"She's got two jobs - she's a croissant chef AND a sniper."
My parents and my sister Katie arrived today, and will be here for the next week so I won't be posting a ton (so out of the ordinary, eh?) but because one of the many things I miss about the US is the
Food Network, I will share today's star sighting: apparently,
George Duran was on my sister's flight because he was wandering around arrivals when she was exiting.
Pictures from Normandy and our other travels to follow.
"Ah, when I had insomnia. I'd get up, pour a glass full of Bourbon, light a cigarette, next thing you know, I couldn't keep my eyes open."
I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who has problems sleeping, but when it's just after 5 and you've been awake for more than an hour and a half and you know you didn't fall asleep until after 1 am, you find that you don't so much care that you're not the first person to experience a lack of sleep. I've taken to sleeping with ear plugs, and popping the occasional excedrin PM (diphenhydramine is my friend...) on nights when I don't have to do anything early the next day, but sleeping for more than four hours at a time? Nigh impossible, apparently. Even when I'm drugged up, I always wake up at least once in the night (I believe they call this nocturia; either I have prostate cancer or I'm officially elderly).
This means that I've mastered the art of gleaning rest from just lying there. If I can quiet my mind enough, I can get up feeling not quite like I want to die after an hour of sleep and six hours of lying there. Of course, the quiet mind isn't always possible. I generally count backwards from 100, saying the number in my head each time I exhale. If I concentrate that works (unless I've seen
1408 recently, in which case the numbers counting down reminds me too much of that clock, thus freaking me out and requiring me to try a mantra like "sleep... sleep... sleep...") but I'm not terribly good at focusing and I mostly find myself thinking about random things, or worrying. I'm a very good worrier.
This morning I was managing to mostly not worry or obsess over things I can't do anything about at 4:27 am, but I found myself starting to make stupid jokes about Janice Kapp Perry songs (e.g. at this point they're created by asexual reproduction or cloning, etc; I'm not funny when I'm annoyed that I can't sleep) and when you're thinking about Janice Kapp Perry songs instead of sleeping, the battle has been lost.
One of the worst parts of not being able to sleep is that the earlier I have to get up, the less I'm able to sleep. I know I have to be up at 6, I go to bed at 10 (or 11, or 12...), and I'll sleep two hours if I'm lucky. Occasionally I'll get really lucky and sleep a bit longer, but those people who think it's okay to text or call or send a carrier pigeon, despite me saying I was going to sleep when we hung up the phone ten minutes ago? I hate those people. You're interrupting my mantra. I don't care that you can't sleep, I don't care that you thought of something funny, I don't care about whatever it is you have to tell me. Unless your leg has fallen off and I am physically the closest person to you with tourniquet knowledge, do not interrupt my sleep. Or attempts at it.
On the bright side, today is my last day of teaching, and thus is the last day I must get up before the sun. This will be celebrated. Perhaps by a nap.
"One, two, what, four, five..."
I believe I've mentioned this before, but at church my calling is in the nursery, so this morning I hung out with a couple of adorable little children. Once I got the screamer to relax, the other one was counting things: "un, deux, quoi, quatre, cinq." I tried correcting her ("trois... un, deux, TROIS...") but what am I doing teaching a little French child French?
Later, I was sitting in Sacrament meeting next to this really sweet girl who had an accident in the ocean a few months ago when she was home visiting her family. There were more than a few stitches involved and a broken front tooth (maybe a gum issue too?), and you can tell that she's still self-conscious about it, not that I can blame her. It doesn't look bad, but we always notice our own imperfections more than other people do, and when you've got a new half-inch scar under your lip you're probably gonna obsess. A lot of times I really don't know what to talk about with her - not that this is new in any way - and now I feel like every conversation has waay too much potential to turn into a "sorry your mom
blew up, Ricky" moment.
Then, this guy, a high councilman I believe, gets up after the bishop as today was Fast Sunday and he never misses an opportunity to talk, even if it's not the third Sunday of the month. For the record, he's a really nice man and I'm really not making fun, but today it finally hit me: if the dude had a dog, he would be
Wallace come to life. So I lean over and share this thought. She didn't know who Wallace was, so I explain that he's a cartoon character and the high councilman looks and moves JUST like him. She looks up and burst out laughing - quietly, of course. We *were* in church after all. This guy gestures from the elbows, upper arms tight against the body, hands and forearms flailing about as if independent from his body, so every time he flapped his arms in the air and then grabbed the pulpit we would both break out in laughter. I may be beyond awkward in certain situations (Drinking paint thinner and then smoking? I'm apparently not the one to make you feel better about the consequences, even with my own
Phantom of the Opera history.) but having
Wallace Incarnate to bond over does seem to help.
"This is our land. A land of peace and of plenty. A land of harmony and hope."
So I went to the doctor today, because I thought I had an eye infection (talk about feeling unclean. unclean!), and while it was sorta starting to clear up on its own, I hadn't actually been to a doctor yet here, and it seemed like a mostly-well visit would be a good time to start that relationship. After looking at the
Embassy's list of English-speaking doctors, I picked the only GP in the 11
th arrondissement and got lucky. He was this really cool German with pretty perfect English (apparently even on the Embassy's list that can be pretty hit-and-miss) and I'm quite comfortable with him as my primary physician. The whole insurance/prescription process was beyond simple, and what with getting a same-day appointment, not waiting at the office at ALL, getting automatically reimbursed for the 22€ visit charge and paying all of €1,29 for my prescription, I'm pretty
ok with the medical system here (even if the doctors
don't leave the room when you get dressed/undressed).
On the way home from my appointment, I stopped at a small G20 (grocery store) to pick up a few things to make
The Brownies for one of my classes tomorrow. As I was checking out, this woman dumped her stuff at the other end of the register and told the cashier she had to pee. The cashier said "
bon courage" and chuckled (seemed like they knew each other) as the woman went outside. A few seconds later I exited, only to see the woman either sitting on the curb or propping herself up on it (didn't look long enough to be sure) as she a
fait pipi dans la rue. It was in the middle of the afternoon, in broad daylight, on not a side-street. Sure, she was between two cars and relieving herself into the gutter (is that what it's called? The little stream of water running below the curb?) but... it was disturbing. All I could think of was the comment of my dinner companion from Saturday: "I don't live in a Third World country," as he walked us
waaay out of the way to avoid even stepping near little rivulets of dog urine.
Leaving the stomach-turning events for a moment, that quote brings us to a topic I've been meaning to write about for months. Do you recall
this post from last April about the campaign literature I got in my mailbox? At the end of the post, I mentioned one of the "young attractive people" by name (names were in captions underneath the photos), mostly because I always like opportunities to use cheesy phrases like "I'm looking at you." I picked the cutest one out of the bunch and used his name, focusing on the lame turn of phrase and not much else.
So last August I get this email from said young attractive person. He'd googled himself, found my blog, and thanked me for the compliment. That started a bunch of emails, because when someone you think is cute says your own picture is cute, you're gonna keep responding for at least a little while. We finally went out to dinner in January and since then hung out occasionally, practicing languages and discussing politics - specifically, his disappointment in
Sarko and leaving the UMP - and my mostly-useless research. One of the nicest things is that he lives really, really close; every time I hang out with him I think that I really need more friends in my neighborhood. It's so convenient, especially for one as lazy as me. Anyway, so I think that's my favorite way of meeting someone through my blog so far. Of course, if other readers wanted to send me emails (for example, the
SLO voice behind
allison hickey's comment) I would love that too.
I had planned to actually write more nonsense, like how according to my subconscious Canada is a magical wonderland full of twinkling fairy lights and cotton candy that would put Disney to shame, but since my hateful neighbor finally ended her party I'm off to bed, with visions of flannel shirts and moose and sugar plums in my head.
"chelonian means: "
I've been meaning to write for the past few days (per usual) because, you know, I've had interesting things happen (like, say, getting caught in the middle of a riot at the lycee where I teach); I've already started the posts, so hopefully I'll actually finish 'em in the next day or two. Mostly, though, I've been meaning to write because my little sister is on bed rest right now, and I feel a bit guilty that she keeps checking my blog and I haven't given her anything to distract from the whole can't-get-up situation.
I normally avoid doing that check-out-this-new-thing-I-found bit (at least I think I do) because someone else invariably found it long before I did, and so when it comes to news on a personal blog it's generally just pathetic. Buuuut... since I want to give my sister something to kill a bit of time until I give her something to read, here's a check-out-this-link:
FreeRice. It's a bit nerdy, but I find it to be really easy to waste a LOT of time there. Plus, you're supposedly helping people, and that doesn't suck.
