Madame L

Our landlord is crazy. Sweet and oh-so-typically French, but certainement folle. Every day so far has given us a new angle on her unique personality – I can’t figure yet whether her craziness will be problematic, but for the time being it has been entertaining...

• We spent the better part of our first day with her in the apartment. After explaining that she blames the lack of gas in our apartment on “les Ashkenazs” (!), she set out to be as thorough as possible in instructing us on how to use the basic stuff in the apartment (like trash cans) and chronicling every item of a centime’s value or more – from the random ham-holder we found in the exceptionally large closet, to the hundreds of plates / bowls / utensils that were in the kitchen. She also spent what felt like hours telling us how attractive she thinks the furniture is (it isn’t). Thankfully she showed some signs of forgetfulness, so I began telling her that we had already accomplished some of the later tasks on our list.
• She came by on the morning of Day 2 to check in on us, and after I let her know about the cat hair’s allergic effects she insisted on taking me to a healer to de-program my allergies (I only agreed because she offered to take us to IKEA afterward, and we hadn’t picked up our car yet). After driving approximately 45 minutes to another departement, we went into a rotting log cabin on a lake where a sixty-something French woman with an impressive fupr swung a pendulum over my chakras, cleaned the stress from the seven invisible layers of my extra-body, and instructed my body on how to resist allergens by writing the name on a piece of paper then stirring a red-lit probe clockwise around my palms and heart. On the way home, Madame L explained her Tolkein-ish belief system and the supernatural powers she possesses: in addition to the elves (which control above-ground vegetables), and gnomes (root vegetables), her moral purity allows her to communicate with the fairies that control the clouds and the sun. However, she will only change the weather on very special occasions, so don’t bother asking for favors.
• On our fourth day, she took us to Orly airport to catch our flight to the Cote d’Azur (very sweet) and proceeded to tell us about how the Bilderberg group rules the world (I want in).

I’m sure there will be more in the way of stories from this one. Stay tuned…