AliThinks

Randomly Random

• Sorry kids, no Halloween candy for you.
• This morning I woke up singing "Freeze Frame" by the J. Geils Band.  If that isn't cause for reflection, I don't know what is.
• You may well have seen this already.  It made me laugh:  The Speechalist. Thanks to LaPrincessa for the link. 
• So I'm not giving you any candy.  Here's a Halloween treat, however.  Allan gave me this link. 
• I'm so lame, I can't even find cool links by myself.  You'd think that my unemployment would give me reason to search the Internet for fun stuff.
• I search the internet for job opportunities. 
• Except when I am blogging. 
• This "block" on my street is the center of renovations in town.  There is work being done downstairs, across the street, and catty-corner to me.  This means I get to hear the soothing sounds of jackhammers and nail guns ALL DAY LONG. 
• Did I mention my migraine?
• But seriously, I want a nail gun. 
• Tomorrow is a holiday in France, so many people are not working today.  I like the French expression for taking a long holiday weekend:  faire le pont, literally "making the bridge." 
• I may have some good news to share later on in the day.  I'll be back. 

I Said

Hey! You!  Get OFF OF MY CLOTHES!*

*apologies to Jagger and Richards

I See Stupid People

And unfortunately most of them are behind the wheel of a large automobile. 

The weather has been fantastic this past week. Good weather = people outside, of course. 

I was driving to the store (it's too hot to walk and I'm not kidding), heading down Main Street, which goes from being a one-way street to a two-way.  Parking is still permitted on the two-way part, which means that there is a lot of pulling over to let people with the right of way get by.  I did just that; I pulled over to let the oncoming traffic go by, when a woman at a cross street to my left pulled out.  She thought I was being nice and letting her go.

Not that I'm NOT ever nice, but I was definitely not being nice today, because I was already steamed about having to wait five minutes to back out of my parking space while members of a wedding party chatted with some guests in the parking lot.  Yeah, they were members. 

Anyway, so there's the stupid lady, blocking ALL traffic. 

With The Shape Of An L On My Forehead

People, I left the house this afternoon.   I was gone for just over three hours, and couldn't wait to open Firefox to see what kind of e-mail I had.  Hooray for e-mail! 

There was nothing new in my inbox.  Nothing. 

I'm such a loser, but not because I didn't get any mail.  I'm a loser because I was so excited about the possibility of mail.  I tell ya, it doesn't take much to get me enthused these days. 

In Case You Were Wondering

Me: Cookie doesn't like the POH floss.  She just coldly knocked it off the table. 
Me: Bam.
Allan: Thanks for the e-mail.
Me: She doesn't like my cell phone, either.
Me: LOL. 
Allan: Speaking of cats, when I got home on Sunday, I found a honking big hairball on the front porch.
Me: The neighbor cats were telling you how much they missed you.
Allan: Today I found several deposits of cat shit in the back yard, and yesterday I saw a big Siamese cat run across the front porch.
Me: Fockin' Siamese.  One of the cats-on-a-leash today was Siamese.
Allan: Siamese cats can be cool if you are lonely and need someone to dialogue with.
Me: LOL
Me: OLOL

I love him so much.  He makes me laugh.  A lot. 

Seen

This afternoon I went to the big city, woo-hoo!

Okay, so I went to a larger town than mine, but it has people! and shops! and shiny stuff!

I saw some pretty interesting things while I was there.  Like this sentence, scribbled on a wall: "Ne prenez pas les gens pour des cons, mais n'oubliez pas qu'ils le sont!"  (I'll leave it up to you to translate.  Put your findings in a comment, if you wish). 

Then there were the two young homeless guys on the street.  They had two beautiful cats on leashes and a hat sitting out in front of them. 

And then there was the kid on a bike.  The back of his t-shirt read "5UCK My D1.CK."  Nice, don't you think? And you know he knew exactly what it was supposed to say.  The first thing you learn in a foreign language are the naughty bits, natch. 

You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me

Apparently your color is important to a recruiter in France. 

The other day during the bilan de compétences, one of the other people mentioned this to the rest of us.  He even talked about how recruiters will look at a person's astrological sign.  Fortunately this did not appear on the site with the color test, but there were IQ, EQ, personality and general knowledge tests, among others. 

Oy vey. 

I wish I had some witty thing to blog about, some "Overheard in SmallTown, France" blurb to share with you all.  I also wish I could share my color test results with you, but I'm not about to pay 3.60€ for the privilege.  Sorry. 

2000

If you haven't already seen it, the New York Times has an excellent graphic on the soldiers who have died in Iraq.

I don't normally touch political issues here, but these are people, not politics.  And they died because of shitty politics. 

Thanks to Allan for the link. 

I Want To Know

Who at The Medill School of Journalism is searching Yahoo for "mayonnaise love" -- and why am I FIRST in the search results? 

Metaphor

friend: I'm about to be afloat in many soups.

[a pause, while I think about this]

me: How so?
friend: I bet no one ever said that to you before.
friend: I made a monster pot of veggie soup yesterday. Today I'm making the squash and corn chowder.
me: No, and I was just thinking I might have to blog the expression. 
me: I see.  I thought it might be a metaphor for something else.
me: Got a freezer?  Freeze some.
friend: Oh, it could be. It could indeed be.

I Am Mr. Brown, Who Can Moo!

Which Dr. Seuss character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

And swiped from Celia of SweetlyPAZZO. 

Rant

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know I am unemployed (by choice) and that I am looking for work. 

Deciding that it would be helpful to keep abreast of what's going on in the French corporate world, I bought Le Figaro this morning.  They have a business and jobs section, which I started to read while I waited to be served a café allongé up the street.   

There was an article about Cultura, which is a really cool book/music/artsy-crafty store.  (I see they have greatly improved their website since I last visited it). 

Kismet

What a great word.  Kismet.

I just thought I would start with a stream-of-conciousness entry, and this word came to mind because of two e-mails that were in my box inbox when I got back from the café. One was from a friend, telling me a bit about the weekend she spent with someone she met online -- and this someone was someone I was acquainted with when I was in college.  How cool/weird is that?  The other e-mail was from the editor of an online magazine I write for.  He'd just gotten back from lunch at the same restaurant that I had just submitted a review of.  Pretty neat, huh? 

Well, Smother Me With Peanut Butter and Call Me Crunchy

After thirteen years in France, I thought nothing could faze me.  Well, get this:  My landlord is having renovations done in her office.  And the workmen came today.  Sunday.  Working. All day. On a Sunday.  In France. 

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor. 

Time to go to the café.  Allan is no longer here, but I might enjoy an alcoholic beverage anyway.  Tomorrow I start my diet, part of which means not imbibing any emptily-caloric wine or beer.  More later.

Edit: It seemed to me that I had already used this title for a blog post.  Please don't hesitate to leave a comment with another expression of surprise.  I need to expand my colloquial horizons, I think. 

Window Sill

   

Click image to enlarge.

Seen on a side street in Montmartre. 

I Really DO Have A Lot To Write About

But time with Allan is growing short.  He is leaving on Sunday morning.

I may post some things between now and then, but I think you can expect a flurry of blog entries on Sunday.  I think I'll need to fill the emptiness, so I'll empty my brain into Typepad. 

Bad analogy.  I invite you to think of a better one and post it in the comments, mmmkay? 

Gisèle

Click image to enlarge.

To me, graven images on headstones are usually pretty creepy or just plain weird, but I fell in love with Gisèle.

Update From Montmartre

Greetings from a cybercafé near Place des Abbesses, 18th arrondissement.  It's been nearly 72 hours since we checked our e-mail and stuff, so we popped in here.  To be honest, it probably wasn't worth it, at least for me, because my inbox contained a message from a prospective employer saying that they had no positions which were a "strong match" for my skills; any RPeeps reading this -- this was what I wanted good vibes about.  Thanks anyway.  There was another message from a friend relaying info that Slick the Cat is still missing and to please call the mother of the girl who's feeding the other katzen. 

Like I needed this info now, or can do anything about it from here.  I'm not worried about the cat, really I'm not.  So I won't get my dream job.  Can't do anything about that from here either.  Except maybe shed a tear or two, and I think they are coming so I'll stop writing about that.  Moral of story? One can live without e-mail while on vacation.

In my last post I mentioned updating to tell you how sore my legs are from walking up all the steps and hills in Montmartre...well, they are a bit sore, but we are tempering the uphill climbs with metro rides and escalators, so it isn't bad.  If I lived here, I'd be in awesome shape!  I'm thinking that we might have to go do some retail therapy here to get my mind off the fact that I am a complete loser, according to [that major Internets company that doesn't want to hire me].

Here is some good news, something I thought I would share when the time came:  I'm officially weaned off the Zoloft (or would that be Weened off the Z-O-L-O-F-T?) after 13 months on it.  Rock! 

There you have it.  Them's the news from Montmartre.  Allan has written a blog entry, too, so clicky on the linky to see what he said. 

Catch You Later, Gators.

We are going away this weekend, then going away some more on Monday.  Allan wrote about it here.  I'd tell you more, but I've piddled away the morning laughing at this site.

Have a great weekend, and a great week.  If I start jonesing for blogging, I'll find a cybercafé somewhere so that I can tell you how sore my legs are from walking all up and down Montmartre. 

Duck Fat

Mmmmm.  Duck fat.  We had duck confit for dinner.  Allan made a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese.  I parboiled potatoes and finished cooking them in duck fat. 

I should have just let the potatoes cook in the duck fat.  They would have been a lot crispier.  The entire meal was delicious, because yum, duck!, but the potatoes were soft.  Sure, they were imbibed with duck fat, but I figure if I'm going to soak my potatoes in fat, they'd better be crispy outside and creamy inside. 

Anyhoo, I saved the leftover duck fat. 

And I labelled it, so that I wouldn't forget what it was: