The Sizzle Fizzles

August 28, 2016 -- Weather has been an issue during the past several days, both here in Paris, and back home on Sanibel Island.

Here, we’ve just endured five days of a heat wave, or la canicule.  Temperatures in the 90s are normal for a summer day on Sanibel; but here – unlike Florida -- there is very little air conditioning, and the heat in the city can bring on some damaging air pollution.

The Evangelist, statue on the facade of
the Saint Sulpice church

Here in France, there is an organization called AirParif which provides useful, easy-to-understand information about the air quality – for yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  The AirParif web site is even available in a good English version.  It is an excellent web site; I don’t know of anything like it for the U.S.A.

Thanks to AirParif, I know that through most of this heat wave, Paris had mediocre air quality.  Then Paris had some bad air quality two days ago.  Fortunately, that day Tom did not go out for a walk.  The air quality is particularly an issue for him because he had pneumonia this past winter, and it took several months for his lungs to recover.

I had some bronchitis earlier this month, too.  That’s something I used to get every summer for the first few years we stayed in Paris – say, from 1998 to 2002.  But Paris air quality has improved significantly, overall, since then.

Each night during the heat wave, the air has not cooled down until about 3AM.  So I have been getting up at that hour to open all the windows.  Then I close all the windows at about 9AM, before the air starts to cook up bad ozone (and nitrogen dioxide).

I make up for lost sleep by taking a siesta in the afternoon. 

Veal belly, green beans, and puréed carrots

Those long, early morning walks have been a lifesaver for me.  Now the heat wave is over, and we will resume a more normal schedule.  Today’s high temperature will be only in the 80s.

The restaurant behind us is where Tom wanted to go for dinner last night.  Le Café du Commerce has had air conditioning in the past.  We have heard the restaurant’s two rooftop condenser/compressor units when they’re running because they’re so close that we see them from our kitchen window.

Inexplicably, the restaurant did not turn on the a.c. yesterday evening.  I used two of the resto’s postcards to fan myself.  A few others in the resto used their menus or napkins as fans.  One woman and her daughters left before ordering because the place was so hot.

Steak with Bearnaise sauce.  Fries came in a separate bowl.

Nevertheless, we had a nice dinner of steak/frites with Béarnaise sauce for Tom, and veal belly with green beans and puréed carrots for me.  Servings were large enough that we had to sneak half of the veal and steak into a zippered food bag again.  Tom topped the dinner off with a delicious baba au rhum for dessert.  I had my first glass of Calvados for the year.

That was a nice dinner in a beautiful restaurant, with excellent service, but the ambiance was bad because of the heat.  Ambiance matters.

This week we will be getting together with friends on three occasions, and I’m sure we will make a little visit to Montmartre.  Then we pack and leave for home on Friday.  So if I don’t have time to blog much after today, watch for new postings in my Sanibel Journal soon – just type sanibeljournal.com in your browser.

Meanwhile, peace and love to all.