chloebirthday!!
It was Chloes birthday today, but unfortunately she is still sick with some kind of sore throat/flu like symptoms from one of bastard co-workers. Hint: when you can't talk and have a hacking cough, STAY HOME. Anyway, we were supposed to go to a gite in the drome this weekend to climb and relax, but its going to rain the whole weekend, and now chloe is sick! Instead, we're hoping that she'll get better so we can use our reservations at Le Caro de Lyon. We really should be taking more advantage of how close we are to Lyon! Today I re-discovered a wonderful chocolatier called Hybord just down the street from us on rue Thiers. They have the standard fare of truffles and florentines (the florentines are excellent by the way), but they also have some wonderful and creative chocolates filled with unusual flavors. For example, I bought chocolates filled with fig, some with fennel and others with jasmine. I bought some roses for chloe in the florist just down the street and had an entertaining experience: A middle aged guy was in front of me, acting a bit uncomfortable, and being really indecisive about shoosing which kinds of flowers he wanted. After a few minutes he finished choosing the bouquet, and the florist started preparing them for him. Just at that moment another woman came into the shop and it became clear that they knew eachother, since they started talking. Actually, they were so familiar that I thought that they might be married. The funny thing was that he became visibly uncomfortable as soon as he saw her, and told the florist that she could prepare the flowers at her leisure and that he would come back to pick them up. And then he sped out the door. As soon as he left, the lady looked over at Chloe's roses, which the florist was stripping leaves off of and starting oohing and saying "Oooh, are those HIS?!". She then explained that the man was her boss, and that he was getting divorced, so she was shocked to see that he had bought roses (he hadn't). In the next five minutes I learned a surprising amount of detail about the poor guys life: he has two wonderful children, who thankfully ("heureusement"! she shrieked) take after his wonderful wife, and that he is always morose and boring etc. etc. Honestly, I was titilated and would enthusiastically nod my head whenever the woman turned to me to tell me or the florist more about how much of a loser the man was. The whole time, I was trying to figure out if it was the kind of conversation and experience that I would normally have enjoyed in the US, or if it was just the rare experience of fully understanding and being a part of (sort of) an intimate french conversation, that kept me so entertained. I suppose it doesn't really matter. At one point the lady said "but didn't you know any of this? He is a regular customer!", to which the florist drew herself up and responded "In my metier, discretion is important, and I don't ask questions". And then she leaned forward and said "but between women is a different story of course...!!".
