They will know us by our sneakers

My old man and I took a trip to Paris, where it's a Euro here and two Euros there, and the next thing you know, you're broke. Also, it's easy to spot fellow Americans because 1) they are everywhere, and 2) they are wearing sneakers and shorts.
We walked all over town and cooled down with a three Euro icy fruit drink.

We drove down to Fountainebleau and jumped in the gardens.

We hung out at the Invalides with Napoleon's tomb.

We hid from the sun. It got pretty hot, and I'd like to point out that the Arc de Triomphe is not as close as it looks from the Louvre, and that once you finally get there, you will be mad at it.

We went shopping.

We ate Nutella, because it is freakishly ubiquitous and because it is delicious. We prudently bought only one Nutella crepe to share, then fought viciously over each bite.

We visited Notre Dame, where tourists like us stomped around during Mass and took video like it was a Tony Robbins appearance.

At Notre Dame, we contemplated being dragged off to Hell.

We visited the Louvre, where the Mona Lisa had her dance card filled. Also, the recent NY Times article that noted that people zoom through the Louvre taking pictures of the pictures without pausing to actually looking at the things in front of them is absolutely true. Are the museum shop postcards too expensive? Are people hoping to zoom in and study their favorite parts of, say, Mona's right shoulder? Is there a lot of wacky Hey, I'm attending the Wedding of Cana! photoshopping going on?

We saw statues wearing beards.

We saw terrifying mannequins.

Don't you want to visit the Palais de Justice? Aw, come on. No, you want to go to Sainte Chapelle? But the line is so long! Come to Palais de Justice? No?

The most awesome thing we did was to take advantage of Velib. This is a bike rental system with stations everywhere you turn in town -- you get a pass (which is a few Euros) with a number on it, type in your number and password at the station, select a bike, unlock it and away you go. The first 1/2 hr is free. The next 1/2 hr after that is 1 Euro. Each next 1/2 hr after that is 4 Euros or something. So you can't just take it out all day, or you will be money-sorry. But to hop from place to place, it is excellent and super-fun, especially since Paris has lots of marked bike lanes (as long as you don't mind sharing with buses) and even separate lanes in the islands in the middle or side of the street that are the most fun and excellent of all. The Paris drivers were generally patient and easy enough to drive with (at least compared to Boston, where I got my street-riding chops and were drivers are horrible evil demons).

Caveats about Velib:
(1) This is Very Important: North American credit cards will not work here on in the Metro stations!! They don't have whatever special stripe or code the French cards have. Also, there are No Other Alternative Places Anywhere to buy Velib passes. You have to get them at the little unmanned stations. After much confusions and searching, we finally found a tip on a blog that said someone's American Express card worked, and that's what worked for us. Otherwise, I think you can buy a pass ahead of time on the internet and have it mailed to you.
(2) The system only works if people continually take out and return the bikes. A number of times (e.g. at Notre Dame) we came to our destination and went to a station and could not drop off our bikes because the station was full. There is a map at each station showing you where nearby stops are, and you can type in your number to get an extra 15 minutes to use to go to the next stop. But sometimes it took quite a bit of searching to find open spaces.
(3) Check your bike before you take it out (tires, steering column, lock).

We went to Montmartre and walked in the cemetery, where we learned that even in death, the rich get fancier houses than the non-rich.

I went to the Musee d'Art Moderne and set up my camera on self-timer to take this shot. Then I picked up my stuff and wandered off,leaving the camera. I was two floors up sitting in a room entirely filled with Roald Dufy's magical mural when I reached for my camera and found it missing. Quelle suprise!

I hurried downstairs, where the lady guard came after me, clearly realizing that I was the idiot who lost her camera. I was also the idiot who failed to learn conversational French in my months of study prior to the trip, though I could read pretty well at the point. The lady guard for some reason insisted on speaking instead of typing at me. So I kept holding up my hands and clicking an imaginary camera and saying "photo apparail", which I was very proud of knowing, and she kept nodding and saying, "camera". She asked her friend guard where they took my camera, then kindly walked me to the elevator and told me to go to the fourth floor and... do...something.

So I went to the fourth floor and figured lost-and-found would be a the coat check. The coat check lady was nice enough but very confused as I kept saying "second floor downstairs" and "lady" and "camera" and mimed picture-taking and mimed putting my mime camera down and walking away from it because I could remember the word for "take" but not for "lost". What was the problem, lady? I thought you people loved Marcel Marceau! But she had no idea what I was doing.

So I thanked her and tried the ticket desk, where the ticket man knew English (score!) and knew exactly why I was there, but insisted on grilling me on the make and model of my camera. I think he was jerking me around. But he finally gave it to me and said, "so it wasn't stolen!" and I should've said "bon chance!" but I didn't think of that until later, darnit! So I just said "Merci beaucoup!" and ran out of that museum because I was all stressed out and I don't know how immigrants do it, it is freaking stressful to not know the language and feel so stupid.

I have to note that, in general, the Parisians we interacted with were very nice and pleasant and patient with us, that no one made fun of our bad French, that I successfully asked a book store guy, in French, if he had a book on birds and HE DID, that I also successfully bought four postcard stamps in French at a tabac despite mispronouncing "the United States" and "four", and that everyone was pretty much laid-back and friendly, and I live in LA so I know from laid-back and friendly. The bike system and the Metro are awesome and easy ways to get around. I definitely recommend studying up some French before you go, as it was a huge advantage to be able to read signs and things even if my speaking/listening skills were just above deaf/mute.

Good job, Paris. I'm glad you weren't blown up in 1945.

I saved democracy in Nevada

Walter at the field office.

I mean, I think I did. I probably did. My husband and I drove up to Carson City in order to volunteer for the Obama campaign in this swing state, and we weren't the only ones. The sign in sheets were separated between "California" and "Local", and they had plenty of volunteers. What I'd heard about the Obama people was true -- they were extremely organized, dedicated, efficient and persistent. They had five -- five! -- offices in Carson City alone, a city of 35,000 people. I think they considered us totally lazy Communist slackers for participating in such a small way.

We went canvassing on Monday and Tuesday to urge people to vote in neighborhoods that had already had plenty of knocks on their doors. BUT only one lady yelled at us for how many door knocks she'd gotten over the past week. Most people weren't home, but the ones who were were pretty nice, especially the people in their 80s. Everyone was voting for Obama already, since our lists were mostly registered Democrats, and the O signs in the neighborhoods we went to far outnumbered the McC signs. So we were really just harassing stragglers to get to the polls. It rained on us briefly and sprinkle-snowed briefly, and the scenery in fall was simply beautiful.

We also drove up to Reno to check it out and get a quickie divorce like women in 40s movies. We forgot to get the divorce.



The Casino up the block from the field office. Cactus Jack voted Libertarian, of course.


This is what I learned about Carson City and Reno Nevada:

1. It's Ne-vad-a like glad, not Ne-vahd-a like "Ah, I got a vahse in Nevahda". "I'm glad I'm in Nevada". Or Aaaaa! There's a neon sign after me in Nevaaaaada!
2. There are slot machines in the supermarket.
3. Everyone has a dog. I'd say 80% of the houses we went to had dogs viciously slamming their bodies against the locked doors (all dogs are non-partisan). The lady who yelled at us had a cat.
4. The USA Today that I read the morning we went canvassing said the high school graduation rate in the state is 45%.
5. I think kids maybe aren't seeing the importance of graduating high school when there are slot machines in the supermarkets.
6. It's beautiful. The Sierra Nevadas are amazing. Want to see a beautiful view? Look up.
7. There are 25 legal brothels in Nevada. The laaads come to Nevaaada. I learned this from a LATimes article I read on my blackberry while driving around there -- looks like the economy is hitting them hard, too.
8. Carson City does not have a lot of frills, lifestyle-wise. Reno, in contrast, has more cute little stores and coffee shop cafes and pedestrians and is just more swinging in general. It has bigger casino resorts and is more touristy.
9. We never did locate Carson City statehouse, and there just aren't that many possibilities of where it could be.
Bonus California 10. We spent a night in Death Valley and no one died. Letdown!


View from the roof of the very nice and worth-a-visit Nevada Museum of Art in Reno.


Not all Nevada forests are on fire, just this bit around Lake Tahoe. WL wanted to take my picture, but I wasn't sure of the proper expression to have even in front of a natural and harmless fire. It just seemed rude to smile, you know?


Natty when we got home. Pretty sure she voted for McCain; she looks pissed.

There's no better way to unwind after ninety minutes of asanas than blowing your wad at OTB. Clearly I need to move to NYC to efficiently integrate the parts of my life.

Call it Miss Ross Playground

p.s. I took a stroll through the Ramble in Central Park, and I came around a bend of a narrow path beside an algae-covered lake. I was looking around, watching birds bouncing around in the trees, seeing the sights, and oh, yes, here came a guy wearing a black backpack, a white shirt, and white pants with his penis hanging out of the zipper.

Well well.

I stared very hard at the trees on the side of the trail opposite the peek-a-boo and kept on walking. He seemed a bit startled and moved his shoulder to the side and did I don't know what, because I was looking at those fascinating leaves. I think he might've been reacting to the camera in my hand. Maybe his penis is camera-shy, "No pictures!"

I passed by and came around to where I'd started on this circular bit of trail. There were two guys heading toward the guy I'd just passed, and I hung around to see what he'd show them. I saw his head (the one on his shoulders, sicko!) peek around the trail, look at the two guys, and then turn around and disappear. I don't know what happened after that because I decided I was showing too much interest in the guy with the zipper problem.

In fairness to Central Park and New York City the thousands of other men I saw on my visit there managed to keep it in their pants.

p.p.s. To purge ourselves of that story, here's another: I sat next to a couple of little girls sitting with their nanny in a coffee shop. The littlest girl asked the older one if she wanted to hear a joke and got the go-ahead. "Why couldn't the mummy come to the telephone when it rang?" the little one said. The older one said, "I know this one. He was all wrapped up." The younger one said, "That's right. She was tied up. She was chained to the floor and couldn't come to the phone when it rang." The older one slurped her drink without looking up.

I love that that little girl pictured someone's mom chained to the floor, staring helplessly at a ringing telephone, and thought that made for a fine joke.

Bizarro World McDonalds

This is where Bizarro Superman eats, in the place with the disturbing blue roof.

The burgers are triangular! The coke is New Coke! The clown mascot is in fact a krunk dancer with a day job!

Oh, Lord, San Diego; you are so weird.

Cemetery Gifts

I was recently visiting a cemetery and learned that you don't have to leave flowers on the grave of your loved one; you can leave creepy little dolls and holiday-themed bottles instead.

The family plot I visited had -- surprise! -- a freshly dug grave with dead roses atop a mound of dried out earth. I'd been told that my great aunt died more than a week ago, but I didn't realize she would be buried in the same plot with a bunch of the other old timers. I don't know how they're all fitting down there, and I don't want to know.

At any rate, it's a bit unnerving to see new death when you thought you were just hanging out with safe and comfy old death.

Santa Monica Public Library (main branch)

The new main branch of the Santa Monica Public Library is both beautiful and functional, perfectly tuned to the needs of its patrons.

The two-story building feels more like an academic library than your standard LA County public library, many of which are mere waystations for rotating material, with open waiting areas for loitering newspaper readers and sleepers. This building has not only large tables in open areas, but smaller carrels (though without dividers) tucked away along the windows upstairs. All tables feature plugs conveniently located just underneath the top edge; no more crawling under the table and hunting for hidden electrical outlets in the carpet in order to plug in your laptop. Plus, free wi-fi and private, glass-enclosed Study Rooms that can be reserved in two hour intervals for you or your group of collaborators. They intended this library to be a place of work, and it shows.

The lovely enclosed courtyard on the first floor shields you from the mean streets of Santa Monica while letting you stuff you face at the excellent little Bookmark Cafe. The courtyard has an oasis theme, with a border of desert plants and a clever and calming moat crossed by a striated bridge (just don't step in it. The water, with its glittering grey sand base, can look solid in the right light, and I did see a kid stumble into it once). Cute round patio tables with comfortable chairs and lovely sand-colored umbrellas invite people to pull up a chair, sit with their kids or friends, and chat away.

There's also a nice, surprisingly bright and large underground parking lot, 50 cents an hour and no meter hassles.

This library is a triumph, designed with the community firmly in mind, welcoming and serious.

And I've only encountered one mumbling freak so far! A guy sat at a table at me, plugged in his laptop, put on his headphones, and started head-bopping away. Which is okay, I can deal with that. But when he started singing along, I was out of there. One freak in three months is a good ratio for Santa Monica.

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls acquired a reputation for being rather corny and rather dull, most interesting as the setting for one of the best scenes in the original Superman movie. Too many weddings turned it into a punchline, and it somehow became lost in the list of American splendors, obscured by the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. If only some rich Republicans with their hands in the oil industry wanted to drill by Rainbow Bridge, maybe we'd bring some tragic glamour back to the Falls.

But Niagara Falls is special. It's awesome in the true sense of the word without being overwhelming, unlike the Grand Canyon. It's accessible without being commercialized. You can visit it without being crammed into endless tourist lines. You can walk around. Take a load off. Go over the bridge and visit Canada. Think about what this country and this world have to offer, the wonders that we take for granted. The opportunities for stupidity that we never, as a species, seem able to pass up. Wouldn't it be weird to go over that giant waterfall in a barrel? Yeah, it would. I'll bet it would hurt. Let's try it. Okay.

I drove from Boston to Niagara Falls on my 25th birthday, just to check it out. I never expected to fall in love with it. The town of Niagara Falls, NY is surprisingly grubby, but hold on, there are wonders up the road. Drive into the Park, park your car, then wander around. Niagara is for wandering, and for listening. The sound of the Falls reminds you that this world is bigger than you are, and probably more interesting. And probably less anxious, in the long run.

Buy a ticket and take a ride on the Maid of the Mist. Wear your complementary cheap blue slicker as you ride under the waterfall. Buy another ticket for the Cave of the Winds and wear yellow this time as you walk down into the water, or just lean over the railing and watch the yellow figures stumble their way through the spray. These mild "rides" bring you closer to nature, like a water safari, and force you to feel small.

I visited Cooperstown on my way back from that 25th birthday trip, but found it sleepy and pointless after the excitement of the rushing water. I'll bet no one ever locked herself in a barrel and went rolling through Cooperstown.

Jumping San Diego

Look how happy I was to be there this Memorial Day weekend!

San Diego Loves Myspace

Or not.

Normally I wouldn't endorse naughty words in public places where the children -- The Children! -- may be corrupted by them, but come on. This is awesome.