Mary has apparently been a good girl this year, though no one asked me, and I’m not going to mention the Great Shoe Debacle, again. But Mary seems to be on excellent terms with that part of the vast Disney empire that controls Europe, and has been invited to come visit the Disneyland Paris compound for a little indoctrination and brain cleansing. She graciously asked for permission to bring her husband (that’s me, at least on this side of the Mississippi, or so I am given to understand) with her. Seems someone is needed to carry the bags, hail taxis and hold umbrellas. I can do at least two out of the three, and if need be, hire another flunky to hold the umbrella for Her Excellency. Or so I am obligated to refer to her, that being one of the prerequisites for getting to go with her on this trip.
Since we’re going to be in the area, just kicking around you know, we thought we’d probably swing by gay old Paree for a little manger and boisson. No, you have to look them up, I’m not going to hold your hand all the time. Besides, they’re kind of clammy.
Now it’s up to me, besides my regularly assigned tasks of luggage portage and taxi hailage, to also research and select restaurants. This would normally be a task which I would approach with some trepidation, as selecting a restaurant that is not practically perfect in every way, would result in a verbal trashing. The trashing would be administered by myself of course, as I have, as Mary puts it, unrealistically high expectations for personal performance. And she says I talk to myself too much. Both statements are true if you look at them with perfect objectivity, which I reject, because who in this world is perfectly objective? Okay, the talking to myself is true, but at least it’s not as though I’m responding to voices in my head. Not that I have any voices in my head, or anything like that, and they never say, ‘eat the last piece of See’s candy, she’ll never know’.
Ahh, that diversion took us down a road less travelled, I think. So I get to pick the restaurants. And even, or especially with, all the resources of the Internet, it’s a job and a half. So much information. Back in the day, you bought a copy of Fodor’s or Frommer’s, picked some culinary establishments from that, and there you were. Now, you might look at Frommer’s online and the Chowhound Boards and Jaunted and Gridskipper and on and on. I expect I’ll have my final list of must-experience restaurants complete around three months after we get back from Paris.
Oh, I’ll probably manage to find a few good places that everyone, or at least most everyone says to try, and then the rest of the time we’ll do our usual thing and just wander up and down the streets till we find something that looks interesting. This has almost always worked out for us. Except for the place on the Left Bank that served a whole pork chop kebab, bone and all. While I admire the conceptual approach, I still have to wonder, why?