C'est ma vie

Being Together and "Being Together"

You might not think there's much difference between those two sets of words but in the first instance you can separate them, in the second the words are an entity that can't be broken, they go hand in hand, they are married and perfectly happy in their wedded bliss. Removal of quotation marks could break up this happy couple. When my husband says "Next week we are going to have so much fun 'being together' with my family", I know we're headed for trouble.

His mom rented a house in Burgundy to celebrate her 70th birthday and let me tell you, the whole family from uncles to cousins to aunts to 3rd cousins twice removed to friends of 4th cousins twice removed and then put back and then removed again are going to be there. When there's a family event, it really is a family event. And, when I say we are together, we "are together". This means that we do pretty much everything together from cooking meals, to watching kids, to taking 12 mile hikes (yes, my brother-in-law will be there), to brushing our teeth together (okay, maybe not that last one!). This is all fine and dandy and I love my family in law (most of the time) but over the years this "being together" thing is something I've had to get used to. And, I've gotten into trouble on more than one occasion in the process.

Let's take the New Year's just after E and I started dating. We RSVPd to a party in the Alps where his friends had rented a chalet for a week. Well, no one bothered to put out the disclaimer that the chalet was smaller than half of our apartment and that there were 15 people sleeping there. We got "the loft" which entailed climbing up a very shaky and uncomfortable ladder and sleeping with another couple on the platform overlooking the dining room/kitchen. I remember being sick as a dog too (it was the period when I was chronically sick from taking the metro all the time, since then, my immune system has gotten much stronger) and we were out snowshoeing in the low Alps and I just knew I had a fever. All I wanted to do was go back to the chalet and sleep, for a long time. As my voice was fading out and I was coughing blood all over the white snow, keeling over and about to die, I alerted the group to my troubles, or at least tried to, and the response was "Our trail curves off to the right and then there's an uphill climb for about a mile. Andie, hang in there and group, let's go." That night was NYEve and I excused myself early to sleep. No one quite understood this and they especially didn't quite understand why I kept grumbling about the speaker that was placed in the loft right beside my pillow to provide music for the soirée. That was the night Etienne saw a whole different part of me- the evil side.

The other time was at Gab's baptism. I had spent a grueling month of classes at the Sorbonne literally from 8 am to 8 pm then I had Gab and Etienne to take care of on top of that. His baptism was at the end of October and we had rented a big house for the whole fam. At that point, all I really wanted to do was be away from people after spending so much time with people and instead, we were adding more people to our entourage. The stress of the baptism plus the stress that I had already brought into the whole thing made me crack and I will be known, from that point on, as the American who doesn't know anything about organizing anything for more than 6 people.

Tomorrow we are leaving for Burgundy and will be gone for a week. The house is crammed full and I have to admit that I am calmly trying to de-stress before we get there. I am someone who loves people (hence my profession!) but who also needs, craves time alone, down time. After having a difficult couple months and not really relaxing during Christmas break either, I have to admit that the idea of having to "be together" inseparably for a week stresses me out a little. In E's fam, you just can't break away from the group. Already, I'm the weird American who brings weird American recipes that I don't cook right (yes, there have been comments that I am not cooking my own recipe right!!!) and let's not get into the cloth diapers that are in the closet because MIL, SIL and E's aunt have more than one thing to say about them, especially since I'll be having to use the washer. I do love these people, though, and am really going to try to make the best of "being together" because we aren't together that often. But, sometimes I do wish when we were together, there was the optional "2 hours of free time" in the afternoon to recharge the batteries a little.

Will post more in a week, no internet access in our neck of the galaxy.

Just my weekly stroll to Hermès

Yesterday, besides taking a computer test that lasted 3 hours and getting my hair cut, I decided to take my weekly stroll to Hermès where I often go to scout out 750 euro shawls. I bet you didn't know I had this special place in my heart for any boutique West of la Madeleine- Burberry, Prada, Gucci- you name it, I've been there. I do believe there was also a star spotting yesterday. If you see Tom and Kate sipping a frothy espresso in a Parisian sidewalk café in your next issue of People, I was there, I saw it.

Okay, in all reality, I hate, despise anything having to do with luxury shops. I'd rather spend money on a plane ticket back to the US to see family or friends than on a label, what's the point? But, all the MIL wanted for her 70th birthday was this butt-ugly Hermès shawl and since I happen to live in Paris, I was the designated person to brave the luxury jungle and go fetch said shawl. This was, of course, after the whole family desperately racked its brains and address books to find contributors for this gift and I am happy to say that we did indeed find 1000 people to donate to our cause (okay, this is the point where you don't have to believe me!).

Let me tell you a few things about Hermès. First, without giving my fellow Okies a bad name and just another reason to feed the stereotypical image of the Midwest, well, I am probably going to do just that: remember, I am from Oklahoma and for all I knew before coming to Paris, Hermès was another sexually transmitted disease. Then, we had a friend go to work in the marketing department and boy, did I feel like an idiot when I found out that she wasn't going to work in a medical lab to do research on this disease but for a huge, luxury label. And, second, when they do their hiring recruitment is "snob" a requirement? I mean, they didn't have to treat me like a measly teacher living in subsidized, rent-controlled housing. So, I braved the swarms of Japanese tourists to pick up this shawl that, I might add, looks no different to me than something I might get at Dillard's in good old Bartlesville, USA. The next time I go on my weekly stroll to spend half a month's salary, maybe I'll wear makeup and not wear the same shirt I slept in.

New Hair

New Hair, originally uploaded by afoos.

Last week, Black Wednesday, as I called it, a point when I was feeling really low about the outcome of this year and had to face the person who had made me feel really low, I wore a pony tale which not only accented the mousy roots that had taken over my hair but also made me look as ugly as I felt on the inside. Honestly, I thought I would never get over that hump.

But, then there's this week, a brand new week and a night and day difference with my students. I refused to let one person dictate the outcome of this year and decided to conquer the difficulties in my classroom. So, far, excellent results and a week away from a 2 week school holiday when the students are usually bouncing off the walls, here I am in a quiet class, teaching and the students participating and I know that's because of me, of my confidence in both my students and myself.

Why not go get the mousy-ness out of the hair, shine things up a bit during these dreary, dead of the winter months? So, that's just what I did! Got some highlights and got the usual cut that I get every 3-4 months only this time, I found a new "coiffeuse" and she did a particularly great job. I will be going back.

I already have 3 children

As I was walking the kids to their daily destinations- daycare and school- the possibilities of the day kept going through my mind. Cleaning the house, then maybe some knitting to finish a baby gift that urgently needs to be done, start packing for our trip next week, a little reading curled up on the couch sipping a cup of tea, calling a friend and talking on the phone for an hour, then maybe an afternoon nap. See, for the first time in I don't know how long, I had a weekday off, completely free. Then, I remembered Etienne was at home.

I was reminded of this fact as soon as he woke up shortly after I returned dropping off the parcels at their destinations and the first thing he did when he saw me in the living room doing nothing (okay, I was really checking my e-mail), was "Oh, this is a great time to plan our trip to the US next summer." I don't think he got the memo about my plans for the day. So, I reluctantly put my plans aside to look into plane tickets. Then, some type of girl power came over me or something and I thought, this is silly. He was alone here all day yesterday with no wife, no kids and he could do whatever he wanted, so danggummit, I should be able to do nothing less today, my one rare day where I am at home. Not breaking this news in the most tactful of manners, this did not go over well and we, again, were in a situation where "here she goes again doing her stuff and nothing else ever gets done."

Let me clarify a few things. My stuff did include doing the weekly housework, which you would think involves something that needs to be done for the well-being of the whole family. Nope, nada, nilch. Etienne neither sees the importance of this activity nor cares whether he lives in filth, so when he sees me cleaning the toilet bowl, I might as well be knitting because to him, they both are activities that should really be put off until everything else is done. And, let me add that E absolutely HATES it when I do housework when he's around. He reminds me of our dog, Porsche, who would run away from the vacuum as soon as it was turned on. He really cannot stand me going around dusting, vacuuming, cleaning windows here and there when he's present. The paradox is that he would prefer the housecleaning to be outta sight and outta mind but that since he can't see the difference between a clean and dirty apartment, if I don't do it when he's here, he builds it up in his mind that I never do the housekeeping (even though I actually do it once a week). And, it never fails, every time I go on a big housecleaning expedition, E says "What are you doing that for? it's not like you ever do it, so why are you OC (obsessive-compulsively) doing it now when there are thousands of other things to do?" That's when I remind him that I have this little WEEKLY housecleaning routine and that to me, it is a priority to get it done once a week. So, my plans today to clean up the place might as well have been sitting on the couch the whole day because to E, both of them are of equal uselessness.

Then, I had to go and wash the sheets (I won't even tell you how long it had been since the last time, I don't want to turn readers away!) and this, my friends, is the ultimate sin when E is around. See, you can't just expect for them to be done in an hour. With French washers and dryers, it takes a good half a day, so they are still in the dryer and it's about time to go get the kids. E likes to take naps and takes one almost every day (his mom still blames it on jetlag from his year-long stay in the US 20 years ago). Today, I just happened to doze off on the couch after lunch and when I woke up, I went into our room and found E sleeping on the sheetless bed. At least I wasn't there to hear him say "Why did you have to wash the sheets now?" (Don't worry, I'm used to that line by now!)

Sometimes, I think I have a 3rd kid already with us. I don't know if any of you other women out there feel the same and have a hard time carrying out your activities when DH is around, but when a friend called and I talked for 2 hours (okay, maybe that is a little extreme!), if I had been alone, I wouldn't have felt guilty, but with E here listening to our silly girl conversation, I felt like I should have been doing something else, like planning the trip to the US. Knitting or sitting down to read a book in between cleaning the toilet and folding laundry are activities that are very difficult to accomplish during E's waking hours because, how can I explain it, it's not that E needs constant attention but there's just something about those activities that are very individualistic and show my rejection of any form of human contact (unless you want to grab some knitting needles as well and have a chat, but girl talk is required) and I just can't bring myself to do them when E is here, in the apartment, because it really is a sign of my introverted self. Now, as I am blogging, E is taking his nap and I feel free to write, to knit, to do what I want. After 6 years of marriage and now with 2 kids, I think this is the hardest battle- when not to be selfish. When I have days like this and find myself at home, all I want to do is what I have planned but I soon lose sight that I am no longer I but "we", a couple who happen to be teachers who happen to have some days where we will find ourselves at the apartment either agreeing or disagreeing on our activities for the day.

Well, I guess there's always tomorrow, another rare day off. The babysitter is taking Louise (we still kept her for Thursdays) and I plan on getting my hair done, going to Starbucks to knit, and getting caught up on a couple of letters I need to write. My children will be taken care of then and I will be indulging in activities that definitely, 100 percently do not involve getting anything done for the family like planning the trip to the US. I tell you, I am an evil, wicked and selfish woman sometimes.

PS I actually like doing housework, it's kind of therapeutic for me. I am thinking that E hates seeing me do that because it reminds him that part of me isn't the intellectual poser gal I claimed to be but a housewife that likes to do housework!

A Strange, Strange Evening

I think aliens are secretly hovering over the Eiffel Tower and sending invisible beams to our apartment. Not only did I not have to make dinner tonight but Louise has been sleeping since we got home from the daycare and is gone for the night and Gab went to bed without a fuss, without even wanting me to read him a book, at 7. Etienne is also in bed and it's only 8 pm! My mind is opening to the endless possibilities tonight- a little glass of wine, some knitting and a movie? Or, a little glass of wine, some Proust? Or, a little glass of wine and (let's get a little naughtier) a New Yorker?

As much a I enjoy these rare occurrences of alien invasions, evenings like this do seem surreal and do cause a bit of worry to enter my mothering radar. For example, they went to bed without dinner, Louise is still wearing her diaper from the daycare, and she didn't get her nightly ear and eye drops and then they both went without a bath (are you dialing child services by now?) But, I know they are exhausted. The kids woke me up a total of 8 times last night (yes, I counted every minute between 3 and 5 as a "time" and then there were the "times" between midnight and 2 before that and then, after awhile, you just stop counting).

Gab, who has forgone his nocturnal Pull-up for a week because he's decided he doesn't want to wear a diaper like Louise, had some scary toilet issues. I'm thinking he dreamt of a toilet. Don't you ever dream you are on a toilet seat, peeing, and then you kind of start to and then wake up suddenly realizing that it was a dream toilet and not the real thing and then rush to the bathroom in a panic? Or, am I just weird? Well, I think he had his first toilet dream last night. He woke up in a panic and I thought he had wet his bed, but no, he just needed to go to the bathroom and got freaked out (and this incident repeated itself 4 times).

As for Miss L, she's going full time to the daycare now and let's just say she's not having it with us leaving her every morning. She cries but she gets over it. But, as predicted, she has a cold the second week into daycare (they are chronically sick when they go to daycare) and has not quite gotten the nap thing down with her 15 other buddies who are sleeping in the same room. So, tonight when we came home, I just wanted her to rest because having a cold and doing so much activity without much sleep can't be good for her.

So, that's why I am sitting here, able to type this post- I sent my two exhausted children to bed without food and with a diaper that's who knows how many hours old?

Okay, I'm off to drink a little glass of wine and do either a, b, or c or maybe even all of the above. Thanks aliens!

Sending out Birthday Wishes

To my super cool (way cooler than I could ever be) SIL, Beth since I'm too lazy to write an e-mail or send an e-card (and let's not even talk about a REAL card).

OH, and you know that 2004 pile of gifts? Well, it just went out today. Now, we have 2005,2006, 2007 to send out. I just added yours to the 2008 corner of our living room. I predict you will get it here, in oh, 3 years.

Okay, really, I haven't gotten my lazy butt on the internet yet to order it. Expect something soon,um, okay sooner than later. I'll try and get on it, I promise, until then, HAPPY BIRTHDAY (and make Tony take you out somewhere special).

The concept the French just don't Get

I remember every teacher's speech before the first roll call of the year "If you go by a name other than the one called, please tell me so that I can change my sheet." William became Will. Catherine was really Cate. Richard turned into Dick (okay maybe more Rick in my day). And, Elizabeth was transformed into Beth, Lizzy, Lisa, or Ellie. And, then there was me: Andrea a.k.a. Andi (the "e" was added when I made the 7th grade cheerleading squad because a/ I had just seen the actress Andie Mcdowell's name in the HBO program that previous summer and saw new possibilities with my name and b/ the "e" made it look more cheerleaderish when our names would appear on the front of our white shirts in a green magnaphone) a.k.a named as such by my parents for the sheer purpose of calling me Andi(e) because my aunt's best friend in HS was named Andi Hill and although I am still unsure as to whether or not she and my mom were actually friends, I am sure of the fact that as soon as my mom met this girl, she wanted to steal her first name for her firstborn. But, Andi Helen just sounded too hippy or hicktown hillbilly (take your pick) and since my middle name, like and Louise's and all of my cousins and all of my cousins' offspring had to include Helen for family tree/historical purposes, well Andrea was a better fit.

But, I was alway Andi(e) to everyone. In Bartlesville, no one knew me by Andrea (except for during those couple of odd years between 3rd and 5th when I was tired of having 'a boy's name' and went directly against my mother's will so that when she would introduce me as Andi(e), I would correct her and say Andrea but then, in 5th grade, there were 3 Andreas on my soccer team and we never knew which one the coach was calling and one ended up making a goal for the other team because there was an Andrea on the other team as well, so I promptly went back to Andi(e) to avoid any confusion) Anyway, my brother is Anthony but really Tony and I am Andi(e), how hard can it be?

Well, apparently in France, real hard. See, NO ONE understands this alien concept of naming your children in order to 'call' them something else. I mean, what are you going to call Xavier- Xavi? (Actually, that's pretty cool!) Or, what about Pierre- Pie (which is pronouced Pee in French). It just doesn't work. And, let me tell you, the name that is on the roll sheet is really your name and don't try and tell them otherwise. I think we're about halfway into the school year and most of my colleagues still call me Andrea as well as my teachers. When I do try and slip in there that my name is really Andie (and not with a Y), they look at me as though I'm a blond American cheerleader asking them to call me Coco or Missy or Doll. And, that's when I feel like bringing out the Andie McDowell reference (I knew adding the 'e' would come in handy one of these days)- yes, the first name does exist. But, your name is Andrea, not Andie, is the response that I can usually expect.

At least my family in law got the concept. If they didn't, I'd probably be seeking a divorce by now.

Okay, fine, I'm lazy...

I have this tiny little teensy little minor problem. See, well, okay since I must admit this to the whole blogging world, I'm lazy. But, not really. I have the energy to prepare, teach and keep my class under control as well as attend classes so that I'm rarely ever at home and I have the energy to do that on top of changing poopy diapers and washing the poopy diapers because my psychotic mind has to add more work to my life by choosing to wash our diapers plus cook a 5 course (okay 1 course) meal every night, take and switch metros to go an hour across town at the crack of dawn twice a week (that will be ending soon) to teach HS students, do 10 loads of laundry a week plus pay the overdue taxes from 2004 as well as the other loads of mail we've been neglecting for months on end, oh and then a child gets sick so I need to run to the doctor and then the pharmacy oh, and then I find out I left my book up at work and need to run back up there oh and then I might as well stay at work when I get there because there are parent-teacher conferences that night and so then I come home to another poopy diaper and 5 course meal as well as a battlefield of toys that might as well be grenades because every time I walk, that stupid plastic telephone "Un appel pour toi" and the annoying music goes off. But, I'm lazy, as I said.

I'm lazy because outside of the crazy weekly scene as described above, when I do find 5 seconds alone, well, my butt is on the couch, literally, and I don't want to get up. I don't want to think about plans for projects like finishing "moving" into our apartment, a project that we promptly abandoned a couple months after Louise was born when we realized that the kids had taken over any type of housewarming project (or party for that matter). This is why, for a year and a half, we have had no curtains. Yep, you heard it folks, no curtains. I am the last person on the earth to be detail oriented and planning curtains seemed like too much detail for my couch ridden butt to handle- especially when all it wanted to do was sit the whole weekend rather than do another project- don't we have enough of those during the week?

For years I've been hearing E complaining to the MIL "Nothing ever gets done around here, I have to do everything." To give him the benefit of the doubt (E, are you reading this, brace yourself and take a seat for this one), he is right. As far as long term projects, nothing much ever does get done on my part. And, this includes the organization of trips, picking up the phone for a long overdue phone call, responding to emails, going to the post office, and anything else that isn't part of my immediate, poopy diaper changing, teaching rowdy 6th graders routine. When I am about to jump off a cliff (don't worry I don't literally mean that) because of all the pressure from this student teaching year and then have the stress of our daily routine with two tiny children to add to that, the last thing in the world I want to do is spend time doing some of those long term projects (that's why there are still unmailed Xmas gifts from 2004 sitting in our living room corner). In fact, what I'd really like is to jump on a plane and head to a very warm, beachy destination, sip a margarita and bask in the sun while reading a New Yorker and knitting. But, that not being possible at this time, I finally had to face my laziness today as I reluctantly pulled out the curtains from the moving boxes and started to mentally prepare myself for the project, which was something that was completely and totally against my plans and what I wanted to do, but after I've heard E talking about, for a year, that we haven't had curtains, I decided I should move my butt off of its assumed position.

Then, my laziness was challenged. It just so happened that the curtains from our old apartment don't fit and we need much bigger curtains. And, even before I could say the word "Ikea", Etienne was saying "You know, my uncle is almost done repairing your sewing machine (that I broke last year during our move, okay he didn't say that), this could be your first sewing project, to make curtains." Uh huh. See, that's another thing. I love to sew, as long as it's a project that I've decided on- simple dresses, placemats, tablerunners. But, since I'm not a detail oriented person, my sewing is kind of erratic, and I kind of skip steps (don't tell Martha) so that I get to the finished result faster (albeit in a less neat fashion) So, when E volunteered my services to make curtains during the second week of the school vacation when I am supposed to be working on the stuff that infiltrates my life on a daily basis but that I don't have time to deal with, namely school stuff that I should be working on but can't I stupidly replied "Sure." Why? Because I'm an idiot. Okay, really, probably just to prove to him somehow that I wasn't as lazy as he thought and that I could, indeed, make curtains (okay, Martha, I am really going to need your help!) AND finish a long term project.

Then, about 5 minutes after said conversation, MIL is on the phone and as E is talking with her, an e-mail arrives in my inbox, an important email from the person who came to evaluate me in December, sharing with me his observations about how, even though my class was under control when he came that day, he felt that the kids' behavior was a bomb ready to go off so as I am reading this line, E is conversing with his mother about all the detail of what curtain making entails and apparently, it is way more complicated than my Curtains for Dummies book implies. So, as I am reading this line, not paying the least bit attention to How to Make Curtains 101 (or, the conversation with DH and MIL), E, is again, not convinced about my genuine motivation to carry out and finish this project and I hear him say "See, there she goes again, she's on the couch reading her e-mail instead of listening to me about the curtains, she should be on the phone with you, not me."

What can I say, folks, I am lazy. Thanks for going to the end of this post. Oh, and a little disclaimer: my class is kind of a bomb ready to go off but hey, I can keep it under control most of the time. Oh and second disclaimer: does anyone have Martha's cell? I am REALLY going to need her help to prove that I am not lazy.

Pioneer Woman is from Bartlesville!!!!

Can I be any more of an idiot? As I was reading Pioneer Woman's blog (see the post about how this is my latest blogging obsession), I started noticing weird things- like her brother's shirt that looked exactly like the country club shirt my dad owned. Or, descriptions of her corporate/cultured smallish hometown with the J-bar (a bar my parents would sometimes go to and stupid me thought that every smallish, cultivated hometown had a J-bar). But, her blog makes Bartlesville sound so glamorous that I was sure she was from another state.

Anyway, it's a pleasure even more reading her blog. Bartlesville produces very cultured and well-rounded people. And, that's a fact.

Making life easier

Making life easier, originally uploaded by afoos.

Knitting definitely has its therapeutical benefits. In fact, I am really starting to believe this. Case in point: I had avidly taken back up the needles again during our Fall break in October and continued to force myself to knit at night, no matter how tired I was, until Christmas. And, I was more relaxed in my classes and my students, from Fall break until Christmas, were manageable and we actually were able to have class and advance and my evaluation in December went really well, blah blah blah.

Fast forward to after Christmas and I didn't get into the knitting groove again. In fact, I was in a low period and my students were out of control because I wasn't relaxed. So, I am putting the knitting relaxation method back into practice, see what it gives. Maybe I should have knit a sweater the night before that awful class last Monday.

But, if knitting does indeed have yogaesque benefits, the finishing process is enough to cancel out any benefits and even cause one to go into nervous breakdown mode. Note to self: DO NOT finish a sweater the night before a teaching inspection. Seaming is just not my thing. However, that is a thing of the past with these babies. Hopefully, they will make finishing a knitting project a whole lot easier. Will keep you posted.