His and Hers Parigi: From Paris to Parenthood

In the weeds

2010-06-01T18:59:00.000-05:00

I think its fair to say that there were a number of people who expected us to move from our fourth floor walk up and get a car with the arrival of Amelia. Those two things are still not on the Gibson To Do list, but I will admit, one thing that has slipped—somewhere between bottle washing and attempting to find time to make it to the gym—is blogging. But, with a nudge from a dear friend and perhaps for my own memory, here’s the view “from the weeds”—a favorite phrase of Miriam’s Kitchen’s chef.

We’re still amazed at how much our little girl has captured our hearts. Leaving work, sometimes I find that I hop a cab home just because I don’t want to wait and extra half hour to see her. In the morning, my last squeeze before I head out for the day is sometimes one of my favorite parts of the day. Occasionally, I want to stomp my feet like a little girl because I simply don’t want to go to work, and wish I could spend the day with her.

Amelia has entered a new phase of development that is so fun. She eats food (squash, peas and carrots are hits. My girl also loves a good fried egg yolk). She rolls over and giggles at our little games. They even have her painting now at “school."

We’re also not sure though where our schedules have gone. Josh and I both wonder out loud about how we’ve let things slip. I only partially joke that if something is not number one on my to do list, it just doesn’t get done.

We spend at least part of our day negotiating schedules and even with two college degrees and one graduate degree between us, it really is never-ending and not easy. We are both committed to still going to the gym, the one thing we have decided we can’t let slip. But then we enter into conversations like this (an extended quote from an actual email, guess who wrote it):

“So, here's how I see our gym situation:

My Gym Preferences
1.) Three times a week (twice Mon-Thurs, once Sat-Sun)
2.) Preferably not three days in a row
3.) Only full workouts (90 minutes at gym, 150 minutes from starting to put on gym clothes to getting home)

Your Preferences
1.) Two times a week
2.) Only classes, no independent workouts
3.) No leaving classes early

Classes you might go to (with possible conflicts/problems in parentheses):

Monday 7PM: Zumba (conflicts with board meetings)
Wednesday 7:30PM: Inspired Yoga 1/2 (Josh can't work out afterwards)
Thursday 7PM: Zumba (frequently social events on Thursdays)
Saturday noon: Inspired Yoga 1/2 (conflicts with Sara's nap)
Sunday 10AM: Anusara Yoga (Gentle Yoga) (conflicts with Josh sleeping in)
Sunday 6PM: Mellow Flow Yoga (conflicts with Sunday dinner prep)

Since my weekend gym trip is usually Sunday, since I can't go to the gym on Wednesday b/c of yoga, since I usually don't go to the gym on Thursdays b/c of social stuff, and since I don't go to the gym on Fridays b/c they close early, that's how I end up going to the gym three days in a row (Sun, Mon, Tue). That's the problem we have to solve.”

But its still all worth it.

Nothing lights up a room like that smile or a giggle.

Back to adoring our little girl and trying to arm wrestle our schedule,

sPg

Savoring

2010-03-17T22:06:00.000-05:00

As I was rocking Amelia to sleep tonight, the one word that kept coming to mind was “savoring." I feel like that is the one word to describe how I go about my hours, days, weeks, and now months with our little Amelia. I just don’t want to miss a thing, and even in those few moments where my eyes seem so incredibly heavy for lack of sleep, I find myself wanting to just soak it all in. I have heard “the days are long, but the years are short,” and at four and half months, I can already sense the truth in that adage.

So, yes, our little girl is nearing five months old. She is squarely a baby now rather than an infant or, to put it differently, and as I’m prone to say, “she’s entirely less blobby now”. She coos, squeaks, laughs, and has endless staring contests with whoever is around.

She is also our pink bombshell since it seems that about 95 percent of her clothing is pink and there is no doubt that she loves her some breastmilk, from the source please. I think her little personality is starting to show and I predict that she will be a serious and inquisitive little girl. She also still has her blue eyes, but I’m not yet convinced she’ll keep them.

I have also started to sense that just as our little girl is slowly evolving into who she will be, I am continuing to evolve into the type of mother I will be. It continues to be a transition that feels easier than I expected in so many ways, but unexpectedly difficult in others. The business of parenting—whereby I wake up already at a dead sprint and seem to collapse into bed after completing 30 “baby tasks”--hasn’t generally been as difficult or as tedious as I expected. I would even go so far as to say I am having fun.

Coping with a sore back, aching wrist, and ongoing scheduling negotiations has been harder than I expected. Finding a willing and responsible adult to spend time with Amelia so Josh and I can remember what it's like to be husband and wife (and not just mom and dad) has been gratefully easy due to kind offers by many generous friends and relatives. Finding time to get my hair cut and colored or my eyebrows waxed is a lot harder than it used to be. Dealing with all the details of continuing to breastfeed while also working full time hasn’t been too difficult, but finding time to wash bottles still feels like finding a needle in a haystack. Riding the bus seems remarkably smooth, even with a stroller, but not having the option to just hop into a taxi (since we haven’t figured out yet how to safely put the car seat into the older cars that the cabbies inevitably drive) is one of the biggest life adjustments we've had to make.

I have also realized that I am happily evolving into a fairly low-key mother, which is pleasantly shocking. Even a dear friend said, “You know Sara, I thought you were going to be a lot more neurotic than you are.” I honestly couldn’t agree more. I guess I am finding that just as my “spidey sense” guided me and served me well in pregnancy, it continues to serve me well as we tackle issues from when should Amelia start solid foods (not yet) to what should she eat when she does eat (probably chicken, almost certainly not rice cereal) to when she go to bed (probably a bit later than "typical”). Now don't get me wrong--I don’t want to give away my right to be a crazy, obsessive mom, but I just haven’t quite found the right time or place for it yet. Maybe I’m saving myself up for her school years or for her toddler years.

And so here I end. Its just before 10PM and a few more chores remain to be done—and number one on my to do list is to go peek at that beautiful sleeping little girl of mine just one more time.

Still savoring,

sPg

Papa!

2010-02-03T11:28:00.002-05:00

[Josh, right after Sara told him she thought she had gone into labor.]

It's time to put the “his” back in “hisandhersparigi”! Yes, I'm bringing “his” back (but leaving “sexy” right where I left it). We're not in Parigi anymore, so without that, and without me, our blog was running dangerously close to being called “Hers,” which is one towel short of a rack, and sounds suspiciously like “hearse,” which is creepy.

[The day Amelia was born!]

So, I'm a father. Above and beyond the incredible fabulousness of that, I have to admit that it's still unbelievable—literally hard to believe. It's like when I started my first “real job”: it took weeks before I stopped feeling like I was “playing office,” and would be called out for it at any minute. And it's a lot like after getting married—for weeks, I had the hardest time keeping a straight face when I used words like “wife” and “our wedding.” To make a timely analogy, it's a bit like remembering to write “2010” on checks. The first time you do, it's incredibly deliberate, and feels like make-believe. After that, it eventually becomes natural, but every once in a while, it's April, and you find yourself slipping up and writing last year's date.

No, I don't forget I have a daughter! Ever since we decided to expand our family, the whole time Sara was pregnant, and most of all since Amelia was born, we obviously and blissfully have thought of little else. But still, when words like “daughter,” “father,” and “Amelia” come up in conversation, I still skip a beat, and grin a bit internally, before saying them.

A couple of weeks back, at the pediatrician's office, I was checking us in, and the surly desk agent asked me “Child's date of birth?” I paused a few beats too long before responding. Clearly I hadn't forgotten—that's one of those Dates When Everything Changes; plus, who can forget a Halloween birth date?!? I had just never been asked that question that way before. When I told friends or colleagues I hadn't seen for a while that Amelia had arrived, they might ask “When was she born?” But that day at the doctor's office when I was asked for my daughter's birthdate, I literally had to pause for a second and say in my head “You are a father. You have a daughter. Her name is Amelia Simone Gibson. Her date of birth is October 31, 2009.”

Now, three months on, daddyness has become much more natural (though I'll admit to snapping awake once or twice on the couch at 4AM, and thinking “Where am I? I have a daughter? I have a daughter!”

You bet I have a daughter! I love her with every shred of my essence. But I think Sara and I are doing a good job of keeping our identities straight. We' are each ourselves first, husband and wife second, and mother and father third. We wouldn't have Amelia if we didn't have each other, and we wouldn't have each other if we weren't each comfortable in our own skin. Amelia is the pinnacle of our world, but the peak of the pyramid can't be held up unless its foundations are strong.

So yes, since Amelia was born, everything has changed, but nothing has changed. I'm still happy to be me, thrilled to be with Sara, so grateful to love and be loved by my mom, and honored to be a part of Sara's family.

It's just now, I have a tiny, perfect, adorable copilot to share adventures with!

Josh

Here's a bonus picture: It's Amelia doing her William Shatner imitation. "Where. Is. My. Milk?"

The new ordinary

2010-01-30T04:53:00.000-05:00

[I'm a nitwit, it's my fault that despite Sara's blog being written last Sunday, it's only being posted today. --Josh]

It’s a rainy Sunday morning, and with Amelia gurgling in the background and with Meet the Press on the TV, it seemed like a good moment to offer just a glimpse of where we are. I have been reasonably quiet on the blog front in large part because life is simply chugging along. There have been many small moments that have fascinated me, like watching Amelia seem to discover her hands and actually interact with a toy. There have been a lot of moments that seem mostly ordinary and not quite worth writing about, like 4AM crying sessions and realizing that at least once, in the middle of the night, it had been 5 hours since Amelia had needed our attention. Mostly, we are happily still adjusting to our life with Amelia and I think we're all getting along pretty well.

The grand tour of introductions has continued and that has been a real joy. Amelia and I zoomed off to Indiana for a week while Josh kept the home fires burning in DC. She flew like a pro and I found traveling with her easier than expected. Even though the weather in Indiana was predictably unattractive and my mom was sick for part of our visit, it was so nice to spend time with my parents and introduce David and others to Amelia.

And like most things in life, just when you get the hang of one phase, life has moved on. It's now time for me to learn how to be a working mother. I went to work for one day last week, which was actually nice. Amelia was with Josh, my coworkers were beyond sweet, and Miriam's opened up our new Evening Program, which is really big for our organization. But it almost felt like a little diversion rather than a return to the real world. I had planned to return several other times that week, but Amelia's first [not serious, but still unnerving] illness changed plans and so I'm now using this week as transition. A flexible and understanding boss and husband have made this much easier, but I will say I am approaching this with the dread I had of labor. I wonder how it is that I am going to be up for feedings at 4 and 6AM and still able to fight through the inevitable 1PM fatigue. The reality is that most women I know have juggled this and so I know its possible, but I'm reasonably realistic about the difficulty of it all. My next goal is to make it to Valentine's Day with as much of my sanity intact as possible.

It is also time to return to the gym—something I am both loving and dreading. I can't wait to return to Zumba and I'm vowing to go to yoga, but I haven't yet done either. February 1^st is the deadline that I am setting for myself to get to the gym at least once.

So, no grand thoughts or visions, but life is still pretty good and parenthood is full of daily joy. I bumped into a friend at the blessed Harris Teeter yesterday. She had a baby at the end of November. With Amelia in her stroller zonked out in the dairy section, and her little boy strapped in a baby carrier also snoozing away, we exchanged updates and she said, "I can't believe how much fun it is" and I couldn't agree more.

Chugging along,

sPg

You've Come a Long Way Baby

2009-12-16T06:24:00.000-05:00

It was a chilly early evening, but we were bundled up well. Amelia and I had easily navigated a quick trip on the 42 bus past the Christmas lights in Dupont Circle. I "explained" to Amelia that we were on our way to meet a very special person that evening. We were going to meet a long-time friend who also is a big reason why DC became my second home so quickly. And to top it all off, we were going to have a "fancy night", which is why she was in a dress (and a snowsuit). Yes, we were going to pass the evening with my dear friend Becky at the Ritz.

Becky, who normally lives in San Francisco (but hails from Logansport, Indiana) was my first roommate in the DC area when I arrived here in 1998. Back then, she was the only person in town that I could claim to know and even at that, she was still in London for the first few weeks I was here on the East Coast.

This past week, Becky was in town for business and invited Amelia, Josh and I to spend time with her at the Ritz Club. She assured me it would be super-easy to bring Amelia, and there would be tasty snacks and beverages, which lured Josh and I. Our location is even more delicious though when you consider that Becky and I met in high school Debate Camp and nearly the entirety of our early friendship was spent in Chesterton, Logansport, or some small high school somewhere else in Indiana at debate tournaments.(for some great vintage pictures of Becky and me, see the end of this blog post.) In fact, one of our earliest ongoing arguments involved the GATT Treaty (yes, we were that well-read as high schoolers). We have also been known to visit a truck stop if it was the only place in town to get a decent coffee.

So last night, Amelia and I swung into the lobby of the Ritz—me pushing the stroller—grateful for the door being opened by the well-dressed doorman. Becky arrived a few minutes later, and gazed at Amelia with the eyes of an old friend. She was grateful to see and meet my young daughter, but she is also someone who could also see the story that brought us to that moment together. In some ways, we were so far from those early days of our friendship, but in the most important ways, we were still the same "well-spoken" small town girls who dreamed of the big world out there, wondering which dream we were going to tackle first. Because Becky also has a young, beautiful three-year-old daughter (Hi Maddie!), she could understand the hopes that a small-town-turned-city girl can offer to her daughter from the earliest days.

I've now been in DC long enough that I am now rarely enamored with "fancy" places, but sometimes I have glimpses of my current life and I have to pinch myself. I'm still a Hoosier at heart. I'm not so removed from my roots that I take the opportunities a big city offers lightly. I still giggle when I think that my daughter will know how to fish and which fork to use at a nice restaurant. I still wish that my grandmother and my Uncle Dan could have lived long enough to see this life, strange it may be, that I've carved out. And I’m grateful that my family has been able to so easily accept this "Sara" that is still entirely Chesterton, but is also just as much DC or Paris; Flannery's and the Ritz; American-made cars and the 42 bus. I'm still all of those things and my hope for Amelia is that she is able to take the world that we give her and make it fit her like a glove whatever size or shape that glove might be.

Wishing on a star for Amelia,

sPg

Glimpses

2009-12-07T01:01:00.000-05:00

Last week someone warned me, "The days are long but the years are short" and I think that even feels right in these few weeks. Our little Amelia has been with us for 5 weeks now. In many ways, it feels like she literally arrived yesterday, but then I can also recall enough early morning feedings to reassure myself that in fact, she has been here for over 35 days.

So, a few glimpses from these days to share.

18^th and Columbia Rockstar—One of my favorite moments since Amelia's arrival happened last night. We were strolling home after a quick dinner out and as we approached the intersection by our house, we bumped into the Sitar Gang (from the Sitar Arts Center, where Josh and I met when I worked there and he was on the board), heading home after dinner (presumably) at Mixtec. Of course, we are always excited to run into dear Sitar friends on the street, and there is usually some sort of low level excitement when we happen to bump into one another, but this was something entirely different. For many, it was the first time they had met Amelia, and it was so fun to share such excitement on the streets of Adams Morgan.

We actually caused enough of a scene that random strangers stopped to see what the small crowd was peering at. We heard one man say as he walked away, "oh, so there's a baby in there." I know that Amelia isn't the first or only baby in Adams Morgan, but those ladies sure did make us feel like it for just a few minutes last night!

Strolling—Our new cool stroller arrived last week and we have put some miles on since its arrival! Even if Amelia is squeaking in slight discontent, once we start moving, she's either happily entertained or rocked to sleep, usually within a block. By my rough math, we've already put on about 8 miles or so. We also have had tremendous luck figuring out how to take the bus with the stroller too! I can actually get myself, Amelia and the stroller on and off the bus without any trouble, which is a huge relief.

Kindness of Strangers—Gratefully, the warmth that I felt when I was pregnant has more than continued since Amelia's arrival. Random strangers have offered seats on the bus, helped me on and off the bus, and inquired about our little girl—all of this without touching her (which I do appreciate in the midst of flu/cold season). People seem to respect reasonable boundaries that a newborn requires but also are just simply sweet with their questions. One woman said, "Thank you for giving me some baby time" as she got off the bus—and all I did was sit next to her.

The birds—Now that I think I spend about 20 hours a day feeding my little barracuda, I now have time to literally watch the birds. Thankfully, I had the foresight to buy Josh a birdfeeder for his birthday. Last week, the birds found it and I will admit that I enjoyed hours of bird watching from my couch this week. It sounds silly, but I had forgotten how peaceful it can be to just sit still.

Thanksgiving—Thanksgiving was wonderful. We celebrated with Josh, Bobi (my mother-in-law), and Craig and Mario (our two wonderful neighbors). Foodwise, we mostly ordered out, but mixed in a few homemade family favorites—potato pancakes, stuffing and cranberry sauce. I enjoyed a delightful glass of champagne, and laughed because it was clear our holidays have lost some of their "order". Josh was changing Amelia, Bobi was also nowhere to be found, Mario had ducked next door to get cranberries and Craig and I were left alone at the table with plates of food but no other dining companions. We weren't sure what to do, but then Craig said, "Well I'm from a big family. I learned that you eat when there is food in front of you." I said, "That makes sense to me" as I hoped that maybe a diaper change and a quick start to my meal would mean I might enjoy a few moments of eating without an infant also needing to eat.

The Other Woman—Amelia officially met the other woman in Josh's life: the Lovely Lucero, who cuts Josh's hair every 21 days. It was a big day for Josh and Amelia, as you can imagine. (Lucero and Amelia share a birthday, by the way.) And after the haircut, Josh "allowed" Amelia and I to join him at Moby Dick's for his mandatory post-haircut kebab!

Damp clothing—Sometimes I think, "Between Amelia's snarfing and near diaper misses and my own 'milk factory', will I ever not be damp again???"

That smile—It gets me every time. It doesn't matter if its 4AM or noon. Our little girl has started to smile just a nudge more often and its the one time when I feel like time stops.

Back to begging for another smile,

sPg

Adams Morgan's Newest Resident

2009-11-23T02:05:00.000-05:00

[The pictures for this blog are from an even more ambitious outing we took a couple of days after the one I describe in the blog. Here we are at the 14th and U Farmer's Market--admittedly just outside Adams Morgan.]

It's no secret that Josh and I love Adams Morgan and consider ourselves a real part of the community—both for better and for worse. In fact, back on October 30, after my water broke and as we went to catch a cab to Sibley Hospital, it felt somehow appropriate that Adams Morgan was in full swing (at 1:30AM).

As such, it seems exactly appropriate that we are introducing our little one to the neighborhood quite early in her life. A couple of days back, I decided it was time that Amelia and I went out to say hello to Adams Morgan. We started, as one might expect, at Tryst. I had a Dirty Chai (decaf) and Amelia slept. We sat at table, Amelia all snuggled in her sling and I enjoyed just being part of the neighborhood. Surprisingly, we didn't see anyone we knew (but I suppose it was 4pm..not high traffic time) and they were unusually speedy with their service.

[The arrival of Amelia has not diminished Josh's love of a tasty pastry. Here he's enjoying his favorite part of the 14th and U market, the pumpkin whoopie pies.]

Afterwards, I was still feeling energetic and Amelia was still snoozing, so we ventured further. This time we went to Little Shop of Flowers to say hello to Shefika and thank her for the beautiful orchid that she had sent home with Josh when he very sweetly bought flowers from her last weekend. She was charmed by our little one and at first insisted that we take a flower (but I said we would come back another time).

Lastly, I decided we needed a few groceries. Our beloved Harris Teeter seemed just a little too far away, so we picked up a few essentials and even managed to avoid bad service. Finally, we walked back home down Columbia Road.

[The cider stand at the market was out of smaller bottles, so I made do. Note at left, the cellophane from Josh's pumpkin whoopie pie (see earlier photo), still clutched in his photo-taking hand.]

It feels like a huge accomplishment to be out and about with Amelia. Who would have ever thought that a walk in our neighborhood would feel as exciting as a trip to the moon? I also loved that as we walked, I knew that within a few blocks there were lots of people who honestly care that we have a little one. Columbia Road, 18^th Street, Tryst, the Sitar Center, Jubilee Jumpstart (our future daycare), many restaurants, Harris Teeter, our gym…this is our little world and now Amelia is part of it;. We've also already expanded our Adams Morgan geography. We have already taken a few walks through the parks that are just beyond our door, but which we had mostly ignored until now.I can already imagine Amelia enjoying the swings and meeting other neighborhood kids.

I didn't really imagine what my life would be like when I had children, but I do know that this world isn't what I had in mind. Adams Morgan is mixed up, colorful, crazy and still…oddly enough…home.

I hope Amelia feels the same way.

[Amelia, zonked, after the market trip.]

Loving our mixed up Mayberry,

sPg

The Arrival

2009-11-17T02:56:00.000-05:00

Today was supposed to be "Coco's" due date. Statistically, even still, she probably could have been a few days away from arriving. But she's here already and these last two weeks with her have left me thrilled, exhausted, content, in tears and profoundly grateful. Our little one arrived on her own schedule, after a rain front moved in and a few days before the full moon that I thought would bring about labor.

We really thought we had more time. In fact, the weekend our little one arrived is also the weekend we had jam packed with projects ranging from laundry (which my parents gratefully ended up doing the first night we were in the hospital) to a much needed haircut for me (which ended up happening two weeks later) to putting boxes of various electrical cords away (happened a week later) to getting that prenatal massage I had promised myself (still pending) to a birthday party for Josh (oh well, there's always 2010). But, proving that little ones don't care about our plans, she came early and we are thrilled.

[Sara, as pregnant as she'd ever get, after her water broke and right before heading to the hospital.]

Labor started after a wonderful dinner with Josh on October 30 at Obelisk to celebrate his 37^th birthday. After returning home and falling asleep, my water broke just after midnight and I remember thinking "Is this really happening?" Before telling Josh that I thought our little one would be arriving in shorter order than we had thought, I remember going to the bathroom and taking a moment to take it all in, before telling Josh that we might need to head to the hospital soon.

[Josh, after Sara's water broke.]

Labor proceeded smoothly and sixteen and a half hours later, our little girl was born. Saying her name for the first time was a powerful moment, even if I think I was still in shock after the rigors of labor.

And now we're now firmly in the world of new parenthood. Sometimes I feel like I am just stuck in one giant (if pleasant) cliché. We don't get enough sleep, we are absolutely charmed by our little one, we keep saying "She's so cute", we worry needlessly if she is eating enough, we take a lot of photos of our sleeping girl, we talk a lot about diapers and we pretty much walk around with a happy if slightly dazed look. The new "normal" of sleep has been an adjustment, but because the last weeks of pregnancy kept me up late and often, it has been reasonably acceptable.

She's only been with us two weeks, but she's already happily turned our world upside down. I've casually described this new life as one "where Tuesday night and Saturday night look basically the same".

So, where do we go from here? I guess we'll see. I have already learned that I can function well on much less sleep than I ever imagined. I can only guess what her lessons will be for me next week.

Off to spend another two hours just watching her sleep,

sPg

Tossing the Clock

2009-11-06T15:53:00.000-05:00

[Please note: Sara wrote the blog below well before Amelia was born. She told me on the 27th that it was set, and all I had to do was add the pictures and post it. That didn't happen in the four days before Amelia showed up, or in the week since. I guess we see which Gibson parent will be teaching the little one efficiency and time management. - Josh]

I have gotten much better at waiting and patience, but I’ll admit, it’s never been my strong suit. I also have an incredibly short attention span for any physical ailments. I’m (in)famous for saying that after three days of any illness I am entirely bored. So, at this stage of pregnancy, the challenges are obvious.

I wonder when she is coming. I wonder when my body will return to even remotely recognizable proportions. I wonder when I will stop being driven slightly mad by a nonstop desire to scratch (the newest of pregnancy related surprises). I wonder what part of our To Do list will be left undone if she comes early. I wonder if any of the fun things I’ve scheduled for the next week (Josh’s birthday dinner, a massage, a haircut and book club) will come to pass. I wonder when turning over in bed will not feel like a feat that I feel I deserve applause for. I wonder when I will be able to go 37 minutes without thinking about the bathroom. I wonder if Josh’s prediction of November 19th or my prediction of November 4th will be accurate.

This weekend we put her room together. For the first time in my life, I enjoyed folding and putting away clothes (normally my least favorite task in all of chore-dom). I found myself relishing the big questions like “Is this a 0-3 or 3-6 month sleeper?” Josh put the crib together. I also started to get excited—like I can’t wait to meet her and want to meet her RIGHT NOW excited. Ironically, as I was thinking this, she was moving around so much that I literally could tell you her every move. The notion of “meeting” someone you’ve been this close to is fascinating.

This morning as I walked into work, one of Miriam’s guest said, “About time?” and I said, “Absolutely—anytime. I’m ready.”

In that moment I had a small realization. It isn’t about me. In fact, it will never really be about me again. This is just the beginning of it all. It isn’t about when I’m ready for her to be born, walk, talk, date, drive, graduate or do any other thing she will do. She is her own little person, with her own little clock.

So, I’ve recommitted to enjoying the ride. Its fun to know that people care so much that its rare that a phone call doesn’t get answered or returned. I appreciate how easily I can get a seat on even the most crowded of buses. I value the random conversations I get to have around children, parenting and even labor.

I also know that I will never have these moments with her again—where she is a part of me in such a delicate and miraculous way. To rush through this would be like wanting to rush through any other phase—and some of the best advice we’ve received has been to enjoy every minute for the unique minute that it is.

So, don’t mind my scratching and I apologize to anyone who is stuck behind me on a sidewalk or a stair case. I’m relishing this whole pregnancy thing…trust me.

Tossing away my clock,
sPg

Pregnancy and the City

2009-10-27T01:07:00.000-05:00

It's an interesting thing to be so obviously pregnant in a city. We live in a place where public transportation is the norm, sidewalk conversations are how we do business and I literally bump into people all the time. Sometimes it’s irritating, but oftentimes, it is sweet, funny and all together unexpected. Here are a few snippets from life as a pregnant woman in DC.

The bus—I love the bus and ride it regularly. The Metro is a 15-minute walk away, but the bus doubles as a "poor man’s taxi". In fact, my beloved H1 bus picks me up one block from my house and drops me off one block from my office—not bad for $1.35! The bus is also a traveling community. I can tell time by the woman with the red coat. If she's at Q Street, then I'm on time. If she's not there, I'm late. And then there is the woman who wears the same decorative blue dress every day in the summer. I knew it was time for fall when she arrived one day wearing a red version of the same dress. But there is also a courtesy on the bus because we see each other too often. Now that climbing up bus stairs is a little tougher, the bus driver always lowers the bus for me. The woman with the red jacket commented about how well I look (and she knows since she sees me most days). But most happily surprising, someone always gives me their seat and I don't even have to ask.

The other day, two young men in suits quickly got up and offered a seat. Women and men of different ages regularly insist that I take their seat. But sometimes there are funny or endearing moments. One afternoon a few weeks ago, an older woman asked a younger woman to give her seat to me (which she promptly did). I gratefully accepted the seat and fellow passengers were probably happy they wouldn't have to see me try and stay upright during the ride. But the real gem of the ride happened once I was seated. A much older Latina woman sat beside me. That afternoon, the Tiniest Gibson was really active and each time, she moved, my stomach also visibly moved and the lady laughed. I felt that as she watched me, she became a young mother right in front of my eyes—remembering her own pregnancies. She then said, "kicking?" and we both laughed as we shared the moments my belly continued to move.

The sidewalk—Sidewalks make for funny snippets. Today an older man, who looked a little crazy, stopped in front of me, looked at my obviously large belly and said, "I told you when you eat watermelon you are supposed to spit out the seeds" and then kept walking, leaving me stopped laughing in my tracks.

I don't ride the Metro enough to comment, but the few times I have ridden it, I've either found a seat or have asked and people have politely given me a place.

But besides just giving up seats, I regularly get fun questions, bits of advice and/or comments like "Oh I have one at home". More often than not, these random moments with strangers remind me that children are a big deal—and everyone is at least a little invested in them.

I won't lie, climbing 63 stairs to get to our place isn't my favorite part about city living and pregnancy, but I'll happily keep trekking up those stairs in exchange for the chance to feel that a lot of people care about the Tiniest Gibson.

Still making it up those stairs,
sPg

From Paris to Parenthood

2009-10-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

I wrote my last blog entry in early 2008 as we were re-adjusting to life in DC after a seemingly surreal whirlwind adventure in Paris. Our return to DC and the ensuing year and a half have has been reasonably uneventful, so I wondered if my time as a blogger had drawn to a close. Maybe it was the reduction in wine consumption, but life seemed more ordinary here and not quite worth justifying adding my voice to the crowded blog-o-sphere.

But, just as we were hardly the first idealistic Americans to unpack our hopes and dreams in the middle of the City of Lights, we are now joining the ranks of idealistic Americans who are happily rearranging life as we know it to become parents. And, just as our Paris adventure inspired me to write, the imminent arrival of our little one has sparked the writer in me. So, without further ado, "His and Hers Parigi" has a new subtitle: "From Paris to Parenthood."

As I was laying in bed the other day, propped up by a series of pillows that would make any systems engineer pleased, it occurred to me that picking up and moving to a foreign country does have a few potential similarities to becoming a parent. And so, in vignette style, I offer a few humble observations and hope that ultimately parenthood turns out to be even more fabulous, unbelievable, slightly ridiculous, sometimes confounding, occasionally difficult, fulfilling and shockingly unexpected than our last blog-able adventure.

As I prepared to move to France, these were the things that were on my mind, which really mirror many of the thoughts I have as we prepare to welcome our little one in just about six weeks.

1. I don't deal well with lack of sleep, I wonder how bad the jetlag will be.
2. I've read about what the next year is supposed to be like. I’ve learned a few tips in advance about how to survive. I signed up for this adventure willingly. It seems like this should be a smooth transition, but something tells me I have no idea what awaits me.
3. I wonder if I'll be lonely or overwhelmed or learn things about myself I didn't want to know.
4. I wonder how Josh and I will adjust to our new roles.
5. I hope our families visit and really get to see the new me.
6. I hope I am flexible enough, strong enough and open enough so I don't miss a minute of the grand adventure we are about to embark on.
7. I hope I can find a way to make sure I can still get my hair done on a regular basis—I'm not ready to be openly gray.
8. Is there any way that we can prepare for all the unexpected logistics and costs?

You get the idea. I "get" that parenthood is a really big change. I even get that parenthood makes moving to a foreign country look like child's play (no pun intended). But, I'm daring to be hopeful that there are at least a few lessons to be learned from turning your life upside down in one way that might be applicable to the next time you sign up to turn your life inside out.

We'll see. I could be wrong. But at the very least, this seemed blog-able. So stay tuned for musings, rants and hopes from a soon-to-be-mother (and perhaps from a soon-to-be-father, who is still deciding if the writing muse is calling his name).

With love, waffles, milkshakes and Tums,
sPg

Feeling Better

2009-01-18T22:11:00.003-05:00

[Note: this is just a quick update on where things stand. I may post more at a later point...]

What a crazy couple of weeks! Some of you know more than others, so to catch you up:

I started having what I now know are diabetes symptoms while in Chesterton for the holidays, was tested for diabetes on the 5th, was diagnosed on the 8th, had a huge grant application due for work on the afternoon of the 12th, and admitted myself to the hospital that same day with what turned out to be a correct self-diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetic_ketoacidosis).
After an evening in the ER, two days in the ICU, and two more days in the general hospital, I came home Friday night. I'm now on two kinds of insulin, and even after just a couple of days at home, my blood sugar is starting to moderate. With diet, exercise, and some meds, this should be manageable.

Throughout everything, Sara has been a saint and a godsend, my mom provided lots of good advice from her own experience with the disease, and friends from near and far have provided great moral support.

In the grand scheme of things this isn't a big deal, but the diabetes situation has thrown a monkey wrench into our Inauguration plans (Sara will go, I'll likely lay low) and our planned late January trip to Europe (probably postponed until April).

Long story short, this was a big enough jolt to remind me of what's really important in life, but my diagnosis was moderate enough to keep what happened to me in perspective--things could be much worse, and I'm lucky in so many ways despite what happened this week.

Thanks again to everyone who has reached out to me with kind words, personal experience, and any other kind of help you can imagine. It's a month late for this, but I feel a bit like George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life"--it's only after a real scare that you really understand how much you value friends and family, and vice versa.

Josh

PS: I'm working my way out of a nasty e-mail backlog, so please bear with me...

Josh

Finding the Holocaust at the Flea Market (Part Two)

2008-06-17T10:54:00.007-05:00

[continued from previous post, regarding papers I accidentally bought at a Paris flea market that detail the betrayal of Dr. Salzberger by his landlords, the Lavergnes, during the Holocaust]

THEIR VERBATIM ACCOUNTS
Most of the papers in the bundle fall into two categories: statements from Dr. Salzberger about what happened and what goods he was trying to recuperate, and statements from the Lavergnes as well as Erich Kahnt, the Nazi who was sleeping with Georgette.

For the most part, Dr. Salzberger's statements are tragic in their banality. Other than a few brief references to his suffering or the deportation of his sister-in-law, he mainly focuses on writing detailed lists of what was taken from him, and what he is trying to get back. Having survived World War II, imprisonment in a German prisoner of war camp, the loss of virtually everything he owns, and the likely death of his sister-in-law, the enormity of it all is seemingly too much for his fragile psyche to take. Perhaps, by obsessing about missing rugs, broken windowpanes, and cut electrical wires, he can lose himself in the obsessive minutiae and put off confronting the horrifying reality of the war and its aftermath for some time.

It is in reading the Lavergnes' statements that the archetypes of wartime Parisians really come out. Madame Lavergne was a true Nazi sympathizer, often stating to her husband that “the Germans are every bit as good as the French,” and referring to her daughter's Nazi lover as “her son-in-law.”

Monsieur Lavergne was, or at least claimed to be, on the side of the Allies. According to him, he would get in frequent fights with his wife, so he'd leave, go up to their “chambre de bonne,”and listed to the British news on the radio. He claimed not to know until quite late that his daughter Georgette was sleeping with a Nazi. However, he did still benefit personally from his wife's denunciation of Salzberger, and dealt heavily in the black market.

Georgette seems not to have taken sides on the war, other than deciding to sleep with the Nazi in the first place.

Amazingly, other than Salzberger himself, the Nazi Erich Kahnt probably garners the most sympathy in his statement. The one and a half pages of his statement outline how he met Georgette in 1940, was separated from her when he was sent to the Russian front in 1941, then, suffering from “two frozen feet and kidney sickness,” returned to Paris in 1942 and was reunited with his lover. He tells of how he avoided being detained at the time of the Liberation in 1944, remained there incognito at his own risk, and how he scoured the city in search of Georgette. In his statement, he writes that “When I learned Georgette had been arrested, I again felt, for one distraught moment, the deep feelings I had for this person who had given me the strength to stay in Paris, and to await her freedom, despite this perpetual anxiety.”

LOOSE THREADS
Unfortunately, just as suddenly as this fascinating story came to my attention, the narrative comes to an uncertain end. Based on these documents alone, it is impossible to find out if Helene survived the concentration camps, what happened to Melchior (the documents say both were arrested by the Gestapo but that only Helene was sent to the camps), what became of the Lavergnes, and whether or not Salzberger ever got his belongings returned to him.

In one bit of good news: also in my bundle of documents was a postcard sent from Haifa, Israel just ten months after Israel gained its independence, bearing one of the first stamps ever issued by Israel, addressed to “Mr. And Mrs. Salzberger” at the old Boulevard Sebastopol” address.

The documents provide tantalizing clues (there are case numbers listed that are tied to Salzberger's legal and criminal filings), but despite some frenzied research in our final days in Paris, I was unable to make any progress.

While the cast of characters and the first half of the story have now been plucked out of the obscurity of lost history, the end of the story remains unknown.

POSTSCRIPT
Some people spend their whole lives combing flea markets seeking discoveries like this one. Admittedly, the papers I found are not the equivalent to finding an initial draft of the Declaration of Independence hidden in an old picture frame, or a lost Edgar Allan Poe manuscript behind an old bookcase. Still, these documents, with their brevity, clear clues for future research, and compelling anecdotes and cast of characters, would certainly be compelling to collectors of World War II and Holocaust history.

Still, I could not bring myself to sell the documents. Somehow, that just seemed like taking advantage of Dr. Salzberger's suffering for a second time, just like the Lavergnes did initially. More than a half century later, I wanted to reinforce what Salzberger did in pursuing his betrayers. To share the facts, not to hide them.

While still in France, I contacted the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and described the documents I had found. They responded with great interest. Just two weeks after returning to the States, I met with Museum Archivist (surprisingly younger than me, and Catholic!), and her interest in the documents only grew when she had actually seen them. She mentioned that the Museum plans an exhibition on Vichy France sometime around 2011, and that my documents could be of interest to the curators who will assemble that exhibit. I signed the documents over to the Museum that same day.

In return, I received a CD with the scanned images of all the documents I donated (that is how I could post some of them here), plus high-quality printouts of the documents. And, as I found out when I first started looking into the possibility of donating the documents, we also get to deduct from our taxes the anticipated value of the documents. This is why Sara has to take it easy on me, and not give me too hard of a time about spending too much time and money at flea markets.

However, much more importantly, these documents, and this fascinating history, will no longer languish tucked in a plastic sleeve, tossed in an old cardboard box, at a French flea market. They will be available to researchers and possibly even the relatives of those involved in the events themselves. I am proud that in my own infinitesimal way, I have helped make sure that we “never forget” the Holocaust.

Josh

Finding the Holocaust at the Flea Market (Part One)

2008-06-17T10:39:00.007-05:00

One of my favorite things to do in the whole world is to go to a Parisian flea market. The huge flea market north of Paris (which gave flea markets their name) is great, but the best markets are generally the more casual and less organized “brocantes” (temporary/itinerant flea market) or “vide-greniers” (literally, “attic emptiers,” like a community yard sale).

When a “brocante” to be held just a block away from our apartment, I thought “What great news!” Little did I realize that I would buy something there that would, in its small way, both make history and somewhat reduce Sara's resistance to my flea market purchases.

VIEUX PAPIERS
For as long as I have been going to Parisian flea markets, I've “specialized” in “vieux papiers,” literally “old papers.” These can consist of old letters, engravings, etchings, watercolors, maps, pages from books, bills, propaganda, magazine ads—you name it. I love them for several reasons—they're not fragile (like glass or ceramics), they're easy to get home and store (dozens of pages can fit in one flat portfolio), you can cover your walls with them (100 knickknacks are clutter, 100 framed “old papers” are décor), they're cheap (most vendors don't know what they have), and they're omnipresent (2,000 years of French history creates a lot of paper).

At the brocante near our apartment, I found a best-case scenario—a vendor with a large stand full of diverse merchandise, with a little pile of “old papers” off to one side. Among the papers, I found one bundle of papers in a plastic sleeve that piqued my interest. It included a decades-old book cover from my favorite French book store, an old shopping bag from my favorite department store, vintage versions of the market bags that fruit and coffee vendors might give Sara on one of her market trips today, and the like. You always get better prices at flea markets by bundling several items, so instead of picking out the couple of items I liked best, I just asked the price for the entire bundle. I think it was about ten euros, or $15.

I brought the bundle home, but put off looking more closely at the papers until the right before I went to bed at 3AM. Bleary-eyed, I pawed through the pile, knowing already that I got a good deal, when I came across a smaller bundle of papers I hadn't noticed earlier. As I looked more closely at these dozen pages, my heart came fully up in my throat.

The documents, all World War II-era, told the story of a French Jew who had survived the Holocaust, and his fight for justice towards those who had betrayed him.

DISCOVERY
Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. If it were not for the fact that the sad story was actual historical reality, I would say it had a compelling cast of characters. But since it is all true, I will just say that the individuals involved are all archetypes for the different ways those living in France during the war reacted to its circumstances.

First, there is the author of most of the documents, Doctor Nathan Salzberger. He lived and had his offices on Boulevard Sebastopol, not far from where the Centre Pompidou stands today. From the documents, it seems like he served in the French army as a doctor, but was captured at some point, and was held in a military prison in Germany before being released to live in southern France.

At some point, probably after his capture, Nathan's brother Melchior and his wife Helene come to live in Dr. Salzberger's apartment. They live there unperturbed for some time, but later take refuge in the apartment's seventh floor “chambre de bonne.” (Most French apartments come with a tiny “chambre de bonne,” or “maid's room,” on the seventh floor. These rooms date from pre-elevator days, and are still seldom accessible by elevator, so despite having good views they are usually cheap to rent. Today, most Parisians rent these rooms out, have their elder teen or adult children live in them, or just use them for storage.)

THE WICKED LAVERGNES
Having now met all the “good” individuals in this drama, it is time to meet the “bad” ones. Like most buildings, the Salzbergers' building had a live-in concierge named Amelie Suzanne Lavergne, who lived with her husband Georges. The Lavergne's adult daughter, Georgette, lived elsewhere in Paris but was a frequent visitor. Georgette was also sleeping with a Nazi solidier named Erich Kahnt.

In early 1943, the Lavergne's denounced Dr. Salzberger, in absentia, as a Jew. The Nazis came and emptied his apartment and office of all of the doctor's furniture and belongings, though the Lavergne's ended up with some of the best pieces. By denouncing Salzberger, they also were then able to rent out his old apartment, which they did. (I am assuming that Salzberger, as a prisoner of war, could not or did not have to pay rent, so by having him evicted, the Lavergnes were able to profit directly.)

Standing in the way of their moneymaking scheme, however, were Salzberger's brother and sister-in-law, who were still hiding out in the “maid's room” at the time. The documents detail how Madame Lavergne told the Nazis about the two Jews living upstairs, how she accompanied them up to the sixth floor, and how, when the Nazis almost stopped short and decided to leave, she urged them to keep going. They walked up the few extra steps, broke down the door, and arrested Melchior and Helene. Helene was then sent to the temporary prison camp of Drancy, a way station on the trip to the concentration camps. According to Dr. Salzberger's handwritten testimony, “her poor physical state left no hope of her survival.”

The Lavergnes remind me of the Thenardiers, the amoral innkeepers in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. They would do anything to make a quick buck, including turning on each other when the moment was right (as we will see later).

One anecdote from the documents demonstrates the depth of the Lavergnes' depravity. At some point following Dr. Salzberger's release from the military prison, but just prior to the Lavergne's betrayal of his brother and sister-in-law, Melchior and Helene entrust the Laverges with a suitcase to sent to Dr. Salzberger in the south of France. In a report written after the war's end, Salzberger outlines the suitcase's original contents in meticulous detail: “a blue suit, a blue gabardine overcoat, three shirts, three pairs of long underwear, five pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes, six ties, one scarf, twelve collars, and a hat.” However, when the suitcase arrived in the south of France, Salzberger was shocked to open the bag and find a used German suit on top of the rest of the suitcase's disappointing new contents: carrots and turnips. The Lavergnes had taken the suitcase from Melchior, promised to send it to Dr. Salzberger, then stole its contents. They replaced the missing clothes with the vegetables (likely rotting) to mask the missing weight, and one of Nazi Erick Kahnt's old suits on top to lend the appearance that the suitcase was full of the promised clothes.

[to be continued in Part Two]

Serendipity Knocks

2008-06-14T02:34:00.024-05:00

[Note: I can't guarantee this, but I think this will be my last blog entry "from the archives." I think any future blogs from me will be about our current life in DC, and not about our Paris year.]

Some words are just great. Take serendipity, or "the making of fortunate discoveries by accident."

I will always associate the concept of "serendipity" with Paris. One very literal reason is that on Sara's and my engagement trip to Paris in 2005, we splurged and had a grotesquely overpriced drink at the renowned Hemingway Bar at the Ritz. The cocktail consists of one part calvados (French apple brandy), two parts apple juice, and seven parts champagne, with a sprig of mint. The cocktail is called a Serendipiti. [sic].

The other, bigger picture reason that I associate serendipity with Paris is that I can not imagine a more serendipitous city than Paris. "Stuff" just happens there, but not the bad stuff.

Frankly, this blog could have been called "His and Hers Serendipity," because many of our posts deal with the very fortunate and very accidental discoveries of our year in Paris. But on an even more micro level than we discussed in the blog, you can get a sense of the inherent serendipity of Paris through the tiny coincidences captured through my photography.

I've talked a bit in past blogs about my love of photography. Only one thing makes me as excited, happy, passionate, interested, proud, and maddened like photography. OK, maybe there's one other trigger for these same feelings, but I'm married to her...

So much of photography is being at the right place at the right time. It's all about location, location, location. It looks like I'll get a chance to exhibit my photos at Tryst coffeehouse here in Adams Morgan this fall, and I'm thinking of calling the exhibit "Fish in a Barrel: A Year of Paris Photography," just because Paris is just such a great place for serendipitous photography.

I'm including some of my favorite such photos here. I hope you like them.

Photography is a bit like fishing, in that you always remember "the one that got away." To crib a bit from Langston Hughes, what happens to the serendipity that got away? Well, it doesn't dry up like a raisin in the sun, it just irritates the royal crap out of you. One example is in this photo: just moments after I snapped this photo (does one still "snap" photos in the era where cameras no longer "snap"?), the model very clearly and deliberately gave me the finger. It would have made for a great photo, but frankly, she caught me so flatfooted that it never even occurred to me to take a picture.

Another example occurred while I was setting up this photo:
A guy walked onto the street and past the romantic couple. I was waiting for him to walk by me and out of the shot, so I could take the picture. But, unexpectedly, once he walked past the couple, he took a hard left, went under the scaffolding you see in the picture, and...proceeded to urinate. It would have been a great "tale of two cities"/"best of times, worst of times" photos, but frankly, at the time, I was just irritated him at holding up my taking a photo of the couple.

I guess, if nothing else, our year abroad taught us that serendipity giveth, and serendipity taketh away.

Josh

You Oughta Be in Pictures

2008-06-10T12:56:00.007-05:00

It is often said that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people. Well, clearly Hollywood's standards have slipped, because I've (potentially) made my way into two movies in the past six months.

Admittedly, only one of them was a Hollywood picture. The other was filmed in Paris. (The French would likely say that Hollywood is Paris for ugly people...)

What I learned in both cases is that being an extra is a lot like jury duty, except that you actually WANT to be be called. You sit in a room with all the other “average joes,” sharing war stories, bragging about past successes (one guy I sat with in the US was still bragging about serving as the “stand in” for Tom Skerritt in “Picket Fences” in the early 1990s), and waiting for your name to be called. But unlike in jury duty, where you hope your neighbor will get picked, at a casting call, you convince yourself that “Everthing Could Change!” if you get called.

MY FRENCH FILM DEBUT
In the waning days of our time in Paris, I saw in an ad in FUSAC (France USA Contacts, a print equivalent of Craigslist for Anglophone Parisians) that a casting company was seeking thirtysomething Anglophone men (English accent preferred) for a film. I e-mailed to indicate my interest, then...nothing. Weeks later, I got a call asking if I could be on site for filming at 6AM the next day! Now I am not a man who takes the concept of 6AM lightly, but who can say “no” to the limelight?

I showed up in a suit, my required “wardrobe,” at the site of the filming, the Institute for Human Paleontology, which it turned out was just a ten-minute walk from our apartment. The building itself was fantastic, with excellent, crazy, but borderline offensive bas-relief sculptures of the transition from apes to early man.

After checking in with make-up (“You don't need any”) and wardrobe (“The suit you brought is fine”), I finally found out more about the film. It would be filmed half in English and half in French, and the director would be Nicolas Saada, a well-known French film critic and screenwriter, making his directorial debut. The plot would involve a luggage handler (and thief) at Charles DeGaulle Airport who gets caught red-handed, and is then drafted by the French secret services into working with them. The film will either be called “The Spy” or “A Simple Spy.” (Check out its Internet Movie Database web page here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149592/)

[CAPTION: No pictures were allowed on set, so this picture was taken on the sly. Sorry it's so dark. Guillaume Canet is the guy at the far right of the picture.]

The film stars:
- Guillaume Canet (a very big star of French cinema, he also won “best director” at the French Oscars last year)
- Stephen Rea (the guy who gets the big surprise at the end of “The Crying Game,” for which he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar)
- Archie Panjabi (who played the star's sister in “Bend It Like Beckham”)

[CAPTION: The guy with the bushy hair, with his profile towards us, on the right is the director, Nicolas Saada. This is the room where we filmed, with a big London map on the wall.]

It turns out I would be playing an agent (or maybe just a bureaucrat) with MI5, the rough British equivalent to the FBI. Both scenes I was in took place in an office at the Paleontology building, tricked out to resemble an MI5 headquarters “war room.” In one scene, Rea (my boss) would be talking to Canet, and in another, Panjabi would be talking to an arrested suspect. This was great news for me and my half-dozen fellow “agents,” since we would actually be in scenes with the movie's stars.

Over the three days of filming, time was split up three ways. About 80% of the time, we were sitting around in a basement room that was set up as a “holding cell” for us, waiting to be called for filming (eight ex-pat male Brits, one very popular attractive young blond woman, and I, sharing war stories about past brushes with near-fame). About 18% of the time, we waited on the set for filming to start. The final 2% of the time was spent filming the same scenes over and over again from slightly different angles. It was the opposite of glamorous and exciting.

Perhaps the best part of the whole experience (in addition to the roughly $450 we earned over the 2.5 days) was...lunch. Each day, the entire cast and crew would adjourn for a two-hour lunch that was served in a large wedding-style tent a few blocks away. This being France, the meal included four courses and two wines, all served family style. Everyone, from the stars to the director to the extras and the crew, ate together. The food was hot, gourmet, and very tasty, and the company was excellent. The whole meal experience was extremely French.

There was not much Hollywood-style gossip that came from the shooting. Stephen Rea informed us that an entire tree goes into making a box of tissues. And it was interesting to watching the interaction between Canet and Saada. Since this was Saada's directorial debut, and since he had spent his life in the world of cinema, he was very deliberative, shooting every scene multiple times, and engaging in ongoing conversation with the crew and all the actors (including the extras!) about our motivations. Canet, a huge young star who had won the “best director” award at the French Oscars just months before, clearly did not relish being a guinea pig for Saada. He frequently announced that “that's good, let's move on,” and in general acted like the worst stereotype of a sulky French artiste.

POSTSCRIPT: MY US FILM DEBUT
Months later, back in the US, awaiting the supposed Fall 2008 release of my film debut, I assumed my film career was over. But lo and behold, I saw an ad on a local neighborhood listserv that extras were needed for a big Hollywood film. I showed up to the casting call, more of a cattle call, with probably 1,000 people in a long line at a downtown Hyatt. The line moved quickly, I had my photo taken, filled out a form, and assumed I would never hear from them again.

I was surprised when, a month later, I got a call telling me that I was needed to play a commuter, and that I should show up at the Rosslyn Metro the next day. Perhaps not surprisingly, the US film shoot was less interesting than the Paris shoot. Basically, we sat around in the holding room at what DC folks will recognize as the “Our Lady of Exxon” church (a church located over a gas station), waiting to be called for filming. Then, when filming, we just kept walking into the Rosslyn station and taking the escalator down, over and over and over again.

[CAPTION: Again, we weren't supposed to be taking pictures, so excuse the odd framing of my surreptitious shot. I believe this is Katy Mixon, a minor star in the movie.]

Admittedly, the work was on what will be a bigger film (“State of Play,” starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Helen Mirren, Jeff Daniels, etc.; see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473705/), but the experience was a let-down. Even lunch was disappointing: an Asian buffet served over Sterno heaters. And only $60 for a day's “work.” Toto, we're not in Paris any more...

Josh

Mystery History Revealed

2008-06-09T01:07:00.007-05:00

Paris' moveable feast is perhaps most lavishly set with dishes rich in history and tourism. How delectable, then, to have discovered an additional tasty treat—a tiny but fascinating moment from Paris' history, undiscovered despite its setting not far from ground zero of Parisian tourism.
One day, while strolling along the Seine from Notre Dame west towards the Musee d'Orsay, I noticed a historical plaque that, like the lyrical four-leaf clover, I had overlooked before. Mounted at knee height, on the wall separating the sidewalk from the drop down to the quais alongside the Seine, the plaque read as follows:

Here
On Feburary 15, 1950
Robert S. White
of Cambridge, Mass, U.S.A.
A Student at the National School
of Living Eastern Languages
31 Years Old
(1918-1950)
Generously sacrificed his life
while attempting to save a woman
in danger in the river.
IN MEMORIAM.

Above the inscription, the plaque bore the crests of the “Harvard College Class of 1940” and the “Lt. Commander , U.S. Naval Reserve.”

The plaque could not be in a more prominent, well-trafficked, and touristy location: on the quai des Grands Augustins, just feet from the Pont Saint Michel, directly in front of both Notre Dame Cathedral and the dragon-stomping Saint Michel fountain. Perhaps the plaque's odd height, a necessity of its placement on a short, riverside wall, contributed to the fact that I had never seen it before. A quick, subsequent search of the internet, and a variety of tourist texts, revealed no references to the plaque, or to the incident it commemorates.

Plus, the text of the plaque raised several questions in and of itself. What was White doing in Paris? What was the woman doing in the river? And, based on the plaque's text, given that it says “attempting to save,” are we to assume the woman in question drowned as well?

My curiosity piqued, I headed off to the Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris, the Paris library dedicated to the history of Paris, which was conveniently located a block up from my office.

I knew I was on to something special when first one, then two, then three reference librarians were caught flatfooted, then fascinated, by the photo I had brought with me of the White plaque. They fanned out, checked a variety of sources, but all they could find was a listing for the plaque in a book that comprehensively compiled the texts of the city's various historic signs.

Eventually, one of the librarians said I should check original source materials, and pointed me towards the library's newspaper archives. She suggested that I start with “France Soir,” which she said would be more likely to feature “faits divers” (“offbeat stories”) like the one we were researching (the equivalent of the New York Post , for example).

Sure enough, there they were: two articles on White drowning, a long feature two days after the incident on February 17, 1950, and a shorter update on February 18.

The article on the 17th gave the story full tabloid-like treatment. Under an all-caps header reading “THE DRAMA OF THE SAINT MICHEL BRIDGE,” the largest headline stated “'Robert Shaw White, a great guy.'” (it sounds much better in French: “un chic type”). The third-level headline finally got into the crux of the matter: “[This is] The unanimous opinion in the Latin Quarter, after the tragic death of the young American who drowned trying to save the little flower girl.”

The rest of the article, and the subsequent day's follow-up, sketched out for readers a set of characters that seemed to come straight from Central Casting.

THE HARVARD GRAD
First was Robert Shaw White himself. He was 31 years old at the time of his death, the son of a recently deceased professor at the “Universite d'Harward” [sic], and a student of Polish and Russian. Upon arrival in Paris, he moved into Room 22 at the Hotel Universe, a residence from which France Soir states “he never went out.” However, elsewhere in the same article, France Soir quotes “Louis, the barman at the establishment he [White] frequents” as stating “When I heard the news yesterday afternoon, I closed the door, turned out the lights, then I took refuge in the back room and I wept.”

“W. Schiller,” the France Soir reporter, describes the combined testimonies of White's French and American friends as a virtual “panegyric” (definition: “a formal eulogistic composition intended as a public compliment; elaborate praise or laudation; an encomium”), but Schiller's article also fills this purpose quite well.

The night of the events in question, White told his friends he could not sleep, and that he was “going to have a last drink somewhere by the banks of the Seine, which I love so much.”

“His fate was set,” stated Schiller, in a bit of purple prose.

“Walking peacefully, around 11:45PM,” by the Saint Michel Bridge, White heard a woman's cries. He thought he saw a “black fist” emerge briefly from the water, so he took off his shoes and his jacket (where his ID papers would later be found) and dove into the Seine. He resurfaced twice, and sailors who had also heard the woman's cries held out a pole for him to grab. “He could have grabbed it and saved himself,” writes the reporter, “But he refused it both times.”

[Caption: The scene of the crime.]

“Two fates, totally distinct at their origin, came together in death,” concluded Schiller.

THE FLOWER GIRL
Perhaps this is the time to introduce the second player in our cast of characters: Raymonde Stibirtine, age 35. “The little flower vendor of Saint-Germain-des-Pres” was the mother of six children, all of whom were “entrusted to Public Assistance.” According to Schiller, “Every day, at lunch, and again in the evening, she would leave her single room on the rue Saint-Sauveur to go sell small bouquets of pansies and violets in the restaurants at Les Halles and along the quais.”

[Caption: the location of the former "Rotisserie Perigourdine" restaurant.]

At about 11:50PM, Stibirtine left either the “Rotisserie Perigourdine” restaurant at 2 place Saint Michel, or the “L'Ecluse” bar at 15 quai des Grands Augustins (accounts differed), in the midst of an argument. What happened next? Schiller states “Only the 'bums' who live under the bridge, in summer as in winter, could say—they were the only witnesses.”

[Caption: Adjacent to the scene of the crime, where the "bums" would have lived.]

Schiller's downbeat assessment of the odds of finding out what happened begs the question: what about the person with whom Stibirtine was arguing? This brings our third character into play. In Schiller's otherwise sadly glowing portrayal of Stibirtine, he states that her life was dominated by two vices: “alcohol and her lover, George Cochard, known as 'Jojo the Handsome Brute.'” (Ironically, in the song “Jojo the Handsome Brute,” a popular bar tune of the time, it is “Jojo” who is murdered, in his case by a jealous suitor.)

According to Schiller, Cochard, age 42, had been together with Stibirtine for three years. He did not work, instead “following her, step by step” and “every bouquet she sold automatically transformed itself into bad red wine for him.”

Following the fateful night, Inspectors Toussaint and Muller of the Twelfth Police Brigade interrogated Cochard for 48 hours straight, “without interruption.” During that interrogation, Cochard stated “We argued violently, then we went down on the banks of the Seine. All of a sudden, for the most pointless of reasons, crazy with anger, I slapped [Stibirtine] with tremendous force. She lost her balance and fell into the river.”

[Caption: The scene of the crime, with modern lovebirds, seen from afar.]

All Cochard had to say in his own defense was that “She has hit me in the past.”
Perhaps it is the romantic in me, or the inherent romance of Paris, but I wonder—what would have happened if White and Stibirtine had met in life, instead of in death?

Josh

REFERENCES
“Le drame du Pont Saint-Michel: “Robert Shaw White, un chic type!”, W. Schiller, France Soir, February 17, 1950.

“La fleuriste du pont Saint-Michel avait ete jetee a l'eau par son amant,” no author listed, France Soir, February 18, 1950.

Tipsy Train, Take Two

2008-05-27T17:23:00.002-05:00

Sorry, readers, the service which send out our blog via e-mail was out of order, so when I posted a new blog entry today, it didn't go out to you.

To see that message, go to http://hisandhersparigi.blogspot.com/and just scroll down past this message until you see the photo and the "Tipsy Train" title.

Enjoy!
Josh

Tipsy Train

2008-05-26T18:45:00.012-05:00

Fret not, dear readers, the blog lives on! To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of its demise were greatly exaggerated. We plan on continuing to write periodically about our “we resume the previously scheduled program, already in progress” old/new existence here in DC. And we're hanging on to the “hisandhersparigi” name, just out of convenience, a synonym for laziness. Once in a while, though, I'll dig into the archives and haul out anecdotes from our time in Paris that still bear retelling, even months later. Today's entry is a funny story “from the Paris vaults.”

In late January, I surprised Sara with tickets to visit Annecy in the Alps. I'd visited Annecy (a lovely lakeside town, with a ring of mountains visible just beyond the lake) ten years earlier, but the fog was so thick that day that you couldn't see the lake, let alone the mountains. I wanted a second chance to see Annecy's beauty, Sara and I hadn't been anywhere near the Alps yet, so off we went. One of the little things I like best about Sara is that she's a good travel food planner. She thinks ahead, realizes that travel takes time, and that the food you get can while traveling is usually crappy and bad for you. So, regardless of whether we're traveling by plane, train, or car, she always packs excellent travel picnics.

In France, these picnics almost always included wine. I have to admit, even after all these years, it's still hard for me to check my puritanical American instincts at the door, so the idea of popping a wine bottle in the airport or on a train still makes me nervous. Not nervous enough to not do it, of course...

So, there we were, with our Alpine sausage, cheese, bread, and, yes, wine spread out across a little table on the train. A conductor passed by, saw what we were doing, slowed down a bit...then just kept going. About fifteen minutes later, he came back, and walked right up to us.

He said, “When I walked by earlier, I noticed that you had plastic cups.”

The cups were still on the table, so there was no point in denying things. “Yes,” I said.

“Well,” he continued, “my colleague and I brought a bottle with us, but since the restaurant car is on strike, we have no glasses. Since we see you have extras, would you mind giving us two?”

Realizing immediately that I suddenly had the upper hand, I joked “Sure, in exchange for two round trip train tickets.”

He laughed, and said that he didn't think that would be possible. So I counter-offered: “We'll do it for two glasses of whatever you're drinking.”

Looking me in the eye to see if I was serious (which clearly I was), he hesitated, and then motioned me to follow him. I told Sara I'd be right back, then followed the conductor the length of two train cars before he pulled out his janitor-worthy keyring and unlocked a nondescript door. He walked into a narrow cabin that was seemingly like a teacher's lounge, but for conductors. His colleague did a big-time double-take when he saw that his co-worker had brought back not just the needed cups, but also me. In hushed tones, our deal was explained, as was my special status as a French-speaking American.

The set-up apparently passed muster, because the bottle emerged from the fridge—a square bottle of store-brand muscat. I put out four glasses, but three were poured, and the conversation began. Over the next half hour, we talked about how much of an idiot Bush was (as common as discussing the weather in France), the train wreck (pun intended) of the President Sarkozy/Carla Bruni romance, whether or not a woman could be a good US president, US perception of the previous year's French suburban riots, Corsica, the importance of quality cooking ingredients, and Southwestern wine recommendations.

Periodically, one or the other of the two conductors would leave the room, presumably to undertake some unavoidable conductor task. Over the course of the conversation, we made quick work of the bottle of sweet, strong (double normal wine alcohol concentrations), cheap wine. When the wine dried up, so did our conversation, so I shook the gentlemen's hands and excused myself so I could return to check on Sara.

When I got back to Sara, she was both amused and amazed by my story. Since her dad worked for the railroad, her mind immediately turned to the safety implications of drinking conductors. But, lest you think that the conductors and I were the only tipsy ones on the train, since Sara is not a conductor, when left alone with the wine from our picnic, she had ended up polishing off the rest of our bottle while I was gone.

As we got off the train, I couldn't help thinking that this was the immaculate “snapshot of France” anecdote. It featured wine, rulebreaking (maybe by Sara and I, definitely by the conductors), social action (the strike by the restaurant car that triggered the whole incident), deep and wide-ranging conversation, and quality transportation options. Oh, and fashion, since you can't properly picture this situation without realizing that recently the French government paid fashion designer Christian Lacroix to redesign train conductor uniforms.

Somehow, this incident just wouldn't have been the same in the US. Monosyllabic awkward conversation over Night Train (pun intended) with a polyester-clad Amtrak employee just lacks...a certain je ne sais quoi.

Josh

Voila: Finally, photos!

2008-05-08T02:18:00.002-05:00

Greetings Everyone,

At long and merciful last, I have finished putting together the official photo album from our year in Paris. Check it out at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/collections/72157604937826054/

You'll see three subsets: one with "artsy" photos, one with "people" pictures, and one with "touristy" photos. Pick your preference. (Note: if you don't see the "people" pix, let me know, I'll need to "authorize" Flickr to show them to you...)

I know that there's a lot of photos, but we were there for over a year. Flickr makes them easy to scan, in any case. And to put everything into perspective, I took a total of 11,851 photos, which I narrowed down to 2,689 "Best of" pictures, and then 712 "BOBO" (Best of Best of) photos, which you'll see on the site.

I'm proudest of the Artsy photos, most people like the People pictures most, but I hope you enjoy them all!

Thanks,
Josh

Home Again

2008-02-21T17:25:00.005-05:00

There was one moment last week when I was borderline obnoxious about our time in Paris. I was waiting patiently in line at the Safeway, reading a magazine to pass the time, as the grocery clerk slowly helped the person in front of me, and a woman said, "I love your grocery bag, where did you get it?" I then tilted my head slightly, explaining in that smugly apologetic voice, "oh, I'm sorry, I got it in Paris. It was a gift from my husband." What can I say, I couldn’t help myself?

We've been home about three weeks and the transition is going remarkably well. I really didn't know how I would feel. As I took one last look around our Paris apartment, I thought, "This chapter has been really good. I hope I don't crash hard."

I was nervous about feeling overwhelmed. I was nervous about thinking I didn't really belong anywhere. I was nervous about the state of our apartment after three sets of renters. I was even nervous about return conversations with dear friends—would it be "normal"?

As it turns out, my worry was unnecessary. Our apartment was perfect (except for the actual, live bird that Josh had to chase out the first night). Adams Morgan is the same as it ever was and its been nice to bump into people at the grocery store and gym. I was especially silly to worry about how it would be reconnecting with friends—in more cases than not, we've said something to the effect of, "Huh, it hardly seems like any time has past." Maybe life is more like a soap opera than not—you can miss out on a whole bunch of episodes, but for the most part, the story line stays the same.

But I still dare to think that I’m not entirely the same-in good ways, I hope. I was told the other day at the office that "You've been in Europe too long" after I said, "Don't worry about the emails—get to them when you can. I'll tell you if they are actually urgent."

In another case, I was going to deal with the Sprint Store (a sure recipe for disaster), but I found that employing some of my well-honed French customer service tricks (learned from Polly Platt's book "French or Foe") were exactly what the Cellphone Clerk needed to hear. In France, you don’t expect customer service. They don't really need your business—ever. You can get helped and you can even get really amazing service by flipping roles a bit. Basically, I learned that by saying some version of: "Excuse me for bothering you. I know you are very busy, but I have a problem and I am hoping that you might be able to help me." I usually got exactly what I needed, if not more. Such was the case at the Sprint Store where a clerk actually worked with me for 45 minutes and solved my actually complicated tech issues. And, believe it or not, after 15 minutes, she even smiled.

I am hoping desperately to keep the slightly cooler temper and resistance to stress that I discovered in Paris. I suppose with a real schedule and a life that simply is busier, it will be a challenge, but that is my hope.

It hasn't all been roses in our return. There was that one moment, as we were dragging the 8^th suitcase up the stairs to our apartment, where I thought, "I'm just not sure about this returning home business." But thankfully, it really was only one moment and we did celebrate our homecoming that evening with dinner at The Diner—our beloved Adams Morgan spot. Somehow an American burger, fries and a milkshake can make you forget, even for a moment, some of the pleasures of France.

I also really miss some things and some Paris friends. I especially miss good bread (even if my hips don't). I also miss the variety of vegetable and meat that were common place on the rue Mouffetard. Last week I went to three stores searching for leeks and turnips—two things that even the equivalent of a convenience store would have in France. Josh's quest (on my behalf) since return has been to locate crème fraiche, with limited success. What was about $1 in Paris, is not nearly $4.00 here and it can only be found at specialty stores. But at least tiny Smart cars have arrived in America.

I also miss the cross-cultural part of conversations in France, which virtually ensured that I walked away from every conversation with a deeper knowledge of France.

But I am also relishing a few truly American things. Its mostly the little things. I'm thrilled to speak English again. I'm even happy to hear Spanish again on the streets. I love watching Meet the Press and the Evening News and voting in the DC Primary was especially exciting, even if my preferred candidate came in second. I love being able to read the headlines effortlessly on the morning newspaper. I am happy to have NPR on the radio again. I am happy to be on the same time or only an hour apart from those I regularly talk to on the phone.

I am also really happy in my new job. It’s at a small nonprofit called Miriam's Kitchen (http://www.miriamskitchen.org/) and it feels good to be working to make DC a better place. It is a real joy to be in the American philanthropic scene again, which I truly think is the gold standard. I am also thrilled to be back our apartment and maybe have a few more square feet than we had in our Paris flat. We had our first dinner party on Friday with Jess and Chris and it was so much fun to break out our DC kitchen tools, while having Paris cooking knowledge to add. For Valentines Day, Josh and I went to the Shakespeare Theatre and I was reminded how much I love the theater and how DC has an amazing theater scene.

As we went through customs in Philly, I was oddly moved when the agent said "Welcome home." I guess he reminded me in a real way that "Yes, I am an American and this is happily my home." But its always easier to say goodbye when you know its simply, "Goodbye for now." And I knew that as our plane took off, I would be back, just as Josh has always known he would return back to Paris. Maybe I can even imagine and hope that when next we pass through Charles de Gaulle in Paris, the agent says some version of "Welcome Back."

sPg

La Derniere Fois

2008-01-31T02:31:00.000-05:00

Sitting in the midst of suitcases, bags and a growing "donation" box, the reality of moving back has firmly arrived. I will say, this week has been punctuated by emotions ranging from denial to anxiety about airline luggage regulations to honest glee at the notion of seeing familiar faces to concern over reverse culture shock to excitement about a new job.

To be honest, at times its been a bit harder to process than I had anticipated. In the end, however, the call of home is still the most powerful emotion. France still has magic for me, but its become a bit ordinary—a sure sign it is time to leave. I haven't craved a pastry or even steak tartare for some time.

When I'm not obsessing over luggage or some new emotional swing, though, we are also attempting to do things for "la derniere fois" or "the last time". This week, we've eaten at three of our favorite restaurants, visited the Louvre, walked along the Seine, had several goodbye lunches with people, went shopping, had our last meal at home (cheese, boudin blanc, rillettes, and a good bottle of wine) and still carved out some time for sleeping and packing.

One of the most special moments of this last week, however, was my last cooking lesson (for now) with Iris. Over our last few gatherings, Iris and I were making a list of a few French recipes that I hadn't yet cooked, but the one that intrigued me and I didn't feel like I could leave without knowing was Pot-au-Feu—essentially a boiled pot of meat and vegetables that is elevated to a place of honor at the French table.

Iris sent me a shopping list which included: three marrow bones, "1 kilo plat de cote avec les os, 600 Gr de jarret de boeuf, 600 Gr de gite-gite en un seul morceau." I will say, it felt like a final exam at the butcher. With the exception of the marrow bones, which I had heard about but had not yet purchased, I wasn't familiar with a single ingredient. The list was essentially a mixture of beef that is fairly inexpensive and is at its best after several hours of cooking (think French pot roast).

My butcher seemed happy to help, knew exactly what I needed and I felt like it was a final French victory for me. The day with Iris was lovely and our Pot-au-Feu was really tasty. Throughout the day, we talked of cooking techniques, laughed a lot and she even gave me her mother's Poule-au-pot recipe, which was essentially like the beef dish, but for chicken. I made the chicken dish on Sunday for some friends and I can honestly say I leave with two more French standards in my repertoire.

But aside from a few last French recipes, I've also taken some time to ponder this question of returning. In one of the rare moments of honest anxiety about returning home, I went so far as to look up on the Internet, "How to cope with reverse culture shock." Wikipedia even has a fairly extensive section on the various stages of adjustment and coping strategies. The one part that I found particularly fascinating and odd though was "Culture shock manifests itself in different ways. Some symptoms include changes in diet and sleeping patterns and an increased need of hygiene." Increased need of hygiene? It almost begs for a French joke, but I suppose only time will tell if upon return to DC, I find myself needing to shower excessively.

But for now, there is certainly no time for excess showering. Bags need to be packed and a small but important list of last minute tourism still awaits. Josh and I plan on spending our last day doing "the death march", which most of our visitors experienced to some degree their first day here. It’s the tour that goes from our apartment, to the Mosque for tea, to Notre Dame, to ice cream at Berthillon to a pass by the old city wall—and a few other stops if our legs still can keep going. It’s the trek we did on January 12, 2007 and it feels exactly right to use it as a book end on February 1, 2008.

And so, this is my last post from here. Thank you for giving us a forum to rant, brag, process and report on our adventures. I suspect there will be at least an entry or two upon our return, if I can find time between my many showers and the reality of life that awaits. I also know Josh has a few last posts up his sleeve, so if you aren't bored with us, there are a few more chapters in the wings. But for now, this is Sara Gibson signing off from Paris.

A bientot,

sPg

Savoring

2008-01-21T15:02:00.000-05:00

Last night I had a dream that I was eating tete de veau et son cerveau ("head of veal, with his brains--which I have had one other time and was quite tasty). The most interesting thing to me was, in my dream, I was not surprised/displeased to be eating that dish, but I was angry at the cost—it was 30 euros!

They say that you really know a language when you begin to dream in that language. But I wonder what it means when clearly specific cultural references come into play. I was as disturbed by the menu as the fact that it was euros, not dollars, and that was in my REM sleep. Maybe it really is time to come home.

With the end of our stay nearly in view and the beginnings of actual preparations for a return to the states well underway, I find myself soaking in small interactions here again—just as I did in January 2007—and marveling at the many small ways that I've come to better understand France and its complex culture.

Today, I took the usual trip to the market for dinner things, and despite the rain that was steadily falling, I almost felt giddy with appreciation. The market was nearly empty—it was a bit before Parisians were through with work and it was rainy enough to chase any tourists away—so it felt like it was me and the vendors. I even tipped my umbrella and received a real smile from my favorite butcher.

I stopped first in the poissonnerie (fish shop) and picked out two perfect pieces of salmon for dinner, then splurging two doors up at the fromagerie for one of my favorite cheeses (fresh cheese with a fig filling), then continuing up the hill to buy my demi-baguette.

I did some version of this walk in January 2007, but now, armed with approximately 17 more words of French and a few well-learned lessons in French culture, the street has lost all of its intimidation yet kept all of its charm. Though it sounds silly, it feels like a real accomplishment, especially when I recall the literal cold sweats that greeted my first solo trip the grocery store. (http://hisandhersparigi.blogspot.com/2007/01/q-and.html)

We've started to be asked the question: are you ready to come home? Yes, is the short answer. Paris has been a dream in 1,000 ways, but its not quite home and I don't want to be an expat. I am also increasingly aware that my French doesn't cut the proverbial mustard for the long term. I am looking forward to seeing familiar faces and I'm even ready to work again. It’s a bit like the song from the TV show Cheers. "Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came." I am anxious to return to coffee with "The Girls" and having family a brief car ride or short plane ride away.

But in other ways, it will be a sad trip to the airport in February. I am reluctant to say goodbye to this time. I am sad to think about saying goodbye to my favorite fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens and the many French friends who have become regular parts of my life here. I am worried about all of the usual "return to life" questions of work and life and balance. The reality of trips to the gym, commuting and potentially long hours will replace the Paris reality of fresh baguettes, a light workload and fascinating bilingual and even trilingual conversations.

We still have time, however, and I am not bidding "au revoir" until the last possible second. I still have time for at least 3 trips to the Louvre, 26 bakery runs, 14 trips the butcher, 53 coffees, 3 trips to Notre Dame, 1 glance at Sacre Coeur and at least 10 bottles of wine, by my rough calculations.

Still savoring each second,

sPg

Of Corsican!

2008-01-12T21:29:00.000-05:00

[If you're horrified or disappointed by this photo, skip ahead to read Vignette Three, then start again at the beginning...]

Can I seriously be posting a blog entry on our Christmas travels two weeks late? Of Corsican!

I think Sara did a great job of summing up the spirit of Corsica in general and of our trip there in particular, so I think I'll just stick to a couple of vignettes. And please keep in mind, dear readers, you read this blog for the wacky and entertaining, not for fawning "it was so beautiful," "we felt so at home," etc. It was a fantastic vacation, one of the best I've ever had, but the crazy bits make for better blogging. Oh, one more note--most of these photos don't necessarily go with the vignettes, some of them are just ones I wanted to include.

And now on to the vignettes...

VIGNETTE ONE
Before heading to Corsica, being the OCD guy I am, I kept e-mailing our “gite” (rural lodge/hotel) asking detailed questions about how to take the once-a-day bus from Ajaccio to Guitera-les-Bains, our 65-person village. Every time I wrote, they'd provide the information I'd asked for, but they'd gently remind me of their previous suggestion that I call when we got to Ajaccio because someone from the village would likely be able to come pick us up. So, imagine my surprise when I called the gite upon our arrival in Ajaccio and was told, sheepishly, that no one was free to come get us, and that a better option might be...hitchhiking. Across Corsica. With our suitcases. In the rain. Two days before Christmas. In the end, we decided to spend our first night, as opposed to our originally-planned last night, in Ajaccio. And the gite did set us up with door-to-door rides to and from the airport in the end.

VIGNETTE TWO
One omnipresent companion on our Corsica trip: guns. I haven't seen so many guns in one place...since the last time I visited the in-laws. Seriously, there are lots of guns in Corsica. When the guy who was driving us from Ajaccio to Guitera showed up to pick us up, Sara went to get in the back seat...and had to move the shotgun blocking half of the back seat. When we got to the gite, leaning in a corner by the bathroom were three more shotguns. Wherever we walked, whether on the road or on trails, it was unclear what we had to step over more often: pig poo, the omnipresent native chestnuts, or...shotgun shells. Also, likely in jest, in one of the drives that the locals took us on through the mountains, they told us that when the local police run low on bullets, they come up to the region where we are staying and buy them off the separatists because they're better armed...

And, of course, then there was the time that we got shot at (if you believe Sara) on Christmas Eve. After our transportation hassles on the 23^rd, we finally made it to the village on the 24th, got settled, went to Christmas Eve mass in a nearby village, and shared a terrific dinner with the family. After dinner and before going to bed, Sara and I wanted to take a quick walk to and back from the nearby church, just to stretch our legs and settle our dinners. We got to the church, and were looking down on some sheep grazing nearby, when...shots rang out. Looking up the hill a couple of hundred yards, we saw a guy with a shotgun. He kept shooting. Sara was convinced he was shooting at us, I wasn't, but we both decided to walk calmly but quickly back to the gite anyway. When we got back, we nonchalantly asked the owner why someone might be shooting at/near us. He told us that it was midnight, so now it was Christmas. He told us that at midnight on New Year's Eve, everyone shoots their guns off in the air, “even the women.”

VIGNETTE THREE
Speaking of guns, one day while I was minding my own business, sitting and reading in the “common room” of the gite, Paul-Antoine, the gite's owner and excellent chef, came into the room and said “Hey, American, come out here.” Oh, did I mention he had a shotgun in his hand while he asked me this?

As I (needless to say) walked out the front door, I almost tripped over the bodies of two boars lying just beyond our doorstep. Paul-Antoine said “Hey, American, take this gun, kneel down behind the boars, and we'll take a picture. It will be funny.” There was a brief confusion after Paul-Antoine and the first three hunters standing nearby didn't know how to shoot...a picture...but on Hunter #4, we hit paydirt, and got the photo above.

VIGNETTE FOUR

Having twice refused to go on the boar hunt (that's part of why I got roped into the famous photo), I felt that I couldn't very well say no when another of the townspeople asked me if I'd like to go with a few of the guys down to the mineral baths that gave the town its name ("Les Bains" means "The Baths"). Sara and I had already hiked down to the baths a couple of days previous (they're in a lower half of the town, a couple of miles away), and we hadn't seen much--just the old, abandoned, decaying hotel from the baths' heyday, a concrete dome over the actual spring, and a "huge" spigot spouting the 115 degree water into a long, large stone box that frankly looked a bit like a topless coffin for a giant.

So, frankly, I didn't really understand what going to the baths entailed. Breaking into the old hotel? Climbing into the dome? Did the spring eventually hit the river, and we were going to climb into that? Sara was a bit suspicious of the whole process, so I went alone. In the end, guess what, "the baths" was really the big stone coffin! About six people could fit inside, sitting, and it was terrific. We went at night, so the air was cold (40 degrees), but that made the water feel great. Through the mist thrown off by the water, you could see a truly amazing number of stars. The water smelled a bit sulfurous, but it was rumored to cure virtually everthing, from back pain to skin conditions.

It was so great, Sara actually came along the second nught, and loved every minute of it!

VIGNETTE FIVE
Whenever we travel, Sara gets on my back about looking for “the perfect restaurant.” We'll be in some distant land, it will be mealtime, one or both of us will be getting blood-sugary, and I'll traipse us crosstown in an effort to find a restaurant that was written up in the guidebook/offers a free before-dinner drink/offers a fixed-price multi-course menu/is cheaper/is more authentic. Sadly, despite rumors to the contrary, I'm not a leprechaun, and rarely am I successful in leading Sara to the culinary pot of gold. Fortunately, on our one night in Ajaccio, I did hit the leprecorsican jackpot. We'd struck out with restaurants that were closed Sundays/closed during the tourist off-season/closed for Christmas/too pricy/too empty (a Sara pet peeve), etc., and the fairly intense rain was overwhelming our umbrellas. My faux-cheerful requests for “one more block!” were increasingly met by scowls.

But finally, three blocks beyond our hotel, we stumbled on “U Spuntinu.” When we walked in the door of this hole-in-the-wall, it was honestly like when the stranger walks through the swinging saloon doors in an old Western. Conversations stopped, glasses were frozen mid-sip at lip-level, and the old prospector stops playing the upright piano in the corner. (OK, maybe there was no piano...). By then it was a bit late, so we asked if it was too late to eat (no one else was eating). They said they only had two things, kebabs and “pain bandit.”

When I asked what “pain bandit” was, I was told that it was a special kind of toasted ham and cheese sandwich, and that it was all that Yvan Colonna (a Corsican separatist suspected of killing the highest-ranking mainland French official in 1998 who lived as a fugitive in the Corsican mountains for four years, making him a folk legend). After laughing nervously at the casual but charged mention of this very controversial figure, we ordered one of each item and were “shown” to the one, two-seat table in the entire tiny restaurant. As we felt eyes burning into the backs of our heads, I kept trying to convince myself that the camouflage-clad, mystery-beverage-swilling regulars were likely as afraid of us as we were of them.

Lo and behold, when our food and the two accompanying chestnut beer arrived and we dug into them like we were the ones who had been on the lam in the Corsican countryside, the tension (mostly) melted. There's nothing like graciously loving regional food and drink specialties to get the locals to take a shine to you... Before long, we'd warmed enough to each other to exchange “Do you hate Bush? Good, we do too!” comments, they'd suggested we try the house myrtle digestif (the aforementioned mystery beverage), and, before you knew it, our after-dinner coffees had been comped.

In the end, the sandwich was massive, delicious, and was like nothing we'd ever had before. The kebab was homemade, from three different kinds of meat and with a homemade blend of local Corsican herbs, truly hit the spot. Even the beer was great, and we were thrilled to be offered some of the house digestif.

The meal was inexpensive, nothing fancy, but damned if it wasn't one of our top ten favorite meals we've eaten all year, and an excellent preview of the kind of skepticism-followed-by-warm-welcome that awaited us in Guitera. [by the way, the food photo above wasn't from U Spuntinu, it's from the gite, and it shows our dinner the last night we were there: chestnut flour polenta, figatelli (a famous fresh pork liver sausage), brocciu (a cheese like Ricotta), and a fried egg. It's a traditional Christmas-week meal.)

Well, now that I've updated you on what happened two weeks ago, I can start working on another blog about something that happened over a month ago—my first acting work in the French cinema. More on that soon.

Josh

LIfe, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

2007-12-30T18:52:00.000-05:00

[written in Corsica last week]

When I last saw Josh tonight, a tall Corsican man dressed partially in camouflage asked “The American” how old he was and then invited him to sit at the table full of local men. After a seemingly satisfactory response, I saw a new glass being pulled from the bar for Josh who then shrugged and said, “I guess I have to sit.” I wished him “Bonne Chance” as I happily slipped out of the door into the quiet and star-filled mountain evening en route to bed.

Before we came here (to the tiny moutain Corsican village of Guitera, with a population of 65 people), I jokingly said, “Well, after a week, we’ll either be run out as invaders or Josh will be elected mayor.” He might not ended up as the mayor, but no one disagreed when he jokingly asked that all question to “Josh the American” be addressed to “Monsieur l'Ambassadeur”.

Here is what I know about our Christmas Corsican Adventure—it isn’t what most tourists expect, but it is exactly what we were looking for. We didn't come here for the famous beaches, we came to Corsica for the mountains, the unique culture and the famous pork products (lest you think we are too high-minded). And, after eating dinner with a collection of Corsican men and two European couples, Josh and I came to the conclusion that we’re experiencing less of a vacation and more of a cultural exchange. In a week, we've managed to get a real glimpse of Corsican mountain culture and I think we've met almost everyone who calls Guitera home.

We've been welcomed in a way that surprises even me. We are one of the only Americans to come to this small village in at least the past ten years, and we've felt a bit like local celebrities at times. A few nights ago we were invited to a neighbor's house for an aperitif and their homemade ham, while others from the town have taken time out of their day to drive us through some of the nearby villages. Josh has especially fascinated the locals and they seem to pepper him constantly with questions about American policy or American customs. [note: its not that they do or don't care what I think, but my French just isn't up to full-out ambassadorial duties.]

It seems that our status as Americans, rather than French or European, has smoothed the way for our temporary integration into the life of the village. Even if the battle for independence is far away in our national memory and our knowledge of it is mostly gathered through years of history classes, we can imagine how rotten it is to feel like a far-away nation occupies you, which is how the Corsicans seem to feel about the French. [Obvious Iraq questions arise here, but for now, we'll sidestep them]. Also, our foreign policy aside, American culture is still beloved by a lot of people. Tonight I was told that Scarface with Al Pacino is one of the local guy's favorite movies, while another woman said that she loves Hitchcock movies.

The strong sense of pride in Corsican culture is palpable here and is expressed most visibly in the various bilingual signs. The Corsican part of the sign is left untouched, the French part of the sign often has bullet holes and spray paint over it. There are also the occasional demonstrations of outright suspicion of the French government. On day three, a Gendarmarie (police) helicopter was flying overhead and all of the men gathered for lunch stepped outside (some with binoculars) to see what the it was about. Though it turned out to be a search for two lost hikers, the first instinct of everyone (including even me!) was "Why are they spying on us this time?" My own sense is that it isn't that they do or don't like the French; but they just don't think the Paris government has much to tell them. They also seem to have felt the same way about their other former colonial master, the Italians, so at least they are fair.

But let's pause here for a quick history lesson: Corscia is a small island that is between France and Italy, both of whom have ruled it at various times. Napoleon was born here and his family is buried here, but it's not clear if anyone who is Corsican actually cares. People here speak French officially, but there is also a local Corsican language, which sounds a bit like Italian. There are amazing beaches that are extremely popular as a European vacation destination and there are also mountains that are over 8,000 feet.

The island also has a slightly sinister side and organized crime has thrived here at times. Vendetta killings aren’t unknown here, though apparently they are extremely rare. McDonalds doesn’t exist here either, if that even seems possible. Apparently each time they tried to open one, as one local explained, “Boom”, which means, someone blew them up. Pork products of every variety, as well as cheese, is taken very seriously here. I Muvrini is a great Corsican singing group and a lot of Corsican music reminds me of the Portugese fado music, which was used as an artistic demonstration against years of dictatorship. There--Corsica 101.

Unexpectedly though, I feel oddly at home here, despite the somewhat language barrier. It's not that the Indiana town that I grew up in was that remote, and it did have a McDonalds, but there, as here, camouflage, shotguns and pork products are simply a part of everyday life. The mountains that surround us here in Corsica are a far cry from the flat Indiana fields, but the many dogs and pickup trucks feel familiar.

Dinner tonight was very nice. Fairly traditional—a damn good pork chop and gratin dauphinois (a potato, cheese, and cream casserole—it's where we get the term "potatoes au gratin"). After dinner, a bit of wine and a round of digestifs (after-dinner drinks), a man came over and explained how the notion of the pursuit of happiness is actually a Corsican term. It's true—30 years before our Declaration of Independence, a Corsican named Pasquale Paoli first put the concept into a written national charter. 240 years later, the Corsicans are still fighting for it and I'm glad that Thomas Jefferson had the good sense to include it.

For me, while I’m a temporary resident of Guitera, Corsica, the view of life isn't all the complicated and hardly includes revolutionary thoughts or high-level political discussions. For a week, my own pursuit of happiness is simple. The mountains in the distance are beautiful and I love to watch them change colors with the time of the day. The sheep outside our door are downright funny to a "sort of" city girl, and it's fun to play with the friendly dog that sleeps outside our door. The wonderful meals we've enjoyed with Paul-Antoine's family nearly feel like the icing on an already perfect cake.

The mountains of Corsica are a special place—but they are that way as much because of the people who still call it home as they are for the incredible views. And as much as I'll always remember the mountains (and the chance encounters with wandering livestock), I somehow suspect that I'll most remember Corsica for what it taught me about US history and some core American values. I guess all I can say is, "Thanks Pasquale—I think you were spot on about the Pursuit of Happiness."

sPg

Christmas in the City of Lights

2007-12-22T09:51:00.000-05:00

Everything that is said about Paris in the springtime is true, but Paris in December is just as special. The City of Lights doesn’t dare to skimp on this time of long evenings and fewer tourists. In the last month (since the arrival of all the Christmas lights), it feels like the city has wrapped itself up like a beautifully decorated present, just enough for those who call this place home to spend chilly December evenings here.

With the approach of the holidays, Parisians also get very serious about their seasonal cuisine. While not for the faint of heart or even possibly most American palates, for foodies, this is as good as it gets.

Foie gras, oysters, scallops, game, special holiday teas, special cheeses, special cakes—it's all here at seemingly every turn. The local grocery store even brought in two large temporary refrigerator cases devoted entirely to foie gras and caviar, with both ranging in price from 8 to 100 euros!

The butcher shops are fascinating and a little disturbing since now it seems that every type of bird and rabbit are hanging from the ceiling. Nothing says Christmas like birds and rabbits, I suppose! There is a part of me that thinks it can’t really be Christmas without Polish sausage, but just this once, I’m finding if I hum “I’ll be home for Christmas” while eating some foie gras, somehow it's easier.

Tonight, Josh and I are heading out on a Christmas date. We leave tomorrow for the mountains of Corsica, where we will be spending Christmas, but we couldn’t resist a Saturday night on the town admiring all there is to see.

A trip to the department stores to see the windows feels like a perfect addition to the Marshall Field’s Christmas window-gazing tradition of my childhood. The chance to stroll down the Champs Elysees with Josh while surrounded by Christmas lights feels one of like the most romantic walks I could imagine. A few Christmas markets are still open and we can’t help but think there is a little treasure there to be discovered. Maybe if we’re lucky, we might even find a glass of vin chaud or a little café with enough room at the counter for us.

And so, with Christmas music playing in our apartment, our “Holiday Lamp” all aglow and a cup of warm tea beside me, I’ll leave you until after the New Year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hoping Santa can still find me,

sPg

Pluta Parentals

2007-12-19T14:33:00.000-05:00

People said it couldn't be done. Rumor has it that a great aunt declared, "Henry won't go to France, even if his daughter is there." Even we were a bit skeptical, and we knew they loved their first trip here in May. But against all odds, the Pluta's returned to France and loved it! We headed out of Paris this time and met in Toulouse for a 10 day trip in the Southwest and in Provence.

We explored one perfectly charming little village (Cordes-sur-Ciel), and even saw some local art. Be sure to notice the Tour de France hat of Dad's that proves his newfound affinity for France and mom's very French scarf, which made her a near local.

There was an ongoing quest for the perfect Christmas Card photo. Here is one attempt in Carcassonne--in addition to being a possible Pluta Family Background, this walled town is also where Robin Hood was filmed and it is approximately 1,000 years old.

Sometimes I was overwhelmed by the pre-Christmas spirit, what can I say?

We also went to see the world's highest bridge. This was Josh's idea and it made Dad happy. Mom and I were game since the boys were so happy, but we did think, "We're driving how far to see what?" I, however, did manage to conquor my bridge phobia for the first time. Maybe Josh's bridge impersonations helped.

We also saw a lot of Roman ruins. This is where gladiators fought for centuries in the city of Nimes. Is it just me or do we look photoshopped in?

We also listened to a LOT of audio guides. Here, Dad is modeling his hat along with Audioguide #512 which explains the history of Nimes gladiators and still ongoing bullfighting tradition.

This is the second bridge-like thing of the trip. This is actually an ancient aquaduct. The boys went there solo. Mom and I were having tea and shopping while the boys were looking at ancient plumbing and nearly-as-ancient graffiti on the aquaduct.

Dad even rode the bus! Henry Pluta on public transportation in France!!??!! Did anyone else notice a rip in the time/space continuum?

We didn't have a lifesize cut out of David to include in this family photo, but somehow the Harley is close enough. Having David with us would have made the trip complete, but I suspect France wouldn't let in that many Plutas at once.

This was perhaps my favorite day of a truly wonderful trip. We ended our time in the city of Avignon at a Christmas market. Lights, tasty treats, mild weather, music and the chance to laugh with Mom, Dad and Josh...it was pretty special. And, I really and truly think that cotton candy should be a party of every Christmas festival! Mom had a waffle with whipped cream that she enjoyed so much that I don't think I'll never forget how happy she seemed as she ate it!

We stopped for one last beverage before heading back to Paris in this cute little cafe. It felt like we were in a French kitchen from the 1930's. We then returned back to Paris for a last whirl around town.

We said goodbye to my parents on a chilly morning and as I waved goodbye, I realized that our hosting duties in Paris were officially over. Since April, we've had the joy of sharing this amazing city with 35 people, which surely should earn us at least an honorable mention in next year's Nobel Peace Prize discussion. It was really a blast though and I couldn't really imagine this adventure without the stories and antics that each visitor brought.

For those of you who came, thank you truly for making our adventure so fantastic. For those of you who couldn't make it, know that we thought of you often and probably toasted you with a glass of French wine.

It isn't very often that you can truly count life in moments, rather than deadlines, but this year was filled with them.

Back to counting my blessings before Christmas,

sPg

Yankee Go Home

2007-12-19T14:19:00.000-05:00

When I got home from doing errands and found this truck in front of our apartment building, I started to wonder if France was trying to send us a message.

It wasn't just on our street, or on our block. It was literally right in front of our apartment. The lit-up window over the sign is our living room window. Here's a picture of Sara, Evita-like, or perhaps Mayor McCheese-like, greeting her subjects from our living room window.

And here's the view out the window, looking down.

I suppose we can only hope that this same time next year, there's a foie gras or a stinky cheese billboard outside our DC window...

Josh

Appy Sanksgiving

2007-11-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

As you all likely know, on the fourth Thursday in November, the French don't celebrate Thanksgiving like we Americans do.

Instead, they celebrate Thanksgiving on December 16.

No, I suppose they don't. I guess I really am just that late in posting news and pictures from our excellent Paris Thanksgiving dinner. OK, so with apologies, think of it as the leftovers that wouldn't go away, here's the play-by-play of our Paris Thanksgiving.

First, if you go to a French butcher shop in late fall, here's what you are most likely to find:

The rabbits and the hares still look pretty good here, and they do for a couple of days. But then, if they don't sell by day two or three, there's usually a plastic bag around their head, held on by a rubber band, so that any...escaping liquids...are contained. By the way, the sign in the picture says "Game has arrived: Roosters, pheasants, "green necks" (the green-headed ducks you see in the park), partridges, does, boars, hares, rabbits..."

But, lo and behold, for the first time in the four years I've lived here since 1992, you could see an unusual sign this November at a butcher shop on our street:

It says "Remember to order your Thanksgiving turkey." Within days, in the butcher's case,

we saw this:So, interestingly, it looks like Thanksgiving has made an appearance on the French scene. I don't think they're celebrating it, but I think they realize there are enough Americans in Paris to make it worth recognizing. I also think they find the holiday intriguing--the one day all year that Americans live vaguely like French people do every day of the year: no work and good food!

Of course, French people continue to live like French people, which means that Thanksgiving occurred in the middle of the longest French transit strike of the past few years. This complicated life, since our plan was to celebrate Thanksgiving with Iris (my French host mother from my 1992-1993 junior year abroad), and she lives in Boulogne, just outside of Paris, and probably a 1.5 to 2 hour walk from our house. Since Sara had a work meeting that day, I was in charge of getting all of our food contributions (the turkey, wine, stuffing fixings, and three desserts) over to Iris'.

I hoped to get one of the 10% of metros and busses running that day, or to catch a cab, but since I wasn't sure either of these would really be possible, I had to prepare as if I would be walking the whole way, avec Thanksgiving literally in my hands. For that reason, I had our 16-pound turkey in a wheelie suitcase.

I also packed our classy and tasty new house wine in the bag.

Then I was ready to set out for Iris' house.

Fortunately, though, I was finally able to get through to a cab company on the phone, so I made the trip in a taxi.

Everything worked out great in the end. Sara and Iris, two of my favorite cooks in the world, collaborated to put together one of the best Thanksgiving dinners ever. Here they are relaxing between bouts of cooking. Iris had a stroke a couple of years ago, and prior to living in Paris, Sara and I never expected to be living here, so it's honestly a blessing that this year they've gotten to know each other, swap cooking tips, and share meals in Iris' warm and perfect home.

After hours of hard work, including Iris' genius idea of mummifying the turkey in raw bacon before cooking it, the bird was ready for its star turn.

We sat down to dinner with a motley crew: Iris, Sara, our visiting friend Matt Carty, myself, Sara's French teacher Elodie, her boyfriend David, and two of Iris' American artist friends. There were a couple of last-minute cancellations (less resourceful people who couldn't overcome the transit strike's stumbling blocks...), so there was an even greater bounty of food than we'd planned.

After a lovely Thanksgiving, it was time to head home, but again thanks (but no thanks!) to the transit strike, that was easier said than done. Sara, Matt, and I planned on sharing a cab with Elodie and David, but the special cab we called (most French cabs can't take five people) went to Iris' address not in Boulogne but in Paris, and was then too pissed to come out to get us. We then had to call two separate cabs, which are obviously a scarce commodity during strikes. So, we ended up standing downstairs far longer than we expected.

And, of course, after a bit too much turkey, wine, and waiting, antics ensued.

All in all, it was a very French, and a very American, Thanksgiving.

And since we'll be in Corsica for Christmas (we were in southern France for most of Hanukkah), we didn't get a tree, so instead, we decided to decorate a Holiday Lamp.

With that image, we wish you all Happy Holidays.

Josh

Tiny Cars

2007-11-27T21:12:00.001-05:00

Here is another in the promised "favorite things" series. This one is short and sweet, since Sara's parents are here and we're on the road.

It's so short and sweet, I'll express it in haiku:

France has tiny cars

We mock them big time, but they

Aren't at war for oil.

Guilty Pleasures

2007-11-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

I really couldn’t help myself. I was hoping that no one would spot me leaving. I contemplated telling Josh in person, rather than in our normal email check-ins.

I really tried to just walk away. I did what I could to stave off the desire—I walked around the block. I tried to distract myself with necessary errands at the phone store. I even resorted to making sure I could avoid leaving a trail by paying in cash. I counted each cent and thought, “I mean, this is ok to do once or twice.”

I entered the store uncertainly, tugging at my hat to cover my eyes a bit. I kept my iPod on, so I could claim distraction enough to avoid talking to anyone. I even had the nerve to stare at the others who were gathered with a condescending look of “I can’t believe you’ve let it come to this—surely we should be anywhere else but here.”

In the end, however, my spirit resisted, but the flesh was weak. I took the plunge. I enjoyed every last second of it and quickly discarded every last shred of evidence. I did think for a moment, “no one has to know but me.”

But I can’t hide it. Maybe its not even a real problem. Maybe its my right. And maybe all there is to say is: Damn, that McDonald’s Cheeseburger was good.

sPg

Strike Out

2007-11-19T09:32:00.001-05:00

Make no mistake about it: I am ready for the transportation strike to end, but, in the interest of making lemons into lemonade, or grapes into wine as the case may be, the strike and its related stress has allowed me a better glimpse at French solidarity.

If you haven’t heard, since last Wednesday, the French transportation workers are on strike over a feud with the government over retirement reforms. The right to strike is held dearly here, so the workers are challenging the government’s position by cutting service on most trains and busses. The public, it seems, is squarely in the middle of a debate over the retirement benefits of 500,000 workers.

There was a strike about a month ago, which was a pain and lasted for about two days. This one looks to be longer and we’ve actually had to deal with it for a few days, so I feel like my perspective is a bit different this time around.

On Thursday, I had a meeting that simply had to take place—strike or no strike. So, like the others who were involved in the meeting, we figured out how to make it work. Most of us walked, which we found basically fine. It was a sunny, if a bit chilly, day and I left plenty of time. I even found myself at some points happy to be joining the masses making due in the face of inconvenience and, at the very least, I claimed my legitimate right to complain about the situation—which made me feel very French. Sadly, it took the one woman who had no choice but to use some transportation (she lived unwalkably far away) nearly four hours to arrive.

The one thing I don’t understand though is why the workers chose this particular method of striking. It seems instead of a work stoppage, they also had the option of just not charging anyone for transportation, which courts have decided is a legal strike method. Then, you could cost the government money and not make the public angry. I know the issues are complicated and retirement is sacred, but I seriously question their strategy.

I also think my goodwill and lemonade making skills are starting to run short, especially as the temperatures have dropped. Josh just said there was an Anti-Strike March today—if only I could get there I would join in and all this from someone who actually believes in unions. Nearly my entire family is part of a union and even my dad said, “In the States, they would have been forced back to work and a cooling off time or intensive mediation would have taken place.”

In truth, for us, this is mostly an inconvenience. So far, we’ve had to miss the ballet (they were on strike fighting to maintain a benefits package dating back to the 1600’s—no joke), an artist fair (even when the metro is running it takes an hour to get to this neighborhood and we weren’t going to walk there), dinner with Josh’s host father he stayed with in 1989 (who lives too far away to walk) and we ended up just walking everywhere else. Nothing absolutely important, but still slightly irritating. We’re hoping that our Thanksgiving dinner at Iris’ isn’t cancelled or, more comically, that I don’t have to haul a whole turkey on my back to Iris’. We also have a friend arriving on Wednesday without any clear way for him to get from the airport to the city, but we’ll figure all of that out. But mostly, I resent feeling like I am being taken hostage over someone else’s fight.

So, we’ll see when this ends. No immediate end is in sight and even when it’s officially over, it will take several days for things to be back to normal. Several French people have said, “Well, you are certainly having a chance to experience a unique piece of France.” I have to say, I prefer cheese and wine to this piece of culture any day.

sPg

PS: These photos are of a recent strike-related protest, a protest earlier this year, and "better days" our friends and family had with the transit system in strike-free times.

Proud to be an American

2007-11-17T09:48:00.000-05:00

[Along with some political photos, I'm including some photos from recent visits by our favorite Americans and non-Americans.]

I cannot believe that I cried during a speech by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but it’s true. Furthermore, I can hardly believe it took a French presidential address to the U.S. Congress to make me feel really proud to be an American, but that’s what happened. The only other time since we got here that I’ve felt this way was when I walked through the D-Day cemetery with my parents, Josh and three French friends. In both cases, it was a powerful reminder that America has stood for courage and freedom in real and absolute ways. It can be a rough thing to be an American abroad in times such as these. I have regularly fielded the question, “But what happened in 2004?” or “Does your country really support the war?” or “Is America really ready for a woman or an African-American as president?” or just “Who will be the next president?” Today over lunch with a Turkish friend I asked, as I usually do with a bit of trepidation, “So, how are our countries getting along?”

[Side note: Once I asked that same question to my Turkish friend, but my Canadian friend chimed in by saying, “Well, there is the US/Canadian water crisis” I was dumbstruck and asked sheepishly, “We are having a water crisis?” She said, “Yes, you keep stealing our water from the Great Lakes, and what are we going to do, send our Mounties to get you?” ]

In the face of such questions, I usually do the best I can to talk about the America I know—the one that works hard, the one that believes in freedom, the one that still thinks that anyone can be president, the one that understands that sacrifice is a necessary part of freedom, the one that never actually used the term “Freedom Fries”.

I am less able to answer specific political questions in any helpful way. I fumble and sometimes find myself angry at the fact that I even have to entertain these questions. Sometimes all I can mumble is, “I didn’t vote for Bush and I don’t know who will be the next president.” Today I found myself in the rather odd and uncomfortable position of trying to describe “single issue abortion voters” to two friends who are fiercely proud that their countries are secular (and therefore, as I understand it, without the extremely religious driving major policy decisions).

But when Sarkozy was able to take a typically French view of history, which looks at history in terms of centuries (not days or months or even years) I was reminded why I am proud to be an American in France. Sarkozy seemed genuine in his appreciation of George Washington. He was downright moving as he talked about the sacrifice of American soldiers during WWI. His description of parents teaching the role of America to their children by taking them through American cemeteries from WWII was what made me tear up. It may all be just talk and rhetoric, but I loved it and so did the members of Congress who kept applauding.

America may or may not have it “right” in a lot of ways right now. We may not ever really be the perfect country that we hope for and that the world expects, but I think we still have a lot to teach and I reveled in the sentimentality and seemingly genuine admiration of America by a French president.

When I saw a French friend of mine today for lunch, she greeted me with a slightly devious smile and the comment, “You liked Sarkozy’s speech, didn’t you?” I admitted I was fond of it and she agreed that it clearly signified a warming in U.S.-French relations. She was a bit embarrassed that Sarkozy didn’t give the speech in English, and then went on to talk about all of the other European leaders who have come to France and given speeches in French. I countered that his 60 Minutes interview was in English and I thought the CNN translator was perfectly fine. I also said “I’m really glad it was Sarkozy talking to our Congress rather than the other way around.” We then talked a bit about which French president’s liked the US. Who knew? Charles de Gaulle really only tolerated us?

She also made sure to emphasize that the speech also made it very clear that just because it is an ally, France doesn’t have to always agree with us. Even in our casual conversation, the pride in French leadership was evident.

In contrast, however, I was told by my Turkish friend that the speech also got headlines in Turkey. It read: “Fido visits US Congress”. Apparently the Turks, who are not so fond of the French, refer to Sarkozy as Fido in order to conjure up images of a small annoying dog who barks a lot. Oh, EU politics are complicated.

It may be too early to judge what kind of president Sarko the American (as he’s known here) will become. In the election, I was pulling for his opponent and have been a bit skeptical of him. He is doing some potentially creepy things with immigration and who knows if he will get any major reforms passed. The transportation strike that we are in the midst of is going to be a key test of Sarkozy's abilities and legacy. But for now, I am grateful to him for having the right words to give me back a bit of pride in America. I guess it goes to show that all politics really is local in its own international sort of way.

sPg

Beaujolais Blue Balls

2007-11-14T21:37:00.000-05:00

[Sara is sleeping, or else I never would have been able to sneak this blog’s title through…]

Maybe you remember the old Paul Masson wine TV commercials, featuring Orson Welles, with the tagline “We will sell no wine before its time.”

(I know, I know, there are no commercials on PBS, maybe there was a pledge drive that week, so sue me…)

Well, no wine better lives up to the “no wine before its time” (or, frankly, “no wine before it’s time,” grammar inside joke, note the apostrophe) mantra like Beaujolais Nouveau. Whereas most wines are made with aging in mind (if not in practice), the Beaujolais is meant to be imbibed right away. And by “right away,” the French mean at or after midnight on the third Thursday of November.

Ya gotta love Wikipedia—apparently, when Beaujolais got its AOC (kind of like a French government trademark to protect regional foods and drinks, so that only Idaho farmers can claim to be selling Idaho potatoes), they were only allowed to legally sell their wine after a certain date. The specific date has changed since, but the fixed start date concept for sales remains, even if it’s more of a marketing gimmick than anything. Other interesting fact: Beaujolais is the only wine, along with Champagne, that must have its grapes harvested exclusively by hand, if it is to be known by the “Beaujolais” name.

Well, among the many things Sara and I have learned this year is that Beaujolais Nouveau is a bigger deal in America (and, interestingly, in Japan) than it is in France. I guess it makes sense. This wine, technically, is junk. It’s all the words you hear used by people spoofing wine reviews—it’s immature, impertinent, impudent, and impetuous. Serious wine drinkers here generally turn up their noses at the mere thought of it.

It makes total sense now that I think about it--the Beaujolais growers have put together an American-style marketing campaign, generating a date-based “buzz,” in order to get skeptical Americans to drink the stuff. It doesn’t hurt that Beaujolais Nouveau is generally to American tastes (light, fruity), and that it is released one week before Thanksgiving. So, as far as scams go, pawning off much of France’s Beaujolais isn’t quite like the Dutch buying Manhattan from the Native Americans for $24, it’s really more like a Hollywood studio making “Beverly Hills Cop XIV,” knowing it will crash and burn in American theaters, since “it will break even at the foreign box office.” Leave it to the foreign rubes, in other words!

So, what’s with the “Beaujolais Blue Balls” of the title? Well, Sara’s getting over a bit of stomach flu, so she wasn’t up for a midnight wine outing. But she signed off on my plan to do a “quick and dirty” Beaujolais trip, hitting the new wine bar that opened two doors down for a solo, single, speedy post-release glass of the new wine. The best-laid plans…

At 11:55PM, I left the building, jacket-free despite the near-freezing temps, to quickly scoot the 100 chilly feet to the wine bar. I bellied up to the bar, ordered a glass…and received a five-minute lecture from a fellow customer about how bad Beaujolais Nouveau is. Semi-drunkenly, she told me that this high-class wine bar knew better than to serve such swill, that it’s too young, too fresh, too fruity. She said that she didn’t care, some years it tastes like raspberries, some years it tastes like bananas, some years it tastes like “shaypahtrokwah” (slurred French equivalent of “ayedunnowhut”). As soon as I could, I backed out the door and headed home.

After a few minutes at home, I decided it was silly to be in the international wine capital of the world but still miss the world’s most hyped wine release. So this time with a jacket, I headed out the door to try out the café “at the bottom of the Mouffe,” the “local” at the bottom of the rue Mouffetard, our local market street. The owner, who knows us, shook my hand and greeted me as I came in, but told me that because of the traffic generated by today’s transit strike, their shipment wouldn’t arrive until the next day.

Heading back to our place, I passed a half Chinese restaurant, half French café hybrid establishment that Sara and I usually avoid. But earlier in the day I’d seen that they had “Beaujolais Nouveau” posters in their window, so despite the place’s utter lack of charm or even compelling French-ness, I tried stopping by. No dice—the doors were locked, and the owner yelled through them that, Beaujolais or not, I should come back tomorrow.

In America, after three strikes I’d be out, but since they don’t know from baseball here in France, I decided to keep trying. I headed by l’Ourcine, the delicious restaurant with the great reputation (DC folks—Tom Sietsema approves!) that’s at the end of the block. They know us by name, and they even went so far as to suggest to me earlier in the week some places where I could find good Beaujolais release parties, since they themselves would be serving the wine but not hosting any special festivities. But by the time I made it back to l’Ourcine, the lights were mostly off, only the staff was left, and they were getting their jackets on. It didn’t seem right to trouble them with my quest, so I just kept on moving by.

Stop number five was at Sara’s and my “Euro Fifty” bar. That’s not its name, that’s its appeal—they have a massively extended “all drinks for 1.50” happy hour, which at one point went from 4PM to midnight but now is 6-10PM or something like that. They also have tasty and inexpensive couscous as well. And, on this night, they not only had a “le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!” poster in the window, but the lights were still burning. Unfortunately for me, as I walked up, the owner was diplomatically escorting out his last, and quite inebriated, customer. It wasn’t quite closing time, but the drunk guy didn’t know that, so the owner was using that as a pretense to make him hit the road. After briefly pausing to shake my hand, the owner explained that yes, he had the wine, but due to present circumstances, I’d have to come back tomorrow to get it.

The drunk man, before heading home in the opposite direction but clearly based on hard-earned experience, reminded me that there was another bar a block away. So, I made my way towards bar number six. The bar was still bustling, a good sign. But when I asked the bartender for a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau, he told me that it wouldn’t be released until midnight on Thursday. I explained that it was in fact now past midnight on Thursday, that Wednesday had ended at 11:59PM and Thursday had begun at 12:00AM, or Thursday midnight. Not having any of my argument, he insisted that although he did have Beaujolais Nouveau “in the back,” his understanding was that midnight was the end and not the beginning of a day, and that he wouldn’t sell me a glass “in case I was with the government.” Unwilling to enter further into this astronomical and etymological debate about the nature of midnight, I withdrew, and headed home.

And that’s how I find myself sitting in my Paris living room, eating jelly beans and watching a French all-news channel, as the first hours of Beaujolais Nouveau time tick by. In a news story, they just described this year’s Beaujolais as “tendre et gourmand.” That means it’s tender and for gluttons/sweet tooths/bon vivants (Sara and I have been to a half-dozen French dinner parties where the word “gourmand” has been discussed and a successful English translation has been unsuccessfully sought.)

So, intrepid readers, it may well be the case that you, stateside, have tasted Beaujolais Nouveau before the Franco-Gibsons. All I can say is, “That's just like you immature, impertinent, impudent, and impetuous Americans!”

Josh

Part Deux: Consummate Commute, or My Commute is a Beaut' "

2007-11-11T04:58:00.000-05:00

When we last left our hero, the tension couldn't have been higher, as he...was walking to work.

So, to catch you up, we just passed La Tour d'Argent, birthplace of the fork...

After crossing the street and walking halfway across a bridge, if you turn left, you'll see the sight in the photo below. Not much visible there--only Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the bridge where Sara and I got engaged! I mean, are you kidding? On my commute, I get to see two of EARTH'S best-known and beloved sites, plus the place where I asked my wife to marry me???
Admittedly, the Eiffel Tower is far away. You can see it better in this night shot. Since 2000, the Eiffel Tower has these little flickery lights that twinkle every hour on the hour for about five minutes. I use this feature to determine if I'm on time or running late on my way home.
This isn't historic, it's just the cafe where I get coffee on the way to work. It's on the Ile Saint Louis, one of my favorite parts of Paris. The apartment Sara and I stayed at for our first five days in Paris this year is two doors down.
Until recently, I thought the next historical plaque I pass on my commute was the saddest, the most tragic, in Paris. It reads: "To the memory of the 112 residents of this building, among them 40 small children, 'deported and dead' in 1942 in the German camps." If you didn't get it before, you get it now: history is not something you read about in books here, it's not something you take a field trip to visit in a yellow school bus, it's all around you here. Understand it, appreciate it, mourn it--you couldn't avoid it if you wanted to.The reason that the plaque above is no longer the most tragic one I know is because a week or so ago, the gate to that building was open (the building, ironically and almost viciously, is home to one of the city of Paris' public baths and showers). In the courtyard of the building, I found the plaque below. It doesn't simply state the total numbers of the dead, it names names--"Mr. and Mrs. Adoner and their five children," "the Galowski brothers," "the widow Wiorek and her six children." This is literally heartbreaking, ugly and hateful beyond comprehension.

Interestingly, this interior plaque, more recent, avoids the passive "dead" of the older plaque outside, stating that the listed individuals were deported "because they were born Jewish, innocent victims of Nazi barbarity, with the active complicity of the Vichy [pro-Nazi French] government." This plaque is a good example of France's recent efforts to face their World War II complicity with the Nazis head on, to admit it, and to apologize profusely for it. It's good progress for a nation that too often lingered on proud memories of its brave but too rare Resistance fighters while sweeping the French cooperation in the extermination of France's Jews under the rug.

There is no good way to handle this transition.

Just around the corner is my favorite ice cream place in the world, Berthillon. As explained in a previous blog, they have my favorite ice cream flavor in the world, Caramel au Beurre Sale, or Salted Butter Caramel. To quote myself "It’s so good, it cured my goiter. OK, so I didn’t have a goiter. The Caramel au Beurre Sale is so good it gave me a goiter, then instantly cured it (it’s whimsical, cute-but-dangerous, in that Gavroche-on- the-barricades kind of way). It’s so good, it made me forget the name of whosit, that woman I moved here with. Sally, or something…Seriously, it’s good stuff that makes me happy."
After Berthillon, we leave the island and head to the Right Bank (Sara and I live on the Left Bank, so the commute started there). Just off the river we stumble on our next site, another mansion, but this one two hundred years older than the last one. It was built between 1475 and 1519 (Columbus got to America as construction hit it's midpoint). It was home to the Archbishops of Sens, which kind of helps you understand why hovel-dwelling Parisians decided they had to throw out the Catholic Church at the same time they canned the monarchy. A stray cannonball hit the building and lodged there back in 1830, the date having been subsequently chiseled into the facade. That lousy cannonball predates the Civil War by 30 years. If France doesn't put your sense of history into perspective, nothing will.
One more historic plaque before I get to work: "Bombing of April 12, 1918. German torpedoes. 27 dead, 72 wounded." The plaque is on a nondescript building that replaced the one that was torpedoed. It's two blocks from my office, but I didn't discover it for months after I got here, until I took the crosswalk one to the left of the one I usually take. History is everywhere here, but sometimes you have to look for it.
Last stop--just one block from my office is the Saint Paul church, built between 1627 and 1641 under orders of King Louis XIII. Cardinal Richelieu said the first mass here, five priests were massacred in the church during the Revolution, and a Delacroix painting hangs inside.

After spending even a short time here in France, it's hard to avoid getting wrapped up in a conversation about history. The very first time I came to France, as a high school junior, my French host father made a passing comment over dinner about how young our country was. I took offense, rattling off a long list of wars we'd fought in (how American!). it took me years to understand that this wasn't an insult, it was clear and simple fact. Today, I realize that getting a clearer perspective on the immense depth of French history takes just 45 minutes. But be sure to wear comfortable shoes.

Josh

PS: Obviously, I don't normally need to footnote blog entries, but, for this time, thanks Wikipedia!

Consummate Commute, or "My Commute is a Beaut' "

2007-11-03T09:57:00.000-05:00

Greetings everyone,

Sorry for the extended (month-long!) absence from the blogosphere, but one of the lessons this year has taught us is that Parkinson's Law ("Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.") is sadly true. With little to do, we accomplish little. It's the corollary to the advice "If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person." If you don't want something done, give it to me!

One disclaimer as well: when you read our blog entries (like this one), please don't take them as bragging, or worse, as taunting. We're not gloating about our lives being so great, we're just literally shocked at all the crazy stuff we've run into, and, admittedly yes, how lucky we are to be here. Now, onto the blog...

Of the list of things that I love here in Paris, you would probably expect "my commute" to score fairly low indeed. Well, au contraire, mon frere! I love my commute. I walk to and from work, it's about 2.5 miles each way, it takes about 45 minutes, and as I've mentioned in the blog in the past, I'm usually bopping along to tunes from my iPod (thanks, Mom!). To give you a little chance what it's like, I decided to make this blog into a "virtual" commute. So, put on your walkin' shoes and let's get started.

A couple of blocks after heading out the door, we come to St. Medard Church, the church that looks out on the market that Sara often writes about. It's an attractive but unremarkable gothic church, but what's shocking about it (to an American at least) is its age. The church's construction begain in the 15th Century and was completed in the 18th Century. But dates are just numbers unless you put them into context: it took longer to built this church than it has to build our country, its construction started around the time Christopher Columbus arrived in America, and it was completed around the time that our country was born. Humbling history...

After passing alongside St. Medard and turning a corner, we come across a school whose facade is graced with a historical plaque that honors its namesake. The plaque reads in part "Pierre Alviset, an emblematic figure of the Resistance [...] On June 21 [1944], he wrote in his notebook 'I'm 20 years old, a happy age. I want to become a worthy man and a French citizen. Arrested, he was shot in Domont on August 16." This again reinforces the omnipresence of history in this city, and shows how heroes and leaders can sometimes be the person next door.

A block or two up the hill, glancing right, you can see the Paris Mosque at the end of the street. Built in 1926, the mosque is home to a terrific tea room and a hammam (steam bath) that Sara raves about.

1926?!? Fiddle-dee fee!, you say. Even chez Gibson in DC is older than that. Is that the best Paris can do?!? Well, no. Another block up the street, there's a large door under a stone plaque featuring a knight's helmet with the visor down. If you walk through this archway and down a short corridor you will pop out...in a Roman arena. The arena was built around 200 AD, fell into disuse when the Romans left Paris, had its upper levels dismantled by Parisians seeking free building materials, and eventually was filled in with dirt. Rediscovered in the 19th Century during excavations for a bus parking lot, the arena was subsequently...covered back up and had the aforementioned parking lot built above it after all. But following a second excavation decades later, and a "save the arena" campaign that featured Victor Hugo and a small-change fundraising campaign by schoolkids, the arena was saved and became a tourist destination. In a nutty "worlds colliding," only-in-Paris circumstance, the arena, now a Paris city park, was recently outfitted...with WiFi! What's next, an aqueduct leading to the Centre Pompidou?

Down the street and around the corner, we come across what in most other cities would be one of the gems in the town's touristy crown. But in Paris, this would probably rank somewhere in the 500 to 1000 range on the "most important site" list. Oh, it's only a key example of Louis XV-era architecture, a mansion built in 1701. About this place, Paris would say "Oh, that li'l thing?"

A half block away, at the bottom of the hill, on the outside wall of a post office, is this historical plaque. (Paris has great historical plaques--stay tuned for a "favorite things" blog with some of my other favorites, and I'll highlight a few others here that I see on my commute.) The plaque explains that Louis Braille came up with "Braille" on this very site. Interestingly, Braille's name itself appears in Braille on the plaque, but the plaque's eight feet up, so unless your name is Helen Keller Abdul-Jabbar, good luck with that.

Beyond the post office there's a junior high school. I like to check out the cafeteria menu posted outside the school (shrimp and avocado, creme caramel, really?), plus I enjoy raising an arched eyebrow at the smoking and disaffected young French teens that hang out there. And next to the school? The Paradis Latin, one of Paris' most renowned topless cabarets. Check out http://www.paradis-latin.com/ to get a sense of what it's like. The site's NSFW (not safe for work) as the kids say, or at least it is in the US. It's probably A-OK for France, which is why it's allowed to be next to a junior high school, I suppose. This kind of points out the absurdity of the battle in DC to find someplace 1000 yards (or whatever it is) from a school to relocate the strip clubs displaced by the construction of the Nationals ballpark. 'Cuz if we hide the nudity (and the alcohol), kids will lead a happy, sexless existence until they marry!

A block down and across the street is the Tour d'Argent, a 400-year-old (not a typo) restaurant where, for the first time (supposedly) a fork was used. My commute takes me past the place where they discovered the effing fork! Not only that, whenever someone orders duck (the specialty) here, they get a postcard with the "serial number" for their duck. McDonalds ain't got nothin' on the Tour d'Argent. Over a million "servi" (served).

After crossing the street and walking halfway across a bridge, if you turn left, you'll see...

Well, you'll have to wait to hear what you see (though it's good!), because Sara tells me this blog is too long. I suppose you know how this blog is going to end (there's no "Did Josh make it to work?!?", "Did the General Lee fully jump over that pond?!?" Dukes-of-Hazzard season-end cliffhanger). Or is there? Maybe this entire Paris year was just a dream...

A bientot for the conclusion...

Josh

Hat Lessons

2007-10-26T10:24:00.000-05:00

Fall has arrived in Paris in a new way this week. The markets have traded tomatoes and reine claude plums for mushrooms and nuts. Oyster season has arrived and I am constantly tempted by the many varieties of oysters, mussels and scallops that all seem to beg a place at my table.

Fall has always been my favorite season and even without the stunning leaves of home, I am relishing this time before winter. As the nights get longer and the days are tempered by clouds and chill, I find myself settling into a more subdued rhythm, which feels right.

I have traded Halloween plans for Beaujolais Nouveau release night plans and have traded fall fest for plans for a small Thanksgiving dinner with Josh, Matt Carty and perhaps a French couple. I notice now that the street lights don’t turn off until after 8AM and I wonder how much darker it will continue to get.

The temperatures have also dropped here. Paris continues to be significantly chillier than D.C. and the temperatures are now chilly enough to justify a second look at all of the fabulous hats and scarves that the French have elevated to a national treasure.

In the last few weeks, I’ve found myself deciding on two hats. Josh thinks my new black and red hat makes me look like a Muppet or a member of 80s group Devo and he might be right, but I will admit to feeling happily carefree whenever I wear it.

I will also admit, however, that sometimes I worry that Josh and I are just diving off the fashion deep end and that we might return just a bit too weird, even for Adams Morgan. I suppose at least we had the good sense to find each other and not inflict our obvious fashion handicap on a spouse who couldn’t appreciate the artistic, if odd, flare to many of our “pieces” and maybe for at least a while we can claim [in a self-important tone], “Well, it worked in Paris.”

My other hat is a bit more subdued and I found it at the local Monoprix. As I tried it on, I had a French interaction that left me smiling and perhaps a bit more fashionable. I suppose if I had any true fashion sense, I might have been alarmed or insulted, but I was mostly grateful.

I was busy in the accessories aisle making sure my chosen hat would fit on my head, when another customer took a personal interest in my situation. I didn’t ask for her help, but she was clearly very concerned that I was not going to wear the hat correctly. I guess I seemed desperate enough or at least open enough to fashion advice that she then provided an on-the-spot hat tutorial in French on hat wearing. It was a bit rough going at times and she had to repeat a few things several times. She even went as far to place the hat on my head when I wasn’t quite understanding the words she was using. What I do know (after the several times she placed the hat on my head) is that wearing the hat tilted slightly to the right makes it “plus feminine” or “more feminine”.

I suppose I missed my chance to have some scarf help. Maybe next week, I’ll stumble through the scarf aisle and another French woman will take pity (or take charge) of my scarf wearing. But for now, I'm grateful that a kind French woman saved me from myself (at least partially) and even if I never wear hats exactly right, that the little hat lesson reminded me of how welcoming the French are, even to a cheerful American Fashion accident.

Happy Halloween and Happy Fall!

sPg

Beef Tongue and Smiles

2007-10-10T08:45:00.000-05:00

“It is a true pleasure to peel a tongue.”

This comment was made at a lunch I was sharing with several women, after I told them about my most recent of kitchen endeavors—the cooking of an entire cow’s tongue.

Josh and I are adventurous eaters, but we didn’t just stumble on the idea of eating beef tongue. We were going to try our hand because Josh loved it as a child when his grandmother made it and we figured it was probably easier to locate and buy here than in the States. We timed our experiment to coincide with Bobi’s most recent visit and ordered it from our local butcher in time for a Monday lunch.

We picked it up and brought home a seemingly enormous piece of meat. We did our best to figure out what to do with this new and slightly alien-esque cut. To be honest, I could hardly even look at it until it was entirely cooked and carved, which is a rare reaction for me. I was proud of myself for even being willing to try it.

Using Grandma Dotty’s recipe, and with Josh taking the lead, we boiled it for several hours, peeled it and sliced it. In the end, it resembled a normal roast and it wasn’t too bad, even if the texture was a bit off for me.

All in all, the tongue experiment went as well as possible. But, even though I didn’t really like it that much, it was one of the best meals we’ve had because this one single meal has opened the doors to a new level of acceptance of us in Paris.

The tongue meal has perhaps made the most difference in our relationship with our butcher. At least a few times each week since we’ve arrived, I have gone to the same small butcher shop to order a few pork chops, a whole chicken, a steak or whatever it is that Josh and I were eating that evening. The two butchers there were always somewhere between polite and surly, but I knew not to take it personally. I was very happy with the quality and price, which was enough.

Well, since “the tongue”, I am a true regular and accepted member of the butcher’s customer base. I was shocked at how their demeanor changed immediately the first time I visited after we cooked the tongue. With entirely new smiles, the two butchers and the cashier all wanted to know what I thought. One butcher even came out from the back room to see what the American thought. I wisely thought that a little stretching of my enjoyment was OK here. I explained how it was “very interesting” and then listened intensely to the cooking tips they suggested for the next time around.

I said I was surprised how expensive it was since it was about the same price as a pork roast, but agreed when they said it was a good deal when you considered that you could it all of it and there was little waste.

They even went on to talk about pigs' feet and pigs' ears, which were also being featured at the butcher shop that day. Since I have eaten pigs' feet in the Bahamas, I could even offer some thoughts and I think they were surprised to see an American woman who knows five words of French, know anything about untraditional cuts of meat.

The second revelation of my new reputation at the butcher came the next time I went to pick up a few slices of ham for a picnic. All smiles and “Ca Va’s?” were exchanged. I got the ham and went to pay. Realizing that I didn’t have enough in cash, I wanted to pay with a debit card and the woman at the counter (who has only nominally acknowledged me the 60 or so times we’ve interacted since January), smiled and said, “Why don’t you pay tomorrow?”

I picked up my jaw from the ground and said, “Its OK?” She said, “Its normal.” She then wrote down my last name and said, “Comme Mel Gibson, oui?” Rather than getting into any Mel Gibson's ideological thoughts I said, “A bit, but I prefer my husband to him.” And off I went, with a receipt and the promise to bring six euros back tomorrow.

But beyond the butcher, the tongue paid dividends at Iris’s table. I was helping Iris, her two sisters and a long time friend (all of whom were two generations my senior), cook for a birthday party. We were eating lunch before we launched into the work and somehow I had a feeling the tongue would be a good conversation piece. I can also keep up with French easier if the topic is food, so I offered that I cooked it.

Could I have even guessed there were so many different opinions and genuine appreciation for this often unloved piece of meat?

After a heated conversation, I promised to use tarragon and tomatoes the next time I cooked it and attempted to explain that Josh preferred pickled tongue. But what really mattered is that I now felt included in a real way. I felt included by a group of French cooks and by a group of women who had seen a lot in their lives. I felt so included that when I was later told that my potato peeling technique wasted too much potato and my meatballs needed to be much tighter, I knew this was advice to the apprentice in the kitchen and was to be respected.

Photo: In front of Iris' house.

So, I suppose that tongue will cross my table again. Josh loves it and so does Bobi. I know that “Grandma Dotty’s” tongue recipe is something I need to know how to cook so that food memory is never lost, even if I never love the taste. Perhaps I can even manage to look at it the next time. But I think I can safely say, even with these wonderful conversation gifts from my French tongue experience, I will never, ever know the joy and true pleasure of peeling a tongue--that little joy will always belong to Josh alone.

sPg

Bootscraper, bootscraper, scrape me a boot...

2007-10-01T18:16:00.000-05:00

As promised in a previous blog entry, here’s another in my new series of “favorite things,” the small stuff in Paris that I love, and that means so much more to me than its literal role or purpose.

Getting ready to write up today’s “favorite things” entry, I remembered a literary reference I'd almost forgotten about that indirectly captures a bit of what these things mean for me. It was a scene from Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past,” in which he first as a child discovers the taste of tea-soaked Madeleine cookies, then, decades later, rediscovers the taste plus the flood of memories that come back to him based on the earlier sensory experience (anyone who has seen the Disney movie "Ratatouille" will recognize this same kind of situation from the final scene with the restaurant critic).

“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.” (see the full text at http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/proust.html)

None of my “favorite things are quite that visceral, but whenever I see one, I do flash back to the first time I saw it, and how and why it resonated with me that first time.

So, to transition, sometimes a boot scraper is not just a boot scraper.

FAVORITE THING #2: BOOT SCRAPERS

Sometimes outside of churches, residential, or commercial buildings, just above ground level, you will see a flat, u-shaped piece of metal, edge up, with both ends attached to the wall or in a small recess. It took me a while to notice these in the first place, and even longer to figure out why they’re there. Now that I’ve gotten to the bottom of the mystery, I love to spring it on visitors.

Basically, for much of Paris’ existence, its roads literally ran with mud, filth, and human/animal waste. You can imagine what happened when peoples’ shoes, encrusted with this junk, crossed your portal into your home, business, or church. Not pretty. But by installing this one piece of cheap and easy metal, you at least give people a chance to lessen the impact the state of their footwear will end up having wherever they tread.

I don’t think much of anyone continues to use the boot scrapers (with the possible exception of those with the misfortune of stepping in dog poop), but I think it’s great fun to see them still in place, a tiny but resonant reminder of how life was lived in Paris centuries earlier.

In the coming weeks, stay tuned for more "favorite things" blogs, a rant about Jim Morrison, a photo essay on my commute to work, and a theory of Sara's and mine regarding how the Devil helps make Paris so great...

A bientot,

Josh

Sara Version 2.0

2007-09-27T15:39:00.001-05:00

Fall has always felt like a time of beginning to me. It seems that our school-time calendars become a part of who we are and how we imagine time, even when books and pencils are but distant memories.

Today I felt the beginning of the end of our precious time in Paris. Of course our “remaining time” is more than most people ever have the chance to enjoy—so this is all said in a wistful and grateful tone. Sometimes as I think back to past visitors, or some of the extraordinary everyday adventures we’ve enjoyed, I think, “surely this has all been a dream.”

Yesterday, I was walking through the Luxemberg Gardens enroute to meeting a friend for lunch when this notion struck me: I remember the first time I walked through these gardens in January and boy was I terrified!

It has been eight months since we arrived with four suitcases full of clothing and a whole trunk load full of hopes. As I look back, we could have packed a little lighter on the clothing and we might have even not hoped enough because this year has given us so much that it would take a cargo ships worth of containers to fit all the experiences and lessons.

I promise not to spend the next four months already reflecting on Paris, but I thought a glimpse of “Parisian Sara” after eight months of expat life seemed worth sharing.

I am still the same Hoosier-born, DC lovin’, Indigo Girls listening, polka dancing girl, but I’ve now added a bit of Paris to my geographical identity. I love black clothing as I’ve always have, but now I know you can actually make an entire wardrobe out of it.

I’ve rediscovered my appreciation for the bicycle after the Parisian Velib Bike rental program gave me another way to zoom around town. I’m really grateful that my dad thought “girls should know how to read maps too” when at least once a week as I find my way around town using my now tattered, multi-page Paris map.

I’ve rediscovered my love of a really good book now that the TV is a mostly useless tool (it's all in French) and its ok for me to stay up late just to read. I think I could be a bit of an internet addict and I’m convinced I’m a bread snob now that I’ve declared even French baguettes that happen to be more than four hours old not worth eating.

I’m still scared of some really smelly cheese, but can at least manage one bite. I still don’t like to see the heads on animals at the butcher, but I can get past it. I still wish I had the French gene that let me eat and be a size 2. I wish I could speak better French, but I’m still not good at doing my homework.

Gratefully, I’m reconvinced of how far a smile and a lot of humility will get you in any language. I’m also entirely convinced that Paris is truly one of the most beautiful places on earth and that Josh is the best Parisian tour guide I could ever imagine. (It goes without saying I think he is also the best husband I could imagine too!)

I think that there is always room for ice cream and always time for coffee with a friend. I think I dance better than most French people (which isn’t saying much for the French) and that wine at lunch is one of the most civilized practices I can imagine.

I believe I’ve learned really important lessons about hospitality and friendship—they are a gift to give and to receive and both have made a huge difference in my year. I’ve also realized I’ve underestimated my parents and brothers who really are better world travelers than I imagined. I’m grateful I still love spending time with them (and I think they would say the same). I also realize how much I love to shop and even window shop or “window lick” as its called in French, which I learned with Bobi—one of the best mother in laws I could possibly imagine (and not just because she loves to shop). I could even go as far to say I appreciate beauty in a new way, between the art and fashion and markets full of beautiful food and beautiful people.

I also have realized I am truly a coffee addict and a tea aficionado. I think cloth napkins dress up even the simplest of tables and small apartments can feel big enough if there is a lot of laughter, good company and people can be flexible about when they shower (since there is only hot water for a two short showers at a time). I believe any meal with champagne is a celebration and that flowers are an important part of a home.

There is more and I apologize if this post seems a little dreamy or even overly self-indulgent, but I took a moment to realize the Sara who arrived in France and the Sara who traipsed across town are the same person, but it would be more accurate to say I might be becoming “Sara Version 2.0”.

sPg

Crime of Fashion

2007-09-25T19:02:00.000-05:00

I think it’s fair to say that my name and the word “fashion” have never been used in the same sentence (unless it was something like “One of Josh’s rare artistic talents is his ability to fashion a tiny café chair from just the wire and metal cap that goes over a champagne cork.”) I’m not caught up in Fashion Week, I’m caught up in fashion weak. I’m not what acclaimed French rapper MC Solaar calls a “Victime de la Mode,” or a “Fashion Victim,” I’m a victim of the absence of fashion.

So, you can imagine how excited I’d be if, by pure dumb luck, I ended up accidentally and temporarily being in style. I had to contemplate this very real possibility the other day.

I was minding my own business, listening to local news radio, when a story on summer fashion came on. I mostly ignored it, hearing only snippets, but then at the very end, I hear (in French) " [inaudible] are floral shorts and shirts, like Hawaiian shirts." Now I love Hawaiian shirts, and I’ve been wearing them all summer--slightly to Sara’s chagrin--so this was key information. (Hawaiian shirt pictures are intermingled with this blog. Kids: how many can you find?) But I missed the first part of the relevant sentence—what if any initial adjective was involved in their statement? Did they say these shirts were in, out, or indifferent? Should I not be caught dead in one, or without one? Inquiring minds want to know!

I couldn't find the story on the radio station’s website, so I was half-listening to the radio the whole rest of the day, hoping it would be repeated that night. Sure enough, a few hours later, it was.

What I found out was this: apparently, in France, on the beach as well as in the clubs, surf clothes are in. Stripes for everyone, pink and khaki for women, open pink T-shirts (whatever that is) for men, surf shorts (with belts, not elastic) are in for everyone, clothes with small bits of 70s/80s-style fluorescent...all are in.

Then came the final sentence that I'd been waiting for. [In French] "Completely out, on the other hand....are floral shorts and shirts, like Hawaiian shirts." They actually said, in French, "completement 'out' " !!! Well, as we fashion mavens know, "completement 'out' " just means "on its way back in"! So, while I may not be fashionable, I’m really more “pre-fashionable.” It’s just a matter of time.

While summer may not have been my season, there is hope for the fall and winter. I’ve always loved the black velvet/velour sports coats that all 20/30-something French men seem to have been issued at birth. They’re somehow snazzy, casual, and “cool kid,” all at the same time. I finally broke down and bought one a few weeks back, for a great price at one of Paris’ excellent vintage stores, and I officially love it.

So, imagine my “even a broken clock is right twice a day” joy when I was reading “A Nous Paris,” the free newspaper published by the Paris Metro system, and read the following [translated]: “Last year was that of the velours/velvet sportscoat, rolled out in every color. This winter, it’s still present (on the scene), so you can take it back out of the closet without any problem.” So, maybe I’m a year late, but I’m still going to ride this unintentional fashion wave as far as I can!

Hopefully, another positive step in my fashion rehabilitation also took place this week, when my mom made a welcome visit and treated Sara and I to some nice additions to our fall wardrobe. My mom, Sara, and I also hit the Opera, conducted a failed experiment in cooking cow tongue, and Sara made a fantastic dinner under much self-imposed stress for her mother-in-law and Iris, (my junior year abroad host mother and Sara’s French cooking guru). I guess the good news is that even if my clothes are "completement out," we're all still "completement in"...love with Paris!

Josh

PS: Enjoy the photos, each featuring my mom and/or some of my dubious garb. Find these photos, plus the highlights of the others I've taken all year long, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/ Let me know if you have any trouble.

Cheering Against the Irish

2007-09-21T16:41:00.000-05:00

Today, I cheered against the Irish. Not my beloved Fighting Irish from the University of Notre Dame, regardless of how badly the season is going. But rather, I was cheering against the Ireland rugby team. (with apologies to all of my Irish friends) Tonight, France beat Ireland in an important game in the rugby World Cup preliminary rounds and I couldn’t help but cheer for the French.

I really do miss American college football though, and every Saturday I keep track of when kickoff is for Notre Dame. Anne and I are already plotting to attend a game next season and I still religiously read The South Bend Tribune for any scrap of news about even this really terrible ND football season. For unrelated and unexplained reasons, I even find myself humming “Hail to the Redskins” as I walk down the street—a rare departure from the Notre Dame obsession.

But I have to say, its just not as much fun to watch a Notre Dame game when you are one of six people in the worst room of a bar at 11PM trying to see the game—the circumstances in which I saw the only ND game I’ll see all season at an unfortunate bar called "The Fifth Drink". The game was pretty terrible (the 38-0 loss against Michigan), but the circumstances were even tougher. A game of beer pong, embarrassingly drunk Americans and the TV propped up just inches from a trash can were enough to make me change my mind on which sport I would follow the remaining time in France.

So, I’ve decided to give Rugby a whirl. While seemingly not as international as the soccer World Cup, the rugby World Cup is a big deal, and France is hosting it this year. A quick bit of background: the tournament is every four years, the USA does have a team that’s not that bad, and the game is fast and makes American football look tame. There is a lot of hard tackling and there is virtually no protective equipment. I like that the rugby refs say things like, “No, you cannot kick him in the head” or “I saw that, don’t do it again”.

Rugby is much faster (and in my opinion, more interesting) than soccer and the players are fascinating. Most of the players have necks the size of their heads, which seems unnatural, and there is one particular French player who looks like a caveman and is super fun to watch play.

Sometimes I need a map to find the countries playing—does anyone know where Tonga is? I still don’t, but I know the US lost to them in an early game. The New Zealand team (knows as “The All-Blacks” because of their uniforms) is really great and the French are hanging in there.

Tonight’s game against Ireland was broadcast on a big screen right in front of a 16^th century church just a couple of minutes from our apartment. We went and watched it with a crowd of people, which makes any game more fun. It was unclear if the two carloads of cops were there to control the crowd or just so they could watch the game. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and the crowd ranged from teenagers to middle age women.

During today’s game, when there were breaks in the action, the TV flashed pictures of the French president throwing his head back and cheering and also a group of about seven beautiful women clad only in black bras and lace underwear in the stands. Guess which got a bigger cheer from the crowd…

The tournament wraps up in a few weeks—and I suspect a few more games are on our agenda to check out. Perhaps a few pieces of French Rugby Gear will even make it onto our shopping list and maybe, just maybe, the French National Anthem will replace Hail to the Redskins as my sidewalk song of choice to hum for the next few weeks.

sPg

PS: Here's a photo of a Scottish rugby/football (soccer) rally at a bar near Josh's office.

My Favorite Things, Paris-style

2007-09-12T04:54:00.000-05:00

First, as seems to happen at least once every month or two, a quick apology for the lag time between my blog posts. And thanks to Sara for filling the blog vacuum while I was MIA (now, if only I could get her to empty the actual vacuum…)

One quick plug: more photos are online now at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/ . Check out the Paris Artsy, People, and Touristy pictures for shots of our last few visitors plus sites like Mont Saint Michel, Chartres, Versailles, and others. If you’re not a Flickr member (free and easy!), just e-mail me and I’ll add you.

Now, the blogging…

As we get older, certain line items that were once on our resume eventually get bumped off, since they are too outdated, not important enough, etc. Other items are so laughably offbeat or absurd that either you put them at the end of your resume as a fun conversation sparker, or you wouldn’t put them on your resume for a lifetime supply of ice cream (the basic form of currency in Joshland). Want an example of the latter? Here you go: in the spring of 1990, I was the Props Master for my high school’s production of “The Sound of Music”

[Yes, this is very far afield from Paris 2007, I know, but stick with me, I’m coming around the bend…]

Maybe it doesn’t get more lame/obscure/bizarre than Props Master (it’s just one word away from “Dungeon Master”), but I have to say, I had a hell of a good time working on that play (despite one late-night closet-wood-stain-fumes prop preparation incident that probably insured that any future Gibson kid(s) will all be born with “Dark Walnut” colored skin and/or internal organs…)

As a result of that Sound of Music gig, I had to hear the (in)famous song “My Favorite Things” a zillion gajillion times, over and over and over again. This is why, seventeen years later, the idea popped into my head to periodically use this blog to highlight some of my favorite things in Paris. (Ah, good segue, Grasshopper!)

Now, a list of “macro” favorite things would help no one, because any schmuck can give you that list (Eiffel Tower, tasty bread, saucy Parisiennes, etc.) No, I want to give you, Maria-style, a list of the “micro” level, everyday things in Paris that I think are great. And rather than just hitting you with a mega-long list all at once, I’ll just post a couple at a time, when the spirit moves me (or when the other “spirit” reminds me that I’m not holding up my end of the blog bargain…)

Just to refresh the memories of those of you who didn’t have these song lyrics mercilessly drilled into your skull during several months of your hormonally-active late high school years, let’s go to the audio tape:

"The hills are alive...with the sound of Gibsons!"

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, Brown paper packages tied up with strings…Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels, Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles, Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings…Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, Silver white winters that melt into springs, These are a few of my favorite things.”

So, my take-away from this is—weird chick, probably wouldn’t know what to do with a Circuit City gift certificate, so a couple balls of twine, a McRib, and one of those “Hang in there” kitty-hanging-from-a-tree posters would probably make her whole damn year.

Similarly, my Paris “favorite things” list tells you something about me—I’m detail-obsessed and still have lingering “urban life” interests from my last couple of jobs.

If it’s any reassurance at all, I’ve shared most of these “favorite things” with our visitors, and they seem to go above and beyond their normal level of humoring me in response, so despite their obscurity, maybe these things are actually worth noticing by normal folks too.

With those prefaces and warnings, enter the dark recesses of my brain, where we can discover together tiny details that continue to entertain me here in Paris. Here’s one quick “favorite things” example, look for more to follow, a couple a week, for the next few months.

FAVORITE THING #1 (numbers here are for counting, not for ranking)
BI-BOP STICKERS
Back in the spring of 1993, as I was wrapping up my junior year in Paris, a bunch of blue, white, and green sticker bands started appearing on tall, metallic objects (streetlight poles, building downspouts, etc.) throughout Paris. I was entirely clueless about what the purpose of these stickers might be, until shortly thereafter when the modern miracle of carpet-bombing saturation advertising brought one word to everyone’s lips: Bi-bop.

What was happening, it turns out, was that the French national phone company was rolling out the nation’s (and one of the world’s) first comparatively low-cost, comparatively widespread, cellular phone program. The phones only worked, however, when the user stood next to a special Bi-bop antenna, which was, you guessed it, marked with a blue, white, and green sticker band. (A quick correction to past visitors—I’d told you, and I’d always thought myself, that any tall, metallic object would work as a Bi-bop antenna, but thanks to French Wikipedia I know know that only the selected poles with stickers got the job done.) From what I’ve just read online, apparently it worked a bit like a wifi (in French we say “weeee feeee”) hotspot, but for phones: you had perfect reception, as long as you didn’t wander too far off from one of those stickers.

Obviously, the Bi-Bop phones are history (except a few in museums), but the stickers remain, the sign of a technological era gone by. All I can think of whenever I see them is: what a crappy job placing those stickers must have been: hauling a ladder around, climbing up, sticking on the Bi-Bop band, climbing down, scooting your ladder a few hundred feet down, repeat. Definitely a job you would take off of your resume as soon as you got a chance!

Josh

PS: Proving that the Bi-Bop stickers are not just omnipresent, but also found everywhere, when I realized I needed another picture of one, I found three on our somewhat obscure street, within a couple hundred of yards of our door.

PPS: One of the Bi-Bop pictures includes a sneak preview of another of my favorite things...

This Call is Interrupted

2007-09-06T14:25:00.000-05:00

A longer blog entry is forthcoming from both of us, but this “bloglet” seemed worth sharing.

Summer is officially over. We had a blast with our August round of visitors. The Sitar Gang, former colleagues from the Sitar Arts Center--Maureen and her husband Chris and even a quick visit from former Board president Heather and her husband Justy--were great fun. Having a visit from Kim, a Chesterton friend and former college roommate, made Paris feel even more like home. We saw many sights and walked over 75 miles as we toured Paris with them. I especially loved Mont Saint Michel (an island town and church built a long time ago), Chartres (with its amazing stained glass and medieval prayer labyrinth) and the Rungis Market (which has replaced Les Halles and is now the centralized market for Paris--http://www.rungisinternational.com). It was also just good to talk and hang out with good friends over coffee and an occasional glass of wine.

But just as our visitors left, the promised Rentree (French for "Back to School") happened and, as predicted, our lives have gotten busier. Paris has awoken from its summer nap and wherever Parisians were for the entire month of August, they have returned in force. We’ve been working on catching up and starting our own fall schedules here.

Today, as I scurried back home on the metro after a few appointments, Josh called and a funny moment worth sharing occurred. This is how the conversation went with Josh:

Josh: Hi, how are you? Do I need to pick up bread for dinner?

Sara: Hi there…I’m running late, I was at the school longer than expected and I need to call Diane at 7:15PM. Is there any way you can also….

STATION STOP—Man with accordion enters the metro train and begins playing loudly

Sara: …pick up 250 grams of ground beef and onions and red…

Josh (in an angry/annoyed voice): Where ARE you? What do you need? I can’t hear anything over that accordion. I’ll call you back in 10 minutes. [and then he hangs up]

Needless to say, when the musician came around asking for tips, I did not give him any change, but perhaps I should have because I found myself laughing at the absurdity of the situation—I mean, only in Paris (and maybe on Dyngus Day, but that’s different) is it even remotely likely that a conversation is interrupted by accordion music.

Maybe next time I need to have a rare metro phone conversation, the puppet show guy will be on the metro instead.

sPg

What's for Dinner?

2007-08-14T08:59:00.001-05:00

I figured it has been a while since I’ve offered a food-centered blog, and since “What’s for dinner” is on my mind, it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to offer some thoughts about.

Even if it still doesn’t feel like summer here, I’m hell bent on cooking like it is. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve whipped up gazpacho (while we were housesitting since they had a blender and we don’t), tabbouleh (a new recipe that “cooks” the couscous with lemon juice), tzatziki, couscous, and tomato salads. And for dessert: a big watermelon, of course.

In a nod to the actual (as opposed to hoped-for) weather that rarely breaks 65 degrees, I’ve also made vegetable soup, which is normally a fall dish, and it was the soup that never ended. I seriously think it lasted a week or more—it just kept getting stretched and stretched with new broth and/or veggies, and somehow kept tasting ok.

This last weekend, we headed to one of our favorite markets: Joinville. It is more on the edge of the city and the prices are much cheaper than our beloved (but pricey) nearby rue Mouffetard market. At the Joinville market there is always a lot of shouting by the vendors of “one euro, one euro”, which is my litmus test of a good market. Basically, if everyone is quiet, it’s a lot more peaceful, probably more relaxing, but you pay for that. I like knowing the vendors really want my business.

So, for 20 euros, this is what we procured:

-½ a watermelon

- 2 kilos of peaches

- 4 avocados

- 1 head of good lettuce (iceberg thankfully doesn’t exist in France)

- 1 kilo tomatoes

- 1 small melon

- Bundles of mint, parsley, basil and coriander

- 4 onions

- 4 eggplants

- 4 enormous bent cucumbers

- 3 heads of garlic

- 1 red pepper

- 1 green pepper

- 2 sweet peppers

- 2 hot peppers

- 4 lemons

Clearly, this is more than enough veggies for Josh and me for the week and I relish the challenge of using every last bit of it. So here, here is what is on my menu for the week with said ingredients.

For dinner tonight, it’s couscous with red peppers, onions, sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers along with tzatziki and a bit of lamb. I also bought these little tiny marinated hot peppers stuffed with feta that are simply fab.

For this week, I’m envisioning recreating a Portuguese garlic and bread soup I loved in Lisbon (that’s where some of those three heads of garlic mentioned above are going) or a French soup called aigo bouido, which uses at least 16 cloves of garlic and isn’t harsh at all. The eggplant will be a main course at least one night. I’m contemplating making an eggplant souflee, but I might decide that its too advanced. As a backup, I’m thinking stuffed eggplant might supplant the usual roasted eggplant stacks that I’ve already served Josh a couple of times. I have to admit, I’m fond of those eggplant stacks—they’re my own twist on my friend Becky’s wonderful eggplant recipe that she would make for me when we lived together in Virginia many moons ago.

Every night, there will be roasted veggies and a few salads that both include and exclude lettuce. There will also be fruit—we each had 4 slices of watermelon last night—no room in our small fridge so we have to move fast!

Bread continues to be an issue in August. What we are finding is mostly adequate, but soon enough, our baker will return. Fortunately, Josh picked out one of his best cheese selections since we arrived at the cheese shop this week.. I especially love the fresh goat cheese with fig, the aged Gouda (which almost tastes like Parmesan), and this creamy goat cheese that tastes a bit like butter. There are also a few others, but those are the memorable ones to me.

With the summer slow season, I’ve also used this time to dive into some new food experimentation. With the weather providing me some inspiration, I’ve made French onion soup that I think was one of my best dishes ever and the Beef Bourguignon was tasty, but I just can’t have a recipe that requires constant tending for five hours. It joins the ranks of “Dishes too needy to make”, which has at least one other member: risotto.

Our foray into Middle Eastern cooking was inspired by a tasty lunch with two friends of Bobi’s: Sheryl and Sheldon. Upon return, Sheldon send me an electronic version of a Syrian cookbook and I’ve both read it and used it for inspiration.

Another source of inspiration: my mother. My vegetable soup resulted from a “911” call to my mother in which I said, “What should I make for dinner? I’ve got no vision!”

Speaking of vision, I really couldn’t live in Paris without my borrowed Julia Child cookbooks. I use them weekly. They explain what French cuts of meat mean (who knew “faux filet” was sort of like a strip steak?) and for general French baking techniques (how many eggs *do* I need for a quiche?). I also think Barefoot Contessa’s French cookbook is pretty solid and has been a helpful addition to my Parisian library.

Dessert also deserves at least a small note. It’s sadly the part of dinner I’m really the least interested in, much to Josh’s dismay. I think I can now make a respectable tart, but I gotta tell you, my heart isn’t in it. A good dessert to me is one that can be whipped up as an afterthought. Normally, we just skip dessert—we don’t need it and I don’t think of it, but lately, I’ve found that a few spoonfuls of this wonderful artisan honey (Sea lavender, which tastes like taffy made from honey) has been the perfect ending to my dinner.

So, that’s all from Rue Broca this week. It seems right to sign off with a Julia Child quote, “Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music."

Yep, I wouldn’t recommend coming to any concert I’m singing in, or bothering to see any picture I’ve painted, but I would suggest trying to make it to any dinner party at the Gibsons.

sPg

August and Artesian Wells

2007-08-07T19:24:00.000-05:00

Since we have arrived, Parisians have been “warning” us about August. They told us how everyone leaves, no shops are open, how it’s possible to walk down the middle of large streets because there are no cars out driving. They then usually continue to tell us of their August vacation plans, which interestingly enough usually seem to involve a trip to the States.

As August drew closer and closer, when we were asked where we were going for the month, we said “Nowhere” and tried to explain that essentially taking a vacation from a vacation was absurd and frankly, we were intent on staying in Paris and enjoying the city.

After we agreed to dog sit for some friends who live across town in the 15^th arrondissement, Josh and I joked that we could now say, “We decided to holiday in the 15^th”. But somehow, I don’t think the Parisians would get our joke.

A usual response by Parisians to our reluctance to travel during this time is to look at us with honest pity and suggest, ‘Well, perhaps you can get away for a day or two.” It’s funny—there seems to be more understanding of my poor French than of our decision to stay put.

And then August arrived. For a few days, we were skeptical of this true emptying out of Paris. We still saw people and they weren’t all tourists, but something happened yesterday—everyone seems to have really disappeared.

As we were walking Chaco the dog across town in a neighborhood a bit more upscale than ours, it was a literal ghost town. We walked for 20-30 minutes before we saw an open café or bakery—something that can usually be counted on every block or two. As I went out to get groceries for dinner yesterday, I knew I would have to walk a while to find an open bakery and even then, I couldn’t be sure I would be thrilled by the bread.

Of course, not everyone leaves. One newspaper said 60% of Parisians leave, but what they forgot to mention is that the remaining 40% are especially unhappy about being left to deal with tourists and obviously insane Parisians who don’t choose to exercise their right of vacation.

The customer service we’ve experienced in Paris, which up until now has been truly welcoming and open, has dipped quiet a bit in the last week. From the bakery to the café, if they are open, someone will eventually help you, but not usually with a smile.

But for us, this is our time to be true tourists again. Each week we pick a new part of Paris to explore and we spend a full day being tourists. We’ve seen some really neat things. My favorites have been the Chateau de Vincennes (a castle built in the 13^th Century by Charles V at the edge of Paris)--and the Basilica of Saint Denis (a church where all the French kings are buried, from Clovis, the first real king of the Franks, crowned in the year 481, to the guillotined Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

We also visited a park that was once a large Citroen car factory and is now full of trees and fountains. Josh took a hot air balloon ride while we were there (I chickened out since I wasn’t sure I thought I would like the heights). We’ve also had a lot of ice cream (even if our favorite ice cream shop is closed for the entire month, we’ve managed to find a few other vendors), seen a few movies (including the Simpsons and Harry Potter, with French subtitles) and even spent a few hours here and there sitting down in a café reading.

One of the more random things we’ve ever visited is a true artesian well right in Paris. The well has been known for over 100 years and people come from throughout the city and the suburbs to fill water bottles since the mineral water from the well is said to have restorative powers. You know you have time on your hands when you trek 30 minutes for water, and even consider it fun!

In general, we don’t really think of ourselves as tourists any more, but for August, I’m happily changing our status from “temporary expat” to “long-term tourist”. And heck, with our temporary tourist designation, I don’t even feel badly for not being able to speak French very well and wearing tennis shoes out sometimes. Just for emphasis, today I am wearing a t-shirt I dare only to wear in August. It says, “Everyone loves an American girl.”

Parisian life for everyone will speed up in a few weeks. We will begin to work normalish hours again and we hear that the “rentree,” or return to work and school after vacation, is a big event. Several people are promising to check in to say hello after “the return”, but until then, I’ve got a picnic to pack and a guided tour to catch.

sPg

France and Fantasy Island

2007-07-30T16:48:00.000-05:00

Greetings everyone,

[Just a quick plug for some new photos, check out the Paris People and Paris Artsy pix at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/ for photos from the end of Sara’s brother’s visit, our friends Anne and Corey’s visit, and Sara’s and my trip to Alsace.]

Now onto the blog…

I know, I know, everyone likes Sara’s blog entries more than mine. Hers are natural, mine are didactic (and use words like “didactic”). Hers put people at ease, mine make people feel “creepy.” Hers provide a disarming peek into daily French life, mine provide an alarming peek into my disturbing thought process.

OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating the dichotomy (there I go again…) for fun. But just in case Sara’s got ahold of a winning formula that maybe I can imitate, I figured I’d take a stab at a blog entry, Sara-style. Sara supports this, she knows I’m just teasing, and that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s more of a tribute than a spoof. Okay, maybe 50/50.

From my careful analysis, a Sara-style blog entry requires three things:
1.) a compound title for the blog entry, X and Y, or to put it in Mad Libs format, [noun] and [noun]
2.) a pithy but satisfying moral in the conclusion, beginning (in spirit, if not literally) with the clause “Well, I guess that just goes to show that…”
3.) gratuitous fruit and vegetable references

Well, without any further ado, here’s my shot a Sara-style blog:

FRANCE AND FANTASY ISLAND
I don’t know if you’re like me, but I grew up on re-runs of 1970s and 1980s TV shows. Some of my favorites were “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and “The A-Team.” These shows were great, because they had some characters that returned each week, there were also new faces each with their own new plotlines each week. These new characters generally were in just one episode, stating their life problem at the beginning of the show, and usually having it resolved by the end of the show.

In “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island,” the folks with the problems were a bit more proactive, actually going to the trouble of showing up on the Boat/Island. On “The Incredible Hulk” and on “The A-Team,” our wandering heroes would show up in town and discover the locals’ life problems that way. (I’ve never seen the show, and it’s more recent than the others, but I think “Touched by an Angel” is in this camp too.)

Well, the other day, as I was putting away some zucchini and plums, it occurred to me that we definitely have the makings for the same kind of “problem solver” TV show right here in Paris. Our show would be “Love Boat” / “Fantasy Island” style, though, since our help-seekers come to us, in the form of visitors. Is stress affecting your health? Did you just suffer through a tough break-up? Do you need to get out of your small town pronto? Do you want to finally see if all those insults about the French are really true? Need a romantic getaway? Want to get engaged? Want to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary? Just need to eat, drink, sleep, read, shop, and/or walk an enormous amount? These are all reasons for which people plan to visit us, have visited us, or conceivably could visit us.

You can almost imagine Sara and myself on the gangplank of the Boat or the dock of the Island, greeting our guests Stubing/Roarke-style, shaking hands with our new arrivals as they show up, and hearing their tales of woe. Then, at the end of the episode, we’d be back in our same places, receiving thanks for making everything better. Sara and I would have to film the scenes in the dark and dreary “arrivals” area of Charles De Gaulle Airport, which is unfortunate, but I think it could work. (Of course, we would have to eat lots of mushrooms and other things rich in Vitamin D to make up for the lack of sun.)

[Silly blast from the past, a bad joke from elementary school: What kind of M&Ms does Tattoo like? “The plain, the plain!” Did you know, by the way, that Herve Villechaize was French? And close but no cigar, but “The Love Boat” theme just came up on my iPod?]

When we see how much joy our visitors get from their visits here, and how it goes such a long way towards helping them put their priorities in order, it reminds us just how lucky we are to be here. Being here is not just a gift for us, it is also a gift for our visitors—how many would not have come to Paris if we hadn’t provided them with a convenient excuse/deadline?

For our visitors, the week or two they spend with us are the highlight of their year. We get 52 of those weeks, and even though we realize how spoiled we are, it’s still a very humbling prospect. (Don’t worry, we don’t really have the God complex, we just figure any help or fun folks get out of their visits here is pure gravy!)

Well, I guess that just goes to show that life is like a box of chocolates, or in our case, the two euro grab-bag produce bins at the market—you never know what you’re going to get.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t really pull off a fully Sara-style blog entry. David Letterman says, “There’s no off position on the genius switch.” I suppose there’s also no off position on the Josh wordy/lecturing/sarcastic/vignette switch either. But I guess that just goes to show up…oh, never mind.

Josh

Louis Vuitton and Bastille Day

2007-07-16T07:28:00.000-05:00

Summer seems to have truly arrived in Paris—the weather is now warm and sunny for the first time since April (literally). The Parisians seem to talk only of their August vacations (yes, they seem to go away for the entire month), and promise to call after “the rentree” in early September. But as summer has rolled in, so have a few stories from Bastille Day and Anne and Corey’s visit.

The Keiths and Louis
Anne and Corey’s visit concluded our first round of visitors. I think we’ve gotten pretty good at hosting and our guests have all been fantastic. Recent changes: Due to complaints from the peanut gallery (AKA my parents), Josh’s “Death March” of Paris has been modified and now only includes about one third the tour that Jess so graciously endured with a smile. We now have a few more dining spots that we actually know. I would say my cooking has improved but I’m still mildly sulking over the duck that didn’t quite turn out as I would have preferred over dinner with Anne and CK.

Understandably, our visitors have their own agendas, which gives Josh and me a chance to see things we might have missed on our own. In one recent case, we got an unexpected look at one of Paris’s luxury icons. In the quest for a wallet for Kristi Keith (Corey’s mom), we found ourselves accompanying Anne and CK to Louis Vuitton. Josh and I were definitely not dressed appropriately, but since it was pretty clear we weren’t the purchasers, we were mostly invisible.

The store, located prominently on the Champs Elysees, was interesting, extremely large and was so busy, they literally had bouncers at the door. The demographics were a little surprising to me—it was filled primarily with people seemingly from Asian countries. I actually would have guessed I was in Tokyo or Seoul, not France.

Josh and I were enjoying the store’s sites and commenting on next year’s fashion and I found several purses that I would never consider buying since I *know* I saw the same thing on M Street in Georgetown for $10. Anyways, just as Anne and Corey had found the wallet they wanted for Kristi, Josh’s “art” caused a bit of a scene. He reported in on his ‘trouble’ and our conversation went something like this:

Josh: “I had a bit of a run in with the security guard.”

Sara: “You did what? I told you they wouldn’t be keen about you taking pictures in here.”

Josh: “Well, the guy told me not to take the pictures so I nicely asked him to show me where this was written, where the sign was indicating that this was the case. Besides, he was kinda skinny, I could take him.”

Don’t worry, it all ended well—the wallet was procured, Josh did get a few forbidden photos and he even waved nicely to the irritated French Louis Vuitton bouncer on his way out. The guy probably knew Josh and I were just there with friends and wouldn’t be back too soon. Still, it would have been fun to go back, Pretty Woman style, dressed to the nines, carrying many shopping bags from pricey stores, and tell the guard he made a “big mistake.”

Bastille Day

Having missed the Fourth of July in Washington, normally one of my favorite holidays, we decided to vigorously participate in Bastille Day. We figured it would tell us more about the French and seemed like a good excuse for a day of excursions. We went to the parade, to a concert, saw the fireworks and ended our night at a firehouse party (which is apparently a tradition here). The weather was sunny, the Bastille Day events were great, plus we even took a walk through lots of Paris’ sites and enjoyed a nap in a park to boot.

Perhaps the most confounding part of the day for me though was the parade. It was super cool—lots of planes and helicopters and military equipment, but I couldn’t help but think as a lot of military personnel and equipment were rolling down the Champs-Elysees that it felt like recreating an invasion. I also kept thinking, “No wait, I thought only Russia and North Korea had parades like this. Do the French even care this much about the military?.” It was interesting and I wish my dad could have seen it since he would have really appreciated it.

Once again though, just as I thought I “understood” a bit more about France, it tosses me a curveball and a militaristic parade is certainly one big curveball for a seemingly anti-war (at least in recent times) country.

If France were a song, Josh and I have decided that the song that seems to best fit is “I’m Every Woman” or “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks (“I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother, I’m a sinner, I’m a saint…”).

The firehouse dance was a great way to wrap up a big day. Many firehouses across the country host events on the 13^th and 14^th and so we headed toward our local “pompiers”, which is just around the corner. We walked in, mostly expecting old time French music and gruffy French guys playing the accordion due to some of the things Josh had read, and were a bit surprised to see an outdoor dance party complete with fog machine and hundreds of people dancing to techno remixes of American 80’s music.

It was pretty wild. We were pretty tired by that point so stayed long enough for a glass of champagne (because Lord knows you wouldn’t have a party here without bubbly) and a bit of dancing, which is always fun here because while the French are quite cultured, they really are no better dancers than Josh and me.

So, this is July in Paris—all good stuff. Today, after a picnic with some friends, I learned how to play petanque—a bocci ball-esque game that is wildly popular in France. As I finish this, Josh and I just toasted over a chilly French rose (called Cote de Thongues—go figure) and I suppose life could be better, but some days, I’m simply not sure how.

sPg

Even More Vignettes

2007-07-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

Greetings everyone, apologies for the prolonged absence from blogging. After much travel and many visitors (all enjoyable but a bit tiring), Sara and I are looking forward to a long summer of…not much. We’ll have good “quality time” together in July and August, enjoying the city and each other, until the next batch of visitors arrives in September.

I have another blog in progress that will be a bit more…coherent, but for now, here are some more vignettes I’ve been sitting on. As we all know, “vignette” is how a Russian mechanic would respond in the negative when asked if there’s a Vehicle Identification Number on file for a certain customer.

· More photos are available for viewing. You’ll see pictures from Andorra (People, Artsy, and Touristy), plus if you look at the three sets of Paris photos, you’ll see our most recent shots, including pictures from Sara’s brother David’s visit (the newest photos are always the first ones you see in each set): Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/ If you have any trouble accessing these, just let me know and I can easily fix it.

· Speaking of Andorra, given that we’re already essentially on vacation here in Paris, you have to wonder how we have the gall to take a vacation from our vacation to go someplace like Andorra. A vacation-within-a-vacation is like a ship in a bottle; you just have to wonder: how did it get in there?

· Also, here’s a progress update on Sara’s and my prolific walking: Sara’s just over, and I’m just under, 2.5 million steps since we got here in January. We’re both well over 1,100 miles walked in that same time.

· Sara and I had a brush with celebrity the other day. We were meeting up with two of my mom’s friends in the lobby of the tony Plaza Athenee hotel, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw an older man with curly bleached hair and white sunglasses slip out of a hidden elevator and through a side door. It was unmistakably Michel Polnareff, arguably France’s best-known singer currently (http://www.rfimusique.com/siteen/biographie/biographie_6058.asp). He was famous in the 1960s and 1970s, then exiled himself to Los Angeles for decades, making only periodic appearances, before staging a comeback this year. A few days later, Sara and I joined over 600,000 people who saw Polnareff play by the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day. He’s really a cult figure, it’s a bit like Elvis coming back to perform after decades of…exile.

· Not much more than a year into our marriage, Sara and I continue to learn things about each other. Here’s my latest upsetting discovery: in our six months in France, Sara’s used up a kilo of fresh sea salt, several liters of various vinegars and olive oils, cases of sparkling water, bottles of Martini rouge…and approximately one half of one tube of toothpaste. And to think, I kiss that mouth! (Sara points out in the way of explanation that she does brush twice daily, just using very little toothpaste...)

· A few musical items: first, during our recent Alsatian trip, Sara and I were sitting in the first car of train, awaiting our departure. The conductor got on the train and walked into the cabin, all while very clearly whistling… “The Final Countdown.” Perhaps that’s not surprising, since it’s appropriately by…Europe.

· Second, during a recent cab trip, I saw that my driver had one and only one CD in his musical collection…Shalamar!

· Third, a forgotten and overdue musical vignette and iPod update: while watching a Good Friday procession just blocks from Notre Dame, Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” came on the iPod. Even I felt sacrilegious. And later that day, when the “Golden Girls” theme came on the iPod, I just felt…icky.

· Not far from our apartment, there is an enormous, truck-sized vending machine that sells everything from milk to sandwiches to vibrating condoms (you may remember there was once one of these machines in Adams Morgan). The other day, I bought a camembert cheese from the machine (mainly because I could). I also bought a can of lychee juice, only noticing later that it was “Cock Brand” lychee juice. I’m guessing it’s a translation error.

· When I got the camembert home and opened it, I saw this funny “we’re not in the US anymore, are we?” disclaimer on the wrapper: “The fat percentage listed on our cheeses is now calculated taking into account their water content, as is the case for other milk products…Only its labeling has changed, to better inform you and permit you to more easily manage your diet. This means that your President camembert, which was formerly listed as containing 45% fat will now list 20%, without changing recipes or ingredients.” In other words, they were apologizing for having to “downgrade” their cheese from being 45% fat to just 20% fat. You can bet that in America, someone would have figured out the “water content” game a long time ago, and would have been selling the camembert as “diet,” due to the new “just” 20% fat content!

To close, a few recommendations:

- We may have found a new house wine, called Fitou. See if you can find it, it should be available in the US.

- For two enjoyable and hysterically funny French rap videos (by a guy named Kamini who’s the one black resident in a small rural town), check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPJ-xRaw2l8 for and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gV5rsO2u_o

- For a funny video of new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, possibly drunk after a meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G8, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzPEH-Ea3DI&mode=related&search=

Hope all's well,

Josh

Polish Politics and Pagan Festivals

2007-07-01T14:08:00.000-05:00

Taking a Hoosier-born, self-declared Polish prince to one of the tiniest countries on the planet is always a bit of a dicey idea. As we left Paris for our short trip to Andorra by way of Girona, Spain, I was hoping that locals wouldn’t mistake my younger, 6 foot 4 inch brother David as either a giant (like he is in Paris) or as a diplomatic mission from the “Kingdom of Indiana” because none of us speak Catalan (the language spoken in Andorra, northeastern Spain, and southwestern France).

Side note: It’s possible that you’ve never heard of Andorra, since I hadn’t until a week before we set foot in the country. In case you are like me, here are some top level glimpses of Andorra. Andorra is a small mountainous nation in the Pyrenees between Spain and France that is one sixth the size of Rhode Island. There are no airports or train stations in Andorra, you can only get there by traversing windy roads. Andorrans have the highest life expectancy in the world. and the country was once actually almost taken over by a clever Russian man who called himself Boris I. Other than that, the country is governed jointly by a bishop from Spain and the president of France. There—that’s Andorra in a nutshell.

The locals didn’t seem to stare too much, and in the end, David even built a few intra- Europe ties. One afternoon he was wearing a classy T-Shirt (a gift from Josh, see photo) with the phrase “Poland is for Wieners” and he was stopped in an elevator by a local who wanted to discuss Polish politics. The man asked David his opinion on Poland’s status within the EU. It was a fairly brief conversation and I think it’s fair to say the local didn’t quite get the nuance of the shirt, thankfully.

Never being ones to miss an opportunity to celebrate an obscure holiday, or frankly anything obscure, we were thrilled to hear that our visit would coincide with the celebration of the Feast of St. Joan in Andorra. The holiday was billed as a celebration of independence for the Catalan people (which seemed a bit confusing given that there is no Catalan nation per say, but I may have missed something), but we were excited to hear about the tradition of fireworks, bonfires and dancing.

It didn’t quite take shape as we thought. There were a lot of fireworks, but not the official variety--most of them set off by teens sporting mullets, M-80’s and lighters. That was not my most favorite part of the country.

At midnight, a crowd had started to gather (no small feat when the entire country only has 70,000 people) and so we waited to see if the big bonfire-ready pile of wood was actually going to be lit as some symbolic moment.

We were not disappointed. There was a parade with witches, devils dressed in white fireproof capes carrying fireworks on spools, drums and men dressed in black with fire on a chain. As Josh said, “I think that this might actually be the dictionary definition of a pagan festival,” I think David and I were wondering if we shouldn’t immediately break out some holy water. But everyone seemed friendly and still smaller than David, so we figured it was all probably OK, so we joined in the parade to the bonfire pit.

After marching through the streets, the band of witches and fire people danced around the big pre-bonfire and then a teenager who had some sort of beauty pageant-esque banner lit the fire. With fireworks still going off very close, we decided we had seen all of what we needed for the moment and headed off for a late night dinner at a tapas restaurant, which was not particularly noteworthy except that it was decorated with actual hams with their hoofs still attached hung from the ceiling.

In stark contrast to the fireworks and parades was the time at the spa. The spa, which was more Ikea-esque in its functionality rather than Elizabeth Arden in its luxury, was the perfect way to spend several hours. I was happy that not all of the women were size 0s (I guess there weren’t many Parisian women there) and I suspect that we’ve definitely convinced David that vacations are even better with real r&r built in. I think we might have relaxed so much we forgot to breathe at times.

And now, David has returned back to the States and we have been left chairing the “Dave for French President” fan club. It was a heck of a visit and I even think we might consider launching a small-scale invasion of another country in years to come.

sPg

Photos Galore

2007-06-28T19:55:00.001-05:00

Greetings everyone,

This isn't a real blog post (stay tuned for one each from Sara and myself), this is just a heads up about some new and newly-organized photos on our Flickr site.

This photo update doesn't include our very latest pix (Sara's brother's visit, our trip to Andorra, etc.), but those will be up soon as well.

As for the photos that are here, they're in five categories:

"Best of Paris"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600216028298/

These are the best of the artsy and scenic photos taken between January and roughly May. They include (just to pique your curiosity) Napoleon, cucumbers, a big orange dog, the French election, the moon with an arm through his eye, and Easter Vigil. The newest photos are at the top, the older ones are at the bottom. The title of this category is a bit wrong, since there are some non-Paris photos here (including the one at left, from London). You should be able to see this category online whether or not you have a Flickr account.

"Best of Paris People"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600215618739/
These are the best "people pictures" taken from January to May (newest pix first), mostly in Paris, but not entirely. They include the visits of my mom, Sara's parents, Jess, and Norm and Amanda. They also include pictures of Sara's "little friend" Angie from French class, my beloved former host mother Iris, Sara's French teacher Elodie, my friend Beth and her mega-cute kids, and way more of Sara and me than you ever hoped to see. You DO need a Flickr account to see these, so if you can't get to them, let me know and I'll send you an invitation.

"Best of Pre-2007"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600308969413/

These are my best pictures from the years leading up to this year. Many are scans from paper photos, so the quality isn't perfect, but still pretty good. These include earlier Paris pix, but also Adams Morgan, Argentina, Los Angeles, the Bahamas, and others. You don't need a Flickr account to see these.

"Best of Portugal"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600215589239/
"Best of Portugal People"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600215978738/

These are the pictures from Sara's and my wonderful trip to Portugal with friends Jamie and Carey back in April. The first batch are the artsy or touristy pix, the second batch at the people pix. You don't need a Flickr account to see the first batch, but you DO to see the second batch, so if you have trouble, send me an e-mail and I'll tell you how to get access to them.

Hope you like them!
Josh

Greek Feet and Spas

2007-06-17T16:56:00.000-05:00

It will be a true miracle if I am fit for normal company after my brother’s visit. I had forgotten what a wacky dude he is, and sharing 300 square feet with two boys for two weeks is surely ill-advised. But, once I got over the initial onslaught of Beavis and Butthead-esque jokes, I quickly started to have a really great time.

On day two, while we were eating olives, he was drinking a beer, and I was sipping wine, David said, “Come on, when was the last time we spent this much time together?” I guessed 1997…or 1994…we weren’t sure, but I’m glad to have this chance to get to know David better and to share some European Adventures with him, though I think we are both a little curious about how this “family time” will go.

Yep, the unofficial Mayor of Chesterton is here in Paris. We’re trying to get a state dinner set up, but we’re not sure that we have room in our schedule, even if the wine would no doubt be good. You know how busy visiting heads of state can be--just ask my brother. As he stood outside of the Louvre and I snapped a photo he declared that "it only made sense for the Polish Prince to visit a French palace." Yes, he really is that absurd.

We did an abbreviated version of “Paris Highlights” tour for the first two days and then skipped right to the good stuff. Yesterday, we saw Pere Lachese—the famous cemetery; today we saw the catacombs—the site of hundreds of thousands of bones from Paris throughout the years all artfully displayed 50 feet below ground. We stopped on the way home for a pastry though, so the day wasn’t entirely death-themed.

Josh told David that tbhe two themes of his visit will be “Shut up and eat it” and “Damn that’s old”. In the “Shut up and Eat it” category, we started with cheese, which is going remarkably well. He did object to one saying it smelled “like Greek Feet”, which may or may not be true (having never smelled such feet), but it was a cheese that was a little much even for Josh and me, so that was fair. We figure pate and other meat products are still on the To Do list.

In the “Damn that’s old” category, we’ve enjoyed showing David roman ruins, Notre Dame (which we assured him was actually build before the lovely football school in Indiana) and other historical sites. I think he’s honestly amazed by what he’s seen and when we’re not cracking jokes, I think we’re all learning a little bit more about Paris and each other.

Other highlights of the first few days of David’s tour:

1.) Determining if any French people (or vehicles) are actually bigger than David

2.) Josh taking David to the last public urinal, which is outside of a prison

3.) Drinking various beers at numerous cafes

4.) Catching up on the latest news from the Indiana electricians' union

5.) Snarfing Greek Sandwiches (which seem to have no resemblance to Greek Feet) on the street

6.) Sleeping until noon every day

7.) Hearing David’s ongoing commentary on French women, which seems overwhelmingly positive

8.) Deciding whether we are going to visit a spa this weekend

I know the spa may not seem to fit, but I think it will be amusing, if not entirely relaxing. Our other Pluta Family European adventures will include a trip to Girona, Spain and Andorra—one of the smallest countries on earth, which is reachable only by bus from Spain or France. I agreed to the four-hour bus ride if I could go to the aforementioned spa, with David and Josh as escorts. If we don’t get deported, it will be fun.

When I asked David after dinner if we should have some quality conversation, he looked at me like I was a moron and said he had a book to read. I said just as well because I had some work to do and maybe in the end, 300 square feet is more than enough room, and we may even agree to do this again in another few years.

sPg

Barter and Raw Food

2007-06-10T13:59:00.000-05:00

Life continues happily, yet mostly uneventfully in Paris, which is why I’ve been a bit quiet. But, true to form, there have been at least a few moments that have seemed blog worthy. Here are two glimpses of Paris that seemed worth sharing.

Will work for food—Josh and I have been fortunate enough to find just enough work for the lifestyle we would like here. We both work about 15 hours a week and that gives us plenty of free time and a few euros in our pocket. Over all, we are enjoying a fulfilling and simple life. So, you can imagine my surprise when Josh concluded a dinner at a great little crepe restaurant by (essentially) saying to the owner, “I’ll translate your menu into English and you can pay me in salted butter caramel.” If you can’t remember what that is, it’s perhaps Josh’s favorite Parisian food—caramel that has a perfectly delicious balance of salt in it. I guess all his flea market expenditures earlier in the day inspired this—or, perhaps he’ll do anything for a little salted butter caramel. And fear not, Josh’s new Parisian barter system doesn’t end with caramel, he’s also possibly doing some translation work for an association of scotch makers, drinkers, and aficionados. As Josh says, he would have spent money on either of those things anyways, so by not working for money but for caramel/scotch, he’s just avoiding the middle man.

Raw food diet—I thought the other day, “Oh goodness, it’s happened” and by “it”, I mean my adapting yet another newly-formed habit inspired by France that seems will be virtually impossible to re-create once we return to the States. My most recent and most troublesome France-only habitis my new found love of raw food, and more specifically, raw meat.

Maybe its primal, maybe this is just what happens to Midwesterners who love meat but can’t build a fire very well or maybe some things just really are different in France, but over one four day stretch, I ate just one single solitary meal that had any cooked food in it—the rest of the meals involved raw tuna, raw salmon, beef carpaccio, and steak tartare. Yes, I love them all and find that I crave them.

Having a stomach of steel, I’m not worried about any health effects and I also am betting that if a restaurant bothers to serve these things, they must trust the source of the meat. And really, I have a hard time believing that raw meat is actually the most dangerous food habit I could have when seemingly everything here is sold is some raw form: raw milk, unpasteurized cheese, etc, etc. Not a single French person has ever seemed alarmed when my raw meat habit gets brought up in conversation.

So yes, now one of my favorite café lunches is steak tartare—basically hand-ground raw steak that looks an awful lot like raw hamburger—and a salad. Even Josh has gotten into the idea. At a recent meal, he tried Carpaccio du tete de veau, roughly translated as “raw veal face”. When he ordered it, I said, “Josh, I’m so proud of you.” And then thought, “What the heck kind of screwed up compliment is that?!?”.

Rumor has it that there is a new Ethopian restaurant in Virginia that has two kinds of raw meat dishes that are worth having (this according to Eve Zibert—Washington Post Food critic). It seems promising. Maybe Josh will start learning Amharic and then he can offer to translate the menu in return for a serving or two of “gored gored”

sPg

RIP House Wine

2007-06-01T20:01:00.000-05:00

[A lament, context explained below, to be sung to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie”]
Bye, bye, our beloved house wine
I dragged my suitcase to the wine place
But ‘twas gone, I yelled “Fie!”
Seems a euro doesn’t buy what it did at one time
At least our livers are breathing a sigh
Our livers are breathing a sigh…

Far be it from anyone to suggest that Sara and I are anything but goal-oriented. Soon after our arrival in Paris, we focused with a white-hot laser intensity and thoughtful, rigorous process on our number one priority. Not finding Sara a job, not getting us health insurance, and lord knows, not getting our phone hooked up.

Our real first goal—locating and selecting a wine that we both enjoyed and could afford to drink on a daily basis despite our limited budget.

I was our designated wine buyer, and I would return from frequent trips to the local Franprix market with a selection of red wines chosen mainly based on price. After a couple less-than-successful sorties, Sara suggested that my two euro ($2.70) price ceiling was a failure, and that in the future, I should plan on staying about three euros ($4.05).

On my next trip, I dutifully bought two bottles in the new price range, but I also mischievously bought a 1.8 euro ($2.35) bottle of a variety of wine (Saint Chinian) we’d previously enjoyed, but closer to the three euro price point. If I had a better poker face, I would have tried to pass the 1.8 euro bottle off as a three euro bottle. But instead, I just explained my rationale to Sara: “We like the three euro Saint Chinian, maybe we’ll like the 1.8 euro kind…)

The rest is history (figuratively), until sadly this week the rest was history (literally). The 1.8 euro Saint Chinian (and later the same winery’s Corbieres wine) became what Sara and I called “the House Wine,” imbibed daily with our solo meals and shared liberally with dinner guests. Even French dinner guests were impressed by the quality of the wine and its low price point. (The attached photo from months back was meant to show the chaos of laundry day but instead additionally captured an impromptu shot of a house wine bottle at dead center, demonstrating its ubiquity…)

Subsequently, we found the House Wine at Leader Price, a mini-Shoppers’ Food Warehouse-type store for just 1.25 euros. Given that this year we have plenty of free time but not much spare cash, it became a roughly monthly ritual for me to drag my wheeled carry-on suitcase the fifteen minutes to this store, load up with a dozen or so bottles of House Wine, then drag it home and we’d be stocked for a month.

After a couple of months of doing this, in a disconcerting portent, Sara and I noticed that the House Wine had disappeared from the shelves of the nearby Franprix market (where the House Wine was first discovered). We hoped for the best, but when I arrived at Leader Price for this month’s pilgrimage, the House Wine was gone.
Given the thousands of French wine producers, the dozens of wines they each produce, and the fact that production changes each year, it’s not that surprising that this wine seemingly vanished. It’s almost more surprising that we were able to keep finding it for nearly five months.

But the House Wine didn’t die in vain. We have since found out that Saint Chinian, Corbieres, and the other wines of Southwest France are currently some of the best values on the wine market. Known for decades as producing high quantities of low quality wine, the Southwest is now straightening up its act and trying to win back its good name. We learned this “back story” to our House Wine at a wine tasting class, and have since put it to work in buying good but inexpensive bottles of wine at the store and in restaurants. Our discovery was reinforced when, in a recent radio interview (http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-info/chroniques/expat/index.php?chro_diff_id=295000112&m=3), Bernard Portet, a French winemaker who was one of the first to see the potential of the Napa Valley in the 1960s, said, “The Languedoc [a southwestern French region] is the California of tomorrow.”

We can’t buy our exact bottle of House Wine any more, but what it taught us was how to pick similar wines from the same region that provide us with the same price/quality benefit of our old friend.

Whenever a French king would die, it would be proclaimed “Le roi est mort; vive le roi!” (The king is dead; long live the king!). This meant that the death of the one king triggered the debut of the reign of his successor, and that both were worth commemorating. So, all I can say now is “The House Wine is dead; long live the House Wine!” The King is dead, but we know where the royal family lives…