Paris has an elaborate street cleaning system.  Water pours from a spigot along the curb, through the gutter, to a drain, often several blocks away.  Gum wrappers, cigarette butts, leaves and bottle caps flow by, often assisted by men, dressed in green, armed with oversized brooms.   Not on this day.  While we waited for the 95 bus (14 minutes, the sign said), a middle-aged man in a suit skipped by, gleefully urging a silver and red rolling battery down the "river" with the end of his folded umbrella.

We are out and about constantly in pursuit of good dog pictures to develop into paintings.   The more I am out, the more I notice everything, not only canines.



We headed out to the flea market yesterday -- what better place to find dogs?  At least one in every three vendors has a dog, and we are personally acquainted with Olga, Jean-Jacques' hound.  Shoppers bring their dogs, too, and every half-hour or so there is a salvo of barks and screeches followed by volley of howls.

There were no American voices at the flea market yesterday.  A dealer bemoaned the plummeting exchange rate to another Frenchman.   Only half the stands we once saw there were in operation Saturday. 

Several things we saw at the Marche aux Puces were there some eight months prior.  A box of broken down butterflies, complete with moths, is marked at 60.  I ask to buy a photo, 2 x 3 inches, home-developed (it is the best of the lot) -- the guy tells me he'll sell only the whole collection, in a shoe box, for 350 Euros.   Blair made a 150 offer on an 850 Euro painting -- we all need a laugh.  We got a good deal on a vase, only because the guy left the price he bought it for on the bottom.

I make a mental note as I pass a big hairy German Shepherd.  He doesn't want his photo snapped.  Other dogs crave the camera and will turn to look at us as their own drags them along.   A terrier with a bandaged leg hobbles past another carrying his left rear.

Thursday was a holiday here, and many Parisiens have taken a long weekend.  No one discusses the fact the holiday is the Ascension.   I like Paris at this time, because one can find a chair in the park.

A "young sculptors" show is taking place in the park near us.  There are basketballs nestled in a tree with broken basketballs lying on the ground beneath;  a bamboo garden in an alley;  a giant nose, a la Magritte, floats in the Italian fountain.

Two naked legs, feet red, protrude from the ground at the Northeast entrance to the Luxembourg Gardens.  This morning a tag hangs from the toe:  J. Hoffa.  Those Americans in Paris.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
"Olga"   Acrylic on canvas  16 x 23 inches
http://www.artnotesparis.blogspot.com