Il ne faut pas pousser mémé dans les orties

exp. – literally – don’t push granny in the poison ivy – figuratively – don’t take advantage. This conjures up a much more interesting picture than giving an inch and taking a mile. I also like “c’est la camembert qui dit au roquefort tu pues,” it’s the camembert that tells the roquefort it stinks vs. our pot calling the kettle black. Some of the French expressions can be so colourful. At other times, they can be more restrained. Where in English something can cost an arm and a leg, here it only costs an arm.

“Qui va a la chasse perd sa place,” he who goes hunting loses his place, which is a variation of our you snooze, you lose. Here there is hope though because “mais qui va à la pêche va repêche,” or but he who goes fishing gets it back.

One expression where I think we’ve got it right is with the early bird catching the worm. The French say “l'avenir appartient à celui qui se lève tôt,” or the future comes to he who wakes early. Direct and literal, it lacks the visual of the little bird eating the worm. But not being an early riser myself, I’ve always said, who wants a worm! The future on the other hand…

“Mettre de beurre dans les épinards” or “mettre poire dans ma soupe” are two expressions referencing food, putting butter on one’s spinach or pepper in one’s soup, that really mean trying to make a living. Beating around the bush here is “tourner autour du pot” or turning around the pot. “Langue de bois,” literally tongue of wood, means giving pat answers. “Geule de bois” or wooden mouth is the expression for a hangover. And “cheque en bois” or wooden check is the equivalent of our rubber check or one that bounces. In this case, rubber does make more sense than wood.

“Mieux vaut prevenir que guerir,” better to prevent than to heal is like our ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure or better safe than sorry.

“Main fer dans un gant velour” is the equivalent of our steel fist in a velvet glove – pretty much literally translated unless you want to split hairs over iron and steel. And for that, the French “couper les cheveux en quatre” or cut them in four so also pretty much the same as us.

I usually try to circle back to where I started with my posts, but since I had no real theme for this one other than to share some of these expressions I’ve been collecting, I have nowhere to go. I certainly don’t want to be pushed into the ivy so I will just leave it here where sleeping dogs lie as mine is doing right now.

Ordonnance

n. prescription
I recently decided to go for a physical, something I try to avoid on a regular basis preferring the head in the sand approach of what I don’t know can’t hurt me. In the US, doctors suggest a yearly exam, but here they tend to be more laid back. One doctor told me I could go every five years, which I thought was a splendid idea, but another suggested that after a certain age (!), every two years was recommended.

The exam was relatively straightforward, blood pressure – good, weight – good, no EKG even though I had one the last time in New York, so all that was left was the “prise de sang” or blood test. The doctor actually doesn’t take the blood though, but instead writes a prescription to take to any lab that’s convenient for you.

There are labs all over the city and you don’t even need an appointment. You do need to be “a jeun,” however, meaning on an empty stomach, so the morning is a popular time slot. After I had my blood drawn, I was told I could either return the next day or they could mail me the results. Since I live a block away, I decided I could make it back over there and save them a stamp. The funny thing is that when you pick them up, the technician takes the sheet of paper with an envelope and sticks it in a machine that folds and seals it. I guess they want you to still have the fun of opening it up when you get home.

And so I did and there I was faced with the results – numbers I didn’t understand, many of them in bold with asterisks and next to all of them the “normal” ranges. Obviously the ones that were bolded were the ones where I was not in the range. Some were below, some were above. After googling, never a good idea, I concluded that I was anemic, had high cholesterol and may be close to dying from a severe Vitamin D deficiency.

It was Friday night, I wouldn’t be able to talk to the doctor until Monday and that was hoping she had received the results herself. It made me question the wisdom of allowing a patient to review results without the benefit of a medical degree.

Monday came and calmly I called the doctor only to find out to my relief that I was actually not that far from the normal range in any of the things I was concerned about and in fact, the cholesterol was the good kind so I was ahead of the game there, too.

The Vitamin D was still a problem though. Apparently so much so that I now have to take a dose every three months for the next year! Without adequate levels of Vitamin D, the body can’t absorb calcium, which is necessary to keep the bones strong, especially in women, especially after a certain age and especially with a history of osteoporosis in the family of which I fall into all three categories.

The sun provides Vitamin D, but there is none here in the winter. Sardines and mackerel have Vitamin D, but I don’t often eat those. I was eager to get started so I could get back on track, but now I had to wait for my prescription, which was being mailed to me. They can’t email it, which I understand and they won’t call the pharmacy, which I don’t understand. But knowing that I needed something and not being able to get it right away was mildly frustrating.

The prescription arrived two days later and I marched across the street to get it filled. The Vitamin D is administered in a little glass ampoule that is completely sealed. How on earth was I supposed to get the liquid out? The pharmacist told me just to break the ampoule, which made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever – why would you put medication in a container that’s glass and needs to be broken!

I gingerly snapped off one of the pointed ends, happy to not have injured myself, but the liquid wouldn’t come out. I realized I had to break the other end in order to remove the suction. I envisioned breaking the thing in two, spilling all the contents and cutting my hand in the process. But I succeeded and poured the little elixir into a glass mixed with water, which turned it a cloudy white. How much water is “un peu” (a little)? Apparently, I put enough since I didn’t suffer any dire consequences.

I thought taking some calcium supplements could jump start my road to recovery, but the instructions that came with them warned against taking them in conjunction with Vitamin D. I was confused – did that mean just not to take them at the same time as the Vitamin D or not to take them at all if you have Vitamin D in your system. I thought the Vitamin D was what helped the bones absorb the calcium so if you needed it, why couldn’t you take the calcium with it?

At the risk of over thinking and over worrying creating stress and possibly additional ill affects, I have decided to stick with yogurts and cheese as my natural sources of calcium – two things the French do exceptionally well and there’s no need for a prescription for either!

Les gens sont fous

exp. – people are crazy

When we first got our puppy, I was telling a fellow dog lover friend how many nice people I’ve met while walking him. She agreed, but added that many of them are a little crazy. I see what she means now since I’ve become a little crazy myself.

I tend to rationalize things for the dog, which is ridiculous, since he doesn’t. I’ve watched endless hours of the DOG WHISPERER and have been working so hard on my “calm, assertive” behaviour. I keep repeating the mantra “I am the pack leader, I am the pack leader” over and over again. The crazy part is that I’ll do it outside and out loud when I’m walking him.

Felix is going through his adolescent stage right now, which is just as bad as it sounds. The various developmental stages of dogs are sped up exponentially given that their time on earth is much shorter than ours. Imagine going from baby to teenager in just six months – it can’t be easy. At first I thought the lifting of his leg was so cute – now I’m trying desperately to stop him from doing it EVERY few feet! The biggest mistake is to ask other dog owners for advice because everyone will tell you something different.

The trainer tells me I shouldn’t let him do that – there’s no reason he can’t let it all out so to speak, at once, making a much more fluid, no pun intended, and agreeable walk, for me at least. A woman just this morning, however, insisted that it’s part of their nature and that it’s perfectly normal. She also admits she lets her dog walk her rather than the other way around and when she wants to run an errand she has to ask him to take her to the butcher, or the dry cleaner, or wherever it may be.

She’s not the only one who apparently lets the dog decide. I met one of my neighbours who had a lovely, big, albeit not very sociable, dog. She invited Felix and me over for coffee, the owner that is, but when I arrived I had to wait in the hall until the dog finished her breakfast because she likes to eat alone. She then proceeded to dig under the table, the dog that is, at which point I looked at Felix and channelled the thought – don’t get any ideas.

One topic that I’ve still yet to resolve is whether or not to neuter the pup. In the US it’s practically mandatory and I always thought it the sensible thing to do – unless you want to breed or show your dog, I understand. Here, it seems only to be a necessary option for female dogs, which I find a bit sexist. In English, we use the words personality and character interchangeably, although a character is used for someone with an out of the ordinary personality. Here the word for personality is "caractère” and “personnage” is actually the word they use for a character. If someone is a real character and not in a good way, they’ll use “special.” Anyway, the French think that castrating male dogs will ruin their personality or take away their character. Don’t female dogs have personalities, too?

The woman who has walked Felix and dog sat him the last time we were away thinks he absolutely should be castrated. Why let him look at all the pretty girl dogs and be able to do nothing about it. I tend to agree with her. I thought I was endearing myself to Felix by sending him off to walk with her since she takes a pile of dogs in her little van to the woods for hours at a time. But the DOG WHISPERER made a very good point in one of his episodes that the dog doesn’t know you’ve paid the dog walker and the last time Felix came home, he went into total crisis mode when she left.

Anyone who has a dog and certainly anyone who doesn’t will tell you that they’re a lot of work – all day, every day, for the rest of their lives. Just like people they have phases where they’re more difficult and just like people, a relationship with a dog is a commitment. Unlike people though, the dog will rarely let you take him for granted. We will get through this difficult phase because I will remain calm, assertive and above all, the pack leader, crazy or not.

Embêter, emmerder, se fâcher

v. – to bug

Not surprisingly here there are many verbs that mean to bother or exasperate. The culture of the French can lean towards the dramatic. Discussing, as I’ve mentioned before, along with debating and even complaining, is part of their way of life.

Recently we had a snowstorm or “tempête de neige” in Paris. By East Coast standards, it wasn’t monumental and the perky weather lady on the news made it clear it was coming, but for some reason, it took Paris by surprise. The city became instantly paralyzed and not surprisingly since to my view, there were no provisions to be seen.

People were slipping and sliding, cars came grinding to a halt and the buses ceased running leaving the metros jammed with panicked commuters trying desperately to get home.

As a former New Yorker, I felt like crying out “People, it’s just a little snow – relax and bring on the salt, “sel” or at least some sand, “sable!” Instead everyone was making excuses – “C’est exceptionnel!” it’s exceptional, everyone kept saying. I’m going on my third winter here and every year we’ve had snow – it was in the weather forecast – what was exceptional about it!

The “éboueurs” or trash collectors went into hiding leaving frozen garbage piling up on the streets. At the risk of sounding dramatic because I am after all becoming more and more French, I felt like I was in a war zone and it all bugged me very, very much!

This is the time of year when the trash collectors, like the “pompiers” or fireman, come door to door to sell you their “calendriers” or calendars. I know this because I was already visited by the latter, catching me off guard by ringing the bell at 8 o’clock at night. Since I wasn’t expecting anyone and am used to my protective doorman bubble back home, I was concerned when he identified himself as a fireman thinking there must be something wrong. Instead, he explained he just wanted to sell me a calendar and while I have the utmost respect for firemen and would be happy to contribute, I was a little bugged that he chose the dinner hour to stop by. On top of it, the price is discretionary, just leading to further confusion with the dinner bubbling over and the dog barking at my heels.

The end of the year does bring out stress in people. The shortened days lead to shortened fuses, the lack of sunlight leads to lack of humour. Winter has started early and unforgivingly this year, but without winter there can be no spring and there’s not a prettier city than Paris when the sun is shining and the flowers are blooming. So until then I will be marking the days off on my calendar and looking forward to that.

Demander

v. – to ask
Exiger
v. – to demand
Insister
v. – to insist

Sometimes French words are exactly the same as English ones and sometimes not at all. I wondered why “demander” doesn’t mean to demand. It seems more logical to me to have another word for to ask rather than coming up with another word for demand.

It’s similar with the verb “marcher,” which doesn’t mean march, but rather walk. There are other words for walk such as “se ballader” and “se promener,” but the word for march is actually “défiler.” This is the same verb they use for cat walk, which makes sense since the models do sort of march to a certain degree. It has nothing to do with the English verb to defile unless you really take offense at some of the latest fashions.

“Se défiler” means to back out as in, at the last minute. There are many other verbs like this, “se manquer,” to miss, “s’appeller,” to call or to name, “se doucher” or “se laver,” to bathe or to wash, “se coucher,” to sleep, etc. All of these things we do to ourselves literally when translated. So even if you miss someone you would say “tu me manques” or you are missed by me. That one is always a little complicated for me even though the rest make sense. “Je me couche,” I put myself to sleep or “je me lave,” I wash myself are logical unless you’re a baby and can’t really do either without help.

The root for the verbs for washing and bathing can be found in the nouns that describe the things we wash and bathe in. For example, “douche” is the word for shower, “lavabo,” the word for sink, “bain,” the word for tub from “se beiner” or to swim. “Robinet” is another word for sink – and makes the distinction between kitchen sink vs. bathroom sink. Hence, “l’eau du robinet” means tap water.

The word “eau” for water rhymes with the word “peau” for skin. The former isn’t that great for the latter here because of the high calcium content or “calcaire.” There are many products aimed at “canilization” or unclogging and freshening drains. The calcium deposits aren’t the only problem. Hair clogs drains as well, but sometimes I wonder if it’s the calcium deposited water that actually causes your hair to fall out. There are also a variety of products targeted at “chute de cheveux” or hair loss, which I suppose is a universal concern.

I’ve always thought it a pity that so many people have too much hair where they don’t want it and not enough where they do. Since humans have worn clothes for centuries now, you would think there would have been a modification at the evolutionary level to redistribute more to the tops of our heads, especially men’s.

I constantly toy with the idea of cutting bangs. Here they are called “franges” or fringe I suppose like the British call them. “Meche” is what the layered side bang is called. It’s also the word for highlighting so you have to be sure you’re clear on what you mean in order to avoid confusion at the salon.

There’s a certain hairstyle that’s very popular here now with boys. It’s a mesh pulled way over to one’s side…sort of like the teen version of the comb over. It looks like it takes a great deal of effort to keep the hair that clearly belongs on one side, all the way over on the other one. It’s the same sort of effort I imagine that it takes to keep their jeans tightly wrapped around the tops of their thighs. But we’ve all been there. I remember spending hours blow-drying my feathered wings, which ended up looking more like little flaccid horns on either side of my head and of course I had many a bell bottom fashion disaster moment as well.

It’s funny how as we age, or at least in my case, I spend a lot less time on my hair and make-up. The French women also have a less is more approach to their looks. I like it – it’s clean and elegant. There is also a healthier approach to getting older here. I don’t see the same lips pulled over forehead looks that I do in the US and that’s refreshing. Sensible eating vs. starvation and diet pills also seem to be the norm. Exercise is practised, but nothing that will emit heavy sweating. Perhaps this has something to do with people not wanting to seek reasons for multiple showers during the day given the harsh water. Instead, a nice healthy “promenade” or walk, will do just fine.

Sentir

v. – to feel or to smell

Someone I recently met suggested I blog about this French word because of its dual meanings. I realized though that in English, the verbs for smell and feel can also be interchangeable. Allow me to back track for a moment in order to give an example.

A few weeks ago while walking my dog in the Champs de Mars, I met a lovely woman walking her own. She happens to be a writer and her latest book is called Consequential Strangers http://www.consequentialstrangers.com. To borrow a quote from her own blog on the topic, consequential strangers are “people who bring novelty and information into our lives, allow us to exercise different parts of ourselves, and open us up to new opportunities.” And this is what we immediately became.

Not long after our encounter, we ran into each other again and since she was about to leave Paris for a while, she invited us to a going away party at her place. It was here that I met the person who suggested blogging about sentir. So now I will get to my example about that verb since it’s all intertwined.

Even though I didn’t know my new stranger/friend for very long, her absence is marked. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it coincided with the nasty turn in weather and as a result a feeling of emptiness in the park. Where as a few weeks ago, the park was filled with sunlight and golden leaves, now it’s grey and grim and the center where all the dogs congregate looks barren and cold. The French call it grisaille and it's just as it sounds, grey and drizzly or grizzly as I like to call it.

Today as Felix and I approached that center where he used to love to run and play, we came upon a man, his child, one dog off leash and one dog on. Something about the dog on the leash didn’t “smell” right and I slowed my approach. Sure enough the man warned me that the dog wasn’t nice. In fact, he looked downright vicious with one eye missing surely from a fight. I managed to grab my little pup in time to avoid harm, but as another woman passing by pointed out, if the dog is vicious it should be muzzled, not just leashed.

Perhaps the reason we use this word to mean both smell and feel comes from the fact that a dog’s sense of smell is so strong that he can actually learn many things from it. Today, unfortunately, Felix and I both learned to smell danger. And today I met an INconsequential stranger I hope never to see again.

Prononciation

n. – pronunciation
While my French may not be perfect, I do take great pride in my accent. Recently an old friend and former colleague of mine who was coming to France for work asked if I knew anyone who could accompany him during his assignment and translate for him. My husband suggested I volunteer so I did.

Once he arrived in Paris, we travelled to Burgundy where the story he was reporting on took place. On the way, we stopped in Fontainebleau and had lunch just near the magnificent chateau. The name came from a fresh water spring or “Beautiful Water Fountain” if you break down the name Fontaine-Belle-Eau.

When we arrived at our final destination in the small town of Nuits Saint Georges, we were greeted by the owner of the Chambres d’Hôtes where we were staying. Literally translated this means, hosted rooms or bed and breakfast would be the way I would describe it. In this case it was a hôtel particulier, which is another way of describing a single family home. While not as grand on the scale of the Hôtel Lambert on Ile Saint Louis which was recently sold for somewhere around 80 million euros, it was still a large multi-roomed mansion of sorts and expensive to keep up, which is why the woman and her mother had decided to turn it into a guest house.

I cheerily told her about our visit to Fontainebleau, but she cocked her head indicating she didn’t understand. I repeated Fontainebleau. Again, she cocked her head and looked confused. Fontainebleau, I kept saying, surprised that she hadn’t heard of it since it’s so famous. Finally, she said “ah, Fontainebleau.” It was not a good start to a translating effort if I couldn’t even make her understand one of the most famous French cities within an hour’s drive from where she lived.

However, my friend and I had a giggle about it because neither one of us could figure out what I had done wrong. I explained the story to my husband when I got home and he spotted the error right away. I was pronouncing the end more like the color blue is pronounced in French. Instead, I should have pronounced the end to sound more like blow. It’s a subtle difference I can assure you!

I run into the same situation with my dog’s name, which is Felix. People ask me what he’s called and I answer, Felix. They ask me to repeat it and then they say “ah, Félix.” I guess it’s because I don’t use the accent when I speak. I’m getting used to it because I’m not changing the way I pronounce it, which is more like Feelix than Fehlix. Someone I know who is from Peru pronounces it Feliz, which is cute so sometimes my husband and I call him Feliz Navidad. I like the fact that Felix comes from the Latin word for happy. I do get tired of people telling me that Felix is a cat, though.

My friend and I had more language giggles during our excursion, mostly at his expense because he doesn’t speak a word of French. As such, his pronunciation or lack thereof, make it hard for even me to understand what he’s trying to say. He did make some valid points though, like why put an “s” in the middle of a word if you’re not going to use it. In Vosne Romanée, a region in Burgundy, the first word is pronounced Vone, not Voznee as he liked to say.

With the arrival of the accent circumflex in the French language around the 16^th century, many an “s” before a consonant disappeared. For example in the word hôtes seen above, the accent over the “o” has eliminated the need for an “s” which surely used to be there as we see in the English word, host. It’s the same with hôtel or hôpital. In English, while we also use the word hotel, we still use hostel to describe lodging of a more practical manner. Gîtes, which is another word for inn, also has an accent circumflex, this time over the “i” replacing an “s” that must have been there preceding the “t.”

But my favorite language faux pas or false step, literally translated, was when my friend said bonjour at the end of a conversation. I explained it’s not like aloha or ciao. Bonjour is always hello and never goodbye. We had a good giggle over that one.

Bonjour!

Supermarché

n. – supermarket
Marcher
v. – walk
Faire les courses
v. – go (or literally make) grocery shopping
Cours
n. – class or course
Court
adj. – short
Faire les magasins
v. – go (or literally make) shopping (for anything other than groceries)

Magasin
n. – store (that sells anything other than groceries)
Magazine
n. – magazine
Carte
n. menu or card
Caddie
n. – caddy or cart
Online food delivery exists here although I have yet to use it. I did, however, break down and buy what I call the “granny trolley” to do my grocery shopping and how I do love that! I simply wheel the trolley along the tiny sidewalk to the supermarket, throw everything in it as I wheel it up and down the aisles and then throw everything back in it once the delightful check out clerk has rung everything up, ready to pay as soon as she’s finished and be on my way. It sure beats the pressure of begging for and then un-sticking the plastic bags while the line mounts up behind you. I used to refuse to pay until everything was packed because once you do, the clerks just start moving the next person’s things along piling up on top of yours. I know I’ve written about this before, but I’m still waiting for someone to explain why oh why can’t they simply help!

The culture of real grocery shopping in Paris or most European cities for that matter is different from many American cities in that you run your errands at several shops all located nearby. The butcher, baker, cheese shop, fishmonger, greengrocer, etc. are all separate entities. Pharmacies are also separate stores and here are more like old-fashioned chemists than drugstores like we’re used to. I don’t usually take my granny trolley when I shop like this, but rather only when I’m cheating and going to the market where I can get almost everything in one place.

It’s not the same of course because there you don’t strike up a conversation with the butcher who is so fond of our puppy that he’ll let him lick his hands across the counter. Of course in the States, you would never see a dog in a butcher shop much less the supermarket. Here they are tolerated and left tied up near the check out awaiting their masters if not actually condoned running wild through the store.

The thing I like about the supermarket is that it’s open all day. Most of the other little specialty stores shut down for lunch and by lunch I mean from 1-4. There is a great store for dogs, but they don’t even open until 2 and there’s another little repair store that never seems to be open. It's called “Je repare tout” or “I repair everything,” but I've added to that, “Mais je ne suis jamais la,” “But I’m never here.” In fairness I did go in once with a broken alarm clock, but he couldn’t fix it. Maybe a simple amendment to “Je repair presque tout quand je suis la” would be better, “I repair almost everything when I’m here.”

So like everything in France, errand running is an art. Timing, patience and the art of conversation are all part of the equation to ensure success. And if I did choose to do all my shopping online, I would have nothing to blog about!

Avoir du temps à tuer

Exp. – killing time
Entrepreneur
n. - from the words "entre" or under and "prendre" to take

Nearly four months after our kitchen ceiling collapsed, I’m sitting here waiting for the entrepreneur or as we would call him, handyman, to come and finish repairing the hole. He began on Friday, today is Monday and as long as he continues to show up, it should be fixed by the end of the week.

Nothing happens quickly in France – nothing. People don’t rush here because there’s no point. We had brunch yesterday with friends, leaving the apartment at noon to return at 5pm. Getting back to the kitchen ceiling, it took six weeks just to get our insurance expert to come and take a look at it. Of course it was during August when everyone is on vacation. The process then had to be repeated two months later since there was some dispute over how much the repairs would cost.

Disputes or discussions are a way of life here. And both take time. The unions are still disputing and discussing the retirement reform. To explain it simply, the reform would raise the retirement age by two years in order to keep the pension coffers from running out. I think it’s already been passed into law, but that doesn’t stop the unions from holding their manifestations or protests. Even the lyceens or high school students got into the act, protesting in a show of solidarity while their representatives made the talk show rounds to discuss the topic even further. It’s difficult sometimes to understand anyone’s points of view though since another French habit is talking over one another.

When I was on the bus the other day I started up a conversation with a lovely French woman. A young lyceen got on the bus without paying. Apparently he didn’t have his metro card for some reason, but he did have a healthy sense of entitlement. He and the bus driver started to dispute and the woman rolled her eyes and said “ah we French love to discuss things – you see how much they discuss this and all it’s doing is wasting time.”

Time here is not a luxury, but a right. People deserve their time and they will take it and yours. This is why vacation time is not a privilege, but an expectation. When discussing the strikes one day with a Nigerian taxi driver, he said, “In my country, we work to get ahead, to buy a home, to make our lives. In France, people work to get to their vacation.” That’s why adding another two years to the retirement age feels like a life sentence.

The French have a reputation for being tardy, which while not true for all of them, does play into their relationship with time. Even television timing can be off as we have witnessed when trying to tape French shows. For some reason and especially with films, we have to remember to build in some extra time in order to risk missing the end since they don’t seem to start when the guide says they will.

An hour and a half after expected, the handyman has shown up. When it comes to repairs, I’m happy for him to take his time and in fairness, he does a very good job. Traffic and bad weather got in the way of punctuality this morning and because I had nothing else planned, “ca me derange pas,” it doesn’t bother me. He tells me he still has another three days of work to do – further patching tomorrow followed by first and second coats of paint the following two days. But we just realized in talking that Thursday is a holiday, Friday a “pont” or bridge for those who can take it allowing for a nice long four-day weekend. So the job will actually finish next week, which is a good thing too because he tells me that after that he will be on vacation.

Poubelle

n. – trash can

Upon leaving my apartment, I have six doors to open and two buttons to push just to get outside. This doesn’t include the door to the trash and recycling room in case I need to drop anything off on my way out. And it also doesn’t include the various light switches that I need to push in times of darkness.

I was spoiled living in New York where I barely had to use my hands until it was time to unlock the door to my apartment. With 24/7 doormen and electronic elevator doors, I could keep my hands safely in my pockets if I wanted until I reached my final destination. Locking and unlocking my apartment door was also much less complicated there. The lock to our Paris apartment is spring loaded, which actually requires both hands to operate.

I mention all of this only because if it was troublesome before, it’s only more so with a little ball of fur underfoot that needs precision timing in order to successfully coordinate his disposal needs at street level.

Last night at around 11pm, after suspecting the timing may be right, I proceeded along my ritual of door opening, closing, locking and button pushing giving myself the additional challenge of disposing of the trash and paper/plastic items. Here bottles fall into a third category and since they make such a loud crash in their receptacle, I don’t take them down between the hours of 10pm and 10am.

Lo and behold, no trash or recycle cans to be found since they had already been put out in the street. I thought Monday night was trash pick up, but with only one can for a seven story building, it makes sense that this is a two or maybe even three time a week event. Maybe it occurs every night and I just don’t notice unless I have anything to take down with me after hours.

Trash and recycle disposal in New York was so much easier – there was a room at the end of the hall on every floor with a chute for the garbage and all other items, glass, paper and plastic could simply be left next to said chute. Oh how spoiled we Americans are with all of our space and conveniences. Adapting to a new day-to-day life or “vie quotidienne” has been challenging at times, but there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. Here all you have to do is remember to turn it on.