February vacation is upon us, which means that contrary to my last entry, I am on full motherhood duty... well, today and half of yesterday, that is, last week we were all at the beach (our friends lent us their house at La Turballe and so we were able to visit all the places we missed last time) until Tuesday, and then on last Thursday, I went to Paris ALONE. Let me quickly disculpate myself here. I was supposed to bring Mimi to see a surgeon recommended by the surgeon we see in Seattle, so I already had (non-refundable, non-changeable because cheapest) train tickets... and then they changed my appointment. Of course, I protested and acted outraged in my most American wronged customer persona, but they didn't buy it, and then, machiavellian mother that I am, I began to see how I might turn this to my advantage..., you know, you can't let a perfectly good train ticket go to waste, and then, well, there's an exhibit I really want to see that doesn't start until the middle of March, so, well, good opportunity to make sure I can go when I bring the girl to her doctor.

The main event of our stay at La Turballe was that we lost Magdalene in the woods. Oh, for maybe an hour and a half, it was just one of the most terrible things that have ever happened to us (Sean did lose Matthias in Cornwall park when he was 2 and a half, but I didn't know about it until later). She got mad at the boys for wanting to bushwhack through thorny bushes, what with her elegant coat and scarf and all, so she decided she would go a different way. But when we got to the parking lot, no Magdalene at all, and no amount of calling could produce her either. So Sean and Simeon went searching back through the woods (after going out to look for her along the road where she might have come out of the woods at any point) and they found her sitting where she had left us. She had found the road and gotten scared because it wasn't where we had entered the woods, and then she had some dim memory that when lost in the woods you stay where you are and wait to be found.

Aside from that awful event, and some unfriendly treatment from the baker (who sighed and rolled her eyes every time I ordered another thing), a crazy guy in a parking lot who almost killed Miriam and then yelled at me, and when I yelled back, followed us in his car for at least 10 minutes, which left me a little scared whenever we saw a black car later in our stay, and the cute little pillbugs (cloportes, in french, which is one of the few nature words my kids now know in French) that scare Magdalene and infest the house we were staying at, we had a lovely time. Sean and the boys spent a lot of time playing war-like games in the woods (the very ones Magdalene was lost in)--it helped that there are German fortifications all along the beach, built in 1945 in anticipation of the Allies invading on the coast of Brittany instead of Normandy. I went running on paths, in woods and on the beach, I covered myself in shame trying to play badminton.

We went on a long hike on bluffs and a beach (very different from our beloved Ebey's Landing, but the same general idea), and the boys, who never ever stop fighting (especially at that house which comes equipped with a game of monopoly with which the boys are obsessed but which turns them into nasty capitalists, the kind that everyone knows is thirsty for war), even were friends for a little while there, on the beach and bluffs (the photo is just there to prove that point)

We stopped in Guerande, a beautiful medieval fortified town (with its entire fortification intact). On the outside of the walls, the buildings are pretty awful, but inside the city, everything has been preserved beautiful and traditional (this is a traditional window treatment for this part of Brittany, for example), except for the tourist shops that line the main street to sell salt and its accoutrements (the main traditional agriculture around Guerande is salt marshes where the salt is harvested by hand).

We also went to the very picturesque port village of Piriac, where the famous writer Zola lived for a while, and where he set one of the short stories Magdalene had to study at the beginning of the year (for you faithful blog readers, the short story with the geese that represented human affairs, and the manure pile that symbolized power)

PARIS

The second part of my vacation... well actually, the first part of my vacation (while Sean worked hard at home) took place in Paris. I got there at 10 AM and figured the first thing to do was rectify that terrible slight that was done to me in Madrid (for those who don't remember, the slight consisted in Mimi's having a screaming fit which forced me to leave the Prado after only 30 minutes of contemplating the Bosch and Bruegel paintings I have been longing to contemplate for a lifetime). So, childless and free as the wind, I made my way to the Louvre which you can see here in my quite artistic rendering. There was only a moderately long line which gave me time to wolf down a sandwich so as not to be troubled even by hunger in my contemplations (well, they only have one Bruegel and two Bosch, there at the Louvre, but there are a few other gems), and then I braved the massive crowds making it hard to breathe in the Italian wing of the museum. There were a few positively weird things, like this huge (completely uninteresting if you ask me) painting by a contemporary guy named Soulage (ahem, the inventor of 'black') hung in a room full of early Renaissance paintings by Botticelli and Ucello. There are a bunch of interviews with the guy next to the painting where he says he wanted his painting in the First Italian renaissance room because his painting was mute and Ucello's deaf... whatever (oh, the French will think I am so American, oh, and maybe you too, Jim, if you're reading this. Feel free to educate me, anyone).

Let's see, otherwise, among a host of other things (I stopped my visit when I reached the 17th century, everything becomes a bit too monstrous at that point) there's a quite amazing portrait of Cleopatra killing herself (she holds a snake to her breast, and if you've just spent five months reading Freud, I can tell you, you can't stop standing in front of that painting staring--well, especially if you don't have young children with you--oh, and she happens to look just like an actress in the HBO TV show Rome!), there's the beautiful 'deaf' Ucello battle scene that's captured in the heat of battle, with the front horse rearing and showing his teeth, and the sky so black. Anyway, I guess I'm not going to describe all my favorite paintings, but just a bit of trivia, in case any of you are planning to visit the Louvre: you can't walk for the crowds in the Italian wing, and then the German/Netherlandish wing is completely empty, despite the glorious presence of the aforementioned Bosch and Bruegels and two Vermeers that you can sit and contemplate as long as you want. Oh, and once you finish your visit, don't forget to rent a little sailboat in the Tuileries park for your children to push around a pond with a stick. I wish I'd had them there for that, and also to try out all the merry go rounds (I saw at least 15 in my five days in Paris).

This is the Church of Saint Etienne du Mont, right near the enormous and hideous Pantheon. I used to walk past it on my way to my piano lesson every week and think philosophical thoughts (I was only 14 or so, my goodness, Magdalene's age) like 'God must exist if humans create so much beauty to honor him'.

This is the Hotel de Sens, a 16th century remnant in the flamboyant gothic style of architecture--the museum of the middle ages (where I had a very pleasant conversation about J.P. Satre and the weight of freedom with someone who was turning the pages of the manuscript presenter with me, we were looking at an illuminated manuscript page from from a law book about how to resolve disputes between neighbors about cutting trees whose roots are one one side of the fence while its branches are on the other--have you been thinking of cutting any part of our Japanese plum tree, Steve?) is in the exact same style.

Ok, if I'm getting bored with my own travel writing at this point, I can't imagine what any of my readers must be feeling, so I probably should take a break. But I must at least comment on the photos I've loaded onto this page, so bear with me for another 3 minutes. Here is the chapel from the castle at St Germain en Laye, close to where I was staying during this stay (with good friends of my mother's). It houses the museum of archeology which would normally not interest me at all (in fact, it didn't interest me when I visited it with my class as a child so much so that I had not a single memory of the place other than boredom) except that it houses some Gaulish objects which, when I was interested in early Irish history (when I was writing a novel about that, many years ago), kept coming up in books I consulted then. It's funny how a past desire that doesn't really have anything left to do with your present life can still motivate you. I went to see the objects I remembered, but because the novel is long finished, and all the history I learned while working on it long forgotten, the visit was quite a waste of my time. I think maybe this is the case with all past tense desire that you have only because you were once interested in something. Like if my ears prick up because I hear people talking about philosophy, which was once part of my life. If I really pay attention, I always feel annoyed afterwards.

I once thought Notre Dame was huge and grey and oppressive, but not this time. First of all, there are these carvings all around the altar area, the life of Christ as a child on one side, and scenes from his resurrected life on the other (the scenes from childhood are the best, but the light on that side is too dim and the photos didn't come out. Too bad. There's a beautiful carving of the massacre of the holy innocents, with details like a mother shoving her fingers into the eyes of the soldier who is trying to kill her baby. This one is the resurrected Christ meeting with the holy women. Magdalene has a collection of Mary Magdalene representations, and I assume the one with the red cloak is the right one. But there's more in the cathedral. They seem to be renovating some of the side chapels, so some of them are fully painted and their stained glass has been restored, and the glorious dance of colors just can't not lift your spirits. Add to this that when I went to visit, I happened right in the middle of an adoration of the crown of thorns (St Louis brought it back from the Holy Land in the 13th century and had the Sainte chapelle built to house it). It's sealed in glass, but you can actually see it. Even if it has nothing to do with Jesus, still, even a crown of thorns from the 13th century that was adored by Thomas Aquinas and Saint Louis is worth a few emotions, in a colorful chapel, with candles and incenses and berobed priests.

On my last day there, I made a pilgrimage to the old suburb where I grew up. This is my high school, the Lycée Lakanal, just around the corner is a beautiful park where I used to walk my dogs every day after school. I walked all around it (it took me close to an hour and a half) and I must say, perhaps under the influence of my upcoming 40th birthday, I felt quite nostalgic on this walk. Somewhat disconnected from the person I was when I used to walk past that church and think deep thoughts, or walk the halls of this beautiful school. Maybe that's what's sad, when you don't feel connected with the other parts of your life, then it's really as if you're continually losing parts of yourself.

So I will now sign off and take my children to the library and the grocery store. I have to steel myself. 5 days away may have rested me and made me more patient, but it definitely dis-habituated me from the habitual state of chaos and conflict that reigns among my children. And that's with one missing: Magdalene has gone on the train on her own to visit her 'internet friend' Maggie in Angers.

If January is Galette month, then February is crepe month (only I'm feeling rather American this February, so though I have made crepes once, I have been making pancakes instead, one time for a crowd of 10 people!) I gather (but I'm a bit suspicious of this explanation) that the feast of chandeleur (the presentation of Jesus in the temple) was somehow connected with some celtic feast of the sun, with the outcome that to celebrate the feast of the presentation, people make crepes which are round like the sun (is anyone else joining me in my suspicions?) Anyway, since the chandeleur was on Feb 2, there are crepes being sold absolutely everywhere all month, and not just crepes either, some fried things that look like they could be fried crepes, which the baker explained were also for chandeleur (though he did not attempt to explain the connection, maybe something about the oil they're fried in and the oil that Simeon used to anoint Jesus in the temple--an apocryphal story created by me on the spot for the sake of the explanation). I suppose they're more justified in drawing the crepes out than they were the galettes, since crepes are also traditional for Mardi Gras, as they use up all the things that are not permitted during lent (well, were not permitted in the middle ages, now everything is permitted!)--milk, butter, eggs.

It's been another long period without writing. I hate to admit it, because of course I like to complain so much, but things must be getting better. Actually, we have made friends with several families that we really enjoy seeing and doing things with, and I think all the children feel the same (even Magdalene who will deny it, but who today, for the very first time since we've been here, said something positive about Nantes, albeit something small: "It's nice to be in a big city so when you want to go shopping you can just walk downtown and you have lots of shops.") Simeon had his birthday party last Saturday. He missed the traditional Mt Baker expedition and his friends, but he took two friends to see Invictus (you can see the edge of Anais's face here), and then he had his friend Mateo's whole family (the photo is missing his father and older brother) over for lunch and for a game of soccer (which unfortunately didn't last very long because Matthias and Simeon crashed and Simeon looked for a few hours as if his nose was broken).

Anyway, we had had a great soccer game with that same family a few weeks before (the kids beat the adults, and my legs were sore for a week, despite all the running I do, how lame), complete with rolling in the mud clutching at our shins and such sillinesses.

Right after the party, a cousin I have not seen in at least 25 years came for a short visit. He's turned into a very interesting man, but it's odd when you don't see someone in so long, it doesn't really feel like you're seeing them again, more like you're just meeting them for the first time. I guess it takes a store of shared memories, or sharing memories that you can both remember to get the sense of seeing someone again, rather than just meeting them for the first time. I think we don't have quite enough shared memories to really do it. But I was glad that I still liked him a lot, after all those years (I did remember liking him a lot as a child). His girlfriend (no one gets married here, and they get mad if you say wife) is from Nantes, so I hope we get to see him again, and maybe meet the girlfriend and also the brand new baby (one or two months old, I think).

Let's see, I think only two more items of news for today.

(1) Mimi is once again wearing dresses, after going for months wearing only jeans (like papa). Once

day she discovered all the tights her cousin Josephine passed down to her, and that seemed like an exciting new bit of dress up. In fact, for the last few months she has refused to let me pick her clothes (to my great chagrin, I was having such a nice time making up for dressing Magdalene in overalls and turtlenecks by dressing Mimi in dresses and white embroidered shirts), and she gets dressed (in rather outlandish stuff, sometimes) all by herself and gets in a great rage if I try to help her, even with a difficult zipper. Even for the school picture she refused to let me pick.

(2) The garbage pickup company is on strike. It's the first strike to affect us since we've been here, although I hear about them every day on the radio (the Paris metro was on strike, then all the Paris museums, then the train company, then someone connected with airplanes...) Ok, what you see here is one week's worth of recycling (and Mimi seems very proud of herself for putting it there!). Everybody knows the trash people are on strike, but no one will take the least bit of charge for themselves

(oh, here I am sounding like a republican again, I cringe that it is so, but really, it does happen to you when you come from America to a place where if people think it's something the government does, then there is no way, no matter what the circumstances, that they will do it themselves (like cleaning up after their dogs, or keeping their recycling at home until the end of the strike, i.e., what we good, well-behaved and highly civilized Americans would (and do) do.)

There is trash everywhere, people keep piling it on and animals get into it and strew it about, there is broken glass everywhere from the thousands and thousands of wine bottles that get kicked around all over the place and run over by cars. I tried to go for a walk today with the dog and the stroller and I was forced to walk in the street 80% of the time, and then the whole time I was worried about the stroller getting a flat tire from the broken glass, or the dog getting hurt (for another 100 euros at the vet!)

Ok, now I'm done with my little American outburst. I'll try another video, though I hear the last one was a dud. This is Matthias's entry into French school culture proper (aside from being invited so far to two birthday parties--to Simeon's one), every single French child learns this poem at some time or other:

Oh, and one more thing: I think, just while I'm in France, I will wear a burka. This will do two things: protest against the xenophobic French government that wants to outlaw the burka in public places, and hide myself from the overly prying eyes of french people. In fact, that's probably why they want to outlaw it, they can't stand the idea that a woman might be walking among them whose beauty and therefore only possible criterion of worth they couldn't measure. In the States, I'm rather against.