Paradise

We had a gorgeous snowy weekend snuggled up by the fire with dog and kids and some really nice food and wine we'd prepared for an apéro with friends. This house is so cozy in the winter it looks like something out of a magazine.  Our friends had given us some wood for the fire, an entire tree, and we wanted to thank them in Savoyarde style, local cheese and wine and dried sausages.  They really enjoyed the house and we noticed we are starting to actually get compliments on it.  This never used to happen.  People were usually too shocked in the past with the piles of floorboards, holes in the walls and plaster dust everywhere.  But now, it's really starting to come along the last few weeks and our hard work is starting to actually show.  We've been working like crazed fools and we are getting close to the part where you put on baseboards and paint, ie. The Finish Line in home renovation...uh, finish line again that is.

In other news I swallowed my pride and called l'americaine last week to invite her for coffee which she finally agreed too,  but she cancelled on me at the last minute, just as I was mixing the banana bread to put in the oven, boo hiss.  She did tell me on our chat on the phone though that she has three english speaking friends here, shock!  Right here!   They're Irish, Scottish and apparently there's an American who owns a bakery in town, Two are moms with kids our ages.  My heart went all aflutter and I really want to connect with them but she'd mentioned them in a kind of "don't worry about me I have plenty of English speaking friends" kind of way rather than a "hey you should come have coffee with us sometime" kind of way.  I'm getting a little tired of prostituting myself so I'm going to stubbornly wait for her to call me to reschedule and she can make the banana bread this time.  At the same time--three years without visiting home is starting to wear on me and I could use that linguistic oasis I mentioned.  I may have to swallow my foolish pride.

I didn't dare ask her about the incident in town but as we were talking about living here she made a comment along the lines of "there's no way I'm staying in this godforsaken ****hole of a place"  and I understood that she hates France (peanut butter prices anyone?) and I'd be getting pulled down that drain. I consoled myself that rather than listen to the stereotypical grass is greener rant maybe I'd be better off listening to my french mom friend's reminders that Charlotte really needs to wear a hat on cold days. There are lots of places where you can complain in the world and I'd agree wholeheartedly,  but here...how can you complain about living here?  Last night as I was walking the dog I actually forgot about her and she went off in the woods because  I was too busy staring at the scenery, the sky was a beautiful pink mist with all the snowy mountains behind like stage props.  It was amazingly beautiful.  I imagine it's the peanut butter though and the people;  the important little things that block out the bigger picture.  Why is that?

Jets

"Hey Mom look it's a really big plane!"
"No honey it's just a little commuter plane" He's been saying this for days now so I barely look up when he says it. Yesterday though he was right! I looked up and saw a jet and we began to see a few more and then the streaks of planes headed to the South started decorating the sky.

And today for the first morning in days I've heard the planes taking off from Roissy. We live near the airport so it was silent the past week which was really odd. That noise was a welcome sound!

Our plane is rescheduled for next week and I'm taking Little S out of school for the week of the ascension. I was a little stressed with the booking because I had to decide my dates quickly while I was on the telephone with the airlines, a really tired booking agent. I kept having to say "umm hold on a sec" while I studied the calendar and requested return dates on really full flights. S's teacher won't be happy because that's nearly two weeks of missed school but one of the days of the ascension week is yet another field trip to a chateau (you've seen one, you've seen them all) and then the day before they'll be preparing for it. The rest of the week is a "pont" and it's a week all rearranged and goofy anyway.

I had a little tiff with Little S's teacher the day before vacation about taking him out for the week. She said we needed to think more about him and his need to be attached to the school and his friends (in other words stop being selfish twits) I didn't feel like I could ever explain to her how hard it is not seeing your family for two freaking years, and not having them see your children grow up. I didn't try to explain and just took her wrath, let her get all her anger out. But I got really annoyed when she said "can't you go in the summer next time?" as if money were falling from the sky at our feet for the three tickets in July each year. I told her it was really expensive and she just sighed really loud and said "next year it's serious and you won't be able to take him out of school on a whim." Next year he starts first grade. And the year after he has to start trade school so he can serve the greater good of the people. Bad citizen mommy, oh dear.

Seb was angry about her attitude and he said "oh I wish I could have been there." We're both really fed up with the school's obsession with Little S's personality problems. I haven't blogged much about this but we've seen lots of different specialists on our own lately and they all say he's fine, just maybe intimidated by school and large groups. The school keeps pushing us to find a problem though and we've reached a point where we just want to say "he's normal just not THE norm" It's a square peg kid. I appreciate their concern but they're starting to give him a complex because the teacher talks to us about his problems right in front of him. He's seeing a school psychologist and a sort of play therapist, two different people each week at school and even though we did sign off on it, now we're thinking they're just going in circles chasing their tails. Each few months they come up with a conflicting report and most of it's jargon to say "poor lost kid who has to translate everything from English to French" and they keep suggesting we eliminate the English to help his French which I don't agree with.

So you can imagine that the trip to the US and the week (plural now) is not going to go ever well.

The waiting

I've changed my ticket once already and we're still stuck waiting to see what happens. If we can't leave tomorrow for our trip to the US I'm pretty sure we'll have to cancel because they keep rebooking me five days later and at the end there isn't much vacation time left. Hopefully we'll at least get to reuse our tickets this summer. We booked using sky miles so I'll have to read the really fine print on that.

At least we aren't stuck somewhere on vacation indefinitely. Ummm, I guess.

Beautiful morning, glorious day

I don't know why but I have The Rascals, Beautiful Morning stuck in my head today. And yes it is a beautiful morning.

I'm in an awfully good mood today.

Still struck or stuck

...or stricken.

Whew! I'm finding it really hard to think about anything but yesterday. I am in a sort of shockful bliss as best as I can describe it. My mind is chattering like a typewriter and I'm lost in my own thoughts most of the day. I've stopped baking and now I find it hard to concentrate on even cooking. Last night like an airheaded lover on cloud nine I burned our dinner and you know what I didn't even care.

My mind is on other things.

For many years I have been teaching English in France, mostly conversational English. I really enjoy teaching to High School and Middle School kids and I've taught both French and Japanese students. One of my most well-worn lesson plans and one that I often let span an entire semester is based on the American civil rights movement. As the conversational teacher you can use any subject to get kids talking and I used to just use pop culture but eventually I found that I had the opportunity to spread a message and to teach a little bit of history. I chose the Civil Rights Movement because it stands out so clearly in American history, but also because I became a little frustrated with the blatant racist remarks I heard around France. It is much more accepted in this country to say something off-color and I have always been shocked by it saying to myself "did he or she really just say that?" not believing my own ears.

This has always been a popular subject with my students and I am a fun teacher, or at least I like to think so. We start all the way back to the founding fathers and do a few short lessons on intolerance and revolution. This is all very brief and we quickly span the decades to the sixties. We learn but we also have fun. We act out the Rosa Parks bus scene and usually film it and play it back. I let the kids write the scripts. They do speeches on a civil rights subject. We act out mock telephone conversations, one person being MLK and one person being Governer Wallace , always funny in broken English. We play games based on the vocabulary. I know so many details about the movement I could probably teach it to University students by now. It's like any subject you teach over and over.

One thing that I always end the lesson plan with is the death of MLK because since his death there hasn't been a lot more of the story to tell. I tell the students that he made a pathway to greater understanding but that there was only so much he could do. I don't like to dwell on his death too much, instead we usually close the lesson with a film of MLK doing his speech and then we write our own "I have a dream speech." I let them go off writing a speech about whatever their dreams are so that they can identify with what it means to have a dream.

This lesson plan hasn't been taught for quite a few years now since I've taken off work to have my kids. All of the teaching materials--the videos, the papers and the notes are in a box in storage somewhere. I keep thinking about it though and all those French and Japanese students who I taught over the years and what they must be thinking about today. Where are they? What are their reactions?

I don't have a television. I never seem to have a television at crucial times! I don't really need one. I read so many amazing blog posts yesterday written by friends and strangers. The New York Times posted some of their best videos to date this morning and I sat there captivated by their poetic bytes of people's reactions to the election. A lot of people just cried.

I am still in awe aren't you?

But some of us are looking at the stars!

We went to sleep last night at midnight just as the polls were closing on the east coast. There was no way to stay awake all night but a deep desire to feel at ease and sleep peacefully for the first time in several weeks. I wish I could have had updates in my sleep.

I tucked in my kids early and as I did I was buried in my thoughts as to what this would mean for them. Little S knew it was an important night, 'lection night and that for some reason it was a big deal.

He had no idea how big of a deal.

I called my mom and asked her the same question. Did she change her mind. She laughed and said no. She had voted for McCain and so did my father. She told me most of my extended family in Ohio had voted Republican too.

It didn't matter. When Little S and Charlotte woke up they had slept through the most historic election in the history of their country. They had a black president.

The world is changing in so many ways lately. It's a good time to be an American again and I'm proud of my country.

There is hope.

ed. What an uplifting victory speech, so eloquent! And McCain too gave a lovely concession speech, wow!

The big day

Vote for Change!

A petit diversion from the stress of politics

I am a shameless Top Model addict and for me there is nothing better than a Thursday evening camped out at my computer tuning into 45 minutes of ANTM. I love fashion and always have, especially the photographers. There are lots of embarrassing photos in my family albums of my fashion shoots on the stage in my bedroom back in the day. My best friend and I used to spend hours setting up these locations all over the place and spent all of our allowance money on film and processing. The most consistent shoots were done in my bedroom in this spot. That's my brother and me when later we started doing music video shoots with my parent's enormous RCA VHS camcorder. (check out my awesome Vogue poses!! and how drop dead gorgeous my brother was on the close-up at the end of the video!)

My favorite supermodel was Paulina and I had a lot of her Vogue ads on my wall. She was so physically stunning and perfect. I love that she's on ANTM now. I wish she were the host because she's a lot more intelligent than Tyra Banks, who really gets on my nerves and takes some of the pleasure out of watching the show with her abrasive personality.

This season they have a French girl competing, Marjorie and I really want her to win. I am facinated by her because she's bi-cultural. She moved to California at the age of eight and spent half her life in both the US and France (although I believe both her parents are French). Marjorie keeps bringing up how she doesn't understand the other American girls in the house who constantly keep a game face and never let on that they're insecure or worried. Marjorie, who is typically French is constantly talking about how she isn't feeling confident and she does seem to dwell completely on the negative. It is such a great lesson in cultural-leanings that every American teenage girl will hopefully now understand what a typical French teenager is like and this makes me very happy. They will also see when Marjorie wins that you don't have to have that rah-rah cheerleader mentality to get something. You just have to work hard and be talented. A little self doubt is normal, even charming in its honesty.

Living in France I see both sides, the happy-go-lucky American and the ever gloomy Frenchman, and to be honest both sides really annoy me. My mother-in-law completely lets negative thoughts rule her realm. She only ever asks me about friends who've had tragic things happen to them, "how is your friend so-and-so who lost their job and got divorced?" I think these stories feed her psyche somehow because she only tells me stories about people she knows who have problems too. Nothing is ever pleasant or happy in her world except maybe the grandchildren. It's definitely an Old World European mentality to think like this. In 'merica we aren't allowed to think negative thoughts! It's considered weak and spineless. In fact if you watch the show you'll see that all the rah-rah girls gang up on Marjorie for her "bad attitude" and one girl actually tells her "go back to your country" (which made me cringe). But it's a fascinating peek into two completely different cultures.

I'm not a imminently positive person but I'm not completely cynical either. I think there is a middle ground somewhere. I sometimes do get annoyed with Seb, especially during times like now with the financial crisis swirling around us and having just bought a house. In my American rah-rah mind I think everything will settle down and work out but my husband and most of the French I speak with are already predicting the loss of their homes and jobs and talking about what their next step will be. They are already living in that gloom and devastation and I really don't see the point.

Seb says Americans aren't realists. That people live in a bubble. This is too flippant of him in my opinion. Americans are positive by nature because we have a lot more opportunities that Europeans don't have. The American Dream concept is impossible in France. I often say that people in Europe live in a bubble too, --one with no clear view of the sun. I think they've lived through much harder times though and pessimism is clearly their dominant trait through centuries of conditioning.

But in this case, I really want Marjorie to win because of her negative attitude. I am sick and tired of that over the top, superficial "I'm so going to get this" attitude that the other girls on the show have and I think it's in certain aspects of the culture too and it really annoys me. I think it will be fun to see it get squashed. Marjorie also represents something I like in French teens, she's smarter than the other girls. I think being dumb is considered cute in the young American girl set and that always annoyed me. Apparently Marjorie was scouted out in a bookstore, ...nice. I think she's going to win. If you watch the show I think the final 3 will be Marjorie, Elina and Analeigh. And I think Marjorie and Analeigh will be the final two.

Vote Obama please mom

I know she won't. My vote cancels her vote and my father, who will cancel his vote?

This is why I have a giant lump in my throat. I can't shake the feeling of doom and fear about the upcoming elections. I am finding it impossible to fall asleep at night and I have baked about a hundred cookies and cakes in the past week out of anxiety (baking is a venting mechanism for me....always has been) . Although I want election day to hurry up and be over, at the same time I am really afraid it won't play out like it has to. I am incredibly anxious, so much so that I couldn't talk to my father in law about it yesterday without getting emotional. He wanted to discuss how McCain would drag France into a war and I just couldn't think straight because the mere mention of that man's name in connection with a possible presidency lately has me gripped with panic. I quickly changed the subject.

It's all because of the 2000 elections. I was working at a little business school in Savoie, France at the time. My boss was a kindred spirit, intelligent and well-read, she had lived much of her fascinating life between Bosnia, the US and France among other countries. I really enjoyed talking with her because we shared the same views about politics and the world. I really loved her mind and wanted to have her brain because she knew so much. She put political and social ideas into such good perspective and she had so many rich experiences to draw on that I would hear her say something and then I'd say "yes, yes...exactly." I wanted to be able to put my ideas into the words she so effortlessly could so I picked her brain a lot. We talked often about the upcoming election and this character "Bush," and the idea that he had been elected to the Republican party, "what were they thinking?" It seemed like to us that it was a surefire way for the Democratic party to win. It would be a shoe-in, even my worldly political boss knew that.

How wrong we were. I could barely teach my classes that day after the results. I was in complete and utter shock. I am still reeled by the fact that this man won a presidential election--TWO TIMES.

So I have a huge lump in my throat and I am holding my breath. And I can't concentrate on much of anything, excuse me.

And while we wait in agony here is my little tribute to the Republican party for their grand exit on Tuesday night:
You Haven't Done Nothing!! (rock it Stevie!)


(he wrote this song for Richard Nixon in the 70's)

.

Summer living

Our Florida time is coming to an end. It's time to start that new chapter of our lives.

We're going to miss our family here. Until next Summer!

Strangeness

It's another crazy week here in Florida on our little month long visit. My poor mom has had the flu and she's been in bed for nearly two days. Mom is never the type to ever be in bed and I don't think I've ever seen her too ill to wear makeup so it was weird to see her that sick. She's feeling somewhat better now but we were all pretty worried about her and are still kind of worried about her general health. Anyway I have taken over managing the house for now and feel lucky to have been here to help her out and run her to the doctor and fetch things for her. She doesn't know when she's supposed to stop and take a break and recharge her body. Even now when she should be resting she's running around doing things. I think I have to tie her down to the bed to get her to rest.

Seb is in Mexico and the movers are there packing up our life. I'm a little stressed because I can't be there to make sure everything gets put away. I feel completely helpless sitting here in Florida but I know I just have to let it all go. When you don't have any control over something you have to let it go and I guess have to learn to do this. I'll be happy when things are back to normal!

*Milly my calico is at the front door of my parent's house.

Kapow!--a little break

With a huge lightning storm kapow! out went our internet and the baby woke up crying. Tampa Bay is the lightning capital of the nation and a July storm here is not for the faint of heart, --ironic given the median age of most of the residents and proof that somebody in the universe has a Monty Pythonesque sense of humor, hee-hee.

I grew up knowing everything NOT to do during one of these storms and I have to pound this into my stubborn French husband's head every Summer when we visit as he blatantly insists on doing his best imitation of a dumb Florida tourist by standing under trees, swimming in the rain and bike riding on the trail between strobes of light. "Are you nuts!?" I scream. And then my mom runs out and screams at him and then he gets to hear a ten minute story by my step dad about all the people killed each year, and by then he's ready to get on the next available flight anywhere but here. I will remind you though that he is an engineer from a highly respected school in France so this is just falling on deaf ears out of defiance for his mother-in-law. His defiance may get him killed one day though and the proof is in my blog here that I told him more than once.

This one on Monday was a particularly nice boom but strikes and mini power snips are so common here that we didn't even call anybody for 24 hours. Internet goes out ...and then magically comes on the next day. Finally after a day we started getting worried and so we called and grabbed a place in line. This particular strike fried one of Verizon's main units in the area and about 25 homes in our neighborhood alone were without service, so we had to wait a few days before they could even think of getting to us. My dad called threatening to switch back to Brighthouse Networks if they didn't speed things up and that had them sending someone out a whole 12 hours faster. Still it was slow getting everything back up and running. And for a whole extra day my mom's computer was still not online. Yes we each have our own computers and we really don't like to share!

I was the worst off. I had to wait two days for the password on my guest computer because with the new router there was a new password. They could have told us this when they reset everything but that took a whole afternoon to sort out why the old one didn't work. Finally though after much frustration and pencil tapping I'm back online.

Was I not supposed to be blogging for some reason? I always think there's a reason especially when nature is involved. What is it some higher purpose needed me to skim over on my days stranded without access. I must have run to the computer about 10 different times over these four silent days to look up information, grab a recipe, search for a book title, or look up a baby tip only to stop and scratch my head and say "hmm, what now?" I am probably a little too reliant on this thing. It wasn't such a bad thing actually to take a break.

*pic-looking out my parent's front door during a bad storm.

Florida dreams

This month is speeding by and I will turn around and before I know it my time in Florida will be gone and Paris life will be awaiting me. I'm trying to enjoy my time with my family as much as possible, taking little stock notes on all the moments spent with my sister and brother--watching them interact with their new niece and watching my brother marvel at Little S. "He's what six years old now?" "Nope," I say, "still just three." "Really, wow he looks kind of big for his age." "Nope" I say "just an average sized three year old." They aren't very good at keeping track of birthdays but I know they love him. They don't have kids of their own.



On the Fourth of July, Little S's first, we spent the first half of the evening with my brother and sister doing a family barbecue around their pool and then we took the boat out on the water so we could watch the colors explode all around us. When you're in the boat you see every little town's display. It's magical! The sun melted in a magnificent puddle between a pair of buildings and I mused as I often do about what life would be like for us here in my hometown. It seems like life is so much easier in the States. Why is that? Maybe it's all an illusion. My friend Bea and I used to call it the greener grass syndrome because so many Americans think living in France is romantic and so many French think life in the States is a cakewalk. Neither is really true but yet both are kind of. And yes the grass is always greener on the other side when you have a taste of one or the other or when you're forced to be apart from one or the other.





Today I spent the day with my sister at Wall Springs Park near my parent's house where we went exploring and shot some photos. I love the Florida Parks System. I would have made a good Florida parks ranger. I love the natural beauty of my State so much and I would love to be in it all day, protecting the animals and wildlife. I have dreams of traveling back in time as a Seminole, foraging barefoot beneath beautiful cypress trees, canoeing past opaque orchids lit from behind by the afternoon sun or tracking the prints of an elusive panther in a ferny marsh just as a humid rainstorm begins. I really do have dreams like this sometimes. I once saw a wise woman, a crazy sooth who told me odd things and who took my hands in hers and told me "you've lived in Florida in many past lives you know and your connection to this land is so strong. You are attached --not so much to the people but to the land itself and its natural elements." I shook my head in agreement and a chill ran through me when she said that. This place like a handful of others pulses through my blood. It's a big part of the reason I have a hard time getting on the plane for France each time I have to leave. The landscape seduces me not in a charming, bewitching way but in a mentally tactile way--from deep within.

"One day we will own a house in Florida and in France. This way we can be happy all the time." Seb often says to me. He is a wonderful husband. It may not ever happen but at least he tells me what I long to hear--what I need to hear. At least I can dream of my little cottage house a few streets away from the Gulf near a wonderful slice of perfectly preserved Florida.

Happy Fourth of July!

Palm trees and soft breezes

Life is good in Florida and we are relaxing like three little bears--three because Seb isn't here. He's in Chicago on a business trip and soon he'll be headed back to France. I wonder what it will be like when things are normal again and we can live as a family, eating dinner together each night and doing things together on the weekends. Someone told us recently that maybe we are addicted to the chaos of our life and I think they may be right. Settling into normal life might seem dull after all we've been through these past few years.

The teething is only slightly better for Charlotte, poor dear little thing. I do wish I could help her out but it's getting hard to bear with the constant crying and fussing. My mom is not very grandmotherly. She has her way of being and I love her for it, but that maternal role was never one she really relished much. She isn't doing well with all the "wahhhhhh" and the fussing and there is no one else to hold the desperately frustrated Charlotte. I run into these grandmothers when we're out in the stores and they really dote on the baby. I feel guilty for thinking this but I so wish I could spend a few days with them, allowing me to do things like have a shower or peruse a book while they hold Charlotte and make "goo-goo" noises. My own mom just seems to be missing that grandmother-gene. Maybe all grandmothers are this way and I just expect more from my mom. Oh probably who knows. I'm probably just really tired and hey, we always blame our mothers for everything don't we.

I'm really missing my creative projects and we haven't drawn or painted in over two weeks ! I have taken lots of pictures and I need to upload them but with all the baby drama who has time to sit around editing photos. I miss it. I don't want to lose all the creative juices I've had flowing for the last few months so I better get back out and start shooting and painting. I have some great project ideas to put into the works and there is so much here in the States to help with these projects (Heat and Bond sold in the Supermarket you lucky dogs you!) I have my eye on a new camera too, a belated birthday gift that I told Seb I'd wanted to wait for our trip to the States for because the price difference. The savings I'd be getting allowed for a lens upgrade and I'm all about having a nice lens. I am completely psyched to own a nice camera and I will have to find a way to get out with or without the baby the day after I buy the camera because you won't be able to keep me inside to save your life.

I did do a little more clothes shopping too but it was mostly just to round out the basics. My wardrobe is so small now that it's easy to choose things and I like that. I don't want to clutter up my life with cheap clothes. My biggest purchase while I'm here will be a new coat, some boots and some moisterizer. You know, the essentials. It's the land of the outlet stores in Florida so I am used to loading up each year but this year it will be harder because our suitcases are already full of our posessions and we have to live out of our suitcases for the next few months, so you may read about me in the newspaper as the woman who wore knee high boots on the plane in late July and survived to tell about it.

Teething and shopping

Charlotte is teething and we are here in Florida visiting the family and Charlotte is teething. Did I mention that Charlotte is teething?

I was in Florida on a month long vacation when Little S was teething three years ago and I don't remember anything like this. She's nervous and grumpy and only wanting to nurse and fuss and twist the skin on my arms and fuss, fuss, fuss. So yes, Charlotte. Teething. Aaaagh!

But it's lovely to see everyone and the weather is not as humid as it normally is and we get to spend the fourth in the states for the first time in three years. And we have done a little bit of shopping which is nice. I haven't bought new clothes in almost three years. I've either been pregnant or budgeting or post pregnant so I've easily avoided the stores over the years, but now is a great time to shop because not only am I relatively thin again, but the exchange rate is chanting from the rooftops "shop lady!! go! go! go! shop!!"

My shopping dilemma is this: trying to find a babysitter for the little miss while I squeeze into new jeans, *sigh* No one seems to be able to comfort her except me. Oh well, maybe she'll be better next week and I can peruse the racks in silence. I definitely need a selfish mommy break.

She's an american girl

We got back late last night from our four hour drive to Monterrey to file the papers for Charlotte's Consular Report of Birth Abroad.

It was a big day for her because she is now an American citizen! She received her CRBA yesterday afternoon and we will get her passport mailed to us in about three weeks or less. The day was very similar to the one we spent in December 2004 when we took her brother to get his papers filed in Paris, except there were a few extra hoops to jump through.

I needed all the papers I brought I brought and more. I have to say that proof of citizenship is much harder in Mexico than it was in France. I had an entire bag loaded with paperwork. Unfortunately I had a brain lapse and had completely forgotten my medical folder for my pregnancy with all of the hospital papers in it and all of the sonograms. All I had to do is look at that photo I did of the stuff stacked on the desk to see that it wasn't even in the photo. Fool! The only thing I had was crib card because it was stuck in her baby book and a lot of photos of a very huge baby that looked nothing like a newborn because she was gargantuous. The clerk taking my papers sighed and said "you really need some more proof than this" and I scrambled about all nervous digging through my notebook where I keep all my very important papers in sleeves. There was nothing! Suddenly the clerk spied Little S's CRBA and said "hey THAT! Is that your son's ?" and it was thanks to having this paper with us that Charlotte got processed without too much fuss. As the agent who took our sworn oaths said (yes it's that official--you have to raise your right hand a lot), "I'm going to assume that our colleagues in Paris did their job" and he only asked two or three official questions like "where was I born?" and "where was my daughter born" and that was it. The funny thing was that the consulate experience in Paris was much less invasive and there was no proof of citizenship required on my part.

Charlotte didn't get her Social Security number and card because evidently you need to bring your own Social Security card and present it--a memorised number won't do. I haven't kept track of my card so much since I moved to France because I never need it. The agent was shocked that I didn't have it on me. And then for some odd reason I needed to bring Charlotte's Mexican vaccination booklet. It's just a book with a few signatures and penciled in dates, not at all official looking so it seemed totally arbitrary to demand it but in Mexico this card is really important. Who knew! We will have to do the Social Security card in Florida this Summer I suppose. The other funny thing was that they told me I had filled out the wrong form and they gave me the form in Spanish which took me a looooong time to fill out. In fact most of the agents and personnel were speaking Spanish, like the guards and the people who take your personal items. They were trying to explain to us what the procedures were for entering the building and we were a little confused and got reprimended by a guard in Spanish for standing in the wrong spot. The agents were pretty much bilingual but a few had really bad English and I kept straining to understand because the accents were thick and they kept missing articles. I should have better Spanish I know but in the consulate I think everyone should be bilingual and have a good level of English and Spanish. These are such coveted jobs that if you aren't bilingual what are you doing there? That's just my opinion.

Otherwise everyone was nice except for the one guard and the whole thing took about two hours. Then we were given the choice of coming back in the afternoon to pick up the official CRBA paper and we did because it was one less thing to have to worry about getting mailed.

Seb did all the French papers in Mexico City for Charlotte and had such an easy time. They even gave him a coffee to drink while he chatted with the agent, mostly about life in Mexico and the economy. In ten minutes everything was done and we didn't even have to be there with him. He was teasing me about how anal retentive strict the Americans are with things like this.

Proof

papers and photos ready for the consulate

This afternoon we leave for two day trip to Monterrey where we will try to register the birth of our little nanette at the US Consulate. Hopefully we´ll get her passport too and she can finally travel to the US without having to be smuggled in on a French passport. I think everything will go okay even if the paperwork and proof of presence in the US and citizenship requirements on my part are a little daunting. Because Seb isn´t American I have to go out of my way to prove my citizenship. It all strikes me as odd because my friend Haley who is American and living here just went throught the same process and didn´t have to bring in any papers other than the forms. Her husband is also American though and apparently there is a big difference *scratches head* .

Proof of presence and of citizenship is done through college transcripts, W2 forms and old photographs. You know stuff everyone travels to Mexico with, naturally. Of course I have all this stuff lying around! Why not? You are also required to make a list of all the times you left the country came back since your were born. Apparently they can "quiz" you on this list which is really daunting because not only did it take me four hours to make the list with the help of an old passport, I would have a hard time remembering that in 1997 I flew into Munich and out of Barcelona but on the next year´s trip I flew into Paris and out of Rome. Then there are all the aller-retours when I met Seb a few years later. Sometimes I flew into Geneva and then it depended on what was cheaper, I flew into Paris or Lyon. Dates, dates, dates, there are tons of them! Looking at the list after I completed it, it looked more likely that I was a very suspicious international spy than the innocent mom of two I was pretending to be. There will be a juicy promotion to a post in Bora-Bora for the agent who uncovers this little coup.

After I prove that I am indeed an American who has lived in the US for 5 years or more, then there´s the pregnancy to prove. The proof consists of ultrasounds photos, doctor´s affidavits, photos of the hospital and photos of the doctor and hospital staff, hospital bracelets and the crib card. I have to prove that she was born here and is ours (just look at dad´s ears I´ll say), and I have to I suppose prove that we are not trying to pass off this little Mexican chiquita as our American/French baby or some other mysterious babe swapping extravaganza. Piece of cake.

Then there are the forms for the CRBA, the Social Security card and the passport with photos and copies of all of my documents and all of Seb´s documents. Whew! I just hope and pray that everything is correct. I am cross-eyed from filling out little forms and brain dead from trying to decide on addresses I should use. Do I have everything sent here or to my parents or in France to the in-laws? Should my official mailing adress be our old house since we´ll probably eventually get back there? Decision, decisions.

I have already uploaded my 30 day photo for tomorrow and we will hopefully be back in time for me to post the next installment. I´m trying to be disciplined about this.

Wish us a smooth ride! Sometimes this stuff is much easier than we make it out to be.

Still afloat, still on vacation

Some photos because I am so qwerty-capped that I can only type with hunt and peck...help! I'll get used to it in a few months. I have to because I now own an American computer.

We are here in Florida on vacation until September 8th but Seb left last week to start his job in Mexico. I miss him already. Dads are good to have around as I just found out--handy as hell. I can't believe how nice it is to have someone else around to field a temper tantrum or clean up poopy toddler jeans. Seb has been living away from us for over a year and a half now and I think I've learned what it's like to be single mom over that time. I'm happy it's finally ending and we'll be together each evening again.

And so yes we're still on vacation with the parents in Florida. Little S fits right into the Florida lifestyle of family and boating and swimming pools so I think he'll be sad to leave for Mexico but I'm kind of eager to get there and get settled. I'll miss leaving my family but I do really miss not having a house and not having a kitchen. I want things to get back to normal and I like domestic life so I really miss not having those comforts.

Okay some photos.

Here is a photo of Little S playing cache-cache with another little boy at the Dunedin Marina. He doesn't understand that you have to hide better and not run out laughing all the time.



And here is Seb taking a picture of me while talking to an old man from Holland which is why the horizon is sliding into the sea. He's a lazy photographer even when he isn't distracted so telling his life story to strangers, well we're lucky he got me in the photo at all. And to top it off I was posing with my arm in fish guts...ewww.


See I took these next two photos. The horizon is nice and straight and Florida sure is pretty isn't it.

Perspective

When I talk about going home to visit these days I use these words with the hindsight and nostalgia of living in a different sort of America. Every time I go back, home has changed so much that I often don't recognize my own country, the one whose rights and liberty slogans were spoon fed to me for 30 years. I suppose the changes have happened gradually for those living there, my family and my friends, but for me each two years or eighteen months when I go back I am reeled by what I see and hear. Watching the nightly news makes me irate. I yell at the television. I crumple up newspapers and magazines in disgust. How can people accept this? I try to analyze those people around me, do they see it? I ask myself if they are aware of what is happening here and if so then don't they know that this has to stop before history catastrophically repeats itself. They seem so calm about it all. They seem so afraid to contradict, to disrupt. Would I be calm too if I lived here again. Would I stand up and contradict?

It feels like a small tide is turning towards the truth. I think I'll have to go home for a visit to verify for myself. I'm praying that this is the case and things will return to a semblance of what they were.

Nothing makes a statement like an image. I found this video and thought I'd share it. The song was written by Pink and features The Indigo Girls. Some of the images are very difficult to watch but if we don't watch them then we don't know the truth. Truth represents freedom. We need to know what's really going on. We need to get angry and stay angry. Don't you think so? Watch the video, listen to the words to the song and please get angry with me.

Click on the YouTube icon to see it full screen.