Reigning Confusion

One of the things involved with moving house is buying new household products since, I for one, will not schlep half-empty bottles of detergents and dishwashing liquids across the ocean.

I have a friend who raved, as one does, about the new Dawn foaming dishwashing liquid. I took this opportunity to try it myself.

After a couple of uses, I thought to myself that my pots still kinda feel greasy. I took a closer look at the bottle. Here it is (I must admit, the bottle does look rather snazzy compared to its peers):



Wait, a closer look:


"Antibacterial HANDSOAP" followed by "Citrus Kick Dishwashing Foam"

I got confused. Is this handsoap or is this dishwashing liquid?

I thought, surely, there's gotta be more info on the back of the bottle. What I found, however, confused me even more:


Now, I clearly remember picking up this bottle in the aisle with other dishwashing liquids in the supermarket. How could it be, that on the back of the bottle, all it mentions is the use and directions for washing hands? No mention of dishes, pots and pans?

So which is it, is this a handsoap or is it a dishwashing liquid? Is it interchangeable? If so, why does the bottle not mention anything about dishwashing on the back?

I thought it was just a fluke from the Dawn brand. Imagine my astonishment when I found the exact same on a bottle of Joy!?





I feel like I'm totally pulling a Jessica Simpson (is it chicken or is it tuna?) - but honestly, is it handsoap or is it dishwash?

Googles Searches Tell Lots!

Here are some sample google searches I have had to do in the past couple of weeks since arriving in St Martin - most are self-explanatory and will give you a gist of our new living situation/challenges/preoccupations:

> capturing lizards in house

> mosquito repellent effective for kids

> mosquito netting

> installing window screens

> difference riptides and undertow

> hurricane categories

> plywood window boarding hurricane

> hurricane readiness supplies

> no leak swim goggles for kids

> Storing rice hot climate

> Ciguatera fish poisoning

French Titles

OK August was a bust, no postings at all - shame on me. Will have to fill in the details about our move and all that at some point. For now, a much more pressing matter to report:

I read a few books this summer and I especially enjoyed the Stieg Larson books, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.

I was a bit taken aback when I discovered these books on sale locally:


Les Hommes qui N'aiment pas Les Femmes

Translation: Men Who Do Not Like Women

Now how is that a justifiable title for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Of course I get it, the book is about men who abuse women, fine. But why not La Fille Tattooee or La Fille a Tattoo de Dragon? Why do the French have a tendency to make everything so obvious? Similar to the question I had on Movie Title translations, who gets to make these executive decisions?

Should we take a look at the second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire?


In French it's called La Fille qui Revait d'un Bidon d'Essence et d'une Allumette.

Huh? The Girl who Dreamt of a Gas Container and a Match?

Do the French not play with fire? Cannot fathom such a notion?

OK so for the third book, which I have not yet read, which in English is: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

In French:



La Reine dans le Palais des Courants d'Air

Hmmm. The Queen in the Palace of Moving Air, or in the Palace of Air Currents. Maybe I am translating too literally myself, maybe the palais of courants d'airs means something symbolic in French that I am unaware of, or seeing how the French love to state the obvious, maybe there is really an airy palace of some sorts in the book. Nonetheless I am surprised at how the French title is so far from the English title. Do they not get the risk implied with kicking the hornet's nest? Do they not have hornets in France? Could they have replaced it with Bee's Nest?

That makes me wonder, what are these titles in its original language, Swedish? Are we the ones butchering it? I suspect not, but I have been wrong before....

French Originals

A good friend told me the other day that she went to the premiere of a movie called "Dinner with Schmucks". The title sounded vaguely familiar to me, so I asked her what it was about. She uttered maybe 5 words before it hit me - it was a remake of a French movie that I absolutely love, called "Diner de Cons".

This made me think of the countless times when the French were quick to point out to me that a lot of things that, to me, are American are actually French in origin.

I was once flabbergasted and incredulous when we heard Frank Sinatra belt out "My Way" one day, and one of PeeWee's friends turned to me with what resembled panic in his eyes, and asked me, you do know that this song is actually a French song? I of course went, "no way". He was insistent and accused the Old Blue Eyes of stealing a very well known French song called "Comme d'habitude" by a hugely popular (and dead) singer called Claude Francois - huh? I thought this to be evidence that everyday Frenchmen still suffer from illusions of grandeur from the country once being a World Power.

Then came a series of American movies that I actually knew to have been French originally, because I had actually seen them in French a few years before they were adapted by US studios: "Three Men and a Baby", "La Femme Nikita", "Cousins", etc.

Then a month or so ago, I came across an old article in Vanity Fair about the heydays of Disco, and it says that two of the founding members of the Village People were French!! Wow! I sure was impressed!

Give them credit where it's due, I guess. Now I am dying to see Dinner with Schmucks. The Schmuck is played by Steve Carell, and I think he will have a lot to live up to - the original character is played by Jacques Villeret, a very famous (and now dead) actor. Compare the two:

The French one:

The American one:

Long long winter

The calendar says it's Springtime, but the weather has its own ideas.

It's absolutely freezing here in Rennes. I always am incredulous when people here say, "oh mais c'est pas normale!" (this crappy weather is very unusual!) but this time I believe it - it's by far the worst month of May we've had in the three years that we've been here. Usually May is full of long weekends and people striking to take advantage of milder weather, but no such luck this year.

So imagine my surprise when I saw this pop up on my iPhone the other night - look at the "real feel" temperature - that is exactly how I really felt, and it was reflected on Accuweather of all places. All other cities on my list had normal "real feel" temperatures - Rennes was the only one that really felt like -200 F!



Technical glitch? Or is the Accuweather app now reading my mind/body temperature?

French signatures

One thing we used to do for a laugh during my early days at Citibank was to whip out the signature books. There used to be these books filled with authorized signatures from major banks around the world. The biggest laughs were reserved for the signatures from French banks.

The French, it appears to me, do not take signatures very seriously. Nobody I know ever signs their full name. Every French adult, at one point or another in life, has created a simple single-stroke personal "emblem". Here are some examples, actual signatures I happened to have lying around on various documents around the house:





See what I mean?

London Calling... again

I had to travel to the UK on a short notice last week and, because I got there too late in the evening, I ended up staying with my friend K, instead of going to a hotel in a London suburb where my meeting was the next day. I woke up super early the next morning, and walked down a very empty Gloucester Road - I almost had the street to myself and I was struck by how lovely and clean it was. This is a street that I pounded on daily while last living in London - but I never saw it like that morning - calm, clean, glistening wet from the recent rain. It strangely lifted my spirits.

It got me thinking about England, and more particularly, things that are just so particularly English. One train of thought I had involved people's names. There are some names that are just very English, as in, while they are very commonplace in England, you would be hard-pressed to find people with such names in the US. For example:

Graham
Nigel
Simon
Colin
Liam
Ian
Duncan
Alfie
Jasper
Rupert
Sadie
Fiona

I wonder why that is? And they are mostly boys' names. Hmmm.

And some expressions remain resolutely English. Like if you have done something well, they would say to you "good on you!" - or when you thank someone for holding the door for you, they would reply "that's ok" instead of "you're welcome".

It also felt good to be in an English speaking country again - it's been months - and seeing many familiar but missing-in-France-outside-Paris shops like Starbucks and the Bagel Factory and Krispy Kreme. Yum!

Alas, this post ends on a critical note (being a critical person that I am) - one thing that used to annoy me living in London was the poor spelling of the locals. In newspapers, in flyers, in office memos - and I'm not talking about UK spelling protocols vs. American protocols - I mean, pure spelling mistakes. Here is one I caught at the airport on the way back - see if you can spot what I'm talking about:

Cheerios!

Unexplainable French Grammar Rule: Part II

Hana's not been doing very well in French lately. Up to now, she has been picking things up with remarkable ease, but nowadays I see that not all is intuitive, even to "native" speakers like my daughter.

Her trouble nowadays has to do with imperative sentences - brush your teeth, roll up your sleeves, don't pick out the onions, put away your Nintendo right this minute, turn off the TV before I go ballistic. Actually I cannot blame her for having trouble with this, since although I utter the above imperative sentences multiple times in a given day, I never do so in French.

So I delegated and asked PeeWee to help her study this. He looked at her workbook, then he looked at her study guide book, then he consulted the conjugation bible, the Bescherelle. He was at this for a good 15 minutes without saying a word to Hana. Finally I asked him, what you don't understand either? He looked up all forlorn, and says, it doesn't make any sense!

To hear him utter these words in regards to the French language felt something like a victory to me.

So here is Unexplainable Rule #1 in Imperatives.

When you want to say "Slow down" - for example - to your kid riding a bicycle, you will say "Ralentis" - a straight conjugation of "ralentir" in the familiar "tu" person.

However, if you want to say "Turn right", because the verb "Tourner" ends in "-er", you don't just conjugate and say "Tournes a droite". You drop that "s" and say "tourne a droite".

WTF?

Wait, did I say, for verbs ending in "er"? Well, actually that is also the case for certain verbs (not all, God forbid) ending in "-ir", such as ouvrir, offrir, cueillir and souffrir.

Here is Unexplainable Rule example #2 of what can go wrong, taken from Hana's workbook:

"Le verbe aller ne prend pas de "s" a la 2eme personne du singulier, sauf vas-y"

So "go do your homework" would be "va faire les devoirs", but "go there" is "vas-y"

Why? No explanation. No apologies. All very characteristic of this language.

Note: the title of this post (and an earlier rant) was originally "Stupid French Grammar Rule" - I decided to be a bit less judgmental and changed "Stupid" to "Unexplainable" in the spirit of being more open-minded (in this case, however, being open-minded is accompanied by being open-mouthed at the stupidity of it all)

I say "Ouch", they say "Aie!"

One of my favorite English words is onomatopoeia. I love how it begins with a happy "o" and ends in what to me is sunny Brazilian-sounding "oeia"

Here are some English ones and their French equivalents that I've been hearing:


Yumm --> Miam

Yuck --> Beurk

Ruff ruff (as in dog) --> Ouah Ouah

Oink oink --> Groin groin

Quack quack --> Coin coin

Hey (as in, watch out, watch it, wait a minute) --> He ho (without pronouncing the "h"s, so it becomes eh, oh)

Achoo (as in sneeze) -- > Atchoum

Burp -- > Rot

Bang bang (as in gun) --> Plop plop

Wee woo wee woo (as in siren) --> pin pan pin pan


My all-time onomatopoeia however is in Korean. It is bogul-bogul - it denotes the sound made by a boiling liquid. As far as I know there is no equivalent in either English or French. And that is a shame!

What I learned from Watching the Olympics in France

1. Objectively speaking, France is not a proper powerhouse when it comes to the Olympics. You would think the French recognize this. However, their frustration of not having had a medal since Tuesday (today is Friday) was obvious from tonight's coverage. The presenters kept on going on and on about the medal-less streak and the interviewers in Vancouver questioned coaches and sometimes crying athletes to explain their less than stellar performances. One presenter said that he got an email from a man who wanted to name his just-born son for the next medal winner and that he is left hanging...

2. The French love Canadians! They try to find any and every Canadian that speaks French and they come right out saying things like "we love the way you speak French!", "what a cute accent you people have!". I heard one presenter remark that while the accent is really marked in conversations, French Canadians have no accent whatsoever when they are singing (example given: Celine Dion). Hmmm? I have to say, I myself have serious problems understanding Canadian French.

3. The number one thing you hear repeatedly from announcers: Oh-la-la, oh-la-la (usually in two's). Contrary to what many Americans may think, it's not just women who say oh-la-la. EVERYBODY says it (quite funny, for me at least, to go to an arcade where a bunch of tough looking French teenage boys are crying out oh-la-la!)

4. The number two thing that you hear repeatedly from announcers is "Chapeau!" - - literally, "Hat!" - After a while I figured out that what they mean to say is "Bravo" or "Fantastic". I guess crying out "hat" is short for "I tip my hat off to your amazing performance". Interesting.

The coverage tonight is going on, but they seem absolutely dejected that another night may go by without a French medal... Allez France!

"You want my picture?"

In the US, if you are annoyed that someone is discourteously staring at you, you would aggressively turn to that person and demand, in the most threatening tone you can muster, "what are you looking at?"

I learned that in France, what they say in this very same situation is somewhat less threatening - they say "tu veux ma photo, quoi?" - translation: "what, you want my picture?"

Speaking of, here is a recent one of the girls. You may stare all you want.

Things to do When on Bedrest #5: Find Long-Forgotten Photos

I'm still hanging out at home and today I was actually productive and cleaned out a lot of junk from my computer. I went through various photo files and got rid of a bunch of stuff. In so doing, I came across some pics that I thought I may share with you here.

I'd written previously about English words taken by the French to denote something entirely different, like "sh*t". Well, I came across the following in my neighborhood recently and I was a bit taken aback:

This is a tattoo parlor that opened up not too long ago. The name the store chose for itself is "Breizh Wankers Tattoo". Here is a sign on the door:

Breizh is Breton for someone or something from Brittany. A Breizh Wanker therefore would be a wanker from Brittany. Hmmm.

Granted, "wanker" is not a well known word in the US. I never even heard of it until I went to study in England. In England, however, it is a very often used term, derogatory for sure, and means a male masturbator. I saw a Graham Norton episode once where he gets a hold of the white pages of some US midwest state and he squealed in delight in finding several people last-named Wanker. He then proceeded to call them one by one, just to get the audience laughing as he asks for a Mr Wanker. Gwenyth Paltrow also pronounced the word very convincingly, very often, in her role as a London girl in Sliding Doors.

So I was convinced that either this tattoo parlor owner had no idea what a wanker means in English, or that it means something completely different in French. There is also the possibility of course that he knows exactly what a wanker is, and he is trying to be edgy and ironic, as one might expect tattoo parlor owners to be. Then I came across this, this time on the back window of a car parked near our apartment:

Apparently the Breizh Wanker Krew is a punk band.

If this keeps up, it won't be long until Hana asks me what a wanker is!

Things to do When on Bedrest #4: Make a Wishlist

Now that we are about to make another move, this time to a little island, I can't help but think that the move is going to be v expensive. It will get expensive, to be sure, to lug ourselves and all our stuff over there, but it will also get expensive because I keep on thinking about some things that I should buy BEFORE we leave. After all, who knows what we can and cannot find over there? Sure, it is a modern island where I am sure one can find just about anything you need, but can one find stuff that you don't necessarily need but just really really want?

For example:



I've always liked wall stickers and the one above is from a French company (www.harmonie-interieur.com) that ships lovely looking decals for FREE to mainland France. See?

Another example of what recently made it into my wishlist:



What are these? Well, they only just make the most perfect looking cake:




I'm quite sure there is no William & Sonoma in St Martin! See how forward-thinking I am? There are lots of other cool bakeware at this store too... Of course, I did once splurge on the ice cream cone baking pan there and only used it to bake once (though they are super for laying out candy at the kids' birthday parties).

So while I am on this non-essential but lovely-to-have list, check this out, courtesy of coffeestencil.com:



Imagine that to brighten up your morning cappucino!

Who says I ain't productive on bedrest?

Things to do When on Bedrest #3: Veg

My great friend C sent me the DVDs of Lipstick Jungle, the NBC show with Brooke Shields that was cancelled after two seasons. I had already watched the pilot episode (it was free on iTunes at one point) and I thought it was ok, so I was happy to have some time to watch the whole thing.

The following are some things I learned from my Lipstick Jungle marathon:

1. I miss New York very much. All those images of NYC in lights, people moving busily in all directions, the skyscrappers in sunlight... I didn't cry or anything, but I definitely felt something tugging. It's telling that the episode I liked the least is when they went away to that B&B somewhere in the Hudson Valley.

2. Successful NY women do not feel compelled to match their earrings with their necklaces. This was a huge relevation for me, personally. I always try to ensure that if I wear a bold necklace, I don't clash it with earrings so I always go with small studs or no earrings at all. Well, Nico and Wendy would have it no other way. I was wowed (but not personally convinced).

3. Successful NY women do not take off their jewelry when they are at home. Wendy is always wearing her big rings in bed. Victory wins here though - she takes off her huge clip-on earrings AFTER her escapades with Bob the Builder, and did I mention they were clip-ons?

4. Successful NY women do not worry about losing their bags. When they were stranded on a rural highway and Joe's two cars came to get them, Nico ran into the other car with just her handbag and Wendy just went in with nothing at all. They did not worry about their luggage staying behind in their rental car that needs to be towed away to some remote town hours from NYC.

5. Andrew McCarthy has a pout that I am not sure is intentional, and when he combines the said pout with a slight squint, I find the overall look somewhat disturbing.

6. Brooke Shields is a giant. I feel sorry for men like Sal who has so many scenes with her.

7. Lindsey Price is 1/2 Korean. That makes me like her a bit more than I would have normally, I guess.


Back to vegging. I've already finished three books in my two weeks. Life is good.

Things to do When on Bedrest #2: Delegate

I don't think it's due to any exaggerated sense of self when I say that my way is the best way when it comes to things around my own house. With a busy, stressed, work-preoccupied husband and two children under the age of 10, I do believe that it should be my way or the highway.

So it's really hard for me to delegate. I read once about a woman who said she has a definite philosophy for stacking the dishwasher. It was like meeting a soul mate. I also have firm immutable opinions on hanging up laundry in a certain way (no, we in the boondocks of France do not have a dryer - no, actually lots of people do, but our arriere-cuisine is not big enough), stacking pots and pans a certain way, and... well, you get my drift.

The first thing I have to do in the morning nowadays is to take my medicine. And since I am supposed to eat with it, and my foot hurts after about 2 minutes of standing up, I just plop myself down at the kitchen table and let PeeWee handle breakfast for the kids. And this is a really hard thing for me, just watching him haplessly go about the kitchen - it's all I can do to stop myself from giving him unsolicited advice on the most efficient way to order his tasks. For example, I would think the first thing a normal forward-thinking person would do is to take the butter out of the fridge. No, this occurs to him only at the last minute, while he take the bread out of the toaster. I would also think that while the bread is in the toaster, he could fetch the nutella and the chocolate powder (yes, breakfast of the champion at the Merlet household) and take out the knives and the spoons. No, there is not an iota of multi-tasking urge in his mind. And almost every morning, he forgets Manolee's own preference of not having her cereal go soggy and he heaps her bowl with it to the rim. I should go easy on him since he is tired and stressed and I don't need to add to that, but I just about have to muzzle myself not to say anything.

I HAVE spoken up when I saw unspeakable insane acts, such as using a spoon to spread nutella (just inefficient and a pain in the as* later when you want to clean up and you got a spoonful of nutella that you need to dispose of - because no, I don't put that stuff in my system myself), and when he left the microwave door open with the timer not reset at zero.

Thinking about it, I think he may hate my having to delegate more than I do!

Things to do When on Bedrest #1: Reminisce

Following the hallux valgus operation, I was rather surprised at the lack of pain. Everyone who knew someone who had done it told me to expect a lengthy, painful period. Well, the first day back at my apartment, I was hobbling around just fine, doing laundry even. The second day was not too bad either and I scoffed at the wimps who could not tolerate this minimum level of inconvenience.

Then the third day my foot started to hurt. So I quickly buried my misplaced premature pride of being a tough cookie and stuck to staying in bed as much as possible.

Though I surrounded my bed with all the necessities I could think of (medicine, water, snacks, diet cokes, pens, paper, origami paper, books, magazines, etc), I find that I cannot stay long without opening my laptop.

My new thing is the Huffington Post. I'd stumbled upon that site before, but never really spent any quality time on it. Yesterday I must have spent a good 2-hour period on that site. One of the big topics they are currently focusing on in the lifestyle section is the need to get a good night's sleep. They had people write in their worst experience when dealing with too little sleep and it made a good read.

It didn't take me long to come up with a few of my own - when lack of sleep contributed to some embarrassing moments...

1. Was away at some country hotel preparing for an early morning presentation. Must have gotten maybe 4 hours sleep at most. I put both contact lenses in one eye in a haze. I looked for the left eye contact in the case and panicked that there was just solution, no lens in there. Peered through the sink and the bathroom with one eye open, completely convinced that I dropped the lens somewhere. Then a cloudy thought - gee why don't I see well with the right eye which does have a lens in it? Looked in the mirror and saw the two lenses one on top of the other...

2. Used to get up before 6 to be at the office before 7 - had to get dressed in the dark so not to disturb my roommate. One day I came into the office and realized I had two different shoes on. Not only that, one was 1" taller than the other. I'm not sure how I justified/rationalized to myself walking funny on the way to the office.

3. The night before an early Spring Break trip I had set my alarm to make sure I don't miss the plane. As these things go, of course, I woke up with a jolt, saw the time on the alarm clock, and cursed out loud that either the alarm didn't go off or I didn't hear it. I rushed through to get ready, all the while cursing profusely. I headed to the lobby in the dorm where I was supposed to meet a friend to share a cab. Not seeing her there, I feared that she left without me. I asked the lobby guy to call up her room - it was one of those speaker-style intercoms. She groggily answered the call - I yelled at top volume, what the f*ck are you doing, get your butt down here! She drowsily said, why now? I yelled emphatically "it's 6am!!" - the lobby person and the security guy looked at me, then both looked at the clock overhead. It said 4:15am.... I realized somewhat later that in setting the alarm, I had somehow reset the time as well...

4. I had a friend visit during college and we danced through the night at various clubs. The day after she had a bus back at Port Authority at 6pm, but much to our collective horror by the time we both got up we had only an hour to make the bus. We dashed and dashed, though the streets, through the subway, through the corridors of the station - till we stopped to see at which gate the bus was due to leave. We were puzzled that her bus was not on the screen yet - then we looked at the clock overhead which showed 4:55 instead of 5:55. After making sure that all clocks around us showed the same time, we got some coffee, still scratching our heads - then I spotted a NYT and on the front page was a tiny reminder: Daylight Savings!


Was fun thinking back to these old stories...

Hallux Vargus

I only just recently learned these two words but I must say, I do love saying "Hallux Vargus".

I'd never heard the term before, but here everyone seems to know what it is. Such an elaborate larger-than-life term, It's simply what they call the operation to correct bunions.

And I've just had it done!

So I'm housebound for the foreseeable future. My bed is surrounded with bottles of diet coke, snacks, laptop, books, origami papers, etc etc. I thought I would feel claustrophobic, but so far, on my second full day in bed, I feel really happy! Last night, without the everyday duties of having to cook dinner, feed kids and clean up afterwards, I felt like such the model mom patiently doing homework with Hanaya and gracefully assisting Manolee with her numbers workbook - all very calmly, no rush, no panicked thoughts inside my head yelling "gotta wash up the dishes! gotta clean up the kitchen! gotta get these boogers to bed!"

Thank you Hallux Vargus!

Below: a picture from Hanaya...