LA en vie

The gas leak

Paris

"I was lying in bed with a fever, complètement abrutie," said a woman at dinner, "when I heard a bang-bang-bang! at the door. I ignored it and it went away. But then again a few minutes later, bang-bang-bang! I got up, put on my robe de chambre and my slippers, and answered the door. And I had a shock! There was a fireman with a gas mask and his eyes as big as saucers. 'Get out! Get out! There's a gas leak!' he said. 'Don't use your cell phone, don't plug or unplug anything, don't use the elevator, just get out of the building as fast as you can!' The odor of gas was overpowering. I could have suffocated in my sleep, if not for him. So I ran down the stairs in my bathrobe-- I didn't bring my purse or anything, I was really stupid-- and found myself in the street. There was a little huddle of neighbors, and the firemen made us all go to the end of the street. And there I stayed for three hours in the cold!"

"The firemen came to our building too," said another man. "They are des hommes courageux-- everything could have exploded at any minute. They evacuated the entire street. They didn't tell me why. Just 'get out!' Ça, c'est la France. On vous dit d'obéir, on vous dit quoi faire, on ne vous explique rien.*"

"All the buildings in Paris were built more than a hundred years ago," said someone else. "If it is not a fuite d'eau, it is a fuite de gaz**. Everything is falling apart, the whole city needs to be renovated."

* That's France for you. They tell you to obey, they tell you what to do, they don't explain anything to you.

** Water leak, gas leak

My young visitors are American

Paris

They're so nice. Really. But.... so American!

1) They leave all the lights on, all the time (that reminds me that one of our babysitters, when we first moved to France, asked me, "C'est obligé de laisser tout allumé?" I thought she was weird to want to turn off all the lights when we were just in the next room. That was before I saw the electricity bill.

2) I bought two big cartons of fresh orange juice for their first day. They poured themselves glass after glass because they were thirsty. What happened to drinking water when you're thirsty? Is it me? Maybe it is....Today I bought two small, one-litre versions and each one cost €4,95 (about $7.62).

3) They're so loud that you can hear every word of the conversation two rooms away. That means the neighbors above and below can probably hear it too.

Paris je t'aime

Paris

One of my kids has invited a bunch of friends to Paris, and it is fun to see how excited they are to be here. Every little thing seems exotic and delicious to them. They are not fazed by the rain and cold, only by the high euro that makes a visit to a cafe for a croissant and coffee into a twenty-dollar proposition.

 

Back to Paris

Paris

I am back in Paris. It is cold and rainy. What do you expect? Tomorrow it may even snow.

John McCain is here too. But he's not too popular among the French people I talk to. "He's too warlike," said one ("Il est trop guerrier"). 

"He's another Bush," said another.

"So, who do the French like for President?" I asked the butcher. He was the last one working in the shop; the others had all gone home, leaving  him to take care of the retardataires buying lamb at the last minute.

"Les français aiment Hillary [Eelahree]," he said. "She is very brillante, she has good relations with Europe,  she reassures us."

The other people in the shop,  two old ladies and a man, nodded their agreement.

Honor roll students

O beautiful for spacious skies

Unfortunately, the photo missed the snow-capped San Gabriel mountains in the background, but you can see the wide wealthy streets of San Marino here. It is largely inhabited now by recent Chinese immigrants, who are pulling the school system up with them.

I love the sense of spaciousness in America. It's something I always missed in Europe, which despite its charm often seemed so... narrow.

Of course, it's also why Americans use more gasoline than anyone else on the planet.

Life on hold

When I first moved to Paris, I read a lot about the expatriate experience. There were predictable steps to expect: all the books and seminars were in agreement on this.

1) Honeymoon period. Everything is charming and wonderful.

2) Disturbing realization that you are stuck in strange country, where you don't know the ropes.

3) Acceptance and realization that you are in strange, charming, wonderful country.

It takes a year. Everyone said so. You have a year or two or three, then you move again.

Lather, rinse, repeat!

My own steps were a little different.

1) Nightmare period. Everyone sick, Parisians nasty, kids get worms and lice, it rains all the time. Instead of coming by to welcome us with cookies, neighbors don't answer when we say hello and slip notes under front door to ask why we don't have curtains yet.

2) Less nightmare period. I finally figure out how to take the bus and stop taking the metro (forever). Spring arrives, the children start to make friends. I still don't have any, because I am resolved not to stay in the expat ghetto. I don't realize that it is unrealistic to make friends with French people quickly once you are over 21.

3) I get used to Paris. It's quite nice really, and I can understand the radio. I meet other expats at various places, and at the same time start to make French friends.

4) Paris is my home. The U.S. starts to seem very weird. What is the deal with "Wazzup" and "bling bling"? Why do psychos keep shooting up schools? Why don't Americans understand that universal health care is normal? And who is Nicole Ritchie?

5) I move to L.A. for a couple of years. Honeymoon period. Everything is charming and wonderful. Ocean, mountains, the English language! (sort of. For about half the population.)

6) Disturbing realization that I am stuck in a strange country, where I don't know the ropes.

My new passport

My passport had my name slightly wrong, and each time I fly, I was taking a chance that some overzealous immigration inspector would decide I wasn't really the person whose name was on my ticket.

So last Friday, armed with the proof of my impending departure, I went to the Federal Building in Los Angeles, expecting an unpleasant experience. Instead, all the employees I met were polite, efficient and competent, I scarcely had to wait, and today I picked up my new passport in just a few minutes.

This passport is quite different from the old one, although that was not even three years old. It looks as if it would be very expensive to counterfeit. Every page is different, with photos and a quotation from George Washington, John F. Kennedy, Daniel Webster, the Declaration of Independence, a Mohawk Thanksgiving prayer, and someone named Anna Julia Cooper. The inside front and back cover have photos now, and there is a lot of advice ("If a catastrophic event occurs, call home to let family and friends know you are okay.")

The quotation on this page is from Martin Luther King: "We have a great dream. It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream."

It all made me feel very patriotic.

Overheard: The girl with twenty grandparents

"Are your grandparents coming to the dance recital?"

"Well, some of them are. I have a lot of grandparents."

"How can you have a lot of them? You have four, like everyone else."

"No, I have about twenty grandparents. It's great at Hanukkah. I get a lot of presents! You see, my grandparents have all been divorced more than once. And a lot of my great-grandparents were divorced. And my grandmother married six times. I don't know numbers two through five."

The homeless hikers

In the morning after the school run, I often go for a hike in the Santa Monica mountains. These are one of the glorious things about living in Los Angeles.

"Here, the weather never stops you from doing what you want," said a mountain biker friend. "You'll get used to it. You'll never want to go back to Paris."

This morning I hiked up Temescal Canyon as far as the waterfall. It was dawn. The only sounds were my own breathing and my footsteps, the birds singing, and the rushing water in the little creek. Spring flowers were everywhere, and the sun was shining. I was alone. It was hard to believe that a city of many millions was close by.

A blond woman in sweatpants came down the trail clutching a water bottle. She wished me good morning. An Asian-American man passed me ten minutes later. He nodded hello. Except for his clothes, he could have been a Malibu millionaire.

The homeless who live in the mountains.