Springtime In Paris......Sniff Sniff......

Hi folks,

Springtime is slowly manifesting itself here at Rue Nic and the rest of Paris.  We opened the living room windows fully several times the last weekend and low and behold, Gracie didn't jump off the window ledge......  Of course it's early but Gracie in not known for her intelligence over all.  We'll just hope that nothing of interest compels her to fly off the ledge after it.

Cassie is currently in the US attending meetings both in Bethesda and Lynchburg and the big news there is Glenn Beck is speaking at LU's commencement this year.  If I wrote here that I'm sorry to be missing that I'd be fibbing.  Perhaps Glenn can lead everyone else in Lynchburg into the light with him.  I can say however that it's refreshing to be around people here who have no idea who Glenn Beck is or for that matter what the Tea Party is either.

Everyone here has been sniffling with eyes watery and more dust in the air and pollen too.  Our first trip is planned for the 2nd weekend in May when we head to London for a day or taking the Euro-Star through the Chunnel.  What fun to go see where everyone lost their heads and have a pint or 2 of good British Ale in a pub.

Not much else new to report.  Our Friend Jan is doing as well as can be expected after her surgery and we plan on bringing her here later this summer.

Love to all everywhere.....

A bientot,

sid

Dr Audebert, The Adlers, And Being A Stupid American

Good morning all,

Busy times here and this is the first time I've gotten back to the blog.  Cassie may return to the blog sometime this year but who knows.  She stays very busy.

It came to my attention last week that the Kroger pharmacy in Lynchburg before I left charged me for a 90 day supply of my medications but actually shorted me close to 6 weeks worth on one of them which left me in the need of a French Doctor to renew my prescriptions.  Of course our guardian angel Veronique is who went out and found me a "Generaliste" named Dr Audebert (pronounced - Owdabear at least that's close to how it's pronounced).  She gave me his office number and when I called he answered the phone and in halting English set me up with an appointment in 2 days (for last Friday).   The last time I heard of a physician answering his own phone was of course my dad Sid III in Chicago where he also did house-calls in his later years but he went a step further and let his patients call him at home too.

Veronique met me at my appointment and before I was seen she also grilled another lady in the waiting room as to whether Dr Audebert was a good doctor or not and also how expensive he was.........  Then it was my turn and Veronique translated for me as I explained why I took my medications and basically everything about my medical history going back close to 11 years after which I told her that she was now an official member of our family cause she knew as much about me as my wife as far as my health was concerned.  Of course, then Dr Audebert said, "take off your clothes" and Veronique left the room.

He did an EKG on me with an old machine that had "suction cup" leads that kept falling off me while he was trying to get the machine to work but after around 10 minutes he got a reading he liked, and after checking my blood pressure (118/79) he was satisfied and renewed my prescriptions but had to do some checking as to the French names of the various medications.   Dr Audebert actually looks like a rock musician with teased out hair and a very Gallic smile.  I liked him almost immediately and when I asked him if he'd accept my family as patients he exclaimed, "but of course!"  I have to get blood drawn for him tomorrow morning with a small herd of female French phlebotimists who all giggled when Veronique told them I was American and every one of them basically told me to come to them individually.  I forgot to mention that Cassie hasn't started our health insurance yet and when I asked Dr Audebert how much I owed him it was 40 euros (about 45 dollars!) and that's without insurance.  In the US my visit without insurance would have been well over $350.00 and a 90 day supply of all of my meds was around 30 euros again without insurance.  How about that????  All in all my first foray into French medicine was a success and everyone was real nice and I didn't have to wait.............

We spent the day Saturday cleaning as Angela hasn't been here in a couple of weeks due to her daughter having chicken pox and then becoming ill herself (I think she's a single parent).  Cassie had a real busy week and we caught up on laundry and did a little shopping and hung out around the house for the most part.

Sunday was a marvelous day as we had been invited to a Brazilian barbecue out in the suburbs by Cassie's colleague Claudia Adler and her husband Fred and their family.  It was a long train ride out there on both the RER and Metro but we had a blast.  Kian and Niall liked their son David a lot and Fred is a musician with a major mancave in the basement filled with gear.  I brought one of my guitars and he hauled an amp up into the patio outside in the sun and we jammed all afternoon and everyone sang including his daughter, Brazilian songs, French songs, and lot's of rock and roll too.  They made these Brazilian drinks that reminded a bit of drinking white lightning so I went easy on those.  The food was fabulous and they are the dearest family.  We love them!  What a great day it was and it was beautiful outside in the low 70s without a cloud in the sky.  It was a great ending to the weekend.  We'll definitely be seeing them again.  They were absolutely the best!  

Lastly, my impression of the language school Cassie's company assigned me for French lessons.  I won't name them as I have no desire to trash them on the internet but the survey I took this morning to find out what level I was at (I wasn't at any level as I am not nor have I ever been a fluent anything other than English speaker) was the most demeaning and frustrating thing of it's kind I've ever encountered which basically showed me to be another stupid American who needs to be led by the hand into the glory of the French language.

It was also obviously designed for business people and not just regular guys like myself.  I had to get up and go do something else to clear my mind before I wrote them a review of their "survey" and have pretty much decided to continue on with Rosetta Stone and leave off on a real instructor as I might be at a little too low a level of understanding for any of them to actually deign to teach me.  It just left a real bad taste in my mouth.

That's it for the time being.  Kian and Niall will write entries later on today.  They're into week 3 at Strayer University and doing well.

Love to all.......*

Sid

Jan Turbes

Hello friends,

We found out last week that our dear friend Jan Turbes was diagnosed with breast cancer and is beginning her fight with that dreadful disease.

Most of you don't know the story of us and our destiny meeting Jan for the first time in either late 1996 or early 1997.  When Kian and Niall were born in 1990 we didn't really start to notice that they were really different until they were around 2 and even more so by the time they were 3 while were living in Newport News, VA.  As time progressed and the the twins started pre-school we started to get alarming messages from their teachers that essentially telegraphed that they were ADHD but the Developmental Pediatrician I was working with that time read the reports and looked the twins over and disagreed with them but had no answers in 1994.  In 1995, Kian and Niall's kindergarten teacher asked Cassie if she'd taken illegal drugs while she was pregnant..........*

But then in 1996, Cassie took a job with Gateway Computers in North Sioux City, South Dakota, and we ended up living in Sioux City, Iowa, which bordered North Sioux City, and the twins were enrolled at Hunt Elementary School which is a small neighborhood school in our neighborhood.  Within a week of arriving there the Principal, Cathy Tillow, took me aside in the hallway and said, Sid, I think your sons are Autistic, can I call the Autism Team in to observe them?".  I was stunned but told her yes please do that.  Later on that school year Jan Turbes introduced us to our sons or at least who they really were which was a revelation to our family.  After that happened with the reading materials Jan and her team gave us about Asperger's Syndrome, I self-diagnosed myself as I'm very much like the twins especially Niall, and pretty much diagnosed my father (he never believed it) too who has since passed on.  So my wife Cassie was stuck with 3 of us all at once.

Through Jan's constant interaction with the school, teachers, Kian and Niall's classmates the twins went from basically treading water in school to being Honor Students for the first time at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Sioux City.  Although we helped in any way we could it was Jan who orchestrated everything and all of this after we were told by the twins' instructors in Virginia that "we can't do anything with them....".

We moved back to Virginia in 2001 after Cassie took a new job with then Framatome that's now Areva and due to Jan and her teams' hard work on Kian and Niall's IEPs they were able to continue as Honor Students all the way through Middle and High School and learned in doing this that they could succeed which in anybody's book is PRICELESS.

Needless to say that meeting Jan Turbes was a watershed event for our entire family that changed literally everything for us in amazing ways that still manifest themselves in the little things that we usually take for granted but that folks with Asperger's Syndrome have problems with.

Every one of us and for that matter everyone else where she lives or who come into contact with her is the better for it and to us Jan Turbes is one of the rare individuals who always leaves the planet in better shape than it was before she showed up.

Jan and her family will be a part of our family forever.  To say that we all love her is an understatement and we'll do whatever is necessary to help her fight this battle she's in now.  There are already plans afoot to bring Jan to Paris this summer and there will be more information about that as everything evolves.  If you pray please keep Jan in your prayers and if you play music, send some out into the universe for our dear friend.

WE LOVE YOU JAN AND WE'VE GOT YOUR 6 ON THIS.

Love to all everywhere.............*

sid

Django She's Not But Then............

Hi folks,

We have good friends back in Virginia who have the most amazing Border Collie named Django who's sole purpose these days other than herding his humans is patrolling their grounds ensuring that no buzzards ever come even close enough to be within a normal human's eyesight.

It's beginning to warm up in Paris a bit and we've had the windows cracked "Parisian style" (I'll endeavor to get a photo of that as I have no idea how to adequately describe the technicality of it) which leaves the sounds and smells of the city for our cats Gracie and Nelliebelle to experience.  I may have made mention of the pigeon problem here that all of the tenants have been complaining about (hey there are pigeons screwing outside our kitchen window again and I haven't even had breakfast yet.....) but the only creatures who aren't complaining are our cats, Gracie in particular who patrols all 3 of our back windows particularly the bathroom window that was cracked this morning while I was in there shaving when Gracie attempted to grab a pigeon through the crack which scared the crap out of the pigeon and had me laughing for an hour afterward but that also brought Django to mind.

I just wanted to say that everyone in this apartment sleeps better every night knowing that Gracie is patrolling to keep the "rats with wings" at bay and who is always on the case.

She may be small but she has the heart of a full grown lion.  Pigeons watch your asses...........*

Love to all everywhere......

Sid, Cassie, Kian, Niall, Nelliebelle, and Gracie Mae (pigeonous getticus)

Low End Stereo And The Art Of Living With Less

Evenin Pilgrims,

I've been marveling at how simple our lives have become and I suspect that will become rote after a while but for now it's pretty unique.  Now that my studio space is set up I can listen to music on my powered near field monitors (M-Audio BX5as) from a file folder on my laptop's desktop named "Most Played" or directly from my 1 terabyte outboard hard drive with over 600 gigs of music on it but the coolest thing I purchased recently was a Logitech Z323 EU which is a small powered subwoofer with 2 outboard speakers powered by the same subwoofer that I hooked up to our Sony LCD TV that was here in our furnished apartment.  It took me a while to notice that there was a cord with a 1/8 inch green plug on it that was also live "line level" wise that fit perfectly into the headphone jack of my tiny Sandisk 8 gig portable MP3 player which I plugged in and viola!  Instant stereo and since I loaded it with our favorite music (over 900 tracks or around 60 or so albums) and set it in "shuffle" mode it literally plays ALL DAY.

The Logitech powered speaker system cost 59 euros which is about 68 dollars and has a whopping 30 watts RMS but it sounds GREAT in the huge room that's our living room/dining room so that's our stereo going forward for the next 3 or more years.  The Sandisk doesn't have batteries and recharges using a USB port on my laptop.  I spent months recoding all of our CDs into MP3 files and loading all of it onto an outboard hard drive so as to reduce the footprint of what we were bringing to a significantly smaller place (roughly the size of our ground floor in Lynchburg).

For evening entertainment Cassie and I watch episodes of one of our favorite TV shows ever "The West Wing" as she purchased the entire series on DVD for us both last Christmas or DVD movies in one of 3 large DVD wallets we shipped along with a modest DVD library of probably 30 or 40 other DVDs in their cases.  The Logitech system kicks ass as a speaker system for our TV too.  Go figure......*

Cassie comes home from an overnight in Provence (gee that must have been tough) this evening and we're going out for dinner.  Perhaps to Chez Geraud again at least that's my choice but maybe somewhere else.  We'll see. 

We actually happened on a Dominoes Pizza place looking for the Picard (frozen food store) last weekend.  The Picard will be Cassie's next post.

There are "knacks" (AKA hotdogs) cooking in the oven for the twins tonight who are doing quite well with Strayer University online thank you very much.  I think going to college online is going to really agree with them and especially Kian.

Life is good here at Rue Nic.  Can't wait to see you all here one day.

Love to all everywhere.

A bientot

Sid Hagan 

Barcelona VS. Arsenal And Dinner

Mornin all,

Cassie's in the middle of some major projects and has been home late a lot the last few weeks and last night was no exception.  Usually, at the beginning of the week if that's the case we'll head out to our local's only place Brasserie 16 (pronounced "sezem") and our favorite waiter Pascal who's also foremost in the pantheon of neighborhood French language tutors, for some Parisian Bistro fare and some good wine (a carafe of Sancere merci.....).  When we sat down it wasn't crowded but that changed suddenly when the big screen TV was turned on and as our dinner was being served we were surrounded by a sea of mostly young Parisian men watching FC Barcelona playing Arsenal in a European Cup Semi Final Match.

Let's just say that it was a short crescendo to BEDLAM and we were surrounded by for the most part very happy Barcelona fans whooping it up and later on in our dinner we joined in as Cassie turned her chair around so she could watch too.

Not only was the bistro packed but there were quite a number of folks outside watching through the windows smoking (smoking was banned by the government in eating establishments a number of years ago here) and whooping it up outside.  Almost everyone inside was gracious enough to try to explain why this match was important and also express their pleasure that we were interested.  Being caught up in all of it while eating another KICK ASS meal here was something pretty special at least for the time being.  We both talked about how we need to hold these things close throughout our entire tenure here and never take them for granted.

We've been in Brasserie 16 enough that whenever we arrive we always get a handshake from Pascal and if the owner is there he always speaks with us in English even though he knows we're endeavoring to speak French as much as possible.

Sometime the in the near future Cassie will do a blog entry on her new French instructor who even though she has a French name has been dubbed "Mrs Doubtfire" by Cassie.

I guess the purpose of this entry was to let everyone know that there are actually French folks here who like us and almost all them fly in the face of conventional wisdom positing that French people are unfriendly and hostile towards Americans.  Not true in our new hood where we chill with our homies and watch the REAL football.........*

Love to all everywhere.....*

A bientot

Sid

Opening Day In Paris

Just a short entry tonight to mention that we have ESPN America here and currently the Reds are playing the Cardinals in Cincinnati and right after this game the Braves are playing so I'm staying up tonight for a while.  This season I'll need to be a "day" game guy watching in the evenings later (it's 10 PM here right now).

I do this because I've always loved baseball and in remembrance of my dad who always talked baseball with me until he passed away in 2008.  This marks the 3rd season without his commentaries which were always colorful and opinionated but sage none the less.

When I was last here 33 years ago doing this would have been unheard of here but through the magic of cable TV and satellites I can watch in my living room here at Rue Nic.

I think living here is gonna be alright.  The White Sox were winning and somewhere Sid III is smiling.

Love to all everywhere.........there's hope for the world again.........it's opening day..................*

Play Ball!

Sid

Easter In Paris 2010

Hi folks,

Everyone slept in and I got up and made breakfast for everyone which included "speck" which is or at least looks like very thin bacon but tastes something more Italian than bacon, eggy wegs with cheese scrambled in, fruit, and croissants which Kian and Niall have adopted since we haven't found frozen waffles yet but we're closing in on that in the very near future.

My table and chair from Ikea came Friday and I got the chair together and Cassie helped me with the table on Saturday.  My studio space in the living/dining room is finally a reality and all of the owner's paintings and artwork are now stored so the whole living room space is pretty much finished.  We watched "The Blind Side" last night and loved it and will watch Sherlock Holmes tonight after Easter dinner which will feature "jambon" , mashed potatoes, mini croissants, fruit, and green beans, and of course some dynamite wine and quality time with the family.

It's overcast here but hasn't rained yet today which would be a real departure from what the weather's been like recently.  Chet Baker is on the stereo and life is good.

Hope everyone has a peaceful and pleasant Easter.

Love to all everywhere......*

Sid 

Comin Together Here.....*

Afternoon pilgrims,

Busy day here today........  Assembling an Ikea table for my home studio stuff and haircuts for the twins followed by shopping as it's a holiday weekend here (Easter Monday is a holiday here) and we had to have groceries to get to Tuesday.

The grocery run was made by all hands and in a softly falling rain.  In some places folks get ornery if it's raining but heck, we're in Paris.....  Let it rain.....*  We also took glass bottles to the recycle place on the way to the Inno (Kick Ass Grocery Store in our neighborhood) that was PACKED but not too bad.  We got everything we needed for Easter Sunday Dinner and then some.  After the Inno it was off to the boulangerie for baguettes and other goodies........  And.....on our way back we stopped at an outdoor flower shop on the Passy outdoor mall and Cassie got 3 bunches of flowers for 15 Euros.  Good deal!

The apartment looks more and more like it's ours every day and almost everything is put away save for clothes we plan to give away but that will take a little time to sort out.  Life here is really agreeing with all of us.  Kian and Niall start college online Monday with Strayer University which is actually located in Virginia but is global in it's reach with an online core competency.

Cassie is snoozing on the sofa and we've had snacks of stinky French cheeses and some Sancere wine.
the sun is out and all is well with the world here.  We certainly miss all of you back home but have settled in and are starting to head towards going native.  Jan Gabarek is playing on the stereo and we plan to have some pasta tonight for supper and watch one of the movies Tray Eppes sent this last week that were so welcome.

Remember, the Inn is open......*

A bientot........

Sid