Bloggiversary

Wow.  Have I really been writing this blog for seven years?  Did I really first arrive in Paris in 2006, that long ago?  The digi-world, the blogger world, was so different then.   Click here for the very first Polly-Vous Francais? post.

Seven??  I feel ancient.  I feel humbled by all the wonderful readers and their snarky comments enlightening feedback.

Thanks, everyone!

And I'm heading to Paris in 10 days, so please stay tuned for timely updates about planning for and returning to Paris.

Can you really go home again?  

We'll see.

Mystery Photo du Jour: French technology

Okay, well, this isn't a mystery photo for anyone who lives or has lived in France; and you know who you are.

So, no fair guessing in the comments section!

But I came across these two devices yesterday in my embarrassingly outdated, overflowing-with-ancient-bits "technology cords and accessories" bag, and they automatically struck fear in my expat heart.  I still can never figure out how they were supposed to work in France.

 Two or three coupled together at times. Maybe let's add more!?  Never, it seems with the desired results.

And I sure don't need them in the U.S.  Anyone want them?

Not my kind of beauty mask

And while I'm on the topic of beauty products, here's an odd one:

image via Yves Rocher

The Anti-Asphyxiation Flash Mask from Yves Rocher.

I like Yves Rocher products.  And I bet this mask is great one.

But, c'mon translation people.   Really?

Brilliant French Eye Drops: les Gouttes Bleues

There can be many signs that it's time for a return trip to Paris.

(One of the most cruel is that some prankster recently signed me up for email alerts to Météo-France, so every morning my email inbox lets me know the Paris daily weather forecast.  It actually says "Vos prévisions météo aujourd'hui" which to me officially translates as "Time to pack for France!")

Image via Innoxa

Another sure-fire indication is when my stock of only-in-France beauty supplies is depleted.  Now, my last drop of Gouttes Bleues -- French blue eye drops by Innoxa -- is gone.  Time to make the plane reservations.  Pronto.

You've never heard of les gouttes bleues?  Do you think it sounds weird to put blue drops in your eyes?  Won't it tint your vision?

I learned of les gouttes bleues the way I learned about most treasured classic French beauty regimens -- by seeing them on a friend's bathroom shelf, and asking nosy questions.  Voila!   Another secret of French beauty unveiled.  And so subtle.

Unlike Visine or other products that get the red out, les gouttes bleues are designed to make the whites whiter, much in the same way that laundresses of yore used bluing to make white cottons brilliant and white. (Actually it turns out that you still can find old-fashioned laundry bluing.)

It isn't weird or unusual -- you just drop a few soothing drops in the corner of your eye as you would with any eye-drop, only make sure you have some Kleenex for dabbing at the spillover, which is decidedly blue-tint.  It doesn't affect vision.  But it does improve others' vision of you.  Le look.  Le regard.

And it's an all-natural classic, having been around since 1950.

Eyes look brilliant, brighter and whiter -- which is what we want for the firing up when they see the whites of your eyes.  N'est-ce pas?

Love in the Park

Easter Sunday morning in Central Park, and everywhere it looks like love.  All kinds of love.  Puppy love, romantic love, spiritual love, birds-do-it-bees-do-it love, love of mankind, love of life.  Not a grumpy being on the grounds as far as my eye could see...at least at 8 a.m.

And this was before going to church!

Inevitably any stroll around Manhattan will conjure up comparisons to Paris  - the art and architecture, the parks, the people, the culture.  In Central Park I find many of these comparisons converge.

1.  People and their dogs.  It is said that Paris is dog heaven.  But, honestly?  My vote goes to New York.  Apparently there is a law (or a loophole) that allows dog owners to let well-behaved pooches off-leash in the early morning hours in certain areas of Central Park.

And so they come in droves.  Everything from teacup terriers to Great Danes, frolicking in one happy love-fest, rolling and sniffing and delighting in each other's company, with their loving owners gazing contentedly as their beloved canines do what canines do best.  And the camaraderie among the owners is on a different plane from normal Manhattan sidewalk protocol.  They like each other and each other's pets, greet them with genuine affection, saying, "Max, sweetheart!   Go over and see my Sophie!  She has a stick!"  So endearing, so full of love and friendship.

Okay, I admit that I got a bit unnerved hearing a man shout, "Polly, stop that!" only to turn around and realize that he was talking to his border collie.

Another more...ardent love that I witnessed was a man on a bench in a semi-icky full frontal embrace with the standard poodle on his lap.  But each to his own, I guess.

I will not begin to get involved in much depth in the pooper-scooper stories and comaprisons.  Let me just say that in Paris, since almost no one picks up after their Fidos, I always walk with a careful glance to the sidewalk.  In all my time in Paris, never a squish. Seriously!   In New York, however, since you expect the sidewalks to be clean, you maybe don't pay as much attention underfoot, and --bingo!-- squish on the soles of your Italian ballerina flats on the way to church. For example.

2.  For the beauty of the earth.  Urban environments can be cold and hard and structured and unyielding.  Yet, a few steps into the park, and the city quickly melts away.  This is a beauty of Paris, too, with its many parks, pocket gardens and refreshing squares.  Today, in the Park, Spring was showing her greatest triumph over winter.

And the joy of rebirth after a long and dismal period of dim and dying. (And, alas, there are many spots where the loss of huge trees during Hurricane Sandy is painfully evident.) But also so many defiant delicate petals of sheer exuberance: "Yes, there will be spring."

Is there a heart that isn't uplifted by the sight of new spring flowers?

Harbingers of hope, of renewal and new things to come.

3.  For the splendor of the skies.  New York streets are veritable urban canyons, impressive yet sometimes daunting in their sheer pressure and overwhelming concrete-and-stone power and glory.  It is refreshing to get into open space where you can see the architectural structures from a distance.  When you are swallowed up by the buildings and the built environment, it is not as easy to appreciate them.  From the middle of the park, it is a moment of awe. Especially contrasted against the Park's Belvedere Castle, in wide-open sky.

4.  Shakespeare in love.  The Shakespeare garden.  Shall I compare it to a springtime day?
A yard for the Bard, a favorite spot in the Park.

When you see this fence, you know you're in Shakespeare country. Please let me know if you know of a fence more poetic, more romantic than this.

It reminds me in some ways of the small grotto-like pocket park just below the Trocadero in Paris.

The Shakespeare in the Park Delacorte Theater is in the background in this photo. You can draw your own comparisons (or not) to the drama of daily life at the Trocadero.

5.  Let's fall in love:  avian chapter.  Yesterday morning on the pond, two mallard drakes were loudly squawking, jabbing, and nipping at each other -- a real macho splashing squabble -- as the female duck paddled demurely on the sidelines.  Clearly she was the object of their desires for the upcoming love season, and only one of them was going to win.  A love contest!  This is no minor tale. Yesterday afternoon I ambled by again on a walk with Harry, and the two males were still sparring, drawing a bit of attention from the now-crowded group on onlookers.  Ouch.  A battle to the finish.

This morning?

One triumphant drake, one hen:  the newly hitched mallard couple paddling around the pond, ready to be the star parents of Make Way for Ducklings 2013 NYC edition.

Yes, and one loser in the alpha-battle for love, who apparently departed the territory.  Another Sunday-morning New York City love story?  Not limited to New York, of course.  It reminded me of these two love-birds in Paris.  Attached but showing slight indifference.  Ah, love.  Just ducky.

6.  Harry Loves Sally.  Or fill in the blanks.

The trees offer an outlet for a supposedly permanent expression of love.  Like a tattoo, but less personally accountable or embarrassing? Or not?

I wonder how old these are?

I wonder if any of the couples are still together?

And sometimes I think that the other, more ineffable expressions of love -- the greetings, the kisses, the pats, the hugs, the shared joy, the planting of exuberant perennial flowers for others to enjoy -- mean so much more than a moment's profession  of  heart-shaped love with a pen-knife on stolen tree bark.

A Happy Easter Spring Chick.. from Paris

Happy Easter!  Joyeuses Pâques!

This illustration would indeed be a Spring chick, if the advertisement weren't 66 years old.  Circa 1947.

Since it's for an elastic company, however,  let's just say it's a springy chick.

The caption underneath reads:  "Les produits élastiques de haute qualité portent cette étiquette."  (High quality elastic products bear this label.)

The company:  Société européenne de fils élastiques - 14.16 Bld. Poissonnière - Paris.

Alas, the European Company of Elastic Threads is no longer at that address in the 9th arrondissement.  But you can see the building anyway on this real estate video on YouTube.

Wishing all a joyous season.

Do you know about this magical French oil?

Second Avenue in New York City may not have the same panache as Madison Avenue, or even Lexington or Third, but it now forever holds a spot in my francophile heart.

Striding down the sidewalk the other day, I caught a glimpse of something so totally French in a storefront window that I stopped in my tracks and entered.  It was a hair salon, and they were selling Nuxe Huile Prodigeuse Or, a product I had never seen outside of France. 

It had been a staple in my batterie de maquillage in France. Tested chez des copines, forever enamoured of the little bottle of gold. A little on the cheekbones.  A little on the hair. A little mixed in with the body lotion for that overall glow.  My French friends all knew the subtle beauty secret.

I had assumed that I'd have to wait until my next trip to France to re-stock. (Because, in a moment of  extreme maternal generosity,  I had offered the rest of my precious bottle to Miss Bee, who loved the stuff SO much.)

But.... how could I have presumed that Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse Or was not available in the U.S.?  Silly me!  This is New York.  New York has everything.  

But the best part?  I entered the salon, Marianne Vera, a beehive of activity, and headed straight for the Huile Prodigeuse in the window display.  The owner approached me and didn't even attempt English.  "Bonjour, je suis Marianne, je peux vous aider?"

We started jabbering away in French, and I was happy to have a new acquaintance in the neighborhood who understood French beauty products (and maybe, eventually, my hair?).

"But... but...  how did you know to address me in French?" I asked, bewildered.  "This never happened to me in France! Despite my efforts, I am always pegged as an American."

"Simple," she replied.  "Only Parisiennes see it in the store window and stop to buy the product.  Les Americaines don't know what it is."

But now you do.

Bretons of New York

Bretonne on Lexington Ave, St. Patrick's Day

Tomorrow is officially St. Patrick's Day, but in New York City, today was THE day. The Parade.

Heading toward the subway station at Lex and 77th this early afternoon, I came upon large clusters of parade participants who had just finished marching 45 blocks up Fifth Avenue.  Bagpipers, handsome NYFD in their dress uniforms, and -- wait, what's that I see?  -- Bretonnes in their finest ancient finery!

I was behind one woman for the two blocks until the subway entrance.  All at once, though, it seemed that everyone around me was speaking French.  Even the three giggling young American women flourishing empty Solo cups, wearing sparkly green deely-boppers, their faces painted with emerald shamrocks, were saying, "Yah, like it's 'Bonjooor and cawmontallay voo,' right?"  Laughing and practicing their long-ago 7th-grade French lessons.

About 10 paces ahead of me, the woman in ancient Bretonne dress, to my amusement, was chatting on her cell phone.  I relish those anachronisms.

Finally, at the top of the stairs to the subway, foot traffic was jammed, and so as we all waited I asked (in French) for the story -- it didn't matter who I asked because I was surrounded by French.  But I found the perfect spokesperson, who even had a business card.

It turns out that

a) there is a Breton Association here in New York,  BZH New York.
b) this organization brought 100 traditional Breton performers from Quimper to New York for the event.  We do know, most of us, about the Celtic roots of Brittany, so it does seem so à propos for St. Patrick's Day.

It wasn't the right time for me to wax enthusiastic about my love of Brittany, my first unforgettable visit to Guingamp in my college years and how more recently I almost -- almost -- bought a house there.  But I look forward to getting to know the Bretons of New York a bit better.

And then the most adorable part -- the three tipsy American girls group-hugged one of the French women they had gotten to know during the parade, saying,  "Bye!  Bye!  We'll see ya in Paris!"