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?!!!

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.

A very unexpected hangover

Last night, I was sitting at the dining room table, busily pasting photos into Ella's album to take advantage of the time I had while sitter played with the girls, when the phone rang. B had just gotten a call from one of his Italian cousins who was with some friends and in town for work. Could we meet them for dinner? I quick checked with the sitter to see if she could stay late and got on the phone to find a nice French restaurant in the neighborhood where we could get a table for 6 at the last minute. Luckily, L'Atelier Maitre Albert said no problem. I ran into the bathroom and realized that I was lucky that I had two hours to get ready. I looked like I was ready to climb into bed (mainly due to a late afternoon change of clothes a result of Georgia's predeliction for 'sharing' her food). Ahhh, I remember back when I could walk out of the house at a moments notice to meet people. When I was young, unlined, and almost always had clean clothes on...

No, two hours was plenty of time to pull myself together and grab a bit of caffeine so that I could make it up past my 9:30 bedtime. B even talked me into wearing the Manolo's that had been sitting unworn in my closet since I bought them way back in November. Talk about a big night out. I had to laugh though- I am so unused to wearing very high heels that I was tottering around like a twelve-year-old who raided her mommy's closet. That drives home the fact that I have not been getting out enough. I used to be able to sprint down a cobbled street, chasing down taxis in heels higher than the ones I wore last night. Well, note to self- start wearing heeled boots when pushing Georgia in the stroller to get my calf muscles back into shape.

Dinner was really nice- I love that restaurant in the winter because the room is so cosy with the black walls and a massive old fireplace that is always lit. And I like that the menu is really simple but everything is done exceptionally well. I had artichoke soup with winter mushrooms for an entree and it was amazingly good. They put the sauteed mushrooms in the bowl and then once the plate is on the table, the waitress brings the giant bowl of soup, to spoon in the quantity that you want. The first bite, I could taste artichoke, but it seemed a bit flat, not very interesting. As we were talking, I was absent-mindedly stirring my soup, and when I took my next bite, all the flavors had melded together to make the soup something else entirely. Honestly, I would go back to the restaurant again tonight just to enjoy another bowl of that soup. It was just perfect.

The only problem with dinner was that the two Italian girls did not drink wine and the water bottle was nearly always empty (they were also closer to the fire so I think that the were a bit warm as well as thirsty). I have practically a tick and I can't sit at the table and not drink. Normally, when B and I go to dinner, I can polish off 1.5 liters of water all by myself. But since I couldn't keep my water glass filled last night, I ended up drinking wine. Too much wine. And then after dinner, B invited everyone back to our place for a digestif. Now, I know that I didn't have to have a digestif with everyone else. But I was too drunk from all the wine and didn't have the sense to say no. So, last night, I was actually happy when Georgia shouted at 4am for her tetine and drink of water because I woke up and realized that I needed a big drink of water myself and an aspirin (or three) if I wanted to feel human in the morning.

So there are two things that I have forgotten about while hibernating over the last few months with the baby- how to walk in heels and how to handle my liquor. Gosh, next thing you know, I'll be burping out loud and telling stories about medical interventions. I had thought about skipping the vernissage we were invited to on Thursday but I think in the interest of maintaining my social graces- or what few that remain- we better book the babysitter.

The anniversary party

Since we forgot about our anniversary until the day of, we decided to make up for it by going out on the Friday night. I had bought Gourmet magazine, special Paris edition, to read on the airplane coming back from the States and so I had this huge list of restaurants I had been wanting to try out. No time like the present to dig into that little project. Still, it was a bit last minute so it was no surprise that my first few choices were booked. We ended up getting a reservation at Lapérouse. Ruth Reichl said in her article that she really enjoyed the lunch that she had, so that was enough of a recommendation for me. It was a fun place to try because we've driven by a million times and remarked that it looks quite sweet and we should make reservation but then I never get any farther than that. To be honest, I don't tend to think the 6th for restaurants. Its very neighborhood-y and so they are all small and booked up by the locals. We don't tend to make our plans far enough ahead of time to get a table, and then if we do, its a bit of a pain to get there via metro and forget about finding a parking place. I'm starting to sound very crotchety so I I'll just shut up about the parking. Moving on to the good stuff.

The dinner was actually very nice. The restaurant is very French with little French-y chairs and big white table clothes. The waiters are all in suits and are very proper, although its nice that it didn't feel too stuffy. The food was fine overall and the duck was gorgeous. Also, the green salade was perfect. I think sometimes the quality of the simplest plates is the best way to judge the kitchen. The only downside is that it seemed the night that we were there that the only other customers were tourist couples out for a fancy dinner. So even though the staff was quite cool and friendly, all these people buttoned up in their best behavior made it feel sort of naff. (The only people not buttoned up were the Russians in the private salon on the 2nd floor celebrating a wedding. About every half hour we would hear disco music start up, along with an ever-louder chant of 'Vodka! Vodka! Vodka!' followed by a huge cheer and clapping.) To be honest, I do think it would be a nice place to take out-of-town visitors for a fancy dinner. Its very very French and you have a lovely view of the river, although we spent most of the meal people-watching, students heading to the Latin Quarter. Bo-bos heading to dinner in the 6th. Tourists strolling along the quais.

Its a good thing dinner went so well because B started things out very much on the wrong foot. We had just settled into the car to go to dinner when B started telling me in a rather self-conscious way about how he had recently seen his jeweler friend. Clearly he was trying to work around to something and so naturally, I thought that he had decided to surprise me with a little present. I hadn't expected anything at all, since we normally don't buy each other presents for our wedding anniversary and just had the time to think, "How sweet!" when he comes to the point and shows me the several thousand euro watch he bought himself. "Do you like it?!", he asked me, as he twirled it in the light so I could appreciate it from every angle. "Do you think the band is okay? I wasn't sure. I had been looking at it for ages and couldn't decide but finally just bought it. I never hardly buy myself big presents so I just decided to do it." He went on, describing in detail his tortured path to the final purchase, never picking up in the slightest on my less than enthusiastic responses.

Just to be clear, I don't begrudge him the watch. He's absolutely right- he hardly ever splurges on himself. He works hard enough that if we can afford it, he should indulge every once in awhile and offer himself a treat. In fact, if I am angry about anything, its that I would love to have given him a gift like that for his birthday but never dare spend that much on a present for him because I am sure he would kill me when he got the bill. And if were to ask him in advance for the money he would never stop harassing me until I spilled the entire secret. Its just that I find his timing to be a bit rude. Seriously? It never crossed his mind that if he was to show me his new watch while out celebrating our anniversary, he might have balanced things out by atleast showing up with flowers for me. Was there ever an example of a more clueless husband? Hmmm. To think that I thought it would be too naughty to get a massage, and a facial, and a manicure when I was at the spa. I don't think I need to feel too guilty about that now.

On the bright side, I think I have finally broken in my 4in Christian Louboutin heels. I had almost resigned myself to the fact that they were too ridiculously high to ever allow me to walk normally (thereby getting passed over many times when I dressed for a night out) and on Friday night, when I decided to put vanity before comfort and slip them on, I was actually getting around just fine. See, it doesn't take much to make me happy.