These damn French

We really can't stand it here. They don't have grocerystores lined up next to one another with vast heat absorbing parking lots. They don't know how to dress... I want to dispell that right now. These cars are so small that I might as well walk! The buildings at least have plumbing, but they need a/c. Everything is such a challenge! They might as well drive on the wrong side of the road!

This above is from an alternative universe. The girls really are good looking, and when Michelle got tired of looking at them she started realizing that the men were good looking too... I haven't stopped looking at the girls though.

In fact I swim with them. We joined a health club. Club latin Quatier. We want to live like we do in Les Etats Unis. We have tremebdous stories everyday from the gym. And then we walk our feet off.

Tonight I went to have meetings with who else, Francois. They are all Francois here. Well we had a good time. We just talked about centrifugal casting machines. It was so fun. In french! Mean while, Michelle was off on her own, tempting fate, wondering if she might be lost. In a foriegn land! Alas, I returned to our apartment, changed my dressy, tiresome attire, and went to our humble little cafe and found her just beginning to eat a salad. Such a charming time. I said to the waiter, "Le Plat du jour, Misseur, et une biere! Si vous plait."

We have a couple days free now. I meet with the money man, Christian, at 6pm on Monday... my meeting today was at 4pm, just after Francois arrived from Russia with his engineur, Francois le deux... and now a meeting at 6pm?

Well this is fine. Or, "Dis is goooot," as my friend Gui would say. His wife is pregnant, Miruna, and they wanted to come meet us and stay with us (it is almost like we live here with this apartment, and can have people come visit, but...), however, I asked, "If it is not too rude, may we come visit you?"

"Mais Oui." So we will leave Sunday monring and arrive in Granville on the coast.

I told him that I wanted to take a photo of French country house to show my mother. He said, "That is goooot because we are French and we live in the country." So we will be staying there and swimming in the sea and he said, "If you American Oklahoman needs to hunt, we can go fishing at our family swamp and walk through the fields." I said only if it is reindeer...

"You cannot shoot the reindeer. Well you Americans think of the strangest things about shooting. Why don't we shoot the poor arabs why don't we?"

"Alas, we might hunt Arabs!"

We rode a ferris wheel tonight, high through the air like a couple of birds, and when we passed by the people that were running the machine they spun us around and the sites went spinning: the Sacre Couer, Le Bastile, L'arc du Triumph (Where is this Landis character? He Stole the Tour! Find him and put him away!) Le Louvre, Le TOur Eiffel, cette amalgamation pour Nepolean! Tout Paris et le Pantheon.

We're staying right next to the Pantheon. It is up the way. Old dead people... dead people are seeping into our souls at night. I felt it the first night when there was a storm and the dust blew up from the streets like wisps of souls out of the gutters, bums and Racine and Des Cartes alike. When we made for the apartment our courtyard was quiet but for the burst of light that flashed through the sky. We went to the top floor, and held the windows open to gather some fresh cool air, as we do not have a/c. And the rain came and we could hear all Paris sigh, because this was the cool front that would keep the old french people from dying.

"Why do they die Gui?"

"They have no air condition. But this must happen in the United States."

"Of course, in Chicago usually. This year it is St. Louis and Beiut."

"Is Beirut a State?"

"Not a State, but a city in Indiana... and the Paris of the MiddleEast."

"That was some time ago I am afraid. But there are plenty to shoot."

Goodbye.