The Club's 2nd 'Blot of the Week'

The ice cream sign in today's group photo is not
the club's 2nd 'Blot of the Week.'

New Jersey Gets New Award Too

Paris:- Thursday, 31. May 2001:- Since yesterday's temperatures touched nearly 29 degrees it has cooled off a lot. With a breezy wind from the north-northwest, I have taken the precaution of adding a thin but extra layer of clothing.

Most of the rest of the world thinks it is still summer but in fact this rare season is officially still three weeks off. For readers and all club members, Paris' weather is probably perfectly okay today.

Unofficially, with the six-day burst of summer-like weather, retailers began to try and float their unsold stocks of 2001-model spring gear by whacking 10 or 20 percent off prices - and clever Parisians have been snapping stuff up on the off chance that there will actually be a spring season in 2002.

For the first time in several weeks, when I breeze into the café La Corona along with the wind, Patrick the waiter is glum because there is no 'il y a du monde' already waiting.

'Aha!' I think. This will give me a chance to get set up so I can be ready and waiting for the weekly onslaught. Better yet - Monsieur Ferrat, the club's other 'Waiter of the Week,' has totally arranged the club's area in the 'Grande Salle' just so neatly that I am flabbergasted.

The tables and chairs are lined up straight. Grains of salt and bread crumbs are absent. It is total fineness, and it is the first time in 86 meetings that the club's area has looked like the club's area. Oh, it is so good!

It is only after I have entered the official stats into the member's booklet and the meeting 'reports' booklet that members Edna and Bob Bradley arrive, followed by the return of Charles Eitel.

He has returned from looking at castles in New Jersey, which are not as inexpensive as he thought they might be. Yessir, this club meeting's semi-fixture will soon be living in a medium-castle on the west side of the Atlantic.

"Just when I've figured out the métro in only three and a half years - it's time to go," he says.

The Bradleys are from an even higher-rent part of the United States, but they are staying in Paris another couple of weeks, so they don't care.

While they are discussing the difference between 'fixer-up' houses on the two coasts, which is about a million dollars, Berta and Scoop Maginniss arrive and triumphantly announce they are an unscheduled 'out-of-season' visit to Paris to buy a home here.

This gives Charles the snits. Scoop Maginniss, original member number 27, also sort of has the snits too. "They are running at Longchamps as I speak. I'm losing a fortune!" he says.

Although there is horse racing all over and all around Paris at this time, Longchamp only seems to have races on Thursdays. Scoop tries to convince me a club meeting should be held at the track.

It is a darn good idea. But so many new members have problems finding the centre of Paris where the club's café is located, my responsibility is to get them here, to La Corona, and not get them lost in the vast Bois de Boulogne, looking for a huge and beautiful racetrack.

But maybe - just maybe - the club could hold a bonus meeting out at the track. Who will vote 'yes' to do this?

Eva Lee arrives, followed by to-become members Lynn and Sam Bergner from - from - from Edison, New Jersey. I don't exactly hear this, but now I understand what the big roar was about and why Sam said he knew where Tranquility is.

I heard 'Edison' when my attention was elsewhere. Where exactly was it? I remember - it was on Charles, who has taken out a small tablecloth of a handkerchief and mopped up my unintentional but self-made café 'Blot of the Week' in the members' booklet.

Had he not bothered, the new blot would have matched the blot in members' booklet number one, made on the sign-in page of member number 52, Jeff Thompson of Stillwater, Oklahoma - within half a page of his drawing of 'Lum the Insatiable,' drawn on 19. May 2000 by Jeff's own hand.