Medieval History
We've been away for seven months, and thus far, I've found no pithy way to describe it all and my dear, patient friends have listened to tales randomly chosen by nostalgia and desire. Miss I has found a way, though - she has created a museum of our France Life, as she'd always called it. I hope that it stays open a long, long time, under the watchful (or is that surprised?) gaze of that Swiss cow piggy bank to the right. Now, of course, I question that I ever resisted buying that small, breakable thimble from the Douamont Memorial WWI battlefield gift shop, or the awkwardly jagged unicorn from the Cluny Museum . They're just so great. When you go to the France Life Museum, you should know that it's free, but you have to give up your driver's license (or some kind of important document) in return for a ticket which is scanned under a book light. Wonders of the world are yours to behold after a precise bureaucratic ritual - welcome to France!
So I'm here because I can't stay away. I've had this running blog post in my head ever since we've come back and I realize anew, afresh, always, how fantastic writing is. What a cool, unusual act. These writings will be short, scattered, and ever-prey to every-day life. But there's to be this place where we can puzzle things out. I'm a little puzzled by the funky background I've chosen here, but only because it's so much of a piece with an insistent attraction to the 1970s: we've watched The Muppet Movie and School House Rocks videos (both of which I credit our society's moral and social progress over the past 30 years to) and listened to a lot of Carole King (more than Miss E can bear, but since "We Will Rock You!" is more her idiom, I guess I get it). What is that all about? The Muppets and School House Rocks were the emblems of everything cool and free about America when we moved here in 1978 and I wonder if my gladness at this return isn't triggering some of these old admirations and loves. Mister O has simply said: "I feel good here" which, when taken existentially, sounds very late 70s groovy. Let's be clear: late 70s groovy is distinctly not my idiom - but it's making a lot sense these days as that sense of possibility that right now I'm perceiving as distinctly American is so palpable.
To quote Dr. Teeth in the hit Muppet single "Can You Picture That?": "There isn't anything you can't do. Even Santa Claus believes in you."
- Very Sad
A.-F. Desportes, Dog and Pheasant, 1780sThis painting has always reminded me of Sawyer: change the coat to black and elongate the tail, and there's our hound.Was. I'm so sad to write that we've decided to find another home for Sawyer. ...
- Happy Birthday, Oliver
These ten days between Eleanor's birthday and Oliver's are always the craziest: turning grades in, saying good-bye to students, graduation, cleaning out the office, oh and there's a wedding anniversary in there somewhere. This summer,...
- Regalia
There are lots of good blogs that will walk you through medieval moments in the modern world, and reveal just how medieval we still are sometimes, so this is my little contribution to that discussion - in the funny vein. Miss E and Miss I were asked...
- Fabyowlis
That, you see, is how "fabulous" is spelled when you're Miss I writing about your week-end. And indeed the adventures these chickitas managed to have bespeaks some serious fabyowlosity. How long, do you think, before Miss E joins a punk band? ...
- Dutch Courage
Oh my. Is this how we solve our problems? Turns out that this was a synopsis exercise from one of the stories at school, and that the last word is supposed to be "gift" - as in to cheer Rick up. Still, I have this terrible image of this...
Medieval History
The France Life Museum
So I'm here because I can't stay away. I've had this running blog post in my head ever since we've come back and I realize anew, afresh, always, how fantastic writing is. What a cool, unusual act. These writings will be short, scattered, and ever-prey to every-day life. But there's to be this place where we can puzzle things out. I'm a little puzzled by the funky background I've chosen here, but only because it's so much of a piece with an insistent attraction to the 1970s: we've watched The Muppet Movie and School House Rocks videos (both of which I credit our society's moral and social progress over the past 30 years to) and listened to a lot of Carole King (more than Miss E can bear, but since "We Will Rock You!" is more her idiom, I guess I get it). What is that all about? The Muppets and School House Rocks were the emblems of everything cool and free about America when we moved here in 1978 and I wonder if my gladness at this return isn't triggering some of these old admirations and loves. Mister O has simply said: "I feel good here" which, when taken existentially, sounds very late 70s groovy. Let's be clear: late 70s groovy is distinctly not my idiom - but it's making a lot sense these days as that sense of possibility that right now I'm perceiving as distinctly American is so palpable.
To quote Dr. Teeth in the hit Muppet single "Can You Picture That?": "There isn't anything you can't do. Even Santa Claus believes in you."
- Very Sad
A.-F. Desportes, Dog and Pheasant, 1780sThis painting has always reminded me of Sawyer: change the coat to black and elongate the tail, and there's our hound.Was. I'm so sad to write that we've decided to find another home for Sawyer. ...
- Happy Birthday, Oliver
These ten days between Eleanor's birthday and Oliver's are always the craziest: turning grades in, saying good-bye to students, graduation, cleaning out the office, oh and there's a wedding anniversary in there somewhere. This summer,...
- Regalia
There are lots of good blogs that will walk you through medieval moments in the modern world, and reveal just how medieval we still are sometimes, so this is my little contribution to that discussion - in the funny vein. Miss E and Miss I were asked...
- Fabyowlis
That, you see, is how "fabulous" is spelled when you're Miss I writing about your week-end. And indeed the adventures these chickitas managed to have bespeaks some serious fabyowlosity. How long, do you think, before Miss E joins a punk band? ...
- Dutch Courage
Oh my. Is this how we solve our problems? Turns out that this was a synopsis exercise from one of the stories at school, and that the last word is supposed to be "gift" - as in to cheer Rick up. Still, I have this terrible image of this...