The washing machine ate my day a.k.a. the day I ate someone else's nutella

Progress in Paris -- Lucien was only awake for three hours in the middle of the night last night, as opposed to the entire night the night before. Better, but it's still upsetting and disorienting to watch "Ratatouille" at 2:00am.

Our washing machine is the size of a shoebox and can fit approximately five pieces of clothing at a time. I would pat it affectionately and call it "cutie" if I didn't have so much damn laundry to do. It's one of these fancy European machines that wash and dry in the same cycle -- in theory, that is. First I managed to get the clothes wet but not soapy. Then they got too soapy and didn't rinse. Finally they were clean AND rinsed -- and the machine had shimmied itself across the kitchen -- but not a one of 'em was dry. At one point I suggested that maybe they were starting to look "a little fluffier," but Alex looked at me squarely and suggested I was perhaps "a bit too optimistic there."

Alex and I consider ourselves intelligent, educated people, but the amount of time spent staring intently at the machine, looking at each other with concern at each beeping, humming, or squawking noise emanating from it, with no satisfactory results is just embarassing. Rather than admit we can't figure it out, though, we've decided the machine is "broken" and now have wet laundry decorating the apartment.

Trying to convince Lucien he has to be quieter here than at home because we share this space with other people up and down has been an exercise in patience. Today we gave him prizes for working on his "tip toe" walking instead of the heavy-heeled running he usually employs. He's not going to embrace the change anytime soon, but we can dream (and then move out fast).

This afternoon proved there's only so much a body can take before it shuts down and doesn't give a crap in what beautiful city it's sitting. During Lucien's nap, I spent a fitful half-comatose couch session in which I caught up on all missed episodes of "Weeds." And I drank a lot of coffee. Senseo lovers, holla! I'm smitten.

Staggering into the kitchen (thankfully only a few steps away..) I dove into a jar of Nutella a previous renter had left. Halfway through, I thought, "maybe I shouldn't be doing this." For all I know this previous renter licked the nutella straight out of the jar. But in the end -- didn't care -- and finished it off.

Forcing ourselves outside into the cold just to keep awake, we walked to the Jardin du Luxembourg where we met Emily, Solal, and their two boys, Noah and Otis. Otis and the Loosh are brothers from other mothers. They both like running and yelling a lot. We weren't in le jardin for more than ten minutes when police swept through blowing whistles and yelling the park was closed. Closing a public park at 5:00? Mysterious frenchies and their ways...

Grabbing two crepes and a sandwich on the way home, the narrow streets of our neighborhood were thronged with people out for some fun on a Saturday night. I look forward to appreciating the "aliveness" of this place once I get my wits about me again.

Lucien is now in the bath, devoid of the mass amounts of water he's used to at home because, again, there is no hot water coming out of the tap. The best we could give him was about an inch of lukewarm, and he's in there yelling, "Hey guys? You forgot the water..."

Ciao, mon choux,

MJ