Bonjour, y'all!

Who would have thought a move to France would bring out my inner redneck, but I have found that many French seem to love all things country and/or western and I am beginning to discover this whole new aspect to life here. Last weekend Patrice and I attended an American Country Western Festival in Chartres (about 45 minutes from here and famous for its cathedral). I happened to stumble across this when I was looking for line dancing lessons in our area because - don't ask me why - I have had this huge desire to line dance since I've arrived here and we thought it would be a fun couples activity.

We arrived for the first day of the American festival a couple of hours after the scheduled opening (note the keyword here is "scheduled") only to find not much going on and the vendors and expositions were still setting up. As someone who is usually 10 minutes late for everything I have ever done since I was probably 12, I do love the fact that schedules here seem to rarely exist and/or be adhered to, but there are times when you wish things would generally start moving along within, oh, one to two hours of their scheduled start. (On the flip side, we had some friends over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and not only were they and hour EARLY, they brought their dog and two extra people we weren't expecting, so I guess it can go both ways!)

One of the biggest things I was looking forward to about this weekend was speaking with other Americans. When I have attended French or German events in Portland, for example, I seemed to recall actual French or Germans attending or participating. Speaking French 24/7 gets a little tiresome and I was really looking forward to parlez-vous-ing a little anglais, but in this case, I really think I was the only American there, which was disappointing. However, once things got going, we had a great time! It was really cool to see French people taking this aspect of American culture so seriously and really enjoying themselves. There was country and rockabilly music, all sung in nearly accent-free English and there were times I looked around at the crowds and thought I was back home (well, not Portland or course but at least at the Canby country fair).

There certainly was a "we're French and not American" aspect to some of the getups - e.g. Gucci sunglasses, men with baguettes under their arms and jauntily-tied scarves around their neck as well as some of the most frightening ensembles of cowhide print couture I'd ever seen. I was obsessed with this trio of women I saw both days - one of whom I dubbed 'RoboCowboy' because she had a silver cowboy hat and wraparound sunglasses and her 'mutton dressed as lamb' friend had an indescribable combination of looks going on; I was simply hypnotized. My stealth-without-being-a-stalker photo skills were definitely put to the test. The music was great (the BBQ, on the other hand, not so much), we enjoyed the dancing and the people were fun to talk to. I really liked seeing the American cars as well (including the ubiquitous Dodge Ram pickup). We did get information for country dance lessons near our home and we have our first lesson this Thursday! I am super excited but Patrice is nervous because he thinks it's going to be too hard and he'll be impatient, which it will be and he will be, but he'll get it. Most men don't have 20 years of aerobics classes under their belts to prepare them for the wonderful world of group choreography.

I had the really good luck of meeting a Dutch woman here on the "other" side of St. Jean - which I didn't know existed - who runs a B&B for mainly Dutch people and offers English and French lessons. My friend Denise and I saw her flyer offering English lessons to children, so we though we had another 'rosbif' living in the village, but despite not being English, her English was very good and now I have another opportunity to NOT speak French. She hired me for one week to give English lessons to a 17-year-old boy who was visiting with his family and it really great because I enjoy doing it and it showed me how much I miss working in a 'normal' capacity, e.g. actually leaving your house and talking with other human beings.

I am really looking forward to getting my carte de sejour so I can look for a job. As I alluded to in the title of my last email, life here is VERY, VERY expensive. Not like the "go to California and spend ten cents more for a gallon of gas" expensive, but literally $8 a gallon for gas, $70 for a gallon of paint and the aforementioned $15 volleyball-sized watermelon at our local market. I went to buy a carton of cigarettes for my neighbor to the tune of $81. Suck on that for a moment - 81 bucks! (Yes, I am vehemently opposed to smoking but I figure if you're 80 years old and are still putting down a carton of unfiltered Gitanes each week, God bless you, you deserve each and every one.) On the plus side, bottled water is cheap, cheap, cheap (fortunately since, due to our hard water, I wash my hair in it) and the bastion of my teenage leisuredom - the glossy tabloid - is only about $1.50.

I still keep finding my little tastes of home that make life even nicer for me. One of the things I have missed the most is ordering a gigantic mocha at my local coffee shop and poring over the Sunday paper all morning. Despite having lots of little cafes, it is definitely not the same coffee culture as in the U.S. Paris is different - there are 25 Starbucks there - but to recreate my Sunday ritual, it would cost me close to $60: $40 for the train and métro ticket , $11 for a large frappuccino at Starbucks and $7 for the Sunday London Times. Sadly, that not being in the budget very often, I have had my local news agent order me the London Times and I go out for a thimble-sized café au lait in Vendôme or Orléans - a city conquered by Julius Caesar in the year 52 (!!) and place where Joan of Arc overthrew the English in 1429. I still continue to be in complete awe of the history that I am living smack dab in the middle of.

Orléans is also the place where I did my final rounds of appointments for my carte de sejour last week. I had health tests (TB: negative. Blood sugar: normal. Blood pressure: 120/80. Weight: down 17 pounds since my arrival, which was a pleasant surprise) as well as a stealth French proficiency exam (written and oral) which I didn't even know I was being given. All of our conversations with the staff were in French and I was asked to write personal information when filling out forms. Hilariously (and inexplicably) the information given to the group about lessons available to those who *don't* speak French was in French, so I am wondering how that worked out for everyone. At the end of the morning, I was told that these conversations were my exam as I passed, which I was not expecting. When I signed my name to the form, I saw that others in the room were having 300-500 hours of instruction recommended to them, so I felt really proud of myself that in just under a year after speaking my first word of French with Patrice and only five or six formal lessons, I was able to pass this test. However, I am going to take advantage of the free lessons that the government offers, well "free" in the sense that I paid a whopping $400 for my residency permit! I can take three or four lessons a week in nearby Blois starting in October.

Herding Cats

Well, the joy of having indoor/outdoor cats in the bucolic French countryside has come to an unfortunate end. Humphrey returned home one afternoon, after a leisurely stroll around the quartier with a note attached to his collar which translated loosely to : Your cat is very sweet but he is disturbing our dogs so could you please keep him inside". Needless to say, we were enjoying the ability to let the cats come and go as they please - probably akin to Scandinavian parents discovering it's perfectly legal to leave their baby in the stroller outside a restaurant while they enjoy their meal. We could leave the doors open for fresh air, there were no kung-fu cat-blocking leg motions required every time we left the house and they both were enjoying the outdoors - getting to be real "hunter" cats. (See photos of Humphrey with his first bird and one of Franklin's two million mice brought inside with varying degrees of life still in them)



We also had a more unsettling discovery regarding Franklin. He had been displaying some bizarre behavior in the litter box. He was appearing to have problems urinating - sitting in the box but doing nothing and/or going outside of the box in strange places - like the blanket on our couch - which is really unusual for cats. They are so persnickety about hygiene that any variation is a cause for concern. When he seemed unable to sit down, and was crying, we took him to a vet in Châteaudun and discovered he had blood in his urine and bladder stones. The vet indicated that the blood was indicative of poison and we have heard from our neighbor that they lost four cats in the last year due to poisoning - either a disgruntled feline-hating neighbors (cats are somewhat person non grata here, or perhaps eating a mouse that had been poisoned. Either way, with the combination of Humphrey's mystery note and Frankie's health problems (including, gulp, $45 a bag food!) we knew they had to stay inside.

We really had only a couple of options: keeping them completely inside or letting them go outside with something to keep them in the yard. We went to a pet store and inquired about an 'invisible fence' - I had read about these in the U.S. and was happy to see a version here. You run an underground wire around the perimeter of your yard and your pets wear collars that give them an increasing level of beeps and shocks as they get closer to the perimeter. The cost is close to $500 for the system, about $200 more than in the U.S.

The other (and much more affordable) option is using a harness, leashes and a long rope to keep them tethered to the house. For the moment, this seemed like the best option because we simply didn't have an extra $500 laying around. I had the clerk help me pick out harnesses, trying to explain the ginormous dimensions of my nearest and dearest, Humphrey. To the first harness I picked out, his response was, "Oh no, that is for a dog!", to which I replied, "Trust me, Monsieur, you haven't seen this cat!" Eighty dollars in cat harnesses later, we were out the door thinking our cat worries would be over - the cats could roam but not too far and we'd saved ourselves about 400 bucks.

Needless to say, the "training" did not go as expected. (Does anything, really?) Getting them (calmly) into the harness was not easy - it took practice on our part to not freak them out so they wouldn't associate being manhandled with this new form of restraint. We had the ingenious (not) idea as well to attach them to opposite ends of the same rope so that they would be push to the other's pull and when the reached the end, they would just stop. Mind you, this is a rope that can easily reach from the back of the house to the front. Seemed foolproof enough. What I wasn't expecting was that I was dealing with two little Houdinis. Ten semi-supervised minutes into the first outing, we two discovered expensive harnesses devoid of two wily cats. They had disappeared with nary a trace or signs of struggle (or even photo of them holding up an edition of today's newspaper). Our "set it and forget it" method of cat training had not worked.

As time has gone on, we have been able to get Humphrey to hang out resistance-free on the harness, but Frankie has been a lost cause. We have slowly allowed him to reclaim his role of the petit chasseur - the little hunter - (to wit: he has brought in three mice - two dead and one squeakingly alive - in the course of writing this entry) but we keep on eye on him and go look for him after he has been out awhile. Patrice is also completely pleased with himself and his (legend in his own mind) cat training because, ala Dr. Doolittle, he tells Frankie to be back in 20 minutes and sure enough, 20 minutes later there is Franklin. "Dressage, mon coeur, dressage," he tells me, "Je suis un professionnel". "Training, my darling, training. I am a professional." Hopefully as time goes on we can find that nice inside/outside mix of safe, but happy, cats.

I'll Take the $15 Watermelon on the Right, Please

I hope everyone is doing well. It’s hard to believe that the last two months have just flown by with nary a peep, but it has definitely been a full, full couple of months – for better or worse. Planning this marriage and move overseas with my heart and not my head, I neglected several important steps in preparation. I just “assumed” (stupidly) that these things could be taken care of once I was here – after all, I’m married to a Frenchman and coming from a first-world country, I don’t need to work here, how difficult could it be? (Famous last words if I ever heard them…) A couple of forms here and there, no problem. At the beginning of May, I discovered that I did not have the correct long-stay visa that allowed me to stay in France after my initial three-month tourist visa expired.

This magical piece of paper was only, apparently, available in once place in the world: The French Consulate in San Francisco, which handles all visas for the NW region of the US. However, the biggest piece of the puzzle that I was missing was that Patrice and I did not properly register our marriage with the French government. We thought since we were married in the U.S. we would only need to be aware of U.S. procedures, but the reality was that we needed to follow the same steps in France as we would have were we married here including the publishing of the “banns” (a public declaration of your intent to marry), a French transcription of our marriage, new certified copies of our birth certificates, an Apostile copy of our marriage certificate from the State of Oregon (“Um, a requirement of the 1961 Hague Convention, obviously” – a near-actual quote of an embassy worker. Naturally! How *silly* of me not to have remembered the 1961 Hague Convention and all of its bylaws…) . With this proper registering of the marriage, we would then receive our “livret de familie” – our family book – which starts with an entry of our marriage, has room for the subsequent birth of our up to 11 children (um, ouch) and finally our deaths. And with the livret de famlie, I would receive my long-stay visa, which would allow me to remain in France while awaiting my residency permit.

The problem was, it could take six to nine months to put together this “livret de familie” and my visa was expiring in a month. The consulate official that we initially dealt with was *very* unsympathetic of our ineptitude in understanding of international marriage laws and *especially* very unsympathetic of Patrice. “He’s French, he should know these things!” However, we truly, utterly and completely were blessed with some of the nicest and most helpful government officials I have ever dealt with (unfortunately not my friend, Rick’s, experiences with the State of Oregon officials…). The aforementioned consulate worker, Stephane, bent over backward to get this done for us – very, very unusual and we are very grateful. I arrived at her office in San Francisco on a Friday and left with my visa and family book the next Monday. Our bump in the process was an (unexpected) immigration interview outlining our relationship and marriage. Because we had a rather whirlwind courtship and wedding, the felt they needed more proof of our established life in France. We are very, very lucky to know the assistant mayor of St. Jean and she was able to personally vouch for us – to know that we were part of the community and that our marriage was valid and not for a green card (me being Andie MacDowell, Patrice being Gérard Depardieu, naturally). After receiving that information, everything was good. I have to say, being handed that book at the consulate’s office was a very emotional experience.

I have to say it was really hard to be back in Portland and San Francisco visiting my friends. I want to thank Rick, Mike and Rob for being such amazing friends and helping me with this unexpected visit – Rick for “loaning” me the money for the plane ticket, even though he knew it would be a long time before I could pay him back and all three for picking me up, shuttling me around and making it possible that I didn’t have to spend a penny. This whole relocation has been a huge financial kick in the pants to say the least, and I just simply couldn’t have taken care of this trip without the help of my three wonderful friends!!  It was very bittersweet to say goodbye. I missed Patrice, of course, but being back in Portland especially felt like I’d been gone forever and at the same time, gone for not even a day. I think it was almost too soon to be back because I was still in the adjustment mode in France.

As time goes on, I am still finding my little routines (like "Hetty Wainthrop Investigates" on BBC at 2:30 pm, which has been been thwarted for the time being by having Patrice and the kids here on three week's vacation). Even with a city like Paris so close, it is very easy to feel like I am in the middle of nowhere which, in the fact, I am. One thing about the smaller cities and villages that is such a strange adjustment is how DARK they are night! Not a streetlight or porch light anywhere. It is very Bram Stoker’s Dracula at times… (thankfully without the torch-wielding villagers). Most every house has these large shutters that they close at night so there literally is not a ray of light. Bad for people like me who like to take walks at night and do a little ‘surveiling’… The shutters are awesome, though, for sleeping until noon on your day off and thinking it is only 6 a.m. when you wake up. Sometimes, though, it feels almost too quiet. We were in Paris for Bastille Day and we lay down on our blanket along the Seine near the Eiffel Tower and the traffic noise just lulled me to sleep – something I miss out in out little town.



One thing I love about the country, though, is the fresh everything. Fresh flowers, fresh eggs from my neighbor’s farm, fresh plums, green beans, lettuce and other seasonal things from Patrice’s parents’ garden, fresh flour from the mill down the road. It is just so easy to eat a more pure diet – we never eat processed foods - even though we certainly don’t eat low-fat - and I make most everything from scratch, so we are not eating artificial preservatives (on a side note: “preservatif” is French for prophylactic , not for the agent that preserves our food. It took me a little while to catch onto the blank stares when I said I preferred my food “without condoms”…). The beauty is with the cooking is that Patrice has gained about 8 pounds (he was 6’ and 137) and I have lost weight – so go figure. I really have loved cooking and trying out new things, but I am also understanding the need for books like “501 Chicken Recipes”. It is *hard* to come up with new meals while not buying a million different ingredients. We laugh now that the choice tends to be “poulet et pomme de terre or pomme de terre et poulet”…. And I have upped his tolerance to spicy foods although I still feel mortally wounded when he whips out the salt at the table.

Bastille Day (or Quatorze Julliet – the 14th of July – as it’s known here) in Paris was amazing! It is something I probably wouldn’t have the desire to do every year, but it was a great experience. We arrived on the Champs-Élysées at 6:30 in the morning to stake out our place – managing after a little bull-headedness between the two of us – to get a great spot in the front row for the 10:00 a.m. parade. We had to clear our spot momentarily before the parade so they could put a security point in place for each section. Then we were scanned and everyone went back to their original spot. When I turned around to look for Johnathan, the police were pulling weapons out of him left and right like and episode of Captain Caveman! He had brought fireworks, numchuks, toy guns, good lord – it was hilarious! And he lost all of them, which was unfortunate, but geez! The program for the parade said it would start at 10:00 and was listing certain events as starting at 10:17, 10:32, etc. I thought “My, that’s pretty ambitious” and true to French form, it certainly did NOT start on time. It was, however, a wonderful parade. We were right near where the people sang for Sarkozy and got a great view and listen. Not even being French, it was great to see the troops so proud of what they were doing – and to see the other 26 countries of the European Union represented – check out the Spanish soldiers in my photos: Skin-tight, v-neck uniforms with chest hair a’ flyin’, tilted hats and sexy little sideburns.





After the parade, we wandered up the Champs-Élysées, looked in shops, marveled at the $11 price tag for a 4-ounce glass of Coke, had lunch and headed towards the Eiffel Tower. We napped for a bit along the river, and then found a great spot at the foot of the tower to relax and people-watch until the fireworks started. The fireworks were absolutely amazing – wonderful music as well – the best display I have ever seen! The crush AFTER the fireworks, though, was a nightmare. We were right at the base of the tower and there were probably close to a million people there (600,000 people stayed for the concert afterwards which featured Michel Polnareff - Google it and try not to laugh - , Nelly Furtado and Tokio Hotel) and all those million people seemed to be wanting to go different directions at exactly the same time. It was a little frightening, especially with Johnathan. I was pushed into some guy in the crush of people and he just flipped OUT on me, so much so that he and Patrice got into a ‘don’t touch my wife’ chest-butting incident. That was one time when it was nice to have a macho, headstrong husband…. ha ha. We made our way through the crowds, past the closed metro stops and finally to the jam-packed stop that would take us home. It was a LONG, but wonderful day. Beautiful weather and great people.

It’s funny, the French have such a reputation for being rude, stuck-up a**h*les (how’s that for a bunch of asterisk?), but I have found it to be absolutely 100% the opposite. (Of course, all countries have their stereotype, the loud, pushy American, the cold, uptight German, etc). But whether I am in Paris or out in the sticks, I seriously have found the nicest people who have bent over backwards to help me or answer a question when I needed it. When I returned back from the States on this last trip, I had two really heavy bags and didn’t want to take the Metro because it meant lugged 120 pounds of luggage up and down tons of stairs. So I stood outside near the taxis and shuttles to see what I could find to Austerliz (my station in Paris). This shuttle driver of a reserved shuttle called his boss to see if he knew (he didn’t) and asked several other bus drivers. He ended up giving me a ride to downtown Paris for free (normally 30 Euros), getting me a taxi and lugging my luggage to the taxi. I had a nice conversation with the taxi driver (who LOVES America) and when I got the train station, after asking an employee if there was place I could plug in my cel phone to get a charge, he not only took me to his office to let me use the outlet, but gave me a bottled water for the rest of my journey. I found this kind of niceness everywhere, consistently. I don’t think I have run into a rude person since I have been here – although I am sure speaking French helps.

Finally, I had a wonderful opportunity the other weekend to have dinner with a friend of mine from Portland who was visiting Paris - Lisa, my friend and former boss when I was a work-study student 15 years ago at PSU. Patrice and I met her around 6pm at the Pantheon in the Latin Quarter and had dinner at a beautiful French restaurant about a 10 minute cab ride away; a restaurant once visited by the likes of François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac and even Madonna, I later discovered. Lisa speaks fluent French, which was great for Patrice, and we had simply the most lovely dinner I have had in Paris. It was a great evening and it was fun to see someone out of the usual context. She and her traveling companions were headed to Turkey the following week and I have to say, it was really hard to say goodbye to her that night! I'm a little sniffly right now... sometimes those little glimpses of your former life are hard to let go.




Anyway, that is “all” for now – I feel like I could write a million more pages especially since I have not written anyone for months – time simply slips by before you know it. I would love to hear from you all and what you are up to! I miss Portland a lot and it is great to get any update, etc.

And Then There's Maude...

Life here is moving along quickly (quite the opposite of the French bureaucracy I am dealing with at the moment, unfortunately). I cannot believe I have been here seven weeks. In some ways it seems like I have been here forever, in other ways it feels like I just left Portland. I am enjoying life here very much, though - it seems to get better each day as I get more adjusted to all the little nuances of a new marriage, a new house, a new set of friends, a new lifestyle.

The biggest joy of late is that I have met an English woman up the road, Denise, who has been in France with her English husband and children for the last two years. Even though I have met a few times with the ex-pat group for activities, it is really nice to have someone close by to just have a relaxed, fluid conversation with in English. Sometimes I just get literally burned out with French that I simply cannot bear to hear another word - I have hit this wall of "picking it up as I go along" to needing proper lessons to advance. Right now my French is decent ( e.g. understandable) but grammatically and structurally terrible. I would say French babies have more to offer than my strings of random nouns, pronouns and unconjugated verbs. Every now and then, though, usually while I am watching a show in English with French subtitles, I catch some new and exciting word that I will then use in every conversation for the next several days.

On Tuesday nights we have been going to this informal "exercise" class that is held at the local activity center. I kid you not, it is the most surprising combination of useless and dangerous calisthentics have ever encountered since third grade "indoors because it's raining" gym class. Windmills, bicycles, cherry picking, full sit ups, deep knee bends, you name it. Jack La Lane would be proud. And if you don't do it just right - e.g. accidentally counting out eight beats rather than nine- you are pointed out and corrected. I had to leave early at the last "class" - mind you, by class I mean five minutes of flailing about interspersed with 10 minutes of neighborhood gossip - and as I was leaving they were on their stomachs, backs bent upward, holding their ankles like they were being hog-tied. I said to Denise, "It looks like Guantanamo Bay in here. All they need is me posing next to one of them with a cigarette hanging out my mouth making a 'thumbs up'". It's just hilarious but it's a good way to get to know the women (and day-to-day goings on) in the neighborhood. When I missed a class a couple of weeks ago, the topic of discussion was me and Patrice, our 'spottings' around town and how (apparently) the women think he is the town hottie.

Almost two months into my daily domestic routine (of course coupled with my business life in Portland), I have an honest and newfound respect for how hard my mother worked to keep our house and lives in order. It is REALLY a lot of work, cooking from scratch every day, cleaning, laundry, shopping, etc for a household of two to four, depending on the week. Since we have a clothes dryer (something Patrice bought just before I was here in December and something that is not a usual part of a French household), I have been treated to weekly performances of "The Dryer is Shrinking My Clothes - A Pantomime in Two Acts", brought to you by the producers of, "The Camera is Stealing My Soul". Patrice is absolutely convinced that the dryer is shrinking everything, even though on two instances the clothes had been line-dried and he was trying on the socks of his 10-year-old son. The look on his face following *that* information was priceless and these summer stock productions have now thankfully ceased.

I have still not, however, mastered the art of shopping for the proper amounts of bread and cheese and once or twice a week we run out of one or the other. Unlike the typical American diet (at least in my experience) where if you run out of an item, you can just wait and get it the next time you shop, not having these items available at meal time is about one step more serious than if I were to shave the children's heads and send them to school in tutus. It is just "unacceptable" and unfortunately, there are still emergency cheese runs to Patrice's parent's house, which leave me feeling like a quasi-failure as a French wife.

My family is still very open to my American way of cooking which includes a little bit of everything (and I now have Patrice hooked on a Turkish restaurant down the raod), and that is great for now. I am, however, trying to start assimilating some more French dishes into our diet, although so many things seem unappetizing to me. Today the children are on vacation, so Kevin, the oldest, made lunch with some meat his grandmother bought today at the chartucerie. Just a simple steak with some mashed potatoes on top. I took a couple of bites, thinking it a little chewy, veiny and loose in texture and thought it just might not be a good cut of meat. Then, mid-way, Kevin says, Oh, I forgot to tell you, this is horse. Yeah. Needless to say, I did not take one more bite and the meat is now rinsed of it's mashed potatoes and sitting in a baggie in the fridge for Patrice. But, you know, baby steps, Bob, baby steps.

So, finally, the biggest event going on right now (in a not so good way), is that I did not follow the proper visa procedures before I left the States, thinking I could take care of my residency permit once I arrived in France but misunderstanding that I was required to have a long-stay visa BEFORE I can apply for residency and that is something that I can only do at the San Francisco French consulate (the office in Portland handles everything BUT visas). My 90-day visa expires in just over five weeks so I was planning a trip back to Portland to take care of it but now and getting conflicting information as to how quickly our marriage can be validated by the French government (the proof of marriage is required for the green card). That is something that will also be done at the office in San Francisco, but we are hearing anything from a couple of weeks (which would be fine, before my visit) to two to three months! Which means I may be forced to leave France for an extended amount of time while awaiting the preparation of the livret de familie, which is a booklet that all French people have containing the records of births, marriages, divorces and (eventually) the death. As you can imagine, not only is this a large, unexpected cost, it is an amazingly stressful situation because we cannot seem to get a straight, consistent answer out of anyone and there is nothing that can be done here in Paris (or even at the French consulate in London).

We are now watching the Ségolène Royal/Nicolas Sarkozy debates on t.v. - the final election is on Sunday. Things are very Romanian trial-and-execution style here... no lollygagging around. The results of the primary where the two candidates are selected are instantaneous the night of the election and the final election is only two weeks after the primary. Oh, and NO annoying television campaign ads to deal with. Just the occasional Hitler mustache drawn on the face of an equal-wallspace-to-all-candidat

es campaign poster. I have my final day of work for this campaign on Saturday.

Here is a link to some recent photos - I still can't believe I live in the center of this fairy-tale part of France - these châteaux are literally minutes from our home. It is still amazing to me to drive around a corner and - boom - there is a 500-year-old castle right in front of me.

Well, Finaly!

No, I have not dropped the face of the earth to those who have asked, I have just been very slow to get around to things - e.g. communication with the outside world. It has now been just over two weeks since my arrival in France. This has definitely been a very changeling time in my life - wedding and a move to another country in the same week, with all of the peripheral things that surround that like leaving friends and family, my business, starting the assimilation into new culture and language, etc.

After the most poorly-planned move in U.S history (thank you to my angels, Angelique, June, Tim, Rick & Rob for all your help), I arrived in Paris with two suitcases of books, four suitcases of random items (including an economy-sized Nag Champra, a baby blanket and a pair of Old Navy flip flops), two livid cats and three cranky Frenchies. The flight itself was nice because Patrice and I had some great bulkhead seats on the Portland --> Frankfurt leg, due in part to a couple of well-placed tears at check-in noting that we were on our honeymoon but were not able to get seats together due to how we had to buy our tickets. So not only was it nice to sit together with lots of legroom, we got lots of free champagne, including two small bottles to go which I had to throw in the trash at security in Frankfurt due to 200 ml size. That situation alone reminded me of why I despise the Germans and always keep a choice WWII reference at hand for such incidents (e.g. 'Easy man, this ain't 1939 Berlin..."). Don't even get me started on the run-in with a roving airport veterinarian, Helga von Fuhrerstein.

The only major rough spot that day, which unfortunately carried over into the rest of the flight/drive home, was about 30 minutes into a 9 hour flight, I look at one of of my two in-cabin carriers and see Humphrey going all David Banner inside of his carrier, with his head and paw both breaking out the side of the case! He had managed to eat through the mesh siding and was escaping. We had larger cardboard Lufthansa carriers so I put him inside of that and he ate through that! He had been tranquilized that morning with a successful test run the day before, but apparently they were not working. Patrice was telling me to give him more pills, but I got a very nice French male stewardess (thanks for that outdated, sexist description, grandpa) to explain to Patrice that too much tranquilization can result in hyperactivity so we couldn't just keep giving Mr Humpy medicine.

NEEDLESS to say, coming from a country where cats are not the #1 most popular pet, Patrice was none too amused at all of this expense and trouble for these cats. (Franklin pulled the same stunt later on, but we managed to get him to stay in the cardboard carrier). Humphrey ended up having to be thrown,unsecured, in a stowage are for the rest of the flight. When we arrived in Frankfurt we had a buy a hard-shell carried that could not go in-cabin and Humphrey was checked in and rode cargo to Paris. The most awesome thing about having him go cargo is that there was a gate change for our flight that we did not know about (apparently only us and one other person!) and we discovered the change as the plane was about to close its doors. They held the flight for us - although our luggage had been pulled off the flight because we were missing.

Normally they would have just taken off with out our luggage and we would have to retrieve it later but (after making an announcement to the whole plane about the plight of the missing passengers and the live cat) they had to re-load our stuff because they could not leave a live animal behind. YEA - sh*itty, useless cat carriers from some chi-chi Pearl boutique saved the day!! But despite 900 hours of bumper-to-bumper Sunday traffic (that's Paris ), we arrived home and ready to just relax.

We live in an area of Vendome, 45 minutes southwest of Paris. The first few days were a real adjustment. Both of us were exhausted but fortunately, Patrice had a couple of extra days off of work so we could decompress - but we found ourselves being testy with each other over nothing. One gem of an argument started at dinner one night when Patrice accused me a loving Humphrey more than Franklin, duly noting that I hold and pet Humphrey more, and why is this? After I (naturally) laughed my head off about what the hell was he talking about, he was like, "Noooo, Shannon...I am serious!!" and ended up flouncing of to the couch. I mean, what??? Anyway, I made sure to give Franklin just as much love (especially after he got lost and three nights later we found him up at the top of a neighbor's tree)! But we work every day to work at getting this very stressful acclimation period - which it tough for both of us. We are newly married, there is a language barrier, there are cultural differences (I, for one, had to put the kibosh on toute suite to his mother just walking into our home unannounced when I was there alone and not dressed!) and just differences that all couples have.

I have definitely jumped into the domestic life here. I shop, I cook man-pleasin' meals (thanks, Carolyn Smithrud), bake bread and we have cute little candle-light dinners together every night his kids aren't here (oh my , I am a step-mother!!). He is definitely a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, which I am not, and he eats a pretty standard French diet (potatoes, steak, chicken, snails, cheese, bread, as well as assortment of barf-o-licious runny egg desserts and creamy ground-up meat things - urp). When we hit the canned and potted sections (yes, plural) I definitely try to make like a banana and split. I have made some vegetarian African dishes for him, for example, that he has really liked, which is great because he is open to new things and I can try different stuff. We are also both really picky about cleaning, he so more than me, I think - and we both like working together cleaning and taking care of the house. He sets and clears the table, I wash the dishes the next morning - those kind of routines we are getting into, which is nice.

The other day I was walking through the town center with my groceries in one hand, a baguette in the other, feeling very at home and comfortable and was trying to think of why living in some countries have work well for me and why other ones I never clicked with. It dawned on me that when I lived in London and now in France, I was immediately immersed in the activities of daily living with natives. In London, I met someone three days after I arrived, moved in with him the same day (oops) and had a home and a job an all of that routine. Same here in France. In Toronto and Germany, I never had that level of comfort, like I was "meant" to be there and I think it was because I was a student in Germany (albeit for 1.5 years) and in Toronto I was with an English boyfriend and we were like tourists, despite having jobs. But France, despite this very difficult entry period, it is a great place for me to be.

On the flip side of this "Starring Barbara Billingsly as June Cleaver" thing I have going on, I have also jumped into cultural side of things. I have been working for the political campaign of Ségolène Royal, who is with the socialist party and who is the first female to run for the president of France. It is very exciting, not only as an important and historical event for France, but for me is is exciting to see this process up close and to meet with other like-minded people. I am going to see her speak in person tomorrow and am very excited about that, despite only catching about 25% of what is said. My very traditional husband, needless to say, is not amused, so I throw in a "hello comrade" here and there just to keep things "phresh". Yes, it is that evil that keeps things lively between the two of us.

I am also starting to make plans with some American ex-pat groups in the area and I am REALLY looking forward to speaking a little English and just talking to other who are in similar situations (Americans married to French men, etc). I am anxious to start formal French lessons, too, because not being able to communicate deeply and fully can be very isolating and stressful. I am car-hunting, too, which is a little sad because I miss my cute Scion very much! I have found one called Citroen Berlingo that I like very much and am anxious to get that ball rolling. I also looking foward to getting adapter for my laptop so I do not have to use the French freakin' version of Windows anymore! I just want my own American keyboard with my own American things, etc.

Things are pretty much all-things-French here - except for my American books and BBC Primetime/World News on TV occasionally - but one one best things I did before I came back was order seasons one and two of "Lost" from Amazon in France. I have never seen any of the series and Patrice and I are just hooked on it!! It is so good but it makes me miss my Last Season of Six Feet Under and Desperate Housewives marathons with Hillary!!! The greatest things about most DVDs is that you can watch almost any language and with almost any language in subtitles so we can both enjoy it, I can learn a little more French through the subtitles and Patrice can (oops) finally learn the meaning of this strange phrase 'shut up' I say all the time.... :)