Doubledecker Shakespeare and Company

No clue how it got to be Thursday. Do I work backwards or forwards? Sunday, the flea market, Monday, the Champs Elysees planted like farmer's fields, Tuesday another view of the Eiffel Tower and a double decker bus ride, yesterday, a stroll through Mesopotamia at the Louvre.

Les Puces, the Sunday flea market at Clignancourt. Where are Linda Heck and Keri Moser to help work through racks of vintage clothes and chotskies? There are acres of things, plus the stores with "real" antiques. Plus the hawkers of clothes and shoes lining the streets before you get there. I would like to tell you that I left with some small thing, but indecision meant I took only inspiration. And the possibility of returning.

Monday the Champs Elysees was closed to traffic as the farmers of France turned it into fields with crops and trees. There was something vaguely hilarious about walking on top of one of the busiest streets in the world, posing in front of stoplights. Again I was taken with the ability of Parisians to stop and enjoy each little section, each set of plants, and pose for pictures in front of say a row of pineapple plants or sunflowers. Then pop into the Disney Store or Zara for a quick shopping sidebar.

On Tuesday we had planned to visit the aquarium and it was closed, only I think we were at the Museum of the Marine and I simply didn't know where the aquarium entrance was located (Dear Paris, more signs please, or a map at Trocodero) so I thought it was closed. Rachel suggested we take a bus tour. She practically ran across 4 lanes of traffic and hopped on a Tour Rouge bus. For something I had vowed to never do, it was a load of fun. The vantage is unbeatable even if the tinny static-filled earphones are tiresome. And you get little gems, like that the Seine bridge at Place de la Concorde was built with stone from the Bastille so that the people of Paris could continue to trample them underfoot...Parisians and their freedom of Man thing again...we walked most of the way home through St. Germain then returned home and stopped at Cafe des Industries for dinner. No sign of the cat who is usually perched on the benches in the back. CDI is a great place to play ISpi, It looks like someone's idea of an explorer uncle's run down study, with snakeskins and animal heads, old radios and car models, contemporary and old paintings, and ... the gallery of breasts, or what looks like every cliched picture of topless native women ever published in the magazine of the yellow border. The crowd is fun, the food is never bad, and they have a nice Quincy and even nicer tiramisu.

After catching our breath in the morning yesterday we visited the Mesopotamia rooms (actually the Near Eastern Antiquities) at the Louvre. Joshua was a fabulous tour guide, explaining kingdoms and kings, the significance of the potter's wheel, and the establishment of law with Hammurabi's code (for every expression of freedom in Paris, there is an equal expression of le loi!) The little prehistoric female deities are my favorite, along with the giant room of griffins tiled in blues and greens...hello new paint colors for the house. Rachel plans to make a cylinder seal, I think she started with one of the many wine corks in the apartment...we ended the day at our neighborhood bistro where the guys met us and sang, you guessed it: I ain't no student...of ancient culture...before I talk...I should read a book..


AND, I was able to slip out and hear the incomparable Marilynne Robinson read at Shakespeare and Company...and she did when asked what in Idaho could have inspired her to create Pulitzer Prize winning work, reply that it was 4 years of Latin in high school, followed by another in college. Is there a better teacher than Cicero? she asked...

Villette

So yesterday was a big outside day - off to Villette!! First we took the metro to buy a soccer ball at Les Halles, and I realized how absolutely integral it is to our lives now. I will really miss the train, and how you pop up out of the metro into another world, whether it is only 3 blocks or 3 miles away. Anyway we traveled with our newly acquired soccer ball to Park Villette which is in the northwest part of the city. The park is flat, with 35 hectares of green space, and there are some museums there, but a lot of separate fields and playgrounds, all along a section of canal. I forced the children to writhe out into the sun like snakes emerging from a crevasse while I lounged about and read. Many many families were there, it was nice to see hordes of children. On the way out we stopped at one of the vendors and had churros - the funnel cake of France I call them. I tricked the children into walking home along the canal - probably about 2 miles - from Villette to Bastille. It was a beautiful day, and we wandered from one neighborhood into the next. Swarms of people were outside, either sitting next to the canal, or at a cafe, but not the tight tourist crowds of midtown, thankfully. We passed a flea market, and men playing boules, and playgrounds over the covered part of the canal. And of course we end by looking at the July Column at the Bastille monument through the trees, which has now become our familiar homing beacon.

Perfection

Sometimes the day seem to fall into a perfect pace. Thursday broke and the weather was promising, so we headed to rue de Cler and spent a huge amount of time picking things for a picnic at the Champs des Mars. We found white peaches, cherries, wonderful sausage and goat cheese in ash, pistaches and of course eclairs! The day was clear and we even have sunburns to show for it. We read and looked at the Eiffel Tower all day. My morbid fear of heights keeps us from attempting a climb to the top, but it was lovely just to look at. And my favorite part was opening my eyes to see a black poodle, perfectly coiffed, looming over my face with a tennis ball. He just played and played and fetched the ball then moved to another set of picnickers.

Yesterday revolved around getting to the lab, but in the morning, conveniently on the way, we stopped at Chatelet and walked on the side toward the Louvre, and for several blocks there are pet stores and gardening shops. Rachel in her quest to keep a count of dogs each day counted 88 in less than an hour. The animals were chubby and clean and so many people work in the stores that each animal gets taken out and fussed over quite a bit. The only truly odd thing were the cardinals for sale in one store - 68 euros each. Oh, and dogs are really pricey - some fancy chihuahuas were 1950 e.

There was a great little place for a hamburger close by, then we continued on the metro to the photo lab, which Stephen will blog about soon. It was amazing. We had a tour not only of the digital lab, but also the old black and white lab where they still make prints in the darkroom. Wow.

And then the babysitter came and Stephen and I went to L'Area, a very popular place on rue de Tourennes. It has to be one of my favorite dinners ever. Eduardo the owner suggested ceviche, and it was sublime. Not too sharp or over the edge, a ceviche for lingering. Beautiful presentation with lemons and tomatoes and cilantro. Eduardo chose a wine, and to our great admiration brought a simple white rioja, perfect! The menu is brazilian and libyan: Stephen had melt away chicken with coconut and ginger called Franco a Salvador, and I had some kind of poached salty fish with a sauce and mashers. You know how fish reminds you of where it's from, like when you have a bite of the ocean? This was like a bite of the seafloor. I think a great dinner takes you other places while you are eating: through oceans and tributaries, vast meadows or high trees. It should give you a memory that you've never experienced. The ending was a chocolate mousse with candied ginger so thick it was like a ganache. If you know me you know how much I like to cook with ginger, so I loved this place. 4 blocks from our apartment.

Again

with the haircut, because it took...four...hours. yes the kids were with me. I could not get them to go the the park around the corner or to the bakery to get something to eat... and no, I did not expect this to take four hours. Pourquoi? First, there is a consultation, then one with the English speaking colorist, then cut and dry before we color. Because they are not about my garish American highlights, let me tell you. The colorist says, "I am going to fix it." Whatever. She explains the steps and then says she is going to put on some "clear." OK. So, three hours into this process, I am worried about my children. They are being angels, as the guy who actually cut my hair said later. But I am a little worried. Each step is taken with great care, and this whole process involves not one but three head massages. But as I am waiting in the chair, well into hour four, I am looking in the color book and noticing that the page about "clear" has models, beautiful of course, but all BLONDE. The squirrels in my head come to a complete standstill. Okay Dokey. This is an adult situation. We are going to act like an adult. In fact, we will love our brown roots and bright in appropriate blonde hair. It will be okay.

Needless to say it had nothing to do with blonde hair. It was some kind of shine. But after four hours they could have given me My Little Pony hair and I would have said, hey, cool, thanks! The kids were dazed zombies. My hair is awesome. Again, everyone there seemed so interested in their part of the job. And let's be clear, I paid no more than I pay at home and this was not a high dollar left bank shop. I may go back just for the head massage - when I have a sitter!

We spent the afternoon (it is gorgeous again! Thank you Paris!) at Luxembourg Gardens with a new friend and one of her delightful children (do you know how hard it is to find a hip brunette with a bun, jeans and converse and child on a sunny afternoon at the jardin?) The kids pushed the boats around for quite a while. Apparently while I was blabbing instead of watching attentively a little boy who thought Rachel was pushing HIS boat whacked her on the wrist with the pushing stick and starting yelling at her in French. Thankfully she just ignored him and we didn't have to deal with a body retrieval...we wandered over to the playground, which has a nice climbing feature and also a zip line - not as big as the one Stephen made in Monteagle yard that covered half an acre, but nice enough. Also, we watched our friend's daughter meet a little French girl and hit the tragic language barrier. This sweet girl offered her a place on a little toy and twirled her around, and then stood dejected as her overture in french was met with a stare. So sad.

An orangina at a cafe on St. Germain on the way home...a polite waiter, one who smiled...I could get used to this.

Haircuts and stuff

I explained to Rachel today that we are having an unusual visit to Paris. We are seeing how a neighborhood works, like getting to know our bakery and ice cream shop and little bistros, but also dropping in on the tourist things. Rachel was commenting that when you see pictures of a city you see the big things but you don't normally see all the buildings and none of the ugly things. And we've stepped over some pretty ugly things. The human miasma of a city. I've also tried to express my great love for the thrum - I turned to Joshua on the metro and told him that sometimes I have to pretend I'm just one cell in the bloodstream of a giant human circulatory system. Perhaps that's one reason our transactions take so long here - people make an effort to humanize them whether it's buying bread or getting a haircut. The kids came with me to the photo lab yesterday - 11 stops on the metro but no line change...and boring as hell to them but perhaps a little insight into the day life of the adult world. They also were able to go swimming!

So yeah the kids got haircuts yesterday, and mine is in a hour. And the tourist part? Besides eating at MacDonald's on the Champs Elysee yesterday (a very different experience than the drive through in Monteagle!!) we went inside Notre Dame, left a candle for Jeanne d'Arc, ate a citron crepe and then climbed the steps up to the belltower. I hate, btw, heights of any sort. Our 4th floor apartment view makes me dizzy. I got through the whole claustrophobic thing with the mantra, "I love my children, I love my children..." of course the reward is that stunning view of Paris with the gargoyles standing guard...

Time Warp

I swear I am in a time warp. I don't seem to be able to leave the apartment until 10 am at the earliest and having dinner at 10 pm is not the least bit unusual. Of course it isn't here. Look, it's 9:39 and not nearly dark. My children are now in a perpetual state of exhaustion. Last night, we went to Night of the Museums, and visited the Grand Palais where giant bubble machines were hooked up, dispensing bubbles from above. It was all very sweet. There were about a dozen machines, and each one presented a different scent, not all of which I could identify. For crying out loud, I said that something presented. I am going to end up like David Sedaris, simply speaking poorly understood english with a accent. BTW a copy of that book is here in the apt. Clearly I should reread it, perhaps as more of a cautionary tale. Anyway you waited for a bubble to pop on your nose so you could try to guess what it was. Then, in an especially cruel twist, people would be murmuring around us the name of whatever it was, but of course in french - some vocabulary word we never got ot in Mrs. Scott's 12th grade class. "Ah - c'est [blah blah blah french words here]. So as not to embarrass oneself you would just say, "Oui! Oui!"

We walked out from Grand Palais to the Pont Alexander 3 where there is a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower. It really never fails to mesmerize, especially on the hour when the dazzling lights go off. Everyone seemed very happy, lots of picture posing, and then we continued to the Louvre, which was the 400-mile-Bataan-March should you ever mention this night to my children. I love the pyramid at night, and there were a blue million people there. We were home well after midnight with two very tired children. Oh, and I have to add that the Metro is different place at night. Totally packed with teens and clubbers, and on this night, more than a few middle agers with kids.

Earlier in the day we went to Buttes Chaumont again, with a picnic, but it was not as warm as the last visit. But I was better organized so we actually bought bread at the bakery before arriving in the neighborhood of no open bakeries.

OK, this is a good place to mention that of the many things that will make me (even more) intolerable when I return home, getting fresh bread every day, in fact sometimes twice a day. It means more in Paris than running water.

Today, again with the market. This time I felt triumphant - a no fear day. Melt in your mouth spinach, shrimp, and those amazing oranges with the gold and red centers...two blocks away. Plus I found a paella guy, so maybe we do that next Sunday for lunch. Also I found a bread with macadamia nuts, apricots, raisins and FIGS. In the afternoon the babysitter took the kids out to see Robin Hood - verdict: most excellent. I was given a detailed account tonight at dinner. I felt like I had seen the movie AND read the movie's book written by our talented friend David Coe: BUY IT HERE. Stephen and I slipped out for brunch, and I stopped in at the Aubade boutique... End of post...

Melange

So again the days have just mixed up themselves and gone too quickly. It is still chilly - cold that you just can't seem to shake. The sky now is a periwinkle blue, and I'm looking out of our bedroom window. The Pantheon glows in the distance, strange that a place for the dead seems so warm. The twinkling Tour Montparnasse looms, always out of place. It seems to never really be dark.

So earlier this week we visited Musee D'Orsay, again on a cold bitter day. We were happy to make it in after a bit of a wait. People are not exactly flocking to the jardins in this weather, so lines are getting longer at museums and shops more crowded. But D'Orsay is always worth the wait. Even on a sunless day the light coming in through all that glass is just lovely. So much space for all the work. Rachel is the perfect age to admire the Renoirs, asking about the little girls sitting just so, and also to study the ballerinas. Joshua is playing his cards a little closer to his chest, perhaps some of the larger narrative pieces held his interest. As much as you want to feel you are a little too jaded for the Gaugins and van Goghs, well, it just isn't possible.

Part of the museum, surprise, is under renovation, so a lot of work isn't out. Paris itself seems is under renovation -

So yesterday we went back to the art store in my hunt for mats and envelopes. Of course, the store was opening an hour late for the bank holiday. Beaumarchais was absolutely deserted but we walked up to Republique and found a bakery open, crammed with people, and bought apple tarts and ate them on our walk. No luck at the art store but we picked up more pencils and Rachel bought one of those small wooden mannequins. Then we carried on with our day. We went up to Montmartre to see Sacre Couer and I taught my children the art of choosing a place to eat that is three blocks back from the major tourist attraction. We found a warm place with lovely food except according to my offspring there was too much cheese...did I mention it was warm? We headed back out and waited in line to visit the church. It was, as always to me, a place of realignment, even in a crowd that you can't stand still in. We went around once, sat for a while, then went through a second time with the smoke from incense lingering in the air. I am always humbled by the people holding onto the foot of the virgin and praying, or kneeling at some altar or another, quite oblivious to any number of onlookers, or lighting candles to someone whose altar area has had little attention. I try to figure out why they are seeking this particular saint for adoration. In all religion seems much more visceral in europe and latin america.

In the evening we had a lovely dinner at someone's house. We were treated to the most amazing veal dish and homemade pear cake with chocolate. the pears had been covered in chocolate, frozen, then slipped into the batter before they could melt and become too much mixed in. Someone spends as much time as I do thinking about cake. The wine was continuous - and the children were in close company with twin boys who are Rachel's age. if only they could have all gone out and played soccer...

Today the saga of mats continued. A series of unfortunate events (ie backorders) prevented me from ordering from the company I use in the US...so I finally found a company in Germany. (I was not able to find a supplier in Paris.) So I called one office who said I had to talk to berlin, and Berlin did no answer the phone so I called back Kassel who said, oh, Berlin is not in until 12, so then I waited to call Berlin and talked to someone who said, no you have to order from Kassel, so I just started laughing. She quickly understood my problem and helped me place an order, but between my lack of languages and her underutilized english it took almost an hour to figure out the order. But how nice that she was willing to help and hung in there until we had the whole thing worked out. This is why sometimes we don't leave the house until 4:00...