the weekend

on saturday (when miette has a half day at school, technically julian can go to school too but the maitrese said most kids don't come). petra, the dutch woman that has befriended me recently and with whose daughter miette has become friends, invited me to come over while they were at school to help dye her hair! julian came and played with their toys which is very exciting for him since we have so few toys here and he is already tiring of them. so, i hung out with her and had coffee and tea and dyed her hair and talked all morning. her family is moving back to the netherlands next friday which is too bad since she has been very easy to get along with and very welcoming but she has also introduced me to other moms and told them to take care of me now! one of those moms is marianne who is her closest friend here and i was also invited to marianne's house this afternoon for coffee. so much coffee! anyway, i met her partner (they're not married but have 2 kids together) and he was actually who invited me to come over and got to see yet another beautiful little paradise home in la rochelle. they have this amazing courtyard which is contained by their house on three sides and a fence/wall on the other. They have grapes and figs growing out there and i ate 2 figs straight from the tree. also antoine, the dad/partner, prepared a little dish of figs cooked in wine and sugar to go with the coffee. their place reminds me a little of bob bingham and kathryn sitter's place in pittsburgh. antoine is a menuisier, someone who works with wood (he said it's not exactly charpentier, like carpenter, but i looked in the dictionary and we don't have another translation. anyway...) and he and marianne have done all the work on the house themselves. it has that handbuilt beauty and things still in progress plus the general disorder of children and other things all togther in a jungle like tangledness. i'm already jealous of everyone's quaint old homes with these amazing gardens and courtyards! (caroline, the norweigan woman that invited us for dinner last weekend also had an amazing courtyard and when i went out to dinner on my birthday with the erards i got a little tour of their house which is the biggest by far and on which they have also done some work themselves but is a little less wild and quaint with more of a modern polished quality. i prefer the older and less polished ones myself!)

so, already things are getting busier, seeing and meeting more people, and soon starting my job. i had a whole list of things i though we would have gotten done today and haven't gotten to any of them since we chose to go visit people. tomorrow is the vide-grenier for the neighborhood (garage sale, literally, empty-attic!) which is right outside our back window in the place de l'eglise. i am going to look for a used bike, bike seat for jules, kids clothes, and any other little things of interest. if nothing else, it will be interesting to see what kind of things french people drag out of their closets for their garage sales! angelique, my neighbor in the studio apartment next door, said she got sweet little set of coffee cups last year for 5 euros. i think they may have little food stands too.

i met two more assistants yesterday as well. thierry stopped by here to bring me flowers (potted cyclamen) for my birthday and to introduce them- a girl from new york and another from australia. i told them to come by tomorrow for the vide-grenier and kind of invited them to have lunch or something. so there will be another american after all! i actually have met all but one of them now and it seems like a nice group.

miette is speaking more french every day. petra said she heard her saying a lot in french while playing with emma. i think it's already helping her out in school, i think she really gets most things. I also find myself speaking to the kids in french if i'm with someone french and have been in conversation my brain goes into french mode and it's just the first thing that comes out.

petra was also comenting on how miette had made all these clothes for the bear aunt patti sent her out of only paper and tape and how resourceful and inventive kids are, especially given our situation and how little we actually brought with us- she is using her creativity and the materials she finds to come up with things to do. she has also been collecting snails (real live ones) and making little homes for them including plant matter etc for their environments.