Parislog 38
August 12, 2006

I thought I was doing so much better with my French and yet was humbled today. I had an email from A* about seeing a movie today together with I* and I happily agreed. The problem was that I didn’t read it carefully enough. I got the part saying that it was the second showing but she hadn’t left a time so when it got to within an hour of that show, I took off and went over to Bercy Village. There were three screens showing the Pirates of the Caribbean for their second showing. I waited through each one thinking that they would be right there. Nope. I figured that I had somehow made an error or they were stuck or who knows what and as of yet, I still have no cell so I couldn’t call to ask. I went in to see the show and after I came home I find an email saying 9PM. I went back and re-read the old mail and sure enough she had said the second showing of the evening. Oh well. It was really good and I am going to go with them on Tuesday to see it again.

I adore Smart cars and here is another reason why. Look at this parking ability.

Parislog 37
Aug. 11, 2006

I went for a nice long way today to get out of the house because my roommate came home earlier than expected today. I had planned on sewing but didn't feel like doing it while he was here. So instead, I went to the Seine and walked along the point of the Ile de la Cite, which is one of the two islands in the middle of the river. It wasn't a beautiful sunny day but that was okay with me. I enjoyed the fresh air and the cooler temperatures. The cobblestone path around the Ile is very cool but really hard to walk on because all the stones are at different angles and bumpy. They are very cool to look at though and when I went under a bridge, I noticed that the stones were even more uneven. I imagine because it doesn't get as much weather beating.

After the Ile, I came up onto the regular roadway just past Pont Neuf (New Bridge), which is the oldest bridge in Paris and saw a really cool outdoor adventure rig for kids. It was a part of the Paris Plage (Paris Beach) and was like those survival challenges. It was all aerial and had different stages and different ways you had to cross the space. One had little wooden steps at intervals like those scary bridges, another was just a cable and the final leg was the one you get to hook onto the pulley and ride down. One poor little girl had made it as far as the walk on the wire section and just froze. A crowd started to form to watch what was going to happen and cheer her on. The guy on the pole came across and walked with her the whole way just one step ahead. Everyone cheered when she made it. Her poor little legs were shaking so badly that I could see it from my perch.

At the Tuileries garden, connected to the Louvre, there is a fair going on that lasts about a month. I had seen the huge Ferris wheel when taking a walk and made a note to myself to come back and see it. Well, today was that day. The first thing that struck me was the little bistro style eateries in the fair. They gave it a very French feeling. The second thing that I noticed was that most of the kiddy rides had chairs and benches located at the area for the parents to sit on and watch their kids. That is a very good idea. I would imagine more parents would be willing to hang out while their kids are playing when they can sit and relax. Many rides were the same like bumper cars, swinging chairs, haunted house and fun house. There was also one of those g-force machines. I came to it just when a couple was paying to ride it and so I stopped. It was quite a process of two different harnesses and then the big iron bars locking them in. They were instructed where to put their feet and hands. All items had been put to the side, even her waist pack. Then they were hooked up and the bungees started tightening. You could watch the cords. It released and they flew up into the sky and then down and up and down over and over. They finally came to a rest and were brought back down. Her hair was no longer perfect. It looked like she had stuck her finger into a socket.

Parislog 36

There is a weekly guide called Telerama Sortir that gives a lot of info on things to do. I had found a curious article on something called Lomography. I could tell that it had something to do with photography but not much else so I had to make a trip to see what it was. It turned out to be some really cheap camera that makes a lot of errors like light leaking into the camera. It has a plastic lense and colored filters for the flash. It was more about chance hopefully making for some interesting photos. I didn't find them very interesting. I must say that I was disappointed. This building was right around the corner.

On the way to the photography exhibit, I saw a store that sold phone cards and as my old one had run out figured I would get a new one. I then didn't think about it until the next day. I was going to give myself a treat after spending the whole day uploading all of my old logs and adding pictures to the oldest logs. The treat was making phone calls. But after spending 12 hours doing all that work, I couldn't get the card to work at all. I just fell apart. I wanted so badly to talk to my friends and I was computer exhausted and so I just lost it. Today, I went back to the store and he tried the card it worked just fine. So now what? Well, I decided to try the card on the phone that doesn't go through the computer, and you guessed it, it works just fine. This whole time that I have been fighting these stupid cards and it was because they don't like phones that go through the computer. I didn't want to use the regular phone because France Telecom charges you for every minute you use but I will trade that against the aggravation of the other one not working. Here was my other alternative.

The metro on the way home. How convenient of them to give me the weather too.

Parislog 35
August 9, 2006

For the first time, I went to a film that was in French. It was called “Paris, Je t’aime.” That is “Paris, I Love You”. I had heard good things about it in particular from H*. She felt that I could handle the language so I decided to gave it a shot. I didn’t understand enough of it to annoy me, but I got enough of it to know what was going on. In fact, I thought the movie was actually really good. 22 directors each were able to tell a short story about an area of Paris with no story connected except by it being in Paris. Surprisingly, it worked very well with stories from tearjerkers to belly busters.

I had been to one other small movie theatre here and both times have remarked that there was no concession stand. They were both 3 screen, I think and in little tiny spaces. It was rather nice to not be tempted to buy something and stuff yourself with unwanted although yummy calories. I will usually have one of those boxes of chocolate raisins, something that has been super-sized and worth about 4 candy bars in one sitting.

While waiting for the movie, I wandered around a bit and came across a building that had a very strange false front attached to it. It didn’t go all the way to the ground. It was old architecture with strange modern windows stuck in weird places. See for yourself. Any guesses? Coming from Hollywood, my first thought was a backdrop for a film.

I was also fascinated by this piece of road construction equipment.

Parislog 34
August 8, 2006

I came out of my grocery store and caught a little girl of maybe 3 years old standing up. Something about the whole thing felt strange and as she was running into the store yelling at her mother, I noticed a large wet spot on the pavement. The puddle was trickled down the slight decline and it dawned on me that she had just peed on the sidewalk like a dog out in front of the whole world. I was stunned.

During August the city is just as empty as can be and not be a total ghost town. It seems that a great many of the Parisians living here take their vacations in August. Many of those people seem to be the small merchants making it a little challenging to shop. Walking down the roads, the windows are often covered with the big metal screens with signs on them telling when they will be back. For once, you can walk down the tiny sidewalks without having to elbow some room for yourself. The city lets a lot of the parking meters have a month off too. I am guessing that has more to do with all the meter maids being on vacation rather than being generous to the left over inhabitants.

I spent another Sunday at the Louvre. I spent three hours there and literally spent it all in one corner on one of the three floors. The section was the Flemish and Dutch paintings of the 17th C. Some of the paintings were spectacular. The detail was so fine that I felt that if I could touch it the carpet in the picture would actually feel soft. Another one had such incredible detail that it even included the dirty feet.



The similarity between 2 paintings, one by Koninck and the other by Rembrandt stunned me also. The only difference that struck me at first was that they were mirror images and then I started to notice other details but it was a little eerie at first.

Parislog 33
August 7, 2006

Whenever I hear of names of places for vacations mentioned here, they always strike me as weird. Martinique, Guadalupe, Senegal, Algeria, Burkina Faso. Then it finally occurred to me that they were countries and islands that spoke French. It is of course only logical but it is another one of those little things that seems so different.

One very hot evening, I walked over to a local park to hear an outdoor concert. I meandered slowly so as not to get too sweaty and by the time I got there it had already started so I can hear the music as I’m walking into the park. There are people spread out on the grass under the trees and others sitting on chairs and benches. The sun is low in the sky and making long shadows on the ground. Some have little picnics and wine. The woman is playing traditional Chinese instruments that were quite haunting in their sound. There were many people but they were so very quiet that it was not the slightest bit difficult to hear. It was a very nice feeling of community.

I went to a district called Sentiers over near Montmartre. I had been there before and it is an area of wholesalers and fabricators of clothing. Some of the stores will however let you in to shop so I wanted to get better acquainted with it. It is also one of the two times of the year that France is allowed to have sales and I thought maybe I could find some nice bargains. What I found out was that the stores that let you in sell crap. I have never seen so much polyester and acrylic in one location. I mean everything felt nasty to the touch and the cuts were tiny or one size fits all. Then I started noticing that it was the same thing store after store. They all seemed to have the same articles of clothing. I believe that these stores are in fact not wholesalers and are just taking advantage of the location to sell cheap items so that people think that they are getting a deal. The shoes and jewelry are all plastic too. Yuck.

There was one store that was open only for “les soldes” and had amazingly made items with very intricate work but the prices were not exactly what I would call wholesale on sale. Blazers came in at 250 euros ($300) for example.

I then went over to another section of Sentiers in which I had yet to explore. Mind you, that was on the second day. It took 2 days to really explore it thoroughly. This part however really was wholesale. The storefronts were not really storefronts and you could look through the windows to see either stacks of clothes on racks all looking the same or people working on things. This was a real garment district. There was no individual purchasing there at all. Too bad. I did see occasional items that looked like my taste.

While walking to the metro, I happened to notice this very strange item on the other side of some bistro chairs and table. A huge chess game. It looked like a game had been started but no one was actually playing.

I did manage to go over to the richy-rich area and find a nice pair of all leather shoes at a secondhand couture store. Those made me feel a little better.

There is a huge park called La Villette, which is extremely futuristic looking but also has a lot of greenery for the neighborhood kids to play. I went there to see a show called “L’Amour, Comment Ca Va?” The title means, “Love, What is it?” The pictures looked quite interesting and it was free so why not? I came up out of the metro to a flat area paved with little square stones and it was immense and hot. The ground shimmered with the heat. I bravely crossed to find the building for the exhibit and had to walk around all 4 sides because I went the wrong way. If I had turned right instead of left at the building, I would have been directly at the entrance. Well, I got a view of the building anyway. Upon entrance, you see curtains of red and little low seats in red and white tables. Very sexy looking. Then you walk through the curtains into the first room of the exhibition. I didn’t get it. It was pictures and videos of industry and farms. Then next room was pictures and videos of unemployment and low wage jobs. If you looked above your head, you saw three screens showing a woman doing a summersault. I didn’t get the connection at all. Finally, I entered the third space and now it was about women’s lib. Well, I know how that relates to love. There were some pictures of transsexuals and of older women being pin-ups. I thought a lot of the items in the third space were interesting but the thread to the title was very tenuous.

When I got home, I read the brochure that came with the show. It said that the first exhibits were to show the things that destroyed or tainted love. Okay. And?

I had a couple of glorious visits at H*’s where we watched the first three episodes of the new season of Project Runway. Oh, how I miss stupid American TV. I must admit that the fact that it is fashion designers is a big calling card for me.

I had a nasty saleslady day. The vacuum cleaner bag was chock full and naturally I needed to buy a new one. The first time I went, I forgot to write down the info. Nice. The second time, I had the info but nothing matched what was on the shelves. Nice. I start opening boxes that look similar to see if they would work. A sales lady comes up beside me and snatches the box from my hand telling me in that nasty tone to not open the boxes. She closes the box and hands it back to me. She never says hello. She never asked what I needed. Nothing. I put the box down and left. After I left, I came up with all kinds of great lines to say. My favorite was, “Thank you so much for your help. You are incredibly kind. Good-bye.” And all of it would have been using the tutoyer. For those of you that don’t speak French, that is the form of you that you use to children or dogs unless you are friends with someone. To an older woman who I didn’t know, it would have been really insulting.

I went to another store and found the exact bags I needed and took them to the checkout. 14 euros ($18) for 7 bags. Ouch.

We have had a number of excellent storms and I actually got lucky and caught a lightening bolt with my camera.

Parislog 32
July 31, 2006

I had a second date with Christian. I had met him the first time for a coffee date and things went well enough that I agreed to meet him again. I suggested an exhibition called Machines de Spectacles. So the day arrived and I got there maybe 10 minutes before we were supposed to meet and stood in line thinking that if he showed up soon we would be at the front of the line for tickets. It was one of those 90+º days and the queue was in the sun. I kept craning my neck around thinking any second now. I got to the front of the line right around 2PM, which was when we were supposed to meet and bought my ticket. I stood on the steps at the entrance and waited, a half an hour to be precise. I was sweating and boiling with the sun beating directly down on me and even though I kept my back turned to it as much as possible, I ended up with a little bit of a burn. Well, my patience ran out after a half an hour and I went in.

It was the coolest show. First of all, it was in the Grand Palais, which is a building left over from the Universal Exhibition of Paris of 1900. The building is exquisite with huge ceilings of glass and metal girders. This was just after the Tour d’ Eiffel was built. All the girders are beautifully designed and look like huge metal lacework. Second of all, the show itself was amazing. There were a number of guides/ performers around the space who would wander around to each display and tell you about it. But then, the person would also put it in motion and show you what it did.

The assortment of things was mind-boggling. There were pieces of monster parade machines. One example was a huge cart with the world’s biggest cymbals at the top. After giving the lecture the guide grabbed hold of a rope and jumped off the cart while hanging onto it and it clapped the cymbals together. Ouch. At one time, apparently it was very popular to have these parades of oversized items. One picture showed an articulated figure of a man that was 4 or 5 stories tall and run by many men as it walked down the street. Think mad max.

definitely a crowd favorite though due to the heat. There was a snow maker that created a thick snowstorm that stuck to the heads and shoulders of the crIn the center of the space were some of the most impressive items. There was a water cannon, which would blow a huge amount of water straight up into the air and then fall onto the crowd like a very heavy rainstorm. They got soaked. It wasowd. It was real ice not plastic shavings. And, there was a piano catapult. This was only done one time a day and I was fortunate enough to still be there when it was demonstrated. They always announced the coming of the big events and as soon as I heard this one I headed over to the rope to be in the front to take pictures even though I knew that meant I would have to wait awhile. I wanted the pictures so badly. My biggest concern was whether or not with my old digital and its delay I would be able to catch it. And I only had the one try. The universe was on my side. My first shot, I hit too soon, or so I thought. I quickly shot again, feeling the delay in the camera and thinking that I had lost the in air action and then a shot of the piano smashed on the ground. Fortune smiled on me and each shot got a great piece of the story line. Piano on catapult, axe connecting. Piano in air. Piano on ground in pieces.









It was so hot and humid in the glass roofed building with water spectacles that I became quite light headed after this. I took myself off to buy a bottle of water and chug it. There were a lot of cute rescue workers walking around though. Maybe passing out wouldn’t have been such a bad deal.

There was a machine that made toast and delivered it on a trolley to the customer and a drink mixer that was silly, huge, and banged back and forth on a long bar. They made real whiskey and champagne drinks and called one person out of the crowd to stand there and get served this way. I didn’t get picked. Darn.

There was a machine for making music with a whole bunch of spoons stuck out of the front it. I couldn’t imagine how this was supposed to work. The guy placed a whole bunch of seed into all the spoons. I still had no clue. Then he went behind the machine to a shed that I hadn’t paid any attention to, opened the door, and brought out a chicken. He placed the chicken on a perch and of course the chicken set to eating the seed tapping a song out on the spoons. Well, that wasn’t enough and so he went and brought out another chicken to make it a duet. Then the second chicken got so into it that it jumped onto the spoons and took over the show. She got sent back into the coop.

Another crowd formed around a different spot. That meant someone was going to display that exhibit so I peeked over some shoulders to see what was going on. It was a miniature theatre that said “peep show” and had a coin slot box below it. The guide picked a woman out of the crowd and had her sit down in front of the box. She was asked if she had a 20 centimes piece. She nodded her head and took it out. He indicated for her to put it in the box, which she did and nothing happened. All these machines were really old. He took the coin and put it through another few times and on the fourth attempt it worked. The little curtain slowly raised and inside was a rubber chicken with a skirt that also rose up as the curtain went up. It was hilarious but I had to wonder what use it had. Was this a street amusement for making money?

A real crowd pleaser was Rocket Man. First thing you hear the roaring of an engine being gunned and it is loud. Think Harley Davidson. A crowd forms around a long alley shaped space. More engine gunning. The guide points to the back and there stands rocket man all in silver. He makes a long entrance. He walks down the middle and kneels every so often while the guide guns the engine again. Finally he climbs aboard the rocket and with a few more engine revs he all of a sudden climbs in the sky.

So I finally wore out even though I hadn’t seen everything. I had been there for around three hours and just couldn’t do any more.

I went home and cranked up the computer to see if I had any message from my date and sure enough there was an email. He had been trapped by the road barriers for the Tour de France. I hadn’t really given any thought to it being the final day of the Tour and that the Grand Palais was right on the path. It wasn’t until I came up from the metro and saw all the hoopla that I even remembered. I wrote him back saying no big deal and maybe something else and never heard from him again. Whatever.

Parislog 31
July 24, 2006

I was walking down the street on my way to Montmartre for some fabric when I noticed two kids in front of me. Normally, my thoughts don’t pause more than a second on anyone but these two made me stop totally. They were playing with a pair of silver revolvers. I have become so unaccustomed to seeing this that I was shocked. I felt my brain kind of stutter. I wanted to say something, take them away or who knows what. It happened another time at a picnic where there was a kid with a pile of guns for toys.

We, like everyone else, have been having heat wave upon heat wave and being in a new place, I have to figure out the system to handle it. The windows are huge, doors really, and can be a curse or a blessing. When we have hot days but cool nights I can open everything wide all night and then shut it all in the AM and it will stay pretty cool. The walls are miles thick. When the sun hits the windows, I shut the shutters. I had to go buy a fan though because what was happening was that it wasn’t cooling down at night. I could open everything and wake up in the morning sweating. The cross ventilation is not super because on the opposite side of the space is only one tiny little window in the kitchen. It only really works when there is a really stiff wind. There have been storms at night that cool the air down but none of it would move into the building. It was so frustrating. I wanted that air. Happily for me, yesterday the weather broke a little and it was tolerable. So far today is nice but the weather report was saying that it would be back to the mid 90’s again today.

We have a lot of storms here during this hot humid weather and they are quite impressive. Often you cannot see the lightening bolt itself but rather something that we called sheet lightening where I grew up. Because the lightening is happening inside of a thick blanket of clouds, it lights up the whole thing. It is like the whole skylights up for a second. It is really rather impressive. Some of the thunder has been so loud that it actually shakes the building and that is hard to do with these thick walls. The lightening and thunder come every few seconds. It is a magnificent show.

The streets here are beyond narrow. In fact, the street in front of me is actually a heavily used street but it is only one lane with occasional parking pullouts. Well, the other night I happen to look down and notice a bus had come up to the corner hotel for a drop off but had used one of the even smaller side streets that intersect with mine. I had no idea how he was going to get out of the bottleneck that he had created for himself other than backing out the way he had come. There was absolutely no way he could turn onto the street in the direction it moved. I watched, utterly fascinated. It took him multiple times back and forth to get the bus facing the wrong way but on the main street. Then he drove backwards down the street in the right direction until he found a bigger intersection. Don’t they make maps for these guys to know which streets they will fit on?

I have been doing a lot of thinking in regards to what tack to take with a career. One of the challenges is that it is so important here to have a degree or certificate in anything that you want to do. Without the right piece of paper you wont get the job. The importance placed on degrees is beyond anything in the States. My degree is in Theatre Arts and so I am thinking of combining that with the interior design experience and seeing what I can scrounge up in the world of set decorating. To that end, I went and found a little book of theatre terminology in French so that I can learn the words needed to communicate my experience.

I went to a different library than usual to find the theatre book that I wanted. You cannot reserve a book and have it come to your local branch here like you can in Los Angeles. The library that had the book I wanted was over in the Latin Quarter, which is where a lot of the universities are. It was a bit like walking into a ghost town. With all of the students gone for the summer, the streets were empty except for the occasional passer-by.

I went to a singles event that was held on the banks of the Seine River. For the last two or three years the mayor has created a beach by the Seine for the pleasure of those who stay in the city for the summer. They haul in truckloads of sand and potted palm trees and create a tropical paradise. It is called Paris Plage (plage is beach).

I have run into a number of stores with these signs in the window, “ Closed for yearly vacation” with dates that range between one to one and a half months. I guess they don’t fear that their business will fall apart if they take a vacation. The owners often work in their stores and this, I imagine, is the only way that they can take a vacation. Apparently the business doesn’t fall apart by closing for a month. A great deal of the citizens of the city leave for a month or more in the summer to the provinces and family homes. I think that there are more tourists in the streets right now than Parisians.

I tried to go to an open-air cinema only to find when I had returned home that I had the date wrong. It was in a really seedy part of town. Porte de Clichy, for those of you that know the city. I went down into the metro to go back and there were a few minutes until the next train so I sat down. A few seconds later, my eye is caught by some movement. I look. There are cockroaches of every conceivable size running across the platform that the seat is bolted to. They don’t seem the slightest bothered by the lighting or the people in proximity. My skin crawled the whole train ride. I went to the Champs-Elysees where the air is perfumed, to get rid of the feel of the roaches.

Saturday, A* and I went out to see the “Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes de Versailles”. That is a night show of all the fountains working at Versailles followed by fireworks. First we went to the domain of Marie-Antoinette. We had no idea the immensity of the estate and lost a half an hour walking to this area. We only managed to see the Petit Trianon and some of the gardens, which included the little farming village the she had created for relaxation. It was a very relaxing place to be, I must admit. We sat on the grass near the village and ate a light dinner that we had brought with us and watched a swan lazily floating on the miniature lake. The fish were jumping out of the water catching bugs and ducks were swimming around the swan. Soon a man came by to say the park was closing and we needed to leave so we went for a walk around the “hameau” (little village) instead of leaving right away.

Another thunderstorm started while we were walking. Fortunately, it didn’t produce any rain although for a minute we thought it began to dump down and we were ducking and I was trying to cover my camera. We were scanning the area for cover. A* wanted to get out from under the nearby tree, too hazardous so we ran ahead a little. And it stopped. We looked back to see a sprinkler in the farmyard we had just passed.

We just made it out of the park before we were locked in for the night and headed off to gardens of Versailles to go to the show. We got to the gate and the guard wouldn’t let us in. He said we had to go around the outside of the property and re-enter at the chateau. Well, our feet were already sore from hours of walking and this would easily triple the distance. I wanted to scream. Fortunately there was a little city bus that went from nearby up to the chateau. I was so pissed at the guard for not telling us that. We thought we were going to have to walk the whole way.

When we arrived at the front of the chateau there was a little parade of musketeers and Swiss guardsmen heading towards the chateau beating drums. We followed beside them all the way into the gardens. We were so lucky to have walked with them right up near the front because unbeknownst to us, they were the front guard to starting the festivities. We managed to be right at the front of the line to get in with thousands of people behind us. When we were on the steps of the garden, they stopped and held us there until the show was ready to begin. Finally, the fountains came on starting the show. There were little concerts all throughout the park and 20 or more different fountains running. We tried to see the shows but there were so many people that you just couldn’t get in there. So instead we wandered around looking at the fountains, had fresh squeezed orange juice, and a calisson, which is an almond cookie from Provence. With a half an hour until the show, we decided to go get a spot to see the fireworks. That was not soon enough. All the good spots were taken. We managed to get to see it from an okay place in the end though. It was a spectacular evening.

Parislog 30
July 17, 2006

In French books the table of contents is in the back. I can’t decide if that is better or worse or of no difference at all. I am thinking that it matters most just that you know where it is.

I made my first foray into the other huge garden/woods called “Bois de Vincennes”. The Parisians refer to the two, including “Bois de Boulogne”, as the lungs of the city. They are immense and they are, in fact, for the most part forested. They were at one time for the exclusive use of the royals for hunting and are in total 5,000 acres. Not to shabby.

A* and I went to The Floral Park in the Bois de Vincennes for a picnic while listening to jazz played on the stage nearby. It was absolutely gorgeous sitting on a blanket on the lawn underneath towering oak trees. A couple of ants came to the picnic and so did a bee but they left without a word. We were far enough away from the concert that it was pleasant for ambiance. Before the concert began, a small jazz band came by on foot playing some tunes. One of the players was carrying a tuba. That has got to get heavy. We had tasty little morsels of deli meats and a lovely bow-tie salad that A* made. There was a baguette and wine too, of course.

We decided to explore the park a bit after the meal. There were some gorgeous flowerbeds to stop and take pictures of. We found a small photography exhibition that led us to an abandoned part of the woods. It had been the site of a colonial exhibition in 1907 called the “Garden of Tropical Agronomics”. I had to go look up agronomics as it wasn’t familiar to me and found that it is the science land management and distribution. So there. It had buildings devoted to each of the different colonial countries of France at the time. All were just in a terrible state of ruin but there is a possibility that they may rejuvenate the place. Personally, I like it the way it is because it is like a secret place where you are almost totally by yourself wandering amongst the ruins. We even caught a glimpse of a duck or quail mummy with her little chickies trailing behind her but they were too fast for me to get a picture before they disappeared into the underbrush.

While taking a random walk downtown, I found a bunch of trick bikers working out in a courtyard. They were amazing to watch. They even could ride their bikes upside down. I sat down for a while to watch and see if I could catch some photos. I was fascinated by how they could get the bikes spinning in a tight circle and keep it going by using their foot on the tire to add speed, just like someone in a wheelchair with their hand on the wheel.

After I left I caught a glimpse of an incredibly tall Ferris wheel while looking down in between buildings. It appears that there was some sort of a fair in the Tuileries but I never got there to find out for what. But the picture was too cool. I stood there for quite some time to wait for the clouds to arrange themselves in a better formation. You know. You gotta get the shot.

The center of the jewelry world is all around Place Vendome. The names on the buildings were spectacular but I didn’t get to see nary a twinkle because it was Sunday and abandoned. I most definitely will be going back. Must. See. Sparkle.

H* loaned me her portable hard drive so that I could download all the last season’s Project Runway” (fashion reality show). I have been in hog heaven watching my trashy American TV show. I just can’t even tell you. For the most part the French TV just doesn’t grab my attention. It is either these question and answer type game shows or long discussions of some topic with no conclusion found. They have some American shows with voice over but mostly things that never were my favorites. I must say that for the pure idiotic entertainment, I would rather have American or British TV any day.

I found a nice cheap theatre in which I could go and watch Marie-Antoinette. Well, there was a reason it was cheap. First reason is that there was no A.C. and it has been in the 90’s here. The second thing was that the rake of the floor was backwards. If you sat in the theatre and put the screen behind you and then turned all the seats around, you would have this theatre. It was like looking up a hill to see the movie. If there had been people in front of me, their heads would have been blocking some of my view. All the theatres are not like that. This is a weird little anomaly.

A* and a friend invited me to an event that was on one of the boat nightclubs. We sat on the top deck out in the fresh air catching a cool breeze. We could see down the river to the beautiful buildings. I had a Cosmopolitan. I thought that was fitting. You could feel the water rocking the boat gently. After the sun had gone down it actually felt a little chilly and about midnight A* and I left. We were told that the Virgin record store on the Champs-Elysees was open everyday until 2 in the morning and I wanted a Mozart CD to play for the fireworks. That is what was going to be playing at the Eiffel Tour. We scrounged for parking. Found it. We walked there and the lights were almost off and the door was closing. It was lit when we drove past and now it was closing. But it was only midnight. It turns out we got bad info and it closes every night at 12.

I had a little party for Bastille Day. French do not call it this at all and are rather confused when one uses the term. They just simply refer to it as July 14th.

I spent the day before doing all my preparations for the party. I made a veggie tray, fruit tray, cheeses, and cheese lace, salmon and cream cheese on crackers, and devilled eggs. The shopping for the party took me a long time because it seemed like no one store had everything that I needed. I went to three grocery stores and 4 stores that just have stuff. The hardest was to find a cookie sheet. I never did. I ended up buying a pizza pan to use for baking my cheese lace.

I had 6 guests come and we ate, drank and chatted. Then it finally came to be time for the fireworks. I thought I had it all sussed out. I have a view of the top of the Eiffel Tour and that was the location of the fireworks. Well, I had it made it the shade. Didn’t I? Nope. It turns out that the greater part of the fireworks was let off at a very low level and was below the roofline. We saw a few come out above the rooftops but that was it. Oh well. Can’t win them all. The party was fun anyway.

Parislog 29
July 11, 2006


This month for the free day at the museums, I went to the Louvre. I really wanted to revisit the apartments of Napoleon III. It was as spectacular as I remember it being. When you walk through the first couple of rooms, there is nothing that prepares you for the Grand Salon with its red velvet furniture, gold scrollwork and amazing paintings. And the dining room is no less spectacular.

One thing that I just have to complain about is some of the other visitors. The guards said “no flash” more times than I can count and people were just totally ignoring it. I am pretty sure that they don’t want flash because the light will deteriorate the paintings and colors over time. I was right next to a guy who used the flash, right after the guards had again repeated themselves. So I had to stick my foot in the mix. I said it to them in French and then when they looked at me with no comprehension, repeated it in English that they weren’t supposed to be using flash. The guy looks at me and in totally west coast USA English said, “ What are you a guard or something?” I looked him right dead in the eyes and said, “Does that matter?” He and his posse walked off. Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

It was a really hot day in the Louvre and many parts don’t appear to be air-conditioned. One little boy found a solution for his dilemma. He and a friend found some grates on the floor that were quite forcefully blowing air up and the two of them were letting it blow their shirts and shorts up into big balloons.

I was in the metro and a guy bumped into me like people always do. I have decided that it is a sport or something. Maybe you get points for quantity and quality of the bump. Anyway, this guy actually turned to me and said pardon. I nearly fell over in shock. Just ahead of us there was a lady on the stairs whose wheel had broken on her little trolley. He stopped to try and help her fix it. I was not surprised at the second part. More people stop and help others than I can count. That is one of the awesome points here.

There are so many who use the metro and buses here as their only form of transportation so you see some pretty strange things while riding. I have seen tables, ironing board, and a big leather easy chair being transported to their new home on the metro. It was a shock to see the leather barrel shaped chair coming on with two women carrying it. It took up the better part of the center section and caused quite a mess when people needed to get around it to disembark.

We had a couple of days last week that were real miseries. The temperatures were over 90º with some crazy high humidity. The temp doesn’t sound that bad but it is way different than in Hollywood. You took two steps and you broke out in a sweat. I drank extra water but didn’t pee it out. I blew up like a balloon with water weight. Then during the night that it cooled down I was up all night peeing losing all the swelling. This was all new to me. Fortunately, there has only been one other day that had the same conditions and it started happening again.

And the metro on these days is inhuman. You get into the tunnels and in some there is a reasonable breeze but in others you start to feel the heat going up. Then you get onto the train and you are immersed in a sauna. It feels like 150º in there with a humidity of 200%. You are pooling in sweat. Your neighbors are pooling in sweat and then more bodies get on and you have to get a little closer. Your lucky day. The guy who got on just beside you and is holding onto the pole up above your head is one of those who don’t believe in deodorant. Thank god it isn’t everybody who thinks that way anymore. Finally your stop comes up and you basically fall of the train because you were about to pass out and you get the tiniest bit of fresh air.

I brought some books back to the library and when I was checking them in the librarian tried to tell me something. This time I got some of the words but not enough to gather what she was talking about. I searched in my head for any possible overdue fines or outstanding books and came up blank. I told her that I didn’t understand. She said that it wasn’t really that important and smiled me on my way. The next day, I got a phone call from another library where I had put a book on hold. She was kind enough to speak with enough articulation that I got most of the pertinent information. And I was able to gather that this must be what the other lady had been trying to tell me. A little progress anyway.

When France won the second to last game it was an all out festival in the streets again. The horns were blowing and the people were screaming on into the night. I can appreciate the joy but find it beyond me to understand going solid for 3 hours. I guess alcohol helps. There was somebody who had a whistle and they kept blowing the rhythm for hours.

Then came the final. I was out during the day and already people were parading around in their cars honking horns and waving flags. It was early afternoon. People were everywhere in the streets wearing the team shirts and if the shirt didn’t go with the outfit they would just drape it over their shoulders or purse. One corner had two guys with their shirts and flags, air horn and portable computer.

They lost. Zidane lost his mind. The town got quiet. In the building right next to me there was an argument between the first floor and the fifth floor. The quiet was deafening as everyone went home quietly discussing what happened with each other. Then the people with cherry bombs and firecrackers and roman candles had to use them all up. And the quiet was broken. That was a little nerve wracking for a while because they weren’t exactly being careful with their aim. Then quiet.

For anyone who watched the game and knew that Zidane, aka Zizoo was a legend playing his last game. It was completely out of character that he would head butt another player in the chest. Apparently the Italian who had been on the receiving end had been badmouthing him the whole game and just then he had said the Zidane and his whole kind were nothing but terrorists. It isn’t an excuse but everyone has his limits.

Parislog 28
July 3, 2006

I have a couple of more details on Jolly Olde England. In America and Canada when we walk on the sidewalks we have a tendency to take our right hand side when passing others as though we were driving a car. In England, I almost caused great pile-ups because I was trying to be polite and do the same thing. What I quickly came to realize was that the Brits very politely do the opposite. They all file past each other taking the left just as they would do if they were driving. The exception is the escalators. If you are standing still, you still take the right and let others pass you on the left. Go figure.

I didn’t think ahead about my return to Paris. I came home late Saturday and that was not well thought through because everything is closed on Sunday. Of course, before one leaves one empties the larder so that there aren’t any of those strange smelly things growing in the house when one gets home. One doesn’t want to experience the Little Shop of Horrors upon one’s fatigued return. Problem is that leaves nothing to eat and the stores are nicely shut for the day and you haven’t awakened in time to go to the farmer’s market on the street so you have to try the take-out food. Things I need to think about for next time, maybe a couple of cans or frozen things?

In all the dating I have done here I have been waiting to explain one of the French idioms and now I get to. Hah. On Sunday, I had two dates. The first one was an African diplomat. He was interesting but had a frightening dislike of people. He even said he had no friends because he didn’t need them. The second one I will never know because he (here it is) “poser un lapin”, which means that he acted like a rabbit. I guess that means he quickly hopped away, what we would call stood up, not that that makes any more sense.

From every book that I read on France, I learned that the French get really annoyed when you don’t at least try to speak their language so I wasn’t prepared for this one. I had gone into the store that serves the telephone and internet customers that is now called Orange to ask for what the television stations were on the internet service. I had just gotten back from England so I wasn’t in top form with French but I was getting by. The guy that I was talking to tried to get me to talk to the guy who “could speak English” and I wanted to get back into speaking French. It became a stand off. I mean he really wanted me to go and speak English to this other guy. It was the weirdest moment. I was stuck in wanted to speak French and respect the culture and he was stuck in wanted to help make it easier for me or maybe he wanted to give his co-worker a chance to practice English. I don’t know. I finally gave up and blurted out my request in English. The first guy that I was talking to understood it completely and went and got me the info. Then we continued the conversation in French. ????????? What a strange surreal moment.

I am finding that some of the metro stops have toilets. What a relief. Sorry. I couldn’t resist. Ooh that was even better. Anyway. The toilets at the metro stop called Trocadero are positively spectacular Art Nouveau originals.

I continued to have a terrible run of things not working out for a few days. First was being stood up and then H* and I had a miscommunication in regards to meeting for a museum and I was left dangling like a chad. (American voting humor). Then the invites for the museum turned out to be all gone so I went to the museum to see if they would let me in anyway. Nope. Then I tried to find this cool secondhand designer clothing store that H* had taken me too. Nope. The next day I tried to go to the Christie’s preview of the jewelry sale. Arrived at one. Closed at noon. Nope. I thought to myself, maybe I should finish the week in bed. Nope.

One of the events they had around here was a contest for decorating balconies with greenery and flowers. I came across the Plaza Athenee Hotel, which had matched their flowers to their awnings. It was spectacular. You can stay there for 550€ ($700) a night. Are you feeling it?

I have been playing around with another aspect of fashion design. I carry a little writing pad around with me and find interesting bits in my environment to inspire clothing ideas. It started while I was waiting for one date and saw a bicycle parking area cover that had interesting lines. I sketched out 8 different ideas. I decided to take it a little further. First, I went to this fabulous bookstore by the “Pompidou” (modern art museum) called Mona Lisait and got a great fashion drawing book and then I headed to the Eiffel Tower and started drawing. It made for some strange clothes but it was fun. The next day I went to Park Monceau a used some of the ancient ruins (fake) for inspiration. I suspect the spots for inspiration could be never ending here.

Oh yes, there was another botched plan this week. On Saturday there was this really cool treasure hunt in some of the neighborhoods to encourage people to get to know the areas. I decided to go to one and when I got there the courtyard to the “mairie” (mayor’s) was wall-to-wall people so I decided instead to go to the “soldes” sales.

In France, they are only allowed to have sales twice a year and this one started the 28th of June and goes until 5th of August. It is a shopping free-for-all. You see people going past with multiple bags under their arms looking for more to buy. I think that many people wait just for this moment to do their shopping. The stores are packed. I get the sales frenzy thing but what I don’t get is the temperature in the stores. It is like 150º in the stores because they don’t as a whole believe in air conditioning here or it is too hard to put in. Who wants to try on clothes when you are dripping in sweat? And who wants to buy clothes that have been tried on by other people dripping in sweat? Then if you find a store that does have air conditioning, most often the doors are wide open. That is energy efficient! Dripping with sarcasm.

World Cup. Insane. I got a tip from M.C.* in L.A. to go to Champs-Elysees if the French won the quarterfinal. You know me. I can’t resist something like that and off I went. On my way to the metro I saw a police car pulled over at a bistro and the 2 officers were standing beside their car watching the game. So you know we are off to a good start. I get on the metro and the train has a mini break down and the crowd groans. It finally sounds like it is going to start and you hear someone down the way saying, “let’s go” with a little exasperation in the tone. I finally get the Champs and it is a mad house. I can hear the noise from inside the train station. I come up and the winners of the previous game, Portugal, are parading in their cars up and down the boulevard with flags and bodies hanging out of the cars. As I waited for the game to finish, I walked up and down. At one point the French finally got the goal and I happened to be near the big police paddy wagons. The police popped off their sirens and I could see that they had tv screens inside the vehicles on which they were keeping track of the game.

When the game ended and the French had won, they came streaming out into the street from the bars. The street was immediately shut down to traffic at both ends and the bodies started to fill it up. The Portugal supporters were still there. Not only were they coming from the bars, but also from the streets and apartments of the quarter. Then they started to pile in from the metros. It was packed. They were yelling, screaming, whistling, blowing air horns and letting off emergency flares and fireworks. It was insane. They were chanting “allez les bleus”, which means, “go blues” and singing the national anthem, I think. Some people even brought drums. I never saw any fighting but I did see the different supporters doing little stand-offs while flying their colors.

I left at midnight and was shocked at the stream of people coming out of the metro still. It was like a steam bath entering the station from the quantity of people in there. Not pleasant. I was glad that I was leaving.

When I got back to my street, of course the party was in full force at the corner. I went up to my apartment and set my mind to the fact that I probably wasn’t going to be able to get any sleep for a while yet. The line of cars in the street were non-stop blowing their horns and the people with the whistles seemed to never run out of breathe. I swear that I even heard a bagpipe. I watched for a while as the people at the corner bistro were making every car stop, for what exactly I don’t know but often they would dog pile onto the car and ride it down the street. I even saw a few of them fall off of the moving car. They were drunk enough to not appear to have gotten hurt. Finally, at 2:30, a half-hour after the bars closed, it calmed down enough to be able to contemplate sleep.