Quality of construction in this area always puzzled me. Every year we see a local weather-woman imploring us to take cover while wearing a complete football player’s outfit; every year we see photos of damage and destruction; every year someone we know has to replace a roof, a window or a whole house. Yet the houses many of us live in are constructed of plywood, duct tape and termite excrement. I saw my house being built and I don’t hold any illusions about my survival chances in case of a tornado. That’s why I have reservations about sleeping naked during the storm season, you never know where my body may touch down.

With that in mind, I had to take a few pictures of the new apartment building currently being constructed downtown.

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Preface:

I was going to Paris fully expecting to hate it. According to the minimal online research I did before the trip, Paris was flooded with pickpockets, scammers …  rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists. OK, maybe not Methodists. French people were supposed to be at the least unfriendly, arrogant and condescending.  And it was dirty, trash-covered and filled with people desperate to get to the nearest disgusting public bathroom but forced to tap-dance in hour-long lines in front of it. None of this turned out to be close to the truth.

Face:

Looking back on our trip I think a little more planning would’ve been nice; I did some research but apparently not enough to get us to the right places at the right times. We played it by the ear and I think we ended up fitting as much into the three days we’ve spent in Paris as was possible without it starting to feel like work. We also realized how much we rely on our phones to find our way around, discover places to eat, buy tickets, look at train schedules and subway maps. Since a certain phone company’s charges for the international data plan are incompatible with my sanity, our phones were set to WIFI only, and free WIFI in Paris is not as abundant as I thought. Talk about socialism fail. Having some roaming internet access would’ve been helpful.

People in Paris turned out to be fine. Some of them spoke better English than others, but between their English and the only French phrase I know “I don’t eat six days” (Je ne mange pas six jours) we did fine. There were some things I thought I could’ve resolved better if I knew more French, like I am pretty sure we were screwed by a cab driver but he didn’t respond to my plea about the six days of hunger. Or I wouldn’t have to stare at the chalkboard menus and then just order something so I don’t hold up the line. But mostly we found our way around and with the help of the internet access at the hotel were able to plan our sightseeing and subway trips.

In the end we both loved Paris, its sights, its food, its atmosphere. Three days is not nearly enough to see even a fraction Paris has to offer but it’s enough to make you want to come back.

I am sure every traveler to Paris take a silent oath not to bring back as many photos of the Eiffel Tower as those other losers.  Resistance is futile. From the first glimpse of the Tower on our first day we couldn’t stop photographing it until we left town. There will be about 50 photos of it in this post.

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To call this a recipe is an overstatement, nevertheless I like it and so does my kid. It will pump your levels of vitamin A so high you’ll get an X-ray vision.

Here goes: peel some carrots (I used 2 lbs) and shred them using any available method (I used food processor). Here is a hint: if you are planning to shred carrots by hand, do not buy a whole bunch of small  ones, you will regret it. Add salt, maybe a tablespoon or two of mayonnaise and as much pressed garlic as you can handle. Bam!

P.S. Mayonnaise haters need not comment; it’s French and, therefore, delicious.

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Green Borscht is a delicious soup made of spinach, scallions, sour cream, hard-boiled eggs and potatoes. I am not sure why it’s called “borscht” since the only common ingredient with the red borscht is potatoes. Notice home baked (by me) rye bread on the side.
and here is some related SNL when it still was funny
Update: NBC a-holes removed the video from YouTube, it can still be seen here.

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I interrupt slow vacation coverage and other musings to report on my recent archaeological trip to the Missouri Valley Special Collections to waste a day off photograph some artifacts from the Republican National Convention, hosted in Kansas City’s Kemper Arena in 1976.

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