No photos off our flooded house to illustrate this edition, so how about a picture of Mom doing a rain dance?
Speaking of the deluge, did you know that inundation is a defense strategy? The dutch used to flood land to hinder the Spanish army (see Hollandic Water Line). Meantime, Jean-Marc and I defended our own soggy turf here at home, trying to evacuate water flooding like an open dam into our kitchen and bathroom after Sunday morning's storm! Story follows.
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une mare (mar)
- pond
- puddle
- backwater
une mare entre les rochers = rock pool
une mare de sang = pool of blood
A Day in a French Life… by Kristin Espinasse
I woke up yesterday morning with the delicious realization that it was Sunday. Dimanche! No need to rush out of bed–except to let the dogs out… after-which I could return with a nice cup of kawa and a cozy view of the storm with its thunder claps and pouring rain–quel spectacle!
As I lingered au lit a few minutes longer I enjoyed the windy scene outside the open window. There was a lone bamboo playing coucou, or peek-a-boo, just beyond the window pane. Now I saw her, now I didn't. For a moment, I wondered if she could see me too? Just because one couldn't see eyeballs didn't mean a plant didn't have vision! Perhaps one day we will be amazed to learn that, all this time, plants have been observing us, too!
My eyes travelled past the playful reed where, beneath the dark sky, the rain poured down. It was pleasing to know that the flowers and vegetables in the garden were getting cups full to drink this morning. I could almost see the extra blossoms and the fattened fruit (just this week I'd discovered three melons growing in our permaculture garden! How to say hot-diggity in French?).
Bon, enough admiring the splendours of nature, it was time to let the dogs out before they rained down on the tiled floor. Our golden retriever, Braise (pronounced "brez" like "Pez"), had a couple accidents last month, but we no longer awaken to a flooded entryway as long as we stay one step ahead of the deluge.
Stepping into the front room I cast a look around, to verify there were no accidental puddles. That's when I noticed the water seeping in from the kitchen….
Ah, another leak! For a split second I believed I could sop up the wet floor on my own… (allowing Jean-Marc to sleep in for once). And then, little by little, the gravity of the situation hit me. Mon Dieu–we were being inundated!
Approaching the kitchen, it sounded as though someone had left the tap running. I hurried in to shut it off… when I realized the water wasn't flowing from the robinet–it was rushing in from beneath the kitchen door! Looking down, I saw my new leopard-patterned flip-flops were submerged. I began to back out of the room as my brain stammered, "towels… towels…thick absorbent towels…"
By now the water had followed me to the end of the second room–reaching my feet as I stood there slack-jawed and frozen. When I watched the water engulf our dogs, who were lying at my feet, and observed how their golden coats now doubled as sponges–I sprang to action.
JEAN-MARCCCCCCCCCC!!!!!! The house is flooding!!!!
A second later and Jean-Marc was hopping forth, managing to pull on his pants en-route.
He hurried outside, running through the rain, around the side of the house to unclog the water duct. Meantime, I dashed back-n-forth, grabbing towels… only to learn that my efforts to soak up the flow were akin to "a drop in a bucket". After twisting dry the useless towels I grabbed a salad bowl from kitchen drying rack and tried to evacuate the water this way, splashing the water into the bowl…. but the water rushing in from the kitchen door discouraged my efforts. Then I had an inspiration: I could sweep the water out the opposite door!
I ran and got our biggest broom and went to work. "Braise! Smokey! Là-bas!" First, I swept the dogs into the family room (conveniently up a level, on dry ground).
I was busy with all the water-sweeping when suddenly my hair stood on end. That is when I noticed that my husband's telephone charger was plugged in. My eyes traced the cord, the other end of which was now meeting the trickle of water which flowed out from the kitchen.
This was it. Electrocution! My fears of electric shock returned as I tried to stay calm. Jean-Marc appeared in time to shut off the mains, assuring me of the impossibility of an electrical accident, "And anyway," he said, " you would not be harmed because everything is up to standard." I still don't quite believe that things would automatically shut off, if the wires touched the water, but there was no time to argue–we were now up to our ankles in rainwater!
"C'est une mare!" Jean-Marc cried, stepping into the pool of water. My husband grabbed a second kind of broom (one with a wide wiper-blade on the end–a favorite of mine for mopping the floor and perfect for our mission!). Jean-Marc hurried to the kitchen. Ça y est, his efforts outside had worked and the water no longer rushed into the house like an open dam!
Jean-Marc began sweeping the water out of the kitchen to the dining room, where I rerouted the flow–with the help of my broom–out the front door! We worked like this for the next hour, relaxing into our effort, buoyed now by our growing bantering.
"And I had been wondering if you were going to help me clean the floors today," I laughed.
Jean-Marc laughed at my jokes and listened as I pointed out all the positives:
"Good thing we don't have moquette! Can you imagine what a disaster wall-to-wall carpet would be? And thank heavens this happened on the weekend. What if it was a hectic school morning?"
All the teasing and joking waned as we grew exhausted from the chore of evacuting what amounted to hundreds of liters of water. I began to wonder what I would have done if Jean-Marc hadn't been there? Worse, what if both of us had been away–as we were last weekend? What would the kids have done? And what if my belle-mère was the one house-sitting?
"What would an elderly woman do under the circumstances?" I asked Jean-Marc. "Who would she call?"
"Les pompiers," Jean-Marc answered. "But the firemen wouldn't come for a little job like this."
"But this would be a big job–an impossibility for an older woman," I argued. "What would she do?"
"Call family and friends," Jean-Marc answered, sweeping the last of the water out the front door.
I couldn't help thinking of the future…. But any fears were immediately replaced by thankfulness. How lucky I am to have Jean-Marc. But what about those who are all alone?
That afternoon, yesterday, that is, we went and visited my belle-mère. What a hectic week it must have been for her after moving to a new apartment. Even though we helped with her move (Jean-Marc and his brother, Jacques, painting her new apartment and putting down new floors, their sister, Cécile, packing their mom's boxes, and me helping clean up her old apartment in Marseilles), my mother-in-law is on her own. After our flood, which revealed my own weaknesses, how much more I think about my belle-mère's challenges.
"You know," my mother-in-law said, as we walked arm and arm back to her apartment, having enjoyed an ice-cream on the beach, "I have seen a lot of lonely people in my life. As a nurse-on-call, I visited many households and I looked Loneliness in the eye. I am happy to say that I am not a lonely person. What a horrible thing that is."
I trust my belle-mère means what she says but, just in case, we are now only a stone's throw away.
"Quite a storm last night," my mother-in-law says, handing me her apartment key as we arrive home.
"Oh, those thunder claps! J'ai sauté du lit!" She chuckles.
"Me too, I leapt up from bed when the thunder struck too!" I laugh as I help my mother-in-law into her apartment. I watch her walk to her room, to turn off the blaring radio she's left on in her absence. And I'm suddenly filled with a mixture of relief and gratitude–to finally live so close that we hear the same thunder and see the same rain.
…And given how loud she plays her radio… if I listened closely enough, I could probably hear Charles Aznavour from just across the gulf of La Ciotat, where my mother-in-law will tune into her favorite golden oldies program, and let her thoughts drift back to the comfort of the past….
La pluie ne cesse de tomber
Viens plus près ma mie
Si l'orage te fait trembler
Viens plus prés ma mie
* * *
Comments
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Poor Mr. Sacks! Jean-Marc's beloved sacoche was rescued, though some of his contents didn't fare to well. (Jean-Marc tells me my passport is a little soggy. I wonder if it will still work at airport immigration?)
French Vocabulary
le dimanche = Sunday
le kawa = coffee
le lit = bed
coucou = peek-a-boo (also means "hi!")
bon = O.K.
quel spectacle! = what a show!
Mon Dieu! = My Goodness
le robinet = tap, faucet
là-bas! = (move) over there!
la belle-mère = mother-in-law (can also mean step-mother)
La pluie ne cesse de tomber /Viens plus prés ma mie/Si l'orage te fait trembler Viens plus prés ma mie
The rain won't stop falling, come closer my dear/ if the storm makes you tremble / come closer my dear
In other news: first batch of honey here at Mas des Brun! Jean-Marc had the pleasure of making honey when we lived at the vineyard in Ste. Cécile, and he is now delighted to bottle his first batch of local honey from the hills of St. Cyr-sur-Mer.
However, those were no honey bees that were buzzing above the ceiling of our family room (just beneath our daughter's bedroom! The droning grew louder and louder this week until, on Saturday, Jean-Marc intervened–donning his bee suit with built in mask and arming himself with a can of guêpicide. Now there are no more guêpes, or wasps, freeloading here at home.
For Science buffs…
And speaking of wasps, they're not all bad. Did you read about the wasps that live in our figs, ripening them? Happy to report that this year's harvest is delicious (and every wasp made it out… well before we sank our teeth into the fruit. Don't miss the story, here–but first you have to promise you will still eat figs when you are done! Promise?)
What a week, between a wasp invasion, a move, and an inundation. Is it okay to fancy oneself a … a… (well just what would you call this flying woman pictured above? Surely not a gladiator?) Photo taken at Parc Astérix, in Paris.
Whatever she is, she has nothing on these dearies. That's our daughter Jackie (7 years ago…) and my belle-mère, Michèle-France. Though its an out-dated photo, one of the girls has not changed one iota. The other is enjoying day 4 of fashion school. Wish her luck! Our turn now to wish every one bonne rentrée, or happy back-to-school (or back-to-work, if that is the case).
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Love your relationship avec votre belle-mère….elle est chanceuse de vous avoir pour une belle-fille!
Love your relationship avec votre belle-mère….elle est chanceuse de vous avoir pour une belle-fille!
What an amazing week–filled with love. So many different kinds of love–thank you for reminding me.
Mary
What an amazing week–filled with love. So many different kinds of love–thank you for reminding me.
Mary
Dear Kristen, your reference to plants possibly being able to see immediately brought to mind a new (published 2012) book I read a few months ago: “What Plants Know” by Daniel Chamovitz, in which he presents a convincing scientific argument that plants do, indeed, have “senses” that are comparable in effect to those we humans have. The publishers are Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It’s absorbing reading.
As to your main subject – the inundation – I do empathise with you, as I have a repeated problem of rain-water runoff invading my basement in a big way. It’s a challenge but your energy and that of Jean-Marc in dealing with your own intruder has given me courage to try to solve my problem permanently.
PS I hope that you won’t mind being badgered by a fusspot but the past tense of “spring” is “sprang (into action)” and that of “sink” is “sank (our teeth into the fruit)”
Dear Kristen, your reference to plants possibly being able to see immediately brought to mind a new (published 2012) book I read a few months ago: “What Plants Know” by Daniel Chamovitz, in which he presents a convincing scientific argument that plants do, indeed, have “senses” that are comparable in effect to those we humans have. The publishers are Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It’s absorbing reading.
As to your main subject – the inundation – I do empathise with you, as I have a repeated problem of rain-water runoff invading my basement in a big way. It’s a challenge but your energy and that of Jean-Marc in dealing with your own intruder has given me courage to try to solve my problem permanently.
PS I hope that you won’t mind being badgered by a fusspot but the past tense of “spring” is “sprang (into action)” and that of “sink” is “sank (our teeth into the fruit)”
Fred, thats fascinating. I enjoyed googling it and reading about Cleve Backsters experiments
Harry, thanks for the book recommendation. I will check it out! Sorry about your basement. See Julies note, above, about the wet-dry vacuum–this seems like a good solution. And many thanks for the corrections–always helpful and appreciated.
To all who have taken the time to comment–thank you for your encouraging words!
Fred, thats fascinating. I enjoyed googling it and reading about Cleve Backsters experiments
Harry, thanks for the book recommendation. I will check it out! Sorry about your basement. See Julies note, above, about the wet-dry vacuum–this seems like a good solution. And many thanks for the corrections–always helpful and appreciated.
To all who have taken the time to comment–thank you for your encouraging words!
Gus, Your note made my day! Hi to Paulette and hope to see you two in France again soon.
Gus, Your note made my day! Hi to Paulette and hope to see you two in France again soon.
Kathy, thanks for the evening primrose tip. Great to know it worked!
Kathy, thanks for the evening primrose tip. Great to know it worked!
Great story and photos. I esp love how you describe your mother-in-law —- and take such good care of her. I too would love to hear about Fashion School and Jackie’s adventures! I also miss your mom! Stay well!
Great story and photos. I esp love how you describe your mother-in-law —- and take such good care of her. I too would love to hear about Fashion School and Jackie’s adventures! I also miss your mom! Stay well!
Chere Kristi,
Wow, what a Sunday! Happy that your home wasn’t badly damaged. Bravo to you and JM for being such a great team! We must never take our wonderful spouses for granted!
So glad that Michele-France is happily settled in her new place. How comforting (for all of you) to know that you can help her whenever she needs you. I hope she meets some wonderful people and enjoys herself there.
Looking forward to your next post and wishing you, JM and the kids a happy fall season. That’s great that Jackie is enjoying fashion school–sounds right up her alley. What is Max doing this year in school?
All my best,
Carolyn
Chere Kristi,
Wow, what a Sunday! Happy that your home wasn’t badly damaged. Bravo to you and JM for being such a great team! We must never take our wonderful spouses for granted!
So glad that Michele-France is happily settled in her new place. How comforting (for all of you) to know that you can help her whenever she needs you. I hope she meets some wonderful people and enjoys herself there.
Looking forward to your next post and wishing you, JM and the kids a happy fall season. That’s great that Jackie is enjoying fashion school–sounds right up her alley. What is Max doing this year in school?
All my best,
Carolyn
Ooo, là, là! J’ai survécu un grand tremblement de terre en 1989 et
une incendie qui a détruite tout le voisinage en 1991. Au présent
je me prépare pour une inondation a niveau d’une Tsunami!! Je crois
qu’il soit le prochain désastre. Merci beaucoup pour votre l’histoire
qui me serve d’avertissement. Vous avez de bonne chance à se marier à un homme qui a du respect pour votre crainte d’électrocu-
tion. Je voudrais aussi lire une histoire de votre jeune fashionista.
Que vous soyez gentille pour me donner l’occasion de pratiquer le
français avec mes nombreuses fautes des grammaire et d’usage.
Joanne, Carmel, CA, USA
Ooo, là, là! J’ai survécu un grand tremblement de terre en 1989 et
une incendie qui a détruite tout le voisinage en 1991. Au présent
je me prépare pour une inondation a niveau d’une Tsunami!! Je crois
qu’il soit le prochain désastre. Merci beaucoup pour votre l’histoire
qui me serve d’avertissement. Vous avez de bonne chance à se marier à un homme qui a du respect pour votre crainte d’électrocu-
tion. Je voudrais aussi lire une histoire de votre jeune fashionista.
Que vous soyez gentille pour me donner l’occasion de pratiquer le
français avec mes nombreuses fautes des grammaire et d’usage.
Joanne, Carmel, CA, USA
Never a dull moment at your house! So glad that your flood was just a minor inconvenience. Luckily, you are able to look back and have a good laugh at life’s little disasters!
I’m sure that your belle mere is delighted to have her loved ones so much closer. She’s such a dear. Speaking of….hope Jules is soon feeling much better and that Jackie is having the time of her life with her fashion studies. Really exciting news about your honey harvest. I know how much you enjoy your bees!
Never a dull moment at your house! So glad that your flood was just a minor inconvenience. Luckily, you are able to look back and have a good laugh at life’s little disasters!
I’m sure that your belle mere is delighted to have her loved ones so much closer. She’s such a dear. Speaking of….hope Jules is soon feeling much better and that Jackie is having the time of her life with her fashion studies. Really exciting news about your honey harvest. I know how much you enjoy your bees!
Another great post Kristi…Like Sherry (top of page)I am also an oldie (70’s) trying to learn French and you have helped so much !! I was recently in France (last month) Visited the magical Avignon (danced on the bridge!)And a side trip to Arles (to sit and have coffee at Van Goghs cafe!) Two special things on my bucket list. Would have loved to catch up with you while down that way…but on a pretty tight schedule as we were heading to Paris (my favorite city )after that …I too experienced a house flood many yrs ago in Canada along with the whole neighborhood…It was buckets and shovels/brooms for most of the night for all of us…just another life experience to look back on one day…..Best wishes to Jules….miss her little entries.
Enjoy the last of your summer…its been a bon one hasn’t it !
Another great post Kristi…Like Sherry (top of page)I am also an oldie (70’s) trying to learn French and you have helped so much !! I was recently in France (last month) Visited the magical Avignon (danced on the bridge!)And a side trip to Arles (to sit and have coffee at Van Goghs cafe!) Two special things on my bucket list. Would have loved to catch up with you while down that way…but on a pretty tight schedule as we were heading to Paris (my favorite city )after that …I too experienced a house flood many yrs ago in Canada along with the whole neighborhood…It was buckets and shovels/brooms for most of the night for all of us…just another life experience to look back on one day…..Best wishes to Jules….miss her little entries.
Enjoy the last of your summer…its been a bon one hasn’t it !
These lyrics bring tears to my eye as well as the sensitivity you show in your writing.
La pluie ne cesse de tomber /Viens plus prés ma mie/Si l’orage te fait trembler Viens plus prés ma mie
Who wrote the song? Do you know?
These lyrics bring tears to my eye as well as the sensitivity you show in your writing.
La pluie ne cesse de tomber /Viens plus prés ma mie/Si l’orage te fait trembler Viens plus prés ma mie
Who wrote the song? Do you know?
Jan, thank you, and the words are by Charles Aznavour.
Jan, thank you, and the words are by Charles Aznavour.
Bonjour Kristin,
I am a new follower and a recent retiree(comment ca se dit en francais?) J’etais enseignante de francais-depuis 37 ans! Your blog is fantastique et vous etes epatante! I will follow avec de la joie et de l’anticipation.
Sincerement,
Marie-T (Teresa)
Ps The old French teacher in me is wondering–should “pres” in the beautiful song have an “accent grave” au lieu d’accent “aigu”?
Bonjour Kristin,
I am a new follower and a recent retiree(comment ca se dit en francais?) J’etais enseignante de francais-depuis 37 ans! Your blog is fantastique et vous etes epatante! I will follow avec de la joie et de l’anticipation.
Sincerement,
Marie-T (Teresa)
Ps The old French teacher in me is wondering–should “pres” in the beautiful song have an “accent grave” au lieu d’accent “aigu”?
Hello Teresa, So happy to know you are reading, and thank you very much for the helpful correction. I will fix it at the next chance.
Hello Teresa, So happy to know you are reading, and thank you very much for the helpful correction. I will fix it at the next chance.
on the off chance that you are subscribing to these comments, Mr. Sine would you please contact moi thru facebook pour un reunion,
on the off chance that you are subscribing to these comments, Mr. Sine would you please contact moi thru facebook pour un reunion,