thanksgiving

spent most of the afternoon shopping and cooking for thanksgiving even though all i was supposed to make was mashed potatoes and dessert. i made some gravy (decided to make from scratch so made chicken stock from roast chicken carcass and proceeded from there). also made a french lemon tart – which actually came out a bit thin – realized that not using real measuring cups caused problems. must get myself some. and made some appetizers. then went to jj’s friend’s house in the 16th arrondissement – a beautiful spacious apartment.
we were in her neighborhood, almost to her apartment, when we walked by a lady, who stopped and said in english – “excuse me, i think i know you. aren’t you p and c? catja’s friends?” amazingly, we had met the friend of a friend 17 years earlier – and i think we only met twice or so. she recognized us as we walked by. we will get together with her soon.
thanksgiving dinner was nice, but somehow didn’t really feel like thanksgiving as much as a nice dinner party. jj’s girl gang friends and their parents were there as well as a french couple who are parents of the same school. one more hint in the school culture puzzle was learned from them. they said that part of the problem with the teachers is that they are very badly paid and not a happy bunch because of it. apparently they get paid something like 24K for the year, which is really poverty level, if they had to live on it. that’s the equivalent of being paid 24k and trying to live in manhattan... sadly that’s one of those common things – that teachers are paid so badly. they said there are lots of women whose husbands make enough money to support them. they also said that their children don't tell told them crazy stories about the teachers, like our children do. they said their kids probably are so used to the teachers acting this way that there was nothing out of the ordinary to report to the parents. Print this post