There are days

...when I enjoy Pilates and yoga classes. Not today though. Today they
were 2 hours of discomfort and inadequacy.

A blah day...

made better by a trip to WH Smith.  Got the New Yorker's Book of Food and Drink, Foreign Tongues, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.   New books are always a good antidote to whatever ails you.

Then went out for dinner to a fondue place in Montmartre that serves wine out of baby bottles.  Yes, it's a bit of a tourist trap,  but it was more fun than expected.   I had last been there when I was a teenager, believe it or not, and it hadn't changed a bit.  Even the waiter was the same.  He used to be a metal worker and started working there 21 years ago, is retiring at the end of the year.  Crusty and irreverent and funny and intolerant as only an old-time Parisian waiter can be.  Plus, I scored a phone number.  I've still got it baby, whatever "it" is. 

Madness.

An orange alligator/croc skin pattern iPhone case in a shop window near work has been calling me.  Sounds bling, but trust me, it's a nice shade of orange, and I wear mostly neutrals, so it's good to have a shot of color in a fun accessory.  Anyway, I assumed, as one does, that it was decent quality plastic embossed to look like leather.  Turns out, it's real, and it costs the princely sum of 490 €. 

I'm not sure what is more pathetic, that some people would actually spend that much money on a case for a phone (global financial crisis?  what's that?), or that this is the topic for my first blog post in 2 months. 

Missed photo op

Just saw a girl - definitely pre-teen, maybe 10 or so - hurtling along the sidewalk on a unicycle. 

(And no, this probably isn't enough content for a blog post but I can't be bothered with Twitter, where most of my followers are spammers who get banned before I can even click on their profiles to find out who they are and why the heck they would want to follow me).

Mars and Venus brush their teeth

When S first moved in with me, his toothbrush was yellow, and mine was blue.  Since then I've always stuck to the same color code, to avoid confusion and because, well, I admit it, I'm a creature of habit.  

Buy new toothbrushes, point out to S (not one of my more scintillating conversational topics, granted) that they have a nifty thing that's supposed to polish teeth in addition to just brushing them, and conclude perkily with, "and of course there's one of each, yellow and blue!"

Blank stare. 

- Ummmm... you mean you haven't always been using the yellow one?

- No.  I just grab whichever one is on the left.

Some things are not meant to be shared, even in the closest of relationships.  Plaque, to my mind, is one of them.

Strange days

S bought 3 pairs of shoes yesterday.  I think he's turning into me.

30-second review - Inglorious Basterds vs. Un prophète

Granted, the movies have nothing in common other than both being about 2h30mn long.  But while every single scene, every line of dialogue in Un prophète served to move the story forward and/or reveal a bit more about the characters, Basterds felt bloated and pointlessly long, rambling on without making much of a point.  Un prophète was tense and intense all the way through.  Basterds had its moments but never lived up its opening scene. 

getting old...

Did some more strenuous than usual housework - amittedly, that's not saying much - and now I'm feeling twinges of back pain.  Eeek.

An unfortunate

...juxtaposition of articles in my RSS feed. One is "How could a
mother eat her baby" immediately followed by "Sometimes abortion is
the better choice".

Greetings from the Cantal

Testing mobile blogging

Because I'm off for 3 weeks without a computer but with my trusty
iPhone and I want to see how this works.

Good grief.

I haven't posted since June 14th?

That's also the day I started dieting. Coincidence? I think not. Not stuffing my face = too depressed to blog.

I did lose 3 kilos, though. 2 of which I gain back instantly as soon as I have a "normal" meal so I'm not sure a) how sustainable this is going to be in the long run and/or b) how reliable my scales are. And is it somewhat worrisome that I find it much easier to give up desserts, and second helpings, and fries, and so on than I do my daily glass or two of wine? Nah, I didn't think so either...

In other food related news, it's not "la crise" for everyone - I just called 5-6 restaurants before I could score a table for tomorrow night. Will be checking out Pramil with two dear friends who just happen to be very fit athletic men with healthy appetites, so I will eat and drink with them to my little heart's content and not mention calories, or they will mercilessly take the piss out of me for being such a girl.

Good, Bad and Ugly - a frivolous post

Good: tried out a new nail place near home which is open on Sundays (yay), good (double yay), and cheap (triple yay). Now have a lovely bright orangey-red polish on toe and finger nails, and my feet are as smooth as a baby's bottom.

Bad: except that I went for a rather long walk today and as a consequence of having had my calloused skin pumiced off the soles of my feet, I now have blisters there instead. Booo.

Ugly: well, not really ugly. And I don't want to turn into one of these neurotic women who talks of diets and calories and nothing else, BUT, at my work medical on Friday, the Dr. pointed out that I had had gained a kilo a year since 2005. "It's normal", he said, "the metabolism slows down, your lifestyle becomes more sedentary..." (he didn't add "as you get older", but that's what the little rascal was implying). Extrapolating for photographs and clothing that I still have in my closet, dating from 2000, or even, gasp, the late 90's, I can safely assume that the one kilo a year gain has been going on for the last 10 or so years. So normal it may be, but FFS, I'm only 36 - if I continue gaining a kilo a year for the rest of my life I'll soon be larger than I am tall. Guess this is the start of a new era, one of will power and portion control in the face of salty greasy goodness. Bummer.

30-second review - Looking for Eric

I never thought I'd mention "Ken Loach" and "feel good movie" in the same sentence, but there you go: Looking for Eric is a real feel good movie, directed by Ken Loach.

Official site of the film here - careful, it opens with music and the trailer.

Hilarious.

More of their ditties here...

Over 5 years

... we've been together, and during that time I've counted on him to introduce me to All Things English. 

Not to, say, Jane Austen, or Emma Thompson, but more prosaic, everyday pleasures such as Marmite, bitter shandy, pork and leek sausages, and weirdly flavored crisps.  Not necessarily all at the same time, though.  And while I can happily say crisps instead of chips, I refuse to spell flavor with a "u".  But I digress.  

Why, then, had I never tasted milk chocolate Hobnobs until this most recent trip ? 
Why ?  WHY ? 
Oh the bitter, wasted years. 

"Oh, you'd never had Hobnobs before?  They're classic." 

Well yes.  Indeed. 

Don't laugh, he says.

...you'll fall in.