If the Shoe Fits

I just cleaned out my shoe closet. That may not sound like a big deal, but my 2010 living simply goals will not include living without many pairs of shoes. Cleaning out my shoe closet means moving all of my sandals and flip-flops to an under-the-bed plastic container and putting all of my sturdy boots and close-toed shoes in the cubbies in my closet. These are the cubbies that my husband delightedly calls my Imelda rack.

By this admission, it's pretty easy to figure out that I live in a seasonal climate. Although we sometimes say that Chicago has two seasons, winter and construction, we do actually have four seasons. I try to keep my toenails in view well into November and pull out the sandals as soon as I can bear it in April -- my southern Ohio roots just cannot be modified by the change in where I live. I can truthfully say that I wear all of my shoes at sometime or another during the year, and I do replace shoes when they wear out and get rid of the old ones. I fully believe that I deserve a medal for cleaning out my shoe closet, considering how much I love shoes.

A friend of mine said that once you give up on high heels, you have given up on life. I can remember the day as if it was yesterday that I gave up high heels for good, it's so vividly imprinted in my brain. I had to go to a shoe store and buy a new pair of lower-heeled shoes because my feet hurt so badly I could not walk another step in my very cute spectator pumps. Sigh. I've been wearing sensible shoes for a long time now, and it is sometimes hard to believe that I no longer wear shoes like these to-die-for booties. They meet all of my requirements -- open-toed, hot pink, glittery. The feet and knees that were destroyed by too many years of marching band and being overweight just can't handle it anymore. So sad.

The thing is, each shoe has a story, and sometimes it's hard to throw those stories away. As I put away this year's sandals, I remember the first time I wore those gold Finn Comforts in San Francisco during spring break, never thinking that I might get a blister. By the time I got to London in July, they were so well worn in that they never gave me a whisper of trouble. Then there are the two pairs of flip-flops that my daughter gave me for pedicures; I can never give them up. I wore two pairs of black leather European shoes all over Vienna and Salzburg when we traveled to Austria; they worked to keep us anonymous in the post 9/11 European climate that hated American tourists and I still have both pairs of those finely crafted shoes. My new Toe Warmers boots are the best boots that I have ever owned; they have taken me all over Chicago this Christmas vacation with warm and dry tootsies, as well as supporting my arches and ankles and protecting me from hard pavements with their thick soles. These boots allowed me to spend quality time with my family and enjoy life without my feet hurting. Pretty high praise for a simple winter boot, I think.

As I plan my trip to France this summer, I will once again be deciding which shoes will "fit" my needs. Since I have to pick just a couple of pairs in which to tour, I must be very careful, and I love the anticipation of shopping for France. Best of all, the shoes that come home will tell more stories.

What shoes "fit" you? Are you going to walk in some different shoes this year? I'd love to hear your stories. Bonne année!

Famille/Amis

I can't remember a holiday season in which I have had more fun than I have had this year. Starting with Thanksmas in Ohio with my mother and brothers and their families, through a lovely long weekend with my husband and our grown children, and all the way through a full staycation week of Chicago activities, every day is full of delights to be savored. I feel very blessed to be a part of such an amazing circle of friends and family.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone beyond the people I force to read this blog actually read it, but based on the thoughtful presents I received this year -- from the bouche de Noel to the copy of Up to the Villa (a travel memoir) -- I guess there are friends and family who are enjoying my craziness. I appreciate every single one of your kind comments and gifts.

Having recently finished reading My Year in France by Julia Child and viewing Julie and Julia, I can't help recalling the scenes in both the book and the movie where Child gathers in a group of people and creates a family wherever she lives. She lost her mother early, her relationship with her own father and stepmother was strained and it appears that she was disappointed to remain childless, but she made up for this sadness in her life by being a catalyst who drew disparate people together.

Not surprisingly, her lasting friendships appear to have revolved around food and travel. The Valentine's Day scene in Julie and Julia in Paul and Julia's French dining room is poignant and felt very meaningful to me as it triggered memories of the wonderful meals I have shared with family and friends in 2009. Even when I went to the movie web site and watched the trailer, I was reminded of incredible meals from the movie and from my own life.

After reading both books and bookending the books with viewings of the movie, I heartily recommend that you do all three. The movie is good enough to stand on its own, but your enjoyment and understanding of the characters involved will be deepened by reading the books.

I came away from this holiday season with a sense of wonderment about the blessings in my life. Somehow, this very flawed individual has managed to be a part of a magical circle of people who make my life worth living. My devoted husband, my amazing children, my sweet mother, my loving brothers, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews (including darling Libbie) all bring me joy every day. And then there's my other family -- the incredible group of friends who are there for me no matter what -- and are always bearing the necessary food and wine. Like Julia, I am a brash, overly-large American who has a purpose and contentment in her life. C'est magnifique!

The lines are blurred -- my friends are my family and my family members are my friends. What more could a girl want for Christmas?

Star Stalking and Other Guilty Pleasures

Here I am again, wondering how ten days could have passed since I last wrote a post. I recently had a conversation with a group of my students about how quickly time passes; it was interesting to hear them apply mathematics to life's passage. They told me, albeit politely, that the reason I felt that time passes so quickly had to do with the percentage of my life that I experienced every year (read: you're old). They, on the other hand, are only thirteen and fourteen years old and their two weeks of winter vacation represents a significant part of their young lives. For me, these two weeks will fly by and it will barely feel as if I got any vacation.

Luckily, in the last two weeks I have finished one book and two movies that I want to share with you. I previously discussed A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle; I had some trouble finishing the book, but loved the movie. The chronological organization of the book translated well to the screen and the addition of a fully developed wife in Lindsay Duncan was a welcome addition to Mayle's vignettes.

It was with some trepidation that I pulled out the second book in the Provence series, Toujours, Provence. Although Mayle brings back characters from the first book and treats his vignettes with the same light humor that he used in A Year in Provence, this book has a feel of being recycled. I also became uncomfortable with the fact that he never refers to his wife by name; she is always "my wife" and rarely plays an important role in the stories. Perhaps that is their agreement, but I know that if I were writing a book such as this, it would be hard to keep my spouse out of the stories. We are a team and our stories star both of us! Still, Mayle is a good writer who knows how to tell a story; my students could learn from his voice. Maybe I should choose a safe story to use to teach narrative structure.

While researching Mayle I stumbled across a blog that includes several Mayle sightings and a photo. I chucked about this, because it could easily have been me taking the photo with Peter Mayle. Once my son and husband had to forcefully drag me away from a possible star-sighting in New York; I was willing to wait to see if the enormous limousine carried someone important. I actually took a photo of Barry Manilow at O'Hare airport; he was delightful and willing to pose. It was too bad that his botoxed face didn't really move when he smiled for the photo. I also just heard that my daughter's friend actually waited on Puck from Glee and engaged in conversation with him. I would have definitely been right there, but I guess I would have had to ask for an autograph for my "granddaughter." And right here, I'll put in a shout out to my a cappella chat room friends. I love that you love star-stalking, too.

I also found that my husband was right when he reminded me that Mayle wrote A Good Year, which was made into a movie starring Russell Crowe. I'm a sucker for these types of movies and thoroughly enjoyed it at least twice. That would be fun to watch this week while I'm on vacation. It got reasonably good reviews and Crowe is worth looking at for an hour and a half. For those of you who are snowed in, try A Good Year for a glimpse of a warmer climate.

I'm hopeful that there will be time for me to dig into My Life in France in the next few days. I need me some Julia before I cook up a storm this weekend. Bon Noel!

No Cocoa for Coco Lovers

Since the only people who read this blog are my friends and family, I don't need to spend much time telling you why I haven't posted since November 18. This little thing called my job got in my way most of the time. Sixty-two research papers, 186 tests, and 124 reader responses later, I need to be back in my own writing groove, rather than jiving (and sometimes writhing) to middle school rhetoric!

I have to admit that most nights I have fallen asleep with the book on my face, but I've slogged my way through Savoir Flair! by Polly Platt. Written in 2000, it's subtitled "211 Tips for Enjoying France and the French" and that's exactly what it is about. I have learned from Platt that the French are going to hate me; I'm friendly, laugh and talk loudly, I don't speak French, and as Jessie and my dad would say, I'm a very sturdy German girl and I will never be able to fit into a real Chanel suit.

I had a fake Chanel suit once, which I practically wore out because I loved it so much. I still have my fake Chanel quilted handbag with the chain strap, but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't carry a plastic "Chanel" handbag in Paris. It came as quite a blow to me to learn that I will never actually own a real Chanel suit, even if someday I get rich.

I learned from Savoir Flair! that Chanel was not designing for my body type. Apparently the required French body should have very small shoulders and a petite waistline, and there isn't petite bone in my body, despite my short stature.

Several of my students wrote their research papers on French culture and I learned a lot about Coco Chanel from these sources as well as from Platt's book. It's interesting how life always seems to have its parallels. Despite my disappointment, I still enjoyed learning about Chanel. Her story is very interesting and you might want to see the recent movie about her, Coco before Chanel.

Since life's parallels show up in the most unexpected places, this morning we had French breakfast -- cheese and baguettes and chocolate mousse accompanied by a French chanteuse on a DVD player. We had several student teachers leaving today to return to universities and homes, and one of them declared it a French spirit day. We were to dress up in French attire. Following the lead of Evelyn in A Year in Provence, I wore a smashing silk scarf around my neck, attached with a brooch. I felt it was appropriate spirit day attire for a "woman of a certain age."

I also learned from Savoir Flair! that muggers grab Chanel glasses and sunglasses right off tourists' faces. Apparently there's a black market for recycled Chanel frames. See how powerful books are? Who would have known that? Do you think they will grab my Ed Hardy glasses or will they be too tacky even for muggers? I guess time will tell. Au revoir for now.

Is "Frugalicious France" an oxymoron?

This has not been a very French week. I realized that I'm France-deprived when Tim sent me this link today. Somehow I don't think I'll be trying out my online French to do these interesting things while I'm in Paris.

I'm looking longingly at My Life in France by Julia Child and Toujours, Provence, by Peter Mayle, both of which are lingering on my bedside table. I fall asleep every night with Edward and Alexandra by Richard Hough, because I'm determined that I am going to read it one more time before I give it away.

All of these books deserve their own posts, and hopefully, their times will come. I even have the amazing video series, A Year in Provence, waiting for me at the library. The incomparable Lindsay Duncan steals this series as Mayle's wife. Pretty soon, they will put it back on the shelves because I haven't picked it up. Note to self -- stop at library on way home from work tomorrow.

Oh, and did I mention that on Sunday I watched French Kiss, which I finally found at Blockbuster? Not my favorite movie, but the scenes in Paris and in the countryside are beautiful.

I'm going to have to be satisfied with putting dénouement on my Lit Test for tomorrow and leaving it at that until Friday night. Au revoir and go, Team Jacob. There's something very French about a werewolf in love.

There is no sense in crying over spilt milk -- Sophocles

What do you do when a book is comes highly recommended and you read it and wish you had not invested the fifteen dollars in it? Do you question the taste of the recommender? Or do you search for something in yourself that missed the central core of the story? I've been struggling with French Milk by Lucy Knisley for weeks.

Okay -- so the source of the recommendation was a twenty-something associate at Borders Books and I'm not twenty-something. Perhaps that is the problem, but I usually enjoy the books that my daughter and her friends read. French Milk is the memoir of an Art Institute of Chicago student who spends five weeks in Paris with her mother. They rent a flat, enjoy the culture and food of France, and have a good time getting to know each other as adults. The title refers to the author's love affair with the full-fat milk that is served in France. Knisley is a cartoon artist, so the story is presented as a graphic diary. She's creative and witty, and her drawings are beautifully detailed, but I just wished there were more words!

According to a Publishers Weekly reviewer on Amazon.com, French Milk was originally self published and became a word-of-mouth hit that led to mainstream publication with Simon and Schuster. Given the popularity of graphic novels, Knisley hit the big time at the right time. Despite its cartoon format, it is primarily a travel diary. Lucy's schedule encourages the reader to invest leisurely time in Paris rather than trying to see it all in four days, as I plan to do. I know it's wrong, and I'm pretty sure I won't be satisfied with the whirlwind tour of Paris that's in my agenda this summer.

When I bought French Milk at Borders, I also bought The Hunger Games. The same associate told me that I HAD to buy the sequel as well since I was going to want to read it immediately after finishing Hunger Games. Now I'm worried that the sequel to Hunger Games won't be worth reading either. I've already heard from my friends that it's not as good as the first book, and I haven't been clamoring to get it back from the friend I lent it to. I guess the moral to this story is to use my public library first.

Does anyone want to borrow French Milk? I own it.

What is a veteran?

Today I experienced something amazing. Six hundred students stood quietly while six military veterans presented a new flag to our school and set it at half-mast. Most of those students do not personally know anyone who serves in the military, but they seemed to understand what import our veterans and our volunteer military deserves. Even when we do not agree with the aggressive stance our country takes in the world, we can still honor those who risk their lives and give up time with their families to serve our country. We wore badges all day honoring veterans and active duty military people that we knew. Daddy -- if only you knew how many kids wore your name today and honored your service.

This poem was read at our commemoration. Perhaps you know a person serving on active duty or a veteran and want to say, "Thank you" to him or her on November 11.

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service...a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them...a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg...or perhaps another sort of inner steel... the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She or he is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back at all.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

He is the beggar on the street corner, holding up a piece of cardboard with the scribbling, "Help a Vet, HUNGRY!"

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded. Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU"!

© 1998 Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

A rosé by any other name

Apparently rosé wines are all the rage and I've been living under a rock, feeling supercilious about my pink wine-drinking friends. Rosés have been gaining in popularity and after a depressing time in the 80s and 90s, the new millennium has seen a rebirth in the popularity of pink wine. Admittedly, my sources were initially limited to Rick Steves and Jamie Ivey, but as with most of the digressions of my life, I ended up researching rosé wine prior to writing this post.

I was watching the Rick Steves’ travel videos about France and in one of the towns he has lunch with a friend. He says that he enjoys the fine rosé wines of the region for lunch because they are dry, crisp, and best served quite cold. It was intriguing to me because my relationships with pink wines have come from Mateus rosé during college, California white zinfandel (use it up while it's still young), and more recently, pink champagne. During last spring’s trip to Sonoma, I bought three bottles of pink sparkling wine from Schug Carneros Winery. Although enjoyable, none of these wines would make it to my top ten.

I realized that one of the travel books I had checked out from the library was called Extremely Pale Rosé: A Very French Adventure, by Jamie Ivey. I was deep into eighth grade student journals, but Rosé kept calling my name. I didn’t give in, and finished Hunger Games (a YA science fiction) for book club instead, but when Friday arrived, I was ready to dive into a barrel of rosé. I read this excellent book all weekend, and although I’m not quite done with it, I know that it is safe to recommend to both armchair travelers and those among you who like wine. It’s well-written, witty, has lovely descriptions of French scenery and culture, and best of all, may lure you into trying some new wine.

The search for the palest rosé in France was the story line of the Ivey book, and it kept me asking questions about winemaking and ruefully considering my lack of fluency in the French language. I learned that the French vignerons are very snooty (what else is new?) about their wines, and many don’t even consider rosés to be an acceptable type of wine. They are, however, quick to compare their method of making rosé to the California version. All grape juice is essentially clear, but wines are colored and flavor is added by the amount of time a wine spends soaking with the skins. Very dark wines have lots of color from the purple and red grape skins and white wines from contact with the green or yellow skins (or no skins at all). French rosés are made by essentially dying the wine through contact with the red grape skins, but the contact time with rosés may be as little as a few hours. The amount of time the wine is with the grape skins also affects the tannin content of the wine. Some California blush wines are created by just mixing red and white together to form pink, but the white zinfandel process is similar to that of the French.

Since the North Forty was going to a BYOB Mediterranean restaurant called the Couscous House on Saturday night, I thought this might be a fun place to try a French rosé to see if it would hold up to the strong flavors of Algerian cuisine. I went to the local liquor store and found that there were only four bottles of French rosé available. I chose the cheaper one ($8.99) just in case it was terrible, and went off to Chicago armed with two bottles of my Printemps D’Eulalie.

To make a long story short, some of us enjoyed the rosé and some didn’t. My Riesling-loving friend liked it, but my die-hard red wine friends did not. It was light, a little dry, and held up nicely to my meal. It didn’t hurt that my new friend Omar chose an amazing entrée for me that was not even on his menu. It was kind of like an Algerian chimichanga – shredded roasted chicken and raisin couscous mixed together in a luscious curry sauce and then put in a phyllo covering, deep fried, and garnished with confectioners’ sugar. The rosé wine was the perfect foil for this dish.

I highly recommend Couscous House if you want a Chicago neighborhood restaurant with good food that is a great value. I enjoyed both Hunger Games and Extremely Pale Rosé for different reasons, and I think I will go back to the liquor store and try the more expensive rosé that I didn’t buy on Saturday. I know I enjoyed this little French wine detour we took, so join me in trying some rosé from your local supplier and read Extremely Pale Rosé for a pleasurable romp through France’s vineyards. Bon voyage!

How Does An Anglophile Learn to Love France?

Before I start on this France journey, I think it's only fair to come clean. I'm an Anglophile. I've studied English history most of my life, and snap up historical fiction novels about Britain as soon as they hit the library shelves. You can imagine how wonderful it was to spend two weeks in England last summer, gazing at the locations I've imagined for all of these years. I called it "walking today where Anne Boleyn walked" to respectfully parody one of my favorite hymns. I got chills when I stood at the site of Anne's scaffold in the Tower yard, and I badgered my husband until we took the tour of Kensington Palace, which was not on our original itinerary. He pretended he did not know me when I took the photos of the Diana and Dodi shrine at Harrods. You get the picture.

I want to feel the same way about France, but I don't have the time in the next nine months to become fully immersed in French history. I know the basics, with Marie Antoinette and Napoleon coming immediately to mind. I want to read, read, read, and watch lots of movies about France and set in France.

I decided to start with a video about Versailles called Versailles: The Visit. Earlier in my life I would have wondered how any human being could actually think it was appropriate to cover walls, ceilings, floors, woodwork, and furniture in gold. It always seemed like it was the crazy behavior of Louis XIV, and that other people would also think it was crazy. That was before I visited the Hapsburg palaces in Austria. Unbelievable, but beautiful. Marie Antoinette was used to such ostentatious displays of wealth in her homes in Austria, but the Hapsburgs privately lived what they considered an informal lifestyle, primarily at Schoenbrunn Palace. That's what makes it even more interesting to visit Versailles where Louis XVI also "allowed" her to live "off campus" with her court in a much more informal dwelling.

Unfortunately, this video was so boring I almost fell asleep. It seems impossible to actually make Versailles boring, but this video did that. It gave an insider's view of Versailles which I guess I won't get to see when I visit, but it was very dry and certainly did not give me any flavor of court life in 18th century France. What it did tell me, however, is that when we actually get there, I will need a full day to explore the palace and all of the outbuildings and gardens. I am really looking forward to seeing the Palace, including the recently restored Hall of Mirrors, the Gardens, the Trianon, and Marie Antoinette's estate.

I'm reading French Milk in my free time, which is much lighter than Versailles: The Visit, and making my way through the Rick Steve's travel videos on France. More later on them. Bon voyage!

Getting Started

It seems strange that I am planning my next vacation before I finish cataloguing the digital photos from the last one, but maybe it’s not really strange at all. Isn’t that what travelers do? I don’t think I’m much different than anyone else who loves to travel. I read magazines and books and watch movies and see intriguing locations in which I want to be more than an armchair traveler. So, here is my journey. I’m going to write it down for the world to see. Maybe someone wants to connect with me, maybe not, although I’m hopeful that people will comment and recommend special places. Mostly, I just want to write about my thoughts, plans, and dreams.

In looking back, I know I started planning this trip several years ago after my friends came back from visiting France. A military family, they were figuratively blown away by the experience of visiting the Normandy beaches and the cemeteries. Then, my father died in the spring of 2009. He was a WWII veteran who was drafted in 1943, became a mechanic, and followed the Normandy first wave into France. He never got to go back to Normandy, and I’m not really sure if he wanted to. He hated how WWII was shown on television and movies and never really came to grips with the fact that many human beings learn how to deal with grief and pain by using humor to leaven the memories. When my brothers and I tried to watch Hogan’s Heroes, Dad always said, “That’s not really how it was.” We children were supposed to take his war and all wars seriously and understand the toll that war takes on individual soldiers as well as nations. He was proud of his military service and appreciated that he got to see places in Europe as a young man that he would never have had the opportunity of seeing, and he also valued the benefit of the GI Bill that allowed him to go to college when he came out of the Army. So, when the opportunity came to plan a trip to France, I knew that I wanted to honor Dad’s memory by going to Normandy.

As I started to look at my options, I began reading about trips to Normandy that included visits to the beaches. Many of the reviewers commented about having WWII veterans on their tours, and I realized that shortly, there won’t be anyone traveling who was actually there. Honoring my father’s memory became easier; we were going on a tour that was likely to include WWII veterans. That’s why I decided to choose a Seine river cruise from Paris to Normandy and back.

I asked my dear friend Nadya, who is a travel agent, to recommend a cruise line. As with so many other elements of traveling, she has experience with the cruise lines and was quick to sort through our options. We decided to spend four days in Paris on our own prior to sailing, and then another extra day at the end of the cruise. That way, we have some group time and some individual time to tour.

Now that you know my story, here is the road map for this journey. As I read books and view movies to prep myself for the trip, I’ll comment on them and review them for you. In between, I’m sure you’ll find more of my homegrown philosophy and some more about my wonderful family and friends. Bon voyage!