The Script Ended

Unglamorous me

Whoever reads my blog must be very patient with me. I don't post for ages and then when I do it sounds as if I am living this glamorous life traveling to exotic places and running around quaint French villages. All those parts are good but today was not.

It actually started with not being able to sleep last night - jet lag caught up with me. The sleeplessness was proceeded by an argument with my French man about where to put what furniture and what it all really MEANS in the big picture when we finally get to the moving in together stage (coming soon).

So I was in a fragile state when I arrived at my very French organization for a day of work.

Oh yeah...I forgot to mention the drunk guy on the morning train who insisted on sitting next to me when we were surrounded by empty seats, promptly leering in my face breathing out unintelligible French while pressing his leg against mine. Enough was enough when he lifted the armrest between us eliminating my last line of defense. I was out of there.

Settled in my new seat next to a sleeping and harmless looking girl I waited and waited and waited. This "express" train finally left just late enough to ensure that I would miss my next connection WHICH insured that I would miss my morning meeting WHICH would incur the wrath of our department assistant who is the de facto boss because everyone is afraid to make her mad.

When this assistant came to me later in the morning to tell me that I had yet again failed to fill out the required French gibberish form for some report I did not even know existed I ended up crying like a baby.

How professional of me! Yes, I was truly humiliated. Unfortunately for me, it did not end there. Before I could get a handle on myself, the Director of the department upstairs sailed into my office and came face to face with blubbering me.

He regretted it - but not more so than I.

I could have died. He hastily apologized and tried to back out the door - who knows what he thought my problem was.

And that was not all....I went for the perfect score when another colleague later came into my office and I (stupid me) thought she was coming to thank me for the great initiative I had shown by sending out a certain email promoting her event but...

nooooooooo

I had screwed up once again.

I had in fact stepped on her toes with this email and blah blah blah..you get the picture.

I basically could do nothing right while trying really hard to do everything right.

I should have stayed in bed. And yes, I cried in front of her too.

So much for my glamorous life.

Best friends

Speaking of New York. One of the cool things I got to squeeze in between meetings was a reunion of sorts with my 7th grade best friend. I am embarrassed to say that we are old enough to admit to not having seen each other for almost 40 years.

I spent hours at her house when we were 12 - dissecting our 7th grade dramas on top of her mother's bed. I don't remember why, but that is where we hung out. It was an intense friendship for me - of high importance in my life - the first real best friend that I can remember having.

The next year, in the 8th grade, we inextricably drifted apart.

39 years later we were two 51 year old girls hanging out again, dissecting the dramas of our middle aged lives - not on top of her mother's bed this time - but on the sofa of her New York apartment.

In a way, it is thanks to this blog that we reconnected. You see, as these things often go, she has had her share of major life changes. Her life has not gone exactly as she ordered it either. We have much in common when it comes to that. Thanks to the miracle of modern social media, she read my blog, we emailed, and basically picked up where we left off 39 years ago.

Do you think this would have happened if we were guys?

New York vs Paris

When I was a girl I used to dream of living in New York City. I fantasized about living in a high rise with a doorman and a view of Central Park. Frankly, I never dreamed that I would live in Paris instead - New York was enough of a stretch for me.

I just arrived back from 9 days working in New York with a quick trip to Boston thrown in. I have worked in New York before. Once when I was a new accountant at Peat Marwick I was sent to review loan files in a dreary New York bank office. Much more recently I attended several Collection showings for the clothing line I was selling. This time I was developing business, making contacts and shepherding a group of MBA students from one company presentation to the next.

I wonder what I will be the next time I work in New York?

I have to say one thing that is pretty obvious - New York is LOUD.  You would think that coming from the center of Paris I would be used to loud, but New York- style loud out-shouts Paris by a long shot. It also is expeeeeeeeeensive. For lunch one day I ordered a small bowl of risotto, a bread plate size portion of salad and a diet coke - actually 2 diet cokes - they charged for refills - for the bargain price of $37 including tax and tip. I am not kidding. Can you say rip off?

Makes Paris prices actually seem reasonable - which is a stretch. For once the painful exchange rate between the euro and the dollar worked in my favor - actually the company's favor - expense account you know.

I met a bunch of New York bankers - in spite of all the bad press - a really nice group of guys. At least they are nice while they are collecting their obscene bonuses.

With the price of lunch - no wonder.

Well my girlhood dream of living the New York city life morphed into my adulthood dream of Paris. Shows that all good things come to those who wait.

alps

In my previous life my husband and I deluded ourselves into thinking that we could afford to stay in luxurious hotels. Boy those were the days........thanks in large part to the all powerful credit card.

Those days are probably long gone for me, as well as lots of other formerly conspicuous consumers. Not such a bad thing really.

But today I am in the Swiss Alps thanks to my work and my duty to develop closer relationships to alumni of my employer. This thankless task has me in a Palace on Lake Geneva facing the Swiss Alps. Needless to say, it is stunning.

Tonight I will pull on my black lace dress and enter a room full of..........complete strangers.

Even me, the consummate extrovert, is a bit intimidated to say the least. Who should I be tonight? The mysterious lone woman in the corner?

Naw - not so good for networking. How about the gregarious American party girl?

Nope again, too old and too tired and too Frenchified for that one now.

I have been on the road all week meeting people I don't know over lunch, coffee, cocktails, and around boardroom tables from London to Geneva and each time I shook hands and sat down, the words sort of flowed out of my mouth. 

So nice to meet you, thank you for taking the time, tell me about your business, world, life path, opportunities, struggles..........
I guess this is doing business, right?

Incredible really, I have been living an out of body experience all week.  I mean, who is that girl (okay okay, I'm not a girl anymore), woman in the suit with the business cards?

I guess it is me. So off to the ball I go.

Wish me luck.

Strange Reflections

Isn't it amazing how fast one can get used to something? Start out doing something that you once would have thought not possible and BOOM - it soon is almost ho-hum, part of the daily routine.

Last week I was running for my train in Jouy-en-Josas, flying over the cobbled streets of this tiny village next to my new employer. I caught a glimpse of myself in the window of the boulangerie.

Is this really me? Coat tails flapping, trying not to trip on the round stones that pave the narrow lanes, what am I doing here anyway?

Not all that long ago I spent my days on suburban asphalt....in a car. Cell phone pasted to my ear, radio blaring, on my way to pick-up, drop-off or otherwise take care of kids, Costco, Target, Nordstrom.

Never and I mean NEVER would I have expected to fast forward a couple years and see myself reflected in that French boulangerie window.

And it is all so normal now. I am one of thousands of Parisian communters. I can push and shove with the best of them down the halls of the metro and train stations, permanently in a hurry. Versailles, yes THAT Versailles, is my daily stop, where I change trains to get to Jouy-en-Josas. Where, by the way, they invented toile de jouy, the lovely fabric design that decorators add for sophistication - I should know - I used to be one of those people........

................back in another life.

Diggs in New Jersey

Howard Johnson Motel, Highway 1, New Brunswick, New Jersey...........the Trucker's Rate. Does that say it all or what?

My clean little suburban San Diego sensibilities have definitely been left behind in the dust. I must say that having lived in France for over 3 years now has somehow prepared me for this experience over here on the other side of the tracks better than anything I ever lived Stateside. That is only because living in a foreign country increases one's tolerance for differences rather quickly.

My mission this week is to help install my oldest daughter into Rutgers University to begin her graduate studies. Neither one of us were prepared for our experience so far.

I know that it is not fair but I blame this on my divorce. I am sure that somehow things would be different if my husband had not become "monkified" and had stayed in his chair at our accounting office.

Instead Katie and I are staying within our new budgetary restrictions and eating white bread toast for breakfast this morning in Howard Johnson's lobby as a hysterical patron complained to the management that she was beaten up the previous night by 3 large dark hotel guests brandishing (not her word - too many syllables) guns and threatening to steal her money. All $246 of it to be exact - her complaints were quite specific.

This kind of stuff just doesn't happen at the  Hyatt.

Talk about feeling alien. We are definitely in a foreign country over here.

Just wait until I tell you about the housing choices we have seen from Craig's List - several of them make the HoJo look like a luxury spa.

Yup, that good.

The clutter gene

I was traumatized by growing up in a messy household. Between 6 kids, numerous dogs and 2 pack-rat depression era parents, little was thrown away or put away in my childhood home. Someone ringing the doorbell unexpectedly was cause for panic and the once a year dinner party that my parents hosted was preceded by an all out attack on the state of the house always accompanied by my mother hyperventilating that she would never finish before the guests arrived and my dad's temper tantrums over us kids inability to read his mind and do what he wanted us to do.

I vowed to never live like this once I was in charge. Not that my own household never saw out of control days, but they were never a permanent state and once we could afford it, I had regular cleaning help. In fact, my kids' favorite day was Friday when the cleaning ladies came and we all returned home to a sparkling house that smelled of lemon wax.

I am currently a house guest at the Portland abode of 3 of my daughters. They professed - and I believe them  -that they cleaned for days before my arrival. In fact, while 2 picked me up from the airport, the other was polishing the floor. But, I am afraid,the house has quickly returned to its natural state.

How can I describe this state? Suffice it to say that my parents would feel right at home.

I don't know if it is all the therapy I have been through or a new zen state of maturity on my part but somehow I have been able to relax and enjoy their company surrounded by empty beer bottles, old pizza boxes, shredded dog toys and other assorted dirty dishes, glasses and plain old trash.

Soon enough I will be rattling around in my newly empty Paris nest and frankly that thought makes this cluttered nest look like House Beautiful.

Sylvie

My first friendship with a Parisian woman began before I even moved to Paris. I had met a guy in a cafe when I was over here checking out schools and apartments and in our ensuing conversation (he was an American living in Paris) he had given me the email address of a woman whom he thought I would like. She and I exchanged some emails a few time before I got here and then we quickly met for a coffee when I arrived three years ago. We have been friends ever since.

Sylvie defies the stereotype of the Parisian sophisticate. She is highly intelligent - a Magistrate in the Parisian judicial system - but is as unassuming as you could imagine. Open and always ready to laugh, she sees the world as good.

No matter how depressed I can feel about this or that, when I am with her somehow all the good that is in my life shines through. Her attitude is such a gift.

There is lots to learn from such an attitude. I can't tell you how UN French an attitude like her's is! Most French people are "glass half empty" types. Even the happy ones. It is a national disease. They are soooo good at seeing what could go wrong and why something you want to try will definitely not work.

C'est pas possible, is probably the most common phrase in the French language. Even MFM, who tries to be so supportive, can see hurdles and blockages in an open field.

There really is something to that good ol' American can-do attitude.

I love living in Paris but I am so glad that I am an American. The sky isn't always falling on me like it is for so many of my French neighbors.

Except not on Sylvie.

Bureaucratic, ridiculous and oh so French

I am a Southern California girl, my identity can be mistaken by some today, apparently fooled by my outward Parisian elegance(hah!!) - that is until I open my mouth to reveal my sexy american accent - but in deeply ingrained layers, I am the girl that grew up in LA.

So? Well one of those deeply ingrained characteristics of being from LA is that one is practically born behind the wheel. You cannot live in the LA basin or anywhere in Southern California without 4 wheels and a driver's license and I am old enough to say that I have been behind that wheel for 35 years.

I need to get legal here in Paris - not that I haven't been driving in my new hometown already but I have been enjoying the freedom of not being the owner of a car after practically having one in my bed the better part of my life. I have been lucky - no gendarme has had reason to stop me, no accidents (knock on wood) with surly taxi drivers, no mishaps at all have befallen me whenever I borrowed a car and put my CA drivers license in my pocket just in case.

But now with the job and all I think that I will have to break down and become an owner again - and that comes with the need for insurance and that brings me face to face with one of the most bureaucratic and ridiculous of all the bureaucratic and ridiculous systems that the French have taken pride in inventing.

L'auto école. Never mind those 35+ years behind the wheel - they don't care a whit. To get a license in France, unless you happen to be from one of 11 obscure states, or maybe its 14 - whatever - (apologies to those states - California isn't included regardless, obscure or not) that offer reciprocity IF you turn in that license for a French one within the first year of your arrival (see, it's starting already - the ridiculous part) - you MUST go to the infamous l'auto école (driving school), pay upwards of 1000 euros, compile a dossier of all the famous French stuff (5 id photos, certified translation of your VALID USA license, application in triplicate, 3 locks of hair from your first born sealed in self addressed stamped envelops---------just kidding..............about the hair that is....... and then start studying. And study and study, most of that study is performed in front of endless instruction DVD's full of trick questions and hidden traps - kind of like the real exam.

When you are deemed ready, you sit for a written exam on le code and THEN if you pass that, not a slam dunk by any means, you get to graduate to behind the wheel training with an instructor in one of those bright red (in my school's case) trainer cars with the taxi cab style sign on the roof Auto Ecole which is code for WATCH OUT inexperienced and probably dangerous driver about to stop in front of you for no apparent reason - - -  and THEN once deemed safe on the French roads you have the pleasure of going for your LIVE DRIVING test with the ever so kind and patient (NOT.. by all received accounts) French driving examiner and THEN, IF you pass sometime after all the requisite stamping and triplicate forms, oh and a certified medical exam......you finally have the coveted pink permis B in your hot little hand.

I TOLD you it was bureaucratic and ridiculous - and I even left out the part about having to have my application to even start the process approved by the Perfecture de Police.

I went to my first scintillating DVD session this week. In the practice exam I lost count of my mistakes - in the real one to come you are only allowed 5. 5 out of 40 questions in which there are sometimes up to 3 imbedded questions which means that you are actually allowed 5 errors out of up to 120 questions.

I don't even want to think about my odds........

Help me!! I am still a procrastinator

I have to write my thesis.

I feel like I am back in high school or college - once again crowned the queen of procrastination. This talent for finding anything and everything to do other than what you must do just does NOT go away - I have not forgotten how to waste time - it is kind of like riding a bike, once you learn you never forget. One would think with maturity and my advancing age, this kind of behavior would be firmly in my past but nooooooooo.......cleaning the grout-lines on my kitchen counter still wins over sitting down at my desk and actually getting something down on paper. Or in this case - into Word.

Even this blog is a tool of procrastination. But I am going to make this post into a step forward towards my future 80 page treatise.

My research is on Mid Life Transitions, be they career or personal, overlaid by the template of the Adult Life-cycle. Obviously this subject is quite close to my heart but hey - if I can figure out how to make sense of what has happened to me this last half decade or so, I would be a happy camper, or at least slightly less depressed.

So, now, for how this post, in fact how this blog, will help me towards getting the damn thing started: You are going to help me. I'd love to receive comments from anyone who reads this blog (I know, a sample of 12 probably doesn't qualify as scientific but who cares). What kind of comments? Well anything you would like to say about changes happening in your life, how they relate to where you thought your life was headed, how your goals and dreams may have changed as you get older and why.

That's for starters.

I am planning to throw out a question or a thought as I work through my research on this end and hopefully that will get and keep the conversation going.

What do you think? It is worth a try and besides - my kitchen is now spotless.