After a month in the USA following the Torrington Twisters baseball team, we are once again in Paris.  It rains.

I paid the equivalent of $10.00 for four tomatoes today, at the "bio" market.  I got six good size fresh sardines for just 93 centimes.  A tomato pie cooks in the oven, as I write.  The recipe comes from a cookbook our friends at the Hickory Chair (North Carolina) factory put together.

I enjoyed the fresh produce in Connecticut.  Our tomatoes, better priced than these, were delicious.  "No wax" the producer proclaimed, "not like in the supermarkets".   We went to the "u-pick" flower stand, too.  I don't like my flowers mixed.  A large handful of zinnias, a half dozen snapdragons, and a bunch of black-eyed susans for five dollars:  three vases.

During the quiet month of August, I will write the baseball book text, to accompany the 30 paintings, the sketches and the woodcuts we made of the team in Connecticut.  There will be a show of our work in New York (state), and (hopefully) an exhibition at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It is the first time I feel ambivalent about being back in Paris.  Maybe it's the attitude:  "We won't have those bombings (referring to London) here, we're not in Iraq."  I don't know how long I can continue to bite my tongue (I am a guest here).  In French, I mentally compose a long diatribe on appeasement, which I will never deliver.  Ideologies shouldn't dictate friendship.

We've never been ones to vacation for too long.  This year we traded the rocking chairs on the porch of Hemlock Lodge for the bleachers at Fuessenich Park, watching the Torrington Twisters.  The time flew by, with twenty ball games in the 30 day period we were there.  We made friends with the other fans, and a generous man donated a pile of canvases, paints and brushes to our cause.

I only cooked a few times -- all of the games were in the evening, precluding dinner.  I ate more hot dogs in June and July than I've eaten in the last ten years.  One of our last nights, I broke down and made Indian salads (eggplant and shallots; mango and spinach) for some friends.  Blair had a penchant for seafood risotto, which he made.  Our guests, M and B, took us out for dessert.

We took a ride down to the local Dairy Queen.  Unlike most DQ's, the Winsted, Connecticut franchise is only open in the summer, and features only ice cream.  In years past, my family would wait for "opening day" of the Dairy Queen, a harbinger of warm summer nights to come.  Life events took place at the Winsted Dairy Queen.  Armed with our chocolate dip cones, my friends and I would take our place on the park bench across the street and hammer out the issues of the 1960s and 70s.  When my niece and nephews were old enough, a trip to the Dairy Queen was initiation into the world of making choices:  a blizzard or a slushie?

This night bore the hopes of all those trips to the Dairy Queen.  We waited in a long line, watching a bug traverse the back of the white t-shirt on the man in front of us.    I decided on a hot fudge sundae with nuts.

We took our treats to the back parking lot, where we leaned on the railing near the river.  The evening was sultry, and B sprayed himself with insect repellent.

Above our head, a street light shone.  Just beneath it was an enormous spider web, vibrating wildly with dead, or nearly dead, bugs.  The elaborate macrame was illuminated by the street light and a big fat spider regarded his handiwork:  a summerful of meals, ready to go.  "What could be better," I said, "than a well-placed, manageable web?"

We finished our sundaes and pressed on to sit and watch the moon over Highland lake.  I had a simple answer to my questions about life and waves lapping the shore, could sleep easy.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
"Moth" acrylic on board  13 x 21 inches