Not Your Father's Winter

See that?  That is not what this winter is like in Paris.  Of course not.  We left.

In fact the winter of 2011-2012 is the mildest in many years and on its way to beating all records.  The temperature has not reached freezing at all; even in the unusually warm winter of 2006-2007 the temperatures fell to -1º/-3ºC.  Weather this mild has not been recorded since the early 1970s.

Luckily we're quite happy here in the equally oddly warm Bay Area, where I've been swanning around in a T-shirt and cardigan.  I'd be royally p.o.'d if we had left a warm Parisian winter for a cold and dreary Berkeley sojourn.  Instead we're hanging out with equally lightly dressed friends and sitting outside enjoying global warming.

Here's where I'm sitting right now:

Well, no, I had to get up to take the picture, but you get the idea.  Sun and warmth and greenery outside the window.  Mmmm...

During these Berkeley sojourns we've always tried to take French lessons.  It's hard to really learn a language without being immersed in it.  When we're in Paris it's all around and speaking in English to each other, while not ideal, is not as bad as it is here, where all the world is speaking English and we have to go out of our way to listen to French TV or radio to work on comprehension.

So Gene and I have been trying, rather awkwardly, to speak French to each other recently.  Since speaking in French to anyone requires more concentrated effort than speaking English, you can imagine what stilted and repetitive conversations we're having when speaking to each other:  "Quoi?  Comment?  Qu'est-ce que tu m'as dis?"  There's a lot of repeating.

Our regular Berkeley French teacher has had serious health problems and is not available, so we've both signed up with the local Alliance Francaise for weekly French lessons and we're looking forward to a bit more fluency with each other.   We'll see how it goes, or as we should be saying to each other, on verra comment ça va aller.

Slip Sliding Along

There have been only a handful of days in the last month that have been anything but sunny and clear.  Our decision not to spend the winter in Paris has been vindicated in terms of weather, no question. Waking up to sunny skies rather than gray rain feels great.  And wearing a sweater rather than a heavy coat, muffler and gloves?  Priceless.

Our original thought in moving to Paris the first year was to see how it felt to live there all year round rather than the spring and fall visits we'd been making for years.  Californians to the core, now we know.  We're not big fans of cold, gray, rainy, snowy, slushy days.  Sometimes just being in Paris makes up for it though.

And sometimes the lack of bagels added to the weather tips us over the edge.  How I would kill to see a selection like this in Paris!

I'm kidding.  Bagels are great, but I don't actually feel the need to recreate Berkeley in Paris.  Perhaps Paris in Berkeley...now that would be a good thing.  Gerard Mulot croissants for breakfast...miam.  Although I was given a loaf of the best bread I've ever had last week, baked in the wood-burning pizza oven at Pizzaiolo in Oakland.  Not so bad as a croissant stand-in.  And the pizza if fabulous too.

Meanwhile, we are doing our usual cocooning.  We're spending much less time here going out and much more eating at home, reading, watching television.  It's a good version of life and a different one.
A pot of soup on the stove is just as nice if the sun is shining.

The holidays passed lightly over our heads, with a few parties, a few friends, a few relations; this year we had no feeling of Christmas overload, no annoying songs stuck in our heads, playing over and over.  We stayed out of stores, exchanged few gifts, just enjoyed the love and health we were lucky to have.  Gene had a long-scheduled surgery and has come out of it just fine.  We're happy.

Happy New Year

A bright and sparkling, happy and healthy 2012 to all of you.  Thanks for sticking with me for another year!

More Venice

A glimpse of painted ceiling in a restored palazzo at the anchorage of the Accademia Bridge.

Parking your boat seems a lot easier than parking your car in other cities.  I wonder if you need a permit?

Canals and streets are often the same width and the paved ways cross the watery ones.

Over the years this church portico has become squeezed by the encroaching buildings.

Pigeons perch everywhere there's an available surface.

Wellheads in the campos used to supply water to the locals.  Now they offer places to play or to sit. 

Kids after school climbing on a wellhead in Campo San Barnaba.

Just in case you thought you were heading in the right direction.

Sometimes all there is to do is stop in a caffé and watch the world go by.

Let's Go Back to Venice

Photographically, that is.  I've got quite a few photos from that gorgeous city that I'd like to share.

Let's start with some food from the Rialto market:

For the mathematically challenged, I suppose it's useful to be reminded that if five artichokes cost three euros, 10 will cost six euros.  Maybe it's me, but wouldn't it be a better sales tactic to offer six for five euros? Just asking...

This is clearly the season for gas-producing vegetables and in this market you know exactly where they come from; the growing area is identified on the signs.

Aren't these the most beautifully shaded pears you've ever seen?

And the mushrooms are huge and perfect, needing only some olive oil and garlic.

Not a lot of butchers in the area, but fishmongers galore and the fish too are identified as to their place of origin.

Some shellfish doesn't seem intuitively edible to me.  Wouldn't you have to be really hungry to think these razor clams were going to taste as good as they do as a sauce for pasta?

But crayfish look like there'd be a bite or two of good eating under those shells.

And once you open up the pretty scallop shell the meat is irresistible.

But come on, octopus?  Really?  Tasty, I grant you, but who first had the nerve to find out?

Holiday, Shmoliday, It's All Chow Mein to Me

photo courtesy of www.tablet,com

The playwright David Mamet drew this cartoon that's taken on a life of its own, popping up all over the net. 

When Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was asked during her confirmation hearing where she had been on Christmas Day she laughed and replied, "You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant."  It's an old joke based on a real tradition.

And then you go to a movie.

photo courtesy of Pony Jigger on Etsy

(link: http://www.etsy.com/listing/57599170/jewish-christmas-card-chinese-food-and-a-movie)

And for those of you who do celebrate in a different tradition, Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noël!

 photo courtesy www.crazyauntperl.com

 

Playing Catch Up

We're finally in our own Berkeley home after five months, after some rather luxurious, if unplanned, couch-surfing at relatives and friends homes since mid-August.  Our actual Paris stay lasted only two months of the time, much shorter than our typical sojourn. It seems like we've been away forever.
 

On our arrival in the Bay Area we spent a week at my sister and brother-in-law's house until our tenants skedaddled and we were able to move home.  Pleasant as it was to wake in the morning and share a cup of coffee with my much-missed sister, we couldn't wait to get home, take a bath in our huge tub (we don't have one in our Paris life) and get into our very own bed.  Ahhhhh.....

The skies are blue and the sun shining, the temperature cool by Berkeley standards but mild by ours now. We have been seeing friends for meals at our favorite restaurants and flicking through television channels trying to find anything interesting, with little luck.  Feels like old times.

My multi-talented friend Paulette Traverso had a show of her artwork this month at Jimmie Gallery in Berkeley.  I had heard about what she was doing but hadn't seen any of the work until last week.

Old portrait photographs are the base for meditations in ink and etching knife and are shown mounted on antique photo pullers.  Paulette comes to "know" the people in the photos and her work seems to be an expression of connection between herself and them.