the tribulations of Paris apt-quests, or: Another Not-Brief But At Least Visually-Interesting Caffeine- and Adrenaline-fed Blogpost About Paris Plans

I think Bill is chiefly to credit for the miracle of my finding my Paris abode at long last and for its being incredibly fun and in a tremendous area again this year but I know Candace and Tracy were pulling for me, too. So the three of you are hereby invited to celebrate with me in Paris next month... or at a later date of course if nec. :) Anyone who was sending less palpable support I thank you, too!

Anyway the agency stuff kept falling through - I don't know why all the Paris apt. agencies' practices are so inefficient but they are. The worst of all their crazily inefficient things is the fact that when you let ANY of them know of the apts you would like to reserve, they then have to contact the individual landlords to see if the apt is still available - regardless of the fact that according to THEIR WEBSITE it was indeed available for the dates you needed.

You see, there is no system for landlords to update apt availability themselves on the sites. So more and more what happens is you contact the agency, they contact the landlord, the landlord ALWAYS takes at least 2 days to get back to the agency for some reason (one of the best things about Frenchies is they are generally highly efficient; one of the worst things is that on occasion when that efficiency falls flat, it Really Falls Flat - there's no halfway mark - gah!), and so far this year and for several weeks last year, the landlord's answer was that the flat was already rented. Then the agency emails me Paris-time, which I get when I come into school, I have to go back on the site (in between and before and after classes and -um- WORK, quoi), re-input my dates (again, in between and before and after classes and -um- WORK, quoi) to see what seems to be available that day (looking at these sites takes forever because of all the little symbols and different formats from one to the next and making sure that my basic requirements --internet, TV, non-smoking and, if possible, washing machine-- are met in addition to being in a halfway decent area of Paris and not being too expensive AND having enough seating or floorspace in the living room to have the students over for class once in a while if nec. on rainy days where we can't sit in a park or somewhere to discuss the most recent reading assignment or museum visit), send them some more selections (oh, say, in between and before and after classes and -um- WORK, quoi) and start the ball rolling again (you know it: in between and before and after classes and -um- WORK, quoi - bref you get the idea I think of how crazy this has been making me, non? -AND- perhaps, how much I start to actually resent crap like this due to its very boneheadedly inefficient nature - gahhhh! :) tee hee, I am my father's daughter after all). They get my selections the next day of course because invariably by the time I'm able to send my new selections off it's after the end of the FR business day...

And so it goes... (in the immortal words of Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five I think, or else Breakfast of Champions, I forget...)

So. This spring as last year every day when I would sign on I would think, "it really sucks that something like this which should be so fun and exciting always becomes a hassle and drag instead, as my stress level mounts and the days keep rolling by without any apartment finalized." I even thought a few times that it would be the perfect thing to have Mom or Dad do if they were still around - especially Dad - not the emailing of course but the searching...

Anyway I'm not sure why but last Thursday I decided to try craigslist. In some ways this was worse b/c all the different apt. owners on there describe their apt's differently, etc., BUT I was getting more and more mad about the agency sitch b/c on top of the process with them being So Incredibly Efficient you can count on paying upwards of 500€ extra for the agency fee. Today that is $696.00. Most of the apt's containing the stuff I wanted and located where I wanted (NOT necessarily in the 5^e, honest - just within one or two arrondissements' distance of the center of Paris - anywhere from the 1^st to the 10^th or so...) were running about 1500-1700€/month ($2000-2300) already and I needed nearly 6 wks' stay. Another $700 (at least) on top of that?! Gulp. Granted I budgeted for the apt but any money I don't spend on my abode can be put to use for more fun stuff for the group, too. So ANYWAY most of the apt's on craigslist are being advertised by the owners (many of whom also list their apt's on the agency sites but if you contact them directly they're perfectly happy to rent without the extra fee (c'est normal - makes no difference to them). (Last year's apartment was a little more than I wanted to pay in case you're wondering but it was actually a luck-out, too - ended up finding out about it off the agency grid, too, so no fee there either - I think honestly it kind of stuck in my craw that I'd have to pay a fee this year so I was resisting it even more than I normally would have.)

So! thank goodness for Barbara, a German art professor who has lived in France for 40 years and decided to take pity on me. I wrote to around 10 different apt owners, half of whom responded and all but one of them (from my first pass anyway) had already rented their flats. Barbara has 3 flats on Rue des Ecoles: two 1-BR's (kinda) and one studio. The only one she had open at first was only available for 18 mai-20 juin (I need til 30 juin) so I thanked her and started to move on. Monday morning she wrote me back again that she had asked her studio tenant (same building as the original 1-BR if she might be able to move out a little early) and wondered if I would be willing to move up one floor to her studio on 20 juin.

And it has all worked out. Icing on the cake is that the building is in the 5^e just a little farther from the Seine (but closer to the Sorbonne) than last year's flat and in a quieter, non-touristy street to boot... Not quite as much room for students to come over but still basically feasible (helped by the unfortunate fact that I only have 13 in this year's group and by the fact that even tho her "1-BR flat" is really a glorified studio, at least the bed is a little out of the way rather than my having to make a mad dash for my apt ahead of the students to fold up the futon on those days when rain made us need to have impromptu class at my house).

Anyway enough gab (I think over the last weeks of not posting my verbosity got saved up!)

Here is the building/neighborhood/view for both flats:




Here is my "1-BR" flat (but also considerably more charming inside than last year's, tho not en face de a wonderful gargoyle-y church, but well...) where I'll be from May 18 - June 20:




And here is the teensy but delightful-looking studio one floor up where I'll be from June 20-30:



Added plus is I was able to reserve the apt via paypal this morning (on payday luckily - but the program account will reimburse me) so it is all set - no danger of not having a place to stay and Barbara, tho one of the loopier Germans I have met in my life, is nonetheless just as detail-oriented and responsible as any of them (yeah I stereotype European nationalities, so sue me), so yay on that score also. Super prompt email replies, etc., lots of conscientious attention to detail -even on some things I hadn't thought to ask about- all of which bodes really really well. She actually prefers to figure stuff out voice to voice so we've spoken by phone/Skype already 3 times and "in person" she is just as with-it as via email.

So yay yay yay.

I'd like to say that all the program stuff is going as well as this. It's going, but I'm short of where I wanted to be by now. I had a disastrous March which messed up my mental schedule of when I wanted Paris stuff decided so even tho (I feel) things this year should have been way easier to set up I am nevertheless about a week and a half behind where I wanted to be planning/reservation-wise at this point. But all will be well, plus the Sorbonne let us do the placement test long distance this year so that saves us major time the first few days in Paris...

That's enough thinking-out-loud-at-readers'-expense so
bye.

And then her day (dare I say "life"?!) did a 180...

How quickly and how deceptively simply one's social context can be enriched by about 200%.

Marty and Steve are two of my best friends here whom I met towards the end of last semester. Every time we get together we find more and more to talk about and enjoy the time more. Tonight that still budding but oh so promising friendship gave me even more gifts as they connected me to 4 more people who I have more in common with in 2 hours of chitchat than I have had with most of the other people I've met or worked with (except 1 :) in 1.5 years here.

And a truly dreadful 8 days ends with my feeling more optimistic about life here than I have in months.

Thank you, Universe.

Team Sweetpants Update

Well for those of you who know Jessica, you heard it here first: Harland will be home in a couple weeks. Yay J&H!

Additionally (far lesser news) J & I have officially decreed that not only should corn syrup advertisements be outlawed but stupid Amazon Joe Schmoe No-Real-Bookseller-Experience Booksellers should be given an exam on proper book description protocols before being allowed to peddle their wares online, and Mother Nature deserves a big Thumbs Up on chipmunk design. Those racing stripes are the pièce de résistance of the animal kingdom.

Mama, well done, you!

(Full disclosure - Jessica thinks MN also deserves special mention for koala bear design, but I am too mesmerized by Chipmunk Perfection just now to weigh in all the way, having seen one on campus the other day which delighted me to no end. Honestly few things give me a bigger kick than seeing chipmunks. Witness the fact that moments before I had also seen a Really Quite Minuscule baby lizard. And yet the chipmunk remains the highlight from my campus wildlife-populated trek into Daniel Monday morning.)

Beyond all that if anyone knows a way to help Jessica and me with our addictions to Wii-Yahtzee (tee hee - J this is still making me giggle) and Hulu/Netflix Instant Watch, respectively, please add your ideas in the comments. Hurry tho - Jessica is well into tonight's Yahtzee session by now and here I go for the new episode of Rescue Me...

shrug and a headshake

I'm spiteful and resentful and grudgy.
Less than I used to be.
Hopefully more than I will be in years to come.
My karma is probably already completely screwed tho.
Is it like alcoholism, where admitting it is the first step to freedom?
Or is admitting it just pointless (or worse, disingenuous) if you are not actively trying to counter the tendency?
Old friends, who proved not to be really, writing me emails out of the blue for example.
(Yay Google!)
Who does it hurt to delete their messages unanswered?
They obviously survived all these years without contact with me.
And yet I feel guilty.
But mostly relieved.
Sometimes it's hard to see the lines between being true to yourself and being a good person.
Just like the ones between hypersensitivity and an overly reactive guilt mechanism.
So I deleted and if there is a third I will delete it as well.
(Oddly and suddenly tenacious old friends, I should have said.)
Prior pain and disappointment demand it.
See above, screwed karma.

In the immortal words of Lemony Snicket,

Things are getting worse.

Maybe this is what I need. Now I just have to find what essential oil makes you un-paranoid, un-perfectiony, and un-procrastinaty all in one and maybe I'll actually become productive again.

They probably don't make a scented oil for attracting local friends.

Random Photos & Babble, a.k.a. Impromptu Photographic Ode to Miss Lucy & Friend, a.k.a. Me Not Wanting to Work, Plus a Surprise Imaginary Poll!

Firstly the IKEA disclaimer - I do NOT dislike IKEA in any way, shape, or form - I LOVE it which is why I want to keep from going there if possible b/c even tho their stuff is nice and affordable I'm liable to have an attack of impulse-buying and get a humongous amount of stuff on the spur of the moment which, yes, would be very nice and look fun and hold all my sundries wonderfully but which also would lead me to weeks if not months of spending guilt. So there. Until someone figures out a foolproof way to inject me with impulse control or until I've solidly recovered from this summer I am not allowed to go to IKEA.

Now that you've suffered a mini-tirade, you get to see a fun photo!

Dark Day in Whisker City

Boy can that Luba-doo look testy sometimes or what? At least she sat still for this one. She has been doing better in general at sitting still for photo sessions lately - hopefully it's a lasting trend.

Now the more obvious fun thing there - who thought up "Whisker City"!?!?!?! I admit the name is at least 30% of why I bought it. The other 70% was paranoia about the carpeting in the house, which I was worried would be primo scratching material for the Boo, who is nothing if not fastidious about her lovely claws and has been known to scratch on anything she considers to offer the least bit of rough tactile fun, including a certain antique ladder-back wicker-seat chair - Ahem. Even buying Whisker City, I wasn't super hopeful she'd go for it b/c of the Cat Paraphernalia Industry Curse where most things that look fun or appealing to the most experienced cat owner will be spurned by their feline family members. But check it out! Hey Mikey! I think she likes it! For the record, she scratches on it just as much as she sits on it, but being Miss Lucy, if something isn't equally fun to scratch and sit on then it's really just not worth it.

Hey! We haven't used our AC for about 3 days but tonight I broke down, mostly b/c I decided that feeling constantly sticky and sluggish might be partly why I don't feel like doing any work. Honestly this is not just a rationalization for using the AC - I'd much rather not use it and of course I'd much rather not do work, so really this is me being incredibly smart and good-thinking and production-oriented. Added benefit is that the cats come out of their heat-induced comas a bit earlier in the evening. I started realizing (along with my stickiness and my own sluggishness) that Sam and Lucy have been spending about 10-20% more of their time sleeping than they used to and while it probably doesn't hurt, it just seems kind of bad that the heat in the house is such that they, too, are resisting the slightest exertion in favor of motionlessness. Sometimes of course, with Sammers in particular, I'd kinda rather have the motionlessness, but really he has shaped up to be quite the well-behaved cat compared to what could have evolved from his TRULY Terrible 2's. Some of you will remember his knocking HUGE framed pictures off the walls, repeatedly injuring himself (kind of the feline version of my brother as a toddler), and breaking pottery or knocking cups of thumbtacks clattering to the floor at 3 in the morning, just for kicks. Now he reserves most of his gravity tests and other antics for dinnertime or other Susanattention-getters, which, really is just efficient communication. What self-respecting linguist could possibly find fault with that?!

How about some random pix? I took a lot of moving-in/unpacking pix but they're not exactly timely now. Still a few are post-worthy...

Suitcase unpacking quality check nearly complete. You may put it away as soon as I finish smelling and possibly lying down in it and not a second before.

Lucy's next-to-favorite part about unpacking: how the household terrain changes daily with new nooks & crannies and climbing towers.

Lucy's - of course - favorite part of unpacking: the boxes!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although, really, packing material is pretty fun, too. Might have to rethink our prioritization of unpacking fun.

FTR: Plastic bag naps were under strict supervision, altho cat facial hair and whiskers lessen considerably the suffocation risks.

What on earth, I ask you, is more fun than completely aimless purely procrastination-fed blogposts?! Here's what I think my most faithful readers might answer... (in NO particular order - no fighting no biting!)

Jessica: Knitting or maybe running or maybe hiking or maybe eating kimchi or maybe watching The Office with Harland as he sips a girlie drink with an umbrella in it...

Andy: playing with my iPhone, listening to my iPod, reading stuff online on my Mac, doing most anything Apple, watching Six Feet Under or Californication, or driving my new car!

Adrienne: having a margarita, of course! or, possibly, having a greyhound not bite me on the head...

John: avoiding fire ants, watching Buffy or drinking a nice red, or both, and of course, having my greyhound not bite my fiancée on the head...

Tracy: Corndogs! No brainer.