Birfday

Well, it's my birthday again! I am celebrating in Paris for the first time in 5 years... last year Vienna, the year before Malaysia, then 2 years in a row in LA... and I'm going to have a dikskou in my paper plate-sized apartment on the Ile de France on Saturday.

But, before the disco on Saturday, today I had two birthday teas and one birthday dinner. The first tea was with a fellow weatherhead who also celebrated an Aries birthday, and the second was a total surprise. I mucked about with my little band of 3 year olds and one of the vegan mothers had made me a vegan princess castle cake which we tucked into after class. It was delicious and I LOVE a home-made cake on my birthday. Maybe it's the Teuton in me, but a birthday ain't no stinking birthday if there ain't no cake! (Is that a Germanic thing?)

This evening, I picked a tourist-trap restaurant on the Ile St Louis - one of Paris' most exclusive islands, next to the Ile de la Cité that holds Notre Dame. I liked the look of the heads and corks in the window and it was on the strength of that that my selection was made.






After being seated, the naff band in Gavroches started belting out time-worn French standards. We didn't really mind because the food was imaginative and the environment was pleasant. I did make a huge gaffe, however...actually, it wasn't a faux pas as much as it was me being my usual silly self.

They had a something tuna on the menu and I wanted a clearer explanation of what that meant. So the waiter - competing with the men in hats - explained it to me and this is what I thought I heard:

It's tuna that was killed by suffocation, with fresh olives and vegetables.

What?

I gasped.

You suffocated the Tuna before you cooked it? Why are you telling me this?

The BF and the waiter almost asphyxiated on their laughter at my mortified expression and the waiter's comment that my misunderstanding was mortel (fatal) was rudely appropriate to the throttled tuna!