MUFFLED EARTHQUAKES OR REALLY... EARQUAKES
FEVERS AND THE SWEETEST NURSE
SHARING BENCHES, VIEWS, AND ALERTS
On Tuesday morning I knew I was waking up to no water. The building had made us tenants aware of this inconvenience for a week now, so I was prepared. Alas… What I wasn’t prepared for was no internet. I mean … could the building have left that notification too? Don’t they know that without a job still… I have a ton of Netflixing and recipe hunting to get to?? HA. But for real though. This really was an accident. The apartment that is being worked on (hence no water for the day) needed the internet guy down in the basement. Unfortunately, their guy accidentally cut the wire that connects our floor’s connection to the wifi world. Therefore, on the very day that I was at my all time worst (more on that to come), I had to leave my home, bundle up on a park bench (temps dropped again over here. It was around 50° degrees), hold my tee tee for three hours (3 in total. Felt like an ion!), and come home to no Bridget Bardot.
Sidebar: I am desperate to learn French so I started this new Bardot series the night Simon left for his friend’s brother’s funeral. I am obsessed. Yes, with the costumes and scenes. But, eh! Mostly… I’m obsessed with writing down new French sentences that I’m learning. Yes. The first episode took me two hours to get through (their 50 mins long). But… My LONG ASS strategy? Watch the scene reading English while they speak in French … understand it in full… then rewind and watch again reading and listening to it all in French. Writing down ALL the new French words that are spoken and sentences that I want to memorize. Then, rehearse thoroughly so that I can spew them to Simon. Some go something like this “C’est comment ça que je veux vivre” (This is how I want to live. Very romantic) others like this “je te fais peur?” (Do I scare you? Very funny. I can’t wait to say that one to Simon. Because many times throughout every week, when I laugh at something, or don’t know something, or figure out a problem that has stumped him, or make a delicious meal… or when I do next to anything. Simon meets me with “you scare me!” and then a laugh.) OK OK back to it….
Since I needed to leave the apartment for all the obvious reasons. Oh! And, I forgot to also say .. I needed to leave because Lilia was coming that day. She cleans the apartment and is as sweet as the day is long. Alas, she, like my grandmother (who made a cameo last En Route), likes to TALK. I was so weak that day (sick as a dog) and just needed to be quiet. Didn’t have energy to pretend to understand what she was saying. (She speaks french at the speed of her Peruvian roots and rolls her r’s like we’re in her native country. She’s so sweet. But… she’s very hard for me to understand at the moment.)
While I was bench side taking in all the sounds (children giggling, coworkers discussing their bosses, and joggers run/talking about their routine), people (most who had their heads reared back resting on the back of the bench, in what had to be the most uncomfortable position possible to catch a little S.U.N. while on break), dogs (that were doing everything BUT what their owners were instructing them to do. One even sitting down at EVERY sunny spot. She would run from shade to sun and then park it. Sure not to make eye contact with her owner and play “reptile” while she baked in the sun. Just as my Goldie Hawn has learned to do now that she has a yard for days. (Picture proof below that I get regularly from her Rarrie, Yoyo, and Pops) Miss that boodle!!), and the sounds – oooop – I mean alerts.
It was 12pm on the dot and a sound wave carried throughout the peaceful park. All of a sudden every person made the same action. Came to a halt and reached for their PHONES. Me included. We all read the mass alert message for all of 7, maybe 8, seconds and then immediately started up again. People carried on their conversations, the dog walkers started the negotiation tactics with their pups to get a move on, and viewers like me aimed to position our heads as the others to catch a little rogue of vitamin d. We had moved on.
But… in my head full of ear infection and mini sounds of muffled earthquakes (ear drainage. eeeeeek!)... all I could think about for those 7 seconds, maybe 8, that everyone was glued to their screens was: “Can you imagine if YOU were the one who had to press send on that text?!”
Then I went down the rabbit hole and thought back to when I used to work for a very very important lady-boss at American Express. Depending on the day (or hour) I was her writer, her stylist, her assistant, her accountant, her gatekeeper from all those who wanted time with her, her comedy relief, her rebel who refused to take the flu shot from the private doctor she hired to administer the shot to her team, her calendar, her yearbook when she couldn’t remember someone’s name… you name it... I was “it” for her. So, further backdrop to this tale… when I worked for Gaby — everything that came from her office was of course approved by mama G… But would have been written by yours truly first. Before Gaby got eyes on anything – I had sent it to be edited by ummmmm 100 of my closest confidents at Amex. haha but for real. Gaby was a BOSS and I was her WORDS. Excervous was the emotion that ran high in my veins when I worked for her.
Ok ok.. getting back to my story because UMMMMMMMM I was the one who had to press send for her. A “send” that would come from her email address, and would be blasted to the ENTIRE COMPANY (20k+ employees). Everytime I did it. I would break out in a mini avalanche sweat and hold my breath until Anna, Gaby’s VP, would come out and either scold a misspelling that none of us caught, or praise a great sentence that I wrote. Whatever the verdict, even though it was “coming from Gaby,” I was the ultimate one responsible. So, a long way to say – I couldn’t stop thinking about these alerts and how many people read and re-read for hours before that one unlucky soul had to press send and ALL OF FRANCE would receive their words, be glued to their phones for the 7 seconds, maybe 8, and read the 50 word minimum copy they just had to squeeze onto the screen! I’m talkin… PRESH.URRRRRRE.
SPEAKING OF PRESSURE…
Sunday, after Simon had left me to rest (and I secretly reorganized the medicine cabinet and the chest with all of the china, candles, baking sheets, vases, etc. BEST afternoon. Those who know me… I’m looking at you Jane!! … know that I live to create order. Give me a messy pantry, I’ll be your best friend. And a closet?! Even better! I’ll have you shopping in your own color organized clothes in no-time. My FAVORITE thing to do is declutter and organize. Sorry Simon! Haha you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into when you invited me to bunk with you, my love. I am… in fact… maniac!) So, after feeling accomplished – I had decided to rest and cue up Bardot. That’s when a wave of the most excruciating pain of my life came over me... in my EAR. I held on tight.
TO SET THE SCENE - LET ME BACKUP
I started to not feel well on Thursday night when Fanny, Patrick, Chris, Simon and moi where all out to dinner — I disguised it well! None of them were the wiser. But come Friday morning, when I knew I needed to leave the house since Lilia was coming (Yes, Simon has her come twice a week! Book-ends the week. I LOVE it. Sidebar: My mother has always said that “the key to a good marriage is a cleaning lady and two bathrooms” — we’re still working on the double bathrooms. So for now, to make up for it, we have the apartment cleaned double time during the week), I biked to Simon’s office to give him his specks that he had left at the house. (I still think this was his tactic to get a flirt in with me during the day. I gladly took the bait!)
I sat downstairs and started En Route and saw my friend (the precious baristas) at Le Floor. I met her last summer when I didn’t speak A WORD en francais. And now that I do un peu. I don’t feel as intimidated to go in and order, speak, laugh with her. She is precious and SO patient avec moi! I also got to see Gabriel, Margot’s husband — who told me that Margot’s grandfather had passed away. ANOTHER death. Last week there were a lot of chapters closed. So sad. And then I went to Soho House, where I finished En Route, then promptly obviously took a steam and sauna (I meannnnnnn when in ROME), and then met Justine to return her Île Saint Louis keys.
I warned her upfront that I was feeling rotten. Her response. “Sounds like you need a glass of wine!” We had one and a half and just gabbed for the longest time. I am truly falling in love with her. She is Northern Californian (I honestly, eeeek, didn’t know there was a difference between north and south Cali mannerisms. Her friend, who I got to meet a few weeks ago, Ana, was the exact same! She insisted that her “always seeming high, while being 100% sober” is the way everyone from northern cali is. Hysterical!) Mellow Yellow!
Will, her boyfriend, arrived and had a drink with us too. He is also an American living in Paris. Only, he has a French mother (who lives, and has adopted (from what I hear), the northern Cali lifestyle) so he can stay in France without issues forever. He’s an artist, so when Justine walked me out to say goodbye, she pointed out several of his works hanging in SoHo House — very impressed! Felt that I had just had a drink with someone bound to be a Jackson Pollock, or since I’m in France, a Nicolas de Staël, one day!
When I arrived home I promptly got busy baking the pecan pie for our dinner with friends. A pie — that, by the way, was WAY… I’m talking WAY too sweet this time. I don’t know what happened but all I can say is, by the fourth bite I was like “Someone! Call a dentist! I have a cavity!!”
TU ES TRÈS BELLE
When we were walking down the stairs en route to Jerome and his wife’s apartment for dinner. Simon, looking handsome as ever!, kept staring at me. I finally said “quoi?” His response made my already rosy cheeks (I already had fever) blush … “tu es tres belle.” The way he said it was so sweet, genuine, soft. I am in love with moments like these. Just us. Just being sweet. Just being in love!
When we arrived at Jerome's everyone was speed talking in French. I felt my body getting hot. I usually chip in or sit quietly to gather my sentences together and then participate in some way. This night though? I was hot all over. Yep. Unbeknownst to everyone else around me — but very clear to moi — fever was setting in.
I didn’t have an appetite for the aperitif so instead Jerome offered me a bit of chocolate. He said this will “just make you feel better and forget how unwell you feel.” And it did! An hour later, I forgot I was feeling rotten. I was laughing at everything. I was making goo goo eyes at Simon — listening to his every word… feeling more in love than ever before, trying to hold back random eruptions of laughter over nothing events. And all while trying not to look a wee bit high. That chocolate was making me better!
(PSA I should have been born in the 70s or been a young adult in the 70s. There is nothing that makes me happier or makes me laugh more than an itty bitty bit of my friend, Marijane. In fact, once, I had begged my mama and sister to do it with me on one of our many weekends together way back in NYC days. We didn’t. My sister was busy ringing her hands with discomfort and my mom (secretly wishing we had done it but was pretending to not be sure) was asking her 20 questions so she didn’t have to make a decision … “not this time. I mean. How will it make me feel? Will I laugh? Will I cry? Will I want to go to sleep? Do you like it? Does it really make you hungry?” Haha. Now. With it being legal, and in gummy form — therefore candy like and sold in almost every convenient store you can go to — let’s just say that the times lately with my sissy, mama and moi… are filled with a lot more laughter when together. Because Jerome speaks truth! “It just makes you feel better.”)
That night. When we returned home, Simon crawled under the covers, and I… crawled in my cave! You couldn’t see me. I was so covered up. Two down comforters, a pillow over my head, an eye mask shielding any light that dared to enter, and ummmmm shivering like I was in the tundra. I definitely had fever.
When I finally had the courage to ask Simon to please saw his logs on the couch. Love this sweet man and all the noises he makes. But tonight, I was in the worst shape. I needed rest. I needed silence. I needed to sweat all my fever out solo. He kindly obliged.
At 10am the next morning I only had strength to remove the pillow over my head just to give me leverage to flip over, reach with all my might, and turn the knob in hopes that the door would fall open. It did!
I could hear Simon up and prayed he would walk down the hall. I couldn’t even speak out for him. I was so weak. Everything hurt. Everything was wet from my sweat. I had 102°, temperature. Simon’s response when I told him that was “Oh, that’s nothing, amor!” His tendency, as I like to think mine is too, is to always see the glass half full. Not to mention, he is a son of a professor of medicine, so I think he, as my other friends who are children of doctors do, tend to look at sickness as not a big deal. But in this case…I ask him to pretend it was big (even if he didn’t think it was). I need him to dote on me, take care of me, be concerned for me. He did, he was, and he still is!
He was the BEST nurse. He went to the pharmacy, got me all the drugs – came back and insisted that I drink my cocktail of meds: fresh OJ, cough syrup, doliprane (miracle drug that I will 100% be smuggling back to the USA this summer), and suck on cough drops. He came in to check on me every few hours, let me sleep all day, and finally at 7pm woke me up. “Sweetie. I think a shower would feel nice for you — make you feel better.” He was right. I got up. Showered. And then bundled down with him on the couch to watch La Crise (where unlike Bardot, they sped spoke French and there were no subtitles. Proud to have understood a lot of it.. not all.. but a lot.) He made us chicken burritos for dinner (his “best” when he lived in Texas. Burritos for every meal!) and then, 2 hours later, he tucked me back in, my fever had dropped but not gone, and I went back to beddy bye.
And then – it was Sunday – when the ear volcano eruption occurred.
As I said, at the beginning of this En Route, it was a few hours after Simon had left me to rest and was en route to his friend's brother’s funeral when I felt and heard a volcano erupting in my EAR. I held on for dear life and swallowed as many times as I could bear. I knew that would speed up the process and I just had to have this pain end as soon as possible. It did. And when it did – utter, and immediate, relief. My eardrum had burst.
Unbeknownst to me — but now well versed thanks to GOOGLE (hummmm researched the heck out of this!) — when an eardrum erupts so does your nausea … because good lord at the aftermath site and spins. I have been dizzy for days! equilibrium is OFF completely. I didn’t know what to do other than to text Simon photos of what was coming out of my ear – blood.
Who knew that an ear infection can cause bleeding with …. Well other oozy liquid? I do now. Thanks to WebMD.com. It’s evidently “normal.” Whatever that word means.
It is now Friday as I type this and I’m sad to say — last night it was still draining. This is going on seven nights now and the umpteenth washing cycle with just sheets.
Alas… there is good news!
On the no good day away from the apartment – when h2o was scarce, when the internet was cut (literally) off so I couldn’t connect with anyone via WhatsApp even, there was a glimpse of good news. Simon called a doctor to come to see me at the apartment. (Again.. Those who know me well know that I HATE going to a doctor. They scare the life out of me for some reason. I always feel very intimidated and upset by their tone and cold stethoscopes. But here, in France,) they come to you — in the privacy of your home and check you out, write a subscription, and let you tap your CC to their phones for easy payment. Some things are easier in France it turns out!
He wrote me a prescription for both amoxicillin (hello 8 year old AC. I mean Amoxicillin was practically my middle name when I was little) and ear drops.
When the pharmacy was ringing up all my boxes at the cash register (this was a Father of The Bride hotdog bun hysteric moment for me – why is there an uneven amount of dosage in each box?!!!!! Why not just make each box for a week-long? I mean, we all know… in every country… that all the doctors will ALWAYS, never a question, give you that weird seven-day time frame to take said meds. ALWAYS. Just make the boxes for 7 days! Anyway…), as I was paying for my four boxes of goodies the total came on the screen. $16.75. WHAT?! Where am I? Again … my sweet French friends have no idea. The health care in the US is a financial killer. It’s awful! The $16.75 would have paid for the snack I would have taken at Nye’s Pharmacy while I waited the full hour+ for the prescriptions to be filled. Here? I showed them the doctors scribbles, the pharmacist stepped in back to retrieve my drugs, asked if I wanted to add a probiotic, rang me up, and badabingbadaboom. Done. Home to medicate! And under $20 no less!!
HAPPINESS
Wednesday was more of the same. Just a very weak kind of day with lots of mini lay-downs for moi. Simon on the other hand! Simon had some incredible news this day for his business.
To congratulate his accomplishment – I took my deaf achy self and stood in a 20 min check out line for a mini bottle of bubbles. A celebration was in order! So proud!
For dinner we were making a mess… oops, I mean … shrimp tempura! Our first.. but not our last! It was delicious.
SURQUALIFIÉ
I had an interview this week that went south. “You’re over qualified.”
This happened to me a lot when I was looking for a role in Charleston. I had forgotten it. But the memory and feeling all flooded back (along with beaucoup tears) when I left the Interview. New York was the greatest experience, and yet, it has made me speed path a career that now I sometimes meet with an in-between experience level. Overqualified for most and under qualified for some. Senior level positions aren’t always the first to open up — in any market. C’est la vie. Good problem to have, I suppose.
The man I met with at this PR firm was right. I couldn’t do a job that junior. I would bore of it easily and rapidly and then I’d be in the same place. And yet… in that moment… ALL I wanted was to be offered the chance to say NO. Instead. I left. Felt discouraged and walked to Simon. I cried. A lot!
The night before we had not slept. Full moon. And my ear would NOT stop draining. I think it was that, the interview, the feeling weak, and therefore not confident that was the combination of my downpour of tears.
Simon held me for a long time on the street and kept kissing my tears – precious moment! I was lucky … the interview was ironically one block away from his office. When I left him (he said he stayed behind and watched me until I turned the block. He said he felt so sad for me. He said he doesn’t see me like that ever. That I looked discouraged and sick and desperate. He was worried about me. So sweet!) Before I left him, he said that my only task for the rest of the day was to go to the sauna. I love this man! I hope he tells me that EVERYDAY! Alas… He told me to rest, relax, and heal. He said I wasn’t allowed to steam though because of my ear. So instead… I double timed it in the sauna and pretended I was a lizard. Dried out and rested. What?! His orders!!!
En route, I called my mama to sit on her lap and sob for a minute. I voice texted Caroline (my beautiful French friend who I worked with on the Madonna concert many moons ago) to ensure that she thought I would find work over here. (She does!) And I practically pushed passed every other girl in the SoHo spa and made a beeline to my favorite hotbox in Paris!
While I was lying down in the sauna the thoughts were racing. I was thinking about the reason for my immediate tears after the interview. The man hadn’t said anything wrong. If anything it should have been taken as a compliment. He said I was overqualified… not UNDERqualified. That’s a good thing I thought to myself! Alas. I realized. I cried because it didn’t feel like the right fit. It didn’t feel right immediately when I walked in. It felt, actually, the polar opposite. And I cried because I wanted so desperately for it to have felt like FLOW — like that was my place. And it just wasn’t. It occurred to me … When you don’t feel right about something in life (a conversation, relationship, job, anything…) sadness, tears, upset comes. When you DO feel RIGHT about something in life (a conversation, relationship, job, anything…) glee, laughter, delight comes. These are body signs for what is FLOW. My FLOW just happened to be the sign of no go this time.
If anything, I have decided to let that experience inspire me. Change my mind on the way to go about searching. Figure out a different methods and keep at it.
I have decided that I will call my lawyer and accountant again this coming week to sort out next steps for changing my papers to an entrepreneur visa. And in the interim I will enjoy! As my mother reminded me… I have the life. I am still of course wanting/needing a job. But maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Maybe I am supposed to just enjoy this summer with my love. Have the flexibility to go to the US to see family and spend time with my dear friends. Then return to a wonderful wedding packed / birthday packed / summer fête packed agenda with Simon.
A job will always be there. For now. One thing at a time. For now. I will remember why I’m here. To have this wonderful experience of life. And I will be grateful.
Simon came home early to check on me last night after all the tears. He has taken the greatest care of me this week (every week, but this sick week in particular). He has been an incredible nurse … and cherry on top. He told me a few days ago that we are going away for a week together to Ponthoile the week after next. Just us. Just as it started.
We can hardly wait. Since learning this, all we have talked about…What else? The menu.
Tonight we will celebrate Margot (our friend who lives in Brussels) at her 40th birthday soirée. Tomorrow, we will celebrate Faustine (our friend who Simon use to work with at his last job) at her 30th birthday fête. And Sunday… I plan to be 100% BACK to feeling like me! You can count on it!
Until the next En Route… Xxo ac