In Between Days

Cody and I have returned to Oakland, but our bodies still think we are in Paris. Notorious creatures of the night, we find our eyes watering and a tidal wave of sleep descending at 11:00 at night which forces us to bed, only to wake up at 8:30 the next morning. It is almost a normal schedule. An odd thing for us.

This happens every time we return from Europe. It never lasts. All it takes is one or two late nights and we slip back into our inherently nocturnal ways. But for now it is kind of fun to get up in the morning since it is not in the least bit painful. Winter days seem so much longer. The chickens expect me by 9, the cats are actually eating breakfast and not brunch and I have plenty of time to talk to my East coast clients. It's strange.

Reality has been a little hard to return to, especially since my body still thinks it is residing at 7, rue Bailly, Paris, 75003 and not in Oakland. Work fires turned into conflagrations that needed containment and extinguishing. I had no choice but to jump right in. Not an easy re-entry at all and certainly not anything resembling transition at all.

That said, I am going to aim for more balance this year. I am going to do my level best to take time out to do the little things I always put off (baking those muffins, writing that letter, mailing that package, cooking dinner) in place of work. This may be difficult as the coming months are forecast to be insane work-wise, but it is an important goal for me to aim for.

I talked with both Cody and our French friends about this many times in Paris. It was a theme of the trip. I intend to take it to heart.

The Tattoo Progresses

A Matter of Degrees

Paris is cold. According to the weather reports it has been hovering around 0 degrees Celsius most days. That's 32 degrees in Fahrenheit. In either measurement, it translates as cold. The funny thing to me is that, unlike most other forms of metric measurement used in the rest of the world, Celsius seems less precise than Farenheit. Easier to calculate maybe, but more general in terms of the subtle difference in how we feel and sense temperature and weather. It is the one form of measurement where I think that metric doesn't win the horse race and where the small incremental differences in Fahrenheit actually mean something and are lost in Celsius.

In either measurement, I have learned the importance of layers and scarves. Layers are easy, but scarves are not. The French seem to be born with an innate ability to wrap their scarves effectively and fashionably, whereas my scarf is barely effective from keeping the cold out. And I have totally given up on fashioning the complex looks being sported on so many necks. I walk down the cobblestoned streets of Paris and experience great scarf-wrapping envy. Everyone's necks look so warm and toasty and fashionable.I guess being from California means that I am born with other innate senses, none of them having to do with scarf skills.

According the meteo reports, tomorrow through the end of our trip will be almost balmy. We are expecting rain with temperatures around 8 degrees. It will feel like San Francisco in the summer if the weather reports are correct. I will still need a scarf, but it won't be quite as essential to my survival for our last few days here.