I know my mom would have loved it if I was there celebrating Mother’s Day with her today.  Mom knew that my older sister, Josie, was going to be there with my younger brother, Bob, but she didn’t know that my two youngest siblings, Rosie and Bam, were also going to surprise her by flying in to be with her today.

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Mom, always chic!

I probably would have gone if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ll be flying over for her 90th birthday later this year!  Tickets from Paris to Pittsburgh will be over $1650.00 (!) so it really doesn’t give me a chance to hop over twice in one year!  Too bad, because I would have loved to have been there today!

Maya Muses:  Next best thing is to Skype!  Patrick and I will do that after dinner with Jean-Pierre and Manou this evening.  My mom is one special lady and I won’t repeat what I wrote about her two years ago; you can see for yourself here.

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers everywhere!  I’m so happy I can wish my mom a happy day today and everyday!

Photo Credits:  Flickr and Personal Photo

We’ve all had days when we’ve said that it was probably better if we had just stayed in bed.  This was definitely one of those days for this Parisian guy who may have gotten tired of all the traffic jams in Paris and decided to finish his commute by taking his car down to the Métro!

Or perhaps he had a late night and took a short nap on his way to work?  In any case, the result was his car ended up down in the Métro entrance at Chaussée d’Antin near the big department store Galeries Lafayette, not far from the Printemps and of course the Opéra Garnier!

Luck was definitely on his side!  The incident could have been diastrous being that this Metro station is a busy one especially in the daytime!  Not one person was on his way out of or into the Métro and the only thing hurt was the guy’s pocketbook when they had to tow his car away!

Maya Muses:  His version was he thought it was the entrance to an underground parking lot!  Yep, every underground parking I know always has steps leading down so you can maneuver your car before parking!  Not to mention a Métro sign so you can remember where you parked your car!

Photo Credits:  Google Images

Yes, on April 9th I turned 4 years old!  I’m a little more than a toddler!!!  Well, to be more precise my blog is. I hate to say that I’ve been a little neglectful this past year, but I just can’t seem to find the time to write as I use to or as much as I would like.  Still, I can’t complain and my blog is doing well even though I’m not here all the time.

I’m still a toddler in this photo.

Depending on the different statistics I’m looking at, I have on average between 400 to 1200 people who come to my blog each day.  My most popular post was one that I ended up taking down because it was so controversial.  There were over 200 comments on that post.  It concerned a well known singer and boy did I hear from his fans, but I’m glad I took the post down.  Even today, over a year later, I still have people coming looking for that post.

Another popular post was when the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl back in 2009!  For the longest time my blog was #2.  The Steelers official website was of course #1, but I was surprised to see that I was even ahead of Sports Illustrated who was #3.  Today, three years later, if you Google “Steelers 6 Super Bowl Rings” my blog is #1 from close to 3 million websites.

My most successful post today is one I wrote three years ago.  It’s my favorite quotes about Paris.  A large amount of traffic that comes to It’s All Maya everyday, comes looking for this particular page.  Again if you Google “Paris Quotes” my blog is #1 out of (wait for this!) 109 million websites dealing with quotes about Paris!!!

A post that still surprises me that people come to read everyday is one I wrote in 2008 about how to get rid of anti-reflective coating from your eye-glasses with Armour Etch.  Four years later I’m still #2 out of 79,000 sites talking about this topic.

Tooting my own horn with a little help from others.

Maya Muses:  Sorry for tooting my own horn and I’m probably the only one who’s interested in this post, but 4 years later I do want to thank all my readers who come looking to read something that I’ve written and even though most people don’t leave a comment (except for a faithful few!) Thank you! I appreciate it all the same!

So Happy Birthday to my blog!!!

Photo Credits:  Flickr, Personal Photo, and Google Images.

I know!  The lyrics aren’t exactly the way Cole Porter wrote them, but back in March when I first  started this post it was sizzling here in Paris.  The weather went from cold in February to hot in March and it felt more like summer than springtime!  Things are back to normal in April and Patrick and I decided we wanted to take advantage of Paris this year.  Last year we were so busy the year went by before we knew it!

Hélène’s theater troupe, La Compagnie du Passage.

Afterall, Paris offers so much….theaters, concerts, restaurants, museums - I mean the list goes on and on and we’ve been trying to do our share!  We saw Hélène’s performance at a small theater and Claire’s concert at a supper club where we dined and danced!  It was in this tiny underground club in Montmartre listening to the Klez Band that I ran into an old friend, Paul, who I hadn’t seen for over twenty years!!!  He lived in the apartment below me in the Cour Saint-Pierre.  There were a few others (Eric and Jennifer) there that night as well.  Jennifer was just a baby when she first arrived in the Cour Saint-Pierre!

Claire and The Klez Band performing in Montmartre.

We’ve been to a few nice restaurants that I’m hoping to find the time to write about and we went to see the film The Artist.  I loved that film and we were rooting for them during the Oscars!  (So glad they won!)  We saw another good French film, Intouchables, that I recommend as well.

Maya Muses:  What I really need is another 12 hours added to each day to do everything that I want to do (like write more posts on my blog) and I’ll be fine!

They say as we get older time passes more quickly.  Strange phenomenon, but so true!  April in Paris - lovely, but Uncle Sam making us file our taxes (yes, we still have to even though we reside in France) doesn’t help!  Have to run!

Photo Credits:  Personal Photos, La Compagnie du Passage and Google Images

Patrick and I went for a walk today, the sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky!  Beautiful!  We walked a nice little 5.5 miles (almost 9 km) and then sat at a sidewalk café and just enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine with a glass of wine.  What I love about Paris is that you can walk and walk and not even realize how far you’ve walked because of things to see and do.  Thanks to a great website that my cousin Debi told me about, I can now calculate how far we’ve gone.

When Deb and Julie were here we spent one afternoon walking up to Montmartre and ended up walking for over 8.8 miles (over 14 km).  Climbing up a steep hill is not the same as walking on a flat surface and this website, Map My Fitness, takes that into account.  I love it.

Well, on this first day of April my mom said she had dyed her hair blue.  “Yeah, right mom!”  I mean what 89 year old mother goes and dyes her hair blue, right?  I wanted to see proof otherwise, April Fools!!!  Well here’s mom in all her glory!!!

Maya Muses:  She’s always wanted to put blue highlights in her hair, so I thought, “Hmm, maybe she did dye her hair.”  Well this is how it really turned out!  I think it looks pretty good if you ask me!  “You go, mom!!!”  (89 years young!!!)

Photo Credits:  Flickr, Google Images, and Personal Photos

Two of my cousins came to Europe in February on a whirlwind tour of Amsterdam, Brussels, Brugge, and Paris.  They couldn’t have chosen a better time to come.  Uhh, that is if you happen to be Eskimos or you just love freezing Siberian weather!  They froze their butts off even wearing 5 layers of clothing while running around Holland and Belgium, so by the time they arrived in Paris, the cold weather seemed downright balmy!

Deb lighting a candle in Notre-Dame.

Julie trying on hats in the Bon Marché.

Everyday after a late breakfast Julie and Deb took off to walk the streets of Paris and walk they did!  On average about ten miles a day, which is normal for Paris, but when the weather is hovering around freezing, that’s saying a lot!  During the weekend I took them to my old haunting grounds: Saint-Germain-des-Près, the Place Saint-Sulpice, the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Bon Marché one day.  Montmartre, Pigalle, and the Cour Saint-Pierre another day.

The Eglise Saint-Sulpice getting a facelift.

Cézanne at the Musée du Luxembourg.

Maya Muses:  It was great showing them around Paris and it brought back good memories of bygone days for me, but don’t ask them that!  I chewed their ears off going down memory lane and when I finally saw their eyes glazing over after my fiftieth story  about my shenanigans in my younger days, I knew it was time to call it a day!

Showing Julie and Debi the Cour Saint-Pierre.

How the Cour Saint-Pierre looked when I first arrived in 1980.

How the Cour Saint-Pierre is today.
(A lot more plants, but a lot less hair! LOL!)

Photo Credits:  Personal Photos

Spread the word!  And let’s go after Bashar al-Assad while we’re at it!

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Maya Muses:  Josh, you have some feisty grandparents and what a wonderful 18th birthday gift!  I’m sure it’ll be treasured in your family for generations!  Bet your grandparents weren’t thinking about that!

It’s said that as we get older time passes more quickly, well I must be ancient because time just keeps zooming by and it’s downright scary!!!  Patrick and I had planned several parties over the holidays, but before we knew it, the time had come and gone and we were still in the planning stages.

Christmas party time!

Patrick loves a party! (Hmm, I wonder why?!)

Me listening to Santa!

Not your typical Thanksgiving dessert!

I thought it would be nice to invite some of our friends for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with the turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pies and everything else that goes with it.  Well, the day came and went and we had done absolutely nothing about it.  The same thing happened with the Christmas party we planned and before we knew it, it was already 2012 and we were still talking about having a party!

Mrs. Santa Claus

Santa’s helpers!

New Year’s dinner party!

Me and a new friend, Magda.

I mean, other people had Christmas and New Year’s parties that we were invited to, so as the middle of January rolled around and we were still talking about doing something.  I told Patrick let’s have our crémaillère (housewarming party)!  I mean, afterall, we were just 8 months late in having one!

Photo taking at our crémaillère.

Jean-Pierre and I at his and Manou’s dinner party.

Gag Christmas gift.

Before we could divert our attention somewhere else, I sent out an email to about twenty friends setting the date for the 28th of January.  I figured most people would probably be free in the midst of winter and I wasn’t wrong!  Almost everyone accepted our invitation and so we finally had ourselves a party!

Patrick always cooking up something!

Odri and Didier.

Patrick explaining what’s on the menu to Monique.

Fernanda and Claire winding down the evening.

Maya Muses:  It was fun!  These were friends that I have known for 30 years.  We ate and drank and listened to Brazilian jazz.  Thirty years ago we would have danced the night away; thirty years later we didn’t dance, but we partied until 4:30 in the morning so I think we did all right!

Back Row:  Aunt Dolores and cousin Patty
Front Row:  Lorraine, me, and Lois
(Thanks Bob for the photo!)

Photo credits:  All personal photos