Is There an Attractive Way to Eat a Burger?

This blog has gotten away from me a bit. I realize that. But I'm back now!

So, news for this week:

Le Petit has fallen ill again. He doesn't seem like a particularly sickly child, but I must be wrong because he takes more medication in a week than I think I did for the first ten years of my life. The prognosis this time is asthma (minor), pneumonia, and potential tuberculosis. So he's not going to school at all this week. Instead I am taking him to the park, the zoo, a kids' theater show, and his after school activities. 

...

I'd complain less if this week I didn't also have to babysit tonight (14 hour day!) and work for another 8 hours on Saturday. That's 55.5 hours for this week in total. 55.5 hours of snot, spit, tears, rectal thermometers, inhalers, butt wipes, potties, Octonauts, cooking, and housework. I'm sorry, I'm just not ready to be a stay-at-home mom. How did this happen?

I did escape relatively early last night for a burger date with Sophie. There's a "Brooklyn Diner" close to my apartment that serves Aunt Jemima pancakes in the morning, some salads, and a variety of burgers. There's the 14 euro Chicken burger, the 15 euro "Oh Yeah!" burger, as well as the Chuck Norris burger which goes for an inexplicable 18 euros. What could possibly be in the Chuck Norris burger that's worth 18 euros? But there's also the classic cheeseburger which is only 6 (this is my favorite option). Who knew that adding bleu cheese, bacon, or caramelized onions can drive the price of a burger up to more than twice its original value?

The burgers are good, but to be honest, that's not why we go. We go because the most gorgeous man in the world works there. You know that fantasy about going to some European city and you meet an unbelievably attractive guy who swoops you up onto his moped to show you the "real" Paris/Rome/Athens and you end up in some deserted public park or on a roof somewhere and somehow he produces a bottle of wine and tells you you're the most beautiful woman he's ever met and you're just thrilled that he said "woman" and not "girl" and you immediately fall in love with him? Well this is the guy from that fantasy. The man of your dreams works at a faux-American burger joint in Paris. I'm not an ogler by nature but he's like a walking Levi's ad. I can't help it. My internal monologue goes something like this: Oh god oh god he's coming over. He's looking at me did he just smile at me? Don't look at me! Look at me! How do you say hello in French? How do you say hello in English? What did he just say? Do I have ketchup on my face? Would it be sexy or disgusting if I licked cheese off my fingers? I wonder if he's handy. I wonder if he could build me a kitchen. Or a house. Or a children's tree house...

But eventually Sophie and I finish our burgers and our drinks and we have no excuse to stay unless we order dessert which we can't do because 1: we're poor and 2: we don't want to look fat. Which is such a silly, girly thing to think and usually I don't but when the guy who will be bringing you the enormous cheesecake looks like some sort of French Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Marlboro Man conglomeration, you think about these things. 

Long story short, Beautiful Burger Guy did not write his number on our bill, get off early to wait for us outside, or invite us to a party he's having at his apartment later. But there's always next week.