25. Chez Nails

We have a friend named Nails. I've mentioned her before, most recently in The Agening. She's Canadian by way of Iceland, a bit of a globe-trotter, roaming the world massaging sore muscles and teaching yoga with brief forays into restaurant...running? I think. She's kind of a Jane-of- all-New-Age-trades. Hmm. That moniker-- New Age-- is problematic, and I think Nails would be one of the first to point it out. For what she's into, her raison d'etre, as it were, is to bring people more in touch with themselves and the capability of wellness that is actually more what she would call Lost Knowledge than New Age.

As I said, Nails isn't her name. But our nifty cell phones, as we type her name into them when we're texting each other, insist on turning her name into Nails, and after a while it's easier to just let them do it than to hammer through the process of changing it to her real name. So Megan and I refer to her as Nails with each other and, recently, I called her Nails when she called me.

“Do you guys actually call me Nails?” She asked. And yes, we do. But we have several friends for whom we have nicknames between the two of us. Banana. The Clue. The Dangler. Melvingian (that one's more just me, but I like it). And we love those folks. So she's in good company.

Sure, this is the Merovingian (and I'm still not sure what this one's connection
 was supposed to be with the Merovingian kings), but I think Melvingian wouldn't
 mind the look he's got going on. Or the company.

But one of the things that Nails does is sell water alkalizers. I think that's what they're called. It's a machine that attaches to your faucet and, using a process that may be arcane or may be simple, can treat the water to make it more alkaline or more acidic, depending on the Ph imbalance in your body. I can't do this description justice. But this part of her life takes her to different parts of the country and the EU in order to give presentations on this stuff and try to interest people in joining up.

And, because she is a wonderful person, when she is out of town she often invites us to stay at her place.

Her place is much nicer than Petit Bateau. Granted, this isn't a difficult achievement to reach. But Nails has a knack for finding a nice spot. This is the third place she's lived in since we've known her. The first was in Montmartre, a warren of streets near the Basilica of the Sacred Heart up on that one big hill, and was only barely larger than ours; she didn't stay there long because she does massage therapy out of her home and needed a nicer place (and neighborhood, frankly) in which to receive clients. The second was in the Place des Vosges and, while very nice, still didn't really have the space to make folks feel like the massage table wasn't being crammed in between the bed and couch. But this new place: it's in the 12^th arrondissement, over in the southeast corner of Paris, by the Bois de Vincennes. It's not a touristey place; folks there just want to get on doing their lives.

My brother Xen's camera, which he loaned to me at
 the end of his visit, has a nifty panorama setting. 

Nearby is a long parkey sort of walk, a promenade that meanders through Paris sometimes below the level of the street and sometimes well above it, much like the metro. I wonder whether it was once intended to be another metro line, but either the company that started building it lost the contract or someone else decided that the particular line was redundant, because now there's no tracks, no stations, just hedges and parks and places for little flowers to grow and remind you that Spring is almost here and places for some awesome playground equipment to be erected.

Walls, ivy, pretty lady

These walls aren't acting to separate us from a place; that's how far below
 the level of the rest of Paris we are down here.

Megan and I both really wanted to climb on it, but it just seemed like the kind of
 thing that would freak out the kids and make the parents sort of...nervous. And police call-ey.

Rogue flowers. Growing in an unsanctioned place. Sadly, it's probably
 only a matter of time before some gardener yanks 'em.

But that's neither here nor there right now. Let's get back to Chez Nails. Mostly it's one big living room with a kitchen off to one side, partitioned off with a bar-style window, a bathroom (you might be tempted to say, “Duh. Of course it has a bathroom,” but recall that Petit Bateau does not), and then a bedroom loft above it all. She also added a deep fuzzy rug to the living room, which makes it crazy comfortable to take your shoes off and shuffle around in. The couch is also very comfortable and good place to conk out for a nap.

All that clutter on the floor and couches is our doing. We don't pack light,
 and it tends to spread like a liquid wherever we set up shot.

Top right: loft.
 Down right: kitchen window.
 Foreground: couches and rug.

The loft is a bit tricksy, as the ceiling is too low for all but the decidedly short to stand up in, but that's okay. It's cozy and feels nest-like when you're up there. Nails has hung scarves and such over the railing to make it feel more enclosed.

I've finally learned to keep my head down when I'm up there.
 Pain is an effective teacher.

The kitchen is well-appointed, to say the least. Not only does it have a full-sized fridge, it has a dishwasher, a washing machine, and a four-burner stove with oven. It's a toss-up whether a furnished apartment in Paris will have any of these things, usually leaning toward none.

I know. You're thinking, "What's he trying to do, rent the place to me?" No. I'm trying to get you to vicariously appreciate these things. Come. Vicarize with me.

The main attraction in the bathroom is that it has a bath tub. This is the first time we've run into one of those in places we've been. Recloses, Tours, Petit Bateau: no bath tub, only a shower stall with one of those snakeheads. Those are ubiquitous. But Nails' bathroom has a tub, which Megan took advantage of within, I think, a half hour the first time we house sat.

To see footage of the bath in action, click here

I took advantage of the stove, which gets blazing hot. Well, it probably only gets as hot as a stove is supposed to get, but after living with Bateau's two hotplates, it seems blazing. The burners turn red as the electromagnetic energy being given off becomes so intense that it passes through the infrared and into the visible spectrum. And what did I do with this? I fried eggs.

It's been a long time. First off, eggs have an interesting life here in France. They get plopped into raw minced beef (usually tenderloin), mixed up with herbs and spices and served as tartare, which is rich and...I don't like it.

I...it just doesn't look, like done yet.

 They get cracked over a pizza. I haven't sampled this yet.

You know, this actually doesn't look that bad. I mean, it's pizza, right?

 You can get hard boiled eggs and mayonnaise as an entree (starter) at most cafe/bistros. But the only time I've seen a fried egg is on something called a croque madame, which is just a croque monsieur-- which is itself just a grilled ham and swiss sandwich-- with a fried egg on top. I love me some croque madame.

This thing is crazy good. You know, if you like A)grilled ham and cheese,
 and B) fried eggs. And who doesn't?

But that's the only place I've seen fried eggs. And as I've intimated, the burners in Petit Bateau aren't up to the task. They just don't get hot enough.

But here at Nails' I got to fry up some pancetta, plop a couple eggs into the grease left over (surprisingly little; I had to augment it with butter), and within moments they were ready to flip and slide onto a plate. And you know what they tasted like?

America.

F@#k yeah

And that's what Nails' place has going for it. Simple things: a bathtub; a stove that can fry eggs; space to stretch out and a lush carpet to lounge on. It's funny that by the end of our stay there we're both kind of eager to get back to Petit Bateau; for all of its shortcomings that is our home here. Just like a few days in Recloses helps to see the beauty of Paris again, a few days spent relaxing at Chez Nails invigorates and helps us live in Petit Bateau all over again. 

It's like Risa.

What, you thought I'd go through an entire blog post
 without a Star Trek reference somewhere?