Skip to main content

Paris, Providence and Don's DNA is Zero percent

It's the last day of February; March will arrive tomorrow and so, it seems, will the lion. While temps were springlike yesterday and remain somewhat balmy today, Sunday is supposed to bring with it a snowstorm of some significance. (photo: Dad's high school graduation, Bement, Illinois, 1928.)

With March also comes Susie's departure for Paris on the 14th. I'll follow three weeks later. I'm ready to start packing a ton of chili for the freezer and get the Japanese movies in my queue on Netflix. That and working with Adobe's Creative Suite 4 set of programs -- I'm as near to heaven as I can get.

Well, OK, I won't really be in heaven until I join Susan Nell in Paris on April 4, that's true. And the cool thing is I can work from Paris. My job is shifting more toward image asset management and I'm pumped. It's more experience with Adobe software and images to boot. Not a bad thing at all. Anyway, I'm planning on getting a few hours of work every morning -- before the Parisians come to life and Père-Lachaise opens its doors.

Susie is prepping the staff at Gracie's, particularly Danielle and Mike who will be covering desserts while she's gone. She's working up a collection of recipes to make their lives a bit easier but these kids are pretty savvy and will have little trouble carrying the ball for seven weeks or so.

Aside from the gloom and doom in the world of high (and low) finance, aside from the abominable condition of our infrastructure here in Providence, problems which won't go away no matter how much stimulus money is thrown into the Ocean State, aside from the blinkered foolishness of so many of our compatriots who simply don't get it, that this world is changing mighty fast, aside from these things, life is pretty good.

Take care, stay calm, keep warm and drop by here sometime; anytime but April, of course.

Hey, and no matter what happens, keep yours fixed on the prize, like the one below:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day 1 in Annecy Morning

 [20 April, Easter Sunday] OK, so our morning wasn't actually spent in Annecy per se. Still the bus said Annecy City Tour. . . We had our tickets in hand for a bus trip to Gorges du Fier  and Chateau Montrottier . It was raining lightly as we finished our breakfast and then made the five-minute walk to the town's Hôtel de Ville.  There we joined a few other tourists also waiting for the bus to take us to the gorge. Numerous vendors were undaunted by the weather as they were setting up for the day's big market of mostly gimcracks and geegaws with some food. The bus arrived right on time, and our little group of maybe 16 or so got aboard and out of the cold rain. It was a pretty quick drive out of greater Annecy and through the green countryside. As we pulled into the parking lot I noticed a restaurant I had seen from the train the day before -- and indeed we would see several trains speeding through the valley as we walked to and from the gorge. parking lot Once off the bu...

Wife saves husband

[from Susan VandenBerg, 1/7/1025] To those of you who know Steve (and are perhaps very fond of him) I’m reporting that on New Year’s Eve soon after we had finished dinner, he collapsed suddenly, unresponsive with dusky color and gasping breaths. I immediately responded with CPR and calling 911. Medics arrived in due time and continued CPR along with defibrillation which put him back into a regular rhythm and some return of respiratory effort. He was transported to Butterworth ER and stabilized with intubation and sedation.  I/medical personnel feel this was a dangerous and potentially fatal arrhythmia most likely caused by some scar tissue in the heart from Steve’s previous heart attacks. In that case the scar can interfere with the electrical circuits in the heart, disrupting the normal rhythms. There are a number of other details that I could share with you, although that really isn’t that important at this stage. The crux of the matter is that, if I hadn’t been home when he coll...

Off to Paris and Home

 [22-23 April] We were packed and ready to go by 9:00am. After last-minute tidying up we left the apartment keys on the table, hauled our bags down the two flights of stairs and walked the 10 minutes or so to the train station. Our train was on time and we got right on board without jostling with crowds.  The train ride back to Lyon was smooth and quick and we enjoyed the scenery just as much as on our way to Annecy. We made a point of looking out for the Gorges du Fier on our way out of town. That was pretty cool. Our train arrived in Lyon on time and since we had a couple of hours before our connection to Paris we grabbed a bite of lunch. Our TGV high-speed train to Paris arrived on schedule at platform G and boy was it packed!. Our luck held out though and our assigned coach stopped right in front of where we were standing! We walked on, stowed our bags and headed up to the top deck and our seats. The ride was fast, really fast, and we pulled into the Gare de Lyon in Paris...