Claire, Out shopping in Paris, originally uploaded by ultimatewhit.

This is one of my favorite photos I took while in Paris. Claire is walking down this glass hallway full of shops. I say “Hey Claire, hang on a second.”

Let’s take note of something real quick. When we go on walks, or hikes, I lead by 10 – 15 feet. When we shop, Claire leads by about the same distance. I’m not exactly sure why this is, I’m open to interpretations.

Claire stops, turns around, and gives me this look that I’m so deeply in love with—I captured it here.

The look: “I’m in the middle of something honey, can’t you see that what I’m doing is very important.”

(But note that she is not mad)

The look continues: “I love you and I am willing to wait, but you must realize that this is a habit of yours worth breaking. When we shop, you are slow, why would you want to take pictures when you could be buying Christmas presents in Paris?”

With a huge smile (and without saying a word), I agree that it WAS completely ridiculous, which she returns with another classic Claire look that I can best describe as lips pressed together, head tilted down, chin to the left, eyes up and looking directly at me. This look says “you know what I mean.” My smile continues and communicates back, “of course I do honey, let’s go shopping…”

It’s a week until Christmas so we spent a solid day walking around looking for gifts. Somehow I only managed to come back with a few—Claire did much better than I did. I have a lot to learn from her when it comes to Christmas shopping—maybe I won’t bring the camera next time.

Of course I will.