mindyjones

Pro tip: A laptop aids in the pounds-per-hour to kilograms, and Fahrenheit to Celcius conversion.

Our correspondent Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years. When she's not busy trying to figure out what the French are saying, she's busy trying to figure out what to say to the French. She posts frequently at An American Mom in Paris.

Holidays abroad can be lonely. When a holiday rolls around, we ache a little and talk about home a lot. We put on happy smiles for the Skype session involving every relative we have, plus a few we didn't know existed, all of them crammed into one room chatting and laughing and having drunken angry fistfights while we suffer the family togetherness from too far away. Then we crawl into the corner to cry and drink wine.

Thanksgiving, especially, can be bleak because it's a non-event here in pilgrim-free France. Christmas and New Year's are happy times because the city is full of fellow revelers but for Thanksgiving, you're on your own. You still have to go to work and you don't get the long weekend to eat cold turkey sandwiches and buy bigger pants.

Last year, determined to make Thanksgiving happen in the middle of Paris, we banded together with a group of fellow American ex-pats. New York Mom was in charge of procuring and cooking the bird. The butcher's eyes widened when she said she wanted to purchase the grandest turkey in all of France. He frowned and said the turkey she wanted was way too big for seven adults and a handful of children. She said, Duh, that was the point. He unhappily sold her the bird, probably assuming most of it would go to waste, but he doesn't know Americans like we know Americans. 

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I was in charge of my specialty, midwestern cheesy potatoes--"midwestern" because the recipe calls for a can of cream of mushroom soup and a crunchy corn flake topping. I was also responsible for tracking down a jar of cranberry sauce. No one in our group liked cranberry sauce but we agreed it should still be present on the table, preferably plopped into a bowl and still in the shape of the can like mama used to make.

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Sharp cheddar cheese and cranberry sauce are elusive ingredients in this town. I hit several grocery stores and best I could find was a small chunk of regular cheddar that cost a bazillion euros per kilo. Forefather Pilgrims, I hope you averted your eyes when I skipped the cheddar and substituted more attractively priced French cheeses. 

My search for cranberry sauce led me to an overpriced specialty American grocery store. The tiny store was crammed full of marshmallows and Jell-O, Triscuits and Jiffypop. I hadn't seen this stuff in so long and wanted it all in my mouth immediately. I'm embarrassed by how nuts I went. There were some Aunt Jemima and Dorito products purchased along with my cranberry sauce, but I refuse to comment on the trail of Pop-Tart crumbs that led from the store back to our apartment.  

I was not the only one who had problems finding American ingredients for treasured decades-old family Thanksgiving recipes. Many substitutions were made. Yogurt was used in place of sour cream and day-old baguettes were jumped up and down upon to procure breadcrumbs. We worked and worked, cobbling together our Thanksgiving dinner with foreign ingredients and a whole lot of can-do attitude.

As our friend's apartment filled with the scent of close approximations of Thanksgiving foodstuffs, we fired up the Slingbox to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We saw a few small floats go by before one of the New York natives in the group asked, "Where the hell did the city go?" We all squinted and leaned forward and agreed the parade was shot from a strange angle that seemed to make New York City disappear.

Lots of things were strange about the parade. We could plainly see large trucks pulling the floats. The balloons were a bunch of B-list cartoon characters, some of whom we'd never heard of before. Captain Underpants? Really? There was not one episode of awkward lip-syncing. One of the "floats" was just a rickety half-pipe filled with adolescent skateboarders.

We were shocked. Were things really that rough back home? We knew times were tough for a lot of people so perhaps Macy's was trying  to be sensitive by hosting a more modest parade? Man, we wondered, should we send our families some money? We squinted at the screen some more and hang on, wait a minute, wait a minute--it kinda looked like...those buildings--Detroit?

Through a snafu with the Slingbox, we ended up recording the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade instead of its better-looking and much more popular New York counterpart. We felt relieved, canceled the "Just because we love you!" checks we'd already frantically thrown in the mail, and relaxed once more. 

Good for Detroit. If they could still celebrate and be thankful, then anyone could. We felt cozy and content as we watched the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade and celebrated Thanksgiving in France by eating camembert and brie cheesy potatoes with a side of Pop-Tarts. It was ass-backwards but thanks to our fellow ex-pats, it definitely wasn't lonely.

Happy Thanksgiving, Seattle!

Our correspondent Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years. When she's not busy trying to figure out what the French are saying, she's busy trying to figure out what to say to the French. She posts frequently at An American Mom in Paris.

Seattle has a fine aquarium. We’ve spent many hours of family fun on Pier 59 and we were happy to hear we wouldn't have to give up the fish when we moved to Paris; Paris has an aquarium, too. It wasn't long before we jumped on the metro to go visit, joking that the Paris aquarium was probably full of deformed creatures snagged out of the Seine.

Of course that's not true. They have nice fish. But there are other issues.

It was a strange visit from the get-go. We saw a large "Tickets!" sign in the entry. Under the sign were several touchscreen machines. We assumed, I don’t think irrationally, that we were supposed to buy our tickets at the machines.

Alex put a credit card in the card reader but no menu appeared.  Instead, we got either pictures of fish or trivia questions about fish, which we dutifully answered assuming we had to prove some knowledge of fish in order to be worthy of admission. After answering a few questions and watching some fish swim by, we eyed each other and suspected we were doing something wrong.

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Alex eventually walked over to an unmarked counter next to the coat check and asked how to buy tickets. The man said we could buy them right there, with him. Alex pointed to the "Tickets!" machines and asked what they were for and the man said, "That's how you used to buy tickets but they don’t work anymore. Now it’s just a game."

Alex suggested they hang a helpful sign. Or maybe the employee man could walk ten feet to tell confused tourists they were making asses of themselves trying to buy tickets from a fish game. (We were not alone at the "Tickets!" machines. There were several groups of people poking the screen and answering trivia questions in futile attempts to get some goddamn tickets.)

That was just the entrance. It got more confusing inside. The Paris aquarium is called "CinéAqua" because it has a split personality; it is part fish home and part movie museum. We don’t understand how they're related either.

We passed through the shark exhibit and entered a room full of movie costumes. We saw the getup from Robocop, which is really something special but if you’re expecting to see fish, it’s also disorienting. We passed from the Caribbean fish straight into an exhibit on Japanese animé. We walked past the jellyfish into a makeup studio where a guy worked on bloodying a severed head on a table.  

We watched the makeup man until he looked up, saw our young son, Lucien, and asked if he wanted to be made up like a pirate? "Heck yeah," we said, brimming with parental enthusiasm and wrinkling our noses at each other like, "Gosh, isn’t this so fun and silly?"

We assumed it would be a normal kid face-painting but we were wrong. The guy grabbed some greasepaint, told Lucien to close his eyes and started painting a large black eye patch across his eyelid. Did I mention it was greasepaint?

I cursed under my breath as the eye patch grew bigger, then as the mustache, beard, and bloody scar appeared because that was a lot of greasepaint. I knew from back in my theater days that greasepaint doesn't set without powder, and there wasn’t any powder on the table with the severed head. Greasepaint will also stain anything it touches and we were only halfway through the movie aquarium and a metro ride away from home.

As soon as he finished the makeup, Lucien started poking at his face because it felt funny. The makeup smeared and his hands changed colors.  His black-stained fingers reached for Mommy and Daddy who began ducking and weaving away from him with impressive agility because we like our clothes.

Lucien started to look very Heath Ledger Joker-esque as we held him at arms length through the rest of the aquarium. Soon he was an incomprehensible mess. He no longer looked like a pirate; he looked like he had a black eye and a few bruises from a bar brawl. I took him to the bathroom in an attempt to at least clean the paint off his hands but only succeeded in turning them a sticky, sickly gray.

On the positive side, there were some very cool exhibits at the Paris aquarium, such as the tank where kids could feed fish. The employees gave the kids food and the fish came and nibbled it right out of their hands. Both kids and parents were delighted. 

My enthusiasm was tempered by the design choice to make the wall surrounding the tank just a few inches higher than the kids' knees. The combination of "excited kids leaning way over" and "short wall" didn't work well. We held onto demented pirate Lucien by the collar of his shirt as he flailed wildly at the fish. The kid next to us thankfully had a Daddy with excellent reflexes; otherwise he would have gone headfirst into the tank with his fistful of food.

There was a "No Swimming" sign next to the tank. Perhaps there was some confusion on the part of aquarium management about "swimming" versus "falling in." Or perhaps there are some people who truly can't resist stripping down and wading into a shallow tank filled with carp.

Two days later, I was still trying to get black greasepaint out of Lucien's eyebrows and trying to understand the connection between movies and sea life. I’m glad we decided against getting the annual membership. It’s a fascinating place, but we’re going to save up our aquarium love for when we get back home. 

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

France is mad as hell and blah blah blah something about not putting up with this crap anymore. The country known for its strike culture is knocking itself out with daily manifestations and ongoing disruptions in metro/bus/plane/boat/hot-air-balloon/bobsled service. Walking service will be reduced next; two out of three people will have to slither around on their bellies.

The main issue sparking the unrest is the upping of the retirement age from 60 to 62. It's pissed off a whole bunch of people (who may or may not understand math) and they are expressing their discontent by refusing to do many things. There are gas shortages because no one's working the refineries and rumored food shortages in the near future.

Just work your extra two years, dammit, French people. I need my corn flakes.

Strikes are a regular part of life here and we've gotten used to disrupted transportation service and canceled school days. Last year, however, going on strike surfaced in the most unlikely of places.

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We'd been in Paris about six months when we went to our son's end-of-year preschool play. For the record, watching three-year-olds mill around onstage is as awkwardly entertaining here as it is anywhere. The confused wandering, the blank stares, the teachers whispering loudly and gesturing madly from the wings--the cluelessness of the three-year old is the same despite all our cultural differences.

The theme of the show was "The Sea." Our son was dressed as a windmill and helped demonstrate why the ocean is salty. I think it was something about a magic, salty windmill. Those precocious kids were speaking French so the subtleties, or even the generalities, of the tale were lost on me.

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The show continued with the older kids pleading for environmental awareness. Great idea, but, man, do those kids know how to kill a festive mood. First up were a group of penguins whom I thought were chatting happily until I realized they were saying their families were dead because of pollution. All their friends were dead, too. What a bunch of downer penguins.

As French penguins do, they then went on strike, holding signs in their flipperish hands and chanting things like, "Down with humans! Penguins against the humans!" I felt conflicted who to cheer for as I believe I'm a human and not a penguin, but humans seem like real polluting jerks.

Then came the sea urchins discussing how everyone they loved was dead. And the coral, they had also lost all those near and dear to them. Same with the dolphins, then the whales. At this point, a fellow American mama sitting behind us leaned forward and whispered, "Jesus, this is worse than Hamlet."

One by one, all the depressed creatures of the sea agreed on a solution. No, they didn't form committees and go pick up garbage on beaches; they organized and the whole ocean went on strike. The grand finale involved more sign waving, chanting and stomping of small feet sticking out from large sea creature costumes. I laughed so hard, silently and hiccupy, that tears streamed down my face. I like to think if anyone saw me, they just thought I was sad everything in the ocean was dead.

It did make me wonder: If the starfish and coral went on strike, how would we know? I hope someone's keeping an eye on things down there. I also hope someone's got some plans in case we are attacked by wrathful penguins staging manifestations.

Reduced metro service doesn't seem like such a big deal, come to think of it. Carry on, French people.

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

Our troubles enrolling in the French health care system happened at the same time the health care reform bill was being angrily debated at home. If anyone from the States asked us how that dang socialist health care was treating us, we responded, "Fine."

We didn’t want to bemoan a system that, while not flawless, is certainly better than most. We were also afraid our frustrations would be used as ammunition at one of those town hall meetings where everyone yelled a lot.

French people are very happy with their health care system. They were therefore confused when an Obama is Hitler! poster made the front page of a French magazine. The French knew Hitler up close and personal and the French know universal health care. I don't think they got the connection. (I told as many who would listen that I don't know any Americans who got the connection, either.) 

But this isn’t a diatribe on health care reform, or a serious article on how to construct a perfect health care system with a few rubber bands and a can-do attitude. It's also a waste of time if you're looking for a comprehensive overview of the French system, or really any type of insight whatsoever. It's just what happened to us. 

We hadn’t even gotten our cable hooked up yet when I discovered I was pregnant. Getting pregnant moments after landing in Paris hadn’t been the plan but sometimes a bottle of celebratory French wine contributes to the complete forgetting of the plan.  

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I was suddenly, miserably afflicted with intense nausea and sensitivity to smells in the land of stinky cheese, cigarette smoke and open-air fish markets. I attempted to speak French but mid-sentence decided I didn’t care and laid down on the floor to sleep. Harshest of all, just a few weeks into our lives in France, I could no longer partake in two of my favorite French activities: eating odiferous unpasteurized French cheeses and drinking the very French wine that had been complicit in my becoming unable to drink it. Is that irony? I’ve never admitted this to anyone but I don’t know the difference between "irony" and "a big bummer."

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We compiled the stack of paperwork necessary to enroll in the French health care system. The French health care system is rumored to be one of the best in the world but the French bureaucratic system is notoriously one of the worst. The notoriety is well deserved; enrolling in the health care system as a foreigner will cost you many handfuls of ripped-out hair, some of it your own.

Our Assurance Maladie application was canceled twice for unknown reasons. We received daily letters demanding documents we’d sent several times before. We’d send the documents again but would receive the same letters two weeks later. We would then rip the letters into tiny pieces with impotent rage.  

Sometimes we tried to straighten it out in person only to find the office closed on days it was supposed to be open. We swore a lot and became hard. We weren’t alone in our frustration; a friend of ours once threw his bicycle at the front door of the Assurance Maladie office. He’d pedaled all the way there during a transportation strike to find it closed on an "Open" day for the third time.

While waiting for official enrollment in the system, we paid everything out-of-pocket, most of which would be reimbursed after our application was processed. Doctor visits weren’t expensive, between 40 and 100 U.S. dollars, so under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been a big deal. With the big-ticket "birth" item looming large, however, we were starting to sweat and collected a pile of precious family heirlooms to pawn if necessary.  

About a month before the due date, we received notice our application had been approved but the applicant named "David" was missing some documentation. We were happy our application had been approved, but wondered who this "David" was who’d suddenly joined our family. Another phone call revealed the problem--our application had been approved under the wrong name.  

While waiting for the paperwork to sort itself out, I found a great semi-English-speaking doctor and commenced prenatal appointments. I had never considered being a stripper before I got pregnant in France but when you’re in a French doctor’s office, you have little choice but to get familiar with the profession.

You chat for a little bit at the beginning of an appointment and then the doctor tells you to take off your clothes. You hesitate a bit before moving, waiting for him to leave the room or whip out a paper gown but he will continue to sit there. So you get up from your chair and start taking it off, trying not to be offended by the way the doctor yawns and looks around the room in boredom.

It’s a cruel stripping gig because when it’s over, you pay him. At my first visit to the baby doctor I hadn't even gotten my clothes back on when he had to rush off to a birth, so I wrote a check sitting in my underwear and thinking, "Huh. Different."

A few more visits gave me more practice and more confidence. By the third trimester I was stripping down in the hallway as I walked to the office, kicking off my shoes and giving the doc a quick nod on my way to the exam table. I’m going to give some nurse the shock of her life back in the States when she turns around to take my blood pressure and I'm sitting on the table naked with my checkbook in my hand.

Two weeks before the due date, we barged into the Assurance Maladie office with crazy eyes. Alex told me to "look as pregnant as possible" to emphasize the gravity of our situation. I didn’t have to try very hard before we were taken under the wing of a kind and concerned woman. She gave us just enough paperwork to avoid an out-of-pocket birth and we breathed for the first time in months. Our application was finally approved when our baby girl was four months old, well over a year since we’d begun the process.

Once you’re in the club, French health care is a delight. Now we adore getting sick and cheer when our four-year-old son necessitates another run to the ER. And we’re covered just in case another bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape finds its way into our mouths and we forget our "Only two kids for the love of God" plan.