My Landlady Stole My Pasta, Continued

I wrote that last bit on Sunday afternoon and somehow never quite mustered the necessary energy or verbiage to finish. The two are rarely connected in my case, but all bets are off when you're in a foreign country. And that I certainly am.

This Tuesday evening has me sitting, full of hot soup, on our very uncomfortable "computer couch," blissfully basking in the fact that I don't have to wake up tomorrow at 6.00 am to catch the bus to school at 7.00 am. Why? Because primary schools across the nation are closed on Wednesday. Why? Why not. No school on Wednesdays. Ever. Awesome.

After the absolute fiasco/fiaschi of Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, I'm pleased to say that yesterday and today have been fairly successful on the teaching front. I'm a little less pleased to complain about the English language: how the hell do you describe and/or define the word "spell" in English to kids who don't speak English? I'm still working on it. Nevertheless, we're making progress. Progress is brilliant.

Word search puzzles are also brilliant.

Enough of school, though. My life is comically larger than work these days.

Take the title of this post, for example. "My Landlady Stole My Pasta."

I don't think I've written much about my landlady in this space before, and I'll refrain from major identifying details [paranoia is a force in my life and I'm not ashamed of it] but here's a minor description:

M. is a woman of a certain age. That certain age most likely fitting into the 57-62 category, though as a French woman of this age, she can sometimes pass for an elusive sub-deity that knows not the sands of time. I've never met anyone else with such a flair for natural (?) bronzing and 80s-fabulous belts. M is by nature an adventurer, a traveler, a lover of dogs, and an intrepid interior decorator. Her apartment seems to simultaneously evoke Marie Antoinette Versailles, Marrakesh, and Art Deco Somewhere. Though the discussions are ongoing, M is very concerned with our diets and our carcinogen intake. I've yet to decide whether this is merely a manifestation of French "family" culture, or M herself, but she takes great delight and ritual every day in asking us what we're cooking for our dinners, and where we've purchased our ingredients. Supermarkets are not an acceptable response.

Milk is also not an acceptable ingredient or beverage.

Pasta is not a nutritional foodstuff, and should be avoided in favor of things like lentils, brown rice, essence of snail shell, powdered iron tablets, organic horse tendon... Ok. The last three were a joke. But barely. Regardless, M has denounced pasta.

So I was pretty surprised to find that the box of penne I'd bought a few days prior had mysteriously vanished into thick French air. I share a kitchen with two other girls, one of whom is another American assistant, and the other an English girl interning with a cancer research association. The three of us get along very well, and are respectful of each other's cooking space and material. Maybe one of them used my pasta, thinking it communal, since we do have a few such items?

I asked them both if they'd seen it and they were both shocked to hear it was gone. Could M have taken it? Really? She doesn't even like pasta.

She also doesn't like and/or allow us to use her washing machine. Hearsay has it that a former tenant used it and may or may not have flooded M's kitchen, but who knows. She's told us all individually that she'd be happy to do our laundry for us, but we're not to touch her precious machine. So when she went to Barcelona this weekend, it was with a slightly guilty conscience that we took turns sneaking into her kitchen, removing the potted plant and various silver tea trays to err.... wash our clothes. It was also with a slightly guilty conscience that I took a peak in M's pantry cupboards to discover that:

My Landlady Stole My Pasta.

My landlady who only eats organic fruits and vegetables, along with poissonerie fish and "bio" cheese. My landlady who tells us that she shuns processed grains. Grains like pasta !

A secret afternoon snack, I wonder?

Let's make a deal, M.

I wash my clothes in your washing machine; you eat my pasta. We both pretend that nothing happened.

D'accord.