Unencumbered by "les encombrants" and settled; Patrick Sebastien

Saturday, August 16, 2014

     Marion, my young cleaning lady; and her partner, Farid, a carpenter; came by yesterday to set up the bookshelves Farid is making for me.  I have asked that the two toilets (in French houses, the toilets are separate rooms from the bath) have bookshelves; also, that in the room on the third floor, a large book case be installed above my desk next to the window.  Farid is a meticulous worker and I can see I am going to be happy with his work.  For making the book case, two rows of shelves in each of the toilets, plus doing odds and ends for me, he is charging me 120 Euros, or about one-hundred-and-sixty dollars, including the cost of the materials.

     As I had nine large cartons of books shipped in the container, the extra shelving is a must.  I brought two pine bookcases with me, but they are full.  One was in the basement where the books were gathering mold.  I pulled them off the shelves and dragged the bookcase up two flights and into the room I sleep in before Farid and Marion got here, as well as putting the books back on the shelves.  They were astonished.

     "But Marta, you ought to have waited until we got here; Farid would have done it", Marion said, eyes open wide.  Men do all the heavy lifting in France, it seems.

       In the basement were also the relics left behind by the heirs of the Abbé Sibra, the priest and professor of sacred music at the seminary in Carcassonne who taught a generation of Caunois the catechism.  They included two gigantic two-man saws; two canopied headboards for children's beds; a large rug and an upholstered chair in a Renaissance style.  When I told Marion and Farid that they were encombrants and that they were on their way to the dechetterie, Farid quickly indicated his interest in the saws, Marion in the rug and chair.  I also had a variety of pieces of wood and tile left behind by the former owners, and two lamps I couldn't use, which they were can also make use of.  By the time Farid and Marion left, I had only the headboards and the boxes the books had been stored in to take to the dechetterie.

     This morning Beau and I went to the dump first thing.  I was met by the lovely young woman who works there part-time and whom I remembered from last year.  She very kindly helped me get the unwanted items out of the car, and we were on our way home in no time.

     Something about having my books set out on shelves has made being here better; I can only explain it by saying that, as the vast majority are in English, they act as a reminder that my French life is only a temporary one, which is exactly the way I want it.  As beautiful as the country here is, there are aspects of French life I cannot adjust to:

     1. The closing of shops from noon to 2:00 p.m.;
     2.  The closing of shops and restaurants on Mondays, if not Tuesdays;
     3.  That the titles of books are upside down from the cover page (in English-speaking countries they are apposite);
     4.  That the post office services are terrible;
     5.  That the phone company services are terrible;
     6.  That French television programs (excepting Fais Pas Ci, Fais Pas Ça) are terrible;
     7.  Patrick Sebastien.

     Who, you might ask, is Patrick Sebastien?  According to Wikipedia,  Patrick Sebastien is "a French television host, producer and classy personality (mainly on TF1 and France 2, radio host, singer, writer, producer, director, impressionist entertainer, comedian, TV and film actor, and former president of the French rugby team CA Brive.

     He has a #1 hit album this year, and in 2008 he had a #1 hit single, Ah…si tu pouvais fermer ta guele ("Ah…if you could only shut your trap).  His Friday night variety show on France 2, Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde has him dressed in a sky-blue jacket with white frogs in imitation of the jackets the Beatles wore on their album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

--Although Patrick Sebastien is a very large man, and aged 60.  The show consists of him sitting at a round table, surrounded by celebrities (Robert Alagna, the reigning French tenor, was a recent guest), some of whom get up and sing, others who just chit-chat and look appreciative.  The studio audience sings along with the stars --most of whom have had one too many trips to the plastic surgeon-- swaying and clapping, smiling happily as they and their idols of the past relive past glories.

     This! --From the country that brought you Montaigne, Voltaire and Blaise Pascal.