Flying Virgin? Bring a lunch...

Perhaps best complaint letter yet! Facts, proof and humor. This was sent to Virgin Atlantic customer complaints and apparantly head man Richard Branson himself called the author to thank him for the feedback.

Read, enjoy and I dare you not to laugh at some point....

Dear Mr Branson
REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008
I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit. Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.
Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don't get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it's next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That's got to be the clue hasn't it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

I know it looks like a baaji but it's in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you'll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It's only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what's on offer.

I'll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it's Christmas morning and you're sat their with your final present to open. It's a big one, and you know what it is. It's that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.
Only you open the present and it's not in there. It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing. That's how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It's mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.
Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.
By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it's baffling presentation:

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn't want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it's just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson's face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:


Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I'd had enough. I was the hungriest I'd been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It's another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard.... What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I'd done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn't eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can't imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It's just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it's knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincererly...

Now I don't know about you, but by the time I got to the cookie in the evidence bag I lost it, scared the crap out of Gabi and he watched me wipe tears from my ears and gasp for breath amid the laughter, and that was 6:30 am!

Here is the link to the original article: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/editors_corner/article/11975/

Cowlick

How many of you remember Alfalfa from the Little Rascals? Don't tell me that I'm that old that none of you remember the show! I watched it in reruns by the way so it was my parents generation but still ran when I was a kid.

Ok Remember poor Alfalfa and his cowlick, no matter how many times he tried to get that hair to lay down, it always stuck up. Well I have an absolutely horrid cowlick in the front of my bangs, thankfully nothing like Alfalfa's, although it sticks up, it is too long to stand straight up (thank god). It just drives me nuts, totally nuts. I'm too lazy to wash, dry and style daily, I have a life and have other things to do. I like brush and go hair. I've had long hair almost my whole life, till recently I've decided to try out a few different shorter styles. Although I did like most of them, short hair is just too much work! And this damn cowlick doesn't make that work any easier! At least when it was long and the cowlick acted up, I could pretend I was Veronica Lake or one of the other early actresses that pincurled and had the cowlick look in the front of their hair. I can't even do that now :(

So I just needed to complain about it today cause I did my hair yesterday, all nice and perfect then today wake up to my big old cowlick sticking up. Guess I'll have to work with it again, ugh!

Pink isn't just for Champagne anymore...

So tell me, what is it with French and pink toilet paper? Is it cheaper to make? It is a statement? Is everyone colorblind? Seriously just what is with the pink toilet paper??? It is EVERYWHERE and it is cheaper than plain white toilet paper. Wherever I go, whether a fancy restaurant or McDonald's I'm finding pink toilet paper and let me tell you, I don't like nor want pink toilet paper or any other color. I've a sensitive derrière okay? No dyes or scents need to make contact with what is below, no thank you.

This is just one of the things that does puzzle me, and it would be nice if someone could explain to me WHY???

Ah new layout!

So since I found out we can actually download cool templates for blogger I had to go find one. Is this not just so perfect for my blog? I love looking at it so that will motivate me to update it (I hope lol). I've been working on my Lenormand Leap site, I'm a tarot reader and have taken the leap to the Lenormand cards which I just love and find so much more intriguing than the tarot. so I'll try to pop in here to update, I'm promising myself on that one!

Mike is a green ball

So finally figured out what Gabi means when I ask him what film he wants. Ballon is his favorite word, we have balls everywhere in the house. Well he asks for a film and we go through the list:

le tigre et le mammouth (ice age)

les chiens? (lady and the tramp or 101 dalmations)

Balou? (Jungle Book)

Woody et Buzz? (Toy Story)

les poissons? ( Little Mermaid)

les monstres grrrr! (Monster Inc)

and so on and on cause Papa is constantly getting him new movies.

So today we go through all this AGAIN and finally at monstres grrrr! he gives a big smile, laughs and says ballon! So as I was starting the movie it hit me, MIKE! he sees Mike as a green ball, despite the eye and arms and legs lol it is still a ball for him.

It isn't too easy trying to figure him out right now, he doesn't talk alot that I understand. I know bilingual kids take a bit longer to really talk, but he understands everything and has started. When he says "il est la" I always laugh lol, it is just so cute but I'm so glad to hear it!

Flamby : French Style

OK here is a video done ten years ago on our webcam. We had just moved into a new flat then and had a housewarming party, Hawaiian Luau was our theme. It was great, all our friends came in grass skirts, leis and what not, a great attraction to see a group of 20 people walking down a Marseille street like that by the way ! We had a blast drank, ate danced, did the limbo (drunken style) and then at midnight was "tequila boom boom", which seemed to happen at every party at midnight.

So we had bought some flamby, they are little cups of flamby (flan in a cup I guess you could say lol) and what you do is open it, take the little sticker off the bottom (so it slides right out of the cup) upside down onto a plate. And then basically you "suck" the flamby up lol. This is not exactly easy in a room full of people, half or wholly drunk, and laughing your butts off. I'm the first girl about mid video, the only blond at the party lol. My husband is second guy in the video, after Fred's brief appearance (and his bushy head) lol

I completely forgot we had this video, I mean those days are looooong gone but I'm so glad we still had it. And I thought what better place to share it than on this blog!

Enjoy the video, there is no sound, otherwise you'd hear the laughing like crazy. At the end you'll see how it is done, the flamby being flipped out of it's cup. Why that part is at the end is still a mystery to me lol

No more snow

Well it was fun while it lasted, but the snow is gone and life back to normal here in Marseille. But in Forcalquier, where my in-laws live, the winter wonderland continues. Although no new snow, the temperatures have kept the white and Gabi was able to enjoy some snow fun over the weekend with his grandma.

On another note, Gabi did a little tinkle in the toilet last night! He is 22 months old and not ready to potty train, morning diaper is still soaked, but before bath we always ask if he has to fait pipi and instead of heading toward his potty, which he hates, we head to the big toilet. I sit him on it backwards, a little tip I picked up on a forum. sitting him on it forwards scares him, he feels like he is going to fall in, holding him up just makes him laugh and kick the toilet lol. So I figured I would try this and it works! He really pushes to try to pee when I put him on like that lol. Now we just need to get to the point that he is ready to tell me that he needs to peepee so we can begin the real training.

Long time no post huh?

LOL Well you know I completely forgot I had this blog! I'm horrible horrible at keeping up to date on this stuff!!! But Juli so kindly (as kind as she can be anyway lol) that I needed to get my butt over here and that I should be ashamed of myself for not updating in years! Yes it has been years! After Gabriel came well time slipped away. So I guess I should update huh?

As you can see by my little snowman there, all six inches of him, we got snow in Marseille! Twenty-two years in waiting but it came! Of course the city came to a standstill, schools were cancelled for today and now it is going away :( Yes the rain has come so we say goodbye to the snow! But it was fun while it lasted, especially for the skiers near the gare, I'm sure they had a blast with no traffic and lots of snow!

Maybe I'll keep this updated, it will all depend on what Gabi lets me do lol!!