Copain-isms : The Strap On

I reluctantly rolled out of shavansana at the end of my Vinyasa yoga class and Namasted along with the other tourists, island hippies and first-time zen-seekers on Gili Trawangan.  It was our first day on the island after 10 days in Bali, and I was determined to yoga it up during my four-day island adventure.

Copain had decided to take a stab at stand-up paddle boarding while I was in class. We had met an English expat with spectacularly crooked teeth and an SPF-oiled-up hairy chest who was renting them out on the beach down from our hotel- he even advertised a free lesson when you rented a board. Our plan was to meet back at the hotel after our respective activities.

As I floated into our traditional lumbung, I was hit with Copain at his irritated best:

Babe! Mon genou!

Your knee? What happened to your knee?

P*tain de English paddle-board guy didn't tell me about the coral!  The water was too shallow and I fell off the board onto the coral - right on my knee! Aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Don't touch it! It hurts too bad!

Now, let me just clarify that this guy being English was not helping any part of the situation. It all dates back to a lot of wars you know...

What do you mean he didn't TELL you about the coral - couldn't you SEE the coral underneath you?

And on and on we went, as Copain hobbled down the hotel stairs in a manner closely resembling Frankenstein on our way to dinner, left leg advancing, right leg dragging a Havaianas flip flop behind him.

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3am, Hotel room on Gili T

Copain: Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Mon genou!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I've torn my meniscus! I just know it! Our vacation is ruined! Why does this always happen to me??? I should just lay on the beach and do nothing. Why was that English guy so stupid! 

(English men - always forgetting to tell you about coral in shallow water - pffffff)

FCC, half asleep, remembering this special moment:  Take an anti-inflammatory. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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We woke up three hours later to the sounds of the Mosque calling for prayer, and Frankenstein was in full effect. Despite the now four anti-inflammatories I had force-fed Copain, he was convinced that his knee was shattered for life and that he would have to walk with a cane. A CANE.  I tried to remind him of his Emmy-award winning dramatic interpretation for back pain, but the damage was done. He was going to die an old man with one working knee and a cane from Indonesia.

Since we were staying on an island that doesn't even have cars, it was no surprise that there was not a doctor's office either, but after Frankensteining around the island for about an hour, we did find this:

Worried about just exactly how creative they would get with his knee, we decided that a simple bandage with a lot of ice and elevation would be the best route until we got home and had access to reliable, less creative, more science-based healthcare.  We walked inside, trying not to touch anything, and searched our guidebook for vocab that would help us out. Unfortunately Lonely Planet left out very useful words for falling on coral from a stand-up paddle board rented to you by a buck-teethed Englishman.

Fortunately for everyone involved (you, dear readers, included), Copain found his words faster that I could and confidently asked the "nurse / doctor / antibiotics distributer": Do you have a.... strap-on?

All I can say people, is that thank god the Indonesian in front of us wasn't familiar with this particular vocabulary word, and that once I had pushed Copain behind me and taken control of the situation, we had an over-priced ACE bandage in our hands five minutes later.

When I translated the word for him (yes, Copain, a strap-on is a sex toy) and asked him what the heck he was thinking, he told me, "Well, it's a strap, and you put it on. A strap-on."

And just like a five-year old who needs a bandaid for a paper cut, suddenly the "strap on" made Copain's knee feel so much better.

Copain-isms - Chapstick

Copain and I were trying to decide where we would go for dinner on Saturday night.  I was rooting for La Cave de l'Insolite and he was rooting for sushi.

I love sushi, but I wanted to try something new - like my brilliant idea of La Cave. Clearly the better choice.

I told him that I wasn't doing my hair and putting on good makeup (a rarity, I assure you) for our standard sushi place on rue Dauphine. I wanted a bottle of wine, some ambiance, a dessert that did not include red beans or sticky rice. 

Then, in an effort to convince me that sushi was the better option, Copain said, "but I can use chapstick now!".

FCC: chapstick?

Copain: yeah, now that my thumb is almost healed, I can use chapstick. 

FCC: (drawing a blank - probably from a dry shampoo fume overdose in the miniature bathroom...) After five seconds of confusion,  the air cleared, I came to my senses and put two and two together - 

You mean CHOPsticks?

Cannes Cannes and the Cups

After finishing work early yesterday, I was flat out exhausted. I think I may be coming down with something - bleh. But before going home to lie on my couch in PJs and convince Copain to watch a chick flick with me, I took a detour to Hema, an amazing Ikea-esque store near Châtelet les Halles. 

Remember my Hema-tights???

I'm not sure why I thought that going to Hema was a good idea - it just makes me want things. And you know how I feel about things.

Bref, I pretty much tortured myself for an hour. All I could think about was how I don't have one water glass that matches another, that I only have one wine glass because all the others are broken, that my bowls are cracked and crappy and that oh my god I hate my apartment and I need all new stuff but I can't have all new stuff until I get a bigger apartment and crap this sucks and I want everything in this store! ... But oh no! What if I buy everything in this store and then I decide not to live in France and then what will I do with it ahhhhh????????

It was enough to send me into an existential tailspin.

I came home with 5 new bath towels, a bag of my favorite spicy rice crackers for food therapy, and some door hook hanger thingys to hang the towels on. Then I washed all the towels and overloaded my teeny apartment with wet towels to dry. 

Thank god Copain was up for a chick flick, otherwise I may have had a complete breakdown.

This morning I woke up with a stuffy nose and ridiculous depression. The girl who has a roof over her head, food to eat, a good job, wonderful friends and family - the girl who has no reason to be depressed, is sad because her cups don't match. And if she does buy cups, it somehow means something about her life here. Wow. Way to be awesome Cannes Cannes.

As I explained my frustration to Copain, the ridiculous tears welling up, he started to sing a little song:

Doo doo doo dooooo

Chin up!

And get the dust off of you!

Isn't that how it goes? The song your mom used to sing to you?

Doo doo doo dooooo

Chin up!

And get the dust off of you!

How can you be sad when your Copain starts to sing the song that your mom sang to you when you fell down as a child? 

Pick yourself up,

Dust yourself off,

and start all over again!

Even though he got the words all wrong, he got the meaning behind it right. And even though as adults we don't fall down on playgrounds and scrape our knees in the sand, sometimes we do have to pick ourselves up, dust off the silly sadness, and start over again - remembering that our futures are shiny. Right?

And then, just to make me feel better, Copain took out all our cups, lined them up and laughed at the off-the-wall collection that has overtaken our miniature cupboards:

Then he promised me a trip to Ikea. Baby steps, baby steps.

Shiny

After scanning Seloger.com for apartments bigger than a shoebox within our budget and realizing that our banker can't see us about all of our future financial questions until the end of March, I was feeling kind of...

blah.

Yay I'm 30 and live in a super expensive city. I can either rent for the rest of my life or live in a shoebox in the middle of the city.

woo.

As I sat on the couch sulking, Copain leaned over my computer and watched as I typed, little by little  reducing the surface area of the apartments in my search engine...

Copain: Are you becoming a French pessimist?

FCC: yes. I'm losing hope. I'm depressed. Our future sucks.

Copain: Hey! Don't be depressed - don't be like that! You have to keep your American positivity. Babe, our future is shiny.

So there you have it folks. I may have to live in a shoebox for the rest of my life, but somewhere, deep - deep deep deep down, in a land far, far away, my future is shiny. 

yay.

Copain-isms: The Case of the Shrinkles

Copain stood in the living room in his size 42 pants recently purchased from Zara. He turned to the right, to the left, put on his shoes, added a shirt, sighed and went back into the bedroom.

Then he was back out again, but this time in the 44 - a delicate suggestion I had made, since I thought his pants were getting just slightly too Euro...read: too tight.

We may live in Paris and he may be French, but I have my tight pant limits for men (and women, now that I think about it). 

Copain: what do you think?

Me: yeah, 44, all the way.

Copain: but, don't you think they look a little big, a little too long?

Me: dude, I told you, 44 - the 42 are on the limit of crossing the line. We can hem the 44s if you need to. (insert long conversation explaining hemming here)

Copain: but...but....(getting flustered)....look at all these, all these shrinkles!

Me: shrinkles?

Copain: yeah, all these shrinkles at the bottom!

(walk over to Copain, roll 1-inch of pant leg under, of the faux-hemming variety)  

Me: See! No more shrinkles!

Copain the Man

For all of my complaining about Copain and his weird ways and even weirder ways, I figured that I should share some of the more wonderful aspects of my Frenchie (even though his crazier antics do admittedly make for better stories).

Every morning when I wake up, Copain has left this waiting for me:

It's my espresso and a cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice. All I have to do is press "go" on the coffee machine and add water for my morning lemon drink.  When I'm yelling about being woken up at 6am on a Saturday, I have to remember that every other day of the week, I get this thoughtful gesture. 

Merci Copain - you're the man (most of the time).

Men are from March

Copain and I sat on lounge chairs, side by side, facing the enormous pool at our riad in Marrakech. I was reading the latest Elle and he was trying to increase his Wifi connection by moving his phone from left to right, up and down - but no luck.  Good, I thought to myself, maybe that means we can actually relax together for once...

The palm trees swayed, the water glistened, and just when it seemed that the moment could not get more romantic, he reached over to touch my leg - looked into my eyes and said...

Why is your skin all wavy? It's weird - it's all... bumpy.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, Copain was referring to the lovely bit of cellulite that decided to settle in on the side of my thigh years ago. Cellulite that I have tried over and over again to forget, to ignore, to rationalize as something normal and not worth making a big deal about. That cellulite. 

While I tried to think of a answer that was nicer than biting his head off and throwing him in the pool, I wondered, what man in his right mind asks a woman about her cellulite??!!! One would think that after 8 years with the same person, A. He would have already noticed said cellulite, and B. He would have learned that this subject, along with weight gain and dieting suggestions were off limits under any and all circumstances.

Clearly, Copain did not get the memo.

Later at dinner, when I handed him the bill and told him that he owed it to me after commenting on my wavy/bumpy skin, he explained to me that it wasn't his fault if men were from March and women were from Venus.

Copain-isms : Again or Against?

Copain and I were getting ready for work - he was trying to shave while I was trying to put on my makeup (small Parisian apartments make for tight getting ready space in the morning).  The radio was blasting as usual (a habit I will never be able to break him of), and they were talking about the death penalty. (Nothing like the death penalty to get your morning off to a great start!).

Radio: blah blah blah death penalty in the United States blah blah blah

Copain, mid shave, turns to me and says: Is your dad again or against the death penalty?

Copain-isms - So Roasted!

FCC: Hey, what did you guys end up doing last night?

Copain: Oh, we went out to that place where we always go.  Don't worry, I didn't get roasted.

FCC: You mean... toasted?

Copain-isms - Red Lips

Copain opened the front door, ready to leave for work. "A tout à l'heure, babe," he said, and he leaned in for a kiss.

"Oh, hey, you put on your chapstick," I said. (Copain loves the American brand Chapstick).

"Yep, I love this stuff! And you put on your..." he stopped to think..."red lips?"

"Lipstick," I corrected him.

"Oh right, lipstick."

And then he was out the door.

Copain-isms - Stucked

Copain and I were recently shopping for a new vacuum.  Such the Suzy homemakers we are...

In any case, the vacuum arrived, we opened it, used it to clean our 28.85 meters squared of apartment, and then Copain said:

"I'm stucked about our new vacuum!"

Stucked / stoked -  potato / potahto...

For Copain - Tout à 1 Euro!!!!

Copain is in London this weekend, so he put me in charge of doing our Sunday marché shopping (Bah!!).  See, normally, while I sit on the couch with coffee and good blogs, he goes to the marché and then likes to show me how much food he got for only 15 Euros OMG can you believe it!


This morning, at 11am, I got a text from Copain:

Copain: You awake?  What time did you go to bed? Try to get us some fruit please. You know how I love them :-)

Thankfully for him, I was awake. I responded, totally ignoring his request for fruit from the marché, just to see how long it would take for him to bring it up again:

FCC: Hey babe. How was the cheese club? (he had gone to a club in London called Club de Fromage...seriously)

Copain: It was so much fun there. Really liked the club. Only 80's and 90's music. 

FCC: Oh cool:-) did you dance? (For the record, Copain has a "rhythm deficiency" - it's a very serious disorder.)

Copain: Haha A lot!

FCC: Hmmm, are you sure?

Copain: You have no idea. At the end, I was one with the music. Marché? (see how he just casually tosses the marché back into the text?? ps - I'm pretty sure that "one with the music" means "too many pints")

FCC: Yes yes, I'm going to go AFTER my coffee. (this is a non-negotiable)

Copain: Cool!!! (probably shocked that I was actually planning on getting off the couch)

FCC: Yes yes, I know, freak of French nature. (It had to be said)

By the time I finally got my bootay off the couch, into clothes that did not resemble pajamas and out the door, it was already 12:30 (a new record!).  I hurried to the Marché d'Aligre just in time for the final mad scramble - the time when tout est à 1 Euro! (everything is just 1 Euro!).

Check out my loot:

Pamplemousse - 5 for 1 Euro!

Clementines, blette, navets, fenouil, carottes!

1 kilo of onions and 1 kilo of potatoes - all for 1 Euro!

Zucchini! Figs! Bananas!

2 kilos of apples for 2 Euros!

All of this for under 15 Euros OMG Copain would be so proud.  Copain? Are you seeing this?  I would like to state publicly, right here and now, that none of this will be used for Stella.

Copain-isms - When You're Triste

I've been having a blah week - maybe it's  La Crève, maybe it's my run-in with Le Vous, maybe it's just being almost 30 and thinking too much about My Life.  In any case, Copain caught on to my feeling a bit triste about la vie and asked me...

Cannes Cannes, what's wrong?  Are you blue? 


This morning he told me, chin up babe, because right now, your chin is down.

Gotta love that Frenchie.

Copain-isms - Parisian Pool Adventure

Since learning that my dance injury actually caused a herniated disc I've been trying to think of exercise I can do without exacerbating the problem. My American colleague who also suffered an injury from running had recently taken up swimming as an alternative and invited me to try it out with him in a local Parisian pool.

Beyond the many thoughts I had about germs while I was there, it was actually a pretty great experience.  Granted, I stayed in the petit bain instead of venturing off into a big girl swimming lane, but hey, you have to start somewhere!

When I got home Copain asked me about my Parisian pool adventure (laughed at me for staying in the petit bain) and then asked me,

So how did you like using my googles?

Copain-isms, Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

I was making dinner for Copain and myself and asked Copain what we should watch while we ate.  (You see, we live in a very tiny apartment and have no room for a dining table - hence, we eat on the couch).

He looked up from studying his English but still seemed to be concentrating...

"What about Silence of the (long pause)....Sheep?"

Copain-isms

Being in a bi-cultural, bi-lingual relationship has its downsides - misunderstandings followed by exasperating  in-depth explanations are often de rigeur. After almost seven years of vie commune Copain and I **mostly** have it figured out.  But we still experience THE GREAT DIVIDE - topics that we will never agree on due to our very different upbringings and cultural values.

If you ever spend time with us you will probably hear us at some point or another fighting over tipping, standing in line (as opposed to cutting in line) and my love of snacking outside of the three square French meals (this is when I like to remind him that he recently finished an entire jar of Nutella all by himself - I found the empty jar, hidden, under the sink - busted!)

Despite our constant bickering over topics covered in THE GREAT DIVIDE, life with Copain has its wonderfully hilarious, can't be beat moments.  These are the Copain-isms that I have come to realize must be documented lest they be lost in the depths of my memory. Also, as his English and my French improve, I imagine that the isms will occur less and less which frankly is just upsetting. That's how much I love them.

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Our friends recently had a new adorable baby boy named S.  On the way to visit for the very first time we were talking about where the baby must sleep since our friends already have a three-year-old and have only a two-bedroom apartment (les pauvres - on habite dans 29m2!!).

Doesn't the baby have a coffin?, Copain asked me.

A what?!

A coffin - you know, where the baby sleeps.

Ummm, I think you mean a crib - unless the baby has died and needs a cercueil (the French word for coffin). 

Realizing his mistake we both burst out laughing. But I didn't really get the faux amis (literally translated as fake friends aka: a French word that sounds very similar to an English word in pronunciation, but in fact, has a different meaning altogether) until I had relayed the story to my French friend E.  She kindly explained to me that in France, babies sleep in a couffin - a little baby basket - when they are first born.  


Ah ha! Je comprends! 


So no, Copain was not wishing death on newborn little S, he just had a faux amis moment, rien de grave.  Coffin / Couffin  -  Potato/ Potahto right?