Seems only yesterday that it was Halloween.

On Halloween I flew back from Paris. Oddly, the French have embraced Halloween. They never did it before. They had All Saints Day on November 1, I believe, but no ghoulish October 31 preliminary with jack-o-lanterns and dressing up. I don't know when this started but it was everywhere. The boulangerie had a poster of how to turn artisan bread into a jack-o-lantern. There were pumpkin decorations on the windows protecting the sidewalk tables at Cafe de la Paix. And, a small wine shop near La Defense had Halloween Bordeaux. I knew you wouldn't believe it so I took a picture.

Good news on the old car front. They towed it off. It will be interesting to see when it gets finished. I can't quite believe they intend to repair it and think the estimate was a little low. We'll see. In any case, I'm all happy with my new one. It has a CD player. I can flick a button and go from CD to tape to radio. It feels solid and I'm used to the transmission now. (Each manual shift has its own little way of working.)

I swore I was going to read the owner's manual. But, of course, I haven't. So I'll never know how to do some things on it. It has keyless entry and I was all 'why would anyone want that?' Now I'm a keyless entry slut. It's also nice that the lights blick. Then I'm sure it's my car.

I also promised that the car wouldn't become littered with junk. I removed several armloads of books, magazines, maps, tapes, and such from the old one. I vow that this new one will remain uncluttered, only containing what I'm using at the time. Um, yeah, sure.

Mom and Dad came over for a while yesterday before we went out to dinner. I drug out the Middle East jigsaw puzzle. Mom and I made pretty good progress and I was able to finish it after dinner. I don't know how old it is, but the parts of Russia around the Black Sea are still labelled U.S.S.R. All the pieces were there in the used puzzle.

We took the parents to the Four Seasons for dinner. FFP's parents ate a Crab Cake appetizer and shared a dessert sampler. They ate every bite and seemed to enjoy it. Mom had sea bass and asparagus. Dad had soup and an appetizer. He and Mom shared a dessert sampler. I had two apps (lobster ravioli and duck confit). Forrest had a salad and salmon. We can't eat like we used to. We toasted with water, sparkling water and iced tea in the bar and listened to a set of Christmas carols and oldies from Rebecca.

I was about to pose the other five in front of the Four Seasons Christmas tree when Gray Hawn walked by. I got her to shoot us with my little Canon point and shoot. "I'm used to a Hasselblad," she protested. But she seemed soothed when the mothers exclaimed that they'd enjoyed the calendars she'd made last year and we gave them for Christmas.

These outings are nice and I enjoy them, but it's always a bit tedious getting everyone going in the same direction and up and down. And getting their seat belts on.

I'm back into journaling, I guess. One person even professed to miss me. (Thanks, Cheryl.) Maybe I can do it every day. Probably not. Even being off from work, I've been incredibly busy doing something. Not sure exactly what.