december 1st : a nose problem

A Nose Problem


The 1st of December saw Paris under its permanent blue sky :




The purpose that day was a trip to the St Germain de Pres Pharmacy, an emporium where all parisian females
bring themselves at least once a week.


From the outside it looks like a regular pharmacy,








from the inside, it is more like an exciting turkish bazaar where you can
find all kinds of little organic creams, toothpaste, remedies from the most retired locations on earth.

There are slaves in white gowns to help you out






and you find little tidbits as specific as below in the blue package




where it says 'Né Marin' which literally means "Marine Nose" and is sea salt solution
to wash your sinuses and escape " le rhume", the seasonal cold.

Then there is Cranberry + Bio





which shows our influence since cranberries do not grow in france.
It says below " Comfort Urinaire" which could be poetically translated by " Urinary Comfort"
leaves you to relish how delicate the french hints at healing.


And then there was the shelf which was the object of the expedition,






As you see the package on the left says " Silence " on top, which is the brand of the potion,
and under it says " Gros Ronfleur" which, if literally translated, means : " Fat Snorer "

A more merciful one could be "High Snorer" which takes a higher approach of the problem.

Your special envoy having a problem in her close vicinity, decided on the blue package,
"Douce Nuit", "Soft Night " on the right,
as was affixed below on the package on the orange sticker,
" 2 Nuits d'Hotel Offertes pour 2 personnes" an offer of two free nights in a hotel,
if the spray doesn't work.

This offer sounded very alluring so your special envoy decided for it.

It didn't say if the 2 nights were at the Crillon, or the Ritz.

But it did say when the package was read at home, that the offer was expiring the 31/10/2009
which means with the french system of stating the day before the month, that the offer had expired
at the end of October.

So here is a chance missed for the Ritz, or the Crillon, to be honored by the presence
of the special envoy of the Terroir-iste.
To celebrate this excellent choice, your scribe climbed the Rue Bonaparte and checked her little
favorite of favorite stores:













Then from across the street she could see her dahghter's favorite, YES, in Paris :






then a stop at the "Kiosque a Journaux " the little magazines booth,









Then through the Rue du Vieux Colombier the charming little red store: "Au parloir du Colombier" which means
"At the Nuns Parlor of the Dovecot" which is an antenna of "catholiques orthodoxes" or christian right.







And it is aptly located, to cool the over excited brains, next to " Les Pompiers"
the Fire Dept below:







Then to crown this all, I stopped at the ATM



where a little flyer was stuck which said :

" Le chomage, c'est la misere, le salariat c'est l'exploitation !"

Which resumes rather well the French attitude towards work, as it translates to :
" Unemployment is destitution, wages are exploitation !"





So I went on in direction of home and got some "marrons" ( chestnuts )
grilled and sold by a lovely man from Penjab,



and then I offered my Marrons to a group of lovely way too cute french 12 th graders who were smoking at the terrace of the next cafe,
and then before reaching home, it was so cold now that I had given up my Marrons,
so I walked through the Bon Marche to
recover some warmth and think how lovely, lovely life is,
even when it's cold, cold, cold




With all gratitude, and farewells,

flo chapgier
the terroir-iste special paris envoy