Murphy's Law

19th breakdown

At least the countryside is lovely here, just outside Gilles, but, as the saying goes, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, and today was one of those days when at least the breeder and I should just not have gotten out of bed.

Oh, and the pregnant woman at Truffaut who cut her foot open with God knows what putting her shopping cart away and wound up with a shoe full of blood.

The best was when I told the employee who thought first aid amounted to standing next to her with her hand on the woman's shoulder that she really should be lying down with her feet elevated above her head, and the employee turned to glare at me and said, "I called the rescue squad. She doesn't want to lie down, what do you want me to do? Throw her on the floor?"

My, that was defensive and uncalled for now, wasn't it? It is also, I thought rather sadly, fairly French. Perhaps those of you reading over in the States will tell me that, even sadder, it is this way everywhere now that stupid and uneducated is in.

I suggested that she was responsible for providing proper first aid care and assuming the consequences, not the pregnant woman standing there bleeding all over the store's linoleum flooring saying she's fine, really. She wasn't fine, really. You treat for shock, débile. Alright, so I didn't say she was "débile", but I hoped she understood it, and I left. I had a puppy to pick up. I had stopped at Truffaut for puppy food and a toy for the car ride home, since the order for her holistic, non-grain, super-duper premium, this-has-better-not-give-her-cancer dog food hasn't arrived yet, and I was on my way to go get her. The sun was shining, the fields were glowing, I had escaped the heavy Friday afternoon traffic for the country roads, and I was still playing over and over in my head what I ought to have said to that unpleasant woman.

No, you oughtn't have, my better self told me. I obviously wasn't listening because the sentences I could have pronounced in return kept running through my head. I was even saying them in an undertone.

"Stop," I told myself, not my best self, but the other one who does go on. "You left. It's over."

The sentences I did not utter continued to repeat for a few more minutes, and then, mercifully, I found that I had listened. I had actually seen a horrendously ugly and out of place wood house that looked like a cross between a log cabin, a chalet and a contemporary developer house, and my mind had a new bone to chew.

That's what happens when they tell you wood houses like in the US are in, and you refuse to design them. That's what you get. See? Myself was at it again. If my husband feels he is an unfair recipient of this editorializing, well, what about me?

I drove on through the villages, Menerville, Perdreauville, Bréval and Neauphlette, and then --

What was that? asked myself, alarmed.

I listened. There was a clanking noise, like something metallic was bouncing and banging along on the pavement under the car. The window was down and I leaned my head toward the outside to see if it were perhaps coming from the field or the railroad track to my left. It sounded like it was coming from under the car. I slowed. I listened. It slowed. I passed under the railroad trestle and the noise grew louder. I slowed to a stop and opened the door, leaning out to look under the car, and that's when I saw the steam and cut off the engine. The heat gage did not appear to be elevated, but there was definitely steam or smoke whistling out from under the hood of the car, and radiator fluid spreading into a thick green puddle under the front end.

"Tu l'as peut-être foutu," said my husband, reassuringly, when I got him tracked down at the hospital, while waiting for the tow truck I'd called. The dealership was expecting us.

"Je ne pense pourtant pas," I said. I know when you have to pull over and how not to blow the head gasket, merci beaucoup. "Et Monsieur Lecorre ne le pense pas non plus. Il sait qu'elle a fait ce bruit, et il pense que c'est plutôt la pompe à eau."

So there. And then, my cell phone battery went dead.

I had been on the phone with the breeder, who told me that when she thought that all the remaining puppies were out of the woods, a black female had died, one of the two that were chosen before I got there and reserved the remaining one. She had called the new owners and announced the sad news, offering them the remaining little chocolate female, at no additional cost, but her losses were mounting fast for one day. Strangely, my little girl had been the smallest of the three black females, and she hadn't been chosen, but now, the breeder told me, she is one of the biggest and strongest, growing fast and one of the ones to escape all misfortune.

"Oui, c'est nous qui sommes en train de vivre tous ses malheurs à sa place!"

Anyway, it just goes to show you how little you can tell at 4 weeks. Perhaps this one is blessed, if Baccarat was not.

But, as far as the car goes, we had just had the radiator replaced in May, but not the water pump, and when I finally opened the hood, preferring not to scald my hands, since this had been such a banner day already, I saw the ventilator blades at a rogue angle. The guy from the tow truck looked at it when he arrived.

"Et oui, c'est bien probablement la pompe à eau. Voyez comment c'est de travers?" Yes, I nodded, I had seen how it was crooked, and I felt very much relieved and vindicated. "Elle démarre?" he asked.

I looked through the window of the car and considered how best to reply. I had not actually tried to start the car again, since I hadn't seen any earthly purpose and several risks in doing that.

"Je pense, oui, je veux dire, pourquoi pas?" He nodded and turned the key, and she started right up, clanging away like an old jalopy. He put her in reverse and drove it back to the truck bed and then hit the accelerator to take it back up the 10% slope, if it weren't more, radiator fluid flowing freely from the front end and more steam starting to waft up past the radiator grill.

"He has to know what he's doing," I told myself, and myself nodded weakly, feeling a little bit not so good.

We drove back the exact route I had come, Truffaut being practically next to the BMW dealership, where the arrival of our old wagon on the tow truck certainly made a "tache" compared to all those newer vehicles the owners of which were actually able to drive into the parking lot. I reflected on the likelihood that we would never be able to afford anything in the used car building they had recently completed, especially if I keep on buying dogs, hoping we would not be in any great need any too soon.

Monsieur Lecorre greated me, warmly as usual, despite the fact that we have not made a recent purchase of a newer car, and I asked him to call me a taxi.

"Bien sur, je le ferai tout de suite, comme ça, vous perdrez un minimum de temps." But I was thinking of Frédéric, who I had seen putting the motorcycles away next door and getting ready to close up shop and head home, to Moosesucks.

"Savez, je me demande si je ne ferais pas mieux de demander à Fred s'il ne pourrait pas me ramener à la maison," I said.

"Mais bien sur,"said Monsieur Lecorre.

"Mais bien sur!"said Fred.

And 3 hours after leaving the house, I was home. Tomorrow, I will get Fia in the Fiat.

"Ha!" laughed the breeder, "the Fiat. C'est plutôt parfait ça!"

"Et oui," I laughed with her, "sauf que c'est beaucoup moins adapté sans arrière."

"Oh, vous la mettrez aux pieds du passager, et quand elle essayera de bouger, vous lui direz 'non', et elle va finir par comprendre et s'endormir."

I'm not so certain, but who knows. She's survived the weaning crisis, and she's growing faster than the others, maybe she'll be a quick study, too.

Sam's got the PSG soccer ball all ready.
....

Lurching to a halt, or diesel and gasoline just don't mix

20 liters, diesel and gas mix

"Sam, put the car in the right gear. Please."

"Mom! It is," he said, looking frantically at the shift stick.

"It can't be." We nearly stalled, the old Fiat Uno jerking forward from the green light. We continued to the traffic circle and turned right to head towards home. He shifted from second to third, or -- "Sam, shift. What's going on?" He was getting upset now.

"I don't know --" he said, looking again at the shift stick, loose on the Fiat, but. I was perfectly baffled. He usually does just fine, but this was a mess. The car bucked at the second speed bump by the school.

"Stop the car. Here."

"I am." The gears of my brain were working overtime, trying to figure out what was going on with him, or --

"Sam, what did you put in the car?" We had just filled the tank up. Sam always does it himself when he is driving.

"Gas." The universal term for the liquid that makes a car run.

"Gas or diesel fuel?" Did I really need to ask? The car had just lurched to a halt.

"95." I put my head in my hands and breathed. The Fiat is a diesel, our only diesel. I sat very, very quietly. Right before I left with him, we had had the BMW argument again; Audouin doesn't want him to drive the 328i. I do.

His reasons? We'll kill Sam if he has an accident driving because we could never replace this car for anywhere near the price we paid. We got really lucky. My reasons? Put a good car in the hands of someone learning to drive while you are sitting next to them, teaching, and they will learn to drive responsibly, if they are not a hopelessly spoiled brat.

His reasons? It's a propulsion, and if you don't have a lot of experience driving them, you are more likely to lose control. My reasons? If you don't learn to drive a propulsion, you won't learn how to master it, and you are more likely to lose control when you do drive one.

His reasons? The Fiat is just fine. My reasons? A good car teaches good feeling at the wheel and better reactions, leading to mastery. His reasons? The Fiat is less powerful, ergo safer. My reasons? The BMW is more powerful, you learn what the power is really for: not to go fast, but to maneuver for increased safety.

Why else would we have bought such a car?

And, so, here we were, sitting side by side in perfect silence, I thinking about how to tell Audouin that Sam had just filled the tank, gas lines and carburetor with gasoline; Sam in perfect silence of the body and mouth. He might have been thinking as loudly as I was, but he kept it to himself.

Audouin arrived with several containers for the diesel and gas mix and a length of garden hose to siphon it. He looked fit to kill. Well, stern, anyway.

"Ben, j'espère qu'elle n'est pas foutue," he said, unloading the gas cans from the BMW.

"Sam, now," I urged. It was time to voice the apology I had encouraged. Apologies are not Sam's strong suit.

"I am," he hissed at me. "Audouin, je suis désolé." Incomplete, but better than nothing. It was at least spoken in an audible voice and with sincerity.

"Ca va, Sam. On pourrait tous faire ça, mais c'est la faute de ta mère." Hunh? "Elle aurait du surveiller." No problem, Sam, we can all make the same mistake. It's your mother's fault, really. She should have been paying attention. I took a deep cleansing breath and chose not to react. Besides, it wasn't the time to argue with him; he was kneeling down, sucking on the end of the hose, trying to get the vacuum effect going. He spat. "Blech. J'ai la bouche et le nez pleins d'essence. Blech." He spat again. I remained quiet and called our friends.

We were supposed to be on our way to les Andelys for dinner soon, and Thierry has mechanical friends. Not that Audouin isn't mechanical. He is. He was just in an humeur noire. Thierry also does endurance motor cycle trips. He called his friend and called me back.

"Elle est de quelle année?"

"1994."

"C'est bien. Les modèles plus récents sont beaucoup plus sousceptible dans ce cas. Voilà ce qu'il faut faire." He explained we needed to empty the tank, undo the gas line, clean the fuel filter and start the car to drain the fuel line, then add diesel fuel.

"Ca n'a pas l'aire trop méchant." My battery died.

"Non, mais il faut avoir les outils," muttered Audouin. "La dernière fois j'ai essayé de travailler sur cette voiture, je n'avais pas ce qu'il fallait." I could hear the injury to the Italian engineers intended. Hey, it's cheap and still running after 15 years and more than 200,000 km.

"Alors, tu pousse avec la BM, et on la laisse chez le garagiste."

"J'espère qu'elle ne va pas nous ruiner."

Not quite.

We picked the Fiat up this morning. 35 euros, off the books, including 10 liters of diesel fuel to get us going. The trim for the BMW grill plate he broke pushing will cost us more than Sam's -- oh, excuse me, my mistake.

Unless the super glue and wire work.

Sh. He doesn't know he did it. I don't think.
....

The age of aquarius: he remembered

I awoke at 7:30 this morning, the littler cat in my arms, Audouin's hand on my chest where it had come to rest in his sleep, and the sun shining beyond the sheet hung in the window to keep the eyes of the workers from penetrating the privacy of our room, and when I came down after Audouin had gone to the hospital, I found the note above and the following in my email in-box:

At dawn on 14th February the day dedicated to St. Valentine, the patron saint of Love, the Moon in Libra enters the seventh house of relationships. And Jupiter and Mars are aligned in Aquarius in the twelfth house of spiritual transformation.

Forty years ago, the intuitive words of a song called Aquarius brought the dawning of the new age into our collective awareness:

When the Moon is in the seventh house
and Jupiter aligns with Mars.
Then love will rule the planets
and peace will steer the stars

At dawn on 14th February the Cosmos actually embodies this perfect alignment to support our collective manifestation of love and peace and dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

The Aquarian chart of 14th February reveals an incredible concentration of cosmic influences blending with the energies of Aquarius in the twelfth house. Expansive Jupiter and energetic Mars are aligned with the higher purpose of the North Node. The presence of Chiron the wounded healer offers us the opportunity to heal the schisms that have separated us for so long. Neptune emphasizes collective humanitarian movements and the co-creation of social justice. And the presence of the radiant Sun enlightens the entire alignment.

Mercury also in the twelfth house but just beyond the cusp in Capricorn, allies with transformational Pluto to communicate and anchor the Shift throughout our global structures and institutions.

The Moon in Libra in the seventh house emphasizes harmonious relationships.

Venus in Aries in the first house energizes and empowers dynamic co-creativity.

And whilst Saturn the great task master in opposition to Uranus the unexpected awakener is suggesting an ongoing confrontation as the dregs of the unsustainable old paradigm reluctantly give way to the untested hope of the new, their placements in Virgo and Pisces brings practical altruism and visionary inspiration to the transition.

At 7.25am on 14th February - and f or the 18 minutes of the alignment, I invite you, in the universal heart, to add your own intention f or love and peace and to co-create the dawning of the Age of Aquarius to that of the Cosmos.

Hair, the film -- 1979

Maybe the Age of Aquarius was really dawning when we sang along in Susan Lowitz's split-level ranch playroom in 1968, second-graders liberated by song. We graduated high school in 1979, and the musical will be revived in March in this Age of Aquarius, in the year a man with a black father and a white mother took the oath of office as president of the United States, 2009.

I am a Libra. My husband is Aries, ruled by the planet Mars. Maybe we are entering, despite the conflicting signs in the pyrotechnics of our relationship, a time of harmony and understanding,
sympathy and trust abounding.

Then, there is the reconnection to our half-sister, our father's third daughter, bringing a brother-in-law and three nephews (I chatted with 4-year-old Colin, my little twin, on Facebook, "efskjdah fsifsoeh ehsoien"). Elizabeth will see her Monday, after 43 years. I will see her in May, when the peonies are in bloom in the beds at the edge of the top terrace. This was never considered possible, but she says she has been smiling this past week, and that "it has made [her] very happy". I don't use words like "happy", although I do smile. Maybe I will.

How can one doubt now that we are in the Age of Aquarius? Call the astronomers.

I'd like to take the other thing I found when I came downstairs as a sign. There it is, at the top of the post. It only looks like general conditions of repair and payment for the BMW garage. It is actually a Valentine's Day card.

You can tell by the heart and the words, "Valentine's Day".

It is a love note.

You can tell from the words, "I love you".

A very subtle Valentine's Day love note. So subtle that if Wisp hadn't been sitting on it when I stopped to give her a good morning pet, I might have missed it, although I do doubt that I would have put it away without seeing the heart drawn with my O.3 drawing pen on the back of the repair bill for the repairs after the attempted theft of the poor old BMW.

Pst? Have you signed the Courage Campaign petition to invalidate Prop 8, Ken Starr's appalling attack on the gay couples who married in California between May and November 2008, divorcing them? The deadline has been extended; you have until March 2 now, but why not sign today, Valentine's Day?


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.


I resume my story.

I didn't remind him when he left for his day and night on duty at the hospital. I only reminded him that it is his godson Hugues' birthday. 19.

"Oui, j'essayerai de l'appeler de l'hôpital, et ce fut l'anniversaire d'Aude avant hier."

"J'espère que tu as pensé de l'appeler," dis-je, a tiny bit mockingly, thinking to match very considerately his feelings for his first wife.

(Je suis désolée, Aude, mais c'est vrai. Il y a des choses que vous n'auriez pas du faire, et dire. Vous le savez, je le sais.)

"Non, je n'y ai pas pensé." He sounded too normal. There was no mocking. He'd have called his first wife to wish her a happy birthday? The story of the years following their marriage explain why that wouldn't come immediately to mind. I was confused. Aude. Hugues. Godson. Aude... Goddaughter.

"Ah, ça serait gentil de l'appeler, quand-même." I didn't miss a beat. Morning sluggishness of thought covers many things. The world made sense again.

"On ne fêtes pas son anniversaire à jamais quand on devient grand." I thought of those who love to celebrate their birthdays at 50 and gone.

"Ce n'est pas vrai. Les Floris ne fêtent pas les leurs, et ne l'ont jamais fait. Ce n'est pas la même chose." Audouin and his sister put their feet down. No birthday parties. Not even the 50th. I lost on Audouin's 50th. The friends carried the day. I hadn't been around long enough, even though I knew many of them as far back as when he was still married to Aude (the other one). The proof was when my brother-in-law put his foot down in the case of his wife's 40th last year, and the email frenzy that ressembled the French massing in the streets to demonstrate another projet de loi -- Non à pas de fête! Non à pas de fête! -- very suddenly ceased. He'd been around long enough, fathered their four children, tended the seasonal pruning needs of his parent's-in-law's two properties' gardens (and I'm stretching the word for the one in the southwest) to put his foot down and not receive collective punishment of our many friends and large family.

But, that's not really true from the one family photo album I finally saw at my in-law's house at New Year's. My mother-in-law has rarely had a camera, battery and film in the same place at the same time for the important occasions, so this album seemed something like a miracle. A series of baby photos and first birthdays, with a growing number of older siblings surrounding the baby in front of the cake. I had looked for give-away traits in the one-yea- old faces to see if I could tell which baby it was from the adult I know, without reading the caption, or identifying the siblings present, either. I couldn't.

And, my husband does not celebrate Valentine's Day. I am not sure he has ever left a "mot" [note] to mark the occasion. That's so American. So Hallmark. So commercial.

Written on the back of the BMW garage receipt of payment for the car I recovered and drove yesterday for the first time in 3 months today, that is so Audouin.

I still wonder why he loves me and now he can, when you hear our arguments about child-raising and the concept of growth in the economy. My heart rages in my chest for Paul Krugman when he castigates all the economists in the world for being in bed with the forces of corporate and financial evil. I just can't feel romantic when my husband is more than suggesting that he would call his congressman to vote no on the ARRP and let the economic system that he considers to be riddled by the cancer of credit die. Not even as the clock approaches midnight, the eve of Valentine's Day.

"Et tous ces gens qui perdraient leur emplois, les millions de personnes et de familles sans les moyens de payer la maison, la voiture, le fioul pour chauffer leur maison, la nourriture pour manger, les frangs pour s'habiller. Tu laisserais le système économique s'arrêter? Ce n'est plus possible. On ne peut pas l'arrêter pour le recréer. On ne peut le redémarrer et le corriger avec les réglementations mises en place au juste apèrs la dernière grosse crise en enlevées par Phil Gramm et compagnie dans le sénat en 1999 avec l'abrogation de l'act Glass-Steagall, chose que les Republicans ont cherché à faire depuis les 1980's. Le système a toujours, toujours fonctionné avec le crédit, depuis que l'échange de commerce entre les pays et les peuples a commencé. Ce qu'il faut c'est de l'honnêteté dans la valuation et l'offre et la demande de crédit." He wasn't buying that, other than the honesty aspect, which he more than agrees is missing, replaced by a glut of avidité.

It was barter, he said. Barter in the village markets. Yes, but the barons seized what they needed, or sometimes paid against time or other services, whose value had to be determined. Not quite like a barrel of grain for a chicken. And once the boats started to arrive in the ports, loaded with silk from the East, slips of money changed hands in the port city to pay for the cargo and the risk to the boat and the contents of its hold assumed by the financier of the voyage.

"Mais ce n'était pas jusqu'au 18ème siécle!"

"Tu n'as jamais lu le Marchand de Vénise?" And on and on, until he declared that the discussion was over. I continued.

"C'est fini. On n'en discute plus."

"Mais..."

"Fini. On fait la vaiselle." I got a few more words in, and dumped the boiled water from the cheap saucepan onto the pile of dishes in the sink. I heard the glass in which I had noticed a horizontal crack crack farther. I'll use it until the milk or water served at table leaks out, or the top half of the glass falls off. I hate waste, almost as much as I hate credit interest myself.

But, you can't run a world economy on direct payment for all services. I had brought up Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel for his program of microloans in Bangladesh. How could you argue against credit when presented in those terms?

"Le Nobel ne veut rien dire pour moi."

Ce n'est pas possible. I hadn't mentioned Paul Krugman, nor his shiny new Nobel. I couldn't bear to hear it shot down.

He was asleep before I turned off my laptop and came up the stairs, the light extinguished in the larger crack under the door, where the floor boards plunge towards the end wall of the house. I brushed my teeth, examined the signs of another day on my face, and turned out the bathroom light. Wisp got caught beneath my feet and took off for the the stairs. I opened the door for her, and she turned on a dime, trotted into the room and waited to install herself in my arms, like a baby, her head on my shoulder, her body curled in the crook of my elbow for the night.

My funny Valentine.

And my funnier, nearly incomprehensible, far too prickly Valentine, off at the hospital.

Peace and love.
....

The attendent

The gas station and garage

Rosny sur Seine, France

Someone has a sense of humor, or some time on their hands. Both.

The advantages, he doesn't take time for cigarette breaks, won't go to his doctor whining for an "arrêt de travail", and isn't temperamental. A disadvantage is that he is somewhat subject to a certain listlessness and possibly melancholy during unseasonably warm periods, in addition to being available only during the winter, for longer periods where the weather is harshest, less where the winters are capricious. He is ideally suited to northern climes and high altitudes.

Nose makes a healthy snack.

....

The BMW

After a month sitting in the little courtyard between the old school and the house of the neighbor kitty corner across the street, the BMW was taken away to the dealership this morning for repairs.

Why?

They (whoever "they" are) tried to steal it. Again. The first time was three years ago in the parking lot of IKEA in Plaisir. I came out of the store at closing time, my cart loaded with things to transform Grégoire's recently vacated lair into a guest room suitable for a friend arriving the next day, and there was the car, alone in a sea of space, vacant parking spaces where the lot had been full a couple hours earlier. I pressed the button on the key and noticed vaguely that it didn't make the usual noise.

Maybe I'd missed it.

I put my hand on the door handle, pulled up and noticed that it felt... loose.

I dismissed it.

I got in the car, and my foot hit a piece of plastic, and it was humming, like the ventilator was turning. As though it had just been turned off. My eyes roamed the dashboard, while I reached for the piece of plastic, and felt the wires dangling from under the steering wheel.

It dawned on me. No one had ever tried to steal my car. It took a minute for all the pieces to register in the cold outside a just closed IKEA in the damp December night.

"Amateurs," sighed the woman in the tow truck with pure derision. I stared at her. A woman tow truck driver. A woman tow truck driver in France. "Kids," she continued her explanation, "They don't know that you have to have the key to the car to hot wire it." I didn't know anything. Audouin was on his way to bring me home on the motorcycle. We assumed the car would go wherever they took broken-down cars in Plaisir.

"Donnez-moi la clé," she said, climbing into the driver's seat. I handed her the car key, wondering what would happen next and taking the seat next to her, glad I happened to have brought mittens and a scarf. "Avec la clé, normalement, je peux la démarrer."

"Cela veut dire que je devrais pouvoir la conduire, jusqu'à la maison?"

"Oui." She inserted the key into something dangling from the steering column and the car turned over, humming like nothing had happened at all.

"Will I be able to do that?"

"You will once I show you how." I thought about Audouin, just home from the hospital and on his way across the countryside of Les Yvelines to pick me up, while I sat in the warm car and waited for him. He'd already left, Sam told me, when I called to tell him he didn't need to. Wouldn't he be surprised, I thought.

This time, they had spotted the car and probably returned, waiting until I went to bed before they forced the door and set to drilling the ignition. I had been working at the computer in the little office across the street from where I had left the car parked, until 5:30 am. My consolation is that they had to wait a long time for me to go to bed. It was the cantonnier, or the village caretaker, who found the car's papers in the street the next morning, and brought them to José and Georges, and Georges who told me once I appeared late in the morning.

According to our mechanic for the routine maintenance, they try to steal it because they think that it doesn't have the security system, but it's a 1996, and while it's the same body type as the older ones that don't have the security system, this one does.

I called BMW. Monsieur Le Corre listened to me and drew breath between his pursed lips. Not good, "Vous devez allez voir si la direction est bloquée. Si oui, ce n'est pas bien. Vous ne pourriez pas la démarrer." He waited while I returned to the car and tried to turn the steering wheel, praying for it to turn so I could do the key in the little plastic thing trick the woman in the tow truck had taught me three years before. I heard a little click, and nothing. The wheel didn't turn. Had locked the direction just trying? I didn't ask. Worse, they couldn't even take the car until after the holidays. I made the appointment, reported the attempted theft to the gendarmes, and drove the others in our flotilla. It wasn't going to be easy for whoever was going to show up to tow it this time.

The car was parked perpendicular to the street in a courtyears alongside a stone wall, nose in, wheels turned to the left as I had left them when I got out of the car. We amused ourselves imaginging how they would extract it. Our favorite solution was the sort of vehicule they use to two parked cars in Paris. Large straps pass under the belly of the car, attaching over the roof, and an arm lifts the car, while the guy turns it in midair to orient it along the bed of the truck on which he will set it.

The guy who showed up last night, exactly when I had to get Sam at the bus 4 km from the house -- the scooter and motorcycles are grounded during the icy and snowy weather right now --, who was wearing only sneakers and had no gloves, and whose cell phone wasn't charged, was in a flurry. There were accidents everywhere. He searched for the ring to screw into the rear bumper to pull the car -- evidently I wasn't going to see my car fly in the air and settle on the bed --, couldn't find it in the falling dark, and had his mind completely elsewhere. He didn't stop talking once, and I stopped trying to follow all the words. He wanted to know if he could come back later in the evening, during the night, the next morning, take care of the people who were stuck alongside roads, their cars blocking traffic. He made phone calls, I got the papers to the car and the key and sent him on his way.

It was purely by chance that I witnessed the car's leavetaking. It was not easy.

He had to move the truck he was trying to position to pull the car out of the space several times to let people get by in the street, completely blocked by his truck, positioned diagonally across its width. Finally, the car's end was in the street. He tried to lift it directly onto the back of the truck. No. He opened the door and rocked it back and forth, actually managing to get it to roll backwards with the wheel turned, from the gravel, across the sidewalk and down onto the street. I moved forward from the Fiat, in which I had been sitting, watching, and he motioned something perfectly incomprehensible with his hands.

"Pardon? Veuillez que je vous aide?" demandai-je.

"Pourriez-vous monter dans la voiture et écraser la pédale de frein, écrasez-la bien pour que les roues glissent." I followed his instructions and sat behind the wheel with the brake pedal to the floor so that the wheels would slide, while he shouted further incomprehenisble directions. Lachez. Ecrasez. Lachez maintenant. Ecrasez bien. Finally, "C'est bon!" He came to the passenger window and indicated that I should pull up on the hand brake. More. More. Again.

"Bon. Et engagez la vitesse, " he said, pointing to the gearstick. I put it in first and got down, watching him lower the bed flat. The car secured. I shook his hand warmly and thanked him profusely for his efforts.

Now -- only now -- it occurs to me that I should have had une pièce for him. A small gesture. I hadn't been prepared. Maybe I'll drive up to Yvelines Auto in Bonnières with something in a little envelope. I'll ask Audouin.

....

Jacqueline! Jac-que-line!

Joaquim returned today, when I wasn't expecting him. I saw him through the French doors, and ducked like a soldier expecting enemy fire, making a bee-line for the far staircase, hoping that if I had been spotted, I'd been taken for one of the dogs down near the floor. I hadn't washed my hair since Saturday, and I was not going to be seen by anyone other than the towtruck guy (an accident) before I did. I wasn't so proud that I wouldn't take Sam to school with my hair plastered flat and at odd angles to my scalp. It actually hurt. That pain near the roots when you haven't washed your hair recently enough.

I was up in the bathtub, Baccarat barking furiously her greetings to Georges and Joaquim with my head full of shampoo when I heard Joaquim calling to me. He never calls first. If the door hadn't been locked still downstairs, he'd have been at the bottom of the stairs. I'd have been forced to shout back that I was in the shower. It makes me crazy, but I always get over it. That's what I tell myself each time he does it again. You'll get over it, so don't bother getting aggravated.

I took the time to dry my hair.

We made the rounds of the next phase of work. The balcony. The levelling of the entry courtyard and the pouring of the slab. Full bricks, laid on their sides, not thin bricks. Please. The lower part of the walls. The shutters and other metalwork leaving for the shop for sand blasting and painting. The brick walk. The steps and landing outside the living room French door. The yew that will really have to go, as much as Audouin wants to keep it. He wants the new glassed entry, and it's in the way.

"On en mettera ici, plus loin du coin de la maison." Joaquim looked at me with his eyes bugging, the sun glinting off the sparkling snow, the sky impossibly blue over the roof of France Telecom's little building behind his head. I tried to understand his confusion, why it seemed to strange to him to plant another one a little further toward the lawn to make up for the one we'd have to cut down. I'd put something else entirely, but about this, Audouin is adamant.

"Les racines! Tu ne vas pas les enlever! Elles vont droit dans le sol!"

"Elles sont plutôt horizontal, mais de toute manière, ce n'est pas très grande chose de les enlever." Even having explained that the roots of a yew grow mostly horizontal and are fairly easily removed, he still looked at me like I had gone completely crazy. I didn't much like the idea of a yew there, either, but.

"Mais il va mourir!" It would die? Why?

Oh. I got it. He thought I meant to move that yew forward. I laughed, "Mais non! Pas celui-ci. Un nouvel if! Tout bébé, ici."

The relief that I hadn't lost my mind, become so suddenly impossible, so difficult to manage spread across his face and Georges shook his head.

"Cousin, mais non. Bien sur un nouvel if!"

Of course a new yew.

We talked insulation, they tried again to get me to change the windows for double-paned now (later, if we decide to do it), and how to handle the trim work. He rejected moving indoors to work now. Laer, chaque chose dans son temps, il ne faut s'éparpiller.

He left a happy man, having left me the next bill to give to the bank.
....

Can someone tell me what he said?

The President-elect's first weekly address.

my speakers stopped working

I think the election tired them out.

And Dell still hasn't set the appointment to come repair my laptop. Don't get me started.

And they tried to steal the BMW station wagon from out in front of the house Friday morning.

And the color is wrong for the chaux (natural stucco) on the house, and we are possibly going to lose the contractor over it. (I'm almost relieved, if he just gets the stucco done). More later.

And I can't read lips.

But, the ball planning is flying along, the sponsorship support from the members of the MYBO committee to raise the down-payment on the venue and help lower ticket prices is strong (Obama supporters are a wonder and a half), and we might actually start getting more than 3 1/2 hours of sleep a night, my organizing partners and I.

A plus tout le monde.
....