See what Brown did for us?

P: Hello again, folks,

A recap of the remainder of the week:

• On Thursday, our UPS shipment showed up! We were quite happy. Also the final box sent via USPS, Kathy's spices, showed up as well. All appears to be intact. The picture shows the UPS guy helping unload boxes. The big one on the left is Kathy's guitar. Our desktop computer also appears to have survived the journey.
• Friday, I went into work, feeling somewhat better, got French power cords for the computer, and picked up our new roommate Seth from the airport - just flew in from the Twin Cities, like we did a week earlier. He'll be here (minus one week) until Christmas. Kathy made a chicken curry dish for dinner. :-9 The three of us talked all evening long about science and philosophy and economics and politics.

Today (Saturday) was a banner day:

• The first thing that happened is that Kathy made the difficult decision to start weaning Ben. The decision was forced by Ben's teeth! He's got more coming in, including the eye teeth. He did without his afternoon feeding without any apparent difficulty.
• Secondly, we went to view our first apartment. It was much better than we expected! Quite roomy and well-appointed, with a great view from the 6th floor. And fully furnished. We decided immediately that furnished was not the way to go. You don't get to put your own signature on the place as much, and you're worried about spoiling the furniture. Oh, well, at least we got to practice our French. :-* (me getting tongue-tied)
• After that we went on a shopping spree to start looking for Ben's crib and high chair. We went to the local "Carrefour" (sort of like a SuperTarget, but with more class). Talk about expensive! We got some stuff, but not what we came for...

K: God has really been looking out for me! A few funny (and amazing) stories:

This past week, in the Hyper Champion (grocery store, like Cub), I saw a woman approach me with two babies in a stroller. At first I thought they were twins, a boy and girl. I asked the lady if she speaks English, turns out she does, is from Austria, here with her husband who is working at CERN too! Her oldest daughter, Emily, has Down syndrome, and is a real cutie pie! Oh! Blue eyes, darling brown hair. Her little brother, Tobias, is the same size as Emily. The mom, Gina, started telling me about a public program in Ferney-Voltaire that she has used for Emily and ended up giving me her phone number for us to connect again sometime. That would be fun!

Then, I went to my favorite little grocery store yesterday, Champion (not as hyper as the big one), and ended up in the check-out line of a lady with bleach-blonde hair and bright blue eye shadow that I remembered from last summer as the person who chewed me out in French for putting my suitcase on a chair nearby to load my groceries. Yes, I used to take my pull-luggage along on my daily trips to the grocery store so I could roll them home with ease as I walked. So yesterday, I asked her, "Parlez vous Anglais?" "Oui". She said. "Remember me?" I asked in English. She looked puzzled. I continued, "Pregnant lady? Suitcase?" "Oh yes!" she answered in perfect English. "I remember you! Suitcase! What a cute baby!" She smiled and chatted with me like an old friend. That stinker! She had known English all along but just didn't use it with me last summer! Anyway, when it came time to go, I said, "You guys used to have free plastic bags?" I could see only the heavy-duty kind for ,10 Euros. "Here," she said, and gave me one for free. That was sweet. Perhaps having Benjamin smile at her did something to melt her icy exterior?

Then, on the way home, I saw a lady with almost black, short hair, sitting with a cute little boy by a bench on the sidewalk. I struck up a conversation with her (this seems to be my newest challenge - getting the French natives to talk with me! They don't really smile much - believe me, having Benjamin makes a huge difference here). What struck me about this lady was that she was smiling from the get-go and showed real enthusiasm in talking with me. She spoke pretty good English too and lives nearby. "I have been wanting to meet with someone once a week, for an hour, to teach me English," she said. "Would you like to meet with me and I could teach you French?" This was unbelievable! I had just been wishing, praying in my mind, for that very thing, that very morning. Even if I dedicated myself to studying new French grammar every day, without someone to tutor me in correct pronunciation, I'd be, as it were, shooting myself in the foot. She gave me her phone number and I hope to call her next week. Her name is Nathalie and her little boy (7 months old) is named Antoine.

Last cute story. Today at Carrefour, while Ben and I were waiting for Phil to do a complex financial transaction involving a shredder, a darling French boy (2 years old) reached out of the grocery cart toward Ben as his daddy rolled by us. The little boy was waving his hands, smiling, and yelling. Ben was fixated by this delight, as was I. The father stopped the cart, I got Ben out of his stroller, and we allowed our boys to meet. The little French boy looked almost exactly like Ben! Maybe that's why they seemed so excited to see each other. The little French boy patted Ben's head. Ben laughed and reached out to pat the boy's cheek. It was so darling, I could hardly stand it. We let them interact like this for around 10 minutes. They'd take turns yelling and flapping. I wish I had a camera. It made my day.

P: A couple comments about comments: You can leave comments on our blog, by clicking on the text below the entry you want to comment on that says "X comments," where "X" is some number. You have a box to type in a comment, as long as you want, and then you are supposed to select an "identity". You have the option of using either your "Google" or other blog identity (if you have one) , but most people will just want to select "Anonymous", which requires no such special identity at all. Just leave your name at the end of your comment in the box, please, so we know who left it! :)

One final word of advice: if you ever get addicted to baguette bread and cheddar cheese, so much so that you start gnawing straight off the baguette and the cheese block, just make sure you don't eat the wax with the cheese. It'll save you some embarrassment and potential future discomfort. Trust me.

-PKBD