A Rendez-vous with Remy (from Ratatouille) at Rosa Bonheur

Last week, while the weather was still warm, we spent some time at a great café/bar within the Parc des Buttes Chaumont called "Rosa Bonheur," after the painter. (You know it's great because it was recently reviewed by the NYT.)

Gladis and Becky got super-rich hot chocolate, while Maggie and I shared a relatively cheep beer. We all marveled at the design-conscious interior (including a fairy tale-esque beanstalk centerpiece) and enjoyed some quality people-watching.


They also serve muffins and rotisserie and have this cool beer garden just outside and - hold on a second, what is that.

Oh, yeah. Apparently they have a mouse problem. Not inside, of course - this little guy only seemed interested in rooting around in the dumpsters behind the beer garden area. Given that you're outside, you really can't help if there's a single mouse running around. We minded so little that instead of trying to let everyone know that there was a mouse (which seemed to be Panda's strategy), we distracted ourselves by talking about Ratatouille and the amazing food we were going to eat that night at Mon Oncle le Vigneron. Really, no big deal.

The park administration disagrees. Later on during our walk, we passed a few signs announcing an anti-rat campaign and urging parents to keep a close watch on their children, lest they ingest rat poison or something. 

Poor Remy.

Trash and the City

"Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah" to recycle - that's what the yellow bag says. Or at least, that's the idea. (The directly translation is, "let's sort to recycle.") I find "Trions Pour Recycler" to be particularly uninspiring, so I'm hoping the City of Paris picks up on my version.

Anyway. Trash bags in public places are so mundane that it's easy to ignore them, but they're worth paying attention to. Bags seem so much more efficient and more hygienic than cans. No more smelly, unwashed plastic bins, no more rusting metal containers. Their colors help them stand out just enough ("hey! look over here! we want your trash!") but not so much that they distract from their surroundings.

This was probably not the logic of whoever instated bags in place of cans. The changeover happened the day after 9/11, and may have been inspired by memories of a 1996 terrorist attack in the Paris métro that killed two.

As Maggie points out, the downside is that SDFs (sans domicile fixe, aka the homeless) routinely break the bottoms of the recycling bags to take out glass bottles and aluminum cans, leaving behind piles of refuse.

Still, I'm a big fan (or at least, as much of a fan as one can be of such things). I wonder, though. If the switch from cans to bags took place in Boston, would I notice?