Days of Obligation

The clock's running. Our flights are set for March 18; the movers are coming March 15.

Today as I prepared to take Boog to school, I realized that I was wearing the same clothes I had on when I dropped him off Wednesday morning (and I cleaned out the gutters Wednesday afternoon). I'm sporting a 12-day "playoff beard" that makes me look like a Soundgarden roadie circa 1994. My meals are taken standing over the sink, or eaten out of a greasy bag while driving. I communicate with my wife via written notes, since the only time we're in the same place, one or both of us is on the phone, talking with the gutter guy or the Department of Agriculture or the tree man or the insurance company or the flooring people or the property manager (or holding for the French consul, who I'm convinved is totally ignoring me now in hopes that I'll give up and decide I'll like Switzerland better). My to-do list is four pages single-spaced, with handwritten notes all over it. I still don't know how our unaccompanied baggage air shipment is getting to France. I haven't begun to pack.

So I haven't been posting a whole lot on the ol' blog.

But I did sell my car yesterday. The guy's coming to pick it up Monday, and when he drives off I'll turn away just in case I start crying.

And there's more good news...for the first two months, we may be able to rent the townhouse belonging to my predecessor at the agency, rather than cramming into a hotel. It sounds nice, just a few blocks from the Parc Tete d'Or ("Golden Head Park", so named for the legend that a solid gold head of Jesus is buried there somewhere, never mind that if anyone actually had a solid gold likeness of the J-man, they probably would not bury it in a park, no matter how charming) and right by the metro. Plus my contact at the agency says that Lyon is beginning to see the first signs of spring...that is, it has stopped snowing.