Brave ladies!

I couldn't get to sleep last night which, while unpleasant, is not the end of the world since it doesn't happen very often. I went to bed about 1 a.m. but ended up reading my book until 4 a.m. - when I finally nodded off - only to wake up at 7.30! If it's only the occasional time I can live with that (well obviously, I just did) but I do feel for people with long-term insomnia, it must be hell! It was raining when I got up and then I remembered I had promised myself I would go out walking today, because if little girls and little old ladies can do it, so can I! I decided I wanted to head out to three small lakes I had visited just before lockdown to see if you can actually walk around all three and how long it would take. There is also a very old bridge nearby that I wanted to visit called le Vieux Pont (the old bridge - not exactly given to hyperbole were they). When I looked it up I see that it was first mentioned in 1225 but it obviously dates quite a bit further back than that.

Le Vieux Pont, Sallanches

On a side note, that takes me off on another tangential "old bridge story" that I remember from many years ago (can't remember exactly when though I remember seeing it on British TV). There was a very old bridge that had reached an important centenary anniversary somewhere in Switzerland - either the Swiss German part or the Italian-speaking part, but I can't remember that either. So they had all the local dignitaries lined up and a massive ribbon tied across it for the Mayor to cut. The band was playing, the Mayor was holding the scissors - and the bloody bridge collapsed!!!! Thankfully no-one was on it at the time, and I later asked my friend's Swiss husband if he remembered it but he couldn't place it! Funny how it always stuck with me though!

Since I was heading out that way, I decided to stop in at the Saturday market in St. Pierre as I'm finding it difficult to store my fresh fruit and veg at the moment. Thinking about it, it might be a good idea to start shopping for it twice a week rather than just once in this heat. Anyway, as I was pulling into the parking lot, the lady just in front of me screeched her car to a halt and parked diagonally across two parking spaces. Now there were plenty of  spaces available where she could have parked well away from other cars if she was worried about her car getting damaged, but nope, she parked directly in between two cars but diagonally! Ignorant cow! I do wonder about people like that though!

So I bought a few things - aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes and so on - and decided that since it was a bit cooler I wouldn't take them back home but head straight on out to Sallanches. Trouble is, I took the wrong bloody turn again and ended up back at the lake at Passy where I went a few days ago. Oh well, by this time I was getting hungry so decided to walk round it again since that was the main objective anyway. This time though, there were even fewer people than previously - even though it wasn't busy then. I guess since they had forecast thunder storms people stayed away, but we actually ended up not getting any rain. Obviously for people like me getting the lake almost to myself is great, but for the businesses there it's got to be very hard indeed seeing their August numbers drop so badly, right after such a strict lockdown!

When I pulled into the parking lot I handed over my €2 fee and realized that the young man didn't give me a ticket to display. Hmmmmm! He just waved me on through. So I tried to watch if he handed the next car a ticket (can't be sure) but on walking towards the lake I realized that some cars were displaying tickets and some weren't. That's obviously a nice little number he's got going there then. One for him and one for the boss! Since it was so quiet and I was hungry I decided to stop at the little restaurant there, blow my diet to hell with a Ceasar salad (very good!) and add in a glass of wine just to make sure I would feel like an abject failure. Nah, that didn't work, I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I think there were only five tables occupied on the terrace so I got to sit and watch the kids (and at least one dad) messing around on the "bouncy castle" kind of thingy!

Dad was having to go round each circuit and "bounce" his kids into the air.
He must have been knackered with three kids!

See what I mean, there was nobody on the beach.

Everyone fishing on the south side of the lake got their own little pontoon!

I made it round in 45 minutes this time and it was more pleasant because the temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up - enough to get some good kite-flying in!

You can just about see the kite in this picture!

And talking of kite-flying (here we go again), I remember being in Denmark years ago visiting my sister with my then boyfriend. To give her a break we decided to take her little boy to the park and go fly a kite. It was really windy and the little guy and I were having a hard time of it. So my boyfriend - lovely as he was - then decided to "mansplain" to me exactly where I was going wrong and indicated that he would show me. Somewhere I have a fabulous picture of him all tied up in knots and struggling to get his arms free from the kite! He wasn't exactly easily given to laughing at himself but I almost peed myself when my little nephew took great joy in explaining what happened to my sister in Danish!

By the time I got back I was hot, and as I was taking my walking boots off I remembered my vegetables in the boot of the car. To say that I almost had ready-made ratatouille in my basket would be an understatement!

And finally, I see that Alexei Navalny, a Russian opponent of Vladimir Putin, appears to have been poisoned on a plane in Russia. Yet another poisoning, which makes the campaign of the three ladies who ran against long-time Belarus dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, all the more brave. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya - an English teacher - assisted by two other brave ladies, campaigned for fair and democratic elections. I believe all three of these ladies' husbands were political opponents of Lukashenko and had all been imprisoned. One of the ladies was also taken into custody just before the elections and had had her young children threatened. It came as no surprise to anyone that Lukashenko - who has been in power for 26 years - won! Very wisely these ladies have fled the country and taken their children to safety in Lithuania, although what "safety" means when you are dealing with these kinds of régimes who knows. The EU are already going to impose sanctions against Belarus and I hope Belarus will get to be the next country to indeed be able to hold democratic elections. Either way, the bravery of these three ordinary women is so inspiring!

Sometimes I'm just inspired - or maybe not!

I had a few days at the beginning of the week that just knocked me off my feet. It was the heat most likely but I felt inclined to do absolutely nothing - so that's what I did! I pretty much just lay on the sofa and read for two days - which is fine, of course, but then I get so mad at myself because I don't want to become that couch potato. Of course in reality I know (God willing) I never will become that couch potato, but while I'm in that funk I hate it. Maybe the trick is just to learn to accept it for what it is - just my body saying "hey I've had enough of this heat", or maybe "I'm tired so give me a break". Anyway, this is what I felt like:

Still, it only takes a couple of days and I seem to be back up and running, despite the ongoing 36°C (96°F) heat! I suppose I do get more done than I realize because yesterday I did my shopping and then cleaned the entire house (it's not exactly deep cleaning though so don't look too closely). Then I did the washing and changed my bed so yep I guess I do achieve more than I think averaged out over the week. Today I had to go down to the bank to sign for my power of attorney over our Homeowners' Association's accounts, and then I ran to the DIY place as I wanted to pick up "sealant" strips for my windows and doors. It seems everywhere I look I see something that needs to be repaired, and at the moment it's the slightly rotting strips that actually seal my windows and doors. Not surprising really I suppose as I reckon the windows are probably 20 years old! And then of course the TV went on the blink for a couple of days, and while I really can "take it or leave it", I would at least like it to work occasionally. I've finally learned to just "leave it" though when things start getting to me and so a couple of days ago I had a eureka moment and figured out that it was actually the plug to the digibox that had had it. I buy my digibox from the UK so I need a British plug and that had started to go wobbly in the French adaptor. Once I fished out another UK/France adaptor and tried that it was "Bob's your uncle" and now it's all working again. Ya see, we women can do these things!

The computer is really my weakness, so I'm trying to discipline myself to just read the news and my emails in the mornings and not go down the rabbit hole of blogs/Youtube/US elections until the evening. I have to admit I really do get fed up with the US elections (and the UK elections of course) because they drag on so long, so in the past I've maybe watched a little of what's going on and then just left it. But this time, I've been glued to it and I'm sure you can all guess why. Now putting the politics aside (if that's even possible), I can always agree to disagree on matters of politics. Where my eyes are still popping out of my head and jaw hitting the ground is Trump. And not Trump from the point of view of being a Republican president. No, like I said, I can remove myself from that part. It's the spectacle of such an absolute rampant frickin' malignant narcissist that I'm glued to!

I've mentioned before that having had the misfortune to work for an incompetent batshit crazy malignant narc bitch (I think that just about covered all bases), I became fascinated by narcs and subsequently read up so much on them. That being so, Trump still has my eyes popping out on stalks! So I end up going down the rabbit hole of watching The Packman Show, or Trevor Noah, or Jimmy Fallon and staying up half the night. By the way, if anyone is interested, Fallon did the most wonderful Youtube video dressed up as Trump doing a make-up tutorial. It's brilliant! It's almost on a par with the former Italian PM's "somewhat unfortunate" plastic surgery attempts!

Silvio Berlusconi - of course they're his own "natural" good looks!

So trying to leave Trump out of it (because I want to get some sleep), I have to say how absolutely impressed I am by Biden's pick of Kamala Harris for VP. That woman is impressive! I watched her putting questions to Barr, who "couldn't remember if anyone in the White House had asked/suggested/hinted that he might like to make contact with Russia", and Kavanaugh who "couldn't think of a single law currently in existence which allowed women to make decisions over men's bodies"! Like I say, I loved it and will be really keen to see how she gets on - I'm sure she'll more than hold her own! As did Anderson Cooper recently with Mike Lindell of Mypillows fame. Well actually he wiped the floor with him, calling him a "snake oil salesman" on more than one occasion. Damn it was good to watch!

Harris v. Barr

And moving swiftly on to other news, tomorrow I think it's supposed to rain and be a little cooler, so I'm contemplating trying to get some real walking in again if I can be bothered. Well, that's what I was thinking until I saw these two pictures posted on my walking group's FB page. So shame on me if I don't get out there tomorrow!

Mom posted pictures and a video of her sweet four-year-old daughter walking all the way up Pen y Fan mountain in Wales. She got so many comments on FB that she said she was somewhat overwhelmed - and her sweet little girl was delighted!

And then another older lady posted this picture of her and her friend out walking the other day. So like I said, shame on me if I don't get out there!

And finally (God I don't half rattle on don't I - you can tell I live alone can't you), as I was doing some paperwork today it got so hot that I decided to switch the column fan on while I was working. Well that is until I took a closer look at it. Damn, I know no-one has slept in that room for a while but the dust - I swear if I had left it on for long they would have found me rolling around like a tumbleweed somewhere out in the back garden!

In my defence, this was after digging around with
a screwdriver and a toothbrush for a while!

So I was inspired to start doing this out on my balcony where I'd had the foresight to install a table, chair and sun umbrella. Actually why no-one uses their balcony is beyond me but .... So I took out all the screws but even then couldn't get the casing apart so had to go back to digging around with a screwdriver and toothbrush. And then I had the second inspired idea of getting the pressurized air can out - you know, the one you use to clean the dust off your computer keyboard - and all hell let loose!

This is just some of the accumulated dust!

What maybe wasn't such an inspired idea was standing "down wind" while I was doing it, having just got out the shower and applied copious amounts of body lotion. As it was flying out it started sticking to my face and body so I ended up looking like The Amazing Bearded Woman! On a side note, we actually had a bearded woman who lived near us when I was a kid and her name really was Mrs. Skull - but that's a story for another day -  I'm off to get another shower!

"Swithering"!

It rained last night bringing with it slightly cooler air for the evening, which was such a relief. Because it was easier to sleep I woke up feeling rested for once, with a lot more energy than usual. So first thing this morning I decided I was going to make a couple of phone calls I had been putting off because ... because who knows why. They were just the kinds of things you're going to get around to doing sometime and then they keep staring up at you from your to-do list as you transfer them from one list to the next. So I made the first phone call and got that issue sorted in about three minutes, and then I decided I wanted to find out what was going on with my French exam - you know the proficiency exam I was scheduled to sit in spring in connection with my request for French citizenship. While I was looking through my emails to find the name of the test centre, up pops an email from them saying they are opening up on 3 September and she had scheduled me for the first day if it was convenient and if I could get back to her within 20 minutes - otherwise they would put someone else in that slot and reschedule me for a later date! Of course I jumped at it and so now I'm just waiting to find out what time. Hopefully that will be one more thing crossed off the list of things-to-do to become French, although at the rate this is going who knows when that will ever happen!

So with that under my belt I decided that I needed to get a few more steps in towards my 1,000 mile goal. Since it was a little cooler I packed a backpack and headed off to the lake at Passy, which was where I was heading a couple of weeks ago and ended up taking the wrong route. Well this time I found it, and it turns out I'd only been 10 minutes away from it the last time I went looking. It's 45 km from home heading in the direction of Italy, and absolutely lovely. While it was quite busy there were loads of parking spaces available and people had plenty of room to spread out and "social distance". If you had young kids it is the perfect spot to keep them amused all day and all for the very reasonable price of €2/day for parking!

Looking towards the Mont Blanc

Sandy beach at the north end of the lake

Fishing is allowed at the south end of the lake

It took me about 90 minutes to walk all the way round the lake and being flat it was an easy walk. I then spent about an hour sitting on a bench reading and watching the world go by, although I must admit these past couple of days I think I need to stay out the sun again because although I don't sunbathe I can feel myself starting to shrivel up (even more) at the moment!

When I got home I found that once again my neighbour was parked in my driveway. I don't know why he does it but it does drive me slightly nuts. They have a single car garage and space for two more cars in front of their house, plus they can easily park six at the back, but I spend half my life waiting for him to move his car off my driveway. I mean, it's not like if they had a house party they would even be stuck for parking spaces because we have plenty of parking in our little housing plan! He used to do it a lot when I was at work and forget to remove it before I got home, but now I'm retired wouldn't you think he would realize I'm unlikely to be gone from my home very long on any given day? The only thing I can think is that his driveway is on a slope and mine is flat - other than that, I've no idea why he does it! Still, if that's the only complaint I have about my neighbours it's not bad really is it, but why he does it I'll never know!

Then when I was unpacking my bag another neighbour rang to give me a letter. He is the Chairman of our Homeowners' Association and the bank had sent him the codes for the internet banking I had requested for our homeowners' account and he wanted me, as the Treasurer, to have them. While I was chatting with him I looked over his shoulder and saw smoke pouring up into the sky between two houses. I couldn't see what was on fire but we could hear the fire brigade almost instantly and within a few minutes we could even see the flames. I can't tell what might have been on fire but I hope it wasn't someone's home. I think maybe not, because while the smoke was still billowing this evening they seemed to have it under control pretty quickly, thankfully!

And finally, I was checking in with my FB walking group this evening, and one lady was saying that she had been pretty disappointed with her walking this year because of the lockdown, and that even though she was wearing her fitbit she hadn't bothered to check it for ages because she didn't feel that she would have accomplished much. However when she did check it she had nevertheless managed to clock up over 700 miles. So she wrote "to those of you who are swithering - don't! Get your boots on and go for it"! Swithering? I had to look that one up, but what a lovely word that is. God I love the English language!

The calm before the storm!

On Friday my friend invited a group of 10 of us over to her place for lunch - a semi-annual tradition it now seems. She is a wonderful cook and she and her husband are gracious hosts. Add to that the fact that their son is a professional pastry chef, I'm sure you can imagine just how good everything was. But boy was it hot! We were in the shade but even so it was still stifling! For the most part we were all retired friends from work, with just two of those present not yet retired - although soon to be doing so. Obviously the chat was (mostly) about work, but we managed to squeeze an awful lot of politics into the afternoon too!

Next morning, however, I had a stonking headache which I put down to the heat 'cos I only had one glass of wine, what with having to drive. So I took a couple of aspirin and almost immediately I had some kind of reaction to it, something I've never had before. All of a sudden someone seemed to have turned the faucet on in my nose and I couldn't stop sneezing or blowing my nose. Seriously, I must have had to blow my nose 100 times in 24 hours, but I guess at least with my red nose there could be a job for me at Christmas. To me I wasn't "ill" in the sense of getting sick, more like an allergy to something (which I get quite frequently) but the bloody thing went on all day and was really tiring!

On Saturday I wanted to go out to buy some sports clothes in the sales because (don't laugh) I really am going to sign up to the local gym come September and my "exercise clothes" really are pretty shabby. Trouble was, while I was in the sports shop I had to keep pulling my mask down every couple of minutes to blow my nose. It must have looked really "weird" to anyone who noticed me, but I tried to take myself away from other people, even though I knew I wasn't "sick" in the sense of covid, but more "sick" in the sense of allergies. Still, I was glad to make my purchase and get out of there pretty quickly!

Anyway, I've signed up for an online exercise coaching programme and in addition to filling out a questionnaire, one of the things they ask you to do is try three simple exercises so they can gauge where to start you off. Ha, I could have told them absolute beginner without going to that trouble, but I did the three tests anyway with predictable results!

The first test was about sitting and rising from a seated position without using your hands or knees! It's harder than it looks and for every hand/knee you use you lose a point, counting down from 10. I managed an eight so not exactly great!

The second test was the stand/sit exercise using a chair. Not at all difficult of course, but depending on your age you should do X number of repetitions in 30 seconds. This one, oddly enough, I sailed through. It's an indication of leg strength (apparently) so I was glad to know one part of me was working fairly well!

The final test was the burpee. I don't think I need to go into any great detail to let you know how I scored on that one. A resounding zero! So as you can see, I'm going to have my work cut out for me. On the plus side, from here on in, the only way truly is up!

The programme starts on 17 August and lasts for 12 weeks so we'll see how that works out - or more precisely, if I can stick to it (for once)!

Having logged my walking this week I've somehow managed to get up to 675 miles in 2020, which is something of a miracle, all things considered. However, seeing the posts on FB from the walking group some of the people in the group are clocking up some amazing distances even now. One man named Richard posted that he had started his walking on 2 January (1 January being his wife's birthday and party time), and in that time he has clocked up 2,000 miles and lost five stone (70 lb)! He posted it on FB so I hope he won't mind my reposting it here. Well done Richard, you're pretty darn inspirational!

Richard in January

Richard in August

All the above notwithstanding, I did bugger all today except lie in my paddling pool reading for about an hour and then spend the rest of the time on the sunbed in the shade. So not many miles achieved today (or for the next few days I imagine). Still, the heat can't go on for ever can it!

He was a good man!

For a few days this week I've had one bloody song going round and round in my head on a permanent loop. Do you ever get that? It's quite a nice song but I won't name it because I don't want to infect you too. Now, finally, it seems to have worn itself out, but just yesterday I read the sad case of a man in Wales who actually committed suicide because of "last song syndrome" - or "earworm", as it's called (I'd never heard of that expression). The poor guy had suffered with this syndrome for years and could no longer take it, so he put his affairs in order, wrote out a list of where everything was with a letter apologizing to his family - and then took his own life! How sad is that! 

In other news, about 10 days ago I learned that a former colleague, Larry, had been taken to hospital after suffering a sudden serious medical event. He was placed in an artificial coma, I believe, and when they realized there was no hope his husband gave permission for the respirator to be switched off and Larry died 24 hours ago! He wasn't a friend but a very dear colleague who I worked closely with when he first joined our organization. He was very likeable, extremely humble and never forgot a name. After I changed jobs I no longer worked so closely with him, that is, until I ended up in HR dealing with the medical insurance and we had more contact again. Ha, I remember one time in a meeting he asked if I could get him a copy of a document so I went and made a photocopy for him. Trouble is, I forgot to put the photocopier on recto-verso so he ended up with a document with only the odd pages included. He pointed it out to me while I was taking the minutes so I just said "apparently Larry will have no comments on pages 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10" - and he burst out laughing!

Our organization was never part of the U.N. system but we applied U.N. common system rules and salary scales and so on, and also used their medical insurance. In 1995 we became a new organization, with a new name but more or less the same tasks so it was decided to leave the common system completely, withdraw from the U.N. pension fund and set up our own rules, regulations, salary scales and medical insurance. Our organization had its headquarters in Geneva and no satellite offices, and since the U.N. system was all $-based it made sense to "go it alone", so to speak!

I'm paraphrasing an awful lot but by virtue of becoming a new organization, the lease with the Swiss authorities for the building where we were located had to be renegotiated. I'm guessing the Swiss assumed that it was a foregone conclusion that we would stay in Geneva - well that is, until the Germans stepped forward and said "hey, our parliament has now left Bonn and moved back to Berlin, so we've got an awful lot of office space and apartments we could make available to you if you wanted to move to Bonn"! Well that put the cat among the pigeons because it wouldn't have just been a question of us moving (we were around 700 staff at that point, I guess), but would have involved many, many country missions dedicated to our organization moving also!!! And that would have been a massive loss for Geneva!

Up until that point, the Swiss did not offer work permits to staff members' spouses, so if you had a couple where both were professional people, there was a big disincentive to coming to Geneva knowing that your spouse would not be entitled to work. The German offer, however, meant that negotiations with the Swiss got opened up and much tougher than they anticipated. The Swiss eventually offered to give the organization the building and accepted to give work permits to spouses of staff members across the board - that meant to all U.N. organizations also. It was quite the victory!

Now my boss ended up doing the bulk of the legwork for drafting the headquarters agreement, the withdrawal from the U.N. pension fund and setting up our own pension fund - and just for good measure, why not let's negotiate with a new medical insurance provider also? He obviously didn't have enough to do! I was on my knees trying to keep up with all the different versions of agreements that were being negotiated with member States, the Swiss authorities, the U.N. pension fund and the call for tender for the medical insurance. When it all started Jordan was three and André was seven and I was working full-time, trying to get the shopping/cleaning and so on done on a Saturday (because God-forbid any stores should be open on Sundays) and then going in to work for a few hours on Sundays to try to catch up. You can do that for only so long and it very nearly did me in. The plus side, though, was that I got to know the details of all these agreements because I'd typed 100s of drafts of each one!

Anyway, just when I thought I could see a light at the end of the tunnel (I didn't realize it was more like a train coming from the opposite direction), Larry brought up the issue of work permits for spouses in same-sex marriages. You see Larry was gay and had been living with his partner for many years. The Swiss, at that time, eventually agreed to recognize common law partners, but only in heterosexual relationships. So Larry and his partner decided to fly off to Canada to get married and then the push was on to have same sex spouses recognized by the Swiss, the pension fund, the medical insurance and the staff rules. So just when I thought I was coming up for air, off we go again. I absolutely agreed with what Larry was trying to do, but I do remember asking him if we could have a Sunday afternoon off from manning the barricades just this once as I was on my knees and he laughed. I also remember him telling me that he didn't realize he was gay until he was 36 so I just said "damn, you were a bit slow weren't you" and he said "yeah, that's what my mom always said". But in the end it all worked out, and he (and many others) were able to get their spouses recognized in the same way as heterosexual spouses were!

I remember one time, when André was probably about five, I had brought him in to work with me after school to wait so I could take him home later. Larry got chatting to him and asking about school, and André said that he had gotten 19/20 on his spelling test, his only mistake being he spelled "chops" as "thops" and Larry cracked up. (As a side note, my kids must both have had problems with spelling words with "ch" in them, because one time when Jordan was little he had to come up with five words with "ch" in them. So I pointed at my chin and he wrote that one down. Then I pointed at a piece of cheese - and he wrote that one down. Then I asked him what a teacher wrote on a blackboard with - so we got number three. Then all of a sudden he went "oh I've got one mommy - chruck")! Anyway a couple of months later I had taken André to his Saturday morning swimming lesson at a pool in Geneva where Larry regularly went swimming. After the lesson I spotted Larry in the cafeteria so I told André to go over to him and say "hi Larry, how are you" - which he did! The look of horror on Larry's face at being approached by a little boy at a swimming pool made me realize immediately what I'd done, so I quickly got up and went and sat at his table. His relief was palpable when he realized it was André!

And so the news of Larry's death has come out and people are sending in tributes because he was universally liked. One guy just wrote in how Larry would often sign his emails "your humble servant" and he commented that wasn't that the truth. He really was a humble - and very likeable - guy. So RIP Larry, you were a good man!

What a difference a day makes!

Or what a difference two days make really. Saturday was scorching hot and if I remember right hit 40°. They had forecast storms but we didn't get any - they were saving themselves for Sunday apparently. Even then it was fine during the day, hot enough to sit in the garden and read, and the storms hit late afternoon. It obviously rained during the night although I didn't hear it, but this morning it was so much cooler only reaching 14°C today! So a drop in temperature of 26° in just over 24 hours. I suppose it's no wonder people get sick is it!

It's forecast to head back up again starting tomorrow (I think) and then hit the high temperatures towards the end of the week. It's weird (or maybe not), but as soon as the temperatures start dropping I feel my "oomph" coming back and today was no exception. I made a point of being in bed by midnight so I would be up and running by 8 a.m. I've made a long list of all the things I neglected last week so will be trying to knock at least one of those off each day. I took a trip down to the recycling centre first thing and even though it was raining I then decided to head out to Thyez to get a walk in too. This is my "go to" walk for when I don't want to go up the mountains, and with more storms forecast I definitely didn't want to go up the mountains. So in the space of an hour I got a nice walk along the river bank and around the small lake there to add 10,000 steps to my daily challenge. Except for the fact that my hair turned to frizz it was a lovely walk and definitely the right thing to do, but then do you ever regret going for a walk? Honestly I don't know what to do with my hair because as soon as it gets damp it turns to frizz and I end up looking like a bedraggled rat. I was thinking on the way home that if I really do intend to join a local gym in September I'm going to have to come up with something to do with this mop because I don't want to end up looking like Harpo Marx having a bad hair day!

When I got home I thought "right, that's it, first task on the list - I'm gonna call the IRS". André received his stimulus cheque about two months ago but Jordan hasn't seen hide nor hair of his and has got it into his head that he won't get one now! The only thing we can think of is that he moved in November so potentially it was sent to the wrong address, the French post office didn't forward it and it was returned to the IRS. I tried tracking it through their site using both addresses but each time it comes up as "information not available". So I decided there was nothing for it but to call them. The first couple of times, after going through their spiel, they told me to hold for more information, and after five minutes of total silence I hung up. The third time I did manage to get the "more information" never-ending loop so I decided that come what may I was indeed going to hold and keep holding. In the end I finally got through to a very helpful lady after 20 minutes (so I reckon Jordan will owe me half his stimulus cheque just for that phone call as I believe 800 numbers called from outside the States are not free). But at least I got through!

The lady on the other end was not able to go into specifics so I explained what had happened and what our thinking was. She told me that the stimulus cheques were processed on the basis of 2018 filings (so they would have Jordan's old address), but since he has filed for 2019 already his address should have been updated. Apparently the "information not available" message is just a standard response and I should keep checking until I see a "processing" or "processed" response - but that could take up to Christmas as they still have millions to complete. Failing that I could fill out a form 3911 to trace it but either way it wasn't "lost", as if all else failed he can claim it when he completes his 2020 taxes next year. I know I should leave this stuff to him really but he has no idea about US taxes and I don't mind doing it anyway. Still, it's money neither of the kids were expecting so if/when it does come it will be a bonus!

Today was André's first day back in the office and he said he just sailed through in 45 minutes. I told him not to get too confident as quite a few people were still working from home and it was vacation time for many others anyway, but at least he isn't starting back to work with a nightmare commute immediately. He wants to come over tomorrow night so I can go through his divorce paperwork with him, to see if I can think of anything he has missed. He will also bring his codes for his Swiss ebanking and I will show him how to do that too. It was funny because when we all went out to lunch on Saturday he went into his bedroom and came back out with a few euros from his "spending money" and said he actually likes the envelope system I had him set up because he can see what's what and what he has available to spend. From looking at my French bank on pay day I can see that he has indeed started sending money to his French bank account (hopefully restoring his reputation with them), and putting money into separate savings accounts to save for his own place. Hallelujah, I finally got through to him - I guess the old ways still work then!

My ex called me this morning (mid-day our time, 6 a.m. his time) and I asked him what the heck he was doing up so early. He said he now goes to bed around 9 p.m. (?????) so he gets up early too. That is definitely not the man I was married to, nor is the fact that he has put on 50 lbs since he stopped smoking either, but I guess it's better to have the extra lbs than the tar stained lungs isn't it. In any case, he was so skinny anyway that he actually doesn't look bad with all that extra padding!

Like me he's delighted with Jordan and Jen's news and we chatted for a while about family. Then he told me that he might send André $1,000 "to help him out". So I said, "er I don't really want to butt in here (but I will anyway), but can I make a suggestion and encourage you to split that in two and send $500 to each kid? André on his own makes more than Jordan and Jen together, he's starting to put money into savings and he's living rent-free with Jordan and Jen - who've just told you they're expecting a baby, so don't you think they might be hurt if you send money to André and nothing to them?" He said he hadn't even thought of it that way and indeed that's what he's going to do. Damn I'm glad I caught him before he did something stupid!

And finally, talking of losing weight (we were weren't we), I am indeed going to join a gym in La Roche in September (when it's cooler) because I want to learn how to use the weight machines properly. I can do all that at the work's gym and pretty much have the place to myself but driving into Geneva obviously isn't working out so well so I think it'll have to be La Roche instead. Anyway, having got in a one hour walk today and been careful with what I was preparing for food, I decided to log it into Myfitnesspal to see if I was calculating calories/portion sizes properly (I'm getting better at it, but it's surprising how the "little things" can add up too). Anyway, once I input all my info and hit save, Myfitnesspal indicated that if the next five weeks were like today I would lose eight pounds - so there you have it! Just gotta keep going for the next eight weeks to find out!

En avi eh ay et mami!

Or at least that's what I heard. Jen had called me a couple of days ago to have lunch with them today so I tootled off over to St. Jeoire to be there by 12, which is the time I usually have lunch with André. Turns out they were in the middle of a game of "Big Mouth" so we had time for them to kill before our 12.30 reservation!

Big Mouth!

It's a game we have played before where you put a plastic mouth shield in your mouth and try to say a sentence and your team mates have to guess it. Well André was in full flow when I got there and absolutely doubled up. It was lovely to see actually, given how rotten his life must have seemed to him lately!

Anyway they then decided I had to have a go - which went ok but really - weren't we due at the restaurant soon? Ok soon, but Jordan had to finish up - so I got this!

And what was I supposed to guess from?

"on avi eh a et ami"! So no bloody clue right! I went back and forth and am thinking privately (when are we going to head out for lunch)?

So I get on avi (en avril - in April)

"eh a et ami" (je vais être) and then I couldn't get "ami". We kept going back and forth and I still couldn't get it. It did cross my mind that it was weird that André was filming me when it was Jordan that had the plastic doo-dads in his mouth, but ... what can I say! Eventually I came up with "en avril je vais être mamie" -  which means "in April I will be a grandma"! The buggers. I held it in as best as I could but dammit, I blubbed a little. The funniest thing was it was André who seemed to be the most excited. Well Jen was of course, but Jordan is a worrier so André was all hyped up and Jordan was well, "oh damn what have I done?". But I'm delighted. It's early days yet but I knew it was coming at some point (God willing). But damn, I'm ready to explode I'm so happy!

Because she's so tiny Jen is already starting to show - and is already starting with nausea. Damn I remember that with my first - on the metro in D.C. with a plastic bag in my hand trying not to disgust the yuppie lawyer sat next to me by barfing in his lap. Fingers crossed that all goes well. I'm fit to explode with happiness!

And just to illustrate my happiness, a member of my 1,000 miles in 2020 group posted this photo of him skipping with his granddaughter - a real "Eric and Ernie moment"! "Bring me sunshine ..."!