A scratched surface

In France, in Paris, everywhere but here maybe, they drink Pastis. In my readings about wine, booze, and France, Pastis would always appear in someone's milky colored glass. Whether in a wine bar, a cafe, or after dinner in a garden, Pastis was there. What the Hell is it really? Reading about it did not provide a full answer, I would have to try it.

For our 10th wedding anniversary (yes, it's been that long!) my wife and I decided to go to Paris. It was time to take that leap into a truly foreign land where your language is not the native language. This was a trip to take while we were still capable of enjoying the city by foot.

Walk we did. The second day we took over 36,000 steps, that's over 15 miles. Ok, in hindsight it was a fooling and painful thing to do and I admit it being my decision. Yet, we continued to walk, but the number of steps was reduced.

Paris has a very good Metro. I read that the Metro was dirty and smelled of piss but at the numerous number of stations we used, this was far from the case. I mean, they were not spotless, but they were in fine condition and did not stink they way the subway does in Manhattan. Paris is not perfect, I'm not sure where the poverty is, but as we were being driven though one area we were told this was where the poor and immigrants are, and it did not look any worse than I would have expected. There are homeless, a lot of them are older. There are panhandlers. It's a very large city.

We chose to go to a truly beautiful city. So much to see and do that it could not be done in a week. As we looked down the charming streets we would see a building at the end of the block that looked interesting, but in order to see it we would have to not go where we were originally going.

Paris is where I found, in the Le Baron Rouge, the Parisian wine bar of my dreams. Locals, art on the walls, a friendly but knowledgable bartender who put up with my merde French.

Wine is a universal language though.

And on the wall of that wine bar I saw that Pastis was offered, and I had to have one. So I ordered one and watched to see how it was prepared. A shot or so of Pastis in the glass, then the rest of the glass filled with tap water and boom! There it is.

No fuss, no fancy prep or elite water cask.

For all that it was not a let down.

Pastis is primarily made with star anise. There are many variations that use different types of herbs but anise is the main ingredient so your drink is going to taste like a liquid Good N' Plenty.

I happen to love Good N' Plenty.

This wine bar happened to have bottles of Pastis Du Provence for sale. For 27 euros.

I now have a bottle of that at the Westgate Cavern.

Service is Paris restaurants and service in Columbus restaurants are two things that can learn from each other. Service in Paris is slow, no doubt about that, but you are on vacation - where are you going? In Columbus they're on top of you, the server telling you the "story" of the brand. You, thankfully, do not get that in Paris. They do not hover over you. You do get a trained, experienced, career server making good recommendations on the wine and food. But they rarely ask if you want another drink, or dessert. You have to get their attention and work for their service. It's not better, it's not worse, but different.

Not tipping is something that I really had to bear down and deal with. Occasionally I still had a leave a few euros out of habit. But hey, they all have great health care, and that's part of the bill!

I did think Paris would be more expensive, but where we went prices seemed reasonable. You are in a big freaking city and you pay. Plus, we got driven by a house that cost over 200 million dollars so there are top dollar areas.

I did not get to as many museums as I would have liked. Two things prevented that: time, and crowds. Ok three things. I bought advance timed ticked to the Louvre on Monday morning. We got there, and saw this huge line. Went to the front of the line to see what was going on. No one was being let in the museum. The line was tremendous, and it was the one for advance tickets. Then we heard a few people start muttering the word 'strike'. The staff was on strike. No one was being let in the museum and we were not going to stand in line for 2-3 hours and not move anywhere. It turns out staff were on strike because attendance had increased to over 10 million people per year (30,000 a day) and staff were being cut. I was eating those ticket. The good thing is that the company I bought the tickets from have me a refund.

So no Louvre but we did get to the Rodin, Jacquemart-Andre, L'Orangerie and the Museum of Romantic Life.

The big highlight was a three hour tour of the city in a Citroen DS23 convertible. The Goddess! Truly a beautiful car with a wonderful driver and guide. We had champagne in the back seat, and so many admiring glances while driving the narrow streets. There was a chance encounter with an all girl pep band playing Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out For A Hero on the banks of the Seine. "That was one of my secret romantic stops," our driver apologized while my wife and I laughed our asses off. It was wonderful. Being driven around Paris with my gal next to me in the back seat, and two laps around the Arc Du Triomphe, was a life highlight

We did so much: Pere Lachaise is beautiful, the Catacombs are creepy and incredible, I had the best baguette in Paris, our hotel staff was amazing and the people are cool - including a barely five foot tall chocolatier. I'm sure I'm missing a lot.

The flight over on Air Canada was ok in comparison to the flight back. United screwed up on so many levels it is disturbing.

Took a lot of pictures. Drank my way through the crus of Beaujolais, had some awesome cocktails in a very cool and trendy bar. Ate great gratin, want to go back. There's a lot to do here, to see and experience.

Three parts today

First off, it's Memorial Day. I've been scanning some inherited pictures of my Great Uncle, who was killed in World War Two. Here's a picture of him (upper right) and some of his brothers from the 180th, Company A. I have no idea who they are, but I think they're in France because I suspect there is red wine in those glasses.



Second, it's our seventh wedding anniversary. Still love this brave woman who came across an ocean to live in this crazy place!



Third, I am very pleased to announce an old poem of mine called Mr. B. has been published today in Work Literary Magazine. Love when a poem finds a good home!

The bears make him react

Sleep has once again become a challenge with my son. The last couple of weeks he has been going to bed early enough, around 10-10:30 but waking up singing, shrieking or bouncing on his bed about 3AM. It makes a tough next day. Last night he finally slept through after an absolutely horrible weekend.

Today we were watching the news and there was a story about some bears hanging out in trees and my Wife said, "The bears were waiting for spring," which is the plot point of one of his favorite books.

A couple of minutes later, he was rummaging in the stack of his books, pulled out the book and brought it over for me to read to him.

It's those moments that keep me going, and recognize there are so many challenges ahead.

Such an important piece of paper

Posting this check means for the first time in well over 25 years that I am out of credit card debt. None of this would have happened if not for my Wife, who bailed me out of a terrible financial situation about a decade ago. That was one horrible card from the uncooperative bastards MBNA. The mistakes made, and there were so many, were mine. If this card was not taken care of I would have lost the house and it helped cost me a marriage. Credit card debt is a reminder of bad times.

The other card was local, with a more reasonable rate of interest but the charges were high and more mistakes were made. Then there were some emergency car repairs. It was a good thing we had the card.

For the past couple of years we have been very aggressive in paying this card off and this month brings the balance to zero. I do not care if I'm jinxing my financial situation by even mentioning this. The stress, the mistakes, the utter waste of hundreds if not thousands of dollars to interest - it ends now.

Half my life has been servitude to this. The relief I feel is profound.

To everyone, and those I forgot to mention

If you braved the sun, came out in the rain, enjoyed the weather, bought a Lemon Shake Up and watched poetry that stopped you in your tracks, or came to the Word is Art Stage for any reason this past weekend - THANK YOU!

This year was a great triumph. We had crowds, we had poets from all over the state, we had dedication.

None of this would have happened if not for the efforts of the Word is Art Stage Committee. Louise Robertson, Scott Woods, David Winter and Gina Blaurock were the backbone of the weekend.

The stage though, the beautiful stage was finally put in place thanks to the efforts of Festival Director Scott Huntley. It took a couple of years, and I let out a bit of a whoop when I saw it. Because I had no idea.

The sound was great, there were lights and the poets shone under them!

I also want to thank Vernell Bristow, J.G. the Jugganaut and Hannah Stevenson for stepping up and doing some fine emceeing over the weekend. Louise Robertson and David Winter did double duty, hosting their hours and emceeing!

There was some excellent work read all weekend. Amy Turn Sharp has a satchel full of poems and more in her pockets. Eoin O'Brien brought Cowboy Poetry to the stage for the first time in memory and absolutely rocked it! Searius Add (pictured above) won the slam on Saturday night, a hotly contested affair that brought the best out of the six poets who competed.

There is so much I can say. We brought so much good will for poetry to Columbus over the last three days. We had a poet named Douglas Gray read. He won the contest in 1992 when the poets read during band breaks. Now look where the stage is! Douglas told a story of how he challenged the then Mayor, Buck Rinehart to a fight, there was no fight. On Friday, Erik Slangerup noticed Mayor Coleman and his entourage walking by and loudly said, "I'd like to dedicate this next poem to the political leaders of this city." Mayor Coleman laughed, pointed at Erik and said, "You better be good!"

And he was, both nights he read.

Sunday was an early mess. The rain was coming down sideways and we had to pull a poet off the stage to be safe. After a delay we came back and every one who read on that stage wanted to be there, despite the lower crowds (but short lines at the concession stands!) and unsettled weather. The kids from Flip the Page were awesome. The highlight of the weekend for me was Steve Abbott and Connie Everett of the Poetry Forum telling stories and reading poems from influential Columbus poets. Without the pioneering work of the Poetry Forum and its readers past and present, there would be no Word is Art Stage.

The Word is Art Stage is growing in poise and popularity. For the first time, the poet who won the Poetry Audition Jury Contest, John Croake, read Friday night before a headlining act on the Bicentennial Stage.

An opportunity to build on. The stage manager was very happy with how it went and was excited about the potential of more poets there.

Took a bunch of pictures, which you can see here and here.

Finally, though. This.

A girl who watched poetry in the rain, I could not have helped make this happen without my wife Emma's constant support.

The day before we do not travel far

My son is not happy when his mother is not there to pick him up off the bus. That means he's staying with me, and stepmom, and he does not like it one bit.

Maybe it's the food, the lack of entertainment options, but he does some good protesting for up to an hour until it's time for dinner and then he's fine.

Until it's time to sleep. Monday he decided to not go to bed until about 12:30AM. He then woke up incredibly listless at 7AM to get ready for school. It was trying. For everyone.

Today there was no school so I was prepared to stay up with him until he conked out, which he did at 10:30PM. I expected him to wake up at some point during the night, but he did not. Ended up waking him up at 7:30. He ate all his breakfast while I showered and has been quite chill today.

He's been watching videos with me, singing along to KT Tunstall. He's also taken notice of my wife's shoes and has been walking around the house with them. He's left them in the back room a couple of times already.

So it's been a good day, and I got a few chores in for the buildup to tomorrow's holiday.

This and that on three and a half hours sleep

While on an after dinner walk around German Village earlier this evening, I realized it has been eleven years since I lived there, and eleven years that I have lived in this house. It's the longest I've lived in one home. Now I'm trapped by the market, and other reasons, and cannot get out of there to live, where? Someplace where I can walk to something other than an IGA where a girl got shot in the face and a half-assed but not altogether unpleasant carryout.

Getting really tired of lists. Every time I see a Buzzfeed.com post on social media that has a list of something like "Fifteen Best Bob Dylan Songs With a Horn Section" or something similar, I scroll past. That and people labeling a TV show or cultural event as the best of all time, or the second best of all time after _____. Something else to scroll past. Great stuff is great stuff. Lists are arbitrary and yes, I'm a bit tired and cranky.

My son fell asleep on the couch at 9:30 last night and woke up at 2:30AM. Did not go back to sleep until about 5. He woke up and ate well, but then his bus was late. Again. Had to drive him to school. Again. Yes, it's getting worse. It was so bad last Friday that his bus was two hours and forty five minutes getting home from school. Yes, you read that right. Complaints have been made, investigations are supposedly happening. One justifiably worried parent filed a police report after her children's bus was missing. When you're not able to get through to transportation, what recourse do you have? Even after all this, I'm not sure the district gets it.

Yesterday morning I got to show my wife the International Space Station as it flew overhead. It was a bright, solid, light that moved across the sky in the pre-dawn hour. A good thing that shows cooperation can happen even as the ground below spins out of control.