WHEW! I am taking a few minutes to actually sit down and blog, in the midst of a very busy few days.
We had the Little Guy with us this weekend, plus both the older kids, in a 2-bedroom apartment. The three kids took turns sleeping in the Little Guy's room, on the canape-lit or on an air mattress; we are still experimenting with how all of us can comfortably co-exist in a smaller space, at least for the next few months when the "olders" will be preparing to move out, l'Architecte into a roommate-share here in Paris, and la Fille into an apartment out of town (if she ends up going to school out of town, which she really wants to do, but must wait until July/August for results from her bac/college board tests until anything is officially decided). One thing is already clear; we must spring for a second sofa-bed for our very large salon; the air mattress thing is no one's favorite. So, we'll take care of that when we get back.
Get back? Oh, yes... Georges and I are away from Paris for the next TWO weeks. He just left for the airport for his flight to Montreal, and I leave at 6:30am tomorrow for my flight to New Jersey, will Georges will join me the following Tuesday. We stay there until the weekend of June 5/6, but we fly home separately, too -- he on Saturday the 5th and me on Sunday the 6th. I was at the mercy of my frequent flyer-miles, which allowed me to fly on the cheap.
This weekend, with the help of the kids, we (they) painted some crappy-looking old wooden shelves that used to be in our laundry room/pantry, and they look great, so we used them for bookshelves. We were able to unpack more than 2/3 of our books, and MY books are FINALLY on display and at my fingertips alongside all the French-language books Georges has collected for many years (only 40% of his entire library is here in the apartment; the rest is in storage as there is NO room for all of those books in this place). We unpacked the DVDs and put them in another shelf unit; we need to buy something for the CDs as there is a very extensive collection of those, too.
So, we're getting there, but we're not done. The Parents room requires some new furniture (dress or armoire) so for now about half my clothes are in boxes, and I have no where to put many of my important papers and things for my work. That, too, will have to wait until June. And somewhere along the line, Conforama seems to have lost the coffee table we ordered and paid for; they never delivered it with the stove, sofa-bed and microwave, and although we were expecting it the following week after that delivery, we have not received so much as a phone call about it, so we figure it's "lost" in their system. We'll have to wait until we get back to argue with them about it.
The older kids will be staying here in our absence and I am hoping the "ABSOLUTELY NO PARTIES" ultimatum will stick, this time around. There are a lot of elderly people living in our building and I don't want to start off here with all of them hating us as neighbors. We gave them permission to have a couple of friends over for dinner or drinks but no more than 5 guests at a time in the house, and keep the music down to a reasonable level. We'll see how that works out.
I ran around this morning, which is a government holiday in France, trying to get one of my prescriptions refilled, because I will run out while in NJ and it's the most important one, the one for my high blood pressure so I can't skip it. The problem is, while I found several pharmacies open, I did NOT find a single one carrying this prescription, which for some reason is very common in America but rarely prescribed at this low dosage here in France, so most of the time the pharmacy needs to order it for me to pick up the next day. My regular pharmacist now knows I'm a regular, and she keeps on on hand for me at all times (she's fabulous!) but her store is closed on Mondays. (Yeah, I know... I should have planned ahead.) This means I will have to call my old doctor in New Jersey and see if he'll phone in a small RX for me to get me through the last few days until I can get home and get to the regular pharmacy for a full refill. Luckily we're talking about maybe 5-7 pills at full cost without insurance, so it won't be too bad. Unless my doctor insists on seeing me in his office, then add an additional $75 for a 10-minute office visit plus an hour and 15 minutes of drive time, round trip. How do you say, "Pain in the ass" in French?
After I got home from my unproductive errand, and Georges came home from dropping Little Guy off at his mom's, we had one more thing to do before Georges could pack and leave for the airport -- I gave him a haircut! First time I've ever cut a man's hair, and we were both pretty happy with how it came out. He tried getting into his regular place on Saturday but they were booked up, and he really needed a cut especially with his week of business meetings in Montreal. It came out well enough that he may want me to do it all the time, which is really sweet and kind of fun for me. I just hope I don't fuck it up next time!
So... he's on his way to the airport and I'm taking a breather... before I have to get to the rest of my own list of things to do, find and pack before I can fall into bed exhausted tonight. Plus I think a friend of mine from New York is dropping by this afternoon at some point, to see the apartment and visit with me for a bit; she arrived just today, but I'm leaving, so not much girlfriend time on this go-round.
Are you as exhausted from reading this as I am from living it? You should be. I need a nap just from typing it.
