Sleepy arrivals in the Roquette/Charonne district of Paris

We have arrived and successfully negotiated getting into our Airbnb flat. A few snags, but now on track. Too sleepy to do much beside post a few lines and pics. Cute neighborhood (apparently trending ). Lots of interesting shops and cafes.

Moody skies over Mansard roofs


We will definitely not go hungry. There's a bakery good enough to have a line (it was out the door at one point), a Charcouterie, an Asian delicacies shop, and tonight's pick - a sweet little Lebanese restaurant where they were very kind about my bad French. 

Hope to see my college friend John tomorrow at his house in the countryside beyond the City. 

Bedtime now. 

Note to self: Avoid Terminal 1 at JFK if possible

Terminal 1 is one of the odder ones I’ve ever encountered. Very cramped, lots of high end stores, but no decent place to eat. Instead of the more modern kiosks with fruit, salads, and reasonable sandwiches, it’s full of garbage food more typical of the 70s. Our gate seats seem to be merging with an odd bar. 

So it didn’t surprise me that the fellow in front of me at Hudson News was buying a stack of gaudy looking chocolate bars. I figured it was some NYC schlock. But OMG, I didn’t expect this horror:


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Home again, home again

The trip home took quite a while - whether the final destination was the Bronx (snowy drive), Greenport (car and ferry), or Brooklyn (snowy drive, Metro North, taxi). Average time about 6.5 hours. However, Linda, Max, and I broke it up by stopping at Saratoga Springs for lunch. No time to "take the waters" at the springs (on another trip perhaps), but we did check out Comfort Kitchen where the decor was clever and the very tasty food was a bit more photogenic. Finding it was not so easy - it’s inside an unpromising looking mall on Broadway. Definitely worth persistence. 

Lake Champlain and Celebratory Dinner

We visited Lake Champlain which turned out to be minutes from our farmhouse accommodation. Beautiful day, though chilly. 

Later we went to Jessica's at the Swift House for dinner in celebration of our retirement and Chris' and Linda's birthdays. Lovely old colonial inn

The plates photos didn’t come out as all that interesting, but the food and wine was excellent 

A Color Moment

Today we lounged a while over coffee and breakfast in our farm house and then headed over to Middlebury to see Linda's  photo in the show: A Color Moment.  We arrived at about 11:30 only to find the gallery closed even though the posted hours were 11-4:00 😮😩 .  All that travel for nothing!  But happily it’s a small and trusting town and the fellow next door was able to let us in so allwas well in the end.  

I'll post the actual photo file later, but here’s the artist and her work.

Melissa's niece, Anna is at Middlebury College so she was able to pop over to meet us and lead us to a tasty lunch at the Middlebury Co-op.  

She  was also kind enough to take a group shot after lunch before scurrying back to class


Road Trip to Middlebury, VT!

Linda got a photo accepted to a juried show at a gallery in Middlebury, VT so we're off to go see it.  Yesterday we fought our way through Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey (the first 90 minutes of our trip) and finally got to the open air and terrain we'd been hoping for. Lunch in Saugerties offered a hint of Spring, warm enough for lunch outside

It was a spectacular afternoon for a drive through NY and Vermont farmland with its Andrew Wyeth winter fields and sunny blue skies. The house we rented, as advertised, was a little rough around the edges, but cozy inside. And the view from the upstairs windows was lovely.

Coco was very appreciative of the super deluxe, kng sized bed that awaited her

And Chris loved the chaise by the sunny window

At first we thought we might have to cook on the he wood-fired stove

But then found the more modern gas version in time to make a great communal dinner

Joni Mitchell 75th Birthday Concert Screening

OK so it’s not exactly travel, but it felt like an adventure. Now that we’re retired, we can spontaneously decide to take in a concert or a show. Earlier this week, the screening at Southside Seaport of the Joni Mitchell 75th Birthday tribute concert in LA popped up on FB so we decided to go. 

First of all it was at one of those new dinner movie theaters where you sit in a little pod that feels like business class on a plane and they take your order and bring your food and drinks to you (this one also had unlimited popcorn). Fun in itself. Then as we settled into our reclining chairs with pillows and blankets, the concert began. 

What a show!  Highlights included Rufus Wainwright, Emmy Lou Harris, James Taylor, Seal, Diana Krall, Chaka Khan. Some sang a version pretty close to the original they had loved. Otherspuntheir own spin on it (Chaka Khan doing Help Me was amazing). Here's a link to a review with the artists and play list.  It seems like most of it is available on you tube, but if it shows again, highly recommended

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8483958/joni-mitchell-75-tribute-concert-recap

The New Phase Begins with a Ritual

For about a little more than a year now, Linda and I have had a Friday night ritual. We started with two small bottles full of white beans - 1 for each week we had remaining until retirement. Every Friday, we'd have a drink and take one bean out of the bottles and place it in the black vase.  This was a few months ago:

We got into the habit of saying goodbye Friday mornings with "See you at bean night". Might sound silly, but the steady dwindling of the beans somehow helped during challenging times at work (where Linda had a rougher road than I).  So last Friday I officially reached my first day of retirement and took out the last bean (Linda had taken her last one out in November)  

Sunday evening we concluded the process by making (and eating) soup made from the beans. If I do say so myself, it was delicious. Hopefully a good omen for the coming years of retirement.