tangent queen

pastries and chocolat chaud at the louvre

Yesterday I had a PT appointment. I am realizing now that I am a very observant person, and I can't help but take in every detail. What the person is wearing, how they comb their hair, what their skin is like, they way they speak and if they have an accent, how they stand, how they hold themselves, what they do with their hands when they talk.... what the walls of the office are like, how they decorate, if the baseboards are clean. I don't really care about the answers to these questions, I just notice. I am now realizing as I get older that other people don't do the same thing. Weird. So, lying there, I had to remind myself not to ask questions. I always want to rattle off a million questions like a four year old. "Why do you do that?" "What does that do?" "What is a trigger point?" Etc. etc.

My PT was very nice. In conversation, he mentioned that Thanksgiving Day he and his wife are flying to Ireland. This immediately got my attention because traveling + Europe are two of my favorite obsessions. If you ever want to hear me gab on and on, that's a good place to start. So we happily talked about his travel plans, and he was a little worried about traveling in the winter. But since this is something of which I have experience, I tried to give him some good advice and some high-fives on his choice. It's cheaper, there aren't wall -to-wall tourists, etc. Besides, I said, even if it's raining and cold, you're still in Ireland!! I hardly know the guy and I am super excited for him. Really! I'm such a dork! I am happy in my dorkdom, though.

Yesterday evening, carrying on the European thread, I had to make a HUGE amount of pain au chocolat for Emma's heritage feast at school today. Yes, by the way, they were heavenly. I make them with dark chocolate. I love to hear my girls pronounce "pain au chocolat." I do it proficiently, but my children, having learned to pronounce it as a child, say it beautifully. They took French lessons when small and although they have lost much of it, they retained the ability of a child to pick up the beautiful pronunciation. Amazingly, the words and phrases they DO remember have to do with sugar. Surprise, huh? They especially like to charm me with questions like, "Maman, est-ce que je peux avoir un bisquit, sil vous plait?"*
Emma did her presentation, and it went like this: (she wanted you to know)

My family’s heritage is French, English, Scottish, and German. My Dad’s family is very German, and that’s why I have a German last name. I am going to focus on my French heritage today. I have an ancestor named Guillaume Bon Couer (which means William Good Heart in English). He was born in 1588 in Nancy, France. He moved to England with his family because they were persecuted for their religion. In England, they changed their last name from Bon Couer to Bunker. He had a son named George in England. George was born in 1620. He sailed on a ship to America, and had a son named William in 1648 in Massachusetts. My family stayed in Massachusetts for almost 200 years. In fact, they owned land called Bunker Hill which ended up being the place of a famous battle in the Revolutionary War, although when the war happened they didn’t live there anymore. My part of the Bunker family moved to Kansas, and then to Florida in the 1920s to grow oranges.

What I brought is a French dish called Pain Au Chocolat. In America, we call them chocolate croissants. They have chocolate in the middle of them, and bread on the outside. They are very good! I love them! I had a vacation in France once and we ate them all the time. I made milk chocolate and dark chocolate. I like the dark chocolate the best. Thank you!

Tomorrow is another PT appointment. I will try to keep my lips zipped again, and my travel jealousy reigned in!! Then, my mother and sister and I will start the cooking and baking process for Thanksgiving Day.

* Mom, can I have a cookie, PLEASE????