I have to admit I stole this title. I saw it earlier today in the following tweet by the Fake AP Stylebook, one of my faves for a giggle. It’s like The Onion for language nerds:

Go ahead and use “shit” in your articles. Anyone really still offended by it can go back to Happy Candy Bear Island.

And, of course, the first thing I thought of was Americans. Didn’t you? Isn’t that where most of them live?

Vincent, my hero for many reasons, this one included, has been following the Copenhagen talks closely for the duration of the conference. I was out of order for a while, as you may know, but when I surfaced intermittently, he’d give me updates.

Things like this, yesterday morning, the next-to-last day of the conference: “There is not a single word on the front page of the New York Times site about Copenhagen.” And yesterday afternoon: “Forty-four percent of Americans aren’t concerned about climate change, up from 39% in 2007 according to a Zogby poll.”

(Just take a quick look at the first two paragraphs of that poll. Won’t take a minute. Here’s a sneak preview: “… less than half [of Americans] believe U.S. should act to reduce energy use if it means major lifestyle changes.”)

As I’m writing this, I’m listening to some VIP from the tiny, poor, insignificant country of São Tomé and Principe, which most Americans have never heard of, addressing Copenhagen conference attendees, describing what the future looks like to him. The picture includes “deadly competition for water and arable land.”

Who on Happy Candy Bear Island could imagine such a thing while shivering in the cranked-up air conditioning of McDonald’s (the tiny chair swallowed by enormous buttocks) scarfing down super-sized pseudo-food? How many of those happy candy bears could define the word arable for that matter? How many would believe you if you tried to explain climate change, and how many would care if they believed you?

Here is the problem, here is why electing the Tall Mocha Latte president didn’t change the world overnight, and here is why the Democratic congress is not much better than Lieberman: The politicians you elect are the puppets of rich corporations who like their candy bears fat, dumb and happy. So Big Biz spends Big Money on producing commercials that say CO2 is healthy and good and natural because plants need it, and the candy bears sitting on their couches nod, take another bite, and go back to their regularly scheduled programming.

This is how America has become the most ignorant and retrograde Western nation in the world. It’s embarrassing. You should hear the rest of the world. But you don’t hear what’s said about you, or what’s going on outside your borders because your media, also controlled by Big Biz, are more interested in ratings and revenues than in ensuring that the citizenry is informed, which should be their Prime Directive. Thus you get heiresses and trailer-park popstars without panties and rich weirdo golfers screwing strippers.

Well guess what. The rest of the developed world is talking about how to come up with a new paradigm to replace capitalism, because yes, Virginia, there is – understatement alert – a connection between capitalism and planetary degradation, between capitalism and the loss of American homes and jobs, between capitalism and all those children dying of hunger in the world (one every six seconds).

If you want to understand the capitalism connection, see The End of Poverty? (in US theaters now, but probably only in big cities, which have lower concentrations of candy bears). More info and the trailer.

Here in France, it’s Intellectuals on Parade, 24/7. They’re all over TV, the radio, the front page, doing what the smart people are supposed to do (and what, in this culture, they’re respected and revered for); figuring things out. And, contrary to what you may think, these people are looking forward, not backward; they’re not looking to dig one of the tired, old -isms out of storage, dust it off, and plug it in. While they’re frantically trying to stop the hemorrhaging caused by free-market capitalism, they’re also seeking creative alternatives to it.

But candy bears refuse to listen to anything that comes from the mouths of the gifted, the visionaries elitists; they slap a label on them and close their small minds. They are so ignorant, so brainwashed, that all they know is the -isms. They don’t have the will, curiosity, education, or imagination to envision an alternative. Their understanding is limited to capitalism=good, socialism=bad, communism=Satan. They’re too intellectually lazy to question those assumptions.

How do you turn happy candy bears into people? You need to figure out a way, America, and fast. They’re multiplying like tribbles.

Go on back to your sitcom now. Or maybe you could do some reading. If you’re not a happy candy bear, that is.

I have to admit I stole this title. I saw it earlier today in the following tweet by the Fake AP Stylebook, one of my faves for a giggle. It's like The Onion for language nerds: Go ahead and use "shit" in your articles. Anyone really still offended by it can go back to Happy Candy Bear Island. And, of course, the first thing I thought of was Americans. Didn't you? Isn't that where most of them live? Vincent, my hero for many reasons, this one included, has been following the Copenhagen talks closely for the duration of the conference. I was out of order for a while, as you may know, but when I surfaced intermittently, he'd give me updates. Things like this, yesterday morning, the next-to-last day of the conference: "There is not a single word on the front page of the New York Times site about Copenhagen." And yesterday afternoon: "Forty-four percent of Americans aren't concerned about climate change, up from 39% in 2007 according to a Zogby poll." (Just take a quick look at the first two paragr

Day 8 of the NSF. Yesterday (Day 7) was just like the day before. Woke up with the same raging sore throat, had three Advil for breakfast, and slept nearly all day. I was still too sick to even read, but I listened to some TED Conference podcasts on my iPhone in bed for about an hour in the evening.

Today I am quite improved. Still woke up with a fever, slight sore throat, pain in the left side of my head and neck, plugged up left ear. Still coughing green junk (4 days now). Sorry if that’s TMI. But I had enough energy to actually get out of bed, take care of a couple of work tasks on the computer at my desk, go to the pharmacy (not the vache’s pharmacy), and write this.

My “viral episode” took me way back. When I was a kid the flu seemed to last forever. There would be days and days of feeling horrible followed by the days when Mom tried to “keep you still” while you recuperated. One of the good things about the flu as a kid was the brand new coloring book Mom always got me as part of her keeping-me-still strategy. Sometimes I also got books of paper dolls, stickers, activity books (I liked seek-a-words best), and those paint-with-water books when I was really little. Remember those? I loved watching all the game shows on TV. Let’s Make a Deal was my favorite. I could never understand why people were bummed if they got the donkey instead of the washing machine.

Anyway. What I want for Christmas is a holy water font for my entryway. I’ll put x parts water and x parts bleach in it and require anyone coming into my house to stick their hands into it up to the wrists and scrub while counting slowly to 30. Here are a few that are available at the Discount Catholic Store in case you need a gift idea for me:

I like the classic Mary in blue. It reminds me of the bathtub Maries I used to see when I lived in the Midwest for a couple years. People would half bury old bathtubs vertically in their front yards and put Mary statues inside them, plant flowers around them, etc. Classic Americana. But I also like the winged guy stepping on the other winged guy’s head. My question is this: can you get cheap Catholic girls at the Discount Catholic Store? Cheap Catholic men?

The French are quite proud of their (relative to American) unsanitariness, proclaiming for anyone who will listen that it gives them superior immunity. I buy it. In the US, a few years before I left, people were already starting to talk about how the oversanitizing we do in the US is just weakening our immune systems and making germs more resistant. That’s not good. But even if the French are onto something here, it doesn’t make it any less gross to be standing at the market next to a Frenchwoman who is coughing with an uncovered mouth and unturned head over the pears she is fondling, or to be holding onto a pole in the subway next to some guy who’s picking his nose. These are not hypothetical examples.

Vincent tells me France is the only Western European country where the swine flu epidemic hasn’t peaked yet. Is this because they have such great immunity or because their doctors diagnose the swine flu as strep throat and sinus infections? We may never know.

Now, of course, I know that I can’t blame French germiness (in my perception) for my NSF. I was due for it. They say you get the flu on average every 15 years, and that’s exactly how long it’s been since I was last flattened by it. But I figured this viral episode provided as good an opportunity as any to… comment… on this phenomenon, which is an ongoing intercultural challenge (read: cause of anxiety and occasional disgust).

I have my blog to replace the coloring book this time. But coloring actually sounds really nice right now.

Off to bed.

Day 8 of the NSF. Yesterday (Day 7) was just like the day before. Woke up with the same raging sore throat, had three Advil for breakfast, and slept nearly all day. I was still too sick to even read, but I listened to some TED Conference podcasts on my iPhone in bed for about an hour in the evening. Today I am quite improved. Still woke up with a fever, slight sore throat, pain in the left side of my head and neck, plugged up left ear. Still coughing green junk (4 days now). Sorry if that's TMI. But I had enough energy to actually get out of bed, take care of a couple of work tasks on the computer at my desk, go to the pharmacy (not the vache's pharmacy), and write this. My "viral episode" took me way back. When I was a kid the flu seemed to last forever. There would be days and days of feeling horrible followed by the days when Mom tried to "keep you still" while you recuperated. One of the good things about the flu as a kid was the brand new coloring book Mom always got me as part of her keeping-me-st

Day 6 of the not swine flu (NSF). A new and different sore throat started last night and came on with a vengeance early this morning. This one’s only on the left side, acutely painful, radiating into my eustachian tube, tongue, up behind my left eye, and the lymph node at the base of my skull behind my left ear is swollen and painful. At least it was at 6:30, at which point I took 3 Advil, which is enabling me to write this (on my laptop in bed). As for the rest, still achy and weak as a kitten, fever just above normal, though the way I feel is more consistent with about 101. More or less the same, if not slightly improved, but that could be the Advil.

Enough about that.

So on the Wednesday 11 days before the onset of Sore Throat Number One last Sunday, we had a French person over for dinner. I made chicken tacos and put out little bowls of cilantro, green onions, lettuce and grated cheese (tip: closest thing I’ve found to Monterey Jack is the grocery store Cantal, which is an excellent substitute). This French person arrived from the distant outskirts of Paris via the métro. I kept hoping she would wash her hands before digging into the condiments. But no. I was cringing inside as we sat down to eat, just imagining all the goodies she was sharing (now I know). It took everything I had not to ask her to wash her hands. But you can’t do that to a guest who’s a grownup who’s from another culture. So I just crossed my fingers, hoped her fingertips weren’t crawling with the plague, and enjoyed my yummy Mexican food. But no more tacos for French people.

By the time you’re the age I was when I moved to France, dealing with life’s little glitches, like the flu, doesn’t require any thought or effort. You know your brands and you have your methods. The other night, when I couldn’t breathe through my nose, my wonderful husband ran down the street to the pharmacy to get me some stuff to spray in my nose (prescribed by Doctor Number One of strep throat fame). I hadn’t filled that prescription because my nose wasn’t stuffy at the time and it doesn’t get stuffy with strep. But I asked Vincent, before he left, to ask the pharmacist if she had anything like Nyquil she could give me instead (explaining that it was the nighttime sniffling sneezing coughing aching stuffy head fever so you can rest medicine, so that he could explain it to her). There is no self serve for meds in French pharmacies. Over the counter means over the counter. You have to go through the pharmacist/firewall to even get Advil. (Full rant on French pharmacies here.)

Being such a wonderful husband, he did ask her, saying it was what I used in the States. Her reply was, “Well, if she hurries, she can get on a plane and go to the US to get some. But in France, we rinse the nasal passages.” OK. If I weren’t so sick I would have gone back out to give that woman an earful about what a blast it is to have to change the way you do just about everything when you’re over 40. I may yet.

French culture lesson: Her response is what’s known as being vache. (The word means cow. Don’t ask me what that has to do with anything. Cows are not generally rude bitches.) Being vache is all about coming up with a snipey, critical retort that serves to make the object feel small and to make the cow feel witty. The French, particularly French women, are known for being vache. I have heard this, but not experienced it personally till now. My French girlfriends are webgirls, a different breed altogether, one that is more open, tolerant and curious in general. To understand the origins of being vache, watch the movie Ridicule. So the cow is fired. I may have to switch to the pharmacy where the jerk made me say “vaginal” just to watch me squirm (see aforementioned pharmacy rant). But there are some nice young women working there now.

I wish somebody would just put me into an artificial coma till I was better. I hate being idle, I hate being a burden, and I hate feeling like merde. But since that ain’t gonna happen, I’ve decided to stop fighting it and pretend it’s the early 19th century, and I’m Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility, looking beautiful and delicate with sweet tendrils curling over my flushed forehead and wearing some incredibly feminine (and surprisingly crisp and fresh-looking) white nighty embellished with ribbon and eyelet (as opposed to looking pale and 10 years older, wearing sweats, and with my lank hair plastered against my head), while I languish in the throes of some non-specific illness in the mansion of a handsome, tender man who’s madly in love with me, anxious about me, and doing everything he can to see to my comfort (that man bit is not pretend).

This has exhausted me. Back to bed now.

Day 6 of the not swine flu (NSF). A new and different sore throat started last night and came on with a vengeance early this morning. This one's only on the left side, acutely painful, radiating into my eustachian tube, tongue, up behind my left eye, and the lymph node at the base of my skull behind my left ear is swollen and painful. At least it was at 6:30, at which point I took 3 Advil, which is enabling me to write this (on my laptop in bed). As for the rest, still achy and weak as a kitten, fever just above normal, though the way I feel is more consistent with about 101. More or less the same, if not slightly improved, but that could be the Advil. Enough about that. So on the Wednesday 11 days before the onset of Sore Throat Number One last Sunday, we had a French person over for dinner. I made chicken tacos and put out little bowls of cilantro, green onions, lettuce and grated cheese (tip: closest thing I've found to Monterey Jack is the grocery store Cantal, which is an excellent substitute). Th

It’s Friday and I just got back out of bed to force myself to eat lunch. It’s been like this since I got back in bed after lunch on Monday. With the exception of a couple of misguided short outings (trips to the store, dog walks, a few hours at a conference) after convincing myself I must surely be feeling better by now, I have slept on and off all day and been incapable of doing pretty much anything other than going to the bathroom, for five days now… Poor Vincent.

It started Sunday afternoon with the sudden onset of a sore throat that was markedly worse by that evening. Monday morning I decided to go to the doctor just because I had a press pass for a huge Internet conference I really didn’t want to miss on Wednesday and Thursday.

My regular GP looked at my throat, pronounced it strep and gave me antibiotics. I accepted that – it was really sore – and started the antibiotics right away, knowing I’d be feeling better soon, maybe as early as the next night, when the conference networking events (code for “parties”) started, and certainly by Wednesday morning.

Sore throat was pretty much gone by Tuesday evening, when the first party started, just two blocks from my apartment, but I felt no better and decided to stay home, although I really wanted to go to this (an exclusive boat party on the Seine for conference bloggers only!). The bug was moving into my nasal passages, like they do, and I still had a fever and felt like merde. So I figured I’d rest up and that surely I’d be ready for the conference the next morning. I had an important meeting with a blogger from an exciting website I may start doing some writing for and a bunch of women entrepreneurs.

Woke up Wednesday morning not feeling nearly as well as I expected considering I’d been on antibiotics for two full days. But I went into denial mode, hopped out of bed, took a shower, put on make-up, walked the dog, popped some Advil and sudafed, and went to the conference. When the drugs wore off about four hours later, I crashed bad and had to come home and go back to bed. By that night, I couldn’t breathe through my nose and my sinuses were on fire. Still had a fever, still feeling merdique.

The next morning I felt worse than I had yet and decided to go back to the doctor cuz I thought I probaby had swine flu. No way I was going to make it to my conference (massive bummer). Last time I was this sick was in 1994, and I had to ask a girlfriend to come stay with me because I couldn’t take care of my 8-year-old son for three or four days. (Thanks again, Syb.)

My regular GP was not available, so I went to see my backup GP, who said I had a sinus infection and proceeded to give me… more antibiotics. I said “So it’s not the swine flu?” and he said I was having a “viral episode” in addition to the rest. I asked how he knew it wasn’t swine flu and he said there were “certain signs.” One of them, I guess, is the fever; my fever hasn’t ever gone over 100. But not everybody has a high fever with the swine flu, and my resting body temperature is only 97.4 to begin with.

So I’m thinking “viral episode my ass.” There’s a flu epidemic. And by the time I go to see Doctor Number Two, I have all but the last two of the following swine flu symptoms: fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue and sometimes, diarrhea and vomiting. Plus I have already not responded to four days of antibiotics. So why doesn’t he even seem to entertain the possibility? I don’t get it. All I know is today I’m still seriously fucked up and Doctor Number Two’s antibiotics aren’t doing jack either.

(Part of the problem is I’m spoiled. For 16 years I had a father-in-law who was like Dr. House, only nice; a world-renowned researcher and professor at a UC med school. Any time anybody got sick, we got real House-style diagnostic attention and some mini med school. It’s been hard getting used to doctors (here and in the US) who treat you like you’re an idiot and don’t explain things.)

Anyway, this is day 5, about when things are supposed to either start going south or getting better. I’ll keep you posted. Or not. In any case, despite what these two doctors say, I have the strange feeling that I’ll come out of this magically immune to the swine flu…

This post was brought to you by Advil. I’m going back to sleep now.

It's Friday and I just got back out of bed to force myself to eat lunch. It's been like this since I got back in bed after lunch on Monday. With the exception of a couple of misguided short outings (trips to the store, dog walks, a few hours at a conference) after convincing myself I must surely be feeling better by now, I have slept on and off all day and been incapable of doing pretty much anything other than going to the bathroom, for five days now... Poor Vincent. It started Sunday afternoon with the sudden onset of a sore throat that was markedly worse by that evening. Monday morning I decided to go to the doctor just because I had a press pass for a huge Internet conference I really didn't want to miss on Wednesday and Thursday. My regular GP looked at my throat, pronounced it strep and gave me antibiotics. I accepted that - it was really sore - and started the antibiotics right away, knowing I'd be feeling better soon, maybe as early as the next night, when the conference networking events (code

I have been craving pumpkin pie for a while now and, several weeks ago, I realized I was actually craving everything about Thanksgiving dinner, which I haven’t had since my first November here, in 2006. Vincent hates that food, so I decided to find a restaurant serving Thanksgiving dinner and to drag a French girlfriend along with me.

There are thousands of Americans living in France. Some say 30,000, some say 75,000. You gotta figure many of them are doing their own Thanksgiving meals, doing potlucks like some of my friends, or, like me, not doing it at all because their froggy spouses can’t stand the stuff or because they can just live without it most of the time.

I googled around and found that the Bistrot St. Martin was doing a Thanksgiving meal, with one service at 7:00 and another at 9:00, but you had to make a reservation. So I made a reservation for two a couple weeks ago, for the 7:00 dinner. Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered that Mary, the American owner had apparently accepted reservations from about 17,230 Americans, even though her bistro looked like it could seat a total of 44 people.

And the adventure began…

So there we were, about a dozen of us, all with reservations (in both senses of the word), vertical anchovies crammed into the entryway of a completely packed restaurant, all wondering where the hell we were going to sit. Mary showed up, asked everybody how many were in their party, asked for our names, and looked at her two sheets of paper, which had squares with numbers on them but no names. That did not appear to help her any, so she said we should follow Natalie.

OK. So about nine of us dutifully followed Natalie out of the restaurant, down the street, and around the corner to somebody else’s restaurant entirely, a place with bright orange walls that had obviously added as many white plastic chairs and aluminum folding tables to the regular seating arrangement as they could squeeze in.

My friend and I were directed to a small, low-ceilinged room that was full of a couple large parties of loud 20-somethings. The noise was unbearable for my friend, so we were moved to the worst possible (flimsy aluminum) table on the edge of the highest traffic area. And I was on the outside. For the duration of my meal, there were more people for whom there was no room walking behind me, and many walking right back out because it was ridiculous. Up, down. Then there was the poor waitress, carrying five bowls or plates at a time back and forth. Up, down. And Mary coming in to have a peek at the chaos and her two sheets of paper every now and then. Up, down. I had to stand up at least a dozen times because there was a six-inch space between me and the guy behind me (who never offered to relieve me on up/down duty, the asshole) and also because I didn’t want Thanksgiving dinner on the back of my neck.

Upon being seated my friend instantly ordered wine, which we pretty much slammed as prophylaxis against imminent massive panic attacks and claustrophobia. (I must say she was a real trooper to endure this whole thing just because I wanted pumpkin pie. That’s a friend.)

The soup came (lukewarm, carrot) and was less than mediocre. We could not converse because the noise level had gone up where we were, and it was made worse by all those grating, whiny, nasal accents that seem to be the universal vocal mutation or affectation of most American women under 30. Although I did manage to explain the meaning and origin of the expression “cattle call.”

Up, down, up, down, up, down, until the next plate of food appeared. All cold. Mashed potatoes with no salt or butter and a small portion. Overly boiled green beans with no flavor. Stuffing that tasted right (yeah!), but was too gluey and there wasn’t enough of it. Turkey that was GOOD! Moist and tender and flavorful white meat that was not gamey (like the turkey I made my first year here). And a nice big chunk of it. Halle-fucking-lujah! But the mushroom gravy on it tasted much more like a French sauce than gravy, and like it had been made from a powder to boot. No cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving without cranberry sauce. But there was a splash of the carrot soup in the middle of the plate. Yum.

People, Thursday turkey day at the Hometown Buffet (one of Mom’s faves), is a million times better.

I screwed the top off the salt and doused away so I could stand the potatoes and green beans, and I ate it all, dammit. But when that was over, I told my friend “We’re taking our dessert to go and getting the hell out of here.” She was with me on that.

So I grabbed the poor owner of orange-wall restaurant (who was clearly regretting his decision to be an enabler of what was either a mathematical problem or greed or total insanity on Mary’s part) when he was running by with five turkey plates and told him our plan. We stood there amid the chaos for 15 minutes before anyone could wrap up our pie and pumpkin bread and take my money. It was Natalie of “follow Natalie” fame who finally wrapped the stuff up, and she made sure that we knew she was annoyed. Some serious nerve, if you ask me. I finally cornered orange-wall restaurant owner man back by the kitchen when he wasn’t holding any plates and was informed they didn’t take cards. News to me. Not on the website as far as I had seen. Fortunately we had the cash between the two of us, but I was supposed to be treating my friend to this fabulous and unique American dinner and cultural experience…

The dinner cost 30€ a person, the wine 5€ a glass, but by the time I left I felt like they should have paid me. That has never happened to me before. I’ve left restaurants feeling like I shouldn’t have had to pay, but never like I should have been compensated for pain and suffering.

Next Thanksgiving we’re having spaghetti.

It’s likely that all Mary was trying to do was give a nice Thanksgiving dinner to as many homesick Americans as she could. It’s an honorable motive. But she bit off more than she could chew.

******************

I must say that orange-wall restaurant owner man managed to keep his cool and stay charming in spite of it all. And his wife (I’m assuming), Rashida, with whom I had plenty of time to chat in the back of the restaurant while waiting to get my fucking pie and fucking pay, was lovely too. So for that, and their enormous sacrifice, if you live in the 10th, near the Louis Blanc métro station, their restaurant is called SoupiFrutti. It’s a soup and juice bar under normal circumstances. They’re having a prix fixe Réveillon (New Year’s Eve) dinner for 77€ if you’re interested.

I have been craving pumpkin pie for a while now and, several weeks ago, I realized I was actually craving everything about Thanksgiving dinner, which I haven't had since my first November here, in 2006. Vincent hates that food, so I decided to find a restaurant serving Thanksgiving dinner and to drag a French girlfriend along with me. There are thousands of Americans living in France. Some say 30,000, some say 75,000. You gotta figure many of them are doing their own Thanksgiving meals, doing potlucks like some of my friends, or, like me, not doing it at all because their froggy spouses can't stand the stuff or because they can just live without it most of the time. I googled around and found that the Bistrot St. Martin was doing a Thanksgiving meal, with one service at 7:00 and another at 9:00, but you had to make a reservation. So I made a reservation for two a couple weeks ago, for the 7:00 dinner. Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered that Mary, the American owner had apparently accepted r