On the road again

We were all up early this morning.

Jessica was actually going to school and hoping that it wasn't blocked again by protesters.

Alex and I were cleaned, breakfasted and jumping out to our taxi at 08:40. I had called the taxi as early as possible as I feared the traffic on this first day of the holidays. In actual fact we got to the Gare du Nord in 25 minutes! We hung out in the Salon for about an hour and our Eurostar left on time with us on it.

Alex watched Oscar on my laptop while I read Jonathan Kellerman's Gone on my Palm.

We got to Waterloo on time and waited around for an hour for her Camp representatives to show up. They actually showed up on time (13:00) and Alex was quite excited to see that one of the counsellors who came to accompany them was one she knew from her last camp trip (Will). Once the paperwork was done it all went quite quickly and they were soon all aboard their coach and heading off to Camp Beaumont on the Isle of Wight.

I lugged my luggage over to the taxi rank and headed off to the Radisson Portman Hotel. I then went out and spent a good portion of the afternoon shopping, then had a nap and I am just about to dig in to my room service dinner...

Another long day (Friday)

Up early again and on the road again and another hour of traffic to get back to my client in Paris. I got there for about 09:45 this time...

This was one of those installations where "If it can go wrong... it did go wrong". Dell delivered a brand new beautiful Dimension 9150 computer with a wireless keyboard and mouse as ordered. The new Dimension series don't have mouse and keyboard PS/2 ports. But they have tons of USB ports. As the vast majority of keyboards and mice one would purchase today are USB-based this actually quite logical. However the Logitech wireless Desktop set they sent us only had PS/2 connectors (!). I had to send someone out to buy a new USB mouse just so I could continue with the installation.

Then it turns out that the version of Easy Media Creator I had wouldn't work with the new DVD burner that came with the new computer. Luckily I got the person who was already out getting a new mouse to get a new version of Easy Media Creator.

The backup of the old computer took practically all morning. The restore went well but with a few hiccoughs.

It was a real challenge to get this whole thing up and running, perfectly as always, by the end of the day.

Just to make things more interesting, in case things were actually going well, the client announced that they had just purchased a new Mac laptop and that it needed to be installed and configured by the end of the day as I would be travelling as of tomorrow as would the client. I therefore configured everything on the new Mac laptop at the same time as installing the new Dimension.

By the time I crawled back in to my car at about 18:45 I felt like I had been through a boxing match... I'm not sure who won but I felt like a champion.

I was actually quite worried about having to drive home at that time on the Friday night before the holidays and expected traffic even worse than I experienced. It didn't take me a lot more than an hour to get home.

When I did... Alex and Desney were busy yelling and screaming up and down the stairs as Desney was preparing Alex' bags. I therefore decided to do my job which is to keep out of Desney's way and get my bags ready for the next day. We were all all packed by about 20:45 and sitting down waiting for dinner to arrive. Jessica had gone out babysitting so we ordered Japanese again as we didn't want to chance anything else the night before travelling.

We sat around watching what must be at least the 20th night of Les Enfoirés on television and then early to bed for all of us...

A long day

Got up early (everything's relative), got myself ready and out of the house by 09:00 to head off to an installation at a client's in Paris.

A full hour of sitting in traffic later... then desperately seeking a parking spot... I finally arrived at 10:00.

I spent the rest of the day miraculously recuperating data from an existing computer while installing and configuring an amazing new computer (Dell XPS with a 24" 16/9 screen and all the speed, power and performance a geek like myself could dream of).

Let my client's at about 18:15 and tackled another hour of traffic to get home. Dinner was running a bit late as Desney too had a long day. We still had a wonderful meal, as usual, and I think I headed off to bed not too long after a late cuppa.

Yet another national protest day

Jessica spent the night at a friend's house. We all knew she would not have school today. Already her lycée was blocked, again, yesterday and she could not get in. Today is the national day of anti-CPE protest so we knew she wouldn't get in today either.

The kids have missed out on a whole lot of school. These same kids missed out on a reasonable amount of school last year as well due to the strikes against Fillon's law. No one actually has a solution as to how these kids are going to catch up on the basics they've lost out on over this and last year.

Last Tuesday evening was supposed to be our annual performance by Word for Word. As happened last year we had to reschedule at the very last minute. The performance was therefore rescheduled for tonight. Again... we had to cancel at the very last minute (Sunday) due to today's strikes and protests. Word for Word is going to start thinking twice before coming to France!

The kids have missed out on a lot of school. We, in our tiny little international world at our one individual school, have missed out on our valuable annual social occasions (The International Meal and now Word for Word). We are even now starting to wonder if we'll be able to hold the school dance on May 13th. Even more alarming are questions as to such vital occurrences as admissions tests, Bac preparation tests (bac blanc) and the final bac tests themselves. Many feel that we have sacrificed an entire year of students around the country. Some feel we have sacrificed an entire generation. No matter how you look at it we have certainly penalised and handicapped students around the country.

A friend of mine sent me a wonderful phrase yesterday:

It's such a paradox that protesters are fighting for the maintenance of the status quo rather than change, and that the main goal of militant students is to secure a safe job for life!

--- Forty Three! ---

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday dear me,
Happy birthday to me.

I made it this far!

There were moments, towards the end of last year, when I actually thought I wouldn't. There were also moments, around the same period, when I actually didn't want to.

Most of us went to bed at a reasonable time last night so as to get up early this morning and head off to EuroDisney for my birthday. Desney had asked me quite some time ago what I wanted to do for my birthday. I explained that this year an evening out at a nice restaurant would be a complete waste as would getting me fine wine or anything gastronomic. However I also said I wanted to have fun... and I suggested EuroDisney (Disneyland Paris) where we've been many times before.

I say most of went to a bed at a reasonable time. But Jessica, who missed my birthday dinner, was out babysitting around the corner. She could really use the money so when the SMS came on Saturday asking her to babysit she jumped at the opportunity. She was supposed to get in around 01:00 - 01:30 and we were going to wake her up at 08:00 and let her sleep in the car on the way. In the end she actually got home closer to 02:30. But things worked out all right for her in the end.

The weather on Saturday was actually quite nice. There were a few scattered rain periods but they didn't last longer than 15 minutes at any given time and the sunshine afterwards was wonderful. We decided that if the weather on Sunday could be anything like Saturday then it was a perfect time to go to EuroDisney.

I slept like a kid on Christmas eve. I awoke at 06:00, again at 06:30, again at 07:00 and again at 07:30. I would have keep finally gotten up at 07:30 but I had made a decision at 07:10. We had said to the kids that we would not wake them up if it was raining as there was no way we were going to stand outside in the endless queues at EuroDisney in the rain. At 06:00 in the morning I could hear the rain pounding outside. At 06:30 it had not died down. At 07:00 it was just as strong. Finally at 07:10 Desney rolled over and asked me when I was getting up. I responded that I wasn't and we could just have a lie in.

Alexandra got up herself around 07:30-08:00 and was watching television, of course, when we crawled out of bed at about 10:00. Just to truly frustrate us the weather became absolutely beautiful for the rest of the day as of 10:30!

It was obviously time for Plan B. Unfortunately I had not prepared a Plan B.

We sat around having breakfast while I opened by birthday presents. Everyone bought me exactly what I had asked for. Jessica, as usual, had gone her own way. She made me a beautiful card and she bought me a couple of posters including a great, and hard-to-find, Bruce Lee Nanchuku poster. We also watched Desney's one regular television experience: 2 BBC gardening shows every Sunday morning at 11:00: Garden Rivals and Alan Titmarsh's How To Be A Gardener.

We then had to make a decision. The weather outside was beautiful. But it was now afternoon. Do we rush off to Disney for a half-day or do something else? We decided to reschedule Disney for a full day sometime later during the Easter Holidays and I came up with something else.

I had not been bowling in many, many years. Those rare few who knew me way back when in my early days in Paris would remember that I used to bowl quite regularly. I was even captain of the OECD's bowling team in the International Bowling League in Paris. I thought bowling would therefore be an interesting idea as it would work no matter what the weather outside. The kids and I had gone bowling once in Montparnasse as well and it went quite well.

I found my bowling ball and shoes downstairs in the basement, wiped off the dust, and we all headed out to Bowling Champerret. We had to wait just a bit to get our lanes but once we got started we had a great time. I actually played right at my old level of 20 years ago (about 140 average) and Desney got better each game. Alexandra gets very, very frustrated when sports don't go quite as well as she'd like and therefore was not overly pleased. Jessica... Well let's just say that bowling is just not Jessica's sport. We played 2 games and then headed back home for tea.

After tea we headed down to the cellar for a few games of pool. The four of us played for a couple of hours until dinner time. Desney played better than we expected and actually much too well from the point of view of those of us who were playing against her. It was just warm enough to really enjoy the temperature of the cellar and the new Harman Kardon Soundsticks II speakers really made the tiny iPod sound great. Desney and I listened to old songs from the late 70s and The Big Chill Soundtrack to the great regret of our children.

For dinner we ordered sushi and watched a movie. I wanted something fun and I had just received Mission Impossible II as part of the Amazon DVD sale order. I put it on and within about 15 minutes the kids realised we had actually rented and seen it before! They were both able to recite certain scenes frame by frame. At least it had made an impression on them. We watched the rest of the movie anyway and enjoyed dinner and each other's company. Desney prepared my favourite dessert again, this time with more ice cream and less chocolate which went down much better, and after tea we headed off to bed.

Next year's birthday is going to be soooooo better!

Birthday Dinner

The kids were off to school this morning and Desney was out shopping. I then spent most of the day programming. I actually released yet another (minor) version of my programming project. I wanted to get as much done today to be able to truly enjoy tomorrow. Desney spent all afternoon cooking (dinner and various apple desserts to use up the apples which were originally destined for the International Meal).

As we are going out tomorrow Desney decided to make my birthday dinner for this evening. I actually got to pick everything. She had asked me on Thursday what I wanted. I came up with asparagus (good strong flavour while still fine) with hollandaise sauce; lamb chops (the other bits of lamb are either too thin and dry or too big and chewy) with her now famous garlic sauce (good strong flavour which sticks to my throat); broccoli (goes well with the garlic sauce) and steamed potatoes (even steamed, potatoes are just dried chalk in my mouth). Desney prepared perfect green asparagus steamed just right... not over not under... Delicious! Unfortunately I'm the only member of the family who actually enjoys asparagus. But, of course, that meant all the more for me! The lamb was perfect as well and Desney's garlic cream sauce was... how do I say it? Perfect. As we had lots of asparagus she didn't prepare any other veg. Everyone liked the potatoes. I ate a couple but I just can't enjoy potatoes anymore...

For dessert Desney made my favourite which I generally only get on my birthday. I assume it's a lot of work. Although I never actually sit around and watch her prepare things. The dessert is a sort of chocolate pudding or moelleux, served hot, with lots of Häagen Dazs vanilla ice cream. It was quite good. But certainly not as good as usual.

With dinner I opened a very nice Burgundy (Beaune 1er Cru 2002). I didn't open anything really wonderful as it's just not worth it.

Taste (or lack thereof): My abilities to eat and drink more and more substances are almost more frustrating than satisfying. My taste buds are still pretty much shot to hell and nothing really tastes good. Wine stings ever so slightly but becomes more acidic than fruity way too quickly (within 20 minutes of opening a bottle). Sweets just don't taste sweet. The sweet tastes are probably what come through the least. Salty things taste salty and they seem to stimulate the saliva a bit. But certainly not at a normal level. Spicy flavours come through as spicy but mostly come through as painful in the throat. Any sort of powdery textures (chocolate powder, flour on top of things, ...) just irritates my throat and makes me cough.

The most frustrating of all was probably this evening's dessert. The gastronomic joys of eating involves many aspects of sensual pleasures: sights, tastes, smells, sometimes touch and definitely sensory memory. I can see and feel just fine. My nose seems to work even better than before. This too is quite frustrating. I can tell quite well what something should taste like by what it smells like. What things actually taste like are nothing like what they smell like for me at the moment. Then there's sensory memory. During my acting training, throughout a good portion of my childhood, we worked quite a lot on sensory memory and did so many of those method acting exercises that non-actors find quite funny: slow-motion teeth-brushing while contemplating every aspect; still-frame-by-frame chewing and eating while analysing every aspect; atempting to analyse and describe what everything in life FEELS like down to the most ridiculously minute details. I therefore am actually quite good and remembering what things smelled like, felt like and tasted like. My wife's birthday dessert almost made me cry. I remember perfectly well the combination of sensual pleasures there are in that dessert. The hot and cold mixture. The liquidy yet thick texture of the pudding. The creaminess of the ice cream as it melts and mixes in with the crumbs of the pudding. The chocolate in the pudding which becomes a fudge sauce on the ice cream. The sweet and creamy taste combination. I could look at her dessert, inhale her dessert, close my eyes and remember almost every time she's made it for me. There are so many reasons I fell so deeply in love with this woman and her culinary skills are certainly one of them. Almost none of those sensual pleasures were there in that dessert tonight. The chocolate becomes pasty, the pudding/cake part dries out so quickly in my mouth; the ice cream is creamy without being sweet, ...

It's very frustrating, and sometimes quite depressing, to be able to partake in so much food and drink, while remembering how enjoyable each one of them were, and not be able to actually enjoy it.

Desney worked hard on my birthday dinner, as she always does, and I felt embarassed as to how little I could enjoy it.

I headed off to bed relatively early as we're all getting up early tomorrow morning.

Friday night @ Home

All four of us at home on a Friday night for once.

Well... almost...

Jessica has a math test tomorrow which she perhaps isn't 100% prepared for. She called me in the afternoon to see if we could get her in to a class at Assistance Math Physique in the evening. We found out later that they weren't doing classes tonight. She called her tutor, Hugo, and set up an hour of private class for 19:00.

As it turns out everything and everybody was running late at home anyway so we didn't sit down for dinner and TV until about 20:00. Desney got home late from work and I was having difficulty finishing my work as well.

Tomorrow was supposed to be our annual International Meal at Jessica's school. This is when the families of the international sections get together to eat, drink and socialise. Each family prepares some food, hopefuly of their own international origin, and brings it for everyone else. It's an absolutely wonderful day and a truly valuable part of the international school experience. Desney had bought a ton of apples and was going to be spending this evening making apple crumble for everyone.

However due to the school protesters this year's international meal was cancelled, for the first time ever, at the last minute (18:00 this evening).

Some time when I have time I may put down in to words my opinions as regards the school protests going on and the CPE contract. I most probably will not. For those of you who are interested however I can summarise: I agree that the children should have the right to protest like anyone else; I agree that if a majority votes on a strike they should be able to strike even if they are minors; however that's striking and protesting. I do not agree that any group of students should be allowed to block the school and interfere with the other students' right to an education. I do not agree that the public services should be able to handicap and cripple the country with strikes or protests which completely remove public services (transportation, post, education, ...). I do agree with the CPE contract as is and, from a more radical point of view, feel it should actually be the normal way we hire and fire in this country. I have not hired anyone in this country since 1994. I only work with subcontractors. The notion of employment precarity has never seemed like a negative aspect to me. Losing your job is not the same as losing your health. I still believe one can find a job. It may involve a compromise that it appears most people are not willing to make. But the job is there. I do not feel that employment is a right. It is something you work for and earn. That's why we say you "earn a living" or "earn your salary". In France it is generally looked down upon as negative if you have changed jobs 2 or 3 times in a 10-year period. In many other countries, such as the anglophone countries I've worked in, it is looked up upon as positive that you have proven mobility and flexibility by changing jobs and that you have a more varied experience of employment and the type of work you are looking for as part of your career. Just to really upset more: I actually do feel that the employer should have more rights than the employee. The employer pays. The employer therefore pays for that additional power and rights. An employe can lost his job. An employer can lose his company which can entail much greater consequences than just losing a job.

After having written the above paragraph I better feel, although I already understood, the positive feeling of being able to vent ones opinions.

Tonight we didn't order out for food. No pizza. No Japanese. No Chinese. Tonight Desney prepared a whole bunch of tiny foods for us to eat (chicken wings (tasty), flammenkuche (delicious!), fresh raw vegetables (carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, ...), crisps, pretzels, nuts, ...

Desney drank our house wine: Maison de Fleurie - Fleurie.

I had a beer which I felt would go better with what we're eating.

As it's my birthday weekend I decided I would choose tonight's movie. Amazon recently had a sale on DVDs, many of which were only about 2.99 €, and I bought quite a few. One of the ones I bought however was not on sale but a movie I personally have wanted to see for quite some time. It's a movie which just did not get any marketing support whatsoever and did not do well at the box office. However I had read, and quite enjoyed, the book by Michael Crichton. Timeline is the sort of movie that proves yet again the classic point: the book is always better than the movie. I knew the kids would like spotting some of the actors in the movie. There were many well-known actors but not real stars. Alexandra spotted David Thewlis from Harry Potter III; Jessica recognised Paul Walker from The Fast and Furious films and both of them immediately recognised Gerard Butler as Lara Croft's boyfriend/partner in Tomb Raider II. Strangely enough Jessica didn't recognise him as the star of The Phantom of the Opera which is a film she adored. Desney immediately recognised Billy Connolly but couldn't remember his name... With Richard Donner directing it had to be explosive to say the least. The family adores all of the Lethal Weapon movies so I thought it couldn't go down all that bad.

A good time was had by all...

Alexandra went to bed, as she has school tomorrow, and Jessica went up to study (hopefully) for her test tomorrow. I sat around watching the Making Of for a while...

Cancer on the net

After finishing this latest software release I felt like doing something else.

I don't really know why but I started looking at cancer on the Internet (again).

This time I checked out some of the newsgroups and eGroups to see what people were saying. I am constantly amazed at how different each cancer victim's experience is while still remaining strangely familiar.

There is an eGroup specific to Throat Cancer which I find particularly interesting as it tends to feel closer to home than the more generic cancer groups which discuss the much more popular and widespread cancers such as breast, lung and colon cancers.

I've added links to the groups on the links section of this blog in the lower right. At the same time I also just spent some time updating our movie collection and my books collection which are also in the links on the right.

I particularly like the sites, mostly American, which give the various stages of cancer and then the 5-year survival odds. I keep expecting to be able to find myself listed somewhere on Betfair. You can be on just about anything else there. I spend enough money there that it would be interesting if I could bet against myself. In that case if I won my family would actually get some money! Probably the first time I'd be hoping NOT to win a bet!

I don't know why I'm still fascinated with the subject of cancer. I just know that several hours don't go by without my still thinking about it.

Do I still have cancer in me? Is it still spreading? If not... will it come back?

What will I do, or what am I willing to do, if it does?

Another release

I finished the last part of this stage of the programming project. This last part allows that remote department to print out all of the information they need with various combinations of columns and calculations.

I uploaded it to the client's server, sent out a release explanation e-mail and leaned back feeling extremely pleased with myself.

Health Status...

I don't know if it's since I've stopped my beloved magic mouthwash, or just coincidentally this stage of the evolution of my recuperation, but my mouth and throat have certainly been worse lately.

My mouth is much drier than usual, my voice is much cracklier and painful and my throat hurts more often than it used.

This may also be due to the fact that I've been working quite a lot lately. When I work obsessively, which is generally the way I work, I tend to forget the biological basics. Generally I stand up from my chair at some point and realise that I haven't been to the toilet in many hours and probably should have. More importantly however I am probably not forcing myself to drink water half as often as I should. Generally I open my mouth to speak and suddently realise my mouth and throat are extremely dry because I haven't lubricated them for over an hour. For most people, with normally functioning salivary glands, this isn't a big deal as nature provides them with natural lubrication. But for me that water is vital and I have to get used to forcing myself...

Every night I massage ointment (Ultralan) in to my zapped skin around my neck and specifically in to my scar. This tends to relieve the tension and constricted feelings for quite some time. However over the past few weeks I've definitel been having more and more moments of pain either around the scar directly or more generally at the back of my neck above the scar, or along my left shoulder and sometimes down my left arm. The pain comes and goes and is not debilitating or incapacitating at all. It's just annoying and not enjoyable. I am amazed how accustomed to pain I have become since September 2005. I live with a certain amount of pain every day and throughout the day and have learned to just not think about it and get on with my life when possible.

My last appointment with my surgeon / throat doctor was in January and, as I recall, did not go very well. At the end of my appointment he told me to see him again in mid-April. I called today and made myself an appointment for April 19th. He will most definitely show his probes up my nostrils and down my throat and let me know if that area is entirely clear which will obviously be good news. But I am actually hoping that he will prescribe some form of scan (maybe PET) or other tests to ensure that I am currently cancer free.

It's going to be a long wait...

Soutien scolaire

Soutien scolaire, or scholastic support, is the generic term in French for things like private tutoring, afterschool classes or other means of additional schooling.

I spent a good portion of the morning looking for soutien scolaire possibilities for Jessica and even a bit for Alexandra.

We had already tried sending Jessica to one of the places where they give classes over the holidays (Objectif Math) last year. However we were certainly unimpressed. We had signed her up, and paid for, two weeks of classes over the holidays. We were actually quite upset when we found out that the second week they did exactly the same class they did the first week. Jessica had gone with a friend which may have made it a bit easier but it we weren't pleased with the investment and choice.

Later in the year, and actually for quite some time, we used some private teachers who came to the house for a individual classes one or two times a week, through a different company (Keep School). We were not happy with the first teacher they sent us. But afterwards we were actually quite lucky and found a very good teacher who worked with Jessica throughout most of the rest of the year and Jessica's work and self-assurance both improved greatly. Unfortunately this year that teacher is no longer teaching.

We have been working unofficially (under the table) with another "teacher", who is actually a prépa student, who has been coming to help Jessica with math a couple of hours a week. Jessica's quite pleased with him. I recently learned he can touch his nose with his tongue and he's double-jointed in many of his fingers. For some reason I did not find these aspects of their learning experience particularly valuable.

We have been receiving a flyer from a local outfit which provides extracurriculum classes just up the street (Assistance Math Physique). I contacted them and have set up a meeting, with Jessica, for tomorrow night at 20:45 which is after their last class (18:30 to 20:30).

I also found an intersting online system with classes, exercises, course material, dictionaries, encyclopedia, calculators and such directly on the web. The content of the site is based on what grade the student is in and follows the national curriculum. The fee is a monthly subscript, with unlimited use, per student. I signed up for an account both for Jessica and for Alexandra with Maxicours. One of the more interesting aspects of Maxicours is that Desney and I can also follow what they are supposed to be doing in school as well as find the "official" explanations for the various subjects. Because it's been many years since either Desney and I were students makes it sometimes difficult for us to remember all of the various subjects and explanations we studied. However the fact that neither of us went to pre-university school in France means that there are many subjects for which we are completely ignorant and clueless. I personally never did French history in school, for example, and am unaware of most of the relevant dates and events. I also never did math in French. Although I am quite comfortable in math I do not know most of the French terminology nor the French methods. Desney and/or I try and read the same books the kids have to read in school for literature (French or English) to allow us to be able to discuss the books with them (admittedly Desney much more than I). But with this Maxicours site we will hopefully be able to find the explanations and exercises for each of these other classes our kids are going through. It will hopefully help both the kids and their seemingly ignorant, but well-meaning, parents.

A release

What I had not mentioned in most of my previous blog entries, and part of the reason why I'm typing the last few days' entries up on March 30th, is that throughout the days I've been programming like a madman.

I have been advancing constantly in my programming project and I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel since at least last Wednesday. I knew I could do it. I therefore set the goal for myself that the latest version would be ready for release on Sunday morning so the client would have it waiting for them when they arrived to the office on Monday morning.

After days and days of programming as much as possible I was able to release the new version last night. It was an absolutely wonderful feeling of accomplishment. But also a great reminder that I can still be quite useful and am actually, at least in my opinion, quite special. Most people who know me will find it difficult to believe that my ego would need any form of assistance or reminding. But the pleasures of releasing this particular piece of programming was actually much more than I would usually have expected.

Due to confidentiality, which is of more importance to me than most other aspects of my work, I can't actually explain what the programming entailed. But I knew that part of the functionality of this new release was both revolutionary and long-awaited in this client's specific circumstances. There is a department within the client company which is normally remote, separate and therefore not connected to the specific database. However they are responsible for a certain aspect of the figures which are stored in the database. They keep these figures in their internal "database" and the two departments sents printed reports or spreadsheets back and forth with data changes. Humans being humans obvious discrepancies occur. This new release allows this separate department to directly access and modify the relevant portion of the data in the database. It works!

Now I am going to feel so much better when I prepare my quarterly programming invoice at the end of the month!

Sunday night dinner

Tonight it was my turn to cook. Actually it probably is my turn to cook quite a lot more often than the number of times I cook. Tonight I actually cooked dinner.

I made a roast ostrich with some olive oil, herbs and mustard. I accompanied this with some steamed potatoes and then some steamed broccoli.

The ostrich was going reasonably well. But when it came to get it out from the roasting pan in to the service dish everything went wrong. I was, stupidly, picking it up with a meat fork and as it stuck a bit to the roasting pan the entire ostrich fell off the fork knocking both the ostrich and the rest of the contents of the pan to the floor. Luckily, thanks to Desney's endless and impeccable cleaning, I had no qualms about picking the ostrich off the floor and serving it as is. However the rest of the oil, herbs and mustard made a huge mess of the floor and I still had to get the potatoes and broccoli out before I ruined them. Desney was therefore cleaning up the floor and I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off...

What else is new?

While I was cooking I had decided it was time to move up to trying red wine. I opened up a half-bottle of Mme Thevenet's Fleurie (Les Déduits --- 2001) which went down quite well along with the standard apéritif fare of crisps, cashews and such. The red wine certainly has a bit more sting to it in the throat. But it is still delicious. As the flavours tend to be a bit stronger in the reds than the whites, certainly amongst those that we have, the tasting was actually more frustrating as the strength of the flavour that I was able to taste was the same. But I knew from the nose that I was actually missing out on more. Along with dinner, once we finally got it on the table, we had a bottle of my favourite Languedoc-Roussilon red (Granoupiac). The strong fruit went quite well with the dinner and it was a great pleasure to be able to eat and drink with my family. The kids seemed to appreciate the meat more than the previous day's fish. However this is probably due more to the fact that the day was much more relaxed and less eventful than the previous.

The end of the mouthwash

Every night, since my second surgery, I rinse my mouth out with a prescrbied magic mouthwash before going to bed. This mouthwash has a bit of antifungal stuff in it, some bicarbonate of soda and a bit of xylocaine (local anesthetic) which is the part I like most. After the mouthwash my mouth tingles a bit. My throat is numbed a bit for quite some time and even my cheeks and gums get numb for a shorter period of time. This last feeling tends to remind me of the more enjoyable effects of other chemical substances I used to partake in during my early adulthood. All in all the mouthwash has been an enjoyable part of my neverending treatments.

Last night was the end of the mouthwash and the end of my prescription. I don't know if the ensuing reaction was more than partly psychosomatic. But I had a slight coughing fit in the middle of the night which I had not had in quite a very long time. I then woke up with a mouth much drier than usual and quite a few gagging episodes when drinking my first glasses of water in the morning.

I miss my mouthwash already...

Saturday night dinner

It was just the three of us as Alex had been invited to a birthday sleepover party from an old friend back in the XVth. Desney had taken her during the day and I'll be going to pick her up tomorrow...

Dinner: Desney prepared an entire dorade (fish - sea bream), with broccoli and rice. We opened a rather nice bottle of Ehrhart's Tokay Pinot Gris (not Grand Cru)which I was able to share and enjoy with everyone else. Dinner was delicious. But the Jessica complained about having to eat fish and how disgusting it was to have entire fish on their plates. Desney and I have both learned that the kids' opinions as regards specific food is generally more based on the specific emotional mood(s) at the time than the actual food itself.

I personally was just pleased to be able to drink the wine with the food. The wine doesn't quite sting any more. But, unfortunately, my taste buds still aren't up to actually tasting the nuances of the wine. My nose works perfectly fine so I know exactly what the wine should taste like. I therefore know exactly what I'm missing. Mostly I can't taste the wood and earth aspects. The fruit comes through, albeit more faintly than it should, and the tannic feeling of dryness on the cheeks and gums appears. But the sugar and sweetness comes through rather bitter or acidic. This is all obviously frustrating... but it's still a whole lot better than not being able to drink wine at all.

Parents - Teachers meeting @ Balzac

I had to get up relatively early this morning and get my act together quickly enough to leave the house for about 10:15.

Today is the Parents / Teachers meeting at Jessica's school. This is when we parents all get to go to school and meet with our child's teachers. We have a scheduled meeting with the student's primary teacher (homeroom teacher) who in turn hands us the child's report card. Our primary teacher had scheduled the meetings in reverse alphabetical order. I was actually lucky as our meeting was scheduled for 10:40 rather than closer to 08:30 when she started.

Jessica and I got there on time (actually about 5 minutes late) and stood on the queue outside the teacher's room for a good 15 minutes before being allowed in. As usual the queues outside each room were a completely unorganised mess. Each room had anywhere from one to four teachers in it and people would queue up without knowing which teacher the other parents were queueing for. In our specific case parents would be queueing up for this specific teacher without knowing that there were other parents who actually had appointments. I still suggest the classic New York delicatessan approach of taking a number outside each door and for each teacher.

Eventually we saw the teacher, who was very pleasant, and were graced with Jessica's report card. Jessica's been working very hard lately and it shows in most subjects. She's doing quite well in literary subjects like French and English as well as History/Geography in English and, of course, Art. However her grades were more than problematic in such vital subjets as Math and History/Geography in French. Both of these subjects are vital for the particular Bac (diploma) she is targeting for at the moment (Bac ES).

I soon realised that I was going to need to see more than just the primary teacher. After much waiting in the halls, which was accompanied by the opportunity to meet and greet tons of other parents from our section, we finally saw her Math teacher and her SES (social and economic studies) teacher. That took already an hour and a half and we didn't get to see the other teachers I wanted to see (her History/Geography teacher or her Italian teacher) as they had already left.

Everyone agrees that Jessica is wonderful. No one needed to tell me that. But it's always a pleasure to hear it from someone else who may be less subjective than myself.

However everyone also agreed that Jessica needs to work on her math before the end of the year to prepare herself for next year. She has already been having private tutoring at home on weekends and some evenings for a few months now. But it was time for a more classical approach.

We came home and had the heated discussion about grades and the report card which ended in the now typical heated argument and separation.

Friday night...

Jessica was out at the theatre with her class so it was just the three of us for dinner.

We decided to have Japanese (sushi) as it works out so much cheaper with just the three of us.

I went to go rent a DVD, as usual, and we had even agreed on two possibilities before I left: Mr. and Mrs. Smith or La Marche de l'empereur. Neither was available. All of the copies of Mr. and Mrs. Smith were already rented and La Marche de l'Empereur wasn't on their list of DVDs for rent. I therefore stood outside in the rain, under a cover, on my mobile phone in front of the DVD machine reading off the DVDs which were available. After quite some time we finally decided that there were no DVDs which were available which we were either interested in or could agree to.

I came home and we let Alex decide out of the DVDs we already own. Her choice was actually quite predictable. The newest member of the Daniel Radcliffe Fan Club chose Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It may very well have been the first or at the most second time Desney had seen it. It was at the least the second or third time I had seen it. However it was at least the fifth time Alexandra had seen it and she was, rather annoyingly, telling us what was going to happen next throughout the movie.

As Alex had school the next day she was supposed to go right to bed after the movie ended... This did not happen, as usual, and after much yelling and screaming things finally quieted down. We had to take her Harry Potter book away from her, as usual, or she would have been reading in bed with a flashlight until all hours.

In recent days her room has been stripped of more and more distracting objects: even though I turn off the Internet access on both of the girls' computers at night Alexandra would be playing Sims on her computer non-stop so finally her computer was confiscated; her mobile phone was confiscated as she had been making calls late at night from bed and had also been using it as a flashlight to read with (!); her stereo was then confiscated, by Desney, as she was playing it so loud and so often that she couldn't hear when she was being called or spoken to.

This may all sound quite strict to those of you with issues as regards confiscating childrens' possessions as punishment. However I can assure you that even with this reduced quantity of technological equipment, constantly referred to as "useless expensive gadgets" by my beloved wife, Alexandra was still able to live a full life and most certainly still able to maintain a most definitely rebellious mischief level.

Late in the evening Jessica finally arrived home with a friend who was staying over for the night...

A major breakthrough

At the end of the day, after running out and getting some more odds and ends for the basement room, I made dinner.

Normally on Friday nights I try and sip of Desney's wine to see if I can somehow manage it. I optimistically think positive each time and each time it burns going down. After so many weeks of disappointment I didn't even try on Friday.

Tonight I had to use white wine in the sauce. I opened up a lovely bottle of Chablis Premier Cru (Les Vaillons 2001) from our favourite winemaker (Moreau-Naudet) and measured out enough for the sauce. I poured a glass ready for Desney as I knew she wouldn't say no. It smelled wonderful. Before bringing the glass out to her I thought I'd try a sip. ... The smile on my face must have been pretty amazing. I thought I'd try another sip... then another...

That glass never made it out to Desney. I poured another glass and brought it out to her. I then sneaked mine from behind my back and did "cheers" with her glass. It was a great feeling!

I can now drink wine without any great discomfort. It still tingles a bit going down. But it doesn't actually burn and it's not uncomfortable.

Unfortunately I still can't really taste it however. From smelling the Chablis I know very well the sort of flavours I should have been experiencing. I wasn't getting any of 'em. I got a bit of the fruit in the beginning. But none of the wood, no length in the mouth and nothing after. I made sure with Desney... it wasn't the wine... it was me.

I can't taste the wonderful aspects of wine that make it enjoyable... yet. But I can drink wine again which is certainly a major step in the right direction.

I might open another bottle just to celebrate!

Transformation...

Desney has been working mornings, afternoons, days, nights and weekends redecorating the heating room in the basement. She redid the cement in the walls; treated places with special anti-humidity chemicals (which sent me running away as my throat didn't like them at all); fixed holes; replastered; repainted everywhere (ceiling, walls, floor, beams) with special paints (ceiling and wall paint, wood paint for the windows, iron paint for the beams, terrace and balcony paint for the floor)...

After months today was the day when the rest of us were called to help. We actually started putting things back in to the room today. Jess and I took apart a cupboard, dragged it out to the garage in pieces and put it back together again. That was about the extent of our assistance.

The room looks pretty amazing. But there are a few odds and ends to finish up on the electronics front which I am currently working on. As soon as that part's finished I'll post a photo or two...

Late night...

I spent most of the day programming... I know I should have been doing other things... enjoying the sunny cold weather... but

I'm really enjoying the projet I'm working on and progressively moving forward... It feels better than playing outside with this body that still doesn't seem to do what I want it to when I want it to.

In the evening I kicked back and watched De-Lovely which I had rented from DVD Fly (the French version of Net Flix). The movie was ever so slightly above average but enjoyable. Kevin Kline was better than the movie. The idea was to kill time until I had to go back out.

I knew I was going back out after midnight as I was going to pick up Jessica from a party she was going to in the 10th. I left home a bit after midnight and his road works and traffic through the 19th but got there for abou 00:45. Of course I sat around in the car a bit as it obviously took a while for her to actually leave the party. Then I found out that I had been drafted in to late night taxi service and I took home two of her friends. The three of them gossiped and giggled throughout the entire drive which should have kept my mind off the traffic. Got in at about 01:30 and was in bed 15 minutes later...

Liane Foly

Back in December I bought 2 tickets to see Liane Foly at our local theatre here in Asnières. I wanted to set myself a goal at the time: feel well enough to go out to a concert and to enjoy myself. Although I am constantly frustrated by my condition I have to admit that I have met and surpassed the goals I short-sightedly set at the time.

However I had forgotten that no one else in the family is a fan of Liane Foly. We therefore had been discussing all week about who would accompany me. The entire family hoped that my friend Robbie was free and woudl be willing. Unfortunately Robbie has to work. Jessica therefore reluctantly agreed to accompany me.

To attempt to compensate Jessica for accepting the torture of coming out to the concert with me I wanted to offer her a better dinner than just the local Italian restaurant around the corner from the theatre. I was therefore pleased when we found a lovely little French restaurant not far from the theatre. What I had obviously forgotten was how long dinner takes in a "normal" restaurant. Nearly all of the time this is just the way I like it and one of the major reasons I live here. However we were in a bit of a rush to get to the theatre... We still managed to have an entrée and a plat... even though we had to forsake dessert and didn't even have time for an after-meal coffee. The meal was better than average without being extraordinary...

We ran to the theatre and got there at about 20:15. Unfortunately this was one of the rare evenings when the seats were not numbered: first come first serve. And the place was already packed! We got seats pretty far up but at least a bit centred.

She started at 20:40, about 10 minutes late and with the entire theatre clapping to call her out. We were walking out of the theatre at 23:40! Except for a 15-minute intermission she had given us 3 hours of a true "show"!

I had heard that she does a bit of impersonations and jokes in between songs. I didn't realise just how much of an integral part of the show that is. She sings 2 or 3 songs and then she does a few impersonations and stories. Her impersonations were absolutely excellent! Jessica was a bit lost every now and then as she didn't know some of the references or characters. But cutting up the pure singing with stories and impersonations made for an even more interesting and varied evening.

We left there singing songs in the street and were still singing when we tiptoed in to the house as Desney and Alexandra were already in bed. I was actually pleasantly surprised with the evening as the concert was actually much better than I had expected. I knew that I would enjoy it... but I did not expect that much quality or quantity.

Jessica was full of compliments and actually said she was glad she came!

Back on the road

Another long day but probably the most enjoyable. It was split nicely by a nice long lunch at a local pub. I was able to eat the inside of a steak and ale pie, as it's made with a lot of sauce, but I couldn't handle the chips and pie part without embarassing myself. One wonderful discovery I had already made on Wednesday, at lunch, is the fact that British real ale goes down oh so very nicely. Not the slightest bit of stinging, pure pleasure and quite tasty. I had a pint on Wednesday and had two pints today. I found that if I didn't really nag myself I could have gladly spent the rest of the afternoon in the pub.

At the end of the day I took the taxi back to Waterloo, waited on queue with the standard Friday night queues for at least a half an hour and finally back on to the Eurostar home. The stewardess looked at me funny when I refused the free Champagne and the meal was certainly strange without wine but I sat back and watched Hotel Rwanda on DVD and got home before midnight.

Exhausted!!!

A long day

Worked a bit in the morning before having breakfast in the room. Got to the office and tried to get to work on the new server we were installing. Unfortunately quite a lot of users had their own problems that needed dealing with, one after the another, and the next thing I knew most of the morning was gone. Spent the rest of the day installing the server and, of course, anything that could go wrong did go wrong. But, as always, everything worked in the end. But I didn't get back out of the office until about 19:30.

Room Service: The Workaholic's Diet

I called up room service for dinner, as always, ate it rather quickly in front of the television, and got back to work. I programmed until about 23:00 and decided I should try and get a good night's sleep before another big day of work.

Back to work

I was up early having not slept that well. I did all of the things I have to do in the morning and was hooked up and doing e-mails and such before 08:00. Breakfasted and off to the office for 09:00.

I spent literally the entire morning just saying hello to everyone. Going through the building and seeing everyone one by one. They were all really very pleased to see me and they made me feel both welcome and wonderful. They all went right to my vain streak and told me I looked great. What more could I ask for?

I finally sat down and started to get to work and actually didn't get out of the office until about 18:00. I got back to the hotel room and found I had two options: work as usual or watch television. I decided to force myself and try and watch television. Unfortunately there just really wasn't anything worth watching on. This was also a bit affected by the fact that I had programming ideas in my head that I just had to get in to the machine... I spent the next two hours programming...

On the road again...

Trying to make the day as easy as possible: I did most of my packing last night. I therefore just had e-mail and various other work to go through this morning. Took the taxi to Gare du Nord at about noon and leisurely got on the Eurostar in time to head off to London. They don't have First Premium service any more and Business Premium is a pretty big step down. But it was obviously enjoyable all the same.

I've been programming non-stop for days now so I spent most of the train trip programming as well. It's a great feeling when it works!!!

I got to the hotel at about 15:30, unpacked and headed up to Selfridges and then Books, Etc. to pick up some stuff I knew I would need (Palm charger and Linux books) and finally headed back to the hotel. I hooked up the computer and programmed again for another couple of hours until dinner... After dinner I actually kicked back and watched television, rather than working, and got myself ready for the big day back to work tomorrow. Asleep by midnight!

Status Quo

I haven't written in a week... because there really hasn't been anything to write about.

Things are the same without any remarkable evolution.

My voice has not improved. My taste buds have not improved. I can still drink a beer or two but wine still burns my throat. Most food is too dry to enjoy without a lot of sauce. I still cough throughout the day, my mouth is constantly dry and I have to constantly have a glass of water waiting for me in each room "just in case".

I therefore still miss 3 of my favourite aspects of life: talking, food and wine (not necessarily in that order).

I have however been able to work more and more this week and have rediscovered the simple pleasures of programming. I've been working on one programming project all day every day for a week now. Most days I work for about 6 hours total, with maybe 4 hours of programming. But there are some days when I can work program for up to 6 hours. I do still truly love programming and the pleasures both of creating something and of watching it actually work!

The positive aspect of this being that I can hopefully start billing a bit as my financial situation is still pretty catastrophic.

I will be heading off to London this week to hopefully start resuming my monthly trip to my client's office there. It's going to be a long week with long days. I'll probably be pretty exhausted by the weekend. But it'll be positive both personally and professionally to finally get back to that level.

Desney has been spending an enormous amount of time decorating again. She's been working lots and lots on redoing the heating room in the basement to make it back in to a gym but bigger, better and prettier. When we can't hear her working anywhere else in the house we know she's in the basement sanding, cleaning, filling holes, painting, applying anti-humidity treatments, ...

The kids are back in school now which has changed the scheduling around the house and brought us back to the type of planning we're more accustomed to. Alexandra is already planning her April holidays...

Talk, talk, talk

Last night I went out for a board meeting for the parents' association for Jessica's school (APESA). It was a great experience to get out and actually do something for a while and I actually felt like I participated.

As is so often the case in meetings I left punishing myself with the fact that I really need to learn how to listen better and stop interrupting people when they speak. I also haven't completely gotten rid of the obnoxiously American notion of "if I speak louder the other person will understand me better" or even worse "he who speaks louder is right".

I probably talked more in this one evening than I have over the entire last six months. I tried to keep drinking water in between but I forgot more often than not. I got home just before midnight with Desney a bit worried about how I was doing...

I obviously overdid the talking and paid the price. I've had many consecutive nights now without coughing fits and with Desney sleeping back in our bed. A few nights ago I had a brief fit but it only lasted about 5 minutes, it was relatively early (01:00) and I went out to the living room to cough. But last night the fits were back. I had a relatively short one (10 minutes) at about 01:00 and a longer one (about 15 minutes) at 04:00. Each time I went out to the living room to cough, blow my nose, cough, drink water, cough, dry my eyes, cough, blow my nose some more and then cough. I woke up pretty exhausted...

I have to learn to keep water right next to me and, more impotrantly, I really have to learn to weigh my words...

Five nights in a row

This morning I woke up with the very pleasant knowledge that it's been five nights in a row that I've slept a complete night with no coughing fits.

It's not as though I'm counting or anything... but it's a good feeling...

Back from Torino

I went to the airport (Orly - South Terminal) and picked up Jessica and her friend flying in from Torino, Italy. They looked great albeit a bit tired. They were famished so we had a bite to eat. This is of course a very long endeavour at the airport and we didn't get out of there for quite some time. I dropper her friend off at her house and we headed home.

Once home Jessica was very pleased to see the cats, her sister, her house, her bedroom, ...

I spent a good portion of the afternoon working on transferring our family home videos to the computer. It doesn't work quite the way I want it to, it takes an enormous amount of time per video and (of course) it takes up a huge amount of disk space. We have years of videos to go through!

Breakfast with champions

Last night we had Japanese take away delivered and sat around watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Torino until pretty late. It was quite long, as usual, and it was quite fun checking out some of the delegations: one athlete from Bermuda, one from Iran, the absolutely enormous American and Russian delegations and, of course, the huge and well-supported Italian delegation in their bright silver coats. This time they actually provided seats for the delegations as so often we’ve seen them have to stand throughout the ceremony. The ceremony itself was like most of them. The effect of creating the traditional dove out of a bunch of dancers hanging from the sky was quite nice. I had predicted that (Alberto) Tomba “La Bomba” would be the last torch carrier. I was right and I was wrong as is so often the case. He was the last carrier to enter the stadium. But then it was passed on at least 3 more times to the final carrier who was the female Italian skier Stefania Belmondo who has won the most medals. Funny enough one of the things I remember most was the symbolism of Laura Bush sitting next to Cherie Blair in the stands…

The games are being held in Torino, Italy and that just happens to be where Jessica is headed. They were supposed to be there last night but decided to head back there this afternoon. They’ll be in Torino today and leave from there tomorrow to head back home. She should be able to tell us what it was like to be in the Olympic City…

With dinner, as my eating and drinking seemed to be improving a bit lately, I tried a bit of Desney’s wine. I was able to drink about 3 sips this time which is better than ever. It burns a whole lot less. But it does still burn and the pleasure of the taste just does not outweigh the pain (yet) to actually enjoy a glass. I stuck to a nice cold glass of Japanese Kirin beer.

After 3 consequetive nights of uninterrupted sleep (no coughing fits) I thought I’d try something different instead of my everyday breakfast of oatmeal or poached eggs and yogurt. I went down the street to our local bakery and picked up a croissant and a pain au chocolat aux amandes and came back home and made myself my traditional cappuccino. The croissant tasted pretty good. But the taste was overwhelmed by the fact that it’s just too dry for me to eat. I’d have to douse my mouth with water both before and during in order to be able to enjoy it. I ate all of it but it wasn’t easy. The pain au chocolat aux amandes tasted quite nice. It was also easier to eat due to the almond paste in the middle. But it was still pretty dry and the powdered sugar on the top was just unbearable. I keep forgetting that I can’t eat powdered stuff on top of desserts at the moment as it sticks to my throat, dries it out and tickles for almost a half an hour afterwards no matter how much I drink. Again I was able to finish it but it wasn’t as enjoyable as it used to be. The cup of coffee felt good. The taste was a bit more acrid than I remember but I think that’s more due to the current state of my taste buds than anything else. I probably would have enjoyed my everyday breakfast more than this but it was worth a try.

Baby steps forward…

Glug glug

I went out for lunch today. No big deal. Went to my local café and had a sandwich and a panaché. Hung out and watched the horse races on the television. My local café is also a PMU which means that in addition to selling lottery tickets you can also actually bet on the horse races while drinking or eating. There are quite a few cafés in my neighbourhood. This is the one I chose to be MY local. I wonder why...

Today the races were trotters (horses pulling their driver along in a sort of chariot) which I don't enjoy.

I stood at the bar eating and sipping at my beer/lemonade. Normally when I drink I take one small mouthful in my mouth and swallow. I don't take enough for two swallows as it means swallowing, holding the rest in my mouth while I recuperate and then swallowing again about 10 to 30 seconds later. I sometimes look like Dizzy Gillespie with my cheeks puffed out holding on to more liquid queueing up and waiting for its chance to go down my throat. My panaché arrived on the bar in front of me and out of old habit I picked it up quickly and downed two gulps. I put down the glass in shock. I had actually taken the drink and swallowed and immediately swallowed again. I had done glug glug. I almost jumped up and down in joy but with the look of the crowd around me I decided that wasn't a good idea. It's amazing the sort of split-second decisions one can make in a bar. I've got a really good survival instinct.

I didn't do it again immediately. I went back to my old habit of one swallow at a time while I ate. But then I had to see if it was an accident or something. I tried again and it worked... glug glug. I ate some more while being very pleased with myself. I then decided to throw fate to the wind and I went for it: glug glug glug. That's right dear reader: three swallows immediately following each other. I was in drinker's heaven. I'm not referring to alcoholic drinkers. I'm referring to the simple act of drinking a liquid swallow after swallow. I didn't push it any further and I'm not sure I can go much further yet. But it was a wonderful feeling to go glug glug glug.

Most of you reading this have absolutely no idea why this incredibly simple act can be such a big deal and have such a big impact on me. I can't explain it beyond the fact that this is the first time since the end of August 2005 that I have been able to do this magical feat. It's not a huge leap forward. But it is a definite step forward and it feels very positive. I've dreamed of being able to chug a lug a glass of water and am actually starting to feel like I'll be able to do it again someday...

A good night's sleep

Slept by myself last night... with the window closed...

Woke up this morning at around 07:45 with the very pleasant surprise of having slept straight through without any coughing fits...

Sometimes dreams do come true...

Coughing again...

It had been so long I had stopped counting. It's been 5 nights or 7 nights or even longer that I haven't had a coughing fit. I'd assumed that was a stage I had been through and was over with...

Monday night, at 04:45, I had a coughing fit that lasted about 15 minutes. The worst feeling about these fits, for me, is the absolute helplessness. I don't know when it's going to stop and there's nothing I can do about it. I try drinking water, blowing my nose, sitting upright... but nothing works. It just eventually subsides. In the meantime it wakes Desney up, of course, which upsets me as I know she's only got another hour of sleep before she has to get up and she's not going to get back to sleep properly. This fit made me quite angry and upset. Partly because I thought I was over this and it came as such as a surprise and partly out of frustration of not being able to control it. I didn't get back to sleep until about 07:00.

Last night I had another fit which started at 04:30. By 05:00 it still wasn't finished and I got out of bed and went to the kitchen and finally to the guest room until it subsided. This one lasted 45 minutes and was quite painful. I finally put myself to sleep in the guest room and slept through to 08:30...

I know who's going to be sleeping alone this evening...

:-(

Super Bowl Monday

Today is a write off as it is each year…

I didn’t scream either at the strippers or at the match all night. I (obviously) didn’t smoke. Jean-Philippe, the only smoker at the table, was even kind enough to leave the table each time he had a cigarette. I drank a bit less than usual. So I assume it’s normal that I felt better waking up this year than any year before. My voice was much better this morning than any other. But the difference is that normally on Super Bowl Tuesday my voice is back 100% while I know my voice will be exactly the same tomorrow as it is today.

I got up at about 11:30 and very slowly started getting ready. I double-checked my e-mails and put out a few fires and finally had brunch at 14:00 in front of the television watching Ballykissangel on BBC Prime with Alexandra. They’re running the much later seasons now which I had never seen before. I wasn’t missing much as the show has gone radically downhill in my opinion…

I spent the rest of the day trying to get through e-mails and paced around the house…

Super Bowl XL

I slept in on Sunday until about 11:00… recharging my batteries…

Desney spent most of the afternoon working on the room in the basement which will eventually become our refurbished gym. Alexandra spent most of the afternoon in her bedroom supposedly reading. I spent most of the time in front of my computer catching up on mail and such. At the end of the afternoon I spent about an hour and a half installing CD-ROMs on to Alexandra’s computer so she can be doing some educational work over the holidays.

At about 19:00 I headed out to Paris, on the métro, for my annual Guys’ Night Out. I arrived at American Dream early. We were supposed to meet at 20:00. About 5 minutes before Jean-Philippe calls me to tell me he’s going to be late but not as late as last year. About 2 minutes later Robbie calls me to tell me he’ll be there in about a half an hour. I strolled around the Opéra area for about 20 minutes, in the cold, but when it started drizzling I decided this was silly and went in to American Dream. I sat at the bar nursing a beer until the guys showed up.

Once a year, every year, for about 10 or 15 years now, we get together for Guys’ Night Out. The match in question is purely an excuse. It’s a night out without our spouses. We used to go to a bar near Montparnasse which had a big screen but they stopped showing the match. We then went somewhere else and eventually settled on American Dream about 5 or 6 years ago. American Dream generally has the match showing on a big screen in their cinema area downstairs and attracts quite a lot of fans of American football. American Dream also added a new attraction to the evening which the other bars didn’t have.

We eat as soon as we get there and stuff our faces with fatty, greasy American food. The waiter generally looks at us funny when we order and actually says “That’s a lot of food…. Are you sure you can eat all of that?” They learn. Especially when we order more after having gone through the first round. Beer is the beverage of choice and we tend to go through quite a few of those by the end of the evening.

This year was no exception. I was able to keep up to a certain extent, eating my burger and tapas without difficulty but leaving behind a mound of chips, and using beer to help me swallow was a quite enjoyable alternative to plain water. My throat is getting more tolerant of the bubbles, although it still doesn't like them, and I found that by slushing the beer around my mouth before swallow I could kill off quite a few bubbles. Beer and food together also helped both go down quite well.

While we’re just about finishing dinner the entertainment starts. There are generally 3 strippers: a girl, a guy and then another girl. We tend to know the strippers on sight as some of them stay for years. The strip show goes on throughout the rest of the night until about 2 or 3 in the morning. We, however, leave the show at midnight for the match.

Just before midnight we head downstairs for the Super Bowl where we spend the rest of the evening screaming in front of a big screen until 4:30 in the morning.

This year was a disaster. Upstairs we were seated at a table which would provide us with an excellent view of the game on the big screen. But we couldn’t see much of the show that we had gone upstairs for and spent a lot of time craning our necks trying to see what was going on on the strip bar. I was quite frustrated as I couldn't yell or scream any form of appreciation during the show and was only capable of very loud clapping. The ambiance was not what is used to be. After a few hours of not being able to see the show things became worse as the time of the match approached. It became apparent that they weren’t going to stop the show for the match and we were going to have to try and watch the match on the screen, without the commentary, while the loud music and guys screaming at the strippers was going on. We therefore headed downstairs to try and get better seats. There weren’t any. People had already crowded up in the few seats available in front of the screen on the first floor. The screen was slanted and the picture was partially blocked by the air conditioner. We ended up at a table which faced the bar. Above the bar is about a dozen small television screens and we watched the match, at a distance, on a screen smaller than the television any of us has at home.

This year the match was on national television rather than on a pay-cable. It started badly when the announcers talked over the national anthem (Star Spangled Banner) which was sung by Aaron Neville and Aretha Franklin. We couldn’t hear it at all. If they had done that over La Marseillaise they would have been fired.

The main announcer was ridiculously bad. A receiver would catch the ball, which is a reception, and the announcer would yell “What an interception!”. An interception is when a member of the opposite team catches the ball. Throughout the last quarter (fourth) of the game he would say there are X minutes left in the “third quarter”. We spent most of the game trying to laugh at him as otherwise we would just have been angry.

We still managed to have a good time. But it certainly was a disappointment in comparison to so many other years.

Normally this night was my one smooking night per year. I was never a big smoker (half-pack a day at my biggest stage back in the 80s) and I gave up smoking before we conceived Jessica (15 years ago). But I would break down and smoke one night a year on Guys' Night Out. I would go to the local Tabac and buy myself a pack and smoke about half of it during the night and give the rest to Jean-Philippe afterwards. That part of my life is gone...

I couldn't scream, I certainly wouldn't even contemplate smoking and I couldn't eat as much as usual. But I could drink beer without any difficulty and actually more than some pleasure. And, most importantly, I could have fun with the guys no matter what. It was a wonderful night out. It's something I think all of us look forward to each year and I was especially glad this year that I could make it.

Oh... and the team I was rooting for (Pittsburgh) won the match even though the other team (Seattle) was favourite!

Jean-Philippe was nice enough to drive me home and I crawled in to bed at 04:30 where I spent quite some time. Today is referred to as “Super Bowl Monday” and it’s a basic write off. I don’t get anything done today except for recuperating from the day before…

Sleep glorious sleep

After yesterday's long day I actually slept in until about 11:00 in the morning! It was wonderful. What was especially appreciated is that I haven't had coughing fits in the night for at least two nights in a row now. I normally wouldn't even mention it as I'm always worried that's going to jinx things but it's a definite achievement.

I slowly got ready and made myself an omelette for brunch.

In the afternoon Desney took Alexandra to the orthodontist's for her first of two appointments to install her braces. Today they did the top row and on Wednesday they'll be doing the bottom row. These are the braces she'll be wearing for the next two years. They look great as she choose transparent braces with blue around each. Alexandra wasn't feeling great when they got back as her mouth is really hurting her. We gave her some paracetamol and left her relaxing in front of the television.

Desney and I headed off to our favourite DIY store (Leroy Merlin) as we needed yet more stuff for the house. We didn't get out of there until about 19:30 and schlepped home an enormous new ladder just to be able to change the light bulbs at the top of the stairs.

Desney made an excellent dinner (paupiette de veau, broccoli and rice) but it was unfortunately pretty much wasted. Alexandra could only eat soup and I take so long to chew this sort of thing that I could only eat one plate.

It's nice to be home again and there's a special warmth to one's own living room especially when it's quite cold outside...

Jessica in Italy

I didn't get to see Jessica last night and I will not get to see her for another 8 days or so.

As it's school holidays for the kids as of this weekend Jessica got an offer we couldn't refuse. She's gone off to Italy to stay with one of her friends from school for a week. This is the same friend she went away with in October. But this time they are supposedly staying in a different house in a different region with a lot of Italian friends around to whom Jessica is going to have to try and speak Italian. Italian is Jessica's third language at school and an important part of her baccalauréat programme. She'll hopefully be soaking up as much Italian as she can during this trip. But, more likely, she will be spending time with her friend and enjoying herself immensefly.

As she had to leave for the airport at about 05:30 in the morning she stayed over at her friend's house last night and they left together in the morning. She'll be back on the 12th and will still have another week of holiday, this time at home, before going back to school.

A long day...

I got up at 07:30, which is already quite a feat, showered and headed downstairs for breakfast. I was able to eat relatively normally (cereal, yogurt and a tartine) and read the newspaper. I checked out and was at my client’s for 09:00.

I’ve known every one of these people for at least a decade now. They were all extremely kind and very pleased to see me as I was to see them. I greeted everyone and then got down to work installing upgrades. I had forgotten how slow their computers were and, more importantly, how slow their Internet connection is. If anyone should know it should be me as I installed each of these computers and the Internet connection. It’s going to take quite some time to install the upgrades because quite a large portion has to be downloaded from the Internet on to each computer.

At 11:00 I had a meeting with a telecommunications technician to discuss an installation project nearby. The meeting went well, albeit a bit long, and was quite productive.

Back to the farm and off to lunch. We had lunch at a restaurant we’ve been to often which overlooks the Normandy hills and which is quite enjoyable. Good Normandy food and back to work.
I spent the rest of the afternoon working and, of course, had setbacks here and there. I didn’t finish until 19:45 and was pretty tired. It was the first day in a while when I hadn’t had a nap in the afternoon. I also had done more talking in one day than I had done in a week. Everyone was very kind and would constantly lean their heads forewards to be able to hear me. It's also funny that often people have the automatic reaction that if you whisper to them they whisper back... even if there's not reason for them to do so.

I said my goodbyes and got on the road. A quick McDonald’s at Caen and back home a little before 23:00.
Alexandra and Desney had just gotten home from taking Jessica off to a friend’s house before her trip. It’s school holidays here as of this evening. I unloaded what had to be unloaded from the car and off to bed…

On the road again...

Tomorrow I have a big day of installations and meetings with my favourite client in Normandy. Normally I would get up at around 06:00 and be on the road for 06:45. I would get there around 09:00 and work throughout the day, leave around 19:30 and be home for about 22:30. However I’m trying to make life a bit easier for myself.

After sleeping a bit late, taking my time getting ready and having a Turkish sandwich for lunch I started preparing for my trip. By 16:00 I was on the road and driving out to Normandy. I arrived in Falaise, which is very close to my clients’, at about 18:45 and got to the room I had reserved at the Ibis Hotel before 19:00. After a bit of unpacking and lying around I set up my computer in the room and was pleased to find that they lived up to their Internet statement and their was WiFi Internet access in the room. I went through my e-mails and put out any fires where needed and finally went downstairs and had dinner. I was able to eat normally and at an almost normal speed. I had a started and a main course. The waitress may have been a bit disappointed in that I only had a carafe of water (lots of it), no dessert and no coffee. But she still got a tip which is more than most customers seem to leave at this hotel. I headed back up to my room. Here is where I first started to really appreciate my new enormous laptop computer. There is a tiny television in the room, as usual, sitting in a corner. For the first time my computer screen is actually bigger, by at least 35%, than the tiny TV. I lied down in bed, curled up with my laptop, put my headphones on and watched The Final Cut DVD which I had rented and brought with me. I quite enjoyed the film and I knew most of my family probably would not have. I think we’ve seen a bit much of Robin Williams (as well as Al Pacino) this month. I also watched The Making Of Sin City DVD which is part of the collector’s edition I have. I was unimpressed as most of the The Making Of was one long trailer pushing the movie rather than showing what they did and how.

And now for a good night’s sleep before work tomorrow…

A common cold

I spent all afternoon with a client. He had a new computer which needed installing and configuring before leaving on a business trip. It was urgent so I went out and got the job done. It wasn't until the end of the day that I realised he was leaving Thursday week and not the day after tomorrow. Duh...

I started getting pretty tired by the end of the day and my neck was killing me (mostly muscular). I then spent an hour in traffic getting home at a snail's pace. By the time I got home I was exhausted. By the time dinner was finished I had coughed enough and blew my nose enough to realise this was more than usual.

I've been coughing more and more over the past few days. My nose runs pretty often, on and off, at the moment as well. My nose runs whenever I eat but that's different. Last night it was pretty often and the coughing just didn't stop. It became obvious that on top of everything else I've got a cold.

A common cold under most circumstances is not big deal. But at the moment it is incredibly painful. Every time I sneeze I scream in pain. Every time I cough I cry. When you cough a lot your throat gets irritated. When your throat is already intensely irritated coughing takes it beyond intense.

I took a big dose of paracetamol and put myself to bed, in the guest room, and slept through till 10:30 this morning. I'm actually feeling a little bit better but we'll see how I am this evening.

Desney went out and got me an amazing humidifier machine to try and help the dryness of my throat in the evening and in my office. The machine has a built-in hydrometer to stop itself when the humidity level in the room reaches the desired level; a timer to turn itself off after a certain amount of time; a few other controls allowing even more fine tuning and adjusting. Basically you need an engineer's degree just to get the thing to steam your room. I tried it out last night. It didn't seem to help much with my coughing as I still had a fit at 03:00 and another at 04:30. But it did succeed in making steaming noises throughout the night and every 10-15 minutes or so it would make a gurgling sound as it "drank" more water. I can generally sleep through anything. But I know most people would not be able to sleep with this thing... In the morning I woke up feeling as I normally did, pretty bad, but with wet windows.

To sleep, perchance to dream...

In my neverending goal of trying to take as little medication as possible I decided to stop taking the sleeping tablets. The sleeping tablets may, or may not, have been helping me sleep. But they weren't stopping me from waking up in the middle of the night with coughing attacks. As it was obvious that this may result in a change in my sleeping patterns I slept in the guest room on Sunday night.

I didn't get to sleep until about 01:30 but once asleep I slept fine. I had a coughing fit at about 03:00. But it wasn't that bad and I was able to get back to sleep relatively quickly.

On Monday night I slept better as I fell asleep earlier and slept later. Again without the sleeping tablets so I feel as though I'm progressing.

I do wish the coughing fits would stop however as they're both painful and annoying...

Death and taxes

As Ben Franklin said "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes". Well I appear to have at least delayed the first so it's only fair that I should get pretty hard by the second.

As I've mentioned here before the French tax authorities decided to audit me at this rather inconvenient time in my life. I can't think of exactly when a tax audit would be convenient but this period of my life definitely qualifies as inconvenient and some may consider that a more than slight understatement.

They actually started the audit on the day of my second surgery back in September. I had sent all of my files to my accountant and she held the audit in her offices. They spent quite some time going over my accounts desperately looking for some way to make some money out of this. My accounts are actually ridiculously accurate. They laughed when they saw such things as a VAT declaration for 2 euros, along with the accompanying payment, when most companies would simply have adjusted one of their incoming cheques and applied it to the following month. They couldn't believe when I had maintained a 0.10 € balance from a client who had under paid me by that amount and never paid me since. But they still kept looking. They had to find something.

Then the international discrepancies kicked in. In France every business transaction requires an invoice. Every invoice in France must be contain a minimum of certain information (a unique number, the date, the name of the client and the name of the supplier, the business identification numbers, ...). In many other countries invoices are not obligatory. With the Internet and online business transactions this is becoming more and more the rule rather than the exception. I would say that about 80 to 85% of my business is conducted over the Internet. Most of my purchases, either for my company directly or for my clients indirectly, is carried out over the Internet. In many cases I do not ever receive an invoice or even an online version that I can print. The auditors found that for 2 of my suppliers from whom I purchase quite regularly (my Internet hosting company and my online fax supplier) I didn't have any invoices. They therefore took all of the amounts paid to those companies and declared them as personal expenses thereby reducing my company's profit and increasing my personal income. I therefore would end up paying slightly less in professional tax and quite a lot more in personal revenue taxes. Luckily when they sent the results of their audit I had a month to appeal. Luckily, again, the results came out when I was in a fit state to be able to do something about it. I contacted my suppliers and begged them to provide me with invoices. They sent me online versions for the years in question (2002 through 2004) and I printed them all out and sent them off to the auditors (about 300 pages). This greatly reduced the situation for 2002 and 2003. However there remains quite a lot of other suppliers for 2004 from whom I could not get invoices and they're hitting me with a whopping 5,600 € tax recall for just that one year by adding on the extra amount and then adding on an additional 40% in late charges. I filed late partly because I was in the hospital fighting cancer. This is apparently not taken in to consideration. Business is business.

All of this came to a head at the same time as the other tax authorities came after me for back professional taxes. I hadn't paid my 2004 professional tax partly out of laziness, partly out of a lack of funds and, only ever so slightly, partly because of my health problems which occurred way after the amounts were already overdue. The tax authorities therefore tried to get the money from my company bank account. That didn't work as it was overdrawn already. They therefore went after my personal account. That also was overdrawn (as usual). They then went to the last account that is (partially) in my name and which is never overdrawn. This last item is due to the fact that I do not manage that account and simply follow the instructions of she who does manage the account: "she who must be obeyed". They took the money out of our joint account. I therefore now was angry myself as they took the money long before actually sending out any notification. However I also therefore had to deal with a force much worse than the tax authorities... she was not pleased (and rightfully so).

I spent a good portion of Saturday yelling at my accountant for letting this happen. The tax papers and notification of the fact that they were going to take the money out of the accounts had been sent to her and she hadn't told me. She said that she didn't want to bother me with such matters at this time when my thoughts should be elsewhere. I then yelled back at her, to the best of my ability which is unfortunately rather embarrassingly weak, that it wasn't up to her to make that decision especially when it's costing me money. We went back and forth and finally we agreed that I would deduct all of the bank charges and tax charges from this transaction from her fees. I then went to our joint bank with a cheque from my company account and paid off the amount which had been deducted.

All of this may sound like I'm complaining about our tax system... I'm not. I am one of the rare French residents who actually quite approves of both the tax system and the social system and the ridiculous amount of money we pay in both taxes and social charges. I personally find what we get back from both of those systems is incomparable and invaluable. Although I've felt this way for almost 2 decades now I am living proof.

I'll be negotiating a payment plan to pay off my personal taxes. But belts will be worn tighter this spring, summer, fall, winter and for a while afterwards...

An interesting side remark: none of my clothes fit me any more. Everything is loose and baggy on me. I am on the last hole on all of my belts. On my "business belt" this still isn't enough and my "nice trousers" tend to actually slip down when I walk around. I didn't buy new clothes in the sales as I don't know if I'm actually going to be able to maintain this amazingly thin and light size. In many ways I would like to while in other ways I would prefer not to. For the moment I am no longer losing weight. But I'm not gaining much weight either.

All back together...

Alexandra's coach, bringing her class back from classe de neige was supposed to arrive at 18:30 in front of her school. However Desney had stopped by the school on the way home, asked the concierge if she had any news, and found out they had almost arrived. She came home and I went to the school to wait. Desney showed up about 5 minutes later and the coach arrived about 5 minutes later at 18:15. Rather than being late they were actually 15 minutes early! This was actually quite good news for us as it was freezing outside...

The kids all got off the coach and practically immediately started crying. Some were crying because they had said farewell to the counselors who had looked after them; others were crying because there parents weren't at the school waiting for them as they had arrived early; others were crying because they were so happy to be home and yet others were crying for reasons which we are not aware of.

Alexandra too was crying mostly because she was sad at leaving her counselors behind. We got her home and she went upstairs and found her birthday presents waiting for her. She actually said "thank you" for her new computer...

Jessica was out at the theatre with her class. We let Alexandra choose what she wanted to eat and it was Japanese. As it was so cold out we actually had the Japanese deliver for the first time, even though they're just around the corner, so neither Desney nor I would have to go back out.

After a few weeks of intelligent movies with a story which did not appear to please the entire family I had scoured eBay and got hold of an oldie but a goodie which I knew would appeal. Tonight we watched Tango & Cash and watched Stallone and Russell blow up most of Los Angeles while throwing out cute one-liners at each other.

Jessica got home at around 11:30 accompanied by her friend Alice who was spending the night. I think they were suprised to find that Desney was already in bed and I was suggesting they do the same. They wanted to sit up and have tea for a while. I have no idea how late they actually stayed up in Jess' bedroom but I doubt they went right to sleep... even though they have school tomorrow (10:00).

Tonsil Boy

Just a couple of days after I found Raph's tonsil cancer page I found Randy's Tonsil Boy blog. Randy is going through some very similar treatment and symptoms as myself. There are similarities and differences. But we're both fighting the same fight. I look at his blog every day hoping for news. It sometimes feels better just knowing that I'm not the only one and that the symptoms or side-effects I am feeling are also felt by someone else.

You may have noticed, around the same time that I found these sites, that I added a new Tonsil Cancer links section to my right-hand vertical bar... down at the bottom.

All my positive thoughts and best wishes go out to Randy, and his family, for his speedy and completely recovery.

Computers again...

My new laptop (Dell Inspiron 9400) arrived yesterday. I opened it up and I immediately froze. I didn't move. I gently put it back in its wrapper and made sure I hadn't broken any of the packaging.

I then got on the phone and called Dell. I rather calmly explained to the person on the phone that I had ordered 3 computers. I ordered all of my computers in English (English software and English keyboards (QWERTY)). I then explained, while remaining calm, that my laptop had just been delivered, that I had opened it only discover it has a French keyboard (AZERTY) instead of the keyboard I ordered. I told them that I put it back in its packaging and had not gone any further. They said they'd call me back about the "possibility of changing the keyboard".

That was yesterday... today I called them again. I was told that I can now start using the computer as whether they change the keyboard or not they will not be changing the entire keyboard. They are now trying to determine (read "prove") where the error occurred. In other words they need to document who is to blame before they do anything. I sent them all of the e-mails I had sent to the sales rep to explain the problem as soon as I had the order confirmation as well as my original order and the leasing document I had signed all which showed that I had ordered a QWERTY keyboard on all of my computers. Now I just have to wait for the judgement...

In the mean time I have an absolutely beautiful, albeit slightly enormous, new laptop computer to install, configure and finally start playing with!