" a place to stay "

sunday, march 23,  2 a.m.


Being on the eve of going rusticating down in the south west of france for  a few days, looking for new adventures, the Reporter yesterday decided to have a look at possible Parisian places where she might stay on her next trip to france,  the land of the Polite.

As a matter of fact,  the Reporter has some pretty nice idea of the type of place she would like to own in, or around Paris.

Do not shiver, Reader,  some of the suburbia around Paris is in fact quite charming, and any Parisian would tell you,  "  La, il y a du bon air. "   which really simply means "  There, there is some nicer fresh air", since so much of the press lately has blatantly lied about Paris air quality talking about thin particles and unhealthy haze.  " Balderdash" would tell you any Parisian, except they don't speak that good of an english, so they will just say something like " foutaise"  which is a word you should never use, and means something like " crap " but since it is in french it is more elegant, still you should really not use that  foutaise.

So the Reporter did have something in mind like that,

a small simple house,  surrounded by a little greenery,
so she showed that to the Broker, but then looking more closely,

the Reporter noticed that there was a lot of dogs, and the inside yard of the cute house had in fact a well to pull up pails of water, and  < gasp >   dirt ground and no gravel.

So she took back her photo and threw it away,  and said to the Broker that it was a little  too much rustication for her.  Except that it was not really a photo but a seventeenth century small but rigid painting,  and try to throw that away in one of the "poubelles" [ garbage can ] of a Parisian street.

So she explained that all she wanted was just some sort of well kept back yard, like this

with some tall trees,  may be a pond  like that one,
or like this one,

a bit of columns like that, for her daily walking meditation

and a bit of french windows and a tree turning orange in the Fall
and the Broker was horrified and exclaimed " Mais c'est Versailles et ca n'est pas a vendre du tout !"
 which roughly, simply, means " But it is Versailles and it is not for sale at all."

Which the Reporter thought was a pretty rude answer, for once, coming from the french.

And also, did you notice how much the french start a sentence with " But it is..." but I digress.

Of course the Reporter didn't want to buy Versailles, which is a very windy place with fireplaces not all of them working, she just wanted a small something like that.

Then, the Reporter who shows always great equanimity in all situations invited the Broker to have a little salad of  "  lamelles tièdes de pommes de terre a l'huile de truffes et au sel de Guerande"  which only means " slices of warm potatoes with bits of truffle oil and coarse grey salt ".  And the Broker's high ventilating mood evaporated.
Then it was a return to the little favorite public garden, "  Le Jardin de Catherine Labouree "  which is right next to the nuns convents who eat religiously their " religieuses,"  

 and where you can find a small painted poster which says : "  Pelouse au repos hivernal du 15/10 au 15/04"

 That roughly means " Lawn in winter rest from the 15/10 to the 15/04"   and I know what you feel, dear Reader,  they switched dates and  got them all wrong, it should be 15/04 to 15/10,  except we do not have a 15th month, and one more time,  this is the exquisite complexity of the french who put the  day before the month.

So it does mean from the 15th of September to the 15th of April.  There is  something comforting that the winter rest for the  pelouses in france is between those dates. Winter rest is of primary importance in france. The french don't mind a little winter rest themselves from all their occupations and affairs.

Then the Reporter slipped into a dress to try to look elegant,  and she went to one of these decadent " soirees "  [ evening parties ]  that the french love. That one was overlooking  Place de la Concorde
[ The Concorde Plaza ]  and had lots of soft lights and moldings,

with people who are very polite and squeeze you a bit when you get to the "  buffet"  which is roughly and simply a "buffet dinner"  and where you can observe how delicately and elegantly the french can drink large quantities of champagne while talking enthusiastically of how the stock has dropped two points.


Then they repast to the balcony under  "  la  colonnade "   [ the colonnade ]  to talk about private life, philosophy and ski shoes.

Then they look at the view :

Then because sometimes people with the Reporter are still hungry, because they forgot to get close to  le buffet, and they know that even at midnight they can get some more food to maintain their weight, the french go to Lipp, the brasserie,

and then it is about 2 am and they go to bed.


With all Love,

the Frog