All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

William Shakepeare, As You Like It

Shakespeare’s famous lines are more true now than ever with smartphones and CCTV; I occasionally take a photo myself of literally the signs that give an indication of life in 2020.

Here is a sign put up at the entrance to our beautiful park where I live in Meudon, France called the Terrace de l’Observatoire. It explains that the park is closed because of the virus.

We are not really allowed to leave our domiciles so it really feels like the Occupation around here, and we must always carry our paper when we leave the apartment (see below).

I am not surprised by the reaction of the French government to close almost everything down. After all, the Principe de Precaution is enshrined in the French constitution. Just look at this sign on French mail boxes. It is a danger warning for mailing a letter!

I saw the following flyer at a Paris area university. So the lock down (or up, out or in)  of a society where students would join a collective called “La Clameur” that is anticapitalist, ecologist and feminist is understandable. Just look at the screaming logo as the perfect image for the many French people who are always ready for a demonstration; except for now.

For my daughter this just adds to the surreal start to her middle school years. Back in January it was the recurrent strikes. Here is a screenshot of her class schedule. “Grève” indicates the teacher is on strike. These strikes were going on and off for several weeks when we also did not have the mass transportation running.

Finally, a bit of craziness directed at me from the good old USA. Living and working in France I still have to go through all of the pain of filing tax returns in the US. That is a long article in itself. But just follow the screenshots below when I was attempting to use the IRS Direct Pay to understand this mind altering experience.

At one point it is required to fill in your social security number.

I did this but then the form automatically adds dashes to the number.

I retried to do this several times, on three different computers, using different browsers with always the same result, this error message.

So anyway, this French-American has stocked up on wine and toilet paper while anxiously awaiting the liberation.

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