Not really a slow week, I just keep getting distracted

I hate when that happens. I had all these posts going on in my head and zero of them made it to blog. I'll just bullet point some stuff so that I can stop rolling it over in my head as I am trying to fall asleep at night.



1. Its super sweet when Ella lays on the sofa after school, exhausted, watching cartoons. She "sings" along to each of the theme songs, making up the words as she goes along. Mostly its something about the guy in the hat who had a dog... I don't know. She get shy when she notices me listening in but I just want to gobble her up in one bite she is so sweet.

2. I nearly called the police last night to report our neighbors for disturbing the peace or, as they call it in France, tapage nocturne. 45 minutes of that crazy woman screaming with her daughter about the daughter's future. I thought it was bad in our apartment, but then I went out in the cage escalier to maybe go and knock on their door first but the screaming was so phenomenally loud that I was actually scared to knock. I should have had an inkling that if they sounded loud with a layer of concrete , acoustic flooring and a carpet between us, then they must be yelling pretty damn loud. As always, I have to wonder, what the hell is the rest of the family doing when the mother looses her shit? Do they all own a pair of those Bose noise-blocking headphones? I need a pair.



3. I think that this article is really good. I've been meaning to link to it for ages and kept forgetting and now all the interesting things I had to say about it have slipped out of my mind. Oh well. Trust me when I say that I had loads of insightful and interesting points to make.



4. On a thoroughly unrelated note, its my 9th wedding anniversary today. Both my husband and I had totally forgotten and then suddenly this morning, I looked at B and said, "Hey! I think our wedding anniversary is coming up (all the while thinking, God, I hope we didn't completely miss it...). What day is it?" "The 17th." he answered, nonplussed. He had even forgotten that the 17th was our anniversary. He had it in his head that it wasn't til the 22nd. So, technically, he forgot more than I forgot. Thats why he offered me an afternoon at the George IV spa to make up for it. I am so so so looking forward to that. I LOVE that spa. It is, without a doubt, a little piece of heaven on Earth. I was just looking in the mirror yesterday night and thinking that I needed some to get myself cleaned up. How convenient to have a forgotten anniversary pop up the next day.



5. Its been a star-studded week for the school pick-up; yesterday I saw the stars of this film picking up their kids and I saw the wife of the third shouting into her cellphone on a street corner the day before. Boring star sightings, I admit, but still worth-noting since the ads for that film are wallpapering Paris right now.

6. The other day, Ella and I got into a chat about bellybuttons, which led to a discussion of babies, via her main conversational technique of the moment - "And then what?" So I got out a pregnancy book which had some drawings of babies in the uterus, and she was totally fascinated. We looked at body parts and talked about where everything would be in Ella and in me. It was actually nice talking about stuff like that with such a little kid because it was such pure amazement and curiousity. Anyway, I told her that when the baby gets too big, then it comes out. She naturally asked how it came out. I asked her what she thought, and after a moment's reflection, she opened her mouth, turned her head to the side, and made a horking noise. Considering her history of violent vomitting, I can see how she would suppose this would be the most effective way to eject anything from your body. When I told her how babies really get out, she thought it was hilarious so I'm not entirely sure that she bought my version. The funniest part of the whole thing was later that evening when B came home from work. He asked her what we had done that day and she started frantically sputtering something about babies but couldn't quite get it out. Finally she turned to me, with enormous eyes, and whispered, "Maman, tell Daddy about the baby stuff! Tell him!" I tried to tell her that he already knew about it, but she insisted that I give him the lowdown.

7. Ooo- I got my haircut. I still can not get my main hair guy on the phone and so I just buckled and went to the cheap place downstairs. Its cute- very Ellen Barkin. But there is a big difference between a cheap cut and a very very good cut and I need to get this hairdresser situation sorted out.

8. The main reason I haven't been able to get my hairdresser on the phone though, is that I think I broke my phone. So if you have tried calling me in the past week, um, now you know why I haven't picked up or returned your message. I don't treat it very well, generally just tossing it in the bottom of my severely overstuffed purse, so its no real shock and all the more reason to not tell B. I mean, I hate that stupid phone with its stupid touch screen and complicated screen upon screen upon screen of useless functions. But its only like 4 months old. He is going to KILL me. So lets all light a candle and say a prayer for my little LG.

9. I am grateful for the cold weather because it has allowed me to be very very lazy in the kitchen. Every afternoon, I throw some stuff into one of my Le Creuset pots and stick it in a low temp oven for 4 or 5 hours to stew away while I take a nap and play with Ella. We have had braised lamb, braised pork, braised white beans, a killer tomato sauce. I fear that things might be getting a bit repetitive for the rest of the fam but they are going to have to learn to live with it. Great food with minimal effort is a winning combination in my book. The only downside is that I am not a huge fan of vegetables cooked beyond recognition. Well, nothing is perfect, right?

10. We are at it again, trying to plan a fall vacation. Why is it always such a chore? We can never decide what to do and spend hours and hours researching one holiday only to reject it a few days later for some non-reason. This year we want to stay in Europe- we think- since we probably will have to bring Ella with us. I am trying to convice B that a week or so on the Amalfi coast would be great. He is, as always, very lukewarm on the idea. So frustrating! His Italian father has always bad-mouthed Naples (like any good Northern Italian, I guess) so B just has an inate dislike of the region. I don't push it too much though because Italy is crazy expensive! Every time I find a nice hotel, my jaw hits the floor when I see the rates. Two weeks in Italy would cost us a fortune. I like a deal and so far, I haven't found any for Italy. He keeps suggeting Majorca, which we visited 3 years ago and granted, we had a nice time, but I want to go somewhere new. He also keeps checking out prices for Thailand, but I don't want to go so far. We would both like to go on holiday to Mexico or Central America but it is completely not the season for that. The problem is that if we go during school holidays we are going to have to book something really soon. And B still hasn't asked his parents if they want Ella to come and visit them while she is off school, since they were making comments about never seeing her. Ugh. So lots of stuff to sort out in the next week or so.

11. My good friend from boarding school, Preeta Samarasan, has come out with her first novel, Evening is the Whole Day. She is giving a reading on October 1st at the American Library in Paris at 7:30 in the evening and is hoping very much that there is nice sized audience there. The book is great, but the evening would be worth it for Preeta alone as she is an astoundingly interesting person. So, if you are free and in that neighborhood, mark your calendar. If you can't make it to the reading, then just read the book. The reviews are so impressive and the book definitely lives up to the hype; its gorgeous.

11. Finally, I got a really interesting email from a girlfriend of mine who lost her job in all the chaos on Wall Street. She has actually been off work for awhile and after a load of travelling, is now thinking of heading in a new direction, like starting up her own company. She asked me if I would like to go into business with her and if so, what kind of thing I would want to do. I have to say that I'm not motivated enough right now to do something like this on my own, but of everyone I know, she is probably the only person I would completely trust as a business partner. I mean, I would trust her with my money, I would trust to her to make any business she started a success, I would trust her to never give it less than 110%. Its completely out of the blue and its obviously still very much in the talking stages but, wow. This could turn out to be a very very exciting year...