Deb miscellaneous thoughts February 7, 2016

*Had a quiet day in the 'hood today. There's a newly opened grill restaurant on the canal, just a couple of blocks over and we thought it would be fun to try it. There haven't been many new restaurants opening in our neighborhood since we've been here, in contrast to the many new apartment/condo buildings that have been finished. So we sauntered over, and much to our surprise, the place was jammed. Obviously, others had the same witty Sunday lunch
 thought. However, after a short wait and drinks under the heaters at the tables outside, we were ushered in for a window table. Had a pleasant lunch (grilled chicken and grilled pork ribs) and enjoyed watching the world walk/cycle/scooter/jog by on the canal. Not necessarily memorable food, but tasty and a fun atmosphere.

*The clouds were scudding by at a high rate and the wind blowing, although temperatures were fairly mild. There were interspersed periods of sunlight so we took advantage of them to stroll over into the park and by the huge science museum. I had some thoughts of visiting the museum this afternoon, but was seduced by the sunshine into staying outside. From some of the weather reports, we may be expecting rain every day for the next 10 days or so, and I didn't want to miss an opportunity to generate Vitamin D. So we got out and flaneur'd along with many of our neighbors. (flaner - to stoll without fixed purpose, observing.)

*Speaking of flaneuring, a quote from Victor Hugo in Les Miserables:
"To err is human,
To flaneur is Parisian."

*Warren had spotted a wonderful (and happily inexpensive) copper pan lid for me yesterday at the brocantes. I was delighted since I didn't have one in this size and had been looking for one since I got back from Colorado in November, having had a chance to measure the pot while I was home. Years ago, for our silver anniversary, we bought ourselves a "batterie de cuisine" of copper pots at BHV. (yes, I do know the difference between silver and copper - a Chem degree is good for some things - but cooking in silver pots is not nearly as practical.) The memory of buying those caused me to muse on the pleasant formality of buying things in Paris. When I bought my copper pots, the sales ladies were totally sympathetic to my wanting them all to have the same makers' marks, and went to some trouble to help me gather the set. Then each one was carefully wrapped in tissue and packed, so that Warren could stagger home to Denver with them in a crippling backpack. Yesterday, I bought a little piece of wrought iron, a handmade fragment, from an elderly woman who specializes in antique lamp parts. This was just a little piece out of her junk-box by the front door and it only cost 5 euros. I had even hesitated to ask her about it since she looked rather grim and formidable. However, in the usual French mode, as soon as we started to chat she warmed, smiled and proceeded to explain how and when it had been made and how I should gently clean it with a soft wire brush and so on. She then made sure I had it wrapped fully so it would injure my bag or stain it with rust. A lot of trouble for 5 euros. Similarly, some years ago, I bought a small paperweight for my mom who collected paperweights. When the sales woman heard it was a gift for my mom, she went all-out, wrapping it beautifully in several colors of tissue in a package that became a lovely tissue rose inside a matching box. Mom and I couldn't bare to unwrap it for several months. The packing and care given to presentation were as important as the purchase/gift. Just musing...

*On the way over to the restaurant, we dropped off several bags of clothes and shoes at the big charity/recycling bin. We're not exactly packing yet, but we are doing a bit of sorting and organizing. Many of the clothes we brought will be heading to Emmaus, the homeless charity founded in Paris by the Carthusian Abbe Pierre in the year of my birth. Abbe Pierre had been a member of the Resistance and after the war, he became involved with the many homeless veterans and refugees. The "companions of Abbe Pierre"  started picking rags and selling them, which began the work program which continues now, with Emmaus offering jobs to "companions"  sorting donated clothing, repairing donated furniture for sale, building housing for the homeless etc. Much like Goodwill in the US.

*Despite the short days and overcast sky, spring comes so much earlier here. There are already drifts of daffodils blooming, looking like patches of spilled sunshine under the grim, cloudy sky. Plum trees are flowering, and several sorts of bushes I don't recognize from my cold-country gardening background. Primroses and pansies have kept up the good fight since before Christmas. Today I spotted the first forsythia in the neighborhood. It always makes me think of my mom. And with that, a happy memory of a poem Lee Patton wrote about my mom and another of her favorite flowers, phlox:

                                          Flavia’s Phlox 

She’d hand-picked seeds

and planted them for us

in our new yard.  After

they bloomed, we hand-

picked starts for neighbors.

Now every June ends

with phlox’s scant scent

uniting garden to garden.

It’s only this coming June

that she will never seed.

To me, her face was a map

of some vanished country,

a better place any fool

would rather be, all routes

leading to easy hospitality.

People like Flavia made

this prairie home for us,

sunbaked plain grown easy

under shadow – cast from

the rooted energies

potent in her seeds.

Where every plant was hand-put,

every seed hand-cast to this

fragrant, gaudy fruition,

we’ll keep sharing starts

in a clump of common gardens

that started from her seeds.

By Lee Patton

Once an Addict Always an Addict, to Brocantes Anyway 2-6-15

Today there was a brocante market right in our neighborhood, about 20 minutes walk, so that's where we headed this morning.  It was relatively small, but being February, and cloudy, and windy we still had perhaps 25 booths to look at.  With our time getting short we rationalise that we won't get many more opportunities to "fleece the locals".  I suppose there are other things we could be doing but on the whole we've set a pretty high mark for getting around to see the sights.  There wasn't anything to really tempt us at this sale, so we caught a bus over to the big weekend market that is next to the Porte de Clignancourt flea market.  It's a straight shot from one of the buses that comes within a block of our apartment so we headed over there for the afternoon.
It was very busy today and more dealers were open than anytime in the past that we've been there so we were able to spend several hours going from booth to booth.  It was fun to go through and see things for sale that we recognized from the auction at Drouot two days ago.


A couple things tempted, but we were able to resist and a couple more were irresistible.  So we came home with another copper pan lid, from E. Dehillerin, and a bit of hand wrought iron decoration, luckily neither is very big and heavy.  The pot lid will be perfect for the smaller pans we have in Denver now and for 10 euros, as I said irresistible.  

A Victor Hugo Homage 2-5-16

Today being another cloudy and cool day we lingered in the apartment through the morning and got out shortly after having lunch for a trip down to the Place des Vosges.  It is the oldest square in Paris dating from the mid 1500's when it was created on the orders of Henry IV.   We love this square, perhaps more than any other in Paris.  One of our loveliest memories of Paris was when we came in here one summer evening, probably 20 years ago, and wandered into a live concert of hunting horns. All the players
 were facing away from the audience so that the horns would be directed properly, and they played several pieces that were quite beautiful.  It wasn't just a bunch of blats followed by "tally-ho" but very stately melodies wonderfully blended by about 30 hunting horns.
Today sadly no music but we did make our way over to the Victor Hugo Museum ahd house in the southeast corner of the place.  Victor Hugo may be the premier writer of French fiction from the 19th century, Les Miserables, and Hunchback of Notre Dame among others.  He lived in the square with his wife and children for many years before he was tempted away by a lovely young woman and left them.  He also spent
 several years in exile in protest against several French regimes on the island of Guernsey with his young lover.  His apartment was turned into a museum in the early 20th century and contains many mementos from his life.  It's not a large museum but it does give one a chance to see what an apartment in the Place des Vosges looked like and it's quite interesting.

Our Siege of Drouot for the Day 2-4-16

We were a little slow getting started today because of a somewhat restless night, just as I was falling asleep Deb coughed and it roused me, that happened two more times at which point I got up and went to sleep on the sofa where it was quieter.  But a shorter night than normal.
We headed down to Drouot about an hour before the auction was scheduled but there was a sort of wildcat strike by the transport workers and things were "slowed down".  When the metro got to Gare de l'Est we made the change of trains but the new train just stopped in the station and the conductor claimed that there was a sick passenger somewhere along the line and that everything would be stopped until further notice.  So we abandoned the Metro and caught a bus outside that was going very close to the auction house.  Of course traffic was a nightmare due to everyone using their cars instead of public transport and it took us much longer to get there.  So the auction was in progress when we got there, but I don't think we missed much.  The first lots were composed of books and the dealers are like jackals, They're friendly competitors but if you're not a dealer forget about it.
We were after a couple things we saw yesterday.  We had a little success but by and large the things were worth more to other people and it just saves us the effort of trying to take them home.  I guess a simpler life also means letting things go that are just things with no real meaning, but for Hermes scarves nothing gets simpler, more is better.

Adding Some Fun in Parisian Life 2-3-16

Not that we haven't been having fun, but we've both been a bit under the weather for the last couple weeks.  It hailed this morning and was quite cold and windy.  This is only the second time we've seen frozen precipitation since we got here so we weren't really hasty in getting out.
Just afternoon we got out and went down to Hotel Drouot for a bit fun,  I checked out the auctions and we found a couple that had interesting things to look at.  We walked through around several pre-sale inspections and found things that might be fun to chase after if the price is right.  We also stood and watched a couple actual auctions to reacquaint ourselves how they operate, they are different than auctions in the U.S. in that you don't sign up ahead, you just bid and if you win you present some sort of payment on the spot.  In the heat of the battle you have to really pay attention to what the current bid is because if you bid you're agreeing to the next price not the current one.
So we spent a couple hours wandering and looking and enjoying the process.  It had rained while we were inside but pretty much stopped by the time we came out, but it was cool with a bit of wind.  We headed back to the apartment to do some research on what we had seen today.  Tomorrow if we decide to go back we'll be prepared and who knows maybe a couple little prizes will be our.

Continuing Maintenance 2-2-16

Today was another dentist appointment for us, we both had to get final crowns for broken crowns. But first we had to shop for food, so we spent the morning visiting with our traiteurs. So we got a couple carts full of supplies and then went back to the apartment for a bit of lunch.  We have had blooming plants on the deck virtually all year and now is no different things are blooming at the beginning of  February.

After lunch we caught the Metro over a stop near the dentist office. When we got off the metro we had about 20 minutes before we had to be at the office, so we stopped at the Parc Monceau to sit and enjoy the pleasant weather.  The daffodils are blooming in the park and several trees are in bloom as well.  We just sat and enjoyed watching the people enjoying the park.
My crown was supposed to be done last week but the fabricator got the color wrong so I had to come for another fitting.  Deb's ended up having the same problem today and I heard the dentist call them and raise hell.  So we'll have to return one more time in a week to actually finish and get a cleaning before we return home.
Our appointments took a couple hours and then we headed over to Montmartre where Deb could spend a little time perusing the wonderful fabric shops.  In the mean time I found a little brasserie close by and enjoyed a couple of nice Belgian beers.   After her shopping we took the bus home and spent a quiet evening.  This is our life in Paris when we're not strictly focused on the "discovery" of Paris part of our adventure.

Monday Cleaning and a Walkabout 2-1-16

Holy Cow! We're in our return month, February.  We mused a bit today about how last February we were nonchalant about seeing things because, "we have so much time, why be in a big hurry".  If you've followed us a bit then you know that we've seen a fair amount, and we're not real choosy about picking our targets.  We do have standards but they're pretty low.  Deb said her only disappointment was the trip back to Paris from Vienna, because 75 percent of it was in the dark.  I think if your having a bad time or you're bored on an adventure like this you need to look in the mirror for the culprit.  I guess that limited deck time due to the heat would be disappointing a bit, but we could always go to a park and sit in the shade, which we did.
Enough already, Deb wanted to do a cleaning today so I got kicked out for a couple hours.  I went over to the canal and walked along taking pics and looking for a lunch opportunity.  I got some fun pics of a group of cormorants(?) or herons(?) sitting on a line of buoys in the basin.   And I crossed the only foot bridge on the canal that I
 haven't walked across since we got here.  I had a donner kebab and frites for lunch and then went back to pick up Deb.


Deb has not seen the canal since it was drained and wanted to see the cleanup effort. So we took a bus down to the place where the canal goes into the tunnel ending up at the Arsenal basin next to Place Bastille.  We began by looking at the last set of locks, which are
being cleaned and walked back up the canal all the way to our apartment.  Deb was discouraged by the amount of trash in the canal, and I felt the same way when I first saw it too.
We stopped at one of the premier boulanger/patissier shops in Paris and bought goodies for breakfast along the way.  I was surprised that they are cleaning the canal from the bottom end up to the top.  I think I would have done it the other way so that any slop over would run
down to the lowest point, but then I've never cleaned a canal.  We had the advantage of the wind at our backs so the walk was very pleasant and not cold.  There is a new bistro that just opened along the canal in one of the new buildings just a block away so I'm sure we'll give it a try before we leave, Paris is ever changing.
My sister asked if we weren't getting nostalgic for the places we've enjoyed eating as we make our farewell tour.  My answer is no, it's just plain greed; we're greedy to get more of the great food that we've enjoyed while we are here.  One can't be sad for all the great times, one can only be sad that they couldn't be shared with all our friends.