France for Food
FRANFOOD TRIP - 5/25-6/16/11 (23 days)
WEDNESDAY, 5/25/11: Phone rings for me at 6:20PM, saying the car is downstairs! Then he decides he's calling the wrong person. I had somehow thought I wasn't leaving HOME until something like 7:30, and now realize that the cab is ON THE WAY! WOLF down dinner while finishing up the few tasks on my do-list, and even then he rings before I'm totally ready, rinsing off my dish, shutting off the lights, dashing down to the car to put my bag into the trunk and look at my watch as we sit in traffic in front of the library and it's 7PM. To JFK check-in at 7:35, having made great time, and I give him the quoted $66 and he makes CLEAR he wants a tip, so at 15% I give him $75 cash and he's happy. Ken says I was silly not to tip in the first place. Check-in at 7:40 and the guy says he can try to get KEN a window seat upstairs, and DOES get him 61L, just behind me. He says it'll be quieter. Through security at 7:59; Ken eats; I sit and agitate about pathologically screaming kid at the next table. To lounge at 8:40 where I stare at the people, too numb to do anything else, and we're called at 9:37. Plane backs out at 10PM, the top twelve rows VERY narrow, and the two next to me are annoyed when I get to the john before we take off, seemingly only one john in the front just behind the pilots' cabin. 6:25 flight announced. Sit for a VERY long time; I leaf through the magazine, and we get off at last at 10:45PM. I ask for a tonic at 11:15 when dinner is served.
THURSDAY, 5/26/11: Change my watch to 5:20AM. Take ambien and valium, but then rather sudden and heavy turbulence keeps me awake, though I may sleep SOME. Raise shade to clouds and pink of sunrise at 8AM, only three hours to go, over halfway there. Finish my oat bar and am hungry for breakfast. At 8:10AM it's calm at last, bright pink and gray bands on horizon, solid clouds below. Weary of flight. Ah, BLUE sky above now. Wish I could get my TV up to see the map. Signal attendant, but no one pays attention until I raise the shade and the woman rushes up the aisle to demand I put it down. She raises my TV, and after many tries I finally get the flight map to work at 9:02. Watch silly Chiapas balloon trip, some music, but can't get my remote to play any games. Now it's 10AM, cabin lights on, and we're over South Ireland. Rural approach over farmlands, and land at 11:51AM. Passport stamped at 12:10PM and get bag at 12:20. Buy RER ticket at 12:44, Ken seeing us through in fine style. Train goes at 12:49, and to taxi at 1:47. To the hotel at 1:54, unpack, and to lunch at 2:25 at Au Lys d'Argent, small place like the one in which I first ate on Ile St. Louis: soup, quiche with salmon, and tart tatin to 3:25. Back to room to 3:45, getting two scoops of Berthillon salted caramel for 3.6€. Walk to Bayre Park, look at Tour d'Argent, and sit "to watch crowds" on a step at 5:20 when Ken goes to room, and get back at 6:20 when I'm too tired to sit to the planned 6:30. Some tourists are really dynamite! To Sens O for dinner at 8:20: big pizza, tomato and mozzarella salad, tonic, and GREAT tiramisu. Take stool softener; try working puzzle; eyes closing, so I get to bed 9:22PM, very tired.
FRIDAY, 5/27/11: 4:02AM: Wake, feeling that I'm close to one side of the bed, but put my hand out and find that I'm ALSO close to the OTHER side of the bed, and then realize I'm not home, but in a Paris hotel on a vacation with Ken. Take my Neo into the bathroom to record DREAMS:5/27/11 and start this file, looking down to see that I've peed partly on the floor, damn it! Throat slightly sore, but back not as sore as it had been through much of yesterday after the sleepless Air France flight. Finish this at 4:06AM, feeling surprisingly good, sleep-wise. Then wake at 9AM and feel ABSOLUTELY out of it! Lie paralyzed until 9:15, when Ken is in the bathroom, ending with his shaving, and I finally get up and write this just to DO something after putting on socks and underwear to just get MOVING, which does feel like an improvement. Down to a very full and leisurely breakfast of cold cuts, cheeses, a hard roll, croissants, an orange, black-grape juice and apple juice, a hard-boiled egg, and more cheeses, and up from breakfast at 10:25, exhausted. 11:30 Berthillon rhubarb and cherry ice for 3.6€. Walk around Ile St. Louis and cross bridge to stand in line for Notre Dame, totally jammed with people, not really very impressive, and back to the hotel 12:45-1:13 to the Musée d'Orsay via train 1 (Sully-Morand) at 1:30, Jiusseu at 1:37, and to Musée d'Orsay LINE, rather chilly, at 1:55-2:37, and then directly to Manet line 2:38-3:28---very tired already. Manet to 4:11, not the best artist, nor the best exhibit, the best next of kin, nor the best crowd. Buy nothing, then go to the Gustav Mahler exhibit on the second floor, listening to his Symphony no. 4 and looking at photographs of his scores, and across for Art Moderne when the two small towers that I wanted to revisit are closed for renovations. Look at an INCREDIBLE "Dante and Virgil," with two ravening-fighting nudes, by Bougereau, with four other totally homoerotic paintings by him, almost forgetting the GREAT lineup of van Goghs outside the Manet exhibit. Out at 5:28, to the Metro at 5:35, and to hotel at 6:23, Ken sending us one stop in the wrong direction. Out at 7PM to Les Fous d'Ile for Ken's poor tuna and my underdone fillets of pork, with a tonic that the waitress INSISTS she put gin into, adding 5€ to the bill, which we just have to pay, but I really don't think there WAS gin in it! Again try working on puzzle to 9:15, eyes closing again; pack by 9:45, and get to bed, smelly, at 9:50PM.
SATURDAY, 5/28/11: 2:10 pee and shit; dream, but don't remember it; hips sore. Alarm goes at 7:30AM, jolting me awake, Ken calling "Wakey, wakey." I recall dream of two couples exciting themselves to sensual and psychological unions to form a super race. 7:45AM Ken FINALLY vacates bathroom and I'm in to 7:53. Pay bill by 8:03, breakfast to 8:45, somewhat less than before, and taxi comes at 9:03, getting us to Paul's at 9:22. We tour his fancy "French" house and leave at 9:53 to drive to Giverny. Arrive in village at 10:57, park, and get on line at 11:09, into garden at 11:24, MUCH more blooming than I remember: many pictures, many people, many water lilies, underground passage, two blond kids that I want to photo, fences keeping out most of the sound of traffic from the nearby highways, and then into the house at 12:15, many poor reproductions decorating the walls, which still mostly display Japanese art. Out at 12:30 and walk up the road to Hotel La Musardiene at 12:45 for a good lunch of crepes, quite filling, pleasant under the clouds at the edge of the crowds, and leave at 1:30 to the Impressionists' Museum at 1:42. Bonnard leaves Paul and me cold; out at 2:04. Visit Monet's grave. Leave village at 2:53, back home at 3:50; drink on balcony to 4:20, and up to lie down to 6PM! Shower to 6:32, perilously slippery. Leave for Pré Catalan at 7PM, taxi driver doesn't know at first where to go, but we're there early, only one Japanese couple eating in our small side dining room. Start with a fabulous amuse-bouche of cream of white onion into which petit-pois soup is poured, and that's followed by fabulously rich truffled soup and pâté de foie gras. The rest of the menu is super, and they give me a copy to look at through our meal. I make my Kir Royale last to the final taste of quail, having spit out the head. Great meal! Get taxi outside, taking photos at 10:50, and home at 11:15, Paul tired. Bed at 11:47PM, pleasantly full.
SUNDAY, 5/29/11: Pee 3:14AM, up at 8:35, breakfast 9-10; Ken and Paul "going at it"---Paul tending toward "or-or-or," Ken insisting on "and-and-and." Walk around Ile de Jatte 10:30-11:15. Talk and look at his decor and souvenirs to 11:47. Leave at 12:02PM for free street parking at 12:20 to a Hotel Lancaster one-star lunch on what happens to be Mother's Day, with a special menu without wine. We're early; they make us wait until 12:40 to sit pleasantly outside while they serve us another amuse-bouche that includes just what Pré Catalan did: petit pois with onion foam. I get the menu, but everyone agrees it's not the best: even the special Troisgros sole under almonds isn't so good that I finish every last bit of it, but the butter-cream sauce is good, though it's rather plain with nothing else on the plate. Other courses are a bit "over-fussy," as Ken calls them. Paul regrets that it hasn't been that good the last three times, so maybe the chef is getting lazy and they'll lose their star. Out at 3:06, and at 3:46 off at Bagatelle, waiting on line in HOT sun to get in at 4PM and take lots of pictures of roses and diners below the ornate central pavilion; the place is loaded with people and peacocks. Paul is still feeling weak with his stomach problems, and I go up alone to take pictures of the massed roses in front of the central pergola. Leave at 5PM and race through the streets, taking some pictures of "Building A," which looks more like a billboard base than a large office building. Back at 5:20, drink water to 5:30, talk to Ken about people "interrupting" him to 6. Up to lie down at 6:08. Called down at 7:43 to Paul's wife's lemony chicken with olives and rice, which Paul has been subsisting on due to his intestinal difficulties, while Ken asks him for special prescriptions for his back pain. That lasts to 8:30. Ken goes upstairs to bed, while Paul and I watch a wonderful Mezzo program of Nureyev's choreography of Cinderella (very different, with a drunk father, personified hours, strange interpositions, with the only lovely crotches on what appears to be a "Four Seasons" set of variations). Don't get the names of the principals, but I probably can by Googling the 2007 Theater Garnier Nureyev production. We see acts I and II, and I'm tired enough to go upstairs (all two flights, which are getting tiring) at 10PM. Up to shit a bit and get to bed at 10:30PM.
MONDAY, 5/30/11: [2:55AM: "Take a point in space"---THIS one---in which to start (or, since I HAVE entered something, to continue) this journal.] Wake at 12:45AM to pee, after having gotten to bed at 10:30PM, and figure grimly that, for whatever reason (anxiety?) I'll be peeing every two hours tonight, and have some trouble getting back to sleep, and then DO pee again at 2:45AM and decide I MUST type this. Not the best feeling in the world: but moment by moment this trip, too, shall pass! Finish typing at 2:59AM, ready to try to get to sleep again, not having packed yet for our move later this morning from Paul's to our THIRD hotel in Paris this week, in the Marais. Pee again at 5:09AM. 6:55AM: Wake with a second DREAMS:5/30/11 and figure to get into my day, with a momentary difficulty in distinguishing the 6 from a 5 on my watch, making me wonder whether my FOURTH pee wasn't at 6:05AM rather than 5:05AM, only 20 minutes after my previous one. Anyway, decide now at 6:57AM that I have to start packing for the move! Get everything away easily, using the outside pouch for quite a volume of papers, and down at 7:48 to find we only have to leave between 9-9:30! Back up at 7:53 to wash face and take bag down. At 8AM we have breakfast and talk and get pain medications for Ken's back to 9AM, then sit awkwardly waiting for any responses to calls to TWO taxi services, one of which finally arrives at 9:40AM. To Hotel de la Bretonnerie at 10:35 after a trip through "tout Paris." Around corner to Hotel Soubise at 11:15-12, LOVELY, with Psyche on the ceiling in a room not as lovely as the new-gold glow of the room next to it. Odd collection of pistols and daggers from various "incidents," and war remnants and bloody ammunition from different riots and judiciary trials---all displayed in a room from which the rich tapestries have been removed and which is now just an empty, ill-lit hall. But the palace must have been very sumptuous. Back to hotel at 12:03PM to find our "suite" available, but it's awkward: a small bed downstairs with no storage, and a large bed upstairs (which Ken says he "must take" because it's next to the bathroom, which he uses so often at night), but it ALSO has little storage, and he complains to the courteous girl at the desk, who gives us the MUCH better one-level room #7 at 12:15 for 185€ in exchange for the prior "luxury" uselessness at 200€. And this is for five nights! Unpack to 12:37, lie tired on the bed to 12:51; out for lunch past the crowded, openly gay "Open" cafe and places next to it, and stop at La Comete for a Croque Madame for me and a club sandwich for Ken to 1:48. Down the block to the Jewish Museum (which Ken wants to see) at 2:09 (which is, as I determine, "too Jewish," with Torahs and paintings and models of synagogues and metal works connected with Torahs and artists old and new and gravestones and lots of documents of various Jewish celebrations and holidays, as if someone living in NYC wouldn't know all this already). Finish the Jewish part at 3:12, already too long for me, and in to see Chagall's Bible paintings and drawings, which rapidly gets just plain boring, partly because I'm so footsore and legweary. I sit from 3:51-4:05 while Ken shops and sees nothing he wants to buy, and we walk what seems to be a very long way back to the hotel at 4:20, exhausted. At 5:15 the phone rings with Paul cancelling tonight's dinner because he's still not well enough to eat so much. I start typing in the journal at 5:22, and we leave at 6:30 to go too slowly by subway to get to Le Bristol at 7:10, again getting a menu, with TWO amuse-bouches, maybe again a pea soup with cream around it, quite good, and I don't recognize the "floral pleasures" as the tasting menu, and Ken asks if he can't substitute the chef's special Poularde de Bresse for the main veal sweetbreads on the 250€ fixed-price tasting menu, and the waiter comes back to quote 50€, which Ken politely refuses, but then the Nixon-looking waiter returns to say that the chef WILL do it for NOTHING! Ken is ecstatic. We get many good courses, but Ken refuses to put this above Pré Catalan, even though the presentation is stunning of the over-volleyball-sized pig's bladder, which is then punctured to reveal the black-looking blue feet of the Poulet de Bresse (having the colors of the French flag, Ken says: the blue feet, the red crest, and the white feathers) which is cut into large pieces from which two SMALL perfect fillets are cut, with two accessory perfect pieces of breast, and put on a plate with things around, then the whole mass is buried under a wonderful sauce with foie gras as the base. After we're full, the waiter ominously asks us how we liked "the first part" of the Poulard, so we know we're getting more, and I figure it's the leg, which will be too much to eat, but it's only a quarter cut of leg MEAT cut into an over-salty, very fatty SOUP. Ken starts with one penis-shaped roll, but finds it so good he asks for a second, and I find the poppy-seed and sesame-seed rolls just delicious, too, taking much of the butter, but taking care to let my (better than Pré Catalan) Kir Royale last through the entire meal. Ken gets what he thinks may be a glass and a half of white wine, but is charged for two full glasses, and his 38€ red wine isn't that great a pour either, and when I ask for regular water with ice at the end because I'm thirsty, they seem to charge us 10€ for a bottle of Badoit, which Ken thinks we shouldn't be charged for, but we pay the whole 649€ bill on HIS card---not giving ME the chance for 2% back, which could be as much as $17! He doesn't take any cheese at all, I have four tastes, not liking the Winklesburg, or whatever the pinkish one is, but liking the Liverot for its pungency, and have two other soft ones. We're out at 10:45, finally seeing EVERY table in the beautifully wooded room filled at least once, many times with two men, and walk a long way to the subway and get back to the hotel at 11:27. I shower because I'm so sweaty---it really got HOT in the dining room---from 11:45-11:58 and get to bed at 12:01AM, having little trouble falling asleep on my doubled pillow.
TUESDAY, 5/31/11: Record HERE that I take a while to get to sleep, but sleep SOUNDLY to 6:10AM, light out already, put on shirt for warmth and go to pee and type DREAMS:5/31/11. 10:10AM: Ken wakes me, says his back is awful, even asking me, "What if I have to go home?" He insists I can't take a shower while he's using the toilet, so I sit and try to reconstruct the fabulous dinner at Le Bristol starting at 7:10PM and ending 10:45PM. Two amuse-bouches: an onion-cream and petit-pois mix just as at Pré Catalan, and another I forget. He's down to breakfast at 10:30; I shit, dress, and listen to disco. Cluny and Guimet are closed on Tuesday, as is St. Germain-en-Laye. Ken says that his guide says that Cluny IS open every day, so I leave at 11:45PM, take subway to Odeon, and when I can't find which way to go, I ask a woman who directs me THE WRONG WAY, which I take, and CONTINUALLY check, and CONTINUE to go the wrong way, until I actually reach the SEINE, which PROVES I've walked the wrong way FOR A HOUR. Enter Metro at 12:45 and ride to Cluny-Sorbonne (new to my map, so I get a NEW MAP for the Metro) at 1:01 and out to Cluny at 1:05 to find it's CLOSED on Tuesdays! Has been for YEARS! A sign on the locked door recommends the nearby Arab Institute as being open, and since there seems to be no nearby Metro stop, I CONTINUE walking, tired as I am, to 1:28. The collection is 6€, I'd seen the Zaha Hadid "flying saucer" in the courtyard when it was in Central Park, and I'm told the top restaurant is on 7. In to the collection at 1:33, taking a few pictures, but it's just not that interesting: ceramics mostly, some nicely carved wood, a few pieces of delicate embroidery and sewing---but it's much of the same old stuff. To the restaurant on the 9th floor at 2:07 to find that it's closed for a private party. Tell the poor door-woman that this has just been a TERRIBLE day for me! At least take some pictures from the terrace. Down to 1 at 2:20 to get the smallest meal for 14.5€: a petite assiette of hummus, tabbouleh, baba ghanoush, falafel in a ball, loubilia (green beans marinated to softness in something) and fateyea, whatever that was. Lots of pita (which I don't eat), and I ask for more ice for my tapwater drink. Feel sorry for myself as I sit, trying to think that part of my problem is feeling sorry for poor Ken, stuck with his sore back; and eat too much to 3:15, and back to the show and to see the rest, out at 3:46, tired, and onto first of THREE trains to Rambuteau, which I think might SEEM closer to the hotel than the boring walk from the Hotel de Ville stop, and get off train at 4:30, to the hotel at 4:45, and Ken's been in all day except to go out to get an apple to eat, and is feeling somewhat better, which he hopes will continue. He asks about calling Joigny this evening to reconfirm our reservation there on Saturday, gets the maid to change the towels (which she does for ONE before he reminds her that we're two), and I sit with my shoes off and feel tired, then lie down to feel MORE tired, and talk to 5:37, and then up to type this FINALLY up-to-date at 6:37, coincidentally JUST an hour, and when I MENTION Joigny it reminds Ken to call, which he says he would have forgotten otherwise. Happy to be caught up, have to rid my shoulder bag of assorted new papers, and I'm not really looking forward to a Thai dinner (for which he had to RESERVE for 7PM, just because Michelin said that they were busy). We get out to Suan Thai, their first customers in the 24-seat place at 7:05PM, and Ken orders an assorted appetizer, a calamari dish, and a carafe of wine, while I just have their flavored ribs with a bottle of Schweppes Indian Tonic, and the ribs are very tasty with their load of peppers, curries, and spices in little bits on the sides of six very meaty pieces, and he says this is at least worth its Michelin Guide mention, as opposed to the Fous d'Ile (which he didn't think was that good). He feels somewhat better walking, and we leave at 8PM for him to get directly into bed, reading his Mayle book on French cooking, and I finally finish first the crossword, difficult in the lower right corner until I finally get the word "judge" for "seat warmer," and then bumble through the doublecrostic for the solution to the origin of the term "clubs" in a playing-card deck by 9:24AM, Ken already, to my satisfaction, breathing deeply in a sleep that he said eluded him with increasing insomnia and reliance on sleep aids as he aged. I brush and floss my teeth, shit and piss, and then wash my feet with the shoe-cleaning cloth in the bidet to stop them from smelling, and get to bed at 10:03AM. Take a few minutes to fall asleep.
WEDNESDAY, 6/1/11: 1:38AM: Up at 1:24, pee and type DREAMS:6/1/11, blow my drippy nose, drink some water, and get back into bed. 7:52AM: Wake after ENDLESS indexing-editing dream, pee, type for a few moments before Ken walks into the bathroom saying "Good morning," not indicating that he wants the toilet, but I leave anyway, and type dream to 8:05AM. Paul calls on the dot of 8AM, I at first thinking it's Ken's alarm, but Ken answers the phone to fill in Paul about Le Bristol's chicken episode, his inactivity all yesterday, and last night's dinner, and refuses Paul's proposal of going to his place after Quai Branly and leaving for Astrance from there. He's shaving now at 8:09AM as I debate dressing and starting the day, still numbed from the ten hours' sleep. Breakfast 8:15-9:10, loving the fresh-squeezed orange juice, and read Where to 9:38. Read Scientific American to 10:07 and leave at 10:10 for Quai Branly, getting there for a 20€ ticket at 11:05, and taking #144 at 11:18 of a Sri Lankan exorcist, then a Mexican pantheon, then a Bolivian DEVIL at 11:31, and take a good shit after my constant farting through some of the exhibits. GREAT STUFF! Endless movies and shows and objects and displays and SOUNDS. Photo South African cave, Congo (5) masks, early 16th C. Benin ivory saltcellar, Yoruba hermaphrodite, Esu ritual (4) from Nigeria; Benin group from 16-17 C. Nigerian antelope horned mask; wall of Dogon masks. Toloy (3rd C. BCE) lived BEFORE Dogon. Sao figurine from Chad, 9-10 C. Jenné Jenno (Mali) to 2nd C. BC. 6 New Caledonia wood carvings; "The Prisoner" textile 5x8 feet, 1250-1500; Chimu, from North Peru. Diablado dance in Oruro, Bolivia. Devil and bear (lives in mountains and mediates between God and man). King Glele of Abomey, Benin, 1858-89, the 11th King of Abomey. To special-entry Dogon exhibit at 5:52! Pee and take photos of movie of special stilt-walking and high-mask dancing, concerned about getting back to hotel on time for dinner, and leave at 6:30, back to hotel at 7:10, and dress quickly and out of hotel at 7:32, leaving Ken in room because he told Paul he wouldn't be at Astrance! Ken gives me detailed directions as to my getting there: taking M1 to Franklin D. Roosevelt, then M9 toward Pont de Sevres to Trocadero, then to M6 toward Nation just one stop to Passy, which he shows me on his Frommer map is just down the street from where Avenue JFK changes to Avenue New York, and I go to it, turn left, and turn left again at Rue Beethoven to the restaurant. But there's a crowd on the platform at Trocadero when the clock says 19:59 and the "coming train" signal isn't working---nor is it working across the platform, where there's ANOTHER large group of people waiting---some having waited so long that they're sitting on the platform or leaning against the wall! A French announcement comes across, something about Charles de Gaulle/Etoile (the other end of this line), obviously about some problem, but no one leaves either platform, so I figure I'm going to be a little late. The same message is repeated three times, and still no one leaves, people still peering down the track to see if anything's coming. Finally the opposite platform applauds as a train, empty, pulls in---and continues through without stopping. More wait, while the clock clicks over to 20:15; what a pity I don't have a cell phone (and Paul's cell phone number) to tell him I'm on my way. Finally BOTH trains pull into the station, empty, at about 8:20, and I ride one stop and get off and climb the hill to what seems to me MUST be Avenue New York---but it isn't, and when I ask a woman about Avenue New York, she's never heard of it. Finally see a group of Japanese searching on a computer screen for which way to go, and I ask them if they can center the Passy station on the screen, and it's clear that I went the WRONG WAY, and can't go the EASY way because Rue Beethoven is shown as dead-ending BEFORE it gets to the street I could get to easily. Turns out the roads I'm looking for go along the RIVER, very narrow and sunken at this point. Walk down, through the station, and get to Astrance about 8:30, to a fairly empty place, where Paul says HE'D gotten mixed up with the location and only got there about five minutes before, managing to find a parking space just down the block. He immediately tells the waiter neither of us are drinking, so I don't even have a Kir Royale this evening, having to look at the little bar and see the sommelier CONSTANTLY pouring champagne into glasses. Informal group: only two Japanese men across the room wear ties, and who I at first thought were a couple of Japanese women to my right turn out to be a MAN and a woman, the man wearing flowery trousers! There's no menu at all, and when I ask if they can type something up for me, they say they can only send an e-mail---and it turns out I have no cards with me! Paul says he'll get the menu and forward it to me, but as far as I know he never gives them HIS e-mail address. We start with pea, again, and some frozen purple tart with fruit inside, and then a few more treats before a rather dry cod in a particular sauce, and then mackeral in another particular sauce. Paul had insisted he wanted his meat well-cooked, and when the veal comes out quite pink he's rather annoyed, and reminds them at the end, and, I think, as a result, we don't get duck as the final meat course but LAMB, which isn't that great, again with peas, and I try to make Paul think I like it but I really don't. Then at some point there's an eggshell filled with a wonderful jasmine-flavored drink, and I say it's wonderful, the waiter smiles, and returns with two more! GREAT! More desserts, and the small strawberries are so good they almost make us weep, and even Paul says they were the best part of the meal. We get very elaborate presentations, one of which I take a picture of, trying to get his red-white-and-blue cuff-button threads in, which he brags about getting in some New York discount shop for only $40. Three elegant couples sit upstairs in what Paul calls the VIP area, and a BIZARRE woman in a gypsy dress, heavy makeup, and a strange black topknot topped by a black feather comes in, and her man's wearing blue jeans under a pink jacket and open shirt. They're joined by a more traditional-looking couple. Paul can see them in the mirror and laughs at them constantly. We get the check, he asks to divide it, which they do, and then he leaves a 10€ note on the tray. We leave and he volunteers to drive me to the Hotel de Ville, since he can't go into our hotel section without getting stuck in the narrow streets. Traffic is pretty fierce, especially the way he drives, and he lets me out at the Hotel de Ville at midnight. I walk past the crowded cafes along Avenue des Archives, and the guy at the desk lets me get into the elevator before he walks upstairs to open the room-door for me. Ken's awake and we talk, even though he insists on taking one of Paul's pills despite the fact that he's already taken a sleeping pill, pooh-poohing Paul's caution not to take both at once, and I finally put in my earplugs at 12:32AM and fall asleep.
THURSDAY, 6/2/11: 7:55AM: Wake and lie a bit before getting up at 7:49AM to pee and type a fragment in DREAMS:6/2/11, and AGAIN Ken comes to roust me off the toilet at 7:56AM: why so MANY times JUST when I'm there? Back to bed, with just the slightest bit of a headache. Up, maybe read, have breakfast, leave at 11:15AM. Have to take three trains, since FDR station is closed for renovation, and into Guimet for 12.5€ at noon. To Lucknow special exhibit 12-12:55, some nice diamonds, old buildings in panoramic paintings and drawings, rather academic. Tired already. Maitreya Paradise 2nd C. Afghanistan; Song Buddha from 907; 15th C. Tibet dagger handle; Mahavajrabhairava from North China, 18th C., gold on black. #200 "Begram treasure," ivory, Afghanistan, 1st C. Hadda stupa from Tapa-Kalan, 4-5 C. Afghanistan. 4:10 to RC (ground floor) for Mehrgarh, Baluchistan, 7000BC; Mundigar, S. Afghanistan 4000-2500BC; Amri (2500-1900BC); then Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Nataraja, Tamil, 11th C. Then leave at 4:33, not able to wangle my way to storage to see the Angkor bronzes. Look at Buddhas and photos in their hundreds at "Pan-Buddhism Center" to 5:28, STANDING, garden closed. Home 6:10, TIRED! Quick subway to Le Meurice at 7:30, not ready for us yet, and get first seats for lots of unannounced appetizers, then finally the haughty headwaiter gives us a copy of the tasting menu, and Ken substitutes some kind of pea soup for my outrageous (and not that great) carrots three ways: steamed in a bag, shredded on spinach, and rolled in carrot-striped gelatin on a cucumber puree. Nothing is really wonderful, but some of the desserts are good, and they keep coming, even after they joke we'll have five---and then we have three more. Lots of picture taking, lots of remarks about the chef-designed trays of plastic, and Ken doesn't even finish his duck, giving the last part to me and letting me finish the sauce left on the table in a little pot. Out at 11PM after a long walk back to the john, and then cross the Rue du Rivoli to the Metro and home by 11:15. Finish Tribune puzzle by 12:28AM to digest, and bed at 12:30AM.
FRIDAY, 6/3/11: 6:04AM pee and type DREAMS:6/3/11. Ken wakes me at 9:20; I pee, he goes to breakfast and I just don't feel like eating, so I call operator: "Can I call the breakfast room?" "No." "Then I guess I have to go down myself to tell my friend I won't be joining him for breakfast." "No, I can do that." So she does. I start reading the first half of Mayle's French Lessons, and at 9:50AM Paul calls, and I tell him how much Ken thanks him for his consideration. I read to 11:47, Ken goes to the Cluny [enjoyed it very much], and I leave at 12:10 to find a seat in the shade at Open and have a Montagnarde Tartin with Robluchon, jambon, potate, tomate, and a large salad, with a Sprite, for 11.3€, and walk to Beaubourg (12€) at 1:06, getting to top of escalator at 1:29, taking pictures, looking at so-so Morillet neon exhibit to 1:54, Pierre and Gilles at 2:33 in the Indian exhibit, and the tinny "Ali Baba" of pots. Hijras to 3PM. Out of India 3:06. Level 5 at 3:15, taking pictures of Atelier de Andre Breton; Matta (in response to Duchamp's sexual "Bride")(1945); Bacon from 1957, L-R: Dyer (lover), Bacon, Lucian Freud; Dado "Grand Farm," his suicided lover Requichot (1959) "Painting" in 3D, and 4:28 to 4th floor. Dubuffet in 3D (1970). Room: Agam (Elysée Palace room from 1974); Seed cathedral (British 2010 Shanghai Expo) (217,300 seeds); and WTC-tower try. Out at 5:10 to Brancusi 1 at 5:16. Out at 5:25, TIRED. Hotel 5:35. Do puzzle, we talk about no dinner. Out to buy fruit: I an avocado, apple, and banana for 3.4€, back to eat them at 8:30. Ken INSISTS on going to bed at 9:05. I type for a bit, catching up on text for Wednesday, then stop, frustrated, at 9:40. Got to do SOMETHING when he wakes me up early. Now at 9:43 maybe shit? Shit a tiny bit, and bed at 10:05PM.
SATURDAY, 6/4/11: Pee 2:55AM. 4:11AM type file 6---"Insomnia Trivia"---to 4:23AM: Peed at 2:55AM, and 76 minutes later decide to type what went through my mind before I could get back to sleep. Counting days out and days before returning---goes without saying. Worrying about money---trivial. Determined to withdraw about $450, or 300€, from the ATM to satisfy Ken's fear that I won't have enough euros to pay for what has to be paid for in euros, despite what it may cost my HSBC account. So I'll have lots of dollars to RETURN to the bank when I get back to Brooklyn. Lack of alcohol has brought a lack of "blissful intoxication" after superb meals and treatment in 3-star establishments. Pity. Tired after museums because I'm older. Pity. Apologize to Ken and AGAIN praise his planning and my appreciation of it---and the weight of the documentation he provides for our itineraries. Fear of driving the car for the next 5-6 days---part of the cost of the trip. Fewer trips: that's the way it is. Thoughts of the website: if I travel less (and waste less time with Spider and Taipei), I'll have more time to devote to it---and living the rest of my life as pleasantly and entertainment-absorbingly as I can. Thankfully I have neither Ken's severe back problem (though I have osteoarthritic problems of my own) nor his bouts of diarrhea---though I might still have to resort to stool softener if I don't shit more. We're both tired---but then we're both demanding 40-year-old performance from years-beyond-that bodies. Interesting dinner last night of avocado, apple, and banana. Should I wear the neck-wallet to safeguard my cash or rely on my luck not to have my shoulder bag stolen? That's about it: now at 4:20AM pee and drink some water and rely on Actualism to get me back to sleep before I stay awake yet LONGER this transition-in-trip night. And don't forget memories of fabulous male faces and bodies that I'll want and never have a chance in the world of getting. Up at 8:51 when Paul calls and Ken wakes me to take the phone. Take Valium at 9:03AM and shower. Breakfast 10-10:30, making myself a rather substantial sandwich of butter, cheese, and ham, and taking a packet of toast and a yogurt for lunch. Packing before and after breakfast. Down to pay 969€ at 10:50, Ken in bathroom with a successful shit. Read Time magazine article on optimism. Into taxi 11:10AM, and to Hertz desk (assuming the desk serves GETTING cars in the midst of signs saying this area is for RETURNING cars) at 11:50. Ready by noon to slot 63, where our car is, by some error, two slots over; Ken buys a cold drink. Peugeot BK-672-LY has mileage 1560.6. Into car 12:12. Find signs to A104, but at 12:52 A/N104 signs TOTALLY vanish and Ken panics. We stop at a juice place on way BACK to Charles DeGaulle airport to see where we should GO at 1571.8 km, only 11 km into trip. At 2:34 we turn back on route A5, which is taking us, without any possible exit, all the way to Troyes. Ken pays toll, then demands that I make a U-turn on the road and go back the same way, where we finally find a turnoff, getting to Joigny at last at 3:55 (only four hours for a supposed two-hour trip), and TOMORROW'S itinerary is MUCH more complicated. Today is on small country roads, sometimes green on the map, rather than on rather sight-less superhighways. Some of the mountain-farmed slopes are attractive, and many of the tiny villages look on the verge of picturesque extinction. Ken reads me the following itinerary from today: Paris, interstate toward Troyes, almost getting there before turning around. Got off interstate at Villeneuve-l'Archeveque, backtracked to Sens, around it, to Joigny, along Yonne River. We park and get stuff out to room 215 on floor 3, and order drinks by the frog pond, I sitting in an unusual hammock-easy chair for two photos by Ken, spilling a small amount of my delicious iced Schweppes tonic. Drink to 4:45, when I change back to shoes and we walk to the bridge to see what the town looks like from there, and then double back to the park visible from our window, where there are orange-bodied ducks along with two other ordinary ducks, a few geese, and three swans a-swimming. Walk to 5:55, lie down for a bit, type 6:12-6:37, getting finally to this morning. Dress only in a shirt and trousers, carrying my jacket, and we both carry umbrellas because of the thick clouds from the south, which actually start dropping water as we park in front of the hotel and discover that the restaurant itself is across the street. In to find that they don't start serving food until 7:30, so Ken orders a special drink and I start my delicious Kir Royale, and then at 7:28 a family of seven with three KIDS comes in. I demand my drink be carried downstairs and we start eating. We're about the third party seated, the service is good, the first few courses go well until the family arrives, things slow down a bit, they present each of us with a menu of the degustation, and some things are good (the foie gras is ALWAYS heaven!) and some things are not so good (I don't eat most of my stringy ugly-tasting ray, though its accompanying soup is good), and one small part of the lamb four ways is fabulous. Then comes a tray of five desserts on a slab: a macaroon better than most, a square dish of grapefruit and cream that I finish Ken's portion of, a fantastic duo of tastes on a curved-handled spoon, a mooshy passion-fruit square, a glass of celery juice (why would anyone try to make celery juice?), and a good sorbet of something. Oh, I've forgotten the cheese course, which is introduced by a platter of walnuts, fruit compote, apricot pieces, and pitted prunes, all wonderful, with three cheeses each, Ken's Tete de Moin good, my stinky---in contrast to my mild---brie fabulous, and he can barely finish. Then come the berries, which I help him with, and then some chocolate bits, and a finale of banana: sorbet, slices interspersed with pineapple (a brilliant idea), and a dense cream with an almond-cookie top on a mushroom with banana-slice base. The kids actually rather behave at the table, NO one except Ken and two other men wear jackets, and some are VERY casual, causing Ken to frown in contempt. Eat until 10:30, drive back to hotel in the stopped rain to 10:40, sit a few minutes listening to the LOUD chorus of frogs from the lit pond behind the hotel, and then up to the room to undress, put my camera batteries on to charge (Ken successfully charges his shaver with my adapter), and type 10:57-11:26PM, happy to be caught up just as Ken goes to bed (and we just don't BOTHER to figure why "shutting off one of my lights prevents you from shutting off one of YOUR lights, until the hall light is shut off, which puts out---" and so on). He goes to bed and I say I'll be through in a while because I still want to digest. Off music from nearby, room warm and humid after the rain, but comfortable enough. Technically, I recorded we stopped eating at 10:30, but I don't feel "digested enough" at 11:29 to go to bed, so I might try reading more Mayle in the john while Ken sleeps, blessedly recovering nicely and looking forward to the rest of the trip, if it doesn't rain tomorrow, which the guy at Cote St-Jacques said the countryside needs badly. Brush teeth, pee, bed 11:44PM.
SUNDAY, 6/5/11: 4:45AM: Pee and type dream. Find that batteries have recharged already, surprisingly fast. Finish DREAMS:6/5/11 at 4:56AM, thirsty for a drink, yet still tired enough to hope to get back to sleep quickly. 9:20AM: Ken wakes me at what he says is 9:08, and I decide not to have breakfast, so he goes out and I get up and start typing second dream. Finish dream at 9:24 and replace earplugs to cut out the noise of the kids who seem to be living next door. Have come up with a GLORIOUS idea for packing: clothes into the suitcase, my shoulder bag with ONLY what I want to walk around with for the day---binoculars, umbrella, sunhat, camera, charged batteries, magazine to read in spare time, lunch sandwich when I buy it, and bottle of water. The REST---all the "stuff" and papers and spare instrumentation: pills, charger, lotions---goes into the large black bag, which I can just throw into the trunk of the car on leaving, and put away somewhere when I "unpack" at the next of a long line of one-night-stand hotels. Wonderful! Check with Ken that I CAN stop to get a lunch snack if I need one. Day is cloudy, but it doesn't look like imminent rain. May even feel like I might be able to shit. Looks like a good day approaching now at 9:27AM! Eat my yogurt from yesterday's lunch, and lighten the tightness in my dop kit by taking out seldom-used medications and adding "necessaries" like the plastic spoon, my shoehorn, the spare nail file, and my facemask. Put out the black plastic sack to contain all the smaller plastic bags with various items. Reorganize nicely to 10:10AM, Ken again "counting every moment" by asking if HE can pay while I finish packing---as if MY paying would take the most necessary three minutes left in his entire lifetime. Leave 10:26AM, starting km 1840. Get out of town and get lost a bit, but don't have to backtrack more than 4-5 minutes. Out at Vezelay at 11:45AM, having to pay 2€ for a parking space. Hard walk up the hill to the village, and then with hordes of people up to the Basilica de la Madeleine, where an 11AM Solemn Mass is still in process, and I capture some of the music and choir and an about-ten-piece orchestra with three archbishops present at what looks to be the investiture of a number of postulants as nuns or servants of God of some kind. The place is jammed, but we go down the aisles and I take pictures of a few of the noted capitals, though the internal tympanum has been cleaned almost to invisibility. Out of basilica at 12:32, and back through town the long way (I'm SURE we could have taken a shortcut, but Ken wouldn't hear of it), to car at 12:52. Then discover at 8.3 km out of town that when I was trying to get the Cruise Control to operate, I'd somehow zeroed the local mileage, so I have to coordinate the current 8.3 with the bottom full-kilometer reading of 007557. Along many curving roads, past vistas of forests, and through the Natural Park of Morvan and a bit of rain that starts my windshield-wipers automatically---as the lights come on automatically also---you just can't TELL with these modern cars! I keep looking for some place for lunch, as I hadn't had any breakfast except for the yogurt, and stop at a bar at 2:05PM to find they are only serving sit-down dinners. Later find a little Glaciere that serves sandwiches, and I order what turns out to be an IMMENSE tuna sandwich for 3.5€, and then notice ice cream and determine to get a double scoop of caramel salée, and when Ken orders one, I go halfway ballistic (which Ken described as a meltdown---I said that on a scale of 1-10 for my rage, that might have amounted to a 4) when he orders the same thing, so I have to settle for a boule of cerise sorbet, also at 1.6€, so the total bill is 7.45€, of which I have 5.50, and ask Ken for 2€ more, and of course he has to give her a 10€ bill, so he gets a pocketful of change. He also gives me 15€ as "change" from the hotel that inadvertently charged him for a 25€ bottle of wine rather than a 10€ breakfast, so they gave him 15€ in cash, which he gave ME to have more cash, so I had to have the bill stand on its head so I could understand it when I was balancing it. He castigates me for criticizing him IN PUBLIC, and threatens to tell me some damning remark Fred made to him about me many times, but then refuses to, since "It would violate my promise of secrecy to Fred." I fume, but remain silent. The sky turns clear, we go down many roads, some of which we have to turn back on, and finally get into Chagny at 4:50PM, at km 7653. Ken's itinerary for today: Joigny, bypassing Auxerre, at Cravant along the Yonne River, then Le Cure river, in the direction of Avallon, then to Vezelay for Cathedral stop; then south, passing through Bazoches, Lormes, around Chateau-Chinon, Parc Natural Regional du Morvan, in direction of Mont Beuvray, not going up, winding down to Chagny. Into room 2, have HIM park the car, partially unpack, catch up with this to 5:30, and put shoes back on for a short walk. Out at 5:35 to walk wrong, then right, way to Lameloise, and then Ken tries to find where he stayed here 30 years ago. We walk and walk and find nothing, yet I'm TERRIBLY tired from the walk. Back 6:24, no one at desk to ask about weather, and take AM pills at last at 6:30PM, and unpack my dop kit and pills and figure I've GOT to do that better. Read Sci Am while Ken showers to 6:50PM. Random thoughts at 7PM: Waiting to walk to Lameloise after a LONG day of driving, but only 104 km. We saw not much of anything, had a horrible argument, and saw lots of unremarkable hills, trees, farms, and village streets that, in ISOLATION, might be thrilling, but in grouping tend to be---well, boring. Now Ken's out, and I can go to my bathroom-furnishing. Leave for our 7:30 reservation at 7:28PM. Ask to sit in the salon for our aperitif, and Ken has his usual house champagne drink, and my 20€ Kir Royale is more expensive than that, but it certainly is VERY good and DOES last through the very long meal, which I concluded (at the end, at 160€---surely less than half some other 3-star meal, which was more than 320€ [excluding drinks, of course]) was SURELY better, pound for pound, than any other meal we've had. Ken was particularly praising of their prune (by which they mean plum, he said) preserves served with the cheeses, and they presented him with an elegant paper bag in which was a (I think) vacuum-sealed container of that very preserve! VERY impressive. His Crepe Suzette had little Grand Marnier burned off, but the crepe wasn't as good as some of the orange slices I finished when he couldn't finish them, as I finished almost all the mignardises, as well as his vanilla ice cream from the crepe, and---something else of his. Back stuffed at 10:50, drinking LOTS of water with my evening pills, and read New Yorker magazine from 11:05PM-12:07AM (loving lots of it, having finished Scientific American and giving it to Ken, saying he had to give it back to me so I could save articles from it), and then brushed my teeth after convincing him he could put on his bed light and find his way to the bathroom, shut the door, THEN put on the bathroom light (which, if left on, would absolutely blind me through my eyemask, since it was literally above my head). Then, at 12:20AM when I said I had a bit to type, he said he wasn't sleepy yet, and remained in the light while I finished this by 12:30AM, remembering to catch file 1 up-to-date---oh, this IS file 1! So much for my sanity.
MONDAY, 6/6/11: 12:20AM: Actually find myself asking Ken, "Did you use both the right and left face towels on the rack?" He thinks, quietly, and says, "I used the bath towel on the door, and the right-hand face towel, but I didn't touch the left-hand face towel." "So it just LOOKS as if it had been dislocated, but you didn't use it," I madly respond. "I guess so," he tentatively replies, and only when I USE the left-hand face towel to wipe my face after washing it do I remember that I used the left-hand face towel to wipe my washed face before leaving for the restaurant! I would NEVER confess that to Ken, however. HOW MAD IS THIS?? Finish typing at 12:31AM and to bed. Pee at 5:40AM, no dream. Wake, reluctantly, at 8:38AM; Ken goes into bathroom at 8:40, and I sleepily record DREAMS:6/6/11 at 8:46AM. Finish typing at 8:49, Ken industriously shaving in the bathroom, a dove cooing outside the window, and then footsteps shuffling past. I feel a slight need to shit and hope that I can, since I'm still feeling a bit constipated. Still sleepy, reluctant to start a new day, counting that I only have eleven get-out-of-beds left in the trip, already too long---and a strong smell of shit in the air, unfortunately. But time to get UP! 9:49AM: Good shit; wash face and guiltily use towel I'd forgotten I'd used before, yesterday; put in bridge; pack up one of my pill cases IN the dop kit, and I then have to unlock suitcase and remove dop kit to retrieve it before breakfast; telling these events to Ken prompts his "You should ask a full battery of neurological tests of your physician or your therapist to see how things are going and so that he can possibly suggest some kind of medication." Great! Satisfying breakfast of good cereal in the smallest cereal bowl in the world, two huge cups of hot chocolate (into which I pour the last drop of cold milk), and can't even finish a large croissant with butter and honey. Provide the matches to Ken as he goes into the bathroom as I finish with this at 9:52AM---ready, however tiredly, for the day. Pay and leave at 10:04AM, at km 7653. Ken's itinerary for today: Chagny, passing through Beaune, to Dijon, with many detours. There's a deviation going into Dijon that causes Ken no end of problems, not to mention that at one point he asks to find a gas station in which he can pee. We drive out of town for a bit, turn around and drive back in, get lost again, can't find ANYTHING, and finally a VERY sexy guy with a hairy chest that turns Ken on stops to reply to our questions about Place This and Place That, which we find, but then there are no names of the streets going OFF the Places. We go around some more, see arrows to Hotel Montigny THAT way, go DOWN that way to see NO Hotel Montigny, make an awkward and illegal (and, if I say so myself, SKILLED) U-turn and go to the OTHER end of the street, with the arrow to Hotel Montigny THAT way, but no hotel UP that way. I turn down a side street that seems the ONLY alternative to repeating our hopelessness, and end on a street where I call "Madame" to a passing woman who at first appears not to recognize "Rue Montigny," then recalls and tells us to turn left here, go to the end, turn right, then turn left again, laughing at the complexity of her directions. We do follow them, and AT LAST see that Rue Montigny is a small street AT AN ANGLE from the street on which we were searching, and Hotel Montigny is practically the only thing on it, and there's a problematic "Parking" sign before a closed gate, but right IN the hotel is a "Parking" with an opening that leads DIRECTLY to a parking space, which I take for "only" 7€/day. We check in for room 102, with two entry cards, at 12:06. Ken asks questions, we pick up a map that shows CLEARLY where we are, and then get to our small room at 12:15, air-conditioned and humid, and Ken goes down to find a place to buy a plastic box for his compote. I type this to my satisfaction to 12:30PM, hot. Ken buys box, in to museum 1:05, good pictures taken, shit at 2:18. Death mask of David, by his student Francois Rude, some relation of Sophia Rude, I bet. Antonin Merci: David, bronze in d'Orsay. Francois Rude: "Marius Mourning Carthage." Gerard Pascual: "Bicycle." Leave Museum 3:50, tickets to Tower 3:58. Ken leaves, I walk to St. Michel via exhibition hall "EFA" that used to be the Cathedral, taking a close-up of the nude over the former altar, then around the side to the entrance to the Rude Museum for an enormous replica of the statuary group on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, with a rehearsal of Lilith going on in the pits, which seemed part of the Greco-Roman ruins. Then to a group of people sitting out front of St. Michel, at first looking like homeless people, then clearly a group listening to a frowzy woman lecturing on the artistry of the facade. No door appears to be open, but I push on one inset old-wood panel and it opens into the rather colorless church, into which the group soon enters. I find a particularly ephebic St. Sebastian to take a photo of---again after 2-3 tries, as seems typical of such shots---and leave for the beginning of a few drops of rain. I follow the streets toward the tower, then raise the umbrella as it rains as I near Square St. Bernard, and it starts to pour just as I enter Hotel Montigny. Ken is in, asking, "Finished already?" and I say I hadn't even stopped at the Archaeological Museum, assuming it to be closed by 5PM. Back at 5:22. Finish the Osama-covered New Yorker and relay it to Ken; try blah TV to 6:10. Read Fisher until my eyes close about 6:45, and nap to 7:40, Ken telling me I was snoring up a storm for the past half-hour. I had no concept of doing so. Leave for DZ'Envies, for which Ken phones for an 8PM reservation, and we sit in the back, where I enjoy pork (with lots of fat that I cut off the sides) with a vegetable compote depressingly like an HH offering, while he has an enormous salad followed by 12 escargots, of which I am offered and eat two, and now all he has left on his desire-list are frogs' legs. Back from restaurant at 9:37, I perfectly comfortable in my black sweater, and I read Fisher in bed, in the cold, air-conditioned room, though it's much the same temperature as outside, I'm sure---but I guess much less humid. Bed at 10:54PM, after Ken turns out his light and bundles himself into his protective sleep position.
TUESDAY, 6/7/11: Pee at 2:06AM, again at 3:42, and type DREAMS:6/7/11. Pee at 6:50, and type Dream-Reality in file 6 to 7:07AM: It started as a dream in which I was working in an enormous Hollywood production company. I had a great idea about a new movie about a main character who lived in TWO realities; I tried to convince various lines of bosses that it could be the start of a new series that would make Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter look like trial balloons: it would involve an entirely new "thought-wave" technology that I knew one of the young technicians would have the brilliance to invent if I gave him the right idea for basic research in the right direction: "Whatever you think of, you can make come true." But as hard as I tried to convince my PRESENT authorities of its feasibility, the harder they resisted me: maybe they knew that another company was developing a similar technology and knew we would start too far behind (but I doubted it). Maybe they thought it was simply too grandiose and impossible (I also doubted that). I started by converting a co-worker who had a great sense of economic planning, who agreed with my vision and whom I thought of as heading a pyramid of "the practicals," as I headed the pyramid of "the leaders." I thought of the technician as the head of a pyramid of "the technicals," and thought I could start a flowchart of a combination of two-legged and three-legged pyramids that would rule and oversee a new company---and as I type, realize one of the "practicals" had to be an ultimate "fund–raiser," who would find ways of FINANCING the research, the preliminaries, the storyboards, and the basic plotlines of the first four or five movies based on The Child Who Invented a New Reality, which would be BOTH the plot of the movies AND the "earthing" of the new reality itself. I kept thinking of departments within the four or five I'd already thought of, like the physical factory for the production of the machines that would direct the thoughts toward physical reality, the filming medium that would be DIFFERENT in that it wasn't magnetic or electrical but THOUGHT-as-basis, the advertising necessary for a whole new industry, and other possible branches for which I would need an ACTUAL flowchart for integration and enumeration. So I decided I had to get up and type it out to retain the basis for future expansion---before I forgot the root dream-reality that was the basis for the entire edifice. Finish this at 7:05AM, as yet undisturbed by Ken wanting the bathroom, looking at my notes to see that I'd gone to bed at 10:54PM, so that basically 6:54AM, plus the few minutes for the pees at 2:06, 3:42, and 6:50, would come close enough to eight hours of sleep to make me feel rested enough to start the day at almost any time. Do an Actualism session, feeling quite good, to 7:40, when Ken comes out of the bathroom and I go in to shower, wonderfully, with lots of hot water heating up the room to comfort, to 8:03AM. Pack to 8:20 while Ken bathrooms, type to 8:30, and breakfast 8:35-9AM, when we go back to room and I catch up with this to 9:13AM, when Ken starts dictating our stops during the trip, as I requested this morning. Ken gives itineraries for previous days to 9:22AM. I pay the bill and we get out at 9:28 to the car. I back out of the space, turn around in the lot, and drive out to the street, around the Place, down a few known streets---and promptly reach an intersection where Ken simply throws up his hands and says he doesn't know what to do here. I choose the more likely way, and we go until we see a sign with which he can identify where we are and where we need to turn. [Ken gives me our itinerary at 4:37PM as I type this to catch up:] Dijon, finally do a bit on autoroute, and make a scenic U, heading south, west, then north, ending just a bit west of where we got off. [File 2 started 4:39AM 6/7/11.] Our first "find" is Urcy, then a one-lane road between highway 838 and Montculot, heading south toward Nuits-St-George, and then to Pont d'Ouche, along the Ouche River, part of the Canal de Bourgogne, and then back to the highway. Then Sombernon, Vitteaux, Precy s/Phil, to Saulieu after pausing for a HUGE yellow piece of factory equipment heading a multi-vehicle Convoi Exceptionelle that stalls us outside (and inside) Saulieu from 12:15-12:30, park temporarily in wheelchair parking at 12:33 in front of Hostillerie de Tour d'Auxois so that Ken can find an easier way to lug his bag up the many steps to the door, and he returns (having had trouble finding someone to ask at the desk) to say he's found an elevator off the parking lot in the back, where I take essentially the last conveniently available space at 12:41 at km 7861. To the desk at 12:45, but the room's not ready. I take out Fisher to read while Ken looks at a local magazine. At 12:53 they say the room will be ready in half an hour. Ken orders a Champagne aperitif with which he gets some snacks, so he says he won't want lunch. At 1:36 they say the room is ready, but when we get there we find the two beds haven't been split yet. I'm back to reading, getting hungry for lunch. Into the room at 1:45, unpack some things, and get out at 2PM, just too late getting to the creperie in front of the Cathedral at 2:07 where they say they're sorry, they've stopped serving. Ken motions to the ice cream freezer, so I get a good chocolate-covered ice cream for 3.5€ and eat it before we go into the church. Ken says at the start he doesn't want to spend anything on printed guides, but by the time I photo the kissing monsters, the golden archer, and the 2008 colorful organ, he buys an 8€ guide of the whole church that leads us to look at some other aspects, and we're out about 2:50. He wants to see the Loiseau Shop, but we get there at 2:58 to find it only opens at 3PM. To the restaurant to decide we want the lesser-priced tasting menu that starts with the frogs' legs that Ken's wanted, so we'll take that, we decide, and get back to the shop to find it open. I'm briefly tempted to spend 3€ on two cupcakes from the restaurant, but decide not to. Return to the hotel for me to look at the pool and briefly entertain the idea of taking a swim: I have my suit, it's warm enough, but the pool's small, I'd have to get from the room to the pool in my suit, and it just doesn't seem worth the effort. Back to the room at 3:20, shit a bit, and at 3:23 start sorting papers, putting things in separate bags until 4:05. I'll repeat this toward the end of the trip, hoping the newly apportioned bags will sit more placidly in the big black bag. Then distribute the rest of my pills to 4:30, and start catching up with this, asking Ken for the itinerary, and then getting into a LENGTHY discussion about whether or not to take time from Valence to visit Sebi and Luce (friends of Spartacus, who gave me their address), and after talking, considering, debating, almost arguing, I simply decide it's too much trouble for a definitely indefinite advantage, and we won't bother to do it. That takes to 5:20, when Ken shows me some more routing alternatives, and finally shuts off the too-cool air conditioning while I finish this at 5:24PM, having nothing to do but read before Restaurant Bernard Loiseau at 7PM. Read to 6:44PM. Over to Loiseau at 7:04, and out at 9:37, NOT happiest. Kid made me VERY annoyed at end, and Ken thought the primped, trimmed, and ribboned poodle was just TOO much, which was what I thought about the woman who carried her, and the man who carried the other lapdog. Left a lot of cheeses on the plate, and much of the too-chocolate dessert, which had an added taste that Ken didn't like at all. Rather than needing the special code to get back into the hotel after 10PM, we return at 9:40 after taking pictures of the memorial fountain which had been under the walls that were said to have been taken down only in the 1960s. Read Fisher to 10:58, stuffed, and get to bed at 11:03PM, leaving bright bathroom light on.
WEDNESDAY, 6/8/11: Pee at 5:40AM, sweaty from the duvet, so I take the sheet off and still seem to stay awake to 6:30, when I type the file 6 "THREE-STAR DISTINCTIONS" to 7AM: Thinking I'll NEVER be able to remember the distinctions among the final 12 three-star restaurants, I start characterizing them in my mind, then decide I have to WRITE THEM OUT: 1) Le Pré Catalan, still first on Ken's list, distinguished by the elegant room, the traffic jam waiting to serve the six in the private room behind us, the "jinx" table where three pairs moved out before one pair---the man with the scarf about his neck---stayed, and the seductive smile of the bread-giver, rolling his eyes as he waited with a huge silver salver before being admitted to the room behind us. The food WAS very good, the amuse-bouches and ending mignardises endless. 2) Le Bristol had the Poulet de Bresse in its pig's vessie, the elegant boisserie of the gilded decor, the Argentine man and Peruvian woman chatting with Ken to his left, and, I think, the smiling waiter who brought me another set of some amuse-bouche that I liked so much. 3) Astrance, with Paul, which Ken couldn't make, with its non-menu, its repeat of the wonderful jasmine beverage in the brown-eggshell container, and the ludicrous couple: she of the black hair bun surmounted by an operatic black feather, he of the blue jeans and pink-striped jacket under his long gray beard and white hair; and the Japanese couple, he who started as a she until he went to the john, flaunting his flowery trousers and waving coyly at me when I looked at him as he returned from his jaunt. And then the terminal disappointment of the veal-lamb pairing when Paul's insistence on well-cooked meat forced them NOT to serve us our final course of duck. 4) Le Meurice in the royal-looking dining room with the faded Bougereau-type painting on the far wall, with the sun setting over the park beyond the variable-curtain-draped windows, with the Matthew Broderick-type self-conscious chef-designed plastic-tray carrier, with the first "some of these aren't really that good" dishes. Here the disaster---for me, though Ken loved it---was the too-tart tomato and celery (?) soup as an amuse-bouche that I REALLY thought needed more sugar. 5) Joigny, with its across-the-river location, the surprise down-elevator in the again-surprise across-the-street location from the hotel we at first thought was the restaurant, but then really not getting a view of the river at all, only the rain-soaked garden outside my window, with the demi-old, demi-modern look that I photographed empty because it looked better that way, particularly before the central table of seven was taken with a seven-year-old well-behaved girl and a terror of a roaming, groaning, moaning four-year-old boy whose presence we couldn't fathom, but then he vanished halfway through the meal. 6) Chagny: Lameloise with its central-square location, its right-off-the-front-door dining room with the aged "Michelin critic" smiling and talking about his wife and daughter with the headwaiter, the regular waiter, and the cute bread-server cum sommelier who had the dearest smile yet, and, I insist, kept catching my eye to smile at ME, but again with the idea that some of the dishes, including ANOTHER too-tart-tomate amuse-bouche [and I lost the end of that idea]---which reminds me that the first four or five ALL started with petit pois (which Paul said was "The" cachet food this season) and cream amuses. 7) Saulieu, the start of the last half, so totally different from the small, red-padded Cote d'Or that Jean-Jacques and I were "stuck at" for two nights when his Porsche broke down and we had to sleep in it the first night, in the glass-enclosed pergola of ten or eleven or twelve tables, two of them still unfilled when the last pair of women took a third empty table in the far corner that we hadn't even seen to be counted---though ALL tables were filled in most of the places---so much for economic-stressed times. And this place memorable for Ken's felicitous description to the smiling-yet-still-aloof headwaiter: "Joigny, Chagny, et Ici." Here Ken's "frog-legs-at-last" weren't really that good (or that many, only five, where the photo showed HALF a plate with five placed, IMPLYING five more on the other half-plate), and fewer courses implied fewer amuse-bouches: the best was the first---a cold artichoke-leek soup that took away the sting of a REALLY MEDIOCRE threesome at the start: a flower atop something that had no taste, a very fishy crumb-encrusted ball in the center, and what one would have hoped was an unctuous morsel of foie gras turned into some kind of semi-juicy, semi-bloody beef tartare chunk that we'd been told, for no discernible reason, to eat in one bite---just to get it out of the way? And here, for the first time, my "very dark" Kir Royale was almost TOO sweet---and noted that ALL these Kir Royales were served in the "new shape" glass of Art Deco curve up to the widest point about an inch below the top, and then a tulip-curve-in to a narrower lip, which meant you really had to tip your head back to get the last drops from the wider reservoir an inch below the lip. And here, sadly, the final chicken strip seemed more MOLDED or PRESSED from chicken meat rather than having any of the TEXTURE that even the extraordinarily tender Poulet de Bresse had at Le Bristol. Though I must admit the truffle-peppered sauce was delicious---which brings up the fact that MOST of the breads are really either much the same, or not that great to start with, though the nutted and swirled breads served with the cheeses have been very good. Only Chagny, was it, had only ONE butter: all have one sweet and one salty, Bernard Loiseau choosing to have ONE in a sort of chimney crock that made taking slabs out of it slightly awkward. And I was TOTALLY pissed with the kid who was placed next to us, and Ken was annoyed with the two dogs with the OTHER two dogs. So now we're ready for number 8 tonight, and I can finish with this at 7AM, ready for more rest before another day of driving down Ken's scenic mazes. Also forgot my mostly uneaten cod in Meurice, I think, and the uneaten ray in---Joigny? At least I have the menus to check for that. 8) Georges Blanc, now, according to both of us, the best so far. Almost everything perfect, except for the underdone lamb, including Georges Blanc's willingness to write personal statements (in French on mine, in English on Ken's, amusingly) on his menus---and the waiter's willingness to take my request to add the dessert menu also, insisting we take TWO of them even though Ken didn't want his---all made it a wonderful evening, very filling yet not stuffed, and looking forward to 9) Pic, tonight. Up at 8:36 to add some things to file 6 that I noted, Ken making noises in the bathroom to which he STILL does not shut the door thoroughly, and I catch up with this to 8:46AM, hoping to shit. DO shit a bit, Ken INCESSANTLY clearing his throat, warning of coolness out. Breakfast at 9:05-9:34AM, a juicy but not-sweet orange, Special K (about which I originally thought, "Oh, good, Rice Krispies!"), and good hot chocolate, getting two full cups out of what looked like a 1.5-cup pot. Also had a very light roll, but still don't feel like pastry in the morning. Cool out; still taking black sweater in my shoulder bag. I feel vaguely full from my slight breakfast, sorry that I seem to have taken a GLASS jar with my noon yogurt in it; pity. Ken takes his suitcase down early, and I listen to birds outside now at 9:47AM, ready to leave for the second half of the days with the car. I pay the bill and take my stuff down a few minutes later, after he takes the key to the desk. We go down by way of the elevator and load up the trunk of the car, then I do a two-position maneuver in the incredibly small space, after opening the second of the two gates to the street, and exit to the right, turn right in front of the hotel, and almost immediately we're in the country. Lovely roads and hillsides, of which I take a few pictures just to show what it was like, and about 11:30 he asks me to find a gas station in which he can take a pee. We find one at 11:35, and decide to fill up the tank, since we're just a tad below a quarter full. Both the neighboring gas-filler and the station attendant assure us we can put gazoil in the tank, which is marked on the OUTSIDE "diesel or gazoil" but which is marked on the INSIDE ONLY "diesel." We fill up to 29 liters for 59.01€, of which I cheat Ken of a cent by entering it as 59€. Drive through more small towns [of which Ken will give me the itinerary when he comes off his high dudgeon caused by subsequent details, to be described below], and at 2:20, after passing the ANNEX to the hotel in which we're supposedly staying, (a 19 km drive from George Blanc in the too-expensive-to-stay-in Vonnas, which I will have to do to get TO and FROM the restaurant tonight), we stop at a restaurant so that Ken can get out and ask where the hotel is, and we're told where it is, in front of which I park at 2:20PM, and Ken looks and looks and can find no entrance open at all. I sit and read Fisher while he walks to the Information Office, thinking that possibly all the clients might have been transferred to the Annex. At 2:39 he returns, waving his arms in frustration, saying he's been given the CODE to open the door of the hotel, we have room 9, and the car can stay in its "minute arret" space for ONLY 90 minutes before it becomes illegal. He FIRST goes around the corner to the entrance to the hotel, to prove to himself that the code can at least get us IN, and it does, so I empty the car, lock it, and trundle around to the side, which we enter, and he finds a board from which he takes the key to room 9. We're up in the oddly decorated elevator to 2, as a guess, and find 9 right across from the elevator. Into the room to find---of course---one double bed! I lift the covers and find what SEEM to be two mattresses, and below that, under a SINGLE WIDE sheet, two discrete bed-supports. So I discard the pillows, upend the covers onto HIS bed, and get down to find that the mattress from MY bed that I upended onto HIS bed is CONNECTED to the mattress on his bed. I find the end of a zipper at the head, go to the foot to find the zipper-head itself INSIDE the folded-up double mattress, and unfold it to unzip it, which (thank God) DOES separate the two mattresses. Then the mattress has to be refolded, since BENEATH it is ONE double-sized sheet that ALSO has to be raised, baring the raw bed–bases, which can then be separated, with "base" sheet pushed under Ken's bed, the "top" mattress moved from Ken's bed to form MY mattress---and then I took the TOP sheet and folded it in half so that one half is my bottom sheet and the other half is my top sheet. Also now note that there is not only a blanket (which covered both beds), but also a coverlet, which can also be used as a blanket if Ken insists on turning the air conditioner on high---after he bounces around the room a bit wondering where he put the control ("Which I just had in my hand!"), which he finds on top of his suitcase and thus switches on the A/C, later changing the temperature when it isn't to his liking. He's waving his hands, saying he's in a terrible state, when I make it WORSE by insisting on handing him the key to the car, saying that HE will be getting the directions for parking it, so there's no need for ME to leave the room until we go to the restaurant. He protests, but I (perhaps unfairly) quote his saying DIRECTLY this morning, "It's so good to drive---and even better to be DRIVEN---through such wonderful countryside," and of course he also understands that I will be driving to the restaurant in the light (for our 7PM reservation, bringing up the tantalizing possibility that it might not be COMPLETELY dark by the time I have to drive BACK to our hotel. I start typing after unpacking my bathroom stuff---leaving the larger space by the tub for his stuff, since, without a shower, there's NO WAY I'm going to be using the tub in ANY form today---and hanging up my suit, deciding to wear my black sweater, since it's on the coolish side all day. Start typing at 3:03PM, not nearly finishing by 3:18, when he returns, still frazzled, saying we can park anywhere HERE (still don't know the name of the town we're IN) that's not marked in blue, which is limited to a 90-minute-with-tag-on-the-windshield period. The helpful woman in the Information Office also gave him the (simple, he insists) directions to the restaurant, and he also insists that, once we get there, there should be ABSOLUTLY NO PROBLEM parking. Thank goodness I'm restricted to one drink. I gently suggest he take a few steps back to find our situation TRULY hilarious, and make the best of what could have been a night of sleeping together (how AWFUL!). He even says it's possible they've already billed his credit card for the room, but then brings up the question of what we might do for breakfast. We chat about our situation to 3:27, when he insists he wants a bath, demanding that if he needs help getting in or out, I will help him. "I'll help with a HAND, yes, but not with a stretcher." I think he manages a slight smile. I then hear water running and---and at this very MOMENT in my typing, at 3:43, he calls from the bathroom, "I think I need your help." I go in to find him totally wet, sitting on the bottom of the tub, his feet dangling over the side without touching the floor, and trying to raise himself with his right hand on the roughly waist-high brick side of the tub, his left hand futilely pushing against the bottom of the tub without raising his bulk ABOVE it. I give him my hand in the fireman's grip, but he can't pull himself up. I suggest that if he bends forward slightly, his feet might touch the floor, which would help him, and he, by himself, leans forward enough so that his feet DO touch the floor, and with the help of the wooden frame of the sink on his left, and the brick waist-high wall on his right, manages to lift HIMSELF to his feet---unsteadily, to be sure---but when he does so he thanks me and I leave the room, closing the door behind me. Come out to finish this---and hear the elephantine sound of his body rubbing massively against the porcelain surfaces of the outside of the tub. This sound is repeated again and again as I type, and then I catch up to date at 3:49, ready for my yogurt, starting with the two FABULOUS tiny caramels saved from the final offering platter at Saulieu. 5:23PM: Finish M.F.K. Fisher's As They Were, published in 1983, having her, born in 1908, as still alive, then being 75, with her last writings dated 1980. Much of her writing is SO interesting, particularly her "angels" in Israfel and her odd mental state in Wind-Chill Factor. Ken INSISTS on reading to me at 5:28PM. Start reading New Yorker, and Ken wants to read me the itinerary at 6:11PM, then has a paroxysm of sneezing. Itinerary: Saulieu to Arnay-le-Duc, south to Autun, into part of Le Foret Planoise, pass Montcenis, through Blanzy, pass Mt. San Vincent, through St. Bonnet-de-Joux, to La Forche east on small roads to Mont, then through Clermain, Beaujeu, and Belleville, finally ending in Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne. Now at 6:28 we start dressing for Georges Blanc. It's km 8102 before we start driving. We leave at 6:40 and get to Vonnas, followed by a bus that CLEARLY is bound for Georges Blanc, so when we get to a central circle and have no idea where to go, stopping at the side, and Ken can't suggest anything, I follow the bus, which leads us to a large parking lot surrounded on all sides by elegant shops and a large facade labeled Restaurant Georges Blanc. We park at precisely 7PM, and get inside to be greeted by someone who leads us to a low-ceilinged lounge with dozens of chairs, a few tables, and maybe five people sitting and talking. But off to the side is a string of tables with pairs of chairs on a wooden boardwalk along a green-topped stream, and I suggest we sit there. Ken frowns and wants to say no, but I say, "Just try it; if you don't like it, we can move inside." We sit and he likes it. Birds feed from chimney tops, light changes on the various greens of the leaves on the trees along what is more likely a canal than a stream, and Ken as usual orders the house cocktail, which is quite berry-y and not as sweet as some of his others, and I have a dark Kir Royale as usual, which is, as usual, quite good. We sit until about 7:20 and get the menu, choosing the 210€ tasting, and Ken has the wit to substitute the classic dish of the house, the éclaté of homard, for the "other" lobster dish at the same price---also avoiding the carrots on the original dish. They don't carry Pellegrino, so the sommelier recommends "red Badoit," which I'd never heard of, which comes in a red bottle and which, Ken insists, has the same ping-y sparkle of Pellegrino; I don't agree, but there we are. Move inside to be the third couple to be seated, surprised by a dough-twist enclosing a strip of ham, and a millefeuille-type pastry---already placed on our bread plates---with a covered tureen of butter in the center of the table. We start with a spoon of chocolate on a thin chocolate syrup base, a ball of foie gras with caviar on top, and a crumb-coated salmon hunk, all of which are very good. At the start I REALLY wanted to say that I'd bet this was going to be the best meal so far, but I feared I would jinx us, or set up a negative emotion in Ken to deny what I said, so I said nothing. As dishes arrive, each is magnificent, and finally Ken admits that this is even better than Pré Catalan, his previously elected best-of-trip. The special lobster is DRENCHED in a tasty sauce that is mostly the richest butter, and I amaze myself by NOT sopping up every fatty drop of it. Ah, and Ken even swallows the raw oyster that comes with his special lobster as his first choice, while I have two enormous slabs of foie gras with two slices of special toast and something or other on the side that pales beside the foie. Oh, yes, there are a couple of special grapefruit items that I eat despite my statin-taking. A French couple sit across from us, the woman in a work dress, the man in a sport shirt with a sweater across his shoulders, and blue jeans. Ken expresses keen disappointment in them. The bread-handler knows the meaning of some words Ken doesn't know, and Pain Levain turns out to be Yeast Bread, or leavened bread, not Levin Bread. He knows that the mushrooms beside the chanterelles are girolles. He says there is no mustard in the lobster side, when I thought there was. The lamb is sadly undercooked, and I leave a bit of that. Ken has no cheese. I choose Bleu de Bresse, Brillat Savarin, and Tomm. We have only the one bottle of water, and when I just whisper to Ken that I wish I had a menu, the waiter put a menu behind Ken's chair. Then there's a second one there, and Georges Blanc comes out to the front room, then to the back room, and began SIGNING everyone's menu, even ASKING Ken, who dismisses the whole thing as juvenile, for HIS to be signed, and I take pictures of many aspects, including the grapefruit-mango-orange sorbet with a cock-slit at the tip. Ken REFUSES to be photographed with Georges Blanc, however. Ken says I have to go to the john to experience the lights turning on and off automatically, and I also note the racks of wine bottles. We're both full, the pre-desserts are wonderful with a vervain ice cream, another sorbet, and something else I wish I could remember. Leave at 10:30, get back to the hotel at 10:50 without any difficulty (with the car's wonderful brights and a moon), and to the room at 10:58 after finding out that the wooden ornaments all over the hotel commemorated "The Year of Zen." Undress, brush my teeth, and catch up with this after tearing apart the bed they actually put together for us after we tore the room apart, and Ken puts on the air conditioner in a way that I can ignore, and I type until 11:40, deciding it's more than an hour since I finished eating, and wearily turn out the lights and go to bed at 11:42PM. Hear Ken moving about for a while, but fall asleep well before midnight.
THURSDAY, 6/9/11: Wake with a sour feeling of reflux at the back of my throat. Pee 3:42AM and type DREAMS:6/9/11. Pee at 7:06, start Actualism because my mind is in a whirl about the good and bad things about this (and all other) trips, but I barely begin before I must doze off and Ken wakes me at 8:22AM. I shit good, dress by 9AM, and have a light breakfast of a roll and butter, a solid cube of dense apricot nectar, a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and two cups of Earl Grey tea with milk, which Ken says ALL the English do, which I didn't know. The cute clerk verifies that we don't have to pay a thing, and so we don't even have a receipt. I still feel stuffed from dinner, and not quite awake yet. I look at a brochure of 100 scenic trips in France and actually DON'T take a copy! At 9:54 Ken goes (VERY reluctantly) to the parking lot to get the car to bring around to the front of the hotel, where I sit in the sun contentedly in my short-sleeved shirt until he pulls into a distant place because he said the place near the hotel was too difficult to get into. Get into car and verify we're at km 8129 at our 10:04AM departure from Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne. Rather immediately go the wrong way and have to backtrack about ten kilometers to get to the correct route to A6 to Lyon, and sit behind a non-moving line at the entrance to what seems to be the only non-ticket-holding line, and then another booth opens, everyone races for it, and when Ken pays his 2.1€ for the toll, we can hear the frenzied shouts of argument from whoever is holding up the other line arguing passionately about something. Get onto the highway smoothly, and it's not too busy, at one point even with no traffic at all in the speediest lane, but I narrowly miss catastrophe when we enter a tunnel just outside Lyon and Ken INSISTS I change from the left lane to the right lane, so I put on my turn signal, look in the rear-view mirror to see nothing, and instantly a yellow car, with a driver looking astounded at me, appears from my blind spot---I REALLY could have crashed into him had he been a half-car-length behind---Ken doesn't react strongly, but I'm VERY shaken by how close I'd brought us to a collision. Out of the tunnel with relief, and onto a jammed road where we have to look for the Pont de Revolution, and I can barely identify the sign on a small post by the bridge itself before turning left into the exit, with no one opposing me, thankfully. Down a very narrow street to a right turn on the street where our hotel is, no other car on it but a delivery truck, and park in a small area obviously meant (as the hotel clerk says) for no more than 15 minutes' parking. Car is at km 8199 at 11:20AM. Ken has a VERY lengthy series of questions in his pretentiously accented, grammatically correct French about, first, possible parking lots, saying how much he dislikes subterranean ones, so he's given a "covered but not underground" location first, and the major underground one second; then he asks about laundry, and the clerk helpfully describes two places, speaking of the impossibility of getting anything ironed, and that he may have to stay with the laundry to get it done. I'd previously decided I didn't want to have ANY of my laundry done, since I'm actually "ahead" on wearing clean underwear and socks, and the weather has been helpful so far in not having us sweat, freeze, or recover from a downpour of rain (or hail, as was predicted a few days ago!). We get into room 308 at 11:33AM. He's astounded when I say I'm willing to sit in the room until he gets back, even if it's as long as two hours, but leaves without taking the key, which took the maid to show us how to insert it ALL the way, pull back a bit, and then turn it to the right. I decide to switch his bed away from the window because of the convenience to his NEW location of his luggage rack, the closet, and the bathroom, and the propinquity of the TV to MY bed. Unpack the minimal amount and turn on TV at 11:43 to flick through two series of channel numbers. I first stop at an American film (dubbed into French) of an elephant farm, but then switch to CNN on 15 or BBC on 20 (in the ATV series of numbers) to hear the not-very-special news: UAR is trying to figure what to do with Libya if Gadaffi (as they now spell it) is deposed; Pakistanis are killing other Pakistanis; the "Indian Picasso" dies at 95 after many years' exile in London; thousands are fleeing from Syria into Turkey to avoid being shot as traitors; and New York has had a hot spell, with temperatures up to 36 degrees Centigrade; otherwise it's just some Italian politico freed somewhere, some French-British agreement, Hillary Clinton going somewhere, and a lengthy praise of a touring Metropolitan Opera company opening La Boheme in Tokyo despite "radiation danger" that caused some of the singers to cancel, though other individual acts---Bieber (?) and some female---had already appeared there. Bored with it at 12:38, after Ken returns to report that he put his clothes into a washer and had to get back in 20 minutes, then had to put them into a dryer that took a euro for a ten-minute cycle, during which he had to wait to see if they were dry or if he had to insert another euro for another cycle. I note that the euro is worth $1.46 (as it seems to have been most of the time we've been here). Type 12:41-1:13 and decide to see what's on TV again, perfectly content when Ken makes some nearby dinner reservation for 7:30, saying he doesn't want a "regular" lunch, and will join him at his Michelin 3-star "tissue museum"---nicely conjunct with his laundry day. Raise the A/C temperature, as my feet are getting cold as I air them out on the bed while watching TV and typing. Itinerary: Chatillon-sur-Chalarone, to Lyon via A6, which we join at Villefranche-sur-Saone. We leave on walk through Place Bellecoeur to the funicular to the top of the hill, where we look into the Cathedral, walk down to the museum of Gallo-Roman remains and further down to old Lyon, taking photos of many courtyards and towers and streets, stopping for pizza to 4:37. 5:30 Cathedral St. Jean. To hotel DOOR at 6PM; he takes the key to 408 for room 308!; and we get in at 6:09. Bed exhausted to 6:29 and start reading New Yorker to 7:17, when we dress and leave for Ponts et Passerelles restaurant, his odd-colored chicken-liver pâté, my organ-crudded kidney and sweetbread casserole, and a decent cherry-cake-Chantilly dessert that Ken hates. Back to hotel 9:33, and start reading again until Ken gives me itinerary and begins talking of future travel details. I type while he talks endlessly about Valence and Nice and Monte Carlo, and detours for sightseeing on Friday, taking to 10:25PM---exhausting! Finish reading at 10:36 and bed at 10:45PM.