The French Way

Pamela Druckerman's book "French Children Don't Throw Food" has caused many non-French mothers to wonder what they are doing wrong. French children, according to Druckerman, sleep through the night at two months, sit politely at the table eating the same foie gras and brains as their parents, play quietly by themselves, and never have temper tantrums.  

Seriously, French mothers (and fathers), if you can train your children so well, why can't you train yourselves to clean up after your dogs?

France is one of my favorite places in the world, but no visit is complete without having to jump over a few piles of dog merde on the sidewalks. Sometimes the stuff is not, well, solid, so you run the risk of not only stepping on it but actually slipping in it. That's no joke. Over six hundred people a year break a limb sliding on dog merde in France.

The French are justifiably considered among the most stylish in the world. Their flair for design, decor, wine and cooking is unsurpassed (except, in the view of some, by the Italians). They know just how to put themselves together in an effortlessly chic way. The scarf. The bag. The stockings of just the right color and denier. The perfectly tailored trousers. The pressed jeans. You get the picture.

In beautiful Paris, some of the over 200,000 dogs in the city are likewise well-groomed, though not well-trained. They deposit over ten tons of dog waste A DAY on city streets.

Why don't the impeccably turned out citizens clean up after their pampered pets? The French contend that their taxes pay for city street cleaners to do it. In Paris at least, there are cleaning crews that suck it up in mobile vacuums. The sidewalks are then free of land mines until the dogs are taken for their next outing. After that, watch where you walk.

While children of lesser (non-French) parents are being bribed to sit quietly in restaurants with a personal DVD to watch as they munch chicken fingers, French children are supposedly sitting quietly enjoying the same veal kidneys as their parents.

Really, French friends, if you can teach your children such fine table manners, why can't you teach your dogs not to fart in restaurants?

It tends to take away from the enjoyment of one's meal. I'd prefer not to have them growling under the table, either. Keeping them there is preferable, though, to having little Fifi, as cute as she is, perched on the banquette next to me.

Why are dogs allowed into restaurants at all?

I don't doubt Ms. Druckerman met only perfect French children being brought up by fashionable French parents. That's her experience. Some of us have seen another side as well. 

A friend and I were having lunch in South Kensington, the preferred neighborhood of the French in London. We noticed a little boy sitting quietly with his mother and her friend at an adjacent table. We wondered if it was true that those children were trained better than others. What had we done wrong in raising our own kids? That was before the little guy (quietly) sprawled on the floor, almost causing the tray-laden waitress to trip over him.

The French parents I know have all the same challenges the rest of us do: infants who don't sleep, toddlers who throw temper tantrums, kids with finicky appetites. They deal with them like everyone else, except they are usually better dressed when they do so.

In her book, Ms. Druckerman mentions the stylish French mother. She has a point. They always seem so put together. And thin! They say the secret lies in denying yourself nothing, but keeping portions small. No sweaty gyms, but lots of walking. Lots of water. Will power!

There might be another reason, too:

French mothers, if you can find the discipline to control your diets so well, why can't you find the discipline to stop smoking like chimneys?

Two Lucios

Two of Italy's most beloved singers and songwriters were born a day apart during World War II, on March 4 and March 5, 1943. Lucio Dalla (top) died last week. Lucio Battisti (below) died in 1998.

The city of Bologna has declared a day of mourning for their native son, Lucio Dalla. He would have been 69 today, the day of his funeral. The center of town has been closed to traffic so mourners can pay their respects to one of Italy's most prolific and popular artists.

Dalla had his musical roots in jazz, which expanded into folk and pop music. His most well-known song, Caruso, was written as a tribute to opera star Enrico Caruso. He wrote the words he imagined Caruso spoke as he lay dying in Sorrento, in the arms of his wife. The beautiful refrain of the song, which sounds better in Italian (what doesn't?):

I love you very much,

very, very much, you know;

it is a chain by now that heats

the blood inside the veins, you know...

The song was covered with great success by Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, and more recently, Lara Fabian.

Lucio Dalla had a great love of the sea, a theme that appears often in his music. One of his most beautiful songs is Com'e' Profoundo al Mare (How Deep is the Sea). Listen to it. You don't have to know what the words mean to feel what they mean.

The other Lucio, Battisti, was born in a small town north of Rome. Dalla's and Battisti's music has been the background of many Italian road trips for us. I like Dalla's music very much, but I love the music of Battisti.

Do you know how you can sometimes forget aspects of important events in your life but remember every detail of something insignificant?

It was 1980 and I was browsing in the Rizzouli bookstore (long since gone) in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The lively music playing in the background caught my attention because the voice was distinctive and the language was Italian. By the end of the second track, Arrivederci a questa sera (see you tonight), I had bought the album. The singer was Lucio Battisti and I've been listening to him ever since. My husband and daughters are fans now, too. They really had no choice.

Battisti is known for his beautiful love songs, with lyrics that transcend sappiness. Before I could translate any of those lyrics, though, there was something in the music itself that conveyed a powerful sense of romance and longing.

Mindful that translations don't always work, there is Amarsi un po', (Loving a little) with lyrics:

Loving a little...is easier than breathing...is like blooming a bit...but, but liking each other...is difficult...how many obstacles and how much suffering and also discouragement and tears in order to become us, united, indivisible, close together...

or Ancora Tu (You Again):

It's you again, I thought we'd never meet again...I know what you want to know...no, there is no one else, I just went back to smoking instead...you're the only one left, the only one incorrigible, but it's impossible to leave you...impossible to leave you...I'll be yours again, hoping it's not crazy.

One Lucio may be your cup of tea and the other not, or maybe neither speaks to you. That's okay. If you weren't before, at least now you are acquainted with each of them un po' (a little).

The Girl Child

We saw only one billboard advertising it, but there it was, on a Delhi overpass: a picture of a little girl in pink, with large soulful brown eyes and the message: Save the Girl Child. Stop female foeticide.

I've read about the killing of baby girls in rural, tribal areas of India but the sign in the capital city took me by surprise. I asked our guide if this was a problem everywhere in India. She said it was. Doctors are no longer allowed to perform sonograms that might reveal the sex of a child for fear of gender-selective abortions. No one aborts a boy.

The desire for sons, and the abortions of female fetuses and killing of baby girls has resulted in a population with not enough girls to go around when it is time to marry. In the tribal areas, this has forced parents to look outside of their tribes for brides, which is in itself a problem because they would prefer one from their own. If the trend continues, by 2019 there will be three men for every woman in the country.

Hasn't it occurred to anyone in these boy-loving countries that you need women in order to produce those boys?

The lives of many Indian women are not easy, no matter what class they belong to or how educated they are. The lives of poor women seem unbearable.

A 2011 TrustLaw danger poll ranked India as the fourth most dangerous place on earth for women, behind Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Pakistan. The survey said 100 million women and girls are involved in prostitution and 50 million are "missing" in the last century because of female foeticide and infanticide. Almost 45% of girls are married off before they reach adulthood.

While some couples in India have modern marriages, meaning they choose each other, arranged marriages are still common. Our guide, a 37 year old from Delhi, with an MBA degree, told us her father, an accountant, chose her husband because he was also an accountant. Before their marriage she was shown his picture. I asked if she liked what she saw. She turned her neck and pursed her mouth in a way that indicated she did not.

"After I saw his picture, I met him once in person. The second time I saw him was at our wedding. It took two years before we were comfortable with each other. It was very difficult."

Can you imagine their wedding night?

She explained that the Indian bride must move into the house of the husband's family. "The mother-in-law will traditionally make a point of not being kind. She criticizes everything so you will learn to do things her way. We do not see our own mothers or sisters very often. It is not an easy life."

Fortunately, despite the disapproval of her mother-in-law, our guide's husband is "very flexible" and allows her to work outside of the home. He also likes her to wear jeans and "modern" clothing when they go out. They have two sons, eight years apart. The birth of the boys pleased her in-laws and her father. I asked if she ever wanted a daughter.

"Yes, very much. I was told if I waited a long time after the birth of my first son then the second baby would be a girl, but it was not true."

She had never been outside of India but her husband promised in five years his business would take them to England for two years. She looks forward to that, in part because she will then have a home of her own rather than sharing one with an extended family of sixteen people.

We talked to another guide, a male, in Varanasi. His marriage was also arranged. "I had nothing to say about it. I did not even know her name on the day we were married."

I asked if he was happy with how things had turned out. "Oh yes, I am happy. You see I have a big stomach? That is because my wife cooks delicious food every day, she takes care of my parents, and we have two sons."

There was a spectacular wedding on the grounds of our hotel in Varanasi. No expense had been spared for decorations, music, food. The groom arrived on horseback, his face hidden behind a curtained headdress. The bride, resplendent in red and gold, was carried into the wedding on a pale blue, flower-bedecked, chariot.

I learned the marriage was an arranged one. I was eager to see what the couple looked like. I've read the stories about fathers marrying their young daughters off to old men.

In this case the groom was young and handsome, and the bride young and beautiful. I hoped they were at least pleased with the looks of the other. We'll never know if they are compatible beyond that, or if they even like each other.

A few years ago I asked an Indian ambassador about arranged marriages (his was) and how they worked. He explained it was deeply ingrained in the culture and therefore easier to accept. "I like to compare modern and arranged marriages this way: the modern marriage is like a gas stove. It gets very hot, very fast. An arranged marriage is like an electric stove. It takes longer for it to get hot, but the end result is the same."

The adoration of sons is another thing deeply ingrained in Indian culture. A government campaign to "save, honor and educate the girl child" has a big task ahead.

Christopher

Christopher Hitchens died today, and he would be pleased with the obituaries appearing in the most prominent and important newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. He always liked attention. If there is an after-life, which he didn't believe in, he must be enjoying this moment. I hope he is.

He was a good friend until he betrayed our great mutual pal, Sidney Blumenthal, during the Clinton-Lewinsky hearings in 1998. His actions might have led to Sidney being tried for perjury and jailed. What kind of person does that to a best friend?

We knew we would miss his wit, charm and blinding (often intimidating) brilliance, but his act of betrayal was so egregious that many of us could never forgive or trust him again. To his dying day he could never explain why he acted as he did. I have heard that right afterwards he told his wife, "I just made the biggest mistake of my life," but that is something we will never know. He certainly never did anything later to indicate any regrets about his actions.

We met Christopher and his first wife Eleni Meleagrou just after they moved to Washington in the early 1980's. They lived in a tiny house in a shady part of Capitol Hill in those days, but they always gave interesting dinner parties for which Eleni cooked up wonderful food. At one of those parties we met Sidney and Jackie Blumenthal, who became, and still are, close friends.

After Eleni gave birth to their first child, Alexander, we gave them our changing table and other nursery items and Sid and Jackie gave them toys that had belonged to their boys.

Christopher was a loving but rather perplexed father. I remember him sitting in our living room and declaring he had no idea what he could offer his son: "He'll ask if I want to play football (soccer) and I'll have to say no. He'll ask if I want to watch sports on TV and I'll have to say not interested. He'll want me to teach him to drive and I'll have to say I don't know how."

I have a clear memory of him in our kitchen trying to soothe a crying baby Alexander by tempting him with strained bananas: "Try these yummy bananas, darling, yum-yum," said the man who could recite most of Hamlet from memory.

He left Eleni while she was expecting their second child and just as his star, and income, were beginning to rise in the United States. He had fallen in love with Carol Blue, who always wore black. Some of us formed a support group for Eleni until she found her equilibrium again, and in time we came to accept and like Carol, who clearly worshiped Christopher. They were married by the same rabbi who married Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller. Carol wore a black suit.

Christopher was a conscientious father to his children with Eleni, taking them on weekends and trying to cook for them. Jackie Blumenthal taught him how to make bacon in the microwave, which he declared to be life-changing because he wouldn't have to cope with a frying pan.

When our daughter Nina was attending Skidmore College, Christopher was invited to speak there. The faculty arranged an exclusive dinner for him beforehand. Christopher asked that Nina, whom he had known since she was a little girl, be invited to that dinner and spent the entire time talking to her about her studies while the faculty sat slack-jawed around them. He declined his meal, saying he never ate before a speaking engagement. Of course that did not apply to drinks, of which he had quite a few.

We have many fond memories of Christopher: brunches that started at 11 am and went on until 9:30 pm; his plummy voice narrating John's 50th birthday video; being excited, but pretending not to be, when he was invited to the British Embassy to meet Princess Diana and Prince Charles; dancing the hora at the Bar Mitzvah of Sid Blumenthal's son; posing in his daughter's pink-flowered bonnet at our Easter lunch; his crushes on Margaret Thatcher and Jean Kirkpatrick (whom he called "the cat"); his game of replacing the word "heart" with the word "dick" in songs and book titles, as in "The Dick of the Matter," "Unchain my Dick," "Dickbreak Hotel, "Don't Go Breaking my Dick."

When someone who was once a great friend dies, you don't forget the things that caused the break in your relationship, but you begin to recall the good times you had together, too. We could have had so many more if it weren't for that one unforgivable act of betrayal. And for what?

Walk on By

After my last post, Stuff (November 4, 2011), one would think I would never go near stores again, right? I don't take part in the Black Friday frenzy, but here in London it doesn't exist so it was safe to peruse a shop or two. After all, Christmas is coming.

The stores are decorated, crowded, and laden with tempting Christmas displays, but I was resolute. Those amusing stocking stuffers? I passed on them. They amuse for about five minutes and then the recipient has to figure out what to do with them. They end up in the back of a drawer with last year's stocking stuffers.

What about those cheery Christmas mugs decorated with happy Santas or frolicking reindeer? I've fallen under their spell before, picturing the family sitting around the tree drinking hot chocolate out of them while a picturesque snow falls outside the window.

How often do you think that has happened? Even if it does, you still have those Christmas mugs taking space in your kitchen cupboard for the other eleven months of the year.

Having said that, I know people who have sets of Christmas dishes, glasses and silverware that they bring out just for the season. I have been tempted by this. Perhaps I will succumb in the future, but not this year.

Now what about all those sparkly clothes we see in shop windows? "For all those holiday parties!" a sign tells us. I read it and I'm drawn in, though we only go to maybe three holiday parties and most people are wearing tasteful black with perhaps a splash of seasonal red. I picture some festive event where the winter white sparkling number before me would be just the thing. You never know. But I resist the temptation.

What about those adorable Christmas socks? Can you wear Santa around your ankles after December? I was once seduced by green felt elf slippers with white fur inside and three red balls on the instep. How festive! I bought a pair for each of our two then-teenage daughters. They rolled their eyes in horror, but wanting to indulge their mother in her Christmas vision, gamely wore them on Christmas Eve and morning. After that the slippers were banished to a drawer where they remained until our recent house clean-out.

The sparkly, cheery enticements of the festive season are hard to ignore, but I resisted almost all retail temptation today. My theme song was Dionne Warwick's "Walk on By."

It is easy to keep a tune in your head because most London shops are mercifully free of Christmas music. The Little Drummer Boy's incessant ba-rup-a-bum-bum can cause nerves to fray as you ponder whether buying Spanx for someone would be taken as an insult. "Silent Night" doesn't work when people are pushing you out of the way to get to the sale rack. And let's remember "O Come All Ye Faithful" wasn't written to lure people into shops.

Stuff

We have too much stuff.

We're moving next week, so we've been in the throes of packing up after living here for ten years. Our apartment is not cluttered and I am organized, but we've still managed to accumulate a whole dining room full of stuff to give away.

Let's start with clothes. We've all heard the rule if you haven't worn it in a year and a half, get rid of it. What makes us, then, hold on to the bulky sweaters bought in anticipation of going to a football game, except we haven't gone to one since high school?

Why on earth did we buy six ill-fitting galabayas (they were cheap!) in Egypt? Do we really think we're going to wear those six-inch green leather boots again? What made us think a bright turquoise leather jacket, bought in the straw market in Florence, was a good idea? When there is a fabulous sale at Macy's, why do we fall for the three for the price of two bargains when we didn't even need one to begin with?

When you travel it is tempting to buy items that remind you of the places you've been. Be careful. Will that four-foot carved giraffe really find a place in your home? Those marble chopsticks look beautiful, but do you need twelve sets? Do those African masks really work with your country French tables? Are you actually going to wear a sari? A brightly colored muumuu? English teapots are beautiful, but isn't one enough? How many bars of lavender or olive oil soaps, intended as gifts, are still in your gift drawer, along with silk scarves and ethnic necklaces?

It's time to get rid of all those VHS tapes, too. In the age of iTunes, should we hang on to all our CD's? And photographs! Do yourself a favor and throw away all your photos of unidentified people and scenery. You can't remember who or where it was and no one else will ever care.

Paperback books should be recycled. How is it possible to accumulate over one hundred pens but not one can be found when you need it? Paper clips? Boxes of staples? And cords! A whole boxful of them with no idea where they go or what they do. Where did all the letter openers come from?

How many sets of sheets are actually used, assuming they are changed once a week and you have a washer-dryer? That NYC street fair might have been selling 400-count king-sized sheet sets for twenty dollars, but really, aren't they just taking up space in the linen closet?

I do house clean-outs fairly often so I am astounded by the amount of stuff we have. In the USA, charities abound that come to your home to collect donated items. It is different in the UK, or at least in London. I could not find one charity to do so. There are also strict rules: no furniture is accepted unless it has a fire tag on it. I unknowingly cut the fire tags off a long time ago. No electrical items can be accepted because they might be faulty and the recipient could get a shock (I'm not kidding). I was able to take books and tapes to a local Oxfam.

The rest? We had to call a home clearance business that charged us to haul away (and they will later sell) all the things we thought we couldn't live without.

The Highway Duel

Do you remember Steven Spielberg's first film, The Duel? A terrified motorist (played by Dennis Weaver) is stalked by a menacing truck, driver unseen. Drive on the autostrade in Italy and you can bring that film to life in your own car.

There is something about a huge hulking mass of metal right on the tail of your little Fiat Panda that surely takes weeks off your life. Signs overhead urge drivers to mantenere una distanza di sicurezza (maintain a safe distance), but as far as I can see, I'm the only one trying to do it. The other drivers feel the need to fill in those empty spaces, sometimes with camions (trucks).

The A1 is the main highway between Italy's largest cities, Milan and Rome, and portions of it are made up of only a slow lane and a passing one. There is no room for anything in between. There is a stretch between Bologna and Florence where this is compounded by the twists and turns and tunnels of driving through mountains. The signs may urge you to rallentare! (slow down!) but everyone seems to ignore them.

On this steep highway you may find yourself behind a long line of barely moving trucks. You move to pass them only to discover the vehicle that seemed far away in your rear view mirror is suddenly on your bumper, with the driver blowing his horn and flashing his lights for you to move over. You would gladly do so if only the lane to your right was not full of barely moving vehicles riding each other's bumpers and leaving no room for you.

What to do?

After nearly two decades of living in Europe, I am used to the Monte Carlo 500 driving habits of Europeans on the autostrades (super highways) of various countries. I find the French the most angrily aggressive. Germans are impatient. Austrians will follow you until you stop so they can inform you that you have done something wrong. The Italians don't care what you do wrong as long as you get out of their way.

Coping with Italian drivers is taken to a new level when they are truckdrivers. They are bullies on the road. You can almost always count on them to move into your lane abruptly, without a signal. Some seem to enjoy scaring you as they close in on your bumper in a tunnel at night, flashing their lights and honking horns that echo loudly in the confined space. It must have been such an experience that inspired Steven Spielberg to make The Duel. Don't be fooled into thinking the truck with a large picture of Padre Pio on the back of it has a saintly driver. He is hell on wheels.

Not long ago an Italian road safety group set up cameras on some of Italy's main highways to focus on the driving habits of truckdrivers. Almost all were filmed talking on cellphones ("but that's normal for everyone," an Italian friend told me). The clip that got people talking was the driver caught eating spaghetti as he drove his truck one-handedly down the autostrade. My friend pointed out in all seriousness that penne would have been easier to handle.

My own experience with the multi-tasking of Italian truck drivers took place a few years ago on a stretch between Milan and Bologna. Perhaps lured into a sense of security by the long straight road, the driver decided to relax a little. As we passed, I looked up to see him with one bare foot on the dashboard and his left hand on the wheel. He had an electric shaver in his right hand, smoothing over his cheeks and checking his progress in the rear view mirror.

I don't know about his beard, but I thought we just had a pretty close shave.