I am so damned tired.

My leg isn't hurting much anymore. I don't know if I'm stronger or I'm numb.

Anyway.

This morning I put my proverbial foot down that we were GOING to the Museum of the Middle Ages OR ELSE.

Here is a lovely candle mount from 1480.

I would not be surprised if it were German, judging by the head dress, but I don't know. It didn't say.

The Musee to Moyen Age (for all you French speakers out there) was pretty neat. It was not as...thorough as I was hoping. I was hoping for more things dug up out of dumps and sewers and that sort of thing, and less...chipped apart lumps of rock and secular items.

Still. It was pretty interesting. There were a number of nice tapestries, if you're into that sort of thing.

They had JUST finished a show of illuminated pieces, and I refuse to check the exact date of when it ended because I don't want to know if I could have seen it and missed it.

But they did have a handful of nice illuminated pieces that you could check out very close. Also, they let you take pictures (no flash) so I got a few good shots, I hope.

Check it out. I would say those squares in the background were about an eighth of an inch square, and all the not-gold ones had white work on top.

Pretty nuts. Someday, I'll be that good.

Someday I'll use period pigments, too!

I talked my mother into buying a book on illuminators and scribes from the museum bookshop. I found it pretty amusing that most of the books there that were any good, I already owned. My mother even approached me rather excited at one point with a book in hand, only to discover she'd bought it for me five Christmasses ago (and I use it a lot: The Medieval Tailor's Assistant).

After the Museum of the Middle Ages I decided I was Done Like Dinner. Done. No more museums. We'd done the Museum of the Middle Ages, the Musee d'Orsey, the l'Orangerie, Musee des Arts Decoratif, Musee de la Mode et du Textiles, Musee des Arts et Metiers, the George Pompedou Centre, Saint-Chapelle, Notre Dame, the crypt in Notre Dame, the Catacombs, the Petit Palais, Versailles, and the Lourve THREE TIMES.

And I was done.

So when my mother said we were going to go to the Musee Carnavalet (which was the history of Paris), I said: "No."

"But--"

"No."

"Well....what do you WANT to do?"

"I want to sit in a park and read my book."

"But--"

We walked all the way there and at the door I stopped. My dad stopped too. And that was it. We were like mules who didn't want to go any further.

Mom went in, though. Dad and I sat in a park around the corner, in the sun, and read books and napped, respectively.

And this is where I noticed this fellow:

Oh fine and noble pigeon.

He was the most hopeful pigeon I have ever seen.

He walked up and down that roof top. When he was all alone, sometimes he would sit on that corner and stare forelornly at the street below.

That is...until another pigeon landed on his roof.

Oh, and then! THEN! Our fine feathered friend would strut up behind her and puff up his feathers and do the mating call walk.

And do it and do it and do it until the frustrated female would fly off again (usually within about ten seconds).

And our poor buddy would take up his perch again.

Someday....someday his princess would come...

At the end of the evening we took a totter down to the docks and took a boat ride along the Seine. The sun was setting and the lights on the Eiffel Tower were coming out.

It was all very pretty. I told my dad that a night like this needs a man to down a bottle of wine and profess his undying love.

My father took me gently by the arm, waggled his eyebrows in a lascivious manner and said:

"I think we're too closely related for that."

I gave my father a look that looked something like this: -_-

He just giggled.

Which reminds me, the other day we were walking down the street, just me and him.

All of a sudden he leans over and whispers very loudly: "HOOKERS!"

And I said: "....what?"

"HOOKERS!" he whispers again, and points over his shoulder. "WE JUST PASSED SOME HOOKERS."

I looked. They didn't look like the hookers I'D seen.

"They don't look like the hookers I'VE seen," I said. "They look like they're waiting for some---ooooh."

"VIETNAMESE HOOKERS," my dad whispers. "THEY WERE HERE LAST TIME, WHEN I CAME BY MYSELF."

Again, I was a little: -_-

There were a lot of hookers out that afternoon, if my father's summation was correct...

And on that note, I think I will go to sleep.

See you tomorrow, peeps. Only two days 'til Amsterdam!