So Much Snow

Jessie left this morning to fly back to Oklahoma. She may well be warmer there. We will miss her! Jonathan is probably on his way back on the train now from dropping her off at the airport.

The weather has kind of prevented us from taking her on too many adventures. Monday we went downtown in a hopeful mood, since someone had called to tell us he saw a sign that our camera had been turned in to the police station. Jessie wanted to see Centreville, but she probably didn't want to walk there through the sleet, especially since she had thin shoes with no tread and jeans that dragged on the ground to soak up freezing water. It turned out someone had played a mean trick on us. There was no camera. There was, however, a new photography exhibit at the library, of work by someone named Edouard Boubat. This is the photo that the library chose as their cover for his exhibit flyer. We also took Tristram into the kids' section to let him run around, which he found quite entertaining. He was too excited to sit and read any books, but he had lots of fun running from person to person handing them books.

On our way home we got crab so we could have our traditional Sparkly Day feast. I had to clean them myself, but at least I didn't have to cook them. I would have trouble throwing a living creature into a pot of boiling water. We realized belatedly that we didn't have claw crackers for them, which made them a little difficult to eat. I shocked Jonathan and Jessie by biting to crack the leg segments instead of prying them apart with the fork. They were very tasty, but so much work for so little meat. I miss Dungeness crab. It's the perfect balance. It's not too much work, and it gets you nice large chunks of meat. King crab yields larger chunks of meat, but it's gross. It doesn't taste like crab. It just tastes like salt. Dungeness has that delicious light, sweet crab flavor.

Tuesday we spent, sadly, at the mall. I had some exchanges to do, and a lot of guesswork in figuring out my European size. I also had shopping to do for Jonathan, since I hadn't had Tristram-free time to do any shopping, and I can't do too much of it with him. For some reason he doesn't think it's fun. The mall was crazy, but we were victorious. New pants for all! Unfortunately that wasn't too fun of a day,

Now I've gotten off somehow in my chronology. I know the mall must have been Monday, because we were so tired the next day that we didn't do much. Perhaps I've switched the order of my days.

In any event, on Wednesday we went to Disneyland. It was Jonathan's birthday, and we'd talked it up to Jessie, and it was a day when our annual passes aren't accepted, but since we had been expressly charged by my parents to take her somewhere fun for them and it was what Jonathan wanted to do, we made the trip. Being New Year's Eve, it was quite crowded, though it was just held in check by, again, snow and ice. Jonathan and Jessie waited nearly two hours for the Star Wars ride. That was probably a blessing in disguise, though, since it gave me a chance to let Tristram out of the stroller to run around. He walked up and down the line waving to people, and even tried to climb under the rope to go visiting at one point. He saw people eating some food, and he wanted to see if they had anything good. Not much stranger anxiety in that kid. It is very nice having him old enough to be handed a granola bar when he is hungry--it makes long days much, much easier. The other thing that makes it easier is having the trains run smoothly with no delays, which they did.

Jonathan was quite pleased with his birthday loot, especially his new laptop bag and his gloves, which he liked so much he considered wearing them to bed that night. Instead he wore them for our walk along the Seine yesterday. He and Jessie got to see the Tennis of the Forbidden Fruit, and Tristram got to have his first actual meeting with a dog since we moved here. We met a super-friendly Newfoundland that came up and licked him right across the face, much to his delight. They don't get much bigger than that, so now he is all set on being okay with big dogs. I think it was the highlight of his week.

That was the extent of Jessie's French adventures. We spent most of our time playing new games, including a lot of Around the World in 80 Days. I didn't think to break out the board games when Bob and Toni were here, but next time it is definitely on the agenda. We like having people besides ourselves to play with.

I will be sad to leave because of the library exhibits. I know I've said that before, but I am impressed all over again with how much they treat them like real art exhibits you could find in a museum. Fine photography sometimes includes nudes, and in France that is ok--it doesn't seem to occur to anyone to flip out about some nipples showing in the library. You'd never see that in the US, because so many Americans are crazy prudes with underdeveloped aesthetic capacities. I will be glad to leave because of the frequency and shamelessness with which the French wear fur. Who wears a full-length fur coat to an amusement park?! The French.

One last note: I am surprised to find how many people seem somehow convinced that France is dangerous. We were told very explicitly, multiple times, not to let Jessie out by herself because "something" might happen to her (no one knew what, but they were really scared of it), and we've been asked a bunch if we feel safe. Just to put all that to rest, let's review some basic statistics: Jessie is 15 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime in Oklahoma than in Paris. The far greater safety of Europe is, in fact, on my list of reasons I'd like to stay.