We got a great breakfast at home today, and then I tried to get this page up and running...and blew a fuse.  One can NOT MAKE a local phone call from this apartment, without a "carte telephone"  I am trying to call the landlord, as all of the outlets in the living room do not work, and I have replaced EACH fuse to no avail.   We will end up getting a long extension cord, and going from there.  

Then we went to St. Séverin Cathedral.  According to Rick Steve, this place took 100 years longer to build than Notre Dame.  Must have been a union job, and Tony Soprano had a lot of Chris' and Junior's crew working on it.  We got a lot of photos of the place, some even turned out.  Roses still bloom in the churchyard, and it is only 2 blocks away.  Gargoyles aplenty, and a beggar at the front gate as we exited.  I used my "Cold Cosmopolitan" 50 yard gaze, because she did not exist...not to me.  Marsha stopped 30 paces out and shook me down for coins...significantly larger than penny coins. She was going back.  

Marsha said that the woman had pennies..the copper coins, in her hands...and the 2 euro coin was a lone large coin in her hand when Marsha put it there and the woman kissed Marsha's hand.  Is it better to think that the woman was truly in need and give her the loose change that I piss away on another drink?  Marsha was right.  Maybe it is better to think that the glass is half full,  Marsha just did the obvious, she gave a woman in rags a drink from the glass, no matter whether it was half full or half empty, it seemed as if she were the Fisher King...the woman was thirsty.

We then walked to Shakespeare and Co. bookstore on the Seine river.  This is possibly one of the five most famous book stores in the world.  The ex-patriots used to more or less live there.  Many still do, whether they are going to be Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald.  It had pictures of City Lights bookstore in San Francisco in the window.  We have been there also.  Hell yes, the local Borders is better stocked, but there is still a soul to these old haunts that a mall store doesn't have.  Maybe the next literary genius will be hanging out at the local Borders or Waldons, but will the building still be selling literature in 100 years, let alone still be standing?  I added to my Bill Burroughs collection, God rest his soul, and added 'Ragtime' by E.L. Doctrow to the collection also.  

I saw a guy with Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird' in his hands.  I don't know if it was a new acquisition or something he has read and wants to read again.  Good books.  What a great thing. 

We continued on, and somehow got into a stupid argument and thankfully got the required disagreement out of the way early.  It seems as though we were both pushing the concept of a great holiday for the other one beyond the limits of what was real.  We then walked to the cheese shop and butcher and liquor store and so many other shops and pissed away a week's salary from my first job in less than an hour.  And then we found St. Nicolas du Chardonnet.  It is an old church.  The picture labeled dsc02148 is where the photos of that edifice start.  Marsha said a prayer for Bert, her first Christmas without a mother or a father, and we continued our walk.  Something about churches on this trip.  Three so far, and each one moves me in a way that a "Perceived" atheist should not be moved.  Except it is only perceptions that make me seem to be an atheist.  Each prayer that I say asks the Creator for the peace to accept my ignorance about how it all began and holds together.  Hell, even Steven Hawking claims to be an atheist but has spent his life, paralyzed and twisted, trying to unravel the mystery of physics...the truth to creation.  We are blind men touching the elephant and describing it so differently.  I have picked up a great respect for Islam lately.  Our differences could unite us, if we crawl out of the sandbox long enough to share a seesaw with another. 

I suggested that we try Indian food for dinner.  Neither of us had ever really had TRUE Indian food.  I knew that if it were described as Madras that it was potent, and that Vandaloo was potentially lethal.  British keyboardist and humorist, Rick Wakeman, tells of his only arrest.  He was under the effects of a couple of beers and a Vandaloo...that was eating its way toward the backdoor... as the constable DETAINED him till the car arrived to take him to the station. Marsha started hitting on the waiter.  The waiter spoke exceptional English, French, and God only know what his native language was.  After dinner, he bought us a round of some sort of Indian floral tasting liquor named Paan.  And then Marsha wanted a picture with him,  and he got the turban for her to wear.  I even busted him watching the telly. He had the remote wrapped in plastic, and was gazing blankly over the bar.  Splendid meal.

And we walked our neighborhood again.  Back past St. Séverin at night.  Damn were we buzzed!  And we finally were getting it right.  We were having another adventure, and the goals had been set aside.  Nothing to achieve - nothing to accomplish.  Great curry, good booze, phenomenal company, and an adventure or two.

There are a thousand places that we could have spent our holiday, including a place out off of I-69 in Michigan with 2 cats that think we are special.  And they are probably a bit pissed, but they will get over it.  This is another opportunity to see a city...the City Of Lights... and no matter how uncomfortable it is to sit for 8 hours in a plane (late take off)... this is still the Paris of my youth, and it will be till I take that long dirt nap.  Speaking of which, we are planning to visit Père Lachaisse Cemetery in the morning.  The permanent home to Chopin, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and thousands of others.  I even bought a bottle of Absinthe.  There are other tales that could be included here, but some may give away the contents of gift packs coming home for others that might read this.  

Marsha is sleeping.  I have never seen the kid put away so much booze in one sitting.  And I figure that it is time to wrap this evening's ramblings up, as the clock says half past midnight.