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