I never listen to music. When I’m running errands, I listen to the birds and the wind. I watch the leaves change colors. I chat with people I know by sight. I stop by stores I don’t need anything from just to chat with the owners. I meet friends doing their shopping and we decide to go to see a play next weekend. I sit down at a terrasse to have coffee with my kid’s former piano teacher. Think the movie Amelie, but in small-town France instead of Paris. I love my life.
Churches? For real? Never occurred to me that was a possibility. Where are you from?
In my neck of the woods it’s city hall and schools. Public, secular buildings.
France. It’s a national bank holiday. It also falls during the 2-week-long fall school vacation. Older people tend to visit their loved ones’ graves. Florists sell lots of those ugly flowers that are only for the dead (never can remember their name even in French, that’s how ugly I find them.)
The (usually…) long week-end is an opportunity for many people to visit friends or family.
There’s no special food, unlike Easter lamb or Christmas foie gras.
In the last 2 decades Halloween became kind of a thing, with spooky shop windows, scary books on display at the public library and stuff, but I only get 0 or 1 group of trick-or-treaters every year. It’s mostly an excuse for high-school and college student to party and get drunk.
And a space.
Read that as “the most suave president”, and you didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I see what you did. Nice.
As a French citizen it drives me nuts. Yes, my take-home pay looks low from a US perspective. But my 6 years at college/university were free, my monthly hospital stay for a chronic illness costs me exactly nothing, having a kid cost me around 100€, the way-too-expensive daycare was 400€ a month, Internet is like 15 a month…
Moi je me suis fait une journée cuisine. C’était le pied.
Ce matin j’ai préparé une grande plaque de caramel au beurre salé au poivre de Sichuan (du jardin) avec une petite croûte de chocolat hyper-noir. Ensuite un gratin de chou-fleur (du voisin) avec une bonne béchamel bien parfumée, pour le déjeuner.
L’après-midi je suis allée chercher ma kombucha chez les voisins (elle fermente là-bas, il fait trop froid chez moi), mais elle n’était pas tout à fait prête. Je suis repartie avec des grains de kéfir. Puis j’ai fait des raviolis maison avec les œufs de la voisine, les épinards du jardin, et le fromage des chèvres d’un autre voisin.
(Les raviolis étaient ratés : première fois que je faisais des pâtes. Trop épais, trop durs. Je suis preneuse de conseils s’il y en a.)
Edit Je savais bien que j’oubliais qqch ! J’ai aussi fait 4 kilos de filling pour apple pies étatsuniennes. Premier essai. Comme c’était une recette US, c’était beaucoup trop sucré ; j’ai remplacé la moitié de l’eau par mon vinaigre de kombucha aux mûres, acidulé et parfumé. Le résultat est top. Jaipuka en faire 10 fois autant pour écluser les pommes à mesures qu’elles mûrissent, et on aura de quoi se régaler de pâtisseries jusqu’à la récolte de l’an prochain.
So :
Yes, I wash up after breakfast anyway.
No. I resent even having to go pee.
I love not having to get up, saying toasty in bed (my house gets very cold 6 months a year–around 12C). Also, we tend to make better breakfasts in those cases. With a flower from the garden and everything.
Additionally, in my 9 year old’s case: since she was born, she had at least 80% of her breakfasts in bed. She likes to wake up slow, she reads for a while after waking up, and since she started middle school her days are hectic, so we pamper her that way. It’s twenty minutes of comfort before she starts her 10-hour days.
I’m pretty sure it was a basic design at Ikea 10 or so years ago.
Là où je me sens vieille, c’est quand je lis en titre : Président de FR3 : Rafale […]"
Voui. On filtre devant la préfecture, pas devant l’école ni vers l’hôpital. Ni vers les petits commerces du centre-ville.
Faut pas se tromper de colère.
Some temps (students) for customer-service jobs, but mostly the work is passed on to colleagues and often… just not done. I used to work for a BtoB ad/communication agency, and August basically didn’t count. “So, this will take 4 months. It’s early June… Expect it early November.”
Out-of-office auto replies typically say: “I’ll be away until [Three weeks later]. For emergencies, contact Colleague. Otherwise, I’ll read your email as soon as I’m back at work and get back to you!”
I actually took my vacation weeks in September, because August in the office was almost a vacation by itself. Everybody was gone, you were just holding the fort in case there was a fire or something.
Yep. Je bloque un rond-point dans la petite ville la plus proche.
I was reading Circe, by Madeline Miller, and on several pages some ancient Greeks wait for the tide to sail away, or watch the sea rising while waiting for Odysseus, and so on. Like, woman, did nobody notice at your publishing house?
You’re kidding, right? Right?
Nah, that was funny.