Jalousie

By Todd Stadler · Friday, June 24, 2005 12:03pm

My friend Beeman is in France now on a two-week vacation. He recently wrote me an e-mail which told of how well the trip is going, especially his good fortune in staying in the houses of very nice locals: "Provence has been fabulous, a very enlightening look at why people yearn to be very wealthy. This house is a palace, the countryside is beautiful, the pace of life is slow, and the food is rich."

I always make sure to write to my friends when they're traveling, because I know what it's like to check your e-mail when you're abroad and find that nobody seems to have noticed you're gone. Below is an excerpt from my e-mail to Beeman.

Anyhow, since you left, America in general and Portland in particular has become fabulously fascinating. Don't bother looking for any mentions of the fact on any Web sites — it's all so fascinating here that nobody bothers mentioning it, either because they're having so much fun or because they don't want any losers coming over here and mooching off how great it all is. Anyhow, the food is just amazing, ever since that new cuisine style was discovered and perfected last Saturday. Wow! In fact, the since-last-Saturday cuisine (as I call it) was just certified as "five times better than even the best food in France", which is pretty amazing, since until last Saturday, I had heard French food was pretty good. And it's interesting that you're in France now. What a coincidence. Anyhow, all the French restaurants in Portland have closed (yes, all of them), because all people want to eat is the since-last-Saturday food. I think all the French restaurants were sold to a sanitation company, because now when people think of French food, they think of garbage, so it was only natural for people to take their trash to the French restaurants.

Let's see, what else? Well, the Democrats finally got the 15-hour work week approved, although right now most people are enjoying their mandatory eight weeks of vacation, so it's just really relaxed here. Of course, Bush is threatening to overturn the whole so-called "relaxed legislation" sometime within the next week or two. We'll see.

And finally, the housing bubble in Portland finally popped — big time! — and Julia and I were able to scoop up a nice 4,000ish sq.ft. place up in the West Hills for just under $150,000. It only has three bathrooms, though, and I'm not crazy about the giant Italian marble soaker tub.

Anyhow, it's a pity you've missed all these changes. I guess I'm happy for you that you're on vacation, but frankly France just seems so provincial now, I'm not sure I'd want to go. I hope I'm not making you feel envious of our fun time here in America. I'd hate to make you feel jealous while you're over there, slogging through the boring French landscape and choking down French so-called food. I mean, I know what it is to feel jealous, and it's a real bummer, so I hope you're not feeling it — jealousy, I mean. Because it sucks. Jealousy does. Or so I hear.

I find that subtlety is often the best way to get a point across.