20 posts tagged “friends”
I just bought a round trip, non-stop flight from Paris to New York for 334€, or less than $498. That is an unbelievably good deal. In September I flew through Reykjavik, on a really nice flight with Iceland Air, and thought that $515 was fantastic, but this is ten times better since I don't have to stop.
I am very, very excited. The assistant headmaster at my school, who is awesome, gave me the green light to take an extra week of work off before winter vacation in February so that I can extend my time in New York. I really wanted to go for longer than just 13 days or so, and now I'll be there for a full 18.5 days! I'll have to make up the hours, of course, but I have plenty of time to do so.
Mark your calendars, 'cause I arrive February 15th and leave on March 5th. There will be a BIG party for my 30th birthday. My birthday itself is the 19th, which is a Friday this year, but it's Presidents' weekend. At least, I assume it is cause it normally is. That means that it's more likely my New York friends will be out of town, but also more likely my non-New York friends could make it in.
Regardless of if I have the party the day of or the week later, I am super-excited that I'll be able to celebrate my birthday with my family this year. I haven't done so since I turned 26, and it's been a bit sad and difficult each year. And it's especially nice since this is such a big landmark year. I still can't believe I'm going to be 30.
I realize that my grammar is not quite up to snuff in this email, which is hopefully permissible given that it's almost 2 am. I just wanted to get it out there that I'm heading back to New York in 3 months and 1 week. Or exactly 100 days. Let the countdown begin!
In other news, I just got back from 10 days in Krakow (liked it) and Budapest (LOVED it), am heading to London (whee!) on Friday, and oh, I think I might have a boyfriend.
Thursday was my birthday, and despite my worrying it was a wonderful day. I was really, really sick for about 10 days beforehand, and had been concerned that I would spend my whole birthday in bed. But I guess my lungs got the message, and I was up and about.
On Wednesday night Lauren, Pauline, Anna, and I had a celebratory dinner, followed by homemade birthday cake at Anna and Pauline's house:
Last night I met up with Steve, Lauren, Sam, and others at a bar in the 5th that has a real guillotine in it. That was a bit strange . . . Not the company, which was a lot of fun, but rather sitting next to a killing machine. It had been a long time since I'd socialized, due to my nasty cough, and the time went really quickly. I have to make a mental note to get out more in March.
I leave tomorrow afternoon for a week in Spain. It's my birthday present to myself, and I'm really looking forward to it. I've been wanting to do this trip for about two years now. I'll be traveling in Andalusia, visiting Cordoba, Granada, and Seville. The weather is sunny and warmer than Paris, so I plan on soaking up as much vitamin D as possible. I'm going alone, and staying in youth hostels, so wish me quiet nights and hot Spanish men!
The past ten days have gone crazy fast. Last week I decided, very last minute, to reapply for the assistantship program. Technically, I don't think I can do it. You're allowed to participate for two years, which I've already done. But I'm hoping that since the first year was through the French Embassy in DC, and the second year was through the rectorat in Paris, that maybe the Parisian rectorat never contacted the French Embassy, so that they don't know that I'm ineligible. This is all more likely than it might sound, as the French governmental agencies I've worked with, including the rectorat, are completely useless. Not only that, but they don't seem to computerize a whole hell of a lot. Everything is done on paper, in triplicate, with raised stamps. So, fingers crossed that I safely slip through the cracks!
I won't know if I'm accepted or not till April, so please don't ask me about it until then. But applying so very last second meant a big scramble to get the paperwork done. I saw my doctor for two seconds, and he teased me by threatening to write that I'm not mentally healthy enough to work with children. I got Christophe to write one of the teacher recs, and have the secretary at his school stamp it, I got Lisa's husband to write the second rec, and stapled his business card to the form. I luckily had an extra, official transcript from Brown lurking in my file box. And then I spent about two hours at Michel's office, filling in the online form, printing, and making copies.
It's funny, cause when I originally applied, back in Winter 2005, I spent AGES gathering all my materials, and agonizing over my answers. And this time it was so slap-dash, whipped together in a moment. My application is complete, I didn't forget anything or write incomplete answers, but I just stressed much less about it. Normally I totally agonize over forms and applications . . . this is a definite personal improvement, and I guess I owe French paperasse a big thanks for wearing me down so completely that I think nothing of scarily detailed application instructions. Whoop!
Last Thursday, Pauline and I went to Beaubourg to see the Futurisme exhibit. I didn't love it, although there were a few great pieces. But I've been wanting to see it for ages, so I'm glad we went. Aside from a book launch party with Lauren on Friday, I had pretty much nothing planned all weekend. But then it turned out to be a great two days!
Saturday, after tutoring Lucas (we're working on the TH sound now, FYI), I headed over to the Louvre. When my dad visited last January he bought me the annual pass, and it was a fantastic present. The Louvre is 9€ for a visit, which is a lot of money. So if I didn't have this pass, I would never go. But Saturday I spent a good 90 minutes there, strolling through the Mesopotamian antiquities and decorative arts. After watching a totally crap movie, De l'Autre Côté du Lit, I got a happy surprise when Anna called to say her babysitting was canceled, and she was coming over for dinner.
On my walk home, I realized that I had all the ingredients to try a new recipe I've had my eye on, pasta with yogurt and caramelized onions, from a Greek cookbook. It was really good, although it seemed to require a ridiculous number of pots. Between straining the yogurt, caramelizing the onions, grating the cheese, blanching the green beans, etc etc, I used almost every pot in the house.
And then on Sunday, I had a delicious lunch with the Auguste family, starting with an enormous wedge of foie gras from Colmar. This meant that it had slices of truffle wedged in between layers of foie gras, and was extra delicious. After a late afternoon nap, I met Lauren for a semi-ironic viewing of Twilight. Whenever Robert Pattinson smirked, I thought he was totally hot, but otherwise he just looked like he needed to fart most of the time. I also thought some of the casting choices were truly weird. Particularly the four Cullen siblings. They're supposed to be unearthly beautiful, and they're just not. Attractive, sure. But could the director really not find four HOT actors in all of Hollywood? Also, what the hell was Elizabeth Reaser doing in this movie? Bizarre.
After having such a good weekend, I felt really prepared for this week. And it really did just zip by. I did loads of work for my part-time job, saw a new chiropractor, tutored, and babysat a few times.
Tuesday night Anna, Pauline, and I met at a jazz club on Quai de Valmy for an Obama celebration. Unfortunately I had to miss the actual inauguration, since I was tutoring the whole time, but it was so great to be out that night. People were wearing American flag bandanas, Obama t-shirts, waving little American flags . . . and these were French people! It's been a looooong time since I've felt comfortable, nevermind proud, to be an American here.
I had to wake up pretty early for a rather important meeting, so I think it might be nap time, before meeting up with Anna, Pauline, and Bret for vegetarian Chinese. Bonnie knew it!
Three days a week I tutor an adorable 5-and-a-half year-old boy, Lucas. Lucas is Irish/French, and I'm teaching him how to read. It's really satisfying work, and Lucas is very perceptive. Sometimes it's easy to forget just how little he is, 'cause he never lets me get away with anything: trying to let him win at tic-tac-toe ("but why did you go there?!"), making up the rules of a game as we go along, or trying to answer a question with "because."
I haven't seen him in three weeks, because of Christmas vacation, and today was our first day back together. When you spend three hours a week with a little guy like that, you get kind of attached. And I almost squeezed him when introducing me to his Christmas present, a really big stuffed dog. I asked if the dog has a name, and he said, "yes, his name is Big Dog."
And then he told me a knock-knock joke, and laughed himself silly.
Lucas: Knock knock!
Me: Who's there?
Lucas: Who!
Seriously, he thought this was the funniest thing ever. It made me really happy, and I wanted to freeze him in that moment. Or maybe I wanted to go back to when I thought knock-knock jokes were the height of humor?
When I was that age, I attended an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva. I was there from nursery four through third grade, and I was really happy. Half the day was in English, and half in Hebrew. I had lots of friends, and was good at school. I wasn't great at Hebrew, but I was in the gifted program for the English part of the day. I remember learning about Greek myths and Braille when the rest of the class was doing their Social Studies. Eventually my parents took me out, which they were very right to do. Math, History, English . . . all of it was getting short-changed in exchange for the Hebrew and Jewish studies. And seriously, I knew like four alphabets, and that's just not necessary in an eight year-old.
The school I moved to was a historically Episcopalian school, although it has been secular for about a hundred years. My mom always used to joke that half of my high school was half-Jewish, and she was probably right. Still, the parents of my former classmates were not very happy to let their kids play with me. And that really sucked. I stayed in touch with a bunch of them for a while, but then our lives just went different ways. Most of them went to Israel for a year between high school and college, and got married by their mid-twenties.
A little while back, I got a message out of the blue from my very first boyfriend. We were together in kindergarten and first grade (what can I say? I started young), and he was just the cutest. We would sit together on the bus for field trips, and I still have the birthday presents he gave me for my 6th and 7th birthdays. Somehow he found me on LinkedIn, and it was great to hear from him. He's married, of course, with two kids, and living in Florida.
Hearing from him inspired me to search for all the other friends I lost touch with ages ago. I found a bunch of them on facebook, and it's such a trip to see their faces all grown up. I have such vivid memories of that time: slumber parties, clapping games at recess, eating tuna fish sandwiches with potato chips smushed in the buns at Friday lunches, ballet and gymnastics classes after school, and the constantly changing alliances that are part and parcel of any group of young girls. Seeing pictures of them all in their wedding dresses and holding babies is just plain weird. And it really shows me just how far from ready I am for that life.
It's strange, since we all started out the same. We learned about sex at the same time and had our first crushes on the same boys. So when does the switch get flipped? How did they ALL end up married before 30, while I have no interest in even sharing a bathroom for the near future?
Today was an excellent day. While I still have some serious jet-lag, I was able to wake up only 2.5 hours after my alarm went off. And then I trotted off to Mike and Rion's old house, to pick up my new bike! Mike and Rion, and most importantly, Dante, just moved to London on Sunday. While I'm happy for them that they're starting a new adventure, and a new job for Mike, I'm definitely sad that they're gone.
Okay, so I only *really* care about Dante, but it can't hurt to let Mike and Rion think they're part of it too, right? Seriously, who could compete with this face:
But in the midst of the craziness, Mike forgot to tell the movers to pick up their three bikes in the shed. Off all their belongings went to London, leaving three lonely bikes behind. And, lo! Sophie saw that it was good.
So I got my lazy butt over to the 6th, to get one of the bikes from the gardien. Only he had already left for the day by the time I got there. I knocked on someone's door, asking if they would let me into the bike shed. The woman was very nice, but said she didn't have a key. She suggested I go try directly above her. So up I go.
There, the woman who answers the door is on the phone. She beckons me into her apartment and signals me to hold on while she finishes her call. When I explain the situation, referring to Dante's adorableness as a mental cue, she says she'd be happy to help, but her husband has the key and won't be home till later. She suggests I try the man upstairs. I tell her I don't want to bother any more people, but she insists that it's no bother. So up I go.
The man who answers the door is a bit grumpy, but willing to help. We head down to the bike shed, and I make small talk on the way. Did he know Mike and Rion? The did live in the building for three years, so it's not a silly question. He tells me that he knew who they were, but since they didn't speak very good French they never talked. Hm. Okay. Mike's French definitely improved this last year, but whatevs.
He then adds that they kept their baby stroller in the lobby with a padlock on it, "comme si c'etait le Bronx ici! On n'est pas dans le Bronx!/As if this were the Bronx! We're not in the Bronx!" I thought this was particularly amusing, since he was, for all intents and purposes, helping me take a bike that he had NO IDEA was actually mine for the taking. Not to mention the fact that I'm sure the padlock was not intended for the building residents, as it's a very nice building in a very nice neighborhood, but rather for the delivery and service people who come and go. Dante's stroller is pretty snazzy, and I could imagine a pizza man (were there any pizza men in Paris) getting the wrong idea.
I did not relay any of this to the grumpy man who was helping me, however. He was trying to adjust the seat to the right height for me, but since it's a folding bike, he kept flipping the wrong switches and it was just a disaster. I told him not to bother, that I wouldn't ride it home anyway, since I don't have a helmet yet. To which he replied, "T'as pas besoin d'une casque! On n'est pas à Los Angeles!/You don't need a helmet! We're not in Los Angeles!"
There are several flaws in this argument: 1. What the fuck is up with this guy's pointing out what American places we are NOT in? 2. One should always wear a helmet. 3. The streets are currently completely covered in black ice, due to the utter lack of post-snow clean-up in this city, making a helmet even more necessary. 4. Who the hell rides a bike in LA, anyway?
I just thanked him again, said happy new year, and walked the bike about a mile home.
After a fun hour tutoring Prune, an adorable six year-old, I told her that it was time for me to go. "Déjà?/Already?" she asked. Aw. Makes me feel all warm inside. But I had places to go, and shopping to do! For today was the first day of the almighty winter soldes, or twice-yearly government sanctioned SALES. Whoop!
This year, unofficial sales started back in December, due to the shit-fest that is the global economy. But all the good stuff didn't get marked down till today. I had a very specific shopping list in mind, and stuck to it. I got the goods for 30-50% off, and am so psyched. I now would like the bonus of finding a new winter coat, a pair of low grey boots, and a new going-out top, since I'm so sick of all of mine. But even if I find nothing else, I've gotten the essentials: 3 new turtlenecks (heather grey, brown, and a color called "caviar,"), a very pretty grey silk dress for any wedding that doesn't permit cleavage, and a pair of black lace-up shoes.
And THEN! Anna's horoscope (I know, I make fun of her for this, too) told her that tonight is a good night for drinks with the girls, so she decided to organize drinks with the girls! I'm so glad she did. Anna, Lauren, Julie, Pauline and I got together at Le Pantalon for kirs and beers.
It was really good to see everyone together. The five of us, while all friends, have actually never hung out as a group. Normally it's any combination of 2-4 at a given time, but since we all split our lives between at least two cities, it's very rare that we're all in Paris at once. Here's to more apèros!
While Halloween 2008 was sadly costume-free for me, I did spend most of the day with kiddies, and that, to me, is just as important as the candy.
Okay, who am I kidding? I want candy corn and those chocolate-covered marshmallow things and I want them NOW!
Lee Ann is back in town, visiting her old haunts and Parisian friends. I haven't seen her since May 2007, and that means that I never got to meet Mateo, her exquisite 16-month-old son. I have been tracking Teo's growth through Lee's blog and flickr pics, and am truly sad I missed his roly-poly baby stage. He's a full-fledged toddler now, and still pretty damned cute. See?:
And by the way, Lee, I may have cropped you out of that picture (you know which one I mean), but I still have it on my hard drive, so don't cross me or I WILL use it. ;)
I did day five of the Shred, and some exercises are getting easier, while others are getting harder. I no longer have sore abs, which I think is not a good sign, since Jillian says our body only changes when we put it under stress. But I'm doing the crunches and the reverse crunches and the oblique crunches and the bicycle crunches! I'm doing them! Just maybe not correctly? I dunno.
I'm really pushing myself on all the lunges and cardio exercises, and am definitely feeling a difference there. Crap, those side lunges are hard. What I really like about this workout is that it goes super quickly. Even if I don't really feel like doing it, I know that in 30 minutes I'll be finished and in the shower. I can handle that.
I probably undid lots of my work with tonight's dinner, unfortunately. My cousin Martin turned five on Monday, so tonight we went out to celebrate at a great resto in the 17th, l'Accolade. I highly recommend it. For a prix fixe of 32€ I had the tartare of bar, magret of duck with pumpkin purée and girolles, and a banana dessert that was a bit too heavy. My taste of Gerard's langoustine tempura was amazing, but nothing can top watching a five-year-old boy demand to order the oreilles de cochon. That's pig ears.
I've known Martin since he had his very first coke, at age 18 months, so realizing that he's now five is weird. But it was a great dinner, and I feel really lucky to have family here.
Sunday was the end of daylight savings time. Or the beginning. I can never remember . . . Anyway, I was able to sleep obscenely late and pretend it was only disgustingly late. Since the weather was grey and windy, I voted to stay in, and make lentil stew. I also sat in bed with a mug of rose tea, and marked recipes that I want to try in some of my cookbooks. And watched Gossip Girl and hand-washed my unmentionables. When I finally got dressed to attend dinner at Yasu's, it was dark outside.
Yasu's new apartment is pretty amazing. And dinner was delicious: mozzarella and sun-dried tomato salad, pea and mint soup, zucchini and mushroom risotto, berries and vanilla ice cream, and Turkish pastries. Yum. Anna, Pauline, Yasu and I caught up and made plans to have another, albeit potluck, dinner party soon.
All of this came the night after Lisa and her husband and mother took me to Le Villaret, a nice bistro in the 11th, where I had cream of pumpkin soup with chanterelle ravioli, roasted partridge with cèpes and salsify, and a baba au rhum with figs roasted in port for dessert.
So I suppose it's really no great surprise that when I caught sight of myself in the mirror recently, I was shocked. I am a small person, and normally when I gain weight it seems to be placed relatively evenly over my whole body, so that I don't suddenly have an enormous ass or bulging thighs. So sometimes it's hard to tell that I'm getting bigger. But I did some calculations, and I think I now weigh about 20 pounds more than I did in college. That is an absolutely appalling amount.
Granted, I was absolutely tiny back then. I ate whatever the hell I wanted and had to buy size 00 jeans before such a thing was really common. I'm still wearing a size 2 or 4, so it's not like I'm a giant, but I could easily lose some weight and be healthy. And, bonus!, I could then fit into my old clothes!
I don't expect to ever go back down to my college weight. I'm veering towards 29 now, and it's just not realistic to have the same body I did at 21. But I'd like to go through a whole meal without unbuttoning my jeans, or make excuses to myself when I can't wear a dress that I could easily fit into only two months ago.
I still think, despite all apparent evidence to the contrary, that I eat healthily. I might have a small problem with portion control, but I eat lots of fresh veggies and fruit, little meat, plenty of dairy and water, and barely any processed food. And all that red wine is heart-healthy!
So, the only solution is to exercise more. I don't have the money right now for a gym membership, which is too bad since I definitely have the time. But I've been hearing really good things about Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred. It's definitely embarrassing to put this out there, but I feel like if I don't then I'll make excuses and not do it or do it half-assed. I fully expect to have this program kick my ass, but I'm looking for results. So, ask me how I'm doing! Here's crossing my fingers that I can stick with it . . . 'cause I really don't want to give up eating cheese.
After my full-day clean-up last Saturday, I headed over to Anna's house for an organic dinner party. Five of the seven of us had been at my party the night before, and the others told me all the funny stories that I had missed. I'm not the only one who, after a night of drinking, smacks herself on the forehead upon remembering some of the things she said and did, am I?
The dinner party was fantastic. We had beet hummus, fennel soup with little goat cheese and citrus crackers, pea and mushroom risotto, and chocolate mousse for dessert. Everything was homemade and organic and really, really good. Friends Pauline and Baker helped Anna with the cooking, while I contributed wine and Monsieur La Carotte. (I look weird in those pictures because Anna mocked my annoying habit of smiling when someone points a camera at me. God forbid.)
On Sunday I joined Colin and some of his friends for a pub quiz at an Irish bar. We came in second place, losing by only one point! Do you know the first Christian martyr? Or the first city to have a duty-free store? Or what the Wassermann test is for? I didn't think so. It was lots of fun though, and since they do it every Sunday night I'm hoping to get my own team together and take down Colin next time. Watch out!
This week has been insanely busy. Most of my tutoring jobs are relatively far away, which means that I average an hour of traveling for every hour of teaching. That leads to days with four hours of teaching, and three hours of transportation, and a very exhausted Sophie. I've also been having a lot of trouble sleeping. There is just nothing worse than lying in bed, so tired that your eyeballs hurt, and unable to stop the wheels from spinning. I'm hoping to balance out my clients a bit, and shove all the 16th and 17th arrondissement people into the same day so that I'm not shlepping over there twice a week. On the plus side, I'm making ends meet with just my lessons. I'm hardly saving anything, but I'm not going to run through my savings too quickly, either.
Thursday night Pauline had me over to her place for dinner. Her place is so small that when I stood up from her desk she elbowed me in the sternum. But it's cute and clean and she whipped up a four-course meal for the two of us: melted brie with sautéed mushrooms and fresh spinach, quinoa with ratatouille, a cheese course, and chocolate crème, all of it organic. My friends here are very into organic food, in case you haven't noticed. Which is nice, 'cause it balances out all the nutella I eat.
I want to catch a movie this weekend. I'm thinking Blindness, since I'm going to marry Mark Ruffalo and he'll probably want me to have seen it. Any other recommendations?
Last Friday I had a housewarming party at my new place, and it was, in my opinion, a lot of fun. There were roughly equal parts French and Americans, and guys and gals, and nothing was broken. What more can you ask for?
A few of my old students showed up, which was both fun and funny (kids these days drink A LOT of vodka!), as well as a few friends I haven't seen in ages. We ate, and drank, and danced, and I finally kicked the last people out around 2:30, after they'd made a few pots of pasta.
Early on in the night, my little cousin Martin ate all the tarama while no one was looking:
Some of you may remember my very unsuccessful reader poll, where I (jokingly) asked for helping choosing which of seven 2008 weddings to attend. I really wish I could have gone to all of them, but my au pair job and finances forced me to pick only one.
Adriana and I have been close friends for ten years now (!!!) and I am so happy I was there for her big day. This is the same group of friends from Meg and Will's wedding in 2007, and I hadn't seen many of them since. The wedding was absolutely beautiful, set in a Japanese garden. Adriana was glowing, and there's nothing quite like seeing your friends commit to a life of sex with just one person to make you tear up.
Here's the happy couple, during their first dance:
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, and I was so happy to see my friends again. And Meg and Will, when are you coming to visit? I think we need to introduce Paris to Will's dance moves:
