Whenever someone from the US is coming to visit Carcassonne, they always ask if they can bring us anything from the grocery store. During our first year here that answer might have been, “Yes, please, spices for Mexican food” but now we’ve even found those so we can confidently thank them and say, “no”. Inevitably the follow up question is, “Do you miss anything from America?” and that too gets a truthful, “no”, although there is a little wiggle room on that response. This headline from French TV/radio BFM will give you a hint as to why: “Dairy Queen to open restaurants in France.” A cliché but true, we all scream for ice cream!

Do you remember the 1981 movie, “Mommie Dearest”, that depicted Joan Crawford’s distaste for how her daughter was storing her clothes in the closet? The quote was, “No wire hangers, ever!” and a town about an hour south of Paris has adopted a similar rule for cell phones. Known in France as a “téléphone mobile (or) portable” because of their portable nature, the government estimates that 95% of the population has at least one. In theory however, despite that overwhelming number, there’s one community where you won’t find them in public.

There’s a “Good News” website that daily provides a few stories that emphasize something positive that might have been missed by the mainstream news sources. In the past we’ve referenced a few of their articles here on the blog with discussions about the environment, healthcare, and public transportation. A headline that I saw began with, “America Has a Higher Percentage of Bilingual Citizens Than the French…” so I certainly wanted to find out more about that.

Two of our neighbors are vegetarian, or rather were vegetarian. Last Saturday, just before we left for the weekly open-air market they told us not to buy any eggs because they had several for us, along with cheese and milk. We should have guessed why they were giving us these items produced by or from animals and sure enough, when we got home we found out that they are now vegan. The four of us had already enjoyed a vegetarian dinner together but next week we’re having game night at our house so our snacks can’t include dairy, eggs, or even honey since insects are animals and we’re avoiding that connection. Interestingly I had just read a study suggesting that by reducing meat consumption, France could reach its environmental targets.