Still rolling around the Veronique challenge

Does Veronique ever relax?

I'm looking at her clothes and she is always in tight clothes.

The "Diamond Dusted" outfit is a gorgeous one, a sort of hostess outfit and the only one I can think of that suggests relaxing.

Is moonlight always cold? That's my question, as the judges on this challenge seemed to take issue with warmer colors as an interpretation of moonlight.

Also, I have jumped more into the concept of moonlight: what do we do in the moonlight, as the entire concept is Joie de Vivre -- taking joy in life. To take joy in moonlight, one should be outside -- or lying in bed with a clear crisp white rectangle of window thrown across the bed by the moon . . . or, like my cats, stalking small living things in the clarity of the light of the moon, the clarity achieved by the contrast of the highlights in the direct light of the moon against the crisp dark shadows thrown against the area lighted, the crispness in direct contrast to the darkness of what is enclosed -- inside buildings, bushes, trees, shelter of all sorts. Wildness is a component of moonlight. . . and Veronique is so controlled, so bustier-ed, so put together.

I am too California for this challenge: I have seen owls take off from the side of the road, bears ignoring me while they pick my trash (mmmmm, cake!), coyotes running silently in a pack down the middle of a mountain road in clear crisp moonlight, a family of raccoons snuffling in the attic and fighting their way across the road -- not fighting cars, fighting each other; raccoons coming to the window to peer in . . . . I have been tossed and tumbled by the Pacific until I was breathless, until I swam to the bottom thinking it was up; caught in rapids in Taroko Gorge, trapped under a capsized raft; pulled to a tantalizing depth, just barely able to touch my toes intermittently to the sand while trying to rescue a non-swimmer pulled out in the Taiwan Straits; listened to the chiming of millions of shells and shards in clear water off the Pescadores . . . . I have run across an entire island, a country, by mistake -- run across an entire island by mistake, yes. I have run the length of three islands and two bridges with mad intent . . . . I have climbed to the source of the Santa Ana river high in the San Bernardino Mountains, where the water bubbles from under a plantain-like leaf, a skunkweed type leaf.

and I wonder what Veronique does to enjoy life?

I want to dress her comfortably for a moonlit evening out -- not without her champagne and friends -- yet in the place I select, in California, she would be out of place dressed as she dresses.

What do people do outdoors in New York -- or is that where her cosmetics company is located?

Isn't she taking some time off at the moment to travel? I believe she is in Paris or on the Riviera.

I have not travelled in Paris, though I spent some time there in the Gare St Lazare -- or another one, en route from Amsterdam before I took the underground to the correct one -- asking every hour then every 15 minutes where I should pick up my train, until the information clerk's shift change and a new clerk told me it was another station and it might not be likely I would make it there in time, but I did, to board the train to Madrid.

On the way south, I was stuck in front a teenaged girl and her mother who boarded somewhere south of Paris, the girl hacking and coughing and honking constantly, never once covering her mouth and never once reminded by her mother to do so. "Oh my God!" I said to myself in alarm and horror at the realization, "Peasants! They still exist! I thought they only existed in van Gogh and Breughel."

On the way back, I met a gracious young man, a French train attendant who carried his own corkscrew, as the train did not, and opened my Spanish wine for me.