Day21-22: 3rd week in Paris

Warning: this is the heaviest food posting. Husband is leaving back to NYC in one week, so I'm taking the maximum advantage of his company.

And everything is closed on Sunday. No shopping center is open in Paris. I guess the idea is still to go to church. They still take "Sunday" seriously here, people not working, not shopping, but just relaxing staying home or hanging out. In NYC generally, Sunday is when you shop since during the week people are too busy working. After so many years in the west I have a hard time as a Japanese/New Yorker to "do nothing". They said Nice, or southern France never really caught on as a destination for Japanese tourists, because there simply aren't many places to visit, but it's a place to "hang out and do nothing". But this Sunday, one of the last Sundays I will spend with my husband before he goes back to New York, we took it easy and "enjoyed" Paris.

We went out to an Italian restaurant around the corner for lunch; I had a Risotto as I don't feel like doing a serious cooking in my little kitchen. After my husband leaves back to NYC next week, I will eat drastically less in restaurants; I don't like eating in restaurants by myself so much. So I will enjoy his company while I can. This is "Café Degustation" desert, 5 Euro that comes with Tiramisu and Panacotta au Coulis de Fruits Rouges. (red berry sauce).

This morning I had some talks with Norbert and Frédéric while standing on the bridge in front of IRCAM, then in Norbert's office. They haven't complained that I have been bombarding them with ideas and materials. It is getting clear to me. IRCAM teams already have many of the "Holy Grails" I want to use, but only they are not ready to be drank from, at least by me or outside IRCAM :) We now have pretty clear idea and immediately very useful "Grails" for performance we are working on now. Our conversation spilled over a wonderful lunch by Rue du Renard near IRCAM; this is Salade de Gesiers. In the afternoon Bruno and I worked on our own projects for "Max for LIVE".

Husband had a meeting with his old school's professor and we went for a quick Tapas, then we went to Montreuil, outskirts of Paris, for a concert at Instants Chavirés for a Gerry Hemingway and Bob Ostartag duo. Gerry, who now teaches in Lucern, invited us; it has been so long since we played together at the Roulette together with Mark Dresser, and it was great to see him. Towards the end of the set I enjoyed the "testosterone overload" of his drums.