Road rage II

As some of you may recall, I swore up and down that I would avoid getting behind the wheel in France, both for my safety as well as everyone else’s. But that was before I had a baby, who is growing at lightning speed and will be in driving school himself before I know it, which would be super embarrassing. Actually, the truth is that he goes to day care twice a week now, and the place is almost 20 minutes away by foot. This isn’t a problem when the sun is out; it’s a lovely walk, and hey—I’m sporty. But when the nice weather heads south and we’re stuck with the nasty, those 20 minutes feel a lot like 40 (you try pushing a stroller while holding an umbrella). So enough of that. Plus, we’re suburbanites now. I have clients to meet. Babykins has little friends to visit. The car was bound to become an issue sooner or later.

So I bit the proverbial bullet and signed up for driver’s ed—for the second time in my life. The first time, I was 15 years old and I think it cost my parents something like $300. This time, I’m much, much older and it cost—I kid you not—six times more (and my parents aren’t paying). I think this kind of blatant extortion heavy-handed pricing would spark a revolution in the US, but as I don’t live there anymore, and my Californian license is worth exactly rien to the French, my options were either to go (back) to driving school or find alternative means of mother-and-baby locomotion. There are a few, but they all seem inordinately cumbersome and/or life-threatening:

The bike: dangerous

The caboose: stupid-looking and dangerous

The rickshaw: unwieldy, stupid-looking, and dangerous

None of these being an acceptable alternative to the car (bonus: we already have one), I accepted the price tag, expensed it (obviously), and moved on to worrying about what I had just committed myself to. Because even after years of experiencing the French highway as a terrified passenger, it still strikes me as complex, overly aggressive and fraught with seemingly arbitrary, totally un-American rules like sidewalk parking and la priorité à droite. Perhaps worst of all (for me), automatic shift is as rare in France as it is ubiquitous in the US. But what do you do, go buy a fake permit online? Hey wait—

In France, as in the US, one can obtain a driver’s license (legally) only after passing a written test, followed by a practical test. But here, the written test is electronic. It’s based on a series of screen shots intended to simulate various situations one might encounter while driving, each accompanied by a multiple choice question. Preparation for the written test consists in taking practice test after practice test after practice test until one has pretty much memorized every possible question that could ever come up on the real test. For example:

How many points is this guy worth?

I can hardly wait for the practical part.

Climate change

I spent the better part of my young adult years living in drafty apartments. The drafts didn’t matter much when I was in college, mainly because my college was in Texas and the winters didn’t last that long to begin with. Then I moved to Paris, where draftiness is a way of life, so I sucked it up and shivered along with everybody else. Winter after winter I would turn on my crappy electric wall heaters, complain about their inefficiency, then get that first electric bill of the season and decide that I’d rather just freeze. At some point I went and bought a portable space heater, which I would aim at my feet while hunkering over a bowl of coffee in the morning and then cuddle up with on the couch in the evening. Then I met G., who is a sort of human radiator, which helped (somewhat). But hey, winter in Paris only lasts what, six months? Eight at the most?

But who’s counting?

Then we moved to the suburbs and discovered collective heating. Gone are the hefty electric bills, as it’s simply factored into our rent, and the day it was turned on my memories of being even remotely cold indoors instantly vanished. Why? Because our floorboards kick out so much heat that we could pretty much dress in swimwear all winter long and be just fine. Our jar of Nutella has melted for Pete’s sake. I don’t know who exactly decides what temperature our apartment is heated to, but I suspect our neighbors across the landing. They’ve had it in for us ever since that first week when my husband pounded one little nail into a piece of Ikea furniture at midnight. Look, we’re sorry we woke up your daughter, OK? No need to try to slowly roast us into moving. Besides, it won’t work; I LIKE the heat. I think it’s exotic living in a subtropical microclimate while freezing rain pelts the windows. Seriously, we could grow palm trees in here.

Heatwave! This is our island in the sun...

Which is why I was surprised when our pet cactus up and died on us. One would think the constant dry heat would be ideal for desert plants. Alas, no. We felt bad disposing of it, as it was our first living purchase since moving into our new home and all. But much like a Christmas tree in February, its time had come. And much like a Christmas tree in February, getting rid of it was no easy task. You can’t just throw out a giant cactus, at least not around this town. We have a neighbor who actually refers to herself, with pride, as La Responsable Poubelles (“Trashcan Manager”). She rang our doorbell at 9:00 am two days after our arrival, just to point out that we newcomers obviously didn’t know how to handle our trash properly (our empty cardboard boxes were soi-disant taking up too much room in the recycling bin). Our own real-life Oscar the Grouch. Neat.

What did you expect, a fruit basket?

Anyway, so not wanting to elicit the wrath of Madame Trashcan, we didn’t dare just chuck the cactus into the communal bin. Luckily, we didn’t have to: in a flash of insight, I recalled an incident from days long ago, when I had had to resort to hacking the limbs off a long-dead Christmas tree using a pair of desk scissors in order to fit it down the trash chute. I thus decided that pocket-sawing the cactus into smaller pieces and then bagging them Dexter-style could be a possibility. It was a gruesome task, what with the dull saw, frothy cactus juice spatters and my conscience, but it’s been a week and no knock on the door, so I dare say we got away with it. Besides, does she really want to go head to head with a scantily-clad American chick who has no fingerprints (read: who could be a professional assassin if she were more discreet)? I didn’t think so.

I'm back

Well, it’s been nearly a year since my last post, which is admittedly pathetic, but as I nonchalantly mentioned a while back, a little bundle of joy has come our way, in addition to a new company (my own!) and a new town. In other words, the theme of 2013 around here has been BIG, BIG CHANGE. And as it turns out, these particular big, big changes, while fantastic, are really quite time consuming.

Where to pick up? I won’t bore you with the details of my pregnancy, because really, you probably don’t care. Plus I had it fairly easy until the last two months, when I magically transformed into a living water balloon. That might have been worth relating at the time, but at five months post partum I’m happy to say I pretty much recognize myself again, and with baby sleeping through the night I no longer have to face blunt observations from absolutely everybody about how tired I look. Not that I expect it to last, mind you, but I’ll take what I can get.

It’s really quite astounding how much my life has changed in so little time. A year ago I was living in the heart of Paris with a “9-5” (really 9:30-7:30 but who’s counting?) agency job, a killer commute and no sweet little dependent creature to take care of (my husband notwithstanding. Har-har). And now, a mere 12 months later, I’m a MOM, an entrepreneur, and a suburbanite! Two of those things I’d sworn never to become. Granted, I did said swearing when I was 12 and 24 respectively, neither of which is the most lucid of ages. Had I been wiser, I’d have kept the oath swearing to a minimum, because the truth is that I feel like I’ve walked smack into that last scene from Field of Dreams: “Hey, is this heaven?” “Maybe it is.” Awwwww.

OK, I’ll get back to my regular sarcastic observations next time around (which I promise will be soon). For now, it’s Christmas. Let’s just enjoy it.

Bonne année 2013!

After a long absence (I have no excuse), I am back at the keyboard, ready to turn my discerning gaze upon unsuspecting new subject matter. And subject matter there will be this year, for I am simultaneously embarking on two new Franco-American adventures: becoming my own Boss(!) and becoming a first-time Parent(!!!). So yes, 2013 will be no small year for me, and thus, no small year for Le Mot Juste!

In mental preparation for such formidable life changes, my first managerial decision was to give my star employee (myself) a nice long break to relax and gather her resources Stateside. Besides, one cannot seriously critique life as a pseudo expat without going home from time to time to re-immerse oneself in one’s own culture. So here I am, re-immersed. 

Fellow patriots.

There is a certain “honeymoon” period every time I return to the US, during which I marvel, newly-arrived-immigrant style, at what now seems so exotic about American life after 10+ years abroad. Eight-lane freeways, for example, or unlimited refills, or just about anything from Costco. Sometimes I just wander through Target, amazed at the availability of so much stuff, at such low prices. Good mascara for 5 bucks—oh! In France, I shell out so much more than that for the same damn thing.

Yesterday we stepped out (i.e. got in the car and drove for an hour “to the city”) to see the new Matt Damon flick, Promised Land. To my surprise, the theater offered IMAX, 3D and vibrating seats! When did this start? Anyway, the movie I liked. I also liked the big empty theater, which was a nice change from France, where I have long become maniacal about showing up early for fear of being left with a front-row seat, or worse, no seat at all.

Hurry up and wait.

Regardless of a few flops, I remain a big fan of Matt Damon, whom I prefer any day to both Leonardo, who for some reason bugs me, and especially to Brad, whom I flat-out cannot stand. Why the entire world seems to judge him a great actor is beyond me. I’m tempted to go to Google and type “Brad Pitt is a mediocre actor,” just to see if it will guess what I’m typing before I’m done typing it (thereby proving this has been typed many times before and I am not alone in my distaste), but I’m sure the second I type “Brad Pitt is...” Google will instead suggest one of its perennial favorites: “gay” or “dead.” A lot of people must be searching for these things if Google is spontaneously guessing them. It’s an interesting insight into our national hang-ups I suppose. Compare with Google France, which judging by its most frequent suggestions seems to suspect that everyone is Jewish (or gay or dead). So whereas American Internet surfers appear to be obsessed with sexual orientation, French ones appear to (still) be obsessed with who exactly has Hebrew ancestry. I shudder to imagine the consequences had Google existed during the Occupation.

The movie was quite good. Early reviews don’t seem to agree with me, but I like seeing an American film that dares to question the practice of fracking, however half-heartedly. The subject has been a big fat deal in France for some time, much as have GMOs, while both seem to be relatively new buzzwords on this side of the world. I was delighted to see a California measure on the ballot this November proposing the compulsory labeling of all GMO-containing foods, yet my “health conscious” home state voted it down! I see this as perfectly bizarre given the success of all those “they’re out to get us” diet books topping best seller lists and striking fear into the hearts of those who would dare consume sugar/carbs/meat/milk/soy/corn and now, wheat. That’s right, wheat is now what’s making America fat

The new face of evil.

I wonder whether the paranoia we seem to have in this country about what our food may be doing to us is at all related to the paranoia of those who harbor an obsessive fear of our government. I remember a day in my 12th grade AP Civics class, during which the teacher took out a long strip of paper and wrote the entire political spectrum on it, beginning with the extreme left (anarchy) and ending with the extreme right (fascism). When she was done, she joined the two ends together, forming one continuous circle. The point of course was that in the end, both forms of extremism stand shoulder to shoulder. I won’t go so far as suggesting that right-wing militia who arm themselves to the teeth with automatic weapons on the off chance that federal agents one day show up on their lawns in an attempt to seize their “freedom” are in the end not so different from left-wing activists who are convinced that the Department of Agriculture is purposefully trying to poison us all with genetically modified organisms, but it does give one pause for thought. “I love my country but fear my government” seems to have universal appeal in states both blue and red.

And there you have it.

This notion of fearing one’s democratically-elected government is among the most difficult to explain to the French, for whom the government has long lost its fear factor and could more aptly be likened to a doting mother nursing her hungry child. Fear the government? Whatever for? The government means health care, education, justice, jobs, transportation, vacation, retirement, and much more. As Adam Gopnik has observed in his own book of reflections on life in France, Paris to the Moon, “The American populist belief is that there is a secret multinational agency ready to swoop down from the skies and make everybody work for the government; the French populist belief is that there is a secret government agency that may yet swoop down from the skies and give everybody a larger pension.”

This government love fest of course comes at the price of exorbitant taxes on everything from how much you eat to how many televisions you own, yet doesn’t seem to bother anyone all that much. Consider current French President François Hollande’s attempt to hike income taxes on France’s wealthiest to a whopping 75% (that’ll teach THEM to be rich!), which very nearly became reality. Such a proposal in the US would not only be met with categorical refusal, while surely spelling the political demise of whoever was foolish enough to suggest it, but would doubtless be considered by many as irrefutable proof that government is evil.  

Just another reason why sharing my life between both shores provides so much to ponder. But that’s all the pondering I can muster for today. Thanks for hanging in there, and stay tuned for future rants and reflections at Le Mot Juste.