Another new addition
Yesterday I transformed into Bricol’Girl (DIY Girl), getting a hacksaw with blades for both wood and metal, a level, and another screwdriver for my ad hoc set. (I’ve bought nice screwdrivers on an as-need basis for the last four years, and have seven now. It’s a nice way to make sure they’re all good quality and that there are no extraneous types or sizes that just never get used.) Once home I sawed down the yucca trees that came with my terrace. They’d grown well above my terrace roof, are a plant that’s discouraged in this area since there are far too many (mimosa too are discouraged for this reason, which surprised me when I learned it at our required composting session), and… I don’t like yucca trees. Once I’d removed them, I was astonished at how much more light I had.
Today I got an aerier, less dense replacement for the yuccas, and one whose fruit I’ll be able to eat. I’d never seen its flowers before, or if I had I didn’t recognize them — this is a lemon tree’s flower! I’d hoped to be able to get a dwarf lemon tree, but settled for a regular citrus limon plant. To ensure it doesn’t grow too tall I’ll keep it in a pot (progressively bigger ones as necessary) and prune it regularly (all citrus trees need pruning anyway). I also got some cute little succulents, purely because they were cheap and I couldn’t resist.
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July 7th, 2008 at 16:33
Hey,
Since you are an expat, I thought that http://www.linkexpats.com (social networking website for expatriates) might be of your interest.
It may help your readers as well.
July 7th, 2008 at 19:16
oh hurray yet another social networking site, combined with an Nth “expat” site.
quite frankly I have had it with being asked the same damn starry-eyed, lazy, uninformed “omigod France is so awesome and I totally want to move there! I don’t speak French, will it be okay? How does it work to get a visa and a job?” that joining such sites inevitably leads to. (yeeeah. connections with people in my community. there’s this constantly-running MMORPG called “Real Life” i play 24 hours a day that works great for that. not looking for anything beyond it and my purposefully-wee blog.)
so thanks but no thanks.
July 9th, 2008 at 23:09
Forgive them, they know not what they ask!
I keep it in perspective. I’ve been in Paris since ’97. Two days ago, I had a chance to sit down with a lovely man in his seventies. He had been born in Paris to a French mother and an American father. They fled France in 1939, to the U.S., where he promptly forgot all of his french. 15 years later, now a man just barely in his twenties, I guess he fell in love with a French woman and came back. And he’s been here since, for the last 50 years. And of course, I was dying of curiosity about his experiences. How was his accent? Did he finally lose it? No, he answered. He still has a funny accent. French people think he’s Belgian (a Flemish Belgian, no doubt).
And so I continuted to pester him with questions, just like the starry-eyed kind of guy I am. And thankfully, he indulged me.
July 10th, 2008 at 06:49
That’s a completely different story :)
I’m referring to exactly the question I mention: rather than go to an official source about visas and jobs (like a consulate or an embassy), people email me, a blogger they don’t know in real life, who is not paid to answer their questions, expecting me to give them complicated information that may not even apply to their case. I refuse to indulge that sort of question any more.
Not at ALL the same thing as asking someone on a one-to-one, real-life basis, to share their experiences, with genuine interest! (neat story)
July 10th, 2008 at 19:29
Yes, you’re right of course. It would be aggravation piled onto aggravation. I’m just emphasizing… the… la dee dah… how does the tune go?…
“You’ve got to accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative Latch on to the affirmative. Don’t mess with Mister In-Between …”
Meaning, if I had a euro for all the dumb questions I get asked, I’d be really rich! Especially if I converted it to dollars! So, instead of becoming monetarily rich, I’ve decided to become increasingly Zen throughout the years.
July 10th, 2008 at 20:18
I’m afraid it’s just that black and white philosophy, judging things as positive and negative, that gets many humans into so much trouble. If only more people would “mess with Mister In-Between”. (Which, by the way, is arguably an apt paraphrase of one of the main ideas of Zen Buddhism.)
And qualifying the questions as “dumb”? Not my words. Mine were “lazy, uninformed and starry-eyed”: those qualifiers hold the seeds for growth for people who know the actions to take (initiative, serious research and realistic balancing of facts). But there’s no work that can be done to improve “dumb”, it’s a pretty absolute judgment…
July 10th, 2008 at 21:13
Yes, but I’m not always using my words quite so literally… “If I had a euro for every [insert catchy word or phrase here] question…” I just need something that fits neatly in, even if it is semantically inprecise. There’s something to recognizing the spirit of words, and not the, ahem, if I might… the letter.
July 10th, 2008 at 21:17
“Imprecise” of course… not “inprecise,” which almost seems like a French words, but non! But anyway, I’ll refrain from posting for a while. I know it’s not my blog. :-)
Ciao!