Saturday, May 20, 2023
Have you found me? The list of 500 Americans banned from entering Russia is very long and I may have missed my name somewhere along the way. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/
I mean, I don’t have the prominence of that Colbert guy, but some people consider me a major irritant.
. . .
There have been some substantial comings and goings. Lord and Lady Kennington have returned to London; Cindy and David McMullen left Palazzo di Gotthelf after a short stay in our absence; Marianne Motherby, Berlin’s Best, has come for the weekend. Additionally, Nick and Trina Lewin arrived in Paris on Friday to attend the funeral of Richard Schepard, Nick’s close friend and my classmate. After CCNY and NYU Law School, Richie had a long, successful career as an attorney in Paris, a trans-border experience that was exceedingly rare when he started out.
What arrived for me was a big cold, sneezing, coughing, fatigue - the whole wretched package. That kept me indoors while Marianne and Madame had dinner at Au Bon Coin, 21 Rue de la Collégiale, a dinner of superior quality, I am told.
Sunday, May 21, 2023
After many hours of sleep therapy, disturbed only once by a butt call from New York, I arose a new man, new but not flawless. Nick and I agreed to have lunch today, but I failed to notice that he picked a different restaurant than the one I had in mind. Each of us lacked outdoor telecommunications capability and we never caught up with the Lewins, unfortunately. However, with Marianne, we had a leisurely lunch at Bistro Saint-Dominque, 161 Rue Saint-Dominique, which covers three times more space outdoors than indoors.
Paris has far more restaurants than any other place that I know of and the most frequent type is the bistro, "a neighborhood restaurant where one can partake of French home cooking, typically robust, earthy dishes." https://en.
Every bistro seems to have a red canvas awning with gold lettering, wicker chairs outdoors and the same menu, including steak tartare, onion soup, duck leg, croque monsieur and escargots. I had onion soup again (12€) and again had the same result, good soup, but no cheese baked on the side of the bowl. I guess that must be an American invention. I also had Pâté en croûte canard pistache, duck pistachio pâté in a pastry crust (13€), the absolute worst that I ever had and the absolute best that I ever had. Actually, the only time I ever had it.
. . .
I reckon that my cold irretrievably cost me lunch and dinner Saturday and dinner Sunday and several inches of blogging.
Monday, May 22, 2023
Although I mistakenly set the alarm on my smartyphone for 6 PM, I awoke unassisted at 6:03 AM to pack up and leave. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare and enjoyed a good and reasonably priced breakfast, a rarity at airports. By the way, the French take their butter seriously, offering it generously at breakfast, but not for the rest of the day in spite of the excellent bread that usually accompanies every meal.
. . .
My young bride was pleased that we seemed to have broken the crazy-far-away-gate jinx when our boarding passes showed Gate 20 at Terminal 2B for departure, when the signs indicated that Terminal 2B had Gates 1-9 and 20-29. That should put us right in the middle, she opined. But the System is not to be defied. The single digit gates were on a lower concourse. Where we stood, the gates descended in number, 20 being the furthest, inevitably, over 3 kilometers from the entrance to the terminal. Math aside, the trip home was uneventful.
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
You are aware of that prank where 100 unordered pizzas arrive at your house? Well, in the pile of mail and packages that awaited us were two boxes containing a total of 24 cans of Ensure Max Protein nutrition shake, just the thing for an undernourished waif like me. I checked with my doctors; not them. Abbott Laboratories, the manufacturer, would not tell me about the origin of the order. So, I plan to soon have a Protein Party, bring your own pizza.
. . .
It's too early to call it a trend, but there is some hopeful consistency in disparate election results. Thailand and Great Britain have soundly rejected incumbent right wing politicians, while Turkey has denied an easy victory to its authoritarian president.
- https://www.aljazeera.com/
news/2023/5/14/thailand- election-results-what-we-know- so-far - https://www.reuters.com/world/
uk/uk-pm-sunaks-conservatives- lose-seats-early-local- election-results-2023-05-05/ - https://www.cnn.com/europe/
live-news/turkey-election-05- 14-23/index.html
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
R.I.P. Tina Turner
. . .
Other than places where you might not want to linger, what distinguishes this group?
- Dallas, Texas
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Raleigh, North Carolina
- Sunrise, Florida
The semi-finals of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Championship are being played here.
. . .
In
an attempt to address the racial disparities resulting from basing
admissions on a single exam, "Thomas Jefferson High School for Science
and Technology, in Alexandria, Virginia, had replaced the admissions
exam with an essay and began admitting students from a cross-section of
schools, with weight given to poorer students and those learning
English." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/
"I have an idea. Let's get the poorer students and those learning English and give them an essay test."
. . .
Bill and Mary Wellever direct me to a list of allegedly the best local pastrami sandwiches.
It's not a bad group, Kosher and treyf. Hand carving really sets some apart. Ask for it wherever you can.
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Happy Anniversary to us!
. . .
Today's challenge — Read the following article without throwing something against the wall.
After repairing the wall, I accompanied my fair lady to a Lincoln Center revival of “Camelot.” It has a good score, generally well performed tonight. Also notable were Guenevere (Phillipa Soo) and the swords.
Friday, May 26, 2023
In case you can't tell, I got 71 on the New York State Regents High School French Examination.
No comments:
Post a Comment