For Terry

Hello, I hope someone prints this out for you (hint, hint, Linsey). I just had to let you know that I think of you every morning when I walk by this olive stand on the way to work. Ain't she a beauty? Sorry it's sideways. I can't manage to turn it.

Hmmm...

It sounded nice, working at the library Tuesday through Saturday and having Sunday and Monday off. Sunday to relax and Monday to get errands done, right? Wrong.

A lot of things are closed here on Sundays. Everything is closed on Mondays. I have been trying to buy vegetables for a week. But I have to be either at French class or at work every morning by 9. And even though the beautiful affordable outdoor vegetable market couldn't be any closer to me unless it was actually in my apartment, I can never manage to buy my vegetables before work. After work, I can make it before they close IF (and yes, that was meant to be a big "if") I leave work on time, do not get lost going to the metro, do not get on any of the three lines going in the wrong direction, and don't take the wrong exit out of the metro station and find myself completely turned around when I surface. Besides that, it stays light until 10pm and I get off work at 6pm, so I often like to walk. It takes about an hour, and I get to see Paris. Only, then I skip the vegetables. In addition, I find a lot of good new bakeries. This is a very bad combination.

Anyway, back to my days off. SO, really the only time I have to buy things is SUNDAY morning (the markets are closed Sunday afternoons). And, since Sunday is my only day to sleep in (I know, I said I have Mondays off, but I meant that I go to class on Monday but not to work) I, uh, pretty much like to take advantage of it.

Clearly, this is all a conspiracy to make me fat.

Correction

Oops, that "best cake known to man" (Lonon entry) was actually an Italian marzipan-like dessert. So much for my chef taste buds! When I find it again, I shall publish its true name.

Ladurée

I heard about Ladurée before I went there. Supposedly the best and most unaffordable macaroons on earth. And indeed, it all turned out to be true. Just before leaving for Switzerland, I decided expensive or no, it was the perfect treat to bring Christoph. I got a little box of eight: Two pistachio, two rose, two caramel, and two vanilla. BUT, for the sake of research (and while they were fresh), I had to try just one on the train. And I still had 5 hours of train ride left. I DID put the box neatly away in between each one, determined not to eat them all before I got there. Sigh. Christoph got four, which isn't bad, considering.

For Diane

New shoes, new shoes,
Red and pink and blue shoes.
Tell me, what would you choose,
If they'd let us buy?

Buckle shoes, bow shoes,
Pretty pointy-toe shoes,
Strappy, cappy low shoes;
Let's have some to try.

Bright shoes, white shoes,
Dandy-dance-by-night shoes,
Perhaps-a-little-tight shoes,
Like some? So would I.

BUT
Flat shoes, fat shoes,
Stump-along-like-that shoes,
Wipe-them-on-the-mat shoes,
That's the sort they'll buy.

-- Frida Wolfe

The Library

The American Library in Paris was started in 1920. Though aesthetically there is not much indication of time period, the feel is quaint. The books are all old favorites minus a few new popular ones. The "film" we show at the end of each story time is actually a slide projector and a tape player played simultaneously by the librarian. On Wednesday we watched and listened to "In the Night Kitchen." The woman's voice and music were as funky and strange as Sendak himself. I wanted to get up and get my groove on to "Milk in the batter, milk in the batter... in the niiiiiiiight kitchen." Helen is the children's librarian who I am working under. She cannot be described in American terms as nothing fits her so well as the word "lovely." The only problem is I enjoy talking to her so much a hardly get any work done!

Helen took me on a "field trip" to La Joie par les livres: www.lajoieparleslivres.com. It is France's national depository for children's books. I had read about it and was planning to visit, but I am so glad I had Helen as an escort. She got us a tour with the director and translated for me. They collect all children's books published in France, plus some from a number of other countries. The artwork on the walls alone was enough to make me renounce the English language and my American citizenship, and wish with ever bit of my being that I could speak French and work in the EU. Librarians who work there review all of the books for library publications. Dream job.

Zurich

D Chatz gaht uf Wallisellen,
chunt si wieder hei,
hät si chrumi Bei,
piff paff puff
und Du bisch duss!

I actually learned to chant this, much to the annoyance of everyone on the train. It's the Swiss German equivalent of Eeny Meeny Miney Moe (without the racial connotations, I think). I was in Zurich for the weekend visiting Christoph. Though this was my fourth trip to Zurich, it is still hard for me to believe the place is real and that I didn't walk into a picture book. The grass is green. Bright, bright green. The hay is yellow and stacked in long loose haystacks like Little Boy Blue sleeps under. The water is solid turquoise and everyone has window boxes filled with red geraniums that are always in bloom.

On Friday we went for a long walk to the Town of Roses. To get there, we crossed the lake on a bridge built on top of ruins of a medieval bridge used by pilgrims traveling from monastery to monastery. The bridge was recreated in a contemporary style, and the juxtaposition of it against the old monatery and castle was striking.

The next day we rode bikes. I'm not sure how tall Christoph is, but my face usually lands around his bellybutton if we hug. I rode his bike. Yes, indeed, I had to tip over to get off. Which made stopping for traffic highly inconvenient. Luckily, we were out in the country most of the time. Only in Switzerland would you find smoothly paved, perfectly clean roads that connect every bit of farmland, forest, river and hillside. Never have I ridden so comfortably (and so fast due to huge street bike tires) in such beautiful territory. We rode out to a monastery where the monks make beer, cheese, sausages, and a delicious bread filled with dried fruit. We rode back along the country roads (picking blackberries on the way) in order to find some of the local cider. Instead, we found some of the local weather. It poured so hard that I was actually breathing in mouthfuls of water as I struggled to stay atop the bike. My waterproof jacket was full of water. My waterproof backpack was full of water. When we finally found a restaurant to duck into, water gushed out of my shoes with every step and my jeans clung to me like a heavy skin. The restaurant was fancy, but they let us in. Nothing could have tasted better, being drenched (or wet as soup, the French would say) and freezing, than the veal in a creamy reduction sauce and hot potato pancakes like the ones Gypsy fed to me at the swap meet in Germany. We made it the rest of the way home in a friendlier downfall and finished the night off by making a blackberry sauce from our day's gathering and pouring it over ice cream. After a lot of hours on a bike, calories were no consideration.

The next day we went on a hike and walked through the city and Christoph showed me all sorts of tricks for taking better pictures with my new digital camera. It dried out nicely from the day before (thanks to a long session with the hair-dryer.) Even still, my pictures don't do the beautiful weekend justice. Christoph has a way of turning the simplest every day thing into art. The way he folds a blanket or arranges vegetables in a bag to be taken to a barbecue. Or makes a picnic out of crackers and cheese and yogurt feel like a feast.

Blonde is as blonde does

This is a story from from an old email to Gypsy and Mom, but I thought it worth filling the rest of you in on:

Yesterday, someone stopped me and asked me for a lighter for his cigarette. I didn't understand the word, but I understood the motion and managed to shrug and shake my head in a way that he understood without me having to reveal I couldn't speak French. Well, today I found matches in my purse and thought "Ah ha! If someone asks me for a lighter again, I'll be able to offer them a match, which will make me feel very helpful and French." (Truly, I had this very thought.) So, today a girl stopped me and I thought from her hand motion she was asking for a lighter. I dug through my purse for my matches. She shook her head "no" and kept repeating herself in French (obviously). Finally, she pointed to my pants. My zipper was down.

Lunch Break

One block from the American Library where I work all day, is a boulangerie that serves up a baguette with fillings of choice --saucisson et cornichon for me s'il vous plaît-- a drink, and a dessert (oooooh, the choices) for 5.50, the amount of the "ticket" I get from work to pay for lunch everyday. If the weather is drizzly, I sit in the cozy bakery and eat. If it is nice, I walk one block to the Eiffel Tower.

London Cheese

London did not disappoint; it rained all of the ten days I was there. Upon arrival, I was presented with Pecorino Romano that Alain had bought in Rome, vacuum packed and saved. Four cheeses from Rotterdam followed. Two cow, two goat. The most delicious chewy bread with chocolate had been brought from Paris on the Eurostar that very morning, and it took us all week to get to the sausages from Spain, little sweet waffles, and the densest and yummiest cake known to man.

We did a few other things besides eat. Like attend a seven-hour play: Angels in America. Amusing for the first three hours. Enough said. We were VIPs at a Formula 1 Grand Prix. When we sat down in the shmancy VIP tent to eat our shmancy VIP food where the monitors were blaring with the race, Alain asked the waitress if she would mind turning the TV off. We eventually made our way out to the track and watched, um, maybe ten minutes before being tempted away by the free massages, ice cream, and salsa band.

We also went to a contemporary dance show at Saddlers Wells Theater http://www.sadlerswells.com/show/DANCE. Each routine consisted of over 20 dancers whose movements were so interesting and to such great music that we were shocked to find we had been watching for an hour and a half when they took their final bow.

During the week, Alain worked, and I stayed home while it rained and rained. I wrote stories and drank tea and then, when the sun came out for a few hours, I walked around and ogled at old buildings and made friends with the booksellers (I was even offered a job at The Children's Bookshop!) and poked my head into libraries.

I cried when I left. Cried on the tube and right on through the announcement to "mind the gap".

Boston Flowers

I started my trip with a visit to my sister Annalaura and her family in Boston. Cliff picked me up at the airport in the middle of the night, so the first words I really heard the next groggy jet-lagged morning were, "Did Auntie Hillary brought me a present?" Well, of COURSE I did, and I couldn't have a more appreciative little reader. We read Fanny in the Kitchen, I lost my Tooth in Africa, and The Big Green Pocketbook over and over and over and...until we made tissue paper flowers over and over and over....when I finally got the idea of bribing her away from those repetative tasks with purple sparkly nail polish! The newest member of the family is chubby-cheeked and as cute and kissable as it is possible to get.

Dearest Neglected Friends

Alas, I was so well-intentioned will all of the postcards I bought, filled out, and never sent. It was easier to connect my computer to the mass of cables laying about the floor of my flat and describe to the French-speaking hardware store man that I needed an adapter and to set this blog up all in French (which, in case any of you don't know, I started to learn...yesterday) than to figure out which stamps to buy and how to go about buying them.

This is a blog to relieve me of the guilt of not writing to everyone individually while I'm in Paris. If you are looking for a blog that is clever or funny, or profound --that will provide you with intellectual stimulation or sweet musings-- please go read my sister's blog: http://martinseke.blogspot.com/.