Last of the 2014 Greetings

I realized I've been remiss about updating this blog. In the last month plus, I was working on completing my Year in Fromage and also getting the surgery to take out the breast cancer and put in the new replacement. Christmas preparations apparently took up the whatever small bit of my brainpower remained, and so I haven't updated here in a while.

Click here for a little glimpse at our year in review, because I still don't have the brainpower to write something at the moment. We're too busy purging old stuff to make room for the new stuff, enjoying the new Christmas toys and books, and meeting up with friends to take a break from our vacation with a cup of tea.

Happy Holidays, and may 2015 bring you health & happiness!
Love,
Kazz

Getting Romantic in the City of Romance

I've been horrible -- horrible! -- about posting here, because it's been, well, quite a month. So I hope you've been keeping up over at A Year in Fromage. If not, here are two recent postings on love and romance (and dead fish) in Paris.

All you've ever wanted to know about the love locks popping up -- Whack-a-Mole-style - everywhere in Paris. And in the world.

And a wedding album like no other, mostly because it's a collection taken over the years from my local perspective. And also, because Anthony, the girls, and I just can't resist taking our own.

 

While They Party

This year's Mother's Day poem from Pippa:

 

You love orange.

I like blue.

You love black.

And I like to snack.

This is my mom

that I've known for long.

She took care of me

While I partied.

Besides the obvious issues with the rhyme sequence and how the poem scans (and don't even get me started on the spelling, which I corrected for you), is anybody else concerned that my 8 year old is out there partying?

I will say this, though: This year's French Mother's Day turns out to be the greatest ever. The picture below, taken this afternoon, gives you just a tiny hint why. But I'm saving that story for another day, because it's a doozy...

 

May Day!

It's May 1st, May Day, and that can only mean two things: 1) lilies of the valley, and 2) nearly everything is closed. OK, I exaggerate. A couple stores are actually open and do not have a sign in the door saying "specially closed on May 1st", but seemingly 99% of Paris is off-school, off-work, and off-duty -- except the people selling lilies of the valley on the streets.



If you want to know about one of the stinkiest cheeses known to mankind, or learn more about this holiday, and help me create the inevitable holiday to celebrate the official 35-hour work week here in France; or the 4-day school week; or the 6-weeks-on/ 2-weeks-off school schedule, check out A Year in Fromage.

Cheesing It Up/ Hamming It Up

In case you haven't signed up yet for A Year in Fromage or haven't remembered to check it out lately, I just thought I'd give you some of the latest cheese highlights of my life. My life has become very, very cheesy indeed:

Where can you buy French cheese outside of France? I've researched some of the best spots in some of the big cities, but you all need to help each other out by adding on your own favorite cheese-store sources in the comments.

How can you be polite about your cheese course? Well, first of all, don't chew with your mouth open. But for more cheese-specific advice, check out the posting.

And what are the most beautiful cheeses in my opinion?

As for these "letters home" from my Family by the Seine, I just wanted to let you know that I've recently crossed over 30,000 views, which actually feels quite satisfying as I sit here typing and overlooking the gray river on a dreary, rainy day.

We are back, safely and happily, from a wonderful trip in Senegal. When we arrived home, my brother and sister-in-law were already installed in our apartment, and we're enjoying their visit quite a lot -- the only downside being that with my brother here, I find myself with very few leftovers to use for my lunch the next day. Except for cheese. Even my brother couldn't finish the massive cheese platter.

It may be a few weeks till I get to filter through the 2000 or so pictures I took in Africa and write up our adventure, but in the meantime, you can sign up at Family in Senegal so that you'll automatically receive the stories once they're posted. But here's a little teaser: Anthony and I were fully jealous of our own daughters, even as we were having the experience with them. We just kept saying to each other, "This is nothing like any New Year's Eve party I ever got to go to as a kid..."

 

 

Labor Day

Labor Day has a lot of significance around here: not as a national holiday, but rather as the trigger for la rentrée -- Back to School. In our house, it means even more than that, since it's the anniversary for, well, being in labor. At all three of the schools Gigi has attended, her birthday has actually fallen on the first day of school. Luckily, this is a child who likes school. In fact, this year, after her first day of middle school, she runs out to me and declares enthusiastically, "Today is the best day of my life!"

Well, it marks exactly ten years since one of the best days of my life, which is the day we went to the hospital to have the son we were expecting and came out instead with a bald, chubby, big-eyed girl. A decade later, she has grown into this lovely little lady seen below in the hall of her new school on orientation morning ("Take the picture quick! This is so embarrassing!") and then on her way to her first full day of school on her birthday. Conveniently, the first full day is spent on a class-bonding field trip. She tells me she prefers school to being on vacation. Happy birthday, indeed!

 

Pippa returns to her elementary school, on the world's greatest walk-to-school. Since she is in an entirely new class this year, however, she sits shyly to the side before the starting bell rings. But she comes out as enthusiastic as her sister, with a full list of all her new best friends. So, I guess I don't need to worry about her at school, either.

 

Gigi's choice for this year's birthday dinner, which we celebrate the weekend before, is at Happy Nouilles (Noodles), a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in the 3rd arrondissement, near metro Arts & Metiers. We discovered it when we randomly walked by it months ago, and the girls were attracted to the guy actually hand-pulling noodles in the window. Though we had had only mediocre-at-best Chinese food in Paris up till that point and were pessimistic, we gave it a try. The place is filled -- staff and diners -- with Mandarin Chinese speakers, and it surpassed all expectations. The dumplings even rival (Sacrilege Alert!) San Francisco's.

 

 

 

On the way to birthday noodles, we discover a tiny storefront called Stanz that sells excellent bagels (described accurately by the owner as being chewier than a Montreal bagel, and less chewy than a New York bagel) and one called Berko that sells, frankly, the best cupcakes I've ever tasted. It could just be because I haven't had cupcakes in years. Or it could be because they're delicious. Naturally, on the actual day of her birthday, I buy us Berko cupcakes to celebrate.

 

 

If you're wondering why, for her 10th birthday, there are nine cupcakes on the plate, a number which divides unevenly among the four of us, it's because that's the biggest box they sell, at about 23€. Possibly because it would bankrupt somebody to buy a whole dozen. One of her birthday presents is everything needed to make mini-cupcakes, including a Berko cookbook. Which means we get to enjoy birthday cupcakes, round two, a few days later.

 

 

 

Back to School also means I can finally get Back to Work. It's the first time in two months I haven't spent basically all day, every day, with the girls. I'm not complaining, mind you, but being with them does make it hard to get any work done. So having them back in school is something of a respite, and it means I can start writing again more regularly.

 

 

Lady Liberté

July 4 is just another day here, but by complete coincidence, Gigi and a bunch of her classmates have an after-school get together in the park to celebrate their own impending liberation: their last day of school on July 5 before summer vacation and heading off to middle school. It evolves into them choreographing a gymnastics routine, then getting the idea to pass the hat, and then inspiration: Gigi proposes donating the money to organizations that free children from slavery. Amazingly, in just an hour and a half, they earn 50€, which we donate to Free The Slaves. Only after the fact do we realize how perfect this is: Children working with joy to help liberate children who work in misery -- and all on a day that (for some of us, at least) represents freedom.

 

 

So, with July 4 just past and July 14 (Bastille Day) approaching, and since the French and American revolutions were heavily linked in many respects, let's take a moment to look at some of the many, many references to Lady Liberty floating around Paris:

In the Jardin de Luxembourg, you might jog by her in this beautiful setting.

 

 

Translation of the plaque: "Liberty Lighting the World, Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904)

On the occasion of the World Expo of 1900, sculptor Auguste Bartholdi offered to the Luxembourg Museum the bronze model he used to create the Statue of Liberty in New York. This statue was placed in the Luxembourg Gardens in 1906." This is, in fact, the original statue upon which all subsequent, larger versions are modeled.

 

At the Musée des Arts et Metiers, the backdrop is drastically different, and the information only slightly different: Here, the artist is more fully identified as Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, and credit is also attributed to Gustave Eiffel, the famous engineer known for working with behemoth metal structures. At this museum, which is dedicated to inventions and progress, Lady Liberty stands both outside and inside, with an original 1/16th model. The outside lady is made of bronze, and is created from the original plaster, which is housed inside against a beautiful stained-glass window.

 

 

At the Eiffel Tower, engineer Gustave Eiffel's role in the copper statue is, naturally, the highlight. A panel explains: "The framework of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France to the United States, was one of the outstanding works of the 1880s. Its metal framework was designed like a bridge pylon."

 

If you're wondering why the buildings behind the great Lady with scaffolding look so very French, it's because this is a photo of her being assembled in Paris in 1884, before she was disassembled and shipped to the United States for re-assembly. (One of the few instances where even in English, I would say "she" instead of "it." Thankfully, the word "statue" is feminine in French, because referring to the Statue of Liberty as "he" would simply fry my brain.)

 

But the most impressive and visible of the great Ladies is the one presiding over the middle of the Seine, from the Ile aux Cygnes at the Pont de Grenelle.

 

 

There are two dates inscribed on the tablet Lady Liberty holds in the middle of the Seine: July 4, 1776, the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Aug 26, 1789, the date of the signing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen), which is to the French revolution pretty much what the Declaration of Independence is to the American one. Both dates are written in Roman numerals (July IV, MDCCLXXVI and Aug XXVI, MDCCLXXXIX). In New York, only the July 4 date is inscribed.

 

 

Originally, she was facing east into the city for the World Expo of 1889, then turned to face the mouth of the Seine (northwest) for the 1937 World Expo. But at the time of a renovation of the island and bridge in 1968, she was turned outward, so that she now looks west (and more specifically southwest) towards New York, while the Statue of Liberty in New York's harbor looks east toward Europe. Theoretically, their gazes should meet somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic, or, if you think about it, perhaps their gazes simply continue east, east, east or west, west, west, till they circle the globe entirely. Wouldn't it be nice if all people caught between and beyond their gazes were indeed living in liberty?

 

  

                                 New York                                                 Paris 

 

 

Pride, Finally

I thought the last posting on gay marriage would be my last, but now with the Gay Pride parade marching right by my island and coming on the heels (often very high heels) of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings, I simply cannot resist.

 

 

This year, the marchers are proud to fly the French flag freely alongside the rainbow flag. And I must say that I'm pretty proud of the Supreme Court (well, 56% of it anyway!) and am not surprised to see more pro-American sentiment than might have otherwise been expected.

 

Some of my favorite signs of the times:

 

 

"Liberty, Equality, Secularism" and a float promoting condom usage that says "Liberty, Equality, Protected" and sounds better in French.

  

 

 

"Fascism, even for sexual orientation, is not French." And Renault's commercial attempt to jump-on-the-band(station)wagon, with the slogan "Cars for all" mirroring the gay rights slogan "Marriage for all."

 

 

 

Some winners from what I call the religious correct (as opposed to the religious right): "God loves us all (men and women)", "We read the bible gaily", and "Jesus also had two mothers." But my very favorite sign of the parade:

"God is a black lesbian." And why not?

I'm not only proud to be American, and proud to be a gay marriage and gay rights supporter, I have to say this float walking by, complete with rainbow chuppah being carried by yarmulke-wearers, makes me proud of my liberal Jewish heritage, too.

 

And, not to be outdone, my husband's Christian upbringing is represented. Here, the American Cathedral's float makes me proud of their Americanism and their very christian (distinct from Christian) openness.

 

 

I don't know if my support of gay marriage stems from my liberal upbringing, my moral values which not only tolerate but celebrate diversity, or the fact that I have good gay and lesbian friends. But sometimes I suspect it's just my love of colors, choreography, theatrics, and flamboyance in general.

 

One thing that's very nice about Paris Pride as opposed to San Francisco Pride is that you can actually get up to the edge of the parade and wander about fairly freely. It is crowded and lively, and I don't have the official numbers, but it feels like the crowd must be 1/10 the size here. However, that doesn't mean Paris doesn't have some of the same characters, even down to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, here indulging in a very French cigarette and sneer.

 

  

 Let's not forget the drag queens...

   

...and in one case, the drag Queen of England....

 

...or the men in uniform. Any uniform. I am thoroughly entertained by the UNIFS's slogan: "Guys in uniforms, and those that love them."  

 

 

Not to be confused with these guys, who are honestly guys in uniforms -- the guards patrolling the parade to keep everything safe. At least I think they're the real deal. But they are pretty darn hot. 

 

 

What kind of a place is this to bring children? A mighty fine one, mostly. Very colorful and friendly.

 

 

Of course, Gigi is a little confused by the guy in zippered leather bikini briefs (perhaps he thinks he's in San Francisco at the Folsom Street Fair, which makes a Pride parade look positively tame). She is also confused when the guy giving out free condoms very pointedly passed her by; it may be the first time in her life that being a cute kid has NOT earned her free swag. It gives me the fun opportunity to explain what a condom is and does. The fact is, there are lots of men here in not much more than underwear -- and skimpy French underwear at that. Of course, some of it is rather skimpier -- and more Folsom Fair -- than others.

 

  

She's not the only kid here, though. In some ways, it's business as usual. With a lot of rainbows. People drink their canned beverages, hang out with their loved ones, and chat on cell phones -- at least when the electronic club music is not blaring so loud it makes your heart thump. Isn't that nice, though? That gay pride, and gay marriage, should have attained this degree of normalcy? Someday it will be downright boring. But the parade itself won't be.