these mosquito bites are NOT FUNNY

my legs from the knees down are a pink swollen mess of bug bites and they are not regular bug bites but some sort of evil gallic mosquito that is wanting revenge for several hundred years of franco-anglo bad relations. perhaps i should leave my canadian passport out on my night table so they leave me alone. oh mein gott. they are really persistent too - usually if you leave them alone they are gone within a couple of hours, but this is night number two of going to bed with my legs packed in ice and they are showing no sign of letting up. tomorrow i am going to the pharmacy for some benadryl, that's all there is to it. and until then, mind over matter, they do not exist, if i don't pay attention to them, they won't bother me....argghhhh.

anyway. so today was the start of a Three Week Pose. very exciting. we drew lots for which easel we wanted, and i ended up with a reasonably well-lit centralish spot, which i am pleased about (although as the days get darker earlier, we are really noticing the difference- the studio is all natural light, pas de lumiere electrique, and by the end of the afternoon my nose was about an inch from my canvas trying to see what i was doing.) it's sort of a velazquez maja desnuda pose - she is lying semi-reclined on dark red drapery in front of a mirror, so we have the challenge of the mirror reflection as well and all the red reflected light bouncing around. i can also see from my seat a tiny little gary head that floats around just above her thigh in the mirror reflection, which i will have to decide whether i am going to paint or not. the real test of romanticism vs. realism.

for lunch, L, C and i brought our lunches down to the lake to join M&P and the girls for a picnic; it was gorgeous and sunny out although quite cold. C had her first fig ever at the age of fifty; a landmark occasion. it just confirms my impression of the midwest as a hard cold land of sensory deprivation (meanwhile miniM, the 3 year old, is happily shoving as much camembert as she can into her mouth; no problems with dietary paucity there...) i ended up going to their house for dinner tonight (four out of the last five meals half in french, not bad) as philippe had roasted a chicken and claimed they would not be able to eat it all, which was fun. the girls had painted an empty toilet paper roll with stripes and waves and stars as a present, which was SO CUTE it is hanging on my door knob now. truly a gift for the woman who has everything. they should put them in the saks fifth avenue catalogue.

okay time to go feel sorry for mosquito-bitten self. love to all.