I acquired the Vogue Paris 2008 calendar at the Lyons airport when we were flying back to the States after our New Years Alpine vacation. The calendar was packaged with the copy of French Vogue that I bought to further engage my French-primed brain cells. All of the thick fashion magazines in France come with a free gift such as a sac a cosmetique or a serre-tete. I wanted a French calendar because calendars are an excellent tool to learn a language by practical use.
Each month of the Vogue Paris 2008 calendar features a provocative female model dressed somewhat seasonally. The month is scrawled somewhere on her skinny body in paint. Each day on the calendar is listed with that day’s patron saint. I’m not sure if this is common practice in France or if it is an intentional juxtaposition of ‘sexy women’ and ‘patron saints,’ but it is not very user-friendly, as it leaves little room to mark down our trips, travel, appointments, and events.
I’ve never owned a calendar quite like this. I’ve always been partial to cat calendars, myself.
But look at me, I’m the ‘cool’ wife, so comfortable with her appearance that not even a calendar of half-naked models hanging in the kitchen can phase me. As anyone who has seen nude photos of French First Lady Carla Sarkozy can attest, the French have a different view on nudity that I find refreshing if not a little startling. “You can look at an artfully-taken picture of a sexy woman and see art, not something sexual,” I posited to Mr. P as I tacked up the calendar on the kitchen wall. “Sure, it’s just art,” he mumbled distractedly as we flipped through and examined each month. When we got to Miss June, he let out an enthusiastic “Wow!” and seemed to forget I was there. I guess he’s assimilating.
As shown in the picture to the right, Miss June is a willowy elegant blond, wearing a wedding veil and white bustier with painted-on painties and an, um, artfully-placed hand. She is by far the most enticing month of the year. One day in April, Mr. P took down the calendar to mark something down, and when he put it back up, it was opened to Miss June. “Is it June already?” Now Miss June has assumed her rightful place on the kitchen wall, and maybe it’s my imagination, but Mr. P seems to be spending more time in the kitchen, fetching drinks, washing dishes, and cooking dinner. It could be entirely unconscious on his part. And maybe this sounds really petite bourgeoisie housewife, but I don’t really care.
