photo: sign along the side of the road near les Issambres (Mediterranean coastal town)
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livraison (lee-vray-zohn) noun, feminine
1. delivery
Hear my son Max pronounce the word "livraison": Download livraison2.wav
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Expressions:
livraison à domicile = "we deliver"; door-to-door delivery
payable à la livraison = payable on delivery
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Citation du Jour:
Le risque de se livrer à l'inessentiel est lui-même essentiel.
The risk of surrendering to what is not essential, is, in itself, essential.
--Maurice Blanchot
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A Day in a French Life...
The boulangère's* eyes leave mine, hit the ground and bounce back faster than I can say "Bonjour, madame." My chin now flat against my neck, mouth agape, I follow the trail she's just burnt until my eyes catch on my drawstring pantalons,* seeing them as if for the first time. The pink cotton fabric is offset by a green frog motif. Life-size frogs. Toads, actually. Beneath each crapaud* is the phrase "Toadily Cool!"
Speechless, I look up to the cypress for support. If the tree had eyes, it was rolling them at this point. I want to tell the boulangère that the PJ's were a gift, that I have other vêtements de nuit*--without frogs, without phrases. Instead, I accept the paper bag that she hands me through the bars of our front gate.
Two days later, the boulangère's truck is idling before our front gate again, true to the delivery schedule we'd agreed to when the bread maker came prospecting last week ("Vous voulez qu'on vous livre le pain, madame?"* she'd said). This time I am wearing a velour two-piece in framboise* but before I can make it outside to erase her last impression, she's hung the sac à pain* on the gate, returned to her truck and put it into first.
I run out to the driveway as the boulangère speeds off. Beneath the cypress tree, I stand waving "merci" with a confidence that only framboise-sans-frogs* can give. I can just make out the boulangère's regard* in the rear-view mirror of the truck. Satisfied, I look up to the cypress for approval. If the tree had a head, it was shaking it.
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*References: boulanger(ère) mf = baker; pantalon (m) = pants; le crapaud (m) = toad; le vêtement de nuit (m) = pajamas; Vous voulez qu'on vous livre le pain, madame? = You would like us to deliver the bread?; la framboise (f) = raspberry (color); sac à pain = bread bag; framboise-sans-frog = (raspberry colored pajamas without frogs); le regard = fixed look
References to the French word livraison in litterature:
photo: sign along the side of the road near les Issambres (Mediterranean coastal town)
