November, Carla's Gone, Turkeys In Paris??????

Bonjour all........ Geez, it's November already??????? And after what seemed like an eternity, Carla Bruni had her baby and about 2 weeks ago the cordon of security people and paparazzi were finally gone bringing back the natural order of things here which of course is traffic jams, millions of loud motor scooters, trash trucks at 5 am among other things which now seem normal to us all here. Like living anywhere overseas for an extended period, things naturally become habit and routine while doing what is normal where you happen to be living; and we're no different as we all feel a sense of belonging here when people on the streets recognize us and wave and everyone at our favorite Brasserie (Chalet 16) treats us with deference it is indeed a special feeling that when we leave will go missing.

There was an upheaval of sorts at the above mentioned brasserie when 2 of their waiters we knew well were fired for apparently being drunk at work which was quite a shock but then life went on.

Cassie's colleague Matthew and his wife Audrey had their new baby Hippolite a little over a week ago to add to their growing family which brought joy to everyone here. And we now begin the countdown to the quintessentially American Holiday Thanksgiving here which of course is way different in our approach than what we normally do in the US. For a number of years leading up to our moving here we'd left off on cooking our turkeys and instead paid a friend of a friend to deep fry them for us which really took a lot of the major work out of doing the dinner not to mention how amazingly tasty they turned out. Even if we wanted to cook a big turkey here our oven isn't the appropriate size to do it so we purchase an already cooked turkey (farm raised specially in Normandy) from The Real McCoy along with a couple of pies and invite a small horde of Americans and French friends to dinner making it a big covered dish event too. This year's edition may be scaled down a bit but it will still happen. It still promises to be another great evening of food and conversation.

The weather has cooled considerably and Winter is set to make the scene here soon with gray rainy days which are the norm here in Paris.

Occasionally I'll complain about how things go here in France but I must say again the majority of French people have been more than kind and generous to us and we are very fortunate indeed to be living here amongst them in Paris and even on the craziest days are better for it...................
It'll be hard to leave here when the time comes as I remember it being when I left Paris the first time in the late 70s wondering if I'd ever return.

Love to all everywhere and Happy Thanksgiving as we all have so much to be thankful for......*

Sid