Updates…

Parking….and more.

My French driver’s license is supposed to be ready on June 9th. Two months from the date I dropped off the paperwork. Well, I have one small problem with that. I leave for the US on June 2nd. Since the French took my US drivers license to ‘exchange’ it for one of theirs I currently have no license except for a temporary that runs out on June 9th. This means that I cannot rent a car in SD or even drive one at all in the US. This is a problem.

So today I thought I’d go to the préfecture to see if by some miracle my license was ready. Of course it was not; in fact the young woman at the counter practically laughed at me and said that ‘foreign license’ exchange can take from two to six months. What? Nobody mentioned that before. I explained my problem to her and she kindly agreed to check it out for me. Let’s be clear, the French system is no where near the US modern DMV office, by this I mean that it is not by any means computerized. The whole system seems to rely on these stacks of file folders that are lying in piles everywhere. I’m sure there’s a system there somewhere, but it just doesn’t seem to be a very efficient one. The kind young woman behind the counter returned from her foray ‘in the back’ almost 20 minutes later (I’d begun to organize a search and rescue mission, she’d been gone so long) and assured me that I should be able to pick up my license on May 28th. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed shall we.

The story part of this event however, was not my adventures in French bureaucracy; the story was the 45 minutes it took me to park. I knew parking would be an issue, that’s always the first hurdle to overcome in downtown Toulouse. I have a routine down though; I begin by systematically checking every parking area within a one mile radius and then circle these areas, shark like, waiting for someone to leave. I must say that the French are very creative parkers and if you need to be somewhere, creativity of this sort is necessary, of course so is having a very small car. Though today for the first time ever I saw police writing tickets and I even saw a few cars sporting those lovely ‘boots’, not however any of the creative parkers, just legal parkers who’s meters had run out. Just circumnavigating the parking lots can be an adventure, mostly due to creative parkers that try squeeze in a space at the end of a row (among other places), yeah the end of the row commonly known as THE ROAD! After all the legal spaces are taken people park in a line down the middle of the aisles, then a second row of parallel parkers develops down the middle of the aisle and if two really small cars are parked next to each other and if you are really desperate, and you have a really small car too, you park next to them in the aisle essentially sandwiching a car in the middle that will not be able to leave until one of its neighbors leaves. This along with sidewalk parking and parking on the corners makes for terrific navigational fun.

What the search inevitably boils down to is following someone who appears to be walking to their car, just hanging back and driving in a slow manner reminiscent of Jaws stalking a swimmer, with the ‘Jaws’ theme playing in your head. Of course you do this for the length of half an aisle only to have the ‘swimmer’ cross over to another aisle that you have no hope of reaching in time to take their space. I got so used to not finding a space that I actually passed one by because I didn’t believe it could actually be a space. The little red Smart Car behind me snatched it up right away. I finally found a real parking place that, due to the aisle parkers, took me several back and forth contortions to back into. I backed into it because backing in, though fraught with difficulty, was preferable to the trouble it would later take me to back out of it.

After my prefecture visit I returned to my car and I was considerate enough to walk down the isle that my car was actually parked in so as not to frustrate the stalking ‘sharks’ of which there were many.

The funny thing is that as I drove home I drove down a road that had several open parking spaces, it was difficult to break the invisible magnetic like pull that those empty spaces exerted. Was sorely tempted to pull into one and park. It sure seemed a shame to pass them up.

The Visit

La and hubby arrive in two days. And while trying to calm her through her preparations I am in the midst of chaos here too. I have two suitcases in different stages of packing. Have to pack a small bag for the Paris portion of the visit (said bag will also double as the bag for the Barcelona/Madrid visit) and the large suitcase is being packed for the trip to the US. My twin and I, being the queens of list making, must be responsible for the felling a small section of forest just in pre-trip lists. So much to do! I think I actually have it worse as she is packing for a two week trip, I’m packing for two weekend trips, plus a three month trip, plus trying to stock the house for visitors, plus trying to stock the house for S’s bachelorhood. Yeah, you know I’m just loving all the hubbub.

Books

Of course through all the preparations I have still found time to read.

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty is a book released only as an audio book and read by the author. I found it to be incredibly sad and at the same time funny. He tells the story of Smithy a 279 pound 43 year old who begins a journey of self discovery after the death of his parents. Finding his old Raleigh bicycle in their garage he embarks on a cross country journey of adventures so far fetched I thought at times it was Big Fish all over again. Still a good book to listen too while biking or walking.

The Wish List by Eoin Colfer – not a fourth Artemis Fowl book, but an altogether different story. Predictable in every way but a lovely story about redemption and forgiveness and with the decisions of heaven or hell hanging the balance. A story about what matters and the how the choices we make affect our lives. It’s a kids book to be sure but I liked it.

The Bitch In The House edited by Cathi Hanauer – This New York Times bestseller is now available in paperback. The cover blurb says it all “26 women tell the truth about sex, solitude, work, motherhood and marriage” Basically 26 essays by women at different stages of their lives, their relationships (or lack off), careers and sacrifices made to have it all. Some of the essays you’ll read and think “Yeah, that’s exactly it” some of them offer interesting alternative views that are in a way eye opening and sometimes sad. I read it in two days and really enjoyed most of it.

The Bastard On The Couch edited by Danial Jones (Cathi Hanauer’s husband) has just come out in hardcover and is the men’s response to ‘Bitch’. “27 men try really hard to explain their feelings about love, loss, fatherhood, and freedom” Interesting reading but I think the men may have missed the ‘honesty’ mark. Still some very interesting perspectives on how men see women and the whole ‘having it all’ myth. Some funny takes on the modern gender roles and the confusing signals men receive. Generally a good read.

Weather

The weather here has finally changed into ‘Sprummer’. It’s gone overnight from highs in the high 50’s to highs in the mid 70’s to low 80’s. I’m trying to expose my legs to some small doses of sunshine on a regular basis in hopes of moving from Albino to merely Blinding before I have to wear a dress for the wedding. I’m told that pantyhose are definitely ‘out’ by my sisters.

That is all from here for now. I’m off to lay a bead of RAID down around the doors and windows to discourage further infiltration of ants and spiders. They are just coming out of the woodwork (I mean brick work) with this warm weather.