Christmas Eve

At this time of the year I only have to raise my head a little and look over to the east to see if the sun is rising yet. It’s moved to that corner of the house where the upstairs window is. Oh, it’s going to be a nice sunrise!





Happy Christmas Eve Day!

In an almost Gift of the Magi moment, there is a knock on the door. Oh dear, I’m about to leave the farmhouse. I’m in a hurry. I have to go to Fed Ex headquarters to claim a gift that was delivered in my absence. It’s not for me. It’s one daughter’s to the other. They need it for Eve. I open the door almost reluctantly. A person with a package is smiling at me. Hi, I have something for you. It's Fed Ex.

But, you don’t deliver on Saturdays! 

We’re making an exception today. We figure these may be important presents people may want for Christmas.

One more minute and I would have been gone, chasing something (and therefore missing it) that in all earnestness was being delivered.


You get older, your circumstances change, traditions have to be adjusted. But here’s one that remains in place for us this year. The drive for breakfast at Hubbard Diner. Where they have great cakes and pies.





We’re not here for the pies though. Daughters and sundry others arrive. Not Ed. Ed’s better off at home on days like this. One has to adjust to what people can and cannot do.

Ah, here comes my younger girl.





The older one’s here too, with her guy.





We eat, we grocery shop for the last minute Eve details.

It’s funny how quickly evening comes on this day. One minute you’re shopping, planning, wrapping and then – no more. Now it’s time to unwrap and eat. The top, wound up, is let loose, spinning toward the splendid hours of family, of friends and lovers, of feasting and favors.





By the time I write tomorrow, your Christmas Day (if you celebrate Christmas) will be over and done with. So let me say it now: thank you all for being such kind, good Ocean friends and have a beautiful Christmas. With love.

and so

Since when have our cafés become temples of silence, rather than places to talk and banter?

We’re at Paul’s café, our almost daily hangout toward the end of the day. There’s much to toss around and bicker about. For example, Ed is convinced that the best way to prepare fresh winter spinach is to microwave it. I beg to differ. I want to make sure Paul isn’t for a minute convinced that Ed knows the best way to prepare spinach. I get a frown from a patron who is trying to concentrate on her writing. I want to tell her that there is a beautiful library right across the street where silence is golden. But I say nothing. She has won. They all have won. Up and down State Street, Monroe Street, any street in any town, you have to stay quiet. Life demands it.





Me, I have work too now, finally. The exams are starting to trickle in. I go to campus to pick them up this afternoon (students were still writing this morning) so that I can start the mammoth task of grading, even as most people are thinking jingle thoughts and flooding the malls in search of... something.

They say it will snow tonight. It would be nice to see snow before Ed and I leave next week. Remind me in March that just a few months earlier, I was hoping for snow.

the short of it

The longest day of the year leaves me a tiny bit wistful. Long and beautiful, then, imperceptibly at first, it grows less long. Bummer.

The shortest day of the year is, by contrast, quite wonderful. A turn around! A new trend!


It’s easy to get up at dawn when dawn is at 7:25 a.m. Besides, Isis had been ringing the doorbell of the farmhouse since 6:25, so it is only a question of forcing myself out of bed rather than waking. (Isis has a motion sensor telling us he’s there and waiting to be let in.)

I go outside with my camera. Shortest day of the year. Such a stellar beginning! A delicate snow covers every surface just ever so lightly. It will melt soon, I know that, but for now it’s enchanting!





There was a book I used to read to my kids called Happy Winter – it was a poem of appreciation for the quirky joys a child experiences this season. As if putting on mittens and snowshoes can be pleasurable rather than tediously bothersome. Strolling across the brittle and white dusted land of the farmette, I couldn’t help but think how cool it is to throw on flannels and a jacket and take an early morning spin.





Happy winter indeed.





And with it comes that short day. Though not a dark day: in an uncharacteristic move, Ed suggests a drive through a neighborhood where homes are likely to have lights out for the holidays. We drive slowly, appreciating the technical merits of some displays...










...and the gentle simplicity of others.





Never forget: I am in Wisconsin.






Shortest day... lovely day. Longer day tomorrow.

simply put

I heard myself say today – I have no work that needs to be done. With exams still under way, I have the occasional email and of course, I’m free to worry already about the next semester, but in all honesty, I have this week a lull that is rather remarkable.

And so I awoke very early and tossed for a while, looking for things to worry about and failing in this, I got up to cook.





A leek and mushroom frittata, a buckwheat almond cake with apple compote.


My younger daughter is in town, passing through to see her boyfriend’s family up north and I had myself that wonderful table of young people and old Ed and predictably, it was great fun.






After, once the young people left, Ed and I took a walk. Even writing this seems strange. Ed and I never “take a walk” unless we’re at some distant place that warrants that kind of movement. But it is too cold to bike and too snowless to ski and I thought we’d benefit from the movement.

It had been, on and off, a cloudy day. But in the last hours before sunset, the skies opened up in the way that I always think is so magnificent, here, in the Midwest.







We walked the hour or so to Lake Waubesa, where geese honked and hustled away at the sight of us.












Ed wanted to stay and watch some more, but staying in place without movement can get rather chilly and so we headed home.





...to the setting sun.


These are the beautifully simple days. Tomorrow though, I need to break the habit of betting up a good two hours before the sun is even near rising.

home

Flying into the Midwest. Pretty from above the cloud cover.





Below? Darn. It should have snowed. Christmas doesn’t always deliver the white stuff in Madison but last year it certainly did and it was pretty. At least what I saw of it. Living downtown (as I did then) – you see snow piled at the edge of parking lots and you lose track of what’s fresh and what’s been there for weeks.

No white stuff this December.

Ed waits at the airport, dutifully there in his beat up car. I appreciate the small gestures. Like his wet head, signaling that he thought to take a shower before picking me up.

We have a remotely controlled thermostat in the farmhouse and I had churned it up already in Paris thinking that heat needs to sink in or else the place will feel chilly after ten days of just high enough to keep the plants alive. As we enter, it’s pleasantly warm. I glance at the mouse trap. Empty. I comment on that, but Ed admits that he put it up just a day or so ago. Why? I didn’t want to keep checking for mice while you were gone.

For the first time ever, I am too tired to unpack. I take out the computer, check email, finish posting. It’s midnight by the time I haul myself up the steps of the farmhouse.

And of course, four hours later I wake up thinking it's midday. So much for rest. Return jet lag makes a morning person out of anyone.

I go outside, take stock. There is just the slightest dusting of snow. True, one must remember that winter doesn't officially present itself until Thursday.





For the next hour I confront the damage to the contents of my suitcase. A jar of pine bud syrup from Poland popped open in flight. Imagine sap, seeping into everything...

And still, I would rate the entire trip to Poland and then Paris as remarkably without hassle or shortcoming. And that’s a good thing.

Paris one more time

Well now. Trip done. Flying home. Strike is on at Charles De Gaulle airport (security workers this time), winds are strong across the Atlantic (the wrong way), but I’m heading home. Detroit, then the farmhouse.

But, but, there was this last day in Paris. Sunday. A good, sunny (initially at least) day. One for which I have no agenda. Nothing.

Maybe I should go out of town? No, not the season for it. Stay in the city and walk.

Walk, walk, gently, briskly, walk some more. Where to? I don’t know. Don’t want to go anywhere, don’t want to take the metro, walk just wherever.

So.... to the gardens first? Luxembourg Gardens. Odd how there are long shadows at this time of the year. It’s noon and still there are shadows.





Kids sail boats. Mostly boys. Something about watching the ship set sale that makes boys wistful. Or maybe it’s that they like the act of pushing a boat out and watching it drift.





In the same way that they like kicking a ball around for no good reason.





I walk this way and that. Sunday in this park is enchanting. Special. Familial. All that. But here’s a curious thing about Paris: the central arrondissements (and this would include the Luxembourg Gardens) remain awfully white. It’s not an accident that you haven’t seen a child of a different skin color in my photos. Families of color, immigrant families are enjoying the parks elsewhere, closer to their homes. Which are still on the periphery. Were I to jump onto the metro, which crisscrosses the city every which way, I’d remember that Paris, unlike Warsaw or Krakow, is not homogeneous. But on these short trips to Paris, I just walk. I rarely ride the metro. And so I am reminded that liberte egalite fraternite... is still aspirational.





Walk, walk. It's so completely satisfying. I'm not alone out there either. Here's a whole family. Including a pooch in a pouch.


 


Walking, past stuff. Parisian stuff.


 


Quite obviously Parisian stuff (this in front of the Cafe Deux Magots):





Down to the river now. Where the last of the bouquinistes still hopes for someone who'll be there to buy rather than just photograph.





Okay, I'm crossing the river. I decided. Time for the other gardens – the Tuileries. So much (in my mind) the lesser gardens. Oh, they join famous spaces – the Louvre with the Concorde and eventually the Arc de Triomphe, but they’re walk-through gardens. Not a destination. Not in a neighborhood.





Past a dizzying array of things that go round.





...and round.






I wanted to stay on the right bank for a little bit, but I change my mind. When you have no destination, you can change your mind. Good bye, L'Etoile. Too much traffic to plow through.






I don’t care about where I am anymore. Left bank, right bank, on a bridge, off a bride.



 



One minute I’m on a quiet, nameless street and the next I’m on the Boulevard St Germain and it’s empty in some stretches and crowded in others and it’s all fine, no complaints, I’m just walking.

But maybe I should stop for lunch? Kind of a late lunch, but still, food would be good. I return to Rue du Bac. Weird how I nearly always manage to eat lunch here, just here. This time I go to Le Flores – on the other side of the same block. It’s where I took a mirror shot of Ed and me maybe a year ago. What’s interesting to me is that it remains the best photo of the two of us out there.

I take a photo of myself. For the hell of it.





And I eat a salad with chevre chaud (warm goat cheese, this time on a bed of green beans, endive, lettuce, tomato...) because to me, it’s still one of the more perfect lunches.





I have no interest in shopping this Sunday, but a small little store with little do dads and nick knacks draws me. Inside, I hear American holiday music. I’m not surprised. Most every hip store here has American holiday music. Jazz, pop – we’re good at singing our way to shopping pleasure. French, Polish holiday music is more austere. More about the religious aspects to this holiday. Americans, on the other hand, do Santa Baby well and Santa Baby puts people in the shopping mode much better than Silent Night or Little Town of Bethlehem.

Okay, I buy a small gift or two. And I continue. Up the block, down another. And now the sun is setting. Where to? Where to?

The Parc du Luxembourg. The last minutes before it closes.






In the end, maybe it’s this vast park that keeps me so hell bent on staying in this neighborhood. Sure, Lazineki in Warsaw is a finer park, but this one is just a touch gentler, simpler, more congested, but in a good way. And still, you can always find a quiet spot.










And that’s it for the day, no? I mean, I have to pack up stuff that will be sent through and tossed around by baggage handlers. Ceramics from Poland, an olive oil from Italy, some delicate confection from France. So I pack and that doesn’t take too long but still, we’re set for an early dinner, my friends and I are, so by the time I finish packing and padding things, it’s time to head out. In the rain. When did the clouds come in?

Where do you go for your last meal in Paris? Of a trip?

If you can’t think, don’t want to think, if you just want reliable food and great waiters to watch all evening long – then go to Le Procope. So often I have done just that and indeed, Diane and I have dined here many moons ago, before she even met Ernest. The place has history value (to the French as well -- it brags that it's one of the oldest dining establishments in the city).





A heavy set gentleman sits down at the table next to us. He smiles, I smile back. He’s in a chatty mood. From outside Paris. Never been to Procope, but wants to try it for its historic value. His partner comes in, consults, goes out again. He has parking issues. It’s all a trivial chit chat, but somehow it seems meaningful. As if we all may have been friends – something about the chemistry felt good, even as we  know that in two minutes exactly we’ll get up and go and no one will remember this moment ever again.





How was the food? As I said, reliably good – terrine of duck, some fish I never heard of, a huge crème brulee. And the waiters are sublime and so the evening ends and the trip ends too, except I can’t quite let it go yet. I turn away from the hotel and head toward the 5th, the university arrondissement. It’s raining and I suppose I get wet even as I don’t much remember or care. I don’t have my umbrella, but it’s all good, all fine, Paris is Paris, wet or dry.









And then I’m done.

I’m alone the next morning. My friends took off for the airport early and above ground. I want to do things in my usual way – take the RER train, crowded at rush hour, walking the steep steps down, carrying too many bags, yes, that train. But first, a croissant, a look up at the Odeon Place that I pass every single time coming and going, a nod to the Gardens, and that’s it.



So long Paris. When work gets tough, I think of you.

Paris on hold

As always, on crossing the ocean days, I can only do the shortest of posts. One to mark the passage of time, with a single photo from the day, chosen almost randomly, put up as a bookmark: here is a slice of a day. The rest of the pie will follow much later, when I finally return home.

Here it is – the holding photo. From a Sunday in the park (Jardin Luxembourg).

Paris right

If I never spend another “last Saturday before Christmas” in Paris stores, I’ll be okay. More than that – I’ll be delighted.

Who knew that to Parisians, this day is like Black Friday, December 23rd, last day before all stores close down everywhere and forever – all rolled into one. Whereas yesterday I may have written – gosh, Parisians aren’t that into shopping, today I’d have to cross that one out. They’re just into last minute shopping.

And maybe it’s the weather. It was to rain on and off, but really, for the vast bulk of daylight hours, it was lovely. My friends were having a light day and so I set out on my own, on a path that is so pathetically familiar and repetitive that even minor adjustments and detours can’t take away the feeling that when in Paris, I really am a very boring person.

So follow along, if you wish. I’m concentrating on the right bank today. Only half of it – forget l’Etoile, Champs Elysees, Louvre -- all those right bank standards. Move over to Bastille and the Marais. But not just yet.

First, the morning stroll past high school students who, unfortunately, being French, have school on Saturdays.





Sorry, guys. I feel for you. Just remember, you have free Wednesdays. And you can look forward to long vacations eventually when you work. (At breakfast, the waitress grumbled that the hotel only gives her 30 vacation days per year.) So, off you go. The bell is ringing. Throw down your cigarettes and turn off your incessant friendly chatter. You’re already too good at it.


I cross the river to get closer to Notre Dame. If it’s Christmas (season) and if I’m even mildly going along with the traditions of this holiday, then surely I ought to pay my dues here. It's lovely in the morning light.





Alright. Cross over to Ile St Louis, where it’s quiet on a Saturday morning. You get the feeling that people are only now emerging. Doing their morning routines...





Picking a nice scarf for that walk with the pooch. You never know who might see you.





Cross the river on the other side of the island and I am in the Bastille – Marais neighborhood.





Christmas trees for sale everywhere. What I like about the French trees is that they’re sold in stands. Natural ones, made of timber logs. You don’t have to put the darn thing up. It’s already up. But it can be heavy, so you may want to use your shopping cart to roll it home.





Place des Vosges. My kids used to ask – mom, why do we always go to Place des Vosges when we’re in this city? Easy answer: because I like it.





These days, the walk from it, back toward the center of town is quite different. The streets have gone the way of gentrification and it’s one of the nicer shopping areas in Paris. Except, of course, on this Saturday. When it’s crowded.  Still, there's plenty to admire. Some window displays, yes that. Here's a brasserie that's done up for the holidays (though the woman with the white poodle seems indifferent to it all.)





And Zadig and Voltaire -- a quite nice clothing chain -- is pushing penguins, which, I suppose, can stay in place well beyond the holidays. Efficient and cool.





I go in one shop -- Maje -- and note that they're focusing on bright orange in their clothing selections. Here's a salesclerk, a mannequin, oh, and me there in the mirror.






I take a pause from the craziness of stores. Inside the courtyard of one of the museums  (of old books) there's an area where you can take a restful moment.





Back to the tumult. And still, it's really all so lovely and the people seem delightfully energized. (Or maybe they're all on a sugar high. Incapable of resisting the seasonal delicacies. These modern yule logs are drop dead gorgeous.)






Eventually I reach the Centre Georges Pompidou. Here’s your basic photo of the open space before it.





I'm just passing through. On my way to Les Halles -- or rather the blocks to the north where you'll find the best stores with cooking supplies. (Perhaps you know that this whole space is under construction now. You can expect a beautifully designed new Les Halles here in a few years. Here's a dad explaining it all to his kid.)


 


Insanely crowded today. I don't bother with my camera. Just one photo. Of soup ladles. They're pretty soup ladles. Shiny and bright.





Okay. Out and weaving my way through the neighborhood to get back to the river. It feels almost warm now, in the high afternoon. Almost.










As I pause, deciding on which bridge to take, I notice the clouds. The stuff of yesterday. Yep, there'll be rain.





I'm in my neighborhood now. People are partial to their neighborhoods in this city. I surely am. In fact, keep your fancy pastry stores and perfect yule logs. I love this place just two blocks away from my hotel. And if I were to eat anything from it, it would be this cake. Fraise de bois (wild strawberries, for lack of a better translation) and me go back a long way. To the days in the Polish village where my grandma picked and served them with honey for dessert.





It's late afternoon. The rain does indeed come down. I'm tired, cold and hungry (not in that order). I pause at a tapas bar. Why? Because it's there. I order a snack of grilled prawns with a glass of wine (even though the place is called "Jambon Jambon," which translates into "ham").





The streets are wet now. A question that I mull over in my mind: how is it that the French manage to stay upright and avoid crashing into each other? Even when streets and sidewalks are wet, they scoot around on their bikes and motorbikes with reckless abandon. Rosie would be delighted -- she'd be among her own! And I haven't seen a crash yet. I think it's because they start practicing early. Kids routinely go shopping with maman taking their scooters along. It's amazing how good they are at zipping along on crowded sidewalks!





I have a quick errand at the department store. There. Done now. Out again, among the heavy traffic of pre-holiday shoppers.






And finally, I'm back in my own neighborhood. My friends and I are heading out to supper. I'm returning to a place that actually is an Ed discovery. Weird, I know. It's behind the oyster stand on Rue de Buci.


 


The Bar-Brasserie is called L'Atlas. Good, solidly French, very unpretentious. The star on the menu is, of course, the fresh Brittany oyster.





But there's more going for L'Atlas. It's a lively place with a stellar waitstaff and a wonderful casual air to it.





And the rest of the food is nothing to sneeze at either. A good steak frites, a wonderful creme caramel...






...all good. And still, what I have to admire, perhaps over and beyond the food, is the camaraderie -- the stuff that brings people together over the dinner table. Here, this small group has had an evening of pleasure being in each others company. You can see it in their faces, in the relaxed slouch, in the appreciative laugh.





Perhaps it's infectious because our own table is much the same. Shared humor, stories told and retold in the comfortable manner that you can have after sitting down to many meals together. It's been a wonderful run of shared meals. One more on Sunday. Just one more and then we return to our separate homes across the ocean.