The eagle has landed

So I'm wandering through the grocery store, just picking up a few essentials, you know, checking stuff off of my list when I suddenly see the Gray's Cream Soda. Put a 4 pack into the cart. Ooh, cottage cheese with pineapple, Oh, and a chocolate milk Chug, Oh, Pop Tarts, chocolate donuts, creamed corn, apple butter, Kraft singles! Intervention!!!!!!

King Bed?! Cool! So where are you guys going to sleep?

Aidric approves of his new brother, Matt. He's ok even if he is a Packer's fan.

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes."

"Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos." -- Snoopy

"Don't be dismayed at goodbyes, a farewell is necessary before you can meet again and meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends." -- Richard Bach


Dinner at Mags last night with Eliane and Daniel too. All my favorites were served, foie gras, champagne and Mags got Marie from the Killarny to do a take out order of her famous whiskey chicken and potatoes. What a meal. We all had a great time and nobody cried, well, almost nobody cried. I'm going to miss those two wacky women. They have both offered to have S over when he comes back for home cooked meals. They picture him eating out at McDonald's every night, they don't know him very well do they?

Have paid for a 1/2 page ad in the AIT newsletter for next month. I've listed all the items we will be selling. Hopefully we'll get rid of all the stuff and put a tiny bit of green back in our pockets. It looks good so far as some items have already been spoken for. The list isn't long but it includes my car which has still not been sold. I really wanted to get it sold before I left, but what can you do.

We're off in the morning first thing and will hit the windy city by 3:30 tomorrow afternoon local time.

So see you all on the flip side.

Hmm

Do the shuttle astronauts get frequent flier miles?

Hot, Hot, Hot

It's so hot, so bloody hot! Did you know that fans don't cool the air, no really, they just move the hot air around. Pointless. When I return to the states I vow to find the shrine, cause surely there must be one, to the goddess of air conditioning. And I will leave her a massive offering of ice cubes in a fine crystal bowl, (The good thing about the goddess of air conditioning is that she eschews blood offerings.) in atonement for my taking her so for granted. Never again will I complain about the air conditioning being too cold, there's no such thing. This heat makes for cranky babies and cranky mommies (even 'The Precious' is being a little temperamental). Will have to put Jr. in the car and just drive around with the A/C cranked. One thing to be grateful for is that my car has a FABULOUS air conditioner.

Why even the wildlife is cranky. Just now I saw a large lizard savagely pick up its baby and carry it away...you know like a mommy dog picks her puppy up in her mouth and carries it away...wait, you don't think that that big lizard...lizards aren't carnivores are they? Ok, now I'm just depressed.

You've been Gilmored

You know what's sort of sad and sort of funny. I watch 'The Gilmore Girls' so much and also I play it so often just for background noise, that when the theme song comes on Aidric immediately turns toward the sound and starts smiling. When he sees Rory on the screen he gets completely sucked in and he gets a goofy grin on his face. He probably thinks that Rory is somehow related to him. On the bright side his real sister bears a strong resemblance to Rory so when he sees J she'll look familiar.

Typical!

So yesterday afternoon who should show up but the landlord. Yes, M. Babec and the painter/plasterer/wallpaper guy ring the bell to inform me that work on the house will begin today and is that alright with me.

Well, I know he received our letter that said we would be gone from the 20th of July until the 28th of August. I know he got it because I sent it 'recommandé avec avis de réception' and the receipt has arrived here already. Soooo...they're going to start the work when we are only going to be in town for a few more days. Let's just complicate my life shall we.

He's starting the work on Thursday, but will not work Friday because it's a holiday. Why bother, why are they doing this? Just to annoy me? Just to see how much stress I can take? In addition, could we, this weekend, move everything out of the baby's room because he'll work in their on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday doing the plastering, painting and wall-papering. Sure, cause I've got nothing better to do.

And the real kicker, they want to work in the house while we're gone...so if they're going to do that couldn't they just wait until we leave to start the work, they've waited almost a year to start the work, is one more week going to kill them.

Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait, the really good part is that they want me to pick the wallpaper and paint colors! Why!??!! Like I care at this point what goes in there, I won't be back, except maybe to oversee the movers in September!

All I can say is ... Typical!

On coolness

It's summer and school is out. Aidric and I are sitting out on the back porch today, just enjoying the cool breeze that is miraculously blowing. With temperatures being what they've been of late, today's surprise clouds and the coolness they brought with, are a treat indeed. We are not alone in enjoying the day, there are four boys from a nearby house out here, they must be visiting their grandparents for a part of the summer.

Three of the boys have longish dark curly hair and the fourth has short cropped blond hair. I'd say that three of them are junior high age, just judging from their 'Too cool for school' disdain of the younger ones apparent fascination with bugs (or some other living creature - I'm too far away to see what he's pointing at and really, I don't want to know what he's found). They are wandering listlessly around the orchard and halfheartedly tossing a ball back and forth as they explore. You just know that grandma told them to get out of the house and out of her hair just by the set of their hunched shoulders. They reek of that old summer malaise 'We're bored' with a hint of 'We've got nothing to do' around the eyes.

Aidric however cannot seem to take his eyes off of them. Either he's fascinated by just having someone else besides mom around to look at or he's taking notes of how to behave when he's that age.

Well, the countdown continues, only a little over a week left, and I'm just trying to soak in some last bits of France.

Now that's progress!

So last night I was waiting for the uproar to begin, and when by 23:00 there was no uproar I assumed that France had not won the game. Then unable to stand it any longer I got up and turned 'The Precious' on to surf the web for scores. Well, the game wasn't last night, it's tonight, so I'll be battening down the hatches tonight. Too bad I can't watch the game on TV (she says sarcastically - as if I needed to clarify that for you.)

In other news, Aidric is turning over. I put him on the floor and first of all he squirms all over the place so he sometimes ends up under the coffee table, but today he flipped himself over onto his belly. After a while when he didn't like that position any longer he began to yell for help, he didn't seem to be able to flip himself back over so I helped him. So after a few practice flips he is able to flip himself onto his belly and then back onto his back. Of course you realize that that means he can now 'roll'. So I'm not sure I can be happy with this new development. If I don't keep a close eye on him he'll be rolling down the hall before I know it. Now that's progress?

That's all I've got for now, packing, washing and sorting continues and S is conveniently out of town this week. No really, it's a good thing. Less than two weeks and counting. Well, I have to go now, the kid is literally under foot.

Say it isn't so Jan, say it isn't so!

What in the name of Pete is going on?! Without Ulrich who will we cheer for? What's the point of starting the race without the favorites? Idiots!! All of them!

'Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened'Dr. Seuss

I find it highly amusing that men feel a compulsion to look under the hood of a car. These are really smart men who know lots of cool and brain busting stuff, but who know nothing of the workings of the internal combustion engine. Yet they feel a need to play 'the man' and look under the hood of a car. It's an insecurity of sorts isn't it?

(Not my man, he single handedly rebuilt an entire truck from scratch in his basement.)

I speak of other men. The men, for instance, who came to look at my car on Monday to see if it was worthy of purchase. They drove it around the block and then when they came back they popped the hood and stood there first staring and then reaching in and jiggling hoses and tapping things. I tried not to laugh but it wasn't easy.

Have you EVER seen a woman, oh I don't know...what...Oh, have you ever seen a woman go into a clothing store and examine the seams or examine the zippers to see if they were appropriately 'installed'? I mean, of course, women who don't sew. Or look at the box of frozen pizza and muse out loud as to how it was assembled and pre-cooked and whether it was properly seasoned and if the crust was over handled? Women do not feel compelled to feign knowledge of these things. And incidentally, by their not feigning this knowledge don't we assume they just have it, just by virtue of their being women?

So maybe if men didn't look under the hood we would automatically assume that they know what's under there and that nothing in the test drive made them doubt the 'sea worthiness' of the vehicles engine?

Well, at least the guys that came to look at my car didn't actually kick the tires, because that would have ended it all for me and it would have taken me several minutes to compose myself.

Oh, yeah, I'm selling my beloved Mercedes. I placed an ad on the AIT website forum on Sunday and had three responses by Monday. Plus there is someone at S's office who is also interested in buying it. So between them we'll hopefully have a buyer.

The selling of the car means that I'm really leaving. Really leaving and sooner than first thought. We had originally bought our tickets for the 27th of July, but changed them last week for the 20th of July. The fact that I have less than a month left is starting to sink in. Aidric has spent a couple of bewildering days with me setting him on the floor of one room or an other as I drag out suitcases and make piles of what to take, what to get rid of and things I'll take if I have room. This is tough because whatever I bring will have to sustain the two of us until sometime in November, I think. Everything else will be left here for the movers to pack in September sometime and we will not see it again until it is unpacked, when the shipment arrives at our final destination.

So the goodbye-ing begins and I'm sort of sad. I'll miss this house (sans creatures) and I'll miss our little town. The trolley looks like it might actually come in, the new downtown market square is almost finished, the new Picard store has just opened and they are finally resurfacing the main road to my favorite grocery store. And I read in my Newsweek magazine that Toulouse will be competing with Paris for the 2016 Olympics. Wouldn't that have been cool?

I spent the day shopping and walking with Mags and Paula today. This was probably the last time I'll ever see Paula, and even maybe Mags, as she's very hard to get a hold of these days. We had lunch at Place St. George at a little tea place that has the best chocolate cake you've ever tasted and lunch was a salad with scones of sun dried tomato and mozzarella. It was a quintessential French lunch experience and I savored every second of it. The days are moving too fast now and I'll miss the city with all its insanity. I learned how to park like the French and today I got a little too creative with my parking and I got a ticket. I guess there's a first for everything and maybe the ticket is just to make sure my Toulouse experience was well rounded.

That's all I've got today, just a huge mixed bag of emotions.