It's Wine O'clock Somewhere, or Commence Chapter 30

I think it's about time to tell the tale of how I rang out the twenties and brought in the thirties with a costume party, some live jazz, and a new song to be added to my Christmas Eve playlist of favorites.

First up: Masquerade, themed "famous pairs." Here's Pull The Prick Out and me, getting ready. I'm surprised this came out at all clear--we'd had a shit week and lots of wine by 7.00 Friday night. (Photo taken at 7.01 Friday night.)

We packed a (really large) backpack full of alcohol and trekked over to Squash's apartment, where every single stick of furniture had been removed to make way for what seemed like 800 people in about 400 square feet of space.

Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues: We Hate Illinois Nazis

My personal favorite (or second favorite, right after the Blues Brothers, of course): One person as both Sonny AND Cher!

SonnyAndCher

PTPO made amazing (also read: really f*ing strong) concoctions of tequila, lime and something else and quite possibly a fourth ingredient but buggered if I can remember anything about anything.

And that's all I really have to say about that, I think.

Anyhoo, six days later was the big Three-Oh, which started out nicely by me sleeping off staying awake until 5am the night before reading Diamond Age and listening to French news podcasts (omg who AM I!)

Then it was off to the Paris mosque for hammam, where I sat in the second-hottest room (I got one foot in the third room and thought it was going to melt off my jambe right on the spot) and sweated and warmed my way up from the inside for hour upon glorious hour. This was followed by a spot of thé à la menthe in the dimly lit welcome room surrounded by murmured conversations of the other ladies-in-repose and the white noise of water running through the fountain in the middle of the pillared, vaulted space.
Ahhhhh.

To fill in the hour or so before dinner, Pain Quotidien came to the rescue with a bowl of creamy coffee and a brioche aux raisins.
Ahhhhh.

Dinner was a DELICIOUS salad niçoise, bottle of wine (it's wine o'clock all day on birthdays, I'm just sayin'), and a chocolate yumminess for dessert at a cute little restaurant near Ile St Louis. Squash, PTPO and I segued to the next event by strolling up Blvd St Michel to a jazz club, where we cheered on a group of cute old Frenchmen playing New Orleans style tunes.

Le Petit Journal Saint Michel

And then, of course, no self-respecting birthday celebration is complete without crepes aux nutella!

Best. Crepes. EVAH.

And the next day, wrapped in one of my favorite expletives and a short story about a toothbrush by way of apology on being a day late, the one and only DT, known in some nefarious circles as the Ramblin' Mand'lin, emailed me a song he'd composed for my big day. (N.B.: I would never stoop so low as to beg ask him to do this for me. Nor would I follow up to give him a week's notice-reminder out of paranoia he'd forgotten.)

It is, ironically and yet undeniably aptly, titled "It Is What It Is." I push play, hear the first bare notes of mandolin and see ... 

... winter, the darkening skies, the chill wind with a spattering of cold rain, the hunched-shoulder half-run to your front door as you struggle with your errands-bags and finally manage to shut the door behind you and lean against it with trembling knees in relief of the warmth you can now feel seeping by degrees into deeper and deeper layers of your every cell. You might have just had a shit day, but right now it all falls away and you take a deep breath and unzip your coat and your sleepy lazy cats curled up with the sleepy lazy mastiff-named-Murdoch raise their heads (b/c they can't be bothered to move from their comfy spot on the doggy tummy and as much as the doggy loves you she's so excited that the cats are hanging out with her she doesn't want to move either) and see you beeline for the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. (Was that a half-smile you let slip when you decided on vanilla roobois with a spot of agave nectar?) 

Putting away groceries and other things you had to go out in the cold for before the blessed relief of warm chez toi, the snow that held off as rain all day finally starts to fall intermittently in small, goopy-wet flakes, nothing too serious. You are a bit melancholy, but not quite sure why, and yet it's not the melancholy that turns downward into depression, just the melancholy that, when it dissipates (which it's sure to do when Murdoch and the kitties finally rub against your legs after admitting they love you too much to leave you alone in the kitchen and you remember there's a Castle marathon on TV tonight), leaves you feeling even more acutely the happiness that was lurking just under the 'choly. You have miles to go before you sleep, but these next few miles will be friggin fantastic and lazy--miles of cozying up in your favorite big sweater cooking ratatouille and Trader Joe's cornbread.

There's even a perfect kK tangent at the end of the song. You think it's over, and then just as you're mentally prepared for the next song on the list to start, there's a little afterthought that pops up and catches you off guard in a "yar, nope, not finished yet, there's plenty more good stuff where that came from ... whatcha think, will I leave you hanging this time, too?" way, and then it's done, nothing left it wants to say. And leaves you to retreat inward to process your own thoughts for a while. Or screw the inner monologue and LET'S GO DANCING.

There's no denying it's a perfect addition to my Christmas Eve playlist. The imagery might change with another hearing; there are no words, so it's perfect for personal, depending-on-my-mood interpretation, which as you know is the ONLY WAY I ROLL.

Now I am going to pour a generous splash of cognac (happiness-in-a-can-baby!) into a glass that was once used to house the deliciousness we call nutella (happiness-in-a-can-baby!) but has been emptied (probably in one go, by me), rinsed out and recycled as part of a glasses set that, without the nutella labels, really does look like a stack of regular ol' water glasses. 

Before

After

Once that incredibly arduous task is done, I am going to sit back, relax, and watch the rest of Supernatural season one. Dubbed. In Chinese. OK, just kidding, in French.

Anyway, now that I'm 30 my life experiences and level of bizarreness have maybe quite possibly developed into something resembling inner wisdom. I don't really know what that means, but as les Blues would say:

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Hit it.

kK

MISSING: HAVE YOU SEEN ... dog poop?

As the TGV sped Frenchily down the track heading on a southeasterly course, I sat in the backwards-facing seat and felt a strange sense of going backandforward in time. Squash and I were headed to Aix-en-Provence and I was a bit nervous to return to the scene of the crime--the crime, of course, being my semester abroad during my junior year of college. NINE YEARS AGO.

The TGV pulled into the station, and it was 3-2-1 Go Time. There was no fanfare, no bolt of lightening that struck the memory banks. Nothing looked familiar, and I was uneasily starting to wonder if we'd even gotten off at the right stop.

Bus into town, follow the crowd to what I was vaguely recalling to be the short walk to the city center.

Is that the old fruit stand I used to pass on my way to the bus?

Slowly, like one of those old lights that needs to warm up before it becomes fully bright, a memory of me walking with a suitcase in tow down this very street starts to solidify in my mind, and I feel the first twinges of memories long-buried begin to stir and rise from the depths of my murky, experience-laden conscious.

Time seemed to slow down, and then very nearly stopped completely when we got to la Rotonde fountain at Cours Mirabeau. I took in the winter-bare sycamore trees lining la rue, the pale yellow and faded white of the ancient buildings lit up by the bright sun against the pure blue of the sky. I gasped out loud, not quite believing what I was seeing--was it really the same city? Had I never really seen this?

After half-heartedly trying to find the hotel (*FAIL*) we were just too hungry to continue wandering and jumped into the first café we stumbled on. After an over-priced and forgettable salad, we found a city map outside of the tourist office and I led us down the Cours and over the ankle-wobbling cobblestones towards our home-for-the-next-two-days. A few paces down the street and I heard the sound of a jackhammer.

WHAM! I flashback so suddenly my eyes and mouth snap open at the same moment and I start laughing. There was construction all along the Cours when I was here as a student. I remember weaving in and out of the metal fences for 5 months, dodging cars and flying concrete dust as the construction guys did whatever it was they were hired to do to fix the road. I look ahead to see if there is still, nine years later, metal fencing and men-at-work. And you know what? YES, THERE IS. HAHA! Not nearly as much, only a spot here and there, but holy crap, really? Talk about dragging out a job. Nine years and they're still not done! (OK, so maybe they're on to a different job by now, but I think it's way funnier to consider the fact that they might actually have been doing the same job for nine years. COME ON. That's hilarious.)

We turn right and head up rue d'Italie, and I'm merrily standing around as Squash snaps away to capture the quaint street and fabulous light. It looks familiar in that "I know I've been here before but enh, it's probably just another one of those cute streets" way, until I pass a little grocery store that triggers another dredging.

I start to get a little uneasy as we pass a bar called O'Neals...man, didn't I use to drink there after class some nights? My feet slow and stop of their own accord as we see a church spire off to the right.

Rue Cardinale. No. Friggin. Way.

 15 Rue Cardinale, the address of the one-room (not counting the office or the bathroom) Vanderbilt In France school-away-from-school.

After I started breathing again (I mean crap, I haven't been here in almost a decade...I'm feeling super old, and the memories are just weird since it's a part of my life I haven't really thought too much about, at least not in depth, for so long it's more like a dream than something that actually happened) we continue on Operation CSI: Aix-en-Provence.

My god, I had completely forgotten the sunlit beauty of the old Roman town.

And the fountains! Every other turn in the anything-but-straight roads reveals another fountain. 

I didn't think the markets could be any prettier than what I see every day in Paris, but I was WRONG.

The colors were resplendent-er and the smells smellier than I can even imagine describing in words.

**kK Tangent 624,842**
I would like to kill my camera: I had the perfect shot of me standing and looking "dumbly" up at the spot where the pigeon squirted out an egg onto my arm nine years ago near the market at the Hotel de Ville. Yes, picture my jaunty younger self leading Willis on a tour of my beautiful city, when tout d'un coup, a pigeon leaned its back end over the edge of a building and instead of laying its egg in its nest decided it would be more productive to send it crashing wetly onto the unsuspecting arm of the nearest passerby below.

And no, you don't see that everyday.

Since we didn't have a Grissom along during that tour, there was no photographic evidence documenting proof of this crazy fatass pigeon's terrorist attempt. So I took pains to find the old crime scene, posed myself in a wonderfully doesn't-look-staged-at-all open-mouthed gaze of "confusion" up at the offending group of pigeons clustered on the ledge above me. And my wonderful, cooperative camera decided to reject that photo like last year's celebrity charity and is now telling me that "no image data" exists for this frame. This is what I got, so just imagine me in the grey area on the left in a horizontal striped shirt, head titled back and gazing up, mouth open:

MUTHAF-----.

**possible end to kK Tangent 624,842**

As part of Operation CSI: AeP (something I actually never did when I lived here, lol!), we followed the signs UP an interminable hill to Cezanne's studio. It was as if time stood still here, and yet at the same time strangely showed its old age. I absorbed the little details: an old jacket that looked as if Cezanne had plunked it over the chair just yesterday-yet-also-100-years-ago. A set of fake fruit, set up for a still life that could be painted tomorrow, except I've seen that very pose in Cezanne exhibits at the Met. A fissured skull grinned secretively beside a short bookshelf full of really old books about painting. Cezanne was there...I don't know how, or why, or what the hell was going on...it was supposed to be just a sterile, museum-y room, but as soon as I stepped my big clod-hoppers into the breezy loft I had to collect my wits after being scattered by the bemused spirit of Art as she gently smacked me upside the head for being arrogantly unprepared for facing the lingering humanity of the departed artist.

From this very room he gave us a glimpse of what he saw from of his wall-of-windows:

Cezanne's Mont Sainte Victoire

I remember our class took a trip together to hike this mountain...like it was yesterday, I felt the cool air in my bones and saw the intermittent blue dots of flowers beginning to push through the stubbornly lingering vestiges of winter in the rocky earth. 

Quite possibly the funniest thing about past-life-Aix (apart from my grandmother calling me at 4am the night of my 21st birthday as I semi-smugly convinced myself that I was convincing her I was sober) was all the dog poop. Piles, and yet more piles, every few steps. Actually, the piles themselves weren't as funny as the shoe heel marks making little glidey streaks sometimes as much as 3 or 4 inches through the brown mess. In each slide mark you could practically hear the poor fellow's leftover scream GODDAMMIT ZUT ALORS I AM SLIDING IN LA MERDE DE CHIEN.

But no more! The city is as clean as whistle, or very nearly. I was suitably impressed. Almost as impressed as I was with the FOOOOOOOOOD. PIZZA! TAPAS! And I drank cervoise every night! I think that might be my most favoritest drink, ever. I love my 86-year-old-man club, but in between tumblers of whiskey bring on the beer/white wine/citron mixture! Happiness-in-a-can-baby!!

I never did find old haunts like Le Mistral (the one real dancing club in town, although that never stopped us crazy college kids from dancing in all the other bars we frequented, despite there being no official dance floor to speak of), Queenshead (the one and ONLY bar I have ever been kicked out of), or the Hole In The Wall bakery, that, besides Pizza Capri, was the only thing open at 3am when we decided that the beer calories didn't count and we needed a little snack (which unfortunately I only ever randomly stumbled upon in a state of inebriation and had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where to even begin looking for it).

However, I DID remember the exact café where I was a "regular" and became friends with the owners, three Moroccan cousins called Omar, Mimi and Mohammad, who insisted on calling me Kate (which sounded terrifically funny with a French accent), gave me a CD of their favorite Charles Aznavour songs, and even let me pretend to be a bartender so we could take funny pictures and mess with the other customers.

Café l'Archêveché

One excellent salad niçoise and café crème later, it was apparent that the Three Musketeers had moved on to (hopefully) bigger and better things, but the new waiter somehow managed to seat me at the exact table I claimed as my own the first time around (how long ago? all together now: nine ... ).

le sigh. Life sure is interesting sometimes.

While I drew the line at stalking my old living quarters attached to the house of my host family, it came as quite the thunderclap when I realized that our hotel was on the exact road I had taken to get home every day from school, and that if I had felt so inclined I could easily find my way back to that long gravel lane where a mean dog incongruously named Joy would bark menacingly at me from behind her "beware of chien" sign.

In the three-ish days I spent in Aix, I ate anchovies every day. Yes, you heard correctly: I ATE ANCHOVIES EVERY SINGLE DAY. Born-again Mikey strikes again: After countless years of hating those nasty, salty, fishy-tasting, wrong-looking THINGS, I decided to try them once again, just to be sure I still didn't like them. Holy crap, those things are DELICIOUS. And while I don't see myself turning into a Squash clone and ordering an entire pizza full of them, I can ingest two whole fishies with complete abandon before I have to put the brakes on and let the internal systems (including the psyche) digest what I've just put down the hatch.

My old favorite underground Crêpes-A-GoGo was closed on Sunday, but we ducked into a cute café looking out over the Rotonde fountaine, where we had the first glass of my new-found obsession: thé à la menthe, a delicious concoction of mint tea delicately flavored with mild green tea leaves and sugar. I know, nothing new or earthshattering to many people, but yar! It was served out of such a gorgeous silver tea pot, with a cute little man-shaped cloth around the handle so you wouldn't burn your hand picking it up to pour seconds (and thirds...heh heh) into these beautiful double shot glass-sized glasses decorated with exotic swirly designs of green and gold. Drinking tea is always very calming in general, but THIS went to a whole new level...like it was meant to be a simple, no-less-meaningful-if-you-did-it-everyday ceremony to gently draw your attention to enjoying every sip and heightening your awareness of the beauty of the music playing in the background and the fabulousness of the people you're drinking with.

All in all, it was hilarious to be back, wandering the streets with complete disregard to any attempts to build an internal map, or even, for that matter, to look at a printed one, since there is NO WAY to "properly" navigate the twists and turns with which the ancient Romans seemed to delight in wreaking havoc on even the least directionally challenged. (North, wha...?)

A la prochaine, Aix, à la prochaine...
kK

Bien joué: French Brussels Sprouts

OK, so sometimes you just have to write really bad poetry to express the fabulousness of certain things you can't otherwise describe in a normal way. Ahem:
Ode to Brussels Sprouts

O fair and wonderous greens
Put now my colon at ease
You're on your way
With little thyme snips
And petit bits
Of precious sweet potatoes cooked très parfait

Wilco on jiwa croons of stars
And below, on Grande Armee, the cars
Swish sleepily through the rain...
Cute baguette man has sold us his wares
That we dollop with sweet Camemberts
While digesting great green goodness again

Santé! cried les legumes
Brussels Sprouts, patates douces and mushrooms
As we roar-laugh and sip wine
Making way for café
And déjeuner the next day,
Anticipant more sprout meals with a smile.

And that's an "I'm just sayin'" Random kK Tangent, too embarrassing to even have an assigned number. Feel free to throw tomatoes, but make sure they're fresh enough for me to be able to cook them with the next batch of brussels sprouts.
I'm just sayin'.

When the lights...go out...in the toilet

Well, one of the perks of being a teacher, assistant or otherwise, is that you can use the REAL toilets near the teachers' lounge. (Really, I don't understand why they can't just put seats on all the toilets! Us girls ain't askin' for much, now, are we?!) There's really nothing else I really needed to say about this, but I just had a quick flashback [spoiler alert: eye muffs, to all you sensitives with "tmi" on the tips of your tongues] to one time when I had to spend a little *extra* time in this quaint room, and the automatic lights went out b/c I guess they thought no one was still in there and wanted to save electricity, so I had to sit there waving my arms frantically back and forth like I was trying to catch someone's attention before they got run over by a car crossing the street.

So I think I might have mentioned my new best friend, Monsieur Hot Pink Juicer (sorry Dumber...you've been replaced by a machine*). On my worst days he cheers me up by promising a magical mixture of whatever I choose to throw at him. Squash kindly provided the recipe for my all-time favorite: carrots, apples, ginger (AND LOTS OF IT), spinach, and lime. YUM!!!

Monsieur Hot Pink Juicer, surrounded by his lovely ladies Carrotte, Pomme, Citron Vert, Gingembre, et Epinard

There is seriously nothing better in the morning (or any time of day, really) than a cup of strong coffee, a piece of buttery toast (my palate raises its nose and disdainfully sniffs at anything less than President-quality), and a glassful of nasty-lookin' but fan-friggin-TASTIC tasting happiness-in-a-can-baby! I'm bringing it back to the States with me when I leave, even if I have to throw out all my clothes to make room for him in my suitcase (just kidding, sort of), and EVEN THOUGH I'll have to use an adapter EACH AND EVERY TIME I USE IT. That's right. I hearts my juicer.
(He'd take a bow, but he's busy getting some beauty rest.)

Speaking of rest...[kK tangent 2684] I think it's about time to head to the library. While I don't think they'll have acquired the new Jasper Fforde yet, I did see some tasty nuggets in the sci fi/fantasy section (down in the depths of the stacks...it's like a dungeon down there! but at least my little space friends have Biography/History for companions, lol!). If I'm lucky I'll get a spot on one of the two couches, where up to four strangers can get really cozy trying to share half of each bench cushion while pretending not to notice (or notice and pretend not to judge) each other's reading materials. I love taking naps in the library! I'll just be reading along and...zzzz...
[possible end to kK Tangent 2684]

I really can't be bothered to say anything else...my entire brain is taken up with anticipation of having another glass of Green Power.
kK
[*what! YOU'RE Dumber and I'M Dumb! Or have I been upgraded to Stupid Idiot?]

Grey hair and static cling, or, "merry christmukkah..."

Well, back in America for a few days to enjoy a white Christmas in good ole Indiana.

There are two Great Danes snoring on the couch, a kitty draped over the green leather chair in front of the fire, another white kitty nom-ing on a big chunk of dog food in the kitchen as she stares at me in pointed reference to the fact that her own food bowl is empty (as of five minutes ago, sheesh!), and somewhere around here a Siamese kitty is hiding, letting out an indignant mew every so often to guilt me into leaving my eating post in the kitchen and coming to snuggle under the warm down blanket on my bed. Christmas music has been playing nonstop for about 48 hours now, I've eaten my weight in chocolate and pumpkin pie, the whole house smells of fresh pine, and I'm sipping my way through a second glass of pinot. It's Christmas Eve, baby!

I took a rare look in the mirror the other day and found a nice little gift from mother nature: a handful of grey hair. Le Sigh. It would have been ok, probably, if I hadn't found them while combing through a mass of wildly static cling-y hair that stood out from my head like I'd just been electrically prodded in the course of an interrupted alien abduction. My morning coffee hadn't even been brewed yet, and my face looked like it was trying to swallow my eyes and go back to sleep. Merry Christmakkuh to me, woohoo!

Let's just pretend that this is merely a sign of me growing into my vast depths of wisdom I've carried with me all these years. It might mean I need to start an advice column or something, although the women who seem to be in charge of these types of columns usually espouse the virtue of rooting oneself in one's own natural beauty while hiding their own behind a bottle of Garnier Blonde 56. But hey, it might be fun to start of my weekly writing sessions with "Dear Reader..." or oooh my favorite, "Gentle Reader..." hahahahaha! Who talks like that, really. I'll gentle your reader right out the window and over the very tall cliff about a mile down the road.

Tomorrow starts early for my family, I really should be getting to bed. BUT I CAN'T. The Boss needs to finish Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, and these Christmas lights aren't going to enjoy themselves, y'know. My family doesn't really expect me to function properly until AFTER the baked eggs and coffee anyway.

We haven't had a random kK Tangent in a while...here comes No. 86:

Can I just say how much I LOVE CHIPOTLE.

Also, I don't really understand why everyone only wants to be nice on Christmas instead of trying hard to be a good person all year long.

Oh yeah, and MJ, why the HELL didn't you make a Christmas, or whatever holiday, album before chucking off this mortal coil! WHY. (And no, BBB, the Jackson 5 doesn't count.)

**possible end to kK Tangent 86**

Oooh, sing it Mariah! All I want for Christmas is YOU, TOO! WOOHOO.

Christmas Eve is my absolute favorite day of the year. I like the actual Christmas Day of course, but there is just something...'more' about the eve part of it all. When it's my time to become one with nature, I think every day is going to feel like Christmas Eve. The end bit, when the candles are lit, the Christmas lights are shining through the pine branches laying on the mantle, Bob Seger is singing "Little Drummer Boy," the kitties are purring, the fire is crackling and my wine glass is full...

Speaking of...is that the bottom of my glass I see?

kK

Tutor (also read, in best jim carey voice: leh-hooo-zeh-hehr!)

Since the teaching gig is only 12 hours a week, I gots to earn me some extra cash, and luckily I've gotten a few tutoring requests: The Spanish Family--daughter is about 9, son is about 6 (holy crap that little dude is just too friggin adorable!!!) and they're so well-behaved, both of them! They just smile a lot and very studiously show me their lessons they need help with, and they try really, really hard to follow my corrections in pronunciation. I'm like, you're too young to be so well-organized! Stop speaking three languages and making my lazy American, one-and-a-half-language self all embarrassed, like!

Then there's the 4 year old French girl, also super adorable, but it's pretty much just an hour of 'babysitting'...I point to letters of the alphabet and go over them slowly and clearly in English, she ignores me and draws incomprehensible objects on little pieces of paper with various crayons. Then she tries to get ME to say the alphabet in FRENCH. I just keep repeating things like "YELLOW" until she finally looks at me funny and goes "wewwo" and I'm like PERFECT--NOW DO IT AGAIN YOU LITTLE HO.

Saint-Denis is, thank god, quite a bit older...final year in university (or master's degree, or something...I still can't figure out how this school system works, even when people try to speak slowly and explain it like I'm leotarded), and he's just landed a two-month stint at some job where he needs to speak a lot of English, so he just wants to practice by having a conversation over un cafe (omg he orders DECAF esspresso...I just looked at him and was like, dude, are you even French?) en anglais. He gets so frustrated when he makes little mistakes (saying 'persons' instead of 'people') but really, he does just fine...he's a sweet, serious little perfectionist...his new boss is going to love him (especially seeing as how said boss doesn't even speak English!). So what if he can't understand a word Chandler says in an un-dubbed episode of "Friends"; I'm sure he can hold his own when it comes to discussing agricultural practices of the EU. It's actually fun to talk to him, and by now we're more friends than tutor/client, so I just told him to buy me a beer next time and we'll do both English AND French so I can practice too. Seriously, I gotta start speaking more French...listening to music and TV (omg sometimes I even leave the TV on all night just in case it helps train my brain to dream in French or something. I know, I'm crazy.) only does so much...

**kK Tangent 806**

...but wait! I just remembered something TOTALLY awesome! I was in the internet store finalizing my order on Friday, and there was a Brazilian girl being helped by the same lady who was on hold with the phone company for me...anyway, long story short, there was a language barrier and the internet lady looked over at me and was like, um, will you help me? So I got to translate for two complete strangers, telling the Brazilian lady what the internet lady needed from her to get her new blackberry working! It was pretty basic, granted, but still...I was like *puffpuffpuff* ego-getting-bigger. And then, of course, I went to a cafe and ordered une carafe d'eau, and the waiter was like, QUOI?? COMMENT?? oh, UNE CARAFE D'EAU? (yes, goddammit! that's what I just friggin said!) and then: "why yes, I will bring you water right away." in english. le sigh.

**possible end to kK Tangent 806**

Well, it's either time for a shower or another glass of wine...let's make a wild guess as to which one wins out tonight.

kK

Reason to laugh #624-it takes the French 3 hours to buy soup and toothpaste

**N.B.: I sent this out as a mass email a while back, and decided it would serve just as well as a blog entry. I'm sure you'll agree.**

So first off—I had a very cynical, bitter New York friend who lived in Paris for a year and hated it. He never tried learning French, didn’t like wine b/c it wasn’t as manly as beer, made friends of mostly the ex-pat persuasion…well you can probably see where this is going. Anyway, when I got to Paris he was excited to share with me his “reason # [whatever] to hate the French” list with me. I was having none of it and changed it to “reason # [whatever] to laugh [insert annoying French habit here].” Yes, it took me over an hour of standing in line to buy 6 grocery items (and that was in the fast lane…) with less than 10 people in front of me, but hey, it’s funny! Most of these reasons aren’t actually super amusant, but if you don’t laugh you just go insane, is what I always say.

**kK Tangent 2,000,206** 

I’m pretty sure Dr. Bob Kelso is doing his own French voice over. I could be wrong…it’s almost 2 am and I’ve just spent about 4 hours trying to converse en francais at a surprise dinner party at Squash's house. Yes, I have NO internet connection but I DO have several free channels of awesomely awful French tv. Every so often I get lucky and catch a dubbed version of True Lies or Rambo 800,001, but most of the time I get stuck with reruns of Bones or NCIS (heh heh stuck, dude, those shows are AWESOME) and now, as you can see, I’m stumbled upon a Scrubs marathon. Apparently the French can’t think up good crap shows on their own so they dub over ours and pass them off as their main selections. You should see what the fuck they actually DO produce and pass for on-air-ing…my favorite was the one about a girl in a dance troupe who was having an affair with her dance instructor and…*drumroll* someone was trying to KILL HER. I didn’t actually stick around to see if they did her in or not…I was distracted by the fanfrickintastic French MUSIC videos on the next channel over. OMG YOU MUST check out L’Assassaphonie from Mozart L’Opera Rock. It’s gotta be on YouTube somewhere. Maybe I’ll find the link myself and send it to you, if you’re really good little boys and girls. Anyway, back to my original tangent—Bob’s French voice sounds an awful lot like his English voice. I’m just sayin’.
**possible end of kK Tangent 2,000,206**

So I’ve moved into my teeny-ass apartment…when I say teeny, I mean I have to put the bed back in couch position in order to move around the room. And yes, there’s only one room, although I guess the bathroom could count as a separate room since it has a door (which I can’t close when I’m sitting on the toilet…I know, TMI, but I’m just sayin’…) but we’re just stickin’ with the one-room cabin image here. In the mornings I like to squeeze out onto my petit balcon and sip on my hot instant coffee and sneak in bites of my croissant buerre (if you don’t specify ‘buerre’ you get some crap waxy substance masquerading as croissant) as the fat ass pigeons swoop over to the roof of my building and schloop their heads over to stare at me in a very disturbing “Birds” rendition as they wait for me to share my breakfast. Fuck you, fat ass pigeons.

Anyway, so location: I can walk 10 minutes to the Eiffel Tower, 15 to Musee D’Orsay. I hear more English than I do French around here, but luckily I have the aforementioned tv with lots of French-speaking crazies chatting or dubbing or singing, whatever. And my friend Stephanie has two French roommates, and I get to try practicing with them. I’m paying in rent more than I actually make (bye bye, savings in pitiful dollars…) but I’ve posted for English lessons so hopefully I get a few 15 Euro-an-hour-paying clients soon. Plus we supposedly get reimbursed for part of our monthly metro pass, and I am hoping and praying the French government agrees I made such a pittance in 2007 (200-friggin-7?? Why do they need to know my salary in 2007!) that they’ll help me pay some of my rent. Who the fuck knows, but it doesn’t hurt to ask I guess. So much paper work it makes my eyes cross.

Did I mention it’s on the 5^th floor…sans elevator? Yup, my calves are going to be auditioning for calf-modeling by the end of this school year, you just wait and see.

OK, school: I’ve only had one week of observation and training so far, and haven’t actually taught my own class yet. That starts next week. I’m already shakin’ in my boots. Actually, I think some of it will be really awesome…a couple of classes are really well behaved AND like to try their hand at speaking English, so WHEW. Other classes are like der…no words at all, English or French. Hmmm, that should be interesting…I mean, they didn’t even laugh at my goofy dance! Whatevs. I’ll break ‘em. I don’t really know how all this is going to go…I’ve never seen myself doing the teaching thing (you all know how much I heart me some kiddies…) but since it’s what got me to france I’m gonna give it a chance.

Never mind, Kelso’s voice is done by a frenchie. Damn, I was really impressed for like two seconds.

Heart you all…I’ll write more soon. Tomorrow I’m going to a store to try and order internet installation…If I can get a good price and agree to their service terms, THEN they will start the paperwork for the technician to come FIFTEEN DAYS LATER. MuthaFU---

heart,

KK

OK I decided to do the work for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9XtyuUlV0c

ENJOY!!! I know I do... heh heh