Thursday, May 5, 2011

One massive blogpost: Mom, the washing machine and more

Thursday May 5th

Well, it’s been a whole week since my last blog post, and what a busy week it has been.  A week ago we picked my mom up at the Paris airport, this morning we dropped her off at the airport, and it was non-stop action in between.  Our normal schedule kind of fell by the wayside this week, and between the changes in schedule, the non-stop sightseeing and wanting to concentrate on enjoying having my mom being here, my blogging fell by the wayside.  Katie was able to keep up a bit better with her blog, writing for about 30 minutes each morning, but since I need about 90 minutes each afternoon, that wasn’t going to happen.
Katie and I are currently on a TGV train speeding south to Nice, where we will spend the next two days.  It is about a five and a half hour ride, so I’ve got a little time to write.  It was really nice having Mom here for the week.  This is the longest time that we have spent together since she came to Minnesota to help when Katie was born, and since I was a little preoccupied that time, this was a nice opportunity to be together. 
I think that our relationship has strengthened over the past few years, despite or perhaps because of some difficult times in my family, including the break-up of my parent’s marriage.  My mom was very young when I was born, only 21, although she will point out that she turned 22 soon after.  It was a different time with different expectations for women, particularly in West Virginia.  By the time my Mom was my age now (41), I was a college sophomore, my brother Josh was a high school sophomore, and my baby brother Zach was three.   I can’t imagine having a kid in college right now.
Zach was born when my mom was 38 and I was a sixteen year old junior in high school.  He made my high school life a bit different from that of my friends.  I remember bringing him to class like show and tell and discussing his developmental stages in as my project for my “Independent Living” class section on child care. I also vividly remember the nasty looks I would get from busy-bodies at the mall who assumed he was mine when I would let my mom get some rest and take Zach out for a few hours.
With Mom distracted with a new baby, I feel that I became independent at an early age, although she might disagree.  We likely have very different recollections of those years due to our different perspectives and personalities.   But to a large degree I was independent from the time I left for college at 17, particularly in comparison to my Villanova students today, who speak with their parents four times a day.  My mom and I both have strong but different personalities, and although I loved being at home during college breaks, we clashed often due to different expectations and needs from each other.
Then I fell in love, got married right out of college and our lives took different directions. I focused on my new marriage, moved to Minnesota, pursued a Ph.D. and painfully struggled with fertility issues.  She got Josh through college, raised Zach and faced difficulties with my Dad.  I finished my Ph.D., finally had a beautiful baby girl, got a new job and moved back to Philadelphia.  She moved to DC, found a wonderful work opportunity at the National Cathedral, and went through a painful divorce.
Fortunately though over the past few years, we have reconnected and been able to really strengthen our relationship.  I am so proud of her and all that she has done over the past ten years.  Her strength in facing a difficult situation was inspiring, and her ability to establish a new job, new friends and new activities in a new city has been amazing.  Her commitment to her family is strong, and despite her busy schedule she finds time to see her kids and grandkids regularly.  She sees Josh’s boys every week, and tries to see Katie at least once every two months.  She will drive up to Philly to see Katie for even a few hours if that is all that her schedule and ours will permit, coming along on our activities, simply to spend time with us.  We still have different personalities, but now we relax and accept our own strengths and weaknesses.
So this was a great opportunity to spend time together for some “intergenerational bonding.”  It wasn’t so much about what we did this week as simply about the time that we spent together having fun and making memories.  And since Mom is such a huge bundle of energy, we made a lot of memories.
Mom has two speeds: full tilt and sound asleep.  We set up a list of things she wanted to do in Paris and started crossing things out from the day she arrived.  Her first day we took her to the Orangerie to see the Claude Monet waterlilies.  The plan for the week was a nice balance between some things we were doing for the second or third time, and some things that we had saved to experience with her.  While the waterlilies were a repeat activity for us, visiting the Orangerie is something that is really enjoyable to do a second time.  The more often and the longer you look at the paintings, the more amazing and personal they become.   This time I was particularly intrigued with the large trees in the paintings.  Up close, you could see that the bark had virtually no brown paint at all, but was a series of vertical overlapping lines of many different greens, purples, oranges, reds and even bright pinks. It looked like abstract art from a few feet away, but as you backed across the room, the colors merged together and a tree popped out of the canvas.  I walked forward and backward marveling at the interplay of color over and over until it was time to move on.
We then tried to visit the Musee d’Orsay because my brother Josh and his wife April highly recommended it and it is a great museum.  We had bought dual passes at the Orangerie which entitled us to entrance to the Orsay using the special museum pass line, bypassing the normal line.  However, in what would become a running theme for the week, even the line for museum pas holders was in excess of an hour. We decided to try another day, since the passes were good for four days.  This was Thursday.  We had plans on Friday and Saturday, so tried again on Sunday since the Orsay is normally open on Sundays until 6m.  Unfortunately, it turned out that Sunday was May 1st, France’s Labor day and the museum was closed. It was closed Monday as well, which is its normal day of closure.  We tried back on Tuesday, and the lines for museum pass holders were now almost two hours long! At this point, with two days left in the trip we abandoned all attempts at the Orsay.  I joked that she was going to go back home and tell Josh, “All I wanted to see was the Orsay, but no……..Amy wouldn’t take me!”
After giving up on the Orsay the first day we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower. It was an overcast foggy kind of day,   not the best for going up the Eiffel tower, which turned out to work in our favor.  The line to go up the tower was minuscule, probably because everyone was standing in the museum pass line at the Orsay!  We ascended the tower, and although it was cold at the top, it was fun to see the clouds swirling around the tower. They gathered strength and blocked our view, then parted to allow us to see the city. We got some nice photos of Mom, Katie and Flat Stanley, who had traveled to Paris with my Mom.
Flat Stanley was my nephew Kevin’s first grade geography project.  Each kid in the class sends Flat Stanley to someone who takes photos of Stanley enjoying the primary sights of that location.  Kevin wanted Stanley to come to Paris with us, so he mailed him to my mom, who flew with him in her carry-on. The three of us had a LOT of fun taking Flat Stanley photos all week.  Our favorites were when we held him up next to a wedding outside Notre Dame Cathedral, and when he sat on the throne at Versailles.
After visiting the Eiffel Tower we planned to take the metro home, but ever the source of energy my mom wanted to walk. Katie was drooping, but promise of a treat at McDonalds perked her up a bit. She set off trotting after my mom with me bringing up the rear.  “Mimi, how do you walk so fast?” she asked panting as she tried to keep pace as I fell further back.  “I don’t know but my little legs just keep churning,” she replied. 
I have been struggling with an ankle injury for about a year, and while I still walk quite fast, I can’t keep pace with Mimi any more. So we got her to dial it back a bit as the week went on.  I have worn a pedometer each day since January and have tried try to get in a daily total of at least 10,000 steps ( just over 4 miles daily) that my doctor strongly recommended, but warned might be difficult.  Well, it has not been difficult in France since we have to walk everywhere and we have been average 12,500 steps per day (or about 5.5 miles).   While my mom was here though, a light day was 12,500 steps; we averaged over 15,000 steps and hit over 20,000 steps twice with a record high of 21,500 steps, or over 9 mile one day!
The second day we ran up against my Mom’s nemesis – waiting in lines.  We had avoided the Orsay line the day before, and the Orangerie and Eiffel tower lines hadn’t been so bad. This day though, if we wanted to see Notre Dame and St. Chapelle we needed to wait in line.  We started with Notre Dame and the line to go up to see the gargoyles and the bell tower quickly scared her off.  We even had to wait in line just to enter the church and walk around, although that moved quickly – only about 15 minutes in line.  We waited in line again to buy some presents and then found our way to the Roman ruins hidden below street level near Notre Dame. No line here, as the big tour companies bypass it, so we were able to walk right in. A huge area under the Notre Dame region has been excavated to 15 feet below current street level, revealing the original Roman settlement – very interesting.
We then grabbed some lunch at Quasimodo café. I had a Croque Madame, which takes the classic Croque monsieur and adds a fried egg on top. I think adding a fried egg to a sandwich is brilliant – Yummy!  I convinced Mom and Katie to wait in the line for the Notre Dame bell tower, which was about 45 minutes long. It was totally worth it as we had some great views f the gargoyles, saw the big bell and looked out over the city.  I loved a gargoyle that was depicted as using its large teeth to tear into the hide of what appeared to be a lamb, but Katie was less than amused by it.
The funniest event of the day occurred at the bathrooms outside Notre Dame.  There was a line for the ladies’ stalls, and the mens’ stalls but no line for the mens’ urinals.  An attendant was watching the lines and directing men to the right location.  A couple of American high school boys on a field trip came into the bathroom, she started talking to them in French and they panicked and tried to turn and run out. They came back after a brief whispered conversation in the hallway, probably about needing to use the restroom.  The attendant again started talking to them and they panicked. You could see the fear on their faces.   She then started shouting “Number 1 or Number 2??”  at them really loudly, and at this they did panic and flee the area.  Poor boys, I hope they didn’t wet their pants.
After Notre Dame we went to nearby St. Chappelle, which is an astounding medieval church built to hold the alleged “crown of thorns” and has the most amazing stained glass.  The line scared mom off again, but I made her stand in it and she was happy that we did in the end.  You start on the lower level and then ascend into this incredible chapel that appears to be made of nothing but brilliant glass.  It literally takes your breath away when you see it.  The entire chapel seemed to shine and glow with colors dancing before your eyes. Unbelievable.


The next day we went to Versailles.  As we were getting ready to depart, I turned to Katie and mom and said, “Now, as you know, this is Versailles we are going to, one of the most popular palaces in the world. And it is Saturday on a warm spring day.  It is going to be crowded and there are going to be lines. I want you to be prepared for crowds.”  Mom turned to Katie and in a mock stage whisper said, “I think she’s talking to me, not you.”
Luckily, although the line for tickets was long (about 45 minutes), the gardens were open and large enough to absorb huge crowds without seeming busy at all.  We spent most of the day in the garden. The fountains were turned on, which only happens on certain days, and chamber music was piped through the garden which was wonderfully relaxing.  We enjoyed wandering through the tall hedges, marveling at the fake Roman ruins that Louis XIV had built and watching the dancing fountains.  When Louis XIV walked the gardens the staff watched carefully and turned off the fountains he had walked past, and turned on the ones he was heading towards.  How funny. 
We ate a picnic lunch like real members of the royal court on the banks of the grand canal that he had built in true Venetian style.  During Louis’s heyday he imported actual Venetian gondolas and gondoliers to transport the court back and forth on the one mile long canal. A village was built on the banks of the canal to house the gondoliers and their families.
We went into the palace itself later in the day when the crowds had gone down, and I don’t want to think about what it was like it he morning if it was this bad in the afternoon. It was literally shoulder to shoulder including many tour guides and their groups that tended to shove others out of their way. Katie got elbowed out of the way by a small Asian lady and was not happy about it. It was just an absolute zoo. Plus once you’ve seen one or two opulent rooms, how much more over the top décor do you really need to see?
This day also brought the biggest challenge of the week, which was a broken washing machine in the apartment. Mom thought we needed to wash the towels before leaving for Versailles, and then they could dry during the day.  Which does make sense, particularly since we don’t have a dryer.  However, during the spin cycles the washer made a bad noise and we cancelled the cycle, leaving a sodden mess of towels.  We tried to re-start but couldn’t get the machine to work.  We decided to deal with it when we got home from Versailles, but on arriving home it still wouldn’t work and we had a pile of sodden towels in the shower. I was so angry and wished I hadn’t washed the towels at all.
I ended up having to call my landlady for the first time, in the process making my first French phone call.  Since wet towels did not constitute an actual emergency, she said she’d send her husband over in the morning to look at it.  Apparently, not  as handy as Paul, he did take a look at it and when he confirmed that it would not turn on, he left, stating he would call a repairmen on Monday. We hung the towels on the balcony to continue drying and went off for the day.
After two busy, busy days, with lots of lines and crowds, we were happy to take it a bit easier.  My brother Josh treated us to a boat ride on the Seine followed by a nice French lunch. We left from near the Eiffel tower and went downstream around Notre Dame and back. It was a great day to be on the water, and the tour guide could speak five languages fluently (French, English, Spanish, German and Italian), which really impressed Katie.
Our lunch was filling and delicious and Katie and I loved all the different cheeses on the cheese plate, particularly the stinky one shaped like a pyramid with a thick layer of mold.  After lunch we just walked around Paris, enjoying the sunshine and warm weather.  We saw the pet market, browsed the book stores along the Seine and had coffee in the Tuileries gardens. Mom had a lot of trouble with the French coffee, which is served in tiny thimble-sized expresso cups. When she was handed the smallest take-out cup ever invented at a McDonalds early in the week, the look on her face was priceless.
On Monday we went out to Montmarte and Sacre Coeur while Nathalie’s husband attempted to fix our washing machine.  It was an overcast day and rained off and on, but it was still a nice day at Montmarte.  When it started to rain we ducked into a nice café just off the plaza where the artists paint and had a wonderful meal with the rain coming down outside.  When it cleared again we walked past the homes of many famous artists including Picasso, van Gogh and Renoir. Amazingly, as the week wore on, even Mom’s manic energy moderated and she was able to relax and enjoy the idle times in the cafes and just walking through Paris, as long as we didn’t have to wait in any more lines!  We still walked a lot, just not quite so fast, and with less sense of purpose than usual.  We added a stroll down the Champs Elysees to the day and headed home hoping to find a fixed washing machine. 
Instead, we found a door that I couldn’t seem to unlock.  The apartment door is always troublesome, but on this day, I couldn’t get it even to budge.  Had the repairman come and done something to it? Was he still inside with the door bolted shut? I tried buzzing, but no one answered. Is he in there, but not answering the door? How will I get back in?? What did they do? My panic was rising!
I called my landlady again and she was very surprised to hear that I couldn’t get in the door. It turned out that the repairman had given her husband some directions to try to fix it himself, and he tried at lunchtime but didn’t have enough time. He was planning to come back at 6:30 this evening to finish, which was in a half an hour.  She was perplexed as to why the door wouldn’t open and said she’d call him right away.  I had gone to the courtyard of the building to make the call and I walked back up the five flights of stairs to try the door again.  This time, as I put in the key, it occurred to me that I was turning the key the wrong direction and I tried the other direction. What do you know, it opened right up! I called Nathalie back to tell her that the door was working fine now and she hadn’t called her husband yet, so all was good.
He showed up at 6:30 and was able to fix the washing machine, which shut down because he had not been cleaning the filter regularly and a fault was tripped.  He also checked out the apartment door since Nathalie had told him I was having trouble with it.  After opening and closing it a few times he said it seemed to be OK, so hopefully I wouldn’t have any more issues with it.  I agreed with him that it was probably just sticking and would now be OK.  I didn’t mention about turning the key the wrong way.  We did several loads of laundry and called it a night.
The next day we tried and abandoned the Orsay museum again and headed instead to a small museum called Musee Marmottan, to which Claude Monet’s son donated his entire personal collection of paintings after his death.  The museum is in a beautiful house which was a former hunting lodge and located on the  edge of the Bois de Boulogne, a park in Paris 2.5 times larger than Manhattan’ central park.  The museum has the largest collection of Monets in the world, although only a few are displayed at any one time.  About 30 were on display this day, tracing the arc of his entire career. There are also examples of the work of his contemporaries, the most famous being the Rainy Sunday in Paris painting. There was also an outstanding collection of illuminated manuscripts. 
After the museum we wandered through the park for a while, having a picnic on the edge of a lake, watching lots of ducklings learning to dive, and a set of cygnets (or as Katie calls them, swanlings) following their regal parents.  We finished the day with a trip to the Rodin museum, which my mom walked through as Katie and I ate ice cream in the beautiful gardens.
For Mom’s final day in Paris we decided to go back to Montmarte, which was her favorite place.  I had been thinking and thinking about the artists who draw the charcoal portraits of tourists and had decided that I wanted to get a portrait done of Katie. I know it is kind of touristy, but Paul’s mom has a portrait of Paul and his two brothers done when they were small and we always enjoy seeing it when we visit her.  I thought that a portrait would be a really nice memento of the trip and something that we can enjoy for a long time and then pass on to Katie when she is grown up.
Katie was very excited by the idea and sat very patiently while the artist sketched her.  Mom and I watched carefully as he started with the eyes, then the nose, then the lips, sketched in the hair and finally her shoulders and torso.  It was fun to watch the painting emerge on his easel.  It ended up being a very good, although not perfect, likeness and we are happy with it. The look on Katie’s face when she hopped up from the stool and peeked at the easel for the first time was pure unfiltered joy.  She was so thrilled to see herself looking back!!



We finished Mom’s week in Paris by relaxing in Luxembourg gardens and eating Turkish kebab in the Latin Quarter.
This morning we took her to the airport and helped her check in.  We will miss her, and it was a great week. Now who will talk loudly in English on the metro that it startles people around us?
Katie and I are headed to Nice for a couple of days to check out the French Riveria.  Over the past four hours on the train as I have been writing we have seen the Paris cityscape give way to rolling French countryside. It then gradually got more mountainous and we passed through some train tunnels and saw many many vineyards rushing by.  We are now paralleling the Mediterranean coast, catching glimpses of the deep blue sea, and picturesque sailboats in the small village ports.  The houses all have orange tile roofs, set beautifully against the green trees and the blue skies. 
We do not expect it to be particularly warm, not quite 70, so if Katie swims in the Mediterranean Sea remains to be seen, but we hope to pop over to Monaco for a few hours and it should be a relaxing two days.

2 comments:

  1. What a beautiful entry about your relationship with your mom. Be sure you print this and save it always.
    I loved Nice when I visited in high school. Be sure to walk all the way up the hill along the coast for this really cool monument type structure, tucked inside the cliff.

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  2. I just recently had an amazing hamburger with a fried egg on it. It actually had a fried egg, gruyere cheese, and asparagus on it. It was very YUMMY!

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