as high as her daughter’s armpit. The next outfit wasn’t much better.
“Oh, là là!”
Maman exclaimed.
“Oooh, là là!”
For my teenager’s part, Luca slouched off to school today with hair like a toilet brush; it’s so nice to know that teenagers are the same the world over.
OOOH, LÀ LÀ
, indeed.
The huge lingerie department at Le Bon Marché was crowded with tables of markdowns, women ruffling through them as intently as if they were looking in a box of old photographs for their first love. I discovered that French women wear undies of pink pleated satin, fanciful white lace, and translucent pearly silk, but they don’t wear cotton. I left empty-handed, unable to give up my Jockeys for Her for these delectable hand-wash-only confections. Still, I find myself thinking about the bras … perhaps it is time to turn my back on cotton.
Paris is triggering one of the friction points in my marriage. Our apartment was built in the 1700s, and the windows are original.
Brrr
. Alessandro turns the heat down; I hike it back up. He says the heating bill will impoverish us, but I insist on being warm. We have been having this battle for sixteen years. Hopefully, we will have it for many years to come.
Milo is a dog with an undiscriminating palate; today he shredded—and then ingested—a plastic baby bottle belonging to a purring stuffed bear. Anna has been flinging herself around the apartment, melodramatically announcing that now her baby will
staaarve
.
Luca told me he didn’t want to do his homework “because there is no point because in 2012 we will all be blown into dust,” and he will have wasted his time in school. I asked where he learned this crucial and terrifying information, and he admitted “crazy people on the Web. But,” he added, “crazy people are often right.” Cruelly, I continue to ruin his brief time on earth by insisting he study the Romans.
Yesterday our priest’s solo singing during the Mass wavered up and down; a bit later he suddenly dropped a sentence about the importance of baptism, said he felt ill, and walked out. In the United States, the congregation would have instantly started chattering to each other. But the French are utterly composed; the whole church waited silently, and five minutes later another priest dashed in, announced that all was well, and smoothly took up the sermon on baptism.
V ERTIGO
T his morning the snow was coming down fast in rue du Conservatoire, slanting sideways and turning the gray slate roofs the color of milk. I leaned against my study window, idly thinking about how passionately children love snow, when I realized that I was peering down at a group of Parisian women in the street below, engaged in the rapid-fire kissing of a wintry hello. Growing up on the farm, we’d braved snowstorms in puffy coats (preferably lurid orange, the better to avoid being targeted by a hunter who’d killed a six-pack rather than an animal); these women wore dark coats belted tightly around their slim waists. As they bent toward each other, pecking like manic sparrows, their scarves flashed magenta, lavender, dull gold. From my vantage point, far above them, they looked like inhabitants of a different world, as dissimilar to me as a gaggle of peacocks to a turkey.
One year, when we had even less money than usual, my mother took down the dining room curtains, which were printed with fifteenth-century sailing ships, and made back-to-school dresses for my sister and me. Even though the politically correct contingentwouldn’t turn Christopher Columbus from saint to devil for another twenty years, I was an early adherent of the Loathe-the-Conquistador club, thanks to being forced to wear the
Niña
, the
Pinta
, and the
Santa María
all that year, snow or shine.
The Parisiennes in my street had never worn dining room curtains. You could just tell. The moment I allowed that certainty to sink into my mind, unfortunate scenes from my high school years lit up in my
“Oh, là là!”
Maman exclaimed.
“Oooh, là là!”
For my teenager’s part, Luca slouched off to school today with hair like a toilet brush; it’s so nice to know that teenagers are the same the world over.
OOOH, LÀ LÀ
, indeed.
The huge lingerie department at Le Bon Marché was crowded with tables of markdowns, women ruffling through them as intently as if they were looking in a box of old photographs for their first love. I discovered that French women wear undies of pink pleated satin, fanciful white lace, and translucent pearly silk, but they don’t wear cotton. I left empty-handed, unable to give up my Jockeys for Her for these delectable hand-wash-only confections. Still, I find myself thinking about the bras … perhaps it is time to turn my back on cotton.
Paris is triggering one of the friction points in my marriage. Our apartment was built in the 1700s, and the windows are original.
Brrr
. Alessandro turns the heat down; I hike it back up. He says the heating bill will impoverish us, but I insist on being warm. We have been having this battle for sixteen years. Hopefully, we will have it for many years to come.
Milo is a dog with an undiscriminating palate; today he shredded—and then ingested—a plastic baby bottle belonging to a purring stuffed bear. Anna has been flinging herself around the apartment, melodramatically announcing that now her baby will
staaarve
.
Luca told me he didn’t want to do his homework “because there is no point because in 2012 we will all be blown into dust,” and he will have wasted his time in school. I asked where he learned this crucial and terrifying information, and he admitted “crazy people on the Web. But,” he added, “crazy people are often right.” Cruelly, I continue to ruin his brief time on earth by insisting he study the Romans.
Yesterday our priest’s solo singing during the Mass wavered up and down; a bit later he suddenly dropped a sentence about the importance of baptism, said he felt ill, and walked out. In the United States, the congregation would have instantly started chattering to each other. But the French are utterly composed; the whole church waited silently, and five minutes later another priest dashed in, announced that all was well, and smoothly took up the sermon on baptism.
V ERTIGO
T his morning the snow was coming down fast in rue du Conservatoire, slanting sideways and turning the gray slate roofs the color of milk. I leaned against my study window, idly thinking about how passionately children love snow, when I realized that I was peering down at a group of Parisian women in the street below, engaged in the rapid-fire kissing of a wintry hello. Growing up on the farm, we’d braved snowstorms in puffy coats (preferably lurid orange, the better to avoid being targeted by a hunter who’d killed a six-pack rather than an animal); these women wore dark coats belted tightly around their slim waists. As they bent toward each other, pecking like manic sparrows, their scarves flashed magenta, lavender, dull gold. From my vantage point, far above them, they looked like inhabitants of a different world, as dissimilar to me as a gaggle of peacocks to a turkey.
One year, when we had even less money than usual, my mother took down the dining room curtains, which were printed with fifteenth-century sailing ships, and made back-to-school dresses for my sister and me. Even though the politically correct contingentwouldn’t turn Christopher Columbus from saint to devil for another twenty years, I was an early adherent of the Loathe-the-Conquistador club, thanks to being forced to wear the
Niña
, the
Pinta
, and the
Santa María
all that year, snow or shine.
The Parisiennes in my street had never worn dining room curtains. You could just tell. The moment I allowed that certainty to sink into my mind, unfortunate scenes from my high school years lit up in my
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