I remember a time, probably in high school, when I used to study a lot and not do much else, so my only hope of getting out of the house was often a trip to the supermarket with my mother. The benefits of this were twofold: a.) I could read a book (for fun!) on the way there, and b.) I had a say in what food we bought. It was all very fun. Post-Italy, it's a little different.
The parking lot of Shop Rite has not changed a bit. They still cannot spell (what was wrong with calling it Shop Right? it's kind of a stupid name either way, and was the one additional letter so costly?) and the parking lot is full of Americans in various states of obesity and unfortunate wardrobe choices. Welcome home, Self. I personally am a horrible dresser, so I really shouldn't criticize, but still. Some things were just not meant to be worn out of the house, even in America. I myself have sort of adjusted halfway to being back: I am wearing flip-flops, but with a dress that is not a nightgown and is therefore too much for Shop Rite.
We walk into the vestibule and gusts of frigid air billow out at us every time the door closes. My exposed limbs are sad, and I run back to my mother's car and return armed with a heavy sweater that you'd think would be appropriate for October.
There are a lot of types of apples in America. That's nice. Also the blueberries are significantly cheaper. The tomatoes are guaranteed not to be as good and that is sad. We buy some anyway. Perhaps I will attempt to make sauce again. Goodness only knows how that will go, but it can't be any worse than Chef Boyardee and whatever other crap is stored by the gallon in the sauce and condiments aisle.
Speaking of which, other things that are gross: "French" dressing. It is not French, and, in my opinion, not fit to be put on salad. Ditto "Italian" dressing. Ditto anything that comes out of a spray-paint-type can. And speaking of that, spray-on cheese (excuse me: cheez) and spray-on whipped cream. I roll faster through that aisle.
Ooh, the Italian food section! This contains parmesan that was made in Wisconsin, exorbitantly priced sausage, some apparently genuine (but expensive) grana padano, and some pancetta a cubetti. This is a nice surprise, and will be helpful for making either carbonara or amatriciana - it's hard to tell which, because it does not tell you whether the pancetta is dolce or smoked. I pass by the French section quickly, noting that it is in a similar state of affairs (and has been for years): Brie from Wisconsin and still no creme fraiche. I do not understand how there can be such a wide variety of products in the dairy/egg section (liquid eggs? what, because you can't beat them yourself? really?) and yet it has never occurred to anyone to import some creme fraiche. Or make it in Wisconsin.
Vats of artificial-looking vegetable oil, cereal boxes into which you could probably fit a small child if you needed to, similarly sized bags of chips (crisps!), and garishly colored "fruit snacks" follow. I emerge from the supermarket with rye bread, grapes (no seeds!!), some mediocre-looking tomatoes, and a jar of mild salsa. My mother raises her eyebrows as I deposit it into the trunk and help her with whatever she bought.
"Salsa?" she asks.
"Yeah. I like salsa. It's refreshing," I explain.
"But don't you need chips or something to put it on?"
"Oh," I say. "Yeah, I guess. I forgot about that." I am evidently still slightly disoriented. Maybe it's the fuso orario. Or something.
In any case, my toes are just thawing again in the warm humidity of NJ in August, and I have no intention of venturing back into the nuclear winter just for a bag of chips.
"We'll make tacos or something this weekend," my mother says in a consoling tone of voice. "We'll buy the boys a pizza or something," she adds as we drive past the local pizza place. (My brother and father do not like tacos.)
The smell of goopy cheese drifts in through the open windows and I glance at all of the people with their huge pizza boxes emerging from the pizza place and getting into their huge cars.
Sigh.
Thursday, August 27
Wednesday, August 26
Ciao, America : /
Things that I did not miss about suburbia:
1. Suburbia.
2. Suburbia. Yesterday I woke up and applied to some jobs. Then I did some laundry. Then I ate lunch (read searched the kitchen for something appealing, did not find it, and finally ended up chewing morosely on some stale bread). After that, I wondered what to do with myself. I considered my options: the library. Walking down to the river. Grocery shopping. The library... oh, wait. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
3. American food. This could be the start of an excellent new weight loss program.
4. The rabid air conditioning. Everyone ever who has come from Europe to the States has commented on this, so I won't but... seriously. What the hell? And here I thought there was an energy crisis...
5. The New Jersey accent. Ditto for Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island. Also Boston, but we don't have much of that around here. Sorry guys, but we just do not sound good. I vote we all have a nice soft Yorkshire accent surgically implanted instead. At least that would be entertaining...
6. Telemarketers. Perhaps this is just a product of not having had a fisso in Italy, but... or, actually, wait, no. We did have one. And it rang precisely once a day: when Roomie-on-the-left's mother called. E basta. Here it is 2pm and I have so far fielded six calls, only one of them actually useful.
Okay, probably that's enough with the beating up on the homeland. I'm sure it's doing its best. To console it...
Things that are nice to see again (dare I say that I actually missed something about America?):
1. The library and it's endless supply of easy-to-read books.
2. Similarly, Borders.
3. Hearing the wind in the trees outside my bedroom window. (The crickets, less so.)
4. A very limited number of food products which, thus far, include rye bread, seedless grapes, iced green tea, and cheddar cheese.
Anyway... ciao, America. I'm back.
1. Suburbia.
2. Suburbia. Yesterday I woke up and applied to some jobs. Then I did some laundry. Then I ate lunch (read searched the kitchen for something appealing, did not find it, and finally ended up chewing morosely on some stale bread). After that, I wondered what to do with myself. I considered my options: the library. Walking down to the river. Grocery shopping. The library... oh, wait. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
3. American food. This could be the start of an excellent new weight loss program.
4. The rabid air conditioning. Everyone ever who has come from Europe to the States has commented on this, so I won't but... seriously. What the hell? And here I thought there was an energy crisis...
5. The New Jersey accent. Ditto for Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island. Also Boston, but we don't have much of that around here. Sorry guys, but we just do not sound good. I vote we all have a nice soft Yorkshire accent surgically implanted instead. At least that would be entertaining...
6. Telemarketers. Perhaps this is just a product of not having had a fisso in Italy, but... or, actually, wait, no. We did have one. And it rang precisely once a day: when Roomie-on-the-left's mother called. E basta. Here it is 2pm and I have so far fielded six calls, only one of them actually useful.
Okay, probably that's enough with the beating up on the homeland. I'm sure it's doing its best. To console it...
Things that are nice to see again (dare I say that I actually missed something about America?):
1. The library and it's endless supply of easy-to-read books.
2. Similarly, Borders.
3. Hearing the wind in the trees outside my bedroom window. (The crickets, less so.)
4. A very limited number of food products which, thus far, include rye bread, seedless grapes, iced green tea, and cheddar cheese.
Anyway... ciao, America. I'm back.
Thursday, August 20
That time with the sheets
While we're on the topic of grammar and other types of information with very little practical use...
"Sheets?" says my boss upon overhearing my conversation with another teacher. We've been in Italy for a week or two and have now moved out of the temporary apartment (into Creepy Guy Apartment, in my case) and are discussing our lack of basic housewares. I have been sleeping on a (starchy) mattress protector and under a (thin) towel. The mattress cover is itchy and the towel is not a very good blanket.
"You can buy those at Zara Home," she continues. "At Petali. It's just up the road a bit, like five minutes by car."
Which conveniently overlooks the fact that neither of us possesses a car and she has already informed us that taking the school cars out for fun is verboten.
We trudge to Petali on the side of the road. The sun is kind of hot. Italian men seem to feel that it's okay to beep their horns at us as they go by. (We elect to feel amused rather than degraded.)
We enter Zara Home and laugh. Our boss is a hilarious woman. She sends us on a "five minute drive" on foot to a place where they sell things that we cannot really afford on the puny salary she pays us. We do not have a Zara Home type salary. It's more of a Wal-mart salary. Ikea on a good day. We trudge back.
"Maybe at Meridiana," recommends someone else, helpfully pointing out where that is on a map. Did you know they have a large-ish road named for JFK just outside of Reggio? And on it, there is the Meridiana shopping center, in which there is a large-ish supermarket which contains sheets in a number of basic colors.
The next day I trudge out to there on foot, as I don't yet understand the bus system. It is not a particularly pleasant walk, but whatever. Also it is kind of long. But whatever. There are sheets.
"Lenzuole!" I read proudly to myself, very pleased that I have managed to remember what this means. (Also the picture on the front is a good clue.) Having been in Italy for a week, I have decided to strike out on my own, minus my little dictionary, so any vocabulary I use will have to come from my own head. The dictionary was Italian-French, anyway, which lead to mild confusion at times. Still, though, it was reassuring.
I assiduously read several different packages of sheets. Some say "1 piazza" and some say "2 piazze". I am stumped. I translate the labels into French (leftover habit from the dictionary, I guess) but "piazza" is tricky. Because it could either mean "place" or it could mean "piece", just because they kind of sound the same. In scenario A, this would mean that "2 piazze" means a bigger bed, for two people. If it means "piece", then "1 piazza" contains one sheet and you have to buy them separately, whereas "2 piazze" means you have both in that package. I ponder this for a while.
Probably the logical thing to do would be to go ask someone, using my dictionary-less, somewhat rusty Italian. My Italian at that point is still more suited to writing commentary on intertextuality in Dante than to actually conversing with real people in this century, though, and so I stare at the sheets some more.
Being fresh from a semester's worth of advanced hisorical romance linguistics, it occurs to me to trace the Italian words back up to their Latin roots and then down again to modern French. It would be just like an exercise from class! Or so I tell myself. In reality, I almost always screwed those exercises up because they work much better if you actually know Latin. But whatever, I think to myself.
And that is how I found myself scribbling notes about palatalization on the back of a receipt in the middle of an Iper-Sigma.
"Hai bisogno?" says a guy in an Iper-Sigma uniform at one point.
I look up from my receipt, trying very hard to remember why "piece" has a palatalized /pj/ like Italian tends to do and "place" has a regular French /pl/.
"No, no, grazie... " I mumble vaguely at him, probably kind of staring into space. (Another moment of spectacular grace and poise for me.)
Shortly thereafter, I conclude that applying medieval language development patterns to the purchase of modern day bedlinens does not work particularly well. Especially when you can't remember the patterns to begin with. I go for math instead: there are measurements in centimeters on the back. This turns out not to be a good move because I suck at math.
I start by converting to inches, which requires me to divide by 2.54, which is already far beyond my mathematical capabilities. Eventually, I remember that I do have a decent idea what a meter is, and that I therefore don't really need convert to inches. I try to picture in my head the length of the sheet and then the length of a bed, until it occurs to me that the length is not really up for debate. So I find the width measurement (which takes a while because I am retarded) and picture that instead. I picture the width of a double bed... and the width of a single bed... and already it is too many pictures. I am not a visual person. I give up.
Logic, I decide, is the answer. There is no other information on these sheets, ergo "piazza" must refer to the size, because they have to mention the size somewhere. I buy some "1 piazza" sheets in a relatively innocuous shade of blue. I trudge home under the hot September sun. They fit.
It is so pleasant to own sheets that I am able to overlook the fact that I still don't have a pillow, which kind of makes my neck stiff, which makes me think I have meningitis every morning and run, all panicked, to the dictionary, to look that up in Italian (meningite... there's one where the Latin would've worked out just fine).
It's funny the odd kinds of things you end up having trouble with when you move to another country. People are always warning you about the "culture shock" and stuff like that, but really it's other stuff that's trickier.
"Sheets?" says my boss upon overhearing my conversation with another teacher. We've been in Italy for a week or two and have now moved out of the temporary apartment (into Creepy Guy Apartment, in my case) and are discussing our lack of basic housewares. I have been sleeping on a (starchy) mattress protector and under a (thin) towel. The mattress cover is itchy and the towel is not a very good blanket.
"You can buy those at Zara Home," she continues. "At Petali. It's just up the road a bit, like five minutes by car."
Which conveniently overlooks the fact that neither of us possesses a car and she has already informed us that taking the school cars out for fun is verboten.
We trudge to Petali on the side of the road. The sun is kind of hot. Italian men seem to feel that it's okay to beep their horns at us as they go by. (We elect to feel amused rather than degraded.)
We enter Zara Home and laugh. Our boss is a hilarious woman. She sends us on a "five minute drive" on foot to a place where they sell things that we cannot really afford on the puny salary she pays us. We do not have a Zara Home type salary. It's more of a Wal-mart salary. Ikea on a good day. We trudge back.
"Maybe at Meridiana," recommends someone else, helpfully pointing out where that is on a map. Did you know they have a large-ish road named for JFK just outside of Reggio? And on it, there is the Meridiana shopping center, in which there is a large-ish supermarket which contains sheets in a number of basic colors.
The next day I trudge out to there on foot, as I don't yet understand the bus system. It is not a particularly pleasant walk, but whatever. Also it is kind of long. But whatever. There are sheets.
"Lenzuole!" I read proudly to myself, very pleased that I have managed to remember what this means. (Also the picture on the front is a good clue.) Having been in Italy for a week, I have decided to strike out on my own, minus my little dictionary, so any vocabulary I use will have to come from my own head. The dictionary was Italian-French, anyway, which lead to mild confusion at times. Still, though, it was reassuring.
I assiduously read several different packages of sheets. Some say "1 piazza" and some say "2 piazze". I am stumped. I translate the labels into French (leftover habit from the dictionary, I guess) but "piazza" is tricky. Because it could either mean "place" or it could mean "piece", just because they kind of sound the same. In scenario A, this would mean that "2 piazze" means a bigger bed, for two people. If it means "piece", then "1 piazza" contains one sheet and you have to buy them separately, whereas "2 piazze" means you have both in that package. I ponder this for a while.
Probably the logical thing to do would be to go ask someone, using my dictionary-less, somewhat rusty Italian. My Italian at that point is still more suited to writing commentary on intertextuality in Dante than to actually conversing with real people in this century, though, and so I stare at the sheets some more.
Being fresh from a semester's worth of advanced hisorical romance linguistics, it occurs to me to trace the Italian words back up to their Latin roots and then down again to modern French. It would be just like an exercise from class! Or so I tell myself. In reality, I almost always screwed those exercises up because they work much better if you actually know Latin. But whatever, I think to myself.
And that is how I found myself scribbling notes about palatalization on the back of a receipt in the middle of an Iper-Sigma.
"Hai bisogno?" says a guy in an Iper-Sigma uniform at one point.
I look up from my receipt, trying very hard to remember why "piece" has a palatalized /pj/ like Italian tends to do and "place" has a regular French /pl/.
"No, no, grazie... " I mumble vaguely at him, probably kind of staring into space. (Another moment of spectacular grace and poise for me.)
Shortly thereafter, I conclude that applying medieval language development patterns to the purchase of modern day bedlinens does not work particularly well. Especially when you can't remember the patterns to begin with. I go for math instead: there are measurements in centimeters on the back. This turns out not to be a good move because I suck at math.
I start by converting to inches, which requires me to divide by 2.54, which is already far beyond my mathematical capabilities. Eventually, I remember that I do have a decent idea what a meter is, and that I therefore don't really need convert to inches. I try to picture in my head the length of the sheet and then the length of a bed, until it occurs to me that the length is not really up for debate. So I find the width measurement (which takes a while because I am retarded) and picture that instead. I picture the width of a double bed... and the width of a single bed... and already it is too many pictures. I am not a visual person. I give up.
Logic, I decide, is the answer. There is no other information on these sheets, ergo "piazza" must refer to the size, because they have to mention the size somewhere. I buy some "1 piazza" sheets in a relatively innocuous shade of blue. I trudge home under the hot September sun. They fit.
It is so pleasant to own sheets that I am able to overlook the fact that I still don't have a pillow, which kind of makes my neck stiff, which makes me think I have meningitis every morning and run, all panicked, to the dictionary, to look that up in Italian (meningite... there's one where the Latin would've worked out just fine).
It's funny the odd kinds of things you end up having trouble with when you move to another country. People are always warning you about the "culture shock" and stuff like that, but really it's other stuff that's trickier.
Monday, August 17
Grammar
If I get into medical school, the first thing I am going to do when I get there is march into the admissions office and ask to see the person who writes the content for their website. Then I will inform him or her that every single time they write "please respond in X characters or less" it makes something in my tummy get all twisty. I mean, presumably the person who writes the supplemental applications is educated, no? Perhaps he or she is even an MD. Or a PhD. So why is it that they don't know about grammar? This is not a difficult concept, people: less is for things that can't be counted (e.g. sugar, coffee, sand) and for things that can be counted (e.g. chairs, bananas, grains of sugar, cups of coffee, not to mention words and characters) you use FEWER.
Rant provoked by the fact that I caved in and filled out the Newark application today. I bet you I will get in there and only there. If this happens, I may defect from the land of useful careers and go off to study linguistics and become an ivory tower type person who teaches a ridiculously boring and abstruse (yeah, see, check out my mad ivory tower vocabulary skills) class every second Tuesday and spends the rest of her time poring over medieval manuscripts in search of wayward diacritical marks.
Okay, admittedly, I don't 100% remember what diacritical marks are. They are either accents or some sort of punctuation. Hm... now I am curious. Perhaps I really was better suited to ivory tower life. You can even do fun experiments with little kids... which sounds a lot more sinister than it actually was...
Anyway. Yesterday I walked from here in the Kremlin-Bicetre all the way up Rue Monge and then past Beaubourg to the Marais and then to Place de la Republique, back down Rue Lafayette and back home via the opera, the Tuileries, the Pont des Arts and St. Michel. I really hope that was a lot of miles because now my legs are sore, and it would be sad indeed if my legs got sore after, like, 3 miles or something.
Now I am off to go pose for my grandmother, who feels the need to resurrect her drawing skills and use them on me, doubtless while telling me about all the children who have had something calamitous befall them in the past twenty-four hours. Pity that I did not inherit any of the artistic skills. Then I could be a tortured starving artist in a garret in Montmartre or the Latin Quarter or something and that would be funny.
P.S. Yeah, I looked it up. Diacritical marks are accents, also known as ancillary glyphs. Hee. Also, it is apparently 5-6 kilometers from here to that part of Paris. Hm. Even counting the walk back... still kind of wimpy. Sigh.
Rant provoked by the fact that I caved in and filled out the Newark application today. I bet you I will get in there and only there. If this happens, I may defect from the land of useful careers and go off to study linguistics and become an ivory tower type person who teaches a ridiculously boring and abstruse (yeah, see, check out my mad ivory tower vocabulary skills) class every second Tuesday and spends the rest of her time poring over medieval manuscripts in search of wayward diacritical marks.
Okay, admittedly, I don't 100% remember what diacritical marks are. They are either accents or some sort of punctuation. Hm... now I am curious. Perhaps I really was better suited to ivory tower life. You can even do fun experiments with little kids... which sounds a lot more sinister than it actually was...
Anyway. Yesterday I walked from here in the Kremlin-Bicetre all the way up Rue Monge and then past Beaubourg to the Marais and then to Place de la Republique, back down Rue Lafayette and back home via the opera, the Tuileries, the Pont des Arts and St. Michel. I really hope that was a lot of miles because now my legs are sore, and it would be sad indeed if my legs got sore after, like, 3 miles or something.
Now I am off to go pose for my grandmother, who feels the need to resurrect her drawing skills and use them on me, doubtless while telling me about all the children who have had something calamitous befall them in the past twenty-four hours. Pity that I did not inherit any of the artistic skills. Then I could be a tortured starving artist in a garret in Montmartre or the Latin Quarter or something and that would be funny.
P.S. Yeah, I looked it up. Diacritical marks are accents, also known as ancillary glyphs. Hee. Also, it is apparently 5-6 kilometers from here to that part of Paris. Hm. Even counting the walk back... still kind of wimpy. Sigh.
Saturday, August 15
That one time with the mattress
In honor of spending time with beloved family members... the story of the time I helped my grandmother buy a mattress. Like most traumatic experiences, it is a little bit seared into my memory.
"It's very important for your health, you know - how moelleux (soft) the mattress is. If it's too soft, you will sink in and your backbone will not be properly aligned while you sleep, but if it's too firm, you will get sore. For example, my back gets sore. And my pelvis. Especially since I had your mother!" my grandmother wraps up her lecture on mattress firmness with a fun fact as we step out of the elevator onto the home furnishings floor.
I nod and sigh (I've already been with her all morning and I'm nearing the end of my patience) and let my eyes drift slowly out of focus as she flips her cane upside down and uses the handle to prod the nearest mattress.
"Too soft!" she proclaims loudly. A pregnant woman nearby makes the mistake of looking up.
"Yes, too soft," repeats my grandmother authoritatively, "especially for you, Miss. Now, when you have your baby, do you plan to let it sleep in the bed with you? Because, you know, children can suffocate very easily. Can you imagine? Especially when you're very tired, you could easily just roll over and... if the mattress is too soft... I tell my granddaughter this all the time - she has two small children, you know - but she doesn't listen. I just hope... little Pierre..." she trails off mournfully, although it should be noted that little Pierre is, to the best of my knowledge, still in perfectly good health. The young woman pulls out a cell phone and turns away. I don't blame her.
However, I happen to know my grandmother's stance on pregnant women and cell phones, so I attempt to distract her by asking her opinion of another mattress (too firm). In vain. She snags the nearest sales assistant, a guy who doesn't look much older than me. I bring my eyes into focus just long enough to size him up. He looks far too nice. He's no match for her.
"Young man!" she begins emphatically. "Now, I know it's none of my business (no kidding), but, perhaps, being a member of the staff, it would be more appropriate for you to tell her..."
He raises his eyebrows, clearly perplexed.
"Well, someone should explain to that young woman that it's not a good idea to use a cell phone while she's pregnant - the radiation, you know: it could damage the fetus. I saw a program on tv..."
I cut her off, suggesting that perhaps the young man doesn't need to know what she saw on tv, given that his job is just to sell mattresses.
"Nonsense!" she interrupts, thumping her cane emphatically on the floor. "My granddaughter here thinks a lot of what I say is ridiculous, but she's too young! She doesn't know. I've been through the war, you know. And anyway," she turns to me, "the young man does need to know about this program. It was a very good program, very informative. For example, monsieur here should really not keep his cell phone in his pocket: the radiation is much too close to his... well, you know... let's just say it's better for his fertility if he doesn't keep his cell phone in his pocket. I hope I'm not being too indiscreet..." she smiles conspiratorially at the young man.
"No, no, of course not," he murmurs as he starts to back away, his cheeks bright pink. I try not to laugh as he mumbles something about his colleague being more qualified...
Moments later, a no-nonsense, infallibly polite Parisienne has seated us in front of her desk and seems prepared to field any and all questions and comments about mattresses, cell phones, pregnancy, and whatever else might come up. I figure she will be unlikely to need my help and crack open the paperback I've been carrying around for just such an occasion. The woman pauses in her list of mattress-varieties to give me a reproachful Look: you crude foreigner. How can you even think of reading when you're having such a nice outing with your charming grandmother. Young people these days!
Yes, well. Filial piety is all well and good in theory, but she hasn't even been speaking to my grandmother for five minutes yet.
I look up about twenty pages later. "... because of my pelvis, you see. Children, you know. You know that before I had my daughter, my pelvis was in perfectly good shape and I was studying fine arts. I did sculpture, and painting, and ink drawings, you know. But then my husband got me pregnant and he wouldn't let me continue school, and now when it rains, my bones..."
I smile to myself and go back to my book.
Another few pages later, I am wrenched back out of my book by a sharp jab to the ribs.
"Because my granddaughter here refuses to have a hip x-ray done, right?" I nod automatically and glance up at the saleslady as my grandmother cackles merrily. The saleslady's eyes are looking a bit glazed, and her mouth is hanging slightly open as she continues to nod occasionally.
"Have you had an x-ray done, Madame?" asks my grandmother solicitously, peering under the desk at the poor woman's legs. "Also you should get a blood test to get your sugar checked. Now, I'm lucky, because even though I have a lot of cholesterol, it's mostly good cholesterol. My son, on the other hand, has very high blood sugar. Practically diabetic. So we told him to eat less sugar, but lately he looks positively scrawny... I think his wife is probably starving him. I never really trusted that woman anyway..."
The saleslady doesn't react except to nod vaguely, so my grandmother thumps her cane for emphasis. I repress a snort of laughter and go back to the book.
The next time I look up, another good twenty pages later, my grandmother is spiritedly recounting the story of the time during the war when she biked from Paris to Lyonne alone with only a sack of oranges which she planned to either eat or use to clout any bothersome Germans. Perhaps it's time to intervene. Anyway, the saleslady is staring at me imploringly. Sure, I want to say, *now* you want my help.
But I am getting hungry and eventually the store will be closing, so I hustle my grandmother through several mattress-related choices. We only spend about five minutes on each issue, so that's good, anyway. For example: white or cream? I don't really see how it can possibly matter, given that mattresses are generally covered with sheets and things, but whatever. I am past caring.
My grandmother is still advising the woman not to give personal information or, indeed, any significant kind of information over the phone, because you never know who could be listening, as we get back on the elevator. I breath a sigh of relief. But no. We are not done. "I just need to stop in the Fnac (a bookstore like Borders or the Feltrinelli) and..." I tune her out, trying to locate my sanity and drag it out of wherever it is hiding.
We step out of the elevator in the basement and she grabs the sleeve of the nearest available salesperson. Jean-Pierre, his tag reads. Poor Jean-Pierre.
"I saw this great program on tv the other day," my grandmother begins. Great. "On channel five," she clarifies, "about African music."
The sales guy nods expectantly.
"Did you see it?" she asks conversationally.
"Um..." he says, and finally: "well, I don't watch tv much..."
"Ah, beh, vous avez tort," she informs him, "channel five does a lot of great programs. I saw one about Thailand the other day that-"
"The CD," I remind her, through gritted teeth.
"Yes, I'd like to buy the CD of the singer I saw on tv. I don't remember his name, exactly, but I drew a sketch of him..." she roots through her purse and finally pulls out a used envelope on the back of which, effectivement, she has sketched a rather vague portrait of what is evidently a singer. Another sales guy has joined the first and they look at the envelope together.
"Ah, oui, beh, vous dessinez bien, dites-donc, Madame," comments one (you draw really well). Bad move, buddy. Insert entire monologue on les Beaux Arts (prestigious fine arts school) and how she met her husband there, and wrapping up with my mother and the pelvis. Both sales guys look back and forth from me to her in disbelief. I am just about to wander off and throw myself under a bus when she shoves the envelope into my hands, to facilitate illustrative gesturing. I turn it over.
"Is this the guy's name?" I ask, pointing to a scribbled, African-looking name in the corner.
"Ah, mais oui! Voila! My granddaughter's very smart, you know!" crows my grandmother, "but you can't have her, because she lives far away. In America. Except for a while she lived in Italy, but..." Now I really want to throw myself under a bus. Nonetheless, the two guys flash me grateful smiles and turn around to investigate on the computer, in the shelves... anywhere that lets them laugh out of our sight.
"Okay, and which album will you be wanting? He has nine," announces one upon returning. My grandmother looks at him as if he were daft. I absently take a sip from my bottle of Vittel. This should be funny.
"Well, the one I saw on tv, of course."
I try to choke discreetly. My grandmother thwacks me enthusiastically on the back with a shopping bag, and I narrowly miss falling over the clerks' desk. Sadly, I am still conscious. However, the slightly older clerk returns and apparently decides to take the situation in hand.
"When did you see the program?"
"On February 5th. I remember because it was the day before I called my niece to tell her about-"
"Well then it was probably this album," he says confidently, thrusting one (probably at random) at her.
"Oh? How do you know?"
"Because of the internet," I interrupt. I give the guy a Look. Bringing up the internet is a risky move, because on one hand, she doesn't understand it at all, so you can use it to explain all kinds of things, but on the other hand, she still firmly believes that it sucks young children in and causes them to be kidnapped, murdered and dumped in creeks, and that it is thus Evil. In any case, the guy appears to have caught on.
"Oui, voila, c'est ca (yes, right, that's it). I researched it on the internet." My grandmother is more or less pacified, and this guy and I are clearly a great team. I should probably marry him.
She spends the entirety of the way home harranguing me about the evils of the internet and all of the stories she's seen on the news about children getting murdered/kidnapped/raped/stabbed/abandoned by their parents/eaten by dogs/impaled on wrought-iron fences "comme le fils de Romy Schneider" (I wish I were making it up, but I'm pretty sure she actually remembers every single unfortunate incident involving children, all the way back to Romy Schneider's son, who, apparently, died as a result of an injury obtained while climbing over a fence.) Meanwhile, I spend the bus-ride home thinking that someone should write a book about her. (My grandmother, I mean. Probably someone has already written a book about Romy Schneider.)
PS. It should be noted that I do love my grandmother. And I know she's great. But sometimes you have to laugh in order to stave off the urge to slit your wrists with a ballpoint pen in the department store bathroom.
"It's very important for your health, you know - how moelleux (soft) the mattress is. If it's too soft, you will sink in and your backbone will not be properly aligned while you sleep, but if it's too firm, you will get sore. For example, my back gets sore. And my pelvis. Especially since I had your mother!" my grandmother wraps up her lecture on mattress firmness with a fun fact as we step out of the elevator onto the home furnishings floor.
I nod and sigh (I've already been with her all morning and I'm nearing the end of my patience) and let my eyes drift slowly out of focus as she flips her cane upside down and uses the handle to prod the nearest mattress.
"Too soft!" she proclaims loudly. A pregnant woman nearby makes the mistake of looking up.
"Yes, too soft," repeats my grandmother authoritatively, "especially for you, Miss. Now, when you have your baby, do you plan to let it sleep in the bed with you? Because, you know, children can suffocate very easily. Can you imagine? Especially when you're very tired, you could easily just roll over and... if the mattress is too soft... I tell my granddaughter this all the time - she has two small children, you know - but she doesn't listen. I just hope... little Pierre..." she trails off mournfully, although it should be noted that little Pierre is, to the best of my knowledge, still in perfectly good health. The young woman pulls out a cell phone and turns away. I don't blame her.
However, I happen to know my grandmother's stance on pregnant women and cell phones, so I attempt to distract her by asking her opinion of another mattress (too firm). In vain. She snags the nearest sales assistant, a guy who doesn't look much older than me. I bring my eyes into focus just long enough to size him up. He looks far too nice. He's no match for her.
"Young man!" she begins emphatically. "Now, I know it's none of my business (no kidding), but, perhaps, being a member of the staff, it would be more appropriate for you to tell her..."
He raises his eyebrows, clearly perplexed.
"Well, someone should explain to that young woman that it's not a good idea to use a cell phone while she's pregnant - the radiation, you know: it could damage the fetus. I saw a program on tv..."
I cut her off, suggesting that perhaps the young man doesn't need to know what she saw on tv, given that his job is just to sell mattresses.
"Nonsense!" she interrupts, thumping her cane emphatically on the floor. "My granddaughter here thinks a lot of what I say is ridiculous, but she's too young! She doesn't know. I've been through the war, you know. And anyway," she turns to me, "the young man does need to know about this program. It was a very good program, very informative. For example, monsieur here should really not keep his cell phone in his pocket: the radiation is much too close to his... well, you know... let's just say it's better for his fertility if he doesn't keep his cell phone in his pocket. I hope I'm not being too indiscreet..." she smiles conspiratorially at the young man.
"No, no, of course not," he murmurs as he starts to back away, his cheeks bright pink. I try not to laugh as he mumbles something about his colleague being more qualified...
Moments later, a no-nonsense, infallibly polite Parisienne has seated us in front of her desk and seems prepared to field any and all questions and comments about mattresses, cell phones, pregnancy, and whatever else might come up. I figure she will be unlikely to need my help and crack open the paperback I've been carrying around for just such an occasion. The woman pauses in her list of mattress-varieties to give me a reproachful Look: you crude foreigner. How can you even think of reading when you're having such a nice outing with your charming grandmother. Young people these days!
Yes, well. Filial piety is all well and good in theory, but she hasn't even been speaking to my grandmother for five minutes yet.
I look up about twenty pages later. "... because of my pelvis, you see. Children, you know. You know that before I had my daughter, my pelvis was in perfectly good shape and I was studying fine arts. I did sculpture, and painting, and ink drawings, you know. But then my husband got me pregnant and he wouldn't let me continue school, and now when it rains, my bones..."
I smile to myself and go back to my book.
Another few pages later, I am wrenched back out of my book by a sharp jab to the ribs.
"Because my granddaughter here refuses to have a hip x-ray done, right?" I nod automatically and glance up at the saleslady as my grandmother cackles merrily. The saleslady's eyes are looking a bit glazed, and her mouth is hanging slightly open as she continues to nod occasionally.
"Have you had an x-ray done, Madame?" asks my grandmother solicitously, peering under the desk at the poor woman's legs. "Also you should get a blood test to get your sugar checked. Now, I'm lucky, because even though I have a lot of cholesterol, it's mostly good cholesterol. My son, on the other hand, has very high blood sugar. Practically diabetic. So we told him to eat less sugar, but lately he looks positively scrawny... I think his wife is probably starving him. I never really trusted that woman anyway..."
The saleslady doesn't react except to nod vaguely, so my grandmother thumps her cane for emphasis. I repress a snort of laughter and go back to the book.
The next time I look up, another good twenty pages later, my grandmother is spiritedly recounting the story of the time during the war when she biked from Paris to Lyonne alone with only a sack of oranges which she planned to either eat or use to clout any bothersome Germans. Perhaps it's time to intervene. Anyway, the saleslady is staring at me imploringly. Sure, I want to say, *now* you want my help.
But I am getting hungry and eventually the store will be closing, so I hustle my grandmother through several mattress-related choices. We only spend about five minutes on each issue, so that's good, anyway. For example: white or cream? I don't really see how it can possibly matter, given that mattresses are generally covered with sheets and things, but whatever. I am past caring.
My grandmother is still advising the woman not to give personal information or, indeed, any significant kind of information over the phone, because you never know who could be listening, as we get back on the elevator. I breath a sigh of relief. But no. We are not done. "I just need to stop in the Fnac (a bookstore like Borders or the Feltrinelli) and..." I tune her out, trying to locate my sanity and drag it out of wherever it is hiding.
We step out of the elevator in the basement and she grabs the sleeve of the nearest available salesperson. Jean-Pierre, his tag reads. Poor Jean-Pierre.
"I saw this great program on tv the other day," my grandmother begins. Great. "On channel five," she clarifies, "about African music."
The sales guy nods expectantly.
"Did you see it?" she asks conversationally.
"Um..." he says, and finally: "well, I don't watch tv much..."
"Ah, beh, vous avez tort," she informs him, "channel five does a lot of great programs. I saw one about Thailand the other day that-"
"The CD," I remind her, through gritted teeth.
"Yes, I'd like to buy the CD of the singer I saw on tv. I don't remember his name, exactly, but I drew a sketch of him..." she roots through her purse and finally pulls out a used envelope on the back of which, effectivement, she has sketched a rather vague portrait of what is evidently a singer. Another sales guy has joined the first and they look at the envelope together.
"Ah, oui, beh, vous dessinez bien, dites-donc, Madame," comments one (you draw really well). Bad move, buddy. Insert entire monologue on les Beaux Arts (prestigious fine arts school) and how she met her husband there, and wrapping up with my mother and the pelvis. Both sales guys look back and forth from me to her in disbelief. I am just about to wander off and throw myself under a bus when she shoves the envelope into my hands, to facilitate illustrative gesturing. I turn it over.
"Is this the guy's name?" I ask, pointing to a scribbled, African-looking name in the corner.
"Ah, mais oui! Voila! My granddaughter's very smart, you know!" crows my grandmother, "but you can't have her, because she lives far away. In America. Except for a while she lived in Italy, but..." Now I really want to throw myself under a bus. Nonetheless, the two guys flash me grateful smiles and turn around to investigate on the computer, in the shelves... anywhere that lets them laugh out of our sight.
"Okay, and which album will you be wanting? He has nine," announces one upon returning. My grandmother looks at him as if he were daft. I absently take a sip from my bottle of Vittel. This should be funny.
"Well, the one I saw on tv, of course."
I try to choke discreetly. My grandmother thwacks me enthusiastically on the back with a shopping bag, and I narrowly miss falling over the clerks' desk. Sadly, I am still conscious. However, the slightly older clerk returns and apparently decides to take the situation in hand.
"When did you see the program?"
"On February 5th. I remember because it was the day before I called my niece to tell her about-"
"Well then it was probably this album," he says confidently, thrusting one (probably at random) at her.
"Oh? How do you know?"
"Because of the internet," I interrupt. I give the guy a Look. Bringing up the internet is a risky move, because on one hand, she doesn't understand it at all, so you can use it to explain all kinds of things, but on the other hand, she still firmly believes that it sucks young children in and causes them to be kidnapped, murdered and dumped in creeks, and that it is thus Evil. In any case, the guy appears to have caught on.
"Oui, voila, c'est ca (yes, right, that's it). I researched it on the internet." My grandmother is more or less pacified, and this guy and I are clearly a great team. I should probably marry him.
She spends the entirety of the way home harranguing me about the evils of the internet and all of the stories she's seen on the news about children getting murdered/kidnapped/raped/stabbed/abandoned by their parents/eaten by dogs/impaled on wrought-iron fences "comme le fils de Romy Schneider" (I wish I were making it up, but I'm pretty sure she actually remembers every single unfortunate incident involving children, all the way back to Romy Schneider's son, who, apparently, died as a result of an injury obtained while climbing over a fence.) Meanwhile, I spend the bus-ride home thinking that someone should write a book about her. (My grandmother, I mean. Probably someone has already written a book about Romy Schneider.)
PS. It should be noted that I do love my grandmother. And I know she's great. But sometimes you have to laugh in order to stave off the urge to slit your wrists with a ballpoint pen in the department store bathroom.
Thursday, August 13
In Paris: stuff that they've changed
They re-painted the front of the boulangerie (purple and black? really?).
The people who run the charcuterie are retiring after 23 years. 23 years! This means that, although I can't remember it, they have been open and feeding us for as long as I have been alive. What are we supposed to eat around here if they leave?
They did something to the locks in the building doors and now they make odd repetitive clicky sounds when I punch the code in. It makes me jump, every time.
They had the whole inside of the post office re-done. Now it is shiny and white and all ergonomic-looking. I say 'looking' because it actually does not seem to be any more efficient or any more comfortable than before. Instead of all that nonsense, they should have invested in air conditioning. Or even just a decent ventilation system.
The crepe guy that used to stand outside the shopping center in the Place d'Italie is *gone*. And some North African guy has taken his place and now apparently sells crepes and falafel. From the same stand. I have nothing against North Africans. Or falafel, for that matter, but it's a bit disconcerting all the same.
Also, they changed the supermarket in the basement of the shopping center from a Champion to a Carrefour and re-arranged the interior to make it, if possible, even more confusing than it used to be. Now, not only can you not find what you're looking for, but you also can't necessarily find the exit. Awkward.
Someone moved the sink in our kitchen. Presumably to make room for that weird stove. It is still disorienting, and also I'm still scared of the stove. I bumped into it yesterday and it beeped in a warning tone of voice (yeah, probably I just imagined the tone of voice) and made flashing red numbers.
On the bright side, my cousin has informed me that we young people can go to the cinema for 3.90 all summer. Now I must just find someone to drag there with me, and then I can be all caught up on contemporary culture.
Also, my hand is no longer puffy. Now it's just vaguely purple and sad. I figure as long as it doesn't turn black and fall off, it's probably fine.
Anyway. Perhaps if the sun comes out I will go read in the Tuileries. I had found a very nice bench there the last time I was here, although I don't really remember where it was, now. Whatever.
The people who run the charcuterie are retiring after 23 years. 23 years! This means that, although I can't remember it, they have been open and feeding us for as long as I have been alive. What are we supposed to eat around here if they leave?
They did something to the locks in the building doors and now they make odd repetitive clicky sounds when I punch the code in. It makes me jump, every time.
They had the whole inside of the post office re-done. Now it is shiny and white and all ergonomic-looking. I say 'looking' because it actually does not seem to be any more efficient or any more comfortable than before. Instead of all that nonsense, they should have invested in air conditioning. Or even just a decent ventilation system.
The crepe guy that used to stand outside the shopping center in the Place d'Italie is *gone*. And some North African guy has taken his place and now apparently sells crepes and falafel. From the same stand. I have nothing against North Africans. Or falafel, for that matter, but it's a bit disconcerting all the same.
Also, they changed the supermarket in the basement of the shopping center from a Champion to a Carrefour and re-arranged the interior to make it, if possible, even more confusing than it used to be. Now, not only can you not find what you're looking for, but you also can't necessarily find the exit. Awkward.
Someone moved the sink in our kitchen. Presumably to make room for that weird stove. It is still disorienting, and also I'm still scared of the stove. I bumped into it yesterday and it beeped in a warning tone of voice (yeah, probably I just imagined the tone of voice) and made flashing red numbers.
On the bright side, my cousin has informed me that we young people can go to the cinema for 3.90 all summer. Now I must just find someone to drag there with me, and then I can be all caught up on contemporary culture.
Also, my hand is no longer puffy. Now it's just vaguely purple and sad. I figure as long as it doesn't turn black and fall off, it's probably fine.
Anyway. Perhaps if the sun comes out I will go read in the Tuileries. I had found a very nice bench there the last time I was here, although I don't really remember where it was, now. Whatever.
Wednesday, August 12
Things that I miss
People speaking Italian. (Still.) French is not bad to listen to either, but I'm dreading walking into immigration in Newark. That lady who stands in the middle and screeches 'immigrants to the left! citizens and permanent residents to the right!' makes me want to stab pencils into my eardrums.
The piazze, the via Emilia, via Calderini, and via Andreoli... and a bunch of others... even if the cobblestones were definitely trying to kill me.
The big blocks of Parmigiano Reggiano in the supermarket. I didn't actually buy any very often, but it was nice that it was there. Here there is only pre-grated grana padano. I checked.
Sitting on the steps of the duomo to work on applications. Doing them here in the kitchen is not quite the same. Especially because my mother seems to have put in this weird stove that cooks by induction (or something) since I was last here. I am scared that it will either blow up the apartment or emit radiation and rearrange my DNA. (And now we know why I almost failed physics.)
Reading in those weird orange chairs in front of the theater and watching little kids play in the fountain.
Caffe macchiato. Although seeing that in writing makes me remember that starbucks has something called that. I may possibly throw up if I hear someone order one. Perhaps I just won't go in starbucks when I get home.
The 'Reggio Emilia' sign in the train station. I really enjoy whatever font that is, with the bubbly-dotted 'i's.
Libreria all'Arco. Enough said.
Rucola. Particularly on my pizza.
Opening my shutters every morning to see the vescovado and people cycling past down below. And looking at San Prospero's campanile every night before closing them again.
On the bright side... finished applications yesterday. Oh, except Newark. But do I really want to go to Newark? No. I would likely get shot in Newark. Or so depressed that I would shoot myself. So... pretty much finished applications. Which is nice because I'm all kinds of bored with them. Medicine, you are kind of silly, you know that? You make it such a pain in the arse to get there that, having almost arrived, I kind of almost don't want it anymore... which could turn out to be a good thing, because I've already had one rejection. 17 more like that and the 'should I be a doctor' dilemma won't be a problem anymore...
The piazze, the via Emilia, via Calderini, and via Andreoli... and a bunch of others... even if the cobblestones were definitely trying to kill me.
The big blocks of Parmigiano Reggiano in the supermarket. I didn't actually buy any very often, but it was nice that it was there. Here there is only pre-grated grana padano. I checked.
Sitting on the steps of the duomo to work on applications. Doing them here in the kitchen is not quite the same. Especially because my mother seems to have put in this weird stove that cooks by induction (or something) since I was last here. I am scared that it will either blow up the apartment or emit radiation and rearrange my DNA. (And now we know why I almost failed physics.)
Reading in those weird orange chairs in front of the theater and watching little kids play in the fountain.
Caffe macchiato. Although seeing that in writing makes me remember that starbucks has something called that. I may possibly throw up if I hear someone order one. Perhaps I just won't go in starbucks when I get home.
The 'Reggio Emilia' sign in the train station. I really enjoy whatever font that is, with the bubbly-dotted 'i's.
Libreria all'Arco. Enough said.
Rucola. Particularly on my pizza.
Opening my shutters every morning to see the vescovado and people cycling past down below. And looking at San Prospero's campanile every night before closing them again.
On the bright side... finished applications yesterday. Oh, except Newark. But do I really want to go to Newark? No. I would likely get shot in Newark. Or so depressed that I would shoot myself. So... pretty much finished applications. Which is nice because I'm all kinds of bored with them. Medicine, you are kind of silly, you know that? You make it such a pain in the arse to get there that, having almost arrived, I kind of almost don't want it anymore... which could turn out to be a good thing, because I've already had one rejection. 17 more like that and the 'should I be a doctor' dilemma won't be a problem anymore...
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