Post-Bath

As juxtapostion to yesterday's sad tone, here is nothing special from after the bath last night. Forgive the quality, I am going to get better at this.

911

My Dad used to talk about where he was on Dec 7, 1941, when he first heard about Pearl Harbor. Radio was the means of transmitting the news. For my older siblings, TV brought Kennedy's assasination into startling focus. The internet and a cell phone starting the unfolding of the most surreal day to date in my life, 6 years ago while living in DC. I often think of all those families who lost all those people in such a public fashion, and wonder where they all are in their grief, six years later. For that matter, where is America? Bin Laden is still at large, and four and a half years later, Americans, and countless Iraqis, civilians and otherwise, are still dying in Iraq. 4 1/2 years - it is almost as incredible a figure as the lives lost on 911.
A perhaps equally surreal memory is the fact that I frequently think of what I did on the evening of Sept 10th. It was a Monday night, my nephew Wayne had just been born 2 days prior up in Vermont, and I was to fly up there and see him just a few days later, before moving to France on the Fulbright for a 9-month stay. I was seeing as many people as I could before my move, and I sat out on the well-known and mildly glamourous rooftop terrace of the Hotel Washington, looking out over the White House and all the national monuments. With 3 good friends who had all lived in Manhattan at the same time as me, I savored a number of delightful dirty martinis over appetizers, thrilled at the size of the olives on the little swords, and appreciative of the stunning sunset view. We howled over old stories and told new ones. Too late we all took cabs home and slumped our way to work the next morning on the metro. By 9 am, the world was on fire. I have yet to go back to that rooftop terrace, as I prefer that last happy memory intact, before madness struck us all.

Weekend Fun

Birthday parties, Pancakes, Walks (or assisted walks!) in the Parc....
What weekends are all about.

This is Estelle with her old boyfriend Alessandro, who unfortunately moved away. But he was back for a birthday party on the beach, and so they enjoyed opening and playing with the gifts of the birthday boy, who was more interested in sucking his thumb than any of his toys! No photos of that sorry.
Sunday morning, Estelle has her first pancake with Uncle Wesley and Uncle Cedric's syrup.
2.5 hours later, time to harass Daddy during HIS pancake breakfast to have seconds.

Fueled with pancakes, we explored a regional park up in the high hills on Nice. What you see in this photo is the peninsula called Cap Ferrat, the bay on the right is called Beaulieu/Villefrance, the bay on the left, St. Jean. This is a tres elite area between Nice and Monaco. I remind readers to click on the photos to see them larger....

Walking with each parent taking a turn, since suddennly walking all alone is no more fun like it was in the video from Friday night. We don't know what happenned. She's taking a breather, I guess!

6!

Wayne, nephew extraordinaire, is 6 today, way over across the Atlantic in Vermont. When I called him at 7:50 am (his time) this morning, he said "Daddy is taking me down to Currier's to get donuts."
That is pretty much the way EVERY birthday, for everyone, should begin - a donut and a day full of promise. Here he is, in all his glory, along with siblings.


This is not Estelle, but Heather, in Estelle's clothes. It's the blue eyes that should tip you off!

She Walks!

Lordy, I think I can actually put a video on this dang blog! You should see a little button to click on in the bottom left of the picture to start the video.
Now if only I had made this movie horizontally. Or is that vertically? Oh well.
Amazingly, this evening, all of the sudden, Estelle just starting walking. Just like that. It is the wildest thing. We are beside ourselves. I just kept grinning and cooing "like a damn fool", as my Dad was wont to say. At the moment, however, France is losing in the Rugby World Cup against Argentina, so, as my husband says, "keep the joy relative".

Don't judge a book....

So when we got back from Spain there was a little note in the mailbox, the kind of notes you hate in France, in a love-hate way. "You have a package, you weren't here when we tried to deliver it, so come and get it." This is the kiss of death in France, country of "It's the Post Office - no wait, it's a Bank - no wait, it's a Post Office - no, wait, it's a Bank!".
I'm sure previous posts have ranted on this topic somewhere in the archives.
One of these little "avis de passage" slips means, of course, waiting in line. WIL is such a part of French culture, and so NOT American, unless you are talking entry to a PHISH concert or the latest Harry Potter release. I personally go a little balistic about WIL, known as "faire le queue" (this literally means "make a tail" - evidence to the lines being LONG). I calculate my days around ways NOT to WIL - it is engrained in us, as Americans, to be efficient with our time, which is so precious. No 5 weeks of vacation in America, so don't tell me I gotta WIL everywhere I turn in my day.
Of course the time to do anything is between 12 and 2pm; because no one is doing anything, because, of course, they are EATING. But it doesn't matter because the only thing open during that time is the library, the big grocery stores, and, naturally, restaurants. Bakery, grocer, butcher, bank, post office, (any office, for that matter) is shut up.
At any rate, off we went to get the mystery package, on the slip it said "for E Ouillade".
A lovely box from one of my sisters. We get home, and I see on the customs' slip "baby books". It is from my sister Laura. How nice, I think, books from Laura for Estelle. I open the box, out fall two cute packages, all wrapped up, and a card. I open the card, and it is a baptism card for Estelle. I decide to wait until evening to open the presents as a family. Now, my sister Laura is what you could call a god-fearing woman. So I knew those 2 cute packages were going to be the first books in Estelle's "catechism" book collection.
Here is a photo of Estelle opening one of the presents that evening under the watchful and proud, god-fearing eyes of her parents, prepared to say a blessing over the books....
"How Moses parted the red sea"? "Just how did Noah get all those animals into the arc"? Why no. Rather, pink furry ears and a clip-on tail to dress up like a pig, complete with a snout-shaped board-book for inspiration when the impulse strikes her, along with a mermaid bathtub book, and a ringing velcro phone-book.
Moral of the story - Don't judge a sister by her god-fearingness, and you never know what WIL will bring you!

ESPAGNE

We have recovered from our marathon-driving wkend to southwestern France and then Spain for the wedding of Thomas' cousin, Aster - born in Ethiopia and adopted long ago by Thomas' uncle after he married Aster's mother.
Due to Thomas' job we missed the civil ceremony Friday afternoon, but managed to arrive at midnight before the cheese course of the "casual" wedding reception. This was a couple hundred people, Ethiopian cuisine and music, and some serious African dancing in full force under the biggest tent I've ever seen in my life that didn't entail a circus. This was on their private property in Mirepoix, southwest of Carcassone (this is near Toulouse, relatively).
Around 2 am we ducked out before dessert and crashed at the hotel. Saturday after lunching with the extended family in the darling medieval town of Mirepoix, off we went into the Pyrenees to Seu d'Urgell in Spain. This required skirting around the principality of Andorra.
What happens when my entire extended French in-law family travels to northern Spain and no one speaks Spanish or Catalan, well, it's an adventure.
Saturday night at 7 pm was another reception - essentially another wedding, held at a castle up on a mountain with views of the Pyrenees that made all that car-riding worth it. At 2 we begged off and carried a sleeping Estelle to the car. What a weekend!
From afar, the castle we were in (by day)
The mountains in Spain
This is when we were following my in-laws in Spain, trying to find out hotel...they stopped ahead of us to ask some pedestrians the directions, and the next thing we knew, the couple hopped into the back of the car alongside my sister-in-law. This was hilarious. They spoke no French, so there was just a lot of pointing, we were told afterwards.
The Hall in the castle.
Can you truly appreciate the size of this piece of lamb? I tried to put it in perspective with my hand, but frankly don't think I did it justice.
Estelle, happily asleep under a "voute".
One of the various tapestries surrounding our tables in the Hall.Three generations with Estelle who had just woken up at 2 am, probably wondering where the hell she was.
Here you can barely make out the bride, Aster, in the white and black spanish dress, and the groom, Pierre, on the right in the gray shirt. Aster was, and is, stunning.

Eleatheyna

This is Eleatheyna, or "Ley" (pronounced "lay"), daughter of my friend Charlotte, who is the daughter of my friend Genevieve.
Estelle and Ley had a little impromptu playdate this afternoon, as Ley now lives in Bretagne, in Rennes, but is here visiting relatives in Nice for a bit. At one point, Estelle pulled herself up off the carpet onto Ley, and they walked all around the house together, hand in hand, having a very excited chat which remains locked in the vault of gibbergabber.

Gitan

This is the French word for gypsy. We think Estelle could blend right in with the gypsies if we ever need to hand her over, as the old threat goes.

Dr. Max

Here is the man who told me last summer if I went into labor during the World Cup final, I could just chew on a wooden spoon until the game was over.
Dr. Max, the man who held Estelle before I ever did.
We love him.

Grace

Part of the allure of the French Riviera is Monaco, that oh-so-mythical principality just 25 minutes from us. As Thomas has been working there since last fall, we are getting to know it a little better outside of the realm of tourist.
But today Estelle and I spent 2.5 hours as true tourists. The Grimaldi Forum is home to the hot new international exposition of The Life and Times of Princess Grace, 25 years after her untimely death on the narrow Monegasque hills.
I have found many French people surprised when I told them how excited I, an American, was to go to the exhibit of the Princess of Monaco - then I remind them she was an American film star well before her crowning. You know, "Hitchcock, just for starters! High Noon, High Society!" I blurt out (all these "H" words, possibly they have no idea what I am saying). They all say "Ah, oui, oui, bien sur....". I in turn am surprised that I need to remind them of her life before. A testament to cultural ignorance on both our parts.
The 19 rooms of the exhibit are all that you would expect, glamourous, classy, elegant, interesting, poignant, detailed. And the gowns! The clothes, the shoes, the Hermes bags, the hats and gloves and bathing caps! All what I knew I would find.
What truly was a surprise, however, was that the woman apparently kept EVERYTHING - long before she was ever a star much less a Princess. There are telegrams and notes, even scrapbooks with things crudely taped into them like a little bulb and in her handwriting next to it "Light I took off the Tree at Parker's party". Or a half-empty pack of Wrigley's gum with a caption "Gum I got at the party." She was a sentimental packrat behind all that poise. Who knew.
Cases and cases of personal correspondence from Hitchcock, Sinatra, Princess Diana, Yul Brenner, her mother, her agent, her lawyers, Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, Josephine Baker--- it just goes on and on. But quite touchingly very intimate notes from the Prince as he awaited her in Monaco before their wedding, in his handwriting saying things like "I am counting the days, the minutes. I love you, Rainier." There's even a whole section about her affair with Oleg Cassini, long before she knew Rainier, and how it was discouraged as he was divorced and not Catholic.
In any event, you can't help but come away feeling a bit GLAM.
Thus, we had lunch with Papa on one of the 2 ports of Monaco. In the 2nd photo, you can see the Cathedral up high on the left, where Grace and Ranier were married, and where they are buried.

On the Throne

She has yet to grasp that one must kiss the frog to make him turn back into the Prince, not chew on him. Poor cuss, he's already lost an arm in the battle. And for all you antique buffs out there, that chair she is sitting in is referred to as a "Voltaire". We love it.

Behind Bars

The only way to brush my teeth or hang out the laundry nowadays is to put Estelle into the "parc", which is what the French call these wooden playpen thingys. If left to her own devices, she essentially wreaks havoc at each second in every corner of the apartment.
This morning we narrowly escaped my passport being ripped apart.
When not in lockdown, she does have her glamourous side, however.

Maxence Again

Why unpack and get your life organized after being gone for 8 weeks, when you can spend the day playing? Yesterday, in our befuddled state back in Nice, we went out to lunch and to the park all afternoon to play with Maxence, who will yet again go back to Paris after a nice long visit here on the coast this summer.
Maxence, no longer sporting her wacky mohawk, turned one year, has 11 teeth to Estelle's bare 4 and can tear a path across anything as she walks all by herself! She also nods yes and no when asked a question.
But her parents Emmanuel and Melanie remind us that Estelle will be bi-lingual, so don't get too worried!

Saving the Soul

Wondering where we've been? 2 wks in a villa avec la Famille Ouillade in nearby Grasse.
What's more, mademoiselle Estelle became one with the Lord finally and was baptized. We loved Pere Narcisse from Burkina Faso who did the honors. Godmother is Aunt Agnes and godfather is T's childhood hockey buddy, Francois.
Afterwards, back to our villa for champagne and a poolside BBQ put on by our favorite Riviera chefs, "uncles" Craig and Doug.
Amen!