Happy Birthday, Twins

Saturday, July 10, 2010 Day 10
Happy Birthday to our twin daughters! The big 30 today! We celebrated by getting up early and walking down to a flea market a couple of miles from our house. We searched the entire flea market for something to use as a tea pitcher, and for a couple of large tea glasses, to no avail. We did find a pretty good pitcher, but I think they wanted 20-30 Euros for it, and there’s no way we are going to pay that for a used pitcher. There are no iced tea glasses in France.

On the way back from the flea market, we stopped in at a bakery/pastry shop and bought a croissant for Roger, a roll made with milk (which makes it softer than water-based bread) sprinkled with large sugar crystals for me, and two meringues. We at the bread on the route home and saved the meringues for later.

Last night was miserable. It was still in the 80s when we went to bed around midnight. Although the night cooled some, we were unable to take much advantage of that cooling. Our apartment has three windows. In the living room/bedroom is a large window which looks out onto the street. We usually close that window from about 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. because the sun pours into it, really heating up the room. The other two windows are in the shower room and the kitchen, and they overlook the courtyard. All three windows have exterior shutters, and the double-glazed windows seal very well to block the sun. But they also serve to keep the heat in the house at night. We don’t like to sleep with the front window open because there is a lot of street noise, especially in the early mornings, which serves to wake us earlier than we like. The back windows don’t do much to cool the front room. So neither of us slept well last night. I am not sure Roger ever pulled up a sheet. I did at some point in the night, but not before about 2:30.

When we awoke this morning, we decided that we would go to the flea market, then return home and nap, so we didn’t make up the bed. When we returned, I did sleep, probably for an hour and a half. Roger sat in the kitchen and worked on the computer. I thought Roger would nap later, so we left the bed out. He never did. Slobs that we are, we left the bed unmade all day.

I had a late lunch of a tuna sandwich and some cantaloupe. The tuna is interesting – instead of being canned in water or oil, it is canned in tomato juice. It is a taste I would have to work on to enjoy, but not too much, because I only bought three single-serve cans. I just wanted to see what it was like.

The day was cool and cloudy, and around 3:00 or so we left to walk to a park to the east of our apartment. We started out with one cookie each and some water. Shortly after we left, a slight rain began to fall, and it accompanied us on most of our walk. We didn’t bother with rain coats, although we had them along. The rain was so slight that it was captured and not released by the trees, so when we walked under them, we did not get wet. When we got to the park, we sat on a park bench under a tree and still did not get wet. The rain stopped for 20 minutes or so, and we walked around the park. It is a pretty park, called Parc Montsouris. We walked and enjoyed the park, then I decided that I would be better off visiting the public toilette before we walked back home. It was as bad an experience as I had feared. The toilette is uni-sex, and there were two stalls. Mine was only moderately filthy. There were no seats on the stools, just the bare stool rim. Sigh. At least there was a strong antibacterial soap at the sink! As I left, a father was standing in the waiting area while his three young boys all stood at the toilet in the other stall, urinating all at once. Sigh.

While I am on the subject of public health, there is a practice here which would gall public health officials in the U.S. – that of baguette handling. Occasionally we will drop into a bakery for a baguette – a long, slender loaf of bread sufficient for one or two people. We often see people eating them on the street, particularly in the mornings. The baguettes stand in a display area, and the other morning, we were waiting behind a man who ordered a baguette, so the clerk reached her bare hand out and took one. Then he evidently changed his mind, so she put it back. When we ordered a baguette from a different clerk, she took the same one. Then she wrapped it in a square of paper and twisted the corners so that the paper forms a little handle, but it covers the middle quarter of the bread, leaving the ends of the bread available to be eaten immediately. We often see people walking down the street carrying their baguettes in hand. I’m not really huge on hygiene, and the issue of more than one clerk touching the bread bare-handed doesn’t bother me much, but I know it would drive U.S. health officials up the wall! Those are the same hands that run the cash register and handle the money. It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the toilette issue discussed above.

When we got back from the park, we relaxed for a couple of hours, then set about cooking supper. We used the sausages we purchased yesterday, and some potatoes and onions we had on hand, and produced a pretty passable skillet meal. Roger cooked some carrots in the microwave, and we had bread and cheese. Roger is the designated microwave oven user because the microwave oven sits on our refrigerator, and it is well over my head.

World Cup finals tonight. Roger is rooting for Uruguay, or at least against Germany. He thinks that most of the neighborhood agrees, as we can hear louder cheering when Uruguay scores than when Germany scores. I suspect that few of the houses on our street are air conditioned, so we hear lots of reactions out our windows!

Tonight the low is supposed to be 68°!