Food, of course, and Mail Art, of course

 I made crèpes for breakfast on Sunday. I'm grateful that the previous person left the flour as I'd probably not have bought a bag of it. Look, Bon Maman preserves.

 The people without roofs were also cooking lunch/dinner. They had a pot on a heater of some kind. There are two people sitting on the bench. They contributed to the pot. I missed the eating of the meal, as it happened a few hours later and I was busy at that time. It's been so interesting to be a watcher of life on the street.

 On the board downstairs, I put up one of Andrea's weather-grams. I put a used metro ticket up next to it saying "Free Gratuit" with an arrow. This morning, all of the used tickets were gone, and one of the weather grams and a little collage booklet that I offered up. Maybe people thought the metro tickets were what was free? and useable?

 Åke's wife came to visit him and brought me a beatiful surprise. She gave me a knit ornament, AND the instructions how to make them, and a book of traditional Norwegian knitting patterns. She has challenged me! I think I'm going to attempt to make these.  What a sweet thing to do for me. I'm so touched and feel so fortunate.

 This is card #815. I used a show card and part of a painting.

 This is card #816, using another of those show cards and a different painting.

The sun is coming through and Notre Dame looks like this, this morning.

We'll be leaving early tomorrow for 5 days away from the computer. I might be able to post some text from my iPod Touch (first generation, no a camera) or not.

See you when I return, with photos from somewhere else.

My afternoon walk.

 Yesterday, was a very nice, very busy day. In the afternoon, I took a walk, crossing the Pont Marie and cutting through Ile St. Louis to Ile de la Cité, and Notre Dame.  Besides wanting a walk, my secondary goal was to check that my iPod Touch could pick up the free WiFi in the park behind Notre Dame. It could & I sent a test message.  Here's the view of the dark, cloudy sky with the Pantheon in the background. I like the way the sillouette skyline looks.

 Notre Dame looks a bit tilting! Oh, dear, don't worry, it was me tilting in the wind.

 This is a pretty dramatic view of the little park. I love the way the trees are cut flat along the top. People were sitting on the benches underneach, which are set in a grid, in spite of the gray, windy, drizzly weather.

 Here's boat pushing a barge of rusty metal. All of the tourists, and me, too, took photos of it. I can hear my French teacher saying "Mim, with all the sites in Paris, you're taking a photo of junk?" (in French, of course.)

 As I stood along the wall looking at the Seine, I heard a loudish continual sound coming from the right. Several other people came to the wall to look over. This is what appeared as a surprise. What a change from the big tourist boats and the working boats.

 Crossing back to the Cité Internationale des Arts, via the Pont Louis Philipe. See the Cité behind those trees?

 This is the commerative little monument in front of the Cité, which I've written about for years. We call it The Bunny, but it's the map of Korea. Really, doesn't it look like a rabbit getting ready to sit down? Across the road, you can see the book sellers, one of which was open, even with the not so nice weather.

 A flower shop on Ile St. Louis gave a bright spot to all of us passing by.

I was taking a photo of the Velib' bicycles in from of the building and heard lots of chirping birds. I turned and saw this little bush full of them, a someone had hung a tiny net bag of seeds from it. A nice end to my walk.

Happy New Year, looking ahead.

 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

With dancing, gaiety, frivolity, happiness, joy, and laughter;

 With peace and compassion, with good health, with love.

The first day of the new year is almost over and we're not finished packing!! Oh, No! Tomorrow night we leave and the following morning we'll be in Paris.  Amazing!

I'm in awe of our good fortune and grateful for this opportunity to see Paris, again. And now to finish that packing!

In memory, mail art, and soon....

 Today is the one year anniversary of the death of my friend. She was a painter, we met when we were 14 years old. This was taken in 1993 before she became ill. I do not know why "yes" was posted on her wall. That is one of her paintings behind here. I think of her very often.

 Big news in Tiny Town: the library is expanding! I wasn't sure how to incorporate the trunk of old books that I cut out of a magazine. I just loved the image. Here, I trimmed it up so it looks like it's going into or coming out of the courtyard. This is not photoshop, it's old cut and paste method.

 Here a portion of the trunk of books landed on the hunting club grounds outside of Tiny Town. How the residents will get them to the town is unknown.

 I was able to use this section in the background. Addition books appear to be arriving in Tiny Town.  Again, I've had some fun comments on these on Facebook.

This tiny image is what I'll soon be seeing from our very own (temporary) studio. Now to figure out how to pare down the art supplies!

Walking and Eating

Last night, we took a walk then decided to eat out. The Tour St. Jacques looks so beautiful now that it's been cleaned, and right near it, on rue St. Denis, is a restaurant called Le Trappiste. It has lots of beers on tap and serves moules with frites (mussels and fries) which I love. It was a perfect night for this as it was very cold out. Chuck had roasted chicken, which made him very happy. Afterwards, we had some creme brulee. It was very, very CREME and delicious. We walked back stopping on the way at the ice rink to watch people skating. The crazy kids were acting rash and we saw near crashes on the ice but, whew, no one was injured and everyone, even those terrified of being on skates, seemed to be enjoying the moment.

Today, it was very, very sunny and very, very chilly. We took a 2.5 hour walk. We went to the Monde Arabe to look around, but the book store was very hot and it made me feel ill so we didn't stay long. (I had on TWO wool sweaters!) We walked on St. Germain de Pres past the Cluny Museum, into the Patrick Roger chocolate shop which was very intimidating. Expensive chocolates! We walked back, passed the St. Michel fountain, the plant market, Hotel de Ville, getting more and more chilled, toes like ice cubes, ears like ice cubes, until we got to the Cafetheque. This is a little coffee shop where you can buy special coffees. We popped in for a little coffee and warmed up. A musician, who is living at the Cite des Arts, too, works there. It has a tiny front area and a tiny back seating area. It's the first time we ventured in after having passed by it many time this year and in past years. The coffee was delicious and after our toes defrosted we were able to walk the remaining few steps to the Cite. As I type this, the sun is almost set, the sky has a rosy glow close to the earth, the trees and buildings are like silouette cut-outs, as is the spire of Notre Dame. The towers of Notre Dame are lit up. I'm taking this all in, savoring it, as our days at the Cite come to a close. Just two more days in Atelier 8317.

Birds & river

Here's Agnese, the photographer from Latvia, taking a photograph of the Seine and Notre Dame. The other images are of the little birds in the Musselman Institute tea house. They hang out on the lighting fixture in the middle of the room, and come down to the trays to eat crumbs. There were a few brave ones, who took crumbs from my hand.

Sunday #2 (Dimanche)

Chuck took some photos of a building detail this morning as we headed out to the Bastille Market. It was chilly and grey but we were somewhat dressed for it. I got this clearer view of Notre Dame from the window this morning because of the leaves being almost totally gone from the trees out front and the sun sort of appearing. I had to post the cakes here. They made the grey day a lot more cheerful.

Paris views

These are the views of the Seine as I looked west crossing Pont Marie, when I went to La Poste or the Patisserie on Ile St. Louis. I took these the last morning in Paris. A lovely morning sky, yes?

Here are two final day and night views of Notre Dame from our middle window. And here am I, taking a final look at the end of our residency.

This morning, Notre Dame....

7:30 a.m. to 8:40 a.m.

Out and about continued

Chuck took these stunning postcard photos for me as we walked back from our after lunch stroll to the left bank. In these views, we're crossing over behind Notre Dame.



Okay, I just had to have another photo of Notre Dame.

In one photo, where you see the two people crossing the bridge (Pont Louis Philippe.) You can see the top of the Cité. Our studio is behind those trees in the middle. What a gorgeous day!