Quizzzzzzzzzzzzz

So, since I'm trying to get out of cleaning the pigsty castle, I found a really important thing to do...and you, which movie hero are you?

Indiana Jones : 77% Tu aimes l'aventure, et détestes le quotidien.
Batman / Bruce Wayne : 74%
James Bond : 72%
Hannibal Lecter : 71%
Maximus (Gladiator) : 70%
Schrek : 69%
Néo (Matrix) : 68%
Yoda (Star Wars) : 67%
Eric Draven (The Crow) : 65%
Forrest Gump : 63%
Tony Montana (Scarface) : 63%
Jim Levenstein (American Pie) : 61%

Quel héros de film es-tu ?

Oh, and please disregard the Hannibal Lecter part. I mean, yuck! And I've almost never thought of killing my neighbors I swear. And I'd add that if I ever did I'd never eat them, they are loaded with Prozac.

And Today is....

My Birthday!!
So, of course I had the usual questions:
- do you feel old?
- are you traumatized?
- do your knees squeack when you kneel?!

Well, really I don't see how any of these could possibly apply to me since I'm only turning 36 26. Hehe.
I have been feeling a little weird though lately...a bit like Alice in Wonderland, seeing weird people doing weird things that obviously makes sense to them but not at all to me. And like Alice I'm kind of floating around, feeling in turn curious, giddy, angry, exasperated and finally throwing my arms up in the air in frustration at not quite understanding what these people are all about. Ah well, maybe I'll be more patient and understanding when I grow up :)

Summer Time

The farniente, the hammock, the naps in the hammock, days that last forever with no schedule...
Well, what happened?? Cause my summer doesn't look like that AT ALL. Nope, nada. I haven't even looked at the hammock for 3 weeks. Pffff... I'm hoping that starting next week, summer will feel a bit more like summer should. We'll see :)
In the mean time here is what's happening in the garden these days:








If you click on the pics, particularly the bee one, you'll see how good my new camera is: you can see the grains of pollen and the details of her wings :)

And in the series of....

Events that curiously makes you use "no sleep" and "Miss A" in the same sentence...
Last night 4:30 am:
Miss A: "Papa, papa, wake up!"
Papa: "Mmmmmmm, what's wrong?"
Miss A.: "I just lost a tooth"
Papa and Mama: "What??? How can you lose a tooth at night!?"
Miss A.: "I dreamed about it and then it happened."

And I Present....

The newest member of the family:

He remained nameless for 3 days...and then we had 3 choices Mazi (means Sir in Swahili), Lucky (miss A's choice) and Legolas :Mr T's choice. Of course :)
And Legolas it is! He is very attached to my son so Mr T picked the name :)
Legolas is from a rescue of course, as is Piper. The two of them get along fabulously. He is an extremely easy and fun puppy and we couldn't be happier :)

And if I thought I was bored, that's definitly out now.

Vacation is Very Tiring

Last Day of School:
Laurienna is bragging to everybody that this is awesome, tomorrow she can sleep in. Right.

First Day of Vacation:
Miss A. enters the last remnant of personal parental space still available (my pillow) at 7:09am (9 mns later than the usual "everybody on deck" morning mayhem) and asks if she can watch tv. Of course I don't go back to sleep.

Second Day of Vacation:
Miss A. is up at 7:30am and so everybody else is too because there is no choice in the matter really. At 9:30am she announces that she is bored. This is going to be a loooooong summer.

Third Day of Vacation:
Miss A. loses a tooth. So, of course, the tooth faerie came at night. So, of course, miss A. wakes up at 6:30am with squeals of delight over her present. And just to make sure that we all got that she is happy she comes and jumps up and down on everybody's bed. Including the dog's.

There is no hope in my life.

It's the Final Countdown!!

The 2 gremlins will be let loose from school tomorrow at 1200 hours. Run! Run for your lives!!



Speaking of Europe (the group I mean!), I got to go to one of their concerts in Ireland a long long too long time ago. I must have been around 14 and it was a tiny room. Boy my friends and I made so much NOISE, we got to go up on stage and shake hands with them at the end. They were very nice, very sweaty and I did wonder how they would manage to peel off their oh so tight leather pants ;). I remember that the singer and I compared notes on hair: he was the only guy I've met who had as much hair as I do :):)

Another Little Game

This one is from the excellent Candy Froggie....have you checked her gallery recently?


a writer: Robin McKinley
a painter/artist: Van Gogh
an actress: Kate Winslet
an actor: Johnny Depp
a director: Peter Jackson
a musician: Stephan Eicher
a singer (female): Alanis Morissette
a singer (male): George Michael, hehe
a band: Scorpion
an adventurer: Indiana Jones
a king/queen: Louis XVI
an inventor: the one who invented hammocks
a tv character: Veronica Mars
a movie hero: Zorro
a movie heroine: Hermione
a cartoon character: Road Runner
a tale hero: The Ogre
a tale baddie: Mr Mac Gregor (Peter Rabbit)
a mythologie character: a mermaid

I Have Been Tagged!

All right so my good friend Heike tagged me...thank you my friend for passing along your punishment...have you heard of Karma? Hehe...So, I have to tell 8 things about myself that presumably people don't know and would like to know...dear god.
All right, here we go:

1. I make my own bread and yogurts. No, this is not a remake of the Little House in the Prairie. I just don't like what I find at the store :)

2. I blow dandelions seeds so that they go on my neighbors lawn on purpose. ( American people have a hatred for dandelions and I have declared myself their savior. Yes, I do realize that this is very immature but they bug me with their chemicals that they spray everywhere, it goes in my water and my air too ).

3. I'm very short tempered but I'm getting better. Kind of says Mark. Nobody asked you darling ;)

4. I want to move every 2 years.

5. I'd love to have a farm or a B&B by the sea.

6. My son and I have been "extended the privilege of the floor of the Assembly" at the Nevada State Legislature. Which means that we got to seat amongst the assembly women and men and watch them vote and talk (they pass secret messages to each other by the way. They also have secret meetings hehe!). We were also formally introduced to everybody and got a greeting from all of them. Then we went to dinner and they were quite funny :):)

7. I have been in ghost towns, real saloons in the middle of dusty nowhere, my car broke down in the middle of Death Valley and I slept in a room that was so slanted we kept having to scoot back up the bed all night long.

8. When nobody is at home I make myself a big bowl of ice cream with a giant scoop of whipped cream smothered in chocolate sauce and sprinkles. And when the others come back and that nothing of the good stuff is left I pretend I don't know what happened ;)

And now I have to pass it along to 8 people. Mmmm, don't know that many who have a blog so obviously it'll have to be Candy Froggie, Miss Penny, Helene and Hiro if she passes by? No, no, don't thank me :)

At World's End

It was great! The special effects were incredible really. All my favorite characters were there: Captain Jack Sparrow of course but also Captain Barbossa and the excellent Tia Dalma the gypsy queen. Miss Swann manages to not be so annoying and, total miracle, Orlando Bloom manages to look like a pirate at the very end.
Critics here have complained that there is too many plot lines, that it is confusing and that the movie is too long. Well, actually, it seemed pretty straightforward to me: betrayal left and right :). Seriously, even my 11 year old had no problem whatsoever to follow the story sooooo, I don't know, brain change maybe? Reboot? As for the length, time flew by :). I loved the fact that the movie was about the last stand of the only truly free men and women of their era. And that "good business" represented by Lord Beckett gets blown up is very fitting.
Just go and enjoy yourself... I heard that Johnny Depp loves being Captain Jack so much he'd be happy to do another one. The final scene certainly leaves room for another story so let's cross our fingers and toes ;)

What Would You Be Willing to Do?

Would you breath the weird and haunted shores at world's End
To fetch back witty Jack?

Oh yeah, I'm all for it :)
I'll tell you how the fetching went ;)




The picture is from yahoo movies.

Mother's Day!

I know, I'm really bad, I haven't written anything for so long and I'll give hints of why in the next few posts. For now, I'll share a bit of my Mother's Day with you ( it was almost 2 weeks ago here). First I want to say that it was a lovely day: Mark and the kids cooked the meal ( roasted chicken with herbs, tomatoes a la provencale, strawberry pie: all my favs!).
They had little gifts and cards that they always make themselves and that I love. They were particularly good this year. For example, let's see what my son's card says:

First page: "Happy Mother's Day!!"

( nothing out of the ordinary, lovely and sweet as you would expect )

Second Page: "I hope you like the present, but you have to guess what it is to get it"

( follows: a drawing of a bird with a seed in its beak. I guessed bird feeder and I was right )

But, wait, there is an asterisk at the end of the sentence. I'm told it refers to something written on the last page of the card.
And so I turn and at the top of the page there it is:

" I wanted to get you a $100.00 fountain but it was too expensive."

And then there is another asterisk so I look at the bottom of the page and it says:

"If I had a bigger allowance I could have bought it."

Mouahahahhahahahahahhaha! Well, played darling, well played! Sadly for him he only got a big kiss ;)

The Great Unknown

Laurienna and Mark are at a nursery, doing Laurienna's favorite activity: shopping for plants.
They arrive in the citrus isle filled with at least 30 different kinds: oranges, yellow lemons, limes, striped yellow and pink lemons, pomelos, blood oranges...And then, a pot with a little tree in marked " Unknown Citrus".
Laurienna: "Oh cool, let's take that one!"
Mark: "Why would you get an unknown citrus?"
L.: "Well, it's fun, it's like a surprise."
Mark: " But there are dozens of trees here. Why not take one that we actually like for sure?"
L.: "Because."
Mark: "Because what?"
L.: " Just because."
Mark: "I think you are insane."
L.: "Hehe. Put it in the cart, darling".
Mark: "You're just kidding right?"
L.: " Oh for god's sake! Why is this so disturbing to you?"
Mark: "I just don't see any reason to get an unknown citrus. It could be bad."
L.: "Oh come on, how bad could it be? I want that one."
Mark: "But whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?"



So, what do you think it is? It could be a spotted yellow and orange mandarine, or a black and white kumquat, or a wavy lined pomelo?

Party Girl

The Parents are trying to have a serious discussion.
The Daughter is going through the house saying rather loudly "Party, party, we are having a party!".
The Parents forge on, still trying to finish that talk.
The Daughter continues on and on and on. "Paaaaaaarty!"
The Daughter takes the phone, dials and says " Hi, L., do you want to come to my party?"
The Mother turns around and asks:" For Pete's sake, what are you talking about? What party?"
The Daughter: " Well, our party of course!"
The Mother: "But why on earth do you think we are having a party!?"
The Daughter: " Well, why else did you clean the house for?"

Discovery of the Year

It's completely unproductive to take a shower before walking the dog when the temperature is already 81 F ( 27 C) in the shade at 8:30am.

Shoot

Well, today is in much contrast than yesterday. We celebrated Cinco de Mayo with friends by the pool yesterday, drinking margaritas and enjoying tacos and enchiladas. And today I waited and waited to finally learn the results of the french presidential election and I'm so disappointed.

I did it!

I found a camera! I'm so excited, it feels like Christmas even though I'd have liked to have Santa just hand it to me instead of giving several hundreds of dollars to get it but the world is never a perfect place. In a few days I'll receive my Pentax K 100D. It looks like the perfect camera for me and I'll have to try it extensively in the garden ;)
Also, I realized today that I never put a link to Ms Penny website..I'll fix that right away, obviously I need to work more on this blog. Ahem.

It's raining, it's pouring...

Yesterday on the way to school while it's pouring rain, miss A. looks at the gazillion snails on the sidewalk and says:
" What if the world was made of snails?"
Papa: "Well, I guess it'd be a slimy place!"
Miss A. "What if the cars were made of snails?"
She thinks a bit and says: "Huhu, I guess they would be a lot slower!"

Pffffffffew....

100.8 F (38.3 C.) today. Thank god for ceiling fans, hammocks, and pastis.

Heeeeeelp!

My camera is broken :(. All of the shots are blurry even the close-ups...It was never an easy camera but I managed fine for 2 years but no more. That's my second digital camera in 7 years (both Minolta's) and I'm really getting annoyed. It seems to me that the manufacturers are making throw away products all the time these days. At least that was my impression talking to the guy at the repair shop. Not happy. Sooooooo, does anyone has a suggestion for me?

Wanted, preferably alive:

One digital camera,
Easy to use,
Good light adjustments,
GOOD focus,
Macro function,
Last more than 3 years.

See, it's not too much, is it? I've heard good things about Kodak...does anyone have one?

Hers is my best shot out of the blurry 50 pics I took:

Children are so ungrateful

My son comes back after a week away with his class.
I tell him how much I missed him which seems to please him.
Then I ask him " and you, what did you miss the most?"
His answer: " my dog and my bed "

Humph.

Vacation

And, so, for Easter we stayed in town...which is pretty unusual for us. I'm dead tired these days, falling asleep on the couch at 9pm...unheard of!
And you know, I thought I'd be able to rest. Pffff....Well the thing is, I'm just a little bit compulsive in the amount of things I want to do every day. Just a tad :)
And so I baked
And we went to the zoo
And we planted a really big vegetable garden
And we planted flowers
And we visited old town to look for a birthday present
And we went for long walks
And we had friends coming over
And we went to watch high schoolers do some ballroom dancing...and they were excellent
And I worked
And I worked some more
And we went for bike rides
And I made a new friend
And I went to a lunch with the other mothers in my son's class
And I went shopping
And we went to the farmers market and my daughter bought me flowers
And we packed for my son who was leaving the day after vacation for a fieldtrip with his class

Well, there is more but it's making me tired again :)

Easter came and went

Easter is always a bittersweet time of the year for me since I've moved to the US. It had always been my favorite vacation: it's spring, there is chocolate that you have to hunt for, and we would see the family. And in my case it was a big family. My grand-ma had 6 children, who each got at least 2 children. All of my cousins and I were born at max 3 years apart. My sister and one of my cousins are the yougest, born 5 years after the older ones.
We were with each other constantly, not only for each holidays but most week-ends too. When we were little we shared everything and took naps together.Then we grew up, and in the teenage years took care of each other during difficult times of divorces, fights with parents, girlfriends and boyfriends.
And family secrets that slowly got revealed.
And through it all we stayed together, keeping in touch and all of us meeting at my grandma's appartment. I remember the giggles, the tears, the whispers.
Et les betises :)
And then I moved across the ocean. And not only that, but I moved in the part of the country so far away from France that it takes 13 hours (and way too much money) in an airplane to get to Paris. I'm not going to go in the details of why I decided to live in the US in this post, maybe another time...
But what is for sure is that I remember big family reunions with a lot of laughing, talking, joking, good food and a lot of it and my dad opening bottles of champagne with a big "pop" while everybody was cheering.

Our first Easter in the US was fairly desastrous :)
I missed my family. I was sad that my son would not be with my family. I felt guilty that I left and the chocolate did not taste good. And I cried. And then we colored eggs and hid them and ate chocolate bunnies and I was happy again. But it comes back every year. And never at Christmas.
Mark's family is very different from mine and quite frankly very stressful. There are a lot of things that are wrong with them ;). Let's just say, that visiting his family is not a relaxed, happy going kind of event. And I decided that we would be spending Easter this year just by ourselves. Us and the kids.
Not surprisingly our kids are very close to each other and with us. Sometimes moving so far away feels very lonely. I think that's the very first time I said it...maybe I should open a bottle of champagne :):)
My son is gone for the week on a fieldtrip with his class and we miss him already. But I'm sure he'll have fun with his friends studying the ocean and marine life. And I hope there will be laughter, whispers and not too much tears.

Bored

Not being able to use your hands properly is very annoying. There seem to be some hope: I can now bend my fingers enough to type although it hurts. I still can't see my knuckles however. So I decided, since we are speaking of stings to put up these pictures I took in my neighborhood last week:




I wonder if it would have been better to be stung by one of those rather than a stupid mosquito.

Sorry but Aouch.

And I'm not posting again. Actually, I'm not working, cooking, gardening or doing much of anything either. Want to know why? One of my hands is triple its size. Yep. I've been stung by something and all evidence points to a mosquito bite. I've never had anything like that before, ever.
I have little children coming up to me asking if they can touch it.
I'm becoming a circus freak show.
I'm getting very grumpy.


P.S.: Tonight we have received an invitation to go to the zoo after hours to see some animals up close. How many mosquitoes do you think there are at the zoo at dusk?
Yeah, it's the cherry on top.

Death, Taxes and Chili

No, no, I'm not dead. Yet!
It's tax time....
In this country, for us, that means 4 different tax forms:

Federal personnal taxes
California personnal taxes
Federal business taxes
California business taxes

Let's keep swimming, let's keep swimming....

Actually I shouldn't really complain since Mark is doing most of it. Just for that I'm sure he should be reincarnated in a higher being.

Except,

that my darling husband decided that now was the perfect time to also fix every little thing that is wrong with our computer:

2 fans,
1 mother board,
1 hard drive,
1 graphic card,
uploading a gazillion CDs in his new ipod.

HaHaHa.

Maybe he'll be reincarnated in a worm instead.

We have had a freezing wind for 2 days, which made me think of Chili, which made me think of Candy froggie, which made me think that I said I'd give my recipes. So here is the basic one I do all the time ( and it's fast and simple enough to do even if you are in a hurry)

Chili con Carne

50 g (3 tbsps) of butter
2 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
500g ( 1 lb) ground beef
2 tsps chili powder
4 tsps ground cumin
65g ( I always put more than that, like half or more of the little cans ) tomato paste
2 or 3 cans ( 400g each or 8oz )beans ( I put in at least 3 different ones: black beans, cannelini beans and kidney beans )
Beef bouillon

Melt the butter in a large pot and put in the onions and the garlic until just golden.
Add the meat and cook, stirring a bit for 10 mns.
Add the chili and the cumin to the tomato paste ( little kids love to that) and mix with the meat.
Add the beans and the bouillon so that it covers the meat and beans.

Cover and cook for 25 mns.
Serve with rice.

If you can't find chili powder use 1 tsp or less of cayenne. It's worth hunting down the chili powder though, that smoky taste is wonderful in chilis.

I have a lot more recipes of chilis, all delicious that I'll post at some time, but this simple one is really a favorite ;)
I'll be back soon with 2 lengthy posts...

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!

It's here, it's finally here!
Ok, let's turn down the teenage hysterics now.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!



And did you hear the nice little catchy phrase : "If I wasn't mad, this would probably never work. "

They might have to drag me out of the theater you know :)

Questions

A little game by Candy Froggie :)

a colour: deep purple ( like wine or the skin of an eggplant )
a flower: wild rose
a fruit: fig
an animal: wolf
a tree: oak
a drink: wine
a building: an old house with secret passages
a food: just one? man that's hard...smoked salmon
a common thing: pencil
a language: English ;)
a smell: my children, especially as babies :)
a perfume: Hypnotic poison by Dior
an invention: bread machine
a means of transport: horses
an epoch: that's hard...I think I'll go with pre-historic because you could just pick up your stuff and go.
a season: Spring
a month: August
a day: Sunday
a time: midnight
a piece of clothes: coat
a jewel: a magic ring
a body part: the back
a complex : not speaking french much to my children
a girl name : Alizée
a boy name : Thomas
a country : Africa
a city : London
an actor : Johnny Depp
an actress : Meryl Streep
a famous character from History: Marie Antoinette
a famous man : David Beckham
a famous woman : Angelina Jolie
an adjective : restless
a fault : lazy
a quality : generous
a monument : the eiffel tower
one of the seven wonders of the world : the suspended gardens of Babylone
a song : All I really want by Alanis Morissette
a movie: Out of Africa
a job : mama and jewelry maker
a sport : sleeping in my hammock ( well, you have to climb a little bit!)
a figure : 8
a sentence : "I don't see why not"
a word : knowledge
a recipe : chili!
a painting : any of the paintings by Candy Froggie or Daniel Merriam
a pair of shoes: boots and flip-flops ( it's better when you try to get in the hammock! )

Aaaaaaah Spring!

Lovely, lovely Spring.

The flowers



The birds


The Neighbors


Yeah, the neighbors. They tented their entire house to fumigate the inside because they have beetles.
Needless to say the organic gardener that I am, the lover of all things natural and fresh, everybody living happily with everything on Earth is thrilled, just thrilled. And don't tell me " well, it's tented so it's fine" cause I can SMELL it.
I have only one word right now: " gnnnnnnn".
Pffff, people.

California Squirrel :)

La Brea Tar Pits

A few miles from Disneyland, in L.A. a smell permeates the streets. I guess in L.A., it could be a lot of different things (!) ( people from L.A., don't be mad, I'm quite sure you'd have thought of that lil' joke yourself). However the smell, this time, comes from large pools of tar ( goudron in french). The reason this is particularly interesting ( yes it is!), is because a lot of prehistoric animals and at least one human have been found. And many more are still being fished out. They have found hundreds of mammoths, saber tooth cats, dire wolves, condors, ancient camels etc... It is a small museum but extremely interesting and well made. They have a contraption where you can test how it feels to be stuck in tar. And let me tell you, no wonder everything got stuck in there.
My favorite part was the aptly named " fishbowl" which is the part of the lab where you can watch as the scientists are working. We were able to watch some sifting small particles for small bones, a guy was cleaning the tar of a giant sloth head and another one was piecing together pieces of turtle shells ( talk about a puzzle!).




The way back home lead us through Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive and then it was hill after hill and more cows and ... well, I think I've already mentioned that huh?




Funnily enough, the kids seemed to have as much fun at the museum as at Disneyland :)

For Ever And Ever

That's what it took to get to Disneyland. You are driving for 6h30 mns in the middle of nowhere. Oh, sure, there are cows, and fruit trees that smell a hell of a lot better than the cows, grapevines, more cows. And hills, lots and lots of hills. And wind, lots and lots of wind. And more cows. And hawks too.
And then, quite suddenly ( nah, I wasn't sleeping pffff..) ( well, maybe a little )you find yourself in L.A. traffic which is always something. First there is ALWAYS an accident. Yes, I do mean ALWAYS. And so you are stuck, and stuck, and stuck some more. And, unbelievably, while you are stuck because of an accident, you witness ANOTHER accident happening on the lane right next to you. This time it's a lady who rear ended the huge truck in front of her. We were going at max 2 miles per hour and she manages to rear end a truck. I wonder if she was talking on the phone, eating spaghetti, doing yoga or if she was just so bored she really really wanted something to happen right now. People, I'm telling you, tssss.

( yes, I'm feeling very superior right now. I mean, come on! 2 miles per hour tops! )

Ok, let's breathe ( well, as well as you can through the smog you know, it's L.A. after all ).
There are lots of people with red cars that look like they could go really fast. Except we are all stuck as you know and "that's what you call ironic" ( Pirates of The Carribean dialogue here ). And after a few turns you find yourself on Disneyland Drive. Everybody is happier and we reach the motel with a sigh of relief.

The 2 next days were spent having fun Disney style. We flew with Peter Pan, had a mad tea party, got shot by pirates, hugged Minnie ( the second my daughter paused to get her picture taken with Minnie, my camera died. It just died. I couldn't believe it. Good thing Minnie is an extra nice mouse: Miss A. got an extra hug and a really nice autograph! I still can't believe it died.).

We ate Jambalaya and Gumbo and Mickey beignets and Churros.

A ghost hitched a ride with us at the Haunted Mansion and we met Geppetto. And we got sunburned and drenched the same day ( I had never been so soaked before, to the point of wringing water out of my underwear).

And then, there was the parade and the fireworks...I love their fireworks! I love the fact that you are in the middle and that they surround you with them.

And there was shopping...too much shopping ;)

It was fun...lots of fun. And there was still one more day of vacation and we decided to spend it at La Brea.

To Be Continued....

Yoho,yoho, no pirates life for me...

In spite of a very tempting proposition from Captain Jack Sparrow to join his band of mecreants, we made our way back to Sacramento on the winds of a storm. And, sadly, after the euphoria of sleeping in your own bed and take a shower in your bathtub has passed, you are left with more laundry than you thought possible and little Jedis wanting food (again?). I'll be back shortly. I think.


I wonder if the offer from Jack Sparrow would still stand.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Yep, that's Disneyland and that's where we are going. Actually, this trip was a gift for Mark's birthday (yes, I know, he'd rather be in Hawaii on the beach, hehe). That's the 2nd time that we'll be going there (with the kids that is; we had been there together before we had kids)(that sounds almost impossible: before we had kids? Can't even form that thought fully!). The first time we went for the wedding of one of Mark's cousin who was getting married very close. At the time, incredibly, I didn't think I'd like it and wanted to spend all my time at the Ocean with the kids. But my mother-in-law insisted we should go arguing that it was silly to be so close to Disneyland with little kids and not go. She was right and so we went...and we had a blast. We all loved it which I really didn't think would happen. But the look on my daughter's face (she was 5 at the time) when she met and talked with Cinderella, Mickey, Tigger and Captain Hook was priceless indeed. We stuffed ourselves with Churros and Mickey ice cream. We watched Tinkerbell flying over us during the fireworks and the parade quite frankly is amazing.
This time, the plan is to have tea with Minnie and meet up with Captain Jack Sparrow on New Orleans Square :)




We'll be back Saturday or Sunday. If you are going on vacation, have a good time and if you are stuck at the office, heu, well, sorry!

Swarmed

Spring has arrived full force in the Sacramento valley. We don't really have a winter here. We have summer with temps in the 100 F. (37 C.) as the norm and staying above that for days at a time with no rain for months (June to end of October). And then it's just a looooong fall/spring being just a bit colder for a few days in January. And there is a downside: mosquitoes. Swarms after swarms of big mosquitoes everywhere. The soil is clay in most parts of the valley which means that puddles stay there for days making the little suckers very happy...and no amount of garlic repels them unfortunatly ;)




Everybody is covered in bites these days even if we are careful...even the dog has had enough. I'm thinking of getting a bat house this year...I'd take bats over mosquitoes any day!

A Little Game

Candy Froggie had a game on her site about movies. Since I had computer troubles at that time I had not played. Now that everything is going well ( crossing fingers and toes), here are my answers:

1. A movie that makes you laugh: Don Camillo
2. A movie that makes you dance: Take the Lead
3. A movie that moves you to tears: E.T. every single time!
4. A movie that gets on your nerves: Sahara
5. A movie that makes you shudder: Any pirates, adventure (like Indiana, Lord of the Rings etc...).
6. A movie that makes you want to travel: Out of Africa
7. A too romantic movie: Shakespeare in Love
8. A movie I've in mind just right now: Lawrence of Arabia
9. A movie everybody knows by heart: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
10: A movie with a real bad ending: Chocolat (not the one with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche) but the one by Claire Denis
11. A movie with a soundtrack you really love: Take the Lead, Real Women have Curves, Buffy (I know it's a show but...)
12. A movie I'd really like to watch again: mmm, there is a lot of them! Let's choose...Cry Baby and The Devil Wears Prada :)
13. A movie with erotic bits that inspire you: Le Grand Bleu
14. A movie you could watch a thousand times without getting bored: Any Indiana Jones
15. A movie for kids that you love: The Castle in the Sky, Howl's Moving Castle, Ice Age, Pirates of the Carribean etc, etc!
16. A favorite cartoon: Peter Pan

Voila! Finally did it :)
And here is the trailer of The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep is as usual excellent, a must-see I think!

The Last Few Days

Were lovely! Mark's birthday was great. He is getting 3 parties, no less, which cheered him up considerably ;)
Valentine's day was very good as well. In fact it was great: we all got to dig in the mud to try to make a garden out of the backyard. We had a great time, followed by a great dinner and cake, made by me both in 30 mns. I got raved revues ;)( not that they had the choice or anything hehe ).
Yesterday, started equally great: glorious spring day, everybody in t-shirts, smiling and in a good mood ( see: valentine's day is very good for you ). We got the kids in bed at a reasonnable hour for once and we started to watch a japanese movie that I had wanted to watch for a while:



We were enjoying ourselves quite a bit when we suddenly heard helicopters flying over the house. This is a common occurence. They are police helicopters and are used to follow suspects night or day. So we just continued to watch the movie. But the helicopter was very insistent and usually they don't keep flying over the house, they make a wide circle in between the 2 big streets ( our neighborhood is stuck in the middle). Then they started asking (in a loud speaker) for everybody to close the doors and windows, keep the pets inside and call 911 if anybody saw something suspicious. Which was quite a bit funny, I thought. All right, so, of course we did, and the whole thing went on for a good 45 mns. The sheriffs came with their dogs, and they went in all the backyards with their flashlights. And I don't know if they found what they were looking for or not.
What's funny is that the whole thing didn't faze me one bit. We now live in a very nice neighborhood (I swear it's true, this stuff happens everywhere here) but we used to live next door to drug dealers and across the street from a gang. Which didn't faze me much either. My mom thinks there is something wrong with me. I don't know what to think. She is shocked that after the circus was done I just went to sleep, slept soundly with not a worried thought. I'm thinking: well, the sheriff was there with the dogs, the police was there, Mark was there, Piper the great beast was there, we live down the street from a member of the SWAT team, next street from us lives my good friend M. who is a cop and kicks butt, I had closed up everything that could...I mean, what else could I do at 1 am? Of course she also doesn't think I should walk the dog by myself at night, drink beer when it's not August, eat sausages, work, plant more trees, read too much and for pete's sake Marie-Laure you should wear make-up ;). Mmmph.
And that's my point: I'm not easily scared that's true but I'm not a lunatic! I carry a cell phone at night and keys can be quite useful. I know so many people in the neighborhood by now there are dozens of houses I could run to if I had a problem. Not mentionning a great big dog by my side. But my mom was upset and I don't know what to tell her anymore... Of course it's true: anything could happen at any time. I sincerely don't think paranoia helps though. But I'm sure the fact that I am in the States makes it worse for her. I just read in National Geographic that adults in the United States have more chance to die of a firearm assault than being runover by a car. What about in France though? I've been gone a while but from what I hear it's not safer..
So, what do you think, am I being careless?

Happy B-day!

Happy Birthday Mark!!
He is turning, huh, hum, 26 isn't it? Sure there is a little bit of gray here and there but it just matches my own darling. And really you still get carded when you buy alcohol or ( completly incredible but true ) cough syrup for your sick child. Even though,really, you're 38. Oups, it just slipped out! Sorry!
And you're so fortunate since right on your b-day you get to go on a field trip with 33 eleven years old who have been cooped up inside for a week because of the crappy weather. 6 hours of glorious happiness. Eating a cold sandwich for lunch. Ah, come on, it makes you feel young. And the bonus is: you get to be with 33 happy (ok,ok,overexcited in a give me the ritalin kind of way, but it's the same thing really) little people for most of the day.
And no it's not raining. It's just the sprinkles on the cake :)


ps: I don't really have gray hair. I just said that to make him feel better you understand. I just thought I should be perfectly honest about this.

Signs

Do you think it's a sign
when your mother in law calls at 8 am on a Sunday
and tells you that you've already done 2 things wrong even though
the only thing you've done so far is dragging yourself up to go pee?

Wave

Waving to Candy Froggie :). I know it has been a while...Actually, I'd like to take this opportunity to rant. See, I've calculated that I've 2 days ( I do mean 2, the single digit number 2 ) of good health during the whole month of January. And February hasn't been much better so far ever. Thankfully we've had amazingly good weather and Sacramento is in full spring mode. Well, this week it's rainy and froggie but we need water so I'll not complain about that. No, no, what I want to complain about is school. The good old dreaded school. Never liked it for multiples reason:
- no sleeping-in even though you really had a really tiring week-end clubbing and all.
- they crowed your head with useless stuff like math. Who needs math?
- you've got to be polite to teachers who clearly got their degree in a cereal box.
- you can't dress the way you want.
- you get sick all the time.

But the worse is all of the above still applies YEARS after you finally got out of there, naively thinking you were done with all that crap.
And boy, karma did catch up to me. All these years of laziness, doing philosophy papers due at 2:15 pm during lunch time and so on and so on.
Well, that's it. I don't know which god I have to pray to for this curse to be lifted but I'm done . You hear me up there??

I'll come back soon but I'll give you a few spring pics from last week ;)