Danger, danger!

Some of you may have heard about the protests and riots in France recently. Last week I watched a video of looters on one of the main streets downtown, right where we walked every day going to the office and school. Cars are burning and store windows being broken.

In the US, there are different kinds of danger in the air. Yessiree. You just can't be too careful. (I should have been tipped off when we landed at the airport and heard the "Terror alert is elevated" message played over and over.)

In our little apartment in Lyon, you could only get about 20 feet away from the kitchen. Even if you tried, that was as far as you could go and still be chez Masson. As a result, I seem to have lost the ability to cook and do anything else at the same time. Out of sight, out of mind. (Hence the burned lima beans at dinner.) So the lesson is that when you cook dinner in an American-sized house, watch out! It's not safe to leave the kitchen, even for a moment.

Aack! Which way? Which one?

Likewise, when you go the mall in the US, be on alert. It's not like when you ride the bus to the centre commercial and then take it home again in a couple hours. Nope. You have to concentrate and make careful mental notes about where you parked you car! (Again, a skill I seem to have lost while living in France.) Losing an entire car... very big, expensive danger.

And this one may blow your mind if you've been living in our little neck of France for a while. On a walk this morning, we found this in the street:

Boom.

 That's right. A handgun bullet. Although there were plenty of unappealing things I stepped in on French sidewalks, this is a new one for me.

Other dangers you may come across in America include running up your cell phone bill because you forget that incoming calls aren't free. Also forgetting to convert degrees Celsius to Farenheit in a recipe and reeeally sloooow cooking those brownies.

Be on alert, y'all!