What We Plan To Visit In France

TH OCT 18 Day One : BORDEAUX.  Recover from jetlag, visit Bordeaux (Corinne will meet us at the airport)
FR OCT 19 Day Two : SAINT-EMILION. 
SA OCT 20 Day Three : PAYS BASQUE. 

SU OCT 21 Day Four : TGV to PARIS. Staying at : Quai Saint-Michel 11, 75005 Paris
MON OCT 22 Day Five : PARIS.  Reversing the morning and afternoon activities on this day also works well, because the Champs-Elysées Walk leaves you near the Louvre (above center) — but most people have more energy for museums in the morning. Morning: Tour the Louvre (arrive 8h40 which is 20 minutes before opening) the museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Late night openings on Wednesdays and Fridays until 9:45 p.m. Closed Tuesdays. Take the Guided Tour “Louvre's Masterpieces” which starts at 11am. Tickets en vente exclusivement sur place le jour de la visite, Le départ des activités s'effectue à l'Accueil des groupes, dans le hall Napoléon (sous la pyramide)  Have lunch or coffee at Café le Nemours (across the street, on Place Colette). Afternoon: Follow the book's Champs-Elysées Walk from the Arc de Triomphe downhill along the incomparable avenue de Champs-Elysées to the Tuileries Garden and possibly the Orangeries Museum. Evening: Enjoy dinner on Ile St. Louis, then a floodlit walk by Notre-Dame (above right).

TUES OCT 23 Day Six : PARIS.  Morning: Tour the d’Orsay Museum (above left) (arrive 15 minutes before opening) open from 9.30am to 6pm daily, except Mondays. late night on Thursdays until 9.45pm. Midday: Take the book's Montmartre Walk (above center), featuring the Sacré-Cœur basilica Afternoon: Visit Pere Lachaise Cemetery (above right), relax at Café du Marché near Rue Cler near hotel.

WED OCT 24 Day Seven : PARIS, CHARTRES.  Day trip to Chartres (above left). ??? Getting there : Early train to Chartres.  Not sure yet.  If so, Lunch at Bistrot de la Cathédrale, Le Serpent, Café des Arts, Le Cloître Gourmand, or Le Pichet.  Early afternoon: Return to Paris. In the afternoon, follow Historic Paris Walk from Rick's Paris guidebook, featuring Ile de la Cité, Notre-Dame, Latin Quarter (above, second from left), and Sainte-Chapelle (above, second from right). If we enjoy medieval art, we visit the Cluny Museum (above right).

THURS OCT 25 Day Eight : Normandy’s Capital of ROUEN.  Check into hotel and spend at least two hours exploring city’s ancient core.

FRI OCT 26 Day Nine : CAEN, BAYEUX.  Drive toward Bayeux, stopping en route to visit Abbey de Jumieges, one of the most evocative ruins in France. Also stop to visit Abbeye aux Hommes, founded by William the conqueror. You will get to Caen (above left) by lunchtime. Afternoon: Continue west towards Bayeux (above right) visit le Musee des Tapestries de Bayeux (above middle).  Eat at Le Pommier, one of the most appealing restaurants in Bayeux. Reasonably priced.

SAT OCT 27 Day Ten : D-DAY BEACHES.  This day is reserved for exploring the D-day beaches (above left). From Bayeux, head east to explore the coastline. Start at the seaside resort of Arromanches les Bains (above middle), where you can visit the Musee du Debarquement, Omaha Beach, and the Normandy American Cemetery. You can have lunch in the town of Grandcamp Maisy at Hotel Duguesclin (4 quai crampon 02 31 22 64 22), later checking out Utah Beach. That evening, drive to Pontorson, near Mont St-Michel (DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME : ROLL BACK YOUR CLOCKS)

SUN OCT 28 Day Eleven : MONT SAINT-MICHEL.  Mt St Michel (above left). The great Benedictine monastery founded in 966 is best enjoyed by taking an English language tour that covers the highlights. After viewing the abbey, drop in at La Mere Poulard for a legendary omelet. In the afternoon, head to St Malo, Dinan (above middle), Sleep in Quimper (above right) (3 hrs away). 

MON OCT 29 Day Twelve : COTE BRETONNE.  Visit Quimper, Carnac (above left) and head to Angers. Chateau d’Angers (above middle) dating from the 9th century was the home of the comtes d’anjou. Visit the castle to see the Apocalypse Tapestries (above right), stretching 328 ft. Stay in Hotel d’Anjou.

TUES OCT 30 Day Thirteen : CHENONCEAUX. Leave Angers (above left) and head for a visit at Chenonceau (above middle).  Late afternoon, head out to Limoges (above right).

WED OCT 31 Day Fourteen : SARLAT & DORDOGNE (Sleep in Allas Les Mines)  (Limoges-Sarlat-AllasLesMines is a 3-hr drive)   Morning: Drive to Sarlat and meet Guy and Coco for lunch.  Afternoon: Go directly to le village de Allas-Les-Mines (chez Coco).

THURS NOV 1 Day Fifteen : DORDOGNE.  Morning Beynac-et-Cazenac (above left), Sarlat (above middle), Afternoon La Roque-Gageac (above right).

FRI NOV 2 Day Sixteen : Dordogne Visit Domme (above left), Lascaux (above middle) or St-Cirq-Lapopie (above right).  In the late afternoon, drive back to Bernos (Allas Les Mines to Bernos is a 3-hr drive).

SAT NOV 3 Day Seventeen :    DEP 13h20 Bordeaux Terminal B AR 14h40 Paris (CDG)   DEP 16h35 Paris (CDG) Terminal 2E AR 19h55 New York (JFK).

Can't wait to get started...

Bread, wonderful bread

Despite the hot weather outside, I still crank up my oven since I bake constantly. I am quite the minimalist when it comes to bread: I like doughs that require minimum intervention on my part (a resting period and a few folds and they are on their way) and yield loaves that bring smiles to everyone's face while providing good nutrition (the more whole grains the better). My kids see me mix dough just about every day of the week, usually when they are having breakfast. Maybe one day, when they are all grown-up and crave honest bread, they'll remember that all it takes is a big bowl and two hands and they'll want to learn how to make their own. One can only hope, right?

Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

(a) 1/3 cup warm water + 1 tsp sugar + 2 tsp. active dry yeast

(b) Approx. 7 cups of bread flour + 3 cups of warm water (between 80 and 115 degrees F.)

(c) 1 tbs salt

Method: (hand-mixed)

Using an 8 oz measuring cup, mix (a) yeast into sweetened water and let rest for five minutes (that's called "proofing" the yeast). Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix (b) flour and water until no dry flour remains, incorporate proofed yeast, and let rest, covered, 20 to 40 minutes. Add the salt. Cover the dough and let it rest, doing as many folds as necessary to obtain medium soft consistency. When the dough is ready (it takes about three hours hours at my house with folds every thirty minutes), transfer it out of the bowl on a floured surface and shape it into three medium-sized loaves.

Preheat the oven to 450°F

Let the loaves rest for 30 to 45 minutes, then bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on a rack. Enjoy!

Here's Summer

“How,” a friend asked me recently, “is June going for you? Hate the transition from the school schedule devil-we-know to camp and the devil-we-don’t.”

Picking up the pieces of three work weeks shattered from the impact of midday school events, early dismissals, half-days, and a school year that ended for two of my children a month earlier than the other two, I could only send a quick, impassioned agreement. June, as no general ever said but every mother knows, is hell.

It’s hard not to love summer, what with the fresh tomatoes, the sunny days, the swimming pools and the aura of freedom that hangs over it all.  But that freedom for my children comes with a high price tag for me, and for every other working mother I know: even the most free-range of young children cannot be left to roam the house and neighborhood unsupervised all day.

I say “mothers” advisedly. In families where both parents work or there is but one working parent, summer and the end of school means a scramble to find somewhere else for children to spend their days (or a caregiver to stay at home with them).  Mothers are disproportionately the ones who cope with that scramble.  Fathers do join in this form of summer “fun,” but what dads are missing is that sense that children who aren’t at school should be in their mother’s care.  Many of our neighbors sign their kids up for ten full weeks of assorted camps or day care minus the family vacation; I am the one wringing my hands over whether that’s “too much structure.”

Except in those few communities where year-round school has somehow won out over the forces of nostalgia and inertia that leave most children available to help out with the harvest, working families at every income level cope annually with the long summer school holiday.  I imagine most feel some level of my ambivalence.  I do love summer.  I love the heat, I love leaving boots and coats behind, and I love that feeling that the world is slacking off just a little.  My in-box is already less full, and my calendar full of lovely white spaces.

But the need to suddenly create and manage a different structure for family life is as oppressive as a string of 90-degree days.  I know children spending weeks with grandparents, weeks at day and sleep-away camp, children at home with a mother’s helper, children in summer school, and children who (like mine) will spend their summer hopping from one to another of these varying activities, meaning that every week presents a new opportunity to sort out and screw up a new schedule of pickups and drop-offs and lunches and hats and sunscreen and but-wait-today-we-were-supposed-to-bring-water-shoes.  Which is fine, and even fun, under one condition:  that we all recognize that this is the season when parents are in all-hands-on-deck mode.  Everything will take longer, everyone will respond more slowly, and four hours of full-attention work followed by an afternoon at the pool should be considered more effective and efficient than eight hours of “work” interrupted by constant calls from children asking if they can run through the sprinkler and if you know where the dog is.  Summer should mean adults without children can find time for family and friends without guilt, and that we all make an extra effort to recognize the difference between a real emergency (brain surgery) and a manufactured one (FedEx deadline).  In summer, flexibility and tolerance should prevail.

In an ideal world, some of those summer rules would always apply, and we would all, mothers and fathers alike, speak up more boldly about the moments — like June, July and August — when the scramble to raise children and to financially support them conflict.  As Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote in “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” for the July/August issue of the Atlantic, the more up front we are about our need to lead a balanced life in which family and work both play a part, the more the adjustments we make to our schedules to accommodate both will become the norm.

Meanwhile, the days are long, but the summers short, and I can’t really bring myself to wish for them to be any shorter, no matter how antiquated our national accommodation for a bygone agricultural life.   How did June go for me? Too crazily, and too quickly, but we will adjust.  July and August promise to offer some time to breathe.

I rarely put myself first

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy taking care of family or friends -- but forgetting to take care of myself is a disservice to myself. Sometimes when I spend my day helping others, I am so exhausted I often turn to food thinking that it is the only “nice” thing that I can do for myself. I can certainly take care of others as long as I don’t lose myself in the shuffle.

I make sure to eat breakfast. I take the time to sit down and enjoy my first morning meal. It fuels me for the morning, and I am off to start my day. Look out world, here I come!  I prefer to pack my lunch and snacks for the next day the night before so that there are no decisions I need to make at 6 a.m. in the morning. I do whatever I have to do to make sure I have snacks with me in case I get the munchies. You should see my desk drawer at work.

That was the idea when I joined the local gym last spring. I wanted to make exercise part of my day. I prefer to exercise before I eat breakfast, so I thought I would be sure to get it in and start my day off on a good note. I lasted two months.

Back to the drawing board...

Happy New Year 2012

Francois graduated from Plymouth State University in June 2011 with a BS in Marketing and a minor in communications. He is back home living with us and works as a management trainee for Enterprise Holdings in their rental car division. For Christmas this year, he gave us a home theater system. Louis and I bought him a 2000 BMW 528i with 160k miles as a graduation present. We found it at our local small-town mechanic’s garage, the place where Francois spent a couple of summers working part-time. Dad has a proud and rewarding moment every time Francois leaves the house for work in the morning before anyone else in the house has to get out of bed.

Caroline is in her Junior year at Purchase College where she is studying towards her BFA in Drawing and Painting. We have paintings all over the house. She is working on several portfolios that she intends to use for job applications.

Veronica has started her freshman year at SUNY Buffalo (UB.) She finished her first semester in their Nursing program but found Anatomy challenging. She is transferring into a double major Business and New Media program. She is enjoying college and appears not to have a clue -- nor care -- what she wants to do. During orientation, Dad and Vern visited Niagara Falls, about 20 minutes from UB.

Matthew is 15 and a sophomore in high school. He is still playing drums, has started wrestling for his high school JV team, and is on the debate team. He is also doing a science research project. He is working on time management skills, and has just discovered it is difficult to learn math without doing the homework.

Nicholas is 11 and in 6^th grade. He seems to have an aptitude for math but is only interested in video games. We have a bunch of games and an Xbox. Playdates now-a-days are no longer on person but on line through the Internet. Dad and Nick spent a day in New York City. They visited the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, the Museum of Natural History, the decorations on 5^th Avenue, and Central Park. They walked over five miles with no complaints.

Dad is finally remodeling the second bathroom. He has finished modifying the plumbing under the concrete slab and now has closed up the hole in the floor. We are getting ready to build the shower walls, tile, and set the toilet.

IBM continues to get leaner and meaner. Dad’s office staff has been cut 50% from three years ago. He’s the oldest guy in the office now. His department and others have moved to another building, so the rest of the Research staff could be consolidated in the main building. One satellite building was closed this year.

I continue to wish I had more time to spend with friends and family, more time to knit or walk the dogs. But too much time is spent circling around a house littered with construction debris and holiday recycling. An ocean of cardboard boxes, eggnog containers, wrapping paper -- all the flotsam and jetsam a holiday leaves in its wake and it's going to get worse before it gets better because at some point in the fast-paced celebrate-o-rama whirlwind we've been on over here, both of us have lost all touch with reality and have absolutely no idea what day of the week it is.

That's how it gets around here at the holidays. Somewhere in between Thanksgiving with friends, Christmas with family, Boxing day with houseguests from out of town, herds of small children and not-so-small teenagers all over the place, holiday parties, concerts, services and cookies, meals, candles, dinners, brunches and deadline knitting, not to mention that much of this is accompanied by bottles and bottles and bottles of very good wine (and even if you don't drink them and other people do it still can lead to a lack of clarity that's disorganizing) and suddenly you've got two adults who have no hope of pinning down the fact that it's actually Tuesday. Brilliant move.

Happy New Year to all. From our house to yours,

Peace.