The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

Sous le couteau

I don't know if "sous le couteau" is the right expression to use in French, but under the knife I shall be, nonetheless. Tomorrow morning. Ugh. I haven't been posting much lately, not because I've been feeling too sick to blog (actually, the drugs they gave me to tide me over until surgery have been working fairly well), but because I didn't want to keep talking about my stupid gall bladder. I mean, this is not what the focus of my blog is supposed to be: constant whining about personal health issues. B-O-R-I-N-G. Plus, I didn't want to focus too much on the actual surgery. Especially since I really have no other alternative; when the gall bladder is nearly completely blocked up by a big gall stone, this is the ONLY option, and if I try to "let it go a while longer" I will only end up with an infection or even worse. PLUS plus, why suffer when I don't need to, and luckily the gall bladder is an "expendable" organ. So I accept what is, and that this is just what needs to happen. But here I am, the day before (I go into the clinique this afternoon... Read more →

Morning sounds

What you might hear, if you were hanging around our house on a typical Friday morning: alarm clock (always annoying) yawning x 2 adults, annoyed by alarm clock as they snooze for a precious few extra minutes groaning x 2 adults when said annoying alarm clock goes off again 9 minutes later coffee pot gurgling and dripping shower running English muffin popping up in the toaster happy sigh from Georges as he dips his muffin in his coffee loud protests from the Little Guy when his father wakes him up chatter and laughter after the Little Guy is fully awake and eating his breakfast door closing as Georges and Little Guy go off for the day windows opening to let in the fresh morning air me knocking on the salon door to wake up the Oldest because the cleaning lady is coming (he'd sleep there all day if I let him) sound of Little Guy's bedroom door slamming as the Oldest migrates there to finish sleeping all day (whatever) me grumbling under my breath at the state of the salon, which I feel obligated to straighten up a little so the cleaning lady can actually get in there and clean... Read more →

No more "gallic" jokes, please

So, my gall bladder surgery is now scheduled for a week from today, Tuesday June 29th. That was the earliest date I could get, but I'll take it because that still gives me more than a week to recover before we start doing our vacation thing in mid-July (and our 2nd wedding anniversary is July 12th!) The surgery will be done in a "clinique" as opposed to a big city hospital. This is not the same as a medical clinic in the U.S. although they probably do outpatient stuff there as well, but cliniques are common here and they usually are specialized; for example, there are cliniques where you'd go to have a baby. I'll stay there for 2-3 days, assuming they can do the procedure laparoscopically... which they should be able to. However, they always have to prepare you that if there is a complication then they may have to do the more invasive style of surgery which means a longer recovery time. The consultation with the surgeon was fine; he speaks very decent English and seems pleasant enough. I'm taking Georges back with me on Saturday to meet the doctor and so we can do a Q&A about... Read more →

In which I get more intimate with French health care than I would like

So... it is now 8 days since I first started feeling so lousy, and it has been a roller-coaster. While one problem has, shall we say, unblocked itself, there's another one where I'm going to require the professionals to come in and remove the clog from the plumbing. I'm going to have to have my gall bladder out. After, in the course of this week, seeing 2 house-call doctors in the middle of the night and 2 in-office doctors (all different people), getting blood work (also at home, just last night), doing 3 pee-tests, having two different types of sonogram/scans done on my abdomen, and getting ever-increasing levels of pain and anti-spasmodic medication (and two shots in the ass for pain by the house-call dudes), it turns out that I have a whopping big gall stone of 24mm (just shy of 1 inch), and that's not going to just go away all by itself. The current course of action is to try and get my gall bladder to calm down and relax. So... lots of rest and drugs for me for the next week. When my body is calmer, I'll get a referral to a specialist to discuss having the... Read more →

Malade. Really, really malade.

I've been sick since Friday evening. Really, REALLY sick. And not with anything "usual". It's not la Gastro, it's not the cold, it's not the flu (H1N1 or other variety). Both sharp AND constant strong pain in the upper abdomen and under my left rib cage radiating to my back makes it impossible to sleep for more than 1-2 hours at a stretch. Which means my husband isn't getting much rest at night either, what with me tossing and turning and moaning. And I'm not a moaner by nature (no "Mona Lisa" jokes, please). This is the worst pain I've ever had after the time I fell and snapped my leg and ankle in three places. There are other symptoms I won't bore you/gross you out with. But I have been absolutely miserable for going on 5 days now. I don't use that word "miserable" lightly, so you can just imagine. I finally broke down (and I mean that literally, as in sobbing with the pain and exhaustion) on Sunday night, and by 5am Monday morning I could bear it no longer and we called the SOS Medecin for a house call. He prescribed some things and wrote me an... Read more →

What love really looks like

Georges just came back from the hardware store, where he and the Little Guy had gone to get some things we need in the new apartment. They were gone for a little more than 3 hours, including having some lunch together, and I was starting to wonder if something had happened, as the store isn't far away. Finally they arrived, with a big box on the folding cart... and a few other things. There were brackets for hanging more shelves in the big closet, which we hope will resolve some of the issues we have with space for our own things AND to give the older "kids" a place to park some of their stuff when they're here... instead of that stuff being spread out all over the apartment wherever they happen to drop it. This has been a sore spot for me, the lack of picking up after themselves, but at the same time if we don't give them a PLACE to put things, how can we demand that they put them "away", right? So hopefully, this will help and everyone (mostly meaning ME) will be happy. There were a couple of light fixtures that we're going to try... Read more →

Hello, Ms. Nose? Meet Mr. Grindstone

In other words... Lisa, get your lazy butt back to work and go write your book! My lovely two-week visit with my family and friends is over. I've caught up on at least some of the laundry backlog. I did the food shopping so no one will starve or have to go without their daily ration of sugary treats (plus there are the three ginormous bags of Jelly Bellies we brought back with us). Kids have been hugged and kissed and talked to, and gifts distributed. I do have to take time out tomorrow to get a haircut and visit with a dear friend, we are not 100% done with all our unpacking and organizing at Chez New/Nous, and we are trying to track down what happened to that new coffee table we paid for back on April 17th that never got delivered along with the other things we bought from the same store on the same day. But otherwise, there is no reason I shouldn't be writing. For at least a couple of hours. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Until the book is finished. And I've given myself until the end of September to do that. So today, I start. Or... Read more →

Mine is bigger than yours

A certain American ex-pat blogger (who shall remain nameless) has a certain Apple-worshiping (and très beau) French husband (who shall also remain nameless) who told her the following anecdote this morning, nearly causing said blogger to snort coffee out of her nose. French husband was having lunch with his colleagues. They were debating the merits of the new iPad versus the iPod Touch. French husband bought an iPad while on a recent trip to Canada, so he was pretty much the first kid on the office block to have the new toy and it is the talk of the water cooler. Most colleagues have been suitably impressed. One colleague, however, said that he didn't see the point of the iPad, really; he thought it was just a bigger version of the iPod Touch. So he figured, what's the point? What's so great or different about this iPad thingie, other than it being bigger? French husband pauses, thinks, and then replies: "That is like saying that all bites* are the same. Sure, the basic functionality of all bites are roughly the same, but in practical application, une petite bite is not quite the same as une grosse bite. " Momentary silence... Read more →

Any Anglophone nannies out there in Paris?

If you're in Paris: a French friend of ours is seeking an Anglophone nanny for her 2 little boys starting September. NOT a live-in position. Boys are 7 and 3 and the youngest starts maternelle this year, so it's for after school 4 days per week plus Wednesdays. I know the boys very well and they're adorable, awesome kids; the mother is half French and half Canadian, speaks English, and wants the boys to become more bilingual. Family lives in the 18th, near metro line 4/Marcadet or line 12/Jules Joffrin. A student looking for a part-time job would be perfect. Interested parties can email me at [email protected] and I'll put them in touch with my friend. Read more →

In which I get groped by airport security on one flight, and nearly assaulted by a fellow traveler on another

I could have just called this post "Air travel really sucks these days" and it would have been just as true, but that wouldn't have caught anyone's attention, now would it? But I'm not even being overly dramatic when I say that I long for the "good old days" of air travel, where you and your suitcase could just walk through a brief security check and then right onto the plane with NO DRAMATICS WHATSOEVER. I used to love to fly. Twenty-plus years ago, I found myself in a job where I had to travel about 5 or 6 times a year to our other corporate locations in the U.S., and once I even got a 2-week trip to Germany. I used to look forward to those trips, not for the work itself but for the experience of going somewhere on a plane (and on that one trip to Germany, I even got to travel in style, on business class). I used to love picking up someone at the airport, when you as a non-traveler could go through that same basic security check and then meet your loved one right at the gate as they came off the jetway. What... Read more →