More randomness

Random notes:

The beggars’ new gimmick is to have animals. This is so disturbing. One or two seem actually to feel attachment to them, but in general they are there as props, to entice more donations. They spend all day, every day, in one spot. Some of the more upsetting ones, to me, have been the man with a cat, on a leash, thrashing around wanting off the leash (it had its own little “dog” house, and food, though, and other than being kept on a leash in one spot all day, didn’t appear to be being mistreated. Or the man on the Pont Saint-Louis lately with a mother dog and her puppies. Trelys has seen one with a rabbit. When I brought this up at the conversational group, Parisians were dismissive, saying these beggars are part of one organization that has instructed them to have the “pets.” But what happens to them eventually? Or even now? I expect they came from a pound somewhere; is no life better than a poor-quality one?

Everywhere in the city construction is underway—renovation, restoration, repair. On both sides of the street between me and Notre-Dame, buildings are faced with netting and scaffolding, and the days are filled with the sound of saws and hammers. Somewhere in the back of my own building, or one adjoining it that shares the courtyard, there is construction work underway; the debris has to be brought out by wheelbarrow. Work is happening on the—power grid, I think, in places all over; temporary barricades block sidewalks, or metal panels cover sections of sidewalk when the work is not actually in progress, as on the weekend.