You may have heard that Paris was flooded, and I’m sure you’d like news and photos. If I were a good blogger, I would have both. But alas, I have news but no photos. In fact, I really have no photos for this post, and not even much firsthand news. Bad blogger. Bad.
Before I get to the news “light edition”, let me back up.
I’ve transferred my blog to a new domain and there have been a few hiccups. My last two posts have disappeared into a different plane of existence, never to be seen again. One of my random old posts got sent out as an e-mail as if it were a new post (sorry). And I was unable to access my blog for a week. It seems like everything has been sorted out now and everything should run merrily along.
So you may have heard that Northern France was flooded. In 1910, the flood waters came as close to our house as one street away, so we were not too, TOO worried that it would affect us. The Seine reached 8 meters in 1910 and it was only 6 this time around. At the same time, we’re not completely out of the clear yet. We have another week of rain scheduled in the near future. But at the moment, it’s sunny. And we are at peace.
Well … as at peace as we can be when our construction workers all disappeared, leaving us with a massive hold in our wall and no resume-date scheduled. Peace is a relative term and doesn’t always have to do with circumstances.
Back to the floods. I can’t access some streets in my town, and some bridges are out too. The Louvre is still closed, I think, and you can see some pictures here if interested. (Click on the blue button that says, “Lancez le diaporama”). I believe the water was contained in the Seine for the most part. Only the cobblestone walkways below street level were flooded.
After the flood in 1910, they put safeguards in place that actually allow towns southeast of Paris to be flooded rather than letting the Seine rise too high and potentially flood Paris. So the ones the hardest hit (I think) are in the SouthEast, and the rising Seine has carried on northward to Normandy, which has caused further flooding there.
Otherwise, it’s pretty much status quo, even more so now that we have gas again (there was a freeze due to massive strikes). The timing is auspicious. We have flooding, and we have strikers. Limited train service, limited gas, weeks of rain. It’s fun to be here.
Now. On to the cat. We discovered what we thought was a stray wild cat. She was too dirty and scarred to be domestic, or so we thought. However, she allowed us to pet her and we couldn’t bear to let her stay outside in the cold and rain. She was also trembling from fear. The vet was closed yesterday and I asked my friend (who has a cat) to keep her overnight – since we didn’t have any cat food or anything like that – so I could bring her to the vet yesterday. It was a huge imposition because she was organizing her son’s birthday party (my kids were attending). But she graciously said yes.
So yesterday, I picked the cat up, borrowed a cage, and brought her to the vet. And good news! She had an electronic chip! I would love to report that the owner was as overjoyed to hear from the vet about the lost cat but he seemed to be annoyed. However, his wife came this morning, and according to the vet was happier to see the cat than her husband had sounded. They figured out that she (the cat) had probably been hit by a car and also been in a cat fight. I cried when I heard the good news that she was going home. Poor thing. She was so scared.
Concerts. In my disappearing recent blog post, I talked about the 2.5 opera-ballet that my daughter participated in. But that was just the beginning of a mad rush of concert-going. There’re also the musical concerts. Piano. Piano plus electric guitar. Cello. Cello plus piano. Trumpet. Trumpet in a chateau. Trumpet in a park. Trumpet plus piano. Trumpet all alone. All three of my kids have several concerts, and I have never in my entire life longed for summer vacation as I long for it now.
Books. This is the last bit of news for today. Mine is on sale this week for only .99. Ninety-nine cents to read a labor of love and fun. It’s a good beach read if that’s where you headed. Will you download the book? Or spread the news? 🙂
Talk to you soon, friends!
I heard good things about your book 🙂 Thanks for the heads up on the $.99 price! Can’t beat that for a good book!
Thank you Kelly – that’s so encouraging.
I adore kids’ concerts, recitals, shows, etc. I really look forward to them. Maybe because I have only one kid. It might be different with three.
I usually do. This has been a hard year. And it’s harder to juggle three, which I found out firsthand this year. This is the first year that my youngest has just as many activities as the older ones (sport, instrument, and solfege – mandatory if you play an instrument). And it’s not one concert per kid, per instrument. It’s several. But yes, I hope I’ll handle it better next year when we’re not in construction, etc. 🙂
When we lived in Florida, I sat through many many concerts, number 2 daughter played trumpet and our only son Clarinet. Since moving back to France two years ago, I have become a Tennis Mum instead. I have swapped hard benches for even harder benches. The juggling of kids is always tough, with five I have become a master juggler!!!
Multiple kids always seems doable until you add the activities! 🙂 Brava, maman of 5.
Oh my, the Seine! That handy little page translated into English for me, but I understood what was happening from the picture.
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NO Floods, please))))
Only CATS, BOOKS, & ART! x
btw, where’s the photo of the cat?
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