Day 11 Sept 22 Monday

The end is near. We went to Au Bon Marche to get some of the things that we need to take home. I was looking for eye cream for Jef; we needed tea; and I wanted to look at the knitting area.

The windows here are quite droll. They have little white animals (of various types) with to article for sale.

We lunched in their café. They have nice sandwich kinds of things at a cafeteria counter. You choose and pay and then it is delivered to your table.

Another neighbor invited us for dinner. She also created an all girls dinner. We started with champagne, olives & bread. At the table we had stuffed duck neck (much better than at the restaurant) and a tomato salad. The tomatoes were from her husband’s garden in the country. She was getting a little snarky about the wonderful French vegetable gardens that of course we Americans didn’t do, so I told them about my “farmer” and all of the fruit trees and vegetables that I have in my garden and all of the things that Alec and Jef have planted in their garden. I am sure that they think I have an enormous piece of land in Los Angeles.

Then she had ham in cheese/cream sauce and pasta. There were two kinds of cheese and Marie had taken an almond pear tart for dessert.

After dinner the conversation turned to computers and email and Ann said that she was having trouble with hers. Marie piped up, “Oh, Joan worked for IBM and is very good.” I was escorted into the office (I know that Marie really did this so she could see more of the apartment!!) plopped in front of a completely strange computer. After messing around a bit, I told her that I thought her problem was with the internet company and that she should call them. Giving her permission to believe that she hadn’t done something horrible to break it made her feel much better.

On that note we merci’ed all and went home to bed.