Share The Love

Not lavender.

Stop me if you've heard this one, I can't remember if I posted it.

I was watching a movie some months ago.  It was a cute, and funny little movie, about a man who inherits a French villa from an uncle. 

There are a few amusing scenes throughout the movie, where the characters who aren't native to France each find a small container of lavender on the windowsill of their room in the villa.  Each one of them moves the lavender, and is consequently visited by a scorpion.  The French housekeeper scolds them for removing the lavender, and the scene plays out again with a different character.

These scenes led me to two revelations completely unrelated to the plot line.

1) There are scorpions in France.

2) Scorpions are repelled by lavender.

This prompted a flurry of googling.  How had it never occurred to me that there are scorpions in France?  Are they really repelled by lavender?  This could be important information should I suddenly win the lottery and travel to France.

I found a number of posts about the validity (or not, as the case may be) of using lavender to repel scorpions. (Mental note: Do NOT go to countries with scorpions.)

Among the scorpion postings, I found something FAR more priceless.  A blog.  More specifically, my discovery started with a post on this blog, about an American's experience with scorpions, having been newly transplanted to France.  Fascinated by the incredible photos, I read the entire post, and at the end, she linked to a couple other posts she'd written.  I followed them to the post where she first meets scorpions, and through her own discovery and testing of lavender.  By the time I'd read through all the scorpion posts, I was intrigued.  I had to find out what happened to her cat, I had to know if her husband was ok, I had to see more of these delicious recipes, I HAD to find out how this story ended.

I went back to the beginning, and started with her first post.  I ran back and forth to the computer whenever I had the chance.  It was like a beautiful book, played out chapter by chapter.  I felt like I was traveling with her from America to France, like I was experiencing all of their adventures along side them.  I was pulled along by each post. 

Then, I was sitting here one day, and went to click "NEXT" at the top of h er post, and there was no next.  I'd reached the end, of her posts.  At first I was distraught.  I NEEDED to know what happened next. 

I came back again, to reread the last post.  Maybe there was some indication of what happened, what I should turn to next, where she went.  I read through the post one more time, and came to the bottom.....and saw the date.  It had only been posted a few days before!  This was recent!  This story was happening RIGHT NOW! 

I'd gotten so wrapped up in her story, I'd forgotten that it wasn't a book, or a novel, or a history.  This blog was fresh. 

I wrote her a long comment that day on her blog post, relating my story, kind of like I've done here.

Since then, I read all of her posts.  I feel like I know her, though she knows nothing about me.

So today, I send you there, to share the love.  Go read her blog:

French Letters