Jeu de Paume

Le Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume is a museum I intend to visit if I ever happen to get back to Paris. According to Wikipedia "The building was constructed in 1861 during the reign of Napoleon III. It originally housed real tennis courts; the name of this game in French is jeu de paume."

So that would be a good thing to do if a person happened to be hanging around during the French Open.

Here is what tennis courts look like in Falcon Heights today.I have in person seen people playing tennis outdoors within the last month. Fairly obviously however, that was in Florida. I think it is probably at least the end of this month before the Falcon Heights courts will be fit to play on. Close examination of the photograph will reveal that the nets are already, or perhaps more accurately, still up.

But who knows? Sometimes these things go faster than one expects. Upon reaching home at the end of my walk the past two or three days I have taken my ice chopper out for some recreational ice chopping, a pretty common Minnesota late winter pastime. Today I completed the first passageway.I am all the way down to pavement there. This is an important moment and one which I eagerly anticipate every spring. I refer to this when speaking to my inner self as "reestablishing contact with civilization". It is now possible to get from my house out to the rest of the world without having to pass over any ice or snow. That passageway through the ice is the first of many little victories for me over winter.

One of the next little victories involves one of my bicycles. Here's a hint, today I was out and about in only a light jacket. I bicycled last fall in temperatures down to 40, temperatures today are up to 40. I sense a coming together in the near future.