Caroline in Paris

It feels like we’ve been in this weird holding pattern since we started waiting for Juliette to get the stupid bandage off–like once that happens, things will be normal and forward motion will begin again.

But, of course, it’s been going the whole time; it just hasn’t “counted” the way that it should.

During that time I had a birthday, landed a ghost-writing contract (that’s right: you now know “a writer living in Paris”), and got my first-ever professional dye job (darker, to Nick’s endless confusion).  Since the contract happened right around the same time as the birthday, my gift from my husband this year was this amazing thing that we saw in a window a few months ago:

so that my laptop will stop getting so very much dog hair in it.  And falling on the floor.

Nick, apparently feeling the need to try to top last year’s festivities, offered several lovely choices for drinks and dinner, but in the end I opted for an aperatif at home, and then dinner at Chaumette.  Mostly I just love that they’re right down the street, but some of it was also that I was eager to redeem myself after the catastrophe the week before: I couldn’t eat my dinner.

It’s so not my fault.  I’d suggested a spur-of-the-moment trip on Tuesday to celebrate Nick’s promotion, which initially seemed doable, but by the time he got home he was “too tired.”

“We’ll go Friday,” he insisted while I sullenly reheated something we’d had in our freezer for who-knows-how-long.  “Friday!  It’ll be great!”

So Friday rolls around, right?  And I make a reservation.  And then this bizarre, constant, high-pitched noise starts outside, and at first I didn’t really notice, but after a couple of hours of it I developped one of my non-graines, which I haven’t had in years (it’s like a migraine in most ways: there’s an aura beforehand, the nausea, the sensitivity to light and sound and the feeling like my head is raw and exposed to every breath of air.  The only “off” thing is that my head never actually hurts, per se.  It’s bizarre.  It’s a non-graine).  By the time we were ready to leave, I’d been curled on the couch with my eyes closed and Nick’s noise-canceling earphones (connected to nothing) in my ears while I took shallow breaths for nearly an hour, but there was no way that I was skipping Chaumette for the second time in one week.

One freezer meal is all that a week can really take, anyway.

So I went, and the soup was amazing, and I got a little…overconfident.  Because they had blanquette de veau, which I know that I like, so I ordered it in spite of the fact that 1) I’d already been nauseous for hours, and 2) blanquette de veau is big chunks of stew veal in a cream sauce.

“With rice?” the waiter prompted.

“Please,” I said, because it is the traditional accompaniment.  “But would you also bring us some of your puréed potatoes?“  You know: because they’re so, so good.  And because I just wasn’t…thinking.

So the blanquette and our various side dishes come out, and Nick’s swallowing his filet en croûte whole, practically, and I suddenly find that I can’t eat…anything.  And I’m trying really hard because I can’t come to this place where I see the owners on the street every day, order an extra side, and then leave it all on the plate, but every time I take a bite I think I’ll gag on it, and…it didn’t go well.  Nick noticed, of course, and was only briefly sidetracked by my accusation that he was “just eating really fast.”

“Nope,” he said, pushing bread around the tiny smear of sauce left on his plate.  “You’re actually not eating.”

It was impossible.

“Do you think that they would let me take it home?” I asked desperately; France isn’t really big on takeout.

“Sure,” Nick snickered.  “Just don’t ask for ‘foil.’”

Right; the first time we went there together there were these four tipsy stewardesses who all kept repeating “Doggy bag?  Piece of…foil?  To wrap it up?” at the top of their lungs while the poor waitress tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

So I turn to the waiter and ask (as deferentially as possible): “Could I perhaps have this to go?  It’s delicious, but I had a headache this evening, and…I know that it’s unusual, but maybe there is something you can…?”

The waiter turned to one of the owners.  “Est-ce que Madame peut avoir un doggy-bag?” he asked.

Seriously.  “Un doggy-bag.”

But they did much better than foil, I have to say (I knew that letting the head chef pet Juliette whenever we went by was a good strategy).  Check it out:

So on my birthday I returned their plate.  It seemed like the civilized thing to do.