Futility Now

After The Fleas we went to Montmartre.

Sacre Couer was, as you might expect of a Sunday, incredibly crowded. At first we opted to avoid going into the church itself and just hit up the dome and crypt. While we were in the crypt, singing began in the main level and echoed down the sealed off staircases. The effect was appropriately otherworldly and very beautiful. Hazel warily sampled the red velvet prayer kneeler and one of the old confessionals (sadly, there were no takers for her sound advice).

Ascending the spiral stairs to the dome was, actually, a religious experience. By the way.

(not pictured: Stunt flyers from the Paris Air Show that we saw drawing the French flag in colored smoke.)

On the way down from the dome we realized that we’d stumbled into the middle of a whole-nine-yards type Catholic service, complete with smoking censer, dudes in funny hats and dresses, and a massive singing procession. In addition to the fact that the singing was quite beautiful, the commotion allowed us to sneak into the interior of the church without waiting in line in the blazing sun. We didn’t stay long, but we were pleased to have gotten the opportunity.

We were tempted to check out Montmartre a bit more, but even away from Sacre Couer the whole thing was, shall we say, frantic. As this was not in keeping with our romantic notions, we demurred. Instead, we got a flight to Toulouse via the internet to make up for the fact that we couldn’t get a train to Beziers. I guess that wasn’t terribly romantic either, but there are far worse problems a person could have, mais oui?

The afternoon interlude involved finding another hotel for our newly-extended stay. Luckily our neighborhood was full of the quirky (hommes sleeping on a mattress behind the front counter) places where a room can be had for 50 euros a night, if only you can figure out the strange policies through French conversation. As in, of course you can stay here, but you can’t reserve now, and I won’t take your money for some inexplicable reason, but just come back on the day you need a room, at 2:00. It was difficult not to feel like maybe we were being a little tricked, but mais non. C’est ne pas de probleme.

Then we had tapas, which was notable for the pitcher of sangria. Maybe you know this already, but cold and drink are not by rule a happy couple in France, especially as regards water. The chilly sangria, on the other hand, was basically nectar from the gods. We also ended up going to a couple of bars, one of which was run by a woman who must have been in her late 70s and early 80s. The place (and the madame) were run down. There was a wonderful cat.

There were pictures of the bar from earlier in her career as its proprietor (she’d owned it for 35 years) and it had been quite beautiful. I wasn’t sure if it was magnificent that she was carrying on, or sort of sad to think about how different it had once been. As is invariably the case in such circumstances the right answer probably involves a mix of each, although the exact proportions of important things are always difficult to gauge.

Naturellement.

(For various reasons too boring to recount, you can only name one author per post, but we both worked on this.)

On Sunday we gave up on improving our transit situation and went to Marché aux Puces, which are these massive flea markets up in the north of Paris. To start out we had terrible coffee in the bar across the street from out hotel, which looks like this from said bar.

When you get to the markets you start by pushing through a ring of stalls that sell shoes and mobile phones, just like any street market in the world. Eventually you get to these sort of arecade-y (in the old sense, not the video game sense) buildings and everything gets Franch Franch Franch (“and Peru!”)

Then we ate delicious quiche because we’d been wandering around for hours and were well on our way to being tres fatigue.

So, we made it to France, Europe. It wasn’t easy. We made it to Atlanta easily enough, but then we missed two flights and one back-up plan flight to London (from which we would have taken the Eurostar.) Then we stayed the night at a Motel Six.

Here to summarize the experience for you is the lamp over the sink in our room:

In the morning we went to institution/chain restaurant Waffle House to invigorate ourselves for the day to come.

In the airport we missed 3 more flights and almost missed the opportunity to get on the standby list for the late flight to Paris, but we finally prevailed, much to our shock and glee. Our glee was. . . ameliorated by the fact that we taxied into a massive fucking thunderstorm. We sat around for an hour and then actually, you know, took off.

Also, somebody was really nice because Hazel and I were in the window seats of two adjacent rows, and he traded me for the aisle seat next to Hazel, and didn’t complain when it turned out to be a massive pain because the woman in the aisle seat of my original row was kind of crazy (not in the hateful way, but in the where is this non-functioning person’s family and why aren’t they looking after her way.)

Our first day was also a bit of a train wreck. We checked into our hotel without any problem, but our efforts to end the planning phase of the trip were stymied, when we realized that there was no way for us to get to Bezier by train on the day we’d planned to go. After a bit of stumbling about in a daze on the receipt of this news we opted for the better part of valor and got some fruit, cheese and wine and retreated to our room for the night.

So I took a week off and we went to the coast. It was fantastic. We stayed in the Tennessee Williams room at the Sylvia Beach hotel

We investigated intriguing rocks.

Then we went and stayed in a beach house with Portland’s greatest living author, Matthew Flaming and his wife and child. While there we ate at an awesome diner in Waldport.

and did some cooking at home.

We visited more beaches, this time with the sprout (who we see here looking sort of like Ringo on the cover of Abbey Road).

We also went on a serious fishing adventure and returned with a ridiculous quantity of bass. Unfortunately, only Matthew had the presence of mind to bring a camera suitable for wielding out the middle of the ocean. Perhaps if we plead enough he will pass on some pictures and we’ll get them up here eventually.

We left just in time to avoid it being sunny.

On the way home we made a brief stop in Philomath by this awesome building.

We were expecting serious abuse from Yoshi when we got home, but he came around fairly quickly. I wonder if he had basically despaired of our returning and was too relieved that we were back at all to punish us for staying away.

Despite our well-documented efforts to tame the yard, it is already a total jungle. Here is a picture of Yoshi looking out the window in disgust at the fruits of our slovenliness.

Rather than taming the damn thing, we’ve run off to Parkdale again (geez). Here is a picture of Mount Hood.

When I turned the camera on to take that last picture, the shutter speed was set really low. I thought the grass looked cool all overexposed.