SuperBad

This evening we were walking home from looking at yet another apartment when we saw the most amazing thing. We heard them before we saw them and so we turned to see 4 drunk policemen driving their squad car in the bus lane with the lights flashing. They were giggling and one of them was singing Star Wars music over the crowd control mic, but collapsing into fits of giggles as he passed.

If they hadn't been wearing their uniforms I'd have sworn that cop car was stolen but they looked the part, even if they weren't acting it.

A "Decent" Dwelling

I'm not sure what it says about the French real estate market that they had to recently pass a law to establish what the smallest dwelling entails that can reasonably be considered 'decent' and legal.

They break it out for you in one line "Decent housing = not less than 9m ²". (This is less than 100 square feet).


But wait, you can get around that:

"However, the decree allows the rental of a dwelling under 9m² if its volume is at least 20m3. The volume calculation is done by multiplying the area by the ceiling height. For example, if you have a ceiling height of 3m for an area of ​​8m ², the housing has a volume of 24 m3. It is decent and can be rented."

This sounds ok, if you're a giraffe!

We Are Official!

After a day spent at OFII we are now in possession of our Titres de Sejours. If it had been a slightly less painful experience I'd even be ready to celebrate! We did walk ourselves home from Bastille like this American Mom in Paris. There are a few things to celebrate - my French is good enough that they waived the required French language course and also the all-day "Life in France" class, which had me laughing because it is intended to teach us things like how to find housing. There were 40 people in the room, what do they think we've been doing for the last 4 months, sleeping in the street?

There was a problem because, while I had Eric with me for the first check-in lady, Daddy was giving him food while I checked in with the second check-in lady so she did not mark "Prioritaire" next to my name. I was the last of the 40 people to check in. I waited all afternoon for my private interview and Eric got pretty fidgety (though of the three of us by the end of the day he won the prize for best-behaved). Finally one of the medical staff noticed that we were still waiting at 4:10pm and the office closes at 5pm. She raised hell to get me seen, which caused my caseworker to cry and tell me that it was all my fault, that she's never had a problem with that colleague before, etc. It was pretty bad.

But in the end all that time waiting worked out for us because Daddy had to go back to the Tabac several times to get all the stamps we needed. In the end we had to pay over $1000 in lick-and-stick stamps for these Titre de Sejour cards. Turns out the big Prefecture where everyone has to go is completely incompetent and, among the other problems, quoted us the rate for a Titre renewal, not a first application. It counts as a first application every time you let your previous Titre lapse, so even though Daddy had done this before, and gotten the chest x-ray before, if you let it lapse you have to start again from zero. One thing we're sure of, that's our last state-mandated chest x-ray! Daddy asked what they're looking for, it's TB, enormous lung cancers, and to confirm we have hearts. Seriously, that's what he said. Anyway, the lady at the register takes our $1000 in simple individual stamps, sticks them on an index card, runs her pen in squiggly lines all over them and gives us our cartes de sejours. These cartes are seriously like 1980s driver's licenses - low res black and white photograph, hand laminated, etc.

Now we get to start on the process for Eric! Yippee!

Timbres Fiscaux

Well, here you can see what $280 looks like in timbre fiscal. These are not-so-very-special stamps you can buy at the Tabac to pay for administrative services in France. Ours will pay for our French green cards, the Carte de Séjour.

Luckily the baby doesn't have to go through all this!

One funny thing - they're just ordinary lick-it and stick-it stamps, but even for $280 they don't give you those little glassine bags that the USPS gives people to keep the stamps from sticking to your hands as you race home. These things were flying all over the Tabac as I tried to gather them into a little makeshift pile. So if you're going to buy some, bring your own envelope!

Signing Up for Daycare

It's sure not easy! I tried to get on the waiting list today but was turned away. We never made an original copy of our lease, because we did the whole document electronically from the States, and that was nearly enough to derail the whole thing forever. Luckily we were saved by a power bill, which was an original. I swear those bills are like gold here.

No, what eventually did us in this time was the fact that I didn't have our tax statement. Well, we just arrived, we haven't paid any taxes yet. No problem, she tells us. There is a form and a person for that, I just go to the Tresor Public and declare that we haven't paid any taxes yet. They fill out a form that says literally 'zero' and I bring that back.

Sigh. OK...

The funniest thing about it was that there were some printer repairmen right next to the desk I was at. They jump right in to sympathize with my frustration and laugh about how ridiculous the French administration is. But it was as if they were proud of it at the same time!

Dry Super Eagle

I didn't get a photo of the man wearing the t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Dry Super Eagle" but he clearly thought it was the coolest t-shirt ever.

Here are some more that have made me smile, note that these are all photographed in Paris in the last month or so...

"Say it OUT"

I know the 80s are back in style but this t-shirt just reminds me of why that style went out in the first place.

"Ollinkarl Always Grow UP!! It keeps running by your pace."

 I don't know what to say about this tank top. I'm almost tempted to buy it because it's that bizarre.

"ATTENTION!! DON'T LOOSE your garbage"

This is a child's t-shirt and when we're low on diapers I have a similar thought, but I don't think they really meant "loose" unless they've seen my son's diapers?

"North California Kids meeting every week Sport & Vintage"

 As a Northern Californian I'm happy to see that our brand is still strong, but what in the world does this t-shirt mean?

Bad English tshirts are not a new thing here, but now that I'm here longer I get to enjoy more of them.

The Power of a Brand

So "Big-E Smalls" has been sick a lot lately (I know it's normal but I'm not used to it yet). Anyway, over here for fever they give paracetamol. It's funny but because my mother gave me Children's Tylenol when I was sick now even the packaging is now comforting to me. Over here they give some kind of suspect "paracetamol" stuff, and I swallowed hard and allowed them to dose my precious baby with their mystery syrup. I wanted to know how it is different and the answer is NOT AT ALL! As the wikipedia page cites:

The words acetaminophen (used in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Iran) and paracetamol (used elsewhere) both come from a chemical name for the compound: para-acetylaminophenol and para-acetylaminophenol.

 One less thing to worry about!