Thinker’s big toes. I pointed out that Mama and Babbo like to sleep together, and she allowed that they could share one big one, while the babies had a small toe each.
The newest family game: pick on Mom by way of the pack of French language cards that everyone in the family knows except
moi
. Go on … ask me how to say
frog
in French. I just learned it. My favorite card is
la girafe
.
Bridget and I took the girls off to Versailles, detouring at a photo booth in the Métro. Later Anna discovered to her horror that her beloved blue knit hat was gone, leading to tears and gnashing of teeth. On the way back, the children flew to the booth, but it was empty. Then my niece Nora shrieked. To the side sat a homeless person’s blanket roll, the hat perched on top. But no homeless person. So … she stole it back!
The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles is gracious, elegant, and jaw-droppingly beautiful. I drifted down the center dreaming that I was a member of the
noblesse ancienne
, my imaginary skirts extending three feet to each side. We all had audio tours; over the elegant sound of a British man informing me about architectural details, I heard Anna talking to her cousin Zoe: “I dare you to pick your nose in front of that mirror.… Go on, I dare you!”
In Versailles, I bought a wonderful cookbook:
100 Recipes from the Time of Louis XIV
. Apparently, the court adored oysters and ate them along with both duck and leg of lamb. I am going to try chicken with champagne and the truly unusual cucumber fricassee. Almost every recipe calls for lard—and I can’t imagine where one buys that in the United States.
This weekend we happened on a
brocante
, a string of small booths selling odds and ends, everything from chipped lamps to Elvis LPs. Our favorite table was selling twenty-two different kinds of homemade sausages. We bought five kinds, among which were wild boar and pepper-cured duck. Unfortunately I have no idea which is which, but last night I made a fabulous pasta sauce using wild boar or perhaps duck or, as Alessandro suggested, indigenous Parisian rat.
The homeless man has asked us to adopt his puppy as he wants to return to Bucharest and cannot take him. It’s impossible, alas.We travel too much to own a dog that will soon be the size of an ottoman. Anna is devastated, and won’t speak to either of us. Alessandro just found a friend who knows Romanian and got him to translate “Would you like us to make sure your dog is safe in a pet shelter?” This is not a popular option at home.
We just took Luca’s computer away for a month, after a very painful, blunt discussion with his Latin teacher (following painful, blunt discussions with his French and history teachers). They all said he was remarkably polite, which I’m proud about. But also remarkably indolent. Signed, Cruelest Parents in Paris.
We are now ensconced in the heart of a deeply conservative Catholic church—all “smells and bells,” my mother would have described it. My favorite moment of the Mass is the final hymn, which is often a hymn to Mary, called “Couronnée d’Étoiles,” or “Crowned with Stars.” I love its wild purple prose. Every Sunday we less-than-tunefully carol that Mary “drapes” the sun, outshines the moon, and salutes the dawn.
Coming out of school, Anna told me that her gymnastics teacher has been asking “for a long time” that she bring a sweat suit, but “I kept forgetting.” So we elbowed our way into a crowded department store, and she picked out a pink sweat suit with sequins spelling FREE LOVE . “What’s that mean?” she asked. I had no idea what to say, so I offered, “Love for lots of people, puppies and kittens, too.” She nodded wisely.
My mother placed white sugar right next to crack cocaine in the catalog of the most dangerous substances known to man. To this day, my idea of heaven is a handful of small marshmallows: pure, undiluted, bad-for-you sugar in a form that could never be
The newest family game: pick on Mom by way of the pack of French language cards that everyone in the family knows except
moi
. Go on … ask me how to say
frog
in French. I just learned it. My favorite card is
la girafe
.
Bridget and I took the girls off to Versailles, detouring at a photo booth in the Métro. Later Anna discovered to her horror that her beloved blue knit hat was gone, leading to tears and gnashing of teeth. On the way back, the children flew to the booth, but it was empty. Then my niece Nora shrieked. To the side sat a homeless person’s blanket roll, the hat perched on top. But no homeless person. So … she stole it back!
The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles is gracious, elegant, and jaw-droppingly beautiful. I drifted down the center dreaming that I was a member of the
noblesse ancienne
, my imaginary skirts extending three feet to each side. We all had audio tours; over the elegant sound of a British man informing me about architectural details, I heard Anna talking to her cousin Zoe: “I dare you to pick your nose in front of that mirror.… Go on, I dare you!”
In Versailles, I bought a wonderful cookbook:
100 Recipes from the Time of Louis XIV
. Apparently, the court adored oysters and ate them along with both duck and leg of lamb. I am going to try chicken with champagne and the truly unusual cucumber fricassee. Almost every recipe calls for lard—and I can’t imagine where one buys that in the United States.
This weekend we happened on a
brocante
, a string of small booths selling odds and ends, everything from chipped lamps to Elvis LPs. Our favorite table was selling twenty-two different kinds of homemade sausages. We bought five kinds, among which were wild boar and pepper-cured duck. Unfortunately I have no idea which is which, but last night I made a fabulous pasta sauce using wild boar or perhaps duck or, as Alessandro suggested, indigenous Parisian rat.
The homeless man has asked us to adopt his puppy as he wants to return to Bucharest and cannot take him. It’s impossible, alas.We travel too much to own a dog that will soon be the size of an ottoman. Anna is devastated, and won’t speak to either of us. Alessandro just found a friend who knows Romanian and got him to translate “Would you like us to make sure your dog is safe in a pet shelter?” This is not a popular option at home.
We just took Luca’s computer away for a month, after a very painful, blunt discussion with his Latin teacher (following painful, blunt discussions with his French and history teachers). They all said he was remarkably polite, which I’m proud about. But also remarkably indolent. Signed, Cruelest Parents in Paris.
We are now ensconced in the heart of a deeply conservative Catholic church—all “smells and bells,” my mother would have described it. My favorite moment of the Mass is the final hymn, which is often a hymn to Mary, called “Couronnée d’Étoiles,” or “Crowned with Stars.” I love its wild purple prose. Every Sunday we less-than-tunefully carol that Mary “drapes” the sun, outshines the moon, and salutes the dawn.
Coming out of school, Anna told me that her gymnastics teacher has been asking “for a long time” that she bring a sweat suit, but “I kept forgetting.” So we elbowed our way into a crowded department store, and she picked out a pink sweat suit with sequins spelling FREE LOVE . “What’s that mean?” she asked. I had no idea what to say, so I offered, “Love for lots of people, puppies and kittens, too.” She nodded wisely.
My mother placed white sugar right next to crack cocaine in the catalog of the most dangerous substances known to man. To this day, my idea of heaven is a handful of small marshmallows: pure, undiluted, bad-for-you sugar in a form that could never be
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