Thanksgiving Day (observed)

Yesterday by the time I got out of the house, the snow had mostly turned to rain. Went to meet Js and Ol at Le Petit Cardinale, where we had some lunch, and generally tried to rouse ourselves into action. The guys spoke French for me because I said I needed to practice; God bless Js for really slowing down and repeating things and not immediately switching to English, and explaining words. I learned the word "débile", as in "Ce film est vachement débile," 'That film is really stupid.' Note also "vachement" for 'really'; I asked them about the "vache" in "vachement," but they said the word doesn't really evoke cows.

Js and I then went to Champion; he needed to do a bit of shopping and I needed sweet potatoes and marshmallows. We found both, though for some reason half the marshmallows were pink. Js didn't realize at first that I was going to be making a single dish with these ingredients. "You're making something with the sweet potatoes AND the marshmallows?" he asked, incredulous. "That's f***ed-up."

Then we went to Le Bon Marché, fancy department store with a really well-stocked yarn/embroidery/ribbons/beads department on the top floor, so Js could pick out some yarn for me to make him a hat. Also I got yarn for a special project for a very little person who I haven't met yet, which is very exciting.

After that expedition, I went to other one Js and Rk's place near Alésia, to join in the cooking. I must say, it did feel like Thanksgiving. Even as I was walking there from the métro, I kept thinking, these people are just walking around like it's a normal day! Do they not know it's Thanksgiving?

It definitely smelled like Thanksgiving at Rk's and Js's house. Funny to be cooking Thanksgiving dinner in a kitchen with a view of the Eiffel Tower... I'm sorry to say, though, that the food was not as good as the Thanksgivings I'm used to. I know that noone else's Thanksgiving food is as good as one's own, but it was hard to see Rk putting the potatoes in the cuisinart to mash them within an inch of their lives. The stuffing, too, was great but I'm used to a wetter kind of stuffing. And the pies, well, no one can compete with my Aunt C's pies!

Meanwhile, the French people there were very interested in the sweet potato balls, and tried them politely, but only Rk and I had seconds.

The other different thing was that there was a lot of French being spoken. Js, though he's American, was one of the worst offenders for switching back to French even when his French friends were speaking in English for my benefit. How funny language is. But we really couldn't speak in English all the time; there was a guy there who didn't speak any English, the father of one of the women there, so once my French brain quit I just had to make English happen wherever I could.

I tried to explain to them about tryptophan and they were very interested in this. Someone called me a "spécialiste de dindon" ('turkey specialist'!) by virtue of being American, which made us all laugh. When I asked what the difference was between "dinde" (the turkey word I know) and "dindon", the woman who had said it thought "dindon" just sounded better, but apparently one is the female and one is the male. Eventually I explained that the only thing I was a specialist in, with respect to turkeys, was eating them, and everyone agreed on that.

It was a very nice evening. Lonely, though, to be with all these couples and families and such and feel so far from home, and not be able to follow the conversation. In French I am a lot more shy than I am in English (and I'm reasonably shy in English), and that's hard.

Nevertheless, I have a lot to be thankful for. On the métro ride home, each station had a handful of homeless guys bedded down, if you can call it that, for the night; it's been unusually cold here by local standards, and the stations are where they could be somewhat warmer.