Sure, snowbirds prance around in shorts and sunglasses in my native Arizona, but truly can anything compare to the humid, yet fashionable, snow monkeys of Paris?*
Paris may be cold and gray, but I'm already looking forward to a full agenda of terrific literary events easily reachable by clean, fast and efficient mass transit - not to mention our Sunday market where the chicken is so fresh I have to send my husband to buy it because head and feet have yet to be removed by cleaver power.
What has changed in the past month in France? Why, nothing at all!
Elsewhere, there is a new Pope, which is nice.
In discussing this with my own private professor I learned of the legend of the only female Pope, whose name was said to be "Jeanne". For Vatican traditionalists this is even worse than a South American poverty-seeker named "Francis". Whatever the outcome, there's definitely a movie in here somewhere.
What news from sunny Arizona?
Sheriff Joe continues his Orson Wells impersonation from Touch of Evil while waiting to be called home.
Meanwhile, in an about-turn of breathtaking suddenness, the extremely conservative GOP governor Jan Brewer has embarked on the radical project of expanding medical coverage to an additional 400,000 Arizonans. Once Obama's rudest critic, Brewer has now thrown her full political weight into convincing the not-especially-progressive Arizona legislature that Federally-financed Medicaid is not an evil commie plot.
A hard row to hoe, but angels are singing somewhere.
Having watched friends and family too young for Medicare be BANKRUPTED and LOSE HOMES in Arizona because of insane medical bills, I can only applaud this initiative. The winds of change, are they finally a-blowing? (See Time magazine's Steven Brill's excellent article detailing the perverse - and criminal - pricing of medical care in the USA - à la tête du client as we would say in France.)
As one personally grateful for the life-saving excellence of the French health care care system (thank you neurological ICU at Pitié Salpetrière!), I can only urge expats to share their stories of the Carte Vitale with their fellow Americans.
France could show America how to organize delivery of medical care to people under 65. In exchange, America could, perhaps, teach France about the usefulness of paying supermarket employees to cheerfully bag groceries. (And to distinguish cows from horses.)
* Japan actually. See WSJ article on Japanese hot springs for this splendid photo
