The lovely Loralyn

My devotion knows no bounds. One can clearly see by the expression on her face and her puffy white shoes our mutual love and respect. Except that I would never wear shoes like that.

Loralyn's birthday is December 5th

Her birthday falls on the the eve of St Nicholas and since I was raised celebrating this holy event, invariably I spend inordinate amounts of money buying her gifts and thoughtful delicious treasures. This year I surprised her with a new coat from London Fog, an accompanying scarf from a little boutique I adore in the Marais in Paris, the most recent National Book Award winning book, which I loved, a box of chocolates from ChocolateSommelier.com, a fabulous online chocolatier and a box filled with all the things she cannot buy in France, including chocolate chips, brown sugar, coffee creamer and people who are nice. I hope she enjoyed it all.

Toute suite.

My friend Loralyn didn't need to be too persuasive. Within days I was in negotiations speaking to bankers and notaires in French. They were very polite and long suffering since my French, while passible, does not extend to things legal. Eventually I bought the damn place and made arrangements to go, in the middle of February, (Loralyn said "Oh it's always beautiful here".) for a month. Hyéres is in the south of France. It has a climate like Florida. The city itself is known for the millions of palm trees it exports to the Middle East. So I went.

Here is Loralyn looking smug. Which may have more to do with the fact that she is having a beer in the middle of the day and not attending to her 3 children for a change.