These are not insured benefits

Congrats to Bonnie and her superb translation skills. Or perhaps more accurately, her superb use of a French-English dictionary. As a prize I might tell some random Parisian, " Bonnie dit salut et espère que vous aimez votre magazine."

For any that might be wondering, this blog's name has no hidden meaning nor is it a reference to some obscure band, film, book or otherwise cryptic notion. Rather it was the first nonsensical word I thought. Some might say it's a chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella. But that would be weird.

Anyway...

Without really verbalizing it, we stumbled into dividing up the pre-departure tasks for the three of us.

1. Andy is planning most of the excursions and handling reservations. He apparently enjoys the details since he always gets saddled with them. Or perhaps he simply knows my planning would consist of mapping a path from record store A to book store A to record store B to book store B.
2. I'm brushing up on my french. Read: Trying to relearn as much as I can in a couple of months.
3. Our Dad's task is to agree with everything I say and take naps. Thus far, he has come through like the true champion he is: the Michael Phelps of siestas. Though I'm sure Mark Spitz will say he is still better.

For reasons still unknown I majored in journalism in college. While I met some decent enough folk, the biggest lesson I learned was that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the world of journalism as it was then. I say then because like so many other facets of modern life, the internet has radically changed that whole field; the 24-hour news cycle is now even less than Warhol's 15 minutes. If that's for better or worse is a discussion for another blog somewhere else.

Nevertheless, one of the more better elements of my chosen major was that I was required to take 4 classes of a foreign language. I chose French.

In the mid-90's, fresh from his crushing one-two punch of Green Card and 1492, Gérard Depardieu's (the French Jack Nicholson) U.S. popularity was getting dangerously out of control. In fairness, the pull of a tubby dude whom most Americans can't understand cannot be overstated. Just ask Meat Loaf.

Regardless, the imminent arrival of his latest opus, My Father the Hero, figured to put our Gerry over the top and send the U.S. into willing subservience of the French master. Beret factories went into overdrive; accordion teachers still mourning the death of Lawrence Welk believed their moment had arrived. Most pointy-heads had already taken to using the french, Etats Unis, when referring to this grand land. Vive la France! So I hedged my bets that learning French would be far more useful to a rural Georgian. I mean, no Mexican laborer would ever come here. Right?

It is with this backdrop that I took my final French class in the the autumn of 1995.

This was actually my fifth class and focused on the good peoples of Quebec. They love their French heritage there and every so often attempt to break away from Canada proper and its general, Anglican/American bad self. Thus far the only major success any of these 'revolutions' has had was kicking the baseball team out of Montreal, which seems about right. I digress.

For all five of these classes I had the same professor (hey, Dr. Blanchard wherever you are) and enjoyed them. Alas, my skills never seemed to progress far beyond being able to comfortably carry on a conversation with l'enfant de six ans. For the Quebec class the prof and I both knew I was in over my head--this was a senior level class for French majors--but she took it easy on me. I became the comic relief for the rest of the class or so I assume since they were always speaking french. I was grateful and with a very generously rendered A in hand I vowed never to think of France again. Much like the rest of the world.

Then I got interested in French cinema. And my pal MB took some continuing ed French classes. I was embarrassed that with all my classes I couldn't even understand if she just asked for some water. So I vowed to learn again. This was 7 or 8 years ago. I made little progress which is to say none at all other than working my way through the French New Wave--favorite-Alphaville, biggest snoozefest-Jules and Jim--and discovering the awesome world of French prog--favorites-Heldon, Lard Free, Aqsak Maboul

And then suddenly we decide to visit France and Andy figures I've got the most background of the three of us. Make it so. A few weeks ago I signed up with Rosetta Stone and away I went. Every night I put on my little headphones and listen diligently to how sad the girl is because her umbrella is broken, or how happy the little boy is that gets to eat cake. Empathy being one of my stronger points I often find myself weeping along with that shivering girl and laughing with the gluttonous boy. La tristesse, la joie.

After three weeks of this sort of thing, assuming everyone in France is/is not: buying a ladder, wearing a hat, eating bread, asking me how I am, what my name is or if I'm hot/cold, we shouldn't have any trouble once we get there.

None.