Time out

The weekend's finally here!! (even if it is raining)

I've been looking forward to this for over two weeks now. It's our ten year wedding anniversary and we've loaned out the kids to my in-laws for three days. We're single and carefree again. It feels wonderful.

A house without kids stays miraculously CLEAN. And you can go out to the garbage as much as you want without explaining to a small crying person that you'll be right back and then barring them from going out by closing the door really fast in their face. Two year olds are little prison wardens. My shackles are free for a few days :P

But to be honest the house is really quiet and it's kind of creepy. Also there's the missing right arm thing. "Where did I leave that?"

We're headed to Paris for some city action. I've been wanting to visit the antiques in St. Ouen just for fun, a little window shopping (or licking as the French say). And we'll probably try to have lunch somewhere and let go of the guilt about not working on the house for a full day and not chasing the kids around. Oh and tonight it's fancy shmancy night in the city.

Hanging in there

"[flash!] the only picture taken all year of us as a family was at my in law's house--and look at us we're exhausted!! Seb is asleep in the first two photos taken so his mom said "open your eyes!" and he had to do this to keep his eyes open. Little S is sliding off the sofa and Charlotte is wailing "waaaaah" Me, I'm just trying to keep it all glued together somehow! "

Yesterday was our nine year anniversary of marriage, whew! It's been a difficult year to say the least and we're reeling from all the changes. I don't know how but we're still here and we're still standing somehow.

I won't gush this year because honestly it's been one of our hardest years ever. Just as we were recovering from an international move to a foreign country where we lived in a hotel for two months (nearly four for Seb) and we had a new baby, Seb's job sent him back to France, but not before sending him on lots of wild goose chases looking for other jobs in other divisions of the company in Mexico. Finally we got sent to our last choice on a very short list, --the overpriced metropole, Paris where we couldn't find a place to live so we decided to buy, ...three weeks before a huge worldwide recession. So yes it's been a tough year.

Right now I'm in dire need of a night out. I just need a little break from everything because it's been FOUR years since we've had a date alone. I've never had a babysitter. And yet I can't find it in me to hire a babysitter. I really need to get over it and just trust. It's also because our house is so AWFUL that I'm sure the local babysitter lives in a much nicer house than ours. It's certain. I've seen her boots.

And I need to start thinking about getting back to work. It makes my brain hurt to think about working. I'm trying to to invent jobs in my head that I can do from home but wondering if it's just me avoiding the inevitable. I hate the idea of working from an office or a classroom and doing a commute. I hate the idea of going back to work to be honest. I like working from home and taking care of my family. But we need two safety nets because one just isn't smart.

My poor dear husband has an ulcer after last year. He's in a terrible industry. He's watching all of his old colleagues getting axed right and left on a daily basis and each evening he comes and says "I can't believe Mr. X got laid off!." He keeps wondering day after day what his fate could be and even though it all feels safe right now everyone we meet it seems has lost a job or is worried about losing a job. All this daily tension is a weight on our family and he's grumpy all the time.

And working on the house, that's our diversion. The only thing is that our diversion is a source of stress because it means we have to talk about all the risks of job loss and the sliding economy as we try to decide what work to do in the house first.

But we're still here! If we made it through last year and we make it through this year I think we'll be some sort of power couple. I don't know how we survive all the things we go through but somehow year after year we weather huge tidal waves and we always end up okay. I hope next year when I write about our anniversary I can look back at this post and just shake my head saying, "wow! that was a nutty year!"

Our franglais famille

It's group blogging day for bloggers in bilingual relationships or with bilingual families. I probably should have mentioned this earlier but it's not to late. You can still post until midnight tonight! Just link your post to Fned's Blog when you do and she is going to link them all for some fun reading.

When Seb and I first met we spoke entirely in English for the first few years. I had no French at all because I was really just traveling through Europe and wasn't this francophile at all. France was just a pit stop.

After we met I started French from scratch with textbooks and CNED the French distance learning program, trying to learn on my own. We always tried to start speaking in French but it never worked because I never had enough vocabulary to get anywhere in the early days. We only spoke in French when we went places, --friend's homes for dinner, the in-laws and restaurants. Speaking French with Seb felt like acting. It still kind of does.

A few years ago when Little S was born we started speaking to him in our own languages, me in English and Seb in French. This made a peculiar thing happen because Seb started using French at home again. He now speaks in French a lot of the time at home and I speak English and we address each other in our respective mother tongues. We turn this feature off when we travel though and we use English. If we have friends for dinner in French we speak French to each other. This often carries on for a few hours afterwards. We got stuck in French after my argument with the in-laws and I found myself pouring out my heart to Seb on the way home in French because the argument with them had of course been in French.

Little S addresses each of us in our respective languages and he often tells me funny things like, "in French we say eau for water" or "in French we say chien" I wonder sometimes if he even thinks I know how to speak French because he always seems to be trying to teach it to me! Really though I think he's got the a-ha syndrome of suddenly realizing there are two languages. I do try to speak French to him if we are outside of the house with French people. The other day when his friend Thibaut came for a visit we spoke entirely in French all day. Little S ignored me a lot and gave me lots of sideways glances though when I told him what to do in French. It still feels strange to him when I address him in French, especially after our year in Mexico where the house went almost 90 percent English and at least 10 percent Spanish.

Little S speaks to his sister in French a lot of the time if they are one on one. Like I'll hear him explaining things to her and I'll be in the next room. I find this weird since I just kind of assume that English is his primary language. Maybe it's because he's trying to show her things and his teachers are French so he's teaching her in French.

It's fascinating living in a bilingual household but to be honest we don't really think about what languages we're speaking anymore. We just sort of use what works in that moment. And there is a lot of mixing.

What about you? Have you ever been in a bilingual household?

Old trails to the past

On Sunday we spent the day in Cluny, a delightful little village just outside of Macon. We lived in Cluny for a while when Seb was in school and it was early in my introduction to French life so it formed a lot of my first impressions of the French and how they live. Of course I didn't realize it at the time but it was an odd way to be introduced to the French. Cluny is deep in the French countryside and most of the people are farmers or small town merchants who have a fairly narrow vision of the world at large. It wasn't easy living there as an american with very little knowledge of French.

Seb was proud showing Little S his school but he was tired and looked at it and yawned. "It's a school?" he asked. "Inside yes it's a big school" said Seb. "It's a really big school then" said S. "Yes it is. Maybe you'll go here one day" said Seb.

Most of my memories of living in Cluny were of walking somewhere, the center of town or the boulangerie and feeling like I'd stepped back into another place in time. It's an incredible place full of the richest history in all of Europe. The center of the world for a few centuries and yet discreet about it's past. On Sunday when I passed before the majestical arches of the church again I felt that pulse of the past for a second or two but then I tried to remember which part of the abbey I was standing in and I was disoriented. Like many medieval sites it is important to visit them with a guide or a guidebook, otherwise you find yourself looking at a pile of rocks scratching your head.

We will be leaving this area on Thursday morning but I'm glad we had the opportunity to come back here and visit as a family. Cluny is an important part of our past.

Anniversary

This moning Seb called me back to say "happy birthday" and I started laughing. He always gets that a little confused. In French you say "bonne anniversaire" for both birthdays and anniversaries.

We´ve been married eight years now. Eight years, two kids, one crazy house, lots of moves all over France and now the world.

Tonight we will stay home and pour some wine together, play with our kids and eat some sushi.* We´ll reminisce about he past and talk excitedly about our future. We´ll remind each other that we want to finish our house with stone steps and a bedroom loft that looks over the lake, how we want to travel to Japan one day and and how we want to have a sailboat one day to cross Lac Léman with, but mostly to sit on in the evenings and take an apéro while we watch the tourists go by.

We have a lot of dreams. So far we´ve seen a lot of them come true together. "We are a good team" as Seb often says.

So he´s right in his quirky, cute French way--Happy Birthday to us, and many more bien sûr.


*well at least until our Spanish lesson starts a nine o´clock
**the picture was taken by us this December at Mont St. Michel in Normandie not far from my in-law´s. Seb has been promising to take me there for ten years and he finally lived up to his promise.

Weekend by lake Annecy

On Saturday afternoon we stole off for Annecy for some family time and shopping of course. It rarely happens let me tell you! It was lovely.

Seb sometimes gets a rental car from his job and occasionally he gets it for the weekend. We were lucky this time because they'd run out of cars and only had the Mercedes left. Oh-lala we went to Annecy in style.



We first did some strolling in town and a then grabbed a quick coffee by the quai. Then we went on to Les Galeries Lafayette for some retail therapy. We don't have good shopping in our town at all so it's necessary about twice a month to make the trip to either Geneva or Annecy to touch base with civilization. Seb had to buy a new suit for his job and while he did I shopped in the baby section and the beauty section. The sales are coming and I was doing some planning for Baby Sushi's layette (which will not be PINK if I have anything to say about things).

Afterwards our stomachs were growling so we made off for dinner by the lake. It's absolutely gut wrenching to drive by Bea's old house aggggh I hate doing it! Seb admitted it was weird too and odd to see it all shuttered up. The new owners are an English family who only use it for vacations. It was always so full of life! Bea is a friendly type whose door was always open. People came and went all day long when she lived there and it always smelled of fresh baked cakes when you walked in the door. All of her friends knew one another. Anyway *sniffle* we made our way to Talloires and had dinner at The Savoyarde where we pretty much always go.


The food is good but the view is always three stars.





We have a lot of memories of Talloires and this place, this lake. Like homing pigeons we return there when our relationship needs a pick-me-up. There we can bask in our memories of who we are and what our basic dreams are as a couple.

Lake Annecy--we were married here. We worked here. We left behind friends here.




We have become different people but we are essentially the same.

Mother's day in France

Well I guess that includes me now too. Seb remembered this year! In the past few years he has doted on his mother, forgetting that I'm a mom too. I think it's hard for him to wrap his head around it.

So this mother's day Seb and Little S made me breakfast (they usually do this anyway on Sundays) and then they presented me with a lovely gift from Marionnaud, --wrinkle cream! No I'm not disappointed or angry because I love French creams and skincare sets and lets face it I have tons of perfume which he usually buys me at Valentine's day. In fact I've requested that Seb start buying me stuff like this because I have so many bottles of perfume.

What always surprises me is that Seb gets so many samples when he goes to Marionnaud. I was shocked digging through the bag this morning. They usually only give me three maybe four samples, but he got at least 10 samples. A lot of them are mens perfumes but I don't care because sometimes the men's stuff is even better than the women's stuff. I have a huge basket FULL of samples. I'm a sample diva.

Happy mother's day to all the French expat mommy bloggers out there and enjoy your day of spoiling.

"I'll light the fire, you put the flowers in the vase that you bought today"

Seb and I are officially celebrating our seven years together today. We're apart all this week because of his job so we can't actually celebrate tonight. There isn't much to do about that but accept it. We celebrated a little last night though, wine and candles and some very good grilled St. Jacques eaten by the fire. It was a nice evening of reminiscing and discussing the highlights of our life together so far.

It's been a tough year for our marriage, probably the toughest. We like being together a lot, both coming from parents who were always together all the time. Both my parents and Seb's can count on one hand the number of nights they've spent apart. Some couples find this tiring but we find it a comforting reminder of how we were raised. We like being in each other's company even if we do bicker so much my mother has dubbed us The Hatfields & The McCoys. Anyway being apart so many days this last year has been really hard on us. I have to be honest that sometimes I feel like a stranger is walking through the door when Seb comes home on Friday nights. When you aren't together all week communication becomes really difficult. You miss everything so you can't really understand issues that are simply dumped in your lap on the weekend. You feel like you're always playing catch-up all the time.

Other things have been tough for us this year too, redoing the house, our relentless pursuits at having a baby, raising a high spirited toddler and trying to understand the recent bizarre attitudes of our extended family. It has been no a cakewalk this seventh year. It's been a challenge.

Last night as we reflected about our past, laughing about the good things and wondering how we'd survived others we kept coming back to a time when we were deliriously happy. It was in a very small apartment, 27 square meters to be exact, in Veyrier du Lac. We lived in the smallest of furnished hovels underneath our proprietor's deluxe chalet. We didn't have much, nothing really. I think I had a suitcase full of clothes and another full of books and beauty products. Seb had "divorced" his long time live-in girlfriend The Dominatrice and so he didn't have much other than the clothes on his back and a series of "halved" pictures of himself. We lived in paradise though surrounded completely by the mountains. We had each other and Seb came home for lunch every day and was home each evening at 6 o'clock. We were head over heels happy.

After talking I was humming the song Suite Judy Blue Eyes by one of my favorite songwriters, Stephen Stills. There was a line in the song that I was reminded of. It's a break-up song so it doesn't really apply to us but this one line says: "Don't let the past, remind us of what we are not now, I am not dreaming..." This line in this beautiful song rings so true. How many couples like us get so hung up on the magic of their past that they forget to look to the future for happiness. We talked about this and discussed our future and how excited we are to see what the next few years will bring,--Mexico, lots of visits to Florida, watching Little S grow up and maybe if we're lucky another baby. We even agreed that it was entirely possible that even better times than our mythical apartment days lie ahead. We shouldn't get too hung up on that past. There is so much to look forward to.

Adaptation.

I really think this is the key ingredient to a successful marriage, understanding that both of us will change and our couple will gradually become something else. Learning to embrace changes is difficult but if we can do this I believe we will be here in another seven years. Who knows, maybe we'll even be reminiscing about now and what a wonderful time it was.

Okay here are some photos of our life. Most were taken back in the day so they're a little blurry & flat from the scanning, sorry. I have not yet scanned the marriage photos. I'll bore you with those another day.


We met here in Annecy by the River Thiou at the restaurant with the white awnings on the left side of the picture


Taken by us with the camera on the microwave in our "mythical," tiny apartment in Annecy/Veyrier 1998


view from front of mythical apartment


view from the back of the mythical apartment


One of our first Christmas's together, Annecy 1999



Seb started school and we lived in Cluny in Bourgogne. I climbed Solutré a lot. It's a great place to gather your thoughts.



While Seb stayed in school in Cluny I moved back to Annecy and found a job in Albertville. I'm picking him up at the train station in Annecy for our weekend visit. We seem to do this a lot.


At Ensam's Grande Gala 2000. We'd only been married five months.



We moved to Le Loire just after Seb finished school. Chateau d'Angers is one of my favorites.



My sister snapped this photo of Seb and me having an argument on the Champs Elysée. When I asked her why she took it she said "you guys were oblivious to how pretty it was all you were doing was bickering. I wanted to show you what fools your were." (ps the date stamp is wrong on her camera)



Last month on the see-saw in the park--a fitting way to describe a relationship...up, down, up, down

Having two houses is tiring

The in laws are coming to Lyon tomorrow afternoon but the problem is that Little S and I are at home in Th*n*n. and more importantly Little S is sick and he's been keeping me up late nights and then getting me up at the crack of dawn. I'm very, very tired in the way you would be say if you had someone beat you on the head with a shovel all night and then asked you to work 14 hours in a chinese sweat shop factory sewing Disney t-shirts the next day. I certainly don't want to take the train with a sick baby and the thought of driving also makes me utter a resolute UGH! The conditions at the Villeurbanne apartment are always a little how shall we say, sparse especially when there hasn't been a feminine touch for a couple of weeks. The fridge will be full of barquettes of tabouleh and there won't be any milk for the coffee, which will be stale, and the butter will be rancid and full of toast shards. It usually takes a full day to correct all these little nuances, to change the sheets and scrub the potty and arrange the makeshift kitchen pantry so it doesn't look like a bachelor haven.

I have two thoughts, one is of course I don't want to force my in-laws to put up with the bachelor pad and the bachelor food for a night. The other is I don't want to have to drive three hours to Lyon with a sick baby to clean and cook, only to return the next day, to clean and cook here in Th*n*n where there will be so much built up construction dust from two days work that you won't be able to see the floor.

The apartment in Lyon is difficult and I don´t think the inlaws will be comfortable there. We are forced to cook on a campstove and take cold showers because we keep missing our rendez vous with the guy from GDF to turn of the gas. They won't like that either and we'll get the darty eye thing. I hate the darty eye thing!

There's a lot going on right now that I can't really discuss yet but our little plate is overflowing with stressful decisions. We are probably nuts and should just STOP torturing ourselves but nevertheless we can't seem to do this. I'm sure there are lots of quotes about adventure and risk taking that are appropriate to insert here, and could offer some clue to the dilemmas we're facing, but risk and adventure are leaving us a little weary as it is and the thought of more is well, frightening and well, tempting.

Meanwhile let me go pack because we're still riding out this last adventure and it's making me very tired.

A birthday and a boo boo

Yesterday was Seb's birthday and the man actually, okay stop the presses everyone, he decided to take a day off of work to be with his family. I could hardly believe it myself. After trying on about twenty different possible birthday events for size, we decided on a simple day at the local swimming pool complete with ice cream, cool drinks and a huge base camp under a tree. Our town's swimming pool sits on the lake and is actually a huge park with about five swimming pools and a baby swimming area with it's own two giant paddling pools and a baby sized slide that's wide enough for three kids to go down at once side by side. Little S's loves it there and I take him about once a week to get all of his energy out and work on his little baby bronzage. Seb doesn't get to go so often so I thought it would be fun for him to see Little S in action, giggling, laughing and interacting with all the adorable bout-chous his age.

We stayed the better part of the afternoon and were just stretching our arms and thinking about leaving when S decided to go down the slide a few more times. The slide was pretty crowded so with Seb at the top and me at the bottom as "catcher," S did about three little runs and was on his fourth run when suddenly we heard a sickening "thud" He'd apparently missed a step or tripped in the crowd of kids, it was hard to tell, and he was wailing like a siren. He usually doesn't cry when he's hurt, in fact it takes a lot to get him crying like that, so we gave him a cuddle and carried him off, when we noticed the blood starting to pour from his chin. He'd gashed open a place under his chin a good three inches long and it was quite deep. We hurried to the lifeguard station and the she quickly agreed it was very bad, and gave us some compresses. She told us we'd need to go to the hospital right away and probably get stitches for him. We were devastated. To know that you have to take your child to the ER when they are so tiny is about the worst thing that can happen to you as a parent.

We spent a good three hours waiting in the ER, watching the now familiar flood of elderly folk dazed and tired from the effects of the Summer heatwave pouring in. Little S ended up needing three stitches, and had to be given a local anaesthesia and gas for the pain. They had to tie him down with a bed sheet and he was held by two nurses. I've never heard him scream like that. It was just horrible. They asked me to wait in the hallway and I reluctantly did, nail biting and crying as I heard him screaming in rage, pain and frustration. Seb stayed with him and talked with him, but afterwards he said "I'm sure he hates me." I felt like maybe it was me he hated for leaving him, and as perhaps proof of it he bit my finger so hard on the way home that it turned red and swelled up like a sausage.

When we got home it was late but we stayed up and played with him, talked with him and hugged him about a hundred times. Slowly he came around, the tears dried up and when we asked for kisses he came to me and kissed me two or three times and did the same for Seb a little afterwards. We both felt relieved and it alleviated some of the guilt. Good old guilt, the most prevalent emotion you'll have as a parent. I don't think there's a day that goes by where I don't feel guilty as a parent for one thing or another!

Since Seb's birthday dinner got cancelled I stuck some candles in his cake before bed anyway so he could at least make some wishes for the coming year. He didn't think long before he blew them out and he seemed to know exactly what he wanted to have. I think he probably wished for a calmer year and a lot more family time since we're all missing each other terribly. I know he probably wished for a really savvy, high paying job here in Haute Savoie so he can make it back home and yet still not lose income or experience. I only hope these and many other wishes come true.

The wheels on the bus

All this blog talk about long distance relationships has me thinking lately about Seb and me and how we've seen our share of being separated over the years.

I have often wondered why Seb and I always have to be apart. It does seem to be a quirk in our relationship that we can't explain. After all we love each other. We want to be together, but somehow we always find ourselves running two ships, full-steam ahead in opposite directions. It's always because of circumstances: life, travel, study, but usually it's because of career and jobs. When they pop up I can't help but feel like these circumstances are cluttering our life and should simply be kicked aside, but in each instance the circumstances are so real that we aren't left with many choices but to carry on. We just have to march like little soldiers in the direction life leads us. We have to be obedient and wait out the war even if it means we have to do it separately through gritted teeth.

It all started with our first meeting. There we were two lovers stranded on opposite sides of the ocean. I came to France and went and came and went a hundred times. And then he came and got me and I came back and stayed. You'd think that would have been the end of the story but it was just the beginning of a long series of goodbyes.

He started his advanced studies and it was difficult for me, an étrangére to find a job in such a nowhere, small university town, so I moved two hours away for work. He came to see me, his newlywed wife on the weekends. This went on for a year, always having to say a quick goodbye on Sunday afternoons after lunch when I would drop him at the Nouvelle Gallerie in town for his ride back home to the dorm.

And then he finished school and found work in the North, and I joined him two weeks later after our things were packed and shipped. We saw each other every night for almost two years, a luxury. He worked a lot and so did I but it was like being a normal couple for a little while.

And then he found another job in the Alps and I had a work contract, couldn't quit it. It took three months before I could join him. He couldn't be sure of staying until his période d'essaie was up and I needed to stay behind to wait. We saw each other briefly on the weekends after an exhausting six hour train ride each way. It would all be okay soon. We'd have our home and life would return to normal.

And now today, the latest circumstance is Seb's new job in Lyon. We can't sell our house, we're bound to it. We don't want to rent it, couldn't since it's unfinished. Our hopes are pinned on him finding work in this area again, but for now he lives in Lyon all week and baby and I are here. We have the same old routine, the weekend visits, except now it feels different. It feels like our family is apart, because there's Baby S and we are now a family. There's also our home which we own and love and have laboured over, and if that's not what makes a family I don't know what does. That's what makes circumstances harder this time.

I know we can rebuild our home in Lyon, and maybe we should. I know a family isn't just a house and an address, but it's who you are to each other and what you experience together. But something tells me we have to stop all this. This merry-go-round needs to slow down,...no, it needs to stop point blank, and we need to plant our feet somewhere, and that somewhere should be here, being that it's as good a place as anywhere, being that it's where we've started planting our feet for the first time ever.

I've noticed something. I've noticed that no matter where we pick up and go for job reasons or studying or whatever, the merry-go-round will never stop. It doesn't want to just stop. We have to make it stop. Is it even possible? Maybe I just have to hold firm this time and keep our little family here and refuse to let it all start up again. I'm actually really afraid to let it all start up again, otherwise where will we be in ten more years? But maybe by refusing I'm resisting change and not living in the real world. The real world is what? Job markets today are such that you can't just grow up and work in the same small town your whole life. You have to ebb and flow with the economy and change with it. You haven't got a choice.

At least that's the assvice we keep hearing.

Can I just refuse? Can I just get off and rest and wait for Seb to get off too? Maybe it will all work out if we just stop a moment and catch our breath. I really think we both need to catch our breath, sit back and enjoy our surroundings.

Valentine's Day traditions

Tomorrow is Valentine's day. It's a day I really enjoy and love. You see I'm one of those hopeless romantic types, so please don't go squashing my illusions with your ban on Valentine's Day for whatever reason you can think of. I won't buy into it. I like my illusions just fine thank you very much, and I really need them this year with my sweetheart temporarily living a whole two hours away at a job where he's working his very cute butt off. Meanwhile I'm sort of stuck here doing the baby minding part, which in case you didn't know means the routine handling of a byproduct that the Center for Disease Control would gear up in special suit for and only handle with plastic tongs and a large paycheck, ...and yet I have neither. I deserve my illusions.

If Seb were here I don't think we'd be doing a lot for Valentine's Day anyway. We have tended to fall into a routine; roses and perfume for me, and for him chocolate and a special candle lit meal that I've lovingly slaved over all afternoon long. We aren't fond of crowded restaurants and we love our home, so we're both fine to stay at home and eat like kings while we spoil each other with gifts. I don't mind our routine, I find it sweet, and it suits a long term couple well to have a Valentine's Day tradition where they don't have to stress about "what to do to top the year before" because in fact they already know how to do it all very well. Besides lets face it, it's a no brainer for the guys and the girl gets her perfume, right. Everybody's happy.

Because we're apart this week, we'll have our celebration a little off schedule on Thursday night at the prison barrack house in Lyon. And I'll pick out my new perfume at Marionnaud on Saturday afternoon. Any suggestions for a hot new fragrance? Or maybe there's an old favorite? I love perfume shopping!

Six Years

So Seb and I turned around yesterday and discovered ourselves almost beyond our seven year itch. We are beginning to see that we may actually make it beyond what has become our long running joke. What will year seven bring us? Can this mythical couple make it that far? You see, yesterday was our six year anniversary. We celebrated it casually in front of the fire with our feet up, a bottle of champagne poured in crystal anniversary glasses and an array of tasty treats spread out on my favorite gaudy ceramic fish tray that I'd gleaned seven years ago from a rich old lady's garbage in Veyrier, much to Seb's horror.*

When I think of our marriage I have this image in my head of the rain. A blinding gray, drizzly rain and a home movie shot from inside the car recording the flapping of the windshield wipers beating off the slush from the window of our tiny Corsa. Who gets married in January anyway? I wanted to show my family where I was and what the lake looked like, but it was clouded in a mist so deep we may as well have been in Ohio. We were all alone except for our witnesses, my friend Bea and her husband Ben who'd been asked because they were the only people I'd met so far in France. We were licking our wounds from the scuffle, yet another one, between Seb and his parents. They didn't want him to get himself into something he might regret and they told him so. They didn't know me really and who can fault them. I was a little older than their son, already divorced and not only not catholic but not really anything you could find in a religious dictionary. They couldn't pin me down and that bugged them. I guess it still does.

We were a little shell shocked ourselves from our rapid fire courtship. I'd only known Seb a year and a half and I'd been living in France with him for exactly one year, minus the fleeing back home in July to "think things over more clearly." He followed me back and I was glad he did. Home no longer felt like home. Home was in France where I didn't speak the language or understand the culture. And home unfortunately was in the arms of a steely, blue eyed stranger I'd met in a café over a spilled water pitcher.

It's never easy living in a bi-cultural marriage. Things ordinary couples take for granted are often explained in exhausting detail to try to understand each other a little better. It often ends with an abrupt "oh never mind." The language barrier feels insurmountable at times. No matter how fluent you become the communication wall will always be there, not quite letting you relax and be yourself with one another. Arguments and explanations are tiresome. Nothing is ever easy and you try to imagine how really wonderful things could be with this person if only it would be a little easier, If only you were from the same world. These are our daily conclusions anyway. But as we sat by the fire last night and talked about the last six years, we came to another kind of conclusion. Six years has taught us that although it's very difficult being in our situation, and although we spend a hell of a lot of time backpedaling, we have seen that beyond all of the problems and struggles there lies a wonderful world filled with a thousand possibilities no ordinary couple ever gets to experience. We know it takes more work, but we also know that if we love each other enough, if we two can get past all the nagging doubts, emotional upheavals and worrisome differences, almost anything is possible and those things are really, really wonderful in a better than average sort of way.

At least that was our conclusion last night by the light of the fire.

*This has now become his favorite piece of pottery too and he insists on using it at every opportunity. By the way I also got my ironing board from the same woman's garbage. It's a really nice one but it weighs as much as three cinder blocks.

Christmas at home

It's been a long while since we've had Christmas at home and not travelled to see Seb's family over the holidays. This year at the last minute we chose to stay home and ponder all of the things life has suddenly thrown our way, a myriad of goodness in many respects but wrapped in a package of turmoil and tension.

Just for starters--we're moving, Seb is starting his new job in January,* I've just started fertility treatments and our close friends are moving back to the States.** All these things are good things really, but they're as difficult to digest as a really good holiday meal. We're a teensy bit overwhelmed at the moment.

As we sat in front of our new fireplace in front of the first Christmas tree we've had in two years, we discussed the past year and how it's ups and downs had changed us for the better or for the worse. We never expected most of the years events, the move and the problems having a second baby, it seemed like they kind of snuck up on us out of nowhere. But, when we thought about it a little more we concluded that we've always had surprise life altering events like this and when given a choice in situations we often took the difficult of two decisions. By the time a very nice bottle of Saumur was finished we had come to one single conclusion: whatever life throws our way we handle it gracefully as a couple. We hang on. We don't let it destroy us. We build on it and form a stronger marriage. Our foundation is solid and although it's been shaken a few times, we always weather it well when all is said and done.

We couldn't have had a more lovely holiday together, and I don't think we have in years. We sat close by the fire in our two small, overstuffed white sofa chairs while baby S played at our feet. We talked and laughed and ate our way through a minature three star meal of about six or seven little well-planned courses. I'm such a foodie that as soon as we'd decided to stay home and not travel to my in-laws, I ran to the cookbook cupboard to obsess over my shopping list. Here's what we ate, with little fuss on small wooden a table in front of the fire: toasted pine nut spinach dip with walnut breads, fresh cocktail shrimp over ice with avocado slices, coquille st. jacques frisée salad with warm, balsamic vinegar drizzled over top, boudin blanc prepared with cépes and sautéed granny smith apples, cold stuffed salmon, couscous baked herbed stuffing, and finally pecan pineapple cheesecake. The menu sounds extensive but it wasn't really. We ate tiny portions and had the meal over two days, repeating it on Christmas day in the late afternoon. The only headache was of course the cheesecake which leaked out of my new springform pan all over the bottom of my formerly very CLEAN oven. The house filled with smoke and Seb couldn't imagine what could be coming out of the oven that could possibly taste good. It wasn't half bad. He had no complaints when he tasted it and helped himself to two huge pieces.

Oh, I almost forget the wine. Over the last three days we drank a lot of wine, all bottles collected over the last few weeks and some presents left by neighbors and friends. We had two really excellent bottles, one a Crémant d'Alsace from a winery called Wolfberger (68420), and the other an Auxerrois réserve from a winery called Zimmermann which I highly recommend. This one was a gift so we aren't sure about price, but the Wolfberger crémant had a very good quality/price rapport. Well, good at least if you buy it here in France that is. Maybe not so good when exported!


What I appreciated most about this holiday was that we could build on our traditions. Much of French tradition revolves around table fare, not so much the cooking but the preparing and the eating and of course the sitting around a table, children strapped dutifully to their high chairs for several hours while they learn the fine art of eating, and eating and EATING. The food is amazing but the table gets tiring for me and I usually long to escape to an easy chair, feet up with a grandparent on either side to chat with. I have always liked eating a buffet around the tree of things like cinnamon pancakes and sausages, mini omelets, fresh fruit and fresh squeezed juice. I've always wanted to host Christmas showing off how nice it can be to not have an overburdened, highly scheduled meal with too many relatives, but rather a calm, carefully planned menu with people you really want to be with, a funky white elephant gift exchange,**** and lots of fun decorating with real ornaments, made of glass, wood and metal, collected over years and carefully unwrapped each season to place on the tree. I'd like to show off, baking and icing of dozens of sugar cookies and introduce my French family to my wonderful cookie cutter collection which fills an entire drawer. I hope they do come one year. It would be fun.
We did see the family this Christmas thanks to the webcam which we had set up in the living room next to the tree all weekend. All of our family is connected to MSN in their various corners of the world and so we got to see both of our parents, my brother and his dogs, my sister and her new beau, Seb's grandparents and our little French niece and nephew. Everyone was happy to see us and toasted glasses of bubbly with us while we chatted and showed off our newest ornament additions and baby S's computer keyboard bashing skills. It wasn't the same as being all together, but it was the next best thing to it.

Christmas morning was wonderful with baby S finally figuring out that wrapped packages contain delightfully fabulous things. Watching him open gifts was like reliving all the childhood Christmas's I'd ever had. We tried no to overdo the gifts, but when we ran out of them it was actually us who were the diappointed ones. It was so much fun to see his goofy smiles and grins at the novelty of it all. We captured it all on video but neglected to take any photographs. It's really tough balancing being a parent and enjoying the moment and having the responsibility of capturing all the memories on film and tape!

So, all in all a very good Christmas weekend. Besides our fireside chats we spent much of the rest of our time watching all three episodes of the original Star Wars films, one right after the other over the two days. The temptation was too great, a camp bed by the fire in front of the Christmas tree and a great flick. We stretched out on our fluffy down comforter and watched jedi knights battle it out as we sipped our after dinner brandy. In fact this was the best Christmas we've had in years.


*After much inner turmoil he's decided to take the job in Lyon.
**My good friend Bea is leaving in July...forever.
***We have always done white elephant exchanges in my family--it's lots of fun even though it's the epitome of cheesy. We also do a normal gift exchange but the elephant exchange is chaotic and fun with lots of shouting.

A weekend by the lake

Baby S and I seem to be real jetsetters lately. We had long ago promised to catsit/housesit for my good friend Bea. We spent yet another four day weekend in another sort of paradise: Annecy.

My friend Bea and her family live in a georgeous, old, stoney house in a small village neighboring Annecy. I'm as comfortable in her house as my own so it was a weekend full of ease and relaxing fun. Baby S and I watched lots of sattelite tv and cooked lots of little feasts together. We walked by the lake and strolled through the village. We drove to the Col de Forclaz and had the place practically to ourselves except for the scattering of a few late season tourists. Seb addded to the festivities by coming in on the train Friday nght all full of exciting news. More on that later.

If you've never visited Annecy then you must. There's no other place quite so magical, at least in mine and Seb's hearts. This was the city where we first locked eyes and said "what's your name?" "where are you from?" Later we were married there and we always seem to return there somehow one way or another.

In light of Seb's recent news I thought it a little fitting that he should deliver it on the way back from the train station, the lieu of many of our tearful goodbyes and heart stopping hellos. It seems to me at least that this particular train station would make a perfect stage setting for our relationship. So many times we find ouselves at the crossroads of our lives together here.

The weekend ended with a stroll through Talloires. I'll leave you with a picture of the view from the beach where we actually saw several very bold people swimming. Remember it's mid October in the Alps!