Small assorted from Deb January 23, 2016

*** Well, I've managed to give Warren my cold. The poor soul has now started to cough and feel miserable while I am starting to mend. Rats! However, at least one of us will be perky enough to keep hot tea with lemon and honey coming,  and to make grocery runs when necessary. Hope he has a shorter down-time than I did. This was the longest "running" (pun intended) cold I've had in ages.
***Warren mentioned some of the things we're thinking about as we begin to orient ourselves to heading home. This has been sort of a "gap-year" experience for us - the first full year of Warren's retirement. It's given me a chance to examine and reevaluate my goals for whatever time I'm lucky enough to have left.
***Living a life with fewer belongings here in the apartment has been an interesting experience and has helped me redefine what things I enjoy living with and which are less important. For example, boy, do I need a lot fewer clothes than I have in Denver. I've gotten along quite merrily with the abbreviated wardrobe I've had here. I foresee a bunch of donation trips to ARC in my future.
***But, despite the well-equipped kitchen here, I have missed cooking utensils like my Cuisinart, a tool I use almost daily in Denver (yes, I can see you all shedding tears at our culinary deprivations). In truth, there are so many fresh, additive-free convenience foods made here that we haven't suffered at all but I'll love being back to my faithful old kitchen companions. Elizabeth unpacked many of her own favorites while living with my kitchen so I know she understands whereof I speak.
*** I'm hoping that I can keep up some of the healthy habits we've fallen into here. Specifically lots more walking and virtually no snacking. The French just don't seem to snack. When they eat, they certainly eat mindfully and heartily, but in between meal grazing just doesn't seem to happen (with the exception of children's much awaited after school treats.) I've loved watching people enjoy their meals here, talking and gesturing and eating with obvious pleasure. It's especially fun to watch women friends eating together, drinking a bottle of wine and eating every morsel off their plates and visibly ignoring calories. I don't know whether they fast the rest of the week to stay slim or what, but when they eat, they delight in eating. Not binging, just savoring.
***Surprising things I've missed from home include our paintings and other artwork. I hadn't realized how much I enjoy them every single day. It's like missing the face of a friend. I hadn't expected that. So glad our landlady has so much art hanging, even if it's not exactly my thing (markedly better than the crime-themed travesties our friends the Garnsey's endured in their Christmas rental though!)





***A revelation for me, though, is that I don't need things to remember people. I've realized that I don't think any less often of lost family members for example, than when I had objects from them around me. I think it will ease my divesting of family objects. I'm planning on finding good homes for a variety of things. Warren and I have belongings from family on both sides and it's time to do some editing. The young folks in our families neither recognize nor need nor want a bunch of this stuff and it's time to let it go to places that could use and/or enjoy it. I won't forget my Mom without it!
***A response to several queries - no, we won't have a lot of things to bring back. We haven't really bought all that much. Some little etchings, a bunch of bicycling medals, some mismatched silverware and most of all some food items like Camargue red rice. Oh, and I did succumb and gave in gracefully to Warren buying me two neat handmade indigo jackets from Asia. But other than that, not much. We have so much stuff - we really came not to buy things, but to buy experiences. And that we've done! Admittedly, most of them have been innocuous, small experiences, like minor museums and small neighborhood restaurants, but that is our taste.

***A small social note. Yesterday we had the pleasure of hosting the two couples that we had met on one of our Paris walks. You might remember the lady and gentlemen whom we met outside their historic houses while we were doing a walk from one of our books. We'd gone to lunch with them, then met their spouses,  later attended one's art opening, and gone to a concert at another's apartment. Anyway, we suggested they come out to the wilds of the 19th arrondisement and join us for lunch. We proposed a champagne aperitif out our apartment then a walk to one of our favorite restaurants, Le Laumiere (I was too daunted to try to make a meal for the 4 of them).
***So yesterday they came. They arrived on the Metro and Warren met them. I had champers and some little different cheese bites (recommended by our cheese monger especially for the champagne) waiting. In they came and immediately invalidated all we'd read about French formality. They happily  trooped all around the apartment, discussing the art, admiring the terrace, wanting to know all about the neighborhood which is unfamiliar to them except by the Philharmonic Hall where they attend regular concerts. Each speaks some English, and as soon as we had broken the ice by making our usual fools of ourselves by speaking French, a multi-lingual chat-fest ensued. It didn't let up through champagne, the walk to the restaurant through the cold, drizzly streets, or through the three hours of lunch. By the time we finished, our heads were swimming with trying to keep up with all the conversational themes and the challenges of language (yes, and maybe swimming with a little wine, too.)
***Even the walk down to the restaurant was busy, since our guests were anxious for information on varied topics from the relationship of bistro Arts et Sciences Reunis' relationship to the guilds, to what types of beef our butcher carries (fortunately, he passed their inspection), to what Jewish sects our neighbors represent as we passed the many families headed home from Saturday services, to needing to stop into our cheese monger to identify the delicate blue cheese she'd recommended, some of which they bought.
***They seemed to enjoy the restaurant's offerings, and we hope they did and weren't just being incredibly well-mannered. They catechized the waiter as to whether the restaurant really did make all its own stuff (which we knew it does) but it was nice to see our guests reassured and it led to a busy discussion of current and past French cuisine and all the changes. Fascinating to hear it from a French viewpoint, and poignant to hear the stories of the wartime experiences of the oldest member of the group (his family subsisted on gathered chestnuts and a bit of soured wine for weeks in their farm home near Strasbourg after the German troops has pillaged the area).
***So, despite our indifferent health, we had a dandy afternoon. These folks are intrepid and turned down our offers of postponement due to our coughs and the cold weather. At past 80, Renaud is still busy working on the family houses that he owns out on the Iles aux Moines off the Brittany coast. After interrogating us about Colorado, maybe we'll have the pleasure of seeing them in the Wild West. All of them have been to the US repeatedly on business and pleasure, and are open to visiting again. (We're hoping above all that our dear friends, Julia and Jose, are coming to visit their son and us this year!)
***We'll have dinner at Renaud & Francine's house with Francoise and Pierre-Yves attending, just a few days before we leave. It will make a pleasant social ending to our fast-fleeting Paris sojourn.