How cold is your apartment?

This sounds like a 'Yo Mama' game. How cold is our apartment? The olive oil went solid in the pantry...

Primroses are the only organisms happy at this temperature

Daily Life with Poetry

This photo was taken on a Metro train somewhere beneath Paris. I took it because in the front of the car on the right hand side we had a standard subway advertisement. However on the left hand side we see a white panel with a blue field. Sadly my phone did not have to resolution to capture the words, which were a poem describing a person's need for poetry like a daily vitamin.

Here is another poem, this time on the platform. I took this photo for Eric, but it illustrates my point here today.

Je suis un enfant de partout

un enfant de Paris, de Cotonou,

un enfant des montagnes

des plis rouges d’un pagne.

Je suis un enfant des nids de moineaux,

de Mulhouse, de Baltimore,

des petits bateaux de la baie de Rio

et pire encore

je suis un enfant de quelque part

né de l’amour entre la chance

et le hasard.

Un enfant avec un nom,

un prénom,

mais un enfant qu’on appelle Terrien

parce que, sans moi,

cette planète n’est rien.

I have different photos to show the incredible flowers in public places, but I think these things - public poetry, flowered towns - are the real genius of French urban dwelling. We have good baguettes in America now, but we haven't yet made as much of an effort to add art in our lives. I wish we'd do more of it.

Wedding Cars

A beautiful Saturday afternoon in August is the perfect time for a wedding. We live in the shadow of a church so we weren't surprised to exit our apartment today and see these cars parked. 

Two cars were parked in the Place in front of the church

One looked like you'd expect for a wedding, I assume the bride and groom arrived in this car festooned with ribbons and white flowers

 There are many wedding customs here that are familiar to me (I'm still charmed when I see the wedding guests following the bride and groom and honking, like I remember doing when I was young, now weddings rarely move venues in the USA so I haven't seen that in years). Sometimes it's just the execution of the custom that makes it strange. Take for example this getaway car. I've seen getaway cars decorated, but never like this. I've heard of brooms used at weddings, but never like this.

The getaway car was a lot more festive. I don't yet understand the significance of the various items included in the decoration.

They have two brooms, one with the bride's photo and one with the groom's. There are many different stickers used in road work, and additional photos of the bride and groom, all funny and/or compromising.

Each day surprises us in its own way!

Things I Like Right Now

In no particular order I thought I would share some of the small things that are making life a little sweeter these days. None of these matter in the big scheme of things, but they make me happy nonetheless.

Our apartment has an electric juicer and the local market sells enormous bags of juicing oranges for 3 Euro. We can have fresh-squeezed orange juice any day, and it makes my day!

Not only do we have a washing machine but we have not one but two heated towel racks. One is in the bathroom but the other is in the kitchen, right by the washing machine. With the g Diapers that we brought over from America is it very easy for me to keep Eric in soft dry diapers. I definitely want a heated towel rack when we go back to the States.

Similarly, the people who live here have a clever dining table. It's two identical tables pushed together. What this means, though, is that they can be separated and reconfigured, making a buffet for a cocktail party or storing one on top of the other. The variety of configurations is appealing and I want tables like this in my future home(s). The only change I would make is to add a latch on the bottom so that when they're put together they stay flush together. Sometimes I worry about the flowers in the center of the table.

Mmmm. French pastries. An obvious way to make the day sweeter!