Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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After a long day working at the computers, we looked out at the sky to the south. Dark clouds completely blanketed the southern sky, and they were advancing towards us. A couple hours earlier, I noticed that the weather.com prediction for the evening had dramatically and suddenly changed. Earlier, weather.com was only casually and vaguely mentioning the possibility of rain. Suddenly, the forecast for the evening was dark and stormy. We believed it. We’d been out for somewhat fancy dinners the previous couple of nights, so we decided to keep it simple and simply go to the local neighborhood pub – the Commerce Café on the corner of the rue du Commerce and the Place du Commerce. It isn’t as close as the similarly named Café du Commerce which is just around the corner and behind our apartment, but it was what we were in the mood for. We quickly prepared, grabbed a couple umbrellas, and scampered down the street. Soon after we were seated, the wind picked up outside. The chestnut trees are losing leaves early because of a little bug that is eating them, and the plane trees are losing leaves early because of a mold or bacterium. So the wind had lots of leaves to mess around with. We watched with interest as the snarly swirls of uncontrollable little gusts kicked the leaves around and made women with long hair turn their hands into helmets to protect their hair and preserve their vision. People darted this way and that, trying to get to someplace dry before the rain hit. When the rain started, the wind lessened. Then the rain became a downpour, and the smokers out on the terrace were forced inside – all except for two die-hard smoking young women, who must not have cared about getting wet and windblown. We were dining by that time, Tom with his beef carpaccio and fries, and me with my Obama burger, salad, and fries. All was very good. For about 30 minutes, while the rain poured, the dining room was abuzz and busy. Then the rain let up, and the smokers went back outside. The dining room became a bit more relaxed. We enjoyed dessert in peace. After, we walked up to the Champ de Mars to see the tower at night. We were surprised to see a couple illegal vendors out there, at night, after the rain, trying to sell tower trinkets. Would somebody PLLUUUEEEZZE find something better for these men to do for a living? The illegal activity cheapens the otherwise elegant and historic ambiance of this grand space. When we settled in back at the apartment, I saw a Facebook post by Jim H. saying that they were experiencing a tropical storm in Carcasonne. He said it had been going on for hours, and that it was headed our way. I asked if there would be thunder and lightning involved, because I do love thunderstorms. He posted, “Plenty of that!” Last night this rain did come, but the stormy part was left out. I guess the excitement was dumped on the south of France, and we just received a slow, steady rain through the wee hours of the morning. This morning’s newspaper announces that violent thunderstorms are expected early today in Corsica. So there may be more yet to come to the folks down south. Jim had mentioned looking at the weather radar, which of course is one of our favorite pastimes in Florida. Why not here, too? I went to meteo.fr, the standard weather web site here, but I could not get the link to the radar to work. So I typed “Animation Radar France” into google.com, and voila! There it was, on a web site called meteox.fr. It shows weather radar not just for France, but for all of Europe. This is great – now we can really see what’s headed our way, just like back home. Unfortunately, we are not going to receive the exciting thunderstorms, but we will probably be able to do our Sunday Seine walk – this afternoon, not this morning. Sign
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Sunday, September 4, 2011
The
colorful carpaccio of beef at the Commerce Café, on
the Place du Commerce.
Fraise melba, since strawberries are still in season, and the millefeuilles aux
frambroises
(raspberries in layers of flaky pastry and vanilla cream) at the Commerce
Café.
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