Back in the USA: French lessons, talking parakeets, and a stroll through Washington Heights

West 181st Street in Washington Heights.

Years ago, my employer paid for me to study French at the Alliance Française in New York City. I proposed the arrangement because I wanted to be able to carry on intelligent dinner conversation with my French in-laws. My employer was interested in developing well-rounded employees; I had convinced the company's human resources division that French lessons would make me a better copy editor, or maybe just a better person in general.

            My French teacher was a native of Brittany, a tall redhead with blue eyes and porcelain skin. Every Wednesday afternoon, we met in the Frank Gehry–designed cafeteria of the Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square. We sat on curving caramel-colored faux-leather banquettes, drank coffee, and chatted in advanced-intermediate-level French, Caroline correcting my grammar and supplying the vocabulary that I lacked. Caroline is about my age (I was in my late forties at the time), and we had no trouble finding topics of mutual interest. My tutorials lasted for about four years, and during that time, we became friends.

            On the first weekend in June, I met Caroline in front of her apartment building in northern Manhattan. She lives a block from my Washington Heights pied-a-terre (how I happen to have a New York pied-a-terre is a story for another time). For the past six months, I have been trying hard to improve my fluency in French, with modest success. We spoke in English.

            Caroline’s rent had shot up and she was moving to Florida. We spoke about life transitions. She mentioned a parakeet. At first, I thought the parakeet belonged to her brother, with whom she will be sharing a house in Fort Lauderdale. But no, the parakeet was living in Caroline’s tiny and very expensive Washington Heights apartment and would be moving to Florida with her, making the trip in a cage stowed under the seat of a passenger jet. Caroline was worried that the parakeet, whom she called Teetee, would go into a panic, have a heart attack, and die. “They’re very delicate,” she said.

            Moving is never easy, but until recently, Caroline was not a pet owner, and she had not foreseen this particular brand of complication. Then one day Teetee flew in her window. She freaked (Caroline is afraid of birds) and called the super. The super came and shooed the bird out. A few minutes later, Teetee was back. This time, the bird landed on Caroline’s head. Caroline screamed and called a neighbor. Again Teetee was made to leave.

            On the third try, Caroline relented. She went out and bought a cage. It came in a kit; she assembled it as Teetee hopped around the living room. When the cage was put together, it looked very small. Teetee showed little interest in it. Caroline thought about buying a bigger one.

            She was in a bookstore one day when a book fell off an upper shelf and landed at her feet. She picked it up and read the title. The book was Irene Pepperberg’s Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Secret World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process. Caroline decided that she was supposed to keep the bird.

            She bought a bigger cage. When it was ready for occupancy, she asked herself how she would convince her free-roaming housemate to move in. She went in the kitchen to think about it and to make spaghetti, and when she returned, the parakeet was in the cage. They have been compatibly sharing the Washington Heights apartment ever since—“ever since” being, at the time of my New York visit, a matter of weeks.

            The sequel to Alex & Me is entitled The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots. Teetee is not a grey parrot, but that small detail did not prevent Caroline from trying. (She really is a very good teacher.) She went on YouTube and found many talking parakeets, most of whom had picked up human language without any formal instruction, just by listening to their owners talk to each other or to them. Their repertoire is heavy on endearments, things like "I love you, you're so cute, come here, you're so pretty"—the kinds of things women love to hear.

            The video below features a parakeet named Buttery. It was uploaded by Ken Krantz, who says "We've heard that letting him out of the cage helps because it makes him feel like one of the family." Caroline picked out a similar video and showed it to Teetee on her smartphone. Teetee sidled nervously back and forth on her perch. Weeks later, she was still cheeping and chirping without distinction, and Caroline said she had given up.

            Caroline and I walked in the Heather Garden of Fort Tryon Park (the park, by the way, is a favorite place for Washington Heights residents to release their unwanted pets—rabbits, dogs, cats, birds, and so on). We drank chardonnay (me) and pomegranate lemonade (Caroline) at the New Leaf Café. Then we walked back down Fort Washington Avenue and said good-night. On the way back to my Washington Heights apartment, which I share with my ex-husband, I thought about the many twists and turns my own life has taken, and the many times I’ve moved in and out of New York. I had no idea when I met Caroline that I would ever live in France, which is what I've been doing for the past six months. And she had no idea she would ever meet Teetee.

            Next: Caroline and I have drinks with a neighborhood friend, an actor who plays a space alien on TV.

Hanky, Godzilla, and Me

Once upon a summer evening, I was hanging upside down from the backyard trapeze when my mother called, “Sara! Telephone!” This in itself was an extraordinary event—in 1962 in Randolph, Vermont, children did not normally receive phone calls. “It’s Hanky Buermann,” said Mom. “He wants to invite you to the movies.” What? No boy had ever invited me to the movies before. Timidly, I picked up the heavy black receiver of our rotary phone and said in a tiny little voice, “Hello?” A few minutes later, Hanky’s mother drove the two of us to the movie theater in downtown Randolph, where we saw King Kong versus Godzilla, a classic (believe me, the trailer above is well worth viewing). Hanky said he liked me because I was the smartest girl in the class. Fifty years later, I still have the arrowhead-and-rawhide necklace he gave me, but many of our childhood haunts have vanished—the old playground where we swam in the river, the Rudelle where we slurped ice-cream "custards," the cow pasture where we learned to ski. But the Playhouse is still there, a miracle. This week several of my Randolph neighbors posted on Facebook that the theater needs a digital projector and I could donate here. I chipped in, not because I care about small towns and old buildings and cultural heritage and all that (although I do). I gave out of sheer sentimentality, and because when I was raising money for the Randolph Senior Center's memoir-writing project, people gave. Not just from Randolph but from all over the country. My turn. PS: After school, Hanky started a company that makes little doodads out of plastic. He owns a couple of planes, a bunch of motorcycles, and I don’t know how many classic cars. He likes to hunt, and spends part of the year in Saskatchewan. And the smartest girl in the class? I’m pretty sure she wasn’t me.

Walking by the Canal on a Snowy Morning

That canal in Parc de Fontainebleau at 9 a.m.

A view of the chateau and some cold ducks.

Even the statues look cold.

Except for the ones that are bundled up.

Like these guys . . . 

And this one in the ermine cloak.

How Long Is a Gorilla’s Penis When Fully Erect

The ditto machine, an early copier. A little before my time.

Once upon a time, before Wikipedia allowed us to research delicate matters with discretion, a Cosmo fact checker was given a manuscript entitled "That Marvelous Male Member." The assignment: to verify every factual item in the 1,500-word article. Now, when this fact checker, who happened to be a rookie (less than a week on the job), got to the part about the astonishing length of an adult gorilla’s erect penis, he called the Bronx Zoo and asked to speak with a primatologist. After a long, painful introduction (“I work at Cosmo and I’m checking this article and I know it sounds crazy but . . .”) the checker could procrastinate no longer. Out popped the question. “Four centimeters,” said the zoo guy without hesitation. As if he got asked this question every day. “That’s one-point-five inches,” he added helpfully. The researcher, my friend Steve, remembers this incident as if it was yesterday. The primatologist’s answer, 1.5 inches, was of course correct—a gorilla’s penis is astonishingly puny. Steve reminded me, however, that despite everything he went through to get this detail right, the magazine got it wrong. Apparently, some incredulous copy editor, stunned that Mother Nature had dealt the gentle giant such a low blow, changed “length” to “width” and “erect” to “flaccid.” I was reminded of this incident during a recent Facebook discussion of The Way We Worked, now showing at AVA Gallery in Lebanon. Many thanks to my friend Lori Flint for her mention of microfiche, which launched a flood of memories. In my next post I will tell you about the Kensington Ladies Erotica Society, a romance with Simba the ape, and my brief career as a sex expert for the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky.

Liquid Paper, Carter's Overalls, and the Way We Worked

Thelma Follensbee, 94, photographed by Jack Rowell. Thelma worked in the H.W. Carter and Sons clothing factory in Lebanon, NH, from age 16 until it closed in 1985. Jack's portraits of former Carter workers will be shown at the AVA Gallery in Lebanon through January in conjunction with the Smithsonian's traveling exhibit "The Way We Worked." 

I don't know about you, but nothing makes me feel quite so old-fogeyish as thinking about the way I used to work. Remember Liquid Paper? We went through gallons of it at Cosmo in the 1980s. Putting together the magazine required wax machines, X-acto knives, toxic chemicals, and many workers. It required a typesetter (remember them?), who was located in Indiana. It required a messenger named Louie, who came to the office every day at 4 o'clock and took "the pouch" to LGA, where it was put on a plane to Indiana. Despite the slowpoke technology, the work got done in a timely manner. Then publishing went digital. Companies downsized. You could make a correction in an eye-blink, but you worked 50, 60, 70 hours a week. The Way We Worked, a collaboration between the Smithsonian and a bunch of local orgs, opens this weekend at the AVA Gallery in New Hampshire and I wish I could go. The building that now houses AVA used to be the H.W. Carter factory, makers of overalls and other work clothes. The factory closed in 1985, but some of the workers are still around, including 94-year-old Thelma Follensbee, photographed by my friend Jack Rowell, who has eight portraits in the show. Talk about hardworking. Jack (who is my age) and Thelma are two of a kind. Jack has an old Subaru crammed to the gills with photographic equipment. Before I can get in the Subie, Jack has to spend half an hour clearing a space for my butt. And my butt is not that big. I mean, that’s how dedicated he is: His car is not a chick mobile, it's a photography studio on wheels. I’m tickled that Jack’s work will be shown in tandem with the Smithsonian exhibit. The show runs through January. Check out the special events and the lecture series here. PS: Jack lives on Fogey Drive in Braintree, Vermont. And Liquid Paper was invented in 1951 by Bette Nesmith Graham, a typist who made lots of mistakes. Bette made the first few batches in a blender in her kitchen. She called the product Mistake Out and offered it to IBM; the company said no thanks. Bette renamed it Liquid Paper and continued to make it in her house. In 1979, the Liquid Paper Corporation was sold to Gillette for $47.5 million with royalties. Sometimes, there is justice. PSS: Bette’s son Mike Nesmith, guitarist/singer of The Monkees, inherited her fortune.

Chez Mireille: Echoes of My Mother's House

Mireille's recliner.

My mother's house in Vermont, where I grew up and where I've lived for the past five years, is stuffed with memories. My parents bought the house in 1945 and raised their five children there; it was a gathering place for the extended family for 67 years. Soon after Mom died, I began going through all twelve rooms, plus closets and attic (I skipped the basement), inventorying the contents and compiling a photo album for my siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews. After three months of steady work, I was drowning in memories—I needed to get away! Patrick suggested Fontainebleau, the home of his mother. My mother-in-law now lives in Paris; her apartment has been unoccupied for over two years. Patrick got here first and began dusting and sweeping. He threw out the many bouquets of dead flowers. He made friends with the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker (okay, the Internet service provider). I arrived to find everything shipshape. I also arrived mentally exhausted and physically ill (I had the flu). Now I am well on the road to recovery. But is it me, or are there striking similarities between my mother-in-law's very French apartment and my mother's very New England house? Everywhere I turn, I am reminded of home. Some of the reminders are funny, some are banal, and some move me almost to tears. Below are 14 photos—7 taken in Randolph, 7 in Fontainebleau. More to come. Please do scroll to the end—the items in the last photo will never be seen again. And look hard: Eventually, there will be a quiz.

The coffee table in Mireille's living room.

The windowsill above Idora's kitchen sink.

Maurice Texier, 1940-something.

Idora and Ransom Tucker, 1940-something (Dad's in uniform).

A Provençal landscape, by Mireille Texier.

A Vermont landscape, by Ransom Tucker.

Detail of a plate displayed in Mireille's dining alcove.

A plate displayed in Idora's dining room.

Miniatures kept hidden in a box.

Cork people by Sara Phillips, kept hidden in a pouch.

A collection of stuff that might be useful someday . . . 

. . . but probably not.

Souvenir from a beach holiday (Spain, perhaps?)

Souvenir of a trip to the Georgia coast with me.

My Glamorous Life

Kelly and Forrest at home.

Thank God for Facebook. France is great, but I have not spoken with a single soul since arriving here two weeks ago, except my husband and the lady at the bank who filled out the papers for my debit card. She was very nice, but we really only talked about where I was born, what I do for a living (“auteur”) and the Randolph zip code—the last subject was discussed at some length. The bank lady’s computer wanted to know all nine digits of the code and refused to give me a card without them (they are 1337, I discovered after a Google search). I also had a brief but pleasant conversation with an elderly gentleman in the park who wanted to know if I was enjoying my walk (“Tu boulevarde?”). I responded with a look that said, “huh?” The elderly gentleman then proceeded to illustrate his question by dancing a little two-step jig like Zorba the Greek. We smiled. Other than that, my social life has been confined to Facebook.
     A few of the highlights from my news feed: A link to an article about my Randolph neighbor, Renaissance man Forrest MacGregor, profiled in the Randolph Herald by my friend Dian Parker. I am only slightly hurt that I—a college dropout who rescues dangling participles for a living—was not personally mentioned by Forrest in the following quote: “Vermont is a unique place. Here you have a cheese maker with a PhD. A farmer who studied at Vermont Law School. An engineer who sculpts. Such pockets of novelty! It is a place where the mind can flourish.” Forrest is currently working on a piece of performance art that involves an 1881 Mosler safe and a sledgehammer.
    Patrick, by the way, has accused me of mentally stalking Forrest and his wife, the lovely and talented Kelly Green. He thinks I’m obsessed with them. In my latest Forrest-and-Kelly dream, I went to their house and let myself in. This is not stalking. We are neighbors. Remember how Ethel on “I Love Lucy,” would just waltz into Lucy and Ricky’s apartment whenever she felt like it? She never knocked. Neither did I (in the dream, I mean). Anyway, I was barely inside the Green-MacGregor house when I heard somebody snoring, and I tiptoed out. End of dream.
    In other news: My cousin Paul is, on last report, migraine-free. He was last seen on Sylvia Cooley’s time-line looking aesthetically challenged (from a fashion standpoint) as a preteen in plaid pants. (Don't you just love oldies?)
     Now I am going to call my aunt Ruth and my aunt Lois and then watch TV with my husband. And thus begins another glamorous week in France.