things i do for an armoire, and the last day with a puce

last night mandy and i went over to julien's for dinner with his maman...(first time he's brought a girl over to meet his mother, PS) so we took the train out to tain to meet him, which was a big deal since normally he comes down to valence. so we're heading to the gare, you know, strolling as french time calls for, with the intention of stopping at a floriste before the 18h49 train. as it happened, we were rather short on time, just 10 minutes to grab a bouquet of gerbers and jump the train, right? i mean, i picked what i wanted, had the cash in hand, vite fait, n'est pas? non non mes amis, nothing is ever fast in france, and this time was no exception. i mean, it was the scene clear out of love actually when alan rickman is buying the necklace from mr. bean. no joke. added little green things. yellow raffia. trimmed the stems. plastic emballage. more ribbon, stickers...aie! it was hilarious really, and after all but throwing the money at the poor guy, we ran onto the train, which we only made because it was running a few minutes behind schedule.

so this is the train that we ride without tickets. i mean, it's a 10-minute ride and we always take last-minute excursions to the land of wine and rainbows, aka i dont generally have my carte 12-25, aka not worth a ticket. whatever. we're never stopped. BUT THIS TIME...well, there was a sncf lady handing out questionnaires about the quality of our voyage. we had great peur that she was going to nab us for being sans billet, but in fact she just asked us to fill out the survey. tant pis, mme, we're at our stop! hehe.i filled it out nevertheless, for the scrapbook, you know..

dinner was fun, his mom is super cute. she made a nice veg-friendly spread (along with good-natured, totally expected vegetarian ribbing) - salade composee (gr beans, radishes, tomatoes, corn, olives noires), an omlette-gateau-truc (eggs with veggies and tomato sauce, kinda like quiche sans crust), and gratin de ravioles avec courgette. trop bon. and fresh strawberries with creme chantilly a la maison for dessert. super generous of her. fun times. (PS they have a super cute, super fat cat AND 2 tortoises) (PPS i totally got a baby slug in my hair while we were outside looking at the tortoises. dont ask me how, im just really talented at getting nature in my hair. ohh me)

today, however, was a sad day - i closed my bank account. sniff sniff. ive been in the bank all week, the poor girls see me coming, with my questions of what to do, trying to make appointments with my adviser, all that. basically the even consisted of dropping off an official letter stating that i wanted to close the accounts. then someone was supposed to call me to turn in my card and chequier, but no one called. so yesterday i went in to ask what to do, and opted to go in this afternoon, drop off my stuff, withdraw some cash for the weekend, and leave them with the info to transfer my funds to DC later in the month, once they're established that no more transactions are going through the acct. so mandy and i went in...i wanted to keep a check, once again for a keepsake, but had forgotten to take one out at home. so im all trying to secretly take out a check before giving her my chequier. of course im not tres slick, and she was all 'what are you doing?' 'umm, je vais garder une cheque.' 'pourquoi?' 'pour l'addresse, au cas ou je dois vs envoyer de quoi de ma banque a DC..?' 'je vs donnerai un RIB plutot.' 'umm d'ac mais je vais la garder quand-meme. n'inquietez pas, je mettrai "VOID"'...they thought i was nuts. asked if i wanted to take a pic of them for the scrapbook, too. ohh those french! hehe ... soo my carte puce soo francais was cut in half *tear*and within a month my euros should be in my american acct. nul/triste/arrrgh it makes this all too real.