Paris Post-Arc

Just to clarify in response to comments by DiscreetPicks and John....look, obviously, I wanted to come last week for the Arc. However, working in finance as I do, when I requested to take off the days immediately following the close of the third quarter on Sept 30, I got an extremely chilly response. So, we moved it back a week (which did not particularly upset the Head Chef, who's been pushing for a Paris trip sans equines for some time). (And, I might add, it's worked out gloriously in terms of the weather, which has been, and is predicted to be for the remainder of our stay, absolutely picture perfect.) However, if we're lucky enough to come back here, hopefully in the next year or two, it will be for the Arc. And if I'm still stuck working at my present company (where nobody, obviously, has the good taste to read this blog), they'll just have to fucking deal with it.

I believe that there actually is racing at Longchamps on Tuesday. But it's not on the Head Chef's itinerary (she's firmly in control here); and even if it was, we wouldn't be able to get there anyway due to the general strike scheduled for that day. The public unions are upset about Prime Minister Sarkozy's efforts to raise the retirement age from.....get ready.....60 to 62. It looks like the rail systems will mostly shut down, as well as Air France and possibly the air traffic controllers too. We moved a couple of museum visits up from Tuesday to Sunday in case of closures there. There have also been rumblings about an open-ended strike as opposed to the usual 24-hour affairs here, but that doesn't appear likely according to what I've read....and we're hoping we'll be able to fly home on Wednesday evening as scheduled.

So, I won't be seeing any horse races, though I did run into a guy who scored big on Arc day.



And just a note if I may to my buddy Green Mtn Punter and others of his tea-infused ilk who are just regaining consciousness after reading about the dispute here in France. I believe in free enterprise and the right of everybody to engage the system, take risks, and earn the big bucks. But I also believe that government can, and should, play an ample role in assisting those who spend the 40+ years of the prime of their lives toiling in menial work (and not being to take days off to go to horse races whenever we'd like), a group which comprises the vast majority of us of all political persuasions, to be able to enjoy the relatively few remaining physically-enabled years of their active lives in peace. That's not too much to ask, and my opinion is that the revulsion to government which we're presently seeing in our country today is illogical, reactionary, and wholly against the interests of even those who are caught up in the current hysteria, no matter where the roots of it lie. Just my two cents.