Day 40

Well it was bound to happen, and it finally did . . . we have all taken quite ill.  All the symptoms are there . . . sick to the stomach, restless, irritable and sharing the general malaise that makes one not want to get out of bed in the morning.  Diagnosis?  Homesickness.  Cure?  Time.  It seems that the bottom has finally fallen out of the fantasy of this experience and the reality has finally set in.  We're not in Kansas anymore Toto, and not a single one of us seems thrilled with this prospect.  We hate life, hate France, and hate each other.  All the literature states that this is quite natural and just part of the grand social experiment that is moving abroad, but that doesn't make the sense of desperation any easier to cope with.  Day 40 was  . . . well, "shitty" for lack of a better term.  Nothing of any real importance transpired, it was just the sort of day that makes your skin crawl.  The temperature remains fairly stable, but the rain has set in under gray clouded skies.  The sun is gone for good and we have given up hope for its return.

To complicate our lives even further, it was a "RED" day today.  "RED" day you ask?  Well, "Madame Chabou's Reform School for Girls", as I now call it, has a fairly antiquated electrical system.  This being a land where government takes care of most of one's thinking for them, they have devised over the years a way to conserve electricity and make life just that little bit more difficult than it already is.  Today, the system is quite simple and essentially monitors days of electrical discount.  This simply means on certain days you receive a discounted rate on your electrical usage.  This of course encourages folks to use more electricity on these cheap days which in turn saves electricity on the regular days.  The system in this house of course is quite old and is controlled by a lovely lighted box in the kitchen.  There are three lights on this contraption, separated into Blue Days (cheap), White Days (moderate), and Red Days (expensive).  Electricity is so expensive on the Red days that it was recommended that not only do we not use lights any more than necessary, but the usuage of the electrical appliances should stop as well.  LOVELY.

So we sit here in the dark, running the battery supply down on every electrical gadget we own just trying to make it through one more day.  The little box indicates that tomorrow we will be back down to "Blue" and life can return to normal . . . or at least as normal as life gets here in the land of Oz.  And yes, this is the second Wizard of Oz reference for the day.  The reason?  Well, it seems that anytime I meet someone new and they inquire about where in the United States I am from, the first words out of their mouth are Dorothy and the "Magician" of Oz.  They could at least get the f_ _ _ing name right.  Since I sort of feel like I have been sucked up in a Tornado and spat into a foreign land, I thought I would carry this theme througout today's remarks.  So I ask myself, which character am I?  The Tin Man?  The Cowardly Lion?  No, I am going to go with the Scarecrow.  Anyone who knows me, knows I got a head full of stuffin, and if I had a brain I would have certainly said no to the idea of moving half way around the world when life seemed pretty damned sweet hanging from my pole in the corn fields of Eastern Kansas.  Much like the movie though, Dorothy's wiles were too much for me to ignore and I found myself dancing down the yellow brick road, arm in arm, with the hopes that the Wizard could fix my simple minded ways.

In a way I guess the Wizard has already shown me that I had smarts all along, for I am certainly thinkin thoughts I never thunk before!  And on that bombshell, I bid you a goodnight!   There's no place like home, There's no place like home, There's no place like home . . .  Nope, didn't work . . . still here.  Turns out Glenda is just a  liar with a "not so magic" wand, or maybe my ruby slippers are broken.  Either way, it looks like we will be here in Oz for a few more days afterall.  Miss you all.