A snippet from our evening

After watching a video in which the Black Eyed Peas member and irrationally self confident will.i.am announced that in writing his new, selflessly titled "America's Song," his goal was to write the new national anthem.

Me: Wait, wait. The guy who wrote "My Humps" wants to write the new national anthem?!

Ariel: I know. I mean, didn't he already?

Another weird place for snow

My good friend Mr. Eiland Stuart Ponder sent me this photo tonight that I thought I would share.


Snow in New Orleans? That's just a hop, skip, and a jump away from hell freezing over - and you know what that means. It's the year of the Saints, baby!

Very Belated Post for Christmas Photos

I sent this Picasa link to a bunch of people already, and Ariel sent it to even more people, but in case you haven't seen it yet (and are interested), here are a whole slew of photos I took during Ariel and my trip to Lille for Christmas. Enjoy!

Noel 2008

Holy Crêpe!

It's no secret that Ariel is the most caring, thoughtful, and beautiful woman in the world. And I'm pretty sure she's been the inspiration for multiple classic works of art, too. But did you know that she's also a seriously kick-ass cook? I mean, damn.

This past week Ariel decided she would try to tackle a new dish: the crêpe. As some of you may already know, one of ao's projects when we first got to Paris was to find the best sugar crêpe in Paris - an arduous task that she boldly confronted, wandering the city, often alone, to taste different street vendors' interpretations of sugary deliciousness. She and I have also gone to more than a few crêperies to explore the savory side of this Breton concoction, though the results have unfortunately been mixed at best (and stomach-turning at worst). So if you can't find the perfect dinner crêpe outside, why not make it at home?

Sadly, we don't have the proper tools (or space) in our wee, one-butt kitchen to actually make the skinny pancake-thingies ourselves, which meant our sweet ao had to rely on store-bought versions sold in packets of ten. Even with such limitations, though, she would not be thwarted - and in fact, she managed to turn that setback into a benefit. How, you ask? By preparing three delectable dinner recipes over the past week, as well as some nice dessert dishes, too. The first night, she started off with a twist on the classic ham-and-cheese filled crêpe, adding spinach, pesto, and sun-dried tomatoes to the mix, and for dessert she combined two ingredients traditionally served individually - Nutella and strawberry jam - to create a truly awesome plate of tastiness. Then, the next night she decided to take a stab at seafood, filling our French flapjacks with smoked salmon, spinach, and crême fraiche - a sort of Breton blini, if you will. Needless to say, yum. And THEN, for lunch today, she went all out with her final crêpes of the week, using zucchini, a mix of caramelized onions and sautéed lardon, crême fraiche, a hint of pesto, and parmesan cheese (the results can be seen in the drool-inducing picture at the top of the post). Like I said before: damn.

Best of all (at least for me), despite the fact that just writing about ao's experiments in crêperie has made made my mouth water so much that I need a towel, Ariel says she wasn't entirely satisfied with the store-bought crêpes that she got and that she wants to make these dishes again sometime later using a different brand. I strongly endorse this plan.

And yes, it's okay for you to feel jealous.

Photos from Paris, 24-Dec-2008 to 2-Jan-2009

Photos from Paris, 24-Dec-2008 to 2-Jan-2009

Christmas in Lille, Brian & Melissa's visit, some lovely museums, and last Friday's snow.

Snow Day

This morning Ariel and I woke up dark and early at 7:15, ready to get back into our normal daily schedule and work routines. I fully intended to go to the archives and finish work on a carton of documents that I started looking at before the AN closed for the holidays, and I think Ariel was anticipating getting back to her Rosetta Stone program for French and doing stuff around the apartment.

But as the sun slowly began to rise, we noticed something different about the Paris outside our windows. Something white and flaky about it. It was snowing!

In fact, it has literally been snowing nonstop all day long - it's even still snowing now, at 7:10 p.m. almost 11 hours after it started. And what's more, the snow actually started to stick! And from what people tell me, this is not all that common in Paris (at least not anymore - yay global warming).

This is the logic that I then decided to apply to the situation: when I was a child, whenever there was the slightest hint of snow in Monroe - or, more likely, a hint of sleet and slush - school was canceled and students got a play day. I'm a grown up now, according to my marriage license. But I'm still a student. As such, whenever it snows, I should take the day off. Makes sense, right? Right!

Ariel and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon staying cozy in our apartment, reading and occasionally looking out our windows in awe as the city got colder and colder and whiter and whiter. Then around 3:00, we decided to take a walk and see how things looked. We ended up walking around for a little over an hour, going down to the Seine, walking along the river until we reached Notre Dame, crossing over to Ile de la Cité and meandering for a bit before slowly making our way over to Ile St. Louis, then back across to the Left Bank and home again. It was great. There were at least 1 or 2 inches of snow on the ground, and people were making little snowmen, writing on the snow-covered walls, and having snowball fights everywhere.


In fact, it was one of those moments when it feels like you're walking through a cliché, only totally awesome. I mean, come on: here we were, two young people in love walking through the snow-covered streets of Paris. Just describing it makes me feel like I'm writing a script for a Very Special Valentine's Day Episode of an original Lifetime TV show. But it still might be the best I've had here in Paris so far during this trip. Snow days are always the best days...

Oh, and we took a lot of pictures. Wanna see?

It's Snowing!

It's snowing! In Paris! Again!

And it's sticking! Again!!

I'm a wee bit excited, in case you couldn't tell. Of course, that could just be from the second cup of coffee I had this morning.

Anyway, here are a few photos of snow sticking on the tree just outside our apartment. Ariel has some pictures that she took, too.

Enjoy.

Happy New Year!

It's 1:30am here, and it's bed time. We've had a wonderful New Year's Eve with Brian & Melissa, with sekt they brought from their trip to Germany, champagne that Lee & Pegs gave us, & a wonderful pistachio & raspberry galette from our favorite local bakery. Good food and drink, and wonderful company. Couldn't ask for much more than that.

Happy New Year, everybody!