Suzy Says

What a way to start the day. Woken up fifteen minutes before the alarm was set to go off by the hideous combination of my cell phone bleating that its battery was exhausted plus the unmistakable and agonizing onslaught of GirlGrossness?.

You think I’m a baby? Try my cell phone. Its battery gets exhausted almost instantly, whether I use it or not (and I mostly don’t, except when I travel), and then it whimpers mechanically until I plug it into its electric bottle. I think it knows I don’t like it and is getting revenge by depriving me of much-needed beauty sleep and trying to drive me crazy (or crazier). I can see where Stephen King got his idea from.

When I tried to blow-dry my recently acquired bangs, I tangled them in the round brush so much that I may never get the hair out. The brush is stuck in my hair, just hanging there until I figure out how to extricate it.

No wonder I’d rather think about the lovely past instead of the irritating present. While I go and make coffee (no blood tests for me today!), you can read part two of my trip to Monet’s house and gardens at Giverny. Definitely the more civilized option.

Saturday, August 24, 1991
Giverny & Paris

The house was truly charming, but beginning to be very crowded. All the Monet paintings in the house are reproductions, and most of the pretty pink stucco house is decorated with Japanese prints and drawings. I was especially taken with the cozy yellow dining room and blue kitchen. The house is very unpretentious and just delightful.

[Monet was as good a cook as he was a gardener. Years later, my father gave me Monet’s Table: The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet, full of delicious recipes and photographs. My copy is very well-used!]

By the time I left, the place was packed and the lines were unbelievable. I was lucky I had gone early. My visit there was so magical, I almost felt as I had made a pilgrimage.

Back in Paris, I visited the Square des Batignolles. It’s a pretty place, with waterfalls, duck ponds, and a carrousel. I felt quite at home reading Le Figaro on a green park bench in the early evening. I wonder about the people who say Parisians are rude or unkind. Everyone has been quite the opposite to me, from the elderly lady amused by the fact that we were both reading the same paper to the man who invited me to admire his dog. No-one has refused to help me when I ask for help or directions (such as: where to buy stamps on a Saturday) & some people (such as: the man on the train from Mantes-La-Jolie to Paris) are even too friendly. I think it’s all in your own attitude.