French Passport

I wish I could sing in French! I studied French in Junior High, High School, and in college, and I would dream in French. Not that I understood what people were saying in my dreams, but I was dreaming the sounds. I would read French poetry and listened to Edith Piaf. I was in love with the sound of the language. I loved French photographers and did my presentation for French class in college on Henri Cartier Bresson, Brassai, and Robert Doisineau. Today I am trying to figure out how to make my dial-up computer stream French radio news. People in my town speak French-Canadian French which is much harsher sounding but still interesting to me. It is always mind expanding for me to hear another language, even more so if I don't understand it. I probably could remember the French I learned if I was listening to it on the radio while I worked. Years ago we caught a French-Canadian station broadcasting a baseball game from Quebec. I don't care about sports usually, but I loved the feeling of having traveled to another country while I was listening to the broadcast.

My favorite painting by Max Ernst is in the Museum of Modern Art and is called Deux enfants sont menacés par un rossignol, Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. It was my favorite painting as a child because it has an actual miniature gate attached, like on a doll house. I still love this painting!

Years ago we were in Newport, Vermont and we stopped over in Quebec for the fun of it and we went into a diner. I saw Pain de Viande on a chalkboard and said oh I know those words, meat, bread . . . meat loaf! Then we went to a supermarket, and I bought peanut butter labeled in French. I was so excited. When the border guard asked us why we had gone into Canada for only two hours, I said "To buy French peanut butter!" They were not amused. They said, "You drove all the way up here from Woonsocket RI with your two dogs to buy French peanut butter? Wait here!"

Today I learned a few new phrases around the word tomber (to fall):

Ça ne pouvait pas mieux tomber
it couldn't happen at a better time
(it couldn't have fallen better)

tomber de la lune
to have dropped in from another planet
(to fall from the moon)

Tomber dans les pommes
to pass out
(to fall in the apples)