happy

 
 

sad

 
 

It's a lot, or as we say in Texas, a s#!+load

I didn't grow up around snow so I don't know all the expressions for saying that there sure is a lot of snowing going on. It doesn't make sense to say "It's a gully-washer" or "It's raining cats and dogs" or "This is a hair-washing rain" about the snow. Help me out here, folks!

Europe has really been getting pounded by some bad storms. I did hear from the young traveler kiddo that he did arrive safely at his destination, but his luggage took a detour. C'est dommage(It's a shame). Yesterday it snowed all day long. It was too cold to go out or do anything so we just nested. At the end of the day we went out for our Friday-night pizza and I took some pictures along the way.

Read all about it here and here.

its cold and icy 

Christmas is over, now it is time for White Sales 

sales sales sales

My American friend here first introduced me to the sales last summer. We went shopping during the "designated" sale time specified by the government. Stores cannot have a sale whenever they want to have a sale... that would not be fair to the other stores!

So we went shopping and mostly admired all of the summer clothing that had been critically marked down. She told me that once the sales are over, everything mysteriously disappears... no secondary markdowns... no final clearance prices... it's just suddently gone!

I noticed the same thing just after the back-to-school promotions. One day stores were brimming with notebooks, pencils, pens, and lots of erasers.. and then the next day - poof! gone. So you can imagine how festive all the stores have been - decorated for Christmas. The french have a way of making anything ordinary look simply extraordinary! The window displays were beautiful! So Jeff and I decided to go to the mall yesterday and just take a look around. I had kinda forgotten about the 'poof' (here today, gone tomorrow) and expected to see leftover Christmas merchandise ... beh non. It's WHITE SALE time!

white sale ads 

Trees across the street 

Before all the snow fell... just the beginning 

In the Snow 

It's Snowing

We have received a S#!+load of snow. See the news about it here. This is the day kiddo son leaves to return to the home base. He just left to take the train to Paris. I'm crossing my fingers that the TGV will get him there in time to catch his flight. Yesterday the TGVs were running 5 hours late. He is on the first train to Paris today, so I think it will be OK.

Christmas 2005

It was a wonderful Christmas! It was very cold, but nice. Kiddos #2 and #3 arrived on the 22nd and Kate came with me to the Fete de Noel at my French school and watched me sing in the "spectacle". (really wasn't too bad - stay tuned for pictures from that event with my Japanese friends) Christmas cards and letters arrived each day and gave us such a thrill. Package from sister arrived just before Christmas too... she mailed it a few weeks ago. Package from dad (mailed back in October) also arrived! The packages contained "supplies"... light bulbs for our American lamps... peanut butter, jelly, ranch dressing, baking powder ... It was so nice to fix a plate of veggies with ranch dressing! And Jeff brought me a can of PAM cooking spray (surprise!) It was good Christmas indeed!

 
 

multiculturalism

Joyeux Noel, Merry Christmas, and Feliz Navidad.... all in the store window decorated for Christmas... with a cactus? 
 

Ice skating

I have a new camera. My old camera was just too slow. Every time I saw something really interesting (like a guy riding a bicycle and carring his Christmas tree over his shoulder) my camera took way too long to "warm up" and allow me to get the quick shot. Since my dad sent me a check for Birthday/Christmas, I decided to get myself a new, more compact, and quicker camera. I did some research, ordered it, and had it sent to youngest son at college. He brought it with him and now I can (hopefully) get those interesting quick shots.  
 

kiddos arrive 

Christmas visitors

The kiddos arrived safely after a long voyage across the pond. It's nice to have a full house. After a day of resting and overcoming jet lag, Kate went ice-skating and dad watched. Later that night, it was off to the pizza place for the traditional Friday night pizza. Lazing around and not doing much is kinda nice! 
 

keep those cards and letters coming folks 

we've got mail

It is such a good feeling to open the mailbox and find a card or letter inside that is in English and I can comfortably read. It feels even better to learn that the card or letter is from a dear friend or family member. The spot on my front door for all the cards is starting to grow, and for that I thank you!

cake for 2005 

no turkey for Christmas

For all who ask, "Will you be eating turkey for Christmas?", the answer is a resounding, "Mais, non!" I think we will try to incorporate some of the French traditional food into our Christmas meal. Smoked salmon is pretty big here for the holidays and so I think I will try fixing that. Other choices (which I will pass on) are Fois Gras, escargot, and dressing made with chestnuts. I will also try to get a Bûche de Noël for the birthday celebrations on Christmas.

Check out this page of French holiday traditions.

Is a school really a school if it doesn’t have a Christmas program?

I still can’t believe this is happening. My French school is having a “Fête De Noël” (Christmas party) on Thursday evening. No problem... I will be there. About a week ago they started asking who would be attending. I felt a little pressure about it, for example, one student who said she would not be there was asked “Well why not?” and in America, that would be considered a bit rude, don’t you think? It’s really none of anyone’s business why you cannot/don’t want to attend a Christmas party. Maybe it’s the ‘school’ mentality... teacher’s demanding an excuse... who knows?

My initial answer to the question of whether or not I would be there was, “well, that is the day that my children are getting in from the states…” thinking that would somehow absolve me from attending, or at least muster a sympathetic pang. Non! It only mustered a “well bring them!”. Not a really bad idea since this is the same school Kate attended when she was here this summer. So I made our reservations rather than get scolded for non-compliance.

Now that we are all committed, RSVPs sealed in blood, they drop the bomb. We will be having a “spectacle”. I’m not exactly sure the EXACT meaning of what a "spec-tak-luh” is (with all the hidden implications) but they sure do use that word a lot. So in class yesterday we practiced singing our French song that we would be performing at the Fête De Noël. Didn’t I do that very thing in 5th grade? Didn’t I hate it then? How in the world did I find myself in this predicament now??

So, this song is not Frère Jacque, nor Sur le pont d'Avignon, nor a Christmas Carol in french – which you would think makes sense at a Christmas party... but non. This is a 1980s popular song by a guy named Michel Fugain called “Un Beau Roman”.

Is this a bad dream?


from Answers.com
spec·ta·cle (spĕk'tə-kəl) n.
1.
a. Something that can be seen or viewed, especially something of a remarkable or impressive nature.
b. A public performance or display, especially one on a large or lavish scale.
c. A regrettable public display, as of bad behavior: drank too much and made a spectacle of himself.

Noise Noise Noise

Each weekend we have occasion to walk across the Rhone, to shop, or go to an exhibit, or to church, or to visit friends. But each time we pass over the bridge, we see/hear the same man trying to play the sax. Buskers are a pretty common sight in Europe and most of them play really good music. Paul usually tips them too. But this particular man just makes noise. There is no tune… ok, you think… jazz… but no… just random notes.. better known as noise. We wonder if the cars (to whom he plays) are around him long enough to notice that no music springs forth from his instrument.  
 

noise 

Voila

 
 

nice fake-out 

Will it ever get easy?

Time to get the Christmas tree up. OK, where does one get a Christmas tree? No Kroger here... and the grocery stores are serious about selling food this time of year, they could not be bothered by dealing with trees too. That’s the job of the florist, of course! The problem was, that the trees we kept seeing were only about 3 feet tall. That’s like a Texas-sized houseplant, and on top of that... they are dead! Might as well get a houseplant and keep it from year to year. In fact, I used to have a Norfolk Pine as tall as I am.

So as I was walking by the florist the other day, I noticed that they no longer had 3 foot trees... they had all grown to a reasonable size. Oh, I thought, now they are getting serious about this. So I told Paul to drag one home after work one day. He came home empty-handed. Nice try, he said... No tall trees there, they just propped them up on things! So the hunt continued...he later found a tree about 15 blocks away and drug it home the other night.

It was my job to find the lights for the tree. I went to the big giant walmart-type store and they seemed to have a nice system. Each type of light strand was hanging from the ceiling with a number next to it. Then the shelves were labeled with numbers. But did you actually think that the boxes would be in the right places??? Could they have just numbered the boxes themselves so that when they got misplaced, you would at least know what you are buying? Attempt #1 can be seen in the picture below. I bought something that looks like it would indeed fit on a Texas-sized tree... where do they put these things??? Surely not on a 3-foot tree??

Attempt #2 went like this... we met at the mall late one day after work. There wasn’t much time, but this was clearly a two-person job since I had failed miserably when doing the task single-handedly. This time we went to a hardware/bed bath and beyond type store... BHV. They were pretty much wiped out of lights... what we did find were strands of a single color.. you could buy red, green, or blue lights. I found a single pack of white lights so we bought that and left. We got home and it wasn’t a string at all, it was a loop of lights. Hard to explain and harder to put on the tree... so last night after my French class I went back to BHV to try again.

Attempt #3 scored a pack of colored, single-strand lights. BHV had restocked. Voila!

what's with these HUGE bulbs? 

not the Fredricks of Hollywood  

at the mall

 
 

You know it’s Christmas in France

When...
the display window of the big department store, Galleries Lafayette, doesn’t have sweaters and pants, scarves and mittens, snowmen and elves, but instead looks like a Fredericks of Hollywood window, you know you are in France

When...
at the mall, in the center court, you don’t see Nutcracker vignettes or school choirs singing Christmas carols, but instead you see a show like you would see at the Moulin Rouge, you know you are in France

When...
the mailbox is filled with junk mail for Christmas sales, but there is not a single one for toys, electronics, clothing, or household goods, but instead every single one of them is advertising food, you know you are in France

When...
you go to the mall, see Santa sitting there waiting for the kids to sit on his lap and you don’t hear "HO HO HO", but you do hear him say “Oh La La”, you know you are in France

More about skiing

At around 4:00 on Saturday I had enough skiing for the day and we found ourselves about halfway down the mountain. Five of us started the day together because we wanted to keep it relatively easy. It was a great idea to have at least one buddy because there were so few people there that if you had a problem, nobody would ever find you and also, I didn’t see many ski patrol people. Since we had to buy insurance, I suspect these ski patrollers don’t go out looking for work. (I didn’t have my cell phone with me either – not that I would have known what number to call and what to say!)

Just before lunch, we lost one of the people in our group after he fell a few times and we didn’t know it. (we found him later) So when Paul and I decided to split from the other two and take a lift down to the bottom, Catherine was already feeling guilty about leaving Brian behind. So she said to us.... ”We will watch you go down on the lift before we ski down.” I thought it was strange... we had been getting in gondola lifts (cabines) all day long. It was about 4:15 at this point and the lifts were supposed to close at 4:30 so we were good to go. We entered the deserted lift area, climbed in, and waved to them as we passed by and then they skied down.

We were enjoying the view until at about 100 yards out, the lift stopped. Just stopped. And we just dangled above the snow. I asked Paul the time.. 4:24 ....French time.

French time is a mystery to me. I think a given time is just a ‘suggestion’. So you can imagine my thoughts... Did they decide to stop the lifts 6 minutes early and go home? There weren’t many people skiing anyway. That's probably it!

OK... so here we are... we are going to spend the night here. We may freeze to death. We have no cell phone. I have some walnuts in my pocket so we won’t starve. Maybe tomorrow, if we are still alive, someone will find us.

Paul (former Safety Director at a plant) said... surely they have some shutdown procedure. They must have a safety plan. They have to do a final check each day, don’t they?

My answer... We are in France! No OSHA here.

I don’t know how long we were there, maybe 10 minutes. It seemed like an eternity. Finally, it started to move, but only a few more yards. It stopped again... then moved slowly forward... at some point we saw someone in a cabine on the other side, going up so we figured that we would not be the only ones to freeze to death. It picked up speed... and finally reached the bottom and I was never so happy to be back on the ground!

view from the window of the house 

So how was the skiing?

Since the days of “kids ski free if under 12”, we have only been skiing one other time, so my perspective is a bit dated... but...

First of all, you have to buy “insurance” if you want to be rescued on the slopes. We bought the insurance! Our organizer ordered the lift tickets ahead of time and just had to pick them up at the window. The window opened at 9 or 9:30 so we didn’t even leave the house until around 9:00. I remember the days at Steamboat in Colorado when we would get up early, take the lifts before you were allowed to ski, go to the top of the mountain and be one of the first to ski down when the “rope dropped”. At 10:30, we had only started to think about getting on the lifts to go ski. We are beginning to become more French… we just shrugged it off and decided to enjoy the moment!

The ski pass had to be placed in your LEFT pocket because there are no lift attendants... only scanning machines that are to your left as you enter the turnstiles for the lifts. Pretty cool. And at each lift, we were the ONLY ONES THERE! It was wonderful! No standing in lines anywhere. We first went to the top of the mountain to ski down from there. Seems that the trails are pretty vaguely defined… more like suggestions about where you might want to ski. The whole top of the mountain was wide open.. no trees or groomed trails… just tons of open space with lots and lots of deep powdery snow. The snow was so deep in places that when I fell (yes, I fell a few times) it was really difficult to get back up because you couldn’t find a hard place to push yourself up from.

The levels are defined by 4 colors. Black is the hardest, Red is second to hardest, then comes Blue and then Green. We skied Red mostly. The Blue was way too easy and actually hard to ski because you had to do a lot of self-propulsion and it was difficult in all of that deep snow. It seemed that there was no good middle between Blue and Red.

Once when we found ourselves at a place where the easier trail was closed and the only way down was Black, our French friend organizer suggested that we just traverse the mountain to get to the nearest easier slope. (What??? I thought… you got to be kidding.) The snow was about knee deep and I just couldn’t get through it so I had to take off my skis and walk. After that, I was so exhausted that when we got down to the next lift, we decided to just take it down and end the day... stay tuned for that story...it falls in the “nothing is easy” category!

A few details about the ski trip

We just got back from a really nice ski trip with a group of 5 Americans and 6 French people. The trip was organized by a French acquaintance of one of our American friends. She used to live in Mirabelle (the ski area) during the ’93 olympics so she knew her way around and knew people in the area. We stayed in a 5-bedroom home of a friend-of-her-friend that was about 10 minutes away from the ski resort.

It was a great weekend to go skiing because it is early in the season, and during one of the 2 weekends left before Christmas. So there were NO people there! There were no lines at the lifts and we basically had the place to ourselves. (There were people there, but not many.) Just the day before we left, there was a big snowstorm that dumped a whole lot of snow on the area. It was very deep and powdery. The weather while we were there was absolutely beautiful with lots of sun.

The French lady shopped at the market before the trip and bought all the food for the weekend. We all pitched in and cooked all the meals and it was a lot of fun. Our trip was very “family style”. The home had a really long dining table and a fireplace in the room. The home was very modest, but comfortable. And we all brought our own sheets and towels.

Four of us had to rent skis so we just went to a small shop in the village. I was surprised by the lack of a “resort” around the slopes. I was expecting it to be somewhat like the ski places in the rockies, but it really wasn’t. The ski slopes were pretty separate from the shops, bars, restaurants, and ski shops. Much of the ski area was still closed since it is only the beginning of the season but our passes allowed us to ski 3 different areas.

We drove home Sunday and we are pretty tired and sore. It’s been about 10 years since we skied and we are a now whole lot older!

ski trip

Tired... see photos here.

ready to go "faire du ski"

We are all packed and ready to go on our first ski trip in the Alps. We are going with our American friends. We were told that you MUST bring your snow chains with you... they will stop you on the road and if you don't have them, you will be turned away. Hmm... we bought ours about 10 years ago and they sat in the garage, never opened. On a whim, I brought them over here... I suppose we can figure out what to do with them.

Anyway, when Paul told the guys at work where we would be skiing, the response was, "That's where all the Americans go!".... well duh!

The trip should be good for quite a few blog stories... stay tuned.

laser light display

 
 

looking down the main street in the center of the city