Lazy Sundays in Paris

We had big plans for today but it all sort of got left by the wayside by our typical Sunday laziness. We were going to go to church, but then... we weren't dressed in time so we missed that. I've been looking across the river for the last 4 days thinking that we have got to go to see the Breton Festival organized in the park but then, after B turned on the television to watch the Celtic parade, I wasn't so anxious to dash over. I seriously had no idea that there were that many bag-pipers in the world. Or that many different songs to play on the bagpipe. Do you think its like pep band, where the director just picks his fav songs and adapts them. Do you think that there is a bag pipe band out there playing 'We Got the Beat'? (If there is, I am so joining that band.) Then Dora came on tv so we let Ella watch that and by the time we had our shit all together to go out for brunch it was already 12:30 and I was ready to gnaw off a paw I was so hungry. So instead of strolling along the quais, which was complicated by the schizo weather, we decided to take the metro over towards the Louvre. And in a very misguided attempt at diversifying our brunch-ing habits, I decided to try out the Cojean on rue Admiral Coligny rather that popping into our regular haunt, Le Fumoir.

BIG big mistake. Last time at the Fumoir, we managed to snag one of the prime tables back in the library, which you all know means we had put in our time and now were considered regulars. I don't know what Cojean is normally like on a Sunday, but today it was staffed by a bunch of Muppets. First of all, they changed cashier three times while I was putting in my order, so I had to start over each time. Then they didn't have anything out, they had to keep running to the kitchen until the guy just said that he would bring it all out to the table when it was ready. The Thai salade was fantastic but the fruit cup was half full of pieces of watermelon that were white- they actually cut up the rind and threw it in. It was disgusting. But that wasn't even the worst part. Just thinking about it is kind of grossing me out, so don't say I didn't warn you, but the scrambled eggs were actually liquid. Well, not entirely. Entirely liquid would just be uncooked eggs. This had chunks of egg at the bottom of a cup and then about 3 cm of weird yellow liquid swishing around on top, more milky than eggy but bright yellow. When they brought it to the table I thought it was some sort of soup they brought us by mistake. B was braver than me and actually ate his egg chunks, then fed my egg chunks to Ella, just leaving the egg "juice" in the cup. Ella stopped after a few bites, putting two hands in front of her mouth and declaring "Utty, maman. Utty!" (yucky, for those not fluent in toddler-ese) I am seriously thinking of writing a letter to the management of the resto telling them that it was easily the most disgusting thing I have ever seen served in a restaurant, ever. I am kind of over-sensitive maybe, because I don't particularly like eggs on a good day. I seriously don't think I'll be able to look at an egg for a good 6 months now (she says, as horrified shivers run up her spine from the flashbacks).

But, being a big brave girl, I didn't let the eggs ruin my day. I know, I know- the purple heart is winging its way to me in the post, I'm sure. Anyways, we popped into the Carousel de Louvre to do a bit of shopping. Found some fab presents for Christmas at the Nature et Decouvert. But the best part was that I ended up getting new Ipod and an Amy Winehouse CD. I had put off buying the CD because my old Ipod was full and we don't have a stereo anymore for listening to discs. And I despite hours spent on the question, I couldn't figure out how to take the stupid songs off my ipod and put new, good stuff on it. See, clearly I am reaching that tipping point where I am no longer one of the kids but have turned into an old fogey. A kid knows how to work gadgets. An old fogey turns it around in his hands, randomly pushing buttons while muttering curses, and then throws it on the table, shouting "This damn piece of plastic crap is broken!" I figured that there was only one good solution- just buy a new one and let Ella have the old one to keep on the dock in her room. After 2 hours of messing about on my computer trying to re-install Itunes and then get the new music on the new ipod, and I am thinking that this is not really a lazy Sunday activity as it required masses of brain power. Its my own fault. I have so much crap on my computer that I had to erase loads of files and reorganize my programs to get everything to work correctly. I think that I can declare success- Ipod is functioning correctly, computer seems to be whizzing along with no probs. Don't want to speak too soon, but I think I can declare success.

I would never have had all these problems with the computer if I had just gone through my photos and erased all the stupid ones, as I have been saying I would do for, oh, years now. Its so easy to just plug in the camera and download 200 photos every time and then just leave them sit there. Of course, even if I erase the bad photos, I've still got hundreds and hundreds (we're first time parents, I guess the photo-mania comes with the territory). I should probably just go and get one of those Smartcards, or keys, or whatever they are called that I can download all the old photos. I've actually got almost all of my fav photos printed out and arranged in photo albums so even that is probably not necessary. I could just erase them, I suppose. God- that sounds like sacrilege, I don't know if I could make myself do it. Every once in awhile, I'll sit down and start scrolling through my digital albums and when I next glance at the clock, 2 hours have gone by. I really love looking through my photos. Still, it would be worth it to make this old machine work a bit faster.

In totally unrelated news, I made some more cupcakes yesterday- Geranium Cream Cheese Frosting with Apricot compote filling on Chiffon cake. I think that they are really nice but I made a big mistake and put the geranium syrup into the frosting before adding the powdered sugar, so I added far too much. B took one bite of one cake and scraped all the frosting in the trash. So, not a huge success this time around. But, voila, I've learned a very good lesson for next time, which this is all about, experimenting and improving. Next up- lavender cupcakes. If only I could make them and be satisfied with just a bite or two. Sadly (for my attempts at dieting) its a few tastes while baking, followed by a bite or two, followed by just finishing off the cake rather than leave it lying around, followed by just one for dessert, etc. Us artists must truly suffer for our craft.