The Old Frontenac place: Jan. 28, 2013

So grateful to Uncle Joe for taking photos of the Old Frontenac project today when slick roads prevented me from driving down on my day off. Here's how he found it today:

A worker installed fascia and soffits on the screen porch. The porch and the big great-room window to the right will both look out over Wakondiota Park to the west. I plan to put a writing desk in front of that big window and do some writing and bird-watching there, or maybe just goof off and stare out the window.

Fascia and soffits are up on the house's southwest corner, where the master bedroom is.

The primitive shack that sat on the land when I inherited it in 2002 from Aunt Annette Sprick Kulseth had no plumbing or septic system, so I carted my water in and used the very fine outhouse, now leveled. This new house will have two bathrooms, a great luxury for this old Pam! (My Robbinsdale house just has one small one, which Noah and I shared quite well when he was growing up.) This tub/shower will be in the main bathroom.

This fancy shower will be in the master bedroom. (The house will have two not-huge bedrooms.)

Congratulations, Paul and Jessie!

We are soooo happy for wonderful young cousin Paul Turner, just married to the lovely and wise Jessie Fauque in Texas. Long may you run, Paul and Jessie (and Ariana, too!). What a great young family.

Paul, Jessie and daughter Ariana. Welcome to the family, Jessie and Ariana! We are better off for having you.

"Do you come here often?" was the quip on this Facebook photo of the bride and groom.

Beautiful, and clearly very happy, Ariana.

Paul with his proud mom, Sandy Kirkwood Turner, and his sister, Kelly.

November 2012 trip to Paris: The best thing of all

In late November 2012, my son, Noah Miller Johnson, 23, and I took a 12-day trip of a lifetime to Paris. I'd been there once, years ago, with friends, but never otherwise overseas except when Dad was stationed in West Germany in the 1960s. Noah had never been overseas, and I wanted him to be able to experience the beauty, art and tangled, often bloody history of Paris as an introduction to the world outside America, an experience which perhaps paradoxically often makes us realize what it means to be American. Apologies for filling up the scrapblog with our trip photos, but we don't ever want to forget what we saw, and recording it here is one way to preserve so. (Remember, cousins, when we were kids, and the aunts and uncles who went on vacation would show long slide shows on big, sparkly screens in their basements? It's like that! Kinda...)

This introductory post tells of the coolest thing, among many cool things, that happened to us on this trip...

My mother and Noah's grandmother, Alverna Edna Sprick Miller (July 23, 1924-April 24, 2006), went to Europe a couple of times on a shoestring as a young woman, after World War II, in search of adventure and romance. (She would find it when she met my dad, William Alton Miller (April 13, 1925-March 1, 1996).) I found a bunch of old photos taken in Paris in 1949 or 1951, I think by her sister, Marian Sprick Broberg. Scribbled on the back of the photo above was, "A bridge on the Seine." But what bridge? We decided to look for it.

After much wandering across the ancient, beautiful bridges over the Seine in central Paris, Noah and I found the exact spot where the photo was taken -- on the Pont (bridge) de la Tournelle between the Latin Quarter and Ile St-Louis, the island in the Seine where we were staying. The old  photo was taken looking northwest, toward Notre Dame and Pont St-Louis. It was very exciting and emotional to find the place where Mom walked and dreamed so many years ago!

Noah held the old photo up to just the spot on the Pont de la Tournelle where it was taken.

Then we stood in that spot, and took a photo of ourselves there.

The very spot where Mom stood on Pont de la Tournelle in that old photo.

The very spot where Noah's grandma stood on Pont de la Tournelle.

Then we walked back to our rented apartment on Ile St-Louis, stopping on the Quai D'Orleans to look back at Mom's bridge. Noah smoked a cigarette and pondered it all. I pondered it all too, but didn't smoke anything.

Under the nearby Pont St-Louis, the bridge between Ile de la Cite and Ile St-Louis, swans and ducks swam in the chilly, shiny Seine.

Noah looked like a character in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale here, I thought, even though he was in Paris, not Copenhagen.

The swans and ducks swam on the Seine, just as they did in Mom's youth, and through time immemorial.

We also had the photo above, also taken in 1949, we believed, in the Jardin des Tuileries, just west of the Louvre. Could we find Mom's statue there?

We did! We did find it! Here it is!

Noah by Grandma's statue. We were too excited to strike the despairing pose!

November 2012 trip to Paris: Where we stayed

We wanted to stay right in the heart of Paris, and so I somewhat extravagantly (hey, it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip!) rented an apartment on the Ile St-Louis, one of two islands right smack in the middle of central Paris. It was at 24 Rue le Regrattier, a place owned by an affable fellow named Pierre who would come by on his motorcycle once in a while to check on us and figure out why the hot water kept quitting on us. From this location, we could walk to most of the places we wanted to see, or easily catch the Metro for the farther-off ones.

Noah in front of the apartment (holding "Les Arc du Noe," which he'd just bought at a bookstall on the Seine). Like most old buildings in central Paris, this one has a courtyard in the middle that you can't see from outside the building (just like a castle, sorta). You enter the courtyard through a huge old door, punching a code into a keypad, then have access to your apartment from the courtyard or interior stairwell.

Our building's courtyard had an ancient well, not used for more than a century, but picturesque indeed.

The view looking up from our courtyard. Though it was November, the sun did come out occasionally.

Our apartment's living room was rather incongruously modern and hip. It used to be an art studio, Pierre said, before he converted it into an apartment. It was pretty cool, but if I were Pierre, and had such a cool place, I might clean it more often. Just sayin'!

Among the apartment's startling but cool features were glass floors in various spots and a staircase leading ...

... down to an ancient stone basement where ...

... there was a very weird but cool kitchen! We celebrated Thanksgiving there with Paris friends Silke Schroeder, Chris Welsch and Allison Johnson.

While ambling about a block from our apartment, we stumbled across this sign on a building where Camille Claudel, sculptor Auguste Rodin's talented and doomed pupil-lover, lived. (Speaking of which, I highly recommend the 1988 French movie "Camille Claudel," starring Isabelle Adjani and of course, Gerard Depardieu.) Ghosts roam everywhere in Paris.

November 2012 trip to Paris: Cool things

Oh, the cool things we saw in Paris! Here are a random few:

Little handmade masks and pins in an Italian mask store on the Rue St-Louis en L'Ile, just around the block from our apartment on Ile St-Louis. I ended up buying the cat one for my friend Michiela (well, for her cats); couldn't resist!

Marionettes in a store on that same street. I couldn't think of anyone who needed a marionette, so didn't buy one.
 

What a cool chair! It was in another Ile St Louis storefront, on the Quai D'Anjou. I kept stopping to gape at it. I wanted to buy it, but I didn't have 6,000 euros, dang it.

Noah braked for any store that had ties and cufflinks. Here was one on the Rue de Rivoli.

Paris has thousands of huge, beautiful, mysterious doors that lead, I assume, to hidden interior courtyards. Almost every one has an ancient, artistic door knocker. Here was one.

Ile de la Cite, the ancient heart of Paris where the great Notre-Dame cathedral sits, is home to a daily flower market. On Sundays, the market also sells exotic birds. I wanted to buy those, too.

A little video from the Sunday bird market.

One day, Noah took a solo trip out to the Musée Marmottan Monet in western Paris, where he found his very favorite work of art, Monet's "Impression Sunrise." "My heart skipped a beat when I came around the corner and saw it," he said.

Noah also spent a lot of time enjoying Paris' night life long after I was fast asleep. He had a wonderful time, and met good people from all over the world. Here he is with one, Frenchman Julien.

November 2012 trip to Paris: Dear friends Chris and Silke

One of the greatest joys of Paris was visiting our dear old friends Chris Welsch and Silke Schroeder, former Minnesotans. Chris works for the International Herald Tribune; Silke teaches yoga and Sanskrit. They've learned French pretty well, and were our wonderful companions for some of the adventures that follow.

Chris and Silke in the kitchen of their little sixth-floor walkup apartment on the Rue d'Armaille, near the Arc de Triomphe. Six floors -- no wonder the long-legged ones are so fit! Noah and I braved the steps a few times ourselves, well worth it to see them and their sweet little place. Once we forgot something up there, and I made Noah go back and get it.

Tea, or was it wine?, with the lovely and wise Silke. Those flowers aren't really growing out of her head, but they could be, given her sun-loving aura.

Chris on the rather dizzying balcony of their sixth-floor flat overlooking the rooftops of central Paris. Chris said he and Silke love sitting out there on pretty evenings, something that native Parisiens rarely do.

November 2012 trip to Paris: La cuisine

My oh my, the food and drink of Paris! We not-too-fancy Minnesotans were smitten!

We'd heard that the coffee of Paris isn't that good, but we managed to stumble across the good stuff here and there, often sitting outside at cafes, which even on chilly days are somewhat sheltered, to people-watch and so Noah could, sigh, enjoy his smokes.

Kir is a summer drink and it was late fall, but I was in Paris, and so I had some! Several times, in fact.

Oh my! A chocolate fountain! This one was in the window of a chocolatier on the Rue St-Louis en L'Ile, just around the corner from our Ile St-Louis apartment. Yep, Noah and I went in there a few times, and bought a chocolate or two, just to be polite.

A cheese shop around the corner from our apartment. I wrote down what I wanted before I went there (after careful menu study), lest I be overwhelmed by the infinite choices and hold up the line of French people who knew exactly that they wanted.

Say fromage! Another cheese shop, this one near Chris and Silke's place.

Chris and Silke at their neighborhood market.

Vegetables, and only the very best vegetables, brighten the street markets in every neighborhood. Gape all you want, but don't touch them! I learned that by trial and error. You point out what you want, and they bag it for you.

Whoa. Desserts. And not just any desserts.

Sweets to die for. We had one or two, here and there, oh yes we did, just so we didn't have to die.

Didn't eat the fish, being a vegetarian, but it looks awfully fresh.

More fresh seafood.

Mon dieu! Here's one place we did not go in --a horse meat market. Horse meat is not taboo in France like it is in the States. But it's still taboo by us.