Highlight of the day

Watching an old couple in their 80s, holding hands swinging as they walked, laughing and joking together like a couple of teenagers, so in love. Quite honestly, it's the little things in life that can really make you smile.

Ah, l'amour...

Five weddings and a funeral AKA Pineapple chicken with a side of heartburn

For whatever reason, Blogger isn't letting me enter a title into the title spot, so this will just have to do. I liked both titles, btw, so I decided to leave them both and you can just consider this as two separate entries and pretend like I wrote in between July 4th and today.

Anyhoo, title #1 refers to the craziness that is ALLLLL my friends getting married/engaged this year. Let's just go through a little timeline, shall we?

**March 2007-J, a friend from High school, got engaged to her bf from college that she's been with a good bit now.

**April 2007-K, a fellow English assistant from the US, got engaged to her French bf who she had only been back together with for maybe a month(but they dated for about a year and a half when she met him as a study abroader in Grenoble.) Wedding date set for Aug 2008.

**May 2007-K, one of my roomates senior year of Uni, got married to her bf she met through work, I believe.

**June 2007-L, who studied abroad in Rennes with me in 2002, got engaged in March when she was visiting me and later met up with her bf who proposed to her underneath the Eiffel tower. She got married only a few weeks ago in June.

**September 2007-T, one of my best friends from Uni, is set to marry her British boy in early Sept. I've never had the chance to meet him ever since they got together in early 2005 and got engaged late 2006 and have been in either Edinburgh or London.

It really doesn't take much more than 5 engagements/marriages in ONE YEAR to make a girl feel very old and very, very single. C dingue, ca!

As for the second part of my title, I will explain. I invited my host fam that I lived with in '02 to come over with their three kids who are about 5, 7 and 9. Good thing the kids are absolutely lovely, otherwise there would have been a very stressed Leah to deal with. Anyway, I hadn't seen them since about December, so I called them up a bit ago and we set up a time to see each other and this time I invited them over to mine since they are always inviting me and they had never seen my apt. I was a little stressed in terms of what to make seeing as la presentation and bonne cuisine can be very important, but my lack of mulah ruled all and I prepared fairly simple(read:cheap) dishes.

~Apero-Kir for the big kids, pineapple juice for the little kids. Assorted nibbles not made by me.

~Entree-summer salad with tomatoes, red pepper, cucumber, corn and mozzarella with homemade crutons and balsamic dressing.

~Repas-Marinated pineapple chicken with red peppers served over rice.

~Dessert-BROWNIES! miam, miam

All in all, it was a success. Everyone seemed to like the bouffe, we had a nice conversation and I got to experience again what awesome people they are(they brought me pretty pink flowers...so nice!) The kiddies had fun petting the kitty and then watching Narnia and everybody left around 23h30. The only bump in the road is when I woke up, I really had a bad case of heartburn and considering we all ate exactly the same thing, I'm really hoping that was just me and I didn't make everyone else sick. Sometimes things that are too olive oil-y hurt the old tum-tum, so I'm thinking/hoping that's what it was.

Besides that, I had an interesting weekend, on va dire. Friday night was spent with the roomate and Charlotte at a nice soiree pierrade chez-nous. I really can't get over the eating with the same fork you use to pierce the raw meat and put it on to cook. So, I snuck in a clean fork and used that to stab the viande and another to eat. Although I'm not quite positive I didn't maybe switch the forks on accident at least one time. There was, ahem, drinking involved afterall. After, we met up with Virginie and headed to a bar de nuit where I bumped into the twin of this guy I went out with a couple times. Leslie and Charlotte ended up leaving to go en boite and Virginie and I stayed behind to chat with the twin and his friends where Leah proceeded to make an a$$ of herself, I am sure. After they left, V and I went to a bar de nuit just nearby and I ended up chatting with some guys who happened to live literally across the street from me. Super weird...Rennes is the size of my foot. Needless to say, I ended up getting home around 8 AM. Oops. Good thing I recovered by the time my fam got there.

After my fam left, since everybody was at a soiree outside of Rennes, I met up with a friend who lives across town to just hang out and watch a movie with him and his brothers. Yeah, so, I didn't end up getting a lot of sleep last night either, but that's a story for another time. Maybe this year won't be my funeral afterall? I will say no more!!! I have to be up early tomorrow for a babysitting gig ALL DAY LONG. Good thing I already have dinner prepared...oh wait, maybe that's not the best idea as you all know how that goes!

PS-My host fam's kitty is having kittens scheduled for next weekend and I get to see them. So excited!!!

PPS-I saw a woman on the bus ride home with a cat on a leash in the bus with her. Poor little thing!

PPPS-Pic is of Rennes, Place Sainte Anne.

Happy 4th of July!

Just a quick note(for once, right?) to wish all you Americans on all sides of all oceans a happy, happy independence day! I hope those of you stateside are having fun BBQs-eat a turkey burger, some pasta salad and a slice of apple pie for me!! Miam, miam :)

You know it's bad when...

...you vacuum the vacuum cleaner and de-soap the soap dispenser. Yeah, dire situation here folks. When I get stir-crazy, stressed, jobless or any combination of the three, I clean. If you don't already know, I'm pretty OCD and like things to have their place and stay there and for things to basically always be rangé-d. However, my OCD does not usually encompass all things involving dust and other dirtiness you can find, just that things be in order. But, today just proves my OCD rules all when I get stressed out. France, please save yourself from Captain Anal and find me a job right away!

PS-Maybe I should rethink my super hero name as it might sound a little gross?;)

PPS-As for the Bob Saget reference. If you ever watched Full House, you will remember what a clean freak Danny Tanner was. I specifically remember an episode where he was vacuuming his vacuum cleaner. Eek! I have become a dad from an iconic 90s tv show! Or maybe not...

Aunt Sue

Remember when I mentioned how a bunch of awful things had happened to me in the past few months? Well I won’t go into all of them because then instead of writing a novel like I usually do, I would write about 50. I will definitely spare you the wordiness. Instead, I choose to talk about one of those many unfortunate incidents because as bad as all the things were that happened to me, this one really was the one that affected me most. In May 2007, I can never and will never forget what happened. This thing, this horrible thing…it made me book a flight back to the states, call off classes for a week and leave behind everything else that I was responsible for in France and go home for a week to be with my family. It was heart-breaking, life-changing, gut-wrenching AWFUL. My loving Aunt Sue who had just turned 55 two weeks earlier, a loving, caring and extremely generous person was taken from us due to a long battle with a difficult disease. She was a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a niece and a friend. She was a delight, she never stopped laughing and smiling and her joy was contagious. So, on this day, marking two months without my wonderful Aunt Sue, I write this poem to her:

What I know
I’m missing your laugh because it stretched over thousands of miles and
I’m missing your hugs because they made us all feel so loved and safe and
I’m missing your smile because it could brighten any dull moment.

I’m sorry you lost an almost lifelong battle with a cruel disease and
I’m sorry you couldn’t reach out for help when you needed it and
I’m sorry you didn’t take better care of yourself when you should have.

I’m sad for your children because they still have so much life to live without you in it and it’s not fair or right and
I’m sad for my parents and aunt because now so many future memories with them will be left unfulfilled and
I’m sad for my sister and I because without you here, the laughter in our hearts is now quieter.

I’m mad because I hadn’t seen you in over 2 months when I learned you were gone and
I’m mad because there’s nothing I can ever do to change that and
I’m mad because you left us too soon.

I know everything happens for a reason and this time I can’t figure out why, but
I know I never will and must learn to accept that anyways, but
I know I love and miss you and I will always.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

Ok, well, my roomie is watching TV and I'm waiting to call my rents, so I thought I would get my blog on with my latest complaint, I mean, "entry." I discovered today I am feeling a bit ofthe green-eyed monster in that I have a friend who seems like she has everything falling in place and it just happens to be everything I want...grr. Oh how I envy her, let me count the ways:

1) She just got a job for the summer. Myself, I have 1, that's right, 1(!!!) babysitting job that will start before or after July 15th and will be once or twice a week. Before or after July 15th, that's random you might think, well you ain't the only one!

2) She happens to have EU citizenship. Don't get me started.

3) Her friend that's an assistant just gave her the info of someone who needs English lessons. Hmm, what was it again that Leah was searching for? Was it English lasoos? No, I believe it was ENGLISH LESSONS!

4) She gets paid this summer for her job although she has not worked since the beginning of June and will not work again until September! Almost 3 months pay for no work! Why doesn't the assistantship pay through the summer? Tooootally kidding, ps.

5) She secured a job for this fall. The guy who they originally hired(it's an exchange) backed out at the last minute. How conveeeenient.

6) She has a loving boyfriend. Scratch that, she has A boyfriend period. Someone who will help her when things get rough and will stay by her side so that she's never alone. How wonderful. I'm brimming with joy.

Bitter much? Yes. Now, is it better that my anger has turned to bitterness? Or should I just be honest and say I am now not only bitter, but also angry? Fan-freakin-tastic! Hope all's well.

Kisses,

Bitty McBitterson

I am a geek

So, I went and saw Shrek 3 at the Gaumont on Wed and I gotta say I really don't know how they do it, but yet again, it was pretty darn good! I mean, the things these people come up with and their intense creativity blows my mind. "I suck-eth" taped on someone's back...that's just classic. A store called Versarchery? Very clever. Ye Olde Foot Locker? Again great(won't spill on that one, though, don't want to ruin it for those of you haven't seen it yet!) But, if you liked the first and second, definitely go see the third. I'm dying to see it in English because I can only imagine it would be even funnier and I also prefer Mike Myers as Shrek and, umm, kinda would've preferred Justin Timberlake over some random French dude playing Arthur. Besides them, Julie Andrews, several gals from SNL, etc, etc.

Speaking of animated films, would l'Age de Glace(Ice Age) be still funny for a CM2(5th grader)? I'm hoping so as I'm planning on showing it next week for my LAST.WEEK.OF.CLASSES!!! Youpiiii! JK, I am not actually a 8 yr old French child who would say that, I was just in the moment, quoi. Yeah, so I wanted to do something to celebrate the end of the year and those kids are already gone on vacation in their cabezas anyways, so I figured something like a film would be fun and CALM. I'm planning on showing l'Age de Glace in English with French subtitles provided that is actually a possibility. If not, I'll have to scour Geant, Carrefour or LeClerc for some cheap DVDs and invest in one myself. I was thinking a long the lines of Shrek 1 or Finding Nemo. Definitely an animated film, but I'm cheap, so I'd rather not buy one myself especially if I do end up leaving France and then the film would be of no use to me. We will see.

That reminds me, I still have to see Shrek 1 in English! I saw it in French in 2002 when I lived abroad in Rennes for the first time as a study abroad student. My friend had already seen it and we watched it together. Well, she was apparently a pretty big fan because everytime something should have been funny in the film aka would have been funny in the English version, she repeated what was said in English. Let's just say my friend, who is not a middle-aged black man, didn't really compare to hearing Eddie Murphy play Donkey. Also, somehow l'Ane just doesn't work...especially said with Shrek's scottish accent, it just isn't the same. However, I loved loved LOVED Pinocchio and the Gingerbread man's voices in French. Espec the part when Pinocchio is trying so hard not to lie so just keeps on saying really vague sentences, I was literally cracking up. Ok, I need to stop talking about Shrek because now it won't be my negativity that scares y'all away, it will be my geekiness! Haha.

Anyway, a subject I have been wanting to share for a while would be my pet peeves. I'm pretty detail-oriented and by that, I mean anal, so a lot of my pet peeves are things I have to deal with quite often. So, for your knowledge and for my entertainment(I enjoy making lists...ahem...as I said anal) and in no specific order, I have composed a list of my...

ALL-TIME GREATEST PET PEEVES:

1) sitting in the aisle seat on the bus-let me just clarify that I don't feel the need to always sit down on the bus and especially don't like sitting with STRANGE*ers, but I just think it's so very inconsiderate to take up two spaces because you want to sit by yourself. In that case, too bad, find a place standing then!

2) rudeness-this can encompass so many different things and can exist in so many different ways from the grocery store clerk that doesn't even say hello or goodbye to a lady that poked a guy on the train with her umbrella because she was in a hurry(so was he, btw.) I am a polite person with excellent manners and I cannot stand for people being rude whether to me or others. One guy once yelled at my mom when my fam was all together at a James Taylor concert in MA. He told her to not step on his blanket(it was an outdoor lawn and tons of people brought blankets and/or chairs and picnics). It was jam-packed with people by the time we got there and there was no other way to find a spot but to make your way through the people already sitting down and find an empty spot of lawn. I'm sorry, but too bad my mother(one of the nicest people in the world who does not have a rude bone in her body) stepped on your precious blanket. So, my mom told him he was rude for yelling at her and he said "no, you're rude" and I turned and said "actually, you're the one who's rude." I could have said something about the fact that we had no other choice, but to make our way through all the people and we were trying our best not to disturb people's set-ups, but it's super crowded and we're carrying chairs, a cooler and a blanket, but I didn't because I could tell he was a bitter, old man and he didn't even deserve my time. So there!

3)men who wear murses, fanny packs and jeans tighter than mine aka many french and spanish man-ok, this one's kinda a lark, but come on, now!

4)people who walk really slow in front of you or right behind you-more annoying is the right behind, just go in front of me!

5)close-talkers and loud breathers-nuff said!

6) loud and/or gross eaters-this one really bugs me. Any variation of lip-smacking, food dribbling, slurping, sloshing, teeth or mouth picking is bound to drive me bonkers. There's a lady that eats her breakfast on one of the trains I take and she eats a full-blown bowl of cereal. Well, this train is pretty early, so it's pretty quiet and her milk-slurping resonates through the whole car. Grr.

7)being hot-I have little to no tolerance for this and find myself unable to carry on a normal conversation until I have cooled down. Let's just say, my hair and face are not friends with humidity.

8)on-the-go t-shirts-Yes, it's nice you went to Florida, but can't you find another t-shirt that doesn't have a huge smiling alligator with a hot pink background?

That's all for now, folks! Off to the Beaux-Arts museum with Jen that I've still never been to after all this time here.

*Oh, the lady on the bus next to me was a case. She was talking to anyone and everyone whilst shoving crackers into her bouche non-stop which I can only assume crumbled all over me as she might as well have been sitting on top of me. She was dressed like a homeless person would be on a very cold night in December which is a mystery to me because even when it was raining and a little chilly earlier, it wasn't THAT cold. I always get the winners, I tell ya!