Une grenouille au pays des ours blancs

The thing with vacuum-packaging is not that it takes the smell away. It's that it KEEPS ALL THE SMELL IN, ready to Be Released and Take Over the World.

My mother, who knows me well, brought me a splendid Reblochon this Christmas that she had had vacuum-packaged so as not to permanently damage police dog noses. We released the beast last night.

Froglet: AHHHH WHAT IS THAT.
Me: it's cheese. Ripe cheese. That's how it's supposed to smell.
Froglet *to her piece of cheese*: have you ever heard of soap?
Me: EAT IT. STOP SMELLING IT.
Froglet: OKAY OKAY. Wow. *pops piece of cheese in mouth* Mmmmm. How can anything smell so foul yet taste so lovely?
Me: hold your nose closed if the smell incommodates you.
Froglet *cheerfully* okay! *pinches nose with her right hand*
Husband: ... is that the hand you just manipulated the cheese with? Because now your hand AND YOU NOSE are going to smell like Reblochon forever...
Froglet: GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! *flees to the bathroom*
Husband and rainette *crack up*

I have a looooong post that I want to write about Truth and Motion Pictures, but in the meanwhile let me just tell you that I very recently watched part of Terminator 3: rise of the machines.

I generally like original versions of movies much better than dubbed versions, but apparently the Terminator franchise is an exception. I simply CANNOT imagine why anyone would create a robot of such astonishing complexity and then program it with an Austrian Accent. Why would anyone want to do that? It simply makes no sense whatsoever, and suspension of disbelief will only take me so far.

Also this:

TV set: this programs contains scenes of nudity, violence and coarse language. Viewer discretion is advised.
Husband and rainette *exchange a look*
rainette: there is no sex in this movie, is there?
Husband: they didn't say sex, they said nudity. I think they refer to the fact that the Terminator always arrives from the future stark naked...
rainette: ick yes okay, now I see. Shwarzenegger's buttocks totally should come with their own personal warning.
Husband: ...
rainette: yeah, that's not a sentence I ever expected to say in my life either.

Via spiderine: Occupy Wall Street was evicted last night.

Yeah. I don't even know.

"Good GOD I hope they're not on my plane."

Nobody said that aloud, but we read it in their eyes as they waited with us at the Charles de Gaulle airport security in Paris. Mostly because if we had been them, we would have thought that exact same thing. Dude, who wants to be on a plane with a family consisting of two adults, one toddler, one baby in a car seat and one truly pissed-off (though heavily drugged) feline in a pet carrier?

Ten years ago today, while Toronto was still sleeping the sleep of the good, we undertook the complicated task of going through security at the airport. I remember this vividly because we had to remove the non-walking members of our party from their respective carriers so that said carriers could get thoroughly verified, while still making sure that the constantly running OMG member of our family (Froglet) was still firmly under control.

I went through the gate with Tadpole under one arm and Lafayette ze cat under the other. Tadpole was looking around her with the utmost interest (she has always found the world fascinating), and Lafayette ze (drugged) cat was unsuccessfully trying to focus her gaze on something, anything. (Lafayette, may she rest in peace, was a remarkably even-tempered cat in that she only had ONE temper, and that was CRANKY -- except with me, because I Belonged To Her. I would not have attempted to take her to another continent without drugging her first.)

While Toronto got up and had breakfast and went to work and had lunch and went back to work again, we crossed the Atlantic ocean. Lafayette was getting increasingly pissed off (and then pissed on, alas) as she didn't have a litter box to properly relieve herself; Froglet played with whatever toys she had brought to play with on the plane; Tadpole watched everything and fought sleep valliantly, and then conked out anyways.

Once we had landed in Toronto we had to get Husband's work visa sorted out, and that took a while. They asked us to take Lafayette out of the pet carrier.

Are you kidding me?, I asked.

They absolutely weren't. So I opened the pet carrier and grabbed Lafayette, who was furious and wet and mortified (a cat has got to pee at some point, right?), and showed her to them. OK THAT IS A CAT PUT IT BACK INSIDE OMG, was their horrified reply. You didn't mess with Fayette when she didn't want to be messed with, is the thing.

They did, however, confiscate the very expensive cat food we'd taken with us, because clearly we had nothing better to do that evening than go out and shop for cat food. Then of course it turned out that we had to go shop for groceries anyways: the appartment Husband's company had rented for our first few days was pretty and furnished, and the company had left us a gourmet basket, and we really appreciated the pesto and balsamic vinegar -- but you can't really do much with pesto and balsamic vinegar when you have no pasta or bread or ANYTHING to eat it WITH.

So Husband went out and shopped while I bathed and changed the girls, and then we all ate, and we put the girls to bed, and then Husband and I gave Fayette a bath, which.... yeah.

While Toronto was quietly settling down for the night, Husband and I sat exhaustedly in front of the TV and exchanged a tired but triumphant smile.

We'd made it. We had arrived in Canada, the country of our choice. How lucky we were, to be able to choose the place we wanted to call home!

The day was October 26th, 2001. Ten years ago today.

We should be celebrating tonight but of course, as luck would have it, HUSBAND IS IN FRANCE THIS WEEK *headdesks* so I suppose we'll do it later, possibly while eating the Ladurée macarons Husband better bring back from Paris when he comes back home on Monday :D .

It's thanksgiving here in Canada today, and I thought y'all should be thankful that I am sparing you the long list of things I am thankful for. :D FOR NOW, that is. To be honest, I am waiting for another momentous event that takes place one week today (alas).

But really what I wanted to say is that I am thankful for this small space, this corner that I call my own, and your presence here. Thank you for sharing this with me. It means more than I can say and it has helped keep me sane at times, so thank you.

I love each and every one of you guys. <3

I often joke about how afraid I am of falling at skating, mostly because I am deeply afraid of breaking a bone. First because it hurts a lot, obvioulsy, but also because a cast would make my everyday life really really difficult, especially with the kids' extra-curricular activities (skating, skating, skating, EVENING OFF OMG, skating, oh look choir, skating, skating).

A cast would not make working impossible, though. It would be complicated, of course, but I could still work if I had temporarily lost the use of a limb. The one thing I cannot afford to lose, as a teacher, is my voice. My voice is my primary tool in the classroom.

Ahahahahahaha you know where this is going, right? Right. I have a bad coold that's settled on my lungs, and now I have lost my voice. I am staying home today in the desperate hope that resting my voice will make it better, because else I might have to think about going to the doctor's and ask for a cortisone treatment. As I told a friend yesterday evening, the only way I could still teach today would be if I bought a whistle and taught the kids in Morse code. Of course this implies that I'd have to learn Morse code first.

Have you ever noticed how when you whisper to people, they whisper right back to you?

Rainette *whispers to supply teacher*: so these are the maths sheets
supply teacher *whispers*: and that's for the afternoon?
rainette *whispers*: what?
supply teacher *moves closer but keeps whispering in the (empty) classroom*: we do maths in the afternoon?
rainette *coughs up half a lung*
supply teacher *jumps back OMG*

It's that kind of day. People don't know if they should come close to me (I whisper) or stay as far away as they possibly can (I cough). Except for Tadpole, who 1) likes hugs, dammit, and 2) passed the cold on to me in the first place.

Yesterday the kids in my class coloured pictures for a colouring contest (don't ask) and all the little girls picked the princess. It broke my heart a little to watch all my little Congolese girls run for the yellow pencil for the hair, the pink pencil for the skin, the blue pencil for the eyes, like this is the only viable option for a princess. I want them to know that they can be princesses, too. That they are princesses.

It made me think of Chimamanda Adichie's speech on TED: the danger of a single story, so I thought I'd repost it in the off-chance that one of you hasn't seen it yet. Also, if you don't know what to read next, consider putting Half of a Yellow Sun on your reading list. You will learn a lot aboput African history (Nigeria and Biafra in particular) in the course of a beautiful and complex human story.

Husband and I passed our stage 5 skating badge this Sunday. \o/

It went like this:

Coach: so Skate Canada changed the rules on us this year.
Me *watches as new guy, who is clearly a beginner, crashes into the boards*: Wow, good thing he's wearing a helmet!
Coach: PRECISELY. Now you mention it...
Me: what?
Coach: ... you need to pass your fifth badge to be allowed to skate without a helmet...
Me: what??
Coach: ... WHICH MEANS THAT I AM TESTING YOU TONIGHT.
Me: Oh man.

We'd never tested anything so far in skating, though of course there was a fair chance we would have passed a few badges if we'd tried. Badge one, for instance, is "STANDING UPRIGHT ON THE ICE". On a good day, I can totally do that. Most of the time. Ahem.

Badge five started easy. Skating forward in a circle: that's not a problem. Crossovers in a figure eight: we got that one pat down. Backwards pumping: as long as we manage to avoid bumping into each other we're good.

Coach: OK, now for the, erm. Yeah. Well.
Me: the what?
Coach: one-foot spin.
Me: the WHAT?
Coach: OK, can you spin on both feet?
Me *rotates awkwardly on both feet like a penguin looking out for predators*: like this?
Coach: a little faster?
Me *rotates awkwardly on both feet like a penguin on speed*: meep!
Coach: GREAT NOW LIFT A FOOT.
Me *lifts foot, PUTS FOOT BACK DOWN RIGHT AWAY OMG*
Coach: Good enough for me.
Me: I PASSED?
Coach: yep.
Me: but...
Coach: You lifted your foot. This piece of sh...paper says you have to lift your foot. You passed.
Me: but...
Coach: do you really want to buy a helmet?
Me: ok. What else do I have to do?
Coach *deep sigh*: a waltz jump.
Me: Oh no.

I spend hours and hours in this arena every year watching my girls and countless other kids jump and fall, jump and fall, and I am always amazed at the speed with which they get back up and TRY AGAIN. It's like they're made out of rubber: elastic kids FTW!

I, however, am 5'10" and not a kid. I am so deeply afraid of heights that just looking down at my feet sometimes scares me. The ground is awfully far away from my head, see. The ground in the arena, being made of ICE, is also insanely hard -- just looking at it and picturing myself going down hurts.

Now, I have not broken a single bone in my life so far. This is the result of a quiet life and a reasonably cautious choice of activities. (Though I realize that this is no garantee of unbroken-ness: I do have at least one friend who leads a perfectly cautious life and still manages to break an average of one bone a year. But then he is famous for his sheer creative clumsiness whenever he attempts anything remotely dangerous, such as walking in a straight line on flat pavement.) If I find it very hard to take ONE foot off the ice at a time, suggesting that I lift both feet off the ice AT THE SAME TIME sounds like an awfully unreasonable idea.

Me: I can't do a waltz-jump. I CAN'T.
Coach: You can do it while holding up to the boards.
Me: but that's chea...
Coach: HELMET!
Me: OK.

Husband, of course, was already competently leaping in the air (that man is disgustingly good at EVERYTHING). I made my way to the boards and warily started practicing.

Coach *looking at Husband and a couple of other hopeful stage fives*: Wow, everybody is doing so well!
Me: I am not letting go of the boards.
Coach: that's okay!
Me *jumps while HOLDING THE FUCK ON with both hands*: THERE.
Coach: YOU PASSED. You don't need a helmet!
Me: YAY!
Husband *skates over*: I have even better news!
Me: what?
Husband: now that you have your stage five badge, YOU CAN TRY OUT FOR THE BEGINNER SYNCHRO SKATING TEAM!
Me: ... what have I done.

Of course, that is not happening. You have to be under the age of twelve to be in the beginner team, see.

Also, it's damn hard to skate in a synchro team while never letting go of the bloody boards.

The Paris métro has a very distinctive smell. It's not a very nice smell and many people wrinkle their noses at it, but it still brings tears to my eyes and a big smile to my face every single time. I love it instinctively and irrationally, see, because it's not just a common subway smell of garbage and dirt and smelly armpits (sorry), it's the métro's very breath. It spells PARIS in my brain in big flashing electric letters. It's not a common smell -- the Toronto Rocket smells entirely unlike the Paris metro, and the same applies to the NYC underground (which smells like red white hot hotness of doom).

I had assumed it just ... belonged to the Paris métro, but then last March I took the subway in DC with selkie and olliefree, and the DC subway smells exactly like the Paris metro! So I turned to selkie and expressed my surprise. selkie nodded wisely and said, "oh, you mean the smell of fried rodents? Yeah, sometimes the rats hit the third rail and there you go. BBQ rats! Nasty, isn't it?"

So yeah. Sadly enough, among the many smells that are dear to my heart (and include the smell of newborn baby and freshly baked croissants), there is "electrified rodent".

I wonder what that says about me.

(This rat-related post is brought to you curtesy of Sam's Adventures With A Rat, which reminded me of my own rat adventures...)

So. About this lineup.



One thing I should tell you about France is that French people HATE lineups. Butting in line is almost considered a national sport in France, especially in Paris, where you have to line up for everything. You line up to see movies, to buy metro passes, to get into museums. You line up for Berthillon ice-cream (and no true Parisian would DREAM of buying their ice-cream next door where there is no lineup. No, once you're on the Ile St Louis, it's Berthillon or nothing. Hey, food is serious business in France).

We were walking down the Champs-Elysées, on our way to a lineup free museum (no, really), when we suddenly saw this utterly MONSTROUS lineup that stopped us dead in our tracks. I had a brief flashback to my childhood days in East Germany (there is a lineup! It must be for a good reason! Let's stand in line too!), and then Husband elbowed me and said, let's go.

I want to know what this is, I countered.

So we walked slowly by until we saw the sign: Abercrombie & Fitch.

Now, I have two pre-teen daughters and friends who know what's cool and what's not (I don't and I don't really care), so I knew that Abercrombie & Fitch is A Really Cool Brand of Clothes for teens. I had never seen such a lineup for a clothes shop however, and I refused to believe that it was to get into the shop.

So we went and asked.

Husband: Excuse-me, can you tell me what this lineup is for?
Cool dude with cool dark glasses *watches uncool husband pityingly*: see, this is a clothes store...
Husband *gestures to Froglet, who is wearing an Abercombie sweatshirt*: we know. But why are people lining up like that?
Cool Dude: To get into the shop. It opened in May. We expect things to stay like this until end of September.
Husband: ...

You know, I really don't mind lining up for exceptional food, but I would not lineup to get into a clothes store. So maybe I am not 100% French after all. Or maybe I just don't get what fashion is all about.

In the evening, we met up with our host in Paris, Jeanne, and told her the whole story. She wasn't surprised: in preparation for opening day, Abercrombie had 101 male models flown in over from all over the world. They dressed them in Abercrombie Jeans, oiled their pecs and abs, and posted them shirtless on the Champs Elysées in front of the shop.

Jeanne told us that she got four texts from four different girlfriends of hers in a matter of minutes: "Come to the Champs ASAP! Pretty shirtless guys galore woohoo!"

The rest is unclear. I understand that there was sufficient unrest for the police to intervene. Jeanne said that they intervened because the people who'd come to see the Pretty Guys were blocking up traffic; Jeanne's son said that the people were fine until the police ordered the models to put on some shirts. All the girls and guys who'd come to see pretty shirtless models woohoo strongly disagreed with the putting-shirts-on-NOW concept.

In any case, I thought it was hilarous. I couldn't find a confirmation for either version, but I found a video which I am now sharing with you:



(The music is obnoxious, sorry. The guys are pretty though!)

Unfortunately, the models were told to put on shirt. Fortunately, nobody said anything about buttons or zippers :D.

Apparently, all the sales people inside the shop look like this, too. And so people line up to get in.

We didn't, though. We went to our museum, and then we went to the Ile St Louis and lined up for Berthillon ice cream. Because it makes way more sense, really. ;)

OK, I am looking mostly at jae and ecaterin, but any advice is totally welcome!

As you guys know all too well, I spend a lot of time in arenas watching my daughters skate. I'd like to be able to take good videos and action shots of my kids/teams at competitions or even during practices.

Keeping in mind that many of my photos will be shot indoors and at high speed OMG, is it possible to find a really good point-and-shoot camera that would do both good action shots and good movies, or should I get two separate cameras? Should I invest in a body + lens kind of photo camera, and if yes, what should I buy (I'd like to buy something that doesn't actually cost as much as a bloody car)?

Thoughts? Advice? PLEASE HELP ME?

Thank you!