Parislog 25
June 12, 2006

I found another one of those gas stations that you were never know was there. This one is underground.

At Metro Port Dauphine there is one remaining complete Art Nouveau structure left of Hector Guimard. The detail is stunning.

I bet you thought that white chicken eggs were just the normal egg. Well, here the brown egg is the norm and in fact one day when I brought home white eggs from the street market, my roommates ex-wife, who was visiting, was very fascinated by the color and the size. They were huge. It turned out they were all double yolks. Yum-yum. That is miam-miam in French.

I finally got the first of my 2 bags of books. When I had checked out prices for shipping, I had found that you could get a cheaper rate for books and it was called an M-bag. Unfortunately, I didn’t ask for more clarification because as it turned out when Kelley shipped my stuff she actually had to put everything in this big US post office bag. I felt bad that she had to go to extra work. The bag is good in that it won’t break like a cardboard box but I don’t recommend it. Many of the books were quite damaged due to being loose inside the bag. In a box they would have been rigidly placed and therefore less damage. Live and learn. Next time I would use the box but make it extra heavily taped for the trip.

I went back to St. Sulpice church to hear and a concert using their famous 100-stop organ. I was really excited to hear it. Oh boy howdy was I disappointed. I don’t know everything about big church organs but I had heard that there was music written especially for them. Now I understand why. They are an unwieldy instrument in that there seems to be a delay between hitting the keys and the sound coming out but not on every key or every stop (the stops are what make it sound like different instruments and different ranges). I don’t know if the music was just not suitable or if the musician was not very good but it was a very mushy and un-fun performance. I don’t usually leave things early but this one I did. I just couldn’t sit through it. I will try again another day and see if I can hear that sound that I expect.

I have started to finally get busy with my sewing. I took a couple of pre-existing tops and customized them for myself. I altered a cloak that I had bought so that it hung better on me. And I finished off a skirt that I had started in Los Angeles. Now, if only I can get back to working on this knit t-shirt fabric that was not working for me. I have these things that I have designed but not made yet and I want to be able to be walking around Paris in “Wharton” clothes. You know. The next Gucci. People everywhere will have their Wharton piece. I am a little concerned with the ease of creating a business in Paris though. The rules seem a bit tough.

I went with H* to see the new exhibit at the Louis Vuitton art space and wore my newly made top and a long turquoise skirt that I had made while in Los Angeles. It was a whole lot of fun walking around in clothes that I had made and being in the ultimate clothing shopping area. Whenever my outfit would get noticed, I felt like maybe I could make it happen, my dream that is. The exhibit was interesting. It was a number of artists work on India. There was a video that was quite remarkable in which the Indians for a spring festival who throwing colored powder in the air and colored water. They were becoming drenched in it and also becoming crazy inside this huge crowd.

After the adventure and then a little scouting out of clothes with H* for her clients, I caught the metro home. Well, I tried. I got to my transfer and then was stuck. The train, which usually comes about every 3-5 minutes, was coming after 20 minutes and it was a sardine can. I mean people were so packed that you saw them with the hands and faces pressed up against the window. Sorry no pictures. I didn’t take my camera that day. Then to add insult to injury between each train would come another train completely empty but it wouldn’t stop. I waited for the third working train before it had enough room to ride. I wasn’t going to get on the sardine can in my long dress outfit. Call me a snob if you must. It turned out that the metro workers were having a greve (strike) to protest that they didn’t agree to the idea of having the lines run one hour later on Saturdays, until 2:15 am.??????????

Fun words in French. I already gave you one. Yum-yum is miam-miam. I saw in a magazine “freesbees”. When you refer to your sneakers, they are “baskets”. Those uber American outfits that we call jogging suits here are just called “jogging” as in, “Where did you buy that jogging?”

For the ladies out there who are or have done the dating scene, particularly online, it is just the same here. The guys lie a lot when they write their profiles. The last one not only didn’t use his real name because it was Arabic but he smoked and drank like a fiend while stating in his profile that he did neither. Nice.

The weather here has gone from unseasonably cold to unseasonably warm. We jumped to 90 degrees all of a sudden. Yikes. Should I blame it on the global warming? I think so. Anyway, H* and company invited me to a picnic at the Buttes Chaumont Park near her apartment. It is a lovely little man made park and boy was it full. We managed to find a patch of grass in the shade to put out our sheets. We all brought whatever we wanted for our meal and shared some tidbits and just sat and talked in the shade. It was a nice way to get out of the house but weird for my American sensibilities because everyone is very close to each other due to space limitations. We had a fabulous mother sitting right next to us with a child that kept on howling. She looked quite blithe about the whole thing and not interested in taking her unhappy child home. Finally other members of her family showed up and all of a sudden the child was just fine and off running with the other child who had arrived.

Went on a lovely stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens and saw a great photography exhibit on the garden walls. It was all underwater photography and some of it was really strange. Inside the park was this strange piece of art, a head floating in a stream.