So apparently I suck at ironing.

Sunday mornings are best spent in bed with a cup of tea and a stupid chick-lit book. Especially if it’s raining, I can tell myself it’s perfectly acceptable to not leave the house all day, unless I need to buy groceries. The au pair before me left behind “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” I will probably read the whole thing in three hours. If a fun little cotton candy book like this can succeed and become a movie, maybe my not-so-great American novel about being an au pair has a shot of at least being on Midwestern ladies’ book club list, right?

I spent my Saturday with my French mom and Dara, the daughter. She somewhat helpfully get a cell phone and plan here (still absolutely confused on how the pay-as-you-go plan works) and am slightly devastated at what a step back I’m taking with modern conveniences in my life. Perhaps it’s silly, but not having Wi-Fi access in my room or the ability to get it when I need it is quite awful. Unless I’m home during the day in the family’s apartment, I am disconnected and it sucks. I have no way of looking up fun stuff to do or talking to friends on Facebook or getting directions. I know it sounds like first-world problems, and I hope I will get over it soon and move on with my life. It’s just hard to have all those things and then give them up in a strange and foreign city.

And while I do like the parents of my charges better than the kids themselves, lately things have been a bit strained. For example, yesterday FM (French Mom) asked me if I had trouble with the iron.

“No,” I said. “It worked great!”

“Oh, mmmm. Well, then, we need to discuss the ironing. Lucius looked at the kids’ clothing and wondered, ‘Is this how they iron in Texas?!’ “

Mmmmm, indeed. It is part of my duties to iron the kid’s clothing once a week. Apparently I did a shiteous job, probably because I was talking to my mom at the same time. So, what I did wrong was not iron T-SHIRTS. T-shirts, for God’s sake. Oh, and apparently I need to fold the kids’ clothes like fucking sweaters at Gap. All so within two hours of wearing them they can rub Milka chocolate bars into them.

And later, when I casually mentioned I was going to a party that night and was looking forward to it, she says, “Oh, Lucius and I were going to the cinema.”
First of all, they said I would be rarely working Saturday nights. And, they went out last Saturday night. And, you would think they would give me a couple days advance warning so I wouldn’t make plans. Nice. But I didn’t back down, I just apologized. But, I did offer to babysit Sunday night, which is pretty shitty come to think of it, because that’s supposed to be my one guaranteed day off. So, we’ll see how often they pull this “we never go out but we’re going out the next six Saturdays in a row” crap. Maybe they’re trying to take advantage of me being a friendless loser while I’m still new here, before I’m so busy they can’t get ahold of me. I think that’s what the other au pairs did. While in reality, I’ll lie and say I’m going out, and then read Hillary Clinton’s memoirs in bed. (That’s the only English book I could find in their house. That, and a book of Irish jokes.)

So last night I met up with Mike from Ohio and Vadim from Ukraine. We got a glass of wine at a bar near the Ledru Rollin metro stop before going to the housewarming party. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Mike an asshole, but he’s one of those bros that thinks they are too cool for school and takes himself way too seriously. My theory is because he’s short and not that interesting, so he has to make up for it by being an aloof dick. He did seem very interested when I told him about the young Romanian girls I met at my French school.

I was hoping the guy having the housewarming party would be cool, as he is within walking distance of me and therefore convenient to have as a friend. Instead, he was a nice enough greasy Frenchman with bad teeth. But he did have lots of snacks lying about, which I appreciated. And, in a “the world is so small” kind of way, he actually knew the girl who was my family’s previous au pair. Weird. He constantly would do the “hook em” sign at me when we made eye contact, which is one American custom I really would not mind living without.

I met a very nice girl who was half French and half Australian (she was able to simultaneously possess both accents at once), and a young German girl whom I talked to for hours and didn’t understand half of what she said. She didn’t know any French, which made me feel better since she grew up literally next door and didn’t learn it. Most people there all knew each other from an improve class they take in Paris. When I think about it, that’s really something I should research. It’d let me get out my little acting bug which is still buried deep inside me, and meet a bunch of gregarious English-speaking narcissists. I met a guy from Chicago was very into Second City and invited me to see their teacher’s show on Wednesday. Of course, just talking about Chicago made me miss Colin.

After a couple glasses of wine and eating an embarrassing amount of cookies, I quietly excused myself to go home around 1am. I really do not enjoy the walk back home late at night from the Metro. It’s very dark, very quiet, and one or two guys will insistently exclaim, “BONSOIR!” to you as you walk. I am never so happy as to when I punch in the code, slam the front door, and run up six flights of stairs to my hovel.