Madeleines

I cannot think of a better way to start the weekend than with my favorite iced Starbucks concoction and a packet of imitation French cookies! They might not be true madeleines, but they are too delicious for me to really care.

When I choose to take a break from soy chai lattes, this is my drink of choice: a nonfat vanilla latte. The hot and cold versions are equally delicious!

After waking up feeling totally hideous yesterday morning, and therefore dressing like a complete slob, and therefore feeling even worse, today I needed to sartorially and mentally replenish myself. This ostentatiously pink shirt felt like the right move. And I had a splendid day! It just goes to show how much what you wear changes your attitude.

Eating madeleines reminds me of Paris, and more specifically the creative writing class I took there. In the class we read the famous passage from Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust about his involuntary memory triggered by eating madeleines dipped in tea. If you like French literature and yummy things, you should read the excerpt!

Vintage Gap skirt, vintage blouse, Urban Outfitters belt, Hue tights, vintage leather boots via eBay

While I am on the topic of French artistes... I have been listening to "Claire de Lune" by Claude Debussy nonstop for weeks on end, and it's one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I have ever heard. I did a bit of research about it, and the movement is based on the poem "Claire de Lune" by Paul Verlaine. I just have to post the poem here because it is so stunningly beautiful.

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

~

Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masked and costumed figures go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

All sing in a minor key
Of all-conquering love and careless fortune
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight.

The still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
Which gives the birds to dream in the trees
And makes the fountain sprays sob in ecstasy,
The tall, slender fountain sprays among the marble statues.

I am currently enjoying a relaxing evening at home in my pajamas, then celebrating the sixteenth birthday of my darlingest friend tomorrow night! I hope you all have fantastic weekends ahead of you.