Digicodes, The Louvre and Heidi the Guidie

I am going to start today's entry by saying "fuck" some of my entries are gone again. So, I am writing this somewhere else and will copy to my blog in hopes of not losing another entry. Wish me luck.

As I walked this morning I looked at all the doors on all the streets. Each of them has what I call a digi code thing. I am not sure of the official name of them, but this is what they look like.

I am not sure if other countries have these, but they are all over Paris. It used to be that when you rented an apartment here you were given the code to open the doors attached to these little boxes. Sometimes there was just one code. Sometimes you had a code on the street door and another on the door further inside the building. I would normally write this code on a piece of paper in my wallet and by the end of my stay I may have memorized it. Well now we have a little fob to open the doors, which makes life just a bit easier. Of course, we still have a key to get into our apartment, but perhaps that to will change some day?

Today we headed to the Louvre. Us and about a million other tourist decided today would be a great day to see Winged Victory and her friend Mona. I have been here many times and I can honestly say I have never seen it this crowded. Yes, it is a big week here, but I have been here this week before I swear there are more people here than ever. And most of them have no concept of personal space or how to say excuse me.  

My first trip to Paris I did the 45 minute tour of the Louvre. Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa, the Venus and an urn. In and out.

On another trip, I spent 7 entire days in the Louvre. I purchased a book with the collection in it and saw every single thing in that book. I spent one entire day looking at French Sculpture, I was the only one in that gallery and I am sure the guards were watching me and wondering what I was finding so fascinating.

Today was not enjoyable for the most part. We did wonder into the African art area and it was calm and not many people.  

Then we came home and took a nap. Yup a nap. All of us for a few hours because we were going out to participate in a three hour "dark side" tour of Paris. We were met at the Citi metro station by our guide, Heidi. She was a lovely woman from London that moved to Paris a few years ago for an adventure and now works as a tour guide. She works for the company we hired tonight and has her own company and does tours about the women of Paris. If we had time....

Her website is http://www.womenofparis.fr/ 

Check her out and if you are ever in Paris, tell her I sent you. And, her logo is really great.

We started near St. Chappell and walked for three hours. We walked past the Conciergerie where Marie Antoinette spent her final years.

 We walked thru Place Dauphine where elephant was served during a siege with the Prussians.  An elegant little square that you can enjoy if you don't think about that.

We then walked to the Pont Neuf one of the most beautiful bridges in Paris and the first to be built of stone and without housing on it. There is a little grass triangle down below the Pont Neuf known as the Le Square du Vert-Galant, which Heidi tells us was the place Henry the 4th was likely to take his lady friends to do whatever it is Kings and lady friends do. I know it as the place where the last grand master of the Knights Templar was burned at the stake after years of torture, because he would not give up the Templars or their fortune. Long live Jacque d'Moley.

Then it was over to the area right before the Pont Des Arts bridge where we learned about a young girl that was found dead in the river. Nobody knew who she was, but her death mask became a face we are all familiar with. If you have every taken CPR training, she is the face of the dummy.

Then over to the Louvre, which was now nicely empty. We learned about the palace.

We walked the same route as Marie did on her way to lose her head.

We ended up at the Cemetery of the Innocents, you know the largest cemetery in Paris, when there were cemeteries in Pairs, the place that started it all in the catacombs.

We ended our. Night in front of the oldest pest removal service in Paris. And lets just say they may need to work a little closer to home.

We learned about so much on this tour and it was fun as well as educational. Of course we were the best group and after watching a man with a really bad knee and another that needed to be replaced hobble on his cane across the streets of Paris, my feet did not hurt as bad.

So then off for home and another day tomorrow. 

Day two in Paris - the big bus, the naked guy and masturbation

Day two in Paris is usually off to a late start.  You are jet lagged, didn't sleep well or just lying in bed thinking "I am in fucking Paris" for a little while longer than is necessary.  Of course, I was up early and out and about in search for pain au chocolate for my beloved.  Early morning walks, meandering down unknown streets, watching the City come awake are some of my favorite times.  There is something about the light and the quiet that I love.

 

Then back to the apartment to start the process of waking people and deciding what to do for the day.

First we wandered over to the local weekly market.  The fruit, the fresh cheese, the flowers.  We got fresh pasta to make a meal later that night brought it all back to the apartment and then headed for the metro.  If you have ever been on the metro in Paris you know that is like a city underground.  To use the metro, figure out where you want to go and which line will get you there, then follow the signs that say the final destination of the line and go in that direction.  Perhaps change trains, once or twice, go up stairs, down stairs, use a people walker, wait for the train, press the button to open the doors, jump in, go, and jump off and hopefully be where you wanted to be.  And remember always keep that metro ticket handy.

We went to the Hotel De'Ville and walking across the Seine to Notre Dame.  On the way we saw Cinderella with her Prince Charming putting her slipper on her foot.  Yes, really.  It started to sprinkle and we decided to duck into one of the nearby cafe's for lunch and hope the it stopped raining.  We could see the plaza in front of Notre Dame and the LONG line of people waiting to get in.  It was a very long line, until it was not.  Suddenly there was no one on the plaza except policemen with machine guns and red and white stripped tape.  Hmm... We did not panic we simply continued our lunch and watched.  I actually watched a group of people walk up and try to go around the tape, the look on the policeman's face should have been enough to stop them, but no.  He had to shout at them and shoo them away.  I truely believe that no matter what language you speak or don't speak, if you see a policeman with a machine gun standing between you and where you want to go, you might think twice.

We waited until the rain stopped and went outside just as the police where leaving and we rushed to get in line.  Great timing.  We were in within a couple of minutes.  When did the line to get into Notre Dame become so long.  Am I dating myself when I say the first time I went there was no line, you just waltzed in off the street?  

I liked it better than.  You did not have the tourist that does not understand personal space and keeps pushing into your cousin trying to make the line move faster.  Notre Dame is special and I will always be in awe of its beauty no matter how many people try and push by me.  Just breathe and look up.

Then we decided to jump on the Big Bus.  The Big Bus is a jump on and off tourist bus that takes you all over Paris, by all the major tourist attractions.  While you might pooh-pooh such a tourist trap, it really is a unique way to see the City and to see all the sites.  Being up so high gives you a different perspective and being able to jump on and off all over the City saves your feet.

We jumped off at the Trocadero, which is right across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower!  It is normally a really pretty place and the place to take your first Eiffel Tower picture.

Being so close to the national holiday, Bastille Day, the fountains as fenced off (this is where they shoot off the fireworks) and the police presence is very visible.  You walk down and across the Seine and then you are at the foot of the Tower.  While the lines to go were not terrible, the security was tight.  The base is all blocked off, you need to go thru metal detectors and that is life.  We did not go up.

We jumped back on the bus and headed back to Notre Dame to catch the metro and come back home.

It was late by the time we got back, so we will use our beautiful ingredients tomorrow night for dinner.

However our night was not over.  We got back to our apartment and threw open all the windows only to close them soon after due to a tremendous thunder storm.  Rain, rain, rain.  And you know you have to close the windows when it rains, which mean you look out the windows into your neighbors windows.  I must say you don't expect to see your neighbor standing in just his socks at his window.  But that is what Beth saw as she went to close one of the windows.  While I know that the sight of a naked man is not new to her, she was a bit shocked and we had a good laugh.  Of course, we laughed harder the next time we looked because our new best friend was now pleasuring himself in the window.  Perhaps looking for an audience?  We did remark how could he get it up with women laughing so hard at the sight?  Hmmmm.

Off to bed, listening to the rain and dreaming of another day tomorrow.

Oh, and remember when I said keep your metro ticket handy?  It is because there are the ticket police and they can stop you and ask for your ticket at any time.  We were stopped on our way out of the metro, luckily we all had our tickets.  Not like the first time I was stopped.  I had dropped my ticket at some point and when stopped could not produce a valid ticket.  My friend Dominic tried to slip me his, but alas, I ended up paying a pretty steep fine, so keep those tickets handy!  

New Year - New Resolution to Blog More

Today is Sunday and that means coffee and the paper.  As some of you know I like the obituaries or as the San Francisco Chronicle calls them now "Life Tributes".  I have not read them in quite a while but today I was called to read them.  I was unsure of why I felt the need to read them today.

Was it to see all the native San Franciscan's that no longer reside in the city of their birth?  There were many of them this morning and it does make me wonder how many native San Franciscan's there are. Just about everyone I know comes from somewhere else.  How long will it be until you no longer read born in San Francisco in the "Life Tributes" section of the paper?  And I had to ask how many times do you read about a person like Mary O'Brien, 94 years old and she was born and died in the same hospital.  Totally amazing, in a good way.

Or was it the number of people that left behind or joined their long standing spouse?  

There was Gino and Eleanor - almost 50 years.  

There was Ken a 3rd generation San Franciscan who donated over 42 gallons of blood over the course of his life and was married to Alyce for nearly 71 years!

Dor was married to Tommy for 67 years.  She loved to travel and was a "hostess supreme" according to the writer of her tribute.

Bill and Ute - He was a native San Franciscan, a WWII vet, a pioneering venture capitalist and loved to travel with Ute, whom he was married to for 51 years.

There were more, people married for many years, SF natives that I marvel at the changes they have seen in the City of their birth.  I wonder how they felt about the City recently.

Many of these people I would have liked to know, but none of them were the reason I was called to read the obits today.  It was Donald Francis Eldridge.  Have I ever met him?  Nope?  Then why?

Don, I feel I can call him that, was a man of many talents and experiences.  He was, according to the obit, kind, compassionate, generous, playful and good-natured and he will me missed by many.  He travelled extensively for pleasure and spiritual fulfillment.  Don is the man that gave us Memorex - yup that Memorex.  He worked for human rights and created a foundation to promote social justice around the globe.  He was a sailor, an owner of many boats, and loved Barbara for over 30 years sharing many of these things with her.

This is a life.  But it was not any of these things that drew me to the obits today.  It was one line in this this man's life:

"He relished the memories of this childhood summers spent bayside at the family vacation spot in Jamestown, Rhode Island, where his love for the water and sailing first began."

Jamestown?  My Jamestown?  The place I grew up?  Yup.  The little island, nine miles long by one mile wide in the middle of Narragansett Bay.  Yup.  Don was born the same year as my mother and I have to wonder, did their paths ever cross?  I'll have to ask her when we next chat.  Don once rode his bike from New Jersey to Jamestown.  Did he come over on the ferry?  Did he stop at my Grandfather's bar for a drink to wet his whistle after that long ride?  

I sure hope Don was able to share Jamestown with his family cause it is a special place.

That smile.

This is my friend Martha.  You may recognize her from my profile photo.  She was the sister of my oldest dearest friend, Jolie.  Sadly, they are both no longer here and I miss them both.

I know none of us is full of grace all the time, but I think Martha may have been an exception to that rule.  

This picture brings me great joy.  Martha and her husband, Andy, had purchased an inn in Baden, North Carolina.  On a visit to my mother, who also lives in North Carolina, we drove into the mountains to see them and their venture.  When we arrived, Martha was bending over a planting bed, putting flowers in the ground.  The last time we had seen each other was a sad time and it was so wonderful to see her and hug her, and be the recipient of that smile.

She toured us around the place in a golf cart, chatting and catching up.  I was totally amazed at this venture they had taken on, the inn, a golf course, a whole new life in a whole new place.

I can remember sitting on the porch and asking her

Martha, weren't you scared to do this?  What if it does not work out?

She looked at me and tilted her head to the side and said the following:

Yeah, it is scary.  And we thought long and hard about it.  At the end we thought - hey what is the worst that can happen?  We lose everything?  We lose it all and are standing in line at the food bank?  So what, we will have each other and that is what matters.

Good advice, I would say.  

Sacrifice in white.

I have visited veteran's cemeteries.  Some where there are acres of strangers buried under white crosses.  One that has the best views one could want for your loved ones.  Ones that contain people I love.  None of them are easy to visit.

As I walk among the graves and those white stones, I think about the people under them.  Who misses them?  Who did they leave behind?  Who still comes here and speaks to them?  Who touches the stones and reads their names out loud?

The last thing I think about is the religious indication on the stone.  It means nothing to me.  

What does mean something to me is the person laying under that stone.  They went to war for their country, some willing some drafted.  But all went.  And whether they died in battle, or later from the struggles they could not leave behind, or from old age many years after their service, they all served.

I watched the DNC a couple of weeks ago, I cried with Mr. Khan and his wife over the loss of their beloved son and I agreed with his statement about sacrifice.

But it did start me thinking about that sacrifice, the sacrifice of losing your loved one while they serve our country.  OUR country.  Ours.

Who running for the highest office in our country has made this sacrifice?  Who in this particular election has even served or has a family member that has served?

Certainly not Mr. Trump who used deferment a number of times to get out of serving OUR country.  My brother did serve and he was one of the ones that could not leave his struggles behind and lost his battles.  

Certainly not his privileged children that had a choice to serve or not and choose not to.

But also not Hillary Clinton nor her child.

My family has always served.  Grandfathers, uncles, father, brothers, cousins, nephews and I am proud of each and every one of them and grateful.  I look back and wish I had served, but because I was a girl, it was not expected of me.

Perhaps it should be expected of all of us.  Perhaps is we had mandatory service and more people actually faced losing a loved one that would be under one of these white monuments some day, they might not be so willing to drop a bomb or send young people to foreign lands to perhaps never come home.  Perhaps if everyone in OUR country faced this possibility it would no longer be a possibility?

Paris

I am asked why Paris?  What is it about Paris?

This is what I can tell you, the first time I stepped off the train at Gare du Nord in 1993 I felt like I was where I was supposed to be.

I have shared Paris with those I love.  I have gone to Paris to heal.  I have gone to Paris to meet friends.  I have been to Paris alone.  I have been to Paris with my beloved.

I have been to museums.  I have been to the top of the Eiffel Tower and run down the stairs.  I have been held while I cried in Notre Dame.  I have broken a foot on the Pont Nuef.  I have been to a Firemans Ball the night before Bastille Day.  I have rejoiced at the beauty of a quiet Paris night.  I have been to Paris in all seasons and can't pick a favorite.

My favorite thing to do in Paris is to walk.  You cannot see Paris if you do not walk.  You have to cross the bridges and stop in middle and watch the Siene flowing under you.  You have to wander the tiny streets and wonder what is behind those doors.  You have to walk the Champs Élysées from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe.  You have to walk the streets of Ile St. Louis and cross over to Hotel de Ville.  You have to walk the miles and miles of the Louvre and try and pick out your favorite thing.  You just have to walk.  I have never been more at peace than walking home with my beloved late on a winter's night after missing the last metro train from across town.  It was cold and late and beautiful. 

My Paris can never been taken away by a bunch of assholes with guns or bombs.  My Paris will survive.  My Paris will always be the place where I am supposed to be.  I will always come back and walk and walk and walk.

The rolling hills of Georgia

My dad is buried in the rolling hills of Georgia, in a veterans cemetery in Canton.  From what I can recall of that day almost five years ago, it was exactly the place where he would have wanted to end up.

It was Thanksgiving week and Cheryl and I were visiting North Carolina.  It seems like a lifetime ago, so many things have changed and yet some remain the same.  

Ed (that's my dad) had been in a nursing home in Georgia since suffering a series of strokes a few years earlier.  Those of us that are cynical may believe that we left our dad in this nursing home because we did not want to deal with him.  While deep down some of that may be true, the real reason was he had a sister, an aunt, a girlfriend, a life there, that we hoped he could return to at some point.  That did not prove to be the case and I can honestly say it was the worst choice I was ever involved in, but that is a tale for another day.

This particular Thanksgiving we were at the beach.  David, Susan, Farren, Coleman, Cheryl, Jackie and if I recall we were having a very nice time.  

And then came the phone call, Ed had taken a turn for the worse and was not expected to survive.  David spoke to the phone caller and relayed the information to the rest of us, we called siblings, we prepared and waited for the next call.  It came Thanksgiving night, our father had died, in that nursing home, alone.  I remember looking at my mom and wanting to hug her.  She said "don't, just don't".  I saw the pain in her eyes for the love of a man that had left her broken so many years earlier.  Realizing at that moment that my mom had never stopped loving the man that had hurt her so, how could I ever compare my heartache to hers?  I saw my mom in a much different light that day, but that too is a story for another day.

After some planning, phone calls and tears we all piled into David and Susan's van and started a trek to Georgia, a final trip, after this there is never a need to go back.  We dropped Coleman at school and the rest of us continued south and south and south.  Calhoun, Georgia.  A little dot on the map in the middle of nowhere.   

We were joined by my sister Carol, decisions were made, people showed up at the funeral home.  Told us stories of man we had never known.  David said words at the service.  Then we went on a drive.  I remember it being long and winding, a crisp fall day with a beautiful blue sky.  We arrived at the cemetery and like all veteren's cemeteries, is if full of white markers, with names inscribed, dates, placed in long rows, too many rows.

There were more words said, a folded flag given, guns fired.  The stone for Ed was not there yet, but they showed us where he would be.  Alone again, but on a hill overlooking those beautiful hills where he always wanted to be.

We left and I thought, well that is it.  Never have to come back here again.  Then a day comes when we remember our veterans and I feel an over whelming desire to go back and see this stone for myself and thank a man that did the best he could.