Fox and skunk take France!

 

In trying to clear out a backlog of assorted picture projects, many of which were semi abandoned as an inexplicable desire to convert flower close-ups to Dr. Seuss drawings overcame me, I may have come to my last coherent collection of recent unused material: pictures of fox and skunk. The most significant group of these have their origin in pictures of Villefranche Sur Mer wherein I flooded the city, probably as a response to how it has stopped raining here and most of France is burning. I set fox and skunk off on a rowboat and then might have aged some of the pictures as well.

Of course, going through these I couldn't resist making some more from various pictures I have taken around town.

I may have shown one or two of these in earlier versions or collections, but most should be wholly or partly new.

I think with these I'll probably be ready to take on whatever Genoa throws my way. 

Flowers, yes, but different

I may have tested the load carrying capacity on pictures of flowers here on clerkmanifesto.  But that was last month! I'm pretty sure it all resets at the start of the new month.

Yes, yes, this is August, very different than July. 

And if it doesn't reset? 

Fortunately, these are very different flower pictures. These are the kind where I layer and draw and erase them until I start to have back problems and need to go lie down for a bit. So even if you can hardly bear to look at another picture of flowers perhaps you'll still be able to enjoy the art here, which, you know, just coincidentally happens to be of flowers, but the flower part isn't very important.

Except maybe to the flowers.

 

Doris in proper perspective

 

A few days ago, after a particularly engaging story about French Banking (to readers especially eager for updates: no, we have not received our new bank cards yet. I will keep you posted with hourly updates), I posted a series of pictures featuring Doris the super intelligent alien in some old altered paintings and photographs.

You probably don't remember these pictures.

You were still thinking about the banking stuff. After the banking story it would make sense that everything else was just noise.

And why not? I mean, wow.

But also, I don't know, I liked a couple of the Doris pictures, but I don't think they were really the ones I meant to post. You see, I have these other Doris and or alien ruins around town pictures. I'm not entirely sure how compelling they are, but I think they might be more compelling at least than the ones I displayed here before. And they kind of show off my city, which is important. 

So I think today's pictures are the ones that I meant to post.

And if they aren't what I meant to post?

I'm sure I'll find something soon that I might have meant to post. At which point we'll post that, and then we'll see.

In my long experience here...

If you wait long enough everything is either forgotten or always meant to be.

Usually both.

Gathering for Genoa

We're not going to be in Genoa for a terribly long time, just a few nights. But it still behooves me to get ahead here on clerkmanifesto so your steady daily reading isn't interrupted for a single moment. For longer transitions than this I have come up with all kinds of solutions; for instance when we moved to France via a five week trip to Japan I made up almost a hundred posts ahead of time, and then when I was in Japan I added in content from my phone as I could. Once, on a month long trip to Rome for our 25th anniversary I posted fictional accounts of what I thought would be happening, but wrote them all before it happened. Unfortunately this was lost on some readers, and upon my return I found myself at work having to correct the record some. Although, and anyone who has ever been on some fabulous vacation knows, no one really cares very much.

I mean, other than you. Which does you credit.

Of course, a four day trip hardly merits all this fuss. I have often been many days out ahead in my clerkmanifesto postings. Just not lately. Lately I do my French practice every day and write my post. Which is maybe why I'm talking about this now.

Also, I mean, I have to talk about something. And as noted I'd like to do it five or six times today, if I could.

Fortunately too, to help it all along, I have various photography projects to pull from, so they might be able to come into it too. 

For instance, check out these flowers!

Croissants v. Toast

 

Among the almost meaningless details of life in France to obsess over, I would like to discuss today the subject of toast.

In my increasingly lengthy lifetime (well isn't everyone's? Except dead people's I guess), I have gone in and out on toast. From delighted childhood experiments with toast covered in cinammon and sugar and saturated in butter to my daily breakfast during my last years in Saint Minneapolis of avocado on dense german rye toast, toast has made sometimes steady appearances and sometimes disappeared from my life for years at a time.

Alas, this will not be a recounting of my life through toast though.

I'm sorry for that. I would like to read it too!

But I will say enough of my history to note that going to Japan was a bit of an eyeopener when it came to toast. They were really into it! They would make these beautiful milk bread loaves and the best cafes would serve glorious buttered toast with coffee for breakfast, often with a small salad and slightly poached egg. 

I still miss it.

Here in France we have the croissant, and it's pretty great really. Not least because even at the most wildly overpriced beach cafe serving the worst possible croissant, it's only 2.50 at the most and often perfectly edible. Add 20 or 30 cents if you want a pain au chocolate which isn't exactly a croissant, but for our purposes it is exactly a croissant, only with a bit of chocolate in it. 

You're not a caveperson, you know the deal.

But toast is also a regular habitue of the breakfast selection here in France. And here's where the tiny madnesses of France rear their head.

Toast, served with buerre et confiture (butter and jam), is reliably at least three times the cost of a croissant. Three times!

Is this toast made with an exquisite milk bread like in Japan?

Not that I've noticed.

Does it come with copious, stunning French butter?

No, the butter looks to be a modest pat, not usually especially nicely presented, and, well, it's France, and butter, so at least that's perfectly fine, but...

Oh, and there's a little tin of jam at best.

All of this goes for like, five to eight euros!

Needless to say I don't ever have toast here.

And it probably shouldn't fascinate me so much. Some cafe items have a huge mark up here. It's not like I refuse to buy all these perfuntory french cappuccinos for often as much as five euros. I understand about restaurants and cafes and the economics of mark ups. And I would do best to enjoy the delightful nearly at cost French items, like baguettes, or croissants, or fresh orange juice, rather than obssessing over where they make their money back.

But toast?

Toast?!