Last time I went to church, I met some friends-of-friends, and when I told them I was from Georgia (the default state I tell people because it’s too complicated to try to explain anything else), their faces lit up immediately. "Do you know so-and-so and her husband, what’s-his-name?" Cool as it would have been had I knew them, I did not, of course, and they looked so disappointed I wanted to explain to them that the state of Georgia is, oh, approximately the same size as their entire country. Because despite the fact that France is the biggest country on the European continent (except Russia, which they conveniently count as Asian), it is still smaller than California. I don’t know exactly where it matches up, but it’s much smaller than one would think...
Down the street from my apartment, next door to my boulangerie, there is a clockery. In French, it’s called an horlogerie, but their business is to fix and make watches and clocks. Above their front door there is a giant clock meant to be an advertising device for them– but it is broken. Every time I walk by it makes me laugh.
Last night I got in late, and when I did I found a note from Madame saying she had decided at the last minute to go to Nantes to celebrate her grand-daughter’s birthday and she would be back in two or three days. No big deal, she left her daughter’s number to call if I had any problems or whatever. But then this morning I woke up at 8am and when I walked into the kitchen (in my pajamas, thinking no one was here), the repairman was standing in the middle of the kitchen. We had a conversation, and I can’t really remember what was said, but then I left the kitchen and didn’t go back for a few hours. I noticed a mitre saw (sp?) And some plastic sheeting folded up in the dude’s tool box, which should have been a good hint, but I was sleepy and didn’t think about it. At some point he left, and when I walked back in we are missing the back wall of the kitchen! I feel like I could end up in trouble for this one– because Madame always warns us if someone is coming, and DEFINITELY if something big is going to be done, like, you know, the removal of a wall, structural or not. There is plaster dust everywhere and it’s just an empty space now, down to the pipes and stuff. Who has a repairman come do something that intense when they are not even going to be here?? I’m a little nervous for her to come back and discover it.
Fascinated with the echelon,
B