Emus, Running, and French Genes

Last night, for no apparent reason other than perhaps the swiss roll cakes were getting to me, I decided to go for a run. This happens about four times a year where the idea of seeing how far I can run with out passing out sounds like fun. Usually I make it about ten minutes before I pack away the tennis shoes for a few months. Yesterday I lasted twenty minutes, dodging Parisians who looked at me funny for daring to exercise on their streets, before I stopped at the sight of emus.

That's right, let it soak in. Emus. Maybe ostriches. All I know is they looked suspiciously like the giant bird I saw once at an emu farm in South Carolina. There were three of them in a small cage, like the kind they keep owls in at the Potter Park Zoo. At first I thought they were fake, based on the building behind them that said Natural History Museum, and the fact that they were not moving. But, grateful for any reason that allowed me to stop running, I decided to have a stare down with them and find out if they were real. They were! They moved their heads and one even stood up. Apparently there is a zoo in Paris, and nobody bothered to tell me. Sure, I love wandering the city and looking at giant phallic symbol after giant phallic symbol and marveling at the architectural genius of it all as much as the next person, but what I really love is zoos. So you can imagine my happiness at finding this exciting development. I plan to pay the zoo a proper visit later this week when I am not sweaty and disgusting.

Anyway, after the emu excitement I had a burst of energy and ran to meet my friend at her house, lured by the promise of water. After spending an hour watching her facebook, I decided my fun had ended and moved my journey on home. However, I managed to get lost and, mapless, spent the next two hours wandering the streets of Paris. I finally made it home, four hours after I had left my house.

I arrived home and just a few minutes later Roomie, who recently has been making the rarest of appearances in the apartment, bustled through the door carrying a giant bag from McDonalds. She came into the kitchen, where I was downing a bottle of water, red faced and sweating, and she looked me up and down and said: "You go jogging? I go to McDonalds. So, great." (So, great, being her favorite way to end a sentence in which she is trying to suggest that she should be healthier, i.e. "I drink so much, my friends call me AA. So, great." I appreciate the attempt at cross language sarcasm). Bless her heart, she meant well, but as she sat in the salon eating her third (I kid you not, third) quarter pounder it took all my will power not to break her tiny little French self in half and extract the DNA that allows her to eat three quarter pounders a day and still look like she stepped off a page of Vogue.