J'ai Fatigué = I Have Tired

When my youngest niece was 4 (only 2 years ago), being Franco-American, she would have difficulty with the use of the verbs to be and to have, which are auxiliary in French and thus have to be learned individually, and would say j'ai fatigué (I have tired) instead of je suis fatiguee (I am tired). This became her go-to-phrase whenever she didn't want to do something or felt needlessly and cruelly put-upon by the adults around her. She would lean back, sometimes dramatically putting a hand up to her forehead, and say as lamentably as possible "J'ai faaa-ti-guéééée" as she would almost stumble away looking for the nearest soft surface on which to crash.

This incorrect, but impossibly cute as acted out by her, turn of phrase became a joke on the French side of the family so that now whenever one of us, and I in particular am guilty of this, is overtired or simply weary he or she will say "j'ai fatigué" to the others.

And now I'm telling you, any of you who still come by and see what I'm up to even though I'm absent most of the time now, that j'ai fatigué.

Baby Saffron is the most adorable baby I could wish for, and the most alert I could have asked for. She turned 4 months old this week and is up almost the entire day since she sleeps for up to 12 hours at night (with feeds of course), so I'm tired.

We got everything ready to go to Paris and then we couldn't go, which should have been predictable at this stage, but as that brilliant writer John Updike wrote "hope bases vast premises on foolish accidents, and reads a word where in fact only a scribble exists." So I'm tired.

I took the opportunity of not going to Paris to go see my sister in Chicago and visit my nieces, including the aforementioned quote-maker. I went by myself with Baby Saffron so my sister could meet her while A. stayed here and tried to fix things so we could go to Paris. It's a long trip to get there and back, I was there for three weeks, and now I'm back, and we still can't go to Paris yet, so I'm tired.

I'm mostly tired because I don't like it here, or at least I don't like 97% of it here. I'm here because A. couldn't leave here for reasons that are very complex and long to explain, so I came to him, a little over a year and half ago.

The only thing I'm not too tired to do is still try to get in the kitchen and bake things. Though most of the time I'm too tired and short on time to take any pictures and do the whole thing after that (if I can figure out the time to do it while taking care of my little killing-me-with-cute-bundle).

I got a new computer while I was gone which was nice but now I can't find the pictures of the last Daring Baker challenge - the Bakewell Tarts - and on top of that, since it's a Mac, I am trying to figure out Aperture which is not at all like any of the photo software I've used before (like I have all the time in the world for that right?) I might make the Bakewell Tart again to christen my new rectangular fluted pan which I love whole-heartedly, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

The new Daring Baker Challenge is coming, just don't hold it against me if I can't finish it for today, but it's definitely half done. So it really is coming this week unlike that damn Bakewell Tart which may never come around again.

I will give away cookbooks when we finally get out of here, just for the sheer joy of making total strangers happy, because I'll be so happy that we're out of here, so if you're checking on occasion because that's what you're waiting for, it will happen, I just don't know when although I wish I could say I was giving them away right now in this post because it would mean we were gone.

Don't get me wrong, I have many things to be thankful for and I am fully aware of them, but sometimes I just get really really tired. And then I have tired, instead of being tired.

J'ai fatigué.