Retail madness

July 6, 2018 -- Last summer, Tom did not have to do much work on his textbooks while we were in Paris.  This year, he has plenty of work to do on the new edition of Back to the Lake, one of the top-selling composition textbooks (college-level, freshman English) at his publisher, W. W. Norton.  Now his textbooks are being marketed to college-prep high schools as well as colleges, so this is serious business.

I saw many lovely flowers on this morning's walk in the Champ de Mars.

So, while we explored every arrondissement of Paris last year, going to parks, museums, and other places all over the city, this year's blog is going to be more reflective of what people who really live here do every day.

Yesterday:  after working at the computers, we went to the store to buy a computer mouse, and to another store to buy groceries.  But we also went to the Thomas fromagerie, a quintessentially charming Parisian cheese shop.

Let me begin by saying that buying a computer mouse in Paris is not like buying one in Fort Myers, Florida.  To have a decent selection of mice to choose from, we needed to go to a bigger store, like Darty or Boulanger.  This is comparable in size to Best Buy in Fort Myers.  But Best Buy just doesn't have the French bureaucratic process built into the procedures employed at the cash register.  (However, the Geek Squad, with its paperwork and perpetual line of waiting is probably modeled on the French system.)

Boulanger, a chain store that sells appliances and electronics.  The
banner with international flags are decorations for the World Cup
Soccer tournament.  They are strewn all over Paris.

Darty is just as bad as Boulanger when it comes to slow, lousy, inefficient customer service at the cash registers.  But at Boulanger, a salesperson actually came up to us to offer help and guidance as we stared at the available mice.  That does not happen at Darty, in our experience.  Salespeople, if they do indeed exist, do not offer help at Darty.  If you find one and ask a question, their reply is likely to be "Je n'ai aucune idée" (I have no idea) or some such.

Also, if you are looking to buy a digital camera, at least Boulanger keeps them out, although tethered, mounted on little posts so that you can examine their features.  Darty keeps all digital cameras in a locked, glass case, so if you are looking to see which ones have optical viewfinders, you're out of luck because you cannot see the backs of the cameras.  And if you can find someone to help show you some of the cameras in the case, it would be a miracle.  Does Darty care?  Doubtful.

How can these stores sell anything?  How do they survive?  It is a mystery.  I'd rather buy online.  (So I bought a USB3-to-Ethernet adapter on Amazon.com, having it shipped here by Monday.  The price is $12 less than at Boulanger.)

The same kind of needless bureaucracy exits at the SNCF boutiques where Parisians go to buy train tickets for their summer vacations.  I've been amazed at the lines of people waiting out on the sidewalk in front of the SNCF shop, waiting to plead their cases at the desk of an SNCF minion inside . . . .

Hours of operation at our shiny, local FranPrix grocery store.

After selecting Boulanger's cheapest wireless mouse for Tom, we ventured over to the cash registers.  There were two cashiers working, and there was a line of people waiting.  Each person's transaction seemed to involve problems, consternation, paperwork, consulting of supervisors, etc.  This process took a long time.  Eventually, we made it to the counter and it took us only about two minutes to buy the mouse.  Why were all the other people's transactions so complicated?  We aren't sure, but we think part of the problem was Boulanger advertising deals for items not in stock.

Just about every store in the city (except grocery stores) is stuffy and poorly air-conditioned.  So the longer you stand in line, the more uncomfortable you are.

After all that, I'm happy to say that Tom is pleased with his cheap wireless mouse.  He says he will take it with him everywhere.  (He's kidding.)

On the way home, we stopped at the Thomas fromagerie to buy brie, Salers cheese, rosé wine, and really good French butter.  The cheese-monger was someone new, and he was very pleasant.  He asked questions about where we are from, etc.  Nice guy, in a cute, super-clean, well-run cheese shop.  I can see this cheese shop from our balcony, so it is easy to look and know when the place is open for business.

La Tour Eiffel in the evening.

When mouse and cheese were safely stashed away in the apartment, we went out again to FranPrix, the grocery.  When we first saw this store years ago, it was frumpy and tired.  Then about three years ago, it underwent a complete renovation.  Now it sparkles.  It has a deli counter in the middle.  And it offers really good coffee. 

We left with two heavy, full (re-usable) bags, having spent about 70 euros.  The prices are good.  We were buying some relatively expensive items, but still the total wasn't so bad.  By the time we were shopping there, dinnertime approached.  We decided to buy things for dinner at the apartment.

So there are no photos of restaurant food today.  Instead, last night we filled the dining room table with a little of this, a little of that, mostly from FranPrix and the Thomas fromagerie.  We nibbled on roasted chicken legs with steamed potatoes, brie, Roquefort, Salers cheese, cherries, strawberries, paté, country ham, country bread -- this was a kind of indoor picnic, with the summer breeze flowing through the apartment.

Now excuse me while I go make a spinach and lettuce salad with Roquefort, roasted almonds, slivered red onion, and my own vinaigrette for lunch.  Cheers!

The mundane is so important

My default dinner is fish and vegetables.  This one, from last night's dinner at
L'Épopée on avenue Emile Zola, was a golden bream filet with slow-roasted,
diced veggies in eggplant shells.  It was delicious.

August 22, 2017 – There was too much excitement at home yesterday; we didn’t go out until dinnertime. 

Scaffolding had been delivered earlier in the day – two truckloads of it.  Then a crew arrived and began erecting it on the façade of our building.  So begins the process of ravalement -- the cleaning and repairing of the façade of a 7-story post-Haussmannian building in Paris.

I know that Paris has a law requiring the cleaning of building façades periodically.  Our friend Jim, who lives in Paris and Sanibel, tells us that the requirement is for the work to be done every ten years (articles L132-1 à L132-5 du code de la construction et de l'habitation – CCH).

Looking down at the scaffolding stacked in the street, going up on the sidewalk.

However, we’ve been coming to Paris and staying in this building for 20 years, and in that time, this façade cleaning and repair work has not been done.  I suspect the same is true for many Parisian apartment buildings – they’re overdo for a redo.

The building façade is stone – a rather soft stone, perhaps a sandstone.  Balconies are limestone, with lots of interesting fossils.  The stone decorations on the cornices and elsewhere seem to be soft because they erode so much with the weather – at least, on our building they have eroded.

Mortar joints between blocks of stone are very narrow.  Joints between sections of limestone on the balconies seem to be wider, and they hold iron bars that fasten the balcony railing to the building.  Some of that iron is completely exposed and rusting on our balcony. 

We know all too well how critically important it is for building façades to be maintained.  A friend of mine (attorney and former OSU football player Ben Espy) lost his leg when a cornice fell from a building in downtown Columbus.  The building’s façade had been neglected.

We’re all for this work that is about to be done, but I was concerned about the dreariness of living in a dark apartment for a week, and not being able to open the front windows. 

Now that I see how long it takes to erect one level of scaffolding, I realize that by the time they have the basic scaffolding up to our level, we will be leaving. 

After the basic scaffolding is up, a fabric (fiberglass?) skin it put on it to help protect pedestrians and cars from falling bits and pieces.

Yesterday, two truckloads of materials were delivered, and from that, one level of scaffolding was erected.  We’ll see how it goes.  We are on what is called the 5^th floor here, which is what we’d call the 6^th floor in the U.S.  In France, the first floor is 0, or “street-level.”  There is one level above us, where the former maids’ rooms are located.  A few of these have been cobbled together into apartments, but some are still just single rooms.  We have access to one of those, a room with a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower.

Before we ever arrived this summer, the owners of the apartment had someone move almost all of the balcony’s many plants down to the courtyard behind the building.  There, hopefully, the guardienne’s husband has kept them watered. 

But a few plants, a couple chairs, watering cans, a garden hose, and a VERY heavy marble-topped table remained on the balcony.  We had to move those inside the apartment yesterday.  I insisted on cleaning the apartment before introducing this chaos.  (The cleaning lady is on vacation in Portugal.)

So we were busy with cleaning and moving furniture for most of the day.  A few things went up to the maid’s room, but most of the stuff is scattered about the dining room, in as orderly a fashion as is possible in an already overly furnished apartment.

I figured out that I’m the only person who ever changes the vacuum cleaner bag here.  In 2014, I bought a box of five super-nice vacuum cleaner bags and used one.  Each year, we come here and find the bag absolutely full, so I take it out and put a new bag in the machine.  I just put the fourth of those five bags in.  One bag remains in the box.  Ergo, I am the only person who changes the vacuum cleaner bag, and it is changed only once per year.

The poor vacuum cleaner has been abused.  A couple years ago, I had to buy a new part for it when we arrived at the beginning of the summer.  I swear, next summer I’m buying a new vacuum cleaner for the place.  More than twenty years is long enough to expect a poor, abused vacuum cleaner to work, even if it is a Hoover.

At L'Épopée, Tom's steak came with an adorable red pot of mashed potatoes.

One year we bought a new toaster for the apartment.  Another year, we purchased a new microwave to replace one that died.  We also replaced a coffeemaker in the not-too-distant past.  So you see why we felt the need to check out the new appliance store, Boulanger, earlier this summer.  We are serial appliance buyers.

We aren’t tourists.  We really live here in the summer.  We’re keenly aware of the hardware stores, electricians, plumbers, and appliance stores in the neighborhood.  That’s life.

Another lovely day

A beautiful day for photographing the Eiffel Tower.

August 8, 2017 – I’ve been reading “The Lost Mandate of Heaven,” by Geoffrey Shaw, for the past four days – in between all the walking and dining in Paris.  Last week, Tom and I met Nicole, a member of the Ngo Dinh family that figures so prominently in this book about the build-up of the Vietnam War and the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963. 

I’d hoped that the book would be more focused on the family, but instead it is more focused on military and political history of that tumultuous time.

For military history buffs, I highly recommend this book.  It is well-written and well-documented, by a historian who has excellent credentials.  For the first time, I feel like I understand how the Vietnam War became the quagmire and disaster that it was.

There are plenty of lessons learned from that era.  I can see how many apply in a country like Afghanistan. 

The square and fountain behind the church of St. John the Baptist of Grenelle.

Tom was in the Naval ROTC program at Duke in the early 1960s, the time period that the first several chapters of “The Lost Mandate of Heaven” covers.  He remembers that most people he knew then had not heard of Vietnam.  But then one day, one of his NROTC classmates said that his father had been shot down over a place called Vietnam.  By 1964, when Tom went into active duty after graduation, he and his NROTC mates were slated to go on a radar picket ship, which would likely go up the Mekong River and be fired upon by the Vietcong.  Then Tom’s orders were changed, unbeknownst to him, because the Navy needed an English instructor in Maryland.  Thank heavens.

To read about the discord and disagreement among the top military and political leaders when it came to the subject of how America should be involved in Vietnam makes me sad, but also makes me hope that history will not repeat itself; much more consideration should be given to saving lives.

Dining room at Le Tipaza on the rue St. Charles.

I put the book aside for a while yesterday so that Tom and I could go for a great couple of walks in the neighborhood.  First, we wanted to explore Boulanger, the small- and large-appliance store that has replaced the big old hardware store, Zola Color, that we had frequented over the years.

Boulanger did a fabulous job renovating the tired old Zola Color space, which is vast.  Everything about Boulanger is well-displayed and well-run.  The employees are a far more cheerful and helpful lot than those at Darty, its tired old competitor. 

I think the employees at Boulanger must be treated and paid better than those at Darty.

Tom especially wanted to look at the laptop and tablet computers, because he wants to get something smaller than his laptop when we return to the U.S. 

We’d never buy a computer in France because they have AZERTY keyboards instead of QWERTY keyboards, and we are rapid touch typists on the QWERTY boards.  Also, I think computers bought in the U.S. have better encryption, but I’m no expert on that.

In each department that we explored at Boulanger (except for the computer area, where they left us alone), a friendly employee asked if he/she could help us, and after we explained that we were just looking, they did not bother us.  Even the security guard at the entrance struck up a friendly conversation with us.

Dining room at Le Tipaza.

We took our time looking at all the kitchen appliances, big and small.  We’d just renovated our kitchen back home, so this was of great interest.  I especially noticed the brand names – Cuisinart was not among the various food processors on display, and Kenwood makes mixers and blenders.  Go figure.

Boulanger is the place for audiophiles.  The set-up for displaying and listening to speakers is impressive.

All we bought was a nice pair of Sony earphones for Tom. 

Later, we walked along the peaceful Ile aux Cygnes, and then explored the large Zara store at the Beaugrenelle Center.  Time flew by, and we had to walk briskly to dinner at Le Tipaza on the rue Saint Charles. 

We were warmly greeted there, as usual, and we took our seats in the elegant middle dining room.  I noticed that Kir Royals are reasonably priced there, so I had one.  Then I ordered at Tagine Royal, and Tom had the Grillade Royale – a dinner for royals all around.

Tom indulged in the traditional North African pastries for dessert, and I had a heavenly, homemade, dark chocolate mousse.

We both appreciated the long stroll home after that feast.