Mixed thoughts...

For today’s blog posting, I will offer a few “vignettes” (“vignette” is French for “I don’t have the patience or the discipline to assemble my thoughts and anecdotes under one unified theme.”)

- First, the photos from our first week are now ready for viewing at http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=536201169300768187/l=239907225/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB Not a lot of winners, but something for folks who like “people pictures” as well as those seeking the more artsy…

- Second, a follow-up on Sara’s most recent blog entry. It’s true that she has a keen eye for spotting and recovering from the kind of “Q and A” differences she has discussed. But she slipped up on one—you could say it was a “Q and A” on TP. On the early solo grocery shopping trip that Sara’s already detailed, she secured toilet paper and stashed the still-wrapped four-pack in the toilet-side cabinet. A couple of days later, gales of hysterical laughter unexpectedly poured forth from our bathroom. Moments later, Sara stumbled out, tears rolling down her face, with a roll of paper towels in her hand. Turns out that a two-pack of paper towels looks an awful lot like a four-pack of toilet paper. To give Sara the benefit of the doubt, maybe she somehow knew and was confused by the French words for “paper towel”--“essuie-tout”—which literally means “wipe everything.” Well, almost everything…

- Another odd example of a “Q and A” situation: on French calendars, the week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. It’s much more intuitive this way, and demonstrates a better church/state separation that we do in the same realm. But then again, when American TV weather folks give the next day’s weather, they don’t say what Saint’s day it will be, like they do in France. It’s always interesting to see how our two quite similar countries have totally different takes on the same national guiding principles.

- Maybe it’s because we’ve been together nearly 24/7 since we arrived in France, but Sara and I are taking on each others’ bad habits. Sara is now sleeping late (as late as noon), and I am now napping. Before you know it, Sara will have started biting her fingernails like me, and I’ll start sniffing glue like her!

- Another of Sara’s and my “resolutions” for our Paris year is to see more movies. We always enjoy going to the movies, but for some reason we only make it to a couple a year in DC. Fortunately, we’ll have more free time this year, and, with apologies to Hemingway, Paris is a “movie-able feast.” In terms of the number and diversity of films showing, and the sheer quantity of screens, Paris is second to none in this domain. But sadly, cinema led to one of Sara’s and my first disagreements of our Paris journey. She rightly thinks that Paris provides us with an opportunity to see all the great American movies that we missed during their first release in the US. But I think that we should take advantage of the unique opportunities available to us only here in Paris, so we should see movies from other English-speaking countries that never make it to the US, and/or vintage films that are being shown on the big screen here but that otherwise, in the US, we’d have to see on cable or DVD, if at all. An example of what I’m talking about: “The Freshman,” a 1925 silent movie starring Harold Lloyd, is showing currently in Paris and likely nowhere else. So, to settle our dispute we talked it out, and it goes without saying that Sara won and we ended up seeing the latest Scorsese movie, “The Departed.” (Another “Q and A” example: whenever possible, the French refer to a movie primarily by its director, whereas most Americans refer to its lead actor). To avoid future disagreements on movies, I think what we’ll likely do is follow the example of many other couples, and create a alternating selection process, with each spouse getting a veto-proof choice of every other movie to attend. So, given that Sara got her choice this time (admittedly an excellent film…), I think I may flex my selection power next time and choose a moody Latvian silent documentary on wood chips…

That’s it for today, everyone. Enjoy the day!

Josh