Quote Of The Day: "My favorite food is... FLAXSEED."
Today I was on the Metro to go to my program center to find out when classes actually begin (no answer– this is the thing about living in a foreign country, I never know what is going on) and also to make sure my academic career was not over because I may have missed both of my finals last week, which could be quite detrimental.
Anyway, I’m sitting on the Metro, headphones on as always, and this man goes to get out, and leans over to talk to me on his way out. People in Paris are constantly doing this, and not just to me– I’ve witnessed it many times. If the headphones are in, then the music is going, and probably the person can’t hear you. Particularly if you are on the Metro, where the roar of the engine makes the music be extra-loud in your ears. Especially if you are American anyway, and more interested in the 30 Seconds To Mars song coming through your earbuds than you are in the old man getting out of the Metro. Until he stops to talk to you. But this one wasn’t a crazy one, or even the type that would be asking for money, so I actually tried to listen to what he had to say, but I only got about half of it. It started with (in French, obviously), "Mademoiselle, you have such long legs," or something, because I had been kind of blocking the door with my Chuck-Taylor clad feet, but had moved them when I saw him coming. Then he continues with, "You should not be listening to your music, you should be singing it! You ought to be over there [he gestured toward the middle of the Metro car] singing for us all to enjoy! A pretty girl like you, you would make so much money, but only if you are not sitting by yourself in the corner like this!" Or something. Had he been not old and grandfatherly, I would have been way sketched out, but since I am not even really sure that he said that, I just thought it was funny. To his credit, there is a good chance I had been mouthing the words without realizing it... and I know I had been tapping my foot. And now I have this crazy dark emo hair, so maybe he thought I was a musician... or maybe he was just being a funny old man. But either way, the thought of me singing in a Metro car is hysterical. Really, the thought of me singing at all is hysterical... Anyway, he finished his speech and got out, and I caught the eye of another old man sitting in the car across from me, who just kind of shrugged and nodded. It was at this point that I realized that, just because I can’t hear my foot tapping to the music doesn’t mean they can’t hear it. I should really be more careful about that. And that lip-synching thing too...

Madame fell today in the entranceway to the apartment, because, get this: there is this crazy Spanish woman who lives on the bottom floor of our building and like... delivers our mail. I think she’s also in charge of putting up the Christmas tree in December, but other than that, I don’t know what she does. No, wait, that came out all wrong. The crazy Spanish woman did not do anything to directly cause this incident, but she lives there full time, she’s the gardienne, and Madame thinks she is stupid because she has lived in France for 20 years and still speaks French "beaucoup plus pire que toi, mon cherie!" (Much worse than you do, my love!). So the gardienne was at Monoprix buying tomato sauce, and turned her head and cut her lip on a grocery shelf. Madame gets home the same time she did and was standing in the entranceway examining the gardienne’s lip to make sure she didn’t need stitches, and when Madame finished, she stepped backwards and fell down the entranceway stairs. Which are marble, and she is old, so this is not at all funny. But then she is telling the story, and she detests the gardienne, and she says, "Just think, I am trying to see if she needs stitches because she is so stupid, and then, what happens, I fall down and hurt my shoulder! Who is the stupid one now?" I wanted to explain the concept of instant karma to her, but I thought that may be a little over her head, by which I mean out of the bounds of my vocabulary. And of course, she is convinced she is fine, but I could tell it was hurting her badly. So I offered to go to the pharmacie for her, and she lets me, which is a sign it was hurting way worse than I thought, because she never lets me help with stuff like that. I get to the pharmacie and realize I have no idea what the word for swelling is, and Madame was like, "just make sure they know I am 80, so they don’t send you home with something for kids." Now imagine, me, having awoken from a nap approximately three minutes before, standing at the pharmaciste’s, trying to explain, "I need something for an 80-year-old woman who fell on her shoulder." The pharmacist, of course, says, "What do you need for an 80-year-old woman who fell?" And I think to myself, "I don’t know, that is what I am trying to find out. Any ideas?" But then they need to know if she is on any other medicines, and I am sure she is... but I have no idea what they are. So I hedged for a second, and the pharmaciste gave me this cream stuff that smelled like those little vials you break and rub on your skin that makes you go numb. And then I came home, and for once it was like the situation was reversed– she couldn’t lift anything and I wouldn’t let her if she had tried, so I served dinner and poured the wine and did the dishes, and she just sat there and kept me company. Usually we do it together, or if I am going somewhere, she always tells me to leave and let her do the dishes because "you are young! You have better things to do than this!" Ahh, I love her.

Sidenote: Everyone complains about the effects of going to the grocery store hungry, but I have never had a problem. I come home with enough food to last a whole week if I go hungry. But today I went thirsty and not hungry– I came home with 2 liters of milk, a liter of grapefruit juice in a box, and a liter and a half of sparkling water. Oh, and a box of cereal.
Excellent. Great. Not only was it heavy as heck walking the kilometer home with it, but once I got here I realized that I bought pretty much nothing to eat. Ha.
~B