Autumn days

Prunes. I'd meant to remember the prunes. But when I stopped in the little bakery on the Ile St.-Louis, the pastry other than the "brownie" that looked most interesting was the Far Breton, and there were people in line behind me, and it had been at least three years since I'd seen one, much less bought one. So it was only at home, when I cut into it, that I remembered the prunes. Delicious, delicious, but--prunes. But all parts of me were happy. The "brownie" was actually more of a little round individual cake, and was also, mm, very satisfactory.

That was a week ago. Last Friday I got my computer back from the young Chinese guy David had recommended. He'd reinstalled Windows 7. I've spent the time since, off and on, trying to restore settings and links and toolbars. A couple of programs I won't have again until I'm home, where those CDs and the external disk drive are. But things are far better than two weeks ago and that whole meltdown.

Saturday I went back over to the Place Maubert street market, where I replenished my walnut stash, and bought various vegetables (some cepes, a small bag of multi-colored small tomatoes, some broccoli) and some fish (a couple of filets de merlan, whitefish--which, as it turned out, is a bit too delicate to use for courtbouillon--it sort of fell apart--but live and learn). Riz de Camargue I'd  bought at Franprix, so used that for the courtbouillon--it probably was the inspiration for making it in the first place, and for chicken and rice since then. The cepes I finally used in an omelet a couple of days later, concerned they be used before they spoiled, considering how ridiculously expensive they were.

In the afternoon I took the Metro over to the rue Daguerre, in the 14th arrondissement (i.e., over past even Montparnasse) to find the Galerie Corinne Bonnet, or Dufay-Bonnet; I've seen it both ways. There's a small show there of someone named Christian Sorg. Getting there, once off the Metro, consisted partly of a long walk through a pedestrian street lined with its own street market--and much more reasonably priced, that far from Tourist Central.

The tiny gallery is in a little narrow passageway lined with mostly artists' ateliers, one where an art class was in progress, etc. The show was mildly pleasant. What was more interesting was the American woman blocking the entrance to the gallery, engaged in an argument with what turned out to be Corrine Bonnet herself. She was disapproving of, denying, the premise of something I couldn't really see. Once she and her friend stepped aside to let me in, I stopped paying any attention, but shortly Corinne unfolded the copy of a paper so that I could see (as the woman was still haranguing). It was the first issue of a new fanzine by Serge Bloch, and the whole front page and inside were taken up with a cartoon piece and commentaries entitled "How to Torture One's Banker." I started laughing, of course, and asked where I could get a copy. I may not, since it was the September issue; she took my phone number, but I haven't heard anything more. Maybe the (other) American woman has no sense of humor. Maybe her husband is a banker.

Sunday I went out, later than I'd meant to, to the big flea market at Vanves. The only other time I'd been, the weather was chilly and on the verge of drizzle. It was cool this time, but a bright sunny day. Even past its peak, it was crowded, and the rows of vendors stretched on and on. To make a quite long story short, after perusing my way from one end to the other, and stopping to buy hot chocolate, I went back to make one small purchase of no importance, that I may or may not use in my kitchen at home to hold scrubbers and such things. By going late, though, by being there as the vendors began to pack up for the day, I got it for two euros : ) My only other purchase was a tiny--bowl?--in the postwar geisha pattern from Japan, that my grandmother had a set of, and of which I have a few surviving demitasse cups and saucers. I've priced them on eBay, and they're usually far more than I'm sure they cost when new. This was only €5. There was a whole little set of teapot and so on a little farther on, but they're much too fragile to try to get that much safely back to the U.S.--let alone not having the space.

All the while, the breezy days are stealing down leaves from the trees along the Seine and spreading them far and wide: along the banks, the streets, in the river itself. When I went out to La Villette on Friday to buy a ticket to the Paris Philharmonic in person (because I'd only just retrieved the notebook, and had been leery of using a credit card at a public internet center), the sky was gray, and yellow leaves were blowing in small flurries from the allee of trees that stretches back through the grassy park area to the left of that building.