The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

Sugar-frosted

Well, at around 8am this morning, it started: It's now 10am, and still going: Our bamboo tree, all sugary: Courtyard, a long and snowy view. So pretty! Those white dots you see? Not a problem with the camera, and you don't need to clean your eyeglasses or your computer screen. It's the falling snow: I had planned to hunker down this morning and edit the last two chapters I owe to my client before the holidays... but as it's still snowing, I think I need to bundle up and take the Montmartrobus to the top of the Butte and capture some of more Paris en neige! I hope there is snow on the ground when the boys come home from school today. I foresee big fun! Read more →

In which I make shameless use of search keywords to draw blog traffic

It's been a long time since I sat down to look at my blog stats. I typically only have time to check out who's linking to me (thank you! You know who you are!) but not much else. Well, today I decided to check out what kind of search terms people are using that end up leading them to The Bold Soul. And it's just as bizarre as usual, I'm afraid. This time, in addition to the usual plethora of "is he into me?", "over 40 and still single", and anything to do with the guillotine, we've got the following: thou smell of mountain goat - okay, this is Will Shakespeare's line, so how is it I'm #1 out of 53,700 search results on this one? monkeys - the search terms varied, but I was surprised to see that the primates are leading visitors to my door. Then again, I have blogged about taking the Little Guy to the zoo on more than one occasion and we do like to see the monkeys. worms in kitchen cabinets - ugh. I remember THAT episode in our lives only too well. Sorry to hear that others are having the same foul experience.... Read more →

No Scrooges HERE

I like life... life likes me... I make life a perpetual spree! Just putting us all in the proper holiday spirit. Just 10 days until Christmas! Enjoy... LIFE! Film clip from "Scrooge" starring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness, 1970. If you've never seen this version of the Dickens story, go and rent it; it's my absolute favorite. Guinness was the best Jacob Marley EVER. Read more →

Random in Paris 2

It's my last week of work before the holiday break and I have BEAUCOUP chapters to finish editing for my client's book before I can duck out of town on the 19th. So posting will be light this week. Here are a few recent pix to tide you over, though. A very old wooden door, in a very old stone building, just behind the very oldest church in Paris in the 6th: Saint Germain-des-Pres. Love stumbling upon these ancient doors around town when I'm walking. Just down the street from that door, a shop with some very interesting gowns in the windows. These aren't vintage; they're new, but reminiscent of by-gone days. A few weeks back, I went to the big antiques show at Bastille and just found another photo of something I really liked: A coffee grinder to be hung on one's kitchen wall, in hand-painted china! I'd never seen one like this before, but there were several in this vendor's display so they must be more common in France. If I ever have the right sort of kitchen, this is exactly the kind of thing I'd want to decorate with. These shopping arcades can be found all over... Read more →

Sometimes, it's the little victories that get you through the day

Our local branch of a major French supermarket chain is a paragon of utter and complete inefficiency. For one thing, the layout of the store is not designed well, which means that among other problems the checkout area is always overcrowded. (I frequented another branch of the same store when I lived in the 15th and they had a much better floor plan.) The chain recently changed names and brought in some new store-brand stock, and then moved about 90% of all the stock around to new locations in the store; and just when you think they're finished with all of that and you know where things are again, they find some new change to make, like today when I discovered they'd moved the entire fresh O.J. cooler contents to a dark corner of the yogurt aisle (hidden behind a big pillar so that I had to ask three people before I found ONE who actually knew where the cold juice was) so they could put the holiday stock of fish in its place. (The rest of the fish products are in their usual spot around the corner in another aisle, so of course it makes sense to put THIS... Read more →

A little more Gluhwein, s'il vous plait?

So last week, I got to sneak out of Paris for the day, and high-tailed it to Strasbourg on the TGV. My motivation was the opportunity to finally meet a client of over two years, face-to-face; she has family in Stuttgart, Germany, and was visiting them from her current home in San Francisco, so we were able to meet more or less in the middle. This was no hardship for me, as I loved Strasbourg when I visited two years ago and was happy to have a reason to go back. As I wrote the other day, Strasbourg is also the home of France's largest Christmas marché; BONUS! I didn't take a lot of photos as the weather was rather grey and drizzly, and I took so many photos on my last trip. But here are just a few so you can get a general idea of just how darned ADORABLE this town is. And yes... there was Gluhwein. Yum! Every year, they set up one area of the market and dedicate it to wares from another country. This year, it was Russia... which was perfect as Georges' family has a Russian "arm". I found a pretty hand-painted ornament and... Read more →

One for the Road

Last night, Georges and I were taking the bus home together at about 7:30pm. Comme d'habitude, I was gazing idly out the window, looking at the shops and seeing what Christmas decorations were in the shop windows. Somewhere in the 9ème, the bus stopped in traffic for a few moments. It was then that I saw a certain type of "holiday window display" I was NOT expecting. "Hey, look at that! Those people are sitting right there, in their offices, DRINKING CHAMPAGNE! Right there in the window in front of the public and God and the whole world... [we both look up at the sign over the storefront] ... and, it's a DRIVING SCHOOL!" "Un dernier pour la route, you know." "One for the road?" "Of course, they must have a drink before they get in their little cars and drive home." "Only in France. Because the champagne here is cheap and there's plenty of it." "And maybe they have something special to celebrate." "Yeah, sure they do. Like... it's a MONDAY." Read more →

Communication Gap

There are times when I sometimes wonder if I'll EVER be able to function completely and independently in my new life here in France. I go for a while and things seem to be running along smoothly, and then something will happen that knocks the wind out of my sails and makes me realize I'm not out of the rough seas quite yet. While it's true that the most difficult of my transitional challenges are behind me now -- Georges and I have been together for two years, we've settled into a kind of routine here at home with the kids, I know my way around the city and can do most of whatever I need to do in my daily life, and I understand better how the whole immigration process works -- there are still so many moments that make me realize that I'm really not 100% able to handle everything on my own... when it involves speaking French. Or perhaps what I should say is that I can't do things as well as I would if this were in an English-speaking environment. I'm still often a silent observer at the dinner table if all the kids are there,... Read more →

Boogie down

"Fun" in my life is now defined by special & unusual moments. Like tonight... our Little Guy's former nanny dropped by for a visit, and while she was here, the Little Guy wanted me to put on music so we could all DANCE! So... I popped in my CD from "The Big Chill" & we had a little dance party. Totally rocked the house! Read more →

Forgotten Strasbourg

See photos of my Grand Tour - Day 13 & 14: Strasbourg On Thursday this week, I'm taking a day trip to Strasbourg where I will meet a client I've been working with on her memoirs for over two years! She lives in San Francisco but has family in Stuttgart, Germany and is visiting them this week, so we arranged to meet in Strasbourg for lunch and to check out their big Christmas market. It's the first time I'll be meeting this client in person, after such a long working relationship, and I'm really looking forward to it. In preparation, I was digging through my photos from my previous visit to Strasbourg in the summer of 2007, and realized I neglected to upload two days worth of photos to Flickr! This is the wonderful astronomical clock in the magnificent cathedral. Another of my favorite highlights in Strasbourg was the Alsatian Museum, where they have done an absolutely brilliant job of capturing the history and traditions of Alsace. If you have the opportunity to visit Strasbourg, I highly recommend making this wonderful little museum a priority stop! For more photos of Strasbourg and the Alsatian Museum, just click the link above... Read more →