I just got home from the market in Uriage. I swear, I cannot get the smell of the cheeses out of my nose. There were three fromageries on wheels and, man, did they perfume the whole market with their pungent aromas. I may have to wash the sweater I had on and take another shower.
There was a rolling meat wagon, and it appeared to maybe have some beef, but I decided not to take my chances on that one. I’m going to find a real butcher in a store that doesn’t move, and study some words I need before going in. Without the barbeque grill, it isn’t such a big deal not to have easy access to steak.
I also wandered around Uriage a little bit. Went into the tabac down there, it is pretty big. I was hoping to find a large map of Europe so we could start marking where we want to go. They didn’t have one. They had a lot of magazines and a fair number of books, but since they were all in French, I just went ahead and left.
The chocolatier and tea store looks like a good place to go. It is closed until the 9th of November, I have to make a note to go back there. In addition to goodies, it had trinkets and knick knacks. Without my own knick knacks here, I feel the need to buy new ones… although soon enough (hopefully) mine will arrive. If you can sit there and have some chocolate and tea I’ll have to find someone to join me there one morning. I think that would be fun.
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hours later….
I am convinced there is a bee in the house. A raisin bee.
When I came back in from my daily ritual of begging the mailbox to contain our super-secret internet codes, I heard a terribly loud and angry buzzing at the sliding glass door. I knew this was no ordinary fly we were dealing with. Close inspection from across the room proved me right: it was a bee desperate to get out. See, when I went out to get the mail, I closed the door behind me. And I think I would have noticed a bee zipping past me on my way out. So I am convinced that while I was fetching what proved not to be the internet information we need… that bee flew out of the bag of raisins I bought at the market and began its pounding on the glass. (I saw the bees hanging around the raisins and nearly didn’t buy any… but I was so sure the nice French man wouldn’t lasso a bee into the bag)
I figured the best thing I could do would be to open the sliding glass door and let the poor, stinging thing out. Naturally, I could not open the door until the bee was no longer on it. That wasn’t too long, it banged its way evilly up the window to the big window above the door all the way up to the celing. Trouble is, then the thing could not find its way back down. Oh, it did once, I swear to swoop down at me. I left that door open all afternoon. Two dozen flies came in the house, all while that bee stubbornly buzzed from its spot where the wall meets the ceiling.
I didn’t want to scare Kaitlyn. So when she suggested going outside to swing, I figured it was perfect. We’d go out, give the bee some privacy, and, voila! Problem solved.
We were outside a pretty long time. Long enough to debate some of the questions that have been plaguing man for centuries: is it a good idea to slide down a hill on one’s rear-end, even when your mother says no? Is it a good idea to climb up the firewood pile pretending it is a staircase, even when your mother says no? Why is the man two doors down the street trimming his bushes? And, of course, what part of come here right now! was confusing?
The ploy didn’t work. I returned in to scout out the situation, only to find the bee in its spot.
So when Kaitlyn came in and wanted to watch Curious George, I gave in fairly quickly. (after making her take off all her clothes, which were muddy) She watched the tv. I watched the bee.
I could not sit and stare at the bee for too long at one time. For one thing, I was having trouble breathing just thinking about the bee. For another thing, I did not want the bee to see me and think I was throwing down some kind of Bobby Flay style challenge. Plus, I had to tend to important matters, like closing all the doors upstairs to keep the bee from hiding.
Honestly, had I not been waiting on the men to come measure the staircase to install the railing, I would have simply put naked Kaitlyn in the car and driven around until I thought Bill would be home. That probably could have involved driving to Geneva and back.
At some point, I looked up, and the bee was not where it had been for the last few hours. I tiptoed around, ever so carefully checking the walls and floor for him. No sign of him. I fought my way through the two inch thick wall of flies that had formed to close the sliding glass door. Victory.
Then, hours later, I’m lying in bed reading a book. And I hear bzzzzzzzz.. bzzzzzzzzzz.. bzzzzzzzz. All I could imagine was that bee having hidden behind our curtains all day, just waiting for me to be lying there in bed, unable to run fast enough. As quietly as I could, I slid out of the covers and into Kaitlyn’s room. She’d wanted me to lay down with her anyway. After she fell asleep I went back into my room, figuring Bill would have noticed the buzzing and taken care of whatever was responsible for all that racket. But I just cannot fall asleep.