On the plane to France, the seatbacks have the embedded TV screens, which offer a selection of movies and “games.” The games are sub-first-generation Game Boy, with the sole enhancement that they are in color rather than sick-green and black. But they do have my favorite game “Qui Veut Etre Un Millionaire?” I have already seen the three decent movies (Bourne Ultimatum, Darjeeling Express, and Ratatouille), so I end up watching a French movie about a famous author who takes a mistress and then introduces her to an Eyes Wide Shut sex club, and then she marries a rich psychopathic adolescent, who shoots the author, and then the mistress tells everyone about the sex club or something to get the crazy husband out of jail and then he doesn’t give her any money. Or something. It’s funny how influential French cinema was in the 50s and 60s, considering how bad they are at knowing how to make movies now.

Whoops, that’s your vacation.

Within the first day of my visit, it is revealed that grandmère #3116 is an unabashed racist. But this is cool. I like old racists. It’s a benign racism that sort of just underlies the fact that they are old and their grip on power is slipping. Not to mention Worker #3116’s hard and fast nullus rule that anyone over 70 can say whatever the death fuck they want. She tells me that they sure have a lot of blacks around these days, to which I offer the only real response: “Oh really?” “Yes,” she says, blowing a hiss of concerned homeowner air through her teeth. “You’ll see tomorrow on the train. The most important thing to remember is not to make eye contact with them, because they get agressive.” Really? That’s still a thing? Of course, considering the fact that they are still showing dubbed reruns of Melrose Place on French TV, it should come as no surprise that their modern concepts of race haven’t advanced beyond blaxploitation movies from the mid-70s.

Just to give you a sense of who we’re dealing with, when we’re dealing with grandmère #3116, on my first night she spills some wine on the tablecloth and prevents the stain by rubbing it with some artisanal Himalayan salt, you know, just whatever’s lying around. Later in the week, at a restaurant, she will get a small stain on her shirt, which she will remove with champagne. Champagne, motherfucker. This world was not made for you. It was made for her. And this Santa.

Santa in a Ferrari scarf.

In the subway station I see a kid wearing a “No Panic” jacket. I’m guessing this is the European knock-off of “No Fear,” but it’s so much more reasonable and thought out. “No Fear” is kind of an impossible sentiment, and I actually think it’s pretty dangerous to live without fear. But “No Panic” is something I can get behind. Live through the fear, the jacket is saying, even if the guy wearing the jacket doesn’t speak English.

French tree.

At dinner with my grandparents, an American mother and daughter sit next to us. The mother looks like she had her face stuffed after it died, and the daughter looks like she never met a sandwich she didn’t like (read: devour). Grandmère #3116 leans over to me and says of the daughter, “In a few years, she’ll be eligible for the Calendar Girls of McDonald’s.” This is hilarious on its own, but is revealed later to be a reference to an email forward that grandpère #3116 had sent me with a “McDonald’s Calendar” where all the women were naked and morbidly obese. These are the only type of emails that grandpère #3116 sends me, so he is amazed that I do not remember it. Later that night, he will go to his files and send me the email again, and then both he and grandmère #3116 will ask me at least four times each if I have seen the Calendar Girls of McDonalds yet. It is, apparently, the funniest thing ever. I’m not sure if it withstands translation.

One of the buildings of the National Library, which is found en route between my grandparents house and the city is lit up at night with a giant red X drawn by lighted windows. A taxi driver informs us “it’s for AIDS.” So there you go. You’re welcome, AIDS.

This poster for the new Aliens Vs. Predator movie is all over town.

It makes me laugh every time I see it.

On pedestrian crosswalks, no one can hear you scream.

I stop in Notre Dame the day before Christmas and sit in one of the pews listening to “Heaven” by UGK in honor of Pimp C. If you love your friends, no joke, tell them. Then I have an Amistad moment where I stood on all the shoulders of the people who did such a good job of being my ancestors by lighting a votive candle and putting it under the Jean D’Arc statue. I’m pretty sure she’s the patron saint of ruining Milla Jovovich’s career. The donations box said that the recommended donation for a candle was 2 Euros. I gave .7 Euros. I’m pretty sure my ancestors see the logic and wisdom in this, through their ghost eyes.

For Christmas Eve we go to grandpère #3116’s brother’s house for dinner. When we get there, everyone is at mass except for my great uncle, which is just enough time for him to tell us about how his wife’s brother, who would arrive just a few minutes later, was diagnosed with anus cancer and had his asshole sewn shut and pooped into a bag hidden under his clothes. The lesson: Freddy Krueger is like the impish Amèlie compared to the fucking nightmares that real life has in store for us. Later, at dinner, two of my cousins will have an argument over whether or not Ne-Yo is gay, and then my cousin’s girlfriend will ask me if we have Ne-Yo in the United States. Yes, we do, and yes, he is.

No Panic in 2008, you guys.