'No One At the Club'

In case you've forgotten, here is what the club's café
still looks like.

Does Not Last Long

Paris:- Thursday, 19. October 2000:- To look at the sky today, you wouldn't think it was pouring buckets yesterday. Last night it poured little stones. At least, this is what it sounded like was falling into my courtyard around midnight.

It is a perfectly natural reason then, for it to clear up; just when club members would prefer to walk around a dry Paris rather than sit for a couple of hours in the club's café.

Regardless of this common sense, I am in the right place at the right time; writing in the right meeting number and the right date into the member's booklet even if I think members should be in the Jardin des Plantes this afternoon - because the life and habits of plants are so much more interesting when no downpour is happening.

I have just time to take out my confidential 'notes' booklet when the first new member shows up, causing me to put it away again without even seeing what it was that I was writing in it the last time I was writing 'confidential' things in it.

Sally Dilgart seems to be a bit worried that 'no one is at the club;' until I tell her she is at it, and poke the members' booklet under her nose. "Somebody besides the club secretary has to come first," I assure her.

Before I can explain that the second new member to show up is today's 'potential new member number two,' Eva Lee does in fact show up, making this explanation unnecessary.

By reading names upsidedown, I manage to introduce Ms. Dilgart to Ms. Lee, and myself to both; and this is when we find out everybody except me is a lawyer.

And this is not just any old kind of lawyer - which is not to infer that other club members who are lawyers are the 'any old kinds' - whoever they are; but real-life coincidence has our new club members be - Sally for the Illinois' Cook County public prosecutor and Eva as the public defender for a county in New Jersey.

Instead of sitting on opposite sides of a courtroom, they sit side by side in the club's café room. We've nearly had Chicago as the 'City of the Week' before, so this week's nomination by Eva for New Jersey's Tranquility gets the majority vote for the award.

"Northwestern New Jersey is a well-kept secret," Eva says, adding "Ten years ago, black and white cows outnumbered people."

Both Sally and Eva - who I swear have never met before this meeting - are Paris' food fans. Eva likes winter for its 'wild game; ducks and rabbits,' and "Low air fares."

Eva has 'discovered' Chartier in the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, "With real waiters!" - but - they both pronounce the Rue de Rivoli's 'Angélina' in the same breath, and nearly also pronounce the 'Pastry of the Day.'

Betty and Jerry Blizin arrive and it is Jerry who interrupts the 'pastry' with the names of his favorite restaurants until Sally and Eva toss up Orangina for the club's 'Drink of All Time,' and this is followed by a verbal orgy over the delights of 'Gargantua' - "The Bombé!" and Jerry recaptures the fumble with "The other half is 'garbled!'" - which everybody has heard of except me - so this may not be how it's spelled.

Restaurant names are still being sputtered out - "Have you had enough to eat?" - I wonder if the portions are enough.

Some comment is made about Halloween's invasion of Paris; which is evident in the club's café. Eva didn't know before that club members exchanged information - and email addresses - which Eva is scribbling on little scraps of yellow paper.

Sally says that her daughter thinks "My mother is an avocado," - which is not actually Spanish for lawyer - or even avocados.

Jerry confirms this is the case in France too, with 'avocats' - which are the same as lawyers. In German, of course, they aren't the same at all.