Thurso Colder!

Lucky Club Turns 7

Paris:– Thursday, 20. October 2005:– I'm not sure how to treat the weather. I'm getting the feeling that it's not just some casual entertainment in the sky. Another hurricane by the name of Wilma is twisting up its fury in the Gulf of Mexico. I thought everybody already had their share of hurricanes this year.

Here of course the weather is wimpy. It is no longer being nice nice and showering us with golden sunbeams and warm breezes but it needs to be said that its bark is largely toothless, if you overlook last night's rain, which I can because I wasn't out in it.

The weather map for tomorrow is somber. This might be because the map is small, even on the TV–news, but the real sky is big. After viewing the maps I have to say that a lot might be happening on Friday. Bands of cloud and rain sweeping across France from northwest to southeast, while there will be winds of 90 kph blowing all over the place from the southwest, holding the temperature down to 17 degrees.

Then on Saturday all the clouds switch to the northern half of France, but stay mainly cloudy without rain. If there are winds I forgot to scribble them on the map. The temperature is forecast to be 17 degrees again.

This program is supposed to pause on Sunday and allow bits of blue sky to show between the clouds. Presumably this openness will allow our heat to rise and become less, so we are not to expect a high of more than 16 degrees. I can hardly wait until there has been a few weeks of this, until it gets on my nerves and I start calling it bad names, like filthy, rotten, trashy, boring, and crummy. Ah, wonderful winter!

In honor of today's club anniversary I sleep in. I honestly intended to get up earlier than usual and do something different on the way to the club, like ride the Métro to Châtelet, and scope out the Rue de Rivoli for new sights but my subconscious had some other plan – like finishing some totally lame dream starring Henry Nutley sliding down a sewer pipe that dumps into the Seine.

Then the flipping Métro took its own jolly sweet time getting to Raspail. Time was passing in minute chunks and the Métro's clock kept saying two minutes until arrival. It was surprising the following train didn't get there first.

When it came it was full of course and then two trainloads got on at Montparnasse, but it was still better than New York's line seven headed for Manhattan because of the x–rated posters in the stations and some of the x–rated riders in the wagon. I wasn't sure I wanted to leave the fun at Odéon but decided to battle my way off for the hell of it.

I get across the Boulevard Saint–Germain without great risk and slithered through the Quartier Latin to the smooth stones of the Pont Neuf, sometimes scuttling sideways like a crab. There was no time to shoot any posters as well as there being no posters worth shooting and the visitors, dog kidnappers, nannies and pickpockets on the Quai du Louvre cleared out of my way right smartly somewhat after I passed.

Monsieur Ferrat said, "Ca va?" as I whizzed by the café's empty terrace and entered the café's bar, where the patron Monsieur Naudan also shook my hand. There was four minutes to spare by the café's atomic clock, just in time to begin the Café Metropole Club's first 312th meeting in history.

Member Terrie Blazek from Chicago was sitting calmly in the club's area in the café's 'grande salle' with a fat glass of wine, waiting for me. My first words were not, "I am not late!"

Neither here nor there, Terrie gives me a joyeux extra magnifique anniversaire card, for the club's birthday and a live plant with green leaves and flowers. Is it the club's first live plant?

A minute later new member Kay Brenner is making herself known to the club. Kay is from San José in California and has been coming to the club for a long time. Er, it has taken her a long time to get here – she couldn't have picked a better meeting to finally make it.

In fact Kay came to the café yesterday to 'test' it. I seldom mention that there is an entry to the 'grande salle,' directly from the terrace, as well as the bar entry on Amiral Coligny. "I was going to stand in the middle of the big room and speak English," she says, in order to find the club, in case we were hiding under a frond.

Then member Dennis Moyer arrives from the Rue Daguerre, saying, "I hear you have the best Orangina in town." Kay says, "I've been waiting four years." Dennis, to Kay, says, "Do you know the way to San José?"

"Who sang that?" Kay wonders. It must be an unmusical meeting because nobody even tries to guess. Either that or we are all rock–n–rollers.

Dennis says, "I like Chicago."

"I'll tell you where it's colder than Chicago," Kay offers, "Thurso in Scotland!"

As often happens, with Dennis on my left and Terrie on my right and Kay opposite, Kay is talking to me and Dennis and Terrie are talking and these two conversations are colliding over the centre with most people picking the fragments they like but the fragments of notes I get don't fit together.

One important decision is made and it is to call 'Willy the Bird' Edith Piaf in the future. The bird has absolutely flipped out, hovering all over, looking for frites underfoot, whizzing around the café, swinging off the lamps overhead. Dennis is the brains behind this idea. How does this sound – Edith 'Willy the Bird' Piaf?