May, you bloom and grow

Painting the outside.

Wow. Where did the time go?

I just realized it's June and I only wrote one entry for May. Team H&M has been way too busy the last few weeks. We've been repairing the flat bit by bit, putting stuff in moving boxes, pool-cleaning, gardening, preparing for visa appointments, and for the most part meandering about now that we are both work-free until the unforeseeable future.

Finishing the tiles... after ten years.

We hitched a ride with my brother in law, L, to Gigouzac in mid-May and filled the car with H's old law books, ski clothes and cassette tapes so we could start clearing the flat and storing things in my in-laws' attic. But we took a little detour at the Gendarmerie following a high-speed chase at the A10, when a grey-haired man banged into our car and swerved for a getaway... except the toll gates were just a few meters away and as soon as he stopped to pay the fee, H and L jumped out of the car and accosted the mofo who refused to get out of his car. It was scary but so outré that it was also funny, in the bizarro way that I find things funny.

We went to the gendarme to report the life-threatening incident.
Sadly, there wasn't much they could do except log it in
and suggest that the insurance cover the damage.
An hour of our lives lost.

Unfortunately, the dynamic duo were unable to detain the culprit long enough for the highway patrol to arrive, guns blazing, calling for an end to the violence. The grey-haired man was able to drive away when L went back to the car for his license and H was left there shouting and slapping the old guy in the face (if he had glove-slapped the guy it would have made my year). I wish I had brought the video camera, just so I could splice it into some home movies of when these two were kids and then - boom! And grandma would proudly sigh: My, how they've grown.

That night we had a special treat. My father-in-law popped open a bottle of 1971 cognac previously guarded by H's granddaddy. It was sweet and showed signs of being better with age (just like me). It was just a taste of what was to come the next day, as we volunteered to pick up some boxes of rosé (the beverage of choice in the summer) from their favored chateau in Le Lot.

Lunch is served.

After lunch, H and I went on a ride with his father to Chateau Ponzac, which sits on a hill supposedly 30 minutes away from our little hamlet in the midi-Pyrenees. But we got a little lost in the small provincial roads and arrived an hour after we left the house.

We were greeted by the owner, Matthieu, whose grape-stained hands betrayed that he'd been working in the vignoble (vineyard) recently. He asked us to follow him to the cave (wine cellar), which literally was a finely-lit cave underground, with a mouth that opens onto a view of the valley and his vineyard below. He opened three bottles from his latest triptych of wines, all fathered by a single variety of grape, planted in three different kinds of soil to extract varying characteristics from the vine. He explained the science and the art of growing wine as a scientist and as an artist. You punish the grapes in the sun, starve it in the rocks, and force it to struggle to survive - and out of its suffering you harvest this liquid gold. But if you cut them down too early or too late you get cat's piss.

When Matthieu went back to his house for a cold bottle of rosé we would later finish in the sunshine, his trop mignonne (super cute) daughter came up to me and handed me wild flowers she had picked from the entrance of the cave.

The following day we chauffeured H's four year old niece to the Haut Pyrennees, back to her mom. Having a kid in the back seat meant he wasn't able to curse out other drivers, but we did almost hit a low-flying bird so that was exciting. It was a three hour drive and by 12 noon we were 30 minutes away from the house - but we were just so hungry, all the little girl had to do was mention McDonald's and we were out of the highway and driving through Lourdes, looking for the golden arches. I know it's not the thing you feed children, but we'd been Big Mac-free for 3 months!

Back in the car, she wasted no time to play with her Happy Meal toy, which by no stretch was a child's plaything. It was a little box with a card that played Jason Derulo's Whatcha Say when you stick it in the slot. After a few minutes little J had learned to mimic the English lyrics, and I must admit it was cute ("wawawawawa shi ri saaaah") - but that song sure was not.

After dropping her off, we went back to Lourdes to carry out a four year old errand my mother had sent me on.

I went to Europe the first time in 2007, and since then my mom has been pushing me to go to Lourdes for miracle water. I've been to France three times since and I finally made it to the pilgrimage site.

The basilica on top of the grotto.

The second tier.  Inside the basilica are a number of mini-chapels
where masses in different languages are held at the same time.

In high school I wrote a book report on The Song of Bernadette,
little knowing I would one day visit the same foothills in the Pyrenees. 

The sick are carried to the grotto in carriages.

A candle for a miracle.

Gave de Pau River.

It flows from the Pyrenees and through Lourdes. 

An evening parade.

No visit is complete without a trip to the gift shop.

That same day we rushed over to Toulouse for aperitifs with a friend of his and we hardly had time to walk around the "pink city." I did have a second chance a week later, when my mother in-law had a yearly Restos du Coeur regional meeting.

There are little map tiles like this around the city, if you are ever lost.
And I got some espadrilles too, by the way.

We woke up at 7.30 in the morning for the 2-hour drive, and H got an earful from his mom about his daredevil driving. (At last! Backup!) The main office was right smack in the center of the red light district so I got to see hookers, waiting to bait some last minute business. The one we talked to wasn't very helpful when we asked her why the door to the parking lot wasn't working. She just looked at us, all bored. After dropping off H's mom, I finally got to see Toulouse on foot.

The Capitole, where rugby fans celebrated the city's win just last saturday.

It was also where a man gave us unsolicited travel tips
in a language H hardly understood.

The locals used to speak Occitan, and we met an old-timer who talked to us in a language that was a mix of French and Catalan that we later realized was the forbidden tongue, outlawed in the 1880s because "la langue de la République est le français." Now, hardly anyone speaks it anymore, which is a darned pity. Spanish sounds so sexy.

Street signs in both French and Occitan. They've done the same in French Basque.

Toulouse is also known as the ville rose or pink city, owing to the signature "pink" color of the bricks used for the city's architecture. It looks magical at sunset (which was how I first saw it a week earlier), almost too pretty to be true. However, it looks more orange than pink to me.

Toulouse, giving new meaning to La Vie en Rose.

17th and 18th century frescoes in the Carmelite chapel.

The Saint Sernin, home of the most beautiful pipe organ in France.

The most beautiful pipe organ in France. There was a funeral and we sat through the homily about impermanence.

In lieu of street signs, people used to find out where they were by looking up and seeing these carved on the walls.

Not before long we were hungry and cranky so we looked for a restaurant that served local specialties (the Toulouse sausage mainly). After walking for what seemed like decades, H was finally seduced by the menu at Monsieur Georges, whose tables spilled out into the street and through the Place Saint-Georges that breezy afternoon.

The food seemed a bit pretentious but was good, except for the little grains of sand I found in my salad (quality control, people!). But it dawned on H that the traditional restaurant we were looking for was just a few steps away... right after we gave the waitress at M. Georges our orders.

DANG!

By 2pm we went back to pick up H's mom and it was back to Gigouzac for us.

During our stay at the in-laws' I had personal projects (studying français and finishing the wedding video) and a couple of assignments: making adobo and menudo, setting the table when I'm not cooking, picking out flowers for the garden, and helping clean the pool. We were there for two weeks and we managed to finish the pool job in 4 days. I got to play with the water compressor thingamabob and zapped the pool-side mildew to kingdom come.

One afternoon I had run out of things to do and I put it in my head that I could take a swim. It's been 20 years since I last tread water, paranoia has kept me away from beaches and pools for two decades so this was a big deal for me. H was trying to finish The Saboteur with his younger brother in the garage so I didn't have a lifeguard. Anyway, I didn't care. It was an exceptionally hot day (32 deg?) and I wanted to get wet. I think I stood in the water for an hour before I worked up the courage to wade around. The good news is, I could finally get from one end of the pool to another without walking - the bad news is, I can't float. If I were Virginia Woolf, I wouldn't need stones.

So that was pretty much my month of May. On our last day in Gigou, we took the quad and rode around the tiny town. There were painters in front of the church we got married in, but they wouldn't return my wave. The farmers were a little more friendly, though they were maybe 15 meters away. The weather was not the best for riding around, pregnant clouds hung about, but it made the forest look all the more enchanting. The last time I explored it was on foot in the fall, but the bright green colors of spring in the grey atmosphere lent a strange luminescence to the verdure. It's one more thing I'm going to miss about this country: how it changes so much while it manages to stay the same.

Blah blah Paris in the springtime

H's Turkish friend asked me last week if I love Paris, and I said I don't know. It's lovely but it's noisy and chaotic even at night. He said he loved the noises of night most of all, he probably couldn't sleep without it. What he couldn't stand is the Parisians.

A couple of weeks ago the mercury made a big surge from 7 degrees to 15 and then 20. In a matter of days Parisians went from winter coats to t-shirts, and the men raised their Nespressos to that time of the year when ladies' stockings come off. I'm trying to avoid clothing stores because cute spring outfits won't be practical while hitchhiking in India... or are they??? It's a question that's been keeping me up nights.

April showers bring May flowers and, coincidentally, tourists.

Time to be colorful and pretty.

A three piece jazz band outside Metro Abbesses, in front of the big love mural.

But I think we skipped spring this year and went straight to summer. At the end of March we went wake boarding with some friends a few kilometers south of Paris... well, the boys did. I wasn't allowed to go because I couldn't swim, so we girls stayed in the grass and caught some sun.

In the last few weeks I've tried to learn how to bike (I got to borrow one at the forest in Vincennes, and then again at the abandoned streets of Mandrezat), played frisbee, we jogged, like, twice, and I've been trying to get H to go with me to the pool above the apartment so he can play lifeguard now that I've decided to face my swimming demons.

I've also been trolling guided tours with fellow Pinay-in-Paris, Mimi. They've been very interesting, or like we say, heeentresting, and the interaction with people beats walking around with a guidebook. Now my head is cluttered with more useless trivia, because I refuse to be that smug know-it-all at the party... that person's such a douche. I prefer letting people talk and mentally fact-checking what's said, just like Robocop, except I scan for bullshit.

Having a cup of chocolate at Angelina with a Singaporean waitress from York we met at the tour.

There was one tour I joined where the guide talked about maids' rooms in the Haussman buildings, and then she segued to me that she knows there are a lot of Filipinos working as domestics in Paris, and I gave her a confused "uh-huuhhh..." Because I honestly didn't know what to say to that. "Great to know?" "Show me to my people so that I may free them?" "Heeeentresting?"

Wedding pictorial all over Paris, this one at tres chic Place Vendome.

Last week we went to the south to help J-M finish his house. I did some plaster drilling (power tool time!) but I got sick after because we had wine, rhum, some cognac, beer and barbecued canard and sausages outside until 2am and it got really cold even with the bonfire. I think overindulging my inner glutton worsened the situation. I drank everything they put in my glass until I couldn't sass them anymore because I couldn't remember any French.

The weather was lovely during the day, I stayed out in the field behind the house to read Kerouac's "On The Road", and tried to stay clear of 4 year-old Gaël's radar because spring fever makes him force everyone to play football with him.

My other French teacher, Gaël.

We took the little man to the brocante (flea market) on May 1st, the one day when anybody in France can 1) go out and sell anything in the street, and 2) sell lilies of the valley free of tax.

I like to muguet, muguet.

It's traditional for women who receive a tiny sprig or bouquet of lily of the valley (muguet in French) on May Day to give a kiss in return. I got two, but I didn't know about the kiss until late so all I gave back was a thank you. Gaël got two toy cars from the market thanks to H, and wasted no time playing with them. We thought we lost him a few times, but it turned out that all we had to do was look down to see him playing in the gravel. I was battling a slight fever while he tried his luck at the carnival games.

After 5 days in the quiet south, our last night was marked by a spectacular light show courtesy of Mother Nature. The majestic storm exposed the wide black fields behind the house that had become so familiar to me; it barreled closer towards us with every flash, while the low drumming thunder bellowed louder as the tempest drew near. On the road back to Paris the next day, it looked like winter all over again. It was only after we turned on the news back home that we found out the storm we were watching rained hail on a village and destroyed a school. That's spring for ya.

Mid-Spring, flowers make room for the leaves. H stood under the rain of petals 
and said in a little girl voice: "Romantic, nooooh?"

I'd been getting some text messages from friends of the previous owner of my French number (Bouyges Telecom recycles phone numbers, apparently) to go to Cannes for champagne and dancing at a certain Julien's yacht during the film fest. I've considered calling back and asking if the invitation could extend to me since I was the one who got the invite. I'm inclined to think it's a divine message reminding me I was supposed to write something worthwhile during this sabbatical... or to gatecrash a yacht party, and/or.

The Abbey Bookshop at the Latin Quarter, delightful English book store,
where children's books sit next to the sex shelf.

Having coffee with Mimi in front of the Medicis' Jardin du Luxembourg.

Brewskies at the Quai de Seine after dinner with H's college buddy who's working on a graphic novel.
I didn't have any because it was Black Saturday, and the bells of the Notre Dame 
rang almost all night to remind me not to indulge.

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from a neighbor who wanted company while sunbathing, so I went up to the little garden on the rooftop with a priceless 360 degree view of Paris. I had a book with me but I never got to read it because we started talking about how our lives had turned out. We are both dealing with the fairly recent loss of our fathers, in very different ways, but it would be inaccurate to say that it's the biggest issue I'm struggling with right now. I do confess that it was one factor that derailed me from the pipe dream that was my former career. But, my big dilemma is how to get back to who I wanted to be, after losing precious years just coasting along. Once upon a time I wanted to be relevant, and I would like to think I was, until I became a drone. A word machine.

I told her I came to Paris hoping I could use the free time to pen that long-awaited, mind-blowingly original screenplay I was supposed to write straight out of college. Thirteen years later, all those notes scribbled on the backs of receipts and ketchup stained McDonald's napkins are still waiting for me to turn them into my ticket to worldwide recognition... or maybe not.

The thing is, I have all these crazy ideas that could lead to something, but nine times out of ten could be a dud. I am shivering-in-my-boots afraid of not living up to my own expectations of great, or even just good enough. I'd been told in college that I had potential, but it might as well be potential for crap too; or a potential to be like the middling Jose Chung from the Men in Black episode of the X-Files, who was so ridiculously unaware, it was sad. Afraid of coming up with the germ of an idea like, let's say the TV series Heroes, and coming up with the TV series that became Heroes. I am so afraid of my potential for mediocrity that I still can't work up the guts to stare at the blinking cursor on my computer and write a simple storyline.

The Sacre Coeur at sunset, as seen from our building.

So last week I used a free pass to the Cinémathèque Française (which usually costs 5 euros) and worked up the guts to see my old cinema gods Robert Wiene, Henri-Georges Clouzot, F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, and other early expressionists. There was a Stanley Kubrick retrospective and the creepy twins from The Shining appeared from behind the elevator doors to seal me in, while Malcolm McDowell smirked at me from the ticket I was carrying.

One of the interactive displays was Emile Reynaud's Théâtre Optique, or light theater. It's very rare because the dejected inventor of animation threw most of his equipment into the Seine in reaction to the birth of film. That's just how we artists are, I suppose.  The Cinémathèque is not a big museum, during the German occupation many of their acquisitions were nearly wiped out, but I wish I could show you the wonderful things I saw that made me want to write again. If only I could get my voice back from the peso-per-word hack that I have become over the decade.

Now a hotel, this was where the Lumiere brothers first unveiled their revolutionary cinematographe, the contraption that started a riot at first screening, led Emile Reynaud to ruin, and part of which was featured in a friend's film thesis presentation. It's odd that I used to just read about these things, stockpile knowledge finally pays off.