Day 38–Art, the Senate and Dinner with Friends

Baseball season has started, not much news of that here, though. It has gotten a little colder but not like it was at the old Exhibition Stadium, 32 years ago today. Roy Halladay must have been born around then? (Checked, he was born about a month later.) And, he got the win yesterday, nice. Later in the day, we passed by The Moose Bar, on rue des Quatre Vents (an appropriate name for a Canadian haunt in Paris, no?) and caught just a glimpse of baseball on TV. Will have to go back, although Sandy wasn’t venturing into the place.

Having had our Outlook restored with email, just showed my how I could easily have not worried about this for the last two days, especially on sabbatical. (No one is indispensable except the Prince, maybe.)

Worked on chroma (colour) at Graham’s this morning but forget to take photo, was so absorbed in the moment.

When Sandy was on a conference call, I went to the beautiful and ornate Sénat chamber in the Palais du Luxembourg, built essentially by Catherine de Médici. At various specific times, you can watch the Sénat proceedings. See www.monuments-nationaux.fr/en although the website, even in English, isn’t particularly user-friendly. From what I glimpsed, despite the exquisite surroundings, the French Sénat seemed to be doing more or less what the Canadian Senate does, pretty much nothing, although I seemed to catch that they were passing (pas d’opposition) some piece of legislation on la droite de la famille. Too bad I couldn’t take photos, though.

Spent the afternoon reading, Sandy had a nap.

Then walked around a bit to pick up a few things. Stopped by La Crèmerie, 9 rue des Quatre Vents, an old creamery where you can have a light snack or pick up a bottle of wine.

So, since our friend Charnois is staying there, we secured a table (even for 6) at the impossible-to-get-into Comptoir du Relais Saint-Germain on a weeknight when Camdeborde offers his excellent value, menu gastronomique. It’s 50 euros but for pretty good fare, choice of entrée and main course, then cheese course and dessert. It was very fun seeing Gerry, Amie and Eric with whom we’ve spent many enjoyable trips abroad (usually playing bridge somewhere, they even bought new cards for the occasion) and we got a chance to catch-up, they having just been in Londres, visiting our friends Jeremy and Norma.

See earlier blog for photo of Le Comptoir. It didn’t look any different tonight, except that we were in it.