Pontoon Pirates

Special Post

2011-03-01T01:52:00.000-08:00

For Shea, Atlee, Greely and Emerson's Uncle Micheal in DC who seeing this picture on this blog :

said :

"The picture of the three kids playing their games should be above a New York Times article about 'how video games are ruining our kids' or something."

Last week-end's edition of Le Monde Magazine (which you can catch here if you're interested) did a special on screens, teens and tensed up parents and here is one of the photos they used to illustrate it :

Bravo Uncle Micheal in DC! Not only are you a super, stand-in-for-mommy photoblogger, you could also be the editor of the week-end Washington Post!

A Season for Westerns

2011-02-28T03:22:00.000-08:00

For many people February is probably considered more of a month for love stories than for westerns, what with Valentine's Day being smack dab in the middle and all, but here at our house, this year at least, February is the beginning of a season for westerns.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be westerns, folks, we promise, and not love stories. Even if Mom and Papa have been considering, perhaps, just maybe - but let's not get our hopes too high, now - celebrating for the first time in twenty years and a couple weeks late le Saint Valentin which is the cool French name for Valentine's Day in case anyone didn't get that...

So why is February western month here at our house? Well, to be honest, it's not only at our house that westerns seem to be fashionable this season. Over in the Far West, (Hollywood, California) the Coen brothers - Joel and Ethan, that would be, who are not twins - did a new adaptation of True Grit.

It came out last Wednesday in France. Here in eastern Paris, on Ménilmontant...

...we've had a copy of 100 dollars pour un shérif on our shelf for years now. (By the way, 100 dollars pour un shérif is, of course, the cool French title for True Grit. It means : A Hundred Dollars for a Sheriff.) So anyway, the day before the Coen brothers' version opened, we finally decided to watch it! We all sat down and admired a one-eyed John Wayne slurring his consonants and slinging his colts. It was fun. He almost looks like a pirate, doesn't he? We also saw Jeff Bridges playing Rooster Cogburn...

...and liked him too although he's somehow less gentle than John. Or maybe it's the Mattie character who's slightly less charming but served by a great little actress... Perhaps it's the era that's changed. Still, Mom thinks westerns are good for us pirates. They're filled with manly sentiments: honor, courage and loyalty in a lawless time. Faithfulness to family is also way up there on the list of virtues westerns promote. Lucky for us, huh? We also got to see :

3:10 to Yuma with Russel Crowe - much less manly, much more fatherly. That's one of the quirks of 21st century cinema: all positive male heroes must be good fathers too! Here, the object is to show men how to strike an acceptable father figure for an angry teenager, kind of like in a lot of Will Smith movies. So, how do you do it? Get yourself killed stupidly but heroically. And that is one of the small problems with westerns: a lot of killing. These nice-guy marshalls were basically serial killers or at least serial gunners-down of men and horses... But they didn't usually kill or beat up women and children, thank goodness! Oh, and the other mercifully absent figure in westerns is the humorous sidekick! No Donkey - as much as we love him - in True Grit! Mom's got a few other westerns we'd like to see on her shelf...

...She says "Not yet!" Apparently she's not quite sure she wants to transmit the manly sentiments in these films to us just now...

But speaking of humourous sidekicks, our all time favorite is...

...the 2008 South Korean western directed by Kim Ji-woon. No masculin good feelings, no honor, no loyalty, no courage just funny, funny, funny! Especially Granny in the closet. You should pick it up sometime.

But if you want to know who truly has true grit, take a look below:

Yep! Jerry! Here's what the vet found in his intestin:

No, not the green blanket. Let's get a little closer...

...Can you see that?

That's a button and a half-digested piece of string from a sauccisson. That's been blocking his digestive tract since the 10th of January...

...Poor kitty! He has a lot more stitches than anyone else in this family has ever had!

But now we're giving him love and FOOD! Glorious FOOD!

Where Mom goes on a week-end visit without us AGAIN!

2011-02-21T14:54:00.000-08:00

To Candes Saint Martin!

We'd really like to go there too but Isabelle hasn't finished redoing all the bedrooms in her grandparents' house so we can't go yet. On top of that, it's winter! And Mom said there was only one heater in this very, very old house with meter thick walls so it was pretty cold in the "Alexander Dumas room" where Mom got to sleep. Here's the view from the window:

No, that's not right!

Oups! Looks like Candes Saint-Martin has a run-down, grungy, Detroit kind of look in certain neighborhoods! The ivy sure makes it look better though, doesn't it?

Ah, there we go! That's better!

Even better with the window open! But, as we were saying, it was cold so Mom mostly left it shut.

Or sat in front of the fireplace reading Les Trois Mousquetaires, bien sûr...

...with Isabelle (who doesn't like photos!) in the big room which will some day be la bibliothéque (that's the very cool French word for library of course!)!

Despite the cold and the fog, Mom and Isabelle went walking...

Isabelle's coat is almost exactly the same color as that boat in the background. Can you see that? Here, here's another shot of it, on the far left...

...beyond the swans, back there by the castle of Montsoreau (which you can see from closer up, from another angle at a different season if you click on the link)...

The swans didn't mind the cold and the fog and Mom didn't either. She went beach combing and brought back colored rocks and Loire valley slate rubbed smooth by the river. She even saw wild flowers!

These tiny white ones are called perces-neige (poke-thru-snows in a very approximative, abotanical translation!), c'est joli, non?

They look like tiny, white bells. There was a man watching Mom so she didn't dare to get too close-up to the flowers. They are a protected species in France! Must be eidelweiss, non?

She came upon weird, tufted Dr Suess flowers too!

And shaggy, fluorescent yellow Dr Seuss trees...

Actually, they were just weeping willows about to bloom!

She found muddy paths...

...and paved paths...

...and nooks...

...but no crannies...

...and tiny red leaves...

...and even a cat like Jerry!

Ah, the splendor of Candes Saint Martin en hiver, as we say!

Have a good week everyone!

What's Up Doc?

2011-02-13T11:56:00.001-08:00

Well, tons of things are up as you might well imagine. And some things are down as well. Ah, the ups and the downs. The most important stuff we'll let Mom tell you by telephone. Here on the blog we just basically have fun, right? So what fun have we had lately?

We played Rummikub which I - Henry that is - won! That's always an UP.

Jerry wanted to play too.

The shelves in the closet fell (that'd be a DOWN) and we had to empty it all out. But then Mom let us...

...sleep in it for one night before she redid them. That was an UP. I hung up my lizard lantern and Malcolm...

...set up his blue ghost lamp (both UPs of course as the preposition indicates) ...

...but Malcolm also enjoyed playing with his green laser pointer. It makes really cool light patterns (up and down the walls...). We didn't sleep very well but it was fun any how.

The next day Mom put up the new shelves and then...

...Jerry wanted to sleep there too!

For about half a second Mom thought maybe our life might look and feel like an Ikea ad...

Ah, bliss!

...at least for a while...

...but then reality set in again. That would be both an UP and a DOWN as reality always is, right? The rod is UP but the clothes are hanging DOWN (which is actually an UP)...

With the extra wood Mom and I sawed off the boards for the shelves I invented a new game...

...I chose a simple name for it. In all modesty I call it HENRY BALL!

El Andy's UP!

The CEO of the one person enterprise Sunshine Cleaning...

...almost mooned us!

(Another definite UP even if he was DOWN on all fours.

A definite DOWN is the fact that Malcolm and I spilled sweet coffee on the keyboard of Max's computer two days ago. The u, y and h keys reallyyyyyyyy, reallyyyyyyyyyyyy stick now. Big, big DOWN. Especially for this post, huh?)

Here's a little phenonomon that Mom and I found DOWNright fascinating:

Did you all get that? Here, watch again :

Did YOU know that water would stand still in a funnel like that? We sure didn't expect that to happen! It was veryyyyyyyy exciting! A definite UP! Life's sure full of surprises, huh?

And here's one last surprise folks :

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyikes!

I came DOWN The dreaded Black Tongue disease! Don't worry ! It's not contagious even if blogging is! At least in our familyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

The Birthday Gift

2011-02-02T02:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Omi! The first day of your 80th year has dawned and set and we've decided that to honor this special year we pirates here in Paris will give you a weekly post at least. They might be short but we'll try to be faithful to the rythmn.

So here's number one!

Cheers to you from all of us.

So, what's new around here, you might ask?

Well, I - Malcolm that is - did catch a weird illness...

... Fluorescent Green Monster Mouth the doctor said it was. Very frightening to look at but innocuous enough from a medical point of view. Needless to say, I did not die of it.

Jerry didn't die either...

...but he did use up another of his lives, falling out the window AGAIN on January first. He must have wanted to say "Happy New Year" to the sidewalk downstairs... Um, not a good plan. The vet came - yes, there are emergency vets in Paris who work on Jan 1. They don't work for free, but then who does? - and gave him a bunch of shots and he was all better until...ten days later he began vomiting incoercibly and no matter what we did he would not eat or drink anything without vomiting until he was finally hospitalized for 48 hours with x-rays, and ultrasounds, IV drip and blood work,they even wanted to do a CAT scan - of course! - but Mom drew the line at that. and then he came home...

...and found his favorite spot on the dryer and we are all very happy! Mom and Papa are especially happy he has finished his antibiotics because they were making him finicky!

To teach him some manners...

...they considered feeding him from our lovely new plates...

...but they thought better of it...

...they figured all this refinement might just make the problem worse...

...or intimidate him...

...Yikes! This guy's something else, isn't he? We love our new plates and

we luv Omi!

Just one problem with the plates: No Beagle! To remedy that : a haiku.

Nos assiettes sont
Belles, mais Katie Le Beagle
Manque à l'appel!

Still, the biggest news of all remains the birth of our new baby cousin - once - removed on the 17th of November, 2010...

...Meet Clement!

He's got the makings of a fine pirate, wouldn't you say?

We sure think so!

Happy Birthday Mama

2010-11-23T21:35:00.001-08:00

Is that really you?

That is sort of fun that you had pictures taken at school each year so you could see just how much you changed from year to year. Of course, way back then, you didn't have blogs...

We hope the next year will be a good one, full of new advenuters, worthy of many happy memories.

Kisses!

By Popular Demand (Part TWO)

2010-09-03T12:50:00.001-07:00

HeeeeeeeeeeRES Jerry!!

If there's an open bag lying about...

...Jerry will soon be in it.

(In that picture up there, Jerry has just climbed into Mom's new back pack. You know, the one she bought to bike in Canada with? The minute she opened it to take out presents the day we got back, Jerry immediately climbed in to see if there were any for him. We think he was after the sardines we got at Rocky's.)

And what do you figure Henry - whom Mom figured should probably also appear in this blog since he hasn't been in the last three... - has in his bag?

If you said "JERRY!"...

...then you figured right!

Wherever we are...

...Jerry will usually be somewhere close at hand, like here, curled up in a dirty frying pan or...

...here, helping to empty the dishwasher.

But sometimes he gets tuckered out from all that housework and then, unlike some haiku-worthy beagles we know, Jerry will...

...go to sleep in his cage.

Ain't he sweet?

We like him.

By Popular Demand

2010-09-03T12:28:00.001-07:00

Stella and her amazing pet rat...

EL ANDY!!!!!

Without the slightest warning...

...he attempts to leap from unmade beds...

...play guitar...

...even dance while playing!

Be warned...

EL ANDY WANTS YOU!

We don't know what for, we just know he does!

And Some Things Never Change...

2010-09-01T16:07:00.001-07:00

In case anyone is worried there's too much nouveaute here in Paris...

...don't. The Eiffle tower still shines at sunset...

...and the clouds still roll wildly over La Defense...

...and the sun also rises.

...are back after three months' break for summer vacation!

2010-09-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

Well, almost three months. During that time, some of us did actually drum up the energy necessary to wish happy birthday to Stella and just to say hello. Once. But now we're back! Back for a new school year! Which only starts tomorrow, thank Zeus, so for now, let's quickly tell you what's new around here!

Max has a new keffié and a few new bracelets which he brought back from Israel (Jaffa, maybe...)(He still likes his old Starbucks mug for his morning coffee though.).

He didn't mind sharing his new headgear with Papa who looks remarkably like Yasser Arafat, we think.

Stella has a new rat. Well, new to the blog at least :

This is not a very good picture but it's the best you're going to get because Mom is boycotting the rat so El Andy - that's his name - doesn't get many photo ops.

Malcolm has a new earring!!! We even have an entire video of Stella piercing his ear but we won't be able to post that tonight. Here's a small taste of Malcolm's incredible courage though :

And last but not least...

...Mom and Papa have a new stove!!!! It's so shiny we can take pictures of ourselves in it even after having made grilled cheese sandwiches on it for the very first time ever!

Mom especially likes the oven door. She finds those quite handy for checking out if your hair is still looking alright after a long day of cooking.

Here's wishing you all many long days of whatever!

Just hello

2010-08-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

Hello

Happy Birthday Stella!

2010-08-04T07:26:00.001-07:00

FIFTEEN AND FABULOUS

[Even if this photo is fuzzy and doesn't really
capture you at all. But, what single photo could?
Nonetheless, we're going to have to take many
more picuters of you. Get ready for the paparazzi.]

Jerry Photo of the Month

2010-06-03T22:04:00.001-07:00

The first runner up was :

Second runner up :

For any of you looking for any other news, Mom actually sent an e-mail this morning! She figured some of you might not be looking for it...

A Miracle on Ménilmontant or ya win some ya lose some.

2010-05-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

A couple Thursdays ago was L'Ascension - the day the Holy Ghost rose to join the Father, I believe, but I - Mom that is - was not brought up a good catholic. My Sunday school was done at Unity...

In France, on the Thursday of l'Ascension there's no school for school children! For four days straight! Some Thursday, huh? (Be quiet Miss Crankypants, we all know what you think of the secular French school system...)

To occupy Malcolm and Henry during this long weekend, I agreed to accompany them to a place down Pyrénées called Cash Converters. It's a pawn shop basically. Every now and again, Henry and Malcolm have dreams of saving up their weekly allowance of 2 euros a piece to buy this season's lastest video sensation - meaning the console and as many games as possible! This time, they want to buy a PS2 and they've come within close enough range of their dream to know that used versions of it are available at Cash Converters for 59.99 euros... They've been saving for a couple weeks now and on Ascension Thursday they had some 10 euros in the piggy bank.

The evening before, they'd waited up for me to get back from work to ask me if the next day I'd take them to PS2 heaven. Nil the river was also saving up and his Dad had agreed to take him so Henry and Malcolm figured we should make it a neighborhood outing. That's what we do here.

This time, the three boys had decided to sell and THEN buy. They'd gotten all their old educational CDroms together (Arthur's ABC's, Math with the Wizards, Sam Pyjam...) in a bag with Henry's old tennis racket, one half-finished series of mangas and a couple old DVDs too. They were psyched to sell!

After breakfast, Stella took me aside and whispered "Mom, try to make them understand that they might not get very much for that stuff." I told her not to worry, as of 8am, I had been putting a seriously wet blanket on their hopes. Stella said "I remember when I was little and I used to have wild dreams like that, that I'd sell my stuff on ebay and buy an apartment in the XXth..." The girl is not yet 15, but her dreams of some day hitting oil already seem wild to her... (That's French education! "Down Miss CrankyPs! Down! Sit!")

Well, we set off for Cash Converters, a relatively heavy bag over Malcolm's shoulder and Henry with only his tennis racket lashed neatly across his back. When we got there, only one man was at the counter. We had the waiting area to ourselves. The boys were anxiously trying to guess how much they'd get for their stuff. I bet 12euros for Nil's goods; he had some pretty recent PS2 games in his bag and... Well, we'll see, for H and M's.

Nil got 12 euros for his stuff and H and M...well... At the last second, Henry wisely pulled back Malcolm's 1/2 manga collection, realizing they could probably get more for it at a used book store or at a sidewalk sale. Smart kid! Even if it did lower their total takings from 10.50 to 8.50 euros.

On the walk back, they were grumpy. A small herd of grumpopotomi still lugging a 1/2 manga collection back UP Pyrénées... By the time we got home, I was so sick of their grumbling that I sent them to the park without a snack! "GO OUTSIDE and PLAY BADMINTON!!! NOW!!!" They went, grumpily. Then, after about an hour they came home again, grumpily.

For some odd reason which I no longer remember, about two hours later, I realized they had forgotten the badminton rackets at the park. This made me mad and I sent them off to bring the rackets back if they were still there. I too went out on some errand or other. As I was coming back, I passed Malcolm going off on his rollerblades. "Where are you going?" I asked. It was getting late.

"Oh, I'm just going around the block." Malcolm answered.

"At this hour? Does Thierry know?"

"Yes, he said I could go."

"Mmmm. Be careful," I said.

When I got up stairs I asked Thierry if Henry was back. He wasn't. I asked why Thierry had let Malcolm go out for a ride around the block rather than sending him to the park with Henry. Thierry said he HAD sent him to the park!We were getting a bit worried. Then Henry came back. Grumpily.

"I didn't find the rackets but I found this." He held out a small black nylon wallet. Malcolm came back and got a talking-to by Thierry... Henry and I were already rifling through the wallet trying to find out whose it was. That became clear very soon.

It belonged to a Frenchman man who lived in Jerusalem. There was no French address nor telephone number but there were several numbers in Isreal. We began by calling the three numbers listed in the Parisian phone book for people called Sam Cohen living in the vicinity of our neighborhood.*

*editor's note : in this true story, the names have been changed to protect privacy.

The first number didn't answer. The second was a little old woman who was the mother of a Sam Cohen. When I announced he'd lost his wallet she was quite upset and her husband finally got on the line. I tried to reassure him, saying it wasn't very serious, we'd give it back, I promised, then I realized it was perhaps not even this guy's wallet. I asked the man when his son's birthday was and MUCH to his credit he knew it. It was not the same birthday as the guy who'd lost his wallet. Their son was five years older than our guy. We said our good-byes. Mr Cohen's mother was quite releived. I could hear her cooing happily in the background. Mr Cohen's father was quite relieved too and also slightly exhilarated by this small excursion into the adventure of someone else's life. The third number didn't answer.

Then we decided to call Jerusalem. A lady picked up right away and when I said I was trying to contact a certain Mr Cohen she said "Oh, he's in France!"

I said "Yes, and I think he's lost his wallet!" She turned around and cried out "Sam's lost his wallet!" and a man in the background groaned.

"I'd like to return it to him. It's got his driver's license and things in it."

"Sam's lost his driver's license," she cried over her shoulder. I could hear her dragging on her cigarette.

I asked if they had a number for Sam in France. They did but SHE didn't so HE had to go and dig it out of a drawer somewhere. Henry and I waited... then we finally had a number. It was not a French number though. It was a number to be dialled from Jerusalem in order to call France.

I sat and looked at the number for a while knowing it was not one I could use, trying to pick out which numbers I should keep and which I'd have to throw away in order to get through to someone in France. It looked something like this :

003303648685195

which is not a French number. Then lightning struck! I took off 003303 added a 0 in front of the 6 and got a valid French cell phone number.

"Bonjour, je cherche à joindre Sam Cohen."

"Oui..." very tentative, "C'est moi...."

"My son found your wallet, at the park."

"Yes, my wallet was stolen."

"Well, my son didn't steal it! But if you'd like..."

Sam Cohen was actually just one street away. Ten minutes later, he was on our doorstep, a tired man, ten years my senior. He thanked me. I said it was nothing. He thanked me again. I said it was nothing again. Then he told me HIS story.

"C'est incroyable! I'm staying at my mother's. She lives on an impass off the rue Boyer in a two-story house."

It was incredible. I know that house well and that impass. That's where I did my last series of all-day study periods before my final midwifery exams. I passed. It was a minor miracle! I didn't tell him.

"This morning," he continued, "when I came downstairs I found my passport, my cigarettes, my lighter on the table. I asked my mother 'Did the chair fall over?' My jacket was on the back of the chair. She said 'No, last night your brother came in and took something from the pocket.' I looked through the pockets and found my wallet had been taken. The strangest thing is, I work for a travel agency and I had an envelope with 1500 euros in that pocket given to me by a client to reserve a rental. Last night I took the envelope out and put my wallet in. I went up to bed with the envelope in my pyjama pocket. My wallet had my papers in it but hardly any money. Now I've got my wallet back too!"

I was pleased for him. Then he said "I'd like to give you this." He handed me some bills folded over into a small wad. I, of course, refused. It was nothing. Then he said "For your son. I'd like to thank him. It shows good education to bring it back." Now that I could not refuse!

"Thank you! It will make him very happy!" I said.

Now, if this were fiction or Hollywood that wad of bills would be exactly the amount needed to pay back the lost badminton rackets with just enough left over to pay off the desired PS2, right?

You know I'm right!

But this is real life!

Now, I'm very tempted to say "TEN comments will get you the end of this story..." then wait and see what you do... I could do a Scheherazade... leave you wanting more... Kind of like when I used to read to the kids at night and just at the most exciting part of Harry Potter I'd tease them, "And now it's time to go to bed!"... just like Omi used to do to Monique and me, reading The Pink Motel... but actually, I kinda want to finish this tonight. So no fooling around. It's shorter than Harry Potter anyway.

The guy gave Henry 30 euros.

As I pocketed the money and headed for the elevator I had several thoughts : I could just keep this money for myself... He should have come down with me if he really wanted this reward (before calling the numbers in the wallet, Henry had - yes, I admit it - evoked the possibility of a reward which I, always the wettest blanket on the beach, poopoohed) ... Henry's going to be sooooo happy! I hope he doesn't make his brothers and sister too jealous...

When I walked in and gave him his 30 euros he was THRILLED! And I was THRILLED! The first thing he did after gasping was grab his brother Malcolm in a very heart-felt bear hug. Then the two of them began dancing around the apartment, throwing the three bills in the air, watching them float to the ground, rolling on the bills when they reached the floor, waving them in front of their faces like a lady's elegant fan, then waving them around like ostrich feathers... they called Nil who was floored. They were very upset that Max and Stella were not immediately present to witness and enjoy the miracle!

Watching their shenanigans, which went on and on and on, I thought to myself "Thank God Sam can't see them now! Rolling in money like it was catnip! What would he think of our good education if he could see this?!!!"

Well, tonight, on the 26th of May, as Henry fell asleep after a hard day - he probably will not be accepted at the special school for athletic and artistic children; the interview was this afternoon and he came out feeling worthless - he told me "We're just 2 euros away from the PS2!"

Remember, our wildest dreams can come true!

Le Fish's Ultimate Disappearing Trick

2010-05-22T01:54:00.000-07:00

We didn't want to spoil the fun and joy of announcing Jerry's arrival and we didn't actually know how to break this to you gently (we couldn't very well tell you Le Fish was out on the roof happily playing with a ball when...*) so you can imagine how very grateful we are to Omi for giving us this title (which we took from her comment to Adopting Jerry)and this opportunity to tell you that...

...Le Fish, the most beautiful betta splendins we've ever had disappeared for the last time at around 1 o'clock a.m. on the very morning of Jerry's arrival. While Jerry was travelling toward Ménilmontant in the night train, Le Fish, the Trickster we should have called him, was vanishing for good. Ironic, no? This is the last photo taken of him. We think it's rather appropriate in a ghostly fashion.

Le Fish's disappearance is actually a rather long story. It began about a month and a half ago when Le Fish suddenly stopped eating. For about fifteen days he'd eat one grain every few days or so. Nothing at all like the 4 x 2 he used to eat back in his early days with us. Then, finally he stopped eating entirely. This disturbed us although we observed that besides not eating he looked totally normal, swam high and low in his tank, hung out in his rock tower or in the hole in the fake grecian vase, shimmied up the bamboo pole from time to time... He even continued fighting with Stella's finger when she put it up close to him. He seemed fine. He just wouldn't eat. Mom kept promising she'd go to the fish store and find out what they thought might be the problem, but Mom's promises sometimes take a while to become reality.

Meanwhile, we had all sorts of hypotheses : Le Fish was getting older so he didn't need to eat as much, like older human beings; he had lock jaw; he snubbed the grains because we, well, perhaps I -Henry that is - should say "they" meaning everyone but me, of course, had somehow befouled them with their grimy human hands; Le Fish was sick and tired of always eating the same old grains every morning, every evening, same old, same old, the terrible grind of routine...; we imagined perhaps he was feeling lonely, if not for a male sparring partner (which he surely would have made mince meat of in no time) then perhaps for a cute little female betta and a string of sweet little baby bettas...

Mom finally went to see the fish doctor. His first question was "Does he have white stuff on him?" Mom said "No. Why?" Doc : "That would be a parasitic growth caused by stress, brusk change of temperature, being chased by a bamboo stick, being hit by a falling grecain vase..." Mom went home to make sure he had no white stuff on him. He didn't. He was his usual healthy blood red color, his long fins flowed freely, not a spot of white anywhere. Mom went back and reported this to the doctor. So the doc admitted he didn't know what might be bothering Le Fish. He said they could go for weeks without eating, that when Le Fish merely approached the grains he was probably eating tiny little bits. The doc said we could always try live food...

As Doc was serving other fish buyers, Mom sat by the female betta tank and watched them flit this way and that happily. Her decision came during that 10 minute wait : we would buy Le Fish some female companionship. And also the live bait the doctor thought might interest him more.

When I came home from school that day Mom announced we were going to the fish shop. I had invited a bunch of my friends over for a snack after school so we all went to the shop together...

...Vincent and Cledo were there...

...Valentin too, as well as Quentin, Louis (of Easy Cut Coconut fame) and Nil the river... It was kind of a neighborhood affair. We were really careful too. See how we let the new fish get acclimatized by leaving them in their bag so they'd get used to the temperature of the water before freeing them into the tank? We were becoming fish experts!

We loved the three new females and had found very neat names for them :

This small white one with the big black eyes we called Hepburn...

...here's Calamity called thus because she seemed to have had a hard life already, she was slightly bent in the middle and she seemed quite expert at finding the neatest hiding places...

...this little lady here...

...we called La Foudre - meaning Lightening - because she was so fast and because we think Le Fish fell in love with her at first sight which is called a "coup de foudre" in French. In any case, from the moment she was introduced into the tank, he was always after her.

What a beautiful fish, huh?

That guy up there we called Ajax, he's a window cleaner fish. I was so pleased to have him! The fish doctor said they could live for ten years and grow up to thirty centimeters. They have a huge old fella at the store which is really impressive. We were worried our tank would not be big enough. Cledo's Mom Sylvie said "Oh, in ten years Henry will have a big apartement of his own with a big tank..." The entire neighborhood was dreaming about our present and future aquariums...

Which is another reason why it was such a shame when the very next morning - the day Papy came - we found Ajax dead in a corner! He had not survived 10 hours in our tank! Not only were we just plain sad but now the whole neighborhood was going to have to be told that we're fish assassins rather than fish experts!

Mom figured we'd been badly advised so she went back to the fish doctor and got two new female bettas for the price of Ajax

We let them acclimatize...

...we called them :

the Indigo Tigress and...

...Madame Staline.

For a while, a very short while, something like 36 hours...they all lived together in a bright fish tank! Le Fish had never seemed happier in his life! He swooped around after these females trying to... to... well, kill them I suppose. AFTER Mom had bought the fish, the doc told her Le Fish would chose one female he liked, then try to kill the others. Then he'd make the one he liked pregnant, then, when she had laid the eggs he'd kill her then kill the babies... A betta holocost, basically...a kind of depressing scenario...

Anyway, the Dreaded White Parasite got them first. The Indigo Tigress was found deep down in the rock tower covered by a thick, white film. Madame Staline sprouted the stuff the next day and vanished in just a few hours. Calmaity went next, well hidden at the bottom of the grecian vase then finally, Le Fish...

When we saw him covered with the floating white spider-webby stuff on his left fin, we went into action. Mom found out from Doc that putting a tiny bit of salt in the water could burn the stuff off him so we put him in his original bowl with one grain of rock salt and waited. No improvement. Stella sat beside him, lifting him up to the surface every now and then with the sieve so he could get some air, she tried to scrape the stuff off him with cue-tips, it was agonizing... I became strangely detached and kept asking when the cat was arriving. By midnight on the 20th, Mom could stand it no and went to bed. At 7:15, when Jerry arrived, Le Fish was no longer.

Today, only Hepburn and La Foudre are still with us...

...but will they survive Jerry???

*This was the beginning of a joke that Opi once told Omi when Mom was about five. Mom was listening and she didn't get it right away, then, when she finally did get it, it imprinted on her brain and became the only joke she could ever remember...To this day!

Adopting Jerry

2010-05-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

Today Jerry arrived!

He's our new kitten. He's extremely cute...

...and sleek! He arrived very early in the morning. At 7:15am because his previous mistress brought him by night train all the way from the Drôme where he lived with his momcat until today. We think he's adjusting well...

..he first said hello then good-bye to all of us when we had to go to school, then, Mom told us, he...

...thoroughly explored the living room floor...

...all the while...

...cleverly avoiding the guest trap (he's not a guest after all, this is his home now)...

...then, he discovered all on his very own, the smiley-face ball on the piano which he knocked down and had a good half-hour's fun chasing after!

He was quite tuckered out after that...

...and found a spot to rest on...

...Luckily, Papa was there to save him because those purple benches are not the most comfortable seats to curl up on in our house!

Yes, Papa, after refusing for years even to discuss the idea of a pet, was now touched to the point of accepting to SMILE for a photo he knew full well Mom was bound to put on the blog! Mom tells us he not only smiled he even said " I'll be a mother to you little Lord Jerry!" Then Papa...

...read aloud to him from Joshep Conrad...

...then, after announcing that Jerry was going to be "his" cat...

...Papa fell asleep!

And Jerry too!

Well, almost.

Luckily, I - Henry that is - came home from school to give him a bit more fun!

Jerry and Malcolm found the warm, sunny spot on the couch and Malcolm tends to think Jerry is HIS cat...

...he sure enjoyed taking a catnap on Malcolm's bed as we played Game Cube in any case.

Still, Mom thinks he might actually be HER cat...

...he does seem to enjoy her computer...

And he even napped on her desk, on her...

...book!

Welcome Jerry we already love you!

Guess Who Came to Dinner? Devinez qui est venu diné dimanche dernier?

2010-05-16T00:30:00.001-07:00

One week ago today,there was excitement in the air.
Papa was out early shopping at the best boutiques along the rue des Pyrénées...

Dimanche matin de la semaine dernière, il y avait de l'ébultition dans l'air!
Papa s'est levé tôt pour aller faire des courses dans les plus fines épiceries fines de la rue des Pyrénées...

He fell in love with a bouquet of fresh thyme and brought it home for Mom to sniff...

Il est tombé amoureux d'un bouquet de thyme frais et l'a ramené comme cadeau olfactif pour Mom!

She - Mom that is - spent the morning cleaning then tried her hand at some fancy canopies and...

Après avoir passé la matinée à ranger la maison des caves au grenier, Mom s'est attelé aux tartines, les coiffant d'un cheveu de poivron rouge...

...she even got out the new-used Champagne bucket she bought at EMMAUS Chinon with Isabelle when she was there back in April...

...elle a même sortie le nouveau seau à Champagne qu'elle a rapporté d'EMMAUS Chinon après sa visite à Candes avec Isabelle...

Why all the excitement, you may ask?
Pourquoi tant de préparatifs, vous vous demandez?

C'est Eddy Mitchel?!!! Is it Mick Jagger?!!!

Mais non! C'est Yves Paret!
Notre Papy national!
Ici, il est déguisé en Jean de La Fontaine...

Why, no! It's Yves Paret, of course! Our own favorite Papy!
(Our own favorite Opi doesn't come to Paris very often...)
Here, Papy is disguised as Jean de La Fontaine...

...to help me - Malcolm that is - learn my role for our class play!

...il m'aide à apprendre mon rôle pour le spectacle de fin d'année de ma classe. Moi, c'est Malcolm bien sûr, malgré la perruque et l'ombrelle!

Yes, there was lots of good cheer!

On a beaucoup trinqué...

And lots of good food!

...et on a super bien mangé...

Papa made Mom's favorite dish : Blanquette de veau (creamy veal stew - for a better translation of that you're just going to have to ask the John and Julia project). The above photo is not Blanquette de veau but it's some pretty darn good looking cheese! (Tasted pretty darn good too!) And look at that wine! MmmmM!

Papa a fait une belle Blanquette de veau - un des plats préférés de Mom, et nous avons dégusté des fromages excellents de chez LeLanne et des vins blanc variés et étincelants!

Papa also made...

Papa a aussi préparé...

...rhubarbe pie which just happens to be his own favorite and which none of us kids ever usually touch. But this time, since he put the last of his corne de gazelle stuffing into the pie, we all loved it and polished the entire thing off in the blink of an eye!

...une tarte à la rhubabre qui est son dessert préféré à lui! D'habitude, nous autres enfants terribles, nous ne mangeons pas la tarte à la rhubabre, mais cette fois-ci, comme Papa a mis un peu de pâte d'amende et un peu de fleur d'oranger...Miam! Nous avons tout fini en un clin d'oeil!
Mais, Papy n'est pas venu uniquement pour faire la fête avec nous. non, il avait une mission...

Papy didn't actually come just for the pleasure of eating Papa's good food and drinking some good wine. No. He was on a mission...

Opération Chocolats de Pâques était le nom de code...

Operation Easter in May was the code name! There behind Max, if you look closely you will see, sitting primly in their plastic wrappers, chocolate Easter Bunnies! For any of you who were doubtful, no, we don't only have chocolate pigs in France, we also have bunnies! But we eat them in MAY when they are a little plumper than in April! Originally, there were four packages...

...here in the foreground, you can see, if you zoom in, that after a couple slices of rhubarbe pie, all we could eat was the bunnie's ears! Who masterminded Operation Easter in May, you ask? We have no doubt it was not Papy but...

Mais qui donc tire vraiment les ficelles de cet espion diabolique aux mille déguisements?

MAMY! of course.
Aucun doute, c'est Miss Maddy de Belfort, bien sûr, mieux connu sous son identité quotidienne : MAMY!

Here's a picture of her at Christmas last year. We were sorry she couldn't make it Paris with Papy but someone had to hold the batfort back in Haguenau.

Voici Mamy à Noël. Nous aurions bien aimé qu'elle accompagne Papy, bien sûr! Même si nous aurions été obligés de partager la tarte à la rhubarbe...

A bientôt, Mamy!

Now May's Here and Henry's Back Too!

2010-05-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

After 15 of the most gloriously sunny and warm days one could hope for in the month of April, May came in with a bang! Stormy and cool...

Papa took Mom and me - Malcolm that is - out to lunch on the 1st. He wanted to take us to Le Bon Coin but it was closed so we went to a Moroccan restaurant instead.

Mom was in a good mood...

...so she let me taste the Moroccan wine...

(Oops! Did we forget to tell you that Mom got her hair colored back in April? Well, as you can see, she did!)

Cheers!

Mom liked the dishes...

...and I, although for some reason I look terribly frightened in this picture (maybe at the idea that I was going to have to eat all this food!), very much enjoyed the grilled lamb, merguez and kefta...

...even if it was not served with frites but with...

...semoule. Semoule is the wheaty part of couscous, couscous being the entire dish : meat, veggies, semoule, etc.

Mom and Papa had tagine...

...which is a type of ragout cooked in a clay dish with a round, pointy lid. Mom's was Lamb tagine with prunes and almonds! Yum! (Yes, Omi, I assure you : Mom really does eat cooked prunes these days, even if she refused to do so when she was three. I saw her do it just yesterday with my own eyes. And she didn't even try to force me to taste any either!) Papa had Lamb tagine with candied lemons and yellow raisins but he ate it so fast Mom didn't even have time to get a snap shot of it.

Then of course, after the main dish comes dessert!

This photo was mostly taken to make Max and Stella who had staunchly refused to come with us as jealous as possible! Is it working? If that didn't work, how about this...

...or this...

While I was eating my TWO desserts (Yes, you read that right, TWO!!), Mom was playing with her Leica...

...and Papa was dreamily scratching his left ear...

It happens sometimes.

After lunch, we walked down La rue des Pyrénées till we got to...

...the condemned bus depot which occupies an entire city block and which Parisian and banlieusard tag artists have been progressively taking over for the last year or so. (Do you remember what banlieu means? It means suburbs. We told you that way back in the early days of Pontoon Pirates but if you've forgotten, that's OK. We don't mind repeating ourselves.)

We took exactly 92 photos of the tags as we walked around the block but don't worry, we will only show you our favorite ones :

I was enjoying myself...

...blending in...

It's an amazing series of paintings! There are small ones...

...and huge ones...

Papa didn't quite know what to think.

But I love them! I'd like to be in one of them...

...and Mom's always easy to please!

But by the time we'd gotten mostways around the block, even Papa was getting into the action!

It's a very dynamic place. The artists know their work will probably not last a night if it lasts an hour! Just look at this :

Now compare it to the photo we took back when we set off on our tour :

Yep! Once around the block and some of the ones we liked were already being covered up!

Yes, May came in grey and windy...

But there was at least one sunny spot :

Henry came home from tennis camp tonight!

(He had a great time but looks pretty happy to be home too, doesn't he?)

We're pretty glad he's home too, and not only because Papa made Crottes de Muffins au Chocolat and Cornes de Gazelles au Fleur d'Oranger either.

We're just happy because he's Henry and we've missed him!

Welcome home Henry with the sunburnt back! We love you!

Ah, April in Paris...It's Over...

2010-05-02T01:10:00.000-07:00

Here's what we did in April but didn't have time to tell you about :

1) First Mom and Papa prepared our dossiers (cool French word for application forms) for admittance to two special schools : Lycée Auguste Renoir for Stella and Collège Rognoni for Henry and me - Malcolm that is.

Here are some of the photos of Stella's "artwork" for Renoir. Renoir is a school which specializes in preparing students for the major post-Baccalaureat art schools. Max's friend Naïm goes to Renoir.

Now, here's a glimpse of our dossiers for Rognoni :

The first two pages are the same for both of us - although the text is slightly modified - but then each dossier becomes very different. Mine mostly shows "artwork" though I'll be going to this school for "the children of artists", if I get in, principally as a trumpet student (I'll have to do a trumpet audition to get in anyway). I'll only be going secondarily as a kid who likes to draw.

Henry's dossier shows him doing sports because he'll be going principally as a tennis player (and you can't do a tennis audition now, can you?) and only secondarily as a violinist.

Mom said it was a good thing she'd had almost a year's training as a photo blogger before having to do these dossiers. Now she knows how to tell a good photo story in a flash! Well, flash might be a bit of an exaggeration... Mom learned that copying and pasting text and pictures is a whole other matter on paper than it is via internet!

Once our dossiers were ready and sent off, it was vacation time for Mom and Papa! They went out and had a nice meal in a little neighborhood restaurant they discovered this winter.

(Editor's note : this is where Pontoon Pirates attempts an illegal OPA of the John and Julia project visible here.)

How do you like THAT sauce Bernaise, eh? The spoon stands up in it it's so stiff! Mom said it was really tasty!

They also like the restaurant's decor which somehow reminds them of Twin Peaks...

The place is called Au Bon Coin and if you're ever in the XXth arrondissement of Paris wanting to celebrate something special, give it a try. You can't miss it, it's the place with this...

...cute little fella curled up on the doorstep!

2) We ate a lot more good food, homemade or out and about. Finding traditional French bistrots is not as easy as you might think these days in Paris. So when Mom and Henry got hungry as they were out shopping one day, they could not resist having a little sit down Chez...

Is anyone still wondering why french fries are called French fries? Here in France, they're served with all grilled meat dishes, but we just call them frites or fries.

MMMMMMM!

That whipcream-covered ice-cream sundae is called a Chocolat Liègeois in France! The other dish - it's very yummy too - is Crème Brulée. I'm sure Julia tells how to make that. .

In this spring season, Mother Nature's gifts served straight up or with butter and salt are also delightful :

These radishes were eaten on the terrace behind Isabelle's house in Candes Saint Martin which is where Mom spent last weekend!

(Candes is in Indre et Loire, Monique, not Loire et Cher but you were close, oh so close! Had Mom been able to post a comment after your guess the other day, she'd have told you you were getting toasty warm.)

And this coffee looks good enough to be served at the Bounce-Back Café, does it not?

(Editor's note : actually, it's instant coffee, but with the proper lighting and stage setting, it sure looks like the real McCoy, no?)

This white stuff covered with fines herbes (chives) is delicious if your name is not Brigitte Darnay. That's fromage blanc made from goat's milk. (Fromage blanc is somewhere halfway between sour cream and yogurt.)

Yes, much good food was had in April! We also discovered a new fast food place that even Papa accepts to go to regularly.

...What is this mysterious, new, nature-loving, fast food joint called, you ask? Just zoom in on the balloon you see in the next picture...

...Starbucks! Look out! Here comes Roule Galette! Mom figures they're aiming to rule the world galette market. Maybe they already do, who knows?

(Editor's note : we have no explaination for the tiny witch on a broomstick which is also visible above the Roule Galette logo on the balloon. Some sort of western French voodoo charm maybe? To ward off copycat competitors? The Britons are known throughout France for their superstitious beliefs and their eery, dark forests filled with ancient druidic ruins...) We had a good long think about that...

...while we were waiting. And I almost fell asleep...

...but Mom propped me up on my elbow for a photo. Henry got a good shot of me and Mom before Mom got drunk on...

...Roule Galette's sparkling cider!

We sure loved those crepes when we finally got them!

We also REALLY loved...

...the constant-flow water faucets and...

...the nature-loving, electric hand driers!

Roule Galette was before,

3) We went to a see few good shows.

Papa got us tickets to see Carla B... No not Bruni, Carla Bley a jazz pianist who plays with a really good trumpetist. Mom was not with us so there are no photos but have a look at Carla's website, it's rather original!

Our neighbor from downstairs who is also a dancer invited us to see his show which is where we were headed when we stopped at Roule Galette for a chocolate covered crepe.

Here are some photos :

It was an amazing show! Mom took videos which she'd like to share but won't even dream of trying to upload today otherwise you may not get this post before April 2011!

4) Henry went to tennis camp! And he's still not home yet! These next pictures show him getting ready to go :

New racket...

...new shoes...

... a whole new look!

And here he is trying out his new look on the court:

Gentleman Federer, watch your step!

5) Stella went to handball camp but played zero handball because it was actually tennis camp pretending to be handball camp... Um, Let's explain that. On Thursday the 15th just after Stella's school called to say Stella had not gone to math class...again, Mom and Papa decided Stella needed some Time-Out of Paris doing sports during spring break. So Papa found an incredibly cheap handball camp for Stella that very day.

When Mom and Stella arrived at the train station to send Stella off to handball camp on Saturday the 17th, all the kids had tennis rackets and the name of the camp was L'Univers du Tennis... ... Although Papa had been told there would be LOTS of 14 year-old, handball-playing girls at this camp, there was not a single girl in sight at the station... ... Mom and Stella had to laugh. Yes, Stella actually laughed!

In fact, there was a small group of kids going to camp to do "multisports" meaning lots of different kinds of sports, a sport a day sort of... There was tennis, basketball, tennis, ping-pong, tennis, suntanning, tennis, beach volleyball, tennis, etc. No handball! But Stella was tanned and lovely when she came home a week later with a new boyfriend and a new boy friend who calls five times every morning, noon and night. Still, she played not a minute of handball. Strangely enough, she had not done a minute of math either...

6) Mom went to union training and came back rearing to save widows, orphans and the nouveau poor. How could she resist the inspiring call of the following ?

7) Mom went to Candes and all her union training either got lost in the troglodytes...

...or...

...fell into the Vienne without leaving the smallest ripple...

(Editor's note : The above is in fact totally untrue. Some 15 days after her union session, Mom is actually still quite gung-ho about trying to better the position of the cleaning staff at Les Bluets who are getting a "very raw deal" she says when it comes to who must make the most effort at saving the hospital money!)

8) Stella and I actually did a few tags of our own with some borrowed paint...

9) We all said good-bye to the workers and the scaffolding that's been with us since December 11th :

10) Mom watched the birds :

10) And the sunset :

Over the Loire...

...and behind La Défense...

...one last time in April 2010...

Hint Number Four....

2010-04-26T13:20:00.001-07:00

If any of you are feeling over challenged by this, just go take a little nap, then see if you can locate any of the kitty treats Mom left out in obvious places like on the kitchen table, that will keep your bloodsugar up till Mom's free to do a real post on Wednesday!

Wow! 9 comments!

2010-04-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

We totally can not believe we got 9 comments! One for every follower although not all our followers played along... We're going to have to give you more challenges like that. We see that you are like cats : you like to work for your posts rather than have them drop fully cooked into your bewhiskered jowls, right? Well, how's this for a new challenge : Where did Mom spend last weekend? Give you two hints!

If anyone gets this right, she promises to give you an entire post someday soon...

What's wrong with this photo?

2010-04-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

If someone gives us the right answer, perhaps we'll give you a new post...

(No way we can play Gettysburg Mom's "Ten comments" game, but we're hoping this might be an inventive way to generate a little interest.)

Guess what we had for dinner?

2010-04-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

Heuvos brouillés à la Patioboat!

But as you can see Mom made sure that no one over did it on the butter and cream, not to mention those cholesterol rich eggs. Those are Paret-Darnay portions there (mostly Darnay, mostly Michelle Darnay portions, in other words, "Starve your kids, pig out yourself on junk food when they've got their backs turned...")

Like the Patioboater, Mom saw Julie and Julia but it had no effect whatsoever on her cooking style which we call : The Art of French Cooking Nouvelle Cuisine style + lots of green pepper and green apples to munch on after dinner so you don't go to bed with your belly empty...

I, Malcolm that is, went to bed with the little Buddha Papa bought for me yesterday afternoon. (You may not know this but I have a little Buddha collection.) Can you see him tucked in between my armpit and my comic book? Let's zoom in...

...Let's put him in some proper light so you can see his lovely rolls of fat properly...

Let's turn him around a bit so you can fully appreciate...

...his pointy little breasts and his lovely round belly! Although Monique called me Gordito when I was born, I'm afraid I will never get as big as this guy on Mom's cooking!

Splendid Spring! And a Splendid New Spring in Malcolm's Step!

2010-04-08T00:55:00.000-07:00

It started like this :

A green haze against a brown background. (Anyone having seen Episode 20 of the first season of the X files - When night falls... - might not like the look of that green haze...)

The first day of Spring - the 20th - was a rainy Saturday in March. Mom had even forgotten it was officially spring until she read about it on Ghulf Genes. Nonetheless, that day, as she was going to buy me - Malcolm that is - my umpteenth birthday present in the Latin quatrer, Mom suddenly realized that despite the drizzle and wintery, grey skies, spring must truly be on it's way! Of course, being Mom, she started snapping pictures...

Soon everywhere she went, Mom began noticing the buds...

...things became slightly more luminous on Sunday the 21st. Here's what Mom saw on her way to the voting office and back (The 21st was the second round of the regional elections - considered a big defeat for President Sarkozy - it was a glorious day.) :

There were even flowers already! Mom wondered how she had missed them before?

The 21st was also my official birthday party day, remember? That's when Mom and Papa took me and my guests - um, sorry, my guests and me - to the parc de Belleville, Monique's favorite. Here's what Mom saw on the way there :

Forsythia! (With a little wrought iron thrown in just for good mea/pleasure) and...

...more green haze in a brown tangle!

When we got to the park the glories of spring were becoming ever more evident :

Mom even managed to catch a Spring Bumble Bee...

...look closely...

...do you see him? Remember last summer? Mom didn't manage to get a picture of a Late Summer Bee. Her guess is that Early Spring Bees are still a little sleepy so they must fly more slowly.

After tons of photos of me, Malcolm, playing foot with my friends, Mom caught this spring shot on the way home :

Spring and Grafitti!

On the 30th of March, things looked like this from our back window :

Mom zoomed in, trying to catch the play of light on the green haze...

...on the forsythia...

And, yes, this next shot really was taken from our back window in the middle of Paris...

...sure looks like some abandoned country yard though, doesn't it?

And here's what the sunset looked like that day :

Compare that with this late summer sunset taken from the same window.

Notice the difference in the thickness of the cherry tree tendrils?

Mom took this next shot on the 6th of April :

Mostly buds, just one or two leaves! Now compare it to a few days later :

The trees bloom at different rates...

...as this photo cleary demonstrates.

And with the appreaance in Paris of buds, leaves and flowers, comes the appearance of...

...hordes of ice-cream-eating, Parisian shoppers. Mom had forgotten that Paris is actaully full of Parisians, but as she went on her way to pick up my umpteenth - 1 birthday present (which you will discover later), she was forced to bully her way through the crowds...maybe they weren't all out to shop? Maybe some had come to...

...see another Spring Bunny (no one was standing in line for this guy, although he wanted us to pay him anyway!). Or perhaps they'd come to...

...see the street artists...

...or the musicians. (You can tell the weather's nice, the girls who appreciate violin music have got on their red, summer dresses!) Or perhaps people had come to...

...get a back rub! That's this year's newest offer on the place Beaubourg (last year you could buy your name written in Chinese calligraphy... yeah, right...). Or maybe some people just came out to...

...lie about in the sun and watch...

...pigeons building nests on the facade of the Pompidou Center (Mom didn't manage to get a shot of the mother pigeon, she must be a whole lot bigger than the others to make nests that big!).

Still, Mom figures most of the people making up these hordes were out to do the same thing she was...

...SHOP! (Perhaps you can't see it but there are so many people in that store that Mom could not even get in that door you see there.) Actually, Mom was not shopping. Actually, she was just going to pick up an item she and I had ordered on the 17th of March in the very store you see above. On that day, the store was empty and we had the vendor to oursleves (We took pictures too but they were on Mom's USB key and it got zapped by a virus unfortunately. Boo hoo! All our birthday photos have disappeared...Luckily, we put a few on the blog before the virus atttack.).

Anyway, that day we discovered that Nike has a new service : create your own shoes!!! Once you've created them on the computer, you pay for them, of course. Then the efficent Nike team sends you emails to keep you up to date on how your order is progressing : "Today we received your order, today we started making your shoes, today we finished them, today we sent them to your outlet, today you can pick them up!!!" The service is called NikeiD. I bet you didn't know about it, did you? Mom and I were pretty tickled too! You all know how I love shoes, right? Especially shiny, new, tennis shoes, right? Well, just watch this :

Yep! They really are real! They've got to be the shiniest pair of sneakers on Ménilmontant, no? And their MINE! They've even got my name on them, did you notice?

First, everyone had to admire them. That's Fred holding them. He's Nil's Papa. That's Papa caressing them delicately. Then I got to put them on...

I was so pleased, so thrilled! They are so lovely I hardly dare to walk in them let alone play foot in the dust and dirt...

Luckily, I still have these ol' guys for playing foot!

Yes, it certainly is a splendid spring!

And this is what our cherry tree looked like yesterday :

Amazing what a little sun can do, no?

Probably won't look like this long though, not at the rate these fat birds gobble up the blossoms! They come every year when the trees are in bloom then they hide away to digest what they've eaten till next Spring. We never see them at any other time.They look like pigeons but they're not. They're bigger, plumper, cleaner looking birds. We call them the cherry blossom doves and this year, thanks to Lady Leica with the eagle eye, you get to admire them too!

Hope things are as shiny and blooming out your way as they are here in Paris!

Chocolate Pigs, Dragon Eggs and Trumpets!

2010-04-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter to all!

We sure had a nice one. Even if Mom had to work on Easter Sunday and Henry has been away on a class trip since last Monday, so the house was a bit calm, we still had a good Easter because, here in France, Easter Monday is also a holiday!!!

Papa and I - Malcolm that is - prepared for the feast. We bought this lovely chocolate pig...

...which I chose and which I was really looking forward to eating! (Oh, by the way, do you like my new, Baby Milo sweatshirt? Mom got it for me to cool my seething anger at the fact that Henry has gone on another class trip, for the third year in a row, while I have to stay in Paris and go to school!)

Anyway, as I was saying, we got this very big, lovely, chocolate pig for Easter! I would have liked to eat it straight away but I had to wait. And wait and wait and wait. Wait till it was actually Easter, then wait till Mom got back from work Sunday. Then, when she got home, she said we'd have it on Monday, so Max and Stella could be there too since they were both out Sunday evening. Then on Monday morning, we had to wait till Max and Stella woke up which was late, late, late since it was a holiday. Then I had to wait, wait, wait till we'd all finished lunch. Then I had to wait till the coffee was made, then finally, FINALLY, Mom and Papa were ready! It's a good thing I'm a patient kinda guy. As I was waiting, I took all sorts of pictures of the pig :

And, it's a pretty lucky thing I did have to wait before eating it because that way I took a real good look at it and after a while I noticed that in fact it was not ONE pig but actually...

...TWO pigs! Look closely! Yep! That's a lady pig, there - a big, fat, lady pig - sitting on a gentleman pig! Happily crushing the gentleman pig flat, flat, flat! Mom could not believe her eyes! "Sexist chocolate figurines! Only in Paris," she cried!

I didn't care though...

...it was time to open that baby up!

The opening process was much easier than an Easy-Cut Coconut, believe you me!

YUM! More chocolate inside!!!

I did the honors!

I bit the old porker's nose off! Then Mom, after stealing his/her yellow ribbon...

...bit the old porker in the butt!

Papa, being French, is much more refined, of course...

Then Mom tried to pretend she's actually refined too, taking artsy photographs and all...

...and I admired the interior of a chocolate dragon's egg...

...Max was Starbuck's struck and Stella didn't want any photos of her this time...

But just seconds after we'd bit into the gentleman pig's hiney - we even wondered if it was not some secret signal sent out by him, perhaps - Naïm's father called, then came over for coffee with Naïm's little brother Sami - don't know if you've had the pleasure of meeting Sami before?

Here he is in the pouf! (Naïm, having been out late with Max, prefered to stay home.) And here he is...

...with HENRY! on a different sun-filled afternoon. (Mom said "We can't have a Pontoon Pirates post without Henry, now, can we?") And here's Sami...

...in our piège à invités (that means guest trap, no child comes into our house without...

... at some point getting caught in the guest trap. Ouch!) Today, Sami enjoyed my trumpet :

But seeing the state of my chocolate pigs AFTER Sami's departure...

...one wonders if the trumpet was the only thing he had in his mouth this afternoon...I'm afraid that on Thursday, when Henry gets home from his third class trip in a row, there won't be even a tiny smidgen, not even the smallest sliver, of the piggish chocolate pair left...Ah, life's little injustices! Poor Henry!

It's Party Time Again! Malcolm's Official 11th Birthday Party!

2010-03-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

Yep! Today we celebrated my birthday! It was great! But, whoa! Let's start at the beginning, folks, shall we? Welcome to the Paret-Darnay's...

...the balloons are up...

...the house is clean and the guests have all arrived. So the scene is set, right?
Well, yeah, but where are they? Where are all the guests?
Over admiring Le Fish maybe?

Nope.

Are they checking out our filmotheque?

Nope.
The living room's empty.
Not a creature is stirring except for...

...Papa learning his lines for his next audition.

What?! In the middle of a birthday party, he can learn his lines??? Where are all the unruly 11 year-old boys?

Need you ask?

Here they are, with Henry and me in our bedroom playing Mario Cart! Let me introduce everyone. From left to right, front to back, that would be : Henry (you know him), Rayane (an ace at the wheel), JJ (short for Jean-Jacques - like the great philosopher!), Simba (he's the Lion King), Charles (like Charles V of Spain), Nil (like the great African river spelled in French) and me, Malcolm (like Malcolm X, only I'm Malcolm Y. after my father's grandmother.).

Oh, and now Papa wants to play Mario Kart too! So much for learning his lines, huh? You know us guys, just can't keep away from the video games! But don't worry! Mom and Papa would never, ever let us play video games ALL afternoon, ever...not even on our birthday.

Nope.

It's OUT, OUT, OUT! This time we went to le Parc de Belleville.

Remember that cool jungle gym John shot all those very cool action photos of Max and Stella on back in 1999? You know, back when his camera was brand new, during his very first visit to France, back before he and Monique were even officially a thing? Some 10 years and 10 months ago now? Remember??? I surely don't! Heck, I was only two months old back then, but we do have some pretty neat photos of that visit! Anyway, that jungle gym was closed for years and years because it was not considered safe enough for European norms. Well, it's open again. Here it is!

And here we are (JJ, Nil and me, that is) way, way up there playing on those sharp-edged concrete stairs. Boy, is this place safe these days! Papa was surprised that concrete is considered safer than wood but Mom figured maybe it's not as slippery...maybe... We didn't care much, though. We were just trying not to get tagged. Charles was it!

Somehow he missed JJ...

...and now he's after me!

I think he got me too!

We had a good time. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Now, Rayane is it!

Nil was just hanging around...

...when, whoops!

Here comes Le Chat!

(Editor's note : Le Chat is what French people call the person who is IT. And the game TAG is called CHAT in French.)

JJ and I were out of there too!

Out of there!

For a while, Mom couldn't see any of us so she started shooting photos left and right, randomly...

...and guess who she found?

Papa!

See that sheet of paper in his hand? He's still learning his lines...then...

...JJ taking a breather, then...

...some kid whose mother had probably sent him outside to get some fresh air but who found a good hiding spot where he could continue playing moonshine Nintendo DS instead, then...

...Charles! Does he want to play DS too?

Nope. Doesn't look like it! Doesn't look like he wants his photo taken either! After shooting about 15 photos of Charles, Mom finally realized he'd hurt his leg on the safe jungle gym...

...so we all took a much needed breather...hang on! Where's Rayane? Oh, here he comes...

...out of one of the non-slippery wooden cubby holes! So, then we ALL took a much needed breather until...

...Charles started feeling better and we could go play FOOT! (Foot is the cool French word for Soccor!)

(Charles looks like he's feeling much better, doesn't he? Charles likes foot!)

The two teams : Rayane, Papa and me against JJ, Charles and Nil. (Bet you're wondering where Henry is, huh? He had a sore throat and fever so he stayed home.)

Let's play ball!

(Editor's note : Neither Henry nor Malcolm like foot very much - nor did Max by the way - that's why our family doesn't even possess a proper soccor ball. This ball here is a volleyball. Max received it for one of his birthdays back when he played that game, back when he did sports other than stretching in the morning and walking to the subway... Today, this ball drew some odd remarks from a gang of teenagers who stopped to watch the boys play :"Yo, dude! Whass'at bawll?" They had an American football they were throwing back and forth. That was the first time this editor has seen one of those in a French park!)

Now, brace yourselves, folks, here comes a long string of foot photos!

Charles really is looking much, much better, isn't he?

It's important, when playing soccor with a volleyball to have one's lumberjack boots laced correctly!

Oops!

There goes the ball again! Into the fountain!

Gotta admit! It was a good game and some of these photos are just too cool! I - Malcolm that is - even scored two goals!! I'm starting to like foot a little better...

Home again now...

...to have candles...

...cake...

... and candy!

(Mom made us work for the candy! Papa, reading up on cats a while back, found out that cats need to be challenged to get their food, that it makes them happy to have to hunt for it. Mom figured the same might be true of boys and candy so she put the candy in the balloons and made us throw a dart at them to get it! Is that slightly perverted or what?)

Before throwing the dart, Henry annonced that he was going to get two in one blow...

...then he did!! We were impressed!

Fun was also had...

...getting the dart back out of the wall when it got stuck there! And...

...watching others miss or hit!

I was last to get a hit but I also got the last one!

We finally got to eat the stuff!

Then came present time!!

(And, as the observant follower might notice, there was plenty more candy too, offered right up in bowls - no effort further than stretching out one's arm was needed to get at it! Mom says that's dangerous for boys and perhaps she's right seeing as...

...Charles and Rayane ate so much they caught the dreaded Blue Tongue Disease!)

During present time, I got some very nice presents. Thank you muchly everyone!

Then, after DJ Rayane had chosen what music we were going to listen to...

...it was dancing time on Ménilmontant!!

Charles didn't dance much though, after hurting his leg and getting Blue Tongue disease...

...yes, that's a bloody tooth you see there...he lost a tooth in the middle of eating all that candy!

Birthday's can be very, very dangerous indeed! But what fun is life if one doesn't sometimes take a few risks, eh?

Sanks again, Mama-san et Papa-san! It was a great party!

Happy Birthday to US! Malcolm, Henry and Cledo too!

2010-03-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

We had a great time!

It all started on Saturday actually, when we...

...opened the package Monique and Omi sent us from the States. That was very exciting.
Just look at Papa's face!

Max mostly enjoyed reading the wrinkled newspaper Monique used to fill the box with, but we, Malcolm and Henry that is, received some very nice presents.
Malcolm got...

and

...five collector's Pokemon cards and a T-shirt SO cool that Stella wanted to borrow it RIGHT NOW and if not RIGHT NOW well at least on Monday for school! "I mean, come on! You can at least let me borrow it!" (Mom had to agree seeing as the girl was basically naked under her bath towels during the package opening ceremony. She has NOTHING to wear!)...

Henry got...

...a very chic grey shirt which (we are happy to inform everyone) he's taking proper care of and which (we are also happy to inform everyone) Stella does not want to borrow. He also received...

...a new wristwatch and also...

...a new tennis racket! We both got the Dungeon's and Dragons guys we wanted and Ugly Doll key chains! (Mom and Stella ate all the candy....)

Many, many thanks to everyone!

We continued the festivities with a mega-mec sleepover (mec is the cool French word for dude, by the way.)

You've already met most of these mecs : from left to right, front to back that would be : Malcolm, Cledo, Henry, Nil, Tom and Max (Max is making his Pontoon Pirates' Premier, by the way! Let's everyone give him a nice warm round of applause, please! Thanks, thanks!).
First we played Mario Cart which is a video racing game then we watched The Matrix then we pretended to go to bed but in fact once we were in our room our friends got out all their Moonshine Nintendo DSs (there were at least three of them) - we'd told them they'd have to smuggle them in in their toiletries bags or Mom would certainly confiscate them. It worked too, until we got a little over excited about the game sometime around three am! Mom woke up and came in our room and found us in a pile on the floor hunched over the Moonshine DSs and she pocketed them all for the rest of the night. Boo hoo! It was actually a pretty lucky thing because we had a big day planned for the 14th! That way we got a little beauty sleep in.

The Big Day started with...

...a morning screening of...

... Matrix Reloaded!

Then Mom and Papa kicked us outside until they'd finished making lunch. Actually, they told us to go to the park till 1:30 pm. We're 11 now. We're old enough to go to the park alone! And now that Henry has a watch we know exactly when to come home and we were EXACTLY on time! Does that surprise anyone? We had...

...crepes for lunch! Yum!

And Mom made us a special birthday crepe for dessert so we'd have some candles to blow out (only one each; she didn't have thirty-three candles or the patience to stick them all in and light them all either)!

After lunch we went over to Cledo's house for Henry and Cledo's REAL birthday party! (Malcolm's REAL birthday party will be next Sunday...) You know, the kind of birthday with presents and...

...candy and...

...loads of friends...

...and...

...bananas and things!

But all THAT only came AFTER we'd all gone to LA VILLETTE together by scooter, rollerblades, bus or on foot!

Here we go!

We'll introduce everyone later on.

Mom went by bus so she got to the canal first but she caught sight of Sylvie, that's Cledo's mom for any newcomers...

...speeding down the rue des Pyrénées on her scooter with some of us.
Papa left early and went by foot; he arrived just as Mom was getting off the bus!

Then the rest of us caught up!

Henry and Malcolm first, then...

...Cledo, then...

...Quentin and...

...Cledo again with Thomas, then...

...Tom and Vincent...

...and finally the girls : Ella, Juliette, Swan and Sylvie in the background.

We were all a bit thirsty by then! But once we'd drunk some, we were off again, speeding along the canal!

Here's most of the gang : (from left to right) Cledo, Malcolm, Henry, Quentin, Swan, Ella, Juliette, Thomas and Vincent.

Where do you figure we finally managed to get everyone together for a photo?

Why, on the ponton, of course!

(Ponton is the cool French word for dock, it's therefore a false friend, n'est-ce pas?)

From left to right : Vincent, Max, Tom, Thomas, Quentin, Juliette, Swan, Malcolm, Ella, Henry and Cledo!
Nice group, huh?

OK everyone, ONE, TWO, THREE, JUMP!

We did more jumping at La Villette too, once we finally got there.

Ah, La Villette, it truly is one of our very favorite places! When we go there we feel like singing : "Raindrops on roses and children on rollers..."

And we always do have fun!

Ain't she sweet, that Ella?

Later, we found...

...the wonderful wheel!

And had more fun yet!

Then the boys invented another new game...

...and even Ella gave it a try!

And what were Thierry and his new shoes doing, you might ask, while we were having all this fun?
Watching the girls go by maybe?

Perhaps, but their self assigned task was actually...

...watching our scooters!

They did a good job too because when it was time to go, all eleven scooters were still there! And Malcolm's rollerblades too!

Malcolm and Mom went home by subway but the rest of us labored all the way back UP the rue des Pyrénées!

When we got back to Sylvie and Cledo's house, on top of the candy and presents, there was another nice surprise!

Sunset reflected in our windows across the street!

After a relatively cold, grey afternoon, it was a wonderful sight!

And now, Malcolm, and he speaks for all of us birthday boys when he says this, says...

..."Sank you, Papa-san!"...

..."Sank you, Sylvie-san!"

We all really did have a great time!

What Max Said

2010-02-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

Max said "Good Morning Detroit! Peace to you from Paname City, France!"

No, what Max actually said was "Yeah, well, this juvenile custody story is only hitting the front pages because the kids are white, upper middle class, straight A students. It happens to blacks and arabs all the time and no one gets upset at all!"

Ain't that so?

A while back, Max's friend D was taken into custody for "attacking" a policeman. Max has known D since second grade and Mom and Papa have too. We have couscous with his family and play music and sing all afternoon. The parents are a mild mannered, rock 'n roll lovin', EDF engineer and his homemaker wife who fled terrorism in Algeria in the 90s. D was witness to some pretty awful sights before coming to France. He had nightmares for a long time his parents told us.

When taken into custody, D was 16. He kicked a policeman in the shin. The guy was roughing up D's 16 year-old girlfriend for rolling a cigarette while admiring the Seine. The policeman didn't even fall over!

All the kids involved - there were five of them - were taken into custody. All the white kids were let go after a few hours. Parents were eventually called and they came to get their kids. D's parents also came of course... But D was held for 24 hours and his parents didn't get to see him. In the end they were told to leave the premises, that they'd be called when he was released...

The policeman D kicked got a medical certificate saying he would not be able to work for 8 days - which is the legal limit for being able to sue someone for coups et blessures - being physical abuse leaving wounds. The police declared that D's parents didn't come for him, that he was an unsupervised juvenile - and who cares that D's parents really were there and have witnesses?

It's their word against the police's, right?

Hmmmm? Where have we heard that recently? (See Michelle D-P's comment to yesterday's post.)

D's parents have had to come up with written statements by witnesses to their parental authority - which is a total laugh because D's father has SO much charisma that other kids dream of him being their Dad (there was a case of it back in 6th grade where a young boy who was adopted by a single mother began hanging out at D's and in the end said he wished he too had a dad like D's. - once again, see A Rebel without a Cause for a cultural reference to this kind of pre-teen behavior. There are other details to that story but we won't go into them.).

D's mom is the kind of woman who's always ready with a pot of stew - or whatever - big enough to feed any of the neighborhood boys D and his brother T might want to bring home for dinner. Max delights in her pasta to a such point that were Mom the jealous type she might refuse to let Max go over to D's house for dinner anymore... When Ulysses showed up at our place saying he'd been put out in the streets by his dad for four days, he told us he often stayed at D's house. Mom immediately called D's mom to find out what was up and D's mom explained Ulysses' situation. These are the negligent parents we're talking about here...

But, whoa!

Careful there, Miss Crankypants, hold your punches! You don't want to be giving your kids a bad example now, do you? Hitting other kids and policemen is not right! You might hurt them, you know!

Miss Crankypants says "Sticks and stones might break my bones but words can never hurt me... unless it's my word against the French Police State's! If that happens, baby, you better watch your step!"

More Good News from France : Fighting like Pirates

2010-02-08T23:37:00.000-08:00

Miss Crankypants has a slight smirk on her face this morning.

Her relatively good mood began yesterday when Papa called her to show her an email he'd received from the Parents of school kids Association he belongs to (notice it's not the Parent - Teacher's Association in France it's just the Parent-Parent Association - no teachers in sight unless the parents are upholding their latest strike... These associations are also politically oriented, meaning there can be more than one in a school; there's the right-wing assoc and the left-wing assoc and the independants! But the independants have no say NATIONally... get it? - Why's this, you ask? Why no teachers? Well, because parents and teachers only associate in France with knives drawn behind their backs. Mom thinks it comes from the fact that most French people who have not, as adults, actually become teachers themselves have very painful, humiliating memories of their school days...I mean, to this day Papa and Papy, (yes, PAPY!) still have nightmares about having to take the baccalauréat again!!!!!).

I suppose I - Stella that is - shouldn't say Miss Crankypants is in a good mood. She's not. Because the news Papa showed her - and me - is actually very bad and besides even good news can't put Miss Crankypants in a good mood, now, can it? But it does sort of prove she's been correct in her assumptions all along and there's always some little pleasure in that, right? On top of that, this news means she just might also be able to do something about her crankiness for once.

What's it all about? Well, hold your hats on! Here we go!

Recently, a couple of kids from my old collège (that's the cool French word for middle school, grades 6-9 in France) - the one I got kicked out of, remember? - had a fight with the new girl who came to take my place. Actually, only three of them were really from my old school, the fourth was a boy who was also from my old school but who got kicked out a few weeks before me...

(Since I was kicked out in December, Mom, Papa and I have learned a few things. Like the existence of a sort of city-wide square dance that takes place all year long in the different Parisian collèges : it starts with two kids getting kicked out of two different schools. When that happens the national education system has to propose a new placement for the kids in a new school, but since there are very few places available, hop! The two kids exchange spots! And round and round it goes, all year long...But when you arrive in the new school, your new principal instructs you to tell people you just moved into the area...).

So anyway, one of my friends, let's call her Y, was present at the fight which took place in front of the XXth arrondissement's City Hall. The boy who'd been kicked out, let's call him Z, apparently beat the new girl up for some reason (unknown to me anyway). My friend Y,who's a friend of Z, was there with two other girls and they could not separate the belligerent parties. Z's BIG.

Now, no one's saying this is a nice picture to be sure - boys and girls slugging it out like pirates in front of City Hall - but you have to realize, we do this kind of thing all the time. It's called "Meet me out back and we'll work this out man to man." I would certainly not have taken Z on man to man, but hey... I really don't know the details of what happened between them. (And besides, even James Dean did it in A Rebel without a Cause cheered on by Nathaly Wood, remember? I mean, he didn't slug a girl or anything but he did fight it out in front of the planetarium. Mom gave me the dvd for Christmas after reading John's comment in December after the news that I finally did get kicked out broke on Blog spot and Facebook...)

You also have to realize that last year, Mom and Papa were once called to school because I had gone into the vice-principal's office to complain about a situation I found unjust. It was because only one of two girls who had slugged it out after school hours and off school grounds was getting a punishment from the school vice-principal. It just happened to be the girl whose parents had not complained to the principal whereas the other girl's parents - the one who was not getting any punishment- had, and they said they were going to go to the police about it! That girl with strong parents was being considered the victim! I found this downright unfair! I mean, I'd been there - at the fight that is - and neither of these girls was a victim. They had both organized and prepared for the fight. Not only that, they had told us all to be there to watch and support them! I mean, the one now being called the victim had taken her earrings out in preparation for the show down! She's my friend but I still found it totally unfair that the other girl was being punished and not her! At the time, as soon as I learned about this gross injustice, I just couldn't stomach it!

I felt like Madeline calling for Ven-gé-ance for Miss Genevieve! (Thank you Ludwig Bemelmans and Viking) I immediately ran upstairs to the vice-principal's office, burst in without knocking, jumped on a chair, raised my fist in the air and told her in a loud voice that it was unfair! Normal, no? Well, the vice-P didn't think so.

Mom and Papa got called in because I'm a leader! Mom learned that day that in France being a leader is NOT a good quality; it really means ringleader. (Incidently, she learned yesterday that the correct attitude is to be fédérateur and conciliant - that's what Malcolm's teacher said he was and both Mom and Papa were very proud and told him so!)

Basically, the vice-P - and you have to realize this is the same woman who just a month before had accused me of being involved in a district-wide marijuana sales ring with out a single piece of proof besides another girl's accusation - well, the vice-P wanted Papa and Mom to tell me to stop being a leader right away! As if that would have done any good! Mom said "Since we we're all gathered here together perhaps we could at least hear what Stella has ants in her pants about then we will be able to decide if she should stop being a leader or not." If Mom had not insisted, even raised her gentle voice an iota, the vice-P would not have let me tell my story!!! So I tell my story and then the vice-P goes on and on about how she knows that the "attacker" is a spoiled little brat! Then the vice-P gives us quite a few intimate details about this girl's private life that we have no business knowing and she would gladly have given us more if Mom hadn't stopped her by saying it was inappropriate to tell us these things!

Suffice it to say that, in the end, I came home from school very proudly a few days later to tell Mom and Papa that both the belligerent girls had received the same punishment and that no one was going to the police! I felt kind of like justice had been done! In some ways, thanks to me! Mom said the "victim" must have been super happy to have got a punishment but I told her the girl knew it was only right...

Basically, Mom's been saying all along that there must be something wrong with the school system if I got kicked out (she can't fathom the idea that there might perhaps be something wrong with me...)! Also, she's been thinking that the principal of my old school is not handling things quite the way Mom thinks she should be. The story above was just one example. Not that Mom would do any better but then it's not her job, is it?

Anyway, back to more recent incidents. Well, once again, the "victim" of the latest fight - and she may well really be a victim, I don't know the details well enough to say. In any case, she is a girl and she was hit by a boy, a BIG boy, and that's not fair! - anyway, she complained to her parents who apperently complained to the police who apparently went to see the principal of my old collège...

This is where Miss Crankypants starts growling. The principal, without having been present, without knowing for sure what happened, took the policemen to the classrooms of two of the girls who were being accused and handed these girls over to the police! The Parents' Association also thinks she gave them the names and adresses of the boy who is no longer in her school and of one of the girls, my friend Y, who was home sick!

This is where Miss Crankypants exchanges her smirk for a black scowl! Using this information, the police went and got the children, taking Y who was home alone with her 17 year-old brother from her bedroom in her pyjamas without letting her get dressed, saying "You don't have to be made up to go to the police station!" They put hand cuffs on her, drove her to the police station and locked her in a cell for ten hours without letting her telephone her parents or anyone else. Y's brother did immediately call his parents who went to the police station with the other parents but none of them was allowed any contact with their children for 10 hours! Z was held in a cell for 24 hours without any contact with his parents. These kids are my friends. They are 14 years-old, like me.

Now, perhaps the principal of a collège is under some legal obligation to co-operate with the police, I'm not sure. But here in France we have shiny, golden, commemorative plaques reminding us of the school children who were taken from our schools - grades K thru 12, that would be - by French policemen during the Nazi occupation of France. These children died in concentration camps in Germany. So some people here in France don't like policemen taking underage children from schools or their bedrooms to the police station and holding them like criminals. It brings back bad memories.

As a matter of fact, some of you might remember that back in June or somewhere abouts, Miss Crankypants went down to our neighborhood police station and insisted politely - in this case she was careful not to raise her voice - until they allowed her to make a deposition stating that she did NOT want her then 13 year-old daughter - that would be me - to be frisked by dogs and policemen in the street. Miss Crankypants said that if they really felt it was necessary to frisk me, she prefered that the policemen take me into custody, call my parents on the phone and that they would the gladly come down to be present with me while I was frisked by a policewoman. She even told some other mothers what she'd done and they'd said they were going to do the same thing... Don't think they did, though. For some time after that, the policemen and women who frisked my friends in the street first asked them if they were not Stella Paret! When they said they weren't, the kids got frisked. Mom felt like she'd been heard! Unfortunately, the policemen also made slightly threatening comments about what they'd do if the kids were Stella Paret. Luckily, it was never me!

Also, after learning from Max and his friends about how the police in the XXth district checked the boys' IDs, Miss Crankypants called down to the police station to ask if French policemen really did have the right to touch - through their pants - or look at - by pulling the pants and underpants down - the genitals of underage boys in the street during a simple ID check. At the time, she was told that YES, THEY COULD and NA! Actually, since then, she's learned that no, they can't, but the line between when they can and can't is so fine it's hardly visible...

Basically, Miss Crankypants, although she's disgusted by and worried about the abuses of the police state here in Paris - not to mention the collusion with said police state by school authorities - feels happy that perhaps some of the other parents are now starting to think it's intolerable too! They've even gotten together and started saying so out loud! This is when being part of a nationally recognized Parents' Association like the FCPE which Papa belongs to comes in handy. And here's some proof : this morning on National radio, I heard the news announcer tell the tale of my friend Y's garde à vue (which is the cool French word for... well, I'm sorry but I don't know exactly what American legalese for "taking underage children in pyjamas into custody and holding them for hours in prison cells in the absence of their parents" is.). Maybe someday soon a Miss Crankypants Collective might just whop the injustice of it all...

Don't hold you breath!

A Few Reasons Why We Can't Go to Atlee's Birthday Party

2010-02-05T00:04:00.000-08:00

No, it's not because we've been eaten by the year of the Tiger. We haven't, at least not yet (although we only just escaped from the year of the Buffalo with our pants on...)! Nor have we been eaten by a widemouth...

...Monster TAG!

And, no, we're not...

...nor even in juvenile hall for...

... attempted Grand Theft MiniAuto...

And, no...

I - Henry that is - am NOT in the hospital because I forgot the old adage : "Let sleeping dogs lie..." (although I was sorely tempted to see what this fella looks like when he 's awake!)

Nor have we fallen victim to...

(editor's note : the following film is actually kind of scary! Sensitive viewers view at their own risk!)

...the dreaded Ménilmontant Babyfood Spoon Stabber!

And no, we're not ...

...hopelessly lost in the catacombs of Paris, either.

Naw, we can't come 'cause, well, for one, 'cause Mom said so. And despite appearances, she actually is the capitain of the Pontoon over Paname City way.

For two, because we suspect Atlee is probably going to have her birthday party on a Saturday and well, we have school on Saturdays*...

(Dry your tears Shea and guzzle a mug of the ol' chocolatey for us. We've learned to grin and bear it. For this special occasion, we were really hoping Mom would let us come so we could MISS school that day but no. She wants us to grin and bear it too. She says she only takes her kids to the States for birthdays in the middle of the school year if they've been exceptionally obnoxious and we've been too good to qualify! - We might still be able to do something about that yet! - Mom also says that what the French government is actually trying to teach us by sending us to school on Saturday is : grin and bear it and above all don't cut your parents' or the president's head off, please. She says she's not about to undermine that lesson. (But, have you heard the latest? Sarkozy's government wants to eliminate History from the 12th grade curriculum... Mom always thought they were going to try and eliminate Philosophy from the curriculum because as Christine Lagarde says "everyone knows we Frenchies think too much" but now Mom understands Sarko's really more afraid of pitchforks, falling voter approval ratings and such .)

For three, the old airfare and family of six argument came up but we pooh poohed that! Heck,we pirates can fly alone, we did last summer!

As long as Omi, Opi and ...

...Monique are there to pick us (and our orange pockets) up at the airport...

...there's no problem! (Are they invited to the party too? We hear Monique and John are not to be trusted with time-share dogs but Mom says they're pretty good with time-share nephews...)

For four : As to coming all that way for just one weekend, well Mom's told us and told us about flying over for 48 hours for Monique and John's wedding reception in Lake George the very weekend that W decided to invade Afghanistan, so we know that's do-able too, even in times of war... (Back then, Mom says, The Gettysburg Family was actually the Lake Placid Family (right?) and there were only three of them, no Atlee at all! Weird, huh? Doesn't seem so far, far away, does it?)

Anyway, looks as if Atlee's going to have to have a happy birthday without us pirates, much to our regret! Thanks for the invite nonetheless. We'll just have to go on living on our good memories of warmer times...

...which, despite the presence of a polar bear, they really were!

But we promise, we'll be sure to say Happy Birthday Atlee when the time comes!

*Actually, we're just total blog liars! The government did get rid of school on Saturdays for grade schoolers back in 2007- only middle and high school students still go these days and only in certain schools. (Like Max had to go for just ONE hour last year - you get up get washed and dressed and ready to go, you go out in the cold, take the subway for twenty minutes and sit through ONE frigging hour of math! On top of that, 6 times out of 10 your teacher will be absent without having told you so in advance.... Yes, this is the reality of the wonderful secular French school system... but let's let Miss Crankypants have a breather today... It's Saturday after all.) But even if we don't have school, we do have trumpet lessons and tennis and guitar and handball - but that's only AFTER Saturday morning chocolate and cartoons! Ouf!

One of Life's Golden Rules

2010-02-04T03:20:00.000-08:00

Always give credit where credit is due!

Our new, cool, creative header photo, which we pirtaes love and which some of our followers have been kind enough to admire, comes from the creative mixture of summer sun on auburn hair, in other words from :

Our aunt, Monique D. Magee!

Aint she sweet?

Without her, no Pontoon Pirates at all!

Thanks Mon-e-Q!

An early morning visit from Miss Crankypants

2010-02-01T23:40:00.000-08:00

This morning at breakfast, Stella announced that today was her Saint's day. Mom was first to react, as usual. She said facetiously "Saint Stella? Doesn't exist! Certainly not in this house, at any rate!" Then I - Henry that is -, who always reacts second, quickly set Stella straight : "Yesterday was Saint Ella's day. Here look."

To prove my point - in our family it's always best to have some book handy with which to prove one's point -, I pulled out my official national education datebook (given freely to all French school children on the first day of the school year - or shall I call it Saint Ingrid's day?) and showed them the official list of Saint's days printed in the front and back for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011.

"Ha! You see! Saint Ella! There's a girl in my class called Ella!" I was proud to have been so efficient. Proud that I was right? Naw, that goes without saying.

That's when Miss Crankypants walked in. She looked something like this :

(Mom showed me how to make a link so you all can see that we got her picture from here. Thanks very much Mr. Schultz and Ruby Persson too!)

We here at Paret Match know Miss Crankypants well. She usually shows up when Mom's not happy about something that happened at school today...

So there we were, eating English muffins with jam and innocently talking Ella vs Stella and Saint's Days and such when Miss Crankypants suddenly bounces up from the couch in a shower of sparks!

"Let me see that thing!" she shouts holding out her hand for my official national education datebook. I give it to her, of course. She pages through it wildly then begins waving it furiously under Papa's nose. "What do you think of this?!!! An official list of Saint's days handed out by the national education system?!!!"

Now at this point you have to understand that here in France we are EXTRAORDINARILY proud of (and touchy about) our secular, republican school system which dates back to the French Revolution and Napoleon and all of our gloriously enlightened French past... Mom was OK with secular back before 1992 - before Max's birth and soon-to-be admission into the aggressively secular French school system. Mom thought secular meant what everyone here pretends it means : nonconfessional, egalitarian, separation of Church and State, that sort of thing. But then, Max went to school.. And, voilà! After La naissance de la République Laïque in 1789 (the birth of a secular nation), behold the birth of Miss Crankypants, September 1995!

Ever since, Miss Crankypants has been pointing out, and decrying at the top of her lungs, all the inconsistencies in the "secular" French republican school system. For one, school on Saturday mornings - and tough titties if you're Jewish and aren't supposed to work or use electricity on Saturdays! You're just supposed to adapt!

Back in the naughties, when the gouvernement wanted to do away with school on Saturday for some reason and make kids study (at school no less!) on Wednesday afternoons instead, Oh the uproar! That's when Mom discovered that many kids go to catechism on Wednesday afternoons and if they didn't go then, when would the poor dears go? It was unthinkable to take Wednesday afternoons away from the clergy... Oh, really? No one was asked to adapt this time...

So there was Miss Crankypants waving my datebook dangerously under Papa's nose. Papa, who's a pacifist, said "There is probably something showing the dates of religous holidays of other religions..." At least that stopped the waving while Miss Crankypants quickly looked through the book to see if he was right.

"No dates for Ramadan in 2010! No dates for Kippur! Secular my hiney!" she shouted.

(Thank you The Comic Stop here.)

Miss Crankypants raged on : "Secular in the République Laïque de France just means 'Get with the Roman Catholic agenda, folks, or get out!' Oh, and here are all the Saint's days to help you right along... Take off that veil! Take off that kippa! And if you happen to be Protestant and you don't celebrate Saints, well, better keep that quietly to yourself or M. Brice Hortefeux, minister for National identity, might have to create a commitee to see if you actually qualify. But don't worry too much, folks, we républicains haven't thrown any dead heretics in the Seine since 1958..."

Once again, poor Papa didn't know what'd hit him!

It's Birthday time at the Bounce-Back Café!

2010-02-01T04:27:00.000-08:00

And who's the birthday child?

Why, Mademoiselle Brigitte, bien sûr!

She's Omi to us pirates!

To Papa, she's always been Tsarina Brigitta the Great of Russia...

She's Brigitte to Arsen and...

...Mom to Mom and Monique and Babs.

And today it's her birthday.

So, let's hear it for Omi, team!
Hip, Hip Hourrah!
Hip, hip, Hourrah!
Hip, hip, Hourrah!

And now, Paret Match presents An hommage to Omi :

We wish you many warm hugs...

...more good laughs...

...a little dancing...

...a little sunshine...

...but not too much)...

...maybe a bellyrub if you feel like one...

...and just all that jazz!

Happy 01.02.2010 from France! (Or 02.01.2010, From the US!)

For Family viewing only! (Just a little ditty by Mom as an echo to Arsen's "The Face on Facebook")

2010-01-31T14:24:00.000-08:00

If I were on FaceBook, this would not be my face :

nor this one :

nor this :

!!!!

Facebook's far too public for horrors like these!

No pimples!

No wrinkles!

No dimples!

Oh please?!!

If I were on Facebook, my face would be pretty!

My outline, artistic,

And, if possible, witty!

(Oups! That's Marylin, painted by Andy, but photographed by me and Sony Ericsson!
But somehow I bet you guessed, huh?)

Good-Bye January!

The 16 and under Girls handball team of the Paris Sport Club hovering in fourth place...

2010-01-30T15:27:00.000-08:00

They should have won today! What more can we say?

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon. They were playing in this fantastic gymnasium in Malakoff (a southern suburb of Paris). The referee - name of Junior - was on their side...

...that's Junior there with the red halo around his head.

The girls were covering the field really well...

...looking alert...

...Their goal keeper - Marie-Ange - who's probably a natural at "Stick'em up" by the way - was doing really well. She stopped at least 10 goals while we were there. And on top of everything else...

...Stella had a whole new box of purple, elastic hairbands to hold her hair back with. And she was actually using them! Well, not the whole box at the same time, of course.

They were even playing with new balls...

...um, maybe they were last year's new balls...

When Mom and I arrived, at the beginning of the second half (just a tad late...well, cheez! Malakoff is not exactly the next metro stop after Ménilmontant, you know) the score stood thus :

They were just one point behind! Later on in the game...

...they were even tied...

So what happened, you're wondering? Well, the other team had more girls AND they would all sit in a nice, orderly circle around their charismatic coach, and drink in his coachly council...

Although our girls made a good effort...

They got butterfingers in the end! Couldn't catch a ball if it was levitating in front of them! Couldn't keep a decent guard on the other team's one good scorer! Couldn't score a goal if the cage came and ate the ball out of their hands! They were all pretty tired, especially Marie-Ange! And, they had only two fans in the stands : Mom and me - Henry that is. So the final score was :

Close, so close...

And then there were tears...

...and much disappointment.

Hang in there Ladies! You win some, you lose some. That's just the way the handball bounces.

So, what's new in 2010?

2010-01-25T01:41:00.000-08:00

Well, not much actually. Things are so slow around here these days we're going to have to get out some old Christmas photos to illustrate this post! This chipper smiley face here, for instance, dates back to somewheres in late '09. Mom made it with kristollen, candied chestnuts and the dessert plates she bought in Tourraine with Isabelle last summer.

Happy new year, by the way. You might think we pirates are a bit late with our greetings but here in Paris, France (where we still live in the same old apartment as last year), we're allowed to say "Happy New Year!" till the 31st of January. So "Happy New Year, groupies!" Sorry we've kept you waiting. You've been hankering for some piratey news for way too long now, haven't you?

Well, the most important thing is probably that I, Malcolm that is, got some pretty cool new Pokemon cards for Christmas. You may admire them here :

I also got a new pair of dancing shoes which look rather rustic but which are more appropriate to the rainy climate of Alsace than my blue-green-green-blue suede sneakers.

Next most important pirate news : Henry got a new scooter! (And a lovely pair of black mittens that Omi sent back with Mom from a Kohl's shopping trip they went on together in November, remember? Hey, that rhyms! They didn't tell anybody this at the time but, Mom and Omi didn't do a whole lot of shopping that day. They found those mittens for Henry then...

...they kicked back on some home massage chairs for the rest of the afternoon! Mom loved it, but Omi thought it tickled a bit!)

So anyway, Henry got a new scooter...

which he's even willing to lend it to Stella who looks downright elegant on it, don't she now?

(That's her new Bob Marley scarf hanging around her neck and fluttering in the breeze behind her as she races elegantly along. Santa Claus gave it to Gilles - Papa's brother - who then gave it to Stella on the 24th of December.) But even if Stella's elegant, Henry's still best : "Look, Mom, no hands!"

Even Mom had a go...

...after a shaky start she became rather brazen :

"Look, son, one foot!"

"Look, son, one HAND, one foot!"
(We'll be kind enough not to show her falling off.)

But Henry remains the Queen of the trampoline!
"Look, Mom, sideways!"

...um, sorry, that would be more like the Seigneur of scooters!
(Seigneur is the cool French word for lord but it begins with an s so it goes better with scooter.)

So what else is new?

Well, we got a new shower curtain and, speaking of watery spaces, Le Fish's tank also got a few upgrades...

...it's hard to see here but that thing embedded in the pebbles at the bottom is in fact a sunken frigate...

... Le Fish also likes his new zen tower which has a hole in the back that he can hide in waiting stealthily to take a passing Beta Splendens unawares (where there's a hole, there's hope!)...

...and he enjoys his sitting gargoyle...you'll probably be needing a close up of that :

ZOOM!

So I guess there is more new stuff going on around here than I'd thought at first. Like, we invented a new game last night too. It's called "Stick'em up!"...

...No, no, not your hands! Your FEET!

Another name for this game is :

"How many belgian pirates can do handstands in the livingroom without knocking the lightbulb out of the light socket in the ceiling?"

Answer :

ONE,

... no, make that, TWO...

... no wait! Make that THREE!!!

It all started with a challenge, of course. All of us other pirates wanted to show that we too could hold the famed Black-Scorpio breakdancing position as well as Henry can.

Needless to say...

...we can't. (Even Papa tried but he said that 2010 would be the year of the divorce if Mom put the picture she got of him on the blog...) Finally, we decided just to do some of your more basic breakdance moves...

...then things got a little out of hand!

Yep, that sure beat doing homework. That's for sure!

Speaking of homework, Stella has homework once again! That's the real news. (For those of you who are not on Facebook that is and who don't live with her - um, that'd be you, I guess, Monique...) Yep, Stella finally got assigned to a school she thinks she'll actually go to. It's called Lycée Hélène Boucher. Here's a picture :

And here's a picture of the gal it's named for :

She was a pilote. Won the women's world record for speed on the 11th of August, 1934. She died in a plane crash just three months later... She sounds like a wild lady! Maybe Stella will feel at home in a school named for her. We hope so and remember, where's there's a hole there's hope!

'Twas the night before Christmas...

2009-12-23T23:06:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to ALL!

Joyeux Noël à TOUS!

And to ALL a good nut!

Et à TOUS une très joyeuse noix!

Another Special Day?! Already?

2009-12-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

Look what we have!

One plate of Thierry's excellent carrot, leek and potato soup per person,

this year's Christmas tree and...

ANOTHER COCONUT!

Turns out, Max was quite disappointed that we opened the last one without him so, of course, we had to get another one, fast. Now that it's school vacation time (and all Max and Stella's friends have gone away for Christmas), it's easier for us ALL to be together. So that last photo was ALL of us together waiting to eat our soup and veggies and then open another nut! Only this one is NOT an EASY-CUT, so we shall see what we shall see...Here's Max now(nice hat, huh?)...

...sharpening his tools and warming up for what we at EASY-CUT fear will be no EASY task.

I - Malcolm Paret, CEO of EASY-CUT Coconut Cocktails Inc - am keeping a close eye on the cutting process. This morning I had another brilliant CEO-idea and I want to make sure everything is going to work out just right.

My brother Henry drew a smiley face on the nut and Max is carving the eyes out...

Henry, as second-in-command of E-CCC Inc, is also being quite vigilant.
Stella is just being Stella.

Voilà mon idée brillante! (which means, Here's my bright idea!)
Rather than wait for hours for the coconut milk to drain out of the tiny holes Max drilled in the eyes of the nut, I said "Why not insert a straw directly into the holes and drink the milk directly from the nut?"
I guess I'm not CEO for nothing, huh?

(You all have always wondered why we head honchos are paid such outrageous salaries, haven't you? Now you know! We head honchos have brilliant head honcho ideas and mostly know how to get people to pay us for them! )

So, enjoy a first hand taste of genius!
Well, I guess Stella, Henry, Papa and Mom got a first hand taste, you all have just got front row seats.

He's a hairy ol' thing, ain't he?

...Um, the coconut, not Papa.

Mmmm! Good coconut milk! So fresh from the nut, it's still warm!
Then the opening began in earnest.

This was the Paret-Darnay family's "Wake up Fritzie!" moment. Our neighbor lady downstairs - who has been nothing if not kind and understanding over the years when it comes to noisy neighbors - asked Thierry recently if we could possibly keep the piano and trumpet playing to a minimum in the early morning... Sounds like a reasonable request, n'est-ce pas? As Max hammered away at the coconut (not an EASY-CUT for sure!), he looked up and said "This one's for you, Madame C." I admit, we had a nice little chuckle, ALL together.

So Max banged away...

...and poked and prodded and...

...pried...

...and finally got it open! He was pretty pleased with himself too...

Here are Stella and Thierry, totally inspired by the meaty goodness of the nut, composing music to accompany Max's improvised Coconut Shimmy.

Ah, another day, another coconut, that's our motto here at E-CCC.

Snow (and wrought iron) in Paris!

2009-12-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

Hear the shouts of joy?
You got it! It's been snowing here in Paris these last few days!

Even in the metro!

Even ON the metro!

But better the metro than a Vespa in this weather! Especially if you're racing to the hospital to have your fourth child or something...Just think of it!

Someone's poor, little hands are going to be very cold!

Because some bad, little kitten lost his mittens despite the string!
How could that happen, Mom?

Oh, and another bad, little kitten left the geraniums out!

Is that the Monique do you think? Covered with snow?

Don't tell me! Can it be? Omi and Opi's idol! President Sarkozy's finance minister, Christine Lagarde!!! Yes, there she is! Look a little closer!
I think haiku might be in order!

La fontaine St. Michel is probably frozen through, just like Wolverine lake!
By the way, where do the bass go when the fountain's frozen, Mom?

Anyone for an EASY-CUT COCONUT Cyzer on the coconut-covered terrace?

Ah, it's certainly beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!
Hope it is out your way too!

A Special Day!

2009-12-14T08:53:00.000-08:00

Some days are just special. Today was one of them.

It was not the day that...

...a guy suddenly walked in front of Mom as she was sitting at her computer in front of her bedroom window on the third floor!
Yikes! Where did he come from?!

That was pretty unusual but it was just the day that the scaffolding finally arrived at our floor. Exciting yes, but nothing like today! (There's special and special, right? Like the day Papa made...

...scallops with port wine and lime for Mom after work because they had translated the recipe together the night before and sent it to Babs for a special Christmas dinner she was attending (for any newcomers, Babs is Mom's eldest sister...

...who lives in KC, Missouri. Here are three photos of her at three different ages : 4, 14 and...um...34.)

I must say, it was pretty special for Mom to come home to unannounced scallops but still, it was nothing like today!)...

...And, no, today wasn't the day it snowed in Paris either (that was a few days later actually and deserves an entire post of its own! Snow is almost too exciting for words - I find that only shouts of joy and photos truly do the trick where snow is concerned.). Today was special because today was the day, well, let me tell it from the beginning :

Everything was pretty normal until about 4pm. Then I learned that my teacher would be on strike the next day! That meant I - Malcolm that is - would not have any homework to do that night nor would I be going to school the next morning! Yeah!

I raced home with my friend Louis - he didn't have any homework either so he came over to my house after school to trade Pokemon cards. (Louis is a great Pokemon afficionado like I am.) But just figure our delight when we realized that not only were we NOT going to school the next day, not only would we NOT be doing homework that afternoon, well, not only all that but, but, but that afternoon, (yes, that very afternoon!) was the moment Mom finally chose TO OPEN the EASY-CUT COCONUT!!!!

Here's our best shot of it before it was entirely open.

Mom and Stella brought the coconut back from the States ages ago. Stella and Monique had bought the nut with the intention of opening it in while Stella was with them on the shores of Wolverine Lake but, what with...

...pie baking...

(Stella and Monique made the first one which, even if we had to serve it with a ladle, was delicious!) and...

...pie eating (John made these next FOUR!!!!)...

...and what with...

...beer brewing and...

...beer bottling and...

...burger eating, somehow they never got around to cracking that nut!
So Mom, who's an expert packer decided to bring it back to Paris. Henry and I have been waiting to open it every day since they got back but Mom has always said "NO, we've ALL got to be together." Then, every few days, just to keep our hopes up, Mom would go "OK, we'll open that coconut tomorrow because we'll ALL be together." Unfortunately, when tomorrow dawned, we never really were ALL together. So Mom kept putting off the grand opening of the coconut and putting it off and putting it off to an ever later date. It was beginning to feel like we'd only do it when chickens had teeth or when the cows came home or on the week of seven Fridays...It began to feel like we'd NEVER open the darn thing EVER...

So you can just imagine how pleased and surprised we were today when Mom announced that today was the day! Even if Max was not home...

...(No no, Heaven's to Betsy, don't jump to conclusions!
Max is FINE!
He had just gone on another class trip. That time they were visiting the lovely killing fields of Verdun...)

...So, even though we were not ALL here this afternoon, Mom decided that there were six of us today so today would be the day!

Lucky Louis, huh?
The opening ceremony began with an ode written by Stella and performed by Henry and Stella together. (That's Louis back there in the back ground rolling the EASY-CUT COCONUT around on the table.)

Here he is drinking coconut milk! And he really is especially lucky because he LOVES coconut! Much more than we do in fact. And he LOVES coconut milk too. His presence was an unexpected plus!

The cracking of the nut was a serious business...

...after the first WHACK! even Le Fish got interested...

EASY-CUT, EASY-CUT, easy for them to say...

...Louis thought otherwise! Une sacré prise de tête en fait!

We even had to take a break to drink a bit more coconut milk as we were waiting...

...finally, Mom had to get involved...

...then things started coming together or rather coming apart...

YEAH!!!

I was so happy I immediately started making coconut music!

Once we'd eaten our fill, Louis and I quickly got back to some even more serious business...

Trading Pokemon cards! This is what I got! Pretty groovey, huh?

After much thought, steeped in cigar smoke and Malibu, I, Malcolm Paret, the new CEO of EASY-CUT COCONUT COCKTAILS INC., really wish Monique and John Magee of the Old Sloshing-Forth Brewery would try making some EASY-CUT COCONUT ale! Might be tastey, huh?

Bye folks, and many happy coconuts to you!