Catching up, part 1

So here I am, back in Paris after a week away and reconnected to the internet world thanks to my friend Marie-Paule's wireless connection; let me back up to an earlier time.....

Café Jade, 4 juillet 2007, 13:55

Une crème et une farandole des fromages.

Je suis seule. The LAW went to meet Sharon at noon and I hung out in one of the Gibert bookstores for an hour or so. Two Tintins to complete my set (I think), plus several other bandes dessinées, and a three-pack of Moleskine paper pads. After that, some wandering, and then some more wandering--back and forth in the Latin Quarter; over to Ile St. Louis and back; past the Crèperie des Pecheurs, which I thought about visiting on my own. Really, though, I just wanted a café to sit at. And so, I'm now outside Café Jade on rue de Buci, looking out, resting my tired feet. It is almost 2 p.m. and I think I have exhqusted my capacity for solo adventure today. Start small.

My coffee is here. Note to self: remember to order une grande crème. I wish I had a cigarette.

...

First, a drop, suggestive; then another, to confirm. Then the downpour, blowing sideways rain under the café awning, and we all scurry inside. I'd hoped to 'rent' an outside table for a while; now it seems I'll leave somewhat sooner.

The farandole is here and quite lovely, by the way.

The Café Jade is supposed to be trendy, urban, edgy. The waiters wear tight black t-shirts and jeans, and the Jade's decor is black with red, yellow, and blue chairs, plates, lettering on the walls...a muted primary palette.

The walls: all the vertical spaces are covered with names--how does one's name get picked?--of the ultra- or even ur-hip. Freud. Jackson Pollack. Lucian. Helmut Newton. Max Jacob Corneille. Diego Rivera. It is an international mix--international male, that is. Not many women's names on this new Pantheon; even when edgy, it seems, the French have their canon.

I'm eating my cheese under the auspices of Jackson Pollack (all caps, 18-inch letters) in yellow, Henri Michaux (all caps, 6-inch letters) in blue, and a host of others.

The cheese is quite fine (oh my, this camembert is ripe), the coffee lukewarm, my shoes very wet.