Tuesday at the farmette

I stand corrected: today is not Wednesday December 21st and therefore it is not the shortest day of the year nor is it the first day of winter. All that comes tomorrow.

And in fact, though it definitely does feel like winter already, the temps perk up a bit, reaching the mid twenties F (just below freezing) by mid morning. And the sunshine is enchanting!

Breakfast. It's my usual beginning and I like to start with it here, on Ocean, even as I know that I'll have to give Ed a break one of these days. But for now, he is in the photo...






... and I am as well, because Ed's feeling a bit impish today and so he snatches the camera away from me.






I've deliberately set aside time for skiing. Let me throw the laundry in and then let's go! Ed's been out on the trails of our local county park twice already while I was away. For me -- it's a wonderful first run, made all the more great because we had so few snow packed days last winter and so the skiing season then was terribly short.






The wind is steady and it's shifting the snow a bit...






... but put your face out to a winter sun and the world is a good place again!






A selfie, to commemorate this moment.







And a few minutes past noon, I pick up a radiant Snowdrop.







And because it is just that much warmer outside, I suggest to her that we take some bread and walk out to the barn for the cheepers (who will not be coming 'round to the farmhouse now until the snow significantly melts off the path). She's happy to do this, so long as she, too, gets a slice of bread.






(The hens peak out, but only for a fleeting second.)






Back to the farmhouse then...






... to the world of play. Here, the Eiffel Tower is on board for a plane ride. (Day two of a successful pony tail!)






And of course, the minute she sees ahah, she wants that famous melted cheese on bread -- no baguette this time, but she's quite happy with a whole wheat bagel as a substitute.






Where there's a Snowdrop, there is music, especially since the little one has figured out not only how to turn on the record player, but also how to get it to stop after her favorite song and go back a replay of it. "The Little Saint Nick" is heard an awful lot around the farmhouse these days!






(She continues to chomp on her cheese topped bagel, teasing Ed as he tries to conduct a work phone conversation in the sun room.)






(Here's a curious thing: Snowdrop is trying very hard to balance a book on her head. One always wonders -- is she bringing home a school thing, or is it her own doing?)






After nap -- hair tussled again, but spirit intact.






Very intact. (Ahah, do you want to eat orange? Cereal? Sushi?)






You cannot be upset with the world when Snowdrop is within arm's reach. You just cannot.

Monday at the farmette

Yesterday might have been colder, but I wasn't here for the day. I felt the big chill only at night, coming in from the airport. But today I could really feel that Arctic air pounding down on us. I suppose we could call ourselves lucky: the blast never lasts for long. And, too, it most often is accompanied by plenty of sunshine.

And here's a thrill: the timed coop door opener is working beautifully. No more early trudges to the barn to free the hens. (Not that they're so anxious to leave the coop now: they stay huddled inside until they hear one of us coming and then maybe, maybe they deem to step outside. Just in the barn, mind you.)

Because I've just come from the east, I'm up very early. By sunrise, I will have scrubbed the whole house. (And during the winter, I can appreciate that sunrise without stepping outside! How good is that!)






Breakfast!






I can't do an enormous amount of house organization because my suitcase and bag are still in transit. (These days you can watch the progress of missing luggage in real time, as it moves from one place to the next, so that you would occasionally hear me exclaim -- no, driver, don't go up Stoughton Road! Come to the farmette first!) But I do have the weekly grocery shopping to do. On my way out, I encounter farmette visitors.






They are not quickly spooked. Only when I move toward them do they do their famous about face and in big leaps, high tail it into the snowy fields behind us. (High tail indeed!)






And after my grocery run, I pick up Snowdrop!

I tell her that our snowman got a bigger, better nose! Goodbye wimpy baby carrot, hello the real deal!






She's impressed. But we can't stay out and play. It is just too cold.

Once in the house, she is torn between wanting to rediscover favorite toys (it's been a whole week after all!) and wanting the coveted baguette, fresh from the store.

The baguette, prepared with melted cheese by ahah, wins.






And oh, do they wolf it down!






If I had hoped to save some for dinner -- forget it. All gone.






Her hair is getting longer and it gets in her face and I resist saying something like: little French girls have very neatly pulled back hair and instead just work that rubber band in and try to distract her from pulling it right off.






It works for now.






She is a happy girl today! But then, unless she is under the weather (and even then), Snowdrop is always a very happy girl.






In the late afternoon, my suitcase (and bag) arrive! Oh, things are crushed and a bit off in appearance but still, all is as it  (more or less) should be. I said to Snowdrop when she woke from her nap that there would be presents.

Oh, I don't mean great gifts of any sort, but small things. Like this book I picked up in Paris about a penguin family Christmas (very anthropomorphic, as these penguins did everything from decorating a tree to baking cookies). You could look at the scenes with a pink rose colored spyglass and she loves that! Holding it very close to her eye...






And, too, admiring a small Eiffel Tower, which at 3 Euros seemed like such a good price for a tower, until you realized that these petite structures are of no real consequence, except to tickle your Paris fancy.






The whole day is a blur of good things.






Dance! Of course, there has to be lots and lots of dance -- Snowdrop is quite adept at working the record player so that it plays her favorite song (Muppets singing Little St Nick) again and again.






(Snowdrop will get anyone to dance with her. Even Ed, who, in my experience, never ever dances.)






In the evening, I ask the young couple to pause for a drink. Snowdrop loves this -- the merger of her most intimate worlds.






(At one point, we turn on the TV to catch the headlines. Fascinating stuff for the somewhat disheveled by now little one...)






I'll end with a photo of her as she discovers my returned suitcases. My daughter comments -- I'll bet anything she grows up to love travel.  Well, this would not surprise me!





Tomorrow is the first day of winter. An irrelevant classification! We're in the thick of winter now! So cold outside! And so very warm inside.

slowly heading home

My last evening in Paris. In Europe. So in Warsaw/Paris. But tonight -- in Paris.

It's Saturday evening. It's reasonably warm. Why stay home? Sometimes it seems to me that in Paris, no one ever stays home on a weekend night. Restaurants and cafes swell.

One last Parisian stroll for me...






Well, me and a million others.





I try a new eatery tonight -- the Restaurant l'AG (named for the chef Alan Geeam -- he has another brand new place in the reconstructed Les Halles). It's just across from the St Germain market and  there is a 40 Euro fixed price menu, all inclusive (but for wine), down to the fizzy water. It's creative, it's lovely, it's indescribably delicious.

(The soup is poured around a small bed of stuff. The culinary genius is in pulling together the right "stuff.")






Yes, it's a fine meal. Must return, must return. Oh, but returning means leaving. Am I at that quandary all over again?!


Morning. You'll have seen everything from this iPhone photo set in previous Parisian posts. Les Editeurs, the coffee shop that I return to ,because for one thing, it has reliably grand pain au chocolat and croissants. 






Too, on a fairly early Sunday morning, it's quiet. Almost staid. It's the kind of place that you're expected to read and people do read.






(My croissant and pain.)






(As I said, people read.)






And after, I have the benefit of time. I'm booked on an unusually late flight out of Paris (3:20 to Detroit). That means I can walk the streets once more. To the park, for one thing.

It's misty gray outside and yet the Luxembourg Gardens feel fresh and inviting. The green color hasn't quite disappeared. So much so that the green chair is lost in a field of other greens.






I come out at the south western tip and turn toward the Boulevard Raspail, a street that will take me back to the department sore (where I'm itching to pick up a toy for Snowdrop's birthday --- coming up!)


Once more, I fawn over the flower choices.






Too, it is the day of the Raspail market. They say Catherine Deneuve always shops here then, but I didn't see her. Perhaps I am too distracted (enchanted?) by the sight of wicker baskets at the veggie stall. Now where have I seen these before on this trip?!






I make a loop, pick up the small toy and head back. Such familiar blocks. To you by now as well. And the scooters! How many times have we seen moms or dads guiding daughters and sons on their scooters? (Or arguing about who should push the scooter...)






And now it's almost noon and I have many bags to haul up to the Luxembourg train stop where on this very foggy day I will catch my flight to Detroit.

I've taken this "Week before Christmas" flight from Paris to Detroit for more than a dozen years now and it is always the same: full of little children. Most often they're with families where one parent is American and the other French. This time, I help a young man carry his infant girl and luggage -- I marvel at how young she is. He laughs and tells me that she has been on many flights already. He works for the State Department and is stationed... elsewhere.

Almost always these young kids are coming to see their extended families for the holidays and it is at once a happy and an anxious group of travelers. My heart swells for them. How hard it is to be separated by an ocean from people you love!






During the flight, I should write. I should sleep. I should exhale. Instead I watch one of the most tear jerking films of all time ("Light Between Oceans"). Thank God I do not have a seat mate. I go through many tissues.

Perhaps it's just the emotion of going home. Snowy, cold, freezing cold but oh so very warm. Home.


I'd say that 90% of my travels this time were flawless. But the last few hours are tense. One flight comes in late and so there is a trickle effect. Suitcases, connections -- suddenly they're all threatened. And in fact I have to run madly (and shoeless... don't ask!)  to catch my last flight to Madison. And I'm glad I did. The doors closed just as I got on. There was no other flight home tonight. (The suitcase, unfortunately, is sleeping in Detroit.)

On the way to the farmhouse, Ed and I pull up to Snowdrop's home. It's on the way! I'll leave you with a photo of the girl running in circles of happy laughter. That's the way she described it: I'm running in circles!






And now goodnight, from a snow covered farmette!

the Saturday before Christmas, in Paris, without camera

There are many beautiful and notable things about this day. The sunshine! Oh, the sunshine (and continued winter warmth)! The hustle of Parisians as they strive to prepare for themselves, for their families the perfect Christmas on this last Saturday before the holiday (going to the food halls is an experience I wont quickly forget). And my own gallant attempt to do right by the holiday by filling lists and checking them three times (just twice didn't add up).

And then there is the issue of the camera. As dead as a doornail. (Still on warranty, but it is out for the rest of this year for sure.)

I do have my iPhone, but I am not used to using it for photography (I only take pics of Snowdrop, to send them to her mom when I'm babysitting) and oddly enough it's more conspicuous than a camera which I move around quickly so that no one really knows what's going on and it does not interrupt the flow of human traffic.

Oh, I do take out the phone now and then, but of course then I have to move all those photos to my computer, fix them and move them again to flickr. And the sizing! Why are some maxed out in their small state? Why are others not? Do I want to learn? Not today, not on this trip, possibly never.


So do follow along, but it will be a short journey if you measure it by the number of pictures posted.

First, breakfast. A late one again. (Late to bed, late to rise.) It would be terribly boring to launch into yet another analysis of why this time I eat at the hotel and with what bread product, so I'll just leave you with a photo.







After, I know I would like to touch on some stores, but I resist the urge to take the shortcut and get it all out of the way from the minute I step outside. I want to feel some of the Paris that is without its beautiful window displays. Endless store gazing can do damage to the soul. Too much lust and admiration. And so I head for the river.

(Passing lovely, colorful cafes...)






I never quite cross the river, making this one of those trips where I remain wedded to the Left Bank. But I do step out on the pedestrian bridge that always gives the best view of the tip of the island... And oh, that sky!






In winter, the bare trees reveal peaks at Parisian scenes that are uniquely enchanting.






And of course, everywhere, there are the flowers. I'm a real nut about having winter flowers inside the house and I marvel at the selection here.






Passing perfect pastry shops with very perfect looking pastries. If Snowdrop were here, we'd share this snowman for afternoon snack!






I pass the Cafe la Varenne -- perhaps my favorite lunch place in the city, and it is so lively, spilling out onto outdoor tables that are just perfectly touched by the sun! I am very tempted to plunge into that scene and order a good lunch, but honestly, I'd recently had breakfast and the meal here would not be cheap and so I walk on, enjoying just glancing at the happy eating of others.





From there it is just a hop and a skip to the food halls of the Bon Marche. It is, of course, chaotic today, but that makes it rather fun for me. I don't have much to buy here and I move around from one free sample (huge chocolates, cups of tea, dabs of honey, cakes, and perhaps perniciously -- sips of wines and aperitifs, so that you walk as if in a fog of delights, wondering what else to put into your basket, juts because). It really is a quite delicious hour of weaving from one beautiful food display to the next.

I've popped into stores here and there (Snowdrop always benefits from this, as do, I hope, other family members who'll find themselves with oddly colorful and perhaps not quite staid enough presents under the tree) and now I feel I can spend no more and carry no more and so I head for the park.

In that last warm glow of the late afternoon sun, it is all that I love about it.






People strolling, people chasing children, people warming themselves against the Orangerie wall to catch that last ray of sunlight...






Last night I posted far too late. I remember dozing in between sentences. Today I'll post now, early -- before the day is fully done. I'll write about my last evening tomorrow, en route home.

I'm sending the warmest of warm glows your way. Dazzling and gold, peaceful, beautiful, calm.