Bonjour, mes amis. It’s Bastille Day and those are the Marseillais volunteers sculpted on L’Arc de Triomphe.
It seems comme il faut to discuss La Belle France aujourd’hui.
And my daughter, Natasha.
When she was sixteen, Natasha wanted to study French in summer school. Her school, St. George’s, made all the arrangements. For seven weeks she would live with a local family and take classes en franÇais at L’Université de Caen.
Author’s Note: I can NOT get the cedille under the small “c.” I’ve tried and tried. Quelle dommage. Excusez-moi.
It sounded parfait and ma belle fille bid us au revoir and headed for her rendez-vous with toutes les choses franÇaises.
Her first communiques home sounded enthusiastic. She had been placed with a family with two teenaged children right around her age. Madame was a member of the Grey Poupon family and so mealtimes were bound to be delicieux.
But j’ai fait une erreur.
Madame was a miser who grudgingly doled out one see-through slice of jambon at each meal.
And the kids desperately wanted to learn English.
Hélas.
Natasha found herself speaking English all of the time and starving to death.
(She did manage to console herself with glace et fromage, however.)
I was not a happy camper. I hadn’t spent all those francs for her to brush up her English and not pick up any French customs to boot.
And plus Ça DID change because she was getting well…what’s the politically-correct term here?
Oh, I know.
Plump.
WEIGHT WATCHER’S SIDEBAR: I never said une mot. Natasha came home and lost all the kilograms she had put on gorging on chèvre and Berthillon’s ice cream. She may have ditched the excess baggage forever but she has never lost her taste for those Frenchified delights.
Alors…
Natasha would call home periodically to whine. Madame was keeping her hungry, the kids were brats who only pestered her to tell them about the états Unis, and she missed her amis. Her vie was definitely not en rose.
But I tried to look on the bright side.
“Natasha, dites-moi. Yesterday was Bastille Day. That had to be fun. What did you do?”
“We didn’t celebrate it,” was the firm reply.
“What do you mean ‘we didn’t celebrate it?'” I asked.
“Madame is a member of le gratin. You know. The French nobility. We ignored it,” sniffed Natasha Antoinette.
Mon Dieu. A Gallic-Anglo cultural exchange at last.
Let ’em eat cake, I guess.
Vive La France.
Ellen, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose — all you have to do is Google the phrase and then cut & paste into your publishing platform. For all my high school French, when a combination of business/pleasure resulted in my wife and I being in a Paris restaurant circa 1990, I so embarrassed myself ordering “poulet” in the vernacular that the chauvinistic wait staff started laughing and reverted to English. At least they appreciated the effort.
Yes, you made a “canard”- to keep it in the foul language. But glad you didn’t duck the topic. Thanks, Doc.
No harm, no fowl.
BTW, ICYMI: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/movies/madeleine-lebeau-casablanca-actress-dies-at-92.html
J’m appelle Jacque. Unfortunately, much of the rest of your lovely blog was beyond my limited linguistic skill. But I am certain that your many other readers enjoyed it.
I need to get an order of freedom fries with my lunch. Bon soare.
Tres bien Jacques. Merci beaucoup, votre amie, Ellen, la mere de Natasha.
Thank you for whatever it is you have just said about yourself and your daughter. Clearly, I need to purchase an English-French dictionary.
I just said “thanks a lot.” You’re great in any language.