Welcome, May! (back to blogging)

Tulips in the Parc de Belleville

It feels as if it has been forever since I have been online.  Eleven days ago, the fMIL (a/k/a my Mother-Sinlaw) arrived in Paris, just in time for some GORGEOUS spring weather. I have been online in those days, but only to just catch up on a couple of emails and to be able to read a post here and there as they came up in either Google Reader or Facebook. I’ve missed checking in on my fellow bloggers more regularly. If you have not seen nor heard from me in this time, it’s nothing personal! Finding moments to read and respond to people have been few and far between in the past week-and-a-half. I’ve missed you all!

But I am back, and with a KarinBrain-style post at that.  I’ve taken lots of photos I would like to share, so here goes.

What I Ate for Breakfast Today aka Ghetto Living in Paris, Part Deux

I’ve got blogstipation, big time.

I have plenty of writing projects and topics. In fact, that is the problem. There are so many topics I want to write about that they are backing up on me now, and I am paralyzed as a result. I cannot seem to make a move to post any *one* thing when twenty things clamor to be written about. It has built up to a high level of frustration and I’m about ready to pop.

I have decided, therefore, to just sit and write something to get a post up, since it has been way too many days since my last post.**

Happy Holidays?

Christmas decorations at the Forum des Halles Shopping Center in the 1st arr. Paris

The past few years I have felt decidedly more Grinch-y (like he was before his heart grew three sizes too big) about Christmas than Cindy Lou Who-ish, or Scrooge, Post-Ghosts.

The way I see it, Christmas in the States from the time that I was a kid in the 1970s, has become “Cashmas,” which Urbandictionary.com defines as:

a celebration of materialism in which its celebrants attempt to flatter or impress relatives, friends, and acquaintances with the extent of their purchasing power. (The “power to get”.) Cashmas co-opts signs, symbols, and sympathies from other religious holidays of the winter season to mask its foundation of conspicuous consumption.

Maybe for some there is still either a genuine religious component which makes the season more for them, or they have an authentic love for All Things Christmas from the decorations to the foods to the ambiance that is created by such a warm and cozy holiday amidst the darkest days of the year. For me?

Christmas has felt like one big pain in the ass for a lot of years now.