Hey, my left eye is still twitching, it’s been twitching for over a week now, and I don’t know how to make it stop. Any ideas? Anyone? Anyone?
(Oz : The monkey's the only cookie animal that gets to wear clothes, you know that? So, I'm wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like, is the hippo going, "Hey, man, where are *my* pants? I have my hippo dignity!" and you know the monkey's just, (with a French accent) "I mock you with my monkey pants!" and there's a big coup in the zoo.
Willow: The monkey is French?
Oz: All monkeys are French. You didn't know that?)
(Hmm.. . I didn’t know that either.)
I bought some lisianthis today, purple of course. I put them in a vase near the window. (yes, lisianthis are flowers [Though Microsoft Word fails to find them in its dictionary]) What I failed to notice is that ‘near the window’ is also ‘near the radiator’. My lisianthis are looking a bit wilted in the baking heat of the radiator. I hope placing them in the freezer will help them recover. (Kidding)
Even on the lowest setting the radiators, um…radiate, yes radiate, baking heat. The radiators are so efficient that we turn them off at night or it gets too warm to sleep. Weird huh? I need them during the day while I sit here looking out my office window, but at night under that nice warm comforter it gets a bit TOO warm. I’m weird, I know this. Of course ::laughing wickedly:: it’s only getting down to 47 at night so it’s still rather warm, don’t you think? ::cackling wildly::
Ok, enough of that free association crap. No, I am not drunk! Honestly, a girl tries something fresh and new and everyone accuses her of being inebriated.
All right, the visit to Illinois was wonderful. I miss J already and I need my baby back. I was glad to visit with all of my wonderful and supportive friends and am facing a true depression wondering how the heck I’ll get through the next 8 to 10 months without my baby and my friends.
I finally picked up my Visa on Friday the 7th. (we were supposed to leave on Thursday, you’ll recall) I faced my elevator ride to the 37th floor with dignified and quiet stoicism. (Yes and a Xanax alright!) You all would have been so proud, S was proud. (Zeno would have been proud!) We were in and out of there in less than ten minutes. I’ll tell you the ride down would be a real ego boost if a bathroom scale were available in the little coffin. It moves down so quickly that I think I was ten pounds lighter for about 20 seconds there. If the building had been taller I think I might have achieved 0 gravity.
In their great benevolence and generosity (yeah right…dorks), M’Co., allowed us to fly business class on the return trip. It’s supposed to be like the big unveiling of ‘the new life’, since we are now OFFICIALLY in France. Whatever! Big Dorks! Make my life pure hell for a few months and one trip to France in Business class is supposed to do it for me! I’ll tell you what would make me happy, it would be to see those….umm, but I digress.
Yes, right, business class.
This meant that we got to ‘hang’ in the Air France “Lounge” for an hour and a half before our flight, where two nice women served us cookies and cheese and any beverage we wanted, while we sat in comfy chairs and surfed the web and chatted amiably with fellow fliers and got manicures and waited for our flight to the sounds of a string quartet and…. Ok, we sat, we had beers and we stole electricity to charge our computer batteries while we waited. When it was time to board the plane we were lead through a special door right to the walkway and boarded well ahead of (Mind you I say this because I’ve been in this category and will be in this category on every other flight except for our “Last Flight” back and it’s really how you feel in those cramped seats) the rest of ‘the cattle’. We were served champagne while we waited for the rest to find seats and stow carry-ons etc. (Count 1 beer, 1 glass of champagne) I of course immediately set to playing with everything my chubby little hands could reach. (Ok, my hands aren’t chubby but it makes a nice visual doesn’t it?) My own two tiny pillows, my own cute little blanket, the buttons on my chair that made it recline and one that made the foot rest come up and down. I got a little bathroom kit bag with a toothbrush, toothpaste, eye cover thingy, shoe horn (why?), comb, moist towlettes, sewing kit, razor and shave gel, two Tylenol, spare underpants, q-tips, loose change and a bathroom sink! Really! Ok, from the underpants on I made up, but the rest is true, I swear, I still have it all (except the Tylenol). In the arm rest on one side was my tray table and on the other side the armrest was hiding my own little personal TV screen. I could stretch my legs out and not touch the seat in front of me. Yeah, ok, I’m THAT short. Not really all that short though. S was in heaven with the leg room. While we waited other business passengers stowed gear and milled around drinking.
There was a funny little Indian man with a beautiful blanket around his shoulders. It looked like a Sari or like Sari fabric but it was very quilted looking too. He caught me looking at him and gave me the most unfriendly look. I stopped staring right away and went back to ‘chubby hand’ exploring. Geez, it’s not like I was staring at him with my mouth hanging open or anything, like some first-time-business-flier-country-bumpkin or something.
Anyway, the only other fun thing was that we were given dinner menus and when dinner was brought they put little table clothes down on our tray tables. It was just a bit over the top. Had some nice wine with dinner and then switched to water. Too late though, the damage was done. Began to have a headache right then, a headache that did not leave for 3 ½ days. Couldn’t sleep on the plane, pillows, blankets and reclining seats not withstanding, it was impossible to get comfortable in the suffocating heat of that space. I know ‘the cattle’ don’t get that kind of heat to sleep in and thank god for that. I got up and found a bucket of ice and a big bottle of Evian in the galley and proceeded to drink myself silly. Well silly because I would spend the last 2 hours of the flight going back and forth to the loo (WC…bathroom). Of course when I found the water and asked for the bucket of ice, the shivering, blanket wrapped flight attendant looked at me as if I was nuts so perhaps that should have been a big clue that all was not well in Missyville.
You know, between the 9 hours of flight time and losing 7 hours of clock time, you spend what amounts to a good portion of a whole day (night in our case) in travel. We left Illinois house at 2:00 pm on Monday and arrived at Castanet-Tolosan House (doesn’t quite work does it, perhaps I’ll just call it France-house instead) at 1:00 pm on Tuesday. How fair is that?
Of course we went to buy milk, eggs etc. only to find everything closed…on a Tuesday. No fresh food for us then. (Maybe there is still some icky UHT milk sitting on a shelf somewhere. It’ll do in a desperate pinch I guess) This thought crosses my aching brain as I’m swearing under my breath about the French and their goofy holidays. Of course come to find out, purely by luck, the French celebrate Veterans Day same as the US. I saw this on the AIT calendar while half heartedly going through the mail.
As luck would have it ‘Aunt Sally’ arrived on my doorstep the second I’d crossed the threshold just to add her two cents to my jet-lagged-hung-over-migraine. Found my little complimentary Tylenol right then.
I began to unpack on complete autopilot and willed myself to try to stay awake until at least 6 to try to get back on schedule. The large creature currently trying to batter its way out of my skull through my eye sockets wouldn’t have it though and at 3 o’clock I finally gave up and fell into bed. S took this as his cue to also collapse.
I awoke to total darkness and reached for my new little IKEA clock with the light switch in it and flicked it on. After a brief screaming session and battle with nausea I focused on the clock to see that it said 6. 6 am or pm? This is where unreality took over and really got spooky. Where am I? Is it day or night? What time did I lie down? How long have I slept? What the hell is that thing over there?? (Ok, getting carried away again it was just S) I made my aching brain focus enough to get out of bed and go into the office. It was 6 pm I had only been asleep for 3 hours.
I started to wander around and unpack things again with my head dragging along in a bucket next to me as I couldn’t bear to wear it any longer. Honestly the whole thing felt totally surreal through that headache. I realized that I had not eaten since breakfast right before we’d landed in Paris and that would have been around 9 am France time which was…who the hell knows what time, on what land mass….aaaagggghhh!! Ok, so focusing on food, I went into the kitchen to find fish sticks, a can of corn, a can of pears and some Pepsi. Dinner is served.
Yeah, you’re right. NAUSEA city on a plate. Ate, and went right back to bed, curled into a fetal position and tried to just hang on to my dinner (if you could call it that). Poor S, he had to work on Wednesday. He had meetings. I don’t remember him leaving. I got up around 1 or 2 pm and tried to eat again but was instantly nauseous again. I went to bed and that’s where S found me when he got back from work at 8. He’d brought some milk and other staples but I was done with food and the creature in my head that was still searching for an exit appeared to have grown. I do remember IM’ing La and maybe Ky or e-mailing but it was all a bit hazy. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t focus and I definitely could not eat.
On Thursday morning I was up at 3 am. I was awake so I read for a bit. I fixed S breakfast at 6 and then I went to bed and slept til 2pm when I was awakened by, yes, a French Telemarketer. I think I’ve been marked by the telemarketing demon, as someone who is just too much fun to torment. I’ve given up on adjusting to the time again. I’ll sleep when I’m sleepy and I’ll work when I’m awake. I’ll eventually settle into a pattern. Unfortunately without that old schedule-pinning-routine thing I may be in for some trouble. You see as I type this it is 2 am on Saturday morning and I’m wide awake. S is of course sleeping poor man, but me…well maybe it would be easier to just move to the time zone I’m living instead of trying to adjust to the time zone I’m in. So for now, love and kisses from Irkutsk.
