Confucius Say

There is an old Chinese curse and it may well have been Confucius who said, "May you live in interesting times". My observation on the news coming out of the US is, "Wow, these are sure interesting times we live in". People losing their homes. Banks failing. Bees mysteriously dying or disappearing. Food prices rising. Inflation rearing it's ugly head. Untold millions or billions of dollars spent each hour/day/week/month in Iraq. Gas prices soaring. The stock market rises and falls, mostly falls. We have a president who every day sets new low approval ratings. The president, like Hoover, tries to reassure us and ends up looking like a fool. Wow. What interesting times these are.



Well, here in France nothing that interesting is taking place. At least, if there is, I don't know about it since I neither read a French newspaper, watch French TV or listen to French radio. But, in any case, yesterday we had our last visit from the plumber, or plombier, as they are known in French. He installed the crapper, or the w.c. as its known in French. He installed the sink and faucet and drain (lavabo, robinet et siphon en Francais). And he hooked up and turned on the water (l'eau) to all of those things. Yippee. Oh, frabjous joy. We have a new bathroom on the third floor (deuxieme etage, in France the third floor is the second floor because they for some reason don't count the first floor as the first floor, got it?). It needs lots of work to make it finished, like trim and baseboard, tile and a tub enclosure, shelves, etc. But its pretty much ready.



And the Tour de France comes to our neck of the woods today. We are going to Chalabre after our French lesson to see the excitement. You can count on pictures and descriptive words before the day is out, making it seem like you were there with us. Stay tuned, kids.