Life is never boring here in The Pearl and this week was no exception – recovering, brunch, swimming, extraction, and of course some painting. So here it is…

Saturday, while chewing a bite of Trader Joe’s Crispy Potato & Poblano Pepper Tacos, I felt something odd in my #15 tooth, the one that was temporarily repaired in March. The doctor told me it was temporary, she was right, a piece came out, and what was left wiggled. Wiggling is a good thing on teeth when you are five, but not at my age, pas du tout. So I booked an appointment for Tuesday, expecting a root canal, however it was discovered the tooth was cracked beyond repair – I will spare you the photo she gave me – so I am now a bit lighter on that side of my mouth. Thankfully as I write this I am pretty much back to normal.

Sunday was Mother’s Day so Alexis and Joe invited us for brunch, Tricia’s favorite brunch entree is eggs Benedict, one of mine as well (of course technically Tricia likes eggs Florentine which substitutes spinach for ham) – they did it superbly. Joe, being the baker he is, contributed a blueberry cake with so many blueberries in it that I am sure our anti-oxidant level is quite good now – and I am positive that balances out the sugar and such. So it was a good time of talking, laughing, and eating.

With warm Spring weather upon us getting out to paint in The Pearl is the best. Just down the block is Via Delizia, a Mediterranean themed cafe complete with outdoor seating on the sidewalk, I felt right back in Paris as I sipped a French vino blanc while doing an Urban Sketch of Marshall street looking East.

As we often do, we watched a couple of episodes of A Place In The Sun. One was in the exact area we lived in when in Normandy, it was nostalgic to see so many places that we knew so well. Another episode was near Carcassonne, in the Southwest of France, one of the most amazing villages we ever visited. It has been inhabited since 3500BC with a walled city built in the Middle Ages, it is considered to be the best preserved Medieval walled city in the world.

Tricia has started a new series on places we visit in Oregon, she just posted her first post. If you followed her series on Paris you may recall the map I made for her on that series, she asked me to do a similar thing for Oregon.

I did a bit of tweaking to a piece I did sometime ago while we were in La Thebauderie, the sentiment is still real.

The developments in the world continue to influence my painting every now and then.

This morning we swim again, thankfully Tricia is over the cold she had last week. I hope this finds you healthy and at peace, spending time with friends and family, eating good food, and of course capturing the moment in a sketch.