que sera sera...what ever princess shall i be?

As an imaginative young girl I was obsessed by Disney Princesses. Out of all the princesses, the Little Mermaid “Ariel” was by far my most favorite. According to my mother and my own remembrances of yesteryear, I called myself “Big-Ariel-Sister”, obviously with dark brown hair I was no Ariel twin…regardless I did copy her behavior and most of her singing. In fact, I used to hide objects around the house(snarfblatts, dinglehoppers, and some gizmos and gadgets aplenty) then miraculously find these ‘treasures’ to put in my treasure bag and then use them to comb my hair-or something. I also vividly remember being pulled out of the Radium Hot Springs in Canada at age 5 after ingesting too much water in an attempt to sing “ah-ah-ahhhh….ah-ah-ahhhhh…” under the water.

As I grew older, I stopped playing dress-up (ok, I was 14) which leads us to last week at the kitchen table coloring the gigantic Costco Size Disney Princesses coloring book while listening to the Disney Princess Sing-a-long CD that I bought for my little girls as Christmas gifts.

Ever the perfect, patient nanny who was totally into listening on repeat “Someday my prince will come” and prancing around the living room with a six-year-old and a three-year-old (favorite Princesses=Ariel and Aurora) Penelope looked up from her industrious coloring of Cinderella’s ball-gown and asked me (567^th time) who my favorite princess was (Ariel….duh!), and followed by telling me “Ever since I was five (she turned six in October) my dream was to grow up and become a princess.” Rosalie then chimes in, “Ever since I was four (she’s still three until April) I have dreamed to become Aurora!”

Penelope then asks, “What do you dream about becoming Lo-renn?” A far cry from a few months ago when she believed I was going to be her nanny until I retired…so I told them that I want to grow up to become an opera singer.

“A what??” (Well the word in French is cantatrice, even some frenchies don’t know what that word means)

“An opera singer, you know girls, I would dress up like a princess (who has syphilis or consumption) and sing on a big stage in fancy dresses.”

“Oh! Could you be Ariel?”

Not unless I strapped on my roller-skates and signed a contract starring in Disney’s Broadway production…however, other princesses come to mind…and hmmm interesting…this is when it dawned on me that in fact, I have never grown out of my princess phase. Yeah, sure, opera singing is an art, it takes lots of work, talent and money to get onto a stage, but at the end of the day it would seem that I am pursuing a career in Princess-dress-up…though of course not Aurora or Snow White…Princesses (or ahem…women of the world) with real problems…forget about that evil step-mother, let’s talk about congenital diseases and severely twisted love-triangles that result in violent deaths, much despair and romance all while of course maintaining a sustained high-c.

But until then you might hear my woodland song-

“Someday my agent will come….someday my agent will come…”

Then I will ride off into the sunset (toward Opera Bastile?) with a contract in hand.

I might still be a nanny but I’m doing well on the princess track…I have found my Prince Charming, a lovely 300square foot Castle in the Kingdom of Paris, France…most of my ball-gowns are black (neutral is very in), no evil step-mothers for me…and forget the glass slipper-give me a glass of champagne instead!

suck and blow...a la francais

I think that everyone remembers that daring game played whilst we were 14-18 (ok 22)…suck and blow…the game where if you are lucky enough to pass the card to a cute boy that has no lung capacity you might get a chaste kiss…well I just encountered the equivalent recently at a little get together.

Let me just set the scene: an incredible apartment in Le Marais an incredibly trendy and chic area, a bunch of friends clad in classic Parisian garb drinking a white wine or a vodka cocktail, chatting and grooving to some music in the background…the more vodka cocktails consumed lead to some interesting discoveries on my part.

All of a sudden I hear the strains of Austrian Waltz music and see people sitting on the ground, their legs wrapped one around another swaying with their arms held aloft in the air…then un deux trois Paul runs across the apartment living room and dives headlong into the sea of waving arms, they catch him and roll him off to the side in preparation to the next person waiting to plunge to their death or just fall and have a minor concussion. This is a drinking tradition in the Southwest of France. Hmmm.

We continue chatting, and then I’m being grabbed by a friend and he is trying to force an ice-cube into my mouth with his tongue. My normal reaction, was screaming, pushing and spitting the ice-cube onto the floor staring wild-eyed at my friend…”What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks-was that?”

Because…

a. My boyfriend, and your best friend is right behind me…

b. And..whaaat???!!!!

Everyone started laughing at my ignorance of the fun game they call, “Passe le glaçon” or “Thrust the ice-cube into everyones mouth before it melts”. Voila…the French version of “Suck and Blow” everyone…hazah.

To put this into perspective, French people are shocked by Booty dancing, yet shoving an ice-cube with your tongue into your friends girlfriends mouth…totally acceptable and played by thirteen year olds. Hmmm.

hail to the king...'s cake

Jean-David and I were invited over to a friends house to partake in the mid-winter tradition Galette des rois which translates to “Kings Cake”. This year I was prepared to partake in this French holiday tradition, armed with the knowledge of what is expected in such a circumstance.

This tradition, as many French ones are, is based around food. In this case a flaky, buttery cake filled with sweet almond paté and one ceramic toy hidden in the cake. When you buy the cake it comes with two paper crowns….hence it’s name….King’s Cake. When everyone is settled with a glass of hard cider in hand (the beverage served with King’s cake….because let’s be honest, after age 10 this cake tradition is boring without a little bit of booze) then the fun begins! The eldest person is sent to cut the cake while the youngest person gets under the table and dictates who gets which piece. After the mortification of squeezing yourself underneath a small coffee table in a 150square foot space crammed with 8 people you are allowed to eat your cake.

If by chance you are the lucky one that has almost broken your tooth on the ceramic gizmo hidden in the cake you are the King! Or the Queen! So now, your knees are sore, you may have broken a tooth and the game isn’t over yet! You get to choose from the group of people your crush and crown them your king or queen. As a 24 year old the prospect of choosing a king doesn’t scare me, but imagining myself at 6 years old in front of a cafeteria filled with mean children pointing to my crush dredges up old elementary school dramas of hiding in the bathroom because Colin Sternagal was teasing me for having a crush on a certain Luke Hammond.

Thankfully this year I was spared from crouching under a table and sadly once more I didn’t chip a tooth and become Queen for a day…but I guess I can wait another year to try again. OR I can just buy a cake for myself and eat it all…then guess who wins…Hail to the Queen-I-ate-an-entire-cake-to-myself…

moveable feast

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

Yes I did it. I quoted Ernest Hemingway from one of his great oeuvres ‘A moveable feast’. Can you blame me? Well you shouldn’t. Ernie and I have oodles in common. Though my best friend isn’t Gertrude Stein, and I’m not pal-ing around with the sparkling writers of yesteryear, he and I have an eerily similar back-story.

Finally having read this tale of the brilliant, unknown ex-pat who was hungry for life-experience, beauty and above all a crisp white wine and a flakey croissant, I feel that I too may take my place as a brilliant, unknown ex-pat who is hungry for this seasons Louis Vuitton…I’m drinking crisp white wine right now…and a seasoning of all Paris has to offer.

I suppose that I am technically not an ex-pat, but I think that is just a question of time. And while I am not subsisting only upon my music making, I am here to diversify my perspective and soak up the richness of culture that has been touched by thousands of artists, musicians, and poets unknown or famous. The thought that they rambled up and down the same boulevards that I ramble down reflecting upon their art as they watched the summer sun glint of the Seine is magical. Undoubtedly they were thinking of Cezanne and not of Vogue, The September issue 2010.

I used to want to be French. This was a wish that started blossoming in my heart after living in Paris in 2006. Really, the only reason to be French, other than not having to undergo all the hoop-jumping for Social Security, or being a natural size two, is to be fluent in their beautiful language. But allo…anyone can learn to speak a language, but to be a natural speaker of the sumptuous English language is a true gift.

In short, or rather, shorter than Hemingway’s 126 pages, the reason that American’s decide to pick-up-sticks and pack off to ‘gay Paree’ is to be an American in Paris. Comme ça you can get away with cultural murder. I can pick and choose, the things I love-not about the States are left behind, and the things I love, with an exception of all my chères amis, I use liberally all the time (American honesty anyone?!). The question “why have I moved to France” can really be summed up in two words; l’amour et la musique.

Or:

1. love
2. music
3. wine (red, white and rosé)
4. food
5. fashion

That’s five, but you get the drift.