Il est temps pour une Bath de Bulle

Bonjour mes amis. So, in her last post, my life partner and bathtime confidant Caroline Paster brought to light the magical world of "The Tudors." This land where hot British men roam free in pantaloons, drinking tea, jousting, scheming with hot European royalty, and engaging in many a frisky romp is quite possibly, the most beautiful and ideal thing I could ever ever imagine. Now, one of these extremely pumptastic male specimens, as Ms. Paster mentioned, is the King of France - Francois, or King Francis 1 for you history buffs. The name Francois takes me on a journey back in time- unfortunately not to the time where Francois and Henry wrestled all nekkid like in Episode 5 of the Tudors ( so hott. seriously.) - but to my fifth grade year- aka 'The Year of Francois.'
So, when I was in fifth grade, I became involved in program called "French Back to Back." Essentially this allowed for young fifth grade kids like myself to take lessons in the language and culture of France, to be followed by a 3 week stay by a snotty Parisian kid in your home, and then you in their home. As you may have gathered, I was paired with a boy by the name of Francois. Now, this turned out to be quite an interesting social experiment for the following reasons:
I am from Ohio, we don't get Frenchies there too often. And I was paired with...a boy!! The girl/boy pairs were rare and a BIG DEAL. Now here is what was interesting...Francois was, well, Tres Chic. Not only was he popular, HOT (at the time, I'm not into fifth graders sicko!!!), smart, rich (houses in Paris, Switzerland and the French countryside), he owned/raced/jumped horses, AND was an all-star soccer player. Overachiever much?
Me on the other hand - I took awkward to the extreme. I was chubby (I'm sugarcoating), I had these huge crazy-old-lady glasses that were blue with red and yellow spray paint (thanks mom), big messed up teeth with braces that I decked out in the color/order of the French flag, and my wardrobe consisted mainly of Andrew Lloyd Webber musical t-shirts and jeans/stirrup pants of every color of the rainbow. During my time in France, I wore a large assortment of American Flag t-shirts/button-ups and fanny packs. Seriously.
Our interactions mainly consisted of him challenging me in any and every sport, which ineviteably ended in my loss, tears and embarassment, him making fun of me in French (you KNOW when you are getting made fun of, language is irrelevant), him using me as a hurdle (literally. he thought it was hilarious to jump over me while I was standing up. I still have no idea how he did that), him drinking my dads beer, and him giving me indian rug burns. Every day with the indian rug burns. There are only so many indian rug burns you can get before you JUST SNAP you know???
Now, what was especially traumatizing about this period in my life - is that all of my friends didn't want to be friends with me any more, they just wanted to get in the shadow of Francois' luminous french glow. So, by the time my French exchange had come to an end, all of my friends were entirely uninterested in me sans Francois, and I missed the opportunity to be in the school production (and rap version) of Little Red Riding Hood. Arriving back to school on the day of the play, i was cast as the "French Tree." So, I overcompensated for this feeling of betrayal and immediately set plans to and married Michael Cox on the playground. This is obviously what has directly led to my bad habit of marrying people when I feel lonely, insecure and betrayed.
Sigh.
I often think about Francois, as we lost touch many years ago. I bet he looks even better now than he did 10 years ago. I sometimes contemplate sending a Christmas card with a picture of a hot girl and be like look at me now!!!! Maybe we can have a reunion on Montel or something.