As part of an initiative to encourage British tourism in Paris, French gestures have been “revealed,” for what you would think was the first time ever. It seems practically every online newspaper has an article about this “guide to understanding Parisians,” and I can only laugh when I check the publication date on my original photo gallery of French gestures: February 2001. Not to mention the fact that I have a lot more than 8.
Water purification
We recently found out that our well water is highly contaminated with e. coli bacteria. Strangely, we don’t have any symptoms, but this may be due to the fact that we were sick from e. coli more than a dozen times during the 2½ years we spent in Morocco>. In any case, everyone kept telling us that we needed to dump a bunch of bleach in the well to disinfect it, but since I do not use bleach (it is very toxic), I wasn’t wild about that idea. After much research, I found a better solution: ultraviolet purification. I just thought I’d share one of the more helpful pages I found, in case anyone else had similar troubles: Everything You Need to Know about Ultraviolet Water Purification
My Fireplace
In a burst of slightly bizarre creativity, I put together a fireplace to hang my tiny Christmas stockings. I covered a plywood base with thin scraps of slate (scraped off our slate deck), I painted the cardboard walls black and then sprinkled ash on the wet paint, and the fire of course is cut from construction paper. Cute, eh? (Click on the photo to see the bigger picture)
Alias
Just finished watching the last episode of Alias. I never mentioned this show before because we started watching it several months ago and I didn’t want to risk hearing any spoilers. The first couple of seasons were brilliant, but it went a bit downhill after that. The naïveté shown by some of the supposedly intelligent characters got really annoying, though I suppose that’s partly due to having watched all 5 seasons over the course of months – those sorts of themes are hard to take when they are so concentrated. But all in all, it was a brilliant program. I’m not sure yet whether I want to buy the complete collection – it looks very cool (especially the Rambaldi artifact box), but will I ever want to watch the whole thing again?
The Story of French
Calling all French lovers – you have to read The Story of French. I can’t imagine the kind of dedication it must take to write such an informative and interesting book, but I’m definitely grateful to the people that did it. It’s a reference book on my favorite subject that reads more like a novel – I enjoyed it immensely.
Weather vs Whether
The words weather and whether have nothing in common other than their pronunciation, but English speakers are sometimes unsure which one to use. Find out whether you need to correct your spelling: Weather vs Whether