don't bogart that Gauloises

We have a Chinatown and a Greek town, Pilsen for the Czech's (now Mexican), Andersonville for the Swedes (I assume that includes Norwegians and Finns), Lincoln Square for the Krauts and three Little Italys, but what of those colorful Frenchies with their striped shirts and squeeze boxes and those awful stinking Gauloises (googling around for how to spell this wiki tells me that they now have filtered Gauloises, can you imagine?).

I don't think I've heard of Frenchtowns or little Paree in other cities.I think what happened was they came early, and then they simply stopped coming, or if they did they went to Canada. 

You know what I hate about restaurants?  You're sitting there eating and drinking and raconteuring, and maybe because you are raconteuring, you are not shoving food into your mouth, but you are maintaining a steady pace and you get to the point where there are still three or four tasty forkfuls on the dish, and the damn waiter is interrupting your fascinating conversation to ask if you are finished.  Finished?  I'll be finished when the damn plate is empty.  I'm paying for this damn meal and I plan on eating it all,  I seem to remember hearing many years ago that a gentleman or a gentlewoman always leaves a little food on their plate.  Even then I thought what a terrible idea.

My sister is a bigtime Francophile, and when we eat in a French restaurant, she points out, and experience bears this out, that the garcon will never ask to take your plate until it is empty.  I make a lot of fun of the French, but I will have to give them this point.

I have another friend who is a Francophile and he has been to Canada, and he says the French spoken in Newfoundland is different than the French spoken in Quebec because they were settled at different times.  I've heard that in Appalachia they speak a form of English that is closer to English of the seventeenth century than the English of today.  What about an English accent?  I can't help it, I know we won the war and they have lost all their colonies and are now heading for the backwaters, but every time I hear that accent, I think the speaker must be smarter than I am.


I don't recall the video that Old Dog speaks of.  Does he still know where it is?   But yes it is my freak flag.  I've never been one for careful trimming and when the morning glories and tomatoes begin their lustful battle for control of the railings I cheer on both sides. I have had some bees buzzing through my garden, I like to think they come from the bee hives on the roof of City Hall.  Technically I could be fined for it but I also keep a couple bird feeders. 

I don't know who the powers that be think of my little corner of jungle amidst the mannered gardens, but I don't think they mess with me because of that treasured American principle that a man's home is his castle.