The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

Better and better

Every day, I find new ways to marvel at how amazing Georges is. Here's a new one: I am getting married to a man who actually OFFERED to come and see "Sex and the City: The Movie" with me when he found out I was planning to go alone. OFFERED, ladies and gentleman. In a million years I would never think to subject the man I love to a total chick flick, and I'm quite comfortable going to a movie on my own; I'd kind of HAVE to be comfortable because before Georges I was single for so long I'd never have gone out to a movie if I waited until someone else could go with me. When we first started dating, the first time we decided to go out to a movie, there were several choices, one of which was "Jane", the movie based on one part of Jane Austen's life. He willingly offered to go see that with me, too, and afterward he even said he enjoyed it although he was not familiar with Jane Austen's work or history. But when I warned him that Sex and the City was going to be THE chick flick of all... Read more →

Six weeks and counting

Six weeks from tomorrow, I won't be walking down the aisle, because there will be no aisle to walk down. But I will be standing with Georges in front of the fireplace, in my sister's lovely home, the mantle covered with white candles and flowers, and in front of family and friends will be committing myself to loving and caring for him for the rest of our lives together. I hold this vision in my mind on a daily basis to help me put things in perspective whenever the details of planning all this threatens to make me a little stressed out. Planning a wedding, long distance no less, and even a small wedding like this one (official headcount currently stands at 26 people including bride and groom) is filled with decisions and more decisions. I am starting to understand why women who are planning a bigger, more formal event are willing to shell out some serious money for a wedding planner, or else they turn into Bridezilla. I remind myself daily that like with everything else in life, a wedding is something you can plan and plan and plan, but at the end of all that planning, whatever is... Read more →

A little more mileage, maybe... but he's still Indy

So I promised to let you know how we liked the latest (and probably last... unless in another 20 years they make "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Nursing Home Medicine Cabinet") Indiana Jones flick. First thing I'll say is how much I love it when a major movie opens here in Paris at roughly the same time as it opens in America (with a happy wink to "Sex and the City" which opens here TOMORROW!)... it makes me feel much less left out when I talk to my family back home and say, "Oh I just saw such and such!" and they burst my bubble with "Oh, we saw that three months ago... old news". Here goes (and don't worry, I won't spoil anything for you): In short, we liked it. It moved quickly and wasn't boring. It held our attention for the full 2 hours, no problem. Good special effects, some pretty wild and far-out, too. Creepy serpents (yeah, he still hates snakes) and many lots of swarms of bazillions of insects, which you'd expect in a film that takes the characters to the Amazon jungle. A few (well, more than a few, actually) improbable plot points... Read more →

da da-da-DAH... da da-DAH

It is 9:00 am on Sunday. I have gotten online before even having my morning coffee to check movie times and reserve us two seats at the new INDIANA JONES movie for the 2pm show! Yes, I am THAT eager to see it that I am unwilling to sleep in a little longer on a Sunday morning. We've been hearing that the lines for tickets have been impossibly long so it's worth paying an extra euro per person to get the tickets in advance. I'll let you know how we liked it (and promise not to give anything away!) And seriously, how is it possible that Harrison Ford is still a hottie at 65? Read more →

Na zdorovye!

Last night, we did a bit of celebrating, Russian-style. Two of Georges' sisters returned yesterday from a tour of Saint Petersbourg, where their father had been born (ah, Georges is only half-French!), and one of the sisters has been staying with us for a couple of nights before she heads back to her home in the south. She brought with her some of those adorable Russian nesting dolls and some other things as gifts for the kids, some beautiful jewelry (for me!), and for her brother she brought all the fixin's for a Russian feast: sausages, all kinds of fishes, special marinated garlic, and so on. (I admit, I skipped the fish as I had a bit of a headache, and had a hamburger instead, but the sausages were very tasty.) Add a few shots of vodka, and you've got a party, dude! The teenagers were there to spend time with their aunt, and the Number One Son brought with him his own good news: he got his acceptance letter to the top architectural school in France! He was so excited and Georges couldn't have been more proud of his son, and rightly so. So we uncorked some champagne to... Read more →

It's HERE!

My wedding dress just arrived, safe and sound. Basically I ended up paying as much/slightly more in shipping and customs fees than I spent on the actual dress, but it was worth it. For once, my instincts about clothing were right. It's perfect. It even fits well now, and I'm losing some weight so it will fit even better by July. Can't show you a photo of me in it, yet -- Georges would see it and we've agreed he will not see me IN the dress until the wedding day -- but here's the dress on the Nordstrom model: Picture it with silver thong-sandals (photo of those to come) and you'll have the general idea. C'est une jolie robe, n'est-ce pas? Read more →

I feel guilty about not feeling so guilty

I am sitting here at our kitchen table. Georges has gone to work, and the kids are at school. The nanny hasn't arrived yet with the baby from next door. Still, I am not alone. We have a femme de ménage... a cleaning lady. She's the wife of the man who owns the épicerie (small grocery/convenience store) next door and is the mother of two very sweet young children; her oldest goes to school with the Little Guy. She's a very lovely girl, very friendly and she works hard on her two half-days a week with us. Not only does our house get cleaned regularly but she irons Georges' shirts, a task I would be sending out to the dry cleaners if it were left up to me. So her being here is a wonderful thing. We're not made of money, don't get me wrong, but Georges doesn't see this as a luxury, he sees it as a necessity and says as long as we can afford it, we'll always have someone. He prefers to be able to put his (and now my) time into other things, like spending time together or with the kids, or doing other projects around... Read more →

My best year yet

Well I have to say it: 47 is feeling pretty freaking great so far. Yes, it's another birthday for me today! Ever since I passed 35 (and "still single") and then every birthday since then (also with the "still single" label attached, at least in my own mind), I would think about each year and what I had accomplished despite not having a man in my life (actually when I was 35 I did have someone in my life, but we split up some time after I turned 36 and that was it for me for a long while, relationship-wise). I never wanted to be one of those women who felt her life was complete shit without a man around. Much as there was a part of me that wanted someone special by my side, there was another part of me that felt a certain pride that I didn't get all sad and morose each time another birthday rolled past like the mile-markers on the side of the highway: "You have just passed mile marker 43... just 40 more years until you die alone and unloved". Nope, I wasn't having any of that stuff. I always felt my life had... Read more →

Easy does it

It's a nice 'n' easy weekend. No kids at all -- they're all off doing other things. We started off our weekend by going yesterday to surprise a friend (her husband's lovely idea) for her upcoming birthday, which I discovered is the 20th, the day after MINE! After that surprise breakfast party, Georges and I headed over to Rivoli to do a little shopping, and came away with something beautiful, lacy and dare I say sexy, for me for my birthday (what can I say, the man has good taste). Next we strolled down the Rue a bit and found a really nice shop that had all kinds of things for the home and kitchen, and he found me the one thing I had been looking for since Christmas but hadn't yet found -- a small pair of simple silver-plated candlesticks to hold tapered candles. (Seriously, why is it so hard to find nice candlesticks here? Most of the few I've seen have been gaudy and cheap-looking.) His daughter bought me these adorable candles as a Christmas gift but I haven't been able to display them, so now I can. We also scored a paper towel holder and a funky... Read more →

Swatches

You might have noticed a few changes around here today. With all the changes taking place in my life, I felt the need to do some spring cleaning of my blog design and give it a fresh coat of paint, so to speak. You know... new life, new look. This year it's all about change for me. I'm making a few adjustments in my business as well and that web site will also be updated accordingly in the next few weeks*. The new color scheme was mostly inspired by a piece of pottery I bought in the Luberon this time last year when I was spending my birthday weekend with my friend Linda and her husband. It's a water pitcher with poppies painted on it as well as hues of green and goldenrod, and it reminded me of the fields of poppies I saw there. When choosing color swatches, sometimes you just can't beat Mother Nature for inspiration. I did have one other source of inspiration though. The shades of green are the color of what I hope will be my wedding dress. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Once I get an idea in my head, I just run with it. My writing web... Read more →