If I were in Paris... Friday, February 10, 2012

Damn! It's cold but clear in Paris... great indoor weather? La Boheme kind of weather.
I would certainly phone the ticket office of The Last Baguette Theatre Company to reserve tickets for SHAKE!!!! WILLIAM SPEARE, a new bilingual play presented in French and English, a love story about Shakespeare? I don't know, but the temptation to see what an Oxford professor presents to the French about Shakespeare in the form of a love story... can't ignore it.
There's not a lot going on now, except the everyday life of the city. Tourists are thin on the ground.

Today would be a good day to stay home and read, or cook after a trip to the market for fresh vegetables for soup. A good hearty, winter soup. A beefy soup!

It would also be a great day to be at the Tolbiac--not outside on the windy deck, but inside, hunkered down over 19th-century books, reading and imagining that life.

This is the kind of day to sit inside a cafe and eat a butter-and-sugar crepe, or a chicken crepe, something thick and warm and buttery with flavor. And calories, because you're shivering them off.

This actually reminds me of a week I was in Paris as a poor grad student, when I was staying at a very, very cheap hotel. On the top floor. So cheap I had to go outside, down a flight of stairs, and outside again to use the w.c. Or the shower. I could hang cheese, milk, and fruit outside my room from the window in a string bag to keep them chilly, and I had a narrow iron bedstead. Nights got dark at 4 pm. I ate crepes in a little cafe down the street because they were cheap and filling and hot. The German couple in the next room fought in German all night. I was in heaven.

It all sounds very La Boheme and romantic, which is more so because I wasn't freezing my little hands off in my attic room. Alas, I had no Rodolfo, but I also didn't die from t.b. ("cough cough").