“Une image d’Epinal,” a term to designate a common cliché, or as what I refer to here as “This must be too good to be true.” This favorite painting by Renoir came to mind yesterday, my birthday, enjoying a brisk after-dinner coffee with Jacques on the Place Colette, in front of the Comédie Française. At the bustling café, the sun was still high in the sky here at 8 PM. It was one of those sprawling June days of almost endless sunlight, yet we were shaded from the glare by giant umbrellas. From my vantage point, the view of the entire terrace of happy clients, each seeming to enjoy with friends or lovers this moment of invincible life to the fullest, struck me as never such an anniversary celebration had done. Moments before, we had just miraculously landed tickets for two of the best seats in the house to see ‘Britannicus,’ the Racine play about Rome under Nero and Agrippina (how timely). It was wonderful. OK, the rest of my birthday? Overwhelming emotion received from opening so many private messages from such a wide range of new and old acquaintances, as this is now one year of my joining Facebook. Earlier yesterday I wandered over, unaccompanied this time, to the Louvre (I cut lines and get free entrances with my ‘Amis du Louvre’ card) to revisit for the Nth time the stunning Delacroix exhibit. It will be in New York next season. This immense artist, a friend of poets and musicians, defies classification, experimenting in all styles and manners of expression. On the way home, I enjoyed the respite of the shaded Bistrot Valois for a sip of champagne, before joining Jacques for dinner, which was take-out from Pain du Sucre (amazing light pâtés and sweetbreads in pastry) just down the street, which we enjoyed on the cherished porcelain from Aunt Carrie in Berlin, and a newly-acquired service of vermeil, matching the “Sans-Souci” pattern. Yes, I’m concerned by the deep corruption of modern politics and the many problems in our society, so this made the discussion of the play lively, instructive, and profitable. The walk home on that perfect, starry night, while the sun had still not completely set at 11 PM, authorized me to think, for one more day, that perhaps I was realizing for myself the “invincible summer inside me” that Camus spoke about, with the renewed courage to face new challenges.