June 11, 2006

2006-07-11

Jim Morrison has Sortied.

Wow. It's been a long time since I posted. A lot has happened. Sanford and I decided to go to Paris with our offspring for Spring Break last March. Woo! Europe! Culture! World Travel!

Riots! Tear Gas! Explosive Diarrhea in a medieval dungeon converted into a bathroom! Woo! Massive asthma attack at the top of Notre Dame next to a gargoyle!

Anyhow, actually we had a kick ASS time. It was worth every minute and every penny. We stayed in a French hotel that ended up being exceptionally nice. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a little kitchen, a living room...it was GORGEOUS. We were quite close to two Metro stations and we mastered that within a few hours. If you can figure out the Metro system you can see EVERYTHING Paris has to offer. And it has a lot.

I speak French. Sanford does not. He spent several years in Germany when in the military. He figured barking in guttural German would suffice. For some reason the French didn't really like that. Dipshit. My kids were beginning to really pick up the French language by the time we left to come home.

My youngest decided to spit into the frozen French drain at the Cluny museum. Nice, eh? I slapped him on the back of the head. He was "testing" to see if it was frozen algae or not.

One day, my daughter and I separated from the guys and went to Pere la Chaise cemetery to go see Jim Morrison's grave along with Oscar Wilde's and Chopin's and Abelard and Heloise's graves. That is one HUGE MOTHERFUCKING CEMETERY and I want to be buried there. I don't care how much it puts out my survivors.

Anyhow, we get there, and we followed their effed up version of a "map". We found Abelard and Heloise's grave. Very beautiful. *sigh* blah blah. I found a lot of victims of Auschwitz graves. Very humbling. Many beautiful very old headstones. Stuff just covered in hairy moss. Open graves yawning open simply because they are so old. We keep walking and following the map. No Jim Morrison. We give up, we follow the German's with body odor who are muttering about "Jeem Moreees". People. HE AIN'T THERE. I don't care if you've seen it. I don't care how many photos I've seen, you've seen...JIM MORRISON FROM THE DOORS ISN'T BURIED AT PERE LA CHAISE CEMETERY IN PARIS, FRANCE. We scoured every square inch, mile, centimeter, meter..whatever measuring system you want to use...we did it. IT ISN'T THERE!!!!!! And it has taken me THIS LONG..4 months to admit to people that I DID NOT FIND JIM MORRISON'S GRAVE! I FAILED. I saw Chopin's damned grave. I saw Oscar Wilde's. Big Whoop.
I hate them now. I saw Marie Antoinette's memorial. I saw many famous dead effigy thingies. FASCINATING. I took hundreds of photos. Okay? I saw the Eiffel Tower, the Arc D'Triomphe, ...went to the Louvre, the Orsay, many other museums..we freakin' PISTOL WHIPPED PARIS, okay? We went to St. Denis where the dude supposedly carried his own head down a hill....we froze our asses off. It was wonderous. I cannot wait to go back. I would live there. Everyone was extremely polite and kind. The food was TO DIE FOR. The wine was YUMMY. You can get a crepe that would make you sell your grandmother on any corner. Cafe Creme on every corner.

But....Jim Morrison? No. No way. I walked my ass all over that big assed graveyard. It AIN'T THERE.
France is fabulous. Paris is a moveable feast to borrow a gifted writer's phrase. But Jim Morrison has already moved on.