Sunday In The Park


I left the fitness club late on Sunday morning. The sunny and empty streets of a slowly awakening city welcomed me. It had that particular Sunday feel: slow and easy. I was thinking how beautiful everything seemed as I walked home through the slowly stirring streets. I stopped at a Boulangerie to pick up sandwiches and sparkling water.

Later in the day we walked to Luxembourg Garden to attend a chorale presentation and have a picnic. It was a perfect late summer/early fall day, sunny, warm, and faintly melancholy. Every inch of the park was filled with Parisians enjoying this great day. Summer was ending.

The crowds had it all: retirees, young handholding couples, kids on father’s shoulders, picnickers, soccer playing boys, and children with ice cream, young mothers with prams, and aged pensioners out for a day of sunshine. The music kiosk was thankfully in a grove of chestnut trees, providing shade and a welcome sense of coolness. The edges of the Chestnut leaves were beginning to curl up and turn rust color. Autumn is coming.

It wasn’t until later that my untrained ear realized the chorale quality wasn’t very high. Jimmy Bogue they were not. But it was a perfect Parisian day, Mary and I walked through the park soaking up the good feelings and being grateful.

It was a perfect sunny day; there was a cacophony of people, colors and clothes. I even saw a Hawaiian shirt. Maybe Dave Dyc was here. The promise of the morning was born out.

Fire House Opens Its Doors


Last weekend we attended an Open House that the local firemen were putting on at the firehouse nearest to St Germain. I am sure you get the picture: Rigs parked on the street, ice Cream for everyone, aerial display, letting children use the pole with a safety rope, and fire service career pamphlets. It was a community get-acquainted and look-see with an emphasis on children.

All the jakies were in their best uniforms, the house had been cleaned and sanitized, boots shined, and lots of smiling faces. Been there, done that.
The things that looked so familiar were the little things.

The body language of the H-2’s as they smoked and talked among themselves waiting for the event to conclude, the officers hovering for a good impression, a smiling fireman under a Ben & Jerry’s umbrella handing out ice cream cups, and a giant chrome Barbeque stashed in back. The Barbeque looked like it cost more than the engine. There was an attractive young, blond, mother in tight pants pushing a baby stroller with more firemen around her than a fourth alarm command post.

Ah ! The verities of firehouse life, whether we are in San Francisco, Denver, or Paris it is always seems the same. It is like a universal brotherhood. Vive le Pompiers.

Paris And Food


Our Paris kitchen is a boutique kitchen. It is a place to make coffee and to find jam for your morning baguette. It is not a kitchen for complex cooking expeditions, so we eat out for most of our meals. There is a café downstairs which has a distinctly family feel. Everyone seems to know everyone else, and you too can be part of this extended family with just a little exertion.

Parisians eat out a great deal, so the café, bistro, brasserie, and restaurant scene is a lively and competitive one. So much food, so little time. This year we are noticing more Italian restaurants as Parisians look for dining variety.

Food is very important to all Parisians. I forget all the types of food venders… small bakeries, cheese shops, chocolatiers, charcuteries (deli’s), poissonniers (fish mongers), green grocers, butchers ( boucheries), and wine merchants.

The large supermarket that is all things to all people is not as common here. The local Marche is great for picking up the necessities of life; it is fast and efficient. But you wouldn’t buy your cheese there. You would buy your daily bread and croissants from your Boulangerie, there is one on almost every corner. You would have your favorite.

You would visit individual stores and discuss your needs with the owner. Shopping is like sports, we all have our favorite teams, managers and coaches we like, and style we feel comfortable with.

The other evening we were out for a Sunday dinner in a popular restaurant near Saint Germaine. This restaurant took no reservations and there was only one entrée (steak and pomme fries) and it was all you could eat. There was an endless line waiting for a table. Next to us there was a friendly Swiss couple. We struck up a conversation with them and exchanged experiences. He said, as he finished his bottle of French Bordeaux, “Life is too short for cheap wine”. Amen

An Urban Experience


We are making many adjustments in Paris. One of these adjustments is living in an urban environment again. I have lived in the small town of Sonoma for over 30 years. I may be San Francisco born and raised but my big city sensibilities have been softened by years of country living.

It has been exciting to be living in a city with so much life and color. The constant movement of people, the array of chic shops and cafes, the cosmopolitan atmosphere, it is the Paris paradigm. It is not like life on the Plaza in Sonoma.

I have been reacquainting myself with public transit. I have not done much transit riding since the N Judah punched my card ticket going to Sacred Heart. Paris has a public transit system that is as good as it gets. The Metro, Paris’s subway system built before WW II , is the great cross pollination point for Parisians. All of Paris rides the Metro; it is fast, clean, and it goes everywhere.

In addition to the Metro, Paris has an excellent bus system and a Bateau Bus (boat) that runs on the river. Complimenting these is the RER or suburban rail system that connects Paris to its suburban constituents. All tickets are interchangeable. This is not your Mothers Muni.

The cabs here can be a jolt, in most cases they will be a Mercedes in a muted color. The driver will be wearing pressed slacks and a nice shirt. He will not look like a candidate for a police line-up. These guys are on the up and up. No rides that circle the city endlessly, the GPS makes it simple.

We walked down Rue Montparnasse at twilight; we were looking for a café that would sing to us for dinner. We were surprised at the street life on a Monday evening. Finally we settled on the Le Select Cafe. It has a rich literary history dating back to Ernest Hemingway and the 20’s. Unfortunately Mary’s Coq au Vin was left over from Hemingway.

Not to worry, my duck confit was exquisite, glad you asked. Score one for the Operator.

Patients Without Borders



Our trip to Paris has taken us down an unexpected path. Mary’s cold took a turn for the worse; Mary had been wrestling with this for a few weeks and it did not appear to be moving toward resolution. Mary was getting weaker and less well. Finally on Sunday I took her to the American Hospital of Paris. They gave her a battery of tests and said that she was severely dehydrated and extremely low in potassium.

They kept her in the hospital for two nights until her blood numbers were back to normal. Whew! It was a bit of a concern but everything is now appears to be back to normal.

On a lighter note, you KNEW I would find a lighter note. This hospital goes back to before the First World War; there is a great deal of history and great American names associated with the hospital. Mary is in love with this hospital, says it is one of the best. She felt the doctors asked good questions, listened well, and made the experience a positive one.

They have good food AND great room service. Yes room service, you can order some foie gras and a bottle of Sancerre and a white jacketed and black slacks waiter brings your order. In general they are much more user friendly and less lab coaty than American hospitals. With the foie gras and the white burgundy I almost had to shoe horn Mary out of this place.

Mystery Guest Columnist

In Paris, you sit in the cafe, like Jean Paul. Sitting in a cafe is one of the main activities in Paris. It's what Parisians do instead of working or jogging. They have a natural talent for it, the way Americans are good at going to the pool, grilling meat or driving interstate highways.The crucial skill in a cafe is the ability to gear down, from second to first, and then down yet again to a special, Gallic gear that is nearly paralytic. It's a bit like being dead, but with better coffee and sight lines.

The chairs in the cafes are lined up in rows, facing outward, toward the theater of Paris street life. Or perhaps it is the patrons who are on display. Their posture says: Here, look at us, full in the face, as we sit in the cafe so brilliantly, thinking our big French thoughts.

Like the other day, I was nursing an expensive thimble of wine in a cafe on the Rue de Something, near the Avenue des Whatevers, and to my immediate left sat a Frenchman in a pose so relaxed he might have been modeling for Toulouse-Lautrec. He was doing nothing, and doing it with panache. Between two fingers dangled a cigarette that remained lit even though he never did anything so animated as puff.



It was hard to tell if he was truly drinking his glass of red wine; the level went down so slowly it may have been merely evaporating. Why did he not try to achieve something? The cafe advertised WiFi, but no one had a laptop. This was not Starbucks. There was no American compulsion to multitask, to use the cafe as a caffeination station and broadband platform for another increment of accomplishment.

Parisian commerce is quaint, which is to say, hopelessly inefficient, requiring that shoppers pay the equivalent of a charm tax. You go to one little market to buy your cheese, another to buy your jalapenos, another to buy your corn chips, another to buy your salsa; only then can you make nachos.I had an urge to blast the Frenchman out of his reverie. "Excuse me, I'm from Wal-Mart," I could say. "We're putting in a superstore right over yonder on the Rue Dauphine. Gonna kick some serious retail derriere, ya dig?"

Then, as though he could hear me thinking, the enervated Frenchman finally did something: He looked at his cellphone. Action in the café ! He didn't make a call, let's be clear on that, but he studied the cellphone. It dawned on me: He was going over all the speed-dial listings of his mistresses.

August In Paris

The rains came early on Saturday. They came in from the Channel, through Normandy and across the French plain. The rains left Paris wet, overcast, and clad in plastic sheets at the outdoor markets and stalls.

The sad and forlorn French song in the café matched the morning weather. I was having breakfast with the International Herald Tribune and thinking of the forecast: rain and light showers for a week.

August is the traditional month for French vacations; many stores and businesses have signs announcing their annual closure. It is a time of few locals, many tourists, and light auto traffic. The Marie de Paris has solved this light traffic dilemma by scheduling street repairs to bring traffic snarls to their usual fevered pitch. Tres intelligente.

Walking around Paris is like walking around Battalion 1 in summer : Every second person is clutching a map and wearing a befuddled expression. We are tourists and we own this city in August. The French have done an excellent job of trying to make Paris user friendly; lots of billboard size maps and good signage.

But August is coming to an end and soon we will have to share Paris with the real Parisians. All the stores with Vacances signs will be opening and autumn in Paris will be upon us.

The Tony Sixth

Our cross town move is complete; we are safely ensconced in our new apartment. It is not as roomy as our first apartment but the neighborhood is a lifetime away. We are now in the very tony Sixth Arrondesmont. Gone are the piercing parlors, alternative lifestyle legions, and the gritty urban texture. Hello Pacific Heights, hello Gelatarias, well appointed cafes, upscale shops, and the pretty people. Yeah, the pretty people, my people in an aspirational kind of way.

Just below our apartment is a café and next to it a bakery that is one of the better known Paris Boulangeries and Patasseries. Our first morning I made an early morning pilgrimage to pick up my daily baguette and an undisclosed number of croissants, Ommm! I tenitively approached the counter, hope beating in my heart and my 7 words of mispronounced French steeling my courage. I made my order and paid the smiling woman.

I carried the warm bag home with high expectations. They were warm, they were wonderful, and faintly orgasamic. This bread based boy was in the seventh ring of Operator heaven.