An American in Provence

After several weekends of hauling and organizing (after several years of painting and sanding and scrubbing and dewallpapering and tiling and and and..)
Our apartment is livable!
Wouldn't drop dead in shame if people stopped by unexpectedly!
We actually have space!
Everything is pretty much
1) off the floor, and
2) shoved away somewhere
which are pretty huge accomplishments.
Now we don't have any excuses to NOT have people over.
What am I to do?!

We invited a couple over Saturday, but that morning they called and said that she (six months pregnant) isn't supposed to ride in a car and could we come over there instead?
Yes, our last childless friend couple has bitten the dust. It's over. We now officially have zero non-pregnant/non-ankle-biter-possessing friends.
(That's not true Alain yells from the other room. He knows a guy at work who has a girlfriend who is not pregnant. Okay, I stand corrected. One guy whom we never hang out with vs. ten couples that do. That's it. Seriously. What's wrong with you people?)

Anyway, Alain passed his motorcycle license and bought a motorcycle. A Kawasaki-green ER6N, 650 cc. For weeks all I heard was "Maybe I should get a bicylindre en ligne ou peut-être un quatre cylindre, mais je ne sais pas, un bi-cylindre a plus de couple à 7000 tours, mais un tri-cylindre consomme moins d'essence. Qu'est ce que tu en pense? " motorcycles motorcyles motorcycles motorcycles.

Silly me. I thought once he actually bought the darn thing we could talk about something else, but now its "Oh she is so beautiful...." We are talking about your motorcycle and not another woman right!?
We bought this motorcycle, a 2008 model with 15000 km from a guy here in Marseille. Alain has had it for almost a week now and is so happy he might just burst.

He is happier than a Frenchman in a vat of wine, but buying it wasn't easy. I went to La Poste in Aix to get a bank check. After waiting in line for about half an hour, I get to the front and am perfunctorily told that I cannot, under any circumstances, get a bank check from them. Why not? Because they are not my Bureau de Rattachement.

No amount of arguing would change her mind. I told Alain he would have to go the next morning to La Poste near our apartment. He went, and guess what?
(All you Americans in France know what is coming, but for everyone else....)
On STRIKE!
Yep. No way were we getting our money. Sure glad it wasn't life or death. Though I am sure that if it was life or death and I went back to La Poste in in Aix I would be told that no, I can't have the money for the emergency heart operation for my dying child who must be operated on today or else she will die, because it's not my Bureau de Rattachement!!!!!
Anyway, his parents were able to get a bank check from their account (not LA POSTE!) and we then wrote them a regular check.
What a pain. thanks La Poste, you keep on giving us a kick in the pants.
Guess I learned my lesson- can't count on them.
We are changing banks, I swear it.

(Mom and Dad, stop reading now. thanks)
Anyway, we rode the famous motorcycle on Sunday to go visit his family. I was a bit (lot) nervous about going on the interstate, as I had never ridden on the interstate on a motorcycle before.
Let's just say, I don't think I will be doing it much.

(I said stop reading mom and dad!)
It was incredibly windy- we were going about 100-110 km/hour and I just wanted to close my eyes until we reached his parent's or got hit by a crazy French driver who just CANT STAND the fact that we aren't going at least 10 km over the speed limit so they absolutely must cut us off as they overtake us, whichever comes first.

(I told you not to read mom and dad.)
Anyway, still alive, and more worried than ever about him driving to karate and back twice a week, though I do actually believe him now when he tells me it is actually safer to have a more powerful motorcycle rather than his 125 cc bike that looks like a real motorcycle and sounds like a real motorcycle and smells like a real motorcycle and tastes like a real motorcycle but only goes 100 km/hour max, making the crazy French drivers think that he can actually accelerate and get out of danger (ie them giving him all of 10 cm clearance as they pass him on a curve) when he can't.
So anyway.

Two things, that took an unbelievably long time (apartment, almost three years, motorcycle license a year and a half) finished.
Sometimes I wonder what we are going to do with our weekends (especially now that all our friends are busy changing diapers) but then I remember:

Not finished: my law course and Alain's 2nd doctoral thesis
Well, not quite another PhD (what is he doing, collecting them?!) but pretty close- it is for him to have his own students, and, oh yeah, Pepe's constant questioning of when are we going to join the ranks of exhausted parenthood. Like we don't already have enough to do? We have a year reprieve at least (in his mind), that is one plus I guess. Back to my books of Patent Case Law, which would be dull in any language, but in French I want to pull my teeth out just to pass the time.
See you in July!