Paris

I'm trying out the blog from here in France, just to prove that I really am working and not just loafing around eating a lot of rich food. Though there's plenty of that, too. The pic here is from the Latin Quarter in Paris, all done up for Christmas. I drove us to Poissy, because J. has some sort of paranoia about driving in places she doesn't know, especially foreign ones, and from there we took the train to the city. We walked all around in the historic part of the city--past Notre Dame and the Musee des Cluny (the medieval museum--very nice). The weather was just gorgeous (esp. after the previous day's "small tempest," during which at least one man was decapitated by a flying electrical line). I'd load up spectacular pictures of Notre Dame, but I'm sure everyone's seen them before. Funny how much more you appreciate your own pics, though.

I very much enjoy driving in foreign countries. After having braved the big one--driving with a stick shift in Britain, where the stick is, of course, on the wrong side of the car--everything else seems pretty innocuous. And I drive in San Diego. You have to be fealess to drive in So. Cal. Lots of illegal u-turns and sniffing noises made in the general direction of the French public. It doesn't phase me.

My French sucks, and every time I speak J.'s small child laughs and corrects me. The toddler is just about the only one I can converse with, and even then not well. "C'est un chien?" "Oui, c'est un chien!" I can also tell her she looks pretty.

The food here is awesome. And inexorable. For once in my life, I've become very tired of eating. Who'd have thunk it? Yeah, it's all good, but I cannot eat this much. It's ongoing. It's beyond an obsession here. We spent a half hour waiting in a line that wrapped around a corner for some VERY SPECIAL croissants at this very chic pastry shop in the Latin Quarter. I guess this is what Parisiens do on a pretty day. When you got up to the counter the pastries were wrapped up in little boxes and sprinkled with shiny gold powder....they looked like little gems. J. said I had to try the macarons (73 euros a kilo! Not that you'd ever want so many)--a French specialty-- so we bought a box to take home. But now she won't let me try any. She says they're for later. I had no idea she was such a food nazi.

Apparently there is a hedgehog wandering around in the garden here somewhere. I've never seen a hedgehog, so I've been looking every day. No hedgehog. Doubtless this will be like the armadillos J. and her husband say are littered all over Texas ("you can't miss them!"), which I have also never seen, despite years of looking. I think small obscure animals are not in my cards.