Laurie is a real traveler, it must be fun. And now Harika is too. I'm wondering how long she will stay in Seattle. It doesn't really matter, she paints where ever she is. Don

Seattle has been its usual flurry of rain and sun.  We have been staying "in the country" where Harika steps nervously hoping not to encounter a cougar or coyote.   I have been painting on cedar shingles -- little scenes of flora, fauna or the omnipresent evergreen tree.
Over the weekend, we decided to try a booth at the Fremont Sunday Market.  We bought a canopy and a card table, and borrowed two chairs from our hosts.
The canopy was a very cheap affair, and the quality not certain.  A third of our time was spent re-propping the tent, a total of 9 concrete blocks securing the legs.  It was still iffy.
We signed up as non-members, and Doug, the man behind the desk, set us up in a super location.  The clouds disappeared, and we set to selling paintings.   Passers-by showered us with praise -- we were the only producers of original art.  Like all local fairs, this market was chock full of product from Asia.
We sold several small pieces, paying the cost of the booth, our props, and our food, plus a few dollars extra.  People don't necessarily come to the market planning to spend $200.00.
A Chinese woman, studying in the US, approached my booth.  "You do landscape?" she asked.  We talked about what I paint and how.  "Why do they want me to paint in oil?" she asked, "isn't acrylic just as good?"
I met an eight year old boy who painted the Taj Mahal in his painting class the day before.  His mother bought a view of Golden Gardens park.  Another boy, five years old at most,  couldn't take his hands off a painting I'd done of a wild flower.  "Look how she made that color behind the flower just like water!"  His parents were exasperated, but I knew how he felt: deep turquoise and purple.

"How was your first week?"  I heard a little voice from somewhere near my shoulder; I was admiring a knitted coat-dress at a stand across the street.  F, a woman from Scotland, was selling her creations in silk, including this dress.   "Make me an offer -- I just need to sell my things.  I'm going back to Scotland for awhile," she confessed. "I paint, too, and the money is better back there."  She owned two "caravans" on a plot of land at St. Andrews.

Sales waned as the day went on.  A wretched couple of strumming (non)musicians set up across the way, and I couldn't keep my mind on conversation with the clients.  A friend arrived and we bought beers, to drink in paper bags.  F stopped by, drank a beer, abandoning her own stand.  "They're probably stealing everything," she giggled.
We promised to meet again next Sunday.  COME SEE US AT THE FREMONT (Seattle) MARKET ON SUNDAY, 1 JUNE.

Laurie and Blair PESSEMIER
Two boys at the beach  Acrylic on a cedar shingle   approx 5x 5 inches
www.artnotesparis.blogspot.com

A friend I'd not seen for nearly 20 years called me from her hotel in Paris.  We agreed to meet in the lobby on Wednesday night; "and bring Harika," she demanded.

J had worked for us twenty years prior in Seattle.  We shared her marketing services with Fred, a furniture salesman.  She took care of our first dog, a Jack Russell, when we went on vacation.  She loves animals.

We got to the Hotel du Louvre a few minutes early.  Harika found her place in front of the sofa.  A white haired woman approached.  "A dog!  how wonderful -- I miss mine so!"  Within 30 seconds the Australian woman was sitting beside me petting Harika.  "My friend won this $12,000.00 trip to Europe, and took me with her," she told us.  "We've been to London and leave on Friday for Germany.  I am so exhausted."   Her friend, the winner, arrived, and Harika regaled her as though she were the queen.

Our friend and her husband arrived.  Harika was so thrilled she barked.  We took her to the car while we went to dinner.    We selected a charming little restaurant near the hotel.  There are only six tables set in what used to be a mercerie store.  Art Nouveau mirrors and lily-of-the valley decorations seemed appropriate on the eve of 1 May.  The restaurant is run by an Italian man and his Spanish wife.  "She looks elfin," J commented.  They go to Italy to buy product every other weekend:  olive oils and basil; organic tomatoes and milk fed veal. After our meal, quasi-French-Italian-all "biologique" and delicious, we liberated our pup.

Her magnetic personality attracted another woman, on the "National Review" trip to France.  We told her the story of finding Harika on the beach in Tunisia.  She invited her to breakfast on Saturday morning.

Our repertoire of friends and acquaintances has expanded exponentially since the arrival of our four-legged accomplice.  We've met the parents of other dogs, and provided immeasurable comfort to travelers who miss their pets.

There is something unpretentious about dog lovers regardless of their social status.  How serious can you be when leashes become tangled and you are the one lashed to a tree?

J and her husband keep two Devon-rex cats.  They showed us pictures of these marcel-haired characters.

Harika loves a cat that comes to the Luxembourg Gardens in the morning.  Calin, the black cat, lets Harika lick her face and bump noses.  Canaille, the canine brother of Calin, gives Harika the cold soldier.  He and Atlas, the Jack Russell, are waiting for a female dog who is currently "in heat".  The mistress of the dog and cat sniffs over the indiscretion of the female dog owner.   "Canaille won't even eat," she winces.   We press on to play with Appolon and the seeing-eye dog in training.

We run the tourist gamut with our visiting friends.  I feel it is the best way to enjoy our own Paris sojourn.  We visit Monet's waterlilies for the umpteenth time -- each time I go I see something new, something more wonderful.  We stop at the Louvre but the crowds are so thick we didn't stay long.  I manage to see Beccafumi's three paintings of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
At the edge of Town (Malakoff)  LFP  Acrylic on board  6 x 13 inches  $200.00
www.artnotesparis.blogspot.com
www.vettedart.blogspot.com

E, our 9-3/4 year old friend, came to visit us this weekend, with her Mom.  We met the two of them at the Eurostar terminal at Gare de Nord, and metro-ed to Q's flat in Bobigny.

E and I make art together, although I must say her creativity has eclipsed mine.  She snagged a fashion magazine from the train (first class!) and set to making a collage.  She cut out a head, arms, legs, shoes, and mixed them together in a most attractive way.  I think the magazine might benefit from her input.  Giant shoes at the end of skinny legs, big hair and a fork necklace -- superb!

On Friday afternoon we took our places on a bench at Park Monceau and painted the "scenery".  E used to go to school right by the park, when she was living in Paris for a year.    Kids dressed in gray, white and navy (how boring!) played in the park at recess.  Painting urban scenery has given me an eye for a red polka dot dress, giant sunglasses or a coral scarf.  I have a whole new vocabulary of fashion.

We had one painting under our belt, when we were able to convince Blair to occupy the bench across the way and look good.  In his checchia, he assumed (what I thought) a grim visage, but the creative E was able to turn it upside down.

We walked and rode through the streets of Paris all weekend.  "Look, the Eiffel Tower!" I exclaimed, at the site never failing to provoke a tingliness around my heart.  "Tourists think that's Paris," E admonished me, "that and accordions and restaurants".  "Well, isn't it?" I asked in all seriousness.  "You and Blair are painters," she continued,"you live in a fantasy world."  "I'm glad," I replied.

It is possible to be overcome by a place.  When I walked on the beach at night, beneath the Tunisian stars, Sala (who had lived there his full 60 years) exclaimed, "I love it here, it is so romantic!".  I fell in love with the very air I was breathing.

I think of the much-forwarded email about the old woman entering a rest home.  "Oh, it's beautiful, I love it," she exclaims at entry.  "But you haven't seen it," the nurse objects.  "But I know already I will love it and be happy".  A positive attitude.

E an I laughed wildly at Harika's doggy antics in the back seat of the car.  We went to the circus in Bobigny, featuring a hippopotamus, real lions (I could SMELL them from our seat), and Mongolian camels.  We ate Chinese buffet afterward.

E sat in her swiveling chair turned to the heavily textured (just painted) wall in the apartment.  "Look, Laurie, I can see the whole story I just read", she  announced.  "Here's the forest, and the village, and this," running her finger down the wall, "is the river that flows into the sea."

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
to see Emily and Laurie's painting side-by-side go to: www.artnotesparis.blogspot.com
"Nose in the air"  LFP  Acrylic on cardboard  11 x 14 inches

While waiting in line at the art store this week, we met an American-speaker.  It was easy to be fooled -- she spoke French flawlessly.  "I've lived here forty years," she confessed.

Waiting in line is particular to every country.  The Italians cut in, the Germans are orderly and serious.  The English are polite, and the Chinese don't know the meaning of the word "line".  The French wait, wait, wait.  There are certain people who cut in, but there are more people who thwart their efforts.

The thing about waiting in line here is that the goal could become altered at any time.  It isn't unusual for a Post Office window to shut just as you get to it.  Conversations at the window go on for several minutes, oblivious to the needs of those queued up.

At the Carrefour the other day (yes, in the suburbs we shop at the supermarket), we mistakenly got into the handicapped line.  It was nearly impossible to tell, with only a small wheelchair emblem on a blade sign hanging perpendicular to all other lines, but invisible to us.  "Sorry," the fellow told us.  His line lay empty, while the rest of the world stood behind people buying enough food for a year.  "Don't you work?" the more outspoken of customers harangued, to no avail.  Witty banter was honed into serious jabs.  The checker counted the money in the drawer.

Our life is about waiting these days.  We are waiting to hear about jobs we've applied for, we're waiting to sell paintings, and we're waiting for this apartment to sell. forcing our next step.  It turned out the company I was interviewing with was recently charged with fraud.  Good things come to those who wait.

B, the lady in the art store line, invited us to an exposition of her work done in Africa.  She is a super artist, grinding the earth of the area where she is working into pigment for her paint.  We were delighted with her work, and the inspiration it gave us.

Harika waits for us on a regular basis.  She is an expert attendant, sitting quietly, often dozing as we go about our business.  If it's an unusually long wait, we bring her a treat.

We were in line behind a man with no money to pay for the gas he pumped into his car.  At least ten cars behind us honked mercilessly.

We waited for the hotdog stand in the park to open on Thursday.  "I'm never later than 1", the fellow told us.  On Saturday we brought our own picnic, ensuring we weren't disappointed twice.  We're not waiting for spring, but sit on damp picnic benches with our chicken and wine.

Waiting is my most difficult trick.  I drink too much waiting for guests to arrive, I get to the airport way too early.  I can't wait.  I want to be where I am going, and can overlook all to be learned on the way.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
In Blossom    LFP   Acrylic on canvas  8 x 16 inches

Some time ago, a friend came to our downtown apartment at 28, rue d'Assas in Paris.  We had coffee at a nearby cafe.  "I just couldn't live in this neighborhood," she said.  I honestly couldn't imagine why she would say that.

This last month we have been living in an outside-Paris apartment.  I never liked the trip out here for dinner, and wondered how anyone could be this close to Paris, yet so far away.

We are living in the "communist" neighborhood of Paris.  A statue of Lenin graces the corner.  There are two buildings here designed by Oscar Neimayer.  I have always spurned the communist theory.  When someone brought it up to me in Tunisia, I asked, "how could I possibly work at the same job all of my life?"

Paris is "Disneyland for adults," as a friend called it.  I never imagined living anyplace but in the finest quartier, even if it cost a little more.  Clean sidewalks, well mannered neighbors, and the best shops protected us from the bitter realities of life.  Our addiction to beautiful things was easily satisfied, an easy walk down rue Montagne.

One of the few things I've always missed about America, while living in Paris, was cultural diversity.  A piece on BBC radio about the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn touched my heart:  the former racist neighborhood is now home to people from a multitde of countries:  the typical worker speaks at least three languages, one the common English.  Tourists from many countries abound in Paris, but it is a rare breed that lives within walls.  Some Japanese, a few Americans, lots of old family French, but not a soul.

On Thursday last, shopping for Easter dinner, in this modest suburban neighborhood,  I realized that everyone in the store was shopping for:  Mohammed's birthday; Persian New Year; Passover, and of course, Easter.  The Halal meats were just an aisle away from Kosher foods -- the veiled, the  yamakah-ed and little old me were searching for the tastes befitting the rites of spring.  Chinese, Sikh, or French all paid at the same register.

Earlier that day, we were out walking Harika in the "parc departmental" in La Corneuvem just a mile or two from Bobigny.   This park has been a wonderful surprise to us -- it is a huge complex: "12 km" the sign reads, referring the the jogging trail around the lake and grounds.

We found the park as a large plot of green on a map, before our trip to the ethnically diverse supermarket.  We walked to the edge of the lake.  In the cold sunshine, raven- haired teenaged girls photographed one another on their cell phones, giggling.  Was I still in Tunisia?   On the way back to the car, we heard drums and horns.  The distinct sound of a North African woman "ululating" rang in my ears:  it must be a celebration.  In fact, a wedding was taking place during this brief sunny spell in the park.  Men and women danced joyously, as the bride and groom beamed at their entourage.  Bright dresses, lots of makeup and dressed up children brought a smile to my own lips.

I love Paris and it's beautiful store windows.  Right now, I can't afford a new outfit, but will put together my  belongings to look nearly that chic, thanks to the inspiration behind the glass.    Without the wealthy, central city, there wouldn't be the fine meats and cheeses, wines and desserts we can still find in the outskirts.  Without the temptation of the wealth of Paris, there would be nothing to strive for.

We won't give up our 70 square foot pied-a-terre in Paris right away nor permanently cast our lot with the folks who use a phone booth.  But I won't look at downtown as the only kind of Parisien riches any more.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
"Spring Green" LFP  Acrylic on canvas  14 x 22 inches

I'm so happy that things are back to normal for my two favorite Parisian artists. Life is good, God is great. So are your paintings.

Up here in Makawao 'tis the season of the Jacaranda and they are starting to bloom. They will be in their full glory by the end of the month.

Aloha from another great city, one with the best weather on earth, sorry about your rain