Paris, Je T'aime

Got back from Paris a few hours ago. The good news: Even if I loathe the assignment, I still love Paris. And after filing a last-minute story when I got home tonight, I went straight to Power plate. The bad news: I ate more than I should have/needed to. The ugly news: None, thankfully.

Paris started off on the wrong foot for me in several ways. The first is that I had my passport stolen Saturday, and thanks to it being a US holiday Monday I couldn’t get temporary travel papers until Tuesday morning – and I was supposed to be in Paris on Sunday. Despite this sounding like a blessing in disguise – longtime blog readers (if indeed there are any!) will recall I was far from thrilled with the nature of this particular trip – it was not. Besides the stress of passport replacing/unsympathetic boss, I had to scramble to help the person replacing me Monday and Tuesday, um, replace me.

The other pre-Paris problem: I woke up Tuesday morning to find that I didn’t lose any weight last week. Frankly, I shouldn’t have expected to lose any weight last week. Yes, I didn’t binge and yes, I ate appropriately and yes, I did all my workouts – but I also had dessert two days in a row, something I never do. (Cake from Ottolenghi one night, and a sticky toffee pudding – something I’ve been thinking about all winter, but have not indulged in – the next.) I understand perfectly well that at this stage of weight loss – when I don’t have much to go – that small things can mean the difference between losing and maintaining (or – eek – gaining). But still I don’t like it!

So with my head in that place, I went to Paris, an assignment that encapsulates both everything I hate about my job and (almost) everything that makes me insecure about myself. The job I was doing was stressful, and made all the more so by two breaking news stories I had to work on that had nothing to do with the Paris assignment. So: The two nights I was there I went out to dinner and ate mine with very little thought about leaving any over/not eating so much of the cous cous (had a tagine one night). Last night I had pasta and a two small slices of my friend’s individual pizza – but compensated (a bit) by having fruit for dessert when everyone else was ordering tarts. Both nights I ate the little chocolate left for me by the hotel, something I would never usually do. I worked out both days, and walked a good bit. (And shouldn't Anna Wintour's death glare at my outfit at Valentino laser off at least a pound? A girl can dream.) To be honest, I feel perfectly OK with these two days – I didn’t make myself or anyone else crazy about my food, and now I’m back and back in my routine. Or I should say, I feel OK with this now – I’m probably going to be slightly less thrilled when I weigh in.

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Things tick on with Bachelor No. 2. He texted me in French while I was in France – he speaks six languages (we have two in common) and I think must have forgotten that French is not one of mine. Since the texts are occasionally naughty – and because I wasn’t finding the words in the online French/English dictionary -- I couldn’t think of anyone I’d particularly want to translate them!

Tonight, seeing an e-mail he sent me earlier in the day, I idly checked out the web site from which he’d sent it. I wasn’t expecting much, but it turned out to be a detailed family web site – from what is roughly the last year he was married. I scanned a few entries, which were written – ick -- in the overly jocular tone of a bad Christmas letter. Then I clicked on the photos page, thinking it was going to be mostly – as advertised on the main page – baby photos. Curious as I am about the ex-wife and what she looks like, I had to close the page down as soon as the photos started loading, because they were clearly family photos.

Frankly, I wish I hadn’t seen the web site. Just because I’m curious about the ex doesn’t mean I really want to know, at least not now. And much as I know he’s hardly an unbiased source, I feel like what I know about their relationship should come from him, not what I can piece together – or could piece together, if I actually read all the entries -- from a web site intended for family and friends.