Gains in Toulouse

Made it to Toulouse for SEVERAL days, many of which were rainy. Toulouse is a neat city, the 4th largest in France. Additionally, it is the home of my friend Florence's sister - the one whose room I lived in while she was away at college during my exchange. I met her while I was here and now I am known by the whole family.

Speaking of which, I'm going back to Lyon for 2 days during one of our Paris breaks and staying at the house where I stayed with the parents and Florence and her daughter. That should be fabulously reminiscent.

I met Mark's cousin (and now mine, as well) Sarah and her boyfriend Jean-Paul. They came to my Friday night concert and we hung out and ate afterwards. It's amazing, but after about 10 minutes I forgot that I didn't know her before now. I think we're sort of similarly artsy and she's easy to gravitate towards. She's got this fabu London accent that is, as she calls it, posh. Posh indeed! Uptown girl, she's been living in her uptown world... Just joking, she's been living in France for awhile. Mark's grandmother and aunt also have nice accents. I guess it's like in the US with everyone and their different regional accents, but as with our family, everybody sort has a standard accent without any hideous regional deformations. Even my cousins in Arkansas don't sound particularly accented, just a little country.

So back to Sarah. She speaks excellent french, her English is adorable, she's earthy and glamorous in a very feline way at the same time - most likely handed down from the bombshell mom that I've seen photos of. Anyhow, we had a great time eating and her boyfriend loved the bassist specifically, who is one of my two best friends on tour. Anybody who's a fan of Weather Report either knows of Bunny or likes his sound.



Here's a picture of me and Sarah and JP. I really wish that Mark could come over (AGAIN!) and visit with Sarah and JP in their little town. If not, I'm most likely going to go visit them before I leave on the very last leg of this tour, and we can take a trip to Barcelona since it's very close and JP knows it like the back of his hand.


So Nathalie, Florence's sister came to our concert on Saturday night with her 2 sons and her husband. I saw them afterwards and it felt a little awkward, so I felt a little hesitant about spending the next day with them. Luckily I was wrong, after the first 7 minutes, it was really comfortable. Mostly because the youngest son, who looks like Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle, asked me about a milllion questions as soon as I entered the car. And they were all appropriate low-ball, so I was able to answer with ease. Phew! Or, ouf, as the french say.


First question he asked was, "why does Michel say that you're the most talkative when he introduces you?" And I explained that, other than the french guy, I'm the only one fluent in french, so I tend to say more. And being the last one introduced, all the cute cliche phrases are taken. After "bisoux" "je t'aime" and "ca va," I've got to come up with something a little more creative. SO I started off saying something specific to the city we were in. Now, he introduces me that way so I am obligated to keep it up! City research each new town.

On Sunday I went to Nathalie's house, which is where I took the picture from the top of the page of the cute Cooper car in front of this church. We went to the canal and walked along the water. There was a moving world musical festival that was docked in Toulouse this day and traveling the length of the canal all the way to the ocean. Very nice. Then a neighbor came along and they very discretly bragged about me (I heard nothing) and he later started asking me about the concert tour.

Me reading a bedtime story (in French) to Maelann at her request!


I had a great time with them, I'm very happy to have this extended international family. I feel very comfortable in France and am gaining little people whom I love along the way, bit by bit. That said, I miss my husband and can't wait to go home, even though I know I'm totally going to shake that up when I get back. We've got to get a new apartment! Even with this tour, there's no way to afford a 20% downpayment for a condo in LA, especially knowing that we're going to get pregnant sometime before next year and I don't want to have a baby and immediately have to shove it into daycare in order to buy property. We almost bought last year until we realized that our $1200 rent, would turn into $2500 mortgage because of the 2nd loan for the 20%. It's not even helpful to put down 10%. It's pretty much 20 or don't bother because the rate of the 2ndary loans are hideous. So no house or condo in LA, and I don't really care, but I DO want to have at least an apartment that I know we can have 1 kid in and live in for 3 or 4 years without being squeezed out with baby stuff. So I'd rather move now, way before we conceive, get that together so it's one less thing to worry about. If we buy property, maybe we should buy something to rent out in Columbia, MO near the college or someplace else where we have relati

In other random, non-related news, I've met more of my 'people' again. Below is a picture of me and Malik, who looks like a jet-black version of Will Smith, except with a pleasantly shorter head. Will's head is so long, he looks like a chicken McNugget. Malik is originally from Senegal (ding, ding, ding, ding!) and confirms what everyone always says about me looking like I'm from Senegal and from one of the following tribes: Toucouleur/Tukulor (there are about 4 different spellings of it,) Peul or Fulani. When I get home, I'm going to do the blood test thing to trace probably country of origin like my friend Kenya just did. We've all been hot to do it after the Henry Louis Gates/Oprah Winfrey/Whoopi Goldberg documentary thing. Kenya was the first, and I'll probably do it to. It's very interesting, and it's about the best that an African-American can do to find out anything genealogical.