Risky business

Hmmm...maybe we won't be moving to Lyon after all.

Seb isn't totally enamoured with the new job and well, we don't think it's such a good idea to suffer through all the dramas of another move if he isn't sure. We've decided to play a wait and see game. Meanwhile the husband is two hours away in Lyon and wife and baby are staying put for now. He'll drive home on the weekends and spend his weeks there. Believe me when I say it's no fun raising baby alone all week long with no one around as a buffer.

I guess we both knew this job might not be his style anyway. We knew we'd have to move and that it meant major disruptions to our carefully laid plans, but we decided if he stayed in his present job he'd never know if he'd have been better off in a big star job with lots of colorful lights and slick marble flooring. Well, here we are in Lyon two weeks into it and now he knows that slick marble flooring comes right along with management sporting silk ties with gold pins, Italian shoes costing 300 euros, and taking extended coffee breaks to discuss the morning's golf games. It means lots of long hours in meeting that go around in circles and make you want to scream "it's 9:30 and my kid is already in bed can we go now so I can at least see my wife!" Every night for two weeks so far poor Seb has seen nothing but this and he's already about to go mad with the place. They're inefficient, sort of snobby, self-righteous critters who speak a sort of strange fr-english they seem to have invented all on their own. They pepper meetings with strange phrases like "C'est tout dans le BACKSTAGE tu sais" or "si non il est KILLED" This makes Seb want to scream because as any bilingual will tell you it's extremely annoying when someone mixes the two languages for showmanship. And here's the funny thing. They have no idea that Seb is as bilingual as he is or that he has a little American family at home "dans le HOUSE."

The sad thing is that he's already left his other job and for now all he can do is get through this until something better gets dropped in his lap. He's a real trooper. I showed up last Monday to give him some support and to cook all week. A lot of good it did to show up or cook for that matter. He was only home one night, Wednesday night at about 8:30. All the other nights he was in late meetings or back at the job until midnight to be introduced to Mr. So and So and his team of workers and to follow along with their meetings until oblivion. Then the next morning he was back at the job by 6:45. Baby S and I were feeling a little underused.

The house the company rented for us is in a compound on a hill overlooking a stark little town outside of Lyon. When I say outside the city please don't think of it as a bicycle ride or bus ride away but rather waaaaay out near the airport someplace in the middle of nowhere. No question of exploring the town unless we get in the car and drive to this big city. The house itself is actually a little row house built in a sort of army barrack style, complete with gravel trails terminating neatly at the garbage bins. I can't complain about the newness of the place. Everything is new. The floors are perfectly tiled in a speckled gray and the dishwasher, yes, dishwasher!! still has part of a delivery sticker attached to it from last year. There's a nice, neat bathroom with a new acrylic tub--you have to love that if you've been without a proper bathroom for three years. And the huge mirror with halogen lights all around it is, I gotta say nice for a someone who loves to obsess over her skin for hours on end (okay, search for zits I'll admit it...) But, strangely enough we really hate it there. I mean really, really hate it. Seb and I feel lost. Well, Seb when he's there that is. Sure we like that tub, the dishwasher is nifty and hey there's closets! I forgot to mention that. We have loads of closets for the first time ever. But we're feeling really lost in this whole NEW LIFE adventure. We really miss our scruffy, closet-free house. I wanted to go home immediately and even though it seems childish I'm glad baby S and I did go back home.

We don't know where this will all lead us but it was a risk and you can't regret taking a risk. It may not work out in the end but it very well could have and hey it may still, who knows. It's just a shame that the job couldn't be here! Changing jobs in France always means moving halfway across the damn country. Well, maybe that's not true for everyone but it's sure been true for us. I'm so sick of moving! My basement is still full of unpacked Demenco boxes from our last move.

I'm sure Seb will pull through with flying colors. Since the day I met him he's always had golden nuggets strewn across his career path. He just seems to have things fall in his lap. Well he'd probably say it was sheer determination and a lot of hard work, but I think it's a little bit of luck too. I have faith that if he wants to he'll get out of this job and probably end up finding something better than he could have imagined. I hope so because between this and baby making crap my nails look like a second grader's. I'm ready for a little stretch of calm and peaceful.