Coffee Overdose, Breakfast Rules, and Madame Banane -- Toulon

I’ve been feeling very, very sick as of late. Feeling sick is by no means a novel sensation to me, but I don’t think I’ve been this sick in in a long while. If ever.  I’ve spent 21 years of my life battling candida and psoriasis, which has led to joint problems, skin problems, digestion problems, hormonal problems, mental fog, tiredness, unreasonable irritability, etc. I took various herbal supplements for this. These supplements ranged from charcoal shakes (a super fun one), to fasting on carrot/apple juice for weeks at a time, to taking habanero extract (which gave me exciting bowl movements, but not much else).  Nothing really seemed to help my symptoms. This is either due to the fact that the herbal medicine didn’t work or due to the fact I was addicted to honey, chocolate, and ketchup, and refused to give them up. It didn’t matter how strict I was with myself in other areas; I had to have my honey, chocolate, and ketchup, by golly.  During my travels, I’ve been adamantly avoiding the primary offenders of my good health – grains, potatoes, and legumes. However, since I’ve been gallivanting through Europe and have wanted to participate in social gatherings, I’ve become a raging caffeine addict and certainly know how to enjoy a glass or two of red wine with dinner (avoiding caffeine and alcohol makes one into a kind of social outcast). I’ve also been consuming far too much vinegar (in the form of French mustard) and chocolate. Good lord, I eat too much chocolate.

About four weeks ago, my body decided it had had enough. Chocolate/caffeine/sugar/vinegar overload. My hips started hurting so badly that just sitting on the sofa was painful. I tried to go for a run (because I’m stupid like that), and for the next few days, walking Alessandro to school in the morning took all the energy I had. Even though I was able to get plenty of sleep at night, I found myself unable to stay awake during the day. My fingers started feeling heavy and thick when I worked on my plays, and I couldn’t maintain a coherent train of thought to save my life. Everything got murky and slowed down to a crawl. I really feel like I’ve been drifting through a sort of fog for the past three weeks. Like the pea soup fog in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I did my best to be cheerful and alert around my hosts and Alessandro (they don’t need to deal with my problems), but they definitely noticed that something was wrong. It’s just hard to be excited about anything when your whole body hurts, you can’t concentrate, and it’s a battle to just stay awake.

I’ve eliminated all alcohol, all sugar, all caffeine, and all vinegar from my diet. I’m very slowly regaining mental clarity and physical health. But it’s slow and it’s painful.

We arrived at the mountain studio Saturday afternoon, and my reaction to the breathtaking scenery was rather bland. Something along the lines of, “Oh, so pretty. Yay, I’m happy to be here… what?” Caroline and Jerome both seemed a little deflated and frustrated by my lack of enthusiasm, so I felt like I finally had to explain myself. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, spoiled, and unenthusiastic. This was their vacation. It was also one of the last weeks they’d be able to share as a family before Jerome took up his station in Brest for an entire month. I didn’t want them to think that I was unhappy to be there with them, so I told them I was sick. It was ridiculously hard to finally admit that something was really wrong. For the first time in my life, I’m sincerely worried about my health.  It’s no longer something I can say, “Well, I’ll just worry about that later.” I need to be healthy now. Because I’ve reached a stage of unhealthy where functioning as a fairly normal human being has become impossible for me.  

Caroline and Jerome are military people. They are people who don’t just talk about things – they take action, and they take action immediately. Within two days, they were able to contact a friend who procured some medicine for me. It’s my first time taking western medicine of any kind, so I’m a little nervous about the side effects, but I am determined to give it a try. I will keep my diet clean, take the medicine, and hope for the best.

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself. The rest of the family enjoys their aperitifs (champagne, wine, Coca-Cola, chips), and I gaze at them mournfully over my water and tomatoes. I make sandwiches for picnics and I try to ignore the aroma of fresh baguette. I use all the willpower I have to say no to the cappuccino machine in the corner and the open chocolate bar teasing me from the top shelf of the fridge. And I feel sorry for myself.  Then I think of George, and how he had such a good attitude in spite of his plethora of physical problems. I think of him in the mud looking for his spectacles (after Rocky stepped on his foot and knocked him over), and I remember that George laughed.

If George can keep a good attitude, so can I. If George can laugh and say, “I don’t feel sorry for myself,” so can I.

I just need to be smarter about taking care of myself. Stop wasting so much time and energy bemoaning my bad genetic luck (feeling sorry for oneself takes an extraordinary amount of energy) and start being smart about dealing with my defunct genes. That’ll be my motto as I continue to recover.

The French Alps are stunning, but the skiing is not very good. I think Toulon must have gotten all the snow this year because the slopes hardly got their fair share. When Jerome took me skiing the second afternoon, he spent the lift ride up telling me how the runs look when there’s actually a decent amount of snow on the mountains. I hadn’t skied in four years, so I was more than a little bit wobbly getting off the lift. Add an abundance of ice and slush into the equation, and you have a skiing catastrophe on your hands. I wore a bright yellow banana suit, so the whole mountain full of French could enjoy watching me blunder my way down the slopes. Jerome is an excellent skier and he was very patient with me, so I had a marvelous time regardless of the splotchy slopes down which I haphazardly skidded. I fell thrice the first day and collided with a small child on the second.  I consider this an admirable performance. Given the circumstances.

The view from the studio apartment

Bibou will be just as handsome as his daddy. :)

Master sledder

I hadn't realized just how much I miss mountains until I saw this. 

Chiwawa, AKA Southern France Mountain Dog

Why French is hard. 

Bibou is blessed with the ability of falling asleep anywhere

The ski resort at night

The children's sledding area

Madame Banane. I actually had a photographer take my picture and call me, "Madame Banane."

At the top of the mountain

A great big thanks to Aurelie and Caroline for my splendid attire. 

It’s so warm that people are walking around in T-shirts and there are puddles of water everywhere. We’ve been having picnics on dry grass at the bottom of the slopes: in tank tops. Jerome, Caroline, and Bibou eat baguette sandwiches, clementines, chocolate, and chips. I eat sweet potato, sausage, and egg in my Tupperware. The Pernot family has a very specific way of making their sandwiches (they have a very specific way of doing most things, I’ve come to learn), and I was given the sandwich making tutorial the day before I had to prepare the three baguette sandwiches. Four thinly sliced pickles. Two slices of Swiss cheese, each slice halved. One and a half pieces of ham for Jerome and Caroline. Three quarters of a piece of ham for Bibou. One tomato split between the three of them. Caroline and Bibou take butter. Jerome does not. The bread must not be cut all the way in two, otherwise the perfectly positioned veggies will squish out the sides. 

This is a high functioning family. They have a well-developed way of doing just about everything, and Jerome and Caroline make the best team I've ever seen. While this is fantastic for them, it definitely makes it hard to just jump into their family life. I’ve been living with the Pernots for two months, and I still find a way to screw up everything I touch. My only redemption is Bibou, who is speaking very impressive English these days. As teaching Bibou English was my number one mission with this family, I have the comfort of telling myself that I’ve succeeded in one area of my placement. Even if I perpetually undercook vegetables, break dishware, and use too much butter.

By the way, French people never have meat for breakfast. If you are in France and don’t want to offend the sensibilities of a local, eat bread, butter, chocolate, and coffee for breakfast. Yogurt and fruit is an acceptable substitute if your diet does not permit bread. Meat, however, is not an acceptable substitute for the ubiquitous fresh baguette. I’ve been having blood sausage and sweet potato for breakfast during the time in the mountains, and it drives Caroline up the wall. The smell of sausage frying in butter was so offensive yesterday morning that she had to open the door to air out the studio. This embarrassed me quite a lot and made me feel like a first rate cultural misfit, but I guess these are the situations one encounters when travelling. Sausage for breakfast is perfectly acceptable in Ireland, but it seems to be forbidden in France.

I made sure to cook my sausage in the oven the next day. There was no smell of sausage frying in a pan to mingle with the fragrance of freshly baked baguette.

I certainly don’t understand the hullaballoo about breakfast. What makes breakfast any different from other meals? People can eat whatever the hell they want for lunch or dinner, but one is generally required to stick to a culturally standardized breakfast.  If one veers away from the culturally acceptable “breakfast” foods, one receives shocked stares and the incredulous question; “You’re eating that for breakfast?”

Why, yes. Yes, I am indeed eating this for breakfast. And it tastes the same way at breakfast as it does at lunch, believe it or not.

BREAKFAST FOODS

America: Pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, hash browns, cereal, pop tarts

Spain: Coffee, toast, jam, fruit, churros, torrijas

Italy: Cappuccino and biscotti. Period.

Ireland: Porridge, sausage, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, beans, and potatoes

Denmark: Coffee, tea, rye bread, cheese, jam, cereal, ymerdrys, pastries 

France: Bread, chocolate, coffee, butter, cookies, yogurt, fruit, jam, brioches

I wonder what Morocco will bring in the way of breakfast.

I’ve been able to watch Marilynn (a friend of Caroline’s) sing at a little mountain bar for two nights. She’s got a beautiful, low, sultry voice that I practically drool over (as in I wish that it was mine). She doesn’t speak English, but she sings English songs. In French, they call singing songs without understanding lyrics, “Making yogurt.”  Marilynn is very, very good at making yogurt. I could listen to her make yogurt all day long.