Midnight in Paris

I just saw “Midnight in Paris”, Woody Allen’s latest, less than wonderful movie, and could barely get passed the shoes the fiancee and her mother wore throughout. High heeled, wedges, stilettos–none of which would be possible to wear in Paris, unless you were either born and bred in Paris, or you were carried around by large henchmen. Furthermore, these two ladies obviously never got that famous tourist syndrome–the blister-that-never-goes-away.

The last trip I took to Paris, one during which I wore broken in shoes, I got the perfect blister that never went away. I couldn’t believe it. It was hell.

Eventually I tried to deal with it like a Parisian. I went into a perfectly respectable looking drugstore, and from the huge array of podiatry flim flam, and with the help of my friend who lives in Paris, so she knows, right? I chose the box with the blister cure in it.

It didn’t work. To be precise, these band aid things made the blister worse. But since I couldn’t believe this was happening, I continued to use them. I told myself this method was healing the blister from deep within first, and somehow when it was healed all the way to the surface I would have a King Fu spot on my foot that would never entertain a blister again, particularly one gotten from well-worn, walking shoes which knew how to traverse a cobblestone or two, or ten miles a day of them.

The green chairs in the Jardin Tuileries are the perfect chair upon which to sit, so that one, instead of enjoying the view, may comfortably remove one’s sock and shoe, the better to peruse the screaming blister, maybe applying more bandaids etc. I got to know these chairs well. One can sit on them with ease. One can even nap in them. Unlike the ubiquitous green benches which require a certain amount of practice before one can actually sit rather than slide, rear first, all the way through them.

I took this picture of this particular chair because this is the chair upon which I sat when I checked my blister, in the sunlight, so I could actually see it clearly for once. And that day I saw that the blister that wouldn’t die, was gone. I felt a confused sort of triumph–

I had thrown out the French blister aid, see. I did apologize to the bandaids before doing so, assuring them it was the fault of my very American blister for failing to respond properly to their healing ministrations. And then I’d gone back to my tried and true, which was to use a regular bandaid, and look the other way.

I don’t think I totally panned Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” because he got it so utterly wrong with the women’s shoes, but…well, maybe I did.

#Blister #Humor #JardinTuileries #MidnightinParis #Paris #Travel #WoodyAllen