5 semaines...a day in our life

Wake up at 8h, lay in bed reading about Fashion History until 9h when Creed begins to stir. Tea and a tartine while I go over my course notes for the day. Leave at 10h, to go to Barbes to shop for fabric "coupons" - remnants. Stop with Denia (my jazz singer friend who is visiting from Nice)& Creed to sit on the lawn near Sacre Coeur and a "pause." Back on the metro to get Creed back home to meet Claire, his nounou, for their day out in Paris. Run over to Les Philosophes to meet a young amercaine designer who is in town with her parents. Lunch, then back to the appartment to collect supplies for my class. Today we are studying how fabric is woven - the warp and the weft. We talk about Madeleine Vionnet and cutting fabric on the bias. We drape and pin some fabric on a live model to explain the "flou" aspect of dressmaking. Then they each get a needle, thread and a scrap of fabric. Hand-sewing straight stitches. They have learned that before the invention of the sewing machine, the finest seamstresses and tailors in Paris could sew 30 perfect stitches a minute by hand in the 1800's. We set the clock to see how many they could do. Home on the metro with Ana by 19h00. Claire and Creed meet us there. They have spent the day with a picnic at Les Invalides and then an afternoon running through the fountains au Parc Andre Citroen. Dinner is by 20h30, Ben - Ana's boyfriend and another member of the tribe who is staying here this summer - creates an amazing meal of fresh pesto, ravioli and gnocchi purchased from the Italian man at the Marche aux Enfants Rouges not far from our house. Dinner around our family table with Stephanie (a singer friend visiting from Austin), Denia, Ben, Ana, Creed and me. It's a quiet night - watching TV about a man who takes a train through the Moroccan desert. A bath for Creed, a bath for me. Our upstairs neighbors thinks we are making too much noise and instead of telling us, she dumps buckets of water over the balcony onto our terrace. Oh, the French! Bed by 23h00 and asleep 24h00...to the sound of our own private mouse who we have named Jeremy, scurrying around the loft.