cemetary

(post written in May 2019 as I finally get around to finishing these posts)

The morning of our last day was spent at the famous Pere Lachaise cemetary which was close to where we were staying.

medieval things

(post written in May 2019... because I'm a slacker and didn't get it done earlier.)

We went to the Musée de Cluny, which is an excellent museum of the middle ages.

weird and wonderful colors and shapes

The Natural History Museum in Paris is a collection of associated museums (they're not apparently actually one entity; you have to pay separate to get into each section, though there is a discount for having been to another). They consist of a large garden with buildings around the perimeter, plus a zoo. Of course, in February, the gardens are perhaps not at their best.

arrival in paris

(It is now the beginning of April, and I am finally getting to writing up our trip to Paris - I've backdated the posts.)

This time, we decided to fly to Paris, instead of taking the train. This was not a bad idea. We took the RER and metro into the city, and when we emerged, the first thing both of us did was be tourists.

december

December brought a number of things.

Arles

A few weeks ago, I was with some friends, and the conversation turned towards things in the general region that should be seen/done/visited. My contribution to this, as always, was the flamingos of the Camargue - a good three-plus hour drive to the east of Toulouse, but I think it's worth it to see wild flamingos. I mentioned to one of my friends that maybe G's parents would let us stay with them to allow us to go on a field trip. I asked G, who asked his parents, and after a bit of discussion, a date was set.

sparkle lights

We have just returned from a stunning fireworks display.

About a three minute walk from our apartment is the main city library (or médiathèque, if you prefer). It is a strange, upside-down U shaped building straddling the top of one of the city's main boulevards.  Behind the médiathèque lies a square where there's some kind of city-related-something, some little stores (convenience store, pharmacy, bakery kind of thing; mostly we care about the bakery) and apartments.  It is here that the city has chosen for les feux d'artifice du 14 juillet (it's Bastille Day).

life is hard when you're a perry cat

Perry is a cat of routines and rituals, which slowly shift over time.  One of these is the bedtime ritual.  He used to come snuggle in bed with me when we went to bed, but for the last several months, G has been the preferred bed partner.

When Perry detects that we are starting to get ready for bed, he comes to the bed, wanders around on it, sits on it, makes plaintive sad noises.  Once G gets under the covers (G is usually first in), Perry goes under too for a bit of a snuggle with his boyfriend.  Sometimes he just stays for a few minutes; other times he stays until we've gone to sleep.  If I wake up in the middle of the night, I generally find that Perry has migrated to the foot of the bed, generally cradled between the ridges made by our legs.

Last night, Perry was waiting expectantly for his nightly snuggle.  However, once G was under the covers, a fluffy white cat named Nicki decided that she wanted to try this snuggling thing out too... and Perry was unable to get in.

He had such a lost, sad look on his face as he tried to figure out what had gone wrong with his world...

smell the flowers

It's been months since I posted, but here I am again, hopefully to start posting semi-regularly again.  I've had lots of little ideas of things to post about, but just never got around to it... I haven't even emptied my camera since Christmas, that's how lazy I've been.

However, the weather is beautiful today.  And we live just a short walk away from this:

It's what I believe to be the highest point of Toulouse.  There is an obelisk (visible in the background of the third photo) - a monument to some battle that Napoleon fought, I think - and a bunch of old observatories, most of which were built in the late 1800s and house or housed telescopes of varying sizes, according to the signs next to them.  There's also open spaces, flowers (or potential flowers), paths, a jungle gym, people of all ages walking around with and without dogs, small people making lots of noise and running, a little house with a lot of cats, birds singing, bees buzzing...  It's really nice to visit, and I should really do so more often.

Safari!

The San Diego Zoo's Safari Park (renamed from the Wild Animal Park, as it was very emphatically known last time I visited... when I was about 12) is less zoo-like than the actual Zoo (though there is a small zoo there), and has more emphasis on the wide-open spaces of the majority of the park.  They have options to rent Segways or get driven around in a small cart, or in a truck, but my friends and I chose to do the standard tram tour.  A lot of the animals are kind of far away, so I didn't take as many photos as I  might have - I only had a point-and-shoot and not very good zoom capabilities. :)

Francis

I went to the San Diego Safari Park last week (will post that... later...), then went to a professional conference. One of the lectures I attended was about training and medical/husbandry behaviors at the Zoo.

Imagine that you need to examine the mouth of a tiger.  Or do an ultrasound on a panda.  Or trim the toenails of an elephant.  Or apply moisturizing cream to the feet of a bear.  Or acquire a blood sample from a cheetah.  If one of those critters doesn't want to let you do those things, you will have to chase it around with a dart gun (from the other side of a fence, no less), which is stressful for everyone, and anesthesia can be incredibly risky in some of these animals, and if it does for a minor procedures... well, that's a problem.

Zoo!

I just got back from the San Diego Zoo.  I ran out of space on my camera's SD card (2GB) and had to sit down for a while to delete the obviously blurry pictures.  I went yesterday with S-, at whose apartment I am staying, and went back today.  After all, it's only a 5-10 minute walk away!

Incarnate

I was at the library a couple weeks ago, picking up a book I'd put on hold.  On a whim, I thought I'd see if Jodi Meadows' Incarnate was in - didn't expect it to be, as this was the small, local branch library.  I was pleased to discover that it was.

Horse magic

Last night was magical.

A three-sectioned curtain hides half the stage from us.  Over the course of the next two and a half hours, the two-level arena, with sections which can be curtained off, opened up, and turned into a small ring - becomes a Roman arena, a snowy wonderland, a Western plain, a sylvan fantasy.

seeds

I'm not particularly good at keeping plants alive.  Or at least, I'm not particularly good at getting them to thrive. I have had several plants over the years that survived (an African violet that never flowered after the ones it had when I got it died, though it stayed green for a few years... a handful of orchids that were similar... a couple kitchen herbs that made it a few months...).  Most of the time, I get a young plant, and forget to water it.  Or get some seeds or bulbs, and they sprout, and turn into seedlings... and then die from over or under watering.  I did have a number of plants in my aquariums that did pretty well, but mostly as long as I had the appropriate amount of lighting for them, they were fine - because if I didn't have enough water to keep them alive, there wouldn't've been enough water to keep the fish alive either. Plants are simply not as good at reminding you to feed them as cats are.

iris

What is there not to love about the iris?

I love the shape - with the central petals standing, the outside petals gracefully folding out.  The way some have smooth edges, and others ruffle.  The variety in sizes - from small and demure to huge riotous blooms.  The way the colors shade from the center of the flower toward the edges.  The slender buds.  The fuzzy yellow stamens. The fact that a lot of them are in my favorite shades of purple doesn't hurt - though they also come in a variety of beautiful blues and yellows and reddish tints as well.

G's mother, it turns out, has some gorgeous irises in her garden.  When my lack of garden grows up, it wants to have this many irises in it.  This may be difficult, given my history with plants, and given that currently, we only have a balcony... but I can dream.

(warning:  this post has a lot of pictures in it)

baguettes

I will start this post with the definition of the French word "baguette," from my "All-New Edition Larousse's French-English English-French Dictionary" (copyright 1996 - I've probably had it since about then - it's certainly not all-new now!).

baguette [bagεt] nf [pain (bread)] French stick. || [petit bâton] stick; ~ magique magic wand; ~ de tambour drumstick; mener qqn à la ~ to rule sb with a rod of iron. || [pour manger (for eating)] chopstick. || [chef d'orchestre (conductor)] baton

I have long been familiar with the bread definition, as are, I presume, most people in Western countries.  It is such a classic French thing - like croissants and berets and the Eiffel tower.

fifty pounds and five thousand six hundred ninety nine miles

Actually, it's 100 pounds (plus whatever the carryon weighed).  Plus however many miles it is from Frankfurt to Toulouse.

I have now successfully arrived in France.  Since, according to the United Airlines website, there would be a $200 fine for having a piece of checked luggage that weighed more than 50 pounds, I spent most of the day and night prior to my flight trying to get my two pieces of checked luggage to be under fifty pounds.  It turns out that both my parents' old green hard-shell Samsonite suitcase and G-'s suitcase-sized rolling duffel bag thing that he left last time he was in the States close easily when their contents are less than 50 pounds, but they do not close easily when 54 pounds.  Interesting, especially as the Samsonite was probably made prior to all these super-strict luggage rules.

packing

The last bit of packing prior to a move is always the most hectic.

The last bit of packing prior to a trip is always the most hectic.

I'm sort of doing both - going to France for a semi-indefinite period of time.  I am starting with packing the *things* - the books (in English) that I'll miss, my knitting supplies, my favorite teapot and mug, my US measuring cups and spoons, my favorite spatula for cooking with, various nick-knacks.  I will follow this with what clothes fit.  Unfortunately, there are strict weight limits and suitcase number limits on planes nowadays.  I will fit as much as possible into my viola case - it will be carryon.  My new nifty laptop messenger bag (thanks sister!) doesn't seem to fit quite as much into it as I'd hoped, but it ought to fit my computer, important papers, and things to do on the plane.

I also have to do some last-minute chores - go to the bank, pick up my new glasses, mail things to people that I've been uncovering over the last few days that don't belong to me, stuff like that.  Ideally I'd do my taxes before I go, but I kind of think that's not going to happen... however, I do believe that I can file my taxes online, so that should work.  I hope.  In addition, I've got some furniture and random other stuff that I've brought back to my parents house for storage and/or getting rid of (sorry, sister, who is living in this house right now, and gets to deal with the aftermath).

I foresee a rather sleepless night.  I'll just have to sleep on the plane.

they make their music with their mouths

Rockapella is possibly one of the best live shows ever.  Not that I've been to a lot of live concerts other than Rockapella and things like the San Francisco Symphony.  But seriously, I don't know how it could get more awesome than this.