art, food, leaks and spa

went to art gallery to an exhibit organized by a school mom, of photographs of egyptian rebels of the “arab spring”. the photographer lit the photos dramatically, like caravaggio; they were beautiful, but it was quite the aggressive sales pitch. she had said there would be a gallery talk of “contemporary art market”, but it was instead all about the quality of the photographs, how long they would last and why one should buy one.

afterwards went to the hammam with louise.  the hammam is a public steam bath in the mosque of paris. part of the muslim culture.  it was very “middle eastern” in its worn off paint. i hadn’t been in decades and wasn’t sure of the protocol. we used to go to the japanese spa in san francisco together. so we just got naked and put our clothes into the locker – which cost 1 euro to lock. we walked out into the room and saw that everyone was wearing bathing suit bottoms and some bathing suit tops. hmm. not sure if we’re making a faux pas here, being totally naked, but we weren’t going to spend an extra euro each to open up the lockers. so we just wrapped our towels on our bottom halves. we just went to the various steam rooms. i didn’t get a massage or gommage. the last time i had that, in morocco last year, they scrubbed and scrubbed my skin very hard, and it HURT! so i decided that i wasn’t into it this time. we just sat and sweat. afterwards, we had mint tea in the tea room. came home and painted.

got sick of the leak in the kitchen so went to the hardware store to find some pieces to hack a solution. want to run the water down to the sink. i ended up using tarp taped into a tube and guided the water straight down to the sink. it worked perfectly. now no more emptying plastic containers twice a day! made dinner – salmon teriyaki. bought more cheese for the appreciative maguires. got some st marcelin, brebis, edam with cumin seeds, and reblochon. we were talking and their oldest daughter c, turns 18 soon. so incredible. she was saying she wanted a big present for her big birthday. her parents said “present! what do you mean, present? you’re going to have to start paying rent!” i laughed and then said, “yes, that could be the present – first month free!”. it has been so much fun having them here. we hadn’t seen them in so long and we have laughed a lot.

more art and food

went with maguires to musee d’orsay, then popped over to the louvre food court for lunch – not too cheap. came home to paint

art and food

taught art class – worked on colored paper and conte crayons – still life. 

afterwards, i painted – working on horse. 

 for dinner we and the maguires had oysters and champagne, milanese veal prepared by the butcher, roast eggplant, red pepper, and feta pasta; good cheese plate – epoisse, camembert, comte, rocamadore chevre, st emilion wine . delicious and fun to share.

flea market

the maguires wanted to go to the giant flea market, at clignancourt.  unfortunately for them, we are having a cold wave.  it’s not normally this cold.  anyway, we wandered through the lanes of the flea market.  20 years ago, they had been here and found a dealer who specialized in devil things.  the kids told me that the devil candlesticks that she bought are her most cherished possession.  they actually recognized the area and said, they thought the devil man was nearby.  it turned out that we were right there at the precise spot, but he was closed.  the neighbor gave us all the info and i will contact him to see if he has a website.  afterwards, we walked to sacre coeur, then thru montmartre, then to see the moulin rouge.  they wanted to go to pere lachese, the famous cemetary, but we stopped in belleville to go to a chinese restaurant i knew.  “le president” has very cool decoration, but unfortunately it wasn’t fabulous.  we had dim sum. afterwards, they went on to pere lachese. i went home to paint.  they went out for dinner to see another old friend.

brunch, then more visitors

snowed last night. a thin layer of snow everywhere. not too cold. maynard and i went to the champs de mars this morning (as most mornings).

then made brunch for our friends who had commissioned a painting of their daughter in the style of modigliani. i finally finished that painting. it was very difficult. as i have already mentioned, some of modigliani’s portraits didn’t look like the subjects, so it was interesting to make a painting in his style and also make it LOOK like the subject. i tried several different directions and it took me around 3-4 months. i am pleased with the finished product. today i presented it to them. it seemed that they loved it.

we wanted to make an “american brunch”. the woman is french and a camerawoman (p met her on his trip to cuba 16 years ago). her husband is senegalese. their daughter is around 13 years old. we made pancakes served with maple syrup, blueberry sauce or fresh strawberries. they liked that enough to take the recipe. actually, jj made the pancakes. jj had also bought bacon from the new “marks and spencers” shop on the champs elysees. she says that they don’t have the right kind of bacon in france. i think it’s fine. but this bacon was really english “rashers” which i like better than american, since there is more meat and less fat. then, since it was really lunchtime, i made “tortilla soup”, an old favorite.  went well, though maybe a weird combination of foods.

that evening, our good friends, the maguires arrived. i knew g and l from my time working in ireland. we travelled much of ireland together. then they were in san francisco when we were there. our kids are like cousins. we were a tribe. we moved away and they moved back to northern ireland a few years ago. anyway, we wanted to bring them to our favorite local bistro, “au roi du cafe”, but when we arrive they were closed! so we had sushi instead. they seemed to be happy enough with that! we are all squished into our apartment, the 4 maguires sleeping in the living room.

movie “family with teenager” style

jj got up early on a saturday! why? to study, to practice, to work, to do her chores? of course not. she had a shopping opportunity, so she was motivated to get up. her friends discovered a “forever 21” shop (american very stylish and very inexpensive clothes) on the outskirts of paris, and one of the moms was going to drive them there. she was out the door by 9. then she went to lunch at a korean restaurant with one of her friends. i tell you. the life of a euroteen...

back home, she’s supposed to practice and vacuum. she of course, has loads of school work. but then a friend called and said she was going to a movie, the new “sherlock holmes” and jj needed to go with her. the friend was going with a guy and he was bringing his friends and she didn’t want to be the only girl, so it was necessary for jj to go. we wanted to see the movie too. we knew enough to ask her permission. can we go to the movie in the same theatre? of course, we won’t sit with you, or even show that we know you. the answer was “no”. so p and i had to go to a different theatre, on opposite side of paris from her. that’s what it’s like with a teen.

we really liked the film. very well done. of course, one should never be too critical of the less-than-believable events in any hollywood action fiction. nevertheless, i was slightly disappointed that the prime motivation of the villain, in the end, was money. it just didn’t seem evil enough. too banal. power would have seemed much more appropriate. however, p’s main complaints concerned the landmarks of paris. “unbelievable that the heros seemed to get from notre dame to the opera in 5 minutes! and that was BEFORE the metro was installed. and then the deduction of holmes that the villain was going to the gare du nord train station because it was the closest to the tuileries where he sat, whereas in fact, at that time, there was the gare d’orleans which was much closer!” spoken like a true geography geek!

of course, those facts would be of little concern to a story person. artistic license. though, there were definitely some other weaknesses in the story. they spoke at the end about “the twins”. what twins? there had been no discussion about twins that i had caught. the twins ended up being somewhat key to a holmes deduction. nevermind. i remember that at my last game job one of my colleagues, a 20 something woman, referred to robert downey jr as “the old, sexy guy”. i personally considered him neither old nor sexy. oh well, different perspectives to remind me of my advancing age.

my phone started ringing towards the end of the film. i knew it was jj since she had started her film 45 mins before we had. if i tried to turn off the loud ringer, it would’ve been 10 seconds of irritating noise during the climax of the film, so i figured out a new strategy. i sat on it and that silenced it very well! p had wondered how i had turned it off so quickly.

cosi lunch, indian dinner

i painted this morning. am working on a commission of an icelandic pony. i realized that this is a good direction to go. people with horses LOVE their horses and would love paintings of them. people with horses are often able to afford a painting of their horse. will pursue this. 

with the end of our time in paris in sight, i am trying to get out and about the city more. recently, i had passed by a special sandwich shop that i remembered from when i lived here 15 years ago. it’s called “cosi” and they make their own sandwich bread right there. i guess this doesn’t sound too special since all the bakeries in france make sandwiches from their own bread too, but this shop also makes really interesting sandwiches. they sold their concept to an american company, so there is a sandwich chain in the US also called “cosi” but i think this is better than the chain. anyway, i had been wanting to go back and try the food there again. i needed to pick up our malaria pills for india. these are going to be very expensive. i found a discount drug store in the same area, so i went to cosi for lunch. it was delicious! home baked thin foccacia and very interesting combinations.  a good place to know in the st. germain area. 

i passed by a bakery which is part of a chain called “paul”. they had written above their door “pain rustique et de fantasie”, literally “rustic bread and bread of fantasy”. i laughed. only in france would they have fantasies about bread. i also passed by a gelato store called “GROM” which is quite famous. need to come back and try that. 

found my discount pharmacy, “citypharma” which was PACKED with people, and bought 200 euros worth of malaria pills. saved 120 euros. decided to walk home. 

i was supposed to go to an indian restaurant with the conversation group for lunch, but most people dropped out and we had cancelled. so decided to try it out with p tonight. i feel that i’m in training for india. i am afraid of how i will handle the spicy food when we go there in 2 weeks, so i need to get used to it. for some reason the conversation group had used MY name for the reservation (i guess i’ve made my reputation as the food fanatic), so i was embarrassed to make another reservation in my name. so i used p’s name. he was first to arrive, and when he asked for the reservation in my name, they said, “no, no, she cancelled”. so HE was confused and THEY were confused. then i arrived and told them it was in p’s name – i had tried to NOT confuse them, but instead ended up confusing everyone. they even came back to confirm that p was p. the dinner was fine. p said he thought it was good. i came home and had tummy troubles. gosh!

continuing heater saga

the heater exhaust pipes in the kitchen have been dripping/leaking since mid december. i put assorted bowls and pans under the 3-4 different drip spots. the colder it is outside, the more the heater works, the more the pipes drip rust colored water. we need to empty the bowls at least once a day. once it poured outside and the bowls filled right up. we don’t know why that is. we went away at christmas, but were lucky to have friends there who could empty them. it’s been a drag. as soon as the owners of the apartment gave the ok to install a new heater/water heater, the plumbers ordered one. it would take 10 days to arrive. they called and said they could install it on the 2nd or if that day didn’t work, they couldn’t come until 2 weeks after that. it just happens that we are having an unprecedented cold wave with temperatures in the teens and 20’s. whatever. we want to get this done. the landlord has lent us a little electric radiator. we can all huddle in one room for 2 days. 

the young plumber and his younger assistant arrived promptly at 8. they dismantled the heater and exhaust pipes quickly. impressive. efficient. (i really want to believe in their expertise). they carried the bulky, heavy unit and numerous wide exhaust pipes down to their van and came back with the bulky heavy, but new, heater. i took maynard for a walk. when i came back, i asked “ca va?” (everything ok?). “non, ca va PAS” (no. everything is NOT ok). “oh, what’s wrong?”. the heater, which took 10 days to arrive after ordering, was the wrong width. they screwed up on something as basic as the SIZE of the heater! so they had to bring the new heater back down to the van and bring the old heater and all the pieces back up and REINSTALL them. ridiculous. but ok all the same since it is REALLY cold. by the time they come back with another heater, it will be warmer out.  plus, we have friends coming to stay with us this weekend, so having heat would be nice.

our friends are a family of 4, so we needed an extra bed. i went to “conforama” the french version of ikea, in town, to buy a foldable chair/mattress. it takes a while to know where to go to buy things. knowing these things makes life a little easier.

maynard pick up

went to meet maynard-mom2 to pick him up. went to meet in the “regular” cafe – where lots of the school mom’s meet. we had a nice coffee. she is also an artist and we talked about various art things. picked up some groceries and then went home and painted.