It's Me, Sara Louise

It’s Me, Sara Louise

Hi! You might know me as C’est Moi, Sara Louise. Before that I was Sara in Le Petit Village. Now, It’s Me, Sara Louise. Hello again.

  • Multiplication, The Serial Killer, and Some Champagne

    The Boyfriend and I popped into the Honey house. We had a bottle of Baileys from Dublin for Mr Honey that had to be delivered. Mr Honey loves Baileys, he thinks it’s candy, but unless Mrs Honey is watching him carefully, he’ll finish the whole bottle.
    Normally when we get to The Honeys, it’s just a quick knock on the door, and then we walk in. Doors are rarely locked in Le Petit Village, except mine, mine is double bolted, best to keep out the Nazi soldier ghost zombies. But when we opened the door we heard some pretty loud voices shouting back and forth.
    I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think foreign languages can sound a little scary. Not all the time, just when spoken loudly. As soon as the decibel level of a foreign language is raised, I want to duck for cover because it sounds like someone is pissed off and I best be getting out of the way. Years ago I had a Romanian boyfriend, and every time he spoke on the phone to his mother I thought they were having an argument. Nope, just their normal weekly chat, probably talking about sunshine and rainbows, but in Romanian, sunshine and rainbows can sound like death and destruction.
    Hearing the shouting, we quickly stepped back and quietly closed the door. The Boyfriend and I looked at each other, not too sure what to do. He knocked again louder. No response. The Boyfriend searched for the doorbell, and used it for the first time. Mrs Honey answered the door laughing and shaking her head. We walked into the kitchen and there was Mr Honey still shouting and waving his arms around like a lunatic. Thinking that something was terribly wrong at the Honey house, I asked The Boyfriend what Mr Honey was going on about. Mr and Mrs Honey were having a very heated argument about multiplication. What???
    This is what happens when children leave the nest and parents don’t have anything to do to occupy themselves. They argue about multiplication.
    You see, when multiplying amounts with a zero on the end, Mrs Honey likes to do the whole thing like; 600 x 10, but Mr Honey likes to do it like; 6 x 1 and then add the zeros on after.
    Mr Honey was leaning over me with a pink post it and a pen frantically writing multiplication problems desperately willing me to understand and support his argument that the way he does it was easier.
    This is what the shouting was about.
    We gave him the bottle of Baileys and the multiplication was forgotten. But then somehow, the subject moved to a story about some old French serial killer, hundreds of years ago, who had like 20 wives that he killed. And after he killed them, would chop them up and put them in the oven. Mr Honey informed me that he needed a bigger oven.
    “Would you like some champagne?” Mrs Honey asked.
    Yes please.
    bisou
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  • My New Hobby

    I have a new hobby.

    I would love to say that it’s yoga, or painting, or decoupage (never did start that) but it’s slightly more neurotic.
    I’ve been tracking the sunrise times in Le Petit Village (actually not specifically, Le Petit Village is too small to have it’s own weather page, but the closest larger village’s sunrise).
    I am so desperate for my early sunny mornings to come back that each morning I log on and check the sunrise time. It’s always a minute earlier than the day before. Today, 8:04.
    At this rate, it’ll be the end of February before a 7:30 sunrise, much more suitable for an early bird like me.

    There is a reason for this that is embarrassing to admit. It all goes back to me being a scaredy cat. Fifty has to be walked as soon as he wakes up in the morning. There is about a five minute window, just enough time for me to get dressed, but that’s it. He’s awake, it’s pee pee time. And dawn can be a very eerie time in Le Petit Village. Some mornings are fine, but on other mornings, thick fog descends on the mountain and you can walk ten feet, turn around and not see where you just came from. I’m not exaggerating, nothing but dense fog. The only visible light is from the bell tower on the old church, glowing orange, and just when I pass, the birds that live in it fly away, wings flapping loudly. So picture a dark medieval village with a centuries old church bell tower, glowing orange in the fog, and fleeing birds. No traffic, no people, no noise. Just a girl and her puppy. CREEPY.
    Anyhoo… I like to wait until at least thirty minutes before sunrise to take Fifty for his walk, by then, a hint of light begins, and I can pretend I’m not a big old chicken. This is all by way of saying that my normal early bird routine is being disturbed by Fifty’s pee pee breaks and the lazy sunrise. Relaxed, normal people would not have a problem with this. But I am the opposite of relaxed. Xanax should have been named Sara.
    That’s all I really have to say.
    I’m tracking the sunrise. Sorry for the fine example of nerdom.
    Please tell me you do something equally strange.
    bisou

  • Deep Thoughts… With Fifty

    Why won’t that crazy schedule lady just leave me alone? Really, can’t I just have five minutes of peace. I bet when I turn around she’ll be standing there staring at me…
    Yep. Of course she is.

    Is it really necessary for me to be bilingual? Just pick a language and go with it. I’m confused enough already.
    Vicky or Leah, Leah or Vicky? So hard to decide. Leah is cute and a lot of fun, but Vicky has that whole sexy cougar thing going on…
    Why am I named after a rapper? I don’t even like rap.
    And what the hell is happening at NBC?
    À bientôt

    Fifty


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  • That's Not Toothpaste

    My Mother tried to poison The Boyfriend.

    OK, that may have been a bit over an overstatement, but she almost did.
    We took a quick trip to visit my Mother for her birthday. It was the weekend, I was in Dublin, and it was my Mother’s birthday, so naturally I woke up with gooey wine mouth (gross).

    I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth and found The Boyfriend in mid brush. I grabbed the tube that was located just where toothpaste would be located in any normal persons home. But this is my Mothers home. Sometimes, it defies reason. Have you ever read Amelia Bedelia? That’s all I’m saying.
    I looked at the tube, and looked at The Boyfriend.

    “Did you use this?”
    “Oui.”
    “That’s not toothpaste.”


    Never a dull moment.
    But we all had a good laugh about it down the pub.


    bisou


    P.S.
    To any of my friends who may read this:
    I was in Dublin, but just for 36 hours. In and out. Don’t kill me.
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  • I Love Tuesdays

    Pizza Night, Pizza Night, Oh how I love Pizza Night!

    The above needs to be sung while doing jazz hands, with your head shaking, eyes closed, and letting your hips have a little spazz attack. I’d show you a how to video but that would be embarrassing.
    The Skippie Team loves pizza night. Not so much Fifty, because he doesn’t get any but the rest of us (me and The Boyfriend) loves it.
    Living in a metropolitan city before, I took for granted all the restaurants and food deliveries I had at my disposal. Between lunch breaks from work and random night outs, I spent a hefty chunk of my paycheck for someone else to prepare my meals. Life here is very different.
    Le Petit Village has one bistro, where we have never eaten a meal. During the summer we’d sit outside for a drink or an ice cream but at night the Belgian and German tourists would descend and take up all the tables. And the owner seems to like it that way. He moved here from Paris two years ago and he doesn’t seem very ‘locals’ friendly. One day The Boyfriend stopped by and wanted a bowl of ice cream, the bistro man told him to go away, he was too busy. Not smart. Especially since the last owner wasn’t very locals friendly either. The story goes…
    The previous owner and his wife moved to Le Petit Village from up North. On their bistro’s first weekend open some local hunters came in wanting a few glasses of Pastis (Provencal hunters drink Pastis like water. That scares the hell out of me. They’re heavily armed and drunk). The owner refused to serve them, he said he didn’t want dirty hunters in his bar. A few weeks later the owner’s car had been burnt out and the bistro had been set fire to. I’m not saying there’s a connection but I’m real friendly to all the local villagers.
    Anyhoo, I heard the new bistro owner is looking to sell and move back to Paris.
    Back to my love of pizza night (Pizza Night, Pizza Night, oh how I love Pizza Night!)
    Our closest restaurant other than the bistro where we don’t eat is over twenty minutes away (and with snow and ice, almost an hour). No deliveries, no fast food, no delis. If you’re hungry, your making the food yourself. Except for Tuesdays.
    Tuesday nights, the pizza man comes to Le Petit Village and parks his van in front of Le Petit Notre Dame. For one evening a week, I get to pretend that I don’t live in a teeny village with 250 other arsonists… oops… I meant people.
    Allow me to share my joy with you. Feel free to sing the pizza night anthem as you peruse…
    Heino for me, Carlsberg for him.

    Olives come on the pizzas whether you want them or not.
    My current favorite, the Norvégienne; smoked salmon, shrimp, mozzarella and creme fraîche

    Méli-Mélo (awesome name); goats cheese, honey and serrano ham
    round one
    bisou

    P.S.
    The Spaniard showed up just in time for pizza night.
    Supposedly he was just driving by and happened to hear The Boyfriend’s voice while he was ordering at the pizza van. Yeah right (RE: lo-jack).
    He said he’d be back next Tuesday. Yippee.
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  • Date Night

    Last weekend my date night dinner was cancelled because the restaurant decided to close for no reason, and this past Saturday, Monsieur Snowman and his buckets of snow ruined another night out.
    I refused to let staying in ruin our long overdue date night. But we’d have to settle for old reliable, Saturday night dinner and a DVD.
    Feeling bad that we haven’t been out to dinner in ages, The Boyfriend offered to cook, God love him, but date night was not the time for him to learn. Although that does give me an idea for another night; cooking lessons with Sara Louise. That has disaster written all over it.
    I cooked steak with blue cheese sauce, pomme frites, and baked parmesan tomatoes. Not to toot toot my horn, but it came out really well, restaurant style even. I’d show you a picture but I have zero food photography skills. You’ll just have to believe me when I say it was G O O D. And so was the bottle of Brouilly we had to go with it.
    Dinner conversation became, what DVD should we watch? That same old struggle of man and woman over DVD.
    He’s seen most of my DVD collection that moved over with me. It’s down to a few that he is determined he won’t like. The Boyfriend has a classic case of judging a book by it’s cover. He thinks he knows if he is going to like the movie or not by the picture on the cover. Case in point, never having heard of Johnny Cash, he didn’t want to watch Walk The Line because he thought it was purely a romance and according to him, The Boyfriend doesn’t do romance (this coming from a boy who loved The Notebook).
    (Funny story about movies, me and The Boyfriend – we were going to the cinema around Christmas last year and trying to decide what movie to see. Twilight was out and I wanted to see that. The Boyfriend wanted to see Transporter 3. I told him I couldn’t because I hadn’t seen Transporter 1 or 2. It worked. True story. God love him.)
    Back to our dinner and DVD date night…
    Looking through the collection, he pulled out a few; Good Will Hunting, Heat, and 50 First Dates.
    I pulled out The Breakfast Club. Being a child of the Brat Pack era (child, not teenager), it’s one of my all time favorites and I’ve been wanting The Boyfriend to see it forever. But judging by the cover, The Boyfriend determined that the movie was 1. a love story (???) and 2. old (if he thinks that’s old than I hate to think what he thinks about me).
    I begged and pleaded and promised that he would love it and reminded him that I’ve never steered him wrong before (hello…. The Notebook!).
    He finally relented, because he’s good like that. And we moved to the couch for a little of this…
    Image: Google
    And a little more of this…
    Image: Google
    I knew he liked it when he wanted to know if I was more like Molly Ringwald or Ally Sheedy. He looked a little disappointed when I told him I was a mixture of both.
    All in all a pretty good Saturday date night.
    Big steak, a bottle of Brouilly, and The Breakfast Club.
    bisou
    P.S. I’m going to be in so much trouble for telling you about The Notebook
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  • Snow Day

    I spent my childhood in upstate New York, a place where we had all four seasons to their fullest. In Spring, blossoms bloomed, Summer was hot and sticky, Fall was an actual autumn, and Winter was freaking freezing. But the one thing that made those winter months bearable was the promise of a snow day.

    On snowy mornings, my brother and I would huddle in front of the radio, fingers crossed as they went through the long list of cancellations and delays, waiting to hear the five best words ever uttered on the radio,
    “Wappingers Central School District – Closed”

    These days would cause us great joy, my father not so much. I now understand his distress.
    Friday, The Boyfriend had a snow day. A large chunk of Provence was being blanketed by snow and it was decided, that navigating down a snowy, icy mountain on a Friday just wasn’t worth it.

    He was very excited about his day off, “What should we do today?”
    “Well I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to do the laundry, some ironing, and vacuum the floor.”

    I’m a routine kind of girl, and homeboy was messing with my Monday – Friday routine.
    He looked like a sad child so I decided to bake him brownies. Baking seemed like a snow day kind of thing to do.
    But every twenty seconds, “Can I eat now, can I eat now, can I eat now?”
    This unexpected day off threw The Boyfriend for a loop. He didn’t know what to do with himself except not sit still.

    Instead of just having Fifty following me around the house, I had The Boyfriend too. I moved, they moved. They followed and paced the floor.

    I was getting dangerously close to googling “indoor activities for children.”
    The Boyfriend wanted to play chess but he had to settle with playing against the computer. He keeps begging me to learn but as I have some serious competitive issues I need to work on (like if I don’t win, all hell breaks loose) I think it’s best if I don’t.
    Playing chess on the computer can only keep one occupied for so long.
    He walked, circling the living room and began to say absurd things like, “Halle Berry wants me. Don’t be jealous”. This confirmed his spiral into cabin fever induced lunacy.
    “Why don’t you go outside? Maybe you can play rugby in the snow?”
    He couldn’t find anyone to play with, but luckily he bumped into some of the local old ladies and they asked him to join their card game. For the record, I don’t believe this ‘bumped into’ story one bit. I think he stuck his head in the door of the community centre and invited himself, but however it happened, don’t care, he was getting out of my hair and I encouraged him to take his furry little friend with him.

    “Yes, please go. Keep the old ladies company.”

    So off he went to play cards with the senior citizens in the mini community centre next door. He likes to go because all the old ladies bring him cookies. The Boyfriend is a sucker for a cookie (Re: food whore).
    An hour later they returned. I made some hot chocolate and put on a DVD.
    I guess all that pacing, following, and card playing tuckered them out, because a few minutes after the hot chocolate and brownies…

    And I got a break.
    bisou

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  • The Boyfriend's Favorite (maybe)

    According to French Nana it’s her beef tongue.

    According to Papa’s Wife it’s her couscous.
    According to Mrs Honey it’s her squash gratin.
    The Boyfriend is a food whore.
    Before I came along, there weren’t any serious girlfriends, so all the other women in his life cooked for him. And they all like to think that they were the ‘one’.
    Well Madames, there’s a new cook in town and I know what his favorite really is…
    MY couscous with merguez sausage.
    I first had merguez at the Honey house over the summer. Loved it. Spicy, similar to a chorizo but not as greasy. Remembering the tastiness I picked up a few links at a trip to the boucherie. Not sure what to do with them, I turned to google and found this recipe:
    Looked easy enough.
    Tastes better than it looks…
    Delicious!
    And according to The Boyfriend, his new favorite.
    And now when I go to French Nana’s, Papa’s Wife’s, our the Honey house, they like to parade their dishes in front of me, trying to make me jealous. But it’s ok, I know what dish he likes best.
    Ok, so sometimes he says my mushroom risotto is his favorite.
    Told you… food whore.
    bisou
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  • A Not So Relaxing Evening

    Papa’s Wife invited us over for dinner, she was cooking The Boyfriend’s ‘favorite’ her couscous.

    The Boyfriend was looking forward to the meal, I was looking forward to a nice relaxing evening that I didn’t have to prepare and clean up after.
    Getting ready to leave, The Boyfriend grabbed the car keys and Fifty.
    I wanted to leave Fifty at home but The Boyfriend insisted we bring him so he could play with Leo (Leah the jack russell’s more hyperactive brother).
    Fine, but I made him promise that he would keep an eye on him. Fifty has a habit of jumping on, and almost knocking over the 88 year old grandmother and I really didn’t want to spend the evening with one eye on the wine and one eye on the puppy.
    And to let you know… besides Ruby, Papa’s favorite hunting dog, and Leo, the hyperactive jack russell, there is also 15 year old knocking on death’s door dog named Callie, and some wiry little dog, I can never remember the name of. So they’ve got four dogs, and three very fat cats. That’s a lot of Purina.
    We arrived at Papa’s and as we approached the gates to the garden I heard a lot of barking. With four dogs this isn’t uncommon, but it just seemed like more. Papa’s Wife greeted us at the gate, looked at Fifty and sighed. Strange considering she loves Fifty (even got him a Christmas present). The sigh became understandable when we walked in and I saw two other dogs; Leah, and her and Leo’s sire, Pitain. The Boyfriend’s Brother had gone skiing and left his two dogs at Papa’s house for the week. So before adding our puppy to the mix, there were already six dogs and Fifty made it lucky number seven, and three fat cats.
    I bid adieu to my relaxing evening.
    It was anything but relaxing.
    The barking did not stop.
    Callie, the old dog decided she wasn’t happy and barked for the hell of it, even though her cataracts meant she was pretty much just barking at the air. And every time she barked, Papa would respond with a loud, “arrêt!” (stop).
    Bark. Arrêt! Bark. Arrêt! Bark. Arrêt!
    You get the picture.
    The wiry dog was picking fights with any dog that crossed his path. Probably angry that no one ever remembers his name.
    The fat cats looked like they were on the verge of having kitty strokes as they perched on any surface out of reach of the dogs.
    Fifty decided to torment the placid Ruby, just to try to get a rise out of him. He succeeded.
    The three jack russells were barking in unison. I think they may have even been trying to harmonize.
    And then just for fun, Fifty peed twice and pooped once, in the living room.
    During a rare two minutes of quiet when we were all actually seated at the table and not chasing and yelling at dogs, and pulling them off fat cats and 88 year old grandmothers, I finally noticed the lovely centerpiece of roses;
    “What beautiful roses”
    Papa’s Wife smiled, “Thank you, they were for my birthday.”
    “Oh, when was your birthday?”

    “Today.”
    I gave the Boyfriend my best ‘just wait until we get home’ look and shrank into my chair.
    At least Fifty had been kind enough to leave all those presents in the living room.
    bisou
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  • Stinky & Freezing

    Woke up to this…
    … more snow.

    And no hot water.
    Did I mention it’s freezing?
    If the hot water doesn’t get fixed soon I’m going to have to change my name to
    Stinky in Le Petit Village.
    But guess who loves it…
    I really want to take a shower. And not a freezing cold one.
    bisou