FLIDSTICK DIG

Road Full of Promise

2011-10-10T20:16:00.001+02:00

For The Man

2011-09-12T11:17:00.000+02:00

Every word they sing rings true for you & me, Babe.

Love you.

Deployment

2011-09-07T17:52:00.002+02:00

I had just the three big kids today. Decided I wanted to try and make the most of the time I have before I leave and spend a bit of it with just them. We tucked Rosie off to the creche and then headed into town for a little bit of bowling, something I had promised them we'd do during vacation and never got around to doing.

We got the funky shoes on, found our lane, and with thanks to those bumper thingies, we were able to bash the pins quite happily. Of course, Bubba took to throwing the bowling ball rather than rolling it, but his approach was effective because he won. Which, of course, caused a minor hysteria with the other two.

I tried to explain, over and over again, that it wasn't about who was winning but that we were having fun together. Cue horrible theatrics from The Princess. I tried to point out that I missed the pins pretty much every time and I was ok with that. Cue The Princess throwing herself onto the lane and weeping, with long drawn out sighs between shrieks.

We finally finished up and I was able to get the grumpy group back into the car and head off to the grocery store that started it all for me in France. I figured over Nutella crepes at Cora, perhaps I'd get that quality time I was hoping for.

Silly, Dig.

They ate fast, told fart jokes, and didn't listen to me when I tried to spill out all the worries in my heart. I wanted to tell them how much I love them, how proud I am of them, how I hope they'll take it easy on their dad and be nice to the nannies we've got lined up. I wanted to explain for the 700,000 time how I needed them to really help with Rosie when the gang flies over the pond in October. I just wanted to have that moment of deep sharing, a connection, like a scene from one of those movies where the whole smiling family gets together and says through hugs and high-fives, "yes, you betcha!"

I didn't get that.

I stared at their chocolate smeared empty plates as they ran off to the play area and felt like crying.

These are my babies. My babies who I've pushed around that store in all kinds of car seats and shopping carts. My babies who make me insane and crazy mama-bear proud. They leave half eaten cookies next to the toilet, fight over DVDs, and leave The Man's tools out in the rain. They don't listen, they eat with their mouths open, and hit each other when I'm not looking. There are times they make me want to run away as far as I can and now that I'm actually doing that, I'm scared.

I'm scared of leaving them. I'm scared of missing them. I'm scared of being me and not mommy.

I know these weeks will fly by and I'll be back to going insane with them and their Legos on the other side of the pond before I know it, but until then, I will ache. A deep, silly, unsettled ache until my whole tribe, The Man included, is with me again.

I know. I know. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

leaving

2011-09-05T14:33:00.002+02:00

I shouldn't be here right now. I have mounds of laundry to put away, dust bunnies to slaughter, and, oh that little packing thing I've been avoiding....

I still can't believe that in just a few short weeks, I'm outta here. How do you wrap up 8 years of living in a place in such a short time? I have a new found respect and admiration for my crazy ancestors who decided to get on a boat and sail far, far away from everything and everyone they had ever loved, never knowing if they would hear from or see their loved ones again. I'm a lucky sod. I get email and Facebook.

Someone asked me yesterday if I regretted anything of my life here and the answer was most definitely, no. They then asked if I was really ready to leave and the answer was most definitely, yes.

Get me on that boat, Captain. It's time to sail.

Step One: Make More Coffee

2011-08-31T08:26:00.000+02:00

Our coffee machine broke a couple of weeks ago and with the pending possibility of upping sticks, we bought a cheap and cheerful replacement at Carrefour. It's a lovely little white machine that makes ever so cute steaming noises while at work. The only downers are that it's white, and therefore likes to show off it's hard work, and it drips everywhere when you pour out the coffee. The other bummer is that it doesn't turn itself off automatically after 2 hours like the last one we had, so I have added another level of stress to my life: I shout and fight, get the tribe into the car, head off for destinations far & wide only to suddenly wonder, about 45 minutes from home, if I turned the coffee machine off.

On the positive side of things, since we don't own a microwave chez nous, there is a new found joy when I can stumble into the kitchen, frazzled and freaking, and find that the coffee I made after The Man left for work is still there and hot. Sure, it's thickened up slightly, but hey! Coffee soup! That's what's for dinner!

I've needed this overdosing of caffeine this week. Trying to sort out flights, nannies, clothes, toys, stuff, crap, friends, dogs, life is intense. But I'm sure you already knew that. In about two weeks, everything changes and we have two months of nuts. Even though the knot in my stomach is for something positive this time, I'm ever so glad I can still drown the sucker in a nice strong cup of Guatemalan.

My first cup coffee in the morning is the most perfect because The Man brings it to me and we sit in bed, stare out at the hills behind the house, and enjoy the peace. These days are flying. We sip as slowly as the minutes can allow.

An hour later and my second cup is done, just as the sun peaks out from behind the church. I hear the boys yelling for Nutella and the background noise of Rosie's favourite Wallace & Gromit film.

My cup is empty. But overflowing.

Fasten Your Seat Belts

2011-08-26T09:30:00.001+02:00

Wow. Whoa. OH MY GOD! I got that wonderful job. And now, everything changes.

After 9 years in France, 11 years in Europe, I'm taking my people back to chez moi. I arrived with a fuzzy malamute and a backpack crammed with t-shirts and coffee mugs and now, I'm leaving with 4 little people, a fuzzy Brit, and suitcases filled with Lego.

I have no idea where to begin with anything. I have no idea how to say goodbye to all that we've lived at the Birth Control Bed & Breakfast. I'm beyond excited and miserably sad.

I know in my heart this is the right thing to do. It's time for all of us to move on and do new things, become the people we want to be in a place where The Man & I think everyone will bloom.

I sit here, staring out the window at the village church, and I'm in awe how the weather reflects my mood. It's stormy out there, windy with the clouds swirling around the steeple. But just when I think it's going to finally rain, there's a flash of lightening and glimpse of brilliant blue sky.

I hear the kids fighting with each other in French as Rosie tries to squeeze next to them on the couch.

I hear Typhon howling as the church bells chime.

I see my neighbours heading up to the boulangerie for bread.

I watch the clouds.

Almost As Bad As Waiting for Your Due Date

2011-08-19T09:07:00.002+02:00

I'm having one of those problems of thought block yet again this week. My mind is a jumble of past, present, & future and I really wish I could clear it all out.

Adding to my wonderful mental mess is that fact that I'm waiting on news about a possible job. I've interviewed roughly three times with the company and I really, really, really want to land this. Trouble is, if I do get it, this job will radically throw us all up into the air. Such fun trying to live day to day and plan for the immediate when there's a chance that the immediate we know won't be the immediate we live.

So until I know what's up, I'm back to impersonating a pinball machine as I wander around the house, cleaning up random Oreos that Rosie has licked and left laying about, listening to Bubba make deep philosophical statements like, "funny how all fish sticks are made from all kinds of fish, but I only like fish sticks and not all kinds of fish."

The Princess is obsessed with earrings and make-up, MH with Airbus 380s, and the dogs with finding a cold spot in lock-down to beat this amazing summer heat that has finally arrived.

The Man laughs at me as I try to stay calm, pointing out that staying sane has never been an option since 2002. He's working on part 3 of the 'Great Wall of the Village on the Hill' and believe it or not, the end is actually in sight. The psychological release of this is massive. I see a happier, zenner Man in the not too distant future.

So, my imaginary friends, patience. Take a deep breath with me and look around us. Perhaps this is the calm before the storm. Or not.

Today's Theme Song

2011-08-12T11:06:00.000+02:00

Can I Get Them All Electric Collars?

2011-08-10T19:02:00.001+02:00

This morning started off nuts. Here's me, running around like a mad woman, trying to sort out some stuff on-line, doing laundry, dishes, and entertaining the tribe when my cancer-kicking running buddy stops by for coffee.

We have a good chat about all the wackos in the village, figure out how to solve all the worlds' problems, and decide just which running show is the bomb, when another friend and her three peeps show up for lunch.

And unfortunately, as her peeps came in, they let the dogs out.

But fortunately, la neighboure had her car parked out front of our houses so we zoomed off to rescue the furry friends before the three of them could be stampeded by a very big, very large group of angry Limousin. Nothing like the smell of cow-poop in a small French car.

We get the dogs back into lock-down, I start setting the table to eat, and then it dawns on me that MH is missing. Turns out, he had taken off on his bike to find the dogs as well and still hadn't returned.

I waited. I waited. I panicked. I called everyone in the village. Then everyone in the village went looking for him.

And low-and-behold, not 5 minutes after everyone had gotten into their cars and driven hours towards Paris, MH returned, very sweaty and almost as angry as that herd of Limousin. Of course, at this point, I couldn't call anyone to tell them he had returned because they were all still out there looking for him.

We jitteringly sit down to eat, jumping up from time to time to tell kindly villagers driving by that MH was now home, safe and sound, all the time thinking to myself, "what a hell of a morning."

Cue coffee and a deep sigh of relief.

Silly, Dig.

'Cause now, where, oh where, was Rosie?

We checked the attic. We checked the bedrooms. We checked the basement. We checked the closets. We checked the pool. We checked the lane. At this beyond panic overload, I ran to the back garden and up the back alley that leads into the village. Still no sign of her anywhere.

I reached the boulangerie, hung a left, and ran hard back towards my house.

And who do I see then? My cancer-kicking friend, eyes wide, giggling.

"MON DIEU! I just pulled into the village after looking for MH and who do I see banging on the front door of the boulangerie looking for bon-bons? ROSIE!"

Cue heart attack and tears of relief.

Mon dieu, indeed.

So Not Fair

2011-08-05T17:32:00.000+02:00

A Glimpse

2011-07-27T23:23:00.001+02:00

I don't think you have any idea, you 8 dedicated readers out there, how much I've been thinking about you, wondering if I decided to just quit this whole blogging thing, what difference would it really make... And then I remembered that as much as I blog for the responses I get from you, (all two of them!) I blog because if not, I will launch myself off that proverbial cliff that I cling to every day.

It's been a hectic couple of weeks with the tribe at home, shitty weather that would make France ashamed of itself, and craziest of all, my homeless in-laws being with us. Imagine: you've just turned 85, sold your house, and now are stuck squatting at your kids' places until you can find a house you like in a depressed property market. Yup, it's a complete 180° to the normal "parents-have-house/poor-adult-child-moves-back-in" thing. But here, I think we win because these two so want their own place again that everyone sees a light at the end of the tunnel, unlike some of my other friends who's kids are BACK and seem to really like sharing the same toothpaste with Dad once again.

And yet even though they are lovely, the kids are lovely, The Man is lovely, I'm mentally a mess. I'm having this little problem of keeping my thoughts too much in the past. I'm dwelling on this time last year and I know it's because our plans for the future are stalled and until something gives, moves, or changes for The Man & I, I can not get out of this rut. Until our new plans can really kick in, I'm remembering all the crap that tried to swallow me in the years behind us. You have no idea how much I want one of those red blinking light things they have in The Men in Black films.

Bless my Man for trying to keep me sane... but there are times when all he can do is hug me and wonder why on earth we have to live through so much 'after the fact' bullshit from time to time...

Someone asked me how I was the other day and the honest answer is, I don't know. I think I'm ok but there are moments when I can't sleep that I wonder what the hell this is all for. There are moments when the kids are driving me bat-shit crazy that I wonder why, why, why.... There are moments when I try to explain myself to someone in French that I just want to lay down, curl up in a ball, and wish I was miles away in English.

One of my longest connections here left the other day and it's hit me hard. I didn't hang with her like I did with Miss Tennessee 1975 but BVJC was always, always there for me. She got me to know the other lost Anglo-souls, she explained where to find whatever it was I needed, she knew how to get around the French system, and it was her who I called when the shit hit the fan last September, giving me excellent advice in one of those tiny cafes in town while we sipped lukewarm coffee...

I couldn't say good-bye to her the last time I saw her and now, she's on other side of the pond. This woman who lived the crazy bilingual world I know has left the building and I'm still standing here with my Bic lighter raised above my head, damp from slam dancing in the mosh pit.

It's a turbulent time.

I need some sun, some good news, and something to give.

I'm ready. We're ready. And any time about right now would be just fine.

Next Time, I'll Just Wait

2011-07-11T19:15:00.002+02:00

We took the tribe to the pool yesterday and had a whale of a time splashing around and causing much needed mayhem.

Turns out, Rosie is as much of a fish as her sister and inherited that lovely way of yelling at all and sundry to leave her alone while she floats all by herself in the middle of the pool with her armbands on. We should have named her Bob.

MH and The Princess have gotten to be stronger swimmers and it's a blast to watch them dive off the side of the pool and then surface with the most amazing goggle grins on their faces. Bubba isn't quite yet there but he doesn't care. Splashing around in the baby pool works just fine for him, thank-you-very-much.

After we were done, we all scurried into a big cubicle together to get changed. Suits off, shirts on, towels on the floor, socks into puddles, pants damp, just a big jumbled wet happy mess. Finally, when everyone else was about dressed, I started to get my own suit off and throw on my clothes.

"WOW. Look at all of mommy's muscles on her tummy!" MH shouted.

And so they did.

The Man started smirking and with that big shit eating grin I love so much on his face, just started laughing.

I shot him the death stare, which obviously isn't as good as I'd like it to be, and calmly replied to MH,

"No, sweetie, those aren't muscle marks. Those are stretch marks from having babies."

Cue curious silence.

Cue three angelic voices, echoing loudly in a family cubicle at the public pool:

"EWWWWWWWWW."

It's The Man Holding My Hand Now

2011-07-09T12:07:00.001+02:00

Last night, The Man & I had our last appointment with our therapist. It was really strange finishing our appointment, shaking hands and saying, "goodbye."

How does one say goodbye to someone who now knows more about The Man & I than most people on the planet? Goodbye to someone who let me cry in her office over things that happened over 20 years ago? Goodbye to someone who never judged us and never let us forget that when there is love, there is hope? There were moments these last 9 months when I wanted to adopt her.

I had been very afraid to go to counselling. No because I'm afraid of therapists, but because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to really express myself in French. I know that on a daily basis I often miss the subtleties of what happens in this language I'm living in and I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to really get to the heart of what was happening in mine.

I shouldn't have worried. Pain & suffering translate. And when people are in a crisis, the message gets across a hell of a lot easier than we expect.

She guided us well through our own path of discovery. She let us vent, let us ponder, let us forgive without ever judging either one of us for our humanness. And not once did she laugh at my accent. I don't know how to thank her for that, thank her for letting us remember who we are & who we want to be. She held our hands lightly, guiding us to ourselves and that's wonderful in any language.

Au revoir, Madame. Je vous remercie, du fond de mon coeur.

Most Days

2011-07-06T12:14:00.001+02:00

Rosie wakes at 6:30 and immediately demands a bottle of chocolate milk. She plomps herself down on the Nutella smeared couch (the reason why I haven't washed it) and with her finger points at the TV until The Man or I find her the daily music video show. Yes, she's a big fan of Shakira's Rabiosa and M Pokora. I fall into a lump next to her and drink a gallon of coffee.

By 9:15, Rosie has discovered a pen or permanent marker and painted herself in the most amazing rainbow colours. This is, of course, only after she has used hair gel as skin cream, emptied the desk drawers, and thrown all of the doudous off of The Princess' bed and into the bath tub. I make a fresh pot of coffee.

Around about 11:40, I am finally able to persuade the large tribe members to get dressed. Sort of. I find them a half hour later, hiding amongst the very recently sterilized Legos in a mish-mash of pyjama & bathing suits.

At 12:30, I dream of a Domino's being built THAT VERY INSTANT in the village but in reality, I fight with everyone to eat something that resembles a vegetable. Well, all except The Princess who has made her own salad with exactly one carrot, two pieces of lettuce, and four cherry tomatoes. I make another pot of coffee.

The afternoon is a haze marked only by the beautiful stillness around us as Rosie sleeps. When she's up again, all bets are off. It's laundry time, dog poop time, refereeing the boys, hoping no one drowns in the lovely new Intex pool we bought again this summer, and yet another pot of coffee.

By 5pm, I'm finding excuses to open the fridge and just gaze at the rosé bottle.

By 6:45, I'm wishing and hoping that The Man finished really, really early at work and is on his way home with a pizza from the imaginary Domino's down the street. I hesitate between more coffee or "accidentally" opening the rosé.

7:30pm rolls around and the entire village is treated to the sounds of Rosie screaming, "DADDY" at the top of her lungs as he parks his car. He looks tired and hot and is ever so grateful for that glass of rosé I've thrust into his hand.

8:30-9pm: CHAOS. Think of a hurricane hitting the dining room, then the bathroom, and then try to get it snuggled under a little blanket in a teeny tiny baby bed only the hurricane isn't finished throwing Stinky and everything else out of the teeny tiny baby bed over and over and over again. In the meantime, the big kids stall. I pray that there is another bottle of rosé in the basement fridge.

By the time 10pm rolls around, The Man and I stare at each other through our rose coloured glasses and dream of new places, vacations on our own, winning the lottery, going to Cape Town. We haul ourselves up to the attic, fall into bed, and hold on for dear life.

And then in the morning, it's rinse and repeat.

And Curtain

2011-07-02T11:44:00.001+02:00

Look. It's July once again.

The sun sets late, the wind blows warm. The Man and I stare at our wild garden and wonder, dream, repair.

Our friend's wife died Thursday and even though she had been sick for all the years we knew her, it's still hard to find the right way to grieve. They had a tough love, lots of bumps and bruises along the way, only to have their life culminate with her suffering from that lovely leveler, cancer.

All those years. All those things, issues, stresses, joys, worries, arguments, happiness. All those things done.

How many times do we have to be hit over the head to get the message?

Air Conditioning, à la Française

2011-06-27T12:31:00.000+02:00

Technically, I should shut the window as well but I've got this thing for constant courants d'air even when it's mind-numblingly hot out there. I'm so not a summer person. Give me snow, cold temps, ice, thick socks, & gloves. Wrap me up warm and hand me a hot-toddy. That's my kind of season.

But as it's said in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

Vivre l'été.

It's My Own Fault

2011-06-17T13:12:00.002+02:00

I swear, I hate potty training.

I, myself, have been potty trained for over 37 years now so sometimes I have to admit to having a wee (no pun intended) lack of enthusiasm/patience/motivation when it comes to the latest member of the tribe tackling this milestone.

See, Rosie has hit that stage where trying to get a nappy on her is like wrestling an octopus and I hate, hate, hate slimy, 8-limbed fish, so she's running around "free." And thus, sometimes she's getting to let things fall where they may....as it were. (Yuck. I know. But this is my fourth, people! Seriously, we have no carpets in the house... I mop after... it's not so bad... and did I forget to mention that I'm slowly going parentally insane?)

Lucky me that summer vacation is nearly upon us and through the next couple of weeks of potty training joy, I'll have 3 other tribe members around to ~~help~~ freak out when Rosie has an accident.

"MOM! OH MY GOD IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD IT'S SO DISGUSTING SHE PEED EVERYWHERE I'M GOING TO THROW UP NOW HURRY!!!!"

Today was a dress rehearsal for the coming months when after lunch I forgot to put a clean little pair of Dora underpants on the raging turbo turbis and she high tailed it upstairs to MH & Bubba's room. MH, who is home today due to a slight fever, went up a few minutes later to see what she was getting up to.

"MOM!"

"MOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!"

"What's wrong?" I yelled back as I ran up the stairs.

"THOSE, " he said arm stretched out straight pointing to his toy pile, "ARE NOT LEGOS."

Move Over Lourdes

2011-06-15T08:16:00.000+02:00

So after my little sing-song session with Mary, The Mother of God, yesterday, I'm thinking that I've got a whole new tourist angle for our little village on the hill. Heck, all kinds of people from all over the world make pilgrimages to see Jesus' face outlined on a rind of cheese or formed out of melted candle wax. Can you imagine what they might do to see a singing Mary? And not just a singing Mary, but a Beatles singing Mary?

Just think of the commercial possibilities! The hordes of pilgrims who would come and buy bread from the boulangerie on their way to Pic de La garde. Imagine the rush every morning to buy beautiful replica baquettes of the statue, holding a sesame guitar made from a petit pain. Large, crusty couronnes de Marie, which are just the right size to actually fit on the pilgrim's head, thus making it a heck of a lot easier to carry one's picnic up les éboulées. Caramel, Chocolat, & Tornado could also be gainfully employed to carry the rest of the picnic, happily transporting to this sacred spot the ham, the wine, and the Jesus round of cheese.

The village bar would also have it's turn in watering the sing-song faithful with cups of the holiest pastis or luke-warm rosé. Just the right things to get one in the mood for singing Yellow Submarine at full voice with a marble statue.We could pipe Beatles songs throughout the village on a loudspeaker, with Let It Be replacing the church bells on the hour. Imagine! Imagine! We haven't even begun to Imagine!

In my excitement yesterday, I chatted about this idea with my running buddy, the one fighting cancer. She looked at me, eyes wide with a mixture of fear & mirth and said,

"I don't care if Mary sang Mylène Farmer with you up there! Please don't ruin les ébolées by inviting bunches of pilgrims to scramble up all over them! Now stop this silly pilgrimage idea thing and go do some laundry!"

And so I did. But I still like the baguette idea.

Maybe She Just Really Likes The Beatles

2011-06-14T13:50:00.001+02:00

I've been getting all worked up over all kinds of things that are out of my control, like the school nurse telling MH that he was fat, like my friend struggling with the after-effects of her second round of chemo, like not knowing what The Man & I are going to be when we grow up.... he and I spent yesterday, twirling around in circles, not knowing in which direction to turn. Finally, we gave in to the corkscrew feeling that we had and sat on the couch with a cheap bottle of red.

Today I found myself starting that dangerous swirling thing again and since all & sundry are off at work and school, I decided to do what I do best when that feeling of being out of control shows up: run away.

I threw on my shoes and headed out of the village towards the lava rock covered hillside we call les éboulées. You can't really run it as much as scramble up it, but when you finally reach the top, you are at the Pic de La garde, a viewing point with 360° views and a massive statue of Mary.

I scrambled up, reached the top, looked around, and then hurled myself down the trail the other side. I ran hard at this point, trying to beat all the thoughts banging around in my head to a submissive pulp. I took a random trail leading off to the right, still running hard, pounding out my emotions, and low-and-behold, 40 minutes later I found that I had looped around full circle, back to the start of les éboulées.

I hesitated for a second but then scrambled up again. Much slower this time, much more conscious of the size of each of these lava boulders. Much more aware of the hollow echo they made as I stepped on them. When I finally reached the top, I put my hands on my hips, took a deep breath, looked up, and realized Mary was staring at me.

"Oh, Mary! What on earth should I do about all this crap?" I said.

And like a thunderbolt, she answered me.

I ran home then, this song still playing in my heart.

I not the religious type, but I've been told.

Thank you, Mary. I'll do just that.

He Won't Be Wearing Seer Sucker

2011-06-09T15:52:00.000+02:00

The last couple of weeks, I've felt like I'm waiting to get asked out to prom. And it sucks just as much this time around as it did back in high school.

I shouldn't complain too much because, in fact, junior year, I had a hell of a time at 4 different proms. You see, I was the best "rent-a-date" on the market. I could go to any dance, chat up all kinds of friends and strangers, dance just enough to be ok, drink just enough to be silly, and, best of all, not really embarrass anyone. Sure, all this kinda changed by the time senior proms rolled around, but who cares.

Waiting to get asked to prom is frustrating. You send out all the clues you can to the person you are DYING to have ask you. You smile a lot. You take more showers than you have ever done in your entire life. You laugh at silly jokes. You pretend to like import records because that what they like. You even offer to drive him and his insane football friends every night to MacDonald's because you're the only one with a car.

You've done everything you can to be charming and witty, pretty and fun. And now, you wait. And wait. And wait.

And then you find out that he actually asked somebody else.

Oh, the life lessons we learn at 16!

The only consolation in my whole prom saga this year, is that I already know that The Man is taking me. He's bought the corsage, we've rented the limo, and we know where we want to go out to dinner. Thing is, we are still trying to figure out where the stupid prom is being held in the first place. You have no idea how frustrating it is to be all dressed up and totally clueless as to where we are supposed to be.

I guess till we know where we are going to dance the night away, we'll just shimmy around the B&B, scaring the children while we play big hair 80s tunes at top volume. Anyone got a suggestion for a prom theme?

I, myself, am voting for this one:

The Subliminal Message or My Thoughts on DSK

2011-06-02T10:58:00.002+02:00

At lunch yesterday, MH asked me if there were any male teachers in his school district.

"No," I replied. "There are only women."

"So that means they are maîtresses and not maîtres."

"Yeah," I said off handedly as I cleaned off the table.

He sat there for a second and then started laughing.

"You know, Mom, French is hilarious! You could have 5000 women and then throw in just one guy and TA-DA, we'd say maîtres and not maîtresses. Just throw in one thing male and we win! We are so strong, us men!"

5000 women and just one man and in French the phrase becomes masculine.

Hilarious.

Eight years on and I'm still having trouble with this one.

Being Good

2011-06-01T09:17:00.005+02:00

I haven't been able to find the right words lately and, I must admit, my desire to write has packed its bags and headed south. I see it sitting comfortably by the sea, sipping margaritas, reading Jerome K. Jerome and thinking that all the good things have already been said before. Yet, here I am once again, trying to subdue my own ego that demands I write something, anything, to prove that I still exist... So here I go. Forgive me for repeating things you may have heard or lived before, but I'm only human and I am the only subject I think I know well...

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for us at the B&B. The Man and I finally saw our parents for the first time since everything exploded and I think we both were relieved that no one got punched or screamed at. Actually, we are both blessed with good people to guide us, good people to love us unconditionally, and good people to hug us until our backs hurt and our eyes water. I thank God for these people who have not judged.

The Man took my parents back to the airport yesterday morning and he told me that just as my dad was about to disappear on the other side of security, he turned back to The Man and said something about how "it's working... we're working" which, knowing my father, is huge.

Our martial troubles may have been ours alone but the waves created a tsunami that hit all kinds of shores.

We're clearing out the debris now, both physically and mentally. We've starting getting rid of furniture that we don't use, toys that are broken, clothes that don't fit. We're seeing our friends again, travelling, playing chess with the kids. Life feels lighter, simpler, and overall easier to clean.

The Man is singing again. A lot. I'm laughing again. A lot.

I find I don't need the words so much when I'm living the emotion.

Yes, my wonderful father, it is working.

This One

2011-05-26T08:33:00.002+02:00

There are a lot of people in the village who like to tell us how wonderful The Princess is, how sweet she can be with the other kids and what a pleasure she is to have around. They tell us how she said a kind word or helped with something simple. They tell us how sharp she is and how she's got such a strong character. I love hearing these things because she is all this. And more.

She's sensitive and strong, this one. She watches and listens and gets it. I mean really, really gets it. She has this uncanny ability for a such a young child to sense that there is more going on than meets the eye. She observes, takes it in, and doesn't mince words. For example, when The Man moved back in after our quick separation, she's the one who looked him straight in the eye and said, "you were a jerk." She nails me too, it must be said, frustrated when I stop to chat with all and sundry or when I forget things, as I often do.

She's fed up with her brothers, can't deal with Rosie touching her toys, isn't so sure about falling off those ponies, and hates stinging nettles. She has a fierce temper and isn't afraid to use it. She summons up all of her now 8 year old self and goes storming off screaming, just so that you know she really isn't happy.

She can't resist dogs, donkeys, or cats and wants desperately to have a French bulldog. She does cartwheels and handstands in the grocery store, on the ferry to England, and waiting for her favourite TV shows to start. I can see her doing acrobatics on circus horses, smiling broadly, eyes glowing with joy.

The Princess is like sunshine. I can't imagine a day without her and we're ever so grateful that she's here.

Happy Birthday, our beautiful girl.

My Favourite Painting at the Musée d'Orsay

2011-05-16T18:35:00.001+02:00

Madame Jeantaud au miroir, Edgar Degas, oil on canvas, 1875

So, is she as we see her, as the painter sees her, or as she sees herself?

Are any of us as we really think we are?

Somewhere Beyond This Side of the Sea

2011-05-09T16:15:00.003+02:00

I live in a bucolic wonderland and these spring days only make it worse. The brilliancy of the sky, the colours of the fields, all the flowers, & the intensity of the scenery is everything you'd expect from one of those impressionist paintings. It's beyond gorgeous. I kid you not, there is nothing like France. Just give me a glass of wine & let me sit in the lazy sunshine to watch the flies go by, captured in time, by this magical place...

But here's the funny thing... I so want out.

Out of this beauty, out of this country, out of this life.

I'm having near daily urges to pack up the tribe, grab The Man, and book a direct flight to the tackiest place I know on earth. The place that screams "tat" and frightens civilized people. A place that is no more than a sand-bar in the Atlantic, with enough tourist shops, malls, putt-putt golf centers, and pizza joints to make your head spin. It's tacky, it's covered in concrete and neon signs, and it's about as far away as you can get from a dream vacation on the beach.

BUT.....but.....but....

Here I am literally aching, itching, and desiring with all my heart to be back in that place.

I want to sit by the sea and listen to other parents yell at their kids in English. I want to know that I can get a cheeseburger at 4 in the afternoon and no one will think I'm nuts. I want to go out in my sweatpants & flip flops and actually look over dressed. I want to walk into a bookstore and freak out because everything is in English. I want to watch The Man try and hole-in-one that stupid flamingo at the 136th Street mini-golf course.

I need beer coozies with the town's name tattooed all over them. I want to get steamed crabs and throw them all over the front porch of my parents' apartment and watch as the seagulls try and catch the empty shells. I want to hear Bubba, The Princess, and MH shriek with laughter as Rosie falls in the waves. I want to tell the kids to watch out for the "under toad!" I want a snow cone on the boardwalk that stains our lips bright blue and can only be removed by funnel cake, powdered sugar, and iced tea.

I want to be able to open the door to that apartment and have all my years come flooding back to me. Senior week, my summers as a bread girl, working at the tennis center, riding my bike to the movies, holding on for dear life behind a beach cleaning machine...

I want to be chez moi. Be amongst things that comfort me, make me forget, make me remember. I want to surround my people, my man & our kids, in my world and finally, finally, finally...let go.

But....alors...

For now, I'll sit in my garden, amongst the wildflowers and buttercups, in that incredible light & it's breezes coming from that other ocean to the south, and try not to cry.

What a beautiful hell to be living in.

Time Flies When You're Twirling

2011-05-02T10:20:00.001+02:00

It doesn't seem possible to me that Rosie is two. This little unexpected bundle of chaos that makes me laugh, smile, and want to tear my hair out all at the same time. This little blond bombshell who can destroy a packet of cereal in about 5 seconds and melt your heart in 2. This little extra bit of us that we didn't plan, we didn't "need," but my God, how we would be incomplete without her.

She climbs everything. She opens everything. She picks on the other kids at the creche. She steals PlayMobil. She still hasn't figured out that there are two Stinkies, but she knows there is only one Da-Da. It's him she wants when she falls down and it's only him that can rub her leg in the car to calm her down.

She uses toothpaste as body lotion on her dolls, is fascinated by the way dog fur sticks to fleece, and dances to any music you play. She struts around, full of confidence, in such a way that I can't help but think of my mother-in-law. Rosie's blue eyes twinkle just like hers and hope this means that she will be as forceful in spirit and as generous in kindness as Annie is.

She's wonderful. She's hard work. She's beautiful. She's a terror. She is more than anything I could have ever imagined. She is one of the four best things The Man & I have ever done.

Our baby is two. Happy Birthday, Rosie. You have no idea how much you are loved.

A Few Thoughts That Stuck

2011-04-29T16:01:00.002+02:00

Yes, I watched it.

I hadn't really planned on doing that, but something about the uniforms, the horses, or the young happy faces of William and Harry just got me. I got sucked in and carried away with all that joy that a wedding brings. The optimism. The beauty. The hope. The fairy tale and its iced cake.

And then, about the time Kate got out of the car, I got sad thinking about my own wedding not quite ten years ago. I thought about The Man, who we were, the promises made that have been broken, our expectations that may have been too high, our pledges to each other, shattered, and now super glued back together...

And then I listened to The Bishop:

"The spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this: the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life."

"It is of course very hard to wean ourselves away from self-centredness. People can dream of such a thing but that hope should not be fulfilled without a solemn decision that, whatever the difficulties, we are committed to the way of generous love."

"As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there has been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life. This is to load our partner with too great a burden. We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive. We need mutual forgiveness in order to thrive."

Mutual forgiveness. Generous love. This is what makes marriage.

I think ours still may have a chance...

Reconciling

2011-04-26T15:04:00.000+02:00

I remember when I was young and took that massive spectacular tumble off my bike at the bottom of our neighbourhood hill. I scrapped up both knees, banged my head, and started shaking, wanting to vomit, just thinking about having to ride that evil bike back home, up that huge, horrible hill that now seemed fifteen times bigger than it ever was.

By the grace of good neighbours, I got home and my mother ran a hot bath where I soaked my knees and my wounded confidence. Eyes stinging, boo-boos throbbing, I wondered why on earth anyone wanted to ride a bike in the first place. Especially around hills.

It was hard to walk around with those big old scabs on my knees and I was convinced that everyone was staring at me, laughing that I obviously didn't know how to use my brakes well enough. I was ashamed of my big ugly sores and tried to cover them up with a million Band-Aids, which of course, only made it worse.

"What on earth happened to you?"

After a couple of days, I sat in yet another of the endless hot baths I was addicted to and ripped those plastic things off and had a really good look at all the dirt still stuck in my wounds. I picked around with my fingernail, digging out what was left of the hill's gravel that I had been walking around with. Of course, digging and probing only made my knees bled again and when the scabs dried, they were deeply cracked and more painful then when I had originally fallen down.

It was hard to leave those scabs alone, you know. I'd subconsciously pick at them while at school, accidentally hit one with the edge of a table, or scratch them like mad as they started shrinking and pinching my skin. It was almost a twisted game to see just how much of that scab I could rip off without making myself bleed again. Sometimes, I did great, most times, I just made them worse.

Somehow, after several weeks, and in spite of my own self-torture, the scabs fell off on their own, leaving there, on both knees, a pretty pink puckered spot, a smudged speck, to remind me that one mustn't brake too hard on hills. In spite of all the blood, all the gravel, all the pain, and all my picking, the scabs were finally gone. I had healed.

I don't know if it was days or weeks later but somehow, someday, I headed out on my bike and went down that hill. This time, I didn't brake hard when I saw the bottom of the hill come racing towards me. Sure, I was screaming bloody murder as I somehow rolled around that corner but you should have heard me laughing as I stayed on that bike and peddled my pink knees as fast as I could up the other side.

Lesson learned with no visible scars to prove it. There are a lot of things in life that are just like riding a bike.

I Can't Even Think of What to Call This Post...

2011-04-25T17:07:00.007+02:00

This morning, Tornado decided to hang out on the swings. Literally.

The Latest Lawn Mowers

2011-04-20T08:47:00.001+02:00

Once again, it's that time of year when the back field becomes a massive jungle of stinging nettles, dandelions, and weeds. Ever so beautiful and ever such a nightmare to cut. Last year, you may recall that we had some horses come and help us out with all that and it was lovely. They strolled around in the back garden, ate the grass, and just looked majestically stunning out there.

This year, we were asked by another neighbour if we would could help them out by letting their three donkeys come and have a go at our field. She swore up and down that they would be much better munchers than the horses and even eat those pesky stinging nettles. Alright then. Why not?

Well, let me tell you a little bit about Caramel, Chocolate, and Tornado....

Caramel is the lovely little wonder, nicely nibbling at the grass in the picture. She seems relatively sweet and just meanders around, following the other two where ever they go. Like a gentle, naive younger sister, she seems happy just to see what the other two get up to.

And speaking of the other two....

Tornado is that rasta-looking donkey giving us "that look." She's pesky, curious, and has taken to scratching herself with some strange J-Lo butt move on the wall. She's knocked over the cement mixer, eaten a package of cement, and played football with an old plastic bucket. She and Chocolate, the little one in front here, have this thing for climbing up the rock piles in the garden and playing King-of-the-Hill.

These donkeys run, romp, and cause mayhem. They let you rub their ears for hours and then go and eat the swing-set. They've figured out how to bray at the dogs and get Typhon to howl without the bells. The love The Princess and have a thing for Bubba-Love's little wheelbarrow. (I just hope it still has its tires. Not sure I'm eager to see what donkey poop de pneu looks like.)

Yes, they definitely are a change from Melting Pot and Calisse, but for some strange reason, I think we might be a much better fit for a bunch of asses.

April in the Auvergne

2011-04-15T16:18:00.001+02:00

There's that famous song out there somewhere about April in Paris and if my computer had speakers, I'd actually go find it and link you to it here, but since it doesn't, I won't. But I'm sure most of you might have an idea of what song I'm referring to.

"Aprillllll.....in Paris." I sing so well, don't I?

Yes, April in Paris is a wonderful thing. Or so I've been told. I think I was in Paris one April about 10 years ago and it rained the whole time we were there. The Man and I toured the major museums with my sister & her family and then at the end of the day, we did what other people have done when it's raining in Paris and well, we got a nice little souvenir we call MH... ah yes, "Aprillllll.....in Paris...."

Ok. Sorry. Once again...I digress.

Right, it's April and we are no where NEAR Paris. We are miles from Paris. Decades, one could claim even, from Paris. This is the Auvergne. And here April is all about allergies and cow poop, baby lambs and blossoms, warm days and chilly nights. The grass gets so green this time of year. It's like I forget that this colour exists and then one early morning, the sun hits the field behind the house and I'm transported to Oz, with Dorothy as my guide. Green, glowing, alive and beautiful. Not a café or a museum in sight.

April in the Auvergne is how I will always remember France. The village, still only inhabited by year-round residents, is quite and peaceful. My people watching consists of observing the new leaves dancing with the wind. The grey volcanic stones of the houses are no longer dull and dingy with winter's light, they are now brilliant and sparkling, the perfect cadre for purple blossoms, white flowers, yellow daffodils, a sharp blue sky, and that green, green grass.

Close your eyes. See it. Sit with me on my front steps, have a coffee, and watch the world go by, one meandering cow at a time.

Souvenirs of my Auvergne. Sing it with me, "Aprillllll.....in Paris....."

And We Grow

2011-04-05T11:09:00.002+02:00

We went for a hike with friends a couple of weekends ago and came upon a magnificent tree. It stood there, stoically stretching its branches up to the sky, laughing at us as we traced the outline of its belly button.

At first, I thought that the tree had been hollowed out, shaped like that by man, but it soon became apparent that the tree had actually grown this way. Old decayed wood had fallen away exposing the delicate nature where the sun and wind had passed, but overall, the trunk was true and solid.

I stood amazed at the determination of this old soul. How it must have struggled to reconnect its base and find the will to grow tall and strong even though something had split it centuries before. Its desire to be one, to be whole, was obvious...

Perhaps I'm waxing too poetical about this tree. Perhaps it was nothing more than mere chance that it is still standing and that it really didn't fight its way back to wholeness. Perhaps over time, bugs and bees had nibbled their own right of passage through it and that's all. All sorts of things may have troubled this tree and created this space that shouldn't be.

But I don't care.

To me, this tree is still strong, it's still one. There it stands, giving hope to those branches who are unfazed by whomever or whatever tried to take it all down. They are there still, reaching towards infinity.

May It Always Be So When It Comes to Homework

2011-03-30T08:04:00.000+02:00

We got home from school last night and the big two, MH and The Princess, sat down at the dining room table to do their homework. The Princess pulled out one little red book and sat scribbling away at math problems contentedly for the next 10 minutes.

MH, on the other hand, pulled books, one after one, out of his back pack and placed them strategically on the table. He started with the blue one of a certain size, then the slightly smaller green one next to it. In the middle he placed a large yellow folder, and then to complete the left to right arch, two red copy books of about the same size.

He looked over his display and then closed his eyes and tilted his head towards the ceiling. He sat there in quiet concentration for about 2 minutes and then slowly, in English, started saying the days of the week.

"Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday."

And then, just as methodically as he had placed all the books on the table, he began to rearrange them in his backpack.

"MH, what's going on there?" I piped up from the kitchen.

"I'm done my homework," he replied.

"Already? That was quick."

"Yeah, I just had to learn the days of the week for English." he said. "Boy, you have no idea how hard THAT was!"

Yellow Card

2011-03-23T09:31:00.000+01:00

I wish I could explain to everyone just how good things are between The Man and I right now. Seriously, it's like we were both in a coma for the last two years and WHAMO all of the sudden, we're alive. It's good. It's fun. It's chaotic. It's love. But this doesn't mean that everything is all happy clappy. We've still got our moments and we've still got a lot of people to face and that's not just live ones that live around the globe, but some old demons that lurk in our ingrained behavior.

For example, on Sunday we hauled the troop and two of our friends from Scotland out for a hike around the village. There was a major trail race going on and I was hoping that we would be able to catch my running buddy as she finished her 75k course. We followed the last part of the course as it meandered into the woods and down the hills towards the infamous cascade, a rather large muddy section of waterfall at about the 73k mark.

Unfortunately, we had had a fair amount of wet weather around these parts in the last couple of days so to say it was muddy is putting it lightly. To say that a hippo might have been happily hidden in one of the puddles we needed to splash through is more correct. Of course, this little jaunt had been my idea so I was feeling rather sheepish about the amount of mud The Man had to push the jogging stroller through. Rosie was happily bouncing along as her dad muttered various four and five letter words in several languages at her mother. Luckily for all of us, good humour prevailed and we all made it back to the B&B in one piece. Dirty, but happy, everyone kicked off their shoes outside and that was that.

Monday night rolled around and I realized that our furry friends had been locked in their prison since Sunday so we needed to let them out to play. The Scottish duo kindly did so and got them fed. Once again, tails wagging and wine being opened, that was that. Or so I thought.

Later that evening, we noticed lovely bits of black and purple material that had been chewed and flung all over the garden with only soles left as reminders of what once was. Unluckily for The Man and The Princess, their shoes had taken a direct husky hit.

It was at this moment in time that the ugly demon of stress and frustration that lingers in the soul of The Man raised it's ugly head and got angry. Really, really angry. And this ugly demon, in my opinion, blamed me for the dogs having eaten his boots. And it was then that my own ugly demon of righteous indignation, that at first tried to remind The Man that anyone could have brought the shoes in, couldn't handle all the crap that's been going on between us for years and decided that throwing that mangled boot at The Man was the right response.

Of course, I missed.

Damn it all.

But you know, it's funny when parents in their forties have tantrums: we look exactly like all of our children. And since consistency is key in dealing with tantrums in children, I promptly put myself in time out in my room, where I sulked and smothered that demon with my blankie. When The Man came up to bed a little bit later, he hugged me and whispered a simple, "I love you," as we lay there.

The Man and I have been laughing a lot about the shoe since then. He knows he blew his cool and I know that I countered his stupid tantrum with a stupid stellar one of my own.

Though, I have to admit, I'm glad we had this little tiff. It's cleared the air once again and reminded us both that we still have some work to do. But trust me, it's good work if you can get it.

Go On, I Dare You to Try and Pronounce It

2011-03-14T08:25:00.000+01:00

So the latest craze over here at the moment seems to be loads of ados wandering around ice rinks, malls, and parks wearing this:

Yes, that would be a Franklin & Marshall sweatshirt. And what's funny to me is that I'm sure not a single one of these ados have any freakin' idea what Franklin & Marshall is. Which is such a shame because the admissions office of that fine school in Lancaster, PA might be able to tape into a massive influx of international students from this part of France if they knew what was going on.

At first I wondered if there was some sort of exchange program already in place between the local university and F&M, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I just wish I had jumped on the bandwagon sooner and started marketing my own Alma Mater's sweatshirts. Sure, Marquette may be just a bit too easy for French ados to say, but one could have tried, I suppose.

You have no idea how much I want to grab one of those kids and say, "Oh my GOD! Did you go to Franklin & Marshall too?!?!?"

All We're Missing is a Space Mountain

2011-03-08T08:44:00.000+01:00

We've had a kid swap this week. French Me kindly has taken the resident grumpy guts, aka Bubba-Love, for two nights and in exchange, we've got her oldest. And I have to admit, it's kinda nice having three kids over the age of 7 to deal with. There's just something about cranky 5 year olds that make me break out in hives and dream of drinking large bottles of Jagermeister.

The Man left for work early this morning with Rosie in tow, which meant that I was free to actually make the big kids some pancakes for breakfast. French Me's daughter watched in wonder as I flipped the pancakes over and asked me to clarify just what the difference between pancakes and crêpes is. I mumbled some stupid reply about the fluffiness of pancakes and how they only get folded over hot dogs in diners, but she seemed to glaze over so I quickly changed the subject.

As they sat down to eat, I watched as all three of them first went for the syrup, then for spoonfuls of sugar shaken like they were all in detox, and then finally some rather large glops of Nutella smeared all over those poor pancakes. I'm expecting the sugar rush to end sometime this evening.

At one point, French Me's daughter looked up from her very sticky plate and said,

"You know? Being here and eating pancakes reminds me of the time we went to Disney Land Paris and we had pancakes and coffee with Goofy."

Yes. Yes. I know. If the shoe fits....

The More The Merrier

2011-03-05T08:45:00.000+01:00

After Madame Home Depot had actually booked her tickets for this last adventure at ours, she made an off-hand comment that one of the guys she knew from work had told her he wanted to come to France too. MHD, being MHD, told him that if he booked his own ticket, she was sure Dig and the tribe would be happy to have him along. So one bright and sunny Kansas morning, MHD gave a copy of her itinerary to said gentleman et voila! And much to every one's surprise, he actually booked a ticket.

What hadn't been explained to us in greater detail was that, sure, she knew him from work, but only because he was a customer of Home Depot. And sure, they have had lunch together once, but overall she knew him about as well as I know my mailman.

For the 10 days she spent with us before he arrived, we quizzed her on everything we could. What did she know about his family, about his past, if he'd been arrested for any major crime, if he ate meat or drank alcohol, or even what he liked to do when he wasn't walking through the hallways of a hardware store. Her answers never wavered. "I don't know! I DON'T KNOW! Oh, my GOD!"

Ok. No big deal. We've had other random people come through the B&B before. We could handle this. Daily deep breath therapy seemed to help MHD not stress too much about it all because, hey, big deal if she basically invited a complete stranger to spend a holiday with her in Europe. Loads of people do that all the time, right?

Luckily for her (and for us) said gentleman was exactly that. An all-around good guy who's motto, "it's not a problem until it's a problem" has now become standard mantra with us all. He jumped right in and helped with the house renovations, hung out with the kids, and shared his own personal experiences with MHD, The Man, and me. He fit right in and didn't seem too phased by the state of the bathroom. He fixed our lights, removed radiators, and helped The Man plan some renovations to our little house in Idaho. Such was the complicity between them that he even caught the horrible lurgy that The Man has been fighting for weeks. Ever so kind, wouldn't you agree?

If I have to admit it, this whole experience has reminded me of the thing I've love most about the Birth Control Bed & Breakfast: all these people who come to stay. Be it family, acquaintances from near & far, or friends who showed up after years of being lost, they plop their bags in the guest room and just jump right in, adding their touch to this tapestry we call home. Here is a France that doesn't exist in guide books: a real live, loud, messy, multi-cultural, multi-lingual guest house where everyone is welcome, well as long as they don't mind changing an occasional nappy or painting a wall.

Overall, I think she did good there, MHD, by inviting this gentleman to come. It was a risk, for sure, but as we all know, sometimes we need to take risks or we miss out on life and all it's got to offer. (Granted, if one of my girls tells me years from now that they've invited a strange man they met at McDonald's to go on a trip to with them to the other side of the world, I might be just a wee-bit nervous, but hey, at that point we'll just forget this little event ever happened, ok?)

All's well that ends well and I'm happy to say that this gentleman stranger is now a no longer just a stranger. And who knows? Maybe after this trip, he and MHD might even go out to dinner! As for The Man and I, we only hope that we will cross paths with him again someday, even if it's only for a few seconds and a coffee in the paint section of Home Depot.

It All Started in the Post Office Parking Lot

2011-03-02T11:48:00.000+01:00

It dawned on us the other night that Madame Home Depot and I have known each other for almost 15 years. Three of which we spent attached at the hip, dodging shots at the local bar and trying to out talk each other in random and sundry other spots. The other years consist of frequent phone calls and her 4 trips to the B&B where she got exposed to chicken pox, demolition work, and car sickness....not all at the same time, of course. We like to dole those out special moments out over several extended periods of time. Keeps the freshness of the place exciting, you know...

Funny thing with Madame is that in the years we were working together in the Rockies, we had this inexplicable need to call each other every night before bed. Didn't matter if she was at her boyfriend's place or we had had a heavy night in the bars, we had to hear each other's voices so we could sleep peacefully, safe in the knowledge that we were loved. We talked every day, sometimes all day, cracking up over stupid stuff. Seriously, neither of us can remember what we really talked about but the laughter, that's been tattooed onto our souls.

She's seen me through thick and thin, this woman. She's listened to me whine, moan, and sing. She's known The Man almost as long as I have and is the only other woman who I know who can give it back to him like he needs. It's awesome knowing he loves her as much as I do.

Normally it's him who gets to spend time knocking things down, rebuilding, and chatting the day away with her but due to his flu/bronchitis/stress/life in general, I got to do all those things, not him. She and I have sanded plaster joints, painted undercoat, drank gallons of coffee, and laughed until our sides hurt. All it takes is one glance at her wry smile and I'm in stitches remembering why we were so inseparable all those years ago. (Just mention the words, "stamp collector" to either one of us and you'll see why...)

She's good, Madame Home Depot. One of the best people I've ever known. One who has reminded me that laughter is what I need. Every day and in large, large doses. Her visit has been a blessing and I ache from giggling.

Screw running. A half an hour of laughing, with tears streaming down my face, is all I'll ever need.

Thank you, MHD. I remember.

Carousel

2011-02-27T09:26:00.000+01:00

I go up.
I go down.
I spin around and around and around.
I need to lay down.

I go up.
I go down.
I want to jump and fly and soar.
I must lay down.

I go up.
I go down.

Stop.

The Attics of My Mind

2011-02-20T08:33:00.001+01:00

I've spent the last two days tucked up into the eves of the attic, sanding away at the plaster board, trying to gently scrub off any excess plaster mud that's there. It's not a hard job, but time consuming and the repetitive gestures makes me feel like my left shoulder is going to explode.

I sit there moving my arm back and forth, up and down, and I find myself walking, once again, through the hallways of my mind. Remembering people I haven't seen in years, nights out with friends, what ever happened to so-and-so, and wondering why so much bullshit has happened along the way. Then I'll start humming a tune, connecting the rhythms to memories, as I shift my contorted body into the next space. I can see as I look over my work just where the good memories were and where I remembered the bad.

I'm lucky to not be alone in my attic because Madame Home Depot is with me. She's there sanding too and when I drop my sanding block because I'm miles away, she kindly picks it back up for me, hands it to me, and we sand some more. We sand and think. We sand and talk. Both of us covered in a fine white dust and if I could get my hands on some red, red lipstick, I could easily transform my Irish-American face into that of a beautiful geisha. Someone else entirely, who's memories I don't know.

The dust covers our hair, our eyes, our clothes, the floor, the furniture, the bed. It's snowing in the attic and I'm wistful. I want out of this house, this place, this life. I want to take my man, my children, my dogs, and go. Back to where Madame Home Depot and I lived before I realized just how hard it is to really love. They say you can never go home again, but I'm willing to try.

I climb down from the eves and take a shower. My skin turns bright red from the heat of the water and the dust and dirt wash away down the drain. I step out to see my face in the mirror. My freckled face that has accompanied me forever. I look into my red, tired eyes and stare. I know. I know.

As I head downstairs, I hear Typhon howling and for some reason, the chords of Canon in D echo through my mind. Everything is off tune, but the melody is true. The Man hands both Madame Home Depot and me a coffee and as I clutch that warmth in my hands, I know. I know. I've gone home again.

About Him

2011-02-11T09:06:00.000+01:00

It's been about a year since things started going off the rails for The Man and I. I wasn't really aware of it at the time, but last February, he was starting on that slippery slope into his own personal hell. I was too wrapped up in Rosie and the tribe to really notice just how bad things had gotten for him. Work stress, personal pressure to be someone he wasn't, and his own exigence on perfection was a cocktail for a seriously horrible hangover. Not to mention the fact that I really didn't like him most days didn't help. He was angry, yelling, blaming, distant, so I hid behind our kids. It was safer there for me. I knew who I was and what was needed of me. With him, I didn't.

It's easy with hindsight to see just how messed up our relationship had become and just how insane the two of us were in our own private thoughts. He became convinced I didn't love him (not surprising if you wife acts like she doesn't like you) and I became convinced that everything I did was wrong. We stopped communicating and just went into that lovely "parent-auto-pilot" thing. You know the one, where sure we talked about the kids, the house, what we need to do on Sunday, but never about what was really going on inside of both of us.

I thought it was just a stage, we'd be fine. Once I got my head above water with the four kids, we'd breathe again. I knew that we'd had bad spots in our relationship before, but I didn't realize what was really happening this time. I didn't realize that The Man was at a point where he was unable to go on as he was. And so he didn't.

A year later and I actually think I know my husband more now than I have these last five years. Things that got swallowed up by us is our separate super-mommy/super-businessman roles are now moving back into focus. Still, every time I hit that "wall" in my head and I remember what happened to our marriage, I feel like I'm looking at a bad Woody Allen film with the two of us in his leading roles. How can I explain how odd it is to be able love him, fall asleep in his arms and then two hours later, I wake up in a cold sweat and want to punch his lights out?

Granted, these moments are less and less frequent because if the truth is told, something had to happen to our marriage. I don't like what did, but the clarity I have now I wouldn't trade for the world. Talk about irony.

In December, I turned 40 and I turned a page. I refuse to hide behind my mommyhood. I love these little people with all my heart and soul but one day, they will have other things to worry about then pestering me when I'm making dinner. I have my own life to live. And I want to do that with The Man.

Today, he turns 42 and I know he's turning a page. He knows now what he's missed, what he almost lost, what he's gained and what is important to him. And boy am I glad that I make that list.

I only wish a world of happiness for him. That his next 42 years are ones where he can be exactly who he's wanted to be his whole life: someone good, someone honourable, and someone well loved. Anything else doesn't count for shit.

I tell you, my Man, I don't care what you do for a living or what our house looks like. I'm fine with feeding the kids pasta and peanut butter for the rest of their lives if it means you and I are good. I love you, Hubster. Even on the bad days.

Don't ever, ever, ever forget that.

This Thing Still On?

2011-02-09T08:54:00.006+01:00

It's been pointed out to me by two very special people in my life that I haven't posted in a while. (You know who you are, you two...) I do apologize. I like being able to blog and share all the bullshit that happens to me so here I am, ready to blog it all....and yet, I haven't a clue where to begin. How about I just start with a couple of things and go from there. Sound ok?

Bubba-Love turned 5 on Feb 1.

That amazing, cranky, feisty, adorable, little guy finally got his birthday stash of bubble-gum and more of that PlayMobil I love so much. He hates going to school, has been interdit to play with two of his friends during recess because they end up wrestling into walls,and he is always in trouble at the cantine because when he decides he's done eating, he's done and he will not take another bite, no thank you, I said NO.

But my GOD, when that kid laughs, my heart and soul want to explode with joy. He has his dad's smile and my grandfather's twinkle in his eye. He's a charmer, this Bubba, and he knows it. All he wants to do this summer is go play at Kitty and BaPa's and see his friend, Aine. He hopes she'll play football with him because that's the only sport he likes.

He turned 5. Amazing.

From Stay-At-Home-Mom to Working-Mom to Stay-At-Home-Mom in just three short months!

Yes, my adventures of working in France came to a rather quick end last week when it dawned on me that the woman I was working for has this thing for lying. Now, I'll be a little careful here because she was never outright horrible to me personally, but there were other situations during my short stint in her world that have me still going, "HUH?" I will say that overall, the experience was good. I met some lovely people, got two great weeks of training in Paris, and got to work with kids in the most awesome of learning environments.

One of the highlights of this short job was working with a boy of 5 who had struggled in his normal French school. He had been frequently punished for not writing his letters correctly and therefore had absolutely no confidence in his ability to write or even try to write letters. For the first two weeks with us, he point blank refused to write his name. Finally, he discovered the box of colours and asked me if we could do them in English. We took each colour, I said their English names out loud, then I wrote them on a piece of paper. He then would take the corresponding coloured marker and trace the letters of their English names. And low and behold, guess who started writing those words himself? Guess who realized that it didn't matter if the "y" wasn't perfect or the "e" not between the lines? Guess who got excited about writing? Guess who's so angry at that mythoman that I couldn't continue working with this boy?

As it stands, I've had some good conversations with my old colleagues and with several of the parents and if they all have their way, perhaps I'll get the chance to work with these kids again, albeit in a whole different context. We'll see, we'll see.

"And I Ran, I Ran So Far Away!"

Now, this may not seem like major news, but it is. You see, as all the shit hit the fan in my marriage and my life, I became convinced that I had been running to escape from the things I was too afraid to face and hence, my running abruptly stopped.

Well, I've finally faced a lot of truths about myself and about those I love and I'm ok with it all. Well, mostly ok with most of it, there are still some big points I'm trying to come to terms with, but that all being said, I can run again knowing that I'm not escaping myself, I'm empowering myself. I run to remind myself that it's me that chooses to make me run up hills and scramble over rocks. No one else is doing that to me. All the other crap that I've had to deal with is other people's shit. My shit is splashing through puddles in the woods...

There you have it. A little bit of an update of the state of things at the Birth Control Bed & Breakfast. Looks like I'll be around here a bit more once again so perhaps, if y'all are good, I'll try to entertain you with more of the joys of living in village that's like a melange of Mayberry and Green Acres, with an Auvergnat accent thrown in for fun.

So sure, we might be recovering from flu, strep throat, some sort of disgusting throwing up thing, and overall a general malaise this week, but you know what? I think we're going to make it. We've got plans...

Never Ending Toy Psychosis

2011-02-01T21:37:00.002+01:00

So I finally got all the Legos picked up, just in time for Bubba-Love to have his birthday, and what happens? He gets PlayMobil. And here I thought Legos found their way into impossible places. I had no idea that those little PlayMobil people could shimmy their plastic heads into cracks that small.

Not to mention the wonderful CHOKING HAZARD that I now live 24/7 since Rosie thinks the little gold pieces from the pirates chest are bonbons...

I promise to upate in depth about birthday boys, jobs with insane directors, and Mini-Husband's lack of a pain threshold but that'll have to wait until at least tomorrow.

"As the Stomach Churns will be back after these commercial messages from Little Plastic Toys from Hell..."

She Was Cuter When She Wasn't Able To Move So Quickly

2011-01-25T15:10:00.000+01:00

I had just sat down to write the most amazing and witty post that has ever been written by a woman named Dig when suddenly I heard a favourite sound of mine: the smashing cadence of a bucket full of Legos being poured out all over the floor by someone under the age of 4.

I shall return after I spend a few hours digging these little suckers out of the parquet. It's amazing where Legos can hide, you know.

What's That You Said?

2011-01-19T08:29:00.002+01:00

These last couple of weeks, Rosie has started a whole new way of communicating. It's called screaming.

I vaguely remember this stage from the others but I thought I had safely blocked out all the memories by copious amounts of wine and a long runs in the woods. Amazing how the horrors can come back so quickly. I kid you not, I've gone grey. And that's just my face.

The worst part about the whole screaming thing is that I didn't realize until this morning that she was actually screaming something, a real word: "CHOCOLAT!" And then a few minutes later: "LA-BAS!" Then when she wanted her brother to let her have a look at his Lego: "DONNE-MOI!"

Silly, Dig. She's just not screaming, she's actually screaming in French! Et Voila! I understand!

And holy cats, now I'm wondering just how long this whole "I Speak French in a Loud Voice" thing has been going on. I knew she could say "mama" and "dada" but what if she's actually being saying real sentences like, "J'en ai assez de jambon" and I thought she was just babbling?!?

I've not been paying attention and my child SPEAKS! Yes, she SPEAKS! A language I still don't understand but she's speaking it, well, yelling it, and she makes sense!

I hear her now, thumping up the stairs with Stinky the dou-dou safely in her teeth, and she's singing. And would you believe it? All this time I thought she was just screaming out a mangled baby babble tune. Nope, it's actually La Marseillaise.

The Tooth Racket

2011-01-15T11:53:00.002+01:00

It was a funny week for teeth at our place. The Princess Boo pointed out to us on Sunday night that one of her bottom teeth was loose. For the first time in 7.5 years, she was finally getting to that magical point where she was going to earn some money from the mythical tooth mouse.

She wiggled that tooth, twisted it, and BAM. There is was. A little gem, white and just a little bit bloody, in her hand. Off to bed she went, happily clutching the little porcelain tooth jar we have for just said occasions.

Boy, was she psyched to see that 2 euro coin the next morning. So excited in fact, that she spent the entire day at school and all of dinner time wiggling the other bottom tooth. She wiggled it, she wrestled with it, she made a loud popping noise when she broke the roots, et VOILA! Look who got cash again Monday night!

Of course, the mouse hadn't gone to change large bills into coins so Boo scored and on Tuesday morning was beyond excited to see a nice 5 euro bill tucked into the tooth jar.

MH was pretty impressed with the quick haul of cash but just couldn't seem to get past the pain and rip out one of the two teeth that have been loose in his bouche since July. He gave it a shot but after just pushing ever so lightly on one and screaming, "AHGHGAAAAA," he's decided to wait till he can get the dentist to get them out under a general anesthetic.

Meanwhile, Princess Boo figured out that if she really wiggled one of her top teeth, she might be able to get one of those out too. So all day Tuesday and Tuesday night, she wiggled and wrestled and tugged, but alas to no avail, that top tooth stayed stubbornly in place.

Wednesday morning, she came down to breakfast and with a bottom toothless grin, informed me that she was very concerned her top tooth would fall out while she was at pony class and land in a big pile of horse poop. With that fear clearly drawn in her head, she wiggled and tugged and pulled and pop! VOILA! The first of her two top teeth was sprung from it's comfortable nesting place.

And once again, the mouse forgot to get change.

17 euros for three teeth in a four day span. Good work if you can get it.

The End of Single Digits

2011-01-12T09:08:00.000+01:00

Blink.

It's MH's birthday again.

Blink.

He's 9 now. I think everything I wrote about him on his birthday last year still rings true but the subtle changes in him are so deep and amazing.

He was a rock for me when the shit it the fan with The Man. The lovely boy hugged me and told me everything would be ok. He got angry for me, he took care of his brother and sisters. He made me coffee and put away his laundry. And when The Man and I reconciled, he was the first one to hug his father, nearly squeezing the life out of him.

MH makes us breakfast in bed, gets all giddy when he hears Shakira, the most beautiful woman in the world according to him, sing. He reads, he draws, he contemplates, he hates wiggling his loose teeth. He got his hernia fixed and thinks that general anesthetic isn't all that bad after all.

He sees his life ahead of him now in all it's full and rich colours.. He wants to be an Airbus 380 pilot and keeps asking me if I'll be proud of him when he's flying me around the globe. He sings all the time and I mean ALL THE TIME. It's just a shame he got my tonality.

He fights like hell with The Princess and orders Bubba around the house like Napoleon did to his troops. He chases Rosie away from his Lego and refuses to help us with the wood anymore. He's more determined, more confident, more him. I thought I was amazed at him when he was born, who could have explained to me then how amazed I'd be each and every day since.

Thank you, MH, for these wonderful 9 years with you. And yes, I'd trust you to fly me anywhere.

Tonight: Hot Bath

2011-01-09T19:30:00.000+01:00

Friday morning was a typical morning for us at the Birth Control Bed & Breakfast, which means there were the usual rounds of "SERIOUSLY YOU NEED TO GET UP NOW" followed by "JUST GET ANY SOCKS YOU CAN FIND!" All of this means that me and the larger 3 ran out the door with only minutes to spare and luckily, and not thanks to me, everyone was weather appropriately dressed and relatively stain free.

The day passed as they do, in a rush, and The Man and I had a late meeting with our therapist. We finally left the city to head back to the sticks by about 8 pm. The two of us divided and conquered, recuperated all and sundry and took the path of least resistance and put everyone to bed dressed as they were.

Saturday morning rolled around with big plans for friends to come and have dinner with us. This of course meant that I needed to disinfect the entire house and remove any and all scary spider webs in corners and poop stains in the toilets. The day flew by, our friends arrived about 4pm, the evening quickly followed and The Man and I, in a slight red wine haze, got the kids to bed in the quickest manner possible.

It was only this morning as I pushed Bubba in the grocery store cart when I realized that he was still wearing the same outfit I had put him in on Friday morning.

"But that's good, isn't it, Mom? I didn't have to fight with you about getting dressed all weekend!"

Perhaps He Meant the One In Texas

2011-01-03T20:16:00.001+01:00

I was helping one of the new kids at the school where I work put on his shoes when he tentatively looked up at me and asked if I was American.

"Yes," I replied. "I am."

"So that means you're from Paris."

"No," I laughed, "America is all the way over on the other side of the ocean."

"No." he said, now staring straight into my eyes. "America is in Paris."

"No, really," I said again, this time using sweeping arm gestures out towards the west to reiterate my point. "America isn't in France. It's a whole 'nother country, way over that a way, across the Atlantic ocean."

"NO," he said, expressing his true anger at my obvious neglect of world geography. "You're wrong. America IS in Paris."

And so it is as of 10:47am GMT + 1 hour on January 3, 2011.

Duly noted, young man. Duly noted.

Bonne Année et Bon Santé

2011-01-02T20:42:00.004+01:00

After the bells chime and you've given a bisous to all and sundry around you at a French New Year's Eve party, the traditional thing to say is, bonne année, bon santé: Happy New Year and Good Health. I like that. It's nice to wish everyone a good year in the 12 months to come and to hope that they stay healthy and actually enjoy them as best as they can.

But as I said this to yet another neighbour today, something stopped me. I decided I really wanted to say something else. More along the lines of "Happy New Year and I Hope You Laugh Every Day, Even on The Really, Really, Shitty Ones."

I learned in 2010 that life is life. Things happen, the world changes, people need, people forget, people come, and people go. That's going to happen again to all of us in 2011. I only hope that when we hit one of those dark days this coming year, we try to find a reason to laugh, a reason to remember that it's all going to be ok, no matter what "ok" ends up looking like when we finally find it. Even if that's in 2012.

We may all want a happy new year, and I so hope most of us have one. But for those of us who may have more shitty days accumulated at the end of 2011 than happy ones, I hope that at least you have good humour and good people around you to give you the strength to know that you are going to be ok at the end of this year.

Live. Laugh. Love. Tell stupid jokes. Drink fruity cocktails. Enjoy the sunrises and the silly way dogs sniff each other's tookuses. Find some humour whenever and where ever you can. Even if that means laughing at yourself.

Bonne Année et Bon Santé.

Time, As It Flies...

2010-12-30T20:02:00.000+01:00

The other day I turned 40.

Now, I think I'm supposed to have freaked out or had a major party or jumped off of some very high cliff or something like that to mark said occasion, but I didn't.

I turned 40 and all I wanted to do to celebrate this milestone was go run and jump in the woods with my best friend. Luckily, and beyond all comprehension with all that's happened, I still happen to be married to him.

We left the tribe with French Me and headed out into the woods not too far from ours. We didn't have a map so we just drifted and guessed which trails to take. Sort of how our life together has been, The Man and I. At one point, we hit a dead end and the two of us looked at each other and at the same second, turned to our right and as we jumped fallen trees and frozen puddles, we blazed a new path through the woods, back to our original trail, screaming and giggling the whole way.

We ate lunch at a the most obscure and perfectly Auvergnate restaurant just the other side of the woods. The waitress was about 70 and wanted to know where we came from. She looked at us very suspiciously when we said just the other side of the forest. I think our accents must have given us away...

I turned 40 and I still feel like I'm 12. I turned 40 and the world didn't end. I turned 40 and I still snore at night and drink too much. I turned 40 and I still sleep with my baby blanket wrapped around my head.

All things said and done, I feel a little liberated once again. The expectations of every age change and isn't that how it should be?

Turning 20 made me feel that people would take me more seriously. Finally.

Turning 30 made me glad to be out of my twenties and more "honest," as it were.

Turning 40 has made me realize what it is that is important to me and, even more importantly, that this is my one and only life. I need to live it and enjoy it. I get the idea behind a mid-life crisis at this age. Everyone should. Perhaps the world would be a happier place if we all had one and then actually listened to our hearts in the aftermath.

I turned 40 this week.

Perfect time for a little bit of a rebirth, wouldn't you agree?

Peace Amongst Us

2010-12-25T20:48:00.001+01:00

It's getting late and the kids are cuddled around The Man in the guest bed, listening to him read aloud from The Magician's Nephew. Their tired eyes are holding steady after this big day of presents in the morning, roasted goose for lunch, a wintery walk for MH with his snow mad mom, and more chocolates than chicken pox spots for everyone.

It's been just the six of us today. It's been good, but truth be told, I miss the rest of our families, especially my own and The Man's parents who should have been with us but thanks to snowy England and frozen airplanes, it just wasn't to be.

It was our 7th Christmas here and the first time I really wish we had been somewhere else.

Funny, but just as I wrote that, I heard The Princess in her softest voice, ask her dad to read just another chapter. God, how I love being tucked up together, our little Anglophone family in the heart of France. It has been good, so very good today, and as usual, as I try to count my blessings, I realize I haven't enough toes or fingers...

I hope all of you out there are enjoying the holidays with the ones who love you for who you are...warts and all.

-Dig

Polka Dot Rosie

2010-12-21T12:10:00.004+01:00

The spots are red and raw, the book is old and well loved, and Stinky's ears aren't naturally brown...

Just thought you'd like to know.

And Then The Second One Said to the Bartender...

2010-12-19T15:18:00.001+01:00

For those of you who haven't been aware, we've had a chimney sweep stuck in our chimney for over two weeks now. No, not a chimney sweep of the Dick Van Dyke/Mary Poppins variety, but a a rather small round plastic brush thing that for some reason is called a hedgehog in French. Yes, it seems nous avons un hérisson coincé dans notre cheminée! Scary image, indeed!

We were finally able to beg and bribe a proper chimney sweep to come help us figure out just how to get said hérrisson out of the chimney. And since said hérisson is attached to a pole about 8-9 meters long, we knew that this whole supplication process would need a lot of coffee, perhaps some whiskey, and a huge piece of humble pie since it was our fault the damn thing was stuck in there in the first place.

The chimney man came around yesterday morning, nice and early, and none of us heard him knocking on the door. Six people, three huskies and not a one of us noticed this small Santa look-a-like banging on the front door. When his wife called me about 10 minutes later to ask us let him in, I wasn't sure he really wanted to anymore.

Luckily, thanks to my charming smile and adorable accent, he came in and grumpily got to the job. He started shoving his chimney sticks up the pipe, trying to catch hold of that rascally hérisson with some sort of hook. He moved the pole up and down, side to side, catching hold for a split second until the hérisson would somehow become free again. He finally decided that we needed to shove that hérisson right out of the top of the chimney and hope that by doing so it would pop off the pipe cap and thus finally be free. Ok, it sounded like a good idea...

He managed to get the hérisson to stick out of the top of the pipe as planned but a split second later he realized that he had somehow caught his hook on the chimney cap. A quick scurry to the attic with The Man in tow, and the reality of the situation became clear. We not only had a hérisson stuck in our chimney, we now had Captain Hook's hand as well. Both of which were attached to their own 10-12 meter long poles.

The Man and The Sweep had a good long look at the snow and ice covered fake slate roof that was so gingerly placed by Gadot Roofing oh so long ago and wondered just when all that winter would melt so they could walk over to that chimney and cut both Hook and the hérisson free. A five minute job that will have to wait until there's a good bit of sunshine and a nice spring thaw...in December. Please people, cross your fingers.

'Till then, I'll be playing connect the dots with the chicken pox spots Rosie decided to sport this morning, The Man will be trying to fix some of the redecorating I did back in September, and the tribe will try to convince Pére Noel that really they have been super SUPER good this year. Comedy at it's best.

"LIVE from the Birth Control Bed & Breakfast, it's LIFE! With a hedgehog!"

Comfort Food

2010-12-15T08:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I had a "car crash day." Which means that everything and everyone, without intention, sent my thoughts screaming into that wall again. That stupid, ridiculous wall that is now built out of silly putty rather than brick, but it's still there at the moment and it still hurts when I hit it. At least with it now being made out of silly putty, I got to shape it into a nice glass of wine and a huge bowl of popcorn covered in Old Bay at the end of the day.

I've had this same can of Old Bay seasoning since I moved to England back in 2000. Scary, I know, that I'm still using these spices but there is something so very comforting to me about being able to shake out just the tiniest amount of flavour from that very same tin and feel my lips burning, my hang nails exploding, as if I was back in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, listening to the crabs we just caught in the bay get steamed in my grandmother's big black pot.

We'd haul up the crab traps right onto the grass in front of my grandparents' mobile home, tip out the captured crabs, and watch them scurry this way and that, pinchers at the ready. But they were never any match for my grandma and her silver tongs. She'd catch them and place them quickly into the already simmering pot, the Old Bay smell invading the air. We'd start getting the table ready, throwing down newspaper and finding the mallets, anxiously waiting for the crabs to be ready.

And then she'd come carrying that big pot and dump the crabs in a steaming pile on the table. Our eyes would water, our fingers burn, and we'd we would get comfortable, knowing that we would spend the next couple of hours picking those crabs, laughing, talking, and sharing. Comfort food from the sea. All of us grateful for that which was set before us and around us.

It may only be popcorn that we had last night, but as The Man and I would reach into that bowl, our hands bumping as we went for the same little kernel, we'd laugh. Our fingers burning from the spices, the taste of my youth and home being shared between us, piece by piece.

That wall is no match for my grandmother's silver tongs.

Ho, Ho, Ho, It's Chucky!

2010-12-08T08:11:00.000+01:00

My mother-in-law, Annie, gave us this really wonderful Christmas decoration several years ago:

He seems like a pretty mundane little fellow and for most of the recent Christmases, he's been nicely sitting on the stairs, waiting for a tap on the head as the tribe blots past him on the way to bed. This year, everything has changed and this otherwise calm decoration has now become an instant heart attack.

Rosie has decided that his guy is just the right size to tote around the house and leave in various and sundry places without telling her mother. Like in the bathroom. Or underneath the kitchen table. Or behind a closed door.

Imagine the delight I get to experience when I'm hauling up a laundry basket, wondering in my head where on earth all of The Man's socks have gone, when I round the corner and WHAMO, I get cracked in the knee by something the size of a ventriloquist dummy who just so happens to have that same sadistic smile on his face.

At this point, I try to collect all of the clothes that had been ejected from the basket as I screamed and remind myself that this is just a jolly old man, one who will bring joy and Playmobil to my little cherubs in just a couple of weeks. If only I didn't have that hair-on-the-back-of-my-neck feeling that he had winked at me...

So far, Rosie hasn't demanded to take psycho Santa with her to bed and for that I am eternally grateful.

Why Everyone Needs Therapy

2010-12-01T11:02:00.001+01:00

The Man and I had another counseling session last night and I think we both adore our therapist. There is just something about being able to talk about all the ugliness we've been through and have a person listen to you, seriously listen to you, and tell you that neither one of you is insane or a freak.

She had us nailed at our first appointment and since then, both The Man and I are impressed with how she's been able to guide us so well. Granted, we've both changed how we communicate with each other and that's the main difference, but it's just nice to have someone who's seen it all, in so many different marriages, tell us that we're good.

And we are good. We've still got a long way to go, but I can see how that wall we slammed into is actually helping me fall in love with The Man again. And as for him, if his actions are anything to go by, I think I just might get asked to the prom...

I like looking at my calendar knowing that every couple of weeks, The Man and I get to go somewhere safe and talk about us to someone who's got good advice and a boat load of "tools" to help us keep going in the right direction. I know some day were going to have to slow down the frequency of our visits, but I think it might be good for us to keep in contact. Not for the "just in case" but because as we continue to re-evolve as a couple and as parents, I think our therapist can help us keep the focus where it should be, at least until we reach the point where that "us" is solidly re-fixed in ourselves. Then, we'll show up for the last appointment, have a nice bottle of champagne, and laugh with her about it all. We might be 87 at that point, but who cares...

We're getting there. Day by day, appointment by appointment, holiday by holiday.

Who knew?

Heck, she did, didn't she?

All About Moderation and Kernels in Your Teeth

2010-11-29T19:35:00.000+01:00

The kids are back on the Michael Jackson hit parade and as much as I myself was never a really big fan, I have to admit I kinda like watching Rosie start to dance when the rest of them start singing, "Black & White" rather loudly and off key.

Of course, this fascination with MJ's music is bringing up one of the most treasured conversations at our place: why all of our favourite singers are dead. And, more importantly, all the lovely aspects of their timely or untimely demises. Fun, fun, fun in the car, YOU BETCHA!

For example, heading home from the big city the other day, Bubba-Love was trying to understand just how Michael Jackson could have died from taking too much medicine. In his little mind, that children's pain reliever, with the fabulous strawberry simulated taste, just doesn't seem so méchant.

The Man and I decided to hammer the whole drug abuse, over dosing thing to the hilt so we went to town talking about how taking too much of anything can cause addiction and even death. We talked about how you have to be really careful to take the right dose and only let mom or dad give you medicine. And even then, you have to respect the right amount of medicine or you could end up like Michael.

"You know, Bubba, mommy and I have a big pot of headache medicine in the kitchen. We only take one little pill to help our heads when they hurt, not the whole pot or that would kill us."

Bubba stared back at his father's reflection in the rear view mirror and with a shocked look on his face asked, "But you can eat the whole pot of popcorn, right?"

Shall I Sign Her Up for German Next School Year Just For Fun?

2010-11-19T18:00:00.000+01:00

The other night, The Princess starting thanking her big brother profusely for all that he and his people had ever done for her. Since this was a whole new conversation I had never heard before, I decided eavesdropping was definitely in order.

"You know, MH, I really thank you and daddy's grandparents for all they've done. Really, I mean, if it weren't for you guys and all those people mommy's related to, all of us French people would be speaking that language that sounds like strassagagha urghresha, halmgie, ichblaga right now."

A Phoenix

2010-11-17T08:51:00.002+01:00

When my aunt Mary Pat died, the sense of loss was beyond anything I had ever experienced before. The suddenness of that void her death caused still haunts me to this day. Everyone in the family misses her in their own way, each of us wishing for her in our own way. For me, I just wish I still had a chance to see her, to make plans for lunch, hug her, tell her that I love her. But as we know and suffer with death, those things can't happen. She's gone.

When things got shitty between me and The Man a couple of months ago, that void came back to me in a whole new way. An ugly, horrible, empty void caused by the death of our marriage. A death of who I had thought I was and who I thought we were. There is no question in my mind that I have been mourning so much, regretting so much, wishing things hadn't turned out like they did. There are moments when I feel the void swallowing me whole with doubt and worry, with fear, with the shadows of emptiness that chase me through the hallways of my mind.

But the funny thing with this void is that it isn't just mine. The Man is in it here with me. He feels the pain, he suffers, he regrets. We died as a couple over the last couple of years, of that I am certain. But the funny thing with this death is that he's not gone. Nor am I.

We meet for lunch, we tell jokes, he hugs me, we tell each other that we love each other. We talk about what happened to us and why. We mourn the good times we had and try to understand the bad. We talk about who we were and thank God for the chance to talk about who we can be. When he comes home at night, I tell him how glad I am that he's here. Here with me. Alive and moving on.

He's not gone. He's here in the ashes of our marriage, holding my hand.

We're not gone.

There's A Blanket That's Been to Paris and L.A...

2010-11-10T07:55:00.000+01:00

Every evening, when I pick up Rosie from the creche, she's got this rather large red plastic suitcase next to her. It's about the size of a small hand bag and tough enough to be thrown around, banged into walls, and even used as checked luggage on an Air France flight. Best part about this little red case: it's just the right size to stuff Stinky in.

The wonderful women of the creche have told us that Rosie goes for the suitcase almost immediately every morning. She grabs it, opens it up, and stuffs her teddy in there and the gets on with her day. She hauls the case to the climbing area, she puts it next to her when she paints. She tries to hit everyone and sundry with it when it's time to change her nappy and it now even has it's own chair next to her at lunch time. It's become "la valise de Rosie."

As I look at her standing next to her red suitcase, I wonder if the ideas of moving and travelling are already at work in her little 18 month old mind. It makes me wonder if our youngest miracle might just suffer from a good case of genetic wander lust. Is it possible that it'll be she who will tell her parents at the age of 18 that really it'll be fine if she goes to a university the other side of the planet? The one who will decide that she needs to go spend 2 years in Indonesia just because she can? Perhaps she'll be the one who's own children will carry more passports than she does.

I look at the little face, full of awe and wonder, full of joy as she frees Stinky from his case and gets her coat to go home.

I'm so glad to see her. So glad to love her. So excited to see where she and Stinky get to go.

The People in My Neighbourhood: The Parisians

2010-11-01T07:57:00.001+01:00

There a quite a lot of second homes in the village, places people either have inherited from aunts, uncles, parents, and cousins or houses that by some strange twist of fate now belong to people from Holland, Germany, or *gasp* even Paris. Estrangers who have bought old places and fixed them up during their short and infrequent visits to the mole hill.

I like it when they are all here. They open their shutters and turn on the lights and the life of this village changes. There are more bisous to give, more stories to share, and more good excuses for a lengthy dinner by the wood stove. Not to forget, the best excuse for grabbing a bottle of wine from the reserve section on the wine rack.

There's a couple from Paris, so to speak, who bought their house about the same time we bought ours. They had moved all over France with His job over the years and after spending time in the Auvergne, decided it was here, in the sticks, that they needed to find some quiet. I can recall numerous vacations and long weekends when She would be here, working late into the night, sanding and painting, just to get their old house looking as wonderful as it does now. I'd see her in her work clothes, smudged with dirt and dust and then on the day she'd be leaving, this beautiful woman would appear at my gate, wearing shoes fit for Paris, and say good bye till next time.

I didn't get to see much of them this year since He had been transferred to another job in Eastern Europe. A massive life change for them which meant changing everything about their lives. They left their apartment in Paris, had to figure out how to get their three not-quite independent children set in various schools and towns around the country, and then move themselves to a place where they had no contacts and needed to learn a language that most of us have forgotten exists.

It's been hard for them.

The Man and I sat with them in the lounge last night and talked about how hard this year has been. How hard it is to be in your 40s (or almost) and realize that this isn't really where you want to be: full of stress, anxious for the future and worried that your children will resent you for choosing to do as you've done. We talked about how difficult it is to take risks and not lost sight of who you really are. We talked about how being together in our couples is so much more than one could have ever expected when we said those words, "I Do" ever so long ago.

We pondered 'why.' We tried to understand how things have gotten to this point in our lives, not sure that we have any good answers to any of the big questions, knowing that we are basically fumbling blindly through this life. We talked about how when it comes right down to it, the thought of giving it all up and running away to a shack in Idaho sounds just about perfect...

It's been a shitty year for so many people.

I don't blame them for not opening their shutters this time.

Because

2010-10-29T08:08:00.001+02:00

It's been a nice week here at the B&B. Had time to enjoy some easy vacation days with the kids, the aforementioned doctors' appointments, a day schlepping the tribe along while on a work related buying spree with a co-worker, a good lunch with a good friend, and a home cooked meal made for us by people I can bitch to in English.

Makes dealing with strike action, new job stress, dog poop, and fighting children almost seem like nothing at all.

The nicest part of this week has been that I've had a bit of music stuck in my head that has made the sun shine a little brighter and the worries a little easier to deal with. The Man played it for me last weekend and somewhere along the way, all the memories I had of this song from years ago have now been wrapped up with an optimism for the future that I'm so glad to have in my hands and heart.

My plan is to play this song over and over again and enjoy the now to it's fullest. You do the same.

Lost Miles

2010-10-26T09:09:00.000+02:00

I can't run.

I stare at my shoes, both pairs that I bought this summer in the States, and I feel sorry for them.

My trail shoes are lightly covered in mud from my last run, a 3 1/2 hour jaunt back in September through the fields and trails between the village on the hill and the ruins of a chateau about 8 kilometers from here. Since that day, they sit next to the front door, waiting.

My road shoes went with me when I went to Paris. I had loved the idea of running along the Seine or through the Jardin du Tuileries. But in the end, they only served to confirm my 'Americanness' as I walked around the city after my classes.

I can't run.

And I'd be lying if I said I missed it.

How that scares me.

Here was something I did as a constant, something that I depended on to clear my head and keep me sane, and now...

I can't run.

Someone once asked me, "what are you running from?" I laughed and tried to explain.

But now, I'm wondering exactly that.

What was I running from?

The Last Day

2010-10-22T14:44:00.001+02:00

The kids start their October break this afternoon and I have to admit, I'm looking forward to it. We've got some plans to play with friends, several necessary doctors appointments, and hopefully the chance to hang in our pjs till noon and eat popcorn while watching "Surf's Up," the latest and greatest tribe favourite.

It's also dawned on me this afternoon that I'm currently in the last couple of hours of my existence as a stay-at-home-mom.

Boy, that sounds weird.

I only pray that by some miracle my organizational skills become fabulous over this vacation because if not, the lack of matching socks is going to take a serious turn for the worse.

Oh my GOD. I'm going back to work.

Somebody, hold me.

Fatigue

2010-10-21T16:12:00.001+02:00

There have been other times in my life when I've felt as exhausted as I do now but usually that was due to some small person making their entrance into this world. I swear, I could lay down right now, rest my head on the keyboard and easily wake up hours later with a nice imprint of the letter "r" crushed into my cheek. "It's a freckle, I swear....."

I'm not sleeping well on one hand because Rosie has decided that sleeping through the night is just so yesterday's news. I don't know if it's her teeth or that she hates being stuffed into a sleeping bag to go night-nites, but she's taken to wailing in her sleep, loudly, several times a night. I've been bounding down the stairs in the dark, going into her and rubbing her little fuzzy head each time, and just as I'm about to leave & close the bedroom door, she starts howling again.

Last night, I took teeny tiny steps across the room to try and reach the door before she knew I was gone, but I got busted as I turned the handle. Once I finally did get her settled for good, I had the wonderful joy of hearing Typhon picking up right where she left off.

I'm also exhausted because I am stressing about going back to work after 10 years of being at home in sweatpants. All of the sudden, I'm needing to actually shower every morning and, not only that, needing to find clothes that match AND that don't smell like huskies or poop. Not an easy task when I've decided to become completely French and go on a full fledged strike against the washing machine.

I'm exhausted because I'm still on an emotional roller coaster that started a month ago today. I see things clearer now than I did then. I feel better about most things now than I did then. I actually feel that I might be able to find some positives out of a really shitty situation.

But then, all of a sudden in the car, or at night when I'm on the dark stairs listening to Rosie, or when I get a text message from The Man, or when I'm just picking up toys, or putting dishes in the dishwasher, or reading something about the strikes, or I hear a name, or I get a hug from a friend, I go there. That place where my heart exploded into a million pieces and where my life, as I naively loved it, ended.

I'm exhausted because I love. Because I haven't stopped loving. Because I'm in a place where my heart is trying to glue itself back together and carry everyone with it. It's a hard choice The Man and I have made and happy as we both seem about things, it's going to take a long time before anything feels like normal again. This is now life as we live it. Cautiously, humbly, not taking anything for granted.

This life, made up of our lives, that are a whirlwind of shattered pieces, new jobs, children who need reassurances that everything is going to be ok, dog fur, and a teething baby, is exhausting.

And I'm not ready for it to naively end.

And Just What Does One Say To That?

2010-10-19T14:57:00.001+02:00

I dropped Bubba-Love and The Princess off at school today so I could head into town for a morning meeting with my co-workers. As we walked up the stairs to his classroom, I explained to Bubba-Love how someone else would be looking after him this morning since the teachers were on strike. Again.

He stopped on the last step and looked at me with that serious look only a 4.5 year old can give when confronted with the complexities of strike action in France...

"Mom," he said, "if she doesn't like teaching school that much, why doesn't she just get another job?"

A Week in Paris

2010-10-16T13:19:00.001+02:00

I apologize for the silence. Seems the gods or God had found a way to move me out of the world I was swimming in and onto something else entirely.

I had a window open, as it were.

I got a job.

And the nicest part about this job is that I needed to get some training. In Paris. For a week.

It was good for my soul, my soles, and everyone. The tribe has missed me. The Man has missed me and, believe it or not, I missed me.

After the days' training sessions, I wandered Paris. Into museums, churches, stores, restaurants, and parts of that wonderful city I didn't know before. I got lost, I got found, I got blisters, I got my hair done, I got time.

I'm home now and I am beyond happy to be here. The children are crying, the floors need to be cleaned and my Man has made me coffee.

There's work to be done.

Burning

2010-10-09T12:28:00.002+02:00

It's a warning that's on every box of matches and every bottle of lighter fluid. A simple statement of fact that fails to nail down just how horrible the consequences can be.

Carelessness causes not just fire, but pain and destruction. Carelessness ruins things one takes for granted, like a solid structure of a home or the confidence of a loved one.

Carelessness causes fire in places where the ill fated winds decided to carry it. Even with it's warning so cleary written on the outside, people who decided not to read the label closely will be burned.

Carelessness causes fire. Only by smothering that lack of attention, that lack of thought, it's the only hope we have in not ruining everything around us.

Stop.

Look.

Think.

Love.

Fear

2010-10-07T09:40:00.000+02:00

We talk, The Man and I, like we haven't in years. I hear him laugh right from his heart and I cry because I have no idea how long it's been since I last heard him do that. I cry because I can't believe I didn't realize how long he'd been gone.

He brought me coffee in bed this morning and we just sat next to each other in silence. I studied his face, his eye lashes, his nose...the familiarity and strangeness of him all at once. We've said so much already these last weeks that in this little bit of calm, we could almost hear our feelings echoing between us.

We finished our coffee slowly, neither one of us really wanting to get up and get on with the day. Both of us tired, clinging to just a few more minutes there, in that place, together.

There are so many hours till I can talk with him again and the battle between my head and heart is ugly.

On Being Lost

2010-10-04T11:09:00.002+02:00

We loaded the kids into the bateau de route yesterday and just drove. Both The Man and I needed to get away from these walls, this place, and all the emotions that we've been trying to deal with. So with a packet of biscuits and some bottles of water, the six of us ran away.

We took random turns, through random villages, amazed that in the 6 years we've lived in the little village on the hill, we had never gone those ways before. It was if our route was matching that of our souls: a little lost, a little confused, but with a rough idea of where we were.

Somehow we found ourselves at the start of a small trail with some picnic tables overlooking the plains below. We all piled out of car, had a snack and listened as the wind howled around us, cracking dry brittle tree limbs that were waving above us. We decided to follow the trail for a bit, the kids running ahead, The Man and I next to each other, walking wounded, as it were.

The trail split and without thinking, I recalled out loud a Robert Frost quote from my childhood, one that hung on a giant banner in the front hallway of my elementary school:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

So that's what we did.

We found ourselves tumbling out into a high meadow, just us and the wind. The Man and I lay down and as we held each other's hands, our love & our life, in the forms of our children, ran and climbed all over us.

Going Under

2010-09-28T10:21:00.001+02:00

The ambiance at the pool yesterday was tense. I don't know if it was the kids or my own shattered brain, but nothing seemed to be going smoothly. None of the games in the water really seemed to work and we ended up just letting the group play jellyfish for most of the time.

It wasn't just our group that was off, the maître-nageur also seemed to be having difficulty with his group. Granted, he has some of the most challenging boys with him, but yesterday, things seemed to escalate beyond the realms of normal 7 year old boy behavior.

At one point, the maître-nageur punished the entire group and left them sitting on the side of the pool until the three main trouble makers, Valentin, Alexi, and Tomai, understood how horrible they were being. He then made the whole group line up on one side of the deep end and, one by one, swim as fast as they could to the other side.

The only problem was that some of these kids aren't really psychologically ready to get across that pool. Sure, they know how to kick and pull with their arms, but they just don't know that they know how to swim.

I saw Valentin dive in with a huge grin on his face. He made it halfway across, close to where I was with my group, and then stopped. He bobbed up and down for a minute, and then between moments of sheer panic, he began to frantically search around him for a wall or a kick board. I glanced at the maître-nageur who was standing on the side of the pool watching, all the while Valentin becoming more and more distressed.

Finally, my heart couldn't handle it anymore and I began to swim towards this boy I've known since he was 3 years old. I made two strong strokes, but by then the maître-nageur had already beaten me to him.

Later on in the changing rooms, Valentin looked at me with his large dark brown eyes now filled with fear and said,

"He was going to drown me. He was going to drown me."

"No, Valentin," I sobbed as the tears poured down my face and into the hole in my heart. "No, I wouldn't have let him. Never. Never."

Hurricane

2010-09-26T05:42:00.002+02:00

Do you hear that?

It's the sound of the silence that is screaming through my broken heart and I can not make it stop. No matter how much I've cried, no matter how much I've listened, it won't stop.

It's lashing at my hair, blowing the tears off my face and haunting me in every room of this house that is now no longer a home.

I take a deep breath, open my eyes and scream back with everything that I am.

Empty Your Attic

2010-09-20T09:34:00.000+02:00

The village had it's annual vide grenier yesterday which meant pretty much everyone in town emptied out their basements, attics, and garages, set up stands around the square and then stood there for hours hoping someone would pay a heck of a lot of euros for old granny's hot water bottle.

At least it was a nice day.

MH and The Princess searched every single nook and cranny in our house for all the centimes they could find so they could buy all kinds of wonderful stuff. They are now the proud owners of a disco ball microphone and yet another marble game amongst other things like fridge magnets and more broken little cars. Yippy.

I got given a very nice version of Monopoly by some friends of mine. I'm still trying to understand the irony of finding something that reminds me of when I was footloose and fancy free while standing in the square of a village on top of a mole hill in the backwater of France, yelling at my children to stop asking for barb à papa.

Who knew that a game about the Chamonix of the Rockies would have been such a big hit here in the darkest Auvergne? I just wonder which one of my neighbours was friends with John Denver?

In the end, a nice day was had by all. Especially our buddy, Christophe, who knows how to make the day, and by coincidence his sales, just that much nicer.

The People in My Neighbourhood: Smahia

2010-09-16T15:03:00.003+02:00

When I first started sending Bubba-Love to the creche, I had no idea what the heck I was doing. Not because I didn't get the whole leaving-your-kid-in-day-care thing, but because I didn't really understand the nuances of what going to a creche meant. Having not been raised in France and not speaking the 'real' language, there were lots of little things that seemed simple to understand that just went over my head. Like what was expected in his lunch, the fact that slippers were obligatory, and the whole gigoteuse thing. Sure, a lot of this would be similar for any parent beginning to use any day care, but when you're coming at something like this with a whole different cultural background, something so simple as slippers can become complicated. And frightening.

Thank God for Smahia.

The first time I met her and bumbled my heavily accented hellos, she took my little man in her arms and with a simple smile, made me feel at ease. She spoke slowly and never seemed to try and guess at what I was saying until I got to the point where I just couldn't charade it any more. It was obvious in her manner that even though I was butchering her native tongue, she respected me and didn't make me feel like an idiot. I was a parent dropping off her son, just like all the other mothers that morning. I could have kissed her.

Thing is, as I've come to learn over the years, Smahia was the best person to understand. She remembered all too well when her own mother would have difficulty trying to get by in French many years ago. Her mom was like me. Not from here, but raising her family here. Raising children who's nursery rhymes are songs we'd never heard before. Children who have the French manner of saying, "oh la, la, la, la" with the right hand gestures to go with it. Children who are French even though their parents are not.

I forget now where exactly in the Maghreb Smahia's mother is from, but it really doesn't matter. There are things that a mother with a North African background and a mother with an American one do share when they live here. At times we are lost, confused, unsure of ourselves, and missing "home." We also share this incredibly wonderful thing of having worldly children who, at tender young ages, get what it means to be multicultural.

It's a God send knowing Bubba-Love, and now little Rosie, get to be with someone like Smahia at the creche. She 'gets' them. And their mother.

Down Time

2010-09-13T21:00:00.002+02:00

It's getting late and I'm waiting for Hubster to get home. All the members of the tribe have been fed and watered and hunkered down for the night. The four legged ones with a scratch behind each ear, the two legged ones with a hug and a kiss.

It's so quiet that I can hear my thoughts arguing with each other. Should I worry about why I exist or should I focus on how I'm going to get a weed wacker to the repair shop tomorrow while having to deal with two ricocheting toddlers?

Should I play on Facebook and see if I can find more of my past and wonder how it's possible that I've crossed paths with extreme skiers, insane runners, some simply wonderful French people, evangelistic Christians who I actually like to listen to, and those who may have just been witnesses to my life as a comet?

Perhaps I should read a book. Or maybe write a letter. Open some wine or take a bath. Or just sit here and watch the bat that lives in our stone wall do his nightly aerobatics past the window and marvel that he's as blind as I am in this world and yet.... He seems to be doing ok. Perhaps I am too.

The church bells are chiming out yet another hour. How grateful am I for that.

And for the sound of Hubster's car.

Coming Soon!

2010-09-08T11:52:00.001+02:00

My apologies for not writing sooner. Between toddler wrestling, sibling rivalry and the basic nightmares of back-to-school meetings, I've found myself short of time and short of ideas. I already bore you with loads of random blah blah as it is, I didn't want to nail the coffin completely shut by talking about the September menu at the cantine. (Though, puree and tête de veau twice a month is quite exciting, isn't it?)

But, I do have good news. I've decided that I'm going to make an attempt to introduce you to some of the people in and around the mole hill that make our life here so interesting and good. There's the local healer, the insane woman who gets me lost in the woods, the very funny boulanger, the wonderful women at the creche, Grandma Francaise, and even the secretary at the Mairie, for starters.

Hell, you know us so well, why not get to know those here that we know well, right? Now, I'm not promising this will be a regular feature, but I will try and do this at least once a month. Pinky-swear. And feel free to remind me. Especially if I start talking about really boring stuff like poop or children or French grocery stores too much.

Till then, you guessed it, I'm off to clean up dog poop, take the kids to horse riding lessons, chase Bubba-Love around the grocery store, and then if I'm lucky, spend some time matching socks.

Jealous, aren't you?

Rentrée des Bisous

2010-09-03T14:47:00.000+02:00

This whole going back to school thing has been incredibly stressful for me. Not because I'm sending my children off to spend their days with highly trained and strike happy teachers. No, it's been this whole bisous thing.

A bisous, as some of you may be aware, is the way the French like to greet people. You say, "Bonjour" and then you cuddle up to them and press your cheek softly against theirs and make that gently puckering noise often associated with kissing babies. Sometimes someone might give you a full on the cheek kiss as they might like to do and that's fine. Perhaps a bit wet, but fine all the same. Then, once you get one side done, you then have to do the same thing all over again on the other side.

Doesn't sound too complicated, now does it?

BUT, ALAS! Simple trickery once again! Just who does one give a bisous to? I've known the teacher for almost 8 years but the thought of giving her one has never crossed my mind. Then, there are the people I've known from school year to school year, who's children have caused all kinds of ruckus with mine for the last few years, and I'm scared I'll smack my nose against theirs as we say hello. Then, finally, there are our good friends, who's children I've feed and had sleep over. I'm almost sure I need to give them a bisous, but I feel so silly trying to kiss my good friend's husband.

To bisous or not to bisous, that is the question.

Good thing we got to school 15 minutes early yesterday so that I could bisous or not bisous the other parents and kids that were there. Luckily our Auvergne bisous is only one on each side. It must add a 1/2 hour to any group greeting in places where 4 is considered polite.

Yes, you see, because it is normal when you go somewhere where other people have also been invited (dinner parties, drinks etc) that you give a bisous to everyone who's there. Once again, I'm at a loss. Do introduce myself as I switch sides? What if I've got a cold? Do I have to bisous that man that smells like goat's cheese?

I will admit that this is where I flaunt my foreignness to the hilt. I show up behind my adorable cherubs and just smile like the village idiot. I wave at everyone, hug a few people, and then just yell "BONJOUR" to all and sundry standing there. There is a reason why I've cultivated this "airhead" thing as well as I have.

So at least I survived the dreaded rentrée bisous for this year. Now, I can go back to just kissing people that offer me wine.

Oh Happy Day

2010-09-02T11:27:00.000+02:00

So 3/4 of the tribe trundled back to school today.

Mini-Husband got up at 6:45am to get ready for his 8am bus ride. The Princess was up at 7:15 and finally got her hair brushed with just 10 minutes to go. Bubba-Love "lost" his back pack somewhere in the house. We searched everywhere but only found it when he went to use the bathroom before walking up to school.

All things considered, not too bad a start to the school year.

And what did the other 1/4 and I do, you must be wondering? See if you can guess...

Nothing but happiness and joy. Happiness and joy!

I Bought Two Bottles in the End

2010-09-01T09:55:00.006+02:00

It occurred to me yesterday that I have absolutely no need for a mobile phone. No one calls me, no one texts me, the only people who might need to reach me are the ones who can physically do so as they follow me around the house yelling about siblings.

I had finally recharged my phone after having forgotten about it for the month of August. All ready to roll, I decided perhaps it would be nice to catch up with some of my friends with a quick, "how was vacation?" text. Seven sent, zero replies. I'm hoping it's because their own phones are still snoozing somewhere and not because they had blocked anything from my number.

Later, standing in the booze section of the grocery store with three people high on barbe a papa (thank you Buffalo Grill,) I tried reaching Hubster for a little advice on just where in Scotland our whiskey should come from. He told me he'd call me right back.

I'm still waiting.

Thank God at least the sugar high has finally worn off.

I plugged the phone in again this morning just for kicks and giggles. It looks so cute all lit up and blinking, pas des messages. I feel kinda sorry for it, actually. Such a nice phone with all kids of lovely little features, stuck living in the back of a drawer next to four year old gum packets, dead batteries, and tick spray.

I lived without one for years and I'm thinking the time has come to do just that once more. Perhaps I'll rethink this whole thing in a few years when Mini-Husband is off learning how to drive cargo boats, but until then, back to the drawer with you! I prefer feeling insignificant all by myself, without you reminding me that I have pas des messages, thank you very much.

So if anyone needs me on this last day of summer holidays, I'll be wandering around the village, trying hard to enjoy the sunshine and the tribe. We'll be the ones yelling in English.

Don't Eat the Tomatoes

2010-08-26T10:50:00.000+02:00

Bubba-Love went running through the front door yesterday afternoon, flashed me a big smile and shrieked with glee,

"I love being home. I get to pee on mommy's plants again!"

What I Learned on Summer Vacation

2010-08-25T12:47:00.001+02:00

I think I should begin this by point out that now that I've been home for over a week, I can't really remember vacation so I'm not sure that I learned anything. But, since I promised all and sundry that I'd extrapolate a little, I'll do my best.

*When you stress about how well a 15 month old will handle a 7 hour flight, don't forget that the three other people related to her will find new and incredible ways to freak you out.

*I hate air conditioning. There, I've said it. Even when it was ridiculously hot and humid, I wanted to throw open the doors and windows and bask in the heat. Sure, it's nice to escape from the insanity by hiding in the mall, car or house, but I have come to realise that I actually like feeling the seasons. Sweat marks be damned.

*There is nothing like diners. Good old fashioned diners where at lunch time you can order pancakes for your 4 year old, a grilled cheese for your 8 year old, chicken noodle soup for a princess, mashed potatoes and meatloaf for the littlest one, and a nice big fat Reuben sandwich for yourself. All with a never ending glass of mixed ice tea and lemonade. This is what I call a happy meal.

*I'm secretly hoping that one day Hubster gets an expat deal to the US just so we can buy a Mustang convertible, an industrial style gas grill, more running shoes than I can dream of, and a Malamute puppy from one of my favourite breeders in Colorado.

*Family is tough because no matter what we think about each other, the problem is that we are all very, very much alike. There's a beauty in knowing that. And that's where this love is so amazing. I hope we continue fighting and forgiving for years to come.

*My high school friends are the people I have always hoped they'd be. Made even better by their spouses and their children.

*My college friends are the people I've always needed them to be. Thank God they still "get" me after all these years. I only hope I can return the favour.

*My kids have decided after an afternoon in Target, that America is the greatest place on earth.

*Jet lag sucks. In both directions.

*As much as I liked "Thriller" back in the day, it's killing me how often the tribe is singing 'Beat it.' Seven hours of Michael Jackson to the US and then 6 hours of Michael Jackson home. Who needs movies when you can air guitar to this morsel for hours on end? And the worst part? They still haven't figured out all the words. "Na-na-nana-na, na na na na. BEAT IT!" Someone shoot me.

*All the excitement, all the planning, all the stress for those fabulous three weeks and WHAMO. It's done. Here I sit, back at home, as if I'd never left. The memories are there and I loved it all, but wow. It's over. I only hope that when we die, it's a bit like this. We sit next The Big Guy/Gal and say, "Boy, that was fun."

*I got to run with my middle sister and hang with my parents. I ate steamed crabs with my fish fearing sister and drink Sam Adams Summer Ale with my brother-in-laws. I got to laugh with my nieces and nephews and get eaten alive by mosquitoes with the other important women in my life. I got to be reminded of who I was and where I'm from and see how that all meshes into where I'm going.

All things being said and done, I think Tim Vine, the winner of the Best Joke at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year, has the best thing to say about such a vacation en famille:

"I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime-holiday, I'll tell you what, never again."

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

2010-08-20T15:38:00.003+02:00

And so we're back. And I'm having the worst time remembering where all the right keys are on this French keyboard so forgive me for any really wacko typos. Hard enough trying to use my mom's keyboard that had no "p" and now, I keep losing the "w" and the "a." Oh well. Tough price, this international life, eh?

We returned to a typical French welcome which meant that after having to zoom around Charles de Gaulle airport in various buses after that festive 7 hour flight, we arrived at the little terminal for our domestic flight only to be told that security wasn't open till 6 am. So we, and the bus load of other air weary passengers, would just have to wait. Two minutes to be exact. It was only 5:58 am you see, God FORBID they work over time.

Ah, la France. I've missed you.

Once back home, we were informed by Grandma Francaise that we and our dogs had created un scandale during our absence. According to her and our neighbour, they had howled and cried and caused all kinds of mayhem for the last TWO MONTHS and that EVERYONE in the village was pissed off and ready to send them to Alaska.

Cue my favourite emotion: Catholic Guilt.

I drowned my sorrows with a bottle of rosé on the terrace with Hubster, determined that this morning I'd make amends. Off I went in search of all and sundry in town to apologize for not having chosen to kennel them for these two weeks we all were gone. Apologize that poor Musher Boy had done his best to take them out everyday and make sure that they were alright. Apologize for the noise and disruption and promise that this wouldn't happen again.

And you know what? Everyone I apologized to told me they hadn't heard the dogs at all. Maybe once, but they weren't nearly as bad as so-and-so's dogs on the square...

Cue: Catholic Confusion.

Now, I'm sure that Typhon sang and Anouk acted like a state trooper, but overall, I'm wanting to believe that it wasn't as bad as I'm fearing. Musher Boy is a good, responsible kid and I don't regret leaving the fuzzy bumpkins at home rather than in a kennel. I hate to think that they did really upset everyone and I can only hope that the truth is out there somewhere.

Since then, I've been busy kicking the spiders out of the various summer camp locations around our house and hoping that this jet lag thing wears off soon. I'll try to give a little rundown on the highlights of the trip and What I Learned on Summer Vacation but that's going to have to wait for now.

All scandales considered, it's good to be home.

Margaritaville

2010-08-12T22:24:00.000+02:00

This week has been a blur. I see sand all over the floor of the bathtub and some mangled, wet swimsuits thrown into a corner and I'm vaguely aware that we've been to the beach. The kids are brown and Rosie has taken to cleaning out her digestive system by taking the "Sand Diet" to heart.

It's beautiful here.

We've been eating and drinking and eating and laughing and drinking and eating some more until thunderstorms roll in and we find the need to drink a little something else and just sit on the decks and watch the lightening as it rolls out to sea.

It's not at all like home. It's louder, newer, and in English all the time.

The tribe has learned how to boogie board and jump the waves. They've decided Speedo swimsuits are for Europeans, pizza is awesome for breakfast and cousins can be just as painful as siblings. They can now swim across the pool and jump in without fear. They can't remember the boulangerie and they point blank refuse to speak in French.

I'm with my people and laughing as Hubster tries to understand Americans, seafood, and peanut butter creme pie.

It's good. I'm getting my fill and starting to be homesick. Four more days. Four more days.

OBX and Rocky Mount, North Carolina

2010-08-08T16:57:00.002+02:00

You know, it's really hard trying to blog when you see all 7 of your readers making bacon in the kitchen next to you. It's just a reminder that what I write really is a load of hog swallop that only people who share some genetic connection to me through birth or marriage might actually be interested in reading.

That being said, I'll talk to myself here and note how much I'm in love with Rocky Mount, NC. A small town that seems to have little going for it, with the nicest people and the coolest park where everything costs a dollar. Who knew that when we randomly picked to meet up there with Miss Tennessee 1975 and her family yesterday, how awesome that would turn out to be.

We found a spot for all 6 kids to run and splash in a water park where the risk of drowning was non-existent. We found a spot where we could ride around on a miniature train, just like the one Mini-Husband has in his room, and laugh as it whisked us through a most welcomed shady tunnel of wisteria. Sno-Cones and ice cream, a carousel, and the people who actually debunked my theory about the shallowness of the American, "how you doin'?"

A picnic next to shady trees with a cool Riesling and good friends who I miss more than I can admit. I love that place, that day, those memories. Thank you Rocky Mount and thank you Middle Sister for letting us escape the family so we could be with friends.

Now on to a week sequestered with the family on the Outer Banks. If we survive the bacon rush each morning, we might be able to deal with the beer run in the afternoons. Amen for a pool at the rental house and teenage nieces. I could get used to this.

Can't You See I'm Trying to Ignore You Here?

2010-08-03T15:26:00.001+02:00

It's been over a week that we've now been in the United States of Casual and I have to say, I'm still suffering from culture shock.

People are so darn nice here. So very, very, freakishly nice. They ask how your day is going, they smile and say hi when you pass them running, they even come and refill your never-ending cup of soda at the fast food joints. I'm so out of practice at this chit-chat thing, it's killing me. And the guilt I'm feeling at the grocery store when I see that poor man STANDING there, bagging my groceries! Quelle horreur!

The only exception to this whole killing-me-with-kindness-thing was the other night when I screwed up going through a toll booth and rather than going through the automatic lanes, I ended up going through the one where a very bored and determined young man wasn't about to let me out of the toll without giving him a dollar.

"But the car has an Easy-Pass," I said.

"Didn't work," he replied without shifting his gaze from his iPhone.Who was this woman interrupting him like this?

"It's supposed to pay automatically, right?"

"Look, it didn't," he grunted, still not looking me. "You need to give me a dollar or you can't go through."

I'm not sure he wound have understood the compliment I wanted to bestow on him if I had actually said out loud what was passing through my head. If only he knew that across that great big ocean, he's got a fabulous community of toll booth workers who love doing what he was doing and even liked to make life more fun by going on strike from time to time.

I have to admit that I was kind of happy to meet this atypical American. Someone who obviously didn't give a shit about what was going on and didn't have a problem showing that. It restored my faith that you can find helpful people outside of Paris and obnoxious people in Virginia.

Even though our languages may be different, people are people no matter what size the toll booth. I just wonder what app he bought with the dollar.

This Sure Isn't Nutella

2010-07-30T23:53:00.000+02:00

Four A.M. Again

2010-07-29T11:41:00.002+02:00

It's just not fun, this whole jet lag thing. Feeling like you've been beaten around the head by a used gym towel, then left out in the sun to bake for several hours, really isn't all it's cracked up to be. I know, I know. It's my own damn fault that I have to deal with this. I should have stayed safely on the east coast of the United States after college, but nooooooo, I had this thing that I needed to travel, explore, search. I just didn't realize how much coffee I was going to need when I finally did come home.

The tribe has been consistent with the jet lag joys by waking up each day at about 4 a.m. I try to keep them quiet so as to not wake Kitty and BaPa but unfortunately, where they come from, opening your front door early in the morning doesn't set off alarms notifying all and sundry that one of the inmates is trying to escape. (I'm sure there's a market out there for these type of wake ups since both Kitty and BaPa were up and dressed in about two minutes after that little experience. Snooze alarms be warned! Your days are numbered!)

I'm trying to look at the positives about being up so early... and I'm not really finding any. I'm just going to have to hold it together till Rosie goes down for a nap so I can crawl back into the closet I've decided is my bedroom. Yes, you read that right. I'm sleeping in a closet. A huge walk in closet that has it's own door, it's own air conditioning vent, and is far enough away that I don't hear snoring or teeth gnashing in the night. I think it was intended to be used as an office or a play room, but as I doze near my parents winter clothes and shoes, I'm thinking it's true calling is a hiding place. If only I could really do just that for a little bit longer at night.

I'm going to stop whining now, go make some more coffee and watch the tribe play with my old toys that have somehow lasted the test of time and 7 other grandchildren.

This, this being here, jet lag and all, is worth it.

Thoughts on Flying Sardine Cans

2010-07-27T11:56:00.000+02:00

Somehow, by the grace of God and some good pilot training, me and the tribe have arrived safely on the other side of the pond. I don't think I could even begin to explain the level of stress I was harbouring over this trip. The panic attacks involving various scenarios of us either dying in a ball of flames or having Rosie alternatively screaming or throwing while sitting on my lap for 8 hours must have been some of the best panic attacks I've produced to date. Luckily, as is usually the case, the attacks were for nothing.

Rosie was her adorable little self, smiling and giggling, making the most of Paris-Charles de Gaulle's vast terminal 2E to run laps around other passengers from around the world. I know I should be nervous about that guy waiting for the Beijing flight who snapped a couple of pictures of her with his iPhone, but I'm just not going to go there right now...

Much to Mini-Husband's delight, the entire THRILLER album by Michael Jackson was available on the plane. I'm going to kill French Me for introducing the tribe to this because sitting next to an 8 year old while he plays air guitar to "Beat It" for 5 hours is enough to make anyone start looking like a zombie. Not that I needed any more help in the zombie department.

I need to give up the dream of arriving off the plane looking wonderful and good. It's not possible when you travel in cattle class with 5 children: four of whom like to yell, three of whom like to fight, and one who somehow always manages to find chocolate which is then rubbed into my hair and clothes. I think my nephew was psyched when he realized that other people actually spoke English so he could pretend like he didn't know us anymore. Lucky kid.

In end, we made it. A huge thanks is due to all the kind flight attendants, the other weary long-haul passengers who didn't glare, the lovely U.S. customs people who I lied to about wine, and that aforementioned family who took my tired, weary children away from their post-traumatic stressed out mother and brought us "home."

The cars are huge and the people way too friendly but I think we'll suffer through just fine. Mini-Husband told me this morning that he likes it here in America. According to him, it's way better than France and almost as cool as England.

All the Hippies Go Berserk

2010-07-21T15:30:00.000+02:00

Two of the blogs I read regularly both posted about tents recently. Yes, tents. Those nylon wonders that protect and serve in such a simple manner. What's not to love about something that gives you the freedom to sleep where you want, when you want?

How many trips and summers living in the mountains did I get to appreciate the whole fabulousness of setting the damn things up after 4 beers in the rain? Or of finally laying down to sleep only to realize that I set the thing up on an ant hill? There were many times I got to go camping and had never been so grateful for that trusty tent, ready to grant me shelter when the skies opened and the lightening cracked.

But I think my most favourite memories of tents has to be those tents that the dreadlocked hippies would sleep in during the summer music festivals where I used to work.

I don't know how they did it, but there must have been some sort of dreadlock telepathy or microchip grown into all that hair that notified everyone with a dread within a 200 miles radius to find their tents, load up their beat up old VWs, and head to our mountain for a weekend music festival of either rock or bluegrass.

There would be about a hundred of them sporting the most amazing locks in all shades and shapes and all I ever wanted to know was, where on earth had these people been hiding when there wasn't a music festival to go to? I never saw a dreadlock working at McDonalds, nor Target, not even the health food store in town. And then WHAMO. One crazy weekend in August, there they all were.

The dreads would stake out their tents around the resort's parking lot and start signing and dancing, just being happy and free. I felt like I had been transported back to the legendary world of the Grateful Dead when they were on tour. Tents of every colour, tents of every smell, tents pitched on the top of vans, tents pitched in the woods. Just like little mushrooms growing their happy hippies inside.

Usually on these weekends the weather would turn and the poor little tent village would get inundated by the mountain run-off as it went screaming through the parking lot to the ponds just below the resort. And inevitably, regardless of how many signs we put up or how often we told them not to, at about 1:30 in the morning we'd get reports of the dreads swimming in the cess pool.

Thank God most of them were too "happy" to realize just what they were swimming in.

And then WHAMO just like that, the tents and the dreads would be gone. Back to their normal lives where they would roll up their raw sewage smelling tents, stuff them way in the back of their parent's basement, then tuck those fabulous dreads up out of sight and go back to work at Starbucks, happy in the memories of another wonderful weekend of being free, being sheltered, regardless of the rain.

(You know, even now, 10 years later, the camping section of a sporting good store makes me start to hum Alison Krauss and a little bit of The String Cheese Incident. But I digress...)

We bought a massive great big tent two summers ago before Rosie got on the scene. It's literally a 3 room tent with a small lounge as well. The thing is so heavy that I can't even lift it. It mocks me from it's corner in the basement, begging me to find a music festival so that Mini-Husband, Bubba-Love, The Princess and Rosie can spin around in muddy circles next to a camp fire while Hubster dreams of all those 5 star hotels he stayed in back in the good old days before children and dogs.

But, my friends, I know it's there. I know it's waiting...

Come on, let's grow some dreads.

The Truth About the Birth Control Bed & Breakfast Summer Camp

2010-07-19T08:47:00.000+02:00

I think I need to come clean here and purge myself of a little bit more of that old Catholic guilt. Amazing how, once again, I'm feeling the need to track down a priest and cry out,

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have been using my nephew and nieces as unpaid labour and I LIKED IT. Ok, that's a lie. I LOVED IT and I want to do it again! And again!"

Seriously, my poor young relations. Their wonderful parents give them this opportunity to come stay with us, learn a bit about France, and get to know a little bit more about this wayward branch of the family. And what really comes to pass? I get them running around fetching nappies, babysitting Bubba and Rosie, cleaning up dog poop, folding laundry, and stacking firewood. Not to mention running up to the boulangerie when the poor kids don't even know how to speak French.

But it's just so nice having these kids around who are willing or just too scared not to help. We play with the dogs and talk about America, what sports they love, what music. They complain about being bored here since they don't have 15 different swim meets or lacrosse tournaments to get to on a weekend. They can't understand the shows on TV and the thought of making friends with the boy in the village who likes medieval swords is just a non-starter.

Culture shock in a bilingual manual labour camp. Summer at the Birth Control B&B.

Take poor Michael for example. Just yesterday he helped Hubster cut and stack enough wood to fill the basement while at the same time having to fight with Mini-Husband over just who was in charge when it came to the correct stacking method. He hasn't touched his lacrosse stick since it came out of his suitcase and the big day trips we had talked about doing have lacked the right "wow" factor. Overall, it's not quite the experience I think he imagined having in this land of Lance Armstrong and Le Tour.

I apologized to him over dinner how boring this experience must be, how France wasn't living up to it's exotic reputation. He gazed out over the view from our back terrace, his T-shirt discoloured by the hundreds of logs he'd helped carry all afternoon, and said,

"You know, I like France. You work hard and then you get to look at all this."

Perhaps it's been a good experience all the same.

They're Faster Than You Think. I Think.

2010-07-15T13:57:00.001+02:00

This summer I've been really trying to make our front garden look a little bit more attractive than it has the last few years. It's amazing what three huskies can do to grass. Not to mention flowers and shrubs. The lavender bush is just starting to come out of it's dog-pee induced shock and actually even bloomed for the first time in two years. Bless it's little purple flowers.

I bought a couple of nice plants at the local market just before my mom got here with the hope that there would be a nice mix of blooming flowers in the garden. I planted them all with care and watered them tenderly each night. Everything looked great until about 4 days before she got here. Then, I discovered the awesome power of THE SNAILS.

Sure, I knew those little house huggers liked to nibble away on some of my mauvaises herbes but I had no idea how much they loved pink and yellow flowers. It was as if I had planted a Denny's or "an all-you-can-eat-fish-n-chips" right there for them.

Common sense and most of our neighbours told me that I needed to kill the little guys or give them to the local restaurant. Eradicate them completely was what one neighbour told me. "Be vigilant, Dig. Try salt. It shrivels them up just like that."

If only I could. I look at their little antenna wiggling so innocently at me as they poke their heads out of those little shells and what can I do? It's not their fault I planted flowers in their bathroom.

I could see only one option in all this: a snail relocation program.

So hence, each evening, I've gotten in the habit of waiting for them to start slithering around the flowers when I can pick them up, with all their relatives and houses stuck together, and move them way across the garden, over by the composter. There's lots of great eating over there, what's a snail not to love?

Except that each night, I keep finding at least 3 or 4 more of the little stickers who need a lift back over to the other side of the garden. There's something oddly familiar about a couple of their condos which leads me to believe that snails may be even better about finding their way home than Lassie ever was. I've become convinced that each night there's a parade of snails, lugging their 2 bedroom/ 2 bath shells from one sleepy side of the the garden to the other, giggling as they arrive back at the buffet.

The crazy side of me wants to start marking off the recently moved with a nice big red magic marker so I can keep track of just who's going where out there. I'll start my own little scientific experiment in the daily life of French Gastropoda. Maps, charts, and colour coordinated stickers telling me if the big ones are actually slower than the small ones and just how far a snail can go in 8 hours. It'll be a summer long project that will fill me with intense delight and encourage my children to explore a small corner of the magical world of science.

Well, it's either that or a really good recipe, right?

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

2010-07-13T10:47:00.002+02:00

Vacation.

The joys of just hanging around, trying to figure out how to keep all and sundry happy.

Vacation. That time of year when it's obvious just how well your children don't get along.

See this bear:

He looks like I feel. A little worn out, very dirty behind the ears, and ready for someone to throw him in the washing machine. Only difference is that I try like mad to hang on to a glass of wine while in the spin cycle.

Thank God I have had Kitty here to help remind me that loads of other mothers out there have all survived the school aged years and some of them have even successfully mastered the high school years because, let me tell you, after the last couple of days, I'm not so sure I'm sending anyone to high school.

If a 7 year old girl can have a tantrum that would give a runner-up prom queen a run for her money now, can you imagine how she'll be in 9 years?

Boarding school. I'm dreaming of boarding school.

Cousin Michael, who's been visiting with us for the last two weeks, is starting to realize how much easier it is to fight with relatives you do know than ones that yell back in French. But at least he's learning some French, right?

Two weeks till me and tribe become the visiting team. Let's just hope I can hold it together until then. Stinky, the bear pictured above, at least has a Doppleganger. Me, I've just got Hubster. And he gets to go to work. Lucky bastard.

Thoughts

2010-07-09T01:13:00.001+02:00

It's late and I'm sipping white wine alone.

I've had an evening full of memories and life while watching the sun set.

My friend from high school is here. Funny how I never expected to know him this long, but knowing him now and knowing this beautiful woman he calls his wife, how wonderful. How we were then and how we are now....nothing and everything has changed.

It's hot and I doubt I can sleep. Too many thoughts in my head and I don't want to disturb Hubster. Beautiful man who is all I need. Sleep and dream, of us, of this world, of all that you love. Cradled in our bed, sleep while I wonder, while I ponder, while I worry about what will be.

Here I sit in the breeze of the wee early hours, drinking my wine, remembering the times when I didn't have what we have now. Scared to lose it all. Scared to make mistakes. Scared to not get it. Scared that we will take the blame.

I hear the neighbours opening their shutters to take advantage of the wind. They, like me, know how it cleanses the mind, the soul, the body. They know, like me, that the wind blows and we are in awe. We look to the star filled sky and know that all we want, all we need, is here.

A cool wind. A soft bed. Sleeping children.

Blow, wind, blow. Remind me how short this life is. How blessed I am. How blessed I've been.

Careful, He Might Think He's Actually French

2010-07-07T07:55:00.000+02:00

"Dig! I have to tell you how cute Bubba-Love was the other day," one of the neighbours said to me.

"He was chatting away to me and correctly used the vouvoyer with me. I'm so impressed with how well he's learned French."

"Wow. I don't even understand that whole "vous-tu" thing myself," I laughingly replied.

"He's so at ease in the language," they continued. "It's good to see how well he's integrated."

I had to try not to laugh out loud at that point. Yes. How well a four year old boy who happens to have been born in France and has lived his whole life in this tiny village on the hill has 'integrated.'

I guess that's easy to do when it's all you know.

The Myth of "Vacation"

2010-07-05T17:41:00.001+02:00

So the tribe is out of school for the summer holidays and I'm wondering why we didn't sell them all to the travelling circus when we had the chance.

Our people are loud. I mean LOUD. They are completely incapable of not screaming for something.

"PASS ME THE SALT."

"I NEED TO GO POTTY."

"MOM. ROSIE'S WALKING TOWARDS ME."

"DID YOU KNOW TODAY IS TOMORROW?"

My head hurts from the noise.

Poor Nephew Michael, who only arrived here on Thursday for the month, is already missing the quiet and normal fights he has with his siblings.

"The screaming," he bemoaned, "Jeeeez. I prefer normal fights where people at least hit."

The white wine stock is quickly diminishing and I think Hubster might actually be working long hours just because he can, not because he has too. Who can blame him though? This place is a nut house.

Vacation. A stay at home mom's worst nightmare.

A Letter from Prison

2010-06-30T12:04:00.000+02:00

Dear Dig,

Thanks for coming to see us today. Nothing like a nice fresh bowl of water first thing in the morning. And getting rid of Anouk's poop, well, I don't quite know how to thank you. Not sure what she's been eating, but WHOA.

We were wondering though if it would be possible to bring back those really nice cold temps we had last week? It's not that we don't like the sun, it's just since we can't possibly shed any more this summer, it could get hard to cope. I know that the old outhouse makes a really nice cool spot to sleep but Anouk, damn her, decided to reinstate it's old use and so now laying in there just isn't possible. I've tried digging out a nice new hole right in front of the gate, but Abaka thinks it's for her. Sisters, I swear.

Please tell Musher Boy that even though I may seem very excited to see him, I'm really not. I don't care if it's a nice night, pulling that damn cart when I could be howling with the 10pm church bells really ticks me off. Why can't he just take Anouk so Abaka and I can have a couple of minutes peace? You do know that she's insane, that Anouk, don't you?

Thanks also for the little bit of chicken liver you threw to us yesterday. A nice treat and tasted just like the one we had back in November. Ahhh, the memories...

Well, my paws are getting a little tired and the hole is free, so I'm off to curl up and dream of living next to a nice tall mountain where it snows all year long and it's legal to chase cats.

'Till tonight's choir practice,

Typhon

Nuit des Piqueurs

2010-06-28T12:57:00.001+02:00

Have I ever mentioned how much the French like to walk? How serious these people are about any excuse to organize a randonnée and head out into the woods? Have I ever mentioned how they also find a way to combine this love of walking with the love of eating and drinking? Have I ever mentioned how much I love that?

Take Saturday night for example. Full moon, over forty happy people, an easy walk from one course to another in some of the hamlets around the village. Every once in a while, we'd stop and have a good laugh at some really raunchy street theatre. The final climatic stop being that at the statue of Mary, way up on our highest hill, where a man dressed as a monk juggled fire before doing his best impersonation of a dragon.

The wine was good, the evening lovely, I wandered easily at the back of the group while Mini-Husband and Princess Boo lead the way with their friends from school. Have I ever mentioned how much I like living in a place where everyone knows my children and you really do get the feeling that it takes a village?

We finished with desert back in the church square. It was 1am and the little hikers were beat. Sure, our town council likes to get in fights, sure the neighbours may fight over an inch of land, sure sometimes everyone knowing everything about you gets a little hard to live with, but when you walk through the woods and fields of this old place on a full moon in the end of June, you really know it doesn't get any better than this.

"Hubster, You are My Father."

2010-06-24T10:03:00.002+02:00

No. Not mine. Although, there are moments when I wonder about that. But that's a deep psychological question I'm not sure I want to explore on a Thursday morning when I have all the kids in the house and Typhon woke me up at 2am with his singing. I might draw conclusions that would scare me, Hubster and my father and since I love them very, very much, we're not going to go there right now. Perhaps over lots of whiskeys later this summer but till then, let's just be happy that Husber and BaPa at least have one thing in common, me.

Where we are going to go right now is the local fire station, i.e. a garage behind the school where the truck is parked.

Mini-Husband got to have a tour the other day with Musher Boy. It lasted all of 15 minutes but M-H was psyched. Here's a shot of him wearing the helmet:

Truth be told, I think I'm a little concerned that our local pompiers wouldn't be able to see out of that Darth Vader thing. And fireman who can't actually see a fire really doesn't bode well for a fire call, now does it?

Overall, M-H had a great time climbing all over the truck, wearing the jackets and even getting to help roll up the fire hose.

And no. He's not getting one for Christmas. If he did, I'm sure he'd want to run that riot control drill way too often on his brother.

The House of Pearly Whites

2010-06-22T13:20:00.000+02:00

It all started the other day when I went looking for some medicine for Mini-Husband. I pulled out that create that could double as a pharmacy all by itself, when I found a thing of dental floss that some American must have left with us at some point. Why an American, you ask? Well, let's just say that my very British husband likes to boast how he hasn't been to the dentist in over twenty years and "his teeth are just fine!" Years of this boasting has lead me to believe there may be a slight touch of dental apathy in the UK. (And well, ok, the floss was also marked from CVS, but I digress...)

I casually left the floss on the table and within seconds, the three largest tribe members wanted to know all about this fascinating stuff. "How do you use it?" "How much do I need?" "You mean you put it between your teeth?" "Can we compost this or do I need to put it in the trash?" Ah, there's nothing like the joy of a good group floss in the dining room on a rainy afternoon. There we were, the four of us, happily flossing away. Me, breaking off tartar left, right, and center, while the boys figured out how to fleck each other with whatever was recently between their teeth.

Once I finally was able to snatch the dental floss away from them, all three of them decided that brushing their teeth was now something that had to happen every 15 minutes: after you eat, before you clean up your room, after you sneeze, after you fais bizous, after your mother tells you to stop picking up your baby sister, and right before it's time to go to bed. We've gone through two tubes of toothpaste in 5 days.

Timely all this brushing and flossing around here since the cavity that The Princess had filled last year has come back to haunt her. Saturday morning she headed off to the dentist to refill it and had confirmation that there's another little lovely growing on another tooth.

"Oh, sweetie, I hate to think it but you might end up having teeth like me, " I told her.

"Well, maybe," she replied," but since Daddy's never been to the dentist I might actually have teeth like him."

And so we shall know for sure bright and early this coming Saturday. The Princess is getting the newest cavity filled at 10 am and Hubster's first dental appointment in over 20 years, the first since we've been married, the first since he's had children, the first in this CENTURY, will immediately follow.

I don't know who's more excited about this, me or him.