No more rain but fleas or bothersome ticks...

Dear Readers - as la Petite Zelda sits in the other room, playing with her cards and listening happily to Alejandro and Creed talks to himself, playing by my side here in the salon, I am attempting to do battle with the French Fedex system.

People love Paris, as do I - you all know that I feel more comfortable here more than anywhere else in the world. (disclaimer: I love the coast of Maine, as well.) But so often, tourists come here, fall in Love with their idyllic week or two of vacation, cafés, strolls along the Seine - you get the idea. Only some of that romance and beauty has to do with real life here. I am lucky enough to speak French and I can only imagine what it would be like to live here and not speak this language, unless of course, one is independently wealthy or a student supported by Mom & Dad. The first, I will never be, the latter, I have done and then there were those difficult years of neither. I loved most of it. As I love our time here now. All of this is in response to dealing with the Fedex delivery that Evan sent last Wed from Austin. Zelda takes 2 anti-seizure meds per day and *knock wood*, she hasn't had a seizure since Christmas time. We administer the cocktail of meds morning and night and we always of the "magic bullet" (serious suppository of meds) standing by in case she goes into a seizure. Last week, looking ahead to the next few weeks, I asked Evan to refill the prescription and send it quickly - Fedex overnight - which he did last Wednesday.
Supposedly arriving chez Elsa & Laurent on Friday before noon, it never made it. Of course, we didn't find is out until after 18h when the Fedex office closes. The tracking showed 2 attempts made and I called to confirm that they had the correct "Code Porte" to enter the building. And I tried calling for 3 days, and I tried calling the US, and I tried tracking down the locked building in Aubervilliers where they were storing the package until it got back on the truck for redelivery.

To sum it up, we finally got the package on Tuesday - after Evan had already arrived. He could have carried it with him - but maybe it was a lesson learned. Or a few lessons learned:
1. Plan better for overseas trips when you need specific meds for kids.
2. Don't trust Fedex "priority" delivery.
3. The madder you get in France, the less people respond willingly. Just the opposite from our "I want to talk to a supervisor" intimidation tactics of the US.
4. Evan's handwritten "2" can be mistaken for a "Z" and the delivery man will not try any other alternative when attempting the "code porte."
5. There is an emergency Toxoplasmosis clinic every Monday in the 14eme arrondissement at 13h30 where Dr. Kieffer will see your children and in an emergency, issue meds. Merci, merci...

I know that I learned other stuff...oh, and when I decided to buy a "poulet roti" for dinner to take home the other night, it cost 12€ - ha! And you thought Whole Foods was expensive!

More later,
Bises,
Gail & co.

Fleas and more rain...

...so, Mama has promised to not complain about the rain. Sometimes we leave home, the weather is fine, we forget the umbrella and then it pours. Creed is getting a bit tired of it. On Friday, he went to class with Mama, when they got off the 38bus, it was raining, and when they left class - it poured. They were soaked when they arrived home to Malou et moi. ( Malou is the name I have given our "nounou" because I like to say it better than Marie-Lou)

Yesterday, we all decided to go to the Marché aux Puces de Clignancourt...there are 3 major flea markets around Paris and Clignancourt is the biggest and most entrenched. Within the Marché itself are other small markets with winding little alleys and even full standing boutiques filled with really, really old stuff. We like the Marché Vernaison because of the selection and the vendors are nice to little kids. I first stopped and played with buttons ( one of my favorite things to do in Mama's atelier at home.) There were tons of them and Aaron shot some good video footage for the "La Petite Zelda" book. While Aaron & Jacob are here, they follow me around documenting my visits to different places.

Jacob & Aaron aux Puces...


After the stall of buttons, I liked walking fearlessly through the alleys until Mama stopped to look at vintage perfume bottles and then I went kind of crazy. The bottles all had tiny glass stoppers - most were from the 30's and 40's and I just wanted to clink them together and put them in a bucket. The Monsieur was really nice to me and we counted together and then he traded me the fragile little "flacons" for small "moules aux gateaux" - tiny cake molds for Madeleines and fruit tarts and such. He even gave one each to Creed and me.

La Petite Z et ses moules aux gateaux...


Always Orangina...


But I was cranky and having no more of the market and Creed was hungry - we had lost the boys, an easy thing to do aux Puces, so the 3 of us went to eat. Then, back through the crazy crowds and home on the métro. Mama says walking through the crowds with men selling faux Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton reminds her of Canal Street in NYC except here, the counterfeiters get arrested in a split second.

Back on the métro, sailing smoothly home until the dreaded voice came over the load speaker saying that we all had to descend at Reamur-Sebastopol due to a suspicious package at Chatelet. We weren't far from home - BUT, it was pouring rain! And of course, no umbrella, so Mama made a game out of it with jumping over puddles and singing and we got home safely and soaked...

Chez nous and soaked...

Acquisitions for the day: 3 vintage empty perfume bottles, 2 patches for Creed's jacket, and 2 (free!) moules aux gateaux...

bisousxoxo

la petite Z

Baguettes & rain...

Time for a rainy weekend - Mama is going to write this post for me because I am busy eating a tartine...that's a sliced baguette and I asked for butter & nutella:
So, we have had a busy 2 weeks just in terms of daily life and settling into our own apartment. We have a fairly loose schedule in the morning depending on how much work I didn't get done for class the night before. But I do always get the kids out the door and into the streets of Paris even if it's just to do our daily grocery shopping. We live in Beaubourg and it's funny how once you pass the Pompidou it becomes more of a neighborhood. People are starting to recognize us and say Bonjour. I guess it helps to be a tall woman with wild blonde hair being dragged around by 2 adorable twins - one who walks with a cane. Yesterday we went to our preferred boulangerie and the owner gave us our baguette for 80c - that's a discount! The man who sells sandwiches and such to tourists waved and smiled "Bonjour, comment va la petite?" (How's the little girl?) One day as I walked around with Zelda and she was melting down and demanding milk, he had come to my rescue. They know us at G20 our grocery because Creed has to pull the little basket and Zelda needs to hold on to whatever she's buying. Then there are the 2 guys that run a food stand that offered me some napkins when we strolled around on Bastille day with Zelda covered in ice cream. I am dying to go knock on the door of Yohji Yamamoto's showroom which is also on our street - just to say un petit Bonjour - but it's closed up for les vacances.
People stare and whisper - there are no other blind kids on the street. We haven't seen any here. When I see a blind adult with a cane, I want to ask them: Where are the blind kids? What did they do when they were children? Stay home? France or at least Paris and in certain quartiers is very progressive towards "les malvoyants" or "les nonvoyants". In the 11e, where we stayed with Elsa & Laurent, each crosswalk had a beeper to alert the blind that they could cross.
It rained yesterday - Saturday - so I decided to take the kids to Les Halles. Many years ago it was the central market district where the farmers and growers would bring in their trucks before dawn and sell their produce to the restauranters. That's a nice bit of history but it hasn't been like that in years and has since been reduced to a giant underground shopping mall which at times can be quite unsavory. but we went for the steps and the escalateurs and I remembered that there was a playscape on site near Saint Eustache.

Sacred Hearts and hills...

..so, our days can tend to be action packed and then sometimes they're not. We like to sleep in...that means getting up at 8am or so. I usually play with my cards or "tickets" as I like to call them - they're folded pieces of paper or envelopes, some have braille on them and I sort them and count them, etc. No one really seems to understand this game but me and that's ok. Creed likes to play Legos in the morning and sometimes watches French cartoons. Mama thinks it's ok to watch TV as long as it's in French. She even lets Creed watch game shows before dinner.

We have breakfast and then do a bit of cleaning. My friend, Evaluna, just lent me her keyboard so now I can play the piano as soon as I get up. Usually by mid-morning, we get a bit antsy to go outside so Mama plans a little excursion. Creed likes to go to Jouet Club and look at toys - I just like to take the métro so I really don't care where we go. If it has to do with steps, escalators or trains - I'm there!
The other morning we just walked around our neighborhood of Beaubourg, there a lot of little shops and galleries and then, just a block away is the Centre Pompidou. Creed and I have races there before the crowds arrive. There are a lot of tourists because it's summertime but we get there early. We start at the top of the hill near those big white things and run down the cobblestones until we touch the glass windows of the Pompidou. No one yells at us about fingerprints and I am sure that Renzo Piano would be happy that his building is getting good use when no one is inside looking at the art. I love to run with my cane in hand over the bumpy stones and I refuse to let Mama help me. AND, I can go just about anywhere and not bump into anything although I must say that I am pretty good at staying in straight line.

The other morning, before Gillian left to go home on an airplane, Mama showed us the back way up to Sacre Coeur. The quartier Montmartre is one of my favorites just because of the steps. They have steep ones and wide ones, short ones and tall ones. Of course, I like to do everything myself, but Mama like me to practice counting the steps in French as I go up and down.



xoxo,
Zelda

p.s. Have you seen the latest Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris? I love that the first person that Owen Wilson's character meets at a party is Zelda...Fitzgerald!

My daddy loves Chartier - me, not so much...

...when Mama came to grad school to study French Literature in the 1980's, her friend led her to Chartier and ordered her "rognons à la moutarde". Jet-lagged and hungry, she barely realized she was eating kidneys.
When Mama brought Daddy here to Paris for the first time in the late 1990's, she took him to Chartier. He ordered snails. Now, we all know that Daddy loves a bargain and he's not always that particular about food. So the combination of snails for a few francs (it was before the Euro), the beauty of the interior of the place and the finest details of both the service and the history had Daddy hooked for life. My parents make everyone go there - even if sometimes, the food really isn't so great.

We went the other night: Creed & me, Mama, Gillian & Manu. We walked from our apartment past the rue Montorgueil and near the garment district where Mama used to go to design school. Creed & I were so exhausted - the grown-ups always tell us it's not far but Creed can see how far we really have to go and then I can tell by how much he complains. We had a fun walk but both of us had to be carried a bit.



Everyone was in a good mood even though our dinner was eaten at breakneck speed - I refused to sit down because it was too noisy and ate my chicken standing up. I also made friends with the people at the next table, as is the style of Chartier. But overall, it really wasn't my kinda place - maybe when I am older and can appreciate the craziness. Or maybe if the waiters would scribble our orders in Braille on the paper tablecloths!


BUT, the crepes on the street after dinner were fantastic! I am hooked...

A visit with Niki Saint Phalle & skeletons...

...yesterday started as a dreary Sunday, but it was our first day waking up in our own apartment - merveilleuse! We're on the 3eme étage sans ascenseur (that's the 4th floor american without an elevator) - it makes me so happy because I love to climb steps. You enter the apartment and immediately go down a beautiful flight of those curved old wooden steps with one of those gorgeous old Parisian railings. I can play on those steps whenever I want to and Mama doesn't have to worry about me because I have perfect balance. At the bottom of the steps is a small entry/office - Creed likes to work on his projects there. I then walk into a long kitchen with a small bathroom with a shower on the right and a nice sunny window that looks out on the street at the end of the room. (I hope you are all closing your eyes as you read this and try to imagine discovering our apartment from my perspective.) At the window/wall, turn left into the salon...there's a table, 2 comfy couches (Gillian sleeps on one) and a desk with a computer. Sometimes we watch TV, but usually we just hear French radio. Then, there's a bedroom with a queen size bed - that's where I sleep with Creed & Mama. Each room has windows that can open onto the street and give us all of the fresh air, noise of the morning and sunny days that we need. So lovely...

But one of the best parts of our home is the location, we are 2 blocks from the Centre Pompidou and the fun fountain of Niki Saint Phalle. Yesterday while Creed & Giilian took the métro to Denfert and waited in a horrendous line to see the skeletons of the Catacombes (Mama had already done that years before),



I decided we should ride every escalateur (escalator) at the Pompidou and climb every flight of steps. It's fun to do 'cuz if you don't go into see any expos, it's free. And then the best part was when Mama surprised me with the huge Stravinsky fountain. It whirred, it splashed, it groaned and I could feel the water. It's located in a big retangular pool with rounded edges and surrounded by a continuous stainless steel bench. I sat and let my hand dip into the water and I listened. Then I did the perimeter of the fountain on my own - oh, so many times. I was so confident at the end and of course, wouldn't let Mama help me. What a day...


I was so tired but Mama made me walk home and I did really well on the street with my cane. Manu came over and we all went to Chartier for dinner. Mama used to eat there a lot when she was a poor student and it's my Dad's favorite restau before it's unpretentious and old but it's crazy & noisy and sometimes the food isn't great. Mama, Gillian and Manu had to drink a bottle of Bordeaux very quickly because Creed and I were impatient. Giant crêpes for dessert and home on the métro because we (Creed & I) were too tired to walk...

Zelda et les gardiens...

....whoa! I keep getting yelled at by the gardiens in the parc. We go there often because it's at the end of the street. In fact, the other day, Julie & Laurent - parents of Tito - we're in Paris visiting family. We like Tito because he's little and cute and goes to Ecole with us. Anyway, we all went to the parc for a picinic. Despite the sprinkles, we had fun. I love running around the grass looking for my friends. Mom usually follows me but sometimes she watches from a distance if there's not a lot of people. The other day, there was a group of day campers with their animatrice eating lunch in a circle. I tell Mama often that I like to walk around the grass and see "my friends!" Well, that day I walked right into the group and stepped splat on one boy's bag of chips - oops! Il était gentil and his name was Evan. Mama told him that is Daddy's name.

So, on to the "gardienne"...I went over to the pump, gave it a few spins, and jumped up and down listening to the water. People would come up and get a drink or wash their hands while I listened. Then, I heard her voice, "La Gardienne" of the parc - Mama said she was all dressed in green and obviously worked for the city of Paris. She proceeded to tell Mama (all directed at me),
That I was wasting water, it was precious and if I didn't stop, she would turn it off. Ok, Madame... Enough said.

Next, I was alone in the sandbox - sometimes I toss sand or gravel to hear the sound it makes landing on things ( in the case, the leaves of the bushes). I was all by myself, Mama watched from a distance and this time it as "Le Gardien" - the male counterpart of the "La Gardienne". He didn't like that I was tossing sand and said I needed to stop or leave. Wow, I am only almost 6, really cute, and blind - give me a break!

So Mama explained all of this to Marilou, our nounou, because she knew that we would all go back to the parc later. And lo and behold, this time I wasn't doing ANYTHING and " La Gardienne" came over to lecture Marilou about the preciousness of water and how I shouldn't waste it. Damn, lady...I was only listening.

So ended the day where I, la petite Zelda, managed to terrorize the Gardiens of the Parcs de Paris.

--- Julie, Laurent & Tito from Austin in Paris visiting family


--- Creed & Zelda before the Reign of Terror


--- Laurent & a sick Evaluna

Journée No. 2, 1 and before

Bonjour tout le monde...playing catch-up: arrived Friday after a lovely flight although Creed & I tore it up at DFW airport. I don't think that things there will ever be the same. Mama's friend and generous client gave us a huge 2 bedroom/3 bathroom suite at the Hotel ZaZa in Dallas the night before our flight. I had so much fun taking the Pringles from the mini bar and crumbling them on the very high thread count comforters. Mama, Daddy and Gillian didn't seem to mind too much as they were drinking Veuve Cliqout and Creed was watching cable TV. Such luxury.


I slept a lot on the flight as did Creed. Mama and Gillian agreed that the toughest part was going through security and the long wait for the delayed plane. Thankfully Manu met us and our luggage at the airport.

We arrived on a hot Friday and managed not to nap but went to the parc instead.
I played with a water pump - I could turn it clockwise and water would spill into a grate. Creed ran and played by himself, a bit unsure of the French boys around him. That evening, a nice apéritif at Le Bidule where Laurent meets the other parents for coffee after dropping the kids at school. So nice, that they meet up in a café instead of running off to a gym by themselves to exercise. One of their friends is a writer/illustrator of a famous "bande dessinée" while the other is a head "responsable" for Colette.

A quiet dinner of pizza, running boys: Creed & Vermeer are getting along quite nicely despite the language difference. The adultes drank a bit into the evening - as it stays light until after 10pm. I listened to my Ipod and fell asleep on the couch. The boys raised hell in the indoor camp-out space. We were all jet lagged and slept nicely. I especially liked sleeping in Evaluna's room - she's almost a teenager and is really sweet and nice to me.

Journée no. 2: A bountiful table for breakfast of croissants, pains au chocolat, brioches, pain, viennoise - you get the idea. Mama had to trek across Paris to the 15eme for a delivery to the school office where the program is based. Elsa, Laurent, Gillian, Evaluna, Vermeer, Creed & I headed off to les grands magasins and lunch at Cojean nearby. Mama met us at Hediard and we cruised around La Madeleine. The fatigue setting in, Laurent & Gillian went off to shop and the rest of us turned home towards the apartment where we kids went to the parc once again and Mama got to relax and work on her lessons plans ALONE!

We like to walk around Paris and take the métro as well - Mama and Gillian say that it's like the French have never seen a little blind kid in the street before. Someone even commented "C'est triste" when they saw me...that means it's sad and Mama almost bit their head off.

* we have lots of great photos to post bit for some reason our new IPad is not cooperating with Blogger, we'll keep trying.

Passport express...

...mom has been threatening to get us passports since the day we were born. But knowing how those baby pictures don't really translate over to our faces when we're 5 or 6, my parents decided to wait until we actually had the plan to travel abroad. Several years ago - almost 3 - to be exact, Mom had this great idea to take me to France for the 200th year celebration of the birth of Louis Braille. He was born in a small town outside of Paris, went to school at the Institut Valentin Huay and created the Braille alphabet when he was just a boy. So, there was a huge party in Paris with blind organists playing concerts at Notre Dame, tours of facilities and schools for the blind and lots of other cool stuff. But then right before Christmas 2008 (the party was in early January), my mom got breast cancer and we couldn't go. Now she actually thinks it's better that we've waited for this trip because I understand so much more AND my twin brother, Creed, will be coming with me.

So, we went to the passport agency the other day - and after 3 hours of papers, photos, birth certificates and a courthouse swearing-in, they shipped off our applications and we should have them in 2 weeks. Just thought I would share our photos with you. Mom says that I look like a ballerina with a long neck. Creed, on the other hand, has a new haircut and a bop on his noggin from bumping into something while playing.

Pour commencer...merci, merci...

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