Vocab Friday: Je couve.

Ahhhhh, mon rêve. My sweet chilled bubbly beverage of choice. Soon we will be together again, I promise. But for now, I sit. I wait. I dream.

That’s life these days in Paris. With August approaching, we’re just on the cusp of full-fledged vacation mode, when Parisians flee the city in search of rocky beaches or country homes. Parking spaces will be abundant (and free!). Shops will paper up their windows and lock the doors until September. Hordes of tourists will pack the metro, but beyond Notre Dame and the Eiffel, this place will be a ghost town.

So I’m going to try my best to enjoy the peace and quiet, which parents everywhere assure me will soon be a quaint foreign concept. Maybe I’ll waddle on over to the Paris Plage and wonder at the weirdos who are brave enough to swim in the Seine. Perhaps I’ll spend a few extra minutes chatting up my favorite guy at the Saturday market, the one who only sells blueberries. I could try to do a little writing work. I will definitely not feel too guilty about watching an entire season of Damages in 4 days.

But other than that, I’ve got nothin. There’s simply not much else to do when you’re 9 months pregnant in a town that literally shuts down in the summer time. So I’ll sit. I’ll wait. I’ll dream.

*      *      *

Which leads us to today’s vocab lesson:

couver (coo-vey): To sit on. Like a nesting chicken sitting on her eggs, waiting for them to hatch. Which is pretty much what I am right now. As in,

“Hey whale belly, what are you up to this weekend? Anything fun?”

“Oh, you know, je couve.”