About to be Reunited!

          Long distance relationships (LDRs) can be hard.  But if you find yourself separated from your loved one, you can find lots of advice on the internet.  Like these tips from Stargurl92:

Yes, LDRs require lots of compermises.

          But after three weeks, Averil and Ed will be reunited on Saturday.  Then our LDR will be a NDR (No Distance Relationship) again.  The only question is: will the French authorities allow Ed back in to the country.  Remember, he left without having his physical examination and obtaining his special seal.  We know you are hanging on this cliffhanger.

Market Day in Nyons

Today my parents and I took in the market in Nyons, the next town to the north.  Lovely.  Beautiful, beautiful sun.  Yes, I am soaking it all up for my Seattle friends and sending sun-warmed vibes to you.

Saucissons, a regional specialty

Provencal pottery

Honey vendor

My dad keeps us in good olive suppy . . .

Cheese, cheese and more cheese!

That's right: urchins!

Give a gal provencal food, and she's going to want a tabecloth to go with it.

Hard to tear ourselves away, but there's always next week!

That's Ivy!

We are pretty pleased with our new pup!  She can be so darling.  When she stays at home with me during the day, she pretty much sleeps and lays around and let's me work.  Good dog.  When she really gets wound up, those little teeth are everywhere and it's hard to get away.  The kids scream for help.  Bad dog.  She doesn't like to leave the yard, and we really have to drag, prod or carry her to get her off the block.  Bad dog.  But when we get to town, she is adorably interested in everything, and sits down under our cafe table to pass the cafe time.  Good French dog.  Today she went missing-- through a hole in the hedge.  Bad dog.  She has warded off various "strangers" in our yard: an out of place garbage can, and an errant bottle of gaz for the stove, waiting to be re-filled.  She really gave those intruders an ear full.  Good dog?  Anyway, it's never a dull day with Ivy.  And she finds the most interesting places to sleep . . .

Ivy went to the horse stables

In the car, Ivy rides in a booster. . .   ;-)

She won't fit here much

maman et fille

 Bye-bye!

To Averil: Where Is Our Update? We Want Our Update!

- From Your Fans

Ram a car, have a good week

I took Ed to the Marseille airport last weekend.  Or rather, he drove on the way down.  While we were waiting in line to go through the tollbooth, the car in front of us rolled backward at a very slow pace and bumped our bumper.  Right before impact, Ed was waving his hands and honking the horn, and the people were oblivious, until the 14 year old in the back seat looked back just in time for the impact.  He had no perspective on the direction of the motion.  These people thought we had rammed them!  They got out and looked at their car and gave us funny looks, and the people next to us in line who had seen the whole thing were laughing their heads off and commiserating with us that these folks did not understand what had happened.  As they paid their toll in front of us and drove off, the 14 year old gave us the bird.  It was a French bird, but "the bird" is "the bird" in any language.  I did not consider this a very auspicious sign for Ed's departure.  Luckily, things have been going well.

First, I outsmarted a functionary.  It has never happened before that I could anticipate what might be required, or show up with the right papers, seals and identity cards, or see how a paperwork snafoo would work itself out.  These mysterious things cannot be foreseen.  You cannot know how anything works.  You might, for example, wonder what is happening with the processing of your French visa that occurs once you arrive in France, and wonder what rights you have and whether, for example, your husband can leave France and come back before he gets called to visit a French doctor and receive a special seal to go in his passport on his Visa, and if wondering this, you might email the email address provided in your paperwork, and someone might respond, though only partially, so you might reply with the rest of your question, and since you got one response, you might expect another.  And when that is not forthcoming from the person who originally responded to you, you might try the general email again and think that someone will respond.  But they won't.  No.  You got one response.  That is apparently enough.  You remain in the dark.  You might book your husband's trip and cross your finders and hope that when your husband arrives next at Charles De Gaulle airport for entry into France, he will be admitted.  But that is a story for another day.  The day of October 22 to be exact.  Stay tuned.

So, knowing that you are mostly in the dark, if you have turned in your paperwork for your car registration, and then you get a letter asking you to come in to the mayor's office and bring your marriage license (this document is much needed in France, though I have never in my life used it in America) because your name and the name on the documents showing who owns your house do not match up, you might just go in and wait to be told x, y and z, and leave and try to comply with x, y, and z, as the licensing process runs on and your temporary insurance and registration are about to expire.  OR, you might realize that they think your husband is on the house paperwork, when it is really your mother ("Joan" is not a well known name in France, and the gender is mysterious), and that what you REALLY need is your mother, who happens to be in town, and an attestation from your mother that you are living in her house.  So you MIGHT draft that attestation and take it and your mother to the mayor's office.  And you probably expect that is not going to go easily, that it will take about an hour, and that you will leave without successfully having finished the paperwork.  If you think this, and I did, imagine the surprise awaiting when you have foreseen everything EXACTLY CORRECTLY, and the attestation IS SUFFICIENT, and your mother's passport (which you also brought with you OF COURSE) is copied and she signs the perfectly sufficient attestation, and you leave the mayor's office with the paperwork complete in UNDER FIVE MINUTES.  Imagine!  That's enough to make you go have a beer in the town square.  You have extra time, since you budgeted one hour.

That is my major success since Ed left for a place where he speaks the language, he bargains for the cars, the weight-lifting equipment meets his expectations and he can withdraw money from his bank at any time without any type of justication whatsoever.  Gee, I sure hope he comes back.

The rest of our week will be told in pictures.

Meals:

Peppers Stuffed with Sausage

Salade Nicoise

Around home:

Playing in the yard

In the vineyard behind the house

Averil & Nana

Around Town:

Pont Romain

Asha at the Cafe

Pops at the Cafe

French Playdate:

Camille et Asha, and the cake Camille brought to share for lunch (that's Nutella frosting).

Horsing:

Ford sur "Bisous"

Asha sur "Peche"

Ivy, still cute as a button:

"Hi Daddy.  Please come back to France soon! I'm always looking around for you."

Averil, Please Post!

          As you know, Averil's been handed the blog baton for a while since Ed has returned to Seattle to do some work. 

          Averil, don't keep the people waiting!  

          I know they don't want to hear about my trip from France to Seattle and how I had to go through the metal detector twice at the Marseille airport since I forgot to take off my belt the first time through.  (It was sooo embarassing!).  Then, when I got on the plane I sat in seat 24G next to a man who smelled heavily of alcohol.  That was not a big deal as the first leg was only a 90 minute flight.  Then, when I got to Paris I waited in line for the security screen for a long time.  When I was almost to the front, they started a new line and all the people in the middle and back got to go to the front of the new line.  I was so mad!  But the people don't want to hear this, they want to hear what's happening in France.  That's where the real interest lies, Averil. So please do a blog post so I don't have to tell the people about the terrible thing that happened to me on the second leg of the journey from Paris to Seattle.  You see, I was sitting in seat 45J near the rear of the plane.  And they asked me if I wanted chicken or pasta for dinner.  Naturally, I chose chicken and set my expectations accordingly.  But when the flight attendant looked in the wagon, she said they were all out of chicken.  I had to have the pasta, even though it wasn't my first choice.  I was upset for a while, then I said to myself, "oh well."  Then I watched three movies.  In order, they were:  Super-8 (a bit of a dissapointment); The Hangover Part II (very vulgar and hilarious); and Battle: Los Angeles (surprisingly good!).  I also finished reading a book, which I've forgotten the name of right now.  But no one wants to hear these boring details, they want to hear from you Averil!  So give us an update. Oh, and I was sitting next to a man who looked like Mikhail Baryshnikov.  He was nice, but he had a runny nose and a sore throat so I switched seats.  Then we landed, and there was a huge coinncidence.  It happened like this:  I went through customs, and the agent who checked my passport had a name tag that said his name was Descolleti, so he was obviously Italian.  Not more than 10 minutes later, I saw on the airport TV screen that an Italian court had freed Amanda Knox!  It was so weird.  But none of this is interesting Averil.  The people who check this blog want to know what is happening in France.  So please do a blog post.  Or I will have to tell how I took the train into downtown Seattle and about the discussion I witnessed on the train between fans of opposing baseball teams.  Seems that one of them was a St. Louis Cardinals fan, and the other was a Chicago White Sox fan . . . .

Trading Places

          Now it's time to trade places for a while. 

          On Friday afternoon, Averil's parents, Joan and Drew, arrived from the U.S.!  They will stay for most of October.  Everyone was glad to see them, and not just because they brought three large jars of organic peanut butter (two crunchy, one creamy). 

          We got rid of most of the large bugs before they arrived.

          Then they were here!  Here's exclusive video of Joan and Drew meeting Asha at school on the afternoon they arrived.  (Stop watching after 25 seconds or so.  I tried to edit the rest out, but the editing didn't work).

          Ford didn't make it on the video . . . he came out too late, and by then the camera was low on batteries, but he was happy to see them too.
          We had a nice dinner the first evening to celebrate their arrival in Vaison la Romaine.

          Meanwhile, on Monday, Ed will be returning to Seattle for a few weeks.  Here's a photo of Ed's reaction when Averil told him about the upcoming 6:00 a.m. flight from Marseille to Seattle:

          Averil is taking over all blog duties for a while.

          Oh, and before we forget, here's a quick soccer update:  We are totally confused!

          You see, Asha has been part of a soccer team for a few weeks.  In fact, Averil has been recruited to be an assistant coach, which is a great honor.  We were advised by the coach that today (Saturday) would be the first game.  We were told to meet the team near the home field at about 9:00 a.m. and then we would carpool to the nearby town of Sainte Cecile for the match.  Here's a picture of Asha with some of her teammates:

          We figured we'd be home well before lunch. 

          What we didn't understand was that this was not just a soccer game.  Only when we arrived did we discover that it was a huge soccer jamboree of sorts that was expected to last the entire day.  There were hundreds of people there.  It was in a pretty big stadium and involved at least 15-20 teams from all the towns in the region.  The teams were to play multiple matches all morning, then everyone would eat the big lunches they knew to bring, drink beer, socialize, and resume the matches for the balance of the afternoon. 

          This came as a surprise.  We were ill prepared, having brought no food whatsoever, having brought our 10-week old puppy, and having other plans for the afternoon (horsing) that we could not miss.  It was, as Phil Collins famously sung, a "misunderstanding."  But everyone was very pleasant and then Averil nearly fainted from the heat and had to take a knee during a conversation with some other parents.  This gave us the perfect excuse to leave the jamboree early.

          We came home and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.