It's Me, Sara Louise

// Gregory has a developed a full on obsession with Cadillacs. Not the shiny new ones, and definitely not those SUVs, but old Cadillacs. Like anything older than about ten years and he’s oohing and aahing all over it and demanding to know the cost, as if my brain is stored with Cadillac’s blue book data.

// I’ve been forgetting about my laundry. In the ten years that I lived in Europe, my washing machine was either in my kitchen, or in my bathroom, so it was kind of hard to miss. Now that I’m back in the States, it’s in the laundry room. So what’s been happening is this; I load the washing machine, turn it on,  walk out of the laundry room, and close the door. Then I forget all about it, because I’m not seeing it spin around every time I walk into the kitchen or bathroom. Plus, a cycle takes like half the time here as it does over there. I usually remember right about the time the clothes take on that musty smell.

// Have you seen those Cindy Crawford infomercials? The one where she’s hawking some fountain of youth face serum? It turns out the secret ingredient to the stuff comes from melons grown in The Luberon. Well guess what… Honey Jr’s maternal grandparents grow melons in The Luberon! If I had known they were growing the fountain of youth right down the road from my house, I would have been running through those fields slathering melon fruit all over my face.

// Remember how before I moved to Texas, I was worried about wine (because in my world, wine is most definitely something to worry about), like how much more expensive it was going to be, and how  would I possibly be able to decipher all of those cutesy, critter labels? Well in my first week here, I came across this label up there. What in the Hello Kitty does that even mean?! It’s so dumb, just so dumb. And then there’s the bottle of French red that simply says, “We hope you enjoy our wine made with grapes from the finest ‘locations’ in France“… the finest “locations”! Locations was actually in quotes like that! WHAT LOCATIONS?! Can you be more specific, just narrow it down a bit. France is kind of a big place, and I think with a price of $18, it should buy me a clue too, or maybe even a map.

// Gregory managed to avoid the whole Daylight Savings Time and losing an hour thing this year (unlike the year we lost an hour twice) because he arrived in Texas the day that France put their clocks forward, and the US had already done it a few weeks before. That’s what I call winning at life.

// I had my first real bout of homesickness for France over the weekend. We were watching Mr. London and RCT play Leinster in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals. The sky was shining that perfect, bright and cheery Provençal blue over the stadium in Toulon, and I could hear the shouts of the crowd. If I closed my eyes, I could see myself there, sandwiched in the middle of Gregory and Mrs. London. Instead, we were sitting on the couch in Texas, and in between cheers for Mr. London (who was named man of the match thank you very much), Gregory and I would look at each other sadly. It kind of felt like being repeatedly punched in the stomach.

// Have you seen Monuments Men? Matt Damon’s character speaks French in it… sort of. If you ever wanted to know how I speak French, it’s more or less like this. It’s effectual, it’s just not pretty.