Princess arrives in the morning.
06:25 to be precise.
She's arriving in a new country, not the France I've spent the last handful of years dreaming of.
Elections were yesterday.
The radio is announcing that so far it looks like extreme right. The Front National.
Not the capitalistic right of Chirac that ran an inner country still more left-wing than back home, but the far, far, further than the Americans would dare right of Le Pen and his bright white ideas.
When I lived in Lyon so many years ago, there was a town not far away whose Mairie was that kind of right.
They had a book burning, they closed down the jewish association. I remember not believing when my cousine who lived in the neighbouring city told me about how their scout group went to help clean out the association headquarters.
Then she took me for a drive to see the ashes from the books.
That was 1998.
Wonder what they'll do this millenium.
Welcome to Gay Paree, princess, I wonder how Gay it will be by the time we board our planes West.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The elections page says it's only in the first round, and Chirac is still ahead.
The talk in the laundromat, though, was entirely otherwise.
People are scared, I live in an arab neighbourhood. The glances at the blonde this time weren't as sexual, more threatening than usual.
But Seb was there this time, he came by to help with groceries and stuck around to help fold my sheets when he saw the crowd.
I thanked him profusely, for his friendship, the way he treats his friends.
But y'know, carrying my laundry for me was NOT part of the deal. You shoulda seen the glances become suddenly startled as we played tug of war with my laundry bag in the middle of a sunny street.