Sunday, July 14, 2013

Bastille Day

My mother was such a francophile that she had "La Marseillaise" for her doorbell chime.  (Missing since her death~)  I feel the way she did even though while living in Spain I thought it was the Spanish who had the joie de vivre.  After I got to know Jean and his family and Annie and her friends, I decided to include the French in that French phrase!  Yesterday I bought a great big pot of mostly white, red, and blue blossoms for the Bastille Day party being given by Francoise and her fiance Barry Gilbert.  I dressed, too, in a way I know Mom would approve of!
Javier and a Frenchman named Marc sang "La Marseillaise" together, and I explained how I happen to know our charming hostess Francoise:  I met her through Annie, a friend I made while she was living in San Francisco with her husband and sons, whom I met through Jean Michaud, a Frenchman I dated in Algeria before I returned to the US and he went on to teach in Morocco, where he met Annie, who met me through letters Jean wrote to introduce us in late 1999, about twenty years after they'd all taught in Morocco.  Got that?

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