Light and Momentary

Greetings from Paris

I have wanted to visit Paris for a long long time, and here I am at last. I wanted to spend my thirtieth birthday here, but we didn’t have much extra money when we were living in Scotland. I wanted to spend my fiftieth birthday here, but July 2020 was a bad time for visiting Paris. But I will turn 55 on Saturday, and I will do it in Paris. 

We are renting an apartment that was advertised as being in Montmartre. It is actually east of Montmartre proper, in a neighborhood full of immigrant families. One of the shops is called the Parisian Farm. 

Dernit, I was trying to insert a picture and it did not work. Picture a little storefront, with a sign that says La Ferme Parisienne. Inside there is a whole flock of live chickens, with ducks in pens and free-range doves. You can walk right in and buy the freshest eggs in town. 

I had it in my head that Parisian shopkeepers were chilly and distant and irritated by the influx of tourists speaking wobbly French, but the Parisian farmer was unexpectedly warm and friendly and he even complimented my French. 

Today he spotted Stella and me on the street, where we were waiting for Elwood to exit the crowded grocery store, and he greeted us happily. I told him how much I’d enjoyed the duck eggs, and he seemed genuinely pleased. “See you soon,” I said. “Very soon,” he agreed. 

(We also went to Notre Dame and a crêperie and Shakespeare & Company today, but you’ve probably read lots of other traveling bloggers’ posts about visits to Notre Dame. Don’t you wish you had a friendly Parisian farmer selling fresh eggs around the corner?)

Another month later

Guess where I am? No, wait, you‘ll never guess. I’ll tell you: Chamonix. We are taking a big trip, leaving Pete in charge of things at home.

That is an attempt at inserting a picture but I have never tried to add a picture from my phone. We shall see whether it works.

As you might imagine, I have lots to tell you. More soon!

One month later

I am writing this post from the airport, and it is the seventh time I have waited in an airport since last we spoke, a month ago. We are heading west for a family wedding, almost all of us. (Marie is working on an organic farm this summer and cannot get away. We will miss her.) 

I am hoping to finish Old Curiosity Shop on this trip. I’ll report back. How are things with you? 

Welcome to the Twelfth Annual May Dickens Read-ALong!

Today is TAMDRAL day 1, my friends, and this year we are reading The Old Curiosity Shop.

Jump on in and read at a pace that works for you. I'm aiming to finish in about a month.

This book offers the most villainous villain in all of Dickens, as well as the scene most likely to cause accidental drownings in the bathos. 

Ready, set, TAMDRAL!

In my package

It was a scarf, in a delectable yak-silk blend. I will have to show you pictures when it is not 79 degrees in my living room.

A Present from Tibet

Alex texted me last week to say that he was sending me a gift for Mothers' Day, and it was shipping from Tibet.

"Tibet!" I thought to myself. "Tibet!" 

"I know!" I texted back. "It must be a pet yak."

"Close," he replied.

So I think it is probably a miniature yak, because that is close to a yak without being the whole 1000-pound shebang. Do miniature yaks exist? I do not know, but what a fun Mothers' Day present that would be! I wouldn't have to mow the yard all summer. Or fertilize it! (Not that I ever fertilize my lawn. First time for everything.)

I hope it will be a female yak, so I can try my hand at making yak butter. Will a milkmaid outfit double as a yakmaid outfit, or is that an entirely different ensemble? I must research this pressing question.

Also: will the yak befriend or alarm the neighborhood groundhogs and snakes? Wouldn't it be great to have a guard yak that would keep all the unwelcome critters away? I'm pretty sure guard yaks are a thing.

We will have to have a naming contest. What would you name a miniature female guard yak if you got one in the mail?

No, seriously: have you considered deadlifting?

Today is release day for Casey Johnston's memoir, A Physical Education, and you should buy it. Even though I was given a free version, I bought the book today because I want her publisher to hear the message: more of this, please. 

She writes persuasively about the misery that accompanied her quest to take up less space by means of cardio and calorie restriction, and the freedom she found in getting strong. It's a terrific story, skillfully told. 

My recommendation is not just about the story, which you could mostly get from her author bio. It's really about her voice, which has been an important factor in my own continued willingness to show up in the weight room. You belong there, she says. You can take up space there. You can also take up more space in the wider world. 

Perhaps because I was 50 when I started lifting, my own trajectory has been less linear than the one she describes in this book-- more breaks, slower progress. Even so, it has changed the way I look at myself and the way I move through the world. I keep wanting to say to people, "Have you considered deadlifting?"

An older female relative was complaining about the flatness of her behind after years of aggressive dieting, and I bit my tongue so I would not say out loud, "Have you considered deadlifting?" It is just the thing for a beauteous gluteus.

A friend was talking about how she tweaked her back and had been really limited in her mobility, and I bit my tongue so I would not say out loud, "Have you considered deadlifting?" A stronger back has set me free from all the niggles and pains and mayonnaise injuries that used to plague me.

A woman in an online group for wool& fans was talking about returning a pair of pants because she didn't fill out the seat darts. I did not comment to say, "Have you considered deadlifting?" because I am not going to tell strangers on the internet how to inhabit their bodies. But I did think it.

The BBC tells me about the association between grip strength and longevity and suggests that I squeeze a tennis ball to improve my health. "But wait!" I want to say to the author. "Have you considered deadlifting?"

We live in a nation full of women who have been told that they ought to strength-train but only v-e-r-y carefully: don't hurt yourself, don't get too strong, avoid the b-word at all costs. (That would be the b*lky b-word.) In this maelstrom of madness Casey Johnston offers calm and sanity. She says, "No, actually, you can push yourself. You can do hard things in the weight room, and they will make your life easier and better." The NYT publishes a story headlined "Why Women Can't Do Pull-Ups"; Casey Johnston acknowledges the difficulty of the movement while simultaneously making you want to embark on a pull-up training plan already. 

What are you waiting for? Go! Read this book! Come back and tell me all about it.

April 30

Thirty days, thirty posts, the end! See you soon, friends!

#28 on the 28th

Last night I finished my 28th Trollope novel, Nina Balatka. It is set in Prague, and it is about a young Christian woman who is engaged to a Jewish man.

I suspect that Trollope's treatment of Jewish characters is akin to his treatment of Irish characters: it seems pretty grim to present-day readers even though he is making an effort, at least some of the time, to push back against stereotypes. Ezekiel Breghert, in The Way We Live Now, faces down overt antisemitism. He is so much more gentlemanly than the ostensible gentlefolk of the Longstaffe family.

Nina Balatka is surrounded by people in a hurry to tell her that her engagement is a terrible idea. Like a lot of Trollope novels, this one focuses on decisions about marriage: why do people get married? What are the most important factors in their decisions? Should those be the most important factors? Can we make any reliable predictions about happiness in marriage?

Nina's fiancé Anton is driven to suspicion by the lies of Nina's extended family and their trusted servants, and Nina tells herself she should have known that he, being Jewish, would eventually be suspicious. Trollope seems to be asking an interesting question: how much of a stereotype is self-fulfilling prophecy? And how is it that Christians can behave badly, in ways that clearly violate their own moral code, and still view themselves as superior? This book includes the second Catholic priest I've encountered in a Trollope novel, and he is -- unexpectedly -- much more gentle with Nina than any of her Christian relatives have been.

Spoilers for a book from 1867: Nina and Anton marry and resettle themselves in Frankfurt, which was reputedly more accepting than Prague. The internet tells me that in the 1930s about 5% of Frankfurt's population had Jewish heritage, so let's hope the happy couple and their children found a welcome there. (Let's also hope their great-grandchildren left before things went south, since otherwise their outlook might have been bleak.)

One last interesting note about this book: Trollope published it anonymously. He had written a bunch of novels by the mid-1860s, and he didn't want to rest on his laurels. Would people read it if they didn't know it had been written by Anthony Trollope? The answer, alas, was no. 

Distractions

Joe introduced us to pipes puzzles some time ago, and I've been doing them again recently. The big daily puzzle takes me some time to figure out, but a small one can be a sub-30-second diversion once you get the idea.

I am fond of the Washington Post Keyword puzzle, which is another quick one.

Joe also shared the One Up puzzle with the family group chat. There's only one puzzle a day, and it might be a 2-minute undertaking or a 30-minute undertaking.

I'm sure you already know about NYT Connections, but did you know that the stats will now tell you the number of times you cracked the purple category first? 

What are your favorite online puzzles?