Madame Trés chic and The Absent Minded Professor

I have a new French teacher.  She is about as different from my last teacher as possible.  My last teacher, Monsieur George, (now read that again and this time with a French accent!) was from Romania.  He has a PhD in Philosophy, il est tres intellegent.  He is what I would refer to as an absent minded professor.  Brilliant!  Scattered!  Slightly awkward.  He was a good teacher for me because I think linearly.  Is that a word?  I could follow him in the book! He focused a lot on grammar and conjugations and wrote everything on the board for us to note if we wanted.  He was covered with chalk dust by the end of the class and occasionally got frazzled because he  had so much in his head that he wanted to get out.  I enjoyed his class and hopefully I learned some French.

My new French teacher, Madame José,  (again, with a French accent) is the epitome of a French woman.  She is petite, elegant, animated (ok, that might not be typical), and trés chic!  She is always dressed impeccably.  Heels, skirts, lovely blouses and sweaters, lipstick....always. Her hair is pulled up in a slightly messy yet elegant chignon, with matching jewelry and the occasional scarf tied to perfection, the way only French women can tie a scarf!  Is it genetic?  How do they do it?  I feel so large and pedestrian sitting next to her!  Maybe it is my blue jeans! She sweeps into class with a cheerful, "Bonjour!"  From the minute she enters the class until the class is over she is chattering in French.  She rarely writes anything on the chalkboard.  Mechanics are not the emphasis yet, maybe she assumes we already know it. The conversations in class are personal....  "Describe your dream house, what did you do last weekend, have you been to Paris, what did you do there, tell me about your family....all in French and in the correct tense!" The textbook is a secondary tool used for reference as opposed to the class guide.  She has a real French accent, not a Romanian French accent.  She is merciless when it comes to pronunciation!  Yikes!  I am sooo in trouble here.  She definitely has everyone speaking which I am thinking is a good thing.

I think between Madame Trés Chic and Monsieur Absent Minded Professor I  might just learn some French.  If I'm lucky maybe I'll learn how to dress too!

Where is My Invisibility Cloak When I Need It?

Yesterday I went into the mall and was reminded why I am beginning to hate the mall.  I remember when I could freely stroll through the mall and window shop or daydream in peace.  Now it is like an obstacle course of kiosks and their aggressive hawkers. When did it become OK to attack innocent shoppers weilding hair straighteners and hand lotion? I now have to go to the mall armed with my "leave me alone" face. NO, I don't want to sit in one of those back rubbing chairs....stop looking at me with that face, I don't need a new phone or a new phone plan, or revolutionary hand cream that I am sure will make my hands look 10 years younger,  I don't want a hair straightener (can't you tell I already have one....NO?  darn!) ,  those nuts smell good but if I want some I will ask you!  I go through the gauntlet of kiosks looking everywhere but in the eyes of the hawkers. I look at the floor, I look the opposite way, I have even pretended to be talking on my phone, apparently the only way they will not come up to me and ask, "can I show you something?". I want to walk with one hand up, shaking my head "no" and using my "leave me alone" glare.  I am sure these kiosks are bad for business for the adjacent stores, who wants to dodge and weave their way through the aggressive kiosk hawkers just to get to a store? Where is my invisibility cloak when I need it? 

I actually visited one of these kiosks on my last mall visit....I was looking for sunglasses and they do have a good selection for a good price.  I probably would have bought the 2 pair for a ridiculously low price except for the kiosk worker who ended up creaping me out.  There I was, trying on sunglasses and this is how the conversation went...

KW:  (in a slight german or northern european accent)  you look very serious
Me: not really.... (ignoring him, just trying on glasses)
KW:  so, you are not a big talker, you are very quiet
Me: uh huh  (wow, this guy is so perceptive)
KW:  I bet you are a mother
Me: yup   (what gave it away?  my age, my wedding ring, my ability to ignore 20somthing annoying boys?)
KW:  I'll bet you are a stict mother
Me:  ?
KW:  Yes, you are a strict mother, are you German?
Me: No
KW:  Really, no German, not even a little bit?
Me: Nope, no German  (can I just try on glasses?)
KW:  Hmmmm, where did you get the strictness from?  My mother is German but she was not very strict...just look at me!  (working in a mall kiosk selling sunglasses?) 
Me:  From my father, he was the strict one.  Well, thanks, but no glasses today....bye  (those ones with the white frames were soo cute, ugh)

I am surprised he did not try to tell me my life story!  Invisibility cloak please!

State of Life Address, One Year Later

Life is a bed of roses!

So I have spent my entire day thinking profound thoughts, how about you? 

A year ago I was coming back to the life I knew a couple of years earlier.  Can you go back?  The age old question.  I wondered myself.  The answer, yes, but it won't be exactly the same and if you are lucky it might just be a bed of roses.  After moving for the fifth time I am glad we moved somewhere we had a history.  I was getting tired of starting all over.  I did not go back the the same old life but there are certainly advantages to having old friends.  I have even made new friends!

So as lovely as these roses are and as sweet as they smell they also have thorns.  An analogy for life?  You betcha!  Life is good and looks all pretty and perfect from a distance but if you get close there are thorns.   You can all attest that maybe my biggest thorn living here is.....the weather.  Big surprise!  No, I can't complain now, April is spectacular!  I have the luxury of leaving for most of the horrible time anyway so it is not such a big thorn.  I would rather focus on the flowers for now.

Family is a huge full flower here.  We get to see two of our kids on a regular basis.  We get to live near my sister and her family!  We are close enough to drive to Baton Rouge and see our parents and even more of our siblings and their families.  That is a huge fragrant flower in our life here.  We were somewhat isolated in Toronto, at least from our immediate family.  We did have some awesome cousins and friends who adopted us as surrogate families and we will always be thankful for them.  Good news is that we see them every summer.  But there is no substitute for your immediate family.

Church here is an inspiration to me.  I missed this church when we lived in Canada and am so happy to be back.  I have this church to thank for getting me involved in the Learn English Ministry.  What would I do without my Monday and Wednesday morning classes?  I had no idea how much I would enjoy teaching and how special these people have become to me.  They are fertilizer in my bed of roses.  They make me grow.

One main reason for us moving down here was TJ's mother.  I have avoided mentioning her in my blog because....well....I was not sure if it was the right place.  But here I go, jumping in with both feet.  His mom has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  Last year she was in an assisted living facility.  She was not a happy camper there and her husband was not a happy camper with her living there either.  While she has Alzheimer's she still knows us and knew where she was and basically hated living there.  TJ is a good guy, one of the best.  He just felt it was better for her that we live closer to her and it would be much easier for him to help care for her from here.  He is a smart guy sometimes....well, most of the time.  She is now living at home, with in home care, and both she and her husband are much happier. This makes everyone in the family much happier too!  We are able to visit them every 4-6 weeks.  We would not have been able to do this from Toronto.  I love her attitude, she sees the roses and not the thorns, even though she has Alzheimer's. She is looking through rose colored glasses and always has.  Her family is perfect in her eyes and we could all learn a lesson from her.

Just another day in the rose garden

 The State of Life is good.  I am sure that if I had written this on a dreary, cloudy, hot, humid day where I had nothing to do and nowhere to go that the State of Life would be a little less rosy.  That is just me.  But today was lovely, I was busier than busy, and loved every minute of it.  If you had asked me a year ago if this is what I anticipated, my answer would have been a bit hesitant.  Shows you what I know! 

Stop and smell the roses. 
Tired of rose analogies?
I can go all day....

Happy Anniversary

One year ago, today, I drove from St. Louis to Sugar Land, TX for our big move back south.  You know what that means?  It means it is time for the State of Life Address.  Time for serious, and not so serious, reflection and pondering on whether things are better than they were a year ago.  Exhausting....let me think about it for a while and I'll get back to you this afternoon.  Right now it is time to go teach English and then play a round of golf in the beautiful, not too hot or muggy, sunshine.  I promise to think profound thoughts all day and maybe take a few pictures to post along with this State of Life Address!  Pressing "save" until this afternoon.  It could be a two post day, lucky you!

BINGO

I thought in honor of April Fool's Day I would post a little amusement for everyone.

This hilarity comes from my ESL class.  Our class meets in a community center and shares a space with a group of senior citizens.  We sit on one side of the room around one or two tables and they sit on the other side of the room and use 3 or 4 tables, think small cafeteria.  We all gather around 9 a.m. and go about our business for about the first half hour, they play donimos and we teach English. 

Some  days we are quiet and some days we are a little more lively depending on how many people show up and what the mood is in the group.  The seniors are the same, sometimes loud and sometimes a little louder depending on how many of them can hear I guess.  Anyway, we use them as an example in our lessons sometimes like when we are teaching superlatives, we are loud and they are louder!  They are the loudest ones in the room.  See?  Everyone in our class gets the idea.  The seniors usually start playing Bingo around 9:45, after dominos and exercises.  I think they love Bingo and as a bonus they win food when they Bingo!  It is a great program for them as this may be the only decent food they have all day. 

Meanwhile, we are trying to teach English on the other side of the room.  Competing for air space amidst B-5, O-52, N-24....called out in a very LOUD voice with a serious southern drawl.  One of our students, I'll call her Porque, because (porque)she says that word between every phrase!  Like some people use the word "like", she uses porque.  She is a funny lady and the class clown, she cracks me up regularly, she is infectious with her twinkling eyes and occasional scattered brain-ness.  She is always sincere though and we all love having her in class. 

Anyway....one day we were minding our own business and doing our lessons.  The 9:45 Bingo game was going along and the louder the caller called the letters and numbers the louder we had to talk.  It sometimes becomes a competition, she is loud and then we are loud because we can't hear anything if we aren't louder and then she is even louder...  Still working on the loud, louder, loudest lesson?   Bingo caller lady shouts B-4, then maybe O-50 and so it goes, and out of the blue....from our side of the room, Porque shouts...."BINGO"!   Our entire class cracked up, we were trying to hide the fact that we were howling with laughter from Bingo Caller Lady but I know she heard us!  Porque sat there just snickering with that little twinkle in her eyes!  I think  most of the seniors had no idea what was going on but I'm sure Bingo Caller Lady heard and was unamused.   Maybe the reason she shouts the letters and numbers is because most of the seniors are hard of hearing, but then again it could be because we are loud too.  Now, Porque only whispers "Bingo"  to our group, and we all get to have a little private snicker amongst ourselves.  Hope you snickered too, Happy April Fool's Day!

My Confession

I have a confession.....I really don't like Confession. 

As I was driving today my thoughts went to our church mission.  (Many Catholic churches have what they call missions during Lent.  The mission usually involves a visiting priest who gives inspiring, thought provoking and spirit renewing talks on several nights during one week in Lent).  I went on Monday night and really enjoyed the talk.  I was thinking about going again tonight and then I remembered something being mentioned on Monday about a Penance service in addition to the talk on Wed. night.  My immediate reaction was...."hmmm, maybe I won't go".  Instead of thinking ....."great, what a good opportunity to cleanse my battered soul", I thought, "run the opposite direction!"  This has been my reaction to Penance, Reconciliation, Confession....call it what you like, since about the 2nd or 3rd grade.  See?  I told you it was my confession.

I went to a Catholic grammar school and we were required to go to Confession every Friday ( maybe it was once a month but it seemed like EVERY Friday to me).  For some reason I could never remember the words you were supposed to say as an introduction or the prayers you were supposed to say.  I remember distinctly going into the haunting confessional box and stuttering and fumbling with the words and being told by the grouchy old priest to go back out and not come back in until I knew the words.  Well.....that was it, I was permanently traumatized.  This is aside from the fact that every Friday I had to come up with my list of sins and they sounded like a broken record to me; I lied, I disobeyed my parents, I was mean to my brother and sisters.....nothing too serious, after all, I was 7! 

As an adult, I know I should get over this.  I've talked to priests about my fear and trepidation over Confession.  One particularly kind priest friend heard my story and told me he would be happy to hear my Confession as we walked outside at a school retreat (I was an adult chaperone) and it didn't matter if I knew the right words or the right prayers, that he would say it all with me and it would be just fine.  What a kind man!  That should have cured me! 

I still find myself with what I consider a trite list of sins which makes me think I am in need of some serious self examination.  Believe me, it is not that I am so virtuous, probably the opposite.  I was thinking about this post and did a little research.  This site is eye opening and worth thinking about, I especially find the chart with the virtues and vices interesting, and the descriptions of the seven deadly sins is good self examination material.  It also makes me think if I do go to Confession tonight that I might be in there for a LONG time!  I need to change my focus and look at this as an opportunity to lighten the load and take it as the gift it is meant to be, instead of the torture I have made it to be all these years.  Maybe this post is just one small step towards that end.

The Lost Paragraph

As I reread my latest blog post last night I noticed that my favorite paragraph was gone!  I'm sure when I posted it that the paragraph was in there but last night it had disappeared.  I started wondering if the subject of the paragraph had snuck into my blog and deleted the paragraph.  I tried to recreate the paragraph but my attempt came up short.  I included it anyway but am not pleased with the writing. 
The lost paragraph was a rare combination of wit, vocabulary, and subject matter that comes along once in a while when I write.  I was so disappointed when I tried to rewrite.  The moment was gone and the brain just wasn't in the same place.  Sad for all of you who are going to miss out on some "good stuff" (in my humble opinion).  You might be able to read the last post and figure out which paragraph is the new but not improved paragraph.  The lost one had phrases like "caffeine induced exuberance" and told the story so much better but alas I can't recreate so I included an attempt, a second rate paragraph that only halfway describes the morning madness of the last post. 
If I find the culprit who deleted that most excellent bit of writing I will wrestle him/her to the ground and demand that it be given back.  Honestly though, I must have inadvertently erased it when I attached the photo....that is what I get for writing late at night.  Wit and mistakes.