Birthday Bashing

As I said earlier, this week was my birthday week.  Ever since my first birthday my Mom has made a point of making our birthdays (me, my brother and sister) very special - a present next to our beds in the morning, a wake up birthday song serenade, a special birthday breakfast, lunch out with a friend when we were in elementary school, and also a fun party that she went to great pains to plan.  Just a few of our random parties:

• An exercise party (this wasn't actually for a birthday but my Mom totally went with her weird daughter's request - a trampoline and jazzercise were on the agenda).
• A sleepover - homemade personalized PJs for all of the girls, makeup, beauty masks, nail painting, sundaes that we got to decorate on our own. When we woke up the next morning my Dad had brought each of us a jumbo pack of peanut butter M&Ms - heaven on earth.
• A games party -  I think I was about four of five. My Mom set up the lollipop ring toss, the fishing game, the tube crawl and I think we may have decorated our own cupcakes.
• A kidnapping party - we told only my friends' parents that we would be kidnapping their kids and on my birthday at 9am we drove around the neighborhood waking up my friends. Then we kidnapped them in their PJs and took them out to an American pancake breakfast at Ihop (International House of Pancakes).
• A skating rink party - I can't remember if this was for me or for my brother/sister but in any case lots of roller skating, pizza and cake.
• A party on the farm - this was definitely for my sister and brother. My mom invited all of their friends to a farm and had a miniature ho-down for the young'uns. I remember my sister in a little checked red shirt and jeans with her bowl cut - crabby in the heat of the afternoon.
• A dance party - my sister was  probably turning six and my mom recruited me and my friend J to lead my sister and all of her friends in a dance class in the back yard.  All the little girls came in tights and leotards and my friend and I were the jazz teachers. Definitely cupcake decoration involved.

Looking back I'm super impressed with my Mom and appreciative of her hard work- how many kids can say that they've had all that?  (Plus she was a working mom and all of our birthdays fell within a three week period!) Talk about wanting to shoot yourself in the head!  And just as an aside, my family was not rich, but we always had enough.  I know that these parties were a hardship for our family, but my Mom wouldn't not have done it for us.

As an adult I have found that I don't handle my birthday well (funnily enough, neither does my Mom!) and after a few years of analyzing, I think I know why: no one can live up to my Mom. Poor Copain, he sure does try, but look what I've been trained to expect from a birthday!

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This year I woke up and Copain gave me a card from my brother and sister in law. Then I opened a gift that had come in the mail about a week ago - a beautiful necklace that I had been eyeing on Etsy - from my mom.  Once out of bed, he handed me a hand-decorated envelope (very cute) with a plan for the day:

Coffee with french pastries for breakfast

A bike ride along the Coulée Verte in Paris (a long stretch of green spaces and parks) - on a Velib' - I was now the proud owner of a Velib' year pass that Copain signed me up for as a surprise!

A picnic lunch while we were on the ride

Dinner out in Paris

(Also, a gift certificate for a new pair of sunglasses when I find the ones I like)

Sounds good right?

The good part of my birthday: coffee and a chocolatine

Well, yes, that would have been the case had Copain followed La Coulée Verte path and had we not instead found ourselves in Meudon going up and down hills on the world's heaviest bikes ever. By hill number five I lost my temper, got off the bike, legs burning, brow sweating and pushed the Velib de Merde up the hill.  Copain, feeling upset that I was being bratty about his birthday gift, told me that next year we would eat hamburgers at McDonalds and watch TV like Americans. 

Then we ate a cookie in the Meudon forest. 

Then we followed the directions given by an idiot to get out the forest and ended up on another never-ending hill.  

Then we yelled again.

Then Copain told me to follow him (which I stupidly did) and we ended up in a construction zone in Chatillon where they are building a new tramway.  At this point there was lots of biking on the sidewalks and ringing our bells at pedestrians.

Finally we made it down to the Cité Universitaire area where I promptly requested that we stop for a beer to at least make up for the past five hours of Velib torture in what will now be referred to as my own personal Tour de France - or at least the world's worst case of Swamp Ass.

When we finally got home I took a shower, put on my bath robe, sat on the couch and fell promptly asleep.  Moving off of the couch was out of the question, so dinner included pizza and a salad - on the couch.  Copain threw in some Magnum ice creams upon my request so that it felt a little more birthday-esque. 

Then I went to bed. Annoyed.  Happy Birthday to me and my tired, bruised, swamp ass.

A Way With Words and Other Musings on Swamp Ass

Some say French is a beautiful language - not quite as beautiful as Italian but still, nicer sounding than English and far nicer sounding than German.  And I tend to agree.  Not only is French gentle on the ear with the sing-songy Bonjour! and Aurevoir! but I have come to discover that the French can make even the most hideous thing sound lovely.

For instance, don't pieds de veau sound nice?  Pieds de veau with a side of purée maison? But if I told you you were actually eating calve's feet with mashed potatoes, you may reconsider. Perhaps a more subtle example: you're running late for a meeting because you slept in.  You call your colleagues to tell them you'll be late.  But instead of telling them the detailed truth, all you have to do is tell them that you had an empechement -  you were detained for reasons you will never have to explain.  An empechement! so simple! So clear and yet so wonderfully vague! No one will ever have to know that you drank too much Bordeaux last night and ooops - completely missed the alarme at 7am.

All of this was clarified on Thursday as I popped in to visit a group of Americans who were visiting Paris.  It was hotter than hell on Thursday.  The kind of hot where you just give up on looking decent.  Your dress sticks to your back, the sweat rolls down the back of your legs and your mascara gathers in black streaks under your eyes. I think in the states they are using the term "hot mess," which actually happens to be very appropriate.

My fellow Ricaines invited me into their apartment and we sat down in the living room for a good ol' American chat.  The subjects went from Spain to teaching English in France to French living standards to their plans for coming back for another trip abroad.  It was nice to talk to other Americans and encourage them to come back.  I decided that at 9pm it was time to go and as I got up from my chair I glanced behind me fearful of the sweat that had surely gathered on the back of my dress.  The most talkative of them didn't miss a beat: "Oh don't worry," she said, "I had swamp ass yesterday too."

Yes ladies and gentlemen, Swamp Ass.

If you are wondering what Swamp Ass entails, perhaps you have heard of Swalls? Swoobs? Sweaty balls? Sweaty boobs?  Elegant, I know.  Swamp Ass, I now know, means a sweaty ass.  And I had one, and so had she - yesterday apparently.

Now the French have a Swamp all their own.  Perhaps you've heard of the Marais? Initially the place where the Seine could flood the city thus creating a "swamp," it is now one of the chicest (and gayest) parts of Paris where rents soar and gay bars abound.  Fancy boutiques line the streets with names like rue des Francs Bourgeois and beautiful courtyards are sneakily hidden inside the historically preserved buildings.  And there the French have done it again!  They have turned a nasty, dirty word associated with flooding, mud and mosquitoes into the posh, Parsian hot spot for the super branché.  If they called the Topanga Plaza "The Swamp" I highly doubt Chanel stores would come flocking for a top notch placement.  But call it the Marais and voila! Instant amazingness!

So, in honor of the French and their beautiful way with words, let's just say that Thursday included a magnifique Cul de Marais.  You know, Swamp Ass for you Americans.