Saturday, August 22, 2015

And so it begins...




Oh no! Kippy asked me to take the bike, ride to the market a few blocks away and purchase 4 heads of lettuce! That would seem simple enough but all I saw were the obstacles...would I get lost? My sense of direction is as bad as my ability to recall names and faces, understand the difference between whole-life and term, or balance a checkbook. Could I communicate my task to the vendor? In French? Could I remember what I wanted by the time I got there?

Kippy and I rehearsed... Bonjour, Monsieur. Je m'appelle Margaret. Je reste avec Jerome et Kristina. Je voudrais quatre salades, s'il vous plait.  And then of course Merci boucoup. Piece of cake, right? Only I was completely thrown off when it turned out to be a woman who waited on me and then pointed to 4 different kinds of lettuce and asked which I preferred. I was not prepared to make any decisions. I was only prepared to repeat a script, which I blundered through with a lot of tee hees and goofy looks. And upon returning to Kippy's I realized I forgot to say s'il vous plait. I think the message here is that I need to stay in France longer so I can become comfortable with the language.

Freshly cut flowers are in every bedroom. By the end of this afternoon everybody will have arrived. After dinner tonight we'll go to the studio and I'll do a demo. They should all be exhausted by then.


4 comments:

  1. I am with you in spirit and loving every word and picture. All my love and appreciation,

    Anita

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  2. Ohhhhh, this makes me pine away for LBE!!!! I'll look forward to every morning when I sit down with my coffee and my iPad and read my daily postcard from you ! Please give Kippy and Jerome my love and have a WONDERFUL time!
    (And who are you kidding? Your French is pretty good... You're just rusty because you've just arrived.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ohhhhh, this makes me pine away for LBE!!!! I'll look forward to every morning when I sit down with my coffee and my iPad and read my daily postcard from you ! Please give Kippy and Jerome my love and have a WONDERFUL time!
    (And who are you kidding? Your French is pretty good... You're just rusty because you've just arrived.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope I get to meet you someday. I love your blog and I relate to so much of your experiences.

    ReplyDelete