Today

While eating lunch in my favorite park, a woman sat down next to me on the bench, and after a few moments of silence, she asked if I was American. "Oui," I replied. "Comment saviez-vous?" She pointed to the whole wheat oat bagel, vache-qui-rit and lox sandwich I was eating. Apparently she had spent some time in the states and recognized a bread shape she hadn't seen in many years. I informed her that a) you can totally get bagels in Paris (in addition to Ninasushi and La cérise sur le gateau in the 19th, yesterday I stumbled on an awesome-looking sandwich shop in the 6th called "Bagels and Brownies"); and b) you can easily make them yourself.

Then she told me her life story and the life stories of her kids, only stopping when she remembered she had originally sat down to smoke her one cigarette for the day. She asked, almost rhetorically, "Vous fumez pas, comme tous les américains?" I answered "oui," and she very kindly went off to smoke at another bench. I really do love that park.

Unrelated: Fast forward to tonight, when Maggie and I started getting ready for our trip tomorrow. We took out Panda's vaccination form to put it with her other stuff for the kennel and realized she's past due for a bordatella shot - which is the shot that's specifically for preventing disease while your pet is at the kennel. So tomorrow morning we're going to have to scramble to find a vet who will take walk-ins and hope we don't have to use the emergency service at the one place we know will be open. (Tomorrow is a state holiday. Emergency service is costly.) Luckily we haven't booked any train tickets, and since we're staying with couchsurfers we don't have any deposits down on hotels, so if we have to wait until Thursday to leave (when more places will likely be open) it's not the end of the world.

Oh, Panda.