Eeeeh, which ones?

I will never understand how those skinny Parisian bitches manage to click-clack around the cobblestone streets of Paris in those suicide stilettos. I for one am in need of a pair of sensible walking shoes. Not so sensible that I have granny feet, but sensible enough that I can wander around Paris aimlessly for a few hours without too much pain.

I already have a pair of StoneFly Fontana's:

But I'm also looking at these:

The No Name Akiko Jogger

The No Name Flyer Jogger

As much as I love the name Akiko, I'm leaning towards the Flyer because the leather and the square toe make it a bit less casual. Also the heel on the Flyer is one centimeter higher,which is always attractive to a girl who measures barely 5'3" on a good day. Oh one other important thing to note: I hate tennis shoes and sneakers of all sorts unless they are Chuck Taylor All Stars or unless the person wearing said sneaker is well under the age of 25.

Ok, Which of the above shoes do you hate the most and why?

The One Where I Panic For No Reason.

Okay so, it’s September, and so that means in less than one week I’ll be heading back to school. As I mentioned before, during September I will be spending one whole month in Paris trying to Frenchify myself further by taking an intensive French course at La Sorbonne!

So, I should be all happy and dancing around right?

Instead, for the past week I have been having little anxiety induced heart palpitations. Each night I’ve been grinding my teeth so hard in my sleep that I’m about to give myself a case of TMJ. Dude, I feel like I’m about to start kindergarten or something. I know y'all think I'm just a cool, go with the flow good time gal, but in reality I'm a totally nerotic control-freak over-achiever, and thus--I'm so nervous I might actually pee my pants. Today I actually went out shopping for “school clothes” because I want to look especially spiffy so that the cool kids at La Sorbonne with play with me during recess. But even shopping could not chase away the butterflies in me belly.

Sidebar: I scored 2 pairs of rockin’ jeans that were already midget sized so that I didn’t even have to take them to the seamstress, 4 shirts (one left over from “les soldes” which was only 7 euros), and 4 fancy colorful scarves that are so long and beautiful that I can wrap them around my kneck several times and the ends still dangle happly at around waiste level----All for around 200 euros. Do I know how to shop or do I know how to shop!? *patting self on the back*

In other news: The agency I rented the apartment through actually makes videos of some of the apartments, mine included. As you can see in the video, apparently Its right across the street from the Louvre. Take a sneak peak at my over-priced hipster apartment:

Anyway, please feel free to use comments to comfort me and tell me how silly I’m being, and how I don’t need to be a nervous wreck because it will be awesome and there will be many nice peoples in my French class, and that surely I will be able to handle 5 whole hours of French lessons each day because I’m not an idiot and I will in fact be able to learn some new French language skills eventhough I feel all old and some days I feel like by brain has shrunken considerably over the last few years and is now just floating around in my skull like the last pickle in the pickle jar, but this is not true so it would pay to relax and just enjoy the whole experience.

Right?

In It To Win It!

My mom had a dream.

Not exactly one like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , but important none the less. About a week ago my mom dreamt up some numbers. She said she woke up and the dream numbers were so clear in her head that she quickly grabbed a piece of paper so she could jot them down. Also today is me mum's birthday, so I figure if I play the Euromillions lotto on my mom's birthday with her dream numbers, somehow my chances will magically much better than the usual 1 in 76,275,360. Right?

So this is just a warning: If you don't hear from me for like a few months, it's likely that I've won the Euro millions jackpot in which case I will promptly start packing for a last-minute, extended beach vacation to the Maldives. We will be staying there while our next dream house is being constructed:

I mean, I suppose I could still blog from the Maldives when I'm not too busy swimming or napping.

Anyway, Happy Birthday mom. If we win you're welcome to come to the Maldives with us.

Feast of the Assumption.

Saturday is the one day each week FrenchBoy and I can go out and do stuff together, so Imagine our chagrin when we found out Saturday around 11am that it was a holiday and almost every damn thing in town would be closed all day. You would think at least FrenchBoy would have known something was up, but since he works in Luxembourg his mental schedule revolves around Luxembourgish holidays. (Yeah there’s only 10 actual Luxembourgish people but they do have their own holidays.)

As for me I’ve lived in France for almost 6 years now and I still don’t have all the Holidays memorized. Part of the problem of course is that I’m not catholic. I mean how the hell am I supposed to remember what day Mary flied up to heaven on? Geez. And frankly I’m such a shut in that we could be 3 or 4 days into Armegeddon before I realized what was what. “Oh so that’s what all the weeping and gnashing of teeth is all about!”

Alas,everything's closed. What to do, what to do? Fancy Lunch course! Eventhough we didn’t have a reservation, we popped into a local restaurant I’d read about on-line and were lucky enough to get a table on the terrace. It was by far the best meal we’ve had since visiting Brugge.

A few photos from the Menu Plaisir for your drooling pleasure:

Petite assiette de la patience. ("Little plate for patience". Something to munch on while you choose your meal and your aperitif cocktail arrives. Spicy Beef Carpaccio served on a slice of Cucumber.)

Médaillon d'agneau et côte, tarte à la tomate, jus d'ail doux et wasaby.
(Medallion of lamb and rib, tomato tart, some veggies, a bit of potatoe puree, aka mashed potatoes, and this amazing wasabi and garlic gravy in that tiny shot glass.)

Médaillon de lotte aux aubergines, fumet tranché à l'huile de basilic.
(Medallion of monkfish with eggplant, sliced and smoked with basil oil.)


Dessert:

Crème parfumée au pralin, entremet et sa glace façon tiramisu

(Praline Ice Cream and a Tiramisu)

Blame it on the salt content of our little Feast of the Assumption or perhaps it was the heat, but I’ll have you know that the next day neither my pants or my bras would fit, and my toes looked like cocktail wieners. I literally went up one whole clothing size overnight. I waddled around the apartment all day Sunday. At Sunday dinner French mother-in-law even mentioned in a ‘round about way that I looked a bit “Forte”….which by the by is one of my FAVORITE French expressions. How lovely is it that when a woman is a bit overweight they say “She’s a bit strong!”

Anyway, the meal was wonderful, even if it left me feeling a bit strong.

The Great Valentino Caper.

A few weeks ago a munchkin snuck into our home and stole FrenchBoy’s Valentino suit. For what reason, we had no idea. It was all very confusing.

We looked everywhere for "The Valentino". Every armoire and closet was thoroughly searched. We frantically dug through every conceivable (and inconceiveable) hiding spot until we came to the conclusion that munchkins must have stolen it….which came as a real shocker. We had no idea that munchkins were such fashion whores or that they were even interested in wearing human formal work attire of all things. Also, wouldn’t the pant alterations alone cost a small fortune in Münchells? (modern Munchkin currency) Why wouldn't the little bastard simply buy proper munchkin-sized clothing to suit his munchkin fashion needs?

But after a bit of thinking and backtracking, my heart sank. Somehow, someway, I must have left "The Valentino" with the dry cleaner. The last time I came home from the cleaner’s it must have accidentally gotten left behind. How we had not noticed this weeks before, I have no idea.

The French are not great when it comes to customer service. We’ve discussed this at length, no? So I really dreaded the idea of walking into the Dry Cleaner and saying: “I know you don’t know us, and we don’t even have our pick-up receipt, but hey, if you find a random Valentino suit in here, give us a call and we’ll come take it. Thanks.” I was sure they’d give us the evil eye and send us on our way.

Evenso, we did just that. We marched into the Dry Cleaner's a bit sheepishly and stated our case. The lady at the counter picked a crumpled up piece of paper out of the waste paper basket and scribbled down our name and telephone number and told us she would call if she found anything. As we walked out the door I thought to myself: “We are never going to see that suit again because as soon as we leave, that piece of crumpled paper is going right back into the garbage.” We drove home and I tried my hardest not to mentally kick myself over and over again for loosing my FrenchBoy’s suit. Things get lost, I told myself. It's the Universe's way of teaching you to not get too attached to material objects. Just. Let. It. Go.

But wait.

Did I mention that we bought The Valentino in New York City-----for our WEDDING? Yes indeed! I managed to loose the suit that my dear Frog wore on our wedding day. The suit that FrenchBoy was wearing as he stood up before The Creator, human-kind, and a few squirrels, to make an oath that he would love and treasure me until we dropped dead. A suit so revered that it is known around our house simply as “The Valentino”. As in: “Does this tie go with The Valentino?” or “I need a new pair of shoes to go with The Valentino.” A suit so filled with magic and memory that, to this day, it holds in it’s inside left pocket a small piece of ripped notebook paper on which is printed FrenchBoy’s original handwritten WEDDING VOWS.

Now, if you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that I’m not especially sentimental or sappy, but the very thought of losing "The Valentino" and our wedding vows gave me sharp shooting pains in my wicked little heart. Pain. PAIN I tell you!

So imagine my utter elation when 30 minutes after we walked into our house the dry cleaner called to say she’d found the suit and we could come pick it up. I still have a slight bruise on the bottom of my chin from when my jaw hit the parquet. In one swift moment, France had redeemed itself somehow.

No fuss, no muss, FrenchBoy went to pick up The Valentino. We did a little dance of merriment, and we all lived happily ever after.

The End....Almost.

A few days after the suit’s homecoming, still on an emotional high from our good fortune, I stopped by the local fleuriste in Sablon (cuz that’s my 'hood) and bought the biggest bouquet of flowers she had. I wanted to personally deliver them to the Dry Cleaning lady who had actually found the suit. To say the least she was greatful. She kissed me—TWICE. Ok, it was only the French-style-supermodel-air-kiss type kiss, but still. You must understand that getting kissed once by your French drycleaner is a huge deal. Getting kissed twice practically makes us family around these parts. But somehow it seemed appropriate because that’s exactly how I felt about her when she called to tell us that our wayward Valentino had been found.

Moral of this blog post:

Not all French businesses hate their customers. Most, but not all.

Always check your effin’ dry cleaning before you leave the shop.

There is yet hope for this evil, evil world.

Munchkins do not wear normal man-sized Valentino suits.

In Bruges, I mean Brugges, I mean Flanders...Erh, whatever.

I never know whether I should spell it the English way or the Dutch way. Anyhow, 2 weekends ago we went to Brugges....Flanders...whatever.


It was fantastic:




First things first, I had a Brugge Blonde, then we headed out for a little evening walk around town. Please be forewarned that FrenchBoy looks painfully adorable in the photo that follows.

Mmmmm! Frites!

Less than 30 seconds after this photo was taken, the dirty hippie sitting on that bench in the left of this photo spilled beer on my right food. It was the only bad part of our trip.

Oh---and he was American. *deep sigh*

So Brugge is beautiful at night, but it's fantastic by day as well. The city is clean and bright and extremely well kept. I literally had to search for a cigarette butt on the ground. It made us realise just how dirty the city we live in is. But this is no surprise because well, French people are generally dirty stinky litter-bugs.

So we walked around all day....



Did some shopping in Brooklyn...

And FrenchBoy got a hand job massage at Aveda. Doesn't the photo just look naughty?

But I guess it's the least they can do when they charge you 50 euros for a tube of conditioner. (Not for nothin', but the conditioner was worth every centime.)

BEER!

If you ever make it to Brugge and want an excellent meal, you gotta go to Pieter Pourbus. I have had very few dining experiences where I left the restaurant and said "Oh man, that was ridiculously good." This was such an occassion.

We ordered the "chunk of meat for two" and were both overwhelmed yet delighted when the waitress brought out half a cow and a bucket of frites. This is the very poorly composed before photo of our meal:

This is me going into a beef coma after my third serving. If you look closely you will see the gleaming beads of sweat on my forehead....or more like I'm actually sweating gravy.



Thumbs up! "I ate a whole damn cow bitches!"

The French have coffee after dinner out of habit, but after a meal like this, a strong coffee is absolutely mandatory. At one point before it arrived on the table FrenchBoy actually started to nod off at the table. This coffee saved me from having to drag him back to the hotel in a Fireman's carry. Close call I tell ya!

Of and for dessert I ate a rat.




Miam-Miam! (That's French for "Yum-Yum!")