Pancakes and Jazz

What have I been up to lately? Lots of childcare, for one thing. I pick up Eden and Liam every day at school and next week I will start taking them to all of their after-school activities too. I babysit two nights a week as well, but that is much easier because I can read or go online or watch a movie while the kids are sleeping. The parents like to go out a lot, and quite late sometimes (like 3am, for example!), but it is normally a restful evening for me, hanging out in their apartment drinking tea or decaf coffee.
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Last night I had a really nice dinner with Max. I am loving cooking more on my own this year; I'm finding lots of good recipes online and experimenting has been successful thus far. We made a delicious chicken recipe and had artichoke for an appetizer. I can't decide if the soy and honey sauce was my favorite...or the American pancakes with maple syrup that I made us for dessert! (Okay, the pancakes definitely win - they were pretty tasty.) Because I can see the Eiffel Tower from my window, we get to watch the light show sparkling from afar, every hour on the hour. When we make nice dinners like that, with different courses and such, it's better than any restaurant in Paris. The skyline is lit with purples and pinks at sunset and the Tour Eiffel and Les Invalides light up in a soft yellow glow just minutes later.
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This morning I went with Marjerie to the train station to buy tickets for our upcoming weekend in Saint Nazaire with Stacey. Afterwards we had a coffee up in my room (7 flights of stairs, no elevator) and talked about our plans for this week. PE's band has a concert on Friday and we're all going to go see them play. Last Sunday he and Pierre, another boy from his band, played their guitars on the Pont des Arts for two hours right at sunset.
We all sat in a circle on the wooden, pedestrian-only bridge, tapping our feet or hands and sometimes singing along. Strangers would gather around to listen, or even sit down nearby and film the boys with cell phone cameras. It's jazz music that they play and they have so much fun with it. I get wrapped up in the music; my eyes are drawn to the rapid movement of their dancing fingers, up and down and across the strings. I love to just listen to the music play and change and build up and slow down, while the musicians take turns and build off of each other's moods or ideas to create a tune - I could do that for hours.