Miscellaneous Thoughts

At left is a doggie crypt, which resides in the Musée Lorraine in Nancy. The crypt is for Ninette, a young dog of financier Jacques-Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt in the 18th Century. I thought it touching he would have such an elaborate mausoleum made for his dog. It made me think of my family's first two labs (Happy and Happy Too) and the Bubbling Well Pet Cemetery in Napa, where my parents have them interred.

Nancy, like Metz, is in the Lorraine region, however, unlike Metz, it is in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department. Like the Musées de la Cour D'or in Metz, the Lorraine Museum has artifacts and descriptions of the ancient history of the region. In my Nancy Photo album, you will see a big golden porte, which is one of the entries to la Place Stanislas. Stanislas Leszczynski was an exiled Polish king who was given the Duchy of Lorraine as compensation when he abdicated.

Macarons, specifically, the macarons of Maison des Soeurs, a confection of egg white, almonds and sugar, are a culinary specialty of Nancy. These are nothing like the macaroons we think of in the US. They are more akin to a soft meringue in density and texture, and not as cloyingly sweet. The recipe for these macarons was developed by two sisters of the convent of Dames du Saint Sacrament, who sold them to earn a living when they took refuge with a local doctor after religious congregations were dissolved during the French revolution. The recipe has been passed on to the successors to their shop, outside of which I lined up with a horde of other tourists so I could send some to my father, sister and niece and bring some home with me, as well.

Information on Nancy...

Wikipedia has an English entry on Nancy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy.

The Nancy tourist board: http://www.ot-nancy.fr/uk/centre_historique/index.php.

I jogged to Parc de la Seille today, and saw two men on the basketball court, so I asked if I could shoot with them for a bit. I have not played basketball in 20 years (and it showed), and am not really a basketball person, but it felt so good to do something athletic again. It is difficult to explain, but there is something more satisfying about moving around on the sports field for me than being stuffed in a fitness center.

The two people turned out to be a director for an after school program for troubled teens, and one of his charges. The kid seemed to like the idea of playing basketball, but like most teens, not really keen on listening to what the instructor was saying, so he was doing layups off the wrong foot. The instructor would explain and demonstrate, and the kid would stand there looking like he was paying attention, and then just do whatever he wanted. Oddly enough, watching them made me miss coaching, and working with that age group (yes, I have worked with athletes younger than college age, I coached a team for underprivileged youth back in the day ... way back). It is not an easy age group to work with, but when you make a breakthrough with them, the rewards are much greater. A few of my friends know these kinds of programs are near and dear to my heart. I am contemplating going back and asking if they need a short-term volunteer. Maybe their bookkeeper wants to take a vacation.

I am picking up a little French from Mickaël. As it turns out, he went to school to teach Spanish. He is a good teacher and takes the time to explain grammatical points when I mess up (which is often). And Liz, if you happen to read this, he knows French, English, Spanish, Sign Language, Arabic and Russian. You have three languages in common (although I guess French Sign Language has some differences from ASL)!

I spent the evening fixing my internet connection. AGAIN! The cellular broadband modem stopped working with my Mac last week, and with my PC today. I did a reinstall on the PC, which worked, but it did not solve the issue with the Mac. I am guessing there is a protocol somewhere that needs to be trashed that I am missing. What a pain. Now that I think about it, I seem to remember this happening with my UK mobile broadband modem last year, and they are both made by Huawei. I wonder if it is a Huawei issue, or if I am the only person in the world this has happened to...