STUCK

Day 15
Sunday May 29

While trapped in our apartment, we discovered
a ton of quirky gems that Emilie puts in here
This little guy hugging the plant was
a favorite.

Soooo we had grand plans today--we were going to get up early, go to the world's largest flea market at Clignancourt, then mass at Notre Dame, then to the final day of the city wide jazz festival. We were up and showered and on our way out the door...then we broke it. Well not really-- this door is ancient, and the lock has been giving us hell since day one (it takes two of us to wrestle the lock into submission). But, this time, after eight attempts to get the lock to work (the screws had worked themselves out of the door), we tried putting the key in the inside keyhole to see if there was anything wrong. Seems fair, no? No. The key got miserably stuck in there. Not because it was jammed, or sticky, or anything--it just wouldn't move. So check we with locksmiths, which, naturally, do not make house calls on Sundays, did some googling (asked jeeves), and then we gave up and called Emilie, our landlady. She is currently in the south of France working on her latest film (she's a producer), and couldn't come help us. She was very sweet about it though, and she calls her friend Wilfred to come handle it.

Entree GRATUITE, consommation obligatoire

I know, Mom, we shouldn't be having strange men up to our apartment, but what were we supposed to do? We couldn't leave. We took the whole lock out of the door! I let Wilfred in about thirty minutes later and he mentions that this is the third time he's had to fix this door. He also mentions he and Emilie have been friends since they were ten (we think that he's secretly madly in love with her). He takes one look at the thing and laughs. Then he takes another look and shakes his head. Then he takes another look and says "shit." After about twenty minutes of pacing around and poking at everything, he busts out the tools from this apartment's SECRET COMPARTMENT (we were excited to find it), and gets to work. Theres a lot of bumping around and grunting and filing, but he manages 1) to get the door to close and 2) to create a working lock! It was all very dramatic. So we gave him a glass of wine. He didn't like it. But thats okay--its not the first time we have been judged for our taste in wine, which really just requires that the bottle costs less than 2euro. The French do not approve.

the set up

Wilfred left, and we (merrily) finished our bottle, and headed out, reveling in the simplicity of the new lock on the door. By this time, we had missed the flea market and missed mass, so we went straight to the jazz festival. It was a five hour show with three jazz groups, finalists in a competition. Admission was free, but consommation (consumption) was mandatory. The venue was an underground stage with brick walls and bare lightbulbs. very jazzy. The first group was awesome. The second group made me want to rip my ears off. By the time the third group came on, I couldn't take it anymore--I was too narcoleptic and too hot down there and getting very claustrophobic. So I went to the little park around the corner and Diana(s) (they were both there) came and found me after it was over. They said the second group had won.

While they were playing, I was scribbling in the little leather book that I cary around (ala poet). Here's some of my thoughts while these fools were on stage:

Just a casual tower in the park I was hangin out in

"Or Simon's right--you could just be a big piece of cheese on a greasy hamburger patty" (this came from a half dozing image that came to me upon lurching awake...I have absolutely no idea how it correlates)

"...someone making out with a pile of three-foot sticks, blowing so hard it sounds like church music, but in an anime movie. i haven't even seen  an anime movie but I know its not jazz"

"weirdo chanting smackily with saliva into the microphone as the indonesian whatever quivers in the background"
(the guy was making noises into the mic that sounded like the "others" on LOST. shut up. and the other guy was playing some homemade instrument, which was basically a stick he found in Indonesia)

"yes, yes, terrified monkey--just what I love to hear, verbal reenactment of the extinction of your species on fastforward."


I suppose I do not need to reiterate that I really disliked these guys. Lord knows how they won--I suspect foul play. Blackmailing the judges maybe?

Whatever. I decided I had enough excitement for one day, and we headed home to shleep.