L'ORDI, LORDY, FORTY.
New photos in the
photos section.
Yes, it's certainly true. On Thursday I turned 40. I don't really know what to think about that--I tend to think in the here and now, and the here and now of my life is better than its ever been--Dominique and Aden, great music happening around me, my parents healthy and money enough to pay the bills. In fact, physically, I look and feel a hell of a lot better than I did a few years ago, I tsk tsk at some photos that come up now and then from the early part of this decade.
My phone, email,
Facebook wall, etc all buzzed with well wishes from thoughtful friends and family around the world. I really appreciated that. Thank you friends and folks that I didn't know knew me!
So, my day--I slept in. Dom brought me a cafe and pain au chocolat in bed, damn! Eventually she went off to work and I didn't. I did catch up on some emails, but I didn't fire up ProTools today. Outside, it was absolutely freezing. I did crawl up to the Mac repair place to receive the dearly departed remains of my iBook G4 (2005-2008). The motherboard fried a couple of weeks ago, and after some thought, I decided not to fix it and to move on to a new laptop. So, I went to pick up the remains, plus the contents of the drive now moved to an external drive (I hadn't done a full backup as recently as I should have, and in the end it was pretty cheap to have them pull my data off my internal drive. I couldn't help but see this as the modern day equivalent of pet cremation--here are your little companion's remains, in a resilient little box meant to go on a shelf in your home.
FYI, from the lines that I've waited in and the number of units I can see on the shelf, Mac repair appears to be a VERY lucrative business to be in.
I know, I am not very green here. BUT--after 3 years of solid travel, the airport wasn't functional, the performance was slow, the hard drive was completely full, the keys were blank, and who knows what problems lay in store, with €500 Euros investment in a new motherboard. I was planning on getting a new laptop in another year or so...this just, well, call it fate/planned obsolescence.
I also voted today. My ballot came in the mail, I filled it out, and sent it back straight away.
My only other indulgence during the daytime was to spend some time in a cafe reading the Int'l Herald Tribune but in fact yet another strike in the newspaper publishing world meant no papers today. This happens quite often in France.
So, Dom came home and we headed to
L'Ambroisie for my birthday dinner. L'Ambroisie has been on my list since Sergi Arola told me it was his favorite restaurant in Paris. Dinner here was my birthday request to Dom, placed many months ago, and anticipation was extremely high.
Expectations--exceeded. We took the bus up rue St. Antoine (going to a €1000+, three stars Michelin dinner on public transport = cooler than cool) and walked to Place des Vosges, right on time for our 8pm table. Arriving at the door, and...it's chained shut. We had instant basset hound faces. Shiiiiit. Ah, we were just the first people there. They were just opening, and for 20 minutes or so, we had the place to ourselves. It filled up over the course of the evening. As did we!
My starter was a fantastic layering of delicate, translucent scallops, layered with generous slices of white truffle, on top of broccoli and a kind of puree of parsley. Now, broccoli is not one of my favorite things and it can often taste cabbagey and bitter or, sugary and artificial, but here it was delicate and far from cloying.
Dom's starter was just a radically huge chunk of foie gras, which had a glaze on it that we're still arguing about what it could have been made out of. But suffice to say, this was magic.
Wine #1: a half bottle of 1997 Jadot Chevalier-Montrachet Les Demoiselles, which was a mysterious and tantalizing parade of mineral and nut flavors; wine #2 was a 93 Guigal Cote-Rotie La Turque. 93 has been called a mediocre or worse year for the upper Rhone, and this bottle would be estimated from afar to be past its prime. Indeed, it was lighter and more delicate than, say, the big 100 point 1999 would be--but, I often like wines that don't force themselves to center stage and reduce your meal to irrelevant status. It's time in the cellar had imparted exactly what you hoped it would--mellowed out any hard edges, and increased complexity...although, true, it was somewhat diffuse and distant compared to a bottle in its prime but we loved it.
For the main course, Dom and I had some highly tender lamb that La Turque melded beautifully with, and there was enough room to stuff a little cheese and chocolate cake on top.
Pilates class the next morning = hell. Worth it.
Spent most of the week finishing up the Minky mixes, and then embarked on a recording project with another Seattle expat, one Bud Reichard--Bud is hanging in Paris for awhile, and after doing some home recording stuff he wanted to up the audio ante, and we've been recording at my place--yep, in the flat. The songs are generally on acoustic guitar, and we're planning on building it up from there.
After one nights' session, Dom & I had the good occasion to dine with one of my favorite peeps, Rebecca Gates, who I have known for some 20 years, going back to when she managed Portland OR band
the Dharma Bums...she went on to form the incredible Spinanes, who, among other things, made a masterpiece a decade ago in the form of
Arches and Aisles, really a stunning thang. RG has a couple of new records in the works, I'm pleased to hear; meanwhile, she was in Paris as part of the
FIAC, being involved as she is in the visual arts world as well.
Friday I recorded a new song, in collaboration with one Eric Litcher, another Seattleite, part of long time Seattle band the Green Pajamas. We'd worked on some music before, recorded at his home studio a couple of years ago, some of which ended up on the GP's last album,
The Night Races Into Anna. This time around, Eric sent me a song of his, and asked me to record a version...which is what I indeed did do! It turned out really cool, not sure what will come of it but will keep you posted.
The rest of the weekend we spent in Tours, Dom's hometown. Aden has been stationed here during the mysterious 2 week school vacation that starts just 1.5 months into the school year, and 1.5 months before Christmas holidays...anyway, she's been with the French grandparents and we went to visit with her and eat up some delicious home grub. I brought some mediocre foie gras and some
excellent late harvest wine that I bought at the Bilbao Airport. But Claudette did the rest--we had pig bits on Saturday, and a roasted duck (and excellent foie gras) on Sunday, each night accompanied by some '96 Chinon--this bottle may not have been much to write home about when new, but it really picked up some character and dignity in Claudette's cave. We also spent some time picking around Tours' open air market, I bagged an enormous
cepe for tomorrow's dinner. On the way to Tours we opted for the cheap way down--bus to Gare D'Austerlitz and the 2 hour local train--and we lucked out: turns out the TGV's were delayed by 2+ hours due to technical problems that night. On the way back, we opted for the TGV--and left the Corail that was supposed to have left 15 minutes before us sitting in the station. The TGV, which takes just under an hour, was packed, and in fact--we lucked out here too. They never bothered to make us buy tix.
Let the roaring forties continue.
Love
KS
Paris
