Savoir Faire Is Everywhere!

(At least for the next week.)

Good news! Karyn has decided to be French with me for the week! Now we need an official start date, and I think it will be Friday.

In the interim, we are studying up on how to become French. My first order of business is a FaceTime call with Stacey tomorrow morning. If anyone knows what’s happening at the French clambake, it’s Stacey.

But since I wanted to start right this minute (which feels super American), I turned to Google. I found a bunch of websites that gave me broad strokes on what we’ll need to do.

At Mon Petit Four, they suggested the following:

1. Embrace mealtimes. [Girl—or guy—not a problem.]

2. Incorporate more walks into your day. [This will and won’t be hard. It won’t be hard to increase “none” to “one,” but I also haven’t consented my bad knee about my plans. Unfortunately, I don’t live anywhere I can walk to something interesting or fun. But if I cross the highway, I can go to a peat moss farm! Ideally, I should live elsewhere. But that’s the plan, anyway.]

3. Practice less is more in terms of clothing. [By this they mean, having a few fine things, rather than seven of the exact same Talbots sweater in slightly different colors and degrees of pilling. So a purge is likely in order.]

4. Visit a farmers market. [I’ll have to see if any are still in season.]

5. Dress your best. [Suspect they would eschew the track pants with the hole in the crotch I am currently wearing.]

6. Pamper yourself. [I am all over this.]

7. Pick up a real book or actual newspaper. [But digital doesn’t get newsprint on my hands!]

8. Visit a theater or a gallery. [Does the Volo Auto Museum count? I mean, they have a Batmobile…]

9. Slow down and take it all at a leisurely place. [Nice in theory.]

10. Practice joie de vivre. [Meaning…?]

Okay, that was some help, but I figured there was more to it.

From Leonce Chenal, the instructions are:

1. Be a flâneur. [This means be an idler or a lounger. That might be tough. I am not one to take it easy. I like to joke that I will die at my desk, but when it happens, it probably won’t be so funny.]

2. Master the art of discretion. [But what if I don’t have anything to hide because I have a big, fat, attention-seeking mouth?]