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Not at the end of the day, but I was on a path today and two women were walking and talking ahead of me. I rang my bell and, as I like to do to show that I'm no "scorcher," I thanked them and excused myself as I passed. One of the women said "Well, it's marvellous that you have such a nice bell." I swelled with pride (yeah, like I made the bell--heck, it was a gift so I didn't even buy the bell. Yup, that's me--all proud cuz I acclimated to a bell in the way it was meant to be used). Okay, interested parties out there ISO of people who "like long walks by the river": use a bell...
After a precarious weekend visit from my best friend, in town to see my little girl (Bye-Bye Aunt Angela) I unhesitating I needed to take Gus out into the fresh air (and maybe burn off some calories...it's so easy to get into "party mode" when I have visitors and I barely eat lotsa lotsa). Gus and I huffed it over to the Historic Fort Snelling overlooking the Mississippi (after stopping at Fireroast Mountain Cafe on the way to pick up some cranky-cultural refreshments--tamales and chai).
Then over to the fort. Nothing like enjoying a little picnic while in the gloom of the cannon ports...

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18.01.10

Few things either tie us together or keep us apart as much as geography. If anyone in France asked where I was from, I typically started by answering “Cleveland.” I would start zooming out until something made a ally. If not Cleveland, I was from Ohio. If not Ohio, I was from a place halfway between New York and Chicago. If not that — and this became mostly my standard conform to — I was from the United States, “in the center, but a little to the northeast.”

The situation was reversed when my new acquaintances tried to advertise me where they were from. Even after nine years of French classes, I found I’d only studied the “big” places in France. I had heard of Grenoble before living there, but it wasn’t until I arrived that I knew anything about the genuine city, its region, or most other French places. When I met a new person, I tried to keep the name of his or her hometown in my mind long enough to get back to a map and look it up. At least I wasn’t alone in this ungovernable: I was once part of a conversation in which a girl from the northern city of Lille was defending her region against two southerners, who had lumped it in with Paris.

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