Paris Journal 2010 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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It is getting to be fairly hot now in Paris. This is nothing like the heat wave of 2003, however. The plants on our balcony are requiring lots of water. In spite of the heat, we walked for a couple hours after working at our computers yesterday. Right at the beginning of our walk, we went by a furniture store on rue Frémicourt. In the front window was a framed Washingtonian palm frond. Now, such a thing is something we in southwest Florida consider to be yard waste, and we put these things out for the garbage/recycling truck to pick up on a weekly basis. Here in Paris, however, such a palm frond is considered to be Art. This one, with its name misspelled as Whashingtonia, is valued at 670 euros as framed here, and is on sale for 300 euros. I include this information for some south Florida reader who has an entrepreneurial spirit. In the afternoon, we had a fun conversation and shared a tasty gluten-free cake from Ikea with our friends Ron and Elisabeth. A bit later, Tom and I watched a rather boring end of a stage in the Tour de France. In the evening, we sauntered down to our “neighborhood pub,” Le Commerce Café, on the little park down the street. (This is not to be confused with the Café du Commerce that is up the street a ways, closer to the École Militaire.) Early last year, Le Commerce was renovated and the menu was entirely re-done. At first, we did not go there following the renovation because they installed a “pizza” sign in neon, giving us the wrong idea that it was now a pizza joint. It is much more. The menu includes something for everyone: traditional French fare, modern salads, other interesting things, and pizza made right on the spot, at a workstation in full view of the clients, where a man tosses the dough into flat circles and pops each made-to-order pizza in the special pizza oven. The waiter recognized us immediately, and greeted us warmly. When we sat down at our table, it felt as though there might even be some air conditioning in the restaurant at 8:30PM. But as time went by and more and more people came to the restaurant, the place heated up. We chose cold dinners: mine was a Provençale salad with shrimp and green beans, and Tom had a Carpaccio of beef with Cantal cheese slices. We shared a small bowl of excellent fries. When we came home, it was still fairly light at 10PM. We sat out on our balcony and each enjoyed a little square of high intensity, dark Swiss chocolate. A rich ending to a sweet, hot day. How to stay cool without air conditioning in Paris: 1. Soak your bare feet in cool water, especially after a long walk. 2. Turn the fans on and walk around wearing a damp t-shirt. 3. Wear your bathing suit in the apartment, as I’m doing now. Do not, however, wear your bathing suit on the streets of Paris. 4. Spend time in the grocery store, or, better yet, Picard. 5. Saunter down the shady side of a trendy street like rue du Commerce where shops have the a.c. running and the front doors wide open. Pause in front of open doors. 6. Take a cold shower. 7. Drink water. 8. Eat cold fruit like excellent French strawberries, cherries, and apricots. 9. Open windows at night and early morning. Close them and close curtains, lower awnings, etc., for almost all day and evening until after dinner. Phone tip: Try RingCentral.com. You can get your voicemail and faxes from your U.S. phone on your computer no matter where you are located, as long as you have internet access. You can even answer your U.S. calls if you are at your computer and online when they come in. My hometown’s city manager just called me this way. She was awake, working on the city budget, at 4AM Eastern Time in the U.S. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here. Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook.

Saturday, July 10, 2010 Cool dinner at the Café le Commerce. Valuable, framed Washingtonian palm frond in a furniture store’s front window. Statue of Liberty a the end of the Ile des Cygnes. Apartments across the Seine in the 16^th arrondissement, by the Radio France building. A pricey neighborhood. ← Previous Next →