la vie quotidienne (by a very special guest blogger!)

We're honored today to bring to you a rare treat: A little something submitted to "our french files" by a very special guest blogger. He prefers to remain anonymous, so I can't tell you who he is. But I can advise you to check out the blog that he calls his own ("Sex, Murder and the Meaning of Life"). And I'll tell you that he looks exactly like the distinguished gentleman there on the right. Enjoy...

In which Liam and Carol and I drive our station wagon to a giant store called “Le Costceau!”

So, I’m sure you’re all wondering why we don’t put up more pictures of what la vie quotidienne is like here in Phoenix, Arizona. I fear we’ll have to live with this photographic faux pas in absentia whilst we continue to adjust to the weird cultural customs around here. Meanwhile I’ll try to paint un image verbale of what a typical day is like in the village we are now calling notre maison. As the dawn breaks over our manicured lawn (likely being mowed by two fellows who have recently slipped illegally across the border), we prepare bowls of farine d'avoine et raisins secs. The local working class eats this sort of porridge for breakfast, and calls it “oat meal." No, I’m not kidding: “oat meal” quelle horreur! and yet, after you get used to it, it’s kinda cool. Locally, it is prepared from a package with a quaint picture of a Quaker man, with the words “1 minute!” emblazoned across the front. But Carol and I, avid followers of Le Test Kitchen, use a more laborious and traditional method in which thickly rolled oats are par-boiled, and then steamed, all for very precise times, and then served over lightly toasted almonds, walnuts, bluets fraîches, and wheat bran, but it’s all very boring, and I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it.

Next, we take Liam to what they call “elementary school.” Why it is called elementary school we have no idea, and we half expected to see periodic charts on all the walls, but no, there are simply imprints of letters of the Phoenician alphabet attached to corny little pictures of apples, bees, cows, ducks, etc. – which were manifestly not painted by Monet or Gaugin, I can assure you (instead bearing a very pedestrian signature style more appropriate to a Hallmark card than to the goal of training little sophisticates who will someday, if all goes well, drink coffee and eat croissants on 4th Avenue outside of Capers market while discussing Heidegger).

Now the first thing you’ll want to know about the so-called “elementary school” is that virtually everyone speaks English! I know, I know, très gauche! Well, OK, some of the kids speak Spanish with their parents, and one of Liam’s little classmates is from Turkey. And the Ottoman lad's mother’s name is, get this: Esme. Yep, Esme. As soon as I heard her name, of course, it brought to mind J.D. Salinger’s short story “For Esme, with love and squalor” (see my other blog on Salinger’s sad passing, in which I attempt to imitate mark schaller attempting to imitate Ernest Hemingway attempting to imitate J.D. Salinger, much to Carol’s embarrassment).

(I know you can’t wait for the sequel, but alas, we face another local custom – Liam’s “bed time” – the locals here believe you’re a “bad parent” if you let your little tots stay up till midnight sipping red wine and reading Proust by candlelight as my brothers and I did whilst living in a tent in Pakistan, but that, mes bons amis, is a tale for un autre jour...)