April, 2018

Hanging out at the beach of St Tropez

My baby

Families are like fudge. Most are pretty sweet, but there are always a few nuts. Over the years, I have written about some pretty special relatives in my family. The kids are all great, of course, and my mother in law is the absolute best. I have superb aunts and uncles and some very cool nieces. The grandkids speak for themselves. This not about any of them.

No, this is about my bride. We celebrated our 34th anniversary the other day, exactly half of our lives. I was thinking about how when we got married, we had only known each other for 9 months, and no there was not a little one on the way. We were blending two families with kids and bought the property we were going to build our home on, before the wedding day. I was relentless in wanting to build a geodesic dome home since I was 16, and finally the stars aligned. 

It did not occur to me at the time, that here was this woman who was embarking on a new marriage with 3 kids between us, soon to be a 4th on the way and a 5th to follow, with a guy who wanted to build a complicated custom home -alone-.  This, with all but no construction background, while both of us were working full time, pouring all of our assets and a bank loan for a bunch of building materials.

Did I mention that the budget called for not a dime for labor, and living in a single wide mobile home on the property to boot? If that was not enough, both our exes were at war with us and had gone nuclear, while we were dodging their arrows trying to take us down. Both our attorneys are still enjoying their wine cellars we paid for.

We had ticked every box -bar none- that causes stress in relationships that frequently lead to divorce. And we were newlyweds. Still, she jumped in with both feet with a guy long on promises and short on experience but determined to deliver. At the time, it would have been fair to describe the plan as pure folly. But, when things later prove to work themselves out, the plan is then seen as bold and forward looking, or some such poop-la-doo.

Janice self-portrait, 1983.

I am still struck by the trust factor.

This is our 4th home together. Each time I have asked myself "What on earth makes her think I can pull this off?" She proposes to pour a lot of money (to us at least) into projects I have no background or experience in and assumes I can deliver. Newsflash! I am not 'Joe the contractor' and often have to refer to much smarter people than myself for advice. Sometimes I wonder if I complete projects simply because I don't know enough to know that I don't know enough to pull it off. (!) Let's face it, at the end of the day, I am just a guy with a rusty hammer.

Truth be told, there are few women with her moxie.

Meanwhile, she has soldiered on, working on her garden here, from the initial 90 bags of clippings to a recognizable flowered oasis.

Strike two

We are beginning to think we might be jinxed, or there might be something wrong with us. Last month we had friends from Brittany who had planned to visit for a week but canceled because their flight got snowbound in Geneva.

This month, we had Island friends from Canada who had planned to visit for a week also but bailed on us 72 hours before their scheduled arrival because their son had an accident and was hospitalized. 

OK, so there are plenty of vacancies available now so.... what are you doing that is so important that you don't want to spend a week on the Riviera?

Chateau Entrecasteaux

Taking yet more time off to goof around, we spent the day with our buddies Maurice and Brigitte. We visited castle 'Entrecasteaux', built on the ruins of an 11th century fort and transformed in the 16th, 17th and 18th century. 

Janice, gathering decorating ideas...

Close call

We got an email from Google the other day. Now I don't know about you, but I can't think of a single good reason why Google would want to write to the likes of me so I figured there could only be a bad reason.

"Janiceeeeeee!" I shouted, figuring that their algorithms had picked up on her typing Trump's name in the search browser at some point. "Now we will probably be kicked off the internet -or worse- sent to  Google hell where miscreants like us go to repent." We will probably have to type all our future search requests in Tagalog or Ukrainian or something.

Steeling myself, I opened the email and saw the word 'Congratulations!' Any message that begins with that as a subject must involve someone wanting some money. But no, they were notifying us that the picture of our beloved Honey Bee Island that we had posted online some time ago had been viewed by nearly 6,000 people to date and they wanted us to upload more.

Still, I am not taking any chances. I won't dare type you-know-who's name in my browser. No sir, not me.

We built it so,
they came.

Classy, cool and very old. The village, that is.

This month, we had yet another couple from our old village in Brittany come visit for several days. Philippe and Evelyn came to the island a few years ago and wanted to check out our new digs here. It was their first visit to this part of France so there was much to show them. Among the places visited was the village of St Paul De Vence.

The professor

We have British friends who live here who returned to England for a month. She has been teaching an English class to a bunch of Frenchie's for some time and asked if we could substitute for two classes during her absence.

Teaching is not my thing and certainly not the English language but we were glad to step in to keep the ship afloat for a short spell. The 2 hour 'class' is mostly conversation and I think they are reading a book together to drum up some new vocabulary and generally use it for teachable moments.

I decided that I would take the first hour of the class and turn it over to my pro for the second. I started by telling them that this would be a different kind of class and that if they didn't like it -or me-, not to worry, the good teacher would be back shortly and they would never have to see the likes of me again. How's that for an into?

I also told them I would not teach them a single new word as I know they already knew many, nor would I teach any grammar as I didn't have a clue about any of it anyway. What I would do, I promised them, is to teach them how to properly pronounce over a 1000 words they already knew, in two lessons. I meant it.

Anyone who hears the typical French person speaking English knows well the mispronunciation of the 'TH' sounding words, like "This, That, Them, There, Those, The". Invariably, they say "Dis, Dat, Dem, Dere, Dose, Duh" as the 'TH' sound is simply not part of the French language.

I displayed images of the cross section of the mouth, showing both the correct and incorrect position of the tongue when speaking any 'TH' word, and a printed list of 50 words to practice on. The thing about practice is that they HAVE been practicing for years, probably thinking that just repeating the same mis-pronunciation would cause it to improve somehow.

I started by giving everyone a mini chocolate and added one for every correct pronunciation...but took one back for every sloppy effort. I found that getting chocolate was not much of an incentive but having one taken away in front of others was.

I mentioned that I have no experience teaching. The last time I can remember giving directions was years ago in prison. "Hey, s**ithead, get your fat a** over here or I'll put you in Bubba's cell. He says he likes little white boys who are real tight..."

Now, being a gentle, sensitive, caring millennial man, I thought that a different approach was called for.