P.S....

HO HO HO!!

christmas day vertigo

christmas 2005, back when it was still open air! we didn't ride this one...

this year santa came through, and how! as anticipated, our day revolved around eating, and as we perhaps should have anticipated - given my track record - around saving one or two botched recipes: i forgot the vanilla extract for the cookies, and worse, i forgot to sauté the onions and rosemary for the sausage (which was really only half my problem - try finding jimmy dean's in france! i ended up buying a lump of sausage "flesh" and going from there). we managed to eat very well, despite the minor glitches, which just goes to show what an art form cooking is...

the real highlight of the day, however, was the trip to the tuileries, where santa got over his vertigo and what appeared to be a very strong urge to barf, and took me for a ride on the ferris wheel! it turns out paris recently replaced the old gondola-style cars with fully enclosed pods  - a real plus in the 35-degree weather. brr!

and look! you can hardly tell he's hyperventilating.

 napoleon's tomb in the distance

we'd just seen "the birds" a few nights before... i almost peed my pants when they took flight but this little one was completely unfazed.

christmas dinner - no, knox is neither saying grace nor thanking the lord for solid ground. he's asking me to stop taking pictures of our food (all blurry, of course) and eat.

happy holidays!

our "tree" - we "hung" our tin foil star with tape

hope everyone has a happy holiday season. knox and i are planning to cook up a bunch of food - cherry chocolate chip cookies, french toast, sausage with rosemary and mustard, pork tenderloin with onion and apples, party potatoes... - and go for walks in between meals! i asked santa for a ride on the tuileries ferris wheel this year, which is definitely NOT santa's idea of a good time... but i think i've been pretty good this year, so fingers crossed.

IMEC

since one of the perks of my fellowship this year is funded research travel, i decided about a month ago to head over to caen, on the normandy coast, and spend a few days in the archives of IMEC (Institut Mémoires de l'édition contemporaine). the archives are located in the abbaye d'ardenne, which was established in the 12th century, nearly annihilated during world war II, and reopened as a site for research in art and literature in 1988.    

the archives and reading room are housed in the old cathedral

a view of the courtyard in front of the cathedral

the entrance and administrative offices

as a researcher, you can stay onsite for 40 euros a night, which includes a ride to and from the train station as well as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. the rooms and cafeteria are located in the old barn and are both very comfortable. and when i say cafeteria, what i mean is ONSITE CHEF - duck, pork tenderloin, the most marvelous lentil and ham salad i've ever eaten, wine at lunch! (not ideal in a research scenario, but who can resist?), five kinds of cheese, pear tartes... all enjoyed with literature geeks from around the world... i didn't find any smoking-gun-type documents in the archives, nothing that is going to make my dissertation blow minds or anything, but it was such an enjoyable experience i don't care. in fact, knox and i are thinking of going back in the spring - a little lovers/geeks retreat, if you will. 

luuuuke, remember the force...

la bibliothèque nationale de france, where all the magic happens (view of east entrance stacks; there are two more on the west side)

the entrance: when it snows, everyone brings trash can lids or card board sleds - it's fun!

the stacks, west entrance (story goes that they built them in glass, then realized that the sun was going to bake all the rare texts they own and added the wooden panels)

weekdays, when we're not at home, snuggled on our great big red corduroy sofa drinking tea and watching 'office' reruns, knox and i can usually be found at the french national library. this is where, on december 1, 2008, i wrote the first word of my dissertation (i believe it was "Whereas" but i'd have to check. since then i've only managed to turn that word into 10-15 pages or so, but given that it took 2 full months of sitting here - reading and fretting and reading some more - to work up the courage, i'd say i'm doin' all right).

anyway, this is our office, aka "the death star." it's the french empire's ultimate weapon against american grad students completing their research! first of all, a study in wood, steel, and glass, it's not one of paris's most attractive sites. to get there, you have to climb maybe 75 or so wooden steps and traverse what the architects certainly couldn't have meant to be a roaring wind tunnel. then you get to the ramp, which when raining, is not for the faint of heart. once you're inside, you have to get past two metal detectors, three turn styles, and a handful of storm troopers... you transfer your belongings to the transparent briefcase they provide, then descend two sets of escalators into the bowels of the building, where the reading rooms are. if you haven't broken a sweat by the time you get to your seat (which you must reserve in advance), they make you go back outside and start over.

without bosses checking in on us, it's true that we often can't be bothered to turn up, particularly when it's raining. and since i generally refuse to rise before the sun, which now means we're not getting out of bed till 9:15 at the earliest, we're never at work before noon. BUT, once seated, we can usually work up a good groove till around 7pm, when we head home for dinner and a glass of vin rouge. it's actually a really great place to work.

i am thinking, though, that if i can tap into the force while i'm here, i'm going to blow it up before we leave.

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knox at the hôtel de ville

"i love my neighborhood - i pick up"

a little something i'm proud of... if you count my study abroad in aix-en-provence in 1997 and our last sojourn here in 2006-7, i think you'll agree that i've spent a good chunk of time in france. and in all that time, i've not once stepped in or slid through dog poop. "huh?!" you're saying, but this is actually pretty impressive. as anyone who's ever spent even an afternoon in paris can attest, the sidewalks here are littered with dog poop. in the past, i think the french were proud of the poop. or perhaps they considered it as unimportant as nudity on television or the president's sex life, issues that rattle some on american soil, but not here. but i think times are a-changing. not about the sex – no, you're still more likely to see a woman's breasts in a yogurt commercial than the yogurt itself, and i've lost count of all the perfect little bums i've seen plastered in metro stations and bus stops selling one thing or another – but it seems as though the french might just be ready to embrace the idea of poop-scooping:

you see this sign posted all over the place. this one is right around the corner from our apartment, in fact. the translation is "i love my neighborhood, i pick up." the "poop" part is only implied in the structure of the sentence, but the picture more than compensates for any grammatical ambiguity – we're clearly not talking here about weeds or lost children or wandering porn stars, as may be the case in amarillo. speaking of texas, it almost reminds me of the very successful, if sometimes *misunderstood, anti-litter campaign back in the lone star state.

it's all about tapping into the parisians' pride in their neighborhoods and in their city, right? it works in texas, it could work here! it could, but so far, it hasn't. while i have seen some diligent locals following pouffé the family poodle around with plastic bags, the sidewalks don't lie. i have noticed some guilty looks from the person standing there feigning interest in a book store window or intently examining a torn hem or a broken heel while their beloved pooch does his thing. what really impresses me, though, is the creative résitance some neighbors have shown to the pressure to ramasse – hoisting bruno the bichon frisé onto a garden wall, dragging ti-ti the terrier under a park bench, or very simply, taking to the street. for just as i snapped this picture and began to ponder the potential of a poop-free paris, i turned around to see a woman lead her little dog into the middle of the street – oncoming traffic be damned, tires with deep tread beware – and boldly stand there while the dog... well, you get the idea.

so, though progress has been made, it's clearly still not safe to wear flip flops or look up when walking.

* i met a guy once in minneapolis, who, after learning i was from texas and asking if i was a skinhead, said he thought "don't mess with texas" was some kind of pro-gun, "don't come to texas or we'll blow you away with our shotguns" message. how do you continue a conversation with someone like that? hint: you don't.

firetown update

just thought i'd post a quick update on the sylmar fire, in case you were sitting there fretting about the fate of knox's wedding suit or my grandfather's eames era clock: the keep-it-safe storage facility has reported major damage to its landscaping. it's all toast now. but apparently though the fire came and licked at the door, it left the structure untouched. whew! when we asked about smoke damage, the employee responded that they would indeed be replacing all the filters in the building. ...which doesn't actually answer the question, but never mind. we've decided to give it a week and call again to see if any of our "neighbors" have reported any damage. we'll take it from there.

thank you, lucky stars.

what is wrong with california??

cribbed this shot from the net

like clockwork, southern california is ablaze this weekend, and in particular, the small community of sylmar, ca. sylmar, which is located in the san fernando valley, has a long history of olive growing thanks to father iballa at the mission san fernando rey de espana, who at some point in the early 19th century introduced spanish olive seedlings to the region. interesting, no? it is also known for having a climate ideal for healing respiratory ailments, though sadly, not for supporting medical centers associated with these ailments: what is now the olive view-ucla medical center, for example, essentially began in the 20s as a tuberculosis center (which was destroyed in a 1962 fire) then had a brief stint as a different medical center (which was razed by an earthquake in 1971, a mere month after construction). wow...

but most recently, sylmar, ca. has become home to an entire apartment's worth of our stuff. yep, to save a few bucks, knox and i chose to store our wedding loot, guitar collection, viet nam photos, grand dad's bar ware, and portrait of bob (books, clothes, and a craigslist sofa too, but whatever) at the "keep-it-safe" storage facility on foothill boulevard, at the junction of the 5 and the 210, in what we now refer to as "fire town". 

if you click on the link above, it will take you to a satellite map of sylmar. you see that big red, purple area dotted with flames? keep-it-safe is across the street. not kidding.

those two big, red lines that cross right under the blue area (which means evacuation!!) are the 5 and the 210. that's us. the mobile home community just down the street is already gone. GONE. so, in addition to feeling awful for the 500 families who just lost their homes and working on detaching ourselves from all things material so that we might lead a more enlightened, freer existence, we are FREAKING OUT over here. fingers crossed, y'all. this does not look good.

yes we did...

...we stayed up all night watching the election results roll in. i haven't been up all night since... good lord, i don't know if i've ever seen the sun come up (still haven't, as it turns out, since these days it doesn't rise here before 8:00 a.m.). obama finished his victory speech at around 6:30 a.m. our time, and after reflecting momentarily on how somber and determined he seemed, we finally turned in. 

8:30 p.m. - we started our (blurry) appetizer course. at 10 p.m., we dug into the homemade mac&cheese (with shredded comté, tomatoes, onion, and lardon - this was a night of straight-up comfort food), which fueled the second part of the evening. sadly, the pics were even blurrier than this one. it was delicious, though, and got us through a good couple hours of pundit-watching.

11:45 p.m. - hy vong is "hope" in vietnamese, which is interesting, because "change" is actually  mi cang...

 

1:30ish - election headquarters chez barnes/peden 

2:45 a.m. - mr. peacock meets mr. chocolate cake. one of these two didn't make it through the night...

5:00 a.m. - announcement of president elect barack obama. the joy we felt was only slightly dampened by our delirium. seriously, i was hurting at this point. it was really incredible, though, and totally worth the three days it took to get over. as they say here in france, "vive obama!"  

The Bob Chronicles: Episode 1, Living in a Swing State

Greetings family and friends, this is your old sweet pal Bob. I am writing you today from the sunny perch of Janet’s front room in Denver. No one told this California kitty that the weather would be so cold here in Colorado—I might ask my roomie to get me some leg warmers to make it through the winter months! Today I am enjoying respite from the winter chill with a sunny afternoon that the weather-man commented would be at least 70 degrees. I think I might be getting a sunburn.

I write today to report on my new adventures in the swing state of Colorado. Many of you know that most of my life has been spent on the Left Coast or in the yellow dog Republican capital of Dallas, but this place called Colorado is really different from either of those homesteads. While Janet is away at work I have been recruited by both parties to make cold calls to all the neighborhood cats on the North side---my little paws can’t really dial, but I’m trying to do my best. To be quite honest, I haven’t heard either McCain or Obama speak about pressing cat issues in a single debate.

Last weekend Janet returned from an Obama rally where nearly 100,000 people turned out to see the action. The pictures of all of those Obama supporters really blew my tiny kitty brain. I’m not sure, but if Denver has anything to do with this election, I believe this state is taking a turn for the blue.

About a week ago my kitty nose got stopped up and I was doing a terrible amount of sneezing. Turns out I did some Google research and Siamese mixes are extra sensitive because of the size and shape of their sniffers. Why do I share this information with you, you might ask---it’s because I just found out that I have super sensitive sniffer and I need you to know as this election nears---Bob smells change in the air. A change that we can all believe in.

Signing off from Denver, Colorado. Hugs and Purrs to all.

Bob (and ghost writer, Janet Lopez)

language gaffes, part "le meltdown"

well, i guess it was only a matter of time before i started in on the french way of doing things, that certain je ne sais quoi that makes you just want to stay in bed eating nutella with a spoon and watching reruns of "friends" dubbed in french... it's sort of like waking up to find yourself in a kafka novel or, worse still, a beckett play: no longer a client at the internet store or a foreign resident seeking legal immigration papers, you become hopeless characters, forced to repeat mindless activities and use language void of meaning in a world that is as absurdly amusing as it is profoundly pessimistic.

case in point: it is nearly impossible to open a bank account without official proof of your residence. a simple phone bill will do. but as it turns out, you can't get your phone set up until you've opened a bank account. riddle me that, friends.

the infuriating, brain-melting, and marriage-testing experience for K and LB came not at the bank or with the phone company, but in trying to set up their internet service. i'll spare all the dirty details about the hours spent waiting for, watching the antics of, and cleaning up after the company's technicians; i'll also forego details on the service clientèle, encounters with which nearly saw ol' LB lose her merde. instead, i'll get right to the climax: after being told a third time to patienter (her words said "bear with us" but her tone was all "hold your horses, lady") just another 24 hours before the network would surely connect but discovering after a long day at the library that there was still no connection, K calmly packed up the modem, cable, jack, blah blah blah, and walked out the door.

on the way to the boutique, the two irate americans agreed that LB would do all the talking. though K generally has superior people skills, LB's french is arguably better. but as they walked in the door, a mere 3 minutes after closing time, it was K who lost his merde (what follows is an approximate translation):

S (salesperson): hello sir. i am very sorry, but we are closed.
K: NO. it is I who sorry. one always waits one week no internet! bullshit! three technicians always still wait no internet! our apartment!
L: umm, babe...?
S: [laughs uncomfortably; looks furtively at female colleague, who is standing in the corner – totally bewildered and slightly amused]
K: three technicians... one always waits... no internet!
S: we open at 9 a.m. au revoir.
K: [turns and leaves in a huff]
L: [mortified, has already left]

now, where's that jar of nutella?

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jardin du luxembourg, 18 octobre 2008

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quick explanation: every year paris puts on a nuit blanche ("all-nighter") in early october. they open up all the museums, libraries, and public buildings, hold concerts, and invite international artists to do their thing... until dawn! and - bonus - the whole thing is free (can you imagine? we're not just talking a projector for the city planetarium here!). naturally, the parisians love it and come out in droves. old folks that we are, knox and i stuck to the happenings in the 14th - in walking distance - and ended up checking out only two events before we got tired of the crowds.

floating sky installation at the local pool - cameras at different positions across the planet projecting the sky onto the surface of the water


everyone had to take off their shoes to get in, which was unfortunate

light installation at the tour montparnasse

complete with "ooh-ooh-wa-wa-wa" style music - it was awesome

our new pad

8, rue Severo

a few of you saw our old apartment in the 5th - the closet-sized kitchen, the two burners that couldn't go at once because the whole place would blow, the shower in the bedroom, the smurf-sized sofa that was purchased at some point in the early 50s... some of you even slept in the "loft" even though you couldn't sit up in bed or go pee in the middle of the night without risking serious injury... all that, we figured, was a small price to pay for our proximity to the river and the best bakery in town.

but get a load of our new digs! we're in the 14th arrondissement this time around (see map below), which is further south and not as metro-convenient, BUT the place is awesome. knox and i can actually be in different rooms and not know what the other is doing!

la cuisine

la salle de bain (the toilet closet is over by the front door)

la chambre

le salon

a lot of reds and yellows in the decorating, which is a new experience for us "dirt-color" people. it's nice to have a real coffee table though, instead of the miniature bench we used in in the 5th or the army trunk we had in our santa monica place.

enfin, paris!

fall colors in the jardin du luxembourg with the panthéon in the background

we spent another week in texas after our week in florida, hanging mostly with my family, before heading on to paris. as with most of our sojourns in big d, we each put on at least 5 pounds what with all the tex-mex, steak, and home cooking. in addition to a delightful habachi dinner in plano with my mom and frank (when was the last time you went for habachi? seriously, it's delicious and so entertaining!), we made a few discoveries:

1) it is worth braving the scene at the porch on henderson to get a taste of their roast beef and barbecue.
2) avila's on maple has, without a doubt, the best enchiladas in dallas.
3) libby barnes is magic in the kitchen. that woman can cook! (this we actually already knew)

and so, it was with heavy hearts and in tight-fitting jeans that we boarded american flight 48 to paris last month, not to return for 10 months. if ever.

ahh, paris... we are thrilled to be back, not so thrilled to be jetlagged again so soon, thrilled to rediscover our wine and cheese rituals, not so thrilled to discover how rusty our french has become, thrilled to get settled into our lovely apartment, not so thrilled to be dealing with surly bank employees, sloppy internet technicians, and inexplicably complicated french bureaucracy.

and though we've already compiled a lengthy list of restaurants to visit, we've only been out for dinner once: bistrot d'henri. we love this place. tucked away down a small street near saint sulpice in the 6th, bistrot d'henri is a tiny, family-run restaurant that serves up excellent food for reasonable prices. of course, with the exchange rate being what it is, i'm not sure how reasonable reasonable is anymore... but as i'm on the french government's teet this year and knox has miraculously squeezed some money out of england, we figured we could take the hit every once in a while. now, this is one of the only places i know where they don't offer a prix fixe menu, which means you could save a little by skipping out on the first course. but i've never actually known anyone to skip the first course...

for you foie gras fans, knox assures me that their recipe is top notch. he usually has that or the salad with sauteed chicken livers. not a big fan of liver, stuffed or not, i stick to the lighter fare. this time i had a the fresh chèvre with black olive tapanade on a bed of frisée. for the main course, knox had poulet fermier à la crème et aux champignons (farm-raised chicken with a cream and mushroom sauce) with potatoes au gratin (which means the same thing here in france as it does on the betty crocker box!). and i had the duck in honey. i never knew how delicious those little birds could be until i tasted them slow-cooked in their own fat and slathered in honey. mmm! we washed it down with a pot of the house red, okay 2 pots, and then went on our merry way. the whole meal set us back 72 euros.

but the very next night i made at least 2 meals' worth of minestrone out of the veggies i got at the local market for less than 10 euros, so it all evens out.

yes, it's good to be back.

florida family fun!

j & j peden - the hosts with the mosts

things really picked up after we left amarillo. we hit DFW around 4 the next afternoon, had dinner with our favorite friends in fort fun and made it home to dallas in time to shower and have a beer with dad and libby before passing out in a real bed! no time to waste though, because the very next morning we were back on the highway, still heading east, this time to the florida panhandle.

that's right, friends, time had come for the long-anticipated peden family summer vacation! this vacation had been in the works for years, and we were all really excited to be finally on our way. knox and i were particularly thrilled because we were driving in jim's ride, which is SIGNIFICANTLY nicer than our own. we made it to florida in two days, surviving the drive on "bloody 98," otherwise known as "meth alley" (yikes), the nasty carpet at the comfort inn in jackson, ms, and many a poopy-diaper stop (leigh and chris, knox's sis and bro-in-law have three little ones in diapers, two of whom still take bottles, none of whom has much road tripping experience... those two deserve medals!).

and then, the pay off.

navarre beach!!


vacation headquarters


sam and harry totally get it - i think we've got some beach bums in the making...


dang, that's pretty!

it was pretty much all beach all the time, interrupted by occasional breaks for beers, naps, and/or ice cream...

i think i ended up with more ice cream on my face than walt did on his.

you know what? drinking beer at 11am makes me sleeeepy!

knox and i celebrating two years of marital bliss at juana's pagoda, the local watering hole (red stripe, believe it or not, is a sentimental beer for us - if only because we got blitzed drinking it together on the champs elysées in 1994! now that's romance!!)

it was as any summer vacation should be, though the party did end a little early with the news that ike was going to tear up texas. we were beginning to see the outer effects where we were and decided to bail out a day early so as to avoid any inclement weather on the road.

knox confirms that the weather is indeed taking a turn for the worse

the wind picked up, the waves rose higher, and the beach all but disappeared


leigh, knox, sam, and harry headed for the pool - 30 mph winds weren't going to stop them... (get a load of sam's hair!)

we all had a blast, so much fun that i think jim and jennifer fear they've blown the lid on their summer retreat!