Cirque Medrano

Ladies and Gentlemen and Children of All Ages,
I now present to you Today's Wonder of the World!



I told you it was wacky. And I really can't do without it. Well, I could do without it, but life would be less fun.
This is the circus poster from Cirque Medrano that I wrote about in French By Heart. Back then I was slightly obsessed with acquiring it (no, not stealing it, you smarty pants. The circus was plenty over by the time I started stalking it all over Clermont Ferrand.) Now it hangs in the sun room/den of my house where my whole family can admire it.

Here's a picture of it when it was newly stolen--I mean saved.

Yum. I'm holding a clafoutis, (a cherry flan) I believe.
I'm afraid I don't have that pan anymore. It was one of the few things that broke in the move back across the ocean. I bought it at our village market from the lady who sold seconds of Emile Henri pottery. And look at the peach wallpaper in the stair landing of my French house. How I miss it.
But I digress.

If you examine both of the pictures, you can see how much the poster has faded. That's probably because I was a doofus and hung it in my sun room. Sun room. I should have thought about that. But still, I keep it there because that's where my whole family hangs out, and I want to look at it as much as possible. It spreads a cheery atmosphere across the whole room, even when people are being grumpy.

I guess that gives me a point to this post. (Yey--I hadn't planned on that!)
I want to use my favorite things as much as I can, even though they may get faded or broken (like the hand-painted tiles that were hanging by my back door until someone, who shall remain nameless, slammed the door, sending them crashing to the floor,) may get eaten by the dog (pillows made out of vintage French fabric and buttons, for example--stuffing and all,) and may be broken in the sink by a man who occasionally scrubs things a little too vigorously. (I'm not complaining. I would NEVER complain about someone else washing the dishes!)

In the end they are just THINGS. What good are they if we don't enjoy them?

So I think I'm going to go have a cup of coffee in my favorite flea market cup. Won't you join me?
We can watch this while we sip. It's a cat that sings in French. Remarkable! If you want to sing along and don't know the words, they're here. There's even a translation.
Now sing away!