Spring cleaning!

Mop the floors, dust down the top of every wardrobe and door frame.

Defreeze the freezer and clear every unidentifiable item from it.

Dislodge the fridge and sweep away the woodlouse corpses.

Attack the last inch of mould with bleach, make sure you wear gloves.

Beat the dust and hell out of the door mats.

Every mirror, every window should gleam and shine.

Degrease that kitchen hood. You know it needs it. And how about the top of the kitchen furnitures?

Make the tile grouts white again. Every last of them. Bathroom and kitchen included.

Plug the high sucking extension on your hoover, the long one, and suck up all the mess lodged between the carpet and skirting boards. (dust, rug pills, astroturf pellets, random screws, more woodlouse corpses).

Give the microwave a fresh start.

Get out all the spices, salt and pepper, wipe inside the kitchen cupboards. Same for the flour / sugar / tea one. Brush away all those remaining powders.

Once this is done scrub every door. The ones you open and spread your hands on so many times a day.

Get the last hair off of the living room rug.

May each smeared cloth be an ex voto, each dusty sneeze a prayer. Moping backaches shall be invocations, hoover chants shall be litanies. Let us clean together like we’ve never cleaned before and together worship Spring.

May Spring raise again in all its glory, may He resurrect from the cold ashes of Winter.

Ces mots qui me sont si spéciaux.

En anglais, j’ai déjà décrit quelques mots qui ont pour moi un sens particulier, en général en raison du contexte dans lequel je les ai découvert et parfois compris de travers. J’aurais aimé faire la même chose en français mais force est de constater que c’est plus délicat. L’apprentissage de la langue maternelle se fait trop tôt, de manière plus naturelle, et les mots en français ont souvent pour moi simplement la signification que leur donne le dictionnaire. Il y a malgré tout quelques exceptions.

Pour le coup je vais tricher un peu. Plus qu’un mot il s’agit surtout une image. Celle du paquet de mi-cho-ko au lait. Peut-être parce qu’ils faisaient partie d’un rituel, de gestes, mais pas de conversations. Il s’agit en réalité de l’objet, pas du mot. Je crois qu’ils ne se font plus comme dans mes souvenirs, ma version c’est celle avec le chocolat au lait à l’intérieur. On le laissait fondre en bouche, la couche de caramel s’amenuisait progressivement jusqu’à laisser le chocolat, chaud et fondant, s’échapper enfin. C’était comme une vague bretonne, de celles qui se jettent bien fort contre les rochers pour voler en écume. Chaque bonbon était aussi jouissif que le précédent, je ne m’en serais jamais lassée, j’adorais ça. On n’en avait jamais à la maison; les mi-cho-co, c’était chez les grands parents.

Je les revois. Ils étaient toujours rangés en bas tout à gauche du meuble en formica du salon. (Les mi-cho-co, hein !) Au milieu du salon, il y avait la super table, en formica elle aussi, avec une bordure dorée quelque part. Autour des pattes ou du plateau, sans doute des deux pour bien faire. Mais surtout, elle avait un plateau transparent qui laissait voir à l’intérieur de petits oiseaux artificiels. Des fleurs aussi je crois. Cette table était encore plus classe que des mi-cho-co, le top du mobilier. On a un sacré sens de l’esthétique quand on est enfant.

On sortait les cartes et le tapis vert, pour en fonction des époques passer l’après midi à jouer d’abord au nain jaune, puis plus tard au rami. Quand on était grandes. La première fois que j’ai joué au nain jaune j’ai eu dans les mains un grand opéra seulement je ne savais pas encore qu’on pouvait commencer au milieu puis faire le tour. C’est la seule occasion que j’ai jamais eue.

Quoi qu’il en soit, opéra ou non, deux-qui-prend-sans-trois ou tierce franche, on n’a jamais manqué de mi-cho-co, toujours posés au coin de la table.

Le soir, après un hachis parmentier ou des croissants ou jambon, on dépliait le clic-clac violet de la chambre du fond pour aller au lit. On faisait de la plongée sous lit-line pour aller chercher nos nounours dans les profondeurs des draps et on se battait quand l’une ou l’autre dépassait sa moitié du lit. Au milieu de la nuit, un lion terrifiant rugissait parfois. Il paraît que c’était juste mon grand-père qui ronflait mais je refuse toujours d’y croire.

... 

Je mangerais bien un mi-cho-co.

Chers voisins.

Que vos chaussures se mettent à prendre l’eau par un jour de pluie torrentielle.

Qu’une invasion d’insectes s’établisse dans votre pot de sucre.

Que votre dos se couvre de poils sombres.

Que vos pizzas à emporter vous arrivent toujours froides. 

Que vos clefs tombent dans du goudron frais au passage du rouleau compresseur.

Que chaque gorgée de thé vous brûle la langue, un peu.

Que le dentiste se trompe de gencive lors de la piqûre d’anesthésiant.

Que vous consommiez des pignons de pin rances et enduriez un goût amer persistant.

Que vos rires vous provoquent une toux déchirante.

Qu’une migration de limaces colonise votre escalier.

Que dans chaque bar, chaque pub, chaque restaurant, vous tombiez sur des tables bancales.

Que chacune de vos cigarettes se changent en menthol.

Qu’un cactus aux épines très fines vous tombe dans les mains.

Que chaque taxi vous éclabousse des pieds à la tête en vous dépassant.

Que votre chat dépose précieusement une crotte sur le pavé tactile de votre portable lorsque que vous rentrez tapageusement à trois heures du matin.

Little Green Riding Hood.

Once upon a time there lived a little country girl. She was an only child who lived with her mother on the outskirts of a village, in the middle of a vast land of hills. Everything was green all around for as far as the eye could see. The little girl was not used to the other children who impressed her a bit whenever she would meet them on market days. Her only friends were the farm animals: she would play the school teacher with rabbits, chase hens and sing nursery rhymes to newborn calves. Still, her games of choice would always take place in the fields. She loved running down the hills as fast as she could without falling, or would sometimes roll them down on purpose as she found the dizziness exhilarating. She would also build luxurious mansions by flattening the tall grass blades and layout mazes of corridors leading to spacious dining rooms. She knew the name of each flower in the meadow and picked a little bouquet for her mother every day. As much as she rejoiced in seeing her daughter so delighted, her mother often felt sorry to find her clothes smudged with grass stains. One day, she made a little green riding hood for the girl to wear when playing outdoors. The child liked it so much she would wear it at all times, and this is why everybody called her Little Green Riding Hood.

One day her mother, having made some cakes, said to her: Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she has been very ill. Take her a cake, and this little pot of butter. Little Green Riding Hood set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village. Somewhere in the middle of the forest, she met with a wolf. He would have very much like to devour her on the spot, for he had eaten but a shrew in the past three days, yet he dared not: he was too wary of the woodcutters who could be heard working nearby. As softly as he could he asked her: Well lovely girl, beautiful day for a walk. Where are you off to, alone in these woods? The poor child was innocent and very fond of animals. She only knew the gentle ones from the farm and could have not imagined there existed fiendish, dangerous beasts. She said to him: I am on my way to visit my grandmother who has been feeling ill. My mother sent me to carry her this cake and this little pot of butter. Why, the poor women. I know her very well but I had not heard of her misfortune. You see me extremely sorry to learn such terrible news. I shall walk along with you and bid her my best wishes.

Little Green Riding Hood loved her grandmother dearly so she was very pleased to hear a good friend would come and visit her too. On the way she was cheerful and voluble, asking the wolf a thousand questions about the woods, which she wasn’t familiar with. At the sight of an unknown flower she chortled and clapped her hands and called the wolf in her high pitched voice. The wolf patience was wearing thin. His stomach rumbled, he was drooling over the girl’s plump little fingers, and her shrieks made him nervous, for he did not want to be found out. Nevertheless he had to remain patient and play along some more but he knew his time would come soon. In fact he suddenly realized he had not heard the sound of an axe for quite some time and set out to jump on the girl. At that very moment, they were approaching a clearing and the child exclaimed excitedly: Oh look wolf! Look at that hill down there! Let’s race down! With these words she left him no choice and grabbed the wolf by the pawn. Caught unprepared, he immediately stumbled over a large root and hurtled down the hill, rolling and tumbling, only to violently end up his flight in a crash against the trunk of a wide oak tree.

Crying with guilt and despair, Little Green Riding Hood carried the unconscious wolf to her grandmother’s house. The good woman dressed his wounds and took care of him, and soon he recovered. He never regained his wit however, and the grandmother became famous in the land for owning the only pet wolf ever heard of since time immemorial.