Little girls... they turn into women someday

And what they hear when they're young goes a long way. I just read this, and I like it.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with telling little girls they're pretty--and that's not the author's point. I certainly like dressing up, taking care of my appearance and whatnot. Although I didn't enjoy so much being paraded around with a huge fat bow over top of my polygamist hairdo... But it doesn't hurt to make a point of talking about something else than girls' appearance for a change. I like it.

Plus I've always loved books anyway :)

Le sud

No offense to Paris or anything, but....
Life is definitely better down in the sunny south :)

My grandma

I'm really glad I got to spend some time with my grandmother last time I was in Bordeaux. My grandmother has not been in fantastic health most of my life, but she he's been really well lately, getting around the house just fine, eating plenty and even playing the piano again! One afternoon last month I showed her old family pictures that I had scanned from my uncle's photo album and every once in a while she would tell me a story about the people in the photo. At one point I showed her a picture of her and my father when he was barely a year old. They were at the beach and she was wearing basically a bikini. She said "oh no, that can't be me!" When I asked  her why she replied "I would never wear something that scandalous!" :)

I also showed her some photos from my wedding as well as our wedding video. She enjoyed those very much, but her favorite part was the video of my dad singing at the reception. She loved it and had me replay it several times!

And it's a good thing that I got to spend that much time with her last month, because it turns out she fractured her leg this week. No big fall or anything, but her leg had been hurting and after two separate visits to the hospital (during the first one they found absolutely nothing!) they discovered a double fracture in her leg, so now she has a cast up to her thigh, and is stuck in bed for the next six weeks. Which also means our family temple trip to Madrid is cancelled. Andrew and I are still going, since our departure plane goes through Madrid, but my aunts need to care for her and they were also my sister and cousin's ride.

I guess that's just life.

I'm still alive

I haven't been posting much, but just so you know I'm still around. Life is good, kind of crazy, and I'm glad this week's heatwave has passed.

And tomorrow, I am heading out to Bordeaux!

Also, I really love The Office. And I miss Seriously So Blessed!

Père Lachaise cemetery

I love weekends in Paris. To be completely honest; I really, really don't like working from home on utterly boring translations, so during the week it's not much fun until Andrew comes home. But weekends... ah! I love it! So last Saturday we made a trip to the Père Lachaise Cemetery. It's a very old very big cemetery in Paris and there just so happen to be a lot of famous people buried there. It's also a beautiful cemetery. Lovely walkways and tree-covered alleys, and a WHOLE lot of history. The picture below will give you a little idea of what it was like.

Really old, crumbld tombstones you can't even read anymore right alongside newer models and all sorts of different architectural styles jumbled together. People can still be buried there; some tombs were brand new.

Edith Piaf here, in her family plot. (Look closely on the side) Incidentally, Piaf is not her real name. It means "bird" or sparrow, it's a somewhat derogatory term for a scrawny bird.

Oscar Wilde. People love to kiss his tomb, but I wasn't about to because who knows where all those lips have been...

close-up

And we were lucky because the weather was perfect.

Hey Chopin!

There were also a bunch of french communist party tombs and memorials in one corner which was pretty funny, and lots of royalty and semi-nobility (you can tell just from the pompous names...).

There were also a lot of tombs for Jews killed in death camps and deported during WWII as well as memorials to people who participated in the Resistance. So many stories were told through some simple words of remembrance, statues, portraits, poems... glimpses of history everywhere you walked.

Shoah memorial

I posted the next photo as my Facebook profile after we went and a girl commented that it was awkward to be "smiling looking all happy next to a grave". I disagree completely. 

Of course, reverence is important and being respectful of those who may be grieving is a given. But I've always thought cemeteries were places of life as well. People live again a little when we remember them and visit them, and we learn about people by seeing how they were buried and what the people who cared for them wanted them to be remembered by. And I also don't think people that have died want us moping around and wearing black for months--pretty sure they moved on a long time ago! So just for your information, when I die I want people to have fun on my grave. (Incidentally, this reminds me of a French song called "J'veux Qu'on Baise Sur Ma Tombe" which I won't translate for you because I'm a lady...)