Have Animal, Will Fly

The list of things I have to do to prepare the cat for the move is longer than my own. I should have known that which I imagined to be simple would be the most complicated.

Due to the very recent regulations changes regarding pet travel, one can only have an animal on their same flight if they have a written relationship with the airline as of thirty days before flying. Though it seems logical, the ticket itself is not considered a relationship. Most airlines, like Continental (which I am flying), are getting around this by enrolling people in their various benefits programs, which then allows passengers to have, for an additional cost, their pet in the pressurized cargo hold on the same flight as them. However if you, like me, are totally unaware of this new regulation - which, by the way is NOT on Continental's website - are not a Continental OnePass member, and find out this information 29 days before you fly, then you will be forced to send your animal third party.

Imagine the scramble that has ensued.

The cargo department at Charles de Gaulle wasn't particularly helpful, but after a few calls around and some internet search engine magic, I managed to get on the phone with a very nice woman in Florida who directed me to the IPATA website which contains a directory of animal transport services. In France there are four.

Naturally I chose the one based out of Charles de Gaulle, a certain GoldenWayPets. I was immediately on the phone with the owner, Colette, who sounds perfectly French but is in fact delightfully British. After a fifteen minute conversation she had me reassured that my little Boo would be on a direct flight to Philadelphia where I could happily meet him, and cuddle his smelly little guts out. The price hurts my ass (as the French say) but like any reasonable pet owner the cost is nothing to bring my little hairy ball of love safely to my new home. And, as the other option was to pay a similar price but simply drop him off at the cargo bay and just kinda cross my fingers that he gets on safely, I choose the more expensive option.

Somehow this does not make my list of preparations for him shorter. He needs a new collar, a crate pad in case he pees himself, spray shampoo for the clean up after flight, another trip to the vet for various stamps and papers, I have to cross check the prices of IATA approved crates, and I am sure I will think of other things while I am out. I imagine this is similar to get a baby ready to go on a trip.

Where the baby flies in the cargo hold of the airplane in a box. You know, they are just alike. But I am not at all stressed.

*******************

And then I got the REAL quote from the transporter and she was all "1,000 euros," and I was all "FAINT" and now I am back where I started. But like I said, I am not stressed.

White Friday

Today was the official "First Snow" in Paris. I had absolutely no notion of getting up at the ass crack of dawn to go out go shopping, mainly because the French wouldn't ever dream of doing it (um, and they don't have Thanksgiving here. Right.). Instead I slept unreasonable late - because I am, after all, unemployed - and spent today blanketing the interwebs with my writing resume.


What a novel idea, applying for jobs that I would actually enjoy doing. Do people do this? Does this happen regularly? I find it quite intriguing as a general practice.

I know that I not having a "formal" education is going to hold me back but, really when did this ever stop me from doing anything I wanted? I got a job in France, after all - a feat they said could not be done! I suceeded! And then I left. But it's all part of the process, I think.

This time, the excerise will be in keeping the eye my eye n the prize. The prize, of course, being a job I can go to every day and respect myself while still following my dreams to someday work fulltime as a writer. That is a nice, full statement of affirmation isn't it? I like it. It has positivity and good intention written all over it.

As for the snow, it didn't stick around for long, but it made for good motivation to keep indoors and be productive.

And have I mentioned that the cat doesn't mind me being home? He mostly does this:

He doesn't believe in productivity.

It's Over

"The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings." -- Lewis Carroll (The Walrus and The Carpenter)

And then the Walrus had the Oysters for dinner. A happy ending, if you like oysters. I think what Carroll was really trying to say was 'Let the world be you oyster, and don't forget to wash it down with champagne.'

At least that's my interpretation.

That, of course, is why I am leaving Paris in December. Yeah, just go with it.

Of course the real reason is - though I indeed have bigger and better things to move on to - I decided to quit my job. I thought about it long and hard. There was money at stake here. Perfectly fine euros that I could have spent on a number of things, including a second plane ticket home. But I just couldn't stay any longer, and the reason was less than two feet away from me, sharing desk space.

I can tell you now*, because I am not legally bound to them: My manager was the most evil woman I have ever met in my entire life. She hated me because our boss liked me. He liked the work I did and wanted me to be his personal assistant which was her job. Though she ranted daily about how much she hated it, she was proud to be at his beck and call. And frankly, she was good at it.

Then I come around, stealing her thunder without even really trying, and she gave new meaning to the saying "Hell hath no fury...". From the moment our boss expressed in whatever way that he did that he wanted to keep me around, something dislodged in the woman. After that there was nothing I could have done right, even if I followed her instructions to a "T" and made myself her personal slave. (Opening her coke zero and buying her lunch would have been required, I am sure.)

Over the months that followed (because this turn of events happened in the very first month), she did everything in her power to dislike me. She yelled at me in front of our coworkers. She made me cry, she told me that everything I did was wrong. She spent a great deal of her day looking for mistakes. She would purposefully provoke me and then tell me I was having "an attitude" with her when I tried to defend myself.

In October she took her evil to new heights. She posted my job on the internet. My job. She did everything in a secret tone, hushed into the receiver as though I couldn't glean what was going on. Our boss was in China on business and her plan was to get me fired before he came back and have a replacement in the wings. She began sending strange emails to me with our HR lady in blind carbon copy. She had one of the other managers 'keeping an eye on me'.

"She just couldn't do her job," she would say to our boss when he returned. "But I've found someone else, it's okay."

What she didn't account for was my intuition and my keen ear that hears when someone is plotting against me. I knew immediately that something was wrong when I received an email from the aforementioned manager saying 'You have made a BIG MISTAKE here.' in regards to a very minor mistake I made.

Because I had been studying up on French Work Law, I knew that in order for me to be fired from this job I would have to make what is referred to as a "BIG MISTAKE". Though, the mistake I had made would have hardly qualified, I knew immediately what was happening. I knew that she was in BCC and was probably planning on using it against me.

When I asked him directly if she was, in fact, in BCC he immediately told me that she was.

Following my gut, I - against my better judgment - sent and email to the Big Boss in China and asked him very calmly if I had done something that should have me worried for my job and how could I rectify it please? To which he replied "What is this story????!!!!!" As I suspected he knew nothing about what was going on behind his back.

I wish that I could have said it was all in my head, but the thing about a small office - and this office in particular - is that everybody talks. I had it on good authority that she had actually said to people that I wouldn't be around much longer. When she found out that I knew about the blind carbon copy, she ran to our IT team and asked them how it would be possible to know if that she was in copy. She was furious that I had found her out, but couldn't say a word. It was all so obvious.

In the end she and the HR lady covered it up by saying that they needed a second admin for the second floor - a fact that everyone in the office knew was false. They even pushed a girl through the interview process, right up to the final interview with the Big Boss where it mysteriously stopped. The girl was never hired and no other candidates were interviewed.

But for me the damage was done. My body was tired. After months and months of fighting I had begun to feel physically ill. I went into work with body as rigid as a steel rail, bracing myself for whatever new flack she would decide to throw at me. My jaw was constantly in a locked position, so much that I began to have a consistent ear ache. I slept all the time. Thirteen hours sleep could never be enough.

She stopped giving me the work that I was hired to do and I instead filled my days doing translations and English lessons - to which she tried continuously to thwart. I got yelled at for everything from being five minutes late (because of the bus thank you very much) to eating my cookies at my desk. I made the best of my time, trying to remember that I only had three months left. I made a few allies there, so not every second was miserable. But my heart was sick and when I imagined my last few months in my beautiful Paris feeling oppressed and unhappy and I decided that the money just wasn't worth it. I talked about it with The Boy and he agreed.

I gave them my notice Monday and I was all but escorted out of the office by security. (If the building had security I am sure they would have been there.) I didn't get to say good-bye to the friends I made, but I was free.

This week my days have been filled with planning a move (I have three weeks to do it!), making sure Boo Radley gets across the pond and finishing the much neglected Christmas shopping. And sleeping. I have been sleeping as if I hadn't slept in months. And damn it feels good.

Leaving is bittersweet. Last night I was in tears with The Boy thinking about how quickly this would come and how hard driving him back to the airport after Christmas would be. We will be 5,500 miles apart for nearly three months. We are both hoping that it goes really really fast.

And of course I have to say good-bye to Paris. I don't even know how to do that. I have started a list of things I will miss, and am trying to eat as much French food as I can. I want one last trip to le Pure Cafe, and one more night of dancing at Rosa Bonheur with all my friends. I want to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower - because in two years I never did - and really visit the Musee D'Orsay.

I know what I am going back for, and I am ready, but nothing ever prepares you for the actual goodbye. So for you, my readers who have constantly checked back in day after day during this depressingly dry spell, and for me as well, I am going to try to write a little bit every day until I leave. It's only appropriate. You followed me over here and you will follow me back. You will join me on my new adventure with The Boy in the City of Brotherly Love, but not before a fond au revoir to The City of Lights.

Today, on Thanksgiving, I want to give thanks for all of the forces that brought me here. This will be my third Turkey Day feast in Paris (spent chez Sarah, each one!) and probably my last. I am thankful for all of the amazing friends I have made and the wild, charmed life I have lived. And I am thankful for you, my readers, for the support you have given me even in my darkest times. I truly believe in virtual friends.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

*The super duper abridge version. Really, it is.

In Which I Start My Day With A Fistful of Chocolate and a Blog

It's November. Can you believe it's November? I for one, cannot. In the old days, when I used to blog regularly, I would have joined DecoyBetty in announcing that I would be posting everyday for National Blog Posting Month, but I have serious limitations this year and so I will not. Those limitations are, of course, myself.

But I digress. In my house we don't focus on the negative - self-fulfilling prophecies and the like. EvolvingRevolver has news.

For months I have been stuffing it in, dying to blurt it out here in this open forum but I couldn't. I work in the type of place that, should they stumble upon this blog, would likely use what I say here directly against me. I will refrain for the time being as to the extent of diabolical measures taken against me (for no justifiable reason), but I can be honest now that the end is in site. I hate my job with the fiery passion of a thousand hells.

And that's not even the news.

The news is that the contract for my visa ends in February. Given the circumstances I was fairly certain that A) no renewal of my contract would be happening and, B) I did not want to stay with this company and so in lieu of spending another six months searching for another job I have decided to throw in the towel on France and go home.

There are other factors at play of course. I have been homesick lately in a way that ends all homesickness. It wasn't a "craving american food, need to watch english tv" thing, but rather a "having flashes of every place I have ever lived in so that I am too distracted to see where I actually am". Nothing beautiful about Paris was striking me, much in the same way as when I had first moved here. The sound of French voices speaking was a terrible cacophony. My antidepressants are working. This is bigger than depression.

And then my grandfather passed. No one called me to tell me he passed. I knew he was sick and called to check in and found out his liver had finally failed the day before. The death itself did not rock my world the way that it could have, but it made me stop to think. I am so far away. If anything happened to my family, particularly my mother, what would I do? How would I get home to see them? I am comfortable in France but I do not have an excess of cash hanging around for emergencies. The mere time difference would break my heart at times like this.

The final flip happened on Monday morning. I stood alone in the upstairs kitchen of my office doing nothing of importance. I listened to the voices rattle behind their doors, thought about who actually might care that I was there. I counted the number of minutes I could be gone before I would get yelled at for being absent from my desk too long. I leaned my head against the cupboards and closed my eyes to think about home. I thought about my grandfather, and about my grandmother who would be alone now. I imagined working in an American office where someone might laugh with me, where people might appreciate my presence. I thought about Halloween and how much I would like to go trick or treating with my nieces and nephew. I thought, too, about how I would feel if I left. Would I feel like I had failed? Would I feel like I ran away? The answer this time was No. I have lived what I dreamed about living. I have experienced something that most people only wish they could and I did it all on my own. I am content with that.

All this in a split second. Then, with all the conviction in my heart I knew.

"I have to go home," I said aloud, to nobody. Nobody heard, nobody was listening, nobody cared. I said it again, my brain clicking back into motion, "I have to go home."

Just like that I started to put the plan into motion. The same way I decided to come here.

So in February I will be on a plane back, loaded down with twice as much as I came with, and a cat. Though I am not at liberty to announce it for him, we can just say that there are "rumors" that The Boy will be not far behind me. We're working on the details now. I have decided on Philly (and it's surrounding areas). We'll be able to have dinner on a Friday night at my sister's house. The kids can stay the weekend with us. We can get a dog. I will get a full time job until I can drum up my freelance work. It feels so right.

And I am excited. For Christmas - which is shaping up to be a real cozy holiday adventure for this girl and her boy - and for the future.

Suddenly the city has become beautiful again. The golden leaves of fall are more brilliant in the faded fall light. The gray cement moulding of each building casts delicate shadows. The Eiffel Tower glitters again. Things have come full circle and I couldn't be happier. Just a few more months now. There won't be enough hours in the day to get it all done.