Last night I was at the airport and was browsing in the bookstore for a few minutes. I planned to get a newspaper and eat something before I drove back into Paris. Suddenly I heard the cashiers saying, "Le magasin est fermé!" I was surprised and looked up-- it was too early for it to close, but there they were, pulling metal shutters down and hustling everyone out. It took me a few minutes to realize that the entire center of the terminal was being evacuated. A line of policemen was forcing everyone back and soldiers in camouflage with machine guns were arriving. The downstairs arrivals area was completely empty and a crowd of people stood on the stairs in the distance, waiting. I was feeling faint with hunger, and I knew it would take at least an hour to drive back into Paris at that time of the evening. I waited for quite a while to see if the alert would be lifted. I heard the loudspeaker announce in French and heavily accented English that a passenger Romilly had left a suitcase in front of the information desk. It looked as if Passenger Romilly's suitcase was about to be blown up by the forces de l'ordre. I have several times witnessed these bomb alerts and heard the muffled explosions at the airport. It wasn't at all frightening this time because I could tell the cops weren't nervous, just annoyed at the surprising number of people who tried to edge past them into the evacuated area. But I finally decided to leave anyway since there was nowhere to get anything to eat at the two ends of the terminal. I had some mints in the car. 
As I was driving out, I was rewarded with a glorious rainbow. But then I rounded a corner and saw a weird sight. A car had somehow upended itself over the left barrier and was sticking into the air like a seesaw, with its rear wheels ten feet off the ground. What a strange day! Then there were two more accidents on the way into Paris-- there was stop-and-go traffic all the way, it was dusk and a Sunday night, and there was a drizzle. Even though I was so hungry I felt sick afterwards, it was a pretty sight. There is a certain place in the road into Paris where the Eiffel Tower lines up right behind the church of Sacre-Coeur and it looks like some fantastic Oriental palace in the distance. 
If you click on the photo (right) you can see it a bit larger.
Saturday night was the fourth annual Nuit Blanche (White Night, which is what the French call a night when you stay up all night. I don't think we have a word for that in English.) Museums, art galleries, stores and restaurants stayed open all night till 7 on Sunday morning. At least that is what I hear. I had a New Orleans dinner at my house for some French friends. It looked strange and formal to see them wearing the gold, green and purple Mardi Gras beads I brought back from the States this summer, innocently, before all the Katrina horror. Somehow a French person just don't look right in Mardi Gras beads.
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Here are some photos from my local marché. I always go rather late, both because I like a grasse matinée (a "fat" or lazy morning) and because I have discovered that my favorite sellers often toss in lagniappe when you come late and they don't want to load the last bits of something back into their trucks. (Lagniappe is a Louisiana word that means a bit extra that a seller often gives you in New Orleans.) I admire the way my favorite greengrocers and fishmongers arrange their wares so beautifully. One day I said to the fishmonger that I thought his display was much nicer than another one, further down the marché. "Oui, il manque de la poésie," he said.
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