Working Animals of Paris: Youki

One of the particularities of Paris and France in general is that you tend to find animals in the most unexpected places - canaries in a café, Yorkshire terriers in a hair salon, cats in a bistro. I've decided to start documenting these "working" animals of Paris, starting with my personal favorite, Youki, whom I have known since her kittenhood when she first came to work at our university center.

Name: Youki ("snow" in Japanese; also one part of the infamous love triangle of Desnos-Foujita- Youki during Les Années Folles de Montparnasse)

Age: 3 (in December 2007)

Job: Catching mice, entertaining students, cuddling with evening receptionist on cold winter nights).

Favorite Pastime: napping, hiding in vacant classrooms, stealing baby birds from their nests, leaving disembodied bird parts in the halls.

La crêpe perdue

Though fall may have officially arrived, we nevertheless had a gloriously sunny and warm day. Went walking around Luxembourg with friends where we ended our jaunt with a glass of apple cider and sugared crepes. We ate our goodies across the Theatre des Guignols and watched the children on the carousel. Some brazen sparrows flew up to our table and began eating directly from my crepe. Delighted, I was going to let them continue to share my food until someone reminded me of bird flu. Right...but from sparrows? Anyway, I couldn't resist, especially when they cocked their little heads at me and opened their beaks, sticking out there minuscule pink tongues to catch whatever little crumb I might throw their way. So I sacrificed the rest of my crepe and tried to take a photo. Unfortunately, they're all slightly blurry.