IF ONLY I HADN'T BOUGHT THOSE COOKIES!!!

Friday, July 09, 2010 Day 9
Today was cleaning day. Roger vacuumed the entire floor and I mopped the tile areas (kitchen, WC and bathroom). We do not plan to do anything more to the hardwood floor than vacuum it. We did two loads of laundry, cleaned mirrors, windows and kitchen surfaces, dusted, cleaned the toilet and generally spiffed up the place. We have been here more than a week now and the place was beginning to look a bit soiled.

For the first time since we arrived in France, I went out on my own. I went to the post office and learned how to buy a stamp from the machine, then mailed a letter. Then I went across the street to the grocery store for some cleaning supplies, including bleach, toilet cleaner and a large sponge. I used the latter to mop the floor, as there is no mop in the apartment. When I inquired about a mop, the landlady wrote and said I could buy a mop and she would reimburse me, but I didn’t feel like spending 13€. A part of me says that, if she uses a large sponge, then I can as well. I have to admit, though, that I haven’t mopped a floor on my hands and knees for years and years and years!

After house cleaning, we went shop-hopping: to the butcher, the baker (but not the candlestick maker), an Italian deli, and the fruit and vegetable vendor. The guy at the fruit stand let me pick my own apricots – a sign, I think, that he recognizes me. He should – we’ve been there almost every day this week. Usually these vendors want to select the produce for the buyers, probably so that the latter don’t finger all the fruits. This guy made out just fine with us – we spent over 20€, which is more than we spent at any other vendor this morning. An odd thing happened at the fruit vendor – I picked up a couple of small cantaloupes and put them in my basket as my first purchase. When I picked one of them up a moment later to make room for a mango, I realized that there was a cantaloupe rind in the bottom of the basket. I was puzzled as to where it came from until Roger pointed out that the cantaloupe I held in my hand had a section cut out of it exactly the size and shape of the rind in the bottom of the basket. Someone had come along and cut a small section out of the melon, then replaced it.

We went into the Italian deli to buy cheese, but the guy had fresh pasta, and since pasta was on our list, we bought some there. We let him talk us into some house-made marinara sauce to go with it.

We went out for a short hop this afternoon – Roger wanted some relief from our 20,000+ days. We strolled down to a sports complex about a mile from our house. I don’t know why we haven’t figured out that morning is probably a better time to do these jaunts than the heat of mid-afternoon, but we haven’t. As we left the immediate area of our apartment, I insisted that we drop into a bakery – the one which sells ice cream which I really like. I surprised Roger by not going for the ice cream, however, but for a package of cookies. We headed on down the street to check out a couple of parks, then walked down to the Peripherique, which is a large freeway which surrounds Paris proper. We will save exploration beyond the Peripherique for another day. We returned by a different route, which is our custom, and were back home in about an hour.

I am working at curbing my eating. In the U.S., I could go through 2-3 pounds of cherries in a day, and I usually snack intermittently throughout the day. Here I am trying to restrain myself here, at least in part because I will gain weight if I am not careful, and partly because of the price of food. Cherries are about $4.50 a pound, apricots the same. The cookies we bought, which are a lovely thin butter cookie, cost $8.50 and there aren’t but about 4.5 dozen small cookies in the package. But that didn’t stop us from eating about 6 cookies apiece on our walk, and another two apiece later in the evening. So much for restraint! And, of course, there has been the ice cream! But we usually only have that on 20,000+ days, so we sort of walk that off.

It was hot all afternoon, and I suggested another walk late this evening. It is amazing how light the sky is here at 10:00 at night! We left around 9:45 and got home at 10:20. We were getting a little uncomfortable being in unfamiliar territory that late with the dark coming on, but it wasn’t too bad. It made the evening a little more bearable. We had to shutter the apartment shortly after we got back because of the bugs, and that left us in a hot little couple of rooms with only a swivel fan for cool.