Christmas Dinner, Fancy and French

Christmas dinner with friends
La vie est belle. Chapeau to Evelyne, my friend's mother-in-law! Un vrai cordon bleu.

Menu du jour

Aperitif
Goat Cheese
Mussels pizzetta
Garlic gressin
Champagne

First course
Gingerbread Foie Gras on toasts with chestnut sause
Alsatian sweet white wine

Second course
Homemade salmon blinis with onions, capers, and clotted cream with a touch a lemoncino
Moselle white wine

Trou normand

Third course
Breast of capon
Brussels sprouts rolled in serrano ham
Truffles
Bordeaux dry red

Fourth course
Cheese plate: Cantal tome, munster with cumin and moist ewe cheese
White grapes
Roquette Salad
Banette with sweet norman butter

Fifth course
Raspberry chocolate bûche de Noël
Rum balls
Coffee

Petit Papa Noël

Ok, I admit it I've had a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year: Parents old and sick in a nursing home, no prospect for change in 2011, disputes with family and friends, a general malaise and ambivalence everywhere. On the best of days I feel helpless. However, I've always loved the holiday system and I can't help be inspired. Luckily, my oldest sister Sugie embodies the qualities of carpe diem (I would be wise to adopt that attitude too), so here we go off on our hommage to the present. We have baked cookies and cakes, made cheese balls, decorated trees, gone shopping and wrapped presents. We're getting a turkey... My brother-in-law is practicing his guitar for his role in a musical play. I know, I'll soon be chanting, ho, ho, ho! myself. My carefree childish nature never really disappeared, so I'm going to try to play Scarlet O'Hara. "I'll think about all those other things another day!" That movie had a happy ending anyway, didn't it? Honestly I don't remember.
So here goes my contribution to the Christmas fair.

Petit Papa Noël. Catchy little tune that symbolizes the French embrassing and making their own some Gallic version of a Norman Rockwell Christmas. Here it goes. Check out the Roch Voisine, Québecoise version of the carol. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CeGgCiFTHA@feuature=related

Refrain
Petit papa Noël
Quand tu descendras du ciel
Avec des jouets par milliers
N'oublie pas mon petit soulier.
Mais avant de partir
Il faudra bien te couvrir
Dehors tu vas avoir si froid
C'est un peu à cause de moi.


Ho Ho Ho
Rontay Merquiades

Floating in Prague

The Czech are an appreciative, laid back, and classical people: thankful for a moment of sunshine, thankful to bump into a friend unexpectedly in the street, thankful for any and all little pleasures in life. In Prague, you'll never see anyone running frantically to catch a tram nor hear mad taxi drivers tooting their horns. The city is by no means stagnant though. Prague is moving, but it's a gentle movement like a summer breeze with lots of pauses and sighs. Go ahead, stop in the street, close your eyes, take the time to bite into that vanilla eclair and savor ever so slowly every little drop of cream. Stop to hear that string quartet playing Dvorzak near Staromesto, watch that puppet show, go in to view that wild colorful art in a gallery window, or why not just check your hair in a mirror to make sure your look is impeccable: flowing blonde hair, black gown, meshed stockings and stiletto heels.

Class and verve sooo rule here in Prague. Watching the waitress put together a Viennese coffee, measuring out the correct proportions, piling on the clotted cream, shaking on a dust of chocolate. Step back, have a look and smile. Quality trumps quantity here. Meticulousity and honor far outweigh the constraints of time. I can just imagine the New Yorker going crazy at how long it takes the front desk clerk at the hotel to fill out the form, find the key and slowly drag you up to your room. Is it all to your liking, sir? Check out the view of the clock tower. No, the hour is off about 20 or 30 minutes. So, when is breakfast served? Well, in the morning of course! To enjoy Prague you have to adapt to the locals. If you had planned to see the Castle, visit four or five churches, or museums, take a cruise on the Vltava and take in a play in one day, think twice. Prague in one day, no way!

Prague is a curious blend of Baroque Austria circa 1750 (Check out Amadeus for a look!) and the Soviet Union 1970. It's a pure delight to search in vain for elements that facilitate and destroy modern western society. No plastic chairs, bags or bottles, no Lady Gaga, no superstores, no cash registers with bar scanning machines. Those round horn shaped bread rolls are ever-present, as are the long white cigarettes taken out of steel red cases, as well as the makeshift huts around town selling black gloves and hats for less than a euro. White peacocks reign supreme throughout many of the city's parks, daring you to step onto the grass. And strangely enough, Prague is the only city with a delightful royal palace where royal guards goose step, prouder than the peacocks, to protect a king that has never existed. In a nutshell, the Czech republic is laughter and pure joy on a sugar high of classical music on a freezing rainy day. Dvorak is still buzzing my ears, but I just can't laugh enough to get warm. Carpe diem in the past people! Float away.

Becoming French

In the midst of 200 people from all over the world in a small parlour behind the prefecture de la moselle I officially became French yesterday, and got those precious identity papers in hand. Some were moved, others cried, still others cheered, and others were down right impatient as we had to wait as each name was called and then push our way through the mob to kiss a whole delegation of French government officials. I was just sooooo hot in there. It was a sauna. I learned mother France was honored to have me and had adopted me to be one of its children forever. Then we sang the Marseillaise, watched a movie of rights and obligations of being French, took an oath of allegiance and then were able to breathe some fresh air. Sarkozy wrote me a letter.

France is a wild rollercoaster ride

Once you decide to ride a rollercoaster, it's no use discussing the dimensions of the structure, the advisability of having gotten on or continuing the ride, the desire to jump off, the fear of the next turn or the philosophy of such a trip. You've just got to relax and enjoy it as there's no possible going back.

Big Brother

Big Brother

Everyone is familiar with these reality shows that have been syndicated worldwide. The format is always the same. Twenty odd people are thrown into a loft and have to compete for survival. At first it’s like a big social party. You meet decent ecclectic people from all walks of life and you have fun getting to know them. You exchange ideas, play sport, have dinners and scintillating conversations. However, reality soon sets in as the first house guest is eliminated, and week after week another one bites the dust. The goal is to have one sole man standing at the end, who usually wins some huge prize, like a million dollars or a trip around the world. Slowly but surely the people in the house start making secret alliances, lying and manipulating one another, sizing each other up as the stakes get higher and higher. Sooner or later your head will be on the block too! and you must fight for the right to stay one more blessed week in the dream house. Big Brother is constantly watching, thinking of a way to build up tensions between candidates, making them jump through hoops, breaking them down, making them cry, beg, steal, do anything to survive. Yes, survival is paramount. You mistrust everyone else as you wait and hope not to be voted out. Ok, I did get kind of hooked on the latest American version on my recent stay in the United States. I found myself tuning in to see what the latest bizarre twist would be. I laughed at the ludicrous peripetia.

Now I have realized I am actually a cast member of the real life show here in beautiful Metz, France. I’m not stupid. I’ve known for a long time there are a certain number of really cool expat Anglophones from all walks of life competing for lucrative or not so lucrative posts teaching English in schools all around the area. Secrets and one-upmanship are de rigueur here. Some rise, some fall, if you don’t like the conditions, if the kitchen is too hot, you can always quit and opt out. Yet, the prize is our livelihood. Some 20, 30, 40 or 50 dollar per hour classes that enables us to live dignified and have a rosé party together during those good times. But some rise, some fall. Someone’s head is always on the block. Some big brother manipulates us too, prefers A to B, and B to C, all for unknown reasons or really just basically because he can. Day after day there are competitions, networking, alliances, pacts, back rubbing or back stabbing, and gift giving galore. I take the conciliatory high road, refusing to play the game, treating the people as friends and enjoying their company for who they are, yet fully knowing I have no choice but be part of this crazy circus. I guess in Big Brother talk they would refer to me as the floater. In general, it has worked out pretty well for me. I’ve been on the block a few times, but I’ve been taken off at the last minute. Do I celebrate it? Yes and no. Rising on the demise of others feels dirty.

his week it is so apparent how awful this game has become, and how fake the smiles on our faces can be. First, I was put on the block with a dear alliance member, someone who has been with me through the thick and the thin. No one knows why this happened. Another Big Brother diabolic plan? The fortune teller does take delight in spewing her venom, doesn’t she? True intentions shall never be revealed. I shutter to think! My partner will have to fight to move heaven and earth to survive, but unfortunately that can only occur by taking me down. All for 40 or 50 dollars and a pitiful class anyway. I shall take the high road once more and refuse categorically to play. Either way I’m hurt. Then, tonight, I heard the second shocker. One of our house members actually was cruelly eliminated from the real game, the gift of life, succumbing to a secret battle with cancer he didn’t share with any of us. His tragic death shows us we are all mortal. There are so many little pleasures he will never again experience. However his ashes not yet cold, the house is battling for the lucrative posts he left behind. Too bad. Someone has to do it, they say. Why not me? I'm here and I'm alive!

Karl Marx once said that the tragedy of capitalism is that the capitalist having taken for himself all the world’s riches and resources maliciously forces the have nots to compete with each other for the pittance that remains. Brother against brother, cousin against cousin, friend against friend. In the rat race he who refuses to play the game, loses out anyway. It’s the survival of the fittest, they say. One burocrat, a head of a prestigious language school in Metz once said: “English professors are like apples on a tree. You don’t like them, pitch them and shake the tree. Another one is sure to fall.” So when can we evict the big brothers in the world?

prague photos

Feedback

Dear reader,

About 1000 of you read my blog last month. That's amazing. But nobody leaves comments. I'd really appreciate it if you gave me some feedback, even if it's just a sentence or two. Please let me know what you think of what you have read. That is the only way to improve :)

Rontay aka Merquiades aka Master T

Thanks

I voted in France

Today I had another one of those hallmark moments. I voted in the French presidential elections.

How to vote in France:
1) go to the town hall in the city you're living in by December 31 so you can vote in the following year.
2) Take your French identification card.
3) Take two bills that prove you live at your current address.
4) Take your French birth certificate. This document is issued to you on the date you are naturalized, or re-born in France. So April 15, 2011 is my French birthday.

About a week before election day you receive an electoral card and an official summons to come participate in the polling. It tells you the official time to show up and the address you should go to. Mine turned out to be a nursery school not far from my apartment.

As expected, the process is rather complicated. I was actually dreading it since I had no idea how to go about doing it. Once in a while I have these experiences in France where my instincts fail completely. I freeze. For example, arriving somewhere where there is a group of people you don't know. Who should I kiss? How many times? How about handshakes? Can I get by without doing this? What about tu or vous? Do I throw in a Monsieur or a Madame for good measure. It's just a Hail Mary pass.

Thus, I arrived at the school and saw two French soldiers guarding the entrance. I timidly told them I needed to vote, showed them my documents, and they promptly opened the door. One hurdle jumped. I was actually fearing a reation to my very Unfrench name. Anti-immigration sentiment has been on the rise here in the last few weeks, in particular naturalizing and giving the right to vote to foreigners. Although friends assure me the wrath is against poor, dark skinned, muslims I cannot help but feel affected by it. Next, I immediately saw a table with two women. One was checking id's, the other took my electoral card and summons. The first one cracked a joke about my surname. "Oh, my tailor is rich". It had been repeated to me so many times I could hardly manage a smile. This was the first sentence learnt in every Beginning English class for at least thirty years. Ha ha! Anyway, laughter subsiding, the ladies gave me number 136, presumably that number of people who had voted before me. I had gone to the polls very early in the morning to avoid crowds.

Progress was made. I was then ushered into the second room where I was given two small pieces of paper on which one of the candidate's name was written and a motley grey envelope that I thought would disintegrate in my hand. How could paper be thinner? Waiting in line for one of the isolation booths I observed the people around me. Everyone oddly seemed to be quite old. Was it because all the young people were still sleeping off their hangovers from Saturday night frenzies? I entered the booth where all I had to do was close the curtain, take one of the small pieces of paper, stuff it into the envelop and seal it. That's all! I can just imagine how a Frenchman might be baffled by those hole-punching voting machines we use in America, also the varieties of issues, propositions and levies we vote on.

Now it's almost over. Finally, I was motioned into a third area, a large room where an elderly man in a blue suit sat at a table beneath a huge French flag. On his lapel he wore a red and blue pin. I wondered if it was a legion of honor for being a war veteran. He held my identity card and read my name out loud phonetically as if it were as French as Pierre Dupont. "Monsieur, avez-vous fait votre choix pour la France?" (Have you made your choice for France?). I uttered a reverent "oui, monsieur", he opened up a huge ballot box, and I inserted my envelope. Afterwards, he stamped and signed my electoral card and summons. I also had to sign my name on a long scroll by number 136. Voilà. Mission accomplished.

Tonight at promptly 6 pm the officials will open that box, count the votes by tens, make an exact tally, report their results to Paris, and by 8 pm the winner will be announced live on national television. Presumably the left will return to power after twenty years. I must explain that it has been officially prohibited in France to talk about the elections since Friday night. Trying to influence someone's vote in any way is considered a crime. So here there are no robot calls, tv spots, or even flyers. Hence the guards and the absolute silence at the polls. This is very much respected in France too. No one has dared to talk to me about the elections. Only one person asked me to vote for one particular candidate, and he was actually Polish.

So much for the pomp and circumstance in France on election day. Also quite a bit of bureaucracy but that is par for the course.

Copyright 2012 Merquiades

Back to http://frenchiflyable.blogspot.com/

If you were able to make your way to this page here, you will have realized on your own that www.frenchiflyable.com has moved back to where it started years ago: http://frenchiflyable.blogspot.com/

I'm angry about this but I have given up. I can't spend my life fighting virtual windmills. I have spent literally hours and hours if not days trying to get my website back. At first I couldn't even access the fifty odd posts and articles I have written. I thought I would end up losing everything.

I consider what happened to be treacherous, unfair, and devious!

One day in January I logged on to write a new blog and couldn't get in to my account. Every time I went on my dashboard or tried to type my address on google search I was forwarded automatically to a server called godaddy.com which informed me my blog was no longer mine but I could purchase it for the right price. Much to my chagrin, I paid godaddy.com $50 to get my domain back, but to no avail. They wanted more and guaranteed nothing in exchange. They spewed a bunch of technical gobbly gook which I had to devote much of my precious time to decipher. In the end it meant nothing. Really, this unfortunate experience could easily have become a money trap, me paying to get back what is already mine! NOT! I sollicited help from experts, technicians at goggle, chatted with godaddy, visited helplines. In the end I could do nothing about it. It was beyond me. It was driving me insane.

Now I've let go. I really need some zen Buddha. Hooommm. I have accepted that my domain has been lost forever.

I am especially fuming about the way it happened. Apparently in December the subscription I bought from google expired. No one informed me of this, told me I had to renew it, let alone give me advice on where or how to do so. No, not everyone on the net is a systems analyst nor computer programer not even a geek. I bet this is the case for most blogs. This enabled godaddy to seize my domain, yes, legally seize it, sever the connection with my blogger dashboard, and take it away. The gall! I eventually found out my posts still existed on blogger, they just were not linked with any site. Thus, my decision to go back to blogspot. It's a longer address to find, but I think I'm safe here. If I ever get frenchiflyable.com back I might change again, if not, I am here to stay. Godaddy.com can go _____ themselves. Internet thugs!

Honestly what hurts the most is losing contact with the friends around the world that have supported me and with whom I have been in contact through my blog. We developed a genuine rapport and I learnt quite a bit from them all. When they access my site from now on they will only see a blank page with a link to godaddy saying the site does not exist! There are also numerous connections all around the net with links to my old site. It's hard to update them.

All of this has left a sour taste in my mouth, towards the web community, google for letting it happen, and especially godaddy. I know now there is no protection at all on the net and no courtesy can be expected. Unfortunately, it'll take me a while before I build confidence again. My advice to you is beware, keep copies of what you post online, backup and backup again, and especially get an e-mail address from your virtual friends so you can have another way to reach them when godaddy.com or the likes attack again.

The moral: Once bitten twice shy!

Manic Monday

One of the most distablizing aspects of my life in France, is my schedule. Not that it's hectic, it's just completely disorganized and that wrecks havoc on all the other aspects of my life. For a teacher there is a tendancy to have hours grouped together at any time on any given day. For example, on Monday I teach from 4:45 to 8:00, Tuesday is my only free day for the moment, Wednesday all day from 9am to 8:30 pm with quite a few gaps in the middle, Thursday 3:30 to 6 pm, Friday 8am to 10:30, Saturday 9:30-10:30 and 2pm to 4pm. All of this is subject to change too. It's not really the number of classes (I only have 6 or 7, all once a week) it's the fact that I never disconnect from this activity that gives me no pleasure. The result of all this is my equilibrium is out of sync. Classes are always more or less on my mind and I never have time to dedicate completely to any other activities: writing, fitness, cinema, culture, small trips, socializing, deep thinking. Sometimes, I even have to find time to go grocery shopping since in this town everything closes at 7pm. Add housework with other obligations in life and I'm spinning. This is a key element to my floating in France. One days glides chaotically into the next. I go to bed early one night, then really late the next. I cook and eat on the run. It's frustrating. For a teacher, it's nearly impossible to have a set schedule. As the year spins by I get bogged down in preparations, corrections and photocopies, I become detached, and lose my soul. Besides, when one is contemplating change in profession, change of city, change of lifestyle, the result is chaos. My tragic flaw: I'm not multitasked

Now it's Monday, 1:15 , I just prepared my daily classes, and soon it will all start over again. Do you know what it's like to feel a certain blah? No desire to go to work, to chuck it all and take the day to do whatever you want. I always have the reation to call and say with a hoarse voice. I caaann't coome. cough cough. I'm so sick. But I won't. I'm saving that for another day. Today is a highly profitable day and I cannot afford to be ill. Alas, let the floating begin. I'll start by listening to the Bangles. Click the title of the blog and listen with me. RT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAZgLcK5LzI

Marché de Noël, Metz, France

Television, love it or leave it

When I was a child growing up in boring suburban Ohio, too tantalizingly close to Cincinnati to dream of enjoying urban life, but too far away for there to be any public transportation to release me from my sad rural prison without walls, I spent countless hours watching TV. One year I'm sure I must have broken the world record of hours watched. The result is that a few years back I swore off TV. I don't own a set and have no clue as to what has happened in the last ten years. Yes, I've heard of those legendary names, Star Ac, Desperate Housewives, Lost, Glee... but I only have a vague notion of what they are about. I may have taken a glimpse at a friend's house or heard people talking about some cliffhanger, but it's mostly a mystery to me. I never took in any of those reality shows, and I'm pretty sure I did not miss anything important. You see, I realized that life is what people make out of it. I want to live. I don't want to waste it away... vicariously.. My Friends can be better than Ross and Chandler. The episodes of the Days of My Life are pretty lame but they are certainly mine!

There is one exception to my no TV rule. That is when I return to the boring suburban (or exburban as they now say) town of my youth. I read, I blog, I surf, I talk, I think and I watch TV. My obsession roars its head. I watch The View-- I say it's educational and helps me catch up on the American culture I have missed in Frogland-- and I discover some sitcom everyone knows about and watch 10 seasons at once. Last time it was Sex in the City. This time it is How I Met Your Mother.

Why have I become obsessed with How I Met Your Mother in the last two weeks? Humm. Well, I guess if people thought Friends was a true-to-life, or an idealized version of friendship everyone could/should identify with, How I Met Your Mother transcends that. It shows how individuals are highly complex, play different roles and reveal only part of themselves at any given time-- yeah, and that includes even with ones friends. Moreover, the boundaries between love, friendship, camaraderie, jealousy, hate, need and desire tend to blur. Yes, it appears that everybody is a bit of a hypocrit and suffers from a certain degree of schizophrenia, bipolarity or multipersonality disorder. Whereas the "Friends" seemed like a role model for American youth, being about as perfect as can be, the characters of How I Met Your Mother come closer to showing true human nature and imperfection (if we get beyond the fact they are young, dynamic and beautiful too). And nothing is a taboo to them, from bodily functions to cheating on significant others. It all happens and is natural.

As I have enjoyed numerous re-run episodes daily, what I like most are Lily's ingenious quotes that are serious food for thought. The time I spend pondering her quotes I consider a success for the show. Indeed, I have always been an admirer of Bertold Brecht's theatre of the people. TV, just like plays, should do more than just entertain, it needs to teach and broaden the mind of the spectator.

Quote 1 (from linked episode):
Lily-- "OK, yes it's a mistake. I know it's a mistake, but there are certain things in life where you know it's a mistake but you don't really know it's a mistake because the only way to really know it's a mistake is to make the mistake and look back and say 'yep, that was a mistake.' So really, the bigger mistake would be to not make the mistake, because then you'd go your whole life not knowing if something is a mistake or not. And dammit, I've made no mistakes! I've done all of this; my life, my relationship, my career, mistake-free. Does any of this make sense to you?"

I, for one, have always spent my life trying to avoid making mistakes and tend to weigh the pro and con excessively before taking important (or even unimportant) decisions. The idea that this could be my worst and biggest error rocks my world, in a way Brecht would be proud of.

Another dialogue from the last episode of season 4:
"LILY: Architecture is killing you, Ted, and it's killing us to watch it killing you. You're like that goat with the washcloth, you want it so bad, and every time the world tries to take it away from you, you keep grabbing it. But you know what? Why do you even want it?

TED: Because I have to be an architect. That's... that's the plan.

LILY: Screw the plan, I planned on being a famous artist, but became a kindergarten teacher... You can't design your life like a building... It doesn't work that way. You just have to live it and it will design itself."

This also gave me a shiver. My big plans (becoming a university professor in France) have been thwarted because I have spent years trying to insert a square object into a round hole. My life in a sense has been on hold as I thought it would naturally happen one way or another, just like they teach us in A Field of Dreams. "If you build it he will come!" Perhaps I should chuck everything including the temporary jobs I've been doing to take a big risk.

Could this TV show have provided me with the answers to my enigma of Floating in France? Or am I just getting re-hooked on some sort of drug I weaned myself of more than a decade ago? Probably so, since I have been thinking... hum... why not get a TV again, just watch the good stuff...yeah. That's addition, huh. I will probably be sensible and put TV and How I Met Your Mother on hold until my next visit to the little village in the middle of the forest