FRENCH WORD-A-DAY

Chickens with teeth, pigs with wings and hot places freezing over. Language is wonderful; no matter which one.

It has certainly warmed up in the last day or two! The neighborhood has its washing out again.

Remionds me of the some of the calles in Venice.

Miss the days when I could simply jump in the car and drive with a coffee between my knees, Blue Rodeo songs blaring and the window rolled down, fresh air blasting in my face....... In my mind, I go "there" sometimes, and so appreciate when others share a similar place in heart. Hopefully that new route has inspired fresh ideas for that blank page of yours, Kristin.

I have two teens of my own. My frequent yearning is for a "Finishing School" that will take in my son and return him to us when he is polished (respectful and responsible). It's a fantasy.

Oh Kristi Honey - I told you this day would come...soon I will be there to straighten out those little BRATS...tell them Grandma Jules will tie them up...I used to spend hours tying Max and Jackie up when you would leave me to babysit in 2003. Then I would tickle them...we had so much fun. After that I would have them ride theie bikes all around the yard and pool as fast as they could while I sat at my little table in the garden marking each lap with an X by their name. By the time I was through torturing them for the day they were too tired to get into trouble. They drew the line when I told them to ride their bikes into the pool full speed...NO WAY GRANDMA!!! My best advice at the moment is to get a great sense of humor, tell them you are going to be ME for awile and they will settle down til I arrive in March.

I see Red and Blue (Rouge-Bleu) in the beautiful picture...
Congrats to my beautiful wife for making such a nice job on images, too.
Jean-Marc

Wonderful photo Kristin! Sun and light and that blue shutter so evocative. My publisher used a photo, taken by my husband, of another village in the Drôme with a similar bridge type arch. We'd stayed in that "bridge' - it was the kitchen! They used it on the cover of Murder in the Bastille, shhh don't tell people it wasn't the Bastille.
bon weekend,
Cara

I so feel your pain. I too have a teenager that "drives" me over the edge at times. I continue to tell myself how much I love her. I am learning that it is "I" not "her" that must change. I cannot parent this teenager the same way I have parented her as a toddler or young child. It's a shift in parenting styles that I am learning to adjust to. Hang in there, you are not alone:)

Teenagers....I have sent one of ours overseas to stay with a host family in Mesa, Arizona over our Christmas and summer break...he is having a wonderful time and we are enjoying missing him
*smile*
Back into the throes of teens again next week!
Love to imagine what lies ahead following the path under the bridge.....

Two dogs and a cat are enough of a challenge here. Hey Jules-you SHOULD go on the wine tour with Jean-Marc. It would be fun to meet you when the tour stops here.

I love a wide angle lens, as you apparently used for this photo. Its use forces us to see more broadly than we ordinarily do. You got the nice intense red and blue with a red and blue "echo" beneath each of the intensities -- and spread far enough visually so that it doesn't look pat. Nice pic. P.S. I read your book over the last three days and loved it. Thanks for it.

The French tri-colors reflected throughout and there is light at the end of the "tunnel"!
Liberty, equality, and fraternity toujours!

Freezing temperatures, snow, short days, loneliness, frustrations and experiencing that the "gold" in the "Golden Age" can too often turn to pyrite -- fool's gold.

Down but far from out. Miss you and your family -- Love from Moi

P.S. Now I'll read your story above for some real gold FAC

oops...last comment was said with a laugh as I was imagining a different vista...could be a good stage set for a musical! The joy of life is that it is full of suprises! Merci :)

The bright colours of the red blanket, blue shutters and white window frames are cleverly contrasted with the dilipidated buildings and generally down-at-heel appearance of this street.

Where are all the people? Was the picture taken so early in the morning, that they were all fast asleep, or was the picture 'posed'?

This photo shows how visible laundry can even enhance a view! Here in Australia, washing hanging from balconies, is illegal and a fineable offence! So much for countering global warming!!!

That photo makes me ache for Provence. I left a month ago, after spending six months in Arles. I am happy to be home with my family, but there is nothing so beautiful as seeing colorful laundry hanging out of an upstairs window. The colors against the concrete or stone walls takes me back... I do have a photo of someone's large-size underwear drying in Cassis in the fall sun that makes me laugh, though! Keep the wonderful photos and stories coming. And adolescence will pass, my dear. My children are 16 and 21, so I speak from experience. Long drives and tears in the shower. I have my little pity parties once in a while, cry it all out in the shower and life goes on, grâce à Dieu.

Sorry about the misspell of Homps, on the Midi.Nothing to be ashamed,(hont-eux) of to misspell. The Midi Canal is all grace and non Honte exist La! June

Kristin, my 19 year old just wrecked her car, got a 1.23 GPA in her first semester of college, thereby losing her student loans, and pierced her lip.... twice. I hope this makes you feel a little better about the problems that you're having with your teenager. Remember, it could always be worse. :)

As for the picture, what strikes me is the little window in the arch. I hope it's not a bedroom window, because the noise from the rain on that corrugated roof, coupled with noise from any traffic below the arch would insist that whomever sleeps in that room be a terribly heavy sleeper.

I hope today is a better day for you and yours!

2 newletters to catch up at the end of the w/end!

Hello Kristin!
I have just been looking at the joyful and carefree “bicoque” offering so much to the passers-by. Thanks to the occupier(s), and to your photo, we are given the opportunity to share the outside scene of a humble little house with green shutters, flowers, plants, cat and so many other little treasures for the discerning eye. Mille mercis!
I assume “ Les jours se suivent et ne se ressemblent pas”. “Autrement dit”: There’s no telling what tomorrow will bring. At the top of this newsletter, the set up is so different! A brilliant photo of what, at first glance, looks … bleak? lonely? a bit sad? don't know. Perhaps I'm not in the right mood. Some people can see sun, light, exciting laundry and a beautiful evocation of La Provence. I can't, but I must look at it more closely.
Across the two sides of the street, my eyes caught the arch, surmounted by a wall. Over the years, time and 'natural elements' painted it in “grisaille” - grisaille spreading over the old washed-out red ochre paint. Then, my eyes and my mind went under the arch, slowly meandering through the old narrow street. No car, no bike, no people. Only cats and dustbins? A bit dull, a bit lonely. I quickly turned back to the arch, keeping my eyes on the strip of tarmac. Was it a picturesque cobbled street at the time the houses were still in their prime?

There I am now, back to the striking focal point: the 'bridge over a narrow street' – no, I am not in Barcelona, and the bridge here, in Visan, doesn' t belong to the same type of architecture. The gently arched window is offcentre, which doesn' t matter. My eyes have accepted the window ”telle quelle”. Then, at last, I smile... Thank goodness for the blue paint which lifts up my spirit! I love the proud & cheerful blue frame and welcoming shutters – LES VOLETS BLEUS... only one is opened, but the second one will follow. I can see a sign of hope, a blue hope, flapping its wings and emerging from the “grisaille”. Looking in the distance, I can now follow the same blue note, repeated here and there, beyond the arch. I am happy and amused to have noticed, right now, the bits of colour I hadn't seen in my first look. I am ready to believe this photo is taking us beyond the end of the journey along the narrow street... where there is more light, more freedom, more colours, more space, more joy, plenty of green grass and foliage, and birds singing... Am I getting carried away?

Sharp contrast on the left with a patch of red colour under white shutters.... bath towel? little blanket? What matters to me here is the red colour, complementing the blue of the charming shutters.

I imagine a quaint little statue in the niche above the gnarled old lintel. As for what remains of the stones on each side of the battered door, I am glad they haven't been rendered. The wall tie, like an upside down X, seems to hold up trouble & misery in a rather reassuring way, at least for a few more years. I would like to believe the old door hides a workshop … and a secret entrance through which, long long ago, and in more recent past, people were able to escape and get to some underground shelter. Oh dear! ….sounds like a scene in a war film!
The part of the building framed by two downpipes has been unfortunately covered with a very dull rendering. That section of the house is desperate for colour... Stretching my imagination, I can add some narrow painted window boxes in the recess of each window. Held by strips of wood, the window boxes are filled with evergreen foliage and in spring and summer, with colourful flowers...............

Once again, thank you Kristin!

Hi again, Kristin,
My husband and myself grew up in different countries and very different environment. Our two children (19 months between them) grew up in, yet, a different type of environment. Add to all that the generation gap and each one's personality. They didn't go through their adolescence the way each of us (parents) did. We didn't expect similar reactions either. We stuck to a few essential points and had to improvise as we went along.
One of the two seemed to crown “les crises” by shouting and banging doors, but would quickly forget “les scènes” and would amazingly come back to her normal self, “comme si de rien n'était” (as if nothing) … until the next upheaval and drama! The other one seemed to go through the difficult years rather smoothly. He kept a lot to himself and always looked cool ... Whatever he hid or didn't express came out later on, in his twenties.
I had to learn how pointless it was to lecture or shout back in the middle of a rebellious performance. The louder their shouting, the stronger their opposition, the more calm and composed I had to be, never taking anything personally, as a challenge or as a defeat. Quite difficult for me!...

Looking forward to reading about your boozing bougainvillea!