Such a Tease!

After a brief fling with "summer" weather, our bizarre, early-autumn (or perhaps it's late winter) has returned. We're all bundling up in sweaters and rain gear yet again, and now the mighty oracle, Meteo France, is pushing off the return of warm weather by at least another week.

As I've said before, I don't really mind not having super hot weather, as that's not something I've ever particularly enjoyed. However, it's not nice for the other 99.9% of the population who actually like it. And, let's not even talk about the poor tourists who are wandering around looking miserable.

I do feel particularly sorry for all the villages which are having their typical summer events, street markets, food fairs, etc. It is hard to get a crowd to wander around looking at stalls when the rain is pouring down on them. In fact, our village market was rained out this morning. It started out okay, but about an hour before it was scheduled to end, the rain just bucketed down. It was a shame, too, because we had several new vendors, including a primeur and a shoe stall, and I would like them to keep coming back. Hard to get a good idea of how much business they can do when they needed water wings to stay open.

It was, though, the perfect day to stay inside and read. Our copy of the new Harry Potter arrived this morning and JM has already finished it! I'm going to start next, so another day of rain tomorrow should keep me in reading as well.

Ciao for now and enjoy YOUR summer if you're having one.

Randy

Thank you for your prayers and good wishes

We finally heard back from the results of my stepfather's biopsy. It's not good news, I'm afraid. We now have confirmation that he does have liver cancer.

Bob has decided not to undertake any treatment, as we feel that his cancer is already very advanced and he would rather not spend his last days going through painful and pointless treatment. We are all respecting his wishes and just praying that he can remain as painfree and comfortable as possible.

Now, the planning for my mother will go ahead in earnest. JM and I are still hoping that she will agree to come and live here near us. We've even found the perfect house for her and are even wishing we could afford to buy it on our own, because it is so "right" for our needs. It could actually be turned into 4 apartments, one that Mom could live in and 3 that could be rented out either on a longterm basis or as gites to give her an extra income.

Unfortunately, we aren't sure that we can manage that on our own, but we're still looking into it.

It does seem a bit ghoulish to be talking about all of this while Bob is still with us, but I don't suppose that there is much choice. Life will have to go on, and it is better to be prepared for what is next.

I do feel helpless being this far away; but I understand that even if I was still in L.A. I wouldn't be able to do all that much more than what I am doing now.

Sometimes life is a bitch.

Ciao for now.

Randy

I Officially Hate

Fireworks, firecrackers and any other noisy thing that goes Snap, Crackle or Pop in the night!

We now seem to have TWO dogs who are afraid of the sounds of celebration. Thank goodness for Xanax or we wouldn't have gotten any sleep last night at all.

When we took our walk during the afternoon (close to 3 pm), I mentioned to JM that I thought the village seemed unnaturally quiet for a July 14th afternoon. I saw the error of my ways when we went back out around 8. Everyone had clearly been resting up so that they could party till they dropped. The Cafe de la Paix was already anything but peaceful.

Still, we thought we'd make it through the night, after all, we had given Maggie a Xanax at dinner and Shmoo is always cool about things. We watched television and Maggie never reacted to the distant sounds of firecrackers.

We turned in around 11 and at 11:30 an agitated Shmoo woke us out of the first stages of deep sleep. He was whimpering and scratching at the door. Although it's unusual for him, we thought he needed to go out again, so we got up, got the dogs ready and walked through the gardens in the dark.

That, at least, was relatively enjoyable, as the sky was crystal clear and we felt as if we could touch the stars, they were so brilliant. The Milky Way was easily visible and the constellations were all laid out like a map. Beautiful.

Shmoo did not seem particularly "needy" in the potty department though. In fact, he seemed just as eager to return home as he had been to go out in the first place. When we got back, locked up the house again and went back to our room, the pacing and whining continued, so I decided to give him a Xanax as well.

And, it wasn't any too soon, as five minutes later, there was a huge fireworks display sent up nearby (not sure where) and both dogs really started to be terrified. We finally decided that even though it would be warm in our room, the only thing to do was close the windows, shutters and door into the hallway so that all was dark and as quiet as possible. At last, everyone calmed down and went to sleep.

We're safe for another year.

Ciao for now.

Randy