The Truth About the 15th

Today's group of the week, from left, Marion, Larry and Heather.

French Cheeses In Luxembourg?

Paris:– Thursday, 15. April 2004:– In defiance of years of predictability, Easter's weather in Paris was atypically pleasant, especially on Easter Sunday when the sun was actually shining. It was a bonus for mankind and a slap in the face for my habitual Easter weather predictions.

However, Monday's predictions for semi–sunny weather on Tuesday and yesterday didn't pan out. The only thing correct was the forecast for today, which has turned out to be sunny and quite warm too.

This state of the skies is supposed to continue tomorrow, with a only a few minor clouds, and with a jolly temperature of 19 degrees. Enjoy it if and while you can.

For Saturday promises no such luck. Westerly winds will blow waves of clouds over this area and the temperature will take a crash–dive to 15 degrees. This will be the same as at Easter, but without the sunshine.

According to this morning's Le Parisien and tonight's TV–weather news, Sunday will not be a fine day unless you are somewhere near Strasbourg. In Paris rain is expected, and another temperature drop, to 14 degrees. This muck will linger on into Monday, according to the newspaper. Keep in form by eating all the vegetables you dislike intensely, if you believe in astrology.

Rays of sunshine everywhere in the air caused me to plan to leave early for the club meeting, to soak up some direct vitamin Ds that I am surely lacking on account of having had the mischance to buy some orange juice with mango in it.

The tall carton was orange–colored, so I assumed it was orange juice and I only noticed there was this 'mangue' in it at my turn at the checkout. Just thinking about what a foolish mistake I'd made probably made it taste more mangy than it would have been if I had not noticed it.

Sure enough, this morning it reeked of 'mangue.' I had to go out immediately and have a corrosive double–café to get rid of the taste.

Then alert club member Alena in Prague sent me a note about some bad code, and I had to fix what I could. So, when I did leave for the club I wasn't certain whether I'd get my 'Ds.' But I must have been quicker than I thought, because there seemed to be plenty of time in hand when I reached the Métro entry at Raspail, so I turned my shoes north, in the direction of the Luxembourg gardens.

Ideally a walk that takes 45 minutes should be allotted 60, rather than the 40 minutes I had available. Most of the trees in the Luxembourg have fresh leaves, the grass is very green, and the flowerbeds are wildly colorful – and the park was not overfull even though school holidays began last Friday.

Member Larry Mann got to the club's café La Corona in time to see me arrive five minutes late. He is on a long visit here and has been riding the buses a lot to see everything. The first comment he makes is, "You are never going to see it all."

"What is the 15th like?" is his first question. I explain that until recently – about 1900 – it was like a cow pasture, about like what the area beyond the Cadillac Ranch in Essonne is still like. It was prairie.

It is also a big arrondissement, not particularly well–served by Métros and buses. If you go down to the Parc Georges Brassens, you are supposed to remember that it was the horse market when Paris was full of horses, before the Métro was built, co–incidently, in 1900.

Wow! Those horses. Try to imagine Paris full of horses. They hauled buses and freight wagons, and the racing fish wagons, and taxis too, and even the motorcycle delivery fellows – before they switched to cheaper bicycles. The horses ate a lot too. And today people complain bitterly about the antics of a few dogs.

The next member to arrive is Marion Nowak, who has come from Cologne to Paris for a bit of shopping. Marion explains that she has only recently taken up shopping. For Easter, she says, she couldn't help herself from buying 40€–worth of cheese, and she and Stephan still have most of it.

"Communists don't like shopping trips," she says. Stephan isn't a Communist, but he gets a little nervous when Marion goes shopping because she's a beginner. On this trip Marion will be going up to Barbés and Château Rouge to get some material to feed through her Bernina sewing machine.

Then one of those 'six–degrees' things happen, but reduced to two–degrees of separation. I have the 'cat question of the week' from member Sally Dilgart – to which nobody knows the answer – but Marion has cats sewn on to her pantaloons.

In fact, she sewed together her pantaloons and her shirt too, which has a 'Mucha' design on it. I can imagine her up at Château Rouge getting enough material to make Stephan 17 shirts he can't wear in public in Cologne.

Larry wants to know about the 'Smart' cars he sees around. These are made by the plastic–watch company Swatch and Mercedes Benz in, I believe, a factory in Eastern France. Also, I've heard that there are a fair number of bootlegged 'Smarts' rolling around in Hollywood.

It makes sense. When it is obviously impossible to buy the 'fastest' car in the world, or the world's 'biggest' SUV, then it's obvious to go in the other direction – towards slowest and smallest. In Paris, 'Smarts' are popular because you can park them illegally everywhere.

Marion's other news from across the Rhine is that McDonald's has opened up a new venture called, 'McCafé.' She says their café isn't at all bad, but it's not that hard to get a good cup of café in Germany anyway. She says the 'McCafé' outlets don't sell any hamburgers, and they are brown outside instead of yellow.

At about this moment, or another one, member Heather Stimmler–Hall arrives, carrying a H&M bag. She says she has been shopping for something to wear to a wedding. She also says today was the day to do it because of a one–day 50 percent–off sale.