I haven't been getting a ton of sleep lately, and I cannot figure out why this is. The unfortunate thing is that it makes my already foggy brain even less able to process information and speak (especially in French). Yesterday was one of the groggiest days I have had in a long time, not helped by the weather which was constantly shifting from thunderstorms, to foggy mist, to partly cloudy, etc. But I finally managed to get out of the house and was heading to the library to read about 'the crisis of modernism' in the Catholic church in France (of course I think modernism is awesome so I was unaware that it nearly brought down the Catholic church and that the number of books on the papal index skyrocketed in the 1920s and 30s). But anyway, I'm thinking about modernism and head down the stairs and out of my building when the madness starts. Here is a list of the strange things that I saw between the three minutes I left my apartment to the time I descended into the metro station:
1. There was a policewoman giving out parking tickets on the small street in front of my apartment, which is not an unusual occurrence. However she was sobbing quite hysterically as she was writing them out. I went over and asked her if she was okay and she waved me away and said "ça va"
2. When I walked a few more steps down the street toward the rue St. Antoine (a major street in Paris), there were two men on horseback wearing long black capes and some sort of helmet with feathers. Now not only is this a busy street, it's also one of the streets with the worst traffic and pollution in Paris. I followed them for a block, but then they turned off onto another side street. I have never even seen a horse in Paris, much less a pair of them in costume in the middle of town!
3. I was walking toward the metro station when I saw a man sitting on a bench near the public toilet with his large rolling sac (the kind everyone here uses for groceries). But instead of bread or leeks sticking out of it, it was a naked leg of a female mannequin, with the foot in the air, and on the toes, there was nail polish. It was like the leg lamp from A Christmas Story but much creepier. The man looked about 80 years old and was staring into space, so who knows where it came from or why it was there!
4. Finally about 10 feet further I was walking down the stairs into the metro station when a guy in full football uniform, including pads and a helmet, came up out of the Subway, pushing people out of the way. I know the Superbowl just happened, but people in France couldn't care less about that type of football. They only like the kind you actually play with your feet.
I don't know if there is any rational explanation for this spectacle. I am not even really sure if it was reality. If only I had brought my camera with me yesterday!
The day just kind of deteriorated from there, and in the afternoon I had to visit the archive of the aid organization I'm researching to talk to the old ladies there who run the archives about when I could get into the 'real' archive to look at the other part of their holdings (to update: when I arrived in France, I found out they had just moved 60% of their archives to the contemporary archive in Nanterre). As I mentioned before, I could barely speak English yesterday much less French, but when I arrived, they took me into the conference room and asked that I give several staff members an explanation of the American electoral system and what Super Tuesday meant. In the first place, I don't think I even know how the American electoral system works. Fortunately A. had given me a crash course in the caucus system a few weeks ago when I expressed disbelief that the presidential primary in Iowa seemed to be conducted in a ritual akin to "Red Rover". But this did not equip me to explain it well in French, especially since I don't know how you translate words and phrases like "caucus", "electoral college" or "hanging chads" into French. It was kind of a disaster. I think everyone was more confused than before, including me, and I'm pretty sure that in my confusion, all knowledge of French grammar or the accent flew out of my brain. This is, of course, the same group of people who thought it was hilarious when I mixed up the words for fog and scratch paper and told them that there was fog stuck in the printer!
This has heightened my resolve never to talk about current politics ever again, or at least until I understand what's going on.
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7 comments:
The rational explanation for the spectacle you witnessed is that you are in Paris. The French are just plain weird.
I don't understand how the primary system works either. My flatmate does though. He stumbled home drunk last night and glued himself to the telly for god knows how long watching the Super Tuesday coverage. Then we had a big debate over how intrusive the government is in England, all in the name of security. I felt like I was listening to Fascism in the making.
when you tell french people that fog comes out of the copy machine, you're like the crazy lady on french tv who thought that coffee machines produced french fries.
if anything, you're sounding more and more french!
also, our electoral system is designed to be impenetrable. you probably didn't even get into the distinction between delegates and super delegates!
This day is so crazy that I don't even know how to respond.
So instead I will just tell you that our kitchen sink has been leaking.
We finally called our landlord and he tried to fix it, but broke a pipe. He looked at the tub-sized cast iron sink in dismay and said he'd call his plumber/seminary student.
7 a.m. yesterday: plumber removes pipes.
7:02 a.m. yesterday: plumber says, "I'll be back tomorrow with some stuff."
In the meantime, we've been merrily washing dishes in the bathroom sink...until last night when Ceara's bath wouldn't drain and there were suspicious leafy greens floating in it. Yeah, how could 3 full-grown adults have been expected to guess that THAT would happen?!?...oh, yeah, we probably COULD have seen it coming, but we were being naively cleanly, like raccoons. We didn't have time to think about potential practical plumbing problems. Guess we'll tack that on to the "Plumbing Tasks At Hand List" for the guy.
Wow that is a crappy day! You and CBAM can commiserate with each other about plumbing disasters!
Haha--new awesome faucet in the kitchen that does not require any extraneous tools to turn on and off...which is a good thing because it meant I had somewhere to wash my hair this morning.
Turns out the plumber who was at our house yesterday accomplishing the kitchen feat does not specialize in gross stuff. He told Ceara to have our landlord call a "clog guy" for the compost-themed back-up in the shower and warned her that we were, under no circumstances, to try to solve this ourselves with Drain-o (that sp looks wrong...) Anyway, would love to start a plumbing disaster support group. I move that whoever is voted Secretary be responsible for spinning disaster stories into a series of brilliant essays that can be published and net us a tidy profit.
"Fix the sink!"
"I did. It just comes from a different place."
Ha!
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