Shades of Gray

There’s no mistaking that fall has arrived in Paris. Leaves are gathering in the gutters. Each morning we wake up to a little less daylight, and each night we emerge from the Metro to a little more darkness. But the clearest sign is that the natives have switched to their fall wardrobes. The temperature might only be in the 60s, but it is September -- summer is fini -- and so they wrap themselves in scarves and bundle up in sweaters, coats and the color black. As much as anything, l’automne is a state of mind.

It would be nice if health insurance were also a state of mind, because then we might be able to more easily obtain it. As it is, we are still waiting to be registered in the French social-security system and enrolled in my company’s mutuelle. Once this is done, we will be able to submit for reimbursement the receipts from the visits to doctors that we’ve already made. In the meantime, as Ashley’s back continues to bother her, said receipts pile up -- not quite like leaves in the gutter, but rather in a carefully kept folder, until they can be sent to their final bureaucratic resting place, wherever (and, more vexingly, whenever) that may be. It is frustrating -- to say the least -- not to be officially part of the healthcare system that is said to be one of the great advantages of living in France. Another great advantage is all the vacation time you get, but on that count, fear not, dear reader: with less than three months to go in 2010, I have used or earmarked 43.5 of my 44 days (which technically consist of 25 days of congés annuels (regular vacation) and 19 jours de temps libre (the extra vacation days that non-hourly French workers were given when the government officially shortened the work week from 40 to 35 hours)). Unlike Ashley’s back, that feels very, very good.

Given our lingering administrative issues, there’s French phrase I learned recently that has stuck in my mind: c’est nul. My French teacher told me you can use this to describe, say, a movie that you didn’t like at all. I don’t think there’s a clear counterpart to this phrase in English. We might say something’s “no good” or it’s “crap.” But this is like saying something’s “null” or "zero" -- so unworthy of your time that it does not or need not exist. Alas, this is what we are in the eyes of the French healthcare system (technically, I suppose, we are not). Until, that is, some administrator in some office somewhere decides that we do -- i.e., that we are, and our null-ness is magically transformed into social-security numbers. And that will be a great jour indeed, no matter what the weather.

-- MBB