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Roussillon sits perched atop ochre cliffs by Leah Marie Brown   "I have a feeling you are going to love Roussillon," Stephanie boldly proclaimed.  "In fact, I think it is going to be your favorite Provençal village."   We were sitting in the gilded tearoom  La Maison Angelina , sipping our ridiculously delicious, overpriced drinking chocolate when Stephanie made her declaration.  It was day one of our Paris-Provence-Tuscany Adventure and already she was making predictions.  By the time I had discreetly licked the whipped cream from my lips - for one always preforms such necessary but unsophisticated acts discreetly when in Paris - the conversation had flowed in another direction.   A week later, I found myself sitting in our zippy rented Fiat, watching the ochre hued landscape of southern France whiz by, and  I thought about Stephanie's prediction.  I wondered if it would come true.  Remembering al...

map-generator.net We departed Juvignac, an arid commune in the heart of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, in our rented Fiat.  Stephanie took the wheel and I rode shot gun, my nose pressed to the window so I could watch the scrubby landscape whiz by (as much as things can whiz by when rolling in a microscopic Italian death machine).  Although Stephanie and I are intrepid world travelers with dog-eared passports, we were both feeling giddy at the prospect of spending the night in Provence, a fabled land of romance, olives, and wine. Stephanie is an adventurer at heart.  It's one of the things I love about her.  She believes travel is about the journey, not the destination. (I respectfully disagree.  For me, travel is all about the destination, especially if it includes a night at the Hotel Ritz Paris or the Hotel Martinez in Cannes.  Belgian chocolates devoured while lying naked in one of Westin's Heavenly Beds trumps salte...

Ever since I discovered I have a Rational Heart , I've been exploring the notion of soul mates .  Are human beings meant to mate for life?   Is monogamy natural? In the United States, the divorce rate has been on a steady climb for the last forty years.  The majority of children born in France are born to parents out of wedlock.  Many young French couples are opting to cohabitate rather than wed.  France!  What does it mean when a nation known for its romantic pairings (Napoleon and Josephine, Marie Antoinette and Axel von Fersen, Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, to name but a few) , is making "to death do us part" obsolete?   Hollywood offers little hope.  Tinsel town is littered with the wreckage of disasterous unions.  Brad and Jennifer.  Tom and Katie.  Demi and Ashton.  Jennifer Lopez and (insert random male name) .  It makes me wonder.  If golden couples who have yout...

Do you hear that distant knelling?   Book lovers around the world are ringing bells and mourning their losses.  The era of the bookstore is dying, my friends.  With customers converting to Kindle and Nook, and sales plummeting, Barnes and Noble announced a plan to close 190-240 of their stores.  First, Technology set her sites on newspapers; and now she means to annihilate bookstores.  As a former newspaper reporter and a lifetime book lover, this news fills me with great sadness.  The days of walking into spacious, neatly organized bookstores - or even small, independent nooks (pun, recognized but not intended) - are fading away like a dollop of whipped cream in a Starbucks mocha.  At the risk of sounding Orwellian, I fear we are headed into bleak times.   I try to imagine a world without newspapers, bookstores, and greeting cards (I am sorry, but ecards are just not the same) , and it fills me with d...