Beautiful Things

I asked my French friend once, “Paris est belle ou beau?” (Paris is beautiful (f) or beautiful (m)? She answered, “Paris est beau.” What that really means is Paris is a masculine word in French. I would have guessed feminine. No doubt about whether the place is beautiful.

Everything there is beautiful. To the eye, the ears, the nose, the palate, the fingertips. And some.

There is lavendar everywhere. Did you know that it chases away scorpions? In the south of France there are beautiful rolling hills of blue, so much of it you can smell it in the air.

They say in France a baker is either a good at making pastries or bread, never both. There are bakeries everywhere to tempt you.

If you take it “to go” they always wrap your pastry in lovely paper, just like this:

And speaking of pastries, can’t you just smell the wedding cake?

I stumbled upon this wedding and watched the guest throw confetti on the bride and groom. I love the way the confetti looks on this gown.

In the Montmarte district, I saw this window and wished I lived there.

Even when things are weathered, they still look amazing.

And who would think Contact paper could look so good on something?

This light fixture in this clothing store, I have to have one.

It won’t go anywhere in this house, but I’m going to make one of these. I will.

See these patches of grass on the table?

Those things are everywhere this season. Decorating store windows in England, Switzerland, and France. This is real grass here in Paris, the other countries had plastic grass. Don’t know what’s up with that, but maybe we’ll be decorating our store windows next year with that stuff.

Oh yes it is…

Not just the regular Coke Blak, chers, they do have that, but also an extreme version of it. The bottle is metal, not glass as it is here. Heaven this place, heaven.

The most beautiful thing about Paris is this:

My daughters buddying up and walking real close to each other like the Europeans do. They never hang out like that at home.

I will give you the sounds of Paris in another post. I am off to my dreams now. A bientot (later).

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Blak On A Mac

Oh yes, I did it again, spilled a drink on my computer. The first time it was on a laptop, IBM I think it was. I watched that thing die before my eyes. The screen had a dark red color that invaded it in a liquidy pattern, like a hemmorrhage. As terrible as it all was, it was funny, yes, horrifying of course, but it just looked like the thing was bleeding to death.

It never came back, either. But that was then. With the MacBook, well, I turned it upside down real fast and let the soda drip off. It still works! It’s alive!

But my keys are sticky. AJ tells me I can just go to the Apple store and they have new keyboards they just pop right in there. Oh, and yeah, of all things, it was Coke Blak I spilled on it.

Yahoo Is The New Answering Machine

My son went to about four stores to find some Coke Blak for my birthday and he didn’t have any luck. He had no idea that a couple of days ago I got lucky and found a stash of Blak while going to the store for a jug of milk. There were about eight 4-paks on sale.

I did not buy them all. Yes they are hard to find but I had to leave some supply for the other Blak fiends out there. Wouldn’t want to break their habit and slow the demand. Noooo.

Why is this stuff is getting harder to find? Maybe Yahoo Answers would know. Those guys know everything. I’ve been wondering for months what the name of that spot behind the knee is called (popliteal). Why would I want to know that? Because someone asked me and I couldn’t remember what it was. It drove me nuts for a while, that question.

Now that is a magical tool, that Yahoo question thing. Ask it anything, there are geniuses sitting around all day waiting for a new question to answer. These “answerers” get points for giving the best answer. Ten points for each. Some people on there have thousands and thousands of points. They are fast, too, it took me about one minute to get my answer from three different people. Four hours after asking the question is when I go back and mark the best answer. That’s how these people get their points.

It’s fun to browse the questions. Especially while hopped up on Blak. This one cracked me up, “Two people evoked some spirits, so why did I get attacked?” The answers to it were even crazier. Something like, “Where do you live? I saw your question about gunshot wounds, you should move away from there.”

So we’ve been going crazy on this thing today.
Me: Can you go get some sour cream, I need it for this recipe?
Blane: Ask that question thing for a substitute…
Yahoo thing: vanilla yogurt…buttermilk…
Me: vanilla pudding. I want points for answering my own question.

Now if you go over there and see my screenname with a bunch of points, that’s not me, my genius kid has been answering homework questions for other kids. I told her to go make her own screenname before people think I’m smart like her.

Here’s a question the thing can’t answer, “Who was it that asked me what’s the name of the spot behind the knee?”

Back to Blak

I’m still looking all over the place for Blak, that new fusion crazy soda drink. This chick, a real clown, Bozoette tried it after reading about it here and she posted a hilarious review of her first Blak experience in this post.

It was this chick, though who left a comment on my “Where’s The New Blak” post with her bright idea to just make it at home. Well I am a DIY type, had thought of it before, but there’s just something about being egged on that made me actually try it.

Should be easy enough, get some Coke, a shot of espresso with a pinch of artificial sweetner, and a glass:

Pour in a decent amount of Coke:

Now a little espresso:

A violent reaction, like those volcano science projects we all do for school. Quick, run, get some towels!

Oh, would I drink this botched experimental liquid? You bet. It was the nastiest thing I have ever tasted and I’m pretty sure it is what made me turn into a little green monster. True, I’m tap dancing out this post with my tiny little feet.

And little green monsters can make a mean creme brulee:

That’s it for today’s kitchen experiments. Tomorrow I will tell you all about our wicked bookcase/DVD shelf in that room upstairs.

Where’s The New Blak?

You either love it or hate it. I’ve never had so many store clerks open up a conversation about a product I’m buying as with Coca-Cola’s new Blak soft drink.
It’s a little bit coffee, a little bit Coke and comes in those old fashioned sized Coca-Cola bottles. I was hooked on the first one. At two bucks a pop, it’s an expensive habit, so I’d have one every other day. Then the grocery store started selling them for five dollars a 4 pack. Yay! It became a daily habit and then suddenly, I can’t find them anymore. I don’t know if people just didn’t like them or if they are like me, buying them as fast as they put them on the shelf.

Another product I like but can’t get here is Mini-Pringles. Check ’em out:

I’ve only seen them for sale in the UK. They are so cute and I can fit a whole chip in my mouth. Oh, if you put two chips back to back, you can make duckling lips. Or beaks. You know what I mean.

Have you tried Blak? Do you like it?