Friday, October 13, 2006

Eeek! Spiders and a deadline

I wanted to write more about life in France; I was having this great conversation yesterday while in Paris with two other ex-pat pals (one from Spain and one from the US) - we were complaining about the French (so what else is new, lol) & about how bloody RUDE the servers are, lol, and how much bureaucracy they have. We complained and complained. It felt great. Anyhow, afterwards I had to stop at the US embassy to get a paper signed and notorized and that took ages (security to get in is now tighter than ever, which means prepare to empty your bag, take off your watches and jewelry, and don't ask the nice security guard if you can throw your dirty kleenex into the trash can. He actually jumped. Then I had to go to window 7 and get a folder, proceed to window 3 to pay, (30$ to notorize a signature?!) then go to window 4 and wait until they call your name, then proceed to window 5 to sign the paper and get it stamped.
(I am NOT kidding. I went to four windows to get one paper signed.) So I thought maybe the French weren't actually the worst for bureaucracy - they might now be tied with the US embassy. Although the French still get the worst drivers and rudest waiter prizes.
Then I went home and had to clean out my garage because the roof is coming down - the owner is replacing it. And we (my kids and I) started to clear out the boxes and there are Huge Spiders in my garage. We all sort of stared at the biggest one, sitting on the box we wanted to move, and my son said, 'I will not touch that.' I said, 'It's not so big' (it was about the size of a cat) and my daughter said, 'I'll get the broom, and you can sweep it away, mom'. I agreed, (never show fear to your kids - sort of like wild animal training) and I took the broom and tried to pretend it was one of those plastic tarantulas you see. And it almost worked. I swiped, the spider skittered, and we all ran screaming from the garage. So much for bravery.

And today I looked at my schedule and discovered I have a DEADLINE.
Eeek.
It is now officially LOOMING.
I just hope I have enough coffee in the house.

4 comments:

Sam said...

What are you working on now??
And CONGRATULATIONS for 'Forbidden Magic' being on the USA Today Best Seller List!!!
Whoooo Hoooo!
(I have a best selling author commenting on my blog folks!!)

Patrice Michelle said...

Eeek on the spider story! I would have run screaming from my garage too! Good luck on your deadline.

Gabriele Campbell said...

I would not have entered the garage in the first place. :)

But, maybe you could collect those spiders and let them lose in the restaurants. Might get those lazy waiters moving.

Sam said...

Thanks Patrice!
Gabriele - HA!!!!Good idea!
LOL!