THE PARIS LETTER: Hurricanes, Mall Pools, and Cloth Diapers

Hello there from non-hurricane-threatened Paris -

Sheesh! What a weekend for my friends in New York and on the East Coast! Matt was supposed to fly to New York for a week yesterday, and just had to change his flight - clearly - in a way, it's nice to see New York taking all these precautions for once. And in another way, why does there always have to be a hurricane/blizzard/heat wave in New York that makes travel and life difficult? Its enough to make you wonder why 10 million people were foolish enough to call this place home. This year has really been a bad weather year for that city.

Sunset from our Paris apartment

But not for Paris! Matt and I were just talking at dinner about Europe's weather in general - it seems mysteriously free of the kinds of yearly insanity that strikes the US ; Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Floods, Tornadoes - Other than an occasional Italian earthquake, does Europe really have these kinds of natural disasters regularly? Given that last winter two inches of snow was cause for alarm here, I feel like maybe not. Someone, please tell me if I'm wrong - it seems somewhat unfair that all of Europe should be spared the kind of craziness all of the US seems to go through each year.

THE PARIS LETTER: Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer...

Ahhh, its August. Doesn't it FEEL like August? Things are slowing down, everyone's on vacation, at the same time September's out there looming - This usually leads me into a frenzy of trying to get things done for work before its time, but this year I'm trying to use the August time to get the house ready for the baby and other more appropriate things. Also - adn some of you will know what I mean by this - I started to read George R.R.Martin's GAME OF THRONES series, so if you've emailed me and you don't hear from me this week, just know that I'm buried in a 5 book fantasy cycle and can't return any emails until I come up for air.

THE PARIS LETTER: It's A Girl

Hi Everyone -

Yes, the Paris Letter is back, apologies for the hiatus - I was traveling in the US for the last five weeks or so, and ended up being too busy to really get it together for this letter. But now that I'm back in very quiet, vacation-emptied-out Paris, I have lots to catch you up on.

One dramatic thing that happened during my time in the US is my belly really popped out and I began to look pregnant. This seemed to me like it happened in the course of a week - one week I was in London and having to tell people in meetings that I was pregnant, and the next week I was in LA and when I would explain that I was pregnant people would all look at me like "Yes, we KNOW". It may have been that I was more covered up in London because it was cooler, but it still felt like I went from "possibly pregnant or just chubby" to "definitively looks pregnant" in a very short time. It was definitely a shock for Matt, who said "wow, your belly is ENORMOUS" when I got back to France.