Mayday

Tomorrow is Mayday. This whole month has been Mayday. MAYDAY! I wonder if we can truly survive here - create a life for ourselves? We're close to rock bottom. Can we swim up, make ourselves a boat? Cruise for a bit?

On May 1 there are flowers on little makeshift tables all over France, tied with little ribbons. The Mayday flowers last - I don't know what they're called. I had a little potted one last year on the kitchen sink - white - it sat there for months. 

I remember being in the country one Mayday years ago, in a convertible with two boys. We were going to a pretentious lunch out at someone's country property. I was wearing the wrong clothes, deep in the back seat. The vibe was all Bret Easton Ellis. The boy who was driving suddenly stopped at a random intersection in the middle of nowhere. I didn't know what was going on because the top had been down and I couldn't hear their conversation. Even if I could, they were speaking too fast and in too much argot for me to understand. They jumped out of the car, still talking about their boys school days or something. I didn't exist and I didn't really care. The air was sweet. There was nothing but dry grass as far as the eye could see. Were they going to kill me? And then I saw an elderly man just off to the other side of the intersection sitting behind a little makeshift table. On it were little bunches of flowers tied with white ribbons. Before the man could come to standing the boys had already thrown some cash down on the table, grabbed two bunches of the nicer flowers and were back in the car, still yammering and sharing their joint. The man slowly went to sit down again. He probably wasn't sad but the simple act of sitting down at the intersection in the middle of nowhere felt like resignation. I got back in the car. When we arrived at the château, the boys threw the flowers down on the kitchen table and went out into the backyard where their friends were drinking rosé. There were lots of similar bunches strewn all over the table. I slunk outside, wondering what the point of them was.

A is for Pomme

'A is for Pomme,' says Kiki.  

My Dad

My dad likes 'two fruits' in the morning, on his Weeties
My dad has coffee from the microwave
My dad says it was years of being on tv sets that helped him truly appreciate granulated coffee
My dad likes airplane food
My dad likes hospital food
My dad says 'All you need is three things. Something in your tummy. Something to keep the rain off. And someone who likes you a bit.' 
My dad never wants to go to the party and then you have to drag him out at the end
My dad never wanted to come to Paris and then he did and now he comes all the time and has a old map of the city on his guest toilet door
My dad once bought a toilet seat that was made of perspex and had underwater art inside it - fish and coral and shells etc
My dad lives by the beach, but never swims, just looks
My dad can't resist a lemon crisp with his coffee
My dad is all about chocolate teddy bears
My dad used to put Wagon Wheels under our pillows while we slept 
My dad drinks coffee before going to bed at night
My dad can't understand why he sleeps so badly
My dad gets excited when he sees rosellas in his backyard
My dad has arms that when you're in them make you feel like the world is very safe
Children melt in the crook of my dad's neck
My dad has nails which are all picked back
My dad has an excellent crop of thick silver hair
My dad answers his landline
My dad answers his mobile even when he's at dinner
My dad never wanted a mobile phone
My dad never wanted an iphone
My dad was right!
My dad visits people and calls people just to say hello
My dad gets wild when you don't use the flash 
My dad swears he's not an artist
My dad gets passionate about the organization of events such as weddings and christmases
My dad loves show tunes
My dad keeps his house immaculately clean, usually to show tunes
My dad says anything is fun, when you've got music
My dad doesn't think you can ever listen to the same soundtrack enough, or film, especially ones involving show tunes
My dad puts hotel chocolates on folded towels on each bed for each guest in his house, even if it's just us
My dad doesn't make too big a deal when his children go off to all sorts of places in their lives - he graciously lets them go
My dad makes a big deal of everybody's birthdays
He says he never wants to make a big deal of his
But if I was there today, I would - I would do a big song and dance until he said 'Oh, must you make a song and dance about it?' 
Fortunately he's already being spoilt by Nanny C and all the gang.
I'm glad.
My dad is happy.

X

Images that Make Me Happy

Isn't it great that soon it will be normal for everyone to be able to marry the person that they love? Isn't it strange and unfathomable already that it ever wasn't the case?
 

Isn't it great how French daily newspapers are ever unafraid to show full-frontal dong shots?

Eat that Grasshopper

If the sheer amount of butter and sugar inside an escargot from Du Pain et des Idées can kill, then I shall gratefully die a thousand painful, artery-clogged deaths. I don't normally allow myself - not like the old days at Prune with J and two of their pain au chocolats - each. How did we get away with that? I remember the slightly insane feeling creeping into my brain, the caffeine from that second terrible crème going to my head - the rising panic of too much richness in my veins. Ah - I could go and tear a house down. Conversations were passionate. Back then we could chain smoke inside, and we did, and the indulgence was so fantastic we could have died with bonheur.

Ah J, Paris is not the same without you, and even if you were still here, we probably wouldn't eat quite so many pastries. Certainly not the escargot.

They really are works of art. The range is ever changing. Today it was a choice between rhum et raisin, fruits rouges et cream cheese and chocolat pistache. Once a year there is fig and walnut and that is just about enough to throw me off the edge. Today I chose fruit rouges et cream cheese. I deserved it because I'd been on the RER to a place called Evry for a corporate acting gig, and I hadn't got too lost, and I did an ok job of acting like I was a formatrice in front of a teleprompter. I had twenty minutes to kill before picking up Kiki. So I treated myself. 

Then I went and ate a grasshopper. The contrast was astounding. My escargot was barely digested and still a note of sweet creamy joy lingering on my palate when Kiki and I popped into Julhès to get her some gnocchi. Julhès is a cheese shop that sells all sorts of wines and fancy things. But mainly cheese - it's been our staple for years but they recently got taken over by a whole lot of weird zombies so we don't buy cheese there as much. The gnocchi man seemed not to be stoned this time and when I went to leave he asked if I'd like to taste their sauterelle. 

'Sure,' I said, thinking sauterelle, or grasshopper, must be some sort of interesting cheese, just like snail can be a delicious gluttonous pastry. But he came over with something in his fingertips and dropped a small insect into my hand, a bit like a dried chilli, but with a head and antennae and a little abdomen. My stomach turned. The man smiled. 'Sauterelle.'  

'Is this candid camera?' I asked.

'No,' he said. 'It's nice - taste it. It's sort of salty, spicy - with herbs. It's good.'

'Well I suppose we do eat bugs in the country I come from,' I said. His female colleague and champion zombie sidled up beside him, smiling at me. She was holding a jar, like a salt container, full of the little chillies.

It was a dare.

Who knew?

I ate it.

It was disgusting.

'It's not my thing,' I choked to the man, who smiled and took the jar from the lady, shaking it. The sound of the dried bugs inside made me want to puke up my delicious escargot over their array of chevres frais.

Sauterelle.

Escargot.

At least I know now for sure which I'd rather stick in my vermin hole.  

 

Pigeons in the Flower Box

We had a pigeon nesting in one of our window boxes - I'm not a big fan of pigeons, neither is Kiki - she runs screaming from them when she sees them on the street - but this was one of those beautiful dove grey ones with the shimmery peacock-blue necks. I noticed her sitting in the soil one morning and she was doing a strange wiggly dance whilst rooting deeper into the depths of the box. I wondered if she was dying, or perhaps if she was giving birth. She looked distressed, but controlled. It reminded me of something. Kiki and I watched and later that night when we came back Kiki banged on the glass and the pigeon flew over to a window sill on the other side of the street. And sure enough, there was a pretty little white egg, about the size of the hole if you touch your index finger with your thumb. It was perfect.

The next morning we got up and ran to the window. The pigeon was there again in the same spot, looking still and proud and grand. Her feathers were perfectly smooth - she could have been made of porcelain. We wondered - what now? She ruffled her feathers slightly when Kiki moved, but she stayed. After breakfast we returned and saw that the pigeon was doing the strange movement again, heaving and puffing, her breast rippling and coiling. I slowly backed Kiki away from the glass. Peace, peace. 

It was nice that she had chosen our window. She obviously felt safe. I felt proud - like a midwife.

That evening we returned and there were two eggs in the little ditch. Kiki and I danced around the room. Two babies! We wondered how many more there might be. A dozen? We wondered what they might look like. And how long their gestation period was. Would we see them breaking out of the eggs like in cartoons? What do baby pigeons look like? Are they disgusting? How long does it take for them to fly? 

I could have looked all that up on the internet but that would have ruined the excitement.

The next morning our lady was there again, still and silent. She trusted us. I thought about giving her a little bowl of water, but that just seemed un-Parisien. She was a pigeon. She knew where to get shit.

We watched. We tittered. We ran to the window each morning. No more eggs, just the two. A still, careful mother. Mr Rabbit and I wondered what the sex had been like. We wondered how many other children she had had. How many babies does the typical pigeon have in a lifetime? Stuff like that.

It became part of our day, and we watched and watched and watched. We pulled the red chair up to the window and Kiki sat on my knee. The chair was carefully positioned off to one side of the window.

And then this morning when we awoke, they were gone! All of them! Vanished! WHAT HAPPENED? I couldn't help feeling like we'd had people staying and they had just cleared out without so much as a note. But moreover, I was worried. What did that mean? Had they been killed/eaten? Had they fallen the four flights down to the footpath below? Mr Rabbit peered over. No squashed birds. We couldn't figure it out. Are baby pigeons able to fly as soon as they hatch?

I'd had visions of waking to the cracks in the eggs, then the little heads poking out, then the little slimy babies in the dirt, watching the mother clean them off, sharing a glass of champagne with her and musing over our shared experiences, the mysterious joy of these strange new creatures just entered our lives. But she was gone - gone! I would never know what they even looked like. 

I'm so sad I won't know them. Will I, perhaps, in the street? Maybe one day I will be walking down the top end of the Faubourg St Denis and as the flock does its usual explosion into the sky two little ones will remain on that dirty bit of concrete and they will just look at me and I will know.

Red Painted Somethings

I sometimes wonder how anyone ever gets anything done and why. And then I realise I'm wondering too hard, so I paint my nails. Dad says I sound angry lately - I'm not. Just a bit - nowhere. Frustrated. Am I lazy? I think so. How I long to have some concrete things achieved, so I can feel real. Why I write this blog - it is at least something, even if it really is nothing. My nails are red now, that's something. In the deepest depression comes the greatest fashion because it's then you realise - what else is there? I think the fashion world are more aware than we think - we dismiss it as folly, but fashion people are more aware than any of us of the emptiness of being. I should paint myself more. If you're more designed then you can take more pictures of yourself in your mind, thus be realer, at least for yourself. Perhaps. There is no way of denying the existence of bright red nails - you notice them, they're there. Especially with the clear varnish over the top to make them shine.