Pentecost market

This is Pentecost weekend, and Paris is crawling with cops on every street corner. It's what Bison Futé [the "Clever Buffalo"], the French road advisory, calls a journée orange [orange alert day] for traffic, and they were stopping lots of drivers. I had to go to the airport this morning, but in fact the road was surprisingly empty.

"One would almost say that Bison Futé  is daltonien," commented a traffic reporter on Radio France Info. ["Daltonien" means "Down's Syndrome" in English--but you would never hear it used to mean "stupid" on the air, of course. Politicians are regularly called "autistic" by their opponents, too.]

(Update: Amerloque points out that Daltonien means color-blind, which I actually knew if I'd stopped to think. However, I'm not sure that the reporter didn't mean Down's Syndrome. Either way, you certainly wouldn't hear that out of an American reporter's mouth!)

Perhaps inspired by the publicité for Rungis (the huge farmer's market), I went early to the market today and got into a conversation with the greengrocer and his wife. He gets up at two in the morning on market days and they go to Rungis, buy their produce, wash everything-- especially the pousses d'épinards, or young spinach--then load it all on the truck and drive into Paris.

Today I tried in vain to keep them from slipping all kinds of extras into my bags-- a tiny bunch of bananas, a handful of chives, raspberries and three kiwis. I bought a pretty pot of small-leaf basil. "That keeps away mosquitoes," said the greengrocer's wife. "Put it in a bigger pot and keep it near your table when the window is open."

Not being an early riser on Saturdays by any means (the French have that lovely phrase grasse matinée, which means it's desirable to sleep late), I had had a vague idea that the market opened around 7 a.m. But today when I got there at 8:30, most people were still setting up their stands. I went off to buy some peonies that I coveted at the flower stand, and the florist's husband was still taking the flowers out of the big boxes and laying them in artistic fashion on the artificial grass of the tables. I had to take a circuitous route around the wooden cases to hand over the money.

"I'm early, I'm sorry," I said.

"No, no, I'm late," he said. "With the nice weather, everyone is out early."

"In China, peonies are a symbol of wealth," I told the florist. "I have a friend whose mother is Chinese, and she won't buy them because she says they're for the nouveaux riches."

"They're very popular in Paris," said the florist's husband drily.

"But there is la mode in flowers like everything else," said the florist. "For example, when we do markets in the country, everyone buys carnations, but in Paris, it's tulips."

"What are your favorite flowers?" I asked.

"Whatever is in season," she said. "Those are the freshest, cheapest and most beautiful."

"C'est la beauté des fleurs," agreed her husband.

It is finally a fairweather day today, almost the first day when it feels as if summer might arrive. I took this photo looking straight up at a magnificent marronnier.

Comments

[L'Amerloque]

Hi Sedulia !

/*/"One would almost say that Bison Futé is daltonien," commented a traffic reporter on Radio France Info/*/

Alas, what the reporter said had nothing to do with Down's Syndrome, in Amerloque's view.

What was meant was that Bison Futé was "colorblind".

"Vous êtes daltonien, ou quoi ?" can be heard quite frequently at traffic lights when a pedestrian crosses against the red or when a car pushes through a red light into a crosswalk filled with pedestrians.

When Amerloque drives in Paris (less and less nowdays with the jerks at the City Hall ruining the city for everyone) the word "daltonien" passes his lips assez fréquemment. (wide smile)

"Il existe plusieurs formes …/… la plus fréquente étant la confusion du vert et du rouge."

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daltonien

Best,
L'Amerloque

From Sedulia:

Of course, you are right, Amerloque. I knew that, too, how careless! Usually I look things up before making a blanket statement. I think what threw me is that I think the reporter did use it to mean "retarded."

Sorry! I'm changing it on the site as well.

[Patricia]

C'est un vrai plaisir de lire votre blog. Je suis Française, j'habite à Londres et c'est super de découvrir mon pays à travers vos yeux.

Amicalement

Patricia

Merci, Patricia! On apprend toujours beaucoup sur son propre pays en habitant à l'étranger, n'est-ce pas? C'est comme ça que j'adore lire Superfrenchie, Guillemette, et Big Picture: Croquis d'Amérique, qui me donnent un frisson dans le même sens.