2 Exhausted 2 Write Newsletter Archive
"This writing business. Pencils and whatnot. Overrated, if you ask me."
Eeyore from " ? "
October 21-23, 1999
Beat the maids to the door!
French people are so rude...at the St-Denis university métro, two university persons decided we looked lost, got us a bus schedule, a bus, told the bus driver where to take us and penned instructions on how to get to the Gare St-Denis RER. Too bad they weren't with us at the RER – we got on the line taking us in the opposite direction of where we planned to go!
I still haven't changed my clip watch to Paris time. It's more important to me to know what my babies are doing than what time it is where I am. Right now they should be snuffing and snorting, making snuzzle noises, and poking at each other as they begin to wake. "Barney" will be on soon, then "Arthur." I love my little morning grunters who sometimes crawl into bed to cuddle with me. I bought them a book near the Trocadéro at Libraire Fontaine* about cat named Minette. I'll tell them Moustache [the video cat who teaches them French] picked it out because it was a book about his mother. Nikki asked me to visit Duchess, Marie and Thomas O'Malley, and Miss Clavell's Madeline. They'll have to send gifts, too. I wish one of them could send two of the pink-ballet-slippers Paris Opéra T-shirt of which we found only one last night.
We ate Greek falafels on Rue Guerre near the catacombs. Then went to the catacombs. The catacombs are WAY down under, via spiral staircase. Had a roaring case of "Paris Twirly Bends" by the time we got to the depths.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeew! Creepy!
I've admired the French for turning ordinary things into works of art, but the skulls displayed in heart shapes, arches and crosses amongst the artfully stacked femurs, tibias, humeri, radii and ulnas were just tooooooo much. Eeeeeeeeew.
Resorted to humor amongst the humeri, but no one – not even Alan – got it when I recited " ‘Bring out your Dead!' ‘I'm not dead!' ‘*BASH!*" I felt very alone and wished for the gang. [Dorie and I went to see "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)" – not a movie to see when you're pregnant, as I found out. Set during The Plague, there were scenes of death carts collecting the day's deceased. In unison Dorie and I, two of the three people in the theater, recited " ‘Bring out your Dead!' ‘I'm not dead!' ‘*BASH!*" We attributed our behavior to John Cleese playing Victor Frankenstein's mentor, Dr. Waldeman. But that doesn't explain the Could be worse/Could be raining, Abby Normal, and "I was going to make expresso" jokes we kept giggling to each other. Maybe Mel Brooks was an extra...] I felt lonely. And it's not like there weren't English-speaking tourists surrounding me. There were!
And I was their tour guide.
I had no desire to see the catacombs. I don't know why Alan did, or why these other tourists did. They didn't even know what the catacombs were! So there I am in the dark, dank, subterranean tunnels explaining it strangers who apparently thought I looked like I'd know?
[Here's the marrow: In 1786 millions of skeletons and corpses in various levels of decomposition were removed from the unsanitary Les Halles cemetery to said ancient quarries. It took 15 months to cart the skeletons and bodies across the city at night. Right before the Revolution, Charles X threw wild parties in the catacombs; WWII French Resistance set up headquarters there.]
Too bad I didn't orate in a Dr. Sicher voice, ya know... At least it took my mind off where I was. Eeew. Especially the three times the ceiling dripped on me.
I brought two pieces of gravel from the catacombs for the girls's "collections".
I had the "Paris Twirly Breathless Bends" by the time I reached the top of the up staircase.
Bought French "Sleeping Beauty" and "Pooh" books in the catacombs area before hopping a bus to Le Bon Marché department store. It was sooooooo cool! Not just because of the balustrades and etc by Gustave Eiffel, but they also had an embroidery, sewing section. Bought purple trim for a "purple as Eeyore's thistles" necklace. In the Christmas area I bought three carousel horse Christmas ornaments – one for each Weis girl.
After that we spent too much time trying to get to Montmartre via bus to get something to eat. Every time Alan told my growling stomach it was more fun to go by bus, my stomach and I both wanted to yell "It would be more fun to be on Montmartre and have eaten an hour ago!!" The buses jammed at the Arc de Triomphe traffic circle accident – the first I've seen (I didn't see the accident...just the repercussions). We spent a lot of time looking at the illuminated arch looming against the grey mottled sky which couldn't decide how hard to rain.
Eventually we got on the métro for home. Alan pointed out a dude who had a moustache on his ear. It was really something, but I couldn't take my eyes off a guy who was staring unabashedly at me. He was a shocking two-eared Vincent VanGogh look-alike. Not a Kirk-Douglas-as-Vincent Doppelganger...a Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait Doppelganger. He was creepy. Had no sense to avert his eyes from me at all once discovered. Just kept staring. It may be that I was projecting psychiatric cliches onto him, but he did look like he might consider lopping off an ear or committing suicide. Alan kept watching the ear moustache. I kept an eye on Van Gogh until he left! Whew.
The St-Denis Carrefour was closing and out of rotisserie chicken by the time we got there. I got nuts and a glass carafe of milk [the carafe as a souvenir for whose whereabouts I cannot account]. Alan found beef cold cuts in the Islamic section (that's how you get "clean" meat when you can't be sure what the label means in English). Watched "Twins" en français. Danny DeVito is quite dub-able and Ahhhhhnold still seems Ahhhhhnold without the Austrian accent.Friday, October 22, 1999
I know we don't look as crazy as we actually are.
If we did, people would flee in fear at our approach.
We should have known better than to go to a Brocante gathering. The métro track between the La Motte Picquet Grenelle and Dupleix stations is elevated. Underneath the high track was a two-day Brocante Market stretching all the way from the La Motte Picquet Grenelle and Dupleix stations: side by side (no breathing room) booths on both sides of the center aisle. 
My antiquarian friends and I go antiquing in the States. In Europe, antique means Antique. So I suppose the best label here would be Brocante Browsing. Or Livelong Lunacy.
Whoopeeeeeeeee! I went crazy! I was there to look for five or six soup spoons and a ladle.
Then I found a satin-lined flatware case with a ladle, and a dozen each dinner forks, teaspoons, and soup spoons. I grimaced at the price and it dropped. We thought we couldn't be more completely out of our gourds!
A wall clock for 1500F. A large, heavy wall clock. A meter high, 1.5 twins heavy. Now; when one spouse quotes a brocante price to the other and that spouse grimaces, the brocante dealer lowers the price. I instantly fell in love with this large clock and its very vintage face. 
But the more I thought about it
And now we sit and sit and sit and sit at the Montparnasse-Bienvenüe station as train after train of clueless people got on, waited to leave, and then were told to exit the train. It wouldn't have been half as aggravating for us when we were still clueless, except we were clueless AND lugging Big Ben and $161 worth of insanity on and off and on and off said trains which left without us.
I made a woman next to me laugh when I pointed out to Alan the newbies jumping the train: "They don't have a clue." She really needed a laugh, or I said something which translates strangely*, because she kept laughing and shared it with others who laughed.
On one train a man was asleep on the seats and had to be awakened and tossed off. He was about as lucid and happy as Nikki and Kilory would be under the circumstances. Whatever he said made the whole station laugh.
Many newbies later we and our loot were finally on our way back to St-Denis. As soon as we dropped Big Ben off at #131 we had to hotfoot it back to the Corporate Money Exchange (Rue Scribe across from "Olde England" department store) before it closed, as we had no more cash, believe it or not.
Saw our first French car wreck – right in front of the motel. Just about every vehicular maneuver I've seen in Paris seems gravity-defying and illegal, but the perps here just should have been executed on the spot to protect the species. It's hard to believe anyone that stupid could drag their knuckles high enough off the ground to turn the ignition on.
Took the #94 bus from Au Printemps to Rue du Bac on St. Germain. That's a cool bus line. I'd like to take it again. On the métro from Rue du Bac we were crammed in so tightly if I had been any closer to the man in front of me I would have been declared a bigamist! At one stop the train doors opened – no one exited. A person standing on the platform obviously asked if there was room for one more. At the extreme back of the block of humanity I said "Non!" The whole train car laughed.
Talking to the unknown man to whom I am legally engaged in some countries was a Siouxseque Doppelganger. Only she was short, raven-tressed -- and though using Suzy Q facial expressions and speech affections -- she was using them en français. Q is tall, blonde, and speaks American exclusively, but I was astounded at how startlingly Suzy-esque she was. Or maybe it was the lack of oxygen.
At St-Paul we exited, ate a Grec frite sandwich and milk [some of the best frities we had there!]. We walked to the St-Croix Armenian church for a Baroque concert of flute (transversal) and piano forte (clavier): Bach, Handel, Couperin* and Le Clair. [*Couperin was the first organiste titulaire (the principal organist - the "title holder") for Église St-Etienne-du-Mont.]
Saturday, 23 October, 1999
Before Alan went for his quick shower he said there wasn't a cloud in the blue sky;when he returned it was pouring so hard it roared in the building.
By the time we were dressed it was sunny.
We took a photographic detour from the St-Denis tram and ended up eating a 20F Grec frite sandwich in the sun by a canal outside the RER.
When we exited the RER it was raining.
When we got out of the Flandre Depot-Vente, where a $200 armoire vainly begged passport to America, it was sunny. 
When we arrived at the Parc Villette's carousel it rained again.
While I picked red leaves to take to Helen, it was starting to drizzle.
Before we went into the Science City/Cité des Sciences (where I dazzled a cheering crowd with my flying skirts and hair*) so I could take a photo of the Mickey Mouse booted chairs it was sunny.
After the Cité des Sciences when we ate chocolate and visited with a toeless pigeon it was sunny.
[*It was a very windy day. I was wearing a silk full skirt. Fortunately, I was also hiding capri pants underneath it for added warmth, because the wind not only whipped my hair about my face at the Cité des Sciences's long entry catwalk, it also whipped my skirt about my face. I'd smooth it down, pull my hair out of my face, take a few steps, *whooooooosh!*, and suddenly I'm "Cousin It" doing the can-can again! WooHooooooooo!! To commemorate the event I told Alan to videotape me leaning into the wind, arms outstretched, hair and skirts streaming behind me in the zany zephyrs. 
And so I posed. And in tilting my chin up noticed there was a crowd – a large crowd – at a vista window a few stories above watching me. When they saw me finally notice them they started a waving/clapping/cheering frenzy. I raised my arms higher in tribute to them, lowered my arms to grasp my infamous skirts, did a very deep Bernhardt curtsy, then ran off to where they couldn't see me anymore in the beginning of a very long laughing jag. I was so embarrassed I couldn't stop laughing. I know I blushed neon red.]
Sunshine escorted us along the St-Martin canal walk as we ate another Grec frite sandwich.
But by the time we watched a second boat/barge navigate the canal locks, cold, cold winds ushered in more clouds.
The next time someone says "Texas weather: if you don't like it, just wait 20 minutes," I'm going to laugh.
Oh, Véronique? How do you say "You haven't a clue!" en français?
At the St-Martin canal street which connected to the République métro Alan and I both separately spotted a J.D. Frakes Doppelganger. J.D. Frakes is an Abraham Lincoln Doppelganger.
It was here that Alan had stopped to take a photo of a florist's flowery van. I had paused to photograph a statue of La Grisette (De 1830), whoever she was.
She wore a small black skirt, black ankle boots, black jacket, black hat, and pearls. Her fluffy green sweater, her handbag, and her wrinkled face did not match the ensemble. 
She stopped at a purple Suzuki motorcycle and moved the handlebars until the side mirror suited her. She checked her face, lifted her hat and preened her hair. Finally satisfied, she went on...stopped at a
motorcycle and moved the handlebars until the side mirror suited her, checked her face, lifted her hat and preened her hair. Satisfied, she went on...to the next motorcycle where she moved the handlebars until the side mirror suited her, checked her face, lifted her hat and preened her hair. She passed me to reach the third motorcycle...Miss Clavell would have said "Something is not right."...and that's when I saw the open bottle of wine peeking out of her non-coordinated hand bag. She preened herself all the way into the teeming crowd, not squarely perched atop the heels of her black boots. I know it's sad, but it played like an "I Love Lucy" episode, not a TV-movie-of-the-week.
After sundown we stood in line at l'Opéra Bastille, hoping for "Marriage of Figaro" cancellations. No dice.
We walked around the Bastille circle and hopped a bus. Saw a grocery store, so hopped off to get something to eat once the bus came to a stop two blocks away. Alan opted to wait for the opposite bus to take us back to the store, which was closed by the time the bus arrived. 
On our walk from one side of the street to the other to catch the Poky Little Puppy Bus, I walked across a métro grate: my black silk broomstick skirt did an all-out Marilyn Monroe. This time my appreciative audience consisted only of two boys. It was no biggee, because, as previously stated, I had black capri pants on underneath, covering me from waist to calves. But as I had blushingly pointed out to Alan after I bowed to my public at the Science City/Cité des Sciences -- you're not supposed to show what's under your skirt: nude, knickers, or Nina Ricci it's supposed to be an enigma.
When hungry and thirsty, I am not a happy camper. Raised my mood by giving my two yellow roses to a toddler with whom I'd exchanged winks and smiles on the métro. When she and her father exited the train they waited so they could wave goodbye to me. Papa blew me a kiss. Alan's noteworthy experience was spotting a Melitta Fish-Verrill Doppelganger.
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