Apologies for both the lack of posting and for this dump of info all at once.

Quarantine, besides actually recovering from the illness, has been a big game of “babysit the cats”. Our apartment is located on the top two stories of the building, with two walkout patios on either corner of the top most floor. There are bugs and birds a plenty; coupled with completely open windows during the day to cool the place down and kitties with limited outside experience makes for a rather tenuous situation. This is only amplified at night - K has been sleeping upstairs with a window open while I’ve taken the downstairs pullout (upstairs bed is built into a nook and not very large). My faith that MV (or jimjam for that matter) will not go adventuring led to various leash solutions which were… not very effective. We pillowed off the stairs, but that still didn’t stop either kitty from atleast trying to bypass our roadblock. Neither cat enjoyed being anchored and liked being harnessed even less.

And so, behold! the final iteration of our cat window blocker!

cat blocker

Even rain doesn’t keep the curiousity away:

kitty overwatch

At this point I’m feeling great, save for an ear infection which I started antibiotics for yesterday and am already feeling them kickin some butt. K is a few days behind me, battling a cough and some fatigue but still feeling better (K-Edit: but mostly just getting better at how bad she felt). It’s been an interesting week and a half, but I’m happy to say we have finally started venturing out!

We dipped our toes in by visiting the Luxembourg Gardens just a few blocks away. My ear made looking around a little disorienting, and we were both feeling zonked after just a mile (what is this “walking” thing???), but still had a great time. Plenty of amazing sculptures, flowers in bloom, and people watching to be had. We also happened upon the boccee (sp?) ball courts, where we took a rest and spectated folks of all sorts taking the game VERY seriously.

medici

luxem

The next day we made it out to the Jardin du Plantes to enjoy the greenery (the theme of this mini preview of Paris). On our way we nabbed our first legit french croissants; it was a bit rainy but were finally able to settle on a suitable bench. K (or should I say, the Queen of Crows) dropped some of her pastry for a passing crow and suddenly we had many many friends.

croissant

We also spotted some fun green parrots (migrating?) who were having a field day with the sunflower plants.

parrot

Epic trees:

tree

More garden:

jardin du plantes

Funny pidge:

pidgey

Watched: The Sandman (netflix)

NW Read: A swim in a pond in the rain (George Saunders)

K read: Men Explain Things to Me (Rebecca Solnit); Happy-Go-Lucky (David Sedaris); The Nineties (Chuck Klosterman)

Coming soon: updated image previews/thumbnails (wifi would make this much less painful), food stories, adventures to the louvre, other assorted stories from quarantine?