Faire le Jogging

Tomorrow I’m off to this place:





















Well, not just this place, some places nearby, too.
But as for this 1.3-mile park circumference route, it’s going to be loop after loop. It takes me about 10 minutes or so to go all the way 'round. At least the scenery is nice, that’s for sure.

Oh, and I’ll be ordering stuff like what you see on this menu:

La Carte - Le Buisson Ardent

Now, I’ve eaten some fancy meals, but I’m no gourmand. And I’ve been to Paris 75006 enough to tell you that in my opinion, the food is often overrated and sometimes scary, in a Stephen King sort of way. For me, every meal in a restaurant there is started with a tiresome process of entrée elimination, when I rule out anything that’s this side of biology class (such as lamb’s brain beignet, horsemeat steak, kangaroo filet, all of which I’ve seen on menus). You have to hand it to the French, they can lop off some unspeakable part of barnyard pet anatomy, add a brilliant sauce, and shamelessly serve it up with dramatic flourish. Anyway, I’m no vegetarian, and I don’t know how anyone could be one in France, but honestly, people... Wish me luck.

And my other pre-trip gripe is all about The Land of Second Hand Smoke. The French are generally nicotine fiends, 40% of them smoke, including 25% of the doctors, which tells you something right there. If people want to smoke and kill themselves, that’s their business, I just hate having every dinner experience accompanied by a 19-year-old chainsmoker producing clouds of cigarette effluvia wafting horizontally across me and my rabbit spleen dinner. The scenario is always the same: you sit down, order the only thing on the menu that doesn’t require an hour of surgery, then two chattering madamoiselles sit down next to you with their packs of Marlboros and proceed to drink and smoke their heads off right through to midnight. The French government outlawed smoking in school recently, generating unbelievable crowds of smokers outside of colleges and high schools… until they head to the café or restaurant in which you just sat down. Next February, the restaurants and bars will become non-smoking, so I’ll just have to hold on until then, when massive strikes and demonstrations for personal liberty and supporting the right to kill oneself (and whoops, other people nearby) will no doubt occur. At least everybody will be outside, picketing and smoking. Then I’ll be able to pick at an inedible ‘terrine of skate’ in peace.

Yeah, I know, shut up already, it’s France, f’Chrissakes. I will, it’s my favorite vacation spot, and even though it’s not a great running town (too much insane traffic, too much car exhaust, narrow sidewalks with everyone walking smack in the middle) it beats the shit out of Epcot, not to mention quite a few neighborhoods of The Big Apple. Anyway, if you’re up around 1:30AM EDT next week, you’ll know right about then I’ll be running little mind-bending loops through clouds of cigarette smoke around the Luxembourg Gardens, pictured below.

Au revoir…