Monday at the Louvre

We finally made it to the Louvre. I know it sounds horrible that I have been here for almost 9 weeks and just now went to see the most famous museum in the world. But the truth is I am not a museum visitor anymore. I did a lot of it when we lived in Florence, Italy. I wrote columns in the English speaking newspaper, some of which were art critiques.  I needed to know something about art, so I did a lot of studying and museum tramping. And I am not a happy camper in a museum. 


The room I liked most was the sculptures, because I recognized the mythical characters. I was happy I had learned my mythology.


Afterwards we dragged ourselves to the local restaurant. There I  ate aile de raii, which is some fish or other and fennel, made in some wonderful sauce. Dick hemmed and hawed, had been saying he wanted to eat Andouillette, a great big sausage. The food was brought to the table, and I began deboning the fish, when this smell wafted in my direction. Had someone left a pile under the table, was there a dead mouse in the corner, maybe one of the waiters hadn't showered properly?


Dick always gives me a taste, because since my vomiting session I am not going to eat meat as a plate. He dipped it in the sauce and put it in my mouth and I realized that the sausage was smelling like that. Yuk, and I had already swallowed the piece. It tasted fine, but the smell lingered like a boring date. It frankly ruined my meal. I am still washing my mouth to get the smell away from me.


There were many years when my nose was incapable of smelling anything. It came back a couple of years back. I had finally become accustomed to smelling bad breath in the elevator, bad perfume on old ladies and dead mice in the garage and in the office. But this was something else. In my mouth.