Oh god, Wednesday was complete chaos- is it a coincidence that Georgia's 5 am wake-up call is always followed by an all round bad day?- around here but despite all that, I managed to make it to the ballet with Ella and it was so worth it. What an amazing show!
La Bayadere is a classic Russian ballet, which was first produced in Paris by Nureyev in 1992 (although he didn't dance in the show, since he was 54 at the time). It is set in India and is the love story of a temple dancer (la bayadere) who falls in love with a prince. The Grand Brahmin, who also loves la bayadere, is jealous and vows to have his vengence. The prince is forced to marry the Rajah's daughter but the Brahmin tries to ruin things by telling the Rajah about the prince's other love. Instead of breaking the fiancailles, the Rajah and his daughter decide to kill the bayadere and after she dances at the engagement party, she is bitten by a snake hidden in a basket of flowers. The Brahmin tries to save the bayadere but the bayadere refuses the antidote when she realizes that the prince will never leave his fiancee. She dies and then comes back to haunt the prince.
Ella loved the dancing and the sets and the costumes, although the story took quite a bit of explaining. I was smart enough to buy a program on our way in, but not smart enough to read the synopsis before the lights when down (oops) so I was forced to ad lib my way through the pantomiming that the dancers did to explain the story. I feel a bit bad for the people seated around us who must have been fed up with our whispering but Ella did make up for it, I think, through her enthusiastic and heartfelt clapping. She even shouted 'Bravo!' at one point, which was adorable.
I did say in one of my posts that we didn't have seats together, but I explained to the ushers that she was sitting with her grandmother and I had a seat apart. Then, once I had figured out which was the better seat, I told the usher that her grandmother hadn't arrived yet, and was it OK for me to sit Ella on my knees until the entracte when she could go with her grandmother? No problem! And in the end, even if I had managed to get seats side by side, she would have been on my knees so that I could explain things. So, alls well that ends well, but it is good to know for future reference that there is a way to get around things if I find myself in this situation again. Honestly, I very nearly gave away the tickets because I wasn't prepared to go all the way there, fight with ushers for 30 minutes, and find out that they were still going to be assholes about Ella sitting in her own seat.
The show was so good that rather than just leave at 8:30 like I had originally planned (it was a school night after all) I let Ella talk me into staying for the second act. It was the engagement party scene and instead of the exposition that made up most of the first act, there was mainly just dancing. The scene was a palace, all decorated in gold, with the domes lit up beautifully. The Prince came riding in on the back of an 'elephant'. There was a dance by a 'golden diety'. They had about a dozen children from the Opera Ecole de Danse participating in the dances. It was perfect for Ella.
If I can sort out my scanner, I'll post a few photos.
Showing posts with label nights out. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nights out. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Desperately avoiding my closet
I am desperately avoiding my closet for many reasons- right this moment, it is because my dressing is a complete disaster, with clothes piled everywhere, shoes kicked into all the corners, belts and scarves knotted up together on the floor, plus a box of summer clothes has exploded in right in the middle of everything. I have the mother of all clean-outs to do this afternoon and I am Unmotivated.
And suddenly I am inspired to blog! (Coincidence?)
The party on Friday night was fun and the chateau was just as beautiful as in the photos. The only bad surprise was arriving and finding half the guests dressed in jeans, including the birthday boy's wife. I wish someone would have written 'casual dress' on the invite because the 3 hours of standing in 4 inch heels for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres just about killed me. Thank goodness that I had plenty to drink so that I very quickly lost feeling in my feet. The dinner went on until 1 in the morning, and there was the expected river of champagne, so unsurprisingly, we both had massive hangovers and were not ready for our 9:30 am wake-up call. It was nice to not have the girls screaming us awake but it would have been nice to have been able to lounge around in bed for a bit longer. Sigh.
Of course, on top of a hangover, I realized that I probably should have been a bit more careful about what I ate. There were so many gorgeous things put out for hors d'oeuvres! Every 15 minutes, a waiter would come by with a new tray full of tiny little treats. So I tasted them all, some of them twice- thinking to hell with the diet for one night. I had been working hard so that I could indulge sometimes. But after weeks of eating low-fat/ low-cal my poor tummy wasn't used to rich foods. At all. Lets just say, I have learned a lesson that I won't forget...
I've done another bit of shopping despite my self-imposed ban. But! But! But, it was for a vintage YSL black drapped skirt, with the tags still on! Who could walk away from that, right? I found it at a shop on rue Birague, just near place des Vosges, called Delphine Pariente. It looks like there is also a shop on rue Charonne. I'd loved to go see it but I am afraid that there will be too much temptation- besides clothes that had so many pretty necklaces and right now, I feeling like I need to find the perfect necklace, something a bit quirky and maybe a bit sparkly that I can just wear everyday. I think that this shop probably has just the thing, if I would let myself look a bit. Best off staying away, I think .
We saw the last episode of Season 1 of Mad Men on Sunday night and I am totally hooked. Obviously, we are going to have to download the next season from Itunes because there is no way that I am going to wait til French tv gets its act together and puts it on the schedule. I kind of hate all the men, and yet, its kind of sexy too the way that they are all so macho. Its fantastic the way you both love and dislike nearly all the characters in equal measure. Betty? Sweet but also sort of annoyingly so. Joan? Gorgeous, but also a little too slutty. Peggy? Crazy, but also the underdog. And also the male character, but you get the picture. And I LOVE how everyone is always smoking and drinking- in the office, in bed, while pregnant, the nurses in the hospital while walking in the halls. I sort of wanted to download the episodes to watch while on vacation but I don't know if I can wait 2 whole weeks.
I think that this post is just pointing out how much I need to work on my willpower.
On a more positive note, I found a great healthy salade for summer that B and I have just been loving. I originally started out making this recipe, but there were a few things about it that didn't work for me. I don't tend to like eating raw onions, first of all, and it calls for two different spice mixes that I imagine you can only buy in the States so even if I wanted to fall the recipe, it would be impossible. Still, I was inspired so this is what I came up with:
Quinoa Salade
1/2 cucumber, peeled, deseeded, and chopped
8 fingerling radishes, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1 bag prepared quinoa from Bjorg
sauce:
1 lime, juiced
2 tbsp colza oil
2 tbsp pistachio oil
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp gomasio
1 tsp agave syrup
salt to taste
tabasco to taste
Mix the vegetables and slightly heated quinoa in a bowl. In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients for the sauce and adjust seasoning as necessary. Pour the sauce over the vegetables and stir well. Chill and serve.
Its fantastic! I think that you could really play with the seasoning for the sauce and I might even try adding diced tomatoes one time to see how that works but personally, I think it is already perfect that way it is. And with the pre-cooked quinoa, you can throw this together in about 5 minutes.
So Ella had been begging me to let her invite two of her friends after school. With all the holidays its been difficult to arrange but we made up invites for her two friends (with my phone number, asking for them to phone me to arrange things) and the next day I brought them to school with me. It turns out that one girl was away on vacation for the week so we only gave the second girl the invite. She was staying after school for gouter, so I told her to be sure to give it to her parents when they came to pick her up. They never called. The little girl told me that she had given it to them and she chattered to me about coming to our house every day when I came to get Ella (so clearly she hasn't forgotten about the invite and must have talked to her parents about it) but I didn't see her parents to check that they got the card. The first little girl came back to school yesterday. I gave her the invite to give to her parents, and they called a few hours later to arrange a playdate for today. Easy as pie to sort that out. Which leaves me wondering about the first invite.
Now the question is, do I send ANOTHER invite home with the first girl and just assume that she never gave the card to her parents? Or do I drop it, assuming that they got the invite but don't want her to come to our house? I pass them occasionally in the neighborhood as they only live a few streets away but they don't really act very friendly- although they have never been outright rude. Sometimes, I think that there are parents that are worried that I only speak English since they see me at school only speaking English with the kids. People get nervous that I might make them speak English to me so they just sort of nod and run when they see me. B says drop it. Ella tells me that she and the little girl discuss the visit constantly at school so I feel a bit bad for the kids by not trying harder to sort this out, but I also just want to drop it because it is sort of a bother to have to entertain someone else's kid.
Hmm. To be decided.
And suddenly I am inspired to blog! (Coincidence?)
The party on Friday night was fun and the chateau was just as beautiful as in the photos. The only bad surprise was arriving and finding half the guests dressed in jeans, including the birthday boy's wife. I wish someone would have written 'casual dress' on the invite because the 3 hours of standing in 4 inch heels for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres just about killed me. Thank goodness that I had plenty to drink so that I very quickly lost feeling in my feet. The dinner went on until 1 in the morning, and there was the expected river of champagne, so unsurprisingly, we both had massive hangovers and were not ready for our 9:30 am wake-up call. It was nice to not have the girls screaming us awake but it would have been nice to have been able to lounge around in bed for a bit longer. Sigh.
Of course, on top of a hangover, I realized that I probably should have been a bit more careful about what I ate. There were so many gorgeous things put out for hors d'oeuvres! Every 15 minutes, a waiter would come by with a new tray full of tiny little treats. So I tasted them all, some of them twice- thinking to hell with the diet for one night. I had been working hard so that I could indulge sometimes. But after weeks of eating low-fat/ low-cal my poor tummy wasn't used to rich foods. At all. Lets just say, I have learned a lesson that I won't forget...
I've done another bit of shopping despite my self-imposed ban. But! But! But, it was for a vintage YSL black drapped skirt, with the tags still on! Who could walk away from that, right? I found it at a shop on rue Birague, just near place des Vosges, called Delphine Pariente. It looks like there is also a shop on rue Charonne. I'd loved to go see it but I am afraid that there will be too much temptation- besides clothes that had so many pretty necklaces and right now, I feeling like I need to find the perfect necklace, something a bit quirky and maybe a bit sparkly that I can just wear everyday. I think that this shop probably has just the thing, if I would let myself look a bit. Best off staying away, I think .
We saw the last episode of Season 1 of Mad Men on Sunday night and I am totally hooked. Obviously, we are going to have to download the next season from Itunes because there is no way that I am going to wait til French tv gets its act together and puts it on the schedule. I kind of hate all the men, and yet, its kind of sexy too the way that they are all so macho. Its fantastic the way you both love and dislike nearly all the characters in equal measure. Betty? Sweet but also sort of annoyingly so. Joan? Gorgeous, but also a little too slutty. Peggy? Crazy, but also the underdog. And also the male character, but you get the picture. And I LOVE how everyone is always smoking and drinking- in the office, in bed, while pregnant, the nurses in the hospital while walking in the halls. I sort of wanted to download the episodes to watch while on vacation but I don't know if I can wait 2 whole weeks.
I think that this post is just pointing out how much I need to work on my willpower.
On a more positive note, I found a great healthy salade for summer that B and I have just been loving. I originally started out making this recipe, but there were a few things about it that didn't work for me. I don't tend to like eating raw onions, first of all, and it calls for two different spice mixes that I imagine you can only buy in the States so even if I wanted to fall the recipe, it would be impossible. Still, I was inspired so this is what I came up with:
Quinoa Salade
1/2 cucumber, peeled, deseeded, and chopped
8 fingerling radishes, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1 bag prepared quinoa from Bjorg
sauce:
1 lime, juiced
2 tbsp colza oil
2 tbsp pistachio oil
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp gomasio
1 tsp agave syrup
salt to taste
tabasco to taste
Mix the vegetables and slightly heated quinoa in a bowl. In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients for the sauce and adjust seasoning as necessary. Pour the sauce over the vegetables and stir well. Chill and serve.
Its fantastic! I think that you could really play with the seasoning for the sauce and I might even try adding diced tomatoes one time to see how that works but personally, I think it is already perfect that way it is. And with the pre-cooked quinoa, you can throw this together in about 5 minutes.
So Ella had been begging me to let her invite two of her friends after school. With all the holidays its been difficult to arrange but we made up invites for her two friends (with my phone number, asking for them to phone me to arrange things) and the next day I brought them to school with me. It turns out that one girl was away on vacation for the week so we only gave the second girl the invite. She was staying after school for gouter, so I told her to be sure to give it to her parents when they came to pick her up. They never called. The little girl told me that she had given it to them and she chattered to me about coming to our house every day when I came to get Ella (so clearly she hasn't forgotten about the invite and must have talked to her parents about it) but I didn't see her parents to check that they got the card. The first little girl came back to school yesterday. I gave her the invite to give to her parents, and they called a few hours later to arrange a playdate for today. Easy as pie to sort that out. Which leaves me wondering about the first invite.
Now the question is, do I send ANOTHER invite home with the first girl and just assume that she never gave the card to her parents? Or do I drop it, assuming that they got the invite but don't want her to come to our house? I pass them occasionally in the neighborhood as they only live a few streets away but they don't really act very friendly- although they have never been outright rude. Sometimes, I think that there are parents that are worried that I only speak English since they see me at school only speaking English with the kids. People get nervous that I might make them speak English to me so they just sort of nod and run when they see me. B says drop it. Ella tells me that she and the little girl discuss the visit constantly at school so I feel a bit bad for the kids by not trying harder to sort this out, but I also just want to drop it because it is sort of a bother to have to entertain someone else's kid.
Hmm. To be decided.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Another day of school holidays, another round of princess dresses... Today we did a princess picnic in the bedroom and all the dolls had their best dresses on and ate baby boudoir biscuits (thank goodness I finally found a way to use those cookies, now that Georgia has decided that they are poison). We have a trip to the Jardins des Plantes planned for this afternoon, maybe even a visit to the 'zoo' with some friends but I am a bit nervous whenever I look out the window. There is no way to get there by bus from our house so that means we have to do the entire 20 minute walk, in each direction, even if the rain starts pouring down on us.
What? you think that I should just bring an umbrella? Well, thanks to our favorite Disney movie, Mary Poppins, Ella has a phobia about umbrellas. As soon as the window blows, she starts screaming at everyone to throw down their umbrellas before we all get blown away. The first time I laughed til I cried, by the 4th or 5th time, I was forced to admit that it went beyond a childish misunderstanding and she was seriously freaked out. So this is one of the reasons that I don't venture out too far on a rainy day. I've made plans to meet a friend there so we sort of have to go out today; crossing everything and hoping it works out. The weather says it will clear up a bit this afternoon and there is no risk of rain, but this would not be the first time Meteo France has had it completely wrong.
I also don't want to have too stressful of an afternoon because tonight, B and I have big plans to go to a birthday party outside Paris at a chateau. Oolala, right? We are even spending the night there and I am so looking forward to having a big comfy bed to collapse into at the end of what is likely to be a French party- ie a dinner with 7 or 8 courses, plus wine, plus enough champagne to float a boat. But a comfy bed means nothing if you need to get up at 7:30 in the a.m. to turn on a Disney film and prepare bowls of cereal for children who are bound and determined to wear 3/4 of that bowl. For the first time, we are leaving the girls with a sitter for the night. Hurrah! I feel like its my birthday we're celebrating. It doesn't worry me in the least, but it just means that tomorrow morning we won't be able to dawdle and try out the spa. Rats. B is desperate for a massage and I predict that I will have a monumental hangover since I've been on the (f*%?#-ing diet) wagon for so long. It would have been nice to have a massage to look forward to, as well.
I am a mess and I will only have a half hour to get ready between zoo and departure of the 'bus' so am a predicting a frantic witching hour at our house- which has only gotten worse since Georgia began to fight her second nap. Would have loved to have the afternoon to go and have my nails done and maybe a brushing at the salon since it looks to be a big fancy party but I organized badly and only asked the sitter to get here at 5. Double rats.
PS I am trying REALLY hard to clean up my language since Ella picked up the habit of saying 'Damn' when something went wrong. This goes back a ways- one day after I heard her use the word for about the third time I jumped up and shouted at her. It was such a shock, and she got into such trouble, that it really marked her. Only, she was so shocked that she couldn't remember if she was supposed to say 'damn' or supposed to NOT say 'damn'. Rats was one of the alternatives that I suggested. Its been a long road, but she has almost integrated 'rats' into her vocab. Which means, of course, that I have to integrate 'rats' into my vocabulary. We're getting mixed results, so far.
What? you think that I should just bring an umbrella? Well, thanks to our favorite Disney movie, Mary Poppins, Ella has a phobia about umbrellas. As soon as the window blows, she starts screaming at everyone to throw down their umbrellas before we all get blown away. The first time I laughed til I cried, by the 4th or 5th time, I was forced to admit that it went beyond a childish misunderstanding and she was seriously freaked out. So this is one of the reasons that I don't venture out too far on a rainy day. I've made plans to meet a friend there so we sort of have to go out today; crossing everything and hoping it works out. The weather says it will clear up a bit this afternoon and there is no risk of rain, but this would not be the first time Meteo France has had it completely wrong.
I also don't want to have too stressful of an afternoon because tonight, B and I have big plans to go to a birthday party outside Paris at a chateau. Oolala, right? We are even spending the night there and I am so looking forward to having a big comfy bed to collapse into at the end of what is likely to be a French party- ie a dinner with 7 or 8 courses, plus wine, plus enough champagne to float a boat. But a comfy bed means nothing if you need to get up at 7:30 in the a.m. to turn on a Disney film and prepare bowls of cereal for children who are bound and determined to wear 3/4 of that bowl. For the first time, we are leaving the girls with a sitter for the night. Hurrah! I feel like its my birthday we're celebrating. It doesn't worry me in the least, but it just means that tomorrow morning we won't be able to dawdle and try out the spa. Rats. B is desperate for a massage and I predict that I will have a monumental hangover since I've been on the (f*%?#-ing diet) wagon for so long. It would have been nice to have a massage to look forward to, as well.
I am a mess and I will only have a half hour to get ready between zoo and departure of the 'bus' so am a predicting a frantic witching hour at our house- which has only gotten worse since Georgia began to fight her second nap. Would have loved to have the afternoon to go and have my nails done and maybe a brushing at the salon since it looks to be a big fancy party but I organized badly and only asked the sitter to get here at 5. Double rats.
PS I am trying REALLY hard to clean up my language since Ella picked up the habit of saying 'Damn' when something went wrong. This goes back a ways- one day after I heard her use the word for about the third time I jumped up and shouted at her. It was such a shock, and she got into such trouble, that it really marked her. Only, she was so shocked that she couldn't remember if she was supposed to say 'damn' or supposed to NOT say 'damn'. Rats was one of the alternatives that I suggested. Its been a long road, but she has almost integrated 'rats' into her vocab. Which means, of course, that I have to integrate 'rats' into my vocabulary. We're getting mixed results, so far.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Ugh. Its been a Rough Day.
I went out last night with my French girlfriends for dinner at Cafe des Artistes in the 10th (lovely and definitely worth the hike over to that neighborhood) and had an awesome fun time. But I drank 3 glasses of wine which was just enough to make me cocky about getting home and into bed on time and so I didn't end up closing my eyes til 12:08. Which made Georgia's wake-up scream at 4:51 that much harder to take. Did you do that math? 4 hours and 43 minutes of sleep last night. Painful does not do justice to what I experienced this morning.
Of course, B (that ?ù%*?!) didn't go to bed before me and so he was even crankier about the noise which forced me to get up and deal with things for the entire hour that she sat in bed and groused about god knows what. Finally she had her bottle and squeaked only a tiny bit more before letting us sleep til 8:30 but then we had to jump from bed to get ready for our appointment at the Consulate at 10:30 to renew Ella's passport.
Did I mention that B was being cranky because he stayed up too late watching f-ing Cauet? And that, despite me mentioning this appointment several times over the past few weeks, he had FORGOTTEN about it? So this morning he had to leave early to run to work and sort out opening the shop. Which meant that rather than drive over, I was forced to carry Georgia (who is only adorably fat when she is walking on her own...) all the way there. AND I couldn't bring much in the way of entertainment for the girls because I was at my limit with the baby.
All of which made the 2 and a half hour wait that much more of a torture. Of course, it was easy to do all the documents and stuff but sitting there and amusing the girls for that long while horribly tired and slightly hungover was a true misery.
By the time I got home i knew that there was no way that little G and I were going to make it to our playdate. She needed a nap almost as desperately as me. So I cancelled, but I hate hate hate doing that, only today there was no choice.
I did manage to sleep for two hours before the screeching started again. A giant coffee helped get me through the rest of the afternoon but now I am drooping again and I have dinner and baths to do. I want to cry.
Luckily, my girls were totally worth it. Seriously, how many virgins do I have to kill to appease the gods and get a good nights' sleep?!!!
I went out last night with my French girlfriends for dinner at Cafe des Artistes in the 10th (lovely and definitely worth the hike over to that neighborhood) and had an awesome fun time. But I drank 3 glasses of wine which was just enough to make me cocky about getting home and into bed on time and so I didn't end up closing my eyes til 12:08. Which made Georgia's wake-up scream at 4:51 that much harder to take. Did you do that math? 4 hours and 43 minutes of sleep last night. Painful does not do justice to what I experienced this morning.
Of course, B (that ?ù%*?!) didn't go to bed before me and so he was even crankier about the noise which forced me to get up and deal with things for the entire hour that she sat in bed and groused about god knows what. Finally she had her bottle and squeaked only a tiny bit more before letting us sleep til 8:30 but then we had to jump from bed to get ready for our appointment at the Consulate at 10:30 to renew Ella's passport.
Did I mention that B was being cranky because he stayed up too late watching f-ing Cauet? And that, despite me mentioning this appointment several times over the past few weeks, he had FORGOTTEN about it? So this morning he had to leave early to run to work and sort out opening the shop. Which meant that rather than drive over, I was forced to carry Georgia (who is only adorably fat when she is walking on her own...) all the way there. AND I couldn't bring much in the way of entertainment for the girls because I was at my limit with the baby.
All of which made the 2 and a half hour wait that much more of a torture. Of course, it was easy to do all the documents and stuff but sitting there and amusing the girls for that long while horribly tired and slightly hungover was a true misery.
By the time I got home i knew that there was no way that little G and I were going to make it to our playdate. She needed a nap almost as desperately as me. So I cancelled, but I hate hate hate doing that, only today there was no choice.
I did manage to sleep for two hours before the screeching started again. A giant coffee helped get me through the rest of the afternoon but now I am drooping again and I have dinner and baths to do. I want to cry.
Luckily, my girls were totally worth it. Seriously, how many virgins do I have to kill to appease the gods and get a good nights' sleep?!!!
Monday, March 29, 2010
weekend in review
Well this weekend was all ups and downs. It was nice to have so many plans, but it is really exhausting! And if I had known about the time change, I think I would have been dreading this weekend. But finally, that was a breeze and the real problems were all the blame on the French.
I'll do the bad stuff first. I don't want be spreadin' B's bidness all around, but he has had a rough couple of days, poor guy. For the last few months, his business has been audited and they got the results on Friday. Now, it seems to me like this was pretty much the result that he had predicted but apparently he had harbored secret hopes that it would go differently. The auditor made some pretty far-fetched assumptions to come up with his valuations which means that the 'bill' to be paid is astronomical. So now, they need to hire a lawyer to appeal the 'bill' and all this will probably take a year or two. And since B is a pathological worrier, that means a year or two of worrying constantly about the result. Sigh.
The second problem that he had this weekend was a lot more exciting (really? you say. More exciting than discussing accounting errors? Oh Internets, I know it is hard to keep up with my thrilling life over here. But seriously, wait for it...) - his bank was robbed! Personally, the last word that I would use to describe the situation is 'shocking' but I'll let you judge. The bank office where we had our checking accounts and safe deposit box has been closed for renovations for the last few months. This branch is near B's office so I hadn't seen it until a few weeks ago when we drove by in the car. B pointed out the window and said 'Look at how safe they keep our money...' The front wall of the bank had been removed and was replaced by... plywood. You know, thin flimsy pressboard. Can be snapped in half by a hefty toddler jumping on it in the middle. Well, apparently, they had moved the front desk part to another location down the street and just weren't terribly worried about the safe deposit boxes so plywood was considered sufficient protection from the bad guys. Geez- I don't even think that plywood is sufficient protection from strong wind, but you know, thats just me. I asked him if had left anything in the safe and he said yes. I said that I hoped it wasn't anything important because personally, that wall of plywood didn't reassure me much. And I guess I was right because Sunday morning, B stopped by his office to pick up something and he saw firemen and police all over the bank- or I should say, former bank. There had been a fire. Set by the bank robbers, who broke into the safe. B called me right away and he was practically in hysterics because the police wouldn't tell him anything. Again, I can't say that I was at all shocked and I pointed out that if the fire was only caught at 8 or 9 on Sunday morning, it was probably only set a bit before (its right on avenue de l'opera and there are lots of people around even early on Sunday morning so it couldn't have burned for very long). That would mean that the robbers had probably been in the bank all night and had had plenty of time to get in all the safe deposit boxes. It was probably a safe bet that whatever he had in there was gone. Well, we spend the rest of the day, on practically on hourly basis, having this same discussion over and over and OVER again. He tried phoning up this morning and the staff at the replacement office didn't even know that there had been a break-in. Oh, French people and their great attitude of 'Whatever. Not my problem.'
At least I can't complain about not getting enough sleep this weekend. I'm not saying that I couldn't have slept for hours more each morning but atleast there were no noisy neighbors to wake me and the time change totally worked in our favor. Tonight will be the real test, but last night Georgia was in bed at 8:30 (a bit later than usual due to the time change and a late nap) and didn't wake until 6:45. I managed to settle her back to sleep til 7:15, when I gave her a bottle and when she was done and had woken us up by banging her bottle against the bars on her crib (honestly, she finally wakes up happy one day and do we get to hear her cooing in bed? No. Its like waking up to an episode of Prison Break.) Despite the noise, this is magical. People, seriously, a Full Nights Sleep. Even if she did wake me up at a very critical point in my dream about hanging out with Brad Pitt and our kids in the park ( we were exchanging very longing looks but I refused to kiss him because Angie would shoot daggers at me each morning before she left for the movie set and I was afraid of the paparazzi taking a photo of it. Don't know where B was during all this. Perhaps at the bank, sifting through safe deposit ashes? Anyways, best dream I've had in AGES. But also kind of random since the scraggy goatee Brad's rocking right now is actually pretty gross. )
I guess I'll just keep working backwards. Saturday night got sort of screwed up since I was supposed to go out with an old uni friend in town for the weekend but we got our wires crossed and I ended up with a babysitter and no place to go. I told B that after my hellish afternoon of hangover + kids birthday party (boy, kids sure like popping balloons, don't they?), I was bound and determined to ditch the kids for a few hours of quiet adult company. He made reservations at the Thai place at the Village St Paul and we had a lovely dinner, discussing a dream vacation inspired by my brother and his sailing adventure. We are going to fly to Panama, get on a sailboat and sail to the Galapagos Islands, where we can spend a week diving and hiking and visiting stuff. Can't wait. The nice thing about B is that once he gets an idea in his head, he won't let it drop (OK, full disclosure; this is also the most irritating thing about him. Funny how that works, isn't it?). I was teasing him this morning when he asked me to cross my fingers and say a pray for him, since he was off to the bank to see about things. I told him that I would be praying hard because if everything turned out fine, he would be so excited that I would be able to book an awesome vacation for May; but if he got bad news, I didn't have a snowball chance in hell of going anywhere til the fall because he would nix all my ideas simply on principal (the principal being that people who are robbed don't have money for vacation. Never mind that the stuff in the safe has nothing to do with our finances...)
Friday night, I had my weekly girls night out which was fab. I am sad all over again about my friend who moved home to the Netherlands. She is so lovely and I realize more and more that she was sort of the corner stone of our group of friends. You know how there is often the person who is the connection between different groups? And without that person, no one is the catalyst to get different people together? Its funny how it works out; I talk to all these people when I bump into them on the street or in the shops or at the school gate, but the only time that we go out is when Hestor is around. Hmm. So dinner was fun although we went to Chez Janou to eat. I don't know. Lots of people love that place but I think it is a pain. First of all, the no seating til your whole group arrives is ridiculous because the bar area is like a cattle pen from 8 til 8:30. The guy that runs the place is obnoxious, even though he sort of acts like its just his schtick. Ugh. The Rude French Waiter act is maybe funny for tourists, but I'm so over it. Just whatever, ignore me or bring my dinner but don't harrass me, please. Thank goodness that I was too drunk at the end of the meal to care about the tip. I think I paid 7 euro too much and I hope that one of my girlfriends too the change. It would kill me to think that I left it as a tip for that meal. The food was fine, don't get me wrong, it just wasn't great. Anyways, I think i like that place better in the summer when you can sit outside on the terrasse.
That reminds me, while talking about restaurants. On Sunday afternoon, while strolling through the Marais with the girls, we decided to stop for a coffee. That whole area around rue Francs Bourgeois was just heaving, per the usual, so I decided that we should head up rue Turenne a bit to find somewhere less busy. We went into Le Cafe de Deux Musees and it was fantastic! I had been there ages ago and sort of forgot how nice it was. We ordered the apple tart (mainly because the waiter said that was all that they had left...) and it must have been just out of the oven as it was still warm. It was honestly just so gorgeous that it immediately went to the number one spot on my list of Best Tarts Ever. So yummy. The wait staff were all really nice and cheeky (take note, Chez Janou, there is a difference between cheeky and rude). The salle is nice and old-fashioned. And the regular menu looked nice and well-priced. We took the card and hopefully we'll remember to go there for one of our mid-week, low-key date nights. I am on a mission to find some new restos in our neighborhood because we have gotten into such a rut and then last week, it started raining as we wandered around looking for a place to eat and we ended up in a very sub-par place just off place St Catherine. Ok, it got is in and out of the rain which was our main goal at that point but the food was abysmal. Oh well. I guess that I've learned my lesson- never go out on a warm evening in March and expect to have all night to stroll around and find a nice place to eat. Unless you left the house with an umbrella.
I'm also going to try Au Petit Marche on rue Bearn. One of my girlfriends recommended it and its also close by so I'll post a review as soon as I get around to eating at all of these places. It shouldn't be too long. The warm weather, and Georgia's improved sleeping habits, have made me antsy to get out of the house more often. I think I might even need to go have a look through Craigslist to see if I can't find a nice American student looking to pick up a few hours of babysitting.
A have a few minutes before I need to go and get Georgia from garderie so I am going to make a real To Do list and try and be a bit productive this week. I am embarrassed at my lack of motivation lately. In fact, I am so embarrassed about it that I won't even go into the details. Lets just say that its amazing that I manage to leave the house fully dressed.
I'll do the bad stuff first. I don't want be spreadin' B's bidness all around, but he has had a rough couple of days, poor guy. For the last few months, his business has been audited and they got the results on Friday. Now, it seems to me like this was pretty much the result that he had predicted but apparently he had harbored secret hopes that it would go differently. The auditor made some pretty far-fetched assumptions to come up with his valuations which means that the 'bill' to be paid is astronomical. So now, they need to hire a lawyer to appeal the 'bill' and all this will probably take a year or two. And since B is a pathological worrier, that means a year or two of worrying constantly about the result. Sigh.
The second problem that he had this weekend was a lot more exciting (really? you say. More exciting than discussing accounting errors? Oh Internets, I know it is hard to keep up with my thrilling life over here. But seriously, wait for it...) - his bank was robbed! Personally, the last word that I would use to describe the situation is 'shocking' but I'll let you judge. The bank office where we had our checking accounts and safe deposit box has been closed for renovations for the last few months. This branch is near B's office so I hadn't seen it until a few weeks ago when we drove by in the car. B pointed out the window and said 'Look at how safe they keep our money...' The front wall of the bank had been removed and was replaced by... plywood. You know, thin flimsy pressboard. Can be snapped in half by a hefty toddler jumping on it in the middle. Well, apparently, they had moved the front desk part to another location down the street and just weren't terribly worried about the safe deposit boxes so plywood was considered sufficient protection from the bad guys. Geez- I don't even think that plywood is sufficient protection from strong wind, but you know, thats just me. I asked him if had left anything in the safe and he said yes. I said that I hoped it wasn't anything important because personally, that wall of plywood didn't reassure me much. And I guess I was right because Sunday morning, B stopped by his office to pick up something and he saw firemen and police all over the bank- or I should say, former bank. There had been a fire. Set by the bank robbers, who broke into the safe. B called me right away and he was practically in hysterics because the police wouldn't tell him anything. Again, I can't say that I was at all shocked and I pointed out that if the fire was only caught at 8 or 9 on Sunday morning, it was probably only set a bit before (its right on avenue de l'opera and there are lots of people around even early on Sunday morning so it couldn't have burned for very long). That would mean that the robbers had probably been in the bank all night and had had plenty of time to get in all the safe deposit boxes. It was probably a safe bet that whatever he had in there was gone. Well, we spend the rest of the day, on practically on hourly basis, having this same discussion over and over and OVER again. He tried phoning up this morning and the staff at the replacement office didn't even know that there had been a break-in. Oh, French people and their great attitude of 'Whatever. Not my problem.'
At least I can't complain about not getting enough sleep this weekend. I'm not saying that I couldn't have slept for hours more each morning but atleast there were no noisy neighbors to wake me and the time change totally worked in our favor. Tonight will be the real test, but last night Georgia was in bed at 8:30 (a bit later than usual due to the time change and a late nap) and didn't wake until 6:45. I managed to settle her back to sleep til 7:15, when I gave her a bottle and when she was done and had woken us up by banging her bottle against the bars on her crib (honestly, she finally wakes up happy one day and do we get to hear her cooing in bed? No. Its like waking up to an episode of Prison Break.) Despite the noise, this is magical. People, seriously, a Full Nights Sleep. Even if she did wake me up at a very critical point in my dream about hanging out with Brad Pitt and our kids in the park ( we were exchanging very longing looks but I refused to kiss him because Angie would shoot daggers at me each morning before she left for the movie set and I was afraid of the paparazzi taking a photo of it. Don't know where B was during all this. Perhaps at the bank, sifting through safe deposit ashes? Anyways, best dream I've had in AGES. But also kind of random since the scraggy goatee Brad's rocking right now is actually pretty gross. )
I guess I'll just keep working backwards. Saturday night got sort of screwed up since I was supposed to go out with an old uni friend in town for the weekend but we got our wires crossed and I ended up with a babysitter and no place to go. I told B that after my hellish afternoon of hangover + kids birthday party (boy, kids sure like popping balloons, don't they?), I was bound and determined to ditch the kids for a few hours of quiet adult company. He made reservations at the Thai place at the Village St Paul and we had a lovely dinner, discussing a dream vacation inspired by my brother and his sailing adventure. We are going to fly to Panama, get on a sailboat and sail to the Galapagos Islands, where we can spend a week diving and hiking and visiting stuff. Can't wait. The nice thing about B is that once he gets an idea in his head, he won't let it drop (OK, full disclosure; this is also the most irritating thing about him. Funny how that works, isn't it?). I was teasing him this morning when he asked me to cross my fingers and say a pray for him, since he was off to the bank to see about things. I told him that I would be praying hard because if everything turned out fine, he would be so excited that I would be able to book an awesome vacation for May; but if he got bad news, I didn't have a snowball chance in hell of going anywhere til the fall because he would nix all my ideas simply on principal (the principal being that people who are robbed don't have money for vacation. Never mind that the stuff in the safe has nothing to do with our finances...)
Friday night, I had my weekly girls night out which was fab. I am sad all over again about my friend who moved home to the Netherlands. She is so lovely and I realize more and more that she was sort of the corner stone of our group of friends. You know how there is often the person who is the connection between different groups? And without that person, no one is the catalyst to get different people together? Its funny how it works out; I talk to all these people when I bump into them on the street or in the shops or at the school gate, but the only time that we go out is when Hestor is around. Hmm. So dinner was fun although we went to Chez Janou to eat. I don't know. Lots of people love that place but I think it is a pain. First of all, the no seating til your whole group arrives is ridiculous because the bar area is like a cattle pen from 8 til 8:30. The guy that runs the place is obnoxious, even though he sort of acts like its just his schtick. Ugh. The Rude French Waiter act is maybe funny for tourists, but I'm so over it. Just whatever, ignore me or bring my dinner but don't harrass me, please. Thank goodness that I was too drunk at the end of the meal to care about the tip. I think I paid 7 euro too much and I hope that one of my girlfriends too the change. It would kill me to think that I left it as a tip for that meal. The food was fine, don't get me wrong, it just wasn't great. Anyways, I think i like that place better in the summer when you can sit outside on the terrasse.
That reminds me, while talking about restaurants. On Sunday afternoon, while strolling through the Marais with the girls, we decided to stop for a coffee. That whole area around rue Francs Bourgeois was just heaving, per the usual, so I decided that we should head up rue Turenne a bit to find somewhere less busy. We went into Le Cafe de Deux Musees and it was fantastic! I had been there ages ago and sort of forgot how nice it was. We ordered the apple tart (mainly because the waiter said that was all that they had left...) and it must have been just out of the oven as it was still warm. It was honestly just so gorgeous that it immediately went to the number one spot on my list of Best Tarts Ever. So yummy. The wait staff were all really nice and cheeky (take note, Chez Janou, there is a difference between cheeky and rude). The salle is nice and old-fashioned. And the regular menu looked nice and well-priced. We took the card and hopefully we'll remember to go there for one of our mid-week, low-key date nights. I am on a mission to find some new restos in our neighborhood because we have gotten into such a rut and then last week, it started raining as we wandered around looking for a place to eat and we ended up in a very sub-par place just off place St Catherine. Ok, it got is in and out of the rain which was our main goal at that point but the food was abysmal. Oh well. I guess that I've learned my lesson- never go out on a warm evening in March and expect to have all night to stroll around and find a nice place to eat. Unless you left the house with an umbrella.
I'm also going to try Au Petit Marche on rue Bearn. One of my girlfriends recommended it and its also close by so I'll post a review as soon as I get around to eating at all of these places. It shouldn't be too long. The warm weather, and Georgia's improved sleeping habits, have made me antsy to get out of the house more often. I think I might even need to go have a look through Craigslist to see if I can't find a nice American student looking to pick up a few hours of babysitting.
A have a few minutes before I need to go and get Georgia from garderie so I am going to make a real To Do list and try and be a bit productive this week. I am embarrassed at my lack of motivation lately. In fact, I am so embarrassed about it that I won't even go into the details. Lets just say that its amazing that I manage to leave the house fully dressed.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
You know what is the worst thing for a hangover? A children's party. UGH. I having nothing but regret about that second bottle of wine from dinner last night.
And it never fails that after weeks of quiet, all our friends descend on Paris at the same time so we are out again tonight. Full report to come. Right now, I have to wipe off my face paint, feed the kids and throw on some grown-ûp party clothes before the sitter gets here in a half hour.
I think I kind of liked it better when we were hermits.
And it never fails that after weeks of quiet, all our friends descend on Paris at the same time so we are out again tonight. Full report to come. Right now, I have to wipe off my face paint, feed the kids and throw on some grown-ûp party clothes before the sitter gets here in a half hour.
I think I kind of liked it better when we were hermits.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Easter's on its way...
So the party was fun last night. Very girly. Just what I needed. We even called up my friend's plastic surgeon, who met us for a drink at the Fumoir, and told us all about botox. He had us all contorting our faces in ridiculous ways so he could show us just what he would be doing. We are going to do a Champagne and Botulism party in two weeks time- meet at his office for a group appointment. Apparently some of the girls are totally addicted. I thought about doing it just to see what it was like. I really hope that I don't get to the point where I can't do without. Hmmm- wonder if this is such a great idea. Oh, and the dress got a thumbs up from everyone (including my dear husband), they said that I looked very skinny wearing it, and I ask nothing more from my clothes. Also, the consensus was that my haircut was good and I should make another appointment with Barbara even though I had to pay such a ridiculous amount at my last appointment. The collective gasp when I announced how much I paid made me feel slightly better about how my own jaw hit the floor. It did me so much good to get out of the house and hang out with my girlfriends. I like my mommy friends who I see all the time at playgroups and the school pick-up but - and maybe it is just because the kids are around and its hard to let your hair down when technically we are all 'at work'- its just not fun enough. So lesson learned. Even if it means spending all day Friday in a sleep-deprived haze, I am going to try and make plans to go out, alone, every week. A mental health day, so to speak.
Easter is coming up and I need to start on our projects. So far, I have the stuff for the peeps, which we will try out tomorrow. I've scoped out the baskets at my 'supplier' over on rue des Ecoles (I don't know the name but this quincaillerie has just about any kind of woven basket you could need). Georgia needs a basket this year- and she definitely needs her own supply of treats. She is such a little monster. If Ella has any sort of food, Georgia thinks that she needs to have exactly the same thing. No matter that Georgia has only 2 teeth (and at this point, they are still only half teeth). I cannot imagine the battle that will break out on Easter Sunday if Ella comes waltzing in with a basket full of chocolate bunnies and I try and hand Georgia a teething biscuit. Still, I don't know what I can buy that will look like a chocolate bunny but actually be somewhat healthy for a 13-month-old baby to eat. I've already talked to the lady at the chocolate shop about setting stuff aside for me so I don't have to worry about her running out of stuff before I manage to get there. I'll have to see if she has any suggestions. Internets, can you help?!!
Anyways, baskets. After looking through the pics on Marthastewart, I've decided that I'll need to make one filled with flowers for my MIL. We are going to her house for Easter dinner and she never buys herself flowers so I think she'll like it. The photos I saw on the martha site were Gorgeous. If I can manage something half as nice, we are set. Maybe I could even take the basket over to my fav flower shop and have them do it for me?
I think it would be fun to dye eggs with Ella, but of course that means running around to every grocery store in town to try and find white eggs. Its so weird that the eggs they normally sell in the shops are brown. I have two weeks, so I should manage to stumble across them if I keep my eyes open. Now is one of the times when I wished that I had renewed my Message membership. The forums were great for hunting down things like white eggs. Oh well.
I would love to have the girls in matching Easter dresses so I might have to do a bit of shopping yet. My mom always got us pretty dresses for Easter and so its basically a family tradition; B can't argue with that :-)
Easter is coming up and I need to start on our projects. So far, I have the stuff for the peeps, which we will try out tomorrow. I've scoped out the baskets at my 'supplier' over on rue des Ecoles (I don't know the name but this quincaillerie has just about any kind of woven basket you could need). Georgia needs a basket this year- and she definitely needs her own supply of treats. She is such a little monster. If Ella has any sort of food, Georgia thinks that she needs to have exactly the same thing. No matter that Georgia has only 2 teeth (and at this point, they are still only half teeth). I cannot imagine the battle that will break out on Easter Sunday if Ella comes waltzing in with a basket full of chocolate bunnies and I try and hand Georgia a teething biscuit. Still, I don't know what I can buy that will look like a chocolate bunny but actually be somewhat healthy for a 13-month-old baby to eat. I've already talked to the lady at the chocolate shop about setting stuff aside for me so I don't have to worry about her running out of stuff before I manage to get there. I'll have to see if she has any suggestions. Internets, can you help?!!
Anyways, baskets. After looking through the pics on Marthastewart, I've decided that I'll need to make one filled with flowers for my MIL. We are going to her house for Easter dinner and she never buys herself flowers so I think she'll like it. The photos I saw on the martha site were Gorgeous. If I can manage something half as nice, we are set. Maybe I could even take the basket over to my fav flower shop and have them do it for me?
I think it would be fun to dye eggs with Ella, but of course that means running around to every grocery store in town to try and find white eggs. Its so weird that the eggs they normally sell in the shops are brown. I have two weeks, so I should manage to stumble across them if I keep my eyes open. Now is one of the times when I wished that I had renewed my Message membership. The forums were great for hunting down things like white eggs. Oh well.
I would love to have the girls in matching Easter dresses so I might have to do a bit of shopping yet. My mom always got us pretty dresses for Easter and so its basically a family tradition; B can't argue with that :-)
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Things that I am liking today
Despite the nice suuny sky, doesn't look like I am going out this afternoon as Georgia is acting a bit under the weather. Don't 
quite know what she's got, but I have had a few good nights sleep in a row so I suppose that means I am due for an all-nighter. In order to get a post up, I will do a quick list of things that I am liking today:
*Soup
On Sunday afternoon, I cooked up a pot of Jamie Olivers' Tomato and Chickpea Soup (found in his cookbook Jamie's Dinners, which I picked up at The Little Red Wheelbarrow a few weeks ago; its turning out to be a great purchase), so yummy. I just ate two bowls of it for lunch and finished off the last of it. I LOVE this recipe- here is my version:
Saute 100 g finely chopped chorizo in a tbsp of oil. When the oils come out of the chorizo, add two sticks of chopped celery and a chopped onion; saute til cooked through. Stir in one clove of crushed garlic. Add 4 cups of chicken broth, 2 cups of crushed tomatoes (or chopped fresh tomatoes), a lg bag of spinach leaves and a can of drained chickpeas. Leave to simmer for 40 minutes. Puree about half the soup (I use those liquidizer wands). When ready to serve, top with sliced prosciutto, chopped boiled eggs and a drizzle of really good olive oil. Die and go to heaven. Voila.
I suspect that I could eat it this everyday for a good long while before I every got sick of it.
PS: notice the dish? So far, I'm happy with the change- food looks so good in these dishes!
*Fleur de Geisha Tea from Palais des Thes
I am also burning through my box of tea that I got as a present from our friends who stayed in our flat while we were away skiing.
I had smelled it while I was in the shop and thought that it smelled nice, but I like it even more than I thought I would. As I am still trying to watch what I eat, I have been drinking gallons of green tea every afternoon. It gets boring. But this tea has such a nice flowery smell that I would be drinking it even if it wasn't green tea.
*Tetines
And since Georgia is under the weather, she is allowed to hang on to her tetine all day long, even though it is normally limited to bed time.
She is just cranky cranky cranky. I got her up from her nap because I heard her making noise and brought her in the kitchen for lunch. She refused everything that I offered her, even though I broke my own rule (normally, in this house, you eat what is offered or you go hungry to til the next meal. Doesn't matter how short you are...) and opened a second jar of baby food to try and tempt her to eat something. No luck. She kept squeaking until I just put her back in bed. She slept another 45 minutes and then I took her temp (nothing), gave her a Doliprane in case it was sore teeth, and now she is wandering around the house alternately playing with her toys and breaking into inconsolable sobs.
*the new brochure from the Opera de Paris
Yesterday in the mail, I got the calendar for the 2010/2011 season of operas and ballets and the paperwork to pre-order tickets. Since I've been taking Ella to see shows this year, I've realized that even though tickets are expensive, they are a worthwhile expense. I really really enjoy going and I just don't know why I always put off buying tickets when it was just for B and I. Ella adores going to see the ballet and, as I've said before, I think that it is just as worthwhile as sending her to ballet class. She probably gets more out of it; as well. I have been pouring over the book and trying to decide which ballets I want to get tickets. Then I mentioned to B that they also had some great operas scheduled for next year (Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Les Noces de Figaro) and maybe we should think about getting tickets for that as well. I was really surprised when he told me to go right ahead and book them, if I wanted. I think I will!
The only downside is that when you buy all these tickets at one time, the total bill is pretty impressive. I don't think B quiet realizes just how much this is all going to cost. On the positive side, I think that I can probably go down a category and still have good seats since the pre-order tickets get the best places.
That reminds me- I did manage to get tickets last week for the Nureyev ballet Le Bayadere. Because I was in such a tizzy Monday morning from the unexpected arrival of the painters, I totally forgot to go online for the tickets until I was sitting down for lunch. I logged on and the website was completely blocked due to high traffic and I ended up getting pretty much the last tickets available. I have 2 seats in category 3, which is good. But they are not any where near each other, so taht is kind of bad. Well, its really bad since I had planned on taking Ella. Hmm. I don't quiet know what I'm going to do abou this, but I figure no point worrying til it gets a bit closer. At worst, I have B or a girlfriend go with me, and take Ella to see something else. Or I could just show up with Ella and hope that someone switches places, or that they just let us sit together anyways.
*My brother's blog
My little brother has taken a sabbatical from work to go an A Big Adventure. He has a buddy who bought a boat and they sailed it through the Panama Canal. Now they are getting the boat ready and will be sailing out of Panama City today or tomorrow for the Galapagos Islands. From there, they will go on to the French Marquesas (I'm trying to talk B into flying out there to meet them). Wow. Maybe this is something that has to go on my Life List. It sounds like an amazing thing to do- a bit scary, but the most worthwhile things tend to be the ones that push you to your limits, right?
quite know what she's got, but I have had a few good nights sleep in a row so I suppose that means I am due for an all-nighter. In order to get a post up, I will do a quick list of things that I am liking today:
*Soup
On Sunday afternoon, I cooked up a pot of Jamie Olivers' Tomato and Chickpea Soup (found in his cookbook Jamie's Dinners, which I picked up at The Little Red Wheelbarrow a few weeks ago; its turning out to be a great purchase), so yummy. I just ate two bowls of it for lunch and finished off the last of it. I LOVE this recipe- here is my version:
Saute 100 g finely chopped chorizo in a tbsp of oil. When the oils come out of the chorizo, add two sticks of chopped celery and a chopped onion; saute til cooked through. Stir in one clove of crushed garlic. Add 4 cups of chicken broth, 2 cups of crushed tomatoes (or chopped fresh tomatoes), a lg bag of spinach leaves and a can of drained chickpeas. Leave to simmer for 40 minutes. Puree about half the soup (I use those liquidizer wands). When ready to serve, top with sliced prosciutto, chopped boiled eggs and a drizzle of really good olive oil. Die and go to heaven. Voila.
I suspect that I could eat it this everyday for a good long while before I every got sick of it.
PS: notice the dish? So far, I'm happy with the change- food looks so good in these dishes!
*Fleur de Geisha Tea from Palais des Thes
I am also burning through my box of tea that I got as a present from our friends who stayed in our flat while we were away skiing.
I had smelled it while I was in the shop and thought that it smelled nice, but I like it even more than I thought I would. As I am still trying to watch what I eat, I have been drinking gallons of green tea every afternoon. It gets boring. But this tea has such a nice flowery smell that I would be drinking it even if it wasn't green tea.
*Tetines
And since Georgia is under the weather, she is allowed to hang on to her tetine all day long, even though it is normally limited to bed time.
She is just cranky cranky cranky. I got her up from her nap because I heard her making noise and brought her in the kitchen for lunch. She refused everything that I offered her, even though I broke my own rule (normally, in this house, you eat what is offered or you go hungry to til the next meal. Doesn't matter how short you are...) and opened a second jar of baby food to try and tempt her to eat something. No luck. She kept squeaking until I just put her back in bed. She slept another 45 minutes and then I took her temp (nothing), gave her a Doliprane in case it was sore teeth, and now she is wandering around the house alternately playing with her toys and breaking into inconsolable sobs.*the new brochure from the Opera de Paris
Yesterday in the mail, I got the calendar for the 2010/2011 season of operas and ballets and the paperwork to pre-order tickets. Since I've been taking Ella to see shows this year, I've realized that even though tickets are expensive, they are a worthwhile expense. I really really enjoy going and I just don't know why I always put off buying tickets when it was just for B and I. Ella adores going to see the ballet and, as I've said before, I think that it is just as worthwhile as sending her to ballet class. She probably gets more out of it; as well. I have been pouring over the book and trying to decide which ballets I want to get tickets. Then I mentioned to B that they also had some great operas scheduled for next year (Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Les Noces de Figaro) and maybe we should think about getting tickets for that as well. I was really surprised when he told me to go right ahead and book them, if I wanted. I think I will!
The only downside is that when you buy all these tickets at one time, the total bill is pretty impressive. I don't think B quiet realizes just how much this is all going to cost. On the positive side, I think that I can probably go down a category and still have good seats since the pre-order tickets get the best places.
That reminds me- I did manage to get tickets last week for the Nureyev ballet Le Bayadere. Because I was in such a tizzy Monday morning from the unexpected arrival of the painters, I totally forgot to go online for the tickets until I was sitting down for lunch. I logged on and the website was completely blocked due to high traffic and I ended up getting pretty much the last tickets available. I have 2 seats in category 3, which is good. But they are not any where near each other, so taht is kind of bad. Well, its really bad since I had planned on taking Ella. Hmm. I don't quiet know what I'm going to do abou this, but I figure no point worrying til it gets a bit closer. At worst, I have B or a girlfriend go with me, and take Ella to see something else. Or I could just show up with Ella and hope that someone switches places, or that they just let us sit together anyways.
*My brother's blog
My little brother has taken a sabbatical from work to go an A Big Adventure. He has a buddy who bought a boat and they sailed it through the Panama Canal. Now they are getting the boat ready and will be sailing out of Panama City today or tomorrow for the Galapagos Islands. From there, they will go on to the French Marquesas (I'm trying to talk B into flying out there to meet them). Wow. Maybe this is something that has to go on my Life List. It sounds like an amazing thing to do- a bit scary, but the most worthwhile things tend to be the ones that push you to your limits, right?
Monday, March 15, 2010
Just a normal weekend full of fun...
We had a nice weekend- but it just seemed like it flew by! Its getting to the point that I long for Monday mornings, which is a sad state of affairs.
Saturday, especially, was a complete whirlwind. I made an appointment for Ella to get her hair cut at that kids place up in the the 11th, Mum & Babe. I think I've mentioned it here before. Well, we got off to a bad start when we left late and I couldn't find a plan de Paris to throw in my purse. Then I thought, 'Well, I've been there before two or three times. I'm sure that I can find it without a map.' Yeah, famous last words. As soon as we got on the bus, I knew that I was in trouble. I couldn't remember which stop. I was watching out the window for something familiar but no luck so finally we just jumped off when I knew that it couldn't be any further along. We wandered around, asking people if they knew where the street was but no one did. On the other hand, it might have been because of my bad pronunciation- Keller, is one of those stupid names that looks English to me and so I don't know how to pronounce it in French. Arg. I couldn't find a kiosk to buy a map so I ended up having to go into a Monoprix and search for one. When I finally looked up the street, I realized that I hadn't a clue of where I was headed so atleast it was money well spent. Despite all that, we ended up only being a few minutes late. You would have thought it was an hour, by the reception we got. They were HORRIBLE to us, even though there was only one other person in the whole salon, and she was downstairs getting a facial. They barely acknowledged us when we walked in. They didn't offer to take our coats or the pousette. They didn't ask the kids names. There was no chatting while we were in the chairs. I was going to party so I wanted a brushing that was a little more 'going out' and she said 'no, your hair is far too short. I'll just blow it straight.' And the one who cut Ella's hair didn't even look at me when I was trying to explain to her what I wanted done. When they were done, no one came with us to the coat closet or the front desk so I had to stand around with two antsy kids while all the staff stood around in the back chatting. They acted a bit nicer to the people who came in after us, since clearly they knew them better. I used to always tell people to take their kids there for a haircut but I don't know if I would do that anymore. It is nice that Ella's cut only cost 12 euro (and I'll admit, that it turned out very nice, which is better than the Camille Albane downstairs does for 25 euro) and that the baby can go in the playroom, but still. This was French customer service at its nadir. And this time when I didn't tip, I did not feel the least little bit guilty.
After all that, we still had to get lunch in a restaurant (MacDo, which was a first for Georgia and after she spied the Chicken McNuggets and fries, there was no question in her mind about eating pureed baby food.), go to a first birthday party, go shopping for a PACS present for B's friends, and buy/order a big bed for Miss Ella. I was running so behind schedule that the babysitter was at the house before us. Thank goodness, actually. She ended up feeding our over-excited monkeys while we threw our party clothes on and hustled back out the door. Good thing there was a big glass of chilled champagne waiting for us on the other end of that car ride or I don't think that we would have made it!
Once we got to the party, I discovered that I was not the only person there who had no idea what the deal was with the Pacs. We did bring a present and weren't the only ones but they ran the gamut from a bouquet of freesia to an engraved silver picture frame from Christofle (I'll let you guess which one we gave...) I'd say that the bigger mistake was dressing up in high heels. There were far too many people in a very small living room, so I spent all but 15 minutes standing. I still have sore feet! To think, I used to be able to spend an entire day dashing around Paris in a pair of heels twice as high. Now, I am so used to my ballet flats and Geox that I can't even make it through an evening without needing to pull out my crutches and heating pad the next day.
I am an old old woman.
On Sunday, we were shattered despite the fact that we were home and in bed at 12:30. The people downstairs went away for the weekend so, per the usual, their son had his friends over. At 3:30 in the morning. I got woken up when they came in but drifted off again. By 4:30 I had had enough, as they were only getting louder and I banged on the floor. They quieted down, but then a girl in heels starting walking around their living room and the tap!tap!tap! of her heels on the floor woke up Georgia. Who woke up the upstairs neighbors and Ella. So then at 5 am I had to go down and ring the door bell to ask if the noisy girl could possibly remove her shoes since she had inadvertently woken up another 4 people. This kid was clearly horrified (by the fact that he woke us or the looks of me? Hard to say. I didn't dare glance in a mirror before going downstairs and I can only guess how scary I looked...) and apologized profusely. But I HATE having to ask them to be quiet since Georgia is a such a noisemaker.
That kid, honestly. If she is not screaming at 5 am because she was woken by a bad dream or a sudden noise, she is screaming for her bottle. Or screaming to get out of bed. Or screaming for Ella to come and play. Or screaming at some food that she spied on the counter and would very much like to eat, if you don't mind. There is no volume control on her. Yesterday afternoon, we all laid down for a nap after our turbulent night and I ended up getting up first when I heard Georgia waking. But she wasn't actually ready to get up yet, it seemed. EVERYTHING was making her mad. And so, her natural response was to scream at me. No! I don't want water! NO! Nothing to eat!! NO!!!! I do not want to look at a book! or my toys! or a movie! or your stupid face! Finally, because I wanted to let Ella have a bit of nap, I ended up clamping my hand over Georgia's mouth and hauling her out on the balcony. She calmed down almost immediately. I'm hoping that I have found a magic cure for this problem but I worry that it is only temporary. I put her out there 2 more times before Ella was good and woken up. So you can see why I feel like the last person in the world with any right no complain about noisy neighbors. I just pray that she outgrows this. Some kids are just noisy though. Am starting to wonder if we are going to be forced out of apartment dwelling and into the suburbs because we never manage to shut her up. And she was such a calm baby.
I also managed to clear out our old dishes from our cupboards yesterday and put the new ones in their place. We decided our old orange Fiestaware had to go. I've been looking around for plain white round dishes but all I could find was stuff basically the equivalent of orange Fiestaware. Most importantly, I needed to be one hundred percent certain that it was dishwasher and microwave safe, since I've had a horrible experience with some mugs that I bought at IKEA.* Finally it dawned on me that I should just use my wedding china which was Louvre, by Bernardaud. We've had it for 11 year and use it fairly often, for nice dinners and parties, and not a single piece has chipped. Its not too fancy looking for every day, I figured, so we are going to give it a trial run of one month and see how things go. Then, if we decide to go for it, I'll think about getting another set of dishes for parties, something a bit fancier (maybe this , or this, or this, or this!) Anyways, I hesitated as put the dishes in the kitchen, thinking that it would be a shame to see them all getting chipped over time when I like them so much. But then I stopped myself. If you're lucky enough to own beautiful things, you shouldn't waste your good fortune by hiding it away in a cupboard. You should use them and enjoy them everyday. How it can it be anything but good to enjoy beautiful things, right? Right. So the dishes stay.
Which still leaves me with the conundrum of what to do with the Fiestaware which is in perfect condition, after I don't know how many years of use. Amazing. I suppose that I should try and Ebay it or sell it on Craigslist, but I suspect that B and I will be making a trip up to Emmaus this week to drop it off as a donation. We still have the dishes from our first apartment sitting down in our cave and we've never needed them so they will go as well. Thats one thing about apartment living - it teaches you not to get too sentimental about your stuff. If it isn't being used on a regular basis, its got to go. I'm sure someone else out there will enjoy having and using all this stuff, as well, so that it makes it even more stupid to box it up and store away for some imaginary future life of mine when I finally need it again. I've been thoroughly heartless lately and that Emmaus has been the lucky recipient of a mountain of stuff. Anyone out there looking to stock up a new apartment should definitely head over to Emmaus on boulevard Beaumarchais :-)
* I needed some coffee mugs and I just picked up some nice simple ones at Habitat one day, without checking that they could go in the dishwasher or microwave. After a few months, I started noticing that the handle on the mug was hot when it came out of the microwave- even when the contents were still barely warm. Then, one morning, I reached in to grab my mug of warm milk while Ella was running around underfoot, and the handle was scorching hot, so hot that I ended up with a blister over the entire surface of my thumb. I was just grateful that I didn't drop the mug of hot liquid on Ella when it happened and thats when I decided that I couldn't possibly use those mugs anymore, because they were too dangerous. Someone finally explained to me that when the pottery is not dishwasher safe, it can 'absorb' water. Then, when you put it in the microwave, this water heats up and if it gets too hot, can actually make the pottery explode!
Saturday, especially, was a complete whirlwind. I made an appointment for Ella to get her hair cut at that kids place up in the the 11th, Mum & Babe. I think I've mentioned it here before. Well, we got off to a bad start when we left late and I couldn't find a plan de Paris to throw in my purse. Then I thought, 'Well, I've been there before two or three times. I'm sure that I can find it without a map.' Yeah, famous last words. As soon as we got on the bus, I knew that I was in trouble. I couldn't remember which stop. I was watching out the window for something familiar but no luck so finally we just jumped off when I knew that it couldn't be any further along. We wandered around, asking people if they knew where the street was but no one did. On the other hand, it might have been because of my bad pronunciation- Keller, is one of those stupid names that looks English to me and so I don't know how to pronounce it in French. Arg. I couldn't find a kiosk to buy a map so I ended up having to go into a Monoprix and search for one. When I finally looked up the street, I realized that I hadn't a clue of where I was headed so atleast it was money well spent. Despite all that, we ended up only being a few minutes late. You would have thought it was an hour, by the reception we got. They were HORRIBLE to us, even though there was only one other person in the whole salon, and she was downstairs getting a facial. They barely acknowledged us when we walked in. They didn't offer to take our coats or the pousette. They didn't ask the kids names. There was no chatting while we were in the chairs. I was going to party so I wanted a brushing that was a little more 'going out' and she said 'no, your hair is far too short. I'll just blow it straight.' And the one who cut Ella's hair didn't even look at me when I was trying to explain to her what I wanted done. When they were done, no one came with us to the coat closet or the front desk so I had to stand around with two antsy kids while all the staff stood around in the back chatting. They acted a bit nicer to the people who came in after us, since clearly they knew them better. I used to always tell people to take their kids there for a haircut but I don't know if I would do that anymore. It is nice that Ella's cut only cost 12 euro (and I'll admit, that it turned out very nice, which is better than the Camille Albane downstairs does for 25 euro) and that the baby can go in the playroom, but still. This was French customer service at its nadir. And this time when I didn't tip, I did not feel the least little bit guilty.
After all that, we still had to get lunch in a restaurant (MacDo, which was a first for Georgia and after she spied the Chicken McNuggets and fries, there was no question in her mind about eating pureed baby food.), go to a first birthday party, go shopping for a PACS present for B's friends, and buy/order a big bed for Miss Ella. I was running so behind schedule that the babysitter was at the house before us. Thank goodness, actually. She ended up feeding our over-excited monkeys while we threw our party clothes on and hustled back out the door. Good thing there was a big glass of chilled champagne waiting for us on the other end of that car ride or I don't think that we would have made it!
Once we got to the party, I discovered that I was not the only person there who had no idea what the deal was with the Pacs. We did bring a present and weren't the only ones but they ran the gamut from a bouquet of freesia to an engraved silver picture frame from Christofle (I'll let you guess which one we gave...) I'd say that the bigger mistake was dressing up in high heels. There were far too many people in a very small living room, so I spent all but 15 minutes standing. I still have sore feet! To think, I used to be able to spend an entire day dashing around Paris in a pair of heels twice as high. Now, I am so used to my ballet flats and Geox that I can't even make it through an evening without needing to pull out my crutches and heating pad the next day.
I am an old old woman.
On Sunday, we were shattered despite the fact that we were home and in bed at 12:30. The people downstairs went away for the weekend so, per the usual, their son had his friends over. At 3:30 in the morning. I got woken up when they came in but drifted off again. By 4:30 I had had enough, as they were only getting louder and I banged on the floor. They quieted down, but then a girl in heels starting walking around their living room and the tap!tap!tap! of her heels on the floor woke up Georgia. Who woke up the upstairs neighbors and Ella. So then at 5 am I had to go down and ring the door bell to ask if the noisy girl could possibly remove her shoes since she had inadvertently woken up another 4 people. This kid was clearly horrified (by the fact that he woke us or the looks of me? Hard to say. I didn't dare glance in a mirror before going downstairs and I can only guess how scary I looked...) and apologized profusely. But I HATE having to ask them to be quiet since Georgia is a such a noisemaker.
That kid, honestly. If she is not screaming at 5 am because she was woken by a bad dream or a sudden noise, she is screaming for her bottle. Or screaming to get out of bed. Or screaming for Ella to come and play. Or screaming at some food that she spied on the counter and would very much like to eat, if you don't mind. There is no volume control on her. Yesterday afternoon, we all laid down for a nap after our turbulent night and I ended up getting up first when I heard Georgia waking. But she wasn't actually ready to get up yet, it seemed. EVERYTHING was making her mad. And so, her natural response was to scream at me. No! I don't want water! NO! Nothing to eat!! NO!!!! I do not want to look at a book! or my toys! or a movie! or your stupid face! Finally, because I wanted to let Ella have a bit of nap, I ended up clamping my hand over Georgia's mouth and hauling her out on the balcony. She calmed down almost immediately. I'm hoping that I have found a magic cure for this problem but I worry that it is only temporary. I put her out there 2 more times before Ella was good and woken up. So you can see why I feel like the last person in the world with any right no complain about noisy neighbors. I just pray that she outgrows this. Some kids are just noisy though. Am starting to wonder if we are going to be forced out of apartment dwelling and into the suburbs because we never manage to shut her up. And she was such a calm baby.
I also managed to clear out our old dishes from our cupboards yesterday and put the new ones in their place. We decided our old orange Fiestaware had to go. I've been looking around for plain white round dishes but all I could find was stuff basically the equivalent of orange Fiestaware. Most importantly, I needed to be one hundred percent certain that it was dishwasher and microwave safe, since I've had a horrible experience with some mugs that I bought at IKEA.* Finally it dawned on me that I should just use my wedding china which was Louvre, by Bernardaud. We've had it for 11 year and use it fairly often, for nice dinners and parties, and not a single piece has chipped. Its not too fancy looking for every day, I figured, so we are going to give it a trial run of one month and see how things go. Then, if we decide to go for it, I'll think about getting another set of dishes for parties, something a bit fancier (maybe this , or this, or this, or this!) Anyways, I hesitated as put the dishes in the kitchen, thinking that it would be a shame to see them all getting chipped over time when I like them so much. But then I stopped myself. If you're lucky enough to own beautiful things, you shouldn't waste your good fortune by hiding it away in a cupboard. You should use them and enjoy them everyday. How it can it be anything but good to enjoy beautiful things, right? Right. So the dishes stay.
Which still leaves me with the conundrum of what to do with the Fiestaware which is in perfect condition, after I don't know how many years of use. Amazing. I suppose that I should try and Ebay it or sell it on Craigslist, but I suspect that B and I will be making a trip up to Emmaus this week to drop it off as a donation. We still have the dishes from our first apartment sitting down in our cave and we've never needed them so they will go as well. Thats one thing about apartment living - it teaches you not to get too sentimental about your stuff. If it isn't being used on a regular basis, its got to go. I'm sure someone else out there will enjoy having and using all this stuff, as well, so that it makes it even more stupid to box it up and store away for some imaginary future life of mine when I finally need it again. I've been thoroughly heartless lately and that Emmaus has been the lucky recipient of a mountain of stuff. Anyone out there looking to stock up a new apartment should definitely head over to Emmaus on boulevard Beaumarchais :-)
* I needed some coffee mugs and I just picked up some nice simple ones at Habitat one day, without checking that they could go in the dishwasher or microwave. After a few months, I started noticing that the handle on the mug was hot when it came out of the microwave- even when the contents were still barely warm. Then, one morning, I reached in to grab my mug of warm milk while Ella was running around underfoot, and the handle was scorching hot, so hot that I ended up with a blister over the entire surface of my thumb. I was just grateful that I didn't drop the mug of hot liquid on Ella when it happened and thats when I decided that I couldn't possibly use those mugs anymore, because they were too dangerous. Someone finally explained to me that when the pottery is not dishwasher safe, it can 'absorb' water. Then, when you put it in the microwave, this water heats up and if it gets too hot, can actually make the pottery explode!
Friday, March 12, 2010
Friday favorites
I tried to get a nice photo of Georgia when we were playing with bubbles the other day (she goes CRAZY if she spies a bottle of bubbles, all other activities must come to a screeching halt until I am woozy from lack of oxygen and she is covered with a fine layer of soap suds). Every shot, she had her tongue sticking out like this, or her eyes were shut like a little drunken geisha. She clearly takes after her father and therefore will never ever be elected Miss Photogenic. I've always thought that she was her father's daughter- from the chubby cheeks to the bottomless pit of an appetite, no worries about babies being switched in the nursery at the maternity clinic.
So after my lovely little nap yesterday, I was in a great mood. I ended up calling up a girlfriend to meet me at one of the galeries last night. Except I called the wrong girlfriend. The one who ALWAYS changes her plans at the last minute. So there I was, hair done, make-up on, undressed in front of my closet, trying to decide what to wear when I get an SMS. She had decided to go to different vernissage in the 8th off avenue Montaigne and wanted me to meet her there, after I saw my friends. I did really feel like a girls' night out and I should have just sucked it up, because we probably would have gone out afterwards and had a great time. BUT but but. I didn't have enough enthusiasm for the change of plans to get myself out the door on my own, on such a miserable night. I told B, when I came out of my room wearing my pyjamas, that if it had been a nice spring night, it would have been totally different. On a cold March night, I much preferred cuddling up with him on the sofa and watching TV. So that is what I did.
Which in the end was good, because Georgia had a bad night, after a fairly great week of sleep, and did her patented sleep torture move (I like to call it 'Going Guantanamo'). She woke at 5:30. We went in 3 times to give her her pacifier, start her music box, settle her down, til finally giving her a bottle just before 6. 10 minutes later she yelled hard, so I went in and saw that she had lost her pacifier. Again. Then she yelled again, every 10 minutes for another 40 minutes, til it was time for us to get up, more or less. That, my friends, is a hard night. She collapsed into bed at 10 a.m. for a morning nap and I imagine will sleep for 2 hours. Atleast I am getting good naps out of her on a regular basis. Thank god for small favors.
And now i wanted to post a photo of another beautiful bouquet from my favorite florist on rue St Antoine, Christian Collin, but I think my camera has died! It got knocked on the floor the other day and landed with an ominous 'thump'. It did turn on right afterwards, but now it's dead dead dead. Maybe I just need to charge the battery but I fear my little Canon has moved on to that big camera shop in the sky. I'll miss you.
Hmmm. Wonder if this means that B will let me get the Nikon D-3000 now?
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Irritations- in bullet points
* you know what is bad for a diet? Birthdays.
* I've finally convinced B that now is a good time to replace Ella's junior bed with a grown-up bed, but it turns out that finding a lit gigogne is going to be a bit of a pain. The big department stores don't have anything great and on the internet, I'm finding nice stuff but all the shops are on the other side of Paris, miles and miles apart. I was 'supposed' to go and look at things this morning. Honestly, I can't be bothered.
* I need to get my haircut, but I don't want to make another appointment at David Mallet after my last visit cost so much. Also, as my hair has grown out, I've realized that the girl who cut my hair just gave me the same haircut as her own. Except we look NOTHING alike. So she looks super cute and I look like an Afghan Hound. Torturous decision- do I give her a second chance (since she was also trying to repair a really horrible cut) or do I find someone new to cut my hair?
* I have a list of about 5 doctor's appointments that I need to make and there is nothing that I hate more than seeing doctors. Not because I am scared but because I consider it such an appalling waste of money. And time. And yet, my teeth won't clean themselves.
* My Outlook Express won't open and I hate looking at my email online.
* I desperately need to go to the grocery store. But it seems like I am at the bloody grocery store every damn day of the week. How is that even possible?!!
* B was really a PITA this morning. Since this is a giant letter of complaint, no point in sparing him (although I probably should...) 1st. He didn't clean up dinner dishes last night, although all he had to do was stick things in the dishwasher and start the machine. And instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour, he stayed up til midnight and had plenty of time to do this. So I had to do it this morning while he was tired and cranky on the living room sofa. 2nd: I asked him to make Georgia's bottle up before he went to bed. He didn't. So this morning I got up and, in the dark with no glasses on, I had to do it. I HATE this so much. I literally cannot see a thing and her shouts increase in volume with every breath so by the time I manage to pour a reasonable amount of milk in the bottle without spilling it all on the floor and then get the bottle safely capped and in the microwave, a good 5 minutes have passed, by which time Ella and our upstairs and downstairs neighbors are all up and slamming doors. 3rd: He took the computer this morning- interrupting my morning routing- while I was cleaning up last night's dishes, to look at the same computer sites that he was looking at til midnight last night. He KNOWS that this pisses me off. I did refrain from yelling because its not unreasonable for him to use the computer when I am not there, especially if he has something important to do before work where he doesn't really have a chance to sit at the computer (even if it did look like he was just dawdling). Still, on top of all the other things, I did feel like he was really trying to push my buttons this morning. And if he had just said something like, 'I'm sorry I am being such a slacker. I feel awful due to this cold/a bad nights sleep/work stress (or anything basically).', then I would have forgiven him immediately. But he has got that awful man habit of clamming up just when he most needs to explain stuff to me.
* Ugh- no babysitter for tonight and I have two vernissage that I would love to see. Rosy Lamb, who sculpted the bust of Ella, is opening her atelier tonight and the Felli Galerie is having a vernissage of Pietropoli- and I love both the galerie owner and the painter. If I was feeling up to it, I suppose I could try and dig up a girlfriend to do the rounds with me but its another one of these miserable cold days and I do not feel like spending my evening dragging myself around in a pair of heels in the dark.
* We have a party to go to on Saturday night to celebrate the PACS of a friend of B's. And I'm irritated that they didn't just get married because I don't know if I need to get them a gift or not and, as a final indication of my rotten mood, I am unreasonably irritated about this. Do they have a registry? B had no idea. Because if they do, I would just go and buy something off of it. But maybe they don't because they plan on getting actually married somewhere on down the line. Do I just get a card and stick money in it once I do a quick survey of the other guests who might have a better idea of what is going on? These are not my friends and I don't care, I just want to be nice. Why can't they help me out and do the normal thing and get married, which has a clear cut set of guidelines regarding the present giving. Christ, people irritate me.
And more irritatingly, B said that I can't go and buy that DVF dress that I spied last Friday- even though it would be the PERFECT thing for this party. He insists that I have something I can wear already hanging in my closet. NOT THE POINT.
* Oh- one more. Why are all the shows I download on some weird mid-winter hiatus? I keep checking my account, ready to sit down to an evening of mindless American television viewing, only to be disappointed by an empty screen.
(Editted to add: Hey guess what? I took an hour and a half nap and ate 5 (!) Milano cookies for my gouter and now I'm not cranky anymore. Hmm. I guess I might need a mommy around here to manage me because it never dawned on me that I might just need a bit more sleep. (Last night at 4:30 a.m. the upstairs neighbor fell down and I laid in bed for probably an hour, straining to hear what was going on upstairs. If you have read this blog long enough, you'll remember that our downstairs neighbor fell out of his bed the first year we were living here and yelled for help because he had broken his hip. But we didn't realize that he lived alone. So we did nothing. And he died. I think that I am understandably a teensy bit nervous about bumps in the night...) I am going to have to think of a pretty amazing treat for little Georgie-boo to thank her for collapsing in bed for 3 1/2 hours. )
* I've finally convinced B that now is a good time to replace Ella's junior bed with a grown-up bed, but it turns out that finding a lit gigogne is going to be a bit of a pain. The big department stores don't have anything great and on the internet, I'm finding nice stuff but all the shops are on the other side of Paris, miles and miles apart. I was 'supposed' to go and look at things this morning. Honestly, I can't be bothered.
* I need to get my haircut, but I don't want to make another appointment at David Mallet after my last visit cost so much. Also, as my hair has grown out, I've realized that the girl who cut my hair just gave me the same haircut as her own. Except we look NOTHING alike. So she looks super cute and I look like an Afghan Hound. Torturous decision- do I give her a second chance (since she was also trying to repair a really horrible cut) or do I find someone new to cut my hair?
* I have a list of about 5 doctor's appointments that I need to make and there is nothing that I hate more than seeing doctors. Not because I am scared but because I consider it such an appalling waste of money. And time. And yet, my teeth won't clean themselves.
* My Outlook Express won't open and I hate looking at my email online.
* I desperately need to go to the grocery store. But it seems like I am at the bloody grocery store every damn day of the week. How is that even possible?!!
* B was really a PITA this morning. Since this is a giant letter of complaint, no point in sparing him (although I probably should...) 1st. He didn't clean up dinner dishes last night, although all he had to do was stick things in the dishwasher and start the machine. And instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour, he stayed up til midnight and had plenty of time to do this. So I had to do it this morning while he was tired and cranky on the living room sofa. 2nd: I asked him to make Georgia's bottle up before he went to bed. He didn't. So this morning I got up and, in the dark with no glasses on, I had to do it. I HATE this so much. I literally cannot see a thing and her shouts increase in volume with every breath so by the time I manage to pour a reasonable amount of milk in the bottle without spilling it all on the floor and then get the bottle safely capped and in the microwave, a good 5 minutes have passed, by which time Ella and our upstairs and downstairs neighbors are all up and slamming doors. 3rd: He took the computer this morning- interrupting my morning routing- while I was cleaning up last night's dishes, to look at the same computer sites that he was looking at til midnight last night. He KNOWS that this pisses me off. I did refrain from yelling because its not unreasonable for him to use the computer when I am not there, especially if he has something important to do before work where he doesn't really have a chance to sit at the computer (even if it did look like he was just dawdling). Still, on top of all the other things, I did feel like he was really trying to push my buttons this morning. And if he had just said something like, 'I'm sorry I am being such a slacker. I feel awful due to this cold/a bad nights sleep/work stress (or anything basically).', then I would have forgiven him immediately. But he has got that awful man habit of clamming up just when he most needs to explain stuff to me.
* Ugh- no babysitter for tonight and I have two vernissage that I would love to see. Rosy Lamb, who sculpted the bust of Ella, is opening her atelier tonight and the Felli Galerie is having a vernissage of Pietropoli- and I love both the galerie owner and the painter. If I was feeling up to it, I suppose I could try and dig up a girlfriend to do the rounds with me but its another one of these miserable cold days and I do not feel like spending my evening dragging myself around in a pair of heels in the dark.
* We have a party to go to on Saturday night to celebrate the PACS of a friend of B's. And I'm irritated that they didn't just get married because I don't know if I need to get them a gift or not and, as a final indication of my rotten mood, I am unreasonably irritated about this. Do they have a registry? B had no idea. Because if they do, I would just go and buy something off of it. But maybe they don't because they plan on getting actually married somewhere on down the line. Do I just get a card and stick money in it once I do a quick survey of the other guests who might have a better idea of what is going on? These are not my friends and I don't care, I just want to be nice. Why can't they help me out and do the normal thing and get married, which has a clear cut set of guidelines regarding the present giving. Christ, people irritate me.
And more irritatingly, B said that I can't go and buy that DVF dress that I spied last Friday- even though it would be the PERFECT thing for this party. He insists that I have something I can wear already hanging in my closet. NOT THE POINT.
* Oh- one more. Why are all the shows I download on some weird mid-winter hiatus? I keep checking my account, ready to sit down to an evening of mindless American television viewing, only to be disappointed by an empty screen.
(Editted to add: Hey guess what? I took an hour and a half nap and ate 5 (!) Milano cookies for my gouter and now I'm not cranky anymore. Hmm. I guess I might need a mommy around here to manage me because it never dawned on me that I might just need a bit more sleep. (Last night at 4:30 a.m. the upstairs neighbor fell down and I laid in bed for probably an hour, straining to hear what was going on upstairs. If you have read this blog long enough, you'll remember that our downstairs neighbor fell out of his bed the first year we were living here and yelled for help because he had broken his hip. But we didn't realize that he lived alone. So we did nothing. And he died. I think that I am understandably a teensy bit nervous about bumps in the night...) I am going to have to think of a pretty amazing treat for little Georgie-boo to thank her for collapsing in bed for 3 1/2 hours. )
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