got some bad news yesterday (major duas appreciated) and went to an all day work function where I had to like think and stuff. Y’a pas de ca chez moi. Thinking. Anyway en l’honneur de Language Week (avec mes excuses pour hier soir) here is a link close to my heart:

Lexique Vaudois: when you have no sweet clue what that crazy Swiss redneck is trying to tell you.

A short tutorial: where a “real French person” would say “bordel” a “vaudois” would say “Chni” or “chenit”. As in “C’est le chenit ici”- it is a mess here.

They say some other crazy stuff, but at least vaudois are easier to understand than valasains. I linked to this last time I did Language Week, but that’s how I live up in here. You can never learn enough vaudois.

Retarded French Grammarian Trolls, the Blog Rulez warning goes double.  In the words of some dumbass lawyer I interviewed with once (who gets called a dumbass because he shortlisted me for like two months because he was waiting on Candidate 1 to sign, but that is ok because she left the job six months later), “Wow DP, you type really fast.  You made some spelling mistakes but they look like typos and not bad spelling.”  That’s what I am talking about.

Oh btw my laptop has a US keyboard and without a number pad (yes I know how to do alt 130 etc) typing accents is a PITA so yeah no accents unless I hit the copy and paste.

Since tonight I am so freakin tired my IQ has probably gone down by ten points, tonights Frenchitude will be a series of cute articles I have read this weeek, with translations of choice phrases.

 This BondyBlog link about Rachida Dati trying to “connect with the people” made me snarf my coffee Friday morning at work, especially this quote:

« Hé, hé ! La patronne arrive, vous avez tous vos fafs (papiers) ? » (Translation: Hey y’all, Bosslady is here, everyone got their passports?)

If you need a quick laugh en francais, dÉsencyclopédie is the French version of Uncyclopedia.
Some of my favorite quotes:

The article on Kabyles is still a stub, but has the most succint definition of a Kabyle I have ever read:
« Les Kabyles boivent de l’huile d’olive au petit déjeuner, à midi et au diner. » (Translation: Kabyles drink olive oil for breakfast, lunch and dinner.) Desencyclopedie is not lying to us on that one.

On Louisiana: « C’est tout plat, plein de flotte et rempli de moustiques et d’alligators. Faut être un peu con ou malade pour aller vivre là-bas. » (Translation: It is completely flat there, full of water and full of mosquitos and alligators. One must be a little stupid or crazy to go live there.)

And finally, Geneva: This is arguably the most well known article from Desencyclopedie. One of my favorite quotes from the article gives me flashbacks to trying to go to work in that stupid village on crutches:
«Les célèbres tramways de Genève sont chers, lents et inconfortables. Les derniers modèles venant de chez Bombardier sont d’un inconfort total. Le prix du billet est de 3 Frs pour 60 minutes de trajet. Mais comme le tram arrive en général 10 minutes après que tu aies oblitéré ton ticket, il te reste en réalité 50 minutes de trajet en général debout. Les personnes âgées n’ont plus droit aux places assises. Les places assises sont réservées aux enfants en âge d’aller à l’école. »

(Translation: The famous tramways of Geneva are expensive, slow and uncomfortable. The latest models from Bombardier completely uncomfortable. Tickets cost 3 francs and last sixty minutes. However as the tram usually arrives ten minutes after you “stamp” your ticket, you then have fifty minutes of travel time left which is usually done standing up. Old people no longer have the right to sit down, seated places are generally reserved for school-aged children.)

I had to beat people down with my cane to get a seat on a tram in Geneva and even then some efftard would sit there with his elbows in my ribs.

I like odd numbers, so I will leave you with my favorite translation website of all time: le Grand dictionnaire terminologique from the Office quebecoise de la langue francaise. Loves it.

… a crow flipping out in your courtyard at six am. I have been sick for a week and with the heat am only sleeping three hours a night and it is all hands on deck at work, otherwise I would stay home and stick my head in the refrigerator all day long.  Oh well, if I wasn’t awake before, I am now.

If I have to give way to a herd of cows on the way to the bus stop I am just going to walk in the other direction and walk away and disappear for ever.

A music Meme

I have been tagged by L Oman to do a music meme. I’m gonna change that today and instead of doing songs, do podcasts. Podcasts are my thing. I used to be one of those people who had to have three books on her to feel emotionally secure in public transportation (this after getting stuck in the Brussels-Avignon train for twelve hours once with nothing but someone else’s Paris Match. I also had no food or water but that is another story). Now I have a big old ipod filled with podcasts and I have books and lectures and news and all that goodness. I don’t believe in paying for downloads. I am philosophically against it. It is up to the book and music industries to adapt themselves to the new technologies and change their ways of doing business, it isn’t up to the consumer to make up for these industries inability to make money because of their inadaption to new technologies. As such, all these lovely links are free.

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

So let’s podcast.

1. The first podcast is my guilty pleasure. It is like the lucky charms and cheetos of podcasts. Or the breakup carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream, oddly consoling but afterwards I feel weird and slightly nauseous. I figured I had to start with a little shame, so here it is: The Young Turks. I keep making excuses for myself like I like hearing American accents these days and stuff but I know those are just platitudes. Funjuns y’all.

2. The second podcast is my one true love and I can put it (well them) on shuffle for days and days and days and just zen out. Here you can get short stories read aloud by Dutch and Flemish authors in English, French, Dutch and Spanish. I listen to the English, French and Dutch versions. It helps me with my Dutch because some editions are the same or from the same story. The English alone has twelve hours of goodness.

3. I listen to all of the news versions of the RFI podcasts while I am commuting or cleaning house. I especially like the call in show, it cracks me up. Sometimes people even do shout outs.

4. My other favorite besides the radioboeken is a show about books called La librairie francophone. A weekly review of books from the owners of bookstores in Quebec, France, Belgium and Switzerland. What I really like is that the Swiss ones are from Morges (a bookstore I have been to) which is a good sized little town for Switzerland, and Oron-la-ville, which is straight up podunk. Something about that makes me like it more than if it was some hippie bookstore in Geneva. At Ole Miss we had Square Books and as such I just love the independent bookstore vibe. And that goes double if the bookstores are in nowhere land. And the Canadian lady? Her accent is gorgeous. I LOVE Canadian accents in French. I would rather hear some toothless Canadian farmer speak French than hear the NAP accent, which makes my skin crawl. A NAP accent is also what I refer to as Nice Husband’s “phone voice.” His phone voice is hilarious though because it is so different from his normal voice. When he calls people in Switzerland they can tell right away where homeboy is from. The queen of the Parisian Phone Voice, however, is his oldest sister. He probably learned it from her. Their phone voice is the total opposite of anything that could be considered a banlieue accent, it is like the RP of French. As usual, anything “French” Algerians will do better than the “French.” Moving on. Do any of your spouses have a phone voice in their native language that is different from the way they would normally speak it?

5. Since I love Canadian accents so much, I also listen to the daily news podcasts of Radio Canada. I really, really like made-for-radio Quebec accents, where they try to speak with as neutral of an accent as possible, yet their speech still retains that kind of homey charm. I am actually the same way with English, I don’t like traditionally posh accents. In fact, when I hear someone who did a UK public school talk I cringe which is why…drum roll…I don’t listen to anything from the BBC. Not for lack of interesting content but rather I can’t deal with the accent. I can’t handle really northern US accents either. And the podcasts where they have the British lady who sometimes does stuff for Radio Netherlands, I have to turn them off. I love hearing normal uk’ers speak, scottish people, south africans and all that but New Englanders and Englanders yeah no. I don’t know what it is. And I don’t know why I am the same with French accents.

6. Met het Oog op Morgen is one of those classic radio shows. I don’t pretend that my Dutch is good enough to get it all, but when I converted to Islam I kinda dropped the whole Dutch thing. I felt like there was so much racism and bad blood and random movies and so on that I shouldn’t waste my time learning something when all the resources available to me at the time were just not positive. Now with significant technological progression I am getting back into it. Just because some people think that Dutch culture and Islam are incompatible doesn’t mean that I am going to give up on something I had always loved learning even though the drama discouraged me for a couple of years. I also think, on a sociological level, that Dutch is a language that deserves to be learned and not many people take advantage of this opportunity. It is part of the Germanic language family and so many people learn German and English. Learning Dutch is not only personally edifying, it also helps you to understand Germanic languages as a group and if you are a native German or English speaker, learning Dutch makes you speak all three better. I firmly believe that.

7. Last one, I promise, is another popcorn podcast. It is La Soupe on the Radio Suisse Romande. It is one of those classic radio shows, the best way I can explain it is that it is kind of like a Prarie Home Companion for French-speaking Swissies.

Note I did not list any Muslim podcasts, and this by choice. It’s not that I don’t listen to them, but the second I post what I listen to, some fool will come in and break my Blog Rule Number 5. If you like podcasts I would love to hear what you got, so I tag any other addicts who read me.

…my brother just turned 35, which means my mom is having a “milestone” birthday shortly (in a few days, and if anyone asks she is 39 and my brother and I were adopted oh and please don’t send me any religious police comments about not joking about denying links of filiation), and my much loathed milestone birthday is in a few months. This is why I am happy not to celebrate birthdays because this year is not the good year to celebrate birthdays in this household.

Today gave me another reason to repress. I found my first grey hair. My hair is dark blonde, and any questionable hairs up to this point were dismissed as very light blonde. The hair I found today was definitely silver. The point of this post is not birthdays though.

Both of my grandmothers had roughly the same color hair as myself and I always wondered whose hair I had as my parents both have black hair, so it was one of them. My maternal grandmother did not have a grey hair on her head, she stayed a dark blonde until she passed on in her mid seventies. She had lovely soft hair that was slightly wavy. My paternal grandmother (the weird college-educated northerner, Norwegian to boot), on the other hand, was the queen of the homemade Gwen Stefani- homegirl touched up her roots with Clorox! About once or twice a year she would get her Marilyn Monroe done in a salon and then do the roots with clorox and a toothbrush. She could also rock coral lipstick, which I cannot do. Anyway, I digress. The hair I found today is exactly the color of my paternal grandmother’s roots. And she had some grey hair going on between cloroxing. So I had a freaky flashback moment, the same way when I look at my feet (which are definitely her feet). The milestone year and the thoughts of an impending full head of grey hair and picturing myself pouring clorox over my head in the kitchen sink and brushing it through with a toothbrush are kinda bugging me out.

You girls with brown or black hair can’t get it. You get your first grey hairs at like 19 and just chalk it up to increased visibility. No one can call 19 old so everyone giggles at your grey and moves on. Pepaw Husband up in here has been rocking some white hairs himself and because it started when he was in his late 20s he could deal, plus he knew that his dad was white headed at 35 and he needed to start dealing anyway, so he never linked it to age, he is just like bla bla genetic destiny. The difference in my situation is two-fold- the women in my entourage who had grey hair fought the grey and had great stylists or clorox. They weren’t all white headed and proud like my FIL. Second, I was able to plausibly deny the existence of grey hair because it is hard to tell with blonde hair until almost age {deleted}. Some of you, friends of mine, have had ten or fifteen years to deal with this foolishness and be like pepaw and laugh it off. I’m not ready. I pictured myself all Liv Ullmann up in here riding into the sunset like my other grandma with the same hair. I better not find another hair tomorrow.

And if I do, I won’t tell my mom. She has had enough for one week.

Couldn’t get my grandma’s size 0 though, I guess I can’t have everything.

So people are all up in arms about Barack Obama’s little comments about Jerusalem during the AIPAC speech. Many people more erudite than myself have outlined this story better than myself in the blogosphere so whatevs.

My neighbor’s grandkids are really freakin loud and most people with brains know that sounds travels big time in courtyards but whatevs, I guess they don’t care, I wish they would shut the hell up and if their idea of a good time is to hang out in our courtyard and wash the car and play with soccer balls then they need to get a house, which they can obviously afford or maybe not considering that they have a bling car in a not so bling neighborhood ok I am digressing but those children get on my last nerve. Oh hold up, as I leaned out the window to scream at them, I notice they have two bling cars which they “share the plates” for. They can afford two cars worth about 80k each yet can’t afford a second set of plates. Mmm kay. I’m falling for that about as much as I am falling for this Obama bizness.

I don’t mind the comment in itself, namely that he considered Jerusalem indivisible. He was playing politics and speaking to his audience. That is all fine and good. He is entitled to his opinion. That’s not what made me mad. I’m a single-issue voter but not for that (if you know what my single issue is please keep it private mmm kay).

What really tweaked me and got my hijab all in a wad was his fake ass retraction about how both parties have to work together (ok fine political blah blah I will let that pass)…and that he didn’t realize he was speaking with code words- as in he didn’t know saying “undivided Jerusalem” was loaded.

I almost signed up for the Republican Party. Actually maybe that way the state of Mississippi will send me a valid ballot.

You cannot tell me a man with an LLM, university professor, national politician and presidential hopeful isn’t hip with the lingo here. I’ll buy that he isn’t hip with the lingo when it comes to tractor parts, or the best way to translate the first few lines of Beowulf, or how to buy mango juice in Bengali, but on this topic he “didn’t know” his language was loaded? With all the speechwriters and preppers and publicists and all that 21st foolishness, is he trying to tell us that he didn’t know exactly what he was saying?

I was cool with all of it until the fake ass retraction. That’s all. And that stupid kid is giving me a migraine.

I don’t know what Obama’s problem is. On the one hand, he wants to be seen as this great pragmatic multicultural peacemaker, able to take the good from the bad from all sides and come to some brilliant solution. At the same time, I get this feeling that he is somehow uncomfortable about his so-called Muslim past (e.g. the years in Indonesia, his Dad’s family) and how this “Muslim heritage,” if not Islam, is perceived-or how he thinks it is perceived by others-so I feel like he tries to swing in this completely different direction to convince people that he is with it, he’s a good old Christian evangelical boy. When he talks about Christianity, it rings false to me. When he talks about spirituality, I can feel him.

As an orator and a speechmaker on any other topic I find him inspiring, in control and easy to listen to. But the second the topic gets anywhere close to anything Mozrab (tm UmmZ) it is like he stiffens up and says foolishness in his desire to prove his non-Mozrab-ness.

I am going to go to jail for screaming at my neighbors Reno-style if this kid keeps on with the soccer ball BTW. I have already screamed twice. This is why I did not have children in my twenties. I was promised no kids here when I signed the rental agreement. No one told me about grandkids. And they are loud as all get out. If so it was nice knowing y’all. If my husband was home I would so go there. No one messes with the Scary Algerian Man. They’re afraid of the coup de boule. *snort*

Episodes like today make me understand that some people actually do vote UDC here.

NH was minding his bizness in H&M today waiting in line when the dog of the couple waiting behind him started nosing around in the grocery bag.

He said nicely (and keep in mind NH looks like a yuppie to boot), “Could you please watch your dog, he’s in my grocery bag.”

What did the dude say? This is the exact effing quote: “What is your problem man, do you want a coup de boule?” As in, because my husband asked him nicely to make sure his dog stayed out of our fruits and veg, the dude automatically asked him if he wanted to fight and made a reference to Zidane. “Coup de boule” is almost exclusively used these days in reference to the unfortunate Zidane incident, thus there was a direct connotation to “angry Arab (sic) male.” So the dude automatically got defensive and raised his voice.

NH goes on nicely, “No, for hygiene reasons I just don’t want your dog on my vegetables and would like some respect for my personal space.”

Then the girlfriend starts in, “What is your problem, it not like it’s a Rottweiler, and….(hold on folks, this is a good one)… we’re not in Kabul here.” Can you believe it?

So then NH raises his voice and says, “One, there is a law in Geneva about how dogs have to be muzzled, and two Kabul has nothing to do with anything. All I want is for your dog to stay out of my grocery bag.”

Dude says some other wanna-fight type stuff, asks if the police need to be called, and NH says, “Ok, let’s call the police then”…the dude, obviously coming to the slow realization of who he was messing with, walks out of the store.

The chick keeps on with some blah blah but NH checks out and moves on. Only regret is that something should have been said to her about her irrelevant racist commentary, but still. No one in the store said anything at the time, but once the dude walked out a couple people came up to NH and told him he was right for standing up for himself and right for feeling that way about the dog.

The whole exchange was a discussion that should have never happened. What was the point of even mentioning headbutts and Kabul? Where in the heck did that come from?

Finally, since unfortunately some people have the incurable illness of racism that time has not healed, the real question for today is this: is it too much to freakin ask for people to watch their dogs? On the tram in Zurich once I had this lady’s Labrador jump on me. I was like, “Can you watch your dog?!” (yes, there I was mean about it) and she was like, “Oh he isn’t mean.” That’s the normal line here. Especially in Geneva with people’s little poodles and such. Their dogs are all over you in the tram and they are like, “Oh but he doesn’t bite”…I don’t care if your dog bites or not, I don’t want your dog on me. I think it is normal to expect respect of my personal space.

Would you let your kid dig in my groceries? Would you let your kid give me a big old hug? I don’t think so. So why does everyone in this country think their dogs can do whatever the heck they want? What the heck is the problem with my husband asking someone NICELY to hold on to their dog? How can someone of the Muslim persuasion ask people to hold on to their freakin dogs without it turning into a discussion about Gaza? What if NH was “white”? Would this conversation have happened?

There are laws in Geneva about dogs in public establishments. Most grocery stores don’t allow dogs in principle, so it can be reasonably assumed that there is a food and hygiene issue there. There are laws in Geneva about dogs being muzzled. All Nice Husband was asking for was this couple to respect not only his rights as a private citizen to a personal space but also the laws of the city in which the episode happened. Instead, they had to talk about headbutts and Kabul and somehow make it his problem. In-efffing-credible. I’m gobsmacked.

Anyway I am proud of NH for opening his mouth.

I’m a pretty open-minded person. You know how in France they show Fox News on cable with subtitles so people can laugh at it (no joke, they do it for Comedy Hour). I’ll be a good sport and watch that. But sometimes stupidity bothers me and it makes me all depressed and stuff.
My second true love is podcasts. Listening to them not making them. Love all those university lectures for free and news shows and all that goodness.

So I have this podcast from someone REALLY STUPID. I mean, so stupid I don’t think I would laugh. I would type her name (but don’t want the hits) but let’s just say her initials are I.M. and she makes our Ms. A.H. A. look like a savant rocket scientist.

I don’t fall for the argument that you shouldn’t listen to dissenting voices because then it affects your Islam, listening to kufr leads to kufr and all that- I think that type of mentality does a disrespect to the minds and convictions of Muslims. So my main concern is will listening to it make me laugh or bum me out? I need comedy, like Fox News-style comedy.

Decisions, decisions (You can tell I am cleaning up my ITunes in preparation for housecleaning). And no just because I have an IPOD it does not make me some latte-sipping eeevil Soofee Progressive.

I don’t know what I am on about this morning. Carry on.

Do you know what the number one search term is that leads people to this blog?
I’ll give you a hint, it starts with, “Crusin down the street real slow”

I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

You know what is totally freaky though? I met someone in Geneva who was BORN there. He then promptly moved away like most normal people and grew up elsewhere. As such he had not heard of the classic anthem of his hometown.

I’m not even from there. But I am going to blame it on her. She was the one who made the comment in the first place. Take that for linkage! Mwa ha ha ha ha.

And, speaking of Louisianians and Algerians and stuff, I need to revisit the topic of hot Algerian soccer-playing menz. The problem started with the Original Hott Soccer Playing Algerian Man himself, Mr. Zinedine Yazid Zidane, whose legacy lives on with a new group of younger hotties like Samir Nasri, Karim Ziani, Chadli Amri (if you have not seen him yet you are missing out, say macha Allah) and Karim Benzema (who, while looking good, talks like someone from the banlieue which totally puts me off, he needs to work on that). So while not everyone knows about the Algerian national love for bleach, olive oil in all its regional variations and m’hadjeb, most global citizens are aware that Algeria has one major export besides oil: hot soccer-playing menz. Herein lies the problem. As such, the average Algerian male, double if he is Kabyle, is convinved that it is his genetic birthright either to be totally hot and or one of the best soccer players in the world. This is hard to get past if you are a girl, because many of them will try to regale you with stories of soccer matches and their lost youth and the big match, injury or bad coach that stopped them from going as far as Zidane. I guarantee you that if you select 10 random Algerian guys and ask them a) “are you hot”; and b) “are you the bestest soccer player you know personally”, 8 out of 10 will reply affirmative to at least one of the questions and at least six will say yes to both. Trust.

Say stereotyping is bad. But do my random sample first and then call me names and hate on me. I’ve been there.

And if you live in Germany check out those FSV Mainz 05 games on tv. Yes please.

I told Nice Husband to turn the tv off for the France Italy match. We’re only thirty minutes in and it is UGLY. Ribery is hurt, Viera is sick, Italy just scored. Not even my two pieces of pure Kabyle hotness can save this match.

He won’t turn the tv off. And he keeps talking to the tv in Kabyle.

The French might just get the treha tonight