teenage sleep habits; packing

during the last days of school, jj had been going to bed later and later. finally, we let go and stopped trying to stay up to see her into bed. fine. we have to take care of ourselves. that was another one of those inflection points we noted. no more quiet time after the child is asleep. this week there is no school and no camp and i have given up trying to get her up before noon.

monday and tuesday we had promised to let her sleep as long as she wanted. it was her first days off. after that, i decided to continue to a degree. i would not stress too much about it.

go with the flow. i need to do my own things and not spend so much energy trying to get her to keep MY schedule. anyway, she IS a teenager and we know that they need more sleep. i remember the pleasure of sleeping really late. still it is hard to let go totally. i think as one gets older, time becomes more precious. we know that the minutes slip away into hours into days into years. so it bothers me. it feels wasteful, the same feeling as throwing away money. it is throwing away time. the mornings are gone. today we needed to get serious about packing our stuff. we are moving on friday. i had been packing things little by little and we don’t have too much stuff but i was afraid of being too relaxed. one always has much more than one thinks.

ziplining;lice?

there is a final party with the adaptation kids on the other side of parc st. cloud. it is a zipline party in the tree canopy. the others are taking a train from gare st lazare, but we can take the metro to the close side of the park and walk. it’s a 50 minute walk, but we’ll bring the dog and it will be pleasant. jj was at her sleepover and we were to meet at the park. her friend and family were driving but didn’t have space for all the girls. jj was supposed to meet us, but of course she and the girls slept very late and were slow in getting up. we were supposed to be there to get our lessons. we were late, but luckily, so was everybody else. it was very crowded. when we finally got to go up into the trees, it was slow going. there was climbing on rope nets and balancing over wobbly bridges. i was bored. “when are we going to get to zipline?” i thought. when i finally got to the zipline, i attached my harness and was TERRIFIED! i zipped along, way above the ground and screamed the whole way. it took a long time to get through one course because of the number of people. i think it took an hour, whereas it should’ve taken 20 minutes. there were several courses. i was exhausted by the end and decided i had had enough. so i took the dog and sat on the lawn and read instead. jj and p went to do another course and then jj had to go and say goodbye to all her friends. we walked back down the park, which was easier since it was downhill, and caught the metro home.

we had a lice warning last week – one of jj’s friend’s had it and told her friends to check. lice seems to be a part of normal life for city children. despite all the warnings in past years, jj never had them, but this time there seemed to be signs. without going into details, the main pain about it was that jj and p felt that i was overreacting and that the internet information was just old wives tales. their resistance to the treatments and recommended procedures just made more work for me. well, live and learn. i know how to do it now.

another sleepover

jj’s good friend/twin will be leaving paris to go to boarding school near boston. another friend will return to new orleans. her british friend will stay. the girls have all been saying to their parents, it’ll be the last time i see my friends. i need to see them. so tonight there is ANOTHER sleepover at a friend’s. (what kind of failed "tiger mom" am i !!??)

last potluck; jj party

libby and eric left at 5am to take the metro to the bus to the airport.

the school mom organization had its last potluck lunch today. i made chinese dumplings again. the potluck took place in a fabulous paris house with garden. i arrived at the outer edge of paris, only a few metro stops from home and walked down a street with modern buildings. they looked like they were built in the 60’s. i got to the address, and it didn’t look quite right, but the instructions were to go in and pass through a gate. in fact, the house and garden were hidden, surrounded by modern buildings. the house had probably stood alone on a big property and at some point sold the outer edge to developers. there was also a separate small building which had been converted into a loft-like studio apartment. the house was beautifully decorated. there were at least 4 seating areas in the beautiful garden. apparently, this is a garden district. i used google satellite maps later to confirm, there were many other houses like it in the area. the food at the potluck was excellent and ample, as always. thank you gifts were given out to people who helped with the parent organization throughout the year. this group is truly amazing and it’s been a very fun year (for the parents!).

today was the official last day of school for jj, having finished her internship. she had a very good week and it flew by. after the first day, she got herself to work and back on her own. she felt that her work improved. i hope she can go back and meet the architect sometime (he was away this week).

jj planned an early birthday party, since she knew everybody would scatter to the winds for the summer. she was to have 12 or 13 girls over, but at the last minute she checked with her friends and only her close buddies were still coming. i was proud of her reaction. she was certainly disappointed, especially for their flakiness, but also said, “too bad for them because we’re going to have a lot of fun and it’s their loss.” her best buddies came over – the girl gang of four. they went on their own to “carmine’s”, a good pizza/pasta joint with nice outdoor dining, near the eiffel tower. p and i went out too, and planned on meeting them afterwards. they took velibs around the champs de mars dropping them near the eiffel tower and then we all met at the bottom. jj was very excited with the idea of going up it at night. it had a very different ambiance and we especially enjoyed seeing the sparkling lights while standing on the eiffel tower. it was almost 1am when we got down. jj and the girls wanted to take bikes back to the front of the champs de mars and p and i approved. only after they went racing away to get the bikes did we have second thoughts about whether we were being responsible parents and chaperones for the others, allowing them to run off into the night, so late. we held our breath, holding our faith that paris was mostly safe, and relaxed when we saw them riding by excitedly screaming. they were wildly having fun as they raced each other across the champs de mars. we also noted the attention that this loud gang of girls was receiving from wandering groups of boys. it made us worry about the next year in paris with a teenage girl.

other internship story

had lunch with sandra & sara at” le timbre”, the restaurant near luxembourg gardens and vavin metro. the chef is british. (i've written about this restaurant already - but "le timbre" means postage stamp and it is a tiny restaurant). we all ordered the "rouget" - red snapper on top of mashed potatoes and it was excellent. sandra said it might have been one of the best meal she’s had in paris! it was delicious and the white rhone wine they recommended went just right with it. we also all had the home made "mille feuille" - napolean for dessert. that was fantastic too. just 3 pastry wafers with pastry cream between them. it was an indulgence for me. when we were leaving, i asked the chef what the special subtle taste was in the mashed potatoes. he said it was just parsley, but i had tasted something almost nutty. he said with a little embarrassed look, “well, it had a LOT of butter”. god. if a chef calls it a lot of butter, it was probably insane amounts. not good for the cholesterol, i’m afraid. and that, in addition to the dessert...

during lunch, sara told us about her son’s first day at his internship. he was working with an architect too. the architect called last week to say that he had to go out of town, “on-site” at his architectural project. he said that the son could go with him. they agreed to meet at the train station early monday morning. she had told us about this before, and we asked if she had ever met this man, who would take her 14 year old son to a remote corner of france. she had not, and she got a little nervous... anyway, she figured she’d meet him that morning and make any assessments. she told her son to be all packed and ready to go monday morning at 8:30 and to have the architect’s phone numbers. monday morning at 8:00, the son asks the mom, “where are the suitcases?” “what!? i told you that you had to be all packed and ready to go!” so they went down into storage to get the cases and were late arriving at the train. they did not have train tickets but knew at which carriage to meet him, but they couldn’t find him. she asked the son for the phone number, but he had only taken the HOME phone number. the son got on the train and the train left the station as she scrambled to call her husband to find the number. her son called to say that he was asked to leave his seat because it was a reserved seat of someone else. luckily, her husband found the email and the cell phone number. she got hold of the architect who was in the dining car getting a coffee, and he apologized to her. it all was fine in the end, but what stress watching your son leave on a train like that! the kids are still kids, but hopefully, they are learning to be more in charge of themselves.

marianne left today and her older son, eric will come over to stay. libby and he will leave in the wee hours of tomorrow morning (5am) to catch the bus to the airport in beauvais where they have cheap flights back to parma. libby is going to travel with eric around a few cities in italy. it has been so enjoyable spending time with libby and getting to know her. she has felt like a younger cousin to me and an older cousin to jj. it was cute to see them go off together shopping and hear them planning rendezvous after jj got off of work. she has invited jj to go visit her on her own, in parma sometime.

dinner with cousins

met my cousin and family and brought them to “cafe du commerce” across the street, since it was another brasserie that could handle 8-9 people. it wasn’t great. i have voted against them for a while now, as each time i go i am not too impressed. i tried something new tonight – cuttlefish, which i thought was the same as squid. i didn’t like it at all. it had a weird texture. some ordered the roast chicken which actually was very tasty. i still love their oysters also. afterwards, they went off to see the eiffel tower. again, i woke up at 3am, and libby was not home. i figured she was having fun at the champs de mars where a lot of young people hang out on a summer’s eve. again, they had gone to get velibs, even though we live close by, but they walked in the wrong direction and eventually walked in a big circle to get back.

fete de la musique

for many years now, paris has had a party on the summer solstice. it is the “fetes de la musique” or “festival of music”. apparently, there had been a blossoming music scene in paris many years ago but it was squashed when the government decided to tax any live music performed in public. the fete de la musique is an evening when anyone who has access to an instrument can bring it out and perform in public without “authorization”. the french love music, but mostly are really bad at it. the worst musicians, if you can even call them musicians, come out on this evening. jj’s violin teacher says that any real musician cringes and hides on this evening. but it is a BIG party. everyone is out wandering the streets, dancing and partying. it was such a success that it has spread around the world to different cities. i am all for celebrating the longest day of the year.

in fact, jj was supposed to have her last orchestra concert tonight. we had been toying with letting her quit the orchestra because it was much below her level and was demanding more and more time. i felt that she should finish out the year, as the conscientious thing to do. i figured we could go out to fete de la musique after her concert finished, but i assumed that the concert would be in paris. when i found out that in fact, it was out in the suburbs and did not start until 8:30 and knew their habit of having ALL the concerts play at the same concert for hours and hours, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. we decided to blow it off. it was just too much to ask of her, with her full time internship.

we planned to meet my cousin, marianne and the family (husband and sons) at brasserie balzar, located in the latin quarter, a great animated neighborhood. the metros were packed at 8:00 in the evening, a hint of things to come. brasserie balzar had been a famous brasserie in the old days. about 15 years ago, it had been bought by a big chain. there had been an outcry that such an institution should become part of a corporation. as i recall, the faithful clients decided to protest, by going there and having dinner... they were unable to stop the deal from going forward in spite of their radical action, and as they had feared, the quality went down. dinner tonight wasn’t great, but it was a place where 9 people could sit together for a french dinner. the young men of the group ate impressive quantities of food.

they told us about their tourist day from hell at versailles. it was quite an interesting story for us to frame our life here.  my cousin's husband is an upper level manager in new york. i always knew him as an easy going guy, but now he has spent many years as a manager. he admitted that certain things push his buttons and one of them is workers talking on cell phones when they should be working. the ticket seller was making them wait while she talked on the phone to her friend and it made him mad. he had very limited french so all he could say to her was “vite!” [quick!], which of course made it a situation. it pissed her off and she sat there and stared at him, refusing to sell his ticket. the two of them stood there for minutes angrily staring at each other while the guard asked the ticket lady, what was going on. finally, my cousin and family just walked away. so, she won, they lost and all had bad vibes. i didn’t get a chance to tell him about p’s theory of the basic difference in attitude between france and the US. the US is a CONSUMER favored society, where the customer is the important party. making the customer happy is the goal. france is a PRODUCER society, where the producer is favored. the worker is most important. it’s more important to make the salesperson in the shop happy, rather than the customer. it favors the teachers over the students, the salespeople over the customer. this actually explains why the teachers don’t seem to care if the students learn.

in day to day life in france, it’s not worth the confrontation. it’s like in martial arts, when you are taught to take the negative energy (from a punch or a kick coming at you) and divert it or redirect it, rather than try to confront it head on by force. sometimes, though, it’s hard to resist getting mad. i had a phone interaction with a big store the other day, and finally hung up in frustration. “pas de tout” (not at all, no way) they always say, when you ask if it’s possible to get some sort of satisfaction for bad service or unclear conditions.

after dinner, we walked to the ile st louis to have berthillon ice cream and sorbets. i have to agree with popular opinion that this is one of the best ice creams and sorbets in the world. i also love having it while standing at the side of the seine on the ile st louis, looking over at the back of notre dame cathedral on a summer’s evening. libby’s cousin sam came to join us. sam grew up in greenwich connecticut, had gone to john hopkins and was currently doing an exchange at science polytechnic in paris – the harvard of france.

on the way to ice cream and while standing there, we heard some really bad music, but it was a real party. jj loved it. she wanted to stay out all night, but it was 11:30 and she had to go to “work” the next day. so i dragged her away from our little party. we walked to our subway line and the trains were on their normal late evening schedule – namely, not so often. the platform got more and more crowded with people heading home (even though the streets were still full). everybody pushed onto the train, which was already quite crowded. the doors had trouble closing. we were glad to be on the train. at the next stop many people got off, as they were just starting their evening and we were able to get seats, while the train refilled to the brim. we were lucky. jj admitted to me as we got to our street, that she was indeed tired and was glad to be home. p had gone off to wander some more that evening and when he came home he could barely get on the train. libby stayed longer with the family and they ended up in a bar where a few of them were smoking flavored tobacco from water pipes! that is a recent fad around here, but i couldn’t imagine the family hanging out around a hookah...

her cousin, sam brought her to the subway, which at that point had stopped running. there had been talk about the subway running all night, but it seemed unimaginable that the french workers would accept that. they tried to take velib bikes back, but there were none of those around either, of course. not knowing the city at all, she was very nervous about how she would get home. sam ended up walking her home and she got back around 3am. i was a little concerned when i woke up and she wasn’t home, but then i heard her coming up the stairs and figured she just had a good party evening.

internship with master model maker

today was the first day of jj’s internship. i accompanied her to the marais, to the office. she is in a really cool neighborhood. she is at a stage where she still wants a little guidance, but doesn’t want to be seen with a parent. so i dropped her in the courtyard of the office and waited a few minutes there until it was clear that she had gotten in. she will be doing model making with a master model maker in the paris office of the japanese architect, shigeru ban. as i have already mentioned, he is the architect who designed the “centre pompidou” in metz, france, with the french partner jean degastine, our friend’s brother. when she came back, we were all interested to hear how it had gone. p asked, “did they tell you ‘t’es null!’ like the french teachers?” [you are zero!]. she said that she had spent 2 and a half hours making a toilet out of paper and when the master came to look at it he said “it’s a catastrophe! start again!”. this is even worst than being told you are zero. but then she did it again and he said it was better. so that was an improvement. even encouragement. half of the office is japanese and half is french. they speak english to each other, so we figured jj would end up speaking english most of the week. she said that in fact, she is speaking mostly french, since the master is french.

i think the whole concept of the internship is great. all these 9th graders go out into the world and get a taste of what working at a job is like. 8 hour days. actually, today she arrived at 9 and was supposed to leave at 5, but kept working with the rest of the people. at 6:00 she said, “i have to go home”. the secretary in charge of her said, “oh, yes, yes, you should go home”. the kids choose something they think they might be interested in and even if they decide it’s really not for them, they’ve learned something valuable.

biking and cocktails

we girls went biking along the seine on the highway they close on sundays. (i know i’ve said it already, but one of my favorite things to do.) we parked our bikes at the hotel de ville and went into the marais to shop and have lunch. we went to my favorite felafel place (“l’as du felafel”). shopping with libby is interesting. having been a buyer for a department store, she knows her stuff. she can tell good quality in subtleties that i miss. she said that the shoe store that we live next to, had some very well made shoes. i was glad to hear it since i thought the prices were just ridiculous. today was father’s day, but we didn’t do anything for p except leave him to his own devices. later in the day, we hosted a “neighbor’s” cocktail party again. we had a small group of parents come over. the french like cocktail parties, or as they are called, “aperitif”. it is a great little format for a party. just a few drinks and snacks for a couple of hours of chatting in the early evening and then people go on their way. libby went off to meet her aunt, my other cousin, and her family, who arrived tonight.

caillebotte exhibit

libby had gone to italy for her junior year in college. she was a “classics” major. after graduating, she worked for a couple of years as a buyer for macy’s. she then decided she wanted to live in italy so picked herself up and just went. people all wonder why she wanted to do that. i wondered why, even though i did the same thing. i could see how people would have wondered at my similar choices. she got an apartment and a job teaching english. she has made friends there. i’m proud of her for doing it. i hadn’t known libby very well before. her mom, my cousin, is exactly my age. i already was living far away when libby was growing up. i would see her from time to time. i only knew her as a little kid. but now she’s 25, an adult. she’s a great person. i really enjoy her company. jj and libby went shopping together. jj wanted to bring libby up and down our shopping street. it was cute. in the afternoon, we went to see the “caillebotte” exhibit. he is a lesser known impressionist painter. i have always loved his painting of the floor scrapers. the painting has good movement, good technique and an interestingly weird subject. the light reflecting on the floor and the little wood shavings got me...

doggy procedure

i brought the dog to the vet to get a further test of lyme disease. the doctor said she needed to do a urine test. i asked if i had to “harvest” it. she said, no, she would take care of things. when we got to the office, there was an assistant and a 14 year old intern. she seems to have lots of 14 year old interns (same age as jj – who will do her internship next week). anyway, she needed to get urine and i was curious how she would do this. maynard got up on the table, obedient as always. the vet pulled out a long clear tube. “oh”, i said to myself. the assistant held maynard. i held maynard’s head, trying to keep him calm. the vet then raised the table and squatted down next to him. i couldn’t see much from my angle, but there was a lot of grunts and fiddling with both hands (no gloves!) and more grunts and groans (on her part). this didn’t seem to be going easily. maynard had one of those typical dog faces of minimal expression, who’s eyebrows seemed to indicate concern and confusion and “what’s going on?” with slightly widened eyes. he was VERY patient and tolerant. at one point, the vet’s long blond hair seemed to be getting in the way and she took her gloveless hands off maynard’s private member and carefully put her hair behind her ears (“ick!”, i thought). after more grunting (her tongue sticking out in intense focus), she stood up and went to the other room. she came back with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a new, thinner tube. more grunts and finally, she came away with a sample. she had the young intern hold the top of the tube (without gloves!) while she found various testers. she did a first test to see if there was a need to go further in testing. she determined that there was a need and another 80 euros later, we walked with our packaged sample to the drop it at the post office. (this is how many medical tests are done in france, the patient has to walk the sample to mail it themselves or deliver it to the lab – this was true of my amniotic fluids 15 years ago.)

later that day, my cousin’s daughter, libby who is 25 and living in parma, italy, arrived for a visit. she took a cheap flight with ryanair – 25 euros or so each way. she will stay with us for a week. on sunday, my other cousin, (libby’s aunt) will be arriving with family to visit paris.

we decided to go out to the brasserie near the champs de mars, for dinner. “le suffren” is a very reasonably priced brasserie with good seafood, a nice ambiance and fairly quick service. afterwards, we walked the block over to see the eiffel tower and watched it glitter (which it does every hour for a few minutes)

jj in honors ceremony

i went back to grand palais museum to see the “odilon redon” exhibit- interesting. i took the metro to ‘invalides’ and took a velib bike across the river to the museum. odilon redon is part of the “symbolism movement” which took place in the late 1800’s. his early stuff was dark, almost “alfred gorey”-like in black and white. then he went to work in color and the paintings were very beautiful and mystical looking.

after the exhibit, i biked all the way home. mostly it was along bike paths and in parks. really no busy street biking. it all depends on where you are going.

that night, we went to an award ceremony, where jj got an honor. you may remember my confusion earlier in the year when jj got what seemed like average numeric grades but got an A+ overall grade. this happened for her second group of grades as well. i accepted it for whatever it was. i knew that the french culture of grading was “deflated” rather than “inflated” and the fact that much of it was in a foreign language made me fairly forgiving of them. i haven’t ever pushed for any particular grades from her. (i’m such a FAILURE as a “tiger mom”!) jj has always been a conscientious student. she works pretty hard and takes pride in her grades herself. then she got this letter saying that she would receive an honor, and i was still pretty confused and unsure. we figured out that the honor is similar to the old fashioned “honor list” – given to the top 10 percent of the student. jj and her “twin” friend were the only kids from the adaptation class to receive the award, which seemed in keeping with the 10% number - the top 2 out of 24 students. anyway, this did reveal to me that she was the 2nd in her small class. i have to admit, i was proud and impressed.

maynard on tv talk show

i was on my normal morning run with maynard, the dog, in the champs de mars. it was around 8:30. i have been taking a picture of the eiffel tower every morning from the same spot and will put it together in an animation. so i went to my normal spot and took the photo for the day. there was some sort of film shoot happening right there on the lawn. a man and woman were sitting in fancy chairs next to a piano and a crew of camera people in front of them. maynard started going towards them and i called him back. but then the woman, who was blond and young and pretty said “oooh doggy! come here doggy!” (in english). so the crew waved me on saying, “allez-y, madame”, [go on, madame]. i said “it’s an english speaking dog...” turns out it was an american late night show filming in paris. craig ferguson interviewing kristen bell. so, if we don’t get cut, maynard and i (wearing my grundgy running outfit) will be on late night TV in the first week of august. (CBS/MSNBC). that’s what i love about paris. anything can happen and lots of things do. stay tuned for more!

out, out and out some more

in conversation group, larissa was talking about another interview she had to try to get citizenship. she seemed to be saying that she actually was interviewed by the french minister of foreign affairs. wow. doesn’t he have bigger things to do than interview people for citizenship? i must have misheard. 

then went to meet a mom for lunch at "cafe constant". this is the cafe owned by the famous chef, christian constant.  we were scheduled for lunch on thursday, but she wanted to do it today instead.  i knew exactly what to order.  he is famous for the "filet du bar", a grilled sea bass (i think) with a wonderful crispy skins erved on a puree of sweet potato.  p had ordered it the last time we were here.  it was delicious.

didn’t get much work done today because, then in the evening, i went to a pot luck dinner with the smith college club. it was in a nice apartment in a fabulous building. it was a renovated hotel particulier (private mansion). i video’d it for jj, since she likes seeing fancy apartments. it had an impressive entry courtyard. once you entered through the enormous doors, you had to go to one hall to ring the apartment, then go to another door across the courtyard to enter, then pass an incredibly grand stone staircase (featured on the cover of a new book on fabulous french staircases), then go down a little hallway to an elevator, which was sent down for you. i felt like i was in “get smart”. the apartment was a very livable size, with spiral staircase going up to bedrooms. plus there was a nice private terrace big enough for a table and 4 chairs and a lounger, which looked down on the manicured center formal garden. i enjoy hanging out with the smithies. it’s funny to feel a connection with a bunch of women of the full range of ages from just graduated to 80+ year olds. it’s also fascinating to hear their stories, especially the older women who came over for junior year abroad after “the war” and met a french guy and stayed. they are all pretty sharp and fairly accomplished. one woman, who seems so american, having grown up and been educated there, says she considers herself french, since she has lived her whole adult life in france. 

anyway, the food was very good, fairly healthy with lots of salads.

leviathan

today was day off for “pentecost”.  i was reminded how cool it was to be living in paris. after jj got up very late, we just “popped” over to the grand palais to see an exhibition. it took us an hour and a half to go, see the show and come back. luckily we went at lunch time, so the line wasn’t too long. every year an artist is asked to build a sculpture to best utilize the enormous space of the grand palais. anish kapoor, an english/indian artist, made a bulbous organic shape that looked and felt like a giant mutant purple exercise ball. it was sort of a cross shape – with a center part and 3 balls extending off of it. it was quite gorgeous and very cool. i decided that it was one of those artworks which was cool not for any deep meanings (that it may have), but just because someone actually went and made it. first you enter the big display space and walk around the monster. then you “enter the beast” by going through airlock doors – because it is INFLATED like an exercise ball. it was cloudy when we went so we couldn’t see much through the ball, but on sunny days i think, you can see the light coming through the glass dome ceiling of the grand palais.  in fact, it was quite womblike.  i heard there was a concert given inside.  jj and i had lunch at the snack bar there, looking at the leviathan.  then went home.

eating out too much

jj slept very late and we all went to cafe commerce on the park, for lunch salad/pizza/burger dining outside. very nice. then i went to a gallery where there was supposed to be a brunch. since i couldn’t get info on it ahead of time, i just showed up during normal gallery hours. they had had a brunch and it was winding down. i got to see many paintings of a new artist acquaintance and others. very much like my style of painting. right in neighborhood of new apt. later, p and i were invited to dinner at tom and becca’s. it was an anglophone doggy parent party. 4 couples who know each other through the dogs. tom and becca from LA; bob and anne, americans, long time residents of paris; susan and steven from england, and us. becca has been taking private cooking lessons and she and tom whipped up a fancy french meal. was excellent. fois gras appetizer, pork loin in cream sauce, potato gratin, full cheese course, dessert – wild strawberries, blackberries, raspberries with butter cookies on the side.

i was telling the story of my friend from conversation group, larissa, a russian going for french citizenship. she has had various interviews where they ask questions about very private things, making various embarrassing implications and being very aggressive. they said if your kids are in an international school – you’re not really integrating, you’re holding on to other cultures. you speak russian at home. not good. then bob told me that he and anne applied for french citizenship a few years ago. they went through the same thing. the questions were very blunt and put him on the defensive. at one point they asked if he belonged to any associations. he said, “well, yes, i’m a member of the “AACCM - association des amis des chiens de champs de mars”. (“the association of friends of dogs of the champs de mars”). “ah oui? what is that?” apparently it changed the entire tone of the conversation, with the interviewer asking many questions about dogs etc. made me laugh. he got his citizenship.

anyway, that was 5 meals in the last 3 days that i ate out, which makes me nervous - too many calories that way.  eating out makes it difficult to keep fat intake down.

party at marie's

jj was out all day at parc d’acclimatization with friends. – a sort of mellow french amusement park. she came back at 5. p and i took long walk in 17th arrondissement, exploring.

then in the evening, marie m had a party. her 49th birthday, invited her friends and her 19 and 20 year old kids and their friends. was funny mix. kids seemed happy enough to have friends, food (lots of fish) and drink and music. they played dancing music from 50’s, 60’s, 70’s (chuck berry, beatles, abba and b 52’s). interesting mix. then it switched into arabic music and a marie and a few women friends dancing arab style. the kids disappeared pretty quickly. very funny. jj felt out of place, so left early to go home. also attending was an old friend from early computer graphic days. daniel is still working with film having started a film processing company. interesting. his 20 year old daughter came later. we had spent a vacation together when she was 3. weird. all these kids i knew when they were 2 and 3 are now in 20’s. in fact, i made a “faux pas” when i said to jj, “oh, why don’t you hang out here in the kitchen with the kids”- using the french words “les enfants”. “what!? KIDS!?” they cried, insulted. americans will refer to “college KIDS” or “KIDS just out of college”. but i guess in french, “les enfants” might imply more “infants” or “little kids”. ah, makes me laugh.

lunch and dinner out

today, school moms from adaptation group, at “leo le lion” in 7th near rue cler. was told they have a 12.5 euros menu which includes main course and glass of wine. originally set for 1:00, one mom asked to make it at 12 so she could get to her other activity. so we did, begrudgingly, and of course, she never showed up. i asked for the “carte” and they brought the “a la carte” board which had plates at 22-28 euros. hmm. sort of pricey. there were no prix fixe meals shown– so i learned, you have to ask for the “menu” where the “formules” are shown - 3 course meals for originally 25 euros, but that was crossed out to a sale reduced price of 22 euros, too much food and still not what i was looking for. so finally, i asked, “i heard that you have 12 euro menu “ – “ah oui – but only a plate of the day and a glass of wine for 12.50 “– choice of confit canard or salmon. exactly what we all wanted. we all ordered that. it was delicious and a great deal!

then – dinner at virginie’s, the friend that p met in cuba many years ago. she wants me to do a portrait of their daughter as a modigliani. got to meet her brother for the first time. raoul, her husband is from senegal and is in restaurant work. he made a delicious fresh linguini with homemade aioli (garlic mayonnaise) and fresh shrimp and raw veggies. doesn’t sound good, but was excellent. i made apricot almond tarte, which i was pleased to see finished off.

doggy party

the AACCM, or “association des amis des chiens de champs de mars” (association of friends of dogs of the champs de mars) is an association of dog owners who fought to have more rights for their dogs at the champs de mars (park under the eiffel tower). they fought to allow dogs in the park as well as be off leash in certain areas. it’s not a “right” or a “law” but a “tolerance”. the park guardians are always chasing after the dogs on the lawn or off leash in the wrong places. it costs 15 euros a year to join and p and i are members. we love the idea of the association and the idea of belonging to it.  we laugh just reciting its full name.  they have little morning coffees on the first saturday of every month during the spring. today they were having their last event before the summer. this was a cocktail hour potluck. mostly older ladies, none of my normal buddies – were they the regular 7pm crowd? dogs were very badly behaved – table was leaning against park bench which small dogs jumped on to eat off table, large dogs ate directly off table, medium dogs put paws on table and grabbed food. one older lady just taking pieces of cake and handing them to the dogs! i was shocked at the behavior. i made chinese dumplings (just fried store bought frozen dumplings). they were a big hit. one lady said, “oh, these are delicious!” and kept stuffing them in her mouth. it made me laugh (since i do that too sometimes!).

tea at the mosque

conversation group met at mosque of paris which has nice tea room with outdoor patio.  being the end of school, people are extra busy.  there were only 3 of us out of 12.

was afraid of rain, but turned out to be nice day, though a little overcast. also has lovely restaurant with all the arabic tile. serves couscous etc. we had mint tea and some middle eastern pastries. went into the actual mosque later. didn’t know you could do that. embarrassed that i never had gone in before. really beautiful garden in the center of the walls. a sanctuary. felt tranquil. there in the middle of bustling city. there’s also a hammam, muslim steam baths– but it alternates men and women days and tuesdays are men days. i want to organize our group to go for a hammam. get naked!! (or wear a bathing suit). afterwards, went to apartment of another mom from the school, for a trunk show of beautiful jewelry. i just went to socialize and take a look. not cheap and certainly not justifiable for me to drop 250 Euros for a nice necklace. so i didn’t. the mom, mariko is from japan and very beautiful and classy. i think she is married to an american. she lives very close to our new apt.

tea with lisa

lisa, jj’s violin teacher was in paris visiting with her sister, sara. we arranged to meet at a cafe near the river and near the eiffel tower. was great to see them and catch up a bit.

metz weekend

friday i dropped maynard at madame’s (dog sitter) because we are going to metz for saturday/sunday; for dinner, family went to mirama chinese restaurant with melinda (a doggy mom friend). 

saturday train to metz – very quick - an hour and half.  – went to see new metz pompidou – designed by jean degastine and shigeru ban

(jj will have internship as model maker at shigeru ban’s architecture company)  nice lines.  use of "basket weave structure.   jj’s comments – cheap looking roof; 

wandered town. 

sunday visited cathedral – very very tall.  lunch and home.

beggars

it’s a day off – ascension. the month of may has 3 holidays in france. their own labor day, victory 1945 day and ascension. (pentecost?) when we were living here before, i remember one may had 3 long weekends out of 4. but the french don’t usually “carry over” holidays. so if a holiday falls on a sunday, they don’t get the monday off. so this year, all the holidays seem to fall on a sunday. this one, though is on a thursday, so the french will take the friday off (called the “pont” or “the bridge”), making it a 4 day weekend. they all head out somewhere and the traffic is crazy. i was listening to the radio yesterday and was very glad i wasn’t travelling.

this morning, i took maynard for his morning run. on the way back i went to our local bakery, (which happens to be famous – it is VERY good). there is a regular beggar there, an older man. the beggars tend to sit next to bakery doors or bank cash machines. having lived in new york for years during the 80’s, i don’t normally give money to beggars. but this one got me. they all say hello, but one day, he said it in such a way, maybe i was too close, that i had to say bonjour back. after that, he had me. i felt obliged to give him money whenever i walked by him. i had a discussion with p about how much you should give a beggar, if you should give money at all. his view was that one should give a substantial amount (like 20) or none, that it was pointless to give a little change. (just to point out here, also, that p believes that when you go to a casino, you should put all your money on one bet because, he insists, you have the same odds as when you spread out your bets, and it wastes less time. he also has the boy shopping style which is, if he’s looking for a pair of pants and he goes in a shop and they have a pair of pants that fits, he buys it.) anyway, i used to give this guy my little change, equaling less than 1 euro. then i started giving him a 1 euro piece. i tried to calculate how much money this guy was making, because i would see him for a day or 2 and then he would disappear for a while. someone else would take his post, but then he’d be back the next week. he seemed to have a schedule and i figured he made enough money in a few days to take a break. i asked p how often he thought someone came into the bakery. he said, “all the time” maybe every 30 seconds. in fact, when i paid attention, i saw that in the morning, they STREAM into the bakery. and a good percentage of them give the guy money. this morning i saw him again, at the bakery. the guy in front of me greeted him, familiarly and said, “j’arrive” – meaning “i’ll be right back to give you my regular donation”. i decided that i was giving him too much money when he saw me coming, and practically leaped up to say enthusiastically “ah, BONJOUR, madame!”. i had to laugh out loud.

school trip to london; potluck

jj went on a school trip today to london. it was not lost on her, how special this was. she said, “imagine, that here, a school trip is: “la, la, off to london to shakespeare’s globe theatre for the day!”. they all met at 6:15 in the morning at the eurostar station, to go through the “chunnel”. they were going to see “much ado about nothing”. she quite enjoyed it, saying that the acting was very good. apparently, the boys didn’t appreciate it as much. she said they looked bored. then, they had to leave the theatre 4 minutes before it ended to catch the train home. they had to run through the streets to the station. one girl, had 300 euros with her, and it fell out of her purse during the run. she thought she also had lost her passport, but in the end, it was found. our question, as was everyone’s was WHY had she brought 300 euros to start with? i was pleased that jj’s analysis was that the girl had brought it to show-off. 

meanwhile, that evening, sandra, who is in the conversation group, and is also a mom of one of jj’s good group of friends, hosted an evening pot luck dinner to include the husbands. our conversation group has been very good fun, as well as very helpful to our french language skills. apparently, many of the husbands have been jealous and want to be part of the fun. sandra and family have a beautiful, high ceilinged, classic french apartment facing trocadero. she is a wonderful decorator and the home is very classy. 

originally, the plan was that roland, sandra’s husband would pick up the girls from the train station when they arrived back from london at 9:30pm. they would come back to this apartment, where there would be food and we could go home together. the plan evolved so that the girls just took the metro together. of course, the idea of sleepover was floating around there. jj had not gotten enough sleep for days, between various school projects and getting up early for this trip. this is always my concern, as this eventually leads to her getting sick. then, another one of the friends was going to go home first and then join them for the sleepover. sleepovers are a sure formula for grave overtiredness. so i was a bit resistant to the idea. in front of the other parents, jj was imploring me to stay over. 2 other moms were so charmed by jj, they took her side. “oh come on, she’s so adorable! let her sleep over”. then one of them, a very funny and dynamic british ex-tv journalist started calling me “tiger mum”(reference to the controversial book in the US about chinese moms). i found this entertaining and then she was apologizing but coming back to it. finally i was pleased to say, “ladies, butt out!” which was sort of a half joke, because i had already decided that it would probably be fine. i was just holding out so it wouldn’t be so easily had. i had to discuss privately with jj the condition that she be absolutely in bed trying to sleep by midnight whether the others were in bed or not. jj promised. we’ll see if it comes true. anyway, the next day was a day off.