Day ? through ?

Love, Loss, and One Man’s Never-ending Search for Inspiration from the Dark Side of the Moon.

I haven’t a clue what day it is, and to be honest, I am not sure it really matters.  We are slowly coming out of a prolonged period of radio darkness so to speak.  We have been without meaningful internet service for the better part of a week or so now and I am beginning to feel the effects.  I have been quite busy, so it has kept my mind off of my tremendous need for the therapy that this project provides.  Despite my wife’s heretofore mentioned disdain for combination posts, I actually lack the mental capacity to separate one day from the next, so we will stick with the summary and hope that my internet connectivity improves in the coming week.  History has shown that many of the greatest artists and literary figures have taken refuge in places of inspiration in hopes that the change in location will produce an epiphany of Moby Dick type proportions.  Our recent move is inspirational indeed.  For everything that could be said about the rather unpleasant experience at Madame Chabou’s Reform School for Girls, the opposite is true here in our new home.  It is, as some can attest, beyond description.  I won’t attempt to flatter the experience with flowery prose, but rather simply state that it is a bit like something off of a postcard.  There are of course a couple of notable exceptions, but we will get to that in due course.

I believe I left you a day or so prior to moving day.  The days were filled with all of the usual last minute details that are so mundane as to hardly warrant a mention.  Friday the 1^st was our wedding anniversary and my wife surprised me with a night out on the town.  Our very dear American friends, who had graciously offered to help us move, sent their son over to our house Friday evening to watch the boys while my wife and I went to dinner.  Since they were to see us the following day, it was decided that our sitter would stay the night which didn’t put too much of a curfue on our evening.  My wife had done some research via the World Wide Web and had located a restaurant that was supposed to sell a pretty decent hamburger.  Glamorous, I know.  I am not terribly versed in the anniversary symbols.  Year one is paper, and I think the bigger ones are silver and gold, but I can’t for sure tell you which is which.  Apparently, however, 11 years is BEEF.  So my wife says anyway.  I haven’t done much research to find out if she is right, but I did appreciate the gesture.  We strolled through town in search of our restaurant, but it appeared to have gone out of business long before our arrival and had been replaced with a taco joint that was not open.  We circled back through the Centre Ville to find alternative arrangements and ended up at the French version of Applebee’s.  Even though we were essentially “eatin good in the neighborhood”, the café front seating made for a pleasant evening.  After dinner we went for a walk along the river hand in hand and reflected on this last year together.  The wife asked where we would be at the end of the next 11 years.  My knee jerk reply of “second marriages” stayed well parked in the back of my throat and I just shrugged my shoulders and said “who knows”.  The question did raise and interesting statistic.  In the past 11 years we have moved 6 times.  Roughly once every two years.  If we keep that pace up, by our 22^nd wedding anniversary, we should be somewhere near Bangladesh.     We continued to walk and talk, taking an occasional pause to step out of traffic for some well timed public displays of affection.  The French aren’t afraid of kissin passionately in the streets.  Something that we aren’t used to in the States.  If you can’t beat them however,  . . . well, you know the rest.  We walked and “made out” for most of the evening, until our feet and lips were requisitely tired.  We made our way to our bus stop for our only unpleasant encounter for the evening.  A homeless dude walks up to me for a handout.  Deep into a fairly serious drunk, he weaved and wobbled before me as if at any moment he might just hit the deck.  Holding out his dirty ass palm, he asked for some change.  I took the opportunity to play the dumb American and said that I didn’t understand and that I didn’t speak French.  The drunk prick then had the audacity to ask for money in English, punctuated by a S’il Vous Plait.  Again I answered in the negative and he kindly threw his hand further out in an effort to shake my own.  I denied this request as well and he moved along in an unpleasant fog of malted hops.  He soon took up a stoop directly behind us and began begging from others, all the while heckling me, assuming I didn’t understand what he was saying.  I am now much too old to be terribly quick to anger, so I kept my mouth shut and my fists firmly planted in my pockets.  A younger version of myself would have likely shot his mouth off and ended the evening in an altercation, but that kid has long since been replace with a much more seasoned temper.  The evening ended as it should have and we made our way home for a reasonable bedtime so that the next day’s move would not be sleep deprived. 

Moving day finally did arrive, and things started off in our favor.  A notable rarity in my life, that you would have certainly noticed by now had you been following along.  Our cest la vie approach to life as we know it had us a bit remiss for a moving truck.  I know I mentioned in prior posts, the recent acquisition of a Citroen Jumpy from some friends of ours, but it was going to be a move to hell and back if this was to be our only conveyance.  We thought it best to supplement our fleet with an honest to God moving van.  The problem was, the only thing we could arrange on such short notice, during the height of moving season was a van not much larger than the Jumpy itself.  Going with the theory that two is better than one, we made the arrangements.  We left all three boys to sleep in a bit and headed to the rental car place to pick up Jumpy #2.  I knew at the outset that this would be a fiasco.  Once again, the very basic nature of our command of the language would surely trip us up along the way.  When our turn at the rental counter came, my wife didn’t utter a word, but simply handed over our rental confirmation.  The lady behind the counter entered in the confirmation number and immediately greeted us in English.  Not only was she pleasant and speaking our language, she had a bit of news.  She had not completed our reservation and the Jumpy 2 would not be going home with us.  Bummer.  She continued by stating, that since we had originally requested the big truck she took it upon herself to change our reservation when one became available due to a cancellation.  Voila!  Back in business.  Nothing breeds loyalty like that type of customer service.  It seems to be a bit of rarity here, but when you do find it, it is way over the top.  Now at the helm of a very large moving van, the realities of the day set in.  My wife, being a complete chicken shit, took a big pass on all driving duties, which would have me sweating the drive down very narrow one way corridors with a vehicle that one could barely park on an aircraft carrier.  Truth be told, I am usually the wheel man on these missions, so her request that I drive the van was not at all out of the norm.  I did however, envy her role in our relationship as I attempted to pull this beast out of the parking lot.  Preparation is key when living in the urban jungle and we had blocked off some parking before we had left the house, so there was ample room to parallel park this thing at the curb.  Our friends from the Centre Ville soon joined us and the move commenced.  We made relatively short work of the loading and were soon on our way to the new house.  The boys opted to stay in town and out of the way so we could tend to the unloading.  Very gracious of them I thought.  The truth is more like a general aversion to manual labor and an inability to peel themselves off of the sofa to carry anything heavier than a video game controller.  That is not entirely fair, as they would all have gladly helped had we asked and tend to be very industrious young lads.  The four adults however, had things well in hand and my boys were enjoying the prolonged company of their favorite sitter, so it all worked out in the end.

Nearing the Chateau, we received a frantic phone call from the delivery guy that was to meet us at the house with our new washer and dryer.  LOST.  Shocker.  That happens when you don’t have an actual address.  My wife jumped back in the car to try and track them down at the closest town and lead them back to the proper location.  I was left to procure a key to the house and begin unloading all of our crap.  I rang the bell at the gate of the castle (still weird to say) and was greeted by the owner’s son who advised that the house should already be unlocked and that he would bring by some extra keys.  Sure enough, the house was unlocked and soon items were finding semi-permanent new homes inside our new house.  When the owner’s son came by with the extra keys, he commented that he was just finishing lunch and that afterward he would come by with the forklift to help us load the large furniture through the upstairs window.  I think at this point, it is probably worth describing the owner’s son.  Like a page torn from an Armani print add, he is tall with medium length dark hair and a disposition that would make young maidens weak in the knees.  His mode of dress was simple, understated and well kept.  An unstructured white shirt over a pair of dark denim pants.  The shoes were a brown suede dress shoe that looked like they likely cost more than my mortgage.  A bright red designer belt set the whole look on edge.  Nothing overstated.  Simple and timeless, with an ease to his gate that would point well to his ease in demeanor.  He is as nice as the day is long and exactly what I would have expected and yet not at all what I would have expected all at the same time.  We now live in a world of nobility, in a place and industry where that still means something.  Much like his mother, his generosity and genuine nature make him a guy hard not to like.  I would soon discover that the entirety of the family, from the Vicomte down, are as wonderful a group of people as I have ever met.  Having not paid much attention to the clock, we took his consumption of lunch as a cue to stop to have our own.  Ours would be a simple picnic affair.  Lunch meat sandwiches on croissants, orange wedges and of course a bottle of red wine made from the very same grapes that were being grown not 20 yards away.  After a long stay underneath a shade tree, it was apparent that we should get back to physical labor before an afternoon nap set in on us all.  We quickly sprang back into action, slowly building an enormous pile of furniture in the yard that was destined for the second floor.  As promised, the owner’s son soon returned atop an ancient forklift that had surely lifted a pallet or two of Bordeaux Grand Reserve in its younger years.  Now it appeared to have been relegated to the odd farm job.  It appeared to weigh a ton and was fairly unwieldy to boot.  The owner’s son had changed into work ware as well.  Same white shirt, red belt and denim pant.  Swapped the dress shoe for a very sleek canvas sneaker though.  With some backbreaking labor and precarious tightrope manuervers atop a rickety ladder, we soon had all the heaviest items up and through the master bedroom window.  We bid our new friend farewell and assured him that we didn’t need any more assistance despite his repeated offer to help in any way he could.  Remember what I said about generosity?

We soon made quick work of the remainder of our load and realized that one piece of furniture was going to be a problem.  The king sized mattress was not going to fit through the upstairs window . . . no way, no how.  In all of my brilliance, I suggested we cram the bastard up the winding stair well, knowing full well that there wasn’t a remote chance that this would work.  Try as I might, I just couldn’t wedge the thing through the small opening in the staircase.  All the maneuvering did however lead me to the conclusion that I had enough strength and determination to fold a king size matress in half.  Upon witnessing this feat, one of our friends had the idea that we might just be able to fit the thing through that window if we unnaturally folded it and then cinched it down with tie downs.  We did just that, and with all the ease of jamming a square peg into a round hole, we somehow stuffed that bastard through the window and right onto the floor.  We finally wrapped things up and headed back for town to pick up the children.  We had moved all bedding, so it wasn’t a choice as to where we would be spending the night.  The return trip was under darkened skies and quite late in the evening.  Exhausted, but happy, we all crashed on our respective matresses on the floor.  Dawn would break early Sunday morning, and we would not quick to rise to its call.  We did finally meet the day, but it was with some regret given our continued state of exhaustion.  No matter, the day would be spent in the typical post move fashion.  Unpacking boxes of shit and finding a home for all of our useless knick knacks.  The positive was that the day went by quickly and we got to enjoy the day in our new home.

Settling in.  The wife would return to work on Monday and leave me with the duty of setting up shop.  This promised to be a week long process and did not fail to live up to that promise.  With the boys home from school for the summer, I felt compelled not to make the entire week a complete drag, so we took some time to explore our new environment with some bike tours and well placed video game breaks.  Every morning, I am now greeted with a view of a sprawling vineyard from my shower window.  Breakfast is taken to the tune of humming tractors going about their business in the green cultivation of the grape vines.  This is a living and breathing place, and to be a part of it will live in my memory forever.  I could literally go on and on about the charm this new life now holds.  Charm not rendered from its novelty but rather from its familiarity.  It feels like home.  It is in its simplest terms a farm and we are farm folk.  Sure, they have replace rows of corn with rows of grapes, but is it really all that different?  The answer is a resounding no.  Perhaps that is why I am already so fond of the owners.  They are my kind of people.  Salt of the Earth.  Now their chosen vocation has its own set of civilities that are inherent from its birth, but otherwise they are just good ole farmers.  The combination of an old fashioned work ethic and a sense of dignity and diplomacy make them fascinating and make life in their shadow absolutely intoxicating.  Somewhere over the past week I had the opportunity to walk around our home with the owner himself.  I followed from spot to spot, absorbing a history lesson that was 9 generations in the making.  Hearing his plans for the property and seeing the gleam in his eye reminded me of my own aspirations for my humble yet grand home back in Kansas.  He lives in the present with strong roots to the past.  The main part of our house dates back to the 16^th century and the home in its entirety is referred to as “the hen” due to its shape.  A shape given from his grandmother’s side of the family.  She was the one that was insistent on the addition of the second level which lends to it’s poultryesque dimensions.  The tour was pleasant and an offer was extended for a more extensive tour of the property as a whole once we have settled in.  I bid him farewell and went back to tending to my flock.

It is grand and it is romantic, but not without its drawbacks.  The lack of internet connection is really the least of our worries at this point.  Early in the week, my wife complained that she seemed to have contracted a case of poison ivy.  We are not foreign to this, so her exposure and reaction was not all that surprising.  What was surprising however, was that the rash of irritably itchy bumps spread through the entire family like wildfire by midweek.  This clearly was not a case of poison ivy as we had first though.  We were under attack from an invisible plague and it was evident that we would need to fight back before it killed us all.  We finally gave up and took the boys to a doctor to see if we could determine the source of our increasing ailment.  The diagnosis?  Wood fleas.  The insulting part is that the dog is immune to this problem.  STUPID DOG.  That is what happens when you live in a home constructed of wood that is now nearly 4 centuries old.  With anti-itch save in hand and a solid plan of attach to treat the wood, we should be clear of this stumbling block by the end of the week.  The house is full of wooden beams and plank wood floors, so it is hard to say what the source of the outbreak is, but I have my suspects.  We were left with two enormous and beautiful wooden armoires on the upper floor.  The lion and the witch would truly be envious.  The one in our bedroom seems benign enough, but the one in the main hall upstairs is a different story.  Upon opening this beautiful piece of ancient furniture, it seems that we may have opened a portal to hell.  The smell is difficult to classify.  It smells a bit like a sweaty Pakistani man had made this his home for the better part of a year and hadn’t bothered with a shower during this time.  The stench is undeniable and quite literally causes the eyes to tear a bit upon unsuspecting encounter.  It’s more than just strong body odor, somewhere in the mix is a bit of bus exhaust and a slight hint of cured meats.  The mélange of fragrance was not assisted by my wife’s addition of air freshener.  Now it smells a whole lot like a NYC taxi cab.  That little pine cone air freshener hanging from the rear view does little to mask the driver’s sweat, recent lunch and city wide pollution that seem to make the ride virtually intolerable from start to finish.  Your only hope is that you don’t get caught in rush hour traffic.  Otherwise, the smell is likely to attach itself to you and somehow embed itself in your own DNA.  You won’t smell anything else in your life without a subtle hint of this stench creeping in.

I am a firm believer that bad shit happens in threes.  Wood fleas and stinking ass furniture left us one short of a full cycle.  Bad news from home.  We lost a member of the family this week and I want to take time to remember her.  I am not a sentimental lad, but her loss has left an empty spot in our hearts.  Our 12 year old Great Pyrenees had been in poor health for some time and we knew that it was not likely that we would be back home before she passed.  She had gotten herself stuck in a muddy pond bank and couldn’t get out.  She was discovered in time, but never really recovered.  The decision was clear, we would have to put her down.  Not an easy thing to stomach from thousands of miles away.  She is a very dear member of the family and has been our protector for as long as I can remember.  She saw us through our first few nights as new parents, never leaving her cribside post.  She was the fearless voice in the night, constantly warding off predators from our newly born livestock.  She was the bully on the block, willing to put herself in danger to keep would be bad guys from even thinking of coming onto our property.  She was there when we were sick, always willing to lend her warmth, and there when we were well.  She was a gentle soul with sad eyes that loved us as much as we could have possibly loved her.  With tears in my eyes, I bid her farewell and know that if there is a Heaven for pets, she is a shoe in for the best seats in the house.  I will leave it at that before I get completely choked up.  God bless you Harley, you have been a good friend.

  

Aside from two inconveniences in life and one painful loss, I have to say we are content.  The hope now is that all the boxes will soon be unpacked, the fleas will be annihilated and the smell of the wayward cabby will give way to the airwick airfreshener pulling double duty in the dark recesses of what is supposed to be our linen closet.  Take care and Jack will be back sooner rather than later.