At Whit's End

Today was Lundi de Pentecôte (Whit Monday), one of the thousands of national holidays here.  So stores were closed but sheep roamed the streets.  Let me explain.

Besides being a holiday, it was also the transhumance, the day that marks the traditional beginning of the mountain grazing season.  Sheep and goats that have been kept close to home during the winter and spring make the trek to higher ground to graze during the summer.

This is celebrated with a festival where shepherds bring their flocks and parade them through town.  It’s pretty cool, with thousands of sheep and goats marching around town, tended by shepherds and dogs.

The only problem?  Someone forgot to take those many animals for a potty break before they arrived.  So the festival was rather, shall we say, aromatic?

KVS

 

New Experiences

You never know what is going to happen, even when you think you do.

The owners of the house we are renting, Philippe and Claire, had invited us over for an apero.  They live in a town with a nice Saturday market and we agreed to come by after our shopping.  We figured it would be the two of them and maybe one of their kids.  We’d have a glass of wine and a few munchies, spend about an hour and be off.

We were wrong.

The first clue was when we walked into a house full of people.  It was Philippe and Claire and their kids, plus Claire’s mother and father, plus Philippe’s sister, plus a few friends, plus a few other kids from the neighborhood.

I guess word got out that there were some Americans coming over who speak French and everyone wanted to see this oddity.  Kind of like a three-headed cat.  Or maybe they thought we’d show up with cowboy hats and six shooters.

The next clue was when we saw the table full of food and wine.  There were plates piled high with regional specialties, four or five bottles of wine and at least a dozen different liqueurs, some homemade.  Plus the grill was fired up with sausages at the ready. 

Val and I looked at each other and figured we wouldn’t be leaving in an hour.

It was all very warm and friendly.  Because the commemoration of the Normandy invasion had been the day before, they thanked us as Americans for liberating France.  Then we all raised our glasses as they toasted us with a “Merci America!”

So then I thanked them for French support in our war of independence, especially the help from General Lafayette and his troops, and raised my glass with a hearty, “Vive la France!”

So then they toasted us for our support in World War I.  So then I toasted them for their gift of the Statue of Liberty.  Then they toasted us for jazz and I toasted them for Edith Piaf.

This went on for a while until I toasted them for the croissan’wich and Val whacked me.

After many plates of food and many glasses of wine and spirits, I made my way unsteadily to the bathroom.  This was a mistake.

While I was gone, somehow the subject of my foot problems came up.  By the time I got back they had all agreed that Philippe was going to treat me.  I knew he did some kind of medical work but didn’t know what kind.

A bunch of us went to his treatment room, attached to the house.  I saw a sign on the door that said he was a magnétiseur and wondered what that meant.

He started by poking my foot in different places, asking me if it hurt here and here and here.  Yes it did, yes, yes there too.

So he rubbed different places with some oil.  So far, so good.

Then he held my foot in one hand, pressing lightly against the arch.  I noticed he was yawning and I thought maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after he’d had so much wine.  He saw me looking at him and explained that the yawning was part of the treatment.  He was extracting my pain with his hand and expelling it via his yawns.

Um, ok, sure.  What’s a magnétiseur again?

Then he started waving his hands in the air around my foot, collecting pain and then throwing it away.   I looked at Val and she just kind of shrugged.  I figured what the heck, it probably won’t help but it can’t hurt.

Eventually he finished and we said our goodbyes.  It was really a delightful, and interesting, afternoon. 

When we got home I looked up magnétiseur in my dictionary.  Hmm, “hypnotist”?  Uh oh. 

Now I’m worried that Philippe gave me a post-hypnotic suggestion and Val is in on the game.  The next time we’re with our friends she is going to say the secret word and I’ll start clucking like a chicken!

KVS

Everybody happy

 

 

Jour J

We watched the D Day ceremonies on TV today, commemorating the 70^th anniversary of the Normandy invasion.  It was a beautiful and moving ceremony, with an excellent speech by French president Hollande.  He expressed the gratitude that the French people feel, and that free people everywhere feel, for the enormous sacrifices made to defeat the Nazis.

This may well have been the last time that veterans of D Day were able to join the ceremonies.  The youngest of them are in their late 80’s and will be close to 100 the next time such a memorial is held.  Even Queen Elizabeth, a spry 88 herself, has said that this is her last state visit abroad. 

After Hollande’s speech, there was an hour-long program describing the war and the Normandy invasion.  It combined real war footage shown on giant screens while people moved around on a big stage, reenacting different events. At first it seemed a little like modern dance and was too weird for me, but it turned out to be really great. 

The best part was the portrayal of the invasion itself -  a large group moved across the stage, in slow motion, as if they were soldiers slowly capturing the beach.   Many of them fell to the ground as they crossed the stage, as if killed by enemy fire.  You could see viscerally at the end how many had sacrificed their lives in battle.  Very moving.

Toward the end of the program they introduced two former soldiers who have been good friends for decades.  The nice touch was that one is French and the other German and they opposed each other during D Day.

As I watched people talking before and after the ceremony, I was struck yet again by the multilingual nature of Europe.  People from different countries chatted with each other and it wasn’t necessarily English that formed the common language.

At one point the cameras showed German chancellor Angela Merkel talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin.  The commentators tried to guess what they were speaking because each of them is fluent in the other’s language.  And the commentators noted that Queen Elizabeth didn’t need to wear translation headphones during Hollande’s speech because “she is fluent in the language of Molière.”  Even president Hollande was able to chat with president Obama because Hollande speaks good English, having spent a year in the US as a student. 

After the end of the commemoration, the cameras moved on to other events.  There were memorials at a number of different places in Normandy, honoring British soldiers here, Americans there, Canadian or Polish somewhere else.   There were so many that they had to show them on split screens, two or three at a time.  

It was nice to see that such noble sacrifice is still honored and remembered.

KVS

Nazis crushing Europe

Many lost their lives at Normandy

Former enemies but friends today

Queen Elizabeth then and now 

Second Best

We had French class today and Val kicked my butt as usual.

We meet once a week with a French professor for private lessons, just the two of us.  I wasn’t sure if this would be a good idea, because Val has been studying French for, oh, 15 years longer than me.  But I think she wanted it this way because the class is graded on a curve.  She’s definitely looking to be valedictorian.

Sometimes the classes are at my level but usually they end up way over my head.  Today was a good example.

We were working on the difference between “should” and “must” in French.  It’s a little tricky because they both start with the same word devoir and the meaning changes depending on how you conjugate it.

I was doing ok until Val decided to hit the gas pedal and shift into hyperspace.  The next thing I knew she and the professor were discussing the subtle differences between the imparfait verb form and the conditionnel passé première forme (I am not making this up).   

As best I could tell, the proper conjugation has to do with whether there is “a sense of regret” in the use of the verb.  In other words, I had no idea what they were talking about.

I did note that Val looked a little sad during the discussion of “sense of regret”.  She was probably reflecting on 25 years of marriage.

Val and the professor usually go way over my head at least once each class.  And they are sneaky about it, because they start on something my speed and then zip ahead.  It’s like we’re doing basic math one minute and the next thing I know they are on quantum mechanics or string theory or something like that.

What’s next -  the Higgs Boson?

KVS

Good as New

Getting our car’s broken window fixed took a lot longer than we expected.

On the day of the crime, the 24-hour roadside assistance was very helpful.  They connected us with the insurance company and also sent a repair guy to our house to patch up the window temporarily.

Because we don’t have a street address, we had to direct him to the nearest intersection.  Then we went and stood in our driveway so he would see us. 

We happen to live right next to one of the main roads into St-Remy, where drivers exit the D99 and head into town.  While we waited we saw lots of drivers going in and out. 

We decided to wave to the people entering town, welcoming them to St.-Remy. And to the people leaving we would say “Thank you for coming!” and “Come back soon!”  I think I may have a future as a Wal-Mart greeter.

Eventually the fixit guy showed up and made a temporary fix to the broken window.

Then we went to the repair shop.  This was on a Saturday.  They didn’t have a replacement window so they ordered one.  It wouldn’t arrive until Wednesday.  Then Thursday and Friday were holidays so the repair shop was closed.  And then it was the weekend so they were closed again.  This meant we couldn’t have the window repaired until the following Monday.  Ah, the joys of the holiday season!

At this point we began our long and painful discussions with the insurance company, sometimes by phone and sometimes by email.  It seems like no matter what we asked them, they answered a different question.  And they wanted paperwork – lots and lots of it.  And they didn’t follow up on their commitments.  And one person never seemed to know what another person had done.

In other words, we felt right at home!  Insurance companies seem to be the same the world over.

On Monday morning we took the car in for repair.  But when we returned to pick it up, the insurance payment still hadn’t been sorted out.  So Val and the garage guy called the insurance company and argued with them for a while.  I learned some new bad words.

Eventually all the right paperwork made it to all the right places and we could take our car home.  

Let’s hope that’s the end of the crime spree around here!

KVS