If I were French

Today, we continue our lesson on use of the conditional verb tense.

The Hypothetical: Si j’etais francaise... If I were French.

1. I would speak French.

2. I would bear a striking resemblance to Marion Cotillard. It would be uncanny, in fact. I would get mistaken for her ALL the time, and people would stop me on the street asking for photos and autographs. It would be exhausting.

3. I would have long, luscious hair that I could carelessly throw up into a messy knot on top of my head, and still manage to look perfectly put together and effortlessly stunning.

4. I would smoke cigarettes and look beautiful doing so and not give a damn about those silly warnings of the Surgeon General, or whatever he/she is called in France.

5. I would have an adorable dog that would sit on my lap while I dined at a restaurant, and would share my pommes frites with me. Silly American girls jogging past would stop to stare for a moment, and would wish they had their camera on them to take a photo of this "bizarre" sight.

6. I would enter a PACS agreement (Pacte Civil de Solidarite - unmarried couple with full legal rights under French law) and live with a beautiful dark-skinned man of North-African origin (relax dad, this is only hypothetical) and together we would have/adopt a brood of kids so diverse and awesome-looking, they could make up a Benetton ad. Oh wait, maybe this last bit is more suited to my "If I Were Angelina" hypothetical...

7. I would eat freshly-baked bread with every meal, and follow a delicious dinner with an assortment of fromage or chocolate (or both) and never feel even a twinge of guilt, or have a moment’s thought that I am splurging and must work out tomorrow to make up for the rich caloric consumption.

8. Work out? As in, voluntarily put your body through a torturous exercise routine and sweat profusely? And for what purpose, exactly, do you do this? To these questions, I would seek explanation from young American women...

9. I myself would never consider such nonsense of "working out" yet my body would be naturally fit and healthy, simply because I (was one lucky be-atch who) ate really good foods, had amazing genes, and lived a naturally healthy lifestyle. My form of exercise would probably be walking in high heels all over Paris... and perhaps regularly enjoying some other activities that I won’t mention here.

10. On that note, I would never be embarrassed or ashamed to discuss or reference sex, nudity or anything of the sort. It would be normal for my Benetton-ad children to see bare boobs and butts on TV, but never bloody shoot-outs, murders or gun violence.

11. I would never worry about any member of my family getting sick and not being able to afford to see a doctor, nor would I worry about my parents or grandparents being able to live comfortably in retirement, nor would I worry about being able to afford an excellent education for my Benetton-ad children.

12. I would grow old gracefully and graciously. I would be one of those stunning older French women who is always put together, wears her gray hair with pride, shuns plastic surgery, and maintains an unwavering faith that the plethora of creams and beauty treatments which line pharmacy shelves will keep me looking magnificent until the day I die.

13. I would be a Parisienne, of course. But a rare breed of Parisian who actually stayed in Paris during the month of July, because I would know what no other Parisians seem to notice: that July is the most amazing, beautiful, weather-perfect time to be in the city. "Let them have their Coast!" I would declare - as though I were Marie Antoinette. "As long as I can have Paris!"

Excusez-moi, France. You want me to do WHAT?

Seriously? You want me to go out and party late into the wee hours of the morning for TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW? Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how old/lazy/boring I really am?

Clearly not. Or if you do have an idea, you simply don’t care. Which means you are a little bit evil. That's right, I said evil.

You take this thing called a National Holiday and you let it fall smack dab in the middle of the week. And you give me a day off from class because of it. And you plan accordingly by throwing all these fabulous parties at fire stations all over the city on the night before my day off, so I can be sure to enjoy them. This is all well and good, and I really appreciate your benevolence. Because these fire station parties, the Bals des Pompiers, as they are known, are just too much fun to be missed. I mean, where else in the world is there an annual tradition in which all the fire stations city-wide close off their surrounding streets, open their doors, and welcome with open arms anyone and everyone, of all ages, to join them for an all-night neighborhood dance party? With the firemen themselves working the bar?

So far, no problem France. We are on the same page, you and me.

But then you have to go and MESS IT ALL UP by throwing all these great Bals des Pompiers for a second night in a row. Why must you do this? Is one night not enough? Do you have any idea how much you are torturing me?

I did my duty last night. I was out all night at Fire Station 27 in Montmarte, drinking champagne and dancing to cheesy cover-band music 'til about 4am. I had a great time, ok? But clearly this isn't good enough for you, because if it were, these Bals wouldn't have to happen again tonight!

And to make matters worse, you now tell me that the most happening/hopping/awesome Fireman’s Ball of the entire city is going off tonight within about 8 minutes walking distance from my apartment, on Rue Sevigne in Le Marais. Hot-as-anything firemen. Serving me champagne. Cover bands. Gay boys. Straight boys. Beautiful people. And me, all I want to do is get into my pajamas (which technically would be really easy to do since I am still wearing them) and crawl into bed and stay there for the next 24 hours or so. But no. You have to tempt me out of my state of blissful laziness with hot firemen throwing block parties. France, you are a tease. An evil, torturous tease.

Excusez-moi, what is a preposition?

A few years ago, I discovered my journal from Mr. Petty’s first grade class. It was buried deep inside a box labeled "My Memories. Don’t Throw Away!". The entries were hilariously simple, along the lines of:

Yesterday my grandma came to our house and she gave me a doll. It is pretty and it has a red dress and long brown hair. I want to bring her to show-and-tell at school but I can’t because Oscar chewed off her leg. My sister thinks it’s funny. She is mean. Oscar is my dog. He is so cute but now I am mad at him. Then my mom let us eat ice cream for dinner. Wippie hippie!

As I struggle through French class each and every morning, trying to comprehend verb tenses, pronouns, prepositions and sentence structure, I can’t help but envy that 6-year-old kid who had it so easy. As kids, we learn languages without even thinking about it, without realizing what the heck we are doing. We speak and write in the present tense, past tense, future tense, conditional. We use pronouns and possessives and prepositions, and we don’t even know we are doing it.

As an adult, it’s a whole different story. Learning a language is an exhausting process – one that can be humbling, painstaking, and at times, downright humiliating. As I try desperately to learn French, I feel like a child again. Only one with a severe learning disorder.

It’s hard enough trying to comprehend exactly where to place the pronoun or the preposition in a French sentence, but to make things worse, I am sitting there in class thinking... what exactly is a preposition, anyway? Mr. Petty never covered that. He didn’t have to, because we didn’t need to know. Well Mr. Petty, it may have been a GOOD IDEA to teach us kids these minor details, because I would really like to be able to speak French in a way that doesn’t get the response of blank, confused stares and questions that translate as "HUH?"

My homework assignment for the day: use the conditional tense to describe what I want out of the next 5 years of my life. This type of question came often as a kid, only less time-specific: "what do you want to be when you grow up?" But as an adult learning French, my immediate response is: um, excusez-moi, what exactly is the conditional tense?

Diary entry of a 6-year-old, learning to write in English:
What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I grow up I want to be a truck driver and drive all over and talk into the cb radio to other truck drivers. I would stop at truck stops and eat apple pie with ice cream every single night. I think it would be really fun.  When we go on trips in the car my dad talks into the cb to other truck drivers and it’s really funny. They all have funny names. My sister is mean. She never lets me sit in the front seat. I hate her.

(Note the above use of future tense, conditional tense, present tense, and probably a whole bunch of prepositions and pronouns and other things I can’t identify in English.)

Homework assignment of a 36-year-old, learning to write in French:
Write a brief composition about what you would like to do in the next 5 years of your life, using the conditional tense.

In the next five years, I would like to do many things. I would like to learn to speak French perfectly. Also I would like to learn another language, maybe Portuguese or Arabic. I would like to spend some time living in Buenos Aires, and I would like to travel throughout all of Brazil. If I earned more money, I would buy two apartments, one in New York and one in Paris, because I want to live in both cities. Also, if found the time and motivation, I would write the history of my life so far and I would be a very famous writer.

Oh man, I am exhausted! Writing this brief paragraph (in French, mind you) takes serious mental exertion. I wonder if it was this hard when I was 6?

Well, lucky for me, I am not 6 anymore – nor am I about to get back on the road to drive my truck route tonight - which means I get to reward my hard work with a big ol' icy cocktail. In the present tense, not conditional on anything.

The octopus picked it

In case you somehow missed the front page of every major newspaper worldwide today, I thought I would share the news of the day: Spain won the World Cup! Paul the Octopus wasn't messing around.

In honor of this major victory - and in lieu of completing my French homework this evening (conditional verb tense and simple pronouns, yuck) - I thought I would take a moment to share with you, in case you just cannot understand, why I am such an avid fan of that fabulous sport otherwise known as football:

And my personal all-time favorite, from World Cups Past... the great Zinedine Zidane:

And with that, we bring a joyful end to this edition of World Cup 2010.

Les Soldes - Part Deux

Voila, a much more suitable photo for my blog post from earlier today:

Shopper's Rehab

I am pleased to report the following breaking news: Along the shores of the beautiful beaches of Europe, the Speedo is on the decline.

That’s right, my friends. Based on extensive observation over the past two days here in Cannes, I can confirm that European men are now wearing swim shorts to the beach. Standard-length, thigh-covering, leave-a-little-to-the-imagination-please, swim shorts. No more bulging out all over the place, so to speak. Surfer-wear, skater-wear... it seems European men are now taking their beach fashion cues from the likes of SoCal's Manhattan Beach. I never thought I would see the day.

Of course, there are exceptions to this surprising new fashion trend. The over-65 set, for one, who cling tight (pun intended) to their Speedo-wearing ways. These guys have been letting it all hang "loose" for as long as they can remember, so why change their seaside style now (especially now that everything about their bods really is loose!)?

And of course, the Italians. God love ‘em, those Italians will go down fighting for their right to expose their every curve for all the world to admire, no matter how wrong the entire look turns out to be. Well, admire is probably not the word I should use, but I have to admit their complete lack of self-consciousness – that of both the shameless Italians and the senior crowd, in fact – is utterly refreshing.

So here I am, lolling at the beach, blissfully wasting away the hours slathered in sunblock, flipping through French gossip magazines (which for the record cover the same trash as their American counterparts, but in French)... This weekend in the French Riviera is just what I needed to recharge, refresh, and escape the daily grind of life in The Big City.

Oh who am I kidding?! Other than my daily cup of coffee, there is no daily grind in Paris! So far, my summer has been one ridiculously easy-going holiday. As the heat settles in, everything and everyone seems to have slowed down. But a weekend away to the French Riviera? Guaranteed to offer the most excellent people-watching opportunity of the entire summer? And, I don’t need to take an airplane to get there? Sign me up.

I suppose it’s a very good thing I did get away, because it just so happens that July is a Very Dangerous Time To Be In Paris. Terrorist attacks, train bombs, civil unrest in the banlieus, heatstroke... NO! I refer to NONE of these things. Rather, the danger comes in the form of two innocent little words: LES SOLDES.

I shudder at the mere thought.

Every July, across the entire country of France, every single shop – clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry, even chocolate – slashes their prices and announces that the Sales Are On for the month. (This is so unlike the place where I come from, where sales happen on a daily – sometimes hourly – basis, for any and every reason whatsoever.) The July sales in Paris, subsequently, are the event of the summer. And we are talking deep, deep discounts (-40%! -50%! -60%!) on some of the most gorgeous shoes and dresses I have ever seen.

Adding to the DANGER of it all is the Euro’s sudden resuscitation in recent weeks, steadily on the rise, crushing the fragile ego of the US dollar... not to mention my own spending power. Somebody make it stop!

Better yet, somebody stop ME! I had no choice, I needed to be sent away to the Coast for a long weekend of Shopper’s Rehab. Yes, yes, LES SOLDES do extend all the way into Cannes, but I have been far too busy sleeping in sand to pay much attention. And anyway, shopping in Cannes – in the form of Dior, Balenciaga, D&G, Yves Saint Laurent – is way beyond my bank account.

In any event, on my way home from the beach today I did stop by an active-wear store – just to have a look. And wouldn’t you know, the entire line of Men’s Speedo bathing suits were on sale...

Big Boys Do Cry

Just when I thought it safe to take a 5-week vacation...

Just when I thought I was clear to spend my mornings napping, my afternoons mastering the art of walking on cobblestone in high heels, and my evenings cheering Spain all the way to World Cup victory...

Just when I thought I really had "nothing to do", the call of duty has come.

No, not from the Foreign Service. As if! Other than having to give up copious amounts of blood for medical testing (and with the blood, a whole lot of tears) nothing is expected to happen in that part of my world for a long, long time. Rather, I was offered the opportunity to write – and get paid for doing so. It’s nothing fancy, just drafting content for a corporate website. But for a gal like me, who on occasion has ventured to consider herself a "writer", this is an opportunity that cannot be passed by.

To be fair, I knew this was coming, I guess I was just secretly hoping it would get postponed until après-vacances, or at the very least, après World Cup final.

But maybe this came in the nick of time. Truth be told, walking on cobblestone in high heels is painful. And after watching Paraguay’s Oscar Cardozo weep uncontrollably like a big ol’ handsome baby at his team’s loss to my team last Saturday, head buried with shame deep inside his jersey, I am starting to wonder about the whole competition thing – and thinking I am too much of a sensitive wuss to ever be a true sports fan in the style of the European Footballer. As he fell to the ground in sheer agony, every single player on that field - Spanish and Paraguayan alike - offered hugs and soccer love, trying to console an inconsolable Cardozo. It was heart wrenching to watch, so much so that I wanted to get on a plane, fly to South Africa, make all the players form one huge circle, and holding hands, sing "Kumbaya". After which of course, I would inquire as to who was single and interested in joining me for dinner.

But instead, I will write. And get paid. And take some time out on Wednesday night to throw on a pair of heels, trot across the cobblestone street to Café La Pierre, and settle in to watch Spain kick Germany’s footballing ass. Just please boys, no tears this time. I can’t handle it.