Oh, wait.
He's been dead for 12 years. And at 84, Mom is still quite a looker; and her French is pretty good. But I don't think they ever met. Zut, zut zut! For a brief sleepy moment I had been looking forward to dropping by the Elysée for daughterly visits.
And the only conclusion I could draw from that zany dream was that it was time for a major Nespresso-au-lait fix and dealing with reality.
Here's today's version of reality:
Yikes!
Yes, while every other sane Parisian and visitor has been out enjoying the long-overdue splendid Spring weather, I've been camped out on my living room floor surrounded by paperasse. I have some important archaeological information mining to accomplish, a looming deadline, and could no longer ignore the unwieldy stack of empty dossiers on, under, and around my desk. So I'm retrieving, organizing, and color coding the miscellanea of My French and American Life.
A life-long subscriber to the pile method, I like using the fold-over colored paper instead of manila folders, though I keep one hanging file. I guess that's part of what I like about France: stacking files horizontally is standard practice the offices I've visited. I feel organizationally so at home. So redeemed.
Besides, now my desk is clutter-free:
Now back to reality.
6 comments:
I'm digging your living room. Is that a stuffed pig by the fireplace?
Hi Misplaced,
I won't tell Hubert that you mistook him for a pig. He is a hippo, made by the fabulous Omersa Company in the UK. I acquired him a few years ago in the US, and hippo-napped him back to the continent in a duffle bag on a recent return trip from the states.
I'll have a blogger party sometime and introduce Hubert to the Paris gang. Once I get the papers cleaned up, that is...
I thought it was a pig, too. I have a little one, made of metal and wood, that I found at the Marché Aux Fleurs. Someday, I will write about him.
Aha! So the French prefer piles of files. The Piles Gene. I can never find them when they are vertical. I went into the office today to turn piles into handing files and now I will never be able to find anything. But now I understand it is genetic.
Whew! I thought I was just messy.
Workpony! I'm stealing that.
I was going to say "work Shetland" but thought that might be too oblique...
I would have had to do some thinking...
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