Okay, I am saved total embarrassment. The dots connect, I move to the right spot, we meet up. Madame professeur is totally charming. She would make me feel welcome if I showed up in sneakers and a cowboy hat. Even though she herself is dressed ten times more splendidly than I am. And I am in my best teaching duds.
We meet en masse, the whole lot of them – professors, administration, you name it, they are there. It’s all good. I don’t discuss business on Ocean, but believe me, it’s way better than good.
But it gets even more wonderful. There’s our working lunch, for instance. I follow them to the local brasserie. It’s packed. Students, faculty, smokers, nonsmokers – oh, I want to take a photo! But I am on business, Ocean and business do not like to mix much.
I proceed to order what they order: a salad, poached salmon in an herb sauce, apple tart tatin with chantilly cream, white wine. Ooops! Le grand faux pas! I order my espresso with dessert. Wrong! It is an after the meal thing. I don’t think I ever knew that.
The talk wanders to private lives. Women are so skilled at this. By the time we’re done with the (two hour) meal, they know and I know all that could possibly change the course of human history. At least our own human history.
Another set of meetings. More progress. We have ourselves the skeletal form of a deal. The professors here have done their work. This will be a joy to run.
I take the train back to the hotel and change clothing for dinner. I had taken a minute (or two) to stop and shop. At least that which will visible above the table will be presentable.
from Paris: comparative analysis, part 2
Walking briskly to the dinner, don’t want to be late. Oh… wait! I see fruit pates in a store window. I may get hungry later. Enter pastry store. Buy 4, okay 6, okay 8 pates. I take note of pastries. I take photo. I have great lust for these guys, I do.
on my way to the Lutetia
passing a square with empty tables; too cold to sit out tonight
Arrive at restaurant. Uff! It is big time special, over at the nicest hotel on the left bank. I know it well, I’ve used the bathrooms here before.
I am early. The waiter asks if I would you like an aperitif while I wait. Okay, it will loosen me up. I amuse myself by taking photos in mirrors and sipping an aperitif Lutetia: champagne with spiked cherries and cassis.
hi, me!
One by one, my deal makers arrive. They note my aperitif and order the same. We are all spitting cherry pits together. This is going well.
We order the identical main course because everyone at the table except me knows that we are in prime Coquille St Jacque season.
over a bed of leeks in spices
The conversation is mostly in French. I tell them I understood 90% of it. I exaggerate. It's closer to maybe 70%. And I keep missing the crucial line. Like, when they were talking about adopting a Chinese girl, I did not get who was doing the adopting: the whole lot of them? The maid? Some movie star?
But I did understand our talk of forthcoming vacations. Here's what I got. And this is honestly presented. Ocean tells it like it is:
Typical American law profs (TALP) – how do they spend their Christmas/New Year’s break?
- grading exams, keeping up with holiday demands and/or hating the holidays
Typical French law profs (TFLP) – how do they spend their Christmas/New Year’s break?
- hanging out with local friends and favorite family members in the Basque region, eating tons of good food and occasionally saying something profound, like isn't this great wine?
TALP during the break between semesters:
- huh? What break is that?
TFLP during the break between semesters:
- three professors, three answers:
o skiing in the Alps
o skiing in the Alps
o skiing in the Alps
TALP during spring/Easter break:
- it’s so short! Who can do anything! Maybe clean the house?
TFLP during spring/Easter break:
- time to open up the country home for friends and family. So come visit, we eat well! You are so on, pal!
TALP during big summer vacation:
- mow lawn. Oh, come on, we just took all that time off on New Year’s! Okay, maybe a day at Devil’s Lake is in order. You got problems with that?
TFLP during big summer vacation, two answers from two professors (I missed the third, I swear she said Guadeloupe, but I could be wrong):
- spend two months at favorite Michelin two star inn at the Perigord and one month hanging out in Sicily
- spend three months at Loire valley summer house.
I am walking back to the hotel, less briskly. I am thinking – I have people in the city of Paris that I would visit now. Strange. Paris, up until today, has always been just my own, left to memories that I created for it. It’s different now. Connecting with people changes things.
God, I love scallops.
ReplyDeleteI worry that your new venture will leave less time for Ocean. But then I think that Ocean is so much a part of you now that you will fit it in, here and there, as you go along, and it will be fine.
I know where this is heading. First, you go over to Paris for business. Then you start going over to Paris to visit your new chic French friends. Then they convince you that you'd rather live in Paris than Madison (okay -- not such a hard sell). And, then, you relocate to Paris and get a lovely apartment on the Left Bank. Yeah, that's right. I'm going to be the first to call it.
ReplyDeleteAh, Coquille St Jacque, my palate is dancing with anticipation. Your posts delight my senses. It seems the French have a much more balanced sense of life and caring for one’s soul than Americans. Perhaps I’m on the wrong continent. If events transpire as Tonya suggests, may I come visit you?
ReplyDeleteIt has been too long since I've read your blog--too caught up in my small little world--and, per usual, you have brought me out of that world and myself. And that makes so happy, so very happy. Merci beaucoup! BethAnne
ReplyDeleteall: yes, my spending more time here has come up in idle conversation and yes, y'all can come over and visit when that happens. And eat fresh scallops in early December, because you know, it's the season.
ReplyDeleteI love your last point. The sense of a place is always changed by the people you come to know there; so a city you thought you knew intimately is suddenly changed by a new acquantaince. Sort of like an old friend who suddenly shares some secret wish or childhood story, and it sheds a startling new light on some dimension of their character.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful reading this, amidst all the studying for certain important final exams -- giving me such Paris envy (even though I've never been there, sort of had an idle interest in "someday," but now I must meet these pastries for myself!).
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ReplyDeleteYour photostream makes me want to buy your camera. If I have your camera will all my pictures look as good as yours?
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog. Very fascinating. I'm a lawyer also and I also blog but my blog is much more pedestrian than this. I blog on Xanga so I'll bookmark yours and check in every so often to see where you've been and what you're eating. The oysters. Eew!
ReplyDeletethanks, bess, me, chuck and suzan.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I have nothing but good words for using the little Sony SLR. Less delay, greater clarity. Photoshop is, of course, terrific for fixing mistakes. All you need is gall to take the shots and time to mess with them. I have a little of each.