visiting ma with jj

jj and i head back to new hampshire to visit my mom. jj wanted to come back and see her and since she had a few extra days at the end of vacation, we figured it was the best time to come – rather than taking days off from school. we felt that she should come visit soon, in case... we will head back new years day. sad that we will not spend new years together with p.

jj and friend in paris

jj got to spend a whole day with her friend, running around paris. then i cooked dinner for everyone.

my birthday

we got back to paris at 6pm today. came back to the apartment where jj’s friend was waiting for us. her parents and brother have moved to a hotel for the last 2 nights. we went over to their hotel with a bottle of champagne and had it in their lovely lobby. it was great to see them. we then all headed to dinner. we had booked a table at “le violin d’ingres” which is the fancy restaurant owned by christian constant. you may remember that we really like his “cafe constant” which has very good food at very good prices. “le violin d’ingres” had a michelin star – though it lost it this year... so tonight we were going to try the real stuff. i was very excited. it was much more expensive than i realized – i had accidently misread the website of ANOTHER restaurant called by the same name. the food was very good. the ingredients were fancy. the ambiance was white table cloth and fancy. BUT if you take into account the price of things, his little bistro is a much better value. excellent food without ridiculous prices. of course, there are no dishes with fois gras or truffles in them. ( and then on top of that our friends treated us! whoa!)

back in paris, briefly

back in paris. only until saturday when we go to carcassonne. jj’s friend from boston moved to india when we moved to paris. they are coming to use our apartment when we are away. we get to see them for the day on saturday.

visiting ma

i had wanted to come back and visit my mother around now. the flights are much cheaper outside of the christmas/new year weeks. i found a good flight and booked it for december 6.

meanwhile, the week before i came out, my mom, who had moved into a facility in september, fell down and broke her hip. she had an operation to get a new hip, and had a stroke or 2... so i’m very glad to be visiting her. mostly, i hung out with her. tried to feed her when food came, but she was having problems swallowing. she couldn’t really talk much. she would start a sentence and it sounded almost intelligible, but then it would slide into mumbles. my sister says she doesn’t remember well, so that after i leave, she will forget. but that doesn’t matter. i feel that just being there with her, and her seeing me there at that moment, is the important thing. life is in the moment.

party season - cocktail party, wrap party

party season - cocktail party, wrap party – (pub’d)

jj is in heavy testing week. “compos” they call it. they have no classes. they just go in for an exam and then they are home studying for the next one. but we have two parties to go to.

so we left jj home, studying, on her own. we only felt a little guilty...

the first party was a cocktail party near the madeleine. one of the conversation moms was throwing the party in her apartment that looked out over paris with a wall of windows in a posh part of town. nice group of people, nice champagne.

the second party, was luckily in the same neighborhood. i was very excited to be invited to this, the wrap party for the new feature film that this studio just finished. wrap parties are usually really fun. we arrived unfashionably on time at 8. there were enough people there. it was in a club which was one mirrored room. there was champagne too, of course. that’s another thing i love about france. there’s always champagne. i didn’t know too many people at the studio. but funny, some friends, who i knew in computer graphics eons ago, showed up too. it’s a small world of course, of computer graphics, and since this studio has been around for 20 years, it shouldn’t have been too big a surprise. otherwise, i only knew a few people and not too well. so we ended up leaving by 10, when, of course, the fashionable people were just arriving. didn’t matter, since i didn’t know them either. oh well, we’re showing our age...

thanksgiving day

i cleaned the apartment top to bottom.

i have always admired my friend, marie m. who seemed to be the ideal hostess. she would welcome her dinner guests and serve them drinks, chat and then disappear for only a moment before dinner was presented at the table. it seemed so effortless. i have tried to emulate her in preparations but have not yet arrived at her success. nevertheless, i try. i prepared the potatoes yesterday. today i bought a lot of green beans at the thursday morning market, prepped them and pre-sauteed them in batches. all i had to do later was to cook them for another 10 minutes. i made gravy from chicken stock that i had saved in the freezer.

then all i had left to do was to pick up the turkey at 6pm. i went to the metro at 5:45 as i boarded the subway, there was an announcement that there was a short delay because of a “suspicious package” in the stop between me and the turkey. “...and thank you for your patience and understanding in our effort to keep us all safe”. i waited 5 minutes then joined the other rats jumping ship and headed upstairs to get a velib bike. i arrived at the butcher in 10 minutes (mostly along bike paths), and hoped that the metro problem would be resolved for my trip home. i couldn’t imagine trying to fit an 8 pound cooked bird in the front basket of a bike. the butcher put the turkey into a big, deep plastic tray and wrapped it with big saran wrap in several layers and gave me a bottle of a mixture of juices and drippings and oil. the metro was still out of commission and i had guests coming in ½ an hour! so i had to do what i had to do. the platter fit width wise but not lengthwise in the bike basket, so i wedged it in halfway. i laughed all the way home, just imagining the sight of me! got there safely. thanks again to the velib bike system!

luckily jj had gotten home in time to welcome anyone arriving early, and the first guest was already there. he had brought some really nice champagne – tattingers. the rest of his family came and they brought a papaya salad and apple pie. the other family brought delicious stuffing and homemade cranberry sauce. these were the 2 families who now take care of maynard the dog for a few days a week. maynard’s other families. jj exclaimed how our parties used to be made up of her friends and their families and NOW they are maynard’s friends! how true!

the tattinger champagne was very delicious. something really perfect about it – crisp taste, sharp bubbliness, perfect flavor balance. the rotisserie turkey was delicious! moist, tender and crispy skin. everything was delicious. the thanksgiving combination was great. the company was good and in all, a very enjoyable evening.

brigade des stupefiants

went to a lecture sponsored by the school. it was led by a police officer from the brigade des stupefiants. this is the "narcotic squad" but literally translates as the brigade of drugs. i think it should actually be called the “brigade AGAINST drugs”. to me the name sounds like a “stupified brigade”. anyway, it was quite informative. pot is really cheap. dealers hang out at the metro station. a kid can save money from his/her lunch allowance and buy pot really cheap. it’s cheaper than cigarettes. he talked about the new drugs and the various dangers – lack of control of ingredients, as always, being one of them. he talked about alcohol. he said that in france, alcohol is illegal for under 18’s because it is unhealthy for children’s bodies. one parent asked if a child is exposed to alcohol in the safety of the home, wasn’t that ok? he said there should be zero tolerance and by presenting it in the family setting, in celebrations etc, it was just giving it a positive message. he said “if you think that you are teaching your child the different grape varieties and types of wine, you are wrong. kids are incapable of tasting these subtleties”. this being france, i was shocked that he was so definitively against wine. but of course, he HAS to be. he’s a policeman with the brigade des stupefiants.

film biz cafe; last work day; pre-thanksgiving

i had wanted to introduce 2 moms, who were both working on documentaries. i heard of other parents at the school who were involved in the film business, so i decided to organize a coffee. i called it the “anglophone film biz” cafe. it was fabulous – very interesting people. everyone got along great, made connections. film people are fun.

today was also the last day of work. it was supposed to be 3 months and it turned out to be 5 weeks. we finished our part of the short film and the other commercials didn’t come in. they said they hope to have more work in january.

i had been thinking of hosting thanksgiving for some american “orphans” over here in paris. was trying to decide whether to do it on thanksgiving day itself , a school night, since we have no days off here, or the friday or the saturday. we then got an invitation to dinner from one of p’s colleagues for the saturday. i was still hemming and hawing when the school-mom-fun group announced a potluck for the friday and it was to take place in an apartment on the exclusive ile st louis (one of the 2 islands in the very center of paris). i couldn’t pass that one up! so we were left with the thursday. the other new american families were already talking about thanksgiving together, so i offered to do it at our apt. a friend told me that the butcher could rotisserie the turkey. sounded perfect and much easier. all i’d have to do then was a few side courses.

there would be 11 people, but only 5 adults eating meat and 5 kids. the web recommended 1 pound of turkey per person. i converted that to kilos and went to order it. i had grown to appreciate the butcher near our old apartment 2 metro stops away. i went there to order the turkey. the lady asked how many people would there be. it was so complicated with the vegetarian and the kids counting more like a half person. i just told her the weight i wanted. her eyes widened. she did not write down the number in the order book. she just wrote “une belle” – meaning “a beauty”. you know how “everything’s bigger in america”. i figured that the french were not used to the american “plenty”. apparently, the size i requested was off the charts and they would get the biggest one they could find. i gave her a deposit and walked out the door and was at the stairs of the metro when i realized that i had made a mistake. instead of using the correct conversion of pounds to kilos, i had used the formula for converting miles to kilometers and ordered way too much turkey. not that it wasn’t a typical size for an american turkey, but it was way too much for us. i ran back in to correct it and she nodded a knowing nod uttering the typical parisian “ bah, oui...”

potluck cocktails with teachers

pot luck cocktail with teachers tonight, hosted by jj’s friend’s mom and dad. they have a gorgeous apartment at trocadero. it was good meeting more parents. these are all parents of students in the international baccalaureate program (as opposed to french bac) so a more international crowd. i enjoyed meeting the teachers too. funny to hear your child’s descriptions and judgements of teachers and then to actually meet them.  her french teacher is a very cute, enthusiastic man who sported a guitar on his back when he was leaving. i guess it's normal that kids complain and you hear just the bad things.  only afterwards when i said, "he seems very nice", would she admit, "oh, yes, he's very nice.  it's just that he's a hard grader."  i also met a biology teacher who’s name sounded familiar. so i told him that i was the mom of jj who had him as a teacher and that she really loved biology. he said “yes, it shows”. then i found out later that i got it wrong, that she didn’t have him for a teacher!  i laughed!  general confusion between teachers and parents.

wine delivery

i had gone to a wine tasting last year, hosted by a mom at the school who is in the business. her family owns a vineyard in bordeaux and she works for a wine merchant. i bought some from her after the wine tasting, and we continue to buy some bordeaux from her. she stopped by this morning to deliver some more. i love the idea of buying wine from a school mom!

more doggy-time-share

met kim o at cosmos cafe and left maynard with her. she and her family will look after him for a few days. they are doggy-time-share-alternate-family2.

invited to dinner

chez lopez for dinner.

armistice day

jj went to a sleepover last night at a friend’s house. she has the day off today for armistice day, it’s a national holiday, but the studio keeps working. the film has a looming deadline, so they just need all the days they can get. it’s fine with me. i want to work. i get paid by the day. jj had a violin lesson. she is becoming more and more independent.

today is 11/11/11.  it just reminds me about 2 years ago, on 09/09/09.  i was with a bunch of realtors driving around looking at houses and i mentioned this date.  someone said, yes, there are only a few more of those type days in the near future.  the realtor who was driving, who was a very, very successful realtor said slowly,  "hmm, yess, i guess there is, (pause), 10/10/10 (pause) and then 11/11/11 (pause) and then 12/12/12."  i giggled to myself about the  slow thought process, but then, i guess not everyone is a geek like me who LIKES numbers...

tax advisor babe

we went to meet with another tax advisor. it was at a very fancy address on the champs elysees above the louis vuitton store. this makes me feel that we will be paying extra for the location... the woman was quite beautiful and exotic. she and her sister own the company and are persian american. they handle taxes both in france and the US. we connected much better with her than with the other tax advisor who was very slow moving. we felt she gave us some very good information.

jj sleep deprived

jj had been on october break and school started again today. she made up her sleep yesterday, as she did not get up until 1:00. just as feared, her work was not finished and she ended up staying up until 2am. she went to bed but said she could not sleep until 5:30 (because of remnant images of the horror film). so this morning, after 2.5 hours of sleep, she had a meltdown. she couldn’t imagine surviving on so little sleep. she wanted to call in sick. she was very upset, but we told her she had to go in. she had to “buck up” and be brave and just get on with it. stop being such a wuss. drink some coca cola. she only had one class, though double period, before she had a 2.5 hour break. she was going to come home and take a nap but ended up doing the rest of her work. once she got over the “IDEA” of not having enough sleep, she was fine.

i have to say she reminds me a bit of me in attitude. when i was in high school, my mother told me that i spent more time worrying about what i had to do, than actually doing it. jj could not stop complaining about the fact that she had school work to do over vacation. she has an attitude that the world is against her and that she won’t be able to do the work.

she needs to change her attitude to be more positive, to believe that she can do it.

went to a wine tasting event sponsored by my college club. it was held in a woman’s apartment which is one of the old “artist studios”. cool old complex of studios. apparently picasso had rented this studio, but decided he didn’t like it and left after a month. the tasting was interesting, led by an alum who found out that she was good at “tasting things”, so this is her career – leading wine tastings. she introduced us to some interesting reds which were a good price. i wasn’t as excited about the whites she brought.

paris halloween - not

halloween is not a french thing. it has become more popular, so one can see costumed people on the metro on the evening of halloween, but still not too many are people into it. i was sick so didn’t go into the studio for work. was wondering what kind of things would happen there. animation studios in america are fun places to be on halloween. went in today and asked. nothing happened. nobody got dressed up. oh well. no fun.

i was still a little sick, so when people came to greet me with a bisou i stuck my hand up and would say “malade...”(“sick”). i’m sure that i make them all feel awkward, because they don’t know if they should bisou or not. funny. all the extra effort it takes to figure out how to greet christine.

halloween is jj’s 2nd favorite holiday. christmas is first and her birthday doesn’t count as a holiday. she went to her friend’s house for a sleepover party. they went to the american library with her friend’s little sister who said there was a halloween party there. i had heard that there would be a “haunted library tour” and one should make reservations to make sure to have a spot, but i figured it would be too young for 15 year old jj. they all got dressed up, jj wearing red dress, high heels and devil horns. i wasn’t too happy to imagine jj walking around paris like that, but then she informed me that they got driven over by the mom. ok. they walked in and there were only a few people there, mostly very small kids and she and her friends were “way over dressed”. they were so embarrassed. they had a reservation was for 7:50 but it was only 6:00, so they just turned around with devil tails between their legs... and went home. but next on the agenda was the horror films. jj is extremely sensitive to any intense films and has never watched a horror film. she saw the opening titles to “lost” which graphically shows a plane crash (so i hear) and was afraid to fly for a year. her friend dared her to watch the film “tormented” and jj wants to get over her fears so agreed. p and i read the synopsis of the film and thought, “hoo boy, she’s probably going to have problems with this. in the end, not only did she watch “tormented” but she also watched 2 other horror films. she was totally freaked out. she did not sleep very much. then she came home exhausted, took a brief a nap.

she had had the idea of getting the friends to go to “parc asterix”, a theme park out of town, that afternooon. she has gotten much more independent, but not yet there in really being on top of things. she assumed they could take the metro. we told her the metro doesn’t go that far. so she asked the friends to ask their parents if someone could take them. a mom volunteered. but jj still had not done any research. she figured she could just show up and it would cost a few euros. it is actually a theme park like disneyland and costs 40 euros. it takes an hour to get there by car. i could imagine her showing up without enough money. plus it was the last day of a long weekend and the traffic returning would be crazy. i was glad that the idea fizzled. i’m a bit uncomfortable with her having so much freedom and independence lately. it wasn’t a “can we go?” it was a “we are going”.

p brother visit

p’s brother and family came to visit for a few days. i was working every day, and would see them at night. one night we took them to christian constant’s cafe, one of my favorites.   (have to admit here that i am writing many entries much later, so i actually don’t remember what we did...)

biking to work

i LOVE riding a bike to work. it’s really close by and there are big wide sidewalks, so i just ride on them to work. it only takes 3 minutes to bike to work and i get to look at the eiffel tower the whole way. plus the weather’s been relatively nice. also, i use the public bike system “velib” so i pick up the bike close to home and drop it next to work. while i am riding am just smiling and appreciating every moment.

the studio

this studio has been around for a long time, but has recently become quite successful. they have figured out a way of making animated films much cheaper. a combination of having a good team and certain economical production practices. the higher ups – producers and directors and finance people – are american. the rest are french. you’d think that doing production in paris would be very expensive. certainly, living is very expensive. but for the film,

the models are simple and the shading (colors and textures) are simple. they concentrate on the story. typically in france, it’s not easy to fire someone. you have to go through protocol and it can take a couple of years, plus the company has to pay wages for about a year afterwards. . however now, there is a certain category of worker allowed by the french government called the “interim de spectacle” – sort of translated as “show biz short term worker”. created for people who work in theatre and such, who would work for short periods of time on a production and then move on. with this format, you can hire someone for a day and then you’re done with them. the person would have to work a certain number of hours a year to qualify for unemployment benefits when they are not working. so the studio hires people only for the days they need them. if something stops up the work, say a story crisis, you don’t have people sitting around waiting on payroll. the company pays slightly higher taxes for this type of worker, but can save tons of money. the first film they did was a huge success. they made a lot of money and had not spent a lot to make the film. they are just finishing their second film.

i’m lucky that the director is american. we can work in english. the rest of the office is french, so i get some practice. the only problem is that i’m really good focusing on my work and at tuning out french.

left home

jj has a 2 week vacation, but i just started working. p decided to go with her somewhere. he shopped around for cheapish tickets and they went off to valencia, spain. meanwhile, i invited my friend, andy, who is living in berlin, to come visit. i’ve known andy for almost 30 years now. we started out in computer graphics at around the same time in new york, though we never have worked together. he arrived saturday morning. we talked a lot, as we always do when we’re together. he was only here for a day and a half. i took him to the beaubourg cafe for an omelet, ran into some friends wandering by, and then he went to see the edvard munch show. i had already seen the show. it was ok. edvard munch is best known for the painting “the scream” which is a fun painting. i didn’t care too much for the rest of his work, or his style. interestingly, the more “realistic” self portrait that he did, he considered his best work. this indicated to me that maybe he just wasn’t very good. maybe his images came out the way they did in spite of him trying to paint realistically. anyway, while andy went to the exhibit, i went to the beaubourg library. what an amazing space! i want to send jj here to study – a way of getting out of the house, but still studying.

becca lunch

i took longer lunch break today to meet my friend, becca for lunch. becca is an american from LA whom i met in the dog park when we first arrived. she was here for a year and then had to go back in july. she had wanted to stay. when she left i was very appreciative of my good fortune to be able to stay for another year.

to beez or not to beez

one cultural difference i am very aware of, here in france, is the morning greeting. the “bisou” is the word for the french 2 cheek kiss. p said that, at his work, everybody stops by to greet every other person in the morning. fully half an hour is spent greeting the colleagues. the men come in and shake his hand to say good morning. he would be working and would feel a tap on his shoulder and it would be yet another colleague coming to say good morning. i said “ i guess it would be rude to tape a sign on your back saying ‘bonjour’ ”.

i work in a room with about 15 others. in the morning each person arrives and makes the rounds saying “bonjour” to each person. men shake each other’s hands. women get a bisou (pronounced “beezoo”) or “biz” for short (pronounced“beez”). women give bisou to each other. i’m ok with it, but it was weird on my first full day, because it was the first time i was meeting my colleagues. they just stopped by said “bonjour” and leaned in. but i’m an uptight american! especially after all those french languange lessons about how you must “vous” someone you meet for the first time until they tell you that it’s ok to “tu” them. somehow, meeting someone for the first time and kissing their cheeks seems too “familiar”. as i said, they say “bonjour” and begin leaning in to me, face turned slightly and lips puckered, and i hesitate and extend my hand. this throws them off and then there is an awkward pause and they pull back their face and take my hand. then, the next day, they are not sure what to expect. i lean forward to beez (trying to fit in) at the same time they are extending their hand and then they lean forward to beez. i further confuse things by not being consistent. “to beez or not to beez, that is the question”. finally, i figured it was easier to just beez than not to. (though, there is also the new yorker in me afraid of all the colds being passed around. )

working again is interesting. i am actually thrilled. i love the community and the structure. i sit at my desk and work intensely for 8 hours with a break for lunch. i am thrilled that i can still do it. though, i am afraid of time passing very quickly. i spent so many years working so hard and those years just passed by like the landscape you see from a train. we will probably only be in paris until july, and i am afraid if i’m working full time, the time in paris will suddenly disappear.

i love the new verbs that have been created out of american words that don’t exist in france. layout is the department that lays out the first scenes. it’s an american company that has brought the projects. the terms were created in american cartoon studios. so the verb in french is “layouter” and the person is a “layouteur”. the academie francaise is probably hard at work to come up with a true french term that would probably translate literally as “first step of design and rough camera movement”.

jj sleepover, new territory

jj went to her sleepover party. p and i went out. we met some french friends that we knew in san francisco. we just went to have a drink over in the montparnasse area – at the dome. great ambiance there, watching all the people go by on a saturday eve. we got a call at 8:30 from jj who said that they were invited to go to the champs elysees to meet some other friends. she needed our permission to go. the hosting mom said she needed a text from every mom saying it was ok, and “all the other moms have said it’s ok”. that line in itself should have made me say “no”. p said he thought it was fine, that there were lots of people walking around the champs elysee on a saturday night. so we said ok. i told her she should text us when she was back home. then at 9:30 we got a text saying that she was going now and would be back by midnight. “whoa, wait a second”. we thought she was going right up and would be back by 11 or so. we hadn’t asked. i was thrown off by the change of plans. i didn’t like the idea of her wandering around the street and then heading back, a pack of girls, so late. the sleepover was at the edge of town. we called her up. i said

“we thought you were going at the time that you called. now it is 9:30 by the time you get there it will be 10. we don’t want you wandering around the street so late at night. you can hang out for one hour, but then you get yourself back on the metro heading home by 11. you text us at 11 that you are on the train. if you’re not, i’m coming up there to get you”. the whole thing upset me. this will be a whole new year, with even more independence. it is relatively safe in paris, but it IS a big city. we will need to have a chat when she gets back. we need to set down some rules.

mom coffee

went to a coffee for the parents of the kids in the international bacclaureate program. great since i got to meet the mom of a girl who is hosting a sleepover this weekend. the new rule is that i must make contact with the parents at a party. jj thinks i’m overprotective and over- tiger mom. if i was a tiger mom, she wouldn’t be going to a sleepover at all. was happy to meet the mom. she’s american and a former new yorker. more than that, she’s on the same parenting page as me. after coffee, went to work

second start to work

so a week after we were supposed to start, i went in to work. there are 3 short films that we are working on, but today i was reassigned to a different short film than i had started on. i will be working with karine. there were 2 other layout artists that we started with. they weren’t there, so i asked if they were coming in later. was told that in fact, they wouldn’t be working and that they had been replaced by 2 other more experienced artists. brutal... tough world.

exciting though, to work again. the director is someone i worked with at pixar. the financial guy also worked there at the same time. the other director is someone who had worked with my old buddies in new york and friends of a doggy buddy here in paris, and the producer is a friend of a friend. the directors and producer are american. great, since for the important stuff, english is better. i was thrilled to be in front of a computer doing stuff. it was like getting back on a bicycle. no problem.

ready for work

got email telling me to come in thursday to start work.

on hold for work

got an email from my boss saying that the studio was still not ready for us to come in to work yet. they would let us know.

jj job

jj has a job on thursdays now, escorting a 7 year old girl on the metro to go to gymnastics. the little girl is the daughter of a mom i know through conversation group. the girl is really beautiful. she is blond with blue eyes and is russian. jj gets 5 euros. she’s very excited about it.

work; taxman

first real day of work. people were very friendly and welcoming. we’re supposed to have 3 days of training. we worked all day with some help from our trainer and then there was a crisis on the current feature film. new scenes needed to be “laid out” and our trainer was needed in production. so we were told that we would not work the rest of the week and to come back on monday. fine with me. breaking into the work schedule slowly.

tax man............went to visit an american tax accountant who handles both US and french taxes. i had gotten various extensions so they are due oct 15. of course, this is a bit late to just be visiting the guy now, but i’ve been trying to do it myself with turbotax. turbotax is very confusing and i need help. it amazes me how difficult it is to figure out US taxes. i really believe that any high school graduate should be able to figure it out, and i don’t think our tax situation is that out of the ordinary. this year was a more difficult because of living in a foreign country. anyway, the tax guy was around 65/70 years and very slow. our conversation went at a snail’s pace with us repeating our questions and he going off on the wrong paths. it cost 250E and we didn’t get very far except to know that we didn’t want to work with him.

champagne tasting 2

when i accepted this short term work, i told them i would not be able to work on oct 4, because of a “previous engagement”. it worked out fine, because there was no training scheduled for that day. there was a one hour “launch” meeting in the morning for the new short film i would be working on. that was fine. i went to that and then went home ( 3 mins away) to prepare for the “previous engagement”. it was a champagne tasting that i organized because tove, the expert was in town. i have written about tove before. i met her during a 3 week intensive french course many years ago. she came to live in paris and p and i brought her to the champagne region to try different champagnes. she proceeded in becoming an expert and writing a book in norwegian about champagne. i had organized a champagne tasting and potluck lunch through the school mom group, back in march when she came to visit. it had been wonderful. so when she said she was coming again, i leaped at the chance to set up another tasting, with different champagnes. it’s a great deal for me, since i get to taste 5 or 6 champagnes of my choice and it is financed by others. i have a list from tove of recommended small producers. this tasting was being hosted in our new apartment, so not as stunning as the location of the last tasting, but slightly easier to arrange. i ordered the champagne through 2 different mail order companies and it was delivered to the door within a week, with minimal delivery charges. tove called up her friend, celine, who is an actual champagne maker, and invited her to come along. i was so excited to have this special guest!

i am still a bit lost with the different flavors. i can tell what i like at first, but then after several tastes and back and forth, i get confused... there are “cheap” tastes and “expensive” tastes, but i still do not have enough understanding of why. i need to pay more attention to the specific grapes used in each champagne.

we had 12 guests, all parents from the school, who were all very interesting and it was great fun. tove talked us through the production process of champagne and details of each particular bottle (which she had researched). i am attaching tove’s notes on the champagnes we tasted, below. i thought they were all good! celine’s champagnes were also excellent and a big hit. she brought 3 bottles from her vineyard and that was too many to try to taste, so we saved one of her bottles for later. some of the parents loved her champagne the best. she said that if they came out to the vineyard they were 17 euros each bottle. one mom was so excited, she said, “i’m coming this weekend!”

afterwards, tove took celine to visit the rodin museum and then brought her back to the train. (you can get to the champagne region in 45 minutes!) then tove ended up in a wine shop just as the krug champagne salesman arrived and insisted she try some of his wines.

i had to go drop maynard with the family who will “borrow” him for a few days, and went to a college talk (colleges giving presentations to students at the school). afterwards, i picked up some sea bass to grill and veggies from our old vegetable man. then, stopped at the brasserie across from our old apartment to get some oysters. oysters go really well with champagne. the minimum was 18 to take-away, since they had to put it on a platter. it was more than i had wanted, since i had thought of just getting a taste of oysters, but with the 3 of us adults, we would be able to eat them all. they were beautifully opened and laid out on a bed of ice, then wrapped in clear cellophane gift wrap and a big bow. i made the 15 minute walk home carrying them and all the other groceries.

i put olive oil, salt, herbs de provence on the seabass and let it sit.

tove came back from her day, p came home from work.

we had some champagne left in 4 of the bottles of the tasting, plus a whole extra bottle from celine. p got to do his own little tasting from this. we had oysters with it, sitting at the big french window, looking out into the evening. i put the fish onto the electric double grill and then jj joined us for a delicious meal.

TOVE’s CHAMPAGE NOTES:

1. Guy Charlemagne: Reserve Brut, Blanc de blancs, Grand cru

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger

A pure blend of different wines from chardonnay (different areas, different years) Dosage : 9 g/litre. A good aperitif champagne or with oysters.

A small producer in the heart of the Côte de Blanc area. Makes 130 000 bottles a year.

2. Pierre Peters Champagne: Cuvée de Réserve, Blanc de blancs Brut

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger

Another grand cru champagne. Assemblage of more than 15 different years, composed exclusively of chardonnays coming from several “Grand Cru” villages (“Grand Cru de la Côte des Blancs”. Dosage: 6 à 7 g /litre.

3. Larmandier-Bernier: Tradition, Premier Cru, Extra Brut (4 g/litre)

Vertus (in the very south of the Cote de Blancs)

Un assemblage de Chardonnay de la Côte des Blancs (80%) et de Pinots Noirs de Vertus (15%) récoltés à la main en 2008. Les vins de réserve issus de plusieurs millésimes précédents représentent environ un tiers de cette cuvée.

Brut champagnes normally has between 6 and 12 g/litre

4. Erick de Sousa : Tradition Brut

Avize

50 % chardonnay, 40 % Pinot Noir, 10 % Pinot Meunier. Dosage : 7 g/litre. Degorgement : 14.10.2010 (he always says on the label). Erick de Sousa is mostly renowned for his blanc de blancs champagnes. Focuses on old vines, no chemicals.

5. Champagne Bereche et Fils: Brut Reserve Premier Cru

Ludes, Montagne de Reims

Dosage : 9 g/litre. Assemblage: base 2007: 25 % Chardonnay, 25 % Pinot Meunier, 20 % Pinot Noir vinifié en fûts (20%) et en cuves émaillés. Fermentation spontanée et lente.

30 % de vins de réserve provenant de 2 années antérieures.

Passage en cave : 24 mois. Dégorgé a la main le 17 Aout 2010. (Tres rare)

Champagne Jacques Rousseaux, 3 cuvées.

Verzenay, a grand cru village. A family house run by Celine Rousseaux and brother Eric.

6. Le Tradition

A blend of 80 % Pinot Noir and 20 % chardonnay.

7. La Cuvée de Réserve

70 % Pinot Noir and 30 % chardonnay. Made from selected wines that are made from the best part of the must (the juice that comes out when the grapes are pressed at harvest)

8. La Grande Réserve

A blanc de noirs = made only from pinot noir grapes. The champagne has matured on oak barrels for a few months.

first day of work

first day of work. very excited to start, and of course, a bit nervous. had training in rcs system (how to check work in and out). it was in english. was with 2 young danish animators, who are interns. they are just finished with school ( a relatively well known animation school) and this is their required internship. one is a guy and the other a danish/asian woman. we trained for 3 hours and then were told to go home. that was it for the day. i cooked pasta and homemade tomato sauce with basil and mozzarella. tove bought “lapin/noisette pate” (rabbit and hazelnut pate) and we had some nice wine. i also grilled zucchini on my new 2 sided electric grill. very good.

tove arrives

was lovely weather – like a summer morning – we got back from dieppe in the afternoon. tove (our norwegian journalist friend) arrived and i fed her chinese dumplings. we opened a bottle of wine and were sad to have no cheese!

i start work tomorrow. am excited but also ambivalent. hope i do well, hope i will be able to be around for jj if she needs me. i know she is 15 and old enough to take care of herself, but also know that a parent has to keep eyes open with teenagers. i am happy to “take a break from not working”, by working. most of my life i have worked and work defined me. i love having time to paint ( though it’s been hard to make myself paint enough) but i’d like to make some money too..

will see how it goes.

rouen

we're in rouen at moment. heading to dieppe for the weekend. stayed here last night and went for lovely morning walk with maynard while jj slept. lots of beamed houses and more than one gothic cathedral.

Rouen cathedral is famous not only for being very gothic, but also for being the cathedral that monet painted, several paintings at a time, with different lights of the day.  according to wikipedia, a church was present on the site as early as late 300’s. it was rebuilt many times because of various incidents, including being struck by lightning several times. what does it say about a church that it has been struck by lightning so many times? maybe just that it’s very tall and it’s in a location where there are many storms...

jj and p both have colds and i'm hoping not to get it for my first week of work.

conversation group

hosted conversation group at my apartment. the last one before i start working.

painting "en plein air"

was waiting for cleaning man to come, but had no idea when he would– as he had to go to deal with french bureaucracy. had talked with dan about going out painting today, so when dan called i couldn’t stand being in anymore and just went to meet him. it took me a half hour to get to the luxembourg gardens where we would paint, and just as i arrived, my cell phone rang saying the cleaning guy was at my door waiting to get in. damn. so i told him i’d be back in an hour and a half and stayed to do a quick painting. the painting turned out really well (though i need another hour or so to finish it based on photos i took on site) and i was excited about this new experience. i had been putting off going outside to paint because i was hesitant (and afraid?). i just needed to do it. so now that i have done it, i understand it. it’s easy and good to do. having time limit makes me paint faster and looser.

exposed

jj has had knee aches for many years. we had gone to a physical therapist 4 years ago who gave her exercises that seemed to help. recently the problem has been bothering her again, so we went to a dr who recommended a foot doctor to make some inserts for her shoes, to relieve the problem. she has been a typical, sensitive teen of how things “appear” about her. she has not been happy about the idea of getting “old lady orthotics”. she says, “i’m too young to be an old lady”. we got the name of a specialist and it seemed like a convenient location near jj’s school. the appointment was conveniently scheduled for the morning so jj could go directly to school afterwards. in fact, the office was just across the street from her school. the office was on the first floor, the windows facing the street, with inadequate window coverings – so you could see in, if you looked hard. jj has been very modest in exposing her parts. (ie. would not consider going into a women’s group changing room in a store). she was wearing her typical very tight skinny jeans, but the doctor needed to see her naked knees as well as her feet. so she had to take off her jeans. then she had to stand on a box about 14 inches off the ground, which had a mirror on the bottom, glass on the sides and top, and a light shining up. this allowed the specialist to see the bottoms of her feet. so, there she was, a self-conscious adolescent, standing in front of the window, on a pedestal, lit from below, in her underwear, as kids from her school walked by. i could feel her discomfort. she looked out the window, waiting with dread that someone she knew would walk by and look in to see her, exposed. minutes went by as the specialist chatted, unaware of the situation. finally, she was allowed to stand down, with a sigh of relief.

brought maynard to visit new “second” family.  wanted to have him see their house with me and so it would not be totally strange to him on his first playdate.

dog loaning

went to the “cafe cosmos” for a coffee with a mom i knew last year, and the new california moms. 2 of the cal moms wanted to introduce me to another cal mom who is an artist. i brought the dog, because in france, you can do that. they cooed over him and he is so good and calm. they all miss their dogs that they had to leave in california, so i told them they could borrow maynard. they leapt at the idea. the artist claimed him first. since i will be starting work next week, i was wondering what i would do with him. i am nearby, but i don’t know if i will be able to leave work to go home every day at lunch to walk him. so we have arranged to have maynard visit the family for 2 days. this is perfect.

angry mom; painting session

7am, practically dark out still. though this week will be beautiful weather – like summer.

was lying in bed thinking about my mother. feel so sad for her. want to be with her and give hera hug and make her feel better. in her lucid moments apparently she is furious. one morning she went into the kitchenette and started throwing plates on the floor. this is NOT like her. she is basically a very kind, gentle lady, though previously very strict, but very fair mom. not only that, but breaking plates would be such a wasteful act - coming from a child of the war, who saved ziploc bags, plastic grocery bags, cardboard and rubber bands. she still had 1960's hellerware plastic plates (which i later sold for her at outrageous prices to a "retro" store in cambridge) on hearing about this fit, all i could say was "woah, really?"

i accepted the job at the animation studio. it is just short term, from oct 3 until christmas. that’s fine with me. it’s actually perfect.

today i went to try a group painting session. it was out of town slightly on the other side of paris, but i wanted to try anyway. i feel like i need company to get myself to paint and a fixed schedule. i learned about this painting group from a luncheon held monthly by an american club called AARO – “association of americans resident abroad”. i brought the current painting i started – “dieppe dog”. it is based on a blurry winter picture of maynard running on the beach at dieppe, a town on the northern french coast. i also brought a canvas that i had put down a layer of orange. i want to do a chimney painting on it. it was very good. i went and worked and worked. the woman who hosted the group – it was in her house – actually came around and gave comments and guidance. i didn’t actually want any advice, but in fact, it’s always good to have comments. she gave me some good advice. i was able to finish “dieppe dog” and was happy with it.

dan is coming to stay with us for 2 nights.

bird market

drives me crazy that we stay in on weekends. morning starts very slow, but here we are in paris PLUS it’s a beautiful day, and we’re hanging out inside – me on the computer...

so finally, dragged jj out at 2:30 to go do a quick paris visit. we went to the “bird market”. the flower and bird market is on ile de la cite – right between notre dame and saint chapelle. it’s been there since 1808. took 20 mins to get there, we wandered for 20 mins and headed home.

beautiful little birds and bird paraphernalia. also dwarf bunnies small puppies, guinea pigs and other small animals. they were a bit packed into their cages and i’m hoping that it’s not their normal lifestyle... it was a beautiful day and it satisfied my need to go out. we had to rush back because we had 2 other functions. i needed some photos of the girl that i am doing a portrait as a modiligiani and they were having a party after her confirmation today. they live just past the border of paris, not too far, but it takes 45 mins to get there. i got some nice photos and then we chatted for a little while and headed home. we stayed home only a half hour before we had to head out to dinner across town. our friend dan, was in town. he’s staying with marie for a few days. we went over for dinner. dan lived in paris for 20 years but has moved back to LA. meanwhile, his daughter has turned 22 and his son is 18. we hadn’t seen the kids for a while and they are no longer kids. they are fully formed grown humans now. his daughter, L is in art school and his son S starts music school tomorrow. marie’s daughter, C was there also, with a friend.