France 4

It has come to my attention that my posts about our trip thus far have come off sounding rather grim. This is assuredly not the case. It is true that my days in a foreign country with a one and three-year-old and no toys (to speak of), playgroups, fenced yard or preschool are a little like juggling a goose and an octopus (the octopus is pretty unaware, but that goose gets fed-up and mean). This is only somewhat more difficult than I expected (perhaps a puppy and a garden snake). All the new and so very French things we have seen and done more than make up for the labor of my days. Happy Mother’s Day to me!

There is a pizzeria in Charbonnieres-les-Bains, the town in between Marcy l’Etoile, where we are staying, and Ecully, where David works. There are pizzerias in most small towns; they are more general restaurants than American pizzerias. We pick David up at work at 6pm in the rental Renault (of course). Twice we have eaten at this pizzeria on the way home. It faces onto the town square where there is a large fountain that goes through a program of variations of central spout height and encircling, circle-of-spouts height. Mo loves to sit and stare at it, which looks very introspective. There’s no introspection going on, though; he loves to watch the water. If you sit down next to him, he’ll tell you when the “good” part in the fountain rotation is coming. We drink wine and wait for our food and Mo plants himself on a bench right next to the fountain – within easy shouting distance, but not near us. The owner of the pizzeria is the only one who speaks much English, so he waits on us in-person. Conveying David’s wheat intolerance has been an ongoing challenge, but this place has been receptive and accomodating. This pizzeria cheerfully substitutes green beans for the usual spaghetti that comes with a steak. Helpful, but ironic, since David hates cooked green beans. The owner asked David what les haricots vertes were in English and David told him green beans. He knew that I spoke incrementally more French than David so came to me for verification. I’ve found this a couple of times – people on both sides are surprised when the translation is literal.

The last time we were at this pizzeria (Friday), I met a man, and his 15-month-old daughter, Anna. They were Danish and he spoke less French than I did (though he pronounced Freya in a beautifully Scandinavian way). After some awkward mucking about, we established that we both spoke English (when someone is speaking a language you don’t know well, you don’t recognize accents, so it’s hard to know where to go). It turned out he and his family were in Charbonnieres for a backgammon tournament, of all things. He is a gambler, primarily backgammon, but some poker, and this is what they do – travel around to various sites where events are taking place or spend time at the homes of industry-involved friends. He mentioned that they had spent much of the winter in Vegas. I spoke to him as our children were running around the fountain then returned to my table without saying anything. When we left, I felt it would be nice to properly say goodbye, so I went up to their table (of four or five people). They had started a card game and the man I had spoken to didn’t look up from his cards when I addressed the table. A woman who had been primarily handling the baby (who was, by that time, asleep in her stroller with a tiny down comforter over her – I’m guessing this is how she goes to sleep much of the time – oh to have encouraged such flexibility) spoke to me; I think she was the girl’s mother but she could as easily have been the nanny. There are lifestyles far more removed from ours than those of suburban Lyonnites.