Getting From Here to There

Getting from Iowa to Cadrieu is a journey of three distinct parts. The first part takes me from Red Bell Farm to Chicago by rental car. The second piece is the flight itself from O'Hare to Charles de Gaulle. The third part is the piece that worries me the most....Charles de Gaulle to Cadrieu. I arrive at 8am after a long day of driving and a long night of flying. I'll be tired and jet-lagged. I'll have to figure out how to find Lucie, get her out of her crate and haul her, her crate and my suitcase to the rental car place (which I have absolutely no idea how to find!) Then I have to drive a strange car from the northeast outskirts of Paris to the southwest suburbs to connect to the A20 autoroute that will take me to points south. Throw in confusing French signage, a foreign language, and who knows what else and you have all the ingredients for disaster. Laury to the rescue! She's making plans right now to take the midnight train to Paris, connect with the RER to the airport and meet me on arrival! She'll be my navigator, read the maps, read the roadsigns and generally point us in the right direction. Plus she'll be there to help lift, tote and reassure. Could I do this without her help? You bet! but having her there will make it SO much easier and SO much more fun!

Money, Money, Money!

I made a trip to Des Moines today to do the money thing. I gulped a bit as I transferred money out of my IRA into my savings account. It's a little scary to dip into those funds! I had to keep reminding myself that it's retirement money and THIS IS RETIREMENT! At least for now anyway. I put some money into another account, so I can buy some Euros to take with me and then shopped a little...there are a few things I need for the trip like new luggage tags and a new jump drive to load photos onto. I chuckled to myself as I picked out a backpack to buy. I've teased Laury so much about her bottomless purple backpack that she takes everywhere, but truly, she's got it right. A backpack is perfect for shopping when your transportation is your feet, a bike, or the bus. You'd be shocked at how much stuff you can stuff into a backpack!

Money and backpack....check!

The BIG Announcement!

Drum roll, please! I've done it; I've made the decision to close up my house for the winter and go to France. I couldn't be more excited! This is where I'll pass the winter....Cadrieu. I know you remember it from my month of Melange-ing Magic at Laury's house last September. No one was looking at, much less buying my property, so it was a relatively easy decision to take it off the market and maybe try again next spring. With some minor tweaking, I'll be able to winterize it and just GO! Lift off is scheduled for Sept. 22nd. I'll fly directly from Chicago to  Charles de Gaulle where I'll rent a car and drive to Cadrieu. And guess what? Lucie is coming along on this adventure! She's always said she wanted to be a little French dog and now she'll get her chance. More details to follow, of course, including an address and new email and maybe a new blog (haven't decided about that yet ) But for now, it's busy, busy, busy around here as I attend to the myriad of things that need to be done before I leave. This is truly a dream come true!

Safe and Sound

I mailed off my 'babies' for Laury's end-of-August vernissage last week. Today she sent me this photo...they arrived, safe and sound! No broken glass, no bent frames. It looks like Dean, the Postmaster, used lots of cool stamps to send my package winging its way to France. Wonder if he knew somehow that Laury is a big stamp fan? I'm relieved to know they made it. Now Laury gets the fun of figuring out just how to hang them in her cave. My guess is she'll send me a photo of their final destination if I can't get there to take one myself. I'm still hopeful...

Addendum: Laury wrote a blogpost about my photos. Check it out at Soar-Dream-France.

Long Distance Therapy

You may remember this photo from a blog post I made back in June of 2008. Well...it flooded again, but not quite this badly. My creek overflowed its banks this morning. Only I wasn't here to take its picture. Here's the story: I awoke at 5am to thunder and rain...lots and lots of rain. At 6:30am it was still raining heavily, water was standing in most of my front yard and I could see the creek roaring just standing on my back porch. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't keep from pacing back and forth to the window, peering out watching the water rise. I kept having flashbacks to June 2008 when I found myself completely surrounded by running creek water. Enough! I showered, pulled on clothes, put Lucie in the car, and we left. Water was standing in my drive and in places on the road, but the creek was still in its banks as I rounded the corner and started the climb up to the top of the ridge. I spent the next 3 hours in Des Moines shopping, getting gas, and having a frappachino at Starbucks...waiting for the rain to stop. When I arrived home, I could see the creek had been up in my yard, but was now on its way back down. I emailed Laury about it, and I had barely pushed the 'Send' button when my phone rang. "Are you all right??" my friend drawled, "I'm worried about you!" We talked and laughed, I felt so silly, but it's an awful feeling to be at the mercy of the elements, powerless and trapped. She did her very best social worker therapy via phone...soothing and calming, validating that fears don't have to be rational to feel real. We laughed again...it's pretty amazing that I seek support from my friend who lives 5000 miles away! But it worked...well enough that I think I should pay her hourly therapy wage for our conversation!

BTW....I emptied 3 inches of rain out of my rain gauge!

Choices, Choices...

This year's vernissage at Laury's Chatette is Saturday, August 28th. I'm already hard at work figuring out which photos I will send Laury to hang on the beautiful stone walls of her cave. If you remember, last year I sent two large framed photos...a pair of Provencal shoes and an intimate close up of a luscious hollyhock. This year I've chosen to go smaller. These photos are all 5x5" and whichever one(s) I choose to frame will nestle in a matted 8x8" frame. The souls of flowers have been calling to me all spring, begging me to receive their beauty. I hardly had to be tempted at all! The choices now are which ones and how many? Should I go with just one or a cluster of four? Should a group be all the same color family or all the same flower or should I mix it up some with a yellow, a purple, a pink?

Here's the biggest choice of all....should I mail them via international post....or hand-deliver them to Cadrieu in person?

Gobsmacked!

I went to France in September last year with only a few expectations. I did that intentionally because I wanted to be open to whatever manifested during my month in the Lot. I expected to see some beautiful art and see historic places. I expected to have an adventure. Those expectations were certainly met, but as my Brit friends would say, I was totally 'gobsmacked' by the two things that were the highlights of my trip: people and pilgrimage.
I've dedicated several blog posts to pilgrimage...I feel very drawn to walking at least part of the pilgrimage path in France and I absolutely fell in love with Conques, a pilgrimage village in the Aveyron. I think it's safe to say I was 'gobsmacked' by Conques!

The people who became friends during my magical month truly were a gift. My cyber-friend, Laury became a true friend for life. I knew we were kindred souls from our blogs and our emails, but getting to know her has definitely melange'd some real magic in my life. Through Laury I became friends with Jean, Greg, Jean-Luc & Odile, Christiane & Jean-Paul, Josie & Patrick. If someone had told me that I was going to France to make friends, I would have scoffed...'no way...you don't go to France to make friends!" But make friends I did...GOBSMACKED! Laury and I continue to be in contact regularly by email and by phone. She and these others continue to melange magic in my life. It's too soon to share that magic, but let me tease just a bit...if everything falls into place, there is change in the wind.

GOBSMACKED again!

In Honor of Barns

Today I honor barns. Not this barn, though.

Nor this one.....

This is the barn that sits in the place of honor today. Because this barn, as of today, is now part of Laury's 'family' in the Lot. She signs the papers officially making it hers this afternoon...in fact, probably already has as I write this! This beautiful piece of Lotois history seemed destined to belong to the Chatette, and Laury has brought that destiny to reality. It's a magical, almost mystical place; the inside is dusty and dim, but you can feel its stories lurking under the dirt and between its ancient stones. You know the saying...'if only these walls could talk'? If only these stones could speak.... I know that Laury will hear their stories and uncover their secrets! If you want to know more of the barn story, click over to Soar-Dream-France....you won't be disappointed.

NOLA is Back!

This blog post is dedicated to Laury, whose beloved New Orleans is back. Not only did Laury's candidate, Mitch Landrieu win the Mayoral election last week, but the Saints won the Super Bowl yesterday! Life is good in NOLA this morning, and I'll bet they're still partyin' on Bourbon Street. I took this photo of Laury leaning out of the window at the Chatette last September. Today Laury is in Frankfurt, Germany doing an orientation for her military contract job which will be in Stuttgart. She'll be away from the Chatette for two months...a long time to be missing Cadrieu and the Lot...but necessary right now. During the month I spent at Laury's, I was privileged to hear a lot about Hurricane Katrina and the devastation it wrought on New Orleans. Laury's 'storm stories,' as she calls them, broke my heart. It wasn't just property that was destroyed during the storm, it was also lives, jobs, friendships, love affairs, churches, parks, and essential services for the poor and the underserved. The storm brought out both the best and the worst in people. It changed Laury's life forever. Today, though, there is joy in NOLA. As I listened to NPR this morning, correspondent Cokie Roberts, an ex-pat New Orleanian, summed it up: This may sound silly but this Super Bowl win on the heels of Mitch Landrieu's victory seems like a turning point for New Orleans ( my paraphrase of her comments). I pray that she is right!

Moon River Remembrance

My eyes filled with tears as I drove home from work tonight. I was listening to an NPR story about the centennial anniversary of the birth of the great lyricist, Johnny Mercer, who wrote the words to such songs as "That Old Black Magic" and "I Remember You." But it was the Henry Mancini song that Johnny wrote the lyrics for that brought me to that sentimental moment in the car. In 1961 as Mercer's career was being slowed by the rise of rock and roll, Mancini asked Mercer to write lyrics for what became the beautiful song, "Moon River." And "Moon River" took me back to the Lot, back to Laury's very own Moon River that I watched flow by my window every morning and every night of that wonderful month in Cadrieu. Light danced and sparkled on that river. The cliffs of the causse and the colorful trees and bushes of autumn were reflected in it. On my first night at the Chatette, I watched a full moon rise over the river. Laury pointed out the moon's aura...light in the shape of a cross that framed it. She said that was special to moonrise over the river Lot; that she'd never seen that cross anywhere else. When I got home a month later, I checked it out on my Iowa full moon, and she's right...no cross here, only a soft halo. Remembering the Moon River of the Lot, remembering Laury playing the Mancini/Mercer melody on her lovely baby grand piano late at night while I sat curled up in bed, reading and watching the light of the full moon streaming through my dormer window...no wonder my soft, silly, sentimental heart overflowed!

My Trip is Over...

My trip is over...but its memories linger! And I'll continue to share stories here from my month in France. This is a photo that Laury took of Jean-Luc and me as we walked the tow path alongside the Lot River one afternoon. The tow path was carved/blasted out of the cliff before motorized travel made navigating upstream on the Lot feasible. Mules and horses would literally pull boats and barges against the current to places upstream where they would be filled with goods to move downstream to markets. These days the tow path has been taken over by walkers and boaters. While motors make upstream travel do-able, the shallow waters of the Lot prohibit boat travel except through a series of locks.

In this photo that I took, you can see a boat in one of the locks. Its crew will manually turn the big wheels that open the gates...the first to fill the lock with water...then it must be cranked closed. Then the second gate will be cranked open so the boat can motor into the deeper water beyond it. Lots of work for these river enthusiasts!

Laury walking the path. Laury and Jean-Luc from a vantage point above the tow path overlooking the Lot River valley.

My trip home was relatively uneventful. It felt good to sleep in my own bed and I was thrilled to see my Lucie. She, by the way, learned a new trick while I was gone. She attempted to go to school with the Jones kids. She would follow them to the school bus and then hop on herself! The kids had to retrieve her from under the seats. Once they even started down the road before someone noticed she was on the bus...bet the bus driver loved that!

Seeking Nice Person(s) or Family to Love Me

Wanted: nice person(s), reliable with a caring attitude to fill my rooms with laughter and love. Must be willing to live in one of the most fun cities in the world, be interested in jazz, Mardi Gras, and good ole Cajun culture. I'm close to the action, reasonably priced, and available. If you are seeking someplace to live in New Orleans, LA, my owner would love to hear from you. You can learn more about me and see my picture by clicking here: Columbus Street House.


PS...I'm for rent, not for sale. Contact lauryab990@hotmail.com