Bonjour et Bon Mots

macaroons or macarons?

Salut, mes amis!

In Paris all the stairs make you dizzy. These are the steps to get to the mezzanine of L’arc de Triomphe - there are another 82 after the mezzanine which are not in a spiral—so you can go to the gift shop and back down if you run out of steam after the first 202 stairs. (I went to the top, but of course.)

Paris is just as magical now as it ever was. I posted a whole photo journal on my Facebook author page. Many many photos. The sky was perfect.

Have we noticed how I misuse all social media? I post photos on my facebook author page, keep in touch with friends on Twitter, post bloggish articles on Linked In, and use this Substack to inform you of my newest published fiction. (Like that quirky Lithuanian fairy tale that you really ought to read - at least the beginning…click here.) If I were doing it right, the photos would be on Instagram, the random posts on Facebook, the essays on Substack and the Linked In unused except for business.

Shrug.

Hey - want to see some random things I noticed in Paris?

Poles are decorated. They are decorated in NYC too. I frequently wonder whether committees ever argued about all the images depicted on random poles (these are a streetlamp, a famous monument, and a sign post)

OH! And this is another global phenomenon that I totally don’t understand:

These people are waiting in line outside of a store.

Why on earth would anyone wait in line outside of a store? You can buy anything in the world online. No one will ever know if you bought the sneakers on day two or day one. Also, there are other Chanel shops in Paris. Here’s a whole blog post about them—which also explains why high-end tourists buy bags at Chanel in Paris instead of at home. Still, there is no reason to wait in a line to go to this particular store—it wasn’t closed. Or full. It was just keeping people from going in so that it would have a line. Restaurants do this all the time (looking at YOU Resy app) —and I find it ridiculous.

SIGN OF THE TIMES: comfort over quality. (Tragic.)

I was dismayed to see that American need for comfort over food quality has crept overseas. How do I know this is for American tourists? The note is in English. (I suppose it could be for Australians or South Africans or Brits, but somehow I doubt it.)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: part deux. Wheelchair. Blind. Deaf. and….? What is the creepy fourth photo about?

This airport sign had me and my daughter in stitches. We came up with some pretty outrageous translations of the fourth quadrant. We almost missed our flight home too, but that was because I’m not super great at the 24hour clock (and maybe a little bit because I didn’t want to go home).

---

But home we did achieve. Have to say I was a bit taken aback at the sign above our heads….it seemed less about passports and more about dividing people into us vs. them.

That said, I did appreciate the sly use of Ukrainian colors.

---

Writing News:

I don’t have any writing news. It’s bad! I need to take more time for writing. I have been buried neck-deep in grantwriting these past two weeks but also strategic planning, business planning and running the Pen Parentis Literary Salon on sexuality. Here’s the playback.

I did show a friend from 8th grade science camp around NYC. (Yes. I went to science camp in 8th grade.)

I also went to the Lithuanian consulate and watched an evening of melodrama including a terrific rendition of The Raven in Lithuanian. You wouldn’t think it could be possible to translate Poe’s incredible poem into another language but I gotta tell you folks, it was a finely done translation.

Hm. A little too close for comfort. (this fine raven was showing off in Montparnasse—did you know Susan Sontag is buried there?)

Tell you what. I’ll have some kind of writing news for you by next week, okay? Don’t give up on me.

---

Random last thought:

Hey, it’s better than flossing.

The answer to macaroon vs macaron: Here.

---