Epilogue

Home for three days, and I am still thinking Paris, Provence, Nice, Normandy, Giverny. I joined two blog spots while searching for how to make macarons. Happy to be home, with the kids, but where are they? Erin's working at Sylvan all day today, yesterday she lunched with her gal pals. Sam works at Shaw's nearly everyday. He was employee of the month! Not surprisingly on a day off, today, he's negotiating an afternoon agenda with friends. Thank God, I had Tracey to say it's not too different at her house.
I wanted to scribe some of our musings from France: like how before each course the appropriate service comes out; a fish knife, or a soup spoon, or how when I went to the bank yesterday, to get the international banking account number to retrieve my security deposit and I was in my running shorts. I often put them on in the morning to commit myself to getting out there, but in the bank I felt so awkward. Before Paris, I would have been proud, thinking "Yes, this is evidence of my commitment!" Yesterday, I thought, "I am underdressed."
Jim was the one to cite the octave of their speech is higher. I had heard it, but not caught it as he did. You might think that the back of the mouth speech production would make it lower, but not really. Our speech seems to really come from the front of the mouth, so I guess there is a larger space which creates a lower pitch. The French seems to come from the back of the mouth more, and therefore there speech is higher. Or at least this is Jim's analysis. It's funny, because I think of Maurice Chevalier singing "Thank Heaven for little girls" and I don't think of his voice has high, or when Jim mimics a French ho, ho, ho, it seems low, but in ordinary speech, I think he is right.
When shopping, we noticed the man often carries the filled name label bag for the spouse who parades along, and if there is a baby, whether in stroller or papoose the man usually has the duty.
Jim solved the mystery of the random mosaics via an article he found while in Nice. It is an anonymous artist who inserts his space invader art just as advertisements insert themselves into our space. Apparently there are over 100 through Paris, his most common city for posting, but there are mosaics elsewhere. Hmm...
I finally made contact with the company regarding the wine we wanted to ship.  It turns out they have to ship to an importer, not to Jim Fingleton. They were trying to locate one, but I think Jim may have a resource he can use. He and I even talked about how we could make a second career of traveling in France and importing the smaller vineyard labels to the US, somewhat similar to the California wine merchant he had used. The importer aspect I am sure is solvable.
My first three weeks with my mother and Erin were precious. I had imagined we would be more immersed in the culture, at markets and cooking and in classes, but as Mom says,"Nothing is on automatic in a new place." And in Paris even the cooking was far from routine. The range top was induction, the oven we didn't even tackle. It looked like a big microwave, and had too many variations on the mode of cooking to sort out. Of course the instruction manual was in French. As with any threesome newly living together, we had rough patches, but as the mom says, "You only savor the good memories."
My 4 week sojourn with Dr Cl. and Lorena was not only a learning opportunity, but a great way to try to immerse, even if Dr CL has flawless English. I think I was lucky to have created we new relationships. In fact my dear Lorena is getting married in just 2 days.
My week with Dad held the surprise accompaniment of Caleigh, with his perspective that his week was all about Caleigh's Paris tour. This helped me to get Erin into more of an immersion experience, and she ended up meeting and befriending Camille, even spending two nights at her house. Hopefully we'll see Camile again.
Finally Jim and Sam arrived and we were all reunited again. Erin with Sam and me with Jim, and all of us together. Our tour created treasured precious memories, with the kids and then with Jim, like we were on a second honeymoon, he kept saying. Sam and Erin flew their first non-parented accompanied international flight successfully. Jim and I logged a total of 2800 km on the Ford Cmax. I don't know who many wines we tasted, miles we walked or churches we visited, but more than ever before. I said a lot of prayers this year for our two dear friends. The outcome I like best is at least Jim, Erin, Mom and I all know we will go back. Sam, probably only if the military, or a girl one day, takes him there.
Farewell Paris 2011 blog. It was the experience of a lifetime.