home to the smell of pancit canton, and at first I wondered where it was coming from - it's been almost a week since I made noodles. As it turns out, it was the limp stalk of celery desolately dangling from a jar in the kitchen. How predictably pavlovian am I? And why am I always hungry?

To stop myself from cooking noodles, noodles that I might end up eating, I drew them instead. Enjoyment factor was not the same, though.

By the way, maybe I haven't told you about pancit canton... allow me to rectify that mistake.

Pancit canton is a traditional noodle dish we Filipinos equate with special occasions.

When I was younger and Sampaguita and LVN movies were an afternoon staple on channel 9, the poor lead characters would often celebrate a good day of selling flowers/pickpocketing by bringing home pancit to their starving siblings and sickly mothers or ungrateful drunkard dads. You eat it on your birthday for long life. You eat it with a glass of dalandan juice. You eat it sandwiched between slices of "tasty bread." Sometimes having pancit alone is an occasion in itself.

So here's how you make pancit canton:

• you need shredded morcels of pork, shrimp, chicken or sausage - one or in combination; "the more the many-er," like we love to say on the islands
• fry this with garlic and onion and the rest of the "sahog" listed, some people add cabbage leaves but I don't like the smell of cabbage
• set all this aside and then boil chicken broth with a few teaspoons of soy sauce, oyster sauce, and some salt and pepper; some people add cornstarch to make the sauce thicker... I'm not opposed to that if your sauce turns out watery
• set the sauce aside then boil blanched egg noodles for a few minutes until slightly soft
• take the water out and replace with the sauce
• then put back all of the "sahog"
• add sesame seed oil and/or sesame seeds and serve

Simply De Vine

Image from topsir.com

I don't want to jinx it, but I'm shouting it out so the universe can hear. I've been strongly hinting at H to go grape picking before we leave since we'll still be here until September. He nods his head sideways like he's willing to be convinced. There's not a lot of money in it but, I don't mind being paid in food and wine.

Postscript!

Today's the last day of the Tour de France, culminating in a 40km (or so) spell going back and forth from Rivoli to Champs Elysees. The helicopters following the cyclists were hovering near the apartment so we decided to run out and see the tour as it passes by our neighborhood. I was busy washing my unmentionables but I dropped everything and rushed outside. It's not every day you get to see this!

Suddenly, everyone's a journalist.

After weeks of awful weather (it SNOWED last week, and it's supposed to be summer!), the clouds were finally in the mood to cooperate and gave us some sun. A crowd had already formed around the barricade and some people were standing over construction blocks for a better view, but we came just in time. After ten minutes, it was over.

When we got back home the helicopter was beaming lovely aerial shots of Paris. Gawd, this town is beautiful.

Post-postscript!

We had dinner at the house of some friends with a nice view of the street. While parking the scooter, we noticed an old couple leaving stuff on the sidewalk. We decided to investigate and realized they were old video games. We swept up some of them - the Star Wars X-Wing/Tie Fighter game, Tomb Raider and a couple of others. Then our friend O went downstairs to rescue some of the other games.

Minutes later, a woman left some Friends and Ally McBeal VHS tapes, an English tutorial kit in cassette, and some comic books. I lay claim to an English copy of Heavy Metal from 1998. We also learned that these were her ex's old junk. An hour later she threw out (among other things) a big leather overnight bag. A teenage boy beat us to it, and whatever was inside the bag. Another hour passed and an old man took all the VHS tapes. We don't usually trash dive (in fact I feel like we missed out one time because I saw some nice antique chairs in the street; too bad we're moving out soon) but you never know what these things would be worth on E-bay one day.

Still, it would have been extra nice if we got to Hotel de Ville in time for the FNAC concert, because Selah Sue was playing :-\ Dommage!

Entitled

Two weeks short of the anniversary of my arrival in France last year, I finally have my "titre de sejour". Celebrate good times, c'mown!

It took such a long time because we went against the grain. Usually, Fil-French couples marry in the Philippines to get a French long stay visa (1 year) fuss-free. Because of some strange double standard, the Filipina fiancee cannot get a marriage visa (for a wedding in France) for more than 3 months while visa applicants from other countries get a full year even though they present the same required documents expressing their desire to marry. And apparently, not even all of the case workers at the prefecture know this because they were shocked the French embassy in Manila does not provide it. So as you can guess, not a lot of mixed marriages going on in here, they usually happen at the foreigner's home country because of the restrictions. What Manila prescribes for couples who want to marry in France is to get married, go back to the Philippines, then apply again for a long stay visa from the Philippines... because, I dunno, maybe they think airfare is cheap. Otherwise, get married in the Philippines, wait for the livret de famille (a brown book that takes months to arrive), then apply for a long stay visa, come to France then get married again here should you want to.

But we're the road less traveled kind of couple.

So after all the fuss, the papers we gathered, the scores of meetings we took, the French lessons, not to mention the little scare we got when the law was revised last winter and we had two months to secure some revised requirements (grrr), after the long lines in the cold (ok, we did that just twice, and once I was almost run over by a street-sweeping truck), excuses to buy stuff from Amazon and FNAC by delivery to prove my address (hee hee), after some nervous hand wringing, here we are.

Finally, I could get a real job, not the content farm thing I was doing, I mean a real one. I could bus tables like I dreamed of doing in this, "my bohemian year in Paris." Then I could take up smoking and be an alcoholic, sing torch songs in the street and get psychiatric help then write a novel about it. I could be a vendor in a souvenir shop and chat up the clientele. I could open a bank account. I could ride a plane again. Such possibilities!

I picked it up at the OFII, where my fellow immigrants and I sat in a room and watched a short movie about the values of the republic, then one by one we were called for an interview. While waiting, I got to talking with an Algerian man, completely in French, and then the Japanese boy and the African refugee chimed in ("yeah, vous avez raison madame, yeah"), and then suddenly I was called in for my interview. I charmed the case worker into believing I am a competent French speaker and she gave me the language certificate without question so I won't have to go to 200 hours of classes; H helped me to move the two requisite "Vie en France" meetings back from October to August and September so that we could finally, FINALLY, go on our big trip in September. Then it was time for my medical and I got out of it without needing to get my blood drawn! I saw the Algerian coming out of X-ray with his finger bandaged up from the blood test. Whew! I got a doctor who volunteered to talk in English and didn't mind that I didn't have a vaccination card and that all I had was the word of my mother that, yeah, I got all my shots. Whew encore! Then I found out from the scales that I am now 5 kilos less than I was 2 months ago. Blimey!

The first thing I did after was go to Saint Severin. Then, failing to find The Abbey Bookshop where I thought it was (I wondered if it poofed away like some buildings in the Harry Potter world), I went to Shakespeare and Co to look at books (because I'm working on one with some friends) and ended up getting this -

which was pretty nifty (part fairy tale and part encyclopedia and written a la Susanna Clarke).  I held myself back because all I had was my credit card, which charges enormous add-ons when I spend in euros. And then I went to BHV and got this -

which was something I decided to do after a friend persuaded me into picking up this old hobby again.

And it felt just like the old days, having the brush in my hand.

My father gave me money to buy my first set of watercolors a couple of decades ago; he wanted me to be the artist in the family, like he always wanted to be had he not fallen out of orbit and landed on mechanical engineering... No pressure on me, of course. He wanted me to follow my heart because he was such a cool guy. But I didn't have the talent that he had, so I tricked myself into thinking I had my mother's talent, which was writing. Wells, I gots neither. But I try. I'm the Jack of All Trades, Master of None kind of person.

Around this time in 2009, my father was in a coma. I made an Elvis mix on my mp3 player and left the earphones on him so he could bop to the King of Rock n' Roll in his stupor. He left us a few days after that; maybe he wanted to hear the real Elvis in the big casino in the sky, or maybe he was just plain tired. But it's in really happy times like this that I want to speak to him, to make him know that I'm following my heart, and I'm doing okay.

Bastille Day

I'd really done it this time. I've really pushed my husband to finally do the vile things he would never do had he never known me or loved me. (Not that he needed much prodding.)

Today I got him to wake up early (an ungodly 7 a.m.); weave through the unreasonable traffic barricades around the perimeter of the Champs Elysees; walk from La Madeleine through a long, tedious maze concocted by the Gendarme like sheep being herded to the sidewalk; go through a body search; stand behind a fence for two hours and a half; and carry me on his shoulders occasionally. Madness. Utter madness.

But he's in love with an eternal tourist, so he escorted me to the Bastille Day parade.

The yearly show of strength in the country's capital.

But sad news greeted us as we walked towards the Champs Elysees. Five of their boys had died the night before in Afghanistan, the speakers blared, asking for a minute of silence.

Suddenly the day regained its significance. It was a reminder that wars were still being fought.
 

In old ways.

And new.

The parade used to be a way to sow holy terror into the hearts of would-be enemies.

But I guess it goes both ways these days. I am no fan of war, I think it turns people into puppets of other people's vested interests, but I don't think our species would ever outgrow it. It is the law of nature, and we only live in her planet.

And so we stand along the fringes and watch the pomp and glory of the Republique pass us by.

And we watch the machines of war thunder along in the old way...

Or in new.

In a city where the past is ever present.

Impossibly cute (and adult mimic) petite Nina came before it got dark, while the sunset made the city around us glow as pink as her cheeks. Like me, this was her first Fête Nationale. She came by to sniff the cold night air and the gunpowder from the rooftop.

Where fire exploded in the colors of the rainbow and fell in minuscule slivers of dying light.

(You can watch part of the fireworks here.) 

When it was over, my champagne was missing.

Samedi Blanche

H and I were invited to a politician's garden party north of Orleans last weekend where everyone was instructed to wear white. Surrounded by members of the French upper crust, I traded in my colorful striped socks for lacy striped socks.

An hour before leaving for the party I realized I didn't have shoes for the occasion. I'd been leaning towards sandals the night before, but the day turned out to be a bit chilly and I had to wear stockings or die of exposure. So it was a good thing that I didn't throw away this pair of ballet flats that were muddy and falling apart on the inside (I don't remember how they got that way, though I bet there was rum in the equation). I scrubbed them frantically with a sponge, an old toothbrush and a prayer - and by nine pm a socialite with 5-inch heels pointed at my feet and said she envied me. I told her life can be so unfair to our sex.

The party was held in a private chateau in the middle of nowhere and I was surrounded by beautiful, wealthy people with patrician features. I was so out of my element!

Even the kids were fashion forward!

Wala lang, just turn your collar up tapos kaswal lang. I love the flapper look of some attendees. There were some outrageous costumes too, scroll down (way, way down) for Sasquatch.

Imma have a dress made like the one below.

We drove down with this Irish writer/designer. He was fascinated that Parisians could tell he wasn't French just by looking at him. I said, if they can distinguish that in a white male, what chances have I got?

We shared a table with fashion designers and fashion journalists... who were fascinated by the bold color choices of these two bozos.

But I did my best to fit in; and with an open bar, how can you not enjoy yourself?

There were the obviously pretentious bourgeois, starlets and hangers-on, but they weren't all half bad. In fact when I disappeared for the powder room, a guy who looked a little like Prince Harry and had a really nice aura about him struck up a conversation with H. Well, he turned out to be a minister's son and he thought we were so fascinating that he offered to introduce us to his friend in Thailand who has a polo club... I mean, I leave H for five minutes and he's suddenly moving up in the world. Halukadat. So maybe we could fit Thailand in our future itinerary, who knows?

Speaking of H, I'm so proud of him, he lost some weight recently and I haven't been able to catch up.

My pogi little champagne holder!!! I feel guilty because I ate everything they served.

But to my defence, I danced a lot after! And we danced until dusk... that was when we had a Bigfoot sighting.

When it got dark, everyone was called to the patio for a little movie from when the host was given the medal of honor.

But we were equipped to drink through it! Halukadat!

We huddled together and watched, until we were told to move to the lawn for fireworks. It took them a while to set up, so long in fact that H had started to lose interest, turned off the video cam and hugged me by the end of a samba "La Vie En Rose." Wouldn't you know it, that was when the fireworks started.

This was either "Boom, Boom, Pow" or a Shakira song. 

I think this was "If I Were A Boy."

On our way back home there were cars full of people in white on the road, and they were swaying left and right and breaking suddenly! So H sped past them and we had 20 minutes of peace on the highway until A DEER ran in front of us. H, God bless him, stepped on the break just in time so Bambi can be reunited with his mom. No more than 10 minutes later though, A FOX ran in front of the car! We were trying to predict what form the next pedestrian would take. Puro animal ang nasa kalsada! ANIMAL!