Champagne without the bubbles?

Good morning, Paris! 

 

 

Decadent leisure. Three, nearly four days in Paris, without an agenda, without schedule. It's like stepping into a life that's not yours for a while and enjoying the freshness of it all. The absence of demands on your otherwise full life. And in Paris! Without worry about unexpected expenses (I know what each day costs, I've planned for it), unexpected surprises hitting you at every turn (travel is usually full of those). Ed would say this is the most boring vacation imaginable. I would disagree.

I do note that I've not visited a single museum while here. I've done no culturally enriching visits at all. I nearly got tickets to the David Hockney exhibit, but I hesitated. I do not like going all the way to the Fondation Louis Vuitton where his art is displayed. It takes nearly an hour to get there by a combo of metro and bus. In the alternative, it's nearly a two hour walk from my hotel. By the time I decided I should go anyway, all tickets were sold out. Good! It would have cut into my goal for this week, which is to have no goals, no imperatives, no schedules.

I'm deeply satisfied for many reasons but perhaps the most important one is that I have finally figured out how to "get away from it all" at my age. It has been at once a beautiful and frustrating journey to get to this point. What worked for me when I was younger is dubiously fitting for a woman traveling solo in her seventies. Mountain hikes in any season, alone? The altitude messes with me and feeling breathless up there in the middle of nowhere is not exactly stress-free. Discovering new cities? Good for a day and then the noise just gets to me. Small wonder that seniors choose to cruise, except that I am not a cruise person in any way, disliking boats, disliking someone else deciding for me where I should be, disliking forced socialization.

Being in Paris frees me. Someday, I'll have depleted my savings and run out of strength to make the trip, but for now, this is my place, my slice of heaven, right here at the Hotel Baume, in Paris.

Except that today I am leaving. Paris is a city and in the end, I need rural breathers. I've scoured the area around Paris pretty thoroughly and decided this time to return to one I had last visited days after 9/11, with a tour group that I had put together myself. I was their guide, their booking agent, their driver. We were saving for daughters' college expenses and having someone else pay for my travels was the only way I saw myself going to France. Talk about overly ambitious ploys! I put together two such group tours (of Americans in France) and then wisely gave up. Folly knows no bounds when you are young-ish! 

Because my destination is within a half hour speed train ride of the airport, I thought the appropriate thing to do would be to stay there (rather than slog back and forth to Paris) until my flight back home the day after tomorrow. Slog once and be done with it. Paris is not easy to get in and out of if your medium suitcase suddenly gained weight with bottles of 0%, books, honey (thank you, Bee!), and who knows what else.  

So where to today? With some trepidation, I booked a two day stay in the region of Champagne. You can see right away the problem here: with rare exceptions, I've basically given up on alcohol and though I know Moët Hennessy (a premier investor in champagne) has recently acquired a sparkling wine producer in France (it's called French Bloom and you can buy it in the US), this is not what the Champagne houses are making in the terroir of the region. Isn't going to Champagne tempting the devil?

I haven't an answer yet. The reason I booked my two nights there is that despite my turning away from drinking wine, I still do like vineyards, and especially hilly ones. There aren't many within an arm's throw of Paris, easily reachable by a TGV (train a grand vitesse).

I had additional trepidation about finding a hotel where I could spend two nights. Champagne, as a region, is easy enough to get to, but finding a sweet hotel that looks right at the vineyards is hard. In all my years of searching, I've only come across one and I discounted it because it is too big, too modern, too champagne obsessed. And yet, that's where I'm going today. It would be too expensive, but last minute rooms were just under the wire okay. And so I booked. It's a one-off. I can't see myself doing this again. Staying in France at a somewhat resorty type spa place is just not my thing. I like small and personal and filled with people who, like me, are on a budget. But still, visitors rave about this place and in all honesty, my correspondence with them has been exceptionally warm and personal. So, I am off to Champagne. Just without the bubbles.

First, of course, breakfast at the Baume.

Then I finish packing. What a chore! I'm wondering how the hell I'll be lifting this bulging suitcase on and off the train. I'd say never again except that's about as reliable a promise as Putin saying he will no longer aggress against the Ukraine and other nations.

And then I leave my suitcase downstairs with the reception (such terrific people they are; one is new, but the other two are old timers)...

(so prompt with her email responses, and always with a warm smile and a few sweet words) 

 

 

(he, too, is prompt in answering my inquiries and he positively bursts with enthusiasm when I return for another visit)

 

 

... and take a short walk to the Jardins. 

 

 

(she may not be French but she's got the French habits down pat)

(a Polish tour group... I admire them for doing this -- following a guide who speaks to them through earbuds all day long)

(a Jardins gardener... gotta love his hair!)

(to the side, two men, practicing some form of movement in the quiet of the gardens)

(further down, two women, practicing some form of movement in the quiet of the gardens)

(she noticed that the gardener's clippings still had some life in them...)

(she agreed; so did I!)

(the clippings came from this bed; the purple Heliotrope had the most intense sweet fragrance!)

I actually do have a purpose to this walk -- I saw posters of a small exhibition in the Orangerie of the park. It's of unknown (well, to me anyway) artists, and it's free, so I thought I'd pop in, given that it's a five minute walk from my hotel.

At the gallery I admire the canvases and poetry of Rolf Saint-Agnes. The artist himself is at a table, selling posters of his paintings, and one of the exhibition.

 

 

In fact, I admire his work so much that I want to purchase a poster. The one advertising the exhibition. But I know that rolled up posters without a hard tube get smashed, and anyway, I have literally not an iota of room in my suitcase. Still, I could carry the roll, no? What the heck. I buy it. He is ever the gentleman and throws in a second one for free, just to protect the first. 

 

 

 

Here we are, at the Jardins, talking a little about his art and suddenly the topic veers to where I am from and all this entails. A woman my age who is here also to see his art joins us.

 

 

It is a lengthy and painful three-way conversation. The dislike of and disappointment with what our leadership is doing right now is so strong, that I feel the reverberating current of shock, the frustration, because where America is heading has repercussions for all. 

In the end, I say -- at least you still have a vibrant democracy here in France. Both of them protest -- unfortunately, what happens in America, slowly trickles down, and happens here, in France, only with a ten or fifteen year delay. Ah, I have heard this from Poles as well. We Americans set the tone, we fuel discontent, which spreads. And again they ask -- why aren't people on the streets, every day? Remember, you have the Statue of Liberty! I can well ask why their own president is throwing compliments around as if was smitten to the core with our leadership.  We do what we can, what we think will work to get us back on track.

I continue my walk, posters in hand.

 (I think they should ask for their Statue of Liberty  gift to be returned)

 

 

(more photos of my kind of people!) 

 

 

 

And then I promptly forget my precious posters in the bathroom of the Baume. This is what a 72 year old's forgetfulness of small details looks like! 

 

(Oh but I love this place! By the way, I think the passerby's outfit is hip and lovely) 

 

 

At 12:45 I take a cab to the Gare de l'Est. This is one of Paris's more manageable stations. 

 

 

 

I love it, too, for its marble floors! So easy to push a heavy suitcase on these smooth surfaces! As I wait for the posting of the track number, I find a comfortable seat. A few paces down, a fellow traveler sits down at the piano and plays beautiful music. (French stations often have a piano with an invitation for anyone to play.) Such a glorious way to wait for a train.

Just before 2 pm, I catch the TGV for the 40 minute ride (it's 150 km/93 miles away) to Champagne-Ardenne, which is a small town just outside Epernay, and, too,  your gateway to the famous Champagne city of Reims. By the way, Reims has to be the most mispronounced city name in all of France. Go ahead, give it a try! Give up? Listen to this guy. Or, just know that it's like France in French, but without the f! 

 

 

Arrived!

 

 

 

And sure enough, at the hotel I am greeted with champagne.  Well okay, it's a small glass and it has a story behind it. I acquiesce.

 

 

 

But it's not the sip of the bubbles that makes me gawk opened mouth at what I see beyond my windows: a view  (and it's one shared by most rooms here) that is almost excessively sublime.

 

 

 

 (the village of Champillon to the left)

 

(and the vineyards; this particular field belongs to Moët)

 

 

I suppose you do have to recognize that all of Champagne -- the region, the wines, the champagne houses large and small, are about excess. In recent years I've only popped a cork from champagne bottles that were gifted to me ( a rare event!). The price of champagne is that high.  

But, though I'm sure this place is full of shopping Zuckerbergs and Musks, or their servants doing their bidding, I have to remind myself that you can't generalize. When I took my tour group to this region, we visited a very small champagne producer, whose family had been making bubbly wine for generations. The grandfather was also an artist, a dedicated stained glass window maker, and indeed his window adorns a Champagne village church. This was not at all the Moët or Dom Pérignon type of operation. So, I'll strip the place of wealth associations and enjoy it for all its beauty and yes, economic diversity of people working here.

I make myself a cup of coffee (they have a machine in the room), eat their pastry and their mirabelles...

 

 

... and go out for a walk. 

(approaching the village)

(looking back at my hotel which, from here, looks like a glorified Hampton Inn)

(well look who we have here! flying advertisements for my book!)

(vineyards, spilling into Epernay, the second big Champagne town)

(looks to me to be Pinot Noir grapes -- one of the three main varieties used in the production of champagne; there are four others, but those have lighter skins)

After walking between fields of nearly ripe grapes, I turn toward the hamlet.

People who live in these towns have simple homes. Most work in some champagne production or hospitality capacity. 

( a woman with her chicken)

 

I can't tell if this is the hamlet I visited with my group two dozen years ago. There is a church, very similar to the one I saw then, and it, has a pretty stained glass window, so maybe it is the same, but I don't really know. There are certainly many such hamlets dotting this area.

 

 

 

I turn back, noting that the French heat wave is finally passing. Tomorrow will be cool. I think everyone is thanking their stars.

 

I eat dinner at the simpler hotel restaurant. There is a gourmet place as well, but no way will I spend money on that! As it is, I feel I should sit in my room and enjoy its comforts, so that I drink in all its awesomeness.  Norway taught me that I'm good for a half-day sit -- no more than that.

My dinner? Oh, it was very, very good.

Again, a champagne is offered. Indeed, a whole catalogue of Champagnes are available. And I do agree to a glass, which I stretch over dinner and in the end dont finish! I know, it's criminal!

 

 

 

What surprised me tremendously is that this place has on the beverage menu a number of nonalcoholic wines, including Moët's newly acquired French Bloom (a sparkling wine made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes). I suppose if you've spent the day visiting Champagne houses and sampling their offerings, you may want to go easy on even more alcohol. I didn't try it because I was nursing my "real" champagne throughout, but I am excited about sampling it soon. Maybe tomorrow.

I was amused to see a proposed menu that claimed to be healthy. I chose all three of its courses: a beefstake tomato with some very green dressing, a poached salmon, and a raspberry dessert that looked better than it tasted.

 

 

 

 

 

As for the other diners? A mix of those for whom champagne probably drips into the kitchen sink every night and people like me, who are mildly curious but really not big spenders or for that matter drinkers.

Here are two tables near me with people who are probably my age and maybe here for something other than expensive wine purchase: 

 

 

 

 

 

The hotel leaves you treats at every turn. Caramels, fruit jellies, in addition to the mirabelles! Ha! I brought my own bag of those plums. I shall be Mirabelle-satiated by the time I leave.

Tomorrow will be the first time since Norway when we are likely to see rain. Good! Let me spend my last day doing nothing, looking out at the vineyards. (Now how likely is that...)

 

 

with love... 

 

simply Paris

Yesterday, on my train from St Malo to Paris, I was given a seat in something resembling a compartment (only it was more open, so that air circulated and you weren't quite shut off from the world). Had I had any choice, I would have gone with a totally open car, but again, I took what was available.

There were four of us in my "compartment" (additionally, there were seats outside, on the other side of an aisle). Four young-ish French people and me. A Black woman, a man I would guess to be a Jewish, and a man of mixed race.

Here's a thought I've had ever since I decided to come and live in New York with a family, acting as an au paire to their kid (more than 50 years ago): Poland suffered in many many ways during World War II, and the effects are long lasting and some are permanent. One calamity -- Warsaw lost its Jewish population. One third Jewish prior to the war. All gone. Before the war, Jews and non-Jews came to adopt cultural icons and food traditions and just about everything else from one another. After the war, Warsaw and Poland in general, became completely homogeneous, with almost no racial, ethnic or religious diversity. When I was in New York, regardless of the simmering racism, it was so obvious that people sharing space would learn from one another. There was an openness that I came to love, because I knew that only in living with others who didn't look or act like you, can you be fully yourself (I write about this at the end of my book). There is that normalization of diversity. People of different skin colors, people with tatoos, Jews with sidelocks, men with long hair or no hair. They worked together, they rode subways together. It wasn't perfect, but it was a start. At least in big cities, you shared geography and culture and you developed tolerance. Seeing someone who had their own style of dress, or whose tight pants were too tight, or too low, or just not like yours, hearing Spanish next to you, working with someone whose hair was in box braids, eating a meal with a person who loved piercings -- I really doubt that most would notice or care.

Paris is the same only even more so. They have a less fraught history of disenfranchising people of color.  I know that there are horribly segregated communities where immigrants live in some degree of poverty. I know that the Arondissiment I always stay in, has more white faces than non-white faces. But here I am, in a train compartment where we are completely indifferent to the fact that we are different. And believe me, from talking to people in Warsaw, I know that in my city of birth, there is that hesitancy. That waffling. That total conviction that what is yours is correct. I know (because I asked!) that too often, a difference raises eyebrows, even though no one feels any hostility to those who are not like them. It's  masked in the words of "concern," and "protection." That may change over time, but I knew fifty-five years ago and I know it still today -- it wont change in my lifetime. Certainly not among people my age.

 

This morning, I woke without hurry. I ate breakfast without hurry.

I took a walk without hurry. I feel I walked a ton -- in Norway, in Poland, in Paris, in St Malo. I have no ambition to do that today, on my last full day in Paris. I just want to walk lightly, look, observe, learn.

There's a lot of people watching you can do in this city. I am, of course, tempted to photograph that, which I find to be a statement of sorts. It's always complimentary, because I tend to photograph (and write about on Ocean) things that strike me as positives. Nevertheless, street photography here is hard (and harder still in Poland), because people in Europe extend their privacy protections to public spaces. (That is not the case in the U.S. where if you step out, you're fair game, so long as you aren't photographed with commercial intent.) If someone notices or cares, I put my camera away, or even delete. But of course, mostly I take pictures quietly and without fuss. I carry a very small camera. All people who do street photos have their tricks. I have mine. Every few years though, I take a picture of someone who is smarter than me and today was such a day. Excuse me, the gentleman said. You took a picture of me. Can I see it? At once I offer to delete, but it turns out that this person, too, does street photography, and was simply curious and a little proud that I had been caught me in the act. No, don't erase it -- my photographed person tells me. I'll let you guess which photo is the one that got me in "trouble!"

 

 

I do have some minor goals that are floating in my head for today. It is getting warm again, but not intolerably so. (For how warm it may get in Paris in the next few decades, and what Paris is doing about it, read the gifted NYTimes article from this morning here. At least I think it's gifted. The rules in France are such that I may be precluded from using my gift allotment when I'm here. I cant tell.) So my goals are to walk over to the Left Bank's big department store  -- Bon Marche. I don't need to go inside, I just like the walk and all that I can visit along the way.

First stop -- that same jewelry store that I already popped into on Saturday. I had bought a small, not very expensive necklace from them and they have a way of making the chain longer. I ask the person to do it for me. She does it. For free. And while she's at it, she looks at my earrings and tells me I'm wearing the wrong backs for them, making the earrings sag a little. Here, let me replace them for you. For free. This, too, is Paris.

 

 

 

Next, I want to stop at the bookstore along the way. I love love love French bookstores, even though I haven't dared read a full French text in years. But I can glance at sentences and a few pages, and there are so many, and it all reminds me of days when we, too, had wonderful bookstores before the Internet closed them down. But, my store of choice is closed for a vacation break. I am amused how stores announce their closures. They do it very informally (which is why Google often doesn't catch on), usually with nothing more than a scribbled piece of paper taped to the glass door from the inside. I did take a photo of one such sign -- the company actually went to the trouble of typing it out (most do not), but I photographed it anyway, because I thought it was very illustrative of how important summer vacation is for Parisians. Note how long the time off from work: six weeks!

Onward. I pop into a few kids clothing stores...

(each transaction takes forever; the packaging, the conversation!) 

 

 

... and then I am at Bon Marche, the department store I used to love, until it priced itself out of my reach completely (as opposed to only for 90% of items sold there). And much as I like to see what foods people are buying and eating here, I haven't the same interest in clothes. I am not proud of this -- of my casual sloppiness back home, and especially now that I am getting older. I happen to be reading a novel right now that I put on my Kindle because it's very light reading and set in France -- exactly the type of stuff that I like for filling airplane hours. It's called Murder Takes a Vacation (by Lippman) and it's about a woman who describes herself as quite old (at 68!), who tries to unleash a more adventurous side of herself as she travels to Paris and takes a cruise along a French river. There is a murder. I assume she eventually will solve it. As many critics have noted, although it's light reading, it has undertones of something a tad more serious: the way older people become invisible to the world as they age. And so often they feed into it. "Who cares anymore what I wear" and "I just want to be comfortable" are some of the reasons offered by the gray haired among us. And since we, the older ones, don't care, we permit others to do the same. 

 

 

 

When I travel, I do care. I actually sent a pair of pants to the hotel laundry (in Poland because it's cheaper there!). The pants were linen and in need of both a wash and an iron. No regrets. I felt great wearing them after. But at home, I get sloppy. I wear and rewear favorites. It's so rare that I introduce something new to my wardrobe, that when I do appear in a new shirt, even Ed comments! I vow to do better, but in the end, I need to watch my budget if I want to travel to Europe again next year, so I shrug and keep on recycling. So, no stop at the Bon Marche, but yes to a stop at the Food Halls across the street. I want to see what foodies are eating here these days.

 

(Oh! They have an ice cream stand just outside! Rhubarb strawberry on a hot day? Yes!)

And what to my wondering  eyes should appear, but a display, right before you as you enter La Grande Epicerie (the Food Halls)!

Oh the cheek of it! The irony! None of the restaurants I have eaten in in France this time around have had non-alcoholic wine (nor beer). And indeed, in my samplings elsewhere, I have disliked all such wines with the one exception in Copenhagen. That one was great. All others -- meh. So much so that I have switched to 0% beer, because they at least do it well!

They are also selling a book on French producers of non-alcoholic wines and aperitifs. I leaf through it and it is good enough for me to buy it. My pre-dinner drink could be more interesting if I followed some of their tips. (Truthfully, it will likely be like clothes: I have good intentions here, but I slack off when I get back home. Still, it's worth a try.)

The book describes one wine and one aperitif (that you drink with soda water) that they claim will convert a non-alcoholic wine doubter (me) to an enthusiastic 0% drinker. I pick up those two bottles, because Bon Marche Epicerie sells them and I doubt that I will find them in the US.

And I think -- wow, how times have changed! I used to wrap carefully, in dirty laundry, a special bottle of real wine to bring back home from France. A silly habit. There's plenty of good stuff around where I live. Still, I did it for years. And of course, until my birthday this past spring, I was an enthusiastic wine person. Loved the stuff in the evenings! And now look at me -- lugging home French zero percenters! Am I getting old or what! 

 

(buying some more MIrabelles, which apparently cannot be sold in the US: it's the law!)

 

 

Actually, the incontrovertible fact is, I am.

Some time ago, I used to travel fairly regularly to Gargnano in Italy. I found a small hotel I liked by the lake (called, of all things, Hotel du Lac), and for a while, I returned to it every year. You know how in life, a small incident, seemingly of no consequence, strikes you as meaningful, so much so that it stays with you for the rest of your life? Well there was one that took place at this hotel, and since I wrote about it on Ocean, I know that it happened on April 5, 2012. An old man, a German, was visiting with his wife. Like me, they were repeat guests. The hotel owner knew them well -- for one thing, they shared an interest in piano music. My hotel owner's father was a piano repairman, the guest was an experienced musician. I used to love watching this aging German with white hair and stooped shoulders work lovingly with the keys of the piano in the small hotel lobby. But his wife was already disabled and he himself moved with some effort. When I would ask him how his day was going (it was that kind of a hotel -- familiar guests often spoke to each other), he would shrug and tell me that things were slowly on the decline. And at the end, when I wished him well and told him "see you next year," he laughed and said that that wasn't a given. 

In the end, I was the one who stopped coming. Gargnano is too hard for me to get to. I'd arrive after a sleepless flight in Milan, I'd take a bus to the city center, then a train to Brescia, where I would have to pack into a crowded bus, with my suitcase and all, for the winding drive up the coast to Gargnano, the last stop on its route. That used to be a "no big deal" a dozen years ago (my last trip there). It isn't worth it to me now.

The point is that my travels have changed in this short period of time and I expect they will continue to change over the next few years. There will come a year where even the trip across the ocean will seem impossibly difficult. There is a deep sadness in that thought. Not a tragic one, but a "moving from summer to fall" kind of sadness. Remember the song by Chad and Jeremy (called Summer Song)? About how Autumn leaves must fall? Like that. And so each walk in Paris for me is precious because, well, I can still walk! 

Or can I? With books, bottles, kid clothes filling three bags, I do not want to walk back to the hotel. I hop on the bus. I have taken the bus fewer than a dozen times since I've been coming to Paris, that's how much I love to walk here! But, the bags are heavy. I catch the bus.

 

 

As I get off just blocks from my hotel, I pass Les Editeurs -- the eatery I most often take the kids to for a serious French meal, the place I used to eat breakfast in before the Baume took over that job for me, the restaurant I somehow always manage to stop in at, for one reason or another. Wouldn't it be a good idea to eat a lunch? None of this sweet stuff in the room anymore! I miss veggies and salads. So I order a Poke bowl with salmon and a whole host of veggies, along with a Zero beer. I know they have that at least. Peroni, from Italy.

This is followed by a stop at the neighborhood coffee shop for coffee, because theirs is way better than that found in eateries (it always surprises me how bad French coffee can get in restaurants, given how fussy these people are about their foods and beverages).

 

 

 

And then I am back in my room, thinking I sure have a lot to stuff into my medium sized suitcase!

 

In the evening, I reach for a few mirabelles. 

Fortified, I set out, in the direction of the Luxembourg Gardens. They offer a short cut to the restaurant that I chose because David Lebovitz (another cookbook author whose newsletter I read) recommended it and he rarely breaks out of his more hip neighborhood to eat in my more staid one. It's an eighteen minute walk, so it doesn't pass my fifteen minute test, but I promised myself all new dinner places and this one seemed worth the extra three.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's called La Gentiane and technically, Lebovitz wrote about Chez Marcel, which is across the street. But Chez Marcel is closed and when I spoke to the monsieur in charge there a couple of weeks ago (well, upon visiting, I think they may be non-binary), they swore the chef picked up his knives and moved (permanently? I do not know...) to La Gentiane.

In retrospect, it was a dumb decision on my part that worked out well anyway. The restaurant is known for it's pork dishes. Porcine decorations abound. 

 

 

 

 

 

The amuse bouche (which I dared to refuse, politely, but still...) is made up of thin sausage slices. I basically do not eat red meat. Yes, of course, they have a fish dish and before they ran out, they even had some non-meaty ravioli (I think it's non-meaty: there's always the odd ingredient that I cannot translate and as a rule, I leave my smart phone in my purse). But that's a nod to the one person in the group that doesn't want the pork and veal offerings. Their specialty is meat.

So I ordered duck. Duck is fowl, right? And I will eat fowl. Like everyone else in this world (it seems), I've become weird in my eating dos and donts. And it was very very good and of course, duck is nutritious, so it worked out well. And here's another great thing about the meal: they actually had chanterelles as special appetizer!

I waffled about dessert. They make their own "mille feuille" which did tempt me, but the meal thus far had filled me up. I asked the wait person if the dessert was big, because I'm just sooo not hungry and the response was -- we'll make it small! And they did! And it was lovely.

In the hour after opening, the diners were mostly English speaking. And I mean British English. Yes, I have noticed a very high drop in the number of Americans in Paris this summer. Small wonder: fear about border crossings, shame, costs, a horrible rate of exchange -- these are great disincentives. But as the next shift filtered in (the place was packed), I heard some French. So yes, a mixture. It's always the case here that if you want to be among the French, eating before 8 is not going to get you there.

I begin my 19 minute walk back at 9:30 (one minute added because the park, offering that shortcut, is now closed). It's just getting dark. 

 (La Gentiane)

 

The streets are quiet. There's little movement. 

 

 

 

I take out my phone and talk to Ed and it is as if I am talking from the quiet of my room. I like this about most side streets in the city. And especially now, in the summer, when the rentree hasn't yet fully clicked in.

It's my last evening in Paris. I'm traveling for two night outside the city tomorrow. We will see if that turns out to be a wise decision! For now, good night. With love...