will WE play in Peoria?

I don’t believe it. It is snowing at our house. I think only because Bill took the snow tires off my car Monday.

Granddad Harry always used to say it snows once after the Final Four. I didn’t know he meant in France.

I’m starting to get a little too confident about my French phone abilities.

This afternoon I called a restaurant and reserved a table for ten for a ladies’ night next week. That part wasn’t so very hard; I can reserve a table. But then I asked a question about the menu. I sure hope I understood what we’re in for.

Then I called a couple of hotels at a ski resort Bill wants to drive to tonight so we can ski all day tomorrow. (It’s a couple of hours away and he knows me well enough to know that it’s worth some cash to not hit the road hours later than you intended.) The first one I think the woman told me it would be 165 Euros a night per adult.. plus another 85 for a child. I asked her to repeat it and I’m pretty sure that’s what she said and entirely sure that it’s far too much money for a place to sleep. So I called another hotel and got a much more reasonable price quote, so I booked the room. Hopefully when we get there, we’ll have a place to stay!

Kaitlyn didn’t have school today. No she isn’t on vacation. She isn’t sick. Her teacher is sick. When the teacher is sick they don’t get a substitute (something about you have to hire a substitute for at least a week at a time). They hope that you’ll just keep your kid at home. If you can’t, then they shuffle the kids around to other classrooms where they just sit in the back and color or whatever to pass the time.

We found out yesterday when we arrived at school that her teacher was sick. I had a French lesson. And they’d gotten the teacher from the classroom where the English teacher would be to fill in for the morning. But she stayed home after lunch. And there was a sign on the door saying the teacher won’t be back till Monday.

I made a hair appointment for this morning knowing it was my last chance to get it done before we leave on vacation. My bangs have been tickling my nose they’re so long and the gray is starting to make me look like Granddad (Kaitlyn told me she thinks that even when Granddad was a little boy he had white hair.) So this morning I packed some paper and pencils in her bag and put her in the car and took her to the hair salon.

I have no idea what possessed her. She sat quietly drawing and talking to herself the entire time. She only stopped long enough to have her bangs trimmed. She did get upset when we were getting ready to leave because she wasn’t going to get her hair painted the way I did. I assured her that when she’s a grown-up, she’ll be able to have her hair painted all she wants.

I also have no idea what possessed me to stop going to this hairdresser. Ok, she’s downtown and you have to call and make an appointment. But she speaks English. Really well. I got the color I want. I got the cut I want. She even thinks my hair looks better all one length and not in a zillion layers. She may be the only hairdresser on earth to have that opinion.. all the more reason to be her client.

After my hair was done, both Kaitlyn and I were ready for lunch. I was hoping to walk to a tex-mex restaurant not too far away. But right next door to the salon is a Chinese restaurant. Kaitlyn loves Chinese food and was adamant we go in. She’d been so well behaved while I had my hair “painted” and cut, I couldn’t refuse. I wish I had. It really wasn’t that good. Kaitlyn ordered skewers of shrimp and white rice. I ordered scallops in spicy sauce and Cantonese rice. Mine was not good. Kaitlyn tried it and said “it tastes fishy.” Which is an accurate description. I tried one of her shrimp and it was ok. Suffice it to say I will be making an effort to go to that hair salon, and will be making an equal effort not to go to that Chinese restaurant.

Despite the pouring rain and cold wind, Kaitlyn did not want to go home after we ate. So we walked to a shoe store to get her some badly-needed new shoes. I couldn’t quite sell her on any new sneakers, but she did pick a lovely gold pair of mary janes and some new crocks with a mermaid pin. The store’s credit card machine was broken and the woman told me just run to the atm and come right back. She said Kaitlyn could stay and play while I did. Maybe I’m crazy, but I left Kaitlyn there going through a box of toys while I rushed out for cash. It went far faster without her tagging along.

At least after that she decided she was ready to go home. I had no more interest in wandering around soaking wet and freezing cold. Despite the bad weather, we had a great Mommy-Kaitlyn day.

I had intended to sit down this evening and write about my fantastic day skiing. Here it is, the 7th of April, and there was fresh snow at Chamrousse this morning. I drove up there and met a friend, and we skied all day. We skied all over the mountain… daring to make our way down red (“difficult”) runs and daring to test the fresh powder “off-piste.” We sat outside and ate a wonderful lunch of crepes. We got a little sunburned and didn’t especially care.

But all that was brushed aside on my way home… the moment I stupidly drove over a rock. A big rock. A big sharp rock. A big sharp rock that punctured a gash in the side of my tire… deflating it instantly.

So there I was on a two-lane, winding mountain road with a flat tire. Very flat tire. I pulled as close to the side as I could to get out and look at it. Then I called Bill to ask if he thought I could drive on it so that I could at least get to a safer spot. I wasn’t really too far past the bottom area of the ski resort, but there’s no place to turn around. So I drove at 10 kilometers/hour down the mountain to the next pull off that I knew of. Several cars passed me as I crept along with my blinkers going… including the gendarmarie (they’re sorta like the state troopers). No one stopped. No one even slowed down.

While I was making my way to a safe spot to stop, I called someone to pick up Kaitlyn from school. I was trying to decide if I was better off calling the Mercedes Benz roadside assistance phone number which I’ve never tried (never needed to before) or calling someone else who lives in our town to drive up and help change the tire. I’d gotten out of my car and was contemplating this dilemma when a couple out for an afternoon stroll asked if I needed help. Oh, yes. Do I have a spare tire? At least, I think that’s what they asked. I heard the word for tire and for emergency. A rather appropriate name for it, really. I said yes, it seemed like the answer that would at least get them to stay.

The man dug around in my trunk for gloves. I guess it’s one thing to help a stranded motorist, it’s quite another to dirty ones hands in the process. His girlfriend held his jacket. (Why was he wearing a sports jacket to stroll around the mountain? I have no idea. But he was.) He took the spare tire out of the trunk, I got out the jack. Then he asked for tools. Tools? Shit.. there are supposed to be tools in my car? We looked everywhere. He asked for the owners manual to try to see if it revealed the hiding place. I had no idea where to look in the book, so I flipped to a page about the spare tire. It was no help. I was not going to let them leave. I fished around the bottom of the compartment where I’d found the jack and the little orange reflective triangle to set out on the road (it’s a law here)… and finally found a blue sack rolled up with tools inside. Voila. It didn’t take him too long to change the tire. While he worked, his girlfriend tried to make small talk with me. We quickly established I cannot speak French, especially when I’m upset. Once everything seemed more under control I managed to carry on a simple enough conversation. She spoke a little English and said she wants to speak more. That helped some.

When he finished, we put everything back into the car and I thanked them profusely. How do you adequately thank a person who just bailed you out of a miserable situation? You really can’t. I don’t know their names. I don’t think I’d even recognize them if I saw them again. But I won’t forget them or their kindness.

03 april 2008

I’ve been going to my doctor here for about a year now. Which means that for about a year now she’s been bugging me to go get my cholesterol/blood sugar/who-knows-what-else checked. Unlike doctor’s offices in the U.S., tests here are done at labs. Off site. You take your sample or your prescription and deal with it on your own. You also pick up your own results.

Anyway, last time I was in her office, I had to admit that I hadn’t done it because I’m scared of the whole blood test experience. So she wrote on the prescription that I need to have my blood drawn while lying down. She gave me that along with a prescription for a mammogram.

Today I finally got up the nerve to go. The cholesterol test requires fasting from dinner until you have the test done… which I remembered to do. You don’t need an appointment, so at least I didn’t have to call and try to do that on the phone.

I drove to the lab this morning and went in. I waited in line then without saying a word (since I didn’t know what word to say), I handed over my prescriptions. The woman behind the desk handed me back the mammogram one. Dang it, I’m going to have to figure out where to go for that. So she took the other, started typing into her computer. She asked me my birthday. Obviously, I know my birthday. But to think how to say it as “one-thousand nine hundred sixty-seven” creates a pause in my free-flowing (ahem) French conversation. I got about half of it out and the woman finished for me. (I’m already in their computer, she was just confirming she had the right person.) Then she told me to sit and wait.

I’d barely started flipping through the random French magazine in the waiting area when a woman came out and called my name. I got up and followed her into the little room that had a plaque with a needle on the door. She said something to me I didn’t understand and my anxiety level started to skyrocket. I asked her to speak more slowly, so instead she said in English “you don’t like?” No. I don’t like. I sat in the chair (no lying down option) and told her that she’d be better off going for the back of my hand than my arm. She said she’d look and decide. So she used a much-more friendly tourniquet than at home, asked me to squeeze my hand and that’s when I looked away. I was busy trying to make small talk in French about what a chicken I am when she announced she was done. Done? It worked? Yes… she held up two full vials of my blood as proof. (not necessary) I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never had blood drawn so effortlessly. I didn’t even have a chance to feel faint.

I’m supposed to go back tonight and pick up the results. Not that I’ll understand them. Then I have to try not to loose them before I manage to get into the doctor’s office… which I cannot do until I figure out the mammogram. I wonder how you say “boob squeeze” in French.

Kaitlyn came home from school today with a little paper fish she’d made and decorated. She was so proud of it. In France on the first of April you don’t play jokes on your friends… you stick fish on their backs. It makes as much sense as everything else here. So Kaitlyn had made the fish at school for the first of April. She told me she stuck it on her teacher’s back. I asked what her teacher said and with a perfect French accent, Kaitlyn said “Oooh la la! Oooh la la!” My thoughts exactly.

Again this morning, Kaitlyn asked for French cartoons. (She couldn’t think of the word “cartoons”… she’s starting to have trouble thinking of words in any language… which I think is actually a positive sign… because it happens to me I like to think it’s a positive sign.)

Naturally, it was only seconds before the commercials started. Right away there was a promo for Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny! In French! Now, that’s one that I think even Bill would watch. (he’s up skiing right now) Then it said “ce soir a 20h20.” Tonight at 8:20! We have a no tv after dinner rule on school nights. And there’s no Tivo on the French tv. I really want to see it… well, I have all day to figure out if I can.

I went on a class outing with Kaitlyn… and survived.

This morning her class took their monthly trip to the town’s library. Last time they went, I volunteered to go because Kaitlyn had been begging me to. I instantly wondered what I’d gotten myself into. I’d hoped that the teacher had forgotten… that maybe this morning I’d just say my cold was too much to bear. Yesterday when I picked Kaitlyn up after school, the teacher reminded me and I couldn’t back out.

So this morning I helped zip up coats and hit the road to la bibliotheque. The kids are paired up and have to hold hands while they walk through town. I fell in behind the group, not sure what I was supposed to do. I also didn’t want to cause a fuss by holding anyone’s hand, because I knew that would start an argument. The teacher walked at the front of the line, leading the way, telling them when it was safe to cross the streets. The assistant walked in the back, spending the entire time either answering a question posed by the littlest girl who was with her or telling a lolly-gagging pair ahead of her to hurry up and keep walking.

The library is only open in the morning for school groups. It’s a good way to make sure the kids don’t bug someone in there honestly trying to get some peace and quiet. Because even using their quiet voices, 20 3, 4 and 5 year olds are loud.

As soon as we walked in, they ripped off their coats and put them on a couple of chairs. Then we walked over to an area set up for the librarian to read to a group. There’s a little set of risers so the kids can all see… and chairs for the grown-ups. I was really relieved someone else would be doing the reading. The librarian sat down, put on a pair of white gloves, and presented the class with the book she’d be reading today. (One book? What a rip-off.) It was about a little prince who moved into a little castle next door to his parents’ castle and was scared because there was a dragon… his daddy told him there’s no such thing as dragons… so the little prince put on a suit of armor and told the dragon to get lost… and the dragon left and walked next door to his parents’ place. That’s where the book ends. After she finished reading the one book, she was done. The teacher told the class they could pick some books to look at, and to be sure to remember where they went to put them back.

One of the American girls who is friends with Kaitlyn came up to me carrying a book and asked me to read it. I asked her if she was sure and she said yes, so I dove in. It wasn’t too hard. Then she kept going and getting more books for me to read. And they weren’t easy books. They may have been for a small child, but not small enough. I struggled. I asked her to please go find a book with shorter sentences, fewer words. She just sat there and said “read it.” She had sort of a Donald Trump tone about her. It really started to wear on my nerves. Then another of Kaitlyn’s friends started bringing me books. Hers were much easier. But the two girls fussed over which books I’d read. So I’d sort of gloss through the hard book then pick up the easier one. A couple of French kids sort of slowed down as they passed me, listening to me struggle. Whatever, none of them offered up any help. And Kaitlyn and her friends can’t read, so I couldn’t ask what any of the words were.

Finally, the teacher announced it was time to go. I made the girls put their books back and then I went and helped get coats on and zipped. A little boy who is new in the class asked me who’s mommy I am. He asked me the same question yesterday. I guess he hasn’t figured out who the loud American kid who refuses to speak French is. For the walk back, everyone was supposed to hold hands with the same person they walked to the library with. The two girls I’d been reading to had been paired up, but now the easy-book girl screamed and refused to hold the hand of hard-book girl. I don’t know why. The teacher just changed the pairings to stop the yelling.

When we got back to the school, Kaitlyn didn’t want me to go. I was afraid that would happen. She didn’t want to come home with me; she wanted me to stay and share the rest of her day. It’s really kinda sweet. I’d love to if I could but it would be far too distracting.

The teacher thanked me for going along. I told her I wasn’t sure if I’d really been any help and she assured me I was… but I think she was just being nice. That’s ok, I’ll take nice.

I have to say, I don’t know how those two teachers do what they do all day long. Wiping noses, scolding, settling arguments, running to the bathroom, constantly telling people to hurry up. Then I realized that pretty much describes my job in the newsroom.

This afternoon after school, after helping me make strawberry shortcakes (with the last of our Bisquick), Kaitlyn asked to watch tv. And, just like at lunch, she asked for French tv.

I’m not going to tell her no. Watching tv is supposed to be a very good way to pick up the language. But French tv is, well, bad. Just plain bad.

First, we watched 9 minutes of commercials. Then some sort of game show came on, so we dialed around. Another channel had some American movie or tv show from the 70’s where we saw some guy put what I could only assume was a poisonous lizard in a room with an older woman doing her ballet exercises… not a good choice. I dialed to a station that’s a constant stream of talk shows all afternoon. Today they were discussing “Carla: queen of France.” Amazingly, they weren’t flashing any naked pictures of her up on the screen. At least not while we were flipping by. We settled on the Arts channel; it had on a show about some guy traveling in Asia eating foods at markets and unsanitary looking restaurants.

I may have to break down and find an actual tv schedule for our four French channels and steer Kaitlyn toward something worth watching. There has to be something. It would be good for all of us… if we could just tolerate it.

A first for my French lesson this afternoon: it was over the phone. I signed up for it knowing that it’s hard as heck to understand another language over the phone. But as it approached, I actually got nervous about it. I even contemplated canceling because I have a cold, but that seemed just too lame.

When the time came, I dialed up the number and was put through to the teacher. It’s a teacher I have often, so that was a relief.

For the next half-hour, I stumbled through explaining what I miss about the US and what I like about Grenoble to him. It’s an exercise he’s probably had me do half a dozen times before, but it’s different in person. On the phone, you can’t act things out. It’s harder to ask for help when you get stuck. And it’s harder to understand the words you’re offered up because you can’t see them written out. So… I tried to explain March Madness to him. All he knows about basketball is that Tony Parker is French and married to one of the Desperate Housewives. I tried to explain the benefits of walking down the street with a cup of coffee. I had trouble coming up with what I like about living here. Mostly because it’s his turf, and I knew he could call me on it if I was just making stuff up. You can embellish a little if need be when carrying on about the United States.

Still, to my amazement, the half-hour sped by. And to my amazement, I’d understood far more of what he’d said than I’d expected. Of course, he spoke far more slowly than your average receptionist. And that is the person I need to be able to talk to on the phone. Well, it’s a start.