Too Darn Hot--But We're Coping

[Written yesterday, the 4th, posted today when we could poach a signal.]

After several transatlantic phone calls last night, we had formulated a brilliant plan for surviving the heat wave, at least for today: We would go to a museum and spend the whole day pretending to soak up the Best That Has Been Thought and Said (or Painted and Sculpted) in Western Civilization--because we probably couldn’t get away with spending the entire day in the frozen food section of our neighborhood super-marche.

It was a good plan. I took half a xanax last night to assure a good night’s sleep, regardless of the weather, and we headed out to the Musee d’Orsay around noon. Our brilliant plan was almost derailed when we got to the d’Orsay and realized that every other tourist within ten thousand miles had formulated exactly the same plan. We found ourselves melting in the noon-day sun in the longest line I’ve seen since tickets for Cher’s farewell tour went on sale in Dupont Circle. In desperation, we hit on another brilliant plan: Martha sent me out to find a way to get into the museum without going through that line. It’s funny. Only in France, where I have a dim grasp of the language and a high-school girl’s sense of geography, am I the one in this relationship who is supposed to Go Out and Do Things to End Our Suffering in Some Ridiculous Situation.

In this case, that proved to be a smart move. I went out, as hunters have gone out from time immemorial, determined to end the suffering in my clan. First, I went to a tabac by the museum, and said, “Do you sell passes to the museums?” (I was referring to the magical ticket that secures admission to all Paris museums for a set period of time and gets one around all the horrible lines of sheep who stand melting in the mid-day sun in front of every museum in Paris.) “No,” he replied (en francais), “you have to buy it at the museum.” Merde, I muttered to myself, now what? Next, determined not to go back to my girl empty-handed, I went up to a fellow guarding the magic door where all the smart people with advance tickets and museum passes happily entered. “Where do I get the museum passes?” I demanded. He said. . .a lot of words that I couldn’t make much sense of. He probably told me to go around to the door on the other side of the museum where such passes were for sale, but he might have told me that the ice cream on the Champs-Elysees is truly excellent, and it would have been the same to me. In any case, I headed back to Martha in frustration. By that point, she had of course formed intimate relationships with half of the ten thousand people melting in the line under the mid-day sun. She quickly pointed me in the direction of the magical window right behind the rhinoceros and within minutes I had in fact procured four-day passes that will admit us to any museum in Paris without standing in the damn lines with all the sheep whose internet connections weren’t working or whose husbands told them it would be a waste of money to buy passes when they could just get tickets when they got to the museums.

And toute suite, there we were, in the AIR-CONDITIONED COMFORT of the Musee d’Orsay. We stayed all afternoon, because we are suckers for Impressionism and because they have an extraordinary collection of Art Nouveau—and because the Musee d’Orsay may well have the finest air-conditioning system in all of Paris. We went to the d’Orsay back in 2000, and I don’t recall being so impressed with the air-conditioning, but this time, ooh la la, it was in fine form, and so I was able to dry out and focus on such minor details as the fact that Van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom at Arles always takes my breath away. A painting like that is so familiar and so covered over with clichés that one can hardly see it, and yet when I do. . .I am always taken aback, by the madness and the design of it, the skewed proportions, that sense of the walls pressing in, and yet the extraordinary colors and the way that it all fits together, even in its skewedness. It moves me as few paintings do, because I still think of myself as visually illiterate, despite all the miles logged in museums over the years. (Thank you, William and Debra!)

After the museum, we came home and changed for dinner, met up with the Unsworths ( and Maggie’s charming father, Jim ) for dinner at the Bastide Odeon, near the Luxembourg gardens, where we ate back in 2000. It was a splendid evening. The Bastide is still a fine restaurant, despite having made certain concessions to the Euro-sensitive tourist trade. We all had delicious three-course meals, a couple of bottles of a spectacular burgundy, and after-dinner drinks for John and Martha. I had a warm eggplant with a touch of goat cheese and other yummy things for my appetizer and an adventurous lamb’s feet in a kind of cassoulet for my entrée, plus some nice poached apricots with almonds and ice cream for dessert. Martha had salmon on scalloped potatoes in a light cream sauce (mayo & chives, lemon) for her appetizer and cannelloni of lamb with fava beans, bits of spinach, plus zucchini for her entrée, then a light chocolate “cream puff” (chocolate outside, pastry, chocolate sauce inside) for dessert.

Great way to kick off Martha’s professional excuse for being in Paris, the Association for Literary and Linguistics Computing and Association for Computing in the Humanities conference, though it does mean that Martha will have to do some work over the next few days. I, however, am not burdened by any such responsibility and will continue to comb the city for evidence of advanced civilization and air-conditioning. The good news is that temperatures are supposed to moderate over the next few days. I think we’ve made it through the worst and that perhaps I’ll be able to fulfill those fantasies of combing the markets for treats and bargains while Martha is off at the conference.

Or, I’ll just get a whole lot more mileage off my museum pass in search of cool rooms and great art. Whatever, I’m in the world’s greatest city, and I love it.