Sunday Favorites -- Our Collection of Pierres

On this glorious July Sunday, I am most grateful to be able to pull a post out of a hat (well, out of my archives), and participate in Sunday Favorites, a blog party hosted by Chari of Happy To Design.

Click on the logo, above, for more summer reruns!

So, without further "adieu" (a little French humor there), my post from April 6, 2009 --
about the genial invasion of That Old House by three charming young Frenchmen.

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Background: In 2007, my daughter Alida studied at the University of Edinburgh.
She met lots of people . . . including the Pierres.

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To introduce today's offering from That Old House, here is a brief dialogue for

Two Women and Their Cell Phones:

Alida (at home in California): Ma? You remember those two French guys I was friends with in Scotland? The Pierres?
Me (at home in New Jersey): I think so. . . .
Alida: I traveled around the Highlands with them?
Me (suddenly recalling sleep-robbing nightmare visions of teensy rental car packed with 20-somethings plunging off treacherous rural Highland roads in blinding mountain blizzards): Ah. Yes, now I remember.
Alida: Well, they're coming to New York in November, that first weekend, and I kind of told them that they could stay at our house. (short pause) I'll be home that weekend, too.
Me: You will be home for your cousin Maggie's wedding.
Alida: Ummm...yeah. Is that a problem?
Me (realizing that 22 is the new 8): Well. . . .
Alida: Oh! And they'll have another guy with them. Guess what his name is?
Me (taking a wild stab): Pierre?
Alida: Yeah. (short pause) Pretty funny, huh?

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And so, Our Pierre Collection, or: A Tale of Three Pierres . . .

The Three Pierres were a big hit at Maggie's wedding:

Left to right, New Pierre, Tall Pierre, Alida, and Pierre Pierre.
(How else does one tell one's Pierres apart?)

My gracious sister invited our out-of-town guests to Maggie & Garrett's wedding.
They had a blast; weddings in the USA are apparently quite different
from weddings in France. We have way more food. The Pierres ate themselves silly.

After discovering that the three under-dressed guys who talked funny were not gate-crashers,
the other guests were quite taken with The Three Pierres.

Alida became "that girl who brought three dates."

(Pithy social commentary, from Tall Pierre, on marriage:
"This being with one woman for the rest of your life -- I do not see it, unless you are very sick and will be soon dead.")

The Morning After, the Three Pierres made crepes for us at That Old House:

Let me tell you, Frenchmen make wicked good crepes:

We ate the crepes, French style, with a slathering of butter, a light sprinking of sugar,
and a good big squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Try it. . . you will like it!

These are not just any Three Pierres, not your common garden variety sort of charming French fellows. They are graduate students in Civil Engineering, studying last fall in South America, and together had just won an international prize for some sort of something-or-other involving ... cement. Or concrete. I can't remember which is the right term.

We were sad to see them go. Who knows what else they might have cooked?

Goodbye, Tall Pierre, New Pierre, and Pierre Pierre!

My niece Grace, bride Maggie's 20-year old sister, will be studying in Paris next fall at the Sorbonne. Tall Pierre lives in a houseboat on the Seine. I casually suggested to my sister, Grace's mom, that Alida give Tall Pierre's cell phone number to Grace, so she would have someone in Paris whom she knows.

"Ummm... Tall Pierre?," said my sister. "And Grace? Umm... no. No. No."

But cousin Maggie and her three sisters all say that every girl should have Three Pierres at her wedding.

I hope you got a kick out of my Three or More Tuesday story. That Old House is quite miffed that she is not the subject of today's post, but I told her that she can't always be the star.

And after all, how many ladies of her age have three Frenchmen spend the night with her? All on the same night? Oooo lah lah! -- Cass