Et le Quinze, Aussi

This was the weekend of picnics — first Saturday’s explosion-filled French-speaking one, and then Sunday’s, which was a bit more peaceful and overwhelmingly more Anglophone. We met Marcus and a few of his fellow American ex-pats, plus a few French amis, on the Pont des Arts for some wine and some food and some conversation. It was quite a lovely evening, if a bit too hot for my taste; everyone here had changed their weather-based small talk to say “summer is finally here!” with a glee that I simply could not muster, knowing full well that when I get home August 7, I’ve still got two full months of summer to go. The up-side of the heat, though, was that it kept the crowds away long enough for us to claim a good spot; by the time the sun started setting, the bridge began to fill with folks sitting and drinking and singing and so forth. It was quite fabulous — the setting, the wine, the food, the conversation — but by the time we got home, I was completely wrung out. Sun does that to me.

Happily, the weather took a turn yesterday; the high of 90 degrees on Sunday became a high of 75ish yesterday, and the clouds came back, and about 5 pm yesterday it started raining. Gloriously. By about 8.30, it was absolutely pissing, in a way that had me making comparisons to Thailand, or even to Louisiana. Viewed through southern Californian eyes, it was positively profligate; I wanted to rush around with barrels and collect it all for safekeeping. I mean, really: there was water falling from the sky. How can anyone not find that miraculous?