So Mom did get up... eventually. That was around 10, and by then I had already hit the bakery for bread, brewed the coffee, showered, and paced back and forth in the hallway approximately 1000 times.

We managed to head out around noon, and I had a walking tour to beat the band in mind. We headed up past the Jardin de Luxembourg, but instead of indulging ourselves in the nature, we took a hard left and headed down Boulevard St. Michel, one of my old haunts when I lived here... "Boul Mich" as it is called is the Latin Quartier, the students' area, around the Sorbonne.

We walked past the Sorbonne and crossed onto the Ile de La Cite to take a gander at Notre Dame. I submitted a short prayer hoping that I would not unintentionally dump over my mom in the wheelchair. Probably sounds heartless, but, as I said before, pushing in a wheelchair in good old gay Paris is tricky, since so many of the sidewalks are cobblestone and the gardens are... dirt. But its my Mom, and I don't want her to miss out, so I push on.

We crossed over from the Ile de la Cite and I insisted we stop at the first cafe... I needed a break from wheelchair pushing. And wine. We had a fantastic lunch: salmon and basil salad over penne pasta for Mom, a ham and cheese sandwich for me. Things were going well until Mom, taking her last sip of wine, channeled her American self, smashed down her glass and broke it. Many of you readers may find this typical; my mom tends to be a bit hard on things. Our family is a big fan of the 8 for $10 wine glasses at Bed Bath & Beyond.

Anyhoo...

From there it was a bit of an adventure. I wanted to take her to see the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) home of the famous Robert Doisneau poster where a soldier kisses his lady after V-E day... and I also hoped to hit le Centre Pompidou with its insane fountain sculptures, yet the fates worked against me and, with no map (I forgot it on the kitchen table... oops...), we ended up just wandering around Chatelet/Les Halles area.I failed and we headed back toward the river.

We passed the Louvre. The insane, giant, why-are-you-so-big? Louvre. I went there when I lived in Paris, because I felt I should; I left feeling dumber than I ever had. Never, ever enter the Louvre unless you are an art history scholar seeking something in particular. We walked into the courtyard but did not venture in.

We had our first encounter with a pickpocket/scammer. Lady planted a "gold" ring on the sidewalk then pretended to "find" it while we were wheeling by. She asked us if it was gold and I said I didn't know, but of course it was too big for her so she gave it to me and I was like yeah, okay, whatever. THen I said, that's weird, usually a pickpocket comes a lot closer. But then of course she came running back after me begging for money since she's just given me the gold ring. I told her "Nice try" and gave her back her "gold" ring.

I was hot, then. The sun beating down on you whilst you are pushing your momma around the city gets hot. So we took a left at the Jardins des Tuilerires, crossed over the river and headed for the Musee d'Orsay. Most museums are closed on Tuesdays... not the Musee d'Orsay... that one is closed on Monday...

Bad luck.

I'd had about enough of pushing the chair so I made the executive decision to just go home which was very rewarding as after a good half hour of more pushing, my Mom asked "Do you know where we are?" just as I turned a corner.

"Do you?" I asked her.

"No," she said.

"Do you now?" I asked as I turned her chair around to see our front door. I surprised her. We were home.

But anyway... we hung around in the apartment for awhile... I went to get some groceries and made a classic "dumb tourist" mistake... I forgot that in France you get your produce weighed by a guy in the produce dept, they don't weigh it at the register. So of course I was at the front of a huge line and the lady was like "Um, stupid (okay, she didn't say stupid, but it was clearly implied) you need to go have these tomatoes weighed."

Cut to me, sprinting to the opposite end of the store and back in front of legions of French people.

It was awesome.

We went out for dinner and not so much happened there although my mom did let me drink most of the wine since she was walking home, which we found amusing.

Okay, well, I'm a day late posting this and I apologize but I fell asleep while typing it last night!