Other People's Houses: More Adventures in Housesitting

So, if you saw this picture of a house you might get to live in for free for 6 weeks of winter

 in fancy, sunny La Jolla, CA, you'd be intrigued, right? 

I was. 

I found it through Trustedhousitters.com at the last minute, just when our SoCal rental of two months was coming to an end. We'd done this before, with moderate, adventuresome success, in France and Italy and San Fracisco. Three bedrooms, two baths, walk to town and the beach. 

Free. Absolutely free. Except for tending 3 sweet pets.

Mia, senile pot addict

River, a love

Tule Fog, eternally pissed

How bad could it be? We met the homeowner and we met the pets. While patting the dogs, I watched cat-sized tumbleweeds of dog fur drift across the floor. I noted the absurdly thick layer of dust on the coffee table. No biggie, I thought. I can handle a wet sponge and a vacuum.

This house could be lovely, I thought.

Stan was all in, like a man running for home base, on fire, no looking back. He's a good Yankee and likes not spending one red cent if he doesn't have to. He was listening avidly to the owner about how to switch the solar heat to the hot tub as if he were going to move right in, while I was surreptitiously, behind her back, slicing my dagger-sharp hand across my neck in the time-honored "Put a lid on it, Buster" gesture. I wanted to leave the figurative escape hatch open until we'd seen and heard more.
We saw more. Lots more. And heard more. Lots more. Our divorced, hoarding, lonely, overweight, Stanford-educated daughter of a renowned physicist, homeowner had boundary issues, not knowing when to stop talking.

Or when to determine that she had saved enough pickle jars without lids, shopping bags from yesteryear, plastic bags, bars of soap from hotels, dime-sized bars of used soap that might still have some life to them, empty Amazon boxes, radios from the 60's, hair and cleaning products she seemed not to use on either her hair or her home. She saves the tiny plastic strip you peel off a sealed bag of cheese--like, 50 of them, in case the cat wants to play with them. She saves the plastic wrapper that a 12 pack of toilet paper comes in. I kid you not. I keep finding them in the back of the stuffed closets. 

That's because we moved in.

Garage

Every box she's ever met.

Her office. Maybe she's a genius?

I mean, we all have clutter. I understand. I have owned 3 houses at one time, two of which were full of other people's lifetimes, and another from which I'd purged all evidence of my husband's bachelor-style "housekeeping." I, too, like to have a good old shoebox on hand, should the need arise for a handy container. 

But this homeowner's parents had died 8 and 10 years ago, in this house, probably in our bed. She hasn't--how to phrase it nicely--moved on. The dust-encrusted footrests to a wheelchair and a blood pressure cuff were tucked under our bedside tables. We don't know where the wheelchair is, but it's here somewhere.The blood pressure cuff box is in the garage. The instructions for it are under the adult diapers under the bathroom sink, where everything still smells a little urine-y and medicine-y. It's where she throws her clean towels for safe-keeping.

Office shelf. Yes, that's a can of Raid.

When YOU go away and someone might come through or--God forbid--even STAY in your house, wouldn't you put some of your crap away? Like throw your washcloth in the washer? Or clear a postage stamp-sized area of a counter? Or hide your retainer/tooth-grinding guard? And your huge pile of grandma-style dirty underwear?

Retainer in holder above faucet. I don't want to know about the electric kettle.

How she left the kitchen before heading to LAX. She likes to rinse and dry cat food cans because "the ants are terrible" but leaves old dog food and curdling milk out.

The Guest Room. And she knew I wanted to have guests.

I almost melted down. But Stan and I cleaned the first layer the first day, just so that we could stand it. Then we hired two professional cleaning women for 3 hours. They were highly impressed by what they found. I think when I'd called and said the magic words "La Jolla," they'd pictured dusting crystal curios and gently Swiffering their way to $250.

Instead they broke a sweat within 15 minutes, their eyes wide in astonishment. "How do you know this lady?" one of them carefully ventured. "The internet," I replied, and she gave me a look that spoke volumes of an encyclopedia called "WHAT DID YOU EXPECT, YOU CRAZY LADY? From A to Z."

Pool and hot tub

But there are nice parts to being here, now that it's clean. Now that she owns 500 fewer shopping bags and 20-30 fewer Amazon boxes (that she'll never miss). Perhaps this was her plan all along, to come back from the Middle East to a spotless house. But the empty Rebel Yell bottles tell a different story. She won't notice the clean house. She won't notice the lack of dog poop ringing the pool, or how her sad plants off the back deck are coming back to life after being watered, pruned, fertilized. Or that the loose boards of her deck have been refastened by handyman Stan.

The nice parts are sitting on that gussied-up deck in the unusually hot California sun with a good book. Walking a block for roasted brussel sprouts drizzled with balsamic vinegar, having a pizza and a beer, because we can, and because no ferry is involved. Having nothing to do all day but wonder what's playing at the movies, the folk club, the Old Globe Theater. When to get a massage. When to go for a run or a workout.

Front yard garden

And our owner is a kind and good person, just thwarted by her past and her need to acquire something she can never attain. She has a beautiful, chard-heavy vegetable garden in the front yard. I commend her for bucking the neighborhood trend, where everything is groomed, manicured, and lifted to perfection. She has loved and loving pets who have become dear friends to us. She has a Ford Hybrid we get to tootle around in. She is generous enough and adventurous of spirit enough to put her house and pets out there to strangers. She gave us tickets to see an amazing concert last night. Maybe we'll come back next year. We have the cleaning lady's number still. So maybe.

Italian Diary: Villa or Bust

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I hate Italy, or at least the part of it I'm in. The part where bells ring all the sleepless night and livelong day to remind you that Time is Passing, Time is Lost. It couldn't be any clearer for whom the bell tolls. It tolls, every fifteen minutes, for thee. And still, no matter how avid an insomniac ye be, it's impossible to guess the hour from the mad system of senseless chimes that pummel your  brain into the wee hours.

I know it's sacrilege to say I hate it here. My mother would tell me that I don't "hate" anything, that I only "don't care for" something and can't tell the difference. But I do hate things. And so I hate this land of nebbia. Nebbia is the fog that shrouds the mountains and clogs the brains and machines of this broken Mediterranean country.

You can go ahead and love it all you want. Fantasize away about the hot Tuscan summer and the charming Italian gardener you've hired at your tumbledown villa in an olive grove. Feel free to love the art, rich in gold leaf, Della Robbia blue, Michelangelo marble. Well-meaning friends direct me to the same museums I dutifully plodded through decades ago, maw agape, but now I have not one jot of desire to see another Christ on a cross or a Virgin being annunciated. Give me a Flemish still life any day, the light pouring in, no one's belief system or penchant for drama represented in a water pitcher or a convex mirror.

How did I end up living in a villa in Italy for what I'd hoped would be the whole winter? I did it by pushing a button. At some point last fall, when I was looking for a house sitter of my own, I thought, "Why not take a gander at a free living situation myself, somewhere without snow, somewhere with a bit more going on than on an island in Maine in the winter?" And then, I contacted the owner of this villa. The rest, as they say, is....Veronica.

Veronica tipped her hand early in the game. She tipped it so far that I could read the words "alcohol" and "off-her-rocker" and "trouble." We back and forth-ed with emails. Did she want an energetic, older couple (non-smokers! college-educated!) to help her tend her 80 hectares outside of Lucca, her villa / seasonal B & B that sleeps 30, and her other properties on the property? She had posted an ad implying as much. An early email from her described it as:
we would expect a bit of help over the winter months with some fine tuning of the villa 

Vague? Indeed. She was a tricky one to get a straight answer from. I asked her which of the 3 houses we might be sleeping in and if there was a car to use, or if we needed to rent one. Her reply email, typos and all, went like this:
if you hate a bit of work then maybe dont come ! Sorry to be blunt but its not a free ride and there are other people on the property for security  but  i would  like   another presence - i cant remember all your other questions ...

probably you will be in the Coach house 

yes there is   heating   but not   hot USA heating - we just put on another jumper !

i dont really want to be  held to ransom to quite so many questions !

i know Americans are quite demanding so to be honest  all your questions made me a bit nervous !! 

We are not offering 6 star hotel sevice / accomodation ???!  More an experience with some help ! 

let me know

You can see where I may have been a little put-off. Less trusting souls might have looked elsewhere. I let a week or so pass. Then, as the news of the plight of the Syrian refugees made headlines, and in response to my saying I had no Italian so how was I supposed to run a B & B in Italy, she wrote:

you may want a more relaxed time  with nothing y do every day but that will not suit  us 

so you will   have  to explain to me your expectations 

to be hoenst Diana i am nott he most domestic of people so running this huge house is a trial ! it would be great for someone like yourselves to look at it with new eyes and tell me and then we can make a plan 

Dont worry about the Italian - there is always Google translate although sometimes it does come out a bit like an ourang utan !  i will rest easier once you are there... it is a big property and there are a lot of people on the march at the moment if you know what i mean .....................................  !!

My son told me not to go, that she had called me an orangutan. I had the queer sense of being a rubber necker at an accident I couldn't quite see, craning to see more of the disaster that was Veronica, or if not of Veronica, than of what she left in her wake. Who WAS this woman? More emails were exchanged over the next couple of weeks, mostly sent by me, rarely answered by Veronica. I'd get replies like:

busy now

tomorrow morning ?

or

where is your tel number ?

very busy and dont have  time to look !

or

yes fine 

i will try and call you  in the next few days

just very busy now

or 

We have a big cooking school on here at the moment so we are very busy.. !

The following doozy came in after I'd asked again what our accommodations would be:

Bit nervous about all these questions ! you sound a bit   like a guest who is paying us euros 220 per night for the Dante suite !!!

So i will have to speak to you before you go -  maybe we are slightly at cross purposes !

I will be able to call you on Tuesday  as I am away at the moment staying in a house  party and  its a bit rude  to be on  their  phone etc and there is no moible coverage here .

Hope thats OK

thanks 

Finally, she called. It was 1AM her time, 7pm mine. I was in a crowded restaurant in the middle of dinner with my family, but I wasn't going to let the opportunity pass. I asked her to spell out what she expected of us. How many hours a day would she want us to work on the villa? What were our duties? She asked if Stanley could carry the guests' bags. "Of course!" I replied,"He's very fit--he runs 5 miles a day!" An audible inhalation, sharp and pronounced, could be heard on the other end. I imagine she clutched the nearest armoire in a swoon of Prosecco-induced shock.

Next, out of nowhere, she said, "You must pour the Processo when our guests arrive. You can do that, can't you, Diana? Can't you?" A note of desperation in her voice. To which I replied, again and again, "Of course. I can do that." 

Then, satisfied with the business-like manner in which she'd conducted her first live interview, she rang off with a cheery "Right then!" I had clinched the job. We were going to carry bags and pour Prosecco throughout the winter. Even if the B n B was closed. Shifting sands, muddy waters.

Undaunted, and determined not to stay in Maine over the winter, we made plans to leave our home, our dogs, our family, and our work to see what this job, this villa, this woman, might be all about. No matter what, we kept telling ourselves--our vain, foolish selves--we'd be in ITALY! More to follow...

The Cafe Life or Not Doing Nothing

Pierre et Diana

I spend an inordinate amount of time in cafes here in France. I have a hard time doing it, as lounging the day away and being "unproductive" is not in my blood. But the French do not see it as wasting time; they consider it the beating heart of life. So when a friend asks me to join him at a cafe yet again,  I try not to say, "No, I can't go, not again!" I try not to say, "Are you nuts? We woke up at 9am and now you want me to drive 45 minutes into foothills of the Pyrenees, to some hippie artist medieval town, to sit for 2-3 hours and do nothing but eat, drink, and talk?" I resist and resist. And then I go. And I come away every time feeling like I've laid my hand upon a beating heart. It's a miracle every day, in a cafe. Here's why:

The revolving stage of international characters

~There's the British sea captain, Malcolm, who plays the gong on the side (side of what, I don't know), and regales us with tales of turning 18 in a lawless Singapore 50-odd years ago.
~There's the ancient artist Pierre, for whom the cafe is daily refuge from his abusive Hari Krishna-obsessed wife; he holds my face close to his, hungry for a kind woman's touch, as I hand him chocolates and repeat my name into his deaf ear for the umpteenth time.
~There's Elki from Berlin who we picked up hitchhiking: she learned English from war-time radio, cares for a dowager in a castle down the road, is chiseling a giant block of marble into a giant molar, "just for me, not for commission."
~There's Olivia from Australia and her British husband Will who run one gite (inn) in town and another in the country; she sneaks out the front door at night to smoke pot far from the disapproving eye of her husband.
~There's Eric who grew up with rich and famous parents in Hollywood: his mother wrote Wolfgang Puck's first cookbook.
~There's Leticia, our French neighbor, who teaches Italian at Adult Ed, keeps a place outside Rome, raises her 3 children alone with the help of her rebel/psychiatric nurse boyfriend.
And, to preempt your skepticism, not one of them has a trust fund.

The stories go on and on, the crepes and wine and pastis keep arriving, other characters enter Stage Right, exit Stage Left, the bill gets confused so the waiter sits with us a while to hash it all out, and soon it's somehow several hours later, and we've done "nothing." Except this, which feels rich and important.

It all harps back to Baudelaire and Benjamin and a quote from The Paris Review from a few years back, about the benefits in this modern age of "flanerie":
"The figure of the flâneur—the stroller, the passionate wanderer emblematic of nineteenth-century French literary culture—has always been essentially timeless; he removes himself from the world while he stands astride its heart. For Walter Benjamin, [the flâneur] was a figure of the modern artist-poet, a figure keenly aware of the bustle of modern life, an amateur detective and investigator of the city, but also a sign of the alienation of the city and of capitalism.
In the ensuing decades, however, the idea of flânerie as a desirable lifestyle has fallen out of favor, due to some arcane combination of increasing productivity—hello, fruits of the Industrial Revolution!—and the modern horror at the thought of doing absolutely nothing. But as we grow inexorably busier—due in large part to the influence of technology—might flânerie be due for a revival?"

I, Diana Roberts, am reviving the art of flanerie, one pastis at a time.

Maybe he wrote the book on flanerie?

No trust funds here

We went to a party the other night at our friend Eric's house, where the crowd of French, German, Canadian, and Irish strangers felt within minutes like familiar old friends. It's rare when you walk into a room and think: "These are my people" but I did, and they were.

I spent a wonderful chunk of the party enthralled by a conversation with a Canadian historian, who put into words what I've thus far been unable to articulate about what makes France so unique. He said, "The French are not afraid of decay. In fact, they cherish it. They live in crumbling chateaux, they bury their dead above ground, their sacred "terroir" imparts the rich flavor of centuries gone-by so that with every morsel of food, every carafe of wine, the ancient past courses its way into their modern systems."

He said, "What's amazing to me, as a North American, is when you leave those conventions of commerce behind--when you step away into this world where stores may or may not open at 9 or 10AM, where they all close from noon to 2, then close again at 6 or 7PM, are never open on Sunday, so that six or more hours a day are spent around the table with family--that changes everything. There is no value on 9 to 5. The kitchen with its food and family comprise the ancient 'domus'--the heart of the culture. The values here are tradition, food, family, conversation. Quality of life, not commerce, is what matters and what has been passed down though thousands of years."

French fashion obsession: I love her shawl

So THAT was enlightening. A party where people discussed ideas. Where the faces were varied and somehow more alive than American faces. Where we laughed. Ate. Told wild tales. Reached for the sparkling Blanquette de Limoux or the foggy Pastis again and again. A party from which I went home thinking and stimulated, not drunk and bored.

This is my life in France. I am peering through a window into another way, trying to step outside of my American conventions and adapt to new ones. There are those who view the French as stuffy old stick-in-the-muds weighted down by outdated values. I am having trouble stepping out of my own mud, a rut it seems, of busy "doing" all the time. I must learn, for now, to be happy "not doing," which I guess could be lost in translation as "nothing."

Learning to See

I travel. I observe. I report my observations in Facebook posts. These three facts have prompted some interesting reactions from friends, both Facebook and real, over the years.

The past couple of years, I sailed to the Bahamas. My posts of tropical beaches and sun-drenched skies had my Facebook friends' reactions running the gamut, from "More! More! You're keeping me sane through this awful winter!" to friends blocking me because they felt I was flaunting my good fortune. Or maybe they were green with envy, I don't know. But yes, I've had both experiences in my past: the fan base and the haters. Well, not haters, exactly. "'Hate' is a strong word," my mother used to say. But still...I've had my share of non-followers.

This year, I am house sitting for five months in France. I arrived with no preconceived notions, ready to embrace a culture so different from my own. Still First World, but different: ancient, challenging language-wise, and rich food-wise. I've travelled in Southeast Asia, Central America, Mexico, & the Caribbean, so I'm no stranger to the strange & new. But, in a way, because this is a First World culture, not Second or Third, I am even more surprised  and thrown off by the differences. Perhaps my culture shock is due to the fact that some of the customs here are so obviously superior to our own, and could be adopted without discomfort or disruption to our easy American lives for the good of the planet. I spoke that thought. And that's where I rankled and ruffled feathers.

I don't claim to know a thing about the longterm political-social situation here. I am clearly living on the surface of things after only three weeks in this country. My eyes are still starry and looking on the bright side. I'm in an emotional state akin to the early stages of falling in love; you see only the good, but sometimes--in the long run--that turns out to be the real deal.

I have the open mind and open heart required of the intrepid traveler. I make a fool of myself a thousand times a day, trying out my ridiculous French in the line at the post office, grocery store, and boulangerie. I force myself to sit at the counter of a cafe, to be in the intensity of the mix, rather than hide in the back at a quiet table, as I'd prefer. Traveling is, to a great degree, about being uncomfortable and, as with a protracted pose in yoga or meditation, sometimes you just have to linger in the discomfort to get through it.

So I apologize to those of you who were offended by my use of the words "spoiled pantywaists" to describe Americans, self very definitely included. I am not castigating my country or forgetting my extreme good fortune. But neither am I closing my eyes to new ways of doing things. I'm going to encourage the stars in my eyes to stay firmly affixed a while longer to continue to dazzle and shape-shift my normal perceptions.                              

I keenly worry about quick, dismissive reactions to new ways of seeing, especially in these days of murdered black men and children by white police officers. I worry about standing by my country and my beliefs because it is all I know. Is there such a thing as staying too safe, too close to home and the cozy Known? There are days here when I pine for a full day of speaking English, a day when I don't clench in nervousness if I need to get in the correct lane--which one IS it?--to buy gas with cash, or when I have to ask what aisle the guacamole is in. I'm not talking about making my way through Africa or the Arctic here. But still, I get nervous.

I'm working on my own dismissive reaction, the one that blurts out of my mouth via some gut-instinct for safety and self-preservation whenever a French person engages me in conversation. Instinct tells me to throw up a quick barrier with: "Je ne parle pas le Francais."  I'm trying to slow it down, ralentir a bit, and open myself up to the scary unknown...and listen. Maybe he's telling me that the guacamole can be found in Aisle 10. It sure sounds like it.

So I'm going to stand by the virtues of being starry-eyed and nervous, whether it's through travel to a foreign country or helping serve dinner at a food bank. It's good to shake it up a bit every now and then, to get off the cruise ship or the couch, to see what's out there and how other people--other you's and me's--are doing it. And see how long you can hold the pose, no matter how uncomfortable it may make you.

My Father's Day

Grammy Lilian, world traveler 

It's 23 years ago today that my father died at the too-young age of 69. Here's a glimpse into his past, from a letter written to his mother from New Guinea, where he was stationed during WWII. My Grammy Lilian raised him and his sister Connie valiantly and alone, after being widowed when my father was two. It was not easy, but they were happy and had all the blessings of a rich and full life.

Lilian, free to roam at last

Brother & Sister: Donald and Connie Roberts

From Donald’s letter to his mother Lilian, from New Guinea, March 15, 1945:

Typing report cards, no doubt, at PDS

“I don’t know in which state you sound most happy, traveling through New England with Herman, or just sitting at home with the kittens, listening to the Philharmonic on Sunday. It all seems so distant, in time and mood, from the years not long ago when you were rushing off to the office every morning and rushing home in time for all of us to go to an early show.

 I don’t think I’d want to change or sacrifice those days. Everything was fun, and friendly in a way that most families never get, from Great Kills [Staten Island], when Connie would be starting supper and me setting the table and listening to “Little Orphan Annie” or “Buck Rogers,” and both of us peering down the street periodically to see if you were coming yet, to Philadelphia or Washington when we’d meet you at the office and, buying up all the evening papers as we went, hurry to an automat or a drugstore to plan how we’d spend the evening, and finally hop a trolley and another and another until we were finally brought to some little theatre in the suburbs where there was a revival of “Lost Horizon” or “It Happened One Night.”

Siblings as goofballs: Woodstock, VT

     There were always petty grievances and emotional disturbances, of course, but by and large, we got on so wonderfully together and drew a very satisfying, if not line-perfect triangle. Let’s not forget how much we owe to you, who provided for our physical well-being and our emotional happiness. It’s impossible to underestimate, I could say it over and over and never find the words of appreciation and thanks, but I am an individual fairly well pleased with what I am, and it’s to you that I owe everything and everything and everything.”

Peddie School 1972

Ravello, Italy

An Adventure of the Simplest Kind

I am handicapped, in that I have only what Julia Child described, with a whiff of scorn, as "a school girl's French." So much of my disorientation and exhaustion here alone in France is based on tension--will I be able to ask for sunflower seeds at the market if I can't find them within an hour? Can I successfully make myself understood, without appearing to be a brusque and Ugly Americaine, to the assistant manager at the supermarche so that I, too, can have a card to give me points for each purchase? Will more be demanded of me than a sweet, fully-chortled "Bonjour" and a transparently dismissive "Merci, au revoir!" at the checkout counter? I hope so, and I tremblingly hope not.

The few times here that I have dared to venture into mon idee of a fully-composed, grammatically-correct sentence in French, the recipient has looked bemused. She either prattles on at me in French-- pushing papers my way to sign, or pointing vaguely with much explication in the direction I've asked for directions to--or else she flips the switch to English and leaves me stammering, the tables suddenly turned. Then I am unsure of how much I can say. Is there a limit to her French, or can I elaborate? I want to elaborate because, in my ten days here, I have talked to no one other than the woman at what I call the Courtesy Counter, and the woman who "gave me directions" at the gas station, and the tiny man inside my computer who gives me French lessons via YouTube.

I throw myself out there daily, into the world of commerce and gustabulatory pleasure, in the hopes of suddenly bursting forth with paragraphs of fluent French. Then the girls and I will share a bon rire. Mais non, it hasn't happened yet. Pascal, the dreamboat at my local restaurant, sees the panic in my eyes the minute I walk in and, wanting my comfort and expenditure levels to be high, he translates, as I point like an idiot to each item on the menu. I just want it over with; I want to eat and drink copious quantities of wine while staring at my compatriots who look oh, so much cooler and French than moi.

The children--for god's sake, the TODDLERS!--speak better French than I. And I could only hope to someday be that lovely French woman across the restaurant from me, the one with the deux bons hommes. Did they come in on motorcycles? Bicyclettes? So romantic, so windblown! She's the one with the perfectly (naturally) plucked eyebrows, the dense (sexy) fringe of bangs, the carelessly (perfectly) knotted scarf, exuding an earthy assuredness that could only have sprung from some farm-raised upbringing in Bordeaux. Certainly not New Jersey, comme moi.

I keep reminding myself of something a Francophile American friend said to me before I left. I'd been told the coffee here was not so good, that maybe I should bring my own if I wanted what I was used to. But when I told this to my well-travelled friend, she said, "Well, not having what you're used to is all part of the adventure, isn't it?"

It's all part of the adventure. So that explains my exhaustion at the end of the day, when my head on the pillow plies the yarn of phrases overheard and sentences practiced on long walks by the canal. I want to say to the female cashier who took forever to start checking me out at the supermarche: "NOW I see why you waited for me to load everything before starting to ring me up! You were waiting for me to be ready to bag! You weren't mad at me because I said it was my "premiere fois" using this particular debit card. Thank you, thank you, I am from a foreign land and I do not understand your customs, but I am learning. I want to get it, really I do. Bear with me! I am on an adventure!"

An adventure in a supermarket, granted, but it's as a good place as any to start.

L'Homme Francais

What has me so smitten by French men? I was prepared to be knocked sideways by the much-touted beauty of the French woman, but no one warned me about the men. There is an intensity about them, a glittering fierceness to their dark eyes under dark, bushy brows, and to their proud Gallic features so sharply thrusting forward: the chiseled hawk-beaked nose, the lovely curve of the French man's ear in the nest of trimmed hair now gently mussed and little-boy-tousled. There's a Latin swashbuckle-y-ness to the French man, a swarthiness that exudes grace against all manly odds.

Of course I generalize, as I struggle to paint a composite picture of the quintessential French male. Let us call my French man "L'Homme". L'Homme rushes about with a slightly pained, slightly distracted expression, as if racing to a critical, life-changing, intellectually-stimulating destination. His air of self-absorbtion enrobes him like a force field. His knife-edged piercing glance locks eyes with me for a brief timeless moment, as if pleading for my emotional rescue. If only.

I like to think L'Homme has just left an obligatory weekly dejeuner avec his chere maman at the local brasserie, but is now late to return to the set of the movie he is directing. Hence the graceful hurrying, the crisp clack of his finely hobbed heels on the ancient avenue. His leading lady (think Brigit Bardot--impossibly more beautiful than the woman he wrote the script for: think Sophie Marceau) is likely to storm off the set in a pique feminine if he is a moment late. His script is a work of endless poetic dialogue, charting the initial swirling up (think Paris along the blooming banks of the Seine, followed by steamy boudoir scenes, white curtains billowing, followed by endless cups of cafe and cigarettes) and then the inevitable spiraling downward trajectory (think slanting-sideways rain on the Rue de Lutece, Sophie's tragique French tears as she twists her arm from his grasp, and runs at a fast clip in heels on cobblestones, away, away) of a transcendent-yet-lust-based love, a love-to-end-all-loves. He fervently believes that if he could just finish this clef de roman, he would win his Sophie Marceau away from her husband (think Jean-Paul Belmondo) a second and final time, and back into his 1000 thread count, pillow-hair-tossing bed.

Or so I'd like to think when I pass your Average Joe ou Jacques on the street. Oh, and they have nice calves, too, but that must wait for another post.