I Married a Frenchman

The Valet (La Doublure)

Here's a photo of Charlotte.  She is half-French and speaks not a word of the language...this is not my fault.  I am not the French parent.  We'll leave it at that.

But, I have been intent on getting her to learn a bit of French while she is still young.  I dragged her to French classes in LA and habitually force her to visit relatives in France.

The wails, though, when she found out I was taking her to a move subtitled in French.  She actually begged to stay in the car for two hours.  Pointing out that this is illegal in the state of California, I plopped her in a seat and sated her with butter-soaked popcorn. 

The movie began.  The first few moments of "The Valet" we confusing.  She couldn't read that fast.  A few giggles later and she got the rhythm.  Then, she would not leave the theatre for drinks or to use the bathroom.  We both laughed our sides off...and, when it finished, she asked me when we'd see our next French film.  I guess we've made progress. 

Back From the Furlough...

The Frenchman (pictured here sailing in the America's Cup prelims) told me to stop writing...or at least writing about him.

So, I concentrated on my other blogs, especially Starlet, about our mother-daughter adventures in Hollywood.  But, a stray email from another poor soul mistakenly choosing a Frenchman as her life partner...has brought me back.

Marrying a Frenchman mean s never having conversations about things like high school football...doesn''t exist there.  Baseball either.  They follow soccer (ugh!) and, frankly, have no other sport.  The "Tour de France" may be cool but how many bike races can you actually watch?  Who has the time?

In France, there are no typically American things like fraternities and sororities....in fact, so few people actually go to college and they are not at all the social/party/life changing experiences we have here.

Realize when you choose a Frenchman, you choose to be cut off.  Cut off from in-depth conversations because of language difficulties (huh?) and cut-off from shared memories...the cultures are really that different...