Frog Blog

the whirring of the metro— it’s a three-part whir, a low first, a second squeal, a long, satisfying whir as it gets going. i’d forgotten how you can feel the hot wind being pushed through the tunnel before the train shows up. i’d forgotten how flat paris is; how untall everything is. i’d forgotten how much a breakfast of baguettes and croissants leaves me hungrier than when i sat down … but how tasty it is. and the butter? and the milk in my tea? how could i have forgotten how good those are? and cuisse de canard confit. holy shit. that meal alone made my trip. i’d forgotten vittel water from the metro vending machines, next to twix bars that are slightly cool from the machine. and i’d totally forgotten panache (it’s half beer half lemon soda. sounds gross but it’s great!).

i’m taking notes. :)

it’s 12:17 a.m. and i’m still full from dinner— we got home at 11 after 2 courses for me, 3 for uncle D and aunt R, 4! for cousin C and dad. their’s included a cheese plate which was to die for, esp. the roquefort, which no one but me liked. the waiter started making eyes at me toward the end of the evening and told me just how charming i was … too bad he had about 5 gold chain necklaces on … i was flattered nonetheless.

the light is gorgeous here, the way it slants over the yard and olive trees at dawn and dusk. the tilt of the world right now is just so: yellow light casting long shadows. just gorgeous. today we went to aix-en-provence which was lively and lovely; tomorrow we go to arles. i’ve been before, 6 years ago, and enjoyed it very much. we hope to catch the saturday morning produce/stuff market and will walk van gogh’s steps from when he lived and painted there.

today i had two excellent experiences, two really choice moments in the public bathrooms in arles, france. the first was a public stall contraption with metal doors and foot pads that you stand on to pop a squat over a hole in the ground (no toilet bowl). this is hard for us ladies. it’s hard to position yourself just so, then you must make sure your pant legs aren’t touching the slimy floor, then, well, you have to think about peeing. pee! starting peeing! god, then you can’t! but you must because there’s only so long you can pop that squat before your legs start to shake. and then you must make sure you don’t pee on your pants or shoes. and there’s no toilet paper, naturellement. so, right, i’m doing my thing, and i’m almost finished when gad zooks, out of nowhere, totally unprompted, all this water starts spraying from the floor around and over my feet to flush everything away! wet feet from a public hole in the ground. argh!

what if you had to poop? or, god forbid, had diarrhea? what then?

moment #2 came from another public toilet, this one with a metal bowl (no toilet seat) but a bowl so scuzzy, so spotted with liquids that there’s no way you’d want to sit on it, let alone be anywhere near it, so you’re squatting again, and no toilet paper again, and a disgusting stench and no flusher.

dad’s experience boiled down to peeing in a corner with two small saloon doors covering his bits as people walked by. i walked out and told him, well, ahem, that was an experience, and he said, yeah, it’s like people around here think of peeing as breathing, as like nothing special, as something you just do and don’t even think about, a non-event. and yes, i agree, isn’t it? of course, we all eat, sleep, pee. but america has the comfort thing down: the free, clean toilets at grocery stores well stocked with paper and seat covers, sanitizing soap and hot water and towels. even the honey bucket porta-potties are better equipped than the public toilets here. it’s the little things in life that make a difference, the little things we all take for granted and forget about until they’re not there. from here on out i will always appreciate toilet paper!

this trip has been less about sightseeing and more about talking. it’s like my inhibitions fell out of my pockets and scattered all over the atlantic on the way here. when i arrived in paris, the french turned on in my head and full sentences came out. actually, it was less turning on the french and more turning UP the french. i was a bit surprised and quite delighted. by no means am i fluent; i still struggle with vocabulary and complicated verb tenses, but overall i’m able to spit out what i’m thinking and people get it. many times i say “je parle un peu de francais, alors, je vais essayer,” which alerts my listener and softens them up a little. a little bit of charm goes a long way. but sometimes i don’t even say that, i just start talking. and they understand!

(i must interrupt my post here to write about how WINDY it is in st. remy today; when we arrived last thursday it was equally as windy; our host told us that when the rest of france gets rain, provence gets wind, and that it would die down thursday night and be nice for a few days. indeed it did; it’s been gorgeous and sunny, with only a slight breeze to cool us off when it gets too warm. it’s amazingly dry. my lips are chap, my hands are scaly, i got a bloody nose yesterday morning. our host told us the mistral winds blow about 60 mph nonstop during the winter. it’s house-shaking windy. the windows rattle, the shutters flap against the side of the house, the doors slam shut if a draft comes through. it’s like a constant storm, but with clear blue skies. very dramatic.)

so i’ve talked to many people: shop owners, waiters, etc. a saleslady was making me a sample of chanel no. 19 eau de parfum in sephora, and i told her how one can’t buy the edp in the states. she told me only americans buy chanel 19 anyway. i walked into a perfume shop in uzes and told the owner, i only speak a little french and he said, well i speak it really well. i asked the rosy-cheeked waiter/owner of the teeny restaurant in gordes how many people lived there, he told me 5000 in the summer, 2500 in the winter, that there are a lot of “maisons secondaires.” i called a restaurant in town last night and booked a table for 5, and it worked! these sound like the smallest things but to me, they’re huge. they’re about me not caring if i sound like a tourist, not caring if someone will judge me for my poor french. it’s a joy to get little slices of humor; when i was here before i always felt like i didn’t get the jokes. it feels good to try, and i’m enjoying my successes, tiny as they may be.

i saw a dress very similar to this at dior in paris; it’s designed by john galliano for dior and came out last year. since then there have been many versions of the dress; the one i saw was lime green and had ruffles from top to bottom. price: 21,000 euros. (!) it was the closest i’ll ever be to such a dress; such a unique piece of art. it was exquisite.

my cousin C thought everyone was saying “vonsoir” instead of “bonsoir” in france. how hilarious is that?

so, hi, hello, bonsoir, now that i’m back from the franceland. B works late tonight so when i got home i had 2 and a half uninterrupted hours to think, be, rearrange my perfume in the wine unit. i mostly bought perfume overseas; i didn’t buy any clothes except for a turtleneck sweater from h&m and some cheap scarves from eurodif. i was on a perfume mission and came back with chanel no. 19 edt, premier figuer edt by l’artisan parfumeur, number one and jasminade by parfums de nicolai, diorissimo by dior and bois de violette by serge lutens. they were heavy but so worth it. i wrapped them up tight in those cheap scarves and the rest of my dirty clothes so they wouldn’t break on the way back home. B said i smelled french but was referring more to the laundry detergent i used more than perfume. (the detergent was ariel and does smell distinctly french in a very nondestinct way, if that makes any sense. it’s like it carries an air of france and the french. i love how most detergent comes in the form of a cube instead of liquid or powder. they’re individually wrapped and very handy for travel. i wish i’d brought some home.)

it was a wonderful trip, truly. so enriching. i barely wrote at all. obviously i didn’t blog much, but i also didn’t write too much in my journal. i just lived and that was enough. i felt so satiated; i didn’t feel a need to channel writing to enhance or magnify my experiences or squeeze out any inspiration. it was inspiration enough to simply be. how fucking cool is that? i can’t remember the last time i felt that way for an extended period of time. every moment was packed, as packed as my bag at the end. it all feels like a dream now.

when i got to paris everything made sense. i found my way around, could magically read maps, street signs spoke to me and the days unfolded intuitively. i never stopped walking. i took in every smell and sound. now that i’m back home, there are moments in the mornings now when i can smell paris; its exhaust and pavement, its melange of people’s perfumes, its wet dogs and cool mornings, its coffee, newsstands and coal smoke.

i woke up early this morning, for no apparent reason. i’d planned to sleep in but wasn’t tired anymore, so i got up, put on some jeans and walked to the french bakery for some breakfast. it’s four blocks away and the closest i’ve found to authentic in the city. i bought some croissants and wanted a ficelle to make a nice tartine, but ficelles and baguettes aren’t ready until about 8 a.m. (i got there at 7:30).

every morning in paris i ate breakfast here:

this cafe was down the street from our hotel, on the busy corner of carrefour d’odeon and st. gernain de pres. for 6,60 EU (1 EU = $1.39), i got the petit dejeuner complet, consisting of a croissant, a tartine (also known as half of a half baguette with butter and jam; B pointed out that tartine is actually any open-faced sandwich) and a drink; either tea, a grand cafe creme (like a cafe au lait) or hot chocolate. kind of expensive but actually not; the hotel breakfast cost 10 EU and was only cold cereal and watery fruit cocktail, according to C.

in france you can stay as long as you want at an establishment, and you can smoke. (that will change in 2008 when the french government makes it illegal to smoke in bars or restaurants. thank god! nothing like a dude puffing on a gauloise next to you to ruin your meal. then again, the mixture of cigarettes and cafe is oh so french.)

i took this photo on the sly without flash so as not to draw too much attention to myself. when i showed it to some gals at work, they said the place looked american. ? maybe the red vinyl booths have a diner feel, but to me the place screams france.

here is the dress i saw at dior, courtesy of style.com:

it’s from their fall 2007 ready-to-wear collection and it was gorgeous in real life. it was more muted and gauzy than i thought it would be; less shiny and more folded layers of material. i didn’t touch it but guess it’s a polyester blend? god, that sounds so … pedestrian. but what do i know about dressmaking. i don’t think it was silk. i love how it falls under “ready-to-wear,” as if it’s this casual thing like a pair of boat shoes from LL Bean. but seriously, i’m ready to wear it now. ahem, anyone want to lend me 21,000 euros?

today, while sitting in the park near my office, i got stung by a yellowjacket. bitch CRAWLED UP MY PANT LEG and stung me twice on the shin! i didn’t feel her at all until i started to scratch an itch, which quickly started to hurt. i pulled up my pant leg and out fell a writhing yellowjacket (which i promptly pulverized) followed by her little stinger.

my shin started to swell. i haven’t been stung by a bee or yellowjacket since i was 10 years old. i’m not allergic to bees but i know one can develop an allergy to anything at any time, so i freaked out a little bit and hustled back to work. once there a co-worker heard that you can put a penny on a sting and it helps with the pain, so she taped two pennies on my leg and damned if it didn’t work! the stings still hurt like a mutha, but the pennies did help bring the pain down from a 10 to a 7. afterwards i iced it on and off for an hour and took some ibuprofen. some internet research led me to putting on a small tab of toothpaste— that worked the best. it took the pain from a 9 to a 4, and lasted about two hours.

once home, i administered some lavender oil and more colgate. i’m very minty fresh. it still hurts, actually, and probably will for a few days, but the swelling has gone way down.

speaking of nature in the city, last night as B and i pulled up to our apartment, i spied an animal over by the playground right next door. i said, hey, is that a … yes, why yes it is, a gigantoid racoon deflty climbing the cyclone fence into the playground. clever fellow. he watched us the whole time. B went inside; i watched the racoon for a while until he disappeared behind some toys. my step-grandma feeds a racoon family every night on her porch. she leaves a pie pan of cat food at about 9 p.m. and like clockwork, the racoon shows up as soon as she walks back inside the house. she and her two cats watch from behind the sliding glass door. i watched, too, one night. her cats were mesmerized, on point, totally still except for their tails flicking. my family has warned her how dangerous this is, especially for her kitties (they’re inside cats but occasionally escape), how it’s bad to feed wild animals, how racoons are super smart and will fuck with you if they’re hungry or threatened. but she waves her hand and smiles and dismisses all this. she’s fascinated, she says, and thinks that feeding them regularly helps keep them out of the neighbor’s garbage cans. she’s gotten to know them, recognizes them, and they seem to recognize her, too. she’s a regular doctor doolittle but me, i keep my distance from racoons. call it mutual respect.

lastly, we seem to have a major crop of giant, ugly, powdery, poop-brown moths on our front stairs. they’re huge and ubiquitous and give us the creeps. everytime i walk in or out the door, i’m at attention lest one of them falls on me (i think their defense when attacked is to simply drop) or flutter around my head. the other day one was (stupidly) resting on the second step and before i even thought about it i stepped on it. squish. totally disgusting. i should have saved it for our clever spider up in the corner. our friend the spider spider built two webs to our wrought-iron gate; each one was ruined when we opened the gate. the third one he made is now anchored just so that it doesn’t break when the gate opens or closes. smarty pants. he’s quite beautiful— all striped and delicate— and has already caught two small moths. i didn’t feel too bad stepping on that one moth, though, because he was so big. he probably would have eaten the spider, and then eaten me.

i’ve created a new blog. it’s a place where i can write about perfume, tea, lotions, soaps and other scented treats. i’m going to try it out and see how it goes. i’ve written my first post; it’s harder to review soap than i thought it would be! mostly it’s just an outlet to share some of my interests.

i still plan on keeping up this blog. i need to write more, in general. it’s cathartic and important for me.