2013-07 Paris

Paris has much about which to appreciate, and also the occasional disappointment – traffic, merde de chien, aggressive clochards (most aren’t). But I find nothing more depressing than to pass on the street a stunningly beautiful 14-15 year old maiden, perfect complexion, long flowing hair, who stops, rummages in her purse, picks out a pack, lights up, takes a deep drag, blows smoke into the air with upraised face, and continues on.

Would this were an isolated occurrence, but it seems that virtually every fair maiden I pass is sucking on a cigarette, even more apparently so than young men. And at US$ 11 a pack, I bet there are “illegal” drug habits less obtrusive to the pocketbook.

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 Last post I noted “the French don’t smile,” at least not in public and not before strangers. If a young woman shows teeth on the streets of Paris, she will most assuredly be American, Aussie, or Brit, in that order.

Mais attend! I am seeing an increasing number of young local females with broad smiles on their faces. Can this be? But there is something even stranger. They all seem to be mumbling to themselves. An explosion of the deranged? Mais  non! They are talking on their cell phones (ear piece and dangling mic) to someone who obviously brings a smile to their face.

It now seems that tout Paris has a mobile phone, and perhaps to compensate for prior depravation, seem to be constantly engaged in conversation.

When I first encountered Paris, shortly after the Spanish-American war, I was trying to rent an apartment and asked my secretary at the American Embassy why none of the available flats had a telephone.

Shrug!

No problem, I’m here for about 9 months so I’ll have one installed. “Yvette, how long does it take to get a phone installed in Paris?”

“Deux annee.”

“Two days, that’s pretty quick.”

“Deux ANNEE.”

“Two weeks?”

“ANNEE, ANNEE, years, YEARS!!”

I thought for a moment she was pulling my jambe (by this time I had mastered colors and was on to body parts).

“How can this be?”

Shrug!

I learned that a popular saying of the day was that half of France was waiting for a phone to be installed and the other half was waiting for a dial tone!

I did manage to rent an apartment in Montmartre with a phone, for which I paid a massive supplement. I then realized that no one knew my number and I had no one to call, but I had a phone.

I asked Yvette for a Paris phone book.

“Ils n'existent plus”

“Of course they exist, I’ve seen them.”

““Ils n'existent PLUS. They no longer exist.”

It appears that the French telecommunications authority prints one phone book for each eligible citizen and business and not a single copy more. If you lose yours, have it stolen or otherwise become separated from it, that is not the problem of the French PTT.

I always wondered why Yvette kept hers locked in her desk.

“Yvette, how can this be?”

Shrug. A gesture I came to regret until I realized that I could avoid its occurrence simply by no longer asking questions.

 

Paris continues colder than Montana, but the food is better!

 

Bientot...

2013-06 Paris

Bon Paques a tous. Though not religious I thought Notre Dame on Easter morning would be appropriate. And thus at sunrise I found myself before the 850 year-old cathedral, virtually alone as opposed to most days when the square is choc-a-bloc with tourists. France has been called a Catholic country in name only. Five minutes before the mass, less than 100 had assembled, and not a face found under middle age. It did fill up a bit as things got underway.

 

The week of gluttony has ended; the week of simple overeating has commenced.

 

Paris is in the throes of a pousette war. Baby strollars in France are elaborate affairs with deep pockets that shield young occupants from weather and the unwanted stares of clochards.  Pousettes enter city busses through double rear doors designed for egress, and there is an open area just inside for their placement. However, apparently the result of a baby boom in the French capital, a pousette explosion has developed, often resulting in 5 or 6 being jammed into and around the allotted space, rendering movement virtually impossible, resulting in plaintive cries of descende, s’il vous plait (let me the hell off this bus) at each stop.

A new rule (the other 83 are found in small print on a large placard behind the driver’s seat) limits pousettes to two per bus, but has no apparent effect on Parisian nannies and mamans who insist that their égalité affords them the right of entry. “If we’re all equal, why don’t you remove your pousette?”

The French understand well the national motto, liberté, égalité, fraternité. Liberté applies to me, égalité to us all, although just a tad more to me than others, and fraternité to anyone I have known for at least two decades and has treated me with unwavering liberté and égalité for that entire time.

 

"The French don’t smile” is a well-worn aphorism. In Polly Platt’s French or Foe she recounts the story (perhaps apocryphal) of the French TV anchor taking a year’s graduate study at the University of Virginia, called before the student tribunal for “not smiling.”

Incidentally, I consider the book an absolutely seminal read for anyone visiting France for the first time, or for those who have and exit disillusioned. Polly has departed the planet, but her book remains available on Amazon. It is less an apology than an explanation, and goes a long way to helping Americans understand that the French are not against them personally.

 

The sun has shown brightly for a second day in Paris and has the locals quite distressed. They walk hurriedly and look menacingly skyward as if the current conditions are some cruel celestial joke and inclemency (with perhaps a bit of brimstone thrown in for good measure) is imminent. Clearly the song “April in Paris” was written by someone ensconced in a well heated Greenwich Village apartment.

Another 5-k, on a weekday with enhanced challenge. And I have figured out why passing fellow joggers ignore me. I run in Wal-Mart sweatpants and a hoodie that marks me as more likely homeless than those decked out in 300€ multi-colored lycra running garb. And I joined a running group on-line. Got my first invitation for this weekend, a “shortened” run of but 2 hours in advance of the Paris marathon several weeks hence.  I plan to call in sick.

 

Bientot

2013-05 Paris

The dam has burst and you may well be inundated with posts (I told you that Paris has that effect on me as it did on Papa Hemingway). As I have previously noted, for those disinterested or overtaken by the press of events, The Supreme Being, with a bit of help from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, provides the delete button.

 

Perhaps the only thing the French like more than food (not really, but a close second) is a manif or manifestation or “event,” often a protest.

 

Yesterday (Sunday) morning outside Chez Papa, a southwest restaurant chain, a group of 20 assembled with signs, banner, and bullhorn (all required manif paraphernalia). I thought for a moment they were protesting the manufacture of foie gras, but recalled immediately that anti-food protests are not tolerated in France.

 

 It was an anti-abortion rally, and across the street were 10-15 women sporting pink balloons. They were separated from the antis by some 50 gendarmes, with another 100+ streaming up and down rue Gambetta on both sides of the street.

 

And catty-corner a gentleman blowing up large condoms and floating them in the wind. I was unable to ascertain which side he was aligned with, or possibly a neutral dispatched by a condom distributor.

The gendarmes were directing everyone to circumvent the intersection and it was amusing to see how many disputed the direction for moments on end when the detour would take all of 30-seconds.

 

Then the pinks started to move on the antis. Police intervened. The pinks argued, gestured, pleaded to no avail. They retreated and circled, discussed, agonized, strategized, sent a rep out to confront les flics, without result. Then inspiration! “We want to go to the restaurant (in front of which the manif began).”

 

The police retreated, circled, agonized, strategized, and sent a rep to the pinks suggesting an alternate restaurant, without result.

 Finally with Gallic resignation, the police allowed the pinks to broach the antis Maginot Line and enter the restaurant, filing past a clearly exasperated Chez Papa manager asking plaintively why his restaurant, of the 9,645 registered in Paris, was selected. “Because you are across the street from a hospital that performs abortions and the police won't let demonstrators get any closer,” came the reply. QED.

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 I am periodically hassled over my limited use of French expressions. I try to vet all through Google Translate. As such, complaints should be directed to: Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google, Inc., Silicon Valley, USA

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I actually got a 5k jog (slog) yesterday morning. At 7am on Sunday Paris sleeps, providing a 50-50 chance of a non-intrusive result (cobblestones, merde de chien, vehicular traffic, et al, comprise the second half.)

 

Paris has changed. I actually passed half a dozen fellow joggers on the circuit, but unlike their North American counterparts, they look away rather than give a friendly nod, “hello,” or thumbs up. Come to think of it, one of the half dozen I passed kept looking over his shoulder, so he may not count.

Elderly matrons pulling their shopping carts still jump as I pass, but not as high as in prior years. They do clutch their purses tightly as they hear my approach. Perhaps a racial anti-jogger statement, tu pense?

 

bientot

2013-04 Paris

Well, shame on me; lethargy consumes the aged. But in an attempt to jumpstart the neurons, I am headed to a place that offers unbounded BLOG fodder. Currently languishing in the Bozeman, Montana airport, heading to the City of Light via Chicago and Brussels (don’t ask).

 

This BLOG began there circa 2008 and flourished (if only in the mind of the BLOGger) until my return to Washington in 2010.

 

And alas, through the miracle of flight, I am looking out the window of an apartment in the 20th Arrondisemnt of Paris. Already today I have seen rain and sun and wind and rain and sun and rain, and wait, here comes the sun.

Today I fell (again) to the lure of the marche ouvert (open market). I had been warned that the weekday markets were losing participation of both client and marchand, but today at 10:30 the several hundred yards stretching along Blvd. Richard Lenoir were chock-a-block with locals (and the occasional bewildered tourist) stocking up for le weekend.

Succumbing to the Costco affect, I bought (way too many) huge strawberries from Morocco, avocados from Haifa, a mélange of olives from an unspecified but certainly exotic place, three cheeses, a brie de Meaux (the best) a bleu d’auvergne, and a tomme from some mountain region. A tad under $25 US.

My first night extended a decades-long tradition of beer at the Pick Clops (I think he’s the guy with the one eye in the middle of his forehead) and pizza du Chef at the Jardin du Marais across the street. “Pizza on your first night in Paris?” some would ask, but it’s a tradition and I honor all food-borne customs.

 

News of the day concerns the EU debt crisis solution by picking the pockets of ordinary Cypriot citizens, a masterful stroke that avoids the messy requirement for politicians to act fiscally responsible.  

 

So enthralled was I by the mountains that ring Montana’s Paradise Valley 360 degrees, that I allowed a momentous date in U. S. history to pass unheralded. February 3 was the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 16th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, the act that affirmed Congress’ authority to levy an income tax.

 

The first tax maxed out at 7%, with the top bracket (the fair share crowd) kicking in $11.6 million (in 2013 dollars; all numbers quoted here are adjusted to current dollars)). The standard deduction (adjusted) was $93,000.

Total tax revenue (adjusted) was $16.6 billion or $171/per person in the country at that time. Today’s take is $2.7 trillion, or $8,510/person. This amounts to fifty times more per person comparing then to now. Are we 50 times better off? Perhaps, but how much progress derived from government and how much from the entrepreneural private sector?

Three decades ago when I lived and worked in Paris I was a babe who took restaurant meals with more knowledgeable colleagues to translate menus (although I did once end up with a blood sausage purported to be steak). And in perhaps 30+ subsequent trips, stay was limited to less than a week and required scrambling to consume favorite dishes – confit de canard, sole meureniere, couscous, entrecote at the Relais du Venice,etc. As this trip will last nearly a month (and who knows, perhaps forever!) I have the luxury of exploration, both restaurant-wise and at markets and small shops.

 

I eat better and cheaper in Paris than back home, but the six (or more) small meals I consume per day seem to weigh (literally) heavily upon me.

 

In past years running in Paris was assumed to be away from authority or les gens mechant (bad guys). But now there is a steady (if small) stream of joggers in the area, including a gaggle of firemen from the station down the street who run on the hilly cobblestone alley where I reside. I’ll have to haul out my sorry butt and join them (one of these days).

 

 

 

The Seine and the pont d'quelquechoses

bientot

PRAY, MONTANA 2013-03

Been a tad lazy BLOGwise. Catching up on tax, housekeeping and other pesky chores one tends to stuff into the sock drawer of the mind.

As New England endures another “storm of the century,” Montana and the west bask in balmy 40+F temps. Actually that was yesterday. This morning it's minus 5. In that regard, as a public service I reproduce here, for the benefit of my eastern and offshore friends, snow depth definitions used in the mountain west:

                0-6”        flurries

                6-12”     dusting

                12-18”   light snow

                18-24”   snow

                >24”     dump

And yes, I understand that east and west, north and south, view and respond to weather in significantly different ways. But I can’t help recalling, in the face of New York/New England obsessing over an “up to 2 feet” storm, that shortly before I left Georgetown Colorado in 2009, after a mild winter (mild for the Rocky Mountain west), an April storm dumped 7 feet (yes, 84”) on the town and the Continental Divide less than 10 miles west. Locals took it all in stride. Actually closed I-70 for several hours to retrieve shell-shocked tourists…

Stumbled on an interesting stat the other day. In 1930 a 3-minute coast-to-coast phone call cost $8.75 and a first class letter was 2-cents. Today the letter cost $0.45 and a call on one of the low-cost carriers can be as low as 2-cents/minute. Of course the telecommunications industry is private sector and the Post Office is a government institution, effectively a monopoly, protected from the anti-trust laws that restrict the private sector from predatory practices. And yes, a multiplicity of factors in play here, but perhaps a laissez faire lesson as well?

I’ve been occasionally typecast as a private (even unsociable) character, with some justification. Soaking in the hot spring pool I note that perfect (and not so perfect) strangers typically take about 90 seconds before striking up conversations while I marinate in solitude. But eves-dropping on these animated exchanges leaves me mercifully thankful that I am roundly ignored. Highlights of the week include speculation among 2 growth stunted Baby Boomers on whether Batman could hold his own against Superman, and whether Robin’s services would be required, AND a heated discussion among 4 blue-coiffed matrons over the relative merits of nutmeg in Brown Betty. Seems "small talk" is being elevated (or demoted) to new heights (depths). I hereby create a new term to mark this evolution, "nano-talk."

Grand-puppies Tuna and Brooke

Feed me!

 
Back in Pray after sitting my grand puppies in Bozeman over the weekend, 2 yellow labs of enormous energy and enthusiasm, and highly developed internal chronographs, particularly as it relates to nourishment. The 4-am feeding finds them especially focused, a chore I have not undertaken for nearly 3 decades when progeny transitioned from lait maternel to bottle.

PRAY, MONTANA 2013-02

 

My cabin is on the right, behind

the large garage 

My front yard at sunrise 

My "driveway."

The thermal pool at Chico Hot Springs

It's a long 20 feet from the changing

room to the 104F pool.

 

 

See below 

 

Were havin’ a heat wave, a tropical heat wave…well, actually that was yesterday when the thermo hit a balmy 42F. At the moment it’s snowing. The many faces of M. Nature are apparent in the mountain west.

A local tried to convince me there is a county ordinance forbidding the temperature to rise above freezing between Thanksgiving and March, but in defiance of local law the temperature two days ago roared north of the freezing mark like a NASCAR driver released from yellow. Quite a change from the minus 14F when I arrived 2 weeks ago…

But the wind…and the accompanying chill, compensates measurably. Interstate 90 between Bozeman and Livingston navigates a pass that is infamous for toppling 18-wheelers. In high season one per week is normally blown over and the trick is to not be passing one when it heads south while traveling east.

To fill the hours between 0001 and 2359, I am at the moment immersed in several fascinating tomes on the Manhattan Project. History (for me, at least) has a way of filling time…..

Spending considerable time at the hot spring in the presence of bodies in various states of (sometimes extreme) undress, it appears that I am the only soul in Montana, and perhaps the planet, who doesn’t have a “tat.” From octogenarians to near infants (one can only hope they are the stick-on temporary variety), it seems that tattoos are the craze of the moment.

I likewise resisted the recent fashion of self-puncture, which I note has fallen from favor, perhaps in response to assorted infections and considerable pain that resulted from many piercings. It seems that much of mankind (personkind?) will travel to bizarre and absurd lengths that they might assert their individuality. To me it signals something quite different, something akin to being several limes short of a margarita.

For those with offspring who kvetch over waiting for the school bus on windy days, I noticed a curious sign “SCHOOL ACCESS” (see above) attached to a wooden fence along the road to town. I thought no more until several days ago a yellow caravan discharged 2 who looked to be of Kindergarten variety and they navigated an opening in the fence, crossed a pasture and commenced up a VERY steep hill. There was no house in sight…

Just finished a 5k in 12F weather. Not bad for a geezer…



 

 

 



PRAY, MONTANA 2013-01

Just when you thought it was safe to surf the Net – He’s BAAAAAACK!

Having departed my Nation’s Capital 3 years to the day I returned in January 2010, I now take temporary repose in Pray, MT, south of Livingston, which is a bit west of nowhere. Continuing south for less than 50 miles you arrive at the northern entrance to Yellowstone.

The deficiencies of my one-room cabin are numerous, but it possesses the prime advantage of its locus less than 4 miles from Chico Hot Springs, a genuine (you guessed it) hot spring. From 7-am through 11-pm 7-days a week, one can soak neck down in 104 F degree water while emergent parts are treated to temperatures that rarely rise above 10 F this time of year. Adult beverages may be consumed therein providing proper enclosure in plastic containers.

A pub with country music some nights, a (French equivalent of a) 1-star restaurant (the stingy French allot a maximum of 3 – causing much Gallic amusement when mediocre American tables advertise “5 stars,”) a back bar furnished in century-old mahogany where you can sit at the spot fur trappers cooled their heels and warmed their toes a century ago. God, I love this bar…

There is no TV in the cabin, the absence of which I seem to be acclimating, and for $20/month I get Wi-Fi through my smartphone. No microwave, but I did bring my portable espresso machine and coffee grinder. Roughing it has limitations.

A few annoyances – I must put the beer in the fridge to keep it from freezing, etc., but I see herds of deer and elk through my front window. I’m told a bear occasionally ambles through and the odd pack of coyotes has been spotted. Similar to Washington, DC., just different animals to contend with.

The River’s Edge Saloon several miles downstream has live poker weekends, and the “river” that gives the bar its name is the Yellowstone, walking distance from chez moi.

Lest some fear that I have been entrapped by a religious cult, I note that Pray, MT is named for Charles Nelson Pray, Montana prosecutor, Congressman and judge. Pray sports a Post Office and nada mas. If you want to get crazy you need travel to Emigrant, 5 miles south.

A note on my future: I had considered opening a Clinic. Are you aware how many TV ads say that products are “clinically proven?”  There must be a market here! Then I thought a “pronouncer.”  Each day innumerable numbers of planetary residents bite the dust and are “pronounced dead.” Who does that? One might assume a coroner, but I have never heard one say “I pronounce this person dead.” Just looking for a niche here.

More likely I’ll just wait for the FEMites to let Hurricane Sandy long term recovery contracts. Then off to Staten Island, a location I understand is but marginally less safe than the Montana wilderness.

Pictures to follow (if I can remember how to do that); film at 11.