We're deep into April now and I've had a run of dreams I which I'm trying to dispose of a dead body, and only semi-successfully. One night, frustrated by my accomplices' half-assed efforts, I grabbed a shovel myself and proceeded to dig an enormous burial pit in the soft yielding dirt underneath a neighbor's vegetable garden. A few nights later, I was in a hotel room and the dead body was crammed into a backpack. I hefted the heavy pack onto my back and proceeded to walk out into the hotel hallway, down the stairs, and through a lobby full of policemen, counting on my practiced nonchalance to keep me out of custody. Weird dreams because, really, when you think about it, of all the people you know, I'm about the last person who'd ever need to surreptitiously divest himself of a freshly killed corpse.
(This raises an interesting question: Of all the of all the people you know, who's the first person who you'd think might someday need to surreptitiously divest himself of a freshly killed corpse? I don't want to know the answer. But it is a fun ice-breaker kind of question. Feel free to trot it out the next time you need to dent one of those awkward silences that crops up around the communal breakfast table at a Bed & Breakfast somewhere.)
As I write this, I'm in Carcassonne. But despite it's name, there are no dead bodies here. (Get it: Carcassonne; carcasses. Ah never mind.) It's vacation time again. Not for me, of course (I'm on sabbatical, remember, not on holiday), but for the kids. Their latest two-week holiday started just over a week ago, after April Fish day.
It turns out that April 1 is a very hilarious big deal here in France, with lots of highjinks and tomfoolery. But it's not called April Fools day here. It's April Fish day: Poissons d'Avril. When I picked up Maddox from preschool that afternoon, he was brandishing a whole fistful of paper fishes that he'd apparently spent all day cutting out and coloring in. Jasper had eaten lunch at home that day (because the cantine menu simply read "aioli" which seemed just so mysteriously weird – a lunch of upmarket mayonnaise and nothing else? – that even she didn't want to take a chance on it) and she too had her pockets stuffed with crudely-made paper fishes and bits of tape. At her school, apparently, kids spent their recess time trying to stick these fish facsimiles onto other kids' backs without them noticing. Kind of like a "Kick Me" sign, only without any apparent consequences.
As for me, Poissons d'Avril passed without finding myself the sad patsy of any piscine pranks – at least as far as I know. I did briefly toy with the idea that maybe the cryptically mononymic cantine menu ("ailoi") was some sort of unfunny joke, but then I learned that, in fact, aioli is actually a sort of culinary shorthand referring to a completely legitimate lunchtime offering (a plate consisting of fish and vegetables in an aioli sauce) and everyone knows it. Well, everyone except the small-headed rube who, until last week, didn't even know the first thing about April Fish Day.
As for Carcassonne, more about that soon.
(This raises an interesting question: Of all the of all the people you know, who's the first person who you'd think might someday need to surreptitiously divest himself of a freshly killed corpse? I don't want to know the answer. But it is a fun ice-breaker kind of question. Feel free to trot it out the next time you need to dent one of those awkward silences that crops up around the communal breakfast table at a Bed & Breakfast somewhere.)
As I write this, I'm in Carcassonne. But despite it's name, there are no dead bodies here. (Get it: Carcassonne; carcasses. Ah never mind.) It's vacation time again. Not for me, of course (I'm on sabbatical, remember, not on holiday), but for the kids. Their latest two-week holiday started just over a week ago, after April Fish day.
It turns out that April 1 is a very hilarious big deal here in France, with lots of highjinks and tomfoolery. But it's not called April Fools day here. It's April Fish day: Poissons d'Avril. When I picked up Maddox from preschool that afternoon, he was brandishing a whole fistful of paper fishes that he'd apparently spent all day cutting out and coloring in. Jasper had eaten lunch at home that day (because the cantine menu simply read "aioli" which seemed just so mysteriously weird – a lunch of upmarket mayonnaise and nothing else? – that even she didn't want to take a chance on it) and she too had her pockets stuffed with crudely-made paper fishes and bits of tape. At her school, apparently, kids spent their recess time trying to stick these fish facsimiles onto other kids' backs without them noticing. Kind of like a "Kick Me" sign, only without any apparent consequences.
As for me, Poissons d'Avril passed without finding myself the sad patsy of any piscine pranks – at least as far as I know. I did briefly toy with the idea that maybe the cryptically mononymic cantine menu ("ailoi") was some sort of unfunny joke, but then I learned that, in fact, aioli is actually a sort of culinary shorthand referring to a completely legitimate lunchtime offering (a plate consisting of fish and vegetables in an aioli sauce) and everyone knows it. Well, everyone except the small-headed rube who, until last week, didn't even know the first thing about April Fish Day.
As for Carcassonne, more about that soon.
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