And eight tiny reindeer...

My Aunt M sent me this link, and I just love it - so here you go. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Photos from Paris, 27-Nov-2008 to 15-Dec-2008

Photos from Paris, 27-Nov-2008 to 15-Dec-2008

Thanksgiving soup, lovely Paris, & a whole lot of twinkly lights!

Listening to Christmas music, and making turtles (dark chocolate, caramel, & toasted almonds). Pretty yummy. (I had to try one or two or three to make sure they were okay, didn't I? I'm not at allll sugar twitchy now. Not a bit.)

Anyway, I'm listening to this online station called "Xmas in Frisko", described as, "SomaFM's wacky and eclectic holiday mix. Not for the easily offended." Currently playing : Weird Al Yankovic's "The Night Santa Went Crazy". Wild. My favorite song so far has been "Christmas at Hogwarts", by Harry & the Potters. The sound and video don't quite sync up, but you can listen here.

How many archivists does it take to clean a toilet?

God I wish that were the start of a bad joke. But I honestly don't think the bathroom at the Archives Nationales has been cleaned once since I've started working there, and it's getting pretty damn nasty.

Who knew scholars could be such foul people? Maybe they just want to get a sense of what pre-sewer France smelled like - you know, like a historical reenactment. Only disgusting.

Fakin' Bacon

For dinner tonight we went across the street to the local (by which I mean only) diner, called "Breakfast in America."
Being "in America," we decided we needed to get the most American food we could think of, something we can't get anywhere else in France. And, since this is Ariel and Derek we're talking about, you should already know what that something is: bacon. Ariel had a BLT and I ordered a Bacon Cheeseburger.

Midway through the meal, Ariel stopped eating, at which point we had the following very brief conversation:

Derek: How does the bacon taste?

Ariel (looking betrayed and sounding disappointed): It tastes......French.

Derek vs. the EDF

Well, it's settled: I'm an idiot.

Now I know that some of you may be saying to yourselves, "Pish posh, Derek - we've known you're an idiot for a while now. Don't act like it's only just now settled." Well, first of all, since I'm an idiot I didn't catch on to that fact as quickly as most of you did. And secondly, who says "pish posh" anymore? Dork.

"So," you might respond, brushing aside my wimpy retort, "how did you finally figure out that you're an idiot?" I'll tell you:

On Monday morning, Ariel and I were slowly getting ready for our day when suddenly the electricity went out in our apartment. At first we thought the whole building had lost power, but then Ariel noticed that the lights in the hall were on. I went out to see if someone knew what was happening and came across the building's gardienne, who quickly shed some light on the situation (pun unabashedly intended). Someone from the electricity company EDF had come and turned off the power to our apartment.

Why on earth did they do that?! Well, it turns out that it's because...you guessed it - I'm an idiot. Back in October when we moved into this apartment, I spoke with our landlord about setting up the electricity bill. I was under the (mistaken) impression that because she had my bank account information and told me she was going to call EDF to take her name off the bill, she was also going to then put my name on it. She was under the (much more logical) impression that she was simply going to take her name off, and it was my own responsibility to put my name on the bill. And thus did our electricity bill not get paid for two months, resulting in the aforementioned disconnection of power.

Fortunately, I was able to call EDF immediately, set up an account, and schedule someone to reconnect our power. Unfortunately, the earliest someone could come was the next day sometime between noon and 2:00 p.m. Fortunately, Lee and Pegs were nice enough to let their stupid brother and his patient, embarrassed wife stay at their place for the night. Unfortunately, the next day was particularly cold when we went back to our apartment to wait for the EDF guy. It even started snowing, which on the one hand was beautiful and exciting (at least to a guy from Louisiana and a woman from North Carolina), and on the other hand reminded us how badly we needed the electricty back on so we could heat up our freezing apartment.

In the end, though, we got the power back on, and after a day of wearing 3 layers of sweaters, multiple scarves, and our thickest coats inside, the place is now pretty cozy again. Ariel has decided that despite the fact that she doesn't speak the language, she will now be in charge of overseeing our bill payments. Clearly I'm not up to the task.

F#%king Party

It's 3:30 in the morning, and our neighbors are having a party. And we weren't invited. I don't mind that, really. I just wish we could sleep. But you see, our neighbors apparently like really, really, really loud music with a driving bass and drum beat. And then there are the occasional belligerent, drunk Frenchmen who have suddenly decided it's their God-given right to wake up anyone and everyone within a 500 foot radius with their incoherent yelling and bottle smashing. To top it all off, I just went to the window to try to see where all the noise was coming from, and what did I see? I single, ginormous rat slowly making it's way across the place down below our apartment. Ugh. I'm tired.