April 2015 – robinchartier

On Writing

This evening I’m sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe, surrounded by Middle Eastern men with burning cigarettes. It all feels very Covert Affairs. Like I’m a handler, waiting for my contact to show.

But my real purpose is much less exciting. The two older boys attend youth group on this side of the island and since this coffee shop is right around the corner from where they meet and it has a small playground, it makes sense to stay out this way. I’ll do anything I can to save myself some extra driving.

So I sip my cappuccino with a side of smoke and listen as words that I don’t understand roll off the tongues of those around me. I pull out my notebook and read over my stories of Paris, deciding this evening I will write in the present instead of about the past. Meanwhile, my two blondies play with a group of dark haired little boys. They are different every week, but the game is always the same: chase.

After three weeks Camille is finally comfortable enough to join in the game, shrieking along with the rest of them, rather than scaling the plastic playhouse and sitting on the roof where none of the littler boys can reach her. I think about how different her life is at age 5 from any of her brothers. I wonder if any of it will be relevant a decade from now. I wonder where we’ll be a decade from now.

As I’m finishing up, Caleb comes over and asks, “Do you always write everywhere you go?” I give him the writer’s response: I write down what I see, what I think about things, and things I don’t want to forget. Whatever comes to mind. He goes on to ask, “Mom, have you ever thought, you know, when Camille goes to school…”

And I think, “Wow, my son is going to speak God’s calling to me and confirm that I should write a book. This is going to be a story I tell when people ask me how I became a writer.” Until he finishes with, “…of getting a job?”

Bubble burst.

Flying Solo

Josh is gone for a month. I know there are people who never say when their husband is gone for safety reasons, but I don’t worry about my personal safety here in Bahrain. First of all, I have a dog, which scares off 90% of the people he comes in contact with and second? The most dangerous thing I do every day is drive and that’s the same whether he’s here or not. So, if you’re wondering why I haven’t written lately, that’s why.

Anyway, he’s off playing games in the desert and I’m home playing war-games of my own.

This princess was on a roll last night. She was overtired and in a terrible mood and didn’t want to go to bed, stay in her room, or have anything to do with me. She kept throwing her blankets and pillows at me (which I calmly took and removed from the room). I came back in to check on her and she had thrown her mattress off the bed and onto the floor. Possibly to try and spite me? It was a classic Robin meltdown from the early 90s era. That would be me at 20, btw. Not cute.

Earlier that evening I had said if she refused to brush her hair and she wouldn’t let me brush her hair, then I would have to take her to get her hair cut so it wouldn’t be so tangled. In the middle of her bedtime tantrum, she got a pair of scissors and started cutting her hair because, “[mommy] said we were going to cut it so FINE! I’m doing it myself!” Said with all the rage and attitude of someone a decade older and no wiser.

She’s going to give herself the Hicks girl “elevens” if she keeps frowning like that.

A parting shot.

After about 90 minutes of “unpleasantness,” girlie finally gave up and accepted that she wasn’t getting back the stuff she threw at me (until morning) and that I wasn’t going to let her leave her room, so she helped drag the mattress back on the bed frame and went to sleep under the one remaining blanket. On nights like these, I think I’d rather be up against ISIS.

PS: She woke up happy and contrite and had a great day so whatever bug was up her butt, it’s gone for now. No need to worry about us. And tonight she got ready for bed, tucked herself in, and fell asleep while I was on the phone with Josh. Customer service has clearly subbed out my broken baby for a working model. Amen.

experimenting with a transfer

I end up going to the grocery store almost every day here. In America I tried to go to the store as infrequently as possible, but in Oman I love walking up to Al Fair. I usually take the stroller and buy what we can comfortably carry home, but sometimes I get a little ambitious in my shopping and Camille ends up surrounded by piles of food that I then pack into our reusable bags and wedge them in around her — and usually I have to sling a few over my shoulder too. Good thing the walk home isn’t too far.

Today was a mountain of food day and my little eater managed to bite a hole in the bag of carrots and start gnawing on one while I was busy picking out onions. So I gave it to her. Then, while I was getting (very expensive) turkey for the boys’ lunches, she snaked one of the small yogurts and poked a small hole in the foil lid. When I saw that she was sucking the yogurt out through the top I thought, “How clever! My girly is a genius!” and I let her continue. Since I am not a genius, I failed to anticipate the small hole would eventually become a giant crevasse as curious fingers explored the foil and the yogurt. By the time I saw the mess, it was too late to salvage it.

I got a few curious looks as I walked home, but people look at us everywhere we go, so I’m pretty used to it. It was hard to tell if the one group of ladies we passed was horrified by the toddler with a carrot (choking hazard), the huge mess down her face and front, or the fact that she was squished in between bags of potatoes and eggs.

Right before we got out the hose to wash everything down. Cheers!

Day 2?

Really? All this and I’m still only on Day 2? I guess it shows how much more we can fit in when we’re traveling as a group of 2 instead of 6!

As we left the Orsay people were opening umbrellas and sprinkles were falling from the sky. We decided to walk across the street and along the Seine in the misty grey air. Rain makes me so happy. We found ourselves at the end of the Champs-Elysees and decided to walk up it toward the Arc de triomphe. Before coming to Paris last year, the Champs-Elysees was legendary from all the times I had seen it on the final day of the Tour de France, but I was a bit disappointed to discover that it was just a big, busy, modern shopping street with a cool monument at the end. Oh well. It does have some high end shops, like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany. Josh and I popped in to this over the top version of . . .

Abercrombie and Fitch. Yes, seriously. Gold trimmed gates and doors, looking like a palace, but inside are the same clothes, loud music, and pictures of half naked male models. They even have a live Abercrombie model as a greeter.

To go along with the ornate decor, they classed it up and turned the half naked guys into paintings instead of photographs.

The store was huge (4 stories?) and attracted every pre-teen for miles. I heard loads of giggling through the cloud of cologne. It really is that dark inside. I’m not sure how anyone can even see the clothes.

We are obviously too old for this. And too cheap.

A line to get inside the Nike store? Crazy. Inside were 3 floors of athletic wear, wall to wall people, and it was as warm as a California summer day. It was damp and chilly outside, but the employees were all wearing tank tops. It was a sweatbox in there.

We stopped for lunch at the top of the street and rested our feet, drank some wine and sparkling water, and ate gourmet hamburgers. Another great meal. After warming up, we headed across the street to the Arc de triomphe. Well, we actually headed around the circle since the Arc sits in the center of a huge, busy roundabout so we had to travel the perimeter until we reached one of the stairways that led to the underground tunnel access.

After a million stairs up, round and round a small circular staircase, we finally made it to the top. The view of the city is beautiful, even on a wet day. It was the perfect amount of rain — enough for us desert dwellers to enjoy it, but not enough to make us wet. We were both able to wear our regular jackets and didn’t need raincoats. It was fun to stand at the top with the cold drops sprinkling our faces.

Josh still hasn’t been to the Eiffel Tower. I’m letting him catch glimpses of it from all over the city before we go view it up close.

After our time at the top we headed inside to one of my favorite gift shops. I’m not a shopper, but the museum gift shops in Paris always have fun and unique things that you can’t find elsewhere, especially the one inside the Arc. After picking up a few things for the kids (and a metro map dishcloth for me) we took the metro back to our neighborhood to pick up some food for our apartment.

At the cheese shop. I had picked up a few bottles of sparkling water at the corner grocery next door while Josh picked out some cheeses. Then we went a few doors down to the charcuterie to get jambon (french version of prosciutto) and then to the bakery to get a baguette.

And a few other pastry treats as well — why not try them all?

Then we went home, crashed into a nap, and woke up and talked to the kids. I love them, but 5 minutes on FaceTime was enough for me to remember why I needed this vacation. Especially when Camille started demanding that she get to hold the phone and then went off sulking because she had to share the screen. She’s an all or nothing kind of creature. We’re working on that.

Later that evening we ventured out as far as the restaurant downstairs from our apartment where I had a fabulous cassoulet (white beans with sausage and bacon), the perfect comfort food, and Josh ate duck breast. He ordered duck several times on this trip after our dinner with the chef because he wanted to see how it differed from restaurant to restaurant. I ordered a glass of Sanceere, a white wine that comes from a particular region of France. It was my favorite from the night before so I ordered it everywhere we went for the rest of the trip. It’s clean and crisp tasting with very little aftertaste. Every version I tried was a little different, but they all maintained the qualities that I liked from my first tasting. Expanding our minds and our palates.

Orsay

Writing about Paris from the comfort of a poolside lounge chair at a resort — it almost doesn’t seem fair until I mention the haze in the air, the potential sandstorms that threaten to ruin our day, and that I’m on day 3 without cooking gas because every time it runs out the delivery company says, “inshallah, inshallah” and then never shows up. Oh, and I have a broken water pump and a swarm of bees taking up residence outside my girlie’s bedroom window. If you’re ever envious of my life, remember, there’s always a back side to every pretty picture.

But Paris was pretty beautiful both front and back. Day 2 we awoke to clear, chilly skies. I had read about a can’t-miss patisserie so we hopped on Velibs to try more pain au chocolat for breakfast. I wish I could have taken photographs with my eyes (I’m sure that technology is on its way) while riding our bikes because some of the most beautiful views of our trip were the spires of Notre Dame stretching out above the Seine in the early morning light. Since I couldn’t take photos of it I took it all in with my eyes, along with the feeling of the wind in my hair, as we pedaled over the bridge, across the river and down the left bank.

Thankfully Josh was navigating so he got us to a Velib stop near the bakery. Then we fought at breakfast about something stupid while eating perfect pastries — oh, you thought this was going to be all smiles and sunshine? Nope. What I realized from our disagreement is that we haven’t spent enough time together lately and our communication is “off.” Josh has been working long hours and who knows what I’ve been doing, but the end result is where we used to be able read each other well and communicate clearly, we have lost part of that and it is resulting in misunderstandings and frustration. So we got through breakfast and I was only mildly miffed by then (and past the point of refusing to join in eating breakfast and saying that I should have come to Paris with Carter) so we decided to go to the Orsay Museum because it was right around opening time and hopefully that way we would miss the long lines to get in.

It turned out to be a great move because there was a line several hundred people deep, but because we had bought museum passes the day before, we strolled right in through an alternate entrance. The museum was just opening and I told Josh we needed to start at the top floor, with the gallery of Impressionists — the reason everyone comes to the Orsay.

This is a one in a million shot — we had the place to ourselves.

Hello, Monet! How nice of you to display all of your churches just for me!

No joke. We had a private showing. Last year, on a February weekday morning there were several hundred people milling about. It was still beautiful, but to be able to view room after room of famous works in silence and solitude was an experience that will probably never be repeated.

My high school English teacher’s favorite artist is Camille Pissarro. I think of her every time I see his work. She gave me an excellent background in both art and literature. One of very few instances where I can give a positive example of my OPS education. (As opposed to my “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” teacher who would leave the classroom to wander the halls of the school for 40 minutes and didn’t care what we did as long as we stayed inside the classroom and didn’t report him. I heard he later went on to become Vice-Principal. sigh)

There’s nothing under his fig leaf (yes, I checked).

this one reminded me of Camille and her kitty love

I know I’m experiencing something special.

Just Josh, me, and Degas’ ballerina.

After about half an hour or so, a few people started making their way up and into the Impressionist wing, but by then we had seen it all and headed back downstairs.

The Orsay is on the Left bank and looks out over the Seine to the Louve on the Right bank

The building is an old train station that was converted to a museum so the building is as interesting to look at as the paintings and sculptures themselves.

Oh gosh, more selfie takers. Yep, you and Van Gogh. BFFs forever!

Best field trip ever! Seated in a room full of nudes. How very French.