Ô Marsha

The sisters arrived this week. Judy lost her drivers license then she lost her nice water bottle. There was a game of musical phone cords (I lost). We spent some time looking for Marsha’s sunglasses (they were on her face), she lost her phone. Thank god for “Find a Phone” or we never would have found hers in Judy’s purse (Marsha: I found the jerk who stole my phone!). We Piermans call this sort of day Tuesday.

Then Marsha got blisters from her new shoes.

Marsha’s shoes are a trip hazard—hazardous because she’s on a trip and hazardous because she will trip. She buys shoes either a size too big or a size too small for every trip and they rub blisters. This time they were a size too big so I switched with her because my feet are bigger and it was like I had on scuba diving flippers. I don’t know how she does it really. It’s a gift.

The Husband and I spent the sisters’ first day on the ground getting them reoriented. Mind you Judy has been here once before but Marsha has been here with us on most trips. In “classroom hours” she should be able to lead a tour but instead she’s like “Oh, THAT’S the Eiffel Tower?” I love that girl.

Yesterday we went to a wine and cheese pairing at a place called Ô Chateau in central Paris. Judy says she loves wine ever since the last trip to Paris. Marsha has never said any such thing. She really doesn’t like wine. Don’t even pretend to offer her champagne. She once gave away a bottle of Dom Perignon.

I sat between the two of them while the Canadian-South-African-but-his-mother-is-Italian couple peppered our sommelier with serious wine questions regarding tannins and wine making processes, etc. But when the lady of the couple asked “what’s the deal with decanters” from mild Marsha comes a relatively loud, “A HA!” Her guilty eyes shot left towards me and she whispered “I don’t know why [inaudible]”. This prompted the kind of laughter you have to contain—which causes your shoulders to rumble and your eyes to water. God didn’t make us to contain laughter.

Marsha’s birthday was this week and we celebrated by going to Versailles where we made her drink some wine and we made her take the hill on the bike even though she didn’t want to. We Piermans call this Thursday.

Happy birthday, Marsha. Maybe someday we’ll go see the Eiffel Tower.