Grandes Medivales d'Andilly 2011: Part II, In Which Severin Is Totally Awesome

We just spent the last two weekends in the late 15th century, and it was fantastic! Severin was a knight in the daily shows at the fair. He was great and looked pretty impressive.



The photo of him and Valentine appeared in the Geneva newspaper last week, so it's not only me who thinks my kids are gorgeous and amazing!

The New and Improved Romanian Handyman aka "Paul" (which is admittedly shorter to say, but way less fun to write!) has been working steadily since Sunday morning, putting in 10 hour days.
I think he's pretty tired out at this point, but at least now we can finally really see some progress!

Here's a preliminary before and after for you:






You can see in the left photo the green wall that separated the bedroom from the hallway. Below, you can see that the wall is gone and now the balcony that was in the hallway is part of the twins' room. And the room is about one meter wider than it was. FTW!






Here's the new wall out in what is no longer really a hallway, but more of a landing...
Paul finished plastering it this morning and is painting it right now.

The disgusting wasp megapolis in the ceiling has been replaced by insulation. (Nice, normal, bought-in-a-store, insect-free insulation.)
Plasterboard has been installed and it's all been nicely finished...



Sev had to help out quite a lot yesterday- which he loved because of the awesome outfit he had to wear. jk lol!!!!

The kids are on vacation from school right now...but holiday atmosphere is thin on the ground.

We're WORKING over here, people!
Srsly

After talking about it for years, we've finally taken on the project of enlarging the twins' bedroom. Their room is rather small and it always seemed to me that the hallway and balcony right next to their room would be much more useful as part it.
All it would involve would be ripping down a thin brick wall and building a short new wall closer to the door to their room.
(Please note that the word all in the above phrase should have been enclosed in quotation marks or some other ironic device. )
These things always turn out to be more complicated (and time consuming and expensive!) than they first seem, don't they ?

Here is the hallway and the door to the balcony. The door to the girls' room is to the left. The door on the right leads to Sev's room.

The wall came down pretty well...it was messy work, though.
Luckily, we have help- we've a new Romanian friend! As any regular reader of my blog knows, we can't get anything done around here without at least one Romanian in the house.
With a bit of help from Sev, the wall was history with a few hours.....

Then the next step could be taken... the horrible wooden ceiling had to come down.

Go Sev!

The plaster underneath was so damaged that Paul (our New and Improved Romanian Handyman) insisted that it ALL come down, so that he would put in an all-new ceiling.

And when the plaster and lathes came down, we found this:

And so it was that the Mystery of the Extremely Scary Hornet Invasion was finally solved.
They hadn't only been attacking from the kitchen chimney and the garage and the front wall of the house, they'd actually been in a gigantic nest located right over Alexa's bed.

But it's gone now and, with counseling, Alexa should eventually be fine....

So- finally, the demolition-type work was all done...
We are ready to start building something!

I didn't want the month to end without me doing some name-dropping/bragging/gloating. So, this is where I casually mention that I was in PARIS this month.

See?

I was there for reals, taking in the culture and whatnot!

Of course, I wasn't just there on a whim, satisfying my need to feel stylish and cool. I was actually on a mission: the renewal of Sev's USA passport.
This was not a thing lightly undertaken, believe me.

This process used to be a piece of cake back when we lived in Ouagadougou (it sort of helped that the US Ambassador there sang soprano with me in a little choral group....) But, sadly, I do not know the US Ambassador to France. I don't even know if Mr. Charles Rivkin likes to sing. (He kind of looks like a tenor, though. JMHO)

So....we had to play by the rules here- and they are crazy!
First of all, the passport can only be renewed in Paris.
Secondly, as Sev is under age 16, he has to be physically present at the embassy in order to get his new passport.
And thirdly, BOTH parents must be present with the child.

You may think that sounds insane, but the best is yet to come: this passport can only be obtained from Monday through Friday from 10 am until 10:30am.

As Dave Barry would say: I am not making this up.

You carefully make your appointment online weeks ahead of time so that your name goes on the list that will get you inside the front gate. Then you wait outside the door of the security checkpoint. Once inside, they will mercilessly confiscate your cellphone, ipod and your brand new tube of Lancome Color Fever lip gloss.
While I may not personally know Mr. Rivken, I just can't think that Charlie could have any objection to me having lusciously glossy lips.
But just try explaining that to those crabby old guards...

But it all turned out well - Sev got his passport and we had a nice two-day stay in my favorite city!

Why You Might Enjoy having Dinner at My House....Or Not: Two Scenes from a Dining Room

Alexa looks across the table to the buffet where there's an orange soft-drink bottle sitting out.
The label says "Orangina Geisha Peche". ('Peche' is peach in English for all you non-French speakers out there)

"Actually, what is a geisha, mom?"
"Umm...a Japanese hostess?"
She looks at me quizzically.
I try again. "A fancy Japaneses hostess? That serves tea?"
"Really?" asks young Alexa.
"Yeah...well...kinda...." I falter.

Valentine is about ready to die at this point from choked laughter and snorting. (Aren't teenagers fun?!) She decides this has gone on long enough.

cough*Prostitute!*cough

"That's just embarassing!" Alexa declares. "I can't believe I even asked!"

"But they serve tea!" I repeat. "And play the harp. Or something" I cleverly elaborate.

"Like Inara on 'Firefly'?" chimes in Mallory, my little geek-girl.

I grab onto this idea like it's the last flotation device on the Titanic.
"Yes! Exactly like that! You've seen 'Firefly', Alexa. A geisha is a Japanese Inara. Or Inara is an outer space geisha. Or something."

"Ok." she says. "But why the heck did thay name a drink for kids that?"

I've got this one covered and answer without hesitation: "Because a soft drink called "Orangina Prostitute" would probably be extremely unpopular. What would that even taste like? Gah!"

I then imagined a marketing campaign for "Ho Cola", but wisely kept it to myself, figuring that the general tone of the conversation had degraded far enough for one evening, thank you very much.

------------------------------------------

Severin is happily coving his french fries with ketchup.
As he sets the bottle down, he reads the label out loud: "McCords ketchup- the taste of America!"
"So" asks Valentine "Does it taste like America?"

Sev takes a contemplative bite of ketchup-festooned fry.
He chews it slowly and then announces "Why, yes! It does taste like America! It tastes like capitalism...and guns! Yum!"

"You're not supposed to say that!" advises his older sister. "It's supposed to taste like freedom!! Doesn't it taste like freedom? You better say it tastes like freedom, or you're in big trouble, buster!"

-----------------------------

We generally eat at about 7, if you're interested.....

So, what happens when Tya, the Girl Who Imprudently Misplaced Her Ipod Headphones takes a long roadtrip seated beside Sev, Possibly the World's Fussiest Teenaged Boy?

Maybe this:

Tya: Sev. Dude. Lend me Your iPod headphones. I'm desperate here.
Sev: No.
Tya (pleading): Dude! Please! Help me out!
Sev (implacable): No. Way.

This initial exchange is followed by further exchanges along these same lines, involving heavy use of the words, "dude", "please" and "no".
The sanity of Tya is also called into question several times.
Finally, after several minutes of this:

Sev (resigned): Alright.
He sighs heavily and pulls a small bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket.

Tya looks at it blankly for a moment, then grabs it and puts a bit on her hands. She is distinctly heard to mutter under her breath the phrase "You are SUCH a freak."

Tya then puts out her hand to take the headphones, which are not forthcoming.

Sev: Your ears.
Tya (disbelieving): What?!
Sev (patiently, as though talking to a particularly stupid dog): Put sanitizer in your ears.
Tya: You are beyond a freak. I don't know what you are.

She squeezes a bit more of the blue gel onto her fingers and rubs some inside of each ear.

Sev inspects to make sure the interior where the headphones will touch her ears is completely covered.
He finds she has missed a spot and makes her apply more.

Tya (through clenched teeth): Are you happy now?

Sev (doubtfully handing over the earphones): I guess. This really isn't hygienic, you know.

Tya (grabbing the earphones): Über. Freak.

The above is something that could have possibly happened while we were driving to my MIL's place in the northeast of France last week, if my eldest daughter was very disorganised and my son a borderline OCD case....

You know how when you were about 10 years old and your grandma bought you a groovy pink and purple flower-covered diary with an adorable itty-bitty padlock and matching tiny key? And how at first you swore to yourself you'd write in it every single day? And how you did, at first?
But then how you slowly slacked off until you realized that eight months had passed and you hadn't written a word? And how it seemed hopeless to start up again because you'd missed so many vital events and catching the diary up would have been too gargantuan a task to contemplate?
Remember that?
No?
OK.
Never mind.

But I have to say that I find myself in a similar situation here. My beloved (by me, anyway!) blog has sat here unattended as I hosted hoardes (nice hoardes!!) of houseguests, played tour guide, and did some fairly blog-worthy stuff.
And now I have to get it up to date.
Where to begin?

On Friday (June 11th!), as the Auxillary Twins neared the end of their stay with us, three fabulous new guests had to be picked up at the train station. MLW was arriving from NYC, via Paris, with her 18 year old niece and two year old daughter in tow.

(I haven't asked if they want to be pictured on my blog. So all you get today is a back view of Possibly The World's Cutest Toddler.)

Then on Saturday, the parents of the Auxillary Twins arrived. They'd pushed up their trip by one day so as not to miss the concert that Valentine and Sev's band were to play in that night. I thought it was so lovely that they were interested and made the effort! And SO encouraging for Tya, who was quite, quite nervous by then.

Just as these new guest pulled up, JP was off to pick up Tya's godmother and her husband in Geneva. (They are real city-folk and neither one drives) So, the support crowd of fans for The Boxmen was growing by the minute.

I whipped up a little dinner for 15 people (ha!) and then we headed off to the concert, packed into two cars. We would have made the Shriner Clowns proud- we had seats for 12, but 13 people needed to go, so we just piled in and made the 10km drive up the valley, hoping not to see the police along the way.

The concert was primarily for the younger students of the "School of Rock" of our little mountain valley and was held in a small community hall. When we walked into the crowded, tiny building , we easily found the 13 seats at the front that the band had reserved for us at the very front.
As I sat down, Sev came over to me and informed me that he would be SINGING with another band that night.
"Just one song" he said with a feigned casual air. "They asked if anybody knew "Smells Like Teen Spirit", so I tried it with them and it worked. Gotta go now." And he stuck his iPod earphones back in and wandered off.

Talk about surprises!

First the younger groups played (5th and -6th graders). There were a few of my English students from last year. SO cute!
Then the older groups went on. Most of them were pretty decent, music-wise. The only problem was the singing.
Not good. At all.
One young woman's version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" sounded more like what they must play just outside the gates of Hell.

A certain amount of smirking and groaning went on in the crowd, which I thought was dreadful. Yes, much of the singing was American Idol crazy reject bad, but these were just nervous kids. I smiled from my front-row seat and tried to send mental waves of encouragement and kindness.

And I hoped someone would do the same if my kids or their friends messed up...

The next band consisted of three adults. They played a couple of songs and then Sev came on stage with them, looking hugely tall and gawky in that way only 14 year old boys growing too fast can manage.
But as for stage presence? Chatting with the crowd? Getting a laugh? Sev was all over that. Then he launched into a parody of the famous Nirvana song!
It was so funny- it's really a shame that most of the people there didn't speak English!
"Now I'm mumbling, and I'm screaming and I don't know what I'm singing!"
I'm not saying that he sang it completely in tune. But then, does melody really count in a Kurt Cobain song?
I was just amazed that he was so at ease. And the crowd seemed to love it, despite the language thing. (Most of the groups were singing in English anyway, so everyone was pretty used to not getting the lyrics....)

After a couple more decent groups, The Boxmen came on. And that's when my normally somewhat shy Valentine showed us all that she was born to front a rock band.
I was completely astounded!They sounded GOOD! Really good! Like about 1000 times better than anyone else there. Their music was great, Tya's singing was impressive and they seemed to have FUN! You could really tell that they all like each other and enjoy being together.

"The crowd went wild", as they say. Everyone really seemed to appreciate them and the compliments afterwards were...vastly gratifying!

The best compliments came from their teacher... he was, obviously, SO, pleased with them. He pointed out to me that The Boxmen members are not the youngest kids in the association and are by far the least experienced. Max and Sev (guitar and bass) had never touched an instrument before September! And the drummer only had one year of experience.

On top of that, all of the other groups had been playing together for at least a year or more. But somehow The Boxmen blew them all out of the water. Their teacher is expecting great things next year!

Yes, I did film it.
No, I cannot show it to you.
The recording seems to be lost.
Can't find it on my camera!!!!!

But here's the thing- their great performance earned them a spot at the village music festival! And that's today! And for the event, I've borrowed a decent camera from a friend. So, maybe I'll be able to show you something soon...

It's lucky they're able to go perform today...On Tuesday, their drummer made a wild leap off a picnic table at school, trying to grab cherries off a tree (a common pastime for bored high school students at their lycée (high school), or so Valentine has informed me). He hit the ground, dislocating and breaking his right shoulder.
Ouch.
He's ok now- has to have his arm in a sling for a month and a half...and may need surgery. But at least he didn't break his neck....Could have been worse, as we like to say back in Nebraska.

The Boxmen have recruited their teacher to play the drums, just for this last gig.
And hopefully their drummer will be fully recovered by September...

The lack of dozens of photos showing our new room being built this week means -yes, you guessed it- the new room was NOT built this week.
At all.
Which is sad, but not at all unexpected. The French building contractor is a rare, shy creature and you really can't expect one to show up according to any kind of predetermined schedule. Wild and free as the wind itself, and all that.
It's a bit tiresome, but that's how it is.

So, this week, instead of watching the addition to the house go up, I kept busy with other stuff. "Other stuff" included taking Severin on a shopping trip to buy badly-needed winter boots. His old ones were worn to shreds and about a month ago started getting actual holes in them, which is not really what a person looks for in winter footwear. But Severin hates shopping so much that he'd rather have snow melting all over his socks all day long than set foot in a store. In fact, he'd probably rather have his entrails torn out by rabid hyenas- but I didn't give him that option (so messy and painful, don't you think?) Cleverly bribing him with promises of a lunch at McDonald's, I managed to get him into a sporting goods shop. We found him a pair of Columbia boots that he liked and, at 40% off, they were a complete win.

What was not so "win" was the moment, right after we left the shop, when I realised that my key card was NOT in my purse any longer.
I dumped everything out of my purse, but it wasn't there. We all (I actually had all four of the kids with me) went out to the mall parking garage, just to make sure I hadn't somehow left it in the car.
It wasn't there.
And to make things worse, I could see our housekey sitting on the armrest inside the car. This meant that if I couldn't find the key card and needed to go home and get the spare, I wouldn't even be able to get into my house. Unless I broke a window....
But no need to borrow trouble. I was sure (kind of) that I'd be able to find my key card somewhere in the mall. It had just fallen out of my purse somewhere.
Or had it?
(This is where you get a small insight into the workings of my tiny mind. And let me tell you, they are some strange workings indeed...)
Right then, I looked around the crowded parking garage and this thought flashed through my brain: "Maybe it was stolen! A clever car thief took my key card and is watching us right now! He's followed us in order to find which car is mine and the minute I take the kids and go search the mall, he'll click the door open, start her up and drive away. OMG!"
Yes, I am insane. Thank you for asking.
I told Sev (my six foot tall son) and Tya (5'9" and quite capable) "Guard the car". Mallory stayed with them and Alexa came with me to help search. Luckily, we hadn't gone to very many places that afternoon. There weren't too many places to cover.
First, we searched the McDonald's. My purse had fallen on the floor at one point as I'd fussed over my salad, so I had a strong hope that the black plastic card would be found on the floor under our table.
No such luck.
I talked to the manager, but nothing had been turned in. So, we walked to Go Sport, looking at the ground the whole way. The store manager there was super-helpful. "I lost my keys at McDo once. I'd put them on the tray and then got distracted by the kids. Threw them right in the garbage! " she told me. Her previous experience (which ended happily after she searched the trash bin) made her very sympatheitic and she helped us look through the whole store.
Nothing.
Disappointed, I left her my name and cell phone number and trudged back down to the fast food place. I was just lifting one of the tables so Alexa could look under it, when my phone rang. It was the Go Sport manager...someone had turned in my key card! It had been found wedged under the bottom edge of the front counter where the cash registers sit.
So, it turns out I was NOT the target of fiendishly clever car thieves.
Imagine that...

As I've mentioned about eleventy-billion times already, my parents sent us Rock Band 2 for Christmas. And even though I don't have much time to actually play it myself, I still get a lot of entertainment value from it. Walking into the living room to find Severin serenading his youngest sister with the Billy Idol song "White Wedding", for example, was fairly LOL-worthy. There was poor Alexa, curled up in an armchair, intent on her Nintendo DS game of Harvest Moon, when all of a sudden she looked up to find Severin kneeling in front of her and singing into his mic "HEY little sister , what have YOU done!?"

And then there was the time I was in the kitchen and heard a strange sound coming from the living room. It sounded kind of like a cat being repeatedly kicked -an elderly, alcoholic, hillbilly cat with a speech impediment.

I HAD to abandon my cooking and go see what was going on.

It turned out to be Severin trying to imitate Bob Dyan singing "Tangled up in Blue".

As the 'song' ended, the kids turned to me and started in with a list of incredulous complaints along the lines of: What the heck WAS that? Why does that guy sing in that creepy voice ? Have you ever heard of him? Why does that freaking song go on forever?, etc

Valentine said "Whoever he is, he has to DIE. Please tell me he's dead."

Sadly, I had no words of comfort for her. "Au contraire, my child". In fact, he recently released a Christmas album."

Nobody believed me, but I assured them that it was true.

"I wouldn't lie about something like this. You haven't truly suffered until you've heard his version of 'The Little Drummer Boy'. "

Let's get this straight:

Bing Crosby can sing "The Little Drummer Boy"

David Bowie can sing "The Little Drummer Boy"

They can even sing it together on an uber-corny Christmas tv show.

But Bob Dylan cannot and in fact should never try to sing "The Little Drummer Boy".

Ever.

Did anybody actually buy that album? I hope not. It just encourages him....

Also:

Dear Santa,

How are you? I'm fine.

How are your reindeer? Tired out after the recent holiday season, I bet. Did they like the carrots?

Anyway, down to business: If , by next Christmas, they put out a Rock Band Track Pack of Bob Dylan songs, I do NOT want to find one in my stocking.

I'd rather have coal.

Really.

Love,

Beth

I've been trying to load several pictures for the last half hour. There seems to be a problem with Blogspot right now. All I managed to put up was this picture of Severin proudly showing off his Rock Band 2 guitar on Christmas Day.

I'll try again tomorrow to load a few more...

When my baby boy was born, he seemed pretty big. His sister had been a dainty 7.5lbs. He weighed over 9.

Now he's nearly six feet tall and, as of tomorrow, 14 years old.

In honor of the event, we are having a party. Right now, there are seven teenaged boys in the living room, eating pizza and playing Star Wars Monopoly. Soon, they will eat this cake:

It's a nearly exact copy of Sev's bass- as near as one can get using cake, fondant frosting and almond paste, anyway. I'm not sure I'll be able to cut it- I think I bonded with it emotionally during the five hours I spent struggling and cursing to create it.

.I'd never before made a large, shaped cake. And I'd never had to color fondant before. It's harder than you'd think, especially in black. I think my hands are permanently stained.

But it looks prettycool, doesn't it?

We were all very excited about our outing on Sunday. We'd been seeing posters touting the opening of the newly restored 13th century castle at Faucigny and the Ren Faire they'd be having there over the weekend.
We were a teensy bit disappointed when we realised that by "restored", they'd meant "slathering some concrete over the crumbling walls". Not that it wasn't a good idea- left a few more decades, the whole site would have disappeared to nearly nothing. But it was all bit less than we'd hoped for.

And the Ren Faire turned out to be really tiny.
On the other hand, it was a nice day for a walk and the ruins were situated high on a hilltop with a great view.

Here are the only remains of the lower gate down in the village:

As you can see, there's not much left of the original walls of the towers.

I was so busy getting pics of the kids, I never got a good one of the ruins from down below. Sorry.

On the other hand, I enjoy pictures of my kids way more than I enjoy pictures of rocks. Even really old rocks. So it all works out...

?

We left after only a couple of hours, as it started to rain.

A bit later, when I looked out my bedroom window back home, I saw this:
It was far more lovely than the photo shows and stretched all the way across our valley in a perfect semicircle. I've never seen one so flawless.

When I ran out to the balcony to get a better look, I saw that it was actually a double rainbow. It looks kind of faint in the pic, but we could see it really, really well.

Mallory said we should go to see the end of it. Sadly, it seemed to start and stop right in the middle of the forest.

Actually, there are a few lucky people who have managed to find and photograph rainbow ends. Kind of cool - but no pot of gold.

Our whole house shakes with booming, groaning and thudding sounds. It could be an elephant up in one of the bedrooms, experiencing severe gastro-intestinal distress.

That would be a good guess.

But no- It's just my 13 year old son practicing on his guitar, which is plugged into an amplifier roughly the size of a small pony.

Yes, I am now the proud, though slightly deafened, mother of a teenaged, electric-bass playing child.

Looks really happy, doesn't he?

I'm not quite sure how it happened. One minute he's singing along to karaoke songs from Grease on the PlayStation 2 and the next thing I know, he's planning on being the Haute Savoie's answer to Ronnie Wood. (OK- so I'm old. If you know nothing about classic rock and haven't a clue who Wood is or what group he plays for, feel free to insert the name of some famous bass player from a current band. But you are sadly ignorant. I'm just saying. )

A few weeks ago, Sev told us his best friend had bought a guitar (second-hand, over the internet, from Germany. Modern times, you know) and they were forming a rock band. The fact that neither one of them had ever even touched a guitar didn't hold them back for a second. Actually, Sev's interest in doing this is far less puzzling than his friend's. Sev, at least, owns an iPod and enjoys listening to groups like Green Day, Simple Plan and Good Charlotte
But his pal Max had never seemed all that into music.

"What does he like, music-wise?" I asked Sev.

"I don't know...The Shrek soundtrack, I guess."

"You're going to have a garage band that covers tunes from animated films, then?" I wasn't being sarcastic -I'm all for a nice Beauty and the Beast medly. I just wanted to know.

Sev then explained that he hoped to be a good influence on his pal and widen his musical horizons beyond songs written for g-rated movies.

So it was that on Saturday morning, Sev took out some of his savings and bought himself a used bass and practice amp. He's been practising ever since, using printouts from the internet and hints gathered from watching YouTube videos.

At first, it was sounding pretty dreadful. Now, at least he can play some scales. The only problem is that the guitar seems to not be entirely in tune. I can hear that it's the A string that's the problem, but haven't a clue how to tune a guitar and am afraid to touch it. (My lack of coolness might make it explode, I suspect) And even more worryingly, the fact that his scales all sound a half-step off in the middle doesn't seem to bother Sev much. In contrast, the out of tune bits are like fingernails on chalkboard to me. But he happily plays on... and I'm not sure this bodes well for any future music he creates.

But he's having fun for now. And in the fall, he'll be able to join the local "School of Rock" and get some proper instruction. The school (really called "Les Passeurs d'Arts) is a great local institution that is very active in the region. There are several rock bands in it, all based in our small valley. They play in lots of concerts all year long and seem to have a great time. So, I'm looking forward to Severin getting involved and meeting new people. While my girls have taken horse riding lessons and dance lessons for many years, nothing seemed to interest Sev much before this. The only activity he really liked in Ouaga was fencing, but there's no fencing club nearby here in France for him to join.

"Being in a band will be great for him" I told JP. "It's much better than him sitting alone in his room playing PlaySation 2."

"It's much better than him taking cocaine, too." JP answered.

I think he was trying to be funny, but I think my response was even funnier, as I drily pointed out that people have been known to combine the two activities...

When my son was an adorable, chubby-cheeked toddler his hair was thick, straight and blonde. In short, it was just perfect for an English-schoolboy bowl cut. It took him from "cute" to "ridiculously cute".

He is now 13 years old and just a tad short of six feet tall. So, maybe that would be no longer... appropriate, but something had to be done. The older boys here in France tend to wear their hair long, but Severin's was completely out of control. He 'd peer out from under the long fringe, looking like a particularly large, affable sheepdog.

JP and I had tried to convince him to go to the hairdresser, to no avail. Thinking that maybe he was afraid of our local salon making him look like a provincial loser, I even offered to take him to a hairdresser in Paris when we were there.
No deal.

But yesterday, JP came back from his week in Ouaga. At dinner he carefully studied Severin, who was concentrating on his plate of stir-fry. Unfortunately, when he's deep into his food (as teenaged boys often are) he tends to hunch over his plate, as though he's afraid it's going to be snatched away at any second. The curtain of hair hung down, obscuring the vegetables and chicken. From behind the barrier, crunching sounds were audible.
"That hair's pretty long, Severin" JP remarked mildly. "Why don't you let your mom cut it?"
"OK." he mumbled from behind the curtain, and then resumed crunching.
Ok?
OK??!!
We've been trying to take him for a haircut for six months and all of a sudden he says 'OK'?
To a haircut from his MOM?
"Are you sure you don't want me to make an appointment for you up in the village?" I asked, just to make sure I hadn't just had a massive auditory hallucination.
But no. He really trusted me to cut his hair.

After he washed the dinner dishes, he went up, wet his hair and came back to the kitchen, looking completely unconcerned.
Me? I was concerned.

Sure, I trim the girls' hair all the time. But cutting guy hair? Guy hair is hard!
How was I going to do this?
He sat down in the kitchen chair. I opened a drawer and took out my trusty secret hair-cutting weapon: scotch tape. When I trim the long hair of my daughters, it works a treat: you simply stick it on at the level you want and cut just above it. You get a straight line and all the snipped bits of hair stick to the tape.
Sheer brilliance.
The only problem was his older sister.
"Tape?!" Valentine barked. "You are so NOT using the tape on him!"
Apparently, she was there to protect her brother's interests, even if he himself had nothing to say on the subject.
"But it makes it so much easier." I whined.
"You are NOT cutting his hair straight across!" she informed me
"But..." I protested.
"You are layering and tapering and you'd better get to work," she commanded.
I sighed, put down the tape and picked up the scissors, mentally reviewing everything I knew about haircuts.
Besides "use tape" there wasn't much.
But then , what's the worst that could happen? I mean, if it looked really horrible, he'd HAVE to go get it professionally done, right?
So, I twisted up the top sections with a pink Hello Kitty clip borrowed from the twins and got to work.

I did my best, trying to seem capable and confident, even if I was neither.
And guess what?
It worked!
I actually manged to give him a completely new, shorter, layered haircut. It has shape and style and does not (Valentine assures me) announce to the world : My mom cuts my hair.

As Severin looked in the mirror, seeming pretty pleased, JP passed by and pronounced it "Much better".
"Just don't tell anyone your mom did it" advised Valentine. "They'd make fun of you at school"

"That's right" I agreed. "It's our secret. Only we'll know the truth ...and everyone who reads my blog, of course"

Tonight my house is filled to the roofline with junior-high schoolers and I'm being deafened by the incessant giggling, the monkey-like howling, and the constant rustle and crunch of bagfulls of potato-chips being emptied and devoured.

There's only six of them, but it's a hoarde, believe me.

Today is Severin's belated 13th birthday party. He didn't have a celebration in December because all his friends were going away on holiday. So, we put it off until today.

They're all nice kids- don't get me wrong. The excitement of the Wii and the sugar from the soft-drinks just has everyone a little over-stimulated. (And yes, the boy to the left of Severin is in his class and is his age. )

As is so often the case, poor JP is missing out on all the fun. I drove him to the airport in Geneva this morning and he's gone off to Burkina.

He won't be back for a month. So, there's no help for me as I try to get dinner for nine on the table tonight.

One kind blogpal has asked if my kids actually LIKE their new schools. Good question.

Eldest daughter weighs in with a resounding "Non!". She is not liking it one bit. She is known as "The African" and random groups of people wander up to her to ask "Are you from Africa?" and when she answers politely, they wander off smirking and giggling. Idiots. As you may guess, she's really not comfortable with the attention and is becoming pretty miserable. And as a result, she even pretends not to speak English very well.
That's right!
She doesn't want anyone to know that she's half American and speaks perfect English. She couldn't hide the fact that she'd transfered in from Burkina Faso (all the teachers knew and mentioned it in class the first day) but she CAN avoid being an English-speaking "freak" by staying silent in class. I just hope that these kids get bored and move on to something else. I also fervently hope that Valentine will eventually assume the mantle of her freakishness and shine in English class once again.

And the boy Sev? He's floating above it all, as usual. On the first day he easily found two pals to show him around. And by the second day, he was making an impression the female population. He was passed a pink piece of paper with hearts drawn all over it. It was a masterpiece by two girls in his class and read "We are watching you!".
He later showed it to Valentine who remarked: "Ooh! Stalker girls. Kind of creepy, don't you think?"
Trust Tya to discern the dark underside.

As for the twins: the tiny one-room school caught them by surprise, even though they'd been warned. And it was not a good surprise. At lunchtime the first day, Alexa was crying and wishing for her old school and myriad of friends back in Ouaga. But all was well by the end of the day, as the teacher complimented both twins on their skills and fine handwriting. (Good move on her part. Brava!) So, the academic front is going well. But socially?
Well, the twins are finding the locals rather provincial and had some cutting things to say about their clothes ('the girls look like boys!') and their amusements.
A particular subject of disdain was the apparently very popular game called "Wall". It involves throwing a ball against (yes, you guessed it) a wall. The kids all play it during recess and can talk about nothing else, so I am informed. The twins decline to participate and positively yawn when forced to listen to the endless chat about it.
I tried to explain to the girls that their conduct may not exactly win them a big fanbase here in the Valley, but I don't know how all this is going to play out. The whole 'bored sophisticate' stance might offend, of course. It can do that.
But on the other hand, the twins are pretty convincing and charismatic. The girls might just get away with this and have the other kids competing for their attention, the Wall forgotten.
Stay tuned...

A few days ago we were out burning old wood and trash in the garden. It was a big deal for us and the kids were all out helping me, wearing work gloves, wielding shovels and rakes.
Hey- I'm the first to admit that it doesn't take much to amuse us here in the depths of the French countryside.
We had to spend most of the afternoon digging out rotted logs and piling them on the fire. After a while though, I went into the kitchen to get dinner started, leaving the older ones in charge.


So there I was, peeling zucchini (we eat a lot of zucchini these days. People leave it anonymously on our doorstep, as there is a local glut and it's a known fact that I have four kids and no vegetable garden of my own. It's very kind, but right now I have a backlog of several pounds of the stuff.), when I heard singing.
Opera singing.
To be more specific, it was The Jewel Song from Gounod's Faust.
I stuck my head out the window and was confronted by a sight that I think people would pay good money to see: My 12 year old son out by the fire, holding up his shovel like a mirror, giving a pretty fine falsetto rendition of Marguerite's most famous aria from Faust.

"Ah, je ris de me voir si belle dans ce miroir! Est-ce toi, Marguerite, est-ce toi? Réponds-moi… réponds-moi vite!Non! non! ce n'est plus toi!… non… non. Ce n'est plus ton visage: C'est la fille d'un roi…" he warbled, pretending to admire himself in his shovel/mirror. (In English: 'Oh, How I laugh to see myself so beautiful in this mirror. Is it you, Marguerite, it it you? Answer me..answer me quickly. No! No! It's not you. It's not your face: It's the daughter of a king.')

Now, those readers familiar with francophone culture might think Severin learned a line or two of this song from reading Tintin comics . In the old Belgian comic (now also a Spielberg film to be released in 2009), one of the characters is an obnoxious Italian soprano that constantly sings part of this aria.
But actually, he learned it because my kids had all insisted on watching the entire opera when it was on television recently. I have to say, it was a pretty proud moment for me as a mom, enjoying the live broadcast of this famous French opera with my four kids, who absolutely loved it. Even Sev. How many 12 year old boys do you know that would voluntarily sit through an opera and enjoy it?
Exactly.

Anyway, his version was really something to see. His three sisters were rolling in the grass, laughing like mad things. If my video camera hadn't been stolen I SO would have filmed it. On the other hand, I doubt Sev would have let me post it on YouTube. ..

My plan to post more photos was temporarily foiled by my server going down for a day.
But I'm back online and here with some pics from our day yesterday at Lake Leman (or Lake Geneva, as it is often informally called)

We went to a lovely beach on the Swiss side with some good friends from a nearby village.

Here are the twins just getting their feet wet. At 19°C, the water was cold for us!

Here is Rafael explaining to Severin that the boat works WAY better if you actually put it in the water.

Severin finally got the boat figured out and took his friend Patrick for a spin. His little sisters didn't rate a spot onboard and had to swim.

Valentine got sunburned and Mallory got stung by a wasp, but other than that, a good time was had by all.

Today we had good friends visiting from the north side of the lake. We know Jo and her family from Ouaga! But now, by some great stroke of luck they have ended up living just an hours drive away from us here in France.

And tomorrow promises more fun (plus pictures) as we head up higher in the mountains to the village of Saint Jean des Aulps where they are having a sort of renaissance faire. Srsly!

So, we're in this borrowed house, sharing space with a hoard of giant mutant cockroaches and several crazed kamikaze gekkos. Each morning before the kids get up, I patrol for buggy bodies- some dead and some still wriggling. This AM brought only two - one in the kitchen sink and a pony-sized brute in the bathroom off the room here the kids are sleeping.
In view of all the roaches-whom I loath- I take a pretty friendly attitude towards the gekkos. But try explaining that to them. I ran into a little one in the bathroom at about 6am today and despite my reassurances of good intentions towards him/her and all his/her kind it completely panicked and ran straight up the wall. Sadly, he had apparently not been informed by older and wiser lizards that his super -sticky feet would NOT be enough to hold him to the ceiling.
Luckily I saw what was happening and dodged out of the way as gravity had its way with him.
It's a happy ending: gekkos are amazingly bouncy. He scrambled off with no apparent harm done.
And I hold no grudges, despite the fact that he nearly landed on my head.
May he live long and munch many more roaches!

Yesterday was Tya's 15th birthday. But Severin remarked that it must have been her 5th, as the cake looked like it was made by Dr. Seuss. In my defense, it's VERY hard working in an unfamiliar kitchen. So, if her cake was somewhat lopsided and sported a pretty alarming shade of pink, it was not entirely my fault.
Plus, didn't mom always say that it's the thought that counts?

I'm still down with a rotten cold and not up for much blogging. So, today you get to see my son's art project. He was assigned to create a piece of art to convey the idea of a "nuit blanche" (sleepless night). He came up with this idea of a box, painted black outside. The interior is white and through the window cut in the box, you can see the tiny figure of a sad little clay man sitting on his bed. The interior is lit with a strong light.
My photos isn't the best, as it was kind of hard to get the view and lighting right, but it gives an idea.
I think it is really expressive and his teacher agreed, as it was given the best grade in the class. (Would I like a side of brag with that boast? Why yes, thank you!)


Besides that, my cat needs a hernia operation and we STILL have no furniture in the living room. Like hippies forgotten by time, we squat on the floor on brightly colored cushions. If this goes on much longer, we're going to be putting on sitar music and experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs.
I guess I haven't mentioned that I had the rattan living room furniture sent away for some slight repairs and revarnishing. It all went off about a week ago and it's still not done!