Growing Poppies

This is an advertisement by France's Banque Postale (Postal Bank) for a type of life insurance/savings account that is supposed to be adapted to all stages of life--hence the images of a poppy growing into full flower. (It's more legible LARGE).

I have to say that when I see red poppies these days I tend to think of places like Afghanistan, which grows poppies to produce heroin and other opiates, which have become the country's biggest export. To be sure, the French may think instead of Monet's paintings of poppy fields (and my American parents always had a reproduction of one in our house). The Post Office has been using this ad for at least a year--and I continue to see it with bemusement.

We arrived this morning in Paris (for three months), and this is a bus stop on the Rue Tolbiac in the13th Arrondissement near our apartment (the same one as last year). I promise more edifying blips as I recover from jet lag.