15h47-17h00, 27-February-2013
Less than five minutes at my perch du jour and already I’ve been abandoned by the espresso that was meant to accompany me today, the only evidence of which I cannot even lick off the inside of the cup. <sigh>
A myth it is, the supposed superiority of the espresso offered in the cafés of France. Typically, the lauded beverage so often held up as a paragon of culture, sophistication, and refinement compared to “American” is no richer/darker/stronger/more flavorful/truer. The fact is that despite the relatively small size of a café (the beverage and not the place at which you might order and drink said beverage…yes, that CAN get confusing), honest imbibers are often able to make out the bottom of their cup through the brown-but-not-so-brown liquid. And it isn’t because the sugar in France is especially strong that a half-teaspoon of the stuff applied tends to go a long-enough way. Now this isn’t to say that all of the café coffee (un café au café?) to be had in France is bad — Au contraire! — but it is long past time for the popping of the bubble of primacy afforded to “un café” over its English-speaking brethren.
There. I wrote it, I take responsibility for it, and once I publish it the French Café Police will be able to hold those pixels against me as they see fit.
A man wearing a nondescript baseball cap just wrested all attention by pounding his cellphone on the bar twice with great force. One has to assume that the thing was already broken, but if not it certainly is now.
Wednesdays are more a “valley day” than a “hump day” in France due to the school system, in which kids at the maternelle and primaire levels do not have classes while those at the higher levels only have classes in the morning. Thus, depending on their age and interests (and the needs and capabilities of their parents), on Wednesdays kids across the country participate in a whole slew of daycare arrangements, sports programs, music lessons, art classes, theatre groups, game clubs, and the like. And the competition to get into these programs can be downright savage, and I am not ashamed to admit that over the years — my being the at-home parent — I have had to throw the occasional hip-check to get The Boy on the list for Swimming, for Tennis, for Sculpture (yes, Sculpture…see the accompanying photo of today’s masterpiece)… Of course, it is all in the name of liberté, égalité, fraternité…and betterment-of-the-organism, so “No blood, no foul”, right?