An hour before I returned to the vet for the last time on Thursday, Nice was hit with a hail and rain storm; our first rainfall since the end of May. It lasted up until a few minutes after Grey’s passing, and hasn’t rained since. Kanoko was puzzled when I came home without Grey, pawing at the empty cat carrier and looking at it from every angle, then meowing at me. The next day, Kanoko was much worse; when I got home from work, he had strewn placemats and napkins around the apartment, and had rubbed his face raw on one side during the day. He’d never done any of that before. While I was home, he obsessively searched the apartment for hours, especially re-checking Grey’s favorite spots on the cat tree and kitchen bar. When he’d exhausted himself from all the walking, Kanoko sat and licked his fur for another hour, occasionally stopping to meow-wail — it was not a meow I’d ever heard before.

Saturday (yesterday) went better, although Kanoko still

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My last few weekends have been spent taking off wheels, pulling off old tires,scrubbing rubber and rust off rims, gettingnew rim tape put on, cleaning and oiling the derailleur and chain, then figuring out the old Simplex derailleur and adjusting it so it now shifts properly (the cable was a tad slack and one limit stop was too tight, which prevented shifting into the lowest gear). As always, the bike shop I’ve gone to for nearly five years now,Vélo Concepton boulevard Raimbaldi in Nice (if the Flash entrance doesn’t work,try this link instead), has been great. They gave my bike a quick look-over three weeks ago, pointing out a few things I hadn’t noticed, and yesterday they kindly put on new rim tape for me, for the same price as buying rim tape would have cost (plus, I wouldn’t have been able to put it on as well as they did).

Although my bike still needs a few more repairs — new brake and derailleur cables, as well as new brake pads

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A few weeks ago I took my camera to Boulevard Garnier, an east-west street north of Nice’s city center. I walk it occasionally to go to the Libération open-air market, and had noticed some beautiful mosaics on apartment entries. The one shown above is a closeup ofthis mosaic, leading tobeautiful wooden doors. It was done by themosaic cutter and setter Zanussi, as well asthis scrolling vine mosaicjust down the street.

There’s a more modestart deco mosaicin my building’s entrance, and back on Boulevard Garnier, this “Provence” mosaic, done in a very different style:

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The last few weeks, I’ve been busy scraping offthe textured paintin my living room to make way for a new color (of regular, non-textured paint). Luckily the textured paint had been put overwhite paint, which I then had to wash. That last photo may look relatively white, but in reality, it’s quite yellowish — the cleaned walls look much better. This means I won’t have to use primer, which is nice.

About a year ago, Nice started a “city bike” program calledVélo Bleu. I took a 15-euro yearly subscription, which lets you borrow bikes as you want, with the first 30 minutes free on each bike. While it is very cheap, it’s not so practical when, in reality, I’ve only been able to find a bike to use about 10% of the time, plus they’re very heavy and only have 3 speeds. I enjoyed riding them anyway, which helped me realize that I’d be happy with a cheap bike of my own for riding around town. I wouldn’t have to lose any time

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On this day in 1860, the French flag replaced the duchy of Savoy flag for the first time in Nice. Today that event was celebrated with parachutists and a performance by thePatrouille de France, one of the world’s oldest aerobatic demonstration teams, formed in 1931. I grew up watching air shows at our local airport, and once saw theBlue Angelsperform, so I was very much looking forward to today’s festivities. My expectations were far exceeded — the Patrouille de France, led byVirginie Guyot, the first woman ever (in the world) to lead an aerobatic demonstration team, was breathtaking, especially over the background of a particularly beautiful Mediterranean.

Despite there beingquite the crowd, I was able to find aspot near the beachand Place Albert 1er, which was where the performances were set to take place. First, agroup of 35 parachutistsdropped into a formation supposed to be “150″, though we spectators had a hard time making it out in the blazing sun. T

By fraise

On this day in 1860, the French flag replaced the duchy of Savoy flag for the first time in Nice. Today that event was celebrated with parachutists and a performance by thePatrouille de France, one of the world’s oldest aerobatic demonstration teams, formed in 1931. I grew up watching air shows at our local airport, and once saw theBlue Angelsperform, so I was very much looking forward to today’s festivities. My expectations were far exceeded — the Patrouille de France, led byVirginie Guyot, the first woman ever (in the world) to lead an aerobatic demonstration team, was breathtaking, especially over the background of a particularly beautiful Mediterranean.

Despite there beingquite the crowd, I was able to find aspot near the beachand Place Albert 1er, which was where the performances were set to take place. First, agroup of 35 parachutistsdropped into a formation supposed to be “150″, though we spectators had a hard time making it out in the blazing sun. T

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Today’s festivities began with the removal of the bell cast yesterday night. While we waited for Estrosi, mayor of Nice (and also minister of industry), theclamps were removed from the mold, and we watched flags being thrown over a background of drum and fife music. OnceEstrosi arrived, themold removal could begin. The manager of Paccard explained that to help the bell dislodge from its mold, the casing needed to be hammered. He presented the hammer to Estrosi for “a first few strikes,” butonce Estrosi had started, hekept going, despite polite requests from Paccard workers to let them take over. After a few minutes of hammering, thebell was finially dislodgedandit came out of its mold. It was covered in residue, which Paccard workersbegan to remove.Estrosi posed for another photo, then workerssandblastedandpolishedthe bell.The finished bell will resemble itstwosisters, also cast for the 150th anniversary of Nice joining France.

While the bell was being sandblasted and

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To start the festivities surrounding the 150th anniversary of Nice joining France, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” wasperformed, followed by a traditional church bell casting. The bell shall be for Nice’s Notre Dame church, and was cast by the FonderiePaccard. Paccard is from Sévrier, on the Lac d’Annecy in Savoy, the duchy of which Nice had been a member. Their bells were, and still are, so well-known that before Savoy joined France, Paccard exported bells to France, as well as to many other countries, including the USA.

Theovenwas turned on at 5 this morning, with a 78% copper and 12% tin mix (to make bronze), with some phosphorous added while we watched the casting this evening at 10. The finished bell will weigh 225 kilos and ring a C#, or “do dièse” since they refer to musical notes using solfege in French, and have a fixed “do”. The head of Paccard mentioned that the largest bell they ever made weighed 33 metric tonnes,

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300-odd years ago, Nice was not part of France, but part of theDuchy of Savoy, and later theKingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. Duchy of Savoy territories were the last to join France, their annexation in the 1860Treaty of Turinratified by a hotly-contested vote that is still the subject of debate today. Calls for secession from France continue, by authors such asAlain Roullierand groups likeLiberà Nissaand the harder-rightNissa Rebela, which I photographed for a “politically incorrect” topic in a recent competition here. (The winner was a photograph of someone using a French flag as toilet paper, to put it politely. When that caused an uproar, the winner was stripped of their prize, which was then given to a photograph of a pregnant woman holding a burning cigarette in front of her stomach. All I can say is that if those were the types of photos they were looking for, I’m glad I didn’t win.)

Amidst this debate, celebrations for Nice’s 150th year as part o

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Two weeks ago, I removed the glass shower door in my bathroom. The surrounding floor and walls were starting to rot, and I knew the door blocked much of the airflow needed to dry out the rest of the shower properly, so I decided to just take it out myself and put in a shower curtain and rod. While taking out the door, I discovered that the previous owners hadn’t waterproofed any of the seams… which is mainly why things had been rotting. However, it did make it much easier to remove the door, since all I had to do was unscrew it from one wall and pull it out of the other (it hadn’t been bolted in on both sides). As a reminder, they hadn’t waterproofed the floor beneath the tile shower they installed either. Every time I discover something like this, I’m glad I bargained down the price on my place — I had been very hard-nosed about it since some of theelectrical work they’d donewas borderline dangerous, which I suspected meant the rest of their &

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