The entire city of Paris stopped work on Tuesday at 6:30 to watch the football (soccer) match between France and Switzerland.  I happened to be on the bus at that moment, which came to a complete halt and discharged me and the other dozen passengers onto the sidewalk.   Fortunately I was only a half mile from home.



It was a sweltering week here, with temperatures around 90.  My brushes were all caked up with acrylic paint in the Luxembourg Gardens, where Blair, Odile, and I turned out over a dozen canvasses among us.

This is the time of year that redeems the infernal drizzle and cold of the other eight months -- it's a bit to get used to overnight.  We sat outdoors in Chinatown last night eating delicious Vietnamese food. God bless the colonies.

The Petit Lux, our former hang-out, is open once again, completely renovated and painted a light purple.  There is a coffee bar with upholstered stools, and free "viennoiserie" (mini-croissants and pain au chocolat) on silver trays.  We've been there two mornings in a row.

My blood pressure reached record heights as we installed a new internet connection, in French, into our American computer.  We are at very high speed now, except if we move the laptop to the next room, in which case WiFi crashes headlong into the stone walls.   My creativity was dashed to the mousepad.  I'd retire if I were Bill Gates, too.

I took the bus to the Tuileries to paint a long thin landscape for a friend.  The Tuileries, beside the Louvre, is a much more "open" park than the Luxembourg Gardens.  I sat in the raised alley, where the dogs are walked, and looked across to the rue de Rivoli, and a peek at Sacre Coeur.  Mme. Baretto, a temporary concierge from our old rue de Lille house, was walking her new Bernaise mountain pup, Anatole.  He barely escaped cadmium yellow eyebrows as we made friends.

I've been reading a "Life in Letters" of MFK Fisher this week, cooling off on the sofa.  I want to write back to her.  I wonder if in 20 something years there will be books like "his life in email"?  I am tempted to run out and buy onionskin.

We saw two Solexes this week, ancient bicycles propelled by little gas engines.  This is surely a sign of the summer.  Olivier bought a new bicycle, while we remain safely on foot.

As you can tell, not much is happening this week before the first day of summer, and the letting out of schools.  We are waiting for the new museum of primitive art to open, and for the Ferris wheel to begin its summer spin.  I pass my free time combing the streets of the city in search of a discarded olive tree for my courtyard.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
Monday Morning in the Park  Acrylic on canvas  16 x 13 inches
www.artnotesparis.blogspot.com