Third -- and I Hope Final -- Day

The full post -- days 1, 2, and 3 of this whole awful episode in Paris is at A Year in Fromage. But in case you've already read it, here's just the update from today:



DAY 3: Out with Gigi at the Bastille, and we see a convoy of 16 police vehicles racing by with sirens blaring. In fact, the city has an almost constant hum of sirens.

 

The hostages have been taken, and now the texts I'm getting from Anthony are about how his building is in lock-down mode. This BBC map, modified by somebody Anthony works with, will show you why:

Our kids still have school today, but with full security measures in place. Even at the middle school dismissal, they are now asking each individual child where they live and judging if the route home will be safe. After all, at the time of dismissal, there are still hostages being held, and all of the gunmen are at large. I've never seen so many parents at pick-up.

The streets are just covered with machine-gun-toting, bulletproof-vest-wearing police and military. There's even the Protection Civile, which I understand to be akin to the National Guard. I've never even see these blue and orange uniforms or trucks before.

 

 

And everywhere, everywhere, the signs of solidarity.

Now it's dark -- Friday night at 11pm as I'm writing this. The weather is nice -- mild and dry. But I have never, ever heard the streets so quiet, especially not on a Friday night. All the neighborhood cafés are closed. In fact, it is so unbelievably still that I actually research to see if the city has instituted a curfew (appropriately called a "couvre-feu" or "fire-cover"). The gunmen have been killed; the remaining hostages -- those that weren't murdered -- have been freed. No curfew, but I think everybody is just hunkered down at home, breathing easier but still happy to be inside.

And I hope -- I hope! -- that this is the end of the updates for this post.

Carbo Loading

It's that magical time, the breadiest time of the year. For those of us that live by Notre Dame, at least. This year, not only does Pippa go as a field trip (and this means me too, as a chaperone), but the girls also get to make some bread once when we stop in to buy a baguette. Gigi gets private lessons from one of the most celebrated bread bakers in France (and, therefore, in the world, the man on her right). No, I don't know his name.

Here are a few photos from our latest visit, too late to make the story at A Year in Fromage.

 

 

 

Left to their own devices, this is what they choose to make. Gigi wants to make (and eat, entirely by herself) a classic baguette. It is so hot from the oven here that she can barely hold it, though you'll notice she somehow managed to eat one crouton (end of the bread) already. And Pippa makes the braided ring she's been dreaming of. She wasn't allowed to on the field trip, since they had to fit almost 30 loaves on a baking sheet. The ring turns out perfectly, and we dub it a baguegel (pronounced "ba-GAY-gul", a.k.a. a bagel made of baguette dough). I think it's beautiful and, with a little refinement, it could become a hot new trend.

  

There's a dairy booth open today that has this poster. You know what I'm thinking...Three Years in Fromage? A Life in Fromage?

 

May Day!

It's May 1st, May Day, and that can only mean two things: 1) lilies of the valley, and 2) nearly everything is closed. OK, I exaggerate. A couple stores are actually open and do not have a sign in the door saying "specially closed on May 1st", but seemingly 99% of Paris is off-school, off-work, and off-duty -- except the people selling lilies of the valley on the streets.



If you want to know about one of the stinkiest cheeses known to mankind, or learn more about this holiday, and help me create the inevitable holiday to celebrate the official 35-hour work week here in France; or the 4-day school week; or the 6-weeks-on/ 2-weeks-off school schedule, check out A Year in Fromage.

Four Bulletins & A Snafu

Bulletin #1 -- a language one:

I know we've been living in France for a while now because the girls are speaking strange franglais.  Their latest: Pippa talks about all the science experiences she's doing in school. At which point Gigi yells, "experiments! Experiments!" At which point I point out that Gigi recently says that if she doesn't get a good grade for something she'd worked really hard on, it will be "a big deception." At which point I correct "disappointment! Disappointment!"

Also, Gigi talks about the book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Uzbekistan. Perhaps she's not hearing quite enough English.

Bulletin #2 --  a gym one:

I realize it looks like I'm being one of those bragging parents who keeps pointing out my children's accomplishments, but I swear it's because I myself am amazed. They're doing stuff in gymnastics that I was never able to do, and learning and progressing so quickly it's crazy. So just know that this honestly is not coming from a place of vanity. It's coming from a place of pure jealousy, frankly. I so wish I could have done this when I was their age! And I harbor no illusions about them being Olympians or even serious competitors in the States. The level here is lower, and mostly recreational, and they're not fanatical about pointing toes and straightening legs. But still, I'm impressed.

Bulletin #3 -- a yummy one:

Near the Bourse, on and around rue Saint-Anne, I have finally found the Japantown part of Paris. I feel like the food here is better and more authentic-tasting, relatively speaking, than Parisian Chinese food. Having lived in both Japan (for many years) and Taiwan, I feel like I can say this with some authority. It fills a craving in a huge way for ramen and gyoza, and it's delicious, but it's still not as good as actually eating Japanese food in Tokyo. Naturally.

 

 

Bulletin #4 -- a bureaucratic one:

It turns out my latest carte de séjour had the wrong expiration date on it -- months earlier than it should be. Luckily, I look at my card a week or so before that date, and I manage to get my paperwork in just in the nick of time. Of course, that means I don't have a valid card for several months until the bureaucratic wheels (powered by Flintstone woodpeckers) have approved my legal status and manufactured and delivered my new card. That's OK: I don't carry it with me, ever since the multiple pickpocketing incidents, and I've never been asked to provide it, anyway.

And the snafu -- or is it?:

We still don't know where we'll be next school year, but we do know the girls will not be back at their school in San Francisco: The school didn't have any vacancies for them! By staying away more than two years, we lost our automatic, guaranteed spots, and the school had record-low attrition. With no available spots to give, we can't be insulted at all, got a really nice personalized note, and still love the school. We are not devastated. Those of you who know me know that a) I have been gunning to stay longer in Paris anyway and b) I generally find that life works out wonderfully -- and often in the most unusual ways. In fact, the more unusual, the better, in my mind. In case you're wondering, they do still have their spots guaranteed here at their Paris schools (which they love), and the girls are both excited about the idea of staying longer, too. So we're gearing up for the very real possibility (though as Anthony will tell you -- not the inevitability) that we might stay yet another year....Stay tuned.

 

My Little Cabbage

If you ever need some terms of endearment with a French twist to call your honey, lovebug, or sweetie-pie....

I don't want to give you the same old list, including many I don't hear in use. So, click here to see the ones I actually hear on a day-to-day basis, especially from parents talking to their children. Let's face it, I'm at school drop-off/pick-up where people greet their kids far more than I'm at some seductively-lit hip restaurant/bar overhearing lovers murmuring sweet nothings.

 

Boom As We Speak

When I was in grade school, we went on field trips to the local historical reenactment village, one day each year. Once, we went to a pizza place owned by a classmate's father and were allowed to make our own pizzas. That is the extent of the field trips I remember. Gigi, meanwhile, is away for a week with her classmates in Valloire, France for the ultimate field trip -- a week of skiing in the Alps. As I write this, she's at her end-of-week "Boom" (that's a co-ed dance to you and me).

 

 

 

 above photos taken by chaperones on the ski trip

To continue reading, click here...

Bonjour, With Feeling

I pride myself on having some manners, some class (not much, but some -- give me that). After a lifetime of living in the US, I feel like I've done my duty when I respectfully approach the saleslady and say, "Excuse me. Can you please tell me where I could find the games for 8 year old?" At which point, here in Paris, the lady will give me a supercilious stare and say, pointedly...

TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY, CLICK HERE

Rats Love Farmers' Markets

So those of you who've checked out A Year in Fromage will have noticed that you're already familiar with some of the material. Yup, it's true: You have been my guinea pigs. But not my dead rats. For those, you'll need to check out the new material on A Year in Fromage, but I wanted to make sure you knew about it here:

There are not one but two taxidermy shops right by Pippa's elementary school. Even after two years in Paris, and with her new middle school big-girl status, Gigi still refuses to look in the windows, much less the stores. So I guess I won't be taking her by Aurouze, which Anthony and I happened upon recently while walking through the 1st arrondissement. With twenty gorgeous nearly-antique dead sewer rats hanging in the window from the same number of nearly-antique traps, it's quite a sight to behold. These are 91-year old dead rats, and I know this almost-precisely because the sign proudly proclaims, "Captured around 1925 at Les Halles."



Click here to read more...

And another story that will be new to you, and is much more appetizing:

These pretty pears, with the tips of stems dipped in bright red wax are Passe-Crassane. Why the wax? To cauterize the end and prevent dehydration. They remind me of the beautiful $100 melons I used to occasionally receive as a gift when I lived in Japan, but less uniformly perfect. Forget about the occasional Bosc (how boring), here we buy Guyot Rosée, Comice Extra, Packam, Conference, William Rouge, Abate, and others I can't even name.

 

 

Click here to read more

Chocolate Chip Champion

My friend Mei and I like to champion here in Paris (and abroad) that ugliest but perhaps most delicious of desserts: the American cookie.

The first year of gymnastics regionals, Gigi's team got 13th out of 13. The second year, when she came home with a 9th place, Anthony congratulated her enthusiastically...until she told him there had only been 9 teams. Well, much like this, I fancy myself quite a delicious cookie maker, but then I only have a couple really good non-French friends here, and the only other American's cookies I've tried are Mei's. And, objectively speaking, hers are better than mine. So there may only be two contestants, but I'm the Silver Medal Champion Cookie Maker of My Paris!

And my cookies do whoop the pants off any chocolate chip cookies I've tried that were made by any French person. I have to admit that the cookies I make here also whoop the pants off the cookies I make in San Francisco, and I've figured out the secret: I use all-American ingredients except the butter. French butter has less water in it, and is generally richer and more unctuous, and the cookies are all the better for it.

If you're wondering why there are so many cookies on my counters, and why some of them are upside down, there's a logical explanation for both. Gigi likes me to make her cookies for her class for her birthday. She's in a class of 29 kids, plus a teacher, and I feel like everybody should have at least a couple cookies. So you do the math: that makes a whole lot of cookies, which I must mix by hand -- no KitchenAid stand mixer. It's better than a gym workout for the upper arms, except that I eat more calories worth of raw dough than I burn.

And why upside down? Along with no stand mixer, I also don't have a cooling rack, and I've discovered that putting them bumpy side down allows them to cool without getting soggy, as the steam can find nooks and crannies through which to escape.

Sure, I could buy chocolate chip cookies. There is a cute little shop on our island called "Anne's" which sells single, regular-sized (say, 3" diameter) cookies for 2.7€ -- or about $3.50 -- each. Meanwhile, I can go to Thanksgiving (the store in the nearby Marais neighborhood, not the holiday) and find critically important ingredients for not too much money, including real light brown sugar for under 4€ and baking soda for just a couple more. Still infinitely cheaper than buying at Anne's, where we would need to take out a second mortgage in order to buy a couple dozen cookies.

 

The expensive ingredients are the real liquid vanilla and the chocolate chips, and I have cabinets full of both, thanks to a steady stream of visitors. However, I refuse to make chocolate chip cookies for any of my visitors from the States. I only make them for other ex-pats who need a taste of home and for French-people who, I must tell you, are completely won over by this ugly-but-delicious American dessert.

Coming Home

No, it's not what you're thinking. We're just back from a fall vacation to sunny Spain, and upon our arrival we see the obligatory airport sign that says "Bienvenue à Paris," but we think it should just say "Welcome Home." It certainly feels like we've come home, and I feel it more strongly than ever. Driving through the streets of Paris, it feels familiar, comfortable, and just as much like "home" as any place else to me. We've been here over two years, and I love all the things that have become a normal part of my life: the rippling waters of the Seine from my desk, our neighborhood markets, the view of Notre Dame, the leaves turning yellow along the quai, fresh croissants from the boulangerie, the walk to the metro stop through medieval streets, my dance class, tea with friends, and even -- slightly, affectionately -- the way our water heater occasionally conks out for no known reason while someone's in the middle of a shower (the sound of the scream sends us with matches to reignite the pilot light).

I have to say that I feel more at home in Paris than anyplace else I've ever lived, with the exception of San Francisco. Even having spent around six years in Tokyo in my twenties, I never felt like that was home in the same way. That's understandable, perhaps, given the linguistic, cultural, and racial barriers, and also because I was there when I was young and single. Here, I've got a real family life, and friends and community through schools, activities, work, and neighborhood.

Home is where the heart is, where the family is, and where the comfortable pillow is. Vacations to exotic places are wonderful, but it's also nice coming back to our simple ole' home by the Seine.

First Rule of Book Club

Gigi and I have put together a book club with the girls from the Native English section in her grade. Of the thirteen girls, six come to the first organizational meeting. These are all theoretically native English speakers (though in truth, most are bilingual children who've grown up in France, and probably only Gigi would claim English as her first and strongest language), so it never occurs to me to put much of an explanation about what a book club is. Just another example of how very American I am.

Nearly everybody shows up with some books they like, that they could recommend and swap with each other, but I don't think any of them understood that a book club is a place where you discuss a book that you have all pre-read. What amuses/amazes me even more is that the parents themselves didn't understand the concept of a book club. Despite coming in blind, the first one was a raging success, and there are at least two new girls joining in for the first actual book discussion in about a month's time. It may have helped that one of the girls brought homemade cupcakes. The girls have picked from among their own favorites for their first few books:

  

 

My own San Francisco book club ladies and American friends and family (nearly all of whom have been in book clubs) will share in my amazement over the concept of not knowing what a book club is. There are many things that I am vaguely embarrassed to export to the rest of the world -- McDonald's, violent films, and Miley Cyrus spring to mind -- but I must say that if Gigi and I can introduce a bunch of her new friends and their families to the idea of book club, I'd be mighty proud.

You know a Paris Mom's book club (fewer cupcakes, more wine) can't be far behind....

 

Sticker Shock/ Sticker Joy

I go to the local dry-cleaner/tailor and am quoted 78€ (about $100) to replace the zipper on a kid's denim jacket. It's as if I suddenly don't speak French, because I have to ask, re-ask, and repeat the number half a dozen times. Finally, needing to confirm that I'm not just misunderstanding something, I ask, "Soixante-dix-huit? The digits 7 then 8?" The jacket itself probably didn't cost me more than $3, because I'm pretty sure I bought it at Goodwill in the first place.

So what else causes Sticker Shock in Paris, even after a couple years here?:

Children's shoes: boots, for example -- the kind a girl might wear with leggings and a dress, leather-style (though probably not real leather) and not super-well made -- start around 80€, over $110, in the stores, and many hover at 100€ or about $135. In the U.S., for $80, I could get the girls a much better-made pair. But this isn't the sort of thing that can easily be bought over the internet and brought in somebody's luggage. They need to try it on and like it.

Granted, I live in an expensive area, but still, does 6€, or about $8 for a cup of tea seem reasonable? We are talking, after all, about a cup of hot water, with a tea bag that costs less than 10¢ at full retail price (so, what, 5¢ wholesale?). I don't like coffee, so I'm always stuck when we stop at the café ordering an $8 cup of tea, hot milk, or hot chocolate.

Housing: This is Paris, after all. At the moment, places in good neighborhoods rent for around 36€ per square meter, which works out to about $5/sq. ft per month. This is less shocking when moving to Paris from San Francisco, frankly, where places rent for about $3.70 (measured against averages at one point during 2013). But even we are a little stunned by the prices to buy something. About $800,000 for a 400 sq. ft. studio? But I want three bedrooms. Uh, maybe in the next life.

And let's not even get into fish pills (seen at over $100 for a small bottle), dental floss (about $7 at the admittedly overpriced pharmacy below us), or chocolate chips (about $5 for 100g, which is about 1/2 cup, or only half as much as I need to bake a batch of cookies). Seen below is the approximately $205 worth of Costco-sized chocolate chip bags that people have brought to us from the US. Actual Costco total for both: $23. And now you know why we've asked you to bring these in your luggage.

On the other hand:

There's private school. When I sign Gigi up for her new school next year, they tell me that in addition to the $1800 private school annual tuition, there is an extra $1800 fee for the special program they offer for native English speakers (extra hours, at native Anglophone level, paid entirely by parents of the children in the program). Apparently, my face registers no shock, horror, or concern over the additional annual fee, so they assume I don't understand and keep repeating the amount to me: total $3600 -- annually. The same $3600 would be approximately the monthly charge for private school in San Francisco, per child. This is Sticker Shock in reverse. It's Sticker Joy.

The girls' gymnastics program also gives me Sticker Joy. For 730€, or just under $1000, both girls will do three days per week, plus competitions, for the whole school year. Pippa will be doing 7-9 hours per week, and Gigi will be at 6, and there are 35 weeks, with a few days off thrown in, so roughly 475 gym hours total. For just $1000. What will $2 per hour buy for child care and children's activities (especially good quality ones) in the U.S.? I don't know: I think you'd have to go back to 1964 to find out.

Other things that cost shockingly, joyfully little:

Babysitters -- roughly $10/hour, vs. $15-20 in San Francisco, which is, officially, the most expensive city in the U.S. for babysitting.

Kids' clothing -- lovely French fashion, and while prices can, of course, be astronomical for high-fashion, the basic play-clothes kind of stores are no more expensive than the U.S. And with sales, prices get quite low indeed (3-7€ for regular play/school clothes, for example, by the end of the sales).

 

Medical care -- Pippa hurts her foot badly enough at one point that we decide to get it X-rayed for stress fractures (none, it turns out). Before any insurance reimbursements, the full cost we pay for it is 75€, around $100. Quite affordable. And then we get nearly all of it back from the insurance company, anyway. And a month of prescription levothyroxine which costs $10 in the U.S. after insurance costs only $3 here at full price.

Coffee -- if only I liked it. Quick coffee (espresso) nearly anywhere is 1.5 - 2€. A slow, lingering espresso at a lovely French café? About 2 - 2.5€.

Bread -- roughly 1.5€ ($2) for an incredibly great loaf of bread, and less than that for a fabulous pain au chocolat or croissant. Bread products here are subsidized by the government in the way that milk is in the U.S., to keep prices reasonable (and regulated). Better and cheaper than in America. Sigh.




 

All Aboard the Penmanship

If you're American, then like me, you probably remember learning how to write your cursive letters in 3rd grade. That's what they do in California public schools still today, to a lesser degree. But in some US states, they no longer teach cursive at all; according to a recent article that went out on the AP wire, 45 states are considering standards that don't require cursive at all.

Well, in France, it starts in kindergarten (Grande Section) -- and remember that children are younger here in each grade, since the cutoff is Dec 31 (with no redshirting, or voluntary holding back of the younger children). That means that children go into kindergarten as young as 4 years and 9 months, and during that school year, they are expected learn some cursive, certainly at least enough to write their own names. By the end of 1st grade (called CP), they are writing exclusively in cursive for their assignments.

What makes it even more challenging for our girls is that they are not always writing their cursive homework with ballpoint pens. Often, they use calligraphy-style pens with ink cartridges and nibs. This is not by choice; it's a school requirement, beginning in the middle of 2nd grade (called CE1).

 

 

The French are very exacting about how cursive is learned and written; thus, there is a very distinctive French penmanship. I can tell French handwriting at a single glance. My own is most definitely American. There are some letters that were taught to me differently than how my daughters learn them. There are other letters where I just do whatever comes fastest and easiest, whether it's "official" cursive or not.

For the letters, the girls' writing looks French, but it's universally legible. For the numbers, however, they have to worry about the fact that their 1s look like American 7s. It's a problem when writing out phone numbers or numbers. Then again, it's all a matter of perspective; they think some of my own letters are bizarre. Notice the differences between the French (top chart) and American (bottom chart) uppercase A, G, H, I, J, N, Q, S, X, and Z, along with the lowercase P and number 1.

 

For people who say kids younger than 3rd grade are too young for cursive, here is an assignment written at age 7 and 1/2 (and yes, the francophones among you will notice many errors, but see how pretty it looks!):

 

My mother, who used to teach at the university level (in the school of education, forming future teachers), said that she was stunned at the block-printing her students would use for essays. Not only did it look childish, it also was slow and laborious. For notetaking, it's a complete disaster.

 

I've always thought that our girls learning cursive is a great thing; I had my own completely unfounded opinion that, like learning to crawl before walking, writing cursive must do something beneficial to the brain. Well, it turns out to be true. There's an interesting article published in Psychology Today about it, and the crux of it says:

In the case of learning cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of brain become co-activated during learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice.

There is spill-over benefit for thinking skills used in reading and writing. To write legible cursive, fine motor control is needed over the fingers. Students have to pay attention and think about what and how they are doing it. They have to practice. Brain imaging studies show that cursive activates areas of the brain that do not participate in keyboarding.

So, difficult as it is, in our family, we don't curse the cursive. We are 100% on board the penmanship.