Ready for a Murse

So I’ve been contemplating the whole man purse thing. From across an ocean, it seems quite absurd and irrational. From here, it’s amazing I’ve held out this long. Everybody’s doing it.

I can give you a full list of reasons... Pants too tight for wallets. Walking culture = no car to keep random junk in. ID cards and checkbooks much bigger than a typical wallet/pocket. Cargo pants out of style. Smart-phones are getting bigger by the day. Need somewhere to keep documents, USB devices, and phone chargers. It’s France.

My problem with them has not just been refusal to carry a purse, but also the fact that all of the ones I see simply look ridiculous. Like a long thin camera bag with leather straps. Seen the new iPad carrybags (which might bring the manpurse to the US)? They’re like those, but smaller and less hipster. I’ve seen a couple here and there that I could live with, but then can never find them in the stores. Well to be honest, I’d not yet gone into a store looking for one, but still.

Recently though, I saw a bag and I fell in love. It was navy blue leatherish material, shaped like a messenger bag but smaller. A cream shoulder strap, and this picture imprinted on the bag:
Now that would make me smile every time I pick it up. I love the A-Team. And when I’m home during the day, I can watch reruns in French anytime I want.

** An update, since writing this, I bought a man purse. Was out with my family buying something else when I saw a sac on a mannequin, said “I could live with that one,” and moments later my wife had found them on a rack. She pointed out the surprisingly good price, and I crumbled with no excuse ready. So I’m the proud new owner of a murse. Maybe someday I’ll put up a photo of it. It looks a little more masculine than the usual, but the problem is that inside it’s all purse. I can’t in good conscious call it anything else. There’s a spot for a cell phone, change, a checkbook... ugh. I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Cakes and Cookies

This post is long overdue. Today's surprise arrival in the mail sparked me to do it. Hooray for Easter packages! Half wonderful goodies: like M&Ms, Reese's Eggs, coloring books, Mint Oreos. Half ridicularity: like singing sheep, bunnies that poop jelly beans, and Marshmallow animals (does anyone eat those things?). But the reminder came in the form of these fantastic home-cooked cookies:
JJ's sisters have a cake-making talent. Once a hobby, word started to leak out with this masterpiece (our wedding cake): Beautiful and incredibly tasty.

This year for mine and Sawyer's birthdays, they decided to bake, package, and mail cakes to France. We were skeptical, but it came out great! With a little assembly required (luckily my wife is generally talented as well, and in the blood line), our cakes made it out of the box, onto the table, and into our tummies. And they were fantastic. Take a gander. Thanks sisters!

Check out their other creations on their facebook page at Sunny's Cheesecake Emporium.

Again? Sure...

Hooray for trips to the prefecture! That’s all sarcasm, by the way.

Living in France, we have to apply annually for the proper paperwork to legally live here and work here as foreigners. Something like the green cards in the States. Assuming it’s even half as difficult there, I now have sooooo much sympathy for people that have to deal with the same thing in my own country of citizenship. It’s funny here that we have to apply annually, since the process seems to take almost a year to complete.

After sending in our initial paperwork late last year, we moved. So we had to request a transfer... which amounted to reapplying and resubmitting everything. Then one day we received this little piece of paper with my wife’s name and photo telling us that the application was close to complete. Odd to get something back for her and nothing for myself, since we sent the two in together, in the same envelope. But we shrugged and waited. A month passed and nothing else came. We’re a few months past the expiration of our visas, so I went to the prefecture today to see what’s going on.

Pulling up our files in the system, the lady there told me that jj’s file was essentially complete, but mine appeared to be non-existent. As if it had never been submitted to begin with. I told her that the two were mailed in together (they have to be mailed, hand-submission is unacceptable), so it’s sort of impossible for them to have my wife’s and not mine. She sighed some French sayings for “yeah, it’s impossible and those people are _____ (insert insult),” then handed me a new form and said I should fill out a new submission with all of the supporting documents and come back tomorrow.

I’ve learned my lesson. Make copies. Even if it is 100 pages long. I will have to resubmit it. Again. And again. And then again next year.

A bump on the chin

A week after the first time out of the apartment on his two-wheel ride, Sawyer today accompanied me on a trip to the store for milk. I walked alongside as he rode up the hill and then down the sidewalk, around the corner and across a few crosswalks. As is his custom, he walked through the small grocery we frequent and helped me pick up our milk and strawberries. He grinned at the girl working the cash register, acted shy till the last moment, then beamed a big smile and a loud "au revoir!" On our way home he pushed a few steps ahead, and picked up some speed on approach to the sidewalk that would lead to our apartment. I cringed as I saw what he didn't: a small curb just large enough to grab the front tire of his bike and stop it cold. Sawyer's momentum continued though as he launched himself over the handlebars. A faceplant on the concrete begat a pretty red spot on his chin (I was actually surprised when he hopped up that his whole face wasn't torn apart).

Mother's intuition proved itself legitimate as less than 2 minutes later my phone rang, JJ on the line, "How are you guys? I'm just worried about you out on the streets. Everything ok?" No idea how she knew, but I told her to go ahead and get out the alcohol wipes and band-aids. It was time for some mommying when we arrived.

In typical boy fashion, Sawyer screamed far more through the cleaning and bandaging of the wound than the actual receiving of it. But by the end of the day I think he was at least a little proud of the scar. I'm quite sure he'll be ready to hop on his bike again tomorrow.