Vixen Chronicles

I'd been taking things at my usual break-neck speed for several days, so it was high time I slowed down to a more leisurely Parisian speed. The kids wanted to go to Eurodisney, but we could go see Monsieur Raton at home, so we opted for a Parisian amusement park instead.We chose the Jardin de Acclimation. Part park, part amusement, park zoo, a sort of schizophrenic place, literally smaller than my back yard. Its been around awhile. At one point, in the 1700"s, the zoo was an anthrolpolgie exhibit where they'd displayed africans in cages. After locating it on a map, I pondered how I would get there. It looked to be between the Arc de Triomphe and The Grand Arch, so how far could it be, right? Ha! Ha! I wouldn't be fooled twice. As it turned out, the best way to get there would be by train. Acck! I whined. I complained, but I finally acquiesced. I was going to have to go underground. After I was sedated, we figured out the route. Ten minutes later, we were there....

The kids were missing. I could hear them laughing in my dreams. I sat up in bed, panicked, realizing they'd benefited from my jet lag and had escaped from their beds somehow. I was disoriented and it took me a second to recognize my right bank hotel room and to recognize that their voices hadn't come from my dreams but from the bathroom. Both at the same time. Not good. Another kind of panic set in. That could be just as bad as my imagined kid-escape. Groggy, I bumped into a few walls as I made my way to them. I rubbed my eyes. "What are you guys doing in here?" I asked. "Mommy, Look, there's a special bathtub for my dolls in here." It took a second for the object of their fascination to register. "Honey, that's not a doll tub. That's a bidet." I rubbed my eyes. If I wasn't so tired I'd laugh. "We don't put our dolls in there." "Why not?" I just wanted to go back to sleep. "It's not for ...

I was exhausted by the time I stepped out of the plane, but that quickly dissipated as soon as I caught a glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe.  It was Sunday and tomorrow was a national holiday.  There was some sort of commemoration there, not the usual ceremony  of the unknown soldier and the etoile was filled with bands and soldiers in ceremonial regalia. Our driver whizzed by and I hurriedly snapped photographs from the car and quickly tried to explain the history of the arch to my girls. We'd approached from the same direction as Napoleon's troops, even though he'd marched through an incomplete wooden arch at the same spot where we now saw the soldiers.  They seemed to ignore my tidbit of history, the older one rolling her eyes at her mother, the odd Trivial Pursuit Queen, but I knew they would get something from my babblings. Our hotel wasn't far from there.  I'd stayed at the same place last time I'd visited, ten years ago and I quickly realized how long ago th...

No trip of mine would be complete without its glitches, right? Let's review. I've been assaulted by nature's forces, tornados, rain, natural water, either while I was being swept down the street into a bayou in Houston, nearly missed with a funnel cloud in Altanta and Montgomery,and accosted by a toilet water fountain at sea. I've been left on a rock with a lean to in Belize, stuck in an elevator in Miami. Was anything left? of course. But let's start at the beginnin. You may recall, the last time I flew Continental, I ran into somewhat of a luggage problem, mainly that mine did not arrive AT ALL. I had to go on a whirlwind shopping spree to look decent for a business trip. So, what'd I go and do? I flew Continental again. What happened to once burned, twice shy? I wasn't scared, but I shulda been. Aaaah. family vacation. I was looking forward to a week of bliss (and work, ye olde deadline had yet to be met). I got off the plane in Mexico, and gue...