These are a few of my favorite things...
Tonight’s listening: John Coltrane, My Favorite Things
Tonight’s beverage: Red Headed Stranger, Harvest IPA (Notch Brewing, Salem, MA)
In most likely a futile effort to keep my favorite place alive - not my favorite place in Boston - my favorite place, full stop...I bought a book and placed a take away order at the Trident. Seemed to arrive in ok condition. Felt like a celebrity having a book delivered to me free of charge - adding a note to my order: “Leave on the lobby table”. The paparazzi is ruthless... 🕶
It’ll be a race now to see what I get first: food poisoning or the virus...or nothing at all...since after 20+ years, I’ve probably developed antibodies to everything in their kitchen.
Was going to order, “When Paris Went Dark” tonight, but want to get through more of the week, maybe synthesize some vitamin D, make another $100, before digging into first-hand accounts of 50 months of Nazi occupation.
Instead, like the New York Times Crossword puzzle, I started Monday on easy mode: “The Little-r Museums of Paris” by Emma Jacobs. A palm-sized book strewn with watercolor illustrations of Paris’ smaller, lesser-known museums.
During my most recent trip to Paris, I had a few hours between checking out of my St. Germain hotel and dragging my luggage back to Gare du Nord to ride the Eurostar back to London. I went in the late spring - wanting to see Europe at both the start of the growing season and the end.
It was a cool, sunny afternoon - the city still slightly less crowded than usual, heavily-armed gendarmes still patrolling the narrow sidewalks of the inner arrondisements. Everyone on a renewed high-alert after yet another attack - this time at a show in Manchester.
I dropped my suitcase and hobo-esque Boots-bag luggage off with the hotel staff then wandered west up Rue de Babylone. I passed by Coutume Café - where I’d had pancakes the day before (so fancy, so French, so iHop), listening to the waitstaff sing along to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” in stereotypically adorable French accents. I pushed my international phone plan to its limits, checking and then re-checking my cardinal direction via GPS - finally spotting the high-walled entrance to the Musée Rodin.
After three and a half days in Paris, my French was approaching terminal velocity, aka “barely passable” for “basic conversation” (thanks 7+ years of French classes!), so with some confidence I approached the too-cute-for-his-own-good ticket window attendant (ah-ten-dahnt), and asked for an “adult” ticket. He managed to process my mangled syllables, laughed, and told me, (in French!) no worries, I’ll only charge you for one lower-priced child ticket. Vive la France!
Feeling buzzy from my double victory (saving one Euro and not instantly getting a response in English...”You...ehhh.wouldn’t understahhnd me...eeeff I spoooke Fraanch...”)...I set off for the outdoor sculpture and rose garden.
I ran down my phone battery, taking hundreds of photos of Rodin sculptures and roses at peak bloom. Collecting reds, oranges, creamy conch-shell pinks, a few dew-drop laden yellows...framed against the slate gray clouds that had pushed their way into the afternoon. I listened to the crunch of the garden path gravel, hoping its tan dust would stay on the edges of my white Converse as long as possible...keeping a little piece of Paris in the Spring with me...all the way back to the train station and then onwards...into London town.
