I always enjoy reading what national publications have to say about Tacoma. The latest praise comes in next month's issue of Sunset magazine, which recommends Tacoma as a daytrip from Seattle via Amtrak.

It's not much different than what the magazine said about us in 2002, 2004 and again in 2005: Visit the Museum District. Eat some local food. And did you realize that we have glass art?

I'll take the praise any day. But if they really wanted people to ride the train to Tacoma, maybe they should've mentioned we're the nation's "Most Sexually Healthy City."

All aboard!

I just returned from a week in Hawaii and wanted you all to know I thought about you fondly briefly while I was away.

Over the course of Hawaii's history, many countries have tried to claim the islands for themselves. So I thought I'd give it a try and acquire it for the GritCitizens. You know, because there's a lot of gritty sand there.

So you see, I imprinted our identity into the ground to let everyone know it's ours now...

...then the ocean washed away my proclamation. So I scowled and went back to my cabana to sip over-priced drinks with liquor and ice cream in them.

I do.

Let's hang out.

Moreover, let's hang out, earn some red-wine mustaches, and learn the routine to this fine bit o' footwork brought to us by T-town's own Claude François Dance Troupe. (Tollefson Square would seem a fine venue.)

You didn't know we had a dance troupe devoted to a deceased French disco star, did you?

Voila le wiki:

Ambitious, Claude François moved to Paris, where there were many more opportunities to pursue his career. At the time, American Rock and Roll was taking hold in France and he took a job as part of a singing group in order to make a living. … In 1962 he recorded a cover version in French of an Everly Brothers song, "Made to Love" (aka Girls Girls Girls). Written by Phil Everly, it had been only a minor hit in America, but Claude François' rendition titled "Belles Belles Belles" rocked to the top of the French charts, selling close to two million copies and making him an overnight star.

In an e-mail to GritCity, the dancers wrote:

We are a group of Tacoma natives on a mission – a mission to spread joy, dancing and a love of the late French disco star Claude François throughout Tacoma and the world! Although we are scattered across the world (from London to Iowa), we reunite once a year in Tacoma to continue this important work. In order to further our mission, we are embarking on an online outreach campaign around our latest video in which we perform the funky dance moves from Claude François international hit "Cette année-là".

My favorite part is when a car drives through the routine and it gives me a little frisson of electricity – will the driver coast by, head bobbing, or even stop, leap into the back row and join the dance?

Oh là là. You will just have to watch.

p.s. Here's a croissant I ate once in Paris. It was good, damned good, as Hemingway is alleged to have said in relation to something French.

So, we kicked Kelly out of the country this week and sent her to Paris to be our temporary European correspondent just to keep things interesting. Then we told her she had to pay for the whole excursion. MWAH HA HA HA HA! Joke's on us though, because she seems to be enjoying it.

She arrived Tuesday and has already seen many Frenchy sites:

And dined on Frenchy delicacies:

However, her first dinner in Paris was a peanut butter sandwich she made while still in Tacoma. Way to be thrifty, Davenport.

She's even experienced her first Tacoma-related incident while in La Cité d'Amour:

I sat next to some folks from Vancouver, B.C., at dinner and they knew someone from Tacoma getting married in Paris this week. They had no disparaging remarks about our fair city, either. Vive la Tacoma!

We'll keep you updated on her whereabouts and experiences as GritCity's French Ambassador.

Alaska Airlines announced today it's offering nonstop (if everything goes well) flights from Sea-Tac to Hawaii. One-way ticket: $109.

Aloha and mahalo!

Where's a gritty Taco-woman to go on vacation? To our heretofore unannounced (and newly christened!) sister city of Chicago, o' course.

It's grimy, and it's got a big heart. We know how that goes.

After four days of loping around the city to great old neon-sign diners and bars and the eating of pizza and sammitches, and the drinking of cheap, delicious wine at hipster bistros, I concluded that Chicago's the big gender-neutral sibling we didn't know we had.

Not that we couldn't use a few things that Chicago has. (Yeah, there's the whole population thing, too – critical mass ain't just a bike group, and a greater population density here would surely help support growth in the arts, not to mention sprout something -other- than condos downtown.)

So here's my take-home list.

• Transit. (Did you know you could die if you peed on the El train's third rail? See what we're missing?)
• More resources for cyclists: paths, racks, drivers who don't want to kill them.
• A restaurant named TOAST. (self-explanatory)

I know we like to beat dead horses around here about what T-town lacks. But I'm proposing we just dress the dead horse up in a spangly tutu. Anyone else seen a great idea to steal from another city?

Here's a math problem for you. If the new non-stop flights from Sea-Tac to Charles de Gaulle leave here at 4:45 p.m. and arrive in Paris at 11:40 a.m. the next day, how many hours is that flight?

I'm not any good at math, but here's my best estimate.

Paris is nine hours ahead of us, which would would put the flight at a 8:40 p.m. arrival PST.

4:45 p.m. departure + 8:40 p.m. arrival the next day = 27 hours and 55 minutes??? Is that even possible? Can't you circumnavigate the earth in that amount of time? Somebody please tell me my math is off.

It is confirmed. My math is way off, as usual. It's a ten hour flight. I still don't understand how, but I accept it as fact.