Playtime in Paris.

On Saturday I had time to explore a tad, both in my neighborhood and elsewhere. I made a Tati run for some things I needed at a plus bas prix, and I came upon these lamps:

Surely these specimens belong to the same species as the leg lamp from "A Christmas Story."And therefore... they must be Italian.

Have you heard of this restaurant "Dans le Noir"? The idea is this: one eats one's meal *completely* in the dark – that is, "dans le noir" – and one is served by waitstaff who are blind. Blind! In other words, they are able to navigate about in the dark and so forth. Presumably a large part of the appeal is the increased dependence on (and enhancement of) one’s sense of taste while deprived of another of one’s senses, i.e., sight. Weird, huh? Neat, huh? I’ve been too chicken to try it though. What makes me even more frightened, though, is the thought that they have a company car, as pictured… one can only hope the blind waitstaff do not drive it. But who knows? They do things differently in France:

Okay, I know someone who will appreciate this one: guess what’s in my neighborhood, about a block and a half away? This is clearly a sign that the stars have aligned:
By the way, has anyone been looking for Oscar the Grouch? Yes? OK, I found him.
Maybe he's been hanging out with Waldo?.

Saturday night, I met with our cousins for dinner in the 6th arrondissement, at a place called La Boussole (the compass). Good stuff. Here’s the lovely C., on the way to the parking garage after dinner:

Fred explained the following sign to me, it's a sort of jeu de mots, a play on words which I didn’t understand at first. Though it's hard not to love any play on words which involves the infancy of lard.
More soon.