Chaos

"On croit que, lorsqu'une chose finit, une autre recommence tout de suite. Non. Entre les deux, c'est la pagaille." - Marguerite Duras

(We think that when one thing ends, another one begins right away. No. In between, it's chaos)

Still reeling from Friday's news that the buyers have pulled out. Zip. Nada. Oh my God, we're screwed. Of course, I handled the news as mature and level headed as usual and cried all morning long. Up and down the hallway, I softly wailed as I imagined our complete financial demise. Did I really just give my notice a few days earlier?! Hadn't they already someone in mind for my position? How would we ever live on one salary with two mortgages and a maxed out Heloc? We'll lose our health insurance, not be able to pay for our cars. I was basically living my worst nightmare with terribly negative thoughts like I must not deserve success. That what I have been dreaming was not meant for me and that I never should have thought that I could change my course. That I should go back and grovel for my job and just be happy with mediocrity and expect nothing more. On and on I beat myself up all day. I did manage to get on the phone to a few lenders to see about a refinance before my paychecks stopped coming and we are approved for one if we choose to take it early this week. Thank God for the thrifty survival instincts of my Scottish roots.

Later in the day, when I had no more tears left, I somehow managed to remind myself that this glitch was not insurmountable. We still had each other; we had our health (well, my mental health might have to be questioned I'm sure). But, some how, some way, we would overcome this latest hurdle. But what really gave me the most strength was my daughter. After hearing our news when I picked her up from school on Friday, she immediately groaned, "oh no...I am so sorry mom." Her empathy was so genuine and deeply felt that I was just floored. She was being so mature and had separated herself from her teenage needs, despite the fact that moving to France is the last thing in the world that she wants to do, to care about mine instead and right then I knew that no matter what happened, I had been a success in raising a compassionate human being (well, Hank helped too obviously!) and that could hardly be considered mediocre.

*The above quote was completely stolen from its use in the wonderful book about living in Paris that I'm currently reading by Vanina Marsot called, "Foreign Tongue," which I highly recommend :)

The Key to our Future

It is our last night before we return home and what an amazing 10 days it has been. I have gone back and forth between giddy excitement that this beautiful old maison and piece of french countryside is indeed ours, to absolute terror over the magnitude of this venture. I think I have been too scared to write because my hope and optimism do seem to wane daily. We have also been incredibly busy every single waking hour with the signing of papers for our final deed with the seller in front of the Notaire (note to self…maybe wait until you’re over your jet lag before signing important legal documents in French), aquiring home & farm insurance (ditto), going to residency appointments, shopping at the DIY stores for supplies, and cleaning & working late every night. I even attempted working for DDB last week with only intermittent internet access on top of having contracted the flu on day three until I finally just hit the wall and could barely move.

Oh, and we sold our house in Topanga the day after we signed our deed. Once our counter offer was approved and signed, I gave notice at work because I wanted to give them plenty of notice. With a 30-day escrow with our cash buyers, we were looking at returning in 4 week’s time, on the 20th of October. We had a lot to do in a very short period of time.

The house at Petit Clos was an absolute nightmare when we first opened the door and unfortunately, we did not get the benefit of having our beautiful antique french furniture left there greeting us to soften the blow. M. Coussy’s adult children sold it all out from under him (and us) and because this was part of our original agreement, he had to make good in the form of financial compensation as well as throwing in a Ford 5700 tractor with attachments (Hank’s little baby). Plus, to add insult to injury, they left all of the crap. Gross, disgusting, rat-poop-infested and moldy crap including a broken down naugahyde sleeper sofa, the stained mattress and bed that grandma probably died in, along with her wheel chair and bed pan, and about a quarter inch of 50-year-old grease in the kitchen. There were hundreds of empty wine bottles left in old plastic fertilizer bags and of the three large crates that originally contained just as many nice bottles of Merlot, they were kind enough to leave us an entire crate of vinegar that caused us to curse their inconsideracy on a daily basis. I kept picturing them in my mind saying, "oh, these stupid Americaines won’t know the difference between good wine and vinegar" which pissed me off even more although I had absolutely nothing to base this made-up assumption on. I just didn’t like them.

But then we would have our good days. Like the evening that we walked through our vineyards with a nice glass of Bordeaux and goofy ear-to-ear smiles while we admired the rolling hills and fields during the coucher de soleil (sunset). We discovered the fig tree filled with ripened fruit as well as rows and rows of wild blackberries and chestnuts under a gigantic tree and what looked like blue berries until I tasted one. I spit it out and washed the potential poison from my mouth with my wine as we laughed at what ignorant city folks were truly were and just hoped we didn’t unintentially kill ourselves.

We discovered that our local boulangerie about a kilometre away was run by a friendly baker who specialized in in making pain de campagne loaves cooked in a traditional wood-fired oven. We also got used to the odd hours for shopping again and learned which villages had their marches on the typically dead Sundays and Mondays when most everything else was closed. We were invited for drinks and dessert at Isabelle and Thierry’s who gave us invaluable advise on artisans and stores in the area and we all laughed about Hank and his new tractor and whether or not the owner may have left us a lemon without a good transmission because "why else would he leave it?" according to Thierry. I visited Colette in her new, sunny apartment in La Sauvetat de Dropt and she made me a wonderful lunch of different entres, including homemade dolmas that she had just rolled from the leaves on the grape vines growing on her patio fence, egg salad stuffed tomatoes and a rabbit pate. We caught up for over three hours and she informed me that she has quite a few local French and British women interested in our "cooking club" upon my return. I cannot wait.

We experienced the French bureauracy first hand as we obtained our residency permits after having our required medical exams in Bordeaux. This was not an easy task as it is mainly done through mail correspondence and designated appointments that we had no control over (ie. If we were actually going to be in the country on the dates they had scheduled for us). If not for Isabelle, who persistently called and argued with the secretary at the OFII office in Bordeaux (Office Français de L’immigration et de L’integraion) on our behalf, I am sure we would not have been successful. We were pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of everyone at this government office and Hank of course had all the doctors cracking up in his limited French. After various medical questionaires and exams, and submitting even more copies of our passports and house deed, we were stamped and approved as legal residents of France. Now all that is left for us to do is renew it by November when our original 1-year VISA expires.

I met with the vice principal of Caleigh’s school and scheduled her return in early November when they resume school from the October break and he informed me that she could have free french lessons 3x a week after school. He personally offered to help ALL of us with our French which seemed incredibly kind.

All in all, my French was not as God-awful as I thought it would be. I could actually understand so much more than before, especially in restaurants and stores. My mind seemed to have relaxed a bit and hopefully it will continue so that I can actually utter a coherent sentence someday.

So, we’re back in a month for good. I’m still giddy & terrified depending on the day, but definitely ready for this next chapter to finally begin.

Nite.

going for it (again)

After last weekend's dismal open house - I think one person stopped by - and pouring over all of the most recent comps and sales in the area, we came to the conclusion that we had to make a very difficult decision. Either we reduce our sale price lower than we ever imagined and even offer the buyer's agent's an incentive or we take our house off the market and wait it out for three years or so. By pulling out in what I am sure will be seen as one of the worst possible times to sell a house, we would be assured of a substantial and true nest egg in a few years time. By desperately trying this last ditch effort to sell, we risked being able to adequately finance this venture for more than a year or so.

Luckily, the answer came fairly quickly to both of us. I had actually cracked open "The Life Organizer" book that my dear friend Rose had sent me recently. I have never been one to read self-help books and probably would not have opened this one either except that I had a few hours to burn during our open house and figured that by the way I had been feeling lately, it could not possibly hurt. And it actually had some fairly inspirational ideas about taking control of your life and relearning how to prioritize the things that were most important without getting so stressed out all of the time (my perpetual state of being these days). And one particular section really stood out when it asked you to answer the question, "what do you NOT want," as a process of elimination to find what you are truly looking for. When I could easily answer, "I do not want to sit in front of a computer for 10 hours every day and be bombarded with email or IM requests every other second. I do not want to fight the traffic in LA anymore. I do not want our daughter to be continually influenced by LA's often warped sense of values that seemed to revolve around constant indulgence and riches."

"Your question is your answer Butterfly."

Hank did not need the self-help book. He just knew the answer instinctively so we called our agent and told her to send us the paperwork. Of course, as soon as we released this energy (I know, I know, I'm getting all in tune with myself all of a sudden), there is a call from our cash couple AND a man who had looked at our house exactly a year ago and could not get it out of his mind.

"Stop the presses Fariba!" And of course she does while we wait for answers from both parties to hopefully make offers so a bidding war can begin. Well okay, just one decent offer and we would be ecstatic (and take it). We are supposed to hear something today, although we are both trying hard not to get our hopes up too high yet. But least we do have a little hope right now which is something we have been lacking for the past few weeks and I am definitely holding on to it.

p.s. it is also interesting to note that we took St. Joe out of our garden last week as we figured that he must have found out that we were not Catholic nuns seeking a new convent and could do nothing to help us.

Nous ne sommes pas des poires!

We have had quite an interesting week. It began with an email from the seller's son, Pierre, saying that while his father was away on holiday, he had been given responsibility to sell Petit Clos house furniture and he was writing to ask us if we would like to purchase some of it. "It" being items that had previously been agreed to be included with the sale of the house. We were baffled and wrote to our agent immediately to ask her what this was all about. She in turn emailed Pierre and told him that it was our understanding that these items were to be included with the house to which he responded, that he was "very sorry if there was a misunderstanding on our part, but perhaps the deception could be offset by the fact that he is selling these pieces for well below their market value."

Hmm, we wondered. Could we possibly have misunderstood? Hank and I are are like that. We will doubt ourselves at first before fighting back and yet, this just felt wrong. The seller had said from the beginning that he wished to leave most of the contents of the house as he only planned to keep a few things. We readily agreed as long as it was not his intention to just leave all of the junk. An inventory sheet was generated, checked off and signed just weeks prior. Furthermore, I couldn't help but think of all of the beautiful bedding my mom had just made. Was he now telling me that those duvets were not going to have homes on those gorgeous antique bed sets?

We emailed our friends Andrew and Arlette, wondering what would they do in this situation. Arlette is a little french firecracker and perhaps we could ask her to speak to Pierre on our behalf. She responded right away and told us to hold our ground. After 20 years of living in the U.S., she said that she had forgotten how us "frenchies deal with things." She said that there was a fine line between being nice and understanding and being "une poire" which literally means "a pear" but also meant being weak and therefore open to being taken advantage of. She said that you've got to have balls and that you will be respected more by the French if you do. I didn't need any more encouragment. I wrote back to Rosalind,

"There has been no misunderstanding....." and went on to reference our signed inventory from the seller. Furthermore, I asked, "what was the point of the list then? what were his plans for everything else? was he planning on selling all of the treasures and just leaving us the junk? Also, where was the integrity of the man that we had been assured of in the notaire's office all those months ago?"

We went to bed a bit discouraged but happy that we had not reacted like weak little "pears" (nous ne sommes pas des poires) and woke up to a response from Rosalind that said that she has spoken to the father who said that he had no idea why his son did this and told us to just ignore him. Thank God. I was so happy to confirm that he was indeed a man of his word.

So even though we will not be 100% sure that everything will be left as agreed until we do the walk through with Pops next month, at least the son has kindly given us what he described as an "under market" value of $5000 euros for some of the items that he can reimburse us for should he defy his father and proceed in selling our furniture anyway.

Feeling Needed

As I reluctantly begin to accept how little Caleigh seems to need or want to be with us these days (other than as ATM machines or taxis), the little stabs of pain have been so kindly softened by my mother's re-entry into my life. It's not that she ever left my life. It's just that the stars seem to have aligned in our lives at the moment and she has the time, money and passion to help us decorate our new house and gites. Anyone who knows Susan knows that my mom is an artist and extremely talented in just about everything she does. From successfully designing and manufacturing fine linens for her own company Brown Sugar Designs, to painting gorgeous landscapes, making jewelry, or creating mosaic tables on the side just for fun. And everything she does has always been done with the utmost perfection - very unlike moi who often just feels fortunate to have finished what I start - sometimes at the expense of accepting a few little flaws here and there.

Anyway, my mom is also an avid gamer and embraced Farmville with a vengeance last year. so much in fact that I think she probably set some records in land ownership or animal and barn acquisitions. Our purchase of Petit Clos could not have come at a better time because she has had so much previous "experience." Now, it was time to build and decorate the real thing!

So, a few weeks ago, she calls and wants to see if I can come down to Orange County. She is so excited as she has found some incredible fabrics for only $3 a yard that she thinks will be perfect for our home and gites. Oh, did I mention how much she loves a bargin? Anyway, I drove down on a Sunday morning and we had so much fun finding french country inspired fabrics for our bedding and curtains and in less than just a few weeks time, she has made three gorgeous duvet comforters with accompanying bed skirts, decorative pillows and oh yeah, she also reupholsterd our sofa in between doing all that.

As wonderful as being the recipient of these beautiful, professionally designed bedding has been, the best part has been seeing and talking with my mom on a daily basis and hearing how excited she is every time she finishes another bed set. She told me how she had mentioned what she had been doing to one of her friends recently who replied with a little envy that she wished she could feel as needed from her adult children once in awhile. Wow, I thought, they still want us to need them. And here I've been doing everything to show my parents just how well I can take care of myself without their help all these years. Damn, had I only known, I would have made my needing her a lot more evident years ago. Well, at least I know now.

The funny thing is, when I first told her that we bought the farm in France, I think that she was a little unsure how this would impact our lives and relationship and was a little hesitant in embracing the idea. But, she did so as soon as she realized just how happy this life change had made me. I know there is that tres importante rule out there about loving someone enough to let them go so that they can pursue their own dreams and happiness, but I also know that it is a lot easier said than done in real life. In fact, it is probably one of the most difficult things to do, but something I hope I will also be able to with Caleigh years from now when she tells me that she wants to move a continent away and return to the States.

There are also some things I need to do right now. Let her go a little bit more. Be okay with the fact that I am not longer the most important person in her life. Let go of the memory of her running into my arms every time I walked in the door. She is just doing what she is supposed to be doing if she is to become an independent young woman who will eventually be able to move out on her own and take care of herself one day. Of course, right now, she is still only 13 so we obviously have some years to ensure her wellbeing and safety, but I've got to let the other memories fade away right now so that I can begin to let go. They'll be able to return one day when the time is right and you know, if I am successful at this delicate loving and letting go balancing act, I just might be fortunate enough to enjoy the same wonderful relationship with her as I am having with my mom right now.

Acte de Vente

We are approaching the end of our home purchase process and fortunately (or possibly, unfortunately in our case) none of our suspensive clauses (or legal outs) have been met. We obtained the bank loan. In fact, our paperwork from BNP Parribas arrived the week before last and we waited the requisite 11-day period for review before signed and mailing back. July 28th came and went without a local farmer in the area taking our house and land so we are all set there. Then, the approval to convert our agricultural outbuildings into habitable space came as well. We would be ecstatic under other circumstances, but our house still has not sold and after I recalculated the amount that we will owe on the signing date - this time correctly into euros - and I just about died but did NOT go to heaven.

All I can say is, this is going to be tough. Even borrowing every last cent from the remaining home equity, we will be short and I had to hit up my dad to float us the remainder. So, what does one do when faced with losing everything they have resembling a nest egg? Well, purchase two tickets to Bordeaux in September of course so we can sign our Acte de Vente (final deed) and pick up our keys. We were going to book it for all three of us, but school starts here on that date and we have decided to let Caleigh attempt to have a normal life for the time being. This could all change should our house sell this month, but for right now, at this date and time, we can only plan for what is known. And right now what we know is that we are going to be french home and land owners with or without the sale of our house in Topanga.

In an odd way, this realization and subsequent "certainty" must of been kind of relief to my system because my perpetual nervous stomach and head ache have mysteriously disappeared.

knotty stomach & belly rings

I have had the worst nervous stomach for almost three weeks now and I'm just having to force myself to live with it as a normal state as it doesn't seem to want to go away. The last time I remember feeling like this was in my twenties when I seemed to be heartbroken more often than not having had many relationships and the breakups that ultimately accompanied them. I think that it must have something to do with my mind and body's reaction to the unexpected life change ahead. The good news is, my appetite typically subsides when I have this. So, although I feel like crap most of my waking hours, I'm actually losing weight. Yay! Only problem is, once the problem has finally been resolved though, ie. our house eventually sells or when I finally got over the ex's, and the nervous, knotty feeling disappears, I put back on the weight. At least that's what happened after I finally met my Mr Right.

Anyway, we're moving right along with the purchase of Petit Clos. We received the mortgage paperwork from BNP that we have 10 days to review before signing and returning. I'm thinking it would be a good idea to have it translated even though we know the jist of what it includes: 20 year loan; 7 year variable at 2.9% with a cap of -2/+2 for the remainder of the loan, no prepayment penalties, not life insurance requirements (that other banks required), and a $1500 bank fee.

We've heard back from M. Coussy about the inventory list and although he isn't leaving everything we had hoped for, we are damn lucky he is leaving anything at all I suppose. Hell, 6 armoires, multiple beds, tables & chairs. But, we will also be left with a bunch of junk as well, so we'll be sorting through a lot once we arrive. which brings me to the mystery question of the hour: "When, exactly will we arrive in France?"

Until our house sells, we cannot purchase our tickets, book the container, sell our cars and whatever else is not going, schedule final garage sales, get the pets their needed medical exams (they must be 10 days prior to departure), schedule the artisans (roofing, heating, electrical & plumbing), fly to Denver to obtain Colorado ID's and most, most importantly, confirm that Caleigh will be able to begin the school year in Duras. Don't even get me going about how much I worry about that. Hell, I'm ruining her life as it is; I cannot screw up her education and future can I ?!

Which brings me to our latest bad parenting decision. Much like many divorced or just plain absent parents' guilt-fueled indulgences toward children they barely see, we actually succumbed to one of Caleigh's incessant requests to have a belly piercing most likely due to some of the guilt we feel in ripping her away from her life and friends yet again. It is not the worst looking thing in the world and she knows that she cannot get anything else pierced until she is an adult, but what the hell was I thinking? I actually went with her to the little piercing/tattoo parlor down the street from my office in Venice Beach on a beautiful summer day last week. We borrowed my company's beach cruisers and rode down the boardwalk and went into a place that she had researched on the internet. At first, I decide to videotape the piercing with my old school cell phone, but that did not work so well as my finger was blocking the lens. As I'm doing this, I start to think what a looser parent I am (attempting to) videotape my daughter's belly piercing and am reminded of the movie "13" where the Holly Hunter mom character sadly tries to be cool in her daughter's eyes. Thankfully it's done in less than a minute so we pay up and ride back to my office in silence. Caleigh's was probably due to her imagining just how cool she is going to be with her friends (before she realizes just how painful this is going to be in a few hours and the fact that she is not supposed to swim in a pool or the ocean for over a month and we happen to be smack in the middle of summer) and mine, as I'm wondering just where my parental judgement has gone.