La Coquette

End of the Plastic Bag Era

Tuesday night was a big night at the grocery store.  Like most Parisians, I go to the grocery store A LOT.  Like, every other day pretty much.  You know those gallons of milk we all buy at home?  THEY DONT EVEN EXIST HERE.  The largest quantity they sell at my grocery store is a liter.  And folks, I love me some cereal...and yes, I know, I could buy two one liter bottles of milk at once, but have I ever mentioned I live up FIVE FLIGHTS OF STAIRS?

At French grocery stores, a good amount of shoppers own these things called chariots (like a small rolling suitcase), allowing them to wheel their groceries home with them.  Some people take their chariots around the grocery store  instead of a cart, which incidentally makes it very difficult to judge which line is going to be fastest because WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY’VE GOT HIDING IN THERE.

For my part, I shop with the store provided baskets, and then FRANTICALLY bag my own groceries (yes, you have to do that yourself here and WHY OH WHY do plastic bags become impossible to open under pressure???)  I then lumber home, while people with GROCERIES ON WHEELS whiz past me. 

Bad perspiration, bad!

When Kathleen was visiting, she made the astute comment that the French are always speaking in the negative--Ce n’est pas possible! Ce n’est pas vrais! Perhaps in light of this, she couldn’t get enough of holding up my deodorant and pointing to her pits and shouting “Non!”

Forgetting the Obvious

I thought of another French Superstition the other night.  One that has become so mundane, well, of course I would have forgotten it. 

When performing the Universal Clinking of the Glasses for Cheers (we say chin chin or sante in France) one must look one’s fellow glass-clinker in the eye or face SEVEN YEARS OF BAD SEX. 

Not keen on tempting fate in these matters, my friends tend to do an exaggerated, intense stare-off that often results in spilled wine or completely “wiffing” the other person's glass. 

The Time Jennifer and I Saw Supersize Me

As promised last week, this is the other story about breaking Cardinal French Rules that involves both McDonalds and sore kidneys.  So sit back, grab a snack, and let me tell you about The Time Jennifer and I Saw Supersize Me.

We started our night with a meal both light and delicious--salads with seasonal veggies at a cafe on Boulevard Saint Germain.  Then, en route to the cinema, we passed a street vendor selling some tempting-looking candy, and we again took the high road...JUST KIDDING!  What do we look like, Ambassadors for America?  We said “Bring on the sweets!”

Have I ever mentioned that there are some rules in France?  Yeah, well, there are.  Just a few.  One they don’t tell you in the guidebooks is: THOU SHALT NOT EAT FOOD DURING A MOVIE.  But in case you aren’t up to speed on the rule, they drive it home by making sure each lobby is COMPLETELY LACKING IN ACCEPTABLE THINGS TO CONSUME.  First there is popcorn from a red wheely wagon that is WHITE.  Hello?  Last time I checked, movie-theater popcorn is supposed to be yellow?   And, you know, taste like buttered styrofoam?  Duh!

Were It The U.S., We'd Be Considering Legal Action

At my bank yesterday, I asked if I could conduct a seemingly harmless, but apparently pas-possible-en-France transaction, and the branch manager, Monsieur L, was all, “you know I love you, but...” and he ended his whole explanation with “Kisses all the same.”

YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU?!?  KISSES ALL THE SAME?!?!

And, is it wrong that I’m okay with this?

Thinking

Look, I know the instructions say to wear Crest Whitestrips for 30 minutes, but I’m all about getting my money’s worth.  (Especially when someone has carried them across an ocean for me).  So, umm,  sometimes I go to sleep with them on.  Then, in the morning, the plastic strips always GONE.  Where do they go?  Do I swallow them?  Seriously.

Obsession of the Week: Les Bougies de Diptyque

Wasn’t the best part about the child fantasy of being royal that you could have anything your heart desired?   Marie Antoinette felt bored with palace life, and wished for a little village near Versailles where she could play at being a shepherdess.  Done--Le Petit Trianon.  Today, there are still royalty who know how to work the whole your wish is my command deal--rockstars and celebrities, that is--and we’ve got the town criers, InStyle and US Weekly, to keep us informed of their whims.

It is maybe in this way that the word “Diptyque” first came under my radar.  These useless factoids for some reason stick in the recesses of the brain: Elton John is famous for having hundreds of Diptyque candles at home, whose wicks he trims lovingly every night, like rosebushes.  Sean "P Diddy" Combs basically doesn’t get out of bed in the morning if there aren’t 50 Diptyque Tuberose’s in the recording studio.  Giorgio Armani buys hundreds of Diptyque candles to perfume his runway shows. 

How To Make Me Giggle

Have this conversation with me as we set up our next meeting to work on your English:

Me: So we’ll touch base tomorrow.
Guillaume: Ehhh, touch base?
Me: We’ll talk tomorrow.
Guillaume: Hokay, I call you to confirm.
Me: THAT is touching base.
Guillaume: Okay, I will touching base tomorrow!

Freedom Fries, Indeed

On Sunday, Kathleen and I decided enough with the scarves and Euro-chicness, we were coming out of the closet as who we were, god dammit.   (Inhale cigarette, exhale.  Pout:  SOH AMEREECAN)  We took coffee from Starbucks.  To go!  We went shopping. On a Sunday!*  We wore tennis shoes.  That were WHITE!  But we knew we could get away with all this craziness because we’d planned on spending the whole afternoon out of the city, at Chateau de Versailles, where there are only tourists.

*only flea market shopping is available on Sundays

We exit the train at Versailles and all passengers are moving in mass in one direction.  So we follow.  Who wouldn’t?  Confident masses, they’re so reassuring!  We shuffle across the street, in our happy little tourist herd, and the next thing I know I’m smelling French fries.  I’m not kidding you people, THE WHOLE TRAIN had just headed straight across the street to McDonalds.   

So Jeanne, What's TV Like Over There?

In a special segment we’re starting called “Ask My French Cousin Jeanne,” Jeanne shares her thoughts on some of the hottest new programs in France this fall.  (Editor would also like to note no apologies to Jonathan Safran Foer.)

For commencement, it is pleasurable to be here.  Well, let me be jumping in now.  We just obtained two emissions that are seeming supercool: 

One of them chronicles some very alluring, but very not satiated youths.  It is called The C.O. or The O.C. or something like this.  (What is it with the Americans and word abridgment?  Coquette says “keep it on the DL” so recurringly, I am beginning to clutch the meaning, but MIA, AWOL, AOL, CIA, O.J....I am never keeping it aligned)