Paris, s'il vous plaît?

Since our apartment's wireless is continually on the fritz — it tends to die during the most crucial moments of my nightly studying, like when I'm spell-checking French papers online — I've started bumming WiFi at Starbucks more and more often.

This week, that means curling up in an overstuffed chair with a peppermint mocha, the last pages of an analytic behemoth on Flaubert's "Un Coeur Simple"(en français, bien sûr), Thelonious Monk's greatest hits and a pair of high-heeled boots I snagged for $4 Saturday at a garage sale on The Row.

How... cultured.

And as I sip my coffee, eye a croissant in the glass case and people-watch, I can't help but think I should doing this across the Atlantic.

This is the American version of the Parisian life I've picked out for 2011.

Two weeks ago, I officially declared my French major. If I'm accepted to the program my adviser and I selected, I could spend January to May of 2011 in Paris, taking classes at La Sorbonne or Sciences Po, exploring what may be my favorite city and soaking in French culture.

Some foggy Parisian morning, I may throw on these same black boots, a perky red beret and a black coat, and head to a neighborhood cafe to order from a dour, salt-and-pepper waiter.

Un café au lait, s'il-vous plaît? Avec un morceau de sucre.

No overstuffed mini-couches, but I'll settle in a spindly wrought-iron chair, sip my coffee, unfold a copy of the International Herald Tribune and watch the world go by.

What a golden dream.

That foggy café morning keeps me going through this Ugly Now, cluttered with frustrating hours in the multimedia editing lab, never-ending French papers, sleepless nights, blaring alarms, irritable friends, empty fridges and neuroscience that I never seem to understand no matter how hard I study. 

Paris, s'il vous plaît. Maintenant, si c'est possible?

Dr. McClure (or, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Palos Verdes")

I've written it a million times: "PV, KS, 66208."

But now, PV means something else to me: Palos Verdes.

If you can't remember the name, just call it Heaven on Earth.

• • •

I've always had a paranoia for seeing teachers out of context. In my perfect world, teachers live in their classrooms, eat in the cafeterias/on campus and don't interact with anyone but fellow teachers and students.

Once, my mom told me she'd seen my third grade teacher at the grocery store. My life almost ended at the tender age of nine.

But yesterday, an offer from my neuroscience professor tested that paranoia. Dr. McClure invited his 35-person class to his PV home for a barbecue. And I — the girl afraid of third-grade teachers going grocery shopping — found myself speeding down the 110 South to my professor's Palos Verdes home, swimsuit in hand.

I didn't want to go to my professor's house! I didn't want to go swimming! Or barbecue with him! He's my professor! He lives at school!

But when I stepped out of the car, the beauty of Palos Verdes erased any uncertainties I had. 

(Click to enlarge any photo)

And as we walked onto Dr. McClure's back porch and climbed down his wrought-iron stairs, another view unfolded.

California smog always gives sunsets an ethereal glow, but in PV, they're especially breathtaking.

I was mesmerized.

The dull urban roar I'm so accustomed to hearing from my bedroom window had been replaced with silence, punctuated only by the sound of waves crashing against the shore.

And in the end, all awkwardness was erased.

We crashed on our professor's couches and watched the California vs. Stanford game, jumped into the hot tub and then the pool and then screaming back into the hot tub, ate burger after cookie after slice of pie and ended up staying more than six hours.

Next semester, a friend and I are going sailing with Dr. McClure from his berth in San Pedro. And I'm excited.

The beauty of PV may have cured me (maybe) of my fear of professors at their homes. Or at least, this one. It was just too magical to pass up.

(Note: All beauty aside, it was still somewhat weird to see my elderly professor in a Jacuzzi, but I'll get over that eventually.)

In a fog?

If I were a Californian, this is how the story would go:

Since Monday, I've been schlepping through classes with a bellowing, explosive cough that sounds like a squirrel-sized something is trying claw free from my lungs.

Ew. To ward off the chills, I've been dressing warmly — scarf, long sleeves, jeans, boots — to make sure I don't catch [more] cold when I'm biking from the library or Starbucks or the office late at night, steaming beverage in hand, balled up against the cold. I'm wrapping the scarf around my ears and tucking it in to keep out the biting wind.

But even so, I'm freezing.

I pass other similarly cloaked bikers and we share a frigid moment of stoic silence, acknolwedged by a brief tilt of the scarf-enveloped head.

Sometimes, the nights are foggy. I only hear the tickticktick of other bicyclists' chains as I careen down the murky streets, the 24/7 sound of traffic muted by the blanketing mist. I hate the fog. It's damp and yucky and it makes the seat of my bike all we overnight.

I mean, seriously. How can I be expected to go to class when it's so cold I have to put on a sweatshirt in the morning?

And how can I be expected to be happy in this type of weather?

I mean, it probably hit 55 last night. My toes were cold in flipflops this morning.

• • •

But since I'm not, this is how I'll tell it: 
Since Monday, I've been schlepping through classes with a bellowing, explosive cough that sounds like a squirrel-sized something is trying claw free from my lungs.

And to make matters worse, I'm embarrassed to say that I've been freezing in 60-degree weather. I stepped outside the apartment yesterday in fur-lined boots and a scarf and felt like someone should run up to me screaming, "TAKE THAT OFF!" and slap me upside the head.

Nope. Instead, I see Uggs everwhere I turn.

As I leave Starbucks or Leavey or the office late at night and see other people going by, hoods up against the wind, we share some kind of "I-know-I-know-we-both-look-ridiculous" grimace.

The only part I'm enjoying is the fog, which smothers campus and North University Park like a serene, muffled blanket. Everyone is a stranger and everything is quiet: no sirens, no traffic, no bro-laughs coming from The Row. Nothing.

I love the urban ruckus and year-round temperate climes of LA, but this has been a welcome break.

The part about my toes was true, though. They did get cold, and I did put on boots.

Five things I learned while biking home from the grocery store

1. Grocery lists should take into consideration the capacity of a bike basket.
2. Capacity of a bike basket: three full bags. Capacity of my left hand: two bags. Purse capacity: two bags. Handlebar capacity: four bags.
   
3. Brake for no one.
4. Extreme Grocery Shopping would make a decent reality TV show: cross between House Hunters and the Amazing Race?
   
5. For every tenth of a mile traveled on the way home, milk weighs half a pound more.

Halfway loaded up at Ralphs, completely panicked.

 Hungry already.

Moral of the story?

Well, we all knew it already. But frequent shopping trips make eating and transporting food much easier.

Tonight, I had a Real Home Cooked Meal. Hallelujah. The honeymoon period commences anew.