Singin' in the Rain

The local forecast predicts wet weather for my Sunday October 4th sales debut at Design Hive. But rain can't dampen this entrepreneur's spirits. As we used to say at Digital Equipment: I'm on track for success in '09.

I Walk the Line

The High Line, that is, on Manhattan's West Side. It's a city park created from the skeleton of an elevated subway line that runs from the Meatpacking District to 34th Street.

At one point, the park winds past the fire escape of a neighboring building. Realizing they had a captive audience, the residents began putting on nightly shows from their improvised open air stage, and created the one-of-a-kind Renegade Cabaret.

Inspired to renegadeliness myself, I went to eyeball the threads in one of New York's many amazing fabric stores. Need purple tiger-striped gold lame spandex? They've got it.
You can get almost any kind of fabric you can imagine in nearly unlimited quantity. Your eagle-eyed reporter spotted several yards of high grade periwinkle blue cotton interlock. Into my shopping bag it went; coming soon to a prototype boatneck near you!

What's the buzz?

How I've longed to mingle with buyers of my boatnecks, the better to get to know them and what they truly want. At last, I'll have my chance. On Sunday, October 4, Design Hive in Cambridge at the Baldwin School is the place to be.

Details to come as the date draws near, but look for a fully stocked sales table, manned by a pair of lovely young assistants who know the territory and wield a mean cash drawer.

Shunned at The Dump

Not that I have anything against Hewlett Packard. But my old laptop had given up the ghost and it was time to spirit it off to wherever dead laptops go. Fred, my consigliere for all things technical, advised me to destroy the hard drive in order to prevent criminals from salvaging my personal data.

Screwdriver and hammer in hand, I tried my Girl-best to do some damage. Plastic cracked and pieces flew. Finally, the job was done, and I was ready to dispose of the shattered remains.

When I took it to the local "hazardous waste drop off" they told me sorry, no laptops accepted. Apparently my little computer was so toxic, even in death, that it was shunned at the dump! Makes me wonder how safe it was to keep in my home for all that time!

A Bridge Not Too Far

Here I am, Nature Girl herself, out in the wilds of Lexington. I followed a trail through conservation land that led me to a small bridge over the creek. The scene there put Monet's garden to shame. Everywhere I looked, the local flora and fauna seemed to be at its peak.

For example, these berries looked downright delicious to me. I grabbed a handful and was poised to throw them down the hatch when a passing hiker stopped me. "Wait! That's pokeweed! It's deadly poison!" she exclaimed, and went on to describe the chromosome damage that would ensue if ingested.

Little did this woman know I was brought up to laugh at danger. The berries tasted just fine to me. Later I found a copperhead snake in the bushes and picked it up to check out its fangs. I spotted some wild mushrooms and nibbled on them. I poked my nose in a bear's den to see if he was home. He wasn't. Then I rounded out the afternoon with a hot cup of tea made from tree bark.

Where did I learn such stuff, you might ask? The answer: S•s•c•c•a•t•t•i•c•c•o! Scatico! Scatico!

Lemon, Not Sour

Is that Liz Lemon, escaped from the skyscraper canyons of 30 Rock and wandering the countryside of Massachusetts? No, just me modeling new Fall outerwear fashions.

He told me to call him Captain

Yesterday I did something I've never done before. My Global Design Director (known in these pages as JoeY) has talked about paddling down the Sudbury River in a canoe for some time now, so as a way of hanging onto the rosy glow of vacation, we marched down to the South Bridge boathouse in Concord, donned our life jackets, and paddled off into the wilds. I know this area reasonably well, but seeing it from the quiet river on a perfect fall day made my heart ache. Long as I have lived in these parts, nevair -- anywhere -- have I had a more tranquil and breathtaking experience.

Ripe n' Juicy

Although the Atlantic Ocean now separates me from the Jardin des Plantes, the memory of one morning I spent there is still as fresh as the scent of the hundreds of rose trees blooming along its garden paths.

You can't eat roses, but you can eat tomatoes. And who knew France had its own tomato festival? We saw this poster for the Festival de la Tomate all over the city.

Too bad the fest was being held the week after we left. The Château de la Bourdaisière in the Loire Valley sounded very inviting. According to the poster, visitors would be able to sample over 630 varieties of tomato. I'm sure I could manage to get through at least 50 before lunch.

Duluc n' Listen

The memory of a lovely luncheon at an outdoor cafe in Belleville still lingers. This artsy section of working class Paris offered affordable cafe creme at half the price of downtown venues, as well as a lively atmosphere teeming with musicians, filmmakers, and artists. As such, it was the ideal spot for The World's Oldest Bohemians to rest their weary bones after slogging up and down the quarter's steep cobblestone streets for the better part of an hour.

And if anyone could find out who painted the 40s noir building mural in the background, it would be Duluc The Detective.

Seeing as how he is headquartered in swanky central Paris, I'm not certain I could afford M. Duluc's services, but I sure do like his sign a lot.

La Rentrée

It's back to school this week for French kids. They call it "la rentrée" (the re-entry, the return) and it's highly commercialized on TV, billboards and print ads. I made my own re-entry to the Boston area yesterday afternoon and was met by seasonable Fall breezes and yellow school buses.

Also, for those who doubted that JoeY got to use his patented Paris Pad™ artist sketchbook system while in France, the photo above is  proof: a sketch done while having lunch in the Tuileries gardens, along with a photo taken for comparison.

The Woman Who Lost Her Head

Our little Rue de Regrattier has another more ancient name: Rue de la Femme-sans-tete (road of the headless woman). There is even a little statuette on the building corner for those who have trouble envisioning such a thing. Not me. After a week in this lovely neighborhood, I too have lost my own head over it.

Have the French cornered the market on happiness? Could be. Lunch at the modest little Les Fous de l'île restaurant around the corner cost a healthy $60 USD.

But I am happy to pay that price for tuna steaks seared to perfection, encrusted in sesame seeds, and an endive salad that's a work of art.

And never mind the dish of Berthillon ice cream for dessert; the perfect finish to a late lunch. Near dusk, we took some food and drinks down to the Seine and watched the barges cruise by and the lights of Notre Dame come on. I must confess,  I don't know what could top this. Mais ça ne fait rien (It doesn't really matter). There's always more happiness just around the next corner.

Blogmania

Scroll up. Scroll down. There are lots more blog entries. Look, here's one now: Madame Trixie, fully recovered from her disappointing biscuit experience with ED, was out plying her trade on the streets of the quartier again. Good thing she stopped for some lettuce and a baguette on her way home.

By special request, a very posed-looking portrait of the couple from America in the tiny kitchen of the Rue Regrattier apartment. The windows are closed due to a blinding back light from the bright pewter colored sky. If they were open you'd see an artful arrangement of rooftops and chimneys right out of Mary Poppins, but not much else.

"Où est l'ED?"

ED is a chain of discount supermarkets in Paris. We had seen  many of ED's advertisements on Metro walls, but one of them stopped us dead in our tracks. It promised a delicious brand of coveted digestive biscuits at an unheard-of price.

We set out for an ED located in a far-off district. Several changes of Metro lines and buses were necessary. Where was the ED? The map said it was just around the next corner. We trudged on.

We found ourselves on a 15-mile walk through a labyrinth of hot, dusty streets grilled by an angry noonday sun. Hours later, exhausted, we stumbled into the ED, only to find THEY HAD NO BISCUITS. How could this be?

It was still early. We decided to try another ED, thinking they might have them in another part of town. More buses. More Metro. More walking. On arrival, the ever-resourceful JoeY strode up to the cashier and thrust his digital camera at the blasé clerk, showing him a digital photo of the biscuit poster that had driven us to desperation.

The clerk shook his head. "No" was all he said. It was only then that we discovered the cruel, cruel trick fate had played on us. The poster advertising ED's special biscuit price was dated: 2 through 6 septembre! We had missed the sale by ONE DAY! And ED, in its fiendish way, had removed every last biscuit from the store shelves.

Oh, ED!

Pont n' Jaunt

I think of Pont Marie as our Metro stop. It's close and familiar. And I sing a signature tune when we cross it.

There are so many ponts on the Ile it's easy to get them mixed up. The other night we walked in circles because the other streets surrounding Rue le Regrattier are all flanked by ponts that look similar by dark of nuit.

Food glorious food. I'm never far from it. Add in some 14th century architecture and a bit of greenery and you have the perfect eating experience.

Young (au coeur), Happy, Reeducated

Who is the happy one in this picture? Certainly not the sullen young person. I think that a spiritual kinship with the legendary French bonheur is in my nature.



Fans of our stateside dental signage series will find that amusement abounds in the Parisian commercial landscape. Whatever "reeducation" takes place during the advertised massages, I did not want to experience moi-meme!

Façonnable

"Aw gosh, do I have to wear this?" In truth, I need no coercion. Your correspondent is nothing but a slave to fashion, and here on the streets of the French capital I have many opportunities to buy, buy, buy until it's time to say goodbye.


Here is the bench on our cobblestone walk overlooking the Seine just outside the apartment door where JoeY enjoys the occasional moody cigar + stroll.

A local resident assured me that one can still see deep grooves in the stone from a Nazi gun emplacement sited here during the Occupation.

It doesn't matter if I'm on vacation or not, when JoeY says, "Hoopie, get cookin'!" I rattle those pots and pans.

The apartment's small but efficient kitchen features a compact stove and fridge, and that's plenty to whip up a quick omelet or a full course meal.

Metro

The Metro provides this helpful illustration of a person falling onto the tracks to help us decide when to break the glass, pull the handle, and shut off the deadly high voltage electric current. Oddly, the figure depicted seems to be wearing a clerical collar. But I could be wrong.


Attired in a fashionable powder blue coat with the latest schlep bag as an accessory, I am thus prepared to journey to the edges of the city even while fast asleep.

Bonheur

Chalked on the sidewalk of the Pont Marie today: Life is beautiful, as are we. A message from the mysterious Mlle. 2Nuit.

Our cameras caught a glimpse of the elusive JoeY reflected in a shop window outside the district near Contrescarpe. Fresh bread and M&M candies are always a good combination, however sharp-eyed JoeY has sussed out a real bargain: 1 cafe 1 croissant - 1 Euro 90.

Vilder Chaiah (Wild One)

In the USA you wouldn't dare lean against a row of motorcycles looking sulky. But here, I'm up for anything. (PS: Black is de rigueur in Paris, however I promise I'll wear another jacket in the next photo. I did bring two others. [All jackets courtesy of Gentleman JoeY, esteemed Global Design Director.] And one of them is blue.)

Je ne Regrattier rien

Settling into the Rue Regrattier neighborhood nicely though it is a shock to my system to find that a pair of cafe cremes is more than a sawbuck. The ancient Gauls called this place Lutece and, indeed, it is clearly  luxurious beyond imagining.  

Happy Wanderer

Here I am in the Place des Vosges with a baguette of ham and cheese, attracting the attention of some pigeons. My visit to the Marais district featured a shop selling something called "Yiddish Sandwiches" (if only a sandwich could speak!), and an Art Nouveau synagogue designed by Guimard in disrepair but open again (since I spotted it shuttered over ten years ago).

A bientot, mes amis

Take Me to the Rivair

Esteemed Global Design Director and I will be restoring our creative energies and inspiration on the banks of the Seine. 

Je me demande, Can Berthillon hold a candle to Toscanini?  Nous verrons, or we'll just see about that....