Category Archives: for LUI

Mightier than the sword

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La Dolce Vita

 

Like any good soldier, I pay great attention to my weapons, and being a writer, that would be my pen. I love my writing tools.

As a blogger, I depend mostly on high tech tools, like the iPad, which fits perfectly into all my bags and seems to have been made for the Parisian café culture. I love it. To a point. Because, as cool as it is, it is missing the art and the beauty of the written word. There is nothing more luxurious than having the time to sit in a Paris café, take out one’s pen and begin to right on a smooth, lovely paper. And there is really nothing like going to the mailbox and finding a long, handwritten note among the stack of bills.

The French take their pens pretty seriously. In grade school children are expected to learn proper penmanship, using a fountain pen. This is not a quirky little habit of the über rich, it is required by the public school system and It is a big deal when your child gets his/her first fountain pen at about 7 years of age. Lamy makes some really great “starter pens” (12.90€) for young students that are wooden, not terribly expensive, easy to handle and easy to replace at just about any corner stationary store as your kid looses first one, and then the other, and another, and… As the kids get older, they tend to stick with Lamy for school, graduating to the brighter, sleeker models that many adults like. I assume that they pick them up when replacing the umpteenth Lamy lost by le petit.

Beyond the school yard, its a wide, open field full of fun, fantasy pens. If you look beyond the Lamy section at any tabac or stationary store, like the one by the artist Ben (12.99€), in his signature black, with witty French sayings like, “Write between the lines.” Or trés fille fille Inès de la Fressange models (15€) with graphic flowers and a modern touch.

 

Being deprived all the fun fashion accessories available to us ladies, les garçons tend to get very serious about their pens (and watches, but that is another article altogether). Mr French loves shopping at Mora on the rue de Tournon in the 6th, a traditional family business where you can find the latest models, as well as an excellent selection of vintage pens from the most respected houses like Waterman, Pélikan and SJ Dupont (70€ on up…).

As for me, in 1992 I had a very nasty accident involving a leather purse and a leaky fountain pen. The ink won and I have been a strictly ball point girl ever since. I recently developed a somewhat unhealthy attachment to a Delta, Dolce Vita (195€). The pen is the perfect shade of orange to go with my collection. It comes from Italy and it is an absolute delight in hand; perfectly weighted, ideally balanced and wonderfully smooth to the touch. Now if only it could do some of my writing for me…

Happy Birthday!!!

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Just last month I wrote about my Dad and how very, very fortunate I am to have a father like him. An amazingly kind, gentle man.

My Dad did not got to a famous university. He had to work. And work he did, doing everything he could to provide the best possible education for his children so that they could do what ever they chose to do in life. From my earliest childhood memories, I remember him teaching me the importance of a good education. I remember being about five and throwing a Dr Seuss book across my room in a nasty snit. My Dad made me pick up the book and apologize to it before I put it back in my bookshelf. Books were knowledge and you absolutely must respect knowledge.

When I was a little girl, my Dad would take out the painted white baseboards in our houses and put in beautiful oak ones he had prepared. He made our coffee table and he made my mother the most elegant jewelery box that I still use every day.

He would spend entire weekends making pickles and canning spaghetti sauces, teaching the importance of natural, whole foods that are not loaded with preservatives.

When he wasn’t working, or in his shop, he’d be out in his garden, sometimes forcing us to join him in pruning, clipping, weeding, mowing. He has finally retired, but he still gardens, growing beautiful flowers and wonderful fruits and vegetables to enjoy.

When my girls were newly born he went out of his way to bring me cases of strawberries and dungeness crab salad from Swann’s in San Francisco.

When he started to travel, he tried to learn French. He mastered ordering frites like a pro but he created quite the stir one evening when he ordered his steak bien cul, instead of bien cuit (he wanted his meat well done, but asked for it to be Good Ass)!

Today is my Dad’s 70th birthday…..

HAPPY
BIRTHDAY
DAD

and a very joyeux anniversaire.

The girls and I adore you and love you very much.

On the Prowl…

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July has gone out with a roar as we enter the astrological sign of Leo, and men will soon be flooding the streets of Paris, on the prowl. Actually, the hunt begins just after the 14 juilllet, when families head off on summer holidays, heading back to the city, the children safely ensconced with the grandparents, or some hapless aunt, or in a summer camp.

It is time for the adults to play. Some of the families divide and conquer, with Mom and Dad taking turns watching the kids while the other returns to work in Paris. And that is when things start to get wild. I don’t know what the women are up to, but these days the cafés are overflowing with solo, but not necessarily single, men looking for a date.

And, as luck would have it, this is prime travel season for the rest of the Northern hemisphere. Tons of tourists are streaming in to the city, many of them single women (or men), some of them dreaming of being swept off their feet by a French prince charming, totally unaware of the current climate.

I once had a friend who was lured into the trap. Here on holidays, he chose to attend a public lecture at the Carnavalet museum in the Marais. A very handsome Parisien, Vladamir,  approached him and invited him for a café after the event. My friend was charmed, and they spent some time chatting. As they chatted a few alarm bells started going off. What was a fairly young, presumably employed local doing at a museum lecture in the middle of the afternoon?

Vladamir invited my friend back to his place. When my friend declined, saying he had a husband back home, Vladamir gave him his address, just in case my friend should change his mind. That night over drinks, my friend told me the tale.

“Oh, and he lives in your neighborhood, just a block away, on the rue de xx.”

“Vladamir on the rue de xx? I know a Vladamir on the rue de xx. He works with my husband. That’s too funny! No way they’re the same Vladamir, though, ours is married to a woman with two kids.In fact my daughter is very close with his son.”

“Oh, you never know….” And he went on to describe Vladamir, OUR Vladamir.

So caveat emptor, my dear friends, if you happen to meet a charming Parisien during the school holidays and he seems just too good to be true, chances are he very well may be.

Child of the 80s

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And proud of it. Or at least, I don’t mind. Its not like I exactly had a choice in the matter, and while I wince at the memory of my forest green polyester dress suit, I still wear my purple fleece Norma Kamali winter coat and I am happy to spend hours with E and M, curled up on the sofa, munching away on popcorn as we watch Molly Ringwald’s melted chocolate eyes on the silver screen, seducing us through the expert guidance of John Hughes.

When I met my new BFF, Scaramouche this weekend I naturally had Freddy Mercury bellowing Bohemian Rhapsody in my mind. “Thunderbolt and lightening…”. Curiousity got the better of me and I learned that his namesake is a conceited clown from the commedia dell’arte. Clearly, this was my kind of dude. And what was the 2012 Scaramouche’s particular brand of conceit? Commercial hubris.

flipping through folded bus stop posters... a voyeuristic joy

This reformed pharmacist, friend of the graphic novelist Moebius and over all connaisseur rules over his domain like a light-hearted, extremely knowledgable clown, teasing flâneurs who have stopped to rest their weary soles at the terasses of the cafes in the Passage Molière. That is how Mr French and I first discovered his shop, Librairie Scaramouche. We were sitting there, sipping away at our poirés (think cidre, made with pears, delish!) when a door popped open and inside we spied a treasure trove… Ali Baba’s cavern.

Just beyond the man, we spied posters of the great, classic cinema from every decade. Everything from Mon Oncle to the 2012 Cannes film festival; Audrey in Vacanze Romane to Tim Burton at the Cinemathéque, it was all there. There were cheap reprints, affordable press shots and vintage posters, as well.

We spent hours wotj Scaramouche, admiring his collection while we discussed Moebius and Billal. Most of the work is quite affordable, in the 20€ range. I can’t wait to come back here in November for our Christmas shopping. Hopefully by then he’ll have had time to hunt down a Pretty in Pink poster in French…

Shine bright

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When a good friend of mine was made redundant at work, the replacement agency that was helping her find a new job actually hired a fashion consultant to take clients shoe shopping. Shoes, according to the experts, are the most important thing you wear when going on a job interview in Paris.

I found this little bit of trivia amazing. I shared it with Mr French and the Parisiennes. But, of course, they concurred. C’est normal. If someone does not take care of their shoes, beh, they are just not serious. Which explains why even the seven year olds in the playground have perfectly polished shoes. My daughters’ friends; average teen boys, all have dress shoes. And wear them on a fairly regular basis. Its a national habit. But having nice shoes is just the beginning.

Shoe care starts immediately upon leaving the shoe store, when Mr French asks if we have waterproofing spray at home. At first, I thought this was a joke. He buys some fairly expensive shoes, and is worried about waterproofing? Don’t you buy them that way and the stuff wears off with time? Non ! When you buy a pair of shoes in Paris, you’ve got to waterproof them before you can ever wear them. And then waterproof them again, every 6-8 weeks for the rest of their lives.

And since they are nice shoes, they will most likely have leather soles. The problem with leather soles is that they are fragile and need to be protected.  You’ve just spent several hundred euros on a pair of shoes, you would think, you would HOPE that they were ready to wear for years to come. But no, after wearing those brand new, gorgeous leather soles exactly five times you are off to the cobbler’s protecting the soles and putting taps on the heels.

At last, you can finally enjoy wearing your shoes; sashaying through the city streets, crossing your legs ‘just so’ at the local café, bobbing your ankle at exactly the right rhythm to appreciate your stunning footwear and generally feeling chicer than the widow of the deposed president of a tropical island state. But wait. Is that a scuff over your left pinkie toe? Damn, did that stumble in the paving stones eat into your leather-lined heel? One day on the town and already you need… a shoe shine.

Fortunately, that is when Frenchmen come into the picture. On any given Sunday night, men throughout the city are taking out their shoe shine kits and getting ready to polish their shoes. I know CEOs of multi-national corporations with full time help who choose to shine their own shoes. Bankers, lawyers, the waiters at your favorite café, and even the gentleman who delivers my groceries, shine their shoes. Every week! “Its relaxing” they claim. “I enjoy it.” They insist. Whatever. I, for one, am happy to contribute to this relaxing moment by adding some shoes of my own. And of course, every morning as he heads out the door, Mr French stoops down, polishing cloth in hand, giving his shoes their daily caress before I get my kiss goodbye.

There is a specific routine to proper shoe shining, but in France, it is like the BBQ, almost exclusively a man’s realm. I suppose I could get all self-righteous about women’s equality, and demand to know more, but really, I’d rather let them have this one. Shine away, Monsieurs! Shine bright!

For everything from animal skins to heel forms to make your own shoes, or just a bit of polish in any color imaginable/ BHV

Running

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A gold gilded run

I seem to be getting older everyday, and that means I’m getting a bit fatter, too. Like many Parisiennes, I love my wardrobe and it is full of favorites from decades past. Unlike many Parisiennes, I eat too much. Which means that if I want my painstakingly curated wardrobe to fit me this season, and seasons to come, I have to move my ass. I hate running, but there are no decent gyms in our new neighborhood, so I am left with no choice, but to run.

The thing that saves me is the view. Once you get over the heavy breathing, running in Paris can be fun. In the Luxembourg gardens you start to recognize folks. There is the Kenyan looking gentleman who seems to run all day, everyday, whizzing past even the firemen as if he is training for a marathon. There are the firemen, keeping in shape for the next emergency, the lady in a nice blazer and a banana belt who shuffles along, and a homeless man with mismatched shoes. A bunch of runners got together and bought him a new pair of running shoes. He still wears them mismatched. I guess its his “look”.

I could almost forget I am running

But running in circles is not really my thing. I’m happier going places, so we run along the Seine, passing the city’s most beautiful monuments. Eye candy is sweet, but doesn’t go to the hips. There are worse places one could run.

On particularly gorgeous weekends, we may head to Versailles early in the morning. This weekend, we had the entire Chateau grounds to ourselves as the staff prepared for the swarms of tourists who were just outside the gates, waiting for the Grandes Eaux Musicales. It was magical running in the coolness of the early morning as a light fog lifted, revealing the palace in all its grandeur.

One loop around the Tuileries ends our run.

When I start acting particularly petulant and need a kick in my fat ass bit of motivation, Mr French throws me into his car and heads up to Deauville for the day. We arrive early by French standards and run along the boardwalk before the crowds awake; heading from the tip of the port to the large rocks beyond Tourgeville and back, followed by a delicious swim in the salt water Olympic swimming pool on the beach. So heavenly I actually want to run!

MORE INFORMATION/ Deauville Pool

 

Ohh la la lingerie…

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Mr French likes to take me shopping. I know, totally weird, huhn? A man who likes to shop? Rumour has it that this is actually pretty common among French men and circumstantial evidence tells me its probably true. That circumstantial evidence being last week’s trip to NYC where every intelligent store seemed to have plenty of seating full of bored to tears (literally, in one instance) men folk.

As a result of all this shopping, my name is on the mailing list of some rather nice boutiques. One of these boutiques is Eres. I know, cool, huhn? I’ve been into an Eres store with Mr French. It was Valentine’s Day their collection had lace. ‘Nuf said about that.

Eres was founded by the Parisienne Irene Leroux in 1968, when she took over her family’s struggling bathing suit business near La Madeleine. At a time when women were liberating themselves and their fashions, Irene decided to revolutionize swimwear design by removing all the internal corsetry. And she started a winter collection for her affluent clients who would spend the colder months in warmer climates. This brilliant move earned her the scorn of the local competition who scoffed at her foolishness, until they realized she had  revitalize the entire industry while ensuring Eres’ foothold in the luxury market.

In 1996 Chanel purchased Eres and two years later they introduced a line of sumptuously rich, incredibly elegant lingerie. This season’s collection is particularly gorgeous; sensible lace trimming iced aqua blue or sunshine yellow silk. Pretty and girlie, yet practical. Things I can wear under my clothing without worrying about weird ruffles popping up or strange ribbons creating a deformed looking silhouette. Stunningly sexy, pleasing not only Mr French but the firemen of the quartier!

A couple of weeks ago I got an other treat from Eres… an invitation to the launch of their new nail polish collection. Sounded like the great way to get our minds thinking of summer sunshine to combat the gloomy spring we’ve had and who doesn’t love a girls night out; champagne, panties and polish!?! I invited my friend Kristen from Un Homme et Une Femme and we were treated to an evening of pampering. About three of the guests had thought to bring along their men folk, who looked very content to ogle the barely clad models as they filtered through the crowd. I was glad Mr French was not around to see these girls in their swimsuits before I get back into mine this summer! There was a lively cocktail bar, but I was too lazy to brave the clamouring crowd, so Kristen and I made do with champagne. And since eating anything substantial in sight of the bathing beauties would be something of a mental challenge, Eres provided fresh sliced mango, melon and strawberries, which went well with our manicures, Kristen chose orange and I went for raspberry.

The best part was leaving. We were given little gift bags and sent out into the balmy night. Balmy? Yes, balmy. The weather had turned and warmth was in the air as dusk settled, the city turned on its gold toned electric light and we strolled down to the Concorde, heading home, ready for summer.

Eres