Potpourri

What's happening to the Texas boy in France?  Well, let's see...some stuff...some good, some bad, and some confusing (thought I was going to go for the ugly, didn't you?).

I haven't updated the blog lately because I've been busy as the devil, trying to work, trying to learn French, and trying to both find Betsy, and a home for her.  And makin' some real Texas chili for our teacher and friend, Florent.  We'll start with that story.

Real Chili
As part of our lessons Florent suggested we take turns cooking lunches.  This not only keeps us in the house for lessons, it offers the opportunity to learn new words associated with cooking...something at which the French are pretty damn good.  The only potential flaw in the theory is Morgan.  He not only has never cooked anything (but possibly eggs), he won't eat much of anything either.  And I do mean, won't eat much of anything.  If it doesn't moo or cluck he pretty much wimps out on it. And zero for vegetables, I think he thinks the devil created them, so he limits himself to three main food groups: beef, beer, and pasta.  I'm convinced when he was a baby he was fed in one of those "compartmentalized" plates with the high separators that won't let the food mix.  So, he learned the smashed carrots aren't supposed to mix with the smashed peas, and nothing, I mean nothing, is supposed to touch the vanilla pudding!!  It's a short jump from there to"I don't eat no stinkin' vegetables," or anything without the texture of a piece of meat.

Deborah (Jerry's mother) you need to fess up on this stuff.  He says he refused to eat almost everything and, in order to ensure he ate something, you'd fix him PB&J on request.  My mother would have said, "You eat what I put on the table, or you don't eat."  And I guarantee you by the end of the second day little Jerry would have eaten whatever was put on the table.   But, I guess that didn't happen, and now it's fallen to Florent, Carrie, and I to square this lad away.  Carrie managed to get him eating firm-fleshed fish like sea bass before we got to France (for those who won't eat sea bass: 'Get a rope.').  Since coming here he's actually eaten escargot (snails), a few "accidental" vegetables (my chili), something I can only call potted meat (as a Florent-supplied great appetizer today), lamp (for those who won't eat lamb: 'Get a rope and two knives.").  You can see how it's going.  The lad is not only learning to cook, he's learning to eat.  This is a good thing because he was having such difficulty finding sufficient meat and potatoes I was starting to worry he'd be the only affluent person to ever starve to death in France.  The good news, of course, is, where this category is concerned, he's got a great mentor.  I'll eat a rock if you'd put a little gravy on it.  (For my French friends,  sauce.)

Anyway, the long and the short of this is when my turn came to cook, I decided on chili, real chili.  For those of you not from Texas, that means, no beans.  There ain't no bean in chili!!  It's a rule, a law, an act of God, for crying out loud!   There ain't no bean in chili!

Believe me, it's not easy finding ingredients for good chili when you don't speak the lingo.  The only chili pepper I could find that looked remotely like a serrano, or a poblano, was something they call "Piment."  I'm not sure, I think it was green cayenne, but, fortunately, it worked, and pretty well.  The secret to good chili is simple: good meat and fresh vegetables.   My favorite meat for chili is to buy a nice large sirloin and have half of it ground, then dice the rest into bite-sized pieces.  I found a good looking piece of steak but didn't know how to ask for it to be ground up, plus the meat counter was packed with all kinds of people I didn't want to have to expose to my french, so I just bought some 15% fat hamburger.  Not what I would normally do, but, actually, the hamburger was quite good.  (It has to be..they eat it almost raw here.)  I then got some great looking bell peppers (not their name around here), roasted them (that's the secret, by the way), and chopped them fine (hiding 'em from Morgan).  Of course, I wanted cilantro and jalapenos.  Couldn't find cilantro and the only jalapenos I saw were in a jar, pre-cut; I like fresh, but these turned out okay.  I'm sure cilantro must be around here somewhere, the plant is native to Europe.  But I didn't find it, even under the name 'Chinois Persil' (Chinese Parsley) so I bought some pre-packaged "épices mexicaines," because it had cumin (cumir), coriandre (coriander), ail (garlic), piment du Mexique (what else could that be but Mexican chili powder?).  Anyway...enough Julietta Childs...I made the chili and, surprise of all surprises, it turned out pretty darn good.  Morgan liked it even though there were vegetable in it he couldn't pick out, and Florent liked it as well.  The hit for Florent, though, was my "salsa."  I make a fresh vegetable salsa of white onions, red-orange-green bell peppers diced fine, jalapenos, piment peppers (whatever they were), very little tomatoe (diced again, not crushed), and squeeze lemon and lime over it.  I've always thought it very special and Florent agreed with me.  Of course, Morgan will never know. If he ate vegetables his toes would curl up and his hair would fall out.

Where's Betsy?
During our lesson last Saturday I walked over to the apartment office to check the mail and there was a fax  from Le Havre.  I was able to discern it had to do with Betsy and, after Florent translated, it sounded like Betsy was there, and I had three days from that day (meaning the 23rd) to make arrangements to get her out of there, or I would have to pay storage (outside).  It also informed there was no insurance on the bike after that date.  All this, of course, was somewhat confusing because a) Betsy was supposedly on a ship heading to Antwerp, from where she was to be shipped to Paris to clear French customs, and b) she was insured for the entire trip.  This is France so no one was available on Saturday or Sunday at this shipper's office so I determined to call Monday.


Upon going into work Monday, one of our French consultants called the number for me and talked to the guy who sent the fax.  He basically said the bike was there and acted as if he would release it directly to me if I would come to Le Havre and pick it up.  Meanwhile, I had sent the shipping agent back in Houston a translation of the fax I'd received and, late Monday afternoon, I received an email stating that I shouldn't have to contact their agent to get the bike, that it would clear customs in Paris and they'd call me to arrange delivery.  Oh, and by the way, the bike is on a ship to Antwerp.  What????


Tuesday I received a status from the shipper stating the ship was going to be one day late getting into Antwerp and that they anticipate getting the bike to Paris by the 3rd, with it's release from customs around the 7th.  So...I'm still confused.  I don't know if Betsy is in Le Havre (how would the guy know how to contact me if it wasn't legitimate???), or in Antwerp, or on the road (or a ship) to Paris.  I still don't know, but, then, I've been busy working and trying to find a home for Betsy...and a little insurance.


A Home For Betsy
When I received the note about Betsy being in Le Havre and available to me by Friday (the 26th) I moved into panic mode.  I'd been trying to find insurance for her because my nice Allstate policy covers her in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., but not in Europe.  Surprise, surprise, surprise.  If you read on the internet it sounds as if almost any insurance company will give you a "Green Card" for Europe if you "just ask."  Evidently, Allstate hasn't heard about this.  Or, more probably, they just haven't figured out how to screw their customer out of more money for the service.  But, not to worry, there are folks here who've figured it out.


My "new" bank offers insurance products, so I emailed my new buddy, the branch manager, asking him if he offered motorcycle insurance.  I thought he was my new buddy.  After all, he came down here and assumed that prone position on the carpet over his service only ten or so days ago.  But, surprise me, no one responded to my email though it went to a "common" email address with ATTN: M. LY (the manager's name) on it.  The language thing is such a problem in such things as this, I couldn't very well call a bunch of local insurance agents, and we had visiting bosses in this week from Houston so everyone was quite busy.  I also didn't want to spend our resources chasing down this stuff so, having found a company in Germany that specialized in Green Card insurance, and without a response from the bank, I made arrangements for three months liability insurance at a whopping 386 Euros.  This compares to the 205 Euros (equivalent) I paid for a year's coverage in the U.S. including comprehensive and theft.  See, I told you someone had figured out how to price this problem.


But, the subject is Betsy's home.  A young lady here named Emanuelle has been great helping Morgan and I get settled in.  She's been a real brick putting up with our housing, vehicle, visa, you name it, needs.  And she exceeded herself finding a secure place for Betsy.  You can imagine how important this is to Betsy, and, if it's important to Betsy, it's important to me.  Emanuelle, found a garage in downtown St. Luce (about 2 Km away), with a locking door inside an electronically controlled gate.  I mean this is the bomb!  I couldn't have been more pleased with this property.  But, this is France...and France is for the French.  The systems aren't geared for anyone else.  What, you ask, can he possibly be talking about here?  Well...insurance again.

It seems, in France, when you rent property from someone, the law says you have to provide insurance. Sounds like a sensible thing, doesn't it?  NO!  IT DOES NOT!  As those of you in the U.S. know, the owner of a property gets insurance on it. Why?  Well, because he wants to make sure he is covered all the time; not just the time a renter happens to be occupying the premises.  Further, in the U.S. the property owner includes the cost of insurance whenever he considers his costs for setting the rental price.  Just makes sense, doesn't it?  Why, then, would they put the onus on the renter, I ask myself (and all of you)?

The only reasons I can come with for such a practice is 1) making the renter purchase a policy means he has more "skin in the game," or 2) it takes the cost of insurance "off the table."  The fact that his own personal property and, perhaps, life, wife and family are in the rented edifice must not be sufficient motivation if the goal is to have the renter have more "invested" in the transaction.  My money's on the second reason.  Taking the insurance legally off the table means the property owners don't have to worry about the elasticity of supply or demand when setting prices, at least where the costs of insurance is concerned.  It's like charging for luggage separately on airlines.  But, in this case, we can't go to the carrier who doesn't charge for luggage (Southwest), because the government requires all to charge.  I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that business and government are as much in bed, if not more, in France, as in America.  And, as in America, they ain't motivated by good-for-the-customer concepts.

So, okay, I have to get insurance on a bloody garage.  Hard to believe, but true.  Well...it turns out it's not all that easy to do either.  I went to the bank to wire the guy the first and last month's rent on the garage because the contract starts Monday.  We'd called and asked them to check out the possibility of issuing coverage for the garage.  I found out while there they could probably write a policy for Betsy (well, damn, aren't you a little late in that little piece of knowledge?), but, whoops, can't write one for the garage.  Why?  Well, we'd write it if you have your home policy with us, but we can't write a policy on just a garage.  Who would write a policy on just a garage?  I live in what are called residential apartments.  It's sort of like a hotel, except it's a two-bedroom apartment.  Hey, wait a minute, don't I have to buy insurance on the apartment I'm renting?  Well...I don't know.  The company made the deal here, but my guess is the owner purchases the insurance on the property if it's a hotel.  What an irrational f*&^%g idea!  Someone call a governmental representative and get this crap fixed.


Status?  Paid first and last month's rent on a garage I can't rent if I can't find insurance for it and I, evidently, will have problems getting insurance on it if I don't have another, more meaningful policy on my apartment, or something.  AARRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!


School 
I reported on Feb. 7th (School Days School Days), Florent drilling us (me) on the very similar sounds for the letters 'U' and 'Y.'  Actually, it's a way of differentiating between the sound for "ou" and "u," with the ou represented by the "U" and the u represented by the "Y."  Don't ask.  Especially me.  I don't know why they are denoted in this fashion.  But, trust me. they are different, markedly so, for real French speakers.  And they are ubiquitous...I mean every-bloody-where.  And they matter.  Big time, they matter!  Example?  You bet.  Try this one on:
Everyone has heard the term "beaucoup."  It means much, or many, as in "merci beaucoup" (many thanks).  Keeping in mind that the sounds are very (I mean very, very) close for me, let's contemplate the term beau cul. If I mispronounce beaucoup and make it sound like beau cul, I just went from "many" to "nice ass."  Now, there's a place for both expressions in this world, and God know, I know it; but you really need to get it right, mon ami!!








Tomorrow, hopefully some pictures.