Things I will never do...

Did I mention that B and I were going to the theatre on Friday night? We were super proud of ourselves for getting our shit together to do something cultural. Don't get me wrong, we used to go to the theatre fairly regularly and we always really enjoyed it. The problem has been that since Ella was born most of our nights out are very unorganized. He gets home at 7:30 and then we start to talk about what we want to do that night. Generally, for dinner, its a case of calling a list of our fav places and going to the one place that has a table. SO this was a major step forward, actually talking about things on Wednesday and actually buying tickets on Thursday and knowing exactly what was happening that night. If only the play had been good... I mean, it wasn't awful, just sort of meh. (It was La verité tout nu, if you're interested.) The actual theatre was fantastic, though. We were in a small salle on the upper floor with only maybe 20 rows of seats. Its so tiny that the show is very intimate and cozy. We were the last people seated and ended up towards the back in the middle and it was perfect. I think I would go see a play I was only vaguely interested in if it was playing here because the experience is so nice.

I was back at yoga yesterday afternoon and once again there were a ton of beginners in my class. I guess the hot weather has everyone worrying about bikini season? The teacher this time was a guy that thought his job was half yogi/half comedian. If he was halfway funny or halfway good at teaching, I could have forgiven him, but he was neither. He would have us get in the pose then start telling a joke then start the count THEN stop to hassle someone about doing the pose wrong and would only tell us to release when we had been holding the pose for about twice as long as you should. Because I had been back to class often enough to know my limits, I very quickly learned to time myself and basically ignore him. The poor beginners were dropping like flies by the time we were a third of the way in to the class. I have never seen so many people get up and walk out. At one point there was nearly half the class sitting down, having abandoned the pose. The teacher was really that bad. I suppose that I should be extra proud of myself then when I say that not only did I make it all the way through to the end, but the murderous thoughts? Not a one. Its funny because after class in the changing room, a bunch of people starting tell some of the beginners how the first few classes its typical to have these waves of emotion and start crying. Finally, someone else admitted that, once, they had gotten really angry. So I am definitely not the only one. Good to know.

Originally B had planned on taking off Saturday afternoon to be home but that fell through so I was lucky that the new babysitter could pop round for a few hours so I could make it to my class. B and I got home around the same time on Saturday and after finishing Ella's bedtime routine, we threw her in the stroller and walked up to rue St Claude to a vernissage at the Galerie LH. It was that image of an owl on the invite that made me want to go. It's even better to see for real. It is made of resin and styrofoam, I think, with this gorgeous shiny black finish. It was about a meter tall, maybe a bit more, and the head turned from side to side. Ella just about flipped out when she saw that. B and I liked it so much but the size makes it a bit too big to be able to have in a normal sized apartment. Its a shame. Of course, my thoughts immediately turned to that warehouse space we had looked at back in January. That's the normal train of thought, isn't it? Find a nice piece of art and then go and buy an apartment to house it. I don't know, I guess I had one glass too many of Gloss.* B and I started talking about giving an real estate agent an exclusive contract for just 2 months to see what would happen. Again, maybe it was the Gloss talking.

After wandering in and out of a few more galleries that were holding their own vernissages, we headed back towards home. It was such a warm summery night that I told B that we had to walk over to Ile St Louis for some Bertillon ice cream. I don't really eat ice cream, but Bertillon is in another realm. I'll travel very very far for a scoop of any one of their fruit sorbets- or, more to the point, stand in line for 20 minutes. As soon as the days start to warm up, rue Ile St Louis turns into one giant queue. Luckily, Ella was laying nicely in her stroller and singing to baby Bonnie, so it was less painful than it might have been. She looked so sweet, with her fat little baby legs sticking out of her little white cotton nightie. We started to chat about how nice babies are until I cut him off and reminded him how awful newborns are. Newborns keep you up all night so you have no energy for going out for ice cream. Newborns keep you chained to the house so that you can't go anywhere even if you have the energy. Newborns suck up all your cash, needing diapers and formula and cute little outfits so you don't even have enough money left to buy an ice cream. And those are only a few items on the list of Why We Are Not Having Another Baby. Thank god for the ice cream to turn those frowns upside down. Ella kept trying to blow on the spoon to warm it up. We laughed but, actually, she's right. I suppose that would warm it up. By the way, if anyone is heading over to Bertillon, I would recommend trying the Praliné Pignons. I had never seen this on the menu so I ordered it out of curiosity and it is amazing. Generally, I think all the ice creams fall far short of the sublime deliciousness of the sorbets, but this one was just about as nice as the cherry sorbet. Hopefully, I'll find it again. If Bertillon has a fault, its that they make such small quantities of things that its sometimes impossible to find your favs.

This morning we decided to head over to the park with Ella before grabbing lunch on a terrasse somewhere and managed to see the Paris Marathon, which passed just by our house. We brought Ella over to the edge and tried to get her to cheer for all the people running by but she just looked at them with a sort of confused look on her face. I turned to B and said, "I don't think she gets it." B agreed. "Actually, if there is one thing that I will never ever do in my life it is run a marathon." I agreed whole-heartedly; absolute insanity if you ask me. Its funny how 90% of the time I would tell you that B and I are pretty much one of those Complementary Couples- we don't have much in common, but thats why it works. However, we are rock solid on the things that we do have in common. I can promise you that you will never see us strapping on our running shoes for a nice 6 hour jog around the city. Never.

* Just as a side note, the open bar was almost empty by the time we got there and so they basically only had left a bottle of Gloss de Suze, a cherry and ginger liqueur. I quite like ginger so I poured myself a small glass and I loved it. Actually, it doesn't taste much of ginger but had a gorgeous cherry flavor. I was pretty surprised because all those weird liqueurs that they come out with tend to taste pretty much like cough syrup, in my opinion, and I don't mean that in a good way. I think I may buy a bottle next time I am at the store, to add to our bar. A bit silly since the bar is stuffed full of bottles that we never ever touch, but still. One day we might have a crazy party with people who actually drink things other than red wine and champagne and make our way through some of those bottles. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.