water town

As a Seattle native, I can commiserate with my fellow northwesterners when we face the miserable drizzle-pizzle-rain-wind-sleet-and-greyness that we call July and August. Unless of course the weather gods blow away the clouds and for some unexplicable reason we have 8 solid weeks of gigantic blue skies, a bright burning sun, stolen swims, outdoor happy hours. Or lawn-mowing, pressure washing, deck-staining and weeding…if you happen to be a Van Kempen…

Allegedly in the great northwest, this summer has been one of multi-colored sunsets, barbequing, hula-hooping and popsicle eating. 

Not so across the pond. 

Over here in grey, I mean, gay Paris, we are experiencing the rizzle-mizzle-drizzle, grey skies and scarf-wearing weather. The tourists are roaming around the Notre Dame with those plastic “we are about to go on ‘Splash Mountain’” rain capes, and I am splashing through puddles in rain-boots and sundresses because I already packed away all of my Fall/Winter clothing…it is July after all. 

So to escape the dreary dripping of the city of lights JD and I decided to escape to Deauville (ironically translating to ‘water-town’ if you see where I’m going with this). Deauville is the closest beach to Paris, complete with two casinos, horse-races, lots of fresh seafood, and a lovely sandy beach with a boardwalk. It is roughly equivalent to the Oregon Coast, think Cannon Beach minus the salt-water-taffy, and add a few bottles of chilled white wine and a Louis Vuitton.

Sadly, Deauville lived up to its name and though it did not rain every single day, all day long, (just once, with no breaks from 1pm until long after bed time) there were no baking bodies lying on the beach, no reading on the beach, or sitting in the sun at a café on the boardwalk enjoying your 5euro diet coke…

Instead we had an immensely relaxing week going jogging, or rather slogging through the wind, walking the length of the boardwalk and ducking under cover when it started dumping rain, catching up on important current events, Elle, Vogue, Grazia, Cosmo, Marie Claire, learning how to use Spotify, eating moules frites, staring at the magnificent view, watching the fireworks for the 14th of July…

And spending an inordinate amount of time on the balcony playing that intensely competitive card-game: Speed.

shake it!

Monday Night.
Wednesday Night.
20h-21h

Where will you be?

Shaking your bootay with me at Rituel Paris!!!

Zuuuuumbaaaaaa!!!!

a study in the french apéro

Ahhhh springtime in Paris…the soft scent of hyacinth wafting over the Seine, sunlight dappling through the chestnut trees onto the grands boulevards, laughter pouring out into the night from sidewalk cafes, espadrilles, and of course…apéro.

Despite the fact that this spring has resembled a dismal Seattle March (read-horizontal rain, wind and wearing the same thing over and over and over, because during that brief moment of sun you thought it was high time to put away all clothing for inclement weather and take out your adorable sun-dresses, sandals, sun cream…and did I mention the umbrella?), our two days of sunshine and carefully controlled greenery has instilled in everyone the desire to do one thing and one thing only.

 Ze Apéro. Short for apéritif…or  a pre-dinner drink (‘ a pair of teef? No fanks, I got me own.’). These wonderful apéros  include a pleasant area outside (quai de la Seine, Buttes Chaumont, Tuileries…anywhere with grass or someplace in full sun.), an early start time, cherry tomatoes (every time…) and of course… the glue that holds France together…WINE! Preferably a chilled bottle of  rosé.

These apéros are shockingly like American picnics (minus the waldorf salad). However, there are no ham and cheese sandwhiches at these affairs. Oh non!  French picnics are either incredibly elaborate with a bevy of homemade quiches, cherry tomatoes (of course) olives, bread, cheese, charcuterie, strawberries, and one or many bottles of that heavenly beverage...wine...or these picnics are lame-o, but still inclusive of the major apéro prerequisites: (all together now)  wine, cherry tomatoes, and yeah, not going to lie to you... pringles (once you pop you just can't stop).

These peek-neeks are also a great way to make friends. At the peak of the season (day upon day of glorious weather, pigeon poo be-smattering the grands boulevards, dapplings of sunlight giving the pasty city dwellers a nice early tan) everyone is on their way to an apéro, and miraculously everyone forgets something, and it is always an object intrinsic to operation-a-pair-of-teef, like a bottle opener, plastic cups, or a… bottle opener. So in lieu of opening your bottle with a swift whack with a shoe, someone (or 8 people) form a line asking to use the sacred opener of bottles. And voila! Friends. Kind of. For like three minutes. Five if they can’t get the foil off of the wine bottle and need cups.

Regardless, there is no better way of consuming copious amounts of wine and cherry tomatoes in the great outdoors, imbibing in Springtime with the writhing masses of Paris,or listening to fellow peek-neek-errrrs laughing into the night than grabbing a bottle (or three) and heading for the nearest grassy area to appreciate being together.

Just don't forget the cherry tomatoes.

home sweet home

There is that old cliché that says, “Home is where the heart is”. Well for the past 25 years my heart has been nestled in the foundation of 5235 NE 193^rd Place Seattle, WA 98155.

My heart is now flitting around and has settled somewhere in Paris (eerily enough), and not because I feel that my heart no longer belongs to the misty-moisty northwest, but because my adorable parents have cruelly yanked me out of my childhood by selling their beautiful suburban mansion and moving downtown to a glace palace (albeit a very chic and well-maintained palace located conveniently next to one of my favorite happy hour places. Ever.).

The would-be site of character building...

 Now that my childhood is over, some of my latent adult dreams have died as well. These dreams largely involving me shipping my unborn children across the ocean to spend time with Opa and Grandma for some august fun: weeding on the bank, learning the 87 functions of bleach, staining the deck, the joys of pressure washing and concocting that magical-Myrnie-formula…formula zappo…who knows, maybe they too could have wept going through their scales in the kitchen, or learned the time-step in the garage…now my unborn offspring just get to look forward to geriatric bbqs overlooking ze space-euuhh niidle-euuh and strolling to ze Pike Place market-te to get slapped in the face by an errant feesh.(Enter Gallic shoulder shrug, lip puff and a well-placed euuuhhhh.)

I obviously understand that my parents shouldn’t be ruled by their bricks and mortar (though those bricks were laid by a certain maternal grandfather), but they just don’t understand that my anchor, recipient of dental bills, college loan letters, storage for shoes, sweat pants and lots and lots of music is now lost to me forever. I’m not even going to go into the fact that I didn’t get to say ‘good-bye’ to our house, spend one last Christmas there or scrape off the wall where Andrew and I have been measured with pencil-lines since we could stand…lest I start hysterically sobbing, or getting into the white wine too early…sob gasp gasp.

I have moved 8 times, including twice across the pond between ages 18 and 25. I have no idea when I will be able to buy a house, fill it with crap and then make my own children cry when I eventually sell it…probably to move in with Emily Hansen at Washington Oaks Retirement home in Everett…but I do know that I am devastated to part with so many memories, the soft squishy love-chair, and the magical kitchen that now belongs to someone else.

Les Franzettes

For a musician, I write suprisingly little about my music-ing.

To discontinue this trend of barely writing about my career..I give you the website of my string quartet-three frenchies + one american (me by the way) equals The Franz Quartet...or Quatuor Franz.

Behold. Listen. Come to our concerts. Or if you are stranded across the ocean, click on the English version, look at the website, like it for pete's sake on facebook and pretend you are at our concerts.

through the blue doors

Jean-David and I have recently moved. Our old apartment was furnished and our new apartment was empty. And that means one thing and one thing only…

IKEA!

Call me a sell-out…but whatever…anyone who sneers at Ikea has it all wrong. I spent hours poring over the Ikea catalogue and website imbibing in the sheer simplicity and neat-space-saving-tips-and-tricks chartered by those thrifty Swedes. From the Karlstad convertible couch (You got a plane ticket? We got a couch!) to the stroudlflunginflieegneshtieninflurb (the bar that holds utensils in the kitchen) we were ready for our big Ikea adventure.

Saturday morning came and I bounded out of bed…willing to skip my morning Nesspresso (I’m sorry…have you seen George Clooney?) in order to be amongst the first walking through those gigantic blue doors.

Bliss. You can eat meatballs and shop for kitchen cabinets and cushions all at once. Ah! The sweet ambrosia that is Ikea! I forgot about my meticulously researched list and went Ikrazay! Shiny! New! Cunning hazaa…magical storage!!

But then-we reached the end of the perfectly decorated display rooms.

Gone were the great lighting schemes, the plump couches and groovy geometric throws. We had crossed over.

To the moment when Ikea becomes h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

The cardboard covered furniture labyrinth hell is only the start to what is known only as the Ikea Inferno…

That great bedframe you had to have and was a steal at $89?

Five hours of your life later, this chic Engan bedframe is built in only 27 steps…or well 32 including the major fight you got into over what to do during step 18 (which was incomprehensible), the pizzas you ordered, the tears you succumbed to when you finally realized that the dinglehopper goes over the schmadoodle and not under it…the hiding of the extra bits and bobs you couldn’t quite figure out to do with and of course the ceremonial burning of the instructional booklet…

2 kullens, 1 engan, 1 lillangen, 1 karlstad (did you know you actually have to build your own couch?!), 1 expedit, 1 asksvist, 1 pax, 1 gormet, 8 lacks, and 1 big scdkoriso;sdfodufluferen and our apartment was furnished!

I’m just ignoring the pile of shelves sitting in the corner of our bedroom.

Anyway, whatever. I can't wait to go back.

the cherry on my monday

Today started out fine and dandy. I had a great voice lesson. My voice teacher was all compliments, I even got a "good honey!", praise for my nice shiney b-flat, and the very first "honey" I have received in the almost two years we have been working together.

With the remenants of my singing glow I organized the rest of my afternoon before work on the metro. I would be grocery shopping (half hour) making lunch (a salad inspired by a restaurant called Chez Gladines) to be eaten whilst watching a 22 minute episode of Sex and the City followed by an hour of practicing (25 minutes learning the first and second movements of Shostakovich followed by 35 minutes of Bach)...a swell plan if I do say so myself...

15 minutes behind schedule (I really can never tear myself away from the cheese aisle) I was running around putting away the groceries, turning on the heat, frying the potatoes, washing lettuce, setting up the music stand, when while I was simaltaneously cutting tomatoes with a serrated knife and mixing a salad dressing I had an accident. A split second of poor concentration and the top of my thumb was bleeding like the dickens. Enter multiple four to six letter words here (there may have been dual-lingual cussing going on)...

I ran cold water over my boo-boo and reached one handed to grab paper towels, which of course fell on the floor at the same moment the tomatoes fell into the sink along with the cutting board and damned knife..so I am stooping for the towels, turning off the water, trying to get my thumb to stop bleeding and opening the window to rid the kitchen of the acrid odor of my potatoes burning...once I finally got the kitchen situation "under control" I ran to the bathroom and grabbed band-aids and neosporin and did the whole one-handed-band-aid-opening-magic-trick.

Finally my thumb is bandaged, I eat my salad, watch my episode and whip out my cello, warm up, start Shostakovich when my bleeping band-aid has bled through! Another three minute trip to the bathroom (at this point neosporin is smeared on the mirror, sink, and door handle) before I start practicing again. At five minutes till departure time I was very perplexed to see the tip of my bandage was already brown...but impossible! I had literally just put on 4 band-aids!

That is when I looked at the neck of precious Mr. Cello and there it was folks, the veritable cherry on my Monday...blood all up on Mr. Cello's neck, he was not a happy camper, nor was I when I had to re-roll the paper towels (still on the floor) and clean up yet another mess, you can imgaine the creative usage of four to six letter words exploding out of my mouth.

Mr. Cello safely desposed of and blood free, I upped the band-aid count and left the apartment a big fat mess. Something nice to look forward to when I get home...

Lauren: 0 points
Serrated knife from Ikea: 13 band-aids and counting

pinterest

One of my daily routines (and guilty pleasures) is reading through all of the Facebook posts on the metro. I can spend pretty much an entire ride immersed in other people’s lives. Big Brother and all that aside, I’m not ashamed that I too was excited to see the video of Kirsten Bell on Ellen having her sloth meltdown…

Soooo when I continued to see the word pinterest cropping up in people’s posts I thought to myself…hmmm…this can’t just be some hip new word I missed out on since I've moved across the pond...

And it wasn’t!

I googled pinterest.

I have now signed up for pinterest.

And I will now be joining the millions of other people indulging themselves in finally finding that 57th cheesecake recipe or how to make a cute cellphone holder out of your old coffee-filters, or drooling over someone’s newly re-tiled and exquisitely photographed laundry room...

Pinterest has made me giddy. Although, who knows how on earth I’ll be able to use it considering I still have trouble locating my spellcheck on the updated Word….

lazy sunday

I used to love Sundays. Last year Sunday meant buying a roast chicken and devouring it in front of the television and then maybe taking a nap, having coffee with friends, taking a lovely Sunday stroll through the city, making chicken stock and then going to sleep.

My luxurious Sundays are no more. Now on Sunday I’m up at the crack of 11am…donning my work-out gear, plastering on a smile and shaking my bootay –to-the-beat in front of a bunch of sweating Parisians…or to sum up in one word…ZUMBAAAA! And to answer the question…yes becoming a Zumba instructor has kinda, sorta ruined Zumba for me. Great for my waist-line (yes I finally have one!) and a nice little extra-income...but sadly I don’t think I will be taking a Zumba class ever again. Heaven forbid…I would be analyzing the choreography, wondering where the music came from and watching to see how my fellow booty-shakers were enjoying the class…

As if teaching two classes in a row weren’t bad enough (yes I have dropped two dress sizes) it means that I am missing the one essentially lazy day…so whilst Jean-David is going buying produce at Marché Aligre and having coffee with our friends, I’m sweating out anything imbibed the previous night and dreaming of giant plates of pasta.

It’s not all bad. Thursday has become my new Sunday. Yesterday after watching 3 episodes of Mad Men, making banana bread and doing a load of laundry I felt relaxed and happy…did I mention I slept until 11am?

That is bliss. Butter. Banana bread, Bach and folding socks watching the unraveling of Don Draper.

Ah.

do mi sol ti

Incredible as it seems I am once again preparing for my concours de chant at the (take a big deep breath...) Le Conservatoire Nationale Superieur de Musique et Danse de Paris (cnsmdp for 'short' and you'll notice if you go onto their website that they use almost exclusively the initials, the entire title being far too cumbersome to actually type 867 times).

This means that I am in a trance of listening to 20^th century French art songs (Les Six if you want to get academic with me), singing 7^th chords to death (Thank you Ricci Adams at musictheory.net) and of course hanging out with my very best friend…

MODUS NOVUS, for those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to study this magnum opus…it is a study on how to site-read atonale melody. In laymen terms: a torture device that devotes 8 pages to tritones: or the devils interval. Goody.

You are all allowed to hope and pray and send good ju-ju on the 15^th of February when at 10am I will be site-reading in front of a reading-glassed jury members and just praying that I won’t crap my pants with fear.

do mi sol ti

mi sol ti do

sol ti do mi

ti do mis sol

Oh help.