You know that thing where you completely intend to return your friend’s message, and then you get sidetracked, and then it gets to the point where just casually returning that one message isn’t a good enough reason to call, then you realize that a really good reason to call is about to come up, so you wait for that, but then it falls through, so a random “How’ve you been?” will sound even lamer, because now it’s been weeks since they left that one stupid breezy message and now you’re a terrible person?
I’ve been having that thing with my blog. Isn’t that sad?
Oh, I’ve been checking in (mostly to decline spam “comments”–hey, Shoes Guy? What the hell? But also, Nancie: you’re moving to the UK? That’s so cool! What’s going on??), but I always end up closing the blank window in guilty despair.
Anyway.
Some news items: I have my temporary residence permit. After a frantic scramble to get my birth certificate over here and retake my ID photos (the French government, in its glorious capriciousness, prefers black-and-white), it was just an easy trip to the DMV-like office where I said, “Pardon?” about seventy times, and then was handed my temporary card. “Your appointment to pick up the permanent one is December sixth,” the nice lady concluded.
Great!
Or not.
“Actually, I’ll be traveling then,” I said as diplomatically as possible. “For the wedding.”
So my appointment is now December 28th. Ready for the irony? By then I’ll need a whole different thing. At least in the meantime I’m irrefutably legal, so hooray for that!
We’ve also had a parade of visitors since my last post: Melissa came for a week and got me to like cheese, then Andrea and Eric stopped in for a few days (Jolie took to immediately flopping on her back any time Andrea so much as looked at her), then Eric reappeared on our doorstep last night at midnight, and Andrea will be doing something similar in a couple of days.
And Jolie started this thing where she barks, growls at, and chases after small children, but that seems to have mostly subsided, which is just as well, since she’s now mastered the fine art of psychological warfare, and I don’t think that I could handle a dog who does both.
Seriously.
So our dog has learned now that when we start preparing the kitchen for her, we’re about to leave her there. Which she does not especially enjoy. And I made a tactical error yesterday when I had to go out: I decided to get the kitchen ready, then take her out quickly, then leave. Jolie, overjoyed at what she mistakenly believed to be my change of heart, raced gleefully off down the street. And I, not wanting to get too far from home since I didn’t have much time before my (ahem) first wedding dress fitting, turned her around.
Which is when she realized what was actually going on.
It’s also when she came up with her plan: she would simply refuse to pee. She knew that I knew that it had been nearly four hours since she’d last been outside, and had quite obviously concluded that I couldn’t put her in the kitchen until she gave in. And so every time we approached the door she ran urgently past it as if she were about to go, then went back to sniffing the pavement and staring at strangers. And after almost fifteen minutes of this little charade, I had no choice but to just bring her back inside and hope for the best.
She was very, very happy to see me by the time I got back.
Aren’t you?