rue-madame's Diaryland Diary

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Patati patata

Bear with me. This one�s disjointed to say the least.

Qu�b�cois French threw me for a loop.

The accent became intelligible after a few hours, but some of their words and idioms took me a little longer.

For example:

Blueberry in FrenchFrench: une myrtille
Blueberry in Qu�b�cFrench: un bleuet

A �bleuet� in FrenchFrench is a cornflower.

Ice cream in FrenchFrench: une glace
Ice cream in Qu�b�cFrench: une cr�me glac�e

There were others but I can�t remember them. Oh wait a second: we had bagels at St. Viateur, and cream cheese was on the menu as �fromage � la cr�me.� There is no such animal in FrenchFrench as far as I know. I can�t remember ever eating a bagel IN FRANCE, actually. Do they have them? Or did the bagels leave with the jewish refugees after WWII? Or are bagels more of an Eastern European jewish thing? Hmm.

I saw a dentist today. He took an x-ray, told me I needed a crown and gave me an appointment for November 6th. Why the wait? Because the dentist has to send a letter and a copy of the x-ray to the insurance company for approval of my treatment. Apparently the dentist�s professional word is not enough to justify fixing my tooth.

I can�t believe how jive this dental plan is. I�m on TA�s plan, and he works for one of the nation�s biggest medical manufacturing conglomerates, and this is the quality of medical coverage they offer their employees? That�s criminal.

What�s more criminal, actually, is the fact that we don�t have a national healthcare system in this country. Shouldn�t every person in this allegedly great democracy be entitled to stellar healthcare, regardless of socio-economic class, or race, or religion? No �separate but equal� bullshit? That�s really the bigger question, I guess.

Anyway I just have to be �careful� with my tooth. My �treatment� is I have to spend an entire month staying away from crunchy or hard foods, and chewing on one side of my mouth. I expect the tooth-themed nightmares to continue.

On a completely unrelated note: have I mentioned that the squirrels of Connecticut are currently out of their fucking minds? They know the season�s about to change, and they�ve been running all over the roads in a total hysterical panic. �WINTER IS COMING! WINTER IS COOOOOOOOMING!� They are behaving so erratically, so nuttily (ha ha!), it is no surprise that there are practically piles of little furry cadavers by the freeways. I giggle at how spastic they are when they�re contemplating whether or not to dash across the street, but it�s no laughing matter when you have to screech to a stop to save one little mammal from extinction.

4:01 p.m. - 2004-09-23

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