(Saturday morning)

Tried to post this yesterday, but it didn't work.

Back at the Café Français. Yesterday was interesting. After dropping off M at the Gare de Lyon (amazing! There's this bus that goes right to CDG!), I walked back, aiming for the footbridge over the Port Plaisance (the beginning of the Canal St. Martin). And as I passed this guy, he asked me if I wanted to have coffee. At first I said no, as modesty dictates, but as he switched to English, I said, sure, why not. It was my neighborhood, this guy looked harmless, and as in improvisational comedy, I lately try to take the position that if someone offers you something, take it...

Anyway, he was perfectly nice, older than me, French, but had been an expat with the French Foreign Service, most lately in Estonia. (E, you and he would have a lot to talk about...). He was pretty interesting. I bet I'll see him again at some point.

After that, to see my new American friends Jm and R (recall, R is a former student of C's, and Jm has the funk/soul band) and their daughter El for dinner, in the 14th (near where my parents and I had dinner on my dad's birthday when they were here). El is of course a riot, since she's 6. She's heavily into princesses; R warned me that we're just at the beginning of the princess phase with my 3-year-old goddaughter Z! We ate a lot and drank a lot. Their apartment, which they own, has a real kitchen with a view of the Eiffel Tower and (even more noteworthy) room for a kitchen table. Super chouette! And they're great folks.

I left there and went to the Bom, which was more or less on my way home, and hung out a bit with les garçons du cinquième, who were drinking rather a lot of beer, as they tend to. I'm happy to be able to speak more French with them, even if I can't understand much of anything they say in French.

And now...Saturday morning is almost over, and I am going to start on this presentation I'm giving on Monday. I want to find that sense of relaxed curiosity I had earlier in the week with respect to work; that was fun.