It’s amazing how much of my Grade 5 French lessons in Mrs. Hammer’s class at South School have stuck with me. Especially John, Rick, and I sticking spitballs onto the ceiling, but also some important words and phrases in actual French.
For example: “Voila Monsieur Thibaut, il y a l’autobus” (“Hi Mr. Thibaut, please open the door”) and “Ferme la fenetre” (“Hand me the book”).
I can’t believe I can still nail some French after all these years, even if I have trouble working my phrases into social conversations. Oh, and I have tried, believe me.
But I’m sure those of you with a solid history of Grade 5 French have heard of the term “amuse-bouche”? That’s a phrase used by highfalutin chefs in highfalutin restaurants to describe a small, fancy complementary appetizer before the meal to “prepare your palate” and “amuse your mouth”. Although personally, my palate is always prepared and my mouth is hardly ever amused. Grateful, maybe, but I don’t think it’s chuckled all that often.
But speaking of chuckling, just like the amuse-bouche, this month-end column is dedicated to “amuse-cerveau” a term I made up after looking up the French word for ‘brain’, which of course is “le braine”. Kidding, it really is “cerveau” which sounds like a control device for mechanical systems (‘servo’).
So let’s see if your cerveau can be mildly amused by some tidbits from my G File (no, not ‘Garbage File’ - ‘Groaner File’)…
For example: growing tomatoes is the best way to devote three months of your life to saving $2.17.
Egg salad is still chicken salad when you think about it.
Good moms let you lick the Mixmaster beaters; great moms turn them off first. I don’t always carry all the groceries on one arm, but when I do, my keys are always in the wrong pocket.
Dad: “Could you pass me the newspaper?” Daughter (scoffing): “Newspaper! Obsolete! Here, use my iPad.” The fly didn’t know what hit him and the daughter wasn’t very happy either.
Be honest, if people heard what you are thinking half the time, you would either be in jail or a mental hospital. The older I get the tighter companies are putting the lids on jars. Also that coffee commercial got it wrong. The “best part of waking up” is going back to bed after you pee. Oh, and the best murder weapon would be a Tupperware lid because no one would ever find it.
How about some random words of wisdom? These days a million kids want to clean up the Earth - good for them! And a million parents want to start with their rooms. Isn’t it great that cell phones bring you closer to the person far from you. Doesn’t it suck that cell phones take you away from the ones sitting next to you? One big difference between men and women is that if a woman says “Smell this”, it usually smells nice.
Some random tidbits of trivia? ‘Canada’ is an Indigenous word meaning “Big Village”. Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined; whilst the state of Ohio has no natural lakes at all, every single one is man-made.
The chances that a road is unpaved: U.S.A. = 1 per cent Canada = 75 per cent.
In the States, their interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. Why? So the straight sections can be used as airstrips in times of war or emergencies!
I’m hoping a little amuse-cerveau translates to a heaping helping of ‘amuse-vieillir’. I looked it up. Vieiller is French for ‘getting older’. But still, I finally figured out what I want to be when I get older. Younger.
Harley Hay is a Red Deer author and filmmaker. Reach out to Harley with any thoughts or ideas at harleyhay99@gmail.com.
