Feast of the Assumption.

Saturday is the one day each week FrenchBoy and I can go out and do stuff together, so Imagine our chagrin when we found out Saturday around 11am that it was a holiday and almost every damn thing in town would be closed all day. You would think at least FrenchBoy would have known something was up, but since he works in Luxembourg his mental schedule revolves around Luxembourgish holidays. (Yeah there’s only 10 actual Luxembourgish people but they do have their own holidays.)

As for me I’ve lived in France for almost 6 years now and I still don’t have all the Holidays memorized. Part of the problem of course is that I’m not catholic. I mean how the hell am I supposed to remember what day Mary flied up to heaven on? Geez. And frankly I’m such a shut in that we could be 3 or 4 days into Armegeddon before I realized what was what. “Oh so that’s what all the weeping and gnashing of teeth is all about!”

Alas,everything's closed. What to do, what to do? Fancy Lunch course! Eventhough we didn’t have a reservation, we popped into a local restaurant I’d read about on-line and were lucky enough to get a table on the terrace. It was by far the best meal we’ve had since visiting Brugge.

A few photos from the Menu Plaisir for your drooling pleasure:

Petite assiette de la patience. ("Little plate for patience". Something to munch on while you choose your meal and your aperitif cocktail arrives. Spicy Beef Carpaccio served on a slice of Cucumber.)

Médaillon d'agneau et côte, tarte à la tomate, jus d'ail doux et wasaby.
(Medallion of lamb and rib, tomato tart, some veggies, a bit of potatoe puree, aka mashed potatoes, and this amazing wasabi and garlic gravy in that tiny shot glass.)

Médaillon de lotte aux aubergines, fumet tranché à l'huile de basilic.
(Medallion of monkfish with eggplant, sliced and smoked with basil oil.)


Dessert:

Crème parfumée au pralin, entremet et sa glace façon tiramisu

(Praline Ice Cream and a Tiramisu)

Blame it on the salt content of our little Feast of the Assumption or perhaps it was the heat, but I’ll have you know that the next day neither my pants or my bras would fit, and my toes looked like cocktail wieners. I literally went up one whole clothing size overnight. I waddled around the apartment all day Sunday. At Sunday dinner French mother-in-law even mentioned in a ‘round about way that I looked a bit “Forte”….which by the by is one of my FAVORITE French expressions. How lovely is it that when a woman is a bit overweight they say “She’s a bit strong!”

Anyway, the meal was wonderful, even if it left me feeling a bit strong.

The Great Valentino Caper.

A few weeks ago a munchkin snuck into our home and stole FrenchBoy’s Valentino suit. For what reason, we had no idea. It was all very confusing.

We looked everywhere for "The Valentino". Every armoire and closet was thoroughly searched. We frantically dug through every conceivable (and inconceiveable) hiding spot until we came to the conclusion that munchkins must have stolen it….which came as a real shocker. We had no idea that munchkins were such fashion whores or that they were even interested in wearing human formal work attire of all things. Also, wouldn’t the pant alterations alone cost a small fortune in Münchells? (modern Munchkin currency) Why wouldn't the little bastard simply buy proper munchkin-sized clothing to suit his munchkin fashion needs?

But after a bit of thinking and backtracking, my heart sank. Somehow, someway, I must have left "The Valentino" with the dry cleaner. The last time I came home from the cleaner’s it must have accidentally gotten left behind. How we had not noticed this weeks before, I have no idea.

The French are not great when it comes to customer service. We’ve discussed this at length, no? So I really dreaded the idea of walking into the Dry Cleaner and saying: “I know you don’t know us, and we don’t even have our pick-up receipt, but hey, if you find a random Valentino suit in here, give us a call and we’ll come take it. Thanks.” I was sure they’d give us the evil eye and send us on our way.

Evenso, we did just that. We marched into the Dry Cleaner's a bit sheepishly and stated our case. The lady at the counter picked a crumpled up piece of paper out of the waste paper basket and scribbled down our name and telephone number and told us she would call if she found anything. As we walked out the door I thought to myself: “We are never going to see that suit again because as soon as we leave, that piece of crumpled paper is going right back into the garbage.” We drove home and I tried my hardest not to mentally kick myself over and over again for loosing my FrenchBoy’s suit. Things get lost, I told myself. It's the Universe's way of teaching you to not get too attached to material objects. Just. Let. It. Go.

But wait.

Did I mention that we bought The Valentino in New York City-----for our WEDDING? Yes indeed! I managed to loose the suit that my dear Frog wore on our wedding day. The suit that FrenchBoy was wearing as he stood up before The Creator, human-kind, and a few squirrels, to make an oath that he would love and treasure me until we dropped dead. A suit so revered that it is known around our house simply as “The Valentino”. As in: “Does this tie go with The Valentino?” or “I need a new pair of shoes to go with The Valentino.” A suit so filled with magic and memory that, to this day, it holds in it’s inside left pocket a small piece of ripped notebook paper on which is printed FrenchBoy’s original handwritten WEDDING VOWS.

Now, if you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that I’m not especially sentimental or sappy, but the very thought of losing "The Valentino" and our wedding vows gave me sharp shooting pains in my wicked little heart. Pain. PAIN I tell you!

So imagine my utter elation when 30 minutes after we walked into our house the dry cleaner called to say she’d found the suit and we could come pick it up. I still have a slight bruise on the bottom of my chin from when my jaw hit the parquet. In one swift moment, France had redeemed itself somehow.

No fuss, no muss, FrenchBoy went to pick up The Valentino. We did a little dance of merriment, and we all lived happily ever after.

The End....Almost.

A few days after the suit’s homecoming, still on an emotional high from our good fortune, I stopped by the local fleuriste in Sablon (cuz that’s my 'hood) and bought the biggest bouquet of flowers she had. I wanted to personally deliver them to the Dry Cleaning lady who had actually found the suit. To say the least she was greatful. She kissed me—TWICE. Ok, it was only the French-style-supermodel-air-kiss type kiss, but still. You must understand that getting kissed once by your French drycleaner is a huge deal. Getting kissed twice practically makes us family around these parts. But somehow it seemed appropriate because that’s exactly how I felt about her when she called to tell us that our wayward Valentino had been found.

Moral of this blog post:

Not all French businesses hate their customers. Most, but not all.

Always check your effin’ dry cleaning before you leave the shop.

There is yet hope for this evil, evil world.

Munchkins do not wear normal man-sized Valentino suits.

In Bruges, I mean Brugges, I mean Flanders...Erh, whatever.

I never know whether I should spell it the English way or the Dutch way. Anyhow, 2 weekends ago we went to Brugges....Flanders...whatever.


It was fantastic:




First things first, I had a Brugge Blonde, then we headed out for a little evening walk around town. Please be forewarned that FrenchBoy looks painfully adorable in the photo that follows.

Mmmmm! Frites!

Less than 30 seconds after this photo was taken, the dirty hippie sitting on that bench in the left of this photo spilled beer on my right food. It was the only bad part of our trip.

Oh---and he was American. *deep sigh*

So Brugge is beautiful at night, but it's fantastic by day as well. The city is clean and bright and extremely well kept. I literally had to search for a cigarette butt on the ground. It made us realise just how dirty the city we live in is. But this is no surprise because well, French people are generally dirty stinky litter-bugs.

So we walked around all day....



Did some shopping in Brooklyn...

And FrenchBoy got a hand job massage at Aveda. Doesn't the photo just look naughty?

But I guess it's the least they can do when they charge you 50 euros for a tube of conditioner. (Not for nothin', but the conditioner was worth every centime.)

BEER!

If you ever make it to Brugge and want an excellent meal, you gotta go to Pieter Pourbus. I have had very few dining experiences where I left the restaurant and said "Oh man, that was ridiculously good." This was such an occassion.

We ordered the "chunk of meat for two" and were both overwhelmed yet delighted when the waitress brought out half a cow and a bucket of frites. This is the very poorly composed before photo of our meal:

This is me going into a beef coma after my third serving. If you look closely you will see the gleaming beads of sweat on my forehead....or more like I'm actually sweating gravy.



Thumbs up! "I ate a whole damn cow bitches!"

The French have coffee after dinner out of habit, but after a meal like this, a strong coffee is absolutely mandatory. At one point before it arrived on the table FrenchBoy actually started to nod off at the table. This coffee saved me from having to drag him back to the hotel in a Fireman's carry. Close call I tell ya!

Of and for dessert I ate a rat.




Miam-Miam! (That's French for "Yum-Yum!")

Blog Ennui. Please Stand By.

Seriously. I cannot be bothered to blog.

There's something in the summer air that has given me blog ennui as of late. Nothing seems exciting enough to blog about. And so I bring you....a random photo dump:

1. The new Metz Pompidou Center down the street is finally getting its chapeau. I think it's supposed to open next year?

2. Obama throws gang signs.

3. Double date with Manu and Emmanuella. We went to a Portuguese restaurant, in Luxembourg of course, where I had Dorado that was to die for.




And then the waiter came out and cooked up crepes in Grand Marnier...which I personally thought was super gross cuz I hate Grand Marnier.

4. Me and a bunch of other drunk Anglophones partying it up at La Fete de La Musique. I have no idea who the guy in the kilt is, but he was as cute as a bug's ear.

The only good band we heard all night:

5. And last but not least. My teeny tiny mom/Yoga Instructor/almost Reiki Master/ordained Disciples of Christ minister with her very tall Drag Queen friend at Gay Pride in Indianapolis, Indiana. Amen!

Ok, that's it. That's all I got.

Why I Heart France Reason# 16: Being French Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.

Please carefully consider this conversation I overheard yesterday at the bank:

French Lady w/ pancake-ass: Bonjour, I need to make a deposit into my account.

(she hands him a fat envelope.)

Mr. Dim-witted Bank Teller: Merci Madame, Just one moment.

(Insert sound of dim-witted tapping sounds on computer keyboard.)

Mr. Dim-witted Bank Teller: There you go Madame, Please sign this form.

French Lady w/ pancake-ass: Uhm, Excuse me. This isn’t my account. You put my money in someone else’s account!

Mr. Dim-witted Bank Teller: Oh?

French Lady w/ pancake-ass: Yes! That’s not my name!

Mr. Dim-witted Bank Teller: Ooooh! Good thing you caught that!

(Insert sound of more dim-witted tapping sounds on computer keyboard)

Mr. Dim-witted Bank Teller: There you go Madame, Please sign this form.

(French Lady w/ pancake-ass carefully re-examines and then finally signs form then storms out of bank.)

(End Scene)

Yep. The dim-witted bank teller acidentally deposited this Dame’s 3235€ (make that 4,524.86 USD) into someone else’s bank account (yeah I have the eyes of a hawk and I could easily see the amount written on her deposit slip over her right shoulder.) and then blows it off like it’s no big deal?

Now, after living in France for so many years I’ve grown accustomed to the French inability to assume responsibility for their actions or to make a proper apology, but syriousleee…as soon as I heard him say “Good thing you caught that!” I thought to myself “Good thing it’s not my money you f*cked up buster because I’d have to leap across this counter and mince yur teeny frog brain a bit.”

Ok, my heat and hormone induced violent tendancies aside…wtf? Am I the only one who thinks that since he made a grave error concerning a boatload of cash, that he could have broken the Frenchy Code of diss-Honor and at least offered this woman a "Oh, Excuse me Madame!"?

Heart-felt Sidenote: Just for the record I would like to state that I have nothing against the pancake-assed folk among us. I am well aware that not everyone can be blessed by the great Godess of Junk-in-the-Trunk. But since this poor woman's ass was so insanely nonexistant, that's pretty much all I can re-call about the woman's physical appearance. Please refrain from sending me hate-mail relating to pancake-assed people's rights etc etc.

I even have a hat to prove it. But not really.

Sweet Jesus Get Me to France.

Dear Madame K,

I've been reading your blog for a while now, and I'm wondering how you ended up in France. Partly because I'm interested, and partly because sweet jesus, get me out of Metro Detroit.

Thanks,

Susanne Summers

Dear Susanne Summers,

That’s a damn good question. How did I end up in France? I ask myself that question every day. Twice on bad days.

The quick and easy answer is, I met FrenchBoy. And once we decided that we were gonna get hitched, it was obvious that one of us was gonna have to move. We could have just as easily chosen to live in the US, but since he already had a job and an apartment, it was just easier for me to move to France than to start from scratch in the US. Plus I'm an artist. I have a job that I can do from practically anywhere. It just made sense. So I moved to France, and here I be.

But since I have time and a tendancy to over-analyze damn near anything, I'd like to take this moment to elaborate a bit on that question. How the hell did I end up in France? Well, I like to think that anyone’s life is the sum of the decisions they make. Given, life throws sh*tstorms at us that we definitely do not choose, but the rest is up to us. You know the old expressions about lemons....lemonade. So, I’d have to say the path that lead me to France started when I saw 12 years old. Yep. Before I even had boobs.

When I was in Jr. High, we were forced to take a foreign language. All of my friends chose to take Spanish, but being the contrarian that I have always been, I chose to take French. For the next 5 years of my life I studied French in school. In fact I took so many French language and culture classes that by the time I’d graduated from High-school, I was actually exempt from having to take any language courses at the University level. That fall after high-school graduation I went on to The University of Iowa where I spent the next 4 years drinking copious amounts of vodka and promptly succeeded in forgetting absolutely everything I had learned about France. Or so I thought.

Ok, fast forward like a million years.

After living in Brooklyn for 5 years I decide to leave the thrill-ride of life in New York City behind and I moved to upstate New York to squat live at me mum’s place while I figured out what the hell I really wanted to do with my life. After 6 months I was bored nearly into a coma and thus start planning an escape to….hell who knows...Timbuktu? Nova Scotia? Hell, even Europe? All I was thinking was sweet jesus get me outta Rochester, New York.

By the time I finally made it to Europe and met FrenchBoy, I still didn’t speak French, but having studied it for so many years there was a familiarity with the language and culture that really bridged the gap between us. It just made it easier. Freaky Frog accent aside, he just seemed….familiar to me. And I figured that re-learning French would be a snap! Or so I thought.

So I guess I should blame thank the hell out of my 8th grade French teacher for helping to land me here in the land of the frogs. And I thank the heavens everyday that I came from a family that allowed me to take risks and go for big adventures, even when they were a bit leery of my choices. But I give myself a lot of credit too. Thank god I’m one of those difficult head-strong people that decides to do stuff the hard interesting way. Or at least I like to think of myself that way on my good days.

So yep. Life is full of choices. God knows I've mad a crap-load of bad ones, and as much as I bitch and moan, moving to France definitely isn't one of them. At the very least, my decision to live in France has made for some big adventures that I'll be able to tell my grandchildren someday. The censored versions anyway.

I will however proudly leave in all the parts about the smokin' and the boozin'.

Have a question you’d like me to rant about?

Send your question to: Madamek at ymail dot com.

The Good, The Bad, and The Very Ugly.

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Eureka!

Ok, so just yesterday I mentioned how I'm having trouble coming up with "new material" as it were, and then all of a sudden it became obvious what I should do.

At least twice a week I get e-mails from peoplez asking for information or advice about France, or just asking for an opinion about something. Whenever I actually have the time I reply to individual e-mails and I find myself answering alot of the same questions over and over again. Now, I truly don't mind this, but I was thinking---wouldn't it be more efficient and way more cool if instead of that info just going out to individual peoplez, I re-posted it here for everyone to benefit from?

OK, so here's how it works: Email your question to me at madamek(at)ymail(dot)com, and not only will I reply to you personally, but I will post your question and answer here on the blog as well. I promise promise promise that I will not reprint your personal information unless you beg me to, or you want me to link to your blog.

So come on, ask away. It doesn't even have to be France related! (Although questions about my opinions on France are always welcome because they inspire the best rants.) You know you have questions you've been dying to ask. Like haven't you ever wondered where I bought my shoes, or what my favorite cheese is?

So join the fun by giving in to your not-so-hidden voyeuristic tendencies. I mean, What's the point of having the internet if you can't blog stalk people?

Not Exactly a blog-athon.

You may have noticed that I haven't been around lately. Uhm, thats mostly because I haven't really been up to much. OK, that's not exactly true, but unless y'all wanna hear about how much fun I had rearranging my bookshelves on Friday or how crappy I am at playing guitar, well, there isn't much to say except...

I love summer! Althought the weather here lately has been dreadful, it still feels like summer, and that means long lazy days. Aaah sooo good!

After the month of May where I was pretty much all over the place, hopping from country to country, June has been a month of total relaxation. I haven't been doing much. June has been all about spring cleaning, playing my guitar, and resting my brain so I can get ready to start making some new artwork within the next few weeks.

Normally, I'm one of those super organized control-freak types who sets up entire time-lines and agendas for even the smallest of tasks, but a few days of sunlight combined with a few cocktails and I've managed to completely short-circuit that system of thinking. At this very moment my life philosophy is "Eh, Whatever." I half-heartedly make my to-do lists knowing full well that I no longer feel beholden to them, and I never beat myself up when at the end of the day less than half of the tasks are completed. Two months ago this would have whipped me into a frenzy, but today---I can't be bothered.

But I did find this little gem to share with you:

We were at Castorama (French version of "Home Depot") Saturday and I wandered down an aisle and saw this. So my question is---since it's titled in English, did they do this as a joke?

Uhm, dude, what were they thinking?

Frickin Oooouch!

Well friends, I just got home from my first guitar lesson and well, I’m having a really hard time typing this post because…..MY FRICKIN FINGERS ARE BLEEDING. What kills me is that not one of you dear readers warned me about how badly it would hurt. To make matters worse, my guitar is heavy as shit and is twice as big as my teacher’s guitar. You know that guitar case I bought for it 6 months ago and then promptly threw on a shelf in the garage? The damn guitar won’t even go half way in it! I had to carry “the beast” to the lesson nude.

Question: How hard would you laugh your ass off if you saw a ‘lil black lady jump out of her fancy mom-mobile, pop open the trunk, pull out a big-ass black guitar that looks like something Johnny Cash would play, then start running down the street with it? If I had video footage of my arrival to my lesson this afternoon I would post it on YouTube so you all could enjoy it as much as I am enjoying replaying it in my head right now.

On the positive side, my teacher is fabulous and very patient with my lack of magical guitar playing ability, although I’m sure she thinks I’m mentally challenged in some way because every time I got confused I would wrinkle my face up right good, close my left eye, and just start grunting like I was constipated.

And thus goes the story of my first guitar lesson. A little bruising and lots of grunting. But still it’s better than air guitar.

With any luck, in about 6 months, I will be able to play “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” without crying or getting bloodstains on my left pant-leg.