Running for Your Life: J’ai Perdu Mon Clef!

PARIS, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 19

It’s 5:30 in the afternoon when we were shopping in the Lower Marais Farmers’ Market, and through the day, M and I have been close, taking pictures and for long hours, 11:30 a.m. jusqu’a 3:30 p.m. we’re writing, eating French onion soup, two coffees for me, Coca Light, coffee for M, bread/butter and jam, mostly working by la fenetre: two tables, four chairs. I’m on a high; M too – “Pooch” and “Centipede” – very far along in the latter. Encounter with an American woman married to a Frenchman at CafĂ© Panis, near Shakespeare & Co. (it’s still there!) along the Seine, and further south, Saint-Germain-des-Pres, where M will buy her waterproof pens, Faber Castell, although before that she will pick up a red wool hat for 10 euros, ridges and daisy decoration, and gloves too, a little Eiffel Tower for our pal at the neighborhood gym, then on to tourist row, a crepe beurre et sucre.