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Life in France

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  • Re: Life in France

    Congratulation susie... for not knowing crap about football you beat everyone except for scrivener.... well you still have a shot... now go pick a score for the Monday night game....

    Here is scriveners quote from the NFL PICK EM THREAD
    Note to susiemisajon: It looks like it might come down to you and me in the tie-break. We both picked Philadelphia to win, but you didn't predict a score (as is clearly explained in the two posts I asked you to look at). Please post a prediction for Monday night's score, so we can fairly determine a winner, if it comes down to it.
    And I truly hope you win... that would be so freaking funny!!! Just goes to prove anyone can jump in and win! (someone who thought Futbol was played with a round ball even)

    http://www.hawaiithreads.com/showthread.php?t=10097

    Once again congratulations....
    Last edited by damontucker; October 1, 2006, 04:49 PM.

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    • Re: Life in France

      Originally posted by MadAzza View Post
      You do seem like a nice person.

      Thanks for the explanation, and for not getting offended at my persistent questions. And I did think the story was kind of funny, too!

      Again, thank you.

      I'm looking forward to more stories, and next time I won't dog ya. Promise.

      Aloha,
      Maddie
      No worry, Maddie. A little constructive criticiscm, critisim, criticisum....a little kick in the okole never did anyone any harm.
      http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
      http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

      Comment


      • Re: Life in France

        I think that I can safely say that most French people are not enamoured of cats. Oh, they might have a cat or two around the place, but the cats are mostly left to themselves to get on with it. No sleeping with a purring kitty in this country, in fact, the cat is lucky be let inside the house and fed with regularity.

        Cats are forgotten or ignored creatures, here. If it dies, it's simple to find another one. If it gets sick, wait and see what happens...no way will the average Pierre, Paulus, or Harold take a cat and spend money on it at the vet. And when it's time for going on a vacance with the family, which is usually an extended visit to someplace far away, often to the beach or up skiing in the mountains, the family cat is not even considered, and often left to get by as best as it can on it's own. They sometimes do the same with their Grannies, who don't starve to death as the cats do, but end up dying in heatwaves.

        Spaying and castrating are an affront not only to the French pocketbook, but what macho Frenchman, or woman, for that matter, would even dream of cutting off and mutilating something that represents sex! Sacré bleu! Even my own wonderful and usually understanding vet felt that he had to comment, when, after what must've been the last straw for him, once the dog and the pony had been done and I asked him to do the cat, "Well, Susie, it's easy to see that you are a divorced woman". Forget civic responsibility in this place.

        We have no Humane Society for cats in this town, either...the very idea would be laughable. There is a dog one, however, for lost and abandoned dogs. Or rather, there is a man, Mr. Bobois, who takes care of what are mostly lost hunting dogs, until their owners come along and claim them. The dogs stay at a small kennel behind what used to be the local slaughterhouse and is now the hunters' clubhouse. The property belongs to the town, and the Mayor's office is the one that pays for the dogfood.

        But it's very difficult to get a dog accepted into this place. I suppose that's because any dog but a hunting dog is difficult to place, and some dogs have stayed there for months befor Mr. Bobois, who has a good heart but a difficult character, has been able to place them into an acceptable family. Of course, he'd probably have more luck with placements if he'd just give them the dog and go...but he tends to come around and check up on things, once a dog has been adopted. Often. Even more often than the local social worker does with problem families, foster care, or human adoptions. So, unless you fall in love with a particular dog in the kennel, it's best to simply ask around for one, as they're easy enough to find, without having to be 'vetted' by Mr. Bobois.

        And, if you should happen to find a poor lost little stray dog, don't say anything, just go and dump the thing into the kennel, walk away, and don't look back. Not to worry, the pup be well looked after, once in there. But if you were to call and report finding a dog, well, you'd be given what I seem to remember is called, 'the third degree'. Something akin to being tied to a chair in a dark room, with a bright light shining into your eyes during the inevitable interrogtion. "Are you positive that this isn't your dog? I don't believe that you just 'found' him. Why do you no longer want this dog?"

        There's no chance if you find, or want to dump, a cat. And if your cat is silly enough to have had kittens...

        The French are very close to their money. Oh, they'll spend more than they should on the important things in life, such as good clothes, or excellent food, or wine. But not on pets, and certainly not on cats. If Minou the kitty has kittens, she won't be raising them to the age where they can be given away to good homes, not often at least. Sometimes they'll get to stay two or three weeks, just until they can walk on shaky new legs to the bowl and feed themselves, but mostly they're gotten rid of at birth.

        Remember the old fairy tales, where kitties were tied up into a bag with a rock and dumped into a river? The french wouldn't even bother with a bag, or take the time to look for a rock. We've been out fishing, under a bridge by the side of a lovely river, enjoying our day and catching enough trout to barbecue in the evening, when the day was spoiled by a car stopping on the bridge and a man dumping kitties out of a bag and into the water. He crumpled the bag up and put it into his pocket as he left, no point in wasting what is not given free any longer at the supermarket. To give it it's due, maybe the trout had their suffering, too.

        And this killing of kitties is nothing that the people seem to be ashamed of. It comes as a natural and accepted part of the conversation. Our lunch at a fine restaurant was spoiled by the woman at the next table discussing how she simply puts the kitties into a canning jar, fills it with water, and shakes until the deed is done. She went back to eating her garbure soup, full of local richness, with cabbage, beans, vegetables and confited duck heads...but my appetite was gone.

        I never went back to that restaurant after the kitties-in-a-canning-jar incident. It was just too sad. It used to be one of our favorite places to go, the food well done and beautifully presented, the prices reasonable. In the summer, they'd bring out the tables to the terrace and lunch would be served outside, under a canopy of plane trees, their branches trained to reach out and hold hands. The meal would always begin with a help-yourself tureen of garbure soup and a platter of assorted marinated vegetable salads and coldcuts. After that would come the main dish of the day, sometimes roast duck or chicken, sometimes delicious hogjowls braised in orange, or a boiled beef and vegetable platter and rocksalt and grainy mustard for dipping, served with even more vegetables and maybe fries or steamed potatoes, too. Then a plain salad of lettuce and vinaigrette...why is it that other people's vinaigrette always tastes better than what you make at home? I've thought to begin a vinaigrette club, where members trade vinaigrettes among each other, in order to have a change of taste, rather than the standard, same-old-thing that we each make at home.

        After the salad, the choice is yours for dessert, all homemade by Francis, in their own kitchen. Open-faced apple tart, real fruit sorbets with the thinest and crispiest of spiced wafers, warm strawberries and cream on a pastry disc, creme brulée with a burnt caramel top and chilled raspberries and cream underneath, a fresh fruit salad presented like a fancy ladies' hat, with spun sugar wrapped around it, tiny choux buns filled with pastry cream and laced with chocolate sauce...and then tiny cups of hot, black, very strong coffee. I tried for years to get served my coffee with dessert, but Annabel, the English-speaking waitress who'd been to California, always told me firmly, "You are in France, now, and you'll do it our way!".

        She could be quite firm, could Annabel...I remember one time, when the restaurant was packed solid, with the daily special being roast duck. We always had too much to eat to begin with, after the soup and the crudites, and there was usually enough left over to ask for a doggy bag for the meat (not generally done in France, but as I said, Annabel had spent some time in California, so I was 'allowed' this, if not coffee with dessert). This time, Annabel said to me, as she was taking the plates away, "Sorry, but I'll do you a doggy bag next time, as we are a bit short in the kitchen, and need more roast duck.". As I said, the French are very tight with their money.
        http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
        http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

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        • Re: Life in France

          Susie, if you're not working on a book, I reckon you might want to consider it!

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          • Re: Life in France

            As I was just saying to someone...I'm afraid to get lynched by the townspeople!

            Anyway...ya think? Any kine hints on how to go about that?
            http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
            http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

            Comment


            • Re: Life in France

              Just a short weekend thing that I wanted to tell you about.


              We went to Biarritz for the weekend, and stayed at Milady beach, on the south side of town. The town has put in a parking lot just for campers, and there's water and electricity and an underpass to the biggest kid's playground and a very nice beach with views all the way down the Spanish coast.

              During my marriage, we lives just a stone's throw from there, which makes for rotten memories...but the kids love it there, and they don't know about all that. Sometimes we go to visit friends that I've known since those days, but this time we just hung out at the beach and the playground, and watch ed TV at night. We don't have a TV at home, but we do in the camper...being so close to Spain, many of the channels were in Spanish, and the kids prefer them to the French shows.

              It was so nice at the beach...lots of little long-haired surfer kids the same ages as my brood...makes a change from the small inland town where we live. I can think of just one kid in our town with longer-than-ordinary hair for a boy. People of all ages, sorts, sizes and shapes, too...sunbathing topless is perfectly for woman, no matter what breast size, shape, or droopyness.

              There was a grandad being used as an elephant by two little boys. He really did look like an elephant, too...he was old and his arms were thin, maybe from an office job and no muscles. His bottom half was heavy and his skin was brown and cracked with age...The little boys, one on the back, and one sitting on the back of the grandad's neck, were riding him just as if he were a real elephant..the one on front pulling the ears and the one in back kicking with his legs and swatting the 'elephant's' butt. The elephant finally laid down and refused to move.

              For a treat, I took the kids to McDonald's for lunch today, on our way home...what the heck, there was no way we were gonna be back in time for school, anyway...As I was gving the order for the Happy Meals to the young woman, I noticed that she had a circus troupe of headlice having an acrobatic show on her bangs! No kidding! She was black, and had most of the hair pulled back and what looked like waxed, but with the front bit a bit messed up, and that's where the headlice were performing...sliding, twirling, crawling up and down, I couldn't stop myself looking. There must've been fifty of the little buggers in what was less than two square inches. Her hair was too slicked back to see anymore further in...as I watched, she scratched at the front, and all I could think was that thank goodness the Happy Meals were in their individual boxes, or there's be headlice on the fries!

              I did stop and have a quiet word with the manager, before leaving. I suggested that she put the girl into the kitchen to work, rather than right out there in the front, with the clientele, if she couldn't bring herself to say anything to the girl, herself. The manager began scratching her head as soon as the word 'headlice' was mentioned, and she remarked that the employee in question hadn't said anything to her, and it wasn't marked that she had headlice on her application form...I hope that she was just being humouristic from the shock.

              I hope that the poor young girl wasn't simply sent home without pay, or fired, but sent to a nearby pharmacy for some sort of treatment. The problem is that headlice are getting immune to any but the most powerful and expensive of solutions. I considered going back and telling the manager and the girl about the mayonnaise treatment, but stopped short, thinking that it was probably not going to be the most diplomatic thing to do.
              http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
              http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

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              • Re: Life in France

                I did it! I got myself a blog!
                http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
                http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

                Comment


                • Re: Life in France

                  Still in France?

                  I recently learned that both of my grandmothers were of French ethnicity..

                  I never had any interest in France...but a bit more curious about the place now. Just read the entire thread. Interesting to say the least.

                  Comment


                  • Re: Life in France

                    just a little FYI - "French" is not an ethnicity, its a nationality.
                    "Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be."
                    – Sydney J. Harris

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                    • Re: Life in France

                      And another FYI...since this thread is almost 3 years old...
                      Susie doesn't currently have a computer so isn't online at this time.

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                      • Re: Life in France

                        Originally posted by tutusue View Post
                        Susie doesn't currently have a computer
                        OMG! I can't think of a worse fate in life! Susie, we feel for you girl.
                        Peace, Love, and Local Grindz

                        People who form FIRM opinions with so little knowledge only pretend to be open-minded. They select their facts like food from a buffet. David R. Dow

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