swamp thing

kp and i spent last sunday evening in fontainebleau state park. that afternoon, i'd dragged him to walker, LA to buy a table off a lady who told us to meet her at the "on the border" gas station (it took us a good, long minute to realize she meant "on the run," at which point we wondered, why wouldn't she just say "exxon"??!). anyway, this is not kp's idea of a good time, so i knew i'd have to make it worth his while. what better than a late afternoon hike and the promise of barbecue??

it was only a year ago that we visited fontainebleau state park's namesake in france. oh, to be blowing my monthly budget on wine... but alas, those days are over, and this couldn't have been further from the fall colors in burgundy experience... marshes, spanish moss, and bud light instead of vineyards, old churches, and pinot noir. we left our wooly scarves at home, too, since it's still tank top weather here.

the nature trail

the marsh

lake pontchartrain at sunset

the crown of a glorious mess of twisty roots

southern gothic

the red balloon

saw this for the first time yesterday... i already want to watch it again. and i want this poster... and my very own red balloon. and okay, i'll take paris too. love.

vive la nostalgie...

kp's birthday portrait (7/29/2010)

it's saturday, and i'm procrastinating. got a stack of mid-terms to get through this morning, and i'm not sure i'm up to the challenge. also got my hair cut yesterday, which is always something of a traumatic event. it's waaaaaaaay shorter than i meant for it to be... i think it's the shortest i've ever had it (save for the pixie/buzz cut i sported in vietnam). i actually gasped when i saw the back - this is obviously not a good sign - but i didn't cry, which bodes well. knox's response was, "whoooaa. well, it'll grow."

so, procrastination, trauma... and a bit of nostalgia this saturday a.m. i feel these pulls and pangs a lot, actually: i miss riding my motorbike between truc bac lake and west lake in hanoi (the wind blowing through my 1/2" hair!), i miss the primary colors in my spartan room in montréal, i miss eating peanut butter on montana mountain tops (the wind blowing through the 1/2" hair i had on my legs!!)... there are even times when i look back fondly on west-texas road trips... though those moments are fewer and further between.

today, no surprise here, it's paris i'm missing:

une certaine idée de la france...

la gare du nord

métro - chateau rouge, i think

(i love the outdoor metro stations in the summer)

au marché aux puces - a sunday morning well spent (in any town)

dans mon jardin d'hiver (if you don't know this song already, you should)

le pompidou

belleville

canal st. martin

view of the city from the pompidou

saturday is mine

so it turns out that having a job is kind of a drag. first, i have to get up every morning by 8:30 - at the latest! i couldn't tell you what 8:30 looks like in paris - and put makeup on. makeup?! what an awful way to start the day. kp makes the coffee, and i make the bed. then we say goodbye. second unanticipated downside of having a proper job: i don't get to spend my whole day with knox anymore.

i enjoy a 5-min walk through the swamp, during which all my makeup slides off my face, and then i am on the job for about 11 hours. this job is a whole crazy mess of work, and if i'm not searching for materials to put on one syllabus (because, no, i have no idea what we'll be doing after next week!), i'm grading essays or blog entries or homework... or trying to think up clever ways to explain the difference between "i was walking" and "i walked." it's exhausting. who knew i'd look back on the dissertation period with such nostalgia so quickly?

but i'm not a total maniac. i do take saturdays off (or *mostly* off, depending on how high that stack of papers to grade is...). on saturdays we go for lunch and we drink beer in the afternoon. we walk around and take pictures. we visit vintage shops and pretend we can afford to buy a dresser (still using the boxes).

i like saturdays.

café du monde beignets (we cheated and had these at the mall in metairie)

just as decadent as the originals and no swamp @ss inside the mall!

lower magazine street, a treasure chest of over-priced antique stores

we've been downtown...

...and have hung out by the river

and sometimes we just sit around and watch the storms roll in

boxes. boxes. boxes. and bob.

it's official: we have too many books.

bob couldn't believe his eyes...

moving in was a long, painful process. it took us a full week to get unpacked (which may not sound like much, but is actually nuts when you consider how small our place is). we're all unpacked now, fully functional... but we're still using a row of file boxes as a "dresser" in our bedroom. it's real classy.

i don't remember taking this picture. i think bob may have set up the tri-pod on his own while knox and i were out... it's his message in a bottle. the message reads: "someone save me from this mess!"

summer road trip (it's a doozy)

finally a moment to breathe here in new orleans... more on the new digs and the new job soon enough, but in the meantime, i've got a pile of images to share from our epic road journey. according to our calculations and the deliriously silly road journal we keep, we spent 7 10-hour days in the pathfinder over the course of our 2-week trip: dallas, new orleans, dallas, albuquerque, l.a., flagstaff, albuquerque, dallas, new orleans. i won't lie: it's a miracle we didn't strangle each other.

our first destination: new orleans. the apartment hunt.

day 1: leaving east dallas

mansfield, la

site of the last confederate victory during the civil war

and the first of many road picnics

the civil war diorama was pretty groovy

even groovier was this old portrait (look like anybody you know?)

day 2: we hadn't been in new orleans for 24 hours before we had our first po-boy

fried green tomatoes, oh how i've missed you!

day 3: we found a place after 2 grueling days, over 20 appointments, and only 1 melt down

it's a 5-minute walk from my office and it's green!

once we'd settled on place in new orleans, we headed back to big d... and straight to the pool with our nephews!

day 5: sam finds a pair of pretty pink flippers

on the road again, this time headed west. we stayed a night in albuquerque with some friends (and some of their feline friends)... but we were only there long enough to refuel and wash off the "road stink," as knox calls it, before we were back out on the road.

day 7: "is breakfast ready?"

headed west

still headed west

bonjour L.A.!

we spent 2 short days in l.a. - mostly packing and dealing with UC administration (i still can't decide which was more exhausting) though we did make time to drop in on our old landlords in santa monica and hit up the trader joe's.

day 9: met up with the big, yellow chicken back in our old 'hood

finally stopped for coffee at rae's diner on pico

day 10: our lovely hostess

after we got all our worldly possessions packed up in the mack truck we'd hired to move for us (broke only 1 bowl in the move), kp decided we were due for a little R&R. so he booked us the "presidential suite" at the classiest roadside motel in flagstaff, AZ (jacuzzi tub IN the bedroom, y'all - this was no joke), and we finally saw the grand canyon.

day 11: this is what it feels like to write a dissertation

and this is what it feels like to finish a dissertation

no time to linger, sadly, but we were both pretty impressed with that great big hole in the ground. imagine what the light does to it as the sun sets... i guess we'll just have to go back some day.

day 13: anytown, west texas

(if i never drive through west texas again...)

day 15: luscious louisiana

day 16: home sweet home

(did i mention we live around the corner from a snow cone shop?)

summer = bière pèche

bière pèche is a blond beer with a shot of peach schnapps... it's fruity, fizzy deliciousness and a summer staple in paris. the french don't really do beer, we've discovered, and when they do, it's often preferred with a shot of peach or cherry. they actually love their flavored syrups here - want to look like a local next time you're in paris? order a perrier menthe - a perrier over ice with a shot of mint syrup.

but back to the beer...

(poor kp - he really doesn't like having his picture taken all the time)

there are plenty of lovely spots to enjoy a bière pèche around town, but our favorite is the place flora tristan in the neighborhood. knox discovered this place pretty early after we moved in, and we made it our regular hang out. the servers all know us (in fact, everybody knows knox around here - the guys at félicie - another café we frequent - the baker, the folks who run our favorite vegetable stand, the italian traiteur... the guys at the wine shop on rue daguerre even gave us a going-away present to thank us for all our business over the last two years! i wouldn't be surprised if knox exchanged emails with them!)

you won't find many tourists here - we're the only anglophones around - and it's so quiet and pretty. i especially dig this old boulangerie. you can barely make out the deco lettering over the red door. isn't it fabulous?

the left bank - and the 14 arrondissement in particular - is a decidedly unhip part of paris: not much nightlife, a lot of families, kind of staid... "bougie" as knox would say. but we love it here. and that's not just the beer talking.