Carnival of Fun

 

We had a manifold mission for the weekend that took us to Le Chateau au Chat Gris and to the home of olden days. 99 and I loaded the compact white whale and began our voyage. On our arrival au chateau, we immediately commenced the festivities, beginning with celebratory weed-pulling. We harvested three wagon loads or more of the cursed crop, both getting pricked multiple times by the dried stickers that congregated at the base of the foul flora. On the plus side, we had arrived in time to execute our vile vegetation eviction revelry during the hottest part of the day.

After we had disposed of the verdant corpses, I analyzed the next scheduled event in our carnival of fun. There had been a storm and the old maple tree, exuberantly cavorting like a featured performer in Cirque du Soleil, became apprised of the fact that her limbs were no longer suited for the gymnastics of a sapling and thus broke a hip. The said fracture was over 20 feet off the ground. The limb had not broken cleanly and the old girl refused to release the useless appendage. A dose of pushing, pulling, and shaking failed to convince her to set it free. I was going to have to perform surgery.

 My original estimate placed the fracture higher than my mightiest ladder would reach. Nevertheless, I brought out the ladder and my bow saw. I also tried ascending via the patient's own form, but soon abandoned that course because of the obstacles she placed in my way. Finally, I extended the ladder to its fullest length and 99 and I and raised it to penetrate the protective foliage to discover that it just reached the injured limb. I jammed the ladder beneath the limb and contemplated the wisdom of ascending to perform the surgery. 

Initially, a little voice suggested that it would be extremely unwise to trust my life and health to the slender aluminum projection held aloft only by the friction of its top rung against the branch. I agreed with the little voice because it was the same thing my gut was telling me. I've seen enough videos of people getting hurt in trees to know that once I cut away the damaged part, the limb would rise without the extra weight holding it down. If the limb rose, my ladder would tumble, and down would come baby, cradle and all.

The whole situation annoyed me, so I decided to ignore the little voice. That proved difficult because 99 kept talking, telling me that I couldn't and shouldn't try it. I tried a little binding to silence the voice. It wasn't entirely successful, but I did get the top of the ladder bound to the limb so the aluminum trail-to-the-sky couldn't collapse for lack of support. I also attached a rope to the broken appendage and gave instructions to 99 on how to pull so the branch wouldn't scrape me from the ladder or knock me unconscious as it plummeted from directly over my head.

The plan was pure genius, in a Maxwell Smart or Wiley Coyote sort of way, but actually worked to perfection--surprising wife, me, and the tree. Neither KAOS nor the Road Runner is safe from my keen intellect and sharp saw.

We resumed the carnival of fun the next day, mowing, moving obstacles, and tracking down and removing weeds that had failed to comply with verbal notices to vacate the premises. 

An hour or two after we left for part two of our mission, I remembered that I had forgotten to shut off the sprinkler. Fortunately, I was able to track down a good friend who was suffering from early onset retirement to turn off the water for me.

The second half of the mission went off successfully. It was the second reception for child 5 and was helped immeasurably by the fact that there was ice cream.

 

A Day in Paris - part 1

It was a Thursday. 
According to the red book, we had 22 steps for the day's events. I had constructed the red book before we had left home. Every day had been planned with destinations, addresses, telephone numbers, flight numbers, airports, arrival times, etc, from the departure day of May 11 to the return day of May 19--all tucked into clear plastic page protectors. Each day had a schedule page, subsequent pages contained the documents that we might need for that day. The red book had served us well. At hotels, I had pulled out the reservations previously made online; at the car rental when the girl insisted on asking me every question that I had already answered online, I showed her the page from the red book and everything went smoothly. My advice regarding the red book, in the voice of Karl Malden: Don't leave home without it. 

But this was Thursday. 
We were going to Paris. We would be at Notre Dame by step 3. Step one consisted of breakfast...and we skipped that, going right to step two: RER B to St. Michel/Notre Dame. I had constructed the plan for the days events by going over the Paris map and the Paris metro map. We knew where we were going, and exactly how we were getting there. I just didn't know how long we would be at each destination. I knew the plan was ambitious, but a man's reach must exceed his grasp, n'est-ce pas? We were Maxwell Smart and 99 in the city of lights. What could possibly go wrong?

Notre Dame was fabulous. It was much like the other old churches that we had visited, but even more so--yes, I really mean that.

It was about three weeks later that the hammer-wielding terrorist struck at that location, and many tourists were locked inside the cathedral for much longer than they had planned. I suggest marking the sans marteau box on all tours to this location. 

I spent many months in Paris many years ago. I have a clear memory of eating chicken and frites in the middle of the day with a friend from Ireland on a bench near the cathedral. 

There was some kind of bread making exhibition going on in a large shelter in the square. We walked through it, but didn't stay long. We had a schedule to keep. On to the Latin Quarter.

Step four had us walking to the Cluny Museum, a distance of a few blocks. I wanted my wife to have that part of the experience of Paris, walking both the grand avenues as well as the narrow side streets. The Cluny is a medieval history museum. We spent a short time there. One room contained the six tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn. That room held a certain sense of mystery, as if the true meaning of the tapestries would manifest itself to the perceptive viewer. We thought it was cool, but apparently weren't perceptive enough to gather any deeper meaning. 

From the Cluny, pursuant to step five, we walked to the Pantheon. Things were proceeding quite nicely.

This massive block of stone is quite breathtaking within. I could see it as a superb location for filming a battle between a character played by Alain Delon, or Jean Claude Van Damme, and some enemy with the weapons being swords and Frankish throwing axes. It struck me as a celebration of the nation, a place to worship the France of the past, its history, and prominent persons. Although there was a picture of Clovis, I must have missed the paintings of those most famous of Gauls, Asterix and Obelix.

Step six of the red book directed us to walk to the Luxembourg Gardens. We deviated slightly from that mandate by going into a souvenir shop to get shirts. The shop was right there, and I knew with our ambitious schedule, if we waited to pick up some souvenirs for ourselves and our kids, we probably wouldn't get any. The young gentleman at the store was extremely helpful. He sold us all of the cheap, over-priced items that we wanted; they were quite nice...and as I couldn't find any stamps or tags indicating the country of manufacture, I assumed they were probably all made in China...but we bought them in Paris; that's what counts.

We set out again for the Luxembourg Gardens. Little did we know that just a short few dozen meters down the street, a trap had been cunningly placed in our path.

Next time: A Day in Paris -- part two

Redshirting to Versailles

My wife isn't a Star Trek fan, but I'm pretty sure she felt like the lone redshirt in the landing party.

I know this because she had expressed some anxiety about going to France. She didn't know a word of French. She had no idea how the metro system, or currency, or anything else in the country worked. She was like a redshirt on her first mission. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about losing her. I did have trouble at times getting her to let go of my hand so that I could look at the map. Through everything she was a fabulous 99 to my Maxwell Smart. (I know. How can she be both a redshirt and 99? She just was. I guess she felt like a redshirt, but she performed like 99. Would that combination be something like 99 Red Balloons? No. And I'm not linking to it.)

I think it took over an hour and a half, including the change of trains to get to our planned stop...except we didn't. I had made another clever Maxwell Smart maneuver when we had switched from RER B to RER C. I did get us on the C train going to Versailles...so kudos to me for that. We really shouldn't overlook that. The thing is...there are three lines of the C train that go to Versailles. Only one of those lines terminates near the chateau; that station was only about a seven minute walk from our hotel. (So says Google Maps; I don't know; I never got to make that walk). The other two lines go through the station called Versailles-Chantiers: about a fifty-seven minute walk from our hotel. Really, it's like I missed the bull's-eye on the dart board, but still hit inside the next circle. I did get us to Versailles; let's not forget that. There were countless possible wrong choices (or at least more than I would care to try to count, and so I'm not going to try), and I managed to get the wrong choice that was the very closest one to being the right choice. "Missed it by that much," as Max would say.

Did we lug our luggage the 57 minute walk to the hotel? No. In another brilliant maneuver, I had decided that we would take no luggage; we would not lug. Instead, we each had one backpack which strictly conformed to the size limitations specified for airline carry-on bags--we packed lighter for a week in a foreign land than for an overnight at the relatives. Also, we did not walk to the hotel. It was late; we were tired. There was a bus...it pulled away just before we got to it. There were, however, taxis--sleek black vehicles with drivers who looked like they could work for the Russian mafia; it was a combination that I could not resist--it might've been our best chance to appear in a movie with Liam Neeson.

The first taxi driver, in response to my question (in French) about whether he spoke English, simply pointed back to the taxi behind him. The second driver hopped out and opened his trunk. We spoke mostly in French; I was getting back in the mindset for French. I asked him how much to take us to our hotel. He said ten or twenty euros. I thought that seemed like he was padding it a bit, but I agreed. He drove us by the chateau, and through the roundabout pictured below, and by the temple.

 We began a conversation in French about where we were going, why we had come to France, my previous experience in France, and about our families. I think he said that he had two daughters...and never mentioned the Russian mafia; I didn't detect any accent to indicate that he wasn't native French. He taught my wife two French words: bonjour, and...I forget the second one. He offered to let us out to see the temple exterior if we wanted. We were going there the next morning, and I was worried about the check-in time at the hotel, so we didn't stop. When we arrived at the hotel, I put the kibosh on any attempt at hard bargaining by giving him 20 euros, and asking if that would cover it. It was such a pleasant trip, that I was happy to give him 20; he happily accepted it.

There was construction going on at the complex of which our hotel formed a part. Construction noise never bothered us while we were there, but the ground floor was partially blocked off. To check-in we had to go to the second floor (actually the 1st floor in France...I used that as an opportunity to explain to my wife that in France, the first floor is one level up from the ground. The ground level is the RC or rez-de-chaussee). Our room was a floor or two above the check-in floor. The elevator spoke, telling us which floor we were at, and when the doors were opening and closing. Actually, it took several trips before I figured out what the elevator was saying; it was difficult to hear, and difficult to understand.

In our room we found this alien message. I couldn't tell if it was a welcome or a warning.

It was the only artwork that I can recall in that room.

The landing party had successfully arrived at the first destination...with no casualties.

Next time: We have our first meal in France.