Champagne Wednesdays

Oh Paris, how I miss you. It helps to go to places like Jules. It also helps to listen to her. And it helps to linger too long and drink too many samples of Andre Vinet Muscadet (FRA, $23) here.

But nothing really helps that much. Except going.

Jen

Poof! The weekend is gone.

A slow, hazy start to Champagne Wednesday. A fridge in Paris. Probably in a convenience store. Nowhere in Paris is too lowly for a cooler full of champagne. No one would dare say you are being too extravagant.

Last night we went to Brock House for a site visit. If you, or some you know, is interested in event planning (and have the slightest bit of sales savvy or common sense), I recommend you run with your resume in hand to the nearest wedding venue. They need your help. Desperately.

Thanks Jen for this dreamy polaroid.

It’s weird to wait for someone you don’t know to come back from Paris and show you their photos. But I did, and they are here.

Wednesday’s Champagne: Pink by Yellowglen (Australian, $13.99). The back of the bottle says it has a soft, delicate mouth feel, and I think that pretty much sums it up. We paired it with two grilled cheese sandwiches and about 20 pickles. Perfect for spending the night trying to trick Ash into telling me where we’re going this weekend. The pink is the colour of that Sarah Jessica Parker perfume my sister used to wear. I think it was called Lovely. More Paris-pink than LA-pink. This is one of our regulars. It’s good for feeling like this:

When you’re more inclined to feel like this:

First two photos from this dreamy place…the last one from my own archives.

Jen

What I wouldn’t give this morning for this big, comfy chair we saw in Paris. A field for mid-afternoon daydreaming. A perch from which to watch the world go by. A space uncensored by reality.

Our Ikea chairs, on the other hand, are about to break, despite the reinforcing screws that Ash put in. Didn’t we say we’d never by furniture again that we could break apart with our own hands? That’s why I so love the teak table we bought on craigslist. Even with all its ghostly water rings and scratches.

It’s nice to have some things you can rely on to hold your weight. Last night, Ash and I sat in a seedy pub on Knight and 41st and wondered if we could rest our weight on our dreams. Writing, owning a business, travelling, making a design of our own instead of buying into an Ikea-course-of-life with its unsturdy legs.

I like that we look for happiness together. Even small ones, like the $21 I won on Hold’ Em poker.

I must power down for Earth Day, so this will be my only post today.

 Ash and I are trying to go the extra mile. We’ve been sitting here all morning with the fireplace off and we’re freezing. Little white clouds of breath escape from Ashleah’s duvet cocoon. Coffees are getting cold too fast.

 I’m reminded of the apartment we rented in the Marais, and how on our second day there, we got back to the apartment to find a little pink note slipped under the door. No one had paid the electricity bill for months. We lit the candelabra and got warm with a bottle of beaujolais in the dark.

Outside, an excavator is eating the back half of a house for breakfast. It’s a house that no one has loved for a very long time. Seems it’s light out all around today. See you tomorrow.

This pretty much captures how I plan to spend my day today.

It’s a painting by the talented Liza Hirst of Dordogne, France as mentioned here in one of my favourite design blogs by Anna Spiro. I share her love of paperweights, flowers and anything French.

I bought my very first paperweight at Les Puces (the fleas) in Paris and I so wish I had bought one or 2 more. Right now, it sits on my desk at work, but as soon I find the perfect old table for a desk in our second bedroom, I plan to grow my collection. And, since a trip to Paris is not in my immediate future, I’ve been spending my time at an equally enchanting flea market - etsy.

Here are some paperweights I have my eye on. I just can’t decide which one to buy…

Etsy Finds: 1) Bacio2003 $33; 2) Chini $20; 3) Botanicraft $24; 4) PaperFlowers $10

This page is a work in progress…I will be working on it as I go. My hope is that eventually it will be a great resource for anyone travelling to paris. But, we all have to start somewhere (and I will probably require one or two refresher trips)!

For now: photos, links, memories and more:

Poilane, le pain… how I love you.

These are awful sunglasses, I know. But I smell like a dream. I am so afraid they will discontinue this fragrance one day. 

The only accessory a trip to Paris requires…even out of plastic flutes.

I loved champagne before Paris, but I understood it only after. If you happen to be in Paris right this minute - read no further. The city demands celebration. Champagne should be taken daily and in excess.

But if you are at home or at work, only dreaming of your next two weeks in… then consider what champagne can bring to your daily life. For us, it’s ritual. Champagne on Wednesday. Instead of wine. Instead of separate. Instead of dishes. Instead of dwelling on the inevitable ritual of back-to-work in the morning.

We highly recommend it.

Sublime results include: inner effervescence, kissing instead of TV, an instituted sense of adventure.

Jen