Before we said our adieu to this summer, we decided to escape Paris for the weekend and soak up some sun in glamorous Deauville. I’m not kidding about the glamorous – it’s rich people’s playground, there are as many luxury stores crammed on Main Street as there are on Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

I loved being near the ocean. It reminded me of home. Just looking at it always makes me feel like life is full of infinite possibility.

B and I headed straight for the beach the minute we got there. It was immediately obvious that one of us grew up in California and was eager to feel the sand between his or her toes. It was also obvious that one of us grew up in the 13th arrondissement of Paris where the nearest body of water is the Seine, whose embankments are made of concrete. The latter refused to take off his or her shoes and spent his or her time gingerly walking around the water so as to keep them dry. I’ll let you guess which is which.

On Sunday, we grabbed brunch at a place called Dupont avec un thé which impressed me when the waitress narrowed down their 200 tea options for me after asking me five questions. The Russian tea she picked out for me hit just the right spot. Plus there were pastry skewers. I mean really could there be a better beginning to a Sunday morning?

After brunch we headed over to Trouville, Deauville’s seedier cousin. Well, at least it’s seedy until you hit the beach and the houses start looking like dream dollhouses.

One of them even has my name on it! I almost climbed over the fence to let myself into my home, because clearly it belonged to me, but B held me back. Can you believe it?

Because it’s so fancy, the beach does not permit gyrating naked torsos. In San Francisco, they used to condone it. Cultural differences!

Before we went home, I insisted we get ice cream cones from Martine Lambert. She’s this artisanal ice cream maker who has two shops in all of France. One of them is in Deauville and one of them is on the rue Cler in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, a block from my old apartment. It used to be my special treat on sunny afternoons when I was grocery shopping. Here we come full circle, here we come…

Too soon our weekend was over and we had to head back to Paris. A few weeks later they’ve turned on the heaters at my office and we complain nightly that our HOA hasn’t done so at home. But I think our memories from a delightful weekend at Deauville still keep us warm.

I live with a fantastic man who does not know how to use a salad spinner. I found a shopping “list” of his the other day and it had one item on it. It was coffee. That is the only grocery list he’s ever made. Yet he regularly questions my shopping lists. “Ma puce, we have lemons at home, why are they on the list?” “Because I need five and we only have three.” “Ma puce, I don’t think you can buy shrimp raw.” “I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized we lived in communist Russia.”

Friday night we had invited five people over for dinner at our place. I left work at 7 PM and had to ask B to go buy the salmon for dinner that night. I had planned on making a nice big fillet with dill and lemon. So I get this text message around 6:30:

B: Do you want me to ask the fishmonger to cut the 1.5 kilos of salmon into 7 small fillets?

Two minutes later, B panicked: Ma puce, you have to answer otherwise I’m just getting a big block of salmon!

Me: No I just want one big fillet!

OK so I get home a little later and B asks if the salmon is what I needed because the fishmonger gave him a weird look when he said he didn’t want fillets. I take it out of its packaging and look at it. After a few seconds to absorb the fish on my butcher block, I ask him, in my calmest voice, “What were you thinking exactly when you bought this?” It is so NOT what I needed. It’s been gutted and there’s no tail or head but it is not one big fillet. It still has its fins, all of its bones, all of the cartilage. Google “gutted salmon” and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

No wonder the fishmonger gave him a weird look. I’ve never deboned a fish and I’m expecting five people in 30 minutes! Using three knives and a pair of kitchen scissors I manage to separate out most of the cartilage by, I don’t know, instinct and common sense?? I dispatch Baptiste to find the remaining bones with a pair of my tweezers. Covered in dill and lemon slices, no one knew what had happened but oh Lord, that man…

Thank you for doing the grocery shopping and for tweezing the fish my love.

Flowers in one of my favorite colors in one of my favorite places – a family friend’s country home.

Fall arrives with a bucket of carrots in three colors at the Farmer’s Market.

Makeshift lunch of ripe Brie de Melun on Eric Kayser’s cheese bread.

A bright yellow candle we bought at Cire Trudon (making candles since 1643) which brightens up our beige mantle.

My little slice of Americana at home: Starbucks chai tea latte + the weekend edition of the International Herald Tribune.

Have a nice week everyone!

I was offered this really amazing opportunity to work for a digital communications agency. Basically I do THIS, this writing for the internet thing, for a living! There are a lot of days I feel in over my head because what I know about the Internet I learned in life, not in school or on the job. People say “Can you storyboard?” and I say, “oh yes, of course!” Then I sidle up to one of my lovely coworkers and say “So what program do we use to storyboard? Are there any templates you can show me?” Because that sounds so much better than “What’s storyboarding?”

It feels good to be learning and on important projects but so far it’s a lot of hurry up and wait because I’m only working on one client. First three days I worked non-stop for ten hours and then went home to do two more. Today I’m personal blogging from my office computer! See what I mean?

The people are amazingly nice though and have already made me feel at home. I get to go to work in jeans and sandals! And the office design is really cool. Here are a few pictures so you can better envision me in my work area:

This roof makes the prettiest sound when it rains. Which it does. A lot. Shitty weather – Paris 2012. I was there. But that’s a different matter.

And here’s my desk!

Note the Pantone yellow coffee mug, which I bought with B when we went to the Christmas markets in Strasbourg. Freelance designers keep coming in and trying to steal it in the morning. But I always steal it back off their desks. Ha HA! It sits right next to my AMERICAN breakfast tea. I may not have the American flag flying at my desk but it flies in my tea.

A few weeks ago, Baptiste and I boarded a plane for Copenhagen, Denmark. My Uncle Carl and Aunt Carolyn had been on a trip to Stockholm and we had decided that instead of us meeting them in Stockholm (where we’ve been) or them hopping over to Paris (where they’ve been) that we would meet somewhere we’d never been. Copenhagen was in between so that’s what we picked. The city is small but terribly pretty. I picked up a guidebook a few days before we went but up until then, I really knew nothing. Basically my mind works like this: someone says “Wanna go somewhere you’ve never been?”, mind says “OK!”

After meeting up with my aunt and uncle, we decided to wander over to the Little Mermaid statue, the symbol of Copenhagen. Little did we know it was all the way on the other side of the city! Every day I’m happy to live in Paris but that day I was really happy because Paris preps you physically for random meandering over a period of four hours. We started off in the center, where the shops were.

Don’t let the blue sky fool you. It was FREEZING. The worst part was we’d left Paris where it was finally beginning to warm up to plunge back into March weather. My dreams of spring clothing in Copenhagen vanished with the wind chill.

Our wanderings brought us to Nyhavn, the famous port. All the boats there look like pirate ships because they’re made out of wood. The houses are painted really rich colors and despite the cold, they made me happy.

At the end of the port, after seeing the house of Hans Christian Andersen, local hero, we veered right to walk up the pier. Copenhagen, much like its Scandinavian brethren, is in the throes of a love affair with modern design. While parts of the city remain practically medieval, other parts, especially the new opera house and library, are entrenched in Modern.

We stopped to giggle over something terribly funny, I’m sure, before continuing on our way.

And on that way, it turns out I have a haven. Yes, a haven. Copenhagen rolls the red carpet right out for its visitors. They really should learn to spell my name correctly though.

I was ecstatic, to say the least, at this find. Here I am in my haven:

Once I’d climbed down from the fountain, we kept going through a lovely little forest of flower trees. Reminded me of being in DC during the cherry blossom season. The cold definitely wasn’t going to remind us that it was END OF APRIL, so the trees did it for us. And the goslings!

We finally made it over to the Little Mermaid statue. I remember in middle school I read the original Andersen version of The Little Mermaid. It’s horrific! Every time she steps down, she feels like she’s walking on shards of glass, the prince marries someone else, and then she kills herself out of heartbreak. Disney sure cleaned that one up.

We found the statue though. Victory! To celebrate The World’s Longest Walk Through Copenhagen, we walked back (yes, because it turns out when you walk 12094753987 miles to a statue, you also have to walk back the same distance to your hotel) we had dinner at a steak joint before going back and sleeping the sleep of the just. Or, you know, just the exhausted.

Part II tomorrow…

It’s just right on the nose. Not only does it explain the elections, it also explains why I am called a left-wing radical in the US and a right-leaning moderate in France. I said that I was a moderate to this French person over here and he was like “Non, il faut choisir!” (“No, you must choose!”) and I thought, “Funny, I’m usually on the other side of this conversation.”

However my mutuelle totally blows. It took them over a year and umpteen phone calls/visits to their offices to even get them to register the number of my bank account to use for reimbursement of my medical expenses. Even now that they have it I still don’t get reimbursed, I just get told I’ve been reimbursed but no money goes into my account. Typical French bureaucracy. I don’t mind TOO much because when I go see a doctor the visit, sans health insurance, costs about 20 euros. Side note: I once had a second’s worth of mental freak out because I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and they told me in a very concerned way that it wasn’t covered by my insurance. I asked how much it costs and the pharmacist said “78…” and in my head I’m like “What the fuck??? 75 euros??? That’s outrageous!! What happened to socialism? Can I afford this thing? How am I going to say I can’t afford it without looking infinitely poor/stupid??” and then the pharmacist finished her sentence “…cents”. That’s right it cost 78 cents. Which is why I’m not sooo concerned my health insurance doesn’t reimburse me a whole lot. Even more so because twice when I’ve called it’s ended in tears and B has to listen to me sobbing about how I’m going home and then he gets scared that I’m actually going to go home…Basically they’ve beat me down which is just un-French of me, I know, but I’d rather be a happy expatriate than an unhappy local.

Long story short (ha!), I wanted to be on B’s amazing corporate L’Oreal sponsored health insurance which allows for amorous roommates. He talked to his company and they just said we needed to go down to our Arrondissement’s Mairie (District Town Hall sounds less pretty so I’m leaving it in French) and file for Concubine status. “What’s that?” you say? You’re a concubine? Yes, yes I am. And before you have my mother’s reaction (“What does that mean, exactly?” which roughly translated for those of you who don’t speak My Mother is “Are you getting married without telling me?”), it turns out it’s just a declaration on our honor that we live together. But oh how much I giggled thinking about being a high-class Venetian hooker!

I explained the literal translation to B, making him giggle as well, and so for the next few days we addressed each other as Concubines:

“Concubine would you like some more ice cream?”

“How is your day going, oh lovely concubine?”

We’re hilarious like that.

Here’s to you my Concubine! And yes, I would like some more ice cream.

I woke up this morning and it was dead again. Yet another phone call to our ISP and I am told that I have to wait two weeks for another appointment with the government phone company to get my line working again. Where you see government, read “inefficient.” While on the phone, I tell them they double charged me for my (nonexisting) internet service. I am told that no they didn’t, turns out I am also paying for my old apartment. Not the last old apartment, the second to last, the one I MOVED AWAY FROM A YEAR AGO. Yes, in sending back the internet box with the signed letter requesting cancellation (registered mail) a year ago, I made a mistake you see, because the letter should have been sent to an ever so slightly different address because the department that handles reception of returned equipment does not handle cancellation of service nor do either of these departments communicate one with the other. Obviously. Also, obviously, just because you send back the equipment allowing you internet access does not mean that you are cancelling said internet access. You might just be doing it for shits and giggles, how are they supposed to know? In sum, they owe me over 400 euros in refunds which I will receive in two to six weeks. I am told that it will probably be closer to six weeks.

I also receive the lights I ordered for the apartment a month ago. FINALLY. We’ve been moving these two tiny little lamps from room to room as we move. It’s almost worse than using a candle because at least then you still have light as you move from one room to the other. The only reason I did receive them was because I happened to be leaving the apartment as a delivery guy, staring dumbfoundedly at the mailboxes, stopped me to ask how to figure out which apartment corresponded to which mailbox. I ask him who he’s looking for and he says Ms. Janson. That’s me! So I go to sign and I see in black and white on his delivery paper, my address with the notation “4th floor, door to the left”, an instruction I had given when placing my order to avoid this exact situation. I point this out to the man and he says “Yes but how do I get there?” Now my turn to look dumbfounded. “You see these stairs we’re standing at the bottom of?” The fog in his brain seems to clear as he nods.

I walk back up to my apartment to deposit the package and I open it to check and make sure my order was correct. It wasn’t. I ordered white Christmas lights to string around the perimeter of the rooms because there is no overhead lighting and I didn’t want to have wires hanging down from the ceiling. I specifically asked the company if their lights interconnected before I ordered and they said yes they all do but somehow these do not. They each need to be plugged into an individual electrical socket which means that I would have wires hanging from the ceiling, the one thing I was trying to avoid. I check back my email message with the response and it turns out all EXTERIOR lights are interconnectable and I mistakenly ordered interior lights.

Then the bus I was taking to the library to work with internet access stopped in the middle of its route even though I checked the front to make sure it was going all the way to the end.

I should have stayed in bed.

How am I qualified to do this? Well, there are people in the world who are in the 99th percentile of a group of people and who, because of this, manage to make a living. Fashion designers. Actors. Sports players. I am a 99th percentile standardized test taker. I am a gold medalist in standardized test taking. If there were some kind of endorsement deal to be had for this, it’d be in the bag. Unfortunately, there isn’t. No box of Wheaties for me. While these other groups of people manage to make millions, I make what can only be termed as a livable hourly wage. I am FAR from complaining about this. Anything that allows me to pay my rent and food to eat and an occasional cute pair of shoes, I’m happy to be doing it. Ecstatic even. Thank you, Universe.

Thing is I never thought I’d be a teacher. My Aunt Carolyn is a teacher. A fantastic one. I’ve never seen her get angry, she has the patience of a saint and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the key to being a good teacher. Me? I have the patience of an enraged elephant. I kick students out of my class when they don’t do their homework. I am stern-faced when they show up late. On occasion, I tell students they need a therapist. Wow, I sound super harsh.

But I also am so thrilled when they get the answer right, I cheer outloud. since I also have issues with failure, I can recognize when a student is struggling with math mostly because he’s panicked he’ll never get it right. Some of my students have actually become good friends. Most importantly, I realize I can help people. I love that. I love the look on a student’s face when they get it right. Just like my Aunt Carolyn, I particularly love the students who have a really hard time at the outset. I get to help them more.

I also get to sneak in the occasional cultural commentary. For sentence correction questions, “In English, we like direct clear sentences. In French, we like lots of words jammed in to make convoluted sentences. English clear, French complicated. Just like in life.” A job and a contribution to America. Fuck yeah!