Saturday Is a Special Day

From the desk of Jase:

It’s been a crazy work schedule for the last few…well, pretty much since we got here.  So I look forward even more than ever to the weekends when I don’t travel. Time to recharge, relax, make some emotional deposits with the girls and Tiff. Some weekends we end up taking some small day trips around Provence to check stuff out. But most weekends are all about us putting the house back together, washing and vacuuming the car, doing laundry. You know—all that glamorous stuff.

Here’s an example of how a typical Saturday went for us recently.

1.       Go to the pharmacy—We were on a mission to find some cold medicine for Maisy’s runny nose. Well, we learned quickly that pharmacies are quite large here and cater to the aging population. But cold medicines are not sold over-the-counter. Furthermore, instead of having the pharmacists work on a riser two steps above the customers, here they have an entire upper floor sealed off. Prescriptions are filled by mysterious professionals (I envisioned Oompa Loompas in white lab coats) and then bottles come sliding down a little chute and spiral down near the register. Jenica and Jocelyn were amazed when I explained it to them. But we came home relatively empty-handed for Maisy, except for more tissues (currently available without prescription).

The secret upper level of the pharmacy

    

The slide spiral is disguised inside this display



2.   Hit the grocery store--Sure, I should probably stick to the list, but husbands the world over are known for browsing, so I better keep up the tradition. Hmm…would I be interested in a leftover Epiphany cake? In predominantly Christian/Catholic countries, Epiphany is “3 Kings Day” and celebrated on January 6^th. In France at Epiphany, most people eat the gâteau des Rois. This is a king cake, with a trinket (usually a porcelain figurine of a king) hidden inside. The person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket becomes "king" for a day. This is why all the pastries come with a paper gold crown inside. My twins kept coming home from school wearing crowns and bringing home porcelain figures during January, saying that they found them in their cakes. Okay, now "Je comprend." But I don’t care for foreign objects in my pastries, royal or no. So I'll pass.

Finally! I can get a gold paper crown without going to Burger King!

 3.     Electronics Section—Would I like a picture with my girls in front of the giant used cellphone globe? Why yes, I would. Would I like to ruminate on “what it all means”? Am I interested in deciphering if it’s making a statement about our disposable consumer lifestyle and how technology, if used irresponsibly, can overcome us and alienate us further? Nope. No, I wouldn’t in fact. But I would like my kids to stand still for a cottonpicking second.

  

4.       Kitchenware—I found this display stand selling crepe pans very interesting. They seem to be indicating that French homes either have gi-normous home theatres where they enjoy crepes and Belgian waffles as a family together while laughing at Jerry Lewis and ignoring the genius of Peter Sellers. This seems to be a calculated repositioning against the entire popcorn industry, even though the mass production of popcorn for a theatre setting seems to have an advantage in my opinion.  On a personal note, I have not seen any home theatres at all here. But if they exist, then as Madame Liz Lemon might say, “I would like to go to there.”

  

"We laugh at your Monsieur Redenbacher. Hee hee hee Oh oh oh!"

  5.    Mail a letter and...wonder about evening plans—The yellow box on the right is to drop off letters and small pre-stamped padded envelopes to the French Poste. The box on the left is a coin-operated machine selling “preservatifs.” I will definitely not use this family-friendly blog to open up a discussion regarding the many hysterical possibilities that present themselves for consumer advocates worked up about “artificial preservatives.” I just know I will not be able to ask about preservatives ever again without raising at least one eyebrow to myself. Instead, I can only surmise that when a typical person here is thinking about mailing a letter or package, they are also thinking about…their package.

TOTALLY different boxes, although deposits still welcome.

  6.   Errands are run, so let’s go exploring!—Finally, using only the name from a postcard, we drove off up a nearby canyon to see if we could find a waterfall. First, we found this one, which was a little underwhelming, but still made for a cute photo.

This waterfall might look huge from the vantage point of a SmartCar.

Yet we pressed on further up the canyon...

I was quite proud to finally find it and get this picture of the twins.



And now you have a window into our mundane lives. We try to keep a sense of adventure, humor, and observation, though, even while going through the motions. Hope your weekends are memorable!

Hummer Reading

Since moving to France I have had more time to read for leisure than probably at any other point in my entire life. What can I say; this is the first time since I have been old enough to work as a babysitter at age eleven that I no longer have paid employment. (And, I officially and tearfully resigned from my Alpine School District teaching job last week.) The upside to not having a job here is that I have more free time to read. My choices have been extremely varied, from the genre of science fiction/fantasy (which is one of my favs) to romance, thrillers, and even some nonfiction. Yesterday I finished a strange book called God Says No about a homosexual Christian man battling same sex attractions. Today I am half way through Superfreakonomics. A few weeks ago I read a book by science writer Richard Conniff called Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time, and I was enthralled by the chapter about hummingbirds. I hope you will indulge my geeky science side by letting me share what I found so fascinating about these little creatures.

For as long as I can remember, my mother has loved birds, especially beautiful little birds like hummingbirds. Every summer of my life, regardless of where we lived, she has put out multiple hummingbird feeders, so I have seen my fair share of hummingbirds and then some. But what I didn’t know was that although hummingbirds are among the smallest of warm-blooded animals on Earth, they are also among the meanest. I almost feel like I have to apologize to my mom for saying that, like it’s heresy to call such a cute little bird mean, but read on:


Most of us know hummingbirds can hover as they sip nectar, and in order to do this, their wings beat side to side in a figure-eight pattern, rather than up and down. In order to be able to hover in air, a hummingbird has to beat its wings around 2,280 revolutions a minute, and its heart beats around 1,200 times a minute. Conniff says that even though the average hummingbird weighs less than a nickel, it is a slave to its raging metabolism. They need around 7 to 12 calories a day, which sounds fine until you do the math. It’s the equivalent of a 180-pound human having to scrounge up 204,300 calories a day, or about 171 pounds of hamburger. Conniff says, “To keep itself alive, a hummingbird must manage to find as many as 1,000 flowers and drink almost twice its weight in nectar daily. It’s enough to give even a very pretty little bird the personality of a junkyard dog.”


He goes on to say how ferocious hummingbirds are and calls them “fighter pilots in small bodies.” Scientists observing hummingbirds have seen one hummingbird knock another hummingbird out of the air and stab it with its bill. One scientist named Tom Wood, who has studied the birds all his adult life, says it’s probably good they are small; “if they were the size of ravens, it wouldn’t be safe to walk in the woods.”  A scientific paper about the rufous hummingbird includes this endearing notation: "SOCIAL BEHAVIOR: None.  Individual survival seems only concern."


Hummingbirds can outmaneuver almost every other kind of bird. They have the largest flight muscles of any bird, relative to their size, and they are incredibly smart. Relative to body weight, the hummingbird brain is actually bigger than ours, and they can even remember individual flowers over the course of a day and how fast the flowers can replenish their nectar supply. One biologist complained that hummingbirds continued to show up at a regular feeder site for two years after she stopped putting out the feeder.

So Mom, I am glad you have always helped these beautiful birds with their voracious appetites and calorie requirements. Though I won’t ever think of them again as being “sweet” birds, they certainly have my respect. And after reading this book, I’ll certainly think twice before ever messing with one!

My New Calling

So, I got sustained to a new calling this last Sunday, and I am sort of freaking out.  I hate to just assume everyone who reads this blog knows what I am talking about, so if there are any people out there reading who are not of the LDS faith, here is a very quick explanation:  members of our church are asked to fulfill various positions, sort of like jobs, although no one gets paid for their service, and we call the job a “calling.”  Even individuals called to leadership positions are not paid, and some of these callings can require quite a bit time, upwards of 20 hours a week, almost like an unpaid part-time job.  It actually surprises me that our church functions as well as it does (usually) when people in these positions receive relatively very little formal training as to how to fulfill the calling, especially in positions of leadership.

So what is my calling, you ask? For the very first time in my entire life, I have been called to a leadership position—we call them “Presidencies.” There are several Presidencies in each ward. For example, just to name a few, there’s a Presidency over the whole ward, and another Presidency over the women of the ward, and another over the young women, and another over the children. The Presidency I was called to is the one that’s in charge of the children, which is “the Primary Presidency,” and I was called to be Second Counselor.
 
Normally, this would not be that big of a deal. My kids are in Primary anyway, so I feel comfortable being with them. I also know the basics of how Primary is supposed to work, since I have been in Primary as a teacher for years. Sure, I have the normal feelings of anxiety and inadequacy that many members in new callings might feel, but this time is different. I have never been as nervous about a calling as I am about this one, and that’s obviously because of the language barrier. I met the other two ladies in the Primary Presidency four days ago for the first time, and neither of them speaks a word of English! I cannot for the life of me figure out why the President asked to have me in her Presidency. I feel like I will be such dead weight to her. We had to get someone to translate for us just to decide on when to have a meeting. How in the world are we going to actually get anything planned or accomplished at this meeting when I can’t even understand them well enough to set it up in the first place?

I know I’ve lived here six months now, so shouldn’t I at least know enough French to be able to set up a meeting time? Have I mentioned that French is really hard and that people here talk REALLY, REALLY fast? Oh, yeah, and one other thing: French is really hard. Also, all of the manuals, resources, and instructional materials they have for me, which isn’t very much actually, are only in French. Thank goodness for the internet, or I would absolutely die.

Jason is no help either. He’s just thinks the whole situation is hilarious and that it will be “good for my French because now I will be forced to learn more quickly.” On the way home last Sunday he said with the most serious look on his face, “Tiff you just need to figure out how to say one thing: ‘Kids, sit down right now and shut your tart holes.’” Thanks a lot, Jason.

I don’t mean to sound like I am complaining. I am excited in some ways, and I was very willing to accept the calling. I just wish I felt more capable. I know it will be fine, and that people will be patient with me. At least I will be stumbling over French with kids as my audience rather than adults. Really, it could be worse, right?

To Love or Not to Love. . .Certain Pieces of Art

Living in France, even the southern part (i.e. not Paris), has exposed me to some new things. I’m not just talking about the occasional topless woman at the beach either; I am talking about “real” art. I have never formally studied art, even in high school, so I still have a lot to learn on this subject. However, I have always enjoyed going to museums, and looking at art, even though my ignorance causes me to rarely appreciate exactly what I am looking at. I like how certain pieces of art make me feel. I like wondering how someone decides one piece of art is a masterpiece and another by the same artist is “less important.” Everyone has opinions on certain pieces of art, and that’s what makes it kind of fun. What some people love, others find indecent or even ugly. I love discovering what my own reactions are to art, and sometimes I surprise myself by disliking a piece I thought I was going to love (or vice versa). I can’t explain why I was underwhelmed by the Mona Lisa, but then brought to tears while looking at Michelangelo’s Pietá. 

Sure, it's a nice painting and definitely worth seeing, but what makes it deserving of the title, "THE VERY MOST FAMOUS PIECE OF ART IN THE ENTIRE WORLD THROUGHTOUT ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY?"  It's really just "alright" if you ask me.

Now this is an incredible work of art!  One of the greatest sculptures EVER CREATED.  It's underrated if anything.

See how passionate and opinionated we can get about our favorite pieces?

Because I have studied the sciences my whole life, which are mostly objective, I find looking at art to be a completely opposite experience, one that is obviously subjective. As a science teacher, when I am asked a question about why something is accepted in science, I answer conventionally. For example, “I accept ‘The Theory of Plate Tectonics’ because sufficient evidence exists which supports it.” But when I look at art and someone asks me about it, a perfectly acceptable answer can be, “I don’t know. I just like it.”

I also find learning a little about the painters themselves to be interesting. For example, I was fascinated to learn that the Dutch painter Van Gogh only sold one painting his whole life, and died thinking he was a failure, while the Spanish painter Picasso could do no wrong while he was alive, and became very rich from selling so many of his paintings, sculptures, and ceramics. Also, did you know Picasso created over 2,000 pieces of art? Leonardo Da Vinci only created about 30, including two of the most famous and recognized pieces in the world (the aforementioned “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper”), but think of what he could have created if he had had the luxury of creating art for the sake of creating art, like Picasso could. Or if he had had the artistic freedom to do anything he wanted, again, like Picasso did. Would Picasso have been successful if he had lived in the 15th century like Da Vinci? (My guess is no.) What could DaVinci have created if he had lived in the 20th century like Picasso and hardly had to worry about persecution, funding, or breaking the law and/ or the social conventions of his time?

This week Jason gave me two unique opportunities to see some pretty great art. Last Tuesday, I got to go with two of our dearest friends who were here visiting Jason, Matt Kartchner and Chris Ecalono, to Milan, Italy for the first time. We drove there in the morning, took a tour of Milan, then drove back in the evening. Even though it was entertaining to see Chris "Ecalono" discover his Italian roots, the highlight for me was being able to see DaVinci’s “The Last Supper.” I didn’t know DaVinci painted this masterpiece, which is HUGE, on a wall rather than on canvas. The building was almost destroyed in WWII, but the wall with the painting in it was miraculously saved from the bombing thanks to some simple scaffolding and sandbags. Also, I had seen many reproductions of the work like the one below, but I never would have recognized that they were touched-up copies of the real thing:

This is a very "prettified" version of the real thing.  It only vaguely resembles the actual painting if you ask me.

Here’s a closer approximation to the real thing:

This is more like it!

Notice a huge difference? It’s not just the vibrance and clarity of the colors, but Christ has no feet in the real thing!! Apparently, some moron cut a door right into “The Last Supper” about 150 years after it was painted. See the top of the door frame below Christ?  Our friend Chris made a comment that made me think. He said, “If someone was allowed to cut a door into it back then, then obviously this painting wasn’t viewed as a priceless masterpiece until much more recently in history. I wonder what changed its value.” I have no idea, but it made me wonder about that too.  I really loved seeing it.

My second opportunity to see art was yesterday. I went to the Picasso museum, which is only 20 minutes away in Antibes, BY MYSELF! Even though I couldn’t even find anyone to go with me, I still enjoyed it. I learned that Picasso lived in this area of France for most of his life, and that after WWII, he used the Grimaldi castle (of the royal family of Monaco) as a studio for several months. This same castle is now a museum dedicated to Picasso, and it contains all the pieces he created while there, some 250 pieces. Granted none of them are his “most important” works, and I didn’t recognize a single piece, but I still liked it. Some of Picasso’s art looks like a young child could have made it, and I was not impressed. Honestly, some of it was just crayon sketches of a simple lime and a squid on paper that must have taken him MAYBE 5 seconds to draw. But a few pieces, like two of his concrete sculptures, and several of his paintings were distinctly Picasso and very much worth seeing. His most famous work from this time is called “La Joie de Vivre,” which means “The Joy of Living,” and I thought it was both silly and fun. Here’s what it looks like:


No, I don't pretend to "get" this painting, but it does convey a certain joviality when you look at it, so it is appropriately named at least



One of the coolest things in the museum was a large collection of black and white photographs taken of Picasso with many of the works currently in the museum. They were very artsy-looking, but it was interesting to actually be in the same studio where he had created those exact pieces I could look at. Can you believe no one would come with me??? What’s wrong with people? Thanks to Jason for encouraging me to go, even alone.  I know he would have gone with me, but he watched the kids instead.