will WE play in Peoria?

I’m trying to get ready for our vacation Friday and my to-do list refuses to shrink. But I still had arranged for Kaitlyn to play with two of her friends… figuring it would be good for her and not bad for me to try to relax a little.

After going to one store then the dry cleaners, we met them at a park. The three girls were happily playing when a gang on French child-twits started harassing them. The girls tried walking away and the gaggle of goons followed them wherever they went. They taunted them with the intelligent phrase “naaaaaahhh naaaaaaahhhh.” And their leader appeared to be about 4 years old. So the 8 and 10 year olds must be real thinkers to follow his lead.

Kaitlyn did a pretty good job of ignoring them and trying to just enjoy herself. The other two girls kept running up to me and their mom and reporting that those kids were being mean. I told them that bullies just want you to react, so just ignore them as best you can. Well, the naaaaahhh naaaahhhh gang just kept getting in their faces with their genius chant until the girls’ mom lost it and chewed them out. In English. Which, really, only made things worse. We finally decided that it was time to leave the park (which it was) and those stupid kids actually followed Carol and her girls to their car so they could continue to point and mock. Which is completely bizarre.

Driving home I realized I don’t even know how to say “go away” or “buzz off.” What I do know to say works with adults (some four letter words are understood everywhere), but I thought it wasn’t wise to try that in the park. I also realized I do know how to say “where are your parents?” which likely would have stopped the morons… and had they lead us to them I could have figured out something. Or Carol could have, she knows more French than I do. Now I need to ask for a special lesson on playground survival.

I’ve been cat-sitting for some friends who are on vacation. It isn’t too hard, the cat doesn’t really need much because it has a big auto-feeder and auto-waterer. What the cat does need is attention. It meets me at the door and begs to be pet.

I drove over there this afternoon after taking Kaitlyn back to school from lunch. I sat in a chair and the cat jumped up on my lap to be pet. He was purring and nuzzling me… it was really relaxing. So relaxing that I woke myself up with my own snoring. I’d dozed off for about a half hour. I guess it was a cat nap. There’s something so relaxing about sitting in a cool, dark room with a purring kitty on your lap… in someone else’s house so you can’t be doing laundry, or vacuuming or anything else.. just relaxing. I may have to volunteer to cat sit more often.

This morning I drove downtown to pick up a couple in town for their house-hunting trip. Bill and I are their “mentor” family… which means we’re supposed to help them navigate the challenges and introduce them to the other ISE’s.

I got to their hotel and both looked really refreshed and peppy. I don’t think I looked either the entire week I was here house-hunting.

We were supposed to have breakfast, but as I was getting to their hotel I realized I don’t know downtown very well and really wasn’t sure where to go. They told me they were up for anything and that they’d passed a little cafe the day before while out walking that they thought might be open. (A lot downtown is closed Monday morning to make up for being open a couple of hours on Sunday morning.) So we walked down the street to what turned out to be a bar attached to a tabac. (Cigarette/magazine store.)

We ordered our coffees and I wasn’t sure if we’d get any kind of breakfast. Which was not great, since I hadn’t eaten at home and my stomach was starting to growl. The waiter (who I think was probably the owner) offered us croissants and pain au chocolat (basically croissants with chocolate inside). But he only brought two pain au chocolat. Which I really don’t even like. So I went up to the bar to ask for a croissant. He said they were out… then offered some bread with butter and jam. Sure. I sat back down and after what seemed like quite a while to bring me a chunk of bread, he arrived at the table. He had cut what had to be an entire small baguette in half then into pieces about 6 inches long, piled it on a plate, along with an entire block of butter and new jar of jam. He must have thought we were really hungry. Although we did our best to make a dent in the bread. It was really, really good. I’ve actually never even put butter and jam on my bread before… turns out it’s good!

It also turned out to be a nice welcome for a new family.

I don’t believe it. It is snowing at our house. I think only because Bill took the snow tires off my car Monday.

Granddad Harry always used to say it snows once after the Final Four. I didn’t know he meant in France.

I’m starting to get a little too confident about my French phone abilities.

This afternoon I called a restaurant and reserved a table for ten for a ladies’ night next week. That part wasn’t so very hard; I can reserve a table. But then I asked a question about the menu. I sure hope I understood what we’re in for.

Then I called a couple of hotels at a ski resort Bill wants to drive to tonight so we can ski all day tomorrow. (It’s a couple of hours away and he knows me well enough to know that it’s worth some cash to not hit the road hours later than you intended.) The first one I think the woman told me it would be 165 Euros a night per adult.. plus another 85 for a child. I asked her to repeat it and I’m pretty sure that’s what she said and entirely sure that it’s far too much money for a place to sleep. So I called another hotel and got a much more reasonable price quote, so I booked the room. Hopefully when we get there, we’ll have a place to stay!

Kaitlyn didn’t have school today. No she isn’t on vacation. She isn’t sick. Her teacher is sick. When the teacher is sick they don’t get a substitute (something about you have to hire a substitute for at least a week at a time). They hope that you’ll just keep your kid at home. If you can’t, then they shuffle the kids around to other classrooms where they just sit in the back and color or whatever to pass the time.

We found out yesterday when we arrived at school that her teacher was sick. I had a French lesson. And they’d gotten the teacher from the classroom where the English teacher would be to fill in for the morning. But she stayed home after lunch. And there was a sign on the door saying the teacher won’t be back till Monday.

I made a hair appointment for this morning knowing it was my last chance to get it done before we leave on vacation. My bangs have been tickling my nose they’re so long and the gray is starting to make me look like Granddad (Kaitlyn told me she thinks that even when Granddad was a little boy he had white hair.) So this morning I packed some paper and pencils in her bag and put her in the car and took her to the hair salon.

I have no idea what possessed her. She sat quietly drawing and talking to herself the entire time. She only stopped long enough to have her bangs trimmed. She did get upset when we were getting ready to leave because she wasn’t going to get her hair painted the way I did. I assured her that when she’s a grown-up, she’ll be able to have her hair painted all she wants.

I also have no idea what possessed me to stop going to this hairdresser. Ok, she’s downtown and you have to call and make an appointment. But she speaks English. Really well. I got the color I want. I got the cut I want. She even thinks my hair looks better all one length and not in a zillion layers. She may be the only hairdresser on earth to have that opinion.. all the more reason to be her client.

After my hair was done, both Kaitlyn and I were ready for lunch. I was hoping to walk to a tex-mex restaurant not too far away. But right next door to the salon is a Chinese restaurant. Kaitlyn loves Chinese food and was adamant we go in. She’d been so well behaved while I had my hair “painted” and cut, I couldn’t refuse. I wish I had. It really wasn’t that good. Kaitlyn ordered skewers of shrimp and white rice. I ordered scallops in spicy sauce and Cantonese rice. Mine was not good. Kaitlyn tried it and said “it tastes fishy.” Which is an accurate description. I tried one of her shrimp and it was ok. Suffice it to say I will be making an effort to go to that hair salon, and will be making an equal effort not to go to that Chinese restaurant.

Despite the pouring rain and cold wind, Kaitlyn did not want to go home after we ate. So we walked to a shoe store to get her some badly-needed new shoes. I couldn’t quite sell her on any new sneakers, but she did pick a lovely gold pair of mary janes and some new crocks with a mermaid pin. The store’s credit card machine was broken and the woman told me just run to the atm and come right back. She said Kaitlyn could stay and play while I did. Maybe I’m crazy, but I left Kaitlyn there going through a box of toys while I rushed out for cash. It went far faster without her tagging along.

At least after that she decided she was ready to go home. I had no more interest in wandering around soaking wet and freezing cold. Despite the bad weather, we had a great Mommy-Kaitlyn day.

I had intended to sit down this evening and write about my fantastic day skiing. Here it is, the 7th of April, and there was fresh snow at Chamrousse this morning. I drove up there and met a friend, and we skied all day. We skied all over the mountain… daring to make our way down red (“difficult”) runs and daring to test the fresh powder “off-piste.” We sat outside and ate a wonderful lunch of crepes. We got a little sunburned and didn’t especially care.

But all that was brushed aside on my way home… the moment I stupidly drove over a rock. A big rock. A big sharp rock. A big sharp rock that punctured a gash in the side of my tire… deflating it instantly.

So there I was on a two-lane, winding mountain road with a flat tire. Very flat tire. I pulled as close to the side as I could to get out and look at it. Then I called Bill to ask if he thought I could drive on it so that I could at least get to a safer spot. I wasn’t really too far past the bottom area of the ski resort, but there’s no place to turn around. So I drove at 10 kilometers/hour down the mountain to the next pull off that I knew of. Several cars passed me as I crept along with my blinkers going… including the gendarmarie (they’re sorta like the state troopers). No one stopped. No one even slowed down.

While I was making my way to a safe spot to stop, I called someone to pick up Kaitlyn from school. I was trying to decide if I was better off calling the Mercedes Benz roadside assistance phone number which I’ve never tried (never needed to before) or calling someone else who lives in our town to drive up and help change the tire. I’d gotten out of my car and was contemplating this dilemma when a couple out for an afternoon stroll asked if I needed help. Oh, yes. Do I have a spare tire? At least, I think that’s what they asked. I heard the word for tire and for emergency. A rather appropriate name for it, really. I said yes, it seemed like the answer that would at least get them to stay.

The man dug around in my trunk for gloves. I guess it’s one thing to help a stranded motorist, it’s quite another to dirty ones hands in the process. His girlfriend held his jacket. (Why was he wearing a sports jacket to stroll around the mountain? I have no idea. But he was.) He took the spare tire out of the trunk, I got out the jack. Then he asked for tools. Tools? Shit.. there are supposed to be tools in my car? We looked everywhere. He asked for the owners manual to try to see if it revealed the hiding place. I had no idea where to look in the book, so I flipped to a page about the spare tire. It was no help. I was not going to let them leave. I fished around the bottom of the compartment where I’d found the jack and the little orange reflective triangle to set out on the road (it’s a law here)… and finally found a blue sack rolled up with tools inside. Voila. It didn’t take him too long to change the tire. While he worked, his girlfriend tried to make small talk with me. We quickly established I cannot speak French, especially when I’m upset. Once everything seemed more under control I managed to carry on a simple enough conversation. She spoke a little English and said she wants to speak more. That helped some.

When he finished, we put everything back into the car and I thanked them profusely. How do you adequately thank a person who just bailed you out of a miserable situation? You really can’t. I don’t know their names. I don’t think I’d even recognize them if I saw them again. But I won’t forget them or their kindness.

03 april 2008

I’ve been going to my doctor here for about a year now. Which means that for about a year now she’s been bugging me to go get my cholesterol/blood sugar/who-knows-what-else checked. Unlike doctor’s offices in the U.S., tests here are done at labs. Off site. You take your sample or your prescription and deal with it on your own. You also pick up your own results.

Anyway, last time I was in her office, I had to admit that I hadn’t done it because I’m scared of the whole blood test experience. So she wrote on the prescription that I need to have my blood drawn while lying down. She gave me that along with a prescription for a mammogram.

Today I finally got up the nerve to go. The cholesterol test requires fasting from dinner until you have the test done… which I remembered to do. You don’t need an appointment, so at least I didn’t have to call and try to do that on the phone.

I drove to the lab this morning and went in. I waited in line then without saying a word (since I didn’t know what word to say), I handed over my prescriptions. The woman behind the desk handed me back the mammogram one. Dang it, I’m going to have to figure out where to go for that. So she took the other, started typing into her computer. She asked me my birthday. Obviously, I know my birthday. But to think how to say it as “one-thousand nine hundred sixty-seven” creates a pause in my free-flowing (ahem) French conversation. I got about half of it out and the woman finished for me. (I’m already in their computer, she was just confirming she had the right person.) Then she told me to sit and wait.

I’d barely started flipping through the random French magazine in the waiting area when a woman came out and called my name. I got up and followed her into the little room that had a plaque with a needle on the door. She said something to me I didn’t understand and my anxiety level started to skyrocket. I asked her to speak more slowly, so instead she said in English “you don’t like?” No. I don’t like. I sat in the chair (no lying down option) and told her that she’d be better off going for the back of my hand than my arm. She said she’d look and decide. So she used a much-more friendly tourniquet than at home, asked me to squeeze my hand and that’s when I looked away. I was busy trying to make small talk in French about what a chicken I am when she announced she was done. Done? It worked? Yes… she held up two full vials of my blood as proof. (not necessary) I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never had blood drawn so effortlessly. I didn’t even have a chance to feel faint.

I’m supposed to go back tonight and pick up the results. Not that I’ll understand them. Then I have to try not to loose them before I manage to get into the doctor’s office… which I cannot do until I figure out the mammogram. I wonder how you say “boob squeeze” in French.

Kaitlyn came home from school today with a little paper fish she’d made and decorated. She was so proud of it. In France on the first of April you don’t play jokes on your friends… you stick fish on their backs. It makes as much sense as everything else here. So Kaitlyn had made the fish at school for the first of April. She told me she stuck it on her teacher’s back. I asked what her teacher said and with a perfect French accent, Kaitlyn said “Oooh la la! Oooh la la!” My thoughts exactly.