Superstition

When I was hanging my exhibit at the Boston French Library with galerie directrice Noémie.

I had to get under the ladder MANY times to hold the tape straight, while Noémie placed the pictures. An anathema for me. I'm superstitious from childhood. I have my father to thank. I'd sooner walk into oncoming traffic than under a ladder.

Quite a few of you suggested I visit Le Pere Lachaise.
Are you kidding? My father insisted anytime we passed a cemetery, funeral or hearse we had to spit 3 times (figuratively of course).  I still do it.

A PBers sent me this photo of a black cat in Le Pere Lachaise cemetery!

If my dad saw a black cat crossing the road.

He would turn the car around. No questions asked.

Whenever the family went off on a trip.

We had to repeat this travel incantation before my father would start the car:

'We're off in a cloud of dust,
In fact we've already left'.
I never go to Paris or anywhere without saying this. Once I tried to explain to a French woman in Provence that we could not go to Cezanne's Mont Sainte Victoire without saying the travel incantation.

Nous allons depart au nuage de bla bla

En effect nous allons deja depart bla bla.

But there are inconsistencies.

Superstitious as I am, the night of the Boston opening, I broke a small cosmetic mirrors. What of that?

I lived on 13th street for years in the village without a hitch. And the 13th floor several times. Go figure. 

Are you superstitious? Do tell all!

Very superstitious,
Writing's on the wall,
Very superstitious,
Ladders bout' to fall,

Thirteen month old baby,
Broke the lookin' glass
Seven years of bad luck,
The good things in your past

When you believe in things
That you don't understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way
BONJOUR SUPERSTITION!

Chat Parisien

Not Parisien, but from Demel, though surely very Parisien style.

I have yet to see any Parisien carry around a cat in a bag on the Metro. Plenty of dogs, but no cats.

This cat tea pot was in the window of what else? A Paris chocolate shop, Debauve & Gallais, perhaps the oldest chocolate shop in Paris.
A real Parisien chat, sitting outside guarding a shop at the Place du Palais-Royal - a guard cat.
Another "guard" cat spotted and photographed by Keith & Stephanie Carter on rue Bonaparte..

Keith & Stephanie sent me this shot of a running chat at Pere Lachaise. BIG MERCI! These cats and dogs sit in windows. Langues de chat(cat's tongue bisquits) for the cats. What's in the 'French' Bulldog box?

A chocolate "Egyptian" cat at the Paris Salon du Chocolat...

More chocolate cats at the show. Is that a white whale with a volley ball attached?! Anyone have a clue what these cats are up to?Lastly you have to include un souris (a mouse) from the Salon. Wait this is a famous fat cat created by Belgian artist, Philippe Geluck in collaboration with Chocolat Galler.
BONJOUR LES CHATS PARISIEN!