Anyone who knows my mother-in-love (MIL) would agree that she’s a pretty cool customer. She’s warm and funny, supportive and wise and one of the most positive people I’ve ever met. She’s also a total babe and plays the double base in a jazz group but that’s beside the point. She’s been a psychologist, a music teacher, a museum docent and apparently now dabbles in some light trafficking.

Today I arrived home to find this in my mailbox: Continue reading “Food And Drug Administration” »

So yesterday I was whining to Duchess Downith that I had absolutely nothing to write about today. Rien, tapped out. In a manner entirely befitting her royal highness she reminded me of her post called It’s The Library Stupid. Then she told me to stop being such a baby and drag my bony yet somehow simultaneously flabby arse up to my local library. She used clever tactics like multiple exclamation points and ‘seriously’.

I told her that I already had plans to go to the gym but then she broke out the tough love. “Do both,” she said. “Choose life,” she said. That’s the trouble with the Duchess, she’s very convincing and always right. So after I hit the gym (where there was actually another woman (!), naturally the most beautiful and fit woman in all of France but still) I made my way in the pouring rain to la bibliothèque. Continue reading “Blogs For Dummies” »

Let me start by saying that I love my husband. I do. Really I do. Okay now that that’s out the way let’s get to the heart of the matter shall we?

My current husband is actually my second. My first, affectionately known as my practice husband (ex-husband is just so cliché), was and I imagine still is a lovely person but he was without a doubt Canadian to the core and by that I mean obsessed with hockey. I’ll spare you the gory details but I will say that there was many a Saturday night when I weighed the legal ramifications of a psychiatrist slipping her mate a Prozac cocktail against the preservation of her own sanity. Continue reading “Playing The Field” »

Not long after we arrived here on the Rue I noticed that a house across the street, previously shuttered up tight, was slowly coming to life. Each day out came a serious looking fellow of a difficult to say age with a thick gray mustache and beard and a myriad of tattoos. He wore exotic leather sandals with soles that curled up over his toes, you know the kind you see on movie characters who ride Arabian horses through the desert and cut people’s heads off with giant curled swords. In my head he was mysterious, dangerous even and I had all kinds of wild stories attached to him.

Despite my intrigue, timidity trumped curiosity so I never got beyond a quiet bonjour to him. Then one day Neil and I were huffing up the hill and there he was again. He stopped in the middle of the street and offered us a deep and solemn bonjour and said, “Jean-Claude.” Finally someone in France opens with their name. He paused for a moment, looked at us intensely, “Do you like apples?” Of course we like apples. Then he raised his large arm and with a toss of his hand directed us to his truck.

Next thing I knew we were driving up the road with this stranger who in my mind was the local mafioso bringing the feckless immigrants to a local dog fight arena. He stopped in front of a large plot of land full of bushes and trees and got out. Curious indeed. I decided to trail behind the men you know just in case I had to make a break for it. Continue reading “Real Men Eat Tarte” »

Did I ever tell you that I enjoy a glass of wine from time to time? Actually anytime is wine o’clock in France. I’ve seen glasses tipped as early as 9 in the morning, hardcore even by Newfie standards. I haven’t worked up to that pace yet but I will say this, the best wine I’ve ever had in my life is made right here in Burgundy. I’m partial to the whites and they’re enough to make me believe that my mid-life melodrama was a stroke of genius. Never mind that I’ve neither paycheck nor purpose; great wine for only a few euros, no real need to be sober and nothing but time on my hands, it’s the perfect situation.

Wine is big, no make that huge, business here and has been going on long before Jesus was even a gleam in god’s eye. Thomas Jefferson himself stocked his cellar from Burgundy wine producers whose ancestors to this day craft some of the world’s most prestigious vintages. The grand harvest or les vendages as the French call it has come and gone. Of course I was too busy sipping wine to go down to the big vineyards but even here in Semur one can connect to the art of le vin.

Just beyond this ancient door, one of my favourite neighbourhood sights, is a small vineyard owned by two lovely Americans who are part of the international group drawn back year after year to this great town. Continue reading “Grape Expectations” »

Oh don’t you just love October? The only thing I love more is September. Here’s a little piece of French fall in all its glory.

Just over the Pont Pinard, that famous Semur landmark and site of my recent joy attacks, sits this amazing maison that apparently dates back to the middle ages. It’s an incredible building and here’s the real kicker, right now it’s for sale. The list price is 179,000 euros, not a bad deal at all for this part of France but unless they drop the price a bit, say down to $1.79, I’m out. Of course there’s another reason I’m out. Continue reading “Reality Estate” »

Despite any evidence to the contrary I don’t have a whole lot going on from day to day. I just go about my life; doing laundry, eating my face off, writing and watching old episodes of Arrested Development and Mary Tyler Moore thanks to the miracle of Apple TV. A fairly mundane state of being by anyone’s standards.

The other day a lovely woman in Chicago sent me an email that said I was living her dream. But I suspect if she hung out with me for a day or two she’d be bored to sobs and race back to her thrilling big city life where women wear hooker shoes and go out for cocktails on Thursday nights. One woman’s dream is likely another woman’s cauchemar (nightmare), yet another stunning example of the useless French words I know.

But hum-drum days aside there is the odd dream being realized over here. Not long ago I put a year in France under my belt and so far that’s pretty high up on my ‘things I’ve always wanted to do’ list. And today I’m crossing off another one, ‘someday I’d like to write a book’. Now I’m not saying it’ll ever be anything other than a pile of kindling but who cares? The point is that I wrote it, all 65,000 words of it. It was a lot of work and it took a lot of time but I loved every minute of it. Okay not the minutes where I nearly tore all my hair out because I don’t really know how to use Word but all the rest were a pleasure. Continue reading “Living My Life” »

I’m a busy little beaver this week trying to turn a blog into a book which in my case involves wading through thousands of photos, literally. I thought I had it all settled but Rusty keeps showing me one lovely snapshot after another and I can’t decide which ones I want to use.

So instead of a load of words today I offer you this photo taken early this morning at our beloved boulangerie…

I only wish we had smellovision because you can’t begin to imagine how good it smells in here. Who has the perfect words for this picture?

All my life I’ve been that 90 pound weakling desperately trying to keep a bit of weight on while the rest of world packs on the pounds just from gazing at a donut. But since moving to France I’ve discovered even I can gain weight as long as the right tonnage of dough is ingested. I’ve also discovered that I’m very easily intimidated in this new culture. I think it’s mostly about language but it’s also about everything being so different from what I’m used to.

Take a simple thing like going to the gym. I’ve finally returned to regular workouts, congratulate me please. Apart from being proud of myself for shifting my attention from the bakery to strength training, I’m also proud that I’m no longer feeling ridiculously lily-livered every time I go. But let me tell you it was no easy feat.

For the last 12 years I’ve worked out in gyms exclusively for women and I liked it that way. Never mind the gawking, it was all the grunting and groaning that finally did me in. But there’s only one gym around these parts and there’s no escaping the big boys at this one, not even in the change rooms, or should I say room as there is only one. So far driving home soaked in sweat is working out just fine. Continue reading “The Politesse Of Pumping Iron” »

No matter how many French language CDs I listen to, no matter how many verb tenses I learn something always catches me out. This sign in town still gets me every time.

Here’s where a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I knew the word bois meant wood long before I knew the word tampon meant stamp. Now that’s medieval.