Paris "En Semaine"

Savoring Paris on a weekday feels a bit like playing hooky. As you sit back in a cozy café, sipping a rich soy latté (ok, it's Starbucks, but still), you can't help but imagine coworkers lined up in front of a coin-operated instant coffee machine. Slip into a dark movie theater in the Latin Quarter, and for a second, you picture the office gang stifling yawns in front of an interminable PowerPoint presentation. Almost takes the fun out of flâning on a manic Monday. Almost.

Mia Sara and Matthew Broderick as Sloane Peterson and Ferris Bueller. [Online image] 1986.

Times of "Crise"

A homeless guy in Berkeley once stole a stack of CDs from my dorm room. He pawned them right away for cash.
Before this weekend, though, I'd never come home to gaping cabinet and dresser drawers, their vintage contents strewn about like rejected strands of pearls.
As we followed the fresh trail of mud left by the gendarmes' boots up to the cambrioleurs' dry sneaker prints, I thought: "C'est la crise."
Why else would a group of teenagers in rural France have gone to all this trouble for a decade-old computer and a DVD player?
If it weren't for our upside-down value system, they surely would've at least tried to take off with a prized stamp collection or a Picasso copy or two.

Cary Grant and Sophia Loren as Tom Winters and Cinzia Zaccardi. [Online image] 1958.

Oh, "Beau Sale Temps"

Parisians really don't like the rain. "Quel temps !" they sputter, shaking the city's dampness off their impers and opening up their parapluies to dry on the palier.
And can you blame them? Paris gets pretty moche when it's wet out and raindrops hold tight to lonely park benches, as the floors of métro stations become laced with muddy prints.
A speaker at the Salon du Bien-Etre this weekend got me thinking, though. "What do you do if you live in a gray and rainy city like Paris?" she asked.
"Get a light box," seemed like the obvious reply.
But her answer was more clear-cut: "Either move to the South, or learn to like the rain."
Guess it's time to start looking for poetry in those muddy footprints.

Charmian Carr as Liesl von Trapp. [Online image] 1965.

February At Last

Once January's gloomy page turns, revealing February's red lace and snow flurries, Paris breathes a sigh of relief. Or, at least, I do! As carefree spring fashions finally manage to elbow their way to the front of window displays and lucky schoolchildren bundle up for Alpine fun, the city seems to revel in its extra hours of light. It's time for crêpes and cider, fondue and mulled wine, and strawberries and champagne. New Year's resolutions, beware! It's time to live a little.

Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck as Dr. Peterson and John Ballantine. [Online image] 1945.