Jeudi noir and another long week...

I don't know what it is, but I feel like I've been dragging my feet since we got back from Canada. I'm always tired, and I've been looking forward to the February holidays pretty much since our plane landed at Charles de Gaulle on January 4th. Maybe it's the unseasonably cold weather, combined with the seasonably grey and damp weather, maybe I'm getting too old to shake off jet-lag as easily as I used to.

Add a country wide fonctionnaire strike into the mix, and all I really want to do is stay in bed. Thursday was supposed to be another one of those strike days that bring the city to a standstill. However, now that I have a couple of those under my belt, I know that 'standstill' usually means that instead of waiting two minutes for a train, you might wait eight minutes. Or have to take a different combination of lines to get to your destination. Everyone tries to scare you with stories of stations not even being open, terrible gridlock, and people fighting over Ve'libs, but I (knock on wood) haven't ever been really stuck. And so I checked the RATP website on Wednesday night and found that my trains were predicted to be running 1 out of 2, and 3 out of 4, so I left the house a good forty minutes early just to be safe and arrived at school, oh, a good 35 minutes early. No delays. No one on the trains. All that the stupid strike on Thursday did stress me out and make me early for everything I had to be on time for. And then it made me late for the one thing I actually wanted to be on time for. Fajita night. Have I told you that Erik makes the best fajitas? It's the perfect way to end a marathon day.

Oh, and the fonctionnaire of the house worked from home, because his line of RER was actually not running. And for some reason he didn't make it to the manifestation.

Anyway, I guess this has been a long winded way of saying that it's been a long week, and now I'm sick and have spent most of today in bed. I'm not looking forward to going back to school on Tuesday, and I hope that the next two weeks fly by. I need some time off!

A New Toy

We bought a video camera. For professional purposes. Really. I'm planning on using it at the gym, but that didn't stop me from filming this little gem* about two seconds after I got the thing out of the box.

*This little gem will be embedded in this post just as soon as my computer dries off from the cup of tea that I dumped on it. Assuming that all is well once it dries off. If you can't wait, check it out here.

I don't even want to know when I last blogged. I just know it's been a long time. We've been busy, you know, traveling to Canada, celebrating Christmas and New Years, meeting friends' babies, then getting over jet lag and dealing with snow and life here in Paris.

I can't remember how I ever had time to blog more regularly.

And since we've been so busy since we got back, busy doing things that aren't particularly interesting (anyone want to hear about the fun that was my two-day BodyStep training last weekend? It started at 8am on Sunday. Good times), I'll thought I'd share with you two pictures of what we seem to do best. Or at least consistently.

Eat.


Oyako-don (Chicken and egg on rice)

This is a Japanese dish that we always enjoy in Japan, and that I tried to make very unsuccessfully once at home. Luckily Erik has a Japanese colleague at the lab, and he and his wife made a video for us on how to make this simple dish, complete with a shot of the all important timer that tells you just how long to let the egg cook before it's time to eat.

It was so oishii that we made it twice that week, and is now one of Erik's specialties. (A list that also includes risotto and fajitas so delicious they rival Sneaky Dees).


A hero sized sandwich

Next up is the sandwich Erik made for breakfast/lunch today. This kind of sandwich is his weekend specialty, best enjoyed after a weekend workout. Today's sandwich featured three kinds of meat--leftover roast chicken, sausage and duck pate. Plus cheese and condiments. And it was enjoyed while watching the Wire, a show that my brother got us hooked on, and anyone who hasn't seen it should absolutely check it out. It's great.

Other exciting things that have happened to us involve the purchase of a new tv stand/buffet, that we carried home ourselves from Ikea. The fun part about going to that store is trying to decide if what you're buying is worth spending 50euros on delivery for. Bed, yes. Tv stand, we didn't think so. Lets just say that manoevering 50lbs of Ikea cabinetry on a bus, train and then finally metro is a feat that makes 50euros seem like a steal.

So there you go. Life here in Paris is as glamorous as ever, the snow has melted and we are now dealing with a typical Parisian winter involving rain and gloom. Epiphany was celebrated in a shower of galettes, and my lucky husband found the feve in all three pies that he sampled. People are fleeing the city for ski holidays, and we're counting down the weeks (3) until our next holiday weekend in Berlin.

Bits and Bobs

And we thought the weather here in Paris was bad!!

Weren't we surprised to step off the plane last Sunday and have it be so cold here in France that it actually snowed! Erik got up to go to work on Monday, and I didn't believe him when he said there was snow on the ground. But there was, and a fair amount of the stuff. Weather across Europe has been unseasonably cold, with snow all the way down to the south of France, and even in Spain! Unfortunately there were no snow days, and business went on almost as usual, save for some weather related problems with the trains. Luckily Canada prepared us well, and Erik has been getting good use out of his boots, and me out of my down coat. I definitely miss central heating!



We've come a long way, baby!

Or have we? I thought it would be fun to try on my wedding dress while we were in Ottawa. Might have helped if I'd actually been wearing real clothes before hand, but here you go, morning hair, glasses and all. And Erik's shirt says: Clothes Make the Man, which is obviously not true, in his case. :)

Straight from the mouth of a four year old:

(in the middle of me reading a story that she obviously didn't find very interesting)

"Torie, you have a lot of hair!! I don't know how you sleep."

I told her it was like having a pillow attached to my head, but she wasn't buying it. Too funny.