Basic advice regarding what might be called multitasking. If you’re going to learn French, go for it and learn French. If you’re going to rent a disabled-accessible van in Paris, go for that too. Just don’t do both at the same time.

Actually, I don’t find language learning all that funny. So let’s forget the anecdotes. Suffice it to say that after a series of email exchanges, a French company had informed me that I could rent a van with a fold-down wheelchair ramp and tool around Paris for three days for a mere $1000. Which, a friend pointed out, represents the monthly wage of most people in France.

How did we get here? How did I get there? Hard to say. But if you focus on getting the details right and ensuring that, say, you pick up your car at the Gare du Nord instead of the North Pole…well, having scrutinized the French text very carefully…you may ignore everything else. Such as the fact that you are renting your van from a company near Lille and the Belgian border…and someone has to ferry your car to and from Paris…which costs money. Whatever money is, since you’re looking…and not very carefully…at euros, not dollars.

Actually, instead of looking at travel practicalities, I’m looking over my shoulder…wondering if anyone is watching. They aren’t, but I am. And what I’m noticing is that my otherwise verbally confident self has been reduced to a three-year-old. It is humiliating, learning a language. And that’s the thing. A little humiliation, of the right sort, is actually good for us. Can’t be on top of things all the time. Can’t even have that illusion. That’s because things are on top of us. Even if you’re not FBI director.

So while distracted by this simultaneously French learning and French travel planning…I did manage to actually land one fish, vis-à-vis, an actual van rental. However, it is a starter fish. And it must be thrown back, catch-and-release style. Still, it’s in one’s game bag, as it were. And frankly I feel like stuffing the thing and putting it on my wall. And even if it isn’t on display, des courriels (emails) are. The latter are rich with vocabulary and doubtless very instructive to review. And I will take a good look at them one of these days. Just as soon have sorted my sock drawer.

And oddly, however International one may feel, the truth is I really haven’t done half of the trip planning that needs doing. No one, particularly in a wheelchair, can imagine what traffic is like, on car and foot, in any city anywhere. And by ‘traffic’ I don’t mean congestion. What I actually mean is access. The route from our hotel to my cousin’s house looks very doable. On paper. Onscreen. But on the road the wheelchair experience is bound to be different. And only rarely is this difference enjoyable. Mostly, it is just a noisome obstacle.

Anyway, while messing about with French participles, I did forget to truly and deeply check out the public transit in my cousin’s suburb west of Paris. Actually, I didn’t forget, more gave up. I was using Google maps…instead of Google.Fr, which, I deeply believe, would reveal an entirely different cityscape. And even if it doesn’t, Paris has as good a transit website as any city, and I need to spend just a little time there. And a little less time with my French-English dictionary. You get the idea. More as this unfolds….