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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.