Looks like a snowbound weekend, though I will probably drive to the 36-hole golfcourse which is less than half a mile from my door. It offers incredible cross-country skiing; lots of hills, trails, beautiful vistas, and open space. I can't wait. There seems to be a warm-up in the forecast for later next week, so I better get out while I can. Which skis though? The new waxless or the old woodies that require so much preparatory labor? I'll have to see what the snow is like tomorrow. I've been lazy; I haven't taken the old wax off my skis, something I should have done by late November.


I finished Almost French:Love and a New Life in Paris by Sarah Turnbull (see November 12 entry in the archives for links), a "gym" book, which means that it's light enough reading for the 30 minutes my brain is starved for oxygen as I chug like mad on the elliptical. It was a light read, and very entertaining, full of humor and wit. Life as an Australian journalist in Paris is never easy, but Turnbull, with her zany stories, sheds light on what makes the French si francais. Parisians and their dogs, encounters with the world of haute couture, a saga of a move to rat-infested, though tres chic digs in the heart of the city, and an expose of la gastronome are all fuel for Turnbull's light-hearted and forgiving analysis of French life.