Not Quite the End of the Marvelous Paris Tale

Before I begin with the "ring woman" I need to add something from earlier in the day on Saturday. When we were on the RER train to the Eiffel Tower, Steve was sitting upstairs on this double-decker train with Caleb, Audrey, and Connor. They were spelling different things and Audrey busted out with this: "A-U-D-R-E-Y spells 'Little Miss Splended Audrey.'"

How's that for humility?

Ok - now back to the tale. One commenter on the blog asked what would have happened if Audrey had gotten up on the little wall - well, I don't know. There was an outdoor cafe/restaurant below us, so I imagine she might have crashed some poor sop's lunch.

Now back to the ring woman. Here's the conversation:

Ring woman: Is this yours? (Holding up a man's wide gold band.)
Me: No.
RW: It's yours?
Me: No.
RW: It's 18K gold! You're lucky! You found it!
Me: (bewildered) No...
RW: (putting it on her fingers each in turn) It's too large for me. You keep it! You're lucky! It's 18K gold! (pointing inside the band)
Me: No...
RW: (taking my hand and shoving the ring on me) You take it!
Me: Uhh.......
RW: (kissing my cheek and walking away) Good bye!

At this point I'm still bewildered and wondering when the "punch line," so to speak, will happen. As I turn back to the kids to gather everyone up to head out, I see that she's back.

RW: Where are you from?
Me: America.
RW: I'm from Khazikstan. I've not eaten in 2 days.
Me: (Not surprised at all, and I start digging in the diaper bag for a snack bar) Here.
RW: (unimpressed, but takes the bar) I need to buy a ticket.
*She still hasn't actually asked for money at this point, but we all know that's what she's after.
Me: (digging in my pocket for the change I have) Here.
RW: (still unimpressed) Can I have 5?
*Steve jumps in at this point and gets out 2 bills, a 5 and a 10. As he peels off the 10 to put back in his pocket, she starts pointing at it and reaches towards it, but he firmly says, "Five" several times as he hands her the fiver and sticks the tenner pack in his pocket. He says, "Thank you" as he steers all of us away from her.

So basically she ends up with 5 euros and a Special K peach & apricot cereal bar, Steve ends up with what he thinks is a hilarioius 5-euro holiday story and I end up with a big fat "gold" ring from a creepy gypsy woman. We still don't know if it's real gold or not. I even tried to give it back to her when she said she was hungry and needed money thinking if she was truly hungry she could pawn the hideous thing.

After this we start heading toward a place to eat. I kid you not, we have another pink hat tantrum and it takes us 25 minutes to walk one block. Steve hangs back with LMAM and I go ahead to scout a place with Connor, Caleb, and Julie. We found an open air cafe and decide to eat there. Outside so as to not disturb everyone in the cafe. It was chilly outside but at this point I would rather eat outside in the cool breeze than subject innocent bystanders to LMAM's tantrum.

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I wrote this yesterday (Halloween) then got interrupted by life. I'm not done with Paris, but thought I'd post the next set of happenings since it involved Audrey's teeth and the creepy gypsy woman.

We took Audrey to the dentist when we came home: he said the wobbly tooth will move back into place and will firm up and that there's nothing to do for the chipped tooth. Fortunately we all have dentist appointments in Los Alamos the week between Christmas and New Year's.

Steve came home from work halfway through the day Monday feeling sick. He stayed home Tuesday and will probalby stay home today as well. He is in bad shape. I'm insisting that he see a doctor today. Will post an update later.

Kids had a fun Halloween. Will post pics later.