Our last project was working with jelly rolls (I am still in the process of making a quilt with my last effort) and at the moment we are making a cloth bag with all kinds of appliqué, embroidery and decorations on it. Last night our teacher started showing us how to use rubber stamps/dies. When I was thinking about writing a post about this I was talking to my colleague and we realized that in French a rubber stamp is called a "tampon" so I was chatting away to her and explaining how we had been using "tampons" to put pictures onto different fabrics and so on. It's weird when you live outside of your own country for any length of time because you end up effectively losing some of your own language and speaking - in my case - Franglais. For instance, a collapsible plastic crate (that you might use for carrying groceries) is called a "cagette", a basement is a "cave" and so on and when you can't instantly think of a word in English you just use the French word because everyone understands anyway. I noticed my sister (who lives in Denmark) does this also, just throwing Danish words into the conversation when she can't think of the English word. Anyway, if I ever start writing about making pretty pictures with tampons will someone please send me a comment!
Well my project is coming along pretty well and I picked out a few images to rubber stamp onto my fabric which I will later embroider. Lydie was explaining that you have to be careful to wipe off excess ink before you press it onto your fabric as it will run and spoil the look. So I explained that many, many years ago, when I first came to Geneva, I worked in the Budget Unit and was responsible for sending out hundreds of invoices which were all typed on the typewriter and had as many as six carbon copies. Well one time I must have been using carbon paper and touched my upper lip. Nobody said anything to me but as I walked down the corridor my friend gave the Nazi salute and walked off. I had no idea what she was on about until I walked into the bathroom and saw ...
Of course the obvious choice of photo there would have been Hitler but there's no place in my blog for him, so better Charlie Chaplin I think. And to think they had let me walk around all afternoon looking like this .....
I am usually pretty tired by the time I get home from this class as I go straight there from work and get home around 11 pm. So last night I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed when the phone rang and it was BLOODY TELEMARKETING COLD CALLERS! I get at least three a day and I was furious that they had the nerve to call at that time of night. OK I wasn't in bed yet but they didn't know that! Unfortunately, by the time I had picked up ready to give them a piece of my mind they had hung up. I had looked into getting a phone that could block calls but the only model that seemed to fit the bill didn't have a very good write-up as an actual phone, despite having the facility to block certain numbers. And the problem of course is that these buggers just keep changing numbers anyway. Since they are usually calling from an overseas call centre I can't block them through France Telecom either and for some reason I can't get my phone to switch to "silent". So when I want to have a siesta at the week-end I now have to turn the bloody phone off! These people are a real pest, and while for me they are more of just a nuisance, I can easily understand how older, more vulnerable people can be bamboozled by them. Ugh!!
telemarketing calls are so annoying. My phone does a good job of blocking most of them. Our new landline (we had to get one in order to get internet service) so far has not had any. I think it's a law here in U.S. that they can't call after 8pm
ReplyDeleteI think they have those laws in the UK too and most likely in France but most of them come from overseas anyway so there is little they can do about them. Sometime I just pick up the phone and stay silent - other times I pick up and hang up, but I would obviously prefer not to receive them at all. A
ReplyDeleteI've gone through several hours with salad stuck in my teeth - embarrassing but not life threatening lol. We have laws in Canada about telemarketers but that clearly doesn't stop them, we are on the do not call registry but still get them. We do business across Canada which has 4 different time zones, our client accidentally called us at 8am his time which is 5 am our time:) He hung up immediately once he realized his error before we could answer but then fessed up later that day - a really nice guy so totally forgiven. The hazard of working from home.
ReplyDeleteOh I know the hazards of time zone differences too. We couldn't get it through to my (ex)in-laws that Pittsburgh was around 6 hours behind us here in France! It's kinda frightening getting calls in the middle of the night though isn't it - almost as bad as a business meeting with salad stuck in your teeth!
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