Pacifying Max, contn'd

Continuing from yesterday...

Art leads to ... yes, more food. On the way from Pompidou to Louvre, Max got very cranky, so we had to stop for more food. Lunch #3, I think. This bought us just enough good will for a 5 minute walk to Tuileries with its traditional mile-long summer kids carnival (rides and all). We did see Louvre but only as a backdrop to Max's joyous jumps on a trampouline (see picture).
After that he started to whine about going with him on other rides until Leon relented (but not without calling Max a b***g d***e a***e (with my full formal approval) and went with him into some labyrinth of physical challenges. Evidently unlike American half-hearted handicaped-friendly attractions, this one was not for wusses. Max got his ego handed back to him when we had to evacuate him through the fence (the last challenge involved puffs of compressed air and violently shaking ground). But little did we know that meanwhile he had prepared the next challenge for us. We were about done with a mile-long walk through Tuileries, when he said that he wanted to pee. Badly. Long story short - looking for the bathroom involved criss-crossing Tuileries four times, a heated, laced with trilingual profanities dispute with a maitre'd of a nearby restaurant, losing Irene, a $5 call to her cell to find her, and, finally, oh joy, a 40 cents peeeeeeee.
While Max, Leon and I were running through the park, Irene was courted by some local gigolo (well, I think he was a gigolo), which she enjoyed very much - I felt quite a bit of hesitation in her answering the phone and re-unification with the family. After the pee emergency, to cool off we went on a boat ride along Seine (uneventful) and finished the day with a midnight dinner at some third-rate Chinese restaurant not far from home.