Propofol is NOT the Enemy

Propofol (trade name Diprivan) is one of the most widely used anesthetic agents in the world.

In trained hands, it is a useful and versatile agent - one not without risks, but one that can be used safely.

In untrained hands, it can be DEADLY. I repeat:  the stuff we use can KILL people if used by people who don't know how to use it.

I am appalled to have learned that Propofol was found in Michael Jackson's system.  That he had it at HOME.  

For the MILLIONTH time:

The reason trained anesthesiologists and CRNAs are necessary is because anesthesia can be extremely DANGEROUS.  Anesthesia doesn't just involve knocking people out; the important part is bringing them back.  Trained clinicians should be the ONLY people handling anesthetics, and their role as protectors of patients should be understood as just that:  a protective, resuscitative role that must not be underestimated.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.  Please.  Just don't.

Lessons in and about Paris: Day 3

[Hat tip to Michael Leddy, author of Orange Crate Art, for inspiring the format of this post! :) ]

* The stained glass in the Sainte-Chapelle comes in five colors (blue, green, red, violet, and yellow).

* Climbing up to street level from the Cité and Lamarck métro stations takes a certain level of fitness.  There are a loooooooot of stairs.

* When the area under the cathedral of Notre Dame was being dug up for parking space, some ancient Gaulic archaeological ruins of Lutece, the Paris before Paris, were unearthed.

* It's a little lonely visiting the Musée d'Histoire de la Médecine by oneself, but interesting nonetheless.  After I lingered over the anesthesia case for several minutes, the lovely attendant asked, <<Vous êtes anesthésiste?>> I mean, who else would linger over the anesthesia case? :)

* It's true what they say.  There are a lot of unpleasant women in Paris.  A lot.  BEYOND unfriendly.  Openly hostile and rude, actually. And apparently if you try to be sweet or if you fail to "stand up to them" with acerbic come-backs of your own, they feel even greater contempt. Sigh...

* Philippine national hero Jose Rizal has a little plaza named after him here (corner of rue Mabeuge and rue Rodier) and a plaque marking where he stayed (up the street) while he lived here (45 rue de Maubeuge).

* The Place du Tertre is lively on a clear evening, and the Sacré-Coeur is at its loveliest with the light of the setting sun on it, around 9 p.m. in the summertime.

* The tiny little green flies here are annoying and, of course, seem to like me.  

* My daughter looks ADORABLE in a purple beret.

* Don't try to take your leftovers home.  Apparently it's frowned upon, and you won't be allowed.  At least not in Montmartre.  So frustratingly silly.  Double sigh...

* Sublingual melatonin doesn't feel like it does anything when you take it but it does seem to be helping with our jetlag.

Only in Paris

As we were coming out of the métro this morning I was stunned to hear beautifully played strains of a Bach Air from somewhere in the tunnels.

"Is that what I think it is?" I asked out loud.

"Sounds like it," my husband replied.

"A recording?"

"I don't think so." 

"You think that's live?  Are you sure?"

We went to check it out, winding our way deeper into the tunnels under the Place de la Concorde, following the sound of Bach's music, followed by some Rodrigo.  You'll understand in a moment why I almost couldn't believe my ears at first, and why I was then moved to tears a little bit when we found this (click "play"):

An oboist in the tunnels of Paris.  Where else in the world?!

(Of course we bought a couple of CDs from him, and he gave me a discount for being a "fellow-oboist."  How embarrassingly gracious is that?  I barely even count as an oboe STUDENT these days, while he is concert master in Ukraine, visiting Paris on business. Out of curiosity I asked him what type of oboe he was playing.  It was a Yamaha, but for "real" concerts he uses a Rigoutat.)

***

After an experience like that to start off our morning, the Louvre seemed almost anti-climactic!  That place is so overwhelming.  We went in with very simple goals:  the Denon wing, some famous statues, some sarcophagi, then out.  Except for the fact that we got totally lost in the Ancient Near East section trying to find the exit, we did really well.  Saw the Winged Victory; the Mona Lisa and some other Da Vincis that I actually prefer; the Venus de Milo; the old medieval walls they've been excavating; sarcophagi; and some artifacts from ancient Iran.  

I was sad not to have the energy to look for Vermeer's Lacemaker, but by midday we were Louvred-out.

I must confess I am not sold on I.M. Pei's glass pyramid.  I have memories of the Louvre without it, and I still think it spoils my view of the building.  On top of that, the greenhouse effect in there can be brutal on a hot, sunny day.  Just saying.

After the Louvre we stumbled upon the rue J J Rousseau entrance to one of Paris's covered passages, the Galerie Vero-Dodat, on our way to the church of St.-Eustache, where we took photos of our kids on Henri de Miller's outdoor sculpture l'Écoute.  The foodie in me wanted to visit the Comptoir de la Gastronomie down the street but the presence of a woman smoking in the doorway just about undid my desire to check out the store.  We had tapas for lunch in the neighborhood of Les Halles, at Les Piétons, then went home for a rest.  Dinner tonight will be simple - crêpes from a crêpe stand near the Champ de Mars, probably.

After the magic of this morning's oboist I think I've hit one of this trip's major highlights already.  

First Day in Paris

It turns out our original flight was cancelled because the plane got STRUCK by LIGHTNING flying out of Paris toward Boston and had to turn around and go BACK!

Twenty-four hours later, we caught a smooth flight - it's amazing how sunny it is above the foggy weather we get on the ground - and landed in Paris without a hitch.  We could tell we were on a French airline: dinner came with wine (no extra charge).  My husband's aunt was at the airport at sunrise to pick us up.

Obligatory first stop:  the neighborhood boulangerie, Weiland, for their delicious petit pain au chocolat.

After a nap, a stroll through a playground that made me sigh:

New French vocabulary word of the day:  crotte.  English equivalent:  turd.  Example:  Il y a beaucoup de crottes sur le trottoir:  There are a lot of turds on the sidewalk. (This situation has actually improved significantly over the last several years.)

Special treat of the day: dark chocolate, tiramisu, and bacio gelato at Amorino on rue Cler. ("Better than Berthillon," quoth my husband.)

We had dinner in Saint-Cyr with one of my husband's friends from high school, her husband, and their three lovely sons, ages seventeen, fourteen, and eleven.  I've visited Europe many times, and almost every time I am struck by how much more mature, well-mannered, un-spoiled, and comfortable-with-adults French kids are compared to their American counterparts, including our own (and ours are pretty good, in my humble view).  I won't even try to guess how that happens. ("Ils sont bien-elevés," said my husband simply.)

She served us wonderful lamb stew with raisins and apricots and a refreshing salad of greens in vinaigrette topped with peaches and cubes of feta.  Simple but delicious.  And yes, she was as well put-together as one might expect from my previous post!  Sigh...competence to aspire to.

Confessions of a Fashion Failure

Oh, how I envy my friend K.  She is not only completely gorgeous but also impeccably stylish.  We were at a conference together not too long ago and I just sighed with admiration at her perfectly-put-together outfits and beautiful hair.  I borrowed this image from one of her enjoyable "Fashion Fixation" posts.  She knows whereof she writes.

I am a dumpy slob.  I LOVE comfort and find it in pyjama-like clothes and sensible shoes.  Getting a "look" together takes me so much darn effort that I usually just give up before I even start.  I like the way light make-up improves the way I look but usuallly can't be bothered to put it on. 

Anyone who has spent time in Paris, though, will know what I mean when I say that if you schlepp around in sweats and T-shirts, you'll stick out as a tourist, or an American - a sloppy one - and be the object of considerable disdain.  In Paris you're supposed to dress like the model in the above photo.  Chapter Ten of Sarah Turbull's book Almost French summarizes it perfectly.  Please allow me to quote a passage:

"Warm up pants?" He's never seen me wearing them before.

"What's wrong with that?  I'm only going to the bakery."

There is a second pause.  Frédéric's eyes implore me.  Finally, he manages to speak.

"But it's not nice for the baker!"

I stare at him, incredulous, thinking, "You can't be serious."  But he is...His girlfriend is about to step out in public wearing "pantalons de jogging" - an item of clothing he wouldn't even wear jogging...

...Underpinning Frédéric's reaction to warmup pants is a concept that to me is totally foreign:  looking scruffy is selfish.  Not only do you look like a slob but you let down the whole city.  In Paris, failure to dress up leads to instant ostracism...

[Fashion designer Ines de la Fressange says] "It is much more comfortable to wear a jacket that is well cut in a nice fabric than it is to look awful."

She pronounces this last word "offal." And suddenly it's quite clear tome that I've spent a good part of my life looking offal...

...Such is the power of Paris.  It inspires me now to dress up too.  The trouble is I'm inconsistent.

Turnbull isn't the only one.  Here's a word from David Lebovitz's book The Sweet Life in Paris:

"The unspoken rule if you plan to live here - but equally good to adopt even if you're just coming for a visit - is knowing that you're going to be judged on how you look and how you present yourself.  Yes, even if you're just dumping your garbage.  You don't want anyone else, such as a neightbor (or worse, one of those garbagemen in their nifty green outfits), to think you're a slob, do you?"

My husband's Parisian mother and relatives would be the first to protest at this characterization of Parisian culture.  But as an outsider coming it, I do feel it when I'm there - not at all from them, the warmest, loveliest people there - but from THEM:  the other Parisians.  I've never been one to put much stock in appearances, but there's an unspoken code there that says, "If you don't care how you present yourself, you don't care who you are, or who we are, and that's a FLAW.  Shame on you."  It's a tougher code and ritual than I'd want to accept for something so trivial as clothing, but I'll admit part of me admires it. Maybe because it reminds me of medicine:  You're always supposed to be at your best, and anything less is just plain weak.  Impossible standards, but familiar ones.

Once in a while you find a dress that's both nice looking and comfortable, that's made of just enough Spandex to feel like cool second skin on your body and make you sigh at the way it feels and falls draped over your body, but not so much Spandex that it clings to the embarrassing bulges and makes you wince when you sit down. I have ONE dress like that, and a couple of other "nice" casual outfits.  So I pack them and hope they'll suffice.   What really matters to me is to be able to get on the flight tonight, at last, get there safely, and have a chance to spend some R&R time with my family.  They, at least, know that whatever they see on the outside, they have with them someone who's pretty happy with herself and absolutely in love with them!

Sign That We're Not Meant to Head Out Just Yet

So, my flight is cancelled.

My reaction?  Oh good -  I need more time to get ready anyway. Not to mention the fact that I'm always relieved to hear I don't have to get on a plane any time soon.

My husband, though, is bummed out.  He went to go hit some tennis balls.

My girl is a little disappointed but also totally psyched that this means she can see The Color Purple again tonight, this time with her dad.

My boy is totally sad he can't sleep over at the neighbors' house even though we're not flying out tonight and just might have to have a breakfast-for-dinner kind of night with his mommy.

I am trying not to let my usual travel anxieties get the best of me.  I was feeling so calm all afternoon.  Now that we're not going tonight, the demons are back:  They're having equipment problems.  Maybe your plane is unsafe.  Maybe your pilot will make a mistake.  Maybe there'll be storms over the Atlantic.  How will you stay calm if disaster strikes?  What can you say to your children to make it easier for them? Isn't it awful to think of being alone and in terror?  Wouldn't you rather just stay home?

No, demons, thank you very much, I wouldn't, not this time.  

Usually I am a home body, I'll admit, but I've earned this vacation, and I intend to enjoy it.  I want to eat some yummy foreign food and walk some charming streets and learn some history and art and just escape to distant shores far away from the work grind.  I want to ooh and aah at beautiful things with the people I love most in the world and laugh with them and be wowed.  If none of that is meant to be, there's nothing I can do about it now.  We're rebooked on this flight tomorrow, and we're just going to have to hope this one actually goes and gets us where we wanna go!

Sign That It's Time To Head Out

I'm off for a couple of weeks.  Blogging may be sporadic...or not!  We'll see how it goes. :)