Michael and Ruthie's adventure in Paris
More Musings And A Visit to the Cluny
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Nous sommes chez nous - encore. Il neige - encore. Big, fat flakes, but they're not sticking - not quite cold enough. 
But cold enough to freeze our fingers and noses when we go out for supplies!: des poulets rotis, le pain au grain - baguette with different seeds inside and out, du vin (of course), des salades, des pommes de terre, and now you know what's for lunch - oh, I forgot les pain de chocolat et quelque chose de pommes et de cafe decafinee. In other words, almost exactly what we eat ( on occasion ) at home - the difference, you ask? - WE'RE IN PARIS!!!!! Have We mentioned lately that we are having such a good time?
Ruth Anne at point zero in the center of Paris in front of Notre Dame
The word 'exquisite' must have come into the language to describe La Musee de Cluny, du Moyen Age. The metal work - reliquaries and the like, the ceramics, the wood carvings - all sublime,
but you have not quite completely opened to door to heaven until you reach the cathedral of the 'Lady with the Unicorn' tapestries. This is a relatively small, oval room. You are surrounded by six enormous tapestries of the lovely lady and the sometime very doglike unicorn
as well as many other animals, including monkeys, all on a rose colored field which is covered with dozens of different flowers so anatomically correct they are completely recognizable.
The great thing about the placement of the tapestries - there are no barriers to viewing them. You can put your face right up to the threads and marvel at the intricacies of color and pattern. And they are not the only tapestries - all so lovely, they were the 'Prince Valiant' comics of the day, worth hours of scrutiny.
We were so high when we left Cluny, we stumbled down Rue Saint Jacques into the back door of St. Severin a relatively small, compact Gothic church
with beautiful and very modern-looking stain glass windows.
This has now become our favorite church - St. Eustache
has had to move over from that position. St. Eustache is a church we very much wanted to visit one weekend after a stint at the Pompidou (aren't you just drooling?)
, but as we approached Les Halles we met with a wall of hundreds of kids - teenagers. At first we thought 'strike' or 'rally' or, at the very least, 'pop-star', but now we just think 'fun', 'gathering', maybe 'drugs'. There were HUNDREDS. And, as you well know, teenagers are not our species. We are very wary of this alien breed. We split as fast as we could to the waiting arms of home and the 'cardiac special'.
The heels of my new boots, bought in November in anticipation of this trip, have worn down considerably. One Sunday we walked from Belleville - Metro Pyrenees or Metro Jourdain - down the Rue which goes to the Bastille, and into "the fifth". It took us about two hours. We did lag a bit in the most magnificent outside market we have ever seen here, covering at least six blocks or more.
We were on our way to visit our former tenants, Loic and Emmanuelle and their four kids. We arrive at the apartment without our cellphone and no door number. Just as I'm trying to figure out which window to throw stones at, here comes Loic around the corner with a platter of oysters and bags of I don't know what.
The children arrive: Clelia - l2, Didon - 9, Masha - 6, and (we love this) Lancelot - 3.
Everyone is shy. Then, the tickling begins. Michael tickles Lancelot, I tickle Michael. Then rhyming - I keep mixing up gateau and cadeau - Masha and I put together 'le gateau dans le chateau avec une bateau dans l'eau que s'apelle Coco........" We eat oysters with rye bread and butter and some sort of fish egg delight.
Then trout, I think, with tomatoes and onions.
Then, Masha paints my nails and cuticles with 'glitter gold' nail polish so that now I look like I have some strange digit-disease.
Michael and Lancelot read a french kids book. Since neither of them reads french, Michael is acting out the pictures, Lancelot is coaching. Clelia and Didon have been at the various computers this whole time. We have a picture of Didon when she was three in the same spot, in the same chair - only the computer has been upgraded. Then, we actually do have gâteaux - four. Metro home. Maalox.
We often walk from Pyrenees to The Marais. The other day we took Rue du Temple through the wholesale "vente en gros" district. We did not quite catch on to this until we spied a pin we liked and found out that we had to buy, yes!, a gross of it before we could get out the door. Very cute, kitschy stuff, though.
