The Ryndex

I took a day off work to recover from a serious party I was giving Sunday, and I decided to take advantage of my free afternoon to launch the beginning of the naturalization process.

The main prefecture in Paris (Ile de la Cité) directed me to a cute little prefecture just off of Notre Dame. The security guard made me quack like a duck before letting me in. I’m not making this up.

Mme. Welcome gave me a number (84) and I sat for an hour… As my number approached, I heard Madame arguing with some poor non-French who had the misfortune to have brought in a document that was translated by his consulate, instead of by an avowed French translating service. She brushed him off, and determinedly rang my number.

There’s a certain look perfected by the French fonctionnaire. And since I’m feeling a bit sexist — which I need to practice anyway if I’m going to be French — this look is always mastered by the middle-aged French woman at the “welcome” desk. With carefully neutral eyes and an ultracompetent set of the mouth, she’s letting you know that whatever it is you want (and it’s all the same to her), you can’t have it and you won’t get it.

Glancing at my carte de séjour for a fraction of a second, she informs me that I’ve only been in France for two years and ineligible. At this time, the man whose translated documents were insufficiently sanctified interrupts with a flurry of new papers from his stockpile. “Non monsieur,” she tartly informs him, “I will NOT look at any more of your documentation. It is insufficient and that is the end of it.” She looks back at me.

“But, I distinctly remember living in France, at the same address and the same job for nearly six years…” I weakly protest. My cheeks are already flushed, and I know know that all is lost…

There are two techniques to efficiently deal with a French civil servant: (1) Reach for all the charm you can muster and ask them (buttering your voice with admiration and respect) how they would handle this problem, or (2) find a way to be passed to someone else and try again. The third option is to give up.

In this case, before I could give up, Madame sighed and did something most gracious: she typed my name in the computer and helped me. Apparently the date on my resident card is confusing because my status was changed in 2005.

Now I have the form, a list of documents to collect and mail off to the prefecture. I could be French as soon as 2009!

I have always dreamed of going to Lisbon. At least since Christmas. I had the guides, I printed out the Google maps, and Duckie had even presented me with a Portuguese phrase book. When my sweet friend JJ came to visit, we tossed around ideas for a trip, and as soon as Lisbon came up — we got online and booked the trip within the hour.

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What’s wrong with Michael Moore’s new scathing rantumentary on universal socialized health care?

Nothing.

I went to the theatre from the privileged position as a Canadian living in France. His newest film, Sicko, goes over the health industries in my home and host country as well as England and Cuba (all with their socialized medical systems) and compares them extremely favourably to the USA.

As in his other films, Mr. Moore has an agenda. He strongly believes that a medical system centralized and controlled by the government instead of being regulated by the invisible hand of private industry is superior in every way — for the doctor, the patient and the taxpayer. I agree.

As in his other films, he’s an adept narrator, editor and filmmaker. He supports his thesis with examples and stories, bringing along highly personal anecdotes and interviews. He’s engaging and emotional.

As in his other films, he’s combed the public records, highlighting his ideas with the histories of public officials and health industry tycoons. He adeptly strings together accounts of corrupt lobbying and lawmaking, unethical and murderous business practices, facts and studies.

As in his other films, he’s unabashedly unbalanced. He’s borrowed the “pry-from-my-cold-dead-hands” rhetoric that we usually see on the right. He’s selected his examples carefully and edited his film with narrow precision — no “yes, but…” or “even if…” or “in spite of…” waffling that peppers the sophisticated and civilized speech of the left.

He’s not here to debate the pros and cons of socialized medicine. He’s picked his side and he’s here to convince you.

I’m not interested in providing balance, either — although I could certainly tell you that his sloppy kisses to the Canadian and French health care systems aren’t the entire truth. The Canadian system does have longer waiting times, and even those that could afford to can’t jump the queue. The French system is laughably bureaucratic, with paper hurdles and reimbursements to be filled out, pushed to and ignored by functionaries. I know a few British doctors, and none are not nearly as pleased with the NHS as the rosy cheeked millionaire that Mr. Moore interviews… And I’ve had supplementary private health coverage in both Canada and France.

Okay, I’m a waffling leftie, sabotaging my own arguments with my eminent reasonableness. Whatever.

There are inconveniences and inefficiencies in France, Canada and England. In the states, there are blatant and heartless abuses, horrifying fiscal mechanics of weaselly private insurance megaliths that thrive in a marketplace that should not be a marketplace.

I have a friend that explained to me the tactics of an insurance agency blocking the expansion of a hospital in Arizona by buying the surrounding land. Why? It wasn’t an affiliated hospital, and they’d obviously prefer customers/patients use their hospital. That’s pretty much the most screwed up, wasteful thing that I’ve ever heard.

Back to France: I took a sick day yesterday. Of course, it wasn’t scheduled, so I phoned my manager and let him know. Back in Canada, that’d be the end of the story. I’d have gone back to bed and slept until I felt better. Here in France, you need a doctor’s note for any length of sick leave. It isn’t easy to find a drop-in clinic in Paris, and the doctor’s office I picked was pretty busy — the receptionist warned me, but I decided to just sit and read my book (alternately shivering and sweating with my cheerful little fever). I was there three hours. I was tempted to ask for an extra day off of work (and I would have gotten it) just to make it worthwhile.

I paid the doctor cash, and she gave me change out of her own wallet. I stopped at the pharmacy for antibiotics and throat spray. It came to 30€ total, but most of that is reimbursable if I ever bother to send the paperwork in.

I’ve had far more fortune in my social circles than I deserve. I mean, I’m perfectly presentable and all and normally almost capable of keeping up my end in a “conversation”, but come on — there’s no way that I’ve attracted such gracious, generous, tasteful and warm friends just using my limited charm.

But, dear sweet-ass reader, I’m not talking about you this time…

On Tuesday night, I decided to fight an oncoming cold with a megadose of sleep. I was in bed and my door buzzer rang. I threw on a robe, and it was my neighbours, who were mortified to have woken me. I reassured them that I was, indeed, in bed ridiculously early and as far as I could tell in my half-asleep haze, they invited me over for a drink the next day.

On Wednesday, I tapped on their door when I got home. They hadn’t prepared a simple drink — It was a full blown discovery of Antillais cuisine. Starting, of course, with a punch.

Punch, in Canada, is light, fruity and frothy… and is so frequently non-alcoholic that we have an English expression for the naughty business of sneaking alcohol into it (i.e. “spiking”) A punch over here, pronounced ponsh, is heavy, heady old rum, sweetened with cane sugar syrup and a bit of lemon. Canadian punch is a just a tickle in comparison (a slightly creepy tickle if it’s served in cut crystal).

I got a surprising amount of neighbourhood information from some of the other guests. Except for crêpes, I seldom eat in my arrondissement. When I go out, it’s normally in another quarter. So I discovered which bakeries were the best at which items, where the fruit was freshest, and (thankfully) where to get the best crêpes nearby. My old favourite crêperie has gone seriously downhill…

The meal was, of course, delicious. They cut up a red pepper that was sufficiently hot that you didn’t actually eat it — you just touched it to your food and then passed it to the next person. We finished with a homemade chicken colombo (which resembles curry), and many desserts.

The next day, they knocked at my door and dropped off additional leftovers. Hooray for neighbours!

Catching up… catching up… This entry comes way back from April, my trip to London on the weekend following the marathon.

My cousin Zed met me at the finish line. He had arrived in Paris during this last, dull week of training (all carbs and no booze and early nights). It was really nice to see him there, a friendly face to help me limp home.

A few days later, we took the Eurostar to London. This was our second trip there together, so we‘d already visited the big museums and monuments. This time we were there for strolling, shopping and (hopefully) clubbing.

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Is there any event so trivial that it can’t be blogged? Rhino seems to think so, making the ridiculous claim that climbing up to the terrace of the Institute du Monde Arabe is not blog-worthy unless something additionally exciting happened up there.

Me, I’m my own excitement. We didn’t even make it up to the top (it closes at 18h00). Whee!

And that’s all I have to say about that…

So, who’s on the Facebook? It’s fun for the whole family!

It has a particularly nice API for third party developers to offer interesting and blahblahblah services and applications blahblah, providing innovative blahblahblah in a vibrant and blahblah community. In short, your friends can send you pretty pictures of Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park.

(This is still from 2006… I’m catching up, though, aren’t I?)

The cosmos occasionally aligns incredibly. I came down the stairs at Quick, and I spotted Anna waiting outside the milling crowd. Antonio, engulfed in the undisciplined French lines around the fast food cashier, was already calling me to meet them. I seldom encounter people by chance on the street.

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(This is from last October. I know… I’ve still got some catching up to do.)

There were only three kids this Halloween, and they were waiting for me in the hallway when I got home from work.

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Alright, I have a backlog of posts that I’m going to try and push through this week. The photos in this one are my favorites from Duckie’s visit, nearly but not quite a year ago. I have another upcoming post from last Halloween and if I don’t get my act together, it’ll arrive sometime after this Halloween. There’s a particularly great one coming up from Lisbon, which dates from last April. Why did I get so behind in my posting? I’m not entirely sure. I still feel like I have things to say, and life’s continued to be interesting over here. Maybe I just needed to lay low for a while and appreciate life. Maybe I’m resting on my laurels — as I never hesitate to point out, I’ve been blogging longer than you.

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